Control Issues
Rated ADULT
Angst Ahead! Character rape, social issues, sexual content, de facto slavery

TWENTY TWO
***
Jim came down the stairs for the second time that morning, this time buttoning his shirt over shower-clean skin. Unlike Blair, he'd been given access to the shower, but chains made getting fully clean difficult.

Before heading for the kitchen, Jim pulled the door to the Sentinel-safe room open so he could hear Blair more easily. The kid had gone cheap on the room, and should probably demand some sort of refund since Jim could hear a good eighty percent of last night's phone conversation, but Jim didn't want to have to stretch his hearing past the muffling walls. Soft snores and a steady heartbeat reassured Jim that Blair was safely asleep, giving him some time to think.

Shit. If he'd been reassigned to some asshole like Aldo or even Keith, Jim would have kept control. Instead, he'd completely blown. Yeah, Blair deserved to get his ears boxed for the stunt with the gun, but Jim shouldn't have let himself do the boxing. Jim tried to suppress the guilt as he foraged for breakfast. After opening the last cupboard, Jim decided that Blair must not actually eat here much. Other than cans of tuna, granola, and algae shake powder, there wasn't anything edible. And calling those three edible was questionable; during survival training, Jim had seen bugs that looked more appetizing. He quietly closed the cupboard and looked around the loft.

Last night, Blair had dropped his wallet on the table next to the door. Even though it felt slightly wrong, Jim went and pulled a few bills out of it. The kid could take some money from Jim's account to cover it. Folding them in his hand, he grabbed the door keys and headed down to the bakery, still tracking Blair's steady breathing above him.

Jim settled in at a small table. The cashier had given his collar a furtive look before smiling and delivering his coffee and rolls, but Jim had grown used to those expressions. Luckily, the bakery was busy so she didn't have time to worry about him. And the customers hurrying in for coffee and donuts before work didn't stay long enough to notice the collar. Only one other customer sat down: an older man who was so buried in his paper that Jim could have grown a second head and he wouldn't have noticed.

Taking a deep breath, Jim savored the smells and the normalcy of it all as he considered his next step. Maybe he should have taken Blair up on the offer to run, but having the little shit disarm himself as though Jim weren't capable of taking that power if he wanted it... it was just too damn close to what Kincaid had done. Whether people had good or bad intentions, they saw the fucking collar, and they made huge sweeping assumptions about Jim's abilities.

And the longer Jim found himself in this role, the harder it was getting to remember that he was the soldier who had held the Chopec pass for eighteen months. He led the team inserted into Libya for those three days. He had laid on a rocky outcropping for nearly sixty hours, covered with brush, lying in his own waste as he held a sniper's rifle on a terrorist camp. When everyone else had failed, his bullet had ended one more dream of world domination. He'd done things that probably made the government shake every time they considered the fact that, as a Sentinel, Jim was immune to prosecution, so they could no longer legally enforce his confidentiality clause.

And as much as the assumption that Jim was helpless had rankled, he was even more annoyed at the sheer stupidity of Blair making himself a target. Jim had always felt the Sentinel instincts that everyone so feared, and he'd turned that into a fierce protectiveness of his whole unit. But now, all those emotions and instincts were concentrated into Blair, and the thought of Blair vulnerable just inspired rage. And all of that combined was still secondary to the cold fury at the idea that Jim would ever hurt Blair like that.

However, that left him some interesting choices. Ruby was probably still the best bet. If he could get to the underground, they would have resources for breaking the bond without Jim having to do something drastic... like indulging in a little fantasy of what life could have been like if he had ordered Blair into the trunk and just driven for the border. Sooner or later, Blair would have turned on him. Despite his offer, Blair was no more cut out to be a prisoner than Jim. And once they got to Canada, Jim knew he wouldn't have the control to break the bond without help. And help meant trusting someone. If he had to have help breaking the bond, he would rather trust the American underground with its long tradition of trying to screw the system.

Jim took a drink of his coffee and watched the city rush by. He had no idea what their schedule was for the day. Hell, Blair might be late for work right now, but he hadn't shared his plans with Jim, so if he was, too damn bad.

Almost like a fairy tale where saying a name made a person appear, a car pulled up to the curb and Simon Banks stepped out. He parked on the far side of the street and walked to the crosswalk, so Jim had time to finish his coffee before stepping out into the foggy morning air and leaning on the side of the building near the door up to the apartment.

"Simon," he offered when Banks came near.

"Jim. I just thought I'd stop by and talk to Blair." Simon stopped, but his eyes darted to the door.

"I didn't think you'd come to talk to me," he answered dryly. "But the kid's still asleep."

"Maybe we could go check," Simon suggested.

"I can hear him from here. He's still asleep," Jim repeated.

Simon studied Jim for a second, brown eyes searching him intently. "He isn't a morning person." Simon admitted after a second. "However, I need to talk to both of you before you come in to the station."

"I'm here, talk away," Jim suggested with a shrug without much hope that Simon would take him up on it. Simon hesitated, and Jim focused on the morning traffic.

"Fine, let's get some coffee." Simon headed back toward the bakery, and Jim followed, curious about why Blair's captain would talk to him without Blair around. It was against the rules. This time Simon bought the coffee, bringing it over to Jim who had taken the same chair that let him sit with his back to the wall and a view of the street out the window.

"I assume you're coming to work in Major Crimes."

"Not my choice to make," Jim pointed out as he concentrated on his cup. Not his choice. He'd said those words in his mind so often they should be easier to say out loud.

"Haven't you and Blair talked about this?"

"Blair talked." Jim shrugged and took a drink of coffee. Blair actually talked quite a lot. "I assume from what he's said that I'm coming to work with him, but he hasn't definitely told me. Of course, you assumed I was going to work with you when you asked me to call you Simon," Jim pointed out. That made Simon hesitate.

"I saw your file. I just assumed you would jump at a chance at Major Crimes after being stuck investigating stolen bikes." Simon sounded annoyed, not that Jim cared.

"Lots of assumptions." Jim nodded knowingly.

"Damn it. I'm not playing whatever little martyr game you have going here, Ellison. You want to work in my department or you don't. It's pretty simple." Simon brought his hand down on the tabletop with a slap.

"I don't have that choice. It *is* pretty simple," Jim countered.

"Oh, trust me, if you say you don't want to work cases, I will make sure you get your wish, no matter what Sandburg says," Banks threatened, narrowing his eyes. Jim put his coffee down and studied the captain. Rather than the carefully neutral or paternalistic, Simon just looked pissed. Jim could work with that.

"I want to work cases. I just don't like being collared when I do it," Jim finally said. Simon's eyes flicked to the collar before he focused on something on the wall behind Jim's head.

"I don't like this Sentinel crap. It's one reason why Rick sent Blair my way... because Blair was questioning whether all these Sentinel laws were justified or if they were just a giant load of shit."

"I think you know how I feel," Jim said quietly. Simon's eyes found his.

"I do. That's the only reason I'm letting you in my department. I've seen a lot of cops do things with Sentinels, get them all worked up over how some suspect is a danger to the community and then step back while the Sentinel does what the cop can't. And I've been on scene when Sentinels have lost control and thrown fits like spoiled five year olds."

"What are you saying?" Jim demanded. He'd started to relax around the captain, and now he could feel his anger rise at being compared to a child.

"I'm saying you have control, but not everyone does. Sometimes the guardians are the one to abuse their control, and sometimes a Sentinel abuses the fact that they can get away with anything. I don't like either. If you're in my department, I expect you to act like any other detective in my department. You do so much as slam one suspect's face into a wall, and I will personally fill out the paperwork to transfer you to Traffic. You go farther... well, if you go farther, I would recommend that you find another city. If you're going to take advantage of the Sentinel laws to turn vigilante, I don't want you inside Cascade city limits."

Jim sat, his hands around the cooling cup while he looked at the determination on Simon's face. "Understood. And I want to be treated like any other detective. You have a problem with the way I handle something, you come to me, not Sandburg."

Slowly, Simon nodded. "That's fair. Just as long as we understand each other."

"I never wanted a free pass," Jim pointed out.

"Funny how you get one anyway," Simon said, his voice dark. "Sandburg shoots some guy on the street, and he has to face the consequences of that. You snap some guy's neck, and you literally get a ride home and sent to time out."

Jim glared at Simon, but it didn't change the fact that the captain was right. "I wouldn't," he said softly.

"I don't think you would, but you understand this: I won't take anything from you that I wouldn't take from my other officers. I may not have any official right to discipline you, so I will transfer you out, no matter how good your scores or your closure rate." Simon leaned forward, glaring through his gold-rimmed glasses.

Jim nodded. "I have no problem with you running your department," he said slowly, understanding Simon's position. He'd led his own unit in the Rangers, and the commander needed authority over the men. "Normally you write a detective up or suspend them, right?" he asked.

"Yeah, I would."

"I fuck up, and I'll accept whatever discipline you think is appropriate," Jim offered. "I hate having to walk away from a job, but if I screw up bad enough to earn a suspension, you say the word and I'll take the time off. I'll sit home and curse your name, but I'll take it."

Simon studied him again, his fingers twitching around the coffee cup before he brought them up to his chin, scratching idly. "Legally, that should go through Blair," he said slowly, and Jim focused his gaze on the table-top, the control yanked away from him once again. "So, just don't let anyone know about this little understanding," Simon finished his thought. "And don't think I won't use it. You screw up, and you'll be home sitting on your hands. You screw up bad enough, and I'll still send you to Traffic."

"That won't happen," Jim promised. "Blair is starting to stir if you want to talk to him," Jim said as he heard Blair wake with some mumbled nonsense. He got out of bed and promptly either stubbed his toe or tripped on something because a thump was followed by colorful curses citing gods Jim didn't know.

"I probably should. Look, Jim, I realize that Blair and I have made some assumptions. You playing martyr isn't going to change the fact that we all need to learn to deal with each other professionally. You hear me?" Simon asked as he stood up.

Jim looked up at the man and nodded. "Yes, sir. I'm going to head down to that park a few blocks down, give you and Sandburg a little privacy." Jim stood up, and he half expected Simon to ask if he had permission from his guardian. Instead the man turned toward the door and headed out of the coffee shop.

Heading down the street in the opposite direction, Jim found the park and sat on the bench Blair had invited him to sleep on last night. Watching the joggers on the path, Jim let himself just feel the sun on his face as he tried to figure out how he would have reacted to Blair if he'd met the man before Peru. He imagined Blair showing up as a recruit, getting off the bus with all that hair. Jim could just imagine Sergeant Levkoff's face. The thought made Jim smile as he watched the people come and go.

The sun was playing peekaboo with dark clouds straight above him when Jim finally decided to head back to the loft. When he put his keys in the lock, he could hear a book fall to the ground with a thud. Opening the door, he found Blair scrambling to gather yellow papers scattered across the floor.

"Hey. I just, you know, dropped all my shit," Blair explained as he dropped a heavy book on the couch and started grabbing at his papers. "I was just writing," he explained, not that Jim needed the explanation. He could read the scrawling handwriting from across the room. Jim dropped the keys on the table.

"Your paper on Sentinels?" he asked.

"Yeah," Blair paused, looking at Jim curiously for a second. "The one on the way the Institute's sheltered environment damages long-term control. Man, I've written a shit-load of papers over the years, but Dr. Stoddard thinks this one could really get me noticed."

"Good for you," Jim said without enthusiasm. Blair's smile faded, and Jim mentally kicked himself as he headed for the kitchen. Control, Ellison, he ordered himself. It was just too damn easy to kick at Blair, but then the damn instincts made him hate himself every time that expressive face flinched away from the anger.

"It could really make a difference," Blair said, his voice unsure now.

"That's good." Jim offered the olive branch, biting his tongue to prevent himself from saying something cold and biting, like asking why Blair hadn't done something to help him when he needed it.

"Oh man, if you have a problem, just fucking say it. I can't do this!" Blair stood up, scattering the yellow pages again as he faced Jim.

"I didn't say anything." Jim used his tone of voice to warn Blair off.

"No, you don't. You just look at me like I'm shit. You just use that tone of voice that makes it clear I'm one step below a worm."

"I'm not using any tone of voice."

"Bullshit. Save that for someone who didn't know you before--" Blair cut himself off suddenly. "Forget it," he finished as he headed for the door.

"Before you captured me? Before you lied to me?" Jim offered. If they were going to look at the elephant in the room, it was a good place to start.

"I've apologized for that. If you can't just let this go, maybe this isn't the best partnership for either one of us."

Jim felt a flare of panic at the idea of Blair wanting out. He stepped forward so that he stood between the door and Blair, and Blair fell back a step instinctively.

"So, if I'm angry, you'll just call up the Institute and tell them this isn't working out, that they should come and pick up their defective Sentinel?" Jim demanded.

"No!" Blair just about yelled the word as he stepped forward into Jim's personal space. "God, you are the most frustrating asshole on the face of the planet. I just want you to forgive me for capturing you, for lying and for being a fucking idiot and for getting you raped." Blair's voice broke as his eyes shone with tears, and Jim's anger evaporated at the raw pain he could see there.

"Blair," Jim breathed, but Blair had turned and charged off toward the Sentinel room. Jim followed.

"Man, just give me some space here," Blair asked without looking at Jim when he found Jim's hand keeping the door from closing. Jim stood in the open door holding it open, refusing to move.

"No. Chief, we're talking this out right now. You are not to blame for the rape."

"I fucking drew you there. I was an idiot. My first time out there trying to make things right, and I got captured. It is my fault." Blair continued to stare at the far wall, but Jim could see the shivers that went through Blair's frame. He reached up to put a hand on a trembling shoulder, but he stopped, not sure that touch would be welcome right now.

"I made a choice. It was the same choice I made when I slept with Keith. I traded sex for some advantage I wanted, and I don't feel particularly sorry I did it."

Blair slowly looked at him. "Kincaid raped you," Blair whispered, tears brightening his blue eyes.

"Yes, he did. And I've lived my life since I was twelve years old knowing that sooner or later I was probably going to be raped." The words brought back that old memory: his father kneeling on the football field in front of him, shaking him by his arms as he told him what a Sentinel could expect. Before that, Jim had only vague, schoolyard descriptions of sex--a locker room fantasy of girls with big boobs that the boys would whisper when coach wasn't around. But what his father had described hadn't been fantasy or vague. It had been a vicious, cold description of a terrifying act.

"What?" Blair asked, clearly confused, but at least the confusion was driving away the horror and guilt that made Jim's guts twist.

"Chief, I wasn't a dormant Sentinel," Jim admitted. "And that is not to appear in any of those damn articles you write," he quickly added.

"Hey, anthropological standards don't differentiate between Sentinels and non-Sentinels. As a researcher, I can't ethically use any information without a subject's express permission. I promise, Jim, this is just us here."

Jim listened to the heartbeat, weighing his belief that Blair was telling the truth against the fact that Blair had successfully lied to him in the past. He made a choice. "I started showing heightened senses at twelve. Vision first, then hearing. I had developed all five by the time I hit fifteen," Jim admitted.

"But that's--" Blair started, and Jim glared.

"That's what happened. My father was very clear about a Sentinel's life, about how their sexual natures would be turned against them. He would describe in great detail how anyone who knew about my senses would either abuse me by raping me and then forcing me to protect them, or they'd just turn me in. And he made it very clear that if I was turned in, I would have to have sex with whoever the courts gave me to."

Blair's shoulder's sagged, and the room was silent for a minute as he walked to the bed and sat down heavily. "Oh man," he breathed. "That fucking bastard."

"He was trying to protect me," Jim growled, despite the fact that he had the same thoughts about his father on a regular basis.

"But Sentinels don't have to have sex or bond with their guardians. They can work their whole lives without bonding."

"Only if they want to be celibate, Chief. That's not a choice most teens will make."

"But Jamal, down at work. He had his brother as a guardian for five or six years until he met his wife. And yeah, his wife has guardianship now, but he still works with his brother over in Homicide. His life isn't all that different from anyone else's. He grew up, got a job, met a girl, got married."

"He doesn't have the legal right to divorce her without a court approving of it, he doesn't control his own money, his salary is still attached to whoever he works with. He doesn't have equality." Jim ticked off the differences on his fingers.

"Yeah, but he wasn't raped. God, no wonder you ran. Oh geez, you went through Ranger training with your senses." Blair's voice turned to dismay.

"Stop! Stop thinking that because I am a Sentinel I am less capable of doing my job. Damn it, Sandburg, I'm not pissed because you brought me in. I'm fucking furious every time you do something like this."

"What?" Blair demanded, sitting up straight on the bed and crossing his arms.

"Acting like you're surprised I'm competent."

"Man, you are totally competent, and I've never said otherwise, but Ranger training would have included things that should have disabled your senses."

"You assume," Jim snapped.

"Yes, I assume based on hundreds of studies, years of research, and documented case studies."

"That are wrong."

"Oh shit." Blair fell silent, blinking up at Jim. "What if they're all wrong? What if they didn't control for some variable? Okay, we already know that the whole Institute approach damages the control, but what if the rest is wrong?" Blair exploded off the bed so suddenly that Jim stepped back just out of surprise, and Blair was out the door before they could finish their discussion. Jim followed out into the living room, and Blair was pulling seemingly random books off the huge bookcase that covered one wall.

"Can we finish the first can of worms before we open the second?" Jim asked, wondering if maybe he should find Blair the name of a good psychiatrist specializing in adult ADHD.

"Oh," Blair said as he stopped in the middle of the room, three books hugged in his arms. "Yeah, we can do that."

"First, I do not blame you for what Kincaid did. I chose to go in the building knowing full well what would happen, and as an adult, I resent you implying that I didn't have a right to make that choice. And I am still angry that you captured me, but I'm not angry at you."

"That doesn't even make any sense," Blair cut in.

"I know. However, I'm probably going to be cranky about that for a while anyway. But I understand that you did what you thought was right, and I do respect the fact that you're an ethical man, even if your moral compass was a little rusty." Jim watched Blair blush.

"Okay, I'm okay with this part of the talk, so I'm wondering where the worms are in this can." Blair hugged the books to his chest even harder.

Jim sighed. "The part that just pisses me off is all the little stuff."

"Little stuff?" Blair asked when Jim paused.

"Where am I going to be working?" Jim raised an eyebrow and waited.

"With.... Oh," Blair interrupted himself. "Okay, I guess I never actually did ask, and with all that back pay, you can pretty much afford to sit home, or go to college, or pretty much do whatever you want."

"Exactly," Jim agreed. "Let's play a little game, Chief. Your mom's friend, Jim, who just left the Army Rangers after a twenty year career as an officer, comes to crash at your place. Keep in mind that this is a man with a college degree who has lived his whole life without needing you and who has been entrusted to protect national security on any number of occasions. What would you say to him about working?"

"Okay, man, I get the point. Hey, if you don't want to work with me, you can work with someone else without having to change guardianship. I told you about Jamal down at... and that's a slightly intimidating expression there, big guy."

"Think your mom's friend, the Army Ranger," Jim suggested. He could see the moment when it struck Blair, he physically flinched and blushed.

" I totally would not ever try to tell my mom's friend, the big bad Army Ranger officer, what to do about work because that would be a little..."

"Patronizing, emasculating, condescending...."

"Got it," Blair interrupted. "Shit, this is harder than I thought, and I so would have thought I would be better at shifting paradigms. But Jim, you gotta help me out here. I'm really trying, so when I go making assumptions, you need to give me a hand. Let me know. Maybe we can use some signal." Blair stepped toward Jim, dropping the books on the couch as he focused, and Jim could feel the sincerity.

"Maybe I could smack you upside the back of the head every time you do it," Jim suggested slowly as he leaned on the back of the couch.

"Funny," Blair complained. "Very funny. However, you'd probably give me a concussion, and after sharing a hospital bed with you for three days, let me tell you, you're no fun as a patient."

"Oh yeah, and you're a real joy," Jim said sarcastically. "The nurses were ready to drop you out a third story window, Mr. Hyper."

"Okay, let me try this again," Blair said. "Hey, I'd really like it if you wanted to work with me down at the station."

"I don't know," Jim shrugged. "Any interesting cases?"

Blair glared at him for a second and then took a step closer and leaned against the couch so that they stood shoulder to shoulder... or at least shoulder to neck. Jim hadn't realized just how much shorter Blair was until then.

"I have a case in the cold files I was going to reopen. A vice case with a slime ball named Dessy that got bumped up to Major Crimes after the harbor patrol found a key witness floating face down in the Sound."

"New evidence?"

"Kinda. Recently I was in the company of some criminals, and someone mentioned his name."

Jim turned and studied Blair. The kid had on an innocent expression that made him look anything except innocent. "Kincaid mentioned him?"

"One of his goons, yeah."

"You're going after Kincaid?"

"Oh, hell yeah. I'm totally going after Kincaid," Blair agreed. "Just, don't tell Banks I'm going after Kincaid. So, are you in?" Blair looked up at Jim and waited.

"Hell, yeah," Jim answered. The plan could wait; the underground would be there later. But if he had a chance to nail Kincaid before taking off, that would be the icing on the cake. "I want a piece of that." Jim smiled down at Blair, reaching over to rest a hand on his shoulder. "I definitely want a piece of that."

TWENTY THREE
***
"Hey guys," Blair called when he walked in the bull pen. Jim walked slightly behind him, but the minute they were through the door, he stepped forward. Even with a new button-up shirt with a collar, he knew his silver Sentinel collar shone below his chin, and he waited for the inevitable reactions.

"Hairboy," a middle-aged black man called out. "We just can't trust you to go anywhere on your own, can we?" Jim recognized him from his brief visit to Major Crimes, but they'd never been introduced. He'd been the one who'd gone with them to the warehouse: Brown. The other detective, Rafe, stood near his desk a few feet away.

"Hey, I'm not the one whose girlfriend tried to run a gambling ring off his cell phone," Blair shot back. Brown gripped his chest as though shot through the heart.

"Wounded. You wound me!" he laughed. "But if we want to get into girlfriends, I have one word for you: Sam."

"Hey, Sam never committed a felony on my phone," Blair defended himself.

"Girl tried to set your eyebrows on fire is all." Brown gave Jim a conspiratorial grin. "That girl is trouble, but when Blair sees trouble, he just charges right at it like a cat going for catnip, every time. And if it's trouble with long legs, well, the boy's got about as much self control as a stray dog going after a bitch in heat."

Jim could feel his guts tighten at the thought of someone physically endangering his guide, even though he knew from the tone that the men were joking about it. No one joked about a serious assault with fire, but all that logic frayed in the face of Jim's sudden need to push Blair behind him and find Sam so that he would know who to keep as far away from his companion as possible. And the part that really infuriated Jim was that Blair might still be dating the woman. He clenched his jaw and forced himself to stand still with a neutral expression as he casually looked around the room.

"I just appreciate the female form… or the male form for that matter," Blair pointed out. "But once again, because no one seems to be listening to me, my phone is felony-free."

Brown snorted.

"Henri, this is Jim Ellison. Jim, this is Henri Brown," Blair finally introduced them. "He just likes me because with me around, he doesn't get voted worst dressed anymore," Blair joked. Jim eyed the Hawaiian themed shirt the other detective wore. Given a choice, he'd take Blair's colorful vest and ethnic jewelry over green orchids on yellow any day of the week.

"Nice to meet you," Brown said as he stuck out his hand. Jim took it.

"We met at the warehouse. Thank you for that."

"Hey, Hairboy's like our mascot around here. With all that hair, we don't even need to get a costume," Brown joked, but then his face turned serious. "You gave up a lot to help one of our own. That carries a lot of weight around here."

Brown had stopped shaking Jim's hand but he held on for a second. Jim nodded; he'd gotten the message.

When Brown let go of his hand, his crooked smile returned as he gave Jim a wink. "Just one word of advice: don't let Hairboy near your computer. Him and hard drives have this whole hate-hate thing going on."

"Very funny," Blair deadpanned. "Next time you get a disk stuck in your computer, remind me not to help."

"Is that what you were trying to do when you got the paper clip jammed in my computer? No problem, refuse to help away, my man."

"And we've met," the well-dressed detective stepped forward, his eyes going from Brown to Blair. Jim knew from listening to Simon and Blair talk that Blair was the new man in Major Crimes, but Rafe seemed like the new guy—not quite sure how to fit into the war of insults. "Brian Rafe," he introduced himself unnecessarily.

"Nice to see you again," Jim said. Unlike Brown, Rafe's eyes did dart to the collar. Jim resisted an urge to button up his shirt over it, especially since the awkward bulk would just make him look very strange without actually hiding that he was wearing a collar. The first thing he'd done after getting back from shopping for non-Sentinel clothing was to try it. The best he could do was wear a shirt that made the silver difficult to see unless someone looked at him straight on.

"So you're... working with Blair," Rafe nodded, covering his momentary pause quickly, but not quickly enough to keep Brown from looking at him a little strangely. Jim just tightened his jaw.

"Yeah." Jim kept his voice neutral, but he crossed his arms as he waited for something definitive enough to take offense at. The insults that flowed just under the surface annoyed him worse than the open discrimination and hateful comments.

Rafe blushed, his olive tone skin turning a shade darker as his heart sped a little. Jim raised an eyebrow at him.

"Rafe and me have some interviewing to do. Some of us don't take four-day vacations in the middle of the busy season," Brown interrupted the silent war as he pulled at his partner's arm.

"When's it not busy season around here?" Blair asked with a laugh, but he sounded a little off-balance and nervous as well. He'd caught the near slip.

"Damned if I know. But watch your back, Blair. Aldo is still sniffing around," Brown called as he pulled Rafe out into the hall.

Even though they were gone, Jim could still clearly hear them as they waited for the elevator. He tilted his head and listened.

"What is your problem?" Rafe demanded angrily once the doors fell shut.

"So you're... working with Blair?" Brown mimicked, emphasizing the pause. "Bri, buddy, could you be any less subtle?"

"What?"

"He's a Sentinel, not a moron."

"I just... okay, I almost slipped there for a second."

"Oh, I know exactly what word you were thinking, and so did Jim, so let's just not mention it again," Brown advised at the elevator doors dinged open.

Jim did know what word popped into Rafe's mind; he'd ordered his own men not to use it often enough. But Jim had expected more derision, so having only one of Blair's co-workers act like an ass was actually not bad odds. He looked down, and Blair was watching him with wide eyes, waiting.

"Man, that was so not cool. Brian's normally a good guy, Jim, and I am really sorry," Blair said, and Jim realized that Blair had been waiting until Jim stopped listening to the other conversation.

"Don't apologize for someone else's stupidity," Jim said as he looked at the various desks. "Which one is yours?"

Blair wandered over to his desk in the back corner, the messiest in the room, and sat down. Right next to his desk was one that had been just brought in, and it was the only completely clean desk in the room.

"Mine?" Jim asked.

"Yeah," Blair agreed. "Simon doesn't put up with shit like that, and Henri will call Brian on that. He shouldn't say shit like that."

"He didn't say it," Jim pointed out.

"Yeah, but he all *but* said it, and when you think something out loud that loud, that's as good as saying it."

Jim turned a confused look toward Blair. "Look, Junior, a lot of people call it subbing. You're going to hear the term, and God knows I've heard the term."

Blair flinched when Jim said the word. "I get the whole borrowing of terms from one subculture to another, and yeah, people who are into the dom-sub thing use collars too, but this partnership is not about subbing. You don't sub for me," Blair assured him.

Jim looked down at the kid. "No, I don't," he said quietly. Blair looked up, his heart skipping faster for a few beats before it settled into its natural pattern.

"I know." Blair didn't say anything else as he idly chewed on his lip for a second. He blinked, and then he slid into one of his topic changes, his mood shifting as fast as a summer thunderstorm. "Okay, I'm the first to admit that my filing system is a little eccentric," Blair shrugged as he gestured toward the mountain. "I put any personal notes, you know, the kind of things you don't want accidentally ending up in the official record, in the yellow folders. The newer the case, the higher up it is in the stack, and I try to always work on at least one old file a week," Blair said as he craned his head to read the tabs on the various folders.

"One slip, and every file on your desk is going to end up on the floor," Jim observed, allowing Blair to change the topic now that he'd made his point.

"Oh man, don't remind me. Ricardo brought in this drunk guy, and he was staggering all over the place, and when Ricardo went to grab him, to keep him from falling on the floor, he like rebounded or something, and just plowed right into my desk. I was finding lab reports under floor mats for like a month." Blair gave a shiver of horror.

"And that didn't convince you to maybe change your filing system?" Jim asked, crossing his arms as he considered the mess. Putting the most recent on top wasn't the best system, but it was at least a system, and as long as the tabs were clear, it was a workable system. Leaving the files flat on the desk wasn't.

"It's not like I have room in the desk with all my project shit. I only work at the department part time because of my college schedule. Besides, if they're all right here, then I don't have to worry about putting them away, which so won't happen," Blair shrugged. "That's why Simon moved me back into the corner of the room... less chance of drunken filing disasters."

Sitting down in his own chair, Jim started pulling out desk drawers. His own desk was empty of anything except a paper clip caught in the joint of the top drawer. Jim pulled open the large bottom drawer. "Let's use my drawer for filing. You can keep two or three on your desk, and the rest will fit in here. When your stack gets too high, I'll just snag them off your desk and use the same system you use by putting the most recently accessed files in front."

Blair didn't answer. Jim sat back and studied Blair as he opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again.

"If you don't like the system, just say so. It's your job," Jim said tightly. That got a glare from Blair.

"Man, I'm trying to figure out how my mom's friend Jim would react to doing my filing for me," Blair finally said.

"Your mom's friend Jim would be fine with it if he offered. Since he was an officer, he's probably quite familiar with reports because you do not get promoted up the ranks without being well versed in filing forms in triplicate. Now, if you asked him to do your filing, he'd probably tell you to shove it up your ass," Jim commented mildly.

"Yeah, I knew that last part." Blair rolled his eyes. "And yeah, that sounds good. We don't have anything too urgent right now. Simon had Ricardo and Brown take my most recent cases. I need to follow up on the Taylor case, but Dessy's our top of the pile file." Blair finally found what he wanted in the stack. Holding the tower steady with one hand, he slowly pulled out two files from near the bottom. Jim waited for a disaster, but he somehow pulled them free without sending any files flying. He held out the two folders, one manila with an official sticker on the tab labeled 'Vice 55091-MC 3409' and a second, yellow one with a tab that read 'Dessy.'

"That's Kincaid's partner?" Jim asked quietly as he took the files.

"I don't know if partner's the right word. Kincaid is big time--huge time even. Until the witness ended up dead, Dessy was just one of those second level criminals that was just more annoying than most because we couldn't catch him. Case after case just sort of fizzled because no one could get a wire close to him and his people were way more loyal than the normal 'stab you in the back for a buck' sort that usually work prostitution and drugs. But if he's hooking up with Kincaid, he's looking to move up in the world."

Jim flipped open the official file and skimmed through summaries of phone tap transcripts and reports on a suspected prostitution and drug distribution operation that reached from 3rd street all the way over to Holgate Street. "With this many people involved, there has to be a weak link somewhere."

"Yeah, you'd think so. I mean, hookers and dealers are not well known for their loyalty, but man, vice never got anything to stick until they brought in Roberta Sanchez. She offered to turn if they found her a new home and helped her keep custody of her two kids."

"And she turned up in the river," Jim finished quietly as he turned over a report and found a crime scene photo underneath.

"Kincaid's more national that local. He deals guns and Sentinels to finance his counter-revolution against the government, but he doesn't have a solid base of operations anywhere. There's Camp Freedom that we hear rumors of, but the word on the internet is that it bounces between Idaho and Montana and western Oregon."

"What exactly did you hear in the warehouse?" Jim asked.

Blair's heart rate accelerated, and sour-sweat smell drifted into the air. Jim waited to see if this would be the moment where Blair finally really thought about what Kincaid had done to him, but then the heart slowed as he focused on the case. "One of his men said Dessy was waiting. Kincaid commented that they couldn't afford to keep him waiting too long. It was weird because Kincaid is the big fish there, so he obviously wants something from Dessy. And what Dessy is known for is having an entrenched network in Cascade."

"Most of Dessy's network are African Americans and Latinos," Jim commented. "Kincaid won't consider them real people. If something happens, he'll burn whoever he needs to in order to protect his own end of the business." In the hospital, Jim had finally amused himself by reading background on the man who had raped him and nearly killed Blair. Kincaid's political beliefs made this an awkward partnership at best.

"Dessy's African American, so I can't imagine what is going through his mind that he's willing to do business with a white supremist like Kincaid."

"Money," Jim answered simply. He looked at the crime scene photos from Roberta Sanchez's death. The woman lay sprawled on the shore, one arm obviously broken and her Latino-dark skin mottled with bruises. "They worked on her for a while before killing her if those bruises had time to form."

"Yeah, that's what the M.E. said," Blair answered. The distant tone made Jim look at him over the top of his file. Despite the fact that the kid was a cop, a Major Crimes cop for God's sake, he looked a little green. Jim tried to decide if Blair always reacted this way to death or if his own brush with it had made him more sensitive, but the simple fact remained that he didn't know Blair well enough to even hazard a guess.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, hey, I'm fine," Blair insisted as he swung his chair toward his computer, booting the system up. "And totally ignore what Brown said about me and computers. I do great with computers, but when I first got transferred, I downloaded this neat new program off the internet, and it had a virus in it. I couldn't get the thing turned off before it ate through my whole hard drive and tech support was like furious for days." Blair gave an exaggerated shudder. "You do not want tech nerds mad at you."

Ignoring the sudden shift of topic, Jim rolled his chair closer and reached for the Taylor case file. The sudden scent of panic filled the air, and Blair's hand darted out, but not before Jim could pluck the file away.

"Hey, you know, we should really focus on Dessy."

"You said we should look at the Taylor case," Jim said mildly as he opened the file. Blair's eyes were big as they watched him. It didn't take Jim long to figure out why Blair didn't want him looking at the file: Kari Taylor lay in a pink dress, her tiny hands curled around the fabric of the skirt, even in death. He read through the reports.

"I could do that one on my own," Blair offered softly. Considering the gaunt shade of white the man had turned, no way was Jim letting him wander anywhere alone.

"I served in Honduras before Peru," Jim started, thinking through what to tell Blair and what should remain confidential, not that he had any obligation at this point. "This one guerrilla 'general' was furious that a village helped the Americans, so he slaughtered their children as punishment. I remember this one little girl. She had this long black hair, but unusually pale skin, and she lay with her arms thrown over her face like she just didn't want to see the killing blow." Jim looked over at Blair who stared at him in horror. "Two months later, we were ordered to work with that same general because he'd decided that cooperating with the Americans on some projects was more advantageous."

"Did you kill him?" Blair asked, his voice barely even a whisper.

Jim rolled his eyes. "I wanted to, but if I had, I would have been in prison, not on a mission in Peru a year later. Just because I hate shit like this," Jim tapped the folder with Kari Taylor's autopsy photos, "does not mean that I'm going to go out of control." Blair opened his mouth to argue, but Jim pointed at the blinking box on the computer screen. "Log in," he said.

Blair swiveled his chair toward the computer, and Jim took the opportunity to give Blair's head a sharp smack.

"HEY!" Blair yelped as he jerked around.

Jim smirked. "You're the one who wanted a signal," he reminded Blair sweetly.

"Yeah, and I said hitting was probably a bad idea."

"You said concussions were a bad idea," Jim corrected him. "Something about how you're a bad, bad patient. I don't think I gave you a concussion, but if you want, I can check your pupils."

"Smart ass."

"I have more than one smart part."

"Yeah, your alec is pretty smart, too," Blair grumbled.

Jim laughed, until he spotted the Taylor file on the desk again. "You never had a Sentinel go over the scene," he said as he flipped open the file and looked at the cemetery where the child's body had been found under an oak.

"Sentinels and dead, abused children. Not generally a good mix," Blair shrugged. "Department policy is to make sure that never the twain shall meet, but I guess Simon just didn't think about that."

Jim liked to think that Simon had thought about that, but Blair might be right. "Let's go over there. I'm sure it's rained once or twice, but with a crime scene that large, something might have survived."

"If you're..." Blair started. Jim reached over and smacked the back of his head hard enough to send his head bobbing forward and make his hair flop around.

"Stop it," Blair growled as he struck out with an elbow. Jim caught the elbow only to have a foot kick him in the shin.

"Feisty little shit," Jim complained as he let go and backed away. Blair pushed his hair back and glared.

"Geez, I liked you better when you were cranky. You in a good mood is just dangerous."

"Only if you forget about your mom's friend, Jim. You keep your head screwed on straight, and we'll be fine."

"Right, screwing," Blair muttered as he stood up and grabbed the file. Jim had been ready with a smart alec comment, but his tongue tangled so badly that he didn't come up with anything until Blair was already to the door. Pushing away thoughts of Blair and screwing, Jim got up to follow. It was time to start earning his pay and showing that months of FBI training with his senses, added onto years of Ranger training, could do the impossible.

TWENTY FOUR
***
"So, how do we handle this?" Jim asked as Blair pulled in through the rusty gates of the cemetery where Kari Taylor had been found, large finger bruises around her throat and her hands clutching the dress that had been pushed up around her waist. Jim could feel the silent rage that everyone so feared in Sentinels, but he pushed it to the side. Losing his cool wouldn't help Kari.

Blair parked the car and stepped out onto the gravel, looking around before he focused on the oak sitting just back from the exit. "I want everything. Man, I want to know if a bee has been walking over the grass," Blair answered.

"Blair," Jim started slowly as he got out of the car and slammed the door behind him. He struggled for the words to explain. "I don't think you have any idea how much I can see and smell. You can't possibly want all of it."

Blair turned and gave him an impish grin. "Oh, I totally do. I want every clue, and if I have to, I'll chase down every single one until I find the one clue that no one can explain. Simon calls my detective work the 'rabbit down the hole' approach because he tells me I spend too much time trying to chase every rabbit down every hole, but it works for me."

"Rabbit down the hole?" Jim asked. "I hate to break it to you, Chief, but that doesn't sound complimentary."

"Yeah, whatever." Blair shrugged. "But I have a closure record that's neck and neck with Brown, and he's been at this a lot longer than me. Good months, my stats beat him." Blair bounced a bit on his toes and winked at Jim. "They may call me a miniature poodle every now and then, but this poodle is beating the big dogs."

Jim rolled his eyes. The kid was definitely unique, and given just *how* unique he was, it was a good thing he never had gone into the army. Jim had visions of some poor sergeant trying to drill the weirdness out of the kid. "So, you want everything. You're about to be sorry," Jim warned.

"No way. This is simple scientific method, man, just science and logic. Make observations, form a hypothesis that would explain the observations, make a prediction about how the various elements would work if the hypothesis is right and test. Lather, rinse, repeat."

"It works?" Jim didn't normally do investigating. As a soldier, he was the hand that acted after other people investigated and determined the best place for action. They said that a pass had to remain clear of drug runners or a man had to die or a scientist had to be evacuated, and Jim got the job done. And with Keith, Jim had pretty much just shuffled after the man picking up the paperwork debris that trailed after him wherever he went.

Now he followed Blair across the lawn toward the place of death. The police tape was gone, but Jim could still see a bit of yellow caught on the edge of the nearby statue where Jesus sat watching them.

"Yep," Blair agreed. "Like on the Hall case. I noticed that she had these gorgeous rose beds with perfect bushes and vines, I mean, not a leaf out of place. Mom and I stayed at this commune once, a place where all these activists would come together once a year, like a holy conclave of counter-culture, and they had a rose garden like that. This one old guy just about lived in the yard. He'd take a giant umbrella, and stick it in the ground, and then sit on a stool as he plucked each sucker off by hand and pulled bugs off each leaf and smashed them between his calloused fingers." Blair held up his hand and mimicked crushing a bug.

"So, anyway, I figure Debbie Hall must spend a lot of time outside, which leads to the question of why. Hypothesis: her marriage was in trouble and she didn't want to spent time with her husband. Prediction: her husband would explode if I accused him of hiding their marital problems. I tested it, and her husband was just confused."

"So, you weren't right," Jim pointed out. "That's not sounding like a successful plan to me."

"You're forgetting the lather, rinse, repeat step, man," Blair winked.

"So, back to square one, the observation. She wants to be outside. So I sit outside her house for two days, and what I notice is the neighbor kids are always playing right there by the roses because of a tree on their property." Blair's hands started to move quicker as he got excited.

"And that's important because…"

"Turns out, she was talking to those kids, trying to get them to come forward about the fact their father was sexually abusing them. She almost had them willing to talk to the police, and that's why her neighbor murdered her."

"You nailed him," Jim finished with satisfaction.

"Oh man, I nailed him big time. He went down for murder, 36 years and nearly got the death penalty because he'd done it to hide the commission of another crime, the rape of his own kids. And pedophiles are not well liked in jail man. At best, he's going to get out when he's in his late seventies." Blair brought up his fist in a gesture of victory, and Jim laughed as he let his hand rest on his companion's shoulder. He was a good man.

"Chief, I can see where your method has merit, but you're asking me to share everything. That's…" Jim paused. "That's a lot," he finished.

"I totally get that." Blair's hands came up, brushing Jim's chest as they gestured. "And I know that most of the details are like big old red herrings, but if we don't have all the information, how can we make a hypothesis that might describe the observable phenomenon?"

"You asked for it, kid." Jim shook his head as they approached the area Jim recognized from the crime scene photos. A few items had been added to the small hill under the tree where the body had lain. "Those are new," Jim commented as he studied the small display. Two pots of marigolds flanked a small ceramic dog statue, a teddy bear leaning against his side.

"Oh man. That's—" Blair started forward, but Jim put an arm across his chest to block him, and Blair fell silent as he turned a puzzled expression toward Jim.

"Slow down there, Speedy. If you want to know everything that a Sentinel can know about this place, I don't need one more set of footprints across the scene, not considering how many people have already gone traipsing through here," Jim complained as he knelt down onto the grass and studied the ground.

"What do you need me to do?" Blair asked as he crouched down about two inches away. Jim could feel Blair's body heat warming the air between them.

"Be quiet," Jim suggested. Blair's mouth closed with an audible click of teeth.

Jim lowered himself so that he had an ant's eye view of the ground, his hand braced on the cool ground. A twig pricked him. "Lots of people have been walking here. Most from the path behind us. I see at least two different women's feet."

"Women?" Blair breathed. Jim blinked and looked over at Blair. Well, the kid had managed to be quiet for maybe fifteen seconds. Now he knelt next to Jim, notepad in hand.

"Either women or cross dressers with abnormally small feet. There are indentations from heels," Jim said as he shook his head and then went back to studying the scene. Light reflected off the individual blades of grass, and Jim tracked the changes as footsteps created tilts that he could barely see like a holographic image that appeared only when you tilted it just right.

Jim slid a few inches to the left and studied the ground more. "Lots of children's feet, six or seven maybe. There were officers all over here, lots of old tracks, barely visible," Jim commented and then he pointed to a spot on the ground. "Wheels rolled through here, probably the stretcher. The children's feet and the two women are fresher. One or two people in work boots walked through recently. One person in dress shoes, big feet."

Jim slowly crab-walked a few feet left in pursuit of the trail. Near the statue of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jim found what he wanted. Right and left prints right next to each other in the ground. The edges were blurred by rain, but Jim could still see what he'd been searching for.

"I'm guessing a man from the shape of the sole, and he has a heavy limp. He isn't walking well on his left leg," Jim said as he reached out and ran fingertips over the ground, judging the depth of the two steps.

"Oh, man! That's Kari's father. He has a prosthetic leg because of a car accident two years ago, but the question is why he's out here and not at her grave or sitting in her room. Oh yeah, that's a clue!" Blair stood up, and Jim immediately felt the loss of the man's heat.

"He stood here for a long time, facing away from the hill," Jim said as he leaned back on his heels and looked toward where the man must have been staring. He could just see the tall wall that surrounded the old cemetery. A fringe of weeds hid the bottom of the wall, and the mortar between the bricks was crumbling. Someone had mowed the cemetery a few weeks ago, but the grass had the uneven look of a lawn that needed more care. Dandelions stuck yellow heads out here and there, and one had already gone to seed, the white fluff nearly gone from the flower stalk. This was not a view Jim would want to stare at for very long.

He turned around and Blair was staring at him with open eyes. "You see something?" he asked, his eyes darting behind Jim.

"Yeah, a pretty sad place for anyone to die," Jim answered as he stood up and walked to the spot where some visitor had left Kari the gifts. Jim studied them from every angle, but he could only see the obvious: yellow pom-pom flowers tinged with orange, fern-like leaves, the synthetic hairs of the teddy bear magnified until they became a forest of dirty white stained with smudges, the uneven paint strokes under the varnish on the ceramic dog. A few peppermint candies lay on the ground near the base of one flowerpot.

"Nothing here," Jim said as he blinked, a headache just starting to gnaw at the edges of his awareness.

Blair stepped close, his hand resting on Jim's arm. "No way. Man, there's everything here. A dog put out for the dead, marigolds—this is classic Day of the Dead decorations, or since Kari was just a baby, really it would be Día de los Angelitos. But this isn't the commercial crap you see in Walmart with plastic skulls."

Bending down, Blair fingered a marigold leaf. "Traditional belief says that the dead can smell marigolds and will follow that scent to find what people have left for them. On the actual Day of the Dead, some families put marigolds on the grave and then wait for the spirits to return and others leave a trail of marigold leaves from the grave to the house so the dead can follow. Someone wanted Kari to know that they left something for her."

"The bear," Jim said. He crouched down close to the bear without touching it, bracing his hands on the ground as he opened his sense of smell: human sweat and salt and peanut butter and dirt. "Someone's carried it around for a long time," Jim said when he stood up. "The dog is new, but the bear has been washed multiple times, and it still smells like peanut butter and sweat. And the bear hasn't been out here long, it wasn't rained on, but the father's footprints have been."

"The dog is to protect her. Whoever left this is from Mexico, and they believe that you send a dog with the dead to help them across the river. Ancient tribes in Mexico would cremate a dog and bury it with the dead to help them navigate the afterlife."

"Charming," Jim said dryly.

"Hey, it's just as valid a belief as putting coins on the eyes or leaving flowers on the grave."

"Whatever," Jim said as he walked around the scene.

"Yeah, well it means there's something about Kari I don't know because none of her family would have any of these beliefs."

"No Mexicans in her family tree?" Jim asked, studying the display again.

"No way. I'm sorry, but if her name were Maria or even Letisha, do you really think this case would have come to Major Crimes?"

"I'm surprised you're okay with that." Jim watched while Blair flushed white and then slowly blushed with anger.

"No fucking way am I alright with that." Blair spit the words out, his hand jabbing the air in front of him, and Jim wondered just which of them was more likely to emotionally explode first. Sentinel instincts or no, he was betting on Sandburg. "I mean, Simon's great about trying to get a case if I go in there and raise a fuss, but a little white girl gets killed, and no one has to fight to get the case transferred; that's a major crime. Sometimes I really do hate the system, but that doesn't mean that Kari deserves less of my attention."

So Sandburg wasn't the total idealist. "The system isn't perfect," Jim agreed, and as one of the cogs in the system, he had a fairly unique view of its imperfections.

"It's not fair. Two little black girls were strangled and left in alleys, and Simon had to go all the way to the commissioner to get that case transferred. I never said the system was perfect, but all I can do is try to make it work. I found the junkie who killed Felisha and Natalie, and I'll find the asshole who killed Kari," Blair vowed as he got an expression Jim had learned to label the kid's stubborn face.

"We should bag the dog and take it in for fingerprinting. Maybe the wrappers on the outside of the flowerpots too," Blair said, his voice all business now as he focused on the case. Oh yeah, no sublimating emotions there at all, Jim thought as he watched one more sudden shift. He'd seen plenty of guys do that in the army. The kid might be quick to show some feelings, like frustration or awe, but he buried the truly dark ones just as deep as any covert ops sniper Jim had ever met. No wonder the kid shrugged off every mention of his own torture at Kincaid's hands.

"Not the bear?" Jim asked, squinting as the sun finally slid out from behind the ragged blanket of clouds covering the sky.

Jim glanced over and Blair was staring at the bear, the sorrow radiating from him so strongly that Jim felt an urge to go slip an arm around the man and offer some empty words of comfort. That emotional dam of his wasn't going to last for much longer.

"It was hers. Let her keep it," Blair eventually said. He blinked, and next thing Jim knew, the man was trotting across the lawn toward their parked car. "I'm just going to get an evidence bag, I'll be right back," Blair yelled over his shoulder.

Shaking his head, Jim stretched his neck and then focused on relaxing so that he could open his sense of smell to the whole scene. This was the hardest for him to control. When he sniffed an object, he could control the strength of the input, but opening himself to the environment would sometimes lead to him waking up in the Institute infirmary with Sam hovering over him, asking if he wanted to talk about what had triggered the zone. Now he had to take several breaths before he could slowly open it.

The marigolds struck him first, their pungent odor sending him stumbling back a step. A warm hand rested on his back, and Jim found his balance again as he reached out blindly, his eyes still closed. He found a strong shoulder and focused on the scents. Stale coffee, Jojoba shampoo, cream conditioner, spicy musk—in some corner of his mind, Jim realized he was smelling his companion. He took a deep breath to chase the more subtle scents. Traces of incense clung to Blair, a hint of something cinnamon, the remains of yesterday's garlic bread under the salt of his sweat. Jim catalogued it and then focused on the larger scene.

The marigold smell returned, but this time, Jim easily pushed it aside. Immediately, he noticed ammonium nitrate. His eyes opened, and he looked the direction of the potential explosive. A row of apple trees on the far side of the cemetery told him why there were traces of that fertilizer in the air. Jim closed his eyes again and focused on the other scents.

Flowers, dirt, the warm smell of the oak, water somewhere near that was gathering slime mold. Jim could faintly smell a number of human traces as well, the salty scent of people ghosting through his awareness.

Sighing, Jim opened his eyes. "Nothing important, Chief. Some fertilizer for the apple trees, people's sweat, dirt, water turning slimy, you. That's all I'm getting."

"That's okay, man. We have some new clues here."

"So, any hypotheses?" Jim asked as he walked away from Blair and leaned against the tree. The rough bark distracted him from his still open sense of smell.

"Okay, let's work with the father's prints for a second. He comes here, so he wants some privacy with Kari."

"Maybe a little inappropriate privacy," Jim commented as he considered the idea that a man could rape and kill his own child, but it happened more than he liked to think about.

"Yeah. Man, it's going to be ugly if that's true. That's okay, I have another job if this investigation blows up in my face," Blair shrugged. "Okay, so we need to make a prediction and test it. I'm thinking I'm just going to ask him outright why he was here. If he has to struggle to come up with an answer, then it's time to do the kind of digging that can pretty much end my career."

"He's that powerful?" Jim asked.

"Golf buddies with the mayor," Blair said sadly. "But if he did it, he's going to be bed buddies with some guy with prison tats."

"I'll be able to tell you if he's lying, well, unless he's as good at lying as you."

"No way," Blair quickly said as he held up his hands and backed away as though horrified. "No way can we get a warrant for a Sentinel-observed interrogation."

"So, just ask him to consent. Even if he doesn't, it tells you something important," Jim pointed out as he struggled to shut down his sense of smell which seemed locked onto the musk of Blair's sweat. He was working with the kid until he could get Kincaid and bury the son of a bitch under the jail, but he couldn't allow his senses to get carried away. The closer he got to Blair, the harder it would be to break the bond, and right now, his dick wanted to get a whole lot closer. He focused on the case, using his anger at Kari's father to divert his own recalcitrant reactions. "He refuses to let me stay, and we'll know he's hiding something," Jim finished.

"Yeah, great idea," Blair snorted. "Jim, no *way* am I going to ask him to have a Sentinel observe considering that police policy is that Sentinels don't work pedophile cases. Man, that would get back to the mayor's office so fast that it would break the sound barrier. Simon would hear the sonic boom downtown in his office. I mean, this is so far outside the regs that if you did go postal and snap Mr. Taylor's neck, I would get arrested for manslaughter."

Jim reached over and bopped Blair on the head.

"Hey!" Blair complained, his arm coming up to defend himself from a second smack.

"I'm going to go postal?" Jim demanded.

"I didn't say that, you dork. I said IF. IF you went postal, which you are so not going to do, but you may give me a concussion if you don't stop hitting me," Blair protested.

Jim stopped and mentally rewound the conversation. "How the hell am I supposed to help you with the investigation if I have to hide in the shadow every time there's work to do?" Jim demanded instead, ignoring the fact that he might have slightly over reacted. From the glare Blair gave him as he rubbed his head, he noticed the change of topic.

"How are we supposed to work if we get our asses thrown off the case?" Blair countered. "Man, I don't like this, but there's a system that will only flex just so much."

"So I wait at the car," Jim said in frustration.

"Man, I don't see another way to play this. But I'm good at spotting a liar, so if Mr. Taylor gives me a line, it might be enough to get Simon to do something."

"Something," Jim echoed. "Simon might do something while Taylor has time to erase any evidence that might still be left."

"I don't know how else to work it! I have interviewed every member of the family, and this is the first crack in the shield. I just can't have any possible conviction ruined because I had a Sentinel illegally monitor the conversation. What is your conversational range, anyway?" Blair asked.

"The Institute lists it as 103 yards," Jim said, taking a page from Blair's book of obfuscation.

"Wow. That's amazing. Okay, I'll park down the street, and go ask the father why he's coming out here."

Jim clenched his jaw and nodded, not like he had any other choice. Of course, there would still be a chance for him to listen in on the conversation if he could control the zone out factor. It wasn't easy for him to hear past his official limit, but he certainly could. It never paid to give the enemy too much information. "Fine," he snapped.

Jim turned and started back toward the car. He hadn't gotten far before a leggy blonde came around the wall, practically running through the open gate, and Jim instinctively moved back so that he was between her and his companion, his hands curling into fists since he had no better weapon.

A man came running after her, camera bouncing on his shoulder as he flicked the light on so that it shone in Jim's eyes so that he had to throw up an arm to keep from being blinded.

"Detective Sandburg. Would you care to comment about why the department has brought a Sentinel in on this case despite departmental policy?" the reporter called, breathless as she reached them with the microphone. Jim could smell Blair's panic, but the man stood his ground.

"Wendy. Come on, you know I'm not going to comment on a case," he said as he detoured around Jim's back and headed for the car. The camera man got between Blair and the car before Jim got between the camera man and Blair, crossing his arms over his chest. The camera backed off.

"So, that's a 'no comment' from Detective Sandburg, but as the viewers can see, he has brought a Sentinel to the site of the Kari Taylor murder, suggesting that the department is taking desperate steps to solve this brutal homicide," Wendy announced to the camera.

"Wendy, come on, I've done right by you. Don't do this." Blair sounded almost desperate now.

"So, treat me right now, and I won't use the footage," she suggested as she turned her back to the camera. The red light kept flashing.

"Wendy." Blair ran his hand through his hair as he looked from her to the cameraman.

"Take five, Danny. I'll be right back," Wendy said as she moved forward and slipped her arm through Blair's. The cameraman turned the camera and light off as Wendy pulled Blair away from Jim and farther into the cemetery. "Let's talk, just the two of us," she almost purred, but the stink of Blair's panic just intensified.

Ignoring her none-too-subtle hint, Jim stepped to Blair's other side and put his hand on Blair's shoulder. "If you don't get your hands off him, I might come to the conclusion you are assaulting an officer," Jim commented mildly as he walked beside them. Wendy faltered, and dropped Blair's arm.

"Wendy, this is Jim Ellison," Blair introduced them. "Jim was an Army Ranger before his senses came on line. Jim, this is Wendy Hawthorne, the most annoying, persistent, pain in the ass reporter at KCDE."

Wendy almost preened at the description. "But not for long. I'm going national, and you know I can get things done. I can make things happen for you." Jim could hear the conspiratorial tones, and he looked at Blair curiously.

"Okay, don't spread this around, to like *anybody*, including Simon, but I might have been a source for her once or twice," Blair whispered, his eyes darting toward the cameraman who had retreated all the way to the gate. Unless he was a Sentinel, he wasn't hearing anything.

"Chief, you just have all kinds of surprises."

"I always protect your identity, and you know that my coverage of the Robertson case is the only thing that kept it from going right under the rug. I've helped you, Blair. Don't shut me out now," Wendy pleaded, her hand reaching up to briefly touch Blair before she pulled it back again.

"Robertson, that's the IA case," Jim said, remembering that name from a conversation between Blair and Simon at the hospital. Blair nodded.

"He was Internal Affairs. He had a sweet racket going by skimming off all the other dirty cops and keeping IA running in circles, only I caught wind of his operation when an informer told me that Robertson threatened him."

"That's why Aldo hates you," Jim said, putting the pieces together.

Blair laughed. "Oh, yeah. And Wendy turning it into the six o'clock lead didn't make me any more popular with the IA guys."

"You're the one who said that it was better than letting him retire without paying for what he did," Wendy reminded him. "Blair, we have always worked together before because we're after the same thing, the truth."

"No, you're after a career." Blair angled his body to face Wendy, moving back just a little so that his back leaned into Jim's side, and Jim tightened his fingers around Blair's shoulder, letting him know he was staying right there. Blair took a deep breath. "Wendy, if you put that footage on the news, you're going to blow our best chance of catching Kari's killer."

"Who's your prime suspect?" Wendy asked, excitement making her voice tight.

"We don't have one… we only have theories. But this investigation was cold before Jim, and we can't afford to get kicked off the case."

"So, you're confirming that you don't have official sanction for bringing a Sentinel in on the case?" Wendy leaned forward with an expression of triumph.

"Man, come ON! Give me a break here," Blair begged, and Jim could feel tension curling in his stomach.

"It's a story, Blair. Look, I'll hold this for two days. If you can give me something better to air, I will, but the public is demanding answers, and this is news."

"Two days? Wendy, this case is nearly two weeks old, cut me some slack."

"I am. My producer would kill me if he knew I was sitting on this for two minutes. He would break into the afternoon shows and call this breaking news. Blair, I can't just give you a pass on this one because sooner or later, someone else is going to notice your Sentinel. He's not exactly small."

"Two days. Two days, and I'll give you something better," Blair promised weakly.

"I know you will. I'll do what I can to cover for you, Blair, you know that."

"You just won't give up a chance to advance your career, even if it risks an entire investigation," Jim commented as he studied the woman. For the first time, she really studied his face, and Jim resisted the urge to slap the woman who had so completely ignored him up to this point.

"Blair knows I'll do what I can for him," she shrugged before she turned away. Clearly, Jim's opinion of her didn't matter at all. Jim might have gone after her, he might have grabbed her arm and swung her around before telling her a truth or two she didn't want to hear, except Blair chose that moment to lean back, his eyes closed as he let his head fall back against Jim's shoulder.

"Oh man, we are so screwed. Two days. Fuck."

"We'll find something," Jim promised. Okay, so now he had two cases to solve before he started pursuing his plan again. That was okay. He just needed to make sure he didn't let the kid get too close to him. Jim stood with Blair's weight resting on him, the heat of his body soaking in, the scent of Blair's sweat in his nose, and he blinked as the world grayed out for just a second, as though he didn't have enough oxygen. "Let's get moving," Jim said as he shook his head and pushed Blair gently away, forcing him to stand on his own two feet.

"Moving, right," Blair agreed, smelling of misery as he started back toward his car. "Moving is good. God, we are so screwed."

TWENTY FIVE
***

"Okay, I'm going to go talk to the father. Ask him point blank why he would want to go to the place where his daughter was raped and murdered."

"You're going to put it like that?" Jim asked as Blair parked the car quite a ways from the actual house. The Taylors had a large property on the edge of the city, so that left them near the back wall of their land.

"I think I can put it a little more diplomatically," Blair said as he opened the door. Jim got out his side. "No offense, but you cannot come."

"I'm just stretching my legs," Jim assured him. "And we're outside my official range."

Blair looked at him suspiciously and Jim just gazed back with his best poker-face. It worked because Blair shook his head and then started down the sidewalk. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," he called over his shoulder.

"Too late, I already have, many times over," Jim answered as he leaned back against the sedan they'd checked out from the police garage. Blair didn't answer, but Jim focused on his heartbeat, watching the back vanish around the corner and then closing his eyes as he let his hearing follow Blair to the front door.

Doorbell. Wind through tree branches. Door opening.

"Yes?" A woman's voice, thready… an old woman.

"I'm Detective Sandburg. I needed to speak with Mr. Taylor." Feet shuffling. Movement inside the house. Jim took just a second to marvel at how clearly he could hear at a distance that would have been a struggle just a month ago. He was definitely recovering from the damage the Institute had inflicted with their misguided attempt to protect him.

"Come in. Alan's upstairs. If you'll just wait…"

"Yes, ma'am," Blair agreed. Door closing. Footsteps over tile, dragging like the person was too tired to pick the feet up. A truck rumbled past, and Jim blinked in surprise, the distraction breaking him away from the house.

"Fuck," he cursed as he focused his hearing on where Blair had been just a moment ago. Struggling to filter out all the various noises between, Jim finally heard Blair speaking, although now Jim had to struggle to hear past the sounds of children's laughter and a distant lawn mower, and a television turned up way too far in one of the nearby houses.

"… talk in private?" Blair was asking. Jim missed the next bit, and then they obviously moved because when he heard Blair's voice again, the echoes were different.

He strained, ignoring the warbling sound at the edges that warned that he was on the cusp of a spike. "… at the cemetery. I'm just wondering why you would want to visit that place, in particular."

"I just wanted to see." Jim focused on the voices, filtering out the closer sounds and firmly ignoring the uneven warbles of his own distorted hearing.

"See what?" Blair prompted, his voice sharp. If the man had something to hide, he'd react to that tone. Hell, Jim had snapped back when confronted with a tone half as confrontational as that.

"I had to see where. I just… I don't know. I didn't disturb anything at the scene," Mr. Taylor answered weakly. Jim couldn't hear any stressors of lying, but at this distance he didn't trust his judgment either.

"Did you touch anything?"

"The tree. The bench near the statue. I just needed to see…"

"Mr. Taylor, did you see anyone at the cemetery?" Blair asked, his tone much more neutral. Jim didn't hear an answer. "How long ago did—"

"Ollie, ollie oxen free," a girl's voice scattered his focus and Jim stumbled back, nearly going to one knee as the sounds of the neighborhood boomed in his head, echoing off the inside of his skull.

"Not now, Lal," an older girl sighed.

"Kari would have played with me. You're just… aburrido," the girl said. The voice sounded eight or nine.

"Aburrida," the older girl corrected her. Jim shook his head free of the clinging strands of sounds he didn't want and wandered to the fence. Walking away from the direction Blair had gone, Jim followed it until he reached a wide gate set back into a recessed alcove.

Even though he reached for the handle, he expected the gate to be locked. It wasn't. Jim found himself in the shade of an old tree, a gardener's shack to his left, and the view to the main house blocked by row of trees. A weed-eater leaned against the side of the windowless building and six children played in the area. He watched a girl of about nine throw herself to the ground next to a sister who looked pretty much the same age.

Their jeans and t-shirts were neat, well, except for the littlest boy who had mud handprints streaked across the yellow, but Jim guessed they weren't the Taylors'.

"Hey, guys," Jim said without moving away from the gate. He didn't need to send them running, screaming about a renegade Sentinel. That probably wasn't what Blair had in mind.

The kids froze, the little boy's fingers still clutching a captured worm.

An older boy, even darker than the others stepped forward. "Wow. You're a Sentinel." He looked like he was maybe thirteen.

"Yeah, I'm a Sentinel," Jim agreed without much enthusiasm as he scanned the group. "You guys sound like you're having fun back here." Having fun and talking about Kari, but he didn't add that. A plastic tea cup was half buried in the ground, the mud dried to dirt around it, and the grass was worn and yellow from overuse. They played back here a lot.

"We're playing train," a little girl with dark pigtails offered as she left her two older sisters. One of the girls, maybe ten, made a grab for the small arm, but the little one danced away. She must have been five or six, and Jim remembered Stevie at that age; he wouldn't be told what to do either. She was the youngest, the little boy with the worm probably a year older and then two middle girls and two older ones, one boy and one girl who stayed in the shadows and watched, a book in her lap.

"Raul has a collar looks just like that," the little girl added as she pointed to Jim's neck and then looked at the older boy, the one who had stepped forward. Jim self-consciously reached up and touched the warm metal locked around his neck. Glancing over, Jim could see Raul blush.

"It was… It's just something that the guys sometimes…" Raul stumbled into silence and shrugged.

"I don't understand why you'd want to, but it's not like it bothers me," Jim reassured the boy.

"You don't understand?" Raul's accent thickened as he raised his voice. "You're a Sentinel. You have these amazing abilities and everyone looks up to you and respects you, and maybe even has a little fear of you. How can you not understand why we'd…" He stopped and blushed even darker.

Jim struggled as he considered just how to answer that, how to deal with adolescent worship when being a Sentinel was really more about slavery than respect. Just because most people never saw the chains didn't mean they weren't always there… in a guardian's closet, waiting in every ambulance, stored in the hospital which would pull them out and chain any Sentinel who came in just because he might lose control.

"Raul," Jim said quietly. "A Sentinel shouldn't get any more respect or any less respect than any other man. Every man should earn respect by what he does."

Raul looked at him solemnly, but Jim was distracted by a pull on his arm. The little girl had his hand, or his fingers rather. Jim knelt down. "Hi, I'm Jim," he offered.

"Maria," she immediately answered with a smile. "I never touch a Sentinel." She reached up, and Jim tensed, expecting her to touch the collar. Instead she touched his cheek and then laughed. "Prickly!" she announced.

Jim rubbed his whiskers. "My partner is a bathroom hog and I didn't have much time to shave," Jim admitted as he found the small patch he'd missed. "Do you play out here much?"

"Mama works in the house," one of the middle girls said as she stood up, it was the one who had complained that Kari would have played with her.

"And Mama says to not talk to strangers," said the oldest girl who jumped off the tree branch where she'd been sitting. She looked fourteen or fifteen, but her voice had the decisive authority of an adult.

"He's not a stranger; he's a Sentinel," Raul argued.

"You're mother's a smart woman," Jim interrupted before the kids could get into a real argument. "But I'm just looking for some help trying to find who hurt Kari." All the kids went silent. Jim was still crouching beside the littlest, so he could see her eyes shine with tears.

"Mama said Kari's in heaven," she whispered.

"Maria, hush," the oldest girl hissed as she came forward and pulled Maria away by the shoulder. Jim stood up and faced her.

"You left her presents," Jim guessed as he looked at the girl.

"He already knows, Carmen, so we ain't telling things he don't already know," Raul said, the voice that had been full of awe before was now as snotty as a little brother could be. Jim remembered that tone all too well, even if the words were different. Raul turned to Jim. "They wouldn't let us into the cemetery where they buried her, so we went out to where she was—we left some stuff," he agreed.

"Raul," the oldest, Carmen, threatened with a killer glare, but then Maria started to cry, and she crouched down so the little girl could put her arms around her sister and hide her face in Carmen's shoulder.

"My partner and I found the dog and the bear. It was nice of you to leave that for her," Jim said quietly.

"Roo." Maria whispered. She turned her tear-streaked face to Jim. "I left her Roo because her mama said she couldn't bring her toys out with her 'cause they get dirty and I wanted her to have someone to play with."

"That was special, sharing your Roo with her," Jim said softly, but it only made the little girl cry harder so that she turned back to her sister's shoulder. Jim stood immobilized, not sure how to handle the crying Maria or the two middle sisters, one of whom took ragged breaths while the other stared at the ground. The little boy sat jabbing a stick into the dry ground over and over, chipping away at a tiny hole. There wasn't anything he *could* do to make any of them feel better.

"Raul, take the others down to the corner," Carmen said as she picked Maria up and delivered her to a brother who could barely hold her weight. "Get them a soda to share." She reached in her pocket and pulled out two dollars.

"And maybe some ice cream," Jim added as he reached for his wallet. He pulled out a ten.

"We don't need your money," Carmen said, stepping between her brother's outreached hand and Jim's offering.

"No, you don't. But I said things in front of them that I shouldn't have, and I didn't mean to make them cry. I figure I owe them something to fix that," Jim said quietly. "If you don't want the money, you can give it to whoever you like." Jim kept the money out and the whole scene froze.

"I want ice cream." The boy on the ground scrambled up and flung himself at Carmen's legs. "Helado!"

"Great," she sighed as she glared at Jim and then yanked the ten dollar bill from his hand. Jim resisted the urge to smile. "Fine, ice cream."

The offer didn't exactly cheer up anyone except for the youngest boy who raced for the back gate, but at least the tears had stopped. Jim waited until the younger ones were gone.

"You knew Kari," he said gently. Carmen sighed.

"Yeah. She would play back here. Her parents… they didn't really know what to do with a kid." Carmen turned her back and headed into the shadow of the trees, back to the branch where she originally sat.

"Have you talked to the police?"

"Aren't you the police?" she countered.

Jim considered that. He hadn't ever joined or given his oath or filled out an application. If anything, he still thought of himself as a soldier, but one without a country to serve because Jim would never again defend a country that did the things America did to its Sentinels. In the back of his head, he had always hoped that his father had exaggerated, but after months in the Institute, he wasn't sure the old man had even scratched the surface.

"Not really," he shrugged. "My partner is a cop, but I'm just sorta the ride-along."

"I didn't think Sentinels were supposed to lie."

"They can lie as well as anyone else," Jim corrected her, "but I’m not. In fact, I'd appreciate you not mentioning to the Taylors that I was out here because the police don't think a Sentinel should be investigating this kind of crime."

"They think you'll kill the bastard that did this," Carmen said, her voice suddenly hard, and Jim understood that she wanted him to kill the murderer. She was queen and caretaker over her little covey, and Kari had been part of group, by choice if not by blood.

"He doesn't deserve to die; it'd be too quick, and killing another person is not something to ever do lightly. He deserves to go to jail."

Carmen nodded, but with the younger ones gone, he could see her struggle against her own tears.

"Did Kari ever have bruises or complain about someone touching her?"

"You mean Mr. Taylor," Carmen said, but she shook her head. "He wasn't home much. He'd see her in the morning, sometimes he'd just lean out the back door and wave when she was on her swings. But he wouldn't come home until Kari was asleep. And I would have known if anyone hurt her. She would have told me or I would have seen the bruises."

"You're sure?"

"Look, I shouldn't be talking to you," Carmen said as she jumped off the branch again, and this time she headed for the back gate. "I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."

"I'm a Sentinel, not a stranger," Jim repeated her brother's words, and she scowled at him.

"You're a cop. The first rule is don't talk to strangers, and the second is don't talk to cops." With that, Carmen ran out of maturity. She turned and ran for the back gate, her hair flying and Jim could hear the sobs start.

"Nice, Ellison," Jim told himself as he slowly followed. He wanted to give Carmen a chance to get far enough away that she wouldn't have to see him. Fuck. He really didn't like this job right now.

Jim pushed out the wood gate and closed it behind him. It was a horrible security breach, but that was the soldier in him; most people didn't think about things like that. They worried about how to bring manure in without leaving tire marks on the lawn. Jim sighed. He wished the Taylors didn't have anything better to worry about than tire treads. And he wished he had something to show for making a bunch of kids cry.

"Jim!" Blair nearly shouted the minute he spotted him. Blair stood next to the car, his hands caught mid-flutter.

"Blair," Jim said calmly as he walked toward the passenger side.

"Where were you?" Blair asked as he walked to the back of the car. Jim detoured just enough to get within arm's reach. He casually reached over and bopped Blair on the side of the head.

"Man, you are just too into hitting me! You are so totally showing a sadistic side." Blair danced away a step and rubbed the spot on his head.

"That would imply it actually hurt. Does it?" Jim asked as he stopped and studied Blair. His stomach tightened at the idea.

"That is not the point," Blair huffed as he turned toward the driver's side.

"That's exactly the point, Sandburg. I'm just reminding you that I don't need a keeper; you aren't some abused wife, although with that hair you could play the part."

"Very funny. And you are obviously missing the point here. I would have asked my mom's friend Jim that same question because we're working a case together."

"And your mom's friend Jim would have caught you upside the back of the head for that tone you used when you first saw me and called my name," Jim argued. "So, how'd it go with the father?" Jim asked even though he already had a good idea. He hadn't been able to see the man, so Blair might have spotted something he couldn't know from out here.

Blair got in the car, and Jim followed. Rather than start the car, Blair leaned back against the seat and stared at the car's roof.

"Nadasville. This case is just one frustration after another. Mr. Taylor said he went out there to get away from his family and the reporters and just be with his little girl's memory."

"You believed him?"

"No way. He went out there to poke his own guilt." Blair made a strange face and poked the steering wheel a couple of times to emphasize his point. God the kid was weird.

"But you don't think he's the killer."

"If he is, he's the best actor I've ever met. The absolute best. But I really don't think this is going anywhere." Blair rolled his head to the side and looked at Jim.

"I think you're right," Jim agreed. "I went in his backyard."

"Oh man. We are so far out on a limb here," Blair grimaced.

"You're out on a limb, Chief; I'm just a Sentinel," Jim said with a nasty smirk. Blair poked him in the stomach, and Jim reached out and pulled a curl.

"Nice, leave me hanging out to dry," Blair said, but he had enough laughter in his voice that Jim knew he wasn't serious. The hand Jim had used to pull Blair's hair ended up on Blair's thigh, and neither of them moved for a second. Jim could feel a familiar need twist around his spine, and he coughed and focused on the case.

"There were six children out back by the gardener's shed. I made them cry," Jim admitted and Blair flinched.

"Yeah, interviewing kids always sucks."

"They said that Mr. Taylor was gone a lot and that the Taylors didn't really know what to do with a kid. Apparently Mrs. Taylor wouldn't even let Kari take toys outside because they might get dirty."

"Nice," Blair said sarcastically.

"Yeah, but Kari would play with these Hispanic kids whose mom works in the house. Carmen, the oldest girl, insists that she would know if someone hurt Kari, and no one did."

"The M.E. said there wasn't any evidence of long-term abuse which is why I didn't press the father at first, but I'm getting desperate enough to clutch at straws."

"Here's one last straw to clutch at: the display at the cemetery was from the kids Kari played with. The littlest girl even left her bear because Mrs. Taylor wouldn't let Kari have toys outside and she wanted Kari to have someone to play with."

Blair took a deep breath. "I hate cases with kids. They just always break your fucking heart," Blair said weakly, and Jim tightened his hand on Blair's thigh.

"But that means we're out of leads."

"No way. I didn't know that Kari played out there. I investigated her pre-school and her dance class and her church, and now I have one more place to investigate. Their mom must be Luella Palma; she informally runs the house."

"Just watch out for rule number two: don't talk to cops," Jim offered. "And you may want to wait because her kids went to the corner store for ice cream after I made the five year old collapse into open sobs."

Blair flinched. "Ouch."

"Yeah. Gotta love this job. I think I preferred lying under a bush for two days to shoot some guy."

Blair stammered a bit at that.

"And I gave them a ten, so I'm going to need some money." Jim kept his voice neutral, but the irritation scraped over his nerves and he pulled his hand back.

"I know Walker set up a Sentinel account, but maybe we could open one in my name instead," Blair suggested. Jim raised his eyebrows in question. Why would he want all his money in Blair's name?

"In small towns where they don't have Sentinel accounts, guardians just open a second account, but then they have to fill out extra paperwork proving that they aren't using their Sentinel's money. But the advantage is that because it's a regular account, you could have an ATM card and pull your own money without my signature. I could set you up as a signer."

God. An ATM card. Jim never thought he would feel so damn grateful at the offer of something so damn trivial. Only, it wasn't trivial when he couldn't have one.

"But if we do that, you are so doing the extra paperwork," Blair threatened. "I have enough trouble with my own paperwork."

"Deal," Jim quickly agreed, and immediately he hated himself for being grateful. It was his money. He'd earned it, and he shouldn't have to be grateful for the right to spend it. And really, he still couldn't spend it however he wanted; the damn judge would get to look over his records and rule on whether he had a right to buy this or that. Jim resisted an urge to put his fist through something at the memory of her smug face.

"Okay, we have a new lead! We can come back tomorrow and chase it down." Blair smiled as he sat up and started the car. "Man, we are a seriously good partnership!" he announced as he pulled out onto the quiet street.

Partners. Not just a Sentinel, but a partner. More gratitude seeped up through the cracks, and Jim could feel it harden and turn to anger. He hadn't chosen this. Not wanting to let Sandburg die wasn't the same as choosing him as a life-long companion, and he shouldn't fucking have to feel grateful for every fucking crumb. He'd earned the money. He'd fucking earned the respect, even if precious few people showed it anymore. He'd earned his freedom, but he sure didn't have it.

"The problem is that I'm not your partner, Sandburg. I'm not a cop and if I were, I wouldn't partner with some part-time detective," Jim snapped.

Blair blinked, and Jim felt a little twinge of guilt at the suddenly blank expression on Blair's face. But calling what they had a partnership… Jim couldn't let himself get sucked any farther into this desire for Blair. He'd help Sandburg find Kincaid and get him out of the hole he'd dug for himself on the Taylor case, and then he was heading for Canada.

"Okay," Blair said slowly. "I thought you said you did want to work at the station. If there's something else you'd rather do…"

Jim snorted. "I'd rather be on base planning the next mission and training with my team."

"If you want to go back to the military…" Blair's voice was shaking now, but his hands were steady on the wheel as he turned toward the highway.

"I don't want to go back to the military as a Sentinel," Jim snapped. "You got all defensive when Rafe *didn't* say I was subbing for you. You should hear what they say in the military, and the Sentinels are on lockdown most of the time, but they get nice quarters and good duty and they don't know any better, so they're not going to complain. I want to go back into the military as a career officer." Jim slammed his palm down on the dash. "And I'm doing this with you because it's better than sitting home, but don't think that makes us partners in any sense of the word," Jim finished, crossing his arms.

Blair stared straight ahead at traffic, and Jim could smell the misery in the car. He rolled a window down just far enough that the car exhaust drowned Blair's smell and made his hair dance and tangle in the sudden breeze.

Jim's stomach knotted at the wall that suddenly rose between him and his companion, but he needed that wall. He needed that distance from something that was growing entirely too close and too comfortable.

"You don't have to stay," Blair finally whispered, his hands still frozen to the wheel and strands of his hair sticking to his lower lip that was damp from him chewing at it.

"When I decide to leave, I can do it without your help," Jim snapped. Blair tightened his lips and nodded. "I gave you my word that I'd help you get Kincaid, and I will," Jim said more gently, his stomach now knotted at the distress in his companion. He wanted to reach out and tug on his hair or rest a hand on his shoulder. Maybe he could trust Blair with some clues about where he was in Canada after he settled. Maybe Blair would want to come to him.

Jim turned away from Blair and closed his eyes as he pushed that fantasy away. The bond was one way. Given a choice, he would choose Blair… he would choose Blair over anything other than freedom. But Blair had his life here—his life, his friends, his school, his future. Ignoring the little voice that suggested that Jim could make a place for himself in that life, Jim focused on the memory of Sam waiting for him to ask for the chains.

He used his perfect sensory recall to remember the days sitting in empty classrooms with his soul dying as he strained against chains he knew he couldn't break. His wrists and ankles would sweat under the restraints and when Sam would take them off, the skin felt overly sensitive and damp. Fingering the place on his wrist where his arm hair thinned from the friction against the restraints, Jim tightened his hold over his heart. If Sandburg got hurt, that's exactly where Jim would end up again, and not even Blair was worth taking that risk.

When Blair took a deep, shuddering breath, Jim waited for the argument to continue, but Blair remained silent and Jim focused on the distant skyscrapers with the hard angles and edges in steel.

TWENTY SIX
***
Simon had the blinds open in his office. It meant that every time a detective came in the doors, he had a moment of distraction from the endless parade of reports and requests and requisitions he had to process, but he needed the distraction. If he'd had any idea what his life was going to be like as a captain, he might have turned down the promotion, but at the time, he thought it was the best way to really make a difference in this town and to save his marriage. Well, he'd accomplished one of his goals.

When Ellison came through the door, followed closely by Sandburg, Simon let his eyes settle on them for more than the second it took to notice them and go back to the vacation schedule. Blair hands were going, but then they always were. The difference now was that the wide, sweeping gestures had grown smaller, the customary pokes at the air more tentative.

Ellison looked better than he had in the hospital, but that just might have been the removal of the chains. Simon hated those things just about as much as he hated the way the man who killed his brother got to walk away without ever paying for what he did. Some things just weren't fair, no matter what the law said.

No more than two seconds after the partners entered, Brown came though the doors and headed straight for Sandburg, obviously making some smart-ass comment, and Banks watched Blair flare to life, his smile brightening as he pushed his hair back with one hand and gestured wildly with the other. Just looking at the kid through the glass, Simon never would peg him as a top-notch detective, but he was.

Brown laughed before he nodded to his partner and they headed out. The whole time, Rafe had hovered at the door, not actually coming in as he focused on Jim and Jim scowled back. Great, just what he needed, detectives who couldn't work with each other. Simon sighed as he focused on the computer again, his tired eyes complaining about the glare off the screen.

The knock on the door wasn't really a surprise. "This better be good," he bellowed. If nothing else, a little aggravation in his tone would make people get to the point quicker. With Sandburg, that was a survival skill he needed.

"Hey, Simon," Blair said as he stuck his head in. "Define good, so I know whether or not I'm good."

Shit. When the kid started playing word games, Simon knew they had trouble. "What did you do?" he asked as he pushed away from his computer and focused on Blair. The detective stepped into the office with a sheepish expression, and Ellison followed close on his heels. While Blair flopped into a chair, Ellison headed for the window where he leaned against the glass and looked out on the city. Sun from the window reflected off his collar and made a little white dash shimmer against the white wall.

"Hey, I totally did not do anything except my job, and I think we may have a new lead on the Taylor case, so that's good, right?"

Simon narrowed his eyes. Sandburg sailed in here on a fairly regular basis confessing to one transgression or another, but he'd never seen the man so unsure before.

"I guess that depends on how you got the lead. You leave any witnesses or bodies behind?" Simon asked suspiciously.

Jim's eyes snapped to Simon, and Simon just looked back at the challenge in them. Hell would freeze over before he'd back down in his own office. Jim blinked after a second and went back to staring out the window. Blair shifted nervously in his seat. Oh yeah, this partnership was going great.

"Jim and I headed out to the cemetery where her body was discovered, and we found some interesting visitors had been by. And man, you should see Jim in action; it's absolutely incredible the way he…"

Blair stopped mid-rant, his hands falling to his lap, and Ellison just continued to stare out the window. Simon closed his eyes and counted to five to keep himself from exploding.

"Okay, out with the disaster part of this, because I can hear a disaster coming," Simon said carefully.

"A reporter spotted me working the case," Ellison interrupted before Blair could say anything.

"Great," Simon said sarcastically, missing the days when he was a detective and he could use the colorful language that rolled through his head. "Your first day back, Sandburg. You couldn't even give me twenty-four hours before you started making tsunamis?" he asked, referencing their old joke to Blair's inability to just make waves like everyone else.

"Oh man, we were just working the scene, but that footage…"

"So, you were playing loose with the regs."

"Hey, I have a legitimate interpretation of the regulations that is probably just not the standard one, so I didn't break regulations as much as I broke procedure," Blair obfuscated. Simon had learned that word early in Sandburg's time in Major Crimes. Now he had really warmed to the subject, and he brought his hands up in that 'I know I'm right and you know that I know that I'm right' gesture. On anyone else, it would have looked like a karate chop, but Blair made it look much more academic and significant.

"The regulations say that no Sentinel can participate in the interrogation or pursuit of a suspected pedophile. However, we were not actively pursuing a pedophile, and we totally had no reason to think a pedophile would be there, so this was more a standard search of an area than a pursuit of a pedophile, and Sentinels are always used for area searches," Blair defended himself, but Simon really focused more on the way Jim's back went stiff. The guy was mad, and Simon didn't need this. Why the hell hadn't he just said 'no' to having a Sentinel in his division?

Blair just kept right on arguing even though Simon hadn't disagreed with him yet. "So, since we weren't pursuing a pedophile, just checking out a scene, that's like total greyland there. And we found that her father had been out to the site, and we also found out that Kari spent a lot of time with the housekeeper's kids, at least we think they're the housekeeper's kids, but the point is that there's a whole part of her life I haven't even looked at."

Simon sighed and pulled off his glasses. "Please tell me you did not confront Sam Taylor."

"It's cool. I mean, he's taking the guilt trip train all the way to China, but I really don't think he had anything to do with her death. A man doesn't just wake up one day and decide to rape and kill his daughter without doing something before that, and the coroner said she didn't have any old marks and bruising, and when I asked him why he was at the scene of her death, Taylor didn't even twitch. I don't think he's our best suspect."

"So, you accused him of being involved before deciding he wasn't?! Blair, you're going to commit career suicide one of these days," Simon accused the man, slamming his palm down on the desk. Jim took a step closer, and Simon included him in the glare. "Maybe Brown should take this one."

Simon flinched at his own words as he really considered that. Brown was one of the best investigators in the department, and like Blair, he had a unique way of looking at the facts in a case. But he handled stress with humor, occasionally inappropriate humor and a lack of interpersonal skills that made families uncomfortable, and this was not a case where the department could afford bad feelings. Then again, Rafe really was smoothing over some of his partner's rough edges, so maybe it was time to let that partnership give this a try.

"Blair found the lead," Jim said as he took one more step closer so that he stood beside Sandburg. Simon glared up.

"And he did it breaking the rules."

"No way, man. I was not breaking the rules, just bending the traditional understanding of the rules, and I am so sorry that Wendy caught me mid-bend."

"Wendy Hawthorne?" Simon just about choked as he sat up and once again wished he could curse like he had back during his detective days when he didn't have to worry about hostile work environments and sensitivity training and all that other shit the commissioner was always pushing.

"Oh, yeah. I guess I left that part out," Blair blushed.

"Yeah, you did." Simon reached for a cigar and just fingered it as he tried to figure out how to manage this disaster.

"She's giving us two days to provide more interesting footage before she pulls out the tape of us at the cemetery, so all is not lost, Simon. We just need to break the case and let her get a little good footage so she has a reason to lose the other stuff."

Simon stared at Blair, his mouth open.

"Two days. Two days?!"

"We just have to work the leads," Jim interrupted, his hand coming down to rest on Blair's shoulder for a second before he jerked it away. Simon narrowed his eyes as he took in one more sign that things were seriously screwed up. Summers back in Georgia with his grandmother, he'd seen the Sentinel pairing who lived in that small, southern town with it's two and three room houses and wide porches. They'd rarely stopped touching, and in the hospital, Jim and Blair had been just as tactile as his memory of that partnership.

Once his head had cleared, Blair would type on his computer, and Jim's hand would rest on a hip or Blair's foot would snake out from under the blanket and his toes would prod Jim's thigh. Now, Jim physically backed away a step, and Blair very deliberately didn't look over.

"I don't know what the hell is going on—"

"Hey, just me with my usual total disdain for rules, and I promise I'll fix this, Simon, just give me a chance. I don’t think today would be a good day to go back and talk to the housekeeper's kids…" Blair's eyes flicked toward Jim, and Simon glowered at the tall man. "But first thing tomorrow, I'm going to be out there, promise. We just need to get Wendy her lead story, and then she'll be happy to bury the footage with Jim."

"And you don't work any more pedophilia cases," Simon said, poking his unlit cigar toward Blair, which brought Jim back to his partner's side. Simon rolled his eyes.

"Right, right, no problem," Blair agreed quickly, his hands held up in surrender.

"Rick hates me. He was always jealous that I got Major Crimes, that's why he gave you to me," Simon complained softly.

"Actually," Blair disagreed, "he said that considering how many rules you broke in your day, you deserved me."

"I probably do," Simon sighed. "But unless you want to end up suspended, you play by the rules. Do I need to remind you that Aldo is still sniffing around just looking for a reason to hang you out to dry?"

"No, no, I got it. Play by the rules, no more Sandburg zone," Blair quickly agreed.

"Why won't Aldo let this go?" Jim asked, his eyes now scanning the bull pen as though looking for the Internal Affairs officer to come bursting through any second.

"Other than Blair making him and basically his whole department look like morons by busting a dirty cop in their department? Oh, nothing."

"Oh man, I am squeaky clean, Simon. I promise."

"So, Jim is going to stay behind when you follow up on the Taylor case tomorrow?" Simon asked, crossing his arms. That made two pairs of sharp blue eyes focus on him.

A lesser man might have squirmed under the matched glares, but Simon didn't back off. He'd been one of the only black kids in his school during the year, and if that wasn't enough to toughen him up, he'd spent summers with Grandma Banks. The woman had a nasty habit of speaking the truth and a stare that would take the paint off house. Old man Winters next door used to say that if he wanted to avoid having to strip the old paint off the house, he just had to annoy Widow Banks into glaring at it. It took more than a couple of nasty looks to unsettle Simon.

"He can just wait in the car," Blair shrugged as if it didn't make a difference to him.

"Where he can listen and give Wendy Hawthorne some nice follow up footage? No chance. Jim can just stay at the station. Let him go through your old case files or something."

"Simon, come on. This isn't my only case, and I don't want to have to double back to have to pick up my partner."

"It seems like I reassigned most of your active cases. Hell, I would have reassigned the Taylor case if the Special Crimes unit wasn't working leads from their end. I assume that you've told them what you found."

"I'll give Leah the notes," Blair waved the concern off, "but I have the Dessy case, too."

"Tomas Dessy? Why pull that old case up?"

"His horoscope," Blair said. "Hold on a second."

Blair got up and just about raced out of the office, detouring around Ricardo and a cuffed suspect before he grabbed the morning paper from his desk and then reversed direction.

"And that's Blair not on caffeine," Simon said sadly.

"I'll remember to keep him away from the coffeepot," Jim half-laughed as Blair returned with a newspaper held high.

"His horoscope… Check it out."

Simon adjusted his glasses. "Which one?"

"Libra"

"Today’s planetary line-up is likely to make things seem like they're sliding off track, but take a second look. You’ll find that progress is being made if you just keep track of where you have your assets. Keep a piece of amethyst with you to help generate an optimistic approach." Simon looked up. "This is…"

"Drivel?" Blair finished for him. "Totally, man. I mean, these things. They're written so they could apply to anyone. Anyone. It's always a good bet that things will go better if you keep track of your assets, but the point here is Dessy. I'm willing to stake a month's salary that he believes in this stuff." Blair thumped the paper with his fingers.

"Why do you say that, Chief?" Jim asked as he came up beside Blair and looked down at the paper.

"It fits. The horoscope says that it's a good day to stay in, and Dessy cancelled meetings with the DeLuca family. The horoscope says that it's a good day to meet new people, and he made that deal with Bruce Jackson to run drugs down in South town."

"So, why not use the horoscope predictions to get someone in undercover?" Jim asked.

"Yeah, we never thought of an undercover officer," Simon snorted, but the suddenly cold expression on Jim's face made guilt wash through him. Jim had enough people doubting his abilities right now. Simon took the cigar out and scrubbed his face for a second.

"Dessy is good. Every officer we've tried to get in there has been ID'ed in days and sent packing. We had one woman who worked the streets, picking up undercover cops as johns for three months before we tried to work her into his organization. Delia is the best we have. After she finally gets a meet with him, he asked her how it was going through police academy with her fine ass and whether the other cops wanted to do her as much as he did. He even told her that he'd almost suspend his rule about not sleeping with cops if she'd offer him a tumble."

"Man, he is like seriously lucky or seriously connected," Blair said softly.

"I wish it was just luck." Simon leaned back in his chair. "Organized Crime has the best shot at this. They're an insulated enough unit that if there's a leak, they can contain it. Why work this now?"

"Because I have Jim now. Man, Dessy is going to be all over checking his businesses because of this horoscope, but it's nearly noon, so he's going to be getting up soon, and we have to get over there."

"Chief, I don't know that I can do all that much," Jim said slowly.

For the first time since they came in the office, Blair really looked at Jim. For a second, he smiled, but then that faded, and his fingers started working the edge of his tribal vest. "You can, Jim. Your records, your test scores… they're higher than anything I've ever seen."

"But Dessy has to know we have a Sentinel warrant out for his surveillance." Simon shook his head; the kid couldn't expect Jim to be some sort of superhero.

"But he doesn't expect someone with Jim's control or range. Man, this is our best chance to nail Dessy."

Simon sighed as he considered the kid. Blair caught most of their interdepartmental cases because he wasn't a credit hog or some alpha dog who would get in a pissing match with the lead detective from some other precinct, but the guys working Dessy might not want Sandburg in there poking around right now.

"I'll call the captain over at OC," Simon finally relented.

"Thanks, man. I'm going to dash off a quick report for Leah on the Taylor case, and then Jim and I are heading over to Dessy's place to see if we can tail him."

"I didn't give you permission yet. Organized Crimes might not want you over there," Simon warned.

"Come on, Simon. I know you'll smooth things over. You always do," Blair said with a smile and a wink before he headed out the door.

"Jim," Simon called as the largely silent Sentinel turned to follow. He stopped in the doorway, and Simon sighed, suddenly unsure of what to say that could make this any easier on anyone. Just because Blair and Jim obviously hadn't found any sort of peace in the relationship didn't mean Simon had any right to get in the middle.

"Look after him. He gets so enthusiastic that he doesn't look after himself," Simon finally settled on. Jim looked at him, a frown making his eyebrow twitch for a second before he nodded.

"Sure," he agreed. He headed out into the bullpen. Jim went straight for Blair's desk, leaning over it so that he was hovering over Blair before he turned and suddenly moved away to his own desk, sitting and leaning back away from Sandburg. Blair froze for a second, and then turned to the computer, scooting his chair as close to the keyboard as he could, which moved him away from Jim. They worked, almost straining away from each other for several minutes before Jim leaned forward, rolling his chair a couple of inches closer as he said something. Blair turned and rolled his own chair back from the computer so their arms hovered near each other. Then Blair suddenly bolted up and headed out the doors.

Simon sighed as he watched them, their dance taking them always closer until they veered away from each other suddenly, like magnets that kept turning so they first attracted and then repelled each other with equal force. Oh yeah, this was not good. Simon pulled his cigar out of his mouth and set it to the side as he returned to trying to figure out the vacation schedule. At least that was one puzzle he had an outside chance of solving.

TWENTY SEVEN
***
"Playing a bit fast with the truth there," Jim commented once they'd reached their desks. For a half second, Blair froze.

"What?" Blair asked, but his voice was a little too innocent. Jim crossed his arms and leaned back as he considered the wide blue eyes blinking back at him. The little shit had the look down, alright.

"Why exactly are we going after Dessy?" Jim kept his voice neutral, but Blair turned his back and pushed his chair as close to the computer as possible, physically withdrawing from the question.

"It's a legitimate case," Blair shrugged.

"And why go after him and not…" Jim leaned forward and scanned the tabs on the files still stacked on Blair's desk. "Why not the Carson case?" Jim reached over and grabbed the top few files and started loading them into his bottom desk drawer.

Blair flicked him a glance and then shrugged again. "Carson's wife is in total denial. Total. One hundred percent eclipse of the common sense. I might give her another try after some local station airs 'The Burning Bed' or some special on Scott Peterson beating his wife to death. But trust me, right now, that woman is going to lie to protect that son of a bitch, and Ben Carson is too damn clever to leave much else in the way of a trail. I just hope Mrs. Carson figures out that she's in danger before Mr. Carson figures out that no one will take that much abuse forever."

Blair stopped typing and turned his chair around as he stared at the pile of files as though he had committed some unforgivable sin. "I can't even get her to answer the door for me." The shift put Blair a few inches closer, and Jim could feel himself itch with a need to just reach out. Despite all Jim's anger, all his frustration, and all his pent-up indignation, he just wanted to take that guilty, pained expression off Blair's face. He wanted to let his hand rest on Blair's arm and feel the heat of it. He wanted to assure Blair that it wasn't his fault that some woman was too afraid to speak up. He crushed those feelings. Shit. Unless he wanted to play happy little slave to Blair's master, he couldn't let himself get so lost in his instincts, and if Blair fucked up with his boss, Jim had no idea where that would leave him.

"Why Dessy?" Jim repeated, focusing on the lie and not the warm scent of Blair.

Blair sighed. "Look, I went through the whole horoscope thing once. If you didn't get it, I'm not going over it again." Blair shook his head as if he were throwing off the guilt that had been clinging to him. Now he rolled his eyes at Jim like he'd said something particularly stupid.

Jim pursed his lips. "What percentage of this new-found enthusiasm for the Dessy case actually comes from the horoscope?" Jim leaned forward and stared at Blair, daring him to lie. "And what percentage of this is the fact that Kincaid mentioned his name?"

Blair huffed and leaned back away from Jim. "Oh, man. You are just like a dog with a bone. Fine! The horoscope is like ten percent and the thought that Dessy might be having meetings with Kincaid is like a good 90 percent. Happy? But that doesn't mean that I’m doing anything wrong." Blair looked furious, and Jim could feel his own aggravation rise up. How many times had he seen some stupid, young recruit pull the same damn shit? The kid was ready to go off half-cocked to get some sort of revenge, and half-cocked was not ever a safe place to be. Blair swung around to face his computer again. Jim had a nice view of the man's back.

"It's called a lie of omission," Jim said calmly, despite all his frustration. After all, he couldn't exactly order Blair to drop and give him fifty. He could go to Simon himself, but if Blair were emotionally unstable, that put Jim in a strange place… a place that just might lead to a little cell and some broken bond madness. Jim leaned back. He should want that. He should want a way to get the bond broken. He glanced over towards Simon's office. Blair's lies would be a good excuse; it wouldn't look like Jim was trying to manipulate the system and he wouldn't get put in some permanent institution as a problem case.

"Simon doesn't need me making his life difficult, and yeah, I might get a write-up, but what he doesn't know, he can't get blamed for," Blair answered, his voice thick with denial.

"You are a piece of work, Sandburg."

"Whatever," Blair dismissed him, not even turning around or interrupting his rapid-fire typing, and Jim felt an almost overwhelming urge to pop the kid upside the head, but the desire was just a little too strong. He wanted to hit the kid a little too much, so he kept his fingers curled around the arms of his chair.

"He's your boss, but if I ever had a soldier under me pull this shit…"

"Exactly," Blair snapped as he swung around again. "Simon's *my* boss."

"You don't need to remind me of that." Jim gripped the arms of his chair hard enough to feel the finger muscles complain.

"Records still has the paperwork on the Sentinel warrant and I just shot a report on the Taylor case over to Leah in Special Crimes, so let's go see if we can catch Dessy doing something stupid," Blair said as he got up and headed toward the door. For a half second, Jim considered refusing. He considered telling Blair that he wasn't going to let him go off half-cocked without telling his commanding officer what he was doing, especially when Blair was too emotionally involved in the case. He considered all that, but the fact was, Simon wasn't his boss and this wasn't his case and he wasn't Blair's partner. He was the Sentinel.

With his jaw locked tight, Jim got up and followed his guardian out the door.

"Welcome to drug central," Blair said as he rolled the car to a stop in the parking lot of a run down movie theater showing "Cheating Housewives 2" and that old classic "Debbie Does Dallas." A couple of kids were sitting on the sidewalk, at least Jim would call them kids if they'd been wearing high school letter jackets or something. Instead, they had stringy hair and dirty, torn clothes as they leaned against each other and shared a cigarette. They just looked old.

"Nice neighborhood," Jim said. He pulled the collar of his shirt up to try and hide the silver around his neck.

"Yeah, no joke. This is drug central where Dessy is king and the street kids are thick. Dessy works out of the back of that restaurant." Blair glanced in the rear view mirror, and Jim adjusted the side mirror on his side so that he could see the burger place. "Man, I hate this part of town," Blair complained as he pulled down the red ball cap he'd put on. His hair was tucked up under it, so he looked very unBlairlike. "So, can you hear anything?"

"From here?" Jim asked incredulously as he watched building in the mirror.

"Yeah," Blair quickly agreed. "Come on, man. You barely even asked me what happened with Mr. Taylor, and you sure didn't question my decision to believe him. That means that you either heard every word or you're like the most laid back man in creation. I think we both know the second sure isn't true, so your official range is not even close to your actual range."

Fuck. The kid was just a little too sharp, and Jim cursed himself for his own carelessness. So much for keeping his advantages to himself. He sighed. "So you expect me to just listen in on Dessy?" Jim looked over at Blair.

"Well, yeah."

"Doesn't work that way, Chief. I can't see in there. I don't have any sounds to follow. How do you suggest I find a focus?" Jim watched while Blair's enthusiasm slowly turned to chagrin.

"Okay, I knew that. In the class, they talked about a Sentinel using the guardian as a focus. So, you were following me into the Taylor house with your hearing?"

"Yeah, I followed you in," Jim agreed.

"No problem, I'll just go in there," Blair announced brightly as he pushed his door open. Jim reached out to grab him back, but he moved just a little too slow because Blair darted out of his reach.

Jim got out on his side and hurried to the open trunk where Blair was pulling out an old, torn coat with one sleeve that trailed threads as the seam threatened to fall apart.

"You aren't going anywhere near there," he hissed.

"Chill out. He won't even recognize me." Blair gave Jim a little wink as he buttoned the old coat so that Blair now looked like an out of work sports fan with his Cardinals cap pulled down tight.

"And if he does? You're not going in there."

"Oh man, you are not my father. I mean, Naomi may have started young, but you would have been about seven, and just no way. If I get in any trouble, you can just call for backup. Besides, even if he does recognize me, he's probably just going to throw me out on my ass, so there's nothing to worry about." Blair pulled up the collar of the coat as though trying to keep out the chill.

"Call for backup?" Jim asked incredulously. Blair looked up at him and smiled.

"Sure. I mean, a Sentinel might go charging in like a bull seeing red, but my mom's friend Jim would have the sense to call for backup before doing something really stupid, right?" Blair voice had an edge of something ugly to it, and Jim studied his face, trying to decide what Blair was hiding.

"You aren't going," Jim said, as he reached out and grabbed Blair's arm in a tight hold. Blair went still before a shiver traveled through his muscles. For a second, Blair stood staring at the open trunk of the car.

"This is my job. So either let me go and let me slip into a booth where I can order a burger without anyone looking twice, or we're going to have a scene right here, and then I'm still going in there," Blair said quietly, his voice flat of all emotion. Jim narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip.

"This isn't your job. Kincaid is someone else's job. I don't think you should go in there because you are too emotionally involved in this whole case," Jim explained logically.

Blair snorted. "Emotions. I know how to control them just as well as you do, Ellison. This *is* my job, so get your hand off me or we're going to have a fight right here, right now, with all these street kids watching. I'm sure at least one of them will run straight to Dessy and tell him that some bum is fighting with a Sentinel, and I *will* still walk in that burger place even if it's just to piss you off."

"You wouldn't."

Blair looked up with angry eyes, and Jim realized the little shit really would. Fuck. When they got back to the station, he was hauling the kid into Simon's office or the shrink's office or somewhere—even if it meant that he got shoved back in the Institute while the kid got his head screwed back on straight. Jim slowly let go of Blair's arm.

"Keep your head down," Jim growled as he stalked away and got back in the car and slammed the door.

"Sir, yes sir," Blair mocked him quietly as he slammed the trunk closed, but Jim still heard.

Slumping down in the seat, Jim watched in the rear view mirror as Blair crossed the street and headed for the brick building with the garishly painted front window that kept Jim from seeing inside. Shakes $1.99. Big Guy Meal $4.49. Jim followed the stroke marks in the paint just to try and calm the anger and fear that raged through his system. Blair's mom's friend Jim wouldn't be feeling this near overwhelming urge to go in there and stand between Blair and the criminals, so Jim tried his best to live up to Blair's expectation.

Jim eyed the police radio as he listened to Blair order a cheese burger and fries. With Blair in there, Jim could now let his hearing roam the inside of the building, locating the walls from the faint echoes as he closed his eyes and mentally mapped the space. His time in the Institute had at least taught him ways to use his senses that bordered on the amazing. Jim heard the dull sounds of voices hitting drywall and the faint reverberation of sounds echoing off glass and the sharp ricochet of sound waves off metal. From the various sounds, he got a good idea of where the kitchen was.

A woman was complaining about her husband near Blair. A man was eating with his mouth open, the sloppy wet sounds falling from his mouth. Jim let his hearing drift farther from the island of focus Blair provided.

"…on the cookie sales this week," a man's voice said, and if someone had said that in the middle of a park with his girls dressed in Girl Scout outfits, the comment might have gone unnoticed, but somehow Jim didn't think there would be many Girl Scout parents in this neighborhood.

"Will do," another man's voice answered. Jim slid farther down in the seat and closed his eyes.

"How about Southside?"

"It's all good. What's with the sudden curiosity?" voice two asked.

"It's my business. I just need to make sure I know what's going on in it," said a man with a lightly nasal voice with just a light hint of Spanish accent softening his consonants. Dessy.

"Those cookies are selling down to 6th now. Five new kids around, but you know how they come and go. Three up and vanished."

"Anyone important?"

"Nope."

"Hey," a new voice interrupted, deeper than the other two and without the hint of Spanish accent Jim could hear in the others.

"Que?"

"Something's up," the new voice said, and the others fell silent. Jim slid a little farther down in the seat so that he could only see the burger shop in the very edge of the mirror. Fuck.

The door swung open, little bells tied to the pushbar tinkled, and a large black man with dark sunglasses stood in the open door scanning the street. Jim froze, not even breathing as he watched the man's eyes slowly slide over every inch of the street. Too slowly. He stepped out into the sun, and Jim could see his dark skin pimple in the cold.

He searched the street, but his eyes didn't even pause on the old car Blair had checked out of the carpool. With the red tape over one broken taillight and a crumpled fender, the thing fit in this neighborhood.

The man stepped back into the burger place and let the door fall closed. Jim listened as he passed entirely too close to Blair on his way back to the others. Jim reached out and pulled the radio from the cradle, holding the plastic in his hand as it slowly warmed with body heat.

"Problem?" the man who was probably Dessy asked.

"Table four. It's that long-haired cop."

Silence. Jim debated about calling for backup, but Blair wasn't in trouble. They might just kick him out. Jim had an even more strenuous debate about charging in there and yanking Blair out by his long hair.

"Chingalo! That cabron just won't give up. He have backup?"

"Nope," the black guy answered. Jim brought the radio up.

"This is Jim Ellison, Sentinel assigned to Detective Blair Sandburg. We need backup outside José's Burgers and Tacos on Slate Road."

Voices continued inside the burger place. "He just won't give up. But maybe this really is an opportunity to make something good out of a situation that seems to be sliding off track." Jim didn't like that tone of voice.

"Are you an authorized officer?" the dispatcher asked over the radio after a moment of static-laced silence.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" guy number two asked.

"I'm Sandburg's Sentinel," Jim snapped into the radio, and of course that meant he wasn't authorized to use the police radio. "He's in trouble, and I'm calling for help. Get someone over here now!" Jim dropped the radio and headed across the street in a fast trot. If he charged in there, they'd just both get killed, so Jim needed another plan. A brilliant plan. Something good enough for him to short-circuit the instinct to charge into the place and just start breaking bones, although a 911 call or two from panicked diners might make the backup hurry.

"He's a loose cannon. If he's over here without even backup, what do you want to bet that no one knows he's playing Lone Ranger?"

"Dessy, this is crazy."

"Just get outside and make sure he doesn't have backup."

Jim darted toward the alley. Where the fuck was the backup? Jim gritted his teeth at the thought that it just might not be coming or maybe the operator was playing the call for her supervisor, trying to decide what to do with a Sentinel using the radio. After all, if Sandburg were in any real danger, a true Sentinel would just go charging in like a blind bull.

Okay, charge into the diner, and grab Blair. Advantages, the bystanders might mean that Dessy wouldn't fire. Disadvantages, if the bystanders bothered Dessy that much, he probably wouldn't consider taking Blair on in the first place. Option two, slip into the diner and try to quietly slip Blair a message or lure him out. Advantage, no chance of bystanders getting killed. Disadvantage, Dessy might still kill both of them, and as stubborn as Blair could be when he got a bug up his butt, the man might just refuse to go. Option three, head back to the car and curse out dispatch, which would do exactly nothing. Jim listened as the black man came out of the diner and actually started walking down the street away from the alley.

Okay, option four, give them something more interesting than Blair to worry about. Jim eyed the back of the buildings. He had the burger place on one side and a check-cashing joint on the other.

Plan made, Jim hurried back toward the car, trying to look unconcerned while still covering ground with wide loping strides. Yanking open the driver's door, Jim popped the trunk and then sat in the car and pulled open the glove box. Gloves. Good, he pulled them on. The radio was silent, so either the dispatcher was ignoring the call, or she'd tried to contact Blair and had given up. He ignored it, not expecting much help on that front.

In the trunk, Jim found pliers and a crowbar, both of which he tucked into his jacket before slamming the lid back down. Jim headed for the back of the check cashing place and scanned the area. Sensors on the windows, but they were the kind that would go off if the window sash was lifted. Two employees, both up front. Dessy's goon was coming back now, checking this side of the diner, and he was close to the end of the alley. Jim shrugged out of his jacket, wrapping it around the crowbar before he punched through the safety glass.

The shattering window screamed in his hearing, but Jim could still hear the two employees chatting at the front of the store, so he pulled his knife out of his pocket and started working at the wire cage that now protected the open space. Dessy's goon turned and headed back into the burger shop at a good speed, and Jim hurried, pulling one side of the wire free with the pliers as the goon reported in to Dessy. Oh yeah, most people wouldn't have heard the breaking glass from the street, even if it had exploded in Jim's Sentinel hearing.

A number of men, three or four, all headed for the back, and Jim hurried, yanking at the wire until it pulled free of the old wood with a dull shriek, and then he used the curved end of the crowbar to knock the shards of glass off the bottom of the window before he draped his jacket over the bottom to protect his hands and stomach from any remaining slivers.

The back door of the diner came open, and Jim just about dived into the window. Okay, Sandburg, the guys are gone, and now would be a really great time to head back for the car, Jim thought to himself as he listened to Blair order the pie.

In the back room, Jim looked around the dim space. A copier sat quietly humming in one corner, and an ancient vending machine stood against the far wall. In the center, a table looked older than Jim, and the metal chairs surrounding it had worn streaks of silver showing through the brown coating. He stepped to the side to avoid being seen from the mangled window. Okay, so now he had Dessy and his guys out of the burger place. If he just walked out into the front, they'd call the police, but Jim wasn't sure that would keep Dessy busy.

"He's in there," Dessy's goon whispered softly enough that Jim wouldn't have heard if he hadn't been a Sentinel. Of course, Dessy's goon wouldn't have known Jim was inside if he hadn't been a Sentinel, and no wonder the cops couldn't get anyone inside Dessy's operation.

"Doing what?"

"Just standing there."

Okay, that was obviously strange enough to keep them in the alley, but Jim had to do something to keep them interested. Knowing that a Sentinel was listening to every sound, Jim focused on controlling his heart beat as he approached the storeroom door and cracked it open. He didn't need the open door to hear the employees, but a non-Sentinel would. Jim needed to play this one a little smarter than he had with Sandburg.

"He's got the door open listening," the goon reported.

"Ballsy son of a bitch, isn't he?" Dessy answered. "Broad fucking daylight."

"Too ballsy. Let's get out of here," the other man added his two cents.

"No way, amigo. This is interesting."

"There's such a thing as too interesting."

"Not today, there isn't," Dessy countered, and Jim slid out into the hallway. He could hear the front door chime as a customer walked in, and Jim hurried down the hall. The first door was open, a bathroom. The second door opened easily, but it only led to a storeroom. Jim closed it as he headed for the third door. Locked. This was the office.

Jim could hear one employee typing in personal information; the second employee was making the sort of repetitive keystrokes Jim associated with an on-line video game. Backtracking, Jim slipped into the storeroom and pulled out a couple of paperclips which he bent open.

Okay, this was going to be hard. Jim sank to his knees in front of the office door and slid the ends into the lock and used his sensitive fingers to feel for the tumblers. He loved the irony of the FBI teaching him this little skill. No doubt they expected him to use it to infiltrate criminal strongholds and not to rob a check place, but Jim found that his morals were getting more flexible as he got older. Given a choice between robbing a check place to provide a little quiet distraction or letting his companion get kidnapped and killed while a police dispatcher debated policy… Jim was oddly fine with robbing the check place.

"He's picking the office lock," the goon outside said.

"Fuck. He's either one desperate cabron or one seriously good thief," Dessy said, his admiration clear. Jim could hear Blair's fork click against the china, and he whispered a curse to himself.

"Not that good. He's cursing at the lock," Dessy's Sentinel pointed out.

Jim felt the first tumbler slide into place and he concentrated on the lock and not the running report outside the broken window. Okay, if he just pretended to get stuck on the lock, he could head back. But Dessy would take one look at his collar and the jig would be well and truly up.

Jim's fingers worked the lock before he'd even manage to think through all the moves in this dangerous game of chess. The office door swung open, and Jim found himself in a room with furniture that had escaped the seventies.

"Okay, safe, safe, where would I hide a safe?" Jim muttered instead of muttering the string of curses he wanted to when he heard Blair order another cup of coffee. Yep, Jim was going to strangle either his companion or the police dispatcher. Maybe both. The Sentinel kept up a running description of Jim's actions.

"He broke in without knowing where the safe is?" the third guy demanded incredulously. "He's an idiot."

"These places have such limited imaginations. My money is on our young friend. I think he'll find the money and get out."

"Dessy, you're too much of an optimist. Besides, we have business inside."

Jim tightened his jaw at the mention of business, especially since Blair was still inside, now sweet-talking the waitress. Jim really was going to strangle him.

"Business can wait until this is resolved."

"Business may not choose to wait."

"In which case, business can go elsewhere, but this is infinitely more interesting," Dessy finished the conversation, doing something so that the other man's objection was cut off mid-word.

"What's he doing now?" Dessy asked.

"Just standing there," the Sentinel reported, and Jim cringed. Yeah, standing there listening to the debate about whether to go back and kill Sandburg, but Jim couldn't move right away, not unless he wanted to give away the fact that he had heard that.

"Something he hears, perhaps?"

"I can't hear anything, but you guys sometimes think you hear things that aren't there," the Sentinel agreed.

"Maybe losing his nerve," the objector added. "This is stupid," the man nearly whispered, but standing next to him, Dessy had to have heard.

Jim slowly started moving again, walking the perimeter of the room slowly, dragging his fingers over the walls to find the place where a temperature change gave away the presence of a chunk of steel. Almost immediately, he pulled his fingers back from the wall and silently cursed himself as he instead headed for the nearest painting and pulled at it. It didn't move. Jim felt along the frame and could tell it was simply bolted to the wall. He moved to the next painting and again, it didn't move. This one, though, had a small clasp on the side. Jim pressed it and the painting slid to the side revealing the safe.

"Bingo," Jim breathed.

"He's got it," the Sentinel outside reported.

"He's as entertaining as a good soccer match." Dessy slapped someone on the back. Jim focused on the sound of Blair pulling bills out of his wallet. About fucking time. "If he gets out without setting off the alarm, I'm giving him a job," Dessy announced. Jim paused, his gloved fingers on the combination lock.

Blair might be going about this wrong, but Jim had to agree on the need to take down both Dessy and Kincaid. Sure, other slime might ooze into the void they left, but in the mean time, how many kids wouldn't get hooked on drugs or how many might get help when their dealer disappeared or how many Sentinels would avoid Kincaid's slave auctions?

Jim closed his eyes and remembered the night he'd spent outside Kincaid's warehouse. He'd heard Blair's cries slowly fade to whimpers as the beatings continued past his vocal cords' ability to make sound. He'd also heard the men and women below, crying, sobbing, begging for an explanation, for a blanket, for a chance to call a loved one. All those Sentinels were in the Institute now, and as much as Jim hated that place, he had to admit they would get all of those things. However, how many other men and women had Kincaid sold to finance his army? And if Blair was right… if Dessy was the crack they needed to get information on Kincaid…

Jim altered the plan as he now worked as quickly as possible. The biggest obstacle would be convincing them he wasn't a Sentinel despite the collar. The safe yielded easily to him, his fingertips telling him when the tumblers slipped into place even through the gloves. Reaching in, Jim pulled out the cash and tucked it into his jacket pockets.

Moving slowly, Jim crept out of the office and slowly worked his way back to the break room with the broken window, using the time to turn down all his senses, to lower the levels until the constant awareness of Blair's presence vanished, leaving Jim just an aggravating silence that he had to force himself to endure.

Dessy and his men vanished from awareness as well, their heartbeats muffled as Jim lowered his hearing levels until even the employees out front were little more than a low buzz and he couldn't make out the words.

Ignoring the danger, Jim pulled the break room door closed and headed for the window. Okay, this was either a great idea or a horrible one, but it was too late to reconsider now. Jim stuck his head out the window and gave a cursory glance before sliding out over his coat, which was still draped over the sill. With his senses turned low, he couldn't even guess where Dessy and his men had gone, and he could only hope that his half-wit companion had finally headed back out to the car.

TWENTY EIGHT
***
Forcing himself to keep the dials low, Jim carefully slipped out the window. He had just cleared his second leg and was still facing the building when he felt the cold steel of a gun pressed into the back of his neck.

"Neat little operation," Dessy said, his voice amused, and Jim allowed his heart to pound… encouraged it with a little fast breathing, in fact.

"The money's in my front jacket pockets, just take it," Jim offered without turning around.

"How much you get?"

"I didn't stop to count," Jim grunted as the gun barrel against the back of his skull forced his head closer to the open window. He could hear it click against his Sentinel collar.

"He's a fucking sub on a leash," the other Sentinel growled, and Jim felt the back of his shirt yanked down so sharply that it choked him in front.

"I'm no fucking sub, or else I would have known you were here and kicked your ass," Jim snapped.

"What's with the collar?" A hand grabbed Jim's arm and wrenched him around so that he landed with his back to the wall next to the window, and now the Sentinel had a gun pressed to Jim's stomach. Jim held his hands out from his body and tried to look dutifully cowed. The Sentinel narrowed his eyes, and Jim quickly catalogued his features: six-three, tightly curled short hair, dark skin, white scar wandering from his left cheek to his jaw, acne scars, heavy build. Once he knew he'd recognize the man anywhere, he turned his attention to the real threat, Dessy.

"Marks see a collar, and they either don't see me, or they assume I'm Polyanna just trying to save the world. They don't connect the friendly Sentinel to the place getting robbed." Jim listened to his own heart, and carefully controlled each beat. Fast, yes, but no faster than before and just the steady pound of muscle moving blood.

Dessy looked at his Sentinel for confirmation that Jim was telling the truth, and the large man nodded back. Dessy smiled.

"Thief with a brain, and a little ingenuity. You got stones, big man." Jim could really study Dessy now. He looked more like a janitor than a drug lord. He had a receding hairline and unruly wisps of thin curls stuck out over his ears and he had a round face with the beginnings of jowls just starting to hang at his jaw. But his dark eyes studied Jim with a cold efficiency that made Jim start to sweat.

"You want the money, it's yours. This isn't worth bloodshed," Jim let a little whine into his voice and held his hands out farther from his body.

"Take the collar off," Dessy ordered. Jim hesitated, and the goon stuck the gun a little deeper into Jim's belly.

"It's not some toy, like what the kids wear. At home, I have one of those things from the hospital that unlocks the ends." Jim held his breath. This was where they either bought the story or the whole thing got entirely too ugly. Jim could only hope his idiot companion was back at the car calling for backup right now because if he came investigating this alley on his own, Jim was going to kill Blair himself. And why had it only occurred to him now that the man just might be that stupid?

"A thief with a little ingenuity and some serious stones to steal one of those. You'll get fifteen years for trafficking Sentinels if you get caught with that."

"Stupid law. You can get them off with a pneumatic cutter anyway," Jim shrugged. "I had to skip town a little faster than I expected once, and getting it off wasn't the problem. Finding a new collar was."

"I'm Tomas Dessy. These are my friends, Jake Washington," Dessy nodded toward the black Sentinel, the one who had a gun muzzle still buried in Jim's stomach. "And Daniel Inzunza. We call him Zunzi."

"Jim Lawson," Jim offered in return, but he kept his eyes on Washington and that gun.

"Let the man breathe some, Jake." Slowly, Jake stepped back, but the gun stayed out and pointed at Jim.

"I sure haven't heard about a sub working the second story game around here," Dessy leaned back against an old car parked illegally.

"If someone was talking about a Sentinel doing jobs, the collar wouldn't be a very good disguise. Besides, I just came up from Houston. That's where I had to bail before getting the collar off, but I think a couple of cops might have picked up my trail."

"So, you're not that good of a thief."

"They thought I was a runner," Jim corrected Dessy. "I had to hop a freight train south of Sugar Land." Jim carefully blended fact and fiction, controlling his heart beat so that not even Washington could separate out the two.

Dessy laughed again. The man did that a lot, and it was starting to annoy Jim. "My grandfather would call that getting hoisted by your own petard. I never did find out what a petard was, but you've been hoisted by yours, Jim."

"It's a good game. I'm not ready to give it up now," Jim shrugged, but then he froze as Washington brought the gun up so that Jim was staring right down the barrel.

"Jake?" Dessy asked. Jim didn't even breathe.

"Cops are coming." Jim couldn't hear anything with his hearing so low, but he looked toward the mouth of the alley and then back to Jake with sufficient confusion to convince them that he didn't know what was going on.

"Did you ever watch M*A*S*H?" Dessy asked. "Think of Jake as our version of Radar, just bigger and a hell of a lot more dangerous. So, I'm interested in seeing this contraption you have at home, amigo."

"No." Jim shook his head. "Look, you want the money, it's all yours," Jim started reaching for his pockets, but Jake stepped forward, the gun now inches from Jim's forehead, and Jim froze halfway through the gesture. "The money's yours," Jim repeated, "but I don't want any part of whatever you have going here." Slowly he raised his hands again.

"Dessy, let's just get back to our table," Inzunza said softly. This guy did look like a thug. Huge shoulders, a tattoo crawling up his neck, close cropped black hair. Jim might have called this one the dangerous one of the group except that he'd seen too many men like Dessy, men who would order dozens killed while they laughed. Jim ignored Inzunza whose hands curled into frustrated fists and Washington who held that gun in his dark hand and focused just on Dessy.

"I don't want trouble," Jim said quietly, trying to push things into a more manageable direction.

"I don't either," Dessy agreed amiably. "I just asked for an invite to your place, amigo. Surely you're not so unfriendly as to deny me that?"

Jim could hear the first wails of the sirens now, and his eyes darted to the mouth of the alley.

"Dessy," Inzunza hissed. Without even looking back, Jim struck out, his upraised hand sweeping Washington's arm to knock the gun off target before he spun and followed up with a solid punch to the big man's kidney. Washington gasped and fell to his knees, and Jim took off running without even glancing at the others. Hopefully Dessy and Inzunza wouldn't fire with the sound of sirens already so close.

Bullets didn't chase him down the alleyway, but Jim continued to zigzag until he reached the far end and came out on the street between a run down hotel and a liquor store. A group of teenagers clustered around a bench looked up at him strangely, but Jim just calmly started walking up the street.

Maybe it was a fantasy that Banks would let him work undercover, but for the first time since the capture, Jim wasn't just growling about mom's friend Jim, he actually felt like it. He felt like one more person doing his job, even if it was a damn dangerous job. Maybe he felt so good because it was a damn dangerous job, and Jim had grown used to that sharp edge on life. He was used to the adrenaline rush and the competition and the knowledge that one mistake could lead to death.

Jim opened his senses slowly, savoring not only the rush of a mission but also the freedom to allow himself to truly feel and see and hear. After missions, Jim was always wound tight, his whole body coiled for action even as he sat through the debriefing. Always before he'd felt a creeping sensation under his skin, which Jim now realized was his senses struggling to react to the adrenaline.

His father had fucked him up so much that most days he hadn't believed that his senses hadn't been like everyone else's. He'd shoved that part of him down, and as much as Jim had loved being a soldier, he had never been totally comfortable in his own skin. Now, Jim allowed the senses free rein. Worst case scenario, he'd zone, someone would call the Institute, and they'd use that tiny identification chip in the collar to call Sandburg who would pull him out.

However, Jim wasn't anywhere near a zone. He walked the street and catalogued a hundred smells and let his fingers trail over brick facades on buildings and cold metal railings and the glass windows of buildings painted with garish signs advertising cheap cigarettes and cheap booze and greasy food.

Dessy had bought it. Jim laughed out loud, but the strange behavior didn't even get a second glance in this neighborhood. Dessy thought he had a foolproof system with his fucking all-knowing Sentinel, but Jim had walked in and conned him. No wonder the cops couldn't get anyone in with Dessy. Washington would spot a liar a mile off… at least he'd spot anyone who wasn't at least as good as Sandburg.

Jim smiled wider. Obviously he was even better than Sandburg. As a Sentinel, Jim could hear his own body and control it in ways Washington couldn't imagine. At least, he couldn't imagine it without Institute training, and Jim didn't think Washington had ever gone through the system. He had fallen too quickly for that one punch, felt it too much. He probably couldn't control the levels, or maybe he couldn't control the levels individually. Turning up the hearing had probably turned up the tactile sensitivity, so that punch to the kidneys had felt like a car hitting him.

Jim remembered a time when his own control had been as clumsy. Jim's childhood was like the ocean, where waves would rise and block out the wide expanse until he didn't even remember his father's face or the feeling of his father's hands on his arms as he had told Jim the truth about what happened to Sentinels—about what would happen to him if anyone ever knew. And then the wave would pass and Jim could see the past shimmering around him.

Walking down the street, Jim could feel the waves around him retreat until he could almost see his bedroom, the sports trophies on the wall, his football in his hands. His father would constantly test him, stand in the hallway and whisper his name. If Jim answered, he'd find his father's angry face scowling down at him, demanding to know what the hell was wrong with him. Demanding to know why he couldn't just keep the senses to a normal level. Demanding to know if he wanted to be taken away and traded like a piece of equipment.

Fear had led Jim to keep all his senses under control. Fear of the reality his father described and fear of his father's anger. Jim had pushed them down until he felt like he was walking through life in a ball of cotton. He'd been helping Sally in the kitchen one day when he'd heard her scream. He'd stood and stared at her in confusion until she'd run over with pot holders and yanked the hot casserole dish out of his hands. Even now, Jim rubbed his hands in memory of the pain he'd felt as soon as his senses had crept back up to normal.

Controlling just one sense instead of moving them all up or down together… it was a difficult skill to truly master, one Jim hadn't mastered until the Institute. Jim smiled as he remembered the pained wheeze and the way Washington had fallen to his knees instead of striking back. The man might be able to handle most of Dessy's security, but Jim knew exactly where the man's weaknesses lay.

Jim started whistling as he headed for the bus stop. He couldn't go back and stand at Sandburg's side in front of Dessy's place, not without ending the fantasy that Banks would let him go undercover. Instead, he'd head for the precinct.

Jim leaned against the window of Simon's office and watched as the man put the cigar in his mouth and then pulled it out again only to shove it right back in. Blair sat on the very edge of the chair in front of Simon's desk, looking ready to flee, but Jim didn't feel the same itching need to get between them this time. This time, the kid deserved to have Simon rip him a new asshole.

Simon yanked the cigar out of his mouth again, and this time he slammed his free hand down on the desk.

"What were you thinking?" Simon demanded, his voice tightly controlled.

"Jim needed a focus…"

"You went in without back up!"

Jim might have objected to that, but after the dispatcher took her precious time checking with her supervisor and after her supervisor tracked Simon down to ask for his advice, Jim had to admit that he wasn't the best backup. Unarmed and unable to effectively call for help, he couldn't do a hell of a lot to back Blair up.

"I wasn't doing anything dangerous."

"Excuse me?!" Simon's voice rose as he stood up and leaned over the desk. Blair crossed his arm and glared up. "Then why did Jim pull that dumb ass stunt at the check cashing place?"

"Because he overreacted," Blair snapped as he turned to glare at Jim. Jim just smiled sweetly back. The kid knew the truth, his pounding heart made that abundantly clear, so he could obfuscate his little brains out without upsetting Jim.

"Oh, I'll get to his part in this little disaster in a second, but right now, I'm wondering what the hell I'm going to do with you. You used to have the sense god gave a goose. I used to be able to trust you to veto the stupid plans, and now you're out there pulling stunts so stupid that not even Brown would try them!"

Jim narrowed his eyes as he considered Blair. Even back when he first met the kid, he was already taking incredible risks: He'd gotten into the car with Jim even knowing that Jim had killed that guard when he'd escaped the Army. But now Simon definitely seemed to think that Blair was acting out of character. Jim watched as Blair's back went stiff.

"I was doing what I had to do to get the job done. Man, I told you we were going to check out Dessy, and it's standard operating procedure for the guardian to work as a focus for the Sentinel, so I am totally within regulations here. Totally." Blair sounded outright pissed, but Simon didn't look like he was buying it.

"Regulations don't replace common sense. You needed backup and you went in there without it. Damn it, if I can't trust you I won't have you on the streets."

"Fine!" Blair snapped as he stood up, and Jim could smell the distress.

"Blair," Simon stopped, his lips pressed tightly together. "You always pushed at the regulations, usually where they needed pushing or could at least survive a little pushing, but I have never seen you lose your common sense like this." His voice was calmer now, and the anger that practically flowed from Blair turned. Now the man squirmed a little.

"I was trying to do my job," Blair said, his own voice lower now, and for the first time, Jim could see the uncertainty pulling at Blair. Simon was right; something sure as hell wasn't right.

"Dessy mentioned Kincaid," Jim quickly said, anxious to change the direction of this conversation now that it had turned dark. Jim tore his eyes from Blair's shocked expression to Simon's even more shocked one.

"Before they started talking about getting rid of Sandburg, Dessy mentioned Kincaid," he lied. If Blair was getting in over his head because of the Kincaid shit, Jim was ending it right here, right now.

"Kincaid," Simon said slowly, his eyes opening wide.

"No fucking way," Blair hissed as his body tightened into a tight coil. Jim could almost taste the man's desire to hit him. Even though Jim had grown up with an overwhelming fear of being abused by a guardian, somehow, even at his worst, Blair wasn't exactly frightening. Jim was more worried for him than scared of him.

"Kincaid?" Simon repeated. "Welcome to the fucking Sandburg Zone."

"I would have found some other distraction if we didn't need Dessy. But if Dessy is hooked up with Kincaid, we need to know what's going on, and this gives us an in. He thinks I'm a small time thief," Jim said quietly, and then he let Simon come to his own conclusions. Soon enough, Simon started shaking his head.

"No. No way am I sending a Sentinel in under cover. The judge would order my lifeless body draped over the courthouse steps if I did something like that."

"I can handle it," Jim growled. Simon looked at him for a long second before he fell back into his chair. Rubbing his face with a hand, he sighed.

"Look, I know you can handle it. I've read your record, at least the parts that aren't blacked out, and I have a pretty good idea of what you can handle. That doesn't change the law."

"So, you'll walk away from your only chance to get an in with Dessy and your only chance to get some information on Kincaid?" Jim crossed his arms. The feeling of satisfaction slowly drained as Jim's fantasy met with reality and got its ass kicked. God, he needed to learn his lesson. Fuck, he needed to focus on the plan, not playing cops and robbers.

"It's not our only chance," Simon sighed, "just our best one since Dessy has a Sentinel working for him."

"You can't be considering this!" Blair interrupted.

"You have a problem with it?" Jim demanded. The very fact that his companion didn't want him to take the job made his guts curl into knots.

"Aldo will have a problem with it," Blair said darkly. Jim glared down, grateful for the inches that gave him at least an illusion of power.

Simon sighed. "Which is why it's not going to happen. And Jim, I understand that you could do this job. And god knows, I know the law is unfair. Peggy Anderson and I got arrested protesting Sentinel laws back in high school, but this is just too far outside the lines." Simon leaned forward. "And Sandburg is not getting anywhere near this case. Blair, you need to get your head together. I've never had to tell you to go to the shrink before, but I'm telling you now that you need to either pull your head out of your ass or make an appointment. You have three days' suspension to think about which one you're planning on doing."

"Simon," Blair protested.

"Save it." Simon held up his hand to stop any more discussion. "Special Crimes has the Taylor case, and Jim can write up a statement for the Kincaid taskforce before you two take off. And Jim, you can consider the three days your punishment for that stunt with the check cashing place. I made sure that dispatch will take your calls from now on, but that's still no excuse for putting yourself in a position where you could have gotten yourself killed."

"I knew what I was doing," Jim defended himself.

"Yeah, well, I don't know what you were doing because that stunt was so far outside both regulations and common sense that I'm shocked that someone with as much experience as you have would try it. You've worked with a team before, so you know how it's supposed to go. Next time, you don't put yourself undercover without any backup or anyone knowing where the hell you are. So, both of you: I don't want to see your faces in this station for the next three days."

Simon swung his chair around to face the computer, and Jim could hear Blair sigh. Not waiting for Blair, Jim turned and headed out of the office. He had a desk, but no computer, so he headed for Blair's desk to type up his statement, mentally editing the conversation he'd heard to include the lie about Kincaid.

"I can't believe you said that," Blair whispered, his voice little more than an angry hiss as he slid into Jim's chair and swung his chair around to face the back wall.

"I'll do what I have to do, Junior," Jim answered calmly as he hit the space bar on Blair's computer to make the screen saver go off. "So, what program do I use to type a statement?" Jim waited for a second before he turned to see Blair ignoring him, staring at the back wall. That same sharp prick of concern nagged Jim as he watched Blair. Maybe this shit with Kincaid was getting to the kid more than he thought. After all, he hadn't really known Sandburg for all that long. "Blair?" Jim asked.

Blair swung his chair around and rolled forward, pressing against the back of Jim's chair as he leaned across and pointed to an icon on the screen. "That one. The user name is 'bjsandbu' and the password is 'Irian Jaya'."

"Irian Jaya?" Jim asked.

"Long story, and I'm not really in a mood to tell it," Blair quickly cut Jim off as he rolled his chair back away. Jim gritted his teeth and focused on the work as Blair moved away, his leg nervously bouncing, and his heartbeat slowly accelerating. For every two sentences Jim wrote, his heart rate went up another four or five beats. Finally, Jim finished and saved the document before forwarding it to Simon's email.

"Okay, what the hell is wrong with you?" Jim demanded as he swung his chair to face Blair. Blair stared at him for a second, his heart beating fast enough that it sounded as though the man had been running.

"Undercover?" Blair finally asked, his voice soft, but the fury still coming through.

"Your mom's friend Jim has probably been in tighter spots, and he is perfectly capable of taking care of himself."

"My mom's friend Jim isn't an active, unbonded Sentinel," Blair snapped, his voice still low, but now it had a tremor to it that Jim couldn't quite identify… fury maybe.

"Unbonded?" Jim asked, his eyebrows going up.

"Okay, so sometimes it takes me a little longer to figure things out when they aren't in a book, but I am not an idiot. And I get why you wouldn't want to bond with me, but you can't go into some shit like that without having a guardian or a companion or whatever the hell you want to call it."

"You think…" Jim started, but Blair exploded up from this chair.

"Wait!" Jim called as he started after Blair, but Blair just headed for the door, ignoring all the strange looks they got. Jim caught him in the hall halfway to the elevator. Grabbing the kid's arm, Jim jerked him away from the elevator and into the more private hall that led to the bathrooms. A few Traffic cops looked on curiously, but they kept walking when Blair offered a weak smile and a shrug.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Jim demanded once he'd pushed Blair up against the wall and leaned his hands on either side to keep him from running again.

"I've kept the secret, and I'm not about to tell anyone, but if you go undercover without a guardian to pull you out of any zone, man, you're going to get yourself killed," Blair muttered, his fists clenched in frustration, and Jim could smell the distress now that he stood so close.

"Where's the Sentinel room?" Jim demanded. He wasn't having this conversation here, and he sure wasn't going to wait until they got home.

"What?" Blair asked, blinking in surprise at the change of topic. Jim reached out and grabbed him by the back of the neck.

"Where. Is. The. Sentinel. Room? There has to be one somewhere in this building."

"Geez, okay, okay," Blair said as he got an arm between them and shoved at Jim's chest. Jim let him escape before grabbing the kid's shoulder just hard enough to let him know that Jim was pissed and through being nice about it. "Second floor, across from booking," Blair said quickly.

"Come on," Jim said as he herded Blair ahead of him to the stairs, and the whole time, Jim struggled to figure out what the hell the kid was talking about. Either the kid believed that shit and he was possibly the dumbest person on earth, or the kid didn't and was trying to manipulate Jim, but either way, Jim's temper just wasn't up for taking a long drive in a small car to get home. They were settling this now.

TWENTY NINE
***
On the second floor, Jim followed Blair out into the hall, his hand again locked over Blair's shoulder as they hurried past the rows of small cells and smaller desks as the run-of-the mill criminals got processed through the station. A drunk guy handcuffed to a desk was shouting something, and Jim flinched from the shrill voice. They reached the back, and Jim could instantly tell the difference as the sound dampening material on the walls prevented the curses and shouts from echoing back against him.

"Blair," a woman at a small desk called out. Jim tightened his grip.

"Colleen. Hey. We just need to borrow a room for a sec. You know." Blair offered a half-excuse at they hurried by her, but she just blinked and then nodded as Jim pushed Blair right on past.

"Room three!" she called, and Blair grabbed the door below the "3" which immediately flashed from green to red. Jim gave Blair a little push into the sound-proofed room and then pulled the door closed behind them, throwing the bolt that would keep everyone out. Legally, no one could monitor a Sentinel room, but Jim still scanned the area, pacing the padded walls before he turned his attention to Blair who stood next to the low mattress in the middle of the fairly small room.

"Okay, now, what the hell are you talking about?" Jim demanded.

"Hey, I get it. Faulty bonding would totally explain how you could turn against Keith, and how you could leave your first bonded guide for that matter. Man, I know that you need to keep this quiet because they would totally put you in some permanent facility. Permanent permanent. There 'til you die permanent. I get it."

"You think…. You think I'm not bonded to you." Jim just stared.

"It's cool," Blair insisted as he held his hands up in surrender, refusing to meet Jim's gaze. "I'm not telling anyone. But if you go out there and zone, man, game over. If I can't bring you out of a zone, they're going to know."

"They'll know I'm not bonded?" Jim checked just to make sure he was following Blair's crazy logic. "I think I've been hitting you upside the head too hard. You have brain damage."

Blair narrowed his eyes. "Look, I already said I wouldn't tell them. You can trust me. And yeah, that is pretty funny considering I'm the one who lied and brought you in, but you can."

"Trust you not to tell that I'm not bonded?" Jim couldn't help it. He smiled.

"Yes. What is your malfunction?" Blair shouted, and then, like a popped balloon, he sagged and dropped onto the mattress, shoving his hair back from his face. "Look, I know this isn't easy for you, but it's not been a joy for me, either. And I'm trying here."

Jim could smell the distress now, the sour stink corrupting the air faster than the quietly whirring fans could clear it, and the smile faded. "What are you trying to do?" Jim asked quietly, suddenly feeling like he was walking over a rotting bridge and he just didn't know what he would find underneath.

"I'm trying to stay out of your way. I'm trying to keep your fucking secret. I'm trying to not fuck up your life any more than I already have, and you're not making it easy." Blair exploded up and headed for the door, but Jim got ahead of him and slipped his own body between Blair and escape. Blair stared at him for a second, and then retreated back to the side with the bed.

"Chief, let's slow down a second. Why do you think I haven't bonded?"

Blair snorted. "You mean other than leaving two different bond-mates? You mean other than not wanting me as a guardian even after claiming to bond? You mean other than you not even touching me without recoiling in horror? I'm pretty sure that right there is enough for faulty bonding syndrome."

"I didn't bond with Keith at all, and my bond to Incacha…" Jim stopped, that wasn't a part of his life he felt like sharing with Blair. "And what do you mean that I don't want you?"

Jim watched as Blair's face flushed a nice shade of toilet paper white. "Hey, it's okay. I get it. I caught you; why *would* you want me? And then there's the whole bit about saving me leading to Kincaid… you know."

"Blair," Jim said, not even sure what to say to that. They'd had this discussion in the hospital so many times that Jim couldn't summon more than a weary frustration. He didn't blame Blair; he blamed Kincaid.

"You didn't have a choice. And I offered to help you escape if you picked me, so I'm okay with that too. I just…" Blair stopped before spinning around and staring at the back wall. The room was silent as Blair took several breaths, and Jim could smell the salt of sweat and tears flavor the air.

"Okay, we're trying this again. I don't blame you for Kincaid."

"Man, you aren't even processing what Kincaid did, so how can you say that? You're still up the river De Nile!" Blair laughed, but it was a bitter sound, and he didn't turn to face Jim.

"No, Chief, I’m not. Kincaid raped me, but you can't expect me to get weepy about it. Since I was twelve years old, my old man told me that some guardian would rape me. And as a Ranger, we were trained to expect torture. No one ever mentioned rape, but when you sat in those classes listening to instructors who'd been stripped and electrocuted and beaten, you got the idea that their captors probably didn't stop at that line. I've had decades to process the idea of rape, so don't project your feelings onto me." Jim kept his voice calm and steady; he had the feeling it wouldn't take much to push Blair over some emotional edge right now, and he cursed himself for not noticing that. How could he not notice that Blair was this hurt and this… stupid was the best word Jim could come up with, although he knew that wasn't fair to Blair.

"Projecting?" Blair turned and looked at Jim. His eyes were tear-bright and he wiped at a cheek absent-mindedly. "You're psychoanalyzing me now?"

"You're the one who's going after Kincaid with no thought about your own safety. Excuse me, but that sounds like you're the one not dealing with what Kincaid did to you. I heard him that night. I heard what he said to you, and I've never heard you tell anyone what that bastard really did. You talk about the beating, but not what he threatened to do."

"See?!" Blair pointed triumphantly. "Man, if we were bonded, there's no way you could have listened to that and not gone charging in. The judge is an idiot if she bought that story about your bond to me interfering with your bond to Keith. Faulty bonding is the only thing that makes sense."

"I wasn't bonded to you at the time," Jim growled, frustrated with how the kid seemed to twist every conversation until Jim couldn't see his way to his own point. "But I still had to sit out there and I had to dig my fingers into the ground and pretend it was Kincaid's neck."

Blair just stared, but Jim could see the disbelief in the stubborn expression.

Stepping forward, Jim put himself an inch from Blair. "I would have charged in if it would have done any good. But it wouldn't have. And I didn't want to end up with a front row view of Kincaid selling you to some sadist. I'm a soldier, and I won't throw away an advantage, no matter how much I want to. You have to figure out that I'm the soldier first and the Sentinel second. I always will be."

"Faulty bonding syndrome. You feel the instincts, but they just aren't fully developed. It makes sense. And man, I'm glad you aren't bonded to me because it will make running easier for you; I get that."

"Blair," Jim started even though he didn't know what to say after that.

"But if you go after Kincaid and zone, there's no way for me to cover for you," Blair finally said, his voice steady even though Jim could hear the strained tones. Jim turned away and stared at the wall, instinct and training and fears all colliding in him until he couldn't figure out what to say, what to do. Shit, why did he have to choose such a stubborn little shit for a bond-mate?

Taking a deep breath, Jim said the first thing that came to mind. "If you go after Kincaid and get killed, there's no way for me deal with losing you," Jim admitted.

"Man, you'd be fine. I know you aren't bonded," Blair shrugged. "I know you don't want me."

Jim turned back and put his hand on Blair's shoulder, but Blair shrugged it away and darted forward into the far corner.

"You can stop fucking with me any time now," Blair said, his voice now trembling.

"I'm not fucking with you, Chief. I don't know where you got this idea that I don't want…"

"From you!" Blair practically yelled as he turned around. He took a deep breath and started again, but his voice was only marginally lower. "You make it fucking clear every time we're in the room together. Now, I'm trying to deal with this, but you're acting like an asshole, and I just want to leave right now." Blair took a step toward the door, and Jim sidestepped to cut him off.

"I never said I didn't want you," Jim quickly countered, but Blair just turned his back and returned to the corner, resting his forehead against the padded wall.

"You are a grade-A asshole," Blair whispered to the wall. "So how long are you keeping me in here?"

"I'm not… It's not like I kidnapped you," Jim snapped. Blair didn't move. "Look, I can be an asshole, but unless you start talking, I'm still not going to know what the hell you're talking about."

"You don't know?" Blair demanded as he whirled around. "You don't know? You don't remember the disgust when you thought we would share a bed? You don't remember all the little comments about how it's *my* apartment and *my* car and *my* job and *my* boss because you won't share any of it with me? You don't remember blaming me because the fucking Army wouldn't cough up your pay?" Blair might have gone on, but his voice broke, and Jim was suddenly faced with Blair, tears running down his face even while his expression was one of fury. Jim's stomach knotted and rolled as he considered all the things he had said. At the time, he'd thought they rolled off Blair, that he understood they were just frustrated jabs. Obviously not.

He reached out for Blair, but the man flinched back. "Don't fucking go there. Look, I'm dealing with this the best I can. I'm processing. I'm dealing." Blair snapped the words out as through he were trying to convince himself, but Jim ignored them as he took a slow step forward.

"Chief, I never meant…"

"You never meant to get caught. Got it. We're on the same page." Blair reached up and angrily wiped the tears away. "I fucking hate crying. I blame Naomi, you know. She raised me to express my feelings, and sometimes I just don't process them fast enough to keep from making a complete fool out of myself." Blair turned back to the wall, wiping away more tears.

"Chief, will you stop being stubborn for long enough to listen to what I'm saying? You aren't making a fool out of yourself. I think you're just pointing out that I've been a fool," Jim said as he eased forward another step and reached up to let his hand rest on Blair's back. Blair shivered like a horse trying to get rid of a fly, but then he stood silent, his arms wrapped around his own stomach.

"Chief, I didn't know you believed the shit I was saying. It was just… it was me being an asshole."

Blair shrugged but didn't answer.

"Do you really think I'm not bonded to you?" Jim asked quietly. Blair was silent for so long, that Jim was just about convinced he wouldn't answer.

"Yeah," Blair answered. "Man, it fits. And you're right… it's your life and I can't tell my mom's friend Jim how to live."

"Blair, turn around," Jim said softly, letting his hand rest on Blair's back until the man started to turn. Now Jim could see the puffiness in his eyes and hear the unsteady breaths even if the tears had dried. "You are my bond-mate and my companion, even when I act like an idiot."

Blair just shook his head. "Don't do this to me, Jim. Please, don't do this now." Blair closed his eyes, and Jim reached up and let his hand rest against Blair's cheek. The man's eyes immediately opened wide, fear and uncertainty making his gaze lock onto Jim.

Jim looked Blair right in the eye, focusing on the blue and ignoring the signs of Blair's recent tears. The blue sharpened, the solid color fading into a swirl of blue hues. Along the outside edge, the blue darkened to a thin line and a river of dark blue lay close to the black iris. But the black iris wasn't black any more. Jim could see himself reflected in it, his face distorted by the shadows of the veins on the back of Blair's eye. Ignoring that, Jim let himself focus on the blues, and the way light blue bled into a sky blue. He focused closer until the blues filled his world.

"Jim! Jim, follow my voice back. Come on. Don't do this. Whatever you're trying to prove, you're just scaring the shit out of me here. Come on. Man, and I thought you were an asshole before. No way. Now this… this is being an asshole."

"Nice, Sandburg," Jim groaned as he blinked. His head pounded and he had to squint against the bright lights of the room.

"Oh man, I'll turn those down, but if you did that on purpose, you deserve whatever headache you have. Totally deserve," Blair complained as he got up, his movement making the ground shift and tilt. That was Jim's first clue that he was laying on the mattress in the Sentinel room, his shoes off and his shirt open.

"How long?"

"Nearly fifteen minutes, and if you were trying to prove something…"

"Not trying, proving," Jim corrected him. "I proved that you could pull me out of a zone."

"You proved that you're an asshole determined to give me a heart attack," Blair argued as he turned the lights down. Jim sighed.

"If I plead guilty to being an asshole, can we have this argument later?"

"Man, just promise me you'll never do something that stupid again," Blair said, his voice now soft, and Jim cracked one eye open to look at him.

"I'll try to avoid it," Jim agreed. His head pounded and he couldn't quite control his vision which faded in and out making the whole room fade and brighten and wave in a way that made him vaguely seasick. He tried closing his eyes, and then he just got to see the veins and cells of his eyelids backlit by the dim lights in the room. Slowly that image faded as a series of colored dots chased across his vision.

"I didn't mean things the way you took them," Jim finally said as the seasickness receded.

"You didn't mean to constantly point out that this is my life, not yours, and that you'd much rather be doing anything other than being here?" Blair clarified.

Jim counted to ten before slowly opening his eyes. The kid was never going to make this easy. "Chief…"

"Hey, no, you're right. I shouldn't be putting you on the spot when you're still recovering. One of us has to be reasonable." Blair held out his hands as though in surrender, but Jim wasn't letting the conversation end here… it gave Blair too much wiggle room to assume the worst, and Jim had the feeling that Sandburg had already done too much assuming.

"Chief…"

"And whatever bug has been up your butt for the past week or so, it's obviously not that you haven't bonded."

"Chief…"

"And if I keep talking, maybe you'll just give up because I really am feeling a little raw right now. I need some processing time, you know? Burn a little sage, meditate, play some South American drums."

"Please don't. I have drums pounding in my head already," Jim commented as he let his head fall back against the pillow.

"Can I help?" Blair asked quietly. "The classes…"

"They told you that a Sentinel coming out of a zone is a clingy, emotional, strung-out-on-pain mess?" Jim finished for him.

"Hey, this is me listening to you because I'm starting to think I don't know a lot of what I thought I knew. What's that old saying, it's not what you don't know that gets you in trouble, it's what you think you do know."

"Yeah, well the Institute is half right. It is painful and touch does help, so get your ass down here," Jim suggested softly.

"Nice invitation. I've gotten better offers before," Blair quickly answered, but he just as quickly came to the edge of the bed and sat down. "Jim…"

"I'm an asshole. We've already covered this," Jim sighed. "I don't blame you and I’m not disgusted by you. I just…" Jim reached out and pulled on Blair's arm, tugging him down to the mattress so that Blair lay with his back to Jim's chest, and Jim curled an arm around Blair's waist. He could feel Blair's heart beat and smell him and feel his warmth.

"We aren't doing too well at finishing sentences, here," Blair observed after a few minutes.

"I just see myself fitting into this life too easily," Jim admitted, whispering the words into Blair's ear and watching individual wisps of hair float and tangle on the puffs of air. It was easier admitting this without those sharp eyes watching him. "I'm not cut out to be a slave, and it's just getting too easy to see myself becoming one."

"You aren't…. I don't want you to be a slave. I never wanted that for you." Blair tried to wiggle around to look at Jim, but Jim tightened his hold, keeping Blair tucked in close as he closed his eyes, seeking a sense of privacy.

"And that's why you scare the shit out of me. You see me as something more than just a Sentinel… usually," Jim amended himself, "and that makes it too easy to imagine making a life here where we could be partners."

"And that's what I want. If I ever made you feel like less than…"

"It's not you, Chief. Every time Aldo ignores me like I'm a piece of furniture or Raul thinks I'm some sort of hero just because of this collar around my neck, I remember why I hate being a Sentinel." Jim felt the headache retreat as Blair's warmth sank into him. His senses focused on his companion as they struggled to level out at 'normal.' Jim leaned forward so that he buried his nose in the curls and the dark smell of Blair.

"But helping find Kari's killer and working to bring down Kincaid, man, that has got to count for something," Blair whispered. He'd stopped squirming now, and he pressed his warmth back into Jim's embrace.

"It counts for too much," Jim admitted. "It makes it too easy to tell myself that I could live with this life. But Blair—"

"I would never see you as anything other than Jim Ellison, Army Ranger and general all-round asshole, and I know that Simon has just as much respect for you. But if you want to leave, I so totally meant what I said. I will help you any way I can. The Army should be sending your back pay, and that can open a lot of doors."

"Canada," Jim said flatly.

"Totally. Hell, you could buy some land and legally emigrate. I mean, it wouldn't be easy since most countries get a little nervous with American Sentinels coming in, but there are options."

Jim didn't answer. Options. Options that included him leaving Blair. Options that left Blair with his life here and sent Jim somewhere else where he would have respect but no companion. Jim closed his eyes and tried to just feel the pleasure of holding his companion, but all the fears and choices leeched up through his resolve. His old fantasy about throwing Blair in the trunk of the car returned, but Jim wouldn't do to Blair what others had basically done to him.

"Jim?" Blair asked in the silence.

"Yeah. I know. You're a good man, and sometimes that makes it a little too easy to take a shot at you when I'm mad at the world," Jim said as he let go of Blair. He turned away and sat up on his side of the mattress. "Headache's gone." Sitting on the edge of the mattress, he pulled his shoes back on.

"Wow. That was fast. The Institute—and I'm not going to finish that because we've already established that their batting average is like…" Blair made a whistling noise like a bomb falling and then followed up with a little mock explosion. "Yeah, not very reliable. Now that the paper on the Institute's inadvertent damage to Sentinel control is finished, I could write a paper investigating some of the other underlying assumptions. Eli is really excited about the idea of doing a series of papers. He thinks the preliminary data is really exciting, and some of the historical research is amazing. Totally amazing."

"Sounds good, Chief," Jim agreed as he stood up.

"So, you aren't, you know, miserable being stuck with me?"

"Chief, I know I'm lucky to even have you," Jim admitted. Unfortunately, he was a little too lucky to get Blair as a guardian. With luck like this, he was going to end up being a slave for the rest of his life because Canada wasn't looking that good, not without Blair there.

Blair smiled, his whole face lighting with wonder and relief.

"Come on, let's go get dinner," Jim said as he slipped an arm around Blair's shoulders. "And if Simon can get approval, I am going undercover with Dessy," Jim quickly added.

"Hey, no problem. Worst comes to worst, I'll be there to back you up and pull you out of any zone."

"I know you will, Chief," Jim nodded as he opened the door to the Sentinel room and guided Blair out into the hall. The noise of booking immediately washed over him, but he dismissed it easily as he let the sound of Blair's heart beat act as a buffer between him and the sounds of the station.

"Hey Colleen, have a great night," Blair called as they passed the desk on the way out.

"Night, Blair," she smiled back.

Jim nodded to her before they headed for the elevator and home.

THIRTY
***
Jim walked in the loft and let his senses check the perimeters automatically as Blair came in behind him and headed for the kitchen with a sack of groceries.

"Mashed potatoes or baked?" Blair asked.

"Either one is fine with me," Jim said as he finished his sensory sweep. Blair's room had a strange smell coming from it, and Jim headed for the heavy door. Pulling it the rest of the way open, he spotted the brown apple core sitting next to the bed.

"Oh man, sorry. I left my breakfast in there, didn't I?" Blair pushed past him, and Jim felt the flash of warmth across his shoulder as they connected. Then Blair was hopping over books strewn across the floor so he could grab the core. "You really should get retested because your range is way better than even your jacket said."

"Never let the enemy see your true abilities," Jim countered. "I always threw the tests off a little."

Blair looked up at him with an expression that was caught somewhere between awe and horror. "Oh man, you are something. Those tests are supposed to be designed so that a Sentinel can't obfuscate." Blair headed back toward the kitchen. The garbage had been replaced with a tall ceramic Sentinel-friendly bin guaranteed not to pick up odors from the garbage inside. Blair dropped the core through the little swinging door on the top.

"No test is fool-proof," Jim commented.

"And you're no fool," Blair finished. Jim leaned against the wall and watched as Blair bounced around the kitchen. The man wasn't the same one who'd left the loft that morning. That man had been guarded, every movement had been small and controlled. This Blair was energetic, just as likely to bounce into a turn as to just turn. Jim watched suspiciously, remembering something Incacha had once told him about companions and guides and the true path.

"Man, there are just so many assumptions when it comes to Sentinels. Eli is totally into this new paper on the Institute damaging control, and he's sure that I could do my dissertation on something related to debunking Sentinel myths. Of course, that would require a control group, and that's the problem. I mean, I can't exactly use you as a control group of one, and since you've gone through the system, you aren't even qualified for the control group. Or at least, your behavior now isn't. Eli and I were emailing about using your records and the whole incident in Houston with the METRORail hijacking as proof that some of the assumptions are totally bullshit."

"You know about that?" Jim asked as he pushed off the wall and headed for the kitchen. Blair was trying to peel potatoes, but the way he kept gesturing with the knife just made Jim a little uncomfortable. He didn't feel like having an emergency room visit tonight. "Let me do the potatoes," he asked. Blair handed over the knife and pushed the potatoes towards him before he turned to the refrigerator.

"Hey, all of Houston knows about the Avenging Sentinel," Blair snorted.

"The what?" Jim looked up sharply.

"Oh man, I'll show you the clippings, but you are the stuff of folk hero legend down there. But that's not the point. What Eli and I want to include in a paper is the fact that you continued to function at ground zero of a tear gas attack. You identified the hostage-takers and took them all out without zoning, and that so should not have been possible if the literature was right. But Eli had a friend who's from France, and she documented…"

"Folk hero?" Jim demanded. He remembered the day vividly, and at the time, he just wanted off that damn train. Yeah, he'd taken out the hijackers, but only because he didn't have a choice. "I just did what I had to."

Blair froze, half a fish minus the head hanging from one hand. He laughed. "You just don't get it, do you? Yeah, you just did what you had to, but you did what no one is supposed to be able to. A Sentinel should have been disabled by the tear gas, and a non-Sentinel wouldn't have been able to see anything through the smoke. And then the whole disappearing act was just a little too Lone Ranger. The whole city thinks you're some sort of hero."

Jim paused in the middle of peeling the potatoes and put the knife down. "I'm not really comfortable with that."

"Hey, they aren't idolizing some random Sentinel. They just idolize Jim Ellison, this man who can do what no one else can. But then again, if you're right and I can find the research subjects, I just may prove that you're just an Average Joe and any Sentinel could do the same if they weren't crippled by the system. So, if you want to play hero, we'd better vacation down there fast before I steal your thunder," Blair teased. He gave Jim a wink and then slapped the fish down on the cutting board.

"Steal away, Chief. I do not need to be a hero." Jim went back to cutting the potatoes.

"You say that now, but just you watch. I'm going to prove you're just average and then you'll be sorry you never went down there and had your parade."

"They had a parade?" Jim asked, looking up from his work. Blair looked over at him incredulously before he started smiling.

"Smartass," Jim complained, realizing the kid had been joking. Blair shrugged.

"Totally. But as much as I think the system is wrong, I'm still thinking that the whole Lone Ranger bit is probably above and beyond what most Sentinels could do. So, your cape is safe with me. But anyway, Eli and I are kinda going around with the whole idea of a control group." Blair picked up the deboning knife and promptly started gesturing with that. Jim flinched, wishing Blair had just fixed nice, safe, no-knife-required hamburgers.

"He wants to talk to runners." Jim finished with the potatoes and put the knife down as he looked at Blair. Blair nodded before going back to deboning the fish.

"Yeah, he says that an anthropologist has a duty to look at the edges of society, but being a cop, I can't do that. I mean, yeah, I'm not in the Sentinel division any more, but if Simon had a fit today, I don't even want to think what kind of kittens he'd give birth to if I tried to track down runners and then NOT bring them in. We're talking big, mutant kittens. Possibly radioactive." The deboning knife made a circle in the air.

"What makes him think you can?" Jim asked as he remembered Blair mentioning Ruby's name. Maybe Eli knew the kid had connections.

"He thinks you could make contact. He thinks with your reputation as a runner, people might be willing to talk to you." Blair paused, a rib bone half out of the fish. "He wants you to go with him on a tour of the homeless shelters. He says that if our hypothesis is right, there are probably Sentinels who function well enough to stay away from the Institute, but not well enough to keep a job. You know, they'd get headaches and sensory storms and have to call in sick too much. Hey, we can use Washington as part of the control group. I mean, that's not the best job to have, but he's definitely holding down a job. But again, you can't make research out of one subject, so Eli wants to make contact with runners."

"Which he wants me to help him find. Not happening," Jim shook his head. Blair returned to pulling fish bones.

"I told him that you wouldn't go for it, but I'd run it by you."

"And if I said yes?" Jim asked, just a little bothered by Blair answering for him.

"I'd have one more thing to hide from Simon," Blair brought the knife up and then slammed it down, chopping the fish in half.

"So, just send him to Ruby," Jim suggested. The knife came down again, but this time it went off target so that it cut a crooked, roughly one inch strip off one side of the fish. Jim looked at the mangled piece and then up to Blair who stared at him with undisguised shock. "You're getting the small part," Jim commented.

Blair glanced down. "I don't know what you're talking about," he quickly said, his heart pounding as he put the knife down and grabbed for a pen. 'Aldo-Sentinel listening?!?!' he wrote on the paper in thick letters, heavily pressed into the paper.

"He tried. He couldn't get a warrant," Jim shrugged. "I think he would have gone ahead and set up anyway except that Sentinel who came with him is actually assigned to some woman named Sheila and she had a thing or two to say to Aldo."

"Sheila Irwin," Blair said slowly. "She's an even bigger bitch than Aldo is."

Jim snorted. If this was Blair's normal personality, now he could see why Simon had been concerned. The kid had a vicious sense of humor. "Yeah, from the sounds of it, she was ready to confiscate a body part or two."

"And Sheila would, at least if she could find any on Aldo. Oh man, that woman scares me worse than Sam in forensics. We have some seriously terrifying women down there. And Carolyn in Technical Support…I'm telling you, it's death by paper cut if you screw up her department. Brown once switched file numbers trying to slip his stuff ahead of a case from Burglary and I think he's still trying to grow hair back in places."

"I'll keep that in mind," Jim laughed as he carried the potato chunks over and dropped them in the pot of boiling water waiting on the stove. Blair was still laughing wryly.

"But how do you know about Sheila and Aldo?"

"IA is just one floor up from the break room. What? Did you think I really liked stale candy bars that much?" Jim put the lid on the pan.

Blair put the frypan on the stovetop next to the potatoes, resting his hand on Jim's back as he did. Jim could feel the need build in the pressure from that hand, and Jim stepped away.

"You could hear them… from another floor?!"

"It's not like the building is soundproofed," Jim shrugged. "Once I get used to the sounds in a place, it's not that hard to filter them out and focus on what I want. So, are we through changing the subject now?" Jim backed up and leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms as he watched Blair prep the pan for the fish.

"What?" Blair asked, turning to give Jim another of those innocent looks.

"The CIA would have loved you." Jim shook his head. "You have redirection down to an art. Hell, you would have given a few operatives I've known a run for their money. However, I'm still interested in why you aren't just going to Ruby if you want to talk to runners. She's part of the underground, isn't she?"

"How? No, no, if you've been using some covert ops mojo on me, I don't want to know," Blair said as he held up a hand.

Jim smiled, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing outright. "Mojo?"

"A lot of people think mojo means magic, but no way. It's this little bag that you sew together with magical ingredients, and then you hide it. It gives you luck, charm… you know, personal magnetism. A person with good mojo just has things fall in their lap, and short of you having a little mojo bag hidden somewhere, I have no idea how you came up with that name."

"You must have been really out of it at the hospital." Jim shook his head as Blair picked up the fish and rubbed spices on it before dropping it in the hot pan.

"We talked about this? Man, how many drugs were they giving me?"

"When Aldo first came, you remember that?"

Blair paused, spatula raised. "Vaguely. It seems like he was acting like an idiot, but Aldo usually acts like an idiot, so I might just be projecting my expectations."

"No, he acted like an idiot alright. But after he left, you admitted that you tried to help those two runners."

"Oh." Blair stared at the pan. "Okay, I sorta remember that. And Jim, I did try to help them. They were just hurting so bad, and I wouldn't have tried to call Sentinel Division if they hadn't needed the help."

Jim held up his hand. "Let's have this fight another time. The point I was trying to get to was when you told me that if these guys just needed a hot meal and a shower, that Ruby would have taken care of that without calling you in the first place. So, she's in the underground."

Blair shoulders sagged. "Man, I was trying to repress that."

"What, the fact that she's in the underground, or the fact that you accidentally told me?" The potato pan started to boil over, and Jim took the lid off to let some of the heat escape.

"Both! Yeah, Ruby's in the underground, but it's not safe for me to even think about that. I hang around too many Sentinels, and most, unlike you, are all whoo-hoo Institute. It's like their alma mater. And no way am I putting her in the middle of this thing with Eli. Dr. Stoddard's just got to get used to the fact that I'm a cop and there are things I can't do without getting my ass thrown in jail for contempt."

"But an anthropologist could do them?" Jim asked as he used a fork to poke at a potato.

Blair sighed. "Maybe. Okay, it's still illegal as hell, but the courts sometimes take a scientist's ethical requirement to protect the subject into account before doing something like throwing them in jail for fifteen years for aiding a runner. But since I'm a cop…"

"They'd throw your ass under the jail?" Jim finished.

"Oh hell yeah!"

"And Eli Stoddard doesn't like that you're letting your work as a cop interfere with your work as an anthropologist."

Blair poked at the edge of the fish, lifting them to check even though they weren't anywhere near done. "I pointed out that we never would have gotten this much data if I weren't a cop. But," Blair shrugged. "Sometimes with email it’s a little hard to tell if someone is frustrated or ready-to-rip-you-a-new-one furious, but he was somewhere between those two."

Jim idly stirred the potatoes. He'd wondered how to get close to Ruby, and now this had practically fallen into his lap. He should be leaping at the opportunity, but Jim couldn't muster more than a half-hearted resignation. "Blair, I could work with Stoddard. You don't have to be involved at all."

"Jim, if anyone found out…"

"Hey, I'm just a Sentinel. If they wouldn't put me in jail for murder, which I'm still not comfortable with, they sure won't do anything about me escorting some anthropologist around."

"No, but they'll take you away and say that I'm not responsible enough to protect you. Jim, I know you want your freedom, and yeah, in a perfect world, you should be able to do this. But if they find out…"

"I'll get a new guardian," Jim finished for him. He poked a potato harder than necessary and it broke in half.

"Yeah." Blair breathed the word. Standing over the stove, the sweat had started to form at his hairline, and that intensified the scent of distress. Jim turned around and walked back to the table as he considered his options. He was going to have to break this bond eventually, either with the help of the underground or the Institute. If he got caught, the worst case scenario would be removing him from Blair's care and reassigning him.

Jim gripped the back of a chair so hard that his knuckles turned white, but logically, he knew that would get the plan back on track faster than anything. He hadn't agreed to stay any longer than it took to find Kincaid and get the help he needed to break the bond. And if Blair was willing to do more than provide him a temporary safe haven, he would have said something by now.

"You'd rather I not go with Stoddard. You'd prefer that I stick to the police work that has less of a chance of pissing someone off," Jim said, checking that he understood Blair's argument.

"Shit, you're good at police work, Jim. I know I should have said it earlier, but you saved my ass with Dessy, and thank you. You're a good cop."

"But in your application for a Sentinel, you asked for someone who could help you with both anthropological and police work."

"Yeah, but if you get caught…"

"That guy at work, the Sentinel who still works with his brother even though his wife is his legal guardian because she does the stay at home mom thing."

"Jamal?" Blair asked. He flipped the fish and then turned to focus on Jim.

"If Jamal gets in trouble at work, who catches shit from the judge?" Jim asked.

"His brother, probably."

"Exactly. So, if you loan me out to Stoddard, and we get caught, Stoddard is in trouble. And Blair," Jim stepped forward. "We aren't going to get caught."

Blair studied his face, and Jim felt a flare of resentment. Maybe Blair saw that because he held up his hands. "Fine. If you want to do this, just don't get caught. Man, I cannot believe I just said that."

"Your mom's friend Jim has gone on more dangerous missions. Besides, I don't want to hang around here for three days."

"No joke. For the first time in like forever, I’m caught up on all my school work, and three days suspension—" Blair gave an exaggerated shudder. "Not to mention just sitting around waiting for Wendy to put that footage of us on the evening news. Oh yeah, that's going to be fun. I'll email Eli tonight."

"The fish is done."

The dinner conversation faded into more trivial discussion of sports and cars and the allegorical nature of anthropomorphic folk tales, and Jim found himself enjoying the sudden flow of words from Blair. He could sit back offering an occasional biting comment, and Blair carried the rest of the conversation. With half of his mind listening to Blair's explanation of Brer Rabbit traditions that mimicked folk legends about Sentinels, Jim considered how to best use a personal connection with the underground.

Blair was right that buying land in Canada would probably provide some protection. Of course, it would also make him easier to track, but some fake papers should be able to cover his trail. If he could find the right forger, he might even get fake Canadian papers. His back pay would help with that. He doubted that he could fool Canadians, but as long as he kept control, he trusted Canadians to turn a willfully blind eye to their Sentinel neighbor. They might be more sympathetic if he claimed a country of origin other than America, considering the reputation American Sentinels had around the world, but he didn't think he could effectively fake another language. And while he knew Quetcha, he didn't think he could pass as a descendant of Incans—not with his blue eyes.

Blair finished a story about Stoddard falling in a stream after the local tribe tried to teach him to use a fishing spear, and Jim laughed. Pushing aside a thousand fears, he forced himself to just focus on now. Now he had a companion who smiled and laughed and smelled like raspberries in the sun. Now he was fed and safe. Now he'd made a choice Blair didn't like, and they were both okay with it.

"It sounds like going anywhere with Eli is about as safe as hanging out with you," Jim joked as he scooped up the last of his potatoes.

"Hey, not fair," Blair protested, but he smiled and Jim could feel the warm comfort of that smile.

"I haven't known you that long, and you've been kidnapped twice, people have plotted to kill you twice, you've been arrested, suspended, beaten up, and harassed by the local jerk from I.A. I'm thinking you're a trouble magnet, Chief."

"I was only kidnapped once," Blair protested.

"The first day I met you, I put you face down on that couch and tied you up," Jim pointed out. He remembered the feeling of Blair lying under him, and Jim shook his head as he forced his thoughts away from that bit of sensory recall.

"Oh. Yeah. But hey, you've been shot down over Peru, lost two guardians, got hijacked, kidnapped, drugged… it's not like you're doing any better," Blair pointed out.

"Raped," Jim added. Blair fell quiet. "It happened, and it's not something I want you to go around avoiding," Jim added when the silence went on for just a little too long.

"Man, I'm just a little… or a whole lot guilty and uncomfortable with that part. It doesn't do the digestion much good." Blair put his fork down and looked at his mostly empty plate before pushing it away.

"I'm going to keep saying that it wasn't your fault until you believe me," Jim sighed. "I made a choice, and quite frankly, I got what I wanted out of that choice. But what I'm saying here is that if this Stoddard can get in that much trouble fishing, it's going to feel like hanging out with you."

Blair gave him a dirty look.

"Maybe I should take out extra insurance," Jim teased.

"Maybe Simon should," Blair countered.

"Oh, Simon definitely should. Between you breaking the rules and Brown's mouth, he needs it."

"Bending. Not breaking, bending." Blair shook his finger at Jim as he picked up his plate and headed for the kitchen. Jim grabbed his own plate and glass.

"Bending? Oh, so when you got in the car with an escaped runner, that was just bending the rules?"

"You looked like you needed the company," Blair shrugged as he gave Jim a wicked looked over one shoulder. Jim could feel his cock twitch immediately, and he froze right in the middle of the kitchen. With a smile, Blair reached back and took the plate and glass from Jim's fingers, dropping them on the counter with a clatter.

Blair didn't say anything, but he returned to stand a mere inch from Jim's chest, looking up curiously, and Jim could feel the heat from Blair's body soak into him. Slowly Jim started backing up.

"Jim?" Blair asked, not following but definitely looking more than a little confused.

"Chief, there's a thin line between me keeping control and throwing you down on the closest bed, possibly the closest couch or table, and I'm sliding just a little too close to that line," Jim warned as he backed up another step.

"Man, you don't have to keep control," Blair promised.

"Yeah, Chief, I do." Jim turned his back and just prayed the Blair would keep his distance but, of course, the man just came closer.

"I get it. I know that it can't be easy to let go of control, but I trust you. Whatever you need, Jim." Blair let his hand brush over Jim's back, and Jim stepped away again.

"Junior," Jim warned. "This isn't about whether you trust me. This is about the fact that I would rather cut off my own legs than give you up. If I let myself do this, I won't be able…"

Jim didn't finish his sentence. He just headed for the stairs. He needed a little space, and he could only hope that Blair gave him that space. If the kid followed him upstairs, Jim wasn't going to be able to control himself. Luckily, when he reached the top of the stairs, he could hear Blair head for the kitchen.

Without even getting undressed, Jim lay on the bed and stared up as he listened to the water running and the sound of the scrubber sliding over the fry pan and Blair's unsteady, deep breaths. It took every bit of control Jim possessed to simply lay there until finally Blair headed for his own room under the stairs. Even with the heavy soundproofed door closed, Jim could hear Blair's stereo pounding out the sound of drums and smell the burning sage.

THIRTY ONE
***
"Jim, wake up. Oh man, move your bones," Blair shoved at the lump under the sheets of his old bed, and before he could react, he found himself grabbed and shoved face-first into the mattress, a sharp pain between his shoulder blades keeping him there and one arm pinned at the small of his back.

"Who? Blair?" Jim asked, his voice still blurry with sleep, but at least the pressure on Blair's back disappeared. "What the hell?"

Blair shifted to his side and rolled his shoulder to ease the pain in his back. Of course, that made the stiffness in his still healing shoulder ache more, and Blair decided that he just might need to take one of the pain pills the hospital had sent home with him.

"Wow. Talk about waking up cranky." Blair said shakily as he sat up. He could feel his muscles shake with adrenaline.

"Are you okay?" Jim asked as he rubbed his eyes.

"Yeah, hey, no problem." Blair studied Jim. He was a big man, and Blair was always surprised at how quickly Jim could move.

"Blair?" Jim finally asked in the silence. Blair stared at Jim's chest, the way his muscles flowed under the skin as Jim pushed himself up.

"Yeah?"

"Did you want something?" Jim prompted, and Blair blushed. This wasn't his bedroom any more, and he really didn't have that good of an excuse for invading Jim's privacy, especially not the morning after Jim had specifically asked for a little space. Yeah, he had an excuse, just not a good one. Luckily, Jim looked more amused than upset, but after the whole discussion last night, Blair knew he didn't have a right to go crawling in bed with the guy and making this whole situation harder. Blair quickly slid off the bed and stood beside it, inching back.

"Oh man, yeah, this is not what it looks like."

"And what does it look like?" Jim sat the rest of the way up so that the sheets pooled around his waist, and Blair looked over the railing to the living room below. Stared at it, in fact. He should paint. The walls were dingy.

"Okay, I actually don't know what this looks like," Blair admitted without looking at Jim, "but this is not me trying to push that whole conversation from last night. I was meditating last night, not just about… you know… but also about the case, and I think I came up with something," Blair said. He'd expected to explain more, possibly justify and maybe even plead and beg a bit, but Jim just nodded.

"Whatever this is, Chief, can it wait until I pee or do we need to do this right now?"

"Hey, this can wait for peeing and breakfast and maybe a call to Eli because he's going to really appreciate your offer to help," Blair agreed as he inched faster toward the staircase. Shit, he really had overstepped some boundaries here, so they could probably both use a little distance.

"Chief?" Jim called when Blair reached the top step. He sighed. "Sorry about the manhandling. You just kind of startled me."

Blair finally looked back toward the bed. Jim had one leg slung over the side, and Blair tried hard to focus on Jim's face and not the leg or the chest or the way his shoulder had that really nice curve that Blair couldn't seem to get, even during that three month bit where he'd gone to the gym every day with Rick.

"No problem," Blair brushed off Jim's manhandling without pointing out that he hadn't minded in the least. Okay, he'd minded the whole pain part, but that was Kincaid's fault, and if not for the whole sore shoulder, Blair would not mind at all being face down on a mattress for Jim. Blair took a deep breath and focused on the blanket hung on the living room wall as he tried to bring his thoughts back to safe territory. "I should not have woken you up like that. Ranger reflexes. Seriously impressive. Seriously."

"You just caught me in the middle of a dream," Jim admitted. Blair opened his mouth, about to ask about it when Jim shoved the covers off and with only the boxers on, Blair had a view of Jim's morning erection. Instead of asking, Blair just fled downstairs without another word. After all, a man could only count on ethics to carry him just so far before old-fashioned lust beat it up, shoved it in the closet and took over the brain.

Blair stuck his head in the refrigerator in search of appropriate breakfast food and left it there as Jim padded downstairs and disappeared into the bathroom. "Eggs, eggs or eggs," Blair mused as he checked the shelves. "Man, we're both going to be on cholesterol pills if we don't get some healthy food in the house. I used to be so good about that," Blair complained to the refrigerator. He knew full well why the healthy food had disappeared. It was the same reason why the spider plant near the window was slowly turning brown and why he was down to two shirts that might pass for clean if Jim didn't stand too close. Given Jim's nose, that might mean Jim needed to keep at least fifty yards upwind.

If his midnight revelation didn't pan out, Blair certainly had cleaning to keep him busy for at least a day or two. Blair filled a glass with water and snagged the phone on his way to watering the dying spider plant. Dialing Eli's number, he tucked it into his shoulder and focused on not dumping water all over the rug as he tried to save his plant.

"I'm really sorry there buddy. You put up with so much, don't you?" he asked the plant.

"Blair?" a voice asked from the other end of the phone.

"Eli?" Blair just about choked. "Man, I didn't hear your phone ring. I was just talking to my spider plant, sorry about that." Blair could feel himself blush as he finished watering the suffering plant.

"Blair, it's good to hear from you. I take it you got the situation with your arrest worked out."

"Oh, yeah," Blair cringed, realizing he hadn't told Eli once the charges were dropped. "It all got cleared up a couple of days ago."

"Well, that's good. Of course, I appreciate that it gave you time to finish the article on the Institute. I should have my edits back to you by Tuesday, and I have a confirmation from Clark over at Anthropological Footprints to publish the full article. This is quite the feather in your cap." Eli chuckled. "That Sandburg luck comes through for you again."

"I don't know that luck had much to do with it."

"Oh my boy, if you hadn't brought something pretty amazing to the table this semester, I'm afraid the Chancellor would have pressed the issue of your dissertation. You finished your course work two years ago, and continuing to take a few random classes will not permanently postpone your obligation to finish a dissertation… at this point, I think the committee would accept a dissertation on just about any topic as long as it actually got finished."

"Eli," Blair breathed, cringing as he glanced toward the bathroom. Okay, getting dressed down was bad enough, but if Jim were listening…

"But Blair, this new article—this has all the fire and passion I have missed. Your work on the remaining tribal Sentinels of Samanjata, Zambia was incredible, but lately you have just been writing…" Eli paused.

"Crap. Yeah, I know," Blair admitted. He'd picked subjects based on how well they would give him cover for his work with the Sentinel division, which is why he'd been writing that article on public space when he met Jim. His heart hadn't been in any of it. "But Eli…"

"I'm not sure I would call it crap. You have always produced solid, well-documented efforts; however, your inability to commit to a dissertation is endangering your enrollment in the program. Now that you seem to have found a passion again, I can tell you that your time at the university was clearly in danger."

"Oh man, really?" Blair asked. He trusted Eli. The man had told him the truth even back when Blair was the obnoxious sixteen-year-old wunderkind who everyone else avoided. But this truth… this was truth Blair really didn't need to hear right now.

"I fear so. That's one reason why I am so excited about this new hypothesis of yours. I hope you've called to tell me that you've reconsidered your position."

Blair took a deep breath, and then paused. Okay, so Aldo couldn't get a warrant, and Sheila wouldn't help with some illegal Sentinel observation. That didn't mean the man was above illegally tapping the phone. "Eli," Blair started slowly. "My time restrictions working with the police department make it really hard for me to throw myself into the work. You're asking me to…"

"To be an anthropologist," Eli interrupted. "I remember a time when you illegally crossed the Zambia-Zimbabwe border. I remember a certain young man who spear hunted in Irian Jaya without any of the proper papers. Blair, those were some of your finest moments as a student of anthropology, and you did not worry about… time restrictions."

"Oh man, that is not fair. Yeah, my time with the police means I have a few time restrictions, but it was my work with the police that totally led to this new hypothesis," Blair argued. He wandered over to his main bookshelf and absent-mindedly scanned the titles as he formed his arguments. He couldn't break the law. Police were held to a different standard. He might lose custody of Jim. Blair closed his eyes as he even considered that. It wouldn't happen. He'd run with Jim first, but he hoped it didn't come to that, either. Blair just had to find a way to wake the world up to the fact that Sentinels deserved respect, and he had to get Jim to see that the system wasn't slavery. Yeah, it sucked, and Blair was going to do his best to change that, but it wasn't slavery.

"Blair, this is important work, but if you allow time restrictions to stop you from doing your work..."

"No way. I can totally do the work, but the time restrictions just mean I can't collect data from primary sources. But that's not why I called," Blair quickly added when Eli sighed heavily.

"Oh? I really do wish you'd think about this."

"Jim said he could help you out if you still wanted to do some of the primary source interviews," Blair quickly cut off the rest of Eli's comment. Eli was his mentor and the closest thing Blair came to having a father, but he sure didn't need a lecture, especially when Eli just didn't understand the consequences. Yeah, Blair was happy to bend the rules with the best of them, but he wouldn't put his guardianship of Jim in danger… not for his job with the police or for his research as an anthropologist.

"So, you changed your mind? I'll admit that I'm surprised," Eli said after a moment of silence.

"Yeah, well I didn't change my mind as much as I had Jim override me since it's his life," Blair admitted. "And he's right. He can help, and one of the reasons I requested a Sentinel was for help with anthropological research. I think I got trapped by my own logic there."

Eli laughed. "It's good to hear you back to your old self," he said kindly. "And if your time restrictions keep you from joining us, I respect that decision."

"Thank you, Eli."

"I still think you're wrong, but you're going to have to make your own choices. And I'm glad to hear that Mr. Ellison is up to the challenge of dealing with your stubbornness."

"Hey!" Blair objected without actually taking offense. "I am not stubborn. I just stand up for myself."

"In any and all situations, even when it's not particularly warranted," Eli agreed with a laugh. "It's one of the things that makes you such a good scientist; you are never so impressed with someone's credentials that you blindly accept their conclusions. And that includes me."

"Eli," Blair said, not really sure what to say.

"I'm sure that Mr. Ellison and I will get along fine. And you're more than welcome to join us if you reconsider your time restrictions. So, I have today and tomorrow clear on the calendar, and if that doesn't work, we'll have to look at next Thursday."

Instead of answering, Blair just about squealed when a cold wet hand landed on his arm, and the phone fell to the floor with a clatter.

"Fuck!" Blair cursed when he spotted Jim, smiling evilly as he toweled his short hair with one hand while the other still hovered above Blair's arm. "You dick!" Blair complained loudly, reaching out and jabbing at Jim's stomach, but the man danced back away, leaving Blair punching air.

"You might want to get the phone," Jim teasingly laughed as he danced back away from another attempt to poke at him.

"Eli!" Blair gave up on physically retaliating and grabbed the phone from the floor.

"Blair, are you alright?" Eli demanded over the phone, his voice sharp.

"Yeah. I just have a roommate with a bad sense of humor and cold damn hands," Blair said. "He is either feeling particularly sadistic, or he'd rather make the time arrangements with you himself. One or the other. Anyway, I'll check the email for the revisions because I have today, Monday and Tuesday off."

"Still catching up on missed classwork?" Eli asked as Blair tried to ignore the way Jim stood close in jeans and no shirt and all those muscles.

"Yeah, something like that," Blair vaguely agreed. "So, Eli Stoddard, this is Jim Ellison." Blair held the phone out and Jim raised one eyebrow in an expression Blair couldn't quite decipher. He flipped the towel over one shoulder and took the phone.

"Dr. Stoddard," Jim said, and Blair wandered back toward the kitchen.

Unlike Jim, Blair couldn't hear the other end of the conversation.

"No, I heard," Jim quickly said. "I understand Blair's time constraints, but if I can help, I will."

Blair was surprised at the honestly friendly tone from Jim. Usually Jim was a little more… grumpy… with new people. Since he had nothing else to cook, Blair pulled the eggs out of the refrigerator. God, he didn't even have the fixings for an omelet. He had cheese, but adding cheese to eggs wouldn't exactly help their hearts.

"We're working something today, but can I call you later today and let you know if tomorrow works?" Jim asked. Pause. "Blair has your number?" Longer pause. "I'll try, but he's pretty stubborn, you know."

Blair put down the fork he'd been using to scramble the eggs and he crossed his arms. Jim smiled sweetly at him, and somehow, on him that expression looked more smug than sweet.

"I'll call you later tonight, then," Jim said into the phone. "I'm looking forward to meeting you, Dr. Stoddard." Pause. "Eli, then. Please, call me Jim. Mr. Ellison sounds like my father." Pause. Jim laughed. "I'll talk to you later then. Have a good day." Jim clicked the phone off and headed for the kitchen.

"Are you making breakfast?" Jim asked as he put the phone back on the cradle and pulled the towel off his shoulder.

"*I'm* stubborn?"

"Hell, yes," Jim agreed as he came in and grabbed the bowl of eggs Blair had just scrambled. He turned on the burner under the pan and poured the eggs into it.

"Man, I got nothing on you. You are the Grand High Poobah of Stubbornness, Ellison."

"I'm focused-- determined-- goal-oriented. You're stubborn," Jim disagreed. "So, what did you come up with last night?"

Blair hesitated. Last night it had seemed so important, and this morning, he'd woken with a sense of urgency, but now, facing Jim, it seemed a little potentially stupid.

"Chief?" Jim asked, turning his back on the eggs.

"Can we go through the scene again? I just want to double check something."

"Sure. After breakfast?" Jim asked as he gestured toward the egg pan with the spatula he'd picked up.

"Yeah, no problem," Blair agreed as he grabbed for the loaf of bread for toast. He fell silent as they fixed breakfast, and Jim kept shooting him curious looks, but Blair did his best to ignore them. His feelings were raw and he suddenly didn't want to look like an idiot in front of Jim. Desperately didn't want to look like an idiot.

Over breakfast, Blair focused on eating, keeping his mouth full to avoid the nervous babble that threatened to spill out. He didn't think Jim wanted to know what Australian aborigines ate for breakfast. Luckily Jim finished as quickly as he did.

"So, where do you want to sit?" Jim asked as he dropped the two empty plates in the sink. "And fair warning, I've never had that much luck with sensory recall."

"You haven't?" Blair asked, nerves suddenly replaced with curiosity.

"To be fair, I don't have that much luck with memory in general." Jim shrugged. "The couch work or do you want to go upstairs?"

"The couch is fine," Blair agreed. He perched on the arm of the nearby chair while Jim sat and let his head relax and loll back onto the couch. "So, what's so hard about sensory recall?"

"I just don't always recall," Jim shrugged. "If I know I have to recall the information later, I can usually do it."

"Oh man, with your levels, you should be like amazing."

"No one's perfect. I guess this just isn't my thing. So, where do you want to start?" Jim asked.

Blair took a deep breath. He knew exactly what he wanted, but this kind of work sometimes led to false memories if the memory was too guided. "Okay, let's start with when you first knelt on the ground, when you told me to shut up."

Jim tilted his head up to look at Blair for a second, but then he let his head fall back as he tried to pull up the memory.

"Let's start with breathing slowly. I want you to slowly dim your senses. Let the levels all drop. Breathe in. Control your senses. Dial it down. Breathe out." Blair paused. Despite Jim's warning, he was quickly falling into the trancelike state where memory would become reality. Skipping the bit with lowering the levels on each sense separately, Blair moved right to the memory itself.

"Focus on the feel of the grass under your hand as you lean on the ground," Blair coached. He watched as Jim's frown smoothed out.

"There's a twig poking my hand."

"Did you look down at it?"

"No. I'm focusing on the footprints," Jim said, his voice strangely distant. Blair shifted forward and put his hand on Jim's knee to anchor the Sentinel with touch as he cast himself back into his memories.

"Describe the footprints," Blair whispered. For a second, Jim didn't say anything. He kept his eyes closed, but he rolled his head from one side to the other as though considering the scene.

"A woman wearing heels. I can see the crushed blades of grass."

"Let that one go. What other footprints do you see?" Blair prompted, struggling to keep the excitement out of his voice.

"Jim tilted his head. "It's like a hologram. When I turn my head, I can see where the bent grass is different; it reflects light differently. I can see the children's footprints. One of the sneakers has a ripped sole."

"Where did they walk?" Blair asked. Jim's hand came off the couch and landed on top of Blair's hand where it rested on Jim's knee. Jim frowned. "You're looking at it right now, this is no big deal," Blair promised. The frown smoothed.

"The one with the ripped sole walked around in a circle. He walked over by the bench."

"He?" Blair asked. The frown returned for a second.

"Raul. His sneakers… one was ripped when I saw him on the Taylor's property. The other kids… most moved to the spot and stood. One of the smaller feet ran. He went…" Jim's words trailed off.

"Hey, that's okay, relax," Blair coached.

"I didn't look at that ground closely enough," Jim admitted tensely, his back going stiff, and for a second, Blair thought the moment had broken without him getting what he wanted… what he needed. Luckily, Jim breathed out and relaxed back into the couch.

"Push those footsteps aside, what else do you see?" Blair asked. Jim's hand over his own tightened, and Jim tilted his head to the side.

"One pair of dress shoes, the man with the limp. Tracks from work boots."

"Okay, focus on the work boots." Blair leaned forward as though he could will Jim to see what he needed Jim to see.

"One or two people. The same boots, but the footsteps are different."

"How?" Blair asked. He watched the furrows appear on Jim's face as the head tilted. "Okay, it's okay. Describe one of the sets of footprints," Blair changed the suggestion when Jim's back started going stiff again.

Jim relaxed into the guidance. "One set. Big man, but walking quickly. The side of his foot is dug in at one point like he's turning too fast. Erratic." Jim started sitting up, and for a moment, Blair was afraid he had lost the memory, but the eyes remained closed and Jim moved as though looking at the ground. "He's moving around the area, pacing."

"Good," Blair praised him, and he was lucky Jim was in a near trance or that would have earned him a head-whap for sure. Right now, Jim was so far into the memory that the hand that gripped Blair's own didn't even twitch. "What about the other work boots? What's different about them?"

Jim frowned. "They're deliberate. They walk to the hill from the curb."

"Where do they go from there?"

Jim shook his head. "Nowhere. I can't see them anywhere," Jim turned his head and got stiff.

"Oh fuck." Jim jerked his hand back and punched the seat of the couch in frustration as the memory broke. "Shit, I told you, I’m not good at this shit."

"Hey, no, you did great!" Blair hurried to assure him, but Jim just gave him a skeptical look. "Hey, you know me with my hypotheses?"

"Yeah?" Jim asked, drawing the word out suspiciously.

"Man, listen to this one. There were workboots there, and that day, you said they were recent."

Jim nodded. "They were. I remember they overlapped the police tracks in several places. They even overlapped the children's prints."

"Awesome, that will give us a time frame, or at least it will as soon as I'm off suspension and can go talk to them because no *way* is Brown getting near them."

"Don't trust him to avoid saying something stupid?" Jim asked. Blair looked over to see Jim watching him with amusement.

"Overprotective, Hispanic mother plus Brown's big mouth. Oh yeah, that'd go over well," Blair snorted as he got up and started pacing the living room. "But listen. If that were a cemetery employee, he would have cleaned up the gifts the kids left. He would have pulled down the last bits of police tape."

"He would have cut the grass," Jim finished. Blair paused in pacing long enough to turn and see Jim looking at him with the beginnings of a smile. "But he didn't do that."

"Which is totally strange. The piece of the puzzle that doesn't fit. You don't think… I don’t know, that I might be reading too much into this?" Blair asked. Nice, now he sounded like an insecure twit needing reassurance. Blair mentally kicked himself.

"Sounds like a lead to me. And Blair, I'm not sure, but I think there was only one guy. The tracks walking up to the hill were steady and regular, but no tracks like that led away from the hill, the tracks going away from the hill were angry, deep heel impression and irregular depth."

"Man. It fits. He comes to see the place, and maybe he's mad that people have turned his special place into theirs by leaving the display."

"He wanted to have a place where it was just him and Kari," Jim agreed. "Or maybe the display scared him. Maybe he thought someone would see him."

Blair shook his head. "Man, he would've just run. But who knows what he's thinking. I just know this is a lead, man. This is a good lead. Fuck, how did I miss that?"

"Hey, I missed it, too," Jim pointed out. Blair smiled at the man's attempt to reassure him.

"Yeah, but you're just a rookie. I'm the experienced cop," Blair teased. Jim reached out and smacked the side of Blair's head. Instead of second guessing what he might have said wrong, Blair just aimed his own hit for Jim's stomach as he went for the phone. Suspension or no suspension, this lead wouldn't wait three days with rain in the forecast.

THIRTY TWO
***
"Caro, you are a goddess!" Blair practically bounced out of the car when he spotted the dark-haired woman, and Jim followed, still shocked that the kid had talked them onto a newly reopened crime scene not more than a day after being suspended. But then again, he doubted Banks had time for more than two words over the phone, so he probably just gave up. Jim knew the feeling. After years of working with men who made their points with actions, and sometimes fists, he wasn't always sure how to handle Blair, much less win a fight with him.

"Blair, for giving up part of my weekend, I better be something more than just a goddess. Goddess is for when you want me to rush your DNA samples." The woman gave Blair a look that was half warning and half indulgent amusement.

"Man, you are like Tiamat who created the world. You are Aruru, the mother of all goddesses, and Athena the wise and Inanna the beautiful all wrapped up in one," Blair promised as his hands gestured widely.

"Hmmph. Seems like those are all war goddesses, are you trying to tell me something?" The woman crossed her arms and tilted her head as she considered Blair out of the side of her eye like a hawk about to pounce on a mouse.

"Only that you're even scarier than Sheila in IA, and twice as beautiful."

At that, the woman couldn't keep up the glare any more. She laughed and shook her head. "Yeah, yeah. Just keep sweet-talking, especially if you're going to want a rush on the analysis."

Jim walked up behind Blair, and Blair turned that bright smile toward him. "Carolyn, this is Jim Ellison. Jim, Carolyn Plummer, head of our Technical Support Division."

Jim held out his hand, and despite the fact that he had told himself that he would hate Carolyn for flirting with his bond-mate, he could at least appreciate her sharp wit.

"Nice to meet you. So, Simon said that you spotted tracks that we might still be able to get a record of."

"Hopefully," Jim agreed as he looked at the hill. The police tape was back, and a patrol officer stood to one side as a middle aged man with a huge mustache set up a camera.

"John and I are going to take photographs of any treads you can identify."

"Simon's really rolling with this one. Man, if I'm wrong..." Blair started, and Jim felt aggravation at the doubt in Blair's voice.

"Brown and Rafe talked to the owner. He hasn't had any workmen or maintenance men in since last month," Carolyn quickly assured him. "He called in all his employees, and there are only two workmen that ever do grounds work around here. The cemetery itself is full, so most of their business comes from the crematory attached to the back of the mortuary. Brown's interviewing everyone up at the main building."

"Oh man. This could be the clue, the one that finally goes somewhere." Blair's voice had a sort of determined wonder, and that tone settled Jim's nerves.

"Personally, I'm impressed that you could see any prints at all in this mess, Jim," Carolyn offered as she started walking toward the hill, a pile of small rulers on yellow plastic in one hand. "So, just point to the ground, and we're going to try and get some forensic evidence."

Jim paused a half second, hating the fact that he wasn't reliable enough to testify, but that someone who was fully competent had to see the evidence. Hopefully all their fancy cameras and expensive lenses would capture what was so obvious to his eye.

Jim ducked under the police tape and knelt down as he searched for the work boot tracks. Behind him, he could hear Blair muttering about how the killer was going down. Jim felt a flash of guilt as he realized how, for a week, the kid had shoved all that energy into some dark corner because of Jim's bad mood. But that was one more reason to keep him at arm's length. Jim didn't want to hurt Blair any more than he obviously had.

"Here," Jim pointed to a section of grass. Carolyn knelt down behind him and held out a yellow ruler.

"I don't see anything. Can you put this just to the right of the footprint?" she asked. Jim took it and placed the yellow ruler on the grass before spotting the next print and the next one. Carolyn had to go back for more plastic rulers by the time Jim finished marking every footprint. Hopefully the photographer would be able to get scientific proof of at least a few of them.

"Okay, that's it," Jim said as he backed out of the maze he'd created.

Carolyn whistled as she knelt down at the edge of the field and squinted at the grass. "Okay, John, we have our work cut out for us. Let's use a full range of filters and lenses because I don't think this one is going to be easy."

"Not easy? That's an understatement," the photographer complained quietly as he moved in. Jim backed away to let them work.

"Hey, Chief," Jim stretched his neck and blinked to clear his vision.

"Oh man. That's a lot of footprints." Blair was staring at the hill, and Jim glanced over at the field of yellow rulers.

"He paced a lot." Jim shrugged. He'd done what he could, and now he had to hope that Carolyn was as good as Blair seemed to think.

"Brown and Rafe are talking to the employees," Blair said absentmindedly.

"Blair. Chief," Jim called, trying to get Blair attention away from whatever had enthralled him on the hill, and Jim only hoped it wasn't Carolyn's ass as the woman bent over to get a new angle. But then again, Jim should be encouraging that before he and Blair got too close for either of them to back out of this bond.

"Yeah?"

"We're suspended. We need to get out of here before Simon hands us both our asses on a plate," Jim pointed out.

"Oh man, you're right. I just… Man, I hate this."

"Hate what?" Jim asked in confusion as he looked around. The patrol cop just stared into space, clearly bored off his ass, and Carolyn and the photographer were busy clicking away.

"Man, how could I miss that?"

Jim snorted. "Yeah, because you're Superman, so any mistakes on your part are entirely unforgivable."

"That's harsh," Blair said as he poked Jim in the side with an elbow.

"It's called sarcasm, Junior."

"I think I recognized it."

"I don't doubt you do," Jim agreed. "So, let's get out of here before you start brooding. I'll treat you to lunch with some of my newly deposited military loot."

"Yeah, that sounds good," Blair agreed. "Let's just let Brown and Rafe know that we were here."

"No problem," Jim agreed. Blair started toward the main building, and before Jim realized it, he had flung his arm over the shorter man's shoulders. And that left a dilemma. If he left it there… well, Jim could already feel the tendrils of need curling up through his nerves. But if he pulled his arm back, Blair might think Jim was rejecting him again.

Walking past the flat headstones, Jim searched his memories as he watched the curled mop of hair Blair had pulled back into a ponytail.

"I am not your Guide, Sentinel," Incacha had said. Jim ignored him and focused on sharpening his knife.

"You're my companion," Jim had finally answered.

"Yes. But not your Guide." The word he used had a connotation of spiritual or emotional guide, and Jim sighed as he finally looked up from the knife.

"You're the whole tribe's Guide. I am a member of the tribe. Therefore, you are my Guide." Jim frowned, trying to let Incacha know that as far as he was concerned, the conversation was over. Incacha just smiled back and slowly shook his head.

"No, I am the tribe's Shaman. I am not a Guide, so I cannot be your Guide."

"You're my bond-mate," Jim snapped. He stood up and started to walk away, but a hand landed on his arm, holding him in place because Jim couldn't fight back against Incacha. He'd never allowed his Sentinel instincts to control any part of him, so even now, months after joining the tribe, he shivered at the gut-level control Incacha had over him.

"I am your bond-mate, but Omili is my mate."

Jim shrugged. That was a familiar ache, one that he could easily live with.

Incacha sighed. "You must find your Guide, Enquiri. You must find one whose heart aches for you just as you ache for them."

"No!" Jim snapped. "That's not the way it is for Sentinels. We bond. And if, as you say, I have to go back if the Army comes, you'll just be handing me over to slavery where they'll force me to bond to someone who doesn't even care about me. But then, maybe you don't care about me either, at least maybe you don't care about me beyond what I can do for the tribe." Jim snarled the words and threw the knife down so that the point sunk deep into the ground, dulling the blade he had just sharpened. Jim had stormed off, and Incacha had not even tried to follow, not that time.

"Hey, Brian!" Blair called out, and Jim slipped out of the memory with a blink.

"Blair. I heard the Cap really landed on you yesterday."

Blair shrugged. "Okay, I might have been a little out of line, and I apologized this morning for that. So, Jim and I are going to head out."

"Yeah, that's right, Hairboy. Given your luck lately, I don't even like being on scene with you," Henri Brown pushed out the doors from the mortuary office, a wide smile on his face.

"Yeah, yeah. You're the one in hot water with Carolyn, and trust me, I would far rather have Simon pissed at me than Caro!" Blair shot back. Brown laughed.

"You keep telling yourself that. You're going to be answering domestic disputes on Thanksgiving the way you're going."

"You hope because that's the only thing that will save you from doing it," Blair jabbed his finger in the air with a smirk.

Jim took a step forward and pushed Blair behind him.

"Jim?" Blair asked, his voice wary, but Jim just held up a hand for quiet.

"Fuck. He's doing the Sentinel thing," Brown backed away, but Jim took a step in his direction, his senses coming to full alert so that the hairs on the back of his arms stood up.

"Jim, what is it?" Blair asked, a hand landing on Jim's arm and keeping him back when he would have pursued Brown who kept backing up.

"I don't know," Jim admitted.

"Okay," Blair said slowly. "Okay, let's start with sight. Focus on just sight; put the other senses aside for just a second. Does something look wrong with Brown?"

"Hey, I am looking fine, thank you very much," Brown quickly answered, but Jim could see the beads of sweat and the minute twitches as his muscles contracted nervously. However, nothing looked wrong. Jim shook his head.

"Okay, let's move on to sound. Dismiss your sight. Turn it down until you don't notice the details, and then really listen."

Jim followed Blair's directions, letting the world grey out as he focused on each sound. The wind whistled through branches, leaves rubbing against each other loudly. Four heartbeats outside. Six more muffled heartbeats inside. The sound of the shutter on the camera clicking as Carolyn worked. The patrolman's feet shuffling, breathing, quiet curses, cars, a plane far overhead, a squirrel's nails skittering over bark. Jim almost lost himself in it when fingers tightened into his arm and he shook off the sensation of drowning in sound.

"All normal," he said, aggravated.

"Okay, this is a hard one. Smell. Focus on Brown this time. What is bothering you about Henri?"

"Considering what he had for breakfast, you really might not want to do that," Rafe said softly. "I told you to skip the horseradish on those eggs."

"I'll give up horseradish altogether if Jim just cuts out the creepy stuff."

"It's not creepy. Man, this is normal Sentinel behavior, and if you can't be respectful…"

Jim cut off the incipient argument by pulling Blair forward as he walked toward Brown, sniffing the air.

"It's there," Jim said.

"Horseradish. Even I can smell that," Rafe commented, but Jim shook his head.

"What's there?" Blair asked.

Jim frowned, unable to place the odor he could faintly smell clinging to Brown. "Okay, it must have something to do with this case. Focus on the scent and think back to all the places we visited yesterday."

Jim growled as the scent came to him so powerfully that he clutched at Blair to stay upright.

"Jim!"

"Blair? Should we call someone?" Brown asked. Jim narrowed his eyes and stared at the mortuary building.

"Yeah," Jim said, interrupting Blair. "Call Banks. The killer is here."

Not waiting for a reaction, Jim started forward, heading for the door.

"Jim!" hands pulled at him, but for once, Jim ignored them as he simply pulled Blair with him into the building. "Oh man, Jim, come on. You don't want to do this."

"Oh, I so do," Jim countered as he came around the corner into the main waiting room where six people sat around or stood with expressions that ranged from aggravated to bored. Jim cocked his head as he considered them, waiting for his smell to identify the prey. That gave Blair time to get in front of him and stand with his hands on Jim's chest and his feet braced.

"Jim, no way, man. Come on, my mom's friend Jim would so not be doing this," he hissed. Luckily, the kid was short enough that Jim could look right over his head. One of the two workmen sat up.

"What is this?" a man in a suit demanded as he stepped forward. Jim moved toward him, pushing Blair physically back.

"Dan, Dan just get out of his way," a woman suggested as she got up and pressed against one of the walls.

"I will not have some out of control—"

"Button it," Jim snapped as he reached down and grabbed Blair's arm, holding him in place as he sidestepped around his guide, despite Blair's frantic attempts to hold him.

"You. You were at the Taylors. The scent of you was all over the gardener's shed in the back, right where Kari Taylor played," Jim said, his voice low and soft and slow as he moved toward one of the workmen. The man was middle aged, his face heavily lined and leathery and his body lumpy with hard-earned muscle and fat. The other worker quickly stood and backed away, and Jim dismissed him.

"Damn it, Jim!" Fingers grabbed at Jim's belt, dragging him back, and Jim slowed as Blair's weight dragged at him again.

"Hey, I don't know what you're…" The worker stood, an unconcerned expression on his face. However, mid-word he turned and bolted through an arch to a hallway on the far side of the room.

Jim tried to follow, but Blair was all but plastered onto him now, and the killer was fleeing. Jim tried pulling Blair off, peeling him arms away like the skin of a banana, but the man clung like a monkey, and hissed as Jim's increasingly frantic attempts aggravated his sore shoulders.

"Blair," Jim growled a warning.

"Not happening," Blair snapped right back.

Unable to see any other way, Jim reached up and pressed his thumb into the baroreceptor in Blair's carotid artery, carefully checking to make sure he only pressed the artery and didn't damage it. Immediately, Blair's grip loosened, and one hand let go altogether to grab at Jim's wrist. Jim held it for a second longer, until Blair looked slightly dazed, and then he pulled himself away from Blair.

"Stay here!" Jim called as he started down the hallway, the stench of fear in the air hanging heavy, like a trail of neon breadcrumbs that Jim could follow to the prize. Jim slammed out a door into the chilly air, afraid the trail would lead toward the parking lot. Instead it angled back toward the trees guarding the rear of the cemetery.

"Brown!" Jim bellowed as he took off running. Blair had given the suspect just enough of a head start that Jim couldn't see him, but he could smell the sour fear and hear the racing heart and see where feet had crushed the grass. People were running behind him, but Jim ignored those voices as he heard rusted hinges creak open.

"Shit," Jim cursed, realizing the killer had some sort of shelter. The minute Jim reached the trees, he could see the wood shed on the far side of a dirty creek, and smell the gun oil.

Charging across the stream, Jim jerked the rough door open just as the suspect put the gun to his own head.

"Oh no you don't," Jim snapped as he threw himself forward, tackling the man so they both crashed to the ground. Rakes and hoses fell over them as Jim pointed the gun to the ground a scant second before it went off with a deafening boom. Temporarily stunned by the noise, Jim loosened his grip, and the killer squirmed back, away from Jim and the tangle of hoses and equipment.

Before he could get more than a foot, Jim reached out and grabbed the gun arm, slamming it into the rotting wood floor over and over until finally the gun dropped out of his numb fingers. Only then did Jim stand up, dragging the now-crying man with him.

"You are not killing yourself on my watch. You can damn well go to jail and pay for what you did." Jim came out into the light, draped with landscaping equipment and pulling the man who now babbled softly in Spanish.

"Jim?" Brown asked weakly. Jim looked up to see Brown and Rafe and Carolyn Plummer, all with their guns drawn, but the weapons pointed to the ground.

"I don't get paid to do paperwork. He's all yours," Jim warned Brown. The man had time to put his gun away and pull out handcuffs before Jim shoved the suspect his way.

"I didn't mean to kill her. She was so beautiful. An angel," he babbled even as Brown started reading him his rights.

"Jim, you okay?" Carolyn asked as Jim started pulling the hoses off him, dropping the coils to the ground before he stepped clear.

"Fine. I recognized the smell from the Taylor place. He must work in both places, which is why he brought Kari here."

Brown and Rafe just looked at him incredulously before pulling the suspect away. Carolyn holstered her gun, but she continued to stand there, blinking silently as Blair finally showed up, pale and not running very fast, but managing a good trot.

"Stay there?" he demanded as he came up, and without warning, he punched Jim's arm hard enough to actually sting.

"Ow," Jim complained as he frowned. "Nice, I catch the bad guy and you hit me."

"STAY THERE?!" Blair demanded loudly.

"With two sprained shoulders, low blood pressure, and a bloodstream full of pain killers, yeah, stay there," Jim said reasonably as he crossed his arms and glared down at Blair, daring him to argue with that logic.

"And what fucking gun were you going to use to protect yourself?" Blair demanded, his face quickly turning from white to a bright shade of red.

"I should… you know, collect some evidence. We don't want this one squirming away," Carolyn excused herself as she backed away.

"Blair," Jim said softer once they were alone. He reached out to rest his hand on Blair's shoulder, but Blair stepped back, his body still tight with anger, and that was not good for muscles still trying to heal from the damage Kincaid had inflicted.

"Don't you 'Blair' me. You went running off after a fucking killer. You fucking disabled me so you could go running off after a fucking killer, you fucking asshole."

"I couldn't let him get away," Jim said calmly, well aware that Blair's panic was enough for both of them. He refused to allow his own instincts to react to the sharp smell of Blair's adrenaline in the air. His nose itched, and Jim took a deep breath, cataloguing the new scents leaking from Blair.

"Henri and Brian were right out front. You could have fucking sent them in. No, you have to go charging in and then you have to go charging out after him, you fucking… I need a bigger word than fucking. I need something that encompasses just how incredibly, overwhelmingly, pig-headedly—"

"Chief," Jim called, holding up a hand to stop the tirade which he could see building to epic proportions. "You're right, I should have waited for Brown and Rafe to get in place. But other than that, I did what I had to do."

"You fucking disabled me. I would have backed you up if you hadn't pulled some fucking Vulcan neck thing."

"Pressure points," Jim said quietly. "It just dropped your blood pressure a bit. I needed to catch him, and I couldn't get you off me without hurting your shoulders."

"Just dropped my blood pressure. Just… Ellison, I don't even have words. You could have died."

"I didn't," Jim said quietly. "Okay, I fucked up today, rushing in instead of working with the team. How is that different from what you did yesterday?"

"Yesterday? Is this about proving some point? What? I scare the shit out of you, so you do it in return?" Blair dropped his hands to his side, staring at Jim blankly, his heart still pounding. Jim could hear police cars pull up, Banks shouting for information.

"Blair, we both sometimes act without thinking. You tried to stop me, and I was desperate to catch the guy."

"What if he'd killed you?" Blair asked again, and Jim could practically smell the fury turn to fear.

"He didn't. I'm not that easy to kill; ask Manuel Noriega."

"I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that," Blair said, his voice now shaky with emotion. "That's really one thing more than I can handle at this point. Why did I have to get the covert ops Sentinel with the Superman complex?" Blair asked the sky. Jim tried reaching out again, resting his hand on Blair's shoulder, and this time, Blair didn't retreat.

"Man, if you ever leave me behind again, I am putting hot sauce in your underwear," Blair threatened as he inched forward.

"Do it, and you'll be bald the minute you fall asleep," Jim threatened right back as he pulled Blair to his chest and wrapped his arms around his Guide. He was so screwed. The blind panic in Blair's eyes, Jim had seen that same expression in the mirror when his 'rescuers' had dumped him in the brig. He knew that special sour stench of blind terror and desperation and loss still clinging to Blair. For months after he lost Incacha, he'd smell it in his sheets every morning when he got up.

"It's okay, Blair. We'll figure it out," he promised, not willing to even tell his Guide just how much they had to figure out. For one second, Jim indulged in a fantasy—not of dragging Blair off to Canada but of dragging him to Incacha because Jim sure didn't know what the hell they were supposed to do now. Blair's arms reached around his waist, and Jim tightened his hold and allowed his cheek to rest on the top of his Guide's head. Oh yeah, he was screwed; he just couldn't bring himself to care at that exact moment.

THIRTY THREE
***
"Oh man, I warned you, radioactive kittens, man. Boom. Wow… Simon was just about to burst a blood vessel."

"I was there; I saw it," Jim pointed out . "Personally, I think he was more angry about you hiding the physical pain you've been suffering than anything else."

Blair waved that comment away with a dismissive hand as he headed into the loft. "The doctor cleared me, we had his permission to be on scene, and we weren't trying to do anything more subversive or dangerous than tell Brown we were taking off. We're totally in the clear. But, man. Finally! We nailed him. Okay, you nailed him which, when I think about it, is even better."

Blair circled the room, a hyper sprite flitting from place to place. "Man, the next time Brown gets all pissy about you doing your Sentinel thing, I am so rubbing his nose in the fact that you used less force than he generally does when he makes his arrests." Blair spun to face Jim. "This one time, he was chasing down this gang member who had done a drive-by shooting that killed a three-year old, and he tackled the guy right into a dumpster which, you know, happens, but then he managed to drop him in the gutter and hit the suspect's head on the top of the car when he was putting him in. Man, I thought Simon was going to blow a whole lot of blood vessels that day."

"Chief," Jim interrupted, because right now it seemed like Blair might just keep going and going and going.

"And Herrera using two *different* fake ID's to get work…."

"Yeah, I get it, Junior," Jim tried jumping in. He was struggling with the words to start the conversation they needed to have, but Blair just kept talking so much that Jim couldn't quite get his thoughts together. Jim chickened-out and went for the easier conversation: the one about the case. "I get that there really wasn't a way to connect him to both scenes. I just think the Taylors are going to feel guilty for a long time. Hiring illegals… hell, hiring anyone without a background check and reliable identification…."

"Totally stupid, yeah," Blair finished the thought for him. "But we caught him. He was so sure he was in the clear." Blair jerked his fist, a sign of hard-earned victory, as he circled the living room couch again, this time with a half bounce. "No *way* he thought we'd connect him. And if you hadn't been there--. Oh man, he could have gotten away with it."

"Blair," Jim tried again. This time his Guide actually stopped and looked at him.

"Yeah?"

"We need to talk."

That stopped Blair. He froze near the end of the couch and stared at Jim for a second. "Okay, you have that tone like Karen Lowinski had right before she told me I was too short for her," Blair said with a weak laugh and a shrug, but the energy drained from him. His hands hung at his sides.

Jim snorted. "This is more the picking out the rings conversation," he admitted. Blair blinked, frowned, and blinked again.

"Uh… what?"

"Just… let me try and get through this," Jim practically begged as he stepped forward and put his hands on Blair's shoulders. He guided Blair over to the couch, and Blair sank down, his face still wary. Pushing aside a stack of anthropology magazines, Jim sat on the chest they used as a coffee table and rested his hands on Blair's knees.

"Jim?" Blair asked uncertainly.

"You thought I didn't want you to back me up, that I didn't trust you," Jim said, making a guess based on the distress he'd smelled on Blair at the scene.

"Okay, when you use the covert-Vulcan neck pinch thing, it kinda gives a guy the impression that you don't want him tagging along. It was a reasonable assumption. You didn't want me hurt; you did something you so should not have done. Now can we skip round four of this same old conversation?"

"Blair, I do trust you to back me up," Jim said seriously, looking straight at Blair to try and emphasize just how much he meant that. Blair's injuries might have concerned Jim, just like he had told Simon on scene, but he trusted Blair.

Blair bit his lip and then seemed to brace himself. He looked away, but his heart pounded out a fast rhythm that told Jim he was paying attention. Jim tightened his grip on Blair's legs, leaning in.

"Blair?" Jim asked.

"Why?"

The question startled Jim. "What?"

"Man, I get why you might not want me to back you up because you're covert ops Ranger guy, and I'm the one who barely passed hand-to-hand combat in the Academy. Okay, the trainer said I was impressive at fighting dirty and getting in a low blow or two, but…" Blair shrugged.

"Blair, I would rather have you at my back than the trigger-happy kids I led in the Army. You think first, and that's always the best backup."

This time it was Blair's turn to snort. "Yeah, like I was thinking when I went in after Dessy?"

Jim leaned back. "Part of that is my fault. I only needed you to stay for a minute or two while I centered on the room, but I didn't tell you that. But when I think about how you handled me in that airport—that showed some serious balls and a lot of clear-thinking, especially since you knew about…" Jim stopped, the memory of neck bones snapping under his hand stealing the word.

"Hey, not your fault." Blair quickly slipped into support mode and sat up, ready to escape the couch and end the conversation. Yep, the kid knew Jim had something serious to say, he just didn't want to hear it.

"Chief," Jim sighed.

"Okay, fine. Look, whatever this is, just say it before I have a heart attack, okay?" Blair practically begged, his hands coming to rest on top of Jim's hands. "You're really freaking me out here, and after hours of paperwork and Mount St. Simon, I'm really too tired for a panic attack right now."

"You know the Institute is wrong about most things Sentinel, right?"

"Oh, yeah. I think we established that. The whole idea of Sentinels having no control? I would have given anything to have Wendy there with her camera when you took Herrera down. Talk about shaking up a world view or two. And that would have been a much better exclusive than Simon putting Herrera in the car in handcuffs."

"And they're wrong about bonding?" Jim prompted.

Now Blair frowned, tilting his head at Jim as he obviously tried to figure out what was coming next. "Yeah," he said slowly.

"And they're wrong about guardians."

"Well, yeah, I get that. The whole 'guardians' thing is way out of line. Man, you told me that in no uncertain terms the very first day you came here. I think back on what a schmuck I was, and I want to whap myself upside the head," Blair laughed. "Sentinels don't need guardians… or at least their need for a guardian is no more than anyone else, because the learned helplessness of the whole system—man, that can seriously fuck with a person's head."

Jim started to open his mouth, and Blair held out his hand to stop him. "Hey, I know that you do not like hearing this, but some Sentinels, the ones who have been raised to believe they can't control themselves, they still totally need guardians. Control is a learned behavior, and the whole system conspires against them. But when it comes to Sentinels who show control, like you, I'm with you, man. You need a companion and not a guardian. Check."

"Shit. Can I get a word in here?" Jim demanded as he exploded up from the coffee table and paced to the window.

"Jim?"

"Guides bond too," Jim announced, his eyes firmly focused out at the sky.

"The what do what?"

"Guides," Jim started again. "Incacha said I couldn't stay with him." Jim paused, and suddenly a warm hand rested on his back, Blair silently pressing, silently offering support. Jim smiled as he smelled the aggression on Blair. While he appreciated the fact that Blair cared enough about him to get pissed, the pain of losing Incacha wasn't more than a dull memory now. "Incacha said that while he could be my bond-mate, he couldn't be my Guide." Jim stopped, struggling to put his ideas into order, especially when he suspected Blair wasn't going to like them much.

"What's a Guide?" Blair asked in the silence.

Jim laughed darkly. "Damned if I know. Incacha said that some souls, they are pulled towards a Sentinel on the spirit plane."

"You mean like the mystical stuff?" Blair asked. Stuff. Jim took a deep breath and firmly ordered himself not to talk about the panther that had led him to Blair. One major paradigm-shifting disaster at a time.

"He said that a Sentinel could bond to anyone, but that a Guide would complete the bond. He said I couldn't stay with him because I needed to find my Guide. He said my Guide needed to bond to me as badly as I needed to bond to him."

"So, you're looking for a Guide?"

"I found a Guide," Jim sighed as he focused on the dark leading edge of a flat-bottomed cloud that threatened rain. He hadn't particularly wanted a Guide, but he had found one anyway. And now he had choices that were even more complicated than before.

"Whoa, you're losing me here, Jim."

Slowly, Jim turned around to find Blair staring up at him in confusion. Jim allowed himself to reach out and brush his hand against Blair's cheek before resting it on his shoulder. "Hey," Blair offered softly, "Whatever this is, man, we'll, you know, be okay."

"Blair, when you thought I didn't want your backup, how did you feel?"

"Not my best moment," he admitted, shrugging self-consciously and looking down.

"You smelled like a Sentinel whose bond is breaking," Jim said quietly. Blair's eyes snapped up to him.

"What?"

"You thought I'd rejected you, and you put out this scent… I've smelled it before."

It took Blair a second of blinking before he could come up with a response, but the slow smirk was not the reaction Jim had wanted. "Oh buddy, you *so* hit your head today, didn't you?" Blair huffed.

"Blair."

"Way out in left field." And the hand gestures were back.

"I know the smell," Jim said firmly. "I smelled it every morning I woke up grieving for Incacha and ordering myself not to turn south and try and run for Peru. I smelled it on Ursula, this Sentinel who they brought back to the Institute after her guardian died. Even after she was out of isolation, every once in a while one of the kids in there would thoughtlessly bring up bonding, and she got that same smell. That's what you smelled like."

Blair was shaking his head now. "Jim, I don't know what you smelled, but that's impossible."

"Blair, there was something between us, right from that moment at the airport. I know I started feeling pulled toward you the first time I was here, when I thought you were just trying to help me."

"Jim, you're a Sentinel. Look, I don't know whether you hit your head really hard or if Incacha had smoked some interesting greenery before coming up with this theory, but Jim, come on, do you know what this sounds like?" Blair reached up and rested his hand on Jim's arm as though to soften the blow, but Jim could feel the frown start even as he ordered himself to deal with the denial calmly.

"No stranger than saying that I have instinctive behaviors that influence my decision making," he commented. Blair at least had the grace to flinch away from that.

"Hey, I hear you. But don't you see? You're totally projecting here. You're frustrated and so to make yourself normal again, you invent this whole thing no one else has ever heard of and now everyone bonds and you're normal again. Jim, I hear you. I totally get how you could…"

"Can it," Jim snapped. "I'm not saying that everyone bonds. If everyone bonded, I would have stayed with Incacha, even if I was second to his wife for the rest of my life, even if I slept in a corner of their hut until I was so old my knees wouldn't bend any more. Incacha said that most Sentinels have only a bond-mate, someone they bond to. But he said he had a vision where I found my Guide, and that my Guide would bond in return."

"A vision?" Blair asked. Jim pressed his lips together and counted backward from a hundred as he struggled with his temper.

"Okay, Freud would call that a subconscious desire being expressed, so I'm all in favor of visions. Perfectly mentally healthy. Naomi goes on that whole vision quest thing all the time, man. I don't think she's had an actual vision yet, but I can respect the holistic mental health approach here."

"Chief, you're talking yourself into one serious whap on the head," Jim warned as he turned away and leaned against the brick wall, focusing on the building's chill to keep him from exploding. "You were in distress because you thought I rejected you. I could smell that. And now that I see what you're like when I'm not acting like an asshole, I think you've been in bond distress for the last week or so. You said it yourself, you nearly killed the damn plant."

"Hey, just a little clinical depression, and I have been in therapy since I was old enough to talk, so that's not exactly evidence of anything, and Spidey's going to be fine. Back when I was a TA at Rainier, he had a near death experience every semester when students turned in their finals."

Jim could hear Blair cross the living room and sit down heavily on the couch. Silence filled the room, or at least a Sentinel version of silence. The heater made the building vibrate softly, water flowed through pipes to one of the other apartments, and a plane engine dully roared overhead, oddly out of sync with Blair's heartbeat.

"I know what I smelled. And I know I caused it, both today and during my week of impersonating an asshole. I didn't understand," Jim said quietly, feeling his way around the apology. He could throw out words like "sorry" easily enough, but now—knowing that he had caused Blair the ripping pain of a strained bond—he found he just couldn't say the words. He meant them too much. Jim floundered with that bit of illogic.

"Jim," Blair said slowly. Then he burst up from the couch so fast that Jim spun, his senses thrown out in search of the intruder.

"Ketosis!" Blair shouted as he headed for the bathroom.

"Blair?" Jim followed, hearing the sound of Blair digging through the medicine cabinet, and flinching at the sound of most of their stuff getting strewn around the small room. "Hey, let's not trash the place," Jim suggested as he reached the open door and found himself faced with the full force of Hurricane Sandburg leaving a trail of debris in his wake.

"Ketosis!" Blair repeated triumphantly, holding up a small box of medical supplies. His fingers worked first the cardboard and then the little plastic bottle as he talked. "If you're right, which you so totally are not, then my body has to be in ketosis from the prolonged stress. Purple strip, I'm feeling a stressed bond, either that or I have a serious-ass medical condition, but that's not likely. Man, you should see the physical they make you go through to become a cop."

"Blair, I never said you'd have the same metabolic reaction."

"Oh yeah, keep on backpedaling, Ellison," Blair said as he unzipped his pants and aimed at the toilet. Dipping a strip into the yellow stream, Blair started counting. "One thousand one… one thousand two… one thousand three…"

Blair stopped peeing at one thousand nine. He stopped counting at one thousand eleven. By then, the beige strip had turned such a dark shade of purple that Jim felt a little worried and a lot guilty. The kid's body was throwing out ketones like a starving man, and Jim carried the blame for that. He'd had Blair so convinced that he wanted to break the bond that his Guide had suffered the pain of a stressed bond.

"Fuck," Blair breathed as he looked down at the incriminating strip with a drop of yellow clinging to the edge.

"Why don't you wash up, and I can fix us some hamburgers," Jim suggested quietly, backing away from the door. He waited for a second in the hall, seeing if Blair would object to his leaving or want the privacy, but Blair just stared down at the incriminating strip. Jim nodded and headed for the kitchen. He'd just upended the man's universe, the least he could do was give him the illusion of privacy.

"Double fuck with icing," Blair said softly as Jim reached the kitchen.

Jim could relate with that sentiment. Maybe it was being in the same city, but he couldn't escape the memory of his father's birds and bees and Sentinels talk with him. He'd walked away from the football field with his knees trembling, looking at every bush as though there were some guardian ready to spring out and rape him right then.

It had taken years before Jim trusted a single thought or impulse he had. If he wanted ice cream, he'd wonder to himself whether he wanted it because he liked ice cream or if it was some weird Sentinel thing. Of course, he was handicapped by the fact that his father made sure that Jim couldn't research Sentinels in any way, shape, or form, so Jim didn't know if Sentinels had a weird ice cream thing.

And his father would reinforce that fear, constantly suggesting that Jim couldn't make a single decision independent from his Sentinel instincts. If he rushed to Stevie's defense against that idiot Aaron, his father would demand to know if Jim was trying to out himself as the watchman of his tribe. His father had tried to drive as many wedges between Jim and Steven as he could. Looking back, Jim wondered how many of those games Steven was in on, and how many times Steven was just another victim.

"Fucking… I really need a bigger word," Blair breathed from the bathroom, the toilet seat making a creaking noise as Blair sat down. Jim focused on the meat as he let Blair take some time to get his thoughts back together. It was hard to learn that your decisions weren't totally your own, that you had some drive sunk deep into your brain that was just as strong as another man's urge to breathe.

"Well, fuck," Blair sighed. Jim understood just what the kid was thinking. Unfortunately, he had no idea how to help.

THIRTY FOUR
***
Jim silently ate his cheeseburger, watching as Blair picked at the salad. He was particularly interested in rolling the small tomato over the pile of greens and then herding it back again with his fork.

If only Jim had the magic words to make this easier, he'd use them, but he didn't. Hopefully a little incense and some drum music would get Blair back on track a little quicker than Jim's own tortuous path to accepting not only his senses but his instincts. Okay, he only sometimes accepted his instincts, but he had learned to appreciate his senses. Blair glanced up at Jim again before shoving a fry in his mouth.

"Well, aren't you going to say it?" Blair asked, breaking the long silence.

"Say what?"

"Oh man, I can think of any number of things you could say."

"So, why don't you say them for me?" Jim asked, curious as to where exactly Blair was going.

"I'm thinking you'd start with 'what's good for the goose is good for the gander,'" Blair said, thunking his fork down on the table.

"Blair," Jim said softly.

"I am like this world-class schmuck because I never got it. I mean, I've studied Sentinels for how many years, and I just never got it, you know? Not in the gut. Not really." Blair pushed his plate with his half-eaten cheeseburger away so he could rest his elbows on the table. "Realizing that someone else has this key that fits your emotions, man, this is…"

"It's hard."

"I mean, I spent all that time telling you to stop denying your instincts."

"You didn't exactly say that," Jim objected.

"Oh, I thought it. I totally thought it. And now… it's not just instinct, that's not why I like you," Blair explained in halting words.

"I know. Instinctively, I'm pulled toward you, but that doesn't change the fact that I respect who you are and what you've done," Jim agreed.

"And then there's me making fun of you and Incacha, not that I feel sorry about making fun of Incacha after what he put you through, but I was way out of line with the comment about you getting hit in the head. But despite the whole out of line thing, I still feel a need to slug Incacha." Blair stopped suddenly, a sour expression flitting across his face.

Jim sighed, practically able to hear the fears in Blair's brain. "Your anger is all yours, Blair. Maybe if Incacha were right here you might feel some sort of instinctive competitiveness since he was my first bond-mate, but he's thousands of miles away, so any feelings you have are just you."

"Wow, you've got your telepathy tuned in today," Blair gave a strained laugh.

"I've been there. And you're too tough to let this throw you for long." Jim hadn't finished his burger, but he pushed his own plate aside and focused on his Guide. His Guide. A little part of Jim had always though Incacha had made up that story and that vision just to get rid of the crazy Sentinel who had pushed into the Shaman's life and home. Maybe not.

"Should we tell someone?" Blair asked uncertainly. Jim thought about that. Yeah, the scientist in Blair probably wanted to confirm the results and write a paper and give a lecture, but Jim wasn't sure that was the best approach.

"Blair, if society has trouble dealing with Sentinels, who are one quarter of one percent of the population, how do you think they'd deal with someone who seems to be unique?" Jim asked.

Blair stared silently at Jim. Outside a truck laid on its horn and tires screeched, but no crunch of metal followed.

"Nearly three-quarter of a million Sentinels and one me." Blair thought about that for a second. "Canada's sounding good," he sighed.

If Blair were serious, Jim would have done a jig. That just wasn't a serious tone of voice; it was a defeated one. "I don't think anyone is likely to guess your secret identity," Jim pointed out, "but this does change a few things."

"Like you running," Blair quickly concluded.

"I don't know what to do," Jim agreed. "I don't want to hurt you, and now that you're bonded, I know it will hurt more than you can imagine."

"Hey, I already did the stress-ketosis thing, and forewarned is forearmed. I'll stock up on enough anti-depressants to keep an entire jihad cult mellow and happy. But…" Blair stopped.

"You want me to stay." Jim said the words slowly, praying that Blair would disagree because Jim was already fighting every instinct he owned, and leaving when his Guide asked him to stay… Jim could feel a cold dread as he realized he might not have the strength to do that.

"Jim," Blair paused. "Jim, we could make a difference. Yeah, the system is unfair, but we could help change that. If we could change the laws so that you had more freedoms and so that Sentinels didn't have to fight for every privilege… I know it isn't a perfect world." Blair's voice trailed off.

Jim stood up and retreated to his window, the one where he could fill his vision with sky without seeing the sprawl of the city below. "You really think we could change things?" he asked. He just didn't know; he didn't know if that was enough to sacrifice his freedom and he didn't know if they could actually make a difference in a system that had developed over hundreds of years. Even worse right now, he didn't know what it would eventually do to the relationship between him and Blair if he stayed because Blair had asked him to.

"You risked your life to protect the country," Blair said. "Is this really all that different? Man, I promise I will be less of a schmuck now because I totally get how freaky this bond is. We're in this together, equals to the end, man. And if you say we run, then hey, we'll start picking out curtains for a Canadian cabin. But is changing your country really less important than defending it?"

Jim stared out into the sky and felt his mind circling that question. This was one of those cases where Jim couldn't decide how much his instincts or his resentments of his instincts influenced his logic. "You're stubborn, you know that?" Jim finally answered with a question.

"Year of the pig, man: studious and stubborn."

Jim laughed and turned around. "You were born in the year of the pig? I should have guessed." Blair's heart rate made a familiar little jump. Cocking his head, Jim considered Blair, and after a second, Blair started to blush. "Blair?"

"Hey, have you ever heard of 'invasion of privacy'?" Blair asked as he turned and headed back for the kitchen. "I think this is all a little too freaky right now, so we can totally talk about this later. Besides, aren't you supposed to give Eli a call? I mean, helping him identify Sentinels who function outside the system would be like this huge monumental step toward change."

"What are you trying to obfuscate your way out of?" Jim demanded dryly as he followed.

"Okay, fine, I'm not year of the pig, okay?" Blair stopped near the table, rolling his eyes as he grabbed dishes.

"Wait, you lied about your sign? Okay, what difference does that make?" Jim asked. "Virgo, Leo, Year of the Dragon, Year of the Pig—it's all just mumbo jumbo."

"Hey, like Naomi says, the Chinese were making complex astrological observations when the English were still picking fleas out of their beds," Blair jabbed a finger in Jim's direction. Then the indignation dissolved into a shrug. "But yeah, the whole thing probably is a bunch of hooey."

"But hooey your mom believed in." Jim understood how a parent's beliefs just sort of oozed through the cracks and settled in, even when you didn't want them to.

Blair shrugged. "Yeah, she put a lot of stock in it."

"So why lie? Your mom has to know your real birthday."

"Man, do not get her started on that--year of the monkey."

"And?" Jim asked, not sure what that was supposed to mean.

"Enthusiastic, fun-loving, impish, and intelligent."

"That's not sounding like something to hide. Hell, it sounds more accurate than any other horoscope I've heard. I'm a Gemini, but do you see me as someone quick to talk, wishy-washy, and always trying to be the life of the party?" Jim sat on the arm of the couch and waited for an explanation that actually made sense.

"Monkeys also get easily distracted or confused and they have a little problem with morals. They tend to not have many. They aren't evil or anything, but they're more about what works for them than doing what's right. Mom was so sure I was going to be born a rooster with yin influences. She wanted that talent and devotion and steadfastness, and she said that a boy born into a yin influence wouldn't be as ruled by his testosterone. But then I had to get born early and slip in at the tail end of monkey, and do not make that into a pun," Blair warned darkly. "And a yang-influenced monkey to boot."

Jim cringed. Okay, if Naomi had discussed her disappointment in this much detail, the woman had probably left some pretty deep marks.

"Oh Chief."

"Hey, do not go there. Like you said, it's a bunch of hooey, but no way would anyone buy me as a rooster because steadfastness is not my thing, so I just default to year of the pig. Caring, intelligent, occasionally taken advantage of: they make great teachers. I considered going for year of the dog, which is the year after rooster, but I fit "obedient" even worse than I fit "steadfast."

"Blair, you have more morals than anyone else I've worked with," Jim promised. He expected a smile; instead, Blair flinched back, physically retreated behind the table.

Slowly, Blair started shaking his head. "No way. Man, I thought I had ethical standards, but I'm re-evaluating. Part of being an ethical person is putting yourself in someone else's shoes. And man, I didn't do that. I told myself I understood Sentinels, but after this, no fucking way. I was totally lying to myself."

"That doesn't make you unethical. You helped people," Jim said quietly. He was starting to get a little worried about the unpredictable turns this conversation kept taking, but Blair wasn't an immoral man. Jim had seen enough evil in the world to know that for certain.

"Thomas Hardy said it. Don't do the immoral thing for moral reasons. And I may have thought I was doing right, but now… How much of that was fear? Sentinels are like scary, powerful creatures. And how many people did I hurt because I never *really* thought about their side of it. I mean, I went and I did something so totally stupid, even when my mom came and burned sage and had this spiritualist in to help me see the true path."

Jim waited. Blair was still pacing, his hands violently punctuating his words with little jabs into the air, but the distress still radiated.

"Man, I became part of the system. I told myself I wanted to make the world better, but I was playing hero. I wanted to ride to the rescue, and when some traumatized Sentinel would cling to me, I felt like some sort of superman. Fuck." Blair stopped, and Jim could see the tremors in his muscles. "How much of that was the Guide thing?" Blair asked, his eyes finding Jim, as though Jim had some answer.

"How much of what?" Jim asked, not entirely sure he was following Blair's logic simply because Blair's logic seemed to be twisting all out of shape.

"Me wanting to help Sentinels. Me wanting to work with them. The fact that Sentinels would cling to me. How much of that is because I'm a Guide?"

"Chief, don't do this to yourself," Jim begged. "Don't try and rewrite your whole life as nothing more than you following some instinct. You chose to help Sentinels because you're a good person."

"Yeah, well that whole monkey thing is sounding a little more accurate. I was getting what I wanted: I got to play hero." This time, Blair wandered to the window and took up Jim's normal post staring out over the city and toward the sea.

"So, if I felt good saving a village from drug dealers, that makes me a bad person?" Jim asked.

"I'm not talking about you," Blair snapped in frustration, looking back toward Jim before focusing out the window again.

"Oh, you are. You're talking about human nature here, Blair. If you felt good about helping someone who's been abused, that makes you a good person. A bad person would hurt them more."

"Man, knock it off with the emotionally supportive shit. It's freaky. I'm supposed to be the touchy feely one, here." Blair's voice had at least a touch of humor in it now. Feeling the tone shift, Jim got up and stood behind Blair and put his hands on Blair's hips. For the first time, he allowed himself to touch more than a shoulder, to let his hands linger. Blair leaned back into him, and Jim curled his arms around Blair's stomach.

"I can care about you because I care about you. It doesn't have to be some bond," Blair whispered, his hands resting on Jim's own.

"No, it doesn't," Jim quickly agreed.

"Or guilt or some overdeveloped sense of shame for being born in the year of the monkey. I can just like you."

"Yeah, I like to think I'm likeable, most days," Jim said softly. Blair huffed, but he also leaned his head back so that it rested against Jim's shoulder. "Blair, I like you, and the bond—the bond will always be between us, holding us together—but that doesn't change the fact that I like how gutsy you are and how you throw yourself into everything you believe in."

"Is that why you told me to stay behind?" Blair joked weakly.

"I can like you and be your bond-mate without appreciating your habit of hiding your weaknesses, but then some people have told me I'm not perfect either," Jim agreed. "I don't see it myself," he joked.

"You're a neat freak. I can't leave magazines around without you putting them in a neat stack somewhere."

"Hey, I knocked that pile of magazines onto the floor just a few minutes ago," Jim defended himself. "Does it bother you?" he asked as he glanced over his shoulder at the apartment. The first day he'd been here, books had been strewn over the table, magazines had been scattered in one corner of the living room, and dishes had been just sitting on the counter. Now the kitchen was spotless, the magazines usually were in a pile on the coffee table / storage chest, and the books were all neatly tucked into the bookcases covering one wall.

"Nah, it's actually less embarrassing when someone comes over now," Blair dismissed Jim's fear that he was taking over the loft. Fingers slowly stroked Jim's forearms, tracing warm circles on the skin.

"And I *might* have played 'poor me' once or twice," Jim added.

"Yeah, I think you could play it a few hundred times and still be within your rights."

Silence filled the loft as the shadows lengthened and the sky slowly faded from violet with streaks of reds and oranges. Under his fingers, Jim could feel every breath Blair took and hear not only the steady beat of his heart, but the rush of blood through his veins and the rumbles of a stomach that was obviously still upset. Jim tightened his hold.

"We'll be okay," Jim promised softly. When Blair had hung in chains in Kincaid's warehouse, Jim had made a choice: he'd put Blair's safety ahead of his own freedom. Knowing how deeply the depression had taken hold of Blair during the stressed bond and knowing how much pain the man seemed to carry beneath that flippant exterior, Jim could guess what would happen if Jim left. The best case scenario included a nice institution and a lot of quality pharmaceuticals. The worst was something Jim wasn't even willing to consider.

"We'll be okay," he repeated as he made his decision. His Guide wouldn't leave Cascade; he wouldn't leave his Guide. Jim watched the sun sink under the horizon, and he allowed himself to grieve for his lost freedom. His heart aching, he simply clung more tightly to his Guide and let himself sink into the comfort of his Guide's touch tracing figures on his arms.

THIRTY FIVE
***
The sound of Blair's cell phone blasting tinny music a couple of inches from his ear yanked Jim out of sleep.

He fumbled at the side table before realizing the sound came from somewhere lower. Cracking open an eye, he grabbed the corner of Blair's pants and pulled them close enough for him to grope in the pocket. The irony of groping Blair's pants without getting to grope Blair rattled around in the back of Jim's brain, but he shoved aside the small part of him that complained at the unfairness and fished out the phone. For a half second, he considered flinging it against the brick wall. With a sigh, Jim flipped it open instead.

"Hello?"

"Uh. Is Sandburg there?" a deep voice on the other end asked.

"Blair," Jim said, prodding the mass currently drooling on his arm. "Blair!"

"Day off," Blair muttered and then he moved in closer, probably so he could drool on Jim's chest.

"It's Simon," Jim said as he poked Blair in the shoulder with the edge of the cell phone.

A bleary, blue eye appeared out from under a mass of tangled curls. "Simon?" Blair pulled his hand up and rubbed his face before taking the phone.

"Simon?" Blair asked, his voice still slurring with sleep. Jim relaxed back into the pillows and let his fingers trace the top of Blair's shoulder. Last night, Blair had accepted the invitation to sleep with an awkward shyness that didn't quite match Jim's image of the man. He'd laid in bed stiff until he had finally fallen asleep and reverted into a heat-seeking octopus that pressed closely to Jim's side. Jim half expected an awake Blair to flee the bed or at least flee the embrace, but instead he just lay his head on Jim's chest, the phone to his ear.

"I need you two down at the station," Simon immediately announced in a distracted voice. Jim caught the faint sound of paper rustling, and he got the distinct impression that the man was doing something else, something he considered more important.

"We're off suspension?" That perked Blair up. He pushed himself a few inches up from the bed, his free hand braced on Jim's chest, and the casual connection made Jim just want to stretch out like a big cat in the sun. He'd known the awkwardness between them had thrown Blair off, but Jim was starting to suspect that his own moods had suffered some because of the conflict.

Simon snorted in amusement. "No chance. You and Ellison still have two days. I should tack another day onto the end just for talking me into letting you go on-scene with the Taylor case."

"Oh man, you wouldn't."

"I would. At least, I would if we weren't already short-handed. I just need you to come in and go over your statements one more time."

"Why?" Blair asked suspiciously. He started sitting up and discovered his legs tangled with Jim's. When a knee brushed Jim's cock, Blair blushed and pulled away. Jim could smell desire, but he could also see the individual capillaries in his face swell with blood as embarrassment overrode the desire.

"You aren't going to like it," Simon warned, and Blair frowned as he rolled away from Jim. "Aldo wants to go over the statements. Actually, he wanted me to call you two in last night, but that…" Simon's voice started to rise in aggravation, but then he took a deep breath. "Aldo does not dictate how I run my department," he finished calmly.

"When is this asshole going to get a clue? Man, we were doing exactly what we were supposed to be doing. And legally, Jim could have given that killer a few good hits, so we're looking like saints all around. Aldo has zippidy doo-dah to complain about."

"Yeah, come tell him that so he gets his ass out of my department," Simon suggested.

"I just woke up," Blair said as he sat up at the edge of the bed. Jim reached over and used a single finger to trace the hairs on the back of Blair's arm. The desire and the embarrassment both intensified.

"Yeah, I gathered. Just get down here as soon as you can, preferably within the hour."

"I'll try my best."

"Don't try, do. I don't want you avoiding him so I have to put up with his attitude." Simon sounded gruff, but then he sighed. "Look, Blair, a lot of people are starting to whisper that Aldo is going too far. Just hang in there a little longer, and even his captain will have to admit that this is a personal vendetta."

"Great. So I can look forward to a morning of Asshole Aldo."

"Yeah, just do your own asshole impression right back at him; you have it down pat." Without waiting for an answer, Simon hung up the phone and Blair flipped his phone shut.

"Too fucking early," Blair mumbled as he rubbed his face again.

"I'm getting lazy, I used to be up at dawn every morning," Jim mused. He stretched his senses so that he could hear the traffic on the street and the sounds of the bakery below them.

"Man, and you call me weird?" Blair was silent for so long that Jim started worrying. He sat up behind Blair and gently fingered a soft curl.

"Blair?"

"Thanks for letting me sleep up here," Blair nearly whispered.

"It's a nice way to wake up," Jim answered.

"Yeah, well after I got pushy with you over sex the other day, I'm just glad you trusted me to share the bed. I was way out of line."

"It's fine, Chief."

"You were trying to keep me from bonding, weren't you?" Blair asked. Jim paused, his fingers resting against Blair's back as he tried to figure out what to say. The worst part was that he didn't know what Blair wanted or needed to hear. Should he say yes, he was trying to prevent the bond and protect Blair? Would Blair feel better if he said no, he had no idea about the bond and it was all Jim's own hang-ups? And worst of all, Jim wasn't quite sure why he had retreated from the offer.

"Maybe," Jim finally said. "I don't know. I didn't want you hurt if things got out of hand, but part of that was just me trying to deal with this." Jim let his hand fall away from Blair's body and rest on the mattress.

"Trying to deal with the fact that you didn't want to stay but you didn't want to leave me?" Blair asked. The voice had a strange tightness to it.

"I don't want to leave you. But a few days ago… there were too many things that needed to be said."

Blair nodded slowly. "And I was ready to jump your bones. Man, when you told me you needed space… I was down there struggling with this incredible need to strip naked and charge up those stairs, and I kept telling myself that assaulting you was so not cool and I was likely to get my skull cracked for pulling a stunt like that."

"I wouldn't hurt you," Jim said quickly. He silently cursed his decision to not smash the phone because the lazy comfort of just holding his Guide was infinitely more enjoyable than this awkward shifting, this struggle to find their balance in a new relationship.

"I know. But if I came running up those stairs stark naked…."

"I would have had sex with you," Jim finished. Blair tilted his head and looked at Jim.

"You would have?"

"Oh, yeah," Jim agreed, drawing the words out as he nodded.

"You mean I could have been having wild monkey sex for the last two days, and I settled for snuggling?" Blair asked with a crooked grin.

"Brat." Jim smiled back, the tension easing. "Besides, you weren't offering wild monkey sex last night."

Blair sat up a little straighter and sat silent for a second. "I would have except…"

"Except it's really strange when you don't know how many of your own feelings you can trust," Jim finished for him.

"Oh man, totally," Blair agreed. "Have you ever… I mean, other than Keith because I really am so not interested in hearing about Keith. Or Incacha. Fuck, I think I'm jealous. Man, this is not good for the karma."

Jim chuckled. "Sometimes I pushed the senses back so far that I would just forget them. There was a girl or two then."

"Just girls?" Blair leaned back on the bed and considered Jim.

"Yeah, Darwin, just girls. The military and an open lifestyle are not a good mix. Just because the regulations allow something does not mean the rank and file soldiers are going to let it slide."

"So are you interested in guys?" Blair frowned, his concern obvious. Jim sat up, smiling as he reached over and curled fingers around the back of Blair's neck and carefully pulled him close enough for a kiss. It was slow. Jim mapped Blair's mouth with his lips, feeling them slowly open to him. Using a tongue, he slipped into Blair, tasting, touching, feeling the body heat slowly rise as the scent of desire curled around them in wisps that clung to their skin.

Jim pulled back and Blair sat, his eyes closed and his mouth still slightly open. "I'm interested in you," Jim answered.

"Okay. Wow," Blair breathed, his eyes coming open. "And now you want me to go to work?"

Jim considered that. His timing probably could have been better. He shrugged.

"Oh man. I cannot believe I have to get out of bed after a kiss like that. As a man, I never turn down an offer of sex. Well, except for Susan Karalla who bordered on…" Blair whistled and made a loony-toons circle with his finger near his head. "What a nutcase." He paused. "But Simon will have us doing traffic if we're late, and somehow I don't think we want a quickie. Of course, it could be over quick. It could be over embarrassingly quick," Blair said wryly as he shifted, pulling at his boxers where Jim could see an impressive erection pressing against the fabric.

"If it was over quick, I'd just start over from the beginning and keep going," Jim said as he felt his own cock ache in response.

"Officially not helping," Blair complained. "Fuck, I have to get out of this bed now or I'm going to be so late that Simon is going to have me directing traffic at the go-cart races."

"Go," Jim said, using his foot to give Blair a little shove.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm going under protest; I want that on the record," Blair said as he pushed himself up and padding toward the stairs in boxers and his undershirt.

"Noted." Jim agreed. "And Blair?"

Blair paused on the top step, looking back.

"Maybe this afternoon after I get back from working with Eli we could see where things go."

"It's a date," Blair said with a smile. The smile widened into something a little more wicked. "And you know, I'm a big old man-whore with a reputation of putting out on the first date." Blair hurried down the stairs without waiting for an answer, and Jim just shook his head, listening as Blair took care of himself in the shower, crying out when he came.

Jim might have to make a few compromises… okay, more than a few… but he'd done that before. What had Blair asked him, whether changing his country was worth the same sacrifices as defending his country. Jim had risked his freedom and his life every time he'd walked into enemy territory. He had no illusions about what the terrorists would have done to him if they had caught him waiting to take his shot at their leader. He was a soldier. Listening to Blair hum in the shower, Jim also had to admit that life certainly promised to have some bright spots as well. Jim reached up and fingered the warm, smooth metal around his neck; he rarely even noticed it any more. Maybe it was time for a new plan.

Jim walked down the hall in front of Blair. The man trailed behind, explaining to some uniform from Traffic how the tribesman of Whatchamacallit made up with their wives after screwing up. Jim somehow doubted that making a mash of insects or using body paint was going to get this guy back in his wife's good graces.

"Yeah, but…" the red-haired victim of Blair's lecture tried to interrupt.

"Don't you get it?" Blair asked. "Come on. Do something that's really hard for you. Yeah, the mashed ants might not be her thing. But man, find something that hard. Do something tedious or unpleasant. Do something she likes."

"Maybe take her to the ballet?" the guy said uncertainly.

"Cool! Hey, if she likes ballet, definitely. And that's totally in line with rule number two. Make it public. If you can't paint yourself red, do something her coworkers will see. Send flowers. Embarrass her by delivering a gourmet lunch. Man, human nature never changes. She'll eat it up."

"I could take flowers and tickets over to the school after work."

"Totally. Man, you're off the couch already," Blair encouraged him.

"Thanks Blair, you're a lifesaver."

Jim stopped at the door to Major Crimes and glanced back at Blair. "Ants and red paint?" he asked.

"Hey, symbolism. It's all about the symbolism."

"Sure it is, Dr. Ruth," Jim laughed as he pushed through the doors into the bull pen. He wasn't surprised to find Detective Aldo sitting on the edge of his desk, flipping through some file. Jim made a mental note to disinfect that corner of his desk later.

"Aldo. What rock did you crawl out from under?" Blair asked with a false cheerfulness as he came around Jim. He had his arms crossed as he stopped a few feet away from the IA detective.

"Original, Sandburg. Original and biting in its sarcastic wit."

Jim stiffened. The man was just a little too cheerful, and anything that made Aldo cheerful made Jim's skin crawl.

"Look, let's just get this interview over because being this close to you is making my skin crawl."

"Well, there's been a small change in plans," Aldo commented as he went back to looking through the file.

"Good, then I'm out of here," Blair snapped. Jim felt a creeping fear sink into him, and he slid sideways so that he stood close enough to feel Blair's body heat.

Aldo stood up straight. "I have a protective order here." Aldo pulled a paper out of the folder and handed it to Blair as he walked past the pair. Jim ignored the paper, focusing on Aldo as the threat, even as the man walked toward the doors to the bullpen.

"Blair?" Brown asked as he stood and started toward them. Jim glanced over, and Blair had turned white. By the time Jim looked back up, two Institute employees were coming through the doors to Major Crimes. Aldo stood to one side of the doors and watched with a smirk, but Jim didn't focus on that. He found himself watching the white-uniformed SI workers with a despair that bordered on nausea.

"What the hell have you done?" Blair's voice was low and dark and little more than a whisper as he crumpled the paper. "You son of a bitch; what have you done?"

Jim tightened his jaw and allowed himself to reach out for Blair, resting his hand on Blair's back. Jim kept his eyes focused on the shorter of the two Institute employees—the one with the chains.

"I'm getting Simon," Brown said as he headed for the doors, shooting Aldo a withering look as he went.

"No way. No fucking way," Blair hissed, but even though he denied it, everyone in the room knew the truth, which is why Aldo was smirking and why Blair had tremors rolling through his body so that Jim could feel them.

"Sentinel Ellison's involvement in the Taylor case breaks so many regulations that not even you can charm your way out of the consequences of this one. Too bad you seem so fond of him, but they'll find him a guardian who isn't some wanna-be cop." Aldo said with an unctuous concern that made Jim's blood pressure rise.

"Fine. You want to come after me? Then fucking come after me! Come on!" Blair's voice rose to a near screech as he lurched forward. Aldo stepped back in the face of Blair's fury, his head thunking against the wall as he hit it. But Jim caught his companion by the neck and reeled him in before Blair could physically attack the man.

"Do it! Finish your career right here!" Aldo yelled as he stepped forward. Blair twisted and Jim almost lost his grip. Scrambling, he grabbed Blair's arm mid-swing and jerked him back.

"Cool it!" Jim yelled, tightening his grip on Blair's arm and neck as he struggled to control the squirming ball of frustration and fury. Out of the corner of his eye, Jim could see the SI workers freeze, but he didn't have time for them. He slipped an arm around Blair's waist and physically manhandled Blair into the back corner near their desks.

Blair didn't really fight Jim, he just squirmed and thrashed, forcing Jim to drag him through the maze of desks. A stray leg caught a trash can, sending it skittering across the floor and bouncing off a desk leg.

"What is going on here?" Simon's voice bellowed. Jim ignored the chaos behind him and focused on Blair's pounding heart.

"Breathe, Sandburg. You're going to give yourself a heart attack."

"They can't do this!" Blair's impassioned declaration was the logic of a six-year-old, but Jim wished for just one second he could be half as idealistic as Blair. The man expected the world to be fair despite the number of times the universe had gone out of its way to prove otherwise.

Behind them, Simon and Aldo still traded low, angry words, but the Institute employees had finally started moving again, inching closer to the back of the room where Jim still used a hip to keep Sandburg corralled.

As the Institute employees moved toward them, Jim could see the open pain in Blair's eyes. Using the grip he'd maintained around Blair's waist, Jim pulled Blair into an embrace, resting his cheek on Blair's head as silent shudders shook the smaller body.

"They can't do this," Blair repeated softer this time, the words barely breathed and spoken just for Jim. Jim tightened his arms around Blair.

The room had gone silent, and Jim could tell that both Simon and Aldo were gone, although he didn't remember them leaving. Blair's hands finally came up and slid around Jim's waist as he held on with just as much desperation.

"Sentinel Ellison?" a crisp voice called, just a hint of New England under the surface, but Jim ignored it as he breathed Blair-scent and felt his companion's heartbeat echo though his own body.

Maybe he could do this. Maybe he could live with the damn collar and the slavery if he could have Blair, but there would always be someone like Aldo, something like the Institute waiting in the wings. And Jim couldn't let himself believe that he and Blair would be left alone because life really did just like to take a crap on James Joseph Ellison's head.

"Sentinel Ellison?"

"You can't have him." Blair twisted to the side where he faced off against the two employees while still standing in the circle of Jim's arms.

"Detective Sandburg, this order clearly—"

"Save it," Jim snapped before he focused on Blair, cupping Blair's cheek to force the man to look at him. "Chief, we've only got one chance here, and that's for you to use that silver tongue of yours on the judge. Making a scene here is just going to make it harder to convince the judge that you aren't a total flake."

"Nice, you're insulting me." Blair's voice cracked, and Jim could see the wet brightness in his eyes.

"It's what I do," Jim shrugged.

Blair's arms tightened around his waist as Blair leaned forward and let his cheek rest on Jim's chest.

"God, I'm sorry. It's my fault," Blair muttered.

"Hey, just come and get me back, okay," Jim said quietly, struggling to get Blair to focus on what he needed to do now. What worried him was that the bond between them was still struggling to recover from the strain of earlier, and now Blair trembled with emotion. Jim knew what it felt like when the bond overrode all rational thought, but if Blair allowed that, they were both in serious trouble. Putting his hand under Blair's chin and lifting it, he forced Blair to focus on him.

"Did you break any laws or rules?" Jim asked quietly.

"No way. Man, I was on the side of the angels the whole way," Blair immediately retorted, the truth of his belief clear for any Sentinel to hear.

"Then just come get me, Blair," Jim said quietly. He could see as the rational truth finally sank in past the panic. Slowly, Blair nodded.

"You bet. Man, I'll be there to drive you home," he promised as his arms loosened. The pain hadn't left those eyes, but at least now Blair gazed up at him with determination instead of panic. Now Jim just had to battle his own panic. He turned his head to face the two SI guards.

"Sentinel Ellison, I have an order to remove you from your guardian's custody until a hearing can determine your placement. This separation may be just temporary," the short man offered soothingly. Yeah, soothe the crazy Sentinel—make sure he didn't get too crazy.

"Yeah, yeah," Jim said tiredly as he slowly loosened his grip. For a second, Blair just hung on tighter and then he let go, stepping back reluctantly. "Chief, the hearing has to take place within forty-eight hours, so I'm trusting you to figure out when it is and to show up dressed in your Sunday best." Jim backed up a step, and Jim found himself wishing he had just tucked the kid into the trunk and run for Canada when he could. The man with the chains stepped forward.

"I'll be there, promise," Blair vowed weakly. He swallowed heavily, his Adam's apple bobbing.

Jim angled his body toward the Institute employee while keeping his eyes on Blair.

"Hands," the man prompted, and Jim dutifully held out his hands. He refused to watch as steel locked around his wrists, focusing instead on Blair's wide eyes.

The employee took a half step back, and Jim realized that the man was waiting on him. With a sigh, he lifted his arms and hooked the wrist chains behind his head. The employee stepped forward and started bucking the belt around Jim's waist.

Watching the top of the man's head as he locked restraints around Jim's ankles, Jim felt the helplessness curl into his guts like worms burrowing into his skin. He wouldn't be able to clear the chain from behind his neck in time to defend himself, but that was the whole point. They had the power.

The employee pulled the center chain up through the ring in the belt, and Jim slowly brought his hands down so he could lock the end of the center chain to Jim's wrist chain.

"Jim, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Blair said, and Jim could hear the strain.

"Not your fault, Sport," Jim said, already focusing on his Ranger training. The old officer's voice echoed in his head. Never argue with captors. Any argument you start, they'll end because they have the power. You hide whatever power you gain—whether that's a piece of information or a rusty pocketknife.

Jim focused on those remembered bits of advice instead of focusing on the way he had to shuffle, his hands held close to his waist or the way he had already started to sweat under the restraints or the way Blair watched him leave, panic and guilt in his eyes.

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