Now that Blair had hours to just meditate, he found himself going back through his memories. Each time he would start by lighting the pillar candles around his apartment. Three on the top of the television set, four on the pass through bar between the kitchen and the corner of the main room that passed as a dining room, two on the bookshelf by the door to his bedroom.

In the center of the room he would spread a Chinese rug Naomi had given him when he had first enrolled in Rainer. At the time, he'd been a little embarrassed and he really wouldn't have meditated in front of his roommate. Of course, his roommate had been either drunk or absent most of the semester, but Blair still hadn't pulled the old, faded rug out from under the bed.

Now Blair fingered the soft fringe and let his fingertips rub over the faded brick red pattern. Somewhere along the line Blair's meditation music had gone from jungle drums and the cellar music of the inner city to the sounds of a rainforest during a thunderstorm. He set the CD player on repeat and adjusted the volume before he felt like he could relax into the music.

Settling into the center of the rug, Blair crossed his legs in a lotus position. For the hundredth time, Blair tried to focus on finding some sort of emotional exit sign that would let him escape the cycle of depression and pain that he found himself in every day. He would go to the grocery store and reach for the allergy-sensitive soap or he would see Jeff question a suspect and compare the detective's technique to Jim. He was in another fucking city, and he still couldn't keep Jim from taking the starring role in his life.

Blair centered himself around his breathing, exhaling the negative energy and trying to find some sort of peace with himself.

As Blair released the tension from his body, he let his mind float in his search for answers. The image that rose was one of water flowing by on either side as the current had pushed at him. He remembered that day. Long trails of clouds marked the grey-blue sky and Jim had laughed at him when his foot slipped on a rock. He had windmilled his arms in an attempt to regain his balance, and in the process, his fishing rod had flown out of his hand only to land ten feet down river. He'd lost his balance anyway and landed in the water with an impressive spray as he drenched himself. Jim had waded out to him and held out a hand while still laughing.

He remembered Jim building the fire up as Blair tried to dry his hair without catching fire, and Jim had fetched his fishing rod. If Simon had watched his slip and fall, Blair would have been mortified, but because it was Jim, the laughter was alright. It was safe. Jim had draped another blanket over his shoulders as the sun started falling in the sky, and Blair hadn't even cared that dinner had been canned beans since they had both failed to catch anything more appetizing.

Sighing, Blair opened his eyes to his plain apartment and the candles which had burned low. Not only had he failed to find any answers, but a glance at the clock told him that he had once again lost himself in memories for hours.

Oh, it was going to be one of those days. Blair watched as Bets awkwardly poked at the woman's back in an ineffective attempt at comforting her.

"It's okay," Bets muttered unconvincingly as she looked to Blair with mute horror at having to handle the rape victim. No amount of sensitivity training could teach her how to handle crying. Bets could do shootings, strung-out suspects, vicious white-supremacists, but not a crying victim. In fact, that was her hand searching her pocket for a cell phone, no doubt to call victim's services. Blair sat next to the two women on the hospital bench. The victim had insisted that she was fine to leave, but she hadn't made it past the hallway where the crush of bodies had sent her cringing into the wall. Then the woman who had flinched from every touch had clung to Bets.

"Can I hold your hand?" Blair asked as he knelt down in front of the woman. The small blonde woman's shoulders shivered, but she didn't give an answer. Blair ran the back of his index finger over the hand that pulled at Bets' blood red blouse.

"He was an asshole. Someone should find him and beat the shit out of the bastard." Blair said the words to relate to the victim, but he found he meant them too. "Oh man, better yet, throw his ass in prison. These guys are such cowards that he'll probably piss his bunk the first night he's locked in there. Oh, I know, let's make sure he's in Sheriff Joe's jail during the trial eating those infamous baloney sandwiches. Can you imagine eating baloney for two of your three meals every day?"

Blair watched as the woman's hand uncurled so that he could put his hand in her palm. He didn't close his fingers but allowed her to slowly close her hand around his. Her head tilted so that instead of burying her face in Bets' shoulder, half her face with one wary eye turned toward Blair.

"It still wouldn't be enough, would it?" Blair asked.

"No." Even though the woman was curled into Bets like a child seeking her mother and even though Blair could feel her hand tremble as she held his hand, her voice came out clear and angry.

"We could skin him alive, and it still wouldn't be enough, would it?" Blair said softly, shifting as his knees protested his position.

"No," she repeated in the same tone.

"But the thing is, I want him to pay. I know it won't be enough, but he needs to pay. Oh man, I really need your help to nail this asshole." Blair watched as the victim started sitting up.

"He was tall," the woman started as she let go of Bets and focused on Blair kneeling in front of her. Closing her eyes, she started talking while Bets' held a tape recorder that Blair hadn't even seen her pull out.

Blair glanced over to see a look of awed admiration on Bets' face before the tough detective remembered to close her mouth and stop looking so shocked.

***

Oh yeah, definitely one of those days, Blair thought as he put the final lines on the request for a search warrant. The longer they waited, the greater the chance that the suspect would destroy the evidence, so sleep would wait. Blair glanced over at Bets and his tired mind wandered into areas that Blair normally roped off as out of bounds.

The victim's pain had left Bets, the clear dominate force in the unit, speechless and helpless. Maybe all alpha cops had some soft spot, some emotional kryptonite. For Jim it had been failure. Blair had watched the man deal with lack of sleep and angry suspects and scared witnesses and greedy informants equally well. Oh, he'd seen Jim lose his temper just as often as he'd seen the man’s lips twitch with contained laughter. Jim's humor was quiet, but when he cut loose, Blair had loved his dry, sarcastic and sometime dark humor.

But when Jim felt like he had failed, Jim would stand and take the family's angry words like whip lashes. Angry Jim would speak in harsh whispers with a jaw muscle twitching and teeth grinding. Failure Jim would stand silent with a blank face while Blair could practically feel the anguish rolling off the man. The first time Blair had seen it, they had found a kidnapped girl with her lips blue and her head turned at an impossible angle. Blair only found out about the similarities to the case where Jim lost his first partner later, but Blair had watched while Jim not only endured but seemed to seek out the father's fury. The father had even gone so far as to punch Jim, and Jim had taken it silently, refusing to press charges when Brown had grabbed the man from behind.

Blair remembered going home that night. Jim had refused to eat, instead going right up to bed with his face set in this stony expression that frightened Blair far more than Jim's anger. Blair had made dinner alone, waiting for some sort of emotional breakdown. Instead he sat at the table alone with his plate. Blair remembered the curls of fear he'd felt. Never before had he been around someone who didn't express themselves. Hell, Naomi and her friends tended to express absolutely everything whether or not it was actually appropriate at the time.

Blair had fixed a second plate, and putting silverware on each plate, he'd climbed the stairs quietly with his offering in hand. Looking back, the quiet was a little pointless since he knew Jim would have heard every move. He'd reached the top and found Jim, still dressed, laying on the bed on his back and staring at the ceiling. Blair recalled saying something really stupid, and Jim turned to look at him in disbelief before he'd sat up on the bed. Blair had handed over Jim's plate and had then sat cross-legged on the floor to eat his own meal. Jim's expression of disbelief had increased, but he had started eating.

"You got that done yet?"

Blair literally jumped at the sound of Bets' voice interrupting his memory. Blair looked at his computer screen.

"Yeah, I'll just text it over to the DA and print a copy for the file." Blair started punching at computer keys far harder than was absolutely necessary.

"Hopefully we can get this wrapped up within the hour," Bets said with a sigh. Blair wasn't so sure, especially since it seemed like it was just one of those days. Of course, he thought as he printed the document and glanced at the time on the computer, it had just passed midnight so technically today was a new day.