Archive of Our Own ^beta

DISCLAIMER: You know what? I still haven't convinced Pet Fly to give me these guys! Jim and Blair both seem pretty amenable to the whole thing, but UPN and their cronies are buggin'! Oh, well... Don't tell anyone I borrowed them, okay?

RATING: PG (I know, I'm sorry! The NC-17 is coming soon!).

NOTE: This is a follow-up to _The Village_, which was a follow-up to _Deprived_. This series is now called DEPRIVATION, and can be archived as such.

THANKS: To Free, for her insightful betareading, and to all the people who wrote me about the first two stories in this series. I really really *really* appreciate the feedback. You guys are great, and I promise you'll get some heat and bisquey soon. But first... the angst! Deprivation III

Regained

by Dean Warner

Blair woke slowly to a royal blue pre-dawn. His head was cradled on his hands, and a pair of heavy arms blanketed him, with a lightly breathing pillow under his palms. He lifted his head carefully, and looked into his partner's sleeping face.

His partner... That word had taken on a whole new meaning now. And Blair decided once again that he liked it.

But right now, he needed to get some distance.

He slid silently out of Jim's embrace, standing in silence, and watching as Jim's arms tried to deal with the extraction of their charge. They finally settled on curling around the Sentinel's midsection, the sensuality of it making Blair a little breathless. Not wanting to face his friend just yet, Blair pulled a blanket off of the back of the couch, draping it over Jim's sensitive form.

He turned to the patio doors with a sigh. There was a lot to think about here, and he let the weight of it all settle on him for a moment, before reaching out to open the doors as quietly as possible. He swallowed a hiss as his damaged hand encountered the chilled metal of the frame, and slipped outside into the growing light, closing the door behind him.

The patio's floor still held the night's cold, and he wished for his jeans as he folded his legs under him, and strove to push his mind into a meditative state. It was a long time coming, and he could hear the shift from night to day as he sat there with his eyes closed.

Jim wanted... What? A lover? A mate? ...Blair had spent too much of his adult life in the arms of other cultures to worry about Western taboos when it came to sex, but he wondered if Jim had ever really thought this through. He was a cop, an ex-Ranger... Could he deal with what having a male lover might do to his career--to his reputation?

You're going to wake up and this will all have been a wonderful dream, Blair, he told himself. Or a nightmare. He still couldn't quite wrap his mind around the concept. Sentinel and Guide mate for life. Jim had said it--no. No, not quite. Jim's *Guide* had said it. Mak'laya. She had been the one that Jim was to mate with.

Did that mean that Blair himself was just a handy second? A second Guide, a second lover?

No, that was *so* unfair! Jim didn't say anything he didn't believe. And he had said that Mak'laya already knew about her Sentinel's life after her. He shivered at the memory of Jim's pistol, pointed tightly at the detective's head. If Blair had come in just seconds later... Who had stopped Jim from pulling that trigger in Peru? Had someone come by at just the right time, stopping the Sentinel from following his Guide into death?

Blair desperately wanted to know the answers. He wanted to know what had happened in that jungle, and he knew now that Jim had at least some of the answers.

Jim's abduction was still fresh in Blair's mind, and he wondered if Simon had been right. If the researcher who had taken Jim was truly dead--or at least in the hands of a self-admittedly disinterested Agency--then they were safe, right? The Agency wouldn't care about what Jim could remember... Would they?

He wanted to be safe. He wanted to believe that that was possible--but somewhere out there, his notes were still in someone else's hands. Someone who might decide that Jim was worth having--"support mechanism" or no.

Blair took a deep shaky breath, trying to focus. He didn't want to think right now. He wanted to "process his feelings" about this newest development. He sighed suddenly as his concentration slipped at the errant thought. Naomi. God, what the hell was *she* going to have to say about this?

Probably nothing. It would be easier than dealing with his police work. Sexuality was a part of life for her--gay, straight, she didn't care. So long as there was that ephemeral thing she called "Love".

And he *loved* Jim. Like he had loved no one else in his life. It was frightening to think that his heart and mind could have come to such a unanimous decision in so short a time... He could almost wish they'd done it sooner.

But now that they had... Now what? Was it really going to be this simple? "Blair, I love you", "Jim, I love *you*", Let's hop into bed and call it even? No. He'd lived too much to believe that. Nothing in life was easy--and nothing in life was *harder* than being in love. He'd run from it as often as he could, and he was still amazed that he couldn't find it in himself to run now.

The world was warming up around him. He'd better get inside and get breakfast going. Jim had this one weekend left before he had to get back to work, and Blair wanted to make sure he was ready for it. He hoped that last night had been the end of it--for both of them. If Jim megazoned on the job, he was as good as dead, and Blair didn't think he could stand it if he had to deal with this new feeling all by himself.

Regardless of the morbid thought, he'd found an uneasy peace now, and his mind recalled the rightness of waking up in Jim's arms and allowed him to center and relax.

Jim woke up cold. Not because the *room* was cold, but because the blanket laying over him hadn't done justice to the man whose heat it replaced. He sat up quickly, looking around, his eyes coming to rest on the seated figure on the patio.

Blair had his back to him, and Jim could still see the extra wrinkles in his t-shirt where his own arms had wrapped around the smaller man. He wanted to go out and talk to his Guide, but he sensed a resistance in that frame, and headed for the kitchen instead, readying breakfast for himself and his...

His what? His lover? He hoped so. He wondered if Blair was sitting on that patio having second thoughts about last night. Probably. He was amazed that he himself had no second thoughts at all. With his regained memories of the jungle had come memories of his current life with his *true* Guide. Memories he had forgotten, or ignored, or simply repressed. Memories hidden by the knowledge that he was a cop, an ex-Ranger... A man who had no right to love another man.

But these memories pushed at him now... Sure, Carolyn had thought that Jim was simply feeling guilty when he'd rushed around madly, looking for any clue he could to Lash's whereabouts, grasping at straws as he hunted for his newfound friend. Indeed, for a long time, he thought that himself. But now he remembered the tiny voice in his head--the voice that asked "How can I survive if he's gone? What will I do if I can't get him back?"

So early on, he mused, shaking his head as the smell of fresh coffee permeated the loft. So early in their relationship, he'd been unable to imagine life without his Guide. Which, he remembered, was exactly as it had been with Mak'laya.

He shivered at the memory of nearly a week ago now. To wake to find Blair lying before him, motionless, blood on his shirt...

"How can I survive if he's gone?"

What if Blair left him now? What if he decided that he truly *couldn't* deal with this new level in their relationship? If he left now...

Jim tamped down on the thought. He would have to stay. Jim would have to convince him that, even if he was unwillingly to accept... the love... Jim felt for him, he was still needed. Cherished, even. Not for a night, but for a lifetime...

He sighed to himself, looking down at his shirt, surprised for a moment to see blood on it. Blair's hand. The blood must have seeped through the bandage overnight. A protective impulse welled up in him. He should take a look at that hand--make sure that Blair was all right.

He headed toward the patio, stopping suddenly by the couch. Blair obviously wanted to be alone. If he was hurting, he would have said something, wouldn't he? Jim looked down at his shirtface once more, two mugs in his hands. The blood was dry, creating a vague brown palm print across his chest... Where Blair had cradled his head as they fell asleep.

No, he told himself. He's okay. If he wasn't okay, you'd know it. Just like you knew when Mak'laya was ill--

The memory came to him easily now. No zone-out, no pain, really... Just a memory of her, lying fevered in her hut...

"She is sick, Sentinel," the woman said simply, as he paced before the hut of the Guide he had met only weeks before. "She must rest and recover."

The woman was smaller even than Mak'laya. Thin, quiet. She was his Guide's helper, when she treated the wounded or the ill. Kisna.

"I want to see her," Ellison said firmly.

"You may see her when she is recovered."

"No!" He lowered his voice immediately, his words coming in a desperate whisper. "I need to see her now."

Kisna was immovable. It was ridiculous that a woman that small should prove to be an impediment, but she would not allow him to enter the hut. Frustrated, Ellison had taken a seat on the ground outside, simply listening to Mak'laya's breathing. Labored though it was, he knew, somehow, that she was all right. He knew that soon, she would come back, and he could hunt with her again, make his rounds, keep them all safe.

Somehow, he knew...

Jim sat carefully on the edge of the couch, sipping distractedly from his mug. Blair's heartbeat was strong, steady. He let the calm overtake him. The calm of a Sentinel who knew that his Guide would return to him.

Staring out the window at Blair, he just hoped that the calm wasn't a false one.

Was Jim going to back out? Blair asked himself, hearing the birds step up their song as the sun rose before his closed eyes. Would he decide that this wasn't something he could do? Somehow, as taken aback as Blair had been by the idea, the transition would be easier for him. He supposed a number of the guys at the station already thought he wasn't quite straight. He looked the part. He even acted the part, at times.

But Jim? Straight, ex-Army, hard-boiled cop Jim? No. He'd have a hard time if this ever came out.

If *what* ever came out, Blair? he asked himself coldly. There isn't anything *to* come out yet!

...Yet.

He'd worked himself into a real frenzy here, he decided, blowing out a frustrated sigh as he rose. He turned to go back inside, freezing in surprise as he saw his loftmate sitting calmly on the couch, watching him.

"Hey, Chief," Jim greeted him pleasantly, never taking his eyes from the approaching form, as Blair closed the doors behind him and grabbed the offered mug in his undamaged hand. The younger man simply nodded, sipping lightly at the cooling liquid.

"Are you okay?"

"Sure," Blair answered, not quite certain that that was the truth, but feeling the need to say it anyway.

Jim took his silence for what he hoped it was--mere thoughtfulness. "You were up early." The next words were whispered. "It was freezing in here without you."

Blair nodded distractedly. "Sorry. I had some thinking to do."

Jim waited, worried when he didn't continue. "And?" he prompted.

It was a long, tense minute before his partner spoke again. "And I'm wondering how to handle this," Blair commented truthfully. He had a frightening realization that anything he said to Jim from now on would have to be truthful.

Jim shrugged uneasily. "Not exactly all mapped out by your Sir Burton, is it?"

Blair snorted wistfully, sitting back. "I wouldn't know. They even took his monograph when they trashed my office."

"That's going to make life hard for you, isn't it?" Jim asked quietly. "Now that all the research is missing."

"The thesis is done, Jim," Blair answered, amazing Jim once again with his ability to simply let material objects slip blithely through his fingers. "I don't think I'll risk writing about this again."

Jim studied him for a long moment. The anthropologist's injured hand was curled in on itself, as if causing him pain, and his eyes had a haunted look that spoke of lingering guilt. "Blair, that wasn't your fault."

Blair shook the reassurance off. "It was what it was, Jim." He looked into his partner's eyes, searching for something. "At least it taught us a few things." His next words were more searching still. "Didn't it?"

The Sentinel gazed at him for a long moment, giving his answer with a tiny smile. "God, I hope so, Chief." He rose, taking Blair's bandaged hand in his own. "Come on. We'll fix this up again." He smiled wryly, and the smile was so... *Jim*... that it put Blair immediately at ease. "I don't want you bleeding all over the loft."

The emergency room took four hours, and Blair was ready to kill someone by the end of it--which, he decided, would be really convenient, since they could just take the body down to the morgue in the basement. He sighed. Four lousy, uncomfortable hours to have a doctor take ten minutes with a needle. Not too bad, really, considering.

Jim gave him a brief, impromptu hug as they re-entered the loft. "You are the only man I know who could turn a lover's spat into twenty-five stitches."

"Who knew I'd need any at all?" Blair asked angrily. The local they had given him had worn off on the truck ride home, and his hand was throbbing painfully. This morning, when Jim had taken him into the bathroom to clean the cuts again, the Sentinel had immediately deemed three of them too deep to ignore. "And what are you anyway?" Blair grilled him. "My mom?"

"No," Jim answered easily. "Naomi wouldn't have thought twice about just leaving them." He took Blair's hand carefully in his, turning it's palm to meet his lips and giving it a quick kiss. "I just don't want to see you scar."

"Right," Blair grumbled good-naturedly. "Like having someone sew me up like a dress pattern *isn't* going to leave a scar!"

Jim ignored him. "What do you want for lunch?"

"Something I can eat one-handed," Blair quipped.

Anything Jim might have said in reply was drowned out by the phone ringing. Blair didn't even try to reach for it, just let Jim answer while he headed to the freezer for some ice for his hand. A bruised jaw, two loose teeth, and twenty-five stitches! Right, some "lover's spat"!

"Oh, hey, Simon..." Blair perked up slightly as Jim greeted his captain. "Yeah... No, tomorrow night is-- Hang on, wait a minute--" He pulled the phone away, looking at Blair questioningly. "You want to do poker here tomorrow?"

Blair thought about it and shrugged his agreement. It would help to get things back to normal before Jim had to return to work.

Jim smiled and turned back to the phone. "Listen, why don't you guys come over here?" His laughter uncoiled something deep inside his partner. Jim hadn't laughed in days. "No, we'll make him sit at least a few hands out... Oh, real money this time? Sounds like you're in a mood to be generous..." That laugh again--like crystal. "Sure, Simon... Okay. See you tomorrow at 7:00. Bye."

"Are you *trying* to keep me destitute?" Blair grumbled, settling the icebag on his newly re-bandaged hand.

"What do you mean?"

Blair waved in the general direction of the phone. "What I take from those guys on these poker nights is practically what I live off of, man."

"Well not tomorrow, Buddy," Jim assured him, reaching out for his hand again and studying it carefully. "If you can't deal, you can't play."

Blair snorted, his gaze suddenly falling on the broken pane of glass in his bedroom door. "Damn. I'm going to have to get that fixed before tomorrow night, huh?" When Jim nodded, Blair sighed deeply. "And they're going to want to know how I did this, too."

Jim shrugged, a playful look in his eyes. "Lover's spat?"

Blair's eyebrows rose. "With you? Oh, they'll love that answer!"

"Like it or not, it's the truth."

Jim's equanimity in this situation was beginning to get on Blair's nerves. "How can you be so nonchalant about this?"

He'd say one thing for Sandburg, he sure knew how to get your attention. Jim thought about it a long time before answering. "I don't know, Chief. Maybe just because that's the way things are."

"The way things *are* and the way they need to *appear* are two very different things, Jim," Blair retorted.

Jim looked at him strangely. "You don't want anyone to know?" He smiled wryly as his friend nodded. "Hell, I guess *I* don't really want anyone to know, either."

Blair listened to the sound of the Sentinel's voice with something approaching panic. Jim really *hadn't* thought this through, had he? He'd just gone blindly about it, almost like--

The thought hit Blair like a two ton truck. Almost like he had when his senses had gone crazy over Laura's pheromones.

He had to get out of here! He knew he wouldn't run, but he had to get some space--more space than just a trip to the patio. He set the icepack in the sink.

"Listen, Jim? I'm going to run down to the University for a bit, okay?"

Jim sensed the undercurrent of urgency, but couldn't figure out what had brought it on. "I thought you were finished for the semester, Chief."

"I am--almost." God, Jim thought. Blair couldn't be more ready to bolt from here if the place was in flames! "I just need to--to get a couple more things done, and then I'm all yours."

But not in every sense of the words, huh? Jim watched his partner try not to dash into his room to fill his backpack. What the hell just happened here? he wondered. What could I possibly have said to make him bolt like this?

"Hey, Chief?" he asked quietly, as Blair put his bandaged hand on the doorknob. "Are we okay?"

"What? Yeah--yeah, man, we're fine." Blair ran a betraying hand through his hair. "Look Jim... I just gotta get a little space here, okay?" His eyes pleaded for understanding.

"But you'll be back, right?"

"Yeah, Buddy. I'll be back." Blair flashed a tender smile. "Have dinner ready, okay?" He'd nearly closed the door now. "And no pizza!"

Blair unlocked his office and sat heavily in his chair. God, this was never going to work. Jim didn't *feel* this! Hell, Jim didn't even know this was what he was doing! He couldn't. He was just... Not being Jim.

Okay, he told himself firmly. Okay, get a grip. Think! Whatever happened last night was a--a fluke. Your feelings aren't real, Jim's feelings aren't real... This all has to do with a huge tank of tepid water and two weeks' worth of drugs.

He startled suddenly at the knock on his door. Jim? That was almost the only person it could be. No one hung out here on Saturdays. He braced himself for the inevitable and cleared his throat. "Yeah, come on in."

"Hey, *Professor*!" A blonde head stuck itself in the doorway questioningly.

"Hey, Jill." Blair gave her a genuine smile as she moved to sit before his desk. "How can you make my new title sound like a racial slur?"

She smiled sweetly. "Pure talent, honey. *Pure* talent." She raked him with appraising eyes. "What are you doing here today?"

He returned the look, mock-serious. "I could ask you the same question."

"You first."

He sat back, wincing a little as he ran a thumb over his bandaged hand. "I needed a little time by myself."

She smiled sympathetically. "Roommate troubles?"

Boy did that ever *not* cover it! "Yeah," he allowed finally, not wanting to go into it.

She nodded, gesturing to his hand. "I don't think I've ever punched mine out, though."

"Oh, no," he corrected quickly. "This was an accident." He sighed hugely as the last week suddenly caught up to him. "Just a collection of things happening at just the wrong time."

Jill sat quietly for a moment, letting him stay with his thoughts. When she decided those thoughts had gotten far too morbid, she flashed him a quick, killer smile. "So, Teach... Had lunch yet?"

He looked up quickly, his brain having to catch up to his ears. "Um... No, actually."

She grabbed his good hand, pulling him to his feet. "Then you can take me out."

Blair cursed himself as he walked up the stairs to the loft. Six o'clock. Damnit, he should have called. Jim would be angry, probably. He was always one for earlier dinners on the weekends, and he'd be pissing and moaning all night like a spurned housewife.

The thought brought a quick smile. A spurned housewife--a housewife of *any* kind! That was definitely not how he thought of his loftmate. The afternoon with Jill had been illuminating. He'd spent his time talking about his partner, talking around questions of what his partner did, what his mysterious "illness" had been.

He fielded them quite well, he thought. In the back of his mind, there was still a vague paranoia, and he supposed it would take a long time to recede. When Jim had been found, those three days in the hospital had nearly killed Blair.

He had realized, sometime around three, that whatever was happening with Jim, he wanted to figure it out. He was sick of being scared, he was sick of worrying about whether what he felt was real, or what Jim felt was real. Feelings were feelings, and when they were as good as these, who was he to deny them? Whatever problems they ran into, they'd deal with them together.

So he climbed the last flight of the stairs in a relatively good mood, bracing himself for a pissy Jim. *His* pissy Jim.

What he hadn't expected was to find Jim crashed on the couch--well, half off the couch, actually. Must have been really tired today--but at least he seemed to be sleeping soundly.

Blair dropped his backpack and jacket at the table, yawning suddenly. All that thinking today, adding the fact that he'd awoken before *God* had this morning, and he was pretty bushed himself.

He headed for his partner, freezing in puzzlement as he saw the coffee spill on the floor, leading to a turned over mug that might just have fallen from Jim's hand. He bent down to try to put his friend's sleeping form more firmly on the couch, and began to get slightly panicked when the downward motion left him dizzy.

Why are you getting dizzy, Blair? he asked himself, reaching out a hand to gently feel Jim's pulse. It was slow, steady... Sudden exhaustion winning out against his growing worry, Blair found himself sitting on the floor, looking stupidly at his friend... He remembered this feeling...

--Oh God! He *did* remember this feeling! Setting up his syllabus, three and half weeks ago! The same desperate need to sleep, the same sudden lethargy...

He grabbed Jim's arm, then thought better of trying to drag him out, and headed fuzzily toward the patio instead. He had to get the doors open. Air out the apartment. Why hadn't Jim smelled the gas? Why hadn't...

The anthropologist narrowly missed putting his head through the patio's glass door as he fell into the grip of the same gas that had claimed him weeks before. He didn't even have the time to wonder if Jim would be gone again when he awoke...

"I don't know," Simon bitched quietly as he and Ryf walked up the last flight of stairs to Jim's loft. "They've probably spent the day trying to clean up the place, and forgot to buy beer."

"Well, whatever," Ryf replied. "I just hope they're back. I don't plan on hanging out in the hall when I could be winning back my money from the last time."

Simon smiled meanly. "Just remember that Sandburg's playing." He laughed. "You don't have a chance!"

They arrived at the door, and knocked loudly.

"So where's Joel?"

Simon shook his head. "He's already here, for all I know." He knocked again. "Oh come on, Jim. Where the hell are you?"

"You know," Ryf mentioned. "Sandburg's done a lot of good for Ellison in the last couple of years--but he sure hasn't helped his punctuality."

Simon snorted in response, pulling out his cellphone. "I'll call him. I don't want to be left standing out here any more than you do."

Ryf almost laughed as he heard Jim's cellphone answering Simon's--from inside the loft. But his smile dropped as Simon frowned in response to the low chirping. "Jim never goes anywhere without that thing."

"Are you sure, sir? I mean, he *has* been on sick leave." He was picking up his captain's worry now, and felt a small tingling of doubt himself.

The captain shook his head, his apprehension growing as he tried the door, and found it unlocked. He stared significantly at Ryf, and they drew their guns as one.

The loft seemed to be neat as the pin that Jim always like to emulate--until Banks looked closely at the living area, and found a large coffee stain on the rug. It was something Jim would never have allowed to remain in his home for any length of time, yet the mug was ice cold.

"Captain?" Ryf called down from the upstairs bedroom. "You better come up here."

Simon climbed the stairs slowly, and looked around in shock as he hit the top landing. "Okay," he muttered quietly. "I can imagine Sandburg's room looking like this... But Jim's?"

The room was trashed. Completely. Utterly. Everything that could be broken was broken--and then some. Simon pushed away the knot in his gut, and barreled downstairs, heading for the other bedroom. The french doors to Blair's room were closed--but that only gave Simon a better look at the blood that glistened dully on a broken pane of glass.

He looked inside. Sandburg might be a messy housekeeper, but he didn't normally destroy his own possessions. Such as they were.

"All right, Ryf," he called, watching his detective as the younger man descended from Jim's room. "Let's get an APB out on both of them."

Ryf nodded, heading for the phone in the kitchen. "How long do you think they've been gone?"

Simon looked around again, trying to figure out just what had happened here. "Last time I talked to Jim was yesterday, at lunchtime. Let's say... thirty hours--just to be sure."

Ryf tried to keep his hands from sweating as he called the incident in.

Some part of him expected to wake up in the hospital. He expected Simon to be there, telling him that, once again, Jim had disappeared. Oh, Jesus! Why did this have to happen now? They had so much to deal with already. He remembered his thoughts from this afternoon--or was it yesterday afternoon? Or the day before, even?

He couldn't handle these feelings alone.

Blair Sandburg opened eyes that were confused to see a simple grey ceiling. Cascade General had *white* ceilings. Even in the emergency room... They were *white*. He turned his head, wanting Simon there, or Jim, or anybody at all that he recognized. He certainly didn't want to find a man who had CIA written all over him.

"Good evening, Dr. Sandburg," the man said quietly.

"Where's Jim?" It was the only thing he wanted to know. He didn't care why they had taken *him* this time, or what they had done to him. All he wanted was Jim.

"He's... around." The man's smile did nothing for Blair's sense of well-being. It was a predatory thing, and the thought flashed through his muddled mind that maybe Jim had already been dead when Blair himself had entered the loft. No, he told himself, staving off the rising panic. You felt his pulse yourself. He's okay. He's got to be okay.

"We're going to need your help, Dr. Sandburg," the man continued, just enough condescension in his voice to make "Doctor" sound like an epithet. "You see, I'm sure you know how much a Sentinel needs his Guide?"

"Go to hell!" Blair grated angrily, wishing he felt the strength in himself to rise.

The man stepped back, but more out of deference to Blair's anger than fear of it. "Well, perhaps, in a little while, you'll be feeling a bit more cooperative." He held up a remote of some kind and pressed two buttons. One released the metal strap across Blair's chest, and the other raised a set of blinds, allowing the now-seated anthropologist to look out into a room that looked identical to his own. His breath caught at what he saw.

Jim Ellison lay strapped to an identical table, but he didn't look to be awake. Beside the table was an IV tree, with two bags of clear liquid hanging off of it. Blair turned to the man before him with murder in his eyes. "What are you doing to him?"

The man shrugged. "An experiment--much like the one I ran weeks ago." He turned to look at the man in the room beyond. "Without the sensory deprivation portion, of course. You could have been so much help to me back then, do you know that?"

Blair stayed silent, saving his strength. The voice of survival in his head told him to just let the man ramble. Maybe he'd give up a secret or two that Blair could use to get himself *and* Jim out of here.

"He's really very difficult to keep down," the man was saying, now staring directly at Blair. Looking for chinks in my armor, the anthropologist decided after a moment. He isn't going to find any. "We've had to try a number of different drugs. I'm afraid it may end up doing irreparable damage if we continue much longer."

Try as he might, Blair couldn't help the small sound of worry that escaped him. He damned himself as the man smiled.

"Yes, well... It was unavoidable. We have to make sure he doesn't try to escape before the two of you provide me with the answers I need."

Blair watched his partner breathe for a moment. Even without Sentinel abilities, he could see that it was difficult... They could kill him easily, he realized, a dull knot of fear growing in his stomach. And if they killed Jim...

"What answers do you want?" he asked, his voice small and just this side of defeated.

The man was pitifully amused. "The same answers I asked him for days ago, Dr. Sandburg. I want to know what happened to him in Peru."

Blair looked through the glass at his Sentinel. *Don't we all.*

It was 2 o'clock on Monday morning before Agent Carver got his butt down to the station, and Simon was far beyond his normal level of irritation.

"All right, Carver," he grated. "I need to know who that researcher of yours is, and where he might be." He got into the younger man's face, murder in his eyes. "And I need to know *now*!"

Carver pushed away from him, straightening his hastily-donned suit. "Captain Banks, I don't know what--"

"And I don't care about your problems," Simon whispered. "He has my men, and I want them back." The sudden movement as Simon advanced again had the surprised Agent Carver off-balance. "And I don't care *who* I have to go through to get them."

The agent cleared his throat nervously, and Banks felt a very small spark of satisfaction.

"I'll--Just let me get on the phone to my people, Captain," Carver stuttered finally. "And I'll see what we can come up with."

Simon chewed viciously on his cigar. "You do that."

"Jim?"

He felt like he was swimming in crude oil. Not like he hadn't done that before, right? And Blair was here, so he knew he'd be okay eventually, but he really wanted his partner to just get him out of here *now*.

"Jim? Buddy? Can you hear me?"

Course I can. What? Am *I* supposed to be hard of hearing all of a sudden?

"Come on, Jim." Blair was sounding frightened to him now. Had he had another of those mega zone-outs? "Man, you have *got* to wake up!"

"Sandburg?" Oh good, Jim. *That* was nice and clear.

"Yeah, pal, it's me. Come on back."

Back from where?

"Jim..." He heard Sandburg's sigh. It was that Jesus-I-don't-want-to-say-this-but-I-haven't-got-a-choice sigh. "Jim, I need to ask you a couple of questions."

"Go 'head."

Blair resisted the urge to scream. Whatever they had done to Jim had screwed him up, big time. They had taken away the IV drips hours ago, and the Sentinel still couldn't seem to come around all the way. He took a deep breath, prayed to several different gods from several different cultures, and started talking.

"Jim... Man, tell me what happened after that ambush in the jungle."

"'ich ambush?"

Shit! This was like trying to talk to a drunk. He looked up at the man who had dragged them into this in the first place and tried again to convince himself that killing him wouldn't help.

"He's still too far under," he told the man coldly. "Whatever you gave him screwed him up. You're just going to have to wait until he comes out of it." Which will hopefully be enough time for me to figure out how to escape with him.

"I'm afraid I don't have the luxury of time, Dr. Sandburg," the man replied evenly. He gave Jim a passing glance--like a piece of meat--and returned his eyes to the anthropologist. "He seems perfectly amenable. You just have to ask the right questions."

I am *not* going to kill this guy. I am *not* going to kill this guy. I am *not* going to kill this guy...

"Jim?" Blair put his hand on his partner's arm. "Jim, what happened after Mak'laya was shot in the ambush?"

He almost couldn't stand to watch. Jim's eyes came fully open for the first time since he had awakened, and they fixed on a point far beyond his Guide. It was a megazone, worse than any other Blair had seen, and he had a sinking feeling that he'd never wake the Sentinel from this one.

He startled in pain, as Jim began speaking in Quechua to someone who hadn't been before him in seven years...

Hil'raya stood firm, trying to hold his eyes. But Ellison was too far past caring. Mak'laya was dead, and he should be dead, too, and it had only been the vision of the panther, comforting in its closeness, that had kept him from pulling that trigger.

Now Mak'laya was beyond him forever, and he was left again in the painful world that had captured his Ranger team months ago.

"I can't do it without her, Hil'raya," he whispered.

"You must protect the tribe, Sentinel. It is what you were born to do."

"But..." Ellison sighed, defeated. "A Sentinel is nothing without his Guide."

Hil'raya simply held his eyes. "Look behind you."

The Agency man had moved in on the other side of the bed, taking in the Quechua mutterings eagerly. Finally! If he could find out how Ellison had survived without his Guide, then the Sentinels the Agency kept watch on could truly be used! The support system that they all seemed to need had not been there for Ellison, yet his senses had continued to function. Now, he was so close to having the key!

"Captain Ellison," he whispered carefully. "What do you see? How did you survive without your Guide?"

Blair felt a single tear drip down from his eye as Jim's face took on an ineffable calm. "I have a Guide."

"No, Ellison," the man persisted. "Your Guide is dead. How will you survive without her?"

"Not *her*," Jim insisted. "I *have* a Guide."

Blair wanted nothing more than to see something cogent in his Sentinel's face, just then. *I have a Guide.* Me, Blair realized, with a joy that was almost painful. He means *me*! Every question, every fear he had had in the past week was instantly blown to dust.

The man looked up at Sandburg, suddenly realizing where Ellison was going with this. His words were directed at the captain, but his eyes stayed on the professor. "No, Ellison. Dr. Sandburg is dead. He can't help you anymore--"

Blair lunged for him in anger, and the man was ready. The gunshot startled Ellison momentarily, but he was too far under the medication to truly rouse. He never even heard his partner hit the floor.

"Dr. Sandburg is dead," the man repeated. "How will you continue?"

The Agency already had men looking for their rogue researcher. His name was Formby, and in the past, he had apparently chosen other "research subjects" of which the Agency didn't approve.

Simon sat back, as Carver did the driving, and prayed that, somehow, they would get to Jim and Blair before anything happened.

They had spent the entire day checking out possible hiding places for the errant researcher, and none of them had turned up a thing. This was the last place they had to clear in Cascade... After that, the possibilities began stretching out across the state.

Simon wanted to think positive. He wanted to believe that they would find Jim and Blair, that the two of them would be safe. But he remembered all too well the blood on that broken pane of glass--Sandburg's blood type--and knew, deep down, that he might be hoping for far too much.

"We're coming up on it, Captain Banks," Carver announced tightly. "I have a team standing by if we find them."

Please, Simon thought fervently. Please, let us find them here. I don't want to go chasing across Washington for them.

...I want them home and safe by dinner...

No, Jim told himself. No. Blair wasn't dead. He could hear his heartbeat, so how could he be dead?

But something was going on here. He didn't know what--couldn't seem to push past the fog to find out... The voice in his ear was *really* beginning to annoy him.

"Captain Ellison," it repeated nasally. "Your Guide is dead. Your *true* Guide. A Sentinel is nothing without his Guide. How can you use your senses again, without him."

Jim wanted to say that he knew the voice was lying. He wanted to call out to Blair and ask him what was going on... But suddenly, a warm body brushed against him. His far-seeing eyes focused closer, as his nose took in the soft scent of musk that overpowered even the nearby smell of blood.

His Spirit Guide. The one who had shown him how to survive after Mak'laya died. The one that Hil'raya had led him to. The sight of it cleared his mind, and gave him insight into the game he had unwittingly become a part of.

The panther whispered to him in the voice of an ancient man.

"Give in..."

"Captain!" the outside voice was more insistent, and Jim fought not to smile at the undercurrent of frustration he heard. "How will you survive without him?"

Jim said the simple words in truth, his voice calm and peaceful.

"I can't," he stated clearly, and, as the panther had urged him, he gave in.

Formby slammed a hand hard onto the table, causing the metal to squeal in protest. He watched in defeat as Ellison's brainwave patterns began to drop.

"No!" He looked over at Sandburg, who lay bleeding, little more than half alive. He grabbed the smaller man, shoving him up against the table roughly, deaf to the anthropologist's cry of pain.

"Talk to him, damnit!" Formby screamed. "He's dying! Do you want that?"

Sandburg turned a blood-stained mouth toward his captor, smiling cruelly as he felt something ancient stir within him--something that gave him the strength to answer as he should, even as he felt his own heart falter in response to his Sentinel's.

"He gave you your answer."

Simon took a deep breath, and resisted checking his gun again. One room left. The minimal staff here had told them nothing, and he was trying to figure out how he might beat Jim's whereabouts out of them without incurring the Agency's wrath.

Carver flanked the door with him, and Banks gave a silent count of three, before kicking the door in loudly.

"Cascade P.D.!" he shouted, trying to take the entire room in at a glance. "Freeze!"

Formby dropped the man he held, turning his gun to face the intruders. This one wasn't even a question for Simon, and he fired, his bullet hitting his mark dead-center, while his eyes took in the other body now lying on the floor.

"Carver, where the hell are those medics!?"

"On their way, Captain Banks."

Simon didn't even want to think about a man who could walk into a room that held the horrors this one did, and still have that disgustingly even, non-descript voice. He himself ran to the table, looking at the monitors around it, and grabbing for Jim's pulse... There... It was there, but it was fading.

He knelt quickly beside Sandburg, and was surprised to see the anthropologist looking back at him. He'd obviously brought up blood, though from his stomach or his lungs, Simon couldn't tell. He pressed a hand against the younger man's ribs, trying not to let any more of the precious liquid escape.

"Sandburg?"

"Captain..." It seemed to take all his power to flash the sudden smile. "You guys have great timing..."

Simon's eyes closed as Blair's did, and he heaved a desperate sigh as the EMTs rushed into the room.

The emergency room seemed to narrow down to two people as Simon stood by the door and watched. He'd ridden in the ambulance with Jim, and his own heart had nearly stopped when his detective's did. He had wondered if he should ask for some of that oxygen for himself when they finally got the Sentinel back into a normal sinus rhythm.

Now, Sandburg and Jim were in separate rooms, but Simon could see them both clearly from his vantage point. He wondered when the flurry would die down, so someone could tell him what was going on. Sandburg's injury was obvious, but he'd only heard a vague statement about drugs in Jim's system to explain *his* condition.

"Simon?"

He turned, finding Joel Taggart beside him with two cups of coffee.

"They tell you anything yet?"

Simon shook his head, pulling off glasses that suddenly seemed too tight for the pounding in his skull. He stood there unmoving, until a team rushed by, pushing Sandburg toward the elevator.

"Captain Banks?"

He turned to the nurse, as she held a clipboard out to him. "We need to have someone sign for Mr. Sandburg's surgery." She glanced back at ER 2. "Mr. Ellison is listed as his emergency contact, and..."

Simon nodded wearily, grabbing the forms and signing wherever she told him to.

"What's Detective Ellison's condition?" he asked, his voice so close to exhaustion that she smiled grimly in sympathy.

"I'll find out for you, Captain." She was gone for less then a minute, and the look on her face eased some of Simon's worry. "It looks like he'll be okay. The drugs in his system have really done a number on him, so they're having to clean him out--as much as they can."

"And Dr. Sandburg?" Taggart asked, making certain use of Blair's hard-won title.

"I'm sorry sir. You're going to have to ask his surgeon..."

"Later," Simon finished for her.

"Right."

It took three days for the drugs to wash through Jim Ellison's system--even with the blood transfusions and kidney flush they'd subjected him to. Simon spent the first day arguing with ICU nurses, trying to get in to sit with him. He was hoarse and angry by the time Jim was finally moved to a private room.

Sandburg had been asking after him, and it bothered him that he was trapped on an entirely different floor. Simon's only consolation was that the kid was too doped up to try to find his partner on his own.

The captain stood stock still as Jim finally opened his eyes, focused on him briefly, and said quietly. "Blair?"

Then, Simon broke into quiet laughter. "Now I can see why you two were *meant* to be partners." He smiled gently down at a very confused man. "Sandburg's first word was 'Jim'."

Ellison lay back slightly, his eyes closing as his mouth grinned dully. "He okay?"

Simon nodded reassuringly, and Jim had the strange sensation of actually being able to *hear* the motion. "He will be. But he's going to be in here a bit longer than you will."

It took a moment for the comment to register, and Simon had almost decided that Jim had fallen back to sleep when the man's eyes flew open to glare at him questioningly.

"Formby--the guy who kidnapped you both--shot him before we got there."

The information's effect made Jim look more awake. "Can I see him?"

Simon shook his head, and grimaced at the inevitable resistance in Ellison's eyes. "Jim, you're not going anywhere--and I doubt you could, anyway." He softened as Jim's eyes closed again in frustration. "Look, I'm going to go find your doctor. Stay *put*."

Jim could hear the heartbeat from exactly two and a half floors above. As the elevator deposited him on Blair's floor, he rolled his wheelchair toward his partner, not bothering to look at room numbers. Who needed them, when the heartbeat you were looking for was one you knew better than your own?

Joel Taggart was just stepping out of Sandburg's room when Jim rolled up.

"Hey Jim! Nice to see you up and around."

"Well," Jim passed off dead-pan. "Around, at least."

Joel chuckled in return. "He's sleeping. I was just going to get myself some coffee. You want anything?"

The idea of coffee made Jim slightly ill just now, and he wondered if he could explain to Joel why he didn't want him within two hundred yards of Sandburg's room with that stuff. He shrugged instead, and opened the door. "Just water, Joel. I don't think I'll be having coffee for a while."

He stopped just inside the door, taking a long look at his Guide. Blair looked awful, and an oft-repeated fear sounded in his head, prompting him to roll quickly over to the bed, to grab his partner's wrist and *feel* for the pulse he could already hear.

He'd had the doctor fill him in on his partner's condition before he made the tiring trip down. The bullet had ripped through Blair's stomach at an angle, and lodged in his diaphram. But they hadn't had a problem getting it out, and the anthropologist was expected to recover quickly--even if he'd be on a liquid diet for weeks.

The feeling of his partner's grasp woke Sandburg, and he blinked his eyes sleepily, letting them rest on Jim for an endless moment before he smiled.

"I missed you," he whispered painfully, his voice slightly nasal from the tube they'd forced down his throat to feed his injured stomach nourishment.

Jim's eyes watered at the weak voice, and he fought to smile back. "I missed you, too."

"Yeah," Blair returned, moving his hand so it was holding Jim's. "But you can hear me breathing from your room. All I can hear are Joel's ramblings."

Blair knew now that there was no greater medicine than hearing Jim Ellison laugh. He couldn't join in, but his smile grew for a moment.

"Should I tell him to give it a rest?" Jim asked finally.

"Nah," Blair responded, his grip tightening on Jim's as he tried to pull his Sentinel's body toward his own. "Just listen to hear if he's coming, okay? I don't want to embarrass myself here."

"Lying in that bed isn't embarrassing enough?" Jim asked, as he rose tiredly from his wheelchair, balancing against the rail of Blair's bed.

"You sure you're okay?" Blair asked, ignoring the good-natured jab and searching his partner's eyes, ready for a lie.

"No," Jim whispered immediately. "I want to take you home."

Blair raised his head slightly, and Jim brought his down to meet him, letting his Guide set the pace of the kiss. He came away breathless.

"You've got more air in there then I thought you would, Chief."

The smile Blair flashed made Jim think of the jungle. "I was saving it all for you."

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