Archive of Our Own ^beta

The operation had not gone well from the beginning, so this latest turn of events should not have been any surprise. But it was, and Jim Ellison was cursing himself for a fool. How else could he have allowed himself to be lulled into trusting the man who was now standing with the criminals they were supposed to be arresting?

It was supposed to have been an easy job. Get in, get as many nickel-and-dime crooks in one place as possible, promise them the moon, then cut out and let Simon and the gang sweep the place. They hadn't counted on a bad cop in the mix, though.

"I really am sorry about this," Tom Bowman said, that damned smirk never leaving his face. "We've had some good times, fellas, and I really did appreciate you showing me around town and all, but business is business. I'm sure you understand."

Jim couldn't help but roll his eyes as Sandburg gave an irritated snort behind him. The kid still hadn't learned not to let the bad guys bait him. When this was over, he was going to have a talk with him about that, although Sandburg, with all of his studies in human nature, should already have known it. Replying to comments like that one just upped the enjoyment of the game for people like Bowman.

"Well, excuse me, Tom, but I really *don't* understand." Blair's voice rose dangerously, anger replacing his initial shock at this betrayal. "Jim went to bat for you, man. *We* went to bat for you. After everything we did to get Captain Banks to give you a chance, we get *this*?"

Jim spared a glance for Blair, noticing the sure signs that a tirade was about to get started. When the deal had gone sour, the kid had fallen into his "stand-back-and-give-Jim-room-to-work" position, a step behind and to the right, hands raised in surrender. As he continued to speak, his hands started to move, gesturing dramatically. Caution forgotten, he stepped forward, making the confrontation more one-on-one with Bowman. Jim let him go for the moment. As long as they were listening and not shooting, it gave him time to come up with some sort of plan. And he desperately needed one right now. One cop and one anthropologist against a warehouse full of general low-lifes. Not good odds.

"Then everything we did to get the other guys at the station to accept you? Even if Banks *had* gone easy, believe me, it wouldn't have mattered. They were ready to hang you, man. Screwing up like that your first day on the job, especially after the bad reports from Tacoma? Hell, you would've been sleeping on the street if it wasn't for us!"

Us? Jim's memories of the events were slightly different. It had been Blair alone who had convinced them all to give Officer Bowman another chance. The man had come to Cascade with a less-than-stellar reputation, and on his first bust he had let the suspect slip through a foolproof net, getting several officers injured in the process. Blair Sandburg, perpetual friend of the underdog, had handled damage control for the newcomer, arguing that nerves and the knowledge that he was *expected* to be a screw-up could have caused him to fail. He'd worked at convincing Jim first, of course, and the detective had actually found himself agreeing with the grad student. Much to everyone's surprise, Jim had come to really like Tom Bowman - enough to let him stay at the loft for a week while he looked for a place to stay in Cascade. That had been three months ago, and neither of them had suspected that Tom was anything less than a devoted, if somewhat ineffective, cop.

"I think that's a bit of an overstatement, Blair," Tom responded, smiling condescendingly. "Sleeping on the street? Really..."

"We let you stay with us! We heard the messages on the machine from all those places you tried to get into, man. Your credit was *shot*. If we hadn't vouched for you, you *would've* been on the street. So yeah, it's a little hard to understand that you're gonna pay us back with... with..."

Blair waved his hands expressively to indicate the motley collection of drug dealers and smugglers that surrounded them. Jim scanned the crowd again himself, searching for points of weakness, anything that might work to their advantage. Many of the men and women looked unhappy at the current circumstances, fidgeting restlessly, eyes shifting frequently toward the nearest exits. But enough of them were grinning broadly with anticipation that the Sentinel wasn't about to count on the group collectively chickening out of a cop killing. They were in control, they held all the cards, and, as individuals, they had really very little to lose from letting this play out.

The situation was about to change, though. Jim's hearing picked up the sound of sirens - lots of them. Simon must have finally figured out where they'd gone despite Bowman's orchestration of the "change in plans" that had led them into this trap. If they could just keep things calm for a few more minutes, rescue might actually get there in time. Unfortunately, luck didn't seem to be with them.

"That's enough!"

The voice cut Blair off just as he finally seemed to find the words to finish his thought, and one of the onlookers loomed suddenly over the anthropologist. The newcomer was big - very big - and Blair quickly realized his mistake in bringing himself to the group's attention. His hands went up again and he stepped back nervously, slightly more behind Jim than he had been before. Jim reflected wryly that maybe Sandburg's concern wasn't so much to give him room to do his "cop thing" as it was to keep a human shield between himself and the multiple guns pointed their way. Which was just fine by Ellison. It was good to see signs on occasion that the kid had *some* sense of self-preservation.

"I don't have time for this shit," the big man continued. "Wrap this up and dump 'em somewhere. We've got plans to make here."

Bowman glanced around, suddenly nervous. He apparently hadn't planned on being the triggerman for this. "Are you sure we ought to do it now, Jackson? It could get messy."

Jim's ears perked up at the name "Jackson", and he gave the larger man a closer look, dredging an old mug shot out of his memory. Things had just gotten more interesting. In setting up this sting, they'd intended to net a good group of Cascade's worst two-bit hoods, but this man was David Jackson - one of the state's most wanted. Had they inadvertently stumbled into something bigger than they'd expected?

Jackson gave Bowman a disgusted look.

"You either have the stomach for it or you don't. Take 'em out or join 'em on the receiving end."

A wave of anticipation swept through the room. Behind him, Blair murmured, "Ummm... Jim? Now would be a good time to get us out of here."

The kid was right.

"You don't want to do that, Jackson," the detective stated calmly, sweeping a steely glare to meet the eyes of every gun-toting man and woman in the room, lingering especially on the most nervous ones. "Our backup is going to be here in about two minutes. You kill two cops, there's no way any of you are getting out of here alive."

"No one knows you're here, Ellison. Pretty pathetic try," Tom muttered, tightening his grip on the gun.

Jim offered one of his best 'fine-don't-believe-me' smiles and cocked his head slightly. "You think so? They're nearly here already. Don't you hear them?"

A stunned pause followed as everyone in the room strained their ears. Yes, they could hear approaching sirens. A nervous hum echoed in the rafters. Most of these people really were two-bit hoods. They didn't want more trouble than they could handle. All eyes turned to Jackson, looking for instructions. Jim saw his chance and grabbed it.

In a single, fluid move, he managed to disarm the man closest to him and knock him senseless. Before the initial shock wave from that action had affected the rest of the room, another man was in Jim's grasp, yielding another gun, and providing at least some sort of shield.

"Get back, Sandburg!"

They had nearly made it to the dubious cover of the first rows of crates before gunfire erupted around them and the man in Jim's hold jerked with the impact of the first bullets. Cursing at his own miscalculation, Jim grabbed Sandburg's collar and threw the younger man down behind the crates. He had expected his living shield to buy them more time. He should've known better than to expect these guys to worry about saving one of their own. He had pulled the now limp man behind the crates with them, but one glance told him he didn't need to bother with first aid. Cursing again, Jim pushed away a twinge of guilt at the man's death. He didn't have time to regret his actions if he wanted to keep himself and Blair alive. They had gained nothing but a few extra minutes, if that.

The volley of gunfire against the crates sheltering them died down suddenly and the Sentinel strained to hear sounds of anyone circling around. There! He popped up quickly to fire in the direction of the approaching footsteps, sending several men scattering and bringing another rain of gunfire that sent splinters flying from the wooden crates. Yep, a few extra minutes... at best.

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"Okay, people, heads up!"

Simon was one of the last to arrive on the scene, and as he got out of the car he noted with approval that the teams were already in position. The building was surrounded, and his people were poised and ready for his next orders. Now, if only they weren't too late.

They'd gone to the original site of the meeting only to find an abandoned warehouse, with no sign of Ellison, Bowman, or the "crook convention", as they'd taken to calling the sting operation. It had been sheer luck that a patrol car had spotted Jim's truck at the other end of the warehouse district, thus allowing them to locate the new site. There was no telling what had gone down in the meantime, though. With Sandburg's track record for finding trouble and Bowman's track record for getting cops killed... well, things just didn't look good for his best detective.

Simon found himself wishing yet again that he'd teamed Jim with someone other than Tom Bowman for this job, Ellison's request be damned. Jim had gotten the idea somewhere (somewhere? Be honest - the idea had come straight from the Sandburg Zone) that this sort of operation would be the perfect way to complete Bowman's acceptance by the rest of the force. But if this had gone bad...

Gunfire from within the warehouse shattered Simon's brief moment of introspection. It took him another moment to determine that none of the shots were aimed at them, and half of another to form his thoughts into some semblance of calm command.

"All right, people, they've started without us. Move in!"

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As all hell broke loose in the warehouse, Jim quickly took stock of their situation. The arrival of reinforcements had shifted the balance of power in their favor, and although he and Blair were still behind enemy lines, as it were, their position seemed much more secure. Sandburg was just starting to realize it, too, blinking in wide-eyed relief at the sudden reprieve and straightening from the huddled position he'd fallen into when Jim had shoved him down.

"You okay, Chief?"

"Yeah... yeah, I think so."

Jim clapped him on the back. "Good work back there. Kept them busy until Simon got here."

Blair looked for a moment as if he would protest that his "good work" had been pure adrenaline, but he simply nodded with a slight smile of thanks. "So now what?"

"Now, we wait for the cavalry to wrap things up and get us out of here."

Something caught at the corner of Jim's vision, drawing his gaze in time to see a large shape slipping out a door at the back of the warehouse. "Damn. Correction - *you* wait here. Jackson just headed out the back door." Jim hesitated for a moment, then shoved the second gun into Blair's hands. "Just stay put until I come back for you, understood?"

Blair tried to hand the gun back, protesting. "C'mon, Jim, I don't need this thing - just..."

"Understood?" Jim fixed the younger man with a firm, icy glare. It sometimes seemed like the only way to get the kid to listen.

Blair held his gaze for a moment, then nodded. "I'll wait here."

Jim was up and after Jackson in a heartbeat.

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Well, now what?

Blair sighed mightily, dropping his head back against the crate behind him. It made a satisfying little thump, and he did that a few more times.

*thump* *thump* *thump* Yep - it definitely reflected exactly the level of frustration he was feeling right at this moment.

He'd been wrong about Tom. They'd almost gotten killed - still might, he reminded himself, as a stray bullet struck the crate he was leaning on, sending him sliding to the floor to maintain some cover. Jim had taken off, and Blair was stuck with nothing to do but wait. And stew over his failure, of course. At least stewing was better than thinking about the gunshots that were still echoing chaotically throughout the warehouse. *What* was taking Simon so long to get things under control?

Blair risked a quick glance over the top of the nearest crate. Maybe he could let someone know where he was and they could... the wood of the crate splintered under a barrage of bullets, and he ducked back down immediately.

Right. Forget the bad guys. Back to stewing. Much safer.

Well, this cleared up something once and for all, Blair reflected. He really *was* a criminally bad judge of character. Jim had always predicted that Blair's trusting nature would get him in trouble someday and the anthropologist had just laughed it off; but this could only be considered a case in point. Man, this really, *really* sucked.

This was what he got for thinking like a civilian. He'd felt bad for Bowman after that first botched job. He'd taken one walk through the oppressive atmosphere in the station after the bust and recognized too well that feeling of tension. That it was aimed at someone other than himself for a change hadn't helped. He'd been affected by it anyway, and he could only imagine how the new guy must be feeling. This was too much to have to face the first week on the job. Blair knew what it felt like to screw up something this important. It left a queasy feeling in your stomach and a near-desperate need to make up for it. And walking through the station afterwards, facing those accusing eyes... Well, it made it painfully obvious that there was no *way* to make up for it at all, and that was quite a Catch-22.

So, he'd done his best to smooth things over for Tom. Risked his own fragile acceptance with the "tribe" by supporting the newcomer. And this was what he got for it. *thump* *thump* *thump*

Things were quieting down on the other side of the crates. Blair considered glancing over again, but there was still enough confusion to worry him. It had occurred to him, somewhere beneath his surface thoughts, that in his current location he was as much a target for the policemen out there as he was for the bad guys. Getting shot by one of their own would be just the *capper* on this day (and it wouldn't be the first time he'd been mistaken for a druggie or worse by Jim's colleagues.) Maybe he could make his way around the edge of the building, keep to the shadows. If he could find Simon or anyone else he knew from the station, it would make things a whole lot easier.

As he rose to his feet, crouching slightly to stay below the rim of the crates, Blair suddenly became aware that he was still holding the gun Jim had shoved at him before. He stood still for a second, wondering with some annoyance what to do with the thing. With a sigh of resignation, he tucked it into his belt, promptly and pointedly ignoring its existence. He would never be the gun-toting type. That was just all there was to it.

Keeping his head down, Blair lurked deeper into the warehouse, making himself as inconspicuous as possible. It really did seem like most of the gunfire had died down. He probably would've been okay making a direct dash for the door, but then again, there was his luck to contend with, and it seemed better to take the indirect route to avoid the risk altogether.

Of course, he completely forgot until it was too late that luck wasn't something you could get away from by choosing an alternate course. Rounding a corner, Blair ran directly into Tom Bowman.

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Things were pretty much under control in the main warehouse by the time Ellison finally put in an appearance. Simon was supervising the final sweep from a position near the door when he glanced up to see the detective roughly pushing a large man into an area that was now swarming with police personnel. The Captain's eyes widened as he took in Jim's prisoner. If he didn't miss his guess that was David Jackson - *the* David Jackson. Well, well, well.

Jim paused in a shadowed alcove, and Simon recognized the oddly unfocused concentration that indicated Jim's thoughts were turned inward, tuning down his senses. Working with the Sentinel these past few years, Simon had gained at least a small understanding of how tough this sort of hustle and bustle was on him, with every one of dozens of conversations shouting for his attention. Banks gestured a few uniformed officers to join him in taking Jim's prisoner off his hands, giving the detective a few moments to adjust without the worry of losing Jackson.

"You okay?" Simon asked casually. Jim looked banged up, but alert, so the question was more of a greeting than evidence of real concern. Jim grimaced mildly, but nodded.

"Yeah, nothing a hot shower won't cure. Looks like you have things under control here?"

Simon glanced around at the shambles that the warehouse's central floor had become. "Yeah. It wasn't pretty, but we seem to have gotten what we came for." His gaze strayed back to Jackson, now being manhandled out the main door, and Simon couldn't help but grin. "And then some. That's some good work, there. Who'd've guessed we'd get such a big fish in our little pond. You and Sandburg should... where is the kid, anyway?"

Jim glanced around the milling uniforms for the familiar shaggy head and chuckled slightly when he didn't find it.

"I don't believe it. He actually stayed put," murmured the Sentinel, jogging quickly to where he'd left his partner.

Simon trailed behind, whistling softly when he saw the condition of the shot-up crates. They had apparently decided to move in at a good time. He didn't see any sign of Sandburg, though, and Jim was muttering darkly about "wishful thinking" and "following orders". Simon glanced around, wondering mildly where Blair had gone off to. Maybe he was waiting at the truck. He did that sometimes - got out from under foot when there were too many cops around. The kid always seemed to end up handcuffed as one of the suspects in situations like this one, and Blair had learned to keep out of the way. He was just opening his mouth to mention the possibility to Jim when the detective straightened abruptly and took off running toward the other side of the warehouse.

Simon didn't bother to wonder what the other man had sensed, knowing that it wouldn't do any good. He simply followed.

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Jim had felt an irrational surge of anger when Blair hadn't been waiting patiently for him back at the crates. A part of his mind told him that, with the shooting over, it didn't make sense for his partner just to sit there and wait for Jim to find time to collect him. But it was still irritating.

"What does it take to get him to follow orders?" he fumed silently. "This is the absolute *last* time I'm going to stand for this. When I find him..."

But where was he? Exerting a tremendous force of will, Jim calmed his angry thoughts enough to extend his senses, letting the various stimuli in the room wash over him, filtering out all that was not Sandburg. It only took a second. Blair was talking to someone, and that familiar voice always jumped out at Jim's hearing like a police siren.

["Don't do this, man. Just drop it. We've been friends, right? We were just out at the bars together last week, for cryin' out loud. It doesn't have to end this way. We can work..."]

["Shut up!"]

Jim felt his heart go cold. Bowman! How had he avoided the sweep? The voices had come from a darkened corner of the warehouse. Jim was already running before Bowman spoke again, only vaguely aware that he'd left Simon with no explanation.

["I've had just about enough of your yammering, Sandburg. This ends here."]

["Tom, don't do this, man. Don't make me... Oh, god."]

Jim barely had time to register the switch from panic to deathly calm in his partner's voice before he was brought stumbling to his knees by an explosion of gunfire that ripped into his eardrums. A moment later, catching himself with his hands to keep from pitching forward, he realized what the sound meant. And, as three more shots followed in ordered succession...

*BANG*

*BANG*

*BANG*

"SANDBURG!"

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Simon's heart plunged when he heard the gunshots and Ellison's shout. That couldn't have been... of course it could have. Jim was the one with the super senses. He would know.

The Captain caught up with the Sentinel just as he was rising from his hands and knees, stumbling forward despite the sudden pain and disorientation caused by the deafening gunshots. Simon didn't bother trying to stop him, he just followed at Jim's heels. It was the quickest way to find the kid in this maze.

Rounding one final corner, they found him.

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Blair's alive.

That was the first thought that filtered through Jim's fogged mind. It took longer to sink in than it should have. The image that had burned into his mind at the gunshots - Blair crumpled and still in a spreading pool of blood - was slow to fade, and probably never would completely. There was indeed a body sprawled on the cold cement floor, but it wasn't his partner's. Blair was here, right here. He was standing still as stone, but he was breathing. Alive.

"Chief?" Jim's own voice sounded weak, slightly panicked. He cleared his throat to try again. He needed to be the guiding presence here. Blair needed him.

"Blair." There, that was better. But still not good enough. The young man's attention was held wholly by the corpse at his feet. His eyes were wide and wild with fear, and he still clutched the gun in a white-knuckled death-grip, as though half expecting the dead man to come to life and attack him. Concerned, Jim started forward to pull him away from the scene. "Blair..."

He was stopped by an urgent grip at his elbow. Jim glanced back to find Simon standing there, eyeing the armed anthropologist with a grim mixture of anger, confusion, and alarm.

"What the hell's going on here?" the Captain demanded, his eyes flickering between Ellison, Sandburg, and the body of Tom Bowman. Even as he asked it - before Jim could consider replying - there was a flurry of motion around them and the Sentinel belatedly realized that the gunshots had attracted the attention of other officers in the warehouse - men who had very little reason to give an armed man in the current situation the benefit of the doubt. Jim was quickly aware of at least five guns drawn and aimed at his partner from the cover created by the surrounding crates. Someone shouted "Police! Freeze!"

The shouted command got Blair's attention. A quick, wild-eyed entreaty was thrown Jim's way, and the detective realized from the desperation in that glance that the young man really *was* frozen. He would have dropped the gun by now if he could. Jim pulled anxiously against Simon's unyielding grip, shouting to the men around them in alarm.

"Stand down! Everyone stand down! He's not going to shoot! Simon...!"

Jim turned to his superior in appeal, confused and frightened by the other man's inaction. The Captain gave Blair a long, searching look, then finally nodded his agreement.

"You heard the man! Stand down! Everything's under control here. He's not going to hurt anybody..." he echoed the detective's orders in an authoritative voice. Only Jim caught the muttered proviso: "...else."

There was another flurry of motion as weapons lowered and men backed away. Simon's attention never left Blair, knowing his orders would be followed.

Once the other men had retreated, he barked, "You too, Sandburg!"

The sharp tone startled the young man into submission, and the gun fell from suddenly nerveless fingers with a dull metallic clang. Then Blair just stood there, the aftereffects of fear and adrenaline making his breath come in shallow, terrified gasps and setting his hands to trembling. The Captain maintained his hold on Jim's arm, stopping the Sentinel from going to his partner.

"Kick it over here," he ordered.

Blair complied. His foot sent the gun skidding through a rivulet of blood wending its way across the concrete floor, leaving a bright smear of red in its wake. It drew the young man's attention to the body still sprawled at his feet. A fresh shudder ran through him.

"Oh, god."

Blair swayed, seeming about to collapse, and Jim heard a muttered "Ah, hell" from Simon as the Captain finally loosened his grip enough for Jim to pull free. The Sentinel moved forward to catch the younger man, but didn't get the chance. Blair retreated, putting Bowman's body between himself and his partner.

"No..." he whispered, the syllable reaching Jim's ears as a strangled gasp.

"Chief..."

"I *can't* right now, man. Just lay off."

Jim would have tried again, but Simon's hand was back on his shoulder, warning this time rather than restraining. The Sentinel shrugged him off, but Simon drew his attention anyway, speaking softly, concern finally winning out over the mix of confusion, frustration, and anger evident in the dark eyes. "Let him be," he instructed. Then, more firmly, "Let him be, Jim!" Ellison clenched his jaw, but managed to nod his acceptance, and Simon let go with a last admonition to "Stay put".

A tense few moments passed, with Blair staring into the eyes of the man he had shot and Jim watching Blair. He felt himself starting to zone and considered going with it, but couldn't, quite. His partner needed him present. So, he shook himself out of it, taking in the overall scene to avoid looking at anything too closely. Almost against his will, the cop in him took over, examining things with an analytical eye.

Judging by the position of the body, Bowman had apparently cornered Blair in a dead-end formed by the surrounding crates and the outer wall. His gun lay several yards away, as if he had dropped it before falling. Remembering the gunshots (one, pause, one, two, three) Jim theorized that Blair had fired the first shot as a warning, somehow managing to get Bowman to drop the gun. A quick check of the corpse revealed that one of the bullets had caught the man in the upper arm. That would be the first one, if Jim's assumption was correct. During the pause, Tom could have recovered from the initial impact and continued to press the attack. The detective could all too easily picture it. Blair screwing up his courage to fire once ("Don't make me... oh, god.") then, panicked, seeing his attacker still coming at him, closing his eyes and pulling the trigger, again. *Bang* *Bang* *Bang*

Involuntarily, Jim closed his eyes, as well. If he was right, Blair had fired that gun three times into the chest of an unarmed man. A man who had been, in some way, a friend. Justifiable? Yes. Something that Blair Sandburg was going to be able to live with? Never.

Oh, Chief.

He didn't realize he'd whispered that last aloud until Simon cleared his throat disapprovingly. Jim opened his eyes again. Blair had not moved, had hardly even breathed, in several minutes. Jim met Simon's eyes, begging for permission to do something. The Captain shook his head and took control again, instead.

Moving slowly, giving Blair time to register his actions, the big man crouched down next to Bowman and reached out slowly, holding his hand over the man's face. With a last, compassionate glance for Blair, his hand came down, closing the dead eyes.

It was as if the action had snapped a cord that had bound the young man to the corpse. He stumbled backwards several steps until his heels hit a crate that blocked his path, forcing him to stand still. The effort of it, of standing still and not running away, showed in every tense angle of his body. His expression was changing again, too, his jaw working slightly as he struggled to find the control that he needed to cope with this. Jim could only watch as each emotion crossed his friend's face - grief, loss, despair - until, as always, they settled together into an expression that was uniquely Sandburg, uniquely suited to showing exactly what he was feeling (no matter what it cost his Sentinel to have to see it.) Finally, Blair pulled his eyes away from the dead man entirely, glancing around the area, unsure of where to focus. Simon noticed the look and scanned the surrounding crates himself. With a heavy sigh, he seemed to come to a decision.

"Sandburg, we can handle this part without you. Why don't you go get some fresh air. There's an exit just around the corner here. Just stay close."

"Yeah... okay, Simon," Blair answered, sounding detached - oddly calm. He ran one hand through his hair, the usually casual gesture seeming forced, then glanced down at his hand, not quite registering why it had moved in the first place. "I'll be outside, I guess."

Jim couldn't believe Simon could just let him go in this state. A warning look from the Captain silenced his protests, but only because Simon spoke again, forestalling Blair's departure a moment longer.

"Sandburg..."

He had already turned away but paused, not looking back. "Yeah, Simon?"

"We need to hear that you're all right."

It was a statement, an order, and a question in one. Blair did look back, then, his eyes bright with the glimmer of unshed tears. Finally, he allowed himself to meet Jim's worried gaze, understanding what Simon meant by "we".

"I'm all right," he offered mechanically, his voice still sounding miles away. Something he saw in the Sentinel's eyes must have reached him, though. The lines around his eyes tightened a bit in resolve and he managed more than Simon had asked for: a slight, purposeful nod of reassurance and, in a voice that broke a little, but at least seemed real: "I'll be all right."

Simon exhaled softly and Jim realized that he, too, had an urgent need to breathe, but not yet.

"All right, son. You can go."

Jim listened as his friend disappeared down the hall, cringing at the way the soles of his shoes clung stickily to the ground with each step. He waited until the door had opened and closed again, until he was sure Blair had left. Then, and only then, he allowed his knees to give way, sitting down heavily onto a crate behind him, the held breath finally breaking free in a single, heartfelt gasp of despair.

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For several minutes after Blair left, neither Jim nor Simon moved. Simon crouched by the body, taking in the details of the scene for later reports, while Jim tried to get his spinning thoughts under control. One finally filtered through clearly enough to come out as speech.

"Simon, thank you. I don't know what he would have - what I would have done, if you hadn't..."

Simon pushed himself up, turning away from his inspection. "Don't mention it. As I seem to be pointing out more often than I'd like lately, he's my friend, too." The captain gave Jim a searching look. "And don't beat yourself up over it, Jim. I've had more experience with first-time shootings than you. Sometimes rookies just need someone else to take charge after something like this - make it not their responsibility for a while - before they can cope with it."

Jim simply nodded. Blair wasn't technically a rookie, but he didn't feel up to arguing the point.

"So," Simon's voice deepened abruptly. He was back in police captain mode now. "You planning on telling me what the hell just happened here?"

Jim cringed mentally. He wasn't ready to deal with "Captain Banks" yet - be a good soldier, give his report, ignore the instincts that were clamoring at him to go after Sandburg and make this right. Stalling, Jim fell back into one of his own "modes" - the loner-cop one. He gestured toward the body on the floor, speaking in a monotone just on the edge of insolence.

"I would've thought that was pretty obvious, sir."

Before the Sentinel stuff, before Blair, that would have been enough to make Simon back down. But not now. The Captain bridled at Jim's off-hand tone, bringing himself up to his full height to loom over the seated detective. "Don't pull that crap with me, Ellison! The only thing that's obvious here is that your partner, the *observer*, just shot a cop. I'm going to have people asking me questions - lots of questions. And you and I both know what's at stake if I can't make those people happy. So, I suggest you save the attitude for the evening news and give me some straight answers!"

Jim blinked once in surprise, immediately repentant. He had somehow overlooked the fact that the Captain didn't know about Bowman's fence-jumping. This really did call for some sort of explanation.

"I'm sorry, sir. I guess this does look pretty bad, just coming into it. The short version is that things got a little messy with the setup and Bowman was right in the center of the filth."

Simon nodded as his own assumptions were confirmed, his expression half grim at the news and half relieved to be right. Jim realized belatedly how much he owed Simon for giving Blair the benefit of the doubt back there, and a fresh wave of relief hit him at the averted disaster.

"So I gathered, " Banks commented, reaching into his jacket to pull out a cigar. "Come on, we'll let the rest of the teams know there's more clean up work back here, then you can fill me in."

Jim frowned slightly, rising to his feet, but not moving to follow the Captain. "Simon, I should..."

"...give him a little space," the other man interrupted firmly. "Trust me, Jim. Sandburg won't thank you for going after him right now. We'll get someone to keep an eye on him, but otherwise, we stay out of it until he's ready to talk. Now, come on."

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By the time Jim had finished answering Simon's questions and the Captain had given him leave to go, it was getting pretty late. Jim had to stand still for a moment after he stepped out of the warehouse to adjust his internal clock. It had been a sunny mid-afternoon when they'd arrived for the meeting, but now twilight shadows were thickening and there was only a hint of a dull red sunset in the western sky. Street lamps were just starting to hum to life across the warehouse district.

As he got his bearings, he found that Rafe was leaning casually against the wall by the door, watching him calmly, waiting to be noticed. Jim raised an eyebrow in inquiry, and the other detective gestured toward a docking area stacked with crates and barrels a few hundred yards away.

"He's over there," Rafe said softly, his expression sympathetic. "I didn't want to intrude too much."

Jim nodded his thanks, releasing the other man to return to his duties, then headed toward the indicated spot.

He found his partner with little difficulty. Sentinel eyesight compensated automatically for the reduced light, and Blair hadn't been trying to hide. The young man was seated cross-legged on an upended barrel, staring up with a troubled expression at a streetlight that flickered and buzzed fitfully nearby. The sleeves of his sweater were pulled down to cover his hands in place of gloves, and he hugged himself tightly against a chill breeze that had set in with the darkness. All in all, he looked very young and very frightened.As Jim watched, the wavering streetlight finally gave up its feeble efforts and went dark, covering Blair more deeply in shadows. The younger man must have sensed Jim's presence at that point, because between one blink and another, a mask had come down, shutting back most of the vulnerability that the Sentinel had glimpsed.

"I'm ready to go if you are, Chief."

Blair swung his legs down from their crossed position and hopped off the barrel, keeping his eyes averted.

"Isn't there any... ummm... paperwork to take care of?"

"That can wait until tomorrow." Jim squinted up into the deep twilight sky. A few stars were starting to glimmer there. "It's late."

"Right."

They got to the truck and out onto the expressway without another word. It was agonizing for Jim. It went against every instinct he had to let his partner sit there, two feet away, suffering in silence. He was sure that the right words now could make all the difference. But none of the words that came to his mind seemed like sure-fire successes, and Jim couldn't take the risk of being wrong and making this worse. Simon's parting advice was ringing in his head.

"You give him room to *breathe*, Jim," the Captain had ordered before releasing the detective to collect his partner. "This is one situation where the big brother, or mother hen, or whatever the hell complex you've got with the kid, just *isn't* going to solve the problem. You listen if he wants to talk, but you don't push it. Keep quiet and let him deal with this in his own way."

Jim had balked at that. "I don't think I can do that, sir."

"You damn well better! Working out Sandburg's emotional state is a job for the department shrink. You go stamping around, telling him what he should or shouldn't be feeling... Well, if the kid's on edge now, all it'll take is a nudge in the wrong direction to send him right over."

And that, of course, had played on exactly what Jim was afraid of. So, he kept his thoughts to himself, letting the silence stretch out, increasing the distance between them.

A flashing neon sign caught his eye up ahead, and Jim had a sudden craving for the normality of a quick bite to eat after a long day. The fast food wasn't exactly their usual style, but it would do in a pinch. He turned in, opting for the drive-through, and placed his order. He paid for the food and pulled forward, stopping just past the window to pull out the sandwiches, holding one out to Blair. The young man glanced over at it, but shook his head.

"No thanks, Jim. I'm not feeling so good."

Rookies sometimes just need someone to take charge.

Maybe Jim couldn't confront any real issues on this drive, but he could at least make sure his friend wasn't handling this on an empty stomach. It seemed like a Sentinel sort of thing to worry about... getting down to the basics. He would have to remember to mention that to Blair when the young man was in a more academic mood.

"Take it. You haven't eaten since breakfast."

The hand holding the burger didn't move, but neither did Sandburg.

"Take it."

With a resigned sigh, Blair took the sandwich. Jim waited until he heard the crinkling of the wrapper before opening his own, then unpacked the drinks and balanced them on the dashboard. The bump as the truck pulled back out onto the road nearly toppled one of the cups, but Blair caught it, holding it with one hand while he ate the sandwich with the other. Jim felt a little of the tightness in his gut ease. There was a good sign in there somewhere.

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For Blair, the ride home was hell. He had spent a good portion of his time outside the warehouse trying to figure out how he was going to deal with this trip and what he would say. He'd known he should have something ready - something easy to remember and suitably "Sandburg". He hadn't come up with any good material, though. He could only stare out the window in silence, letting himself mini-zone on the cycle of light and dark provided by the passing street lights.

Beside him, Jim reached up with one hand to adjust the rearview mirror, using the movement and the cover provided by his raised arm to sneak a glance in Blair's direction. It might have been subtle enough if he hadn't done exactly the same thing ten times in the last five minutes. The grad student leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes, suddenly bitter.

Sorry, can't oblige you, buddy. A little too much going on to make Jim Ellison my top priority this time, you know? The 'kid' isn't going to break down just so the big, bad Sentinel can pick up the pieces and bring peace back to his corner of the universe. So you can just shove that *look* straight up your...

NO.

He cut his own thoughts off abruptly, letting the "old Blair" surface momentarily to talk a bit of reason into this new version of himself. He was being unfair. The older man was just worried. More than worried, really. Blair had seen the look on his partner's face, there in the warehouse. It was the closest he'd ever seen Jim Ellison to sheer, undiluted panic.

And that sent Blair into a panic of his own. He knew Jim would want to talk about it, work it out, make it all better. The Sentinel's need for some sort of dialog hit Blair like a physical weight every time those sharp eyes slid toward the passenger seat.

It's what he does. the anthropologist told himself reasonably, meeting the eyes of his own reflection in the window and sharing a knowing look with that other Blair. This was one of Jim's quirks that Blair had devoted copious personal debate to understanding. Was it a Jim-thing or a Sentinel-thing? Rather like the old "Chicken or the Egg" dilemma when you got right down to it.

He's a master of the quick fix. If it can't be solved in ten minutes or less, he's not trying hard enough.

That was all well and good for Jim, but Blair dreaded the moment he knew was coming, when the older man would clear his throat and toss off one of his mini-lectures on what it meant to be a cop. Blair knew the high points already.

"Listen, Chief, I know it seems pretty bad now, but.... It was you or him.... Sometimes, you just have to trust your instincts.... You had no choice...."

All the little platitudes that were supposed to let Blair sleep easy, knowing he'd Done The Right Thing. But he didn't want to hear it. Not tonight. If Jim started on that, Blair was afraid he would end up angry and say something hurtful, and that had to be avoided. He couldn't pawn his anger off onto Jim - couldn't punish Jim just for being worried and responding the best way he knew how. It wouldn't be fair and it wouldn't be right.

It also isn't happening his reflection offered gently. He had to smile a little at that. Here he was, worrying about what Jim was going to do, when so far, the Sentinel seemed quite content to drive in silence. Blair closed his eyes again, letting a bit of the tension slide out of him.

He realized his mistake a moment too late. An image of Tom Bowman's face immediately formed in the darkness behind his closed eyelids. Blair snapped his eyes open, fighting the panic. He'd been hoping to avoid this in the truck. He knew damn well that Jim would hear the change in his breathing, the struggle to stay calm. He kept his face turned away and concentrated again on the passing streetlights, breathing deeply - in - out. He was quick enough to keep his emotions in check, but not quick enough to avoid the wash of memory that came out with those emotions.

*Bang*

He had wanted to make a point. It usually worked that way, didn't it? Fire a warning shot and let the bad guys know you mean business. They'll back off every time. He had just seen a perfect example of the same principle a few minutes earlier. Jim's mention of the approaching police sirens had been a warning shot, of sorts, and it had distracted all of them enough to give Jim and Blair time to get to safety. Blair had pulled the trigger and the gun had somehow jumped out of Tom's hands. He had meant to hit one of the crates, thinking of how dramatic the splintering of the wood had been when it was he and his partner being shot at. But this was good too, right? Tom would have to back down. Blair had stupidly blinked his eyes in a split second of relief, only to open them to see Tom lunging forward, his face contorted with rage. Blair didn't remember firing the other three shots. He remembered hearing them. Remembered the jump of the gun in his hands. But he could not recall the actual decision or command from his mind to his finger to pull the trigger.

God, he'd been so afraid.

The world had seemed to slow down after that, suddenly giving Blair all the time he'd needed earlier to think through his situation. He had watched, dazed, as Bowman stumbled backward with the force of each bullet, finally falling to one knee, then over. He had realized he should probably go to help the injured man, but Tom had been trying to sit up. Blair had been unable to do anything but clutch the gun tighter and pray it didn't go off again.

Tom's gaze had locked onto Blair and the anthropologist had watched in horror as the shocked awareness of death swam across his victim's eyes. There had been a sort of panic for both of them, then. Blair had tried to speak, mouthing a silent litany.

I'm so sorry. God, I'm so sorry.

In the window reflection, his lips formed the words again, as useless now as they had been then.

It's not supposed to hurt this much, is it? It's not supposed to feel this *wrong* to Do The Right Thing, is it? How do I fix this? How do I forget the way Tom looked at me? God, he hated me so much at the end. His eyes... I could see it in his eyes. How do I become someone who can live with that? How do I wake up every morning for the rest of my life knowing that I shot a man and watched him die at my feet? All that blood and hatred and emptiness...

Blair couldn't suppress a shudder as the gut-twisting memory wrapped around him again. He was almost grateful when the Sentinel reached down to turn the heat up several notches, obviously noticing the shudder. The movement gave Blair something to focus on. There would be time to process this later. Right now, he just needed to stay still, physically AND mentally, and get home in one piece.

He could manage it. He had to.

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"Hey, Ellison."

Jim stifled a groan at the sound of his name. He'd managed to bury himself under the piles of paperwork at his desk for most of the morning, but he'd known that sooner or later he'd have to face the inevitable round of questions about yesterday's fiasco. He closed the folder he'd been working on and met his co-worker's gaze with a resigned sigh. "Yeah, H, whattaya need?"

"Just looking for Sandburg. He around?"

"Nope. He had some stuff to take care of at the University. I let him take off early."

"You let him, huh?" Henri Brown laughed knowingly and Jim considered wryly that maybe it wasn't such a good thing that his partnership with Blair had also loosened up his relationship with the rest of his coworkers. There had been a time when these guys would've been too afraid of him to laugh. "Well, let him know that Sheila Roberts down in I.A. is looking for him."

The other detective walked away, message delivered, unaware of the bombshell he'd just dropped into Ellison's lap. Sheila looking for Sandburg? Jim sat dangerously still, rubbing slowly at a new frown line forming between his eyebrows. He'd been so sure they'd dodged this particular bullet.

Jim had been unimaginably relieved to learn that Sheila had been put in charge of the Bowman investigation. He knew her fairly well and trusted her to get to the bottom of Bowman's involvement with Jackson's crew without turning the whole fiasco into a media circus. More importantly, the newlywed investigator had worked with Jim and Blair on cases before, and owed them more than a few favors. So, when he'd seen her name down as the officer assigned to this case, Jim had relaxed, certain he could trust Sheila to protect Blair when Internal Affairs inevitably went looking for a scapegoat for Bowman's crimes.

All of that could may be flying right out the window at this latest turn of events, though. What did Sheila want with Blair? Was she calling him in as a cop or a cop-killer? Did the kid even fall under I.A.'s jurisdiction? Of course he did. It would be documented somewhere in the stacks of legal mumbo-jumbo Sandburg had filled out to get his observer's credentials.

Almost before he knew it, Jim was up and out of the bullpen, stabbing once at the elevator button before stomping down the stairs instead. He reflected briefly that he should calm down before confronting Sheila with this.

Damn her anyway.

This was not what he needed right now. The day had been difficult enough already. Blair had barely spoken three words voluntarily since Jim had taken him home the night before. Neither of them had gotten much sleep last night, and their early morning routine had been marred by a strained silence, with Jim still not sure how to broach the subject of yesterday's shooting and Blair apparently not willing to start talking on his own.

The young man had come into the department long enough to give his statement and attend the appointment Simon had arranged with Dr. Collins, the department shrink, but had left soon after, falling back on the old "need to stop by the University" excuse. Jim had been almost relieved to let him go. It had just been too hard having him here. The young man had kept that carefully neutral mask glued firmly in place, but his real emotions had been painfully obvious to the Sentinel, or anyone else who cared to look. Jim was certain he wasn't the only one who noticed the nervous sweep of hand through hair, the slight tremor in Blair's voice when he found himself forced to speak, the way his eyes never seemed to focus on anything, despite their constant scan of the room. Watching the kid play this little game of "I'm OK, you're OK" was agonizing, frustrating, and downright draining. So, Jim had resolved to let him go for now and work it out tonight.

But if Internal Affairs was going to involve Blair in this investigation after all, things had just gotten a lot more complicated. His emotions still high, Jim pushed open the door to Sheila's office, not bothering to wait for admittance. The flame-haired investigator glanced up in a surprise that dissolved quickly into a wary tension when she saw who had burst in so rudely.

"Detective Ellison." She nodded coolly in greeting, pointedly indicating a chair across from her as if he were an invited guest. "Please, sit down."

Jim ignored her request, planting his hands firmly on her desk and leaning in threateningly.

"What the hell are you up to, Sheila?"

To her credit, Sheila Roberts did not flinch at the impact of that cold blue gaze. She met his stare with one of her own, quirking her eyebrows slightly in disdain for his scare tactics. "I take it this is in reference to my investigation of the shooting yesterday? If you'd like to have a seat, I think we'll do better by discussing this as rational adults."

Jim shoved off the desk with frustrated force and paced away a few steps, rubbing one hand over his face in an effort to maintain his patience. He really should have calmed down before coming in here, after all. This diplomacy stuff just wasn't his forte. With some effort, he took a tight grip on his emotions and took the seat Sheila had offered earlier. She relaxed noticeably as he did so.

"That's better. Now, what can I do for you, Jim?"

"For starters, you can tell me why you're involving Sandburg. This whole thing has hit him pretty hard. He doesn't need you dragging him in front of your review boards and committee members. He's already made his statement."

Sheila looked mildly surprised and consulted the folder on her desk for a moment, head cocked to the side.

"Maybe I've got some wrong information here. This says that Blair was the shooter in Officer Bowman's death?" She glanced up expectantly. Jim was forced to nod his agreement. Sheila shook her head at that. "Then how on earth do you expect him to get out of an I.A. hearing, Jim? You know as well as I do the procedures that need to be followed in *any* shooting, let alone one of such a sensitive nature."

Jim sighed. "C'mon, Sheila, he's a civilian for christ's sake, and his life was in danger. Label it as self defense and push it through. There's no need to put him through this."

Sheila shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry. I can't do that. Whatever my personal feelings towards you or Blair, he was at that location in an official capacity. He has to deal with the consequences just like any member of the police force."

"That is ridiculous!" Jim was on the edge of the chair, leaning forward, trying to keep his temper in check. This sort of red tape bullshit always got to him. His voice rose dangerously again. "You know Sandburg. He's not some gun-happy psycho. He's just a kid who did what he had to do to stay alive. This is tearing him up already, Sheila! I can tell you anything else you need to about Bowman switching sides. Leave Blair out of it!"

Sheila was suddenly angry and she rose to her feet, green eyes flaming. "You have some gall, Ellison! This is the third time I've gotten a case with your name all over it, and all three times, you've made yourself a thorn in my side! " She grabbed the case folder from the desk in front of her, waving it at Jim.

"I have a dead cop on my hands. It's my job to deal with it accordingly. Yes, part of that involves the issue of Bowman's defection, but it *also* includes figuring out how your partner ended up being on hand to fire the killing shot. Or shots, in this case. Your partner, Jim. The *observer*. As in one who is not authorized for high-risk operations, one who is not authorized to be carrying a gun, and one who Sure As Hell is not authorized to be *firing* a gun. It's one heck of a mess, detective, with that young man right in the middle of it. So, don't you dare go making me the bad guy, here."

Jim was on his feet, too, reflecting Sheila's anger back at her. "Fine! Someone needs to be accountable for what happened in that warehouse, I understand that. But if you're so hot to nail somebody for this, you point the finger at me! *I* was the officer in charge. *I* gave him that gun. *I* put him in that situation."

Sheila met his gaze, glare for glare. "Oh, believe me, Detective Ellison, your name is definitely on the list of people who'll be hearing from us. But right now, Blair Sandburg is at the top of that list. Last time I checked, he *is* an adult and he *did* sign the Observer agreement stating that, among other things, he agrees to be accountable to Internal Affairs for his behavior whenever he's acting in an official Cascade PD capacity. So, I suggest you bring him by tomorrow to talk, or I'll be forced to issue a warrant for him to be picked up by our finest boys in blue. If he's really as upset as you say, I'd hate to have to put him through the trauma of an arrest right now, but if I have no other choice, I will."

Jim was suddenly, lethally, calm. Anger, he could take. Bureaucracy, he could take. But this woman had just dared to threaten his partner, and that was unacceptable.

"Don't - You - Dare." Each word cut down, cold and sharp. Sheila sighed.

"Don't make me have to, Jim." Her tone was gentler, although she still held his gaze with green eyes that bespoke a will almost equal to Jim's own. "Just bring him in. It's not like we're trying to hang him for this. We just need answers, and we need them from Blair. If what we've been told so far is true, there won't be anything for him to worry about. He can just tell what happened and get on with his life."

Get on with his life. Jim hoped that was true. He really did. But with Sandburg, things never seemed to work out as simply as that.

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I am... relaxed. I am... relaxed. I am... relaxed.

The words flowed across Blair's mind with each breath in... and out. They were meant to be a soothing litany, providing a simple focus for his thoughts and opening a path to a safe place where he could straighten out the tangled threads of his life. Today, though, they were just one more piece of clutter, skimming across the surface of his mind out of habit, failing to exert any control over the chaotic jumble beneath. He'd been at this for a few hours, since he'd gotten back from the University, with no success.

First, of course, came the memory of the shooting. He saw it again and again. His subconscious had already boiled it down to the essentials - the feel of the cool metal in his hands, the jump of the weapon as it fired, the jerk of Tom's body as each bullet hit home, and, above all, Tom's eyes as they went from manic hatred to abject fear back to manic hatred, then fading until there was nothing left behind them at all.

"Why, exactly, does Tom Bowman's death bother you, Mr. Sandburg?" Dr. Collins' oh-so-steady voice pushed to the surface, replacing the flashes of memory with thoughts that were actually darker. The psychologist had turned out to be a pretty sub-standard example of his breed, but that one question really scored. It had caught Blair with his guard down, coming once they had gotten pretty far into Collins' well-rehearsed list of questions and reassurances. Blair had done a good job of staying "on" through the whole thing up to that point, giving the right answers, never missing a beat, taking his mental medicine like a good boy. And then the shrink had tossed that one at him in the same casual voice he'd used for the other questions, and at the same time had taken away all the easy answers.

"Ignore the social mores," Collins had clarified before the anthropologist could come up with an acceptably enlightened response. "Ignore the biblical commandments, the parental lectures. Reach into your heart and really consider why the death of a man who fully intended to kill you should be any concern of yours at all." It really was a loaded question. Why did the memory of those dead eyes fill him with such horror and grief? When you pushed aside the societal stuff, it was really frightening. Because, as it turned out, Blair Sandburg was on the near side of becoming a complete basket case because of what Tom Bowman's death said about Blair himself. And how conceited was that?

Coward. his thoughts whispered with Tom Bowman's voice, and Blair couldn't find it in himself to disagree. He'd been so damned scared he'd hauled off and *killed* a guy. As in *DEAD*. He hadn't even made a conscious decision to do it. That was maybe the worst. At least if he'd weighed his options, really chosen to fire those three shots (over, say, a nice single bullet to the kneecap) - at least then it would have been a choice he could explain and maybe even justify. But he had panicked and lashed out, and now a man was dead.

Coward. Tom Bowman's voice whispered again, and Blair had the eerie feeling that if he opened his eyes, the dead man would be sitting right there in front of him.

Hypocrite.

Failure.

Blair fought down a strangled laugh, trying to focus on the mantra still running across his mind.

I am... relaxed. I am... relaxed.

What would Dr. Collins do if Blair went in there next time with the claim that his victim was taunting him from beyond the grave? He would have to come up with something more suitably sane, really. Hearing voices was not a good thing to admit to psychologists. The conversations he'd been having internally with the "old Blair" probably weren't safe territory, either. Oh, and the hallucinations. It would definitely not be a good idea to bring up the way he'd been catching glimpses of Bowman out of the corner of his eye all day.

But that was the nice thing about Collins and his type. They didn't push too hard, didn't make you admit things you didn't feel like bringing up. Blair was an expert at dealing with people like that.

And then, of course, there was Jim. Blair wondered again how long he was going to be able to put off "the talk" that had been brewing behind the Sentinel's watchful gaze since the shooting. Jim had shown remarkable restraint so far, but Blair didn't expect it to last much longer. He would have to get his feelings under control before the time came.

Breathe in... and out...

A small sound from the outside hallway alerted Blair to his roommate's arrival, right on cue, and with some effort he forced himself to stay still, listening to the fumbling of keys in the door. He could handle this. He could.

The door opened, but didn't close again right away. He could imagine Jim pausing in the doorway to take in the scene and consider his next move. Blair forced himself to stay still, hoping his heartbeat was slower than it felt.

I am... relaxed.

Really, Jim. I am.

Finally, there was a quick jangling of keys being tossed into the basket by the door, followed by the click of the door closing and a rattling of paper bags being plopped on the counter. He must have brought groceries home. Quiet footsteps crossed the loft and went upstairs.

Well, there was no sense delaying the inevitable. He wouldn't be able to keep up the pretense of meditation much longer, anyway. Taking the opportunity of being out from under his roommate's concerned gaze, Blair sighed and stretched, rotating his shoulders and neck to work the kinks out. He was just pulling himself to his feet when Jim came trotting back down the stairs, pausing in mid-step when he caught sight of Blair.

"Oh, hi. Didn't mean to disturb you."

Blair shrugged slightly, starting to pull things out of the two grocery bags left on the kitchen counter.

"It's okay."

Jim nodded, accepting that without further comment.

A small paper sack was lying on the floor near the front door, apparently dropped in the detective's efforts to juggle everything as he came in. Jim scooped it up, then tossed it casually to Blair.

"Got you something, Chief."

Blair caught the bag, but hesitated before opening it. He was struck with an odd feeling that he was missing something important. Oh, yeah, the witty banter.

"A present for me? Jim... I'm touched." Well, it was about three beats late, but Jim seemed to appreciate it, moving to take Blair's place with the groceries, giving the younger man an affectionate little whap on the shoulder with the back of his hand.

"Yeah, you're touched, all right."

There was a moment of strained silence at that, and Blair could practically hear Jim berating himself for making a "crazy" crack at his not-quite-stable partner. He forced out a wry "Ha Ha" to show that he'd taken the joke in the spirit it was meant and sat down at the table, pulling open the stapled flap of the bag curiously. A familiar scent wafted out.

Blair glanced up, genuinely surprised.

"Sage?"

Jim nodded, looking vaguely, almost comically, worried as he came over to the table. When Blair, stunned, didn't say anything more, he seemed to feel the need to elaborate.

"Yeah. It's for... you know..." His hands waved in the air, gesturing helpfully, "the negative vibes."

He paused, eyebrows raised in a clear question mark, biting at the inside of his lower lip, waiting for some sort of response. Blair could only look from the bag and back to his partner, speechless.

"That's it, right? If it's not, I can get something else. I tried to ask somebody at the store, but it was kind of hard to breathe with all those herbs, and I thought I remembered Naomi..."

The Sentinel looked so serious, so concerned that this be right, and so completely out of his depth, that Blair couldn't help but respond. He reached out a hand to grab Jim's arm, stopping his attempts at explanation, and nodded reassuringly.

"Yeah, it's right," he murmured. Jim sighed with relief. Blair felt a small, but genuine smile tug at his lips. His voice came out thick with emotion. "Thanks, man. This means a lot."

Jim smiled, too, a big grin that reached his eyes, and Blair let a little of his tension fade. He'd been feeling like his world had collapsed in the last 24 hours, but he still had Jim Ellison as his friend, and that was something to hold onto throughout this whole rebuilding process... something he could count on. Blair felt his own smile turn up a notch at the thought and would have said something more. Jim had turned away, though, characteristically moving on to new business once the old had been settled to his satisfaction.

"Okay, then, what's for dinner?"

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Jim had to admit, he'd half-expected things to be fixed now. Blair had seemed genuinely pleased with his little gift and had even joked around a bit during a quiet, but pleasant, dinner.

In retrospect, it was naive to think it could be that easy, considering the complex tangle of contradictions that was Sandburg, but the shadow of Sheila Roberts had been with Jim all afternoon. The Sentinel hadn't come up with any way to avoid the Internal Affairs inquiry, and he had been deathly afraid that Blair just wasn't up to it. Dinner had helped alleviate some of those concerns, but they came back full force a short while later when the young man withdrew again, pulling on a heavy sweatshirt and slipping out onto the balcony with a murmured explanation that he "needed a little air".

He'd been out there getting "a little air" for two hours now. He had pulled a chair out with him and was sitting, slouched a little, with his feet up on the railing, staring moodily out across the bay, probably freezing in the damp night air. Finally, Jim got up himself, unable to stay quiet any longer. He valiantly resisted the urge to take a blanket, grabbing a couple beers instead. He opened the balcony door and, not wanting to intrude too much into Blair's personal space, stayed there, leaning casually against the doorframe. The young man glanced up in greeting and Jim offered one of the bottles. Blair just shook his head, smiling a little to show he appreciated the gesture, before turning back to the bay. Jim took a deep breath, then plunged ahead, keeping his voice gentle.

"You want to talk about it?"

Blair tensed, then visibly forced himself to relax.

"No, thanks."

An awkward pause hung there a moment.

"Will I be out of line if I say I think you *should* talk about it?"

Blair sighed and pulled his hands across his face in a weary, defeated gesture.

"Look, man, I know you're trying to help, and I appreciate it. I really do. I just..." He gestured helplessly with one hand. "I just need time to process it all, figure out my feelings. Is that too much to ask?"

Jim didn't reply right away, looking for a way to say what he wanted that sounded casual and non-confrontational.

"Of course it's not too much to ask." Leave it at that, Ellison. "Except..."

"Except what?"

"Well, your 'processing' seems an awful lot like what most people would call shutting down, Chief."

He glanced down to gauge Blair's reaction. The young man was staring back up at him with an angry set to his jaw.

Struck a wrong chord, there.

"Shutting down," Blair murmured - not a question, just repeating the phrase, an incredulous catch to his voice. He looked away again, shaking his head in disbelief.

Jim tried again. "Look, I'm just saying that burying your feelings isn't the way to go here. What happened last night with Bowman was a damn shame, but it wasn't like you had a choice. Now you just have to let yourself realize it and..."

When Blair interrupted him, he knew he'd pushed too far. "Don't even try that 'didn't have a choice' crap on me, Jim! I could've just gotten the hell out of there after he dropped the gun. I didn't have to kill him. Something inside just clicked off! What does that say about me?"

"It says that you were smart and let your instincts take over when they needed to, Chief. You did..." A slightly hysterical laugh from Blair interrupted him again.

"You're two-for-two there, buddy."

"What?"

But Blair was still talking, backing up a few mental steps.

"It just clicked off, man. Like, one second, there I was, trying to talk to him, and the next, it wasn't me anymore, and I just..." He held his clasped hands out in front of him in a child's imitation of a gun, miming the jerk of the shots. "Boom. Boom. Boom. I never... I never thought anything could feel that awful."

The pain in his voice caused Jim to move forward instinctively, trying to offer some sort of comfort, but Blair's hands came up, warding him off. Jim had the dawning suspicion that he was in over his head, here, but he couldn't turn back. At least the kid was talking.

"Blair, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I just thought that if you could talk it out, it would..." He trailed off himself, this time. It would what, Ellison? Fix it all up so your little cosmos gets back on track? Well, yeah. What was wrong with that?

"I did, and will, talk it out, Jim," Blair replied, still angry. "With Collins. He's the one I'm supposed to open my soul to, right? Tell him how guilty I feel and let him tell me it's perfectly normal and pretend to believe him. That's the way it works, right?"

"Is that the way you see it? I thought you were okay with him."

"Oh, I am. It's not that bad if you follow the script - don't push too hard for real answers - keep things simple. Besides, it's standard operating procedure, isn't it? The 'right' thing to do. Kill a man, see the shrink, back to work next Tuesday. Don't worry, Jim, I know my lines."

This was coming from Blair Sandburg, self-confessed therapy-veteran? God, how had Jim misjudged the situation so badly? This wasn't some minor guilt trip that would clear itself up with a few visits to the department shrink and some good old-fashioned male bonding.

What am I supposed to say to that, Chief? What do you want me to do? I can't just sit here and watch you self-destruct.

"I think I'll take that beer after all," Blair held out one hand expectantly, and Jim handed a bottle to him. The anger seemed to have drained out of the young man as suddenly as it had come. Afraid of saying the wrong thing, Jim remained silent. Eventually, Blair spoke again, his voice pensive, the words coming out in small fits and starts.

"You know, we... you and me... we had this conversation once. I'll never forget it. It was a little while after I'd moved in here, I think. Right after we found Susan Frazier's body, actually. So yeah, I'd been here a month or so. I still have nightmares about her sometimes, you know? Not Lash - well, Lash too - but her, just lying there - dead," His lip curled distastefully at the word and a small shiver ran through him. The memory held him a few seconds more, then he continued.

"Anyway, this conversation. I asked you how cops deal with this stuff." He shook his head again. A bitter little chuckle that would have been too low for anyone else to hear caught Jim's ear. "Check my humanity at the door. Whatever it takes to stay present."

Blair's eyes closed and he lay his head back against the window behind him, looking suddenly very tired and very young.

"That's what you said, Jim - whatever it takes to stay present. And that's what I'm doing. So you call it shutting down or burying my emotions or whatever the hell you want to call it, but if you're my friend at all, you will just lay off because it's what I need right now."

"I *am* your friend, Blair. Don't you ever doubt that."

Blair opened his eyes just enough to meet Jim's fierce gaze and offered a little smile before closing them again. "I don't, man. I don't. But you get my point?"

Jim sighed, but nodded, pushing himself off of the door frame reluctantly. "Yeah, I get your point." He paused. "Consider one thing for me when you're 'processing'. If our positions were reversed, would *you* be able to let it drop so easily?"

Blair laughed, taking another drink from the bottle he held. "If our positions were reversed, you'd've been over it before we hit the burger joint last night, man." He held his hand up, forestalling Jim's objection. "No, no, I get what you're saying..."

His eyes opened yet again and this time he straightened in the chair, turning to meet Jim's gaze fully, his expression calm and serious. "And I *will* be all right, Jim. You just have to give me a little leeway on this one and maybe believe that my way just might be better for me."

Jim held the younger man's gaze a few moments longer, then nodded, finding enough of what he needed to see to let this go for tonight, anyway. He turned to go back inside, glancing back just once more. "You should get to bed. It's cold out here and you're already down one night's sleep." Blair didn't move, but he chuckled good-naturedly, letting any lingering tension between them fade.

"Yes, mom."

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"In closing, it is the opinion of this committee that Blair Sandburg acted with justifiable force in this incident. No further legal action would appear to be called for."

Simon read the final lines of the Internal Affairs report with a sigh of relief. After the hearing this morning, Sheila Roberts had been quick to assure them that Blair would be cleared of any wrongdoing, but this could so easily have gone the other way that it was a relief to see the words in print. As Sandburg's nominal "superior officer", Simon had been permitted to sit in on the hearing, and he'd been very aware of the stern looks on the other committee members' faces. A wrong word or phrase or, hell, just a bad vibe from Sandburg could have resulted in serious consequences.

Blair had handled himself well, though, and Simon... heaven help them both... was proud of him. When he and Jim had arrived for the hearing this morning, Blair had still been looking more than a little shell-shocked, but as soon as he'd stepped into that conference room, all doubt had dropped away and he'd answered the questions put to him in a calm, firm voice, seemingly secure in the knowledge that he'd done the right thing. If Simon hadn't been present for both events, he never would have believed that the young man in front of the I.A. board was the same one who, two days ago, had stood with a gun in his hands, wild-eyed and frightened, barely able to determine friend from foe. After the review, Simon had congratulated Blair on his composure, but the grad student had seemed unimpressed with the Captain's praise for once.

"You don't spend ten years in college without learning a few things about committees, sir," he'd replied softly with a self-deprecating little shrug.

Thinking about it, Simon dropped the folder onto his desk and let his gaze stray out to the bullpen. He needed to keep an eye on that situation for a while. The department shrink had given Sandburg a clean bill of health, but after the performance in the hearing this morning, the Captain wouldn't put it past Blair to put on an equally convincing show for Collins. And if the observer wasn't enough to worry about, Simon had been reminded by this incident just how closely Jim Ellison's mental health was tied up in the general welfare of his partner. The whole incident had pushed both of them pretty close to the proverbial "edge", and Simon had the unenviable task of making sure they managed to pull themselves away from it. Hopefully, the hearing results would go a long way toward helping that process.

Ellison's shift had been over nearly an hour ago, but he and Sandburg were still here, awaiting the official word. The two of them were talking softly at Jim's desk, and the Sentinel kept glancing over at Simon's office, obviously having noticed Rhonda dropping off the final reports of the day. When Jim saw Simon looking back at them, he raised one eyebrow enquiringly. Simon was about to motion him to come on in when his phone rang, and he shrugged apologetically to Jim as he picked it up.

"Banks."

"Simon." The voice on the other end started without preamble. The Chief of Police didn't need to identify himself to his underlings. "I've got a disturbing report in my hands, and I'd like an explanation."

Simon felt a chill in his gut and his eyes found the file that he, himself, had just set down. "Of course, sir. I'll be glad to..."

"I certainly hope so, Captain. You can start by telling me why the hell Ellison's tagalong had to be written up by Internal Affairs."

Damn Simon hesitated, not sure how to approach this. It wasn't unexpected, but he'd counted on the positive I.A. evaluation to take the sting out of it. To make matters worse, Simon was aware that Jim's eyes were still fixed on him. A single look back out to the bullpen told him that the Sentinel's expression and posture had gone rigid at the first mention of his "tagalong". Simon *really* didn't want to have this conversation with Jim listening in, but there was no way he was going to get the Sentinel to tune out now. Best to get it over with.

"Well, sir, as the I.A. report says, Mr. Sandburg was in a very difficult situation, but he kept his wits and managed to handle it on his own. If he hadn't responded the way he did, Bowman would have..."

"Yes, Captain, I'm aware of the contents of the I.A. report, but I'm not really interested in the Pollyanna revisionist version of what happened." Simon winced at the irritation in the voice that cut him off. "I've looked the other way for each of this Sandburg's other... mishaps, but his participation in that operation was a flagrant disregard of department policy. Not to mention nearly *criminal* disregard of the safety of a civilian! What the hell was Ellison thinking?!? What the hell were *you* thinking to go along with it?!?"

Out in the bullpen, Ellison's jaw clenched even tighter. Blair was still talking, not quite registering that his partner was no longer listening to him. Simon had to close his eyes for a moment to come up with a reasonably respectful response to the superior's accusations."Sir, I understand your concern, but I assure you, Sandburg's participation was not undertaken lightly in this. The original intention was for our men to be in and out of that situation before any shooting started. I'm sure you can see that Bowman's interference changed things unexpectedly, and..."

"It's your job to expect *everything*, Banks!" There was a pause at the other end of the line as the Chief lowered his voice, cooling off. "All right. The bottom line is, I'm not interested in hearing excuses for why this happened. It's become apparent to me that this little experiment with Ellison and Sandburg has gone on long enough. Pull the kid's credentials and let him get back to school where he belongs."

"Sir?" Meeting Jim's eyes through the window, Simon felt as if that cold gaze would bore a hole right through him.

"You heard me, Captain."

"Sir, I have to disagree. The record speaks for itself. Blair Sandburg has proven himself to be a huge asset to this department. Detective Ellison's success rate has skyrocketed with him on the team, and he has frequently provided other officers a different outlook on a case that led to arrests. May I recommend that we review some case files before jumping to any conclusions?"

"I've done enough of that already, and from what I've seen, it's best that we do this now before your observer ends up doing his little term paper from the morgue. It's obvious that Sandburg's inexperience has led him into trouble enough. I'm sorry, Simon, there's no room for negotiation in this. I want that man out of Major Crimes *today*."

"But, sir, you don't understand...!"

"You have your orders, Captain Banks!"

An abrupt click in the earpiece cut off any further protests Simon might have made, ending the conversation with a finality that only the telephone could accomplish. On his end, Simon set the handset down gently, his mind already going over the possible ramifications. No matter what scenario he tried, it always ended badly.

His eyes went back to the desk across the bullpen. Blair seemed to have just noticed the clenched jaw and cold gaze that said that Jim's attention was elsewhere. The young man followed the gaze and Simon met his eyes, giving a little shake of his head to Blair's curious look. He saw the kid's mouth move, (Jim, what's going on?) but the detective rose abruptly, interrupting Blair with a curt directive to wait there.

Jim came in, closing the door with exaggerated calm, and Simon pulled the blinds closed. Some modicum of privacy ensured, the Captain sat down and waited patiently while Jim worked off his initial head of steam. He paced viciously back and forth several times before turning to face Simon, his expression a study in rage.

"You can't possibly be accepting this," he stated, his voice low and ice cold with the effort not to shout. Simon held his hands out helplessly.

"Show me what other choice I have, and I'll snap it up."

That gave Jim pause, and he sat back onto the table behind him, not replying.

"Look," Simon told him slowly. "Think of this as a temporary setback. Losing the battle but not the war. We'll give it a while for the heat to settle, then find an excuse to get him back."

Jim shook his head. "That's not good enough, Simon. I'm not going out there and explaining to him that he didn't do anything wrong, but we're still kicking him out."

"You're not giving the kid enough credit, Jim. He'll understand."

Before Jim could reply to that, there was a tentative knock on the door. The two men sat still for a second, knowing who would be waiting on the other side, eyes locked in a silent war of wills. Simon looked away first, but by nature of the situation, still won. He called his permission for Blair to enter.

The grad student came in quietly, stepping far enough into the room to close the door behind him, but stopping there, leaning against it, taking in the tension in and around them.

"So, are we having fun yet?" Blair chuckled mirthlessly in feeble attempt to lighten the mood.

Simon's eyes went to Jim again, wondering if the other man would make the first move. He didn't seem inclined to, his back stiff with angry denial.

"How bad is it?" Blair asked softly, his eyes flicking nervously to Ellison before looking to Simon for the answers. The Captain steepled his fingers, trying to find the words to cushion the blow, but not finding any. The explanation came out blunt and to the point.

"The Chief's revoked your observer credentials."

There was a slight pause as the young man took that in. It lengthened, as if he were waiting to hear more.

"That's it?" he asked finally.

"That's it."

Blair let out a sigh of breath and sat down abruptly, sliding down the door and cradling his head in his hands. Jim looked up at the sudden silence, the anger replaced with concern for his partner.

"It's okay, Chief," he insisted, moving to crouch down next to Blair, putting a hand on one bowed shoulder. "We're not accepting it." (That with a fierce look to Simon.) "We'll... we'll tell the Chief about this Sentinel thing, or I'll resign, or something."

"NO!" Simon and Blair's protests echoed each other, Simon pushing up abruptly from his desk and Blair sitting up straight. Both would have continued, but Simon yielded the floor to the Sentinel's Guide.

"That would be a *huge* overreaction, man," Blair said firmly, not bothering to specify one or the other of Jim's suggestions, since both were patently ridiculous. "Sheesh. From the way you stormed in here, I thought I.A. decided to press charges after all, but this... this is nothing. I was planning on taking some time off to get my head together anyway, right? So, I'll do that, and in the meantime the Captain can come up with a way to prove what an invaluable asset I am to the department. Right, Simon?"

Blair grinned cheekily over at the Captain, who grimaced at the blatant ego- stroking being requested.

"Invaluable, Sandburg?" Simon asked, taking his cue from that playful grin. "It should be pretty easy to put a value on it. What's a good set of encyclopedias going for these days?"

"What about the Sentinel thing?" Jim interrupted abruptly, rejecting their attempts at lightening the situation. Blair sighed, but answered seriously.

"You hardly ever have problems with your senses anymore. You haven't had a serious overload in months, and as far as zoning, I've been thinking it might be a good idea to try a few trials to find out if they lessen when you know I'm not around to pull you out... like I might be a crutch that lets you feel safe to risk a zone when you might not if I weren't around." Blair glanced over to address Simon. "Not that we'd want to let him go off into anything dangerous on his own," he pointed out unnecessarily.

Jim stood back up, moving to stare sightlessly out the window in a belligerent refusal to let his anger go that easily. With his back turned, Blair had a moment out from under the Sentinel's direct attention and Simon caught the way the mask slipped a little, displaying the insecurity underneath. God, but the kid was good. Simon would never have suspected Sandburg was anything but optimistic about this latest roadblock if he hadn't caught that look. Jim could probably tell, of course, but it said something that Blair made the effort.

Blair composed himself, and called out softly, forcing Jim's attention back.

"Jim, I'm really okay with this," he murmured sincerely. Jim shook his head, but finally let his shoulders slump in defeat.

"Then I guess I have to be, too."

He helped Blair up from the floor and the young man removed his observer's pass from its clip on his belt, dropping it unceremoniously onto Simon's desk. As the two of them were leaving, Jim turned to Simon one last time, his face still angry.

"This isn't over."

The Captain merely nodded his agreement.

"Of course not."

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There was no denying that the next few weeks were rough for Blair Sandburg. He'd put on a good show for Simon and persisted in trying to fool Jim, but he was still badly shaken by his dismissal from Major Crimes. It added a whole new stack of concerns to his already guilt-laden conscience that he really could have done without. Had he said or done something wrong in the Internal Affairs review to blow the whole thing? (Besides killing Tom in the first place, of course.) Would they find a way to get him back in? Would Jim be all right without him?

To make matters worse, the specter of Tom Bowman still haunted him, defying all of his usual defense mechanisms. The day after the shooting, he had gone to the University to arrange for someone to handle his classes for the rest of the week, so he had two full days after the suspension while Jim was at work to spend with his own thoughts, thinking and rethinking what had happened, trying to find the positives in the situation. He got nothing out of it, though, except a few new "looks" he'd never gotten from Jim before. An especial favorite was the martyred "I'm biting my tongue, but this isn't going to fly" one. And Blair was forced to admit it really *wouldn't* fly. By the following Monday, even Blair had given up the think-it-through approach, and he went back to his classes with an entirely new plan of attack. This was one he'd learned from Jim, himself - the tried and true, standard military issue "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" approach to personal healing.

For all the grief Blair had given Jim over it in the past, the method worked surprisingly well. It didn't make Bowman's ghost go away, but it kept him far enough removed that Blair could function in the real world without the threat of imminent collapse. And so, with the new mantra of "Get a grip!" fixed firmly in his brain, he managed a semblance of his old self practically indistinguishable from the real thing... for those who didn't really know him, anyway. It worked especially well in class. Away from the world of Major Crimes and Sentinels and blood and death, Blair could almost forget his troubles in the light of pure academic discussion.

"So, you're saying that a shaman can actually see the future?"

He wasn't quite sure how they'd gotten onto the subject of shamanism and vision quests. He'd started the class out today with a fairly elementary topic on the nature of anthropology, preferring to keep things light for a Friday, but somewhere along the way it had mutated hopelessly. Not that he minded, really. This was a discussion class, after all, and these little digressions were par for the course. When they happened, Blair loved to step out of instructor mode, settling into a cross-legged seat on top of the big "teacher desk" at one end of their jagged discussion circle, becoming just another participant. It was fascinating to watch the ideas morph and expand with each new comment, like a grown-up version of the telephone game he'd played as a child. More often than not, Blair learned as much from such classes as his students did.

"Not exactly, Carla," Blair answered the young woman who'd asked the question. She was his trouble-maker in this class. In a good way. Students who kept teachers on their toes would always be welcome in Sandburg's classes. Especially ones who were capable of it at eight A.M. on a Friday. "What I *said* is that shamanistic visions can be interpreted as portents of the future. General feelings, that sort of thing. It's nowhere near an exact science."

Before Carla could reply, another voice from the other side of the room asked, "Have you ever done it?"

The question was inevitable, but Blair couldn't have been more surprised by the source. Josh Chandler was a gangly young freshman whom Blair had pegged fairly early in the semester as a "non-student". He was taking the class as an elective credit outside of his real field of study, and he had the record to prove it, rarely showing up for class, and barely participating when he did come. Today, Josh had pushed his desk backwards until he was only in the circle enough to keep Sandburg from "inviting" him to join the rest of them, and had spent much of the first half of class trying to catch Sarah Penderton's eye. He'd apparently been following the discussion for at least a little while, though, because he'd really jumped on that question. And now, he was waiting for Blair's answer with bright-eyed enthusiasm.

Ah ha! Got you now, Josh, m'boy!

"But of course!" Blair grinned, leaning back casually, surveying his rapt audience. Freshmen always ate this mystical stuff up. He felt the lure of a little creatively embellished yarn, but a quick glance up at the clock told him there were only five minutes left in the class, so the short and sweet version would have to do for now. "Stay tuned next week for more details. For now, I'll just say that the times I've tried vision quests weren't exactly too enlightening because the entheogens we used fuzzed my memories up quite a bit."

The class sat silent for a bit, glancing at each other, no one wanting to be the first to admit they didn't know what "entheogen" meant. Blair waited a heartbeat or two, observing which students made the effort to open their textbooks to the index to figure it out, then took pity on them. "Translation: Psychoactive substances." Another pause, nervous laughter, then silence. "Drugs, you guys! Drugs! Sheesh!"

Real laughter this time. Timothy Samuels looked up from the floor where he'd begun stashing books into his backpack in a not-so-subtle hint that he was ready for class to be over.

"Man, my grandmother could get visions by droppin' a little acid. Nothin' so special about that."

Blair laughed, glancing up again at the clock, taking Timothy's hint. "Not exactly a fair comparison, but I won't argue the point. For now, let's just say that the difference lies in the shaman or medicine man's ability to interpret his visions for the betterment of the tribe. I'm not a shaman myself... " (Imaginary titles to the contrary, notwithstanding) "...and I assume your grandmother isn't either, Tim, so the benefits of a vision quest, aided by entheogens or not, are usually pretty low."

"And, on that note, everyone have a nice weekend. Remember to check your syllabus for the readings we'll be focusing on next time. The Van Oakland text has some interesting stuff on vision quests, if you want to explore that a bit more."

As the room slowly emptied, Blair hopped down from his desktop perch and began to gather his own things, dawdling a bit over the familiar task in case anyone wanted to catch him in private. When the others had filtered out, Blair saw with surprise that Josh Chandler was still sitting at his desk.

"Can I help you with something, Josh?" he asked, eyebrows rising with curiosity. The young man's eyes were still bright with excitement, and the rest of his face lit up when Blair's attention turned to him. This was more animated than Blair had seen this particular student all semester. He looked for all the world like a six-year-old with a secret. Finally, it burst out of him.

"I can do that!" he blurted unceremoniously, tossing back the one long hank of dusty blond hair that highlighted an otherwise military-length crew cut. Blair was taken aback.

"Do what? You mean a vision quest?"

Josh nodded proudly. "Yep. And *I* don't need drugs for it. I must be a natural."

Blair was tempted to point out to the young man that flashbacks still counted as drug-induced visions, but he fought the impulse, knowing from personal experience how irritating such kneejerk character-assumptions could be. Besides, he was trying to win him over, not push him away.

"That's really interesting, Josh," he told the younger man, smiling encouragement. "Maybe next time you'd like to share a little of your experiences with the rest of the class? They seem to be interested in the topic."

Josh hesitated. "Maybe I could show you, then you could tell 'em," he suggested, eyes on the floor.

Hmmmm...

Something was definitely up here. One minute, the freshman was practically bursting with pride over his perceived accomplishment, but in the next, he seemed oddly ashamed of it. Blair sensed that he was being offered a chance to get under the young man's shell, and couldn't resist.

"Yeah, okay, that would be great."

Josh lit up again, almost immediately.

"REALLY? That's great! You wanna come over now?"

"Now? Uh...yeah, I guess so." He had a few hours between classes to kill. "Now's good."

"Cool. We'll have to go to my place to get the tape."

Blair fell into step with Josh as he headed out of the building and across campus to one of Rainier's dorms, listening bemusedly to the stream of chatter that suddenly seemed to spill out of the younger man. He seemed so excited to have someone interested in his little "secret". Although it really wasn't much of a secret, truth be told. Josh spent a good part of their walk describing in serious detail the steps he took to reach his "visions", and they sounded like pretty standard meditation techniques to Blair's more experienced ear. Well, he was in this more for Josh anyway, and what else was he going to do for the next two hours, sit around and mope? Nope. There was no moping allowed in his new world view.

Josh's room was pretty much like every other dorm room on campus: cramped, narrow quarters furnished with two university-issue beds and two matching gunmetal grey desks. The freshman was apparently without a roommate, because the personalized clutter that made each dorm room "home" for the inhabitants was fairly uniform throughout this one, showing no difference in personality on either side. The furnishings were rounded out by a small dorm-sized refrigerator and a 15-inch TV sitting atop a bright orange, plastic milk crate which housed a Sony Playstation and an impressive stack of game CD's. New age knickknacks and books like "The Anarchist's Cookbook" held places of honor on the shelves above the desks, and a motley collection of heavy metal posters lined the walls, including one particularly large one of a band called "Hellfire" that Blair was ashamed to admit he didn't recognize.

Oh, man, I really need to get out more, the grad student lamented to himself. He was way too young to start feeling out of touch.

Finally, going over to the window to check out the view, Blair noticed with some amusement a small platte of greenery growing unashamedly on the windowsill. He gave his host a cynical glance.

"I thought you said this didn't involve drugs, Josh."

The young man followed his teacher's gaze to the marijuana plants at the window with a grin.

"Oh, man, that's just for recreation! This vision stuff is serious. No drugs, I swear."

Fighting down a lecture impulse that he was pretty sure he'd never had before he met James Ellison, Blair managed to let that slide. He sat down on the uninhabited bed, scooching back so that he could lean against the wall. Josh dug around for a few moments in his closet and emerged triumphantly with a walkman, handing the headphones to Blair. The grad student obediently put them on, only to tear them off a moment later when Josh hit play without warning, nearly deafening him.

"A few decibels short of instant hearing loss, if you don't mind, Josh," he muttered wryly. Josh shrugged sheepishly.

"Sorry, man, it's gotta be loud so you hear the voices."

The voices. Right. That was the part where Blair's interest had been severely strained. If the kid was hearing voices, it sounded more like some sort of subliminal messages in his music of choice, or maybe just a re-recorded tape that hadn't lost all of the original material. But oh well. He took control of the walkman, turning down the volume all the way, hitting play, then turning it back up to the point where it was only slightly louder than comfort level.

The "music" was different than what Blair usually expected in a meditation tape, consisting of just the simple staccato pounding of two drums - one making a single deep, heartbeat echoing beat while the other one, slightly lower pitched, followed a syncopated double-time rhythm. There were no accompanying instruments, no natural sounds like some new age tapes preferred, and, Blair realized with a surprising twinge of true regret, no voices.

Josh was watching him closely, grinning like mad, nodding his head a little in encouragement, and Blair remembered the drill they'd gone over on the walk here. He settled back against the wall, closed his eyes, and visualized, as Josh had described, a pinprick of light in the darkness behind his closed eyelids.

Once he had a fix on the small flicker of light, he locked onto it, allowing the steady beating of the drums to trick him into seeing it pulse in time with the slower of the two beats. His finger unconsciously found the volume dial on the walkman in his lap, turning the drums up a notch, then two. The world around him, the uncomfortably threadbare mattress beneath him, the irregularly stucco'd wall behind him, faded from his awareness, leaving only the light, the drums, and the steady throbbing of his own heart as it shifted to keep time with the rhythm being established by sight and sound.

Finally, all three - light, drum, and heart - seemed to beat as one. Instinctively, Blair took the next step, pulling the light closer until the pulsing glow filled his entire field of "vision", dispelling the darkness around it. There was a split second where he felt himself poised on an edge between two worlds, needing to take just that one little step...

...Only to be pulled rudely away by the sudden, abrupt halt of the drums as Josh took the walkman out of his grasp and turned off the tape player. The light fled along with the drums, and for a few fragile moments, his heartbeat did as well, but that started up again as the real world rushed to meet him with a jarring silence that sent him shooting off the bed. Just as abruptly, Blair's legs collapsed under him again and he sat back onto the edge of the mattress, blinking owlishly around the room.

"You okay, man?" Josh asked, getting his wits together. "Jeeze, you totally zoned out on me, there."

Blair had to stifle a laugh at the young man's choice of words. A quick glance at his watch told him that Josh had majorly overreacted, giving Blair only a few minutes to reach the trance state he'd fallen into.

"Wow!" he finally got out. "That was *intense*."

His words weren't just for his student's sake. He'd never experienced anything like that in any meditation in the past. For a moment there... he wasn't sure what he'd touched, but it had been, as he'd said... intense. Josh was grinning from ear to ear.

"See! I told you. What did you see? Did you hear them? The voices?"

Oops.

"Hate to burst your bubble, Josh my friend." Blair smiled wryly. "That was a little too short of a sample for me to get to the 'Visions & Voices' stage."

Josh nodded, not discouraged in the slightest. "Yeah, I guess it wasn't long enough, huh? It just freaked me out, you know? It all of a sudden hit me that if you didn't wake up, I'd be in some serious deep shit, you know?"

He pulled the tape out of the walkman. "Here, why don't you keep it. I've got another copy."

Blair laughed good-naturedly, making to refuse. The kid really was in puppy-dog mode, falling over himself to help, but now that he knew the technique, he felt pretty sure he could accomplish something similar with any drum-based rhythms. Josh wouldn't hear of it, though, insistently pushing the tape at him, and Blair finally accepted.

Josh walked with him down to the lobby and back across campus toward Hargrove Hall, chatting all the way in that same excited tone of voice. Blair felt pleased with himself. It wasn't often he got to get behind the mask of a student like Josh, and it really felt like an accomplishment, interesting meditation technique aside. They parted ways at the entrance to Hargrove, and Blair thanked the young man again for the tape.

"No problem. Hope it helps you clear things up, man."

Blair's eyebrows furrowed slightly in confusion. "Clear things up?"

"Yeah. You know. Whatever's got you so down the last couple classes. Hope this helps."

So he hadn't been as good at hiding it here as he'd thought. Blair felt a stab of disappointment to learn that he hadn't been fooling anyone but himself, but hid it (hopefully) behind a grateful grin. "Thanks, Josh. It's nice to know my students are looking out for me."

With a final wave, the freshman headed off across campus on his own agenda, and Blair entered Hargrove to spend the next few hours moping after all.

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With the re-introduction of his own personal demons, Blair's experience with Josh was pushed to the back of his mind for the rest of the morning. He had one other class to teach on Fridays, an 11:00 lecture that went smoothly, followed by a regular lunch meeting with some of his fellow grad students. At the meeting, Kim Andress, one of the friends who'd helped with his classes last week, called in her marker, asking Blair to proctor an exam for her so she could get an early start on her weekend camping trip.

It was during the enforced monotony of the exam period, listening to the steady scritch-scratching of pencils on paper, eyes browsing the room, spot-checking for wandering eyes, that he again reflected on the unusual meditation technique, a faint hope brightening his thoughts. Since the shooting, Blair had maintained his attempts to soothe his nerves through meditation, but his efforts thus far had been counter-productive, just reminding him of that horrible day and making it harder and harder to "get a grip". But this afternoon, in Josh's bedroom, he'd slipped away from the hassles of the real world so easily. Maybe this could work as some sort of turning point for him.

By the time the last student filtered out of the classroom, plopping the blue exam booklet on top of the pile with a resigned sigh, Blair was eager to try out his theory. He bundled the test results together and stopped by Kim's office to drop them off, noting with a smile that the young woman had a larger stack of grading to do than he did. That was one good thing that had come out of his banishment from the police department - he actually had time to do real university work. He still had a backlog of grading, but getting caught up no longer seemed quite the herculean task it had before. In addition, he'd had a chance to update some of his lesson plans, had whittled the stack of anthropology journals awaiting his perusal to almost nothing, and had even gotten some work done on his dissertations - both the official "Publish it and doom Jim to a lifetime of National Enquirer coverage" one and the backup "thin blue line" version.

Blair left a quick note of sympathy for Kim on top of the new stack of tests, then left the University, stopping to pick up a few steaks for dinner before heading home. Back at the loft, he took pleasure in drawing out the wait, taking the time to set up Jim's grill out on the balcony so it would be ready when dinner time came around. He left the balcony doors open when he came back inside and set a bit of the sage Jim had bought him burning, letting the worst of the smoke drift out the open doors. By the time Blair finished with a quick shower, the sage was only a pleasantly lingering scent to his average senses. Hopefully, that meant it wouldn't be too overpowering for his very non-average roommate. Finally, Blair sat down in the middle of the living room, armed with walkman and drum tape, with at least an hour to spare before Jim got home.

With a grin of anticipation, Blair settled the headphones on his ears. He took a deep breath in... and out, relaxing the tension built up over the day, closed his eyes, and turned on the player.

If anything, it was even easier to let go this time. The pinprick of light fell into rhythm almost immediately. Blair left it there for a moment, exploring the sensation, fascinated by the way his heartbeat shifted and slowed to follow the same rhythm. Then, he let the scientific curiosity slip away with the rest of it, and pulled the light closer, letting it become his whole world. Once again, he teetered on the edge between the "real world" and something that was... not. This time, there were no interruptions and he took that last step.

It was like entering a plane of pure light, a bodiless place filled only by the soft womb-like throbbing of his own heartbeat. With a little effort, he could still make out the physical world he'd just left, the steady in and out of his breathing, the feel of the woven rug beneath him and the cool plastic and metal of the walkman under one hand, but all of those sensations came from a far distance, not related to where he was now at all. Here, there was only pure thought, pure emotion, pure spirit.

No, not quite pure anything.

Even now, Blair was aware of the general gloom that had hung over him in a cloud of grief and guilt for the last several weeks. It felt like a lead weight, weighing him down. It didn't seem to have the power to distress him here, though. He felt as if all of that negative energy were really a separate entity, not part of his central self at all. As he concentrated on the feeling, he could actually visualize it, a darker shadow disturbing the otherwise perfect clarity around him.

Experimenting, Blair loosened the leash he'd held on his emotions, pulling away from the darkness in his soul, rejecting its power to hurt him anymore. It was all so easy, suddenly. All he had to do was...*push*....and away went the guilt. *Push* and away went the self-doubt. *Push* and away went every negative emotion evoked by the memories of that horrible day, drifting off to be swallowed by the surrounding brightness.

A surge of euphoria and triumph filled him, and Blair let himself slip back to a more normal level of meditation. The rush of victory left him slowly, and finally, for the first time since Tom Bowman's death, Blair found peace.

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When Jim came home that night, he was met with the familiar sight of his roommate sitting cross-legged in the middle of the living room, lost to the world. It was a fairly common occurrence, more so lately than ever before, so he didn't dwell on it too much. He vaguely registered the differences this time - the scent of sage in the air, the use of headphones, the different sound to the "music" coming through the headphones, and, most importantly, the steady slowness of heartbeat and breathing that indicated Blair had actually reached some sort of meditative state. This meditation stuff fell into the category of things Jim didn't really "get", though, so he couldn't make a judgment call on those changes, except to decide that things seemed okay, giving the Sentinel the freedom to make a beeline for the shower to soak off his own tension. It had been a long day.

With the combination of the I.A. investigation and the loss of his partner/guide, Simon had kept Ellison at his desk for most of the last few weeks. He'd been given the green light to return to active duty just yesterday and his first real assignment in the field since the crook convention had ended today with a high-speed chase through the middle of downtown and climaxed in a five-car pileup in front of city hall. His truck, miraculously, hadn't been one of the five cars, but he'd gotten a good chewing out by the mayor and 4 or 5 city council members, along with promises that the city would be "looking into" the department's safety record. Simon was gonna really love him for that one. The grime of burning oil still clung to him, and he wanted nothing more than a hot shower and a relaxing evening in front of the TV.

Blair was still at it when he finished the shower and Jim headed for the kitchen to see about dinner. Sandburg had apparently already made some decision on that. A package of steaks was waiting in the refrigerator. Jim glanced over at his meditating partner, debating the wisdom of pulling him out of it to ask if he'd had any real intended purpose for the meat, but decided against it. Blair seemed truly peaceful for the first time in weeks, and anyway, Jim was never sure how safe it was to disturb him in that state.

He decided to just go ahead and grill the steaks. As he went to the balcony, he noticed that Blair had already set up the grill and chuckled.

Great minds think alike, eh, Chief?

He got the coals lit, then plopped down at the kitchen table to read the paper, idly listening to the rhythm coming from Blair's headphones. After a few minutes, the sound stopped. There was a moment of silence, then a loud *click* as the recorder turned itself off at the end of the tape. Jim looked up to see Blair blinking back to wakefulness. The young man took a few deep breaths and looked around, doing a double-take when he saw his roommate sitting at the table, watching him. Jim tilted one hand up in a little wave.

"Welcome back."

Blair grinned and got up, coming over to glance at the headlines of the paper open on the table.

"Hey, Jim. Sorry, I didn't hear you come in. How was your day?"

Jim shrugged noncommittally and went back to reading. "The usual."

Blair laughed.

"That bad, huh?" Before he could pursue it further, his eyes strayed to the windows and noticed the wisps of smoke rising from the grill. He changed topics immediately. "Oh, you got the grill started. That's great. You saw the steaks, I guess, huh? I picked them up at this new market that opened across from Hargrove. It's a pretty fun place. It's called the Meet Market, as in M- E-E-T. Get it? Anyway, they've got the whole place set up along the theme of finding people who share your culinary tastes. Like, the shopping carts are color coded, so if you're a vegetarian, you'd take one with a green label, or meat and potatoes types grab a red one, stuff like that." Blair kept talking as he stepped outside to check on the coals and Jim smiled as he let the words roll around him. He almost didn't notice when the idle chatter turned into a real question, but the sudden silence clued him in and he looked up to find Blair watching him expectantly. He did a quick mental rewind, focusing on the words this time.

Hey, Jim, you want a salad with this?

"Yeah, salad sounds good, Chief."

Blair nodded and started pulling out ingredients, whistling cheerily. Jim watched him for a while, amused. Finally, he asked: "What's with the perky attitude, Kathy Lee?"

Blair looked up from the tomato he was chopping, brow furrowed slightly. The confusion cleared up almost immediately, dissolving abruptly into a big grin.

"Oh, as in Kathy Lee Gifford. I get it. Good one. Sorry, man. Just in a good mood, I guess."

"So I see. No problem. I just was having a sudden urge to do my drug-sniffer routine."

Blair laughed again, then stopped abruptly, grimacing mildly.

"Actually... don't. I was in the dorms today. I probably smell like a walking pharmaceutical lab. I'm surprised you didn't pick up on the residual smell as soon as you walked in. Oh, except I was burning some of that sage before, so that probably drowned it out."

Jim paused, considering that. Now that Blair mentioned it, he *did* detect the tell-tale odors underneath the more potent one. "Yeah, I think you're right. So, if second-hand inhalation isn't the explanation for the Mr. Rogers act, what is?"

Blair laughed. "Man, you're persistent. I just talked with one of my students today and he showed me this meditation technique I've never used before." Blair inclined his head to indicate the spot where he'd been sitting earlier. "I don't know how to describe it, but the experience is wild... euphoric. It's got me pretty wound up with the thrill of discovery, I guess."

Jim chuckled. "Sounds like fun."

"Fun isn't exactly the word for it, Jim. Enlightening, maybe, or liberating. It's like stepping away from all the baggage of life and getting back to the basics, y'know? That central core of self..." Blair paused, seeing the slightly glazed look that said he was losing his audience, and gave up. "Anyway, gives new meaning to the phrase 'letting it go', man."

He turned back to the salad, and then a new thought hit him. "Hey, how'd it go today? This was your first day back on active duty, right?"

Jim nodded.

"Pretty good. All that pushing paper last week turned out to be worth it. We picked up Jorge Vasquez today, and I think we've got a watertight case this time."

"Good. Good." There was a slight pause. "The senses doing okay?"

"Yeah, seem to be."

"No weird flashes or zone outs or anything?"

"Nope. Not a one."

Blair sighed in relief. "Good. You'll tell me if anything funny starts up, right? Especially keep an eye out for lost time. Minutes passing when you think you've just been looking at something for a second. Stuff like that. We don't want to miss any potential symptoms of a problem."

"Of course. It should be okay until we get you back on the payroll, though."

Blair snorted. "What payroll exactly would I be *back* on, Jim?"

Jim shrugged equanimously. That was an old debate.

"Ah, you never know, Chief. If we play this right, you could get yourself a nice little stipend out of it."

Blair's eyebrows shot up eagerly. "Money? Really? Oh, man, that would be *very* cool." The young man gave the salad he'd been working on a critical look, then turned back to the refrigerator, the words continuing as he explored its contents. "Hey, have you seen the daikon I bought the other day? You know... those fat white radish things? Oh, never mind, found 'em. But, seriously, how much you think they'd give me? I've been planning on a few upgrades to the laptop, but I'm pretty much treading the borders of obsolescence with the machine I've got now. There's only so much a few new components can do, y'know? If you think this'll go through, maybe I'll go ahead and splurge on a new one. They've made some amazing advances, even in just the last year, and I've had mine for several years. Let me tell you, Jim, you could do some *serious* damage in Duke Nukem with one of the new babies on the market today. I bet the coal's are ready." A soft bundle hit the back of Jim's head and bounced to the floor and he turned from the paper to find his apron in a heap on the floor and Blair giving him a cocky grin. "You heard a word I've said, man?"

Jim grinned back, finding his roommate's new mood infectious. He hadn't realized these past few weeks how much he'd really missed this. Whatever meditation this college kid had shown his partner was apparently quite a godsend.

"Money. Radishes. Computers. Duke Nukem. Feed me. Close enough?" he answered, retrieving the apron and joining Blair in the kitchen to pull out the steaks. "Just don't spend the inheritance too soon, there, Junior. The Powers that Be are notoriously tough to soften up once they've put their foot down. Simon's working on it, but he's still taking flack over the Bowman thing, too."

Jim glanced sideways, almost positive he'd pushed that Bowman mention into this too soon, but Blair just nodded his understanding. "Oh, I know. No rush, man. I mean, if the senses stay okay, that is. Just got my second wind here, you know?"

"Yeah, second, third, and fourth." Jim chuckled as he crossed the loft to the balcony doors, letting the smile linger on his lips as he stepped out into a cool evening breeze. Blair hadn't even batted an eye at the mention of Bowman, when just a few days ago, hearing the name would have shut him down for the rest of the night. Jim didn't pretend to understand the mystical mumbo-jumbo that seemed to follow him everywhere since he'd taken up with the anthropology student, but Blair seemed to know what he was doing. And if it got these sort of results that fast, well, who was James Ellison to argue?

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It would have, should have, could have been all right after that. Blair felt good. Very, very good. Suddenly all of his pieces fit together again. *Here* was the anthropologist, spending hours in the library digging through dusty shelves, taking exhaustive notes, researching and hypothesizing to his heart's content. *Here* was the teacher, enthralling his students with little known facts about little known tribes, all in the name of higher education. *Here* was the Guide, just slightly off the mark, biding his time until he could take up his rightful place, and in the meanwhile, settling for spending his evenings drawing out sensory details of the day from his reticent Sentinel. After a few more weeks, even that piece was able to slide into place.

Jim came home one day with thick white binder emblazoned with the Cascade PD insignia that he plopped into Blair's lap with an oddly conspiratorial grin that only got more sly when Blair asked what it was.

"That's your ticket back to the Cascade PD, Sandburg. It's going out next week to anyone with a captaincy or higher, from here to the governor's office. And if Simon finds out I let you see it, you better pray he gets to me before I get to you."

The document turned out to be quite an eye-opener. *Someone* in Major Crimes was serious PhD material. It read like a thesis... a darn good thesis... the topic of which was the "groundbreaking" work accomplished by the Cascade PD in utilizing "non-traditional" civilian resources. Those resources being, of course, one Blair Sandburg, although they threw in some other examples to keep up the pretense of a generalized scope. More importantly, it discussed, in flattering detail, his contributions to the department over the last few years, complete with testimonials from various members of the Major Crimes unit, and including a *very* complimentary commentary from the Captain of said unit that left one Blair Sandburg more than a little verklempt. It was... it was...

"This is incredible. Jim, what is this?"

After the first few pages, Blair had retreated to his room to devote his full attention to it. He emerged now, feeling seriously shell-shocked. Jim just looked up with an insufferably smug smile.

"I told you. Your ticket back into the line of fire, Chief."

"But... but... this is, like... a PAPER!"

Jim burst out laughing at that. "What? You think the dumb cops can't BS with the best of them? There are some *real* police science PhDs on the payroll, you know. Simon and I figured we could either wait around for some serial killer to start rampaging through Cascade using ancient Zimbabwe-an tribal spears to justify hiring an anthropologist, or we could just prove that it's a good strategy, under any circumstances. The second one was a little more practical. We just had to make it sound like a chic, PC, 90's sort of thing to do."

And it worked. Within a week Blair was back in records filling out the new paperwork required for his part-time "consultant" status. It was still a pretty unofficial position, and Simon and Jim both agreed that he wasn't allowed anywhere near anything resembling a crime scene for a good long while, but he had his credentials back and was on the road to a full return, and that was all that really mattered. So... *Here* was the Guide, on hand to watch his Sentinel's back. And *Here* was... heaven help him... the police consultant, pouring over incident reports and forensics data, interviewing witnesses, and generally doing his part to take a bite out of crime.

All the pieces of his life flowing together again in the organized chaos that only Blair could juggle as well as he did. And then Josh Chandler stopped coming to class, Jim got a new case, and everything fell apart.

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The first day Josh didn't arrive, Blair didn't think much about it. The freshman had had a nearly perfect attendance record since they'd first talked, but even the best students missed days occasionally, especially early Monday classes, and Josh was far from the best student. The second class, Blair was really disappointed. He'd thought he was really getting somewhere with the kid. When the third class rolled around, making it a full week of no-show, he resolved to find out what was up.

Jim was due to pick him up this afternoon for a late lunch followed by a debriefing on a new case that promised to be particularly nasty, so Blair had roughly a half-hour after his last class to check in on his missing student.

When he got to the freshman's room, he was surprised to find the door standing wide open. He stood there in the open doorway for a moment, thinking he'd remembered wrong, but the room looked exactly same. Except for one minor detail. The inhabitant of this room was obviously in the process of packing. Three boxes were already taped and waiting just inside the door, and another one sat open and awaiting more contents. There was no sign of Josh, though.

A young woman stood on one of the beds, in the act of trying to pull the large "Hellfire" poster off of the wall. The tacks holding the top of the poster were just out of her reach. She had apparently managed to pull one out, since one corner hung limply already, but she was still having to stretch to reach the other one. Blair watched her for a moment, admiring the view, then reprimanded himself half-heartedly for forgetting his purpose, and tapped lightly on the open door.

The girl turned around, dropping off of her tiptoes, but still standing on the bed. The anthropologist decided she was even prettier from the front, in an exotic sort of way that he found very appealing. Her wide, open face was highlighted by almond eyes and high cheekbones, and framed delicately by dark hair that fell in a soft wave to just brush her chin. Her clothing, a pair of well-worn jeans and a slightly too big sweater with wide horizontal stripes in earthy primary colors, reminded him of his own Salvation Army-approved wardrobe before life in Jim's shadow had required him to invest in more appropriate duds.

"Can I help you with something?" The young woman frowned, blowing a strand of hair out of her face with impatience at his much-too-blatant interest. Blair reprimanded himself once again. He'd come to check on Josh, and here he was thinking about making moves on the young man's girlfriend.

"Uh, yeah, sorry," he stuttered, skirting past the boxes and into the room. "Hi, I'm Blair Sandburg. Josh is in one of my classes here, and he's missed it all this week. I wanted to check in on him, make sure everything's okay...?" He glanced pointedly around the little room and the obvious packing job.

The young woman's frown disappeared as he identified himself, and she stepped down from the bed in one fluid stride, pushing back the too-long sleeves of her sweater as she did so, and held out her hand to him.

"Oh, Dr. Sandburg, I'm glad to meet you. Joshua has told us how much he enjoyed your class."

Blair shook the offered hand, more than a little confused and not sure which confusing element to follow-up on first.

"It's just mister. Actually, just Blair is even better. I'm still working on my graduate degree, Miss...?"

"Chandler," she informed him. "Miki Chandler. Josh is my younger brother. I'm sorry we haven't had a chance to inform the University yet, but Josh won't be returning to classes this semester. I'm afraid he has some problems that can be better handled in a safe environment."

Blair frowned, reading, he was sure, way too much into that vague description, but not quite able to let it drop.

"I'm sorry," he said, fishing for details. "I wasn't aware that Josh was sick."

Miki looked uncomfortable at his deliberate misinterpretation of her words, but just shrugged slightly and turned her attention back to the poster she'd been trying to get off the wall, stepping back onto the bed and speaking over her shoulder, her words slowed by her concentration on the irritating tack.

"He's not... sick... exactly, Mr. Sandburg."

"Blair. Please."

She laughed softly. "Okay. Blair. You see..."

Before she could finish her sentence, Miki's fingertips finally caught the tack at the right angle to pull it from the wall. It's sudden release caught her by surprise and the top half of the large poster came loose from the wall to fall down around her head and shoulders. She batted at it frustratedly, and Blair, laughing, sprang to help her hold it up while she pulled out the bottom two tacks. They stepped down off the bed, sharing responsibility for the awkward mass of paper. They got it straightened out somewhat, and Blair held one end for Miki as she started to roll it up tightly. As she did so, the young woman looked back to Blair with a serious expression.

"Josh is schizophrenic, Mr. Sandburg."

The tail ends of the poster fell out of Blair's hands in surprise. He'd gotten to know Josh pretty well in the last month or so, and he hadn't seen any indication of mental illness. The young man was a little erratic, yeah, but so were most freshmen. Truth to tell, so were most people he knew outside of the Cascade PD. Miki finished rolling the poster quietly and watched him through lowered eyes, gauging his reaction. Blair sat down slowly on one of the beds.

"Well, that is - *really* - a surprise. I'm sorry. I had no idea. He seemed so..."

"Normal?" Blair winced at the callousness of the word, although he couldn't deny that that was what he'd meant. Miki softened the harshness of it with a little smile. "It's all right. He's been doing okay for a while now with the right medication, so you probably wouldn't have noticed anything too out of the ordinary unless you were really looking for it. He seems to have backslid in the last few weeks, though, and my family just decided that it's not such a good idea for him to be on his own right now. He might be back next semester, or he might transfer to Rainier's local branch. We live out in Sycamore Hills in the eastern suburbs."

Thinking about it, Blair realized that he *should* have noticed. There were little things that Josh had mentioned or done, mild paranoias that Blair had thought were half in jest, and then, of course... Blair smacked himself lightly on the head as realization hit.

"The voices! I should have realized..."

Miki nodded a little sadly. "Oh, he mentioned those to you, huh? I don't know where he got that stupid tape, but I'd sure like to wring the neck of whoever gave it to him. He's got himself talked into believing that he can really hear and see things when he listens to it."

Blair felt a small worm of guilt curl its way into his soul. He'd been so enthusiastic about Josh's "meditations" himself. Had he somehow contributed to the young man's problems, giving credence to his delusions? Blair hesitated, on the verge of confessing to Miki, but the young woman was still talking.

"We thought it would be okay when he first started talking about it, you know?" she said softly. Her voice was pensive, and Blair saw his own guilt reflected in her eyes. This was something she needed to share. "We figured, as long as he was coping with the real world and taking his medication, it wouldn't really hurt him to go off into La-la-land or whatever it was every once in a while. But I think, now, that it just gave him a place to hide from the reality of his problems."

Something about the way she said that, the simple honesty of her words, combined with his own blossoming guilt, caused Blair to inhale sharply in sudden horror. His grasp of reality shifted slightly and, as she continued, he was sure she was talking about Blair, himself, rather than her brother.

"He's been burying all the real issues down in his subconscious somewhere and, I dunno, now it's like it's all filled up and they're starting to spill out again and he can't control it because he's been avoiding it for so long. To get better, he has to accept that he's got a problem and confront it, not hide from it."

Miki trailed off, blushing slightly, unaware that her words had just sent a shaft of pure ice into her listener's heart, hitting much, much, much too close to home. Blair cleared his throat roughly, finding the silence suddenly unbearable. Miki looked up, her cheeks still pink, and grimaced.

"Listen to me, going on about my family troubles. I don't even know what I'm talking about, really. Josh's psychiatrist could explain it a lot better. I'm sorry to unload this all on you, Mr. Sandburg. I'm sure you didn't bargain for all this when you decided to make a friendly check on a wayward student."

"I don't mind at all, Miss Chandler." Blair stood, pushing past his own suddenly overwhelming insecurities to reassure her, although all he could come up with were the standard teacher-platitudes. "Josh has a lot of potential. I'll hope to see him back in my classes next semester. And it's Blair. Really. I'm only Mr. Sandburg to bank tellers and students trying to explain why they can't possibly turn in their homework on time."

Miki laughed. "Sorry, I forgot. Thank you, Blair. I'm sure Josh will be glad to hear that you were worried about him. And I appreciate it, too."

Normally he would have used that as a launching point to ask her out, but right now going out was far, far down on his priority list, and *getting* out was right at the top.

"Thank *you* for sharing this with me, Miki." He glanced down at his watch as if just now thinking to notice the time. "Oh, I'm due to meet a friend for lunch in ten minutes. I hate to run, but..."

Miki smiled. "I should get back to packing, anyway. It was nice meeting you."

They shook hands again, and Blair fled.

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When Jim arrived at the University ten minutes early, he was surprised to find his partner waiting for him. Blair had been sitting on the steps leading up to the building's main entrance, but as soon as he saw the truck pull in, he came down to the parking lot, hopping in before Jim even had a chance to pull into a space.

"In a hurry, Sandburg?" Jim asked wryly.

Blair shrugged and gave the Sentinel a peevish glare.

"Just being punctual for a change. Don't knock it."

Jim frowned at the unamused tone of voice and shifted slightly to get a better look at the young man as he settled into his seat - stowing the backpack on the floor between his legs and pulling on the seatbelt. There was a sloppy, rushed, irritated quality to his movements the spoke volumes. It wasn't often Blair let a black mood affect him this much.

"Bad day?"

Sandburg gave a guilty little start that sent gears whirling in the detective's head. Jim knew before the grad student opened his mouth that he wouldn't give a straight answer. Blair covered pretty well, but at least didn't try to deny his obvious pique.

"Yeah, so far. Is it that obvious? Wait, don't answer that. I forget who I'm talking to sometimes."

Jim chuckled. "Well, that's flattering. So, what's the problem?"

There was a slight hesitation as Sandburg tried to form an explanation that he thought Jim would accept. Finally, he admitted grudgingly, "I just found out one of my students has some problems I wasn't aware of. It's got me a little depressed. I'll get over it."

The Sentinel considered that, giving his partner a long look. Blair was telling the truth, but there was obviously more going on here.

"Are these problems anything we should be telling campus security about?"

Blair sighed in exasperation, and when he spoke, his voice was tinged with anger again. "No, Jim, it's not. And it's really none of your or my business in the first place, so let's just drop it, okay?! Now, can we go? We're not going to have time for lunch before the meeting if you sit here grilling me all day."

Ooookay, then.

Jim held his hands up briefly in symbolic surrender, then put the truck back into gear, pulled back out into traffic, and headed north towards the station. After a few minutes, there was the sound of jeans shifting on leather as Blair fidgeted a little.

"Sorry, man. Just got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, I guess."

That wasn't it, either, but Jim chose to let the little peace offering smooth things over for now. Thoughts of the Bowman shooting haunted him for a moment, but he shook off the suspicion. He couldn't spend the rest of his life blaming Blair's every peevish moment on that one event. Sometimes a bad mood was just a bad mood.

"Not a problem," Jim accepted the apology graciously. "If I could handle irrational bouts of hysteria from Carolyn on a monthly basis, I'll live through this."

The little joke had the desired effect, relieving some of the tension, and Blair chuckled. "That bad, huh?"

"Worse."

The conversation slipped into friendly haggling over lunch spots for a while, and they eventually decided on a place more because it was conveniently en route to the station. As they drove there, Jim broached the subject of their newest case.

"Well, we're all set to meet with Simon and a few forensics guys at two o'clock. This is a pretty nasty one, you gonna be okay with that?"

There was just the hint of a nervous pause before Blair said, "Yeah, I'll be fine." Then, when Jim flashed him a skeptical glance, "Nervous, but fine, okay?"

Jim just nodded his acceptance of that. After a few moments, Blair asked, "So, how bad is it?" Ellison started to fill him in on the details, keeping things simple and direct, anticipating some of the information that would be covered in the meeting.

The daughter of Samuel Astor, one of Cascade's wealthiest citizens, had been found murdered in her apartment late last night, although forensic evidence showed that the crime had occurred the night before. Simon had called at about 3 A.M. this morning to ask Jim to take the case, and the detective had spent the morning overseeing the crime scene, glad that Blair hadn't put up a fuss about staying away from the seedier side of police work for a while. It had been particularly messy, enough to leave Jim with very little appetite for lunch, so he could just imagine the effect it would have had on his more sensitive partner. As it was, the Sentinel was still rather worried about involving Blair in this case at all, but the young man had been more and more eager to help out lately, so they'd compromised by bringing him in to consult from afar, as it were.

A few blocks shy of the restaurant, they were interrupted by the ringing of Jim's cell phone. Jim brought the truck to a stop at a red light ahead of them, then flipped open the phone. It was Simon, with bad news. Another wealthy young woman, another crime scene. What was it about Cascade that pulled in all the psychos?

"I'll be there ASAP, sir."

Jim tossed the phone onto the dash with a growled expletive and glanced over at his partner, who was looking back curiously.

"Looks like we'll have to take a raincheck on lunch, Chief."

"What is it?"

"Got a homicide over in those new condos on the north beach that looks like it's related to the Astor one. I'll drop you back at school, then I have to run up that way."

Jim maneuvered the truck over into the turn lane of the intersection they were waiting at, flipping on his turn signal in preparation of circling back around the way they had come. He drummed his fingers restlessly on the steering wheel, eager to be on his way and get this over with. In the passenger seat, Blair cleared his throat self-consciously.

"Ummmm... Why don't I just come along?" he suggested. "It'll take you an extra twenty minutes to circle back around. Maybe more with it being lunch hour."

Jim glanced over at his partner, missing neither the stubborn set of his jaw nor the suddenly nervous catch in his breathing, and shook of his head. "Not a good idea."

"Why not?"

Jim let a single raised eyebrow answer that. Blair sighed.

"I have to get back into things again sometime, Jim." He pointed out practically. "I got used to it once, I can get used to it again."

The older man thought about that for a minute.

"You never got used to it, Sandburg."

But he turned off his blinker, and, as the light turned green, he pulled the truck back into the appropriate lane, continuing on straight through the intersection. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a quick nod of approval from Blair. Jim just hoped he was doing the right thing.

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Simon was talking to the medical examiner when Ellison arrived at the crime scene nearly a half an hour later. The "Northern Bay" condominium complex was a good long hike from downtown Cascade. Finding the condo's driveway filled with police cars, Jim was forced to park down along the side of the road, his nondescript pickup standing out like a sore thumb in this suburban neighborhood of Subaru's and Mazda's. Simon excused himself and went to greet the detective. His face settled into a frown when he saw that Jim wasn't alone. Detective and anthropologist caught sight of him and paused by the front of the truck, wearing identical sheepish expressions. Simon didn't deign to give them the tirade they were probably expecting and just waited, arms crossed in a "Well? Let's hear it" pose.

"We were on our way to lunch, sir," Jim began. "I wanted to get here as soon as possible, and didn't think you'd mind."

"Didn't... think... I'd... mind?" Simon repeated, exasperated. "Ellison, maybe you don't get it. The agreement was that he stay out of this kind of thing!"

"I understand that, sir. But we can't keep him away from crime scenes forever."

Blair stepped forward. "I'm not much use as a partner if I can't help with the actual first-hand investigation, sir. I just want to help."

Simon hated this. He really, really hated this. If this had been about one of his other men, he would have been able to tell at first glance if the officer were really ready to get back in on the action. But Sandburg, Simon could only read enough to know he couldn't read him well enough.

Simon fixed the young man with a sharp, captain-ish glare, daring the kid to lie to him.

"You really want to be here?"

"Yeah, Simon, I do."

He didn't miss the nervous tick that crossed the younger man's face, but the voice seemed sincere enough and the eyes held Simon's, unwavering. In the end, the Captain could do nothing but trust the proof of his own less-than-Sentinel- esque senses and accept that for truth.

"Then come on."

A relieved grin passed between the two partners and they fell into step beside the Captain to walk the half-block to the condo. Simon filled them in on the details known so far, as they walked.

The victim was 26-year-old Tanya Thorne, daughter of one of Cascade's most influential businessmen and a former mayor, Wallace T. Thorne. As with the Astor girl, the cause of death had been blood loss from multiple stab wounds, none of them immediately fatal. Aside from the obvious similarities in cause of death and background, there didn't appear to be any connection between the two girls.

They entered Tanya Thorne's home, a brand new condominium at the end of the unit. It had apparently been decorated with a great deal of care, but was a mess now. Simon led the way through the organized chaos of workers documenting and securing the crime scene, continuing his explanation as they went.

"The whole place is like this," he said, indicating the trashed living room they were passing through. "Best guess so far is that it happened after the murder. It's doubtful this could've been done quietly unless they'd already shut their victim up. Seems like they were looking for something, but there's no way to know yet if anything's missing. Could be they wanted to make it look like a robbery gone bad."

Simon glanced back at Sandburg, remembering that the young man hadn't been present at the previous site this morning. "The Astor apartment was like this, too," he supplied. Blair nodded, his face serious and brow furrowed slightly with concentration. Simon noted with approval that the young man was paying close attention to the shambles around him, probably logging the details for later comparison with the other scene. Or, Simon corrected himself, remembering Blair's true reason for being involved in police work, maybe the intent consideration was aimed at some unknown Sentinel-related purpose. In any case, the kid had an eye for detail that had come in handy before and just might again.

They paused at the bottom of the staircase leading to the second story of the condo, and Simon made his stand, addressing Jim.

"The upstairs is a mess. Sandburg stays here."

He needn't have worried about being so stern. Ellison's face was already wrinkled with disgust at something he sensed from above, and the Captain got no argument from that quarter. Even Jim apparently knew when enough was enough, and he'd seen enough at the Astor place this morning to guarantee that he knew this wasn't something Blair needed to see. Not before, and certainly not now.

Sandburg looked like he might put up a fight anyway, out of sheer contrariness, but Jim gave him a little push past the stairs to emphasize their decision.

"He's right, Chief."

Simon was pleased to see that the "two-against-one" thing didn't just apply when it was Ellison and Sandburg versus Banks. Blair dropped sulkily into a wicker chair in the corner.

"I guess I'll just wait here then," he agreed dryly. Jim flashed him a conciliatory grin, then followed Simon up the stairs to Tanya Thorne's bedroom.

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Blair sat still for all of two minutes after Jim and Simon went upstairs. It felt ludicrous. Not that he was eager to join them, or ever would have been, but what was the point of him being here if he just sat around and waited for Jim to get done doing his thing?

The anthropologist stood and paced a few steps, looking around the living room for something to occupy himself like a bored child. The place was a mess. The chair he'd been sitting on was the only intact piece of furniture in the whole room. A plump, overstuffed couch and lounger, especially, had taken a lot of damage. They looked like they'd been mauled by some wild animal, with long deep gashes carved into the fabric and pale foam innards yanked out and strewn about the room.

Nice image, Blair.

Blair rapidly banished the picture that came to his mind and continued pacing the confines of the room, keeping a wide berth from the police officers still examining the wreckage. He probably shouldn't have pushed Jim to let him come. He was starting to realize that he was dealing with too much of his own baggage right now to really add anything to Jim's investigation. The encounter with Miki Chandler had gotten Blair's personal demons all into a huff (or one demon in particular, anyway) and he probably wouldn't be much good to anyone until he got that sorted out.

When the call had come from Simon, Blair'd had some vague intention of just sticking it out... taking on the challenge of solving a crime to avoid dealing with the internal stuff threatening to overwhelm him. He'd forgotten, somehow, that it didn't work that way. This shambles of a living room wasn't just a brain teaser to dig into to keep his mind off his own issues. It symbolized a life cut short, and so many other shattered lives that would be affected by that loss.

Blair's steps brought him to the wide brick fireplace at one end of the room. A young woman he thought he recognized from forensics was sifting through the ashes there, and he stood and watched her for a few moments. The remains of several picture frames cluttered the mantle. Glancing down, Blair found the pictures that had once graced the frames strewn across the floor at his feet. Before he could look away, one picture grabbed his attention and he bent to pick it up.

A pretty, dark-skinned woman with warm chocolate eyes grinned back at him, captured in a moment of sheer joy, standing at the end of a boat dock, framed by a crystal blue lake, holding a pair of waterskis upright with one arm. The other arm was wrapped affectionately around the neck of an older man next to her, who was dressed in the sort of charmingly unhip fashions favored by fishermen of a certain advanced age. Blair flipped the picture over curiously and went suddenly pale. At the top of the picture's back, in a neat, precise script, were the words "Me & Dad, Glen Lake, August '96" But, underneath, in a frightening, scrawling red, were the words "Daddy's Little Girl, July 5, 1972 - November 5, 1998".

Blair's heart went cold, blood rushed to his head, and he cursed himself silently for a fool. Any idiot knew you didn't walk around picking up stuff at a crime scene with your bare hands. Any idiot who wasn't too busy feeling sorry for himself to pay attention to the job at hand, anyway. God, what if there were prints on it? What if he'd screwed up a valuable piece of evidence?

Blair quickly shifted his hold on the picture, balancing it between the palms of his hands to minimize contact, and held it out to the girl in the fireplace.

"Ummmm... Penny?" He called, just using the first name that came to his head for her, too distracted to care if he'd remembered it right. "I think I've got something here."

"Penny" pulled herself out of the fireplace and reached out reflexively to take the picture from him, but pulled back just as quickly as she realized with a rueful smile that her gloved hands were covered in ash. She pushed herself up, instead, to get a look at what he held, and grimaced distastefully at the message revealed.

"Pleasant guy," she muttered sarcastically. She pulled her gloves off and retrieved a plastic bag from one pocket, holding it out, open, for Blair to drop the picture in.

"I think I may've already screwed it up," he told her, wagging a bare hand as demonstration. She shrugged mildly, not placing blame.

"With a mess like this, something's bound to get a few extra prints on it. Not a biggie."

He smiled in appreciation for her reassurance, letting her return to her earlier task, then returned to the stairway Jim and Simon had gone up a few minutes ago. He sat down on the steps and rested his head in his hands, running nervous fingers through his hair, shaken by the mistake.

Oh, man, he didn't want to be here - didn't belong here. How had Blair Sandburg, anthropologist, ever felt comfortable in this world of death and ugliness where pretty girls with chocolate eyes died horrible deaths? Why had he wanted to come back, once he got away? Why was he here now?

Get a grip, Sandburg.

His subconscious recognized the sure signs of a panic attack quicker than his conscious mind and sent a mental kick to his stream of thought - the mantra that had helped once before, this time delivered with the voice and tone of Blair's Sentinel - firm and unyielding. The tone Jim used when he was laying down the law.

And it helped.

Blair forced himself to sit up straight and kick the self pity out of his system. This wasn't about him. They were here to find out who had killed those two girls, not indulge in a Sandburg pity party. He needed to get a grip on this right now. He was Jim's partner. The department had gone to a lot of trouble to get him back in that position and he owed it to all of them, but most especially to Jim, to make sure they got their money's worth. Blair's own personal issues could wait until he got home. Right now, the important thing was to find the killer, and the best he could do for Tanya Thorne and Melanie Astor was put his own limited skills to helping Jim do so as quickly as possible. He needed to remember that - keep things in perspective.

Resolutely, Blair stood and fixed his gaze on the top of the stairs. He stepped up one step, then another. He could do this. He could.

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"We got a real sick bastard on our hands, here, Jim."

Simon sighed, focusing his gaze on Ellison and starting a conversation because he couldn't handle the room anymore. The two of them were alone in Tanya Thorne's bedroom, the various crews having finished up here before moving to the lower levels. Ellison was in his "sentinel" mode, though, his attention solely occupied by the effort to pick up something missed by the professionals, so he didn't answer beyond a soft little "Yep" to acknowledge Simon's statement.

The Captain sighed and resumed his own examination, although he'd already been over it before Jim had arrived. The bedroom was something out of a horror film - those unending slasher freak shows that Darryl got such a kick out of, raving to his friends about how "great" the effects of blood and gore were, how *he* would have been able to take out Freddy or Jason or whomever before the killer could get the drop on him. The room was like the aftermath of one of those scenes, except the blood and gore weren't just effects.

When Simon had arrived, the body had still been up here, sprawled across a once- white sheet laid out on the floor like a shroud. The sheet still remained, all but the corners dyed the deep red of death. The murder weapon (a large-bladed carving knife from the victim's own kitchen, apparently) had been stabbed into the floor nearby, standing like a badge of victory, taunting them with the presence of the weapon and the almost 100% certainty that there would be no prints or other identifying features about the blade to aid in tracking the killer.

"So, you getting anything on this?" Simon asked softly. There was no response at all this time, and the Captain glanced back to Jim curiously.

The detective had stopped near the middle of the room and was looking - no, staring - down at the bloody sheet with a dazed-ox sort of expression that said intelligent life had fled the premises. Simon followed his gaze, noticing this time how striking the contrast of vibrant red and pure white could be, from a purely visual standpoint. A little morbid, maybe, but that apparently wasn't an issue when a zone out kicked in.

Simon ran one hand over his face in exasperation. Okay, so now what? Did he get Sandburg up here, or snap Jim out of it himself? If the latter, how?

His decision was made rather abruptly when he heard a low, choking gasp behind him and he turned to find Sandburg standing in the doorway. Simon took one look at the young man's pale face and wild eyes and thought fast.

"Sandburg, you want to do something about this?" he ordered, gesturing toward the poleaxed Sentinel. Not waiting for an answer, he turned back to the crime scene, making it obvious he expected Blair to handle things.

It should have worked, in theory. He was giving Sandburg something useful to do and getting Jim out of his zone - killing two birds with one stone. Unfortunately, Blair didn't seem to hear the Captain's orders. When there was no reply, Simon sighed and turned back around. The young man had joined Jim in staring dazedly down at the bloody sheet, his eyes wide and horrified.

"Wonderful," Simon muttered to himself. This zone out thing was apparently contagious. The term "High Maintenance" sprang to mind to describe this duo. He decided Blair was still the more likely of the two to hear him and circled around Jim to give the young man a quick shake.

Blair snapped back to awareness with a jerk, stumbling instinctively away from the bedroom - the cause of his distress. He leaned heavily against the door frame, breathing hard, struggling with something. He looked up, eyes moving past Simon to take in Jim's motionless form, then scanning the blood spattered bedroom, before finally coming back to meet Simon's concerned gaze with a wild, haunted expression.

Looking into those eyes, Simon suddenly realized he'd handled this wrong. Very, very wrong. The panicked young man before him in no way resembled the one who had arrived, nervous but collected, fifteen minutes ago. Blair might not have realized it, and Jim might have overlooked it in his eagerness to have his partner back, but Simon should have known that this was too much, too soon.

"Blair, Jim needs you," Simon said softly, gesturing again to the swaying detective, trying to salvage something from this - give the kid something to focus on besides the death in the air.

Blair's hands came up in a negating gesture, and he shook his head slightly.

"Maybe... maybe you'd better do it, Simon," he said in a calm, serious voice that was belied by the way he was trying to shrink back against the doorjamb. There was a funny look in his eyes that the Captain couldn't quite read. Funny, as in frightening. "You know... practice. Someone besides me should know how to pull him out."

That made some sense. Simon wasn't sure exactly what Sandburg's motives were here, wasn't sure he *wanted* to know, but it *did* make sense. He turned his attention to Jim. "All right, so what do I do?"

"Talk to him. Touch him. Anything." The young man's words came slow and choked. Simon spared him a quick glance. He was leaning heavily on the doorframe, eyes aimed at the floor, looking like he wanted to be sick. "He's focused so much on one sense, he's ignoring the others. You just have to give him something to focus on besides the zone. You've done it before without knowing it. It's not too tough if you catch it early."

Feeling exceedingly self-conscious, Simon came around in front of Jim, grasping the other man's shoulder and giving him a little shake, as he had done to Blair a few moments earlier.

"Ellison, I know you're in there, so just snap out of it," he tried. Nothing. "Jim, wake up! Now!" A slightly more forceful shake did the trick, and Jim jerked to awareness, startling back from Simon's restraining hand and shaking his head to clear out the fog.

"Whoa, sorry about that, Simon."

"Not a problem. Welcome back." Simon clapped him on the back, and turned back toward Blair, opening his mouth to tell Jim to get the kid out of there. He didn't need to bother. Blair was already gone.

Simon cursed softly, and Jim glanced up from where he'd started to resume his investigation as if nothing had happened.

"Problem, sir?"

"Yeah, I think you better go find your partner."

Simon briefly described to Jim what had just happened, and was not surprised when the detective bolted for the door halfway into the narrative.

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Jim found Blair outside, sitting on a low brick accent wall that curved along one corner of the property. Blair's back was toward him, but the Sentinel didn't need to see any more than the barely perceptible tremors that ran through his frame to recognize the extent of the young man's distress. Jim sat down next to him, facing the other way, back towards the building, rather than step over or around the wall. A quick glance showed him that Blair had colored slightly when he became aware of Jim's presence, cheeks flushing a pale pink against otherwise pale skin.

"You okay?" Blair's voice was low and flat, and he kept his gaze aimed away from Jim, down at his shoes. It took Jim a second to shift gears. Was *he* okay? Leave it to Sandburg.

"Me?" he scoffed, voice casual. "You betcha. You?"

"I'm fine."

There was a long, long pause, and Jim finally exhaled in frustration, turning to face his partner directly, kicking one leg up and over to straddle the wall.

"Now, correct me if I'm wrong here," he said, gesturing with one hand to indicate the air between them. "But I thought we were past this silent treatment phase."

Blair sighed, but nodded. "We are." He glanced briefly at Jim, just a flicker of eyes moving sideways before going back to his shoes. After a pause, he asked in a sad, sullen tone, "You pissed?"

"About?"

"Uh, I don't know... maybe the fact that I totally freaked out?"

"Oh, that." Jim let a bit of a smile into his voice. "Nothing new, there, Chief. Maybe next time you'll listen to me when I tell you to stay away from a crime scene."

Blair shook his head, rejecting the attempt at lightening the situation.

"Maybe you missed it, Jim, but it was a little bigger screw up than that. Oh, wait, you *did* miss it, didn't you? Because you were *zoned* at the time."

Jim reached out his hand to grab the younger man's arm, stopping that train of thought before it could go any further.

"Don't turn this into a big deal here, Sandburg," he stated firmly. "You've had a bad day and weren't ready for this. We just moved too fast. We'll back up and take it slower. No harm. No foul."

"But it *is* a big deal. Can't you see that? This isn't a game, man. Maybe next time Simon won't be around to cover for my screw ups. Maybe next time someone'll get hurt." Blair lifted his head finally and met Jim's gaze, an odd sort of resolve in his eyes. "I can't be responsible for that, Jim. I think maybe you should talk to Simon about getting a real partner."

Jim blinked once in surprise. "What?"

"I said..."

"I heard what you said," the Sentinel interrupted, a warning note creeping into his voice. "I already have a partner."

Jim had to restrain himself from speaking the next words along with Blair. He knew them practically by rote.

"I mean a *real* partner, Jim. Someone who can really watch your back. Someone who..."

"...isn't you," Jim interrupted, letting the frustration and, yes, anger, show a bit. This was coming just a bit too out of left field, and James Ellison didn't deal well with surprises. "We've been through this before. Just give it a rest. You do fine."

"No! I don't!" Blair was on his feet now, and paced away several steps, working up a nice tirade, no doubt. Jim stole his thunder, going off on a tirade of his own.

"Yes! You do! Man, *where* is this coming from? Is this a Bowman thing? 'Cause I thought we... you... were past that, Chief. And if it isn't Bowman, then what the hell is it? I need something to go on, here, because last time I checked, Blair Sandburg doesn't let a five minute panic attack mess with his head like this."

"Well, maybe he does now!" Blair was still facing away, his shoulders tense, arms crossed over his chest, breathing hard. When Jim didn't respond, the shoulders slumped and he dropped his arms, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "No. That's not it. I don't know what it is. Maybe... y'know... Bowman. Maybe just the time off. I don't know. I just know I don't want to do this anymore." He turned then, and Jim saw in his eyes that he was serious - that this wasn't just a kneejerk reaction but something he really intended to follow through on - and the Sentinel's heart went ice cold with a mixture of fear and anger. After everything they'd been through in the last several years - after everything Blair had lived through and come up swinging - he was picking *now* to bail out? This was just unbelievable.

"You don't want to do this anymore," he could only repeat the younger man's words dangerously, incredulously. Blair swallowed, but nodded an affirmation. "Just like that, you don't want to do this anymore. It might have been nice if you'd figured that out *before* we wasted the time getting you hired back."

It was a low blow at a bad time. Jim knew it as soon as the words left his mouth. This was the point where he was supposed to be understanding and supportive. But, goddamnit, Sandburg wasn't a quitter. He couldn't sit here and agree like this was no big deal. Jim saw his criticism hit home, Blair's face crumpling a little with guilt and apology. But the hurt was replaced almost immediately by rock solid anger, and Blair straightened again, eyes flashing in irritation.

"That's great, Jim. That's just great. Thank you so very much for understanding. God, it's always about *you*, isn't it? *Your* wasted time, *your* inconvenience. The world revolves around Jim Ellison, and I'm given the 'privilege' of coming along for the ride. Well, ya know what, buddy? This ride *sucks* and I want off."

Jim stood, suppressing his urge to react with anger of his own with some difficulty. Neither of them was thinking straight.

"I'm not going to argue this right now, Sandburg," he said calmly, keeping an iron resolve in his tone. "I've got work to do. Just wait here. I'll get done as soon as I can, then we'll go home and work this out."

Blair laughed sarcastically. "Ellison Avoidance Tactic #35: If you can't win an argument, walk away from it. Go back to work, Jim. Just don't expect me to sit out here contemplating the error of my ways. I've got better ways to spend my time."

Before Jim could respond to that, Blair stalked off down the street, putting enough distance between them that Jim would be forced to shout or chase him down to continue the conversation. Jim was inclined to do neither. A walk around the block would do the kid some good, give him a chance to blow off steam. He realized too late that walking wasn't what Blair had in mind when he jumped in the truck, using the spare key Jim had given him for emergencies, and drove away with a squealing U-Turn.

Jim watched his truck careen away with something akin to despair. Now what? If he commandeered a car, he might still be able to follow by sound. The pickup had a pretty distinctive engine to it. But to what purpose? To continue the argument he'd been trying to walk away from in the first place? Even as he made the decision to do just that, though, he was losing the chance. Sandburg turned the truck out of the condo development and into the main flow of traffic on North Shore Blvd., driving much too fast. By the time he could get someone's keys, even Jim wouldn't be able to track him.

"Damn it!"

The exclamation startled two forensics guys on their way out of the building. Jim didn't bother to acknowledge their presence, just stalked past their curious gazes and back into the condo. Sandburg had effectively eliminated all of Jim's options. The only thing left to him was to wrap things up here as quickly as possible. Only then would he be free to figure out what his next move should be.

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Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god...

The blue and white Ford careened through the streets of Cascade, its driver barely even noticing several near collisions that sent other vehicles swerving to avoid his erratic path. Blair didn't have any idea where he was going. He just knew he needed to get away. He really had some gall to accuse *Jim* of running away from an argument. Look at him! Running scared.

Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god...

A traffic signal at the next intersection flashed from green to yellow to red, and Blair was forced to slam on the breaks. His momentum nearly sent him through the windshield, pushing him into the steering wheel hard, and knocking a bit of variety into his panicked litany.

What had just happened? What the *hell* had just happened? Oh god, what had he done?

You ran, you stupid, worthless coward. You ran! You took off on Jim in the middle of a zone and then used that as an excuse to abandon the whole thing. What kind of partner is that? What kind of fucking *backup* is that? God. Oh, god.

So much had gone wrong in the last few hours, Blair couldn't even begin to get his mind around all of it at once. The images kept jumping through his head in random flashes of memory. Miki Chandler's sad, sad eyes as she unknowingly tore apart the delusions he'd rebuilt his sanity upon. The warm, smiling eyes of Tanya Thorne in that picture - daddy's little girl, now a lifeless heap of flesh in the back of some coroner's van somewhere. The cold, sick feeling in his gut as he'd looked at the room where she'd died - so much blood, the smell of death and fear so thick you didn't need Sentinel senses to inhale the stench with every breath. Simon's half-accusing, half-pitying look when he'd seen Blair's reaction to it. What must the Captain think of him, now? In the document that had gotten Blair back on the force, Simon had used words like "courage" and "strength" and "honor" - what must he be thinking, now that those words had been thrown back in his face and proven wrong.

And Jim - god - the look on Jim's face when Blair had said he didn't want to do this anymore. That look of abandonment that Blair had seen before. Could he blame the Sentinel for reacting the way he had? Blair had abandoned him twice in the space of ten minutes. When called on it, he'd reacted with even more hurtful, angry words. He would be lucky if Jim ever spoke to him again.

An angry horn shook Blair back to the intersection and his foot hit the gas pedal instinctively, not bothering to check if the light was green, just needing to move. He had to go somewhere. He had to get away and sort this all out. He couldn't go home - couldn't face Jim. The university was out, for the same reason. It would be the first place Jim looked when he wasn't home.

As if on cue, a road sign caught his eye up ahead. "Alocarma Beach - 15 miles" with an arrow pointing right. It sounded like as good a place as any. Blair swung the truck to the right and kept an eye out for more signs, relieved to have a goal.

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Alocarma Beach turned out to be a narrow strip of sand presided over by a string of posh beach houses - vacation homes for Cascadians who came up here for a little R&R on the weekends. It was a the wrong time of year for weekend jaunts now, though. As Blair pulled off of the access road that had brought him here, he noted that most of the houses seemed empty and abandoned, waiting forlornly for the return of summer. The beach was deserted, as well, and a haphazard breakwall of tumbled rocks and boulders lent an additional air of seclusion to the place. All in all, it looked like this spot would serve his purpose just fine.

There wasn't any real parking area, so Blair pulled the truck off to the side of road, locking it carefully before he left. That was all he needed, to get Jim's truck stolen. Come to think of it, he was probably already in pretty deep shit for stealing it himself.

That's it, Blair. Think happy thoughts.

He trudged down to the water's edge and walked along the tide-line for a while, picking a direction at random and letting stray waves soak into his sneakers and pant legs without complaint. He deserved any discomfort Mother Nature deigned to throw at him right now.

Now that his initial round of self-recrimination had passed, Blair was starting to think more clearly about what had happened. Unfortunately, saner thoughts didn't really help much. They couldn't change the truth. And the truth was that Blair had screwed up, big time. Today's melt-down was just a symptom of a much more serious problem - one that had started when he'd shot Tom Bowman in that warehouse, and when he'd promised Jim that he could handle this on his own.

How could he have been so stupid? Even a *little* bit of research, or common sense, (or just listening to *Jim*, for Pete's sake) would have shown him how counter-productive it was to try to shut out all the negative emotions surrounding Tom's death. But Blair had been so excited to find a quick fix in Josh's meditation tape, so eager to believe he'd found a way that beat out the conventional methods, he hadn't really thought through the long-term effects of that sort of denial. And look where his arrogance had brought him. Several months' worth of avoided fear and guilt had dropped on him today like a bombshell, finding the worst possible moment to put in an appearance.

So much for the delusions he'd been having of living up to both his position on the police force and the "shaman" title passed to him by Incacha. The first major challenge Blair had faced, and he'd failed miserably, on both an emotional and spiritual level.

A mile or so down the beach, the breakwall curved back toward the water. Blair found a convenient outcropping, settled onto the damp stone, and stared gloomily out across the blue-gray ocean to a horizon shrouded in mist. Probably a storm front moving in. The skies above Cascade had been building up to one all day. It couldn't be much later than four or five o'clock right now, but already, the cloud-filled skies were casting an early twilight over the city, washing all colors down to gray on black on white.

Blair felt very in tune with the world just then. The chilly, moisture-laden air, the roiling, choppy chaos of ocean waves colliding back and forth until they reached the shore in an uneven susurration of pounding surf... It all fit his mood perfectly, and granted him some measure of peace as nature's own tumultuous rhythms bombarded him with a mind-numbing repetition of rolling waves and crashing tide.

Reveling in the sudden freedom from the need to think at all, Blair lay back against the stone and closed his eyes, letting the ocean's roar pound away the fear and self-pity and self-loathing. Once those were gone, though, Blair had no emotions left at all, and mental exhaustion got the better of him, dragging him into the darkness of sleep.

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He fell asleep to wind and damp and pounding surf. He woke to dry, thick, motionless heat. Blair let his eyes flicker open to squint at a red sun beating down from a cloudless sky. The ground under him was parched and cracked, and when he sat up, he saw that the dry earth extended in all directions in a featureless plain, clear to the horizon.

Desert his mind whispered. How?

He slowly rose to his feet, peering out at the horizon in confusion. After a few eye-straining moments, that stark line suddenly swooped to a dizzying, geography-defying angle, and then righted itself.

"We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto," he muttered, his voice falling flat and echoless from his lips, weighed down by the heat. The mental allusion to "The Wizard of Oz" brought realization.

A dream?

As if to confirm his guess (or perhaps to deny it), a long, lonely howl suddenly cut through the air. Blair turned slowly, scanning the horizon again. The sound repeated, and this time he found the source. Between one circuit and the next, a canine silhouette had appeared in the distance. Intrigued, Blair started walking towards it - his sneakers falling noiselessly on the dry earth in this muted landscape.

As he drew closer, he was surprised to see that the animal was a wolf, not a coyote as Blair had assumed when he'd heard the howl. The wolf looked out of place here, with it's thick coat. He belonged in the lush Washington parklands somewhere, not here in the middle of nowhere with no water and scarce prey. The animal was definitely the worse for wear, too. It panted heavily in the heat, tongue lolling to one side, and pawed restlessly at the barren ground as it watched Blair approach. There was a moment when Sandburg considered that it might not be wise to approach a wild animal whose last meal had been an indeterminate time ago, but he dismissed the thought as trivial. This was a dream, after all.

"Hey, Puppy," he addressed the wolf quietly as he drew closer to it, keeping his voice kind and gentle. "How did you end up way out here, huh? Not one of your usual hangouts, I bet. Maybe you should get on home."

The wolf cocked its head to one side, considering him soundlessly for the space of several heartbeats. Then, it let out a little whine, and started to change. The transformation was quick, the canine form stretching and shifting to stand as a man.

Actually, not just a man. Blair blinked in confusion - the creature had turned into *him*. Sort of. It had his shape, his hair, even wore a shabby pair of jeans and a t-shirt that looked familiar, but it was still clearly obvious that they were not the same person. The design might be the same, but there was a world of difference in the execution - a slightly different tilt to the head, a more centered, balanced posture, and ice-blue eyes gazed back at him with the wolf's disinterested, passionless scrutiny. Without preamble, the new arrival spoke in a solemn voice that also did not belong to Blair.

"Why are you here?"

Blair looked around the landscape again, feeling the indefinable wrongness of this place. He wished he had an answer to that question himself.

"I don't know."

The apparition wasn't satisfied. It repeated, "Why are you here?"

Blair chuckled nervously, slightly embarrassed at his own ignorance. "I hate to disappoint you, but I honestly don't know."

"Why are you here?"

Blair sighed. It really wasn't fair for this guy to be quizzing him when he hadn't had a chance to go over the material. Well, maybe if he went at it from a psychological angle...

"I am here because I'm dreaming," he stated, trying to sound like he knew what he was talking about. Sometimes confidence in one's answers was as important as the answer itself. "My subconscious mind apparently has some deep issues to work out and has stuck me in the middle of the desert with myself so we can have a real heart-to-heart and get things fixed. I don't really think its going to work, though, so why don't we...."

"Why are you here?"

*GROAN*

"Okay, look, man. That's going to get really old, really quick. I told you I don't know. What do you want from me?"

"The truth. Why are you here?"

With some effort, Blair reined in his frustration. Okay, smart guy, play the game. Why are you here? What sort of answer would the Dr. Collins's of the world be looking for with that question? Except that the question was just way too vague and existentialist for Collins to have come up with. Blair looked around himself again, trying to pull the answer from the surrounding wrongness. It actually came remarkably easily once he opened up to it.

"I'm lost."

He expected to wake up, or change locations, or *some* sort of fanfare. All he got was the steady gaze of his doppleganger. Nothing told Blair he'd gotten it right except the continued silence and his own inner certainty. He was lost.

"What do I do now?" he asked softly.

The other Blair offered a sad little smile. "Return to the path."

It sounded so simple. Except for one teeny little thing. "Ummmm... if I knew how to do that, I wouldn't be lost, now would I?"

"You know how."

Blair didn't see how that could be true, since he had no memory of getting here in the first place, but logic dictated that he could at least try heading back the way he had come. He hadn't walked very far since first sighting the wolf, so maybe he'd be able to find the path from his original position. He turned away from the wolf-Blair, determined to at least try, but was stopped after not even two paces. His way was blocked by the grinning, blood-covered specter of Tom Bowman.

"Where do you think you're going, Sandburg?" the man asked with a sardonic grin. Blair stumbled back from him, stomach suddenly churning with horrified fear. The dream had become a nightmare. It took his last shred of courage to stop his backward momentum and face the ghost before him.

"I have to go back, Tom," he stated, hoping his voice didn't betray the sick twisting in his gut. "Jim's waiting for me."

Jim.

Blair hadn't remembered to worry about Jim. His partner would be waiting back at the path. Blair had to get back to him.

"Waiting for you?" Tom barked a short laugh. He had always been a suave, well- spoken man, but now that facade was gone, his face twisted and cruel. He started walking, strolling around Blair in a casual circle, sizing the young man up with piercing, hawk-like eyes. "You've gotta be kidding. Why would Ellison be waiting for a weak little shit like you? After that brush off you gave him today, he's probably glad to have you finally out of his hair. Far as I can tell, you've been nothing but trouble, anyway."

"That's not true," Blair replied weakly, trying to deny the accusations coming from the other man and ignore the echoing accusations within his own heart. It couldn't be true. "I've helped him a lot. He needs me to..."

He trailed off, avoiding the revelation of Jim's abilities out of long habit. He glanced briefly back at the doppelganger, half-expecting some sort of protest or aid. The other Blair just stood passively by, watching the proceedings with an observer's eye. Flicking his gaze between the stalking Bowman and his own double, Blair had the bizarre feeling that he was stuck in some Dali- inspired rendition of a bad Tom & Jerry cartoon, facing the choice between the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. Except in this case, the choice was not so clear-cut. How could he choose when he didn't know what the two sides represented? Another laugh from Tom pulled his attention back.

"I've helped him a lot," the big man mimicked in a high-pitched, whiny voice. "Who're you trying to convince, Sandburg? Me or you? Seems to me you've set yourself up a pretty sweet deal, convincing Ellison to keep you around for the senses when both of you know he could handle 'em just fine on his own, once he got over the initial adjustment period."

He should've known Bowman would know about the Sentinel secret. This was his own subconscious after all. Tom had paused, as if expecting a reply, but Blair didn't know how to respond to the accusation. There didn't seem to be any point in arguing his role in Jim's life. He hadn't quite figured out for himself what it was. After a moment, Tom gave a disappointed little shrug. Blair had a second of hope that maybe the lack of answer would take the fun out of the game for Tom. Not so.

"Works out pretty well for both of you, actually, doesn't it? You get your own personal sugar daddy, and Ellison..." Tom cocked his head slightly, sweeping Blair from head-to-toe with a darkly lewd gaze. "Well, if I had a pretty thing like you hanging on my every whim, I wouldn't be kicking you back into the street either."

"Fuck. You."

A line had been crossed, and Blair was abruptly angry. He turned his back on Bowman and started to stride away across the desert, no longer caring if he was headed in the right direction, just wanting to get away from the whole scene and out of this damn dream.

Bowman materialized in front of him again, but Blair moved to walk around him, buoyed by the sudden upswell of anger. The dead man refused to be ignored so readily, though, and he stopped Blair with one blood-covered hand, leaving a bright handprint on Blair's chest, right over his heart. A shock of cold raced through the young man at the contact, and he stumbled backwards, tripping over an unseen rock and falling down hard, barely catching himself with outflung arms.

Between one blink and the next, Bowman was next to him, down on one knee, bloody fist curled around a handful of Blair's shirt, pulling the younger man up so their faces were inches apart.

"It doesn't work that way, boy," he hissed in an icy, grating whisper. "You leave when I say you leave. Let's not forget who the *victim* is here."

Tom released his hold on Blair's shirt, shoving him back onto the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of him. He lay there for a moment, eyes closed, struggling to breathe, emotions swinging out of control from terror to guilt to anger and back again. He felt a shadow cross his face as Tom stood, looming to block out the sun burning down from above them.

"Get on your feet and face me like a man," Tom's voice ordered, thick with derision.

Blair braced himself and blinked his eyes open, risking a quick glance sideways to see the doppelganger still standing nearby, still making no move to help him. Blair supposed he hadn't expected any. As it had been the first time, this was his battle, and his alone. The realization helped to steady the anthropologist's nerves, and he was able to keep his composure as he slowly rose to his feet, accompanied by a continued monologue from Tom.

"You were always so sure of yourself, weren't you, Sandburg? Always so happy on your high-and-mighty pedestal with your *principles* and your *ethics*. Always so quick with your peace and love and save-the-whales bullshit. But when it came right down to it... mano-a-mano... ethics went right out the window, didn't they? How'd it feel, Sandburg? How'd it feel finding out that deep down you're as much of a self-preserving bastard as the rest of us mere mortals? How'd it feel watching me die? How'd it..."

"It felt bad, Tom." Blair forced his reply into the stream of words, noticing the slight quirk of the eyebrows that showed the other man was surprised by the interruption. He pushed on, afraid to stop and give Bowman an opportunity to continue chipping away at his reconstructed composure. "It felt really, really bad, and I'm sorry. I will regret until the day I die that things went down the way they did. But don't you *dare* lay this all in my lap. I did my best to talk you out of it. If you had just put the damn gun down when I asked you to... Hell, if you'd just turned around and gone the other way. If you hadn't screwed us over in the first place, none of the rest of it would've had to happen either. I'm not going to stand here and defend myself to a backstabbing traitor who wouldn't have blinked twice about shooting me dead."

Blair took a deep breath. He hadn't thought about it like that before. He'd regretted taking a life, had felt like a coward for protecting his *own* life, but what choice had he had? Would it have been worth it to let a criminal kill him and get away? No.

It was a revelation, and he breathed deep again, meeting Tom's gaze with a hard, cold resolve.

"It felt bad and I regret it, Tom, but it happened. And, I tell you now, if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing, you son-of-a-bitch."

Tom's eyes widened and a triumphant howl rose behind Blair's back. The scene held in a motionless tableau for just a moment, then a wild wind rose suddenly, sweeping across the barren plain, whipping up sand and rocks in a sudden pelting uproar. Blair's arms came up, one shielding his face from the sudden onslaught and the other trying in vain to get control of his wildly whipping hair. He heard his own voice shout something to the winds, although he hadn't been aware of any intention to speak, and with a resounding crack, the desert world split apart, shards of landscape slipping off kilter, leaving great black rents in the fabric of this reality. The darkness loomed larger and deeper until, with a second crack of pure sound, Blair was swallowed up by it completely, and he fell into darkness.

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The storm hit Cascade just after 8:00 pm, building in the first half hour to a full-blown gale, blowing through the streets with a blinding barrage of hail and rain. It was a night to stay home, safe and warm, sipping hot chocolate in front of a roaring fire.

Where the hell is he?

Jim Ellison stood at his living room windows, eyes fixed on the street below, willing the familiar blue and white pickup to pull into the parking lot. He hated this... hated waiting, hated worrying, hated the rain that made it so hard to see past the pelting water on the windows, hated himself for making things worse for Blair right when the young man was obviously in the midst of some personal upheaval. Since when did Sentinel senses give him the right to run rough-shod over Sandburg's own needs or wants. He would never forgive himself if...

"Jim!"

"WHAT?!"

Ellison's head snapped up at the shout, close to his ear, angry at the interruption. He was suddenly aware of Simon's hand on his shoulder, and realized the Captain had been talking for a while without Jim hearing him. Not zoning, exactly, just tied up in his own gloomy thoughts.

Simon's expression had darkened at Jim's angry response, but he made a visible effort to control his own desire to snap back.

"I said you aren't going to bring him home any sooner by glaring out the window all night. Come have some coffee."

Jim shook his head. "Appreciate it, Simon, but no thanks."

He heard the other man sigh and settle onto the couch resignedly. Jim glanced around. Simon had picked up one of Blair's textbooks from the coffee table and was flipping through it idly. The Sentinel felt a twinge of guilt. He had dragged Simon to the four corners of Cascade earlier this afternoon, checking just about every hangout he could remember Blair ever mentioning. They had just gotten back to the loft a half hour ago, with still no sign of Blair, and now Simon seemed to be settling in for the long haul.

In retrospect, it had been futile from the get-go. Blair knew that Jim, with his Sentinel-trained memory, would know where to look. If the grad student didn't want to be found, it would be easy enough for him to avoid his usual haunts. And if he *did* want to be found, he would have gone to Rainier rather than bothering with the more obscure locations.

"You don't have to wait, sir," Jim told his Captain. "I can always take the Volvo if I need a car."

That earned him a wordless grunt from Banks. "Leave you alone now? I can see *that* going over well with Sandburg when he finds out I left you to zone out to your little heart's content. I don't think so."

Jim grimaced mildly, but didn't argue. Zoning might not be as big a risk as Simon, in his new position of responsibility in that regard, made it out to be, but he welcomed the company, anyway. He turned back to the window. The storm seemed to be getting worse.

The trill of a cellular phone forced its way through the pounding rain and thunder. Both men reached reflexively for their units. It was Simon's. Jim didn't bother trying to be polite, and just listened in.

"Banks."

"We may have found him, sir." Rhonda's voice on the other end of the line started without preamble. Simon's administrative assistant had volunteered to do what she could to help find Blair from the station, once she'd heard a pared-down version of what had happened. "There was a report of a prowler in the Alocarma Beach area. The caller mentioned being suspicious of a blue and white Ford that fits the description of that old hayseed truck Jim drives."

Jim's eyebrows rose, and he saw Simon wince. Hayseed truck?

Rhonda provided directions to Alocarma Beach and informed them that a patrol unit was already en route to investigate the prowler report, then hung up. Simon flipped his phone closed with a chuckle.

"Well, that's a new one to add to Sandburg's resume. Anthropologist, police consultant, and prowler."

Jim laughed lightly in agreement as he headed toward the door, grabbing his coat from where he'd thrown it over a chair on the way in. He felt better already. It was a relief to be moving again, with a goal in sight. He would find Blair and the two of them would work this all out. End of story.

"Assuming, of course, it's him and not some *other* prowler driving a 'hayseed' truck," he reminded both himself and his Captain in a wry voice.

Simon chuckled again, joining Jim by the door to pull on his own coat.

"You have to admit, it's an apt description."

Jim shook his head sorrowfully at this new criticism of his beloved vehicle and stepped backwards, hand over his heart, wounded. "I'll have you know, that truck is a classic, sir."

He paused, realizing there was something odd about what he'd just said. It came to him, and he belatedly added: "As Sandburg would say."

Simon laughed again. Jim joined him, and together they headed down to the parking lot and north to Alocarma Beach to pick up the wayward anthropologist.

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He woke to a roaring wind and spitting darkness that for a long time was indistinguishable from the maelstrom he'd left in the dream. Some part of his mind realized that it was rain, not sand, pelting him from all sides, and he headed back to the truck on pure instinct, shielding his face with one arm, still not quite realizing he was awake, just knowing he had to get back to the path and apologize to Jim.

In his dazed state, Blair failed to notice a half-buried piece of driftwood in his way until one foot connected forcefully with it, and he fell face-first into the sand, banging his knee painfully against the obstacle. The tumble just added to his confusion, throwing yet another element into his already cluttered mind. He lay there in the rain for a moment, squinting up at the looming pile of rocks that formed the breakwall. A brilliant flash of lightning illuminated the scene, and Blair saw the outline of an A-Frame house and a narrow, sandy trail that led up to it.

A path! His subconscious whispered, while his conscious mind seconded the vote by suggesting: I should let Jim know I'm okay. Maybe they have a phone.

He pushed himself up to his feet, waited for the next flash of lightning to reconnoiter, then set his foot to the path. As he drew closer, he could make out a flickering firelight shining feebly through the storm but still clearly visible through the sliding glass door leading into the house. Closer still, and Blair made out the shadowed silhouette of a man moving about inside. A smile touched the anthropologist's face as he suddenly realized he'd expected the beach house to be uninhabited. He walked the last few feet to the door, raised his hand to knock on the glass...

...And stopped. There was a large, jagged hole smashed in the glass by the locking mechanism, and shards of glass still littered the carpeting inside the entryway.

The sight provided the jolt back into reality that had been missing in the storm-roiled night, and Blair's first truly coherent thought since waking on the beach hit him hard and fast.

Crime in progress.

Instincts learned in the last two years pushed Blair into the shadow of a nearby shrub, hiding him from the house's occupants until he could evaluate the situation. On the surface, everything seemed disarmingly calm. A woman was sitting huddled on a couch, facing away from the door, and a large, dark-haired man was pacing back and forth in front of her, gesticulating with one hand and talking earnestly. If Blair hadn't seen the broken glass, he would have assumed they were in the midst of some serious discussion, but seen no threat in it. Now, though, he could see an underlying menace in the man's movements.

Blair stood still, barely noticing the storm now, trying to decide what to do. He had stumbled into a crime scene, he had left his cell phone back in the office after the disastrous meeting with Miki Chandler, and Jim had no idea he was out here. The smart thing to do would be to hurry to one of the other beach houses, find a phone, and call the police. But that would mean leaving the woman and her "visitor" alone, and he didn't want to do that. He would never forgive himself if something happened while he was off getting help.

And, then, the decision was taken out of his hands. The veiled menace in the man suddenly made its presence known full force when he grabbed the woman by the arm, yanking her roughly up from the couch and shoving her toward a stairway. Blair got a better look at the victim as she was manhandled to the stairs: a trim, healthy young woman, deeply tanned with sunstreaks in her dark blonde hair. She had the look of a usually-confident woman who was being pushed to her breaking point, losing the battle to maintain self-control as her situation became more and more desperate. She reminded Blair of Tanya Thorne.

Realization clicked into place, and Blair was suddenly aware of the glimmering knife blade held in the man's other hand as he ushered his victim roughly upstairs.

Oh, my god, he's going to kill her.

Feeling as though he was still somehow caught in the unreality of his desert dream after all, Blair reached out and slid open the glass door and stepped inside. He was hit with a wall of warmth as he stepped out of the rain, and he conscientiously pulled the door shut behind him lessening the cacophony of storm-sounds that had assaulted his ears earlier.

The other two were upstairs and hadn't noticed Blair's arrival. He could hear the man's voice, still talking in a firm, lecturing tone that offered a bit of hope. This guy was apparently one of the types who liked to give his captive audience the whole Psycho-Killer Manifesto before doing the deed. It gave Blair a chance to look for a weapon and maybe figure out some sort of plan.

Looking around the ground floor, he found a phone sitting on an end table and picked it up, intending to call for "backup". It was dead, of course.

Oh well, not like there's time to wait for them anyway.

Above him, the man's voice rose in volume, becoming more angry and violent. Blair hurried his search and finally grabbed a poker from the rack of fireplace implements. It wasn't much, but it would have to do. He still didn't have any sort of plan, but he didn't dare leave the woman alone with her attacker any longer. Brandishing the poker like a club, Blair set his foot on the first carpeted step, and headed quietly upstairs.

The stairway opened into an open-plan loft area that served as the A-Frame's only bedroom. Blair was clearly visible as he took the last few steps, but neither of the other two noticed him. The killer had the young woman kneeling in the middle of the room, one large hand tangled viciously in her hair, yanking violently at it with each of his shouted, incoherent threats. His victim didn't seem to hear him anymore. She was rocking back and forth with his yanks, eyes closed, keening piteously, obviously beyond reason or any expectation that she would survive this night.

In the split second it took Blair to take in the scene, the situation escalated again. The man raised his arm high above his head. Light reflected off the knife blade, and Blair had no more time to think. The poker in his hands was all but forgotten in the sudden rush of panic, and he flung himself forward with a running jump, tackling the man, catching him off guard, sending him stumbling into the kneeling woman. They all three went down in a struggling tangle of limbs.

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"So, where is he?"

Jim and Simon stood on either side of the truck, peering through the rain- streaked windows as though Blair would have miraculously reappeared within since the last time they'd looked. They had arrived at the beach a little while ago, finding the parked truck alongside the patrol car dispatched to check on the prowler call. There was no sign of Blair.

Jim went to stand on top of the tumble of rock overlooking the beach, squinting through the storm to scan as much of the area as he could. Unfortunately, Sentinel eyesight couldn't help him much in this downpour. He caught sight of the patrolmen trudging their way through the stubborn sand on their way back up to the car, but ignored them for the moment, still searching for his partner. His eyes were drawn by the crashing surf, and he felt a sudden stab of fear. Blair wouldn't have...

Of course he wouldn't have. Jim pushed the thought aside unformed, ashamed that he'd even started to think it. He knew Sandburg too well to even consider something like that.

The two uniformed officers were now close enough to see Jim standing atop the tumbled pile of rocks. They hailed him and the he raised a hand in greeting, recognizing Frank Turner and Allan Syndovich, both of whom Jim had worked with in the past. The two men hurried their pace to join him, and Simon came over as well to quickly brief them on the situation. Frank pushed his hat back, grimacing at the water dripping from the brim.

"Well, sir, I don't know about this Sandburg," he informed Simon respectfully, gesturing down the beach with one hand. "But the woman who called in the prowler report said she'd seen a big guy stalking around - pretty scary looking. Doesn't sound like the one you're looking for."

Jim and Simon exchanged a look, and Jim groaned inwardly. This was just wonderful. A potentially dangerous man roaming the beach, and Sandburg out there somewhere, too. Not a good combination.

"No, it doesn't," Simon told the other men, taking charge. "Okay, let's assume we've got a real prowler on the loose and play this by the book. Just keep an eye out for Sandburg."

Turner nodded acceptance of that. "We just did a quick sweep of the beach, but didn't see any signs of trouble," he said. "We were just about to start going house-to-house along here, see if anyone else noticed anything."

Heaving a sigh, Simon squinted up into the driving rain.

"Well, since we're here, we might as well give you a hand, Frank," he decided, giving up on the thought of being warm and dry for a few hours at least. He gestured off down the beach to the left. "We'll take this end if you two can handle the other?"

Turner grinned gratefully.

"Much obliged, Captain. It's not a fit night for man nor beast out here."

Simon chuckled. "You got that right. What is it they say? Neither rain nor sleet nor dark of night...?"

"Uhhh... I think that's the post office, sir."

Simon shared a laugh with the two patrolmen, aware of Jim fidgeting impatiently nearby, then bid the men good luck. The Captain spared a final glance for the abandoned pickup, then fell in with Jim, heading down the beach towards the first beach house, intent on finding Blair.

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It wasn't a fight, really. Blair tackled the man, they fell, and for the next several minutes, the world dissolved into a frantic struggle to just stay alive. His only goal was to get himself and the young woman away from her attacker before the man could gather his wits and start putting the knife he still held to good use. As it was, as Blair scrambled backwards, fighting to an upright position, he felt a fiery slash of pain across his thigh. A quick glance showed him that blood was starting to spread on his pant leg, but he shoved the pain to the back of his mind. His leg still supported him, so the wound probably wasn't too serious.

Blair had dropped his poker/weapon at some point, but had somehow managed to regain it in his retreat from the initial fray. He held it up again, hoping it would do him some good. He needed all the help he could get.

The situation was serious. The young woman had retreated to one corner of the room and was huddled there, crying uncontrollably, barely seeming to be aware of the fight going on around her. Blair had gotten himself between her and her attacker, but the large man was between Blair and the stairs. With the hysterical woman to protect, it would be next to impossible to get past the man without another physical confrontation... one in which Blair was pretty sure he would be snapped like a toothpick.

The man was big - not as tall as Jim, but wider - with broad shoulders that weren't just muscular, but muscle-bound. If Blair hadn't caught him off-guard, he never would have had a chance. A chance that had now been lost.

"Who the hell are you?!?" the attacker demanded, infuriated by the intrusion into his carefully planned drama.

Blair thought fast, trying to find a way to salvage this.

"Just a neighbor," he answered firmly, holding the poker in a tight grip, hoping he looked like he could use it to good advantage if he had to. "I already called the cops before I came over here, so maybe you should just clear out, man."

Behind Blair, the young woman shifted position.

"Just get out of here, Pete," she sobbed. "I won't tell anybody if you just leave now."

Blair spared her a surprised glance that was more of a half-turn of his head in her direction, eyes still on "Pete". "You know this guy?"

She nodded. "He works at a club I go to sometimes."

And I bet I know at least two other girls who went to this club.

"Which is exactly why I'm going to have to kill you both, now." Pete smirked cruelly. The twisted expression reminded Blair suddenly of Tom Bowman. He didn't much care for the comparison.

"You can't do that," Blair said calmly, although his mind was whirling. He needed to stall for time. He had to give Jim a chance to get here. Which, of course, was stupid, since Jim didn't have the slightest idea Blair was here - let alone in danger. But it was the only thing he could think of right now. Fight or Flight was all well and good, but Blair had had more luck with "stall until Jim gets here"... except for the one notable exception of Tom Bowman, of course.

But let's not think about that, shall we?

Pete laughed at Blair's feeble attempt at changing his mind.

"You think you can stop me, hippie?" He looked the grad student up and down, then considered the glistening blood that colored the blade in his hands. He shook his head, grinning. "I don't think so."

Blair shook his head, too, playing a hunch and praying it didn't backfire.

"Sure, sure, you *could* kill us pretty easy," he agreed, ignoring the gasp of fear from behind him. "But I'm thinking it wouldn't be a good career move right now. You want to play with the big boys... Manson, Dahmer... you've gotta stick to your MO."

Blair did not miss the slight frown that slipped across Pete's face at that. All those hours of poker with stone-face Ellison had served him well.

"I'm right, aren't I?" he pressed. "You think you're gonna make a name for yourself by terrorizing 'daddy's little girl'. Maybe make a statement about... what? Upper class hypocrisy? Repression of the masses? Or is it simpler than that? Maybe you're just looking for a spot in the serial killer hall of fame. Is that it? I dunno, man... Pete the Ripper just doesn't have the right ring to it..."

"Shut up!" The big man advanced menacingly, and Blair made a show of holding the poker up in self-defense, keeping up the stream of words. They were having an effect, at least. It was a dangerous ploy, but he was definitely succeeding in keeping the man off balance.

"I'm just saying, this is make-or-break time, man. Third time's the charm and all that. You kill three girls in three nights, that makes you a name. You kill three girls and some shmo who stopped in to borrow a cup of sugar, you're just a plain old run-of-the-mill murderer."

Blair honestly couldn't believe it when he saw the spark of something like interest kindled in the other man's eyes. That *anyone* could be buying this crap was just incomprehensible. He forged ahead.

"I'm telling you. Now's not the time to get greedy. Let her be the one that got away." Blair gestured with his chin back over his shoulder. "Move on. Set up shop in a new town, get a little free publicity from 'one woman's harrowing tale, tonight at eleven'."

"You make good sense, hippie," Pete said softly, the knife hanging loose at his side. Blair felt a bit of the tension ease from between his shoulder blades. He couldn't believe it had actually worked! But Pete met his gaze with eyes that were flat and dead. "Just one question. How'd you know about the other two girls?"

"Oh, god," the young woman whispered from behind Blair, and he echoed the sentiment mentally, cursing himself for underestimating the man. There was nothing to do now but try to play out the bluff. He opened his mouth to say he'd seen the murders reported on the news, or some other likely excuse, but didn't have a chance.

"I guess this means you're a cop, huh?" Pete said calmly, not giving Blair a chance to deny it. "Which means your cop buddies are waiting outside, which means I might as well go out in a blaze of glory."

His voice was cold and dispassionate, but between one moment and the next, the disarming surrender in the man's posture was gone and the knife was coming back up, and he was charging at Blair. The young man blocked with the poker as best he could. He managed a decent swing that struck Pete's knife-arm and knocked the weapon out of the killer's hand, but lost his own in the process. Pete easily ripped the poker out of Blair's hands, and then he slammed into the smaller man, dropping both of them to the floor. Blair struggled helplessly against the heavier weight pinning him down as hands closed around his throat, cutting off his air.

Blair's vision started to go dark, and true panic set in. Where was Jim? Why wasn't he stopping this? His recall of the situation fled with his consciousness, and he truly expected Jim to step in at any time.

Finally, the hands around his throat relaxed, and he heard a roar of rage, the weight lifting from his chest. Blair lay still for a long time, gasping in precious oxygen, giving Jim time to finish the guy off before bothering to move any further. It wasn't until a choked-off scream cut across his dazed consciousness like a splash of cold water that he realized Jim hadn't saved him at all. The young woman had stirred to his defense, striking Pete from behind with the discarded poker.

But the blow had only further enraged the violent man, and she was in real trouble. Pete had her pinned against the railing of the loft in a vicious grip, his hands around her neck, as they'd been at Blair's only moments ago, and he was shouting at her incoherently, savagely slamming her into the railing. The young woman's eyes were wide with fear, but dimming rapidly, and she seemed to have no strength left to escape his hold.

Blair struggled to his feet, hardly noticing when his groping hand found the handle of the knife lying nearby. He took a few steps towards the railing.

"Let her go!" he shouted.

Pete looked up. His face twisted into a cruel mimicry of a smile and he gave the woman's throat one last squeeze before pulling his hands away from her, holding them up in mock surrender. It was too little too late, though. Without his hands holding her up, the young woman collapsed into a lifeless heap at her killer's feet. An incoherent rage turned Blair's vision red.

"YOU SONOFABITCH!"

It was surprisingly easy, this time, to know what to do. It was not a time for deliberating over decisions, but somehow the decision was already made. When the other man came after him, Blair waited until the last moment before revealing the knife. He felt the sickening lurch of steel cutting into flesh and bone, heard the snarl of pain from the man, felt the warm gush of blood over his hand, but closed his mind to all of it, concentrating on not losing the advantage.

At first, it didn't seem to do him much good. The killer was like a wild animal. The wound only made him wilder, causing him to attack Blair with a vengeance, fists lashing out and connecting a few too many times. Blair fell backwards under the onslaught, his grip on the knife bringing the weapon with him. As the metal broke free of the other man's stomach, a fresh gout of blood rushed out of the wound, and Pete stumbled backwards as well. He was too close to the stairs, though, and one of his faltering steps took him right over the edge. He flailed frantically at empty air, trying to regain his footing, but failed. Blair caught the look of fear that crossed his face, and then Pete was tumbling down the stairway in a succession of thuds and shouts, and then all was silent except for the storm still pounding down outside.

Numbness overtook Blair. He limped slowly to the edge of the loft and peered down at the still heap of flesh at the bottom, ensuring himself that it was over. He looked down at his own blood covered hands and dropped the knife with a shudder. A choking gasp drew his attention, and he turned immediately to the heap of flesh at the *top* of the stairs, relief washing over him. The young woman was stirring feebly, her hands clutching at her throat, her attempts at breathing hampered by the hysterical sobs shaking through her. Blair knelt beside her, futilely wiping his hands on his already bloody pant leg before reaching out and tentatively wrapping his arms around her.

"Easy," he murmured gently. "Just take it easy. You're safe now. Just breathe. In and out. Shhhhhh... just relax."

Once she realized he wasn't the killer, the young woman clung to him, tangling her hands in the front of his shirt, still shaking with silent sobs. He held her tight and promised to stay as long as she needed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was all over by the time Jim and Simon finally arrived at the A-Frame house halfway down the beach from the access road. The storm had stymied the Sentinel's abilities at every turn, but Jim had taken one glance through the sliding door and noticed immediately the broken glass and the body crumpled at the foot of the stairs. Fear coursed through him and he risked turning up his hearing in the lull between rolls of thunder to check the house thoroughly. He immediately caught the soft murmur of his partner's voice from inside. Blair sounded strained and exhausted, but he was assuring someone that they were safe, and sounding like he meant it. Jim aborted his original warning signal to Simon, and instead simply indicated to the Captain that there was something going on, before he stepped through the door. Once out of the rain, he could easily make out three heartbeats. One came from the form at the bottom of the stairs, one was Blair's, and one, presumably, belonged to whoever Blair was talking to.

"Hey, Chief," Jim called softly, glancing up and catching sight of the familiar form sitting with his back pressed to the bars of a railing overlooking the entrance. He saw Blair's back stiffen, heard both heartbeats jump into double- time. "It's Jim and Simon, Blair," he hurried to reassure them. Blair peered around and the tension went out of him at the sight of Jim standing in the doorway below.

"It's okay. It's my friends. They're cops. They'll take care of everything," he told someone above, speaking in a low, soothing tone.

Jim stepped further into the room, trailed by Simon, who was taking his cue from the detective, realizing that there was a reason for quiet.

"I think we're going to need paramedics here, sir," Jim told him softly. "Can you get this guy, while I check on Blair?"

The Captain nodded his agreement, already flipping out his cell phone to make the necessary calls, kneeling beside the wounded man. He cursed lightly when he took stock of the full extent of the man's injuries.

"Jim," he called out to the detective, who was halfway up the stairs. He then lowered his voice, seeming to remember Jim's abilities as an afterthought. "Knife wound in his gut. Could be the work of our slasher."

Jim threw a quick look over his shoulder, jaw clenched in concern, then hurried up the final steps to the upper floor. As he'd seen from below, Blair was sitting with his back to the railing boundary along the side of the loft area. He was holding a bruised and battered young woman, still murmuring to her softly. He glanced up when Jim arrived, his eyes unreadable, and the girl looked up at him anxiously, tears still running down her cheeks. She seemed to be all right for the time being, so Jim let himself focus on Blair.

The grad student was just as battered and bruised as his charge, but looked worse off from this angle. He had obviously come in from the rain, and was still soaking wet, dark hair hanging limply around his pale face, lips turning blue from cold, equally blue bruises starting to rise along one cheek, around one eye, and around his neck. The arms that held the young woman were stained with blood to the elbow, and he shook visibly with, Jim guessed, a combination of cold and shock. Jim knelt down beside him, backing off a little when the girl cringed away from his approach. Blair's arms tightened around her protectively.

"It's all right, miss," Jim said quietly. "I'm a police officer. We've got an ambulance on the way. You just hold tight."

She relaxed marginally, risking a panicky glance up from where her face was buried in Blair's chest to fix Jim with wide, terror-filled eyes. Her hands, clutching fistfuls of Blair's wet shirt, showed no signs of doing anything *but* holding tight. Jim met his partner's gaze.

"What happened here, Chief?"

Blair blinked once, as though surprised by the question, and looked around the shambles of the bedroom area.

"It was him. The - the one who killed those other girls." A fresh shudder ran through the young woman in his grip, and he glanced down, a flicker of a smile flitting across his face. "Hey, I don't think we've been introduced, by the way. I'm Blair."

The incongruous nicety earned him a tremulous smile, and she whispered in a bruised, shaking voice, "I'm Tammy."

"Nice to meet you, Tammy." His attention turned back to Jim. "I wanted to use the phone. I was gonna call and... oh, man, Jim, I'm so sorry for what I said before. I had no right to go off on you like that. I don't know..."

Jim shook his head gently and put a hand on Blair's shoulder, interrupting him.

"Don't worry about that for right now. We'll talk about it later."

"Right. Okay, well, the door was all smashed, and I saw him... he was going to..." Another shudder from Tammy, and he shrugged helplessly. "Anyway, we stopped him."

Blair's eyes flickered towards the stairs Jim had come up, then back to the Sentinel.

"Is he dead?" he asked in a flat, tired monotone. Jim shook his head, and Blair closed his eyes for a moment, head falling back to rest against the railing. "I thought he was probably dead."

"He's not. Simon's down there right now, patching him up 'til the paramedics get here."

"Actually, Simon's right here," the Captain said from behind them. Jim grimaced, realizing he'd been so caught up in his partner and his fragile charge that he'd missed the other man's arrival. "He'll live, Blair. How about you two? You okay?"

Blair smiled tiredly. "We'll live, too."

Simon knelt down, taking in their condition.

"Glad to hear it. How're you doing, Miss..."

"Tammy," Blair supplied. Simon nodded acknowledgment of that.

"Tammy, I'm Captain Banks with the Cascade PD. How about we get you a blanket and some hot tea? You look a little cold sitting there."

"Go ahead," Blair murmured gently, and the young woman allowed herself to be passed to Simon's care. The Captain helped her over to the bed, surprisingly gentle for all of his size. Jim helped Blair to his feet, noticing for the first time the cut in the young man's jeans and the surrounding blood.

"You're hurt," he said unnecessarily. Blair shrugged.

"It's just a scratch." He glanced down at the blood-covered pant leg, then back at Jim's skeptical frown. "Most of the blood is... his, not mine."

Blair pulled away from Jim's restraining hand on his shoulder and headed for the stairs, leaning heavily on the railing for support. Jim made a move to intercept him, but Blair shook his head.

"Please don't, Jim. I'll be okay. I'll just go downstairs and wait for the paramedics. Someone should wait for them."

Jim glanced over at Simon. The Captain met his gaze with an unreadable expression, not sure what call to make this time, leaving it up to Ellison. Jim moved to help Blair limp down the steps.

"How about we wait together?"

Blair shrugged, but accepted Jim's help gratefully. The stairs had turned out to be trickier than he'd expected, the leg obviously giving him more trouble than he'd let on. At the bottom, Blair stood for a long time looking down on the man who lay sprawled out where Simon had left him, a makeshift bandage of towels scavenged from the nearby bathroom doing it's best to stem the flow of blood from his side.

"His name's Pete, and he works at a club Tammy goes to," Blair supplied calmly. Jim made a mental note of the information. "I told him I knew about the other two girls. It tipped him off that I was a cop. Pretty stupid, I guess."

Jim swallowed against a sudden lump in his throat. Seeing Blair this detached, so calm and emotionless again, was overwhelmingly painful. He would make it right this time. He had to. But how?

"I'm sure you did fine, Chief," he offered lamely. To his surprise, Blair actually nodded in agreement, tearing his gaze away from the unconscious man to look up at Jim.

"Yeah, I must've. We're alive, right?"

The sentiment was so unexpected that Jim actually grinned in relief. "Right."

Blair nodded again, not returning the smile.

They stayed there together in silence for a while. Blair limped over to look out the broken door and Jim followed him. The storm finally seemed to have spent its fury. Rain was still falling in sheets, but it was now more of a half-hearted downpour - dreary, but not dangerous.

"Does this ever get any easier?" Blair barely whispered, knowing Jim would hear.

The Sentinel hesitated, unsure what answer Blair was hoping for, and wanting to say the right thing. Finally, he had to settle for the truth. "It can, if you let it."

"But...?"

"But I hope you won't. It's not something that should be easy."

Blair nodded his understanding of that, and they let silence descend again. After another several minutes, Jim heard the crunching of gravel as the approaching ambulance pulled off the access road and into the narrow lane that led to the beach houses.

He went out front to greet them, finding that the two patrolmen had arrived as well, and took charge of the situation, ushering the paramedics inside and filling Turner and Sydnovich in on what had happened. Ten minutes later, once "Pete" had been stabilized and taken on a stretcher out to the ambulance, Simon brought Tammy down to be checked out, helping her down the steps with a secure, fatherly arm around her shoulders.

Their arrival reminded Jim that his own partner needed medical attention, and he looked around for Blair. There was no sign of him on the ground floor. Jim grabbed Frank Turner's arm in passing, asking after the injured young man. Turner nodded.

"Yeah, he was here a few minutes ago. Think he headed down to the beach."

Jim thanked the other man and headed down to the beach himself, following a trail of disturbed sand from the door down to the water's edge. He paused at the base of the breakwall, catching sight of his partner sitting huddled in the sand, knees drawn up tight against his chest. Blair's head rested on his bent knees, and as Jim watched, his shoulders began to shake with wretched, heaving sobs.

There was no decision to be made. There was the option of leaving Blair to the privacy he'd obviously sought in coming out here in the rain and cold, but Jim was no more capable of granting him that privacy than he would have been capable of letting him bleed to death if he were injured. The Sentinel moved quickly down the beach and fell to his knees beside his friend, instinctively reaching out to wrap long arms around the huddled figure, his chin resting on top of Blair's bowed head, holding on tight, rocking gently with the trembling, sobbing young man, murmuring soothing words that were swallowed by the night before they'd gotten much farther than Blair's ears.

After a long while, the sobbing slowed, and Blair seemed to become aware of Jim's presence for the first time, tensing and pulling away from the Sentinel's embrace. Jim let him go, suddenly worried that he'd done the wrong thing, after all. Blair didn't pull away far, though, just giving himself a little space before settling back down in the sand. Neither of them paid much attention to the rain still coming down. They were both thoroughly drenched anyway.

"I'm sorry," Blair finally said after a few moments.

Jim shook his head. "Nothing to be sorry about, Chief. You didn't do anything wrong."

Blair echoed the head-shake, limp, wet hair slapping against his face. "Yes, I did," he insisted. "I... I promised myself, when this all started, that I wouldn't take it out on you, and today I did. I told you I wasn't shutting down, and I was. I told you I could handle it and I... couldn't. I've been lying to myself and you for months, and I'm sorry."

Jim considered that for a moment, and felt a small smile touch his lips. The kid had a point.

"Okay," he replied. "Apology accepted."

Blair gave him a suspicious glare.

"That's it?"

"You were expecting more?"

"Well, yeah. I figured I'd earned at least an 'I told you so' or two."

Jim chuckled. "Not tonight, Sandburg. Look me up in a few days and we'll talk. I make it a rule not to chastise my partner when he's going into shock."

Blair laughed out loud at that, wiping futilely at his eyes to clear away the tears, not quite realizing that half of the wetness on his face was due to the rain. "Is that why I feel so dizzy? Guess I forgot I got knocked around so much."

All joking was immediately set aside, and Jim shifted preparatory to standing back up. "You're dizzy? We should get you inside. You've probably got sand in that leg wound, too."

"I told you, it's just a scratch," Blair insisted. But he let Jim help him to his feet and accepted the older man's support as they started trudging back to the beach house. "Y'know, Jim, I was thinking. I bet I'm the only teacher at Rainier outside the college of medicine who can tell the difference between a flesh wound and the real thing. Isn't that funny, man?"

Jim clenched his teeth, not thinking it was funny in the least, but humored the drifting young man. "Yeah, that's pretty funny, Chief."

Blair continued to babble aimlessly as they walked back to the house, sagging more and more into Jim's supporting grip, the events of the day finally catching up with him. At one point, Jim thought he'd passed out for good, but as they crossed the last few yards to the door, Blair got his feet back under him and protested the forward movement. Jim heeded the unspoken request and stopped. Looking down, he found the young man suddenly lucid again, his eyes dark and serious in the dim light.

"I did what I had to do, Jim," he stated firmly, although the Sentinel didn't miss the hint of a question mark in the statement. "There wasn't anything else I could've done."

It was a reference to both tonight and Bowman's shooting. Jim swallowed a lump in his throat and nodded his agreement. "There wasn't anything else you could've done, Blair. You did the right thing."

A smile spread across Blair's face and into his eyes. A gentle, beatific, Sandburg smile.

"It'll be all right now," he said simply, and relaxed against Jim's support again. The Sentinel tightened his hold, making it more of an embrace for just a moment, resting his cheek on the top of Blair's head.

"Yeah, Chief," he murmured. "It'll be all right. Now."

--END--

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