Work Text:
Blair was on the balcony when Jim came home in the wee hours of the morning, just as the moon and stars were slowly starting to dissipate into a chilly, gray, pre-dawn light. The Sentinel paused inside the doorway, taking in the lowered temperature in the apartment, the open balcony window, the sleep-tousled roommate curled up in a thick blanket and gazing moodily out across the bay.
"Hey, Chief." Jim called a greeting as he shrugged out of his coat, then let the scent of freshly brewed coffee lure him into the kitchen.
"Hey," Blair returned, his voice raw and soft, trusting Jim to hear him. He stood and padded quietly inside on thickly slippered feet, dropping the comfortor on the couch before joining Jim in the kitchen and holding out his own empty mug for a refill. The Sentinel eyed him consideringly. Without the blanket, the young man was already shivering, and the proffered mug shook visibly. Fighting back a frown, Jim took the mug, refilled it, and held it back out, but didn't let go when Blair tried to retrieve it.
"Two hands for beginners," he insisted gently. Blair rolled his eyes, but accepted the suggestion, wrapping both hands around the mug to keep it from spilling and letting the heat help steady his shakes. Jim watched him maneuver to the table and sit down, not drinking yet, just holding his face in the rising steam from the mug, hair falling forward.
It's taking too long.
Heavy concern settled even deeper in Jim's chest at the thought. It had been three weeks, now, and Blair still couldn't seem to get warm. Three weeks since he had...
Jim's thoughts derailed abruptly to memories too painfully sharp to bear: a cheerful fountain splashing in a bright green morning, the scent of late-spring flowers, fistfuls of slick, wet windbreaker, cold, clammy skin under his fingertips, silence where there should have been a strong, healthy heartbeat...
Don't go there, Ellison.
Pushing away the unwelcome recall, Jim settled down across from his roommate.
"You're up early," he observed. Blair nodded.
"Too tired to sleep." A quick upturn at the corners of his mouth betrayed his own amusement at the paradoxical statement, but he didn't bother to pursue it. "And you're up late. How did it go?"
"Ah... Not so great. Chambers never showed up. Rafe might have a bead on that Sinclair character, though. He'll know more later this morning."
Blair nodded again, still gazing pensively into the depths of his coffee.
"We'll find her, Chief."
"I know."
The words carried a soft finality that said that he really *knew*, and to that, there was very little that Jim could reply.
Finding Alex Barnes was proving to be a tedious case of old-fashioned, pound-the-pavement detective work. The female sentinel had disappeared from Cascade, slipping away as easily as she'd arrived. While the Feds hunted her across the country for the stolen nerve gas, it was left to the Cascade PD to learn what they could of her time in the city, hopefully turning up clues as to where she had gone. Anyone even remotely connected to Alex Barnes or Alisha Bannister was found, investigated, and questionned thoroughly.
So far, they had determined that there had been an accomplice to Alex's crimes, a Carl Sinclair. The man was proving to be almost as difficult to pin down as Barnes, but the investigation finally seemed to be falling into the familiar spiral of repeated dates and names and locations that would eventually lead them to one or the other. It was only a matter of time, now.
And when they found them, Jim would get to Alex before the FBI had a chance, and he would defeat her, Sentinel to Sentinel. No code of ethics, no "right to remain silent," just the two of them in an age-old contest of survival of the fittest. And Jim knew he would win. Knew it with the same quiet resolve he heard in Blair's voice when the young man spoke of knowing they would find her. It was knowledge gained on that bright summer morning where so much was lost and rewon.
Blair had apparently followed some of the Sentinel's train of thought, because his eyes came up to meet Jim's with something like a challenge glimmering in them.
"And then what?" He asked, calling the hand, forcing Jim to speak the words aloud.
"We end it, one way or another."
Another nod. He hadn't expected anything different. There was a deep, penetrating sadness in his eyes, though, as he raised the mug to sip tentatively at the still-steaming liquid.
"Don't go soft on me, here, Sandburg," Jim scolded him gently. "If we're going to do this... Sentinel thing..."
Jim was still uncomfortable with that - the Sentinel thing as a *we* sort of endeavour. He'd always had the luxury before of knowing that this was his problem, his responsibility. Blair might have been coaching from the sidelines, but Jim had always been able to convince himself that the grad student could get out of it if he ever needed to. But suddenly, all of that had changed. Cosmic forces or Peruvian gods, or whatever the hell was running this show, had just dumped half of Jim's own burden into Sandburg's all-too-willing hands.
Hands that right now couldn't even hold a cup of coffee without spilling.
"...If we're going to do it, I need to know that you'll trust my instincts on this."
Blair watched him over the rim of the mug for a few moments. That was new - the occasional measured pauses, as if he were already feeling the weight of new responsibility, a need to make his words count.
"I trust you, Jim," he said finally, simply. "It's just sad. Such a waste, you know? If she'd just..."
"But she didn't," Jim interrupted. There wasn't room in any of this for sympathy or compassion. "She's a thief, a terrorist, and a cold-blooded murderer." (Cold, clammy skin under his fingertips. Never again.) "She gave up her right to a second chance."
One of Blair's hands came up in easy surrender. "No argument, there. I am definitely not condoning second chances. Once was enough for *this* lifetime."
And, with that, the topic was closed. Jim declined to take up the thread of conversation, not liking where it was headed, and Blair let it go. Neither of them was quite comfortable discussing what had happened yet. They danced around it, by mutual consent, neither ready to stir up the emotions and events of the time before Alex had turned their lives upside down. Apologies had been exchanged and understandings reached during the long hours in the hospital, and then it had dropped, not between them, but off to the side where it couldn't do too much harm. If Jim had his way, that day would soon join the hordes of other memories walled off deep within his subconscious, conveniently forgotten in the fogs of time. Blair was here. Jim was here. That was all that mattered.
Coffee was completed in comfortable silence, then Blair returned to the couch, burrowing into the cocoon of his earlier blanket and switching on the tv to flip idly through early-morning talk shows and cartoons. Jim headed upstairs, already unbuttoning his shirt as he went, eager to get out of clothes he'd been wearing for way too many hours. Sandburg had the right idea. A morning spent napping in front of the idiot-box might be just the thing. A shower would be nice, first, though.
"So, are you going back in today?" Blair asked from downstairs, still not really raising his voice.
Jim shrugged to himself, then responded aloud. "Later, probably... errrr, maybe. Simon did say I should take a break."
A soft snort came from below. "And...?"
"He made it an order."
"Oh."
After a few more moments:
"Hey, Jim. If you do go in, I was thinking I'd come with you."
That got the Sentinel's attention. He paused in the act of pulling off his t-shirt, and leaned over the railing to look down to the living area. Blair had rolled onto his back so that he could look back up at Jim, his expression calm and serious, anticipating an objection. They held each others' gazes for a long moment, then Jim nodded and backed away from the edge, out of Blair's line of sight.
"If you feel up to it, Chief. Sounds good."
With a sigh, Jim sat down heavily onto his bed, rubbing his hands over his face in frustration. No, this *we* thing wasn't going to be easy at all. Trusting Blair with his Sentinel senses, he could do. Trusting Blair with his life, not a problem. Trusting Blair with Blair... probably the hardest thing he would ever have to do. But the young man had the right to be involved in this case, and if he felt he was ready, Jim would have to accept that. Whether he wanted to or not.
Blair himself seemed oblivious to Ellison's concerns. By the time the Sentinel rejoined him downstairs, he'd already turned back to the TV, eyes half-closed and a drowsy little smile on his face. Jim did a double-take as he caught sight of the television. What *was* Sandburg watching? A collection of odd, pudgy, brightly colored, alien-looking things were... dancing, for lack of a better word... around the screen to a cheerful, boppy music.
"OK, I'll bite," Jim laughed. "What the heck is that?"
Blair chuckled, too. "Teletubbies. They've got it all *over* Barney, man." He snuggled deeper into the covers with a cheerful sigh. "Very soothing in an existential, zen sort of way."
Still laughing, Jim continued to the bathroom. Maybe he would conveniently decide not to go in today, after all. He really could use a break, and it would give Blair at least one more day of rest. Yeah, the more he thought about it, the nicer it sounded. An Alex-free day at 852 Prospect.
The decision drained the last of the night's tension and Jim stepped into the shower feeling freeer and more relaxed than he had in months. He was allowed to enjoy the sensation for all of five minutes.
Jim had just settled self-indulgently into the slightly-too-hot spray of the shower when a strangled "Oh my God" cut through the closed door and running water. Panic turned the steaming water to ice on Jim's skin in a heartbeat, and in the space of two more he had grabbed a towel and stumbled out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam.
"Sandburg! Blair?!?"
The young man was sitting up, staring in horrified shock at the television he'd been watching so peacefully minutes before.
"I'm okay, Jim."
"God, Chief, don't do that to me. What's wrong?"
But even as he asked the question, Jim's attention was drawn to the television screen that held Blair transfixed. The Teletubbies had disappeared, and in their place was a distraught-looking reporter. With some effort, Jim pulled his hearing away from his roommate's vitals and focused in on the words coming from the reporter.
"...no word yet on an exact numbers, but our experts agree that we can expect to see a death toll in the thousands from the initial blast and contamination, with countless others becoming affected as the gas disperses. Evacuation efforts are getting underway as quickly as possible. Again, details are sketchy at this time, but an apparent terrorist attack has hit downtown Mexico City, contaminating large portions of the city with an unknown toxic agent. All initial reports indicate that this may well be the worst terrorist event in history. We will be staying with the story until..."
The screen went dark, cutting off the reporter's words abruptly. Blair tossed the remote down on the couch next to him, but didn't take his gaze from the dark screen. Jim sat down beside him on suddenly unsteady legs, heedless of the water dripping off of him, a memory of the Rainier tech's description of the VX gas echoing in his head. One cannister held enough to decimate Cascade five times over. They sat together in numb silence until the phone rang. Blair picked it up from the end table.
"Hello?... Yeah, Simon, we saw... yeah... yeah... What? Where?... Oh, man, that sucks. OK, we'll be there... Yeah, I'm okay... thanks."
The phone joined the remote on the couch between them.
"The Feds will be at the station by 7:00 to sort this out," Blair murmured. Jim nodded. "And they found Sinclair. He's dead."
Another nod.
"Yeah, I heard."
"Oh, yeah, right."
Neither of them moved. Jim was overwhelmed with a crippling combination of guilt, helplessness, and white-hot rage that he hadn't felt since those first few terrifying days in the hospital, waiting for Blair to recover. Alex had done this. He had let her get away, and she had used her freedom to shatter countless other innocent lives. Why hadn't he stopped her when he had a chance? How had he let her slip through his fingers?
Finally, after several long minutes, Blair stirred and stood, heading toward his bedroom. He paused at the door.
"You gonna finish up that shower, Jim? Or should I turn off the water?"
His Guide's voice pulled Jim back to himself, allowing him to focus on the present. And right now, he had to finish his shower and get to the station as soon as possible. There were still procedures to be followed. He was suddenly aware again of the cold air on his drying skin.
"Yeah, I'm coming, Chief. Thanks."
Blair had not gone into his room yet by the time Jim reached the hallway. They both seemed to be moving in small fits and starts, each decision requiring deliberation. Jim rested a hand on Blair's shoulder.
"You really okay?"
A small, humorless smile at that. "No, but I'm as okay as I'm gonna get until this is over." Their eyes met. Blair's were a deep gray in the dim light, somber and unnervingly wise. "She's still down there, Jim."
The Sentinel inclined his head slightly, acknowledging the fact of that. He felt it, too... an utter surety that his prey had been found. All that was left was for him to close in and make the kill.
"It's time to end it," he said softly.
At the words, something shifted between them... around them. A single, final tremor shivered through Blair's frame and resonated up Jim's arm from the hand still resting on the younger man's shoulder. The Sentinel tightened his grip instinctively and watched as the last vestiges of doubt disappeared from Blair's eyes, replaced with an iron-willed resolve. Under that steady gaze, Jim's own earlier concerns seemed suddenly ludicrous - like night terrors rendered impotent by the light of day.
"It's time for *us* to end it," he repeated, wanting to vocalize the affirmation.
Blair nodded in grim agreement.
"One way or another."
--END--
Thanks for reading!