New Arrivals
Author-Amy
Titles

The Hanged Man
by Amy

Summary: Jim goes one-on-one with some bad dreams and the balcony door. Contains more smarm than I thought myself capable of. Rated PG-13 for language and some gratuitious violence.

Spoilers: Pretty much the usual suspects plus one: Cypher, Blind Man's Bluff, Warriors, Sentinel Too, and by extension, Sentinel Two Part 2, and Murder 101.

Disclaimer: Pet Fly et al owns all characters herein. I'm not making any money here, just dabbling in a little therapeutic escapism.

Author's Notes: I had no intention of posting this, but Lorri, Beth Manz and Shiloh encouraged me. Thanks guys... I think. It's not properly a story, more of a fragment; also, blame me for any mistakes or typos or whatnot. The title refers to the Tarot, of which I am marginally familiar; but, I was reading up on interpretations of the Major Arcana, and when the card fits... Anyhow, the quote comes from Joan Bunning's tarot website page The Fool's Journey.

Last Note: Readers, please use the '//' to indicate the beginning and end of a piece of dream. Kinda awkward, maybe, but unfortunately italics don't cut n' paste into e-mail.

//The heavy jungle air left a glistening mist on his skin. The dreaming Sentinel saw a shadow moving through the underbrush, and without thinking he took aim. The arrow flew; a keening whine snapped through the air as the wolf fell. And the Sentinel could not figure out what had just happened.

Then -- the jungle shrivled away. In its place, the burbling and splashing of running water and the soft call of a bird nearby calmed the Sentinel's disjointed thoughts. His eyes took in a clear sky which mirrored their own pale blue; he could taste the sweetness of the pleasant breeze. It was all very pastoral, a nearly perfect day. Unfortunately the odors assaulting his nose ruined it, and set his heart pounding for indefinable reasons: the scent of chlorine, overlaying the distinct muskiness of Alex Barnes.

He forced himself to look down, to acknowledge the corpse at his feet.//

As he did, his conscious mind, not quite paralyzed by the grim workings of his dreaming self, realized that he'd never had this particular nightmare before. This surprised him. After all, his best friend had died. His partner had been murdered while the Sentinel was off fumbling around in the wake of a hyperactive sense of territoriality. His Guide had been floating face-down in a fountain, for god's sake; Blair Sandburg had lain unmoving, completely silent at his feet while medics shrugged sadly about his fate. And yet, he'd never had this nightmare until now.

The 'why' of it would have to wait, because...

//the lifeless, bloated image of his friend wrapped despair like barbs around his throat. His blood began to rush through his veins and around his heart like whistling, icy wind as he struggled to look away. He couldn't look away though, just as he hadn't been able to in reality. Instead, the scene shifted, broke apart, and carried him off, as it had before when his shocked spirit fled the sight of Blair's blue-white complexion and slack face and sought refuge in the dreamworld jungle.

Incacha: "What do you fear?"

Jim didn't like that question. He stood frozen beneath the canopy of vine-slung trees and realized with a sinking feeling that he'd have to answer anyway. Horrific 'almosts' flashed up from the bleak places in his memory, a clip-show of near death and its intimate relationship with Blair Sandburg. Jim closed his mind's eye in the hope that it was enough that Incacha saw the answer, enough that the Sentinel gave the answer a passing thought.

But when he came back to himself, listing weak-kneed beside the fountain, Blair was still dead.//

Jim Ellison sucked in a ragged breath, a backwards scream that lodged itself in his chest as he crashed into wakefulness. He coughed and groaned, burying his face in his pillow; his heart still raced and he could feel his arms shaking with unspent adrenaline as he wrapped them around the pillow and rolled onto his back. God, a nightmare. How many months had it been, that he'd managed to avoid revisiting that scene both in dreams and in reality? Christ. Why the hell does it all come back now?

His eyelashes were mortared together, and he had to call up a ridiculous amount of willpower to pry just one of them open. Finally he could glance at the clock; what he saw pissed him off. 11:30. He'd only been asleep for an hour.

He let his eye fall shut again, and shoved his pillow back under his head. He was tired enough that a few deep breaths started him well on the way to relaxing, and his mind began to wander. Or rather, his senses began to wander. Mmmm, coffee beans. No, dammit, ignore the coffee scent; with his luck, he'd get a caffeine high just from the smell of it. What else... A rustle of bedcovers, a soft breath, the rhythmic beat of a heart. Sandburg was sleeping, soundly, downstairs. The slow, resting heartbeat was like the ticking of a clock -- steady, monotonous, soothing. Just what the detective needed.

As he began to drift back into sleep, Jim sent a drowsy thanks to no one in particular that his loftmate gave up the late night study sessions a while back. The absence of mumbling, pen scratching, and keyboard tapping was heaven for the Sentinel on nights like these. One more deep breath, and that heartbeat ebbing away from the edges of his mind...

//Water plinked against dock pylons and lapped at the shore. Ellison glided his raft through the darkness and up to the rocky beach with practiced ease, slipping out and mooring it quickly as he checked in with Simon. No sign of Lash or Sandburg at the duck pond -- this was a good thing. Now to check the warehouses.

Gun ready, he padded rapidly across the pavement and into the concealing shadows of crates and buildings. He took a breath as he paused, and, focusing on the dark, lonely building, let his hearing fall open. The night sounds spiralled to a clamoring pitch, and he clamped down in frustration, struggling to focus his unschooled sense on only sounds that meant something. Like voices...

Simon's voice blasted through the mic in his ear and he yanked it out with a stifled curse. He trained his ringing ears on the warehouse again, listened, listened... nothing. In the background he heard Simon repeating his name, and the desperation in his captain's voice crept steadily to the forefront of Jim's perception. His fingertips were cold as he whispered a questioning reply; and the cold skittered up his arms, through his lungs and into the pit of his stomach when Simon answered:

"Jim, we just got the call. A man claiming to be Blair Sandburg reported an intruder at your apartment about ten minutes ago."

Shit. Oh, shit.//

Jim's eyes might have flicked open, might have stared upward through the skylights, as his breathing quickened and his body lay rigid. The moon and stars went unnoticed, though, as Sentinel sight inverted, fell inward, and saw...

//the bathroom door propped open partway. He gave it a push, his eyes adjusting to the darkness, and to the shadow that reclined in the still waters of the tub. The yellow bow at the neck glowed like the moon.

The Sentinel blinked as Simon turned on the light. He didn't hear the captain's muttered blasphemy, focused as he was on seeing through the dampness wetting his light-stung eyes. God, it looked like Billy Bright -- long, wavy hair limp and damp against the head, the ends fanning softly where they touched the water, lips parted in silent shock. It wasn't Billy Bright, though. Dead blue eyes stared at nothing but called out that unspoken last word: 'Wait' -- he wasn't ready yet, he wasn't ready to die --

"I let him slip through my fingers too many times --"//

Jim's legs strained, trying to kick; his right hand plucked unconsciously at his left arm, trapped in the sheet which his tossing and turning had wound snugly around his body. He couldn't move; his eyes were tight shut in sleep; he was trapped within himself, deaf, dumb and blind. No, not deaf --

//He staggered, clutching Simon's coat as they thundered toward the door of the police station parking garage. He didn't even try to see through the golden, drug-induced cloud which veiled his eyes. Instead, he reached out to grasp at the sounds around him.

Three sounds in one stole Jim's breath: two gunshots from two different places and the muffled clank of Simon yanking open the door to the garage. Then two sounds: the thump of a weight against the hood of a car and Simon shouting,

"No! No, goddammit, what the hell happened!"

Simon's coat was wrenched from his grip and Jim stood alone, helplessly disconcerted by the milling of the crowd and the yelling.

"He shot my partner, sir, I had to return fire --"

"I'm okay, Mikey, my vest caught the bullet --"

"Where's the damn ambulance --"

The Sentinel fought the urge to howl over the noise, and tuned it all out instead. He listened to the strange indecipherable sounds that were left over. A clatter -- gun on pavement?... A soft sssshhhh -- a fabric sound -- and the low squeal of sweaty flesh sliding... The ka-thump of a body hitting the ground, punctuated by the involuntary exhalation of a breath. The sounds were like anasthesia, working numbness into his brain.

"Simon?" Jim called. "Simon?" He started to move forward, swinging his hands around him to feel his way. His shin connected with a fender, and he slid past it. He waded through the shuffling bodies and the empty, sun-like haze, heading toward the source of a certain bundle of odors.

Herbal shampoo, dust from old clay and old paper, pizza sauce, gun powder, and coppery blood.

"Simon?" Had he really said that? It sounded strange. The voice was too hollow, like the chasm splitting apart his breast; the voice was filled with the hysteria of an impending scream. Jim shut his mouth. Anger swept over him, co-mingling with terror -- I CAN'T SEE A GODDAMN THING SOMEBODY TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON --

"Jim, wait, stay back, there's nothing you can do for him now."

"No, Simon," he refused; he could hardly speak through his clenched teeth. "No, just let me talk to him!"//

The Sentinel snarled, lurching out of dream and into vertigo. His forehead brushed the leg of his bedside table just before he hit the floor with a yelp. He barely let himself come fully awake before he began thrashing against the cloying bedclothes, spitting invectives as the nightmare dropped away and left behind rampaging adrenaline.

Finally the sheet fell open, and Jim's bare legs lashed out at cool, open air. He fell back, laying still, panting and angry, a compulsive need to find the clock distracting him from the memory of his dreams. He swung his arm up, hooking it on the edge of the bed, and pulled himself up. A bit of vigorous rubbing worked the gritty feeling from his eyes, and he glowered at the clock. 2:13 a.m. Perfect, just perfect. No really, who needs sleep?

He gazed dully around his room, at the shelves and tables and the railing all illuminated by moonlight and Sentinel sight. Maybe some more deep breathing would help. Then his stomach growled, and his shoulders slumped. Too late now; he'd never get back to sleep until he ate something. He cocked his head and double-checked the status of his roommate who was, handily enough, still sleeping. Jim Ellison awoken in the middle of the night was like a beast come out of hibernation too soon -- ravenous and dangerous to be around.

He jogged quietly down the stairs and past the living room, crossing over to the kitchen. A quick search netted a cold grilled chicken leg and some leftover mashed potatos. He dumped it all on a plate, grabbed a fork and headed back to the living room.

He plopped down on the couch, stretching out with the plate balanced on his stomach. He grinned as he dug into the potatos; hopefully Sandburg wouldn't wake up and see this, considering how much the Sentinel ragged on the kid about not eating in the living room.

A shudder blindsided him; he nearly dropped the fork as the nightmares' residual horror welled up.

//What do you fear?//

No way, no thank you. He was not going to go there. He leaned over and grabbed the TV remote from the coffee table and flicked on the television. Ghostly sensations of helplessness made it difficult to see the buttons on the remote. How stupid was that -- he was a Sentinel for Chrissake, he should be able to see the damn remote right in front of his face. He found the 'channel' button and hammered at it. He was not going to let the dreams get to him. He'd dealt with nightmares before, after the botched mission in Peru, and he was not afraid of them. He glared at the blurry buttons on the remote and gouged away until ESPN came on.

Baseball news, Mariners in fact -- Mariners lose to the Angels. Big surprise. National League -- well what do you know, the St. Louis Cardinals are kicking butt in the NL Central. That really was a surprise. Maybe they managed to scrounge up some pitching this year. A commercial -- baseball star advertises high-tech sports video games. Jim groaned and let his head fall back on the arm of the couch, refusing to watch. What was it with that crap? When he was a kid there were better things to do with his time than waste brain cells on -- well, okay, so video games weren't exactly around when he was a kid, but still. He yawned, a huge and lung-filling yawn. Why not actually play the sport, get out and get some exercise, hell beat up on the neighborhood computer geek...

//He had to go with Sandburg on this one: punching out Brad Ventriss would be incredibly satisfying, if only to wipe the smirk off the little creep's face. Jim shifted the bag of groceries in his arm, moving his head out of the way as the end of the loaf of French bread threatened to whack his nose on its way to the other side of the bag.

Maybe Blair was right, maybe Ventriss was involved in more than just cultivating the spoiled rich brat attitude. Unfortunately, they didn't have enough to arrest him for anything. Frankly, considering that the twerp's father carried a lot of weight in Cascade, Ellison really didn't see that it was worth risking the back-lash by pursuing the matter, regardless of Blair's so-called instincts and some inconsequential problems Sandburg was having with the kid at the university. If the brat was guilty of something, the evidence would come to the surface eventually.

He dodged a stroller on the sidewalk and thought about dinner. Rigatoni Roma -- rich, creamy white sauce, peas, diced ham, sauteed mushrooms... His mouth watered just thinking about it. He wondered if an enhanced sense of taste made for more intense food cravings; at the moment he was willing to bet on it.

As he approached the alley next to the building which housed the loft, his culinary fantasies were interrupted by the strangest sound. He paused, turning his head to listen. There it was again, a whistling sound followed by a thick, wet 'crunch.' His stomach turned and began a steady crawl up to his throat, because he knew that sound. The groceries hit the pavement as he broke into a run down the alley. He caught a glimpse of two men standing outside the entrance to the underground garage, next to an idling, black Mercedes -- no plates -- and he hollered,

"Cascade PD! Hold it right there!" Hell, he didn't even know if they were doing anything wrong, and he thought for a split second that he could be about to make a fool out of himself. Then a startled shout from one of the men sent the two guys diving into the car; a third man bolted out of the garage, threw aside a long slender object that clattered wildly against the chain-link fence, and scrambled into the car after them. The Mercedes screeched as the tires spun and it shot past Jim, a black blur streaking into the street.

Jim kept running, his pounding pace so headlong that he almost slipped on the gritty pavement when he skidded to a stop at the garage entrance. A baseball bat, caked with blood and bits of hair and gore, lay in the weeds by the fence. The residue of its flight through the air: a trail of blood droplets on the pavement. And then the body.

"Ah, Christ."

Bile hit the roof of his mouth as the sight and tingly odor of the fresh corpse overtook him. Frantically, he tried to dial down his senses, but it was no use; the sight was as bad as anything else, and closing his eyes was the only real way to avoid seeing it. But it was a crime scene, after all. He had to at least look at the mess. So he grimaced and looked.

The body was curled up, one arm tucked underneath, the other crumpled outward across the ground. The outstretched hand was mashed and bruised, and the forearm bent gruesomely; the poor guy had obviously tried to use his arm to protect his head. It hadn't worked.

The head... Well, heads weren't supposed to look like that. They just weren't. For example, they were supposed to be basically round. Jim closed his eyes then and fumbled for his cell-phone. It was a toss-up -- call the coroner first, or the station? He speed-dialed the station. As the phone rang, he went over remembered details behind his eyelids, selectively editing out the image of the mangled head. Blue jeans; belt; grey, white and black plaid flannel shirt; a short, curly pony tail, neatly, albeit bloodily, bunched at the collar of the shirt.

Then, without opening his eyes, the Sentinel realized with a surge of hot fear that this was a nightmare, and in light of the theme of his nightmares lately, he knew without a doubt to whom that battered corpse belonged.//

Plate and fork clattered to the floor, the chicken leg bobbling under the coffee table and the mashed potatos imbedding themselves in the rug. Jim froze, half up on his elbows on the couch, chin tucked to his chest, seething in wide awake fury. He had just about had it with being ambushed by his psyche, dammit. Ordering his pounding heart to get itself under control, he did a quick check on Sandburg; thank god, the noise hadn't awakened him.

He took a fast deep breath and then exhaled slowly. A glance through the balcony doors showed a pink tinge to the dark grey sky. It was morning, probably about 5:30; his alarm would be going off any time, so he might as well stay up. He tugged himself up, dropping his feet to the floor, and sighed. Fine. He felt like he hadn't slept in a week, but what the hell, at least this way his subconscious couldn't take cheap shots at him for at least another sixteen hours.

The muscles in his neck and shoulders, sore from sleeping with his neck crooked awkwardly against the arm of the couch, twinged as he bent forward. He picked up the chicken leg and the plate, and used the fork to scrape as much of the potatos off the floor as possible. The food looked revolting after that last dream, which irritated the Sentinel to no end. Why was he letting a bunch of B-movie rewrites of incidents from his past -- incidents which had turned out just fine, thank you very much -- get to him like this? Maybe it was something he ate, or maybe he'd been using his senses too much lately. Maybe he'd come into contact with some stray chemical that was affecting his Sentinel physiology badly. Maybe he'd ask Blair when the kid woke up.

No. He slid the plate onto the coffee table, unconsciously shaking his head in agreement with himself. No, he wouldn't mention this to Sandburg. Dammit, it had been nearly four years since the kid had started helping him with this Sentinel stuff, he should have it figured out by now. And anyway, they were just dreams.

He dug the remote out of the couch cushions, switched off the tv, and pushed himself to his feet. He stumbled a little as he crossed to the balcony doors; fatigue made the blood rush briefly out of his head, and his legs felt like stiff, thick tree trunks. He stopped near the glass doors, wrapped his arms across his bare chest and gripped his biceps with his hands.

The pink sunrise had begun to spread, a hint of fiery orange bleeding into the rosy horizon. Jim closed his eyes and rolled his head, stretching the kinks out of his neck. When he opened his eyes again, the pink and orange hues funnelled upward like a rapidly towering cloud. The hair on the detective's arms stood up and his mouth dropped open in bewilderment; then the tower coalesced and he recognized the image in the glass. Incacha.

//What do you fear?//

Jim felt his face flush with anger, and had he paid attention to his own reflection in the glass, he would have seen his lips draw back in a silent snarl.

No. He was not going to do this.

//What do you fear?//

No. "Leave me alone," he growled.

The vision persisted. Jim felt the faint tingling across his skin, but he wouldn't let the question be asked again.

"No!" he snapped. "I won't play this game. I don't know what you want from me, but if you're trying to scare me, it won't work." Incacha remained, impassive, the sunrise billowing up behind him like the glow from quickening coals.

"Go away." He knew his eyes were glittering blue fire and his face was stone cold with hostility.

The phantom shaman was not impressed.

//What do you fear?//

Jim's arms dropped to his sides, fists clenched, as he hissed, "No. I'll tell you what I don't fear, Incacha. I don't fear 'what ifs.' If I've learned one thing in this life it's that what's done is done, you don't spend time worrying about what could have been. The past will tear you apart if you let it, and I for one do not let it."

To his surprise, Incacha began to fade. Then the sun peeked over the horizon and pierced his eyes and...

//...he was back at the fountain. Blair lay dead on the grass; Simon, Rafe, Megan, the EMTs, all frozen in a grief-stricken tableau; and Incacha's prodding voice --

What do you fear?//

"You're not listening to me!" the Sentinel roared, and pulled back, swinging his fist in a powerful roundhouse at the image in the glass.

When the capillaries burst and blackened his knuckles and the joints stiffened with pain, he felt relief. When the glass shattered and dragged knife-like fingers across the skin of his forearm, he exulted. When he staggered back, ears ringing from the crash of the breaking glass, blood welling up and dripping down his arm, he hurt like hell.

//The Sentinel's arrow burrowed into the wolf's body, and the animal collapsed with a sharp whimper.//

The room spun and Jim sat down hard on the floor. His fist was still clenched, already purple and swelling. The sight of the blood pooling beside him left him vaguely nauseated. He heard a shout, then a herd of buffalo barrelled across the loft toward him, and an ice-cold hand pressed against his back.

//He knelt behind himself, looked over his own shoulder, saw himself staring blankly into his roommate's worried face, but that was as much attention as he paid to himself. The rest of his focus fell on Blair.

In the half-light of dawn, Blair's rumpled white t-shirt glimmered with the soft flourescence of sunrise. On his face -- smooth and young in the warm morning light -- sleepy confusion warred with mounting worry at the sight of the detective sprawled on the floor, blood pouring from his arm, wrapped deep in an apparent zone-out.

Jim heard Blair's voice, gentle and steady, asking what happened, asking if Jim could hear him. Yes, the Sentinel heard his Guide, but he didn't hear the words, he heard the voice. More than that, he heard the tiredness of that voice, a weariness that came from somewhere beyond interrupted sleep, that sprung from a lethargy within the soul.

The Sentinel looked past the Jim seated on the floor and gazed into his Guide's solemn eyes. He'd always seen an agelessness there, brightened by a vibrant energy. The agelessness remained. But now the auburn shades of sunlight cast his Guide's blue eyes in a colorless shadow, and magnified the dullness of a terrible, slow death. The Sentinel saw this, and became afraid, because this time it wasn't a dream.//

"Don't move, Jim, just sit tight. I'm going to call an ambulance."

Jim's hand lashed out before he realized what he was doing, and he caught Sandburg's arm in a bloody, vise-like grip.

"Wait."

His partner stared at him, crouched on the floor; studied the detective's face with uncertainty. Then he began to pry at the fingers latched onto him, saying soothingly,

"I'm not going far, don't worry. I'm just going to go get the phone, and I'll be right back --"

"No, wait!" Jim choked. God, what did it take? It took the psychic equivelant of a Mack truck just to open his eyes to what should have been perfectly obvious to him; what the hell would it take to force the words past the anguish clogging his throat? "Wait, Blair."

Carefully, as a shrink to a lunatic: "What is it, Jim?"

He couldn't answer. He could only drop his eyes to where his clutching hand smeared crimson on his friend's arm. Hopefully, when Blair got tired of this silence, that grip would be enough to keep him there. How had Incacha done it? He had passed something on to the kid, Shaman to Shaman, through his own blood-wet hand, just through touch it seemed... maybe if he concentrated he could do the same, Sentinel to Shaman...

No, it wouldn't work. He was not Incacha. Incacha had touched mysteries; he had seen from one end of time to the other -- from the ancient civilization of the Chopec people to infant world of Cascade. Incacha knew that there is no Chopec, there is no American, nor past nor present; there just is. Jim didn't understand it, but he realize now that it was so important...

Jim could hear Blair telling him to let go. Then the words stopped, in reaction to the look on Jim's face most likely. The Sentinel had always prided himself on being able to mask his feelings, but he wasn't fool enough to think that he could hide an epiphany.

"Jesus, Jim, what the hell is going on? Come on, man, you're scaring me."

Must look like the ugly epiphany that it was.

What had he told the vision in the sunrise -- 'what's done is done'? Stupid. Stupid and arrogant. Who the hell was he to dismiss the past? So he didn't fear it; that didn't deny its power. In disregarding what had been, he had disregarded that thing which Incacha had seen in Blair, which had allowed the Chopec man to die without truly needing to pass anything on to the younger Shaman. Jim realized then that anthropology for Blair was not just a curiousity, a function of his career; no, anthropology was the expression of an integral part of the younger man's soul. Ancient tribal rituals and modern criminal M.O.'s; mythical tribal protectors and the modern American Sentinel; past and present. All one and the same: Blair lived by this truth. But Jim Ellison, with his 20/20 tunnel vision, had to have things his way -- past was past, present was present, and don't even bring up those stupid things he'd done which almost got his best friend killed. Which had gotten his best friend killed.

Blair -- too damn compassionate, loyal and selfless for his own good -- had let Jim have his way. Not only that, but followed right along, probably worried that the blind old fool would hurt himself if left alone with his denial. Unfortunately, Blair had forgotten to take care of himself in the process.

"Don't throw yourself away." Finally; the words tasted like acid in his mouth, but finally. "Don't loose yourself because of me."

Blair nearly toppled. If not for the grip Jim maintained on his arm, he might have fallen completely over; as it was he rocked back to sit on his heels, his face as blank with surprise as if someone had struck him.

The Sentinel stared at his friend. He waited, his tongue working futiley in his mouth, searching for more words if the ones he'd said turned out not to be enough.

Slowly, Blair unfolded. He rose from the floor, pushing Jim's hand off of his arm. His voice was low and emotionless as he repeated:

"Just sit tight. I'll call for an ambulance."

Jim watched him sprint away to get the phone. He'd always thought that he was afraid of Blair leaving him -- of loosing his friend and Guide to a stray bullet or even to an irrefutable wanderlust. On the contrary, that wasn't fear, it was arrogance. Fear was the arrow slicing through the air toward the unsuspecting wolf; fear was blindly accepting the abrupt discontinuation of late night study sessions, the sudden absence of arcane and incomprehensible anthropology texts from their scattered places in the loft, and the gradual cessation of mischevious tangents about tribal love chants.

"The ambulance is on the way, Jim." Firm hands wrapped a bath towel around Jim's still-bleeding arm, and the Sentinel nodded. Reluctantly, he brought his gaze up to meet Blair's.

In the moments between first light and full morning, the younger man's eyes had been released from the overpowering sunrise, and they flashed blue with the clarity of a cloudless sky. Set free were determination and more than a hint of reproach.

Jim felt himself sag forward. A quiet buzz cocooned him as he was eased to the floor. His practical mind, arising for the first time since he'd gone to bed last night, told him two things: he was about to pass out from blood loss, and he may have just lost his best friend. The former he could handle. The latter -- well, it was better than the alternative.

End