New
Arrivals
Author-Dasha
Titles
Imperfections VII: Running up That Hill
Part One
by Dasha
Summary: AU. Crossover. Sometimes you get all the breaks. This isn't one of those times. Warning: Strong language.
Notes: Kitty remains a careful and thorough editor, although I think I may be getting weirder and fuzzier every year. She envisions blocking and set decoration. She keeps track of flow. She keeps me honest. And without her help, I’m sure the dog will never get a name.
Disclaimer: Jim, Blair, Simon, and The Sentinel belong to Pet Fly, UPN, and Paramount and no copyright infringement is intended. So: not Mine. Not even rented, really. Just sort of borrowed. I'll give them back when I'm done.
Monday
Law enforcement was a popular career choice for sentinels. It was popular enough that Rainier offered a few courses for guides. In addition, several classes over in Criminal Justice were recommended as electives. Blair had taken none of them. His electives had been in psych and nutrition and first aid. He’d wanted to be a good guide. He hadn’t given much thought to what his sentinel would do for a living.
That last was just as well. Blair would never have imagined he’d work with a sentinel in law enforcement. If he had, he probably would have gotten ready for forensics, not detective work. Since October, though, he’d had months to get used to police procedures, odd hours, intermittent physical danger, and the physical layout of public buildings downtown.
The meeting on Monday morning in the DA’s office wasn’t because Jim was a police officer preparing for one of his cases that was coming to trial. It was because he was a crime victim himself. None of Blair’s classes had prepared him for taking on a sentinel who had been abused by a previous guide. Blair had learned that on the job, too.
Monday morning Blair played it casual, hoping that was the way to go. On the drive in he chatted about the new grocery store going up on Patterson Avenue. "I’m not saying I’m not sort of looking forward to all that variety. And, yes, it would be nice to get some really good bread. But do we really need a luxury grocery store? Is that what we want for our community?"
"It could be another Walmart," Jim shrugged. "Or fast food. You’d go on about that for days. Say, if they have a fair selection of organic vegetables we won’t have to race to the farmer’s market on Saturday morning. Or miss it completely because we spend most of the morning sniffing dumpsters."
"Oh, great. That’ll make me feel much better, putting the local farmer’s market out of business."
The conversation was like that-—relaxed and friendly—-up until they reached the third floor of Urban-County Government Courts Annex B and the secretary said, "Ms. Sanchez is ready for you now. You can go on in."
Jim’s face froze. "The meeting was with Mr. Miller."
The secretary smiled blandly. "He was called away on a case. Ms. Sanchez will be acting as his assistant on this case."
Stiffly, Jim turned to Blair. "Chief, why don’t you go on over to Major Crime and wait for me there."
"But-—I was going with you."
With a hand on Blair’s shoulder, Jim led him back out into the hall. "I—Sandburg. I know her. She—we’ve worked together. We’re not friends, but, sort of, she’s not a stranger." Inwardly, Blair winced. He’d tried to set Jim up with Beverly several times. "I can’t talk about this stuff to her with you there, too. I can’t deal with you both at once."
"Jim, I’m your guide." Your ally. Your partner. How could having me there make a problem worse? But he didn’t say it out loud. It didn’t matter *why* it would be a problem, it just mattered that Jim thought it would. "Right. Okay. I’ll wait for you in the bullpen." He smiled, not bothering to be too convincing about it (because Jim could tell he was worried anyway) and headed back down the hall.
For half an hour he tried to turn Jim’s messy notes into a set of coherent reports. He couldn’t concentrate, though. The small, hard knot in his gut that had been there when he woke up that morning had turned to a churning mass the size of a basketball. What was she asking him? Was Jim okay?
It was useless. Blair closed the file he was working on and went to the break room. Sugar, he thought. In the long run that was *not* a sustainable way to cope with stress, and if he ever caught Jim doing it, he would read him the riot act. But. Blair got peanut butter cups out of the candy machine and a coke and sat down at one of the tables.
When Joel came in a few minutes later, Blair still hadn’t opened his snack. He jumped as Joel said, "Hey, Sandburg."
"Oh. Hi. What’s new?"
"Nelson got promoted."
"Oh, cool. He having a party?"
"Don’t know yet." Joel hesitated, hovering over the seat next to Blair’s. After a moment, he sat down. "So... you’re an expert on sentinels."
Blair blinked. "That’s the theory everybody’s working under, yes."
"I was just wondering... I mean, except for the senses, Jim’s mostly a normal guy, right?"
Blair sat up. Joel’s body language was way off, but other than a really obvious and inexplicable nervousness, Blair couldn’t read the signals he was sending. "You know I can’t discuss Jim with you."
"Right. Of course not." He paused. "But speaking in general—-sentinels in general—-sentinels are just like normal people."
Blair ruthlessly squashed the buzz of irritation. "Sentinels are normal people. The differences in their sensory input and brain structure are well within the range of normal human variation."
Joel nodded. "Right. Okay. But. There are some differences. They don’t... their average life span...."
"Can be as much as twenty years shorter than for other people living in the same society and social class. Yes." He managed to say that calmly and evenly. He couldn’t stop himself from adding, "That doesn’t mean they all die twenty years early across the board. It just means that some of them die early enough to bring the average down."
Joel nodded, looking past Blair. "And they can do all the things other people can do. They go to school. They live in regular houses and apartments. They have jobs."
"Well, they can’t work without a guide. But you aren’t asking me about Occupational Safety and Health Administration directives."
"They can get married." Joel still wasn’t looking at him.
"Yeah. In America not all of them do, but that’s about culture, you know, and expectation. In Japan and India the marriage rates for sentinels approach 95%."
"And they can date."
"Well, sure. Of course." Not that Jim *had* dated. But Blair would wear him down eventually.
"If *you* were dating a sentinel... I mean, if someone were dating a sentinel, what would they need to know?"
Blair’s eyebrows crept up. "Jim’s not your type," he laughed.
"What? Oh. Yeah. Very funny. But, uh, really. If someone were dating a sentinel, is there anything special....?"
Still clueless about where this was going, Blair gave in to Joel’s seriousness and gave him a serious answer. "That depends entirely on the sentinel. Most sentinels are highly functional and generally very physically stable. All you’d need is the guide’s phone number in case of emergency."
"What if it were someone who’d had...problems?"
"Okay, well." Blair thought very hard. "You have to understand that even for a lot of non-sentinels, dating is stressful."
"And for sentinels, stress is bad," Joel said heavily.
"Sometimes, yeah. For a fragile sentinel, stress can really mess things up. In really embarrassing ways, on a date. If I were dating a sentinel, especially one who was having problems, I’d try to keep things as low key as possible. Take things slow. Don’t make the individual outings too long. Cut things short if she shows any signs of distress—-"
"Like what?"
"I don’t know. You’ve been on dates before. If she says or does anything that’s completely new and unusual, that might be a sign."
"You have to have more than that," Joel said a little sharply.
"If she zones more than twice. If it’s hard to end a zone. If she’s disoriented. Rash, trouble breathing, sweating when it’s not hot. Strange mood swings."
"Okay. Good. What else?"
What else? Blair hadn’t ever planned to date a sentinel. "If she doesn’t eat, *don’t* notice. Sentinel appetite is, well, it’s affected by a lot of factors. Just don’t make her feel self-conscious for not eating. If she gets tired, don’t fuss, just take her home. If she needs space or air or stops a conversation in the middle, don’t take it personally. She might just be spiking and need a moment to bring her senses in line."
"Right. Okay. That doesn’t sound too bad."
"Mostly, it’ll be just like any other date. Oh. Except for the sex."
Joel actually seemed to blush, although it was hard to tell. "Sex," he squeaked.
"Talk about it first. I mean it. Communication is necessary for *everybody* but for sentinels, without communication you have a disaster." Blair broke off. This was not something he’d gone into detail with for Jim. Maybe it was a really good thing he hadn’t started dating again yet. Because, hell, unprepared he was set up for an awful experience.
"Sandburg?"
"Right. Talk about it. Everybody’s body and--and experience varies, right? But for sentinels the variations are just so *huge* that if you don’t do the right thing or do do the wrong thing, it can be spectacularly awful."
"Gee, that’s comforting."
"It’s not a problem if you are communicating." Weirdly, it felt like he had turned into somebody’s dad, explaining the birds and the bees. "So what’s this all about, anyway?"
"Oh. Nothing. I was just curious."
"Oh," Blair said. Joel left, not quite bolting from the room. Still mystified, Blair turned back to his candy.
***
Jim showed up at 12:15, which only felt like an eternity later. He poked his head through the door and said, "Lunch, Chief. And after, let’s drop off Jack’s data."
Blair hurried to his feet, relieved to see his partner. "Do we have time?" he asked, snagging his jacket.
"Yeah. Brown doesn’t need us to talk to his suspects this afternoon. He got a confession."
"What, they heard you were on the case and caved?" Blair teased as he joined him in the hall.
"Actually, yeah. Sentinels scare the shit out of the guilty."
"You are the man." Jim smiled at him thinly at that and Blair said, "How did the meeting go?"
"Fine," Jim said shortly, stabbing the button for the elevator.
"And you don’t want to talk about it."
"Got it in one," he said.
Blair laid a careful hand on Jim’s arm. "You know, whatever--"
Before Blair even realized Jim had moved, Jim had caught him by the lapels of his jacket and slammed him into the wall beside the elevator. Blair was more shocked than afraid. He gulped back his yelp before it was half-out and held very still.
Jim released him and staggered back. His eyes were wide with panic. Blair, seized and then released so abruptly, nearly lost his balance. Jim started to reach for him, and then jerked away as though Blair was too hot or too sharp to touch.
Down the hall, Simon and Joel came out of the conference room, Simon grousing over a case, Joel listening tolerantly. Blair looked up. The elevator was hung up on the third floor. Blair pointed at the door to the stairs. Jim took the hint and fled. Blair followed.
The heavy door clanged shut behind them. Jim retreated to a corner of the landing. Blair considered his options and sat down on the stairs. Waiting.
After a few moments, Jim said heavily, "These stairwells are monitored."
"So? A guide takes his sentinel into a quiet place to do some breathing and settle out a bad spike. Not a big deal."
Jim nodded stiffly. He looked utterly miserable. Blair wanted to touch him, to ask what was wrong. He was fairly sure that either approach was a bad idea.
Finally, Jim said, "I apologize. I was out of line." He said the words distantly, as though they didn’t really touch what had happened. They didn’t.
"That would mean a hell of a lot more if I thought it was me you... um..."
"Slammed into a wall," Jim said.
"I’m not hurt."
"I know."
"And it wasn’t me you were thinking of."
Jim closed his eyes and pressed himself further into the corner. "I know you’re not him. I know... You are nothing like him. Ever."
Blair winced. "You have some guide issues--"
"I spent six months in uniform. We’d get called on these domestic... " he paused, "And I understood those scum knocking their families around. That was pretty much a no-brainer, understanding them. But the--the victims. I never got how anyone could let someone... How things could ever get so bad. Only. I was." He panted a little as he forced himself to go on, "Lee Brackett. I *let* him."
"I know," Blair whispered, unwilling to watch Jim fighting himself over saying the words. "I know."
"You knew from the moment you met me."
"No. I knew when I met him." He was on firmer ground here. "It’s no great mystery how things got that far. He had all the advantages. He spent years learning how to control and manipulate sentinels. It wasn’t your fault, Jim."
"No. Well. It’s never the victim’s fault, is it?"
He meant it ironically, Blair thought, but the words were true none the less. "We have police because there are some problems individuals can’t solve alone. Even very competent individuals. Jim—-you survived it. Brackett didn’t beat you."
"He didn’t beat you," Jim corrected.
Shit. Damn. Crap. Blair ground his teeth. "Lee Brackett is a sadist and a violent psychopath. In any civilized system, he never would have been allowed to work in an animal shelter, never mind being given sentinels to take care of. You put him in jail. He’s going to pay for his crimes." Crimes, Jim, crimes. Oh, god, let this go. You can see it. It wasn’t about you being weak. It was about him having all the advantages. But Blair clamped down on his desperation. Jim had to come to his peace himself. Blair couldn’t simply give it to him.
"Simon has seen some of the....He’s gotten updates on the case. He feels responsible."
Blair said, "To be fair, I can’t blame him. But nobody ever expected a guide.... " He sighed. "Jim, what can I do?"
Jim sighed. "Let’s go to lunch."
"Okay. Sure. What do you want to eat?"
Jim frowned. "Not actually hungry," he muttered.
"Right. Okay. We drop off the data first, and then I bribe you with toxic junk food."
"Your mind control techniques are mind boggling."
***
Jim didn’t see why his pending nervous breakdown needed to be his guide’s problem. Blair was doing a fine job. He was competent and kind. As far as he could see (and, to be fair, Jim still didn’t know much more than the basics about what a guide was supposed to do) he was doing it right. But even a really competent guide couldn’t compensate for Jim’s own shortcomings. Jim wasn’t much of a sentinel. Nor, it had turned out, much of a man. Months after letting himself become a victim—-months after being rescued by a half-trained pacifist grad student who didn’t have any of the qualities Jim had always identified as strength--he couldn’t cope with stuff that was already over and should be forgotten.
A hearing tomorrow. Jim would have to go. He wouldn’t have to testify, but the DA wanted him there. In four or five months there would be a trial, and Jim would have to testify at that.
He’d thought things had been going well. He’d thought things had been getting back to normal. Okay, it was a weird kind of normal, and it involved having a new roommate who talked a lot and fed him way too many vegetables, but it hadn’t involved pain or exhaustion or–-or--
Jim stumbled on the thought, freezing with the keys to the truck halfway out of his pocket.
"Jim?" Blair said softly, hovering behind him.
It hadn’t involved pain or exhaustion or ....
"Why don’t you drive, Sandburg?"
"Sure."
Jim didn’t recognize the man who opened the door at Jack Kelso’s house. He could hear Marcia’s voice coming from the living room to the right, and while she sounded upset, she didn’t sound threatened or upset *at* someone, so Jim figured everything was all right.
The stranger holding the door didn’t step back to let them in. His eyes swept over them in one scornful flicker. "Dr. Kelso isn’t seeing visitors," he said shortly. "He was shot last week."
Blair blinked, rallied. "Yes, I was with him. When he got shot. I’m Blair Sandburg."
The stranger, although no taller than Blair, managed to look down his nose at him. "Oh. The teacher’s pet. He’s not holding office hours."
"He’s expecting us," Blair said. He was being more patient with this asshole than Jim would have expected. "He called me last night. I have his data." He held up the box of discs. "We pulled them out of his office. When we found out his computer had been hacked, we were afraid...."
The doorman looked surprised. "Oh. That was actually good thinking." He opened the door wider and bellowed, "Company."
From the living room a male voice called, "Well, *handle* it, Rodney. We’re a little busy." The voice dropped in volume. "Frankly, I think you’re freaking out over nothing."
This time Jim could make out Marcia’s words. "He’s changed. And I’m not prepared. I think he’s going to need so much more from me than I know how to... I just... It’s different."
"Yeah? So?" It was a guide speaking, Jim realized. He didn’t know how he could tell. There was nothing special that gave it away. "It’s hard on you both. And you’re sacred. But he’s not going to ask you to do anything he hasn’t been modeling for all of us for several years now. If you ask me, gentleness isn’t that hard to learn, and it’s about damn time we all did."
Blair lightly tapped the back of Jim’s hand to get his attention. "Jim, this is Dr. McKay. He’s loosely affiliated with Rainier."
"Rainier is loosely affiliated with me."
Blair shrugged. "He’s a structural engineer."
"I get paid obscene amounts of money to keep ugly buildings from falling down." Dr. McKay smiled tightly and looked Jim up and down. "A pleasure to meet you, Detective. Jack’s awake. Don’t stay too long." Dismissing them from his attention, he turned and headed for the kitchen. Blair blinked, looking a little bemused and then headed down the hall toward the bedrooms.
Jim followed. "Well, he’s a winner," he muttered.
"Hush. Don’t be rude. Jack’s been researching sentinels since he left... you know, his last job. He knows everybody."
Jim nodded vaguely. He was already listening—-almost involuntarily—-for Jack. He wondered how normal it was, this impulse to watch everyone all the time. He had a firm intention, this time, *not* to rush and get his hands on his friend, not to sniff and listen and *pry* his way into the personal and private business of Blair’s advisor just because he was a sentinel and he could.
Jack looked tired and pale and he reeked of pain meds and antibiotics. Jim pressed his back against the door frame as Blair went forward, the box of discs held out like a holy offering. Jack smiled thinly. "It’s unsalvageable, you know," he said by way of greeting. "My computer at the school. Even if it weren’t federal evidence at this point. If I hadn’t disconnected the computer here, I suspect it would have been wiped, too."
"Where do you want these?" Blair asked.
"Set them there. I have another set of back-ups here, but today I’m feeling paranoid enough to ask Marcia to put one set in the safe deposit box. It would take me a year to reconstruct those results from my paper records." Jack’s eyes tracked the box of discs even as he paused to breathe. "I appreciate your thinking of them. I don’t suppose you’d consider sneaking in my laptop so I can work on it?"
"Right. Your sentinel can break my arm without breaking a sweat."
"Do not be derailed by unimportant details." His eyes shifted to Jim. "How’s she doing?"
Jim listened. "It’s quiet," he said after a moment. "He’s got her doing a breathing exercise." Jim smiled slightly. "Is it kosher to have me spying on her for you?"
"It’s abysmal behavior on my part," Jack said gently. "But I’m both wounded and disabled, and I cheat. I am also about to take advantage of you both shamelessly. And stop standing way over there. I’m tired of shouting."
Obediently, Jim came over and sat on the bed. He didn’t bother to resist the impulse to press his hand against Jack’s stomach.
"Well?" Jack prodded.
"Different antibiotic since the last time I saw you." Jim closed his eyes, trying to sort out the smells. He was dimly aware of Blair watching patiently. He knew what Blair would say, but he didn’t need to hear it. Paying attention to the moment was easy when it was people. People were more real than anything else. "It’s not the antibiotic; this one doesn’t work as well. But you smell stronger."
"I couldn’t keep anything down with the last one." So they had changed it, and it wasn’t as good, but he could eat. Jim nodded, seeing it clearly.
It was like submerging his hand in water; Jim could feel the pull of currents against his palm: the swift ebb and flow of breath, the quick and uneven rhythm of a heart that was still working harder than Jim liked.
Better, though. Much better. Stronger.
"Satisfied?" Jack asked softly.
"Better," Jim answered. Reluctantly, he let go. "What do you need us to do?"
"I’ll need you to babysit. Marcia won’t leave me alone. She can’t go shopping. She has a job later this week—-she can’t work if she won’t leave me."
"Working?" Jim asked.
"Part time security," Blair reminded him. "The rich and famous pay a lot to have a sentinel on staff, even when they don’t need it."
"Especially when they don’t need it," Jack corrected. "The security company already has a sentinel on staff, but he wants a night off now and then. I think it will be good for her."
"Stressful, though," Jim said.
"Yes, but not relentless worry. It took her a week to talk me into this, so don’t talk me out of it. Don’t cause trouble in paradise. I’ll need you to give her some time off occasionally. Free of me."
Jim nodded.
"Good. Now, tell me how your meeting went this morning."
Jim sighed. "He won’t deal. His lawyer is a scumball. So it’s going to trial."
"It’s early yet--"
"It’s going to trial, Jack." There was no point in hoping otherwise. "They’ll want you and Blair both to testify when the time comes."
Jack nodded. "It will be my pleasure."
"Really? What do we have on him? I mean really? That the man was bad at his job? That he was an asshole?"
"I witnessed attempted murder once. Blair witnessed it twice." Jack sounded so reasonable that for a moment Jim felt hopeful.
Then he remembered. "They’re going to say... the defense will probably make their case around me being a sentinel. How could I really—-really—-work with a criminal, a sadist for months and not know? They’re going to say this was a personal feud that got out of hand. They’ll say I’m greatly exaggerating the threat he represented. And that if he’d been that bad a guide, one of our colleagues would have noticed."
"No," Jack said firmly. "They won’t get away with that. I’ll testify that any sentinel with basic education would have fired Brackett in the first week. I’ll tell them that by the time the abuse became overt you were already sick and emotionally traumatized."
Yes, Jim thought, it would be worth it. It would be worth being shown to the whole world as a victim in order to bring Brackett down. "Except you can’t, Jack."
"I’m an expert in my field. They will believe me."
"I put away a serial killer under Brackett. Two rapists. A major arms dealer. Most of the Sunrise Patriots. I worked those cases. More. Jack, you can’t... you can’t cast doubt on my judgment. I did good work. Some of those cases are coming up to trial. If my testimony--"
"I know you did--"
"If you cast doubt on my competence, some of those people will walk."
Jack shuddered. "No. He is not getting away with this--"
"You can tell them I was ignorant. You can tell them I was sick. But you can’t say I wasn’t in my right mind."
"No! That sick bastard is not getting away with this--"
From the living room Jim could ear Marcia rousing. "Ellison, you’ve upset my guide, and I’m going to kill you."
"Goddamn it, he is not getting away with this. Bad enough it happens under federal jurisdiction, but I am not allowing it out here."
The guide in the living room: "Settle down. Marcia? What’s wrong?"
And the other sentinel: "Marcia, he’s fine. They’re just talking."
"Get out of my way."
"Now, Marcia, there’s no reason to get all emotional. Hey! She hit me. She hit my nose. Does this look broken to you?"
Crap. Jim jumped up and retreated across the room to hide behind Blair.
The door to Jack’s bedroom wasn’t shut, but Marcia managed to slam it open anyway. The door bounced off the wall. "What is the matter with you, you fucking idiot?" Her voice was ice. Jim wondered how out of control she might be. He wondered how out of control he would be if Blair were recovering from a shooting and somebody upset him this much.
Jack was pale and panting now. "Stop it. Stop it. Stop it." He repeated the words in a voicelessly litany. "Stop. Marcia."
Marcia wasn’t listening. Her hand flashed past Blair’s shoulder, going for Jim. "Are you a complete idiot?" she asked. "I get that you’re really pathetic, I do. His big charity case. But you are not worth it."
The guide from the living room seized her wrist and hauled her around. Jim could guess at her training, and if she’d labeled this guy as a threat he would probably have been toast, but she didn’t resist as he shoved her toward the bed. "Stop acting like a four year old. Being a jerk isn’t going to solve anybody’s problems."
She folded her arms and stood stiffly over Jack. "Get them out of here," she snarled.
"Right, wonderful idea. Let’s go. I’m John, by the way. Nice to meet you. Let’s give them a few minutes, hmmm?"
Jim found himself firmly hustled back into the hall.
They almost ran into Dr. McKay. He had a wad of tissues pressed to his nose. "That woman is a lunatic. She ought to be locked up. But I’ve said that before." He removed the tissues. "Is this still bleeding?"
His guide sighed. "It was never bleeding."
McKay waved a tissue with two drops of blood on it. "Hello, bleeding? We’re supposed to be in Texas right now. I had three more days in Texas. On an expense account."
"One, you were finished with the actual work," John said. "Two, it was your idea to come back." He turned to Blair. "What the hell happened in there?"
Blair blinked, carefully didn’t look at Jim and said, "There’s a court case they both have an interest in. He asked Jim how it was going."
"The Brackett trial going that badly?"
Suddenly protective, Blair slipped in front of Jim. "How much do you know about it?"
"Only generalities." His eyes flipped to Jim, oddly sympathetic. "It’s gotten a little coverage in the paper." He added, "I washed out of the federal guide program," as though it would explain everything. Maybe it did, except Jim didn’t really understand.
"Don’t believe it," McKay said. "He told them to go fuck themselves in such eloquent terms that they discharged him from the Air Force and told him to drop dead."
"How are they doing?" John asked.
McKay shrugged, but motioned them further down the hall. "Jack is asleep. The psycho bitch has gone all protective and is sitting on a chair that’s up against the door."
Automatically, Jim listened in to check the pronouncement. He distinctly heard the whisper: "Look who's talking, you anal-retentive, insensitive freak."
McKay smiled a little, and like a ten-year-old, whispered back, "I know what you are, but what am I?"
His guide punched him firmly in the shoulder. "Stop that."
McKay shoved back. "Make me. Besides, everybody hates her. You guys hate her, don’t you?"
Jim realized that McKay was looking at him, but he couldn’t answer. The friendly, helpful guide had just socked his sentinel in the shoulder. It was nothing. A little roughhousing. Jim knew what it looked like when people goofed around, but somehow it felt as though the ground had tilted beneath his feet. His balance was gone. All he could think of was that you couldn’t tell from the outside what was good and what was not. How did you know, watching a sentinel and guide push and shove at each other... how did you know when it was normal and safe and healthy and when someone was being systematically abused?
How would anyone know?
Jim didn’t have any idea what normal was, even, let alone how someone would recognize it.
Very softly, John said, "Rodney, go wait in the living room."
"Jim? You okay?" Blair’s voice. Jim realized that he had his eyes closed.
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Don’t touch him. No matter what. Jim? You zoned? Hey, come on. If Jack comes out and catches me screwing up a zone, he’ll file a change of grade and give me a retroactive F."
"He won’t," Jim whispered. The short conversation had exhausted Jack. Jim felt a flash of sympathy: how would he cope in Marcia’s place? How would he manage a guide who was helpless and hurting?
"Jim? What do you say we go get some lunch? I promised you Wonderburger."
Jim recognized the offer of escape. "Yes," he managed. "I’m starved." But he’d have to open his eyes. And move.
Swallowing hard, he reached for Blair’s shoulder. Found it. Solid under his hand. Jim forced his eyes open. Blair was watching him worriedly.
***
Jim held on to Blair’s wrist all the way out to the SUV and only let go when they got to the awkward moment of having to get in. "You don’t have to eat," Blair said. "I mean, if you can’t handle the smell...."
"You promised me Wonderburger. Don’t try to weasel out of it now." But when they pulled away from the drive-through, Jim ignored the hamburger, and only nibbled on a few of the fries.
Blair parked at the lot overlooking Donnaly Park and started on his own salad. He was playing it casual, making a point of not staring at what his partner did or didn’t eat.
"That was interesting," Jim said after a while. He was using a cold fry to play with the ketchup.
"Which part? The part where Marcia came to kill us or the part where you nearly passed out in the hall?"
Jim winced. "Actually, I meant you don’t often see one guide being a designated hitter for another like that. I mean, I know Dawson filled in for you once, but you’d just been kidnapped and I was pretty much a goner. This seemed... different."
Blair shrugged. "Maybe it’s not so professional. Maybe they’re just friends. I mean, I know Isobel has been keeping her eye on them. And while Sharona was out of town, we checked on Adrian a couple of times. Everybody has friends, right?"
"McKay and Marcia aren’t friends," Jim snorted. "You should have heard what she called him." Jim tried to think of sentinels he’d met who were reasonable, polite people. Frasier. Michael from the Anthro Department at Rainier. Macleod. Some of the monks at St. Sebastian’s. "Mostly, we’re real jerks, aren’t we?"
"Well... McKay is famous for being, ah, difficult. He never teaches more than one seminar at a time, but every fall he and Sheppard give a lecture to the incoming guide class. It’s the ‘really, you’d rather be in ethnography or research’ talk. All about how awful most sentinels are to work with. I hear it is very memorable."
"You never went?"
"That year, the only time they were scheduled to spend in Washington, McKay spent in the hospital with a broken wrist."
"In the hospital for a broken wrist?"
"You don’t want to know," Blair said reflexively. Although, actually, bad reactions to pain of that order of magnitude didn’t appear from nothing. If Jim were susceptible to OPS shock the tendency would have surfaced by now. "Anyway, he’s very famous. Both for being obnoxious and for designing these really ugly sky-scrapers that don’t even crack in a Richter 7 earthquake. And he does this thing with metal fatigue and geometry. And bridges. He gets mentioned in text books."
"Gee, you should have asked for his autograph."
Blair laughed. "So," he said carefully. "You want to tell me what happened back there?"
"I didn’t almost pass out."
"That wasn’t a zone."
"No. I just...."
Blair realized that the back of Jim’s left hand was resting against Blair’s hip. He put down his salad and gently took the hand. "Flashback?"
"No. Not...exactly."
Blair wondered how far he could push. "Jim, if you were in trouble, you’d tell me, right?"
Jim smiled. "No, I’d probably lie about it and say I was fine until I collapsed."
Blair grimaced. "That would be very funny, if that wasn’t exactly what I was afraid of."
"How would I know?" Jim whispered. "How would I know if I were...if my guide were," Jim’s breath caught, "abusing me? I didn’t know before...."
Blair swallowed dryly, dimly aware that he was sweating all over Jim’s hand. They had danced around this uncertainty before. "As you deal with what happened to you, as you recover, you’ll, well, you’ll learn to make those judgments effectively. You’ve already learned a lot about how it is supposed to work, between a sentinel and a guide. I really don’t think it will take all that long before you start to rebuild some confidence here." Blair paused, breathed, breathed again. He had known that things would probably get worse before they got better. "In the meantime, Simon and Joel and Adrian are all watching me. Jack is watching me, and he is one of the best guide researchers—-one of the best guide teachers—-in the country. He makes sure you regularly get seen by a competent doctor. Jim, even if I wanted to hurt you...even if I wanted to--"
"No, Sandburg--"
"People are watching you, Jim. People who care about you."
"You care about me."
"Yes," Blair whispered. "But how do you know? I mean, you’re not able to take something like that on faith right now, right? So how do you know?"
Jim didn’t answer.
"It’s okay, if you’re not feeling trusting right now. I know I said that trust was important. But this isn’t about me."
"I can smell it," Jim said. "That’s the truth, what I can smell. I can smell how scared Marcia is. She’s trying not to be, but she knows what I know. Jack’s in trouble. And I can smell." He breathed in. "I can smell. When Sharona is impatient with Adrian. It doesn’t smell like Lee being impatient with me. You told me there were good guides--" without warning, Jim let go of Blair’s hand, threw the door open and stumbled into the parking lot. He got almost three steps away from the SUV before he bent over, vomiting.
Blair got out on the other side and slowly went around the back. He made a big loop, making sure that Jim could see him coming.
Jim stepped back and leaned against the car.
Blair waited, not sure what to do.
"None of them smelled like Lee. *You* don’t smell like Lee."
Blair crushed the surge of hope. "I’m not going to tell you...Jim, you don’t *have* to push this. I make mistakes. It’s okay if--"
"You don’t feel contempt when I’m afraid. If I disagree with you, you don’t smell *satisfied* when I get sick. I knew that. I know that."
"No."
"You’re angry. When I’m in trouble, you’re angry. Because nobody helped me. When I couldn’t. When I couldn’t protect myself."
Blair managed to shrug. He had really not expected this breakthrough to take place next to a park over lunch. "Yeah. That’s a mistake, actually. As Jack repeatedly points out. You don’t need my anger."
"It’s not...so bad," Jim said.
Blair stepped over the little puddle of vomit Jim had left on the asphalt. Jim didn’t flinch as he came closer. "You’re going to have to do a very hard thing tomorrow," Blair said.
"Lee Brackett is a criminal," Jim said. "I’m going to put him away. And you’re going to help me. You’re going to make sure I don’t screw this up."
"That’s actually a very good plan, Jim."
"Thank you," Jim said. "I think maybe you should call me in sick. I can’t see anything."
"Er, what?" Blair said faintly. He was close enough to touch Jim now, but his hands froze.
"I can see light, but the focus is all gone."
"Like with the golden?" Blair asked, feeling a little sick.
"No, this is stress related." Jim sounded very calm.
"Stress related?" He leaned up, looked into Jim’s eyes. They didn’t track the movement. "It happened before. A friend of mine, another cop, had been killed. It was a professional hit, and I almost blew the case. My senses blinked on and off for a couple of days."
"Ah. Right." There was a brief mention in Jim’s medical record. It hadn’t required hospitalization, and Jim hadn’t talked much about it, so Blair didn’t have a lot to go on. "Are you experiencing any other symptoms?"
Jim didn’t answer that. "Lee told me I was just being a wimp. He told me to shake it off."
"He wasn’t just a bastard. That was blatantly incompetent. You’d just come online. It’s barely been a year; you’ve *still* just barely come online. As new as you are, flickers aren’t a big deal. They’re not unusual. But they’re not a sign of weakness. As stress goes, I mean this is serious stress."
"I’m not freaking out, Chief. I just can’t see anything."
"Yeah. I know. I’m going to call Simon. Then I’m going to take you home and put in a movie. And fix some soup. This will pass."
"Okay."
"Let’s get you back in the car."
He got Jim home and settled on the couch with a ginger ale. There was a Clint Eastwood movie on cable. "Feeling any better?"
"I feel fine, but I still can’t see," Jim complained. "What if it’s not better tomorrow?"
"We’ve done the blind thing before. We can fake it."
"It won’t look good, me holding on to you."
Blair patted his shoulder. "It’ll look fine. It’ll show you’ve managed to enter into a healthy relationship with a guide."
Jim laughed.
"What?"
"Well, from where I’ve been sitting, most healthy relationships between sentinels and guides are pretty weird."
"Hey! At least we don’t have a wolf."
"Not a real one anyway."
"Or an entourage."
"So, what? You’re saying we’re normal?"
"Very. Average. Dull. Common as grass."
"Only you, Sandburg." Jim leaned sideways, so that his shoulder rested against Blair’s.
Jim’s vision and appetite came back together at around six o’clock. Blair produced the promised soup and then sent his partner off to shower. Simon called while Jim was in the bathroom. "Do we need to talk about administrative leave?" he wanted to know.
"Not today," Blair said. "If tomorrow goes well, maybe not at all. Jim’s sort of coping."
"He’s sort of coping, except for you calling him in sick," Simon said doubtfully.
"Except for that, yes."
"Your call, Sandburg." Yes. It was.
***