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Note:  In the episode Warriors Jim was not the only person to suffer the sudden loss of a friend through violence.  Blair lost a friend, too, when that friend was brutally murdered.  By the way the episode ended, you‘d never know that Blair was devastated or that he blamed himself for what happened.  This story is an attempt to correct that impression. It’s also my first Sentinel story.

Away From The Sun

By Romanse

For  JET

'Cause now again I've found myself
So far down, away from the sun
That shines into the darkest place
I'm so far down, away from the sun
That shines to light the way for me
To find my way back into the arms
That care about the ones like me
I'm so far down, away from the sun again.

 Away From The Sun   by 3 Doors Down

It seemed to Blair as if theirs was the only car jetting down the road that morning as he reclined lazily in the front passenger seat of the Mustang and simply enjoyed the ride in the convertible with the top down.   The warm summer sun felt good on his face, the warm breeze caressed his skin and made his long curly hair fan out and wave like a symbolic banner of youth, life and freedom. Blair smiled as he glanced over at his beautiful, vivacious friend, Janet Myers, as she drove the two of them down the scenic stretch of highway in her car.

He was thinking about the rally the day before and how amazing it was that everything went down the way it had.  As long as he lived, he would never forget how it felt to be in the middle of all the civil disobedience and drama of chaining themselves to giant redwoods in an effort to save them from being hewn and hacked to pieces.  Right along side him had been his friend Janet.  Blair’s agile mind would have normally been thinking about the next project or event that needed a helping hand, but right now he refused to think about that next rally or worthy cause. He wanted this contented moment, The Right Now, to last forever.  The radio was tuned to a classic rock station and Janet started to hum along to the smooth, soothing sounds of “Ventura Highway.” Blair closed his eyes and let the music take him away….

Asleep in his bed in the room loft, Sandburg turned over and his lips curled into a slight smile as the last dream ended and a new one began.   

Blair was riding in a car again, but not Janet’s.  It was his best friend and roommate’s car, and Jim Ellison was at the wheel, driving in endless circles around Prospect Street looking for the Chopec Shaman, Incacha.   Blair was feeling increasingly frustrated knowing that Jim was operating without the use of his heightened senses as a result of having renounced them.  An ominous sense of foreboding seized the young police observer as he tried but failed to get Jim’s attention. 

“Jim, c’mon man, we’re gonna be late!  I told Janet we’d meet her 15 minutes ago,” Blair said urgently.  

Blair‘s feeling of dread began to increase exponentially when his roommate and best friend turned a chilling grin on him and replied, “Relax kid, what’s your hurry?  We’ve got plenty of time.” 

“No we don’t, Jim, your senses are gone!” Blair frantically shouted.  He had no idea why he felt so suddenly afraid. It was as if it wasn’t really Jim, Blair’s “Blessed Protector” sitting there next to him, though he looked exactly like him.   All he knew was that Jim was acting strange and that he had to get off of this street and down to the garage where Janet was waiting. 

Blair began to beg the Jim look-alike to either let him out of the car or take him to the garage.  Finally and to Blair’s complete relief, he felt the car continue to go straight in a direction towards downtown, rather than turn for another fruitless spin around the block.

Back in the loft, the smile that had graced Blair’s face in sweet repose had vanished and his body was now moving restlessly, causing the sheets to tangle and the pillow to fall to the floor.  The bizarre dream that Blair had fallen into was morphing into a full-fledged nightmare…

The car bearing Jim and Blair finally pulled into the underground garage where Janet was supposed to be waiting.  Blair looked around worriedly when he didn’t see his friend, but he relaxed somewhat when he saw the old familiar Mustang. Perhaps Janet went back to her office to wait, or perhaps she was leaning across the car seats napping?  Blair approached the car, and in the way that bizarre dreams sometimes play out, it seemed to Blair that the car was all the way at the end of a long tunnel, and it was taking an excruciatingly long time to reach.  Blair finally got to the car and looked inside, but Janet was not there.  Cold dread once again gripped Blair, and he frantically began running back towards 'NotJim’ who had not moved from his car.   As if deeming it time to become helpful to Blair, 'NotJim’ startlingly and ghost-like appeared at Blair’s side, and the detective grabbed his arm to stay Blair’s flight.

“Are you looking for this?”  NotJim asked in a sardonic tone of voice.  With one swift motion, the Sentinel-look-alike reached beneath the car and began to drag out the mutilated, bloody corpse of Blair’s friend, Janet.  

Sandburg stared in abject horror at the thing that once was a loved friend and colleague.  His heart beat a frantic staccato and his guts roiled around sickeningly.   Janet’s cold brown eyes stared up at Blair accusingly, and he had no problem reading clearly the message that was being shouted from her wide open dead orbs: ‘WHY?  I TRUSTED YOU AND LOOK WHAT IT GOT ME? DO YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW I DIED, BLAIR?   DO YOU? I DIED SCREAMING DAMNING YOUR NAME TO HELL!  THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, BECAUSE YOU COULDN’T GET HERE ON TIME!’

“Noooo!" Blair wailed, as the crushing weight of guilt and horror fell on his soul, his anguished cry echoing eerily in the hollow acoustics of the garage.

Blair bolted upright in bed, his chest heaving and his protest of “no” still echoing in his ears.  He looked frantically around him, disoriented and shaking until he recognized where he was.  Sandburg listened for a moment for what he was sure would be Jim’s steps coming down the stairs to check on him, but he heard nothing. His Sentinel was not at home; apparently the older man was continuing in the pattern that Jim had begun since the case surrounding Incacha’s death and Cyclops Oil had concluded.   Ellison would be gone from the loft early in the morning and return late at night, so that Blair felt that he was continuously trying to catch up to his Sentinel - his Sentinel who apparently hadn’t thought anything about renouncing his heightened senses.  The message of Jim’s actions had been loud and clear in Blair’s mind, and he still felt the hurt at knowing just how easily and gladly Ellison could rid himself of his heightened senses and, thus, Sandburg at the same time. An ugly insidious feeling flared briefly in Blair’s heart, but he clamped down on it immediately. It wasn’t safe to examine that feeling, or to even dare name it.  It was dark and poisonous.  The edge of darkness receded and was quickly replaced by a deep sense of sadness at the thought that he had been mistaken in believing that Jim was getting better, that this would be the day that Jim would actually stop and ask him how he was coping with the death of his friend. Wearily, Blair wrapped his arms around his legs and put his head down on his bent knees, remaining completely still until the cold sweat dried on his face. 

The harder he tried, Blair could not release himself from the merry-go-round of endless recrimination that was getting harder and harder to ignore.  The one person, whom Blair should have been able to talk things out with, and share his grief, was still very much inaccessible to Blair.  Incacha had died and Jim hadn’t handled things very well.

“I’m sorry Janet. I’m so sorry,” he whispered brokenly, as he was once again swamped by feelings of guilt and grief over his friend’s death.  “I never should have involved you in the case.  I should have been there to meet you on time!”  ‘Jim shouldn’t have had to waste time looking for Incacha because he turned his back on his heightened senses,’ the dark, unbidden thought replied in a mocking whisper. “Oh God, I’m so stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”

Ever since that day, ten days ago, when Incacha had bled his life out on the sofa in the loft shared by the Sentinel and Guide, Jim had been caught up in a maelstrom of grief and seething anger at just about anything and everything.  Unfortunately, and on more than one occasion, Blair had stood in the direct path of the Ellison storm and had tried his best to comfort him, as well as siphon-off some of the pain his best friend was feeling.  He was silent when Jim told him to stay out of his face; he said nothing when the detective left for work morning after morning without inviting Blair to come to the station with him. Blair said nothing when he picked up the pieces of the broken coffee pot that Jim had thrown against the wall; when Jim was short and made biting comments to his fellow detectives in Major Crime, it was Blair who ran interference on those rare occasions when he dared to come uninvited to the station. 

Blair was afraid for Jim.  Afraid that Incacha’s death had somehow been the final nail in the coffin, and that the man Blair had grown to think of as his brother had been permanently destroyed.  So while Blair struggled to hold Jim together and not burden him with his own grief, there was no one to tell Blair that Janet didn’t really blame him for her death.  There was no one to wake him from the vivid nightmares where the corpse of Janet mouthed words of damnation at him night after night.  Blair had missed the memorial service so there was no place for Blair to gather with others who had known and loved Janet for the taking and giving of comfort. There was only Jim’s rage alternating with indifference.  Blair was being consumed with guilt by day, and eaten alive at night from nightmares featuring the accusing Janet, and the mocking tones of Jim calling him, “Table Leg,” and then walking away.  Though Sandburg had lost weight, and he looked perpetually wan and tired, his Sentinel saw nothing, did nothing to help his suffering Guide.

But the pain that Blair tried so hard to alleviate in Jim was like a living creature with a finely honed sense of self-preservation.  It wanted to survive and it needed a new home to do so.  The pain used it’s cunning to weave a web of deceitful lies to find that new home.  And so it found one in Blair Sandburg.  It was almost as if the young man had absorbed Jim’s pain on top of his own, unexpressed anguish, and every time Blair thought about how, if they had just come fifteen minutes earlier, Janet would still be alive, he felt something dark and ugly stirring inside.

Two weeks ago, when Jim and Blair had walked into the headquarters of Cyclops Oil, Blair got the surprise of his life when he saw who was employed there.  Janet, his socially conscious friend and fellow environmental activist was there working as a consultant to one of American industries top corporate giants.   Blair had only been sixteen and a freshman at Rainer University when he’d first met Janet.  Over the next few years they worked side by side at many events of mutual interest.  Even though Blair hadn‘t seen Janet in years, and she was now looking ever so corporate, she was still the same vivacious girl committed to making things better in the world.  When asked to look around and collect evidence against her employer, Janet had readily agreed to help - and was brutally murdered for her efforts.  She had died twelve days ago, one day before Incacha’s death, when the case was still ongoing.  Jim was without his heightened senses, raging, barely in control of himself.  There was no time to observe the rituals of burial for either one of them because they had bad guys to catch and little time to do it.  So, while Blair was busy managing his Sentinel and keeping his mind on the case by putting a freeze on the part of his soul that felt pain and guilt, Janet’s body and been taken to the morgue and her family contacted.  Janet’s mother, fiancé and brothers arrived to collect Janet’s things and escort her body back to the little town in Michigan where Janet had been born and raised.  Without Blair’s knowledge, she was cremated three days after her death, leaving Blair with no opportunity to say good-bye or to grieve, much less accept her death.    

So the days went by, and Jim gradually moved farther away from the fresh pain of Incacha’s death, and back to his old self.  Jim, the man with five heightened senses restored and a love for the younger man, whom he protected like a brother, was oblivious to the fact that his Guide was deeply wounded on the inside.  Jim had, to the best of his ability, avoided Blair both physically and emotionally, so he didn't realize that Blair no longer slept well, that he barely ate anything, or that the light in his eyes was slowly being extinguished.   Blair’s struggles to suppress his grief and guilt over Janet ‘s death in deference to his Sentinel’s pain, deepened, but didn’t begin to match the strength of the simmering cauldron of that other emotion lurking underneath.     

******

Detective Jim Ellison sat at his desk in the bullpen of the Major Crimes Unit.  He had just come from the gym after a vigorous work out, and he was feeling particularly well and more like himself than he had in days.  With the exception of his boss, Simon Banks, the other MC detectives had pretty much tiptoed around Ellison the past few days.  Simon had watched as, one by ones each friend in Major Crimes who wished to offer condolences had their heads summarily bitten off and handed back to them.   Simon had seen Jim like that before and was not unduly alarmed.  His frank advice to the rest of his team was to give his best detective and friend a little space, which they were glad to do at that point.  Now, what really bothered the big Captain was the notable absence of Jim’s unusual partner.   Blair Sandburg had become a fixture in the unit and, although he both taught and attended classes at Rainer University, Blair usually managed to make it to the station almost every day, but the last time Simon could recall seeing Blair at the station was at least four days ago.  “Enough is enough,” Simon growled decisively.  He rose from behind his desk, opened the door to his office and bellowed, “Ellison, my office now!”

Jim left his desk immediately and snagged a seat in the nearest chair in Simon’s office as if nothing out of the ordinary had been happening the last few days.  Simon was tired of the bull and wasn’t having any more of it.  He leaned forward and gave his wayward detective his most authoritative stare.

“You look better, Jim, how are you doing?” Simon asked him in a tone of voice that indicated that it was time to talk or take a walk. 

Jim looked into the face of his captain and answered truthfully, “I’m doing a lot better, Sir.  I want to thank you for putting up with all the crap going around this place for the last few days - I know I’m responsible for most of it.”  Pausing, he shrugged and added for good measure, “I uh…I guess I need to make some apologies.”  

“Good.” Simon replied.  “And what about Sandburg?” he asked, still pinning Ellison with his dark eyes.

Jim sighed.  “What about Sandburg?” Jim knew full well what Simon was asking, but wasn’t prepared to discuss his partner just yet.

“When is that partner of yours coming back on a regular basis?” Simon asked, annoyed that he was being made to play that game. 

Jim glanced out the window and then back at Simon.   “I’m going to call the kid this morning and invite him to come down to the station.  I know he doesn’t teach or have class this morning.”  Jim sighed again and looked uncomfortable.  “I know I treated him like shit these past few days and I should have woken him up this morning and apologized. It’s just… I knew this is one of his rare mornings to sleep in late, and I wanted to give him a break.” 

Silence fell between the two men while Simon continued to look at Jim, as if measuring the veracity of Jim’s words.  He broke it off before it became strained. 

“Okay, Jim,” he said.  “Now tell me what progress you’ve made on the Fellman case.”

Relaxing, now that things were relatively smoothed over, Jim proceeded to brief his captain on the case, and have a comfortable exchange of ideas before heading back to his desk to make that phone call to the loft.  First though, he had a few stops to make.  Jim sought out his colleagues and, one by one, offered thanks for their understanding and an apology for his behavior.  It was clear to the other detectives that something had occurred, even if they weren’t privy to the details, and that Jim, though, still grieving, was on the road to emotional healing.  There was a collective sigh of relief breathed and much goodwill banter exchanged before Jim made it back to his desk. 

The detective sat for a minute staring at the phone without dialing.  He was thinking about his behavior of the last few days and how he felt much better emotionally.  He had pretty much worked out his own sense of closure to Incacha’s untimely death, and his senses were fully back online again. Jim had never meant to freeze Blair out, and he certainly had never meant to hurt him in the wake of Incacha‘s murder, but he had been profoundly angry at what had been done to the man who had helped save his life in the jungles of Peru.  The wise Shaman had been a mentor, a great warrior and friend to him, and now the much beloved and respected Chopec was gone as a result of corrupt, American corporate greed.  At the moment of Incacha’s death, Jim had felt a burning rage.  He dimly recalled screaming at Blair as the authorities came to take Incacha’s body away.  But the rage Ellison felt eventually burned itself out, and was instead replaced by an all-consuming, deep-seated fear - everyone he cared about left him, either in death or desertion.   When Incacha passed on the way of the Shaman to Blair with his dying breath, Jim’s understanding of the relationship between he and Sandburg had become terrifyingly clear:  no matter how smart Blair was, brave Blair was, skilled in fighting, it was just a matter of time before he too would end up on the floor dead, his life’s blood pooling around his corpse.   Jim would be alone, cast adrift in the stormy sea to deal with his senses on his own again, and he would have no one to blame but himself.  How could he even think to bring an innocent like Sandburg into his dangerous world?  He didn’t have the words, much less the ability, to communicate that to Blair. In his mind, Jim believed he just needed to work things out in some sort of solitude that Blair’s presence did not allow. 

Finally, Jim broke himself out of his reverie and dialed the number to the loft.  After what seemed an interminably long time, he heard the receiver being picked up followed by Blair’s weary voice.  

“Blair?” Jim asked softy.

“Yeah, Jim, I’m here. Why are you calling?” Blair added, his voice suddenly rising in concern.

Jim ran his fingers through his short hair and said haltingly, “I’m calling to tell you that I’m grateful to have had a friend like you who’s seen me acting my very worst these last few days.  I know I was hard to live with after Incacha died, and that I’ve treated you like shit, but if you’re willing to come down to the station this morning, I’d like a chance to make things up to you.”

For a moment Blair was confused. His mind was slow to register the fact that Jim, his cold, angry Sentinel of late, was actually offering an apology and an invitation to rejoin him?  A ray of sunshine penetrated the darkness around Blair’s heart and for a moment, the seething cauldron of that emotion that Blair refused to name, ceased to bubble and churn.

“Chief, ya with me?” Jim asked, concern in his voice as waited for Blair‘s response.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good, Jim!  I’ll be there.  And Jim?”

“Yes, Chief?”

“You sound so much better.  Thanks for inviting me.”

“See you later, Chief.”   Jim smiled as he hung up the phone, but something was nagging him, a voice suggesting to him that all was not right. 

****

Blair arrived at the station an hour later, shoulder-length hair loose, and wearing a jacket over a black shirt tucked into his blue jeans.  The young man was greeted by the gang with the usual warmth and enthusiasm, as he made his way over to Jim’s desk.  First Rafe and Joel came up to him, and then Henri wrapped up his phone conversation and walked the rest of the way with Blair to Jim’s desk.  

“Hairboy!  Man, oh thank God you’re back!”  Brown smiled broadly and slapped Blair lightly on his back.   “What on earth did you do to get Jim to snap him out of that funk he’s been in?”

Blair shrugged vaguely and murmured a low key, “Nothing.”

Henri kept smiling, but his eyes darkened slightly when he got a good look at Blair.  Though Sandburg greeted everyone warmly, he looked wan and tired.   Even the jacket he wore did not entirely disguise the amount of weight he had lost; and his weariness showed in his face and his eyes...well, his eyes normally sparkling with good humor, were subdued, Henri thought.

Jim was at his desk, watching Blair walk through the gauntlet of well-wishers.  He was smiling at his partner, though he inwardly frowned at the way Sandburg looked. ‘We’re gonna have a talk real soon, Chief.’ Nothing else existed for Jim at that moment, just the sight of his best friend and partner walking towards him. The shape and colors seemed to blur for a moment, until suddenly, Blair was there standing right in front of him.

“Hey, Jim.” Blair said softly in greeting.  He looked down at his partner and felt a measure of relief sweep through him at the sight of Jim sitting there, open, smiling, obviously glad to see him.

“Hey yourself, Chief.”  Jim cleared his throat and said, “Thanks so much for coming down.  I really want to make things right again, starting here and now.”

Those words covered everything and nothing at the same time but, nonetheless, a ghost of a smile appeared on Blair’s face.

Sandburg sat down in the chair next to Jim, and gestured at the mountain of paper work threatening to over run Ellison’s desk. 

“Yeah, well how ’bout we start right in with that pile of reports taking over your desk? I think you need some major help here.”  Blair smirked good-naturedly.

Blair and Jim worked on the stack of reports for well over two hours before Jim called a break, citing a sudden urge to consume something with lard and icing from the vending machine.   Immediately, the others chimed in and rose to head down to the snack room with Jim.  Blair shooed them all off and kept on working.   He was alone in the bullpen, as Simon was still in the same meeting he had been attending when Blair first arrived at the station.  The young man was so intent on his task that he didn’t at first notice that someone had come into the bullpen and was now standing in front of the desk, calling his name.  His brain finally registered the sound, and he looked up with wide blue eyes to find an extremely athletic, tall, blond haired man in his late twenties before him. 

“Blair Sandburg? Are you Blair Sandburg?” the casually dressed man asked.

“I’m Blair Sandburg, how can I--”

Blair never got the words out.  All he saw was a meaty fist coming towards him a mere nanosecond before it brutally connected with his face.  The force of the punch made Blair fly backwards and topple out of his chair.  His right eye exploded with bright lights and heated pain.

He was stunned. The young police observer only had a moment to collect his wits when he felt himself being bodily heaved off the floor by his shirt. 

“Who are you?” Blair gasped out as he struggled to get away from his assailant.

“I’m Jason Sewell, Janet Myers fiancé, you hippie son of a bitch!” the man screamed at Blair as he smacked him across the face again. 

The world stopped for Blair.  The hollow, sick feeling in his stomach began to fill up and spill over with the potency of his guilt and grief.   He put his hands down and stood stock-still.

Jason continued to scream at Blair, “You killed her, you killed Janet!”  Each accusation was punctuated by a fist that Blair made no move to deflect.   “Janet left that old life behind, and you dragged her back and talked her into sticking her nose where it didn’t belong! She’s dead!  She’s dead because of you! Fight me damn it!” Jason howled in frustration.

****

Jim and the other detectives in the break room were joking, laughing, and enjoying their snacks. Suddenly, Jim’s eyes narrowed, and with a snarl of rage, he ran out, back towards the bullpen.   In an instant Rafe, Henri and Joel exchanged, ‘What the hell looks?’ dropped everything, and ran behind Jim.

They were astounded at the scene in the bullpen.  Blair looked like a rag doll being held up and punched by a man who was screaming furiously.  They saw the man repeatedly hit the young man, while Blair made no effort to defend himself.  With a snarl of rage, Jim seized the man and drew down on him, intent on stopping the man who had dared attack and hurt his partner.  Jim’s blue eyes were ice-cold, predatory and his companions mentally thanked God that Jim was on their side. Sensing the danger, Rafe and Henri grabbed the screaming man by the arms, while Joel urged Jim to put his weapon away.  Blair sagged bonelessly to the floor as his assailant was forced to let go the moment Jim jumped the screaming man from behind.   The man was shaking with rage and grief, though he was no longer struggling with the tight grip that the MC detectives had on his arms.  

“Why?  Why d’you do it?”  Jason continued his litany of grief, as he was lead out of the bullpen and down to a holding cell in handcuffs.

Jim looked down at Blair’s battered face. His right eye was swollen shut and turning a spectacular shade of purple and black. Blood dripped from a cut above his eye and his upper lip was split and bleeding. 

“We need a medic over here, NOW!” Jim yelled as he bent over Blair who was staring at Jim with his good eye and grimacing in pain.

“You’re gonna be okay, Blair; I’ll get Joel to bring my car around so we can leave for the Emergency Room after the medic patches those cuts,” Jim said in a soothing tone.

Hearing that, Blair sat up a little straighter and stated firmly, “I’m okay, Jim. I don’t need to go the hospital, just let the medic here patch me up, okay?” he grunted groggily. 

“Uh uh, no way, buddy.  You could have a concussion and those cuts may need stitches,” Jim replied, while his hands ghosted over his partner’s body, checking and rechecking for hidden injuries.

Sandburg fought to maintain the upper hand in the negotiations concerning his future whereabouts by quickly making a counter offer, “Let’s just wait and see what the medic says, all right?”  Blair really didn’t want to go to the hospital and spend countless, uncomfortable hours in the ER.  What he wanted was to go home and have a nice quiet breakdown all by himself. 

Jim merely pursed his lips and stood out of the way when the medic arrived to treat Blair.  The man swiftly attended his patient and, after awhile, he stood up seemingly satisfied with the patch-up job on Blair’s face and asking him twenty questions.  He had given Blair a cold ice-pack to apply to his right eye, and he now was preparing to return to his station, having given up advising the injured man to go the ER.  Having seen the futility of his request, he instead urged Blair to rest and take it easy at home for a while.

Blair eschewed Jim’s helping hand and instead rose to his feet slowly and shakily on his own.   He felt numb and strangely discombobulated but he knew what he had to do with a driving certainty.    With Jason’s cruel words echoing in his ears, Blair began to make his way out of the bullpen on unsteady but determined feet.

Rafe, Joel and Henri all made motions forward as if to halt Blair’s progress, but Sandburg held up both hands, clearly communicating for them to back off.   

Jim started after his partner, still stunned by the unexpected and sudden violence that had descended on Blair in his absence.

With a backwards glance over his shoulder, Jim firmly told his friends that he’d handle Sandburg.

“Where are you going, Chief?”

“To see about getting Jason released,” came the curt reply.

“WHAT?” Jim’s response was loud and explosive.  “Look Chief, I don’t know what’s going on here, but you aren’t thinking clearly.”

They were now in the elevator headed towards the lower floors of the police station where bookings took place. Blair leaned wearily against the car wall before pushing his wild curls out of his face to look over at the big detective.

“I know what I’m doing, Jim,” he said wearily,  “I’m not pressing charges, and I want him released.  And Jim,” Blair paused to give Jim his most penetrating stare,  “if you really meant what you said earlier about wanting to get things back on track with me, then do me a favor and just support me a little this once, or was that just a load of BS you were shoveling out?” 

Jim’s lips thinned and the corners of his mouth turned down.  He didn’t need his sentinel abilities to feel for himself how the space in the elevator had grown decisively smaller and chillier. ‘Support him just this once?’ Jim wondered about that. Something was happening here, and Jim had caught a glimpse of something in Sandburg’s eyes - something darkly seething.   Jim made his decision:  he would acquiesce to his Guide’s demand and not do or say anything to hamper him while he was on his mission of mercy, however ridiculous he felt it was. 

The elevator stopped on the first floor, and Jim and Blair walked out.

“It wasn’t BS, Chief.”  Jim’s voice was painfully earnest, and he was completely ignoring the curious stares he and his partner where receiving from the uniformed cops, assorted suspects, cuffed perpetrators and citizens. 

Blair looked evenly at Jim before giving a short, “Okay then.”  He motioned for Jim to stay put and wait for him.  “I’m gonna take care of this, and then we can get out of here.”  Jim watched his partner walk off and, as he did so, the Sentinel reflected on Sandburg’s elevated heart rate and the barely detectible quaver in his voice. The Sentinel crossed his arms and prepared to wait.

*****

Thirty minutes later, Jim’s battered and tired Guide walked up to him and signaled that his mission was concluded.  They departed the first floor together and rode the elevator back upstairs in silence.

Now that the crisis was over and Jim knew that Blair was going to be alright, he turned his attention to something that had bothered him almost as much as seeing the sight of Jason beating Blair:  the sight of Sandburg refusing to defend himself.  He was concerned, but he also he felt the stirrings of annoyance at Blair, because he had allowed the man to continue to punch him without fighting back.  The Sentinel felt conflicted.  He wanted to put his arm around his injured Guide, but he also was also hard-pressed to resist the urge to shake him and demand a swift explanation for his behavior.

“We have to talk, Chief.  Now!”  Jim grabbed Blair by the arm and practically dragged him around the corner and into an empty conference room.   Blair made no outward protest as he went with Jim, still holding the bag of ice over his swollen, blackened right eye.

“For God’s sake, Blair, why didn’t you at least try and defend yourself?” Jim practically hissed.  “Damn it, did you enjoy being his punching bag?”   

‘Not like you haven’t used me as your emotional punching bag here, Jim.’  Blair was a hair’s breath away from muttering aloud his thought, but like he had done so many other times that week, he tightened his precarious, desperate hold on the lid keeping his swirling dark emotions contained.

There was strained quiet for a moment before Blair looked up at Jim and gave voice to what he thought was the only reasonable response: the truth.  “Because he’s not in his right mind.  He’s grieving the loss of somebody who was supposed to be spending the rest of her life with him.  Someone he loved dearly.   Somebody who was brutally murdered without any kind of warning.  You know all about that last part don’t you Jim?  How it makes you kind of crazy?” Blair asked softly. 

Jim’s heart sank to his toes.  “Yeah, I guess I do,” he replied in a low voice.  A feeling of shame washed over him as he recalled every unkind thing he had said to Sandburg during the last two weeks, every thoughtless act he had done to Blair, all in the name of grieving Incacha’s death.

“Look, Jim, I’m tired. I know I don’t look good, and I sure as hell don’t feel good right now.   I’m gonna head home.  I’ll see you later.”

“Why don’t I give you a ride home, Chief?” Jim asked, concerned about how well Blair could really see.

“I’ll be fine, Jim. Besides, I need my car in the morning.”

“We can come by the station early tomorrow, and you can pick it up and be on your way.”

Blair’s face was a closed book, his expression remote.  Finally, he said, “Okay, let’s get going then.”  He didn’t stand around waiting for any further comments from Jim.  Ellison hastily scribbled a message for Simon, and then he and Blair went down to the garage and to the truck.  After dropping Blair off at the loft, Jim returned to the station.

Late that afternoon, when Blair was napping on the sofa, he had a nightmare wherein he dreamed of fists like hammers knocking him down again and again, while he cried out in pain and the corpse of Janet looked on approvingly.

****

It was much later in the evening when the detective finally returned to the loft, bone-weary from the events of the day.  His throbbing headache made him loath to turn on the lights in the darkened home.  The darkness and the stillness gave the illusion that the loft was unoccupied, but the Sentinel knew that his Guide was home.  He could hear Blair‘s heart beating; it‘s soothing rhythm, like a beacon, guided Jim to the doorway of his friend’s room.  Sandburg lay in bed, asleep on his stomach, one arm flung above his head, the other hanging off the side.  The young man was softly snoring.  Clearly, Blair was exhausted and in no shape to have a long, serious discussion.  Jim watched him for a moment longer and then turned, and silently headed up the stairs to his own bed.

The next morning, Jim and Blair got up at the same time and shuffled through their respective morning routines.   They came together again at the breakfast table; Blair was down at one end of the table taking small sips from his algae shake while Jim, seated at the other end, observed his partner surreptitiously over his own plate of steaming eggs.   Sandburg’s colorful face looked a lot worse that morning than it had after yesterday’s beating.  He looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept well, and his clothes hung off him in a way Jim wasn’t used to seeing.  His hair was tied back neatly, which only accentuated the damage to his face.

“How are you feeling, Chief?” Jim finally asked solicitously.

“Fine,” came the cryptic reply.  In truth he still felt exhausted.  It wasn’t Jason’s violent attack that was so upsetting to Blair; it was the words Jason had shouted at him that had done the most damage.  The heartfelt, angry words that the grieving Jason had hurled at him had served to confirm everything that Blair believed about his culpability in Janet’s death.  Blair knew enough to realize that now more than ever he needed a lifeline.  He needed his Sentinel.  He needed Jim.  He desperately wanted to talk to him, let him know how he was feeling, but there simply wasn’t time that morning.  Jim would be testifying in court all day, he knew that, and he also knew that he had a marathon study group session to attend.  

Jim was feeling frustrated.  He knew that he had been too wrapped up in his own inability to deal well with Incacha’s death to notice that Blair was not doing very well himself.  Clearly, Sandburg had been, and probably still was, depressed.  There was a niggling suspicion growing in the back of Jim’s mind that Blair’s decision to not defend himself against Jason’s attack did not stem from some misguided, compassionate, empathetic impulse, but rather a belief the he deserved to be beaten.   Ellison knew he had not yet even begun to clear the air with Blair, but he knew he couldn’t do it right then.  Right now he needed to drop Blair off at the station, so his partner could pick up his car before he himself drove over to the courthouse.

“You ready to go, Chief?”

“Yeah, I’m ready, Jim. Uh, thanks for the ride man.”  Blair’s smile of gratitude was genuine and, small as it was, it warmed Jim’s heart.

The two men arrived at the station in short order, and Jim quickly drove up next to Blair’s blue Corvair. Blair grabbed his backpack and, after giving a short wave to Jim, got in his car and attempted to start it.  But his car, ever temperamental, had other ideas that morning and refused to start. “Aw c’mon!” Blair yelled in frustration, as he tried again and again to start his car without success.

Jim hadn’t drove off the moment Blair exited his car.  Fortunately, he had waited and, when it became apparent that Sandburg wasn’t going to be able to get his ride started, he rolled down the window and called for Blair to get back in his truck so that he could drop him off at the University.

“I’m really sor -.”

“Don’t worry about it, Chief; I have plenty of time to drop you off.’’  Jim quickly cut Sandburg off from his attempted apology.   He meant it.  Jim knew how stressful it was on his roommate whenever he had unexpected car repair bills to deal with, considering his limited budget.  Besides, Ellison was glad of one more immediate, tangible way he could do something to let Blair know he cared.

Jim drove Blair to the Rainer campus and let him off in front of Hargrove Hall, and the two men said good -bye for the second time that morning.  Before he took off, Blair leaned through the window of the passenger’s side to solidify the plans for the rest of the day.

“Uh, can you also give me a ride home?” Blair asked.

“What time, Chief?”

“It’s gonna be late, Jim.”

“What time, Sandburg?” Jim asked patiently.

“Around eight o’clock?”

“Yeah, that’ll work. I’ll see you at eight.”

Blair really didn’t think that after a tough day in court Jim would want to head back out to Rainer to pick him up, so he was mildly surprised and pleased when Jim readily agreed.  Jim gave the young man a friendly nod and drove off.  This time it was Blair who stayed watching as the car moved out of sight.

****

Jim was fuming.  What should have been a relatively simple day in court with some brief testimony ended up being a frustrating fiasco of legal incompetence, and witnesses who were hopelessly bogged down in their testimony.   Simon had stopped by and bought him something to eat earlier and some aspirin for his pounding headache.   The aspirin had long ago worn off, and now it was nearing five o’clock.  All Jim wanted to do was go home, darken the loft, and take a nice long nap. 

An hour later, Jim got his wish.  After stumbling into the loft, Jim took the phone off the hook, and darkened the loft to sooth his pounding headache.  He stripped down to his boxers and put his sleeping mask on over his eyes before crawling into his bed and pulling the covers up with a contented sigh. Though he had a vague feeling that he was forgetting something, his weary mind was too tired to investigate the feeling further.  Jim closed his eyes and moments later he was deeply asleep, and completely oblivious to the fact that in two hours time he was supposed to pick up Blair at the university.

While Jim had endured an endless round of wearisome courtroom antics, Blair was having his own trying day.  The combination of eclectic personalities among his study group partners made for some interesting if not completely dysfunctional group dynamics from time to time.  He had also taken the time to call to have his car towed from the station garage to his regular mechanic’s shop. The repair estimate quote alone was enough to unravel his last frayed nerves and, on top of that, Blair felt compelled to royally obfuscate to his colleagues to explain why his face looked like a colorful patchwork quilt.  

The study group had broken up around 6:45 PM and Blair had made his way down to his office to take advantage of the quiet and do some work on his diss as well as his own lesson plans.  Sandburg put some music on, and gradually become thoroughly engrossed in his work.    Before long the clock showed that it was well after eight, and Blair hurriedly gathered his things and left his office to meet Jim out front.  His walk led him down the hall and past the metal stands that held the campus and community papers.  He casually glanced down and what he saw made his head swim and his stomach lurch sickeningly.  With shaking hands, Blair reached for campus paper that was dated over one week ago.  Someone had casually tossed the old paper on top of the new week’s editions.  Blair stared in morbid fascination at the face on the cover; the girl with the warm brown eyes, the wide smile, the wild curly hair so like his own. ‘RAINER GRADUATE BRUTALLY MURDERED WHILE ASSISTING CASCADE P.D.,’ the glaring headlines read above the picture.   The dead girl.  His dead friend.  Janet, who died because Blair asked her to help him.   Janet, who’s life was snuffed out because Blair was late…and Blair had been late because…because Jim so readily tossed his Sentinel abilities away, along with my reason for being his partner.

“Oh God!” Blair choked out, his spirit battered once again by relentless waves of grief and guilt...and something else.   The walls were closing in on him, and his eyes darkened with tears of sorrow.  Jim!  The idea of getting to Jim was his overriding thought, and so Blair let the paper as well as his backpack drop to the ground as he ran down the corridor and around the corner.  The panicked man stumbled down the outside steps, frantically looked around for Jim.  But there was no sign of his friend.  Deeply shaken and haunted by visions of Janet and Jason, he sat down on the steps to wait for Jim, unable to call the loft because he had left his cell phone in his backpack, and his backpack was now behind the locked doors of Hargrove Hall.

The pretty coed walking by herself at 8:45 PM passed by the steps of Hargrove Hall.  It was dark but the lights from the building outside lights cast long shadows.  One shadow belonged to a man sitting forlornly on the steps, not moving.   The coed pulled her coat tighter around her, and hastened her steps away from the man.

It was after nine o'clock and still there was no sign of Jim; the same Jim who had promised to be there to pick him up at eight o'clock.  The same Jim who had vowed to get the relationship back on track.  That same Jim was late.  Again.  No matter how hard Blair tried to give Jim the benefit of the doubt, the seething cauldron of poison that had been dormant for a brief time within him flared anew with vicious intensity, threatening to erupt and damage anything in its path.  Blair fought to gain dominion over it, but it leached his emotional strength nearly dry.   Wrapping his arms around himself, his lips silently formed one plea, ‘Help me Jim!’

****

It was getting cold.  After a few more minutes of sitting listlessly, Blair rose from the steps and began to walk zombie-like off the campus and down the street.   The first business he came to was a popular off-campus bar and he walked inside to find a payphone to call Jim.  All Blair heard when he dialed the phone was a busy signal.    

“Hang up the phone, Jim, please hang up the phone.”  The phrase became his mantra on his second attempt to reach Jim.   “Damn it!” Blair dejectedly swore.

‘Blair, hey man, is that you?”

Blair turned and saw Robert, one of the other Teaching Fellows coming towards him with a beer mug in his hand.

“Yeah, it’s me.” Blair wearily responded.

“You look like shit, man; what happened to you?”  The tall young man with the thick glasses was good-hearted. Blair and Robert often covered each other when one or the other had to miss teaching a class.  Right now, Robert’s voice resonated with concern but he didn’t press the issue when Blair gave a short, vague answer.  Instead, Robert handed over his newly purchased beer to Blair, who he deemed more in need of it than himself.  Blair gratefully accepted it, and he followed Robert back to his table where he joined two other Teaching Fellows. 

Robert leaned over and asked Blair in a low voice if he was all right.  Blair lowered his eyes and gazed into his beer as if discerning the mysteries of the universe.  “I need a ride home, Robert,” he mumbled miserably.

“Sure.  Sure, Blair, no problem,” Robert replied, signaling the waiter to bring Blair another beer, after seeing how he had uncharacteristically guzzled the first one down.  When the second one arrived, Blair drank that one down, too, and soon he felt the edge softening from the pain around his heart.  He was comfortably buzzed and on his way to blissful inebriation by the time Robert and his friends rose from the table.

While Blair was sitting in a bar self-medicating, Jim was still sleeping the dreamless sleep of the dead when suddenly his senses flared up, as if on full alert, warning the Sentinel of some unseen danger.  Jim, momentarily confused, sat bolt upright in bed and reached for his service revolver, before hastily dialing down his screaming senses.  It was no longer necessary to artificially darken the loft.  Jim knew without looking that it was true night before he glanced at the bedside clock to see that it was 9:30 PM.   It was in that moment that the detective remembered, with horrifying clarity, just what he had managed to forget when he dove into his bed - that he had promised to pick his best friend up at the Rainer University at eight.   “Oh shit, Sandburg!”  Jim felt mortified that he had failed to keep a simple promise to Blair to be there at the university, to give the young man a ride home. He briefly wondered why Blair hadn’t called him before recalling that he had left the phone off the hook.  Jim’s mortification turned into anger at himself and, as he quickly pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, he cursed his stupidity.   Jim was just putting on his shoes and dialing Blair’s office at the same time. When he received no answer, he next dialed Blair’s cell phone with the same result.

Jim knew that he had let the young man down.  Apparently, Blair wasn’t waiting for him inside his office, but why wasn’t Blair answering his cell phone?  Bypassing the elevator, Jim rapidly descended the stairs and out to his truck.  The Sentinel broke the speed limit driving over to the campus to find his Guide.  Whatever else happened after that, Jim was determined to sit down and have that talk with Blair before either one of them went to sleep that night. 

When Jim arrived at the campus, he went straight to the entrance of Hargrove Hall hoping to see Sandburg outside waiting for him.  Seeing no sign of the young man, Jim tried to access the building only to find it securely locked.  He next whipped out his cell phone and unsuccessfully tried Blair’s numbers again.  Jim’s Blessed Protector instincts quickly headed straight into overdrive as his sentinel hearing detected the ringing of Blair’s cell phone from inside the building.  Oh, Jim knew he was being irrational; perhaps Blair had gone to a friend’s house or had started walking and stopped to get something to eat?  But why was his Guide’s phone inside the building?  Jim drove around for more than an hour, his sharp eyes scanning the sidewalks for a glimpse of Blair perhaps walking on the side of the road.  He grew frustrated, hating the uncertainty of the situation.  Had something happened to the grad student?  Had he just gotten tired of waiting, and was enjoying himself in the company of one of his numerous lady friends?  Or was Sandburg simply angry at him, and deliberately not answering his phone?  The various scenarios played themselves out through Jim’s mind in an endless parade until his headache returned with a vengeance.  Jim’s Blessed Protector instincts were at war with his more practical side and in the end, he settled on returning to the loft to wait a little while for Blair.  After all, it was far too early to even consider Blair  ‘missing’ by police standards, and there was little else he could do.

Jim returned to the apartment and began an agonizingly slow wait for his missing partner.  Fear battled with annoyance.  He was annoyed mostly at himself, but he couldn’t deny also being annoyed somewhat at Blair.

‘Why didn’t he just stay put or answer his phone?’  he thought.  Jim was no longer thinking about the fact that perhaps Blair had tried to call him, but that he had taken the phone off the hook.  Jim’s cell phone had inadvertently remained off as well, since he had come to the loft straight from the courthouse.   The most fundamental thing about Jim’s annoyance with respect to Blair was that his life was so intertwined with the younger man’s that something as mundane as a missed ride could wreak havoc on his normally calm nerves. 

****

“C’mon, Blair, time to take you home.”  Robert grabbed Blair by the arm and led him out to his car, a grey Volkswagen Jetta.   It was 11:15 PM by the time Robert drove his car up Prospect Street and stopped in front of the building where his passenger lived.  All the while, Blair had sat slumped in the passenger seat, keeping up a steady stream of one-sided conversation about things that made no sense to Robert.  Blair sounded lost to Robert, and the gangly Teaching Fellow was strongly regretting having let Blair consume more beers after the second one.

“You’re home, Blair.  Let me walk you up.” Robert did a quick assessment of Blair’s degree of intoxication and settled on a ‘five’ out of a possible score of ‘ten’. 

“S’okay, man, I got it.”  Blair thanked Robert for the ride and started to walk off.  He stopped when he heard Robert calling out one more question.

“How are you going to get in if you don’t have your keys?” he asked.

Something dark flittered across Blair’s face and was gone.  He jerked his hand backwards and stated bitterly,  “Jim’s here - that’s his car.”

“Okay, man. Blair, take care of yourself and I’ll see you around.”

Blair scarcely acknowledged him as he headed towards the elevator.

Inside, Jim blew a sigh of relief. His knew with sentinel senses that his Guide had returned, even before the elevator doors opened and Blair made his way down the hall to their door.  Jim’s sensitive nose crinkled in rebellion from the smell of alcohol in his Guide and cigarettes on his clothes and hair.  Jim swung open the door and confirmed with his eyes that which he already knew:  that Blair had been at some bar trying to get wasted, while he had combed the streets anxiously looking for him.  

The apology that Jim had been ready to deliver before Blair could say anything died on his lips, and his ice blue eyes grew a little icier.   Blair walked passed him and made to go to his little room.  He didn’t want to talk to anyone.  He didn’t want to think about things; things like friends who did favors for him and ended up dead; things like a Sentinel who didn’t want to be a Sentinel and thus didn’t need a Guide; things like a friend who was closer than a brother who could leave him stranded without so much as a phone call.  He was just too tired from the enormous amount of energy he was expending just to maintain the fragile control over his emotions.    

“Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been about you, Chief? Just where the hell have you been anyway?” Jim asked, truly perturbed at the state of his roommate.

“Thanks for the ride home, Jim.”   The words dripped with sarcasm.   

“I was late picking you up, so you were out getting drunk?” Jim raised his voice, sounding very much like a pissed-off dad.  

Blair’s tired mind, weary from suppressing his emotions, was screaming warnings at him to turn around and keep going to his room. ‘Blair, man, you don’t want to be having this conversation now...you know that ‘cause if you go there…’

“You think the reason I may have had a little too much to drink is because I was forced to find a ride home after you were a no-show?”  The numbing haze induced by the alcohol was fast losing its ability to mute the pain from which Blair sought escape. 

Things weren’t going the way Jim had intended.  He had sincerely meant to apologize and resume the efforts begun to make things right with Blair, so he hastily tried a different tactic.  “This isn’t like you, Blair.  You clearly have things on your mind, but you haven’t told me what’s going on.”

“What do you want me say, Jim?  I wasn’t the one stomping around here for the last two weeks taking my rage out on everything and anything that moved!”  Blair raised his voice as he turned his back on Jim, intent once again on heading into his room.  He was on the verge of panicking as he felt the long-held dark pain surging red-hot, as if gathering strength and preparing to burst forth from its constraints.

“My friend was murdered!  Murdered right here in my home, Chief, in case you’ve forgotten,” Jim said with renewed bitterness. 

At long last, the precarious hold Blair had maintained on the cage to his emotions gave way, until he saw nothing, heard nothing but the roar of his grief, guilt and rage.  The long-denied, insidious force was finally free and rampaging like a wild beast seeking that which it could devour.  The fact that Blair’s fury was directed at Jim, the man who he loved like a brother and would die for, was too overwhelming, too horrifying an emotion for the young man to deal with on top of the grief and guilt he felt over Janet’s death. 

Blair whipped around, and his long curls flew widely about his face, which had lost all color before being suffused with red.  His eyes darkened and his hands clenched into fists as he stepped forward menacingly.  His body was shaking.

Jim was sickened by what he saw in his friend’s eyes and the depth of the pain reflected - the rage he saw there, directed at him, knocked him for a loop.  He despaired at the soul before him in torment, and the full measure of the cost of his time spent in self-absorption made his heart ache and the nausea rise from his stomach.

“Forgotten?”  Blair screamed at Jim. “How DARE you ask me that!  I won’t in a million years forget what it was like to see Incacha die in front of my face or how devastated you were.  But tell me, Jim, can you say that same about MY friend who died?  Janet was trying to help!  She loved working for Cyclops Oil; she thought she was doing a good thing for the environment and for us, and how did she end up?  I found her dead body stuffed under her car like some sack of old garbage.  You NEVER remember that, do you?  Oh no - you selfish son of a bitch.  YOU were the only one allowed to grieve over your loss, and to hell with me and what I was going through! And you know what?” Blair asked with tears streaming down his face, “I tried so hard to be okay with that, because I knew what it must have cost you to take your senses back when you really didn’t want them anymore.  It was all about you, Jim!  In the end, isn’t that what it comes down to?  You turned your back on our partnership when you rejected your senses, and if you hadn’t done that, Janet would STILL be alive, because WE WOULDN’T HAVE HAD TO WASTE ALL OF THAT TIME LOOKING FOR INCACHA WITHOUT YOUR SENSES!!!  You might as well have killed her yourself!”

Jim’s face blanched, but he remained silently accepting of the harsh words pouring out of Blair, until the violent cathartic release came to an abrupt halt.  The quickly passing storm was immediately followed by the dawn of realization; Blair’s eyes widened into saucers as he simultaneously clapped a trembling hand over his mouth, a look of pure horror distorting his features.   For a minute, there was utter silence as the two friends stared at each other without moving.   Blair had revealed that which he had vowed would never see the light of day:  the truth of his misplaced anger at Jim.  Oh, he knew he was wrong, that Jim was blameless in his friend’s murder. The rational part of Blair knew that very well.  He knew Jim hadn’t meant to be late that day in meeting Janet, nor could he have foreseen that not getting there minutes earlier would have probably prevented her untimely demise.  But his heart ached from the knowledge that Jim had renounced his Sentinel abilities and, by default, his partnership with Blair, and that, had he still had his Sentinel senses, Janet might very well still be alive.

Blair turned away from Jim as his face began to burn with shame at what he had shouted at his friend.  He had been intentionally cruel, trying to hurt Jim with words because he had hurt so much for so long.  He was cold, cold all the way to his soul, and his body began to shake.  Blair wrapped his arms around himself and bit his lip to keep from crying.  His emotions, however, weren’t listening, and Blair lowered his head as the tears began to fall faster and hotter, until he was heaving and sobbing uncontrollably, every tear infected with the poison of his grief and guilt.

He was drowning, and he could see no hand to pull him up towards peace and safety.  But there was one.  Jim gripped his Guide’s shaking shoulders and then, when that was not enough, he firmly wrapped both arms around him.

“I’m so sorry, Blair; I’m so sorry,” Jim softly repeated again and again until the shaking body stilled and the hot falling tears subsided to a slow drip. “I’m so damn sorry about Janet.” 

Blair, weary and defeated from his spent emotion, felt like he there was nothing left inside him. 

“Thanks,” he replied, Sentinel soft. 

“I wasn’t there for you.”  It was not a question, but a statement of fact from the Sentinel.

“No,” again came the ever so soft reply.

“You felt guilty because you asked Janet to help investigate her company?”

“Yes,” for the third time the answer was spoken softly.

“You were angry at me for being late?  A part of you blamed me for Janet’s death?”

This time, Blair made no response, so Jim gently turned him around until he was facing him.  Blair could not yet bring himself to look into his Sentinel’s eyes and instead, looked away and down.

“Chief, you were angry at me, right?” Jim asked again patiently, never taking his gaze away from the forlorn figure in front of him. 

Blair finally sighed and looked up. 

“Yes, Jim, I was angry at you, but mostly at myself.  I was so mixed up inside because one minute I found an old friend, and the next I was looking at her dead body and the way things went down…”  His voice trailed off slightly and then came back,  “The way it went down, it felt like Janet was just some nobody, a tool that got broken doing the job and was taken out to the garbage.  Nobody cared,” Blair continued in a low, bitter voice, “and yours truly was too wrapped up in the case to attend her funeral, or tell her mother how sorry I was that I dragged her daughter into this mess.  I didn’t get to say good-bye.  I didn’t get to tell her how sorry I was.”

“Aw, Chief, why didn’t you tell me how you were feeling?” asked Jim, deeply concerned for his friend.

For a moment Blair simply looked incredulously at Jim.

“Jim,” Blair said in an even voice, “have you already forgotten what you were like when Incacha died? I thought you were losing it, man.  I thought I was losing you!”

Jim’s remorse was plain to see on his face, but he wasn’t going to fall into the same guilt trap to which Blair had succumbed.

“Blair, listen to me,” Jim began. “You are not to blame for what happened to Janet, and I don‘t really believe that you blame me either. When Incacha died, you did your best to help me, and I acted like a jackass.  I took my anger out on you, and I never once thought about the fact that you had lost a friend. I don’t know what I have to do convince you of how sorry I am about that, but you name it kid, and you got it.”

“You’re right, Jim, I don’t blame you.  Uh, at least I don’t now,” Blair said, much calmer, but still somewhat embarrassed about his emotional breakdown in front of his best friend.

“Janet believed in protecting the environment, you know that.  You couldn’t have stopped her from helping,” Jim stated firmly. 

Blair cracked a faint smile at the truth of that statement 

“You didn’t know her long, but you knew that one thing about her,” Blair said softly, closing his eyes in fond remembrance.

“Why don’t you tell me about her, Chief?” 

And Blair did.  Seated next to Jim on the couch with his feet tucked in front of him, Blair shared with Jim all about the exploits of one Blair Sandburg and Janet Myers.  He laughed and he cried, and that night the Sentinel healed his Guide.

****

Almost a month to the day when the grief, guilt and anger Blair had been suppressing for so long fiercely erupted, Blair was home in the middle of the afternoon, having just finished up with the week’s grocery shopping.  He was busy in the kitchen putting away the food when the doorbell rang.  Curious, the young man went to the door and opened it, preparing to greet whoever was on the other side with a friendly, warm smile.  He saw a tall, well-dressed, stately Caucasian woman standing outside.  Though he hadn’t seen this woman in years, he recognized her instantly; he would know her anywhere.  Though her skin was white and her hair straight, she was as tall as her daughter had been and she had the same high-cheeked bone structure. The brown eyes that looked down into his face were the ghost of another’s.  True, Janet had her black father’s hair and coloring, but there was no mistaking her mother.   The warm smile vanished from Blair’s face, and he felt the blood drain from it, leaving his eyes staring wide out of skin grown suddenly colorless. 

“Mrs. Myers,” Blair stammered in shock and sudden dread.  “Please come in,” he managed to add in a more controlled, even voice.

Mrs. Myers walked into the loft and Blair nervously closed the door behind him.  This was the moment he knew was possibly coming and had been dreading, the moment when he had to face Mrs. Myers and explain once again what had compelled him to ask Janet to help in an official police investigation that resulted in her death.  He braced himself and prepared for the worse. 

It never came.

“Blair.” Mrs. Myers uttered his name like a prayer as she turned around to face her daughter’s friend.  There was no condemnation in her eyes.  Blair could see only compassion in her gaze as she beheld him.

“It’s so good to see you again, Blair.  You haven‘t changed much since I used to see you when I visited Janet at school.”  Mrs. Myers held open her arms to give Blair a hug and she waited expectedly until Blair moved.

As if on autopilot, Blair moved into her warm embrace.  He felt the fear and dread fall away to be replaced by a sense of questioning wonder.  Was it possible that Janet’s mother was unaware of his role in her daughter’s demise?  But why would Janet’s mother be standing here at the loft if she didn’t know?  Blair needed to know and he needed to know now.

“Mrs. Myers?” Blair tentatively asked.

“Yes?”

“Do you know that I was the one who asked Janet to help us investigate Cyclops Oil?”

“I know that, Blair.  You see, that afternoon Janet called me from her office.  She told me that she had run into you again and that you were a - police detective?”

“Police Observer.” Blair quietly corrected her.

“Police Observer,” Mrs. Myers repeated in a tone that made it sound as if it were a completely natural thing that her daughter’s high-spirited, unconventional friend would end up working with the police.

“Janet was profoundly disappointed in what she discovered at Cyclops.  It broke my heart to hear the disillusionment in her voice, but the one thing that stood out more than her disappointment in Cyclops was how very proud she was of you, and what you had made of yourself in life.” 

Mrs. Myers paused for a moment and began to walk gracefully around the living room, casting an admiring gaze about the place. 

“You have a beautiful home, Blair.” She smiled gently at him though her eyes grew sorrowful.  

“Thank you, Mrs. Myers.  Can I get you anything?  Would you like to sit down for awhile?”  Blair was still acting on autopilot, the shock of Mrs. Myers acceptance too large to process quickly.

“I’d like some tea if you have some?”

“Sure, herbal is okay?”

“That would be lovely, thank you,” Janet’s mother graciously replied.

Blair hurried to the kitchen to prepare the tea, grateful to have something to do, though he was no longer nervous about Mrs. Myers being there. While Blair busied himself getting the tea, Mrs. Myers sat down on the sofa and fished something out from her handbag.   When the tea was ready, Blair poured two cups and brought them over to the coffee table.  Mrs. Myers patted the seat next to her on the sofa, and Blair sat down and folded his hands in his lap and waited, while she sipped her tea in reflective silence. 

“This is very good tea, Blair, thank you.” Mrs. Myers said as she finished up and placed the cup back on the table.

“You’re welcome.” Blair murmured softly.

“Blair, do you know what I’ve been doing here in Cascade the last two days?”

“No, Mrs. Myers, I don’t,” Blair replied slowly as he shook his head.

“I’ve been over at Janet’s apartment packing up her things.”

Blair felt a lump forming in his throat.  “I’m sorry, ” he whispered.

Mrs. Myers reached over and put her arm on top of Blair’s.  “I know you are, dear, but that‘s not why I came.  I’m here because, while I was packing my daughter’s things, I found this.”

With her other hand she picked up the object she had taken from of her purse, and then placed it in Blair’s hand.  It was a photograph of Blair and Janet from a time when they were both incredibly young and idealistic. They were sitting arm and arm in front of a massive redwood tree, grinning like fools, high from the triumph of having saved the towering giants.

Blair held the picture tenderly, with trembling hands.  He remembered that moment as if it had happened yesterday.  For the first time in a long time, Blair saw Janet and he felt nothing but peace and joy radiating from Janet’s eyes.

Mrs. Myers voice grew husky as she murmured gently,  “The instant I saw this picture, I knew deep down in my soul that Janet would want you to have it.  Would you please take care of it for me?” she asked Blair in a gentle voice.

Blair couldn’t say anything for a moment; that picture represented everything to him that he had been denied since Janet’s death:  forgiveness; closure; an understanding that Janet would have done exactly the same, whether Blair had asked her to or not.  The last bit of residual guilt lifted from Blair’s shoulders and his eyes welled up with tears born from a sense of peace.  Then he composed himself, and looked Mrs. Myers in the eye as he solemnly vowed to take care of the gift of the photograph.  

Mrs. Myers stood up and announced that it was time for her to leave.   Blair walked her to the door and impulsively gave her a warm hug. 

“Take care of yourself, Blair,” she whispered.

“I will, and you, too, Mrs. Myers.”

Then, ever curious, Blair asked, “How did you know where to find me?  How did you know where I lived?” he clarified.

Mrs. Myers gave a slight smile. “I went to see your Captain Banks to find out all I could from an official police source about what happened to my Janet.  Among other things, he told me about the wonderful work you are doing with the police department.  Naturally, when I asked him where you lived, he was reluctant to tell me.”

“Then how did you..?”

Mrs. Myers had the grace to blush slightly before answering. “I got it from the university.  Some members of the admin staff are - are not so hard to persuade.” 

Blair shook his head but said firmly, “I’m glad you found me.”

Mrs. Myers made no reply as she bent over and kissed Blair on the cheek.  Then she walked out of the open door and like Janet, was gone from his life. 

That night, Blair took out the photograph of himself and Janet, and lovingly placed it on his desk next to a stack of student blue books he had been grading. 

Epilogue:

Two days later, Blair was finishing up entering exam grades into the school’s computer system.  When he was done, he headed back to the loft.  When he got there, Jim was inside enjoying his day off from the station, relaxing in the living room, beer in hand.

“Jim, man, thanks so much for bringing me that last student’s blue book, you so totally saved my life! I can’t believe that I picked up all of them except that one - I didn’t even see it still on the desk.”

Jim smiled with all the good will in the world.  He was able to rejoice in Incacha’s life, and had emotionally accepted his sudden death.  Blair was dealing with Janet’s death now in a healthy way; he had gained back the weight he had lost, and the bounce was back in his step.  Most of all, Jim was smiling because the sum of all that meant that he had his best friend, brother, and Guide back.  The relationship was stronger than ever.

Blair snagged a beer and went out to the balcony to relax for a minute and enjoy the spectacular view of the setting sun over the city of Cascade.  He was totally, utterly at peace with himself and with Jim.

From inside, Jim observed his Guide.  Blair’s curly, long hair shifted softly from the gentle breeze.  The colors of the setting sun bathed him in a golden light.  Jim nearly zoned on the sound of his Guide’s soothing heartbeat.  Jim removed a small gift-wrapped item from behind a large book on the shelf and then he joined Blair out on the balcony. 

“Blair?” 

Jim sounded slightly nervous and Blair turned around and looked curiously at the Sentinel. He spied the gift in Jim’s hand but he made no comment or move to take it from Jim, content to let Jim explain himself in his own time.

Jim was nervous.  He had been sure at the time that he was doing the right thing, but now that the moment of truth was at hand, he wasn’t so sure.  After all, his action, however well intended, could easily be construed as a breach of Blair’s privacy.

Jim bit the bullet and proceeded slowly to explain. 

“I realized something the other day about the pictures in the living room bookshelf.”

“What about them, Jim?” ‘After everything they’d been through, they were going to talk about pictures?’ Blair wondered.

“The pictures are all of me and my friends.  Not that the guys aren’t your friends too, they are.  It’s just that you aren’t in any of the pictures, and there are no pictures of you and your friends together…until now that is - I mean, if you want…” Jim’s voice trailed off with uncharacteristic uncertainty.

Blair took a deep breath, an idea was taking shape in his mind about what Jim had done, but he wasn‘t sure.

Jim put one arm around Sandburg‘s shoulders and handed him the gift.  With trembling hands, Blair tore the paper off, and his suspicions were beautifully confirmed.  He held in his hand the photograph of him and Janet, professionally matted and framed in delicate, intricately wrought silver.  It took his breath away.  

“I couldn’t help but see it on your desk this morning when you asked me to look for the missing exam.”

“Mrs. Myers, Janet’s mother, gave it to me when she stopped by to see me” Blair said with gentle gratitude in his voice.

“Why didn’t you show it to me, Chief?  It’s a beautiful picture.”

Blair shrugged.  “I’m not sure, Jim.  I guess I felt that we just got things settled between us, and showing you the picture would be like opening old wounds.”

Jim grew alarmed.  “Is that what this is; a reminder of old wounds? God I’m an idiot!” he exclaimed.

“No, no, Jim!” Blair looked up with earnest, wide blue eyes.  “This picture represents everything good about my friendship with Janet.  I don’t know how to thank you, man, for your thoughtfulness; for caring.”

“You just did, Chief,” Jim said as he clapped his partner warmly on the back.

The sun had set completely now and night enveloped Cascade.   Blair and Jim moved back inside the loft, and together, they placed the photograph of Blair and Janet on the bookshelf amongst all of Jim’s pictures of beloved friends.  Out side the world was dark; but inside, the loft shone like the sun from the bright light of friendship of Sentinel and Guide.

Finis