The Observer, Observed.
by Dusty Tyree

Jim Ellison was not a happy man.
He should've been, as things were looking good at the moment.
He'd put the final full stop to his report on the arms smuggling that had
kept him and his colleagues occupied for the last month. Marchant, the
man behind it all, was in custody with enough evidence to ensure he'd spend a lot of time behind bars.

Yes, Jim should be happy. He had three days leave coming to him and he'd had every intention of working it into a long weekend and go fishing. If Blair could take the time off, they'd go camping, if not, Jim would go alone. That was the plan until he'd seen the blonde girl from the legal department, flirting with Rafe, as she leaned over his desk.

Ellison glanced round to see if his partner was sitting behind his desk, but
the chair was empty. Jim heaved an inward sigh of relief.

Blair was head-over-heels in love, with Sharon Monroe.
He'd spent a great deal of his time while accompanying Jim on stakeouts and routine police work, telling his older friend all about Sharon and how
clever and beautiful she was. Then a couple of weeks ago, whilst on stakeout, Blair had confessed that he really liked Sharon and wanted to get to know her better, hoping for a long and loving relationship. Apparently he'd told Sharon this, and she'd agreed that it might be fun, had kissed him, very passionately, before running into the house she shared with her sister Julia.

Blair's blue eyes had been sparkling happily, even after Jim had whacked the top of his head, and told him that was far too much information, and to keep his eyes on the warehouse.

Sharon had seemed genuinely interested in Blair after their first few dates
together, and given Sandburg's own charm and simpatico with most of the female population inhabiting the building, not to mention the ones at the university, Jim had thought it might just work out.
Now though, he wasn't so sure.

Blair was as attentive as ever to Sharon's every whim, but lately, Jim had
seen a droop to his mouth that hadn't been there before, and Blair had
stopped talking so much about Sharon.

Jim had teased Blair about the younger man's many, often short-lived,
romances, but Jim knew that his roommate had never led the girls on once he'd lost interest, and had tried to let them down lightly. Sometimes that had worked, sometimes it hadn't, but Blair had never deliberately set out to hurt any one of the young women he'd dated. That was one of the reasons he was still friends with quite a few of them, Jim thought.

Being on the sidelines, Jim heard and saw much more than he wanted, or was comfortable with. Sharon had apparently taken Blair's declaration of
devotion as an invitation to flirt with every young male she came in contact with, whilst still maintaining her hold on Blair's affections.

The more Blair tried to indulge her, the worse her behaviour became,
flaunting her power over him, until Jim was ready to smack her on the nose. He'd asked Blair why he put up with her flirting, and Blair had just
shrugged. "She's young and beautiful, it doesn't mean anything. She comes back to me."

Jim had let the matter drop. Blair was an adult, could take care of himself, but it still made Jim angry to see the effect it had on his roommate.

Now, however, it looked as though Sharon had decided to invade the Major Crime unit.

Jim glared at Rafe as the handsome younger man raised his head, and Rafe flushed slightly, straightening up and gathering some papers from his desk. Sharon got up from her seat on the edge of the desk and looked up at Jim, her smile faltering as she also met his icy look.

Then she tossed her head slightly, flipping her long blonde hair over her
shoulder and sauntered out of the Bull Pen, trying not to look as if she was hurrying.

Jim heard Blair coming down the corridor, talking animatedly to Joel about
something he'd seen on the way to work, and heard the surprise in his voice when he saw Sharon.

"Hey, Sharon. What are you doing here? Did you want to see me?"

"No," came Sharon's snappy reply. "Had some papers to deliver to Major
Crime."

"Oh." Jim ground his teeth at the disappointment in Blair's voice, but his
partner rallied as only Sandburg could. "Do you want to go for a cup of
coffee, or something?"

"No, I don't have time to fritter away, like some people," Sharon snapped.
"I have to go back to work."

Jim heard Joel's low growl at the same time Sharon seemed to realise that Blair had company.

"Oh, Hi Captain Taggart. How are you?"

"Ms Monroe," said Taggart, pointedly ignoring her question. "Hey, Blair,
I'll talk to you later when you've finished your stint with Jim. Maybe you can show me that restaurant you were telling me about?"

"Sure, Joel, that'd be great. I'll check with Jim and give you a call."

Jim knew he shouldn't be listening, but hey, it was a public corridor and he
wanted to know what was going on so he could, maybe, help his partner later.

Jim heard Joel walk away and then Sharon's huff of displeasure. "What a
rude man. He practically ignored me."

"Joel is one of the kindest men I know," said Blair quietly. "He doesn't
like rude people."

"What? You're saying I was rude to him?"

"No, he thought you were being rude to me," Blair said flatly. "I don't
fritter my time away, Sharon. I merely thought if you had time we could
have a cup of coffee. You haven't, so I'd better get up to the Bull Pen before Jim comes looking for me, 'cos I'm late already due to that accident on the way in."

Sharon's sharp intake of breath at Blair's tone, was audible to the
listening sentinel ears. "Then why ask me out when you don't have time?"

"Because I happen to love you, and the people I love come before anything else. I just wanted to spend some time with you." Jim heard the slight catch in his voice. "You obviously don't want to spend time with me, so that's it."

"Wait, wait." Sharon said. "You mean you want to break up with me? You
dumping me, Blair?" Her voice was incredulous.

"No, I don't want to break up with you, Sharon. But I think it's obvious
after the last couple of weeks, you don't really want me around, so maybe it's better we cool it for a while."

"You listen to me, Blair Sandburg. No one dumps me and if you think a guy like you is going to be the first, well, you have another think coming."

"A guy like me?" Blair's voice was very quiet.

"Yeah. A short, nerdy guy like you who never stops talking. God! Whatever did I see in you in the first place?"

"Someone who treated you like a lady, who is a fantastic lover, according to what you told me." Another voice joined the conversation, a woman's voice, and Jim recognised Julia, Sharon's sister. He'd been on the point of boiling out of the office to give Sharon a piece of his mind, but Julia's voice halted that rash impulse.

"You keep out of this Julia, it's none of your business."

"It is my business. I've kept quiet for far too long, but it stops here and
now, Sharon. Blair is one of the nicest, kindest, fun guys around, and you
knew that when you first started going out with him. But you can never
commit to anyone who treats you like a lady, you'd rather have someone like Harvey who loved and left without a word, who treated you like a slut and you loved it."

"You... you...." Sharon spluttered.

Blair's voice intervened. "There's someone coming, we'd better move this
somewhere else."

The sound of footsteps going past the door was Jim's cue to move outside.

"Hey, Chief, there you are. We've got to move it, Buddy. Oh. Hello, ladies..."

"Jim," Julia smiled quietly.

Sharon ignored him as she strode on down the corridor leading to the stairs.

"You go on, Blair. I'll call you later," said Julia, giving him a pat on the back. "Don't worry about Sharon, we've had these arguments before."

"On the same subject?" asked Blair quietly.

"I'm afraid so." Julia's voice was sympathetic. "You didn't do anything
wrong, Blair, it's just Sharon can never commit to anyone... not at the
moment anyway." She paused. "I hoped I was wrong this time, she liked you."

Blair nodded doubtfully, but Jim knew he was unconvinced.

"Come on, Blair. Whatever it is, it will have to wait." Jim urged him back
towards the elevator with a hand on his shoulder, calling a hasty "Bye," to
Julia.

"So, did you manage to arrange for someone to cover your class? Can you come with me up to the Lake?"

"Er... what?"

Jim gave an exaggerated sigh. "You, me, camping - up at the Lake. You were going to see if David could cover your classes until next Monday."

"Oh, that. Yeah, David owes me a couple of favours. He's cool with it."

Blair didn't sound very enthusiastic, but Jim was willing to cut him some
slack.

He'd had a bit of a shock. The row with Sharon had blown up out of nowhere, but Jim was pleased at the outcome. Sharon had shown her true self and it hadn't been pretty. Now if his partner could fall for someone like Julia, Jim would be able to relax a little. Sure she was three or four years older than Sandburg, but older women had never seemed to worry Blair before.

Oh well, nothing was that easy.
It was an old saying, but time would heal most wounds and Blair would
hopefully bounce back when he'd had time to think things through.
Jim sure hoped so.
In his opinion, the girl really wasn't worth the heartache.

He became aware of Blair's quiet words as they got into the truck.
"I really liked her, Jim. I thought it was the real thing, this time."

"I know you did, Chief. I'm really sorry it didn't work out the way you
wanted."

Jim's voice was sincere and Blair glanced over at him as he fastened his
seatbelt.

"Thanks, Jim. Appreciate it." He was quiet while Jim drove out of the
underground garage, then seemed to shake off his gloomy thoughts. "Where are we going?"

"Home. I want to get an early start packing, and Simon gave me the rest of the day off. You need to do anything?"

"No, I'm okay until Monday."

"And after Monday?" asked Jim.

Blair raised his eyes, they'd lost some of the sparkle over the last few
days. "I'll be okay," he shrugged. "Not much option, really."

Oh Blair, Jim thought helplessly. He just wished he could help his partner
through this, but Blessed Protectors were no defence against romances gone wrong, emotional turmoil, or heartbreak.

There was one thing he could do however, he could be a friend; listen when necessary, comfort when required and if it was in his power, make sure that Blair had a darn good time this weekend.

Taking strength from that thought, Jim drove them home.

Dusty Tyree
(c) 21 January 2007