This is set after Nightshift, but before TsbyBS
Crowswork
LOST: Jim
I'm so lost.
He wandered through a strange jumble of buildings, bewildered by a Byzantine tangle of streets that seemed to lead nowhere. He had to find someone. Someone who would take care of him and stay with him forever. But he was lost, so alone in this desolate, gray landscape that he thought he might die from the absolute, crushing isolation.
"There -- there -- Jimmy." A woman's voice. A hand stroking his hair pulled him from the nightmare. Something tickled his memory. Caroline called him Jimmy.
Who was Caroline?
Opening his eyes a bit, he saw the plump brown face of a woman of about forty. She wore a nurse's uniform. She wasn't Caroline.
Caroline was his wife... ex-wife.
"Come on, now Jimmy," the woman crooned. "I know you're awake, honey."
"Where am I?" His voice sounded hoarse, as if he'd been screaming. He shook his head and wondered, why would I think that? Screaming?
A short, balding man approached. "Jim, it's so good to see you awake." The doctor smiled and gestured for the nurse to leave them.
"Who?" His voice broke and no more sound came.
"No... no... Try not to speak." The plump, dapperly dressed man gave him a drink and waited for him to lie back. "I'm Doctor Brooks, and this is a private hospital. You've been a patient here for almost two years."
Clutching at the bedding like a drowning man, Jim struggled to sit up, gasping, "What kind of place...?" He looked around the small private room frantically. "Where...?"
"Relax, Jim. I'll tell you everything." The doctor sat on the edge of the bed. "This is a psychiatric hospital. Your father brought you here for treatment. You were very ill."
"How?" Jim gripped the man's arm.
"Do you remember being a police officer? Do you remember a case involving a bomber called The Switchman?"
Jim nodded and whispered. "Caught her."
"Oh dear," the doctor frowned and looked disappointed. "We've had a bit of a relapse. No. You didn't catch Veronica Sarris. She walked into Police Headquarters, into Major Crimes with a bomb strapped to her chest. You were in pursuit, but she triggered the explosives before you got there."
"That's... not how it happened."
The doctor sighed and went to the highboy, taking a newspaper out of the top drawer. "I'm afraid we have to show you this, each time you relapse." He handed Jim the slightly yellowed paper.
The headline screamed:
The story that followed identified Veronica Sarris as the Switchman, a mentally ill woman, who was seeking revenge on Detective James Ellison. The detective was injured in the attack that killed Captain Simon Banks, Captain Joel Taggart, Forensic Chief Caroline Plummer and Detectives Henri Brown...
Jim read the list of names until the words blurred. All of Major Crimes. Caroline... Simon... everyone. He forced himself to read further.
Detective Ellison's father and brother were also the victims of a separate attack. According to the article, Stephen Ellison was killed instantly when a bomb wired to his ignition exploded prematurely. Prominent local executive William Ellison was critically injured in the blast.
"Stevie?" Jim was too stunned to take everything in. "Dad?"
"Your father was terribly burned, he's confined to a wheelchair and his health is very fragile." The doctor patted Jim's hand. "You were in the stairwell when the bomb went off in Major Crimes. You suffered a head injury and were in a coma for weeks. When you woke, you felt responsible for everything that happened and you had a breakdown."
"No!" Jim's voice cracked as he raised it. "It didn't happen this way. I remember. Blair and I caught her."
"Oh." The doctor's shoulders slumped. "I was afraid of this. Blair, again."
"Where is he?" Jim crumpled the paper in his hand. "He isn't dead too?"
"No, Blair isn't dead." The doctor's words made Jim slump back on the pillows in relief. "Blair never existed."
"What the hell?" Jim grabbed Brooks's jacket front and shook him roughly. "I want Blair. Now."
The nurse hustled back into the room as the doctor tried to pull away. She took one look and rushed out again. The doctor began speaking to him in a firm tone of voice. "When you first came here, you'd had a psychotic break. You created a fantasy world were you were a hero. A superhero, who protected everyone, who saw every danger, heard every plot. A Sentinel is what you called it."
"How do you know about that?" Jim shook the smaller man harder, panic giving him strength.
Two burly men entered the room and stood by the door. "Jim, if you don't release me, those men will put you in restraints."
Still furious, Ellison let the doctor step away. "Blair?"
"I guess every superhero needs a sidekick, and you created a very complex character. A best friend who was a mop-topped hippie professor." The doctor smiled kindly, but kept his distance. "A young genius who always had the answer, who catered to your every whim, and who even had a gorgeous sexy red-haired mom."
"Naomi." Jim fished the name out of his patchy memory. "I didn't make up Blair."
"I'm afraid, you did. You and I worked together for over a year to help you escape from this fantasy. You had accepted the loss of your friends and family. You were working out and you had regained some of your physical health. Most importantly, you stopped talking to Blair." The doctor looked at him with a sad expression as he spoke quietly. "We... I thought you could handle a trip to Cascade, to visit your father. Something happened, and the police found you on skid row, completely dissociated from reality."
"But, I remember cases. Blair and I flew to Peru, and there was nerve gas on an oil rig, terrorists, a KGB hitman and we saved everyone from Ebola." Dozens of cases overlapped and blended in his mind.
"You were a police officer, Jim." The doctor used his most reasonable voice. "Do those sound like things that happen to ordinary police detectives in medium sized cities? For instance, do you remember telling me about a monstrous serial killed who could turn himself into other people, including Blair?"
"Lash... he did." Jim shook his head wearily, trying to clear it. He forced his uncooperative legs over the side of the bed and tried to stand. "I want to see Blair, now."
The large orderlies each took an arm and lifted him back on the bed. His wrists were secured in heavy straps, and one was buckled over his chest. A needle stung his shoulder and he felt hot, as though he was melting into the bed. "Blair?" He called as loudly as he could, before the darkness swallowed him. "Help me, Blair."
I'm so lost.
It was two days before they let him get out of bed. The IV in his hand had kept him dazed and groggy enough not to protest when he was bathed and diapered like an infant. Each day, someone would come in and talk for hours about the reality of his life these last two years.
Now he stood in the bathroom -- the shower, was a reward for his calm acceptance of their truth -- and studied himself in the mirror. The image was a bit wavy, because the mirror was not glass, but some sort of safety material. His hairline had receded, and the hair left was mostly gray. His body was still muscular, but gaunt, with ribs and pelvic bones visible, jutting against his flesh. His eyes were shadowed and glassy with the lid on the right, thickened and drooping. Several long-healed scars marked that side of his cheek and forehead, with others disfiguring his shoulder and chest. He had limited motion in his right arm and his right leg was nearly paralyzed.
This disfigurement made him believe Doctor Brooks's story, when every instinct screamed that this was all a lie. His senses might be normal but he could still feel the twisted knots and ridges of flesh beneath his fingertips. These injuries had happened months, maybe years ago. He hadn't been a cop for a long time.
Jim had never been a vain man. He had always dressed in casual clothes, sheared his hair short and played down his looks. Because he knew -- and always had -- that he was handsome. It was simply a fact of life, like being tall or having blue eyes. To his great embarrassment, he had even been called beautiful. Women had looked at him and sighed. Now, they would cringe, and look away.
He dragged on the pullover pajama top and elastic-waist pants, eager to cover the pathetic wreck of his body. Doctor Brooks was stopping by to take him for his first trip outside this room. He scoured his mind for any memory of this place and the personnel working here but found none.
Stepping out of the bathroom, he saw Brooks sitting on his bed. "Doctor, umm... good morning."
"Good morning, Jim. Are you ready for breakfast?"
"Yeah, I'm starving." Jim rubbed the concave surface of his belly and tried to speak clearly. The right half of his lower lip was thickened and numb, making it difficult to enunciate certain words. "Where do patients eat?"
"I'll join you, if you don't mind." The man ushered him out of the room and led him through a series of halls. There didn't seem to be many patients, and Jim commented on it. "We are very exclusive, here at Thorne Woods Sanitarium. Your father insisted on the very best treatment."
"So... I spent the last two years here?" Jim looked askance at the muted colors and thick carpeting. A hushed aura seemed to hang over the place. There was no TV or radio in his room, and when he looked out the windows, all he could see were rolling lawns and dense forest.
He limped slowly along, as the doctor considerately stayed close and helped him keep his balance. The older man smiled and steered him into a dining room that looked like it belonged in an elegant resort. "We value peace and quiet here. No stress or noise. Just one-on-one therapy and the latest medications."
"I don't remember the last two years of my life?" Jim still found it incredible. "How could I have lost two years?"
"Jim... you told me you repressed your time in Peru... much of your childhood." The doctor said kindly. "Is it so unthinkable that losing your ex-wife, your brother, your friends and co-workers, would drive you to repress the incident. You have a very strong sense of responsibility and I'm afraid you -- quite incorrectly -- blamed yourself."
"But you're saying that I made stuff up. Stuff that wasn't real."
"It was very real to you, Jim. You kept your friends alive. You saved people, solved crimes. Two of your most complex fantasies involved rescuing your estranged father and brother. Even as you tried to keep everyone alive and safe in your mind, reality intruded. They were constantly in danger of dying because your subconscious mind knew that most of them were already dead."
Jim tried to think but his mind was hopelessly scrambled. "But Blair? The senses?"
"You became Superman to save everyone. The Sentinel, with a capital S. Your delusion was so detailed and comprehensive that we actually checked to see if there was such a thing. Neither Blair Sandburg or any mention of a sentinel ever appeared in any scholastic publication or records."
"Why would I make up someone like Blair?" Jim didn't think anyone had that wild an imagination. He was sure he didn't.
"You created your opposite. An idealized little brother who loved you unconditionally. Someone who was utterly loyal, someone who would stay with you and care for you, no matter what. You evidently had rather serious trust issues in your past."
They had been served a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and fresh-cut garden tomatoes. A basket of bagels and rolls and a thermal coffee carafe sat in the center of the table. As hungry as he was, he could only manage to eat a tiny portion of eggs and one sweet roll before he was full. At last, he looked up and pinned the doctor with his gaze. "Blair was real. I remember everything about him. How he made a mess when he cooked. His Goodwill wardrobe, and how he liked to 'recycle' my old clothes. The herbal shampoo that made the whole loft smell like him. I even remember what his blood smelled like when he was shot."
"Yes, 'Blair' did get into a lot of potentially lethal situations, didn't he? Odd for a civilian, huh?" the doctor inquired intently.
"Yeah, but Blair was always doing that kind of thing."
"He was willing to die for you? Alternatively, was your mind, in its quest for normalcy, trying to destroy the mental crutch that you created? You depended on Blair to cushion you from reality. But, at the same time, the part of you that was trying to recover kept trying to get rid of him."
"But I remember him."
"Blair and The Sentinel are facets of your own personality. You do not have to kill them or erase them. But you must reintegrate them into the whole person that is James Ellison."
Jim fought a nauseating bout of dizziness and swayed in his seat. He'd let his squad die in a searing tangle of flaming steel. He'd betrayed Jack. Everyone I care about is dead, because of me, he thought -- wishing he could cry. Hell, why would anyone in their right mind want to be around me? "And here I thought only kids had imaginary friends?"
James Ellison sat in a drug-induced fog and listened to the doctor drone on about his past. In the days since he was able to leave his room, he had spent hours in this treatment room, while psychiatrists worked to indoctrinate him about his recent past. And quiz him about his fantasy life.
ASo things were a little rough for a while. I told him I was sorry I read it, and he apologized for teasing me with the stupid chapter. Things were pretty dull for a few weeks until Phil Cameron came to town and told me about the Russian spies."
"Oh dear. Another spy caper?" Doctor Brooks smiled kindly. "You seem rather fond of those."
"Come on, Doc. Do we have to go through every case?" Jim shifted in the lounge chair. It was very soft and plush, but his joints still protested when he sat too long.
"It's the only way we've found to help you. Now tell me about Phillip Cameron?"
"Phil was a friend from my days in the Rangers." Jim sat up and glared at the doctor. "He really was! He joined the CIA when he got out."
"The last time you told us this -- we tried to contact Mister Cameron. He did join the CIA, but he was killed in a car bombing in Beirut. Six years ago."
"But I saw him. He came to Cascade not long after that angels and alligators farce."
Brooks chuckled. "That story was very entertaining and imaginative."
"Anyway, Blair and..." Jim ground his teeth and kept glaring at the doctor. "I mean, I met Phil at the docks. He was running from someone. He'd slipped out of Eastern Europe, and traveled from Canada to Cascade on a fishing boat."
"Wouldn't a CIA agent have people who would help him?" There was just a trace of condescension in the doctor's voice.
"Phil told me there was a leak in his station. He needed someone he could trust."
"You?"
"Yes. He had been contacted by a group of former KGB operatives." Jim frowned as he tried to remember the details. "They were in the Balkans, and wanted out. They had a wealth of secrets to sell and also, unfortunately, two suitcase-sized nuclear devices."
"And they wanted to sell these things?" Brooks made a few notes and looked up. "Did he ask you to help?"
"The Russians weren't eager to deal with terrorists. They just wanted to finish out their lives in the US, with some money in their pockets." Jim leaned back and closed his eyes.
Blair had been so excited he was bouncing off the walls. If the graduate student had become blase about detective work, he was still impressed with spy stuff. Phil had looked askance at the young man.
"You can trust Sandburg, Phil." Jim grinned at the expression on Cameron's face. "You can."
"This is big, Ellison." Phil grabbed Jim's arm and shook it slightly, while giving him a meaningful look. "Three-pointer."
Jim swallowed hard. It was a private code between them from the old days. One, two or three, after the world wars. 'One point' was assassination, 'Two', a sneak attack or ambush and a 'Three pointer', some sort of apocalyptic event.
"I'll wait over by the car," Blair offered as he backed away before he whispered, sentinel-soft, Ayou can tell me later."
"He seems like a good kid." Phil gave Jim an apologetic grin that vanished as he told him about the KGB agents. And the bombs.
Jim spent the next three days discreetly reaching out to his contacts in the intelligence community. He told Blair he was helping Phil rescue some Russian agents. Nevertheless, some instinct kept him from mentioning the nukes. The danger was just too great, even for knowing they existed.
Simon had invited the two of them to a Jags game. Afterwards he was driving them home, when a light truck whizzed past, and someone inside sprayed the closed storefronts with an automatic weapon. Simon floored it and pursued the truck, while Jim called for back-up. Blair held on for dear life and griped that he was never going to another basketball game.
"He said he was never going to another basketball game." Jim opened his eyes and stared sadly at Dr. Brooks. "Then the truck headed into the hills. I remember -- it was raining -- another truck came out of nowhere and forced us off the road. We were in a gully, the car resting on its left side against some trees. I got out okay, but Blair was slumped forward and when I grabbed the handle to open the back door the car moved..." Jim's words came out in an anguished rush before he became quiet and closed his eyes once again.
"What happened, Jim?"
"The trees snapped and the car slid down into the creek. It had rained a lot and the creek was wild... more like a river." He clutched at the armrests of the chair. "I could still see the car as it was swept away, and I was ready to go after it. I was going to dive in, when something hit me from behind. That's the last thing I remember. I woke up here."
"I know it hurts, Jim, but the Captain and Blair being literally torn away from you was a good sign. It meant that your subconscious mind was rejecting the fantasy that you were this indestructible Sentinel character."
"If this is reality, it really does bite." Jim swallowed hard as the room spun and dipped, making his stomach clench. He tried to summon the memory of Blair's voice, but the drugs made his recall erratic. He could remember the scent, though. The warm, clean herbal scent of curly hair that clung to his fingers after he touched it. "Thanks just the same -- but I think I'd rather be nuts."
"Oh, Jim."
"Can I go back to my room?" He was tired of the reproach in the doctor's eyes. He got to his feet and stood facing the mirror, repulsed at his own reflection.
"One thing you left out this time. Where were the Russian agents, and how was Phil going to contact them?"
"Come on, Doc. I'm about to puke all over your nice Persian rug." Jim turned and wavered toward the door. "We'll finish tomorrow, okay?"
The man behind the one-way mirror forced down his frustration and smiled coldly as he watched. This was working. They were gradually taking the detective through his 'imaginary' cases. Tomorrow they would casually ask about the details of his last case, and he would supply them with the information they needed. They couldn't rush things... the cop was too good and might catch on.
Ellison staggered to his feet and limped to his -- mirrored -- side of the glass. He looked at his reflection and then closed his eyes, his expression pained. Seeing this was intensely satisfying to the handsome, well-dressed man secretly watching him. From the first, Ellison had fascinated and intimidated him.
Lee Brackett had always been the golden boy. He was the scholar/athlete turned government operative. Desired by women and envied by men. Nevertheless, Ellison was always one step ahead -- and he did it, seemingly, without effort. He shunned the life that Brackett had struggled to achieve. "You don't look so impressive now, Jimbo," Brackett grinned.
This was not the first time he'd used this place. Brooks specialized in breaking the unbreakable. And in fact, Ellison was unbreakable. If you tortured a sentinel, he would simply zone and slip away into oblivion. Brackett had thought to snare the detective's partner, Blair Sandburg, and use him to force Ellison's hand.
But the men trying to grab the sentinel and guide fumbled, losing Sandburg and Simon Banks. They were only able to grab Ellison and that was the reason for all this playacting.
The unconscious man was kept in a drug-induced coma for over a week, given barely enough fluids to keep him alive. The detective's extreme fitness worked against him, as his low reserve of body fat vanished, leaving him weakened and gaunt. Fluid was tapped from his joints, leaving them stiff and painful. A continual cocktail of drugs took away his senses and left him confused and open to suggestion.
Then it was only a matter of cosmetic changes. A very skilled, but greedy plastic surgeon used collagen and semi-permanent dye to create terrible -- and temporary -- scars. Potent experimental nerve blocks were injected near certain nerves to mimic paralysis. The dark hair was thinned with wax and tinted a dismal shade of gray. Brackett thought of Jim as a 'resource' and ordered that nothing permanent be done to him.
"Poor old Jimbo." Brackett chuckled quietly as the patient turned to leave. Part of this charade stemmed from a genuine need for information. However -- the former spy had to admit -- a lot of it stemmed from his desire to bring Ellison down a peg. "You needed to learn that nobody beats me. Certainly not a jerk cop from a backwater city."
"All right, but we'll talk tomorrow." Brooks followed Jim to the door. "No backsliding. No talking to Blair."
"Sure." The patient escaped, and headed toward his room. Once there he bolted for the toilet and vomited what little he had eaten for breakfast. He was too dizzy to stand so he turned on the tub faucet and washed out his mouth.
The water was tepid and tasted faintly metallic, but he drank deeply anyway. Before he could drink his fill, it came back up and left him weak and gasping. As the retching slowed, he realized that he felt better. More alert. So he drank again, this time more slowly.
Every time he ate he felt ill and confused. Could they be putting drugs in the food? "Oh good, Ellison," he whispered. "Now you're delusional and paranoid."
However, when he spied his lunch tray sitting on the tiny table by the window, he approached it warily. A roast beef sandwich and potato salad. Two cups of yogurt, because he craved sweets, and yogurt was the best they could do, except for a little bag of M&Ms. Jim sniffed cautiously at the sandwich, but could barely smell the meat, much less any drug. He squeezed the yogurt cups, searching the foil seal for any pinholes. Then the candy got the same treatment. Satisfied that neither had been tampered with, he quickly wolfed down both cups of the nasty blueberry-flavored stuff. The candy he kept for later.
Hunched over, he broke off pieces of the sandwich and pretended to eat them. He dropped the pieces down the front of his shirt, and stirred the potato salad around, until it appeared that he had eaten some of that too. After a few minutes he returned to the bathroom and pulled the pajama top out of his elastic waistband and flushed the bits of sandwich away.
As his mind cleared, it became apparent that while he might be insane, he was also being secretly drugged. In hospitals, even mental hospitals, they just handed you a cup of pills and ordered you to take them.
Jim looked in the mirror and grimaced. They might be drugging him, but he also had to face the immutable fact that he had lost his mind. Because he remembered Blair. He remembered being a Sentinel. He remembered Naomi and Megan, and all the cases and arrests he'd made.
Nevertheless, he was crippled and scarred and had evidently been that way for a long time. This was reality... and he hated it. He wanted to return to Cascade and to Blair and being a Sentinel. Even if it was a fantasy.
The seductive pull of madness threatened to draw him deeper into his own private world of warmth, friendship, and adventure. "Blair." He whispered the words as he slid down the cold tile wall of the bathroom. "I want to go home now."
Jim shook his hand, trying to make his fingertips stop tingling. He had stayed in his room at dinner by pretending dizziness and nausea and arguing that he needed to lie down. He could not spot any surveillance equipment in the room, but he took no chances. On his frequent trips to the bathroom, he staggered and held onto the wall until he was inside.
Once there, he took long, hot showers, massaging his right arm and leg until they turned red and trembled with spasms of pain. Anything was an improvement over the dead numbness. Then he would turn on the cold faucet and let the icy water wash away the last of the fuzzy edges from his mind. Gulping as much of the water as he could hold, he tried to clear away the chemicals that poisoned him.
Leaving the shower, he stood under the over-bright lights and looked in the mirror. Something was different, but the wavy safety glass made it hard to see. He ran newly-sensitive fingertips over the scarring on his shoulder, and glanced down. The ridged scars seemed to soften almost imperceptibly and felt less pronounced. Looking closely, he noticed that the slightly glossy surface of the cicatrix was uneven and the color -- Jim narrowed his gaze until he could almost see individual skin cells -- the color was not natural.
The scars weren't real.
He remembered a movie. A silly 'chick flick' he'd taken a date to. One character was an aging beauty who kept getting stuff injected into her face and lips. The actress playing the part actually got collagen injected, to make her lips grotesquely huge. But it was only temporary.
Jim thoughtfully rubbed the thickened half of his lower lip. "Son of a bitch." The complexity of this plan, if it was a plan and not some mental side trip into paranoia or denial, stunned him. They knew about Sentinels, but seemed determined to convince him he wasn't one. That left out the military types Sandburg always worried about.
Sandburg.
Oh dear God. If this was some sort of scam, then the accident had really happened. The pictures filled his mind as he remembered. Blair and Simon, unconscious, strapped in a car. Saplings snapping as the car slid down a muddy slope, and was swept away. He could feel and smell the cold spray of water on his face, and see the dirty yellow-white of the torrent as it raged past. "Blair," he whispered, and the strength went out of him. He pulled on a pair of shorts and shambled unsteadily to his bed. This time he didn't have to pretend to be frail as he crawled under the covers and shivered.
If Blair was dead -- sane or insane -- it made no difference
Dr. Brooks tried to coax Jim from his bed. "Jim, why don't you come to breakfast, and then we'll talk? You'll feel better if you eat."
Yeah, I'll just bet, Jim thought angrily. "I feel sick and kinda dizzy." He burrowed back under the blankets. Jim now knew that the doctor was pumping him for information. Information that he evidently had not given yet. Only one thing left to tell could justify all this intrigue. The Russian agents. Jim knew the location of the meet and where the bombs would be turned over. "I don't want to," he whined petulantly.
"Jim! I..." Brooks snapped before he forced his voice to soften. "I hope you'll be feeling better by lunch. You don't want to have an IV again."
"I'll try to come to lunch," Jim promised weakly. "Then we'll talk, and when I tell you everything, I'll get better, right?"
"Yes, Jim," Brooks purred. "When you tell me everything, then you'll be all better."
Jim picked up the folded pair of pajamas and walked unsteadily to the bathroom. The doctor's unsubtle threat of an IV made it essential to show up for lunch. Hungry as he was, he would have to be careful what he ate. That or end sticking his finger down his throat in the toilet later.
He'd have to pretend to be impaired, too, when in truth he felt almost normal. Well, maybe not up to chasing a perp down a dark alley, but his leg would hold his full weight and his right hand had regained feeling. More than that, his senses were coming back in fits and starts.
I have got to get out of here, Jim thought as he pulled on the fresh pajamas. Even if it means camping out in the woods in cotton PJ's and terrycloth slippers. As he laboriously made his way to the dining room, he was already planning how to collect any viable food and make a pack and a poncho out of his blankets.
The head nurse and another woman were heading toward him from the end of the hall. Ruth, the nurse, had been kind to him, and he wondered if she, too, was part of this plot. The blonde woman with her looked defeated as she slouched along with her hands in her pockets. His vision narrowed as it searched the figure's garish hair color and heavy make-up.
The downcast eyes came up -- they were the wrong color -- but it didn't matter. "Chief?" Jim barely breathed the word as the figures approached.
The full lips parted, then snapped closed as he finally recognized Jim. Evidently the plastic-framed glasses Blair was wearing didn't work too well. Jim forced himself to stay motionless and let them come to him.
"Jim." Ruth smiled at him and held Blair's arm. "This is Casey, she'll be working here."
"Jim it's me," Blair whispered from behind his hand as he pretended to sneeze.
"I know." Jim took his hand and shook it, smiling faintly. Blair might like the cloak-and-dagger stuff, but to use his favorite word, he sucked at it. "Your eyes gave you away," he muttered through clenched teeth.
Ruth nodded and smiled. "Damn, I knew I should have clipped those eyelashes."
Blair seemed about to jump out of his skin he was so excited. Jim could see his hands tense inside the pockets, in an effort not to gesture. "Someplacesafe." The young man was trying his best to talk without moving his face and Jim had to hold back a genuine grin.
"Take Jimmy's arm, Casey." Ruth gave both men a meaningful look. "We'll help him to his room."
Jim tried to look as if he was about to swoon. It was not hard. "I guess I got up too fast." He was reeling with relief, joy, and terror -- and in the back of his mind -- a niggling doubt that this might not be real.
They passed by the door to his room and made their way down an uncarpeted hallway. Ruth unlocked a door, and soon they were in a very plain, austere passage. "Okay," she said, "there are no functioning cameras in here."
Jim straightened and stepped away from Blair. "Are you okay, Chief?"
"Me... me? My God, Jim! What did they do to you?" Blair looked up and Jim was shaken to see tears in his eyes.
"What?" It took a moment for it to sink in and he put his hand to the sham scars on his cheek. "Oh, this. This isn't real. It's some kind of mind game."
"We thought you were dead."
Jim was forced to take a step back as sturdy arms wrapped around his ribs and pulled him into a bear hug. For a moment he held back, then gently returned the hug. He patted the head under his chin and cringed at the chemical smell that overlaid the unique scent of his guide. The thick hair felt like straw to his sensitive fingertips.
Blair was on the verge of breaking down, and there just wasn't time for it. Not now. "Is this new look going to be a permanent thing, Chief?" Jim waited for a reply, and when none came, he forced himself to sound more cheerful. "I mean -- us living together -- there's gonna be talk, if you start dressing like a woman."
"There's, ~sniffle~ alreadytalk." Blair's muffled voice came from between them.
"No!" Jim pretended to be shocked.
Blair pulled away and gave him a wavering grin. "Mrs. Lawson in the bakery thinks we make a cute couple."
Ruth gestured for them to follow her, so Jim threw his arm over his friend's shoulders and urged him forward. "Mrs. Lawson hasn't seen you in that get-up.
"Hey, I suffered for this look." Blair took off the useless glasses and pointed to his forehead. "She plucked my eyebrows."
LOST: Blair
Blair dreamed of the panther again. It was trapped in a wicked patch of thorn trees; its struggles spearing it on inch-long barbs every time it moved. Bright red stained the velvet black of its coat, and it roared in rage.
The wolf was trying to rip its way into the center of the briars that held it's comrade captive. Blair saw the thorns tear the soft mouth and thought he could taste the iron tang of blood.
The huge black cat morphed, turning into James Ellison. The tall man was huddled naked in the middle of the ring of brambles.
"Jim!" Blair had somehow replaced the wolf. He tried to reach his partner and tore his hands on the vicious spikes.
Pale, clouded blue eyes turned toward him and then sightlessly looked around. "I'm lost," the distressed man whispered, "I'm so lost."
"Jim?" Blair called trying to make some sort of contact. "JIM!"
"JIM!" Blair screamed as he sat bolt upright in his bed. His breathing was labored and he felt the panic start to overwhelm him. Strong arms shook him slightly and then held him as he shuddered.
"Calm down, kid." Simon's deep voice drew him out of the last of the nightmare/vision. "Wake up."
"I saw Jim." Blair realized he was in his new room, at the safe house. Simon had been staying in the next room.
"Jim isn't here, kid. Jim's... gone."
"I know." Blair fought the almost overpowering urge to weep. "Oh God, I know."
Blair was going to run away from home. He'd made up his mind; he was making a break for it, tonight.
He was going to find Jim. Simon and the others listened sympathetically to the stories about his dreams and still insisted that Jim was dead. After all, a witness saw him dive into the raging creek and disappear under the water as he tried to reach Simon's car. He and Simon would have died too, if the car hadn't caught on a bridge a half mile downstream.
Blair remembered awakening in the hospital, with Rafe and Megan watching over him. Simon came in, in a wheelchair, his broken leg propped up, and awkwardly maneuvered to his bedside.
"Where's Jim?" Blair asked it as soon as he could speak.
"He's gone, kid." Simon looked -- alarm bells sounded in Blair's mind -- as if he were about to cry. "They haven't found the body yet."
Blair gasped as loudly as he could. "Then he isn't dead."
"It's been three days, Sandburg." The Captain's dark features softened as he patted the younger man on the shoulder. "You were so out of it when you woke up last time that the doctors had to sedate you."
Blair had a vague memory of hearing someone say Jim was dead. He remembered pitching a fit and trying to get up, and then the pinch of a needle and oblivion. He had to stay calm this time. "I'm okay." He watched as the others relaxed. They looked so relieved that he almost smiled. "I suppose they searched everywhere?"
Megan dashed tears out of her eyes and took his hand. "We all helped search every inch of that creek bank, Sandy."
"The creek empties into the river, then into the ocean," Rafe added. "The Coast Guard is still searching."
"The wreck, Sandburg. Do you remember that?" Simon asked as he watched him carefully.
"The accident?"
"It wasn't an accident, kid. The truck that ran us off the road was stolen. They found it burned out in the national forest." Simon leaned back tiredly and sighed.
Rafe picked up the story. "The witness stopped just in time to see them drive away. Jim got out of the car just before it went into the water. Then... he just dove in and started swimming. She watched until he disappeared under the water."
Blair let a tear escape as he listened. Rafe and Megan exchanged glances and left the room, while Simon sat there looking at him as if he might grow two heads.
Of course, it made sense that Jim would jump in to save his friends, Blair thought. A few tears from him were to be expected. It also helped to make them believe. Because he had to convince everyone that he was okay. Because he had to find Jim. Because Jim wasn't dead. "How long till I can go home, Simon?" Blair snuffled and rubbed his eyes.
"You banged your head, and lost some blood." Simon had his hand and was patting it. "Also, you cracked a couple ribs."
"Home? When?"
"The doc was mostly worried about your... ahh... emotional... you know." Simon tried not to make it sound as though Blair was having a breakdown.
"My head was cracked, but none of my brains leaked out, man." The young man tried to sound stoic, emotionally stunted and repressed, just the way Jim and Simon acted when they faced something painful. It worked. Simon looked relieved and smiled sadly. "The doc's said you could go to the safehouse in a day or two."
"Home," Blair was adamant. "I want to go to the loft."
"Sorry, kid, but both of us stay under guard until we figure out who tried to kill us."
'Act normal', Blair reminded himself. 'Stay cool.' "Sure, Simon. Safehouse and guards are good."
So it was that he and Simon spent a week in the innocuous suburban safehouse. Every night he was tortured by visions and nightmares, every day he spent working on his laptop, trying to decipher the meaning of the things he was seeing. He had surreptitiously contacted Jack and the former CIA agent had helped him track down Philip Cameron. Jim's erstwhile friend was still in Cascade.
Then, last night, Incacha had come to him. The wise Chopec shaman had looked so sad as he stood beside the bed. "Young Shaman. Why is your Sentinel lost and alone?"
"Please? Help me find him?" Blair whispered the words, afraid the apparition would disappear if he spoke too loudly.
"He is in the hands of an old enemy. His mind is being twisted and his spirit broken by men who should heal those things."
"Please? Tell me who?"
"Enqueri once walked the same path as this man. The secret ways. The stealthy way of the assassin. This man knows the secret of the Sentinel."
"Lee Brackett." Blair gasped and sat up as the specter vanished.
Breathing heavily, Blair got out of bed and went to the small desk. There, he opened up his laptop and logged on. Before dawn, he had found, with Jack Kelso's help, Thorne Woods Sanitarium. It was a private mental hospital, with ties to the intelligence community. He'd also discovered that Brackett had vanished from the maximum security prison where he'd been incarcerated.
He wished he could tell Simon everything. But Simon thought Jim was dead. His impeccable witness -- a plant by Brackett, Blair was sure -- had returned to her teaching job, in Baltimore. And all the young man could offer were visions and instincts. The one time he'd tried to tell Simon about his dreams the man had looked worried and oddly afraid. As if he was losing another friend, this time to madness.
No, Blair assured himself, he was doing the right thing. If the guys in charge at Thorne Woods got word that the law was on the way, they might get rid of the evidence. And Jim was the evidence.
So, Blair planned to run away from the safehouse. He'd found a blind spot and waited until the officer on patrol was at the front of the house before slipping out the bathroom window. His bedroom slippers slipped on the frosted grass, and the damp wind cut through the layers of flannel and fleece. Simon had thought to keep him in, by surreptitiously confiscating his boots and winter coat. But the dark sweats blended into the shadows admirably, and the soft slippers made almost no sound on the frozen grass.
He climbed over the privacy fence with the help of a lawn chair, and dropped to the ground with a muffled groan as his healing ribs protested. Then it was simply a matter of sneaking through the neighbors yard to the street beyond. Jack was waiting on the next block in his van, and the runaway observer tumbled into the passenger seat. "Hit the road, Jack." Blair felt almost giddy with relief at his escape.
"There's a pair of boots and a coat in the back for you." Jack clicked on the overhead light as he maneuvered the van skillfully through the narrow streets, using only the hand controls. "It's going to be a long trip."
Blair scrambled into the back and pulled on dry socks and the insulated boots. "These look new, Jack. I'll pay you for them."
"They're my old ones." Jack said wryly. "Not much wear and tear on 'em, though."
"Sure." Blair fought the urge to blush, even if the man driving couldn't see him. The former agent was so proficient at every day tasks that sometimes he forgot that Jack was a paraplegic. "Your help means a lot, you know. I couldn't do this if..."
"Hey, if that jerk Brackett really is behind Jim's abduction -- I want a piece of the action -- bigtime." Jack's expression turned grim. "Rumor has it that he's working with terrorists. It's one thing to go wrong, but when an agent goes that wrong, he has to be put down."
Blair cautiously climbed into the bucket seat and fastened his seat belt. "Why a hospital? Why Jim? What the hell is going on?"
"Let's make a quick stop and find out, shall we?" Jack pulled into the underground garage of an upscale apartment building. He quickly lowered his wheelchair to the ground and waited for Blair at the elevator.
Inside the elevator, the younger man looked down worriedly. "Who are we going to see?"
"Jim's old buddy, Phil Cameron."
"You know... if things ever get straightened out... and any more of Jim's old buddies turn up... it's gonna be shoot on sight." Blair sounded almost serious.
"And this from a pacifist, liberal, egghead."
"Can it, Jack." Blair stalked out of the elevators. "Where is he?"
"Just play along." The former agent wheeled up to a door and gestured to Blair to stay to one side, out of sight. He knocked and Cameron opened the door a crack. "Mister Cameron. My name is Jack Kelso and I have some information you need to hear."
"Kelso? You wrote that damned book?"
"Do we really want to discuss your job here in the hall?"
"Come in," the man said grudgingly as he opened the door. Jack entered and gestured for Blair to follow. When Cameron turned, it was to face two men, the one in the wheelchair holding a forty-five.
"Where is James Ellison?" Jack asked in a low voice.
Cameron tried to hide his fear and anger. "Last I heard, he took a one-way dive into a raging flood trying to save his little friend there."
"Bastard." Blair ground the word out through clenched teeth.
"Where is James Ellison?" Jack asked the question again.
"I don't know." Cameron snapped. "Now get out. We both know you aren't going to kill me."
"But life would be hell without a kneecap." Jack reminded Blair of Jim at his most lethal. This was a side of his soft-spoken friend he had never seen.
"I tell you, I don't know where Ellison is." Phil looked less sure of himself. "I don't."
"But you know something, don't you?" Blair snarled angrily before letting his voice go cold and deadly. "Start with the left knee, Jack."
"Look, you little punk," Cameron was sweating as he snapped, "you don't scare me."
"I should." Blair let all the anger and frustrations of the last week explode. "Jim is my partner. My brother. I will do anything, I have to, to make you talk. If Jack won't hurt you -- I will." Something in the low, implacable voice and blazing blue eyes made the older man step back. "Now, tell us about Jim. I already know about the KGB agents."
"There were no KGB agents."
"What!" Blair advanced another step.
"It was a setup." Cameron looked to Jack for understanding. "We wanted to draw Lee Brackett out of hiding. That man has a real hard-on about old Jimbo." He paused and glanced at the furious young man. "We suspected that Brackett was in Cascade. He was fascinated by Ellison, so we used that. We approached Jim with the story about the Russians."
"You lied to him. You were his friend."
"Hey, Jim would be the first to tell you, sometime you got to break a few eggs, if you want an omelet."
"You let them think Ellison knew the whereabouts of the agents," Jack said quietly. "Even I heard the rumors about 'suitcase nuclear bombs'."
"Yeah. We let the word get around." Cameron shrugged. "We thought he'd make a grab for Jim and we'd catch him. Who knew our bait would take off after the hunter? By the time we got there, they were gone. That's all we know."
Blair staggered back as he was struck by the realization. "They think Jim knows where nuclear weapons are hidden? They could be torturing him."
Jack used the hand without the gun to grab the back of Blair's belt and stop him from advancing on Cameron. "Blair. We got what we came for."
"But we..."
"Blair. We have to leave. Now," Jack insisted with a meaningful glance.
They backed away from Phil, who just stood there looking frustrated as he shouted, "Damn it, you guys. Jim would understand why I did this."
"Keep telling yourself that, you liar." Blair turned his back on the man. "You're pathetic, man."
"We'll catch Brackett when he goes for the prize." Phil insisted more quietly as he followed them. "Face it, kid. Ellison's probably already dead."
Jack somehow maneuvered his chair between the two men. "Come on, Blair," he urged again.
On the elevator, Blair was shaking with anger as he fell back against the steel wall. "Oh, God. What are we gonna do, Jack?"
"We have an edge, Blair." Jack looked hard at his friend. "We have a 'Guide'. We know about Thorne Woods because you had a vision. And besides, I think you would know if Jim were dead."
Blair straightened and tried to hide his reaction. "What do you mean?"
"It means I've made a few guesses. Educated guesses, but just guesses." Jack took the nervous young man's hand in his and patted it. "Don't tell me anything else -- 'cause I don't want to know."
"Jack..."
"I don't want to know," Jack said sternly as he rolled out of the elevator and headed for his van. "Now, let's go find your sentry."
"That's sen... ahh, never mind." Blair almost smiled as he climbed into the van. It felt so good to be doing something. Anything. ASo, what is Thorne Woods anyway?"
"It was a CIA-run sanitarium, specializing in gathering intelligence under duress."
"Torture?" Blair was rigid with indignation.
"Mostly drugs. Mind games. That sort of thing." Jack gave the young man a sympathetic glance as he waited at the light. "That part was fazed out in ninety-six. The doctors and staff were kept on and the agency farmed out any mentally ill security risks there."
"I suppose there's a lot of security?"
"More than an ordinary sanitarium might have, but less than you'd think. It's very isolated, and there's no way you could sneak in. If the cops came in force, Jim would be 'vanished' before they got there."
"So what can we do?" Blair's shoulders slumped as his clenched fist beat unconsciously against the door panel.
"You walk in the front door." Jack grinned as he shrugged negligently. "Or maybe the employees' entrance. I'm betting that Brackett only has one or two associates inside. The rest of the staff probably thinks that Ellison is a legit patient."
"Brackett knows me." Blair remembered the smarmy insinuations, and snide comments about his relationship with Jim. The man's attitude toward them both made Blair's skin crawl.
"But it won't be Blair Sandburg who walks into Thorne Woods."
"I'm going to hate this -- aren't I?" Blair sighed as he studied the older man's wry expression.
"We work with what we are given."
It was late afternoon when Jack led Blair to the brick and cedar cottage. It sat in a secluded grove of trees, at the end of a country road. Before they got to the door, it opened and a woman rushed out. "Kels. Oh, darling Kels." A plump, beautiful African-American woman of about Jack's age swooped down and kissed him on the lips. "Come in."
Blair tipped his head and shrugged as he entered.
"Ruth, you look as beautiful as ever." Jack smiled at the woman and took her hand. "I have missed you."
"Oh Kels. I got fat."
"Nonsense." He kissed her hand and seemed to lose himself, for a moment, in her big brown eyes.
"Is this your friend, Kels?" She barely spared Blair a glance.
"We need your help, Luv." Jack sighed, "sorry to drag you into this."
"I should have quit the game after you left." Ruth gave him an understanding smile. "Nothing was the same, after that. I've been looking for an excuse to get out for a while now."
"You work at Thorne Woods, Ms...?" Blair tried to remember if Jack had mentioned her last name.
"Ruth, please." She gave him a kind smile. "Yes, I trained as a nurse -- about a thousand years ago -- and they assigned me here."
Jack took over the thread of the conversation. "She was a great field agent. So good that she collected a few too many powerful enemies."
Blair looked at the woman in a new light. "Jack said you recognized the photo he E-mailed you?"
"Yes... barely." She gave him a sympathetic look. "I've only spoken to him once, but he seems like a nice man. Tragic thing."
"What do you mean?" Blair asked nervously. "Is Jim hurt?
"Hurt? If you know Jim then you must..." She stopped and a look of horror crossed her face. "Oh, Jack. Brooks is up to his old, twisted tricks, isn't he? Jim isn't a disfigured, delusional security risk, is he?"
"Jim Ellison was a detective in Cascade before he was kidnapped a few weeks ago," Jack said quietly. "A very fit and healthy detective."
"I swear, Jack. I didn't know." Ruth looked at the two men and sat heavily on the couch. "I don't think anyone at the hospital knows, no one but Doctor Brooks. Why didn't you tell me about this?"
"I know you, Luv. I know you would try to do something on your own." Jack gave her a fond look. "Did you find what I asked for?"
"We are expecting a new licensed practical nurse in a week and... oh, Jack... him?" She looked at Blair curiously.
"Work your magic, Baby," Jack chuckled. "Everything you need is in the van."
"Come on then, 'Baby'," Ruth said sarcastically as she shook her head at Jack. "We'll put the van in the garage and discuss old times."
"Ahh, Jack?" Blair asked Jack, who was ignoring him. "Nurse? Am I going to have to be a woman?"
"Sexist remark, Blair," Jack chided as he left. "Nurse is not just a feminine noun."
Blair didn't care, really. If it meant he could help Jim, he'd shave his head and wear pasties and a thong.
As it turned out, pasties and a thong would have been an improvement. The new practical nurse was named Casey Sharpe. And despite Jack's wise-ass remark, Casey was a woman.
Jack insisted that the exhausted young man sleep for a few hours, and woke him at midnight.
Ruth then dragged Blair into the bathroom and spent the better part of the night rendering him unrecognizable. She bleached and colored his hair, then hot-combed it into a straight, straw-colored mess. Stripping him to his shorts, she sprayed him with depilatory that removed his arm and chest hair. Then she used it on his face.
"This is going to make me break out," he protested as it burned.
"Good. In this photo of Casey, she looks like she has a bad complexion."
"Jack!"
"Chill, Blair," Jack shouted from outside the half-opened bathroom door. "Ruth once helped pass me off as a Las Vegas showgirl."
"You didn't put that one in your book." Blair grumbled as the woman fitted him with a bodysuit that simulated mid-sized breasts, a little pot belly and wide hips. "I'm guessing Jack didn't wear this thing?"
"We don't want you turning heads, honey. And those fine, broad shoulders of yours need to be balanced." Ruth produced a pink long-sleeved polyester uniform, decorated with brown teddy bears. She waited for a moment, sighed, and then turned her back as he shucked his shorts and fastened the snaps on the crotch on the bodysuit. "I am a nurse, honey. And tuck yourself up into that suit. We don't want any bulges giving you away."
Blushing, he did as she ordered and then pulled on the uniform pants. The elastic waist stretched around his expanded middle and the smock-style top snapped up the front. The modest vee-neck showed only a bit of smooth chest, and the full sleeves helped to hide his arms. "Okay. You can turn around now."
"Beautiful. Now sit on the john while I do your make-up." Blair sat and let her apply foundation and blush. She studied the photograph, then Blair, and frowned as she picked up a pair of tweezers. "The eyebrows are all wrong." By the time his eyebrows suited her, Blair was ready to call Amnesty International.
Then she went back to the make-up. Then she had him put two rolls of cotton wading in his cheeks to make them fuller. Then she pulled a wide pink headband around his hair so that it covered part of his forehead. Then she made him put in brown contact lenses and wear a pair of non-prescription glasses. Finally she told him to look in the mirror.
A stranger looked back at him. It was the woman in the photo. A rather dumpy, hard-looking woman, wearing iridescent pink lipstick, orange/red blush and too much eyeliner. Whatever he looked like, it wasn't Blair Sandburg.
David Lash in drag? No.
Naomi's really homely sister, if she had one? No.
He looked like Casey Sharpe.
Poor lady.
"Read this." Ruth handed him Casey's file as she left him. "I'll go get ready for work."
"Holy cow, Blair. You really look like..." Jack peered up at him and paused, "like her."
"Shut up, Jack." Blair walked past him, trying to get used to the slippery-feeling, knee-high stockings that helped make Ruth's old size nine oxfords almost fit him. "I am going to end up in Leavenworth, aren't I?"
"No, Blair," Jack reassured him. "I'm going to give you time to get to Thorne Woods, and find Jim. Then I'm calling Agency Oversight, the State Police, Cascade PD and possibly the U.S. Marines. All you two have to do is find Jim and keep him alive until the cavalry gets there."
"I can do that." Blair tried to sound tough, which was hard when you were wearing pink polyester decorated with teddy bears. "I can hit them with my cool new purse."
"Here, use this." Jack handed him a pack of Marlboros. "Casey is a smoker."
"I know second-hand smoke is dangerous, but..."
"There's a powerful stun gun inside the pack. It's made to pass through scanners."
"Oh." Blair flipped open the cardboard top and looked inside. Eight cigarettes and an old-fashioned lighter. "The lighter?"
Jack took the lighter and flipped it open to show two prongs. "They are needle-sharp and will go through layers of clothing. Just jab them, and push this button. They'll be down for the count."
"God, Jack. You really did this spy crap, didn't you?"
"Well, duh," Jack shook his head. "I thought you, at least, actually read my book?"
"Yeah, I did, sorry." Blair perched on a stool and almost fell off again as his new ass rolled and threw him to one side. "Guess I just watched too many James Bond movies."
"Real spies look like Ruth and I. The object was to be normal, nondescript people. Brackett was always a showboat and it got him into trouble." Jack gestured for Blair to get to his feet. "Your posture is too good. Casey is listed as five-feet-six, so round out your shoulders and push your gut forward."
Blair read the file and listened to Jack's instructions at the same time. "Bad posture. Check," he said as he slumped forward and walked around the man in the wheelchair. "Speak quietly, through my nose. Check."
"And keep those big mitts in your pockets as much as possible, 'cause there's no way of disguising them," Ruth added as she hurried in. Then she pulled on a jacket and handed one to Blair. "Come on, kid. We're going to work."
"Be careful." Jack looked sad and frustrated as they walked away.
Ruth turned back and kissed him hard on the lips. "You're our back-up, Kels. Make those calls."
"I think I'll call Banks right now," Jack grinned. "He needs to be here."
"I'd kiss ya too, but I'd smear my lipstick," Blair called back as he waved. He was afraid, but it felt good to be doing something. "Tell Simon I'm sorry I ran away, but that the dream was true. It's part of that stuff he hates."
Damn, he was cool today. Blair congratulated himself as he and Ruth walked down through the hospital. He had the voice just right, the walk, and everything. He had breezed past the guard at the gate and let Ruth do most of the talking. He just gave the man a tight smile and nodded hello when they were introduced. And he kept his hands in his pockets as much as possible.
There were not many patients in the place and few staff members. Ruth guided him to a quiet hallway where the only other person was a tall, pitifully crippled man at the opposite end. Blair wished he could have worn his own glasses, because the ones he was wearing weren't worth spit. He looked at the rug in front of them and just kept walking, trusting Ruth to take him to Jim.
Something about the man limping toward them drew his gaze again, and he raised his eyes. As they came closer, he could see the laser blue eyes looking at him from the devastated features. Blair felt his jaw drop and he had to fight the urge to race forward and fling himself at the man. He had to fight not to scream at the pain he saw in the other man's face.
Ruth was saying something... introducing him as Casey... and Jim was giving her a broken, one-sided smile that made Blair's chest hurt.
Oh God. Maybe he doesn't recognise me. His mind racing, Blair summoned up a rather realistic sneeze. "Jim it's me." He used his own voice, muffled by his hand.
"I know." Jim didn't stop smiling as he took his hand and said through his teeth. "Your eyes gave you away."
Ruth nodded, pretending that this was just a casual meeting as she murmured "Damn, I knew I should have clipped those eyelashes."
Blair was so excited he and he couldn't understand how they could act so calm. "Someplacesafe." His voice was a hissing lisp as he tried to talk without moving his face. It was harder than it looked, especially without using his hands.
"Take Jimmy's arm, Casey." Ruth gave both men a meaningful look. "We'll help him to his room."
"I guess I got up too fast." Jim swayed and looked like he was about to collapse.
Jim leaned heavily on him and Blair wondered what that bastard Brackett had done to him.
They finally ended up in an uncarpeted hallway, where Ruth shepherded them through a door and locked it. "Okay," she said, "there are no functioning cameras in here."
Jim stopped leaning and studied Blair intently. "Are you OK, Chief?"
"Me... me? My God Jim! What did they do to you?" Blair wanted to cry. Hell he was crying.
"What?" Jim looked nonplussed for a moment then touched his face. "Oh, this. This isn't real. It's some kind of mind game."
"We thought you were dead." Blair couldn't hold back any longer. He threw his arms around Jim and hugged so hard his healing ribs protested painfully. He felt the tall man hesitate, then stroke his hair in a comforting gesture. All the pain and anguish of the past weeks melted away, and no present danger mattered to him now.
Jim held him tight. Blair could feel as well as hear the emotion in his voice that belied the next playful words. "Is this new look going to be a permanent thing, Chief? I mean -- us living together -- there's gonna be talk, if you start dressing like a woman."
"There's ~sniffle~ alreadytalk."
"No!" Jim was trying to sound shocked.
"Mrs. Lawson in the bakery thinks we make a cute couple." Jim was trying to lighten things up, so Blair played along.
"Mrs. Lawson hasn't seen you in that get-up." Jim chuckled as Ruth urged them to move.
"Hey, I suffered for this look. She plucked my eyebrows."
Found: Jim and Blair
Ruth guided them through a maze of hallways, and down a narrow flight of stairs. "We're lucky this place is about to be closed down. Of course, the lack of security is the only reason Brooks got away with this crap in the first place. There's a small room hidden behind the furnace. I think it was a coal bin a long time ago." She opened another padlocked door, almost hidden behind a tangle of heating ducts and gestured them inside. "I caught an orderly down here with his porn library. He's gone and I never reported it."
"We have to escape from here." Jim looked into the tiny room and frowned. "Not hide."
"No, Jim." Blair tugged on his arm, pulling him toward the door. "We only have to hide for a couple of hours. Simon and half the cops in the world are on their way here, Jack already called them."
"I'll go back up to work and cover for as long as I can." Ruth shooed them inside. She fished two bottles of water from her sweater pockets and handed them to Jim. "It's kind of hot in there."
"I don't like this," Jim insisted as he reluctantly followed Blair inside.
"I'm the only one in the place who knows this room exists," Ruth assured him. "Old habits die hard, I guess, but I always like to have a bolthole."
The door closed, and Jim looked around the eight-by-eight room, its brick walls rising about fifteen feet, to a single glass block window. It must have once been the chute where they shoveled in the coal. "I don't like this," he repeated, pacing the perimeter of the room.
"Sit down, you'll have a heat stroke." Blair sat on the top half of an old leather chair cushion on the floor.
"It's not that hot. Eighty-six... seven tops. The boiler must be right on the other side of this wall."
"Sit." Blair pointed to the other half of the chair cushion. He looked around, and spoiled his bored expression with a waggish grin. "Gee, at least she could have left that guy's library."
Jim refused to be cheered up. He dropped with a sigh and a thump, his frustration palpable. "Why did you have to come, Chief? Ruth could have hidden me away, 'till help got here."
"We didn't know if you'd believe her." Blair was sitting on Jim's right and looked in horror at the network of scars masking the sculpted features. "Hell, we didn't know if you could walk here."
"Yesterday, you'd have been right," Jim admitted. "Whatever they did to my leg and arm wore off, quicker than they expected, I think."
"Good old Sentinel genes. You recover faster, with less scarring than anyone I've ever seen."
"They had me so hopped up on drugs that I doubted everything. I thought I'd been in this place for years. That everyone was dead." Jim paused and a look of near-panic passed over his face. "The Switchman? We caught her, right? On the bus?"
"Yeah. Almost got blow'ed up, real good." For once, the heat seemed to bother Blair more than Jim. He was sweating profusely and tugging at his collar. "This polyester is killing me."
Jim and had to bite back a laugh at the picture Blair made as he stood up and popped all the snaps on his pink top. The young man took off the top and reached into the baggy pants, groping between his legs. Some barely audible snaps and he wiggled out of the sweaty body suit and dropped it on the floor, where it lay like a disembodied female torso. "Whew," he gasped as he dropped back onto his cushion. "Much better."
"All comfy now?"
"This spy stuff is much sweatier than you'd think." Blair pulled the top back on, leaving the front open.
The older man grinned at his friend, noting that his perspiration-soaked hair had curled into yellow corkscrews and his face... well... Jim pulled a clean handkerchief out of his pajama pocket and handed it to him. "Make-up?"
Blair was scrubbing at his face when Jim rose soundlessly to his feet. The door burst open seconds later, and a tall figure stood in the shadows outside, light glinting off the barrel of a gun.
Blair squinted and strained to see what Jim was looking at.
"Sentinel and Guide, together again." The voice made his teeth go on edge.
"Brackett. You prick," Blair snapped as he jumped to his feet.
"Now, boys," the tall man said mildly. "We don't have time for name calling."
"How did you find us?" Jim asked calmly.
"Stalling, Jimbo?" The intruder grinned evilly before confiding, "I'll tell you, anyway, because the irony is delicious. Protein-based tracking device. We inserted it in the scar behind your ear." Brackett looked over at Blair. "And I must commend your little buddy. I watched him walk in this morning, and didn't recognize him. Nurse Andrews does good work."
"Ruth? Did you hurt her?" Blair stepped forward, his hands jammed in his pockets.
"No, Miss Ruth is doing her job, waiting for help that will arrive too late." Brackett smirked, and looked at Blair. "And now, we go back to Plan A."
"What do you want?" Jim growled angrily.
"The Russian agents. The bombs." Brackett let the barrel of his weapon drift toward the younger man. "Simple."
"No." Jim said simply.
Brackett sighed, "Don't make me hurt him."
Blair was more than willing to second that sentiment. "Tell him, Jim."
"I can't." Jim looked so anguished that it made Blair ache.
As the rogue agent grabbed his arm and yanked him forward, Blair whipped his hand out of his pocket and struck. The taller man jerked and dropped to the floor, almost dragging his attacker down with him.
"Come on, Jim." Blair started to step over Brackett, when a shot rang out. Jim caught his friend as he staggered back, clutching his upper arm. Dr. Brooks followed with a small automatic clutched in his hand.
The doctor nudged Brackett with his foot and shouted, "Lee!"
Brackett stirred and groaned before sitting up and fastening Blair with a baneful glare. "You little shit."
Blair edged behind Jim and whispered, "Tell him. It's OK. The whole thing was all a set-up to catch him."
"Leave him alone, Brackett." Jim was using that calm deadly voice, and -- Blair could only guess -- the cobra eyes.
"Maybe. If you tell me what I want to know."
"No."
Blair punched his sentinel in the back. "Tell him!" He hissed the words almost soundlessly.
"Dr. Brooks," Brackett said casually. "Shoot Jim in the knee, if Blair doesn't come here. 1... 2..." Blair dodged nimbly around his partner and went to the agent, who looked down and smiled, "3."
"Blair!" Jim growled as he started forward, only to be brought up short by the doctor's gun. "I'll tell you what you want. Just, get away from him."
"Where did the little guide get this toy?" Brackett held the stun gun against the young man's bare chest. Blair could feel the sting of the needle-like prongs, as they pierced his skin. There was a jolt of searing pain and it felt as if his spine was arching backward to the point of snapping.
When he opened his eyes, he was flat on his back on the cool concrete of the floor. Unable to move, the harsh sound of his own breathing was echoing in his head. Lee Brackett's smiling face dominated his field of vision. "I wonder how many jolts it would take to lower that IQ of his?" Blair felt Brackett's fist tighten painfully in his hair and the tips of the stun gun scratch his cheek.
"Damn you!" Jim's voice resounded through the small space. "I said I'd tell you."
"But now I believe you," the man stroked Blair's wild tangle of hair almost fondly. "Where?" The younger man listened helplessly as Jim reeled off the time and place of the meeting. "Thanks Jimbo. Now you can have your little buddy back."
Jim's strong arms lifted Blair to a sitting position and held him tight. "Sorry, Chief."
"I'm not leaving them here." Brooks was talking to Brackett. "I'm not leaving any witnesses."
Blair's eyes focused on the doctor, just in time to see him aim the automatic at him. He felt Jim move, to cover him with his own body and heard the shot at the same instant. The heavy form held him immobile, and he found his voice. "Jim?"
After a few seconds -- that felt like hours -- he got his answer. "I'm OK." Jim pulled back shakily and the two of them looked at the body sprawled lifelessly in the doorway.
Brackett used the doctor's collar to drag his corpse the rest of the way out of the room. "I couldn't let him destroy such a valuable resource. Besides, he knew your secret, and secrets tend to loose their value when they are too well known. He pointed his revolver at the two men and grinned. "You two just sit there and snuggle. Help will be here soon."
"Don't you ever get tired of being such an asshole?" Exasperation made Blair audacious. "I mean, is it jealousy that prompts all this Homo erotic bullshit? Did you never in your life HAVE a friend?"
"Sushhh," Jim whispered out of the side of his mouth. "He has a gun."
Brackett let his guard slip for an instant, and anger flashed from his eyes, before the smirk returned. "Curb your poodle, Jimbo."
He closed the door and they heard the thump as something heavy was propped against it.
Jim crossed the room and tried to force it open, but the heavy wood held fast. "Someday I'm going to kill that man."
"I'll help." Blair was furious as he peeled off the uniform jacket and looked at the blackened gouge across his bicep, left by the doctor's bullet.
"Oh, crap." Jim dropped down beside him and peered at the wound. "Here, let me look at it."
"It's nothing... Oww... Oww." Blair yelped as Jim tied a strip of fabric around the bleeding injury.
"Right, Rambo." Jim gave him a pained smile and cuffed his head gently. "And what, exactly were you thinking -- pissing off the armed sociopath?"
"Well, why do they always pick on me?"
"Maybe it's the price you pay for hanging around me." Jim looked serious. "God knows you deserve better."
"Don't start with the guilt thing, Jim." Blair pulled on his now one-sleeved jacket and scooted to the rear of his cushion, his back against the wall. "I'm not a child. I'm not stupid. If I don't want to do something, you know, I don't do it."
"Like jump out of planes? Get shot? You wanted to do that?"
"I knew stuff like that could happen when I signed on." Blair tapped his own chest as he pinned his friend with a fierce stare. "My choice."
"I almost -- no, hell -- I did let them convince me that you didn't exist." Jim looked down guiltily. "That I imagined you."
"You thought I was your 'imaginary friend'?" Blair bit both lips to keep from smiling. "You don't have that good of an imagination."
"Hell, Chief. They had me so messed up that I thought everyone else was dead. Stevie, Simon, Caroline, Joel, everyone from major crime." Jim let his shoulders hit the wall with a thump as he slumped backwards, shaking fingers tracing the scars on his forehead. "They convinced me I was crazy."
"Jim. They used sophisticated drugs and techniques to break you, but it didn't work."
"They convinced me." Jim said insistently, his voice becoming agitated. "It was easy to believe that I'd let everyone down. That I was alone. I was so alone, Chief, so lost."
"You were never alone." Blair edged closer, until his shoulder touched Jim's. "And I'll always find you if you're lost."
"You are the expert," Jim smiled gently. "At getting lost, I mean."
"Hey! I resemble that remark." Blair let himself relax and grin. "Besides, I found your ungrateful butt. Charged to your rescue."
"In drag. This is going to make a great story."
"You forget. I know where to find those photos of you from your vice days." Blair pretended to be annoyed. "Do the words 'fringed chaps' ring a bell?"
"Blackmail is an ugly thing." Finally at ease, Jim chuckled, batting lightly at the curly head. "But not as ugly as that dye job. Please tell me that's not permanent."
"I thought blondes had more fun." Blair pulled a strand of hair forward, looked at it and cringed. "Anyway, Ruth promised to dye it back to my own color. What about you, old fellow?"
"I'll just get it sheared off, and hope it all grows back." Jim gingerly touched the new, bare patches of scalp amidst the thin, gray tinted hair. "And hope these fake scars fade away, before I scare small children."
"They aren't that bad," Blair yawned and tried to find a comfortable position. "You'll get to experience life from a different -- less than perfect looking -- perspective. You know, Jim, this could make an interesting experiment, maybe an article. But right now, my arm hurts and I'm gonna sleep for a while."
Jim lifted his arm and let his friend lean sideways until the curly head rested on his shoulder. He reveled in the closeness. In finding the solid warmth of his friend, instead of a phantom comrade who lived only in his mind? "An article and a dissertation. Just don't make me too famous, Chief."
"Wouldn't use your name." Blair muttered sleepily. "I'll be the famous one, don' worry."
"And leave all your old friends in the dust, huh?" Jim's light tone did not match his melancholy expression. He waited for a moment, then smiled pensively as he heard a snuffling snore, and felt the younger man relax into sleep.
Gathering his slumbering partner close, he settled in to wait for whatever came next. And to keep good watch over his friend.
Epilogue
Ruth turned out to be the one who rescued them. She also insisted that Simon and Jack be let into the facility, before she would tell the assorted federal types where she had stashed Jim and Blair.
In the end, all concerned agreed to agree that nothing happened.
The newly 'retired' Ruth declared that Jack Kelso needed a live in nurse. When he started to dispute it, she both convinced him, and shut him up, with a very passionate kiss.
Three days later, Lee Brackett was arrested in a tiny, former Soviet republic named Kjazykistan. He was last reported to be enjoying the hospitality of the unique and historical Fourteenth Century prison there.
Blair was back to normal, well normal for Blair. He was excited that Naomi might come for a visit.
Simon was stomping around the station with his new walking cast, trying to get money for new security measures approved. He was still grumbling about alligators and contract killers invading his turf.
Jim, meanwhile, was incredibly relieved that his enforced 'vacation' was coming to an end. The scars had faded. His hair was coming back -- and maybe it was his imagination -- but it even seemed thicker.
The department shrink had -- after some intense sessions -- declared Jim officially sane. At last, starting tomorrow, he was going back to work. Back to guarding his tribe. The Sentinel stretched out on his cool blue and yellow sheets, and let sleep slowly claim him.
Sunlight woke him in the morning. It was coming from the wrong angle, not from the skylight above. The sheets felt coarse and smelled of chlorine bleach. He listened for Blair, and heard only the hum of muted voices echoing in a large building. Stark terror threatened to stop his heart.
"NO!"
He could not move and when he opened his eyes, he saw Dr. Brooks smile at him. "It's good to have you back with us, Jim."
"BLAIR!" Jim tried to scream but his throat seemed to close tight around the name.
"Oh, dear," the doctor sighed. "Blair again? I'm afraid we've had a bit of a relapse."
"Help me." Jim heard himself whimper. "Blair."
"Tell me, Jim. Do you remember being a police officer? Do you remember a case involving a bomber called The Switchman?"
"GODPLEASENO... GODPLEASENO..." Jim tried to move, to escape, but his body refused to obey.
"JIM!" The voice was like a beacon drawing him back. Back to sanity or back to madness. It didn't matter which. "JIM! WAKE UP!"
Tear blind eyes opened and he focused on the white face, surrounded by wild dark hair. "Blair?"
"Jeez, Jim. You wouldn't wake up and... oomph." The young man's words were cut off as strong arms caught him in a bruising hug.
"Don't leave me there. Don't leave me."
"Ummwon't." The almost inaudible voice resonated through his chest and eased his racing heart. As Jim relaxed his grip, Blair met his gaze, dark blue eyes filled with concern. "I won't leave." He straightened and sat on the side of the bed. "I'll stay right here, all night, OK?"
Jim wanted to protest. He didn't want Blair to sit up and watch him sleep -- the deep voice lulled him back into slumber even as his mind protested -- he wanted Blair to stay with him, as his partner. He did not want to be alone, again.
"Sleep now. I'll keep watch till morning."
Wearily, Jim let himself get lost in the warm, clean scent of his guide. In the soft heartbeat and soothing voice.
Blair would not leave.
Tonight.
For now that had to be enough.
The End