Rated G. This story assumes familiarity with Remembrance and S2, but doesn't really have spoilers. It originally appeared on the Sentinelangst list. Thanks to Besterette and Kris for beta reading, and to Michelle for her expert advice on the language of children.
Laurie Borealis
Jimmy's head hurt. It had begun to hurt last night, as he lay in bed listening to his parents fight. The hurtful words had drifted up the stairs and slithered under the closed door.
"Can't you even keep the house clean? You're home all day."
"Yes, and I'm bored out of my mind. But what's the use? My housekeeping will never be good enough for you."
"What's so hard about picking up this clutter? What's so hard about a little vacuuming? You have it easy. I work hard to make sure you and Jimmy and Stevie have everything you need."
"You just don't hear me, do you?"
Jimmy put the pillow over his head, but he could still hear all too clearly. Sometimes he liked being able to hear things better than other people, but sometimes he wished he knew how to tune things out, too.
Icecubes clinked in a glass and his father sniffed contemptuously, "You drink too much, Grace."
"I can't take this any more. I can't take you any more. Nothing I do is right. Nothing's good enough."
Jimmy could hear the tears in his mother's voice. That's when the headache started. It had bothered him all night and this morning his head was pounding. At least he'd gotten out of the house before his mother was up. Sometimes she was so hard to be around, especially after she'd been fighting with his father. She'd probably get up late and spend the day in her bathrobe watching TV, pouring something from a bottle into her coke when she thought he wasn't looking. She'd ask him to bring her little things, and when he handed them to her she'd sigh and say she was sorry she wasn't a better mother, and the alcohol on her breath would make him nauseous. He wanted to help her, but he didn't know what to do. It was all so confusing, and kind of embarrassing. It was just easier not to be there.
He slung his duffle bag over his shoulder and headed over to the pool in the nearby park, hoping maybe the headache would go away if he went for a nice long swim. He'd put in his earplugs and try to think only about moving through the water, about breathing, about nothing at all. Then he wouldn't have to think about his mother and what she said last night. She'd said she couldn't stand it any more. She'd said she couldn't stand his father any more. Did that mean she couldn't stand him any more, too? Didn't she want to be his mother any more? Did she want to go away?
As he walked by the Japanese consulate next to the park, he was jarred out of his thoughts by loud voices. A ragtag group of people was standing in front of the building, chanting and waving signs. "Stop the slaughter! Save the whales! Stop the slaughter! Save the whales!" One woman was talking animatedly to a couple of men with microphones and cameras.
He looked at them curiously, but the noise hurt his throbbing head, and he hurried on. Some of those people sure were dressed funny, he thought. Women in ankle-length flowered dresses, long-haired guys with fringed leather vests and colorful tee shirts. He guessed they must be hippies, those mysterious people that he'd heard his father complain about. He'd overheard his father say something about how they were bad because they had long hair and loved people. "Free love," that was it, but that sounded like a good thing to him. And they smoked special kinds of cigarettes, made of weeds or grass or something weird like that. In fact he did notice a strange aroma drifting from some of them to his sensitive nose. They were certainly different from his parents' friends, but he wasn't quite clear why his father thought they were so awful.
He turned into the park, following a well-worn dirt path through the trees, and the protesters' chants faded behind him. There were few people around this cool, cloudy July morning. He noticed only old Mr. Davies, the park caretaker, sweeping in the distance, and two children playing by the fountain. Water burbled out of the mouth of the mermaid statue rising from the middle of the large circular pool. A small boy with curly dark hair was perched on the raised edge, pushing sticks and leaves around on the water, and excitedly explaining something to an older girl with long blond braids.
"See, here's the nice whales swimming around and here's a boat with bad people that want to hurt the nice whales. See, the bad boat chases the nice whales and it almost gets them but here comes another boat with good people. See? Here, you be the bad boat and I'll be the good boat. "
"What if I don't want to be the bad boat? You're awful bossy, you know that?" The girl picked a twig out of the water and threw it on the ground, then looked up as Jimmy passed by them. She frowned at him.
"Hey!" the little boy protested loudly, "Whales need to be in the water! Don't do that!" He scrambled down from the ledge and retrieved the twig.
As Jimmy met the girl's cold blue eyes, he felt a stab of pain in his already aching head, and he was filled with a sense of unease. Wow, talk about looking daggers at somebody, he thought. No, it was just this stupid headache he already had, but she wasn't being very nice, and she gave him such an odd feeling. He paused uncertainly.
The girl squinted and frowned again, turning away. "Shut up, Blair. You're too noisy."
"You threw my whale!"
"Shut up!"
He couldn't stand to listen to any more arguments right now, and it wasn't his business anyway. The swimming pool wasn't far now, beyond the fountain and the parking lot, across the road. He walked on, trying to ignore the squabbling behind him.
"I don't like you. I don't want you to be a boat anyway."
"Shut up. You talk too much."
He hummed softly, trying to drown them out, and concentrated on an image of himself swimming swiftly down the length of the pool. He looked forward to the feel of the water flowing past him as he swam, smooth and silky against his skin.
"Go away! You're mean!" the little boy cried furiously.
Jimmy went through the almost empty parking lot, crossed the road, and reached the steps of the pool house with relief. Behind him, he could still faintly hear the children arguing, but he was almost free now, almost there. He climbed the steps and was reaching for the wrought-iron door handle when there was a scream and a splash behind him. He turned around with a start and focused on the scene in the distance. The curly-haired boy was thrashing around in the fountain, and the girl was running away into the trees.
Jimmy raced down the stairs and back toward the fountain, the child's frightened cries for help ringing in his ears. Now he wished for super legs as well as super hearing. He ran as fast as he could, but it seemed a long way across the big parking lot. At last he reached the fountain, dropped his duffle bag and vaulted over the edge into cold water that came up to his thighs. The pool was deeper than it appeared. The child was struggling frantically, eyes wide with fright, gasping for air. Jimmy could hear him swallowing water, and he quickly grabbed him under the arms and scooped him up.
"I've got you. Just hang on to me," he said reassuringly, and the child threw his arms and legs around him and clung tightly, choking and coughing. Jimmy could feel his heart racing under the soaked Mickey Mouse tee shirt.
He just stood there a moment, checking to make sure the boy was breathing all right. "Are you okay?" he asked, and the wet head moved up and down against his shoulder. "Good, then let's get out of here." He trudged through the water to the edge of the fountain. "You're heavier than you look, kid. I'm going to have to put you down on the edge here, and then I'm going to get out. Okay?"
"Okay."
The boy loosened his viselike grip and Jimmy set him down on the rim facing him and hauled himself over the ledge. He retrieved his duffle bag where he'd tossed it on the ground nearby. When he looked up, the child was turning himself around on the rim, and was looking after him anxiously, coughing a little.
Jimmy waved and walked back to him. "Just getting my bag. I bet you're cold."
The boy sat down again on the rim, facing him, and looked up with big blue eyes. "I'm very, very, very cold." He shivered, his wet clothes dripping on the concrete.
Jimmy pulled a towel from his bag with a flourish, and wrapped it around him. He used one end to try to dry the sodden mass of curls.
"My name's Blair," the boy said. "What's yours?" He was sniffling a little.
"I'm Jimmy. Here, want a Kleenex?" He dug in his bag and helped Blair blow. "Do you live around here? Was that girl your sister? Or your babysitter?"
"No, she's a bad girl. She pushed me."
"She pushed you in the water? Are you sure? Maybe you fell in."
"No, she pushed me. That's not nice."
"No, not nice at all." Jimmy wasn't sure whether to believe him. He remembered the strange feeling she gave him, though. Maybe she didn't realize he might have drowned. "Do you live around here, Blair?"
"We live at the commune."
"What's a commune?"
"I dunno. It's where we live."
"Where's your mother? You're a little young to be traveling around by yourself."
"I'm four! My mommy's over there." He pointed toward the consulate. "She's gonna be mad at me 'cause I was s'posed to stay with Rainbow and I didn't and now I got my clothes all wet." He sighed dramatically. "I'm gonna be in big trouble."
"Maybe, but I'm sure she'll be very happy you're okay." Jimmy turned his head toward the consulate. "In fact, I think she may be coming now."
Blair looked around a little apprehensively. "Where?"
"I hear somebody calling for Blair."
"I don't."
"You've probably got water in your ears." He zeroed in on a woman running down the path toward them in the distance and waved at her. "Right here!" he shouted. She saw them and waved back. He could see the relief on her face from here.
"Uh oh," Blair said.
She arrived in a flurry of colorful gauzy garments and tinkling jewelry, and gathered Blair up in her arms. "I was so worried about you, sweetie! You're all wet! What happened? I was really starting to freak out. Oh, my poor baby!"
"Hi, Mommy, I mean Naomi. I'm okay! A bad girl pushed me in the water, but Jimmy got me out."
She looked over at Jimmy, who was standing to the side a little shyly. "Somebody pushed him in? Who would do a horrible thing like that to my Blair? He can't even swim. Where is she?"
"She's gone. He's okay."
He stared at the beaded headband around her long flowing hair. He'd never seen a mother with a headband before.
She set Blair down gently on the ground, and said seriously, "Thank you, Jimmy. Rainbow was supposed to watch him while I talked to the reporters, but sometimes she's such a flake. I found her chatting to a boy. She said she thought Blair was somewhere around! I ask you." She shook her head. "We're so lucky you were here."
"My shoes are all squishy, Blair said, looking down at his wet tennies and experimentally stamping his feet. "They feel funny."
Suddenly Jimmy was enfolded in her arms and she was hugging him with surprising strength. The Ellisons were not huggers, and this was kind of startling, but she smelled wonderful, like flowers and spices all mixed up together. Her long hair brushed his face. She let him go and stood back with a smile.
"You're an angel, Jimmy."
He blushed, dazzled and happy. He realized his headache was gone.
"That's okay," he mumbled.
"How did we get so lucky to have Jimmy here when we needed him?" she asked her son. "We must have good karma. "
Jimmy wondered what karma was.
Blair beamed up at him. "Jimmy's got good karma, too, 'cause he's my friend now."
Jim's head hurt. He was vaguely aware that Megan was sitting beside him in the truck, and that she was saying something, but he clenched the steering wheel and tuned her out. All senses on alert, sentinel alarms screaming the nearness of danger, his world narrowed to the need to find Blair. The vision of his partner lying on the jungle floor was etched on his brain. How had he missed the warnings? How had he been so blind? Why had he thrust away this person who was so important to him, and who now so desperately needed him?
"You know where to find me," Blair had said.
They screeched to a stop in front of Hargrove Hall and Jim ran toward the entrance, Megan and Simon right behind. As he raced up the steps to the door, he felt a blurring of space and time. The door shimmered in front of him, and he smelled a whiff of chlorine. A child's scream pierced the air behind him.
He turned.
THE END