Betrayal, an alternate
ending to Sentinel Too, by Glacis. Spoilers for the third season ender. Rated PG13 for language.
The water was the first thing that caught his attention.
It roared through his ears, deafening him, freezing him in his tracks.
He didn't know how he'd ended up in the cavernous gallery, but the walls
reverberated with the rush of a powerful river. It filled his head, thundering
in his ears until it drowned out even the beat of his own heart. It pulled him
forward, and he followed.
After a very few steps, he came to an intersection, and his footsteps
faltered. The darkness around him seemed almost alive, whispering to him,
urging him forward. Where his path crossed with another dark gallery, the light
fell from openings above to coalesce into a massive stone sculpture. Towering
two and a half times his height, it was a snarling creature from his deepest
dreams, a man-jaguar slicing into the floor like a knife, nearly filling the
intersection of the two pathways. Its right forepaw was raised as if to strike
him down, its left slung alongside, all claws extended
to rend him into bloody strips. The long mouth was curled up at the corners,
sharp fangs extending out over the lower lip, and its brows and hair were
curling, hissing snakes weaving over the fierce eyes pinning him in place.
He tried to breathe, but the river was in his lungs. He tried to close
his eyes, block out the fearsome vision, but his gaze was locked with the eyes
of the creature, and he couldn't break the link between them. His knees
weakened, and he slid forward, arms stretched out in unconscious supplication
as his head fell back and he knelt in front of the jaguar God before him.
Running under the crash of the water in his ears, a chant rose. As his
eyes began to waver and his heart raced out of control in his chest, he finally
began to hear clearly.
The heart is two. The two are one.
All is of two. Good, evil. Dark, bright. Up,
down. Day, night. Summer, winter.
Earth, sky. Sentinel, Shaman.
All is balance.
Without one there can not be the other, and without the other there is
nothing.
Betrayal.
By the other.
Without whom there is nothing.
The roar grew into a scream, the pounding drowned out the voices. The
vision flared, and exploded into sound, color, pressure all around him. The
eyes bore into his soul, stole what breath remained in his lungs, clenched
iron-strong around his heart
and pulled.
He was lying on a bed of grasses, wet, lush, cushioning his aching
body. Gathering his strength, he turned his head. A structure rose above him,
directly in his line of vision. It was huge, at least fifty feet high, with
long angular mounds stretching from it along both sides. Shaking some of the
dizziness from his thoughts, he pulled himself shakily to his feet and looked
more closely at the temple. Two staircases led from it to a circular court sunk
into a plaza, with the mounds to the sides of the plaza. The court was carved
with intricate, perfectly symmetrical images of jaguars, hawks, eagles, humans,
snakes, caimans, and an incredible series of anthropomorphic carvings that were
mixes of all of them.
Staring harder at the carvings, he felt his vision shift. They appeared
to rotate, but whichever way they were seen they were still upright. For a
moment he thought it was an optical illusion, then he
realized that the symmetry was so complete in the carvings that they were
perfectly balanced and invertible. His vision settled, and so did his stomach.
He knew this place. He had never been here, and yet he recognized it as
if it was his home. The lush jungle surrounding him, the
strange shrill calls of birds high above him, the simple curves and scrolls in
the ornate carvings
the jaguar God who had greeted him in the beginning.
He was at Chavi'n de Huantar,
at the great temple. But not as he knew it from photographs taken in the
twentieth century. This temple pulsed with life, as it had three
millennium before, at the height of the Chavi'n
civilization. He knew where he was. But why was he here? A whisper of movement
beside him caused him to shudder and turn rapidly. Warm dark eyes stared into
his, and he found himself relaxing.
"Incacha. Hi, man. So, am I dead?"
Surprisingly enough, he didn't feel any panic. He was tired, and
confused, and willing to go with the flow, at least for now. The sparkling eyes
meeting his laughed at him, then blinked once. Without a word, the Chopec Shaman gestured at the entrance to the temple. Blair
took a deep breath, staring at the imposing structure.
"Not sure I'm up for that. I was just in there. Scared the
scared me half to death." The irony in that statement, if he truly was
dead, caught at his sense of humor, and he turned with a smile to share it with
Incacha.
Only he wasn't there any more. In his place was a wolf.
In the jungle?
Okay. He was down with that. This was obviously some sort of spirit
walk, and if he was going to talk to a wolf, that was fine with him. He started
to ask who the wolf might be, when the furry features began to melt. His tongue
stilled, lying heavy in his mouth.
It was himself. Only not himself. The eyes
were darker, burdened with a weight of sadness he didn't recognize.
"You do not see, Shaman."
The world shifted again, and he saw himself, staring into a mirror in a
shabby motel bathroom. Oh, god. Yeah, maybe he did recognize it after all.
"What do you see?" The voice was deeper now, compelling him.
Compelling memory, and compelling pain. He saw what he
didn't want to see.
"Betrayal," he finally managed to whisper.
"What do you see?" Repeated, again, the
emphasis oddly on the final word.
Blair took a deep, painful breath, wishing the sound of the river would
block out the words. He stared at the vines trailing across the ground, at his
own bare feet, at the moss growing along the damp trunks of thick trees.
Anywhere but at the spirit with his own face.
The question was asked, a third time, and he had to surrender to the
compulsion.
"I betrayed him. In my quest for knowledge, in
my need to protect myself. In my desire to protect him, and her, and in
my thirst for control, I betrayed him." His voice broke, and he wrapped
his arms around his ribs, feeling a strange, tearing pain in his chest.
Something was breaking in there, and he had a horrible feeling it was his
heart. Over the pain, he heard that damned voice again, pushing at him with an
urgency that demanded his answer.
"What do you see?"
It echoed through his head, and he squeezed his eyes tightly shut
against it. As he did, other visions painted themselves in vivid crimson and
darkest black against his closed lids. Jim, telling him to be gone, shoving
half packed boxes at him, thrusting him out of their life. Making
him, once again, alone. Jim, eyes glacial, removing
Blair from his loft, his workplace, his life.
"He betrayed me." The words were hissed through clenched
teeth, the anger blending with the pain until they were one. "He was my
blessed protector, but he wasn't there. He pushed me away, left me alone, gave
me to her, and she
she
he closed me out." The tears he didn't know he
was fighting washed down his cheeks, squeezing through the hard-pressed eyelids
to track trails along his face, dripping off his jawbone.
Strong hands reached out, pushed back his hair, covered his eyes, then
trailed down and wiped away the moisture. The fingers shifted, melted form,
blended into the face that became a wolf again, who licked at his neck, lapping
at the salty water. Another pair of strong hands came down behind him, turning
him back toward the tower. As he stared at the carvings, now moving as if
alive, he heard Incacha's voice in his ear.
"Pairing. Interaction. Reconciliation.
These are the laws, this is the way it must be. Opposites. Two halves of the one."
The sound of the water rose again, complimenting the gravelly tone that was now
echoing in his head. "You must make a decision, Shaman, Guide to the
Sentinel. All is of two. Good, evil. Dark, bright. Day, night. Summer, winter. Earth, sky. Sentinel, Shaman."
As the roaring pulled him under and the strength of the hands on his
shoulders bled into his bones, he couldn't help but wonder if he had a choice
to make. Jim had made it quite clear he had no use for Blair. What was the good
of two, if one of them refused the other?
"Oh, God, NO!" Jim scrambled, fighting off the concerned, intrusive hands that were
tearing him away from the one place he had to be right now. Blair simply
couldn't be dead. He couldn't hear the pulse, the rhythm that had anchored him
for the past three years, the beat he had stamped out when he had thrown his
Guide from his loft
loosed the arrow that killed his spirit. He had tried to
protect Blair.
He had killed him.
Ellison began to shake as that one fact pounded over and over through
his brain. He was unaware of the animal-like keening being ripped from his
throat as his mind refused to process what his eyes, his hearing, and his touch
had confirmed. His fingertips crawled from the cold. That skin was not supposed
to be cold. It was warm, elastic, and the lungs were bubbling with life, the
heart singing a perfect rhythm to compliment the blood rushing through the
veins.
That rush was sluggish now. The beat was gone.
He was cold.
So cold.
His sight went first, narrowing to a pinpoint, an eyelash in a row of
lashes brushing across an unnaturally pale cheek. Open your eyes, Blair, c'mon,
Chief, please, buddy. Please.
His voice was next, as his tongue went numb, and the words tumbling off
it settled into a nearly silent wail. His hands reached out, struggled against
the arms holding him back.
He couldn't feel their touch. His head tilted, and he scented the air,
desperate for any hint of Blair in the milling confusion. It was there, but it
was wrong, diffused and tainted by the water swamping it. Unable to accept it,
his sense of smell shut down, one more strike against belief.
He extended his hearing as far as he could, needing more than the air in
his lungs to hear that heart beat, to regulate a reality that was rapidly
degenerating into the chaos of a madman.
It wasn't there. Or perhaps it was, and the madness had already taken
him.
He curled in around himself, no longer fighting the friends around him, no longer reaching out for a presence he could no
longer sense. He didn't feel, couldn't feel, the strong arms as Simon caught
him before he hit the ground.
He had another battle to fight. And it was not in a madman's world.
It should have been easy. But like everything had been since she went
to sleep in solitary and woke up in a nightmare, it was anything but.
She should have killed him. She had him, there was only a few minutes,
one swift squeeze of the trigger and he would have been dead.
She couldn't do it.
Ironically, his voice kept her from wavering, even as he closed his
eyes and prepared to die. The pain had rushed through her head, and she had
heard him, in her mind, telling her to block it out, to concentrate on the
scent. And so she had.
His scent.
He smelled of chamomile and fresh cut grass, sunshine and coffee. Soft
herbal scents and spicier musk. The pain fell away, and her finger relaxed.
She'd told him to get up, planning to take him with her, planning to
kill him, planning to
planning to
not planning at all. Following her
instincts, the same ones that had saved her skin for a long time and now were
making no sense at all. But she'd followed them anyway, and followed him out
the building, across the parking lot, toward her car. Then she'd heard it.
That growl. The one that made the hair stand up on the
back of her neck.
Ellison was close.
The pain flared, and he saw it, and he broke for freedom. She had swung
instinctively, the butt of the weapon catching him hard across the base of the
skull. He had fallen, twisting, arms outstretched as he
landed prone in the water fountain.
She stopped breathing.
He didn't.
She heard the water rush in through his open mouth, up his nose and
down his throat, heard the lung sacs complain as they were expanded by the
weight of the water. A tiny, unconscious sigh of protest left her at the same
time it left him, and she shifted forward to pull him out. And
heard the growl.
Too close.
Had to run.
She stared for the length of a heartbeat at the sable curls floating
around the skull and shoulders, darkening as the water saturated them. Then she
turned and ran, as hard as she could, away from her Guide.
She got two miles away before the heartbeat she had been monitoring
faltered. A spike of pain drove itself through her own
skull, starting at the base and drilling through to explode out the crown. The
car came to a halt wedged against a low stone wall on the outskirts of the
campus.
She didn't hear the sirens. She was too busy fighting.
Growls suddenly sounded very close to Blair, breaking through the rush
of the water. The growls grew, blossoming into howls, then battle cries. His
eyes widened and he scrambled out of the way as two jaguars, one spotted and
one coal black, came from opposite sides of the clearing before the temple. To his
bemusement, the scrabbling felt odd, until he realized that he had paws, and
not feet.
He had four legs.
Before his brain could assimilate the oddity of his metamorphosing into
a wolf, the two incredibly pissed off felines in front of him took his attention.
Without even a pause to reconnoiter the area, the two jaguars threw themselves
at one another. Their ears were completely flat against their skulls, tails
lashing, spines extended to their utmost length, paws flexing as claws
unsheathed. Their lips were curled back in snarls, and their jaws snapped at
one another, lethal fangs slicing air, then fur, then flesh. Muscles rippled
under dense coats, and lustrous fur was soon matted with blood from the working
of the deadly claws.
Blood spattered as the lithe bodies twisted around one another, strong
forepaws slashing, even stronger back paws ripping at soft bellies. White fangs
were quickly reddened as they dug into flesh and sinew, blood and saliva
running freely down both muzzles.
Blair felt every blow.
The clearing was ringing with the screams of the jaguars, the howl of
the wolf, the snapping of bones and the tearing of skin. The light arcing
through the temple pulsed, and the stone jaguar God thrashed in His house.
Blair could hear it, could see it all, could taste the blood on his tongue, could hear the desperate gasp of air in the straining lungs,
the rasping howl of each exhalation by either cat. His skin tingled and
rippled, and his fur stood on end as the battle went on, and on, neither cat
winning, neither surrendering. They were intent upon their battle to the death,
but it was not only themselves they were killing.
He had to make a choice.
For them, for himself. For any chance at all of a future. He had to
choose.
The spotted cat had managed to pin the black jaguar, and the black cat
was twisting desperately, snapping and slashing to no avail. As the spotted
jaguar reared back to strike, jaws gaping wide for the death bite to the black
cat's spine, the decision was made. With an anguished howl, Blair flung himself
between the battling jaguars. He shouldered viciously at the small gap between
the two entwined bodies, and threw his own head back, baring his throat to the
striking fangs of the spotted jaguar. Unable to stop her strike, she bit deep, clenching,
then retreating, crushing the esophagus, tearing the wolf's throat out.
Time stopped.
Light split the temple into pieces.
The jaguar God screamed.
And time began again.
Spitting the blood and cartilage from her mouth, the spotted jaguar
shook her head as she bounded away from the clearing, freeing the black jaguar.
Her rough, deep coughs echoed through the trees, a pathetic, frightened sound
as she disappeared into the depths of the jungle.
The black jaguar gathered itself, rolled to its side, and curled
protectively around the still figure of the wolf. It nuzzled the closed eyes,
the muzzle, the tongue laying against the slightly
open jaw. It whined, nuzzled harder, and whiskers dipped into the edges of the
gaping wound that had been the wolf's throat. At the first drag of sensitive
whisker through wet gore, the black jaguar stiffened. Then it laid its head
against the rapidly cooling chest under it, closed its eyes, and howled its
grief to the heavens.
The jaguar God lowered His hand, gathered His little one against His
chest, and licked at the blood on His child's fur.
The warmth gradually soaked through the shivering skin, and Blair
looked up once more into the fierce face. But now the snakes were quiescent,
the claws were retracted. The fiery gaze was warm, not searing, and the gentle
embrace of the God of the Chavi'n was protective, not
frightening.
The hands extended, and he felt himself fall, until he was back in the
clearing. There was no evidence of the battle that had been fought, and he
looked around himself, confused, wondering what had happened
and what had
not. Before he could completely gather his thoughts, Incacha
appeared in front of him once again.
"You have chosen." The dark eyes smiled at him again, and he
smiled back, at peace for the first time in as long as he could remember. He
didn't recall making a conscious choice; he'd just done what he had to do.
Protect. Defend. Sacrifice, if need be. And the need had been.
"You are given this opportunity to learn and go on. Use it wisely,
Shaman. Your Sentinel needs you. You need your Sentinel. You are two who are
one, the warrior and the priest, the day and the night, the earth and the sky.
You are good to face the evil, light to balance the darkness. You are paired,
the interaction and the reconciliation of the halves. Go now. Learn, and
teach."
Blair opened his mouth to respond, and retched
pond water.
The paramedic massaging the victim's diaphragm in what he privately
considered a wasted effort was taken aback when the victim suddenly jerked
under his hands, stomach spasming as brackish water was forced out from his
lungs through his nose and open mouth. The victim's heart kicked into a weak,
sporadic rhythm, and the medic team swung automatically into action.
<<<Rapid cautious removal of victim from water, maintaining
spinal immobilization : done, who pulled him out? Not
important now
Assess and stabilize airway, breathing and circulation. Intubation if
necessary. In water CPR is ineffectual and should generally not be performed : check. Knew what they were doing, even if they
were kind of sloppy. What can you expect? Big guy must have some medic
training. Not now, think about it later. Briefly assess associated trauma. Done, poor guy, hell of a whack on the back of the head.
Follow standard ACLS protocol : come on, kid, try, at
least, please? Consider precipitating medical or traumatic cause for the near drowning : Good boy, way to go, that's it, cough it up. Use
dextrose and Naloxone as in unconscious patient protocol : Hook him up and away we go. Color's looking
better. That's it, one more tube, come on, kid, you're doing great. Use
supplemental oxygen on all patients : And away we
go!>>>
It wasn't the first time the paramedic had seen a miracle. It was one
of the better ones, though. He hadn't thought the kid had a chance. Good thing
he was a medic, not an odds-maker.
Simon Banks wasn't having a good day at all. First he had to deal with
Jim turning into the bully in the sandbox, then he hears his finest detective
tearing strips off the one person who'd been able to make something of all this
Sentinel crap, a kid he happens to like and respect, who Jim had been treating
like shit. Then he finds out this evil Sentinel had nearly killed Ellison,
which is bad enough and makes him feel like he's living in a Quantum Leap
episode and he's Sam. Then, to top off the whole fucking nightmare of a day, he
finds out the bitch has murdered Blair.
Now he'd lost a friend, was about to lose another if the deadweight
body in his arms was any indication, and his world was falling down around his
ears in great big blocks of broken stone. So of course Ellison had to do that zone out thing. And no Blair to
no
Blair
oh, shit, kid. Simon clenched his fists into Ellison's jacket, partly
to hold the other man upright, partly to keep from pounding them into something
to ease out some of the frustration and anger. Why Blair? He was a good kid, damnit. This kind of thing wasn't supposed to happen to the
good kids. It did, too damned often, but it just wasn't supposed to end like
this.
He took a shuddering breath, and concentrated on trying to talk Jim
back from wherever the hell he'd gone. Before he got two words out, the small
knot of emergency medical personnel around Blair's body jolted into action.
Simon swung around, nearly pulled off balance by Jim's weight in his
arms, and stared open-mouthed, his cigar falling from his lips as his jaw fell
agape. Blair was convulsing, no longer lying still and cold, water and vomit
and mucous streaming from his mouth and his nose. It was the most beautiful
thing Banks had ever seen.
The kid was fighting.
He gathered Jim closer to him, staring over one muscled shoulder as
Blair's body was lifted onto the stretcher and the medics rushed it past them
to the ambulance. As they passed, Blair's lashes fluttered briefly. A slit of
cobalt blue with a pinpoint pupil fixed on Simon, then
slid sideways to settle on Jim. Then the stretcher pushed on, the doors closed,
and the ambulance roared away down the drive. Not knowing quite what to do,
Simon manhandled Jim into the passenger seat of his car and headed off toward
his apartment.
By the time they arrived, Jim was nearly catatonic. A small, hysterical
voice in the back of Simon's head was screaming at him to call 911, but the
larger, more logical part of his mind reminded him that he couldn't. The only
person who could help Jim was Blair, and the kid was in no position to help
anyone right now, not even himself. Settling Jim onto
the sofa, he stared uneasily at the sightless eyes and the still form as he
dialed the hospital.
Three transfers and one stern talking to a recalcitrant operator later,
Simon spoke with the head nurse at the emergency room of Cascade General. The
news could have been worse. Could have been better.
Settling the handset down softly on its rest, he turned to the unresponsive man
on his sofa.
"He's in surgery, Jim. Have to relieve pressure on the brain,
caused by some swelling where she hit him in the back of the head with a blunt
object. One of his lungs collapsed, and there are some other minor problems,
something about haemolysis and potassium release, and
his heart's been doing some stop and go-ing. But it's
looking good, Jim." Better than you are, my friend, he thought but kept to
himself. If it wasn't for those eyes, and the barely perceptible rise and fall
of the broad chest, he'd think that Ellison was sleeping. Or
dead. He shook the thought away violently. "I'm going to the hospital
for a little while." You certainly won't be needing
me, and the sooner Blair's on his feet the faster he can help you. Again, he
kept his worry silent. Not that Ellison would hear him, but he couldn't quite
bring himself to say his biggest fear out loud.
If the kid didn't make it
neither would the man.
He sighed, chewed nervously on his cigar, and hurried to the hospital.
In the silence of the apartment behind him, Jim Ellison stared blankly at the
white noise surrounding him, and slipped deeper into the void.
He tried to protect his Guide. His best friend.
He'd raised his weapon, in his dream, and he'd killed the only person he truly
trusted. So he'd pushed him away, tried to keep Blair safe by getting him away
from himself. Only to push him directly into hostile fire.
His mind's eye shut, and his thoughts slipped away with his soul to the
one place where the lost could be found, or conversely, forever lost. He stared
down at the paint banding his bare arms, at the crossbow lying useless at his
side. The vegetation around him was torn and scuffed, and there were patches of
light and dark fur scattered in tufts along the weeds, caught on the vines.
Blood lay splattered in surreal patterns against the foliage, and the air was
thick with the smell of death. The temple was crumbling, or was that just his
eyes? They were fogging over, and he was sinking into nothingness.
His hands slid into the deep, damp groundcover, clenching in the wet
grasses, pulling himself to lie prone at the base of
the temple. It was fitting that it should end here, where it began, where the
beginning of the end was shown to him, and he was too blind to see it. Burying
his face in the moist earth, he closed his eyes and willed the earth to swallow
him. To put an end to it all.
He had a terrible taste in his mouth. His nose hurt. His eyes hurt. His
head was exploding. He needed to go do something, now, about Jim, he just had
to, but he couldn't move, didn't know what it was he was supposed to be doing,
and somebody had staked him through the middle of the chest with a damned
railroad spike, so he couldn't get out of the bed.
Hell week was continuing in grand old style. Was this shit ever going
to end? This really sucked.
Blair forced his eyes open, and nearly fell over sideways in shock. He
was back in
Like talk to his partner.
Jim slumped in a little, pathetic heap at the base of the temple,
looking for all the world like a doll with all the
stuffing yanked out of him. His face was buried in the ground, and his hands
worked at the grass by his shoulders like a big cat kneading a favorite lap.
Only he looked far from contented.
Blair settled at his side, laying one hand softly along the top of one
clenching fist. The tense fingers froze under his, and Jim slowly turned his
head until he could look up at his friend.
"Hey, big guy. You wanna join me up here? Don't think it'll
accomplish much if I try to talk to your back."
Jim froze for a moment, then rocked unsteadily
back until he was sitting beside Blair. He didn't take his hand away, and when
the younger man made a move as if to separate their fingers he clutched all the
tighter. Blair took the hint and relaxed, weaving their hands firmly together,
palm to palm, fingers interlaced.
"You're dead." The words sounded like they were coming from
the grave themselves, rusty, hollow, and low. Blair shivered in response.
"Nope. Well, sort
of, but not really. Look, that's not important right now."
Jim's mouth opened, a frown pulling his brows together as he started to
protest for the importance of Blair's continued existence. Blair put his free
hand over the open lips and stopped the flow of words before they began.
"Quiet. I need to get this out. You can talk when I'm done. Cool?
Cool," he steam-rolled on, not giving Jim a chance to say a word. The
Sentinel stared bemusedly at him, then nodded
uncertainly. Taking that as implied consent, Blair went on. "I was wrong.
So were you. We accept that, we process it, and we get past it. Together. Later. Or we wont have a
later. The important thing is not that were so different. It's that we fit
together so well. We are two halves of one whole, Jim. There is one Guide for
one Sentinel. I'm it for you, man, and you're it for me. I didn't get it
before. I get it now.
"You said I betrayed your trust. You were right. And you betrayed
my faith in you. Which is why we're here, instead of sharing a brew and
watching the Jags get their butts beat by the Lakers in the play-offs right
about now. So now we know. We have to talk. And we have to listen to each
other.
"You have to face your fear. I have to face mine, too. We have to
help each other, or we're both going to lose, and lose big. You
down with this? We have to understand it, learn from it, and get past
it. We have a bond that we can break through stupidity, fear, selfishness,
misunderstanding
and we lose everything if we do. I don't want to lose
everything, Jim. I don't want to lose you. I didn't see it before, but I do
now. Do you see it, big guy? We're day and night, head
and heart, and one without the other can't survive.
"I forgive you, Jim. Do you forgive me?"
Blair looked down at their fingers, wound so tightly around one another
it was impossible to tell where one began and the other ended. He lost the
breath he hadn't realized he was holding when Jim's other arm came around him,
folding him into a tight hug.
"Have to, Chief. Neither one of us was thinking, or talking. Now
now I hear you. And yeah, Blair, I forgive you."
He buried his face against Jim's broad chest, and finally relaxed. As the
tension eased from his body and the embrace tightened, he felt himself begin to
fade away.
With a surprisingly gentle transition, he found himself looking down at
his body once more, this time in an ICU recovery room, tubes running out from
what looked like everywhere, an oxygen mask strapped to his face, a white strip
of gauze circling his head, uneven curls peeking out at odd angles where the
back of his head had been shaved for the surgery. Then his vision blurred, and
everything tilted sideways. His last conscious thought was that his throat
really hurt, then he sank into oblivion and allowed
himself to rest.
Hands clenching vainly at air, eyes searching for a mop of curls that
should be tucked under his chin, body curled around a nonexistent partner,
Ellison sat up and rolled completely off the sofa as all of his senses slammed
back on line and he went searching for his Guide.
Staring confusedly around Simon's apartment, wondering briefly how the
hell he'd gotten there before shrugging it off, he headed directly out to the
sidewalk and started off in the general direction of the hospital.
He couldn't find his truck. Or Simon's car.
Three blocks later he got his wits together enough to pull his cell phone out
of his pocket and dial a cab. Walking just wasn't fast enough. He had to get there.
He didn't remember paying the cabbie, and he certainly didn't talk to
her. His entire being was caught up in tracking his partner. Brown was in the lobby, and Rafe at the waiting
room, and Simon was talking to someone at the nurses' station, but he didn't slow
down for any of them. Later. There would be time for
that later. Now there would be a
later.
Heading for Blair's room as if following a homing beacon, the first
indication Jim had of his Guide's presence was the steady, slow beating of his
heart. Then his scent, clear and clean the way it should be, only mildly offset
by the acrid antiseptic tang of the hospital. Rounding the corner, his eyes
completely disregarded the medical equipment cluttering the room, and he didn't
stop until he was as close to his partner as he could get without crawling into
bed with him -- there wasn't room, with all the tubes.
One hand reached out to cover a smaller, still one, and his fingers
burrowed around Blair's cold fingers. There was a slight twitch, then they
curved around in a corresponding hold, and Jim's knees nearly gave out with
relief. Leaning against the side rail, he bent over his partner. Dark lashes
lifted, fell, then lifted again, and blurry azure eyes fixed as steadily as
they could on him.
"Don't ever leave me, Chief," Jim managed to whisper. He knew
Blair had heard him by the slight squeeze of his hand.
"Don't ever make me go." Sentinel soft, Guide determined. Jim
smiled down at their clasped hands as Blair gave up the fight and fell asleep,
safe under his partner's watchful eye.
"Not in this lifetime."
FINIS