"Professor Sandburg?" the student called hesitantly from the door.
"Yes, come in."
He entered in a rush, panting a bit. "Sorry, I thought I was going to miss you, your office hours ended a couple minutes ago but I have my paper. Sorry it's late."
Looking up from his desk, the professor stood, putting his glasses down by his pen and brushing his short hair from his eyes. "It's not a problem."
"I was real busy, I mean, this weekend was sort of crowded, and I didn't get a chance to type it up, I had it written out honestly, and then the printer jammed--" his student rambled on, oblivious to the scrutiny.
"It's fine, it's barely a day late. No penalty." He approached the student, watching him closely as the boy--man, technically--jumped as his brain caught on to what his ears had heard.
"Thanks, professor--"
The professor took the paper from his unresisting fingers. "You're from my Anthro 102? James Modell, right?"
James bobbed his head nervously. Released from gripping the paper his hands still shook slightly, and his eyes were etched with a pattern of swollen red capillaries. "Is everything okay, James?"
The student twitched. "Everything's fine," he mumbled, "just this weekend, and I didn't get a chance to finish it, I tried..."
"Here, sit down." The professor shrugged at the startled, frightened expression. "Or don't, but you look like you could use someone to talk to."
When his student was seated he leaned against his desk and faced him. "Now, what were you using this weekend?"
James's reddened eyes opened enormously wide. "Oh God," he gasped, "oh no, please, don't tell my folks, please don't tell them, I didn't mean to, I didn't know, I've been trying to keep up the work so hard, it's been only weekends, with the campus job I can nearly afford..."
"James," the professor spoke quietly over the torrent of words. "You aren't in high school. I'm not going to give you a detention or call your parents. But I'd like to help you."
The boy slumped in the plastic chair. "I'm not an addict," he whispered, "it was only weekends, I don't even know how it started, I didn't do nothing in high school except a little pot..."
From the way his hands shivered even while sitting Professor Sandburg correctly deduced that he'd moved onto substances more hard-core. "I can give you some people to contact, if you'd like, they're more equipped to handle this sort of thing. They can help you get off--"
James Modell looked up and his eyes flashed suddenly. "No, you don't get it, Professor--I'm off! This weekend, I avoided all the places, I stayed in my room, door locked, tried to write this paper." And suffered through withdrawal instead. Alone. The professor managed to contain his horror. The kid could have died, the addiction might have been more than he knew--must have been, if Monday he was still exhibiting symptoms.
But there was triumph in his red eyes. "I'm clean, I'm going to stay that way, I can do it myself," he announced firmly. "If I can keep away..." His mouth closed, but fear re-materialized in his face.
The professor understood why. Dealers were not known to easily or happily lose customers. If they decided to fetch their lost sheep..."Do you mind if I call the police?"
"Oh God, Professor..!" The student's eyes reflected full terror now.
"Call me Blair." The professor shook his head. "I'm not going to have them arrest you. But possibly try to get the dealers, if you can give us--give them names, appearances, places."
"But sir, Blair, they'll, what I was doing was illegal..." he trailed off, shaking bodily. "My parents..."
"They won't arrest you and they'll be discreet. I know a few people on the force personally," Blair assured him. "I...worked with them for a little while."
"Really?" Intrigued, James glanced up, only to catch an expression fly across his professor's face and vanish before it could settle, before he could identify it. Something resembling pain, maybe. "What did you..." and then his own troubles caught up with him again. "But if they, if they find out I reported them, they'll..." He wasn't exactly sure what they'd do, but his imagination could conjure up any number of hideous retributions.
"The police can protect you, too. I'm going to make this your call, but James--"
"Jim," the student corrected automatically.
This time the expression shifted faster, here and gone, leaving only a faint trace of grief in its wake. The professor blinked once and when his blue eyes opened again the emotion in them was gone, all of it, leaving them strangely dead in his living face. "Jim," he said slowly, "seriously consider it. Not just for yourself, but if you don't want other students to run into them--" He cut himself off, as if angry to be placing a guilt trip on his student.
The student didn't mind; he knew it was true. "I'll think about it, honest Prof. Blair. I understand, it's just going to be hard..."
The professor was nodding understandingly and James broke out into a grin. Blair smiled tentatively. "Mind letting me in on the punchline?"
"Nothing, really, it's just, I never thought I'd have this conversation, I mean, with you." The professor frowned and the student tried to backtrack, fix the blunt honesty into something kinder. "It's just, you always are so, I don't know, disconnected or something. I mean, you're a fantastic professor," he blurted out hastily, realizing that the blue eyes had locked onto him, alive again with a mixture of curiosity, confusion, and something else unreadable. "You're one of the best professors here, everyone agrees, your lectures are great, you grade fair, you even manage to pick interesting readings which is just incredible, everyone always comes out of Anthro 101 wanting to major in it. But, but..."
James was thinking of a conversation had heard, between his biology lab assistant and one of her friends. He probably shouldn't have been eavesdropping but they had been talking loud enough, and the subject of their conversation had been Professor Sandburg. It had become quickly obvious that the lab assistant had previously dated the professor, and James really had no choice but to listen; how else was he supposed to know what the women wanted? So he had heard her say:
"Blair, oh, he's about the sweetest guy on campus, student or faculty. So adorable, he looks so young--would you believe he's mid-thirties?"
The friend shrugged with a smile.
"He's a wonderful date," the lab assistant went on, "knows all the best restaurants, always listens or at least pretends really well, smiles at the right moments. Not a bad kisser, either. The only trouble is, you know it's temporary. It's not the reputation, either. He always makes it clear that it's not permanent."
She shook her head at her friend's query. "No, of course he doesn't come right out and say it. It's only...I don't know. Something about the way he talks, maybe, he won't mention the future, won't even make pretend plans, it's always living in the now, don't look ahead and don't look back. That's not exactly it, but sort of... Oh, he won't ever take you to his apartment either, I don't know, maybe he keeps it a mess. His office isn't that bad, but...
"I didn't exactly 'break up'--it was mutual, we knew it was over. I was upset, I cried a little, but there wasn't anything we really could do. He told me it was his fault, it sort of was, maybe, but it was me, too. It gets kind of tiring, never knowing anything for sure, except that it's never going anywhere in the end. But more, he wouldn't let me in.
"Not just into his home, I mean, that I could deal with, but it was personally, too. He's closed. He doesn't really come across that way, I know, he seems friendly, but you realize eventually that it's all surface. He never will say what's really in his heart, just what he's feeling at the moment. He's withdrawn. Yeah, it's weird, but if you watch him it's true. He doesn't have any real friends. He never talks, he says a lot but he never actually talks. He spends all his time on campus practically, and he teaches his classes, and he does some other work, but I don't think he cares about any of it, really. His heart's not in it. His heart's not in anything, really, and it's hard to handle after a while. That no matter how much he listens, he doesn't really care..."
But that didn't mesh with the Professor Sandburg he was talking to now, who certainly seemed to care about the plight of a single student in one of his massive lecture classes, a professor who knew his name amidst seventy other students and looked at him closely enough to see something was wrong. His roommate hadn't even noticed. True, he had been partying hard all weekend, and probably attributed his friend's stress to writing the paper, but all the same...
That same paper that the professor was accepting late, without any complaints, and he might even let him edit it if it was as bad as James suspected it was; he hadn't had the time to proofread it. The professor didn't seem to think the paper mattered; or at least he thought his student mattered more. Which probably explained why he was now watching said student like a hawk, waiting for him to explain his garbled opinions.
"It's nothing, man," James assured him. "Forget it. Thanks for accepting the paper and all. Really." Spoken with complete sincerity.
"No problem," Blair replied. "If you need help with anything, I'm usually in my office. Don't bother knocking, just come in."
"I will. Thanks. I mean, thank you." The student hesitated as if wanting to say more but unsure how to word it. "For everything," he added at last, then scooted out the door before he could stick his foot any deeper into his mouth.
Blair watched his departure and turned back to his desk. He didn't sit down, not right away, just leaned against it pondering the simple truth in his words. Usually in my office. Make that always, until the building was closed. Almost always.
He sighed. Should make a date or something. It's been a couple months. Get out at night, he tried to do it every once in a while, before the walls started to feel like they were crumbling down on top of him. Like they felt now, only of course they weren't actually. He was absolutely positive that if they shifted so much as half an inch inward he would notice. God, after ten years in the same room he'd have to notice.
Ten years, more than ten years. The thought made his head ache dully. He could maneuver this office blindfolded; hell, he could practically read the books on the shelves behind him blindfolded, all he'd need to do was feel the cover to know what he held and his mind would tell him the contents, word by word. Not that his memory was eidetic, but after so long they all were ingrained in his mental pathways.
What had happened to moving around, changing places, never fixing himself too solidly into any one position? Same apartment for over five years, same office for over ten, what had happened? Naomi worried about it, every time she dropped in for the few days out of the year she urged him to seek change, seek growth. Move out of the city with its dense mass of humanity and the consequent corruption. Leave Rainier, leave Cascade.
He should. What reason did he possibly have to stay in Cascade?
His soul offered answer unbidden, and angrily he shoved it away. That was no reason, staying for a dead man, sticking around like he was waiting for a ghost to come haunt him. Stupid, stupid, it doesn't help anyone to dwell on the past, and he tried his best not to. So why didn't he rip up his final roots and find somewhere else to plant them, some place safer, quieter, gentler, where he wouldn't have to dig so deep to take hold? Where he wouldn't be trapped by what was long over?
Why had he even stayed in this office, for that matter? What idiotic reasoning was behind that, when he got his promotion why didn't he demand a change of scenery?
After all, it was here that he had gotten the call. Seated in the very same chair that he leaned against now, working on correcting papers same as he had been when James Modell interrupted him. Seven years before, the phone had rung, and when he had answered it Simon Banks told him quietly, "There's been an accident."
As if there was no other way to say it except in those cliched terms. No other way to face it except with blunt directness.
They never even found the cause. The FBI had investigated, but no logical reason was ever given for the 747 to crash, for the giant airplane to tumble out of the sky and lie in fiery ashes on the ground in Montana. No survivors, whatever had happened it had been that sudden, that no one had a chance to escape. Half the bodies were never even found, burned away to nothing by the explosion of the impact.
One of the passengers of the plane had been Detective Jim Ellison, returning from a police conference in Chicago, leaving his partner behind only because it was finals week and Blair had too much to do even without his obligations to his Sentinel. A three day conference, and they had talked for only a few minutes long distance on the third day. Nothing had happened without Blair, no zone-outs, no crimes, but Jim sounded happy to be getting back to Cascade, relieved that the boredom of the conference was at last over, pleased to be coming home.
He didn't make it that far, not even in a body bag, his one of the corpses not recovered. They held the funeral anyway, erected a gravestone despite the lack. Blair had seen the tombstone once, during the service, a simply granite block with the name and date and a generic biblical quote he couldn't recall. He remembered wishing he had chosen it, picked one that applied to protection, that would have gotten across the essence of a Sentinel, the secret that was in truth Jim Ellison. But he hadn't been involved, he hadn't wanted to be, and that secret was gone now, not even buried.
Darker times back then; Blair hadn't wanted to acknowledge it, he couldn't believe what had happened, couldn't accept it. He thought he should feel something, not just grief, something deeper that would tell him it was truly over. He should have felt the bond snap, physically feel that it had ended, know even before Simon told him that his duty as Guide was over. They had been close, they should have been that close. He had thought they were.
But he hadn't known, and after a long time he finally understood that it had ended, and Blair had moved on as he had to, except that he couldn't seem to find his way out of Cascade.
And he was too young to waste time reminiscing. With a sigh the professor dropped the paper on the desk, pulled himself out of his thoughts and returned to his work.
Simon Banks waited twelve rings for the phone to be picked up, then at last set down the receiver with a sigh. Sandburg probably was still at the University, and he didn't want to interrupt him from his work.
He tried to call Blair about once a month. Just to check in, make sure everything was going well, to talk for a few short moments. The once-conversational anthropologist never had very much to tell him, but Simon still called. The first couple years, he had been in touch weekly, but time wore on and the amount diminished.
Still, if anything went down at Rainier he was the first to know about it, he made it his business to know. And he had a couple of contacts there whose prime purpose was to keep an eye on Sandburg.
At first it was because Jim would have wanted it, required it, would never have forgiven Simon for letting something happen to the kid. Finally Simon admitted, at least to himself, that it wasn't for Jim's sake as much as for his own. He had lost enough friends already. So he called.
It would have been easier if Blair hadn't tried so deliberately to cut him off. To cut everyone off. Joel hadn't spoken to Sandburg in over a year, yet every time the former bomb squad captain saw Simon eventually he got around to asking how he was doing, how he was holding up at the University, what classes he was teaching and so forth. Simon usually knew, if not from Blair himself than from the others.
Joel still cared. Simon wished Blair did.
He purposely looked away from the phone and back to the case files spread liberally over his desk. Wondered vaguely why he even bothered going into the office anymore; he had everything he needed right here at home. Maybe he should instigate an administration-through-e-mail policy...oh yeah, the mayor would love that, she was all gung-ho computers, did public officials really have to put in the dirty time in the city buildings? When they could do it all from the comfort of their own apartments?
Their own lonely apartments. Simon tried to remember the last time he had had guests over. With Daryl off at school, not very often. He accused Sandburg of shutting people out, when he himself only socialized at the station...no, he had gone to Joel's anniversary celebration a couple of weeks ago, that counted as getting out. Blair hadn't come; he never even answered the invitation, Joel had said. Why was he obsessing about Sandburg? So he had moved on. It happened. You broke ties and you make new ones, it was inevitable. Blair hadn't been an observer for even four years; he had been at the University for far longer, it made sense that as his connections there were strengthened the ones he had forged with the police would be weakened. Especially since he had no reason to maintain them.
Must be the rain, pouring down, turning everything gray and depressing. Simon recognized the relation between his mood and the weather but a lifetime in Cascade hadn't been enough to break him out of the pattern.
Oddly fitting, that just as his mind turned back to the issue of loneliness, he heard the sharp retort of knuckles rapping against the door. He had to shake his head to dispel the sudden sharp conviction of who was there--why would Sandburg possibly choose to come tonight, after dedicatedly avoiding him for six years?--and rose to answer the summons.
Just as Blair unlocked the door he heard his phone trilling inside. By the time it swung open the sound had stopped.
Good. He didn't really feel in the mood to talk.
Rainier's administration and his students were occasionally annoyed by his lack of an answering machine. He saw no need of one; people could always call back, and if they were desperate they could e-mail him. He tended to check e-mail compulsively, and had people praising his two-minute turn-around time.
It was so much easier to type up short, to-the-point messages than to speak on the phone. The written word was so much more direct, without the requirements of small talk or even manners--putting one's virtual signature on an e-mail was polite enough for a professor-to-student communique. Greater speed, greater efficiency, just plain simpler.
If Joel had given an e-mail address maybe he would have RSVP'ed the invitation. He felt slightly guilty about not showing or even responding, but he had been busy that week, and it had slipped past without him remembering it until after the anniversary. Then of course it was too late.
The steady splashing of rain outside was broken by a distant boom of thunder. Blair winced in spite of himself, his hands almost going to his ears before he caught them. No, he didn't have to worry about the sound, no one had to worry about the sound. Maybe it had frightened a few kids, but it couldn't hurt anyone by audio impact alone. No one's hearing was that sensitive.
Just as he didn't have to worry about coming in late, or bother quietly placing his keys in the basket instead of just tossing them. No one here to wake up with the slightest noise, no one to hear his movements through the dark rooms as he searched for the light switch. It was easy, living alone; relaxing. He didn't allow any casual girlfriend to interfere with the calm stillness of his apartment.
Blair wondered if he should begin another relationship. Thoughts like this usually precluded depressing stretches of emptiness in his life that he'd prefer to avoid. He had broken up months ago after, what, two weeks with that girl? And hadn't had a date since. There must be someone he could think of to call, for dinner Friday perhaps.
He didn't rack his brain. Instead he laid on his couch and stared out the unshaded window, watching the water drip down from the smoky black sky.
Whoever it was knocked again, harder, before Simon even made it to the door. He flung it open with a growl and then stared, loose-jawed, at the apparition before him.
Over six feet and big, broad-shouldered. Pale blue eyes to match the faded blue jeans, short dark hair plastered against his skull with rain. The water seeped off his leather jacket to stain the hallway carpet. "Simon," he said huskily.
"My God." Simon spoke reverently, tone hushed, as if afraid he'd frighten him away. "Jim?" Hesitantly, disbelieving.
But the man nodded sharply. "Can I come in?"
Simon took a couple of deep breaths, trying to force air back into his lungs. "Of course, come on--" He put his hand on the man's arm, guiding Jim inside while assuring himself of his friend's reality. That he was alive, not a haunting spirit but flesh and blood, resurrection, reincarnation, didn't matter, only that he was here and living...
The door closed and Jim put his hands to his face, rubbed it tiredly. "Thanks. Mind if I crash here? I feel like I haven't slept in a week."
"Of course..." Simon gaped. This couldn't possibly be happening, he must be having a dream. One of those unconscious fantasies in which the impossible happens, yet in your mind it makes perfect sense, is unquestionably reasonable.
Except he didn't think it was reasonable, not at all, not one bit. "Jim--Jim, you were dead, we thought you were dead, the plane crash..."
"I survived." Smiling slightly, as if it were the most logical thing in the world.
Of course it was. He was here, after all. But... "Jim, it's been seven years, that happened seven years ago, and since then...My God, Jim, I was at your funeral! They've been watering the plants at your grave for seven years!"
The other man blanched, even as he nodded, "I know, I know." But he hadn't, Simon saw; he had heard but it hadn't registered, perhaps hadn't hit home.
Somehow he found strength in Jim's naked shock; for some reason the situation righted itself, reversed, and it all made sense. Or it didn't make sense, but that didn't matter, and Simon found himself smiling, mouth stretched so wide it hurt, a sensation he hadn't felt in far too long. "My God, Jim," he said a third time, "you've alive!" And he pulled his friend into a hug, pounded him on the back and certified once again that he wasn't dealing with a ghost.
When he released him Jim was smiling broadly as well, and he took his extended hand and shook it heartily. "It's great to see you, too, Simon."
Tired though Jim might be, there was no way Simon was going to let him get much sleep tonight. He hustled to the kitchen to make the coffee, adding a liberal dose of brandy to each cup--he at least could use it. Once Jim had settled on his sofa and he had taken the armchair next to it the interrogation began. "What happened? Where have you been? Why didn't you tell us before? Why did it take so long?" Of everything he needed to know, the whys were the most important.
For a time his friend didn't answer, only stared at the coffee in his mug as he slowly swirled it around. "I was in a hospital," he said at last. "Georgetown Medical Center, in Washington. D.C.," he added for the benefit of his listener.
Simon opened his mouth, ready to pile on the demands, then thought better of it and closed it again. Instinctively he knew Jim had to tell this at his own pace, that what he was saying was possibly even harder for Jim himself to deal with than for his friend.
"I woke up there six months ago," the other man continued. "I'd been...in a coma for about two more before. And before that...they don't know. I appeared one day, that's what they told me. No identification, the medical forms were signed 'John Smith.' And because someone was paying the bills, they kept me there. Tucked the John Doe into a corner, plugged him into a respirator, filled the IV bags and ignored me until I decided to return to this world.
"They didn't know what was wrong with me. I had--have some scars. Something in my blood, too, they didn't know what. Took my immune system that time to fight it off, and when I first blinked...hell, it took me a month to remember how to walk again. I couldn't get past 'My name is Jim' for longer than that. It all came back slowly, I knew I was a cop, I thought I had been in military, then I started to get names, places. Being a Sentinel, when I finally remembered that I knew everything again. That was only a month ago, and I've been working my way back here since then."
"But..." Simon waited until the pause had stretched for longer than he could bear. "Why'd it take you so long? Why in God's name didn't you just call, write, something, when you remembered? And what the hell did happen to you?"
The questions seemed to overwhelm him; for a moment only blank confusion showed in his face. Then he straightened up and the confident, one-step-away-from cocky Jim Ellison that Simon recalled so well appeared. "For a while I wasn't sure how accurate my memories were; I was worried about contacting you, afraid what I remembered about Cascade would turn out to be some kind of hallucination," and he half-smiled ironically. "Then...it was seven years later." Jim sank back down, the weariness returning. "I didn't know what had changed. I didn't want to know, I just had to see for myself."
He glanced over at his friend. Smiled a little again. "Things have changed, haven't they, District Chief Banks?"
Simon waved it off, unwilling to let the subject be so easily altered. "Okay, I may not like it, but I can buy that. You're here now, that makes up for a lot. But you haven't said yet what really happened. Why you didn't die in that crash like we all thought."
Jim paled slightly, slumped deeper into the couch. "I wish I knew," he mumbled softly. "Damn it, you don't know how much--that hasn't come back. Everything did but that. I can remember being in the airport, vaguely. I can remember the conference too, the last speech was something about..." he screwed up his face with the effort of recall, "Street violence. Gang fighting. The speaker was a little Hispanic guy who'd run with gangs in his youth, he made it interesting. Personal. He reminded me of..." Jim trailed off, focusing on the empty space before him, then shook his head as if to dislodge the thought. "But nothing after that. No memories. No dreams, just nothing..."
Before he could fade again he brought his fist down, sloshing drops of warm coffee onto the sofa. Simon ignored them, concentrating on Jim. "I woke up six and a half years older," he was saying. "I lost more than six years of my life, and I don't know how to get it back. If anything was even there. For all I know I was just in another hospital..."
He didn't sound as if he believed that. Simon suspected that despite his words, Jim had some memory, some remnant of that time left in his mind. Something supporting his conviction that those years were not simply blank stretches of paralysis.
Before he could ask Jim looked up, met his eyes. His tone forced casualness, "So, what have I missed here? You can at least fill in those gaps."
Simon saw the unspoken plea in those blue eyes and put his questions aside. "Well, you've heard about my promotion."
Jim nodded. "Only because I had to track you down, though."
"Brown took over as captain of Major Crimes," Simon reported easily. As if he were just discussing gossip, catching up with an old friend, nothing as monumental as attempting to recover a loss of seven years. "Doing a damn fine job, no surprises there. Rafe's senior detective though he might be transferring, looks like the captain of Vice might be stepping down soon and they'll need a good man for that position.
"Joel retired the same week Brown and I were bumped up, two years ago. Had enough of getting blown up and is spending his golden years in wedded bliss--just celebrated his thirty-fifth. I think we're all jealous, even if he does complain about the boredom. Let me tell you, this promotion isn't worth the extra few bucks on the paycheck--I thought a captain had paperwork, but district chief? I can't get out of my office except to come home and work on it here." He gestured at his file-strewn desk.
"Huh, and I thought they'd all have it on computers by now," Jim remarked, eyeing the piles.
Simon groaned. "Don't get me started on the cessation of the Electronic revolution. Check that--don't get Daryl started on it."
"Where is he now?" Jim perked up, whether because he was truly interested or out of respect for his friend's son Simon couldn't tell.
Either way he was unable to prevent the pride from seeping into his voice. "Senior at Stanford, majoring in Computer Science. Can't seem to get off the Dean's list, either. All I ever hear from him is computers and his girlfriend--she's a great girl," he added immediately. "Can be intense about sociology but smart as anything and fun, too. They've been serious for over a year now, don't know how far it's going to go but they're enjoying it at any rate."
Jim nodded again, looked down at his coffee as if analyzing its contents. His lids shut tight and snapped open again immediately. Wrapping both hands around the cup and drawing strength from its resistance, he met his friend's eyes. "How's Sandburg?"
Simon leaned back in his chair, prepared for the question, understanding the clear intensity of the two simple words. Such a basic query, the final one, and in the end the only one that really counted, the one that Jim had been waiting for since he walked through the door. Simon had felt it coming from the instant his friend had reappeared, but understood its delay, recalling what Jim had said about not wanting to know what had changed. Able to guess most of his worries, this one especially.
"He's around," Simon said, keeping his tone carefully neutral. Impossible to miss the way Jim fell back, only a few inches but the tension in his entire body dropped notches, his grip on the coffee mug loosening, reduced again to a one-handed hold. "He's an associate professor at Rainier now," he went on, and decided he had no reason to draw it out, "and he got his PhD. It's Dr. Sandburg now."
It was fleeting, but there was no mistaking the expression of pride that crossed Jim's face. "I never doubted it would be," he murmured. "So what was the dissertation on, finally?"
"Sentinels." No uncertainties there. "'An analysis of their purpose, history, and general characteristics, past and present'. He does mention you by name a couple of times, because, well, we didn't think it mattered."
"'We'?" Jim raised his eyebrows. No hint of surprise at the other revelations, no signs of anger at the secret let out.
"We," Simon agreed. "He got permission from me for every word he wrote. I'm mentioned in there too, after all. I read the final draft before he gave it to the board. It's quite a piece of work. Brilliant, even. They couldn't have rejected it no matter how far-fetched they thought the theory. I kept a copy." Not a bound one but the final draft, in the bottom of his desk drawer. He was unsure if he wanted to show that to Jim, though. Some of the pages were blotted with tear stains, and not all of them were Blair's.
"He's not still an observer, then." Something flickered in Jim's eyes, but Simon couldn't tell if it was hope or despair or in between.
"No," he confirmed. "He stayed around the station for a year..." Less and less as that year passed. Though his true duties might have been over, his public reason for the position remained, making observations on the social networks of the men and women in blue.
Of course by then most of Major Crimes had figured out that his real purposes had been completely tied up with Jim Ellison. You can't pull the wool over a crew of detectives' eyes for three years. But by then they didn't care, either. Sandburg had become one of their own; civilian or not he was a fellow detective, and had earned their respect, long hair non-withstanding. With Jim gone they tried their best to incorporate him anyway, putting his not inconsiderable abilities to good use, continuing to rely on his resources which they had come to depend on.
But despite this Blair drifted away, began to gravitate back toward his original place at the University, taking up his research again as he dropped his police duties. He remained living in the loft, keeping watch over the place as devotedly as a priest guarding a sacred shrine. He still carried a celphone and the station could always reach him, but he stopped making more than a weekly token appearance.
And then a year later, precisely, on the anniversary of the plane crash, he disappeared. Abandoned the police entirely, left his celphone behind. The two officers sent to the loft found it emptied of every possession of Sandburg's, cleaned out as thoroughly as if he had never set foot in the place. He must have started the process some time before, to have achieved the end result so quickly.
Simon had panicked momentarily, thrown off-guard and off-balance, lacking even a guess as to where he had gone. At last frantic calls to Rainier ascertained that Professor Sandburg had put in for a sabbatical of indeterminate length. Taking time to finish his dissertation, had been the reason given.
But he hadn't quit outright. Simon held onto that hope, put in off-duty time doing private detective work. Finally tracking Blair to various anthropological sites scattered across the globe.
He didn't make an effort to bring him back, knowing that if and when he was ready he would return. But he kept an eye on him from afar, tried to stay on the trail, losing and finding him again halfway around the world, a Peruvian jungle, an African savanna, an Alaskan tundra, skipping like a stone over the oceans.
Ten months and the journeys were over. Blair found a small apartment back in Cascade and settled in, returning to the University on a regular basis. A month later he brought the draft to Simon, and soon after he was awarded his doctorate. It was only a matter of time before they offered tenure and his position became permanent.
Simon related this all to Jim now, including the names of where Blair had gone, who he had worked with, what classes he taught, the other few articles he had published. "It sounds like he's done pretty well," Jim acknowledged with quiet relief.
"He's managed." Simon decided not to mention every detail. How he never came to the station and missed Joel's party. How Blair's last article had been printed over four years ago and all of them had been started before the accident, fulfilling prior commitments. How long it had been since Simon had had a real conversation with the younger man.
"I'm glad to hear it." Jim's sincerity was blinding in its honest power. "I thought--I knew he would." He put down the coffee, tried ineffectively to block a yawn. "Simon, I'm sorry--"
"No, my fault, it's late. You can take the guest bed--I have work tomorrow anyhow. We should get to sleep." He hesitated. "You don't have anywhere you're supposed to be?"
Stretching, Jim shook his head. "I'd just as soon sleep in. If you don't mind."
"Of course not." As long as he didn't fade away with the morning sun, Simon was fine with it. He headed off to his own room. His final thought before nodding off was that it would be a damned shame to wake up from this dream.
When his alarm did drag him out of sleep a few short hours later he was surprised at the clarity with which he could recall the previous night. Could it really..? Stumping out of his room and grumbling like a bear recently finished hibernating, Simon made his way to the kitchen.
And paused at the two coffee cups on the drain board.
Doubling back down the hall he cautiously opened the door to the guest room and peaked inside. Jim was stretched out on top of the covers, still fully dressed, dead to the world but very definitely breathing.
Simon nearly cracked the lintel gripping it so tightly, but for a moment it was the only thing solid enough to support him. Shrugging it off he quietly shut the door and returned to the kitchen.
Jim must have been exhausted, if he had slept through the alarm clock as well as his friend up and around. Simon clearly recalled Blair complaining about his roommate's insistence on complete silence for sleep--and Jim's expectations for silence were of course more stringent than anyone's.
It also occurred to him that Jim lacked a change of clothes, or indeed any luggage at all. But he must have traveled with something...on his way out the door Simon nearly tripped on the green sports bag. 'James Ellison' on the baggage tag. He brought it inside and placed it by the guest room door. Jim must have been tired to leave it out in the hall. Not that he ever had evinced much care for the material but from the way he had spoken last night the bag probably contained every possession he now had in the world...
Simon found himself fidgeting at work, a most unusual activity for him. Half a dozen times he picked up the phone and put it down again, before he could dial Brown's number, or Joel's, or Rafe's, or even Carolyn's for that matter--still in San Francisco and re-married but she'd like to know that the funeral she'd attended had been premature.
What was he supposed to say? 'There was a mistake, Jim's not dead, he's back'? There had to be a better way to word it, but damned if he could find it. And he couldn't shake the feeling either that when he returned home his friend would have vanished, disappearing back into the ether. It wouldn't do for people to start believing that the district chief was hallucinating dead men.
Besides, he didn't think Jim was quite ready for reunions just yet. Sure he'd been tired last night, but judging from that brief interaction there was far more going on than mere fatigue. His whole attitude, speech, body language, everything seemed quieter, subdued, almost deferential. A far cry from the brash detective of before. A lot could happen to a man in seven years. A lot had happened, he suspected, whether or not Jim remembered it all.
He hadn't broken under it, Simon couldn't imagine Jim breaking under any strain, but he had bent and was still in the process of springing back. Best to give him time and room, allow him to slide cautiously back into life at his own pace. Relationships could be renewed gradually; Sandburg could help handle that, spread the news without alarming or startling people too badly. Once Blair got over the shock himself, of course.
Alone in his office Simon smiled slightly to himself, picturing their reunion. For all he knew it was going on this very moment; he had told Jim where to find Blair and didn't think the Sentinel would waste much time tracking down his Guide. Probably give Sandburg six heart attacks when he learned but he'd recover and it would be something to see the expression on his face.
In spite of his expectations Simon breathed a silent sigh of relief when he reached the end of the day and returned to the apartment to find Jim still present and still living. He had the radio playing softly and was using some of Simon's exercise equipment, which he put down after the other man's entrance. "Hope you don't mind," he asked belated permission quietly, "it was set up already, and I'm in the process of working back into shape..."
Simon nodded and waved it off. "No problem, most of that stuff doesn't get used enough anyhow." He looked his friend over. For an average man he was in peak condition, but this was Jim Ellison. He was thinner, Simon decided; muscles stringier, more corded, and it wasn't age so much as an indication of health, poor conditions he still was recovering from.
Beyond poor conditions. His arms were bare in the white t-shirt and marks ran up and down the biceps. Without looking too closely, Simon recognized scars, slightly pink and furrowed. Burns or slashes, he couldn't tell and doubted it mattered. From the accident, or the blank time after? Not that that mattered, either. "So you've been working out, done anything else today?"
Jim shrugged. "Slept in," he confessed. "Ate your last eggs when I got up, sorry. Spent some time with the TV set and more with your old newspapers--you ever throw them out?" Simon shrugged and he went on, "and worked out. That's it." He spread his hands. "Lazy I know, but it was a long trip. I think I'm still recuperating."
Simon nodded, not mentioning his surprise, Jim admitting to exhaustion? And giving into it. No, that was pushing it, the man deserved a rest. Far be it from him to disturb it, but he had to know--"Have you contacted Blair yet?"
Jim looked away deliberately. "No."
"Come on, then." Simon indicated the door. Jim glanced at him, perplexed. "I'll drive you to the University," Simon explained. "It's not even six, he'll still be there."
"No," Jim repeated.
Now it was Simon's turn to be confused. "Listen, Jim," he said patiently. "I know you're tired out, I know this is a mess, how overwhelming it is. And I can understand why you'd want to keep your distance for a while. I haven't told anyone yet--"
"Thank you," Jim interjected.
"You're welcome. And I won't tell anyone without your say-so. This is your life that you're coming back to, not my business. You can handle how you deal. But you have to at least let him know you're alive. We're talking about Sandburg here--he was your partner and you have some responsibility to him. Not to mention he's still Cascade's only resident expert on Sentinels; I can't help you with that no matter how much I've read about them."
"Don't worry about that," the other said quietly.
"Do you want Blair's office number? You can call now--"
"No." The third time most adamant of all. "I'm not going to call, and I'm not going to see him. He doesn't need to know I'm not dead."
Simon felt his jaw drop. "What are you talking about?"
"What I said," Jim answered calmly. "He has no need to know."
"Maybe he doesn't need to--" though that was a matter of contention--"but he'll most certainly want to!"
"You told me he's doing all right without me."
"He's managed," Simon said cautiously.
"He can keep managing." Jim began to pace, throwing himself into rapid laps around the room, jaw set and eyes unfocused. Simon wondered if he was even consciously aware of the movement. "Blair always could snap back from anything, I imagine he recovered pretty quickly."
Simon's eyes narrowed as they tracked his friend's progress across the floor. This wasn't some bizarre form of jealousy, was it? He couldn't possibly be angry at Blair for moving on, for seeming to pass him by, though truthfully...
No. He couldn't believe Jim Ellison would be so petty, no matter how many years had changed him. And last night Jim had sounded, well, not pleased, but at least relieved that Blair had 'recovered' and continued with his life, such as it was.
Not understanding, he fell back to more concrete reasoning. "Jim, I meant what I said, I can't handle all the Sentinel matters. Blair is the only one who can help you with that, if nothing else I think you need him for that."
"No, I don't." Jim halted, shaking his head. "That's over with, Simon."
"What?"
"I mean it." He opened his arms wide. "Gone. Suppressed, repressed, just plain lost, I don't know. But since I woke up in that hospital I haven't felt or heard or seen or sensed anything beyond the normal range."
"So you're not a Sentinel." Very carefully and quietly.
"Not anymore."
For a moment Simon pondered this new development. He hadn't asked before, had just assumed that aspect of Jim remained unchanged. It had taken him three years to become comfortable with the notion of a supercop, and then Jim was gone. Now he found it made him equally uncomfortable to have Jim back but minus the abilities. "If you suppressed them," he mentioned, "maybe they'll return like they have before. You have to be careful..."
"It's been six months and I haven't noticed a single thing out of the ordinary," Jim replied. "And I've tried, believe me, Simon. I might not have fully appreciated them but I got accustomed to what I could do. When I first woke up it was a real shock, I kept trying to listen to people outside the room and I couldn't. See details from my window but they'd be too far away."
"That's why it took you so long to remember," Simon realized.
"I thought I was going crazy," Jim recalled, "the doctors assured me there was nothing wrong, and eye tests, hearing tests, everything showed me perfectly normal. And so I believed it." He looked down, thinking. Simon could guess what was going through his mind, how it had happened before, when his senses had first re-emerged in Cascade, none of the doctors had any clue. Only a lone anthropology student had understood what was occurring and how to help...
"Listen, Jim, Blair might know what's going on now," he remarked. "At least he'll be able to make an educated guess. Why don't we--"
"I don't need his guesses," snapped Jim. "It's over, I'm not a Sentinel, so I don't need a Guide. And what he doesn't know can't hurt him."
"Hold on!" Simon shot back. "He was your Guide, but he was also your partner, your roommate, hell, what'd he call you that time? His 'Blessed Protector'? You owe him more than--"
"Exactly." Making the word sound like the epitome of reason. "And that's why."
Simon rocked back on his heels. "What?"
"Look," Jim said patiently. "What's happened in the last seven years? How much trouble has Sandburg gotten into, not just trouble, actual danger?"
Simon thought back. The hostage situation in the library, Blair had been only one of a hundred, and no one came out of that with so much as a bruised elbow. He hadn't been anywhere near the chemistry lab explosion, and the theater fire had missed his apartment by a good two blocks. "Nothing, actually," he admitted. "Cascade may be hitting the rocks but Rainier's remained safe as far as campuses go."
Jim nodded. "You know the three years before that, how many times he ended up in the hospital. Shot, poisoned, beaten, abducted, dammit, the whole incident with the Golden."
"But he always pulled through," Simon argued. "And it never scared him off."
"It should have," Jim said grimly. "Eventually he would have pushed his luck too far, and..." He didn't finish the sentence, couldn't.
"Police work is dangerous," protested Simon, "there's no way to change that. He knew that, he accepted the risks--"
"But he wasn't a cop," Jim returned. "And the only reason he had to risk it was because of me. Because I needed him to function as a Sentinel."
Maybe that was the only reason he was actually required, but that certainly hadn't been the only reason Sandburg had gone ahead and followed Jim until the day he thought he died. Simon opened his mouth to point this out but Jim held up a hand to silence him.
"I don't need that help any more. He doesn't have any reason to be in that kind of danger."
"Then why not see him?" Simon exploded. "You don't have to be partnered with him if it's not a necessity, but at least stop by and tell him! Why not?"
"Because I know Blair." Jim smiled slightly, almost sadly. "Unless he's changed more than you've told me, he'll want to come back. Whether or not I need him as a Guide. Whether or not it's safe, whether or not I can protect him. He'll want to be my partner again, and I won't have any way to stop him."
Simon tried to answer that, but there was no denying truth. It wouldn't matter if he was refused observer status or barred from the station or hell, given a restraining order. Once Blair found out Jim was alive nothing would stop him from retaking his place by the side of his Sentinel.
And it would be dangerous. Especially if Jim were in fact reduced to normalcy. Without those incredible abilities. How many times had he used his senses to locate, rescue, protect his partner? How many times had Simon witnessed the way they focused with unnerving intensity if Blair was threatened, almost psychically connecting Sentinel and Guide? If that was gone, all of Jim's protective instincts on full might not be quite enough...
Simon knew that Blair would grasp this but would willingly, cheerfully risk it anyway. And though the police officer in him worried about endangering a civilian, a larger part couldn't help but believe that, danger or not, Blair's choice would be the right one.
Two days later he still hadn't thought of anyone to call. Blair pushed the personal thoughts away as he mounted the podium before the class. Not classroom; auditorium. Anthropology 102 was vying to be the largest course offered, and judging from the sea of eager faces awaiting him, one of the best-attended, too.
All ready to hang on his every word. He must be quite a professor--yeah, probably the easiest grader of all the gut courses. Smiling with a touch of irony he began to speak. "Today we're heading into Africa. Keep your hands and cameras inside the safari vehicle and make sure you have plenty of water, because you'll get pretty thirsty in the Kalahari Desert." The casual introduction earned him some grins and a general mass chuckle before he sank into the meat of the lecture.
He gestured as he spoke, pausing briefly to scrawl important words and names on the whiteboard behind him, glancing at his notes if he sensed himself straying from the topic, answering various questions as they came up. After almost a decade giving the same course he should be bored, but the routine relaxed him and he never tired of the teaching. Every year the students changed, the questions were different, even the material evolved. Anthropology was in no terms an exhausted science; keeping up with the new discoveries kept him on his toes.
His eyes swept the rows, making eye contact as a good speaker should, noting those listening, those whispering, those scribbling on notebooks or laptops. Not judging; sometimes the ones who never wrote a word remembered it all the same. He caught sight of James Modell, watching him, perhaps nervously, notebook unopened in his hands. A slight cock of the head to acknowledge his presence was rewarded with a hesitant smile.
In the back he made out a few wary students hiding in the dimmer light. Hard to see from that distance without his glasses. He had heard the door close a couple of minutes before, someone had just entered. There was a man in one of the rows closest to the entrance in back, tall man even when seated, something achingly familiar in his ramrod straight posture...
Blair faltered in the middle of a sentence, squinting at the shadowy man, trying to force his vision beyond the bright light of the projector. Almost, he could nearly see him well enough to identify. In a way he didn't want to see him that closely; from this distance he could almost believe it was... No, don't make yourself crazy, Sandburg.
The students were gazing at him expectantly, not yet concerned, waiting for more about the hunting and gathering methods of the !Kung. He took a deep breath and pressed on, his eyes only occasionally darting to the far end of the auditorium, trying to get a better view of the man there.
At the end of the class he made his way off the stage and attempted to push past the students clamoring about their research papers. But there was one he couldn't ignore. "Professor Sandburg? Can I talk to you?"
"Sure, James. Jim, I mean." He risked glancing away to peer at the exit.
No man in the seat. The door was filled with students racing to their next classes or to lunch. He had a sudden urge to run after them, see if he might catch a glimpse of whoever it had been.
Get a grip, he admonished himself, and turned back to James Modell. "Let's go to my office."
"Okay." Their walk to the anthropology building was uneventful. James seemed anxious, nervous talking in public. Blair couldn't help but scan the campus, searching...he didn't know for what. Something that didn't exist. A hallucination. Wishful thinking.
James continued to fidget once the office door closed. He wouldn't sit down. "Professor, I thought you should know, I--" The words got stuck on the way out.
"What?" Blair extracted them patiently.
"I went to the police." It came out in a rush. "No, I didn't quite, I called them though, I didn't give my name but I said I was a student here, and I told them about what had happened, who I knew, what I had gotten, and they listened."
Blair imagined they would. Any possible lead on something drug-related they'd pursue, if they had the manpower. If they didn't already have a thousand other leads. Which they always did. A thousand leads and a hundred thousand crimes, no way to keep up with them all. The police did what they can, but every leak they plugged produced a crack elsewhere.
It wouldn't be too long before the dam gave way entirely. Now there was an optimistic thought. Rainier had remained a relatively safe spot in an increasingly violent and criminal city, but if or when the Cascade police force lost the last remnants of control the University would be flooded.
But he didn't have to burden this boy with those concerns. He'd graduate before that would happen anyway. "It's good you did," Blair told him honestly. "I'm sure they'll do what they can. How are you doing?"
"Okay. Fine," James assured him. "It's weird, they were almost my friends, sort of. And I went and told on them, and you know, I don't feel guilty about it at all. I want them off the campus and out of here, I'd like to see them in jail. Gone."
And separated from him. Blair wondered if his student was in jeopardy. As a rule of common sense dealers didn't like being reported to cops, but how they handled it was determined by the individual. If James's former acquaintances were into revenge it could get nasty...
He was a bright kid, though; he must have understood the hazards. It said good things about him that he risked it to do what was right. "I know what you mean. I'm glad you've told me, I would have wanted to know. If you get into any more trouble, if this comes up again, I want to hear about it, okay?"
"No problem, man." James flashed him a quick grin and darted out of the office.
Blair felt his return smile fade the moment the door closed again. Did James Modell truly understand, or was he just telling himself that to soothe his own conscience? Cascade was going to hell in a handbasket but most of the people dwelling in it were blissfully unaware of that basic fact. They thought that it couldn't happen to them, that the police would keep them safe, that maybe there were bad sections but they were easy to avoid.
Simon Banks was a good man and one of the best district chiefs the city had ever had, but even working twenty-four seven and pushing himself to his absolute limits he couldn't keep up with the dry rot. Every time Blair saw him on the news he swore he could count new lines on the man's face. Strange that most citizens never noticed that stress.
But Blair knew the truth. Why didn't he just get out, escape the corruption before it finally reached him? Maybe because he had hope. That good would triumph in the end, that once they hit bottom there was nowhere to go but up. He guessed that had been true for him. Somehow, the city would be saved yet.
Touching naivete, he complimented himself sarcastically.Do you wish on stars and look for gold when you see a rainbow, too? Everything around here is going to the dogs and if it gets much worse even a Sentinel won't be able to put it right again.
He regretted the thought the moment it slipped out, fiercely relegated it once more to the back of his mind. Get a little control, Sandburg. One glimpse of a shadow and you're mentally raising people from the dead. It isn't going to happen, ever. He's gone, he's been gone for years, and where he went he can't be followed. Accept it.
He almost convinced himself. In spite of the pain.
"I saw Sandburg today," was the first thing Jim said after Simon returned from the station.
"Good." He made no effort to hide his relief. "How--"
But Jim was shaking his head. "I didn't meet with him, I just saw him. I snuck into one of his classes and left before the end. I don't think he noticed me."
Simon wanted nothing so much as to grab him by the shoulders and shake him profoundly a couple of times. Instead he restrained himself to asking neutrally, "Why not talk to him?"
Hard blue eyes glared. "I explained already. It's better this way. Believe me," and the request was almost plaintive. He sat on the sofa and rubbed at his eyes with the palms of his hands. "I shouldn't have gone, I don't know why I did. Just wanted to see for myself how he was doing, but it wasn't necessary..."
Maybe not necessary in one sense; the Sentinel gone had no need for a Guide. But Jim Ellison was more than his lost senses... "He looked fine," Jim continued, "so in his element. I always used to forget that he was a professor as well as a student and--whatever else he was. He really fits, speaking from a podium in front of a blackboard. He's where he belongs."
And if Jim actually believed that...Simon felt like shaking his own head. The man was trying so desperately to convince himself of a half-truth. "He fits, but I don't know if he's happy to be there, Jim. You remember Blair, he never quite fit in at the station and he was perfectly content that way. He was too energetic, he didn't like being locked into one thing. That's one of the things he liked most about police work, I swear, the variability. A new and different challenge every day."
"New and different and dangerous," Jim snapped. "He sure enjoyed being taken by Lash. Or dosed with Golden. Or getting trapped in a falling elevator." Though that hadn't been a result of the police work, Simon didn't think it time for that observation. "He might have had fun on the roller coaster sometimes but it would have gotten him killed eventually. He's safe now. He's fine, now."
"And it should be his choice to stay that way or not," Simon argued quietly.
"He did choose," Jim insisted. "You told me that you didn't kick him out of the station, that he left willingly. No interest once his dissertation was over. He's stayed out of your way since then, hasn't he? Devoted his time to being a damned good professor. It's where he belongs, his abilities are an asset anywhere but that's where they're supposed to be."
"Blair left us, yes," Simon shot back. "He went and hid in the University, and like you said, he can make himself useful anywhere, he's got the skill to do anything. But I don't know if that was where he was supposed to be. I don't know that that's where he belongs.
"You can't force him to stick to his choices without offering him the other options. You can't blame him for what he decided then. He wasn't thinking clearly, Jim, I don't know if he's really thought about much of anything for the last seven years.
"He's resilient, you know that, Blair always could bounce back from nearly anything. But this...in one instant, he lost his partner, his roommate, his dissertation subject, his Blessed Protector, practically a brother, his Sentinel, and his best friend. If you think that he could rebound completely from that, if you think he could get over it in seven years, you are dead wrong. And I can't believe that you're willing to let him continue on grieving for you when it's not necessary. Yes, grieving--I don't care how well he fits into Rainier, something broke in his heart seven years ago and it won't be repaired until he knows the truth."
Jim had the decency to look shocked at Simon's outburst and what he was saying. The blood drained from his face, leaving it bone-white, and he mumbled, "I don't know, he looked fine, I thought he was doing okay."
Something had broken in two hearts, Simon amended silently, and neither wound would heal until they were rejoined.
Jim accompanied Simon to the station the next day. It was so strange to be there, new and different and yet overwhelmingly familiar at the same time. Simon's office as chief was larger, several floors lower and with wide windows to let in the sunlight as well as offer a view of the city it was his duty to serve and protect. My duty too, he reminded himself, gazing at the panorama of skyscrapers and streets. Though no longer a Sentinel he had never retracted his oath to the police.
Simon had a new secretary as well, a young man too new to the station to recognize Jim. They passed no one in the halls who he had known, for which he was profoundly grateful. Though it felt cowardly to hide in Simon's office, he couldn't face his former acquaintances, coworkers, friends. Not yet. Not until he was re-acclimatized to this hassled, busy world. The hospital had been peaceful, doctors and nurses always running but as a patient he could sit and let life flow around him.
Unnatural. That wasn't him, that wasn't Jim Ellison, and he knew it. Part of him wanted more than anything to get back to this, to reenter the action. But not until he was ready. Not until he felt whole again.
And Simon didn't push, allowed him to stand quietly in the background of his office and observe. He mentioned visiting Major Crimes but didn't even comment on Jim's refusal. Dropped Joel's name a couple of times but didn't stress the point.
Unlike his arguments on Blair's behalf. Why was he so adamant about that one issue? It seemingly didn't both him that Jim had yet to contact Taggart or Brown or Rafe or any of his old friends; he hadn't even brought up his brother yet. But Sandburg...
It wasn't the same, he answered himself, you know that, and Simon knows it. But that's over now. He doesn't need to guide a defunct Sentinel and he doesn't need a research subject and he doesn't need to be in danger again.
Jim flipped randomly through some of Simon's files, surprised by the magnitude and number of felonies reported daily. They were in the midst of some kind of a crime spree, judging from what he saw and read. No wonder his friend looked so troubled; Jim thought Simon had gained a bit gray and this explained it.
Simon returned from a conference with two division captains frowning grimly. Jim would have asked him about the files but he raised his hand to forestall talk. "I've heard enough cop speak in the last hour to last the rest of my life. My head is killing me. Want to go to lunch and forget the police exist for half an hour?"
"Sure," Jim agreed readily, not caring about the break himself but understanding his friend's wish. "Is that Thai place still around?"
"The one up the block? Yeah, it hasn't moved or changed a bit." Simon glanced at his desk, the papers piled on top of the computer, and frowned. "On second thought maybe I should just order out."
"I get the idea you need to get out more," Jim told him. "Come on, let's--"
From under a stray file the phone rang. Simon scattered the papers and grabbed the receiver. "Banks here."
He listened intently before responding, "Okay. I'm heading over," and hanging up.
"Lunch is delayed, I take it."
Simon nodded and headed for the door. "There's a situation at Rainier," he explained. "It might be bad. Blair just called for police assistance."
Though Jim had no memory of following him, or of the drive to the university campus, he soon enough found himself climbing out of the passenger seat of Simon's car, squinting at the surprising sunlight.
Simon returned after checking with the uniforms and campus security. "Blair's fine," were the first words out of his mouth.
Jim felt every muscle in his body relax with unavoidable relief, and hated the betrayal, his emotions displayed so openly. His friend made no comment, however, and quickly explained, "Apparently one of his students just got off the drug bandwagon, and the dealers have decided to retake him by force. The boy didn't show up for his class and Sandburg's been coaching him on this or something; anyway, he was concerned and asked around, and some witnesses had spotted a trio of toughs accosting him. This was about an hour and a half ago, which means we could be too late--but we have to try."
"Are we talking abduction, assault, or straight murder?"
Simon frowned. "It all depends on who the dealers are. But from the little I've gotten--this might be amateur day."
And amateurs were more likely to panic and make mistakes. Lethal mistakes, too often. They had to find this kid, no easy matter without a clue of where they might have gone. Someplace close, that was what they all were here hoping. Some hiding place not too far away, that they could possibly locate.
He caught Simon eyeing him oddly. Questioningly. One didn't have to be psychic to read his thoughts; he recognized that look. "I can't sense a damn thing. I'm sorry, I'm not a Sentinel anymore."
Simon sighed. "Sorry, Jim. I just...well, you can look, at least. You were one of our best before those powers ever materialized; unless you've lost your instincts too--"
"I'll help look." The police and security officers were spreading out from the reported abduction area, combing the grounds for any sign of the people involved. Students walked and played on the quad, for the most part oblivious to the drama of the search.
Jim scouted the edges of the buildings, checking for old doors, any place that might provide concealment. Also avoiding the bright sunlight quadrangle, all the people there. Some that he might know; he thought that a couple of the officers were familiar. And Blair was out there too, close, much too close. Maybe talking with Simon, or working with some of the officers. If he asked he could probably find him...
No. He ruthlessly suppressed the impulse, recollected himself. You've made that decision, now stick to it. And anyway, this search was more important. Save this boy's life.
If he were still a Sentinel...without meaning to he found himself trying to extend his senses, unconsciously trying to listen and look and smell for clues beyond his range. Just as he had when first awake, only by now he should know better. But his inner self insisted that it was his duty, his obligation to hunt in such a fashion, whether or not it remained within his abilities to do so.
Out on the quad four students amused themselves between classes with a frisbee, tossing it over the heads of busier pedestrians. Jim stared at the blue disk, memories flashing at the sight. It should be red, came the thought unbidden, as he tracked its arc through the air. One of the students caught and flung it out again. Bright, it should have been, glowing scarlet against the sky, brilliant enough that it had captured his attention so completely that he hadn't even perceived the garbage truck barreling toward him.
If Blair hadn't--but that was ten years ago, and this frisbee was blue. Yet still it captivated him, the precision of its simple form, the elegance of its flights, and as he watched it from across the quad his vision began to tunnel, closing in on the cyan plastic.
Until he could make out the words engraved on the disk, glittering fake gold, Acme Throw Toys, as easy to read as if he had been holding it in his hands. Some vaguely conscious portion of his mind screamed protests, tried to tell him that it was too distant to make out, that he couldn't see this far, that he was imagining or hallucinating or dreaming, and that he couldn't, not now, not here--
He ignored the objections, disregarding them easily in favor of his fascination, but he couldn't ignore the sensation that shook him, a terrible low growl penetrating every barrier and every haze. With a start he stared around his surroundings, seeking the source of the cat-like snarl. No sign of any animal, but the glimpse of a blue uniform reminded him of his purpose, the search.
Without thinking he opened his hearing, and staggered at the noise that poured into his ears from everywhere, jabbering of dozens of people over the thud of their many footsteps over high whistles of birdsong, mixed with the rumbles of engines and the creaks of doors and the rustle of wind through leaves.
It all ripped through his brain like a hurricane, and for a moment he felt blown away by the sheer power of sound. Then he mastered it, re-invoked old learnings, concentrated on diminishing the intensity and forcing the extraneous noise away. Focusing on humans, on their voices, speaking, conversations, not students chatting, not professors lecturing, not Simon giving orders--there.
Under the general tumult, a distant, muffled voice, "I didn't, I swear, I didn't call them," and a reply, "Don't bother lying, it won't help you," and a too-familiar click, a handgun being cocked. He could only hope that the second click was the hammer being brought down--if they hadn't killed him yet then maybe they wouldn't...
Jim turned slowly, trying to locate the sound, not worrying about how he could be doing this, only concentrating on the faraway voices. Cautiously he took a step forward, determined it to be the correct one, began to move faster, heading toward what only he could hear. Training commanded him to raise his voice, to shout, "Simon! Over here!" and raise his arm as he ran, pointing toward the large squat brick building on the corner of the campus.
The sounds grew louder as he approached, clearer to his ears, the emotions in the words now audible. The voice he had picked up first, shaking, "No, man, please, I didn't, I've got cash, oh please." Another one, angrily, "Where'd you get these wise-ass ideas?" Another metallic click, the gun cocked again.
The kid's fear was palpable, terror echoing in his broken phrases, "No, please, I didn't, I swear, oh man, please don't..." The others were speaking but he was talking over them, a continuous stream of nonsense, begging, incoherent pleas. Difficult to make out his words through the others' more measured speeches; Jim closed his eyes to concentrate, screening out other distractions, trying to listen and understand. Had to hear them, if they should be the boy's last words, had to know what he said.
He picked up heartbeats, quick regular thumps in the background, under the resounding echoes of their voices, the kid's beating faster than the others', but unless it stopped beating, not dangerously, and his voice was going softer, so it took every ounce of Jim's concentration to make out the ramblings, don't shift because the position must keep constant, don't breath because the wheeze of air is too loud...
Thunderously loud and at the same time distant he heard his name called, repeated, and something tried to move him. He resisted the pressure, fought to keep balanced and focused, but then a second voice spoke. This one was too near, almost in his ear, blocking out the voices inside the building. Speaking in tandem with the other, much quieter but so close. "Jim."
And he felt, not the motion, but hands gripping his arms, rocking him, shaking him out of the trance. He gasped, pulling oxygen into his starved lungs, suddenly perceiving the pressure of his knees against the grass. Looked up and into indigo eyes.
"What did you hear, Jim?" He recognized Simon's deep voice but the words washed over him as meaningless babble. Then a soft tenor voice picked them up, repeated them, made them make sense. "What are you hearing?"
"I--" He swallowed, closed his eyes, only to wrench them open again and meet those other blue ones. "They're in there," he waved in the direction of the building. "All four. Second floor, right side, small room. Maybe even a closet." He could still hear them, their threats, the boy's pleading. But he could listen without falling into the sound, if he kept his other senses focused on the presence before him. "They're thinking of killing him but haven't yet. They have at least two guns."
Vaguely he could hear Simon giving orders, the urgent questions of the others, the police chief's short reply, "Trust him." Doors opened, swift footsteps on stairs, down hallways. Clearer to his attenuated hearing were the voices of those already inside. "What's that?" "This building's not in use!" And then, "We better move!"
Urgency drove him to rise, forcing his legs to stand him up, carry him toward the scene. The other man, his Guide tried to follow, but he remembered the guns cocking and turned on him, "No! Stay out of the way!" He registered him falling back and then Jim was through the doors, running down the long hall, listening to jumbled steps racing down stairs.
A door slammed open and four figures hustled out. "Freeze!" he shouted, and though he was weaponless, out of shock they briefly obeyed. Long enough for a uniformed officer to appear at the other end of the hall and aim his gun as reinforcement.
One of the men threw up his arms but the second wrapped his arm around the youngest's neck and pressed a revolver to his temple. The final raised his piece in one swift movement and pulled the trigger.
The gunshot jarred his eardrums and he saw the officer drop as he shook off the effects. The four were running, one resisting and crying out as he was dragged along. Jim charged after them, almost reaching them by the time they burst out of the main doors, and he tackled the one who had fired, the gun thrown from his hands as they crashed down the stone steps. Outside more officers converged, and the second released his hostage to increase his expediency. He fired overhead and kicked a security man aside, dashing to his escape. Two officers pursued but Jim could tell they would fail. The third man had been quickly collared upon his exit.
The student, the freed hostage, sat on the ground where he had been dropped, hunched in a ball, gasping in a vain attempt to hold back sobs. "I thought I was going to die, I thought they were going to kill me," Jim barely heard the tiny whimper. One of the unoccupied officers crouched next to him, patting him on the shoulder comfortingly.
A security guard emerged from the building supporting an officer; Jim recognized the man shot and observed with some relief the slim kevlar vest under his shirt. He surveyed the aftermath calmly, approvingly; it had perhaps been close, but in the final scoring they came out successful, with no casualties and two of the three perpetrators snared.
His accounting of their side came up one short, to his relief. Out of danger and away from him. He backed away from the gathering crowd of curious students and faculty, intent on getting back to Simon's car before he was brought to attention.
Then his route was blocked by the imposing bulk of the chief, a more solid and ungiving wall than the brick of the building. "He's gone to his office," Simon told him.
"Simon, I--"
"You're going to go talk with him. Now that he's seen. There's a lot he should know. As Guide to an active Sentinel." Simon didn't even interrogate him about that. Only folded his arms and waited for Jim to give in to the inevitable.