Mixed Emotions
by D. C. Black

for Sissy who really needed to know

Jim Ellison heard his partner's laughter when Sandburg was still on the first floor flirting with a woman in the elevator. The sentinel smelled his herbal shampoo before the lift doors opened. Ellison looked up and waited for Sandburg's grand, unscheduled, entrance and allowed a hint of smugness into his smile. Blair swept in on cue, saying a light-speed "hi" to everyone he knew, then dropped both hands onto Ellison's desk to get his attention, only to find he already had it. His expressive face fell at once.

"Damn!" He said, straightening and shifting to perch on the edge of the desk. "You are a hard man to surprise. How did you know I was coming?"

"Sandburg, the way you blast in here, talking to everybody, bumping into things, wearing god-knows-what herbs, a man in a coma would know you're coming."

"Oh, and I thought it was a Sentinel thing." He kept his voice low, since Jim's abilities were not to become general knowledge, but his disappointment was obvious. A little too obvious, even for Blair.

Jim leaned back in his seat, not buying the wounded act at all. "So why are you here?"

Sandburg's blue eyes brightened at once, already on to the next emotional game. Jim recognized the mood and put himself on alert. For the next few hours, nothing Blair said could be taken seriously, not when he was determined to get some sort of emotional reaction out of the older man. That's what I get, Jim thought, for not wanting to talk since breaking up with Sherry. The kid just can't stand silence. He had to concentrate to decipher what Blair was on about.

"...lunch, so you've got no excuse."

"Lunch?"

"Yeah."

"Where?"

Blair grinned, thinking Jim was trying to snare the answer, when in fact he'd never heard that part of the conversation. "I told you it was a surprise. So you coming or not?"

"Not."

Both of them turned at the gruff word to find Captain Banks at the side of the desk. He looked at his detective. "My office," he commanded before walking away.

Jim and Blair exchanged glances, each silently asking the other if he knew what this was about. They shrugged, practically in unison, as Jim got up and followed in Simon's wake. On his heels, Blair trailed like a curious puppy and just slipped inside the office before Banks shut the door.

They had a few seconds to settle into their accustomed places, Jim in the chair in front of Simon's desk and Blair leaning on the edge of the conference table, discreetly outside Simon's personal space. Then the captain began without preliminaries.

"Los Angeles has a bad case on their hands, serial killer of gay men. He's vivisected nine of them in the past nine months down there. Now he's in Cascade. We have our second body downstairs right now."

"Are you sure?" Sandburg asked at once. "I mean, what about a copy cat?"

Jim allowed himself some satisfaction at Blair's question. It was the first one he'd thought of himself. Not all that long ago, it wouldn't have occurred to the anthropologist at all. He waited, expressionless, for his boss' answer.

"We've got a hair sample. It's the same man."

Blair nodded and stayed silent. Jim took up the next obvious question. "How do you want us to handle this?"

Simon frowned, glancing between the two men, assessing them, uncertain of them. "Ah, hell, I hate these political things. The Chief is in on this because of the cross-state-lines thing. He's convinced the only way to get this guy is to go undercover and make him come to us. We have a solid victim profile. White male, forty-ish, tall, muscular, and crew-cut. Plus, the Chief's started to notice your track record and he really wants to show up the LAPD."

Jim sat up as the implications sank in, hardly hearing anything past the description. Blair was ahead of him. Sandburg ducked his head and blinked, owl-like, in complete disbelief, then started laughing. "Jim? Pass as gay? You've got to be joking!"

"The Chief doesn't joke," Simon growled.

Jim just leaned sideways in his chair to stare down his partner. "Just what's so funny about that?"

Sandburg's eyes widened even further. "You don't know? Man, you don't even like me and Simon touching you! I have a whole chapter on what Laura McCarthy's pheromones did to you, so genetically you're definitely hetero. And then there's your military background." Blair started pacing the room, falling into his lecture mode, making eye contact with his "students" and emphasizing his points with his hands. "Elite, exclusive groups tend to be homogeneous-" He glared at Jim, stopping short the politically incorrect joke that came too easily on his choice of words. Still, Jim and Simon shared a silent chuckle over it while Blair wasn't looking. The grad student continued without further interruption. "They're all similar types, they usually know everything there is to know about the other team members because what they don't know could get them killed. And they tend to be intolerant and reactionary."

Jim frowned. "I am not intolerant."

"But you are reactionary. You really need a kick in the ass to change your mind about anything."

"I don't know. I could change my mind about you pretty quick."

"Ellison!" They both looked at the captain instantly, as if they had forgotten he was in the room. Mentally, Jim grimaced at that. Score one for Sandburg; he'd gotten that reaction, after all. Simon continued with more restraint. "The kid's making sense. I want to hear the rest of it."

Blair flashed an I win! grin at his friend, then went on, warming to the topic now that he knew he had one attentive listener. He had two, but Jim wasn't about to let him know. He leaned back and pretended to stifle a yawn.

"Okay, I suppose, for the sake of argument, someone could be in the Rangers for over ten years and keep any gay leanings a secret, but he'd have to be so detached from his own emotions to do it..." Blair trailed off, meeting Ellison's bland, bored eyes and unrevealing face. He blinked and waved his hands in the air as if erasing what he'd just said. "Okay, so you've got me there. Maybe you could do it." Jim scowled at him, but Blair ignored it. He turned, instead, to Captain Banks. "But he was covert ops. If they had found any hint of that, he would've been a security risk and they never would have recruited him. If he's never put out one atom of interest in the same sex, what makes either of you think he can pull it off? Plus!" He waved at Jim, resuming his pacing. "The man's a babe magnet! All he has to do is walk through a room and every female in the place is swooning."

Ellison ran a hand over his face in embarrassment. Under other circumstances he might have taken it as a compliment. But right now, Simon was trying much too hard not to laugh for Jim to feel at ease.

"And I've never seen one of my gay friends look twice at him," Blair wrapped up, repeating his prime thesis. "He just doesn't give off the right vibes."

"So are you volunteering to cut your hair and be the bait?"

Sandburg met his partner's challenging glare levelly, his voice deadly serious. "Bait yes, hair no."

The urge to laugh came out of nowhere and almost slipped past Jim before he could stop it. It wasn't the first time Sandburg had won that reaction from him, but for his life, he couldn't figure out how he did it. Or why it always dissolved the tension in him. Ellison felt the strain of the past three days evaporate, tension he hadn't even realized he'd been carrying. He acknowledged to himself that he owed Sandburg another one, and decided to put off until later whether or not to tell the kid. But Blair had settled back against the table and something in his eyes told Jim he already knew.

*****

"So you'll do it?" Confusion and surprise rode on Banks' thick voice.

"Yes." "No."

Simon looked at Jim glaring at Sandburg, and the grad student looking back with his best c'mon, Jim! expression until he couldn't take it anymore. He swiveled behind his desk and threw his head back in exasperation. Most of the time he could acknowledge Sandburg had been a positive influence on his most intractable detective. But then there were days like this..."Someone give me an answer. I have a meeting in ten minutes with the Chief and I'll need every minute to come up with something to tell him if you say no." He looked back at the pair.

"We'll do it," Ellison said, leaving no room for argument. Sandburg threw up his hands in defeat. Jim ignored him. Suddenly, Simon heard every argument Blair had made against this assignment replay in his head. He also could see the crime scene photos from LA and the corpse forensics had downstairs. He hadn't wanted to give this one to Ellison, figuring there was no way he'd agree to do it. At the very least, Ellison knew his limitations. At the most, he'd find the undercover aspects unappealing. Banks had been certain he'd refuse and the captain would then be free to hand the case to someone else. Peter Crane, probably. But then Sandburg had opened his mouth, and now Simon had to make the executive decision: take the chance that Ellison could pass as gay and risk blowing the operation, or waste valuable time arguing with the Chief for Crane while the monster was loose in Cascade. Either way, he could see more bodies ending up in the morgue.

"All right," Banks agreed, deciding abruptly. He wanted this psycho out of his city fast, and Ellison was his best. He jabbed a finger at his detective. "But if Sandburg turns out to be right, you call it off immediately."

*****

Blair gulped at the ice water, praying the cold would shock his stomach into forgetting the photographs in the case file. He closed his eyes and said a thank you to every deity he could think of that he hadn't seen the body...body parts...in person. And Jim wants to be the next victim ...

"Sandburg, what'ya'think?"

Opening his eyes at the southern drawl, Blair looked up at the third member of their team, standing beside Jim. Peter Crane was an openly gay cop assigned to pose as Jim's "spouse," since all the victims had been in monogamous relationships. Blair hadn't met him before that morning and he desperately hoped neither of the cops could read how sick he felt. With any luck, Jim would be distracted enough by Peter not to hear his heartbeat or his ragged breathing.

He took a deep, slow breath and felt his stomach start to settle as the cold spread through it, giving him enough attention to pass on to Peter. He had to admit that if it hadn't been for the pictures still fresh in his mind, he might have enjoyed the vision of Jim standing before him, looking distinctly uncomfortable with Crane's arm hooked in his. Crane had costumed Ellison to fit every detail of the victim profile, from the incredibly tight designer jeans cinched by a belt with an over-sized, sculpted buckle to the muscle shirt and bracelets. Cowboy boots added inches to his already tall frame, so that Blair had to look up more than usual to look him in the eye. And then there was the earring, a tasteful gold and diamond stud. Blair had to look at it a couple of times to believe it actually nestled in his friend's ear. It clashed with everything Blair knew about the man, and yet it was the one thing that didn't seem to bother Jim at all. All in all, he looked exactly like every other victim had looked hours before they'd been murdered. Blair's voice fled him.

Peter Crane grew tired of waiting for a response and patted Jim on the back himself, looking coyly through his long, blond bangs. "Well, I think you're gorgeous. If I didn't know better, I'd have you halfway to my bedroom by now." He looked over Ellison's wide shoulders and narrow waist and ran a finger down the sculpted muscles of one arm as he spoke. Jim threw him a dirty look and moved across the room to look over the file again for anything they'd missed. Blair caught a glimpse of the photos in it and his stomach heaved again. He looked away quickly, remembering that picture of the first murder victim. Ted Waterson had to have been the unluckiest man on the planet. He'd been diagnosed with AIDS, involved in a high speed car accident that had killed the other driver's wife, lost his job, and his long time lover had died of cancer, all in the year before he was tortured to death.

"I see what you mean, Sandburg." Peter turned away from his fellow detective and spoke to Blair, all flirtatiousness gone as if it never existed. "He projects...well, at best, nothing. At worst, it's 'don't even look at me if you value your life.' There's no way a stalker, much less anyone gay, would go near him."

Grateful for the distraction, Blair put a hand on Peter's back and sighed in relief that someone else finally saw the situation his way. "Thank you. Thank you!" He crossed to the table, careful not to see the photos Jim had spread there, and looked up into his partner's stony eyes. "Are you listening, Jim? That's another cop talking. If you won't believe me, believe him!"

Jim looked up and met Sandburg's eyes. The initial annoyance in the cop's gaze dissolved into all the smoldering anger that this torture-murder case had unleashed in him. To be honest, Blair felt the same way, but without the drive to end the reign of terror personally. He considered making that argument- that Jim couldn't save every person in Cascade from every butcher- but knew it would be futile. Jim wasn't thinking about everyone right now; he was thinking about one man and eleven widowed "spouses." There had to be something else...

But as Blair's mind raced and the staring contest held, the look in Jim's eyes softened, opened, let Sandburg see the rest of what he was feeling. That Jim understood Blair's concerns, that he conceded the truth in them, but that this was one he couldn't let go and still live with himself. The depth of feeling Jim sometimes allowed Blair to see always amazed him, always reminded him that there was more than a heartless terminator behind the usually impassive blue eyes. And now there was a plea for help in that bottomless, defenseless gaze, not from a fellow cop, but from his Guide and friend. In that moment, Blair knew he could put an end to this disaster right now, before Jim got hurt, just by refusing that help. But it wasn't his place as Jim's Guide to stop him from doing his job, nor his place as his friend to hold him back from what he thought was right. For one of the few times in their relationship, Jim had given him the power to have everything his own way, and Blair couldn't use it. Jim read the decision in his face before he could say anything, and the tiniest smile lit his eyes with gratitude, pride, and new-found confidence.

Suddenly, Peter was between them, an arm draped on each of their shoulders. "Now that's it! That's the kind of intimacy our guy will go for. Sandburg-"

"No." Jim's sudden word was flat, like the time he had pronounced Gustavo Alcante a dead man if he hurt Blair, and Blair's gaze flashed to the photos on the table in front of them. His own fear was reflected in that single word, each of them terrified that his partner would be the next picture added to the file. But Jim's concern only made Sandburg surer in his decision. Jim would not be going after this monster alone.

He looked up at Jim, a full head taller than he was in the boots. "You want this guy? I'll do it."

Ellison's jaw twitched as, just for a second, he reconsidered how much he wanted the case, weighing it against his friend's safety. But the decision remained the same, and Blair relaxed. The decision should always be the same. If that ever changed, Jim Ellison would cease to exist.

"I want him."

"Good!" Peter cheered from beside them, turning to direct the other cop. "Now do what you'd do if you'd just won this from your wife."

Blair looked at Peter, realizing for the first time exactly what he was getting into. He took a deep breath to center himself before looking back to Jim. For a moment, his partner stood motionless, then suddenly he reached out, pulled Blair against him and wrapped him in a hug, kissing the top of his head, then letting his cheek rest against the same spot.

Blair was surprised by the embrace, but even more surprised by the warmth and need in it. Answering with his own strength and his own arms was as natural as breathing.

*****

Jim sat on the couch with his legs stretched out in front of him, heels on the coffee table for support. The last five minutes of the AFC West title game was on the TV, but he couldn't see or hear it. The silky feel of Sandburg's hair as he stroked it wiped everything else from his mind. Nothing else held any interest, nothing else even existed, just the detail of each strand as he ran his fingers over it, the differences in texture from the root to the ends, the spongy feel of the curls massed against his palm. The...

"Earth to Ellison!"

...way it tickled between his fingers and...

"Jim! You're zoned, man!"

...across the back of his hand when he burrowed through-

"Snap out of it!"

Jim tensed as sight and sound and smell crashed back into being. Suddenly, he could see his best friend laying across the sofa, feel the weight of his head in his lap, the vague stirring in his groin from the pressure. He could smell the popcorn from the bowl balanced on Blair's chest and taste the beer he'd been drinking.

Blair gazed up at him, concerned friend battling with the scientist in him. "You okay?" he asked around a mouthful of the snack.

"Fine," Jim answered automatically, looking down at his best friend using his lap as a pillow, and thinking how natural, how good it felt to have that contact...how good all of it had felt over the past few days. At Peter's instruction, they had spent all their time together at home practicing acting like lovers, learning to give each other all the little touches and intimacies each had reserved for the women in his life. Sandburg had warmed to the experiment with his usual enthusiasm, badgering his roommate until he, too, found the fun in it. There had been times when one or both of them tried a gesture or a word and they had ended up laughing so hard they couldn't breathe. There had been times when what they were doing would have led to a kiss with a woman, and they both backed off abruptly. At other times, like now, when they just sat together watching TV or hugged each other for no good reason, he felt so warm and comfortable it scared him. Or made him wonder why he had never done much of the same things with Caroline. If he had, they might still be married. But then, would there have been a place for Blair in his life? And without Sandburg, could he ever have considered taking any responsibility for the divorce? The smell of the popcorn started to circle with his thoughts, offering a way out, a single, incontrovertible point to focus-

"Hey, Jim. Talk to me, man."

Jim shook his head and looked down for Blair. He had moved, sat up, facing him on the couch, one hand holding back his hair and the other almost touching Jim. The reflex to take that hand and bring it to his lips was strong, their training of the past few days kicking in automatically. But the gesture would've felt wrong, when Sandburg waited for an honest answer. Ellison got up and stepped around the coffee table, grabbing a fistful of popcorn as he did.

"It's nothing, really. This is just all so weird. Everything is...I keep thinking of Caroline, when we were dating...of you, how easy all this seems to you...how I could...or if you-" He realized he was babbling from the crease in Blair's forehead as he tried hard to make sense of what Jim was saying. Sandburg followed his pacing intently, actively searching for the word that would let the light dawn. Jim stopped, took a deep breath and a bite of popcorn, and tried again. "I keep getting into these circular thought patterns, and before I know it, I zone out."

In an instant, Sandburg sprang from the sofa, rounded the low table and, despite the difference in height, got in his face. "And you didn't tell me! We could have been working on this. My God, Jim! You're dealing with a psycho that makes Lash look like a kindergarten teacher! If you zone out at the wrong time-" Abruptly Sandburg realized what he was about to say and cut himself off. He walked away, putting as much distance as he could between them. Jim could still hear Blair's heart hammering in his chest. He could still see the rise in blood pressure in the pulse in his neck and the trembling in the hand that he ran through his hair even though it wasn't in his face. Jim closed the distance, trapping him in the kitchen. Backing against the wall, Blair raised his hands to ward him off. "No, Jim. None of this undercover shit. Please."

Ellison backed off a step, more out of surprise that he had started to embrace the younger man, than to give him more space. If Sandburg noticed, he let it pass. Jim leaned against the counter and studied his friend for a moment, wondering if the same confusion he felt had made Blair- there was no other way to describe it- run away from him. As soon as the thought had formed, he knew it was wrong. Something entirely different was gnawing at Sandburg. After a moment of heavy silence, Ellison said, "So tell me."

Blair shook his head, then changed his mind and stole a glance at Jim before deciding the countertop was a safer place to keep his gaze. "I've been having nightmares about Lash and the Colonel and every whacked out murderer we've ever faced and some we haven't. I've been scared from the beginning and the better you get at all this intimate stuff, the more scared I get."

Watching him steadily, noting that his friend couldn't meet his gaze for more than a split second at a time, Jim thought through the rest of his statements, the parts he had left unsaid. Jim was getting good enough to attract their killer, in large part because Blair was so natural with it, and if he did attract the killer and zoned out, Jim would end up in bloody pieces like the men in the crime scene pictures. And it would be Blair's fault, at least according to Blair, for teaching him and then failing as his Guide. What was worse for Ellison, however, was the realization that Sandburg would be completely alone to face that self-imposed guilt. He wouldn't go to Simon, because he wasn't a cop and he was acutely aware of that fact. He couldn't tell Naomi, because he'd become enough of a cop to know that no one who didn't face these things every day could understand. As far as Jim knew, Sandburg didn't have anyone else to turn to.

"You do know you'll be safe. He never goes for the other lover." And if he does, I'll kill him.

Blair pushed away from the wall and threw him an irritated, you're dense as a brick, Ellison glare as he came to lean against the counter across from him.

Wanting to smile at the total lack of sentimentality in the reaction, Jim dropped a hand on his shoulder. "I'll be fine, Sandburg. So what do we do about the zone-outs?"

"I don't know-" Sandburg stated, but Jim could see the wheels starting to turn behind the still-worried blue eyes. Before he could come up with his answer, though, the phone rang. Blair picked it up and Jim lifted it from his hand, an exchange that had almost become ritual.

"Ellison," he said into it.

"Jim. Pete. Serena just called me from the lab. She and a guy from LA just figured out some kind of mathematical formula the killer has been using to pick the times and dates of the murders. Something about nines and factors. Bottom line is, it's tonight, at ten twenty-seven pm. We've gotta move, buddy."

"We'll be there in forty minutes." Jim hit the end button and looked at his watch, before realizing he was wearing a useless bracelet instead. He grabbed Sandburg's wrist to check the time, before sprinting up the stairs. Blair followed.

"What's going on?"

"That was Pete. The killer is going to hit tonight and we only have three hours."

Sandburg stopped at the top of the steps, as Ellison stripped out of his clothes to don the tight jeans and boots, allowing himself only a moment to swallow hard and cling to the railing. Then he turned and disappeared down the stairs into his own room to get ready.

*****

Blair was surprised at how calm he felt. He always was when the action started, both calm and surprised by it. It had become a familiar, adrenaline fed altered state so complete Naomi would be proud of him, if he could ever tell her about it. The whole drive over, he had been settling into it, breathing and centering himself for whatever might happen in the next few hours, allowing Jim to drive in silence. He glanced at his partner and wondered what Jim thought about during these moments. Probably not thinking at all, Blair decided, just concentrating on the act of driving, living one minute at a time.

Ellison pulled the truck into a parking space in the lot next to the restaurant and dance club the killer had prowled for his first two victims in Cascade. The CPD had been lucky, recognizing the pattern when they had: their man only took three victims from any one establishment. A week later, and they would have had to let two more men die before they could lay their bait. The engine cut off, and Blair took that as his cue. He reached for the door release, but was stopped in mid-motion by Jim's big hand on his thigh.

"Ready, Chief?" One last chance to back out.

The offer both warmed Blair and emphasized how dangerous Jim thought their quarry was. "Let's do it," he answered lightly, glad that Jim didn't comment on the involuntary shiver that went through him, belying the confidence in his tone. Instead, Jim handed him his keys.

"What's this for?" he asked, glad of the distraction.

"No room in these jeans," Ellison grunted as he opened his door and dropped to the ground. Blair observed the denim second skin as Jim turned and shut the door and had to admit he was right. There wasn't room for a single molecule between that solid ass and the patch of pocket. No wonder Peter had called him gorgeous. He chuckled to himself as he got out of the truck, glad that Sentinels weren't mind-readers, too.

*****

The bouncer in the entryway looked them over, giving Jim a very appreciative second look and congratulating Blair on his catch with a smile. Blair leaned possessively against his partner while Jim paid the cover charge, then dropped an arm around his shoulders and steered him through the inner door.

The club was smaller inside than it had looked, much of the space taken by the kitchen and a packed dance floor. It was fairly well lit by swirling colored lights, and equally divided between intimate areas for lovers or those soon to be such, and larger tables and areas for groups or getting to know strangers in the safety of a crowd. The dance floor stayed filled to capacity as the music changed from alternative rock to a slow dance number. Jim pulled him closer during the first few bars of the song, swaying against him. "Should we dance?"

Blair looked up at him, way up, and for a moment was tempted by the challenge. Blair loved to dance, but it wasn't something they had practiced- although with the floor jammed as it was, they wouldn't have to do much more than sway the way they were, standing near the bar in each other's arms. Blair shook his head, raising his voice a little as if his partner needed that to hear him above the crowd. "How 'bout a couple of drinks and dinner. I didn't even get to eat my popcorn."

Jim laughed and pointed across the large room. "There's a table over there." Another advantage of height and Sentinel sight. He dropped his arm from Blair's shoulders, his hand sliding down his arm to take his hand and lead him through the crowded tables. Sandburg let Ellison navigate while he scanned the people around them, men joining or leaving the dance floor, groups of friends stopping to talk and blocking the aisles, bustling waiters and waitresses zigging agilely through the throng of customers. One token waitress caught Blair's attention, and he had to forcibly remember why he was there to keep from flirting with her. Resigned, he made his eyes keep moving, taking note of the men who were similarly captured by Jim's imposing figure. He was surprised by how many there were, considering his own friends' reactions. But then, his friends hardly ever saw Jim smile so openly or act so...social with perfect strangers. Blair left off his surveillance for a moment to watch Jim side-step another customer with an exchange of blatantly admiring looks. Sandburg stepped up his pace to come between them, wrapping himself around Jim's waist. He caught a glimpse of the other man's disappointment as Jim's hand found his ass and he leaned over to kiss his companion on the top of his head, erasing the stranger from his memory. Blair almost felt sorry for the other guy.

The crowd opened into a small empty space surrounding a table barely large enough for two and a pair of wrought iron chairs. Jim made a point of pulling one out for Blair and seeing him settled in it, before taking the other for himself. Almost immediately, Jim took his hand across the table and leaned in to talk only to him. The lost-in-love smile, the colored lights dancing in Ellison's eyes, the nearness of his face, all left Sandburg feeling more as if he were in an alternate universe, rather than merely an altered state. He couldn't believe this was the same man who, just a few days ago, had practically snarled at Peter Crane for touching him. He also couldn't understand why Caroline had ever divorced him.

In a soft and intimate tone, Jim asked, "See anybody fitting the profile?"

Oh, yeah. That's why.

"Dozens. You're getting a lot of attention."

Jim nodded and turned Blair's wrist over to check the time, the bracelets on his own wrist jingling against the table and each other. He turned the motion into a kiss, bringing Blair's fingers to his lips. Blair just stared at him, allowing his sense of wonder at his partner to overwhelm him. He was sure no one could tell it was for his acting skills, not his romantic ones.

"Happy anniversary!" The new voice floated between them, a sigh from the waiter who had appeared out of the crowd to take their order. When both Blair and Jim looked up at him, he added, "If you act this much in love for no reason, I don't want to know."

Glancing at Blair, laughter in his eyes, Jim answered him. "Our tenth."

Not in the profile, but a nice touch. Blair counted back, realizing suddenly that would have made him barely legal when they'd "met." Barely legal, but hardly inexperienced. Blair grinned back, then added for effect, "Last cradle he ever robbed."

The waiter laughed. Jim just shot him a quick touché smirk before ordering, in keeping with his cover, a very expensive bottle of wine.

*****

10:19 p.m.

Ellison felt more wired with every minute that ticked by. He was sure their man would have made some sort of move by now: stopped by the table, started staring at his victim from across the room, begun closing in. But there was nothing out of the ordinary in any of the men around them, nothing even his heightened senses could detect past the colored lighting and the volume of the music. Nothing.

"Jim."

The only people who had even talked to them had been Peter Crane and his partner, checking in under the cover of friends meeting by chance in the crowded club. Jim ran over his mental list of the other obviously in love couples he'd been tracking since they'd arrived. None of them fit the description closely enough, Jim knew on a gut level, but he checked them, too, to see if any was being stalked.

"Jim, love of my life, you're zoning on me."

Jim blinked. Suddenly he could feel the table under his elbows and see his partner across from him. "I am not."

Sandburg picked up his wine glass and mumbled into it, knowing Jim would hear every word. "Then you're starting to act like a cop."

Jim grinned and reached across the table to cup Blair's cheek in his hand. Blair put down the glass to lean into the touch. "Now I know why I keep you around."

"Yeah, because you'd be road kill if you didn't." The words were a breath against Jim's hand, clear as a shout to his ears. He took his hand back.

"You always say the sweetest things."

Sandburg laughed, his amusement sparkling in the big blue eyes and erasing the tension crawling up Jim's neck. Ellison watched him drain his wine glass, picking up the half-full bottle from the ice bucket to pour more. Sandburg covered the glass with his hand, refusing the offer.

"I better not. I'm not feeling really great, all of a sudden." As he spoke, the color drained from his face and a thin sheen of sweat broke out on his fair skin. Jim put down the bottle and grabbed his glass, sniffing it for scents other than wine. He caught a whiff of something barely familiar, an odor from...home? Jim flashed on a memory of Blair brewing some Cherokee concoction in the kitchen. "They believe it purifies the body before battle. I just want to taste it." Blair had spent the next half hour puking in the toilet and declared the experiment a success. It wasn't the same, but close.

"You've been drugged."

Sandburg nodded, his arms wrapped around his gut. He forced his words past clenched teeth. "Show time. Don't leave without me." Then he pushed away from the table and almost ran for the men's room. The crowd quickly hid the shorter man from view.

Ellison had to fight the urge to follow, to make sure that nausea was the only effect the drug had on his friend. But this was in the profile, too, separating the lovers right before the one about to die disappeared. And, he reminded himself, Blair wasn't the target. He looked up at a light touch on his shoulder. Their waiter leaned in to speak quietly.

"Your companion went out to the parking lot. He's really ill and asked me to tell you."

Jim was on his feet at once, furious for letting Sandburg out of his sight, for letting him become part of this at all. He looked around for Crane and his partner, leading the waiter to misunderstand his desperate glance and say, "Back door would be quickest." The man pointed toward a red exit sign, glowing softly in one corner. Taking one last look for their back-up, Ellison ran for the exit. He hit the door full speed, surprised when it gave too easily under the impact, as if it had been propped open waiting for him. The wrongness of everything jarred into place all at once, the mistake he'd made by giving in to his emotions, instead of remembering the details of the murders. His fear for Blair, his...love?...for him, had put him right into the killer's hands. He knew suddenly that this was how the monster had lured every one of the victims before him, playing on their love to make them trust him enough to leave with him, playing on their fear to distract them long enough to overpower them.

Ellison managed to keep his balance as the door flew away from him, sending him skidding in the smooth-soled boots onto the rain-slicked pavement. He turned instantly, every muscle tensed to tackle the man behind him, holding a cheap hypodermic needle ready to plunge into his arm. There was a drop of clear liquid clinging to the hollow point of the needle, shining and reflecting the face behind it, distorting the tiny features like a fish-eye camera lens, swallowing the universe. The image changed as the needle moved, the droplet flattening, then transferring to his skin as the needle plunged into nerveless flesh. It quivered, then began rolling down his arm, drawing Jim with it, the images trapped within tumbling and shrinking as the droplet wore itself away. When they had shrunk to the limits of vision, started to merge into the flesh tone background on which the droplet died, Jim Ellison followed it into oblivion.

*****

Blair gasped as the cold water hit his face, cupped some of it in his palms to wash the bitter, acid taste from his mouth. He ran his wet, shaking hands over his forehead and hair, before making the attempt to straighten from over the sink. Smiling reassurance at a concerned stranger who made a move his way, he leaned heavily against the ceramic sink and drew air into his lungs slowly, grateful when the other man changed his mind and left. Alone, he closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing. His stomach felt jittery, empty and on fire, but no more spasms hit him, and after a few more deep breaths, he decided it was safe to rejoin Jim.

He glanced at his watch as he pushed through the restroom door, his heart missing a beat when it read 10:28. Mindless of the spectacle, he ran toward their table, stopping dead in his tracks when the crowd parted to show Jim's place empty. Whirling where he stood, he scanned over the weaving mass of customers and employees for a glimpse of his towering partner and almost blacked out from the renewed wave of nausea. Forcing his vision to clear by a sheer act of will, he noticed the diners at several tables staring toward the back of the room in curiosity. He followed their gazes and saw the exit hidden in the corner. Praying he was doing the right thing, he ran for the back door and rammed through it in time to see a car pulling out of the lot, driven by their waiter. He hesitated only an instant before digging the keys out of his pocket and running for the truck.

He had the truck in gear and roaring along the street before the little voice in the back of his head caught up with him, telling him that the waiter might have been off-duty and just going home, that Jim could be lying dead behind him between the parked cars in the club's lot, that he should have found Peter and had back-up with him. He should call them, stop and find the cel phone that was somewhere in the truck's cab, but he couldn't take his eyes off the car ahead of him for fear of losing it. A million little doubts, a thousand other things he could be doing, ate at his already unsteady gut, each one a reminder that he was gambling with Jim's life. But a memory of the crime scene photos kept his foot on the gas, the shot of a severed hand, the bloody fingers clutched in rigor mortis around a name tag from an LA dance club. The name was obscured, but the words under it were plain to read...I'll be your server tonight.

*****

Cold woke Ellison, dragged him from dark, cloudy depths to consciousness. Frigid air caressed his chest and stomach and made him realize he was naked from the waist up. Naked and freezing and completely unable to move. Even his eyes refused to obey him, so that all he saw was a timbered ceiling five feet above him. He wasn't even shivering, though he was cold enough that he should have been. He concluded he was still drugged. Not a sedative this time, since his mind cleared more with every thought, but a muscle relaxant, something strong...There's this blowfish in the Bahamas, Jim. The native's use it ritually to create zombies. One touch and the person is so completely paralyzed, man, he seems to drop dead in his tracks...

Jim mentally shook Sandburg's voice out of his head, since it wasn't offering anything useful, but it was stirring unsettling emotions. He tried to concentrate on his surroundings. Sandburg was safe. Thinking beyond that would risk setting his mind into one of its circles and lead to a zone-out. Another zone-out, he corrected with disgust. If he hadn't gotten trapped in that sparkling droplet, the case would have been closed, the psycho in lock-up and he and Blair....he and Blair, what? In each other's arms?

"Well, Mister Waterson, I see you've finally joined me."

The voice was familiar, as was the name it had called him by, but different as if he had only heard it warped or disguised. He latched onto the sound, using it to break the circle around Sandburg that his fuzzy thoughts had wandered into. He focused on it until he identified it: their waiter from the club. It had been his smiling face in the drop on the end of the needle. For more than two hours, he had pampered them, joked with them, become as much a part of the restaurant as the music and lights. Jim hadn't even considered him as a suspect. Even his hair was different from the sample they had, brown now instead of gray. He couldn't remember if the previous lab reports had mentioned dye. He let his eyes close and reached out with his other senses, listening for the heartbeat that went with the voice, feeling the growing body heat as the killer approached on his right. He heard plastic crackle under his footsteps and smelled its vague chemical odor. He recognized its feel against his bare back, between him and the hard wooden surface he'd been laid upon. Ellison pictured the room swathed in plastic sheets and knew, wherever they were, forensics would find none of his blood to mark it as the murder site.

A sharp slap stinging his cheek broke his concentration, freeing a bolt of fear. He wasn't prepared to die tonight. He opened his eyes and saw the waiter leaning over him, blocking his view of the ceiling. A second hard slap made him angry. He wanted to snap back at the madman, but his voice refused to cooperate. He glared, instead, letting his anger show in his eyes. This isn't over yet.

"That's better," his captor said, the once friendly and emotional voice now cold and superior. "I want you to pay attention to me for a moment. Once I start, I really don't like unnecessary talking in my OR. But I also want to make you aware of a few facts. First, this will be incredibly painful. Sarah screamed and screamed before she died, so you will, too."

The man moved out of view and Jim forced his eyes to follow, taking grim satisfaction when they obeyed him. So the drug wasn't on hundred per cent effective. He saw the killer pick a bright scalpel from a cloth-covered tray on the dining room server and examine it, lovingly. Painful, the man had said. He remembered Sandburg's upset when Jim had first brought up his reaction to pain, that drugs didn't seem to work on Sentinel-sensitive nerves. What if you need surgery? Ellison swallowed hard. They were about to find out. Or at least he was, and he hoped he felt every agonizing cut of that surgical blade. The pain might just give him his only opportunity to escape and nail this bastard.

"Second, I want you to know your lover is safe," the waiter...doctor went on, either not noticing or not caring that his victim could follow him with his eyes. "The purgative I slipped into his drink should have already worn off. And third, I want you to know that your being homosexual has nothing to do with this. I don't care if your true love is a man or a woman or a creature from Mars. What I care about..." The words grew tight, the voice began to rise with anger. Jim could see the microscopic trembling in the scalpel clutched now in a white-knuckled fist. "...is that he survive to identify what's left of your body and live every day of his life with that nightmare- that agony! You have the easy part, sir. All you have to do is die."

The man moved to the side of the table and lifted Jim's hand into his own, examining it almost tenderly. "Do you know that the hand, relatively speaking, has the most brain volume assigned to it? That's why palms and fingertips are so sensitive." He prodded the pad of Ellison's thumb with the butt of the scalpel. The touch felt like a hammer fall to the Sentinel. Oh, yeah. He would feel every cut of that tiny knife and take every one out of this psycho's hide as soon as he could move. "More nerves. More neurons to process the information. But that's enough chat. I have work to do."

The doctor laid the scalpel against Jim's palm and applied practiced pressure, breaking the skin and opening its entire length. Immediately, the pain erupted, flooding every nerve in his hand, trying to wrest control from his conscious mind. Ellison breathed deeply, focused on all the hours of training Sandburg had put him through, and moved it to the back of his mind. It would have been easier to turn that sense down completely, but then he couldn't use it. He had to feel it, in all its intensity, if he stood a chance of defeating the drug.

The killer drew another line across the first and the intersection turned to fire. He ran the edge of his fist across his victim's fingers to open them and drew the scalpel down each one, slowly, carefully tracing lines of acute torment. Jim clenched his jaw tight against the pain, against the smell of his own blood, doing nothing to ease the anguish. He ignored the butcher as he rounded the table and lifted his other hand. Ellison had felt worse pain in his career. He might feel much worse before the night was over. The important thing was moving, he told himself. Just trying each muscle until it responded. He focused away from the hand, on his shoulders, arms, legs-

Abruptly the doctor straightened, dropped Jim's bloodied hand and looked toward a darkened back room. Frowning with irritation, he listened for a long moment as if he had heard something Jim had been too focused to notice. Ellison took advantage of the respite. Without a new flare of agony every few seconds, he could control the pain, ride with it as he searched his body for a wakening muscle. He could feel the torment race along his nerves, eroding the paralysis. He could force a muscle to contract in his back, flexed a toe and then an ankle. He breathed deeply with the effort, using the exhalation to calm his growing excitement. He had to be sure the doctor didn't notice, not the movement, not his eagerness. As the doctor, satisfied by the silence, turned back to his task, Ellison took another measured breath and almost choked on the new scent in the air.

Herbal shampoo, dry wine, and the metallic tang of fear, all mixed with the unique odor that was Sandburg, wafted in from the darkened room. Ellison's eyes found the murderer, willing him not to look back into that room, willing Sandburg to be anywhere but in the building with them, willing his muscles to tense, to be ready. If Blair moved too soon, if Ellison couldn't back him up...They had no idea what this psycho would do if his ritual was interrupted. It could save them both- or get them both killed-

The scalpel flashed, raking a line across the sensitive skin of Jim's belly, ripping a scream from him with its suddenness. Jim heard Blair gasp from the other room, heard him start to move. Unaware, the doctor's brow knit as he turned to face his victim, watching closely as he again dragged the knife across Jim's gut. Ellison's jaw clamped shut, strangling the sound, and the madman's eyes widened in surprise. Before he could do more, a flying mass of curls and corduroy tackled him away from the table. Ellison heard them thud against the wall behind his head, heard them both lose the air in their lungs, but he didn't hear the scalpel fall. He reached for every muscle in his body, let the pain in his gut and his hands roar through him like a backdraft, burning everything in its wake. The scream tore out of him, and he heard Blair's "Jim!" through the blast of fire in his body.

"You!" The doctor yelled. "You aren't supposed to be here!" Distantly, Jim heard them coming to their feet, heard them moving across the plastic sheeting. "Now I can't leave you alive!"

Jim's heart banged against his chest as his arm began to move, to bend and lift on command, but too slowly, too hesitantly. He clung to the sound of his partner's voice, praying Sandburg could buy him enough time.

"You have to, Doctor Hansen," Blair told the murderer. Jim was surprised he'd called the killer by name, heartened that Sandburg seemed to have figured him out, though how remained a mystery. "Otherwise, no one else will feel what you felt. The horror of watching your wife die. The loneliness of living a life empty of her. You want me to feel that, don't you? You need me to feel that."

Jim coordinated his arms, pushed himself up from the dining room table he was lying on. His body felt like lead. One hand skidded away from him, in the blood, as the psychopath screamed, "YES!" spinning and plunging the scalpel into Ellison's side. Blair was on him instantly, dragging him back, fighting for the blade. The tray crashed and clattered to the floor, ringing in Ellison's ears, as they fell against it. Jim fought through the clamor, through the bright, demanding flare of agony in his side, found his legs and swung them off the table. His knees buckled as his feet touched the floor. The lines of torment across his gut and his hands protested his demands on them, stealing his breath, his sight, his strength. But the pain also gave life to his legs, power to his arms, and using the edge of the heavy wooden table, he dragged himself to his feet. He breathed deeply, focusing on his sight, clearing it of all but a thin veil of mist. He looked around for his partner and the killer and found them on the floor in the doorway between rooms.

Sandburg's head lolled bonelessly from his neck, his throat in the grip of the madman straddling him, holding his upper body off the ground, strangling him, shaking him. "He killed Sarah!" Hansen snarled, emphasizing each word with a yank on his new victim. "It wasn't my fault! He has to die! He has to die like she did!"

Sandburg's eyes were wide with terror, his hands useless, fumbling, with no air to fuel them.

Thought and emotion died stillborn as Ellison threw himself across the room, wrapped an arm around the killer's throat and hauled back. He lifted the killer's weight and Sandburg's, his legs quivering under the load. "Police!" he shouted. "Let him go!"

But the madman's clutching fingers held. His voice gurgled past the pressure of Jim's arm against his throat with every exhalation, while Sandburg's lips turned blue. "Die Die Die Die Die Die Die-"

Jim shifted his grasp, clamping fingers on the man's shoulder, his other hand around his chin, and jerked. He felt the vertebrae snapping through the anguish in his hands, and the body sagged lifeless against him. Slowly, slowly, the murderer's hands lost their grip and Sandburg fell just as lifeless to the floor. Forcing his legs to carry them, Jim hauled the body away from his friend, dropped it onto the crackling plastic and nearly passed out from the pain ripping his gut and the throbbing in his hands. His muscles felt like water from the drugs still poisoning his system. He clung to the edge of the table, dropping his head between his arms, and breathed against the blackness swimming in his vision. Not now! he commanded himself, demanded of God. Not when Sandburg needs me!

As if scattered by thoughts of his partner, the blackness coalesced into patches and fled, leaving tiny random lights on the edges of his sight. He still shook, still had to move slowly to keep the void at bay, but he could move. He dragged himself back to Sandburg and dropped to the floor beside him, medic training kicking in, forcing him to use precious seconds to determine exactly where they stood. The kid's eyes were closed, his face pale, his blue lips outlined in stark white. His mouth was open as if still gasping for air, but his chest no longer rose and fell. Ellison's own chest constricted as he leaned over and pressed his ear to Blair's breastbone, praying his Sentinel hearing would find something, anything to give him hope. He heard the wind outside the little house. He heard the creaking of its old timbers. He heard a mouse in the kitchen and his own heart hammering with panic. He had to shut them out one by one, the wind, the timbers, the mouse, the thundering heartbeat and the roar of his blood in his ears. And then, in the silence, he heard the faint, uncertain thudding of his partner's heart.

"Yes!" he breathed, using that tiny sound to charge his determination. "Sandburg, stay with me!" he demanded, lifting his friend's shoulders, ignoring the agony in his hands from the effort, ignoring how limp and heavy the smaller man felt. He put his thigh under Blair's neck and lifted slightly, forcing his head back and exposing the red, angry handmarks on his throat. Gently, Ellison ran his fingertips over the marks, opening himself past the needles of pain, to feel for the tiny broken bones that would mean a crushed trachea. He let out a sigh in relief when he didn't find them. "We're doin' good, here, Chief," he told his friend, hooking his finger under a long curl hung across Sandburg's discolored lips and pulling it out of the way. Jim made sure Blair's tongue was clear, then with one hand on his chin and the other pinching his nose shut, Jim leaned over and breathed into him. Lightning seared across his gut from the hunched position. Every deep, full breath he drew for Blair scraped his raw flesh against the corduroy jacket. The soft fabric felt like sandpaper, abrading the open wounds, but still Jim captured air in his own lungs and forced it into Sandburg's. Colored sparkles began to dance at the edges of his vision from lack of oxygen. His head felt light, his muscles on fire, but he stuck with the rhythm of breathing in and blowing out. Breathing for his partner became his sole purpose, his only reason for being...

And then Blair jerked against him, his first breath thundering in Ellison's ears. Letting go, Jim lifted his head and looked down to find Sandburg's blue eyes open wide with remembered terror, his mouth gaping to suck in life-giving air. Jim's own blood streaked across his pale skin, and gently, awed by the miracle, Ellison stroked his cheek with a thumb to remove it. The gesture only smeared what was there, adding more from the cuts on his hand, but it caught Blair's attention. The huge blue eyes focused, recognizing Jim, and the fear lost its intensity. Questions found room in the blue: What happened? Why am I alive? Is Hansen dead? Are you okay?

Jim had the answers, wanted to give them to his partner, to see the lingering fear disappear from his eyes. But he couldn't find the breath for himself to make a sound, couldn't find the words through the glare of pain exploding like electric charges along his nerves. The failure brought the fear back to Blair's eyes. Unable to speak through his bruised throat, he managed to raise a hand and grab Jim's sleeve, demanding truth. Jim tried again, smoothing the long brown hair back from Blair's face with the back of his shaking hand and accepted the futility of fighting for his voice. Instead, he gathered Blair in his arms and kissed him, gently, tasting the ragged breath he'd interrupted and finding it the sweetest thing he'd ever sampled. He felt the tension leave Sandburg's body with the fear, felt Blair's grip on his sleeve tighten, holding him close, and knew he had understood. They were alive, both of them, and that's all that mattered in the world.

*****

Simon Banks reached the scene not two minutes behind Crane and the SWAT team, skidding up the dirt driveway faster than prudence would have dictated. The heavy car fishtailed, fighting the brakes, but stopped short of ramming the van blocking the path. Knowing he should never have let Ellison- much less Sandburg!- take on this assignment, he ran from the car to the front door, where Crane had just settled into position, his partner at his back. Banks kicked aside visions of his two friends' bodies, cut up like so much meat, and nodded to the SWAT leader. The man raised a bullhorn to his mouth and announced,

"Police! You are surrounded. Throw out your weapons and come out of the cabin with your hands behind your head."

Strung tight, Simon listened through the wood panel door, wishing, not for the first time, that he had Ellison's hearing. He glanced across to Crane, who shook his head once and shrugged. There was only silence on the other side of the door. Simon gestured and the team leader repeated his amplified commands, but the silence fell and held. Crane and his partner, covering the heavily-curtained window behind the detective, watched their commander intently, waiting for a decision. Banks' jaw worked, the only indication of the stress these judgment calls caused him. The wrong choice and more cops would die tonight. But then, that was part of the job description.

He caught Crane's eye and pointed to him then to himself, then to the door. Crane shifted and Simon turned to signal the SWAT team leader to hang back in case anything went wrong. The marksman spoke softly into his radio, unslung his rifle, and aimed through the door, over the van's hood, adding his cover to Crane's partner by the window. When everyone was ready, Simon reached out and tried the door, frowning in surprise when it yielded, unlocked. A trap? The wrong cabin? A sign that they had arrived too late, despite Sandburg's desperate cel-call to Crane? Whatever it meant, Banks knew it changed nothing. He nodded, and he and Crane barged through the door.

The first thing Simon saw was blood caught by huge plastic sheets covering everything like a cocoon. Then, as Crane and he swept the well-lit dining room with their guns, he saw the body by the oaken dining table and Ellison, soaked in blood, holding an equally bloody Sandburg to him like a ragdoll. For an instant, Simon's heart tripped and images of his detective without the strangely balancing influence of the grad student flashed through his mind. The guilt Jim would feel, the rage, the loss, not only of Sandburg but of control of his abilities- his life. He'd seen that self-destruction in Ellison a half dozen times over the past five years, most recently when the Sentinel thing had first shown up and when Danny Choi had been shot. Whether Simon understood the relationship or not, he couldn't imagine Ellison surviving the loss of the hyperactive anthropologist. Not anymore.

At the captain's nod, Crane went to check the body by the table, while Simon carefully approached Ellison. "Jim," he said quietly.

Ellison didn't move, and at first Simon thought he hadn't heard him. But then he saw Sandburg's grip on his sleeve relax, and as if that were a signal, Jim looked up. "We're okay," he said. "But we could use an ambulance."

Sandburg started to laugh at the contradiction, but the sound turned into coughing and something halfway between a whine and a rasp of pain. Jim held him until the coughing passed, then carefully sat him up on his own. They both reached out a hand toward Simon for a boost up, as Crane reported the house clear and the body dead.

"Yeah, okay," Simon answered his other detective, holstering his weapon. "Go tell SWAT to stand down." Crane didn't argue, but he did give Ellison and Sandburg the biggest grin Banks had ever seen on the blond cop. Simon's forehead creased with curiosity. "What the hell was that for?" he asked as he took Sandburg's trembling hand and pulled him to his feet. By the time he had clasped Ellison's wrist for the same assist- avoiding the bleeding cuts on his palm- he had changed his mind. "On second thought, don't tell me. I probably don't want to know."

"You probably don't," Jim agreed, then turned his attention to Blair when the younger man stepped in to examine his partner's wounds, as if seeing them for the first time. Sandburg croaked something, gave up trying to talk and weakly smacked Jim across the arm, instead. He couldn't have said Why didn't you tell me? any clearer if he'd shouted. He took Jim's arm and tried to steer him to a chair by the table, appealing to Simon for support when Jim wouldn't budge.

"I'm fine, Sandburg," Ellison protested, then as if to contradict him, his legs began to shake and his face went nearly white. He sat down, hard, where he stood, and after loosing a split-second battle, toppled over. Sandburg was at his side instantly, almost falling to his knees. He felt for a pulse and smiled up at Banks, reassuring him that the big man had just fainted. Shaking his shaggy mane, he propped Jim more comfortably across his lap and prepared to wait until he woke.

"Looks like this is where I came in," Simon laughed. "I'll go get that ambulance."

*****

"Want a beer?" Sandburg asked from the kitchen as he opened the fridge to grab one for himself. His voice was almost back to normal, after four days of sheer torture in not being able to make a sound and another four of Jim shushing him every time he opened his mouth. In hindsight, Jim had been right, of course- he usually was. Staying absolutely quiet had allowed his throat to heal twice as fast as the doctors had told him. And he was infinitely glad of that. Another few days without saying what was on his mind and he'd explode.

"Yeah," Jim answered from the living room, where he sprawled on the couch, catching up on several months' worth of magazines.

Sandburg handed him the beer from behind the sofa, before stepping around it and dropping into the easy chair facing him. He watched his friend for a minute, noting the color in his face and the easy way he moved, reaching for another magazine. He no longer grimaced every time he leaned over or used the backs of his hands to pick things up. The cuts had been shallow, intended to cause the most pain with the least actual damage. Hansen had had a long night of torture planned for Jim, and the wounds had only been the beginning. More serious was the injury to his side, where Hansen had stabbed him. Blair could still see that scene every time he closed his eyes, and sometimes when they were still open. Hansen breaking away from him, spinning and aiming the scalpel for Jim's heart. Jim slipping in his own blood, and the scalpel driving into his side where, only a second before, it would have pierced his heart. It still made Blair shiver to think what might have happened if Jim hadn't slipped and moved just enough...

"What?"

Jim's gruff question broke Blair's chain of thought and brought his mind back to the present. "What, what?" he asked, and had to hide his smile at the dirty look Jim threw him.

"You're staring at me like I've grown a second head."

Oh. It wasn't the first time this past week Jim had caught him doing that. He knew Ellison hated it, probably because a direct stare challenged his dominance in the small apartment on an instinctive level. Jim was so alpha, it was sometimes fun just to push those primate buttons. But not this week. This week, Blair had been too worried to do something like that on purpose. They'd spent the better part of the whole week together, on sick leave from both the PD and the University, and the entire time, Blair had felt like Jim wanted him on another planet.

From the first minute they had stepped into the loft, after Simon had brought them home from the hospital, Jim had gone out of his way to avoid Blair. At first, Sandburg had thought it was out of concern- Blair wouldn't be tempted to talk if Jim wasn't around. But Blair had caught Jim staring at him, too, though Blair had never called him on it. Inevitably, there would be confusion in the cop's eyes, and embarrassment, and something else Blair had needed days to identify: yearning. For a couple of hours afterward, Sandburg had wondered if Jim actually was bi-sexual and fighting it. But Blair knew lust when he saw it, had even been the object of other men's desires on occasion, and that wasn't the yearning in the Sentinel's eyes. When he had figured that part out, the problem became obvious. Jim hadn't made that distinction and was obsessing on the kiss. And worse, Ellison had aborted every attempt Blair made to get the problem out in the open where they could talk about it.

On impulse, Blair slammed his beer down and launched himself out of the chair. Before he could consider the wisdom of the move, he knocked the magazine aside, took Jim's face in his hands and planted a kiss dead center on his open mouth. The next thing he knew, he crashed into the coffee table and sent it skidding across the living room floor. Pain flashed through him and settled, throbbing, in his right side. "Ow," he heard himself say, then looked up at the cop towering over him, glaring furiously.

"What the hell was that?" Ellison demanded.

Blair tried to stand and thought better of it when his side twinged in protest. He just wrapped his arms around his middle and sat cross-legged where he fell- where Jim had shoved him. "You know what it was."

"Yeah. I know." Jim paused, struggling for some control. "Okay, why did you do it?"

"Because you kissed me, back at Hansen's cabin, and it's eating you alive. I thought maybe if I kissed you, we'd be even and you'd stop acting like it was the end of the world."

The cop glared down at him for a long few seconds, then suddenly the anger was gone. He held out a hand, offering Blair help in standing. Cautiously, not quite trusting sudden mood swings in his partner, Sandburg kept one arm around his ribs and took the offer. Once on his feet, he sank onto the couch, stretching gingerly to test his bruised side. Ellison sat beside him and lifted his shirt, running his sensitive fingertips over the growing welt where Blair had hit the table. Blair watched him, amazed at the touch. "Anything broken?" he asked his Sentinel.

Jim dropped his shirttail and shook his head. "No. You have the hardest bones I've ever seen. Especially the one in your head."

"I need them, too, hanging out with you."

"Yeah." Jim glanced at him. "Look, Sandburg, I'm sorry. It was a reflex."

Blair let the apology hang between them for a moment, wondering if he could finally get Jim to talk. He decided that was unlikely, but at least the guilt might be enough to get him to listen. "It was worth it," he answered finally, shrugging off the incident. "Do you realize that's the first time in eight days you've touched me?"

Jim looked up, startled. Before he could say anything, Blair plowed on.

"I really missed it, man. The hand on my shoulder. The little slaps on the back of my head. Grabbing my arm to move me out of the way around the house. You know, you're the only one who's ever given me a literal pat on the back?"

"What's your point?"

Blunt, disinterested. Jim wasn't going to make this easy. Blair had hoped when Jim had looked up at him, that he was ready to talk, just based on the surprise and...need he hadn't managed to hide quickly enough. But the question was too harsh, too much of a challenge, warning Sandburg that Ellison was shifting into defensive mode, throwing up walls to push the anthropologist away. For an instant, Blair was tempted to let him, to just give up and let him struggle on his own. But he had to live in the loft, and he knew how cold it could be when Ellison was hurt. And he had rehearsed what he wanted to say, what he thought Jim needed to hear, too many times to let the opportunity slip past him now.

"My point is you used to be all over me, even before the Hansen thing, and now it's...nothing. Like I didn't exist. Or you don't want me to exist. Obviously, something is eating at you, and if it's not the kiss, then I haven't got a clue."

For a second, Sandburg was certain Jim would tell him he didn't have a clue and walk out of the room, ending the conversation. But when he left the sofa, he only went as far as the windows, staring out at the bay and taking a mouthful of beer. Blair shifted on the couch to face him, wishing he could discern the reflections in the glass and see his partner's eyes.

"I'll take that as agreement," he said after a moment, putting the best spin he could on the silence. "Jim, you were drugged. You were in pain. We'd trained hard to be that intimate with each other. Neither one of us could talk. Man, it wasn't like you slipped me tongue or anything. In Mediterranean cultures, men kiss each other all the time, and for a lot less reason than you had. It shouldn't change the way you think of me...or yourself," Blair added, calculating the risk too late to take the words back.

Jim didn't move, but every muscle in his back tensed, as if he had turned to granite. Slowly, he raised the bottle to his mouth and drank.

"Okay," Blair went on, congratulating himself for hitting so close to home, but knowing he was now on dangerous ground. Not only did he have to chose his words carefully for the sake of their partnership, but what he said next would reveal more about himself than he had ever intended. The words I love you were among the few that didn't come trippingly from his tongue. He'd only said it out loud to two people in his life, Maya and his mother, and both were bittersweet. Mom, being Naomi first and foremost, just couldn't love him the way he sometimes needed, and Maya...just couldn't love him at all, apparently. And now there was Jim, and Sandburg couldn't guess what the older man would do with the knowledge. He had been too unsure of himself after Peru, too unsure of his place in Jim's life to put what he felt into words then. He couldn't say he felt any more secure now, months later. But he knew if he didn't say it, Jim wouldn't let it go and nothing would ever be quite right between them again. He took a deep breath and plunged in.

"The key is realizing that real love depends on the same endorphins-"

"What?"

Internally, Sandburg winced. He'd almost sneaked the word by without Ellison noticing. He opted to misunderstand the cop's question. "Endorphins, neuro-transmitters, brain chem-"

"Not that." Jim turned from the window, the bottle still suspended halfway to his lips, and stared at Blair as if he were holding a loaded gun on him. "You said 'love.'"

Blair tried to meet his eyes, tried to match that unflinching, level gaze, but he couldn't. He didn't want to see it in those eyes if he was wrong. He looked down at the magazines on the floor as he spoke, his voice rough with his own emotion. "That is what we're talking about, isn't it?"

The silence held so long that Sandburg feared the other man had walked out on him. But when he glanced up, Jim was looking out the window again, taking a pull from his beer. "What was that about neuro-transmitters?" he asked casually, giving nothing away.

Blair let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, grateful that they were back on safer ground, at least for the moment. He picked up his lecture slowly, needing to regain his momentum. "The neuro-transmitters involved in all kinds of love are identical. Platonic love, romance, maternal love. The same butterflies in the stomach, the same giddy, all-is-right-with-the-world high. It's all the same. Add to that, that primates need physical contact as much as they need food and water, and a social structure that dictates a person- especially a man- can only touch his sex partner, and it's amazing anyone in modern America has any grasp on his feelings at all! My God, American English doesn't even have a word for two people who love each other and commit to each other, but don't want sex with each other. Other cultures, mainly tribal cultures, do. The Cherokee even had a ceremony to publicly acknowledge and revere that form of devotion. The two people would exchange clothing to symbolize giving part of each's life to the other. To them, it was as sacred as a marriage. And what do we have? The closest our language comes is 'friend' and how many times have you heard the phrase 'just friends'? There's no just about it, man, but the word's been so devalued, it's become meaningless. And if someone is lucky enough to find a true friend, like I have with you, we are so pre-programmed to see sex in everything, that the relationship dies by innuendo."

Somewhere along the line, Blair had jumped to his feet and begun pacing, his passion for the subject refusing to let him sit calmly. He reached Jim just as he got to the end of his tirade, and on impulse grabbed the cop's arm and turned him to face him. Ellison glanced a warning at the hold, but Blair refused, this once, to back off. "My point is-" He emphasized the words, throwing them back at Ellison like a challenge. "-that just because you touch me, or kiss me, or love me, doesn't mean we have to fall into bed together. God, Jim, in my state, that kiss did more to reassure me than anything you could have said! I knew we were safe and alone and that I was alive because of you. That makes me love you even more, but it does not make me want to jump your bones!"

"Fine."

Sandburg blinked, owl-like, stunned by the under-reaction. "Fine? Fine? That's all you've got to say?"

Belatedly, he noticed Jim was smiling, one corner of his mouth turned up and his eyes glowing with, well, love as he looked down at his friend and partner. "Yeah, that's all I've got to say," he laughed. "I think you said enough for both of us."

Blair grinned sheepishly and loosed his grip on the cop's arm. He didn't need it now that the walls were suddenly gone between them. "Man, I guess I did."

Laughing again, Ellison draped his freed arm around the smaller man's shoulders, squeezing him close for a moment before leaving the living room. "Want another beer?" he called from the kitchen.

Sandburg looked around by the chair for his forgotten bottle, and found it right where he'd slammed it down minutes- lifetimes- ago. "Nah, I haven't had a chance to finish the first one." He bent down to retrieve his brew and when he straightened, Ellison was beside him, still smiling. Jim tapped Blair's bottle with his own.

"To things without names, and partners who know about them, anyway."

*****

Ellison sat at his desk in the squad room and read the Hansen report off the computer monitor. He was amazed at how much of the report was Sandburg's, how much of so many of his reports these days were in Sandburg's words. He read through the part explaining how his partner had figured out that the waiter had kidnapped him, how he had deduced his identity from his speech to Jim and one throw-away line in the police report on the first murder in LA. That had been why the name Waterson had rung a bell. He'd been the first victim, the same man who had, a year earlier, been involved in the car accident that had killed Sarah Hansen. The accident had clearly been Hansen's fault, wired on cocaine and driving over ninety miles per hour. But the doctor could never accept that, preferring to take his revenge, over and over again, on the man he believed had killed his wife.

Finished with his review and finished, finally, for the day, Ellison closed the report and touched the keys that sent it God-knew-where for safekeeping. He was about to shut down the computer when he noticed the little flag in the bottom corner that meant that he had e-mail. He frowned. The last time he'd gotten e-mail, it had been from The Switchman, taunting him about bombings he couldn't stop- until Sandburg had bounced into his life and taught him how valuable his Sentinel abilities could be. Well, Sandburg was in his life and nothing a computer could tell him would be more than they could handle. He clicked on the flag and waited.

The screen changed, flashing to a new color and spreading the message across it in black. It started with a date, July 11, 1981, then an OH WOW! all in caps, and Jim grinned, knowing it was from his partner. No one else could have infused dots of light on a screen with so much enthusiasm. Curious now, he read the journal entry.

"July 11, 1981

"OH WOW! I can't believe it. This is the best birthday present Naomi ever gave me! I can't believe I get to live in this village all summer! The Ojibway are already more than I ever imagined, especially Ben Stillwater. Today we were fishing- well, I was. Ben just sat there correcting my technique and carving something out of a branch he'd found. It was hypnotic, watching the little flakes of wood jump off the branch. I had to ask what he was making and he told me this story about ravens. Seems like ravens hang with wolf packs, or wolves hang out with ravens. No one knows which. The ravens act as scouts for the pack, flying over a herd of elk and marking the spot so the wolves can find it without a lot of wrong turns. The wolves bring down dinner and the ravens get to eat free. Ben said the raven sees for the wolf, shows him the way, and the wolf protects and provides for the raven in return.

 

Jim laughed to himself at the too-obvious analogy. He could see Sandburg sitting at his laptop that morning creating this little bit of fiction after finding the present Jim had left for him. He continued reading, wondering where Sandburg was going with it.

 

When he got to the end of the story, he put what he'd carved in my hand. "Raven Eyes," he said. "Someday a wolf will find you, too." I don't have a clue what that means, but he gave me a NAME!

 

The journal entry ended, and the message closed with a much more sedate, "Look in your coat- B."

Curiosity burning in earnest, Ellison twisted in his seat and tugged his coat off the rack near his desk. He'd managed not to think about it all day, but that morning, after a long night of deliberation, he had left the gift for Sandburg: his dog tags hanging on the chair where the student had flung his backpack. With it, he'd scrawled a note, telling his partner that since there was no way they could fit in each other's clothes, that maybe the tags would do. That's all. No explanation. No sentimentality. Then he'd left before Sandburg's alarm had gone off, not wanting the emotional scene that would come so naturally to Blair when he found them. Jim had no doubt that Sandburg would understand the significance of his choice. Everything Jim was today was because of those little plates of steel edged in sound-deadening rubber. Ranger, cop, Sentinel- it had all started the day his drill sergeant had dropped them in his hand and it had all gained meaning when he had met his Guide.

Ellison patted a few pockets in his coat before finding a bulge that hadn't been there when he'd hung it up that morning. He thought back over the day, deciding lunch, when he'd left the building completely, was the only time he'd been away from his desk long enough for Sandburg to sneak in without his notice. Unless he'd had someone else bring in the little white box Jim took from the coat's inside pocket. The kid was beginning to establish a network of allies within the department. Serena might have planted it for him, or Taggart.

Letting go of the how, Jim dropped his coat across his neatly organized desk and opened the box. Inside was a wad of tissue paper tied with twine. The once white paper was dried and discolored by time and the brittle, old string snapped with barely a touch. Jim glanced at the date on the screen, reassessing his conclusions of when Sandburg had written the journal entry as he unfolded the flaking, origami-like tissue. When he'd turned the last fold, he found an intricate wood carving only a couple inches wide and half as high, of a wolf's head and a raven's side by side. A wing stretched out behind them, pointing the way or shielding the pair, Ellison wasn't sure. But he understood, just as he was certain Sandburg had understood. A smile tugging at his mouth, Ellison picked up the carving by the soft leather cord it was strung on and looked at it a moment longer, thinking how young Sandburg had been, how important that summer must have been to him. Then he slipped the cord around his neck and dropped the carving inside his shirt, where the dog tags that now, like him, belonged to Sandburg once hung. He cleared the computer and headed home.