A Place Without Walls
(Tag for Prisoner X)
by Swellison

Jim Ellison's tired eyes watched as Turner and the SWAT-jacketed policeman exited the fenced-in arena. Part of him was relieved that his eyesight had returned to normal so quickly after Vinson had squirted him with pepper spray. Ellison hadn't tried to boost his Sentinel vision beyond normal since the attack. There was no need to, anyway; Captain Banks and the cavalry had arrived in the nick of time.

"They're going to do time in the same institution that they helped supervise," Simon Banks voiced his satisfaction at that irony. Quieter, he continued, "I know it doesn't make up for Matty, Jim."

"I was losing it, Simon," Jim shook his head. "All the hatred, just eating away at me."

Simon glanced sharply at his best detective, looking much the worse for wear in his prison blues. "C'mon, let's get you out of here."

"Think I'm gonna take a little walk - sit out in the open," Jim said. "Any place without walls, huh?" He walked slowly out of the arena, right hand briefly grasping the fence's top metal bar as he passed through its open gate. He trudged closer to the giant room's exit and passed through the second, higher chain link fence, then out the door. Walking down the hallway, he tried to remember the closest door to the outside, to freedom.

"Hey, Jim!"

It took Ellison a moment to place the stockily-built, smiling African-American standing in front of him as Detective Henry Brown. Brown's smile faded as he noticed the red fist mark on Jim's left cheek. "Here, Jim,"

he reached towards Ellison, intending to place the police ID necklace over Jim's head. Jim jerked back defensively and Brown silently berated himself for his stupidity. "Sorry," Brown said. "Simon didn't have time to get the whole squad down here, so he's using the locals, too. Starkville's finest are guarding the gate and they don't know who the good guys are without a scorecard." Brown again extended his right hand, holding out the Cascade PD identification on a neck chain.

Ellison took the proffered ID and slipped it over his head.

"Looking for Sandburg, huh?" Not even waiting for confirmation, Brown kept talking. "Well, you're heading in the right direction, he's in the infirmary with that lady doctor."

Jim nodded and they parted, Brown heading for the arena, Ellison continuing down the hall.

Absorbing Brown's comments about the policemen at the gate, Jim changed his mind and turned left at the next cross corridor. He passed no one else as he walked down the hallway. The prisoners were all in their cells, and most of the police activity was centered around the arena. Ellison reached the double doors to the prison exercise yard and pushed on the right one. The door opened easily, as Captain Banks' men had overridden the locks for all of the doors closest to the gymnasium, after the prison guards at the gate had coughed up the arena's whereabouts.

Jim's gaze raked over the deserted exercise yard, brightly lit by both the prison's streetlights and the ever-moving halogen searchlights that swept over the area at regular intervals. Hardly realizing that he had adjusted his sight to compensate for the changing lighting conditions in the yard, Jim made his way over to the benches that he and

Turner had been sitting on earlier that afternoon. Wearily, he sank down onto the first bench, staring at the empty, enclosed space around him. He gazed dully at the chained and electrified fence demarcating the exercise yard's boundaries. *A place without walls. Should've known there's no such place in prison.* Sighing, he leaned backwards until his shoulders touched the next tier of benches and he tilted his head up, letting his eyes track past the prison fences and searchlights and up, to the myriad, unbridled stars of Starkville's night sky.

* * * * *

"Jim. Hey, Jim, you all right, man?" Blair Sandburg sat down on the bench next to his partner, gently placing a hand on the detective's shoulder.

The softly worried voice of his Guide brought Ellison back to Earth. He blinked. "What happened?"

"You zoned, Jim. My fault," Sandburg said quickly, "I should've come looking for you sooner, but I didn't think that Simon would let you wander - no, that's not fair. Simon's in charge of the whole police operation, I'm the one that's supposed to be in charge of you." Blair looked away, guiltily, he had let his Sentinel down.

Ellison raised himself to a normal sitting position and Sandburg removed his hand, placing it in his jacket pocket for warmth. "It's not your fault, Chief. I told Simon that I needed some space and left. I had to get away from all the walls.... How long have I been out of it?"

"Half an hour or so. What happened, Jim? Your last note said that you were making progress -"

"Making progress? Chief, my last note said 'BEEN ID'd. PULL ME A.S.A.P.'" Jim's eyes narrowed. "Miller! He was in charge of the laundry pickup, he must've found my note and switched it. I *knew* something was wrong when Simon didn't show up this afternoon."

"Jim! Someone knew you were a cop?" Blair looked ill at the thought. "How did that happen? I thought Maggie Chandler had pulled everyone you'd arrested."

"I didn't arrest Pete Miller; I arrested his brother, Danny. Miller bragged that he'd slipped under our radar, and he was right. If he wasn't already - " Jim abruptly ended his sentence.

"If he wasn't already what, Jim?" Blair prodded when it became clear that Ellison wasn't going to finish.

"Dead. Burnett shot him when he found us in the tunnels, down by the river tonight."

"In the tunnels?! Jim, you escaped from prison tonight?"

"Miller gave me 24 hours or he'd blab to everyone that I was a cop. When Simon didn't show up, I knew I had to get out on my own. Miller found out about it and I had to take him along. I didn't exactly escape, they caught us in the tunnels. Burnett told Miller that he was free to go, then shot him in the back. I ended up in the arena with Vinson."

"In the arena." Blair repeated dully. He'd gotten Dr. Wilder to tell him all about what had happened to Jim in the ring, it was why he'd gone to the infirmary with her in the first place. "Jim, I swear if Simon and I had known you were ID'd, we'd have yanked you out this afternoon! But your last note said 'MAKING PROGRESS. STAY TUNED. P.S. THE FOOD HERE SUCKS'. Damn, how solipsistic can I get!?" Sandburg berated himself, missing the puzzled look in Jim's eyes over his three dollar vocabulary.

"You don't say 'sucks', Jim, that's my word. I thought -" Blair broke off, and turned away from his partner, looking at the dark no man's land in front of them. Then he resolutely turned back, met Jim's eyes and continued, "I thought you wrote that to make me laugh. There you were, putting your life on the line by going undercover in prison, and I thought you wanted to cheer me up. Pretty stupid, huh?"

"Not stupid, Chief." Jim laid his hand on his partner's shoulder and spoke softly. "I like your view of me better than mine. I was losing it. All the hatred, despair, and anger was closing in on me, and I started to think that I was Curtis, stuck behind bars forever."

"What? Jim, don't you know you've rarely been more of a Sentinel than you have these past few days? At Ellison's blank look, Blair swept on. "You've been walking five different tightropes at the same time, man! Don't tell me you weren't even aware of it? Being incarcerated with all those other men, you must've dialled your sense of smell way down - and your sense of touch, too, or you'd never be able to tolerate your prison outfits. The food really does suck, so I'm sure your tastebuds are duller than a plastic knife right now. On the other hand, you've been cranking up your hearing and sight as needed to gather evidence about what's going on in here. And your pain dial - after tonight, it must be in the negative numbers. Which reminds me, we need to get you checked out by a doctor before heading back to Cascade."

"I'm fine, Sandburg," Jim protested.

"Don't lie to me, Jim! Dr. Wilder told me the pounding you took at the hands of that Vinson ape. Contusions, bruises, pepper spray, maybe cracked ribs, who knows what else - at the very least, you're gonna be way sore when you wake up tomorrow. We are definitely getting you to a doctor, now." Blair stood up and tugged on Jim's arm until he rose, too. "If Dr. Wilder wasn't hip-deep in the police circus, I'd have her examine you, but she's been through a lot tonight. No, we'll go to the Starkville Hospital." They started walking towards the prison entrance, and Blair issued his orders in his best Guide's tones. "You can keep the pain dial where it is 'til we get to the ER, Jim, but you need to dial it back to normal when the doctor examines you. He'll need a true measure of your pain to make the correct diagnosis, okay?"

"Okay, Chief."

"And right after the doctor sees you, I'll drive us home. Simon said he doesn't want you to step one foot in the bullpen until Friday, so you've got two days off."

Jim nodded, eagerly anticipating sleeping in his own bed, in his own clothes. Sandburg. Home. A place without walls...

THE END