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The Sentinel

"Ghost Story"
by Rushlight

The light was blinding.

Blair gasped, feeling as if he were flailing lost in a hurricane, desperately reaching out for something to ground him, hold him, anchor him to the world that he knew and loved and *no*, goddamn it, this couldn't be happening, couldn't be happening, couldn't be real. It wasn't fair.

It was like trying to swim against a current in high water. His limbs felt heavy, groggy, but somehow he managed to hold on, and the world was screaming, it was filled with screaming light and it was all around him, the light was everywhere and it was holding him, carrying him; it was inescapable, inexorable, and he'd never seen anything more beautiful, more terrible, not once in all the days that he'd lived.

*Jim*.

The light was filled with images, a tide of chaos that rose up against his mind like a tsunami and threatened to steal his reason -- he caught a glimpse of the pier by the edge of the ocean, the relentless tide, the aggravating scream of the gulls in the sky above him, and the sun was setting, the light was bleeding away, it was fading away from him, and it hurt ohgodohJesusithurtithurtit*hurt*.

*Jim*!

And Jim was there, there in this dark place at the edge of his mind, this dark place with all the light, the voracious light that wanted to eat him alive, and Jim was crying, he was crying and his face was twisted and streaked with tears, and of all the things that hurt in this bad place that was the thing that hurt the worst.

Because Jim shouldn't cry, there was something fundamentally wrong with a universe that would provide pain enough for Jim to cry, because Jim shouldn't hurt that way, shouldn't bleed that way, but it wasn't Jim who was bleeding, ohgodohgod there was blood there was blood there was blood on Jim's white shirt and Jim was crying.

The universe rocked and spun on its axis. The light rose up to a roaring crescendo, deafening, blinding, and the pier faded away, bled away as if it were no more substantial than the sunlight that was falling out of the western sky. Blair struggled to hold on, but it was no use, the light was calling, calling through the roar of the distant sirens that sliced through the air, and Jim was crying, he was crying, and there was something he desperately wanted to say to Jim, something he needed to say to Jim, but it was too late because the light was fading and Jim was crying, and then it was all gone as if it had never been.

The sudden quiet stunned him. For a moment, he couldn't get his bearings, and he swayed, seriously considering the fact that he might have simply lost his mind. With growing desperation, he groped for something to ground him, to define the edges of the world around him.

Blair. His name was Blair.

That was better.

Somehow knowing his name made some of the panic fade away, and he struggled to focus on the things he could see, the things he could feel. Slow and methodical, that was the way to go. Identify the variables, define the parameters of the environment, and then formulate a hypothesis. Check.

Slowly, he opened his eyes.

He was in the loft. Somehow, he hadn't expected that. Also notable was the fact that he no longer hurt anywhere, and he glanced down hurriedly, patting at his chest with both hands, almost overwhelmingly relieved that there was no blood to be seen on him, anywhere. He was still wearing the same ratty jeans and patterned vest that he'd worn to the crime scene that afternoon. Further inspection showed that he appeared to be relatively whole, not a hair out of place. Thank god for small favors.

But what had happened?

His eye was caught suddenly by the low mirror that sat atop Jim's bureau in the corner of the room, its beveled edges reflecting the fading light outside the clerestory windows with a pearly gleam. The flat surface of the glass reflected nearly the entire room, which was etched in hard lines and grey shadows. But what it significantly failed to reflect was Blair.

What the *fuck*?

Intrigued, he stepped closer to the dresser, moving with the tentative, wary gait of an animal approaching a downed predator. This situation had passed far beyond weird -- it had now officially entered the realm of the fucking bizarre. Feeling increasingly mystified, he stopped directly in front of the mirror and waved his hand slowly in front of the glass. Still, there was no reflection. He could clearly see the reflection of the room spread out behind where he should have been standing.

This was definitely going to take some considering.

He felt his brows draw together as he tried to remember how he had gotten here; the last thing he remembered was going with Jim down to the wharf to try and scare up some action out of the Crivelli brothers. The twins were operating a little home-grown meth lab downtown and were looking to expand their business into the cocaine industry -- their out-of-state contact had been due in the harbor by six that evening. Blair had gone along with Jim to see what they could uncover about the pipeline, and...

Blair frowned. An image arced like lightning across his mind, there and then gone -- Dominic Crivelli, tripped out on meth, screaming obscenities at them from where he crouched behind a dumpster. Something had shorted out in the kid's brain under influence of the drug, dopamine receptors firing wildly out of control, and he had come after them with guns blazing. It had been entirely unexpected, unanticipated, impossible to defend against, and...

He had died.

Blair could still remember the pain of the bullets as they ripped into his chest, see the anguish in Jim's eyes as he'd fallen, and the light had hit him like a physical blow between the eyes, wrenching the breath out of him. Jim had caught him before he hit the ground, but it had been too late then, far, far too late.

He, Blair Sandburg, was dead.

"I'm dead." It felt odd to say the words aloud. It wasn't something he had ever thought he would literally mean when he said it, but hey, it seemed to be a day for odd occurrences. After all, if he could be stupid enough to get shot and die bleeding in Jim's arms, then he sure as hell could admit to himself that that's what happened afterwards. Couldn't he? His eyes flickered back to the mirror.

This entire situation was very strange.

But where did that leave him? He glanced around, feeling vaguely curious, and really noticed for the first time that he was standing in the middle of Jim's bedroom on the upper floor of the loft. Huh. Imagine that. Of all the places he could have chosen to reincarnate himself, he chose to appear out of the blue from the great beyond to haunt his partner's bedroom.

Not that there wasn't a certain forbidden thrill to that idea.

And that's what he was now, right? A haunt, a ... a ghost? That's what you called people like him. Because he'd died, hadn't he? He had to admit that there was a certain satisfaction in having the entire life-after-death argument finally, *finally* laid to rest, but he wasn't exactly sure what he was supposed to do with himself now.

Feeling more than a little put out, he sat on the edge of Jim's bed, noticing as he did so that the mattress spring seemed to give way under his weight. Now wasn't *that* interesting. He was a ghost, but he was a ghost with *substance*. Experimentally, he bounced a little on the mattress and smiled at the resultant creak that the bedsprings made.

He wondered suddenly if anyone would be able to see him. If ... if Jim would be able to see him.

Blair's smile faded as the first real twinge of sadness hit him. It occurred to him suddenly that he was really and truly dead, that he was gone, finito, that he was no longer a part of Jim's world. Whatever miracle accounted for his being here, it couldn't change that fact.

The room around him took on a surreal aspect, and Blair wrapped his arms around himself, rocking gently on the edge of the bed. He felt cold suddenly, and he wondered for a moment if he truly was insane, if all of this was just a bizarre delusion. Would that be preferable to the idea that he had actually died? And if he had died, what the hell was he *doing* here? Wasn't there supposed to be a tunnel with light at the end of it or something?

The low grating sound of a key turning in the lock of the door downstairs interrupted his thoughts. Blair jumped up from the bed and moved to the edge of the railing, peering cautiously down into the room below. The light outside the balcony doors was fading fast, and the shadows were long across the low table and sofas in the living area, casting the kitchen into near-darkness.

There was something inexplicably eerie about the scene, and he couldn't suppress the slow shiver that passed through him when he saw it.

The sight of Jim stepping into the apartment hit him like a physical blow, and Blair's fingers turned white-knuckled around the railing as he leaned forward, trying to get a better view.

"Jim!" he called, feeling strangely anxious, as if he were cringing in anticipation of some terrible occurrence that he couldn't even imagine.

Jim shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the rack beside the door, reaching to flip on the kitchen light with one hand as he moved into the kitchen. Light flooded the loft, chasing the shadows away, and it was a cold, white, unyielding luminescence that seemed to suck all of the warmth out of the room.

"Jim?" Blair could feel his heartbeat pounding, which was really weird since he was fairly certain he didn't have a heart anymore.

He wondered if he was simply remembering what it had been like to be alive, to be a physical presence in the world.

Still Jim didn't seem to hear him. He was leaning into the refrigerator now, and when he pulled back there was a beer in his hand. He carried it with him to the living room, where he sat on the couch facing the windows and held the chilled bottle up to the side of his face. He leaned against it and sighed deeply, closing his eyes.

"Jim?" Blair could hear the nervousness in his voice -- this was *so* not cool anymore. Fighting down the panic that threatened to rise up inside of him, he darted down the stairs and stood in front of his former partner, clenching his hands at his sides.

Jim did not look well at all. There were lines etched in that familiar face that had not been there before, and there was an air about him of debilitating fatigue, a studied indifference that seemed to transmute itself into a bone-wearying strength that was painful to see. Blair felt a rush of intense empathy move through him, and he knelt by the side of the couch, peering up into Jim's face beseechingly.

"Jim?" he said in a whisper, trying to ignore the slow-crawling horror that coiled in his gut when Jim continued to make no response to him. "Jim, can you hear me?" He reached out to touch Jim's hand, comfortingly, pleadingly, and just about fell back onto his ass when his fingers passed right through Jim's arm.

*Fuck*!

Blair snatched his hand back to his chest and held onto it, shuddering in revulsion. For the first time, true panic over his situation began to set in, and it took him a moment to notice that Jim was staring down at his hand warily, flexing his fingers as if he'd just touched something that had pained him.

"You felt that." Blair's voice was incredulous. He leaned forward again, careful not to touch this time -- seeing his hand pass through Jim once was enough, thank you very much -- and tried to decipher the emotions that he saw flickering across the other man's eyes. "Jim, listen to me. I'm here, I'm right here.

Just focus your Sentinel abilities and I *know* you'll be able to hear me, or see me, or sense me...*shit*!" He jerked back as Jim stood up abruptly from the couch and moved back into the kitchen, apparently giving up on whatever strange sensation he'd felt when Blair had touched him.

Blair stood and moved after him, feeling increasingly desperate. "Jim!" he said, realizing that he was shouting and not caring. Panic was gibbering at the back of his mind, mocking him, making it increasingly difficult to think. "Jim, pay attention here. Come on, man!"

What the fuck was this, anyway? Selective solidity? Obviously, he had enough substance not to sink down through the floor, or into the ground, so that he'd be left behind when the Earth moved on in its happy little way to leave him drifting aimlessly through space (and wasn't *that* a thought to conjure up a lifetime of happy images). So what were the ground rules here? He could look, but not touch. Where did he draw the line? How, exactly, was he supposed to know what to do here?

"I'm really freaking out here, Jim." Blair moved to perch on the corner of the kitchen table, watching as Jim rummaged through the cabinets, pulling out various pots and pans and meticulously going about the process of starting the water boiling over the stove for spaghetti. His expression was dark, shadowed, despite the overabundance of light in the room.

There was a certain comfort in just watching Jim work, even if Blair couldn't personally interact with him. He tried to focus on the low, even sound of Jim's breathing, the familiar way in which he cleaned up each and every item as soon as he was done using it, replacing every spoon, every dish, back into its proper place. The pungent scent of herbs and tomatoes rose up from the vat of sauce that bubbled over the back burner, and Blair breathed it in hungrily, more from the pleasure of the memories than from any physical desire that he might have had to eat.

"Smells good, man," he commented, smiling slightly as Jim moved past him to set the table. "You always did make a mean rigatoni." He was disconcerted to see Jim's hands shaking as he set the dishes down on the table, and Blair glanced up into the other man's eyes, frowning at the closed-off expression that he saw there. "Hey, you okay, Jim? Because you really, really don't look so hot." When there was no response, he sighed and looked away, clenching his jaw against the frustration that rose up inside of him. "Shit. I wish you could just *talk* to me, Jim."

Jim served himself a full plate of steaming spaghetti with the same mechanical movements that he'd used to prepare the meal, and then he sat down at the table, carefully folding the paper napkin next to his plate. His fingers drummed nervously against the table for a moment, and he wiped one hand across his face, again giving off the impression of bone-deep weariness, of forced fortitude, that seemed to permeate his very being. He sat there in silence for a moment, rubbing at his eyes, and Blair leaned against the wooden column beside the table, folding his arms across his chest as he peered anxiously down at his friend.

"Come on, Jim, you have to eat." Blair was getting truly worried now. Whatever demons Jim was wrestling with, they appeared to be winning this particular war. "You remember what I always told you -- if you don't keep yourself nutritionally sound, you're going to have all sorts of problems later on down the line."

Jim was leaning his elbows on the table now, his face hidden behind both of his hands. There was a line of tension in the curve of his shoulders that made Blair's heart ache.

"Come on, Jim," he said again, whispering it this time. Seeing Jim like this was well nigh unbearable; it was all he could do to hold himself still, to resist the urge to go forward and put his arms around Jim's shoulders, intending to soothe where no comfort was possible. The sight of Jim in pain was something Blair had always had trouble dealing with, and right now it was tearing him apart. He nibbled at one nail nervously, not knowing what to do.

Another minute passed before Jim pushed himself back away from the table, still rubbing at his eyes with one hand, his dinner uneaten. Blair watched sadly as his friend moved into the living room again, kicking off his shoes as he went. There was a sense of fragility to the scene in front of him, a vulnerability, as if the loft itself were being held suspended within a white crystal globe, hanging precariously over the eternal abyss, where the slightest breath of wind would cause it to fall, shattering into an explosion of rainbow shards as it descended.

And Blair knew, deep in his heart, that it was his fault. He was the one who had died, who had left Jim alone. It was obvious now that Jim needed him, depended on him. How was it that he had never seen it before? They were so much a part of each other that their lives were near inextricable, so why should it surprise him that Jim would be wounded in some vital way by his death?

"I'm sorry, Jim," he said, letting his eyes trail after the other man as he turned off the light and made his way by moonlight up the stairs.

Blair couldn't stop himself from moving out into the living room and watching as Jim pulled off his shirt in the bedroom upstairs, a hazy outline against the deeper darkness of the bedroom. He felt a subdued shiver at the sight of it; why should it feel like freedom now, being able to watch Jim to his heart's content without fear of reprisal? He was the worst sort of peeping tom, actually, and he hastily turned his eyes away. In the room above him, he could hear the soft rustle of sheets as Jim eased his way under the blankets.

Around him, all was quiet, underscored minutely by the soft susurration of the noises of the city outside. Blair moved to the couch and seated himself in one corner, pulling his legs up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. He rested his chin on his knees and chewed on his lower lip thoughtfully, peering determinedly into the darkness.

Why was he here? Just about every myth and belief system put forward the hypothesis that ghosts were departed souls who were somehow bound to the world of the living because they had unfinished business that they needed to resolve before they could seek the solace of oblivion on the eternal plane. So what did that mean, exactly? What was the "unfinished business" that he was expected to resolve?

Whatever answers there may have been to these questions were stubbornly eluding him. Feeling distracted by the sounds of Jim moving around restlessly in his bed upstairs, Blair turned his back on the grief that was pulling steadily at him and made his way into the kitchen. The giant-sized pot of sauce was still sitting on the stove where Jim had left it, right behind the pan where the cooked spaghetti noodles sat congealing together. Leaving a mess like this was so unlike Jim, but Blair recognized the signs of situationally-bound depression and felt only sadness when he looked at it. He trailed his fingers across the table where Jim's dinner was sitting, cooling rapidly and still untouched, and was caught completely off-guard when his hand knocked Jim's napkin onto the floor.

For a moment, shock held him rooted to the spot, his heart pounding. The fallen napkin sat crumpled at his feet, pale as a shroud in the darkness. Had he done that? How had he done that?

He crouched down on his haunches and reached out again, pulling his hand back quickly when his fingers passed right through the napkin and into the hardwood floor. The napkin sat there, mocking him, untouched and unmoving.

Above him, the sounds of Jim consistently failing to fall asleep retreated into the back of his consciousness, and Blair narrowed his eyes as he gazed down at the offending piece of paper in front of him. It was almost a relief to have something to do to occupy his consciousness, as his mind fell into the old familiar patterns of identifying the conundrum in question and then leveling all mental batteries against it. And since he didn't feel the least bit tired, it seemed a safe bet that ghosts didn't require sleep; which meant he would need *something* to do to occupy his time until the morning.

Taking a deep breath to help center himself, he settled back to think.

********

Jim groaned as the alarm on his clock radio went off, jerking him rudely from the fitful sleep that he'd managed to fall into about halfway through the night. Grumbling under his breath, he reached over without raising his head from the pillow to slap the OFF button, and blessed silence fell over the room.

God, what a night. He'd thought things would get easier with time, but they never really did. There had been a time -- labeled indistinctly somewhere in the back of his mind as 'Before' -- when he had actually enjoyed mornings, enjoyed the promise and anticipation that each new successive rising of the sun brought. But now he felt as if he were stuck in a rut, a huge gaping chasm with mile-high fucking walls, and no way out. Even with his enhanced senses, the world seemed to have turned overnight into a flat, grey, lifeless thing without form or reason, and no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't make himself get excited about the once-anticipated act of getting ready to start the day.

For a moment, he considered just rolling over and going back to sleep, but then he discarded the idea. He knew from experience that if he wasn't out the door by 7:15, Simon would be calling. And if he didn't answer the phone, his well-meaning boss and friend would be coming in personally to chase his sorry ass out of the loft.

So okay, then. Time to get up and move. Wincing only slightly at the pull in his cramped muscles, he rolled semi-smoothly until he was sitting on the edge of the bed. His robe was sitting draped across the desk chair beside him, and he grabbed it in passing as he stood and made his way to the stairs.

It was funny how you never really acknowledged the things you depended on until they were gone. He'd lived nearly his entire life alone in every way that really mattered, and all it took was one geeky, neo-hippie anthropologist cop-wannabe to set his entire world on its ear. It was amazing, really, how effortlessly the kid had eased his way into the fabric of Jim's life -- and he'd done it in such a way that Jim hadn't even realized he was being compromised. Between the time at home and at the station and the work on his senses, there really wasn't a facet of Jim's life that the kid hadn't infiltrated.

The truth was, he missed the kid. (And it won't hurt you to actually *think* his name, Ellison.) The knowledge that Sandburg was gone made everything seem a little surreal, and Jim was having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that he wouldn't be coming home. No matter what Simon said to him, Jim knew that his friend and partner was gone (gone, bleeding, dead, oh god!) and that it was his fault. He hadn't been expecting the attack on the pier, hadn't been watching for it, and now Sandburg was dead and he was alone.

Jim shrugged into his robe as he made his way toward the bathroom, and he was halfway across the living room before he noticed that every cabinet door and drawer in the kitchen was hanging wide open.

What the hell?

He stopped dead in his tracks and stood blinking stupidly for a moment before moving in closer to investigate. There was a strange prickling sensation along the back of his neck as his eyes swept over the scene in front of him.

What the *hell*?

His dinner plate from the night before was sitting overturned in the middle of the kitchen floor about halfway between the table and the sink, with a dark trail of spaghetti sauce and noodles spread out on the floor behind it. There was a fine fall of white powder sprinkled over the counter next to the refrigerator, presumably from the shaker of salt that had been tipped over and spilled there. The roll of paper towels over the sink had been almost entirely unrolled, and was heaped in a soft white mountain

of fabric down over the edge of the counter and onto the floor.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, Jim regretted the obscuring pall that had fallen over his senses after Blair's death. While he had not entirely lost touch with them, they tended to flicker in and out in a way that was curiously reminiscent of trying to tune into a particularly stubborn AM radio station. There had been a time when nothing could have gone on in this apartment without him noticing, especially not anything as apparently violent and ... weird ... as this.

Unless...

Unless *he* had been the one to do all this. Maybe in his sleep, and he had no recollection of it. Now wasn't that a pleasant thought? He smoothed one hand back over the top of his head nervously, wondering what he was supposed to do about it if that were the case.

"Take it easy, Ellison," he muttered under his breath, wondering if talking to himself were yet another symptom of his encroaching dementia.

Very deliberately, he turned his back on the mess in the kitchen and moved down the hall to the bathroom. He took care of his business there mechanically, without thinking, and then went back upstairs to get dressed.

Whatever mysteries were waiting here to be unraveled would just have to wait until he got back from work.

After he was sufficiently groomed, he did what he could to clean the spaghetti off the floor in the kitchen where the plate had spilled. Weirdness aside, it would really mess with his head if he were to leave it there to fossilize on his apartment floor throughout the day while he was gone. He left the soiled dish in the sink and wiped his hands clean on a nearby towel, surveying the freshly scrubbed floor with an approving eye.

He thought about breakfast and quickly discarded the notion. Despite the fact that he was finding it increasingly difficult to find interest in eating lately, he really had no desire to spend any more time in his seemingly haunted kitchen than was absolutely necessary.

The thought made him smile slightly. Haunted kitchen. Yeah, right.

He was just sliding his arms into his coat when he thought he heard a soft sound behind him. He turned, feeling that uncomfortable prickling along the back of his neck again, but the room behind him was empty.

*Of course it's empty, you idiot*.

Muttering irritatedly under his breath, he snatched up his keys and went out the door, locking it behind him.

It looked like it was going to be a long day.

********

Blair lounged back in the passenger seat of the truck next to Jim and propped one foot up on the dashboard in front of him. All in all, it hadn't been an entirely unproductive morning. At least he'd managed to get Jim's attention, even if it hadn't seemed to bring about any obvious results. If nothing else, he had managed to figure out a little more about what being a ghost entailed, and what effects he could apparently have on his environment.

It seemed that his noncorporeal body had no problem remembering the gross motor skills -- such as walking across a floor without sinking into it, or leaning against a wall without falling through. It was the finer manipulations that seemed to require some effort. He'd practiced on and off throughout the night, with ambiguous results. He felt a little guilty for the mess he'd left in the kitchen; it hadn't been his intention to be such a pest, but it was amazing how fast things would spiral out of his control just when he thought he had the damn problem licked. It was certainly something he'd have to try a lot harder to get any good at.

Outside the window, the city rolled by in unfeeling monotony, as its various denizens scurried about in the grips of their own personal crises without any inkling of what was going on in the world around them. Why he should suddenly feel so cynical was a mystery to Blair, and he turned his attention away from the window, knowing the route they were following as well as he knew his own name. This was the same route he had driven with Jim for the past two and a half years, on every morning that he didn't have to be at Ranier. There was a feeling of normalcy to it, a comforting familiarity that allowed him to almost -- *almost* -- forget that anything untoward had happened to him.

Blair glanced sideways at Jim, studying the hard profile of the other man's face. Jim looked deep in thought this morning, and Blair hoped that it had something to do with the spectacle in the loft. He needed desperately for Jim to figure this out, to realize that Blair was here with him, beside him, so that he could help Blair figure this whole thing out. Not for the first time this morning, Blair wished he could master the art of holding a pencil, so he could just sit down and write a frigging note. It was frustrating, to be so close to the man but not be able to communicate with him.

But since looking seemed to be all he could do, it was something he would do with relish. Despite the shadows around his eyes, Jim looked as strong and unshakable as ever this morning. It was something that Blair had always admired about him (in a purely platonic way, of course), how he always managed to appear so *together* all the time, regardless of the circumstances. It was comforting, and Blair had admitted to himself long ago that Jim was the compass by which he organized his world. There was a certain amount of hero-worship inherent in that, he supposed, but it was also a matter of sincerely trusting Jim, of knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that as long as Jim seemed to be in control of a situation, then things were well in hand.

Blair leaned his head back against the headrest behind him and gazed at Jim through slitted eyes. It felt odd to be able to look at Jim, really *look* at him, without having to worry about being caught at it, or having his interest misunderstood. Not for the first time, he wondered if Jim had ever considered having an intimate relationship with another guy. It was something he'd always been curious about, but had been too chicken to ask. His own bisexuality was something that he had kept well-hidden, for various reasons, not least of which was the fact that he wasn't sure how Jim would react to it. It was no secret (to himself, anyway) that he found Jim attractive, but there really wasn't anything that could make him risk the friendship that they already had.

Because that friendship was important to him. Even now, he could feel the strength of it, stretching between them, binding them together even though they were cut off so completely from one another, and perhaps it wasn't so surprising after all that he should appear in the midst of Jim's world after his death, seeking Jim, needing him, because that was how he'd spent the most important parts of his life anyway.

A sudden shadow fell over the cab of the truck as they passed into the underground parking garage beneath the station, and Blair glanced out the window at the tall concrete pylons that flanked the front entrance as they drove by. He felt anxious suddenly, without knowing why. Maybe he was nervous about the idea of facing everyone in Major Crimes; just the thought of passing among them as this weird sort of non-entity was enough to give him a serious attack of the heebie-jeebies.

Jim parked the truck in his usual spot beside the elevators, and Blair sighed, knowing that he would just have to suck it up and carry on. There was no way he was going to allow Jim to leave him behind, not when there was the remotest possibility that he might somehow sense that Blair was with him.

Closing his eyes, Blair drew in a long breath and held it, trying to relax the stubborn tightening of the muscles he no longer had as he reminded himself, yet again, that he wasn't really *physically* here. This was something else that he'd practiced with last night, although he hadn't spent nearly as much time at it as he should have. There was something inherently uncomfortable about behaving as if he were truly just a spirit masquerading as a man, even if he *was* truly just a spirit masquerading as a man. It wasn't something he believed he would ever really get used to.

A short sideways step, and he was outside the truck. There was no sensation of passing through the closed door, and when he opened his eyes again, it was easy enough to believe that he'd simply opened the door and stepped out in the usual manner. Score one point for voluntary repression, he thought dryly, as he absently patted his torso down to make sure he'd arrived intact. He didn't seriously believe that there was any danger involved in passing through solid objects, but it never hurt to make sure.

Jim was already halfway to the bank of elevators, and Blair had to run to catch up. He watched Jim's face closely, but there didn't seem to be a glimmer of recognition there, not the faintest suggestion that Jim realized there was anything amiss. "Come on, Jim," he urged, shoving his hands into his pockets and bouncing on his toes while he waited for the elevator to arrive. "You have to sense *something*. Just *concentrate*, man."

The elevator door opened with a quiet *ping*, and Jim stepped inside without hesitation. Blair hopped in after him, eager to make his way inside before the doors closed, and sighed as he watched Jim push the button for the sixth floor.

"This is a paranormal *event*," Blair said insistently, unable to keep quiet. He could hear the edge of petulance in his voice but did nothing to curb it; it was getting harder to hide his disgruntlement at Jim's continued lack of response. "There have to be a million and one things going on here that you can focus your senses on. Just try, Jim." The low vibrations of the elevator's ascent tickled his back as he leaned against the rear wall, which snagged his attention for a few moments while he pondered the implications of it. He had a sudden image of himself falling backwards through the wall of the elevator and tumbling headlong down the shaft; he stood up again hastily.

"Okay, let's think about this for a minute." It felt better to talk things through out loud, even though he seemed to be only talking to himself for the time being. "Maybe you're having problems with your senses. Is that what the problem is? Are you having trouble sensing things, Jim?" Jim made no response, but Blair didn't let that deter him. It made sense, actually; as much noise as he had made last night in the loft, there was no way Jim could have slept through it if his senses had been operating at peak efficiency.

The elevator door slid open, and Jim stepped out into the hallway fronting Major Crimes. Blair followed absently, lost in thought.

If Jim's senses were on the fritz again, then there was no way he'd be able to tell that Blair was here. The thought was shocking in a vaguely horrifying sort of way, but Blair immediately clamped down on his panic before it could spiral out of control. No, if Jim was having trouble with his senses, then Blair would help him. That was his job, after all.

All he had to do was figure out a way to do it.

Subdued glances were cast in Jim's direction as they entered the bullpen, some concerned, some simply curious. Blair bristled under the surreptitious observation and attempted to glare down the most blatant offenders. It irked him that Jim would become a spectacle here, even if it was in all likelihood motivated by concern for a fellow officer who had lost a partner in the line of duty. The very last thing Jim needed was these people's pity.

Jim, however, seemed completely oblivious to the looks cast his way, and Blair wondered if that was because he truly didn't notice them, or if he was just doing his best to ignore them. Jim moved toward his desk with calm efficiency, but was waylaid before he reached it by the emergence of their captain from his office at the other end of the room.

"Ellison," Simon barked out, hanging his head out his office door and narrowing his eyes at the calmly quizzical look that Jim favored him with. "Come into my office, when you have a moment."

Blair heard the frustrated sigh that Jim did his best to suppress, but it was only because he was standing so close or else he would have missed it entirely. Blair cast a sideways glance at his friend and noticed the increased tightening of the muscle in his jaw, which he knew from experience indicated all manner of trouble looming on the horizon. "Take it easy, man," he soothed, knowing how very much Jim disliked being called to task by their captain even on a good day. "I'm sure it's nothing. Just relax, okay?"

Whether or not it had anything to do with Blair's words, Jim seemed to pull himself together as he made his way toward the open door at the far side of the room. Blair followed in silence, secretly hoping that Simon would have some pearl of wisdom to offer that would help Jim come to terms with the apparent failing of his senses.

Jim closed the door behind him and moved to stand in front of Simon's desk. Blair perched on the edge of a table nearby and crossed his arms over his chest, watching as Simon finished up with whatever paperwork he was working on before finally looking up to acknowledge Jim's presence.

"You look like shit, Jim," he said without preamble.

Something unreadable flashed across Jim's eyes at that, but his expression did not change. "I'm fine, Simon. Really."

Simon's expression turned thunderous. "You may be able to fool everyone out there," --he nodded perfunctorily in the direction of the bullpen-- "but it won't work in this office. It's been almost a month now since the kid died. You can't expect me to believe that you're just going on with business as usual." His voice softened. "I'm not trying to pry into your life here, Jim -- I'm just worried about you."

And he did indeed look very worried. Blair's attention, however, was caught by the seeming contradiction in what Simon had said. 'A month'? He'd been dead a month already? How could that be possible? He clearly remembered going down to the wharf just yesterday afternoon, and then appearing in Jim's bedroom that evening.

Apparently he'd been floundering lost in the light a lot longer than he'd originally assumed. And what did that mean, exactly? One month without Blair probably meant that Jim had been living for one month without his senses, which meant there was little chance if any that the damned things would be coming back on their own. Which meant he wouldn't be able to sense Blair's presence, no matter how loud Blair hollered and shouted for his attention.

A sense of desperation gripped Blair, and he felt the nauseatingly familiar effects of a panic attack coming on. Which was utterly ridiculous, because there was no way in hell ghosts should be allowed to have panic attacks, no matter what kind of trouble they were in. Determinedly, he forced his breathing under control and told himself very firmly that it didn't matter how impossible his situation seemed; Jim needed him. That seemed to help a bit; the world swam into focus again around him, and he realized that Jim was talking.

"If you want to help, Simon, then take me off this damned leash. I can't do anything constructive as long as you have me strapped to a desk."

"You know I can't do that, Jim." Simon looked apologetic, although his tone brooked no room for argument. "And you know why. I can't have you running around in the field with your senses acting up the way they have been."

"I am *fine*, Simon." Jim met Simon's glare with an icy glower of his own, but when Simon refused to back down, he sighed heavily and looked away. "I'll *be* fine. I just need to get out there, I need to go back to doing my job. I need to be *doing* something."

This was truly unbearable. Blair moved forward to stand at Jim's side, gazing at Simon over the width of the desk that separated them. Simon looked as truly miserable as Blair had ever seen him, but he could tell that Simon was not going to back down from his stance on this.

"I'm sorry, Jim," Simon said, and his eyes were dark with empathy. "You need to get yourself straightened out before I can even consider putting you back out in the field again. If your senses keep going haywire the way they have been, you're going to wind up getting yourself killed. Or getting somebody else killed."

Blair could tell the exact moment when Jim decided to accept what

Simon was saying, at least for now. And that was typical -- Jim wouldn't consider potential danger to himself a sufficient reason to stop working in the field, but the thought of putting the people he was sworn to protect at risk would be unconscionable to him. Blair had to give Simon definite credit for knowing what buttons to press to get Jim to give into the restrictions that were being imposed on him.

Jim ran a hand back over his hair and sighed again, walking over to the closed office door and staring out through the horizontal slats of the blinds at the bullpen outside. "I don't know what to do, Simon." He sounded defeated. "I don't want to let the senses go, but I ... I can't seem to get a handle on them anymore. I feel like I'm going crazy half the time. Like last night, for instance. I could have sworn that there was someone else in my apartment with me." He laughed shortly.

Simon leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on the desk in front of him. "You were hearing things?"

Jim shook his head. "I don't know. It's ... hard to explain. And then this morning..." He laughed again, but there was little humor in it. "Where's Sandburg when you need him, eh? I'll bet he could figure all this out in a heartbeat."

Blair stared at Jim in open disbelief, trying to grasp the nuances of what he was hearing. "You knew I was there last night," he said aloud, considering. "Somehow, you sensed me. You didn't realize what it was, but you *knew* I was there." He moved forward, suddenly too agitated to stand still. The thought that Jim might be able to sense him after all was invigorating. "Come on, Jim, listen for me. Focus that hearing the way I taught you. Come *on*, man, don't *do* this to me! Focus! There's some really weird shit going down here, and I *know* you know that! So concentrate! I need you, Jim."

He watched in amazement as Jim's brow furrowed, head dipping forward as if he did indeed hear something. Blair waited breathlessly, but the puzzled expression on Jim's face did not lessen.

"Maybe you should take some time off," Simon suggested gently, and Blair turned on him in indignation.

"No, Simon, he does *not* need to take any time off. He is not crazy, and he is *not* imagining things!" He stepped up to the edge of Simon's desk and glared down at the other man, feeling utterly helpless. "Come on, Simon, you have to help him. I can't guide him in this. I just don't know what I'm expected to do here. He can't hear me, and he can't see me. He needs someone on his side who's willing to look out for him. Please, Simon."

He knew that Simon couldn't hear him -- he *knew* that -- but he held his breath anyway as he waited for Simon to make the decision that would make or break Jim's spirit completely. Enforcing a mandatory leave on him would only further convince Jim that he was losing his mind, and it would leave him alone to deal with all of the turmoil that his misbehaving senses were heaping on him. Blair waited impatiently while Simon pondered the matter, wishing that there were some way he could influence the man's decision.

The overhead light was brittle as it reflected off of Simon's glasses, but then he leaned back in his chair, chewing absently at his bottom lip. "Get out of my office, Jim," he said with a low grunt. "Go back to work. And make an appointment with the department shrink. You need to talk to someone about this."

"Sure, Simon," Jim said, but Blair could tell by his tone that he had no intention of doing so. He smiled slightly as he reached for the handle of the door. "Thanks."

Simon grunted again and turned back to his interrupted paperwork, but not before Blair saw the subdued flash of amusement in his eyes. Blair grinned, pleased to know that at least someone was looking out for his Sentinel in his absence. He was still smiling as he ducked quickly after Jim before the door could close behind him.

It might not be much, but it certainly felt like hope; and at this point, he'd take what he could get.

********

Jim leaned back in his chair and rubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes, wishing for about the thousandth time that Simon would just throw caution to the wind for once and put him back on active duty. Not that he didn't believe paperwork was important and had its place within the day-to-day process of law enforcement, but *really*. There was only so much of it that a man could do and still stay sane.

It didn't help matters any that his senses appeared to be acting up again. No matter how hard he tried to turn his mind elsewhere, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched. It was a decidedly eerie sensation, and he was reminded of the odd feeling he'd had that morning at the loft before stepping out the door. Which in turn reminded him of the mess that was still waiting to be cleaned up in his kitchen.

Sometimes he felt as if he'd taken a left turn straight into the Twilight Zone.

He took a deep breath and let it out noisily, determined to turn his attention back to his work. Even so, he couldn't help but note that the strange scent he'd noticed on and off throughout the morning had returned, a scent that tickled at the very edge of his awareness and taunted him with the ambiguity of its presence. It was a warm scent, and there was something strangely familiar about it, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't seem to place it. For some reason, it made him think of Blair.

Like he didn't have enough reasons to think of Sandburg lately. God, he missed the kid. And it was more than just missing a partner, or a roommate -- there was something *comfortable* about

Blair, something that made Jim feel as if all the questions in his life might finally have some answers. They had been partners in more than just their work; there was a uniqueness to the relationship they'd shared that Jim had never experienced before.

If he forced himself to come up with words to describe it, he'd have to say that he only ever felt like *himself* when he was with Blair. No masks, no artifice, no pretense. Just Jim Ellison, cop, ex-Ranger, Sentinel of the Great City, average Joe.

He missed that.

A quick glance up at the clock showed him that he still had three hours to go before quitting time. And why couldn't he keep his mind off Blair today, anyway? Memories surged in a warm tide around him, relentless and inescapable -- Blair's voice, Blair's eyes, Blair's uncompromising insistence that they work together on Jim's senses to ensure that they understood everything they could about them, constantly pressuring, refusing to take no for an answer, like some kind of hyperactive puppy continually yapping around Jim's heels. An unexpectedly loyal puppy, with soulful blue eyes and a propensity for easing itself inextricably into the lives of stray Sentinels.

Jim gritted his teeth and bent over the open case folder in front of him. He wasn't doing himself a bit of good by belaboring the obvious; Blair was gone, and no amount of wishful thinking was going to bring him back. No matter how much he might wish it were otherwise, those were the cold, hard facts.

That strange scent wrapped around him again then, tickling the edges of his consciousness. Jim closed his eyes and breathed it in deeply, feeling some of the tension ease out of him. It wasn't even a scent, really, but a ... feeling? A memory? He didn't understand what was going on, but it seemed to cause the ache of Blair's loss to ease slightly in a way that he couldn't describe.

Feeling strangely comforted, he turned his attention back to his work.

********

Blair stretched until he could hear the vertebrae in his back pop, wondering how in the world Jim had managed to come in to work and do nothing but sit behind this desk for a month straight. You certainly had to admire the man's perseverance -- Blair wasn't sure that he'd have had the dedication to put up with it day after day without throwing said desk into a wall.

Not that he wasn't used to sitting behind a desk -- it was, after all, a part of his profession -- but he was also used to actually accomplishing something with the time that he spent there. So maybe that was part of where his frustration stemmed from; after nearly an entire day of sitting by Jim's side, he didn't seem to have accomplished anything more than developing a cricked back, and Jim still didn't seem to have a clue that he was there.

How many days had he spent sitting in this exact same chair, anyway? Or standing nearby, watching as one of Jim's clients sat here, talking to him animatedly in tears or anger or abject helplessness, hoping that somehow, he would be able to help make things right for them. That was Jim's job, after all -- he helped people, and he was damn good at it. Blair had never met a more selfless man, or one who was willing to sacrifice so very much for the sake of those who depended on him.

Which, he supposed, explained what Jim was still doing here after a month of being confined to his desk. He wanted to help people, in whatever capacity he was allowed to do so. Blair felt a flush of admiration for the man, and he was very glad that in this, at least, Jim had not changed. Sentinel of the Great City, defending his tribe. As difficult as it was for him, he was continuing on in the path that he had chosen for himself.

Blair leaned forward across the edge of the desk, resting his chin on his folded arms and gazing up at Jim contemplatively. It seemed so plain to him now, and he was amazed that it had never really occurred to him before. He was in love with Jim. It wasn't just attraction, or hero worship, or veneration for the living embodiment of his field of study. What he felt went far deeper than that, so deep that it had become an intricate part of how he defined himself as a person. There was no way to describe who Blair Sandburg was without bringing Jim Ellison into the picture. And that should have tipped him off years ago.

He supposed he'd always known it, really, but he hadn't ever truly acknowledged it to himself before. It wasn't as if he'd just woken up one morning and decided, "Hey, I'm in love with Jim." Rather, it was something that had grown on him gradually, without fanfare, until it had permeated every aspect of his life without really seeming to. He wasn't sure why he could admit that to himself now, except that maybe being dead seemed to give him a freedom and a clarity to explore the feelings he'd been reluctant to examine too closely when he was alive. And that was just sad, really. Because now he'd never get the chance to tell Jim how he felt.

He flicked absently at the thin yellow pen that lay on the desktop in front of his nose, refusing to be discouraged when his finger passed right through it. Who was he trying to kid, anyway? He hadn't admitted that he had deeper feelings for Jim out of fear, and no other reason. He'd been afraid of what it would mean if he loved Jim, and Jim didn't love him back. What if Jim didn't like guys that way? What if Jim was disgusted by the very idea of it? What if Jim didn't see him as anything more than an irritating little tagalong who just happened to be good at helping him control his senses? What if Jim ended up hating him, resenting him, fearing him? Making him leave?

It had seemed like too much of a risk when he was alive, and only now did he see his reluctance to admit his feelings as the cowardice that it was. Now he would never know for sure how Jim would have reacted, because it was too late. And that was a damned shame. It was like the worst sort of Shakespearean tragedy -- star-crossed lovers who realized only after a lifetime of travails that the thing that would bring them the greatest happiness had been within their grasp all along. It was enough to make him want to laugh, or cry. Or both.

If only he could convince Jim that he wasn't imagining things, that the things he was sensing weren't just an echo of his senses gone awry. Blair wondered suddenly if *this* was the reason he had remained behind instead of going on to the afterlife, if this was the unfinished business he was expected to resolve. His undisclosed feelings for Jim were a weight on him, dragging him down, because they were the only real regret that he had in his life, the only thing he truly wished he could have done differently. Maybe all he needed to do was unburden himself of them, tell Jim how he really felt, and he would be free.

*No*. The thought angered him suddenly, and Blair clenched his fist on the desktop in front of him. He didn't want to be free, didn't want to unburden himself of his feelings for Jim. This wasn't fair, it wasn't right, and there was nothing -- *nothing* -- that could convince him things were supposed to be this way. He was Jim's guide -- Jim's *Guide*, goddamn it -- and personal feelings aside, there was no way he was going to leave his Sentinel to defend the Great City alone. There had to be a rule about that somewhere: Guides did not leave their Sentinels behind. For any reason.

He flicked angrily at the yellow pen again and was completely surprised when it clicked against his fingernail and rolled several inches forward across the desk. Startled, he glanced up at Jim, who was staring down at the pen with wide eyes, utterly motionless, a page from the file folder in front of him held tightly in one hand. A moment later, he glanced away, the muscle in his jaw twitching.

"You didn't imagine it, Jim," Blair said with a sigh, letting his head drop back down onto his folded arms. He nudged again at the pen and was not surprised when it failed to move a second time.

No wonder there was no indisputable evidence of paranormal activity in the world; it was nearly impossible for a ghost to *do* anything. Even making a damned pen roll across a desk took nearly a whole day's worth of effort. How many ghosts would have the patience to put up with this crap? Especially when you considered how few of their efforts would actually be accepted for what they were.

And that was the problem with paranormal phenomena right there -- most people just would not trust the evidence of their senses. Not that Jim had had any particular reason lately to trust his senses, but *still*. Blair supposed he just had to accept the fact that a mysteriously rolling pen was not proof enough for Jim to believe that he was being haunted.

Well, he would just have to work harder then. Because Blair wasn't going to give up. Not on Jim, not on himself, and certainly not on the possibility that they might find a way to beat this thing.

However impossible that might seem.

********

Jim shrugged distractedly out of his coat and sighed as he closed the door behind him. What a day. He hated to think that he might be getting used to working behind a desk, but today it had seemed almost ... bearable. Never mind the fact that his senses seemed to have a mind of their own lately; he'd been getting more mixed signals from them in the past day than he had in the past month combined.

He wished that he hadn't agreed to have company over for dinner tonight, so he could sit back and think about this some more. But when Rachel from the DA's office had cornered him earlier in the week and asked him if he'd like to get together sometime, he had decided to accept. Why the hell not, after all? He wasn't doing anyone any good by turning into a total recluse. Dinner at his place had been his idea, and she had seemed pleased enough by the suggestion. If nothing else, it would keep him from sitting around thinking about Blair for an evening.

Almost without thinking about it, Jim stepped up to the doorway of Blair's old room and looked inside. The light in here had a brassy shine to it, and it hung heavily in the air with a weight and a presence that seemed almost magical as it trickled in through the side window. Everything here was exactly the way Blair had left it; Jim hadn't been able to bring himself to move a thing, no matter how unhealthy Simon kept insisting it was. He could barely make himself go into this room to clean. The feeling of Blair's presence was always strongest here, as if he had only stepped out for a moment and would be returning at any time. That feeling was even more pronounced today, although Jim couldn't have said why.

Jim looked up suddenly, feeling again that strange sensation of being watched. He glanced over his shoulder, feeling utterly ridiculous, and mentally kicked himself when he saw that there was no one there. Of course there was no one there. What the hell was the matter with him, anyway?

Outside the tall balcony windows in the living room, the sunlight was fading fast, gilding the furniture with a ruddy sheen that looked inexplicably beautiful against the backdrop of the shadows that were creeping slowly in from the corners of the room, and he froze for a moment, drinking it in silently. For the barest of seconds, he could almost believe that he heard someone calling his name, from right inside this room. But that was impossible. Wasn't it?

He was going to be a basket case inside of a week if this kept up.

If he was planning on making dinner, though, he had a lot of work to do. Determinedly, he turned his attention to more practical matters; it was a relief to be able to focus his energies on cleaning up the kitchen instead of agonizing over the weirdness that his life had become lately. And that was still damned strange, wasn't it? The mess that he'd left the previous evening aside, how had all of the clutter here come about? Did it have something to do with his unstable senses, or was it another problem entirely? It was certainly an intriguing little mystery, and one that he deliberately refused to think about as he finished up with the cleaning and set about starting the preparations for dinner.

The doorbell rang at precisely seven o'clock, and he wiped his hands dry on a dish towel by the sink as he moved to answer it. The heady scent of baking chicken filled the air, and he breathed it in appreciatively as he tossed the towel aside. Casting a last glance over the kitchen to reassure himself that everything was in order, he opened the door.

Rachel looked as cute as ever this evening, with her short red hair curled just under her ears and a tasteful string of pearls accenting the pallor of her narrow throat. She was dressed casually in a loose skirt and an oversized white sweater, and she had brought her own champagne.

Jim made polite noises as he ushered her into the apartment, complimenting her on her clothing, saying how nice it was to see her, how happy he was to meet with her outside of work. They had been friends for years now, or at least co-workers who shared a similar vocational habitat, but nevertheless he found it incongruous that she should be here, now, sitting down at his table waiting for him to serve her dinner. It seemed like forever since he'd been on a date, and although he wasn't having any problem remembering the general social niceties, it was taking a conscious effort to keep himself interested in the proceedings.

And why should that be? Here he was eating dinner with a pretty girl, and all he could think about was how much he wished the evening were over so that she would leave. God, he *had* turned into a recluse, hadn't he? There had been a time when he lived for these moments, the intricate tap dance of that all-important first date, testing the waters, trying to pave the way forward to further intimacy. It wasn't as if he found Rachel boring, either -- she was smart, and funny, and she seemed to know to steer clear of any discussion that would lead to mention of his former partner.

So what was the problem?

He could tell by the look in Rachel's eyes that she was aware of his preoccupation, and he felt a stab of guilt for that. She was carrying the weight of the conversation, and he had barely even touched his food. She didn't seem to be upset by it, however, and he wondered if she were one of those women who found some sort of fulfillment in taking emotionally wounded men under their wing and nurturing them back to health. He wondered if that should make him feel more or less uncomfortable around her.

It occurred to him suddenly that if he asked her, she would agree to see him again. Maybe next time she'd offer to make him dinner at her place, maybe they'd see a movie together, maybe she'd let him take her to bed. Around the office they'd become known as an "item", and in time they might get married, buy a big house, and have the standard 2.3 kids that society insisted was customary for their social stratum.

Dear god, was that what he wanted? He knew instinctively that it wasn't. Because he'd tried that already with Carolyn, hadn't he?

And it hadn't worked out. So what the hell did he want, then?

A sudden image flashed across his mind, an image with laughing blue eyes and a mountain of unruly dark hair. When had he ever asked for more out of life than to have Blair by his side, living, breathing, and working beside him? And that was an answer of sorts right there, wasn't it?

How screwed up was *that*? Bad enough that he'd allowed the kid to die, bad enough that Blair had died bleeding in his arms -- now Jim had to admit that he'd been in love with him? Now wasn't the time to have these kinds of revelations; he should have confronted these feelings before, and age ago, when it would have done some good. And why hadn't he? Because it really wasn't any surprise to him that he felt this way; on the contrary, he felt as if he was only consciously acknowledging a fact that he'd known for a very long time.

Dinner ended, finally, and he moved to stack the dishes in the sink while Rachel moved into the living room with the half-empty bottle of champagne. He wondered idly how intent she'd be on spending further time with him if he told her that he'd been in love with his male roommate; the thought made him smile grimly. Some things, he supposed, were better left undisclosed.

He bent to stoke the fire in the wood stove before joining her on the couch, and the flickering warmth gave the room a soothing luminescence as he sat beside her. Rachel's eyes were dark as she smiled up at him, and he couldn't help thinking how pretty she was, and how very unlike Blair. Pale and slim-boned, she didn't look a thing like him, didn't act like him, didn't talk like him. Didn't ... smell like him. Was that why he'd agreed to have this date with her -- because she was someone who wouldn't remind him of Blair?

For all the good that was doing him.

Determinedly, Jim pushed thoughts of Blair out of his mind. Blair was gone, beyond his reach, and no matter how painful that realization was, he was going to have to accept it. Rachel was smart, and pretty, and she wanted to spend time with him. This was as good a place as any to start putting his life back together.

It wasn't until he reached for the bottle to refill their glasses that he became aware of that strange sensation of being watched again. It raised the hairs along the back of his neck, and he glanced around surreptitiously, hoping to find some explanation for it. This time, the watching had a seriously displeased feel to it, and he wondered what he could have done to piss his unseen watcher off. If there even was an unseen watcher, and he wasn't, say, losing his mind. Which was a definite possibility, he had to admit.

So intent was he on identifying the source of the disturbance he felt, he almost missed it when Rachel's half-filled glass slid two inches across the surface of the coffee table and upended itself into her lap. Rachel gave a startled little squeak and jumped backwards, but she didn't move fast enough to avoid the golden-colored stain that spread across her skirt and up the front of her sweater in neat little oval splatters. Jim froze for a moment, his heart hammering, and then moved reflexively into the kitchen to fetch a towel.

"I'm sorry," he muttered as he came back into the room, and did what he could to help mop up the mess. His hands were shaking so that he could barely hold the towel, but Rachel didn't seem to notice. The scene he'd just witnessed played over and over again in his mind, and his mind kept trying to deny it, to define it, to find some way of coming to terms with what he had seen.

Because *he hadn't touched the glass*.

"It's okay, Jim," Rachel said, gently pushing his hands away. She stood up and gazed down at him for a moment with a frown etched neatly between her delicately lined brows, and Jim wondered if she believed he had spilled the drink on her intentionally. "I think maybe it's time I should be getting home anyway."

Jim couldn't have agreed more. He walked her to the door, apologizing again for his clumsiness (Impossible! his mind screeched at him, but he did his best to ignore it). Rachel thanked him for dinner, he promised to look her up the next time he was at the DA's office, and then she was gone.

He didn't ask her for a second date. And now he wondered if she would have accepted anyway.

Feeling strangely unconcerned over the fiasco that his evening had turned into, Jim moved back into the living room and sat on the edge of the couch. He spent a moment gazing down at the overturned glass on the cushion next to him, letting his eyes travel over the trail of tiny dark spots that it had left in its wake. So many odd things had been happening to him lately, and he had yet to come up with a satisfactory explanation for any of them.

So maybe he should start with the assumption that he wasn't insane. That would mean that he wasn't just imagining things, that there was some kind of recognizable ... phenomenon ... happening around him. So where did that leave him? What would Blair tell him to do in this situation?

That was easy: Focus on his senses. Trust himself. Let everything else fade away and allow his instincts to tell him what to do.

Okay, then. Jim closed his eyes and settled himself against the back of the sofa, letting his breath out in a heavy sigh. It had been ages since he'd had any success using his Sentinel abilities, but it was certainly worth a try. He did what he could to calm the residual traces of tension that sang through him and tried to picture the dial in his mind, as Blair had taught him. It had originally been suggested as a meditation technique for dealing with pain, but he thought it might work just as well for trying to bring his senses back on-line.

There. Mentally, he reached out for his dial and slowly began to turn it up, carefully measuring out each breath he took to help keep himself focused. He was aware of the intense level of concentration that it required, but he refused to give up. Because he wasn't crazy, goddamn it; he refused to accept the possibility that he might be losing his mind. But he still felt a strange reluctance to open his eyes again, because what if he did ... and there was still nothing there?

*Come on, Jim*. Blair's voice was so clear, Jim could almost believe that it was real. *Believe in yourself*.

Believe in himself. He could do that, for Blair. Slowly, he opened his eyes.

And saw Blair sitting beside him.

********

Blair felt his breath catch when he noticed that Jim's eyes were focused on him. For a long moment, they just sat there staring at each other, until Blair finally found the strength of will to clear his throat slightly and say, "Jim?"

Jim's eyes flickered uncertainly in the low light. "Blair?" he whispered.

Blair nodded, feeling the bright burn of tears rising up in his eyes. "It's me, Jim," he said, just as quietly. "I'm here."

Tentatively, Jim extended one hand, and Blair braced himself for the inevitable moment when that hand would pass right through him. He was absolutely stunned when he felt Jim's fingers press against the side of his face, warm and moistened slightly by the presence of his tears.

"God, look at you." Jim's voice was filled with wonder, and the barest of smiles began to show through the shock in his expression. "I ... I don't..." He shook his head, clearly at a loss for words. "How is this possible?"

Blair laughed shortly. "Damned if I know." His voice shook when he said it; he couldn't remember a time when he had been more uncertain, more unsure of what to do or say.

And suddenly he was struck by the feeling that this moment wouldn't last, couldn't possibly last, and that it would be the last and only chance he would ever have at redemption. He closed his hand over Jim's and pulled it down into his lap, twining their fingers together -- almost as if Jim were the one who might slip away and wink out of existence without a moment's warning if the fates so willed it. Blair's heartbeat was racing, and he could hardly find the breath to breathe with, much less talk. But he had to talk, because if this was their version of a second chance, then he wasn't going to waste it.

"I love you, Jim." It was amazing, really, how easy it was to say the words. And it didn't seem to matter suddenly whether Jim returned his feelings or not; at least he had been honest with Jim, and honest with himself, and anything beyond that was something completely separate from what he was expecting to accomplish here. He held Jim's gaze levelly, refusing to look away; he wasn't ashamed of the way he felt, and he certainly wasn't going to shy away from it. Let Jim see him as he truly was, and make any future decisions about him accordingly.

"I know." Jim smiled slightly, and the light in his eyes seemed to deepen as his grip on Blair's hand tightened. "I think ... I think you know that I love you, too. Don't you?"

Blair felt a pleasurable shiver move through him at the words, even as they caused a chill to strike somewhere deep inside him. "I do now," he said hoarsely, wondering how in the world they had managed to get everything so very *wrong*. Now was not the time to be having this conversation; not now, when there was nothing to be done for either of them. A feeling of abject helplessness fell over him; there was something inexplicably terrible about hearing these words here, at the end of things, when it should have been the beginning of everything.

Because this was it. Jim had seen him, and they'd admitted that they cared for one another, and Blair's feelings for this man were no longer undisclosed. Which meant he was free, right? He was free to move on, to move away, to go on with whatever it was he was expected to do with the rest of eternity. And that was *unacceptable*. Because he refused to go on, refused to let go, refused to give in to whatever plan had been laid out in front of him. Blair started to shake as the fear tore through him -- fear that he would be forced to leave, fear that he wouldn't be able to hang onto this moment, fear that once again, Jim would be left alone.

"Hey." He felt Jim tug on his hand, drawing his attention downward to where their hands sat clasped together in his lap. Another tug, and Blair allowed himself to be pulled forward into Jim's embrace. He buried his face against Jim's neck and let those arms rise up around him, and *god* that felt good, to be held like this, to be loved like this. Jim's hand slid up the back of his neck to tangle in his hair, and Blair shivered, holding Jim close against him with both arms, refusing to let go.

"I love you." Jim seemed to find the same kind of joy in finally admitting the words aloud that Blair did, because he said it again. "I love you, Blair." And maybe it was okay, for just this one moment, to bask in those words, and know that Jim loved him. For just this one moment, it was enough.

It seemed the most natural thing in the world to acquiesce when Jim's hand tightened in the back of his hair, tilting his head up, and Blair's vision was suddenly filled with the most beautiful blue eyes he had ever seen. They were filled with such emotion, such intensity, and the room around him faded away into shadows as those eyes dipped in towards him, and Blair's eyes closed at the first brush of Jim's lips over his.

*Yes*. This was what he had been missing, had been hungering for, and Blair slid his hand up to the back of Jim's neck, holding on tight as Jim's lips parted for him. Then there was nothing but the taste of Jim, the scent of him, and Jim was shaking in his arms, Jim was fucking *vibrating* with emotion, and there were tears on Jim's cheeks, and there was something wrong about that, because Jim shouldn't be crying, shouldn't be crying...

Blair felt suddenly cold, and the light was everywhere, it was everywhere and it was hurting him, oh *god* it hurt, and why should he be hurting anyway? It made no sense, but it was so very bright out, and the air smelled like salt and blood and open water, and Jim's arms were tight around him, holding on, holding him back, refusing to let him go. Blair clung to him, and cried, and tried to make sense of the horrible pain that was ripping through him, and he could hear Jim speaking to him as if from a very great distance -- "Don't you give up on me, Sandburg, don't you DARE leave me, are you LISTENING to me, Sandburg, I won't let you do this, do you HEAR me, Sandburg?" -- but the words made no sense, no sense at all.

Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed. It seemed disconnected from anything that was going on around them, however; the only things that seemed real were Jim's blue blue eyes and the feel of his hands against Blair's cheeks, the hands that braced him, refusing to let him turn away, and Blair stared in open wonder at the man who held him, feeling an overwhelming sense of epiphany fall over him.

Struggling to understand, he glanced around at the pier that surrounded them, seeing the way the fixtures of the buildings glistened in the fading light, and he was struck by an unaccountable sense of dj vu. Because he'd been here before, he'd been here with Jim before, and he felt that he could *almost* understand what was happening to him, almost understand what it was that had occurred, but the light was fading and Jim's arms were warm around him, and this time, he wasn't afraid.

"You came after me," he whispered, so softly that only a Sentinel could have heard him. It hurt to speak, like everything hurt, but this was something that he desperately needed to understand. "You ... you didn't let me go."

Jim's eyes widened in amazement, and his expression slackened as Blair's words sank in. His eyes were dark with a question and a lingering panic that Blair knew were echoed in his own. Blair hated to see Jim looking so uncertain, but there was nothing he could do to reassure save let his gaze share the depth of his own confusion -- *I don't have an answer for you, Jim* -- and slowly,

the wild terror faded from Jim's eyes.

"Blair," Jim said, and that one word seemed to hold all the depths of love and life and longing within it. He shook once, convulsively, and bent down to touch his forehead to Blair's, holding him tightly against his chest, warming him with his body, refusing to let him go. "I love you," he said, and the words were so broken by his tears that they were barely understandable.

Blair smiled into the warmth of Jim's embrace and let himself be held, let himself be loved. "I know," he said, and it seemed that he had never felt more safe than this, which was truly odd, considering. Gunfire sounded somewhere in the distance, but neither he nor Jim reacted to it. Somewhere, there was a flurry of activity as Simon and his team moved in to apprehend the Crivelli twins, but here he and Jim seemed to be coccooned within an oasis of calm, and for Blair there was nothing but Jim's hands and Jim's eyes and Jim's warmth and Jim's love, and nothing outside the two of them seemed to matter.

It seemed almost surreal when the EMT's arrived and began the process of loading him into the ambulance. Blair held tightly to Jim's hand and didn't let go, and he was relieved when Jim was allowed to come with him. Jim's eyes never left him, and despite his partner's protective stance, Blair knew, somehow, that it would be all right. Because they'd beaten whatever it was that had needed to be beaten, had proven what it was that they needed to prove, and now it was time for the healing to begin. For both of them.

Jim touched him lightly over the eye before the oxygen mask was lowered over his face, and Blair smiled, seeing an answering knowledge in Jim's gaze. Whatever trials they had been through, the answers would have to wait till later. And still Blair was touched by the overwhelming conviction that it was *right* that he should be here, and it was *right* that Jim should be here with him, because no matter which way you looked at it, Guides did not leave their Sentinels behind.

And sometimes, every once in a while, maybe there was such a thing as a second chance.

********

Jim held open the door and stood back as Blair eased past him into the loft. He couldn't stop himself from following the younger man's movements with a critical eye, even though he knew how frustrating Blair found it when he switched into overprotective mode. He couldn't help it, though -- this was the first day that Blair had returned home from the hospital, and although the doctors had assured him that Blair was adequately healed to be released, he couldn't help feeling a trifle edgy.

Blair pointedly ignored the assessing gaze that followed him as he made his way carefully into the room. Even with the pain pills that had been prescribed for him, he seemed wary of upsetting the bandages that were stretched tightly across his chest underneath his clothes. Jim closed the door behind him and watched as Blair moved around the periphery of the room, lightly touching stray objects as he passed them by. There was an odd sense of ceremony in the way Blair's gaze lingered over each and every item that it passed as he looked around him; it was as if he felt the need to reassure himself that he'd actually made it home, that the loft was real -- or that *he* was.

Jim's mouth felt dry suddenly, and he had to force himself to swallow. "You, uh, want something to drink?" he asked, amazed at how even his voice sounded. It seemed that Blair wasn't the only one who was bringing the demons of this encounter home with him.

Blair glanced up at him and smiled. "Sure, Jim. Thanks."

Jim moved into the kitchen, grateful for the chance to have something to do. He felt nervous for some reason, jittery, as if his body hadn't quite received the message from his mind yet that the crisis was over. He rummaged around in the cupboard for a couple of glasses and then reached into the refrigerator for the iced tea, and he spent a few moments concentrating on keeping his mind occupied as he poured the drinks. When he came back to the living room, Blair was sitting on the couch by the windows.

"Welcome home, Chief," he said as he handed Blair his glass.

Blair's eyes were large, and blue, and very, very serious as he looked up at him. "Thank you, Jim."

Jim settled onto the couch next to him, tuning in almost unconsciously to the sound of the younger man's heartbeat -- performing his own sort of ceremony for reassuring himself that Blair was here with him now, safe and sound. It was something he figured he'd be doing with predictable regularity for a while to come, at least until he'd convinced himself that this was real, that Blair was truly home, that it wasn't just a fragile dream that would disintegrate the moment he looked away.

"Do you think it really happened?" Blair asked, without moving his gaze from the window.

It was a moment before Jim could think of a satisfactory reply to the question. He knew exactly what Blair was referring to; his mind was filled with a jumble of confusing images that he had no real explanation for -- a world without Blair, mourning, lost, the aching emptiness he felt making it a struggle to get through each and every day. Then the image of Blair, appearing before him on this very couch, looking like an angel. Had it been real, or had it been simply his mind coming up with a fevered anticipation of what his life without Blair would become?

"I don't know," he said at last.

Blair turned to look at him then, and there was a depth of emotion burning in his eyes that caused Jim to blanch, slightly. "I think I died, Jim." The words were calm and filled with quiet conviction. "I really think I died, and somehow, I just couldn't move on. I think you kept me here; I think that we were meant to be together, and neither one of us could go on alone."

Jim had to force himself not to turn away from the intensity in that searching gaze. His heartbeat was pounding out a staccato rhythm inside his chest, but he would not turn away from this, no matter how hard the idea was for him to contemplate. This was a subject that they had both carefully avoided while Blair was in the hospital -- perhaps out of some lingering superstition against discussing these things while Blair was not yet recovered from his injury. But now Blair seemed more than willing, eager even, to examine the things that they had experienced, and Jim's mind echoed with thoughts of impossibilities made real ... things like ghosts and love and second chances.

"We don't know that," he said quietly. "You were ... hurt, Blair. And maybe there is some kind of connection between us, maybe there was some way that I ... that I brought you back, like you said. But it could just as easily have been a ... a vision. A near-death experience. A..." He faltered, not knowing what else to describe it as.

"A gift?" Blair's eyes crinkled in a sudden smile, and Jim couldn't help but return it, feeling some of the tension drain away from inside of him.

"A gift," he agreed, reaching for Blair's hand and bringing it up to press his lips against the palm. He met Blair's gaze seriously. "And I don't really care what else it might have been. Because you're alive, Blair. You're alive, and that's all that matters to me."

And that was unfair, really, because Blair was asking for answers, needing answers, but Jim had no answers to give. But what did it truly matter, anyway, because Blair was here, and whole, and there really wasn't anything that Jim cared about beyond that. He reached out to trail the backs of his fingers down the side of Blair's face, unable to resist the urge to touch, and Blair smiled softly, nuzzling into the caress without taking his eyes from Jim's face. The light in those eyes changed suddenly, became deeper, more liquid, and the look in Blair's eyes became both plea and invitation, a subtle enticement to temptation.

Jim sighed as his lips fell onto Blair's, and he tightened his fingers in the younger man's hair, feeling the soft strands coil sinuously around his hand. He moaned softly as the joy of that touch moved through him; this was the taste he had been missing, through all those long weeks in the hospital, when they'd had only a few precious stolen moments to spend together in this way.

His arms moved as if of their own accord to hold Blair, to hold onto Blair, and Blair responded to him eagerly, hungrily, as lost to the storm of sensation that surged over them as Jim was.

And it wasn't enough to simply taste him in this way; Jim was suddenly possessed by the overpowering urge to *feel* Blair, to ensure for himself that his friend and partner and mate was truly alive, truly here with him. Blair moaned softly as Jim slid his hand down the side of his leg, mapping the contours of the body that he hoped to one day be as intimately familiar with as his own. Without thinking, he fumbled at the buttons of Blair's shirt, needing to touch, needing to feel, and Blair moaned against his open mouth, and whispered *yes*.

Blair's skin was warm and soft against his palms, and Jim trembled as the barriers fell open between them, feeling an answering shiver move through Blair's frame. He ran his fingers lightly over the coarseness of the bandage that still covered the other man's chest, remembering again the horror of holding this wounded body in his arms at the pier. But now the memory had a bittersweet tinge to it, because it had brought them here, to this point, and no matter how scared or sick or horrified it made him feel to remember it, it couldn't change the fact that Blair was here with him now.

Blair moaned low in his throat as Jim moved down onto the floor in front of him, instinctively spreading his legs to make more room as his fingers slid encouragingly over Jim's hair. Jim turned his head to kiss at those fingers in passing, feeling the heat of the contact sear through him, and then leaned in to capture Blair's mouth again, realizing as he did so that this was moving far too fast, much faster than he had intended, but he was helpless to stop it, helpless to deny the need that sang in the air between them. There was so very much that he wanted to do for Blair, so much that he wanted to do to Blair, but he had to remind himself that Blair was still broken, still needed healing, and that he had to be gentle, so gentle with this man that he loved.

And that was no hardship really, because how could he ever be anything but gentle with Blair? He bent to brush his lips lovingly across the front of the bandage on Blair's chest, feeling the faint tremors of the heartbeat even through the layers of the cloth. Those tremors meant that Blair's heart was still beating, still beating, Blair's strong, wonderful heart, and that Blair was alive. Jim found joy in that, in that and in the low sounds of desire Blair made as he bent to dip his tongue into Blair's navel, massaging gently into Blair's thighs with his hands.

And Blair was hard for him, oh god was Blair hard for him, and that was wonderful, that was exciting, and once Jim found that hardness he couldn't seem to keep his hands away. Blair moaned and shivered above him, and settled himself further down against the back of the sofa, begging with his voice and his hands and his body for Jim to continue, for Jim to ease the need inside of him. And of course Jim could do nothing but obey.

The first taste of Blair's hardness against his tongue was electrifying, invigorating, and Jim immediately took in more of it, knowing instinctively that he would never be able to get enough. Blair hissed through his teeth at the intensity of the contact, and Jim held him down against the sofa with gentle hands, encouraging him to relax, to trust, to accept the simple pleasure that Jim could give him.

And Blair's heartbeat was here, too, strong and certain; Jim opened his senses to it, and was nearly overwhelmed by the intensity of the sensations that raced through him, scent and sound and taste and touch. The evidence of Blair's life was all around him, proving to him in its steady pulsing rhythm that Blair was alive, alive, alive, and what kind of miracle was it that Blair loved him, that Blair needed him, that Blair wanted him? Because Jim had never been a man who believed in miracles, but he had to say that he definitely believed in them now.

Blair came with Jim's name on his lips, and it was a piercing, joy-filled cry that cut straight into the heart of Jim's being. Jim clung to Blair's legs, swallowing the flood of passion that filled his mouth and doing what he could to ease the tremors that shuddered through his lover's frame as he came down from the edge of his orgasm. And Blair was so incredibly beautiful like this, wasn't he, with his head thrown back and his eyes so dark and open and his face scrunched up tight with the echoes of his pleasure. It was a sight that Jim knew he would be forever addicted to.

It was several moments before Blair lifted his head from the back of the couch, and Jim waited patiently, massaging lightly into the side of the other man's thigh. Finally, he was rewarded by a narrow flash of those dark blue eyes, and a small, breathless smile.

"Mmm," Blair said meditatively, and reached to trail his fingers across the side of Jim's face. His voice was soft and filled with quiet wonder. "Come here."

Jim turned his head and kissed the tips of those fingers, then slid in to nuzzle at Blair's open palm. "I love you," he said, enjoying the freedom to do so, and it occurred to him again how much time they'd wasted, how much time they'd almost lost.

Blair's smile softened, and the color in his eyes deepened. "I love you, too, Jim."

Jim rose up onto his knees then and met Blair's kiss half-way, closing his eyes in sheer ecstasy as Blair's arms moved around him, pulling him close. He braced himself against the cushions behind Blair with both arms, not wanting to hurt him, but Blair was insistent, pulling him up onto the couch and up against his body, twining their legs together. Jim acquiesced with a soft moan, recognizing Blair's need to touch, too hold, and he made certain that he left adequate room for his new lover against the back of the couch as he settled down into Blair's embrace.

"Careful, babe," he said breathlessly, wary of upsetting Blair's newly healed injuries. But Blair was adamant in his desire to touch, and for Jim there was no denying Blair anything, ever. Blair's body felt warm and solid against him, and to Jim it seemed that this was his only tie to reality, to sanity, in a world that had unexpectedly grown beyond anything that he could have previously imagined.

"I'm not going to break, Jim." Blair punctuated the remark with a sharp nip to the edge of Jim's jaw. He soothed the sting with a quick swipe of his tongue, and trailed his lips back to the sensitive skin behind Jim's ear, where he proceeded to launch a sensual assault of teeth and lips and tongue and moist, hot breath that left Jim reeling.

Jim gasped as Blair's fingers moved at his fly, seeking, probing, demanding entrance, and Blair held his gaze evenly with eyes that were dark and glistening with love and passion. Jim found that he couldn't look away, not even when Blair leaned in to kiss him, softly, lingeringly, and then reached inside Jim's jeans to free his aching erection.

"Blair," Jim whispered, and the thought stopped there, unfinished. His hands moved to Blair's shoulders and held on, held back, because he didn't want to hurt Blair, could never do anything to hurt Blair, and Blair was so fragile, but he couldn't stop himself from arching his hips forward into Blair's touch.

"Come on, Jim," Blair urged, speaking softly. He slid his tongue along the edge of Jim's ear, and Jim shivered, feeling the soft mass of Blair's hair brushing across his skin. "Trust me."

Blair's hands felt like magic against him, they felt like pleasure incarnate, and Jim felt his will chipping away layer by layer as Blair continued to touch him, encouraging him to trust, to let go of his inhibitions. And finally Jim gave in with a low groan, sliding his arms around Blair's body and nuzzling his face deep into that tangle of dark curls, inhaling the scent of him, feeling the pleasure of this contact race through him. Blair clung to him tightly, raking nails lightly down the back of his neck as he kissed Jim's throat, Jim's face, whatever part of Jim that he could reach. And Jim could hear by Blair's breathing that he was turned on by this, that he *liked* touching him this way, and Jim thought that was the most erotic thing ever, that Blair would get pleasure from touching him, from making love to him.

Blair's hand on his cock felt like liquid heat, moving over him, drawing him ever closer to the edge where he would lose himself entirely, and Jim thrust his hips steadily into that warm embrace, wondering how it would feel to move inside Blair's body this way, because if this was how good his hand felt then oh *god*, how would the rest of him feel, this wonderful, beautiful body that Jim loved.

And Jim was almost there, almost there, and he tried to tell Blair this but was only able to make a small, incoherent sound against Blair's hair, strident in its urgency. The scent of Blair was all around him, the sound of his heartbeat, his harsh, panting breathing in Jim's ear, and it seemed in that moment that all the world was made up of Blair, that nothing existed outside of the two of them. And to Jim that seemed just *fine*, it seemed wonderful and right and good.

"Come for me, Jim," Blair said, and that was all it took; Jim came with a ragged moan, leaning into Blair's body as the orgasm moved through him in wave after wave of nearly unbearable pleasure, and Blair held him, supported him, whispering to him in words that spoke of safety and love and home and trust. And for that one moment -- that one, perfect moment -- none of their questions mattered.

When he opened his eyes, he found Blair staring down at him with a small smile. "God, you're beautiful," Blair said, and it occurred to Jim that this was the first time anyone had ever used that particular word to describe him; and coming from Blair, he liked the sound of it. He liked it a lot.

"You, too," he said, resting his head back against the arm of the couch and pulling Blair down on top of him. Blair nestled in against his side easily, making pleased little humming noises as he got himself situated. He rested his cheek carefully against Jim's chest, and Jim wondered if Blair was listening for his heartbeat, if perhaps he found the same comfort in it that Jim found in listening to his.

Outside the windows, the sun was just beginning to set, and Jim thought of Blair's questions again, those impossible questions that had no answers. He lay there, listening to Blair's steady breathing, and felt the warmth and weight of Blair's presence in his arms. He held Blair's body tightly against him, inhaling the warm scent of his hair, and thought about things like death, and fate, and cosmic providence, and wondered if they'd ever really *know* anything about anything that happened to them in this life.

"It's okay if you don't believe it really happened, Jim," Blair said, and his voice was so soft that Jim nearly missed it. And despite the quiet surety behind the words, Jim could hear the questioning inherent in them, the subtle need for reassurance. "I mean, what we believe or don't believe really doesn't have that much of an impact on what *is*, anyway. You know what I mean?"

"I believe in you," Jim said simply, feeling for once as if all of his questions -- all the important ones, anyway -- finally had an answer. And the answer was the 5'8" of sated anthropologist lying in his arms. A gift, Blair had called it. If that was true, then every day they had together was a gift, and that was a philosophy that he could live with just fine.

Blair tipped his head back and gazed up at his new lover with a light in his eyes that Jim knew he would never tire of seeing. The light seemed to mingle with the passion and the love that he saw there, and Jim knew without even really having to think about it that they would be making love again before the morning.

Or before the sun finished going down.

"You were right, you know," Blair said with a smile, and the subdued huskiness in his voice said he knew what Jim was feeling exactly, and that they were in perfect agreement. "We're here, and we're together; what more is there to know?"

And that, Jim decided as he bent to claim Blair's lips in a kiss, answered all of their questions quite nicely.

*** end ***

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