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It took three weeks for Jim to even attempt to go back to that small motel room, three weeks of lonely days and sleepless nights. Three weeks where he couldn't help but see himself as other's saw him.
He was moody, difficult to work with and cranky even to the point where *he* could tell how close to losing his sanity he truly was.
He was in a strange sort of haze. He went to work every day, but he was just going through the motions. Nothing meant *anything* anymore. Without Blair there was *nothing* in his life, no color, no flavor. Everything was bland, muted.
There may have been a time when he would have *wanted* a muted look at the world. Where everything wasn't so intense, but that time had long since passed. Blair had given Jim's life a meaning the Sentinel didn't even know he *wanted* let alone needed. Blair had given him control, and understanding and love.
Jim didn't know it at the time.
He didn't know that there was love. He wasn't entirely certain he had *ever* known what love was. How was he supposed to recognize something he had never seen? Now he had. Now, he *did* know. He *did* recognize it for what it was.
Blair loved him.
Why else would Blair stick by him through everything, all the near death experiences, all the moodiness, all the danger and abuse, no matter how unintentional? Even Blair's own death hadn't sent him running as far as he could get.
It was love.
He saw it now, saw it for what it really was, and Blair wasn't alone.
These past few weeks without his Guide had shown Jim just what it was he had given up. All because he couldn't say what Blair needed him to.
At the time he didn't even *know* what it was Blair needed to hear. The detective didn't know what he should have said, what he wanted to say, or why he *needed* to say it.
But now he did.
Jim pulled his truck into the motel parking lot with a slight smile on his face, pleased with himself that he had figured it out.
He parked and climbed out, making his way towards the motel room before he could second-guess himself or anything he was about to say.
*****
Blair Sandburg stared at the ceiling above his bed. It needed a paint job, but that wasn't of any concern to him. He had been laying on the same thin motel room mattress for a long time.
It could have been days or even hours. He wasn't really sure. The passage of time didn't have much meaning anymore.
Since Jim had left he had stayed in the small motel room, not moving, not thinking, just existing. barely.
He avoided looking at the tower of boxes sitting on the floor in one corner of the room. He avoided thinking about what they meant, that he was in this room. alone.
Jim hadn't come back since that first day. Blair avoided thinking about that too, what it meant to Jim, what it meant for himself.
After Jim had left, the phone rang a few times. Blair had listened to the incessant ringing in a groggy daze, not really certain what the sound meant, only knowing he wanted it to stop.
After the third or fourth time, he had unplugged the phone from the wall, dropped it in a drawer and was relieved to find himself surrounded by silence once again.
Every once in awhile there had been a knock on the front door. Blair didn't know who was on the other side. The former student wasn't sure he *wanted* to know.
To be honest, he wasn't sure of much of anything, knowing only how tired he was. The exhaustion seemed to seep into his bones. He couldn't even move, not that he had any desire to do so.
There was nowhere to go, and nothing to do. His life, as he had known it, was over. That would have been okay, if he still had Jim, but he didn't. So there didn't seem to be much of a point anymore.
****
Jim approached the door cautiously, more out of his own fear than the belief that something was actually wrong. Blair was probably safer these past few weeks away from Jim and his world, than he had been in the entire time the former student had ridden along with the detective.
Jim knocked once and extended his hearing into the room beyond. It was silent, mostly. Jim could hear the sound of Blair's breathing, and the beat of his heart, if the Sentinel concentrated, but nothing else.
That's what first alerted him.
There should have been movement, Blair walking around the room, the sounds of television, or at the very least, the sound of Blair's talking to himself. There was nothing; no sound of the television, or Blair's pacing, or the sound of air shifting as Blair waved his hands in some silent explanation.
The solitary sounds were comforting, but even those were wrong, all wrong.
The heartbeat was too slow, sluggish almost, and the breathing, labored, as if it was becoming to be too much of a struggle for his lungs to expand.
Without another thought, Jim tried the door. The door being locked didn't slow him as the cop pushed all of his body weight against it. Thankfully the motel wasn't built as sturdily as it could have been. The door gave way easily.
Jim wasn't sure what he was expecting. Maybe Blair had been hurt, attacked somehow and was lying on his floor, wounded, but that wasn't it. The room was in nearly the same condition as it had been the last time he had been there.
The same boxes were stacked up in one corner, a few others upon the dresser. The bed was made, with only Blair's body causing sporadic wrinkles in the spread. Blair wasn't moving, but he wasn't sleeping either.
Jim approached him and placed a hand on the younger man's forehead. The skin felt clammy and hot and Jim could feel it twitch underneath his fingers.
He could see Blair's body shake and tremble slightly, but from what Jim wasn 't sure.
"Chief? Blair?" His voice was hushed, and horrified at what he was seeing, at how Blair could be so obviously sick.
At the sound of Jim's voice, Blair's eyes fluttered slightly, but didn't actually open. The Guide seemed to take a breath, his lungs straining with extra use, causing a fit of violent coughing.
"No." Jim whispered, not certain what he was saying 'no' to, and glanced around the room frantically for a phone. Not seeing it, he swore, "What the hell did Sandburg do with the phone?" Turning back around to his guide quickly, Jim's cell phone smacked into his side, reminding him of its presence. Yanking it out from his pocket, he dialed 911.
The Sentinel climbed onto the bed next to his Guide and did a visual examination while waiting for an ambulance. Blair's skin was a pasty gray color, and he looked thinner than Jim could ever remember seeing him.
Blair's chest continued to tremble with the effort of breathing, and the far too slow beating of his heart worried Jim. It reminded him of a time not too long ago when Blair had lain, dead, on the lawn in front of Hargrove Hall.
That event was never too far from his memory, but neither did he *seek* to remember the terror that had invaded him. The knowledge that he could *not* survive without Blair.
He couldn't then, and he couldn't now. Why had it taken him so long to realize the depth of his feelings, and the reasons for them?
The answer his own subconscious could have provided him was cut short by the sound of sirens, indicating the arrival of the ambulance. He only hoped they weren't too late.
****
Blair struggled to regain consciousness. His mind was trying to tell him *something* but he wasn't really sure what that was. It hurt to breathe, and he wasn't entirely sure why breathing was necessary, although some part of him *knew* that it was in fact, necessary.
He felt a warmth on his arm which offset the coldness everywhere else, and there was a sound. It could have been words, or maybe just vague noise. Blair couldn't really concentrate enough to be able to identify the sounds.
Whatever it was, it seemed to be speaking to him, trying to tell him something important, something he really needed to know.
*Was* there anything he really needed to know anymore? He remembered leaving Jim and hoping that Jim would tell him to stay, tell him what he needed to hear, but Jim couldn't. Either because he wasn't capable of saying the words or because he wasn't capable of feeling even one tenth of what Blair felt for him.
Blair tried to block out the memory of the day he left the loft, left *Jim*, and the pain from that action, but he couldn't. It just kept hammering at him, weakening what few ounces of strength he had left.
With the memories came the ache, so deep and soul-tearing, and the exhaustion. He just couldn't come up with the strength, of will or body, to make himself move, to eat, or to bathe.
Some part, in the back of his mind was asking him why any of those things were truly necessary. His life, as he knew it, was over, and would any life he made now be worth the effort?
The warmth on Blair's arm shifted, moving over his skin, making it tingle slightly, along its path. The sounds were becoming clearer, less distant.
As he struggled to open his eyes and identify the sensations, Blair fought his own desire to sink back into his exhaustion. It was the new feeling of warmth along his cheek that finally caused him to blink, albeit slowly, trying to focus.
"Chief." The voice sounded so close and the desperation in the tone was more than he had ever heard in that familiar voice.
Blair's eyes blinked a few more times as the blurry shape before him seemed to become clear. Even though he heard and recognized the voice, he was surprised to see Jim, leaning over him, less than an inch away.
"Jim?" He croaked out, certain that even Jim couldn't hear him.
"Chief." This time the voice reflected relief. "You're going to be all right." Jim spoke softly, as if he was afraid that if the words were louder, they would prove false.
Blair opened his mouth as if to speak again, but his throat was too dry. Jim placed a finger on his lips.
"Shh. Don't try to talk." He cocked his head slightly for a moment, then focused on Blair once again. "The doctor's coming."
Blair blinked, and even that simple action seemed to tire him. He didn't have time to wonder where he was to draw the attention of a doctor, or how he got there before a door opened and a man he recognized from his frequent visits to Cascade General Hospital walked in, clipboard in hand.
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