Title: Midnight Confessions
Author/pseudonym: Candy Apple 
Rating:  E
Pairings: J/B

Status: NEW
Date: 5-27-98
Series/Sequel: First story in the "New Beginnings" series

Disclaimers: Pet Fly and UPN owns the guys and "The Sentinel".  No
money being made.

Notes: No sex, just a little smarm.  This may be the start of a series.  I
had to do something with the season finale.  SPOILERS FOR
SENTINEL TOO LIE AHEAD, SO BEWARE...

Summary: Jim sits a vigil at his partner's bedside.

Warnings: SPOILERS, but that's it.



MIDNIGHT CONFESSIONS

by 

Candy Apple

     Jim looked up at the monitor next to the bed for the tenth time
in as many minutes.  He didn't need the electronic equipment to track
Blair's heartbeat or his pulse.  Jim's own heightened senses were tracing
every rise and fall of his guide's chest, every breath, every thump of his
pulse and beat of his heart.

     The only thing he couldn't effectively monitor was the brain
activity.  Neither Jim nor all the hospital's state of the art equipment
could guarantee that when, if, those big blue eyes ever opened again,
there would be the same brilliance and alertness shining behind them.  

     Jim had insisted on keeping up the CPR at the scene, and when
Simon had pulled him away, he'd struggled until he was free again to
keep trying.  In those last moments, he had felt a flutter of Blair's
heart...a tiny, subtle response that might have been missed by the
standard equipment.  When the stunned EMT's found the man they'd
given up for dead was breathing, all the efforts to preserve Blair's life
kicked into high gear, and he was rushed to the hospital.  

     Now he was lying there, white as the bedclothes, with the
shocking contrast of his dark brown curls and eyelashes the only
deviance from the colorlessness.  The doctor said there was most
definitely brain activity, but whether or not the prolonged absence of
oxygen had caused brain damage would not be known until Blair came
to.  If he came to at all.  

     It had been three days since they'd found him in the fountain,
and in the eerie stillness that had settled over this particular wing of the
hospital with the coming of midnight, Jim continued his vigil at his
partner's bedside.  The thoughts that haunted him now were his worst
enemies;  his thoughts and the passage of time as Blair remained in a
coma.

     //What if I called you back to be a vegetable?  What if I called
you back to lie in a bed and stare into space while the drool dribbles
out of your mouth?  What if you're nothing better than an incoherent,
mindless soul that sits listlessly in a chair all day?// Jim took a hold of
one of the cool hands and held it tightly in both of his.  Blair's hands
were smaller, but they were strong, capable hands.  They were usually
in motion, flying around as Blair spoke, carrying on a non-verbal
conversation of their own.  Now the hand just felt small and frail and
cold.

     "I wish I could sit here and pray that you would only come back
if you can be whole.  I know you'll be miserable if you come back to
some...some half-life of sitting in a corner without the ability to string
two thoughts together.  But honestly, Chief, I want you back.  And I
want whatever I can have back.  Oh, God, I don't know how to even
start to apologize to you for this.  I was afraid for you...I thought if you
were with me, you'd be in danger.  I opened the door on you that night
and almost blew you away by mistake.  Between that and the dream, I
was sure that I was going to somehow cause your death."  Jim looked
down at the hand he was holding, and kissed the top of it.  

     "Are you ever going to be able to forgive me?  I wouldn't blame
you if you didn't.  Why should you?  You have to know that packing up
your things was the hardest thing I ever did.  That and telling you to
leave.  I was so sure it was for the best.  And I ended up putting you in
harm's way by sending you off alone."  Jim moved one hand to stroke
Blair's cool face, letting his hand come to rest in the pile of soft curls
on the pillow.  

     "This whole dissertation thing has been hard for me.  Maybe it's
because I see you in your element at the University, and I wonder how
much longer we'll even be together.  You're going to outgrow this...this
hanging around with cops.  You have better things to do.  I admit I
don't want everyone to know everything about me.  I know that was my
half of the deal, but it hurt that things I told you...confided to
you...showed up there.  Not in so many words--you didn't ever write
anything specific.  But your conclusions were based on some things I
shared with you that I've never shared with anyone else.  That I never
will share again with anyone but you.  I felt like you used my trust in
you to get a better paper.  I know you didn't mean it that way.  You
thought I was okay with you studying me and writing about it.  So you
did it."  Jim pulled the limp hand up to rest his cheek against it.  

     "It all looks so petty and minor now.  In a horrible way, losing
you would mean I 'got what I wanted'.  I silenced your dissertation.  I
can tear up your notes or burn your tapes and no one will ever know." 
Jim sighed, not even bothering to wipe away the tear that was escaping
the corner of his eye.  "But right now, I would go before every
dissertation committee on the planet, go on 'Oprah' if that's what you
wanted, or travel around with you and be some kind of...of circus freak
if that's what it took to bring you back.  Nothing I have is worth
anything without you, Blair.  When I saw you in that fountain, I
realized that.  I realized that the most important thing in my world was
you.  The center of it."  Jim moved to sit on the edge of the bed, then
leaned forward until his cheek rested against Blair's.  He breathed in
deeply, taking in the living scent of the still form in the bed.

     "I love you, Chief.  Don't you dare leave me now.  I don't
deserve to have you back, but if you leave now, I swear to God I'll be
right behind you only by as long as it takes me to get the barrel of the
gun in my mouth.  You have to live, because if you don't, I can't either."

     There was a little change in Blair's heartbeat.  It was subtle,
barely noticeable.  The man who had been monitoring it so carefully
didn't notice as he fought with the emotions that were welling up, and
the tears that fell into the silky curls under his face.  It wasn't until the
limp hand he still held flexed a bit that Jim shot upright and stared at
his motionless partner with a startled expression.  The had wriggled a
bit again, and flexed its fingers.  Jim realized he had a death grip on the
poor extremity, and finally loosened his hold slightly, kissing the tops
of Blair's fingers without even thinking about what he was doing.  

     "Blair?"  Jim sniffled a little and stroked Blair's cheek with his
free hand.  "Come on, Chief.  I felt you move your hand.  I know you
can hear me."  Jim watched, his own breath hovering in his lungs
waiting to be expelled.  

     The dark lashes fluttered against the ashen cheeks, and in a
moment, two very tired eyes gazed up at Jim.

     "Blair--do you know who I am--where you are?"  Jim asked
anxiously, knowing there was probably a much better way to ask these
questions, and that Blair should probably be treated in a much calmer
manner, but he couldn't help it.  This was too vital.

     "Jim," Blair responded, glancing around, then looking back into
Jim's eyes.  "Hospital," he added.

     "Do you remember what happened, Chief?"

     "Alex...you've gotta...catch her..."

     "We did, baby.  Yesterday."  Jim didn't bother to correct the
endearment that slipped out.  At this point it was all he could do not to
swoop down and claim the slightly parted lips.  Instead, he stroked
Blair's hair gently.

     "Are you still mad at me?"  Blair managed, his voice strained,
his fatigue obvious.

     "No!   I was upset...about a lot of things I should have talked
out with you.  I was afraid for you...and then the whole thing with Alex
and finding out about her--"

     "And I didn't tell you...betrayed you..."  Blair offered weakly.

     "I listened to some of your tapes.  I know I shouldn't have, but I
wanted to understand.  I wanted to know why you didn't tell me.  Now I
think I understand."  Jim reached up to catch a tear that slid out of the
corner of Blair's eye.  "What's wrong, Chief?  Are you in pain?"
     
     "I want to go home."

     "The doctor said--"

     "No...I mean...I want to go *home*."  Blair made what appeared
to be a monumental effort to squeeze the larger man's hand fimly.  
"Can I come home?  I won't write any more about you.  It's not worth
the price anymore," Blair concluded, his voice weak and his chest
heaving with the effort of talking.

     "Your stuff's already back at the loft.  As soon as the doc gives
you the green light, I'll take you home.  And you moving back in isn't
conditional on the basis of you not writing about me.  I don't want to
ruin your career, Chief."

     "I love you, too," Blair said softly, making Jim realize that the
younger man had heard most of his bedside professions of love and
guilt and longing.  "Don't ever...hurt yourself...because of...me. 
Please...promise me?"

     Jim leaned forward and let his lips rest lightly against Blair's,
stealing the softest of kisses.

     "I don't have to promise anything, because you're going to be
just fine now.  We'll work everything out together."

     "Yeah...together," Blair murmured as he drifted off again, this
time into a normal sleep pattern.  A little smile curved his lips, and Jim
kissed the smooth forehead softly.

     As he watched Blair sleep, he knew their relationship still
needed some rebuilding, and that the new feelings that stirred in him
when he kissed the other man's pliant lips would somehow have to be
confronted when Blair was feeling better.

     "Jim."  It was a bare whisper, more like a breath that formed a
word as Blair shifted a little in the bed.  Jim smiled at the sleeping
form in the bed who still held his hand, and wondered what he had
done in his life so right that God had seen fit to grant him such a
miracle.

     And he resolved to be worthy of the gift.

******

The End...for now ;-)