Rating: PG

Whatever this 'thing' was that had agitated Jim, it had something to do with the female sentinel, Alex Barnes, that much he did know, and it had led to him being thrown out of the only place he'd ever called home. Driven a wedge between him and the one man he loved, would ever commit to, and it was his fault for not telling Jim about her sooner.

He'd been so sure that he had control of the situation, that keeping the two sentinels apart until he could get them together in a controlled environment would be the best course of action, and it had blown up in his face -- or more correctly -- in his and Jim's faces. He'd been a fool, taken in by his desire to help, by his excitement, his pride that two, two sentinels should need his help. It had been such a buzz, at first, and look where it had gotten him.

Somewhere in the building, someone had music playing. Blair could just hear the amplified monotonous throb of the bass notes but he couldn't make out the melody. It hovered on the edge of his consciousness, barely audible but just loud enough to jar against his nerves. He sighed and closed his eyes -- just for a moment -- and became aware of a glow. His eyes blinked open and widened in surprise to see the room bathed in a warm, golden light. It crept into every corner of his small office, stirring the dust motes, making them glitter in the bright radiance. For the first time in a long time, he began to feel warm -- a deep, internal warmth that spread throughout his body from his head to his toes.

Then he noticed a shadow in the golden light.

His breath hitched. "Jim?" he called out softly.

The figure solidified and Incacha, the Chopec shaman, who had guided Jim in Peru, stepped forward -- which just wasn't possible because the man was dead, with a capital 'D'. He'd died in Blair's arms a few months back at the loft, when he and a group of warriors had come to Cascade hunting 'the chief of the great eye'.

Great, thought Blair. Now I'm hallucinating!

The image of Incacha spoke, his voice deep and resonant in the small room. "Why did you not answer the call of the spirits, young guide?"

Blair was surprised enough to answer, "I didn't know how to. I thought maybe, after I helped Jim, taught him control...." He shrugged and raised his hands in a gesture of confusion and defeat. "There just never seemed to be time."

Incacha shook his head sadly. "The spirits are angry. Your steadfastness and loyalty do you credit, but it is your fear and avoidance that has brought you to this point. The spirits will wait no longer. You have brought down their wrath and your punishment has been decided. You are to die."

"What? I can't!" Blair half rose from his seat. "There's still so much to do. I have to help Jim with this new stuff. He still needs me. He may not think so, but he does!" He felt his heart pounding in his chest. A cold trickle of fear traveled the length of his spine.

Then Incacha smiled. "Then trust Enqueri; have faith in me. You will still have to walk the spirits' way, but if you have trust, we will bring you back."

The deep, thrumming drum bass Blair been half aware of suddenly surged and then died back.

As though the sun passed behind a cloud, the glow faded and Blair found himself again sitting in the cold morning light, his body breaking out in goose bumps and the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. His pulse beat a tattoo in his ears. The Chopec shaman had also faded away only to be replaced by another taller, more curvy figure and Blair found himself facing Alex, the pale light touching the gun in her hand.

"Alex." He raised his hands as the gun rose to point straight at him. In a strange way, he felt as if he'd been expecting her.

"If it hadn't been for you, I never would have understood what I really am," she purred proudly at him. "I owe you that. You want to know how I really got the sentinel senses? Solitary confinement in prison. I thought I was going crazy. It wasn't until I met you that I realized what I'd become."

"And look how you used this gift. What a waste." Any remaining grain of sympathy and charity he felt for this troubled woman died in his heart.

"This is the one thing I really didn't want to do, but I can't leave you alive," she said, flatly.

She stepped closer to the seated man, flicking the safety off her gun as she did. The drumming in his ears rose louder as his heart beat in triple time. Blair closed his eyes. He didn't want to see his own death, but Alex just tugged him up and waved him out of the door. Perhaps she thought he would beg for his life, but his vision had prepared him and he wouldn't fight his fate any more. He'd face it with the small amount of dignity he had left.

All along the corridor towards the entrance of the building, Blair kept thinking, I must have faith. I must trust Jim... His feet struck a rhythm along the empty hallway that matched the hammering of his heart and Alex's foot taps counter-balanced that sound in his mind. He was walking to his execution with his own personal death march pounding away in his ears. Blair was dimly aware of Alex's voice telling him how the money she would get for the stolen nerve gas would make her rich. How she could have anything, anyone, she wanted, and again it hit Blair how different she was from Jim. His friend had integrity, self-control, honor.

The drumbeat rumbled louder until it was all he heard.

He barely registered the thud of the gun on the back of his head as they reached the fountain outside, or his mouth filling with sour water.

A dappled, blue sun shone through tall, blue trees and dense, blue foliage. The only sound was the faint rustling of the wind through the leaves. No bird song, animal calls or insects buzzing. Blair looked around. As far as his eyes could see, there were no other colors, just different shades of blue. He was alone. Could this be the jungle of Jim's visions? That thought made Blair deep-down sad. He was ashamed to admit that he'd always been a little jealous of Jim's visions. When Incacha died, he'd grabbed hold of Blair with a blood-soaked hand and a grip so tight it bruised his arm, and passed on the way of the spirits. It had been a profound, intense moment for Blair. Yet he'd been filled with a sense of anti-climax after Jim got his senses back and the Indians had departed. What was so wrong with him? Why didn't he get to experience the spirit visions after that?

He sighed. Maybe resentment clouded his mind.... Maybe if he had found time to study, to find a teacher and became a shaman, then he would have shared the blue jungle before now....

Yet he was sure that he had been here before, recently, in a half-remembered dream, a nightmare, where he was a wolf, an unwary wolf shot dead by some unseen marksman armed with a bow and arrow.

But that was just a horrible dream, made up of fragments of memories. This seemed too real, and as he took stock of himself, Blair realized that, as in that dream, he was again a wolf. His body was sleeker, more muscular and powerful. He stretched and could feel the muscles undulate under his skin. He now had four legs and his teeth... Wow, his teeth! He ran his tongue over the points, relishing the feel. I wonder... He shook his hips and, yes, he had a tail, an honest-to-goodness long, bushy tail! He could actually feel it wag back and forth. He laughed -- Blair Sandburg, wolf-man! He quickly sobered. If this wasn't a dream... if this was real... what did that mean? It was obviously some form of mystical occurrence. But what if he was trapped like this, in this body, forever? One answer came to him. He was dead. But, no, that wasn't right, he couldn't be, because....

There was something he had to remember. Something very important. He began to pace, on four legs instead of two, but pacing was pacing, and it had always helped him think before.

He thought he heard a growl behind him and again his thoughts returned to Jim. Jim, his friend, his hero, the vulnerable warrior and believer in justice, the sentinel who had given Blair a place in his life, the man whose presence often took Blair's very breath away. The growl came again and he turned to see a black panther watching, waiting, his eyes blazing with reflected light. Jim told him that he saw a black panther in his visions... in the jungle. Blair had suggested that it could be Jim's spirit guide trying to communicate with him.

Without another thought, Blair began to run, his feet thudding against the ground, thud dum, thud dum, faster and faster towards the large, sleek, black cat, who was now sprinting towards him.

Faith and trust, the mantra ran in his head with the pounding of his feet, and to those words he added hope, hope for a future that included Jim, hope for a happy ending.

Then he was flying, leaping just at the same moment as the panther leapt -- and for one blinding, brilliant moment, the jigsaw of his life came together in one beautiful, dazzling, perfect picture --

-- and then he was freezing and every part of him screamed in raw pain, and he was coughing up the most pungent, disgusting-tasting water he'd ever had the bad luck to have in his mouth.

And Jim was there.