Only a Step Away

"No!" The sound of the gun still echoed, mingling with that one, hoarse shout. With peculiar clarity he could see the shock on his Sentinel's face as he crumpled. As he scrambled to reach him in time - if not in time to save him, then in time to say goodbye, his eyes sharpened, almost feeling the way the jacket was indented with the passage of the hot metal, the flowering of the torn material into red-sodden rags, the blood that sprayed out, all were as clear and sharp as if his had been the gifted eyes. Each image emblazoned with a new splinter of time. Heart's blood spattered up across the face, sliding in slow streamers through shirt and jacket into a warm pool. He skidded to his knees under Jim, catching the last of the fall to lower the tumbling body to the ground, cradling the head away from the cold concrete onto his thighs. His hands closed gently around either side of Jim's face, "Jim! Jim, don't do this. Don't do this on me man, come on! Come on. Open those big blues of yours. Come onnnn--" The pleading ended in a pale moan as he pressed down on the spurting wound. The pale eyes were already open, but that wasn't what Blair meant. Wasn't what he wanted. Blood still seeped out between his fingers, no matter how hard he tried, and there was no response, nothing at all to show that his Sentinel was even there any more.

"no..." he whispered, rocking, back curled painfully over the body, arms close around and over his chest, his head dropped so low that it formed a curtain, holding only himself and the dying man.

"Jim. Please...". The tears were only a distraction, blinding his vision from the last time he would see him alive. "Oh God. Please. No..."

He could feel the faint swing of his hair, pushed by Jim's breath slow, and cease. Painfully, he laid his cheek against the cooling face, and let his eyes close, not wanting to see the wide surprise on the blue eyes staring dully at the ceiling.

"Sandburg!" Feet, running. A shout . More voices. "Oh my god! Get an ambulance." Distantly the call of officer down. Blair ignored it all. A hand covered his for a moment over the wound, no longer pumping blood, then lifted it.

"Blair, let them help." Simon's voice, he thought vaguely. Outside, tyres screeched. Jim would complain about the smell of burned rubber when he got outside. Blair started laughing, horrible gasping chokes that were more like sobs than anything else, but he couldn't be crying, because if he was, then Jim was dead, and he'd have to be dead too, and where was the point of that, so he was laughing, laughing as hard as he could, face buried in Simon's shoulder as they took his Sentinel away. He didn't see the paramedics shake their heads at their first look at the body. The perfunctory search for life in a body so torn that it could only be dead. The long wrench of the zipper as they sealed the body bag. A brief, violent struggle, the murderer brought down by half a dozen angry cops, cuffed, mirandized, dragged out. The slam of car doors. cars pulling away. The ambulance leaving, siren silent. No hurry.


Slowly he realised he was being held tightly, rocked, a hand stroking over his hair. "Shh. Shhh. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Jim?"

"San-- Blair. It's me." Captain Banks leaned back to look at the blotched face of his observer-anthropologist. Poor kid. "Jim... Ellison didn't make it."

"Oh." Blair swallowed and pulled away, looking around. No sign of him anywhere. Look harder! he told himself, and heard the voice again.

"Chief..."

"jim?" He blinked, and between the flicker of his eyelashes he saw him. There you are. The hard face soft with longing, and sorrow, and joy. Standing there, waiting, still in the bloodied clothes he had... He held out a hand. Blair smiled delightedly, and took a step towards him, discarding his body as easily as an old coat.

"Sandburg!" Simon's shout didn't register. The two men didn't even see the slumping body being shaken by the captain. As if anything was still there to be woken.

Blair took another step, and another, and the warehouse disappeared as he stepped into warm forest. He smiled up at his Sentinel who waited patiently for him at the forest's edge, hand outstretched.

"Coming, kid?" Head cocked in that slightly quizzical way that sometimes meant he was listening to something far away. And so he was, as the familiar heart beat faltered, stopped, and then took up a new beat.

And Blair stepped, lightly, easily over the small stream that roared between their feet, and into his Sentinel's arms.

Pages last updated 18/09/2004.