Related Episodes: Flight, Deep Water, Reunion, Survival, His Brother's Keeper, Fool Me Twice.

Parts of the dialogue in this story are adapted from the televised episodes listed above. Transcripts of these episodes can be found at Becky's Episodes Transcripts Page.

Between Jim and Blair, you would think that Blair will be the non-conformist, the rebel, and Jim would be the conventional one. After all, Blair's got the looks for it. That wild, curly hair, hanging just over his shoulder blades, the earrings, the I-don't-care-what-I-wear, so-long-as-it-keeps-me-warm style of dress. Jim, on the other hand, comes off as being straight-laced, stern, by-the-books, uphold-the-rules-and-order-no-matter-what, kind of guy. They act like that, too, at least on the surface. Blair's always bubbling on about one obscure and outrageous topic or another, his gestures rapid and energetic, always very hyper. Jim is quiet in his speech and movements, always deliberate, always in control.

Well, appearances can be deceiving. When Jim first brought Blair to the station and asked me to let him ride along, my first thought was that no way was this hippie child ever going to fit in among the cops, that he'll stick out like a sore thumb. But I soon discovered that despite his wild appearance, Blair knew how to blend in to the background when necessary. That despite his usual wild mannerisms, he knew how to deflect attention when attention would be uncalled for. He can sit still, quiet like a mouse, and if he pulls back his hair in a ponytail so it doesn't stick out, you can hardly tell he's there.

Now Jim, on the other hand, no way he can make himself so inconspicuous. He's actually not that big, about average or slightly above average height and weight for a Caucasian male. But he has a presence, a sense of confidence, an air of one used to being in command. He could be sitting in the remotest corner of a crowded room and still get noticed. And he never hesitates to take charge, stake his claim. He might be sworn to uphold law and order, but in reality he doesn't acknowledge anybody's authority other than his own. Any authority I or the PD have over him, he's graciously lending it to us, so long as it suits his purpose. He's worse than your regular, run-of-the-mill rebel, because with a rebel, you know he's always out to oppose you. With Jim, you can never tell. One moment he's docile as a lamb, the next, he's defying your orders like they were so much bullshit.

Getting him to back down and take somebody else's orders is almost impossible. Jack got around that by presenting himself as a buddy, a kind of "big-brother" figure. The you-and-I-are-equals, but-I-got-slightly-more-experience, so-let-me-show-you-the-ropes kind of approach. After Jack disappeared, I didn't pair Jim with anybody else, because of course there was no one else Jim would take orders from, and no other detective worth their dime will be willing to let a partner run the show all of the time. In that sense, Blair was the perfect partner for Jim. Being a civilian, there is no question of who is in charge. And Jim is usually quite willing to listen to Blair's suggestions, perhaps because doing so does not threaten his authority. And also because, from the beginning, he really admired the kid.

That puzzled me until quite recently, when Jim, in a rare mellow mood after a couple of relaxed drinks, told me how, the day they first met, Sandburg pushed him under an oncoming garbage truck, risking his life to save Jim. That kid has guts. I know that now, and I admire him for it, as well as for his quick wit, intelligence, and charm, but his courage and willingness to risk himself for others is not that readily apparent. I mean, you need to be in a life-and-death situation with the kid in order to find that out. Turns out that was one of the first impressions Jim had of Sandburg. Aside from the neo-hippie, flaky, too-talkative and annoying aspects of his personality, that is.

In those early days of their partnership, I wondered, in a small corner in the back of my mind, whether there was more going on between the two than just the Sentinel thing. The comfort and affection between them sprang up almost immediately. It seemed like a matter of days before they were working smoothly together like long-time partners. Of course there were glitches, but they got over them without much ado. Like one will say, "Let's do it this way," and the other will say, "Wait, that won't work, how about this?" Then they will look at each other and say, "Okay," and that'll be that.

I would think back, to another long-ago conversation over drinks, a couple months after Jack's disappearance, when, for reasons I no longer remember, we started discussing gay sex, and Jim told me he's done it a few times, back when he was younger. How much younger he didn't say and I didn't ask, and he added, in that way he has of saying things casually that are actually pretty important, that he hadn't done it in years and didn't plan on doing it again.

I'd look at them together, and wonder exactly how tight Jim's resolve not to get involved with men was. But when I saw that Sandburg would flirt with and date any women that showed the slightest inclination, I dismissed it as a possibility. The little niggling flared up again when Sandburg moved in with Jim after his place blew up, but they both continued to date women, and I told myself I was being silly.

Trust Jim to drop a bombshell, oh so casually, out of the blue. If Blair had decided to do it, he would have found a way to work up to it gradually, to ease the way, so to speak.

We were driving, in Jim's car, to my hometown, where I was attending my high school reunion. I was feeling extremely ambivalent about going. On the one hand, there's the nostalgia, the desire to reconnect with people and places of one's youth. On the other hand, there's the stark realization that you have changed, that you are vastly different from the person you were back then, and the fear that others would have changed also, that you would find yourself in a roomful of strangers, in a place you no longer recognize.

Jim and Blair were going to drop me off and then going kayaking at a spot a little further out. I joked that maybe I should go with them. First they said they only have two kayaks. When I pointed out we could take turns, they confessed they only had one tent. I frowned.

"What? You are sharing a tent with that?" I said, pointing at Blair. "Are you serious? How can you stand that?"

"Hey! I'm the one you should be asking that. He snores," Blair shot back.

The next thing we know, Jim is going on about how Blair always drools all over his pillow, then grabs *Jim's* pillow and drools all over that.

I thought I would have a heart attack. The poor kid was so terrified he looked about to hyperventilate. And Jim is sitting there, cool as a cucumber, continuing to drive the car like he had no care in the world.

I told him to stop the car.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm down. I stared out the front windshield, not quite able to bring myself to look at them. Behind me, I felt Blair shifting nervously.

I can't say I was surprised. Dismayed, maybe, but not surprised. After all, I had suspected this might happen, almost from the very beginning. But it wasn't something that I wanted to have happen, and my hopes had been up.

I asked how long this had been going on. Jim said since Peru.

Peru. Where Jim and Blair had come to rescue me and my son from the jungle, from the hands of drug lords enslaving the local people to work at their drug factory.

What had happened between them in Peru? I remembered Blair's uncharacteristic quiet the night at the hotel in Lima, right before we flew out.

"See, we only had one blanket, and I was cold..." Blair spoke up, a little timidly, a little placatingly.

"Thank you, I get the picture," I growled.

I sighed. It had been a little over a month since Peru. They'd worked a couple of cases in the meanwhile, including that case over Jack, where the sticky problem of Jim's having slept with Jack's lady came to light. They had worked through that with barely a hitch. They had been handling themselves professionally at the station, not letting a hint show of the change in their relationship. Well, part of that was that they'd already been very affectionate with each other, even before, but...

There are good reasons why department regulations prohibit police partners from getting involved with each other. But this is not a conventional partnership. Technically Blair is not Jim's partner, but a ride-along observer. Bringing your lover to work sounds tawdry, but I knew, more than anybody else, that their working relationship came first, and in some ways, would always come first.

And after they had risked their lives to save me and Daryl from the jungle, I owed them something, didn't I? Not to mention that theirs was one of the best working police partnerships I had ever seen.

I finally growled something about how they better not hurt each other and to keep it out of the station, and waved Jim on.

The reunion turned into another sorry mess where I was first accused of murder and then got shot, and Jim and Blair once again hauled my ass out of the fire, this time much more literally than I care to recall. If I hadn't decided before, that certainly clinched it. I would do whatever it took to deflect any flak they got if their relationship ever got out, and keep them working together as a team.

In the following months, they never gave me any cause to regret my decision.

Once again, it was Jim who rippled up the waves. When it comes to this relationship, he always appears to be the instigator.

See, Sandburg really likes flirting with women, and going out for coffee / lunch / movie / dinner / whatever with them, and just because he was with Jim now, didn't seem to him was a reason he should stop. From what I was able to weasel out of Jim, that's how he always has been, liking to spend time with the fairer sex without getting deeply involved.

The problem was, not all women who went out with Sandburg understood that he was only interested in friendship, and got extremely upset when they found out otherwise. Add to that Sandburg's skittishness about telling people about his relationship with Jim, whether because he took seriously my warning to keep it out of the station or for some other reason that I didn't know about, and his life was one unfortunate skirmish after another with the female half of the population.

So when Jim overheard Blair making a "date" with the woman from the FBI as he was being prepared to be airlifted out of the mountains, after another harrowing tangle with the criminal elements that forced Jim and Blair to yet again come to my rescue and left Blair with a gunshot wound to the leg, Jim decided he'd had enough.

A few days after being released from the hospital, Blair showed up at the station, hobbling on clutches, a gold ring around his left ring finger. Of course there was a matching ring on Jim's finger, too. People noticed. Nobody dared comment. Furtive whispers and knowing glances were exchanged around the bullpen. Jim could probably hear the whispered exchanges, but he sat at his desk, looking cool and totally unconcerned, going through his case files and organizing his reports.

Blair was a bit more nervous, but he took his cues from Jim and went about helping with things in his usual way. Then Rafe walked into the bullpen, with some file that he was bringing Jim, and as he handed it over, he said something, in a lightly bantering way, that made Blair's face brighten up like a light bulb, and Jim relaxed back in his chair and said something back in the same joking vein.

That seemed to break the ice, and for a while people took turns drifting to Jim's desk to offer their congratulations and good wishes. I stood watching, from the unobtrusive vantage point of my office, noting who approached them and who stayed away.

I took them out to a nice dinner, and grumbled at Jim.

I steeled myself for the fallout. Trust Jim to turn it into a city-wide frenzy.

Blair had just started walking without his clutches when I received word that Jim had been selected to be honored as Officer of the Year. Knowing how Jim balked at ceremony and public recognition, I schemed to get him to the Civic Banquet without letting him know about it beforehand. I let Blair in on the secret, and he just bubbled with excitement, enthusiastically helping me plan how to trick Jim into coming.

In the end, though, Jim got the best of us. After standing stunned for all of a second at the Mayor's announcement, he grabbed Blair and hauled him along to the front of the room, where he proceeded to introduce Blair to the Mayor before accepting the award. The Mayor then unwisely asked Jim to say a few words. He must have been so surprised he wasn't thinking straight. Or maybe the full import of why Jim had brought Blair along hadn't stuck him.

Anyway, Jim stepped up to the microphone, and said something to the effect that he accepted this honor on behalf of the rest of Major Crimes and his partner, Blair Sandburg, without whose help he wouldn't be here today.

Cameras flashed.

It is sacrilegious and unrespectful in the extreme to thank God for a murder case, but the apparent suicide of Ben Prince, the owner of the racetrack where the Banquet was being held, detracted attention from Jim and Blair. Still, all local papers run pictures of them standing arm in arm, some in a corner of the front page, others in the society news section. The captions invariably identified them as "Detective James Ellison and his partner, Blair Sandburg," the way I had instructed the press department to reply when asked for Blair's identity.

That was a week from hell. Jim was working a case that only he was totally convinced was a murder and not a suicide, where his long-estranged brother was the prime suspect, and Blair had his hands full keeping Jim's emotions from flying off the handle. It's not an easy job, especially when Jim denies even having emotions, but Blair's good at it, and he sticks to his guns. It's one of the major reasons why their partnership works.

That left me to handle all the garbage coming down through the tube.

I maintained a strict no-comment policy, both towards the brass and the mayor's office, and to the reporters and gay-rights organizations that came knocking at the door. Fact: Detective Ellison and Blair Sandburg works together on police cases. Fact: Blair Sandburg is a civilian observer. Fact: They reside at the same address. Anything else is not my business, not the city's business, and certainly not the public's. My voice was hoarse from continuously reciting this spiral.

One particularly persistent gay rights activist somehow managed to make his way into the police station and showed up at my office. The timing could have been worse, but not by much, as we were in the middle of trying to set up a sting, using Herman as a bait to draw out the murderer.

I curtly told the activist to come back another time. Jim, coming into the bullpen, overheard our exchange.

He came up to us and told the guy, "Don't bother. I don't have anything to say to you."

The guy was certainly persistent, you have to give him that. "Detective Ellison," he insisted, "If you will just consider what it will mean to the gay rights movement to have somebody in as prominent a position as yourself speaking up for us..."

"I don't speak for anybody," Jim interrupted. "I like to keep my private life, private."

"If so, why did you acknowledge Blair Sandburg as your partner in public?" The guy seemed genuinely puzzled.

"Because he deserves to be acknowledged," Jim responded. He turned to go.

"Detective Ellison," the guy called out, "I understand this is a bad time, but could we please meet later, talk it over before you make a final decision?"

"You know," Jim said, "If Sandburg were a woman, nobody would brink an eye. That's all I'm asking."

"And that's what we are working for, Detective," agreed the activist, "but we are not there yet."

"Well, let me know when you get there," said Jim, "and in the meanwhile, don't bug us, okay?"

He left.

That was a couple of months ago. The hubbub over Jim and Blair's relationship has died down considerably. The brass and the mayor's office are still miffed over it. It's not likely that Jim will be getting the Officer of the Year award again anytime soon. But again, depending on the political climate, somebody might decide it's good public relations to honor a gay cop. Both Jim and I have strictly enjoined Sandburg, on several occasions, to immediately report to us any harassment he gets, no matter how minor or innocuous. So far everything he has experienced have been both minor and innocuous. He deals with them like he does everything else, with a sharp wit and dramatic flare that usually leaves the would-be harasser gasping for breath. Not many people dare mess with Ellison, and the few that did were quickly put in place. Things are getting back to normal around here -- or what passes for normal anyway. I understand that Jim's reconciled with his brother, and that they get together him from time to time, sometimes just the two of them, but often than not, they include Blair.

We've just wrapped up another case, in the course of which a prominent human rights activist exposed the President of her country for the despot and mass murderer he is. We sit side-by-side in my office, sipping coffee and watching the news as they show the disgraced and disposed ex-President being deported to face charges for his atrocities. The newscaster reports that the ex-President has asked to be tried in the United States for the crimes he committed here.

"I guess he likes our jails better." Jim comments.

"Speaking of jails," I say, "I thought you said the FBI picked up Gustavo." I'm referring to the slippery but likable South American mob-boss who somehow got mixed up in the middle of things.

"Yeah," Jim answers, "right after the shooting."

"Well, I checked." I say, "Nobody called the FBI."

"Are you sure?" Jim asks.

"Yeah," I respond. "You know that's how he got away from us last time."

The faintest of smiles ghosts Jim's lips. "Well," he says, "he did say he was a creature of habit."

We sip our coffee.

I look out to the bullpen and notice the human rights activist, Genevieve Benet, talking to Blair. They are probably saying goodbye. Blair's been sticking with her like water ever since she came into town. As she refused to accept police protection even after being warned of a possible assassin after her life, I had hoped that Blair's affinity with her might eventually allow him to persuade her to accept our protection. Failing that, Blair's presence with her was better than nothing. But, I wonder...

"Jim," I ask, "Weren't you worried about Blair spending all that time with Benet?"

"Nah," Jim drawls, "He loves me."

"Sorry I asked," I say.

We sip our coffee.