When Jim Ellison was a kid, not long after his mother had split, he used to wake up in the middle of the night when Steven had nightmares. He never knew how he knew Steven was upset -- he could hear him, but he didn't know how -- but he'd wake with a start and creep across the hall and find his brother out of bed, huddled up in a corner of his room, crying quietly: "no, no, mom, mommy, no, no, no ..." Jim had never known what to say at such times; what do you tell a seven-year-old kid that will make him feel better about his mother's abandoning him? What, when you're ten and you don't feel great about it yourself? When you know it's not your fault, yours and your brother's, but your father blames the both of you because he won't blame her and it's easier than blaming himself? So Jim would shake Steven gently and make him get back in bed, and shush him until he quit crying, and wait for him to fall asleep again. That was his job, that was the big brother's job, to take care of his little brother. That was his job.

In the army, in Covert Ops, he'd found the same thing -- Captain Ellison took care of his team just the way Jimmy Ellison had taken care of Stevie when they were kids. Young kids he got in his unit sometimes, really young, and sure they'd had the special training, but as tough as they were when the adrenaline was pumping, they crumpled like wrapping paper when they had two minutes together to think about where they were. At nights, when they could, they normally handled it by drinking themselves into cathartic states, and Jim -- Captain Ellison -- took care of them, because that was his job. But god, when the chopper went down in Peru, jesus, there'd been screaming and sobbing and he could remember Correlli's voice, Davey Correlli, the youngest guy in the outfit, who was in shock: "no, mom, god, no, mom, god, mom ..." Guys who were dying always called for their mothers. Davey Correlli died quickly. Jim remembered wondering if, when he was dying, he'd call for his mother -- if he'd forget that he knew she wouldn't come.

But he didn't die. He came back to the States, and became a police detective, and took care of other people. That was his job. One brother, a handful of guys in his unit, many citizens of Cascade, and his job was to take care of them. And then along had come Blair Sandburg, this wild-haired, multi-pierced, flannel-wearing yogurt-eating bookish pencil geek -- if anyone had ever needed taking care of -- but he was there to take care of Jim. Detective Ellison had to think outside the box. Turned out it wasn't because he was a detective, or because he'd been in command of a unit, or because his mother had run away, that he was irresistibly inclined to take care of people. Or so Sandburg said. Turned out it was because he had it in his blood. He'd thought he was good at taking care of people because he was a protective sort in the first place; turned out he was a protective sort because he was supposed to take care of people. The Sentinel. Right. And Blair was supposed to take care of him. The Guide. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes. Sure. What it was, was they were supposed to take care of each other.



Jim could tell, as he slid the key into the front door lock, that Sandburg had company. He'd have to yell at him about that in the morning. He narrowed his eyes. Two heartbeats, both accelerating from calm and steady toward excited, keeping pace with -- he was halfway through the front door when Blair's heart rate spiked sharply, signaling a shift from arousal to distress. Didn't think there was much that could surprise him, Jim thought with a snort -- but all the same, he froze in place, waiting until he could hear Blair's heartbeat settle down again.

It didn't, and Jim heard the unmistakable thud of a body meeting a floor, and that was enough. He took the living room in three steps, flung open the french doors, and hit the switch for the overhead light. "Holy hell," he whispered.

Blair Sandburg huddled against his wall, clad only in jockey shorts, legs snarled in his top sheet, one arm wrapped around his knees and the other hand flat on the floor, whispering, "god, god, no, no, god, no, god ..." Between him and his bed, kneeling, her face a picture of concern, naked as the day she was born, was Naomi Sandburg. His mother.

His mother! Holy hell!

Naomi saw Jim first; she pulled the top sheet, the sheet tangling Blair's feet to the foot of his bed, around her body, much too late. Blair looked up at him, eyes crazed, kicking madly at the sheet, desperate to be rid of it. "What in the --" Jim said, but before he could finish his question, Blair had freed his legs and pitched himself past Jim and into the living room.

"Blair!" Naomi cried, leaning forward to watch him scurry across the floor. Blair didn't stop; he scrambled on all fours, occasionally trying to stand up as he hurried, but his forward momentum was such that he never gained enough balance to run. He tipped forward and his legs slid out from under him again. He flung himself into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind him. Jim didn't know if Naomi could hear the lock, but he doubted she could miss the sound of her son vomiting.

"Don't move," Jim growled, noting with satisfaction the alarm in Naomi's eyes. She sat back on her heels as he spun around and shut the french doors.

Had to take care of Blair. Jim ran to the bathroom door and tried the handle, though he knew it was locked. "Sandburg," he called. No answer. "Blair, it's Jim," he said, unnecessarily. "Can you let me in?" The kid threw up again. "Come on, kid, lemme give you a hand," Jim went on. He could hear Sandburg shivering in there, and crouched down in an absurd attempt to approach him on the same level. He gentled his voice with an effort. "Sandburg, open the door."

In rapid stop-motion, Jim heard the french doors to Blair's room open, heard Naomi's sandal-footed canter across the living room to where she'd dropped her bag, and saw her sweep past him and bolt out the door. "Shit!" He leapt to his feet. "Okay, Sandburg, don't go anywhere, I'll be right back."

Naomi Sandburg was quick, but Jim was bigger and better-trained; even her lifetime of flight-before-fight hadn't conditioned her to be able to outrun him when she was carrying an overnight bag and he was mainlining adrenaline. He caught up with her at the door to the stairwell and grabbed her elbow. "Damn it all," he swore as he hauled her back and slammed her to the wall -- she screamed once, but he didn't care -- tossing her around like a rookie taking down his first perp. "What do the words 'Don't move' mean to you, Naomi, huh?"

"You can't --"

"Shut up. All I want you to tell me is what the FUCK was just going on in my apartment."

"I was so wrong, so wrong before, ruined his life, shouldn't have done it --"

"This has happened before?"

She paused to roll her eyes at him. "The paper, Jim, the paper. I was so wrong. And he was so angry. I was afraid I'd lost him, he didn't love me, didn't, couldn't, and I had to know ..."

Jim glared at her. "You had to know what?"

"I didn't believe him when he told me he still loved me. I needed him to show me."

Jim took a step away from her; he couldn't keep the look of disgust from his face. "He's your son, Naomi." She blinked back at him, and his fury erupted. "He's your SON! How could you even think he wouldn't love you until the day one of you dies? You're his mother! And Jesus Christ, Naomi, for the same reason, how could you think he'd desire you? He wouldn't have gone quite so apeshit if he'd known what to expect, would he, so you must have sneaked it up on him -- what the hell were you thinking?! I know he's a level-headed guy, I know in spite of everything you raised him right, so you must have just lost your mind recently, is what I'm thinking --"

"Jim --"

"But this running away thing, Naomi, it's got to fucking stop. Have you spent your whole life running when shit got too much for you, or just Blair's whole life? Huh? You can't flee all the time, Naomi. Sometimes you have to face the music. God knows I know that. --"

"Jim --"

"Shut up. You don't know how fortunate you are that I didn't just deck you down those stairs. I take good care of Blair, and when people fix it so I can't, I get pretty angry. And unfortunately for you, I'm an officer of the law. As far as I'm concerned, you're under arrest."

"I'm pretty sure you can't --"

"Shut up." Jim thought fast. "That's my place you let yourself into tonight." He grabbed her wrist and squeezed. "You better believe I'll have the locks changed if you don't shut up and listen to me. You're already persona non grata at the station and the university for that stunt with your publisher friend -- I can fix it pretty easily so it's awfully damn difficult for you to get within five hundred yards of Blair for a very long time, Naomi, and if you can't get within five hundred yards of him, you can't explain to him that you're off your rocker and owe him an apology you'll probably never be qualified to give." He yanked her arm toward him. "Got me?"

Her face was contorted as she nodded. "Jim, you're hurting me."

"Right now," he whispered through clenched teeth, "I'm finding it really hard to give a damn. Come on." He gave one sharp tug and the two of them were trotting back to the loft.

---

Blair Sandburg was torn. He really rather desperately wanted to be more dressed than he was, wanted to wrap up against the chill he felt when he thought of Naomi's hands on him -- his stomach lurched again and he leaned over the toilet -- but all his clothes were in his room, and he so didn't want to be in that room right now. Even his emergency backpack, the bag he kept under his bed (and in his car and in his office), the bag Naomi had taught him to keep ready -- he gagged and spit and sobbed once or twice -- was in his room. He couldn't go in that room and not see the bed, not see the sheet twisted off it -- god, and Naomi, covering up as an afterthought, covering her flushed skin but not her her tousled hair or her swollen lips -- he was dry heaving now. He had nothing left to get rid of.

Blair grabbed both ends of a towel and used it to pull himself up to his feet. He rinsed his mouth out and splashed water on his face, wrapped the towel around his waist. At least it was something. He stared hard at the mirror and told himself firmly to get a grip. You're thirty-one years old, Sandburg, he thought. Shake it off.

But he couldn't silence the other voice in his head, the gut-reaction voice, the voice speaking for the part of his mind that remembered every single time Naomi had ever said "You'll always be my little boy, Blair." Blair shut his eyes. GOD! the voice said. He covered his ears, which of course didn't help. Mom and -- her son and -- sleeping and -- not just that! Sleeping! Woke up to -- rape! My mother was raping me! ("You'll always be my little boy, Blair.") GOD!

"Blair?" It was Jim's voice. Blair hadn't heard him return. He looked at the bathroom door, but didn't answer. "How you doing, kid?"

"I don't --"

"Blair, sweetie, I --" Naomi.

"Get out!" Blair had been about to reach for the doorknob, but drew back until he felt the bathtub behind his heels. He wrapped his arms around his chest and yelled at the door. "Get out! Get her out of here! What the hell is the matter with you?!" And though he knew his stomach was empty, he choked and gagged and tried to throw up.

He could hear both their voices, and wished sincerely for Jim's ability to dial his hearing down. After Jim's no-nonsense "And don't move," the man stepped back to the other side of the bathroom door. "Blair, I'm going to take care of this, okay? You be all right for about a half-hour?"

Blair nodded, then remembered Jim couldn't see him through the door. (Enhanced vision, yes. X-ray vision, no. Sentinel, not Superman.) "Yeah."

"Okay. I'll be back."

He heard Jim close and lock the front door, and waited ten more minutes -- counting to sixty and back in as many languages as he could remember how to count in -- before clutching his towel around his waist and opening the bathroom door.

God, he could have cried. Sitting on the floor, within his reach, was a neat stack of clothes. Blair snatched it up and dressed faster than he could ever remember dressing before. Changed his underwear and socks. Blue jeans. T-shirt. Flannel. Sweater. Belt. Jim had thought of everything. Hair tie. He threw the towel and the discarded clothes in the hamper and stepped out into the living room. The french doors were closed. The bag that had been under his bed was next to his shoes by the front door.

But he couldn't leave -- Jim was going to come back, and if Blair were gone when he returned, Jim would freak right out, and Blair's job was to take care of Jim -- and besides, where would he go? (His whole life, he and Naomi had split when they had to, and when he was a kid the one thing that had bugged Naomi was that he'd always asked where they were going. They were both travelers, but only he cared that they have a destination. Must have gotten that from his father.)

Blair curled up in a corner of the sofa, feet tucked up under him and arms wrapped around himself, and stared at the coffee table and tried very hard to think about nothing at all.

---

Jim twisted the key in the lock and shouldered the door open. He could hear Blair's sharp, slight gasp, and when he got inside he could see the kid on the couch, tense like a bow-string, and he could have kicked himself. "Sorry. Guess I should have knocked."

Blair relaxed a little, looked at the coffee table, tried to shrug. Jim closed the door, locked it, dropped his keys in the basket, hung up his jacket. "I took her down to Central and booked her for trespassing," he said, though Blair hadn't asked. "I know some people down there who'll sit on it and make sure the word doesn't get around." Blair nodded his thanks, but didn't look up.

Jim looked at him for a moment, rejected several options for what to say next, and finally said nothing and went into the kitchen to put water on to boil. What tea did you give a guy who -- he decided to offer Sandburg the peppermint stuff he always gave him to settle his stomach. Hey, if you can't fix the problem, at least you can address the symptoms. He'd learned that when he was a medic.

Sandburg got up and came into the kitchen, and had just pulled a double old-fashioned out of the cupboard when Jim held out the mug of tea. Blair looked at it, smiled slightly, and poured himself two fingers of scotch. He tossed that back and poured again before putting the bottle away and going back to sit on the couch, and Jim could see that he'd probably have to drink the tea himself.

He sat on the coffee table, in front of the couch, where he would have been eye-to-eye with Sandburg if the kid hadn't been staring determinedly into the depths of his whiskey. "Has it happened before?" he finally asked.

"Jim, you can't imagine how much I don't want to talk about this."

"Sorry. Sorry." He laid a hand on Blair's knee. "What can --"

"Please don't touch me." Blair pulled away with a jerk.

Jim sighed. "You're not making this easy for me, Chief."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Jim. What can I do to make you more comfortable in this situation?" He finished his whiskey and got up, storming into the kitchen.

Jim followed him. "Look, Sandburg, I know how you must feel right now, and all I --"

Well, that got his attention, Jim thought, as Blair turned around and glared at him. "How. The hell. Can you know how I feel? When was the last time you woke up with your mother in your bed and her tongue down your throat? Huh? Was it right after she'd ruined your future and belittled you in front of your friends and generally let you down in every available way? Or was it some other time? Because if it wasn't then, I think you're mistaken, man, I don't think you have a very good read on how I feel right now."

"Oh, that's right. I don't know anything about trust and betrayal."

"That's not --"

"My marriage didn't end before I had a chance to try to fix it. Silly me."

"Look --"

"And the whole Covert Ops thing with the army abandoning us in Peru -- walk in the park."

"Jim, would you --"

"No, I guess the fact that my mother left me when I was a child pretty much disqualifies me from any knowledge of how it feels to have your concept of your mother revised from the ground up."

"What are you trying to do, Jim, huh? Fine. You know how I feel. I still don't want to talk about it." He stomped back to the couch and reclaimed his corner of it.

"Too bad. You're going to." Jim winced. That hadn't sounded quite the way he'd intended it to. Blair looked over his shoulder and glared at him again. "How am I supposed to help you out if you don't talk to me?"

"I don't need your help."

"Like hell. I'm not leaving you alone like this."

"Like what? Leaving me alone like what? Jim, am I out of control in any way?"

He hated when Sandburg got like this. The kid knew about his protective instincts -- had been the one to tell him they were instincts and he shouldn't fight them. "No."

"Am I screaming, breaking things, anything like that?"

"No."

"Did you see me quit after two drinks just now?"

"Yes."

"So what exactly is the 'this' that you won't leave me like? What in the world makes you think I can't take care of myself?"

"How about the fact that you're not yourself right now? Yeah, sure, everything you said, you're not drinking or breaking things or flinging yourself off the balcony, but you're also not talking a mile a minute and pacing around the room and gesturing like a sign language interpreter, and that's not right." Jim did pace around the room and gesture like a sign language interpreter as he spoke. Blair snorted and looked away. Jim sat on the love seat, in the corner adjacent to Blair. "And besides, taking care of yourself isn't all it's cracked up to be. Believe me, I know. Nobody should have to -- even the guy whose job is to take care of everybody. My roommate taught me that."

Blair didn't speak for a long moment. Jim watched his eyes as the ideas occurred to him and he sorted them into neatly-reconciled order. Finally he knit his brow and pursed his lips and said "Okay, so I can dish it out but I can't take it. What do you want me to talk about?"

Jim shrugged. "I'm playing this by ear, Sandburg. You're the one with the answers." That earned him a wry smile. "Tell me what happened."

"You saw what happened."

"No I didn't. Tell me."

Blair swallowed and sighed. "She -- I was asleep, I guess, and dreaming. And in the dream, I was ... and it was good, but the ol' synapses pulled me up out of it. And I pushed her away so hard I fell out of the bed, and she hurried to try to -- I don't know, to explain to me, or something, but I had to get away from her, and I know that's where you came in."

"And then what?"

"Dammit, Jim --"

"Look, you threw up, right? Because you felt physically sick. But isn't your overeducated mind turning over just as much as your idiot stomach was an hour ago? Don't you have stuff in there you want to get rid of? Haven't you learned anything from all the preaching at me you've been doing all these years? Let it out, god damn you, and I promise me you'll feel better!"

"HOW COULD SHE DO THIS TO ME?!"

That was it. He was off now. Jim sat back into the cushions and watched his roommate, his partner, his friend, as Blair hopped to his feet and began walking laps between the front door and the back wall, and he felt like a jerk for not listening to every word the guy was saying -- "-- LIFE, IT'S ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT HER --" but frankly, he hadn't wanted to take a good look at the regurgitated contents of Blair's stomach either. He was glad to have induced the rant, and would sit and be sure Blair was okay and metaphorically hold his hair back from his face until he was through -- and then he'd help him get cleaned up and hold him and they'd decide what to do next. But he wouldn't listen, not attentively. "-- OKAY TO BE STRANGE, BUT SHE NEVER STOOD UP TO THE --"

Hold him? Where the hell had that come from? Jim blinked, and heard "-- SAID, WHEN IT'S YOU AGAINST THE WORLD, I'LL BE ON YOUR SIDE --" and shook his head rapidly. He'd help Sandburg get cleaned up and decide what to do next. That was what he'd meant to think. You can't decide what to think, he thought. See? He put that thought aside. "-- TROUBLE WITH HER THINKING OF HERSELF FIRST, BUT WHEN IT'S ACTUALLY JUST NOT THINKING OF ANYONE ELSE AT --"

This was good. Blair would feel much better when he was through. Jim could tell he was wearing himself out, which was all to the good; his shoulders were slumping and he was walking a little slower and his voice, bless his heart, was growing hoarse. Jim's fingers itched to push the stray curl off Blair's forehead and back behind his ear, to smooth his hand over Blair's overheated forehead and --

Jim scratched the back of his neck and carefully dialed up his sense of touch to see if he could tell whether Sandburg had a fever. That must have been where that forehead thing had come from -- and it was possible that the stress had elevated his temperature in a way his body couldn't handle. "-- THINKS SHE MEANS WELL, BUT ACTUALLY ISN'T THINKING AT ALL --" Instead, he found that while Blair was indeed radiating warmth due to hyperactivity and a higher-than-normal pulse rate, his actual body temperature was normal. See? the voice in his mind whispered. See?

Sandburg was winding down. "-- KICK HER FROM HERE INTO NEXT WEEK, WHICH IS PRETTY IMPRESSIVE!" Jim dialed back his hearing, slowly, adjusting so he could listen comfortably to Sandburg's raised voice. "BUT IT'S THE LAST straw, man, I mean, on top of everything else and it makes so many things lies! I don't think I can look at her again -- but she'll just blithely assume I've forgiven her and go about her life, and drive some other knife in my ribs a year from now. Still, I guess everything she'll ever do after this will pale in comparison ..."

He stopped speaking and flopped back down onto the couch, looking curiously at Jim and cocking his head to one side. "You promise you I'll feel better? What does that mean?"

The words sounded quiet, faraway. Jim dialed his hearing back up. "What does what mean? Do you feel better?"

"As a matter of fact, I do, but you said 'I promise me you'll feel better.' So it seems you've told yourself the truth on this one." Blair laughed out loud. "That's my roommate. Honest to a fault. Won't even lie to himself."

Jim grinned cautiously. "But I had to count on you to keep my promise to myself," he said, though he wasn't sure Sandburg could hear him.

"And leave it to me to still be stuck on one tiny grammatical quirk, like, five minutes later!" Blair howled.

"I wouldn't have expected anything else." I promised me he'd feel better? But I wasn't the one who needed reassuring ... "But you do feel better now, huh?" (See?)

"I really do, man. I still don't want to think about -- ugh -- but yeah, I guess I just needed to freak out and get it over with."

"You need to -- wait, let me rephrase ... you should think about whether you want to bring charges against her, because you'll need to do it soon if --"

"Charges? I thought you said you already booked her?"

"For trespassing. That was all I could hold her on, since I didn't see the -- I didn't get here right away. But you could swear out a warrant for sexual assault, if you wanted to. It's a misdemeanor, but it's still some time --"

"Time?! I'm not sending my mother to prison, man."

"It'll keep her from --"

"It'll keep her from me, and I can do that myself."

"Ah, but --"

"We can do that ourselves, then." Jim smiled. "There's no pattern of behavior here, Jim, and she doesn't have other sons who need to be protected from her, and locking her in a box for a year and a half or whatever isn't going to fix whatever's wrong with her."

"Would that be the longest she'd ever stayed in one place?"

"No, but it'd be the first time since before I was born that she wasn't the one deciding where and why she was going to stay."

"And that would be a bad thing?" Blair rolled his eyes and scooted up to sit fully on the couch, drawing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. "No, seriously, Chief. In order for anything to fix whatever's wrong with her, like you said, she's going to have to sit still for some length of time. Locking her in a box won't work by itself, no, but if she's going to tear off on her own otherwise, you might have to do it. You can't give a kid a vaccine if you don't know when he's going to hop off the table." Jim leaned forward, managing with an effort to resist reaching over and taking one of Blair's hands in his own.

Blair covered his face with both of those hands. "But if I promise her not to press charges if she gets treatment, it'll kill her," he said. "She knows I know how important being unfettered is to her. It'll --"

"You knew she knew how important that degree was to you."

"That's right," Blair snapped, dropping his hands and turning the familiar glare on Jim, "and I know how it felt when she betrayed me and ruined it. I don't want to cause the same grief for her that she caused for me. I'm better than she is." He shut his eyes and dropped his forehead against his knee. "But because I'm better than she is, I'm miserable and she's oblivious. How could she do this to me?"

Jim began to note the sinking feeling that he wasn't going to like the way his thoughts were going to turn out. You can't decide what to think, his mind reminded itself, and you won't always like the result. He sighed. Protective instinct was one thing; romantic interest in one's emotionally-troubled roommate was quite another. He suspected he was in love with Blair, suspected he really would do anything for him -- and suspected that the worst thing he could do would be to say so. Another reversal of expectations, another shock, was the last thing Blair needed right now. "Miserable?" he asked quietly.

"No, man. But pretty close. Look what she's done. In the past month, she's single-handedly brought nearly my entire life crashing down around my ears." He counted off on his fingers. "The paper -- blew my cover, ruined my academic career. The station -- called my skills into question, ruined my rep with pretty much everyone but Simon. This --" He shuddered, and got up to go back again into the kitchen to wash out his whiskey glass. "Thank god she hasn't gotten to you, Jim. You're, like, the only thing left I can count on."

And Jim's suspicions were confirmed. He shut his eyes tightly and counted to three. "Don't worry about me, Chief," he said. "I'll never let you down."

When he opened his eyes, Blair was beaming at him. "You're the best, man," the kid said, and Jim's heart lurched. Blair ducked down the hall to the closet and came back with an armful of bedding, which Jim supposed wasn't surprising; he passed the doors to his room, though, and started draping the sheets over the sofa cushions.

Jim stood up and watched him uncertainly. "Chief?"

"Hmm?"

"What are you doing?"

"It's like four in the morning, Jim. I can still catch about three hours of sleep. Aren't you tired?" He paused; Jim's don't-start-chattering-now-Sandburg-you-know-what-I-mean look had its effect. "Not tonight," he whispered. "Too creepy. I'll go in there tomorrow, when it's light, and -- I don't know, flip the mattress or something. But I won't sleep a minute in there now. Better out here." He tucked in the top sheet and surveyed his handiwork, then took his hair down and pulled off only his sweater and his belt before crawling into his makeshift bed. "Aren't you tired?" he repeated with a yawn.

"Yeah," Jim lied. "Guess I'd better hit the rack. You give a yell if you need anything, okay?"

"Mm-hmm," Blair nodded, as the first of the whiskey arrived at his head. He pulled the blanket up to his chin and burrowed sleepily into the spare pillows. "'Night," he murmured.

"Good night, Chief," Jim said. He went through his comforting routine of checking the locks on the windows and the door, then climbed up the stairs to the loft. He forced himself to lie on his back and look at the skylight rather than look through the railing and watch Sandburg sleeping; he lay there for a long time, listening to Sandburg's breathing, waiting until he was sure the kid was well and truly asleep, before stealing down the stairs again and slipping over to the closet and then back through the french doors. He had Sandburg's sheets changed -- mattress flipped and all -- in about four minutes, and stepped across the hall to shove the old ones in the hamper before going back up the stairs to his room, undressing, and climbing into bed. He took a deep breath and put all thoughts beyond Sandburg-is-my-friend firmly to the back of his mind. I can decide what to think, he told himself. You watch me. I'm better than she is.

---

Blair was too tired to be surprised that he slept like a stone.

---

Comments always welcome!