Jarred awake, Blair lay perfectly still in the darkness except for a stealthy grab for his knife underneath his pillow, chasing after the disjointed impression of pain and sorrow that had roused him. It faded completely even as he reached for it, and he leaned up on his elbow, frowning as he realized that he was alone in the bed. For a split second, panic warred with common sense, then he stomped panic down firmly, stubbornly telling himself that it was a good thing that Jim had finally recovered enough to leave the bedroom on his own.
Not that Blair minded always having his lover within arm's reach; fact was he had been as insistent as Jim about not having much space between them. He didn't have to be told it wasn't exactly healthy, but under the circumstances, he'd been willing to shove his nagging concern aside in favor an out pouring of physical reassurance that had been more than necessary on both sides. Reluctantly he lay back down, not even pretending to go back to sleep.
About the time Blair started thinking of creative excuses to go looking for him, Jim ghosted into the bedroom, bare feet making no more noise than the door did as it silently opened and closed. "Hey, everything okay?" Blair asked quietly, not really expecting an answer of any kind.
True to recent form, Jim only shed his jeans and crawled into bed with him, not acknowledging the comment with so much as a change of expression. Once in bed, he bent over Blair, quickly patting him over, as he always did now when they'd been parted, even for a moment. This time, Blair did his own share of patting, trying that way to communicate to Jim his shared dislike of waking alone, not knowing where his partner was.
Radiating a vague sense of amusement, Jim put up with the going-over, waiting until Blair gave a sharp nod of satisfaction before giving him the kiss that ended the ritual. Blair both loved and hated that part. He loved it because Jim kissed him as if he were an epicurean delight to be savored and lingered over, leaving Blair ready and weak, nerves tingling madly. He hated it because kissing was all Jim wanted. With whatever impulse it was that made it an essential part of checking Blair over satisfied, he contentedly curled up on his side, arm and leg over him, almost instantly asleep again.
Blair's careful attempts in the past few days to encourage Jim to go past kisses had been met with a kind of blank resistance, like a film of water flowing over highly polished stone, leaving no visible trace of itself or the attempt. Blair didn't dare press him too hard; both intuition and intimate knowledge of Jim himself forbade it. The frustration, however, mixed into his overall worry and fear for his mate, made a return to sleep almost impossible.
Carefully turning to his stomach, only to have Jim automatically adjust to his position, Blair silently thumped his pillow, irritation growing. Damn it, Jim didn't even seem to know the state he'd gotten him in, which only made matters worse, as far as Blair was concerned. Pure desperation had apparently allowed him to share Jim's sight before his rescue, and Jim had instantly taken up the burden of shielding him without so much as a misstep the moment they touched amidst the wreckage of Bolger's work. Yet there was no feel of him in Blair's mind, no knowing his needs without being told.
The spongy webbing that had been in place in Cascade had become a solid wall that baffled any attempt Blair made to penetrate it. Nor were Jim's senses taking up the slack in monitoring Blair; as far as he could tell, they were completely off -line. Which undoubtedly explained the compulsion to make sure Blair was well and unharmed after they'd been separated, but was absolutely no help in figuring out what was wrong with Jim and fixing it!
Turning again, this time to face him, Blair couldn't help but wish that simple patience and care could do as much for Jim's mind as it was for his body. The hideous bruises on the left side of his face were already beginning to fade, and the 'skin glue' that Sam used to repair his torn and battered ear had done such a good job that in a year it would take sentinel-sharp eyes to see the scars, and the cuts from the scalpel were healing nicely as well. The same could be said for the deep, wicked abrasions on Jim's wrists and ankles from the restraints they used on him. Even if Jim's natural inclination wasn't to fight, some of the other things they'd done to him made struggling against the manacles inevitable, causing more harm than possibly even Bolger had anticipated.
Holding down a pained sigh, Blair touched one of the many pinpoint burns from the tazar they had used on Jim. It was the Devil's own luck Bolger had discovered that electrical shock was the one thing Jim couldn't turn the dial down on, or stoically endure thanks to Ranger training. From what Sam had told him, once Bolger knew that, the tazar was both a tool to force Jim's cooperation, and another 'experiment' for him to perform. That alone made Blair want to go back in Time just long enough to kick the bastard in the nads. Repeatedly.
With a feather light touch to a hideously burned nipple, Blair twisted away to lie on his stomach again, not able to look at the reminders of Bolger's cruelty a moment longer. It didn't stop him from dwelling on the damage, though. Much as he hated to admit it, the physical wounds were nothing to the accumulated battering Jim's sentinel abilities had taken. Overdosed, half-suffocated, beaten, starved, dehydrated, subjected to extremes of temperature, light, sound, sensation, and everything else Bolger could dream up to throw at him to provoke an extreme response - it was no surprise that the sentinel part of him had mostly shut down. But why was so much of Jim himself gone, too?
Blair scrubbed a hand over eyes that were beginning to burn from exhaustion, but his brain refused to stop hashing over everything Sam had told him about Bolger's experiments and everything he personally knew about sentinels. Despite all the years of experience Blair had as guide and shaman for Jim, nothing explained why he should be so fragmented and impassive. Part of him was acting on sentinel traits, such endlessly patrolling the boundaries of the grounds. Part of him was acting on normal needs, like staying as close as possible to Blair. And yet another part of him wasn't like anything in Blair's admittedly extremely diverse experience with human beings. For instance, why had his sexuality gone so completely dormant?
Which, of course, brought him right back to the beginning, and Blair punched his pillowed before resolutely closing his eyes and consciously slowing his breathing to long counts in and out. For a moment he thought he heard Jim chuckle, and Jim's fingers crept into Blair's hair at the nape of his neck, lightly scratching in a way that sent waves of relaxation down his spine. Almost against his will, Blair nodded off, finding enough peace to rest, if not sleep deeply.
The raucous morning calls of the birds brought him out of his light doze, and Blair slipped out of bed, doing his best not to disturb Jim. He wanted to have one more go at picking Sam's brains, and preferred Jim not listen in to that particular conversation. It was bad enough he had lived it; he didn't need to hear a scientific breakdown of the results.
After tending to morning needs, Blair went into the family room on route to the kitchen, and ground to a dead stop just at the threshold. Sam was seated on one of the stools at the counter that separated the two rooms, laughing, and Al was standing between his spread legs, grinning widely, obviously at a joke at Sam's expense. It was hardly the first time he had seen the two of them teasing each other that way, but it was the first time since their horrible fight while camping near Bolger's compound.
Without thinking, Blair spun on his heel and ran for the garden door, unsurprised that there was no startled, worried call from either of his friends. They were too wrapped up in each other to have noticed that he had been there. Not that he would have stopped or turned around, and at least he was spared explanations for his behavior later.
Once outside, he aimed for the Japanese style section of the gardens, plunking himself down on the bench beside the koi pond. Gasping for breath from his rush - or so he insisted to himself - Blair tried to order his thoughts, roughly asking himself why he was so upset that Sam and Al had made up.
"It's not as though you want them to be miserable," Blair said to himself in disgust. "Or that it isn't a good thing that they've gotten things right between them. As isolated as they are from normal society, they can't afford to be at odds with each other."
Hugging himself as if he'd been punched in the stomach, Blair gasped, then admitted in a raw, shaky voice, "But, god, it hurts to see them so together. It hurts!"
After long days and longer nights of dealing with fear for Jim, Joel's betrayal, the constant emotional onslaught from other people, and so many deaths, Blair finally gave into tears, brought down by the sight of a joy that was so like the one he missed and longed for with all his heart. With a soft hiccup, he dropped his chin to his chest and let himself cry, brokenly promising himself that he would get it out of his system, get it over and done with, then go back inside and be glad for his friends. And he was, he was, but he was allowed to feel sorry for himself, just for a few minutes wasn't he?
It didn't take Blair long to wind down to dry sobs, mostly because he hated crying so much. With a last hitching gulp, he sat up straight with an effort of will, and made himself look at the beauty around him to help settle his mind. The first thing he saw, however, was Jim, almost furtively hanging around at the edge of a tree, coming off as agitated despite his bland expression.
Despite it all Blair couldn’t help a watery smile. Jim's attitude was very familiar from their early days together as brand-new roomies and unsure friends, when he didn't know how much to intrude on Blair's private sorrows, or if he should at all. Back then, Blair hadn't known himself how much he could or would share with Jim. Now, he held out a hand in welcome, not bothering to hide his still-present distress.
Rushing to him, Jim caught Blair's hand and brought it up to his lips for a dry, clearly intended to be comforting kiss, in the middle of his palm. Kneeling beside him, Jim massaged the wrists and fingers he held until Blair's smile was more assured, then wrung a laugh from him by very practically and very typically Jim-like producing a handful of Kleenex for him to blow his nose. Taking it and using it as intended, Blair dried his face with a fist, then ran a hand over the top of Jim's head, appreciating the soft nap of the hair growing back in.
"We're going to make it," Blair said, hoping, if nothing else, his tone got through to his partner. "Even if we never find all the missing parts of you, I know we'll find a way to us to be together and happy. Granted, at the moment I don't have a single clue how we'll manage that, but we will."
Jim's response was a blank look and gentle tug to tell Blair to stand. Doing so, Blair wound an arm around Jim's waist, and let him guide him back to the house. It didn't take a genius or a sentinel to know why Jim wanted to go inside; Blair could smell bacon and a vaguely onion-like odor that said hash browns for breakfast.
"Good thing those two don't usually stay for long," Blair said, trying hard and successfully finding a cheerful air. "Between Al's cooking and your love of anything guaranteed to destroy your arteries, I'd never see you for all the time you'd spend working off the calories in the gym!"
Opening the door for him, Jim ushered him in with a hand on the small of Blair's back and just enough of a push in it to make Blair wonder if he were expressing an opinion, himself. Heartened by the thought and the hope that all he needed to do for Jim was be there and be himself for as long as it took, Blair was able to give Sam a genuine smile as they went into the family room. Sam returned it, but his dimmed after a moment, his eyes narrowing as he studied Blair. Belatedly Blair worried what traces of his personal pity-party were left on his face, but Sam didn't say anything except that breakfast was ready.
Blair knew without being told that it was only a matter of time until Sam spoke to him about it, so when Sam pulled him aside while Jim cleaned up after their meal, he went willingly. To his surprise, Sam took him to a small office just off the master bedroom where a computer had been booted up. For a few minutes, long enough for Blair to get anxious, Sam just stood there, staring at a CD jewel case he was turning over and over in his hands.
Finally Sam gestured for Blair to sit in front of the monitor. "I was hoping to spare you this. I took it from Bolger's computer; he had a video stream direct into his PC from the cameras in the room where Jim was kept. This CD was in the writer, apparently waiting for him to decide whether or not to add the day's… activities… to it, which I did once I saw what it was. You could call it his greatest hits, and the contents say a lot about how mentally unbalanced he was."
Blair swallowed against a wave of nausea, his imagination providing more than enough gruesome possibilities for what was on the CD. "I'm willing to take your word about whether or not I need to see that. It's bad enough seeing the end results."
Nodding once, sharply, Sam said, "No, you don't need to watch him flay the skin from the last three fingers of the left hand of the woman he had last year. Most of the rest of it isn't as horrific as that, but that's strictly a relative measure. But…" He straightened and looked at Blair directly. "You do need to see what happened to Jim just before we got there that evening."
"Why?" Blair asked, deeply unwilling to watch his sentinel being hurt, even after the fact.
"Because," Sam said apologetically, "From everything I know about Panther's history and Jim's, that incident is the major difference between their respective captivities aside from you sharing it, which means it could be the largest contributor to the difference between them now."
"Okay," Blair said through a bone-dry throat that made the word barely understandable. "Okay," he repeated, sounding more normal. "In that case, I don't suppose you could just give me the highlights and leave actually watching it for a later time? A much, much later time."
To his astonishment, Sam blushed, and looked away again. "I think, ah, that you need to be aware of the details; view them in a way that only a person who knows Jim intimately could."
"That doesn't sound good," Blair muttered, but he reached for the mouse to start the DVD, automatically cueing it up to the last file.
The quality of the recording was eerily good; almost professionally so. It started predictably enough, with Jim restrained to the bed, legs spread and eyes held open forcibly with surgical tape, a sheet covering most of his body. The only odd note was the obvious erection tenting the sheet, which stuck to the crown of it from moisture that had plainly been leaking for quite a while. Shortly, two men came in who Blair recognized as the orderly and young man in a lab coat he'd last seen lying dead in the same room. Already in mid-conversation, their words became understandable as they got in range of the microphones.
"… almost pity the poor bastard," the man in the lab coat said.
"Yeah, twenty-four hours straight of the rawest porn I've ever seen, all featuring that psycho bitch we kept last year," the orderly said casually. "Won't let him sleep, perfumes the whole air conditioning system with her woman smell - had a hard-on damn near all day myself, and I know what a hard case ball buster she was."
Dispassionately, without so much as looking at Jim directly, the orderly put a small box on the table next to the bed, and took out a sleeping mask that Blair recognized immediately as the one from their bedroom at the loft. "Wrong, Joel," he said to himself. "Looks like they did take a few very select items."
Sam's hand came down on Blair's shoulder, offering support, and he unashamedly took it. Leaning back into the touch, Blair watched as the orderly took off the surgical tape to blindfold Jim with the mask. Still chatting casually about some of the exploits of the 'psycho bitch' while in custody, he replaced the small, flat pillow under Jim's head with one from home, and peeled off the sheet to leave him naked and exposed.
"Wow, look at that wood," Labcoat said, not without a certain amount of admiration. That thing's damn near a permanent fixture by now."
The orderly snickered in a crude way that set Blair's teeth on edge; experience had told him that particular sound never meant good things for the person who inspired it. "This'll make sure of it. Though I still think if the doc's so hot to have this done, he ought to be the one down here with the KY and dildo."
"Oh, god, no," Blair said, and couldn't help turning away as the orderly took out the small vibrator that Blair liked to use on himself when alone.
A minute or so later, Sam murmured, "It's done. Jim never changed expression or made a sound."
That gave Blair to courage to look back, just in time to see Labcoat hold Jim's nose until he had to open his mouth to breath. Putting in a ball gag, he said conversationally, "No reason to give yourself a headache on top of everything else. Just cooperate, okay?"
That was the last thing on Jim's mind. He had already begun rhythmically twisting his wrists against the restraints; as the gag was tightened down, he began to seriously thrash, bucking forcefully enough that he startled the orderly into taking a step back. With a casual punch in the ribs, he said, "I'd save my energy if I were you; going to be needing it." And used that awful snicker again, making Blair's stomach clench tightly around a breakfast he wished he hadn't eaten.
"Almost over," Sam said, the sympathy in his voice making it all worse somehow.
The orderly left, but not before turning up the sound for a projection that mercifully, Blair couldn't see. The raw sexual noises told him everything he really needed to know about it, then it all took a turn for the strange when the voice making them turned into his. When a woman came in wearing a pair of Blair's boxers and one of his tee-shirts, it got stranger. It wasn't until she cautiously crawled up on the bed with Jim that it all made sense for Blair.
Emotions flat lining, he said emptily, "No. No. No," and repeated himself endlessly while he watched her settle herself over Jim, pulling off the shorts and angling to take his erection inside her. The moment her hand touched Jim to guide him in, Jim howled around the gag, back arching so violently that he literally tossed her off of him. She landed on her backside, cursing, and stood, looking at the door as if wishing she could escape through it. With the grimmest expression Blair had ever seen on a woman about to have sex, she got back up on the bed, but Jim growled, long, low and feral, startling her into immobility.
No longer thrashing, but exerting steady pressure on one manacle, Jim lifted his shoulders clear of the mattress, dark shadows that Blair couldn't see a source for distorting his upper torso. The woman watched in morbid fascination, abruptly shook herself, and scraped her short, dark curls away from her face. "What the hell did that fucker put in my stuff this time?"
Raising her voice and looking up at where the camera was, she said angrily, "You hear me? Stop messing with my stash. I'm a junkie, not a damn guinea pig! Hear me?"
Blair hardly heard her rant. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the sight of his lover slowly raising his arm, the tendons and muscles standing out in relief and looking wrong in a way he couldn't pinpoint. With a sharp rip that could have been flesh as easily as leather, the restraint gave, and Jim clawed away the mask with fingers that really did look like claws. The ball gag was scraped away next, and Jim's lips peeled back from his teeth as he snarled, jerking the woman's attention back to him in time to take a solid, impersonal shove to the middle of her chest to get her away from him. Landing on the floor again, her shirt shredded she scuttled backwards on her backside, screaming, as the door swung open and the orderly rushed in, switchblade in hand.
Sam's hand appeared in Blair's field of vision, and he closed the window on the computer screen, leaving a lingering impression of her screams and the orderly's curses which quickly turned into a different kind of scream. "I think that's all you need to see."
In an odd voice that didn't seem like his own, Blair said, "Female sentinel, neutral territory, biological imperative to mate and spread the genes. Attack the subject first on a primal, non-reasoning level, then introduce familiar stimulus of scent and sound while removing detractors like vision and taste. Theoretically it would have been possible to supplant the primary mate, despite sensory and emotional conditioning."
From a long, long way away, Sam said, "The woman they took had a 'black widow' reputation. She would take on a partner, obviously dominating him or her, running the show, until she got too close to them emotionally, then she'd kill them. So when she took an interest in one of the guards, Bolger encouraged the relationship. She probably hoped it would lead to escape for her eventually; he got a measure of control over her that was useful."
"That was obviously his intent with my sentinel as well," Blair said mechanically. "Did he try it with Panther?"
With a tiny hesitation, Sam said, "Bolger never had the woman sentinel in the other history; she died from exposure to a nerve gas that she was trying to steal. Instead he attempted to force Panther to rape Chief; they had never been lovers at that point. That major difference I mentioned."
"I see." Blair did, too, in a detached, blank sort of way. "Logically, after discovering the psychic connection, it would be interesting and useful to find ways to maximize it. It could also be effective in creating a certain level of command by either withholding or forcing again, depending on the reactions of the subjects."
"Blair?" Sam asked, coming through loudly though his voice was oddly muffled. "Blair?"
"It would be interesting to know if, in this history, he had planned in advance to de… di… ob…" Without any command from his conscious mind to act, Blair stood, mildly surprised that his legs were so shaky. "…take…Jim… JIM!"
He ran, no specific destination in mind, nothing in mind at all but the needy uproar inside him that had never ceased, just been disguised by fear and necessity. That part guided him surely and quickly to Jim, and within seconds Blair had his arms wrapped tightly around Jim's waist, his nose pressed into Jim's sternum hard enough to hurt. The close contact didn't give much relief, but when Jim dropped down on the couch with him, dragging him to sit astride his lap, holding him securely, it was at least enough to let Blair sit quietly while his brain tried to restart.
An odd vibration eventually drew him out of his fugue, mostly because it was coming from Jim. It was a growl of warning, and Blair turned his head enough to see Sam standing a few feet away, Al hovering cautiously in the background, hand cautiously out-stretched toward him. He was saying something, but it took long, wearying seconds for Blair to be able to get enough gray cells working to interpret it into a language he understood.
"…in shock. Do you understand me, Jim? I won't hurt him; you've trusted me in the past to treat him. Trust me now."
Jim rumbled another warning, and Blair slapped weakly at his upper arm. "Stop it. What have I told you about over doing the blessed protector thing?"
Pulling back enough to look down into Blair's face, Jim expressionlessly studied him without easing up on his hold at all, but let Sam come close enough to take Blair's pulse at the throat. It was an only a cursory exam; enough to reassure Sam that Blair was physically recovering. "Please tell me you learned something useful enough to make that worth while," Sam said, guilt pouring off of him.
Fighting the urge to return to his refuge, Blair said, "Yes. We've been thinking that Jim is constantly patting me down to make sure I haven't been hurt while he's gone. He's not; he's making sure I'm really me."
"Of course," Sam said, sitting down next to them so that he could face them, glancing up to smile weakly at Al as he stood behind him, fingers brushing over his head in reassurance. Giving his attention back to Blair, he added, "Hallucinations from the drugs and lack of food and water, then Bolger tried to use his senses against him. For all practical intents and purposes, Jim is back to square one with them."
"Worse," Blair said, frowning thoughtfully, resting his forehead on Jim's shoulder. "Jim's suppressed his senses before without losing any of his ability to function. His ego, for want of a better word, always remained intact. Why not now?"
"Because the attack was psychological as well?" Sam offered. "Look at how you reacted to just the knowledge of Bolger's attempt to destroy your connection with Jim. Could Jim's condition be because of that? He didn't just shut down his senses, he shut down *himself* so that Bolger couldn't touch the part of him given to you."
"Destroy it?" Al said softly, questioningly. He blanched as understanding sunk in, and Blair caught a glimpse of remembered pain and humiliation before Sam half-twisted in his seat, taking Al's hand in his, urging him to sit on the back of the couch. That shut down the pain, if not the memory, and once Sam saw that, he turned his attention back to Blair.
Shaking off a momentary pang of envy that he couldn't do the same for his lover, Blair tightened his hands in Jim's shirt, grateful when he gave a tiny squeeze in return. "Which leaves me with a major problem, since the method he used is the exact same one I would use to repair it, but I don't have that option available to me, thanks to Bolger. What can I possibly use as a replacement?"
"Time?" Sam said hopefully. "Making love may be how you cemented the bond between you, but wasn't just being with Jim enough to give it birth?"
"Time?" Blair asked, then repeated more thoughtfully, "Time." Moving slowly, to give Sam the opportunity to understand what he wanted and decide if he would do it, Blair leaned away from Jim's arms to carefully grip Sam's forearm. When he flinched, but didn't move, Blair carefully chose his words and asked, "Sam, you looked for other sentinels after discovering Jim, right? Did any of the other sentinels ever have to repair their connection with their mates?"
"No," Sam said quickly, though it was obvious that he was already mentally far away. "There are no other sentinels in this era. One woman who had the gifts but not the soul, one young man who did not have the strength, and a child who never lived long enough to grow into what he could have been."
"No sentinels at all?" Al asked, sounding nearly shocked.
"None, as should be, for there are no Shaman to guide them. A few true ones, far from the crush of modern culture, many who try and believe they are, but lack some essential elements. Blair is the only modern shaman." With an almost tangible snap, Sam came back to himself. "One sentinel? One shaman?"
Al shrugged. "If sentinels were common, Jim wouldn't be a big deal. And personally, I always thought anyone who called himself a shaman was just a psychic wannabe or con artist."
Knowing his puzzlement was showing, Blair said, "I thought that more primitive cultures would have them, not that there are many left uncontaminated. The Chopec tribe Jim lived with certainly knew what a sentinel was, and Incacha was definitely the real thing. Can you really know about everybody that's been born in your lifetime?"
Sam got to his feet to pace. "People are Time in a very real way, so apparently I can know, because I tell you, I'm positive. One true sentinel, one modern shaman, and I'm beginning to wonder how huge a coincidence is it that both are involved in the most important part of my life." He stopped in front of Al, staring at him intently. "The most human part of my life… the best part of being human."
"Sam, where are you going with this?" Al asked nervously.
"To be honest, I don't really know yet." Sam became distant again, but in a different way that made Al smile fondly, to Blair's bemusement. Talking more to himself than anyone, he said, "If Time needed a human being to undo the wrong that's been done to it, it might need more than one set of skills. There's so much Wrong; too much for one person to put right by himself…." Sam shot a single, hard penetrating look at Blair and Jim. "You two took it on yourselves before you knew about Leaping. That can't be coincidence, either."
"And you were in Cascade just when we needed you most," Blair said, thinking it through himself. "Al may have been what set Bolger off, but he would have taken Jim sooner or later, and I wouldn't have had you there for help." He caught a whiff of amusement from Al, this time directed at him. Dismissing it because he didn't want to lose his chain of thought, he added, "And we've Leaped with you. Maybe only that once, and we had to have the accelerator, but we did Leap."
"And this all means what?" Al asked, but Blair had a sense that he only asked to prod him and Sam into more thinking.
"That Jim and Blair are part of Time as well, but in a different way. Why else would Blair be able to help me 'see' better when I'm reaching for information," Sam said confidently. "And while doing it, he was able to link with Jim well enough to use his sight. Which means that I think I know a way to find a sentinel who knows how to help Jim."
"Of course!" Blair said exultantly. "Jim himself! What do I need to do?"
Sitting back down next to them, Sam took Al's hand and laid the other on Blair's arm. "Al, put your free hand on Jim's shoulder."
"Bringing him into the circuit," Al said, doing as asked.
As soon as the four of them were touching, Blair could feel a surge of what could only be called power, recalling the rush that he had felt when he spirit walked. It was more subdued, but, at the same time more controlled. With it came the knowledge of what must be done, and he framed Jim's face with his hands before kissing him gently. Jim returned it instantly, as if he'd been waiting for all the meaningless words to subside so that they could get down to action.
A thought flashed across Blair's mind, and he said, "Jim, how do we help you find your way back to us?"
At the edge of his vision, Blair saw what he could only describe to himself as a special effect - the world going to warp speed, becoming a blur that shifted color from normal to blue-on-blue tones that abruptly jerked into solid form again. He recognized where they were instantly, despite the loss of all color except blue. "The jungles of Peru," he murmured.
"The place I come to in my visions," Jim said, but it wasn't Jim, who was still in front of Blair, arms around him. He turned within the embrace see an older, gravely worn and sorrowed man who looked like his sentinel, but who was not. "Panther," he said in acknowledgement.
"His visions, now, I suppose," Panther said, with a nod at the other version of himself standing motionless with Blair.
"Why are we here?" Sam asked, and only then did Blair become aware that he was still holding onto him, Al at his side.
"Because he," and Panther's words put a loving emphasis on the pronoun, "set it up to happen." As he spoke, what Blair had taken for another shadow from the jungle inched from behind Panther to stand beside him: Chief, his doppleganger.
Blair took in the long leather coat, fedora, and wraparound sunglasses, and said with absolute surety, "You're Al's ghost. But he should have recognized you."
"He didn't want him to," Panther said, clearly speaking for his partner. "So he stopped it from happening, not hard since Calavicci easily came up with his own theory.
Putting on a bold front that anybody could see through, Al asked, "Why?"
"Because he had to know," Panther said, looking down on his partner, the only softness he had shown glimmering as the faintest of smiles directed at him.
"Know what?" Sam asked, clearly indignant on Al's behalf.
Strong hands closed over Blair's shoulders, turning him to face Jim, his Jim, all there and smiling at him with such love that for a moment Blair forgot everything but his relief at being with him again. "Know if we would choose us, of our own free will, out of love, not guilt or necessity," he said quietly, stroking along the outside of Blair's arms. "Panther has always blamed himself for what was done to Chief, and Chief has never had any choice but to cling to Panther. They love each other, but that has always tainted their conviction that they would have come together on their own."
"I think," Blair said more solemnly than he would have believed possible, giving into the wild joy bounding through him, "there's only one way to answer that." He stretched up as Jim bent down, their mouths meeting, merging, sharing more than heat and hunger. A shiver of desire raced from his heels all the way up his spine into his brain, leaving him aware of little but the hard body molded to his and their incendiary kiss. His nipples drew up hard and tight from the luscious weight of Jim against them; his dick filled so fast that he would have gotten dizzy if lack of air hadn't already done the job.
Jim groaned, a sound that was oddly echoed for a second, and broke away to bury his face in Blair's shoulder, nibbling and licking at the hollow where neck met collarbone. His hands slid down to Blair's backside, kneading the globes of his ass possessively and pulling a low moan of pleasure from Blair. Blair spread his legs, asking for a deeper caress, stomach quivering in anticipation for Jim's touch in hidden places.
It didn't come, and the world tilted, shifted, and changed again, not that Blair really noticed or cared. For the first time in far too long, he felt right: whole, at peace, and absolutely sure of his place in the universe. Which, at that moment, was on his back underneath Jim, kissing him demandingly, all four limbs hanging onto him with full strength while Jim tried to get them both naked without getting an inch farther away than absolutely necessary. With simple determination they managed, and once they were fully skin-to-skin, sensuality poured in to take its natural place in their embrace.
Jim slid down Blair's torso, turning the simple movement into an erotic glide of flesh over flesh that ripped a stream of soft whimpers from Blair that he dimly realized made him sound every bit as needy as he felt. Whether in answer to that or because of his own wants, Jim seemed to go out of his way to coax more noise from him. He took his time tasting every sensitive spot his mouth could find, hands seeking out more, delving lower and lower until he reached Blair's most private place.
With a hoarse cry of Jim's name, Blair somehow held off coming as he was carefully breached, fingers leaving bruises on Jim's shoulders as he endured being readied for what they both had to have. When Jim would have turned him to his stomach, though, Blair resisted, and tugged him up to be face to face. A spark of rationality drifted up through lust, unnecessarily telling him that it had to be this way for both of them; that they had to continue this echo of the ritual that had bound them together as mates.
Acknowledging the thought, then letting it go, Blair wrapped his legs around Jim's waist and lifted his hips, giving himself to his lover. For all their frantic need to be together, Jim took him carefully, but once he was buried to the hilt in Blair, neither of them could help moving fast and hard. Crying out in increasing pleasure with each stroke, Blair fought against finishing, needing to have Jim inside him as deeply as possible, as long as possible. Jim gave him every millimeter of his cock, and when that wasn't enough, fused their mouths together again. Even that didn't satisfy, and with a roar of pure frustration, Blair tore open his mind, absorbing Jim into his thoughts, accepting his presence as part of his own.
Pleasure was twinned - giving and taking, steely length penetrating and soft tissues grasping with satin sweetness, silky demands on straining flesh, all existence in just those few precious inches for a small eternity that burst into ecstasy. Too shattered by it to so much as gasp, Blair spilled his seed into tight friction between his belly and Jim's, knowing each spasm of Jim's release as intimately, down to the fluttering clasp of the tunnel around his shaft.
"Blair," Jim panted. "Blair." He lost the power of speech, but his mind murmured, "blair, my blair, here, really here, heat and love, oh! good! oh! oh! closer? please, must be… oh! Good! good, good, good, GOOD!"
As intense as the physical release was, it was nothing compared to the mental relief, and Blair sighed, sated to the core. To the soft mind whisper of "ease weight, don't crush, ah! tight around my dick, is blair cramping, straighten his legs for him…" he drifted into sleep, grounded at last.
A truck coming up the long driveway to the manor woke Jim from his nap, and he listened to the driver mutter to himself about how weird it was that someplace that looked so normal could feel so strange. The comment made absolutely no sense at all to him, and Jim eased away from Blair, automatically reaching under his pillow for his gun. It wasn't there, but Blair's flint knife was, and he took it, deeply troubled that he didn't know where his gun was.
Once on his feet, Jim pulled on his jeans, glanced down at his sleeping lover, and decided not to bother him. No one who was wearing such a blissful, well-laid expression should be disturbed until necessary. *If that isn't a law,* he thought, *it should be.* Smugly aware that he was the reason Blair looked so happy, he silently left the bedroom, to track the truck's approach to the house.
He found Calavicci by the kitchen door, keeping a discreet eye out as well, looking more than a little smug himself. By common male consent, though, neither of them mentioned it, and Al said, "Sam wants to pack up the house and leave before dark. I called in a grocery order to replace what we've used, and get rid of canned goods or what have you that are close to their expiration date. The arrangement Sam made a while back is to pick up the old stuff for the local food kitchen while making the delivery of the new."
"If the idea is to spook the locals by never letting them see who's here, it's working," Jim said dryly.
Visibly startled, Al shot him a penetrating look, then broke into a broad smile.
"What?" Jim said irritably.
"Welcome back." When Jim frowned, Al added, "How much do you remember from the past week or so?"
Automatically touching where the dart had hit him, Jim said, "Not a lot." Thinking it through, he went on, "Just a bunch of sensory hits that don't make much sense." Head jerking up, he pinned Al with a sharp stare. "You broke me out, along with Joel and Simon."
"You were doing a pretty good job of breaking yourself out at the time," Al said.
They both fell silent as the delivery driver began unloading, then picking up the boxes left for him, all the while glancing around suspiciously as if he could feel the eyes on him. Once he was safely on his way, they brought in the groceries and began putting them away, Al filling Jim in all the while on what had happened since he'd been taken. By the time he was done, the cabinets had been filled, the refrigerator cleaned, and a pot of coffee had been made, ending with, "Everything blinked back to normal, except that you were hauling Blair off to the bedroom, and Sam was pale as a sheet, shaking with exhaustion."
Staring down into his mug as he sat at the kitchen table, Jim said grudgingly, "I owe you big time."
"No, you don't," Al said calmly, as if expecting the comment. "Partners don't owe each other; they do for each other."
Before Jim could voice the mostly automatic denial that they weren't partners, Blair was his only partner, Sam said from behind him, "If that label is too close to your heart, would 'family' work better?"
Jim shot a glance over his shoulder to argue and lost his chain of thought. Sam looked…different. How he couldn't exactly say, and while well-loved was an obvious part of it, there was something else that had Jim wanting to touch him, as if that would help quantify what he sensed.
Taking his silence as permission to continue his argument, Sam sat next to Al and said, "We spent the better part of a week asking ourselves what are the differences between your history and Panther's, between Blair's and Chief's, even between Joel's life in the two versions of Time. I finally occurred to me when I saw them standing in front of you in a place that I shouldn't have been able to be, to ask, 'what is the difference in *how* they lived that let them do so much despite what they suffered.' Know what the answer was? Family. They cobbled together one out of people who knew who and what they were, accepting them because of it, not in spite of it."
Jaw tightening, Jim said, "That's not exactly an option this time around. Simon's in a different place, my brother, all of them."
"Then work with what you've got on hand," Al said cheerily, ignoring Jim's instant glare. "Us."
"When I first began Leaping," Sam broke in before Jim could use Al's attitude as an excuse to end the conversation, "All I wanted to do was go home, even though I didn't even really remember what home was. When I started Leaping as myself, I gave up on ever having that again, until Al joined me." He smiled at his partner, taking the coffee that Al poured for him, and said directly to him, "I had a home, then; the only one I thought I needed."
"Wrong," Al said promptly. "Not having a life outside of Time, always going from one Leap to the next - not good for you. I knew that, but couldn't see any other choice, myself."
"What has…"
*We need a home, too,* Blair said in Jim's mind, just before coming into the kitchen and repeating it aloud for the benefit of the others. "A sentinel is supposed to have a tribe, an extended family to watch over, who watch over him in turn. A shaman needs pretty much the same thing. It's the natural way of things, and we've been living outside of that because big city life is almost unavoidably isolating."
"You've already talked about this with them?" Jim said sharply, not sure why he was getting defensive.
With a mock slap to the back of Jim's head, Blair said, "You know perfectly well I woke up only a few minutes ago. Give me." He took Jim's mug from him, drained the cup, and refilled it. "You're 'muttering' about the whole thing in the back of your thoughts."
He had been, not that it stopped Jim from wanting to argue about it, but a soft laugh that only he could hear stopped him. *This feels different,* he thought unnecessarily to Blair.
*A legacy from Chief, I think, though I have no idea how he did what he did to hold you safe for me. Sometimes it felt like you were with me, so maybe he just stuffed part of you in my brain and that's why this has gotten so easy. And permanent; I can't not use your sight now.*
With no apparent break in the conversation with Al and Sam, from Jim's view point, Blair said to Sam, "Will you be able to stay 'here' without any problems?"
Looking down to hide his expression, Sam said, "Because of you. It's possible that the four of us were intended to work together."
"One true sentinel, one modern shaman," Blair said thoughtfully. "Al can shield me, not as well as Jim, but well enough. Jim is a medic, who can take up the slack if you're out of action…"
"… You and I both have access to information from unique sources," Sam said, taking up the litany. "Jim and Al are both warriors with different skills, but both able to take up arms if needed. And Jim is an anchor for me, simply because of how his senses anchor him in now."
Speechless, Jim stared first at his mate, then at Sam, then at Al, who shrugged with both hands. "Yeah, that's my reaction, too. Haven't been able to come up with a decent argument, though."
"You're really on with this?" Jim finally asked, not sure exactly who he was asking.
"Can it hurt to try?" Al said, as Blair silently opened his memories to share with Jim what all of them had been through.
By unspoken consent they all left him to his thoughts to go about the business of cleaning up, then shutting down the manor and erasing all traces of having been there. The others consulted with him on the details where he could be of help, such as being sure no prints were left behind, and where to go next. With so much to process - and he ignored a silent snicker from Blair when that thought crossed his mind - Jim only gave it all cursory attention. Only one incident really struck him, and that was when they were cleaning the music room and Al opened the piano bench to look at the sheet music stored there.
"Which was her favorite?" he asked Sam, probably not realizing Jim could hear.
"That one." Sam grinned when Al left with it, coming back a short while later to prop the sheets on the piano. The fragrance of a woman's perfume came from them, now, and Sam and Al exchanged a soft look that Jim didn't know how to interpret.
In an amazingly short time, all things considered, the four of them had left the house behind and were standing on the edge of a well-known wilderness trail, looking down a steep drop to the river below. The car they had taken from Bolger was sitting on the very brink, and Jim said to no one in particular, "Ready?"
"Do it," Blair said for all of them.
With a tug to a line around the shift lever, Jim put the car in gear, and it went over the edge, taking all traces of them with it. "If they ever find it, there won't be anything left to connect it to us." He looked at the trail they would follow, and added, "Enough hikers use the bus stop at the next town as a jump off or start point that we won't be particularly remembered. Any idea where we should go from there?"
"I know a place you might like," Sam offered. "We can get in touch with Simon on the way, let him know you're okay, how to get in contact with us. It could be that he might prefer working without bureaucrats breathing down his neck for a change."
"Maybe Joel, too," Blair offered diffidently.
Jim made a noncommittal noise, still not sure how he felt about Joel's role in everything that had happened. Then he looked down at Blair, meeting blue eyes that were always bright and alert now, and made up his mind. "Are you sure about this, Sandburg?"
"Yes," Blair said/thought, pouring love and confidence into the word.
"Let's do it then." Jim shouldered his pack, and led the way to tomorrow.
finis
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