RESET

Fingers nervously tapping against his mouth, Blair leaned against the driver's window of his Volvo and stared out into the early morning, hardly seeing the bright sunshine for the hulking building dominating his view. He would have never believed that a building could intimidate all by itself, and the last one he would have ever expected to find threatening was one that he had considered his second home for years. But Hargrove didn't just hulk, to his eye. Under its facade of being a simple structure, it threatened, it loomed, it menaced, as if it were a slathering beast waiting to consume him.

Of course, truth be told, it already had. Hargrove had grabbed him by the balls, chewed him up, then spit out his bones with the callous disregard all monsters had for their prey. And because he refused to play victim, to meekly let himself be digested without so much as a burp, he was back, bracing himself to give his particular nemesis indigestion. Shuddering, Blair looked away for a minute, then forced himself to face his beast again.

It helped that his students - former students - had almost unanimously told the powers that be at Rainier that they were out of their collective mind for firing one Blair Sandburg, then expelling said grad student and teaching fellow. Even his fellow grad students, who should have avoided him as if he were contaminated or contagious, were completely positive that Chancellor Edwards had acted out of spite and petty vengeance. It was completely mystifying how they all could think that he was the one who had been wronged when he'd all but confessed to the press that he was a liar and fraud.

However, one teacher had said to him off-handedly, apparently apropos of nothing, "Your cop friends wouldn't still be hanging around if you were dirty. I don't know what the real story is, but I'll bet the whole thing was some sort of secret government case you're helping them with." That seemed to be the general census on campus, and Blair could only attribute it to good karma from a previous life.

//It doesn't hurt that anyone who does side with the chancellor and her kind run into a Jim-sized wall of 'what's your problem' if they so much as look at me sideways,// Blair thought, both amused and irritated at his soon-to-be official partner. //I am not going to hide behind him forever, though. No way. It isn't fair to Jim, and it isn't right.//

So, here he was at Hargrove, determined to walk the walk, and talk the talk. He could have arranged to have his last paycheck sent by mail, or had his students' grades and papers delivered, but Blair wanted to do it in person. If everyone else believed that he hadn't done anything wrong, then, dammit, he had to *act* as if he hadn't.

The irony was that he really hadn't - unless loving and trusting your mother had recently become a crime. But, in the wake of Hurricane Naomi, he had done the right thing and at a very high price, and that was even more reason to walk into that building with his head up, cheerfully smiling at the world in general and the denizens of anthropological academia in particular. If they were offended or outraged, well, then, great! It would do most of those dust-crusted living artifacts good to get shook up a little.

Sighing, he banged his head once against the steering wheel. //If that's really the way I feel, why am I here so early that there's practically no chance of seeing any one except Miss Fozanelli, and why am I still sitting in the car?// Despite it all, he had to smile, just a little. //Of course, she's the worst of the lot. She has to be the most endurable artifact the department has; a perfectly preserved specimen of 'scretarious fiftious.' She has to be the only secretary in a first-world country who scorns computers.//

Which, of course, made her the butt of endless jokes, not counting the nickname of Ms. Fossil, which had become so ingrained among students and staff alike, that they actually called her that to her face. She didn't like it, of course, and made it clear with a tiny sneer and a glare through her rhinestone-studded glasses, but she did that so often that it was hardly a deterrent. It was the exact same reaction she used whenever someone was foolish enough to try to bullshit her, too, Blair had found early on, which had made it delightful fun to keep pouring it on no matter how sour she it made her.

Realizing that the walk down memory lane was yet another excuse to procrastinate, Blair suddenly opened the door to his car and catapulted out, heading for the doors to Hargrove at top speed before he had a chance to talk himself into further delaying tactics. Once he got past the hard part - the fountain and the stairs - it was fairly easy to slow down to an unhurried stroll, glancing through the files in his hand as if they were the only things on his mind. The act recalled a multitude of similar occasions, the familiarity of it settling him down considerably, and he actually did start re-reading the grades. Automatically glancing up and smiling at the few who passed him in the hall, he made sure he hadn't made any mistakes and mentally made notes in case a student contacted him with questions.

He made it to the door to the Anthro office without any confrontations or even dirty looks, and, once on the other side, he took a moment to slowly let out the breath that wanted to stay put in his chest. Fixing his most flirtatious smile in place, he walked up to Ms. Fossil's desk and perched on the corner of it, one knee up so that she couldn't miss seeing his crotch. "Greetings, oh beauteous guardian of the portal," Blair said cheerily, smoothing down the front of his vintage bowling shirt, just to pile on another ounce of irritation on an already souring face. "Can you spare me a few moments of your time?"

"And just who," Miss Fozanelli asked frostily, hands stilling on her ancient typewriter, "are you?"

//Okay, that takes snubbing to a whole new level of cold,// Blair thought tiredly, refusing to let his smile dim even a micro-watt. //But I can deal.//

Aloud, he replied teasingly, "Why, Ms. Fozanelli, I'm surprised at you. Not recognizing Rainier's youngest and best-paid Anthropology professor, here to get his student and class list, along with whatever pertinent paperwork your esteemed employers believe I should complete, and to see my new office. A nice corner one, with windows, I was told."

To his complete and utter surprise, she frowned, almost prettily in confusion, fingers nervously stroking over the pink fuzz of her twin sweater set. "We hired a new teacher?" Then her expression cleared, and she said, "Oh, to replace doctor..." She fumbled in her desk, clearly at a loss as to what to do next. "I'm sure I have the necessary papers here, somewhere, though I can't imagine where they could have gotten to. Your name, doctor...?"

She let her voice trail off at the end of the question, and, not sure what she was up to, Blair answered facetiously, "Dr. Blair Sandburg, recently from Boston University by way of Peru where I was studying a native tribe of the rainforest. The paper was received very, very well received at the New York conference this year."

It was by far the largest, most bald-faced lie he'd ever told in his life, but hey, two could play at this game of shoveling megatons of manure. Her face cleared as if she'd been told the gospel by the chancellor herself, and she immediately produced a sheaf of papers and started into what had to be a canned speech about what to fill out, who to give it to, and what documentation she expected from him. As she spoke, she took several keys off a ring, handing them to him along with the papers, and stood, obviously intending to lead the way somewhere.

Totally flabbergasted, Blair trailed after her, hardly hearing her continuing instructions and directions, barely hanging onto the copious files and keys as he juggled to incorporate them into his own modest stack. Miss Fozanelli paused outside a door, confusion clouding her expression again, and she asked dazedly, "Did you have your things shipped already, Dr. Sandburg? Or will I be expecting their arrival later?"

Staring at the nameplate on the door, which clearly stated in brass and black, 'Dr. Blair Sandburg,' he said uncertainly, "It should all be here." At her doubtful glance, he fancifully elaborated. "The usual text and reference books, copies of my papers, artifacts and mementos of my travels, necessary records, a few personal items such as photographs."

Nodding, apparently satisfied with his answer, she opened the door and led the way in. "Now, classes for this semester have already begun, of course, so you will be acting as a substitute for the senior teaching staff when needed, helping with course counseling and tutoring, assisting and supervising grad students and teaching fellows, that sort of thing."

"Essentially, what I've been doing all along," Blair muttered to himself, turning around in a small circle, bewildered to find everything he had recently removed from his small office along with quite a bit more besides. The only thing missing was the university's computer that he had used, which had been confiscated, and a quick glance through the papers piled on the huge desk showed what astoundingly looked like hand-typed copies of most of what had been stored on the hard-drive.

He turned to ask Miss Fozanelli where his computer and cordless phone were, but she was standing in the middle of the room, a blank look on her face. When Blair called her name, she shook herself slightly, and inquired impersonally, "I trust everything is to your satisfaction, Dr. Sandburg?"

If this were all a sick joke of some kind, and he couldn't for the life of him think of who had the kind of clout it took to get Miss Fozanelli to cooperate with *any* joke, it was the most elaborate one he had ever run into. If it were a plot or scheme of some sort, the point of which he couldn't even begin to imagine, it was unbelievable in its scope. Not even Jim had known that he was coming back here, let alone when, so this setup had to have been prepared almost from the time he had been dismissed by the chancellor.

Thinking that going along with it might be the best course until he had a chance to truly consider the situation, Blair answered dismissively, "It will do. Thank you for your assistance, Miss Fozanelli; I'm sure we'll work together well."

With an audible sniff of disdain, looking him over skeptically from his Keds to the short curls on his recently shorn head, she said coolly, "We'll see, we'll see. Just remember that a deadline is a deadline, and that I am not your personal slave, and we should manage."

She sniffed again, and added, "I do hope you chose today's apparel with the untidiness of unpacking in mind, and that it isn't your normal working attire." With that she stomped away, pulling at the sleeves of her sweater that she had rolled up to her elbows.

In a daze, Blair watched her go. He sank into the luxurious leather desk chair, and slowly swiveled it to look out the windows. The campus looked the way it always had for as long as he had known it, so the Twilight Zone in which he currently resided seemed to have confined itself entirely to Hargrove. "On second thought," he muttered, looking more closely and sitting up straight in his chair. "I don't see a single car older than mid-fifties, and where's the Student Union building? It should be right there."

Thoughtfully, he took another look at the room, but empty offices were empty offices; not much to separate this one from any other he'd been in or had before. Blair opened a desk drawer at random, then all of them in sequence, studying their contents. On the surface, nothing was unusual - pens, pencils, staples. A closer look showed that all the pens were the fountain pen type, complete with several bottles of ink, and the stapler was a model older than he was, yet it looked brand new.

On impulse, he checked his own boxes, and fifteen minutes later sat in a pile of books and periodicals, not one of which had a copyright later than 1953. Just as significant was what he hadn't found: not a single highlighter pen, flair point or roller pen, or sticky note. A hasty look through his own papers showed no references cited from earlier than 1951, and the publish dates of his own articles were not much later than that.

Snapping the file closed, feeling seriously freaked out, Blair scrambled to his feet, automatically pocketing the key to the office, and ran for his car. He screeched to a halt at his usual parking spot, staring at a 1956 Volvo that looked brand new yet had his jacket tossed over the passenger seat. Hesitantly, he got in and tried the key, stomach rolling with so many emotions he couldn't clearly identify any single one.

Then his mind latched onto the strongest: fear, fear that had his partner's name on it. //Where's Jim? Has whatever this is, affected him, too? God, what if this is a delusion, a hallucination?// he thought frantically. Driving away at top speed, not caring if he was pulled over for a ticket, he spared a moment to be completely panicked, then lectured himself firmly. //If I am flipping out, there's no one else on this planet that I'd trust to talk me through it. And if this is real...// Staring at the unfamiliar buildings on only vaguely familiar streets, at the men in hats and ties, women wearing gloves and stockings with seams up the back, he finished silently, //If this is real, he's the one person I'd believe if he said he sees it, too.//

That thought calmed him, somewhat, and he paid closer attention to his driving, which kept him from getting lost, though he still had to pull over and ask directions to the police station. It wasn't where he remembered it, though in the back of his mind he recalled a conversation with a filing clerk about the old building, torn down in the late sixties just after they finished construction on the current one. Once there, he parked, and cautiously made his way inside, not sure how to approach the problem of finding Jim or Simon under the circumstances.

He recognized the sergeant at the desk, despite never having seen Rafe in a uniform before. It wasn't very reassuring, though he could see hints of the future - future?! - fashion plate in the spit and polish shine on the man that told him his friend was there under the official veneer. Deciding that a conservative approach might be a good idea, Blair waited politely until Rafe looked up from his paper work, and said, "I'm Dr. Blair Sandburg, here to see Detective James Ellison, please."

Eyes that held no recognition looked him over carefully, then Rafe asked neutrally, "May I ask why, sir?"

"It's concerning a case that I'm assisting him on," Blair said, not exactly un-truthfully.

"Assisting him?" Under the ultra-polite tones was new suspicion, reminding Blair unpleasantly that police officers in the Fifties had a great deal more leeway in their interpretation of proper procedure. Resisting the urge to cross his fingers and hoping that whatever agency had been at work at Rainier would be effective here, too, he said, "The Mayor and Chancellor of Rainier believe that a civilian consultant to the department might prove useful in a number of venues, and I was hired on a pro-tem basis to advise at the Captain's discretion. He gave me ride-along privileges and assigned Ellison to me to keep me out of trouble. I have identification and the proper papers on file, if you care to look."

Rafe's expression didn't change, and in fact his eyes grew harder. "I don't remember being briefed on a civilian consultant."

Heart sinking, Blair explained with deep gravity, "It's a very recent move, and I believe that the Captain may not have been the happiest at having me foisted on him. Perhaps we could call him to confirm, in case there has been a, ah, delay, in clearing my paperwork?"

For a moment, he thought Rafe might actually pick up the phone, and Blair had no idea what he would do if Simon didn't remember him either. But finally the sergeant smiled fractionally, his shoulders relaxing ever so slightly. "Captain Wilson wouldn't like being reminded if paperwork were in arrears. Welcome to the department, Dr. Sandburg. Psychology?"

"Among other things," Blair replied evasively, not sure how to explain to someone with a Fifties mind-set how an anthropologist might be useful to the cops. "They're looking at an interdisciplinary approach to give the broadest possible availability of service. Is, uh, Captain Wilson difficult to work with? I thought the gentleman's name was Banks, Simon Banks."

"No officer here by that name," Rafe said easily. "Wilson's not so bad. Likes the details covered in detail, but that's what makes a good boss. Not that Ellison would agree with you on that; can't believe they saddled you with that stone-face. 'Course, he's got the best record on the force, but the man would shatter into a thousand pieces if he ever had a friendly moment."

That didn't sound like the Jim he knew, not even the Jim he'd heard about from Carolyn and others before they'd met. "Real cold fish, huh?" he asked cautiously, hoping for more info.

"Met friendlier," Rafe agreed. He looked over Blair's shoulder at another person coming in, and said distractedly, "Called in today; first time since I've been here. Could be he's not so happy about getting a new partner, and a civilian to boot, and is taking some time just to cool your jets."

"In that case, I'll try back another time," Blair said, trying for off-hand, although he felt sure a deaf man could hear how hard and fast his heart was suddenly beating. "If possible, though, could you spread the word about me? Grapevine's better than official announcements, sometimes."

"Sure thing." Rafe nodded at him, mind already gone, and Blair took off without a backwards glance.

All the way back to the loft, he prayed that it would be there, and frantically dug through his memories, trying to remember how old the building was and when it had gone co-op. Because if Jim wasn't there, Blair had no idea where home would be for him. Unless, of course, he could just conjure it up out of thin air, the same way he had created a job at the University and a consulting position at the department. For a moment he indulged in the fantasy of dreaming up a mansion for himself, but even in his mind's eye it was a cold, empty place. Home was where Jim was, and, nearly as importantly, if he were going to find answers, *sanity* was where Jim was.

To his overwhelming relief, not only was 852 Prospect exactly where it should be, but Jim's truck - or an older version of a truck that looked very much the same - was also parked in front of it. Barely taking time to put his car in park and turn the engine off, he rushed upstairs, then slammed to a stop in front of #302. Chances were very good that Jim wasn't going to recognize him, and the last thing Blair wanted was to get shot by his best friend because he unexpectedly barged through the front door. Having the key wasn't going to be much consolation to a corpse, and Jim might dismiss finding it as having been stolen if he found it on his latest assailant.

That last thought was meant to be a light-hearted assessment, but Blair couldn't find the humor in it because it was all too likely a possibility. So he stood in the hallway for a minute, trying to choose what the best approach would be. Finally deciding that if Jim, of all people, had called in sick on *this* day, maybe he was immune to the changes, too, or it was possible his senses were out of whack because of them. Either way, knowing what was going on with the sentinel was his ticket in, just as it had been the first time they met.

Taking a deep breath, he said conversationally, "You know I'm out here, Jim. You're wondering why I'm loitering outside your door, why I'm so scared, though I have to tell you, man, I'm not half as scared as I am freaked. Which makes it likely you're even more freaked, and I'm telling you I'm the one person on this planet who knows why. Who knows how to help. I'm really, really hoping you'll let me in, 'cause, to be strictly truthful for the first time today, I could use some help, myself. Especially yours."

Blair stared down at his shoes, not able to pray, let alone hope, putting his trust in a relationship that had always seemed deeper and stronger than mere friendship. A minute later, he heard the lock turn, and he looked up as Jim opened the door and stood blocking it, studying him with the same barely-in-control glare Blair remembered so clearly from the early days of their relationship. There also wasn't the slightest hint of recognition. "Talk," Jim ordered sharply.

Fighting the urge to whimper in fear or scream in frustration, he wasn't sure which, Blair answered as levelly as he could, "You're hearing what you shouldn't be able to hear, seeing the impossible, everything smells wrong, tastes wrong, and your skin is about to crawl away by itself in pure misery. Am I close?"

Bringing his gun out from behind him, but not raising it to aim, Jim barked, "How do you know that? Did you drug me somehow?"

Desperate that Jim remember him on his own, that he not merely call up a place for himself beside his friend and sentinel, Blair said simply, "I know the same way you know who I am. And you do know who I am, Jim. You know what I sound like when I'm scared, what I'll fight with you about, what I do when I'm happy, how I like my eggs in the morning." He stepped forward slowly, trying to be as unthreatening and innocuous as possible. "Don't think, please! Feel! Use your senses on me; they've got the answers if you'll just let them tell you."

Irritation and a deeply hidden fear flashed for a moment in Jim's eyes, then confusion replaced it. Obviously looking inward, he hesitantly took a step backward, clearing the doorway, and Blair just as hesitantly went through it. Closing it slowly so Jim could stop him if he wanted to, Blair leaned back on it, palms flat behind his back, knees shaking and heart hurting, waiting for the sentinel to give his verdict.

"Is there a reason for what's happening to me?" Jim asked abruptly, focusing on Blair again.

"You're a sentinel," Blair explained softly, pleadingly. "Born with a genetic advantage that allows you to protect and guard your people, your tribe. I'm not the only one who has told you that. There was someone else, a teacher from another time, another place, who called you not only sentinel, but Enquiri." He said the last in Quechua, desperately hoping that if Jim had recalled what had been suppressed once, he might again if it had been re-buried along with everything else.

"Incacha," Jim murmured, mind clearly far away. "The Chopec." Jim then leveled an ice-blue hard gaze on him, but it soon warmed and softened. "Chief?" he questioned uncertainly, one hand reaching for him, as if to capture a long curl that was no longer there. He leaned forward until his nose was bare centimeters from Blair's ear, and inhaled deeply, head tilting slightly as if listening. Senses satisfied, he asked uneasily, "Blair? What's going on here?"

Blair almost collapsed in relief, but he locked rubbery knees and tried gamely to smile. "Damned if I know. Have you been outside yet?"

Waving irritably at the room, Jim said, "No. It's wrong enough in here, thank you."

For the first time Blair took a look around the loft, and his legs did give out, dropping him like a rock. It would have hurt, though he wasn't sure he would have felt it, but Jim caught him on the way down, taking the worst of the impact. It shouldn't have been such a shock, given how the day had gone so far, but there was no trace of him in the loft. It was as barren and empty as it had been the first time he saw it, with none of the changes he and Jim had made since he moved in. Not even the French doors to his room were in place, the ones that Jim had used to replace the curtain that had hung over what had once been a spare room. Closing his eyes in denial and resting his forehead on his partner's shoulder, he whispered in shocked despair, "No, no, no, no."

Tears threatening for the first time, he knotted his fists into Jim's shirt. "I live here," Blair said brokenly. "When my old place got blown up, you let me move in here into your spare room, just for a week, you said, a week that's lasted nearly four years, so far."

Desperately remembering how he been able to make things over the way he wanted them to be, he said stubbornly, flatly as if it were incontrovertible fact, "The picture albums my mom sent me are in my room. So are years' worth of personal journals and treasured gifts from friends and acquaintances from all over the world." He tried to visualize every item he wanted to find in that room, every small thing that was valuable and irreplaceable to him. Even as he fought to make them look real in his mind's eye, he could feel a nearly subliminal drag, a resistance, as if he were trying to write his name in concrete that had nearly set.

From a great distance Blair could feel his roomie's hands traveling slowly up and down his back, trying to give support and comfort. Then Jim whispered, "You tried to keep all your stuff in your room at first, because I stupidly made such a big deal out of your mess. But, little by little things crept out and made a place for themselves: an African mask on a bare wall, a fetish on a shelf." He gave a snort of laughter. "First time the place looked lived in since I moved here; Carolyn didn't have time to do the domestic thing, she said."

As if the weight of both of them together had been what was needed, Blair *felt* the reality of the room around them change, but with it came an absence of immanence he became aware of only as it faded completely. He lingered for a moment longer in the shelter of Jim's strength, then peeked out over one wide shoulder. With a harsh gasp, he let himself slump completely against his partner, the mixture of relief and disappointment dizzying after all that had happened in such a short time.

The French doors were there, as were a few of the other alterations they'd made, but not all, not all. Blair stood shakily, and went into his room, grateful when Jim followed. Like the loft, some of what he'd been trying to regain was in place, but not everything. His journals spilled off a shelf, as if put there hastily, and he could see a few other personal items. But the closet was empty of his clothes, as were the drawers, and he didn't have a bed at all.

"Could have been worse," he muttered tiredly, all too aware that if he had taken much longer to get to Jim, he might not have been able to make any changes at all.

"How did you do that?" Jim asked, strong fingers working out knots from the back of Blair's neck as they both stared into the small room.

"All I know is that as far as this corner of the world is concerned, it's 1950 something," Blair started.

"September 16, 1956," Jim inserted, sounding vague and distant.

Blair shot him a sharp look, but as quickly as Jim had spaced, he came back, and Blair was willing to bet that he didn't know that he'd been gone at all. "Right day and month, wrong year."

Every bit of color in Jim's face departed for locations unknown, and suddenly Blair was the one supporting a partner. Hastily he steered them toward the couch - a huge leather one that he had never seen before - and got Jim seated, though it was really more of a controlled fall. "It's all wrong," Jim repeated over and over, face buried in his hands. "All wrong."

"What's wrong?" Blair asked patiently, sitting on the edge of the coffee table, and putting his hands on Jim's knees to reassure them both.

"All of it," Jim growled. "Smells wrong, feels wrong, sounds wrong, looks wrong." He plucked at the sleeveless undershirt he wore. "I bought this. I remember walking into the store where I got it, remember a stupid argument I had with the clerk over the price-tag." He looked up, eyes wild again. "But it is *Not Mine.* It doesn't have my scent on it, doesn't lie on my skin the way a shirt I've worn a hundred times before should."

He jumped to his feet and began restless pacing around the room. "The whole place is like that. I look at the stereo, remember what it set me back and how pleased I was with the sound, but that's not what's supposed to be there. I don't know what is, but I'm positive that's not it."

"Thank god," Blair murmured, and Jim pulled up short in front of him, looking ready to punch. Before his partner could lose it, he said clearly, "The CD player is supposed to be there, along with a stack of discs." Nodding at an empty space, he added, "And we used to own a television and VCR. I remember it all differently, too. Nearly fifty years of different, man."

Jim gestured at his head and resumed his agitated pacing. "CD player, VCR - I know what those are. But I shouldn't, should I? It's like, like, there's this layer over top of what should be that my brain insists is the reality, but it's thin in places. Worn, or, or, not spread evenly."

"It gets stranger," Blair said grimly. "Who's your captain at the department?"

Because he was looking for it, he saw the split second of emptiness before Jim answered in a toneless voice, "Captain John Wilson."

"Then who is Simon Banks?" Even expecting an extreme reaction from his partner, Blair was caught off guard when Jim began shaking like a glass windowpane about to shatter from a hurricane-force wind, and he dropped back onto the couch, clearly unable to stand. Features twisting from great pain, he began clenching the sides of his head with his fists, jaw tight against a scream that Blair knew was fighting to rip its way out.

As quickly as it hit, it was gone, and Jim fell back against the couch, head dropping to his chest. In a barely audible whisper, he replied, "He's the captain of Major Crimes, and our friend. Wilson is captain of Vice. But in this life, I've never met or heard of Simon. Or Joel Taggart, or Henri, or Samantha Chang. But then, they wouldn't have had jobs in the Cascade PD in the Fifties, would they?"

"A part of you really thinks it's 1956, doesn't it, and you have memories of living during World War II.

"Served as a Ranger," Jim stated uneasily, but there was no return of the vagueness or pain.

"Korea, too?" Blair inquired carefully.

"Yes, and I don't have good mem..." Jim stopped himself short. "It didn't really happen, couldn't have. Those have to be the false memories because they're flat, two-dimensional, not the way I remember the Chopec and Peru. I can practically taste the air of the rainforest, if I want to, but Korea is like reciting a page from a book.

"Those *aren't* your real memories," Blair said firmly, not wanting the slightest doubt clouding his partner's mind. "I don't have false ones at all; I know what's true and not. I wasn't even born yet in the fifties; all I know about the era comes from history classes and television programs that idealized the time... Time." He thought hard, then asked, "What kind of clock woke you up this morning?"

"What does that have to do with anything?!"

"I'm trying to get a handle on when the switch was made, Jim. If we can pinpoint exactly when, it might give us some clue as to how and who."

To his surprise, Jim smiled slightly and laid his hands over Blair's. At that moment, the thousands of nerve endings that had been twanging and thrumming with incipient panic and fear went still and quiet, and he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that they would make it. No matter how weird or dangerous things got, they would make it.

"That's it, Einstein," Jim approved. "You keep thinking and analyzing. If anything can get us back to where - or when - we belong, that brain of yours will." Not giving Blair a chance to stammer out thanks or hide his pleasure at the unexpected compliment, Jim went on matter-of-factly, "It was the wind-up kind that has a key in the back, like a toy."

Blair leaped onto the answer, putting aside the rest until he could pull it out and cherish it in private. "What kind of clock did you set last night when you went to bed?"

"Digital clock radio. So the switch was during the night."

Nodding, Blair said, "Or at least it started then. I woke up an hour or so earlier than you did, but I didn't notice anything until I'd been up a while." Running a hand over his curls, missing being able to dig his hands into the longer version of them to express his agitation, he admitted, "Not that I was in any condition to notice much of anything. I had so much on my mind I don't even remember the drive to Rainier."

"Rainier?" Jim asked sharply.

"I had to get back in the saddle," Blair explained softly.

Clearly not liking it, but just as clearly understanding the need, Jim questioned, "What happened while you were there?"

Trying to keep it short and succinct, Blair ran down his conversation with Ms. Fossil and everything that had happened since. He wrapped it up by saying, "So, there was some malleability at first, like clay that hadn't hardened, yet."

"Maybe the reason you weren't affected then, was because you accidentally discovered the process before it was completed," Jim mused thoughtfully.

"Good a theory as any right now," Blair agreed.

"So how do we test it?"

"By finding other people who did the same thing, who know it's not really 1956. I can't have been the only one; it simply wasn't that early in the morning." Blair stood, reluctantly dislodging Jim's hold on him. "That means going out. Your senses up to handling that?"

Typically, Jim waved off the concern, and at Blair's resulting exasperated glare, he said, "When I remembered you, they went back online, no problems. I'm a hundred percent here, Chief."

"I'm linked to your senses?" Blair asked, not quite able to hide his delight at the notion. "Cool!" Not giving Jim a chance to make a come-back, he added, "Breakfast?"

Apparently deciding that retreat was the better part of valor, Jim headed up the stairs to his room to change. "Sounds like a plan. O'Malley's?"

Blair had never heard of O'Malley's, but since he couldn't think of a single restaurant that had been around longer than ten years, he didn't argue. It gave him food for thought while he waited though, and because of that, he wasn't very surprised when Jim came down dressed in a dark gray tailored suit, complete with tie and shoes shined to a mirror polish. What did catch him off guard was his own reaction the sight.

He'd seen Jim dressed in a suit before, of course, for court or for dates at good restaurants, but there was something about the cut and drape of the suits of this time that seemed to change the way Jim looked. Or maybe it was Blair's perception of him that had been altered during the chaos and emotional confusion of the day. Either way, he was reminded of the Superman of this era in his guise as Clark Kent, or perhaps Don Diego when he wasn't wearing the mask of Zorro.

The powerful and buff body was almost completely hidden under the many layers of fabric, with no hint of the strength in it escaping through. The regulation white shirt and simple tie robbed Jim's face of any personality, and his neutral expression added to the effect, completely disguising the gifted and intelligent man living behind it. This Jim could have been any man on the street, totally unnoticeable in his unremarkable appearance, aided and abetted by an obvious desire to *be* invisible to all but the most discerning eye.

It should have offended Blair completely that his unique and special friend had given in so thoroughly to the demands of conformity that this time and place put on its people. It should have upset him that Jim was even capable of doing it, no matter how compelling the reasons behind it. At the very least, he should have ragged on his roomie for joining the status quo so enthusiastically and effectively.

What it did do was make him want to knock Jim to the floor and tear off that drab camouflage until he got to the beautiful human underneath it. Then he wanted to claim every square inch for his own, exulting in the fact that he was the only person who knew any of the secrets that went with that special soul. He wanted, god, he wanted....

Blair mentally pulled himself up short and figuratively tucked both his tongue and eyes back where they belonged before Jim noticed. This was not the time for that part of his psyche to exercise its prerogative to switch gender preferences with little or no notice. In fact, it had been mostly dormant for years, for reasons that he had never bothered to consider because it had never been important enough.

Unfortunately he didn't recover quickly enough, and Jim paused mid-step, looking at him irritably. "What?"

Forcing a grin, Blair said, "Are you going to try to pick up the waitress at breakfast? Or is there some occasion I don't know about?"

Jim glanced down at himself in confusion, hand going to his tie. "I didn't think," he muttered uneasily. "Just put on what was laid out."

Quickly Blair ran up the stairs and put a halting hand over Jim's. "No, no, you're right. This is what you would wear on a daily basis now. That overlay in your mind is probably the most useful asset we have at the moment, outside of your senses." At the question in his partner's expression, Blair led the way to the front door, not incidentally getting himself out of temptation's way. "You're going to have to live and work in this version of Cascade, which means you have to look and act the part. For instance, I have no idea where to get breakfast, let alone how to get there. I was reduced to asking for directions to get to the station."

"You better not let that get around, Chief. People will think you're some kind of sissy or mama's boy."

"No, they'd think I'm a nerd. Or is that word in usage yet?"

"Not yet, but for you, they might invent it early." Jim chuckled, sounding almost normal. "If not, there are plenty of others that could fit. Dweeb."

"If you're expecting me to keep my insults current, you're mistaken. Neanderthal."

They managed to keep a semblance of normalcy all the way to the restaurant, and the very real humor possible in the situation kept rearing its head. Jim couldn't hide his glee at Blair's dismay over the selection on the menu, refusing to be even slightly repentant at ordering a calorie and cholesterol laden meal. Blair couldn't even realistically offer options because none were on the menu; who even knew how important a low-cholesterol diet was yet, besides him? Cooking healthy was obviously going to be a challenge.

But underneath their humorous exchange, both of them kept an eye out for anyone who seemed disoriented, confused, or upset for no apparent reason. Once, just to see what would happen, Blair asked their waitress if the was any chance the cook could find some tofu for him. She just snapped her gum, head tilted to one side, then asked Jim if his little buddy was from around here.

When the food was gone and they were both left nursing a cup of coffee, Blair started drawing abstract designs with a finger on the tabletop. "Random sampling isn't going to do it; we're going to have to systematically search for other immunes. Any idea how to go about that?"

"Well, if an immune made enough of a fuss at the changes, a police report might be filed on it. I can check those, maybe call some other towns where I've got contacts in their departments and see what they've got. Be a way to judge if Cascade is the only place that's been moved back in time. For all we know, this is strictly a local effect."

"Or we could have been the only ones moved," Blair said, absently. "Alternate universe or timeline could be a possibility, too, with Mother Nature or some other agent automatically trying to smooth off our edges so we fit into the local environment or to keep the ecology balanced, so to speak."

"Deliberately or accidentally?" Jim wondered aloud, cradling his cup in long fingers as he studied the city outside the window beside them.

"Is that important? To finding our way back?" A sudden thought hit him. "That is what we both want, right?"

Jim pinned him with an edged glare, which immediately eased off. "This is a nasty parody of my life, Blair. I want the real thing. How 'bout you? Here, you're Dr. Sandburg, anthropologist extraordinaire, not detective, junior grade. You're so far advanced in theory and knowledge that you could be the country's leading expert if you wanted to be."

Blair shook his head, without a trace of regret. "Like you said, a nasty parody. I didn't earn any of it, and I'd be stealing from the people who really did do the studies and made the advancements if I used them for myself." He summoned a grin from somewhere. "Which is not going to stop me from betting on who wins the World Series, man, and investing in a little-known company called IBM. Just in case we're in this for the long haul - contingency planning, you know."

"Just don't bet in my jurisdiction. Last thing I need to be doing is bailing out my partner for getting busted in a gambling raid." Jim put down his coffee cup. "One other thing. I want to find out what happened to Simon and Joel, at the very least. I'm a cop, Rafe is a cop, our waitress was the same girl who used to work at that Starbucks near the University. If people were, ah, reprogrammed somehow, whoever did it tried to stick close to the original. But since they couldn't, maybe the overlay didn't take as well on the ones that had to be drastically altered."

It was Blair's turn to stare out the window, the trained part of his mind seeing the disturbing sameness of the people where there had once been enormous diversity. Reluctantly, he said, "They may not be here. There was a big difference in population between this time and ours; and this time isn't designed to cope with it. If Cascade was moved, not all of the people may have gone with it. If it's an alternate, the Simon Banks here can't be much like ours. Not and survive as a black man in the Fifties."

"Damn," Jim swore softly, too softly to be overheard. "Something else to listen for; officers gossiping about increased problems in Dark Town."

Blair winced at the old name for that part of Cascade. "Maybe not. The Montgomery Bus Boycott is in progress, and more than a few black communities are beginning to get agitated and restless. I don't remember if Cascade had any blatant racial violence."

"Wonder if that's why 1956?” Jim mused. "Cover. How about the women? This is the era of June Cleaver and hubby bringing home the bacon while wifey takes care of kueche, kinder, and kirche. I can't see Sam from forensics willingly, sanely playing housewife."

"Or Carolyn Plumber," Blair added, thinking out loud. He caught a flash of hurt confusion race over his partner's face. "You were married to her, here, too?"

"She died in childbirth while I was in Korea; the baby, too," Jim said, but his voice was detached, as if he truly accepted that wasn't the truth. "Funny, but I don't know how I met her this time, or how long we'd been married."

"Sloppy overlay or does it erode as time goes by and you concentrate on your original reality?" Blair wondered. He set the thought aside for later consideration, and asked instead, "What do we do now?"

"Whatever we have to do to stay alive," Jim answered grimly. "And while we do, we keep our eyes and ears open, asking questions every step of the way."

"Like being undercover, but as ourselves." With an effort Blair made himself look back outside again, trying to imagine living in that world on a daily basis. "Well, at least we've got practice at both. This should be a piece of cake."

* * *

Blair leaned on the railing of the balcony, grateful that the fog rising off of the harbor water obscured Cascade's skyline. Though the differences were less obvious in the dark, right now he couldn't have stood any more reminders of how radically life had changed for him and Jim a few weeks ago. Clouds, waves, and rain, at least, were eternal and unchanging regardless of century or man.

Behind him, he heard the door open, but he didn't turn to look at his partner, despite being vaguely surprised that Jim would venture out here. Fog and rain weren't enough to hide what a sentinel didn't want to see, and Jim had abandoned his usual post by the balcony doors, saying firmly that it wasn't *his* city. Not that it had stopped him from doing the job to the best of his abilities. Maybe these people weren't his tribe, but, apparently in Jim's mind, they deserved what protection and justice he could give them while he was here.

A warm jacket was dropped over Blair's shoulders, with large hands coming up to secure it in place. "Just because we can't find Naomi here," Jim said gently, "doesn't mean that she doesn't exist any more. We don't know what happened to the missing ones. Maybe they're where they've always been; maybe they're in a world built just for them."

"Or maybe she's like everybody else we haven't been able to find: dead, supposedly from polio or cholera in one of the epidemics, or died in childbirth, died in Korea like Simon," Blair said tiredly. "You know, there's no way for me to prove it, since ready access to the kind of computing power it would take is decades ahead of us. But I bet if we tallied up the number of deaths given by the people we've talked to in Cascade, we could account for all the losses in Korea alone. You could probably say the same for any major city, too, if you just talked to people."

"Had to balance the books for the population somehow, but that still doesn't mean she doesn't exist," Jim insisted. "Maybe we should take a trip back to her hometown, like we did when we were looking for Simon. Records aren't very accurate now; she could be married, or just living under another name. As an actress, maybe. That's what happened to Brown; changed his name when he started playing the jazz clubs."

Closing his eyes, finding even the fog wasn't curtain enough to hide what he didn't want to see for him as well, Blair dropped his head down to his chest. "Or maybe she's like Serena Chang; a victim of being a square peg ruthlessly stuffed into round hole." Try as he might, he couldn't get the image of her fatally battered body out of his mind, her enraged, extremely traditional husband standing over it screaming, "She was just a woman; I've done nothing wrong. You're supposed to punish them when they don't behave properly."

"No," Jim rejected firmly, giving Blair a small shake to pull him from his dark contemplations. "Somehow, she'd make a way for herself if she were here. Remember how cool she was when she got wrapped up in the bust on that car-jacking ring? She'd deal, Chief. She'd deal."

"For how long?" Blair demanded, suddenly straightening, but not throwing off the comforting touch of his partner. "Yeah, we're making it okay, but we've got all the assets. This is one undercover job that's a snap because, in a lot of ways, we're not doing anything we haven't done before. I mean, teaching is teaching, and at the university level, the first part of the job is always finding out how to fit in with the status quo. You research your department head's published papers and make sure you refer to them in your syllabus and lectures. You teach from the textbooks you're told to teach from, regardless of what you think of them."

Jim inched closer, his own tension finally communicating itself to Blair clearly. "And I've got the overlay to navigate me through the department when I need it, as long as I don't think and just do. As my new civilian partner, no one expects you to know anything, not to mention that a Ph.D. has a certain amount of automatic respect in this place and time."

"But even we keep tripping over the little things, don't we?" Leaning back into Jim, finally accepting his support because he knew it would comfort his partner as much as it comforted him, Blair hugged himself and shivered – not from the cold. "I still remember how dumbfounded I was when Ms. Fossil casually used the 'n' word in front of me and the black janitor. And how pissed off she got when I told her I never wanted to hear that filthy word out of her mouth again.

"Or how about how the Chancellor reacted when I asked for beer at the faculty mixer instead of having a highball like all the other teachers." He pitched his voice lower and gave it a snobbish tone mixed with red-faced fury. "Really, Dr. Sandburg, I realize that you've been away from civilization for some time, but there are standards we expect our faculty to live up to. Excellence and achievement will not be used as an excuse for eccentricity." Slipping back into his own voice he added, "Not to mention the general furor I accidentally raised in the lecture hall when I wouldn't let the students smoke."

"It works in our favor, too," Jim stubbornly pointed out. "No student debts for you, for instance."

"There is that," Blair admitted, thinking of finding that his checking account held the same amount as he'd had in it originally, not adjusted to current standards and wages like Jim's. A dollar went a lot farther, now, too. "On the other hand, the male/female dynamic is a nightmare," he said, trying to lighten up. "Women are looking for husbands, not fun, and if you do find one willing to do more than make out, you're running all kinds of risks, like a shotgun wedding, for instance."

Jim laughed softly, his breath stirring warm and pleasant on the back of Blair's neck. "At least I don't have to cope with that. Cascade PD would have a collective stroke if 'Reverend Ellison' actually went out with a woman. Supposedly, I'm still in mourning over my late wife, and will be for the rest of my life."

Absently, distracted from his funk by his partner's persistence and unintentionally enticing nearness, Blair said, "From their point of view, the nickname makes sense. You don't go out boozing after hours with the gang - because you can't trust the effect of alcohol has on you the way things are now, I know - you don't smoke, you don't gamble, you don't womanize. Even taking me in as your roomie fits what they want to believe: it's a way for a cop to make his paycheck stretch a little farther and maybe save a doomed soul in the process. Throw in your point-blank refusal to work on Sunday and being called 'Reverend' is inevitable."

"That's *my* day," Jim said, his tone hard and unyielding, as if he'd had the argument many times, and maybe the overlay told him he had. "They can make up any reason they want to explain it to themselves, but I give the department 110 percent six days a week, any time of the day. I'm entitled to hold back a piece of my life for myself."

"Good for you," Blair approved bluntly. "Nice to know you would have had your priorities straight no matter what life you'd been born into. Given your upbringing, I half expected you would have bought into the whole keeping up with the Joneses, appearances count for everything, dead of a heart attack from over-work at the age of 50 life-style."

Blair felt rather than saw Jim's shrug. "I'm one of the lucky ones, Chief. Like you pointed out, the part I'm supposed to play isn't that far off from what I really am. The old man had already tried hard to shove me into that mold; I know how to survive."

"That's what's wrong with the city, isn't it?" Blair asked reflectively, staring into the fog without seeing it at all now. "Why it's going to hell in a handbasket so quickly and so suddenly. You can't take a Nineties mentality and just cram it into the Fifties mindset. Like with Serena; you could give her a husband and child, a history of traditional values and traditional life choices, but she'd already stepped beyond them and couldn't go back. She probably tried, and tried hard, but that Asian subservient wife role wasn't *her* at the deepest level of her mind. And he couldn't handle her not being able to fit into his preconceived, perhaps pre-conditioned, expectations."

"That could account for part of what's been going on," Jim agreed. "Domestic calls are sky-rocketing, and the whole damned PD is chewing nails because it's the wife that's throwing the first punch at least half of the time, especially when it comes to Daddy taking out his frustration on the kids. She's supposed to keep her mouth shut, take her medicine, and assure the offspring that daddy really loves them and the beating is for their own good."

"Rape reports are up, secretaries are quitting or just cold-cocking their bosses for sexual harassment, college students are questioning some of the more arbitrary customs on campus – like the dress code. Too early to check divorce rates, but I'll bet they've already started climbing." Blair ran down his the list of complaints and rumors he'd heard. "It hasn't had time to get to the national level yet, or at least not as far as I can tell from the newspapers. Maybe we should invest in a television to watch the nightly news."

"Any particular reason we'd want to watch the whole world unravel? We know why, maybe, but that's not going to help us or them."

"Whoever is behind the switch may step in to stabilize before we do too much damage to ourselves and their construct." Blair shuddered hard, instinctively turning and hugging his partner so that Jim's heat and presence enveloped him. "Unless, of course, that's the whole point of the exercise. To see what we do when the overlay they forced on us starts wearing thin."

"We know what would happen and they should, too," Jim said, hugging back just as hard. "This country is just getting over McCarthyism, and communism is still the boogie man. We barely survived the Cold War the first time; I don't know how good our chances are this second time around."

"We just don't have enough information!" Blair said in exasperation, the familiar refrain nagging him into what passed for normalcy lately. He gave a last hard squeeze and reluctantly stepped away, hoping he wasn't imagining the answering reluctance on Jim's part. Part of it was that he was a touchstone of reality for the sentinel, he knew, but he suspected there might be more behind it, and for the life of him, he didn't know what to do about it. Closets had been invented for some damned good reasons, and the level of unreasoning anger and violence being directed at anybody who dared step too far outside the norm right now made having one as sensible as having a storm cellar if you lived in Kansas.

So Blair went inside, hanging onto the jacket in lieu of hanging onto Jim, deep in thought but still hyper-aware of his partner following behind him, locking the doors and pulling down the shades. It helped to think they could shut the insanity out and create a sanctuary from it, and he couldn't help but wonder if there were other people in other places doing the same. For all their careful questioning and research, though, neither of them had found a single person who didn't believe that it was 1956.

Blair had gone so far as to question doctors at mental institutions, claiming that he was looking for a rare type of psycho-social disorder that he'd seen in primitive cultures. While the number of admissions was up - way up - the basic diagnosis for the majority had been psychotic break as a prelude to schizophrenia or catatonia. That seemed significant, but he couldn't be sure since the patients weren't communicative, for the most part. The staff was too over-worked to be open to having an outsider among them, asking what they considered ridiculous questions.

He had nearly hoped that his inquiries and nosing into strange places would attract attention and bring the people behind the time change out of hiding to do some questioning of their own. Despite it, Jim hadn't seen anybody unusual, they weren't being followed or watched as far as the sentinel could tell, and, as primitive as surveillance technology was, Jim would have spotted a bug in a split second. Unless, of course, their technology was so superior that even a sentinel couldn't find it, in which case they were screwed anyway, so he might as well use the more optimistic interpretation.

If they were going to work on that assumption, they might as well go out on a limb, he decided abruptly. So far, the conservative, careful approach wasn't working. "How expensive is it to put an ad in the Washington Post or New York Times?" Blair asked thoughtfully, finally settling on the couch. "In this day and age, if you wanted to reach as wide an audience as possible, that's the route to go."

"Newspaper ad? Something like, if you know how to boot a computer or burn a disk, please contact P.O. Box whatever? You sure raising our profile is a good idea?" Jim went into the kitchen and brought back two bottles of beer, opener in hand.

"If you have any other options, I'm open to them, but we're getting nowhere fast as things stand now." Blair glanced uneasily at the balcony doors, a nagging sense of urgency stirring deep in his mind.

Giving Blair a bottle and taking a long swig of his own beer, Jim considered a second, then asked, "How about bringing the really big guns into it? I've got Washington contacts in this reality, too; what do you think would happen if I pointed out the abrupt and dramatic rise in the homicide rate? Not just in Cascade, but in Seattle, San Francisco, and at least a half dozen other places I've checked."

Thinking about that while he took a swallow himself, Blair replied slowly, "I guess that depends on whether or not the people in D.C. are behind this somehow."

"Paranoid thinking, Mulder," Jim teased, but his expression was serious.

"Hey, just because you're paranoid..." Blair shot back. "And they're as good a bad guy as any, at this point." With a snort, he added, "We've moved from the Twilight Zone to the X-Files; where next? The Enterprise?"

* * *

"Okay, I was totally wrong. Skip television programs. I'm beginning to feel like the hero in one of those science fiction movies from this time - Invasion of the Body Snatchers, or The Blob, maybe," Blair muttered just for Jim's ears, three days later.

"Actually, you fit better as the mad scientist. The one who gets killed halfway through the movie after spending most of it convincing the hero of what's *really* happening," Jim muttered back, ducking his head down to Blair's level so he could be heard clearly over the nervous chatter filling the briefing room.

"Thanks for the pep talk, partner." Under the cover of the entrance of several more officers into the already crowded room, Blair inched back toward the solid reality of his partner, not surprised when strong fingers latched into his belt to guide him.

"Just remember not to commit the fatal error the scientist always makes, and you'll be okay."

"Which is?" Blair tried to match the facetious tone Jim used, but he was seriously spooked and wasn't sure he succeeded.

Dead serious, Jim whispered, "Confronting the monster on his own."

"Not a chance; I'm not that mad," Blair shot back, taking advantage of the press of people around them to lean into Jim for a second, using his body to back up his promise. "In fact, from the sound of things, we're probably the sanest people in the country right now. Damn, I should have anticipated something like this happening."

Before Jim could say anything to that, Captain Wilson stood on a chair and raised both his hands for silence. The room quieted quickly, at least as much because the Captain was well respected as because his officers wanted to know what was going on. As soon as he had his people's attention, he sat casually on the back of his chair - a good move in Blair's opinion.

Wilson was a short, thin man who must have just squeaked under the physical requirements for being a cop. If he had gotten down completely, he would have practically vanished into the crowd around him; by sitting on the back of the chair, the captain was noticeable without looking ridiculous or unapproachable. He also seemed very calm, though a whispered comment from Jim told Blair otherwise.

"Okay, people," Wilson said loud enough to be heard, but not yelling. "By now, you've all heard the rumors, or maybe even heard the start of it on the radio while you were listening to the series. I won't ask whether or not you were on duty while you were doing that." He waited until the uneasy chuckles died down, then went on. "It's true that the Yankees and Dodgers fans have started a riot that has spread through most of New York, and that more riots are being reported in most major cities. Whether they have the same root cause is unknown at this time.

"It is, however, only gossip - and dangerous gossip, I might add - that the Commies are behind it, inciting disorder and violence to cover for an invasion attempt. The same is true for the theory that an experimental gas that drives people insane has accidentally been released into the atmosphere, or that UFO's have been spotted over every city having problems currently. Let's get our heads out of our ass here and quit spreading that garbage. The fact is, we don't know why."

Before he could stop himself, Blair said just a shade too loudly, "Catharsis."

"I beg your pardon, Dr. Sandburg?" Captain Wilson asked, sounding honestly curious.

With all eyes suddenly on him, not all of them necessarily kind, Blair had to fight not to mutter 'nothing' and pretend he wasn't there, but with Jim's silent support wrapping around him like an invisible infra-structure, he straightened and said louder, "Catharsis, an emotional purging. You've all been complaining for weeks at the sudden rise of domestic violence and disturbances of the peace. Those were the rumbles before the eruption. The World Series was the fuse that set it off."

"What emotion?" Rafe asked, rocking on his heels, arms crossed as if he wasn't sure he agreed, but was at least willing to listen.

"Paranoia and fear," Blair replied promptly, sure of himself on this point. "The Red Scare, the Cold War, the A-bomb, McCarthyism and its witch hunts, science and scientists running amok. The rumors the Cap just mentioned are all based on very real fears and worries about an extremely uncertain future. The very nature of the rumors that are circulating are strong evidence for my theory."

"In that case, how do we fight it if Cascade blows?" Captain Wilson asked.

"You don't." Before the rumbles of anger and frustration could get too loud, Blair asked the room in general, "How many of you are vets?" As he expected, nearly half of the men raised a hand, and he nodded in satisfaction. "Then you know the worst part of a battle is waiting for it to happen, right? How many of you had a buddy flip out from it?" Again, a significant number of them raised a hand, not all of them vets, meaning they'd had a partner or family member tell them about it. "What did you do? What did your C.O. tell you to do?"

"Let it slide," Wilson answered, nodding his head in understanding. "Stay clear, sit on him only if he tries to hurt anybody or himself. Once he's exhausted, his head will clear. He'll feel like an idiot, but he won't do it again, and he'll be good for battle when it does come."

"In a way, this is the same thing," Blair said patiently, trying to make eye contact with every cop in the room at least once. "People have been waiting for the next world war to start almost since the last one ended, and they've got some serious worries about surviving this time around. The riots are like soldiers going off the deep end, and once everyone is exhausted, they'll feel like idiots, but they won't need to do it again."

"Cap," Jim interjected unexpectedly. "Containment might be the way to go if things start getting out of hand in Cascade. Fight starts in a bar, move in as many men as you can muster, fast as possible, wade in, take out the main combatants and separate them before the rumble spreads, shut down the establishment. If it's too big, we back off, intercede only if someone's in danger of serious harm, and then only a fast in-and-out rescue operation."

Wilson looked Jim over, clearly taking the opinion of a decorated Ranger very seriously. "Vandalism?" he asked doubtfully.

"Damned if we do, damned if we don't. We use force on unarmed citizens who are too enraged to react responsibly to a show of arms, and we're in trouble for excessive use of force and brutality. Hold off as long as destruction of property and disturbing the peace are the only crimes, and we'll be labeled as ineffective and cowardly. Personally, I like the option that leaves the most people alive."

"So do I," Wilson sighed. He looked tired and rubbed a palm over his balding head as he thought. Finally, he said, "In the long run, if we work it right, we'll be able to point to what happened - what *has* happened - in other cities and let the results here stand for themselves." There was a murmur of agreement from the other police officers, but even without it, Wilson had made his decision.

Stepping down from the chair, almost magically looking several inches taller and much sterner, he ordered, "Highly visible patrols, cars no farther than ten minutes distant from each other, no less than two cars answering every call. Detectives, dig out your uniforms; that's part of high visibility. The off shift has already been called in. We all work the next twenty-four hours, then first on, first off. If the calls pick up to the point where double coverage isn't possible, I'll assign priorities based on location and adult population. In other words, a bar fight can tend to itself if someone is breaking into a residence, clear? Rafe will co-ordinate patrol routes. All right, you've all got your marching orders. Move it."

The group broke up, buzzing loudly with discussion that was positive for the most part, as far as Blair could tell. Before he and Jim could clear the door, though, Captain Wilson pulled them aside, expression bland but his gray-eyed stare dug into each of them in turn. As soon as everyone was gone, he said, "Ever since Sandburg started riding with you, Ellison, you've gotten so damn good at the job, it's unnatural. Useful, but unnatural. You're not getting a regular patrol; you listen to the radio and show where you think you and your personal egghead will do the most good."

Behind him Blair could feel Jim start to stiffen, both in anger and protectiveness, and he quickly said, "Thanks, Cap. Mind if we hang close to the campus, though? My face is well known enough there that I could probably help defuse any student problems that might come up, too."

"Good move," Wilson approved. "Make the frat houses a priority." With a last speculative look, he hurried off, mind already far away.

"Good C.O.," Jim said begrudgingly. Then he turned to Blair. "Catharsis. The Nineties mind trying to break past the Fifties overlay out of pure frustration?"

Blair nodded and led the way to the parking lot so Jim could go home and get his uniform. "I should have known something like this would happen. I should have been prepared, had a plan to diffuse the tension and stress before it got to the breaking point. People are going to get killed, all because..."

"All because," Jim broke in firmly, "some unknown agency has been playing with their minds. If you *had* foreseen this, Chief, you wouldn't have been able to do a thing about it. If you'd gone to the press or the Cap, you would have been dismissed as a crackpot until after the fact. Who else could you have warned and what good would it have done in the long run?"

He stopped at the truck, keys jangling as he bounced them in his palm. "This mess isn't our responsibility, but we're doing the best we can to undo it anyway, though I know that doesn't seem like enough. Don't add to the guilt because you couldn't predict just how bad it would get."

"Right," Blair conceded unwillingly. Then he added stubbornly, "If you cut yourself the same slack when the night's over. The situation is going to self-destruct, no matter how hard we try and how good your plan was. And it *is* a good plan, Jim."

"Won't stop the brass from nailing my ass to the floor when it's all said and done," Jim predicted fatalistically. He also didn't make any promises about how he would feel when morning came, which was probably just as well, because Blair couldn't stop his own guilt from taking up residence in the back of his mind, sitting there heavy and unrelenting with no intention of ever leaving. What was the use of all those years of education and studying human culture if it didn't give him any answers when he really needed to know what people would do?

Sinking into a cycling litany of self-recrimination and fruitless worry about what else he could have missed, Blair hardly noticed the trip back to the loft. When the truck stopped, he got out automatically, trailing after his partner until they were in the loft. Once the door was shut, Jim swept him into a fierce hug, and said into his curls, "Stop blaming yourself! You're doing the best you can. Better than anybody else in your position could have done."

Stunned, Blair simply soaked in the feel of his partner, and just as he began to hope that the embrace would turn into something else, Jim broke away, hands loitering on his shoulders for a second longer. "Hear me, Sandburg?" he asked gently.

"I hear you," Blair answered honestly, with a little of the guilt peeling away under the blade of what he saw in his friend's eyes. "I really hear you."

"Good - give me five and we'll get back on the road." Jim ran for the stairs, undoing his shirt on the way.

Forcing his eyes away from the unintentional strip tease, Blair grabbed after the first rational thought he could find. Fortunately, it was a good one. "I'm going to call around the campus and get a head's up on what's going on there. Maybe we can stop some problems before they get to be one."

"Start with campus security; make sure they've been in touch with the PD, and if not, let them in on the game plan," Jim called down.

Picking up the handset and dialing, Blair muttered, "God, I miss touch-tone phones. Speed dial."

"Cell phones," Jim added from his bedroom. "Beepers."

"Palm pilots - the internet. At the moment, even AOL is looking pretty good."

Abruptly Jim stuck his head over the railing and asked, "Just when were modems invented, anyway, Chief? I could have sworn I heard..."

Before Jim could finish his sentence, which Blair was only half-listening to because he was distracted by the view, a voice sounded loudly in his ear, and he said absently, "Hello, Rainier Campus security? This is Dr. Blair Sandburg, anth... yes, that Dr. Sandburg." Blair tuned out the snort of amusement from upstairs and focused on the conversation at hand.

Five minutes later he hung up the phone as Jim came back down, checking the notes he'd scribbled during the conversation. Without looking up, he noted, "The Phi Betas have been exchanging insults and skirmishes with the Kappa Gammas all day, and it looks like it's escalating. The two bars closest to campus are filled to capacity, and all the sororities have very sensibly corralled their sisters for the evening."

"We'll check with Rafe to see who else has the campus patrol and make sure they make frequent sweeps by sorority row," Jim said.

Blair looked up at him just as Jim slid his nightstick into its loop on his belt, and had to painfully kill a moan deep in his chest before it had a chance to rise to his vocal cords. Blessedly, sentinel ears didn't pick up on it, and if other senses caught a clue about the havoc one wondrously ripped body wrapped in one ultra-male uniform was causing, they didn't make it through Jim's preoccupation with the issue at hand. Ruthlessly stomping on his libido, Blair added, "Better suggest foot patrols around the back after telling the housemothers so they won't get a backside filled with rock salt. Traditional path for panty raids is through the deserted lots behind the row."

"Speaking from personal experience?" Jim grinned.

Though the smile had never felt more false, Blair produced one. "Oh yeah! Did I ever tell you about the time I convinced my freshman advisor that the ritual merited serious study?"

Automatic pilot picked up the tale for Blair, saving him from having to think or look at his partner again until they were back on the road. After that, calls kept them both too busy to do much more than reel from crisis to crisis until shortly before dawn, when, miraculously, the residents of Cascade collapsed back into sanity and crept into their homes to face their surfacing shame and confusion. Exhausted, but unwilling and unable to take the day off and leave his students to deal with their turmoil by themselves, Blair gobbled a quick breakfast after Wilson released Jim from duty, then drove to Rainier for morning office hours before his first class.

Parking in his usual place, Blair sat behind the wheel for a moment, blinking stupidly at the view through his windshield while he switched mental gears from cop to teacher. It showed a world that was almost surreal in its normality, with no signs of the enormous impromptu bonfire that had served to occupy the majority of the insane on campus last night. Thankfully, the police had been able to confine the pyromaniacs so that no buildings were torched, but there *was* going to be a shortage of desks and chairs today. Not to mention more than a few students were going to have borrow textbooks and rewrite papers. Absently, he wondered if the cleaning crews had been able to remove the incredible mess from the food fight at the student union building in time for breakfast, and if the Chancellor knew how lucky Rainier was to get off so easily. Parts of Cascade proper were little more than gutted hulks and burnt ruins.

For a moment Blair almost dozed; the fall sunshine felt so good and this early the campus was quiet and peaceful. While he was ambling along the boundary between alert and asleep, he felt something change, felt it in his mind and in his bones, like fine layers of ash were being sifted over him, covering him completely with the soft weight of immanence. Instantly awake and recognizing the feeling for what it was, he hastily got out of his car and hurried toward Hargrove, the sense of deja vu so strong that he could measure it in breaths and heartbeats.

He walked down the near empty hallway, knowing who would pass him before he saw them, knowing what he would see once he was on the other side of the door marked 'Department Head.' Ms. Fossil was where she was supposed to be, wearing a pink twin sweater set, sleeves pushed up to her elbows, her fingers pounding away at her ancient typewriter.

Through sheer force of will, Blair pasted a flirtatious smile in place, walked up to her desk and perched on the corner of it. "Greetings, oh beauteous guardian of the portal," Blair said cheerily, amazed that he sounded sincere. "Can you spare me a few moments of your time?"

"And just who," Miss Fozanelli said frostily, hands stilling on her ancient typewriter, "Are you?"

Playing by the script because he couldn't think of a better way to go at the moment, he said lightly, "Why, Ms. Fozanelli, I'm surprised at you. Not recognizing Rainier's youngest and best paid Anthropology professor, here to get his student and class list, along with whatever pertinent paperwork your esteemed employers believe I should see to, and to see my new office. A nice corner one, with windows, I was told."

Like before, she frowned in confusion, fingers nervously stroking over the pink fuzz of her twin sweater set. "We hired a new teacher?" Her expression cleared, and she said, "Oh, to replace doctor..." She fumbled in her desk, clearly at a loss as to what to do next. "I'm sure I have the necessary papers here, somewhere, though I can't imagine where they could have gotten to. Your name, doctor?"

Dazed but somehow hiding it, Blair went through the motions with her, saying what he had to say and doing what he had to do until he was finally alone in the office that was once again his. This time, he didn't waste time looking through the desk or other documents; he dug in boxes until he found a copy of a published dissertation entitled, "Guardian and Protectors: Ancient Sentinel to Modern Police" by one Blair Sandburg. A look at the title page showed that it had been printed in 1976, and an article tucked into it announced both his graduation from Boston University and his acceptance of a two-year study in Borneo with Dr. Eli Stoddard, premier anthropologist of the decade, in the opinion of the author.

"New year, same old lie," he muttered and tossed the book aside, scrambling to his feet. For a moment he was torn - go to the PD and establish his credentials there, or rush home and help Jim make the transition to this new reality. His heart wanted the latter, but his head knew that if he were going to be any good to his partner in the long run, he needed to make his place in the department while he could. Reluctantly, he decided to go to the station first. Compared to last time, he was running ahead of schedule and could hopefully make it back to the loft while the shift was still flexible.

Despite the sense of urgency caused by his memory of a near-empty bedroom and a home with only the barest hint of his presence in it, Blair drove carefully, steadily, not wanting to waste time with a traffic cop or by getting lost. The streets of Cascade were more how he remembered them from the original history, with the names of businesses and unfamiliar buildings being the major difference, but he couldn't take anything for granted. Not in a world that was about as stable and unchanging as an ice floe in a raging river.

To his immense relief, Joel Taggart was the desk sergeant this time, and Blair was so glad to see him, that he didn't even care that the former bomb squad captain didn't recognize him. Like before, he waited politely until he was noticed, which took longer than he liked because of how much busier the station was. At least there was no suspicion in the dark eyes that measured him carefully once Joel did give him his attention.

"I'd like to speak with Detective James Ellison," Blair said calmly, positively. "I'm the new civilian consultant and liaison from Rainier University, Dr. Blair Sandburg, and I'm supposed to ride with Ellison for a while. At least until the Mayor and the Chancellor have milked all the good press they can get out of the 'ties of cooperation and mutual assistance between the cities' finest and our most prestigious institution of higher learning.'"

Without looking at the list of authorized visitors on the clipboard he'd reached for, Taggart said, "Civilian consultant? Since when?"

"I don't know when the Chancellor and the Mayor first came up with the idea, but it just got dumped on me this morning, much to my joy," Blair lied without so much as a twinge of conscience. "I've got a full day's class load already and this is the last thing I need. At least the Chancellor remembered that Jim and I knew each other, which will make getting set up here easier, though Jim probably isn't going to agree with me on that."

"Ellison with a civilian partner - yeah, wish I could be there when he finds out. Should be quite a show, which is Wilson's problem, not mine, thank God." Taggart began digging through stacks of files, but Blair didn't so much as look at the top one. For now, the cop would find what he needed and wanted to find, and that was all Blair had to worry about. Sure enough, he produced a slim sheath of papers. "How'd you come to know The Reverend, anyway?"

It was an unexpected question, and one Blair should have anticipated when he decided that the less he had to explain after the new time frame had been set, the better. On impulse, he said, "Through my mother, Naomi. They had a thing together for a while, way back, and Jim's kind of had a 'big brother' manner around me ever since."

"Must have been *way* back," Taggart said absently, handing Blair the paperwork. "Take this up to homicide, give it to the Captain there for his signature after you've filled all the forms out. Ellison hasn't checked in yet today, but his desk is the one in the upper right corner of the bullpen on the third floor. Easy to spot; looks like he spit polishes and shines it every night just before leaving."

Glancing through the papers to give himself a moment to think, Blair again fought the urge to rush home, then reluctantly caught the elevator. He'd been a kid during this era, and his perspectives were skewed by that filter, but one thing that he was sure of was that the cops had a very 'us versus them' mentality for most of the seventies. The remnants of that had been around when he had started riding with Jim, causing endless problems at first. Neither of them could afford to waste time and energy overcoming doubts and distrust for their partnership from the other cops if they were going to find out who was behind the time changes before the world dissolved into chaos again.

//No idea how long that will be,// Blair thought, churning potential problems over worriedly. //The mindset differences aren't that extreme this time and the overlay might hold better. Permanently?// He couldn't stop a shudder of dread, though he had to honestly admit there was a plus side to repeating a history he was more familiar with.

Stepping off the elevator, reminding himself that likely the floor plan probably hadn't changed much since the day the 'new' building opened, Blair went into the Homicide bullpen, finding Jim's desk easily. Halfway to it, he slowed, trying to suppress a smile that was threatening to split his head open; the one next to Jim's was occupied by a familiar and very welcome face: Simon Banks'. Hoping that he could break through to his old friend the same way he'd been able to break through to Jim, Blair stopped in front of him, pinned on his friendliest expression, and said, "Hey, do I know you?"

Without looking up from what he was writing, Simon answered blandly, with just a trace of hostility in his voice, "I'm told we all look alike."

"In this country?" Blair shot back just as blandly. "Nope. Now all the Masai look alike to me, but then, the shortest of them is well over six and a half feet, which gives me a splendid view of the underside of their chins. Hard to tell people apart by their chins."

Looking up at that, obviously torn between irritation and amusement, Simon took a look at him, then said laughingly, "I'd remember a poodle with glasses. Sorry kid, what can I do for you?"

"Arf," Blair replied amiably. "Just call me Hairboy; you should see the curls when they're long. I'm the civilian consultant Ellison's been stuck with. Dr. Blair Sandburg at your service."

Something - not recognition, but maybe a true deja vu - flitted over Simon's face, but he said sympathetically enough, "My condolences. Just remember to duck when the muscle in Ellison's jaw *stops* jumping, and you should survive. Name's Simon Banks, by the way."

"Jim's not that bad, once you get to know him," Blair defended, then pushed his friend. "You've got a son named Daryl? In college, maybe? That could be where I know you from. I seem to remember Daryl telling me something about his dad being a cop, and getting held hostage once because of it."

For a moment Simon went completely blank, as if he was a robot that had been turned off, then he was back, without any noticeable awareness that he'd been gone. "I do have a son, Daryl. He lives with his mother in another state. I haven't seen him in years, thanks to that bitch. If he ever talked to you about me, he was spinning lies; he wouldn't know me from Adam." There was bitterness in the tone, but it didn't sound quite real, more as if it were a pre-recorded speech.

Mentally taking a deep breath, Blair pushed one more time. "Bummer, big time. One of these days the courts have got to realize that dads have some rights, too. Well, he's an adult now; maybe you should look Daryl up and take him fishing or something. I know some great fly fishing spots; we could use Jim's truck and go camping for a long weekend, give you somebody else to hang out with if the reunion doesn't go well."

To his dismay, Simon ignored all of his comments except the part about Jim. "Where do you know Ellison from, anyway? He's never mentioned knowing a professor at the U."

"Since when does The Reverend talk about his past at all?" Blair answered, hiding his disappointment out of pure necessity. "He knew me when I was a kid and now he cops this 'big brother' attitude."

"When you were a kid, huh," Simon grinned. "Well, maybe you should go play the pesky little brother and find out what he's up to. He's late, hasn't even called in; the Cap is *not* happy."

"Good idea; beats hanging around here feeling like a fifth wheel. Give these to Captain Wilson for me, please?" Blair handed him the papers he'd been carrying, *willing* them to be properly filled out. "I'll be back in tomorrow to introduce myself around."

"Can do; see you then, Sandburg." Simon glanced at the papers, then put them on top of a stack that looked destined for Wilson's desk. Mind back on the report he was writing, he gave an absent wave and didn't watch Blair leave.

Foolishly Blair lingered at the doorway for a second, glad to see Simon but heartsick that so much had been lost. All the trust and friendship would have to be earned again, and while he was positive it was worth it, the effort required seemed very, very tiring at that moment. Suddenly needing to be with Jim, to be with the one person who knew him, really *knew* him, Blair all but ran for the parking garage, denying to himself that his strongest reaction to the new changes was the urge to scream in rage.

By the time he arrived outside the door to the loft, he was barely holding down a need to plop down in the middle of the floor and throw a tantrum that would impress a two-year-old. He inhaled slowly, ignored how unsteady the same breath was on the way out, then took out his key. Afraid of what he would find on the other side, but more afraid of waiting too long to go through, he started talking and let himself in. "Don't flip out on me, Jim, don't flip out on me. I'm your roomie and your partner in case you don't remember right at the moment, or in case you're so overwhelmed by what's happening to your senses that everything and everybody seems threatening. I can help you control them again; we've done this before, though you might not remember that right now, either. In fact, by now you and I are old pros at getting through major weirdness at a moment's notice. Comes with the territory of being a sentinel."

His relief at getting through the door died the instant he saw that the rooms beyond it were empty, not just of his partner, but of anything at all - no furniture, no blinds, no coats on the hooks by the door, no hooks by the door to start with. Blair stood in the middle of the vacant loft, pain clenching an icy fist around his heart, not allowing him to breathe or think. "God, no," he moaned. "Jim has to exist, he has to, he has to." With all his will he grabbed after the fading aura of transformation that he had been aware of all along, and began chanting fiercely, not daring to look up toward the bedroom where he *demanded* that he find Jim.

"James Joseph Ellison, son of Grace and William Ellison, one brother named Stephen. Called Enquiri by the Chopec when he lived with them in the jungles of Peru for eighteen months, a name given to him by Incacha, the shaman of the village who first showed him how to use his sentinel gifts and abilities. A former captain of the Rangers, a Detective for Major Crimes, Simon Banks' best detective and best friend, owner of a '69 Ford Truck, the loft apartment at 852 Prospect Street, #302, cop of the year for two years running."

As he spoke, willfully keeping to the facts of Jim's life, Blair climbed up to the bedroom, needing to find the true man, not one created from his personal interpretation of Jim Ellison, not one made by and for himself. There was no question in his mind that if he found only a copy of the person that belonged with him that he would turn on his heel and walk away. It didn't matter where he went after that, or what he did; he'd worry about that after he discovered if he could survive losing the person he counted on to get through the madness. Get through any life, if he were going to be honest with himself.

As he reached the middle step Blair felt the last of the fey energy layered over him dissipate, leaving the world solid and immutable again. Except... except this time he thought he could perceive a hint of it, lingering at the edge of his awareness like a flickering light in his peripheral vision. It didn't seem very important, though, and a second later he forgot all about it.

He had gotten far enough up the stairs that he could see into Jim's room - and it was exactly as it was supposed to be. Breaking into a run, he raced the rest of the way up, then to the other side of the bed where he could see Jim stretched out on his stomach on the floor, one hand near his head as if reaching for it when he fell. Blair dropped to his knees beside the bare form, fingers finding a thready, faint pulse in his partner's throat. But he was cold, so cold, and Blair grabbed the comforter off the bed to drape over him, then sat back on his heels to think hard.

Medicine of their own time had been less than helpful when it came to treating Jim when he had a problem with his senses; medical skills of 1978 had to be completely useless, especially since he couldn't tell them what he suspected was wrong. That left him, and it wasn't as if this were the first time he'd had to fumble around to help his sentinel with a bare minimum of knowledge and information at his disposal. Jim *counted* on him being able to assemble the scraps they were able to scrounge into something usable.

That reminder settled the last of his nerves, and Blair reached under the blanket to shove his partner to his side so it could be tucked around him completely, getting naked flesh away from the cold floor. He shed his own clothes except for his underwear and slid in next to him, not only to share warmth, but to share his reality in the form of scent and touch, as well.

Hugging Jim's head to his chest, Blair started talking, rambling from thought to thought in a wild free association that had very little to do with conversation, and everything to do with providing another sense for the sentinel to cling to. "New programming playing hell with the old one, huh? Or did the first overlay get erased first? I hope so, anyway. Man, I can't begin to imagine what it would be like if you've got all three versions of your life fighting it out in your skull.

"Have to say I like this one a bit better so far. I mean, Simon's back. So is Joel. Not as far up the social/economic ladder as they deserve, but definitely commensurate with the times. Bet Simon will be the first black Captain in Cascade in this timeline, provided it holds.

"It could. I mean, the biggest problem with the last one was that the 50's and the 90's were too far apart socially, philosophically, culturally, everything. The disco era, on the other hand, has been trying to make a come-back in our time for a while now; even the fashions are rolling back that way. Psychedelic colors, bell-bottoms, hip-hugger jeans. The last is especially tasty, I might add, being a big fan of ripped abs and flat tummies, especially when there's that little concave place between the hipbones. Great pillow, best place in the world to take five before getting on to the next thing."

As Blair talked, his hands roamed everywhere he could reach, delineating each firm muscle and long line of bone, as if he were creating them by his touch, or at least confirming their existence. Warmth began to seep into them, and the heartbeat he could faintly feel against his belly grew stronger, and Jim's breathing became deep and even. He cut himself off mid-word, and peered down at his partner, fingers gingerly touching an odd-feeling growth he'd found on the back of Jim's neck. A moment later it was gone so quickly that he couldn't be sure that he hadn't imagined it in the first place.

Before he could shift position to take a good look, a wave of tension rippled over Jim, and Blair sighed in relief, thinking his partner would regain consciousness. Instead, Jim murmured drowsily, "Blair?" then scrubbed a whiskered cheek over Blair's chest before going limp and pliant with deep sleep.

The soft sound of his name spoken as if it were the most important word in the universe was Blair's undoing. He laid his cheek on the top of the precious head and fought not to scream in pain, or yowl in frustration, or to violently shake like a plane coming in at too steep an angle until he broke up into a thousand fiery bits. The battle was exhausting, but he finally won and sank into his own slumber, grateful for the temporary release.

It was a much deeper sleep than he was usually granted, healing and smoothing emotions too worn and close to the surface. Once, Blair floated near the edge of consciousness, distantly aware that he was being moved from the floor to the bed, and given a drink of very welcome water. He tried to say Jim's name, but wasn't sure it wasn't all a dream, and drifted back down instead into rest and wonderful dreams where elegant, long-fingered hands formed his body from the very air, invoking languid pleasure.

In the midst of one so sweet and real that he was on the edge of climax from it, a loud noise jarred him awake, and he stared stupidly at an old-fashioned clock radio as a long arm reached over him to slap the thing silent. As he watched, the next number flipped down from the internal rolodex with a little click, telling him that it was 7:01am. "Go back to sleep," Jim whispered against the nape of his neck, spooning up against him again. "They can run this version of reality a day or two without us."

"We've already slept for nearly twenty-four hours," Blair said quietly, but he made no effort to move. It was the first time he'd awakened next to a man, one of the few times he'd ever awakened next to anybody and he was oddly unwilling to leave. His encounters with men had generally ended with their mutual release, and with the ladies, once the fun had been past, he'd always had too many other things waiting for him to take the time to linger. And to be truthful, he'd never really wanted to. Waking up alone was much simpler than making morning-after small talk or coping with a woman who had an entirely different interpretation of the night before.

But even if they had a rousing fight during breakfast over an invasion of Jim's space, it was worth waking up next to him. Blair was warm through and through for the first time he could remember in ages, and his whole body was utterly relaxed. The sensuality of the dream he'd been having was still with him, making him feel pliant and ready, though he was too lethargic to bestir himself to do more than be a willing receptacle for desire.

There was no way to hide his state from his partner, even if he had wanted to. Aside from the erection tenting the blanket over him, his scent had to announce loud and clear to the sentinel that Blair was aroused. All that remained was letting him know who he had dreamed of, who he wanted, and he murmured drowsily, "Jim."

Jim leaned up on one elbow and gently turned Blair toward him, his eyes a mystery in the early morning light that Blair had somehow always known how to read. With a certainty that he would have found frightening any other time or place, he knew that Jim could cover him, entering easily and painlessly, without preparation, though Blair had not loved that way in years. He was just as positive that it would be exhilarating and thoroughly satisfying – literally the best sex he'd ever had in his life.

It would also be wrong, though he had no sure reason to believe that. He only knew that there was something deeply hidden in the blue gaze locked onto him that spoke of fears and pain that didn't belong in the eyes of a man about to make love. Much as he ached to the bottom of his soul for what he and Jim could share, now was not their time.

As his partner bent down to kiss him, Blair gently, sorrowfully put a hand on his broad chest to stop him. "Not now, not yet."

Surprise and worry replaced the luminescent desire in Jim's expression, and he drew back a few inches. "What's wrong?"

"We're not ready yet." Blair waited for an explosion at his blunt words; if you went by physical evidence, they were both more than ready. In fact, Jim had to be hurting with need to judge by the straining erection pressing against Blair's thigh. Yet the relief on his face was unmistakable, and Jim curled up behind him, head on the pillow above Blair's so that his chin brushed curls with each breath they took.

Neither of them spoke, but simply lay together watching light fill the loft and letting their physical frustration seep away as though it were afraid of the morning. Finally, when all that remained was the comfort of being skin-to-skin, Blair said, "I knew it was happening this time. It seemed like a dream at first, or the memory of one, but I could tell the world had changed, even though it looked the same on the surface." Jim didn't say anything, but his whole body said he was listening, and Blair briefly told him about living through the morning of September 16, 1978 again, and how in many ways it had been a repeat of September 16, 1956.

When he was finished, Jim said quietly, "I think I saw it change. No, not just saw - experienced it with all my senses. It didn't feel like it was done quickly; it felt like it lasted forever. One second I was getting undressed for bed, the next everything was gone. I couldn't see, I couldn't breathe because something was blocking my throat, I couldn't move because I was being restrained by cords or ropes, something that bit into me as I struggled. All I could hear was this echoing hum, as if I were standing under high-tension wires with my hearing wide open. For a minute..." He stopped and hitched microscopically closer to Blair, every muscle in his body so tense that they strained against the boundaries of skin, then he finished very quietly, "I thought I was dying.

"Then you were with me, and I was back here, but I had been gone so long that returning took everything I had. I must have passed out almost the same moment I realized you were holding me. A few hours later the phone woke up me; Wilson calling to chew my ass out for not showing up or checking in. I have no idea what I said to him; the only thing that's really clear is crawling into bed with you to fall back asleep. Probably going to get a letter in my jacket," Jim finished with a wry chuckle, making a deliberate effort to lessen the impact of the horror he'd described. "It's going to feel like a petty thief jailed on death row, considering some of the other letters I've got in my file."

Twining his fingers with the ones on the hand draped over his stomach, Blair held on tight, stomach clenched at how close he had come to losing his partner. Fear that he would lose him the next time reality was reset made him ignore the humor and ask, "I brought you back?"

"It wasn't like the vision we shared at the fountain," Jim said cautiously, disinclined as always to discuss anything that touched on the supernatural, even that.

With a shrug in his voice, Blair said, "It wouldn't be. That part of us has already merged. Maybe it's more a case of where one of us is, the other can be, because of the merge, under the right circumstances. Which suits me just fine, right now, to be honest. So why didn't you want to make love with me, merge with me physically? I know you would have, but only because I wanted it, right?"

"I can't say 'no' to you," Jim whispered. "But I don't want to hurt you."

"Hurt me? Jim, I can't believe you wouldn't be careful to the point of ridiculousness."

For a moment Jim didn't say anything, then he blew out a soft breath, as if bracing himself. "I hurt you all the time. I yell at you when you haven't done anything to deserve it; I lash out at you because you're a convenient target when I can't destroy the real source of my anger or frustration or what ever. I belittle you, don't appreciate your contributions, and generally act like the anal, self-centered ass I am."

"Look," Blair started, but his partner squeezed him again, asking for patience.

"Because you're my friend, you forgive me," Jim said slowly, clearly searching for the right words. "When you have to, you go toe-to-toe with me to put me in my place, or give my bull back to me on your own terms. If I get too out of line, you walk out on me, but later, we make peace and go on with each other, with hardly a word about it ever again.

"Friends can do that; lovers can't. The hurt cuts too close to the bone, scars too badly." The sadness in Jim's voice deepened, giving it a rough quality that, for the life of him, Blair couldn't ever remember hearing. "I know; I've tried. Why do you think I dated strong, assertive women? I was looking for someone who could dish it out, and shrug it off when I was doing the dishing. But I learned that no matter how strong they are, when you're close to them, when you're intimate, they're *more* vulnerable. I won't do that to you, Blair."

Much against his will, he could see Jim's reasoning, even agree with it to a certain degree. "Don't I get a say in this?" he asked, preparing his arguments anyway.

"Of course you do. But be certain before you cross that line. Be very, very certain." Jim's tone was flat, giving nothing away, but Blair was too well-versed in his partner's psyche not to realize that he was hiding dread. Jim's tendency to take the blame when things went wrong, along with the fact that the pain of a failing relationship cut *both* ways, made Blair hold his tongue. Today was not the day for convincing him that the risk was worth what they could share, not when the world was literally shifting on its moorings around them

"What do we do now?" Blair asked.

"Get breakfast, then go shopping," Jim replied prosaically. "There's nothing below us but four walls and the kitchen appliances that came with the place originally."

"And after that?"

"Plug up the holes in your cover story, like last time. Should be easier; records are being computerized, if memory serves me, but most of the systems are vulnerable to hackers. Then I want to look up the files for the cases we worked 'twenty years ago,' and see if they exist, and who supposedly was the detective for them back then. Might find a clue as to who's doing the switch on us."

"And you're hoping that Serena Chang isn't one of them," Blair said knowingly. "That she's still alive in this time and place."

"They brought Simon back," Jim pointed out. He stretched fractionally, nuzzled the top of Blair's head once, then started to get up. "O'Malley's again? I'm pretty sure it was still around in our time."

* * *

"Some things are universal," Blair muttered, signing on the dotted line for the thousandth time one morning a month or so after the last reset. "No matter what year it is, cops eat way too much junk food, bureaucrats are always dedicated to making difficult what should be simple, and paperwork is done in triplicate."

"Computerization will only make it worse," Jim agreed absently, his pen plowing its way across an arrest report. "Paperwork used to just multiply like rabbits; thanks to shared data bases and automatic filing, it'll multiply like tribbles."

"Think we should try to warn every body when they start discussing bringing them in, this time around?" Blair asked jokingly.

Jim looked up at that, clearly giving the idea serious thought. Finally he said reluctantly, "Quick fingerprint and wanted searches, not to mention what it will do for forensics."

"Like every other tool," Blair started to say, but he stopped himself as he saw Captain Wilson making his way across the bullpen, clearly aiming for Jim's desk and just as clearly unhappy about it. "Oh, fuck," he said without emotion.

"You don't have to," Jim said instantly, too softly for Wilson to hear as he came closer.

"Yes, I do," Blair stated flatly. "You know I do. Serena is still dead; all of them are still dead. Only the ones that vanished during the shifts can come back, Jim."

Before his partner could reply, Wilson was by them, and he didn't waste any time arguing with the anger Jim was directing at him. "I know you didn't sign up with us for this, Professor," he apologized. "We've got another murder/suicide shaping up and no one else is available to take it."

Standing, Blair reached for his jacket and Jim's. "Jumper, bomber, or shooter this time?" he inquired tiredly.

"Shooter, at the Wonderburger on Powell Street." Wilson looked over at Simon and Rafe. "You two be back-up for them."

With a snort that was part amusement and part genuine admiration, Rafe said, "Like those two need it. Since this whole epidemic started, they haven't lost a single person who was alive when they arrived."

"There's always the first. Roll." With sympathetic pat to Blair's shoulder, Wilson made his way back to his office, shaking his head slowly at his own thoughts.

Automatically checking his holster as he stood, Simon asked, "Sandburg, do your friends at the University have *any* ideas why this is happening? All that brain power in the shrink department has to have some explanation."

Leading the way to the elevator, grateful for Jim's guiding hand at the small of his back for the small comfort it offered, Blair answered, "Lots of theories, but frankly, I think it's all so much bull. What's even spookier, if you ask me, is what a friend of mine - a grad student studying religion and culture - told me. Membership in the Jim Jones style cults is sky-rocketing."

They all stepped in the elevator, Jim going to the rear to stand behind Blair. "Not just cults," he said distantly. "Church attendance is up, too."

"I guess you'd know about that, Reverend," Rafe joked genially.

Simon, though, shot Jim a puzzled look, one of many that had been aimed the sentinel's way in the past weeks. Having no choice but to ignore it, Jim explained, "St. Paul's for sure, but all denominations, as far as I can tell by the number of cars in the parking lots on Sunday and for evening services."

Wishing he could tell Simon that the real Jim was hiding under the Reverend, Blair said distractedly, "Clubs, too. That new disco place has been packed every night since it's been open."

Looking slightly relieved, as if he'd found solid ground after floundering in quicksand, Simon said, "And *you* would know about that."

Affecting a lechery he didn't feel, Blair smirked, "A man's got to have a hobby, you know? Besides, I can probably get a paper out of it; something along the lines of Sexual Rituals and Courtship Behaviors as Influenced by Primitive Music Rhythms. It's publish or perish for post-docs, and this way I can get two birds, so to speak, with one Rolling Stone."

Rafe and Simon chuckled appreciatively, then mercifully the elevator doors slid open on the parking garage, and he could make his escape. Once they were safely in the truck and on their way, Blair asked his stony-faced partner, "Why are you perpetuating the Reverend Ellison thing? The only reason you know that attendance is up at the Episcopal church is because we play pick up with Father Worthington on Saturdays."

Covering the hand Blair had resting on the seat between them with one of his own, Jim answered, "For the same reason you play to the misconception that you'll lay anything in a skirt when we both know you're every woman's friend and nobody's lover right now. It's good cover."

Blair frowned, not at his partner, but at himself because he hadn't looked at it that way, which didn't make it any less the truth. He'd thought of it as habit more than anything else; that and he genuinely liked feminine company. "So why let Simon think it, too?" he settled on finally, obliquely asking about what really bothered him. "The disparity between the you he knows deep in his heart and the one from his overlay is tearing at him, the same way the subtle differences between what is and what should be is tearing at everyone."

"Because I keep walking into it, too," Jim replied, all emotion gone from his voice. "I'll start to remind him of something we did and have to shut up because Daryl was there too, which means if Simon remembers it at all, he remembers it differently. When it comes to people, I can't use the memories in my head the same way I can with the job or getting around Cascade; they mix and blend to the point I can't always tell which is which. Sometimes I wish I were like you, with just the real history to deal with."

"No, you don't," Blair said, bitterness rising up sharp and sudden to block his throat. "Know why I'm so good at talking down all these suicides, man? Because I know exactly how they feel: like they've been erased from reality. Living ghosts that can't connect with the masses surrounding them because they're not *there.*"

"You are," Jim answered simply, the sincerity cutting through the momentary self-pity that threatened to consume Blair. "Which is the real reason we haven't lost anyone. You anchor them, if only for a moment, give them a solid reference point to work from."

Honestly taken aback at his partner's viewpoint, Blair asked, "Is that how you see it?"

"That's how I've always seen you, Chief." Jim gave a last squeeze, then put his hand on the steering wheel to deal with traffic.

Blair stared at him, mouth open in wonder and a different kind of warmth blanketing his mind and heart, melting away his incipient gloom. A second later, the radio crackled, asking for their location and telling them shots had been fired at their destination, and he put his mind back on the job at hand. The warmth stayed with him, though, becoming a source of strength for him to draw on as he braced himself to deal with another despairing soul.

Listening carefully to what details the dispatcher could give, as well as those Jim gave him once they were close enough for the sentinel to use his abilities, Blair tried to build a mental image of the gunman, focusing on what might send him over the edge. It was hard for Jim to read the emotion in the voice he heard over the distance, especially the first few minutes when he was picking it out from an assortment of other noises, but Blair quickly got the impression that loneliness was behind the outburst. The hunch was backed by the fact that it was a public, noisy fast-food restaurant, filled with people socializing, underlining how alone the shooter had to feel.

They parked a small distance from the units responding to the call, giving Jim a chance to scope out the layout in and around the restaurant, then he pinpointed one of the first officers on the scene and approached him. The tall, lanky man glanced over his shoulder, gray eyes filled with irritation, until he recognized them. "Detective Ellison? Dr. Sandburg? I'm Officer Rand. We worked together on that domestic last week?"

"Officer Rand," Jim acknowledged distractedly, crouching down beside him, mind and senses in the building with the gunman already. "What have we got here?" The question was nearly rhetorical; it would have raised eyebrows if he hadn't asked.

"The usual," Rand answered, trying to be matter-of-fact, but sounding exhausted and frustrated instead. "One guy, white, middle-aged, medium build, dark hair the same shade as mine but with gray at the temples. He has an automatic weapon for sure, pistol back up possibly. Four witnesses made it out because they were close to an exit when he first started shooting things up. No human targets so far, but he's threatening anyone who tries to leave and challenging us to come in and get him."

"Suicide by cop?" Blair asked, using an expression that wasn't supposed to be in the language for another twenty years. He peered over the hood of the car, not seeing much but a distant figure moving inside the building.

"All the earmarks," Rand agreed. "No I.D. on him so far; not a regular according to the one counter girl who escaped out the back door. We're running plates from cars in the parking lot now, hoping he didn't walk, and another unit is canvassing the local businesses in case he's an employee at one."

Jim almost visibly focused on Rand, nodding in satisfaction. "Good work. Has he responded directly to you or any of the other officers at all?"

"Not so far, and he hasn't really fired on us, either." Rand turned and sat on the ground, back braced on his unit. "What is it with these guys that they have to take innocent people with them? Why not just eat a bullet and be done with it? Why make *us* do it?"

At that moment Simon scuttled from the unit parked on the other side of the building, and sat down next to him. "Thousand dollar question. The million dollar one is why are there suddenly so many like him?" He nodded at Jim, then at Blair. "Rand's partner filled in us in already; I told him we play it your way for now."

Taking a deep breath and wishing he hadn't had time to think about it but could dive right in, Blair said, "First things first. Let's see how close he'll let me get."

"No, this is the first thing." Jim held up the kevlar vests he had personally bought for them and was in the process of convincing the department to use.

Blair grimaced, but didn't protest. The first kevlar vests were hot and heavy, but they not only did the job, they were virtually unknown to the public yet, giving him an edge that could easily save his life. He peeled off his sweater and shrugged into it, holding still as Jim checked the fastenings for him. "Same as last time?" he asked. "I get his attention, get him in position, you take out his gun hand, everybody rushes him before he can go for his back up?"

"Sounds good to me. With all the windows, there's practically no cover; I'm going to go around to the near side of him from where he's got the hostages clustered. I think it's a blind spot. Rand, you and your partner take the rear; see if you can get in that way. Simon, you watch Sandburg's back; he knows to keep to one side to give you a clear view. Tell Rafe to cover the front of the restaurant."

Jim finished fastening his own vest, as Blair put his sweater back on, then let his partner check the buckles. "Use the radio to stay in touch?"

"No, the chatter might spook him," Blair replied after a moment's thought.

With a nod of agreement, Jim said, "Give me five, then be ready to go." With a final pat to Blair's arm, he left, running fast and keeping low.

With all that he had on his mind, Blair still watched him go, feeling bereft, then turned his attention back to the restaurant, marginally aware of Rand moving in the opposite direction from Jim. Simon's presence was familiar, and he didn't dwell on it as he waited for the hands on his watch to crawl forward five minutes.

"So your mother knew Jim a while back, you said?" Simon asked unexpectedly.

Caught off-guard, Blair managed to say nearly truthfully, "Yeah, though how far back I can't tell you for sure."

"Your *mother* Sandburg?"

Simon didn't sound suspicious, exactly, more like he was just trying to make all the pieces fit, so Blair said, trying not to be defensive, "My mom was nearly a child herself when she had me, and she's always been a beautiful woman. She's something like the original flower child, or maybe a flapper born in the wrong time. I have no idea if she and Jim were intimate, or if he was just one of the strays that she's always picking up and trying to help."

"Jim, a stray?" Simon snorted, shaking his head in disbelief.

It did sound funny, but it was accurate too, in a way; strays were often loners that had been kicked by life so often they didn't trust any more. Carefully mixing truth with half-deceptions, keeping in mind that Simon was a friend, no matter how strange the circumstances were right now, Blair answered, "Jim's been estranged from his family for years; since before he joined the Army. My guess is that Naomi would want to provide one for Jim, in her own way, even if it was only giving him a 'little brother' to replace Stephen."

Rubbing a hand over his hair, looking at the ground, Simon muttered almost to himself, "I didn't even know he *had* brother. I should have, I'm the closest thing the man has to a friend, but since you came along, I feel like I've never known him at all."

Suddenly he pinned Blair with a hard look. "It still doesn't make sense to me that he's never said anything about you at all, not so much a picture of you and your mom in his home. The two of you are close, too close, for him to never mention you at all. Damn it, Sandburg, I've seen partners who have ridden together for years who don't work together as well as you and Ellison did the very first day. Every instinct I have tells me that something else is going on here, something I can't afford to be in the dark about."

Thinking furiously, Blair tilted back his head and sighed when the day's first drops of rain began pattering down. This replay wasn't going well, but it hadn't deteriorated completely either; at least not to the point where he thought history might be started over again. He and Jim could be in for a long, weary repeat; too long and weary to survive sanely without a single ally or friend they could turn to. And wasn't isolation and dislocation the problem for the whole world right now?

Slowly he said, "There is something going on, Simon. But it's not up to me to tell you, because it's Jim's secret, Jim's life that's at stake here. I've already learned the hard way not to take chances with it."

Simon chewed that over carefully, pulling his hood up over his head, then asked, "I should just ask him?"

"If you're worried about him shutting you out completely, I could pave the way," Blair offered readily.

"I'll take my own lumps, thank you. Only reason I started with you was because if I was dead wrong, I'd be hurting a man who's hurting more than enough already." At Blair's startled jump, Simon chuckled. "I am a detective, Sandburg. I've been known to notice a thing or two occasionally."

Smiling, Blair said, "Why did he think he could shut you out? I'm still going to let him know we talked. Give him the chance to decide what to say and how to say it."

Before Simon say anything else, the radio crackled and Jim told them he was in position. Rafe and the other officers checked in seconds later, and Blair absently tugged on his sweater, making sure that it covered the kevlar completely. "Tell them I'm going in," he said as he slowly stood, keeping a wary eye on the man pacing back and forth inside the Wonderburger. "Thanks for keeping me distracted."

"You're not the only one good with Rolling Stones," Simon quipped.

"Heard you weren't too bad with the birds, either," Blair shot back, then he gave a half-wave and walked away from the relative safety of the police car.

Keeping both hands up where they could be seen, Blaire took his time crossing the parking lot, giving the shooter every opportunity to see him coming. Long before he reached the door, the man had backed into the corner opposite the hostages, gun up, but wavering, as if he weren't certain he should be brandishing it. Giving into impulse, Blair knocked on the glass a couple of times before sticking his head through the door. "Mind if I come in?"

"You a cop?" the gunman asked angrily.

"Nope, just work with them." Blair eased inside, staying on the threshold, ready to dive into the bushes on the side if he had to.

"Fucking psychiatrist then. I don't want to talk to some mother fucking shrink!" Thankfully his tone wasn't as angry, and had definite undertones of uncertainty in it, to Blair's ear.

"Not a shrink, either. I'm a mediator, a line of communication between you and the fuzz, if you want to look at it that way. You can search me if you want, make sure I'm not armed, or throw me out and ask for somebody else to talk to. You're the one with the gun; nobody's going to argue with you." As he spoke, Blair carefully edged closer, unwillingly giving up his margin of safety, but fairly sure from the way the barrel was dropping that the shooter didn't intend to use his gun right away.

"Damn right they're not," the man muttered, beginning to pace along the counter. "Damn right."

Hopping up on the far end of it, Blair explained, "The usual deal in situations like this is for me to ask you what you want, then see what I can do to get it for you, though I can't make any promises."

"I want them to *see* me!" the shooter bellowed. "The girl never looked up when I gave her my order, not even when I handed her my money. Three people nearly walked into me while I was heading for a table because they weren't looking at me. I ate, and not one person so much as blinked when I stared at them, as if I wasn't there. Then, then, I go to leave, and some *idiot* knocks my tray out of my hand, spilling what was left of my drink all over my clothes, and I couldn't take it any more. I was going to do this at work, it's inexcusable that those assholes don't see me, but these people have to know I'm here. They damn well see me now."

"Who do they see?" Blair asked gently, genuine compassion and understanding coloring his words.

"John Hatcher," he answered automatically, then he looked surprised at himself for doing it.

"Any family, John? A wife, children?" Blair probed, taking advantage of the momentary lapse.

"I should have," he muttered, barely loud enough to be heard. "There should be children, girls."

"You're alone then? No friends?"

"What's that got to do with it?" Hatcher snapped, anger returning. "They don't see you either. They just see what they want to see, what they can get from you."

"Well, everyone is seeing you now, just like you said," Blair said reasonably, not wanting to let him dwell on what couldn't be helped at the moment.

"Fucking right, they do."

"So there's no need to keep them here, is there? I mean, you could shoot them if you had to, but do you really want to? You did what you had to; you made your point. Why bother with them?" Blair dropped his voice to a confidential level. "And you're scaring the kids, man. Do you really want to do that?"

Hatcher glanced uncertainly at the cluster of twenty or so people in the corner nearest him, frowning when he noticed that the adults had herded the children into the center, protecting them with their bodies even as mothers shushed and comforted them. "No," he said abruptly. "They don't all need to be in here. The kids can go." He waved with his gun. "You take them out."

"Done." Blair jumped off the counter, and headed straight for the hostages, the skin on the back of his head and neck trying to creep off as he imagined Hatcher tracking him with the gun. In short order he had the six children herded away, carrying the smallest himself, mothers letting them go with a mix of brave smiles and tears. At the door, he handed them over to Simon, not at all surprised to find him waiting since Jim would have given him a head's up over the radio.

Once the door shut behind them and his heart slowed down a few beats, Blair asked politely, "Okay for me to stay?"

"Why?" Hatcher replied bitterly. "Going to try to talk me into releasing the rest of them, or maybe into giving up all together?"

"Well, that is the general idea," Blair admitted easily. "That's why The Man sent me in, after all."

"Why in the hell don't they just shoot me? That's their job." Then, obviously afraid he had said too much and given himself away, Hatcher spun away from Blair and stalked to the center of the counter area, hefting the gun again as if thinking about taking out a few of his captives.

"Know how some doctors go into medicine to make money, but most do it because they really want to help people?" Blair said quietly. "Same with the fuzz. A few are into the power thing, no question, real pigs. But you'd be surprised how many of them are just born and bred to protect. As luck would have it, that's the kind you drew on this call. Nobody out there wants to kill you; none of them particularly wants to go home with blood on their hands. Hey, even pigs have feelings, right?"

Hatcher turned back to him slowly, weapon sinking to his side completely. "They get paid for the blood," he said sullenly.

"Like a soldier," Blair agreed, making eye contact with him and holding it. "They get paid to die if they have to, too, just like a soldier. That doesn't mean they want to; just that they will if they have to. Even then most of them don't know if they can actually do it when push comes to shove. When you picked up that gun today were *you* sure that you could hurt another human being with it, even to make them see you? That wasn't really the point behind it, was it?"

As if pulled forward by the caring in Blair's voice, Hatcher took a few hesitant steps toward him. "You're making *me* see *them,* aren't you? I looked and saw uniforms, guns, the same way people look at me and see a suit and briefcase. It's like, like..." Hatcher stuttered to a stop, mentally, then his face took on a stunned expression, as if he'd suddenly noticed what had been right in front of him all along. "Like you can see everybody, see the people behind the facades slapped over them."

Alarmed for no reason that he could pinpoint, Blair held up both hands in an instinctive halting gesture. "That's what I do for a living; I'm an anthropologist with Rainier University."

"Anthropologist, you study people." Hatcher repeated as if drugged. "That's why you *see* them; that's why the police are using you. Not good, not right. Using you like that. I don't want them to have a choice. Because of all the mad, sad people who've been taking this way out since murder is forgivable and suicide isn't. The Church won't let you bury a suicide in hallowed ground, won't give them last rites, but a murderer can confess, be saved. And we're told over and over suicide is for weaklings and cowards, failures at life." Abruptly his expression cleared, eyes sharpening. "It's wrong for them to use you."

Sensing rather than seeing his gun hand come up, Blair started to tackle Hatcher, but before either of them could move more than a few inches, Jim was there. One powerful forearm circled Hatcher's throat as Jim's free hand pulled up the barrel of the weapon, and Blair hit him from the front, pinning Thatcher's other arm to his chest and getting in the other man's face.

"What if death is just like this?" Blair whispered urgently, desperately concentrating on Hatcher and not letting himself think about the other cops crashing through the doors or the screaming hostages or anything else but the man in front of him. "Except you can't ever be freed of it? An eternity of being overlooked, ignored, invisible. At least here you *can* be seen; you just have to learn how to do it without scaring the shit out of people, man."

Hatcher stopped struggling, his horror freezing over his face. "What if this is already hell?"

"Maybe it is; maybe one man's hell is another man's heaven, and that's why every one else is so damned happy about being able to slide by without being noticed. Maybe there's no hell or heaven at all, and when you're gone, you're gone, with no chance of *ever* being seen." Blair took a deep breath and admitted, "I don't know one way or the other, but I *do* know that as long as you're alive, you've got a chance to find the answers, to learn what you need to know. Maybe find those daughters you feel you should have."

As Blair spoke, Hatcher grew more and more tense, then without warning, he went limp, sagging completely in Jim's hold. "I'm just as much to blame as they are, aren't I?" he muttered. "I didn't see them, either, didn't look past the shell." Focusing on Blair, he went on, "I need to learn how to, just like you do. Then I'll stop being invisible, too." With a crooked smile, Hatcher said, "Guess I'll have time to study in prison, huh?"

"I'll help," Blair promised, stepping back to let Jim put the cuffs on, fighting not to look at his partner and get derailed. "I don't know how, but whatever I can do, I will."

Hatcher looked him over once more, visibly comparing him to the cops bustling around them, then said wonderingly, "You will, won't you? That's part of being visible."

From behind Jim growled, "That's part of being human. Past time for you to learn that lesson."

Head hanging, Hatcher let himself be led away by Rand, and Blair watched him go, teeth worrying his lower lip, not sure if he should worry more about their captive - or his partner.

Twenty minutes later, Blair sat on the tailgate of Jim's truck, watching him take off the kevlar, not liking the empty, remote look on his partner's face at all. It scared him, reminding him all too closely of the cold, barely-breathing man on the floor that he had fought to bring back. "I hit the nail on the head, didn't I?" he asked calmly. "Wherever I am, you can be, under the right circumstances."

"I didn't even think about it," Jim confessed, pretending to take great care in checking over the vests for wear and tear. "I saw him start to bring the gun up, his finger tighten on the trigger, and I started moving. Literally the next instant I was behind him." He dropped the vests with a dejected thump. "And here comes Simon, no doubt wanting explanations."

"I think we should give him one, a partial one anyway. We need back up, Jim, and we're adding to the stress he's already feeling from the reset. He knows something's up; he told me."

Before Jim could answer, Simon was beside the truck, uncharacteristically looking unsure of himself. Jim sat on the tailgate beside Blair, then scrubbed at his face. "You want to know how I knew that Hatcher was going to shoot when I was behind him."

"For starters," Banks said gruffly.

"I heard his heartbeat settle down; in the past weeks I've learned that for a suicide, it means they've made up their mind to do it. No more fear or worry." At Simon's astonished glare, he added, "You lied to Rafe; you did have a pineapple danish on the way in this morning, diet or no diet. You ate it while you were driving. The scent is strongest on your left hand, and I can see tiny crumbs caught in the weave of your jacket."

"Jim was born with a gift," Blair explained when their friend swung toward him, obviously expecting a grin or some other sign they were pulling his leg. "He's a sentinel; all five of his senses are heightened. Look, this is no place for this discussion. Can you drop over at the loft tonight?"

A shout in the distance reminded them all they were still on duty, and Banks nodded. "Count on it. And if I find out this is some kind of warped joke on your part, you can also count on spending the rest of the night looking for body parts - your own."

He stomped away, and Blair slumped in on himself. "I don't think he noticed you were too far away to get to me as fast you did. Just that you knew that there was a problem before anyone else did."

"Thank God for small favors." Jim snaked an arm around Blair's waist, giving a small squeeze, then stood before anybody could notice the momentary intimacy. "Give him a chance to buy into the sentinel part of it before we dump the rest on him. Assuming we get the chance. I get the feeling..." He trailed off, staring into a place that even a sentinel shouldn't be able to see.

"That the chaos is going to critical mass again," Blair finished tiredly. "I think I'm going to be grateful; at least in our version of 1956 they weren't turning their confusion and pain in on themselves. Or worse still, looking for explanations in all the wrong places."

"Maybe next time whatever they're trying to do will come out right," Jim said, leading the way to the front of the truck.

Blair followed him slowly, his own words echoing in his head, as if they were trying to blend with something else that he knew or should know. Despite the hectic day, they stayed with him, driving him to distraction with their sense of importance. It wasn't until they were safely back in the loft and having dinner with Simon that he was able to finally dismiss them. The evening was filled with the simple pleasure of friends and companionship, reminding all of them, Blair thought, of what they had been missing recently.

Perhaps that was why, when the conversation finally, reluctantly, turned toward the events of the day, Jim told Simon far more about his abilities and himself than Blair had ever expected, demonstrating as necessary to prove himself. Simon listened impassively, though the hands that he had held loosely clasped between his knees as he sat on the couch slowly tightened on each other until the knuckles stood out in stark relief. On impulse, Blair went into his room and brought out the box of cigars they had bought for their friend's birthday.

He handed it to Simon, then went to open the balcony doors to keep the smoke down to a minimum, for Jim's sake. "Something for your hands to do," he explained.

Looking relieved - and very pleased - Simon opened the box, and took a deep, appreciative sniff. "Man! Wish I could afford to smoke these daily; but on a cop's budget… Thank you." Taking one out, he began turning it over and over in his fingers rather than light it. "And thank you for being truthful with me, though I have to tell you I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around it all. Mind a few questions?"

"Ask away," Blair said, sitting cross-legged on the floor on the other side of the coffee table from Simon.

At the same time Jim sat back in his chair and kneaded the back of his neck with one hand. "Go ahead, but Sandburg's got a better handle on the nuts and bolts of this sentinel thing than I do."

Simon studied the cigar as it twirled, then after a moment said, "You were born like this, but your abilities were repressed a couple of times, you said. Did they awaken again because of Sandburg? Because he came back into your life to teach you?"

Head down, hand still at the back of his neck, Jim looked exhausted, but more relaxed than he'd been in since the replays began, as if the burden of secrecy was lighter now that Simon shared it. "No, he found out about them by accident after they reappeared. He understood what was happening to me because he'd been studying sentinels for his research at the U."

"God," Simon muttered. He stood and paced between the couch and balcony doors. "God. Does that mean that if Sandburg were to leave, you'd go back to what the rest of us would consider normal?"

Blair started to say yes, but before he could, Jim replied, "No, I've made the choice now to be a sentinel, to accept the responsibilities of it. Blair is the difference between muddling along and maybe getting killed in the line of duty, and being able to thrive both as person and as a sentinel."

Jerking his head around, Blair stared at his partner, but Jim didn't seem to notice his shock at the admission. Inside something knotted and snarled began untangling; something that had been like that for so long, he couldn't recognize what it was even as it untwisted. For a moment he couldn't take a deep breath and his heart felt like it was going to thump a hole through his ribs.

His partner's head shot up at the change in his vitals, but Blair waved him off, nodding at Simon's back to tell him to keep his mind on the conversation at hand. Jim grimaced, but did as he was told, which was just as well since Blair had no idea how to explain what was going on. Pushing aside his turmoil, he followed his own advice, and concentrated on their friend, just as Simon turned to pace back toward them.

"And neither of you think it's a huge coincidence that the one person who could help a sentinel with his gifts was around when he was needed most?" Simon asked softly, as if coaxing witnesses into confessing.

"I..." Blair started, then stopped, the echoes from earlier finally finding the idea they had been searching for. "I never looked at it that way," he said almost to himself.

"Maybe now's the time to start," Simon said. He walked back to the French doors and looked out into the night, expression pensive. "All those people out there looking for meaning, looking for lost parts of themselves, and the two of you have both laid right in your hands and don't even see it."

Spinning on one heel, he headed for the door. "I have to think about this. Part of me keeps waiting for the rest of the bullpen to jump out of a closet, laughing their asses off because you pulled the wool over my eyes so completely. The rest wants to find a nice, quiet church some where and thank God you're on our side."

Getting to his feet along with Jim, Blair followed their friend to the door, scooping up the forgotten box of cigars on the way. "You're taking it a lot better than I expected. Unless you're just waiting until you can get to a pay phone to call the nice people in the clean, white coats."

He offered Simon the box, but Banks didn't take it right away, studying Blair carefully instead. Reaching up to tug at a single curl, he frowned slightly and released it. "I'd have to call a padded wagon for myself if I did," he admitted. "Despite my doubts, what you've told me tonight makes more sense than the rest of the world does right now."

Jim laid a hand on Simon's shoulder, fingers tightening fractionally. "I'm sorry I held off telling you for so long. It wasn't that I didn't trust you with the secret; it's just that it all does sound so insane."

"You don't make it easy," Simon said flatly. "But I am your friend. I hope you remember that from now on." Then he grinned, took the box of cigars and lifted it up slightly. "Of course, if you really want to make it up to me, you could always dip into your pension fund and get me more of these."

Grinning back, Jim said, "Remind me after the next round of overtime. But you have to promise not to smoke them in the loft or my truck."

"Puff," Simon shot back. "Puff, puff." With that he opened the door and went through it, broad shoulders looking far more relaxed than they had when he came in.

Shutting the door behind him, Blair leaned his forehead on it for a moment, absently drumming his fingers on the wood. "He gets the extra cigars. And if we get shifted again, I want to tell him about the sentinel thing right away," he said. "If I had just talked to him earlier we might have been able to save ourselves a ton of frustration."

"What are you talking about, Sandburg?" Jim went into the kitchen and began cleaning up from dinner. Pausing in the middle of wrapping the leftover salad, he asked sharply, "You're not seriously giving credence to his idea that our partnership was ordained or something, are you? He's just being influenced by the whole new age mindset that this era has. I *chose* to work with you. Maybe it was desperation that made me try in the beginning, but we could have broken up the partnership any number of times along the way for some perfectly good reasons that have nothing to do with my senses."

Turning to brace himself on the door, obscurely afraid for some reason that Jim would try to get through it in a moment, Blair said, "I'm not arguing with you on that. We both chose. Maybe fate or whatever gave us the opportunity to do so, but it works because we work at it, mistakes and all. But..."

"How did I know there was a 'but,'" Jim muttered.

Ignoring him, Blair went on, "But all along we've been working on the assumption that somebody is behind the time shifts. An experiment gone bad, some agency studying human behavior under temporal stress, even alien invasion of some sort. Never once did we think that maybe the phenomena is natural."

"Natural!" Jim leaned on the butcher block, his whole body tense with anger. "After millennium of tooling along with no problems, the universe suddenly decides that linear time is optional?"

"Look, we're getting precisely nowhere with identifying the source, right? We haven't even tried to be discreet with our questions and probing this time around and haven't gotten so much as a tabloid writer interested in us. All the scientists I've talked to tell me flat out the kind of disruption I described to them is impossible for man to create. If it's alternate universes that you and I alone are being flipped through, why are 'Jim Ellisons' in them and no 'Blair Sandburgs?' Why do I have to keep creating a place for myself? And where *are* your alternates? Being tossed randomly into other dimensions, too?"

"So you think *God* is amusing himself at our expense?" Jim asked incredulously.

"No! I'm just saying that maybe we've been looking at this from the wrong angle. Not who is doing it, but why is it that you and I are able to see that it's been done? It has to be because we're fairly unique - a sentinel and his teacher. Or I could be called guide, I guess."

Unexpectedly Jim said firmly, "Shaman. Sentinel and Shaman."

"I'm not..."

"Yes, you are, Blair. I don't know if Incacha was recognizing what you were already doing or if he was awakening a dormant part of you, but he wouldn't have given you the Shaman's Way if there wasn't something *there.*"

Pushing away the idea with both hands, Blair refuted, "He didn't have any choice. I was the only person there besides you, and he couldn't have rested if he had left without at least trying to pass on his responsibility for you."

Coming around from behind the counter, Jim took both Blair's shoulders in his hands. "I relieved him of that by ritual before I left the Chopec. Why are you denying this part of yourself? *How* can you deny it?"

Blair closed his eyes momentarily, fumbling for words to explain when he hardly understood himself. "From the earliest time I can remember, Mom has been looking for the truth, with a capital 'T.' She dragged me to communes, spiritual retreats, classes on Transcendental Meditation, yoga, Native American spiritualism, Celtic drumming, Wiccan herbal medicines, you name it. We attended every kind of church, synagogue and mosque there is and visited more 'spiritual leaders' than most people hear of in a lifetime.

"I guess somewhere along the line I decided that they can't all be right, and if so, maybe none of them are right. Or maybe each of them has a nugget of truth hidden in the dogma and rhetoric, so I should respect all of them." Bringing his hands up between them, Blair caught the front of Jim's shirt in his fists, as if increasing the contact between them would increase comprehension. "At the same time, I was so disillusioned - both by the people looking for truth, sure that the next 'Holy Man' would have it, and with all the so-called holy men themselves, that I kind of shelved the whole thing and found my own kind of truth in study and research.

"It seems like such an, an *ego* trip after all that to think of myself as a shaman, to have the hubris to call myself that after disparaging others who have given themselves the similar titles with no more cause than I have."

Rubbing his hands soothingly up and down Blair's arms, Jim said, "You didn't claim the title, you've earned it, the hard way, the honest way, like Incacha."

For a moment Blair felt like a wild animal caught in the snare of too-bright lights in a world that had always been filled with darkness, and he stared up at Jim, mouth dry and eyes wide. Then some obscure instinct for self-preservation reared its head and grabbed at the opening Jim had provided. "Incacha was the real thing, no doubt of it, connected to another level, another realm. Spiritual, dimensional, temporal - whatever the explanation for it is, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that maybe people like him are the ones we should be asking if they know what a C.D. burner is."

Exasperation chased over Jim's features, but he apparently decided to let it go for now. Instead he asked patiently, "So we go looking for a true medium or a medicine man?"

Relieved that his partner wasn't going to push, Blair said eagerly, "My schedule at the U is really flexible. Frankly, they don't really need me right now, though I'm useful as hell in picking up for the other teachers, not to mention the positive press I'm garnering for them because of our work at the PD. And you've got enough vacation time backlogged to take the rest of the year off if you wanted to. We've got the money in the savings account I opened with my winnings from betting on the series in 1956. Do you have any idea how much interest can accrue in twenty-two years?"

"As much as dividends from the stocks bought in the right companies twenty-two years ago? Nice that those accounts carried from one reset to the other, right up to current market values." Jim grinned briefly, then said seriously, "Time and money aren't the issue here. The real question is what good will it do if we do find a guru or whatever who knows time is repeating? Other than learning we're not the only ones who do?"

"If they know, too, then maybe the resets *are* natural, like a supernova or a temporal storm of some kind. It could have happened a thousand times before but never been recorded by history because remembering it was impossible for most people." Growing excited at the possibility, Blair leaned into Jim a little more, wanting him to share his enthusiasm. "In fact, it could even explain some of the creation myths, like the Australian Aboriginal belief that the world was sung into existence. Maybe a powerful shaman *did,* as far as their little piece of it is concerned, like I created my little niche here in Cascade."

"You would have thought he'd have done better than a desolate wasteland filled with danger," Jim said skeptically.

That killed a lot of Blair's keenness, and he started to deflate into confusion, almost physically shrinking in on himself. He would have pulled away from his partner to throw himself into packing, just to divert his own thought processes, but before he could move, Jim brushed the knuckles of his hand over Blair's cheek. "That doesn't mean we couldn't find a better use for the information ourselves."

The gentleness in the gesture was heart-rending and the perfect antidote to the misery that had threatened all day. He reveled in it, blindly turning into the caress to encourage it to last. "Blair," Jim murmured, and there was so much in his voice that Blair shivered from it.

"I love the way you say my name," he whispered. "As if it's more than just a name."

He felt Jim's breath catch in his chest, then he repeated softly, "Blair." A feather light kiss was swept first over one cheek, then the other. "Blair."

Blair tilted back his head, asking and offering, and a tender kiss was pressed onto his lips as long fingers anchored themselves in the hair over his ears. It was sweet, so sweet, touching places other than the flesh of his mouth, touching his heart and soul in ways that he had never believed possible. With a sigh that seemed too large to have come from his body, he wrapped his arms around Jim's waist and relaxed against him completely, trusting powerful muscles to hold him securely.

Jim ended the kiss slowly, drawing back just enough to be able to mutter something nonsensical-sounding before covering Blair's mouth with his own again, this time asking permission with a tiny lick at the bow of full lips to do more. Blair willingly opened to him, accepting the shy suitor with a tentative caress of tongue that invited exploration. Taking his time to taste and learn Blair's mouth thoroughly, Jim did as asked until both of them were breathless, aching and all but hurting each other with the tightness of their embrace.

It was Blair who ended it, unhurriedly withdrawing back into his own space and hating the rush of cold that filled the gap between them. Almost of their own accord his hands clung to Jim, releasing only when Blair glared at them in vexation, a puff of air voicing a curse at himself for the caution that required the separation in the first place. A caution that didn't seem as necessary now as it had the night they had shared a bed.

"Still not yet?" Jim asked, smiling despite the carefully banked fire burning in his gaze.

"I don't know why," Blair said, taking a shaky step away and half-turning so he wouldn't be tempted to go back into those comforting arms.

Capturing a ringlet and straightening it between two fingers, Jim stated, "It doesn't matter why. When you're ready, I'll be waiting for you. And if you never are, I don't have a problem with that, either." He released the curl and said warily, "I'd like to stay partners, though, as long as you're willing."

Looking out into the night on the other side of the balcony doors, Blair answered honestly, "I can't see facing that without you."

Trying to lighten the mood and succeeding only because neither of them really had any choice, Jim said teasingly, "Well, I am *not* going to face gurus, medicine men and psychics without you, Chief. You speak the language and know the local customs. I'd wind up being reincarnated as a tree or shrub if I try traveling those circles on my own."

"Not that evolved," Blair joked, finding a smile from somewhere. "Germ, virus maybe."

"So help me, if you make a joke about swine flu, I'm infecting you first!"

* * *

Looking at the ancient tenements, Blair turned back to his impassive partner and shrugged. "This is the address Ray gave us; and every sincere spiritualist we've talked to in the past three weeks either gave us the same name or pointed us in her direction. If anybody is the real deal, she's it."

Hunching his shoulders a little to peer through the windshield at the worn, old building, Jim observed, "At least it doesn't look like she's in it for the money. Not and live here. But I have to tell you that the only reason I don't head straight back to Cascade is because least a quarter of the people we pinpointed as genuine knew that the world was out of whack, even if they couldn't put their finger on exactly what or how."

"Massive deja vu," Blair said, repeating a few of the comments they'd heard. "Imbalance, disruption, discontinuity. Even if they were just reading the newspapers and extrapolating on a subconscious level from all the suicides, mass murders and death cults, they were too bewildered by it all to be comparing notes on a common way to describe it."

"What impressed me was not only were they coping better than most, but the majority of them were honestly trying to help the people who were looking to them for guidance," Jim noted absently, clearly using his senses to scan the area. "The first time around, the Age of Aquarius was consumed by the disco era and Me Generation. If the chaos that's eating away at the world doesn't trigger another replay, it might survive and grow into a force for change to be reckoned with."

"In a way it did," Blair argued. "Nature Conservation, fall of the Berlin Wall, genuine religious tolerance, holistic medicine - all of them grew out of the New Age search for meaning."

At Jim's 'all clear' nod, he undid his seat belt and slid out of the truck, pausing for a moment on the sidewalk until Jim could join him. Keeping his partner close by, if not actually touching him, was a new habit that Blair had no intention of breaking. At the edge of his mind, like a migraine about to blossom, he could feel another shift hovering on the edge of becoming, and though he guessed it might happen in the early hours of a new day, he wasn't taking any chances. If time slipped again, he was going to be hanging onto his sentinel and partner with everything he had when it did.

Thankfully Jim not only took it for granted, but was adding his own unique touch. Since they had left the loft, they never slept apart from each other, not even in separate bedrooms. Several times during the night Blair would wake, dimly aware of Jim's hands flitting over him, confirming his presence and reality. It meant neither of them were getting enough uninterrupted rest, but the reassurance of the reaffirming contact was too valuable to both of them for Jim to give it up or for Blair to complain.

It was also sweetly erotic and oddly satisfying to know that Jim would be touching him in the darkness, however chaste and fleeting the caress. Any reservations Blair had had about becoming lovers with his partner were long gone; only a lack of privacy had kept him from simply drawing Jim to him during one of nocturnal explorations. As it was, the steadily growing need was never far from the surface for either of them now, and they traded smoldering looks and kisses whenever it was safe to do so. It tore at him that they had to hide what seemed natural and beautiful to him, but they ran into enough trouble during their travels simply because of the company they had been keeping.

Walking up the crumbling but clean steps, Blair said to himself, //No wonder the flower children sold out and became corporate suits. The small minds of this age beat their optimism and spirit right out of them. Next time I run into one of the founding members of Gay Pride or Women's Lib, I'm going to salute them for their courage.// Grinning at the image of using a military gesture to show respect for a gay man and his probable reaction, Blair followed Jim into the decrepit elevator, taking his hand and leaning into his side as the door slid shut.

"What's funny?" Jim asked curiously, doing a little leaning of his own.

Still grinning, Blair asked back, "Are you sure you want a guided tour of my twisting sense of humor?"

"You mean twisted."

"Twisting, twisted, it's still an interesting trip."

With a squeeze to signal that the doors were about to open, Jim stepped away. "That I can believe, no problem, Sandburg. Look at the one you've taken me on for the past few weeks."

"Expanded your horizons, have I? Broadened your perspective?" This time Blair led the way, paying more attention to bantering with Jim than actually looking for the apartment number they wanted.

"Polluted my digestion with macrobiotics and offended my nose with unwashed bodies. I don't care how natural the human scent is supposed to be, that last retreat stunk."

"It was a little strong, I'll admit, though I think they had a point that obsession with physical cleanliness is strongly linked with conservative prejudices. A little body odor *is* normal." Blair screeched to a halt both mentally and physically, reaching for Jim's hand without thinking. They were in front of the door to the apartment they had been directed to, though he hadn't consciously been looking for it. But he was positive they were in the right place; he was equally positive that they were expected.

With the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight up, Blair tried the door and found it ajar, but before he could walk through, Jim pulled him back, going for his gun. "Wait."

"No, it's okay." Blair put a restraining hand over the weapon. "She's been expecting us." Jim studied him through narrowed eyes, but didn't argue or stop him again when he pushed the door all the way open and stepped inside, still holding onto his partner.

A slender black woman just this side of tall stood on the other side of it, and she looked at their linked hands and smiled. "Blair's right; she's been waiting for you in the kitchen." She gestured toward a doorway and moved aside, clearly expecting them to go through it. Jim's distrust visibly increased, and he went in first, his body shielding Blair as if he expected them to be fired upon.

Smiling apologetically, Blair shrugged at her as he was dragged past, but her smile only widened understandingly. A beaded curtain swung around him, and he was in a bright and cheerful kitchen that could have been straight out of the fifties, decorated in avocado and orange, complete with a bread box. Seated on a stool in a corner next to a sun-filled window was a sturdy-looking black woman with merry eyes that seemed all the wiser for the humor in them. She and Jim were in a staring contest, though the small smile at the corners of her mouth told Blair that she wasn't taking it seriously at all. And that she could win in a heartbeat if she wanted to.

With a soft chuckle, she reached up and patted the sentinel on the cheek, very much like a doting auntie sparing a young boy from a humiliating kiss. "They say patience is its own reward. Don't know if I'd go that far, but this time, I'd say he's definitely worth the wait."

Jim dropped his eyes, confusion clear in his expression before he closed down and he moved to one side so that Blair could stand beside him. Knowing better than to tackle his partner when he was like that, Blair gave her his best smile, but before he could open his mouth, she chuckled again, opened the window beside her, and lit up a cigarette, letting the first stream of smoke blow out the window. "I believe you have a question for me."

Though Blair had carefully selected his first question long ago, he still found himself considering his words before he spoke, hoping he didn't sound too stupid. Or that she was at least tolerant of stupid questions. "What year is it?"

"Well, it's certainly not 1978," she answered calmly. Her smile broadened and she gestured at the room. "It's not 1956 either, environment not withstanding."

Excitement spiraled through Blair's gut, but he managed to say levelly enough, "Is it going to change again?"

This time she looked away, out the window, face suddenly serious and letting a thread of smoke trail from her nose as if it were escaping the hurry of her thoughts. "Yes, and soon," she replied, hardly loud enough to be heard. Her attention snapped back into the room and onto Blair. "But you know that, don't you? You can feel it in your skin, like you're being stripped naked a layer of clothes at the time, getting colder and colder with every person lost."

Weeks' worth of questions, worry, and speculation burst out of Blair, leaving him all but babbling but unable to stop to slow down, let alone shut up. "Exactly! That's it exactly. What's causing it? Or is it who? Can we stop it or help someone stop it? What can we do to..."

"Quite a handful, isn't he?" she said to Jim, her smile returning.

"You should hear him when he really gets going," he answered with a hint of his own smile in the words.

Their exchange allowed Blair to put the brakes on his runaway mouth, and he screeched to a halt, taking a deep breath to steady himself. Before he could speak again, she said firmly, "Do what you've been doing. Dig in your roots, brace yourself and spread what shelter you can over those you care about. With your strength," and her slight emphasis on 'your' told him that she meant both he and Jim, "giving them sanctuary, they can provide shelter for others, so the protection spreads."

Disappointment replaced his excitement, and he blurted, "That's all? Can't we, I don't know, fight or something?"

"If you were facing a hurricane, you wouldn't talk about fighting it," she said mildly. "Just enduring it."

"Then the replays *are* natural? Have they happened before and nobody remembered to record them? Is it possible to teach others to see the shift? Can we predict them, maybe, and save lives?"

She took a long draw of her cigarette, studying him as he tried to frame a plea that would convince her to share what she knew. "You're not ready for the weight of all those answers you're so eager to gather up."

Jim stiffened, then snapped, "Wait a minute. That's just your opinion."

Unperturbed, she asked, "If he had come to you before your senses had returned and told you that you're a sentinel, would you have believed him? Despite the memories hidden in your mind? Or would those have caused you to push him away, maybe violently, and refuse to ever listen to him again, even when your abilities did come back online?"

"It's not the same!" Blair said, just as Jim demanded, "What do you know about us?"

Ignoring Jim, she said to Blair, "Perhaps not, but the two aren't that far apart. Experience is what you need before you can bear the truth." She held up a cigarette-adorned hand to stop the protests and explanations he already had on the tip of his tongue. "When you've survived the next reset, a friend of mine will find you, and I guarantee he'll tell you everything you want to know. Be sure you want to hear it, because there's no going back once your eyes are truly open."

The warning in her voice was clear and sincere, stifling any reaction Blair had except a sudden and intense wariness. "So what do we do now?"

"Take that gorgeous man of yours home and stop making up reasons not to nail him to the mattress." To his surprise, Blair blushed deeply and lost every thought he had. She laughed quietly and reached over to capture their joined hands between hers. Callused and strong, evidence of a long, busy life, they created a tiny chamber of warmth that erased his embarrassment and comforted him as surely as his own mother's touch would have done. "Regrets can cripple; don't take the chance that not loving him is the one that cripples you."

Standing, she released them and stubbed out her cigarette. "My kids will be back soon. Time for me to get dinner on."

Blair knew a dismissal when he heard one, so he towed his partner out of the kitchen, not giving Jim a chance to argue with her, or vent some of the frustration that Blair could feel coiled up just under the sentinel's surface. Calling out a polite 'thank you,' as he shut the door behind him, he stood for a minute in the hallway, waiting for Jim to accept what she had said.

After a moment of jaw muscle jumping tension, Jim simply snorted and shook his head. "All that way, and all that searching, and she says: go back home."

"You're not going to claim she's a fraud that had her buddies warn her that we were coming so she could do her homework?" Blair asked in mild wonder. "Or she knew about the sentinel thing from the diss fiasco?"

"That hasn't happened as far as this world is concerned," Jim said reasonably, though it was obviously an effort. "Which means, at the very least, she's recycled, like us. And if she is, why would she connect two drifters asking about 'the real thing,' as far as psychics go, with Cascade and old news like that?" He led the way back to the truck and asked, "You believe her?"

"Not a single doubt," Blair said thoughtfully. "I guess that means we go home."

* * *

They drove cross-country without stopping except to fuel themselves or the truck, taking turns at driving and napping, not questioning the impulse to get to Cascade as quickly as possible. During the long silences when Jim was asleep or they were both simply disinclined to talk, Blair thought about the brief conversation, turning her words over and over in his mind. It didn't take too long for him to accept her decision that he wasn't ready. Nearly every mystic or spiritual teacher he had ever heard of taught that you had to climb the path of enlightenment one step at a time, gaining strength and understanding as you traveled.

And if he were going to be strictly honest with himself, Blair wasn't sure that he wanted know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He *liked* the mystery and wonder he'd always found in the universe, and couldn't imagine losing the curiosity and search for knowledge that had always guided his life. Though he supposed - hoped - that there were always new levels of understanding to reach for.

Distressingly what Blair obsessed on was her advice to stop making up reasons not to make love with Jim. The more he thought about that, the more he could see that was exactly what he had been doing ever since the night his partner had asked him to be very sure before moving in that direction with him. Not consciously, not deliberately, but he had done it all the same, and the most aggravating thing about it was that he couldn't figure out why!

He wanted Jim. And needed and desired and lusted and craved and ached for him; more than he had with any other lover. Yet there was also something inside him that refused to yield to that want, and it refused to be defined or clarified, no matter what label Blair tried to stick on it. It wasn't fear of getting hurt, as far as he could tell. He'd accepted long ago that when you let people close, they hurt you, usually without ever intending to. By far and large what came from the relationship was worth the sorrows, and he didn't have a single doubt that would be doubled with Jim.

Nor did he have doubts about how good it could be between them. The kisses they had shared so far were spectacular; the sex had to be mind-blowing when it happened. If nothing else, Blair was sure he could show his sentinel partner a few things about how his senses could work in bed that he was willing to bet had never crossed Jim's mind.

For most of a state as he drove through the dawn, finally getting close to home, he considered the possibility that he was selfishly clinging to their old dynamic of friends and partners, worried that it would be lost in the new status of 'lovers.' But as Jim was stirring restlessly, destined to wake cranky and sore from sleeping scrunched in one corner of the truck, he decided that while the concern was valid, he was sure that as long as they rode together for the PD, they would adapt. Not without some shouting and fighting, but that was part and parcel of how they worked together anyway. Besides, since he was doing the honest thing, he had to admit he liked the challenge of going toe-to-toe with Jim.

When Jim stretched and suggested a rest stop to stretch and eat, he agreed readily, annoyed with himself and fed up with his introspection. It wasn't hard to get conversation going for the rest of the trip, and if there was a bit of an edge of determination to keep it that way, Jim didn't call him on it and Blair pretended it didn't matter.

The loft had never looked better when they staggered in some hours later, and without needing to discuss it, they fell into bed together to sleep, all thoughts of sex the farthest thing from their minds. Blair woke once in the middle of the night, vaguely alarmed to find he had the big bed to himself, but reassured when he heard the shower going downstairs. Thinking they had their sleep cycles seriously messed up, he nodded back off and woke again when the smells of cooking drifted up to him.

Yawning, he checked the clock and mentally agreed with Jim that starting this early would let them get to bed at a reasonable hour that night without making the day impossibly long. That meant a shower and shave was in order, and once breakfast was out of the way, he had some definite ideas on how to pass the day until it was time to check in at the police station. The images that conjured got him up and moving fast, and he stopped by the kitchen to give his partner a sweet, long hint of what he wanted.

As he stood under the fall of water, though, taking pains to get as clean as possible, the anticipation soured, becoming cold and heavy in his middle. The half hard-on he'd had since getting up died fast, and no amount of fantasizing, even about his hottest triggers, roused it in the least. By the time he was standing in front of the mirror, trying to shave with hands shaking too hard to do it safely, he was ready to change his mind, pleading exhaustion if Jim pressed the issue. It would be a mistake of gigantic proportions, and he *knew* that, yet could feel justifications and rationalizations trying to worm their way around his resolve.

Finally, not giving himself a chance to think any more, he threw down his razor, dried off his face, and, wearing nothing but a towel, went to find his partner. Jim looked startled when Blair took him by the hand and led him upstairs, leaving their breakfast to cool on the table, but he didn't argue. By the time Blair had him naked and lying on top of him, Jim was fully erect, and returning the hot, hungry kisses being given to him with voracious intent.

His urgency was almost enough to sweep them both across the line, but it couldn't break through whatever it was holding Blair's passion in check. Though he got hard again, he was removed from what was happening to his body, standing at a distance in his own head and watching the action unemotionally. Even as he realized that and prayed Jim wouldn't notice but complete the act for both of them, his lover lifted up on his hands and stared down at him, rational thought replacing the lust in his eyes in a split-second.

Jim rolled away, sitting on the edge of the bed, fists clenched on his naked thighs as he fought for control. "I don't need a sacrificial virgin," he ground out. He looked over at his shoulder, shock clear on his face. "You're not?"

"No, no." Blair swept his hair back from his face, and sat up cross-legged in the middle of the mattress. "Only a few times, but I know what I'm doing." Then, simply because he hadn't thought to ask before and was looking for something to harmlessly fill the gap between disaster and dealing, he asked, "You?"

"Only with women." At the astonishment that Blair couldn't hide, he said tightly, "I did the usual messing around that boys do, but the few men I've been attracted to since never got close enough for me to trust them that much."

"I'm sorry," Blair said softly, truly repentant. "I'm not trying to jerk you around, I swear."

"If I thought that, this would be over before it started." Jim stared at the floor, his back an unrelenting line of defense. "You're not doing this because that old woman told you to, are you?"

"Don't!" Blair snapped. "You know I want you; your senses confuse you sometimes but they don't lie." Anger vanishing as quickly as it came, he added, his tone heavy with self-disgust and confusion, "Want just doesn't seem to be enough for some reason. I thought need might do it, but you picked up on how well that worked."

Jim dropped his head into his hands for a moment, then came back up on the bed, coaxing Blair into lying back down. He lay on his side beside him, letting Blair use his arm for a pillow and smoothing the curls away from his face a strand at a time. "I like your hair longer," he said, out of nowhere. "For the longest time I wondered what it would feel like to bury my hands in that mad riot of curls. They always looked like they liked being stirred up that way."

Despite it all, Blair chuckled. "If you had said 'soft and silky,' I might have been forced to hit you. It's coarse and heavy, has a life of its own, and it's just as cranky as you are. You're made for each other."

Smiling, Jim ran his fingertips lightly over the hair on Blair's chest. "I like this, too. You have no idea how that feels when I'm holding you. Skin against skin is always a thrill for me, but you not only have the silk, you have the plush, too."

"Jim," Blair said gently. "You don't have to seduce me. I *am* willing."

"Why?"

"Uh? Have you looked in a mirror lately?" Blair blurted.

"Blair, for years I've watched you happily and enthusiastically chase women, easily catching your fair share of them. I've seen you notice a man or two along the way, and guessed that the only reason you weren't chasing them was because you were always too over-booked for the more delicate negotiations it takes for a man working with cops to come onto another man. And in all that time you've never once looked at me that way. Why now?"

He started to give a knee-jerk response to that, but then stopped himself and thought. "Because I nearly lost you," Blair said slowly, the memory of the first reset coming to the front to give him the answer. "Even when Alex Barnes was in town wreaking havoc on our partnership, I never once thought that we couldn't straighten out whatever was out of whack with us. I never thought you were gone from my life for good. But all the way from the station to the loft the day the first replay started, all I could think of was what if you never remembered me? Wouldn't let me back into your life? I was so panicked that if you hadn't let me in, I would have risked getting shot by a stressed-out sentinel and broken in."

"So you started wanting me because you knew you needed me in your life?" Jim said dubiously.

"Said like that, it sounds petty and self-serving." Blair frowned, not at Jim but at himself. "It's really more that the fear opened me to new possibilities; there had never been any reason to think beyond being your friend and partner before that."

"It was comfortable and easy and safe," Jim agreed. Absently he drew a random pattern with a fingertip over his partner's stomach, and asked quietly, not able to meet Blair's eyes, "Why are you afraid of losing me?"

Blair opened his mouth to answer, shut it, closed his eyes, fought off tears that he hadn't expected, then took a shaky, cleansing breath, his answer shining in his heart, much as he hadn't wanted to see it. "Oh," he said softly. "Oh." Despite all he could do, a near-sob escaped, and he turned away from his partner to hide his face in the pillows.

Not letting him, Jim captured his chin between thumb and forefinger to hold him in place, and then laid his cheek against Blair's so that he had a modicum of shelter. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't think it would hurt you like this," he whispered.

"You bastard. You bastard," Blair choked out, then pushed at him hard to make him move away. "You damn bastard." He got out of bed on uncertain legs, back firmly to his partner. It took him a moment to make his knees hold, then he stubbornly made his way downstairs to his room, locking the door behind him once he was safely on the other side. Faking calm, he laid down in his own bed, refusing to acknowledge how cold and strange it felt, and lay staring at the ceiling, trying to quiet the chant of 'I'm trapped, I'm trapped," rebounding through his mind.

The words wouldn't be silenced, though, and they not only gained momentum, but they acquired a whole chorus of horrified phrases to accompany them. "He owns me, now. I don't have anything left for myself at all. Work with him, play with him, eat with him, sleep with him, fuck just him, never anybody else, never able to leave and do something new, never try something different, always tell him where I am, who I'm with, what I'm doing, no privacy, nothing for me at all, he owns me..."

From a great distance away he heard Jim moving around the loft, first up in his - *his,* damn it - bedroom, then in the kitchen. Heard him putting away the forgotten food, cleaning up from the aborted breakfast, then unpacking and sorting the laundry from their trip. Normal, ordinary things that Jim would do even if he knew the bombs were coming; his way of coping, but it made Blair angry anyway. He was being totally erased by his own stupid heart, and Jim was puttering around as if it were any other day.

The anger helped him stay quiet and still in his room until he heard the door close behind Jim as he left for work, and only then did Blair get up and find clothes for himself, willfully ignoring the neat stack from his suitcase left on the table. Unable to face the idea of going to the department, and with no work waiting for him at Rainier, he headed to the university library to do what he did best. They may have been promised that they'd get their answers, but Blair wasn't willing to wait if he could piece them together for himself. And research was much, much better than hiding in his room and brooding like a love-struck teenager.

Not surprisingly, given the current climate of society, the vast majority of material on psychic phenomena and its kin were checked out. By-passing popular pop works like "Chariots of the Gods," and Linda Goodman's "Sun Signs," Blair looked for more esoteric articles and books, finding a few by authors he remembered from Naomi's highly transitory collection. But he either grimaced at the author's tone of overwhelming skepticism and derision, or choked on sugary sweet insistence that feelings and belief were always more important than solid facts and good thinking. Nevertheless, he waded through the most tolerable ones, looking for common threads, and found, much to his surprise that when it came to the concept of perceptual reality, many writers referred to the works of science fiction writers.

Intrigued, he checked the card catalogue for that genre, smiling in fond memory at the listings for Heinlien's juveniles and Asimov's many books. The ones that nagged at the edge of his memory, however, like John Varley's "Persistence of Vision" collection, or Harlan Ellison's "Dangerous Visions" hadn't been written yet, and it had been too many years since he'd last indulged in his taste for science fiction. Grad students simply didn't have the spare time to read for pure pleasure.

//Maybe we should talk to writers and artists,// he thought, slowly gathering up his notes. //Not just them, but other creative people. Maybe they can sense the recycling, too. Have sensed it, and that's why there are stories like The Man Who Folded Himself. It couldn't hurt, and if we add it all together with what the psychics told us and what we've seen on our own, we might come up with something.//

He was halfway to his car before realizing that he was on automatic pilot for the police department, intending to talk with Jim about what his discoveries. Slowing, jamming his hands in his pockets, he argued with himself whether he was going because Jim *was* his partner, and they were in this mess together, or whether it was because he wanted to see the love of his life. Putting a sarcastic edge on the description didn't lessen the accuracy of it, or make him feel any more in control of his runaway emotions, and he jerked open the door to his car and got in, becoming angry again.

At himself this time, because that was who deserved it; it wasn't as if Jim had set out to woo and court him. If anything, he had done the exact opposite, trying to avoid getting too involved, and, when Blair had crossed that line, asking only that they remain partners when it was all said and done. For the first time, he looked at his retreat this morning from his partner's point of view and winced; it wasn't very complimentary to be treated like sewage because someone had fallen in love with you. And Jim had to be worried as hell about how Blair was going to handle living and working with him now, or if he would try to at all.

Realizing that he had been sitting motionless for a long time, keys dangling forgotten from his hand, Blair swore at himself and started his car. If he was going to salvage anything out of the mess he had made of their friendship, he was going to have to follow Jim's lead and act normally, do what he always did, the way he always did it. After a while his feelings would probably fade to the kind of love friends shared: undemanding, flexible and enduring. All they had to do was wait out this emotional insanity.

Resolutely, he drove to the station, rehearsing his casual and friendly hello in his mind and doing his best to lock down his heart and anything else that wanted to leap because he was going to see Jim. By the time he got there, he had a small speech about his research all lined up and was trying to anticipate any arguments his partner might have against spending some of their free time haunting galleries and book signings. Clubs were a possibility, too, ones with live bands, and this was the era that had given birth to some of Jim's favorite music, If they avoided disco clubs, it was even conceivable that his partner might enjoy the visits.

True to his expectations, Jim's greeting when Blair breezed into the bullpen was offhand, like always, hardly looking up from his desk except to wave at the stack of files waiting. In short order, both of them were immersed in reports, with Blair filling the sentinel in on his recent research around the edges of the usual give-and-take of conversation with the other people in the department.

"Perceptual awareness," Jim repeated dubiously, sitting back in his seat, pen bouncing lazily in his fingers as he spoke. "Like those experiments they did with subjects wearing glasses that made everything look upside down and then, after a while, the brain switched the image so that it was right side up again. Then they took away the glasses and the subjects saw everything upside down again."

"I hadn't thought about it from that angle," Blair said pensively. "In fact, I never thought about it from a sensory perspective at all. There are myths and religious beliefs that say, on occasion, the veils between the worlds become thin, allowing us to see into other dimensions, if not move from one to the other, and at least one of those talks about how time is different for the other side."

"I don't know how useful that's going to be for us," Jim started to say. Abruptly, he looked up, a half smile flashing. "Hey, Simon. You keep smoking those cigars and at this rate you'll be out before Christmas rolls around; you'll have to do without."

"Somebody should have warned me how addictive these things are," Simon mused, gesturing with the unlit one he held. "And before you start, I don't inhale, Sandburg. It's having something useful to do with my hands."

"You and a future president," Blair muttered, strictly for Jim's amusement. For Simon he said, "Puts you in the company of some great comedians, man - George Burns for instance."

"I'll get back to you on that comment as soon as I figure out if it was a compliment or insult," Simon groused. He added in a more personal tone, "Sorry to hear you didn't find your mom; are you going to look again once you've gotten caught up at the U?"

"No, but I'm sure she'll turn up, eventually. As long as I don't find evidence of a body, I can believe that she's just waiting until the right time to make an appearance. Which is *very* like Naomi." Like the cover story they had given the department and Rainier for their absences, Blair's reply was at least partly true. The ones that time had done away with *did* come back during resets. He had to hold onto that belief, something which he was getting a great deal of practice at lately.

Forcing that thought away before it could drag him down, Blair pushed away his chair, choosing action over reflection. "Going to get another cup of coffee; either of you want me to drag one back for you?"

"Before you go," Simon added regretfully, "the Cap asked to see the two of you in his office when you get a chance, along with me and Rafe. I don't think it's about a case," he added hastily at the suddenly grim expression on the partners' faces. "At least, not officially."

"Better get it over with then," Jim said, standing. "If you and your partner have the time now, that is."

Simon nodded and gathered Rafe on the way with a nod at Wilson's office. Once inside, Wilson sat back in his chair and scrubbed at his face, then said tiredly. "This is off the books and personal. If any of you have a problem with that, now is a good time to leave." He waited, but none of them so much as blinked, and he couldn't hide his relief completely, though he tried. "You know Captain Morrison in Vice? He was my partner for more years than I care to think about, and like most good partners we got pretty close. Close enough his daughter is my god-child." He pointed to photo they all knew well of a young girl with dark, curly hair and green eyes.

"She's in trouble?" Jim asked carefully.

"Legally, morally or officially?" Wilson replied bitterly. "Legally, she's over eighteen so there wasn't a whole lot her parents could do when she joined a cult. Morally, it's hard to believe a levelheaded girl would trade her religion in for trash, but stranger things happen twice a day when it comes to faith. Officially?" He swallowed hard. "She *is* over eighteen, if just barely, joined of her own free will as far as we can tell, and there's no evidence to date that she's being abused in any way."

"And unofficially?" Simon asked, though his expression said he already knew the answer to that.

"It's The Middle Ground, and on the list of cults that Sandburg gave us to keep an eye on because what we know of their beliefs could lead to the leaders endangering the followers." Giving his desktop his undivided attention, Wilson admitted, "Her father got a call from her that scared him to death. It sounded like she was out of it, drugged maybe, because she rambled, half asking for him to come see her and half saying goodbye, the permanent kind of goodbye suicides do. Then she hung up abruptly."

"What do you need us to do?" Jim questioned for all of them.

"We don't have probable cause, even with the call, and she didn't actually come out and ask to see her dad. He went anyway, and was given a signed note from her telling him to go away, she didn't want to see him until she'd finished her 'conversion.' Leaves us with our hands tied as far as getting a look inside the facility. But…" Wilson took a deep breath, and made himself meet Jim's eyes directly. "You're an ex-Ranger; infiltration and reconnoitering is part of your expertise. Can you check it out, try to find a viable reason for us to legally go in, even if it's only for fire code violations? Banks and Rafe can keep them busy at the front, provide a diversion."

"No problem, Cap," Rafe answered mildly.

Simon added, "We can use the fender bender, 'can we use your phone' routine and escalate into a fistfight at the front door."

"I can go in if that doesn't work," Blair said quietly. "We've been keeping my ties to the police as low key as the politicians will allow; chances are they'll buy my story that I want to question them for research purposes. If they balk at that, I'll semi-confess I'm looking for answers and traditional religions aren't doing it for me."

He could feel Jim bristle at the suggestion, but his partner didn't voice his objections, and Blair guiltily went on, "If they recruit forcibly, they'll give me a pass on the first visit, just to cover their asses. If they don't buy it, all they'll do is politely show me the door rather than risk I'll mouth off to the press."

Carefully not looking at Jim's impassive face, Wilson added, "They'd probably ride herd on you too carefully to pick up anything useful, but we'll keep that in mind as a last resort. At the moment, if all you did was see Maclain alive and well, I'd be grateful."

"We'll need to do this off-duty," Simon said regretfully. "Even taking the day off early could look bad if a smart-ass lawyer finds a way to drag us into court."

Jim glanced at Blair so he could read the real plan, then said to Banks, "You two be there an hour after shift ends. Sandburg and I will be in position, waiting for you. Give me at least three minutes to get in, then fade and meet at O'Malley's about an hour after that."

"Jesus, Ellison," Rafe blurted. "Three minutes?"

"If I can't do it in two, I'm retiring," Jim shot back easily. "Assuming you two raise enough of a fuss to get everyone's attention."

"We'll do our part," Simon put in. "You just be sure you can live up to your brag." His tone was right, but his eyes were knowing, and Blair had no doubt their friend knew exactly why Jim would be able to get in so easily.

"Just don't get their wind up," Wilson warned. "At least two of the cults that went bad recently did so because they felt like they were attracting too much hostile attention. Don't be the trigger for another Jonestown." He stood and offered his hand to each of them in turn. "I hated to ask, but didn't know where else to turn. Thank you for justifying my trust in you."

The gesture left all of them speechless, and Jim broke ranks first, getting out the door before macho posturing could take over. Work swept them up again almost immediately, not giving Blair a chance to dwell on the evening's activities, or much of anything else, for which he was very grateful. The best part of it was that what started out as an act for him effortlessly became the real thing. He and Jim had worked together too long for it not to be second nature to push personal problems to the back of his mind and just do the job.

During the slack moments, he looked up his notes on The Middle Ground, grimacing before sharing them with the others. The primary tenet of the cult was that the earth was just a middle ground for already dead souls that couldn't or wouldn't accept their deaths, and that 'dying' here simply meant moving on to a good afterlife they had already earned. The good news, as Rafe put it, was that nothing done in this world meant anything. The bad news was, that meant there was no reason *not* to do whatever you wanted.

"Perfect justification to treat your recruits like prisoners or worse," Jim remarked grimly when Blair repeated the comment when they were on their way to the cult's facility.

"Not that that particular kind of person needs much," Blair agreed. "Socialized psychopaths, in a way. But I can see how seductive a philosophy like that could be for a teenager, no matter how mature."

"You think she's voluntary, then?"

"Either way, her parents need to take a look at what drew her to it. Morrison's got a rep for being rigid and perfectionist; Maclain might be rebelling against too restrictive a home life."

Irritation flared in Jim's face, but he bit back whatever he had to say, leaving Blair puzzled as to what his partner held back and why. They arrived before he had a chance to ask, and Jim immediately became all business, almost visibly sinking into his soldier mindset. Blair trailed after him as he prowled the perimeter of the warehouse at the edge of town that had been converted into combination church, dormitory, and farm.

Though they kept to cover, Jim murmured, "No sign of sentries. They're either not worried about escapes or break-ins, or they guard the populace directly. No security systems in place, either, though the ones in this time are a snap to get through if you know what you're doing." They found a small clearing that allowed Jim to look directly into the grounds, and after a moment he said dully, "It's too late."

"They've pulled out?" Blair asked, peering into the distance and thinking the place did look deserted.

"I mean Cascade has a few dozen ghosts less than it had this morning," Jim said flatly. Blair stared at him, uncomprehending for a second, then as it sunk in, his partner gently grabbed him by the shoulder and steered him toward the street. "We'll have to make a reason to enter, now."

"We're still going in?" Blair asked, mouth dry and throat closing up.

"It could take days for the... missing to be reported, and longer to find someone who has authority and access to enter. And there are no neighbors close enough to notice a smell." Sounding indifferent, though Blair knew he was anything but, Jim kept scanning with his senses, not bothering to hide his interest in the building. The strain of what he learned showed immediately, but he walked the entire property line, finally stopping at the corner where Simon and Rafe could see them when they arrived.

"Any ideas on how to get in without violating someone's civil rights?" Jim asked bitterly as they waited.

Looking around carefully, Blair said, "As a matter of fact, I do. See that panel truck over there? Do you know where the driver is?"

Jim glanced at him suspiciously, but after a moment said, "Man wearing a uniform with the company name on the back is coming onto a waitress at that diner up the road. He must have left the truck parked here so his boss wouldn't find out that he's loafing and not working."

"Perfect." Blair ran for the truck, relieved to find the keys in it, but then, delivery drivers weren't used to taking keys with them when they left their vehicles. He drove it the top of the small hill opposite the main doors of the warehouse, put it in neutral, and turned off the engine so it would coast down, staying with it long enough to steer it directly into the doors. Leaping out just before it was rolling too fast, he picked himself up, dusted off, and said to Jim as he neared, "Looks like there's an accident for a passing motorist to report."

Almost smiling, Jim said, "Better actually make the call, Sandburg, so that Simon can say he was responding."

By the time Blair jogged back from the diner, taking a moment to tell the driver he had a problem, Simon and Rafe were at the smashed entrance of the warehouse, calling out warily into the building. Judging by how quickly they followed their words, Jim had warned them what they would find, and that was all the reminder Blair needed to want to hang back and not go in himself. At the threshold, making sure the other partners were out of earshot, Jim murmured, "There's no need for you to see this. Simon can look out for me if you're worried about zones."

For a moment there was an intense war in Blair's head and heart, with all the participants wearing his face and using his voice. The most strident and demanding was own perception of his manhood, telling him in no uncertain terms that wimping out would destroy any respect that Jim or any other cop had for him. His common sense said that not a single cop worth *his* respect would voluntarily go into a charnel house; they did it because it had to be done and it was their job. The anger that had been looking for an excuse to take over all day was snide in pointing out that Jim was condescendingly protecting him out of pity and contempt for his emotional vulnerability. His own self-loathing for getting himself in too deep thought he deserved it. And under it all, quiet and sure, was his love, asking if he were really going to let his sentinel walk alone into that morass of meaningless death and loss.

In the end, his feet made the call for him, apparently accustomed to following where ever Jim led.

Blair's first impression was that they had done a much better job of converting their warehouse than he had the one he'd lived in once. But then, they probably owned it and had money to spend on fixing it up. It was bright and airy, with the white walls and numerous lights easily winning over the coming twilight outside. Both sides and the rear had been partitioned off to make smaller rooms inside the larger, though none of them had ceilings, leaving a large living room type space in the middle that was filled with conversational areas made from couches, chairs, and more lamps. Large plants were strategically scattered, filling the empty spaces and adding to the impression of warmth and welcome.

He saw the people lying and sitting slumped on the couches and chairs, and a chill chased over him despite the effort that had been made to make the place cozy. "Jim?" he asked hesitantly, remotely pleased his voice was steady.

With a shake of his head, Jim went to the nearest body and put his fingers on the chest to judge the temperature. "A couple of hours at least."

"Damn," Rafe muttered. "Any chance of survivors?"

"We'll have to do a room to room," Jim answered obliquely, though he had to be able to hear if anyone was left alive. "We'll take the left, meet in the back."

Methodically, grimly, they worked their way down the row of smaller rooms, finding the same in every case. One or two people stretched out on the bed, looking for all the world as if they were simply taking naps. There were no signs of resistance or violence, only serene expressions and tidy rooms, as if they'd taken pains to make it obvious their deaths were of their own free will. That so many would be so willing spooked Blair badly, very badly, on more levels than he cared to examine right then.

When they were nearly at the back, Jim opened one door, then slammed it shut hastily, blocking the view into the room before Blair had much more than a glimpse of cribs and baby toys. "No," Blair murmured unhappily. "Not their children, too."

Forcibly turning him away, Jim pointed to a small alcove tucked between the rear row of partitions and a back entrance that probably led to the kitchens and garden. "I think that's the office; call for a coroner and more backup. A membership list or any records with names on it would be a big help later, too."

"Identifying the deceased," Blair noted vacantly. This time there was no internal debate; he went where he was pointed and made the call. It only took a few minutes to find the files that would be most useful…later. Whoever had been behind this organization was methodical and thorough, and Blair got the impression from the notes he had made on his 'congregation,' that he wasn't in it because of megalomania or to fleece the gullible. Among other things, Blair found a license for the man to practice psychiatry and a M.D. from Rainier.

But his private notes showed an unstoppable slide into insanity and despair, fueled by loneliness, frustration and an agonizing pain caused from being unable to help those coming to him for exactly the same problems. The files he kept on his 'patients' reported the same complaints over and over and over: displacement, isolation, intense sense of lacking something or someone vital, detachment from daily life and inability to connect with other people.

By the time Blair had finished skimming for what he needed to know, he could hear the back-up units arriving, and he went to the front door to brief them, relieved that it was Rand and his partner, allowing Blair to keep his explanations to a minimum. For the next few hours he kept moving, doing what he could to provide support for the many cops and coroner's staff that had to help with the body count. He helped hold back the onlookers as they accumulated until there were officers to spare to take over the job, stalled the press as much as possible until someone official showed up to do it, directed traffic, even arranged with the diner to have coffee and cold sandwiches provided for the men.

Eventually Simon found him sitting in Rand's unit, listening to the radio chatter and gazing blankly into a half-empty cup of cold coffee. When the big man squatted down in front of him, Blair stated, "Third multiple today, you know? That's why it took so long to get the crews we needed."

"Go home, Blair," Simon said, not unkindly. "All that's left here is getting through the red tape. Catch a ride with a uniform, go home, get something hot to eat, call one of those many names you have in your black book, and spend the rest of the evening celebrating being alive. Something those poor fools forgot how to do; don't make the same mistake."

"I think I would feel too guilty to have much fun," he murmured, but not for the reason Simon would assume.

"My daddy once told me that when a man get old he spends more time regretting the ones he let get away than he does appreciating the ones he caught, and that the best way to avoid regretting was to take every opportunity that came your way. He wasn't talking about women. I don't think." Simon grinned briefly, mind clearly turned inward to a happy past. "But I wouldn't be surprised if that was what was on his mind when he said it."

"Regrets can cripple," Blair quoted, almost hearing her say it with him. Dumping out the last of the coffee, he stood. "Keep an eye on Jim, will you, until he's cut loose? With all the lights, noise, and smell of death, his senses are taking a beating, which means he's going to be one grouchy bastard to deal with."

Already answering a summons from a uniformed officer, Simon said over his shoulder, "And that's different from his daily state of mind how?"

Though his friend couldn't see it, Blair mustered a small smile, and looked for his partner, sure that Jim had been listening from a distance all along. He might have even been the one to suggest to Simon to talk him into going home, guessing that Banks would have more luck at it than he would. Maybe Jim was right on that count, but Blair was too tired mentally and physically to debate his current idiocy with himself.

The trip home went by in a blur occasionally punctuated with unwanted images of peaceful expressions on dead faces, and an irrational attempt to do a body count, not just of The Middle Ground victims, but all the ones that had been accumulating slowly but surely during this replay. He could almost feel an enormous invisible balance slowly dipping down, the needle in the middle swinging from tolerable damage to intolerable. What would it take to finally tip the scales?

He trudged through the door to the loft, shut it, then sank to the floor in front of it, sitting with his knees up and using the wood for a backrest. Mind blank, he simply sat there long enough for his butt to get numb and his eyes to burn from not blinking enough, then he unexpectedly started to sob quietly, tears streaming unchecked down his face. Mourning for all the lives lost and for all the miserable souls looking for the lost pieces of their lives, hearts, and souls, he let himself weep, for that was all anyone could do for them any more.

When the needed release was done, reduced to salt-stickiness on his cheeks and an erratic hitch in his breathing, the first peace Blair had felt in months settled over him, giving him a clarity of mind and emotion that usually took hours of meditation to achieve. Oddly, the first thing that struck him was how different the loft looked from before the replays started. Of necessity, they'd had to replace the furniture last time, and they had shopped together to choose it, getting most of it from thrift shops in case they lost it all again. He and Jim had bickered, bantered, and negotiated over each piece, trying to reconcile their differences in taste, and had somehow found compromises that suited both of them nicely. It had been a huge amount of fun, like most of the things they did together.

Like it had been almost from the very first.

The terrified and harsh words that he had battered himself with earlier that morning came back, and this time he was able to look at them dispassionately and see them for the meaningless specters they were.

//He owns me, now. I don't have anything left for myself at all. Work with him, play with him, eat with him...//

They had always done that, nearly from the minute they'd started living together, and he'd never had a problem with it before. There were some interests they didn't share, but it had never been an issue one way or the other. When Blair wanted to do something Jim didn't care for, he did it without qualms, knowing perfectly well that tomorrow or the next day the shoe would be on the other foot. And what they did do together was all the more fun for it, in his opinion.

//...Sleep with him, fuck only him, never anybody else...///

So when was the last time he'd wanted to bed someone other than Jim? Even when he'd thought it was just lust, it hadn't occurred to him to mess around on his partner. That wouldn't be right; that would hurt Jim horribly, so it wasn't going to happen. And was he really going to miss those horribly awkward minutes of extricating himself from some woman's bed without hurting her feelings or being more of a cad than absolutely necessary?

//...never able to leave and do something new, never try something different...//

Leave and go where? Hadn't he made the choice to stay with Jim already, long before he realized he was in love with him? Wasn't that what saying 'no' to the expedition to Borneo with Stoddard had been all about? And taking the badge in the original history so he could ride with him?

And do what when he got there that he couldn't do here and now, if he wanted to, Jim or no Jim? As for trying something different, hadn't he already had a life full of that? Couldn't he choose to enjoy and savor what he had for a while? When it was time to expand his horizons again, why would Jim be an obstacle?

//...always tell him where I am, who I'm with, what I'm doing...//

Duh, stupid. You're a cop, well sort of, working with a cop. Common sense dictates you tell someone you trust what you're doing, just in case. Sad, aggravating, but that doesn't have anything to do with being in love. If you did need privacy, a word is all it has ever taken, where Jim is concerned. Usually not even that.

//Just what, exactly, is the real problem here and why have you been lying to yourself about it?// he asked himself with amazing calm. There was no immediate answer, so he got up from the floor, and meandered to the bathroom to shower up. This time the anticipation built, sweetly, despite the obstacles he had created for himself, and his expression was serene as he shaved.

Once upstairs, he paused, a sharp pang piercing him at the sight of fresh linens on the big bed, as if Jim hadn't been able to stand the combined scents of their aborted lovemaking. He pulled on the sweats that he had brought up with up him and crawled into the middle of the mattress, settling down to wait. Since he had no idea how he was going to coax Jim into giving him another chance, he let his mind ramble from erotic image to erotic image, all of them featuring Jim and what he wanted his partner to do with him.

By the time he heard the downstairs door open, Blair was achingly ready, sure down to the pit of his soul of what he wanted, but with absolutely no idea how to convince his partner of that. Alarmingly, Jim didn't come upstairs, but went into the bath himself, shower coming on almost immediately. Hoping that was a good sign, Blair cranked his patience up as high as he could manage, and spent the impossibly long minutes wondering he could manage an alluring pose. Or at least one that didn't make him feel ridiculous.

The expression on Jim's face as he trudged up the steps didn't help; he had never looked more exhausted or hopeless. He caught sight of Blair and his face blanked, showing only the briefest flash of surprise. Wordlessly he climbed the rest of the way up, clad only in a towel, and went straight to his closet to pull out sweats.

//Senses must be fritzing all over the place,// Blair thought sympathetically. //Bet he didn't know I was home.//

As if in confirmation, Jim sat on the foot of the bed, back to Blair, and said neutrally, "Thought you would be out looking for an agreeable lady to spend the night with."

"That's probably what Simon thinks," Blair agreed. "Cover. Though I don't want to keep up the pretense of being straight with him, if you can see your way clear to coming clean with him."

"Whether or not you come out to your friends is your business, Sandburg."

Not deterred by the toneless rebuff, Blair said simply, "It's our business because the only reason I'd need to come out is you. You're the only man, only lover I'm going to have for a long while, if I've got anything to say about the matter."

Astonishingly Jim slumped, looking very much as if he had taken a hard blow. Not knowing what to say and afraid to approach, Blair fumbled for a light-hearted way to back off, but then his partner said tiredly, "Blair, I'm not made of stone. Don't do this any more."

"I know," Blair said as soothingly as he could. "I know. I promise, no more false starts, no more backing off. I swear, I've got a handle on myself finally." Jim didn't move, looking, if anything, even more dejected.

Blair crept forward, taking off his shirt, remembering his partner confessing how much he loved the feel of his bare chest, and pressed against him. "Let me show you? Please?" As lightly as he could, he kissed the too solid muscle of Jim's shoulder, repeated "Please," then kissed again, a few inches higher than the first. He kept up alternating his pleas with the caress until he reached his partner's neck, and stopped there to gingerly nip, then suck on the taut flesh.

With a soft cry that was equal parts anger, frustration and pure need, Jim turned and caught a handful of Blair's hair at the back of his head, and kissed him hard. For all the times they had shared an embrace, his lover had never taken purely for himself, always being careful that they shared. But this was beyond restraint, beyond consideration of what Blair might want or not want, only what Jim could wrest from him by loving demands that could not be denied by either of them.

Not that it occurred to Blair to try to hold back; he surrendered willingly, completely accepting the power and force of his lover's urgency. If he had thought he was hard and ready before Jim touched him, it was nothing compared to the exquisitely sharp arousal that Jim effortlessly pulled from him. When his lover drew back to let them both breathe, however briefly, he moaned in loss and blindly tried to reconnect, only to be shoved to his back and covered by Jim's heated weight.

Impossibly, his excitement lurched higher, and his hips rolled up and into his lover of their own volition. Jim groaned in approval, and angled himself so that their cocks slid against one another in the ancient bid for relief. Mindlessly, Blair locked his arms and legs around his lover, and Jim grabbed him by one ass cheek to pull them even closer, thrusting against the smaller body with his full strength.

Blair gloried in the possession, in the lack of control, even as the pressure at the base of his spine told him that it couldn't last. There was no chance of prolonging the incredible pleasure, and a part of him placidly accepted that because it only meant they could begin all over again at their leisure. The mental picture of Jim slowly, tenderly penetrating him slammed Blair past pleasure and into ecstasy, spilling his seed between them as his cries of completion filled his lover's mouth.

A moment later Jim shouted Blair's name and added his wetness to the mix between them, clutching him so fiercely that Blair could feel each spasm of his erection against his middle. Jim rolled them to their sides, and while Blair's lungs were exceedingly grateful, Blair himself clung tightly, not ready at all for his lover to pull away. Reassuring him with tiny, pecking kisses, Jim languidly pressed his still erect cock against Blair's tummy, letting him know that way he was more than willing to keep going.

Surprised, Blair murmured, "Whoa! Up for an encore so fast?"

"If you want," Jim muttered, obviously far more interested in nuzzling behind Blair's ear than talking. "It generally doesn't go away until it's obvious the fun is over for the night."

"I am *such* an idiot," Blair said to the world in general, and he wouldn't have been surprised if it had agreed out loud with him.

Jim snorted in amusement, then turned his attention to the other ear, but drew back a second later when Blair didn't so much as smile. Backing off enough to be able to see into his face, he traced the lines of his cheeks and nose sadly, then said, "I'm not going to lie to you. While we're together I expect you to be faithful. But I'm not so jealous and possessive that I'm going to jump on your case if you're five minutes late getting home or if I see you talking with someone else. I'm not trying to cage you, or make you feel trapped."

Stomach heading for the basement of the building, Blair would have hit himself if Jim had left enough room between them to get the punch in. "I didn't realize that I said that aloud," he mumbled unhappily.

Long fingers began carding through his hair, and Jim replied, "I'm glad you did; at least that way I knew what was wrong. Chief, I've never been the type to think I owned my lover; talk to Caro if you need to."

"You forget, I did talk to her," Blair pointed out. "That wasn't her complaint at all."

The pain that chased over Jim's features was agonizing for them both, but before Blair could retract the words, Jim agreed, "No, it wouldn't be." Though his hard-on faded completely, he inched closer and rested his chin on the top of Blair's head, then said, "When I married her, I swore to myself that I wouldn't bring the job home with me. That I wouldn't use her as a scapegoat for the frustration and anger that goes hand in hand with being a cop. Had seen enough marriages go down the tubes because of that, so when a case got to me, I locked down. It's the only way for me; all or nothing for some reason."

"Carolyn hated it, of course. Accused you of shutting her out, turning your back on her." Blair felt a nod, and waited, sure that Jim had more he needed to say.

After a moment, Jim went on. "She started doing things to get a rise out of me. It didn't matter what it was, just that she got *some* reaction. Sex was her favorite weapon; if I made a pass at her she'd use it as a lever to start a fight, except, of course, the madder I got, the more I froze up. Finally one night, I came home and she was in the kitchen, getting something out of the fridge, and I came up behind her, just for a hug. She stepped away and told me that if I wanted to get laid, I should try melting some of the ice around my heart." He shrugged, then added, "I realized she was right; there wasn't anything left but ice, so I walked out the door and started divorce proceedings the next day."

"That's why she was always taking those little digs," Blair said, mostly to himself. "Still trying to get through to you; she must have loved you a lot."

"At one time, yeah, I think she did. And I did love her, Chief. It just...died, I guess from the cold."

//Or from the pain,// Blair thought to himself, but wisely left that for another night's pillow talk. Aloud he said, "I'm not worried on that count. When you shut down, I know all I have to do is wait; when the time is right, you'll talk or whatever."

"Because you do wait, mostly. You push, too, but you know how to do it without getting vicious," Jim pointed out calmly.

Smiling a little smugly to himself, Blair rubbed his cheek over the chest so close to him. "Figured out right away that verbal abuse wouldn't get anywhere with a man who not only survived boot camp, but Ranger training."

Then, because it had to be said, he admitted, "Jim, I *know* you wouldn't cage me, but like the way you deal - all or nothing - I couldn't help my gut reaction this morning. My head can scream at my instincts all it wants; I still want to book so bad that my shoes are practically out the door by themselves."

"So what do you want to do? Sleep downstairs in your room, move out to your own space and just date?" Mercifully, Jim didn't sound at all put out, just sincerely interested in finding a solution.

Trying to pretend that they'd find one, Blair said, "For now, we sleep. Until we get a handle on the replays, personal stuff is going to have to take a back seat." His teeth worried his lower lip for a minute, then he asked, "Can we, uh, you know, sleep together until then? Sex, if you want to, I mean, I can't expect you to lay there with a hard-on especially since I'll probably have one, too, but, hey, no pressure, just whatever comes naturally. Or am I..."

The hand that had never let go of his hair tugged once, sharply, to pull Blair's head back, and Jim kissed him deeply, but without heat. It struck Blair immediately that he'd never had a kiss quite like that: intimate, but not passionate, as if it were happening for the simple sensual pleasure of it all. He liked it far more than he would have thought, and returned it as best he could in the same spirit. The play of tongue and lips grew slow and sleepy, and long pauses crept in as he relaxed into Jim; then finally, he slipped into sleep.

* * *

Half way to Rainier, mind filled with the wonder of waking up well-loved and cherished less than an hour earlier, Blair felt and saw the world change, though it was such a subtle effect at first that he almost missed it. Luckily the flashes at the edge of his vision nagged just enough that he pulled over beside the road and dropped his eyes so that he could ignore what was right in front of him and concentrate on the green sparkles as they cascaded down. He could almost feel them flickering over and around him, leaving layer upon layer of 'different' that never penetrated, never changed him. Risking a look out of his windshield, he watched the car beside him waiting for the light writhe for a split second, and become a different model of a different year. A 1990, he saw with some excitement, then had to drop his eyes again because the effect was twisting at his mind and stomach.

When all that was left was the residual that he remembered from the last time, Blair carefully put his car in gear again and headed right back for the loft. He didn't question the impulse, too well acquainted with his ability to rationalize to himself to bother. His lover of only a few days, his partner, his sentinel had nearly died from the last reset, and that was all that really mattered. He could tend to re-creating his own place in the new era when he had re-claimed his place in Jim's.

He parked haphazardly, glanced around for Jim's truck to make sure that he hadn't left for the station yet, then ran for the stairs, a little startled by the dirty glass of the vacant businesses in the lower floors, and then worried by the general air of neglect and disuse from the rest of the building as he raced for his home. The door to 302 was ajar, barely hanging on its hinges, and Blair went through it without hesitation, positive that Jim would be in no condition to hear him coming. The loft was empty except for thick layers of dust and the peculiar musty smell that belongs to abandoned buildings, and Blair spared a split second to quell his spiking fear before hurrying up the stairs.

There was no sign of Jim in the bedroom, no sign that anyone had ever used that particular space for a room at all. Rubbish was in one corner, there was cracked glass in the skylights and even the high-tension wire that had been used for railing was gone. Turning in a small circle, looking for any hint of occupancy, of a visit, of anything, Blair unwillingly admitted that Jim was one of the missing or displaced and that somehow, he was going to have to find him.

"Wherever one of us is, the other can be," he muttered to himself. "Jim did it automatically, when he had to, twice. Came to me when circumstances demanded he be there. Well, he has to do it again. He has to. I command it; I insist on it. Right now!" Closing his eyes, Blair concentrated on mental images of his partner - laughing, smiling, grousing, complaining, bitching, teasing, praising, gentle eyes and gentle hands for a child, for an animal, for a deceased human that he would find justice for if he could. He thought of Jim at a party in his tux, looking relaxed and pleased; thought of Jim in his uniform, tall, proud, and strong; of Jim in shorts and tee-shirt, sweating and triumphant on the court; in a suit on the stand, competent and confident; of Jim himself, angry, loving, frustrated, superior, smug, affectionate, loyal. He tried to summon all the facets of the man that he knew: son, brother, friend, cop, sentinel, partner, lover.

Abruptly the ground swayed under him sickeningly and Blair nearly fell, but when he threw out his hands to balance himself, they weren't there any more. Nothing was there any more: not the loft, not Cascade, not himself. He was blind, but as he blinked furiously, areas of light and dark formed, blurred, then focused, and he looked into a world that he couldn't have ever imagined and would forever after be hard pressed to describe.

A column, dark and massive, stretched endlessly above and below him, curving to either side. Opposite him were more just like it, in countless numbers that filled the horizon in dark abundance. All were regularly set with what at first looked like massive light bulbs the size of a man. His sight focused, and he could see that the 'elements' of the bulbs were people floating in some liquid that shone from a light source he couldn't pinpoint. Hundreds of thousands of them, arrayed in endless rows and columns, each with its human contents, and he looked down at his feet to focus clearly on the nearest, hoping to understand what he was seeing.

Horror powerful enough to kill knifed into his brain as Blair recognized the hairless, wasted form in the pod below him, thrashing feebly at the lines and tubes covering his body and extruding from his mouth, penis, and anus. Jim opened eyes filled with his own horror and the primitive instinct to survive, and necessity kicked Blair in the ass, dislodging the hold his emotions had on him. Kneeling over his partner, he thrust insubstantial hands into the pod to capture and hold the slick head steady.

"Be still," he ordered. "Jim! Be still!" He looked over what had to be a respirator of some sorts sticking down Jim's throat, worried what damage would be done if they tried to remove it.

He hesitated, and admitted later that it might have saved both their lives. What looked for all the world like a mechanical flying spider the size of a truck buzzed up to the pod, and a light similar to the one illuminating the pods played over his partner's body, apparently not sensing Blair's presence at all. It jerked up and down for a moment, as if in indecision, then backed off a few yards, turning in a small circle before flying up to another pod where the occupant was fighting against the wiring digging into his body.

Nor was it the only one servicing them; Blair spotted at least half a dozen others within visual range, most of them making some sort of adjustment to the equipment holding the people, but a few grabbed bodies and did something that caused the capsules to drain, then empty the occupants, and he didn't want to think about what would happen to them after they literally went down the tubes. All the machines were moving erratically, jerkily, and, while he watched, two collided, had what looked for all the world like an argument, then simultaneously deactivated, plunging out of sight in seconds.

Getting out suddenly seemed like not just a good idea, but the only idea to have, and Blair whispered urgently, "We have to get back. Think about the loft, think about our home, see it, *experience* it in your mind's eye the way only a sentinel can. I'm there, waiting for you, Jim, but not for much longer, so you've got to do it, do it now!"

Following his own advice, Blair shut his eyes, grateful to hide the terrifying scenery around them, and did his best to remember everything about the loft as it should be. Sunshine would be streaming through the balcony doors, maybe a hint of breeze since it was a nice day and they would be open. Lingering smells of breakfast would ride that breeze, along with the familiar taint of the river, and it would tickle his skin and stir his curls. Jim was in front of him, holding his hands, waiting patiently for Blair to stop dithering all over the place and look at him, see *him,* and now, now, now...

In an act of will that almost physically hurt, Blair made himself open his eyes, and his jaw imitated Jim's, tightening until he thought his teeth might crumbled. Their loft was there - and it wasn't. What he could see was all three of the overlays from previous resets, along with the green flickers of light appearing and disappearing in all three versions. Jim was standing in front of him, his eyes a the piercing blue that stared into Blair, filled with a weary, patient wisdom that came from knowing too much and being able to do too little.

As scary as that was, what frightened Blair most was the grip on his hands; it was every bit as insubstantial as the room around them, a barely-there pressure he could hardly feel. Regardless, he tightened his hold as strongly as he could, and said calmly, "That's it, you're almost here. All you need to do is to concentrate a bit harder."

"This isn't my time or place any longer," Jim answered gently, shaking his head. "It's yours, to shape as you will."

Astonished, Blair opened and shut his mouth several times before he was finally able to sputter, "Fine, fine!! Then I want the loft back just the way it was, I want my *life* back just the way it was before any of this shit started happening."

"Why?" Jim asked, those eternity-tainted eyes seeing something Blair didn't want to imagine. "Why settle for something that gave you no joy and plenty of heartache when you could have the life you always wanted, the life you should have had?"

"Because it's real, it's what happened!" Blair nearly shouted, more scared now than when he had found himself in the machine hive.

Sounding calm, almost detached, Jim replied, "After what we've just seen, how can you believe any of it was ever real?" He looked away from Blair, becoming in those moments the Jim he knew and understood. "I can hear them, the machines, talking to each other. It's fast, so fast, but I can understand them, like I've heard the language all my life and learned it the same way I learned English. I have to remember it, slow it down in my head, and I miss a lot that way, but I get the gist.

"They're afraid, as much as something made of cogs and circuits can be. There's a virus in the mainframe, and they've lost most of their energy crop to a battle with some enemy they don't name. That's why they were erratic and distracted, why they didn't flush me right away like all the other ones that are waking up because of what's wrong."

Abruptly he looked back at Blair, expression remotely kind. "What existence we do have is under the gun, and there's not a thing we can do about it. Humanity is just...collateral damage; ignorant savages living in the Pacific Islands during World War II that have no clue why the only world they've ever known is suddenly alive with explosions and fire from an enemy they can't see and have no capacity to understand."

With compassion that was all the more poignant for the weariness it covered, Jim said, "Take the life you deserve, Chief, while you can. And don't think you're being selfish when you do; all you have to do is be yourself and you'll just naturally become a source that others can look to for grounding and reassurance."

"What about you?" Blair asked angrily, grimly, doing his best to make the fingers within his solid, warm, and real, despite the subtle slackening he could feel in them from his lover. "Do I just create what I want and assume you'll be happy with it, that you'll fit in any old way you can, no complaints?"

"Sandburg...Blair, I think that's a moot point. I'm, I'm *awake* now; the machines won't tolerate it; they'll flush me as soon as they notice. That can't take too long." The gentleness was back, and he brought the hands he held up to brush a kiss over Blair's knuckles. "You can forget, though, if you want to. Forget all of it from the time we met, or from any point you would like to simply stop knowing me. No pain, no regrets, no grief, no sorrow – just a good life as long as it all holds together."

Anger is almost always fear, and the fury that Blair had been nurturing to win his argument with his lover showed its true nature, and he had to swallow down his heart before it could make it out of his mouth. With the fear came the insight he needed, though, born out of true desperation. "You're trying to give it all back to me, aren't you? Everything you think I sacrificed to protect you, even the heart you snared without meaning to. Trying to undo it all so I can be happy."

"One man's heaven is another man's hell," Jim quoted from what seemed so long ago. "I deserve the hell of knowing what lies behind the veil for the little time I have left, earned it many times over." Stepping closer, though not close enough to touch, he added earnestly, "You deserve the heaven. Let yourself forget and make a good, useful life for yourself!"

"Do you really think that my heart will forget?" Blair said quietly, thinking of the many lost souls wandering the world now, looking for their missing pieces. "That I can simply do away with the most important part of myself and not *feel* it down to the soul of me? Or that I can willingly, meekly stick my head in the sand until the end comes?"

Jim shuddered, becoming more solid, more substantial, but he said firmly, "Not even if I ask you to? Please? It would be...easier...for me when the machine comes back if I know that things are good for you."

Sucking in a breath to hold the hurt at bay, Blair countered, "And if they come for me first?"

"You're like The Oracle," Jim answered. "You see without being awake. I don't know why or how that happened, but why else can you see the reset without being a part of it, like me?"

"So be with me," Blair urged eagerly, pouncing on a possible solution. "We know that wherever one of us is, the other can be. Let your body sleep again and be with me, completely, in this here, this now. It *is* real to me, the only realty I want or need, and if I tried to paint it over, it wouldn't change the fact that underneath it all, it still existed as far as I'm concerned. *All* reality is just in your head anyway. This one, at least, could be one we make the most of together."

It was obvious to him that his lover was going to be his usual mule stubborn self, positive he was doing what was right for Blair in the long run, so he dug in his own heels and played his trump card. "Jim, look at the matrix around us; it's winding down. We're running out of time to do anything at all, and I will not live without you. Do I make myself clear? Both of us here or both of us wait to go down the tubes. Frankly, I think that between the two of us, now that we know the truth, we can find ways to fight, to help while we're here. Decide, but decide fast. And don't bother to get all pissy and superior and mad; we don't have time for it."

"Blair!" Jim pled despairingly. "Please."

"Oh, fuck this." Blair stretched up and kissed his mate, ignoring the wrongness in the sensation and putting everything he had into the caress. As he plastered himself against the broad chest, Jim grew concrete, stable, regaining the body Blair remembered in such clear detail. "Who are you?" he breathlessly murmured against warm, warm lips a few minutes later. "Tell me, tell me."

"James Joseph Ellison," his lover answered slowly, reluctantly, surrendering to both Blair's demands and his own drive to live. "William's son, Stephen's brother, protector of the Chopec, Incacha's sentinel, Simon Banks' friend, detective in Cascade PD's Major Crimes Department, Blair Sandburg's partner, roomie, lover."

"And mate," Blair added complacently, doing some surrendering himself. "Who am I?"

"Blair Jacob Sandburg, Naomi's son, anthropology grad student at Rainier University, civilian consultant and friend to most of Major Crimes, Simon Banks' favorite pain in the ass, Jim Ellison's partner, roomie, lover." He paused uncertainly. "Mate?"

For an answer, Blair kissed him again, locking both arms around his neck and slinging a leg over his hip to make the embrace as emphatic as possible.

After they parted to draw in much-needed oxygen, Jim took a long deep breath, laid his head on Blair's shoulder, and started to sag as if all his strength were draining out of him. Belatedly remembering how exhausted he'd been the last time he returned, Blair got his weight under him and navigated him toward the couch, getting him within falling distance just in time. As Jim crashed, Blair grabbed the afghan, made sure long legs and arms were positioned comfortably, then lay down next to him, finding it a narrow fit but refusing to leave Jim's side. In fact, given the circumstances, he thought that handcuffing himself to his partner might be a sensible precaution and was fairly sure that Jim wouldn't object at all. Now.

Looking down at the sleeping face, he brushed a kiss over Jim's forehead and smiled to himself at the man's stubbornness and devotion. "You didn't have to rationalize to me about fixing it all, you know. You could have just been honest and said, I love you." Unsurprisingly Jim didn't answer, though with a snorted snore, he draped an arm over Blair's waist and pulled him closer, which Blair didn't mind at all.


* * *

Sitting on the picnic table, feet on the seat, Blair looked out over the park and watched his partner buy hotdogs from the vendor, not sure whether to grimace or grin. No doubt he would get two with all the works for himself, and the pre-requisite soydog for Blair, and take a fiendish relish in biting into the disgusting mess while holding Blair's eyes. Arguing that it was the thought that counted regardless of how his physical body was actually being nourished would get him nowhere, any more than pointing out that Jim wasn't being consistent since he still worked out every day. Jim would still cheerfully devour both hotdogs, nodding patiently at everything Blair had to say, and then would top them off with donuts for dessert.

Blair wasn't sure who he wanted to smack more: Jim for being so happy at having an excuse for eating what he wanted or himself for not being able to easily give up healthful habits of a lifetime. One thing was for sure - the debates with his partner on the subject were entertaining and the guilty pleasure he got when he gave in and ate something forbidden was heady. Not nearly enough to make up for the loss of innocence both of them could have done without, but a small bit of silver behind the storm clouds nevertheless. It was those shiny bits that got them through the day, most of the time.

Balancing soda, hot dogs, and napkins, Jim sat next to Blair on the table and handed him his lunch, taking care that he was close enough to his partner that their thighs bumped, but giving them both enough elbow room to eat. That had become standard procedure for both of them and almost second nature in the few weeks since they found themselves right back where they started, minus a few years. Jim was back in Major Crimes, with Simon as his Captain, and Blair was a grad student working on his Ph.D. who rode with him as a consultant and whose office was a former broom closet. Naomi had called only the day before, innocently asking Blair why he had been so frantic to get in touch with her, taking away the one remaining fear they had both had.

The only major changes were the lives lost before or during the resets; not a single one of them had ever existed as far and he and Jim had been able to discover. But, for the most part, the loss of a few years weren't causing any problems to the populace, though psychiatrists and psychics alike were having a boom year. Life was trundling along with the usual wars and skirmishes: Catholics and Protestants in Ireland were still killing each other, Arabs and Jews were still killing each other in Palestine, and Falwell was still insisting that gays were damned forever.

"You're supposed to eat that, Sandburg," Jim said, his tone understanding despite the teasing words. "Not stare it to death."

Automatically taking a bite and chewing, Blair shrugged and nodded at a man standing on a bench, preaching to oblivious passersby to repent because the world was coming to an end. "Just wondering how he'd react if he knew he was right; or if that's why he's trying to spread that message in the first place.

"Thinking that should be you up on there?" Jim asked.

"No one would listen, and I'm not that much of a hypocrite," Blair replied tiredly, shaking his head. "I had trouble with faith before our visit to the machines. Now I know for a fact that all religions are wrong and always have been; we were made by cold logic for no other reason than to be easily replaceable parts."

"Have to disagree with you on that one." Taking a huge bite of his hotdog, Jim chewed happily then said after he swallowed, "Machines didn't create man. No reason to. We're too chaotic, too illogical for their uses; I'll bet they just took advantage of what was on hand when they needed to. God isn't negated by that; if anything He's proven by it."

"Proven?" Blair questioned doubtfully, putting aside his unwanted meal.

"Sure. See?" Jim nodded at a young couple sitting on a blanket not too far away. She was painting while he strummed on a guitar, and occasionally both of them would stop what they were doing to simply touch the other. Fingers in her hair, a hand brushing away a leaf from a shoulder - whatever it was, the other would smile briefly and go back to what they were doing.

"Everything around us is a program fed directly into our brain," Jim said quietly. "Yet we still find love, we still create, we do more with what we've had given to us than simply exist. What is that if not living proof of one's soul? And if there is a soul, doesn't that mean there could be God? He's just covered by layers of civilization, machine-made and human, that have piled on top of us. Maybe we just have to look for Him, like we do for love or meaning."

Sliding an arm around his partner's waist and not giving a damn who saw, time was too short to worry about that kind of stupidity, Blair rejoined, "I thought I was the Shaman here. Guess I'm just having trouble dealing with the fact that the world went through all that turmoil because of a dirty download from humanity."

Taking another bite, Jim said around his mouthful, "What's the replays got to do with that, anyway?"

"One way of undoing the damage caused by a virus," Blair answered, slipping into teacher mode and poking a finger into his soydog disinterestedly. "You restore the system to where it was before the virus was introduced. You can lose some files that way, but it's better than having the whole system crash."

"So the machines went back to 1956 because it was before computers and the internet and hackers, but it was too far?"

"The operating system had become too obsolete for compatibility." Blair eyed Jim's remaining hotdog, trying not to notice that the onions were cooked just the way he liked them, and the chili had no beans, the way he preferred. "So they rebooted to 1978, which worked better as far as the operating system, but the individual programs had become corrupted by the first restore. They had no choice but to go back to the current version and hope they could take out the bugs by hand, so to speak."

Without a word Jim picked up the rest of his meal and offered a bite to Blair. "Then you think human 'hacking' is the cause behind the machines problems?"

Not bothering to debate with himself, Blair took a big bite, closing his eyes at the wonderful flavors crashing over his taste buds. "Wouldn't be surprised," he mumbled. "For all we know it's the New Agers and Wiccans getting too close to the interface in their own programming." Swallowing, he grinned, mood finally lightening a little. "Poetic justice, huh?"

"May be the only kind humanity gets." Jim took a bite from the other end, catching a spill with his napkin, then abruptly set the food down and put his hand within easy reach of his gun. He focused his cop-glare on two men strolling toward them, his entire body going tense.

Studying the two as they approached, Blair couldn't see a reason for his partner's alert status. Both men were on the tall side, one almost anorexically slender, the other built more along Jim's lines. Partners or lovers, he thought to himself because of the similarity in the way they were dressed: back trench coats over black pants and shirts, dress shirt in the case of the black man, and tee shirt for his younger half. They matched each other's pace with the easy flow of long-time partners, too, though there was subtle air of guardianship about the older man, as if he protected someone very valuable.

"No heartbeat, no breathing," Jim muttered. "No scent, no heat. The machines may have found us, Chief."

"I don't think so," Blair refuted thoughtfully. "Not unless machines can do a good job of imitating human emotion. The white male is smugly pleased with himself for some reason, and his companion is amused by it, I think. See the hint of a smile?"

Not relaxing in the slightest, Jim waited until their visitors were conversationally close, and said, "That's far enough, at least until you've introduced yourself and convinced me you've got a good reason for interrupting my lunch."

The slender man's smile grew, and he said simply, "The Oracle sent me, like she said she would. My name is Neo."


finis