"No," Blair said firmly, helping Vincent hold Jim down on the old-fashioned hospital bed, "No narcotics or sedatives; he's allergic." Trying not to aggravate his delirious partner's wound, he put more weight on the shoulder under his hands, countering Jim's fight to get up.
Peering over the top of his glasses, the man Vincent had simply called, 'Father,' said acerbically, "If he continues to struggle he will re-open those wounds, and he cannot afford the blood loss. Neither of you mentioned this problem earlier." He held the hypodermic needle up to the light, watching a tiny bead of liquid appear on the tip.
"Why do you think he wouldn't take them to begin with? Please," Blair said, changing tactics and focusing on the woman standing at the foot of the bed. "He had to have had the same sensitivities as a child; tell him!"
Grace Ellison looked uncertainly at her thrashing son, but said, "Even baby aspirin made him sick, Father. And Blair has been living with him for several years now; he'd know if Jim still had problems.'
"Very well." Father laid aside the needle, frustration showing, and studied his patient. "Then we will have to use restraints, though I hesitate to do that. But the risk of more bleeding is too great to allow him to continue like this."
"That," Blair said with grim finality, "will only make him worse." Though he could barely hear his partner's mumbled words, Jim was speaking in Quechua, compulsively trying to warn of danger. Guessing that being tied down would only convince the sentinel that he had to break free of the same enemy who was threatening his people, Blair added, "Let me try to calm him, first, okay?"
Father looked dubious, but Vincent nodded at him and cautiously shifted position so that Blair could get up on the bed with Jim. "Why does he fear for us?" Vincent asked softly, his deep voice easily carrying through Jim's restless murmurs.
Giving him a startled glance, Blair asked, "You speak Quechua?"
"James taught me when he first came back from Peru. I...." Vincent hesitated fractionally, and then admitted with an endearing almost-shyness, "I questioned him about the jungle and its people almost endlessly, for I can never travel to one myself."
That plain statement raised a thousand questions in Blair's mind, not only about this extraordinary person, but also about his partner's relationship with him. Since that was not an unusual state of affairs, he pushed his curiosity away and answered the original question. Catching and holding Jim's head as it tossed, he said, "He's not worried about us or the Chopec, though he's speaking their language, but about his 'tribe.' The Major Crimes department of Cascade P.D, I think. Captain Banks, our best friend, and the rest of them *are* in danger, and because of us. Since we know too much, they're going to be under intense scrutiny by the people we're hiding from, and we don't know how far they'll go to find us."
Jim's eyes were closed, but at Blair's touch, he stopped struggling, though his lips kept moving with silent warnings. His skin was hot, almost burning Blair's palms, and Jim groped weakly until he found the front of Blair's shirt to lock his fists into. Muttering a little louder, he tried to shake Blair, obviously needing to emphasize his urgency.
**Shh, Enqueri, shhh,** Blair murmured in the Chopec tongue, grateful for the practice sessions they'd had in the past. **You've done your duty. Rest now.**
"Why not use English?" Grace asked worriedly, absently smoothing the bedding as if to tuck her son in. "Does he think he's back in the jungle?"
"Actually, I think it's because he sees himself as having the same role in Major Crimes that he did with the Chopec," Blair answered distractedly, fingers gently massaging the skull they held steady in an effort to calm. "He was sort of a watchman or guardian for them, and for the past few months, that's what he's been doing in Cascade - watching over the department, trying to protect it. He's hurting, his instincts are set on high, and he's reverting back to the mindset that allowed him to survive in Peru, including the language."
"So we have to convince him that his fellow officers are safe," Vincent said understandingly.
"He'll hear if we lie," Blair said without thinking.
Carefully he leaned down so that only Jim could understand him when he spoke. **Enqueri, your people need their sentinel to heal, to be able to fight beside them when it is time. Be calm; rest!**
Eyes suddenly flying open, Jim said clearly in English, "Chief, I have to warn Simon!"
"I'll take care of it," Blair promised.
With an unexpected surge of power, Jim nearly got up, forcing Blair to all but sit on him as Vincent used his greater size and weight to pin his shoulders. "No! No, you have to stay here. You said you'd stay here!"
"He will not leave this place," Vincent said flatly, brilliant blue eyes staring intently into fevered ones. "You must trust us to find a way to warn your Captain."
"Vincent," Father began sharply.
Not breaking his focused gaze, Vincent interrupted, "Catherine is the Senior Assistant District Attorney; it is not unusual for her to call police departments in other cities for a wide variety of reasons. Do you understand me, James? We can send word through her to Simon Banks without further endangering either him or Blair."
For a split second Jim froze in their combined grasp, then he shook his head violently despite Blair's hold, and reverted to the Chopec's language to mutter, **Enemies, enemies all around!** His damaged body began to collapse under the combination of its injuries and his battle, but he still struggled to leave the bed.
Deciding that another tactic was needed, Blair stretched out beside Jim, no longer trying to restrain him. **Enqueri, stay with me, please? We have done what we must, and I'm so tired! Keep guard while I sleep?**
The fight in Jim slowly subsided, and he repeated, sounding confused, **Stay beside you?**
**Yes. This place is strange to me, and I don't know who to trust." There was more honest fear in the words that Blair expected from himself, but he didn't try to call it back.
Jim studied him thoroughly, allowing Vincent to push him down to the mattress and his mother to pull a sheet up over his bandaged body. "I'll stay, then," he said, sounding surprisingly rational. Raising a hand to cover one of Blair's where it rested on his cheek, he leaned into the touch for a moment, and added reluctantly, "I could use some rest, too."
"Been a frantic twenty-four hours," Blair said, trying to smile. "Running from crooked cops, becoming cargo in the world's oldest prop plane, surviving kamikaze New York cabbies, doing a little amateur spelunking.... Not to mention getting shot."
"Kind of typical for us," Jim mumbled, eyelids finally drifting down.
"Well, at least I wasn't taken hostage or kidnapped this time." As carefully as he could, Blair made himself comfortable beside him, leaning his head on one hand and reaching to stroke Jim's cheek with the other.
"No," Grace said quietly. "Like this - his hair, barely touching." She began to sing an old lullaby, feathering her fingertips over her son's brush cut, hardly disturbing the strands and startling Blair with the beauty of her voice.
He imitated her caress, and Jim grumbled something unintelligible, gradually relaxing, his weight solid and heated along Blair's side. When he was sure his sentinel was under, Grace's song becoming only a soothing hum, he started to leave, only to have Jim immediately tense and begin to try to wake.
"Hoisted by your own petard," Vincent murmured with a hint of a smile, reaching for the blanket Grace held out to him.
"Damn! I *have* to contact Simon." Not trying to move again, Blair pushed his hair away from his face, thinking furiously on how to get up without disturbing his partner. "Jim's right; he does have to be told what happened so he can protect himself and the rest of the department."
"Will his phone calls be monitored?" Vincent asked, draping the covering over him, and nodding to Grace as she settled back to watch over her child.
"Well, yeah, probably, but..."
"Then your voice could be recognized."
"I'll have someone else speak for me then. Maybe whoever leads me up to a phone?" He didn't want to argue, but Jim's urgency had been contagious. Almost he could feel the minutes ticking away, despite his own body's urgings to cuddle close to his partner and sleep.
"Then why not do as we said we would?" Kneeling beside the bed on the other side of Jim, Vincent looked earnestly into Blair's face. "If you tell me what Catherine should say so that your captain will know the message is from you, I will ask her to find a plausible reason to call."
He sounded reasonable, more reasonable than Blair felt up to dealing with, and he looked around the room vaguely hunting for an escape from the conversation before he succumbed to the temptation to nap, just for a few minutes. All he saw was a chamber half-carved, half-born from the earth, filled with old, if not obsolete medical equipment. Grace sat silently in the corner at the head of the bed, and Father was in a chair at one side of the room, his expression forbidding and stern.
At Blair's glance, Father said, "You should be concerned. It's not safe Above for Vincent."
"Safer for me than him, today," Vincent argued mildly, patiently waiting for Blair's decision. "Catherine was up very early to bring us those supplies this morning before she went to work. She told me before I helped bring James here that she would go straight home to sleep when she was done for the day, so I will not have to wait. It's not as though I haven't visited her balcony many times before, Father."
For some reason, that seemed to disturb the doctor even more, and Blair sensed thick under-currents between father and son, wondering at their cause. "And I gain another gray hair each time you do!" Father snapped. "But I know perfectly well there's no reasoning with you on the matter."
"Hey," Blair butted in, not wanting a dispute started because of him. "All I need is a guide and Vincent to keep Jim in bed until I can get back."
As if reading his mind, Vincent said, "This is an old, old debate between us; one which will never be resolved, I fear. And your choice is between trusting Catherine or risking more injury for James; I warned you earlier that he would not rest if not certain you were safe."
Covering the hand Blair had left for the moment on Jim's chest, Vincent added, "I know how hard it is to know who to trust and with how much. Our entire existence here is balanced on that sword's edge. But I am asking for you to do so anyway, for James' sake."
Worn, worried, and torn between two equally important needs, Blair studied Vincent carefully, trying not to see his unusual surface, but the person living within it. *That* man reminded him of Incacha, and of an old Shao-lin priest his mother had known. And, in some indefinable way, of Blair himself, and he found himself nodding slowly. "Use the words 'Peru,' 'inquiry,' and 'twenty-four hours' as close together as she can without being noticeably awkward. It means we're safe, and we'll contact him online at 7PM the day after the call. He should ask her if she's ever been fishing if he got the message."
With a gentle squeeze of understanding, Vincent started to get to his feet, but before he could, Blair used their still-linked hands to touch his new friend on the cheek. "Thank you," he said, words for once failing him.
Apparently startled, Vincent blinked at him for a second, then smiled that shy near-smile of his as he stood. "You're welcome. Now, rest; you'll need it. James is *not* a good patient."
"I know, I know," Blair said ruefully, at last giving into his own fatigue. Snuggling beside the too hot body, he made a place for his head on the pillow next to Jim's. "Man gives a whole new meaning to the word 'cranky.' And I am *not* going to nursemaid him; I've got enough trouble without needing to find a place to hide his body."
"Leaving that task to me is no way to show gratitude," Vincent quipped. With a quick pat to Grace's shoulder, he crossed to stand beside his father, obviously waiting from some sign from the older man.
"Say hello to her for me," Father said grudgingly. "And be careful."
"As always."
Sleepily Blair watched him leave, distantly admiring his quick grace. "For once," he muttered, "I can understand why Jim kept a secret."
***
This time of the year, the city Above was cloaked in darkness early, but even if it had been full noon, Vincent was not sure he could have stopped his feet from hurrying toward Catherine's home. It was not the urgency of his task that drove him, however, but something else. Something he couldn't quite name and which he associated in an odd way with the emotions that burned so brightly in James and Blair.
His footsteps echoed not only through the tunnels he traveled, but in his own mind, as if he had made this headlong rush before, fueled by the same passions. His heart leaped in his chest, the regular lubs and dubs of it disrupted, not by his pace, but by wild anticipation, the need to see Catherine a living thing that spurred him into running faster and faster. And some mad part of him believed wholly that she was as eager to see him as he was for her.
The more rational part of him scoffed at the very notion. She was the dearest of friends, and she cherished him deeply, but there was no place in their relationship for this ungovernable intensity. He had been told often enough that before he had been ill so long ago that they had been closer than friends, closer even than lovers. If that was so, then their bond had been burned away by his fever, along with so many of the memories from those first years they knew each other.
And surely, if that had been the case, it would have resurfaced by now. Surely if Catherine felt such overwhelming passion for him, he would sense it. Return it. Know it for what it was rather than ponder why the sight of Jim holding his companion's hand to his cheek would make him acche with an unnamed longing.
With all his will he pushed that line of thought away, hardly noticing that the action was a familiar one, and not noticing at all that he had never questioned that it *did* have to be pushed away. Nearly to Catherine's building, it was time to concentrate on reaching her apartment without being seen. Once on her balcony, he would be safe enough for a while. In recent years she had taken up gardening as a hobby and had a trellis installed over nearly half of it, grown over now with a profusion of climbing vines and hardy rose plants, creating a shelter that blocked curious eyes even in the light of day.
For the first time it occurred to him to wonder if that were deliberate on her part; a way of making a safe-haven for him to visit with her.
That thought, too, he tried to push away. Perhaps because of it, though, he tried to see Catherine, not as a friend that he was paying a practical call on, but as a woman he had only recently met, much as a man might make a concerted effort to pay attention to a well-trodden path, instead of taking it for granted. He watched her closely as he tapped at her French door, and was rewarded with a expression of pure joy that found its mate in the unnamed something that had driven him to rush to her side.
As quickly as it had come, it was gone, shut behind an impenetrable door within her and denied by a quick transition to one of mere happiness. "Vincent!" she called out, swiftly crossing the room to fling open the balcony doors. "Is something wrong Below? How can I help?"
Inwardly Vincent winced, taking a step back into the small arbor, his own joy leaving as abruptly. Had she really come to believe that the only reason he would darken her doorstep was because her aid was required? And, in truth, when was the last time he had visited for the sheer pleasure of her company?
Resolving that was going to stop immediately, he admitted reluctantly, "I have a favor to ask you on behalf of James and Blair."
Leaning on the doorframe, Catherine said cautiously, "If they're in trouble with the law...."
"Not in the way you think," he interrupted quietly. "They haven't shared the details as yet. James was in serious condition by the time we reached the hospital chamber, and we've spent the day trying to lower his fever from the infection. I know enough to believe that they are in the right; in fact, their greatest concern is the danger to their fellow officers in Cascade."
"He mentioned dirty cops." Her tone held a world of disgust and resignation. It vaguely troubled Vincent, as it had in the past, that he could not *feel* those emotions from her as he often could with most others.
Yet again putting aside a train of thought for later consideration, he said sympathetically, "I know that you have been having your own difficulties with that problem; surely you can understand James' concern?"
"Practically an epidemic of them," she said, then smiled tiredly. "What do you want me to do?"
Relieved, he outlined Blair's instructions, giving her the captain's name, and ending by warning that there could very likely be listeners to the conversation. To his surprise, she said slowly, "They must think the corruption extends pretty high, even outside the police department. Tapping a captain's phone isn't easy."
Considering, he agreed with a nod. "They left not only their home, but their city itself, as if they believed not even their friends and fellow officers there could keep them safe. And they fear for those self-same friends."
Obviously deep in thought, Catherine asked, "Do you think they would mind if I came Below tomorrow and asked them some questions? I could give them any news Banks might be able to share, too."
"I can't see why not, though James may be too unwell to be of much assistance." Seeing an opportunity, he added, "And you are always welcome, Catherine, even if only for a hug and a few moments peace." He could tell that pleased her, but, again he couldn't *feel* it, and his irritation at the lack dug at him as never before.
More troubling was her air of expectation, as if, now that his mission had been accomplished, all that was left was his departure. Seating himself on the sturdy bench tucked into the corner of her balcony, he confessed a part of his thoughts. "It seems lately that one of us is always rushing away to tend to one important task or another. I've missed you."
Catherine drifted closer, almost as if against her will, and said wryly, "One of the pitfalls of modern life. The small things needed for daily existence all add up into this huge time-consuming thing that takes us away from what really matters."
"To the point where it is difficult to remember sometimes what really *does* matter," Vincent said, spreading his cloak invitingly over the bench. "In this case, pleasant company and a few quiet hours of conversation. Or do you need to go to bed early? I know it's been a long day for you."
"I bought that Tom Robbins book Victoria recommended," Catherine said thoughtfully, her face beginning to glow. "And was planning on reading myself to sleep. Maybe you could read it to me instead?"
"With pleasure." He waited while she hurried inside to get it, her growing eagerness both pricking at his conscience and giving him a startling sense of male satisfaction. She came back, book in hand, and dressed warmly for the cool air, book in hand. "I love the way Robbins' view of the world is skewed," she confessed. "Profound and ludicrous at the same time."
"Victoria complains about him because she can't decide how he should be classified for the library. Satire? Science fiction? Contemporary?" Vincent said, taking the novel from her as she tucked herself next to his side as if she'd fit there forever.
"All of the above?" She grinned widely, drawing a corner of his cloak over her shoulders. "Much as it was inevitable that someone would take the profusion of books Below in hand and organize them, I do wish she weren't so... organized?"
He chuckled, pleased that he'd lightened her mood, and turned to the first chapter. As engrossing as the story was, though, she soon grew heavy and still against him, head drooping onto his upper arm. Reading a few pages more, just to be certain, he stopped when she didn't react to a long pause, peering down into her face as best he could.
The tenderness he felt at her complete trust was expected; the sharp slice of physical need was not. Startled, even alarmed by it, he gingerly shifted Catherine until he could pick her up, and carried her to her bedroom. He half-expected the innocent act of tucking her in would kill his increasingly powerful awareness with tenderness, but her beauty, framed by the pale satin of her pillow and tumble of her short blonde hair, only increased it. More than anything he wanted to comb those soft strands into a corona of subdued gold, waking her gently with the action, then bury his face in them until they were completely disarrayed and his own locks were tangled hopelessly with them.
And that was only the start of how completely he wanted them to be intertwined. A breath that was nearly a growl caught in his throat, and he made himself step away from the bed. Unable to convince himself to leave just yet, he looked frantically around the room for a diversion from his burgeoning need, trying to summon his mindset from earlier, to see the room for the first time.
On some level, he had always believed this to be part of her world, and, as such, he had entered seldom and reluctantly. Putting that belief aside, he had to admit, that, like Catherine, it was more a melding of both worlds. Her bed was covered with a handmade quilt in a Dresden plate pattern, the dark colors touched by fragments of satin that matched the pillowcase. He remembered very clearly trying not to laugh as he 'distracted' Catherine while Mouse took the case to be used when the children below sewed the quilt. The robe across the back of her vanity chair was of the same patchwork-and-love quality, this time in plush terry and flannel. Books of all ages were everywhere, many with bookmarks at favored passages. Scattered among the expensive glass paperweights and eggs she collected were framed works of art by many, many children - some of which had grown beyond childhood by now.
Truth be told, it had been a long, long time since Catherine had solely been of Above or Below, but instead had managed gracefully to balance with a foot in both. All he could think of was *why* would she do so, when it had to be difficult and frustrating to always hide one part of her life from the other. Why had she not become like other Helpers, contacting he or Father only when necessary? Or taken the final step and moved below? He knew that she was in danger daily from her job, and that, more frustrating to her, it was an impossible and endless endeavor.
As if to find the answers, he was drawn back to the bed, fingers timidly tracing the arc of her eyebrow, where a nearly invisible scar reminded him of how she came into his life.
"Vincent," she murmured, sleepily, happily, and caught his hand under hers to press her face into it. With a contented sigh, she dropped deeper into sleep, a tiny smile lingering on her lips.
He never knew how long he knelt beside her, captured as completely as a unicorn by a maiden. It was the faint changes of a city rousing itself for the day that finally broke his stasis, sending him running *from* Catherine more quickly that he had *to* her.
***
Waking a good hour before the alarm went off, Catherine stretched luxuriously, too awake to fall back to sleep but too cozy to want to get up. The night's dreams still lingered, leaving her very sensually aware of her body in a cat-contented way, and she reached for the drawer in the night stand to take advantage of both her unexpected free time and her mood. While the toy took care of the physical part, she shut her eyes and went back to the last dream.
Like all of them, it took place in the most prosaic of situations - a picnic in the park, though it could have been a walk by the lake or watching old, sad movies on the television in her apartment. They all ended in basically the same way; with Vincent making love to her. Sometimes he was tender, sometimes he was fierce, but in the last one he had been so focused, so intent on her it was if he were seeking more than physical union with her.
The simple thought of that was enough to bring her to a very satisfying finish, and she idly caressed herself in afterglow, comparing the dreams to the reality. Though she had only had the joy of knowing Vincent once, the memory of the solid, strong mass of him was as clear as ever, enabling her to call up nearly every flex of muscle and the immensity of him within her.
But he had been in the throes of bestial necessity, hardly there as 'Vincent' at all, and she had often wondered if he had come to her of his own accord, instead of being forced by instinct, how different it could have been. How much more wonderful it could have been. How wonderful it could be if he had remembered that brief encounter.
Abruptly she tossed off the covers and got out of bed. She felt too good, inside and out, to depress herself with might-have-beens when the choice she had made had been the only one possible. *Was* the only one possible, and she would not regret it for any reason, especially not after last night. The visit had felt like so many of his earliest ones, when he had been so eager to see her that any excuse would do, making her feel alive and energized despite the long day.
The excuse he had had for coming to her was a valid one, though, and she turned it over in her mind to find a way to accomplish Jim's request as she readied and left for work, not noticing that she glowed like a well-loved woman. She sat through the morning briefing with the District Attorney, ignoring Joe as he kept glancing at her with a sly smile, and barely resisted the temptation to make a childish face at him. A casual comment during the meeting gave her an idea on how to contact the captain in Cascade without calling attention to herself, and, though she knew Joe was going to rag on her, she let him catch up with her as they left the conference room.
"You look like a cat that found the cream sitting out," he grinned. "No comment as usual, Radcliff?"
They walked down the hallway past the other ADA's, each beginning the day's business, and all of them covertly watching her and the District Attorney. Joe and Catherine had never stopped fighting with each other, occasionally with spectacular displays of temper that were very entertaining to the rest of the staff. Because she knew they would be overheard, she said casually, "Have you made your share of calls yet inviting out-of-state D.A.'s and police department heads for the seminars the Mayor wants to hold next year? We can't even begin to start planning it unless we've got some serious numbers for commitments."
"As 'no comment' goes, I'd give that one a 'B.' It was really just avoiding the question." Joe looked delighted: Big Brother getting ready to pounce on the reason for Little Sister's good mood.
"It beats being told the painful way you could potentially spend the rest of the morning," she shot back cheerily. "I guess that translates as, 'no, I've got better things to do than work on one of His Honor's political showcases."
"Damn straight, and so do you." He grinned. "If I promise that when I'm Mayor I'll *always* leave that kind of bull to my campaign staff like I should, will you let me in on what's - or should I say who's - got you lit up like the holidays?"
"Ever notice that politicians never keep their promises, Joe?"
"Okay, that 'no comment' is going to have to be an 'A' - a deft and sure change of subject. Come on, think of it this way; if I can go home and tell Nanc you've got someone new in your life, she'll quit inviting all those single men to dinner when you come over."
They were at the door to her office, which he opened for her mock-gallantly, and she swept through it, swinging it shut as she called out, "You've been married seven years, now. What makes you think she invites them over for me?"
His roar of laughter could be heard clearly through the wood, and Catherine leaned back on the door for a moment, smiling to herself. It faded when she heard clearly, "It's good to see you so happy again, Cathy. Seems like a long time."
Had it been that long? She wandered over to her desk and sat, not really seeing the usual pile of paperwork cluttering the top of it. Had it?
Absolutely refusing to answer that question, she forcefully pulled her attention back to the job at hand, and picked up the phone to begin the first of the day's calls. In the middle of them, where it wouldn't look particularly suspicious to anyone checking her phone log, she put in a call to Cascade, not surprised by the polite but abrupt, "Banks." when it was picked up.
"This is Catherine Chandler, Senior Assistant District Attorney in New York City," she started, automatically pitching her voice to 'persuading the witness' tones.
"How can I help you, Counselor?" he said, with a shade more interest and courtesy.
"In all fairness," Catherine started, unwillingly impressed by the subtle change and richness of his voice. "I have to warn you that this one of those annoying phone calls disguised as professional courtesy which is really an attempt at blatant begging to make my superiors happy.'
Banks chuckled with genuine humor, raising him another notch in her estimation. "Done more of those than I care to think about myself. What's the spiel?"
"A no-expense paid but plenty of prestige associated trip to The Big Apple for a series of seminars on Comparative Law Enforcement Techniques of North American Cities. They're trying to tie them together by common problems or crimes. For instance, you might be interested in comparing notes with other captains or DA's who have coastal waters: smuggling, docks workers and their union problems, illegal immigration."
"Long way to go to hear the same complaints with no solutions." He still sounded friendly, but was obviously becoming distracted.
Seeing her chance, she said, "Could be worse; could be in the back of no where. Someplace like Peru. Oh, well, I only promised to make inquiries to keep my boss off my back. This should keep him happy for at least twenty-four hours." Instantly she sensed a change, impossible as that should have been over a phone, and since she was *listening* for it, she heard the emotion in his voice.
"Peru's not so bad," Banks countered airily, belying what seemed to be powerful relief underneath. "At least I could get some decent fishing done there. And don't let me get side-tracked into boring you with my fish stories."
"I'll bet you have some interesting ones." In fact, she thought, I'd count on it. "Sure I can't persuade you to come to the Big City and tell me a few in person?"
"You're making it sound more attractive, Ms. Chandler. But I'd still have to say no. The budget is pretty tight for that sort of thing and mine is spoken for until, oh, about the time I'll be old enough to retire."
"Maybe I could keep on you my potential list, just in case the unexpected happens?" And so we'll have a reason to talk again, if necessary, she added to herself.
As if he'd read her mind, Banks readily agreed. "It can't hurt. If nothing else, I'll have a chance to hear your voice again."
Catherine laughed, surprised by the subtle compliment. "Flattery isn't supposed to get you anywhere, but you've definitely made my day."
"In that case, you've made mine," he shot back lightly. Then his tone changed to one that seemed to carry genuine regret. "In the meantime, I've got a dozen things on my desk all screaming my name and insisting that I get back to them. Thank you for the call, Ms. Chandler."
"And thank you." She hung up and stared at the phone for a moment, a small smile of satisfaction in place. That had felt like a good deed done for a good man, and, mood improved again, she reached into her briefcase to take out her personal cell and laptop. Hooking them together, she went online without going through the city admin's network since that wasn't secure enough for what she wanted. Since the account for both cell and server were through one of her late father's trusts, it was unlikely that anyone could access the records without digging so deep and hard they'd attract attention. Then all traces of the calls would disappear.
Almost the instant she was on, a request from Edie to chat popped up, and she opened the screen, confident that this was *one* conversation that absolutely no one would be able to listen to.
**Hey, Uptown - you gonna be dropping more cash my way today?**
**As if you'd complain. I know about that Mercedes you've got your eye on.**
**That's old news, girlfriend. I'm looking at SUV's these days; men are really into them. Perfect conversation opener when a major hunk catches my eye. Though I have to tell you, for the life of me I can't understand why. They're just souped up station wagons.
Anyway, what do you need?**
Catherine thought for a second, nearly reconsidering. Jim was a not only a friend of Vincent's, but he had been a sort of unofficial Helper for many years. Prying into his background was breaking one of the rules of the people who lived Below who were often trying to start over after mistakes made Above. But he was a cop, carrying big, big trouble on his back. If it was possible for it to reach into New York for him, she wanted advanced warning. And she didn't know Blair at all.
Feeling guilty, she typed, **As much as you can find on James Ellison and Blair Sandburg, both of Cascade PD, Washington, without alerting anybody that they're being checked out. It's important.**
**Same as usual - download into this account, then do a wipe?**
**Yes, and be extra careful. Edie....** She thought again, the added, **This one falls under the heading of people you never heard of, okay?**
There was a long pause from her old friend, and Catherine tried to convince herself that it was because she was answering another client, possibly over the phone, but more likely through a chat. Isearch4u.com had been one of the first Internet companies to offer to do online searches for clients too busy or too computer illiterate to do it themselves, looking mostly for lost people or hard to find objects. Edie was easily the best and busiest of the lot, mostly because she was the sneakiest, just shy of being a true illegal hacker.
But, unsurprisingly, when letters began to march over the screen, they read, **How long you going to keep up this super-spy stuff? You've been collected files on people and crimes for *years* now. Sooner or later, somebody's going to catch on to the fact that you know that your office is dirty, along with half the cops in the state, it seems like.**
Instantly she answered, **As long as it takes. Eventually I'm going to get something substantial, something that isn't circumstantial or supposition that I can ram through the system no matter how corrupt it is, and the whole decaying mess is going to fall apart, People deserve better than to have dirty cops and crooked lawyers running the courts. Damnit, *you* could be the one that gets falsely accused to hide the real perp, or who gets hurt by some monster that should be behind bars but isn't because a dirty cop let him off for their own reasons.**
**Better me than you being shot down in cold blood because somebody finally decides the Senior ADA is asking too many questions about the wrong things.**
**I'm being careful; almost too careful.** She paused to rub at her forehead, the familiar frustration hitting her yet again. **Why else do you think it's taking so long?**
**Well be even more careful. The last thing I want is to have to attend your funeral.**
**Don't. Just drop that e-mail I had you hide for me to every major news investigator in this filthy city and pretend you didn't know me that well.**
**Jesus, do you think we can change the topic? I'm getting depressed. So what's new in my old digs?**
Catherine indulged in a few minutes of gossip, then reluctantly signed off. She had a great deal of work waiting for her, and wanted to get as much as possible done as soon a possible so she could go Below. To question Jim and Blair, she told herself firmly; though it was Vincent's brilliantly happy eyes she was seeing in her mind.
An hour before quitting, she checked to see what Edie had sent her, not surprised by anything that she found in Jim Ellison's files. Some of it she knew from casual conversation with Vincent, or from Grace's happy sharing when they bumped into each other. Ex-Army Ranger Captain, lost in Peru for 18 months, Honorable discharge, then distinguished career in the police force, Cop of the Year several years running - but it was really Vincent's good opinion of him that she counted on.
Blair Sandburg, on the other hand, had her frowning half way through the meager information that could be found on him. Started college young with an High School Equivalency degree from home schooling, did excellent *when* he was in school. There were gaps where he'd dropped out for whatever reason until he began work on his master's in Anthropology. His field of study worried her since Below could be considered an anthropologist's dream, but when she began reading clips from newspapers about a fraudulent dissertation for his PhD, she sat up straighter in her chair, wondering why the hell Ellison still worked with him. And, more importantly, why he would risk bringing Below someone who would turn a friend into a sideshow attraction for a degree. What Sandburg could do with the community below, let alone Vincent, gave her cold shudders.
Hastily she finished up work, and rushed out, deliberately giving the impression she had official business that she had to take care of immediately. Since that was the truth on most occasions, no one questioned her, and she ducked into the closest entrance to the tunnels after taking extra care to make sure she hadn't been followed.
The pipes announced her almost immediately, but she didn't stop to answer them herself, going straight to the hospital chamber. Half-expecting to find Vincent, or at least Father there, she was surprised to find the small cave empty except for Jim and Blair asleep on the bed. The sight of them lying curled close together, more like lovers than friends, stopped her headlong rush, drawing her up short at the door, heart leaping oddly in her chest.
Slowly she crept into the room, not wanting to disturb them, though she couldn't say why. Jim was on his back, face pale and sweaty, and he was bare from the waist up, showing his bandaged middle. The arm on his good side was flopped over Blair's shoulder's, loosely hugging him, and his head was turned so that his features were half hidden in the auburn curls pillowed on his shoulder. The younger man was on his side, snoring softly, one hand limply curled just above the bandages, one leg thrown over both of Jim's. He looked as tired as his partner looked ill, as if it he were hurting, too.
One strand of Blair's hair was stuck to the corner of Jim's mouth, and occasionally his lips twitched as if to get rid of it, but he didn't move to do so. On impulse Catherine reached out to brush it away for him, and froze when glacier-cold blue eyes popped open before she could touch him. Realizing he might still be fevered, she whispered, "I didn't want to wake you, but I have a message from Captain Banks. Or at least, I think he gave me one for you."
The blue softened considerably. "Catherine," Jim said, clearly identifying her to himself. "I... remember Vincent... What did Simon have to say?" He spoke very quietly, clearly trying not to rouse his companion.
As best she could, Catherine repeated the conversation between her and the captain, trying to give it word for word. At 'fish stories' Jim half-smiled, and at the joke about budget and retiring, the wary tenseness in his expression relaxed considerably. "Greg Church bought our cover," he murmured. "Or at least isn't actively hunting for us on some trumped up charge or another and is leaving Major Crimes alone for the time being."
"That's what the dirty cops have been doing with the ones who got in their way?" Catherine asked.
"Sometimes," Jim answered flatly. Plainly changing the subject, he added, "One of the tunnels under 42nd street unexpectedly flooded. Nobody was hurt, but Vincent, Father and most of the others are down there helping with evacuations and seeing what caused it."
"Guess I wasn't paying attention to the pipe messages when I came down," she confessed.
Jim's eyelids were flickering, and he mumbled to himself, "Have to find a way to give Simon the details. Probably guessed that we know something about Judge Toma's death."
Giving in to impulse again, Catherine finally swept the curls closest to Jim's face down into the rest of the mass under his chin. "Go back to sleep. I'll go talk to Vincent and between us, we'll work something out."
Long fingers weakly caught her hand before she could pull it free, and pressed the back of it to Jim's lips in a barely-there kiss before letting go. With the same half-smile from earlier, he said, "Thank you. You might have literally saved Simon's life."
"By letting him know you were alive?"
"By keeping him from trying to find out what went wrong. Church and his people have only gotten a toehold into Major Crimes, if that, and Banks is a big part of the reason. They'd love to have a way to get to him."
"In that case... Look, I'll make a deal with you," Catherine said earnestly. "Tell me about what's going on in Cascade, and I'll do everything I can to help you and Blair while you're here. Money, contacts, whatever."
Eyes shut, breath evening out, Jim didn't say anything, and after a moment, she decided that even if he were awake he wouldn't talk to her again until he'd had a chance to think. Knowing that if she were in the same position, she'd do things the same way, she whispered, "Sleep well," and left.
But not without wistfully looking over her shoulder at the pair of them.
***
Jim listened to Catherine make her way toward the flooded tunnels, not really thinking about tracking her, but finding it effortless with the many tongues of the pipes gossiping her along her way. The info was immersed in the same metallic tonks! and ticks! that were the 'all's well' calls from the sentries, minor alerts about the whereabouts of children, and an occasional question. All the messages wove a blanket of security around the small community, letting him feel as though it were well-guarded and allowing him to forgo his own sentry duty.
Bit by bit he drew his senses inward, first to the small chamber where he lay, then to their bed, until he was completely within himself for the first time since leaving the Chopec village and Incacha. Not even when he and Blair worked on focusing techniques was he able stop guarding, at least on some level, even when he was too distracted to understand the warnings he received. Now, layer-by-layer, breath-by-breath, he relaxed utterly, giving way to the pain and the exhaustion plaguing him.
The very act of surrendering their safety to others allowed some of the pain to fade, created as it was from his fight against it. The rest poked and nagged at him, until by accident, while trying to think about anything else, he noticed how well Blair fit beside him. The weight of his partner's head was situated perfectly so as to not cut off circulation to his arm, yet it seemed completely comfortable for Blair for it to be where it was. His weight was molded along Jim's side and hip like a form-fitting pillow, and the movements of his chest harmonized with Jim's own breathing in a subtle dance of give and take. Even the hushed whoosh of blood through arteries and veins and the soft throb of Blair's heart worked in chorus with Jim's, lulling him as if he lay on his surf board in the middle of the ocean, miles from harm or trouble.
He floated in the sensory pool, remotely hearing all that went on around him, but not needing to think or respond. There was a ripple when Blair woke and tended to personal needs, then to his, but he rode over it effortlessly, not rousing. Food came and his guide ate, which Jim absently approved of, and his body automatically took in the broth offered to him. At some point, summoned by minor changes in the sturdy form so near to him, he blindly pressed soft kisses to a broad forehead, comforting Blair through a nightmare from which he never completely woke.
Other than that, there was only the hum of peace from around and within, leaving him content and adrift from reality.
An indefinite time later, voices at his bedside stirred his interest enough to listen with half an ear at a distance, too cocooned in the gentle rhythms of his guide's life to do more than that.
"...never seen anything like it. You can almost see the flesh knit," Father said in amazement. A distant series of tugs told Jim that his bandages were being changed for his wound to be seen to, but he hardly felt it.
"He's so still! But he's not in a coma or something?" Blair sounded concerned, but accepting, willing to trust Father's medical skill now that they weren't butting heads over treatment.
Vincent's furred hand brushed gently over Jim's head, and he would have smiled if he hadn't been so far from his face. "He is at peace," the deep voice rumbled. "As if he were a child in the bosom of his family with nothing to fear or concern himself with." There was a symphony of fabric over fabric; Vincent must have stood. "A meditative state?"
Almost feeling the sharp look Blair gave Vincent at the comment, Jim wasn't surprised when he admitted, "When we discovered he didn't respond normally to medicines, I taught him some techniques to help him control pain."
"Humph! At least it wasn't testosterone behind him refusing the Novocain when the first time I examined him," Father mumbled, mostly to himself.
As if he hadn't been interrupted, Blair went on. "But this goes way, way beyond that. The most we've ever been able to do before this is keep it tolerable."
"A difference in environment," Vincent suggested. "A hospital is not the most conducive of locations for deep relaxation."
"I wonder," Blair mused aloud, his voice rich with curiosity that Jim could nearly taste. "He's not reacting to having the bandages changed, but maybe we should skip the bed-bath, just in case. As deep he is, letting him come out of on his own is probably the way to go." Jim heard a whisper of fingers through hair. "On the other hand, I'm totally gross. How do I go about cleaning up? Or maybe you have a Helper who could loan me their bathroom long enough for a hot shower? I do *not* want to think about how long it's been since I washed my hair."
"There's a very practical reason this is the hospital chamber," Father said distractedly, and a waft of air said that he gestured. "There is an abundant supply of hot water down the corridor, and we've improvised a shower facility.
"Come, I'll show you where to find the towels and soap," Vincent coaxed. "We will be no more than a call away if we're needed."
"Go child," Father encouraged. "I would prefer not to have an audience for a few of the things I need to do for this wound."
"I'd just as soon not watch," Blair admitted. "Hot water sounds a lot more appealing."
Too wrapped in Blair's presence to back off, Jim helplessly followed him with his hearing, though it was his habit to give his partner privacy under normal circumstances. It only took a moment for them to arrive at the shower, the smell of it rich with the scents of the earth despite the care he knew it was given to be kept clean.
"While you wash, I'll see about finding a change for you," Vincent offered, his voice echoing slightly in the small room.
"You'll probably have to burn these," The joke came out muffled as fabric went over Blair's head. "Oh." The syllable was said in a completely different tone. "Damn. I have to find someplace safe to put this, where the kids can't find it."
"Your weapon?" Vincent asked, confusion apparent at the loathing in Blair's voice.
"I hate it," Blair answered the unspoken question. "I hate carrying it, hate taking care of it, hate having to worry about where it is, hate what it *does,* but, but...." His voice was quivering by last word, and Jim could smell/hear changes that spoke of suppressed tears.
"Blair?" Vincent sounds surrounded Blair, and Jim began frantically grabbing after true consciousness as he realized his guide was shaking violently, trying not to have a panic attack. It shouldn't be Vincent holding Blair during it, but him. It *had* to be him.
"S... sorry... g... oh, god." A few tears were trickling despite Blair's best efforts, and he muttered weakly, "too much, too much."
"It's okay," Vincent murmured, as if to a child. "You're safe here, *he's* safe here."
"N... Not that," Blair stammered. "Too many extremes, too fast." It took him a few minutes, then he said in a nearly normal voice, "You know, less than a year ago I was a grad student, a teacher thinking about tenure and research. Then I screwed up big time, and lost it all, nearly lost *everything,* but Jim, Jim, he doesn't let go. So I became his official partner, and then his fellow conspirator, and then a fugitive with him and, and, and...." He gasped quietly. "What am I going to do now? What place do I have down here, what use am I going to be? Much as I hate this thing, it gave me a role, a direction."
The pain in his words was too much for Jim, and he jerked himself back to his body, eyes flying open in time to see Father limp from the room. "I've fucked up again," he muttered to himself. He stared blackly at the ceiling, refusing to let himself go to Blair. He didn't have the right to try to comfort him, to remind him of the promise they'd traded on the balcony at the loft not that long ago. If it hadn't been for him, Blair wouldn't have been in the department, wouldn't have seen that judge die, and wouldn't be in danger now.
Unwanted, other broken promises, other broken people he'd left in his wake paraded across his mind - Lila, Incacha, Carolyn, his men in Peru - a line that stretched all the way back to Bud. "Every thing I touch turns to shit," he thought tiredly, throat aching from emotions too powerful to be released. "I can't love them enough, can't protect them well enough, can't do anything except drag them into the sewer with me."
Footsteps came down the hall toward him, and he ponderously rolled to his side away from the door to hide that he was awake. His wounds ached and threatened to tear open, forcing a grunt of pain from him. Bad as it was, it didn't compare to the agony of knowing that he'd destroyed Blair's life yet again. That in his blind quest for what he thought was right, he'd done what he'd silently swore with everything he had that he would never, ever do again - hurt his partner.
Grace came into the room and re-arranged the sheet over his shoulders, murmuring something he didn't bother to understand. Then, sitting on the edge of the bed, she began to sing, and her voice touched the few innocent places left in his memories and heart, sending him unwillingly into sleep.
***
Less than ten feet away, thinking his partner was safely unconscious, Blair scrubbed at the rough velvet and suede of Vincent's vest with his face, keeping his head turned down in embarrassment. "Sorry," he muttered inadequately. The immense arms looped loosely around him squeezed fractionally, then Vincent stepped back and sat on the edge of a huge, old-fashioned claw foot tub.
"I see no need for apologies. It has been a very trying few days and they had to catch up with you eventually." It was amazing that a voice so rich could be so gentle, and some of the knots in Blair's neck undid themselves when he looked up at the empathy in the vivid blue eyes.
"Yeah," he sighed and tried for a smile. "Works better than the technique I've used lately. If I were home I'd be sitting in front of a dozen candles, thinking for the millionth time how stupid my mantra is. As a way of dealing with the stress of being a cop, it's a great way to be bored." He reached for the buckles on the shoulder harness, intending to give his gun to Vincent to put where ever Jim's had gone.
Tilting his head to one side, Vincent asked, "Blair, if your profession troubles you so much, why are you a police officer?"
"I'm not," Blair answered without thinking, distracted by the stiff leather. "I'm Jim's partner. There's a big difference." Hearing himself too late, he snapped his mouth close, wondering how to back-pedal without sounding like an idiot and raising more pointed questions.
At the waiting silence that somehow asked politely for an explanation, he paced the length of the small chamber, shower forgotten, eyes on his feet but mind racing as for the first time he slammed into that glass wall Jim had spoken of with such pain. Every instinct he had said he could trust Vincent with Jim's secret, but it wasn't *his* secret to tell. Before Zoeller, even when writing the dissertation, he had believed that what he was doing - keeping a confidence, helping Jim protect himself, being discrete, whatever he lied to himself and called it - was not the same as keeping a secret. Now he knew up close and personal how deadly it could be to not to keep some things hidden, and he refused to deny that truth any longer.
How ironic that to do so he felt he had to lie to a friend. He turned to do just that, a line of excellent bullshit already on his lips and met the tranquil trust in Vincent's expression, then simply couldn't give voice to the deceit. Taking a deep breath, he borrowed a page from Jim's book and gave what he could.
"All my life, " Blair said slowly, belying the speed of his hands as they tried to express his agitation, "All I've really needed to be happy is a good book and a place to read it in peace. Half the time when I was a kid it didn't really matter what it was about, I soaked it all up. I spent most of my undergrad years bouncing from subject to subject with no idea what my degree would eventually be, but then I discovered that, for me, Anthropology needed the most variation of disciplines. You have to be part psychologist, part scientist, part explorer and mostly just curious as hell about everything.
"Then I started riding with Jim as an observer, it was like, bang! pow! all this information I'd been storing had a use, a *real* use, not just for a paper or presentation that only other information junkies would ever know about. I was plugged into the system, doing the right thing, taking care of issues that I believed in like, like - did you know Jim and I brought down some big-time poachers? And prevented a *whole* rainforest in Peru from being ravaged?"
Not realizing he'd stopped in the middle of the room and was wearing a broad smile, Blair confessed, "It was this major rush at first, and I would have done anything to stay on the roller coaster."
"And James was your ticket."
There was no censure in Vincent's voice, but Blair felt shame anyway, and began pacing again. "It's not like that anymore, not that it ever really was, and I don't know why we both pretended it was. It's more a give-and-take thing between us. Jim's the best cop there is, but he's rigid sometimes, can't see anything but the cop's view, or his own strict standards. I give him flexibility, a new perspective, a new tactic to use. He rams through obstacles, I flow around them. He uses power; I use persuasion. If the assurance of the strong arm of the law is needed, there's Jim. If The Man isn't welcome, I'm able to step into the gap. We're so ying and yang it's scary."
"So because of the good you can do as James' partner, you carry a gun that you despise." Vincent seemed unconvinced, and a moment later he confirmed that by reaching out to clasp a hand on Blair's shoulder. "Of all the truths you've just given me, the one that matters most is the one you didn't mean to share. Blair, you have not lost your place at his side because of the change in your circumstances. You are still his partner."
Paralyzed by the depth of Vincent's understanding, Blair stared at him blankly for a moment, then gulped, his earlier tears returning full force. "I...." He closed his eyes, unable to bear the sight of it.
The fingers on him tightened fractionally in reassurance. "No one will refuse your right to be with him. No one."
"I've fought so hard for it," Blair whispered. "Even had to fight him." His eyelids flew up and he said with a determination few people recognized existed in him, "And I'm not ever giving it up again."
Vincent nodded thoughtfully, then gave him a tiny push toward the shower. "Nor should you. Now, go clean up. We have a few hours before we must meet Catherine, and I have a few things to show you that might be...helpful."
Resisting the suggestion for a moment, Blair studied his new friend, then took his weapon out of its holster and handed it over. "Take care of this for me?"
"Of course." It vanished beneath a fold of Vincent's cloak, and he stood to open a small cupboard filled with towels and other bath necessities. "I'll return with fresh clothes shortly."
Hot water made all the difference in Blair's mood, and by the time he stepped into the corridor, hair still damp but the rest of him luxuriously dry and warm, he'd regained his perspective. They had known for a while that because of their investigations they'd eventually be starting over somewhere else. Below, at least, looked like a fascinating place to make their new home.
Vincent led him down the corridor, stopping when Blair paused by the opening to the hospital chamber to check in on Jim. Grace was sitting on the bed beside him, singing too softly for Blair to understand the words, and petting Jim's hair the way she had taught Blair.
"He's deeply asleep, feeling no pain," Vincent said, quietly, persuasively. "And she has had little enough chance to mother her son in the past."
Reluctantly Blair started moving again, following him down the tunnel. "How did Jim find her down here, anyway?"
"Grace was not a member of our community when he first came Below; we sought her out at his request many years ago. And he discovered us by following me, like Alice chasing White Rabbit down the rabbit hole." Vincent's voice was matter-of-fact, with only a trace of amusement at his description of Jim's first trip into the tunnels.
Stopping in his tracks, Blair asked, "*You* found Grace and brought her Below? I thought...."
Encouraging him to walk simply by continuing to do so himself, Vincent cautioned, "I cannot tell you the particulars on how and why she came to be with us. It is not my story to tell, but hers. Those of us who live in the tunnels never ask why another came to be here because all have made their share of mistakes that they are trying to redeem or forget. To volunteer the information is an act of friendship."
"So it's a fresh start. Okay, I won't ask, then." At the silent prompting Blair continued to trail after him. "But how you and Jim met is your story; so how did he wind up in Wonderland?"
The low rumble of a chuckle tickled Blair's hearing, making him smile, then Vincent said, "There are many, many hidden paths to the city overhead, and the children explore them endlessly, constantly finding new places to visit secretly. Theaters and concert halls are favorites, and I confess to spending my fair share of time secretly watching and listening to rehearsals, or even full performances of symphonies, musicals, plays."
"Like sneaking in under the tent at a circus performance," Blair said in delight.
With an halfway apologetic shrug, Vincent admitted, "Thievery of a sort, but so many of those who grew up taking the risk to listen or watch have become performers or work in the arts. In the long run, the debt is repaid." Picking up the thread of his tale again, he said, "We are always very, very careful never to be seen or heard when we visit, myself especially."
"I can see why; they'd nail down the canvas, so to speak." An odd look was slanted Blair's way, one that was a combination of delight and admiration. Not sure what to make of it, he gave his best cheeky grin and said, "Let me guess: Jim saw you."
"About two thirds of the way through a matinee performance of the Nutcracker, I realized that a young soldier sitting close to the front was staring at me, not the stage," Vincent said reminiscently. "At first I told myself that it wasn't possible. I was above the audience, in a dark corner near the lighting catwalk, but he kept glancing my way, almost as if he were trying to catch my eye. Then he rose to leave, and I nearly did so as well, but the performance was excellent, and I felt very secure in my hiding place.
"When it was done, I lingered for a moment to savor the echoes of the people praising the dancers, then looked up to see the soldier I'd noticed before carefully making his way over the scaffolding toward me. I ran, and since I'm generally very fast, I thought I'd lost him."
"How long did it take you to realize that he was tracking you?" Blair asked, knowing that even when Jim hadn't been aware of his abilities, they had a way of surfacing if he needed them.
"The pipes warned me just about the time I'd decided it was safe to circle back home." This time it was Vincent who stopped, and he studied Blair as if he wanted to see into his head. After a moment, however, he went on, picking up where he left off. "I led my unknown pursuer away, thinking I would either lose him in the maze of pathways under the city, or wear him down. Somehow, James managed to corner me in a dead end, and, truly thinking I had no choice, I turned to attack."
With an eloquent swoop of his hands he both apologized for his violence and defended it. "To my amazement, the soldier immediately backed off a safe distance, sat in the dirt with his knees up, hands dangling over them, and waited for me to stop snarling. He was wary, but not frightened, though at the time I was certainly trying to convince him I was dangerous. It was so perplexing that I had no idea what to do, and before I could formulate a course of action, he said, 'I only wanted to know how the dancing looked from up there.'"
Sharing a chuckle with his unusual companion, Blair admitted, "Sounds like the sort bone-headed comment Jim makes when he's just realized his put his foot in it, so to speak."
"It worked. We started talking about the performance, then about the theater in general. It took several more cautious meetings during his leave before I trusted him enough to tell him about the community I lived in, though I think he'd guessed much of it. After that, he became a regular visitor whenever his duties allowed him to be in the area."
Vincent stood aside and gestured Blair through a low entrance that led to a very large cavern, filled with wonderful smells. "This is William's domain," he said by way of introduction.
Combination kitchen, dining hall and pantry, the cave had several small fires, all vented to a large overhead air hole, and was populated with a smattering of people, all cooking or eating. Vincent headed straight for a well-padded man presiding over a restaurant-style stove that was older than Blair was and covered with a variety of pots. Despite his size and a beard liberally streaked with gray, he was no one's idea of a Santa Claus, though he brusquely handed out a generous portion stew as if it were a gift.
Blair saw through the big man's blustery facade to his generous heart easily enough, but their stop with him was only the first of many Vincent had in mind. After they'd eaten, Vincent ran a number of errands that took them through many layers of the underground community, introducing Blair to the largest variety of people he'd ever seen in one small 'town.' It seemed that every race and ethnic group was represented, along with all ages, all professions, and all living side by side seamlessly.
Among others, he saw a blacksmith methodically pumping his bellows beside a table where an astonishingly large woman with equally astonishing long, slender fingers soldered a motherboard for a computer, the two of them carrying on a desultory conversation about the presidential race. Shortly after, he spotted a man who could have been Bradbury's Illustrated Man, dressed in nothing but Speedos to show off his tattoos, reading to a old, old woman who was blind with cataracts.
Then Vincent delivered the kitchen scraps for compost to a Little Person named Eric who was the caretaker for an ingenious underground garden. The three of them had an involved conversation about the medicinal quality of herbs, and were in the middle of saying their good-byes when Blair realized that Alexander's torso wasn't as misshapen as he'd thought. An infant was nestled in the shawl draped over his chest. After cooing at the baby girl for a moment, Vincent drew Blair away to their next stop.
By the time Vincent led him to a small cavern on the edges of the patrolled community that looked as if it were the storeroom for sets from science fiction movies, Blair was torn between desperately wanting his journal to make notes, and laughing at how well his companion had made his point. Throwing himself into the huge pile of pillows in one corner of the lab, he said in good humor, "I get it, I get it, already. Nobody down here is going to care if I stick to Jim like glue." He couldn't help but chuckle. "In fact, no one's going to notice."
Making himself comfortable at the edge of the improvised bed, Vincent disagreed. "It will be noticed; it will not be commented upon. At least not publicly. Don't make the mistake of thinking that we have a perfect society with no crimes and no disagreements among ourselves."
Intensely curious, Blair was about to ask how they handled such things when Vincent suddenly closed his eyes and tilted his head back slightly. "Catherine," he breathed, adoration in every syllable of the name. A moment later she ducked past the fabric covering the entrance of the chamber and went straight to his side, scarcely sparing a smile of greeting for Blair. The two lovers stared into each other's eyes as if that was all that was needed to say hello, and a pained mix of envy and recognition hit him. He turned away to give them privacy, leaving the mound of cushions to explore and wanting very much to be lying beside Jim again.
A few minutes later, Vincent touched him on the upper arm to get his attention from where he was staring sightlessly at an old lava lamp. "Would you like me to teach you how to understand messages on the pipes? Catherine has to make some adjustments to use the pirated phone line Mouse has; he is constantly, ah, improving it, so we have a little time."
"Now?"
"I thought it might help your peace of mind if you could hear for yourself that James is still sleeping, though he's becoming a little restless. Grace just reported to Father, who's delivering a baby on an upper level, and other people have queried her on his condition." Perching on the edge of a stool, Vincent added, "The codes are very simple, and recognizing them is more a matter of feeling the rhythm than anything else."
Admitting to himself that any kind of contact with Jim would go a long way at the moment, Blair said, "Thank you." Impulsively he put his hands on Vincent's shoulders and stretched up to brush a gentle kiss over the odd brow, the pelt there luxurious and sweet-scented. "For everything."
The delight in Vincent's eyes told him that, unplanned or not, he had done the right thing. "You're very welcome, Blair. Very welcome."
***
Vincent looked up from where Blair was laughingly attempting to tap the code for a general alarm on the worktable, puzzled at the unexpected wave of feeling from Catherine. She was staring at them, a small frown in place, and her emotions literally seething under surface composure. "Catherine?" he asked in confusion.
With a visible start, she banished everything but a mild smile. "Done here, if you're ready."
"Really? Thanks!" Blair slid off his stool and nearly ran to the low bench where the laptop was balanced. "Are you in a hurry? We set this up so that I would start chatting with Daryl, Simon's son, until his dad got home from work, then Daryl will turn it over without saying anything on screen/ For it not to look suspicious, Simon has to leave whenever it would be normal for him to, and I don't have to tell you for a police captain that can be an estimate on any given day."
"Actually, I cleaned my files out of this one so I could leave it here, with the understanding that Mouse is *not* to 'improve' it." She aimed the last at Vincent, sharing genuine amusement. "And Jamie - not Mouse - says that the line is tapped off of a main trunk for the local phone company. As long as you don't over use it, it won't be noticed, and my account is private, through a server I trust not to keep logs or be hacked. It's the closest you can get to untraceable."
The relief on Blair's face was plain. "You sure you don't mind? We set up half a dozen different ways to communicate with Simon if we had to, but this is the best."
"Not at all; I've been meaning to get a newer model with more memory." She hooked an arm through Vincent's, tilting back her head to look up at him. "While he waits for Simon, do you think I can talk with Jim? Last time I was here, he said something to me I want to ask him about."
"Maybe you should talk with me," Blair said before he could answer. "Let Jim rest."
Warned by the intensity in her hold on him and by the way her eyes never left his, Vincent said thoughtfully, "We will not disturb him, but Grace has rehearsals shortly. Father may well be with the new mother for hours yet, and I don't think James would appreciate waking to a nurse he does not know."
"I see," Blair said mildly, but his tone of voice was far too bland, and Vincent forced his gaze away from Catherine's to see that he was barely hiding a knowing grin.
Feeling a rush of heat to his cheeks, as if he were a young teen caught stealing a kiss in the back of the classroom, Vincent would have taken a step away if Catherine had chuckled in delight.
"You don't mind, then, if I spirit him away?" she asked lightly.
"Maybe I should ask for a quarter for a movie instead?" Blair looked significantly at the pile of pillows, then dodged away from the punch she aimed at his upper arm.
Confused at their by-play, Vincent let himself be towed away from Mouse's chamber, intending to question Catherine as soon as they were out of earshot. Before he could, she sighed, "I'm sorry I let him assume we wanted privacy, but I wanted to talk to Jim when Blair wasn't there."
Pulling her into a crevasse to one side of the tunnel, Vincent asked, "Why? They are partners, Catherine, and you of all people must have some idea of what that means for them. To speak to one is to speak to both."
"Well, I wanted to hear the Jim version first," she said firmly.
For the first time, dissatisfied with having only her words to understand her, Vincent nudged at the door that she kept closed between them. Not trying to invade her privacy, but needing to *feel* her in a way he was beginning to realize he craved, he gave no more than that polite knock on the barrier. As if sensing his need, she gave an equally small amount, enough for him to discern her mistrust of Blair. "Catherine," he said earnestly, "James has contacts everywhere, yet he chose to come here. He would not have brought his partner Below if he did not believe that Blair would keep our existence secret."
"James," she shot back, "Is totally in love with him and knew there was no place safer."
"And Blair loves him back just as completely," Vincent argued gently.
"That's the problem." Catherine put both hands palm down on his chest, and leaned closer, as if to trying to pin him in place while she convinced him. "I know the kind of man, the kind of cop, Jim is. While he'd happily die in Blair's place if that was what it took to protect him, he wouldn't do it at the cost of innocent lives, much as that would destroy him in the long run. I don't *know* what Blair would do to protect his partner."
"And you fear that for the sake of love, Blair would betray us." She didn't say anything to that, and Vincent brought up his hands to lay them over hers. "Betrayal is a possibility every time we bring someone new Below. Among the street people and those who listen to the city, it is already an open secret, and all that has saved us from the curiosity seekers and investigative journalists is that we are several levels below the desperate, the dangerous, the damaged ones who live at the edge between the city and the underground. They are seen, then feared or despised, and the belief that anything more could exist dies."
Without conscious thought, he leaned down so that she could see into his eyes easily. "But every day the community exists only adds to the probability that it will be discovered or revealed by accident, by one turned away from us, by an enemy we were unaware of. To my mind, if I am to lose my home, my family, my safety, I would rather it be in the name of Love!"
"And what would happen to you!" Her true fear burst out, both in her words and from her heart, stabbing at him with her pain.
Sighing at the love that was its source, he touched his forehead to hers, closing his eyes to savor the reawakening of that knowledge. "Then I would go deep into the earth; you know well how extensive the natural subterranean caverns are. I would never be found unless I wished, and after a time, would be able to make my way to the surface again. Or perhaps I would take to the sky and live in the open. There are pathways among the roofs, hidden shelters and forgotten places, there as well. It would not matter to me as long as Father and my friends were safe, as long as I could come to you, see you again."
"I'll keep you safe," she said fiercely, leaning into his touch. "You, your home, your family - I don't know how, but I will keep you safe!"
"Catherine," he whispered. Her vow was futile, they both knew, but he took the comfort from it nevertheless. They stood that way a long time, until, with a tender kiss to her forehead, Vincent pulled away and wordlessly drew her down the tunnel toward the hospital chamber. He kept her tucked close to his side as they walked, deliberately shortening his steps to fit hers.
***
For the most part, Catherine didn't know exactly how to approach Jim about the problems at his police department, or even if she should. But it was too much of a coincidence that he seemed to be fighting the same kind of corruption that she had in her own city. The kind so pervasive and subtle that even a captain of a police department couldn't protect one of his own men. Or himself.
When they came in, Jim was sitting up in bed trying to feed himself from a bowl his mother was holding. To judge by his grimace each time the spoon made a trip, he should have been letting Grace do it for him. Just as plainly he had no intention of doing so. Hiding her smile at his testosterone stubbornness, she sat on the side opposite his exasperated nurse, Vincent hovering at her shoulder.
"I'd ask you how you're doing but since you're going to say 'fine' no matter how lousy you feel, I think I'll save my breath," she said.
The wide, honest grin that Jim gave her told Catherine immediately that she had taken the right tact, and she went on. "So I'll get to business. Blair's online chatting with your friend Banks, briefing him on why you left Cascade. I want the same thing from you. I've kept my part of the bargain so far, and done everything I can to help."
Though his expression didn't change, something in him visibly hardened. He looked at his mother, and she sighed melodramatically before setting the bowl aside on a warmer. Brushing a kiss over his cheek, she ordered, "Eat!" then left, already humming the day's music lesson under her breath.
He watched her go, a half-frown already in place, then turned back to Catherine. "It's nothing we can't handle."
Not in the least intimidated by his flat tone, Catherine said as bluntly, "Everything is 'fine,' huh?" He shut down even more but before he spoke, she said, "Let me tell you what you're facing then. You *know* you have dirty cops on the force, but can't catch them doing any thing illegal. Cases always seem to go their way, and good cops, *better* cops get shitty results. You find circumstantial evidence linking the suspected officers to mishandled evidence, lost witnesses, bad record keeping, but it's never for their cases, and the only connection to the people who benefit is third-hand at best.
"The bad ones always seem to have more than enough money, but when you trace it, it's always from some legitimate windfall. They always seem to have the best connections to the best 'consulting' or 'security' firms for a little moonlighting, or a sudden 'deal' on a house, a boat, a scholarship for their kids. You *know* you have something fouling your city, but can't locate the nerve center."
As she spoke, Jim had focused on her intently, as if he were trying to read the truth of her words, her trustworthiness, by how she breathed or blinked. For a moment, while she waited for him to decide how to respond, she could understand very clearly how he had made Cop of the Year and why a sheltered academic might fall prey to thinking him more than human. Finally, he said, "In Cascade, we've traced it to both the District Attorney's office and the Public Defender's. Here, too?"
Torn between sighing in relief and shouting in victory, she made herself say calmly, "I've been dealing with it for over three years now. Always enough to suspect, never enough to press charges. The rare times one of them has gone too far and I've been able to legitimately go after them, they either gracefully left the force, stepping right into some cream position in another city or they die by misadventure or a bust gone bad. The first is why I started very, very carefully checking with cops and D.A's that I trust who work in other towns."
Eyes beyond bleak, Jim said stonily, "How many?"
"Four so far."
"Damn." He tried to get out of bed, moving in the studiedly smooth way a man uses when he expects to hurt. "Banks needs to be up-dated on this."
Vincent reached around Catherine, carefully forestalling him. "If you stand up, you will fall back down again, undoing all of Father's good work."
"I can make it; won't take long to...."
"Blair is many levels away, in Mouse's chambers," Vincent interrupted firmly. "You will not even make it across this one." He relented, voice noticeably gentling. "I understand the need. If you wish, I will take the message."
With Vincent behind her and unable to see her expression, Catherine let her face tell Jim to let him go, putting all her will into making him pick up on her silent plea. "And Vincent can get there faster than either of us," she said aloud.
Ellison was good; very good. With only the briefest of glances at her, he reluctantly subsided, leaving the impression he was only giving in to avoid an argument with a friend. "Is there anything else about this that Banks might need to know?"
"If he wants details, I've got a file I can send a copy of if he has a secure way to receive it." To her surprise, a niggle of relief hit her at making the offer. Though she had talked to others about in a general, off hand way about corruption in their departments, she hadn't actually taken anyone into her confidence about a possible conspiracy. Doing so with Jim and company, who were facing similar if worse circumstances, made her feel much less isolated and out-gunned.
She also caught a flash of emotion from Vincent, too brief for her to be sure of what it was. For an instant, and one instant only, she regretted the barely perceptible renewal of their bond. She had deliberately not told him how dangerous her position at the D.A.'s office had become, not wanting to draw him, however inadvertently, into sharing that danger. The last thing she wanted was for that to happen ever, *ever* again.
Jim, as if reading her worry, diverted Vincent by restlessly adjusting his pillow, his face contorted in an honest grimace of pain. Automatically Vincent moved to help, and once he was resettled, Jim said wryly, "Much as I hate to admit it, maybe I should stay put, this once. Sure you don't mind?"
There was a glimmer of suspicion from Vincent, but he said readily enough, "If it will encourage you to stay in bed, no. If you wish, I will stay with Blair until he has finished his discussion with Captain Banks to act as interpreter for messages on the pipes. Then, if either you and Catherine, or he and Simon have other news that needs to be shared, it can be done quickly."
Rubbing tiredly at his face, Jim said, "I don't want to break into your time together, but it makes sense to do it that way."
Turning so that he could see her clearly, Vincent said more to her than his friend, "We do what we must." Then he added so softly that only she could hear him, "And we are never more than a thought apart." With that, and a final touch to each of them, he left, already running at full speed.
She watched the door after he left it, his last words ringing in her heart. Reluctantly turning back to business, she caught a glimpse of an expression of such total longing on Jim's face that she ached in sympathy for him, despite her confusion at seeing it.
Before she could ask, he asked harshly, "He doesn't know, does he? That every time you step into your office, you're entering enemy territory with no way of knowing who is friend and who is foe. Whether or not you're safe, or if a hidden knife is waiting to take you."
"No," she admitted, her voice hard and unrelenting. "And he is *not* going to."
"Then you understand why I want Sandburg out of the loop," Jim said equally resolved. "You want to deal? Here's one for you. You help me clean up the mess in Cascade enough that Blair can go back or go on or whatever he wants without it hanging over his head, and I'll come back here and be your personal spy. Get a job in NYPD, go in looking dirty if you think it'll get me in touch with the right people, and help *you* bring down as many as possible until they get us."
"And your partner?" she asked, horror biting at hearing a truth she had barely faced in her own mind spoken so bluntly laid out.
"Doesn't figure into this, any more than Vincent does."
Suddenly the longing she'd seen so briefly made sense. Jim might love Blair beyond all reason, but he had never acted on it, perhaps had never spoken of it. And she knew why just as surely as she knew why she had never told Vincent of the one night they had shared, or allowed the seal that he had created over their bond to be broken. Nodding her acceptance, she said simply, "Done."
They studied each other awkwardly, unsure how to proceed. Sensing that it was up to her to bridge the gap, Catherine stood and pressed a kiss to his forehead, sealing their bargain. "I *do* understand," she whispered.
"What first, then, Counselor?" he asked, and as simply as that, she had an ally.
Putting aside her emotions, she said thoughtfully, "I want to know if there is a connection in the corruption of the different towns. We can start with one between Cascade and New York. They're on opposite sides of the country. If your bad cops and mine are linked, then it's fair to guess that anything in between could be."
"Any ideas how to do that?" Jim closed his eyes, and sank a little more into the pillow, as if, now that he had her co-operation he could afford a little weakness.
"Not yet, but this didn't grow over night. We won't kill it overnight, either." She made herself comfortable in the chair, turning over possibilities in her mind.
"We could start by you telling me how you first found out," Jim suggested.
"When my snitches told me before the last D.A. was killed that it was going to happen. Then when Marino died, they insisted that the person in jail for it wasn't responsible. My sources are good, between the people Below and my own so-called 'peer group.' You'd be surprised how many rich people think that my job hasn't got anything to do with them socially. I hear the damnedest things on the assumption that I wouldn't ever use it against *them.*"
Jim laughed shortly. "Yeah, I've encountered that mentality a time or two myself. So you started looking to see who benefited?"
"Not right away." For the first time Catherine told someone everything; every hint, every suggestion, every clue, relieved beyond belief that it added up for Jim the same way it had for her. In exchange, he told her about Blair being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A habit his partner had from the sound of it.
By the time Jim looked expectantly at the entrance to the hospital chamber, they had both covered what they knew of the conspiracies in their cities, and what they had done to fight them so far. Even as she wondered why he thought someone was coming, Blair burst into the hospital chamber, chattering over his shoulder to Vincent.
"Not that Simon isn't proud to death that Daryl wants to be cop," Blair said, "But he naturally wants better than he has for his son, and he knows up close and personal how thankless the job is."
"So how did he convince him to go to college?" Vincent asked, sounding curious in spite of himself.
"One of the best uses of reverse psychology I've ever seen," Jim volunteered tiredly, but smiling nevertheless.
"Hey, I just pointed out what Daryl already knew for himself," Blair defended quickly. Spotting the soup on the warmer, he picked up the bowl and sat on the edge of the bed. "That it was his decision and he should do what he thought was best, but that being a cop was a *good* thing if that was what he wanted. But what he *really* wanted was affirmation that his dad was the greatest, which he is."
As he spoke, Blair spooned up a mouthful of soup, ate it, then scooped up another which he offered to Jim. To Catherine's amusement, and apparently to Vincent's as well, the big cop meekly ate it, not even making a token protest. After he swallowed Jim said, "And once you convinced Simon of that, he quit making a fuss, and now Daryl's at Rainier University."
Grinning widely, Blair added, "Which doesn't mean that he won't become a cop when he graduates. He *is* studying criminal justice."
"He's a freshman. He'll change his major eight times before he's a junior," Jim argued mildly. Another spoon of soup was popped into his mouth before he could say more, and he glared around it, though he obediently swallowed.
Hiding a grin and seeing that Vincent was fighting down laughter, Catherine stood, reaching for his hand without thinking. Together they slipped away from the partners, and when they were far enough away not to be heard, they leaned on the wall and laughed, holding each other up.
***
With a goal in mind, Jim was able to set aside everything but what it took to reach it, ignoring the piercing hurt in his side to do what was needed. If it had made him a bastard in the past, it had also allowed him to survive when life threatened to crumple him like tin foil. In this case it also allowed him to settle back and let Blair take care of him so he could regain his strength.
Besides, there was no reason not to accept the comfort that Blair so plainly wanted to give, and which Jim admitted, in his own head anyway, that he wanted to receive. And, for the first time since they had met, there was nothing standing between them, forcing them to keep their distance: no dissertation, no secrets Jim couldn't share, no rules and regs and common sense prohibitions on partners being lovers. For the smallest of whiles, he could at least taste what he had craved almost from the first, but what circumstances and his own stupidity had kept him from reaching to take.
So he calmly ate the soup that Blair fed him, letting his voice wash through him with idle talk about what and who he'd seen that day, how unique and fascinating Below was, what he would have liked to have studied about it if he'd still been doing that. When the bowl was nearly finished, Jim was tired, but content, as though he'd put in a good, hard workout at the gym, and the pain was a distant thing that he didn't have to notice. Wanting to hang onto that, but not certain how to keep Blair beside him, Jim rubbed a vaguely trembling hand over his face in thought and noticed how rough his beard was.
"Think we could get me to the shower to clean up some?" he asked as casually as he could when Blair set the bowl aside.
"That would *not* be a good idea," Blair said firmly, obviously not fooled by Jim's attempt at nonchalance.
"I was trying to do you a favor, Sandburg," he shot back, going for the more reliable method of irritation. "And even if you don't mind the way I smell, the stink coming off me is not going to help my appetite any."
Thoughtfully Blair eyed him, then nodded. "I can see where it'd be a problem, especially down here with a minimum of other, better odors to mask it." Half afraid of what his inventive partner would come up with in lieu of a shower and shaving, Jim waited a minute, scowling, until Blair slowly volunteered, "I could do it for you. A bed-bath I mean. If you don't mind."
About to reject the idea out of hand, Jim stopped himself before he could say a word and really thought about it. A bed bath was inevitable, and unless he wanted Mary or one of Father's other part-time nurses doing it for him, Blair was the best person for the job. It wouldn't be that much more intimate than what they had already done for each other because of various injuries during their time as roommates and partners. At least with two holes burning tightly in his side, he wouldn't have to worry about the wrong part of him liking Blair's nearness too much.
"I don't know if there are any safety razors on hand," Jim said slowly, agreeing in an oblique fashion.
To his surprise, Blair grinned cheekily. "You must really be hurting if you're not going to spend the traditional five minutes insisting you don't need a babysitter."
"Maybe I didn't want to listen to the traditional five minutes of being told what a thick-headed, stubborn ass I am," Jim said, smiling slightly. "Just tell me you know how to use a straight-edge."
"I think I can manage. But maybe we should make sure Father isn't too far away, just in case you need, like stitches or something."
"The idea, Sandburg, is to get rid of the old blood, not add fresh. I don't think I have any to spare right now." He nearly bit his tongue at Blair's reaction. He visibly winced, then hustled out of the chamber before Jim could make light of his careless reminder of how bad a shape he'd been in by the time they'd made it Below.
Making it back from the shower in record time, Blair came in carrying a basin of hot water and the rest of what he needed, determinedly acting as if he gave bed baths all the time. Considering his checkered work experience while he was a student, Jim thought in admiration, it wasn't out of the question that his partner *had* at some point or another had a job that required him to do it. A few minutes later as lather was smoothed efficiently onto his cheeks, never once splattering it where he didn't want it to go, Jim had to say, "Okay, let me guess. A girlfriend who was a cosmetologist? An uncle who had a barbershop and recruited you as summer help? I *know* there's no minor in shaving at Rainier."
"Hold still if you don't want this in your mouth or eyes," Blair warned. Then he added mischievously, "Maybe I was a barber in another life."
"Just don't go pulling out the leeches, okay, Figaro?" Jim muttered, then waited expectantly. As he'd hoped, Blair gave a snort of laughter, then launched into the entire historical background of barbers, explaining how they had had served not only as the closest thing to physicians in the middle ages, but as dentists.
Jim didn't really listen to the history lesson, but floated, as he had so recently learned to do, in the sensory tides of his guide's voice, touch, and scent. This time he distantly enjoyed the hot lather slowly cooling on his face, the smooth swipe of cold, sharp metal, Blair's fingertips on his skin as he nudged and tapped to maneuver Jim into position. Not once was there a nick or sharp sting from the blade, nor did Blair ever jostle him and aggravate his wounds. Deep inside Jim shriveled hopes and locked-down needs stirred, not painfully, but as if sleepily awakening, adding to his comfort.
"Hey," Blair said quietly, as if not to wake him, "Still with me here?"
"Always, no matter where you are," Jim murmured, hearing in memory Vincent promise Catherine the same thing. The hands on him froze, and eyelids he didn't remember dropping shot back up to meet Blair's wide-eyed regard. Hope mixed with fear was in it, and Jim returned both steadily, unsure how they could get through either.
In the end, Blair simply went back to his task, hands becoming incredibly sensuous and loving, and Jim accepted them for the gift that they were. The shave proceeded seamlessly into the bath, and they both overlooked the half-a-hard-on he got from it, despite being so weak he couldn't sit up by himself. Ignoring Blair's arousal was more difficult, and when Jim half-reached once to offer relief, his partner deftly dodged away with a minute shake of his head. Jim didn't ask why. If their circumstances had been reversed, he would have wanted to wait until Blair could enjoy whatever happened between them as well.
Once the bath was done, he gently circled one of Blair's wrists with his fingers, and tugged him toward the bed. Obeying the silent request to lay with him, Blair climbed onto the mattress on Jim's good side, propping himself up on one elbow, head in hand so they could see into each other's face. For the longest time they merely looked, then Jim reached up to trail a knuckle along the right side of his Blair's cheek, capturing a stray lock of hair to curl around his forefinger. Using it to slowly draw Blair down to him, feeling the expectation between them build to the point of breathlessness, he waited for his would-be lover to choose to close the last few inches between their lips.
Blair drifted across the tiny space, not hesitantly, but as if to stretch the anticipation out even further. His eyes stayed open until the last second - weighing, measuring, worrying, and, finally, longing - before he finally touched his mouth to Jim's. Somehow the tender kiss said both 'welcome' and 'missed you,' and he tried to say it back as eloquently, with his own 'oh, dear god' added. He did stop breathing, then, Blair as well, but neither missed it in the sweet taste of the promise lips gave.
As slowly as he'd bestowed it, Blair broke their kiss, fingers on his free hand going up to lightly brush over where his mouth had been, all the while staring, staring. Jim stared back, afraid to say anything for fear of breaking the spell between them. Apparently thinking the same thing, Blair half-smiled to himself, put his head on Jim's shoulder, and whispered, "Night, Jim."
Turning so that his cheek was resting on top of his partner's crown of curls, Jim answered, "Night."
***
Gasping, fighting for breath as if he'd been beaten, Vincent came back to himself as James and Blair dropped away into sleep, freed only by his friends' loss of awareness. If they had chosen to consummate their love, he feared he would have been drawn into it with them, helpless to pull away from the compelling beauty of what they shared. As it was, he could hardly blank their resting minds from his own to give them the privacy they deserved.
Above him, he dimly heard Catherine repeating his name over and over, in varying degrees of fear and command, and he realized that he was on his knees in front of her as she stood, his head on her breast. Her hands were tightly clenched on his shoulders, and his were knotted into her coat at the hips, his claws shredding the fabric. "I'm here," he panted, ordering himself to loosen his grip on her, to stand and unburden her slight form with his weight.
But his body didn't obey, and she pulled him closer to her, as if she found him no great burden at all. "What's wrong?" she asked urgently. "I sent for Father, but he's still with that new mother. What can I do to help?"
He made another attempt to put some distance between them, his nerve endings too alive and shockingly sexually aware for him to safely remain so near. Refusing to let him go, she repeated, "Vincent! What's wrong!"
"Nothing," he whispered. "Everything. James and Blair... I've didn't mean to eavesdrop, but I've been so worried about his injuries, and Blair has been beside me nearly all day. A part of me has been monitoring them... feeling them, making sure they are well."
"Eavesdrop?" Catherine asked. "On what?"
Beginning to shake from the mere memory of it, he answered hoarsely, "True love's first kiss."
In contrast, she became very still. "You felt that with them?" There was a near-awe in her voice.
"Yes!" His shaking grew worse, and he had no choice but to let the tears begin to fall. "Yes," he added more softly. "You have no idea how, how...." Wanting her to share his wonder, he tilted back his head to find her eyes and tried to give to her the smallest portion of what he had perceived, only to learn that she already knew. She knew!
And the images that poured from her were of two of them; of a blossoming that was both delicate and indestructible, beautiful and heart-rending.
As if that were a key that his own mind had been waiting for all these long, long years, Vincent's own memories rushed to the surface, jumbled and fragmented, but there. All there! His rescue of her in Central Park, the first time he rushed to her aid in the brownstone where she was hiding a witness, his capture by the scientist, her near-drowning... and the onset of the fever that had taken it all away.
An illness, which he had instinctively understood and had refused to speak of, that had been born of the battle within himself. Body and soul had been in a bitter struggle with mind and heart over intimacy with Catherine, with the first demanding that they could not continue without it, and the later insisting that it was physically dangerous for her beyond all reckoning. He would be irresistibly drawn to her, only to balk completely at doing more than touching her hand, speaking her name.
Yet, when the two warring factions of himself had gone beyond his resources, leaving him at the edge of death, Catherine had called him back with all her will. "Not without me!" And she had kissed him, *their* true love's first kiss, summoning him with its purity and power, swearing herself to him without ever speaking a word.
Nor had they stopped with a kiss, though all Vincent recalled of that precious union were disjointed sensory moments: her hand looking small and fragile as she guided his swollen maleness, her yielding heat, her perfume mixing with the scent of their love, their tiny, joyous cries of pleasure, the taste of her hunger on his tongue. And he remembered the potency of their release hurling them deeply into the brilliance of one another's souls, leaving no shadows between them, no secret untold.
To his everlasting shame, he had not been able to endure having her see in all its horror his base, bestial nature. Anticipating her disgust, fear and rejection, he had torn himself away, throwing a barrier of humiliated pride between them, made impenetrable by the intensity of the very pleasure they shared. Catherine had cried out in agony, and too late he realized it was not from what she had seen within him, but from what she saw as his rejection of *her.* Unable to face her pain, his failure, their loss, he buried their love under the weight of his illness, letting it draw a curtain of ignorance over their entire relationship.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, still reeling from the impact of his returning memories, the rawness of his tone tearing at both of them. "Why didn't you tell me we loved?"
Guilt flooded through their newly-opened bond and Catherine said in a small voice, "I thought it would be less... difficult... for you if you thought we had only been friends, if we *were* only friends."
The knowledge that she had willingly carried such a secret to protect him was more than Vincent could bear. With a wild roar of agony, he leapt to his feet and raced away from her, voicing his rage and pain as she forced the barrier back over their bond.
***
For the third time in as many days, Blair woke to find Father bending over him, fingers gently at his throat to check his pulse. "You know," he said sleepily, "I'm not the one with a gun shot wound."
"No," Father said with a smile, "You are the one wearing himself to a bone with worry and fear. It won't do James any good if you become my patient as well, so be still and let me look you over."
Obligingly Blair did the usual patient things - stick out his tongue, breathe, shake his head no at 'does that hurt' - waking up enough to see that Father should be practicing what he preached. The older man had dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep and fatigue, and he moved carefully, as if his bones hurt. With a nod, he let Blair up, but before he could perform the same exam on Jim, Blair pointed out, "He's doing that meditative thing again, and probably will for a while. I'm not sure how valid checking his vitals is if he's controlling them. Why not rest until he comes out of it?"
Apparently without meaning to Father glanced at the other bed in the chamber, but he straightened himself as if by will alone. "There're still his bandages to change."
"Well, shouldn't we wait until Vincent gets here to help us move him? Jim is one big cop," Blair asked reasonably.
To his surprise, the doctor's expression turned forbidding, and he said shortly, "Vincent will not be assisting us today." Moderating his tone, he added, nearly apologetically, "I'm sure that between the both of us, we can manage."
Putting aside his concern about why Vincent wouldn't be joining them and why Father was frightened about it, Blair said, "Either way, there's no reason the bandages have to be changed now, is there? I mean, can't that wait, too?"
Sighing, Father looked down at the floor and admitted, "No, I suppose it doesn't matter when. And a nap would do me good." In sudden decision he limped toward the other bed. "Go get yourself some breakfast, then ask one of the children to help you find a chamber for you and James. If he has continued to heal as well as he has been, there's no reason you can't move him to more private quarters in the next day or so." He said the last dryly, as if he knew that Blair was eager to be alone with his partner.
Not caring if what had happened last night was tattooed on his forehead, Blair gave a "Yes!" and dashed out of the room, already wondering what sort of accommodations Jim would prefer. Finding his way to the common kitchen by a combination of re-tracing his footsteps from yesterday and letting his nose lead the way with good smells, he wolfed down some oatmeal, politely asked William if there would be soup later for Jim to eat, and asked every body who looked at him if they knew a good chamber to make a home.
He got advice from half a dozen different people, all of whom seemed to find his enthusiasm for house-hunting amusing, quickly pinpointing those caverns that would be on the fringe of the community. It was likely that Jim would want to be part of the sentry system, and that being too near the center would have too many sensory distractions from the numbers of people coming and going. Armed with directions to the three most likely spots, he set out to find his own way, certain that the pipes would ask everyone to keep him from getting lost.
Halfway to the first one, the sound of children's voices raised in beautiful harmony distracted him, and he slipped into a small room that had the look and feel of classroom. At the head of it, Grace Ellison sat on a stool surrounded by a nearly a dozen children of varying ages, leading them through the music of an old spiritual. She sang as well, pointing with a finger to the group whose notes she was matching at the moment to help them stay in tune, segueing effortlessly and seamlessly into each part.
Blair had rarely heard close harmony done so well or so beautifully, and when the song ended, he applauded loudly and enthusiastically, much to the children's delight. At a gesture from Grace, they all bowed, then burst into laughter, boiling out of the room, save for one small, small dark-haired girl who clung to her long skirts, frightened. Putting a comforting arm around the child, she said warmly, "Thank you! It's good for them to know that they're succeeding, even in rehearsal."
Looking around the classroom curiously, feeling the pull of chalk dust and lesson plans despite how long since it had been since he stood in front of students, Blair said, "Is this all for fun? Or do you get paid somehow by the parents?"
"Some of both," Grace said. "I have students who audition for shows on and off Broadway, for commercials, anything where they can make a dollar or two. A few are buskers on the street. They or their parents give me what they can when they can. If they don't - we take care of each other down here, Blair. I have what I need.
"Any one who wants to learn can come to the classes. The Council especially encourages the orphans and foundlings to at least take basic music theory; they're strong believers in a classical education designed to create a well-rounded individual." She hugged the little girl closer to her. "And of course, *some* of us just love music, don't we, Bethie, and hang out here whenever we can."
Bethie didn't answer her, but burrowed into her teacher's shawls, as if hiding. That got her a concerned look from Grace, but she only said, "James told me in his letters that you used to be a teacher. Missing being in front of the classroom?"
Grabbing another stool and pulling it under him to perch on, Blair admitted, "Some. It's a lot of drudgery most of the time, dragging all those bored, disinterested, in it only for the grade students along behind you while trying to teach the few who really want to learn." He gestured with both hands to the room at large as if to imaginary students. "But when those few do take off, and they're drinking in what you say, really thinking about it, asking questions that make *you* think, make you remember all over again why you're in front of that class to start with...."
Grace laughed and interrupted, "Then you forget all the drudgery, all the paperwork, all the administrative baloney. Blair, you sound seriously hooked on teaching."
Squirming, not wanting to think about why he left academia, he said, "Yes... no... I don't know." Grinning suddenly, he went on. "Is that certain enough for you?"
"Have you thought about teaching down here?" she asked, unexpectedly serious. "I heard that you're pretty good with computers. We could use a trained teacher for some of us older ones who've missed the computer age so far. These days, being able to at least turn one on is a necessary work skill."
"Has Vincent been talking to you about me?" Blair asked suspiciously, thinking that his new friend might still be trying to reassure him after yesterday's near break down in the shower.
"Vincent's not talkin' to nobody," Bethie volunteered unhappily, out of the blue. Both adults looked at her, and she wrapped the edge of Grace's shawl over her, leaving only a tiny peephole. Nevertheless she went on in a nearly inaudible whisper. "He 'n Catherine had a fight last night, in the tunnel under her apartment. He ranned away to the deep caves, but Mouse said he camed back this mornin' and is in the Whispering Gallery."
With a sigh, Grace said, "No wonder she's been clingy all morning. Most of the orphans rely on Vincent to be their rock of safety and stability. If he's upset, every one feels like the earth is uneasy under foot."
"That explains Father's shortness this morning, too," Blair said more to himself than her. To Bethie he said, smiling widely, "Grownups fight all the time, and make up all the time, too. And Vincent's really good at forgiving isn't he?" There was something that might have been a nod underneath the wool. "So he'll forgive Catherine real fast, and be all better."
A gray eye peeked out. "You think so?"
"Well, I happen to agree with him," Grace said.
"Maybe you should go 'mind him he's a good fergiver." Sounding a bit breathless, Bethie came the rest of the way out of hiding. "He likes you, and you made him laugh yest'day, and you're James' special friend, so you gotta be a special person. Vincent'll listen to you."
"I don't know," Blair started.
Grace butted in with, "Bethie that's a wonderful idea! Why don't you go help Mary with the nursery, and I'll show Blair where the Whispering Gallery is."
The little girl put a finger in her mouth and chewed on it for a moment, before nodding solemnly. "Mary'll miss me if I don't go like I 'ways do. Okay, Ms. Grace. That sounds good." She stretched up to place a kiss on her teacher's cheek, then surprised Blair by doing the same to him. Then she darted away with a good-bye whispering after her.
Grace stood, straightening her skirts. "I meant it; I do think it's a good idea for you to talk to Vincent."
"Why me?" Automatically Blair trailed after her as she left her classroom.
"Because nobody else will try right now, thinking he needs privacy. Which he doesn't; he needs a listening ear. And because you're an outsider who can see both sides of the issue without the complications of knowing Catherine and Vincent's history together. You have an objective point of view. Besides, you haven't seen him at his worst and won't be scared of his temper. Trust me, it's bad when he loses it, but you've been living with Jim and survived him losing his. Vincent should be a breeze to handle."
Blair thought about the reasons Grace gave, then said, "And Jim said or told you something about me that makes you think that I really can help."
She didn't answer right away, but took him farther and farther from what he thought of as the center of the community, obviously deep in thought as she did. Finally, she said, "Blair, I'm all too aware of exactly how much damage was done by leaving James to his father to raise. I spent a great many years regretting it and almost as many trying to atone for it. And through letters and the occasional phone call, I realize how much of that damage you've healed for my son. From what he's said about how you get along with the other officers in his department, I think that's a gift of yours - healing wounded souls. Look at how easily you connected to Bethie who's rarely spoken above a whisper since we found her living by herself in a dumpster like a feral cat."
Not knowing what to say to that, Blair shrugged. "It was the way I was raised. My mom, Naomi, was always taking in strays, and just as often, we were the strays. I know what it's like from both sides." He dared a side-long glance at her, remembering Vincent's injunction about asking people about their past, but with a hundred thousand questions about *why* she would have abandoned her own children when she so obviously loved them.
As if reading his mind, she said very calmly, "I married William Ellison when I was fifteen years old - and before you drop your jaw, please remember in that time and place, it wasn't that unusual for a girl to marry so young. I wasn't even the first among my friends. And, again, not as unusual for that time as society would have you think, we *had* to get married. James was born just a few weeks shy of my sixteenth birthday, a little over eight months after the wedding."
He couldn't help gaping at that; *Jim* had almost been illegitimate like him? At that look, Grace gave a half smile very much like her son's. "I was what was politely called 'coltish' and very much a tomboy. When William first starting paying attention to me, it turned my head that some one older, more sophisticated and so obviously in my father's favor would be interested. Later I realized when Dad took the news of my 'hurried' marriage so well that he'd probably anticipated something of the sort happening. He was just the sort of man who would approve of ruthlessness like that in a son-in-law who would be his unofficial heir."
For a while she looked into her own thoughts, her own past, and Blair let her be, guessing that she would take up where she left off when she finished. "Talk about naive... Even when I found out about the baby I didn't think it would change my plans. From the time I could talk, I could sing, and sing *good.* I was going to go to New York and star in Broadway musicals and be famous and loved by everybody. When I got pregnant, I thought I'd just pack the baby up with me and off we'd go. After all, how long could it take to become a star?"
"But when James was born, I fell so in love with him. He was such a sweet baby! A bit fussy sometimes, but if I picked him up and rocked him or sang to him, he'd quiet right down. The convention at the time was to bottle feed, and to isolate the baby for the first few months to avoid germs. But I wanted to breast feed, and he wouldn't even try to take milk from a bottle, so after fighting with the pediatrician about that, I didn't make any fuss about staying home alone with James at first." Grace sighed very deeply. "Days just slid away into months, full and busy with taking care of my own house, my husband, my child."
"What changed?" Blair asked softly, truly curious and sure now she wanted him to understand.
"Steven," she said sadly. "He was a difficult pregnancy, and I nearly died in childbirth with him. Then he turned out to be a colicky child, a nightmare to live with. William had his heir and spare and left me on my own with both of them almost constantly." At Blair unintentional noise of disgust, she added firmly, "That's the way it was done then. Hubby worked hard to bring in the bacon and keep up with the Jones, and wifey stayed home to raise the children properly and make life as easy as possible for the breadwinner."
Making a circle with her hand as if to encompass the changes that brought her to the present, she ducked through a low-over hang into a narrow tunnel that forced them to walk one behind the other. At the other end, she said, "To be truthful, I didn't mind. It was easier to cope on my own than deal with him as well, and it never occurred to me that life could be any other way after a while."
"Let me guess," Blair said dryly. "You met someone. Someone who persuaded you to take up your old dreams."
"In the church choir, of all places." Grace made a face at the irony of it. "The one place that neither William nor my father objected to me being on my own, as long as the boys were in Sally's care at Dad's house."
"He wanted a pipeline into your family's money?" An old, old story, Blair thought to himself, that never has a happy ending.
"When he agreed to bringing Steven and James along, I thought it was just true love," she agreed with a weariness that told him that she'd hated herself a long time for being such a fool. "Between what I had saved from William's salary and the quarterly money from my mother's trust, we had enough to make it to New York City and get set up, but you can't imagine the squalor we lived in at first. For the first time, James was difficult to deal with. He cried constantly over things that didn't exist, or made up lies about the people around us. Steven just, well, stopped being a healthy if cranky baby. Stopped eating, stopped crying, stopped doing much of anything." Grace halted their journey and leaned on the wall for a moment, head down. "And I grew afraid of leaving them with Roddy. There were bruises that I couldn't believe the explanations for.
"By the time William tracked me down and demanded that I come back, I was ready to just for the boy's sake." Resolutely she started walking again, a bit faster as if it would finish her story that much more quickly. "But Roddy convinced me to trade custody of them for alimony. Daddy had disowned me and blocked my access to the trust, so I guess Roddy thought he'd get what he could while he could. I was beginning to get some bit parts in various productions, was taking voice lessons from a teacher who truly thought I was excellent, and really, really thought that I'd be able to see them any time I wanted and would be able to tell William in a few years to take the alimony and shove it."
"Did you ever get a chance to see them again?" Blair asked, more to give her the momentum to reach the end than because he needed to.
"Once, for a few days." Her expression was tight with pain. "William got his petty revenge for the scandal of being deserted by his wife. When I was scheduled to visit, something would always come up and the he and the boys would be 'unavailable.' Or he'd call me up and ask me to take care of them for a few days, knowing full well that I either didn't have the money to fly out or that I was working and couldn't get away without losing the job. I wouldn't even be surprised if he did it in front of the boys to let them think I didn't want them."
She suddenly came to a full stop and swung around to face him directly. "Do I really have to tell you about the whole sordid trip from a wannabe actress to a part-time whore and cocktail waitress? Falls from ambition to disaster on the Great White Way are part of American tradition by now."
"Just because a tragedy has become commonplace," Blair said quietly, "Doesn't mean it's any less agonizing when you're going through it. Don't belittle what happened to you. Whatever mistakes you've made, obviously you've done your time and are trying to make restitution." For long moments Grace studied him, then just as abruptly as she stopped, she turned on her heel and went on.
"For what it's worth," Blair said, following suit. "As a kid, Jim probably understood a lot better than you thought he did about what you did and why. I've seen him cut people out of his life, cold, no discussion, for far less than you could be blamed for, yet he asked the community to look for you. And when William's way of life got to be too much for him, he had the courage to do emulate you and chase after his dreams, such as they were."
A longish silence met his last comment, then, casting her eyes heavenward, as if saying a prayer, Grace muttered, "And he wonders why I think he has a gift for healing..."
Blair didn't know what to say to that, and before he could think of a good way to change the subject, they came to a another narrow passage, one that opened into a large cave that looked as if it had had something wooden built in it at one point. Whatever it had been, it was long gone except for bits and pieces that gave no clue as to what they had been attached to. The only structure that remained that made sense was a rickety bridge over a crevasse, and Vincent sat in the middle of it, head and body hunched over as if he were in great pain.
"This is as far as I go," Grace whispered. "If I leave you here, he won't have any choice but to lead you back up. And that should give you more than enough time to find out what's wrong between him and Catherine and lend a hand with it." Not giving him a chance to protest, she left.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Blair said in a mix of resignation and exasperation to the shadow of her retreating back.
For a moment he considered turning tail himself, pretty sure that he could retrace their steps. But he wasn't *positive* and besides, it was pretty obvious his unique new friend was in a world of hurt. Blair didn't have it in him to walk away from someone whose body language said so clearly that he thought there was no way to fix whatever it was that was wrong.
Hesitantly Blair stepped forward, and was immediately given another reason for staying. A hundred thousand voices - male, female, young, old - murmured and sang and spoke to him in a thousand different languages of love, anger, fear, joy, and every other emotion known to man. "Whispering Gallery," he said to himself, studying the contours of the chamber even while marveling at its incredible acoustic properties. His very next thought was to wonder if this was what Jim heard all the time.
Smiling wryly at himself, Blair made his way to the end of the bridge where Vincent sat, then eyed it warily. It had to be sturdier than it looked or it would never hold the much heavier Vincent. The question was - was it strong enough for both of them? Swallowing against the familiar fear that had only grown worse since meeting Jim, he peeked over the edge of the crevasse, and blanched. No bottom that he could see, and as black as any nightmare.
Taking his own advice and nowhere near as successfully as Jim managed, Blair began to regulate his breathing, telling himself that he was calm, the bridge was safe, he could do it. Vincent's head shot up as Blair put his foot on the very edge of the wooden structure.
"There is no need to do this to yourself," he admonished gently. "And I would prefer to be left alone."
"I can get behind that, but can I sit where you are for a second? The voices have to be fantastic with the abyss to focus them." Blair had no illusions that Vincent believed that he was that eager for the full effect of the chamber, but it was a convenient excuse that would allow him to take that first step. He did so with false confidence, keeping his eyes locked on his friend.
Vincent didn't abide by the unspoken social convention of taking an excuse at face value. "Blair, you are terrified nearly out of your mind! You have no reason to face this particular fear right now."
"Yes, yes, I do," he denied instantly, trying to make his shaking body move steadily over the uneven surface of the bridge. Finally making it to Vincent's side, he hissed out a pent up chest-full of air, and gingerly sat. "You." Trying not to think about the emptiness beneath them, Blair swung his feet in space, grateful he couldn't feel the slightest vibration from his perch. "Call it returning the favor from yesterday."
"I would have done the same for anyone," Vincent pointed out gently.
"So, still works both ways, man." Blair tried looking up at the light coming in from the opening in the ceiling, and found that the slight change in position made the voices sound much clearer, as if he stood on the other side of an invisible wall between him and the speakers. "Whoa," he said in delight. "Worth it, too."
At that Vincent gave a small snort of amusement, then reached out to lock a hand into the back of Blair's pants at the waist, anchoring him. Feeling absurdly safer, Blair closed his eyes and enjoyed what he heard. "Like a symphony of people," he murmured after a moment.
"All living, loving, hating, hurting, and trying, just like ourselves," Vincent agreed. "It's why I come here to think. I find that they often speak of being troubled by problems not unlike my own; it's reassuring somehow."
"Like you're not so different after all," Blair said gently, opening his eyes to meet Vincent's gaze.
Vincent gave him a sharp look, but in the end, bowed his head again, not before Blair saw the track of tear begin. "Not so different after all," Vincent agreed, sadly. "I seem destined the make the same mistakes that all men make, yet in my case, the repercussions of those mistakes seem insurmountable."
Mentally back in front of the television camera, microphones eagerly slurping down every soul-destroying sound byte, Blair quietly disagreed, reaching over to thumb away the dampness. "But not impossible. You just have to be willing to give up as much as you damaged. It sucks, it's hard, it's never quite enough, but it's enough to live on, in the long run, anyway.
This time the look Vincent gave him was full of compassion. "And James forgave you for whatever it was that hurts both of you still?"
Wincing, belatedly realizing that the very perceptive man would have picked up on the very real truth behind his assurance, Blair shrugged. "You know, I'm not so sure that 'forgiving' is what happens, or maybe what's really needed. Find a way to live with it is closer to what you do. Or pour so much love and happiness on it that it gets outweighed by the sheer mass of all the good times that can come after."
Going back to studying the emptiness under his feet, Vincent said, "I am uncertain if Catherine will allow me to try to 'outweigh the wrong' I did her. I can never forgive myself; how can she find it in her heart to do what I cannot?"
"Doesn't she at least deserve the chance to make up her own mind about it?? Taking the chance that Bethie's report of what happened was close to accurate, Blair added, "You didn't give her much of one last night. And if she's like every other woman I've met in my life, what you think you did wrong and what *she* thinks you did wrong are probably two entirely different things. You might be sitting here beating yourself up for all the wrong reasons."
That idea plainly startled Vincent, and he said reluctantly, "I have heard others say the same. But Catherine and I...."
"Are still man and woman," Blair broke in. "Two completely different species for all intents and purposes, with all the accompanying difficulty in translating each other's languages."
To lighten his own mood and to let Vincent have a chance to think about what he'd said, Blair confided, "Tried to convince my advisor once that it would make a fascinating psychology study to attempt to determine which of us was really the parasitical gender. I mean, there's some evidence to indicate that spontaneous parthenogenesis can occur in fertile women - hence the whole virgin birth mythology. And a group of women on their own in stressful situations tend to do better physically, socially and psychologically than men."
"I take it that the same advisor suggested that you *not* become a psychologist," Vincent said dryly, going along with the change with apparent relief.
"Also thought that sociology wouldn't be a good idea," Blair admitted cheerfully. "Muttered something about having enough skewed perspectives out there."
"Speaking of which." Vincent stood effortlessly, offering him a hand. "I believe that you would be benefited by a change in your current, 'skewed' perspective."
Taking a last peek at the vastness below them, Blair shuddered, and let himself be hauled to his feet. The trip back to solid ground was much easier than the one away from it. He had the solid bulk of Vincent behind him and the just as solid warm approval Jim would have for helping their friend ahead of him.
***
Clutching the blood-red rose that had been delivered with the key, Catherine cautiously opened the door to the hotel room, surprised to see it was only dimly lit. For a second she resisted the urge to re-read the card that came as well, but didn't think the message 'Care to have lunch with your favorite music teacher's son?' would be any more enlightening the dozenth time around.
The only person she knew who was a music teacher's son was Jim Ellison, and why he would send her a rose and invitation for lunch was beyond her. Not to mention she couldn't see how he could have possibly gotten from the hospital chamber Below to this upscale, uptown hotel. Or how a fugitive could afford it without attracting all the wrong attention.
But once her eyes adjusted to the light, she could see his long form curled in the middle of the king-sized bed, face so expressionless she knew he was holding back moans of pain through sheer will power. Going into the room and letting the door shut and lock behind her, Catherine knelt at the bedside, taking his cold hand in hers. "You shouldn't be here! You should still be Below, with Father taking care of you."
Jim ignored her comment, and held up the note that she had sent earlier. "You said Greg Church called. What'd he say? Did he bring us or Banks up at all?"
Shaking her head, she answered, "That wasn't meant to worry youu; just to keep you informed."
"Catherine," he said slowly, seriously, "Church is not that thorough a cop unless he *has* to be, then he's one of the best. If he risked calling you just because you'd been in touch with Simon, he either had reason to suspect a connection between us, or he's under a *lot* of pressure to find Sandburg and is checking out every little possibility. Now, what did he say when he called?"
Accepting he had a valid point, she sat back on her heels and tried to recall every word. "That his captain had heard about the mayor's conference from Banks and it sounded interesting. Mentioned something about the timing of it being good. A wedding on the east coast at the same general time, so he wouldn't have to fit plane tickets or hotel stay into the P.D. budget."
Jim looked thoughtful, then asked, "Did you actually mention dates to Banks when you spoke to him?"
Not needing to think about that, she said promptly, "No. And I didn't mention the fees for the conference, either, which are enough to blow any already tight budget to hell, regardless of saving on hotel costs."
"So he took the chance that Banks might talk to you at a later date and find out he'd called you on bogus terms. That smells like desperation, not a fishing trip." Shifting restlessly, he tried to hide a grimace, then went on doggedly. "Whoever's in on this with him must be convinced that Blair and I wouldn't have run if we hadn't had a reason besides seeing Church kill Judge Toma."
"Otherwise, why not go to Banks and tell him what Blair had seen? With your reputation and solve rate, you would have at least been given the go ahead to try build a case." Catherine turned it all over in her mind, trying to look at it from Church's point of view. "From what you've told me, it would have been primarily his word against Blair's, and the only evidence you could hope for was to blow his alibi and prove he was in Cascade. With maybe, *maybe* forensic evidence to back it. Not much chance of conviction, and you'd make an enemy of him, but no hazard to you and your partner involved. Frankly, it *doesn't* make sense that you'd run unless you had more than just Blair witnessing the murder."
For a moment sorrow over-rode the blankness Jim was trying to maintain, then it was gone. "When I decided the best thing to do was to hide out for a while, I was banking on them believing that it was *because* we wouldn't be able to convict Church that we were taking off. For reasons that you'll have to ask Blair about, there's no way any District Attorney would put him on the stand as a star witness, no matter how good the rest of the evidence.
"And there wouldn't have been any forensic because of the downpour right after the shooting. As for blowing Church's cover.... He was going to kill a judge. I'm sure that no matter how many eye witnesses we had, he'd come up with proof he wasn't in Cascade, just like he said."
Thinking about the article she had read about Blair's public announcement of writing a fraudulent paper, Catherine could easily believe that no DA would build a case around his testimony. She wondered how she could ask how he had managed to become a cop under those circumstances without admitting to having his partner checked out. Jim would be justifiably angry, and right now, she didn't think he could afford the emotion.
Before she could frame a question, he volunteered, "We've been doing a lot of fancy foot work to keep Sandburg out of court except as a collaborating witness where his reliability won't come into question. If he weren't so damned good at the other parts of the job, we'd never get away with it. As it is, the DA accepts the liability and works around it."
"He's *that* good?" she asked doubtfully, her tone saying clearly that she wouldn't work with a police officer who had that kind of a handicap.
"We don't just have the solve rate in the entire department, we have the best conviction rate, too," Jim said simply, proudly.
"Which may be why Church and his people don't believe the judge's murder is all you have on him."
From the way Jim went even more stone-faced, she knew that he was berating himself for not taking that into account. All he said was, "I was counting on Church's pride, too. His enemies have a nasty way of disappearing or dying in the line of duty, a fact he has a habit of bragging about when he can get away with it. It didn't feel like much of a stretch that he would think I considered him a prime threat and would act accordingly."
"So his call could be from pressure from above *or* from his own ego and need to live up to his reputation," she pointed out.
"Either way, he's just given us an edge that we can use." Jim leaned up on one elbow, determination turning his blue eyes into something inhumanly sharp and cold. "And a way to find out if Cascade and New York are connected in this whole mess. That's why I sent that." He nodded at the rose Catherine still held. "It's my way into your department right now. You go back; looking happy and mussed, get the rumors going about a new boyfriend. Pick the best gossip in the place, find out where he or she is having lunch tomorrow, and we eat in the same place so we can be seen. Let my first name drop, casually check and see if there're any openings in NYPD for a detective. If Church is hooked into the D.A.'s office, he'll give you another call on some pretext or another and find a way to bring up my name."
Bait - he was going to use himself as bait, and, heaven help her, she was probably going to let him. If they could prove a conspiracy really did exist, they'd have a reason to bring in outside authorities; the only way to beat corruption spread that widely. "How do you want me to play it when he does? Protective? Innocent?"
"Innocent, but confirm it's the James Ellison he thinks it is. We'll have Banks keeping an eye on him, and the moment he or one of his gunmen leave town, we set up a trap. The last thing they'll expect is for me to be wearing a wire if he 'finds' me. With luck we can get enough on tape to bring the shooter down, which could be the pry bar to crack this whole mess." Jim was trying hard to sound confident, sure of his plan, but it might have sold better if he hadn't been whiter than the pillow case he was half propped up with.
The biggest problem was that it was the *only* plan they had. The longer it took for Church to find Blair, the more likely it was that he would be taken out of the picture either by disappearing on his own or by being eliminated by his bosses. "Do you have any idea how hard it's going to be pretending I don't know I'm being followed?" she said wryly.
With a dry laugh Jim lay back down, folding the pillow close to his body as if wishing it were something... someone... warmer. "It's ignoring the back up they put on you because they know you'll spot the first tail that's really tough." Sobering quickly, he said regretfully, "Cathy, I'm sorry, but because of that you shouldn't go anywhere near Vincent and Below until this is over. It would be risky to even sennd a message telling him why."
Unexpectedly and with no hope of bracing herself against it, the agony of seeing Vincent run from her, his loathing for himself burning into her like acid, swept over her. By some miracle, all she did was quiver, tears blurring her sight, but Jim saw it. "Cathy?"
"I." The one word sounded as shattered as she felt, but she firmed up her voice and tried again, working to bring sound around the knot in her throat. "I don't think that will be much of a problem right now."
"What happened?" Gentle, so gentle. She should have guessed that Jim could be so gentle from the way he held Blair.
"I kept a secret from Vincent; he found out. It may be a long, long while before he forgives me for it, and even longer before he forgives himself for the reason why I kept it." Amazingly sharing just that much undid the lump that made speaking so hard.
Jim startled her by giving another dry bark of amusement. "Been there. Have I *ever* been there." He reached out and wiped away the single tear that was making its way down her cheek. "You had to do it, right?"
"To protect him," she said softly, almost to herself. "He was being hunted." At the sharp breath from Jim, she added, "Right after Vincent was so very sick, a big game hunter heard rumors of a man-beast living in hiding among the homeless, sulking along the edges of the city. I don't know why he decided there was some truth in it. All I know is that he started seriously checking it out, reading newspaper accounts of mysterious maulings and slashings, talking to respectable people who claimed to have seen the beast."
"Shit," Jim said succinctly. "And linked your name to the 'appearances.'"
"You heard how Vincent and I met?" she asked. At his nod, she said, "I had just joined the District Attorney's office and needed to prove myself. Not to Joe Maxwell, my boss, so much as to myself. Over and over I put myself in danger, trying to do what was right, what I thought needed to be done. Over and over Vincent came to my rescue, protecting me from anyone who tried to hurt me. On one level, I knew the chances he was taking every time he came above to defend me. On another, I think..." The truth was still bitter, and she had to stop to swallow it down yet again.
"You were counting on it, using him for backup because who would really believe a monster was living on the streets of New York, and because it got the job done." Instead of condemnation, there was understanding in his voice; the kind that came from having made the exact same decision.
Another knot, deeper inside, eased, and she was able to say in a totally level tone, "Only Isaik was that rare person who could read between the lines, separate out the facts from the hype. Luckily - or maybe unluckily, I don't know now - Vincent was too ill to come to me when I was taken for bait. When his prey didn't show, Isaik lost it, which gave me the chance to... eliminate him as a danger."
Mercifully, Jim was soldier enough and wise enough not to ask for specifics on how she did that. Standing, wiping away another tear, she went to the window. "I decided I would never, ever, *ever* endanger Vincent's safety again. Last night he found out how far I was willing to go to do that."
From the bed, she heard very quietly, "The hardest part is knowing if given the same choice, you'd still do it all over again."
Not looking at him, she said, "That sounds like the voice of experience. Blair doesn't know where you are, does he?"
Silence, then, "No, and it would be better to keep it that way."
"Looks like you'll have a new room mate, then. He'll send Vincent - or someone else - to my apartment as soon as they find out you're gone." She turned back to the bed, trying for a smile. "At least it'll help start the rumor I have a new man in my life."
Jim was more successful at smiling. "In that case, it can't hurt for you to be seen shopping for me. I haven't got a thing to wear."
She stared at him, then chuckled in genuine humor, realizing for the first time he was wearing only the blood-stained slacks he'd had on the first time she'd seen him and someone's too-small trench coat. "They let you in here dressed like that?"
"A premier platinum card has an interesting effect on people," he said dryly. "Told them I'd been mugged; they bought it if for no other reason than because the credit limit on that particular card is unlimited and I had matching ID."
"You do believe in being a fugitive in style, don't you?"
"Who would think of looking for one in a place like this?" he said smugly. "And since it's a corporate card paid by a trust managed by another corp, I'm not worried about it being traced by anyone not armed with a federal search warrant."
Giving him another once over, this time assessing him, she said, "I think we're going to have some interesting conversations while we wait out Church. You seem to have led an... unusual life."
"That's one way to put it."
There was no humor in his reply, and Catherine nodded, accepting that he'd just put up a no-trespassing sign on any personal questions about his past. Instead she asked, "Okay, what sizes do you wear, and is it white tighties for you or boxers?"
Jim's grin came back. "What makes you think I wear any at all?"
***
Never in his life had Vincent seen a tornado, but for once, he actually had an idea of the kind of focused energy that they had to be composed of. All he had to do was watch Blair spin erratically, manically through Father's office chamber, leaving small pockets of disorganization and chaos behind him. Even the non-stop mutter of threats, promises, and obscenities, all aimed at the world in general and one James Ellison in specific, added to the impression of a compressed storm, being the wind and hail rushing and tattering at the ears.
In the two days since they had returned to the hospital chamber to find James gone, Father asleep and unaware of his patient's departure, Vincent had watched his new friend go from worried, to frantic, to terrified, to angrier than he believed the young man had ever been before in his life. At first, they had thought that the fever had returned, and James was wandering the tunnels, delirious. But neither an extensive search nor messages on the pipes had turned up any sign of him. Then one of the older children who acted as messenger between Above and Below had reported that Vincent's friend had seemed fine when he had delivered a note from Catherine to him.
That had caused a great deal of confusion, none of which had really been resolved as the hours passed. Though they guessed whatever was in the note was responsible for James' leaving, they had no way of knowing *what* exactly that had been. Or how he had managed to do so without being seen by any of the community, let alone the sentries. No clues could be taken from the note itself, as it was nowhere to be found, and neither, apparently, was Catherine.
Messages to her either went un-noticed or unanswered, and though she had been seen going to and from work, she had not stopped to talk to any of the Helpers. Vincent had gone to her balcony both nights, admittedly as much for his own reasons as to see if she had information about James' disappearance, but she had not returned to her home either evening.
It wasn't hard to think that she was probably with James. It wasn't much harder to assume that she didn't want any further contact with Below, and it was a hauntingly painful possibility for Vincent that it was because of him. *For* him.
He couldn't face that thought, not yet, perhaps never, without roaring his agony to the world, and so he made himself watch Blair hurtle himself around the small cave. There was something vaguely familiar about the younger man's activity, and after some thought, he realized why. Smiling, he shook his head at himself, deciding he needed to apologize to Father at the first opportunity.
"You think this is *amusing!?" Blair came to an abrupt stop immediately in front of Vincent, outrage overflowing now that he had a visible target to aim it at. "I'm half out of my mind with worry, and you think it's *funny?!*"
"Not amusing," Vincent said honestly. "Ironic. I was just thinking that this situation is well known to me, though admittedly from a different perspective."
Diverted in spite of himself it seemed, Blair snapped, "What? You've had an injured partner out gallivanting around without so much as a damned note to say 'out for a stroll, and oh, by the way, don't wait up?"
"No, I've paced through these corridors and tunnels, slamming my fists against the uncaring rock, waiting for darkness to come so that I might go to the woman I care for above all others, knowing that each moment I delayed might mean her death."
That got Blair's attention completely, and he deflated, anger fleeing before the truth. "I... sorry." He exhaled deeply, slowly. "Sorry. At least I could go to Jim if I knew where he was."
Tilting his head to one side, Vincent acknowledged the apology with a lift of the lips, too small to be called a smile. "And all of those restless, unhappy journeys would end with me in here, fuming and spewing my frustration, while Father sat in this same chair, trying to be calm for my sake and mouthing what I thought then to be platitudes."
"Platitude: another word for wisdom from our elders that we're supposed to be too young to see for ourselves," Blair said tiredly, finally coming to rest on the edge of Father's desk.
"Or too angry or worried."
"And what wisdom did Father try to share with you?" Blair brushed back a hand full of curls from the side of his face and stared at the floor, plainly talking for the sake of having talking and not really caring what Vincent had to say.
Not at all disturbed by that, Vincent said placidly, truly *hearing* the words himself for the first time, "That my fury served no purpose and would not aid Catherine in the slightest. That I should conserve my strength for later, when I might need it to help her." He reached over and carefully put a clawed fingertip under Blair's chin, raising his head so that they could see into each other's face. "That whatever the outcome, she would never, ever want me to blame myself for her choices."
Blair jerked away, but Vincent could feel his reluctant agreement and went on. "At least James isn't alone, and Catherine is very, very good 'back-up.' If he is not as well as we hoped, she knows others who can tend to him who would not report a gunshot wound, if she asked." Without meaning to, Vincent concentrated on the distant feel of James in his mind. "I have no sense of him worsening," he said to himself. "Only that he is trying unsuccessfully to meditate through his pain, as he did before."
"No sense of him?" Blair abruptly focused on him in a way that reminded Vincent forcefully that this was a man who had spent a lifetime as a scholar, studying people and unraveling their lives from clues left behind. "How could you possibly know that he's trying to meditate? For that fact, how did you know that he was meditating that first time? 'He is at peace,' you said. 'As if he were a child in the bosom of his family with nothing to fear or concern himself with.' That's pretty precise, considering all you had to go on was that he wasn't unconscious."
Drawing away, Vincent started to stand, but Blair caught his wrist before he could make his escape. Light though the hold was, it captured him, leaving him victim of an intense gaze that seemed to see all the way into the heart of him. "Jim called you a guardian, more than human. I thought he meant your appearance, but Jim, he wouldn't even see that after a while. What did he mean, Vincent? What do *you* mean when you say 'sense of?"
"I..." he began uncertainly. No one had ever asked him so bluntly about his gifts before, and he found that he wasn't at all sure how to explain them. "I can... feel what other people feel, as they feel it. Not always, not all people, but enough that I know when others are about, or if they are telling un-truths."
"Wow!" With a gentle finger tip stroke over the pulse point between the fine bones of Vincent's wrist, as if to comfort or reassure, Blair released him and sat back on the edge of the desk again. "A sixth sense - empathy. Any telepathy?"
Taken aback at the easy acceptance both in tone and attitude, Vincent answered slowly, "No; rarely, images from those dear to me." Taking his own turn at study, he inspected the man in front of him, almost seeing the intellect under the curls race and spin. "At times," he confessed, as much to see how Blair would react as to share what he had hardly spoken of before, "All the minds around me are like stars in the night sky, their emotions all the flickering colors of the spectrum."
"And you can recognize individual minds, like Jim's, over a distance." Blair leaned forward eagerly. "Can you use that to, I don't know, navigate? Follow them to the person they represent?"
Sighing deeply, Vincent admitted, "Only one - only Catherine."
"Great! We've already figured out that she and Jim are together. You can led me to him through her." Jumping to his feet, Blair made as if to leave that instant.
"I cannot." It was his turn to hang his head, though it was shame that made Vincent hide his face.
He could feel Blair rein in his impatience to ask thoughtfully, "Is there something special you need to be able to do it? Privacy?"
Shrugging, the sorrows and despair of learning the truth falling over him yet again, Vincent said quietly, "It has been a long time since I have been able to go to her, to know her feelings, her needs. She has blocked me from her heart and mind."
That confused Blair, and he began pacing again, thoughts speeding and emotions in turmoil. "She blocked you? She's an empath, like yourself?"
Startled, Vincent answered, "No, why would you think that she could be?"
"Well how else would she be able to stop you from doing what comes naturally for you?" Blair asked reasonably. "It's not as though the rest of us come with automatic defenses against that kind of thing."
Looking within himself, Vincent examined the barrier between himself and Catherine, but saw only that it was there, sturdy and unyielding, braced with her will. "But not *of* her will," he murmured to himself.
"Tell me," Blair said, his voice low, soothing... compelling. "Describe what you're feeling, seeing, thinking. Is it a door between you? A wall? Is it solid? Is there light on the other side? Are you afraid of it? Do you hate it?"
His questions directed Vincent's attention, his perceptions, in a new way, and he mentally took a step back from himself, examining the barrier from a different perspective. "It *is* light, of a sort, one that I don't wish to see by, making a door that only opens from her side."
"Why don't you want to see by it?"
"Because it shines into me too brightly," Vincent said automatically. Straightening, he opened his eyes to find Blair kneeling in front of him, hands on the armrest on either side of the chair. "I don't want to see what the brightness shows within me."
"You created the door, didn't you? Even though Catherine is the keeper for it."
"Yes... how did you...?" A thought occurred to Vincent, one that explained a great deal about James' partner and friend. "Blair, are we alike? Are you able to perceive more than the surface?"
With a shake of his head and small laugh, Blair stood. "Me? No way, man. But you could say I've had some experience teaching other... others how to use their gifts. Most of what I know to do to guide comes from taking bits and pieces from a dozen different cultures and disciplines that assume that humans can be more, *are* more, if they would only reach inside themselves."
Before Vincent could question him farther, Blair said, "I definitely know enough to think that if you tried, really tried, to face whatever it is that she's using to hold you at bay, it would give. Anger, grief, fear - none of them can stand up to courage and honesty."
"Don't you think I *know* that," Vincent said, barely loud enough to be heard. "But I still cannot find it within me to do so."
"Hey, no one says you have to, especially not right now," Blair said hastily. "I mean, I want to find Jim, and if you could just go to Catherine, that would be a big help, but if you can't, you can't. We'll think of something else. There's always more than one way to tackle any problem."
Relieved, Vincent asked, "Do you have something in mind?"
Returning to his earlier seat, Blair gave the question serious consideration, fingers restlessly drumming on his knees as he did, then said slowly. "You described it as a light.... Do you think you could at least *look* past it? Like when you shield your eyes against a glare to see what's on the other side? Since you've gotten images from others, maybe you might catch something visual from her that we could use."
Taken aback at the suggestion, Vincent said, "I never thought to try to do more than receive what was already there; I'm not at all sure that I can."
"Hasn't anybody at all helped train your abilities?" Blair asked with some exasperation.
"Who was there to do so?"
"Point." Blair shook his head, apparently at himself. "Weird karma to have to be a teacher for the uniquely gifted. Wonder what my mom would think of it?" For a moment he looked and felt unbearably sad to Vincent, then visibly pushed it away. "Will you at least give it a try?"
"Now?"
With a sudden grin that was like a candle lit against the darkness, Blair said, "Well, it's that or emulate Father some more by watching me rant and pace."
Unable to resist, Vincent smiled back. "What do you want me to do?"
"Have you ever tried to meditate at all? Regulate your breathing, mentally recite a mantra or something to occupy your reasoning faculties?" Dragging a chair so that it was close, Blair made himself comfortable, motioning that Vincent should do the same.
Settling deeply into the old leather, Vincennt said, "I know of the technique, but have never had success with it." Lifting his hands, he added, "I've always been too... impatient."
Nodding as if he'd expected that answer, and maybe he had, Blair said, "I've had students tell me that, for them, it helps to know there *is* a goal at the end of the exercise besides being relaxed. Most of them don't do relaxed very well, either.
"In this case, we're going to get you as loose and mellow as possible, upper brain functions idling, then I'm going to ask you to do something. I'm hoping that you'll be close enough to a meditative trance that you'll automatically do it. If you know ahead of time what it is, you'll give yourself all kinds of reasons why you can't. This way, if you don't succeed, it's more likely because it's not possible than because you *think* it isn't. Now take a deep, long breath through your nose and release it s-l-o-w-l-y through your mouth."
Feeling very foolish, Vincent did as he was told, repeated it as instructed, then closed his eyes when Blair said it might help.
"Good, good. Now, you need a focus of some sort. You could listen to my voice if you like, almost as if we were trying hypnosis, or you could visualize something special to you, try to bring it to perfect clarity in your inner eye."
The ivory rose that he carried everywhere immediately came to Vincent's mind, its existence taking on a new/old poignant meaning, and he said quietly, "An image."
"Okay. Now inhale through the nose and exhale from the mouth again, this time a normal breath, and keep that up. Try to see every angle of your focus, every line that went into its creation, and keep the steady, even flow of air going innnnnn and oooouuuuut, innnnnn and oooouuut." Blair's voice dropped into a soft, soothing murmur that was nearly background noise, yet at the same time it was perfectly clear, as if whispered directly into his ear.
It receded to the back of Vincent's mind even as he followed its directions and tried to make the flower he saw behind closed eyes as real as the one in the pouch around his neck. It was fairly vibrating with color and life when Blair asked in a completely normal tone, "Vincent where is Catherine?"
The words were a bowstring, and he was the arrow loosened to take flight. In a blink he was standing behind her, as easily as if he had done this a thousand times, close enough to touch, her perfume enfolding him as the sound of her rich laughter filled his heart. They were in a non-descript hotel room many floors above the city, remarkable only in that its furnishings were of good quality. On a nearby desk a half eaten meal sat, complete with wine, and music was playing somewhere in the background. James was lying on his good side near the edge of a huge bed, a hand of cards face down in front of him, the deck within easy reach of both himself and Catherine.
She held her cards, and Vincent could clearly see that she had a full house, 3's and Jacks, and a moment later, she absently folded them into a small stack, looking around her uneasily. "Vincent?" she asked, hand going to her left cheek.
"Is something wrong?" Jim asked, un-holstering his gun.
Though she looked right at him, she didn't see Vincent, and she stood, facing where he thought himself to be. "Yes...."
With a flash of agony that Vincent felt but didn't see in his friend's expression, Jim sat up, his other hand burrowing under the pillow and taking out yet another weapon. "Are you armed?"
"Of course," she answered distantly. "But it's not that kind of wrong. It's...." For a moment it seemed as if she met his eyes, and she whispered again, "Vincent?" moving forward through the room. The moment she would have touched him, he was back in Father's office chamber, eyes blinking at the sudden change in his surroundings.
"Whoa! What happened?" Blair asked urgently, leaning forward in his seat. "You stiffened up like you got zapped with electricity!"
"I was there!" Vincent said wonderingly. "You asked me where Catherine was, and I was with her!"
"*With* her, not just knowing, not just seeing?" Excitement built in Blair, sharpening his voice with eagerness.
Sharing it, Vincent leaped to his feet and took his turn at wearing out the already threadbare carpets. "It was real! I could smell her perfume and the food; see the dust motes moving through the light from the window."
"Tell me, tell me everything! Was Jim okay? What were they talking about? Did you see or hear anything that would help us find where they are? Come on; come on! Share!" His words began to stumble into each other, and Blair ended his outpouring of questions with half a laugh.
Stopping and taking him by the shoulders, Vincent quickly said, "He's in great pain, but no more than you'd expect from a gun shot wound." Trying to give every detail to reassure him, he described everything he experienced until the moment Catherine came too close. Amazement colored Blair's relief, but slowly a small frown appeared.
When Vincent finished, Blair sat back in his chair and said, "It sounds like a stake-out, right down to the card game to keep from being bored to death. But that doesn't make sense. A.D.A's don't do stake-outs, and they wouldn't allow an out-of-jurisdiction cop to assist without damn good reason."
"Catherine has participated in such activities on special request," Vincent agreed. "But it is a rare occurrence, and usually done because she has some special knowledge the police wish to use."
Nodding, as though he'd done the same on occasion, Blair tugged at his hair on either side, as if it would help him think. "Jim drew his gun, too, first hint of trouble, as if expecting it. You don't get much excitement on a stake-out; they're usually just to gather information, not...." He stopped mid-sentence and swallowed hard. "You said he took out another gun. He wasn't carrying a backup when we came down here. Where did he get it?"
"Perhaps Catherine provided it for him? Why is it important?"
"A hunch. No, not a hunch, a theory based on living and working with Jim Ellison for so long. Vincent, where did you put our weapons for safe keeping?"
Surprised, he gestured at Father's desk. "There, locked in a drawer." Without thinking he went to the small cup that held pens and upturned it to find the key. "From time to time he has reason to need to store dangerous things in a place where the children won't search. We've done our best to teach them how to treat weapons properly, but it's better not to allow temptation."
As he spoke Vincent opened the drawer, only to find it empty. Before he could say as much, Blair said flatly, "Mine's gone, too, isn't it? He took it for back-up; Jim only carries backup when he thinks he might need extra fire power. But why use mine? Why not get a spare from Catherine?"
"It was convenient," Vincent suggested. "You should not need it here."
"Jim still shouldn't have taken it. It's hard to explain why without spending a few months bringing you up to speed on how a ranger/cop thinks, but, believe me, I'm sure of that." Suddenly Blair drew his knees up to his chin, almost like a child huddling in on himself from fear. "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit... he had to have heard me in the shower the other day, when I had my little breakdown. Shit."
"Heard you? Blair...."
The question was waved away, and wounded, terrified eyes turned up to meet Vincent's. "He's doing it again. Trying to give me back my life, but this time my old one, the one without guns or dirty cops, or running for my life. Oh, fuck, Vincent, he's using himself as bait to draw Church and his people out, and Catherine must be helping him because there's no one else they can trust."
***
From behind her, Catherine heard Jim say urgently, "Vincent? Is something wrong with Vincent?"
Shaking her head in confusion, she said slowly, "No... not that I know of. It's just for a moment...." She laughed shakily. "For a moment I could have sworn he was standing here with us. I could even smell the candles and underground mustiness from Below."
To her relief, Jim didn't look at her as if she were crazy or try to dismiss her feelings. "Maybe he was; I don't think even Vincent is sure what he's capable of." A second later he added softly, "Considering the way you parted last he's got to be worried as hell about you."
"He can worry all he wants; that isn't fatal," she said more sharply than she intended. Jim didn't call her on it. All he did was shrug and lie back down, putting both guns back where they belonged. By way of apology, she tried to smile and nodded at the weapons. "Two? Doesn't seem like your style."
A touch of embarrassment darted over his face, and Jim muttered, "Sandburg would say I'm over compensating for being less than one hundred percent."
"I'd say Sandburg was probably right."
"The main reason he's such a pain in the ass," Jim said from under an arm he threw over his face. "And don't you have a job to go to, Ms. Chandler?"
"Why, Detective Ellison, are you throwing me out?"
"Brilliant piece of deductive reasoning. Why are you wasting talent like that by being a lawyer instead of being one of the good guys and carrying a badge?" he said jokingly, but she could see the strain by the harsh lines around his mouth.
"I've got the best of both worlds," she said, picking up her coat to leave so that he would hopefully rest. "I'm a lawyer who gets to act like a cop sometimes. Speaking of which, I'd better at least check in if I want to keep that job."
He gave her a negligent wave as she left, though she had the impression that he didn't plan on relaxing all that much even after she'd gone. For the most part Jim stayed in her thoughts all the way back to her office, putting a frown on her face that she couldn't erase. Despite the juicy gossip she was causing by coming in late and taking long lunches, she hadn't heard from Church or anybody they could connect to him. It was beginning to look like law enforcement corruption was just an on-going trend - a very depressing one.
In the elevator she stared at the floor and admitted it wasn't just Church's no-show that was bothering her. Jim looked bad; a little grayer, a little more exhausted each time she saw him.
"Radcliff, for a woman who's coming back twenty minutes late from a lunch date, you're wearing an awfully serious expression."
Jumping, she gave a half-startled laugh and looked over her shoulder. "Joe! I didn't see you back there."
"Obviously," he said smugly. "I mean it; that's a very heavy face you've got there. Prince Charming turning into a frog already?"
Forcing a smile, she managed to say lightly, "What makes you think there's a prince at all?"
"Don't even try; Carter in records saw you in Emilio's with some guy she called 'drop dead gorgeous' even if he is follicle-challenged." Joe's grin was genuine. "Come on, give. Who is this Jim character?"
Inside Catherine felt ice though she willed her smile not to slip. Not Joe. Please, not Joe. If he was part of the disease rotting her city, she didn't think she wanted it to *be* her city any longer. Using the cover story she and Jim had constructed, she answered, "Old family friend in from the West Coast. And if I'm not bubbling it's because, well, he's talking about settling here. Guess I'm trying to decide how I feel about that, especially since I might end up working with him. He's a cop, good enough I don't think he'll have trouble getting into the department."
"A cop huh? I can see where that might be a problem - conflict on interest on cases and all that. Unless you're already thinking about when you break up and having to run into him all of the time because of the job. Which, by the way, is *not* the right attitude to have going into a relationship."
Turning so that she could give him a dirty look, Catherine said, "Thank you, Dr. Ruth. For you information I was wondering how we'd ever manage to see each other, considering the hours cops and ADA's keep." Strictly speaking, it wasn't a lie. If she and Jim had been seriously dating, that would be a major consideration.
"Oh, so this *is* serious," Joe said, clearly delighted that she had fallen into his trap. The elevator door opened and he swept through it, calling out over his shoulder. "Bring him to dinner next Friday. Nancy will know right away if he's right for you."
"And if he's not?" she shouted after him, amused despite it all.
"Then she'll send him packing!"
Shaking her head and laughing, Catherine made her way into her own office, and spent the next few hours diligently working so that she couldn't be accused of being behind. Finally, deciding that even Joe would be impressed with how much she'd cleared off her desk, she got out her new laptop to check her private email. To her disappointment, there was no message from Simon Banks, which meant that neither Church nor any of his cronies had made any moves yet. After a quick check to make sure that nothing else needed her attention, she shut down the computer, then just sat for a long time, thinking.
Finally she resolved that if she hadn't heard from Banks by the end of the next workday, she'd insist that Jim go back Below to Father for a check-up. No matter what he said, something was *wrong,* something that went beyond the pain of his wound, beyond the grief of a man who had had all that he'd believed in betrayed. Though Father might not be able to heal a hurt like that, Catherine had a suspicion that Blair could at least make it more bearable for Jim. For that reason, if for no other, she was prepared to accept the man.
Mind made up, she quickly gathered her things and headed out, intending to stop at her favorite Chinese take-out place to get dinner for both of them. Not that Catherine thought Jim would eat much, but it looked good to any one who noticed, and maybe she could coax soup into him at least. Nearly halfway there she noticed a Helper wearing a very stubborn look heading straight for her, and she ducked into the first crowded store she saw to lose him. Before she succeeded, another came at her from a different direction, apparently equally determined to speak with her.
For a moment she considered taking the message from Vincent she knew they carried, but even if she weren't concerned about being seen talking to them by the wrong people, she wouldn't want to. Just thinking about seeing his elegant handwriting, hearing his voice in her mind as she read, was enough to make her heart ache. Avoiding the issue wasn't going to make it go away, but for the life of her, Catherine couldn't find the strength to try to mend their shattered friendship right now. Or to face the loss of her hope for more, no matter how distant it had always been.
With a quick glance to get the lay of the land, she stepped backwards into a crowd around an elevator, then ducked down and hid among the many taller people around her. In that position, getting odd looks and not caring, she sidestepped the elevator completely, tucking herself into a coat room/foyer beside it where she couldn't be seen. Peeking through the many layers of fabric, she saw both Helpers get on, then, soon as the door shut, she hurried away, this time heading straight to Jim's hotel. Room service would do for dinner.
All the way Catherine berated herself for her cowardice, but pushed her personal feelings aside as she rushed down the hallway toward the room. If she was going to convince Jim to see a doctor, she had to concentrate on him, and she had the feeling that getting a conviction from a jury sympathetic to the defendant would be easy by comparison. Key in hand, she was reaching for the knob when Jim threw open the door, caught her by the wrist, and yanked her inside. He had his gun in his free hand and quickly scanned the corridor both ways before shutting the door and leaning on the wall on the other side of it.
Gasping, not sure what just happened, she half-reached for her own weapon. Before she could speak, he demanded, "What's wrong? I can tell you're upset, and you were nearly running to get here."
Somehow she mustered a smile and put down her irritation, distantly wondering how much rest he could possibly be getting if he was being vigilant to the point of constantly watching the hallway. "Helpers."
Visibly relaxing and holstering his gun, Jim said, "Under the circumstances, worse than dirty cops following you. Lost them?"
"I don't think they were expecting me to be so reluctant to talk with them," she admitted. Shrugging off her coat, she sat in her usual chair and picked up the phone, feigning ease. "I'm starved. Dinner?"
"Already ate," he said shortly. "But go ahead. Coffee would be good, though."
Not buying the lie for a minute, she ordered a meal, including a bowl of potato soup that she knew from a previous snack was pretty good. When the food arrived, she'd claim that she'd ordered too much and could Jim please eat some of it so it wouldn't go to waste. A flimsy excuse, maybe, but doable, and she thought she could count on his own common sense telling him he needed to keep his strength up. Especially after she reminded him.
Hiding a smile at her plotting and honestly wondering if he was really oblivious to it or just going along for his own amusement, she sat back and watched him wander restlessly through the large room. Holding an arm tightly against his middle, as if to hold pain back, he moved from window to door to bathroom with no apparent conscious intent, expression inwardly focused. Occasionally his hand reached back to touch his gun in its belt holster, as if to reassure himself that it was there.
Maybe it wasn't going to be so hard to get him back Below after all.
Catherine bided her time in silence, respecting his, not really needing to talk just yet. Opening her briefcase she took out the paperwork she'd brought along to keep her occupied. By the time the knock came at the door from room service, Jim had finally settled on the edge of the mattress, head hanging and both arms wrapped tightly around himself.
Regardless, he stepped up to the spy hole asking "Who?" though he had to be able to see whoever was on the other side.
"Room service."
Catherine stood, automatically drawing her gun and hiding it behind a fold of her skirt as Jim let the waiter in, standing to one side to cover him without being obvious about it. It was when he left that a man she recognized from her file as Church made his move, appearing at the threshold, gun with silencer drawn and pointed at the oblivious waiter's head as he paused with his back to the corridor to arrange his cart. Using one hand to stop the door from swinging shut, Church made his intent clear by flicking off the safety with his thumb and staring at them with eyes that held no compassion or pity.
Despite that, both Catherine and Jim started to bring up their own weapons, but Church only shifted position slightly, finger tightening ominously. Not sure that she could get a bead on him before he simply stepped back out of sight to fire on the waiter, she froze, and Jim, after a fractionally longer hesitation broken by the waiter glancing at him in confusion, did the same. Church had gauged the angle perfectly. Jim couldn't fire without risking a panicked move from the unwitting hostage at the sight of a gun without warning.
A quick gesture of the gun had Jim stepping back from the door, out of sight of the waiter. His hands went up as Church slid through the door, letting it shut just as the waiter started to turn, sensing someone was behind him. It took less than fifteen seconds from the time he showed himself, reminding Catherine unpleasantly that he was good at assassination, with at least one judge's death to prove it - not an easy target to either hit or leave no trace of who was responsible.
"Aren't you going to introduce me to the lovely lady?" Church asked mildly, keeping his weapon pointed at Jim's midsection.
Sardonically, Jim answered, "Catherine Chandler, Senior ADA of the Big Apple, I'd like you to meet the bastard responsible for me leaving Cascade."
Though the ache in her gut told her that their cover was blown to hell and back, she went kept to the story they'd prepared. "I thought you said that you were having problems with your captain, that's why you left."
"Not yet," Church said pleasantly. "Banks' problems with Jim depend on how co-operative he is with me over the next few minutes. And yours as well, I'm afraid. Disarm yourself, Detective, gun on the floor and kicked under the bed. Thank you. Turn slowly, hands high, and let me see that you don't have any hidden surprises for me."
Doing as he was told, Jim said blandly, "There's no reason to involve anybody else. We can talk, no problem, get things settled between us, without complicating things."
When he was content that Jim wasn't wearing a back up, Church motioned for him to sit on the bed, and approached Catherine as cautiously as he had his fellow officer. "Now you, Ms. Chandler. And please don't bother to pretend your presence here isn't of concern me. Even if I believed you didn't know who I was and why I was here, you are still a witness to some delicate business I have with Ellison."
Half expecting him to leer and smirk, she was more worried than relieved when he efficiently patted her down, taking her gun and tucking it into his coat pocket. He was acting far too professional for her peace of mind, leaving them very little room to maneuver. With a gesture, she was sent to the bed as well, and she sat close to Jim, whether to comfort him or herself, she didn't know. He put an arm around her, and it definitely wasn't for reassurance. Something heavy and cold was tucked into her skirt at the waistband; it had to be the gun he'd been keeping under the pillow.
At her minute tensing, Jim gave her a little squeeze, raising to her shoulder the hand he'd shielded behind her for the moment necessary to move the weapon. It happened so fast that even if Church had been looking for it, she didn't think he would have seen. But though he was watching them as he positioned a chair and made himself comfortable in it, he didn't so much as warn Jim to keep his hands in sight. "Now, Detective Ellison, it would save a great deal of discomfort on your part - and the lady's I'm afraid - if you would simply tell me where Blair Sandburg is. Not your lives, but there's no reason why you have to suffer first."
"Out of the country," Jim said flatly. "He was an anthropologist, remember? No shortage of friends and acquaintances in other parts of the world to stay with. And don't even think I'll tell you which part."
"Somehow, I doubt it," Church said calmly. "Otherwise why would Ms. Chandler have a search done on him?"
Feeling all of the color draining out of her face because there was only one way he could have that information, Catherine tried to lie. "You'll notice I did one on Jim, too. Considering my background, it's kind of a habit, and he was always talking about his partner."
"Why, I thought Ellison was a 'old family friend,'" Church said mockingly. "Considering the amount of information you've been accumulating on my associates in your city, it's hard to believe that the two of you aren't working together. Which I admit, may or may not mean that you know where Sandburg is, but I am certain that you can be useful in obtaining the information."
That took something out of Jim that she felt go, and he bent his head to say softly, "I'm sorry, Cathy. I'm really, really sorry."
"Just don't tell him a damned thing because of me," she said firmly, surprising herself by being able to talk through the panic clogging her throat. "Not a single damned thing."
"I can't," he whispered so quietly that she was sure Church couldn't hear, "Any more than you can." Louder, to their captor he said, "May as well just kill us. I'm not going to give up my partner so you can shoot him down like you did Toma. It was an accident pure and simple he saw you do it, and you wouldn't be in so damned much trouble with your 'associates' if you hadn't done it in the first place. You were only supposed to remind him that he owed a favor or two and one was being called in on the Edgecomb trial."
It was Church's turn to change color, but he went a fiery red, which didn't go well at all with his sallow complexion. "You know too much, Ellison. Way, way too much. Who's been talking to you? And who else have you been sharing it with? Banks?"
Far more calmly than Catherine knew he was by the faint trembling she could feel in the arm around her, Jim said, "If you've gained access to the computer records on Cathy's accounts, you know that all Banks knows is why Sandburg and I ran. I've been holding out, hoping to blackmail you into just letting the whole thing drop, let me and my partner move on. I don't care what you've been doing or who's involved or any of that shit; I just want to be left alone." His voice grew defeated, "But your boss isn't going to let you let it slide, is he? It's you or us and you're going to make sure it's *not* you."
Surprisingly Church looked thoughtful, his momentary ire fading as fast as it had appeared. "My associates may have agreed to that, at one point. After all, how much damage could a washed-out cop with delusions of grandeur and his wannabe-a-real-detective partner do? However, that was before you involved Ms. Chandler. The two of you teaming up understandably disturbs our counterparts here. They had her nice and insulated, unable to make a move they weren't aware of, then you came along and upset the balance they'd so painstakingly established."
The depth of Edie's betrayal hit Catherine hard. Suddenly it wasn't panic blocking her breathing, it was bile, and an agony so excruciating she dimly wondered if she could die from it. A strong arm tightened around her, supporting her, but it was no help at all, no comfort at all, and the edges of her vision began to sparkle in warning that she might pass out. Before she could, another sensation, a dear, welcome one replaced every thing else; Vincent's cloak sweeping over her shoulders, shrouding her in warmth and love.
For a long, precious second she clung to that, instinctively blocking him from being physically drawn to her, but allowing his *nearness* in a way that was sweetly familiar. Her awareness of him faded and her mind cleared, leaving her strangely empty and cold, in time to hear Jim say, "...stopping me from rushing you right now and getting it over with?"
"Because I have no intentions of shooting to kill. A knee makes a nice, debilitating target. And has the extra benefit...." The two-toned call of a beeper interrupted him, and Church casually took it out and glanced at the message window. "Time for us to take a little walk. After all, we wouldn't want to disturb the neighbors with the sort of noise we're likely to make in the near future." He grinned, and for the first time Catherine could see past the carefully tailored clothes and groomed hair to the amoral animal living under them. "Especially not in as ritzy an establishment as this. Why it could ruin the hotel's reputation, simply ruin it," he said mockingly.
He stood, clearly expecting them to do the same, and they did, though Jim asked flatly, "You can't possibly expect to get us through a crowded lobby with a gun in your hand. Basement or roof?"
"Does it really matter?"
"I suppose not."
Church ushered them into the hallway, gun in Jim's back, obviously considering him to be the more dangerous of his captives. Catherine didn't object; Jim was pressed close to her, concealing the presence of the backup he'd slipped to her. Tilting back her head, she asked with her eyes if he was going to pull it - they might not have a better opportunity - but he simply glanced ahead to the elevator where another man was patiently holding the door open. From their angle she couldn't tell if he was armed, but his alert interest in them was obvious, and one hand was hidden, making it almost a sure bet that he was.
The two dirty cops flanked them, and Jim stepped to the back wall of the elevator, taking Catherine with him. Putting his lips close to her ear, he whispered, "When they start hurting you, push into the pain, and past it if you can. Like when you're fighting and throwing a punch: aim through your target. With a little luck, bad as it'll be, you'll stay relatively clear-headed so you can take your chance when it comes."
Church laughed unpleasantly. "Save your empty promises to your lady friend, Ellison," he said, plainly not understanding Jim's words and putting his own interpretation on the intimate whisper. "I will hurt her as much as necessary to get you to talk, though, frankly, I'm going to begin with you. I... owe you for the trouble you've put me through."
"And like the big, strong man that you are," Jim said derisively, "You're going to have a friend hold a gun on me while you take your dues. Of course, I should expect that from a man who'd use a woman as leverage to get information."
The angry flush from earlier bloomed again in Church's face, and he straightened, his free hand making a fist. "If you think you can convince me to go one on one with you, I'm not that stupid, Ellison."
"No, just terminally fond of doing things the easy way," Jim shot back, his tone going for, but not hitting contempt yet. "You're always talking about how Office of the Year is all politics and bullshit, well, if that were the case, why didn't you ever get one with all your connections? I'll tell you why. It's because the politicos can't afford to have it made into a laughing stock among the press, and if an inefficient, ineffectual, pipsqueak like you won it, every decent, hardworking cop in the place would walk out of the station in protest!"
Catherine had heard of people literally going purple with rage, but she had never seen it before, and she cringed back against Jim at the pure fury in Church. Neither even noticed, and she realized abruptly that was exactly what Jim wanted: Church focused completely on him. Whether to protect her from abuse or in hopes of giving her the opportunity to use the hidden gun, she had no way to tell, forcing her to let him play things out his way.
Anger began percolating through the numbness, straightening her spine though she made herself stay huddled against Jim. More than one person had underestimated her because of her size and gender. Under the right circumstances it could be very, very useful, and maybe Jim was providing them for her by baiting Church.
With an incoherent shout, Church whipped his gun against the side of Jim's head, savage satisfaction showing when he rocked back, blood streaming from a cut on his temple. The elevator doors opened, and with a curt "Out," that was spoken through clenched teeth, he threatened another blow. Not giving him a chance to strike again, Catherine all but towed Jim out into a short, drab service hallway, then, at Church's direction, up a short flight of steps and to the roof access door.
"Great," she muttered. "I get to be cold while I'm being tortured."
Jim gave a snort at her attempt at bravado and a squeeze of the arm still looped around her, but remained expressionless despite the blood trickling down the side of his face. He seemed so utterly disconnected to the injury that Catherine belatedly remembered what else Jim had been in his life besides a cop. Realizing that he knew that he couldn't be broken, but wasn't sure that she couldn't be, she swallowed hard against a new wave of nausea. For the first time it occurred to her that the hidden gun she carried had a use besides taking advantage of a slip by their captors.
She just didn't know if she had the courage to turn it on herself. Unbidden, Vincent came to her mind, standing in the opening of one of the tunnels, lit from behind so that all she saw was his shape. All she could feel was his smiling trust in her; all she could think of were the others he protected. The love they shared flared brightly, warming her completely, and Catherine no longer had any doubts she could do whatever she had to.
Very, very grateful for the calm that descended on her, Catherine went around the back of the access and to the farthest corner of the building as ordered. It was twilight, nearly dark, and with the building lights aimed away from the rooftop, their bit of it was more shadow than light. She stopped with her back to the city, facing the shack covering the access and the newcomer to their private drama, and hugged herself as if against the cold.
Still playing the frightened victim, she warily studied Church's accomplice; another cop she'd guess by the way he dressed and held himself. One of the power-loving ones, she added to herself. He was radiating satisfaction at the way she theatrically cringed every time he caught her eye. He stayed back a few feet from Church and to the left, obviously merely playing lookout while letting the other man do the dirty work. Not that he didn't seem to enjoy the show, but he obviously didn't consider himself a participant. That was bad. She needed him closer to her, in better range to catch him off guard.
So when Jim gently pushed her away, she went as if terrified of losing his protection, gaining a glimmer of an ironic smile from him and a salacious smirk from the other gunman. As soon as she was a few feet away, nearly in the corner closest the lookout, Church pounced on Jim, driving his fist deep into the unprotected gut. With a breathless grunt, Jim went to his knees, head bowed, both arms over his middle.
In a surprisingly level voice, Church asked, "Where's Sandburg? How much does he know about me and my associates?"
"Showing your true colors?" Jim half-gasped. "Getting a hard-on over finally proving you're more of a man than I am?"
That earned him a kick to the jaw that snapped back his head, but Church repeated without changing his tone, "Where's Sandburg? How much does he know about me and my associates?"
Blinking, hardly able to focus his eyes, Jim still managed to say scornfully, "Definitely got some wood there, Gregsie. Is there something I should know about your personal life?"
That broke Church and he shouted, "Where's Sandburg, god damn you? Where'd you hide that sneaking little bastard?" He began pistol-whipping Jim indiscriminately and with such little control that he missed as often as he hit, screaming the questions over and over. After what seemed an interminable time, he stepped back, panting, visibly struggling to regain control. "Tell me," he croaked. "Tell me or you'll get to see your little girlfriend over there find out up close and personal how much of a man I am."
Feigning terror, Catherine stumbled backwards, not incidentally closer to the man standing guard.
Blood at the corner of his mouth, nearly doubled over onto himself, Jim rasped, "Rape the only way you can get it up? Some man."
Church raised his gun for another blow, then stopped himself, all but vibrating from the urge to finish what he started. "No," he snapped. "I know what you're up to, and it's not going to work. I'm not going to goad me into beating you to death before you tell me what I need to know. Where is he, Ellison? Where is Sandburg?"
Spitting blood, Jim struggled to his feet, staggering and nearly falling. "I am not," he said with finality once upright, "Going to tell you a fucking thing except to go to hell."
Abruptly Church raised his gun and pointed it at Catherine. Not acting at all, she lurched away, lost her footing and tumbled to her backside, nearly at the feet of the other gunman. Automatically reaching down to help her up, they both froze mid-motion when Blair called out clearly, "Looking for me?"
All eyes turned to where he stood beside the access shack, hands hanging loosely at his side, curls drifting in the slight breeze from the early evening air. In the dim light it was impossible to read the expression on his face, but the challenge in his posture was clear. "Want me?" he taunted Church. "Come and get me." At the last word he spun on his heel and raced for the nearest edge of the building, nearly invisible except for the flash of paleness from his skin as he ran.
Many things happened at once, remaining forever after blurred in Catherine's mind though at the time it all happened in slow motion. Attention on Blair, the lookout began to straighten and raise his gun, and she rammed the heel of her hand into his nose, feeling bone shatter back into his brain and not caring. He toppled as she scrambled to her feet, snatching out her hidden pistol. Even as she moved, Church was taking aim at the flash of motion that was Sandburg, but Jim knocked the gun away, going in for a punch with his other hand.
It never connected; Church dodged back, then whirled and took off after Blair. Jim tried to follow, but his battered body refused to do more than lurch forward a single step. Before he could regain his balance to take another, Blair reached the safety wall and vaulted to the top of it and stood for a moment back-lit by the glow of the city. "Want me, Church? Want to use me for your punching bag, take out a little frustration because I deserve it for screwing up your life?" A curse was his answer, and Blair shot him the finger. "Going to have to chase me all the way to hell to do it. Got the balls, Gregsie?"
With Church only a few feet away, Blair simply stepped backwards off the wall and was gone an instant later.
Without a sound Jim collapsed, eyes rolled into the back of his head, one hand flung out in the direction where Blair had been.
Screaming his rage, Church reached the same spot and bent over it to look into the street below, as if he couldn't believe what he had seen. The moment he did, a furred hand reached up and grabbed his shirt at the front, pulling him over the edge. His scream changed to one of terror, then faded as he fell, and all Catherine could feel was relief that he was gone.
***
Of the many out and out terrifying things that Blair had done since becoming Jim's partner - officially and unofficially - nothing had been worse than running for the edge of that building, knowing he was going to deliberately jump. Even knowing that Vincent was immediately below the spot they'd chosen and more than strong enough to safely catch him, he hadn't been sure that he'd be able to go through with it. But it had been the only diversion they had been able to think of to give Catherine and Jim the few seconds they needed to turn the tables on their captors.
All that had kept him going was a total conviction that it was the only chance they had.
He and Vincent had barely arrived in the section of the city where Catherine had been seen last by the Helpers when Vincent had gasped, sagging weakly onto the wall and murmuring her name. A second later he recovered, straightening as he said, "Betrayed. They've been betrayed and death sits with them, waiting only for the moment to be ripe."
Though they'd begun running, Blair had made him share every detail of his 'visit', using it to piece together exactly which hotel Jim was staying in. Pure luck was the only reason they had arrived on the roof in time to hear Church threaten Catherine. Originally they'd gone there to give them a relatively private spot for Vincent to try for another visit in hopes they'd learn enough to act.
As horrifying as it had been to feel nothing under his feet, to feel his body begin the plunge to unforgiving concrete, it was nothing compared to the icy, unrelenting fear creeping along his spine at the sight of his partner, his sentinel, his love, passively allowing Father to treat his injuries. Never meeting anyone's eyes or looking up from the floor, Jim meekly did every thing he was told and answered every question in a voice that was utterly empty. Not controlled, not flat, not even toneless - his inflection was as void of life as the dark side of the moon.
He had been that way since he had regained consciousness, and if Blair had been wildly joyous that the lax body he'd been clutching had stirred, it hadn't lasted any longer than it had taken for Jim to tenderly and reverently touch his face once. That had been the last time he'd done anything even remotely normal; no questions, no demands for explanations, just a blank acceptance of whatever he was told to do.
If Vincent hadn't been giving Jim looks filled with deep concern, Blair might have been able to convince himself that it was only his partner's reaction to a violent beating while still recovering from being shot. As it was, he waited until Father shooed them out of the hospital chamber to draw Vincent and Catherine to a small, sparsely furnished alcove he thought was far enough away. As soon as they were there, he turned and said sharply, "What? What is it that you sense from Jim that has you so concerned?"
Vincent looked back as if he could see through the rock to where Jim lay and sighed deeply. "He has turned his face to the wall, his will to live ground to dust under the weight of a failure so immense he cannot feel or think of anything else."
"Failure?" Catherine asked in confusion. "Why? Because we didn't have a chance to use Church to break the conspiracy in Cascade?"
Shrugging eloquently, Vincent answered, holding her close as he had since joining her on the roof, "I know only what he feels. The why is a mystery to me, though perhaps not to his teacher and guide."
With a jolt, Blair stared at him, then looked back toward the hospital chamber himself. "Vincent, I can't...."
"I have always known that James was an exceptional man, Blair, with unusual gifts. After all, he managed to track me in my own environment under conditions that should have left even the best soldier completely lost in the dark. And when he first came back from his time in Peru, it was Below that was his haven while he recovered from his ordeal."
Looking back into the past, his voice growing quietly reflective, Vincent went on. "It seemed that even as he told me of his experiences with the Chopec, taught me their language, his memory of that time faded. It was as if, without some sort of compass to guide him to the way to use what he had discovered about himself there, he could not bear what he was. In the years that followed he cut himself off more and more from those who loved him, and, I sincerely believe, from his own self."
Abruptly Vincent focused on Blair, gazing at him with shining approval. "Then he wrote to us about a anthropology student who had wandered into his life, and suddenly he was telling us of fellow officers and friends, both old and new, of fishing trips and poker parties. He had found his way back to living again, and I only had to see the two of you together to know that you are the true north that James needed as his personal compass to guide him. It only took a moment more to know that, for whatever reason you came together, it is love that freed him to be true to his gifts."
Face turned up to his, amazement plain to be seen, Catherine said incredulously, "Gifts... Vincent, are you saying that Jim really is a sentinel; that Blair's dissertation was the truth?"
"Dissertation?"
"The way I found Jim," Blair answered tiredly. "You had me checked out, Cathy?" There wasn't any rancor in the question. The protective mindset of a sentinel - or his guide - was far too familiar to him.
Shockingly Catherine began to cry, turning her face into Vincent's chest and huddling into him as if she wished to hide in his body. Cradling her head in one great hand, he said softly to Blair, "You led him back to life once already; you can lead him through this despair as well. You need only do as you have always done."
"You make it sound easy," Blair muttered, but disturbed by Catherine's tears and compelled by the promise in Vincent's tone, he drifted to the opening to the corridor, half turned away from them.
"I know it was not, that you have had to fight for your right to be with him. But your place *is* beside him and James will not deny it. Complain and bluster, yes. Refuse you? The ability to do so is no longer within him." Vincent sat on the love seat tucked into the shadowed corner of the little chamber, placing Catherine on his lap like a child and bending his head to lay his cheek alongside hers.
Seeing them like that suddenly made it impossible for Blair to stay away from Jim a moment longer, and he bolted, all but running to the hospital chamber. Father looked up from putting away his instruments, relief evident, and said briskly, "Good, you're here. Would you be so kind as to keep him from roaming so that he has a chance to heal properly? I have better things to be doing than endlessly replacing the same stitches."
Hardly hearing him, attention fixed on the too still, too expressionless man lying on his side in front of him, Blair murmured, "I'm here for the night if you need to leave."
The glance Father gave him was shrewd, but all he said was, "You know the code for the pipes if you need me." He limped out, muttering something under his breath about a doctor's limitations.
Ignoring that, Blair gathered one of the cold, limp hands lying on the bed between both of his and waited patiently until Jim's eyelids fluttered up, somehow holding back his flinch at the nothingness revealed. "Okay if I sleep here with you?" he whispered.
After a moment Jim nodded, then gingerly scooted back, holding up the blanket to let him in. Hastily kicking off his shoes while taking off all his shirts but the last one, Blair crawled into the old-fashioned hospital bed, settling down face-to-face, as close to Jim as he could without actually touching. The brief glimpse he had of the Technicolor bruises on the bare chest, matched by the ones on the left side of Jim's face, was enough to make him afraid to get too close. "How many colors of the rainbow are those sweatpants hiding?" he tried to joke.
"Church didn't bother with anything below the belt, Chief," Jim answered seriously, still using the same flat, empty voice from earlier.
Blair started to say, 'he didn't need to,' but trapped the words inside his brain instead, letting them tumble there. It was clear from what he'd heard on the roof that the reason Church had hated Jim was because he was jealous of him, and with good reason. Jim had everything most men used to measure their worth - a great body, attractive to the ladies, success at his job, right social background, and the kind of poise and confidence that comes with being utterly sure that you can kick ass when necessary. On the surface at least, he was a man's man, the epitome of macho, all that Church wasn't and obviously aspired to be.
And from his point of view, he had soundly beaten Jim, defeated him so completely that in his own mind, Church didn't have to bother with kicking him in the balls. He'd already castrated Jim.
From everything that Catherine had told him during the nightmarishly long trip to Below, Jim had understood that about Church and had used it against him, trying to buy her a chance to get free. It had never occurred to Blair until this moment that *Jim* agreed with Church. From where a sentinel stood, though, he would. Greg Church had driven Jim away from his territory, followed him to do battle, cornered him and made him helpless to defend those he was sworn to protect, except by dying.
He'd been willing to do that, but before he could, from his perspective, Blair had died instead. Again. Because of a mistake that Jim had made.
Blair had thrown himself off the rooftop thinking that Jim would have heard him and Vincent plotting, could hear their unique friend on the fire escape below the wall waiting to catch him mid-flight. It was only when he'd seen up-close and personal how badly Jim was hurt, had cautiously, fearfully pulled him into his arms, that he'd remembered that pain wreaked havoc with sentinel senses, taking one or more offline while spinning others up to uselessly high levels.
Trying to imagine what it would have felt like if the shoe had been on the other foot, if he had been the one watching his love hurtle to his death, Blair shuddered and instinctively pressed his forehead into Jim's chest just below his collarbone. It was the right move. A fine-boned hand inched its way to his waist, and settled carefully there, as if not sure of its welcome.
After an adolescence spent as the short, nerdy new kid, Blair was all too well acquainted with doubts about his masculinity. Blessedly, he'd also been shown the first step to erasing those doubts when he'd lost his virginity to Christie Wilson his first year in college, when she'd been very grateful for his chemistry tutoring. Ever since he'd kissed Jim for the first time, he'd wanted, prayed, that they'd make love. It seemed only right that he'd lose the rest of his virginity showing his sentinel that he was very, very much a man.
Sensing that seduction and passiveness would be more effective - and maybe more acceptable all things considered - Blair simply lay beside Jim and allowed himself to free all the wants and desires that he'd harbored for so very long. Without moving, he loved Jim in his mind, loved him with all his heart, imagining the pleasure of touching and tasting without restrictions or inhibitions. He opened himself to the sensual heat coming from the body so near, drank in Jim's rich masculine scent, and all but melted with the yearning both roused in him.
A faint shiver passed over his partner, and Blair opened his eyes in time to see Jim's nipples pebble up to hard peaks, hoping he hadn't imagined the minor hitch in breathing that accompanied it. Smiling, positive that if he was so in tune with Jim that he was picking up subtle sensory cues like that, Jim had to absolutely deluged in the evidence of Blair's desire, he hitched closer. When the hairs on his torso were stirring nearly ticklishly from the regular movement from Jim as he breathed, he stopped and waited.
It was surprisingly easy to do so. Not only was Blair intuitively sure that Jim was intently focused on his nearness, but it was exciting in a strange way to let his lover decide when and what would happen next. His own nipples tightened with a surge of sensation that was nearly painful, and he couldn't help a little cry of pleasure from it. In answer the hand on him slid down to cup his backside, urging his hips forward until erection met erection through layers of fabric.
That drew identical moans from both of them, and Jim put a single finger under Blair's chin to tilt his head back. He dropped tiny, soft kisses on forehead, cheeks, nose, eyelids, keeping up the delicate caresses until Blair was nearly dizzy with want. Gradually Jim increased the pressure from the hand holding Blair's bottom until Blair was willing to swear that he could feel the blood pulsing through the hard length so close to his own.
Finally unable to bear the longing any more, Blair parted his lips, half in invitation, half in pleading, staring at Jim's mouth to make it clear what he wanted. With a sighing moan that was erotic enough for a wet-dream, Jim tasted him, barely touching at first. As if an electrical connection had been closed between them at the tentative contact, a sizzle of pure sexual energy coursed through Blair and he could no longer play the petitioner. Carding his fingers through the hair at the back of Jim's head, he pulled him down until they could kiss deeply and thoroughly.
Vaguely aware that he was trembling from the power of the desire reverberating between them, Blair did nothing else to direct their passion. He didn't need to. He was going to climax from just this; from the heat pressed so tightly and intimately into him, from the hunger in the lips devouring him, from Jim's wordless murmurs of love and praise. That was good, he realized dimly. Very good. He couldn't quite remember why, but it was important, so he gave himself up to the demands Jim created in him.
A single finger pressed over the opening to his body, deft and insistent even through his jeans, and the bolt of pure white pleasure from it was all that Blair needed. Whimpering Jim's name, he came, arching his back to drive his hard-on against his lover as if to breach the barriers of cloth between them. It was stronger than he'd believed possible, and lasted seemingly forever, but all the while Jim stroked and soothed him, bringing Blair back to himself with gentle coaxing.
When his mind cleared, BLAIR realized that Jim was unsatisfied; that an erection that had to be painfully hard was crushed into the wetness of his seed between them. With a nudge of his nose, he encouraged Jim to raise his head from the shoulder he was nibbling enough for Blair to see into his eyes, and the look of pure male smugness and superiority he found told Blair that he'd done the right thing. Impishly he grinned, aware that it was a little crooked, and when a hint of concern filtered across through the vivid blue, he slowly dragged his hand down Jim's arm and waist, then over the curve of his ass cheek. His intent was plain, and the satisfaction turned into scalding need staring into him with single-minded necessity.
Jim tensed, body growing incredibly still, and Blair could feel the first pulses of his release travel through him almost as if they were his own. "Beautiful," he murmured without meaning to, and at that Jim shouted his ecstasy, thrusting once before spilling his own essence.
It was no burden to hold and pet Jim while he panted his way through his finish, and he gradually collapsed onto Blair, hiding his face in the curve of neck and shoulder. Long after the pleasure should have faded, tremors chased over the long form, telling Blair that as good as it had been, the pleasure had over-ridden Jim's despair for only a few precious minutes. It was a start, though, and he held on tight, refusing to let go when Jim made as if to leave.
"Please," Blair whispered. "Stay with me." He meant more than the night, and Jim hesitated, understanding that immediately. Blair didn't push him, but let the very intimacy of the position they were in speak for him.
Finally, after Blair begun to think that Jim was beyond his feeble reach, Jim sighed, squirmed out of his sweats and used his boxers to mop himself up. After helping Blair tidy, he cuddled close and said roughly, "I'm not going anywhere, Chief."
As promises, it wasn't much, but from Jim, it was as good as law. With the past few exhausting days and restless nights catching up to him, Blair yawned and gave a few 'get comfortable' wiggles. "Better not," he muttered.
Jim said something back, sounding mildly reproving, but all Blair really paid attention to was the hug he got with the mumble. It was warm enough to send him effortlessly into sleep.
***
Vincent watched Blair run to his partner, feeling the resolve in the young man and hoping it would be enough to overcome the enormous loss of self he sensed in James. There wasn't much else he could do at the moment, and he sighed, dismissing his friends to concentrate on Catherine. Weeping uncontrollably, she shook as if her rage and pain were too large for her small body, and he knew there was nothing he could do yet except give her the security of strong arms to hold her together.
It was something he had done for her before, familiar to him from the times she had cried out her frustration at a case gone wrong, a death she could not prevent, an injustice she could not correct. From the still jumbled memories of their first years together, he knew that he had even held her through the wild grief at the loss of her father. But unlike that time, when her hurt was his, tearing at both of them, or the more recent occasions, when all he knew of it was it was the wetness of her tears soaking into him, her emotions battered at him in a random ebb and flow that he could make no sense of.
It was as if the barrier Catherine kept between them was faltering, but not failing, and Vincent couldn't do anything but endure. Making both of them as comfortable as he could, he settled down to weather her storm with her, trying to remind her with gentle pats and whispered nonsense words that she was not alone. Some indeterminate time later he noticed a change within her, one so elusive that he couldn't quite pinpoint its nature.
Though tears still fell, Catherine snuggled closer, as if more aware of him on a subconscious level, gradually becoming limp and soft against him. A sweet, tender feeling slowly rose between them, changing how they touched from reassuring to something else, something nearly drugging to Vincent. His limbs felt heavy, unresponsive, while simultaneously his lungs began to work overtime to drag in air. He sagged down into the love seat, head falling back, only the arms surrounding his beloved keeping any strength in them.
As if that were a cue that she'd been waiting for, Catherine shifted position just enough to be able to gently kiss the revealed column of Vincent's throat. Her caress sent delicate waves of sensation throughout him that finally came to rest in his middle and merged there to lay molten, rich, and intoxicating. With a wordless murmur he encouraged her to do more, and she obliged by changing to a stronger, sucking kiss that would leave marks and raised the nubs on his chest to a shivering hardness that was mysteriously connected to heat in his belly.
It was only when she swung around to sit astride his lap that he recognized their passion for what it was. Accustomed to the frenzied growling of his lust or sharp bite of hunger, this slow swell of yearning was new to him, and he had no defenses against it. Even as the more rational part of him warned that their love play was too dangerous to Catherine to indulge, he arched his back to offer his neck to her completely, to rub his chest over hers in a way that was delicious despite the many layers separating them.
With a tiny cry she began to push and pull clothing aside, rocking on him in a way that was purely carnal and as arousing to him as it was to her. Pure panic poured over him for a split second, but before he could act on the impulse to set her away and run, she reached bare skin and scraped her nails through the thick thatch of fur to his nipples. The accumulated heat in his middle exploded at the sharp pang of goodness from Catherine's touch, and his hands went to her waist to steady her as he ground up into her femininity.
"Vincent!" She rode on him with all her strength, her release pouring over and through them, finally leaving him desperate for his own relief while she coasted through the ripples of pleasure.
With a last frantic effort, he tried to hold back the beast as it rushed toward the shining light that was Catherine. To his amazement, she didn't cower in fear or feel the slightest bit of trepidation, but opened herself to him with ease, absorbing the beast without pause. It was his last rational act before falling on her physically.
Snarling, growling, he half-fell off the loveseat, effortlessly carrying her to the ground. Catherine twisted to her hands and knees, hiking up her skirt and lowering her panties as he went to all fours over her, covering her completely. A sharp tear of fabric freed his maleness, and it sprung out toward her, rampant, wet with its own readiness. Covering his hands with hers to pin them in place on the floor, Catherine reared back as he thrust forward.
He sheathed himself completely in her welcoming depths, ripping a scream of pleasure and another burst of climax from her, and he tumbled through it with her, marveling both at the wonder of being joined and her total sensual involvement in her pleasure. For her it was every inch of her skin, it was a yearning on her mouth for a kiss, an ache in her breasts to be kneaded and handled, a burn at the apex of her womanhood that consumed them both.
When she calmed, Vincent withdrew slowly, savoring the clinging satin of her body, feeling her appreciation of his size, his weight on her, the power promised by the muscles rippling against her. Though his body was beyond his control, he re-entered her with just enough strength for it to be good for her, and after that he was lost in the give and take of the ancient dance of man and woman and satisfaction.
The inevitable crescendo hovered along his nerves, making each stroke in exquisite, each withdrawal as thrilling because of the promise of measuring his length into her again. She cried out in time to his thrusts, yielding to him perfectly, another release waiting to engulf her as well. And as their physical selves joined, their minds blended, sharing the incandescent of their lovemaking.
They wanted to prolong the joy, they wanted to race headlong into the ecstasy that was at the end of it, they wanted to blend together beyond flesh and pleasure to something each could sense was just beyond them. They couldn't reach it. Not this time anyway, and fell back into their own bodies as they convulsed through release almost too great to be borne. Vincent shuddered as he gave his seed to her, mindlessly reveling in the ecstasy, hardly hearing his triumphant roar or her equally wild scream.
His rational mind drifted back slowly, and Vincent found himself curled on his side close behind her, his cloak covering their state of partial undress. Catherine was shut off from him again, but she rested easily under the weight of his arm, her warmth still clasping him intimately. She held his hand loosely between hers, exploring it as if she'd never had the chance before. One fingertip ran the length of one his claws, and he reflexively tried to pull free, but she refused to let go.
"This is *my* hand," she said softly, sadly, reminding him of the claim she had made once before. "It's beautiful and graceful and powerful and yes, deadly, but it's *mine* and I love it." She kissed the palm and rested her cheek there. "How can you reject it without rejecting me, Vincent? Or do you reject me because I do accept your beast, love it because it is part of you?"
He had no answer to that for he truly could not understand how she could embrace what he denied. Wordlessly Vincent pulled together their clothes, and scooped her up to carry her to his chambers. Despite the breach between them, he could not bear to be parted from her this night, and it seemed she was in agreement. She wound her arms around his neck, sighed unhappily, and drifted off to sleep before they reached his bed.
Adrift in a limbo where it was neither chaste nor intimate to lay beside her, Vincent watched her sleep, idly smoothing her short hair into some semblance of order from its wild disarray from their loving. Stubbornly he wouldn't let himself think, wouldn't let himself bask in the knowledge that they had a long last consummated their love, though his body fairly hummed in satiation. All he would permit was relief that he hadn't so much as marred her fair skin with a bruise and that they were together still.
A long time later a small sound at his chamber entrance roused him from his absorption in Catherine, and he looked up to meet James' blue eyes, blushing immediately at the knowing look in them. But all his friend said was, "Is she okay?"
Rising carefully so as not to wake her, Vincent left his bed, motioning for James to precede him into the tunnel outside his quarters. "You should be resting."
"Can't get comfortable enough," Jim said shortly.
Once outside, he offered the support of his arm, and to his surprise James took him up on it, leaning on him heavily as they slowly walked back toward the hospital chamber. Realizing that commenting on it would cause him to try to walk on his own, Vincent answered his original question. "She's full of rage and grief and pain, but she's strong; she will heal in time."
James nodded, but said tiredly, "What we do - it's like the heat and pressure that make a diamond. We're stronger, but harder, less flexible. Betrayal is a single, powerful blow that shatters, Vincent. You heal, put all the pieces back, but you're never as strong again, never *whole* again. Inside something is always so scarred that it distorts every other relationship you have for the rest of your life."
There was so much pain in him that Vincent wanted to weep for him or destroy the cause of it, but all he could do was say calmly, "Like a death in a way. The friend that Edie was to Catherine is dead, lost beyond all retrieval. Yet she still walks among the living, a constant reminder of what is gone all while trying to mend the damage she caused."
"And in this case, there's so much of it," James agreed. "I'll be a lot happier when Simon gets out of reach of Church's people. By now the coroner has identified his body and the police have to have found the one left on the roof; they'll be calling Cascade P.D. to notify them. Won't take long for the wrong people to go looking for Banks to take up where Church left off as far as me and Blair are concerned. His death makes it all that much more likely we know more than the shooter in a judge's murder."
"Will he have time to come Below before they contact their counterparts here?"
Worry passed over James' face, and self-recrimination filled him. "He should, just because of the red tape between states if nothing else. We were trying so hard to keep him clear," he muttered almost to himself. "He has a son and other family in Cascade."
"Another sorrow to be laid at Edie's feet," Vincent said, trying to redirect the blame to where it belonged. "And you must believe that or I will never be able to convince Catherine that the guilt is not hers."
"Why would she think she's responsible?" Jim asked in surprise.
"Because she didn't trust Blair, she asked Edie to run a check on him," Vincent reminded him. "From that point on, everything she did was under scrutiny. Her only consolation is that she had never trusted Edie with any information about Below, or shared anything specific she had on the corruption in her office. The conspirators know that she has questions about certain individuals or crimes, but not what evidence she might have. That, along with the recording you made of your conversation in your room with Church may still yet be of use."
"She can put it with what Simon, Blair and I have," Jim said bitterly, stopping to rest against a wall, his face carefully averted. "And file it in the circular file on the floor for all the use it is, for all the good it will ever do."
Gasping at the flood of emotion from his friend - self-loathing, self-disgust, hatred, fury - Vincent staggered, then sat heavily on the rough floor of the tunnel. Jim tried to help cushion his fall, but was too weak to do more than go down with him, ending up kneeling beside him, clutching his upper arms. Locking his own hands around James' biceps, Vincent pleaded softly, "Stop! Stop! Don't do this to yourself."
Thankfully James didn't deny what he was feeling, but his expression closed off, becoming remote and unapproachable. "It's no more than I deserve," he said flatly.
"Why? There is no honor lost in falling before an overwhelming force, no shame in defeat by superior numbers." From the set of his friend's mouth, the intractable feel of him, Vincent knew that he was not reaching him and abruptly switched tactics. "James, look at me." Blue eyes met his easily enough, though there was only his reflection in them.
Smiling slightly, Vincent repeated, "Look at me, really look at me. Blair said that he thought you no longer saw my appearance, only my heart. See the surface, see me as others see me."
Confusion apparent, Jim did as he was told, one hand shyly coming up to touch Vincent's cheek. When no reaction was forthcoming, he gingerly explored, tracing the line of a brow, a bristled jaw and muzzle-shaped upper lip, finally running a lock of hair through his fingertips. "What I see is beautiful. Different, maybe, but no less beautiful for all that."
Heat swept into his cheeks, but Vincent didn't let that distract him. Deliberately covering Jim's hand with his as it rested against his face, making the differences between them obvious, Vincent said quietly, "Because of what you find beautiful, I must hide in the shadows and long for the freedom of sunlight, unable to protect except by stealth. Yet, like you, I was born to be a guardian; these," and he lifted his fingertip so that his claw lightly tapped the back of James' hand, "Have maimed, killed without mercy to defend what is mine. Much as it grieves me, I would not hesitate to do so again, but all too often all I can do is seethe impatiently and pray."
James was silent a very long time, then he finally he sat back on his heels and asked, "How do you stand it?"
Tilting his head to one side, choosing his words carefully, Vincent answered, "Because I must. For love's sake, I must."
Turning away to hide his face in shadow, Jim said in a voice that was heavy with regrets, "I'm too damaged to love right any more. It seems all I can do is hurt the people close to me."
"Blair doesn't think so."
With a laugh that was painfully clean of humor, Jim said, "Blair is the one I hurt most often. The one I... fail... most often. I push him away, say things I don't mean, don't say the things I should, even the little ones like 'thank you' and 'I'm sorry.' Half the time I'm dumping grief on him that belongs some place else, much as I don't want to, but I'm like a scratched record, endlessly repeating the same stupidity."
"And he sees the pain that makes you unwilling to let him close, hears the fear and worry underneath what you did say, listens to the true meaning of what you do say. He accepts you as you are, James, because he understands the history that created you, knows nothing but respect and admiration for how well you succeed in spite of the scars that make up those 'scratches.'" With a last gentle tap, Vincent released him and stood, offering his hand. "Don't deny him his right to be with you; he is wise enough and strong enough."
That won the first real smile that Vincent could remember seeing since Jim was brought back Below. "Strong enough to kick my backside if I get too far out of line," James agreed. Accepting the help waiting for him, he laboriously stood, then resumed the journey back to the hospital chamber. "Blair's close to waking up," he explained. "I don't want to worry him by not being there when he does. You don't have to come; I think someone's waiting for you."
At his words Vincent 'listened' for Catherine and realized she was indeed awake. For a moment he was torn between returning to her and his duty to his friend, but then Jim gently turned him back toward his chamber and gave him a small shove. "Go. It's not that far away and I'm going straight back to bed, I promise."
Deciding that he would know if James fell along the way, he nodded, trying to suppress his rising eagerness to see Catherine again. He took a single step, but a hand suddenly shot out and held him in place. "Vincent," James began uncertainly, then his eyes steadied and warmed. "Blair's not the only one who's wise and strong. Accept it for the miracle it is, okay?"
Caught off guard at having his own advice deftly turned back against him, Vincent silently watched his friend's progress until Jim was nearly out of sight, the stillness in his body belying the speed of his mind. Abruptly he turned on his heel and ran the short distance back to his chamber, already sure of what he was going to do despite a large part of him arguing loudly that it was a mistake. Calling that part coward and fool, he silenced it when he arrived by using the nearly hopeless love in Catherine's eyes as buckler and shield.
For a moment he stood in the entrance to the room, giving himself permission for the very first time in his life to admire her for more than her courage and strength, to appreciate her beauty more than intellectually. Desire fired him almost immediately, making his lungs work harder than the short run could account for. He could feel a stirring in his maleness, the barest promise of growth from it, and for once he didn't fight to suppress it or to redirect his energies into something else.
Catherine must have seen a difference, either in the way he stood or perhaps in the way he looked at her. She leaned up on an elbow, unintentionally provocative as her half-opened blouse gaped to show the upper curve of a breast, and asked hesitantly, "Vincent?"
For an answer he stepped into the room, taking off his cloak in a swift swirl of fabric that was surprisingly sensual. Holding her eyes, he pulled at the laces holding his vest, then the one on his shirt, slowly baring his chest. His desire was stronger, fueled by Catherine's awakening hunger, and stripping off the garments became much easier than he had expected. Bare-chested in front of her for the first time, in front of anyone but Father for the first tine since he reached maturity, he laid aside his clothes and stepped closer to the bed.
Slowly, as if expecting to be told to stop, Catherine lifted a hand to run her fingertips through the pelt covering his abdomen, her pleasure at it too honest to be denied. Emboldened, he set a foot on the frame of the bed to undo his boot bindings, discovering that the mundane chore was enticing for her, so he took his time with the other, peeking at her rapt attention through the fall of his hair as he did. Once barefoot, he stood in front of her again, as if seeking approval, but he already knew that she did.
Even if he hadn't been able to feel her need shining through the barrier over their bond, vibrant and liquid in her body, he would have known from the quick rise and fall of her chest, from the obviously tight peaks announcing themselves thorough the fabric of her shirt. Nervously she licked her lips, trying to keep her eyes on his but more and more they strayed, taking in his bareness with obvious appreciation. When they rested on his belt, he reached for it, was rewarded with a soft gasp, and with no embarrassment and far less shyness than he expected, he took off his pants.
With pure feminine satisfaction, she surveyed him from head to toe, lingering on his erection with a faint smile of smugness that said 'mine.' But all Catherine did was lie back and open her arms to him, and though it should have been alien or at least strange to be naked with her, he went into them, and between the two of them, rid her of her clothing. Automatically taking his weight on his forearms, he cradled her head between his hands, and, working on intuition, lifted high enough off her that she could arch her back and rub her breasts over his chest. Through their rapidly reviving bond, he could feel her delight at the feel of his fur on the sensitive tips; knew when it wasn't enough and bent to take one in his mouth as he gingerly skated the ball of his thumb over the other.
She cried out, then wrapped her legs around his waist, urging him to enter her. Gliding into her effortlessly, he drew a shuddering sigh from her and a soft moan from himself. The erratic urgency from earlier was gone, allowing them to savor their union, adding the subtle spice of caresses that they had been too desperate to enjoy earlier. Nuzzling and nibbling, Catherine worked her way from his jaw line to his throat, then latched on there to send bright shards of pleasure through him. In loving retaliation, he slid a hand down to cup her bottom, lifting her into a slightly different position that allowed him to penetrate deeply.
The distinction between her broad, sweeping sensations and his sharper, more vivid sexual feelings blurred, the boundaries between *them* blurred, to the point where neither were ever sure which came first. It didn't seem to matter since he stayed hard within her, languidly pumping to prolong their ecstasy, gradually coasting down from their finish.
Finally he raised himself enough to look into her eyes, finding contentment and peace that matched his own. True healing had begun for her, and while sex was no cure for the damage Edie had done, it at least gave Catherine a way to fight the pain. Reluctantly he trailed a finger through her hair, dropped a kiss onto her forehead, and said, "It's late; you should rest if you're going to go into work tomorrow."
Grimacing, she shook her head once. "No, I'm done there; I'll be sending a courier with my resignation to Joe, first thing. There's no way for me to know how Church's 'associates' are going to react to his death. I might walk into a bullet before I made it to my desk simply because they don't know what he said to me before he was taken out."
With shy hope, he asked, "Will you stay Below? Permanently?"
Studying him thoughtfully, she answered slowly, "Yes... and no. That tape from Jim's room, along with everything else we all had - I think we have enough to go to the feds. I just don't think that's the *right* answer to the problem. I have contacts in Washington, and so does Jim. Maybe, with some luck and the money from my parents as a starter, we can get some kind of federally sponsored investigation going, one independent of the usual agencies."
"You'll be traveling, then," he said sadly.
"No, Jim, Blair, Simon - maybe one or two others I can think of that we can bring in - will. At least after we've made our pitch in D.C. Once that's done...." She began absentmindedly kneading her fingertips into his back, her voice growing thoughtful. "Once that's done, I'd like to open an office to do pro bono work from, but I'd like to make this my home." Suddenly she focused on him and said with painful care, "That is, if you want me to."
Letting their love shine through him, he said simply, "Yes." Propelled by the shivers her touch was sending through him, he thrust into her deeply, then froze when soreness flashed across their bond to him. Before he could withdraw, she dug her nails in and bucked up to hold him more tightly. Refusing to answer the unspoken demand, he rolled to his back, turning her so that she lay on top of him. "No, you're hurt!"
"Just... uncomfortable," she corrected firmly, then added in tones of feminine superiority, "which is perfectly normal under the circumstances. I haven't done this is a while."
Startled, Vincent cupped her shoulders in his palms. "A while? Surely not..."
Catherine looked rueful, but confessed, "No other man could measure up after you."
"But for so long!
Her eyes turned dreamy, and she murmured, "It wasn't a hardship. I dreamed of you constantly, and they were every bit as satisfying as I could hope for. We had picnics, took walks on the beach...."
"Watched old, sad movies on the TV," Vincent murmured, the memory surfacing unexpectedly from the jumble that he had yet to assimilate, then he looked at her in shock. It was a memory of a dream *he* had had, yet he knew from the surge of recognition from Catherine that it had been *her* dream as well.
They stared at each other in wonder and awe, then the softest, sweetest smile he had ever seen touched her lips, and she whispered, "*Always* together."
***
Jim had plenty of time to think about what Vincent said as he painfully made his way back to the hospital chamber. He didn't have much choice. The conversation insisted on replaying in his head, augmented by images of his life with Blair from the time he'd stupidly acted like Mr. Badass Cop and tossed an unarmed civilian up against the wall, to Blair stepping throwing himself off a skyscraper. The horror from the last was nearly overwhelming, and Jim was certain that if it had been real instead of a clever trick, he'd have gone over himself the moment he'd regained consciousness. As it was he had a nightmare to top all nightmares to carry around with him, which seemed fair, all things considered.
It was so very Blair that he would have taken such an extreme risk, done the one thing he feared most, all in hopes of buying a chance for Jim and Catherine. From the beginning Blair had had more courage in his little finger than Jim did in his entire body, refusing to back down, coming back for more, no matter what was dished out. It had been that more than anything that had allowed him to slip under Jim's guard, had made Jim hope he could trust again. And the pain of hoping was worse than the pain of betrayal because he knew he'd never survive it if Blair did turn on him.
Reaching the entrance to the hospital chamber, Jim hesitated, uncertain despite it all that he was ready to face everything that spending the night as Blair's lover would imply. Not sure he was strong enough, not sure he could heal enough to be the life-partner that Blair deserved, he almost turned to wander the tunnels again. Then he heard Blair stirring restlessly in his sleep, murmuring his name, and he was drawn to the bed, almost against his will.
Without conscious intent, Jim brushed a curl away from the broad forehead, and Blair quieted immediately, dropping back into deep sleep after an uncoordinated pull at the blanket to cover his bare shoulders. The innocence in that simple acceptance eased a tight place just under Jim's ribs, and he very deliberately smoothed another lock, tucking it behind an ear. The shape and downy softness of the cap of the ear caught his attention, and he ran his thumb over the curve of it, stopping to play with the earrings in the lobe, as he had wanted to many, many times.
He'd been disappointed when Blair had gotten out of the habit of wearing them, and secretly delighted when they'd made a re-appearance while Blair was working his way through Cascade Police Academy's Civilian Professional Program. The earrings, along with some of the more flamboyant clothes he'd started wearing again, were Blair's way of asserting his individuality, Jim knew, and nobody at the Academy, or in the police department as a whole, had dared to hassle the newest recruit about it too much. Not with the entire Major Crimes bullpen backing the unorthodox man.
Besides, by the time Blair had blithely tested his way through with some of the highest scores ever earned, even some of the hardest of the hard-nosed cops were wondering if mentoring might be a better way to get a decent batch of rookies for a change. Not that they liked Ellison's upstart partner that much, but they had to respect his work record.
Strength - yeah, Blair had more than enough for both of them, and Jim finally surrendered and stripped before climbing into bed, pulling Blair close and tucking him under his chin. With the ease of the practice he'd been getting lately, he sighed, then matched his breathing to Blair's, this time accepting the soothing rhythms of his partner's life into himself, instead of floating on them to cushion his hurts. A great many tight places in his psyche relaxed at the flood of comfort, and even more gave way when Blair muttered something indistinct, then cuddled in closer, as if sensing the good he did just being in Jim's arms.
As great as it was to have the pain fade below notice, it was also incredibly erotic to be so aware of his lover. Despite the condition he was in physically, Jim grew hard, his erection burrowing between them eagerly. All he did, though, was lightly stroke over the lean back under his hands, enjoying the firm muscles and clean lines. After a while, to his amusement, Blair became aroused, squirming slightly as if to rub his growing need over its counterpart. Shifting to let him do just that, Jim undid his lover's jeans, pushed then down, then kicked them off the bed.
"Jim," Blair mumbled sleepily. "Wha... OH!" He wiggled again, as if to make sure that they were really both naked and hard, then threw a leg over Jim's hip to open himself to him. "Nice," he murmured, sounding much more alert.
"Mmmmm," Jim agreed.
"Got anything in particular in mind?"
"Not really. You?"
A shake that sent wisps of curls over Jim's chest, doing interesting things to his skin in the process, was the answer, and at his rumble of approval soft lips followed some of the same paths, cautiously skirting the bruises in the way. They rocked slowly into each other, not really trying for climax, but not able to stay still, either. Eventually Blair's mouth found his, and they kissed as lazily, savoring flavors and textures, trading possession of it back and forth, each taking their turn at giving or receiving.
"Want you in me," Jim groaned at some point.
"God, yes! But not yet, not until you're better."
He grumbled unhappily at that, but didn't bother to argue. As if in reward, Blair asked, "Taste?"
They could both feel the leap his hard-on made at the suggestion, and Jim suggested quickly, "Both?"
With indecent haste and amazing agility, Blair turned himself around so that they were head to toe, his mouth busy almost before he settled back down again. Distracted by the sudden tight, wet heat on him, Jim closed his eyes for a moment, only to pop them open again at a swipe of velvet over his lips. It was an odd perspective to see Blair's maleness, but the fragrance and flavor lingering from that first touch tempted him into licking at the crown.
Blair cried out around his mouthful, which did interesting things to Jim's erection, and he returned the favor by taking his lover into himself, awkwardly sucking as hard as he could. It felt very clumsy to him, but Blair must have thought it was wonderful. Shouting his name as much as in triumph as warning, Blair pumped hard and fast several times, then spilled his seed. Jim swallowed, not sure if he liked it but willing to take it because it was part of his lover, then cautiously released the softening flesh.
They rested for a few breaths, and it was almost as good as making love to have Blair sagged against him, all hot, sweaty and panting. Though his body very much wanted to finish, Jim wasn't at all certain he had the strength to flog himself to one, especially since it was the second of the night. And Blair seemed to like to drift into sleep after he came, so he let himself begin to wind down, automatically starting to breath regularly.
"Oh, no, you don't," Blair muttered indistinctly, then he went back to loving Jim with hand and mouth, his obvious enthusiasm going a long way to revive the waning erection.
"Uh! Blair... you don't... oh, my, god, dothatagain!" At his command, a saliva-slick finger gently massaged over his pucker again, not trying to enter, but tantalizing it for all that. It retreated, teased around the edge, probed the center once, and all the while heated suction worked his hard-on, encouraging Jim to raggedly thrust.
As wonderful as it was, it wasn't enough, and various aches and pains poked at him through the sensual haze they had created. Just as he was about to put a halting palm on his lover's head, Blair penetrated him forcefully with a single digit, ripping a scream from Jim and giving him the push he needed to climax.
His cream pooled out of him in thick ripples, but not as thick as the ecstasy that claimed him, blinding him to everything but the hungry mouth on him and the clever finger promising future joys. It carried him unrelentingly into rest, and though he rumbled a protest, his body had had enough. It was going to sleep now, whether he wanted to or not.
From a distance he could feel Blair move, then cuddle into him, back almost in the same position they started in. "'M sorry," he mumbled, already nearly gone. "Tired."
"Should be, and I won't be far behind you," Blair promised, and sealed it with a kiss to the un-injured side of Jim's jaw.
"Love you."
"Would it be too Star Wars of me to say, 'I know?'" Blair chuckled. "Love you, too. Now sleep!"
"Bossy."
But Jim did as he was told, and was more asleep than awake when Blair said drowsily, "I know Naomi won't mind, but do you think it would be okay with Grace if I called her 'mom', too?"
Smiling his answer, Jim matched himself to his guide and shaman's breathing, and went to sleep.
finis