Let's have another round of applause for Pet Fly's gracious contribution to popular culture and folklore. Let's also reiterate that one should never, ever sue poor people.

Wow. OK. First, Kelyn, the main reason that the plot makes any sense. Then Kass, as always, who helped me figure out Naomi and also let stay in her home to write, lo these many moons ago. Finally, gracious thanks to Margie, Seah, and Shoshanna, all of whom have the right to mock me about the blocking in parts one and two until at least 2003.

Originally published in Crossroads. This was written in November 1999; I'm a religion geek at heart and couldn't let the S2.2 be the last word on the Temple of the Sentinels.

1. Walkabout

"I told you, Mr. Sandburg isn't interested in talking to you." Jim held the phone away from his head, making a face at me as I came through the door. "Yes, this is James Ellison, as a matter of fact. No, I'm not interested in talking to you either."

I gestured toward the phone, offering to handle it, but he just shook his head.

"Yes, he still lives here." Pause. "You can infer from that anything you damn well please. But you print a word of whatever you infer and I'll have your ass in a sling, you get me?"

"Jim," I said warningly.

"Obstruction of justice, defamation of character," he was suggesting. "Libel." Pause. "I don't know, why don't you talk to the Commissioner of Police about it? It's not my decision who he hires."

"Naturally I'm pleased." Pause. "Look, Lois Lane, it's yesterday's news, okay? Go harass another civil servant."

Click.

"You're going to get a reputation," I told him, unloading a bag of groceries. The phone rang again, and I slipped around him to pick it up.

Washington State Week again, wondering about my continued presence in Cascade and my appointment by the police force. "Surely if you lied about Detective Ellison," came a whiny voice over the phone, "you can't still be living and working with him."

"He seems to have forgiven me," I told the reporter. "I have no further comment." I hung up the phone. "And don't call me Shirley," I cracked under my breath. It was a weak joke, but I needed to say something.

"Fifth one since lunch," Jim said. "Phone company says the new number will come up tomorrow."

"Thank God," I said. "But they'll find us, you know."

He nodded and broke into the package of chicken I'd brought home. "It'll blow over," he said over the noise of the ringing phone.

We let the machine get it this time, and it was a hang-up. "Those are the ones that worry me," I told him. "What if it's the CIA or something?"

"Chief, if the CIA wanted us, they'd have us by now." He was chopping the meat into little pieces: shredding it, really.

"Jim," I said. "Look, I think I need to go."

He didn't look up; that twitch in his jaw started instead. "Academy programs begin next month," he said quietly.

"I know," I said. "I just need to get the hell out of here. If I disappear for a while, they'll believe I was lying, and maybe they'll leave you alone."

He nodded, jaw still twitching. "Do what you have to do, Sandburg."

I spent a couple of days getting my things in order and selling back a lot of books I wouldn't need anymore. I let go of a couple of artifacts I wasn't particularly attached to... no more office space to wallpaper with books and trinkets. No filing cabinets loaded down with evidence of my time in the field. And suddenly I'd liquidated a good chunk of cash. Enough to go on an old-fashioned walkabout for a while.

"That's the point of walkabout," I explained to Megan, when she asked where I was going. "This is an Australian aboriginal practice, you should know about it. I go until I find myself, and then I stop."

"Sounds like an old California hippie custom to me," she said disdainfully.

"Well, at least I'm going back to my roots, then."

Camping gear, extra socks, journal, canteen, luggage. I had no idea where I was going, just south, where it wasn't so fucking cold, and getting daily colder. The night before I left, Jim reminded me to double my socks if I went hiking. He offered me his fishing rod. He tried his damnedest not to tell me he didn't want me to leave.

He watched me pack, cooked dinner, kept an eye on the Jags game, all pretty normal for a slow Saturday. The resolve started to crack, I could tell, when he sat next to me at the dinner table. He popped the question when I was halfway through my lasagne.

"You coming back, Chief?"

I could tell he'd wanted to ask that from the second that I'd told him I was getting the hell out of Dodge. My immediate impulse was to snap at him -- all the shit that's gone down, and you still don't trust me?

But something saner took over for a minute. He's not asking you that, I told myself. He knows you'll be back.

He's asking if you want to come back.

So I answered that question, instead. "It's not like I have a choice."

He shook his head. "You've got a lot of choices."

"None of them any good, Jim. I belong here. Don't we both get that yet?"

He nodded, fiddled with his salad. "I just --"

"Just what?"

"I want to hear you choose it."

I write Jim Ellison off as a repressed lunkhead a lot of the time, and it's easily my worst fault. The guy's got courage and heart and brains. All he needs is the ruby slippers.

"Choose it?" was all I managed at the time.

"We're in this together. Long haul. I need to hear you say that you want it."

"I chose it already," I said, poking through my salad for the carrots. "Maybe I didn't know when I went with you to Peru. Maybe not when Incacha was here. But I definitely caught the clue bus after Alex, okay? And last week, at the conference... that was my choice, Jim."

He shook his head. "I know you'd sacrifice yourself in a minute to save me, Blair," he said, almost inaudibly.

Definitely a serious conversation, this. "I'm saying," he clarified, "do you want this for you."

It wasn't really a question, but I looked across at him anyway. This kind of talk was next to impossible for him -- he had to have been working on this discussion all week. Realizing how hard it was for him kept me from panicking about me. I took a few deep breaths.

We were staring at each other, and unbidden, I thought, I love this man.

I knew, repression, denial, obfuscation, and misdirection aside, that I loved him, that that was what all this was about, that when I'd said I'd grabbed the brass ring, I'd meant it in every way you possibly could mean it, and that the brass ring was Jim Ellison himself.

"I love you," I said. I opened my mouth, and that was what came out.

"That's not the issue," he started to say, and I just put my fingers over his mouth and said, "shhhh."

For a bare second, Jim Ellison looked on the verge of tears. It was the slightest expression, but I knew him well, and there was so much love and fear in his eyes that it physically hurt to look at him.

I did look, anyway. I had to.

He touched my face, like he was blind and had to identify me -- for a moment I even thought he'd lost control of his vision, but his eyes stayed locked with mine.

He kissed me then, lightly, cautiously. The kind of kiss that could have been -- in another culture -- between brothers. But we both knew what it meant. His mouth was soft, tentative; I wanted his heat and strength, but knew that they would come.

We were both dazed with terror; neither of us had control, and that's when things break down between us. Somebody's got to have the ball -- doesn't matter who, just somebody.

I grabbed it; caught his hand where he'd wrapped it around my head and held it tight. "We can't decide everything tonight."

Was that the wrong thing to say, or the right one? The walls went back up -- his face carefully blank, trusting, but not open. Jim Ellison awaiting orders.

"It's too much at once," I said finally. "We can't decide this now," I added, letting my thumb trace his lip. "It's too important. There's too much already on the table."

He could see that, couldn't he?

He did see it. I saw him relax, ever so slightly. I wasn't rejecting this, wasn't rejecting any part of him, but he was right.

I had to choose it.

"That's why I'm going," I told him. "I need to clear my head about this -- all of this." I spread my arms out to indicate the vision, the dissertation, the PD, that incredibly gentle kiss. "The whole sentinel-guide-detective-friend-Jim-Blair thing. So do you."

He looked a little startled at that, and I just got exasperated. Enough already. "Jim, man, you have been moping around here like one of us died. Thinking you're deciding things for me. Not knowing what to do with yourself. Weird phone calls and strange looks from people you hardly know. IA just itching to get their hands on you with the whole heightened-senses thing -- they don't believe I lied about you, man, the commissioner offered me a job the next day."

"So what do you want me to do, Chief, just abandon everything here?"

"For the next two weeks? Yes."

"And go with you?" He was still holding my hand, or I was still holding his-he squeezed it, once. "We both know that would be a mistake."

"Yeah," I said, hating myself, but it was true. Then, "Rucker."

"What?" he said.

"Rucker's lighthouse. Go spend a couple weeks on vacation. Try to avoid drug dealers this time."

Jim almost laughed -- that surprised noise he sometimes makes.

"I'm serious. Fresh air, some quiet, no media, a little fishing -- let all this shit die down before you get back to work."

I could see he was thinking about it, and I squeezed his hand encouragingly before I got up and started in on the dinner dishes.

He was silent while I washed; deep in thought, I could tell. Not zoning, just focused inward. I scrubbed baked cheese off the lasagne pan and stayed quiet, letting him process. Just getting stuff clean.

When he moved, it was quick and decisive, jaguar-like. He was pressed up against me, my hands still in soapy water, his lips nuzzling the back of my neck.

I guess he'd thought it through. "God," I said, leaning back.

"You're not threatened by this?" he asked, in a way that was meant to threaten -- a version of the trick he pulls on pretty-boy first-time offenders.

So I grabbed him. Just reached one wet hand behind me and squeezed, gently. He was hard, all right, and I was desperately trying not to panic. "Are you?" I asked, wishing I could see his face, but knowing that would ruin the effect.

"Aren't you the one who says I'm always afraid?" he said after a moment, his voice carefully in control. "How would I know the difference?"

He took me by the shoulders and turned me, sliding my flannel shirt off my shoulders and drying my wet hands with it.

I knew I had to say something, or our position would become compromised -- more so than it already was. I had to say something, or Jim would let his fear over my leaving overcome all the other fears that normally kept this particular knife balanced on its edge.

I didn't say anything.

I was packed and ready to go, and he was still asleep.

He lay there on the bed, sleek and muscular, long eyelashes fluttering against his cheek in dreams, naked and sticky and as damn near perfect as I ever wanted to see.

"Hey," I said, sitting down next to him, dressed and ready to leave. He woke, completely alert, as I knew he would, blinking a little at the intense sunlight. He'd fallen asleep under me, with no chance to cover his eyes before he slept.

"You're ready?" he asked.

"Time to go," I said, tracing his face with my hands, memorizing him. "I'll be back. No matter what."

He nodded, sitting up, as if this were a normal leavetaking on a normal morning.

"Be careful, okay? I'll be at Rucker's -- radio me, or call me on the cell."

"Good," I said, pleased he'd made that decision. "Stay out of trouble until I get back? Try?"

He nodded. We were still playing it safe, unable to acknowledge what had happened the night before. I kissed him then, because I didn't know how to say everything -- I'll miss you, I love you, I have to go or I'll lose my sanity, and God you're beautiful -- all at once.

"Stay," he said softly, looking away from me.

"I can't," I said, but I let him kiss me again, and felt myself being lowered back down onto the bed. "Jim. Don't, okay? Please."

"I can't...." He pulled my shirt out of my jeans and started nuzzling my body, trying to slide my shirt off. I was tempted, but I had to go, and he was this close to making me stay.

"Don't," I said again, firmly, and sat up.

He was hurt -- enough that he let it show on his face. But he sat up, looking away from me again.

"C'mon, Jim, don't be like this. I have to go."

"Look, you want to run off, fine. Go. But you don't have to. There's nobody making you leave."

"Man, do not be an asshole about this. We discussed this."

"And nothing's changed since then?" He reached out with one hand, uncertain. I caught it in my own.

"I have to figure this out," I told him. "That hasn't changed." I rose to my feet and stood over him, pulling his head to my chest. "I love you and I'm shit scared and I have to get out of this town before I have a breakdown, do you understand me?"

He pulled away from me. "Go, then."

"Jim, please." Don't do this, I thought, watching his walls go back up.

"Sandburg, just go, if you're going. I've got stuff to do."

"Look, man, you lose a lot of your moral superiority when you pout like a three-year-old."

"Fuck you," he snarled, and a thousand standard replies went through my head. You should be so lucky. Fuck you, too. Is that a promise or a threat?

But all I did was grab my bag from the foot of the bed and leave, letting the slammed door echo in the hallway as I ran downstairs.

I didn't look up again until halfway to Oregon, when I whizzed past a dead deer lying halfway in the road. I hit the brakes automatically, only to realize I was doing ninety or so. I slowed down, but not much, part of me daring some cop to pull me over.

And hey, then I could, like, resist arrest. And maybe get into an altercation with him.

Yeah. Right. That'd fly well with the Major Crimes gang.

But it appealed to me enough that I didn't go under seventy-five the whole way to Oregon. I was on vacation, right? So I could just be my good old counterculture self.

With maybe just a hint of potentially dangerous badass.

Nobody pulled me over, however, so I never got to damage my rep. I mean, for a guy raised by Naomi Sandburg, for whom hippie was a religion, not a fad... I don't have a criminal record. I've been booked a few times, but those were all perfectly reasonable misunderstandings.

I was never arrested for any peaceful demonstrations. I wasn't even a frigging tax resister. And now I'd apparently been handed over to the Man, because unless I left Jim, I was going to be a cop.

Who the fuck was driving my life? It couldn't have been me, could it?

I ended up in Klamath National Forest, near the Oregon-California border, where Janet and I had chained ourselves to a few redwoods, seven years and a few lifetimes ago. Janet's, for example.

I made camp, the first time in three years that I had done so alone.

I was neither asleep nor awake, rock-hard, thinking about his skin. How smooth it was, stretched over taut muscles, warm and musky and infinitely strange. I'd woken with my jaw pressed against his shoulder, still on top of him, our left hands still clenched together.

Not the way I'd ever imagined it. In my fantasies, he might have kneeled in front of me, the first time, or spread me out on the bed. I knew he would know more than I did -- that wasn't brain surgery -- but it also wasn't important.

But I'd never thought it would go that fast, that soon. Ten minutes, maybe, from gnawing on each other's lips to both of us kneeling upstairs on Jim's bed, exploring each other like we'd just then learned about the sense of touch.

I was not going to think about it again. This was my time away from Jim. My time to figure out where my heart was. I mean, how codependent is that? I had sex with the guy once, and now I couldn't sleep without fantasizing about him? That's like addiction, Blair my man. That is some seriously bad juju.

The way I'd slid my hands down his back, and started to fondle his ass, and he'd gone so very still. He didn't say no, he didn't back away, he just had no reaction to it at first. And I'd interpreted it as a no, and backed away.

"No," he corrected, his mouth on my earlobe. "Go back there." And he urged me to it, reaching up slightly so that my hands were headed down to his ass again. It wasn't long before he leaned into me strongly, and I guided him down to the bed, on his stomach, taking control of him, listening to his staggered breath....

Damn it.

Outside my tent, the frogs were singing. It was a long night.

It was a glorious day when I awoke, and I spent the morning hiking around old haunts. It was a stunning time of year to be among the sequoias; I should have taken advantage of it.

I couldn't.

Part of me was thinking about Janet, and her idealism, and her silk suits. Torn jeans or business suits, she'd said, I'm still the same inside. Yet here I was, back in my torn jeans and my very shittiest flannel, my hiking boots and no-finger gloves from Guatemala, and I wasn't the same inside.

Janet had been wrong. She'd been an idealistic, optimistic, brilliant kid, and she'd paid for her mistakes with her life.

And so had I.

Hiking was a lost cause. After I calmed down, I got into the car and drove, one of my hands bleeding slightly from where I'd punched a sequoia.

I just kept driving, knowing that I had to go south, but uncertain where exactly I was headed. I camped when I got tired, ate a lot of greasy diner food, and around about the third day I was singing along with the radio, starting to feel a little bit like a human being again.

I mean, granted, the radio was playing Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails, but I was getting somewhere.

About the third repetition of "Enjoy the Silence" I pulled over into San Something-or-other, and picked up a phone. I dialed the number, let the phone ring, heard Jim pick up on the other end.

I was about to hang up when I realized that he would know it was me, anyway.

"Hey," I said in response to his aggravated "Sandburg, is that you?"

"You find yourself yet?" he said, but his tone was strangely gentle, as if he were saying don't hang up.

"In bits and pieces," I said. "You make it to Rucker's?"

"Nah," he said casually. "Rafe got whacked on the head again. He's OK, I'm just cleaning up his caseload."

Damn. I really didn't want him out on the street without me, especially after all the circus with the press. "You okay there?"

"Yeah."

"Really?"

"Yes, Chief, really." And then, unaccountably, "I'm sorry."

I couldn't tease him about it. "Thank God. Me, too."

"Sorry it happened, or...?" I could hear his voice trail off, almost see his face shutting down.

"No! I mean, not unless you are." That sounded great. Just great. Be a man, Sandburg.

"You can't come home yet, can you," he said. It was a statement, not a question.

I couldn't. "I miss you," I said. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well. I'll be here." And then he hung up, like he couldn't take any more of the conversation.

I kept on driving. Late that night, outside of Los Angeles, I knew exactly where I was going and what I was going to do when I got there.

2. Confrontations

It took me a while to find the place Naomi was currently renting, just outside the crunchier part of Santa Monica. It had to be about three in the morning when I pounded on the door.

She let me in with nothing more than a glare. Our parting in Cascade had been superficially cheerful, with both of us saying we had a lot to process. Apparently she was as pleased with me at this point as I was with her. That was fine with me.

"Have you eaten?" she asked quietly, taking in my four-day beard, unwashed clothes, and general state of disarray.

"At some point," I said. "I'm not hungry."

"Did you leave him?" she asked.

"Not hardly."

Naomi bit her lip, shaking her head slowly. She looked worn; it occurred to me that she was starting to feel her age. I touched her arm, and hugged her.

"Mom...."

"Oh, sweetie." I'd never heard her sigh like that before. "Get some sleep. We'll fight in the morning."

She was making breakfast when I got up, and I slid into the kitchen to help. Blueberry pancakes and vegetarian sausage substitute. I made coffee and sliced grapefruit; neither of us said anything until we were seated at the breakfast bar.

When she did speak, she was forcibly cheerful. I think that's the one thing she does that annoys me the most. "So. What brings you to Los Angeles in the middle of the night?"

"It's not like I did it just to piss you off."

"Of course not," she sighed. "Of course not. You'd never do that."

"Look. I'm sorry I inconvenienced you, but the time I got here isn't what we're fighting about, so let's just drop it."

Naomi took a deep breath. "What I don't see is, if the choices you've been making are so good, why do you show up here in the middle of the night? I mean, don't you have guns to shoot?"

Whoa. Sucker punch. Fortunately, I have years of therapy behind me.

"I'm really sorry you feel that way --"

"Don't start that."

" -- but if you can't deal with it then it's your problem. I'm an adult man, Naomi, I make my own decisions --"

"Then why does Jim end up making all of them for you?"

"I knew we'd get to him."

"What do you want me to say, Blair? That I approve of the way your life has changed since you met him? I don't and I can't."

"You understand what we're trying to do, Mom, you've even helped on cases before --"

"He's turning you into a killer. I don't know you anymore."

"I can't believe you just said that. But then I don't know you as well as I thought, either, seeing as you lied to me and ruined my career. You don't like that I'm becoming a cop? Think about whose choices led me there."

"If you had let me in on the sentinel project --"

"It seems pretty clear to me why I couldn't trust you with that information."

"Sweetie. I was only trying to help you, you never believe in yourself...."

"Since when does helping me mean giving in to the profit motive? Jim's life was in danger, I put the lid on it, and you still helped Sid."

"I wanted you out of there."

"Well, you were wrong. And now I'm more in there than I ever was. I'm sorry I've disappointed you, but it goes both ways, Mom, it really does."

"I'm not disappointed," she said after a while. "I'm terrified for you."

"You don't like my methods."

"No, I don't," she said. "But you said it yourself: it goes both ways. You want me to let go of this, then you've got to not worry about my approval all the time. I can't change who I am, either."

"I'm in love with him," I said then.

"I know," she said. "After what happened, even you had to figure that out. So what are you doing here?"

"I'm on my way to Mexico," I told her. "I'm going to Chichen Itza."

That evening, I headed out to get my pack and tent out of the car. Chichen Itza -- was I insane? But something in my head had clicked, much as it had on my way here to LA, and I knew that was the next leg of my journey.

Mexico. Thank God I wasn't being irresistibly drawn to Swaziland; I couldn't have made the airfare. As it was, air travel was on the verge of being irredeemably stupid. But it was that or take the Volvo, and the road to southeastern Mexico would maim any car I could get hold of.

And it was a little far to hike.

Not going just wasn't a choice.

It was just barely dusk, and I was leaning halfway in the car when someone came up behind me, grabbed hold of my belt, and tried to yank me down to the ground.

That tends to piss me off. I've been carjacked enough, thank you. A guy gets tired of being attacked after a certain point.

My would-be abductor ended up on the pavement, which would have ended the matter except that he'd brought a friend. And the friend had brought a gun.

Well, shit.

"Put the gun down and step away," I told him, my foot on his buddy's chest. The guy I had down wasn't going anywhere; I realized I must have hit him pretty hard.

"You guys must be pretty desperate," I added, "to attack a guy before dark for a thirty-year-old Volvo."

"Shut up," said the kid with the gun, "and get the fuck off him."

"Sorry. No," I told him. "See, you picked the wrong guy to carjack."

"Shut up, man."

You know, I get tired of hearing that, too. "My wallet's pretty useless," I told him, keeping an eye on the gun. "The car barely runs, and I'm about to break your buddy's ribs here." I leaned forward on the first guy, like I actually planned to put my foot through his chest.

"Oh shit, Freddy, listen to him!" the kid hollered. Obligingly.

"Get offa Raul or I am gonna paste you, man." Freddy's eyes were wild, but I've looked down the barrel of a gun enough times at this point to know whether or not someone's actually planning to use it.

"You're not a killer," I told him. "You're short some cash and you've got a gun. I'm a little guy parked in a nice classic car on Brentwood Avenue. It was a pretty good plan.

"Except, see," I added, "that I'm a cop. Which makes killing me -- whoa! -- a minimum life sentence. Bad luck, Fred."

We were in LA, which meant the kid turned pretty pale at the word 'cop.' "Show me your badge."

"It's in my coat," I said, jerking my head toward the inside of the car. "I could get it --"

"Never mind."

"Hand me the gun, man," I said, "and I'll get off of Raul, and you can walk out of here with a slap on the wrist for aggravated assault." I made myself shrug as casually as I could. "Or take your chances and shoot me. Your lawyer can probably bargain you down to thirty-five, forty years. That is, if you can afford a good one -- which with the proceeds from this little grand theft auto is not going to happen."

"He's a cop, man, give it up," Raul hollered.

"Shit," said Freddy, and handed me the gun.

"Smart move," I told him. "Up against the car."

He was way smarter than the average dumbass, because he actually went up against the car. I kept Raul under my foot, the gun trained on Freddy, and leaned into the car to honk the horn.

Naomi and half her apartment-mates (bless 'em) came to the window.

"Blair, what on earth --"

"Hey, mom. Do me a favor? Call 911."

In the end, Freddy and Raul were somewhat less than pleased to find out that, strictly speaking, I wasn't a cop yet. Naomi was somewhat less than pleased that I had been waving a gun around outside her apartment.

I, however, was pretty damned pleased. Nobody had been seriously hurt, and I still had both my wallet and my Volvo. The paperwork for a citizen's arrest in LA isn't even all that extensive.

Which was a good thing, because I had a plane to catch the next morning.

I was halfway to Merida, drinking orange juice and watching the woman next to me knit this huge purple scarf, when I finally let myself realize why I was going to Mexico. It had very little to do with museums in Chichen Itza.

I mean, I realize that I lie to myself a hell of a lot. I'm a grade-A bullshitter, and my own worst victim: Jim and I are Just Really Good Friends, Alex Barnes didn't mean me any harm, and the dissertation was a harmless academic paper.

Naomi loves me more than she loves herself, even.

But I was looking through the Burton monograph again -- it's kind of a security blanket, especially when I have to fly anywhere -- and one of the passages on the Temple of the Sentinels jumped out at me.

The initiate would have a mystical experience so profound that he would see the eye of God.

Burton, translating a Peruvian shaman for his audience in Victorian England. Colonialist, Christian, rational England.

Wait a second. How in the fuck had I missed this? Those concepts had to have been mangled in cross-cultural interpretation. The "eye of God" thing is a purely Western, monotheistic, predominantly Christian notion -- tribal cultures in Peru in this period were polytheistic, or more usually animists. They had many gods and spirits... Burton had to have been translating a foreign concept into a more familiar one.

Problem is, I'm a pretty shitty linguist -- my Spanish is bad and my Quechua worse. I lose languages quickly when I don't practice them. But I know culture, and there's no way a Peruvian tribal shaman was talking to Burton about one supreme God.

But I also know Burton, and he would have been happy to mention polytheism if he'd had the data -- he's very into spirits, especially as a way to prove how in desperate need of colonialism some backward culture or another is, even while celebrating their peculiar, effete, non-British charm.

I mean, I use the guy's work, but he's a ratfink bastard a lot of the time. The point is, if a shaman had said, for example, "see with the eyes of a god," Burton would have riffed for ten pages on why the shaman's point of view reflected a character that was so much more wholesome, so untrammelled by society, and so clearly in need of the West's help.

Which meant his informant had probably lied, in order to preserve something -- even if just to keep the foreign man and his priests away from the rest of the tribe. Why does anthropology always assume an insider is going to tell the outsiders the truth? It's not like Jim and I do.

Like me, the shaman had lied. Had to have lied, because the risks to his sentinel -- and subsequently, his tribe -- were too great.

When we'd found the Temple of the Sentinels, I hadn't done nearly enough exploration; I'd been feeling like reheated shit, for one thing, I'd had to go home and really recover, and slowly get back to speed with Jim. Our need to get home, and safe, had taken priority.

That was then.

I was still scribbling furiously when the plane landed, and in my urge to get to a phone, I almost knocked over the poor lady with the scarf. I ran through the airport, cursing myself for making the classic colonialist error, which was what came of studying at Rainier's two-bit, white-bread, egotistical, smugly superior, corporate-funded head-in-its-ass soi-disant interdisciplinary Anthropology program.

All the lies that I had told myself were beginning to unravel, and I could see, clearly, what I had to do. My hands were shaking as I dialed the phone.

"Ellison." His tone and the noise in the background suggested that he was in the bullpen.

"I'm in Mexico," I told him. "Get your ass on a plane."

"So nice to hear from you, too. Did it ever occur to you I have a job here?"

"Are you busy?"

"Hell, no, but --"

"So get on a plane. You know where to find me."

"Sandburg. Chief. Blair. That place has got to be crawling with archeologists and their security by now."

"What time should I meet you at the airport?"

"You're on to something there."

"Most definitely. Delta or American?"

"You sure are one pushy son of a bitch."

"You love me for it."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I do. Look, I don't know what kind of vacation time I can take --"

"The PD can bite me. You need to be here yesterday, man."

I heard computer keys clicking. "I can probably be on the Delta flight to, what, Merida, right? Arriving nine-thirty."

I let out my breath. "Good. Good. Bring your camping gear. We have a lot of hiking to do."

"MREs?"

"Yeesh. Guess you'd better. And Jim?"

"Yeah?"

"Condoms. If you want."

It took him three million years to respond. "Sure, okay, I'd like that."

"You could sound a little more enthusiastic."

"I'm at work, you pointy-headed little twerp."

"Hmph. I may just retract my offer, for that."

"You say that now, Chief...." His tone promised dire, wonderful things when next we met. I decided a hotel room for the night wouldn't hold us up too much.

"I'll call when I know where we're staying, in case Simon gives you a hard time."

"Doubt he will; I'm about caught up here, and Rafe's supposed to be back tomorrow."

"See you soon, then."

"Looking forward to it." He hung up the phone; I stood there for a minute, nonplussed, and then shook my head and went back to work.

Plenty to do.

3. Unveiling

I really do need to improve my Spanish; it's indecently bad, which meant I ended up in an overpriced tourist hotel. I know I'm a gringo, that's not news -- but I hate hanging out with the ugly Americans with their very, very bad Hawaiian prints and Japanese cameras. I'm trained to blend, and instead I had too many clothes on and way too much hair on my face.

I hadn't been shaving, so it was quite a job, and my electric razor wasn't doing it. I needed my straight razor, and I'd left it at home. It was just too frigging hot here to keep the beard, and anyway, it didn't look right.

After packing up my things, I called Jim at work to confirm that he'd booked the flight. "Simon says to tell you you'll get yours. Says he's good friends with a sergeant at the Academy, and your days of getting away with murder are seriously over."

"You'll notice he was too chicken to say that to my face."

"Sandburg, what has gotten into you?"

"You're still in Washington."

"So?"

"So nothing's gotten into me. Yet. See you soon." I knew he'd be stuck gaping after that, so I just hung up the phone.

I felt good. I felt really, really good, for the first time since forever.

I ended up finding a barbershop next to the hotel, and I went in to see if they had a straight razor for sale, or how much it would be to just get a shave. No razors, but a guy named Enrique was happy to help me lose the beard. His English was way better than my Spanish, and he started talking.

"I cut your hair, too?" he asked.

Reflex. "Don't touch the hair, man."

"You think so? What you doing here?"

"Seeing the sights, maybe some hiking." He was combing through my hair, and I noticed how long it had gotten lately. I looked in the mirror and I still looked wrong; I didn't match my mental image of myself.

"You put it back all the time, si? Entonces, I cut it for you. Seven dollars."

It was just hair, was the thing. At some point it had been a symbol, but that was before I'd flattened a couple of carjackers up against my car the night before. There was a kind of fire inside of me, and it didn't belong to this long-haired kid in the mirror. The hair wasn't a symbol, it was a frigging mess, it got in the way all the time, and I didn't need it any more.

Not where I was going.

"Not too short, okay?"

"Si, OK, Tom Cruise, not GI Joe." He went on to do a really good job. I looked older, for one thing; the last time I'd had my hair short I'd looked like I needed a nametag pinned to my shirt saying, "My name is Blair. Please take me home."

It looked really, really different, but it was a good change, and it was the time and place for change.

"Very nice," Senor Enrique told me as I thanked him and handed him a twenty. "I have daughters, maybe they like you."

"Thanks," I told him. "But I'm sort of spoken for."

The warm air of the afternoon felt strange on my neck; I felt light, fast, ready for anything. Seven hours until Jim. I went back to the hotel, grabbed hold of Burton, and started rereading it, looking for the holes in his information. The book and its premises fell apart in my hands easily, the way a puzzle will when the answer emerges from your unconscious mind.

By eight-thirty, I'd run down twice to the hotel gift shop for more paper, and one other time for Coke and peanuts. I didn't take time to eat anything else until then; there was too much to think about.

I'd rented a Jeep at the airport, a 1989 that burned a little oil but was otherwise pretty manageable. We'd have to hoof it a good deal of the way, but the Jeep would at least get us to Sierra Verde. The rest would have to be hiked, and there was no trail.

Jim had just better remember the way.

By nine o'clock I was pacing around gate fifteen of the Merida airport, in that way that Jim says will one day wear through the floor of the loft. A mother and her little girl kept staring at me -- mama, quien esta el gringo loco? -- but I couldn't have stopped pacing if I wanted to.

I mean, shit, we really hadn't parted well. What if I'd been too demanding? What if he was pissed about having to buy another ticket from Cascade to southeastern Mexico on no notice for the second time in a year? What if he hated the hair?

Because this thing really needed to work. More than we'd ever thought, more than anyone else had realized since the last sentinel and guide had disappeared from the earth.

Just when I thought I was actually going to snap, they announced the arrival of Jim's flight. Of course, I had to wait until everyone else got off the 747 before Jim would. Finally -- finally! -- he was there, looking around for me with a frown on his face.

He found me quickly; I saw surprise register on his face, but he headed right for me.

"Had to sniff you out," he said, touching my hair, shaking his head. Then he pulled me close, suddenly, and hugged me like he didn't care who saw.

I sure as hell didn't, either.

"You ought to know me anywhere."

"Well, I did, but it took a minute to believe what I saw. Quite a change there, Chief."

He didn't like it. "It's just hair," I told him, "it grows back...."

He just put his hand over my mouth. "You look really, really good," he said, so softly I could barely hear him. "Let's just get out of here."

The attitude in the Jeep on the way back to the hotel was one of polite restraint; Jim asked me about Naomi, I asked him about the PD, we pointed out some of the sights of the city and picked up some tacos from an all-night taqueria. Jim ate his in the car; I waited until we were in the hotel elevator and swallowed mine whole.

It wasn't until I let us both into our room that he pushed me back up against the door and kissed me, hard, the kind of kiss that terrifies as much as it arouses.

I tried to give back as good as I got, which took some doing. And then I was still pressed up against the door, and he was running his thumb over my mouth, stroking my cheek, eyes locked with mine. "You want to start 'splaining, Lucy?"

"No," I said, leaning my body into his. "Not really. Not yet."

"I need some answers --"

I pulled his head down and kissed him again. "This first."

Jim leaned around me and bolted the door. "Promise you'll tell me everything?" he asked, even as he slid a hand down my back and grabbed hold of my ass.

"Absolutely," I said, unbuttoning his shirt. "I swear."

He seemed content enough with that to pull my shirt out of my waistband and help me haul it over my head. We were naked in what was probably an Olympic record, and on the bed even faster than that. We had some serious lost time to make up.

Fortunately, we're pretty conscientious about things like that.

"Were you serious before?" he asked after a while. "About something getting into you?"

I looked up at him. We were in the reverse position from where we'd been last time. Both of us felt a little awkward; we were doing this on purpose, it wasn't just happening.

"Have you ever...."

"We did it before," I said, purposely dense. If he was willing, so was I. Some day, I thought, he's going to finally get that.

"Blair," he growled, in a very different way from the way he usually growls Sandburg.

"I tried it once in college; I wasn't impressed, but then, I was pretty high at the time. All I really remember is the morning after."

"You realize you're admitting illegal drug use to an officer of the law."

"While inviting him to commit sodomy, even."

"And you expect you can just bribe me to let you off?"

"Get me off, anyway."

"What is it with you?"

"You," I said, grinding up against him. "You."

That did it, and he lost his restraint, kissing me and then working his way down. I was the passive one, this time; I'd used up all my energy just getting him here. He stopped worrying at some point about what pleased me and what didn't. I like everything about sex: it's sex. What's not to like?

He knew with a frightening instinct what to do to me; he had me on my knees, begging for it, before he finally gave in and took me. I'm not sure whether it was the lack of Mary Jane or the presence of Jim Ellison, but this time I really, really liked it.

Really, really, really, I told him, over and over again.

"I got it," he said finally. "I really, really got it."

So I did the only thing I could do, which was sock him with a pillow, and we were really a complete mess by the time that was finished and he had me again, in a wrestling grip, pinned into one of the wet spots on the sheets. He was grinning a mile wide, and I thought about how I'd hardly ever seen that expression on his face, and how I had to make sure I would see it again.

Like, every day. And for the rest of my life.

"I love you like crazy," I said, and his grin only got sillier.

"How'd we miss this?" he asked me, moving his hands through the hair on my chest. Memorizing the pattern, I realized.

"We're completely clueless?" I suggested. "But no more. We're on the right track now."

"You figured something out." He rolled back onto his pillow, awaiting the promised explanation.

"Yeah, I did." I looked at him, considered my words carefully. "I'm suspecting that part of a tribal shaman's duties may have included lying to outsiders about the abilities of a sentinel and guide."

"Your man Burton," he said, "and the greater Washington press circuit."

"Both good examples," I said. "Think about it. We've seen you do stuff that no sentinel has been recorded doing. But who's doing the recording? The same people who are coming in with strange gods, and killing the land, and bringing disease. If I were a shaman, I might just keep as much of an ace in the hole as I could."

"That's what you did."

"Bingo. Part of the job description."

"So you think the answers are at the temple?"

"I hope so. Remember how Alex read the recipe for that potion she made off of the wall?"

"Yeah. You think there's more? Could you read it?"

"I don't think I can read it," I said, "but you can."

He blew out a sigh and rolled over onto his back. "I'm not sure, Chief."

"You don't have to be," I told him. "That's my job. And I am sure." I moved closer to him and pulled his head onto my chest.

"I'm supposed to just trust you," he said, tracing his finger down my side.

"You're getting the picture," I told him, and pulled him up for another kiss.

Jim watched my face for a long time. I projected back confidence, remembering the insights I'd had earlier in the day, trying to cling to their rightness.

Eventually, he nodded. He curled back up on my chest and slept there like that, snoring gently until morning. Cute little snores like a purring cat.

Who knew?

We both awoke at dawn, refreshed and ready to go. We moved together like clockwork, switching off showers and turns in front of the mirror with quick caresses and occasional tickling (me) and noogies (him).

We were ready and eager to set out.

"Forty miles to Sierra Verde," Jim figured, "and then what? A commando raid on a bunch of defenseless archeologists?"

"You're the Ranger," I said, "you tell me."

"I figure it's a good ten-mile hike through the jungle from where we have to leave the Jeep. You up for that?"

I shrugged. "It's not like I plan on sitting anytime soon."

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked for the tenth time, and I reassured him again that I was perfectly fine, good to go, and that I had really, really liked it.

"Yeah, so you said," he said, and I got him to grin again.

We were on the road by seven, and in Sierra Verde just before eight, trying to find the place where we'd gone off road last time. Neither of us remembered the events surrounding our last visit very well, but we found a likely spot and stashed the Jeep.

"I was possessed, or something," Jim said, "and you'd just dragged yourself out of a hospital."

"Not our finest hour," I agreed. "Not even on the top ten list."

"I'd say." He put his hand on my neck for a minute, squeezed my shoulder, walked on.

We spent the day hacking through the jungle with Jim's shitty little Army issue knife, while he bitched about not slowing down long enough to buy a machete. At noon we rested, and I remembered to tell him about my little adventure with the carjackers. It had really only been the day before yesterday, I realized.

"Wish I'd been there," Jim said.

"I handled it fine," I said, a little offended. "I don't need a babysitter."

"You sure don't," he said. "I just would have liked to have watched." He threw me the compass, and we got back on our way.

It wasn't an easy trek by anybody's standards; we were hacking a path through a rainforest, not entirely certain of our way, each carrying thirty-pound packs. Not for the first time since the beginning of my association with Jim, I was glad I was in shape.

And gladder still for the slight ache in my ass, which somehow made all the other aches and mosquitoes and whipvines worth it. We didn't do anything like hold hands, but every now and then Jim would clap me on the back, or one of us would turn and help the other one through a rough spot. We were all business, now, and I knew that our working partnership was stronger than it had ever been.

A good thing, too, if my guesses were right.

We walked another couple of hours in the afternoon, and then Jim stopped, sweat running down his face, plainly irritated. "I'm not sure we're going the right way."

"You know where the temple is," I told him. "Just follow your instincts."

"Maybe I'm wrong. Hell, Chief, maybe you're wrong."

"You're just getting frustrated."

"And you're not?"

"I'm just following you, man. We both know I can get lost on a highway, never mind in the middle of the jungle."

"You've got the compass."

"And we've been going steadily northeast all day, like you said." He walked up to me and, so help me god, checked the compass. "I do know how to use one of those, Jim."

"I know," he said in apology. "Just --"

"Just keep going," I said. "This isn't The Blair Witch Project. We've got a map and a compass, we're experienced, and we know where we're going."

"One good machete would really make my day."

"And you know, it's just not often a guy gets to say that in his life." I put my hands on his back and pushed him forward. "Let's go."

But he stopped and turned around, placing a kiss on my forehead. "Okay, Pollyanna. Okay."

"Pollyanna?!"

Revenge, when I caught him, was swift and complete.

We reached the temple at dusk. Both of us had missed the opportunity to take it in, before; I watched Jim's back tense, and thought about the dreams that he'd related taking place here. "I'm right behind you," I reminded him.

The actual grotto wasn't crawling with archeologists, fortunately. There was a small camp off to the north of the complex, where Jim could see students and faculty making dinner over a camp stove. A few security guards patrolled the area, but they looked bored.

"They have no idea what they're guarding here," I whispered.

"To anybody else, Chief, this is just another second-rate ruin," Jim reminded me. "There's a lot of them out this way."

"It's a first-rate ruin, for a ruin," I corrected him. "But a lot of schools would be on midterm break right now. I think we got lucky, and half our scholars are partying in Sierra Verde."

"I still count eight guards," Jim said. "That's going to be pretty rough. On the other hand, they don't patrol inside the grotto, so once we get in, we should be good."

"Okay, so we drop most of our gear here and sneak in?"

"Best-case. Take our stuff and drop it back a thousand yards or so. I want to get a good feel for their search pattern, see where their weak point is."

"Sir, yes sir, Captain Covert Operative sir."

I was lugging the second pack back into a copse of trees when I saw the wolf.

You do see wolves in the jungle; the Mexican wolf will occasionally wander as far south as Brazil, but never with a pack. They're a legitimate, if rare, totemic spirit -- a scruffy, crafty wanderer and a sign of luck, either good or bad.

I didn't think about that then. Jim had told me about his vision of the wolf, and I knew exactly what this was. "Jim," I said, just barely loud enough to get his attention. "Jim. I'll be right back. There's a wolf here."

The wolf seemed not to mind that I had spoken, and stepped closer to me, staring with strange blue eyes. I was afraid to speak. It growled once, shaking its head, and then took off like a shot back towards Jim. Needless to say, I followed it.

I got there in time to see Jim turn, as if he sensed movement. I watched the wolf streak past him, unnoticed. "You don't see it?" I asked excitedly, barely remembering to whisper.

"There was something --" he started, then stared at me. "Where is it now?"

I pointed down below, where the wolf was attacking a security guard, who cried out for help and got it, immediately, from his other compadres. "He's creating a diversion," I told him. Somehow he had become perceptible flesh and bone when he reached the temple.

"I see it now," he said. "The guy's gonna be okay, your buddy barely scratched him. Come on."

With most of the other guards piled around the wolf's victim, it became absurdly easy to sneak into the temple, even considering the heavy stone doors. They opened for us when we leaned on them, and shut again when we entered.

"Way too easy," was Jim's analysis.

"Predestined," was mine. "Let's get to work."

Our stripped-down gear involved one pack of food and water, in case we were trapped, and a flashlight for me. It took us a while to find the wall Alex had indicated, a wall covered with writings that took me a moment to identify.

"Mayan hieroglyphs," I told Jim. The whole wall was almost perfectly preserved, the hieroglyphs vast and tempting.

"Can you read it?" he asked.

"Even the people who read these things for a living can barely read them," I said. "It's one of the most complex writing systems in human history." The glyphs could go left to right, right to left, or up and down. There were over six hundred symbols, all contextually keyed. It's the kind of thing that makes even top-notch linguists want to shoot themselves in the head.

"It's not making any sense to me either, Chief."

"It will," I said. "Sit down here."

Jim looked around the inside of the temple. I couldn't see much, but it was apparently deserted on the inside. "I'm not sure they could get in here if they wanted to." He sat down on the stone floor, staring up at the wall of impenetrable text.

"I don't think so either," I said, "not after the wolf led us here." I put my hands on his shoulders. "What we're doing here is something we've done plenty of times. You're an excellent hypnotic subject, and one of the things we've always been able to do is increase your abilities through hypnosis."

"I still don't get how I'm going to be able to read hieroglyphics I don't understand."

"If I'm right," I told him, "and I am, or I wouldn't have dragged you out here.... You couldn't read any other hieroglyphs. But these were written for you. It's why Alex could read them. You can do it, too. The same way you could see Molly, or regain your sentinel abilities after you denied them. Hypnotic suggestion." I was massaging his shoulders as I spoke, psyching him up.

In order to do this, he had to be completely without doubt. I knelt next to him. "Just trust me," I told him. "Really, really believe me, and it will work."

I was surprised to see him close his eyes and breathe, focusing inward for a moment. "Okay," he said finally, nodding. "Okay. Let's do it."

I tried not to crow too much. "Cool. Yes. Excellent." I led him through our typical hypnotic induction. He's the easiest man in the world to hypnotize, once he agrees to the necessity.

"We're in a place," I told him, "where the world of the spirits meets the world of stone." The words felt strange; they were what I meant to say, but not how I'd meant to say it. "In this place, a message has been left for you. It has been hidden from others. It is hidden from me. The message is there for you, and only for you. Open your eyes and read it."

I watched his eyelashes flutter for the longest moment, and then he lifted his eyes up to the wall. "'The meaning here is hidden from all but the guardian,'" he said.

He was really reading it. It took all my self-control not to shout with relief.

"'The child with the sight, the ear, the gifts of knowing, will come here in his manhood year, or when she becomes a woman. The older guardian will show the way. The spirits will guide when the guardian cannot.

"'The strong medicine will be made, to test the child's worthiness. Only the true guardian retains the gifts; the weak will not survive."

Except for the fact that Jim and Alex both had been far too old, and Jim far too advanced in his development, this sounded about like what had happened.

"There's a list here," he said. "But I can't read it. Then there's more:

"'The young guardian tastes the strong medicine only once. After this the guardian will choose a guide, the crafty partner who walks the guardian's path.

"'The guardian will know the guide as a mate. If they carry both the bow, or the burden strap, the guide is marked as a shaman also. And they will know great honor, for they are sorely needed.'" Jim's voice broke there; he really was reading the text, not acting as a conduit for the voice of a civilization centuries lost.

"Go on," I told him, my hand on his shoulder.

"They will come to the temple again when they are mated," Jim said, "They will be in need of guidance, or the stars will foretell it. The guide will know the time. The guide will leave, and the guardian will join the guide on his journey.'"

Whoa.

"They will descend into the pools, to reach the spirit realm. First the guardian, then the guide will follow. And they will travel alone, until they are together, in the wheel of their time.' I hope you understand this."

"I got it," I reassured him. "Don't worry."

"'The guardian or guide returns one final time, when the mate is lost, and is returned into the earth to join the other.'" He shook his head. "I can't read the rest of it."

"I don't think you're supposed to," I said, and shivered. "That part comes later." I eased him out of hypnosis -- the traditional "awake and alert." "You remember all that?"

"Yeah," he said, peering at the wall, "but I can't make any sense of the words now. Before, it was like they were printed in English. I could just read them without thinking about it."

I was trying to take this very seriously -- I did take this seriously -- but that was just too cool, and I said so.

"Interesting choice of words," he said. "Mine would have been 'fucking weird.' Stop bouncing all over the place."

"I'm not bouncing," I corrected. "I'm pacing and excited. You ready to try this? I think we only get the one shot at this, and it's tonight."

"Why not?" he asked. "I've only spent the day hacking through ten miles of jungle with a butter knife."

"You need a serious attitude adjustment," I told him. "This is a rite of passage, do you get that?" I sat for a minute to write everything down in a pocket notebook, certain that I would probably lose it, but bound to do it nevertheless.

"Mind taking me through what all that stuff meant? I got the bow and the burden strap thing, I read that at some point. Switched gender roles, right?"

"Head of the class, man. In tribal society, the concepts of sexuality are different. A warrior who slept with another warrior -- more precisely, the younger man -- would be expected to take on the social role of a woman. Except, apparently, in the case of a sentinel's same-sex guide, who is marked aside as a shaman, and can do whatever the hell he or she wants about gender."

"Lucky you."

"Yeah, I feel like I got a dispensation or something."

"You'd make a seriously shitty cross-dresser."

"I'd have to, like, bathe in Nair or something... speaking of baths. The next part is the pools."

"I really, really don't want to have to do that again."

"No drugs this time, remember? I'm here; all you have to do is follow me down. I bet you'll get more control over your vision this time. More like hypnosis or lucid dreaming than a bad peyote trip."

I eventually talked him into it. The pools were still there from when Alex and Jim had been in them, and the water was still fresh.

"That's just not possible," Jim said. "Not unless somebody's maintaining this place."

"Occam's razor," I said. "Somebody is." I looked down at the water. It should have been crawling with algae, and Jim insisted that it was clean enough to be drinkable, or certainly bathe-able.

Too, too weird.

"We're supposed to be here," was all I could suggest. "We're supposed to be here now. Maybe somebody knows that."

"Let's just do this thing," Jim said, "and get the hell out of here."

I'm sure that was probably not the attitude taken by generations before us, but I couldn't have agreed more. We took off our clothes; as a ritual, it seemed right that this had to be done naked for the maximum effect.

Jim, as I've said, is a cakewalk hypnotic subject, and once he got into one of the pools of lukewarm water, he descended easily back into a trance state. "The wheel of our time," I explained, "is a cyclic concept. We don't think cyclically, so try thinking about the past, the present, and the future. I'll be right there with you."

I was trying like all hell not to shake or panic as I got into my own pool. There were two there, after all; we weren't likely to be disturbed, and the message Jim had read suggested that both of us were to try this sensory deprivation trip at the same time.

Plus, the wolf had led us here; I had the distinct feeling that forces way beyond our control were leading us through this.

And I'm as good a meditative subject as Jim is a hypnotic one. One of the old trance inductions my mom used to use came back to me: your fingers are dissolving into water, and your toes are dissolving into water, and your hands are dissolving into water....

I was sitting with my mother on a park bench, blowing dandelion clocks and making wishes. Sleeping in the back of a van travelling to a commune in Missouri. Sitting up very straight in the principal's office (they'd take me away from my mother if I misbehaved). Learning to read Hebrew at my grandfather's knee. Playing basketball. Getting my glasses broken by a bigger boy. Roy teaching me how to fight. Arguing with Dr. Stoddard about my courseload. A factory job for eleven dollars an hour, welding sheet metal. My grandfather's funeral. The Kobai tree people. A Greenpeace demonstration. Annamarie with her long, long red hair and soft breasts. Naomi missing my graduation. The trip we took to Ghana to make up for it. Piles of books, caffeine, loud music, and never a feeling of permanence or home.

And dimly, overlaid with it, I saw another boy. A slammed door and a missing mother. A distant father and a baby brother who worshipped him. Sounds and smells and visions that led to a staggering reserve, even in a small boy. A child trained to jump at nothing, but to fear and suspect everything. A man who acted like a father, slain without warning. The word freak echoing at every false move. Hidden moments of approval from a housekeeper and her young son. A brother's betrayal. Basic training. The intoxicating release of violence. The desperate need for approval, for order, for reassurance. Comrades lost. Time in the jungle, and an awakening of senses; the first true feeling of community and acceptance. Crime. Partnership. Loss. Duty. A marriage made more out of a desire to achieve a wife than any real love. A measure of acceptance, and a cold room. A moment in time: a meeting. An arrival.

A strange attraction to something seemingly other. Explosions. Losses. A shared beer, a shared insight, a growing partnership. Friendship. Loyalty. Excellence.

Devastating grief, growing need, denial.

An interloper, and a moment of death, and a merging of souls.

A time of adjustments, of changes, beginning with visions and terror, and ending with a series of betrayals. A sacrifice made. Trust finally given. Desire finally recognized. Community, and acceptance.

A moment in time: now. Five minutes from now. Tomorrow --

Violence, and crime, and mistrust from outside. Success our only argument. Results our only refuge. Rumors and scandals. Friends lost. A web of deceit and hiding, with only each other to trust.

Bad years, but marked also by love, and necessity.

Seasons of vast change, unseeable, unknowable. Too many paths that all led here.

Faces bent over books, gray-haired. A child handed down from broken rubble. Accolades. Accusations. A difficult road.

The only road.

A man with a gun, too late in life to dodge quickly, an old grudge --

I awoke, screaming. Jim was still entranced, muttering, "no, no, God, please no."

I knew I had seen my own death.

And all I had to do was wait for him. I watched as his features went curiously blank, a kind of zone-out beyond any I'd ever seen, and he exhaled a slow, slow breath.

His eyelids fluttered, and he awoke. When he saw me, he sat up immediately, and held me against him, and we were both silent for a long, long while.

"You came back here, after?" I asked him, and he nodded. He looked so miserable; I kissed him, uncertain of what else to say.

"We get a lot of time," he said, finally, his voice sounding rusty. "There was a little -- girl?"

"The future's always changing," I said. "Just seeing what we've seen, that changes it, right?"

He looked vastly relieved. "Yeah. Paradox."

"It's just a warning. Straight out of Dickens." I tried to be cool about it, but he knew I was shaking, and held me against him.

"So now we just keep Christmas in our hearts and 'God bless us, every one'?" He was trying to play along. We grabbed our packs and got back into our clothes.

"Wait," I said, and turned around the room. "Thanks," I said, to whatever was in there. "Thanks for the warning. And the advice."

"And if we never see you again," Jim said, "it'll be too soon. Let's just go, Chief."

While that offended any anthropological sensibility, it greatly appealed to the rest of me. And the doors let us go, so we went.

We got out of the complex without incident, which struck me as just way too frigging lucky, but it's not like we were going to argue. We made camp a couple of miles away from the temple, completely exhausted.

It wasn't as hot as it had been in the day; it was damp and somewhat cool, so we both started unrolling our sleeping bags. I offered him the zipper on mine; he nodded and we zipped them together.

Neither of us said very much. We pulled together a couple of cans of beans and some trail mix, scratching and swearing at bug bites. We got into the sleeping bag awkwardly, still grimy from our hike back through the jungle, but Jim pulled me on top of him, and I laughed.

"What, you need another blanket?" I asked. He's a good guy to just nuzzle; you can tell how much pleasure it gives him.

But his face was serious. "Don't leave," he said. "I mean it. Stay."

"I'm not leaving you," I told him. "I don't think I could if I wanted to. And I don't want to," I added, anticipating him.

He nodded. "Good." His hands slid up and down my back; we were too tired to do more than this, just touching, reacting, trying to restore our equilibrium.

"Where do we go from here?"

"Lima?" I suggested. "I always thought that'd be a kicking city for a honeymoon."

"Honeymoon?"

"You got a better word for it?"

He stared at me a long while; I think he was gauging whether or not I was serious. "No," he said finally, "I guess I don't."

"So, Lima?"

"Lima. What's wrong with Paris?"

"Please. Don't even."

We stopped messing around eventually, and he buried his head in what was left of my hair. "We're going to have to change some things," he said. "I don't like the way it ends up for us."

"I think one thing," I said, "is that we have to remember that the PD isn't the last resort. There's other ways we can do what we're supposed to do."

"You're a good detective, Chief. So am I."

"We kick ass, that's not the issue. I'll do the Academy thing. We'll try it. But I don't like the lies we've had to tell to get where we are, and I don't like having to lie about what we are to each other."

"Excellence is the best argument," Jim said. Predictably.

"I couldn't agree with you more. I'm just saying."

"Yeah. Okay."

"Good. We'll decide as we go. This vision -- it's just new data." The important decisions had been made, though, and we both knew it. Was the future set in stone? Or was it something we created, every moment different, changing with each breath?

In each moment, I thought, nothing much else matters. "Right now," I said. "That's all we've got for sure, anyway."

He traced my lips with his finger, and kissed me. And then we slept, and in the morning we hacked our way back through the jungle, into the waiting future.

End Writing on the Wall by Justine: sandyjustine@mindspring.com

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