Disclaimer: Paramount and PetFly own the Sentinel and all its characters. I own nothing and make no profit.

Author's Notes: My thanks go out to Thalia and the Sentinel_Betas for the beta on this story. Also, a great big thanks go out to all of you who supported me through the Mojo crisis, especially Sage

Story Notes: Part one of a Series Called 'Blair Sandburg by The Sentinel'
Archived only at 852 Prospect archive web site and on my site, www.insomniacsdream.com, please.

*The blues*

The only way that you can get out of going to the academy altogether is by having prior law enforcement experience or corrections officer training. It's normal for a cadet to spend one year in the academy if they are just fresh out of high school. However, six months is the normal stay for a cadet who has a college degree in criminology, sociology or a related field of study. It also helps to have a letter of recommendation from an official from an accredited law enforcement agency. Sandburg fell into the second category of cadets. Simon signed the letter, and anthropology counted as a 'related field'.

The first thing we talked about was his reluctance to carry and fire a gun. I thought it would be like breaking horses... No, literally, I thought it would be like breaking horses. First you have to get a wild horse use to the saddle by bringing one into the pen with you but not putting it on him, just hold it near him and get him use to its presence. I pretty much got that first part taken care of. Sandburg's been around my piece before. He's even held it.

It was time for phase two of the process. I dragged him down to the firing range with me a week before his first classes in the academy. It's not like he's never fired a gun before. I just don't think a lot of thought went behind the pulling of the trigger. It was time for me to teach him to think. Hey, everyone's got to have a hobby.

I thought I was going to have to negotiate around words like 'pacifist' and 'moral barometer' and 'conscientious objector'. I got lucky. He clammed up around the flower child, gun-control stuff. He knew the score. In for a penny, in for a pound.

So I got him down to the range. I put my gun in his hands. He held it for a moment. Looked it over with big eyes and swallowed a few times, looking nervous.

"God, Sandburg, don't flake out on me now!"

He looked up at me and gave me that half-flustered, nervous voice he uses when his mind is moving at warp nine and he starts sweating bullets. "I'm not flaking out, man. I... I'm just realizing the implications here. This is big, Jim. I mean once I start to learn how to shoot a gun with the intent to kill, it's all over, man. End of the innocence...."

I shook my head at him. Why does everything have to be such high drama with him? "Don't think of it that way, Sandburg. Think of it like you're honing your skills at a sport."

He snorted a laugh. "Sport!" he said ruefully. "This is freakin' life and death here. This isn't a game!" He hefted the gun at me in his open palm.

"Look, Chief, lots of people shoot for fun. It's a sport. Most people never intend to hit anything more in their lives than a paper target. They do it because they like it... Just like playing darts...with a faster, smaller projectile... slightly more lethal too."

Blair blinked at me once but didn't say a word. Expecting the big hairy philosophical argument, I was a little taken aback by that. He set the gun down and got this determined look on his face. He heaved this tremendous sigh and then picked up and put on the protective ear gear. Next he put on his safety glasses. He picked up the gun, disengaged the safety, and turned to the target. I've seen him hold a gun before. He has a good natural grip. I just wanted to see what the kick back did to his wrist and how he would compensate.

"Just fire a few, Chief."

He put the gun up and aimed with both eyes. Good boy! Lots of first-timers think they have to shut an eye to aim. That's a big mistake. I'm glad he didn't make it. The first shot went high and outside heading off to the right and over the shoulder of the paper silhouette. He aimed again and I noticed he was trying to compensate by lowering his grip. Not the right answer. Out in the field, you don't have time to change your grip position after you miss once. The key is adjusting the tension in your wrist for better control. Second shot was still high and outside but closer, but I had to stop him before he tried to adjust again.

"Control your wrist movement." I came up from behind him and carefully took his left arm. I could feel him trembling slightly, tense as a bowstring. My hand cupped his left hand, and I adjusted its position at the bottom of his right wrist and hand to help hold his grip steady. I wrapped my fingers firmly about his left hand, which steadied his other hand that gripped the gun.

"Try it now." I said as I released him from my grip. "Hold your hand steady. Fire where you aim."

He squeezed off two more shots. This time they were high but not outside. He was now perforating the shoulder of the silhouette. Better. He went through a total of four more rounds. Each shot showed a little more control. Now that he knew that his weakness to the kick would move his hand up and to the right, he'd know just how to clamp down on his wrist for control.

"It's too bad they don't make wrist braces for cops...you know, like they make for the longbow for wrist control," he said with a quick smile.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Come on, Chief." With a push on his shoulder I moved us out of the firing range.

That was actually the easy part. Two days before the first day of classes, he went to a barber. Need I say more?

It was bad. He spooked and shied for nearly a solid week about it. You'd think he'd never got his hair cut in his life. I knew that wasn't true. He got that mop trimmed at least every couple of months... to remove the split ends, he said. He can be so vain. But Saturday morning he left the loft practically hyperventilating. The man who returned looked like a total stranger to me. If it had not been for his smell and heart beat, I would have questioned his identity.

I never knew his face was so square. I never noticed how his forehead was so high. His eyes are really blue. I never really noticed. It was like losing all that hair changed the whole dynamics of his face. And it was funny about all those things that I was only just then seeing. He's worn his hair tied back many times. I should have noticed all of that before, shouldn't I have? I am a police detective after all.

He was morose, completely bummed out. So I took him to Fat Johnny's, the new Cajun place in town, to cheer him up. Gumbo was good for what ailed him.

Then the following Monday he started on his new career.

Now I thought that there were parts of Sandburg that would mix like oil and water at the academy. But apparently Sandburg was as every bit as adaptable as he ever claimed he was. After the initial week's culture shock wore down, he settled in and treated it like any new learning experience in his life. He gave it his best attention. I have come to learn that when Sandburg gives something his best attention, he remains focused. I often forget when I look at him and listen to him talk, blathering on in that strange neo-hippy, semi seventies slang, that he is more disciplined than he looks.

He started making friends right away. That made me feel a little more at ease...not that I thought that Sandburg wouldn't make friends. Sandburg is very personable. You could sit him in the middle of a grumpy, retired-postal-worker-with-prostate-cancer convention and within four hours he'd have them forming conga lines. But in this case, Sandburg making friends signified to me that he was adjusting enough to let his guard down to the others. He was invited to study groups and the names he rattled off of the other cadets tended to lean heavily on the female side. Nothing new there.

Sandburg cracks me up with that over active libido thing. In my opinion, that is a sign of a man who started late in life to get nookie. If I pressed him I'd bet I'd find out that he didn't lose his virginity until after age twenty. Wouldn't surprise me. He once told me that he had been a 'book nerd'. That still shows a bit in him. I've never told him but despite his great pitching arm, he runs like a girl... especially when bad guys are chasing him. He has also a very short repertoire of less than masculine gestures and movements. He was a young nerd all right.

I knew his type when I was in high school. Small, bookish, non-confrontational and the target of every muscular but brainless bully in the school, (unfortunately I was in the ranks of the brainless). These 'book nerd' guys were all brains and practically no testosterone, or at least they were afraid to show it. Beta males, Sandburg would call them, and he knows he's one. Add on to the pile for poor Sandburg the fact that he had jumped grades and was exceptionally smaller and younger than all of his classmates. Then add on the fact that he had more school district moves under his belt than an army brat. Most of these beta male poor slobs grow up and, if they are lucky, finally get laid when they reach college. Once they get laid they over-compensate for the late start by going sex crazy. Table legs beware!

Sandburg pours on the charm now, and sometimes it's very effective. He's figured out a formula for women: dazzle them with intellect. It works a lot of the time. He knows what he's doing. I sometimes wonder if he took anthro with a minor in psych to figure out how a beta male can still get a date. He says that most human cultures value intelligence. Having smarts pays off good. Then he would continue by stating that psychologically speaking, a good number of women are drawn to successful men. Intelligence can equal success, or at least future success. Blair + Big Intellect = Blair Gets Laid. Good formula, buddy. As I said before, it works a lot of the time.

So now he had this string of female study-buddies. But this was the first time school didn't come all that easy. Oh, the actual academics he slicked through great. The few criminology courses they made him take he passed like sleeping would have been harder. However, the civil service part is not as easy as it looks. It is deceptively hard. The whole thing is not just looking at your intellect but your character and how good a judge of character you are. I know a lot of fine people who are incredibly intelligent and very nice law abiding citizens that I know for a fact couldn't pass the civil service exam if they tried. It took Blair a bit of time to completely wrap his 'big intellect' about the civil service component of the academy.

The physical training wasn't too bad on him. He's a healthy boy. He survived. Self-defense bruised not only his tailbone but also his ego to the point that he begged me to help him with it. Apparently some of the girls were outstripping him in this course work. I did remind him that a woman's center of gravity works to her advantage in self-defense and, psychologically, the women feel that they have to excel in this particular area to feel equal to their male counterparts. But he reminded me that no guy likes to get his ass kicked by a girl, regardless of how chauvinistic the attitude sounded. So I helped him.

We thought there would have been more trouble over the dissertation shit, but we followed Simon's advice and waited six months before Blair enrolled in the academy. Simon was right, and Blair wasn't surprised. I sure as hell was. In six months' time, our little newsworthy drama was not even the tiniest blip on the public radar screen anymore. People forget. They push crap that doesn't directly affect them right out with the speed of rising and falling gas prices. When Blair Sandburg walked onto the academy grounds all anyone saw was another recruit. It might have been different if the press had gotten wind of his fast tracking into Cascade PD, but, fortunately for us, there were just too many other, better, stories out there to keep them preoccupied. We slipped past without even causing a ripple in the flow of useless information and human-interest stories.

I got used to him coming home in that blue cadet uniform every day. But that was only for six months. Those six months flew. Next thing I knew I was throwing him a graduation party that was attended by H and Rafe and Joel and Megan and Simon and about a dozen young, pretty and personable new rookie cops, Blair's study buddies. More like his harem. But it was great fun, and I started talking with one of the girls. Her name is Mary Beth. She's this tall brunette with a brilliant smile, and if I didn't know any better I'd think she'd singled me out of the pack and was moving in for the kill.

Naturally the subject turned to Blair. After all, he's my best friend and my roommate. If I was going to let this beautiful young huntress corner me into a dinner date, I wanted to know how important he was to her.

"Blair's sweet," she said. "Really smart too...and fun. He actually made studying fun. Never had that happen before in twelve years of public school and five years of college." She nodded her head and looked fondly over at Blair, who was laughing, surrounded by a bevy of women...and Rafe and Brown. "He's a great guy. A girl feels safe around him."

*A girl feels safe around him. * Words reserved for dithering old men, computer nerds, and homosexuals. Well, this girl was up for grabs then. I let her talk me into dinner. It went okay. I'll be seeing her again two weeks from now.

Now here we are. Blair took the news well that he would have to work a required four months as a patrol officer before he could take the detectives' exam. He collected his new uniform and later made a determined noise in the back of his throat at Simon, who reassured him that this would be relatively easy compared to the shit he had already been through as my ride-along.

*Day one: Polyester, a Ford Crown Victoria, and Good-n-Plenties*

He was up and moving even before I was. That I found amazing. It was his first day, and I could bet he was a little pumped about that. I came down stairs to find that the coffee was already started but he was still in the bathroom. I could hear him muttering to himself and the sound of a blade scraping across skin. I poured myself a cup and contemplated making French toast for breakfast, something a little special for him for his first official day as a real police officer. I poured a second cup as I heard him muttering to himself in the bathroom-some noise about polyester. He took the idea of doing patrol pretty well, but the uniform and he were not on speaking terms yet. I couldn't blame him. Polyester sucks.

He came out as I was beating the batter for the French toast. I handed him his cup as he passed. His short dark curls were still damp. He smelled of that fennel stuff that he calls shampoo and soap. I told him once that he smelled like Good-n-Plenties. He smiled and said, "That's the whole idea, Jim. It's been proven through valid research that women are attracted to the smell of Good-n-Plenties. Trust me. I've studied the nuances of taste and smell for a long, long time."

Good-n-Plenties? Go figure?

He sat at the table and sipped his coffee, and I looked at him there...in his uniform. Blue shirt, silver shield, black pants, and a utility belt complete with service piece, pepper spray, maglight and a nightstick. I was staring, and I couldn't help it. First it was the hair and now this. A part of me felt guilty. In a way, I drove him to this. Now there he sat looking about as un-Blair-like as Blair could get. My personal 'pet grad student' had been strategically shaved and stuffed in a uniform.

He sat there and sipped his coffee and then turned his large eyes up at me in a look was as clear as a question mark. I had to find some words to say to him just to counterbalance my gawking.

"You ready for this?" I sort of mumbled at him.

He swallowed and his eyes cleared from the question. I could tell that he was thinking my question over. It only took a couple of seconds, but maybe a few seconds longer than another person. His eyes seemed to unfocus from me. They looked past me. "I guess I better be."

"You okay, Chief?"

He shook himself slightly. "Yeah... Yeah, I'm good."

"You want to drive in together?"

"Naw. I'd better go alone. Don't know if I'll be staying later... or you might stay later...."

I nodded in agreement. I turned my attention back to the toast batter. As I made our breakfast I took a small moment to sense him. I felt his body heat first. It was normal: no fever, no nervous pooling of blood to the body cavity, which meant no clammy palms. His heart rate was a little higher than is his norm but it was not wild or panicked. He smelled...He smelled like fennel and black coffee and Blair and anxiety. I had expected that.

"Hey... um... you gonna do all right?" he asked me looking at me with concern. That's it, Chief. Put up a brave front and look out for your buddy. "I mean... you know...."

The sentinel stuff. Yes, I knew. But I had made it through six months of his being at the academy with very few problems. In fact, I hadn't had very many bad problems that whole last year. I only get really bad spikes when I let my emotions run away with me. And I'm glad to say that thanks in part to Sandburg and his hokey, new-age meditation bullshit, I don't have very many episodes of that anymore. Yes, call the press and mark the date down. James Ellison has learned to process! (God, don't let Naomi know!)

Then again, crime had been surprisingly slow. Side effect of a good economy? I don't know. But the big stupid shit that fell under the jurisdiction of Major Crimes had taken a small hiatus. Homicide and narcotics were still pretty active though.

"Simon told the desk sergeant that you were on call to Major Crimes. If we need you, we'll call you." I shrugged. I didn't think we'd need him, but I was not going to tell him that. The kid's got too much to worry about without feeling like he was out-of-the-loop too.

He nodded at me, accepting my comment. A short while later, I sat a pair of golden brown French toasts in front of him, topped with powdered sugar and strawberries I had bought at the market a day ago when it had occurred to me that I hadn't had French toast with strawberries in a long time.

"What'd I do?" he asked me as he looked down at the plate containing his breakfast.

"What, Chief? Can't I just make French toast for us every now and again?"

He shrugged and began to eat. Very un-Blair like but decidedly refreshing. I was not going to pitch a bitch about it.

I'd been assigned to a new case. A couple of soup kitchen volunteers had reported that some of the regular homeless crowd had come up missing. Normally the shelter workers would have chalked it up to their transient nature but also some of the other homeless had expressed concern over their missing fellows. After much insistence from the charitable wives of city council members who spend their long lonely days as soup kitchen directors, the police commissioner put Major Crimes on the job. After all, it sort of sounded like the kind of freaky shit we investigate all the time...You'd think.

So I headed out to Southtown and to the lower section where most of the charity works are located. It felt a little weird, I have to admit. It was odd going out there to check on an investigation with out my ever-present shadow, my partner. Needless to say, I made it through the few interviews with the soup kitchen workers okay. There was something undeniably odd about the disappearances but the missing were all adult males between the ages of thirty to fifty. They were unattached, keeping mostly to themselves. Quite a few of them were drinkers. A few were, by description, mentally ill.

Let's face it, the vagrant lifestyle--by definition--is hardly the kind that brings to mind stability. Yet still, these people had been missed because they were regulars at the kitchens and the charities. Considering that this was bad business, it made me wonder how many more were missing who were not so regular. I couldn't wait to talk this one over with Blair.

He caught up with me close to lunchtime. I was just typing in the workers' statements and running some background checks on the vagrants who had disappeared whose full names the workers actually knew. He walked into Major Crimes followed by another patrol officer. I didn't know her name, but I had seen her around. She's a bit older than Blair. I surmised that she was probably the veteran they have teamed him up with to get his experience.

He walked into Major Crimes for the first time in about a month and was greeted with cheers, whistles, catcalls and all manners of remarks about what the uniform did to accentuate his tight round ass. Brown was the most vocal.

"Never thought I'd see the day that thing would shake below a gun belt!" H laughed. Conner was practically doubled over, but I could tell she was seriously checking out the polyester covered terrain H just referred to.

"Chill!" A single word spoken with unquestionable annoyance. His hands slashed before him signaling them all to cut the crap. The jeers and catcalls stopped but some snickering continued. They didn't mean any harm and he knew that. It's just that they can be so damned obnoxious. At least this reaction was better than the first time he walked in without the hair. There had been a painful, stunned moment of silence for the hair. Everyone had just stared at him with round eyes and shocked expressions...even Simon

"Man!" he exclaimed as he reached my desk. "They act like they never saw a uniform before."

"It's not the uniform, Chief," I replied blandly. I decided not to add more. It was all so trite at that point. I looked up at him and the other officer. Her collar had a ten-year pin on it.

"Jim, this is Marcy Arnett. Marcy, this is Jim." He introduced me to the woman. She's about Blair's height and a little stocky, but she has beautiful green eyes in a soft oval face framed by flame red hair. I could tell by the slightest of sniffs that the color did not come from a bottle.

"Pleased to meet you, Detective Ellison," the woman said in a soft alto voice. She smiled at me--and what a smile. How does Blair get so lucky? Everywhere he falls; he lands on his feet and just three paces away from beautiful women!

"Good to meet you too." I took the hand she offered me. I was not surprised by the grip. This one works out. Beneath that blue polyester were probably arms almost as thick as mine. There was something about this woman that spoke to my senses, perhaps some pheromone telling me that this one was not a potential date but competition for a date. Sometimes my sentinel senses are a damn accurate gay-ometer. I have a little problem totally narrowing down the men, but the women I can usually point out from a hundred paces.

"I just thought I'd bring Marcy by to meet you," Blair said. He hooked his thumbs under his gun belt and mirrored Marcy's strong, confident pose. On him it looked like the kid brother trying to act like his older sibling. "She's my partner for now," he added.

The woman smiled again at me. "Yeah, I got him for the next four months. Wanted to meet the legendary 'Cop of the Year' Jim Ellison. If you listen to this braggart for too long you'd think you could walk on water."

"Not walk on water. But I've been known to painfully skim it on occasion." I gave her my best cheesy grin.

She smiled, and it was an interestingly wicked smile. I liked her. I began to wonder if maybe we could work out sometime together at the gym. Trust me, I was not trying to make time here. That would have been useless. This girl wanted what I want and from the same gender I want it from.

I wasn't too late getting home, but Sandburg wasn't there yet. The loft was silent, and I moved through it without hitting the lights. I took a moment to review my domain for a second while it was free of the squatter and irritant that I have labeled my best friend. I heard the high soft whistle of a draft that was coming through a pinpoint imperfection on the molding of the skylight above the kitchenette. The pilot lights of the gas stove and the water heater hissed in a constant soft pitch. The refrigerator kicked on and added its hum to the small chorus of sounds.

All about me were little things that told me that Sandburg was ever present in my life. There are now pictures on the mantle of the fireplace where there hadn't been any before. There is a picture of his mother Naomi, a picture of Simon and Daryl, and a picture of him and me on a fishing trip right after he caught that monster bass. That was right before we found that poacher mauled to death by a grizzly.

On a metal knickknack stand sits a collection of dolls and trinkets from different cultures. Most of them are either South American or South East Asian. They are neatly arranged and collecting a layer of dust. That part of his life was closed... but not forgotten, I'm sure.

As I turned I caught a scent, an old scent that was fading with time. The smells of sage and sweet grass coming from his bedroom. His mother. I didn't think he'd talked to her in months, and it made me wonder if he'd been harboring some sort of resentment towards Naomi. I wondered if he would tell me if he did? Yes, he would. He wouldn't hesitate, especially if I asked. But I won't. That was his business. I for one don't care for stepping in between potential combatants in latent family feuds.... But that's just me.

Sandburg is the type who would plow right through your personal life like it was his birthright to know. Don't let that apologetic demeanor fool you. He keeps picking at me and I give up more and more each time; every day he gets a new piece of me. I'm not totally sure why.

Caroline tried to make me open to her. I guess it was the one thing she felt was her duty while we were married and even beyond the divorce. She tried so hard to 'save' me. At the time I thought it was the most irritating thing about her...besides the small side comment put-downs. But now that I look back, I can appreciate what an effort she had put up in those three years of marriage. In the end she got next to nothing. Sandburg must have been a slap in the face for her.

She worked on me for three years and within the space of a month some punk grad student got more out of me. He got cooperation where she only got complaints. He got communication where she only got angry stares and cold silence. I have to admit, to her credit I wasn't a hopeless ball of cringing nerves when she had me. Sandburg had an advantage. I had been totally desperate and ready for drastic measures when he had gotten a hold of me. Caroline had been like a salmon swimming up rapids. Sandburg, however, was like a shark in a fish tank.

I heard the familiar creak of the Volvo's driver side door. The thing was probably going to rust out around him in the end. It's a good thing we don't get much snow around here. Road salt would push that old bucket to its demise. The outer body still looked good, but I could hear the frame squeak and groan at every corner. The rust was worse there on the frame, where it counted.

I heard him walking from across the street from his usual parking space. The cadence of his step was slightly different from some time ago. It had happened over time, and I wondered if he was experiencing any back problems or any lingering effects from that gun shot wound to the leg that he took a couple years back. I heard the irregular jingle of the equipment on his belt, his pepper spray, his cuffs, his key hook, and his patent-leather thumb-snap holster.

He entered the building, muttering to himself as he fumbled with his car and house keys. He was musing over dinner. He knew that I was home. I walked into the kitchen and turned on a light. It was nearly seven PM, and it was totally dark in the loft...at least it would be dark for him.

The elevator let him out on the third floor, and he walked slowly to the loft door. His strides were a slight shuffle as if he was preoccupied. I waited in silence, holding still; holding my breath as if he was some small creature I was afraid to frighten away.

I pushed him into police work. Now I was facing the day of revelation. It was time to see if this irregular fit would work on him. But I just knew in my heart and soul that he was a cop. He has what it takes. He's got guts and nerve. He can think on his feet like no one else I know.

The door opened. As he stepped through the door his keys flew from his hand and into the basket. In one fluid motion of shutting the door he was in and moving towards me, talking as he came. He peeled off his dark blue outer jacket with its Cascade city symbol patch on the left shoulder and American flag on the right. He hungthat up on the coat rack by the door.

"Man, does my ass ache!" he said with a grimace as he reached to undo his gun belt. I knew what he's talking about. Normally, at least five to six of a beat cop's eight hours is spent with his ass in a patrol car seat. That long in any car seat can be a bit uncomfortable. Ask any sap who's ever tried to do Spokane to Cascade in one shot, no rest breaks.

"It's not like they prepare you at the academy for the sheer amount of sitting you do in a normal day on patrol. And I am personally going to write the engineers at Ford about the seats in a Crown Victoria...Oh, and by the way, police cruisers stink! I don't mean in a musty, stale cigarette smoke kind of way. I mean in a sweaty gym locker slash dog-run kind of way! The cruisers at the academy always had that 'new car' smell."

I found this amusing. I so just wanted to say, 'so just dial it down, Sandburg,' but instead I explained, "Public safety commission doesn't allot the PD that much money a year to have enough maintenance men to clean every cruiser every day. Quit your bitchin'. No one said police work was pretty."

"May not be pretty," he continued his rant, "but does it have to smell like a diaper-bag in a landfill?"

Now I had to chuckle. "That, my friend, is the concentrated smell of fear. Now you know how I feel, Chief."

He wrinkled his nose at me and I noted that he smelled like polyester, new leather, and stale police cruiser.

"Other than your offended nose and saddle sores, how was your day with Officer Arnett?" I asked as I pull two beers from the fridge.

He shrugged. "It was okay for a first day. We took a statement from a shop owner on the corner of Fenway and Price who had his shop front vandalized. We ran a lot of expired tags... I mean a lot! It's amazing how many people forget to renew their tags. But mostly we cruised around...looked intimidating in front of grocery stores in bad neighborhoods. Smiled at the kindergartners. That kind of thing. Sort of felt like the first day at any internship."

I nodded at him in understanding but as I watched him, I noticed the signs of fatigue in the very way he was standing. He was a little hunched in. I walked closer to him to hand him his beer. He took it with a slight smile and a "Thanks, Man."

I would have liked to believe that he was okay with this, but I couldn't help but doubt. When I met Blair Sandburg, he was this lunatic with wild hair, spouting off about tribal rituals in the inner city and Libertarian propaganda. The things that made him happiest were dating multiple women at once and reaffirming he had truly found a real honest-to-God Sentinel by running me like a lab rat through my paces. Now I was looking at him. The innocence of free-spirited youth was slowly being wiped from his face. I've taken a piece of his soul each year he has been with me. His companionship with me has cost him. I just wondered if he still thought it was worth it. After all, the big reward was all gone now. No Ph.D. for Blair Sandburg. All that was left was... well... sleeping with the enemy, in a manner of speaking.

"What's for dinner?" he asked on the end of a really large long breath.

"Why don't we go down to Shaknar-Punjab." I offered. "My treat...Just a congratulations for making it through your first day. Tarlok will make you a big ol' plate of lamb vindaloo and I'll get some aloo-matar. Why don't you take a shower and we'll go."

He had this look on his face like the one I saw that morning. It was this confused 'what'd I do?' look, like I've never taken him out to eat before or something. I don't know. Maybe I was getting my signals crossed.

Then he shrugged again and smiled at me. "Yeah, well, I can do some vindaloo."

"Shower, Sandburg." I made a face at him. "You smell like the back of a cruiser."

He rolled his eyes as he moved off towards his bedroom unbuttoning his shirt with his free hand while his other hand brought his beer up for a long swig.

*Instant karma*

That was the term Naomi used when she had called for Blair three months ago. He hadn't been home at the time and I had quite a talk with her. You know, I should be upset with Naomi but I just can't bring myself to do it. Maybe it's that secret special charisma that Sandburg always attributes to her. That thing that makes men just give in to her. Maybe it's that body that could stop a clock, even for a woman her age. Maybe it's the fact the she is his mother and he loves her. I just can't be mad at her for being capricious and unwise while loving her son too much. It would be like disliking a kitten for being cuddly.

But she knows what she did and what it has cost everyone involved. She named it herself during our little conversation. She had acted pleased for Blair when we offered him a shield and a future. But I just knew she could not have been all that happy. She had felt strongly about cops in her past. She hates guns. She hates the fact that I drag her son off into dangerous situations.

"It was the biggest most powerful, example of instant karma that I have ever experienced," she'd said. "I did something incredibly stupid and I paid for it with my son's future!"

Her words. After that conversation, I will always remember 'instant karma' by that definition. She went into his computer and handed his un-edited dissertation off to an unscrupulous publishing agent and with one thoughtless act of 'mother-pride' she sealed her son's fate. Her karma that she was left to endure was to see her son ruined academically and then turned to 'the oppressive police enemy' for shelter.

The cops... The pigs. The authoritarian fascists who were oppressing the children of the earth... or some nonsense like that. I heard it in some movie...maybe it was 'Forrest Gump'.

It was dinner time after his first official shift as a rookie. As I was sitting across from Sandburg, watching him dissect a garlic naan as he talked about chafing polyester and lower back pain from sitting in a cruiser wearing a seven-pound gun belt, I found my disdain for Naomi. It was very slight, just a small pang of disapproval in the back of my mind. I can't ever totally dislike her. After all, Blair is the product of her... ah... parental care. He's a pretty okay guy. I can leave it alone.

I'm pretty forgiving when it comes to other people's parents. Well, maybe not forgiving. At least I don't push his mom's shortcomings into his face. He doesn't speak about my dad much either, but I've seen the disapproving looks he gives when I avoid the subject if mentioned.

Sandburg has a variety of looks. Some of them are varying degrees of blank expressions meant to mask his emotions, but I can see right through them. Truthfully, I'm horrible at reading people in general, even after the senses came on-line to stay. I can't begin to tell you how many times and in how many ways people that I had known and even loved and/or trusted had duped me in the past. Even with these crazy hypersensitive senses I was fair game, a chump. On the other hand, these senses have made it possible for me to learn to read Sandburg like a book.

I hate being a Sentinel. It's a bitch when you can tell your best friend is patronizing you. His face is flat and neutral but his heartbeat and respiration are doing this crazy dance of righteous indignation. Pity comes off as a smell and a change in the cadence of his breathing. I hate that one the most. I dial everything down when I feel that one coming on.

"Did you find anything else out about the vagrants' disappearances in Southtown?" he asked.

I shook my head. I realized I had essentially lost the thread of our conversation as I sat there pondering him.

I couldn't really call what I was working on a crime yet. There were no bodies, no signs of violence. Christ sakes, they were vagrants. That's just another word for nomads. I wouldn't doubt that at least two-thirds of these people just picked up and moved on. I thought Simon had assigned me the case as busy work.

"It's hard to track the transient. I think some of them will show up again once the weather gets warmer." It had been a rather cold fall and we didn't get that great Indian summer we got last year. The winter's sporadic snows were coupled this year with a pretty bad record cold this year. Spring was cold and late in starting to boot. "Dunno, Chief." I shrugged.

Personally, I wished the case would just go away. I didn't feel like working all that hard right then. My life was still reeling over some major upheavals and I wanted to just be numb for a second longer. Except I'd had a year to recover. It was time for me to put up and shut up.

He was watching me closely with that intense searching look he gets when he's about to demand his birthright.

"Not in the mood for shop talk?" he asked softly as he looked back down at his plate.

"I...." And I really didn't know what to say. I couldn't say what was actually on my mind. I just wanted some private thoughts for once. Sandburg was about to accuse me of running from my problems, I was sure. I felt impatient with him all of a sudden. He hadn't asked yet. He hadn't started picking, but I felt it coming. Just like some freaking Pavlov's dog, my whole body responded and I got that gut-clenching irritation that makes my jaw clamp shut. Just that look in his eyes can elicit a response from me. I could tell he saw my irritation. That provoked another accusatory monumental sigh from him, and he clamped his mouth shut, looking away from me. That raised my hackles further, and I burned a hole in his profile with a frown.

We've been together for far too long. We can argue without words.

"Sorry," he muttered. "Didn't know it was a sore spot."

That's not it. "It's just busy work," I said instead.

I let him believe it was the Southtown case I didn't want to discuss. Truth be said, I had been waiting to talk it out with him since that afternoon. I could hardly wait....

The whole uncomfortable episode didn't make much sense to me, but I let it drop. I let it all drop as he brought up a new topic and proceeded to pick it over. As usual, I listened and smiled if I needed to. I dropped the odd comment and let him ramble.

He seemed happy.

The day after his first payday he handed me a check.

"What...." I couldn't even finish the question as I stood there, staring at this check for three hundred and fifty dollars. My jaw was scraping the floor. I sort of, kind of had an idea of what it was for.

"Rent," he said softly and stuck both hands into his pockets waiting for me to reply. "It's not too little, is it?" he added in a concerned tone.

"Ah...."

"I mean, I know I have a lot of back rent to get caught up on and all, but I wondered if... you know.... If we just established what rent is, then I can work on paying that of. In the meanwhile, I'd like to make regular payments for the current rent."

"Well... er...."

"You said it before, and I do recognize that I owe you big time, man. I wanna make good on that."

In principle, I can't accept his money, at least not for the back rent. Helping me with my senses was sort of a 'services rendered' sufficient enough for me to forgive the debt. Normally I'd hate to admit being beholden to the guy, but this time I just had to tell him. I couldn't let him continue to believe he owed me somewhere in the neighborhood of sixteen thousand dollars.

"Chief, it's good," I said. "Don't worry about the back rent stuff. You don't owe it."

"But you said...."

"I was joking, you bone-head." Sometimes he can really be thick. I knew what he was talking about. I had made some off-handed remark about paying me back rent back when Simon and I had offered him the option of taking on the badge.

"Really, Jim, I'm ready to pay...."

I waved my hand in front of him to shut him up. I could not, cannot and will not take the back rent. I didn't tell him why. That was perhaps a little too much to admit.

"And I tell you what," I add. "Just pay me for half the groceries and utilities and it's all good."

He got that look in his eye. It could mean one of two things: He didn't trust my judgment on this or he couldn't believe his own luck. That look lasted about two seconds and then a smile livened up his face and he grinned happily at me. I knew that look was coming. That look was the look of Blair accepting his good fortune for what it was. He is not a person to throw away opportunity.

"Great! I can do that. Thanks, Jim."

I smiled back and turned to walk to the kitchen. Blair's check was still in my hand.

"Ah... Hey!" I expected that. With my back to him he couldn't see the smirk all over my face. "What about the check?"

I schooled my features back down to pleasantly impassive and turned, giving him my best 'clueless' look. I pointed inquiringly at the check in my hand. "This?"

"Yeah... That." He was trying not to sound too ruffled over the fact that I intended to keep his money.

"Well, Chief, way I see it, might as well start paying for the food and fuel today."

He lost the facade and he was now clearly disconcerted. "Three hundred and fifty dollars worth?" His voice cracks a bit on the hefty figure.

"Fresh produce is expensive and you graze like a cow."

There was a stunned pause. I wanted to laugh.

"You suck," he said, finally, as a dismissal of me and probably the horse I rode in on.

I smiled.

*Day Twenty: Hot Pursuit*

I came home and pulled the mail out of the box next to the front doors. Damn it anyway! I hate it when the mailman just jams Sandburg's journals into the box. I spent nearly ten minutes picking Theoretical Anthropology and the Annual Review of Anthropology out of the slim box they had been rolled up and shoved into. Normally he had these periodicals delivered to his mailbox on campus. Well, naturally, that has changed.

I was hungry. I was very hungry, and I didn't want to cook. I wanted to go out to eat, but like a good little roommate and friend, I was waiting for Sandburg. I wanted to see if he wanted to come along. If I had to wait too long, I was going to be irritated. Stupid of me to admit, but I wouldn't leave until he came home. I didn't know why. I didn't know what it was. I had been feeling strange lately.

Sometimes I felt an almost very physical sensation of relief when I heard him on the other side of the door. Something in my chest loosened up and breathing became... I don't know... a bit easier, a little deeper. And I would automatically catch his scent as if I'd been searching for it all day. Sometimes I'd catch myself making my breathing match his or feeling for the soft vibration of his pulse if he was close enough. I had been feeling anxious lately. It was funny in a bizarre way that I should worry after all the shit I led him through and pulled him out of over the years. A part of me felt a little silly, like I was fretting over not being there to hold his hand or something.

Normally Sandburg would be about five to ten minutes behind me coming home from work. He'd walk through the door, drop his keys, groan a complaint about his sore back and the gun belt, and then he'd make some listless noise about dinner in the hopes that I would take pity on him. That night he was already ten minutes late. I was starting to get irritated. I was hungry... I guess I've said that already.

I decided to find a snack to hold me over. I immediately went to the fridge to do a little foraging. Inside I found the neatly arranged blue and red Tupperware system that I designed to keep Blair's and my leftovers from getting confused. To this day, I stand by this house rule as essential. Blair agreed with me after he discovered that I routinely tossed out any leftover that has seen three days in the refrigerator. Not minding a little age on his food, unless it was green and moving, he was glad for the color coding then. But he did finally mention that he objected to the color red.

"You label my food like it's a biohazard!" he complained.

I didn't realize that a color could offend. I promised him that I would change his color to green. I kept on intending to do it, but I was waiting for the number of red-lidded items to decrease to at least one or two so there would not be confusion in the change over. That never happened. Eventually we both sort of forgot.... Well, he forgot; I just kept waiting for that magical day that the red-lidded, day-old food would drop to an extreme minimum. As for the implications of the red lidded container, yes, his food is or will soon become a biohazard.

Twenty-five minutes late and I had half a deli sandwich from a trip down to Zimmerman's half a block from Cascade PD Head Quarters. I brought it home two days ago and didn't finish it. Blair ordered a pizza that arrived smelling too good to resist. Consequently, the sandwich was abandoned. I sit down with it on the couch and grab the TV remote. Might as well watch something while I fumed over Sandburg's tardiness.

The last thing I had been watching the previous evening had been the local news. I had wanted to catch the weather to see if I needed to prepare for another early-spring snow or not. Cascade doesn't get lots of snow, but it had been pretty damn cold out there. I hit the power button, and the first thing that popped on the screen was a scene of the northwest section of Cascade midtown and a bold caption on the bottom of the screen:

_Breaking News: High Speed Chase_

We were looking down on the streets of Cascade's market district apparently from a chopper. The commentary was coming from reporters inside the chopper. Evidently there was a late day armed robbery of a Washington State Savings on Post Street near downtown. Three robbers nabbed an estimated thirty thousand dollars just as the vaults were to close for the evening. The chase had been going on for close to fifteen minutes with the robbers hopping on and off the expressway. There were seven Cascade cruisers on the bad guys' tails and their little black late model Monte Carlo was looking pretty abused. They must've had a run in with some stop strips because there were sparks flying from under the rear left side of the car. They couldn't keep it up much longer in that heap. Not gray but clean white smoke was pouring from the exhaust, a sign of an engine block soon to crack.

The news commentator was going on dramatically about how many near misses the perps had had so far during this pursuit. Even after the cops backed off a bit, they continued to blow through intersections and weave through traffic at a dangerous speed. After the stop strips, the cops had closed in again. Unexpectedly, the perps' car careened out of control and slammed into a light pole. It bounced back a bit but then rolled backwards to a stop. The news commentator's voice became a wail of emotion as if he had just witness the explosion of the Hindenburg, but I had stopped paying attention to him about twelve histrionic sentences ago. I was absorbed in the action.

The patrol cars converged on the wrecked vehicle, but there was motion inside. Before the cops could make their move, a door on the passenger side burst open, and out tumbled two men, both young. One looked Caucasian; the other could have been Latino. I'm sure everyone else who had tuned in wouldn't even have been able to peg the Caucasian, but I could. They took off running in separate directions.

The cops were now in a foot pursuit. The Caucasian's flight was short-lived. He made the mistake of heading towards a row of buildings near a corner. More cops were waiting just around that bend. He ran right into their arms. The Latino, however, headed across a gravel parking lot, over a fence and into a park. Three officers were in pursuit. As they hit the grass of the park, one uniformed officer broke from the pack with a smooth burst of speed.

Something was tickling in the back of my mind as I watched the young, dark-haired officer streak along the park grass, slaloming around trees and hopping fences with very few breaks in his stride. The other officers were following about three or more paces behind. As I watched him, the tickle became a thought. It was a thought that made me attempt to focus my vision as tightly as possible on the lead officer. I went in as close as I could before screen distortion scrambled what I saw down to just pixels. The thought came up front in my mind and announced itself clearly on my unsuspecting consciousness.

That's my Blair!

Blair, not running like a girl, but hauling ass after the perp and gaining ground. The perp stumbled over some trash against a chain-link fence, and that was all the advantage Blair needed. He launched himself at the man, pulling him down and rolling him easily to his belly. From there it was easy. By the time the last of the pursuing officers ran up, the perp was already cuffed, flat on the ground and ready to go.

When a large piece of bacon from my turkey club hit my thigh, I realized I'd pretty much frozen in place during the whole thing and now I was losing the innards of my sandwich. I also realized that as I watched him on screen some innate part of me had tried in vain to sense him. I had tried to isolate a heartbeat, hear his labored breathing, tried to catch a scent of his perspiration. Stupid of me, right? I'm watching scenes shot close to one hundred feet in the air via helicopter. What the hell was I thinking?

I had no answer for that, for it felt so natural and involuntary. It was a small reaction lasting maybe less than a whole two seconds. I didn't even notice I was trying until I felt the 'wrongness' of not getting the expected and desired feedback from my senses. It was strange.

I pushed it aside, embarrassed even though I was clearly alone. I think I knew that if I could do something so stupid so easily alone, I was bound to do it again in front of someone. Even those thoughts were irrational paranoia, though. Who besides Blair, Simon and Megan knew that I could even do the senses thing?

Time to stop thinking, and time to stop worrying. I knew where Sandburg was, and he wasn't coming home any time soon. With that knowledge, I quickly downed my sandwich and grabbed my coat. Sandburg would be going through his first booking proceedings on his first official collar. I had plenty of time to get to Wonderburger and back and have a fabulously greasy, high-cholesterol meal. I figured that even the smell of the fries would have dissipated by the time Sandburg got in.

The smell of the double fries was long gone by the time Blair finally came exuberantly through the loft door. I hadn't meant to stay up, but I just had to know. It was approaching twelve thirty AM. He was wearing jeans and one of those stupid bowling shirts he has an inclination towards. He held his stuffed backpack in his hand. Obviously that was where the infamous blue polyester uniform had wound up. To top it off, he smelled like beer.

"Oh man, Jim!" He was beaming at me as he put down the backpack with care. The service piece was probably in there...an infraction of concealed carry laws. "My day was incredible! I would have been home sooner, but Marcy insisted on buying me a beer after work. You wouldn't believe what happened today, Jim. I...."

"I saw." I gave him a flat toned reply followed by a flat expression. I didn't mean to sound so crusty about it but my voice sort of came out that way. I guess I should admit that I was a little irritated at the time. He could have been home sooner.

Blair was in such a state of total 'pump-up'; he didn't even notice my sarcasm. "Oh yeah! Channel 12 had a helicopter on the scene...Did you see it! Did you see my arrest? It was incredible, Jim! We chased these guys for fifteen blocks all the way from downtown through the waterfront to the market district and...."

"I saw it," I finally admit. "I caught the end of the chase on the TV."

"Then you saw... IT!"

"The flying tackle?" I couldn't help it. I smiled at him. He was beaming at me, totally proud of himself and I could tell he wanted me to be proud of him too. So maybe I was. "You done good."

He just grinned back at me for the longest time. It was quiet in the loft again; just the sound of the wind through the pinpoint hole in the sky light, the gas pilot lights on the stove, the refrigerator, and Blair's heart beating like a drum. I thought I heard the rhythm pick up a bit after I told him he had done good. I liked that. It was useless being annoyed at him when he was so happy. All of a sudden, I was happy too. I was proud of him. I knew then for certain that he was going to be a great cop... like I thought he would.

"Now why don't you go and put your gun away and tell me all about it." I finally said. Safety first.

*Day sixty eight: Even More Hot Pursuits*

I was still working on that 'vagrant case,' as Simon and I had officially dubbed it. No leads, no breaks and a new victim...well, missing person, I should say. Still no bodies, just a lot of concerned charity workers and frightened homeless people. I was still piecing it together. I knew I had to be missing something obvious.

It was my Friday, and for me, that week, 'Friday' was Friday. I had the weekend off. Sandburg had Tuesday/Wednesday off. He whined pretty hard about that. It was about that time that I realized that having always been in the academic world either as a student or as a Teaching Fellow, Blair had never held down a real job. That little bit with his Uncle the truck driver didn't count. He went straight from his mom's... 'house'... ah, 'houses'... to the University dorms. He'd never done the fast-food thing or the seasonal amusement park thing, or the summer camp counselor thing. He'd never had to hold down a job that required hours that were not Monday through Friday, nine to five. And I knew that at the University, nine to five was not enforced strictly. He just had to be there for his classes, his lectures and his meetings. The rest was up to his discretion.

Police work is 24/7/365, obviously. An officer can have a rotating shift or, with seniority, have a pick of the better shifts. Sandburg should have counted his lucky stars that he had been assigned to Arnett, whose seniority had landed him a first shift assignment. He could have easily been placed with a seasoned officer of lesser seniority on second or third shift. He could have been going in at midnight and getting off at seven AM. That's the life of a patrolman. It was going to get worse once he was a detective and stakeouts became mandatory and not an optional activity as it was for his observer status.

Despite the fact that he had to be in the next morning, we'd made plans. Nothing big or fancy, just a little time to reconnect as friends. After three years in an unofficial partnership, for the first time ever, we hadn't been in each other's faces for months. Now I thought that that would have been a good thing...a great thing! No 'mother-hen' to try to push herbs down my throat every time I cough. No whining during the long, boring stakeouts he chose to be present for. No worrying about the neck of the guy who's suppose to be watching my back.

To tell you the truth, I'd been a little lonely. That was not something I wanted to admit to him, though. I had a bad time admitting it to myself. Yeah, he's a pest, but he was there. He was there for me at times when other people who should have been there for me weren't. He shoves his herb concoctions down my throat because he cares. And I guess some of his supposedly amusing anecdotes about his travels that he regales me with during stakeouts are... well... amusing. And he's a tough little punk. I'll admit that now. Maybe he's not as soft-handed as I made him out to be earlier.

Well, we decided that what we needed was a night to just unwind and relax together. We decided on a Bruce Lee movie marathon. I had it all planned out. First we'd watch 'The Chinese Connection,' then 'Fist of Fury,' then we'd get to the really good stuff, 'Enter the Dragon and 'Return of the Dragon'. I had already bought the popcorn.

It had taken a while for us to decide what genre of movie we wanted to watch. Sandburg kept running on about James Bond. Personally, I can't get into those corny spy flicks with lots of dumb blondes sporting sexually suggestive names. I like my action hard and fast and not diluted with un-witty puns and crazy gizmos. Then he wanted to watch 'The Planet of the Apes' series. Now the first one and the second one with Charlton Heston were okay, but the rest were...a little campy at best, and the special effects and costuming got worse instead of better.

It was late afternoon, almost quitting time. I really was looking forward to a little Bruce Lee and some decent company. I closed the file I was working on and stretched in my seat. I don't know how long I'd been hunched over that thing. Felt like I'd been at it since God was a teenager.

I smelled the fennel coming before the elevator doors opened. Now here's the silly part: My body reacted again, just like when I got angry with him over dinner a few weeks ago. But the reaction was, of course, different. My face felt like a smile was trying desperately to break out, and my breathing got a little shallower. My arms and chest felt tingly...that part was really odd. My head turned just in time to see him marching past the donut cart, waving hello to Molly, the new donut girl, who, in turn, beamed at him. She was too overcome by her crush on him to even try to offer him a donut. I carefully covered my own reaction by taking a swallow of my cold coffee.

"Hey, Jim." Blair bushed pasted Connor's empty desk, grabbed her chair and rolled it towards my desk. He plopped himself down beside me and gave me a smile.

My initial reaction was over as soon as I sensed his state. I could almost feel the apprehension he was feeling. It was in the tightness of his posture and in the rhythm of his breathing. His smile was just a bit too wide. It was forced in an attempt to hide another emotion.

"What is it, Sandburg?" I asked flatly.

He gave a small nervous laugh. "Ah...Remember when we said that we'd do the movie thing if nothing better came up?"

He didn't even have to finish. I turned away, looked down at the papers on my desk. I felt my brow rise and my mouth twist into a smirk. I guess the look I was trying to achieve was something like a cross between irritation and apathy. Mostly I turned away because at the moment, unexpectedly, I felt a burning disappointment that dropped the bottom out of my stomach and sent all of my internal organs on a trip to my ass.

I'd felt that sensation before. I had felt it a number of times when I was a kid and my mom canceled keeping Stevie and me for a weekend or a holiday. I didn't know why one stupid night of mindless vegetation in front of the TV should be so important to me. Yet it was. I was just about a notch-and-a-half above crushed.

"Who is she?" I asked just to be asking.

"Do you remember Lisa? She was in one of my study groups at the academy." He was squirming excitedly in his chair, and he was lying out his ass. His heart rate had just sped up and his body temperature cranked up a notch. He was giving off a pheromone that I had smelled from him before.

He usually doesn't lie to me. But when he does lie to me, he's usually doing it to protect someone else from me or to protect me from something. Now, I've heard him tell fucking whoppers to other people. I've watched him let big fat stinking falsehoods roll off his tongue like they weren't anything but last week's weather report. He had names for it like romantic obfuscation and constructive exaggerations. They meant he would distort the truth. A lie is a lie to me, and truth distortion still fits the bill.

I have to admit that I picked up a dictionary later when I was alone and looked that ten-dollar word 'obfuscation'. Nobody likes to admit that his or her vocabulary isn't mind-bogglingly lengthy and all encompassing. Nobody on the scene when he used the word even had the nerve to say, 'Now what the hell does that mean, Sandburg?' We all just stared at him like he was crazy.

He was lying to me, and I knew why. As I stated before, there were only two reasons why he would ever lie to me. The first reason was to protect someone else. The second reason was a bit more complicated. Whoever he was ditching out on me for, it wasn't someone named Lisa.

I know why he felt the need to lie, and I don't blame him. If I had been in his unique situation, surrounded by large brute alpha-male cops, just a step above beating our chests and scratching our balls in public, I'd keep my bi tendencies on the hush too. I told you that my gay-ometer wasn't that good with men. Blair sort of 'sensed-out' to me as the straightest guy who ever walked down the street, and his over-eager libido with women helped reinforce that. And then one fine day, about ten months after we first met, I smelled another man on him. That's the best way I can explain it. It's like when a woman smells another woman's perfume on her husband. I smelled another man's scent all over Blair one night when he came home late from the University. At the time, I dismissed it as a fluke. There was probably some simple and obvious explanation, but I never asked him for it.

However, the memory of that incident stayed with me and it made me sense a few more 'flukes'. I smelled his attraction to the young Russian, Sergei. I could really tell he liked the poor bastard and in more than a friendly 'I-understand-and-relate-with-your-ideals' kind of way. Sergei's death was devastating to him. Still, it wasn't like Blair had a chance with the kid. If I recall correctly, Sergei had been engaged to Micki's sister, Katrina.

I smelled the attraction again when he took me to meet "Sweet Roy" Williams. It was stronger there than ever before. Strong and excited, like he sometimes gets with women when he knows he's about to score. It made me wonder, later, if those little altercations between the boxer and his brother and later with promoter Billy Atlas had not spoiled the evening, would Blair have gotten lucky? The next morning, Roy was dead and Blair, once more, was devastated.

There were other little clues. There was the way he sometimes talked to Jack Kelso. His voice seemed softer, kinder. It's hard to describe. It's sort of like the way you can tell a guy is talking to his wife on the phone and not just any old bozo. Also, there were the strange physiological responses he had to some of the suggestions Lee Brackett had made. I'll never forget the little ant-dance his pulse and respiration played when Brackett suggested that Sandburg 'go fish' in my pants for the wire I was wearing.

"...doing dinner after work," Sandburg was still talking even though I'd stopped trying to listen. I pulled my focus back onto his words. I may have been irritated but I shouldn't be rude. After all, we did agree to make our plans contingent upon whether something better came up.

"So don't wait up or anything..." He smiled at me again and I could see the contrite look in his eyes. "Sorry about that, Jim."

"Hey, Chief, don't be sorry. Something better came along." I shrugged to show that it was good. It couldn't be helped. I was doing a good job of keeping my whole appearance pretty indifferent. That too helped the 'open pit' feeling in my gut. The disappointment receded to what I would consider normal healthy levels for the situation.

He smiled at me as he straightened himself out of the chair. "Thanks, man. I knew you'd understand."

I forced a smile back at him, hoping to see that stupid grin that told me that everything was still cool with us. Instead I noticed a diminishing of his smile. It was very slight, practically unnoticeable. Was he on to me? Maybe.

Later that evening, I came home to the same noisy silence as usual. We had planned to spend our evening filling up on bagel bite, pizza rolls and popcorn. I saw no reason why I should deviate from the plan, so I started the oven preheating. I then ran in the bathroom for a real quick shower.

While the snacks were cooking, I put on some old sweats and a tee shirt. I threw some popcorn in the microwave and put the first tape in, letting the promotional crap run while I waited by the popping corn, using my sense of smell to detect the aroma of scorched popcorn first. The bag tells you to wait till there are three seconds between each pop. It has been my experience that by that time the whole bag is scorched. Sandburg never seems to notice the scorched taste, but I can. I hate it. On the other hand, stopping the process when I usually do leaves a lot of unpopped kernels. That gets on Sandburg's nerves. He says that they hurt his teeth if he accidentally bites into one. Well, he wasn't here to worry about that.

Popcorn was ready, pizza rolls and bagel bites were cooling on the counter when I suddenly realized that I didn't necessarily have to watch the Bruce Lee marathon any more than I had to worry about too many unpopped kernels. I stopped the Bruce Lee tape and pulled out a movie that I thought would be more interesting from my small collection of VHS.

So there I was, sprawled across the couch in sweats, surrounded by junk finger-foods, sucking on a beer and watching Christopher Walken in 'The Dead Zone'. Here is something I've never told Sandburg. I love the movie 'The Dead Zone'. I relate to Johnny and his unique predicament. I can really understand what it is that both drives him and scares the hell out of him at the same time. I can almost feel that we share a similar problem. He woke up from a coma with a sixth sense turned on. I walked out of isolation with only my first five turned up.

A fictional character in a Stephen King film is my only kindred spirit. The only other sentinel that I had ever met was by no means a kindred spirit. The best words to describe her would be corrupt of mind and soul. I think Incacha told me once that there would be such beings. I just don't remember for sure.

Thinking of Alex got me going then, as I sat sprawled across the sofa. It's easy to get sidetracked by doubts about your life when you've seen the movie on the screen at least a couple dozen times. So there I was picking apart my love life with the ol' metaphorical microscope and a set of tweezers. I was making a mental checklist of all the girls that burned me badly on top and then all the girls I'd burned. The list was a little top heavy.

I thought of the ones who lied to me, like Lila and Laura and Mickie. Then I thought of the ones who just plain out used me, like Veronica and Michelle... and Laura again. And let's not forget Alex. Then I think of the ones whose egos were too big to get around, like Angie and Angelina and Wendy and Elaine. The list goes on.

So I moved on with hope to the girls that it may have been my fault about. Caroline looms there larger than life, saying, 'look no further'. And I really didn't need to examine any of the others to see what it is that I do to a woman who gets too close. I pushed Caroline out, plain and simple.

It was always about how I felt, and how my not wanting to talk about how I felt invalidated her feelings. I don't want to talk about what I feel. Hell, I don't know how I feel. Why should I feel anything?

I know that I feel damned irritated when someone pins emotions on me when I'm not feeling anything at all. Caroline always tried to pin emotions on to me. It was like pin the emotion on the jackass. If I didn't want to talk, I was brooding and moody. If I wanted to argue about her demands, then I was projecting my own shortcomings. If my performance failed to please, then I was acting out my displeasure in a situation by being passive-aggressive. I couldn't win. But you know what? As bad as all that sounds, I was probably worse, because I could ignore her. I could tune her right out. I ignored Caroline better than I've ever ignored anything else in the whole world. When Sandburg taught me to turn the senses down, I had already known the technique and had the practice. I ignored Caroline Plummer right out of my life.

Suddenly the pizza rolls were landing like bricks in my stomach, and the popcorn smelled scorched. I was twenty minutes into the movie, and I wasn't interested any more. I was done. I'd had enough miserable revelations for one night, and I wondered how Sandburg's evening was going.

Sandburg is the self-proclaimed sensitive guy who's in touch with his feelings. He never has a problem getting dates but never seems all that interested in commitment. But that's just his age talking. Someday, say about when he's thirty-five, he's going to get the nesting urge. Contrary to popular belief, we all get it. Some of us are just better than others at covering it up with machismo. He'll get the nesting urge. I wonder which direction he'll set up his nest in?

You know, I'd never had that much of a problem talking over all those stupid feelings with Sandburg. Well, actually, it wasn't like I spilled them right away. He had a little bit of a fight going in. But now, I just do. It doesn't seem to matter as much to me any more as it had when I was with Caroline. Even when Sandburg plays pin the emotion on the jackass, it doesn't irritate me as hard, or I get over it faster. I think that it's maybe because he hits pretty close to home most of the time. I hate that, but I can't stay mad at him about it.

I got up off the couch to stretch. My head turned in the direction of the balcony. Whenever I get sappy and pathetic I tend to gravitate over to the balcony and the view of the bay. Sandburg has found me there feeling sorry for myself more times than I'd like to admit. My feet started over in that direction just out of habit. I guess I was feeling sorry for myself again.

I was too wrapped up in my own little pity party to have heard the Volvo's door squeak open. I was standing at the glass door, my hand resting on the handle as I had a short internal debate about going out into the chilly night air. In the background, Martin Sheen's character was talking. I didn't try to really listen; I knew what scene was playing. I was just letting his distinct voice play like jazz in the background. It was the faint smell of fennel filtering into the air of the loft that alerted me to the fact that my roommate was home.

My body reacted again. Something in my chest lifted and I felt a giddy relief. I can only imagine that the relief was just a reaction to being pleased about a diversion from my dismal thoughts. Then curiosity took over. Why was he back so soon? What happened to his 'something better'?

Keys jingled in the lock, and then Sandburg was coming through the door. I guess I expected him to look a bit dejected. I expected him to tell me that his 'something better' had not been impressed with the Sandburg charm. Or perhaps he would tell me that the 'something better' had turned out to be 'something worse'. I turned towards Sandburg ready with the 'cheer up, Chief' speech on the tip of my tongue.

But he looked at me and just smiled. He smiled this huge ass grin, like I just threw him a surprise party. The consolation speech didn't seem to fit here so I fell back on my curiosity.

"What's up? I thought you had a date?" I asked.

"I don't know," he shrugged. "I guess I'm feeling a bit tired. It seemed like a lot of effort to try and impress someone that I only have a superficial interest in."

He was being painfully honest that night. He does that from time to time. I used to get embarrassed when he did that. But that was before I really got to know him. Then later, I felt... Well, I guess I was a little honored. For all his wearing-his-heart-on-his-sleeve, he doesn't let a lot of people see the real Blair Sandburg. I think only his mother and I have seen this guy. I sort of got this impression that for him, I was like the older brother he never had. I don't want to think of myself as a father figure. That would be a step too far into the creepy. He already thinks that I have the hots for his mother.

Being the nurturing older brother that I am, I put myself in motion and crossed the living room to the kitchen. I got him a beer as he dropped his gear off at his room and came back out to see what I was up to.

I turned to give him his beer when he reached me. He was still smiling, and he seemed genuinely happy. That's a little beyond the ordinary for me when it comes to Sandburg. Usually a good mood like this signified a major score on the dating front. This was the first time he'd ever come home empty-handed and still pumped. I grabbed another bag of microwave popcorn to pop just for him... the whole three minutes until scorched.

"I thought that Lisa was a nice girl," I said just to make conversation. I was facing the counter and my back was to him so I didn't see his expression but he hesitated on the answer. I could hear the catch in his breath.

"Yeah, she's okay.... I guess I thought it would be more fun to spend the evening watching action films and talking to you. I don't see you enough any more."

I was sincerely flattered, and I smiled despite myself. Fortunately my back was still to him. In the back of my thoughts, I was really pleased to know that I was more important to him than any minor piece of ass. That meant one of two things, either Sandburg was seriously growing up or he thought I was more pathetic than ever.

I wiped the silly grin off my face and turned back around to face him. He was leaning against the center island counter, holding his beer, and still happy. What I wanted to be just a blank expression turned into a pleasantly satisfied one. I couldn't help it. I had this--'warm fuzzy' feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I felt really content. It was like being really comfortable after being in traction for days.

"What are you watchin'?" he asked.

"Dead Zone. You know, Christopher Walken...not that new TV series version."

"You like Stephen King?"

"Depends on the context, Chief. Book or movie? I like the books, but it just depends on what movie you're talking about. I didn't care for 'Pet Semetary' all that much. I liked 'It' and 'Misery'."

"Those are great!" he interjects. "Hey, do we have those movies? Can we watch them tonight?"

I smiled at him, pleased to see him eager to share an evening with me just letting our eyes glaze over in front of the tube. "Yeah, we've got 'em. Put in some more pizza rolls. I'll go and put Misery in."

"What about 'The Dead Zone'?" he asked.

I shrugged. "I wasn't paying that close attention to it anyway. Just put the pizza rolls in, Sandburg, and stop worrying."

Marcy Arnett joined us at the gym the next week. She can be a pretty intense person when it comes to her weight training, and I watched her bark over Sandburg as she spotted him on the bench press. I had to ask.

"Army?"

"Marines," she replied.

I smiled maliciously down at Sandburg as I left him to her tender mercies. Later, as our circuit training brought us to a cardio moment on the treadmills we had a better chance to really talk. Well, at least Marcy and I could talk. Sandburg kept it to short answers. He just didn't have the wind Marcy and I had. He's getting there.

"You guys wanna go to that new bagel place for lunch after this?" she asked. "I hear they've got this pimento veggie bagel sandwich that will make you swear off meat for months!"

"Didn't think you'd be a vegetarian." I commented.

"I'm not," she replied. "I like a good steak and I can still look a cow in the eye. Tofu is for people who are afraid to die."

That was funny, and of course I was laughing. A picture of Naomi Sandburg was in my mind. She was begging the grim reaper not to take her away because she had a clean colon and good karma. I could tell by the shit-eating look Sandburg was giving me that he had guessed what I was thinking.

"Easy, Chief. I know your mom's a vegan, but let's be realistic. There's no real proof that by just being a vegetarian alone, you'll live longer."

"Yes, but for a vegan it's not about living longer but living better both spiritually and physically," Sandburg replied.

"Long-standing argument?" Arnett looked us both over critically.

"No," I replied. "We just try not to talk politics, religion or tofu if we can."

"Hey, speaking of good food and bad wisdom," Arnett addressed Sandburg, "how did your dinner with Captain Kaitan go last Friday?"

I almost stopped dead in my track on the treadmill. Blair had a dinner date with Mark Kaitan last Friday? He was the new chief of the narcotics division. I looked over at Sandburg and noticed that the flushed look on his face is not just from physical exertion.

"Well... ah... It went all right... I mean...." He was stumbling over his words and practically stumbling over his own feet on the treadmill as her question blind-sided him from left field.

"Was it what I told you I thought it was about?" she said with a teasing grin.

"Actually, yes, it was." He gained both his voice and his footing again.

She practically blew a hole through the roof with a hard laugh. "I KNEW IT!" She slapped her hands together to emphasize her point.

At that point, I was confused. Why would Mark Kaitan want to have dinner with Sandburg? Why would Arnett know before me what it was all about? I was about to open my mouth to get a straight story out of either one of them when Arnett continued.

"Narcotics lost seven guys just in these past two years, and that's not counting the indicted and suspended for corruption. He has vacancies to fill! You're one of the bright young 'up-and-comers'. Of course he has his eye on you...they all do since you've been sort of earmarked for Major Crimes. He's looking to pull you out from under Banks's nose!"

The Narcotics division was courting him. I wondered why Blair hadn't told me. I wondered why he felt the need to lie to me.

"And you know," Arnett continued, "Tuller pulled your last qualifiers."

She was speaking of the SWAT commander, Captain Paul Tuller. Apparently there was something very significant about Blair if the SWAT commander was looking over his qualifying practice range targets. Blair had proved himself a fairly good marksman after he learned his own weaknesses. After six months of shooting he was about as accurate as I was at fifty yards. And he is almost as accurate as I am at one hundred yards. With a rifle he made the top tenth percentile at three hundred yards. That's good enough to become a Marine STA sharp shooter.

I wondered if Tuller wanted him, too. In my head I was skeptical. Blair just was not SWAT material. Beat cop material-- yes, detective material-- yes, but crazy police commando swinging in through plate glass window and sliding down guy-ropes through ceiling panels-- no. Blair's a talker, a... a negotiator! Of course! He's a negotiator. That's what Tuller wants him for.

Still, the idea of Blair tied up with the gun-ho conservative, 'kill-em-all' nut cases that make up Cascade SWAT made me choke on a laugh. After clearing my throat I opened my mouth to give Sandburg some wise crack about really going commando no longer meaning taking a wild chance that he'll get lucky on a date and need to save the undress time. I stopped myself when I saw the pale hue to his skin and the bewildered expression. He never wanted to be a cop in the first place, now they all wanted him to be their little super cop.

You know sometimes how your brain can send you signals... how your conscience can stop you cold? My conscience stopped me with the words Thumper spoke in the movie 'Bambi'. "If you can't say anything nice, don't say nothin' at all." The crazy part was that it was Thumper's voice chastising me in my brain.

I thought it best to wait till after lunch to really lay into him about lying to me. And after Marcy said her good-byes and marched off to her car, I was prepared to give him a good strip-down. He beat me to the punch by grabbing my arm to get my attention.

"I didn't want you to know right away," he said right from the start. "I wasn't sure how I felt about it. I knew what Kaitan wanted. I wanted to be certain about what I wanted. Talking it out with you... could have muddied the waters...."

I reacted totally with my gut feelings to that explanation and went on the defensive. "Muddied the waters? Chief, when have I ever been anything but supportive to you and whatever is your flavor-of-the-week...."

"And that's just it! You see, when you don't like my choices you belittle them. I know you really don't mean to but...." He threw his hands in the air and gave out this explosive sigh as if he were begging heaven for strength.

"When you could have gone to Borneo, I didn't belittle your choice then," I countered pulling the only thing I could think of out of my ass. "I wanted you to do what was best for you."

What a lie! That day, deep inside of me, I pouted and stamped my feet like a baby. I didn't want him to go.... That was probably the first time I felt that bottom dropping out sensation with Blair. I just didn't nail it down and name it at the time because I had been too proud to admit to myself that I had come to need him so much.

He dropped his arms to his side, and his head hung for a second. He looked up at me, and our eyes met. For the first time in a long time, maybe since the hair cut, we looked into each other's eyes. There has always been a silent communication there that is soul deep and inexpressible. We have never tried to define it. It exists and I want it and I like it. I won't let it slip away.

"I'm sorry, Jim," he said. "I... I just knew that if I talked with you about Kaitan, I would never have gone to dinner with him to hear him out."

I could understand that. "Chief, you know you can talk to me. I wouldn't try to steer you away from a better opportunity."

"I know that, Jim," he said and smiled. But the answer was in his eyes. It wasn't what I would have said. It was the things I would not have said. It was like the things that I didn't say that day he told me about Dr. Stoddard and the Borneo trip. It was the pouting and foot stamping that I didn't do. It occurred to me that Blair Sandburg knew me better than anyone else on this planet. He could look in my eyes and see the sulky, bad-tempered child.

I suddenly felt very grateful to him. My body reacted. A clean, cleansing breath expanded my chest.

*Taking the Test*

Four days before he took the exam, I had a dream.

I was standing in my old room in my dad's house. Sally was calling me down for dinner, but I wasn't a child. I was my current age, a man with a home and a life. I thought about going down to dinner. I really wanted to. Dinner smelled great, and Sally was an excellent cook. But I knew that there was something I had to do.

I left my room and began to cross the wide hallway that led to the upstairs sitting room that overlooked the great room below. Somewhere along the way, in a strange, disjointed amalgamation of images, the scene changed to the bullpen of Major Crimes. I could still smell Sally's pot roast. The work area was relatively empty. It looked to be about eight at night and I could see through the slats of Simon's vertical blinds the outline of a quiet nighttime skyline. Cascade was beautiful at night and the skyline was like skyscraper mountains covered with jewels set against a black velvet backdrop. Funny as it seems, I only get poetic in my dreams.

I turned to my desk and he was standing there. I remember that shirt, how he looked...I can't describe to you what it was that drove me. But it was like all that familiarity made my heart swell and I felt...I felt...

I knew that black and white plaid shirt and dark jeans, one of his favorite outfits. His long curly hair was tied back. For some reason my fingers were next to tingling to touch, to feel the texture. I wanted to run my hands through his spiral curls and crush their fragile shapes in my hand, to feel them bounce back. It was an odd sensation, and I will admit that it was sexual too. My heart was pounding in my chest.

He was just standing at my desk, holding a case folder open, reading the contents. He looked up at me and smiled. "Hey, Jim."

I opened my mouth to reply but no sound came out. I just stared at him there. My body was reacting to him again. But I didn't question it, and I didn't fight it. I was compelled by my reaction, and I walked over to him.

The smell of pot roast and home mixed with the smell of fennel, and I was overwhelmed for a moment, caught between emotions of security and longing. It was a want, a hunger inside of me for much more than I had ever imagined that I truly desired. My heart was pounding wildly as a sensation as strong as dying gripped me, racing through me. It closed my throat with emotion and settled in my gut and my loins like a subtle and sublime ache. In the logic that can only be associated with dreams I decided to go with my compulsion. I reached out and released his hair from the band that bound it back.

Thick dark brown curls fell about his face, and I saw something that I remembered so very well, my Blair. This Blair was young and innocent and free. He was unspoiled by the sight of life and death in the criminal underbelly of the 'great city'. He still believed in his dreams and the basic goodness of others. And he still believed that I was the answer to all his endless searching. I was still his Sentinel.

I reached out and sank both my hands into his thick gorgeous hair, curls spilling across my fingers, my hands, my wrists. He watched me intensely for a moment, his blue eyes challenging me to take more. His challenge was well met in my heart and I leaned in to take the one thing I most desired and feared...

My alarm went off. The dream dispersed into the dawn, leaving me only with the knowledge that I had been happily prepared to kiss my partner full on the lips. I had been more than happily prepared; I'd been downright eager and aroused about it... so much so that I had to admit that it probably was the fuel for the fire of my early-morning woody. That was an uncomfortable admission. I popped out of bed and went to the shower like someone had set the bed sheets on fire.

As for the erection, I didn't touch the thing. It was like taboo or something. It was too closely associated to a dream about wanting to make out with my roommate. I washed it and the memory of the dream and all of its uncomfortable implications away in the shower...at least for the moment.

But I wondered what the pot roast meant.

The day he took the exam, he had the day off. I drove him in with me to HQ where it was being given in one of the large conference room on the lower level, the ones usually reserved for press conferences. It seems as if I recall having to take my detective's exam at City Hall, but that was close to nine years ago. Things could have changed for any number of reasons.

He didn't seem nervous. He studied a lot over the last month. He reviewed procedures. He went over forensic detail protocol. He memorized codes and statement procedures and circumstantial evidence etiquette. This was a test, and Blair knew tests. He could do tests. He was one of those few people who never got test anxiety. He was ready. I expected to hear that he aced it.

And the last four months had been very full. As a patrol officer he experienced all the dull drums of regular police work along with a small smattering of excitement. He had two high-speed chases (not that those were new to him). He had his first arrest and read his first 'Miranda Rights' all on his own. He experienced booking his own collars on his own. But mostly I think he really got to know and experience true police work. Even for the four years he had been with me I don't think he completely knew how it felt.

It's different when you are drawing a paycheck from your performance, when people look at you as an icon of safety and justice or as a symbol of oppression and mistrust--depending what side of town you are on. As an outsider he could walk away. Oh, I'm sure he empathized with me, Simon, Joel and everyone, but I don't think he really understood how tough it was to sometimes feel like the bad guy when you are trying to do good.

He came home some nights sapped-out and listless, talking to me about some bozo on the expressway who didn't take kindly to being ticketed for going thirty mph over the posted speed limit even though he was dead late to his daughter's one-year-old birthday party. Or maybe there had been some shop owner who wanted to argue about whether or not his sidewalk display was just a shoplifter magnet and he just couldn't expect two cops to stand about all day for security purposes.

I think now Blair really understands how incredibly tedious and stupid some aspects of police work can be. It like that first day when he mentioned all the expired tags they ran. Little did he know that that was just day one of a never ending cycle of forgetful auto owners and their delinquent accounts to the Washington State Department of Licensing. He stopped even talking about all the expired tags by the end of his first week.

But now it was coming to a close. He would take his exam, and then he would be a detective 3rd grade, the lowest class of detective, and technically not eligible to work in Homicide or Major Crimes. That requires a higher-grade status. However, Simon pulled a few political strings.

I had put the Southtown case to the side. There hadn't been any more strange disappearances in a while, and I thought that now that spring was definitely here and moving into summer, some of these 'no-shows' would show up at the soup kitchens again. With that on the back burner, my caseload was fairly light that day. I spent most of the day with Joel, looking up back files on a serial arsonist whose MO may have been found again on a recent fire in the lower bay area. The finding by the CFD's arson investigation unit was a bit disturbing as this nut had been very psychopathic and went out of his way to find structures that were inhabited fire traps. Seven people died during his last spree. It was Joel's assignment, but I was helping because I could.

I was just glad to do some busy work for the moment. I wanted to be doing something... anything... I didn't want to think about Blair taking the Detective's exam. Crazy as it sounds, I was a bit anxious for him. But I didn't think it showed. At least I thought it didn't till Taggart came up behind me and slapped a supportive hand on my shoulder after I routed the same computer file twice to his workstation.

He gave me that 'ol' fatherly Joel' look and chuckled a bit. "He's fine, Jim."

I looked up at him. I wanted to look at him like I didn't know what he was talking about, but as I looked in Joel's eyes, I knew he understood. I just shut up and let it go. I was worried.

"Kid's smart. He'll probably ace it and brag about his score because it will be higher than any of ours," Joel continued. "You know, you have been just about useless since he's been gone. It'll be nice to see you two as a team again."

"Useless?" I glared at him indignantly.

Joel just chuckled in that fatherly way again. "You know what I mean. Jim, you picked over that single case for four months and never hit a solid lead. That's not like you. And the months he was in the academy, when you weren't mopping up other peoples messes or dithering over the easy stuff, you spent most of it spinning your wheels over cold leads on dead files."

He was right. I was shocked. It was like I stopped trying so hard to do my best...or I at least stalled out on doing my best. I never thought myself capable of being a slacker... till now.

"Once Blair is back, he'll bring your edge back with him," Joel continued. "I know it must be tough. You grew used to having him around for years. Now he's not here, and you had to get used to that. It was just the shock of adjustment."

"Hey, I'm just getting used to this crazy machine, not having an emotional crisis...which, by the way, I would appreciate it if you could butt out." I tapped the side of the desktop computer monitor. We'd only just got the new software in a month ago and I was still adjusting to it. It'd been a bitch without Blair around. He's the computer-literate one.

Joel shrugged and walked away. I hoped he was right. I hoped that all this slacking-off was just me taking the shock of adjusting to working without a partner again. However, the inconsistency was that I did not experience a lack of productivity when I had to adjust to working with a partner after so long. I don't remember a big problem after Jack disappeared, but then again I had been pretty preoccupied with the investigation into his disappearance at the time. That case went cold back then, too.

I stopped what I was doing for the moment and carried my empty coffee mug to Simon's office. I figured he probably needed a break too.

I heard him mutter a rough, "Come in," after I rapped on the frosted glass of his door.

He was scowling over some paperwork as usual. I could tell it was a deposition sent from the DA's office. They probably wanted him to dot their 'i's and cross their 't's. I didn't ask. I just made a beeline for his coffeepot.

"Kid's tucked away in his exam, Jim?"

"Yeah." I poured myself a cup of straight black Colombian. Thank God, Simon wasn't on some 'hazelnut-cinnamon' kick today. I came back around his desk and parked my ass against his conference table. "Won't be long now till he's up here bragging about how he aced it." I smiled. I knew that was basically untrue. Despite what Joel said, Blair is not generally a big-time braggart. Besides, it takes four to six weeks to get a grade back from the examiners.

Simon rubbed his brow and gave a small snicker. "Well, he'd better come back like his grade is 'the bomb' and his shit don't stink. I've had to fend off Kaitan, Tuller and Mendez for him... and you know, Jim, I find that irritating." He added looking up at me with that sarcastic seriousness that he sometimes uses to show his displeasure.

"I only found out about Tuller and Kaitan about a month ago. What is all this about?"

"That's easy if you've got eyes in your head to see that the cop of the year for three years only became cop of the year for three years after partnering up with the guy who is now the number one draft pick rookie on the force. Those guys ain't dumb. They know that Blair is something special. They want that in their departments. What they don't know about is this sentinel thing. You two are a matched set... a pair of salt and pepper shakers. One is far more effective with the other.... Not that I think you are ineffective, Jim..."

I raise a hand to stop him. "I know. Joel has already pointed out to me that I'm useless without Blair."

"I don't think you are useless. You're just used to him. That would have worn off in a while. But if it ain't broke, don't fix it, I always say." Simon sat back in his chair lifting his own cup of coffee for a slow savoring sip. "Sometimes plain coffee without embellishments is good. But if you can get coffee with sugar, that's better."

I nodded and smiled as I understood what he was trying to tell me. I was a good cop. But the team of Ellison/Sandburg was better. Maybe I was in a slump, but that wasn't because I needed Blair so badly that I couldn't function. It was because I was used to working in a certain way, and now I was distracted when that way was interrupted.

"Well, getting back to the original subject, Narcotics needs new talent anyhow. But Mendez's looking to boost the arrest record of his Vice unit . He needs a good solid thinking detective in his squad. Tuller?" Simon sighed and rolled his eyes heavenward. "I know he knows about Blair's work with you for the most part. He told me once that he had heard about Blair trying to bullshit Kincade three years back when his bunch took central HQ hostage. Tuller thinks that little stunt took a lot of moxy.... Tuller likes moxy." Simon sneered the last sentence out like he was talking about a particularly disgusting pediophile

"I don't get it, Simon...Why would Tuller want Blair?"

Simon snorted and put down his coffee. "I don't know! Maybe he thinks that Blair's display of guts and his good marksmanship is enough to cut it in SWAT.... Maybe he knows about Blair's background and intelligence and coupled that with his bullshit and moxy and decided he had a hostage negotiator."

I couldn't see Blair and Tuller being able to work together for very long. Paul Tuller was an opinionated, politically incorrect, bastard whose attitudes bordered on bigotry. Hell, I couldn't work with the man. I know his men just take him with a grain of salt, but really. In the dictionary, next to the word asshole, just before the definition, is a small Wall Street Journal-style engraved portrait of Paul Tuller.

"I've been fighting tooth-and-nail to keep Sandburg for Major Crimes," Simon continued. "Kaitan I guess dropped out of the race after he actually talked with Sandburg...said the kid's heart just wouldn't be in it...whatever that means. Mendez and Tuller are still trying to light a fire under the chief's ass about it. Mendez's vice unit hasn't been looking very pretty lately. Lot of men are just dropping out, leaving the force. Makes me wonder about his management style."

I knew what was wrong with Vice. They were frustrated. I knew a couple of them who left. I used to work with them before I moved over to Major Crimes. It was more than just Mendez's style. It was the new DA's tighter restrictions on undercover and sting operations. So many good busts have just gone down the toilet because the DA decided that the methodology had been too loose for her liking. A lot of the good cops have just thrown their hands in the air and walked away.

"Mendez needs a new angle," I mention. "Maybe he thinks that Blair, as an intelligent social scientist, may have the fresh ideas he needs?" I shrugged.

"Whatever," Simon sighed. His hands flopped down to his desktop, a clear sign of Simon's irritation over the whole tiresome ordeal. I bet he probably never dreamt when we offered Blair a shield that he would wind up having to fight to keep him under his command.

"This is more than my job is worth.... You realize that Mendez has been working that 'grade level eligibility' angle." He's muttering now, shaking his head and frowning at his desktop. I know I'm right.

You know, I can walk into Simon's office sometimes, feeling like a kicked puppy and somewhere in the conversation I find myself taking pity on the man. Is that a testimony to how hard it must be to be Simon Banks?

He showed up at Major Crimes about noon-ish looking tired but okay.

"Hey!" I called out to him as he came to me. I bet the eagerness was plastered all over my face. "How'd ya do?"

He stopped at my desk, planting his hands in his pocket and shrugged. "Okay.... It felt good.... I guess I'll see."

Just as I said before. Blair doesn't brag all that much. 'It felt good' equaled 'I aced the damn thing'. I was proud of him. I was smiling at him. I wonder if my pride was showing or something. He started smiling, too, and for a second I tasted a pheromone in the back of my sinuses that was pleasant and sweet and I knew was coming from Blair. It dissipated as quickly as it came, though, but it left me with the gratifying sensation of knowing that he was really pleased that I was pleased with him.

"Let's get some lunch, Chief."

*The Score*

It arrived about four weeks later in a standard business envelope with the city seal on the top left corner from the City of Cascade Office of Public Safety. It was addressed to Mr. Blair J. Sandburg, and it was jammed in behind Theoretical Anthropology. I picked it and his journal out with care. And you know this is exactly the reason why I don't like magazines delivered to the loft. What a pain in the ass.

Now as curious as I was, I could have tried to look in through the sheer envelope. It didn't have a security pattern on the inside, and when the envelope paper is clear and the light is right I can see right through to the watermark. But I didn't look. I laid the envelope down on top of the journal on the kitchen counter where I was sure he'd see it.

The rest of the mail was junk mail and the water/sewage bill, which I laid down on the coffee table. The junk mail I carried to the kitchen to dispose of. I was standing over the can, wishing I had a paper shredder as I ripped another 'pre-approved' credit card app into tiny pieces, when I heard the distinct creak of the Volvo's driver's side door. I followed his progress with my hearing. He didn't sound tired or sluggish today. He was walking quite normally. He was getting used to the weight of the belt. Now there's an irony for you. Just as he finally grew accustomed to the weight and feel of the gun belt, he makes detective and he doesn't need to wear it anymore...well, at least not as often. Junior detectives are expected to put on the uniform during times of short staffing like special events, parades, or disaster-emergencies.

I put away the scissors and turned to pull some pasta from the pantry just as his keys jingled in the lock. He came through the door carrying his backpack with his uniform stowed away within. His expression was bland but not tired as he looked over at me.

"Hey, Jim. Any mail?"

I controlled the urge to whirl about and point at the envelope like a bird-dog. "On the counter, Chief."

I turned back to the pasta and tried to concentrate on putting together a dinner for this evening. I wanted to make my homemade sauce, a perfect touch for a 'congratulations' dinner. I also worked well as a consolation feast if (yeah right!) he didn't make the cut. Pasta Primavera de l'Ellison.

I'm a Sentinel; a genetically made walking lie detector and heart and respiration monitor. I heard what happened after the envelope was torn open and the papers within were unfolded. His heartbeat picked up a pace and his breathing got deep and rapid. I nearly had to peel myself off the ceiling when he barked out a laugh. I was listening too hard. I wasn't ready for the explosion of sound that caused me to toss uncooked pasta all over the counter. He saw it. I turned in time to watch him point a finger at me as he doubled over in belly laughs. He knew what I had been doing, obviously.

"Okay, slappy." I did my very best to sound thoroughly pissed-off. "It wasn't that funny. What's the verdict?"

It took him a moment to get the giggling under control. He was panting when he finally answered. "The letter starts: Congratulations, Detective Sandburg!"

I took a step in his direction and snatched the two sheets from his hands. He was right. The first sheet did start with the words, Congratulations, Detective Sandburg. The rest was a standard form letter telling him that he passed the Detective's exam. I don't remember how my letter had addressed me, but that was a while back so the form letter may have changed. A box about midway down on the letter gave his overall score.

Damn!

It was higher than mine was; that much I was sure of. After that the letter explained that the attached sheet was a duty assignment and the effective date. It also told him where to pick up his shield and who would be his CO. He hadn't looked at that yet... he was too busy laughing at me.

I wasn't laughing. My guts were packing for that trip to my ass again. I could see just turning over that page and seeing his first assignment being Vice, and there on the CO line would be the name H. V. Mendez.

Detective Sandburg was still chortling when I gave the next page a look. I wondered if he realized that his future was not as set-in-stone as Simon and I had made it look when we talked him into the academy. I wondered if he knew that just because Kaitan asked nicely didn't necessarily mean that some other captain wouldn't force his hand. There was, after all, that little complication of his grade-level eligibility. Burglary, Vice, Swat, and Narcotics can take 3rd grade level detectives. Homicide, Gang-Crimes Task Force, and Major Crimes could not.

I didn't hold my breath. I didn't look away. I stared at the page head on, ready.

Shield Number: 4365
Effective date: June 25, 2001
Re: Current Assignment: Major Crimes
Report to CO: Simon L. Banks

My guts unpacked and relaxed. I pushed the papers back into his hands with what I hoped looked like an unconcerned snort.

"Check your duty assignment," I grumbled at him as I made my way back to the pasta covered counter. "It'll tell you when to show up and pick up your shield."

I didn't turn around as I heard the sound of papers being turned. Instead, I turned my attention to the counter wiping up stray pasta and assessing the damage. I guess I was kind of surprised to hear a long slow exhale of breath from Blair, as if he had been holding it. But I still didn't turn around. Instead I put water in the pan with the pasta and placed it on the stove and went to the refrigerator to get a bell pepper and some tomatoes for the sauce.

"Simon.... Monday...." he said on the end of a nervous chuckle.

"Were you expecting someone else?" I asked. I kept my voice even and controlled. I didn't want to let on that I had been concerned too. I turned back to look at him. He shrugged.

"I'd heard some things...." He shrugged again. "I dunno... It's just damn lucky that the administration let me slide into Major Crimes without doing a couple of years in Burglary or Vice."

I guess I should have known that he would know. He'd been to the academy now. He'd worked the job. He was not some outsider that I had to explain procedures to any longer.

"Yeah..." I turned away again to get the cutting board and my best knife. I was being anal again. I had lined up my peppers, tomatoes, a few carrots, and one lone onion in a nice little row towards the cutting board like good little soldiers waiting to get diced. That usually produces amusement from my roommate but that night he did not comment. Instead he sighed.

"You don't sound like someone who should be celebrating a passing score on the detective's exam." At the time it seemed like the thing to be said. Instead, I let the genie out of the bottle.

Sandburg sighed again. I didn't turn around, but when he spoke again, I understood the particular thick tone of his voice. I knew it quite well. He wasn't happy.

"I guess I should be happy." There was a pregnant silence and I cut into my first pepper, listening carefully to every tone and inflection of his voice. "I've jumped through all the hoops. I've learned to shoot a gun. I've written tickets, I've cuffed offenders. I've smiled at kindergartners.... I am happy."

That last sentence was Blair trying to convince himself of something. Its very tone made me stop, and I turned back around to face him. He looked up at me, and our eyes met again. It was one of those moments, a bare soul moment. The kind that used to make me uncomfortable when we first met, but now, knowing that this man knows me better than anyone, I can live with a little open communication. Maybe I couldn't with Caroline, but I can discuss feelings with Blair. It's easier now than ever before.

"Are you happy?" That was the question of the century and I stood back and waited for the answer. It never came. He just looked at me.

"I mean really, Blair.... This wasn't your first choice for a career," I continued.

He shook his head, smiled and looked away. "No, it wasn't.... But it is a very worthwhile career to have." He looked back up at me and what I saw in his eyes made me feel suddenly warm all over. The small smile he offered me was like a thank you.

"We do a good job together," he said softly, "and I wouldn't have done this if I didn't think it was going to be us... together...."

"Then why'd you even let Kaitan waste dinner on you?" After the question left my mouth I felt stupid for asking it like I'd just asked him why he cut his hair.

But Blair was being painfully honest again. "I guess I liked being wanted again. I was big shit again... just like when a bunch of universities were falling all over themselves to give me a scholarship and later a fellowship." He stopped for a moment but never dropped eye contact with me. I felt the emotions brewing in him, all of them conflicting and confused. For the very first time ever, I realized that Blair was frightened, truly frightened.

"I started believing my own lie, Jim. I started thinking that I'm not worth it."

He believed his own lie. Now that hit me like a brick wall at seventy miles per hour. He started to believe that he had been a failure and fraud. But he wasn't, and only Simon, Megan Connor, and I knew the truth. But how could he let himself believe such a horrible thing? Before I could ask him that very question he answered it.

"It's easy to do...After you stand up before God and man and declare all the hard work of a lifetime isn't worth squat... basically it isn't after that, the dissertation might as well be fiction... It won't bring back my so-called life. But that was my mistake, man. I talk about having high ideals and never believing you are infallible... then I just leave the thing sitting out for anyone to peruse. It didn't have to be mom, you know. I think about how easily Brackett walked in here and went through my shit." He chuckled and it had such a bitter ring.

"But it was mom. Just mom. God, I know she didn't mean to..." He scrubbed his face in his hands briefly and I knew that he was fighting the urge to be angry with Naomi. I would tell him that it was okay to be angry with his mom...that it didn't mean that he didn't love her, but I just knew he wouldn't buy it, especially from me. I let it go. It's been over a year now and although the dissertation thing was one huge life changing disaster, I figured it was time to let bygones be bygones... but that's just me.

My life was almost back to normal. But then I took a good long look at my partner. That's when I realized that normal was a relative term. Nothing in my life has been normal... ever! Blair had made parts of it more comfortable but certainly not normal.

"Hey, Chief, why don't you go in the other room, turn on some music, light some candles or whatever will make you feel better, and let me finish dinner... don't sweat it tonight. You passed the detective's exam. Tomorrow will work itself out." I felt like a helpless child trying desperately to find anything to make a sad parent happy again. I felt a little lame.

But Blair smiled. He understood. He turned and walked into the living room, and I turned back to dinner. As I chopped vegetables I heard the sound of Steely Dan float comfortably through the air. Blair isn't a big jazz fan like me, but he will listen to my Steely Dan. I'm slowly turning him on to Larry Carlton. It won't be long.

I turned my focus back to cooking. I'm one of those idiotic guys who really loves to cook, but I'm too... you know... macho to admit it to anyone. Not a lot of people could guess that about me. Caroline was thrilled to have landed a man who insisted on sharing the cooking. Too bad that didn't work out better for her.

I go nuts whenever anyone steps in my kitchen and starts fucking around. Blair has learned better over the years. He cleans up after himself with meticulous care. I guess I shouldn't have ripped him a new one like I did that first time he left the place a mess.

But cooking makes me feel better somehow. It's how I express myself creatively. I don't play an instrument, I can barely draw a stick figure, God, never ask me to sing, but I can cook. I figure everyone has some sort of creative outlet, right?

Blair had a few. Mostly, I think he liked writing and researching. He was always his most pumped when he was researching something. He was the only person I knew that was perfectly satisfied spending his entire day nose down in lots of dusty old books and microfilms. He'd come home excited because five references spawned fifty more. Then he'd have some work-study student do the legwork in the library. But he'd read them all!

But I think he liked the writing the most. From the time I met him till the day the university forced him out, he wrote on average one peer-reviewed journal article a year. That's pretty good considering most Ph.D. fellows usually don't publish professionally but once or twice before they do the dissertation. Some never do until after.

I wondered if he would miss it. If I suddenly couldn't cook anymore, I don't know if I would miss it. Maybe....

All I had was frozen broccoli, and I didn't have zucchini. I decided to skip the zucchini, and frozen would do just fine for the broccoli. I popped about a cup of the broccoli in the microwave to thaw. The pasta was cooking on low heat with a pinch of salt to control the boil. I opened a can of tomato paste and put it in the saucepan adding basil, oregano, olive oil, thyme and a bay leaf. I got all that going on a very low heat and added my chopped veggies and fresh chopped garlic. I covered the pan and looked up.

You could just guess where he was. He was standing there in front of the glass door of the balcony looking out across the bay at the city skyline. My favorite place to pout. I couldn't even imagine why he could still be upset when I was making him a fabulous dinner. I went over and stood next to him, arms folded, just staring out the glass quietly. It was my way of saying, 'I'm there for you, Chief'.

I didn't know how long we had been standing. I did know that my mental 'sauce stir' alarm hadn't gone off yet, so it couldn't have been too long. But, just then, he looked up at me.

"Thank you, Jim."

"Dinner? That's nothing.... You deserve it...."

"Not just dinner... everything."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

What 'everything' did he mean? At that moment, I wasn't sure. But I looked down at him, leaning slightly on my shoulder... or maybe that was me leaning slightly on his. The touch was inconsequential but comforting. I didn't resist it.

Everything? Was that all the good and the bad? Getting him shot at, not trusting him, not believing in him, forcing him to do it all my way most of the time and then complaining every step of the way? Now I was being hard on myself. He had a share in this hayride.

I shrugged. "I guess the proper response is, 'That's what friends are for'."

After a moment I added, "You're right. We do a good job together. I've missed having you around, Chief."

A smile grew across his face and he brightened like someone turning up a dimmer switch. "Really? I though I was just a pest to you most of the time."

"You know better, Sandburg. I wouldn't just call any old civilian consultant bozo 'my partner' unless I meant it. But maybe now that you won't be trying to test my abilities at every turn...."

"Whoa there, Jim, I never said that I wanted to stop the research!"

Good God, he couldn't mean that! He was all excited and he turned to face me head-on.

"You gotta admit...there is so much potential! I bet we only just hit the tip of the iceberg! I could document you for the rest of my life and I bet we'd never know everything, EVERYTHING, that a sentinel is capable of.... Think about that time you saw that woman's ghost and the time you counteracted an anesthesia drug and.... There's just so many more questions to ask...."

He rambled on, and I let him. That's when I realized that I was Sandburg's creative outlet. If he lost his research on sentinels, then he would truly be adrift. His thank you for everything made a whole lot of sense now. Okay, I could let him have that one little thing. I just wanted one thing in return.

"Okay! Okay! I get the picture!" I was amused at this point. He was so excited. "Just don't let it get in the way of the work," I added.

He shook his head emphatically. "Never...." He stopped then and he looked at me kind of surprised. "You really mean it." His voice is soft and disbelieving.

"Of course I mean it, Sandburg!" I gave him a hard look and acted like I misinterpreted what he meant. "First time 'the research' gets in the way of the job I'll...."

"No, Jim... I mean...You'll let me continue to study you?" His eyes look hopeful.

"I have a few conditions." Maybe I was just teasing him a little but I felt oddly in power here in a way I had not felt in a long time. "Number one, we just discussed..."

"No getting in the way of work," he supplied for me.

"Right." I continue to glare at him accusingly. "No drugging me up in a controlled environment...."

"Aw, Jim! But...."

"NO!"

"We need that data!" He's emphatic, grinding his teeth, fist clenching in excitement. He really meant it!

"We'll see," I finally give him.

"Okay. What else?" He was still excited and happy, and that made me happy. It made me feel great. He was happy, happy with his life and with me.

I was smiling now; I'd let my guard down a bit. I knew what else I wanted from him.

"Just be happy, Chief."

Maybe it was the way I said it. Maybe it was the fact that I was looking him in the eyes again. I don't know. All I know was that suddenly I smelled that pleasant pheromone again, the one that tasted sweet at the back of my throat. It occurred to me just as suddenly as I heard his heart rate increase and felt the heat coming off him, that what I was experiencing was his desire. This pheromone was made specifically for me from Sandburg's sexual need. It was pleasant, sweet and potent. Much to my surprise, my body reacted.

Before I could think longer on it I turned away towards the kitchen, focusing my senses inward and elsewhere. I walked calmly toward the kitchen trying to remain loose and casual. I could smell the sauce slowly coming to a boil.

"I'd better check on dinner, Chief."

The end

Continued in Part Two: 'I'm not Scared, but I can't move.'

End Four Months in a Uniform by E. Batagur: batagur@columbus.rr.com

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