Author's disclaimer: I do not own the characters or the concept of The Sentinel. I earn no money from writing this story.

Author's notes: I would welcome constructive criticism; I intend to write other stories, so this is your chance to help me improve. Think of it as sparing yourself future winces.

Tape Delay
by Hellesgift

"Jim, if you're listening to this, let me first say how sorry I am. I never meant for this to happen, and I'm sorry you're stuck with...sorry I'm not here to help you through it. Of course, if I were, there would be nothing to help you through, would there?"

The low chuckle coming from the small tape-recorder sounded obscenely loud in the otherwise silent loft. There was no answering laughter from the man frozen in the doorway, just a harsh gasp, almost silent under the soft susurration of the tape's wheels.

"So, with the blanket apology out of the way, how am I going to help you through this, man? You need my help; you always have. I'm assuming you won't take offense at that, because you know it's true. I'm also assuming...oh man, I'm working under the assumption that you're pretty much devastated at the moment. I listened to this tape before I started taping over it...listened to the last version of this tape, I mean. Last time I did this, I was very circumspect about assuming my importance in your life and therefore your state of mind, but not this time. I know, man. I know you need me, and you loved me, and you would have done anything to avert this. So no guilt, man. I don't care how this went down; I don't care what happened. All I want now--all I've wanted for a long time--is for you to be okay. Remember that, if you start indulging in one of your guilt trips. Remember that, in doing so, you would be going against the expressed wishes of your Guide.

"I've asked Simon to give this to you when you're ready; I hope you're not listening to this in the hospital. I hope you weren't hurt, however this came about. I just have a few things to tell you, remind you really, since I hope I didn't keep them secret when I was with you. And then we'll deal with how you're going to cope.

"I want you to tell our friends how much they meant to me. I hope they know, but I want you to tell them, and soon. I want you to go to them and let them grieve with you, because you have this tendency to hide, but they need you too. While you're at it, make sure they know how much they mean to you, too. We've got good friends. Tell them how much I loved working with you and with them; tell them they were part of my introduction to a world I discovered I'd always wanted.

"As for my mom, I wrote a letter to Naomi. Simon's sending it to her. After all that happened, she and I are still a little strained right now...were still a little strained, I guess. I tried to tell her everything she needed to know--everything she's kind of resistant to, to be honest--in the letter. I want you to know what I wrote her.

"I wrote that you are my best friend, the best gift I could ever have been given, the impossibly generous reward for whatever good karma I have been able to earn. I told her that I love being a cop, and I do, man. I really do. I wasn't expecting it, but I feel like for once I really fit into the world, into my goals. I told her that whatever happened, it wasn't your fault.

"So whatever her response...if Naomi tries to throw any of this on you... Well, first of all, she'll be ignoring the one request I made of her in that letter. I told her that there will be no forgiveness, no chance of reconciliation if she hurts you. Don't let her hurt you, Jim. Don't let her talk about guilt or wrong decisions or any of that shit. I am where I want to be...well, maybe not right now as you're listening, of course, but right now, as I make this tape. I am doing an important job, with people I respect, and a partner...damn, one second, man..."

Jim could hear the slight hitch in the tape that indicated the pause button had been compressed. Blair's voice returned a second later, this time once again under control.

"Got myself choked up there, Jim, sorry. So we've covered almost everyone important. Naomi will tell any of our old friends who might care, and you've met my friends who'll read about this and miss me. I hope you'll deal kindly with any of my former friends from the U. who might suddenly remember me. Tell them I forgave them, tell them I missed them if you want, but they're not all that important.

"You are. You are most important, and it hurts me now to think about how you're hurting, or how you'll be hurting whenever you hear this...the tenses in this discourse are a little confusing, huh Jim?

"Now I want you to go into the kitchen and get something to eat. I don't know how this happened, I don't know if you've been doing the whole vigil routine or not, but a glass of milk can't hurt you, right? I'll just keep chatting away while you go in and get a big glass of milk and something to eat. Something healthy, man, for my sake, okay?"

Again the chuckle, but it did not detract at all from the commanding tones underlying the light soliloquy, and Jim found himself obeying without question. Blair's voice was not soothing his shock, however, which tightened his throat as he drank the milk. Blair's voice was buttressing his fathomless pain, but he found himself unable to tune back into the meaning. He hadn't expected this, hadn't expected this voice from beyond the--dear god--hadn't expected Blair to figure out a way to nag him even after death.

Health food...this was no time for sprouts, dammit! His gasp of laughter transformed itself into a harsh sob of disbelief. This wasn't happening. Blair was alive; this wasn't the truth, couldn't be the truth. Because if Blair were dead, well, why was his Sentinel still standing around useless? Why was he still breathing, if Blair was not?

The question was unanswerable. As always when faced with an imponderable, Jim turned to his Guide for the answer. Blair's voice, coming from the counter where Jim had left the tape-recorder, was beginning to form meaningful words again, words which he should heed.

"...finish that, and you'll feel better. Get a little sustenance in you, huh? Trust me, it'll help. Now I want you to go into my room. I hope it's not too much of a disaster area, but if it is, just kick stuff out of the way until you can make a path to the bed. If necessary, kick stuff out of the way till you find the bed." Laughter. "See, I admit it; I know I'm a slob. But I didn't just bring you in here to distract you with your compulsion to clean...Jim, are you in my room?"

"Yeah, Chief," Jim answered before he could stop himself, then rubbed angrily at his suddenly wet eyes.

"Okay, here's our next step. I want you to lie down in my bed. I figure..I mean, even if I did laundry, like, the day before this happened, you can smell me in my room, right? Lie down; get comfortable. I have one major thing to tell you, man, and then you're going to go to sleep. I'm going to go to sleep too, while I make this tape, and it'll record my heartbeat and my breathing, and you can go to sleep to that. I know you can. Because I want you to hear that and know--even though it's just a tape, and I know you'll be able to tell because, hell, I did the tests--even though it's a tape, it's me too. I'm with you, because I love you, and I want you to be able to sleep, safe under my protection for a while, okay? You'll just fall asleep to the sound of my breathing and my pulse, you won't even have to turn your hearing up much, and when the tape ends you'll wake up and...I don't know, you'll listen to it again if you need to. And remember that sometime before you are now listening to this, I lay in my bed, and made this tape, and thought about the pain my best friend would be going through...and wanted to be with you.

But--last thing, before 'the rest is silence'...which to you is as full of sound as a symphony for me...I envied you that, you know? But one last thing..."

The voice trailed off for a moment, and Jim hurriedly brought the tape closer to his ear, hearing clearly the sound of Blair's lungs and heart coming over the artificial medium of the tape. His eyes weren't cooperating any more, swimming in hard-fought tears, but his other senses were immersed in the absent presence of his Guide. His soul. Blair.

Whose voice picked up again. "I thought a long time about this tape, you know? Were there any revelations, any insights that I had never been able to give you that I could take advantage of this moment and finally confess. Something I could tell you..."

And Jim held his breath, hearing beneath the words the true meaning of the tape and Blair's discourse. Understanding suddenly. Knowing. Expecting what should come next, what must come next. Recognizing the subtext that he suddenly realized had always buoyed their partnership. He waited, unable to breathe.

"But this isn't the place for that kind of thing, is it? You know everything you need to, everything I needed you to. Everything that matters. I love you, Jim. You are my best friend. Your friendship has been a gift that I never could have earned and will be eternally grateful for. And I know you'd do anything for me, so I'm making my last request now. This is it, Jim, your Guide's last test and blessing.

"I want you to live, man. I want you to live for me. You can be my legacy, Jim. I want you to live, and remember that I loved you, and know that you are worth loving.

"That's it. I know you're thinking something like, 'Oh, is that all, Sandburg?' Don't worry, man, I read you like a book. Since you're going to do that for me, live and love and be happy for me, now I'm going to do something for you. I'm going to let you rest, give you some peace from the world. Just listen to my heartbeat, Jim, and my breathing, as we both go to sleep for a while."

Jim straightened a little from the near-fetal position he had assumed in a useless attempt to lessen his agony, muffle his sobs. Blair's calm breathing and slow, even heartbeat filled his ears. He had only time to think that he was never going to be able to sleep, before the edges of the world blurred, and he sank gratefully into something between zoning and sleeping. On the very outskirts of his awareness, as he fell deeper into exhausted sleep, he heard Blair's whisper.

"I love you, Jim."

The tape had not yet whirred to a stop, so he must be dreaming. He felt a presence enter the room at the same time that he heard the heartbeat, unadulterated by magnetic tape, supplant the artificial noise in his ears. Since this was a dream, it was safe to open his eyes, and he looked up to see Blair approaching.

"Jim?" The voice, that voice that had, only minutes earlier, ripped his heart out in the name of love now sounded gentle, loving, but puzzled. The deep blue eyes met his, and Jim drowned in their concern as the spirit leaned over him. Gentle fingers swept the tears from under his eyes, a thumb brushed softly over his lashes to gather the last of the moisture. Then Blair joined him on the bed, sat next to him and once again leaned down.

"Jim, what is it?" There was no answer he could give. He was too tightly entwined in the sound of the living voice, the feel of the warm hand on his shoulder, the scent of rain and coffee and his Guide. Blair. He reached up tentatively and cupped Blair's face in his hand, feeling warmth, rain, and stubble. At that contact, all doubts disappeared. Half rising, Jim managed to throw his arms around Blair's waist, burying his face in the warm flannel covering Blair's chest, moaning into Blair's heart.

"God, Jim! What..." Blair's voice broke with a combination of terror and pain. He wrapped his arms around the man now shivering in his lap and began to rock both of them slowly. "It's okay, Jim. Whatever it is, we'll fix it." He pulled Jim closer in his strong embrace, and the movement caused something small and hard to slide under his knee.

Loathe to lose contact with Jim for even a second, Blair nevertheless reached down and grabbed the object, a small dictation tape-recorder.

"Oh shit." His voice caught, deepened. "Shit. God no, Jim. No! Shhh. Shhh, it's okay. I'm so sorry. I am so, so sorry, Jim. Shhh. You weren't supposed to...I never would have..." His grasp on Jim's back tightened to the point of pain, and oddly, it was the pain that convinced Jim that the nightmare had ended.

"Chief?"

"Yeah, Jim, it's me. Oh god, I'm so sorry. Never, never wanted this. I'm so sorry. I was just updating the tape, you know? How did you find...why are you--?"

"Incacha's chant that you wanted..."

"Oh Christ, Jim. That was months ago! Why now? Why...forget that, it doesn't matter. You weren't supposed to hear all that, man. If I were really dead, that was supposed to comfort you. Not rip you up like this. I'm so sorry." Blair resumed his slight rocking motion, leaning protectively over Jim, who was still huddled, curled around Blair. "So sorry, man. You didn't need to hear any of that--"

"I did." Jim's voice was stronger now, and he pulled slowly but determinedly away from Blair's embrace. "I did. I needed to hear that. I needed to hear what you said."

Blair looked confused. "Man, you knew all that. There are no surprises on that tape. All that I said--I've said it before, Jim. I just wanted to say it again for you, to maybe help when you...if you were hurting."

"Okay. So I've heard what you said before. I needed to hear what you didn't say."

"What?"

"You said there was nothing new for me to know about us."

Blair sat back in sudden, barely-hidden discomfort. His pulse quickened audibly, at least to Jim. "No, man. I mean, deathbed sayings, or anything similar, are such the wrong way to be making any dramatic new revelations. That would only lead to hurt, make someone wonder why it hadn't been said before. None of that, Jim."

"Because there's nothing to tell, or because you didn't want to hurt me?"

Although his heart rate was still elevated, a new sense of calm was evident on Blair's face. "Nothing that has to be told. Nothing that would change what we have."

Jim looked with pained tenderness at the most clueless man in his life. The most important part of his life, sitting on the edge of the bed, lying to himself and his Sentinel. Jim had recognized the lie for almost an hour now, and he felt infinitely wise in the knowledge. "You're wrong."

"What?" But before Blair could begin the masterful lecture that was no doubt primed and waiting in his subconscious for just this moment, Jim leaned in, took Blair's face in both of his hands, and pulled them together for their first kiss.

Blair stiffened for a brief moment, still poised to deny any accusations, prevaricate in the face of any questioning. Then he melted into the kiss, pulling Jim into an embrace as needy as their first embrace had been tender.

The kiss was still fairly innocent when Jim pulled Blair into a hug, almost roughly. They sat, perched ridiculously on the edge of the little futon, clinging to each other. "I was wrong, too, Chief. I knew it all along, but I lied to myself too. You lied to yourself when you said it didn't matter, and I lied to myself when I said it couldn't happen. But there's no way I'm ever listening to another one of those damn tapes and regretting my silence. I love you, Blair. Honest to god, crazy as it sounds."

Blair rubbed his eyes across the shoulder of Jim's t-shirt. "Love you too, Jim. With everything, man." Jim tightened his grip, squeezing a small gasp from his willing victim.

Minutes later, they pulled reluctantly apart. "Oh, man, Jim, what's next?" He laughed a little, wiping again at his eyes. "This is so not how I expected to end my evening. I have now officially used up all possible karma I have ever accrued. Cheap at twice the price."

Jim intercepted his hand on the second swipe at his nose and handed him a tissue from the desk. "Next, you do what you said you would. Make me comfortable and help me sleep. But I want you to make the bigger bed the one that smells like you. I want to hear your heartbeat upstairs, without dialing up."

The grin he received in response was almost blinding, hitting him dramatically in his heart and a less romantic but equally enthusiastic organ. "I can do that, man. Come on." And Blair tugged on his hand, leading the way, guiding them into their new life.

As he stood, Jim took a brief second to shut off the tape-recorder. Later, when emotions were not running so high, he would have to have a short chat with Blair about the futility of that wasted effort. He had lost Blair once; he didn't ever plan to do it again.

Then he pushed it out of his mind, as he followed his heart up the stairs to bed.