Archive of Our Own ^beta

Mornings were the hardest. Jim would watch Blair sleep, dark curls spilling over his sweet, slack face, his nipple ring and curly chest hair catching the glow from the skylight, and wait patiently for his lover to wake. He didn't dare touch, didn't dare kiss, not until those blue eyes opened and decided which soul they were going to be windows to today. Blair was adamant that Jim not affect the waking process in any way and, frankly, Jim couldn't have lived with himself if he'd started kissing and stroking Blair only to terrify and traumatize his five-year-old or nine-year-old selves, or any of the many other Blairs who lived inside Sandburg's skin.

The heart quickened, Blair made a little snuffling sound, and Jim held his breath as vague blue eyes opened and took in their environment. He rubbed his face, the blue eyes brightened, and he smiled. "Morning, Jim. Nine. Howdja sleep?"

"Pretty good, BJ," said Jim, hiding his disappointment. "Your turn to cook; I'm going to go brush my teeth."

"'Kay, can I just check email first?"

"Check, but wait to reply until we get to the station, okay? I'm starved." He went to shower and brush his teeth, and when he heard a keyboard clatter, he hollered, "What did I say, BJ?" and grinned at Blair's grousing.

Breakfast was good, scrambled eggs, toast and Canadian bacon, and they left the loft almost perfectly on time. But Blair was unusually quiet this morning, and stared at Jim for a long time as they drove to work. Finally he said, "I never wake up in my room downstairs anymore. I always wake up in your bed."

Oh shit. "Yeah, you do," said Jim, not sure what to say.

"Yesterday wasn't lil'Blair. My last email was from one of the big Blairs. So it wasn't like a kid coming up for a hug or a story and falling asleep."

"That's true," Jim allowed.

Blair considered this for a while. He hugged his knees to his chest and asked, "Am I your boyfriend?"

"Parts of you are," said Jim, wishing there was a manual for this kind of conversation.

Blair wrinkled his nose. "Does that mean I have to kiss you?"

"Absolutely not," said Jim. "You're just my friend. You don't have to worry about any of that stuff, and if I say or do anything that makes you uncomfortable, I want you to tell me, okay?"

Blair nodded. "'Kay. Can I still hug you?"

Jim smiled. "Yeah, you can still hug me, Chief."

When they got to the station, Blair hopped out of the truck and called over his shoulder, "Gotta go to the bathroom, Jim. I'll meet you upstairs?"

"Why didn't you go before we left the house?" Jim asked, amused.

"I didn't have to go then," Blair said as though it were obvious.

Jim rolled his eyes and said, "Fine, meet me in Simon's office. We need to go over our progress on the Jack of Clubs case with him. I'll grab the file off your computer?"

"Sure, whatever," Blair agreed, bouncing a little from foot to foot as he tried to control his bladder. He dashed off, and Jim made his way into the building at a more controlled pace.

Upstairs in the bullpen, Jim sat down at Blair's desk and called up the file to email to his own computer. But when he opened Blair's email program to send the file, he stopped and stared at the addresses and subject headings on the screen: a yahoo list called TheCommittee, with a flurry of threads called things like 'friends', 'Jack of Clubs', 'haircut' and 'tutoring'. The most recent one, dated this morning, was titled 'birthday'. Jim grinned at that. Blair's birthday was months away, but Jim's was coming up soon and he was willing to bet this was a discussion of a present or surprise party for him. Technically, it wouldn't be snooping, just...rattling his presents to see what he was getting, right? He clicked on the message.

Re: Birthday
>>>>>>>>>[Blair30 wrote] So we're coming up on the big day, guys, and we need to
>>>>>>>>>figure out some stuff. First, are we all jumping up our ages a year? I don't
>>>>>>>>>think we should, because none of us has gotten a year older
>>>>>>>>>developmentally, and it'll confuse Jim. Second, who's going to be awake on
>>>>>>>>>the big day? And third, what do we want for a present?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>[Blair8 wrote] I vote we get a year older, or Jim is never going to let me drive
>>>>>>>his truck. And
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>[Blair28 wrote] I hate to break it to you, but Jim doesn't let me drive the truck.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>[Blair30 wrote] Well, we can't all be awake. I vote the younger the better:
>>>>>>birthdays are way more exciting when you're a kid.
>>>>
>>>>[Blair9 wrote] Yeah, but if there's a party, it's going to be with all our grown-up
>>>>friends, and they're not going to have as much fun if they can't talk to us. It's going
>>>>to suck if one of us is just in the corner playing with toys and the grown-ups are on
>>>>the far end of the room pretending they're not talking about us and 'how well Jim's
>>>>holding up'.
>>
>>[Blair27 wrote] They do that? Which ones? I thought we went over this...
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>[Blair8 wrote] I want spiderman toys. I don't have any and there cool.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>[Blair30 wrote] They're cool. Yeah, you need some new toys; I just wish I could
>>>>>>get that new compendium of revisionist histories. Or some of that new
>>>>>>chrysanthemum/grapefruit blended tea they're selling at SuperNatural, it's so
>>>>>> expensive.
>>>>>
>>>>>[Blair19 wrote] Speaking of toys, I'm starting a thread on TheCommitteeOnJim
>>>>>for the post-18 Blairs.
>>>>
>>>>[Blair9 wrote] Why? We're not getting ourselves presents for our own birthday, are
>>>>we? I mean, we could, but we'd break the bank.
>>>
>>>[Blair8 wrote] Should we? Like a secret Santa thing?
>
>[Blair9 wrote] Yeah, but what if someone gets left out?

Jim closed that email and did what he had originally meant to do, feeling overwhelmed and vaguely embarrassed, as though he'd walked in on someone taking care of a bodily function. He'd known the Blairs conferred over email, had even heard them refer to themselves as 'the Committee,' but he'd had no idea of the scope of this thing. Even Simon couldn't get Blair to look more professional; now Blair had to negotiate a haircut with his alternate selves? And a special list just for talking about him, or more precisely his relationship with Blair, felt a little like the way Carolyn used to dissect him over the phone with her friends. What the hell were they saying about him on that list?

He went back to his desk, opened the case file, and compared it to his own notes before printing out both files to bring into the meeting with Simon. When Blair came in, Jim carefully avoided looking at him while Simon asked, "Well? Where are we with this case?"

"We've matched the killing pattern to five unsolved cases up in Alaska," said Jim, calling attention away from Blair thumbing quickly through the case file to catch up on anything he had missed while his other selves were on the job. "But there were no credible suspects in those cases, and there's a huge PR firm up there with a high turnover employment rate; lots of people coming and going. Even though the population in that part of Alaska is so small, the employment turnover makes it hard to narrow down a list of suspects."

"PR firm? In Alaska? What do they do, sell ice to Eskimos?" Simon asked.

"Lots of big stores like Taco Bell and Blockbuster test out new stuff in Alaska before they advertise here," Blair piped up. "People up there are kinda cut off, so if something stinks, they don't have a global-size screw up on their hands. But we think the PR guys don't have anything to do with this."

"Why not?" Simon asked Jim.

Jim jerked his thumb at Blair. "Wrong 'we'."

"Because none of the parents saw strangers hanging around," said Blair. He checked back through the file, frowning, then nodded and put it down. "Five kids got snatched there in broad daylight and all of their bodies got put back in their beds with all that weird stuff, and no one saw a thing. And no one saw anything when our three kids got taken either, or when they got put back. Thirty says you can't do that stuff without a trace unless you do your homework, watch the kids, the house, all that stuff. He says people would have noticed a stranger spying on their kids. So that means it has to be someone who can spend time with kids, walk right up to them, and no one will blink. I vote we talk to the sisters and brothers and friends, ask if they had teachers or babysitters who gave them the willies or were extra nice to the kids that got killed."

"Good idea, Sandburg. You two up to all that interviewing?"

"I'll leave that to Sandburg; he's better with k--with interviews," said Jim. "This guy's too smooth for my tastes. He had his pattern down solid even in Alaska before he added the playing cards. I'm thinking he started somewhere else. I'm checking the database for unsolved crimes in different states, trying to see if we can narrow down his point of origin. Serial killers often start up because of a trigger event that's related to what they're doing. If we can find the first murder there'll be more clues, and we might be able to cross-match it to the death of someone's child or sibling and get this guy's real identity from that end."

Simon nodded. "Good work, gentlemen. Keep on this; I don't want this guy to get his hands on another kid."

Jim and Blair went back to Jim's desk, where Blair said, "I wanna go over the evidence."

"Come on, BJ, cut me some slack. You know I hate going through that stuff with you when you're younger. How about we see if we can get some interviews in today?"

"Fine," Blair grumbled.

"BJ, you're not just spinning your wheels today. Most of the kids we have to interview are pretty shaken up by what happened to their friends or brothers. You know I'm no good with kids."

"You're good with me," Blair pointed out.

"Yeah, but you're different. Look, I need you to make these kids feel safe so we can talk to them. What you're doing is important."

Blair nodded, but said, "You call the parents. I'm going down to Evidence to look at the stuff."

"BJ--"

"How'm I gonna know what to ask if I only know the case file?" Blair pointed out.

Jim didn't have a good answer for that, but after Blair left, he called down to the Coroner's Office to make sure Blair only looked at the evidence, not the bodies. Then he called around to all the families to schedule interviews with the kids when their parents could sit with them through the questioning.

For good measure, he looked at the photos of the crime scene to refresh his memory. The children's mutilated bodies had been carefully washed and arranged on their beds surrounded by odd items like yoyos, boomerangs, apple seeds, and the same three playing cards at each scene: the six of hearts, the nine of spades and the jack of clubs. They had to have some significance, since the killer had to buy a fresh deck to have those cards ready for each kill, but what?

Blair came upstairs, looking frustrated. "I asked the lab to check what kind of apple the seeds came from. I couldn't think of what else to do. And those cards..."

"Not exactly a good poker hand, is it?" Jim agreed. Then he heard something familiar and froze. "Oh hell. What's she doing here?"

Blair turned to look at the door, and Jim felt a lurch of horror as Blair yelled, "Mom!" and ran over to crash into her and hug her tight. "I missed you, I missed you so much, I love you..." he babbled as Naomi hugged him back and kissed him.

"I missed you too, sweetie. I hated fighting with you, and when I got your letter, I knew I had to come back and work things out with you."

Jim's jaw tightened. "What letter?" Damn it, the Blairs knew they weren't supposed to contact Naomi for the same reason they weren't allowed to talk to Stoddard or a half-dozen other people: while his younger selves had been told about the press conference and its fallout, they couldn't conceive of how completely and viciously the people Blair had loved had rejected him. Chasing after those people was just asking for more heartbreak. But from the expression on Blair's face, he was as clueless as Jim as to which of his selves had broken that cardinal rule.

"Does this mean you're quitting your job with the police?" Naomi pressed as Blair searched her face for clues.

"What letter?" Jim repeated, demanding as much for Blair's sake as his own.

Naomi handed over the well-creased, typed sheet of paper, and Jim read it aloud. "Mom -- I've started this letter a hundred times, and I still don't know what to say, except I'm sorry if I hurt you. I miss you. We've been away from each other before, but this is the first time I didn't know in my heart that you still loved me, and it makes me feel alone. Come back. I want to be a family again. Your son, Blair."

Jim couldn't help a twinge of pain at the thought that he wasn't enough to keep the Blairs from feeling alone, but the shocked look Blair shot him helped ease that sting a little.

"Mom," said Blair, "I ... I'm not quitting the force." He ducked away from the disappointment on her face. "Don't be mad, please," he whispered. "I can't pretend things haven't changed, because they did. I'm not the me you want anymore." His eyes filled up with tears, and Jim ached for this nine-year-old boy apologizing for choices he never made and damage Naomi didn't even know was there. "But what the letter says, about my missing you, I do. I've never gone this long without talking to you before, and it hurts. I miss you, Mom," he said, and his voice broke entirely as Naomi hugged him.

"I miss you too," she whispered. "Oh, sweetie, we'll work this out. I know we can."

Blair looked hesitantly back at Jim. "You were gonna check other cities, right?" he asked.

Jim jerked his head at the door. "Go talk to your mom, Chief. We'll do interviews tomorrow, but I can handle things for today. I'm here if you need anything."

Jim spent most of the day fruitlessly searching the database of unsolved crimes nationwide, putting in calls to Canada's RCMP and to Interpol and wishing he knew how things were going between Blair and Naomi. He could still remember how badly they'd hurt each other after the press conference, the shouting matches over the phone. Naomi had tried to use Blair's acceptance of his new life as a police officer to make the whole thing Blair's fault: if he wanted to be a cop so badly, why didn't he just own up to that instead of making her feel bad about having tried to help his academic career, which he obviously didn't care about anyway? He should thank her, and apologize to "poor Sid" while he was at it. Blair had only realized he'd gone too far with his counterattack, yelling about how heedless of other people Naomi could be and throwing the worst incidents of his childhood in her face, when Naomi had quietly replied, "I don't know you anymore. You're not my son." Those were the last words the two of them had said to each other in more than a year.

And now nine-year-old BJ was faking his way through a reconciliation, trying as usual not to let on that there was anything disjointed or missing from his memories. Maybe it was better this way. BJ would probably have an easier time forgiving her than his adult selves; Naomi had never said those terrible words to him, or made his life blow up in his face.

They all had dinner together at the loft, but as the hour grew later, Blair became more and more agitated. Jim had a fair idea of why, watching Blair's gaze shift from 'his' room to 'their' room. It would have been hard enough for Blair to decide where to sleep tonight, now that he knew his other selves were Jim's lovers. Now he also had to consider whether to out himself to his mother for a relationship he wasn't even participating in.

"It's getting late, Chief," said Jim. "How about you put your sheets on the couch while I put a fresh set on the bed for your mom?" He greeted the look of relief Blair shot him with an understanding smile of his own.

Naomi followed Jim into Blair's room to put her things away while Jim made up the bed, but she stopped short in the doorway and frowned. "Blair, honey? Why do you have children's toys in here?"

"Long story," said Jim. "Let me get you some towels."

Mommy was singing, and he could smell blueberry pancakes! Blair didn't want to open his eyes, afraid it was just a dream, but there was Mommy, in the kitchen! She'd come back! He dashed over and hugged her. "Mommy, Mommy, I missed you! I thought I'd never see you again!"

"Blair, what are you -- oof!" There was a loud clang as Mommy dropped the skillet back on the stove and pushed him away. "You could have burned yourself! What is wrong with you?" Blair blushed and his eyes started to sting, but Jim came down the stairs just then, and Jim was good for hugging.

"Blair? Everything okay?" When Blair ducked into Jim's armpit and shook his head, Jim said, "Use your words, Chief."

"Will someone please tell me what's going on?" said Mommy.

Jim sighed. "Which one, Chief?"

"Five," said Blair.

Jim nodded and pulled Blair over to Mommy, but when he reached to push aside Blair's hair, Blair flinched and tried to duck away. "It's okay, Chief. She needs to see this." He parted Blair's curls, and Blair couldn't help sniffling a little as Naomi gasped and reached out to touch the fat scars there. "Blair suffered some brain damage almost a year ago," said Jim.

"That's a bullet wound," Mommy whispered. "You son of a bitch!" she screamed, smacking Jim's chest as Blair jerked away. "How could you let this happen?"

"Mommy, stop!" Blair shouted. Jim wasn't even fighting back, he was just letting her hit him. Blair pulled Mommy off him and she buried her face in Blair's chest and started crying. "Don't be mad, please. It wasn't Jim's fault."

Jim touched Blair's shoulder and shook his head to stop Blair from talking. "The parts of his brain that control memory got a little scrambled," said Jim. "Every time he wakes up, his brain tries to make sense of what's going on, and it changes what age he thinks he is and what he can remember. Some days he's thirty, or seventeen. Today he's five."

Mommy's face crumpled up, and Blair watched her miserably, hating himself for hurting her, for disappointing her. "Don't cry, Mommy, please don't cry."

"Shh," she said, hugging him tight. He hugged her back, relieved that she still loved him. "Can't they fix this?" Mommy asked.

"They don't even fully know what's wrong with him, Naomi; what doctors don't know about the human brain could fill a library. Blair's happy, he's sane, he's stable. I'm not going to risk screwing that up chasing a cure that might never work."

Mommy twisted around to look Blair in the eye. "Does it hurt?"

"Hurt? No, it's just scary sometimes. But Jim helps me not be scared as much."

Jim smiled. "Always, Chief." He took a deep breath, then looked at his watch. "I've got to get done, or I'll be late. Busy day today."

Blair knew the rules, five was too young to be useful, but he asked, "Can I help? I could sort stuff, maybe."

Jim moved around Naomi to kiss Blair's hair and said, "Thank you, Chief, but I have to do interviews today, with some really sad people. Naomi, maybe the two of you could spend the day together, feel each other out a little?"

Mommy nodded, still looking kind of upset.

"I need to work on my reading," Blair piped up. The sooner he learned how to read, the sooner he could talk to the other Blairs on the computer. He hated feeling left out.

"Naomi can work on it with you, and I'll quiz you when you get home," Jim promised.

Mommy was very quiet until Jim was gone, and that made Blair nervous. "Wanna help me with my reading?" he asked.

"I've got a better idea," said Mommy. "Do you remember Tom Bearclaw?"

"He's got lots of spider plants," Blair said, "And he made flatbread from scratch and I helped."

"That's right," said Mommy, sounding surprised. "How would you feel about going to visit him today?"

"Okay," said Blair, "But I wanna bring my truck. And my book, so I can practice."

"That's fine, sweetie," said Mommy.

They took the bus a long way, and Blair was right, there were a lot of spider plants, and a really long braid of garlic in the kitchen. Mommy and Tom talked really quiet at the kitchen table while Blair ran the truck back and forth over the floor making vroom-vroom sounds.

Then Tom got down on the floor with him. Blair grinned. "Hey, Tom. You got old. Wanna play?"

"Not right now," said Tom. "Blair, your mom says that there are lots of different parts of you all broken up inside. Can you tell me about that?"

Blair looked at the truck. "I don't wanna. It makes people go all weird when they know."

"The whole thing is pretty upsetting, isn't it? Makes you unhappy?"

Blair shrugged, not wanting to talk about it.

"Blair? Remember when I took you and your Mom on a spirit walk?"

"You beat your drum. And you sang."

"That's right." Tom stood up and offered Blair his hand. "Come with me?"

Blair followed him and Mommy into Tom's walking room. The smell of sage smoke made Blair cough, but he sat down on the mat and let Tom's drumming and singing take him away.

A splintered view of green and gray. Something was trying to seal the splinters back together, and as the picture became clearer, Blair could see a wolf in a forest. The wolf was limping, and the clearer he saw it, the worse the wolf looked. Blair's tummy hurt, seeing it all sick and broken. It whined and looked at him, begging him to make it better, but he didn't know what to do...

Then Blair was back in his body, but something felt different. "Something's pulling me."

Tom nodded. "That's right. It's going to pull you back together again, like Humpty Dumpty."

There was something wrong with that idea, but Blair was too tired to think what it was. "I want Jim. Can we go home?"

"Yes, we can go home," said Mommy, and she smiled and kissed him.

All the way home, the tugging got stronger. Blair looked out the window and tried not to think about it.

Jim was making supper when they got home. He looked sad and tired, but he brightened when he saw them. "Hey, Chief, did you have a good day with your mom?"

Blair shrugged and went to go sit on the couch. He didn't feel too good.

"He's just tired. We had a busy day, I took him to see an old friend--"

"Old friend?" Jim sounded angry. "Naomi, Blair gets upset around new people; he's touchy about coming across as less intelligent."

"Believe it or not, Jim, I actually know better than to hurt or humiliate my son."

Blair scrunched up on the couch and tried to shut out the sound of their fighting. It made his tummy hurt. He could feel it pulling him down...

Blair struggled, but he was tied too tightly to the chair. The room was falling down, rotting, and it was hung with Blair's stuff, toys and artifacts, and papers that fell in slow motion like snow. He wasn't alone; he could see dozens of chairs with Blairs of different ages, all tied up and struggling. But one grown-up Blair wasn't tied up. He stalked through the room with a cold, calm look on his face and leaned over Blair's chair. "You can't be me," he said. "How old was I when I broke my arm falling out of Mrs. Danbush's tree?"

Blair twisted his head. He could see the other Blairs screaming the answer, but they couldn't make a sound! He didn't know the answer, he was too young, and a tear spilled down his cheek as the grown-up Blair loomed over him.

"Only I think what I think, feel what I feel," said Blair. "You can't be me. But I can be you." He opened his mouth wide, revealing sharp teeth, and tore Blair's throat out.

Jim snapped awake when he heard the screams and bounded down the stairs with his gun in hand. Blair's eyes were open but there was no one home, he was just shrieking in terror. "Blair!" Jim yelled, shaking him. "Wake up, Blair, it's just a dream!" He paid no attention to Naomi trying to get past him, he just held on tight to Blair as he wept and screamed and fought.

"He killed him! He killed Five, he ate him," Blair cried. "Oh God, I tried, I couldn't stop it. I can be me, can't I, Jim? I can be me?"

"It was just a dream," Jim soothed his shaking partner. "A nightmare."

"No, it was too real," Blair insisted. "He killed him. Me. Us."

"It just felt real," said Jim as things fell into place. "You were having a flashback."

"What are you talking about?" Naomi demanded. "What's going on?"

"A few years ago, you were kidnapped by a serial killer," Jim explained, more for Blair's benefit than Naomi's. "The guy was a real wacko. He took on the identities of his victims. You held him off by asking personal questions Lash couldn't answer, proving he couldn't pretend to be you and throwing him off his game. You were amazing, but it gave you nightmares for a while. I guess I should have expected they might pop up again, with you jumping from one set of memories to another."

Blair nodded tightly. He was still gray-faced and trembling a little but was clearly embarrassed and trying to act tough until he could pull it together. Hyperaware of Naomi's judgmental eye on them, Jim butted Blair's shoulder with his own and asked, "Which one are you? Feel up to catching some bad guys today?"

"Twenty," said Blair. "Lemme check the case file and I'm all yours." Then he paused, finally registering Naomi's presence. "Mom? What are you doing here?"

These interviews were maybe the most hellish Jim had ever had to conduct. All three victims had been little boys of a similar type and build, between the ages of six and ten. They'd been snatched in broad daylight, one from a playground, another coming home from school. One victim had even been taken from his own home. After a few days, the children's bodies were washed and carefully arranged in their own homes, on their own beds, surrounded by toys and odd items. Of the seven siblings and countless friends left behind, none were older than thirteen, some were as young as three, and several siblings had actually been the ones to find the mutilated bodies of their brothers. Doing this alone yesterday had been sheer agony. Jim had enough trouble trying to talk to kids, how was he supposed to ask them about traumatic things without traumatizing them further?

Blair, of course, did it as easily as breathing. "Okay, Charlotte, we're going to play a little game. Do you ever watch Mister Rogers?" She nodded mutely. "Well, we're going to play 'Who are the people in your neighborhood?' Can you tell me all the different people you see a lot?"

Over the course of the day, Blair built up lists of teachers, babysitters, neighbors, even faithfully writing down store clerks and local pets.

But it was no use. The victims had lived in different neighborhoods, used different babysitters, shopped at different stores. They did go to the same school, but they were all in different grades, each with a different full-time teacher for all their classes.

"Maybe it's not a teacher. Maybe it's a janitor or something," Jim suggested.

"Yeah, but you're forgetting context. On school grounds, the janitor has access to all the kids, but everyone would notice a janitor coming up to a kid walking home from school, or on a playground. And the kids probably wouldn't even talk to a janitor because they're old enough to have class issues about talking to people who clean up yucky stuff, like janitors and garbage men."

He pinned the sheets side by side on the huge Major Crimes corkboard and stepped back. "You know, this would make a fascinating study of evolving understanding of kinship groups. Notice how the younger kids list every adult they see on a regular basis, even mailmen and grocery clerks, but they do it mostly by context and job description. But as they get older, they get more choosy about who's in and who's out, and they know almost all the names of everyone they count as 'in'. You could probably set up a diagram of interlocking or concentric circles to--" He stopped and blushed, avoiding Jim's gaze. "Sorry. Sometimes I forget I'm not an anthropologist anymore."

"It's okay, Sandburg. I like it when you forget," Jim said quietly.

Blair smiled at him for a long moment, only breaking away when Rafe walked into the bullpen.

"Hey guys. Any luck with that Jack of Clubs case?"

"No," Blair groused. "You know, Sherlock Holmes once said weird cases like this are easy; there's so many threads to unravel. He said the really hard cases aren't the exotic ones, they're the anonymous bodies dumped in ditches. So we must be missing something."

Rafe obligingly looked at the board for a few minutes, then shook his head. "If you are, I'm not seeing it either." His phone was ringing on his desk, and he excused himself to answer it.

Blair turned to Jim. "Have you gone over the evidence?"

"There was nothing to go over," said Jim. "No fingerprints, no weird samples, everything was clean. Even the apple seeds had been washed."

"Man, I hate to bring it up, but what about the bodies?" Blair asked.

"Just at the crime scenes," said Jim, his jaw tightening. He always hated dragging Blair to look at bodies, even when he was older.

"Then let's go check them now, while I'm still in the driver's seat," said Blair.

There was no part of this Jim liked. Not the hitch of nausea in his partner's breathing, not the three little bodies side by side on the coroner's table, none of it.

He leaned over the table and studied each body from different angles, slowly dialing up. "They look alike enough to be brothers," he began.

"Yeah, I'm betting they're stand-ins for someone the killer can't get to. Maybe a little brother he hated when he was growing up, or a son."

Jim nodded. "No pattern to the blunt trauma that killed this one, but it was all done at the same time, not over the course of the time he was missing. No sign of sexual molestation. It doesn't make sense, Chief; all the planning that went into taking these kids, all the ritual afterwards, it doesn't match up with this sudden fit of rage. They're all like that, there's no systematic abuse or wound pattern."

"That can't be, man," Blair argued. "This guy is a meticulous planner. He knew exactly when these kids would be unprotected; he must have been watching them for a while. He placed the same items at each crime scene and there's ritual all through what he does to the bodies, which means the corpses are an important part of his whole gig. A random act of rage doesn't fit that pattern at all."

"I'm just telling you what I see," said Jim. "The bodies were washed almost immediately after; the water didn't slough the flesh off the bones and it washed away most of the blood, which means the bodies weren't even cold by the time this guy cleaned up." He reached behind himself for Blair's hand and clung to it as he dialed up smell.

"That's it, man. Filter out the smells you don't need. Filter out the smell of the bodies and focus on what's strange."

Blair had no idea how much Jim needed his voice and touch to ground him, keep him sane. It wasn't the rot that was the biggest problem. It was the smell of soap that hit him like a gut punch. "Johnson and Johnson No Tears shampoo and Ivory soap," he gagged. "Son of a bitch."

"He bought child-friendly products, didn't just use what he had on hand," Blair understood. "He saw the washing as caring for them."

"He lives in a building with an old water tower," said Jim. "I can tell from the smell of the water."

"Okay, so probably one of the older apartment buildings on the South Side?"

Jim nodded wearily. "Let's go, Chief. I'm done here."

"Wait, one more thing," said Blair. "What did he feed them?"

"What?"

"Can you tell by the smell?"

"What does that matter?"

"If he saw the bathing as something he did for them, something positive, then it's important to know how he saw the days leading up to the murder and the bath. Was he starving them? Scaring them? I'm trying to understand whether they were being punished throughout for something and when they'd been punished he could be nice to them again, or whether the rage of the killing was separate from the whole rest of the experience."

Jim snarled, but bent over to sniff each little mouth. "Dirty water hot dogs. Milk. Something sweet ... caramel." And something else, something he hated. "But they were afraid, Chief. They were afraid the whole time. It's leaking out of all their cells."

Blair's hand soothed his shoulders. "That's enough, Jim. Come on back."

They came home to find Naomi making wheatberry salad with tomatoes and mangoes. Blair's face brightened the minute he saw it, but a pleading glance from Jim made Blair casually suggest they needed some soup to round out the meal and heat up a pot of chowder from earlier in the week so Jim wouldn't be stuck trying to fill up on 'weird' food.

"So, how was your day?" Naomi asked.

Blair winced and said, "Hard. We had to interview kids today, and some of them were pretty shaken up by the murders."

Naomi's eyes widened. "Don't tell me they have you on that awful Jack of Clubs case they keep showing on the news? Why, are you better at talking to children since ... since the accident?"

Blair blushed and shook his head. "No, being younger makes things more upsetting, makes it harder to detach and focus on the other person."

"It's actually a mark of how much he's proven himself in the last year," Jim put in. "Blair's memories and professional skills aren't consistent day to day. It's incredible how hard he's studied, over and over again at different ages, to learn what he needs to know, and how well he's figured out how to cope with and cover for his memory problems. Simon would never have assigned us an important case like this if he knew all the work Blair puts in behind the scenes to make things seem seamless." If Simon had known, the other day in his office, that he was essentially sending a child half Daryl's age out to catch a serial killer, he would have blown a gasket. Jim was careful never to let the younger Blairs see a dead body or carry a gun. But if Simon assumed that, any day Blair wasn't home with a babysitter, that meant he had the personality of an adult, Jim wasn't going to enlighten him. The Blairs could handle it. And Jim needed his partner. Partners.

He realized from the worried furrow in Naomi's brow that he was making things seem worse and more dangerous than they were, and quickly added, "But the tradeoff is that, instead of one anthropological take on the criminal mind, we get dozens for the price of one. The insights Blair comes up with at age sixteen are different from the ones he comes up with at thirty; he's always looking at things in a new light. If anything, this has made him better than he was."

"Thanks man, I just wish I deserved such high praise. It feels like we're just spinning our wheels on this one."

"Can you tell me about it, sweetie?" Naomi asked.

Blair glanced at Jim, and Jim weighed the idea. On the one hand, Naomi was a little too impulsive about helping out, especially where the press were concerned, but on the other, shutting her out might damage the fledgling effort she and Blair were making to rekindle their relationship.

"Just understand this, Naomi," said Jim. "We get dozens of crank calls every day from people who claim they saw the killings or that they are the killer. The only way we know those are wild goose chases is that there's a lot the public doesn't know about the case. You can't tell anyone what we tell you, and you certainly can't get in the middle of this. Understood?"

Naomi glared at him, but her desire to redeem her reputation from the dissertation mess won out. "All right."

"The jack of clubs isn't the only card we're finding at the crime scenes," said Blair. "He also leaves behind a six of hearts and a nine of spades. I've tried thinking of every possible significance of the numbers six, nine and eleven, but I'm just not getting anything."

"Six of hearts, six of hearts..." Naomi started mumbling under her breath, then went into Blair's room and came back out with her knapsack in hand. She rummaged through it and pulled out a package wrapped in a tattered silk handkerchief, which she unwrapped to reveal a hand-painted tarot deck. "I think you're right, sweetie, there's no significance to the numbers on their own, but if he keeps choosing the same suits for the cards, he could be referring to their earlier meanings." She held out the deck to Blair. "Pick a card."

Blair smiled. "I remember this. I always used to get the Fool stepping off a cliff. Maybe by now I'll be upgraded to the Magician." He pulled a card from the deck and froze. Jim grabbed it before Blair could put it back. A man hanging by one ankle from a tree. The title read, 'The Hanged Man'.

"Sacrifice and reversal," said Naomi. "I'm betting Jim's would be the Chariot, all that rigid control."

Blair shook his head. "What's the one... Strength. I'm betting Strength."

Jim reluctantly went along with this nonsense and pulled out a random card that proved to display a lion leaning into a long-haired figure who scratched the big cat's fur. He smiled affectionately at Blair. "Looks like you've got my number, Chief."

Naomi thumbed through the deck and pulled out the six of cups and the knight of wands. "What was the third? Oh, right." She pulled out the nine of swords.

Jim stared down at the pictures on the cards. On one, a woman sat up in bed, weeping, against a backdrop of swords. On another, one small child offered another a brimming cup of fruits and flowers in a bucolic little village. Fruit, children, grief in a bedroom; it felt like all the elements of the case were staring back at him from the faces of those two cards. The third card showed a knight charging into battle.

"Interesting," said Naomi. "Childhood and nostalgia on the one hand, and disaster and loss on the other. And the third card, probably his image of himself? Hot-tempered, cocky, a bit of a daredevil--"

"No, that doesn't describe our guy at all," said Blair. "This guy is meticulous, a planner. The knight must represent someone else."

"Or it could be reversed," Naomi argued. "How were the cards positioned around the body? Right-side-up or upside-down? It changes the meanings."

"I'll have to check the crime scene photos," said Jim. Finally, a decent break in the case, and from Naomi of all people! "Thank you," he said grudgingly.

"Maybe I could--"

Blair waved his hands to cut her off. "Wait, Mom, this was really helpful, but Jim and I need to keep control of the case. The last thing we want is another kid getting killed because we threw a wrench in the works before we knew how to catch this guy."

"So, 'Don't call us, we'll call you'?" Naomi asked, one brow raised. "Fine, I can take a hint. I'll see you two in the morning?"

"Sure," said Blair, and, with only a brief hesitation and a slightly faster heartbeat, he walked up the stairs to Jim's bedroom. "Coming?" he called down to Jim, blushing a little at Naomi's startled gasp.

I hope so, Jim thought, and followed his lover upstairs. Blair had a dangerous glint in his eyes, and Jim felt compelled to murmur, as he stripped down to his boxers for bed, "Chief, much as I want to, your mother's right downstairs. She can hear everything."

"Jim, Jim, Jim," Blair said, pulling off his shirt and pausing to stretch a moment, showing off his perfect, furry chest and nipple ring, "We really have to do something about this whole trust thing. I have a plan."

"The four most dangerous words in the English language," Jim muttered, but Blair was right, the last thing he wanted to focus on while he was trying to sleep tonight were those cold little bodies down in the morgue, and the best way to get them out of his mind was the warm and willing body that pushed him down on the bed.

Blair had thought this through pretty carefully; he made Jim lie on his back while he arranged his own body going in the opposite direction so he could wrap his mouth around Jim's growing erection without gagging. There was no telltale creak of mattress whatsoever as Blair began to expertly lick and suck his lover, using one hand to furiously strip whatever part of Jim's saliva-slicked cock couldn't angle into his mouth while the other hand rolled and fondled Jim's testicles with practiced ease. Jim bit his lip and locked all his muscles to keep from making noise, but just before he toppled over the edge, Blair stopped using his hands altogether and pulled back to leisurely sample the drops of precome welling up from the crown. Damn him, damn him, and there was nothing Jim could do about it either, as his balls tried to decide between punishing him for not coming or basking in the attention Blair chose to lavish on them with his tongue.

Blair finally decided to torture him again by sucking and slurping Jim's shaft, working a couple of fingers against Jim's perineum. The pleasure was indescribable, but Jim's whole body was beginning to shake and spasm from the effort of keeping his muscles tensed and still, and he decided his cocky lover needed to be taught who was really in control here. Jim used one hand to encircle Blair's testicles to keep him from coming, while the other hand uncapped the lube and began probing Blair's ass very slowly, barely brushing his prostate. Sure enough, Blair started driving back onto his fingers just a little, trapped between the need not to make a sound and his growing desperation for more stimulus, which Jim, in turn, denied him, making him rock back a little harder, then a little more.

But Jim didn't want Naomi getting an earful any more than Blair did, so when Blair stopped sucking him long enough to shoot him a look of pure need, Jim relented and drove his fingers hard against Blair's prostate, wiggling and twisting them as his other hand pulled Blair's orgasm from him. Blair had to bite his fist to keep from screaming.

It took a minute for Blair to stop shaking, but when he did, he kissed Jim's belly gratefully before swallowing Jim's cock whole, milking it with his throat and humming softly until Jim's whole body arched off the bed to pulse hot fluid down Blair's throat.

Blair just kept sucking him, and the dials were spinning up to get as much sensation as he could handle, the feelings washing deliciously through his nervous system long after his balls were drained dry. Finally Jim looked down to discover Blair had fallen asleep, still sucking him. Jim chuckled gently and reached to pull Blair up into his arms, then did what he could about cleanup and got their boxers on again before kissing his lover's hair affectionately and falling asleep.

He knew what was coming, but he was powerless to stop it. The dentist chairs pinned him in on all sides; there was no escape. Wherever he looked, he saw the snapshot likenesses of himself struggling frantically against ropes he knew were too tight, the younger ones staring at him in terror, the older ones in helpless rage. The words bubbled up in his throat, forced their way out of his mouth. "You can't be me." He searched desperately through the faces; if he couldn't fight this, was there someone he could sacrifice? These weren't just aspects of himself, these were his friends. He'd argued politics with Twenty. He'd counseled Seventeen through a well-deserved freakout about weapons training. How was he supposed to choose?

His attention was caught by a thin wail. He turned to find a toddler struggling helplessly, dwarfed by the ominous-looking chair. It turned his stomach, but Two had barely ever been awake, wasn't as real as the others. Two wouldn't be missed. "What's the name of my first girlfriend?" he asked, and received only terrified cries for an answer. "Only I think what I think, feel what I feel. You can't be me," he said, baring wolf's fangs, "but I can be you."

Jim snapped awake when he heard the scream, but before he could reach for Blair, his lover dashed down the stairs, sobbing and trying to clamp his mouth shut with both hands. The bathroom door banged open and Jim heard the sound of violent retching. He hurried to the source of the sound, pushed Naomi out of the way, and rubbed his partner's back as Blair vomited again and again.

"Oh god, I killed him, I couldn't stop it. God, Jim, you have to make it stop!"

"It was just a dream," Jim soothed.

Blair slapped Jim's hands away. "It was real, dammit! Listen to me! I killed a baby! I ate him! I'm in Lash's hideout, all of me, and I'm killing them one by one."

"It was just a dream," Jim repeated helplessly.

"I'm sorry, sweetie, I didn't realize it would scare you," said Naomi, looking pained. "But I promise, it'll be over before you know it."

Jim's eyes narrowed. "What did you do, Naomi?"

"It was Tom," said Blair. "He did something to me, didn't he?"

"I asked him to fix you," said Naomi.

Fix him? Jim was aghast. The last time Naomi had tried to fix something without asking first, he, Simon and Megan had all been shot. This couldn't be good.

"Your chi is completely unfocused. It's splintered, damaged." Naomi explained. "Your psyche just needed a little boost to heal itself."

"You... you..." Blair was shaking. "Undo it!"

"Honey, I can see you're upset, but--"

"Upset? Upset!?" Blair grabbed Jim's shirt. "We have to find Tom, man, we have to get him to undo this!"

"Who is Tom?" Jim demanded.

"Tom Bearclaw. He's a shaman friend of mine," said Naomi. "I took Blair to see him the other day."

Jim frowned at Blair. "How could you remember that? You were Five that day; you're definitely not Five now."

Blair shook his head. "I'm Thirty," he confirmed. "I can't explain it, Jim. I remember exactly what happened. Tom took me to the wolf, and it was hurt. It kept getting worse. He must have done something to me on the spirit plane, but I don't know what!"

Jim hauled Blair to his feet and stalked towards the door for his keys. "What's the address?" he barked. They were going to fix this now.

Blair opened his mouth to say something, then stopped. Frowned. "I wasn't paying attention."

"You weren't--"

"Jim, man, how often did you pay attention on trips when you were five? We took the bus. The kitchen had a Mexican tile floor and a garlic braid. I couldn't read the freaking street signs, man, I'm sorry!"

Jim tried to soothe Blair, then turned to level a glare at Naomi, who took an involuntary step back. "If you think I'm going to help you harass my friends, especially ones who go out of their way to help me, you're wrong, Jim," she said.

"Blair's scared sick, literally scared sick," Jim yelled. "Don't you care about that?"

"I care," she protested. "Do you think I intended that? But listen to what he's saying, Jim. His memories are carrying over. It's working. Tom said it could take a few days for everything to piece itself back together again, but after that he should be back to his old self."

"Back to--" Jim broke off, snarling. "Forget this. Where's the damn phone book?"

"Okay, okay, I'll give you directions," Naomi said. "But I'm coming with you. I'm not letting you threaten him in this state. I don't understand you two! You said the doctors couldn't help. I fixed the problem. You should be thanking me, not carrying on like this!"

Jim realized he was dangerously close to hitting her. With great effort he turned away from her to check on Blair again. "You okay, Chief?"

Blair looked like hell. He was shivering in boxers and bare feet. His eyes seemed haunted, and he kept rubbing his mouth like he tasted something vile. Which he probably did; he hadn't had a chance to rinse his mouth after throwing up. He didn't even seem aware when Jim hurried to Blair's old room for a robe to pull around Blair's trembling shoulders.

"I'm remembering things that never happened," Blair said hollowly. "Or at least, they didn't happen to me." Without seeming to realize it, his hand drifted to finger his nipple ring through the bathrobe, and Jim remembered Five's horror that his chest had a 'zipper.'

"Talk to me, Chief," Jim asked in a quiet, low voice. "You think this is more than just a nightmare? You want to fight this thing?" There had once been a whole person inside that body, and if Blair decided that was what he wanted, to be normal again, Jim would quietly mourn his many Blairs and help the one that was left face the hard transition back to normal. But if Blair didn't want normal, if he wanted to go on the way things were, then Jim would mourn that too and never let Blair know he had questioned for a second whether Naomi might be right. But only Blair could decide what this all meant, what it had a right to mean.

But Blair seemed a million miles away right now, hunched in on himself, staring at nothing, rubbing his mouth until his lips started to crack and bleed.

Jim sighed and tugged gently on Blair's shoulders to coax him to sit down on the couch, where he immediately curled up against Jim's chest, still shivering. The last time Jim had been this scared, he'd been in a hospital, waiting to find out whether Blair was going to pull through. "Naomi, could you give us a minute?" he asked.

With unusual sensitivity, she did just that, murmuring something about cleaning up the mess and closing herself in the bathroom with an armful of cleaning supplies.

"What do you want me to say?" Blair finally asked.

"It's not about what I want," said Jim.

There was another long pause. "I was making them justify their existences to me," Blair said. "Horrible stuff. Trick questions, things they couldn't know. I always hate going to sleep, not knowing when I get to be up next, but that doesn't mean I get to keep the rest of them from ever waking up again, no matter how much I want to be here tomorrow. And...you don't know what it felt like, killing them. God, I'm gonna be sick again..."

"Easy, Sandburg, take it easy," said Jim. He had his marching orders now. He knew what to do. "Get dressed. We're going in five minutes."

Tom Bearclaw lived in an unremarkable little house in the suburbs, not exactly what Jim had come to expect of shamans, psychics, monks and the other spiritual leaders Blair and Naomi seemed to attract into their orbit. When the sixty-something man with graying, shoulder-length hair opened the door, Jim didn't waste time on pleasantries.

"What did you do to him?" he demanded, pushing his way into the house with both Sandburgs trailing after him trying to keep him from throttling the shaman before he could help them.

"Naomi?" Tom asked, catching sight of her behind the threatening bulk of Jim Ellison. "What's wrong? What's happened?"

"What's happened is you hurt Blair," said Jim.

Tom put up his hands in a calming gesture. "All right, calm down. Sit." He waited while Blair and Naomi sat down. Jim remained standing, one hand on Blair's shoulder, ready to lunge for Tom's throat. Tom looked like he wanted to make Jim sit, but clearly thought better of it, because his next words were simply, "Now, can you tell me what's wrong?"

"Whatever you did to me, you have to shut it off," Blair begged. "I've been having these horrible dreams. I ask myself questions I can't answer, and then I eat my younger selves when they don't know the answers."

Tom nodded, looking unsurprised. "It sounds like your mind is trying to use that metaphor to understand the psychic ingestion it's doing. That's to be expected."

"But I don't want to be doing any psychic ingestion! I like my mind the way it is, okay? You have to stop this from happening!"

Tom looked pained and reached out for Blair, who shrank from the touch. "Blair, like I explained to you and your mother yesterday, it's been a long time since your injury occurred. Imagine if you'd broken your arm and didn't set it in a cast. When it healed wrong, you'd have to re-break it and set it properly, and that's painful, but it's the only way to heal the injury and regain the use of your arm. Your mind tried to cope with the brain damage as best it could, and it wove new patterns around the damage. Breaking those patterns hurts, but it's the only way to heal."

"You're not listening to me," Blair said. "I never agreed to this."

Tom sighed. "Blair, your mother told me you had brain damage. I could see that you weren't playing with a full deck -- you were acting like you were severely retarded. You didn't seem to be in any condition to give permission for anything. She asked for my help. I gave it."

"She didn't have the right to make that decision! You had no right to do anything without asking me or Jim!"

Jim couldn't help a small feeling of relief at that; for a long time Blair hadn't fully trusted Jim to make decisions that were in all the Blairs' best interests. It felt good to know, however cornered and betrayed Blair felt, he knew he could lean on Jim instead of trying to tackle this alone.

"I had your mother's permission," Tom repeated. "And as she explained it to me, there was a good chance you wouldn't remember giving permission even if one of your older selves gave it. You're not capable of making your own decisions."

"Actually, he is," Jim growled. "Legally. And even if he wasn't, you should have asked who did have that right. He hasn't talked to his mother in almost two years. If you'd bothered to ask him who he trusted to help him make a decision like that, any of the Blairs would have given you the same half-dozen names, and I'm betting Naomi wouldn't even be on that list."

Tom looked sharply at his old friend, who was now a picture of misery.

"I was trying to help," said Naomi. "It sounded like you had checked down all the avenues medical science had to offer and came up short. I was just trying to find ways of healing Blair's injury that a straight-laced cop like you wouldn't have thought of."

"And you didn't trust me to think of those solutions in the past year?" Blair demanded. "You didn't even ask me what I wanted. I don't want to be healed. I'm happy the way I am." He turned back to Tom. "Now shut it off!"

Tom shook his head. "I can't do that, Blair. Shamanism only works in accordance with the natural order. Your mind is being shifted back to its natural state; I can't use my magic to convince it to become unnatural again."

Jim couldn't bear to look at the naked pain in Blair's eyes. "There is nothing natural about this," said Blair. "What do I have to say to make you understand that?"

"I'm sorry, Blair, there's nothing I can do."

Jim's jaw tightened. "Come on, Blair, let's go home. We'll find another way." He pulled his lover up out of the chair, and looked from Naomi to Tom with quiet hatred. These horrible, dangerous people, leaping in to help without checking to see if there was anything fragile in their path, sure that as long as they were the good guys they could do no harm. Jim was a gun-carrying cop. He knew better than that.

Blair stumbled to the back seat, which left Naomi up front with Jim. She opened her mouth, still puzzled.

"Don't," Jim warned. He flicked a glance at the rearview mirror, but Blair was staring out the window with those horror-filled eyes, clearly not up to participating in the conversation. "You walk in here and, without even bothering to figure out the situation on the ground, you decide you know better than us, when we've spent the last year getting this down, and it's still a goddamn minefield."

Jim flashed back to those early months, that first follow-up phone message from Blair's neurologist, Dr. Ikari, wanting to touch base about Blair's recovery and discuss further surgeries and experimental treatments. Nineteen had looked at Jim like a cornered animal waiting to be put to sleep. Jim had deleted that message and all the ones since then without a further thought. Any 'cure' would kill the Blairs, and that was unacceptable. But how could he make Naomi understand that?

"Every day," Jim began, "I watch him wake up, waiting to see who he's going to be today, what kind of day it's going to be. And sometimes it's pancakes and finding a last-minute babysitter, or taking a walk in the park where he has to investigate every war memorial and every new seedling, and sometimes it's algae shakes and endless lectures about Maori tattoos, or the popularity of restaurants after the French Revolution, but whatever's on tap for the day, it's gonna be a good day because I love them all. Sometimes I can even tell which one's which before they open their mouths, they're that different from each other, but I wouldn't trade any of them."

Naomi looked at him for a long while. She looked in the back seat at Blair. "Eighteen months was a magic age," she said. "Everything had a name; he thought that was so amazing. This was a book! That was a cow! How exciting! It was like the world was brand new to me, because I got to share it with him. Eighteen months was magic. But as much as I miss it sometimes, I'm glad he didn't stay there."

Jim watched the road, but her words still hit home, and it took a few minutes before he had a good answer. "These other Blairs," he said, "They aren't time capsules, they aren't stuck like Peter Pan. They've changed over this past year; each of them has adjusted differently to all of this. They're all growing up differently than they did the first time around. There are things Nineteen chooses to do that nineteen-year-old Blair would never dare--" like take a chance on loving a battered old cop like Jim, even after the experience of a gay bashing, Jim thought to himself, "and Five, the one you met yesterday--"

"I talk to them," Blair added softly from the back seat. "Over email, because we're never awake at the same time. But we have favorites, the ones we look out for, the ones we crack jokes with. I wouldn't know what to say to Seven, even though I get along great with Nine, but Twelve and Seven really hit it off. If I could go back in time, there's a lot of things I'd love to warn my sixteen-year-old self about, but Sixteen thinks I'm an old fogey who he's got nothing in common with. He's much happier duking it out with Twenty-Six."

"Five liked onion bagels toasted with strawberry cream cheese," Jim put in. "He'd get this happy, close-mouthed grin and say 'munch munch munch' every time he got to have one. They didn't even have strawberry cream cheese in 1974."

Blair looked up at that. "I did that 'cause I knew you thought it was cute," he said, brow furrowing as he remembered. "I wanted to give you incentive to buy more."

Jim swallowed hard. "Manipulative little bastard."

"Who're you calling little?" Blair shot back, weakly.

Naomi just shook her head, undeterred by their arguments. Jim felt his insides go cold.

When they got to Prospect Street, Blair caught Naomi's sleeve before she could go up. "I'll bring your stuff down," he said. "I don't think I can be around you right now, and I can't make any promises for Jim's behavior, either."

"Blair," she started.

"Don't," he said.

Alarmed by his lover's frightening poise, Jim stayed out of the way as Blair walked upstairs, packed up Naomi's bag, and walked downstairs again. He watched from the window as Blair handed over the bag and walked back in the building without saying a word, without so much as a hug. He listened to Blair coming up the stairs and watched silently as his lover walked past him and up the stairs to their bedroom. Then he heard it, a soft, muffled keening. Blair was screaming into a pillow. He just kept screaming.

That propelled Jim up the stairs, and he lay down on top of his lover and let the weight of his body squash the air out of Blair's lungs until screams turned to sobs. "Don't cry, Chief, don't cry. We'll fix this. We'll figure this out. I love you, Chief, you're not alone here, we're going to fix this..."

Something other than Sandburg was screaming in the background, and Jim belatedly realized his cell phone was loudly demanding his attention. It had better not be Naomi, trying to get back in their good graces. "Ellison," he snapped.

"You'd better be sick or dead, Jim," Simon Banks barked over the line. "Where the hell are you? We've got a serial killer on the loose and you don't even bother to show up for work?"

Jim looked at the clock and swore. "Sorry, Sir, I should have called in. Sandburg's ... Sandburg's sick. I'll be in as soon as it's safe to leave him alone."

Blair was looking up now, making 'I'm fine, go,' gestures. Jim ignored them.

"Make it quick," Simon allowed. "And Jim? Tell the kid I hope he feels better."

Jim thanked him and hung up. "Simon hopes you're okay."

Blair nodded, still looking like death warmed over. "We should get going..."

"Does the phrase 'no way in hell' mean anything to you, Chief?" Jim gripped Blair's shoulders until the younger man leaned back into the pillows. "Think your stomach can handle some soup? You haven't had anything to eat all morning." Neither had Jim, for that matter, and his own stomach was starting to complain about that, but at least he hadn't started the day by puking his guts out.

Blair looked doubtful, but Jim told him to stay put and went to whip up what Blair always called 'Crime Scene Cuisine,' food that was gentle on the stomach and included no tomatoes, red meat, or anything that could remind you of the dead body you'd just seen an hour before. In this case, that meant two heaping bowls of leftover chowder, toast triangles and bananas. Jim eyed the wheatberry salad in the fridge with loathing and chucked it in the garbage. The fewer reminders they had of Naomi lying around the house, the better.

He carried his bounty upstairs and waited to make sure Blair was actually eating instead of just staring miserably at his food before turning to strategy. "All right, whatever's going on with you, if it follows the pattern of the last two nights then we have to beat this thing fast, before it finishes all of them off. So we need to think of any ideas that might help, no matter how silly they sound. When these dreams come, can you control them in any way? Ask easy questions? Choose who's next? Wake yourself up before it gets too far?"

Blair frowned. "I chose last night. But I can't avoid making a choice. And believe me, if there was any way out of there, I'd take it in a heartbeat."

"What about easy questions? What happens if they get one right?"

"I don't know. I can try." He hugged himself unconsciously. "This sounds stupid, man, but part of me is scared that it's them or me, like if they get a question right then I'm going to be the one who doesn't wake up. But you're right, I have to try." He hesitated. "I want to meditate, see if going in on purpose instead of against my will gives me any more freedom to change what happens."

"That sounds like a good idea," said Jim. "What's the problem?"

"The problem is I've been meditating since I was in training pants, and the only times I've ever had a vision are when I, you know, had some help."

"No way, Sandburg, you are not ingesting a controlled substance on my watch."

"Jim, this is my life we're talking about! You said anything goes!"

"I said we'd discuss anything, Blair. Even if it wasn't illegal, those drugs are dangerous and unpredictable even for a normal brain; I don't even want to think about what they'd do to one with the gray cells you're missing!" Jim forced himself to calm down. "I think we should call Dr. Ikari in on this, too."

"No way, Jim! She'll think this is cause to break out the champagne. She'll write a paper on holistic cures for brain injury or something."

"She'll put you in a goddamn MRI and we'll see if what's happening to you is actually changing the map of your brain," said Jim. "We don't have to go along with anything she suggests, but she'll have information we don't." He saw the doubt on Blair's face and reassured him, "We won't do anything that makes you uncomfortable. I just want to know as much as possible about what we're dealing with."

Jim's phone went off again, and he glared at it. "I'll call Dr. Ikari from the office," he said. "Don't worry, I'll make it clear that we want to keep things the way they've been."

"I'm coming with you," said Blair.

"Chief--"

"I don't want to be alone right now, Jim. And I sure don't want to be sitting at home with nothing to do." Jim's worry must have shown on his face, because Blair sighed and reassured him, "If I can't keep it together, I'll go home, or take a long coffee break or something. But I really don't want to be alone in my head right now."

Jim could understand that. "Okay, Chief, let's roll."

Blair kept quiet as they drove to the station. There was too much going on inside his head for him to put into words; the world just felt horribly off-kilter. He kept flashing on his nightmare of the warehouse, what he'd been forced to do. He couldn't think about it without cringing in revulsion. How were they supposed to stop this? Tom was right; there was nothing healthy or natural about the Committee; it was a coping mechanism his brain created to reroute itself around the empty places where a bullet had torn through his skull. Tom Bearclaw seemed to think if he gathered all the shards of Blair's mind together he could fuse them, make them whole again. Maybe that would have been possible right after the accident, but the shards had weathered like sea glass. The edges didn't fit together anymore.

Blair looked over at his lover and felt a rush of warmth. Jim was ready to do whatever Blair needed, whatever it took to fix this. He'd always been the one person Blair could count on, when his home blew up, when he'd overdosed on Golden, and a hundred times when there had been no emergency, when coming home after a shitty meeting with the Chancellor to someone who loved him meant more than words. Even back when Naomi had left him at that hospital when he was a kid, Jim had bought him a stuffed turtle to keep his mind off it, and let Blair stay with him, and helped him shave every morning--

Blair flinched and rubbed his scar, nauseous and scared. That wasn't how it happened! He'd met Jim in a hospital all right, but Jim had been the patient, not him. He'd snuck in there wearing a pilfered lab coat and clutching Jim's medical file, barely able to contain his excitement at discovering a real, live Sentinel.

What had he really been doing in a hospital at age five? Head injury, his brain insisted, and Naomi left him with Jim -- No! Damn it, what really happened? It was ages ago; his memory of one was so clear, while his memory of the other needed cobwebs brushed off it. Okay, concentrate. Where was he at age five? New Delhi. That's right, he'd had a bad reaction to some of the immunizations and had to stay at the hospital while he was sick. That was what really happened.

Except that wasn't true either. Both had happened. Both were real.

When they got to the station, Simon was pissed. "Glad you two decided to join us! I hope you didn't have to rearrange your busy social calendar too much."

Jim bristled, but Blair only murmured, "Sorry, Simon," and stumbled off to his desk.

Simon's expression grew more concerned. "Jim, if the kid's that sick, shouldn't he be home?"

Jim paused, not sure how much to reveal. "He's... not contagious," he finally said, and added, "We'd better get to work," before Simon could interject any questions. There was nothing worse than friends asking concerned questions when you didn't have any answers.

Blair sat at his desk, staring into space like a zombie. Jim privately worried Blair would be doing that for most of the day, on and off. He squared his shoulders. The way to help Blair right now wasn't to get him to talk, it was to solve the damn problem, and solving problems was an Ellison specialty. Jim picked up the phone and opened his address book for Dr. Ikari's number. "Dr. Ikari? I don't know if you remember me, my name is Jim Ellison."

"Jim... Yes, of course. Blair Sandburg's partner. I tried calling you several times; damage like that needs to be monitored, at the very least, and I told you I had great hopes that experimental treatments or microsurgery might help correct some of the damage."

Jim clenched the phone in a crushing grip, trying to remind himself that it wasn't Dr. Ikari that he wanted to kill. "We... we didn't want to risk making things worse. But Blair's been... hurt, and I was wondering if we could schedule another MRI to see if his brain's been scrambled worse."

"Why didn't the surgeon at the ER run one when he was brought in, if he's been injured?" she demanded.

"It was a couple of days ago; it didn't seem serious at the time. He basically fell out of bed."

Dr. Ikari sighed. "If it wasn't work-related and didn't seem serious enough at the time to require a hospital visit, your insurance carrier might kick up a fuss about paying for an expensive procedure."

"Then I'll pay for it," said Jim. "Please, we need this as soon as possible."

She sighed again. "Let me call down there and call you back, all right?"

"Fine, that's fine," he said. "I'll talk to you later."

The money wouldn't be a problem. When Jim had come home alive from Peru and made it clear he had no intention of contacting his father or brother, Bill Ellison had established a rather hefty bank account in Jim's name to make sure he'd be all right, throwing money at problems as he always did. Jim never touched a penny of the old man's money, out of pride and anger. Even after Blair had begun pushing them to a somewhat stiff reconciliation, the anger was gone, but Jim couldn't bring himself to spend the money and Bill wouldn't hear of Jim returning it. At least now the money would go to good use.

Blair had emerged from his daze a little, enough to get on his computer and draft an email to TheCommittee. Now he was looking over the case notes, trying to pick up any clues he had missed.

"See anything, Chief?" Jim encouraged.

"I'm stumped, man. The guy's got to have a history; he's too meticulous to have just shown up out of the blue. You didn't turn up anything?"

"I checked all the unsolved murders in the national database," said Jim. "I would have added missing persons, but there are just too many missing boys in that age bracket, and leaving the bodies on display seems to be a big thing with this guy. Missing kids are the wrong way to go, but nothing's jumping out at me from the unsolved cases."

"What about the solved ones?" Blair asked.

"What?"

"Jim, the Innocence Project has proved that a lot of guys on Death Row didn't commit the crimes they were found guilty of. Think about it; you've got a serial killer murdering kids, lots of pressure to solve the case, no witnesses, and once you have a suspect, where are you going to find an impartial jury for a case like that?"

"You think someone else took the rap for this guy," Jim mused, frowning. "Good thinking, Chief. I'll make some calls, you do a net search. All these serial killers have a fan following; if some poor schmuck did get pinched for this, some sicko fan's probably got a website on it."

Half an hour later, Jim smacked his desk in satisfaction. "Got him! The Deadbeat Dad killer of Salem, Oregon, got the name because all the kids were children of single moms or blended families. Four boys, ages five to nine. The first two were dumped, but the second two were left in their bedrooms, surrounded by toys."

"Who'd they nail for it?" Blair asked.

"FBI did a sweep, found a convicted sex offender had moved into the area without registering with the locals. No alibi for the nights in question."

"Damn, hard to feel sorry for the guy, but still. So he's on Death Row?"

Jim shook his head. "Lethal injection back in 1999."

"We should talk to the police down there, get them to reopen their files. If it's our guy's first run, he may have been sloppier back then. They might have something."

Jim nodded. "I'll make the call. You look this over and add the details to the board, see if anything stands out."

The Salem Police Department was... pissy. After all, here was an out-of-towner claiming that not only had they bungled a major case, they'd convicted and killed an innocent man who had just been the wrong person at the wrong time. The sheriff finally snarled that Jim should talk to the FBI and hung up on him.

Simon came out of his office, looking old, and walked over to Jim. "We've got another missing kid. Tell me you have something."

"Meet the Deadbeat Dad Killer, AKA Jack of Clubs. We've got the guy's first stop," said Jim. "What's the address for the missing kid?"

In the background, his phone rang and Blair answered. Simon sighed heavily. "Andy Clark, seven-year-old kid. Family lives on Mercer Street."

"Any siblings?" Jim asked, bracing himself for interviews with more hysterical parents and traumatized kids.

"What?" Blair yelled into the phone. "No, damn it, that's too late! I need this now!" He grabbed the phone off the desk and hurled it across the floor. "FUCK!"

"Sandburg!" Simon snapped. "What's the matter with you? Jim's bad enough; I don't need two of you flying off the handle for no reason. Pick that up, now."

"S-sorry," Blair choked, getting down on his hands and knees to retrieve the phone. He didn't seem in any hurry to get up.

Jim knelt beside him. "What happened?"

"I don't wanna talk about it, man," said Blair, eyeing the other detectives. When the phone was back on the desk and Rafe and Taggart were a little less obviously watching him, Blair mumbled, Sentinel-soft, "That was Dr. Ikari. She said the earliest we can have the MRI is next Monday."

"Then we call her back and tell her it's an emergency."

"What, that I'm getting better? Face it, Jim, for everyone but you and me, this is reason to celebrate."

"Well, I'm not breaking out the champagne, Chief. Let me call her back. You go cool down, arrange a time to interview the family of this latest kid." He gripped Blair's shoulder and tried to project confidence he didn't feel. "We'll figure this out, Sandburg. Don't worry."

Making love to Blair that night felt like the last time he'd made love to Caroline, right before the divorce was finalized. That incredible sex that only comes from knowing it's over, wanting to make sure the other person can never get you out of their head. Blair played Jim's body like a Stradivarius, finding hot spots Jim hadn't even known existed, until he yelled and came and came again, soaking the bed with sweat and sex and tears. Blair finally slumped across Jim's back, warm and heavy.

"I'm not coming back, Jim, not until it's over," he said quietly. "If I have to kill one of them every night, they deserve a last day for themselves."

"Blair, if you stay one person until we solve this thing, we might figure it out faster," Jim protested.

"Look, I know you don't get it. But I can't save them. I can't stop this. The only thing I can do is give them a chance to say goodbye."

He had to choose. He could feel the gaping hole inside him, hungry to be filled. It had to be better to choose one of the children, right? One of the ones who was barely awake, who no one would miss? But they were so terrified, screaming for him to go away, for the monster to leave them alone...

"Hey, asshole!" One of the older Blairs yelled from across the room. Twenty-eight. "I don't know how you felt when Megan got shot."

Blair turned, feeling the terrible compulsion take over. Twenty-eight was trembling, closing his eyes as he had before Alex's drawn gun, like if he didn't watch, it wouldn't hurt so much. Blair wished to God that were true.

"Only I think what I think, feel what I feel," the words forced themselves past his lips. "You can't be me. But I can be you."

Jim had yelled for Blair to wake up when he heard that heartbeat begin to race, but it hadn't done any good. He had shaken Blair, slapped him, begged him, but finally Blair started screaming and it was too late. Blair went into work that day with some spectacular bruises he refused to comment on, and finally got Megan to help him cover them up with some foundation make up so he wouldn't scare Andy Clark's family. Not that it made much of a difference. No one had seen anything. They had nothing to go on.

That night they had another marathon sex session, and Jim hated every minute of it, hated the way Blair tried to impress him, like he wouldn't be remembered after he died unless he gave really good head. He finally grabbed a tie off his tie rack and bound Blair's hands to the bed frame to make him stop. Then he made love to Blair, kissing his fingers, rubbing his face against the soft, springy hairs of Blair's chest, worshipping Blair's inner thighs until he was sure that Blair felt safe, and loved, and cherished. Then, and only then, he worked Blair's erection with his hand and mouth until Blair collapsed in a sated heap, and Jim sat up and pulled Blair's drowsy, frightened body against his own, wishing he could do something really useful, wishing he could fix this.

The pattern repeated for the next few days, as they waited for the bumped-up-but-still-too-late MRI and tried to keep their minds on the case. Naomi tried to call, more than once, but Blair and Jim blocked her number from their cell phones and told the station's switchboard not to let calls from her through. She'd done enough damage already.

They spent every day in that hell until the morning Blair kissed him awake.

Jim wasn't perfect at it, he admitted, but he could usually tell the Blairs apart by their kisses. Nineteen and Twenty-three liked deep, sloppy kisses with lots of tongue, almost as much as they liked licking and sucking his throat and shoulders hard enough to leave hickeys. Twenty-six, -seven and -eight were nibblers, while Eighteen always tasted of mouthwash, not believing Jim's constant assurances that his breath was fine. Thirty was playful in his kisses, and some of the other grown ones didn't kiss him at all, insisting they didn't want to be with a man but swearing off women as well so as not to hurt Jim's feelings.

None of them kissed like this, mashing his lips against Jim's with a stench of fear and misery sweating through his pores. Jim pushed him away so he could sit up, and Blair yanked his hands away and squashed his lips against Jim's face again, the kiss missing Jim's mouth entirely and landing on his chin as Jim struggled to get away without hurting his lover. "What's going on? What are you doing?"

Blair's face crumpled. "I... you... you gotta show me," he said miserably. "He's gonna ask and I'm not gonna know the answer, and he's gonna eat me."

"Nine?" Jim guessed. "BJ?" His heart broke when Blair nodded yes. Jim stood up, shooting Blair a warning look to keep him from getting up. If Nine was awake today, that meant he was slated to die tonight. "The older Blairs can't all be dead," Jim's voice cracked. "There's got to be someone..."

Blair shook his head. "I couldn't take the waiting anymore. I thought anything would be better than that. But I don't wanna die, Jim."

Jim walked over to the bureau and pulled out a pair of sweats and a tee shirt before sitting back down beside Blair. He waited for Blair to get dressed, then said, gently but firmly, "I'm not going to do that to you."

Blair's eyes welled up with tears. "But--"

"No. And even if I did, it wouldn't help. He'd just keep asking questions until he found one you couldn't answer. You can't win that way, not against yourself." He gripped Blair's shoulders. "Look at me. Blair outsmarted Lash, but Lash wasn't the only bad guy Blair got the better of. He had a knack for figuring out what game the bad guys were playing and then changing the rules on them. Trying to know everything older Blair knows is playing his game his way. That's not the way to beat this thing."

The phone rang downstairs, but Jim didn't want to leave Blair alone just now, so he waited for the machine to click on. The voice after the beep was the last one either of them wanted to hear. "Blair, honey, it's me. I've been trying to reach you; I guess you've been ignoring my calls... really, Blair, that's so passive-aggressive! I raised you better than that--! I'm sorry, honey, I'm just having a hard time hearing you on this one. But there was something I needed to tell you, and I'm hoping you don't just delete this message when you hear my voice. I remembered your saying the Knight of Wands didn't really match your case. Well, the Jack card in a modern deck is actually a combination of two tarot cards, the Knight and the Page, and in the Wands suit, they couldn't be more different, so I hope this is more what you're looking for. The Page of Wands represents a messenger, or even literally a postman. Reversed, it's a message lost or a messenger waylaid. I hope that helps... give me a call, sweetie. I love you. Bye-bye."

Blair gaped at Jim, "She could be right, Jim. A postman could go right up to any door driving that huge mail truck -- that's gotta be how he snatches them and gets the bodies back in without anyone noticing!"

Jim was already up and scrounging for clothes. "We've got to check the postal route for our crime grid now." He dashed for the kitchen and flipped through the battered yellow pages for the number of the postal service. "This is Detective Ellison, Major Crimes. I'm going to need the names of all your postal workers for Glenoak, Mercer, Sherbrook and Linden streets. The zip codes? I don't know, but, oh, hang on." He flipped through the phone book for the names of the victims and read off the zip codes, then waited while the woman took what seemed like forever to check her database. He drummed his fingers, meeting Blair's anxious eyes, and finally the woman came back with only one name.

"He started working for you when? And before that? Yeah, that would be great. Thank you." He hung up and scribbled the address she'd given him. "We've got him, BJ. Charles Tucker, just transferred from the Anchorage office, and before that, Salem, Oregon. She's faxing his ID photo over to Major Crimes now." He speed-dialed Simon. "It's me, Simon. Get an APB out on Charles Tucker of the Cascade Post Office; they're faxing a photo over now. I'm going straight to his house, get me a warrant and tell Rhonda we need any prior history this guy has on file."

He hung up and started for the door, but stopped in his tracks when he realized Blair was right behind him. "BJ, uh..." Damn. There was no way in hell Jim was going to put nine-year-old BJ in the middle of a serial killer takedown. Any other time, he'd try to persuade BJ to let him put a sleeper hold on him and coax one of the older Blairs to the front. But this time, if BJ went to sleep, he wasn't going to wake up again. He couldn't even send Blair to wait for him at the station because BJ couldn't drive...

Jim scrounged through his pockets and came up with a handful of change. "I want you to take the bus to the station and wait for me; I'll be there soon," he said.

"What? Come on, Jim, what if you need me? I'll stay in the truck, I promise!"

"BJ, you've broken that promise more times than I can count, at any age. Now I need you to go to the station; you can help Rhonda find out more about this guy--"

"I don't wanna help Rhonda! I'm supposed to help you, remember? I'm your Guide!"

"You're not going, BJ, and that's final. Now I'll see you at the station, understand?" Jim had done a lot of unforgivable things to Blair over the years, but somehow, walking Blair to the bus stop and leaving him sitting dejected on the bench, Jim had a feeling this one topped the list.

Jim found Charles Tucker in his apartment, getting ready for work. But that was all he found. No missing boy, no immediately obvious clues to tie the man to the crimes at all, not so much as child-friendly shampoo in the bathroom. But Tucker smelled of dirty water hot dogs. Jim read him his rights and brought him down to lockup. The station was in an uproar, beat cops slapping Jim on the back all the way up to the bullpen, but Jim knew it wasn't over yet, not by a long shot.

Blair was still pretty down, but he and Rhonda had found something, at least. Three years ago, in Seattle, Charles Tucker's wife had divorced him, claiming abuse and mental hardship, and had taken out two restraining orders keeping him from going anywhere near her or their six-year-old son. There was a court record showing repeated violations of the restraining order, and then a missing persons report, filed by the ex-Mrs. Tucker's workplace. Interestingly, neither the woman's parents in Seattle nor her sister in Oregon filed a missing persons report, suggesting she'd gone underground to get away from her ex-husband.

None of this, however, satisfied the Public Defender's Office.

"Circumstantial evidence?" Jim exploded. "The man's worked all thirteen crime scenes, his ex-wife, who divorced him, by the way, because he scared her, disappeared to keep him away from their kid. What more do you want?"

"Oh, I don't know, Detective," said Amy Madison, the pro bono lawyer assigned to the case, who had wasted no time getting on top of what could be the crime of the century. "How about a murder weapon? Or the fourth missing child?"

"I'll get all of that, don't worry, but I want that sicko locked up where he can't hurt anyone while we search his place."

"Sicko? Detective Ellison, you're talking about a man who is innocent until proven guilty, and who maintains he's done nothing wrong."

"I know he did it!" Jim could still smell it, the dirty water hot dogs and the sharp tang of terror clinging to Tucker's skin...

"Oh, you know? Like those good detectives in Salem knew Clifford Mills killed those poor boys back in '98? Yes, I've read the file, Detective Ellison, and I have no intention of letting you repeat history here. So unless you can produce a shred of physical evidence or a credible witness report linking my client to these crimes, I want Mr. Tucker released this minute."

Jim stepped forward, eyes cold. "The law says we can hold him for 24 hours. You want to play this by the book, we'll play it by the book, Ms. Madison. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some evidence to find."

In a fair universe, the day would have ended with a blood-stained tee shirt or a hidden cupboard with Andy Clark inside, bound and gagged but still breathing. But by the time midnight rolled around, Jim and Blair had gone over every inch of the apartment and found no evidence that would even remotely point to the crimes.

The whole day caught up with Jim all at once, and he yelled, "God damn it!" flinging bills and dishes off the table, overturning Tucker's bookcase, throwing himself at the walls until Blair grabbed him from behind and hugged him, hugged him so tight he couldn't move, just stood there, sobbing and screaming into Blair's tee shirt, knowing he was probably terrifying the nine-year-old but too far gone to stop.

Finally, when Jim had worn himself out, Blair said softly, "Um, Jim? I know why I'm scared about tonight, but why do you care so much?" Jim flinched at that, and Blair said, "I didn't mean it like that, Jim. I just meant, you know, we all have the same voice, the same body. One way or another," his voice cracked a little. "One way or another you'll still have a Blair Sandburg around. And hey, it'll -- it'll be easier, right? Not having to worry about keeping us little ones out of the way anymore?"

Jim couldn't answer, just rocked back and forth with Blair in his arms in the middle of that wrecked apartment. "You know," he finally said, fighting the tightness in his throat, "For someone who's supposed to be such a genius, you can be a real idiot. I'm crying because I'm never going to see you again, BJ. I had to deal with some terrible things when I was your age, but I didn't handle them with half the courage you show every day you're awake, trying to be a cop and a grown-up and my partner and my friend. Despite everything, you still manage to hold onto your innocence and your curiosity, and when you go away, I'm not going to have anyone to go to Wonderburger with or play video games with, or sit on the pier and talk about stuff with. You're one of my favorites, BJ. You're my best friend and I. Am going. To miss you."

Jim clenched his eyes shut to fight off the tears that threatened to break him. "You let me have it all, you know that, Blair? Some days you're the kid I never had a chance to raise, and I'm the center of your whole world. And some days, like now, you're my best friend. And some days -- I did some horrible, unforgivable things to you, the grown-up you, before the accident. Some days you remember our friendship but without the awful stuff that happened later, that took the light out of your eyes. And some days you're the guy who survived all that and stayed with me in spite of it. And I can't even tell anyone I'm losing my best friend, all my best friends, because they don't get it."

Blair clung to him, unable to speak, for a long time. When he finally spoke, all he could manage was, "Thank you."

Jim stood up and helped Blair to his feet. "God, I did a number on this place. Simon is going to kill me. But there's got to be something here. Postal workers don't make enough for rent on two different places."

"Maybe he doesn't have to pay rent," Blair mused.

"What do you mean?" Jim asked.

"Well, every time Mom and I used to travel, we had to fill out that form at the post office, the one that says whether to hold or forward your mail, and from when to when. If he works for the post office, he'd know who's going away on a long trip, wouldn't he?"

Jim stared at Blair, incredulous. "Chief, I take back everything I said. You're a genius!" He called up Simon, who had been asleep in bed, and told him to rouse the Postmaster and get someone to open up the records room at the main branch. It took less than twenty minutes for them to get down there, burning rubber the whole way, and then came the grueling task of going through every single change of address form still in effect and sending a team to each home, looking for the missing Andy Clark.

The work was tedious and frustrating, continuing past dawn while Rafe and Brown argued with the postal workers to keep from interfering with the investigation while the postal workers screamed bloody murder about not being allowed into their main office to complete their appointed rounds. No one noticed as Blair's eyes began to sag, until his head dropped to his chest and he quietly slipped into sleep.

He was back in the warehouse, bound to the chair, and no matter how hard he fought, he couldn't get loose. The other Blair loomed over him and asked, his voice silky and confident, "How does Jim kiss?"

"I've got a question for you, you big jerk," BJ retorted. "How're you gonna get Daryl to listen to our advice when you're just another grown-up? Who's gonna go to Wonderburger with Jim? How about all my friends in the homework chatroom; are you gonna bother to keep helping them and talking to them when you're a grown-up all the time?"

His chains clattered to the ground, and he stood up. The other Blair backed up a step, but shook his head as if to wriggle out of a snare. "You saw the vision. The wolf is wounded. Our spirit is broken. This is necessary if we are to heal and be whole again."

"Tieresias was blind, but he could see," said one of the older Blairs, and his chains loosened. He stood up to face his attacker.

"Beethoven was a great composer even though he was deaf," another pointed out, and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the first.

"I may be lame," said a third, joining the gang.

"But I can still hunt," said a fourth.

They surrounded their attacker, not as puzzle pieces or funhouse mirrors, but an army, a family, angry and strong and unchained. And their attacker's eyes spilled over with tears of relief. "Thank you," he whispered. And he turned and joined them.

"BJ, no, please wake up, oh God, please wake up," Thirty could hear Jim's choked voice as he swam to the surface. He opened his eyes, took Jim's face in his hands, and leaned in to kiss him. Jim jerked away.

"No, no, Jim, it's okay. He's not dead. He's not dead, I promise. It's over. We beat it." And he pulled Jim close and kissed him deeply, feeling his partner shake with silent relief and having the vague feeling that they were somewhere public and noisy where this was a bad idea, but not caring.

When they finally broke apart, Blair was surprised to discover they were in a filing room of some kind, with men in postal uniforms arguing with cops. "Jim? What are we doing at the post office?"

"We found him, or we think we found him. Charles Tucker. Wife disappeared with their kid, who's right in our age range, and Tucker's worked for the local post offices for all three killing sprees, but it's all circumstantial. Nine thought he might be using apartments with stop-mail orders as his bases, but it's still a lot of ground to cover."

"Smart kid," Blair said. "Do we have him in lockup?"

"For all the good it does. This is a high-profile case, so he's got a barracuda lawyer keeping us from talking with him."

"Keeping you from questioning him," Blair corrected, a sudden thought crossing his mind, "Not from talking to him. And talking is what I do best. Let's go."

On the drive to the station, Jim kept one hand on the wheel and one hand on Blair's thigh, constantly looking over at him as if to reassure himself that everything was okay, that his lover was out of danger. When they got to the station, they found Tucker in the interrogation room and his lawyer waiting outside. Jim whispered her name to cue Blair.

"If you're going to interrogate my client, I demand to be in the room. He needs to know what his rights are so he isn't coerced into confessing to something he didn't do."

"Please," Blair said, graciously opening the door for her. She blinked in surprise and frowned at him to try and figure out what the trick was, but went inside and sat down beside Tucker. Jim and Blair sat opposite them.

Charles Tucker was a quiet man with hunched shoulders, sandy hair, and glasses. He actually looked a lot like the boys he'd killed. If Blair had met him on the street, or in the library, he would have thought this was a nice person to talk to. Except Tucker looked tired. Exhausted. And those eyes looked too much like the ones he'd seen in the mirror when he was last awake.

Blair caught Tucker's attention with a slight tilt of his head. "I'm sorry about your son," he began.

Tucker blinked at him in surprise. "Thank you," he finally murmured.

"He'd be about ten now, right? Eleven?"

"Eleven, yes," said Tucker.

"Divorce is pretty rough," said Blair. "My mom never even talks about my dad. I wish I'd known him."

"Do you remember your dad?" Tucker asked.

"A little," Blair lied. "I remember games we played together, some stories he told me. He used to tell me all these Greek legends, you know, and as soon as I was old enough for a library card, that was all I read. Did you tell Mitch bedtime stories?"

"Mitchie loved his Johnny Appleseed book," Tucker told him. "I still take it with me everywhere I go."

"You must love him very much," said Blair. "I wish my dad had tried half as hard to find me as you did to find Mitch." His voice gentled now with understanding he wished he didn't have. "It's a hard thing to kill a child, even if it's the only way to get things back to how they were."

Before his lawyer could interject, Tucker agreed. "I kept hoping, you know? They looked so much like him, but they lied, they weren't Mitchie." He ignored the horrified expression his lawyer now sported, his attention fully on Blair. "It's so hard, harder than I could have imagined, but I love my son, I have to keep leaving messages, get them in the paper so he'll find me if I can't find him."

"It must drive you crazy that the papers keep leaving things out about the other cards and what kind of toys you left," Blair sympathized. "It's smart to keep leaving more and more stuff with each message, so even if the paper leaves some stuff out, Mitch will see enough to jog his memory."

Tucker buried his face in his hands and sobbed. "I'm just trying so hard, and it never does any good!"

"No, no, you can't think like that," Blair soothed. "See? This time it was a good enough message that we understood it and found you, and we're the police, it's our job to find people. It won't be too long until your son figures it out too. Mitch is such a smart kid." He brightened. "Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't we help?"

Tucker looked up, hopeful. "You'd do that?"

"Sure," said Blair. He handed over a piece of paper. "Write down all the stuff we should leave with the body. Oh, and where we can find the kid, too. There are police all over the country; we can have newspapers in every city publish the story with all the details, and the news channels, too. It's finally over."

Four months later:

For once, Jim barely even groused about dressing up for the Policeman's Ball and the awards ceremony, a fact for which Blair was unbelievably grateful. And both Jim's dad and his brother came this year, too, which made it even more special as they sat together at the table waiting for the award to be announced, although, since Jim had held the record for best closure rate for some of the worst cases the city had ever seen for five years running, there was little surprise who the honoree would be.

The Mayor and the Chief of Police stood up at the podium, and the Chief of Police cleared his throat. "I would say that the recipient of the Cop of the Year award needs no introduction, but then I'd have no excuse to address you all," he joked, and the audience chuckled.

"Most of you have been following the amazing arrest of the Jack of Clubs Killer, otherwise known as Charles Tucker, but while this is hardly the first big case this man and his partner have solved together, I'd like to speak to you tonight about the work he does every day to change the way we work for the better."

Blair frowned. That didn't sound right...

"While he had proudly served the Major Crimes division for several years, over a year ago, tonight's honoree suffered terrible brain damage from a bullet to the head. Despite his injury, he struggled to remain a credit to his division, and then, as he often does, went above and beyond his responsibilities to create and implement the Bridges program, whereby disabled officers are allowed to serve not just by filing paperwork, but out in the field in positions where their injuries become an advantage rather than a handicap. They spell their fellow officers on stakeouts and act as bait to draw out muggers or conmen. And officers who are burn survivors or those with serious post-traumatic stress make amazingly empathetic on-site crisis counselors, helping victims of violent crimes or serious accidents cope with the necessary questions detectives need to ask and remaining on call in case the victims need someone to talk to later on."

Rafe nudged Brown and whispered, "Not to mention those amputees pretending to be disabled vets for Narcotics. Saved our asses on that Riker case..."

The Chief beamed at the audience. "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Detective Blair Sandburg."

Blair was hyperventilating. Everyone was slapping him on the back, congratulating him and yelling for him to get up there, and Jim was grinning like mad, looking prouder than Blair had ever seen him.

Blair walked up to the podium in a daze, feeling a sudden clench of deja vu as he looked over the podium at the crowd and the flashing cameras. "Um, thank you, thank you very much. This is... I'm kinda at a loss for words here, which any of my friends over there will tell you is a first." He rubbed his throat, fighting the tightness there. "After the accident, my worst fear was disappointing my partner, not being able to watch his back like he needed me to, because I knew things would never be the same. Instead, he showed me that things would never be the same -- they would be better. I wouldn't be standing here... we wouldn't all be here if it wasn't for you, Jim," Blair said, concentrating on the Committee sleeping at the back of his mind, seeing from Jim's shining eyes that he understood Blair's deeper meaning. "Thank you, Jim, this award, as usual, should be yours. I love you, man."

End.