Author's website: http://snycock.livejournal.com

Thank you to earth2skye, carodee, sara_merry99, and mab_browne for their very helpful comments on early drafts of some of the chapters. Also an enormous and heartfelt thanks to my beta, earth2skye, for making this a way better story due to her thoughtful suggestions and corrections. All mistakes, consequently, are mine alone.
And a tremendous thanks to all the people on my LJ friends list who gave me such wonderful appreciation and support while I was writing this.
This is a death story, of sorts, but it's got a happy ending. In the words of one reader, it's "probably the sweetest, most romantic, and most heartwarming death story I've ever read". If you need more detailed warnings than that, scroll to the bottom; I've put them at the end.
Started November 2007 for National Novel Writing Month. I didn't finish it in a month, but I did eventually finish it!
Quoted passages are from Shakespeare, "When I'm Sixty-Four" by the Beatles, "The Dharma Bums" by Jack Kerouac, and Ecclesiastes.
This story is a sequel to:

The bus ground to a screeching halt in front of the cemetery, Andrea hanging on to an inside pole for dear life, because the driver didn't seem to understand the concept of how early one needed to apply the brakes to stop something this large and heavy. The pneumatic shocks discharged with a long hiss, the bus settled to the ground and the door banged open.

Andrea got out, looking balefully up at the cemetery grounds. She wasn't at all sure that this was a good idea, but before she could change her mind - again, she chided herself sarcastically - the doors slammed shut and the bus lurched away with a roar and a plume of smelly black smoke. Andrea sighed. For better or for worse, she was here, and the next bus didn't come for thirty minutes, so she might as well do the thing she'd come to do. It beat standing around in the shelter, trying to do her homework. Shouldering her backpack in resignation, she started walking up the hill towards the entrance.

It was raining - of course, why wouldn't it be raining in Cascade, she thought - and she pulled the wool cap out of her jacket pocket and pulled it down over her head. Her mother had knitted it for her, in bright stripes of orange and red and yellow, but she was usually too embarrassed to wear it at school. None of the other girls wore anything like it, and she didn't like drawing attention to herself, preferring to stay at the edges of things and observe.

The gates were slightly ajar, and she slid in between them, wondering why they even bothered with gates at all. She supposed that they closed and locked them at night, but since the rest of the cemetery was surrounded by a low brick wall that was easy to climb, she didn't see that the gates really kept anyone out. On the other hand, she supposed, you probably didn't have to work too hard to keep people out of a cemetery.

Once through the gates, she started walking along the paved path that wound through the grounds. The path snaked past rows of gravestones; each row was identified neatly with a round metal marker embedded in the grass at each end. Each marker bore a letter and a range of numbers.

She stopped and pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket; unfolded it. J-25 was written on it in pencil. Row J, plot 25. That was what she was looking for.

The woman in the cemetery office had given her the information almost nonchalantly when she'd asked for it. And over the phone, to boot. She hadn't even asked her who she was or why she wanted to know. It pissed her off a little bit, truth be told. It just seemed to her that the people who ran this place would want to be a little more careful, wouldn't want just anybody visiting the graves.

It is a public place, dear. Her mother's voice rang in her head. Well, that might be true, she thought sullenly, but she didn't have to like it.

Funny how she could imagine just what her mother would say if they were having this conversation. Which, of course, they hadn't, because she hadn't wanted to tell her Mom where she was going. She would have done that thing, that thing that Andrea hated, where Mom looked at her with a solemn expression, and then her eyes got big, and then she started blinking fast. It was her "oh-my-you're-growing-up-so-fast" look. And then she would have wanted to sit down and have a "serious talk", and question her in itty bitty detail all about her feelings and why she wanted to do this and how she came to the decision and all that. And Andrea really didn't even want to think about it herself, much less talk to her mother about it.

That was why she had called and gotten the information from the cemetery office, rather than just ask her Mom. Her mother would have known, right away, and would have told her, but there would have been no escaping "the talk" then.

She stopped, momentarily confused, as the path she was following had met up with another path. There was a sign posted at the crossroads with different letters on it, and Andrea searched down it until she found the letter J. The arrow on the sign pointed to the right.

She took a deep breath, enjoying the clean, sharp smell of the cedars. It was very quiet; the cemetery appeared deserted. There was no one else around, except for some old guy sitting on a bench off to her right. The rain - well, really more like drizzle, now - made a soft hissing sound as it fell through the needles of the trees.

She put the paper back in her pocket and continued to the right, hunching her shoulders against the damp. A new row of gravestones had started on her right; she stopped and scuffed her foot around in the grass until she had uncovered the marker. Row J, plots 10-30. This was the row.

She straightened up and walked down the row, counting the plots under her breath as she went. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen...twenty...twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five. This was it.

She turned and faced the gravestone, unsure of what to say, unsure of what she had even wanted to happen or thought would happen by coming here. She fidgeted, moving restlessly from foot to foot, one hand grasping the strap of her backpack. The rain continued its soft susurrus in the trees behind her. Somewhere a seagull cried.

Words she longed to say crowded in her throat, clamoring for release, and her throat tightened, aching with the strain of holding them in. She wanted to say them, but she couldn't. She wasn't sure what would happen if she did. Just say it, she told herself, say something, say anything. You came all this way.

"I got an A on a math test," she blurted out, and immediately slapped her hand over her mouth. Hot tears gathered behind her eyes, and her cheeks burned with shame. What on earth was she doing? How could she say something so ridiculous? People would think she was crazy, coming here like this, talking to a gravestone about math tests.

The tears spilled out, rolling down her cheeks. With a stifled sob, she turned and started running down the path, away from the gravestone, heedless of where she was going. Her eyes were blinded by tears; her foot caught on something and she went sprawling, her backpack tumbling off into the underbrush.

"Oh, wow, hey, are you okay?" A warm, resonant voice sounded in her ear. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, assisted by a hand on her arm. Whoever it was crouched next to her, one hand gently on her back. "Are you okay?" the voice repeated.

She sniffed and dragged her sleeve across her eyes, clearing them. She gazed at the figure next to her, only now recognizing it as the old guy she'd seen earlier, sitting on the bench. She must have walked right past him on the way to the gravestone, but she'd been so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she hadn't noticed. "Yeah," she started to say, shamefaced, and then hissed as she became aware of a burning pain in the heels of her palms and her left knee.

He took her hands gently in his own and turned them palm up. Now she saw that they had been scraped raw by the impact with the paved path. "Whew," he said, "you sure scratched these up good. I bet this really stings."

She nodded, content to let him think the tears in her eyes were related to the pain in her hands. Clearing her throat, she said, "I think I tore my knee up, too," and was pleased that her voice was calm and even, betraying no sign of her earlier distress.

"Come on," he said, "let's get you up off this wet ground. Then we can take a better look." Putting a hand under her armpit, he helped her struggle to her feet. Once she was standing, he moved over to her left side and put her arm over his shoulders to balance her so she didn't have to put weight on her knee. She realized that she was only a few inches shorter than him. With his support, she limped over to the bench and sat down; he sat down next to her and bent to examine her knee.

Now that he was focusing on her knee, she could take a good look at him. Grizzled salt-and-pepper hair, that had probably once been dark brown, was pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck, and he had sideburns...who wore sideburns in this day and age? He was wearing jeans - which, she guessed, actually made him somewhat of a cool old guy - hiking boots, and a dark blue knit sweater, with a black leather coat over everything.

He glanced up at her, and she was taken aback by his eyes. They were a shade of blue that she'd never seen before; dark, almost cobalt, and framed by thick, dark lashes. She wasn't great at telling people's ages, but she figured he was somewhere around seventy or so. He looked younger, though. When he caught her checking him out, he smiled. He had a gorgeous mouth, wide and full, and the smile lit up his whole face and took about ten years off of his life.

"It doesn't look too bad," he told her, reassuringly. "It looks like you just scraped the hell out of it."

She laughed, because adults usually apologized when they swore around her, like she was a kid or something. But he didn't. "It'll sting for a while, and probably be a little stiff tomorrow. And I think you're gonna have to buy a new pair of stockings," he added.

That sobered her up, and she looked at her knee. He was right. The fall had torn a big hole in the left stocking, and her knee underneath was scraped and bloody. Oh, great, she thought morosely. Mom would freak; she would be really mad at her. These tights were brand new. This was the first time she'd worn them. Plus, now her mom would want to know what she had been doing to make a hole like that.

That reminded her about why she'd come, and her heart sank. No doubt this guy had seen her making a fool of herself, trying to talk to people who were dead and gone. Not that she cared what he thought of her, anyway...but she hated to look like an idiot in front of anyone.

He was looking at her very thoughtfully. "Nice day for a visit to the cemetery, huh?" he asked.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

He grinned. "No, seriously. This is a perfect day. The rain keeps the other visitors away, and the place is pretty deserted. We've got it pretty much to ourselves. It's a good time to talk to people."

She eyed him again, unsure whether he had been watching her earlier and was just yanking her chain. She knew it was rude, and forward, but curiosity prompted her to ask, "So, who are you here visiting?"

He pointed with his chin at a gravestone across the path from them. "My partner."

She looked over at the stone. James Joseph Ellison, the gravestone read. Born June 14th, 1957. Died October 22nd, 2030.

She looked back at him. "What, like, your business partner?"

He smiled. "No, my cop partner. We were both cops."

She raised an eyebrow again in disbelief. "YOU...were a cop?"

His smile widened. "Yes," he said, mimicking her emphasis and tone of voice, "I...was a cop."

"That's hard to believe," she told him honestly.

"You're not the first person to tell me that."

Her smile faded and she became still. "My dad was a cop, too."

"Oh, yeah? What was his name?"

"Doug McConnell."

"Is that who you came here to visit today?" he asked, his voice gentle.

"Yeah," she said, feeling like her own voice was barely above a whisper.

He regarded her gravely, his blue eyes serious, then put his hand out. "You know, I don't think we've been properly introduced. I'm Blair. Blair Sandburg."

She took his hand and shook it firmly. "I'm Andrea McConnell."

"I used to teach in the police academy, but I'm not sure I remember your dad."

She put her hands back in her lap, where they twisted together nervously. "He went through the academy in Seattle...we used to live in Seattle. Before I was born. He and my mom moved here so they could be closer to her family. She's Alaskan - Inuit." She stopped, looking at Blair furtively, judging his reaction. But he didn't say anything, just kept looking at her, a kind smile on his face. "He died two years ago," she continued, "when I was fourteen." Her throat started to feel tight, so she stopped and swallowed painfully, looking down at her hands on her lap again. The movement made her catch a glimpse of her watch, and she realized that it was getting really late. "Oh, man! I gotta get home!"

Blair looked at her, frowning. "How about I give you a ride home?" he asked.

Suddenly all the stories her mom had told her about people who lured unsuspecting young girls into their cars popped into her head. She regarded him warily. "No, no thanks, it's okay, I can catch the bus, it's not very far."

"Your knee's pretty torn up. Can you call your mom to come and get you?"

"No, she's a nurse at Cascade General, and she works second shift."

"And you stay home alone?" Blair looked slightly uneasy.

She glared at him. "Yeah. It's okay. I'm sixteen years old, I'm not a kid. I can take care of myself."

He opened his mouth as if to argue with her, but then closed it abruptly, and gave her a meaningful look. "I take it back," he said, smiling contritely. "I'm sure you can take care of yourself. But are you sure you'll be okay on the bus, with your knee like that? I'm happy to give you a ride."

She nodded. "I'm okay, but thank you for offering," she said, wanting to be polite. She checked her watch again. The bus would be arriving soon. She stood up, her knee still sore but less painful than before. Reaching automatically for the strap that was usually over her shoulder, she experienced a moment of panic when her hand met the fabric of her coat. "My backpack," she said, suddenly alarmed. "Where's my backpack?"

"I think it went back here when you fell," Blair said, and got up only to disappear into the cedar grove behind the bench. He emerged a moment later carrying her bag. "Here you go."

She shouldered it and smiled at him. "Thank you. And thanks for all your help."

He smiled back. "No problem. Maybe we'll run into each other again sometime."

"Cool," she said, then turned and walked down towards the bus stop. When she got to the gates, she looked back once more. He was still standing in the same place, watching her. She waved at him, and he waved back. Then she heard the bus approaching, and she hurried through the gates and down the hill to the stop.

It was a brisk fall day, the rain finally having given way to a bright blue, cloudless sky. A soft breeze stirred the tops of the cedars and blew fallen leaves in spiraling dances around the gravestones.

Blair stretched his legs out in front of him and took a sip from the oversized cafe latte he held in his hand. "So, I got an email from Megan the other day. Looks like her daughter is pregnant, due in April. This'll be her second grandkid. She's very happy about it, although she says she still hasn't gotten used to being called `granny'. She says every time it happens she looks around to see who they're talking about, because it couldn't possibly be her." He chuckled and took another sip of coffee. "And Simon's pissed off, because the other residents in his building got together and passed a rule that no one can smoke inside the complex, so he has to go outside to smoke his cigars. I told him that he shouldn't be smoking them anyway, but you can imagine how he responded to that." He dropped his voice into a lower register and said, gruffly, "Sandburg, when I want your opinion, I'll ask you for it. In the meantime, I'd appreciate it if you'd mind your own business." He chuckled again.

He looked down the hill, towards the entrance to the cemetery, where a bus was just pulling away in a black cloud of smoke. He wrinkled his nose. "Man, you'd think by now they'd have found a more environmentally-conscious fuel for those things to run on, like hydrogen or something." He watched as a small figure made its way through the gates and started walking up the path. "Oh, hey, it looks like that girl from the other day is back again."

He watched her as she progressed up the path. She was a few inches shorter than him, and slender, with long legs. Today she was wearing jeans and an orange canvas coat, with a bright, multicolored sweater underneath and the battered backpack slung over one shoulder. She had dark brown, curly hair that surrounded her head like a cloud. And she was strikingly pretty, Blair thought. She had said her mother was Inuit, but given her coffee-colored skin and the shape of her face, he figured her father had to have been Black, or maybe Native American.

When she got to the crossroads, she looked over and saw him sitting on the bench. She raised a hand in greeting and he smiled at her and waved back. She hesitated for a moment, then came over and sat next to him, letting her backpack drop to the ground. Dark brown eyes regarded him gravely. "Do you live here or something?" she asked.

He laughed. "No, I've been home since you saw me last. See? Different shirt." He tugged at the dark red Henley he was wearing.

"How often do you come here?"

Blair pursed his lips and shrugged one shoulder. "Oh, two or three times a week, I guess."

She raised an eyebrow at him in disbelief. "To visit your dead partner?"

Blair nodded, a rueful smile on his face.

"And you talk to him."

"Uh-huh."

"Out loud?"

"Only if there aren't too many people around," Blair acknowledged. "Don't want people to think I'm crazy or anything."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, no, you wouldn't want anyone to think that."

He chuckled. It had been a long time since he had dealt with the particular brand of sarcasm unique to teenagers. "It's very comforting, really. And you can say all sorts of things and talk as long as you want without being interrupted." He looked at her and she returned the look askance, clearly not convinced. "It's a little hard to get started, but once you do, it becomes the most natural thing in the world. Here, you can practice with me and Jim." He cleared his throat, and put one hand out, gesturing at the gravestone in front of them. "Jim, I'd like you to meet Andrea McConnell. Andrea, this is my partner, Jim Ellison." He looked at her expectantly.

She looked slightly alarmed. She glanced at the gravestone, and then back at him, eyes wide. "What should I say?" she hissed at him under her breath.

"Whatever you want."

She turned to face the gravestone. "Uh...hi, Jim...it's, uh...it's nice to meet you."

Blair grinned. "See? That wasn't too hard, was it?"

She smiled widely and laughed; a high-pitched, musical sound. "I guess not," she admitted.

"So, did you come back to visit your dad again?" he asked.

Her smile vanished and she slumped back onto the bench, stuffing her hands into the pocket of her coat and staring fixedly at her shoes. "I guess so. I'm not really sure." She glanced up at him sidelong, and then focused her gaze back on her feet. "I'm not sure whether I want to say anything to him or not...or even what I would say if I did want to say something."

"Well, you could start with something simple. Try just telling him about your day," Blair said, his voice sympathetic. It was immediately obvious, thought, that she wasn't thrilled by that suggestion.

"Yeah, maybe," she said, her voice flat. Then she straightened up and fixed him with a look. "Were you really a cop?" she asked, disbelief plain in her face.

"Yeah, I really was a cop." He grinned at her. "Why's that so hard to believe?"

"You just don't look like the cop type," she replied, a faint smile playing around her mouth again. "How did you get into it? Did you always know you wanted to be a cop?"

"No," he said, with a rueful grimace, "in fact, it was probably the last thing on my list. I was going to be an anthropologist - a person who studies other cultures, usually ancient ones."

She glared at him. "I know what an anthropologist is," she said, succinctly. "But how did you get from anthropologist to cop?"

"Oh, it's a long story," he demurred, but she looked at him expectantly, waiting. He sighed and took a sip of coffee. She was obviously pretty bright and she wasn't going to be put off with a simple answer. "I'd always been fascinated by accounts of tribal protectors - the people who guarded the villages, who monitored the weather, the movement of game, enemy tribes in the area, things like that." He paused. Even after all this time, even with Jim having been gone so long, it was hard to break old habits of secrecy. "Police are our modern protectors, of course, and so I was interested in studying how a police department works, especially how there are all these unwritten rules for behavior and all these different rites of passage within the department. It's fascinating to me because it's a closed society - very much like its own little tribe."

Andrea nodded. "Yeah, my dad used to talk about that. `It's a cop thing', he'd always say. He'd be talking about something going on at work, and my mom would ask a question, or wonder why they didn't approach it a different way, and he'd say, `Betty, it's a cop thing, you just don't understand'."

"Exactly," Blair said, grinning. "Man, I can't tell you how often I heard that at first." He took another sip of coffee. "Anyway, I decided I wanted to study that society, and I got hooked up with Jim. Just as an observer, at first, but then," he paused again, briefly, "then I decided I wanted to be more involved." He smiled ruefully to himself. "I found I was actually good at being involved, and I liked it, liked it better than just observing." He was a little amazed at how easy it still was, to shade the truth a little, to obfuscate. Not about enjoying police work; he had enjoyed it. He'd never have taken the badge they'd offered him if he hadn't thought he'd like it. And he'd been good at it, too. No, what still came like second nature after all these years was the urge to hide the reasons, the knowledge about Jim and what he could do.

She was looking at him, brows drawn, like she didn't quite buy his story. She was pretty clever, he thought, but he didn't feel like going into a whole lot more detail, so to put her off the scent he decided he'd tell her a story. "The first day I went into the police station, my first day as an observer, the station got taken over by armed terrorists."

Her eyes grew round and huge. "No way! What did you do? Were you scared?"

He chuckled a little. "Yeah, I was scared - terrified, in fact. I hid, and tried to get the hell out of there, until I got caught. Then the leader of the group took me hostage and tried to escape in a helicopter. Jim had to come after us. We were flying over Cascade with him hanging from the helicopter skid." He smiled, remembering. "Once it was all over, though, I had to admit that it had been pretty exciting..."

Jim stopped, and Blair caught up to him. "I'm serious, man! Is this, like, a typical day for you?"

Jim grinned at him. "No, Sandburg, this is not a typical day. Typical days are pretty boring and involve lots of paperwork, and reading case material, and interviewing suspects and witnesses, and walking around crime scenes, and going on long stakeouts. But every now and then we get an atypical, unusual day."

Blair felt energized, exhilarated, completely wound up. He felt like if anyone touched him, they'd get a shock, that he'd be humming like a live wire. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt like this, felt so alive, so high.

He grinned back at Jim. "Man, you were amazing! The way you just grabbed on to that skid. You never hesitated, like you never had a doubt that it was the right thing to do."

Jim shrugged nonchalantly. "I knew Kincaid had you, I could hear you arguing with him once we got up to the sixth floor. And I sure as hell wasn't going to let him get away, not after what he'd done."

"You could hear me?"

Jim gave him a skeptical look. "Yeah, of course I could. I figured that was why you were talking so much."

"No," he said, "honestly, I was terrified out of my wits and just saying whatever I thought would make him let me go. I had pretty much forgotten about your senses...actually, I didn't even know where you were, didn't know if you'd been taken hostage along with everyone else. I forgot about everything except just trying to stay alive."

Jim patted his cheek gently. "Well, that's always the primary objective of the mission, Chief. Come home alive." He headed towards the door. "Come on, let's get downstairs. You'll probably need to make a statement. Another very typical part of police work."

They headed down the stairs together. Once they got to the seventh floor, Jim insisted that Blair be checked out by the paramedics, who had set up a triage center in the Homicide offices across the hall from Major Crimes. While he was waiting for someone to come and take his vital signs, he saw that big guy, the cop who had supported his lie and told Kincaid he was working with them, lying on a makeshift gurney. He grabbed his chair and pulled it over to sit next to him.

"Hey, man, how're you doing?" he asked.

The big guy opened his eyes, focused on Blair woozily. "Hey, kid. Doin' alright."

"Your leg gonna be okay?"

"Yeah. Feels great right now, actually." He grinned at Blair. "The miracle of painkillers, huh?"

Blair smiled in return. "No doubt, man. Listen, thanks for backing me up in there, with Kincaid. I don't know what he'd have done to me if he'd realized I wasn't a cop."

"No problem, kid. It was a sharp move. You had to think fast on your feet to come up with that. I figured you could use some help with it, though." He eyed Blair doubtfully. "Is it true you took out one of his men with a vending machine?"

Blair laughed. "Yeah, although not on purpose."

"Purpose doesn't matter, kid. What matters is that you're still here, and the Sunrise Patriots are off the streets. You'll make a good cop, y'know? You've got good instincts." He patted Blair on the shoulder clumsily. "You going to be working with us, then?"

"Well, kinda...I'm gonna be following Ellison around, observing police procedures and things like that, for my dissertation." He wasn't sure how much detail he should go into; he'd assumed that, once he got clearance, the captain - Banks, his name was - would make some kind of formal announcement and introduce him to everybody. But he didn't want this guy assuming that he was some kind of trainee or rookie cop.

The big guy put his hand out. "Well, it's nice to meet you. I'm Joel Taggart. Welcome to Major Crimes."

Blair took his hand and shook it, smiling. "Nice to meet you, too, Joel. I'm Blair. Blair Sandburg."

Taggart closed his eyes after that, and Blair figured he'd better let him rest. A nurse came in, calling Blair's name; she took him into another room and gave him a brief examination, before pronouncing him medically cleared.

He wandered out into the hallway, wondering where Jim was. He could tell that his adrenaline buzz was starting to wear off; pretty soon he was going to crash. He found the break room and poured himself a cup of coffee. Jim stuck his head around the door at that point and took him over to an Officer Carson, who took his statement. Blair could see, now, what Jim had meant about typical police work. It was a little mind-numbing, having to go over his actions in the minutest detail, again and again.

Finally, Carson flipped his notebook closed. "Okay, thanks, we really appreciate it. We've got your phone number, so we'll be in touch if we need any more information."

"Okay, man," he replied. Although, honestly, he didn't think he could possibly dredge one more ounce of relevant information out of his brain, even if they asked. "So, I'm done here?"

"Yeah," Carson replied.

Blair got up to leave, then turned back to Carson. "You know where Ellison is?"

Carson shook his head. "Nope."

Blair sighed. He'd left his car at Jim's and driven in with him today so he didn't have to worry about paying for downtown parking. But that meant that, unless he wanted to take a bus or a taxi, he couldn't leave until Jim was free.

He wandered back into the Major Crimes bullpen, but it was a hive of activity, with forensic technicians all over gathering evidence. He found the break room again and sat down; thought about getting another cup of coffee but decided against it. He leaned forward and pillowed his head on his arms. He was pretty sure he was still too wired to sleep, but he was starting to get a headache, and he hoped that closing his eyes and relaxing a little would help it go away.

The next thing he knew, someone was shaking his shoulder gently. "Chief. Chief, wake up."

He raised his head and looked around blearily. Jim was standing next to him, his hand warm on Blair's shoulder. "Oh, hey, sorry, man. I was just going to put my head down for a sec. I didn't think I would fall asleep."

Jim squeezed his shoulder gently. "Don't worry about it, Sandburg. It's been a long day. What do you say we get out of here?" He started to head out of the room, then stopped and turned back to Blair. "Say, are you hungry? You wanna go grab a bite?"

"I could eat," Blair replied, grinning.

"Wow," Andrea said. "I thought my first day of high school was bad."

He chuckled.

She glanced at him sideways. "You really took a terrorist out with a vending machine?"

"I really did," he said, smiling, "although like I told Joel, I didn't exactly plan it that way. Anyway, even though I didn't actually become a cop until four years later, when I was thinking about it, trying to decide what I wanted to do, I thought about that day a lot. I thought about Joel telling me that I'd make a good cop, that I had good instincts. It was one of the things that helped me make up my mind to do it."

"But why did you change from being an anthropologist to being a cop?"

He smiled at her ruefully. "That's a long story, and probably best for another day, huh?"

She sighed. "Okay," she said reluctantly. They sat in silence for a few moments, then Andrea got up from the bench, leaving her backpack on the ground. "I guess I should at least go down there."

Blair watched her walk down the row and stop at one of the gravestones. She stood in front of it, head bowed, but she didn't say anything. After several minutes, she turned and walked back, stopping in front of him. "Have a good visit?" he asked.

"Not really," she said, quietly, then looked at her watch. "I gotta go. Mom likes me to call when I get home from school, and she gets worried if I call too late." She scooped up her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. She started walking away down the path, but stopped after a few steps and turned back to face Blair. "So...you'll probably be back here in a couple of days, huh? Like, Wednesday?"

He smiled gently at her. "Wednesday sounds good."

She brightened and stood up a little straighter. "OK, well, I'll see you then..." She turned and he watched her run down the hill and catch the bus just as it slid to the stop.

"Cookie?" He lifted the bag between thumb and index finger, tilting the opening towards her enticingly. She hesitated, glancing up at him warily for a second, then, apparently having made up her mind about him, smiled and reached into the bag. "Thanks," she said, pulling a cookie out and biting into it. She was a pretty sharp kid, Blair thought. And he was willing to bet her mom was a pretty formidable person, too.

"I'd offer you some coffee," he said, raising his own, "but you know it'll stunt your growth." She raised her eyebrows and snorted, her mouth full of cookie.

She reached down to her backpack, opened it, and started rummaging around. "S'okay," she said, having swallowed the cookie, "I've got some milk left over from lunch in here." She emerged triumphantly a moment later with a plastic bottle of milk.

"That what you're getting with the school lunches these days?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Beats fast food," she said, taking a drink.

He raised an eyebrow. "Wow. Not a sentiment I imagine many of your peers would second." She rolled her eyes, which prompted him to ask, "So, how's high school these days?"

"It sucks," she said, succinctly.

Blair hid a smile. "There isn't anything you like about it?"

She looked at him solemnly and shook her head no.

"But you keep going?" he asked.

She looked at him as though he had momentarily lost his mind. "Well, of course. Have to, for one thing. But for another, you can't go to college if you don't graduate from high school."

"So, you want to go to college?" He had figured that she was bright.

"Yeah. Then I can learn about the things that I want to learn about, and not have to learn about stupid things like cosines and acceleration constants and Henry James. And conjugating Spanish verbs."

Blair chuckled. "Stick with the Spanish, trust me. You'll be really glad you did when you start looking for a job." She didn't respond. "So what kind of things do you want to learn about?"

She frowned, looking down at the pavement between her shoes. "Practical things, things that really help people, that do something to make the world a better place. I thought, for a while, that I wanted to be a nurse like my mom, or maybe a doctor. You know, help people by making them better, that kind of thing. But I took biology my freshman year, and we had to dissect a fetal pig, and I just thought it was kinda gross." Her head came up and she looked out at the horizon, squinting slightly. "I'd like to understand why people do things. Like why do people commit crimes? Or do bad things when they say they know better?" She looked back down at her feet. "Or maybe learn about different kinds of cultures, different religious beliefs, things like that." She looked at him. "Things that are much more important and meaningful than trigonometry."

He smiled. "Well, you still have to take some required classes in college, but there's usually enough choices that you can find something you like and fulfill the requirements at the same time."

"Where'd you go to college?" she asked.

"Right here. Rainier University."

She sighed. "My high school has a program where, in your senior year, you can start taking classes at Rainier. I want to apply for it, but my mom doesn't want me to. She thinks it's too advanced for me."

"You know, I started at Rainier when I was 16," he said.

Her eyes widened. "Really? That's so cool! And I bet it wasn't that hard, was it?"

"Well, not academically, although it was a lot more work than I was used to doing in high school. But it was hard socially." She gave him a skeptical look and he nodded, taking a sip of coffee. "No, really, it was. I know you'll find this hard to believe, but there's a big difference between 16 and 18. I was going to school with kids who were a lot older than me, psychologically; more emotionally mature, and it was hard. It was hard to make friends, hard to get along with the other students." He smiled faintly. "Although I wasn't the easiest person to get along with either, then. I could be pretty insufferable, thought I knew everything and was more than willing to tell others that." He looked over at her. "Your mom is probably more worried about the social stuff than the academic stuff."

"My mom is just more worried, period. She worries too much about me...especially since Dad died." She finished off her milk and put the bottle back in her pack. "So," she said, with the abrupt change of topic that he had come to recognize as her way of avoiding a painful subject, "you told me you'd tell me why you changed from being an anthropologist to being a cop."

"Oh, I did, did I?" He grinned. He'd been right, she could be pretty tenacious.

"Yeah." She was looking at him somewhat challengingly. "You said it was a long story."

"Long, and not very interesting," he said, making a face. As before, he couldn't really think about how to explain it without mentioning Jim's senses. "Suffice it to say that, after having been an observer for four years, I decided I wanted to have a more active role." He grinned at her. "Kinda like you, I decided I wanted to do something important and meaningful. Sure, studying other cultures was interesting, and important in its own way, but the stuff I was doing with Jim - catching criminals, making Cascade a safer place to live - that was real, that was important."

"Did you ever have to shoot someone?"

He looked at her, startled, the question taking him by surprise. "No. I almost did, once..."

"Ellison! Sandburg! My office!"

Blair shot a glance over to Jim, grinning as Jim rolled his eyes and rose from his desk. He'd been Jim's official partner for nearly eight years, but some things never changed. And one of those was Simon Banks' tendency to call in his best team with all the verbal grace of a bull in a china shop.

He followed Jim into Simon's office, closed the glass-fronted door carefully. "What's up, Simon?" he asked.

Simon looked at them both solemnly, an unlit cigar clamped between his teeth. "It looks like we might have some trouble brewing with the Sunrise Patriots again."

Jim exploded. "What?!? Simon, you have got to be kidding me!"

"Oh, man," Blair said, "did Kincaid escape from the Feds again? What is that guy, some kind of Houdini?" He knew he sounded a little whiny, but he didn't care. He'd had enough of Garrett Kincaid for two lifetimes.

Simon shot him a trenchant look. "No. Different Kincaid. This time it's Jackson, Garrett's son. He was serving time on a weapons charge and got sprung about a year and a half ago. Word has it he high-tailed it up to the mountains and hooked up with a few of dad's old buddies who were still hanging around the compound."

"Word has it?" Jim asked, raising an eyebrow.

Simon grimaced. "Yeah, well, this is one of the reasons we're hearing about this. Seems that the Feds managed to get an undercover agent into the Sunrise Patriots. Serious deep mole stuff - they set the guy up to meet up with Jackson Kincaid in prison, gain his trust in there, and then maneuver himself to be asked to join the new republic once Kincaid got out. That's, in part, why the Feds know that Kincaid's restarting the Patriots. The guy was sending in regular reports...until about three weeks ago. They haven't heard from him since then."

"They think he got made?" Blair asked.

Simon nodded grimly. "That's the working theory."

"And just what do they want us to do about it?" Jim asked.

"Well, nothing much we can do there," Simon replied, shrugging. "Kincaid's compound is up in the mountains, close to the Canadian border - well outside our jurisdiction." He walked over to the coffee pot behind his desk, poured three cups, and handed one to Blair and one to Jim. "However, in the last report the Feds got from their man, he indicated that the Patriots were planning to hit a target in Cascade."

"Oh, sure, of course, why not," Blair muttered sarcastically. "I mean, they've already taken over the police department and Cascade Arena, and blown up a downtown building with a TOW missile. Why not Cascade?"

Simon glared at him and he fell silent, taking a sip of coffee. "As I was saying," Simon continued, still glaring at Blair, "they're reportedly planning to hit a target here. But what concerned the Feds more was the report of how." He looked at both men solemnly. "The agent indicated that Kincaid had managed to buy a small amount of weapons-grade plutonium. Not enough for a nuclear device, but...." He trailed off.

"A dirty bomb," Jim said flatly. "Sounds like Junior is less interested in hostage-taking and more interested in destruction than Dear Old Dad was."

Blair gave a long, low whistle. "Man, that really sucks," he said.

"So, again, Simon," Jim said, "what do the Feds want from us? We don't have the expertise or the equipment to handle nuclear stuff."

"The Feds say their guy reported that the stuff is being held in a warehouse down by the docks. They want us to go down and take a look - just a look. If we find anything, we're supposed to notify them immediately, and they'll come take care of it."

"Riiiight," Jim said, in a sarcastic drawl. "And if we happen to find and cuff any little Patriots running around, so much the better, huh?"

"I don't know, Simon," Blair said slowly, taking a sip of coffee and staring out the window. "I don't like this. Something...something isn't right about this." He turned back to look at his captain. "Why should we do the Feds' legwork for them?"

"Look, guys, it's clearly a request, not an order," Simon said, placatingly. "They're just asking us to help them out. We can say no if we want to."

"No way," Jim growled. "This punk thinks he can pull shit in my city, just like his old man. I don't think so. We'll check it out."

Blair opened his mouth to protest, again, and caught Jim's look. He knew that look. His Sentinel was in full-on protect-the-village mode. He turned the protest into a sigh, shrugged at Simon, and pointed at Jim. "He's the senior partner. I don't argue."

"Wise of you, Chief," Jim said, flashing him a quick grin. He turned back to Simon and his expression was sober. "Now, where's this warehouse?"

Simon chuckled, shaking his head, and pulled a file from his desk. He handed it to Jim. "Pier 12. Looks like it hasn't been used in quite some time."

"You know, I'm just...I'm still not sure about this, Jim. Something just doesn't smell right to me."

They were sitting in the truck, parked outside the warehouse. Blair had to admit, the place certainly looked unused. Layers of grime had turned the once-beige walls gray, nearly obscuring the building number, and tufts of grass grew rampant from cracks in the paved driveway leading to the entrance. From where they were sitting, Blair could see several broken windows.

Jim gave him a slight smile. "Thought I was supposed to be the one with the enhanced senses?"

Blair shook his head, still looking at the warehouse. "I don't know. Call it cop sense, shamanic intuition, whatever. Something seems hinky."

Jim pulled his gun out of his shoulder holster, popped the clip out and checked it, then pushed it back in and reholstered the gun. "Look, we're just going in to check things out. We see anything - anything - that suggests that this is a depot for the Patriots, we're outta here." He raised his eyes to Blair's. "Despite what I said to Simon, I'm happy to let the Feds get the collar. As long as Jackson Kincaid is off the street, I'll be satisfied. I'm not gonna make this personal. But come on, Chief...if there's even the slightest chance that he's planning a nuclear attack in Cascade, we've got to do whatever we can to stop him."

Blair couldn't argue with that, he thought, although he wasn't convinced Jim wasn't going to make it personal. Lord knew he had an axe to grind with Kincaid and the Patriots; it would only make sense that Jim did, too. But the hinky feeling remained. He chewed on his bottom lip, then turned to Jim. "You got a vest?"

Jim eyed him warily. "One. In the back."

"Wear it?"

Jim shook his head. "It's not going to be that kind of party, Chief. No firefights, just some quiet reconnaissance." He glanced over at Blair. "Besides, if one of us is going to wear a vest, I'd rather it was you."

Blair sighed and stifled the swell of annoyance he felt at that statement. On some level, it warmed him when Jim did his overprotective thing, but it could also be irritating. He had been a cop - and Jim's partner - now for nearly eight years; he wasn't going to tempt fate by being too self-assured, but he wished Jim would trust that he knew what he was doing and could take care of himself.

As if Jim had read his mind, he glanced over at him and gave him a crooked grin. "Sorry. Old habits die hard. I do think you're a good cop, Blair. I guess it would just make me feel better, knowing you were protected."

Blair met his gaze squarely. "Funny. I was about to say the same thing."

They stared at each other for several moments, neither willing to back down, then Jim gave an exasperated sigh. "Okay, you win. I'll wear it." Blair blinked at him, slightly nonplussed. He hadn't expected Jim to capitulate so easily.

Jim reached behind the bucket seat, pulled out the vest, and got out of the truck, fastening the straps around him. Blair checked his weapon and joined him on the far side of the truck.

Jim scanned the building and turned to Blair. "I think this'll work best if we split up. I'll take the front entrance, you go around the back. We'll meet in the middle and see what we've got." He handed a wireless headset with a throat mike to Blair. "Keep in touch."

Blair nodded and put the headset on, testing the throat mike and getting confirmation from Jim that it worked. He flashed Jim a quick thumbs-up when he heard his voice in his ear and headed around to the back of the building. The back door looked rusty with age and disuse, but when he pulled it open it slid quietly on its hinges. "This door looks like it's been used pretty recently," he said softly.

Jim's voice came back, sounding slightly tinny on the headset. "Yeah, I can see signs that several people have been in and out of this building...looks like within the last few days. Watch your step, Chief."

"You, too," he said, and slipped quietly into the warehouse.

The interior was dim and quiet, and smelled fairly musty. Not for the first time he felt a momentary yearning to experience the world with hyperactive senses. He was sure that, right now, on the other side of the building, Jim was sifting through a wealth of information. He waited a few moments, letting his sight adjust to the low level of light, then spoke softly. "Getting anything?"

There was a pause before Jim replied, his voice sounding tense. "There are definitely people here. I can smell food, coffee...it could just be squatters, but - wait..." His voice trailed off and Blair waited, listening anxiously. "Gunpowder. I smell gunpowder, Chief."

"All right," he said quietly, "I'll call Simon once we get visual confirmation."

"Sounds good," Jim agreed.

Blair crept forward carefully, trying to make as little noise as possible. The warehouse was full of pallets stacked with large boxes, which he used for cover, working his way slowly towards the front of the building, staying alert for any sign of human habitation. He found nothing, though, and when he reached the front of the warehouse there was no sign of Jim. "Hey," he whispered, "partner, you there?"

Instead of the hoped-for answer, he heard a faint sound off to the right. As he headed over there he saw a ramp leading up to a large, rectangular office with glass windows looking out over the warehouse floor. He could hear voices, indistinct, from inside the office, but he couldn't identify them or make out what was being said. At the bottom of the ramp was Jim's headset. The microphone was crushed; the sound he'd heard had been his own voice coming through the earpiece.

He grabbed the cell phone from his hip and pressed a button. "We need backup," he hissed when Simon answered. "I think we've been found out. I think Kincaid's got Jim. I'm going in after him." He cut the connection, ignoring Simon's protest, and climbed stealthily up the ramp, crouching low in front of the door at the top.

From here he could hear Jim's voice, steady and calm. "Kincaid, don't be a fool. You think I'd come in here without a backup plan? In five minutes this place is going to be completely surrounded. You can't escape. Right now, all they've got on you is a little illegal trafficking. If you kill me, though, you're going away for the rest of your life."

Blair swallowed, trying to ignore the ball of ice that had suddenly settled in his stomach and stay focused on the conversation inside the office. "Trafficking, my ass," he heard someone - it could only be Kincaid - sneer, "you think I'm stupid enough to do my business in this town? The only reason I'm here is because a little bird told me you'd be here, and I couldn't pass up the chance for some payback."

There was a pause. "So you aren't storing materials here?" Jim's voice was flat, disbelieving.

Kincaid snorted. "Why on earth would I store things in a building owned by the Feds?"

Silence greeted this comment.

"Ah, I see you weren't aware of that little piece of information. Well, I'm a bit more technologically savvy than my dad. This is not my father's Sunrise Patriots you're dealing with here." He paused and Blair could hear him walking across the room, away from the door. "Well, well, well...looks like we've both been screwed by the government. But what a relief to know you're only human after all - that means you'll die just like an ordinary man."

Blair put his shoulder into the door and shoved, lurching into the room and bringing his weapon up, shouting, "Freeze! Cascade PD!" He took in the tableau before him with a quick and practiced glance. Jim was sitting in an old wooden chair, his back to Blair, hands cuffed through the slats. The vest was gone. Kincaid was across the room, gun held at arm's length, trained on Jim. Before he could move, Kincaid had fired twice, in quick succession. The chair, Jim still in it, crashed to the floor on its side and Blair heard a muffled groan of pain, suddenly cut short.

Rage ignited in him like a brush fire. In a flash he was across the room and had slammed Kincaid up against the wall, with his arm across his throat and the muzzle of his gun against his temple. He was dimly aware that he was snarling at Kincaid, teeth bared in a feral grin. "You son-of-a-bitch," he hissed.

"Go ahead," Kincaid gasped, eyes gleaming, "do it, kill me. Make me a martyr, cop. Hand every disaffected ex-military man on this coast a reason to join the Patriots."

The rage was still pounding through him. He could barely comprehend what Kincaid was saying, and cared even less. His finger was tightening on the trigger when he heard Jim's voice from behind him.

"Blair...don't..." The voice was weak, thready, but unmistakably Jim's.

Relief cleared his head and enabled him to back off of the trigger. Kincaid looked almost disappointed, but before he could say anything, Blair struck him across the head with the butt of his gun, knocking him out cold. "You," he rasped, breath still short and heart still pounding, "are better off not saying anything right now." He cuffed the now-limp body and let it slide to the floor, then turned to his partner.

He uncuffed Jim, freeing him from the chair, and rolled him gingerly onto his back. One of Kincaid's shots had hit Jim's right knee; it was a mangled mess of blood and bone that made the gorge rise in Blair's throat. The other shot had hit Jim in the chest. There was no telling, at this point, what the bullet had hit, so Blair grabbed Jim's hand and clamped it firmly over the wound. "Keep that there," he whispered, and Jim nodded, closing eyes dulled with pain. Blair gripped his shoulder firmly. "Hang in there, partner," he said, suddenly aware of the sound of sirens converging on the warehouse, "help is on the way."

The sudden grip of a hand on his arm interrupted his story, and he looked over at Andrea. She had grabbed his sleeve and was staring at him, her brown eyes wide. "Is this...is this how Jim died?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

He paused, and saw her eyes suddenly brim with tears. "No, no, no," he said reassuringly, putting his hand over hers where it rested on his arm and pressing it gently. "That's...that's a much, uh...longer story..." A look of relief crossed her face; she let go of his arm quickly, glancing down as if embarrassed at her reaction.

A few seconds ticked by. "So," she said, looking up at him hopefully, "you got to the hospital in time?"

"Yeah, yeah," he said absently, bringing himself back to the story he had been telling her. Her question about Jim's death had sparked a series of associations and old memories, distracting him momentarily. "They took him into surgery right from the ER..."

He sat, hunched over, in one of the plastic waiting room chairs, elbows resting on knees, holding a Styrofoam cup of now-cold coffee clasped between his hands. He wondered whether it was by accident or design that hospital waiting room chairs were so uncomfortable. Surely the person who had created them had known that people were going to be spending hours in them, anxiously awaiting news of their loved ones. Wouldn't it have been possible to make them even slightly plush? Maybe the designer had a grudge, he thought gloomily. Maybe he or she lost someone in a hospital and decided to wreak revenge on all hospitals by sentencing friends and family to a lifetime of misery. That train of thought, though, led him to things that he'd rather not think too hard about right now, like how Jim was doing after four hours of surgery. He sighed and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.

A tall coffee cup from the boutique kiosk on the third floor slid into his field of vision, and he glanced up to see Simon standing in front of him. "Here," he said, smiling faintly, "I figured you could use a warm-up."

He put his own cup down and accepted the other from Simon gratefully. "Thanks," he said, taking a sip. It tasted good, but did nothing to thaw the block of ice that had filled his insides since the warehouse.

Simon sat down next to him, stretching his long form awkwardly in the hard plastic chair. "Any news yet?" he asked quietly.

Blair shook his head. "No, nothing yet." He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck again. He was starting to get a hell of a headache.

"No hassles with the doctors?"

"No, thank God," he said, with relief. "Marisa Parvedes was the on-call for the ER when we came in; she's worked on Jim before. She was great, did everything I asked for, and ran interference for me with the other ER docs."

"But you've got the letters, just in case."

"Always do. Carry them with me all the time, now." Over the years he'd had several run-ins with doctors who hadn't wanted to honor the fact that he held Jim's healthcare power of attorney. Or, even when they recognized his right to make decisions for Jim, they hadn't wanted to comply with the things he wanted done to accommodate Jim's senses. And, of course, he couldn't explain himself, because he couldn't tell anyone why Jim needed such special treatment.

But he'd found an unexpected ally in Victoria Carmichael. She had treated both Jim and Blair several times, and, when she'd become Chief of Staff at Cascade General, she had written Blair a letter outlining, in very explicit language, that not only should his power of attorney be recognized, but any and all requests of his with respect to Jim Ellison's medical care should be complied with immediately and unquestioningly. He'd never had to use it, but it made him feel a whole lot better to have it. At first he'd only carried it with him while on duty, along with copies of the notarized documents that indicated that Jim had his healthcare power of attorney and he had Jim's, but after Jim had nearly been shot when stopping at the dry cleaners one weekend, he'd started carrying them with him all the time, just in case.

Simon's hand, warm and confident on his back, brought him back to the present. "He'll pull through this, Blair."

"I know," he replied, "but, Christ, four hours already...what if there's been a complication, or some kind of permanent damage? We're neither of us as young as we used to be...." He trailed off, suddenly unable to trust his voice as his throat tightened.

Simon patted him on the back. "There are options, Blair, but there's no point in thinking about it now, it's too soon and we don't know what the outcome will be yet. You just need to focus on the immediate concerns."

He snorted. "Oh, yeah, options, right. That's going to go over really well. Can you really see Jim Ellison taking a desk job?" He scrubbed his face with his hands wearily. "I thought he was dead, Simon, I really did," he said, his voice hoarse. "I almost lost it. I almost shot Kincaid."

Simon gripped his shoulder tightly, reassuringly. "I understand, Blair. You think I didn't feel the same way when his dad had Daryl?" He gave Blair's shoulder another squeeze. "The important thing is, you didn't shoot him. You did the right thing."

"It was just because I heard Jim's voice," Blair admitted, thinking back to the warehouse, listening at the door, trying to decide when to break in, wondering if there was any way he could have stopped Kincaid from shooting Jim...suddenly, the conversation between Jim and Kincaid came back to him with brutal clarity.

"It doesn't matter why, Sandburg," Simon was saying, "what matters is that you...."

Blair silenced him abruptly with a raised hand. "Simon, he said something, Kincaid said something..."

At just that moment, two men in dark suits and long overcoats walked over to Simon, interrupting them. "Captain Banks?" one said, opening a small leather wallet and displaying a badge and an ID card. He was blond, with sharp features; his partner was dark-haired and stood slightly behind him. His body language screamed deference to Blair.

Simon stood. "I'm Captain Banks," he replied.

But before the other man could respond, Blair leapt to his feet. "You fucking assholes," he snarled, "you set us up. There was no weapons-grade plutonium, no storage depot. We were - Jim was - the bait for Kincaid, wasn't he?"

Simon turned back towards him and put a restraining hand on Blair's chest. "Easy, Blair," he said softly. "I know you're upset, but you can't go around..."

He shoved Simon's hand away and stepped up close to the first guy, the one who had flashed the ID. "I'm right, aren't I?" he said angrily, getting in the guy's face. "And now you've come to explain it all and ask forgiveness." He turned back to Simon. "Kincaid said it. He told Jim, Simon. That abandoned warehouse is owned by the Feds. There was no material stored there. They sent us on a wild goose chase, and Kincaid was tipped off by someone," he turned, fists clenched, and glared pointedly at the two men, " - and I can guess who - that Jim would be there."

Simon's hand descended onto his shoulder, holding him back, but when he spoke, his voice was cold and hard. "Gentlemen. Is this true?"

The dark-haired Fed had the grace to look abashed, but the blond just shot Simon an even look over his head. "Will Detective Ellison be all right?" he asked coolly.

Blair made a guttural noise, somewhere between a groan and a growl, and started towards the blond Fed, but Simon's hand tightened on his shoulder, keeping him in place. "You don't get to ask that," he snarled, shaking with rage. "You don't deserve to know."

"You had something you wanted to discuss with me, gentlemen?" Simon asked, and if his tone had been cold before, now it was positively icy.

The blond Fed's gaze shifted apprehensively to Blair, and then back to Simon. "Maybe we could go somewhere more...private?" he asked.

"As Detective Sandburg was involved in the incident in question, I think I would prefer him to be present," Simon replied.

The blond exchanged glances with his partner, then shrugged. "I'm Agent Callahan, this is Agent Touhy. We apologize for any inconvenience to Detective Ellison or your department."

Blair made a strangled sound. "Inconvenience? You apologize for any inconvenience? My partner's been in surgery for four hours thanks to your inconvenience!"

Callahan's stony expression didn't change. "Like I said, we're sorry that Detective Ellison was injured. But Jackson Kincaid has been classified as an extreme danger to the United States Government, and, according to the Patriot Act of 2006, we are empowered to do whatever is necessary to eliminate the threat he represents. That includes conscripting the local police force, when prudent."

Simon stepped in close to Callahan. "Threat or not, I don't appreciate my men being used as bait without their - and my - knowledge," he said in a low, ominous voice.

Callahan gave another one of his off-hand shrugs. "We needed Kincaid to believe it. Any hint on his part that he was headed into a trap and he'd have been gone, revenge be damned. And, we weren't sure you'd agree." He gave Simon a slight smile. "Not that you needed to."

Simon's face turned dark with rage. He opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by a female voice. "Blair?"

Blair turned to see a young woman in scrubs and surgery gear standing at the edge of the waiting area. "Marisa!" he exclaimed, hurrying over to her. "How's Jim doing? Is everything okay?"

"Yes," she replied. "He's out of surgery..."

"Hang on a sec," he interrupted her, and cast a beseeching glance back at Simon.

Simon nodded and motioned to Callahan and Touhy. "Gentlemen, we'll continue our conversation over here," he said shortly, directing the agents towards the far end of the waiting area.

Blair turned back to the doctor. "Sorry, Marisa, I just didn't want those goons to overhear us. How did it go?"

She gave him a gentle smile. "He's doing well and everything looks good. He was very lucky; the gunshot to his chest was at a shallow angle and no major organs were hit. But there was quite a bit of muscle damage and some deep bruising, so he'll be in pain for a while."

"Okay," Blair muttered, almost to himself, "I can work with that."

Her expression became sober. "He wasn't so lucky with the knee. Our orthopedic surgeon worked on reconstructing it, but there was a lot of damage. He'll be around to talk with you in the morning, but I think he's going to recommend intensive physical therapy, and possibly another surgery." She paused, looking at him seriously. "There's a chance that his mobility will be significantly limited, and - although it's too soon to tell for sure - it's unlikely that he'll be capable of the same level of physical activity in his job that he's been used to."

Blair felt a cold hand grip his heart. Then Simon's words came back to him, you need to focus on the immediate concerns, and he took a deep breath. Simon was right. Plenty of time to worry about that later. "Thank you, Marisa. Can I see him?"

She smiled at him. "Sure. They're moving him into Recovery right now. I'll take you up there."

She led him over to a bank of elevators and ushered him inside when one opened, then pressed the button for the third floor. When they reached Recovery she led him to a room near the end of the hallway. "Private room, just like you asked for, as far from the main nursing station as feasible. He's off the ventilator, but they want to keep him on oxygen for a few hours, just because the surgery took so long. And he's going to be mostly out of it for a while; they dosed him up pretty good. I was able to make sure they didn't use morphine, though, and went instead with one of the newer drugs we've used successfully in the past."

He pulled her close in a quick hug. "Thanks again, Marisa. I can't tell you how much I appreciate everything you've done for us."

She returned the hug, patting him gently on the back, then drew away and turned him towards the door, smiling. "It's no problem at all. Now get in there. You're always the best medicine for him."

Blair took a deep breath, pushed the door open, and walked into the room. He felt his heart lurch; Jim looked incongruously small, lying amid the plethora of tubes and wires and softly beeping machines that surrounded him. He made his way to the side of the bed and wrapped his fingers gently around Jim's, swallowing through the lump in his throat.

He was rewarded when Jim's eyes slowly opened halfway. The normally-clear blue was clouded by painkillers, but he gave Blair a thin smile from under the oxygen mask, and Blair felt a weak return pressure on his fingers.

He couldn't stop the grin of relief that spread across his face, nor the tears that slid down his cheeks. "Hey, tough guy," he said, his voice cracking slightly, "glad to see you're back among the living."

Jim slid his fingers out of Blair's grasp and lifted his hand unsteadily to Blair's cheek, brushing feebly at the tears there. With a sound that was somewhere between a sob and a laugh, he captured Jim's hand in his and pressed it to his cheek. "Jesus, Jim," he breathed, "that scared the shit out of me. How did Kincaid get the drop on you?"

He instantly regretted asking that, as Jim's brows drew together and he tried to say something, his other hand reaching shakily for the oxygen mask. "No, no, I'm sorry, never mind," he said, intercepting Jim's hand and pulling it back down to rest on his chest. "I shouldn't have asked. You can tell me later. Don't worry about it, just get some rest, okay?" Jim closed his eyes, nodding almost imperceptibly. Blair turned his head and tenderly kissed the palm of Jim's hand, then gently placed the hand back at Jim's side on the bed. Jim's breathing slowed and deepened as he slid back into sleep.

He leaned on the bed rails, watching Jim sleep, carding his fingers gently through the hair at his partner's temple, wondering when he'd gotten so gray there. His brain knew that Jim was in his fifties, but as far as his heart was concerned, Jim hadn't aged a day; he looked just as gorgeous as the day he'd met him. But, like he'd told Simon, he knew that they were both getting older, and he'd been worrying, recently, about how much longer Jim was going to be able to endure the physical punishment that seemed to be an essential aspect of his job. He sighed. He hadn't found any answers, but it seemed that the question might have become moot. The problem was, he wasn't sure how well Jim would react to being told he couldn't be out in the field anymore.

He leaned over and kissed Jim gently on the forehead. "We'll figure it out, partner; you and me, just like always," he promised quietly.

The sound of a throat clearing startled him into looking up. Simon stood in the doorway, and Blair's heart sank a little. They'd always tried to be very circumspect at work, although he'd long suspected they weren't fooling the people who knew them well. "I'm not really in the mood for a lecture on fraternization right now, Simon," he said wearily.

"Blair, if I thought you two needed a lecture on fraternization, I'd have given it to you a long time ago," Simon replied quietly, coming into the room and standing at the end of the bed. "How's Jim?"

He gave Simon a grateful smile. "He's doing pretty good. Marisa said he was lucky with the chest wound; he must have moved or something so Kincaid didn't get a clear shot." He stopped and took a deep breath. "Not such great news with the knee, though." He looked up at Simon apprehensively. "The surgeon is going to come by in the morning, but it's sounding like they couldn't repair all the damage." Simon nodded, but didn't say anything. "So, what was up with the Feds?"

Simon pulled a cigar out of the breast pocket of his coat and ran it through his fingers. "It was like you thought," he said irritably. "They wanted to `straighten things out' with us, tried to get me to agree that I wouldn't lodge any complaints or make any waves." He looked at Blair over the tops of his glasses. "I had the distinct sense that this little operation was not entirely sanctioned by the powers that be."

Blair raised his eyebrows in surprise. "So, did you agree not to stir anything up?"

"Hell, no," Simon snorted. "I'm going to the Commissioner tomorrow. I'm not going to let them get away with this. Patriot Act or not, no one is going to put my men in that kind of danger without their consent." He stuck the cigar in his mouth. "I don't care if I have to pull in every favor I've got, asses will be kicked."

Blair stifled a grin. "Well, as one of your men, I am down with that."

"Good. You'd better be," Simon replied gruffly. He moved to stand next to Blair and gripped his shoulder comfortingly. "Call me in the morning, after you've talked to the surgeon...or before then, if you need anything. And don't forget, the most important thing is for you and Jim to concentrate on him recuperating. Don't get too worried about the future yet."

"Okay, Simon, thanks," he said, putting his hand over Simon's and giving it a squeeze.

Simon left, and shortly afterwards an older woman, dressed in scrubs, came into the room. "Mr. Sandburg?" she asked.

"Yeah, that's me," Blair replied.

"I'm Rhonda, the night nurse. Dr. Parvedes said we should set up a cot for you in here, that you'd be staying here overnight with Mr. Ellison."

He sent up a silent prayer of thanks to whatever deity or deities watched over them for Marisa Parvedes. "Yeah, that's right, thanks."

Rhonda and another nurse brought in the cot, and Blair helped them set it up next to Jim's bed. Then they left, encouraging him to get some rest. He didn't think that he'd be able to, but, much to his surprise, once he was stretched out on the cot, his fingers loosely twined with Jim's, sleep claimed him quickly.

Andrea gave him a sharp glance. "That was pretty nice, that they let you stay in Jim's room. My mom said that they try to be really strict about it, only let family stay, and that not very often."

Blair cleared his throat awkwardly. "Uh, well, the doctors and nurses knew that I was Jim's, um, partner...they knew us both really well. We'd both been in there quite a lot - we had a little bit of a reputation at Cascade General." He'd been doing some judicious editing of his story as he told it to her, figuring that she didn't need to know the details of his and Jim's personal relationship, but apparently he hadn't been editing hard enough.

"Oh. I see," she said, in a voice that clearly communicated that she understood that things were being kept from her, and she didn't like it. A cool silence hung between them for a few moments, but before long Andrea's curiosity apparently won out over her hurt feelings. "So, what happened with Jim's knee? Was he able to go back to work?"

"No," Blair said, quietly. "He went through a lot of physical therapy, and had to have another surgery; they ended up having to put a pin in and it was always a little stiff after that."

"So what did he do? What did you do?"

"I went back to work," he said, smiling ruefully. "Jim...Jim didn't like having nothing to do..."

Blair closed the door to the loft and threw his keys in the basket. "Hey, man," he called out absently, sorting through the mail. He tossed Jim's stack on the table and started opening his own.

"Hey, Chief," floated down from the ceiling.

Blair looked up, startled. Jim was in the kitchen, perched somewhat precariously on the aluminum ladder, spray bottle and rag in hand, cleaning the skylights. "Hey!" he called out sharply, "should you be up there? And didn't you clean those last week?" He walked into the kitchen and stood next to the ladder, looking up anxiously.

"Well, they're dirty again," Jim replied shortly.

"We survived without cleaning the skylights every week for over ten years, I don't think leaving them a few more weeks will kill us." Jim didn't respond and kept on at his task. "I'd feel a whole lot better if you were down here on the ground," Blair said pointedly. Jim rolled his eyes and gave a heavy sigh, but gathered his cleaning supplies and descended the ladder.

"Happy?" he asked, once he was standing next to Blair in the kitchen.

"Deliriously," Blair replied, giving him a quick kiss.

Jim folded up the ladder and stowed it in the broom closet. "I'm not an invalid, you know, Chief," he said brusquely when he came back into the kitchen.

"I never said you were," he replied. Purposely trying to change the subject, he asked, "What's for dinner?"

"Chili."

He set the table, watching Jim covertly from underneath his lashes as Jim moved around the kitchen, tasting the chili, adding some spices, getting bowls from the cabinet. The cane was sitting by the door, in the umbrella stand; Jim tended not to use it in the loft. He hid the limp well, Blair thought. It was hard to see if you weren't looking for it, but it was noticeable to him, as familiar as he was with Jim's body. There was a slight hitch to his stride now, a glitch in the otherwise smooth, almost feline grace with which he moved.

Something had happened today. It had been a little more than six weeks since Jim's second surgery; in that time he'd been starting to get a little stir crazy, but no more than usual. No more so than in the past, when he'd been home recovering from an injury; he usually cleaned the loft, top to bottom, and got around to doing all the little chores that needed doing, the do-it-yourself projects he didn't usually have time for during the week. But he didn't usually do things over. Once the loft was clean and the chores were done, he'd find something else to do, like read, or rent a movie or two, or something. The fact that he was re-cleaning the skylights told Blair that there was something bothering him, something big enough that he'd needed some kind of physical activity to take his mind off of it.

Jim brought the bowls over to the table and they sat down to eat. "So, what'd you do today?" Blair asked casually.

Jim didn't respond right away, picking at his chili, his face set and serious. "Went to the gym," he said finally.

"Your physical therapist said that was okay?"

That earned him a sharp blue glare. "Yeah. In fact, she encouraged it. Said I need to keep active, keep the knee limber. As long as I don't put too much strain on it directly, avoid the weight machines, she thought it would be fine." He moved his spoon around aimlessly in the chili, then looked up at Blair coolly. "You want me to get a note from her or something, Mom?"

Blair raised his hands in surrender. "I'm just asking, okay? I can't be worried about you?"

Jim sighed and pushed the bowl of chili away. Blair noticed that he hadn't even tasted it. Another sign something was wrong. Jim always lost his appetite when he was upset about something.

"Simon came by today," Jim said. He unscrewed the top from the bottle of water next to his bowl and took a drink.

Blair felt a momentary flash of irritation that Simon hadn't given him a heads-up. But then, he reflected, that wasn't really Simon's style. He had chided Blair more than once for worrying too much about Jim. And, Blair had to admit, he knew that he had been a little overboard on the protectiveness thing since the shooting. It had just scared him so much to see Jim lying there in the hospital...

With an effort he wrenched his mind back to the current conversation. "So," he asked, trying to sound nonchalant, "what did he want?"

Jim threw him a dubious look and took another sip of water. "He wanted to talk to me about my options."

Blair steeled himself. He'd known this conversation was coming, had known it for a while now. "And?"

"He thinks I should put in for Captain of Major Crimes."

Blair's eyes widened. That was not what he had expected to hear. "Whoa! Where's he going?"

Jim gave him a thin smile. "This is very, very hush-hush, you understand, Chief?" Blair nodded. "Looks like Chief Warren is planning to retire within the year. The Commissioner wants to tap Simon for the position."

"Wow," he said, pushing his bowl away untouched. On the one hand, it was a great deal for Simon, but...it was hard to imagine Major Crimes without him. "So...your knee, that wouldn't be a problem?"

Jim shook his head. "No. Simon doesn't go out in the field as much as he used to, and even when he does he usually directs things from behind the lines."

"So, you thinking about it?"

Jim shook his head again. "No, I'm not."

"Why not? You headed up a unit in the Army."

Jim shot him a look. "Yeah, and look how well that turned out," he replied sourly.

"Jim!" Blair retorted, slapping his hand on the table for emphasis, "that was not your fault!"

Jim put up a hand to ward him off. "Okay, I know, I know. Seriously, I'm not in the least bit interested in running Major Crimes. Too much administrative crap, meetings and budget worries and things like that. Not to mention the politics and tap dancing; I'm no dancer, and I'm certainly no politician." He glanced at Blair sidelong. "And you, you'd have to move to Homicide or Vice or something. Can't be living with your superior officer, even if we're trying to fool people into thinking it's platonic."

"I know," Blair replied, "but I'll do it, if it's important to you, if being Captain is something you want to do."

"It's really not, Chief."

"So, what then?"

Jim sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "I don't know," he said wearily. "I hadn't really thought about it." He sat quietly, gazing out the windows at Cascade.

After a few minutes Blair got up and started clearing the table. It was obvious neither of them had an appetite right now. He put away the leftovers and did the dishes; when he finished he saw Jim had moved to stand in front of the balcony door, still looking out at the city. He grabbed two beers from the fridge and went over to join him.

Jim took the beer Blair handed him, and they stood in silence for a few minutes. Then, with studied casualness, Blair said, "I talked to Joel today."

Jim's face lit with a warm grin. "How's he doing?"

"He's good."

"How are things at the police academy?" Joel Taggart had retired from Major Crimes five years ago to accept a position as the head of the Cascade Police Academy.

Blair took a swig of beer. "They're good. There's a new class of cadets starting in a month."

Jim shook his head, smiling. "They get younger every year, I swear." He looked over at Blair. "We should get together with him more often; go out to dinner once a month or something like that."

Blair hid his smile in another drink of beer. "He called me `cause he'd heard about you getting shot."

"Oh, yeah?" Jim's smile was suddenly gone, replaced with a look of growing wariness.

"He needs a firearms instructor..."

"No," Jim said abruptly, turning and heading for the couch.

"Jim, just talk to him about it," he said, turning to follow him, exasperated. He and Joel had been hatching this plan together for over a week. He sat on the coffee table across from Jim. "Blake, the old instructor, quit with just a week's notice. He's moving down to Seattle; Joel hasn't got anyone lined up and he really needs someone."

"You know how much I hate speaking in front of a group."

"And I'd see your point, if this was a lecture position. But it's not. It's practical stuff, physical stuff - stance and aim and proper care of your weapon and things like that."

"Chief, I am no kind of teacher. I'm not like you, I don't have the patience for it."

"That's not true!" he countered forcefully. "Don't you remember when you taught me to shoot, after Lash kidnapped me?" He swallowed convulsively, never able to say that name without a slight shiver running down his back. Jim gave him a concerned look, but he pushed the feeling aside and continued. "You were a great teacher; you showed me the right way to hold a gun and how to carry it safely; things like that. And you were really patient with me, even though you knew I didn't want to learn how to shoot. I aced firearms training at the academy because of you."

Jim glared at him but didn't say anything.

"Just try it, okay?" he asked. "The new class starts in a month; you'll have them for four hours twice a week for six weeks. After that, if you hate it, you can quit. But it'll give Joel some time to find someone more permanent...that is, if you decide you don't want to do it." Jim glared at him some more, but he looked like he was on the verge of giving in. Blair decided it was time to play his trump card. "C'mon, man, you'll be helping Joel out a lot. He's in a pretty tight spot - new class starting and no firearms instructor."

Jim looked away and took a drink of beer. "Fine," he grumbled. "Six weeks. No longer."

"Whatever you say."

"Just to help Joel out, you understand," Jim said sternly, pointing a finger at him.

"I hear you, man."

"He loved it, didn't he?" Andrea asked.

"Took to it like a duck to water." Blair smiled at the memory. "It was six months before he'd admit it, though. And even then it was only because Joel and I took him out and got him drunk." He looked over at the gravestone, still smiling. "I wasn't lying, though; he was a great instructor. Careful, meticulous, patient, understanding - as long as you were trying. He was hell on cadets that he thought weren't paying enough attention or working hard enough. He got quite the reputation...that first class nicknamed him `Iron Jim' and it stuck for the next fifteen years." He tilted his head back and looked up at the sky. "He had a real knack for figuring out why someone was having problems on the firing range, and correcting it. I never could figure out if it was...." He broke off, startled to realize that he had nearly said something about Jim's senses. He wasn't usually that careless, even nowadays.

"If it was...what?" Andrea asked.

"Uh...if it was...if it was because of his Army training," he said quickly, to cover his misstep. "Anyway," he continued, remembering the question that had started all this, "why did you want to know if I'd ever shot someone?"

She looked at him sideways, her face suddenly serious. "My dad was a cop," she said.

"I remember you telling me that," he replied.

"He'd never shot anyone. He was always telling my mom that most cops go their whole careers without ever having to shoot anyone." She was looking down at her hands now where they rested in her lap, her brown curly hair a curtain hiding her face.

"That's true," he said. He remembered Jim telling him that several times, when he'd been trying to decide whether he'd wanted to go to the academy or not.

"I always wondered if maybe, if he'd have shot someone before, maybe he'd have been faster. Maybe he'd have shot first and then he wouldn't have died."

Blair's throat tightened in sympathy. He put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a gentle squeeze. "I'm sorry," he said, "I know it sucks." She leaned against him, but didn't say anything.

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, then she looked at her watch and sat up abruptly. "I gotta go," she said, her voice slightly rough. She stood and grabbed her backpack, fidgeting and avoiding his eyes. "Thanks. For the story. And...everything."

He nodded. "See you Friday?"

A slight grin warmed her features, and she glanced up and met his gaze. "Yeah, okay, Friday." She turned and headed off down the hill; when she got to the bottom, she looked up and waved at him, and he waved back.

Blair pulled into a parking space and killed the engine. Scooping up his coffee and a bag of cookies, he hurried out of the car and up the hill towards Jim's grave. He was running a little late today; he hoped Andrea hadn't left yet, although he couldn't blame her if she had, she probably had homework and other things to do.

Halfway up the hill he saw her, sitting stiffly on the bench. "Hey," he called out as he approached her, smiling, "sorry I'm late. I teach a class a few times a year at the academy, and...." He broke off, startled when she jumped to her feet, hands on hips, her flashing eyes and stiff posture radiating fury.

"You lied," she said, in a low, angry voice.

Blair took a step back. "Wh...what?" he said, nonplussed.

"You didn't become a cop because you wanted to. You became a cop because you had to. Because you got kicked out of Rainier for being a fraud."

Shock spread through him. It had been a long time - years, and more - since anyone had called him that. The memories came flooding back, the emotions associated with them as sharp and as powerful as if it had been yesterday. He swallowed nervously. "How...how did you find out?" he asked.

"I found it on the Internet. I'm not stupid, you know."

"I never thought you were," he replied. He gazed at her, wanting to do something, say something, to blunt her anger. "It was a long time ago, Andrea," he said wearily.

Her attitude didn't change a whit. "Oh, and that makes it okay?" she said hotly.

Blair sighed. "No, it doesn't." He moved past her and sat on the bench dispiritedly, shoulders slumped, suddenly feeling his age. He cast about in his mind for something to tell her, some obfuscation that would appease her and keep their burgeoning friendship intact...

And then it hit him, completely out of the blue. He could just tell her the truth. For what was probably the first time in forty-five years, he could just tell someone the truth about it all.

He straightened up, blinking, feeling a weight fall off his shoulders that he hadn't known was there. He and Jim had talked about it, whether he was going to do anything after...after Jim died. Jim had been supportive of him going public with everything, writing a book, maybe two or three, going on talk shows, whatever. But he hadn't. Losing Jim had been so painful, so hard for him to accept, that he'd known he couldn't handle being in the public eye, answering questions about him, about their work together. And once he had come to terms with Jim's death, he had found himself oddly reluctant to allow that kind of disruption into his life again. It's different when you're young, he had thought, fame and money seem like the best things in the world, the brass ring, the things that everybody wants. But by then he had known - to be honest, he had known even back then, as young as he'd been - that it wasn't. Friendship, loyalty, love...those were the things that made a life worthwhile.

Andrea cleared her throat impatiently, and Blair realized he had been staring off into the distance, lost in his thoughts. He dropped the bag of cookies on the bench next to him and patted the seat invitingly. "Come on. Sit down, and I'll explain."

She perched warily on the edge of the seat, arms crossed tightly, as if she was planning to make a break for it, afraid that he might try to hold her there, force her to listen to his explanation. Taking a deep breath, he took a sip of the rapidly cooling coffee he still held in his hand. Even after all this time, even with Jim's permission, it was hard to start, hard to break the old habits of secrecy.

"I told you that I was interested in studying how the police department worked, as an example of a closed tribe." He waited until he saw her nod, and then continued. "Well, that wasn't exactly true, although that was the story I told a lot of people." Andrea snorted, and he gazed at her steadily. "I was studying Jim."

She didn't say anything, but raised an eyebrow and settled a little farther back on the bench.

"Jim was born with certain...gifts. Enhanced senses. They marked him as a Sentinel - someone who was destined to be a watchman, to look out for others, to protect the tribe." He smiled ruefully. "But when he was a kid, he had a couple of bad experiences related to his senses, so he suppressed them." He glanced up at Andrea, the thin smile still on his face. "I'm sure you can relate. No one likes to be thought of as a freak."

She snorted again, but there was more sympathy in it this time. Her arms loosened slightly from their tight hold and she slid completely back onto the bench.

"Jim's senses came back, though," Blair continued, "a couple of times. One time was when he'd gone to Peru as part of an Army mission. His helicopter crashed; the Army believed everyone on the mission was dead, but he'd survived, and he lived with a local tribe, the Chopec, for 18 months before the Army found him and got him out."

"Weren't the Chopec scared of him?" Andrea asked.

"No," he replied, straightening up and leaning back against the bench, "actually, quite the opposite. They understood what a Sentinel was, and they helped Jim a lot with his senses. In fact, his time with the Chopec was probably the first time he'd really fully used his senses since he was a kid."

"So, you were studying the Chopec and you found out about Jim?"

"No, no, I was actually trying to study Sentinels. I'd been obsessed with finding one ever since I'd come across an obscure monograph about them." He took another sip of coffee. "I'd gathered a ton of case material on people who had one or two heightened senses, smell or taste or both, usually, but I hadn't been able to find a true Sentinel - someone who had all five senses enhanced."

"So how'd you find Jim?"

Blair smiled. "I had made friends with a couple of nurses at Cascade General who worked in the neurology department, and I had asked them to call me if anyone came in complaining of weird sensory phenomena, because I had thought that might be a good way to try and find a Sentinel. Well, after he left the Army, Jim returned to Cascade and joined the Police Department here. He'd suppressed his senses again, but they came back online after a protracted stakeout in the woods. He'd been out there for four days, and that kind of thing, that kind of solitude, that really tended to stir the senses up, you know? Only he didn't remember a lot about the previous times his senses had been functioning. He'd repressed a lot of his childhood, and the Peru thing was pretty traumatic as well, so he didn't really understand what was happening. He thought he was sick, or going crazy or something." He glanced over at her and noticed that she was staring at him in rapt attention, eyes wide. "He went to the hospital to get checked out, and one of my friends heard about his case and called me."

"He must have been relieved when he heard your explanation," Andrea said solemnly.

Blair laughed, nearly choking on the mouthful of coffee he'd taken. "Well, eventually, he was, I guess...but not at first. At first it was a little hard for him to swallow." He grinned at Andrea, eyes dancing. "Actually, the first time I explained it to him, he called me a `neo-hippie witch-doctor punk' and accused me of using drugs." She grinned back at him and he chuckled. "It took a little convincing, but he finally agreed to let me help him learn to control his senses, and, in exchange, I could use him as the subject for my dissertation."

Andrea frowned at him, her brows drawn together. "But...but in the press conference you said it wasn't true...that you'd made it all up...that Jim didn't have enhanced senses..."

"Ah, yeah...." He'd been enjoying these early memories so much, he'd forgotten about the question that had sparked them in the first place. "Well, an early draft of my dissertation found its way to a publisher, before I'd had a chance to take Jim's name out of it. The guy was really excited about it; he wanted to publish it as a book, but I refused. So he released information about it to the media, to try and pressure me into signing a contract with him." He sighed and leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. "Once the media found out about it, things just got crazy. They followed Jim everywhere, pestering him with questions, getting in his face with lights, cameras; he couldn't do his job..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "It was driving Jim nuts. He'd always been a very private person, and this...this was like torture for him. He was so pissed off at me..."

"But it wasn't your fault," Andrea interrupted. "You tried to stop it."

"Yeah, well, Jim wasn't always good at thinking rationally when he was angry," Blair said with a rueful smile. "We were trying to protect this union boss from getting killed; he was a first-class jerk, and we kept missing the guy they'd hired to kill him, because of all the hoopla around my diss...God, it was just a mess." The crap with Bartley and Zeller hadn't been the worst of it, though, he thought to himself. The worst part had been the distance between him and Jim. Jim had been barely talking to him, hardly even looking at him, and cold and distant when he did, then snapping at him furiously when he tried to talk to him about it. It had only been a few days, but it had cut him to the quick, and he'd known there was only one way to make it right again.

He realized Andrea was watching him curiously, realized he'd fallen silent again, lost in his thoughts. "I knew I had to do something to fix things, but the train was already in full steam. The only thing I could think of that would work at that point was to derail it. So...I called a press conference, said I was a fraud, said I'd made it all up." He cleared his throat, surprised at how tight it felt, and looked over at Andrea with a sheepish smile. "So, you see, you were right. I did lie. Just not about what everyone thought."

She met his gaze for a long moment before she spoke. "I take back what I said. That wasn't a lie, that was a sacrifice."

Momentarily tongue-tied by her acumen, he could only look back at her.

She looked over at Jim's headstone, a thoughtful expression on her face, then turned back to him, her eyes searching his. "You were more than just friends," she stated firmly.

He blinked at her, then smiled softly and found his voice. "You're pretty sharp. Or I'm a little rusty at obfuscating."

She looked back at him levelly. "You don't give up your whole life for someone unless you love them." She paused, and then grinned at him slyly. "Nor do you usually spend hours in a cemetery, risking being thought of as a crazy person."

He chuckled at that, but then his expression became serious. "It's not much of a sacrifice when you get back so much more than you gave up."

"You miss him a lot, don't you?" she asked softly.

Blair sighed. "Yeah," he said, gazing at Jim's headstone, his throat still tight, "I do. Every day."

Most of the time he was fine, but every now and then, he'd have a day like today; a day where he'd give anything to hear Jim's voice again, feel his touch, see him smile, just one more time. He took a deep breath. He hadn't felt this way, this strongly, for a while. Must be all the remembering, he thought.

Andrea cleared her throat and he glanced over at her. "Will you...would you...tell me about...about how Jim died someday?" Her eyes were wide, the barest hint of a plea in their depths.

Blair smiled gently at her. "Sure, someday. But not today, okay?"

"Okay," she replied. They sat in silence for a while, then Andrea looked at her watch. "I gotta go," she said, "I gotta do my homework." She stood and slung her backpack over her shoulder, then looked down at Blair, her shoulders hunched. "I'm sorry I was angry at you. I should have asked you about it instead of jumping to conclusions."

He stood, sticking his hand out. "It's cool, I understand. So, we're good, then?"

She reached for his hand; then, before he could react, wrapped her arms around his waist in a fierce hug. "We're good," she said, her voice muffled against his shirt. He chuckled, returning her hug gently, then she let him go and backed away, smiling shyly.

She turned to leave, then suddenly turned back to face him, a contrite expression on her face. "I forgot. My mom wants to have you over for dinner. I think she wants to check you out and make sure you're not some kind of pervert."

Blair laughed and she raised an eyebrow at him, the corner of her mouth curving in a smile. "Ah, okay...no, that's very smart. Your mom sounds like a very intelligent woman," he said.

Andrea rolled her eyes. "Overprotective, but pretty smart, I guess. Sunday night at six o'clock okay?"

"Sounds good."

Andrea dug a pen and a piece of paper out of her backpack and wrote something down, then handed the paper to Blair. "Here's our address. "

He tucked the paper in the pocket of his jeans. "Tell your mom I'm looking forward to meeting her."

"Okay. See you Sunday." She turned and headed off down the hill.

Blair watched her go as she hurried down the hill and entered the waiting bus. When the bus drove off, he sat back down on the bench, his gaze drawn to Jim's headstone, a slight grin on his face. "Okay, man," he said, "if you were here, I know what you'd be saying. I underestimated her." He shrugged his shoulders and spread his arms wide. "What can I say? She's only sixteen..." He broke off, shaking his head ruefully, his grin widening. "Yeah, I know, I know...I was sixteen like that once, too. I guess I forgot what it's like." He settled back against the bench, his smile softening as he looked at the headstone. "Well, it took us long enough to figure it out..."

Jim motioned him to silence and pointed up the stairs. The message was clear. Calderon was going for the roof.

We should have figured he wasn't going to come quietly, Blair thought ruefully. Calderon was wanted on a string of kidnapping and molestation charges that, even with a lenient judge, would land him in prison for the remainder of his natural life. Which probably wouldn't be very long once his fellow inmates found out what he was in for. Child molesters tended to be pretty unpopular, even among that crowd.

They made their way silently up the stairs, trading off being point and cover, with Jim listening carefully at each landing. Every time, though, he shook his head and pointed upwards.

Blair sighed, settling his shoulders under the weight of the Kevlar vest. Trying to find someone on a roof sucked, big time. There were too many nooks and crannies, too much ground to cover; it was way too easy to lose someone there, for them to double back and slip down the stairs again.

Jim stopped at the door to the roof and crouched down, thumbing his throat mike on and speaking barely above a whisper. "Simon, he's gone to the roof. Get the squad up here behind us. I think we're going to need help." Then, with a glance at Blair, he added, "We're going silent now." Blair followed his lead, obediently flipping his mike off.

Jim drew a rough map in the dust on the floor and, using hand gestures, communicated his plan to Blair. Once out of the door they would split up and try to drive Calderon towards the northwest corner of the roof, which had the least amount of cover, and was where Simon and the squad would expect them to be. Blair nodded his agreement and Jim squeezed his shoulder briefly before he pushed open the door.

Once outside, he went left and Jim went right. Staying low, he made sure to check behind every compressor, every vent cover or other obstacle as he moved forward. He didn't see any sign of Calderon, and could only hope that Jim had had better luck. When he reached the designated corner, he looked around and saw Jim on the other side of the roof. No sign of Calderon. He turned and started back towards the door, cursing to himself in his head. He had to have missed something. He'd only been a cop for about a year; he could hear the muttering starting already. "Damn rookie...what a screw-up...who does he think he is, getting to go into Major Crimes right out of the academy..." He knew he hadn't made any friends with that move. He knew that Jim got hassled about it, too, but when he'd said something to him Jim had just thumped him on the shoulder and told him not to worry about it.

He was so intent on his search and his own thoughts that he didn't hear the noise at first. When he finally picked up on it, he couldn't immediately place what it was - it had sounded like someone was scraping metal across brick. Suddenly he saw the metal ladder curving over the edge of the roof, and the sound resolved in his head. He'd missed it the first time; the metal was so dark with rust that the ladder had practically blended in with the low brick wall. He realized what had caused the sound - Calderon had climbed over the edge, perched on a ledge and hidden himself under the eaves until Blair passed, and then had climbed back onto the roof.

He started to turn, but an arm came around from behind and grabbed him in a head lock. He heard a gun cock and felt something hard against his right temple. "Drop the gun," Calderon hissed in his ear, and he complied, hands raised in surrender.

Heart pounding, he looked across the roof and saw Jim, gun raised, walking slowly across the roof towards them. "Stop right there, Ellison," Calderon snarled. "Unless you want your partner here to have an air-conditioned skull." Jim stopped, but didn't lower his weapon.

"Give it up, Calderon," Jim called out. "We've got this building surrounded. There's no way out. Don't add being a cop killer to your list of problems." Calderon dragged Blair backwards to the very edge of the building and glanced down at the SWAT vans and police cars gathered at the entrance. Blair heard his breathing quicken.

"What the hell do I care, anyway?" Calderon said, and Blair could tell he was close to hysteria. "I'm a dead man, either way you cut it - in prison or here, and it might as well be where I can take a few of you with me."

"Don't be hasty, man," Blair said, deliberately trying to make his voice soothing and calm. "We can help you. We can put in a word with the judge, make sure you're housed out of general population, get you placed on a specialized treatment unit. But we can't do any of that if you don't cooperate with us."

"Shut up!" Calderon screamed at him, jamming the muzzle of the gun into his temple. "Just shut up! I don't trust either of you!"

Blair looked up. Jim was still more than halfway across the roof. He knew that Jim could make the shot with his enhanced sight, and was probably counting on the fact that Calderon didn't think he could. He kept his eyes on Jim. He was too far away for Blair to read the expression on his face, but he watched him for some kind of signal, ready to dive or duck, whatever Jim needed him to do.

He heard a shot ring out, almost immediately followed by a second. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Calderon's hand recoil backwards, the gun flying loose, spinning end over end into the air. He felt a moment of relief before Calderon's arm tightened around his neck and he started to pull Blair backwards.

Everything went into slow motion. His heart sinking, Blair realized that Calderon was dead, falling backwards over the edge of the roof, and that, thanks to the vice-like grip around his neck, he was going to go over with him. He looked across the roof at his partner. Way too far away, he thought. There was no way Jim could reach him in time.

Funny, he'd always heard that your life was supposed to flash before your eyes in the face of impending death. The only thing in his mind, though, was regret. Regret that he'd never told Jim how he really felt about him. He'd struggled with wanting to tell him for years. He knew his partner didn't share his feelings. But there was a terrible loneliness about Jim sometimes, an isolation, made worse by the brief but spectacular disasters in his love life and the senses that were both a gift and a curse. He'd ached to assuage that, and had hoped that it would make Jim feel better to know that there was at least one person in the world who loved him for who he was, loved him whole-heartedly, unreservedly. But he'd always chickened out in the end, too afraid that the conversation would start with "You're what?" and end with him out on the street, looking for a new job, a new friend, and a new life. And now, now it was too late. "I'm sorry," he whispered, knowing Jim would hear him, knowing he would be able to read his expression, knowing he would understand. "I love you. I...I wanted to...I meant to tell you..."

The next thing he knew, something had slammed into him at about waist level. Calderon's arm was torn away from his neck, and he hit the roof hard enough to knock the wind out of him. He rolled onto his back, fighting for breath, only to see Simon crouched across from him, hands on knees, breathing heavily. "Blair, you okay?" Simon asked.

His lungs suddenly started to work again, and he drew in a huge gasp of breath, nodding. "Where the hell did you come from?" he panted. Simon tilted his head at the metal ladder affixed to the roof edge, the ladder Calderon had gone down to hide from them initially. "Jesus. Thanks, Simon. I thought I was a goner."

"Don't mention it." Simon straightened up, held his hand out, and pulled Blair to his feet. And then Jim was looming next to him, his presence comforting but somehow oppressive as well. Blair swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. He risked a glance up at Jim's face, but it was shuttered, closed, his eyes hooded, his expression unreadable.

"You okay?" Jim asked him, his voice cool and distant.

Blair swallowed painfully again. The problem with premature confessions was that sometimes they came back to bite you in the ass. "Yeah," he said, proud that his voice didn't waver at all. He glanced up at Jim again, who was standing stiffly, hands clasped behind his back, not looking at Blair.

"Nice shot, Detective," said Simon.

Jim shrugged. "It wasn't hard. He was holding his arm so far out to the side I almost didn't need Sentinel sight to hit it."

Usually at this point in the conversation, Blair thought, he would have jumped in with mock outrage and made some smart-ass comment, and then all three of them would have laughed, the easy camaraderie of brothers-in-arms re-established. But he couldn't do it. His stomach was clenched like a fist, and all he could think about was what was going to happen when they got back to the loft. A wave of dizziness swept over him, and he swayed.

He felt Simon's hand on his shoulder. "I think you're done for the day, Sandburg," he said kindly. "Jim, get this guy checked out by the paramedics; if they say he's okay, take him home. You guys can write up the report tomorrow."

"Will do, sir," Jim replied, still in that cool and even voice. "C'mon, Sandburg," he said, and, without a backwards glance at Blair, he headed off towards the roof access door.

"Thanks again, Simon," Blair said softly, then turned and followed Jim on legs that were feeling increasingly like rubber.

Getting checked out by the paramedics - who pronounced him medically okay, if bruised and aching - passed in a blur. He wasn't sure if it was because he was crashing after the adrenaline high, or because of some karmic balance sheet that dictated that, because time had moved so slowly earlier, now it needed to speed up to make things even. He wondered if it would get back to normal by the time they got home. He hoped so, because he knew that there was going to have to be some kind of conversation at that point, and he was pretty sure he wasn't going to be able to handle it in this state.

Jim hadn't said a word to him since they'd left the rooftop, and hadn't touched him at all. Now, in the truck, heading for home, he was still distant, hardly looking at Blair, his eyes focused on the road ahead, hands gripping the steering wheel tightly, his expression flat and even. Blair felt his stomach clench again. He wasn't sure he was going to be able to obfuscate his way out of this one. It looked like he had really screwed things up this time.

That thought brought back memories, all too clear, of other times he'd shared this much about himself. Of people whom he'd thought of as friends, people who had shunned him once they'd found out he was bi. And one in particular, a good friend, a roommate, and an altercation that had almost turned physical, with a person Blair would never have imagined using force. It had shaken him badly, and had made him much, much more wary about telling people...which was one of the reasons he had never said anything to Jim. Jim, who was trained in hand-to-hand combat, and who had a gun...more than one, actually...

Stop it! he told himself sharply. Jim's not going to hurt you! Be angry, yes; shout at you, maybe; more likely just clam up, after telling you to pack your bags and leave...

He slammed you up against a wall the first time you met, a little voice in his head said.

The second time, technically, Blair corrected himself inanely. He scrubbed a hand down his face slowly, took a few deep breaths, trying to master the panic crawling up his spine. Looking out the window, he saw that they had turned onto Prospect.

Jim parked in the usual place, got out, and headed into the building, again not waiting for Blair, who followed dispiritedly. Time had slowed back to normal, and his knees were feeling less rubbery, but the knot in his stomach had grown to the size of a basketball and had the weight of solid lead. Look, he thought, trying to marshal his arguments, we've lived together for nearly five years, and I've felt this way most of that time, and in all that time, I've never made a pass at you, and I'm not going to start now. There's nothing to worry about, no reason to get all bent out of shape.

He followed Jim into the lobby and into the elevator, which for once was actually waiting for them. Jim remained silent and cold on the way up, and Blair felt his dread increase as they approached the third floor. He closed his eyes and leaned weakly against the wall of the elevator, rehearsing his statements over and over in his mind, trying to keep himself from shaking.

The door slid open and Jim was out like a shot and down the hallway, opening the loft door. Blair followed slowly, feeling like a man marching to his own execution. Once inside the loft, he closed and locked the door, hand trembling slightly.

He turned back to face Jim and found himself pushed roughly up against the door, pinned by Jim's body, lean and hard against his. Jim wrapped his hand in the hair at the back of his head and was covering his mouth and neck with hard, rousing kisses. His other hand was fumbling with the buttons on Blair's flannel shirt; frustrated, he gave a strangled growl, grabbed the front of the shirt in one hand, and yanked, scattering buttons across the floor.

Blair felt a moment of shock, then a bolt of joy so sweet and pure he thought his heart might stop. Desire, repressed for so long, swept through him in a flood, turning his knees to rubber again and making him hard so fast he felt dizzy. He'd have fallen if it hadn't been for Jim's body pressing against his. He returned Jim's kisses fervently, slipping his tongue into Jim's mouth, savoring his clean, strong taste. His own hands were busy unbuttoning Jim's shirt, pulling his t-shirt out of the waistband of his slacks, and sliding beneath to stroke across his hot, smooth skin. He stifled a groan at how good it felt, how hard Jim's chest was, how supple and sleek the skin over it. Like satin over marble.

Jim pulled away slightly, his hands fisted tightly in the hair on either side of Blair's face. His ice-blue eyes bored into Blair's, blazing with need and longing, but Blair could see the fear underneath. "Can't lose you, Blair," he said, his voice ragged and hoarse. He untangled one of his hands, his fingers gently tracing Blair's mouth, the line of his jaw. "I...I just can't..."

Before he could say anything in return Jim was kissing him again, powerful and insistent, his thumbs gently stroking the sensitive spot right below his ears. He moaned involuntarily into Jim's mouth and slid his hands down to cup Jim's ass through his slacks, and then Jim was pulling him backwards across the loft, yanking his Henley over his head.

They hit the loveseat and fell backwards onto it. Somehow Jim had gotten his own t-shirt off, and now he was tugging at the fastener on Blair's jeans, jerking the zipper down, pushing them over his hips. "Need to touch you," he rasped, and Blair shivered, leaving off biting the tendons on Jim's neck to lever himself up and wriggle out of his jeans and underwear, managing to kick his shoes off first. Jim was doing the same, unbuckling his belt, undoing his khakis, and pushing them and his boxers down around his ankles.

Once their pants were out of the way, Jim grabbed his hips and settled him between his legs. His hands slid down, holding on to Blair's ass, and he thrust his hips upward so that their dicks rubbed against each other, hard and satiny and hot. Blair gasped, the sensation utterly mind-blowing. He started rocking his hips, rubbing himself against Jim, frantic to increase the friction between them. He felt Jim wrap his long fingers around the both of them, together, and start stroking firmly. That was all it took; he cried out once, and then he was coming, shuddering; he heard Jim's answering groan as he followed suit.

He sprawled across Jim's chest, suddenly exhausted by the day's events, unable to hold himself up, his muscles lax and trembling. He felt Jim's hand stroking his hair, heard him whisper, "Can't lose you, Chief."

He tightened his arms around Jim, wanting to reassure him. "Won't. Promise. Love you," he mumbled, or thought he did, but it was hard to know as he was already sinking into sleep.

He awoke once during the night, confused because the light was in the wrong place. Then a dim memory of climbing the stairs to the bedroom surfaced, Jim coaxing him, half-carrying him. He realized that Jim was lying next to him now, awake, propped up on an elbow, watching him. "Jim, wha'ssup? Y'okay?" he slurred, still half asleep.

A warm hand gently stroked his shoulder. "No problems, Chief. Just go back to sleep."

He blinked at Jim blearily. He couldn't see well in the dim light, but he thought Jim looked upset; thought he looked tired, eyes swollen and red. Maybe he'd had a reaction to something on the roof? "Sure?" he said.

"I'm sure. Everything's okay. Go back to sleep." His voice was calm and even. He doesn't sound like he's upset, Blair thought, and, pushing his concern to the back of his mind, drifted back into sleep.

When he woke again, it was early morning, and the other side of the bed was empty. Jim must be in the bathroom, he thought. Yawning, he stretched contentedly and smiled to himself. Not that they didn't still need to talk about some things, but - physically, at least - if they weren't on the same page, they were pretty damn close. Fortunately, they didn't have to be in early this morning; they could take some time, process what had happened last night. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he sat up, groaning softly as sore and bruised muscles protested the movement. Over the bedroom railing he caught sight of Jim, sitting at the kitchen table. His hands were wrapped around a mug of coffee, and his face held an expression of such abject misery and sorrow that Blair immediately forgot about his own discomfort. Oh, God, he thought, icy fingers clutching at his gut, something's happened. Is it Naomi? Simon? William?

He bolted off the bed and grabbed Jim's robe, wrapping it around him, not even bothering to find his underwear first. The words were spilling out of his mouth before he was halfway down the stairs. "What's wrong, man? What's happened?"

Jim looked up, and the expression on his face shifted, became more neutral and guarded. "Oh, hey, Chief," he said, "I didn't realize you were awake. Nothing's wrong, everything's okay."

He stared at Jim, mouth open. He didn't realize I was awake? he thought. He complains because he can hear the television three apartments over and he didn't realize I was awake?

Jim got up from the table and headed towards the door, stopping to shrug his coat on and pick up his gym bag. "I...uh...I figured I'd hit the gym early, didn't think you'd feel up to joining me, after yesterday." He wouldn't meet Blair's eyes. "I'll catch up with you at the station, okay?" He turned to leave.

The dregs of sleep and lack of caffeine conspired to make it difficult for Blair to guard his tongue; he said the first thing that came into his mind. "Jim...is this about last night?" He saw Jim's shoulders slump.

"Blair," Jim's voice was low and tense, "can we talk about this later?" He didn't turn around.

"Sure," he replied, keeping his voice light, belying the sudden ache in his chest, "but I think it's only fair for me to have a heads-up; is this gonna be another `I need you to move out by tomorrow' talk?"

"No!" Jim spun, took a few steps towards him, then stopped. His hand was clutching the gym bag so tightly that his knuckles showed white, but his expression was flat and his eyes were hooded. "I just think..." He exhaled wearily, rubbed his forehead. "Couldn't we just pretend that last night didn't happen?"

Blair had no words for that, at least none that he was willing to force past the sudden lump that blocked his throat. He felt like he'd been punched in the stomach.

"It's just...you know...this won't...this can't work out. I'm...I'm too old for you." Jim still wouldn't meet his eyes, but it didn't really matter, not when every word out of his mouth was a blow to Blair's heart. "Look, it's just...later, okay? We'll talk about it later." Without waiting for a response, Jim turned and headed out the door of the loft.

The door shut and Blair stood in the middle of the loft, alone, feeling like he might never breathe again.

He managed to make his way over to the table before his knees gave way, and he collapsed into one of the chairs. His mind was reeling, fighting to understand what had just happened. What the hell had all that been about? That was when he noticed that Jim had left his coffee mug on the table. The sight gave him pause; he sank back in the chair and rubbed his hand over his chin thoughtfully. Jim Ellison, who usually not only washed but dried and put away the cup he used for coffee in the morning, that Jim Ellison had just left a half-empty cup of coffee on the kitchen table.

He's scared. The thought came to his mind unbidden, and he turned it around in his mind, considering it. He'd seen Jim face down drug lords, Mafia bosses, international assassins and terrorists with total and complete equanimity. It was hard to believe that he could be nervous about a confrontation with his best friend, partner and roommate of five years. Yet that was what Blair's instincts were telling him.

He stood, picked up Jim's cup, and carried it into the kitchen, putting it in the sink. Taking a clean mug from the cabinet, he poured himself some coffee and took a drink. The coffee tasted good, and it cleared the fuzziness from his mind. He leaned against the island, drinking coffee and mulling things over. "Okay," he muttered quietly to himself, "it's on. You think I'm giving up without a fight, James Ellison, you've got another think coming". He finished the rest of the coffee and headed for the shower.

He beat Jim to the station, if only by about 30 minutes or so, and was hard at work on their report on Calderon when Jim arrived, bearing a 20-ounce latte in what Blair took for an unspoken peace offering. He accepted the coffee, and didn't say anything about last night or this morning, keeping the conversation between them light and focused on business. At first Jim's voice was flat and his expression stiff and wooden, but as the morning went on Blair could feel him relaxing, bit by bit.

Jim signed the final page of the report as it came out of the printer and passed it to him; he signed it with a flourish, fastened the pages together neatly, and put the report in Simon's inbox.

"Good job, Chief," Jim said, his voice and manner almost back to normal, "how about some lunch?"

He rubbed the back of his neck gingerly. "Actually, man, I think I'm gonna ask Simon if I can take the afternoon off." He saw the concern in Jim's eyes and it warmed him slightly. "No, nothing's wrong, I'm just sore from yesterday. Thought I'd go home and soak in a hot bath." Before Jim could say anything, he was knocking on Simon's door and getting permission, then came back over to their desks and grabbed his coat. "Hey, I'll see you tonight, huh? My turn to cook dinner."

He left without waiting for a reply. The afternoon should give him enough time to put his plans in motion.

He had just put the finishing touches in place when he heard Jim's key in the lock. Jim entered the loft slowly, looking tired and wary. "Hey, perfect timing, man," Blair said cheerfully, "dinner's just ready. C'mon and sit down."

Jim shot him an uncertain look. "Just gonna go wash my hands," he said quietly, hanging up his coat and holster. He disappeared into the bathroom; by the time he emerged a few minutes later Blair had the plates on the table and was pouring wine.

Jim came to the table and stopped, one hand on the back of his chair. He looked down at the table, then glanced up at Blair with a look of surprise, mixed with a faint air of apprehension. "Steak? And baked potatoes?" he asked. "What's the occasion?"

Blair shrugged, trying to look casual. "It looked good," he replied, putting the wine bottle on a coaster. "You know," he said with a slight grin, "just because I don't want to eat red meat three times a day doesn't mean I don't enjoy having a good steak now and then." He went into the kitchen to finish tossing the salad, surreptitiously watching Jim from underneath his lashes.

Of course, he'd made steak because it was Jim's favorite meal, but Jim didn't need to know that just yet. Although his preference was usually to deal with issues head-on, he figured Jim had been driving himself crazy all afternoon, anticipating that the confrontation would take place as soon as he got home. He wanted Jim relaxed and comfortable, so he could get to the bottom of what was going on in Jim's head.

He wasn't entirely sure his plan was working, though, as he watched Jim's gaze wander around the loft; from the fire blazing in the wood stove to the softly-glowing candles scattered carefully around to the stereo from which light jazz music was emanating. Maybe he'd overdone it? Tipped his hand and made Jim suspicious? But then Jim pulled out his chair and sat down, and Blair breathed a sigh of relief.

He carried the salad bowl over to the table and set it down, then took a seat himself. "So, did we get a new case this afternoon?" he asked.

Jim gave him a searching gaze for a long moment, then looked away. He picked up his knife and fork and dug into the steak. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Looks like some kind of industrial extortion. We'll need to go over there tomorrow and interview witnesses."

"Sounds good," Blair replied agreeably and applied himself to his own dinner. He kept up a desultory stream of conversation as they ate, pretending not to notice Jim's limited contribution in that area. After dinner he put away the leftovers, then dried while Jim washed.

After placing the last plate in the cupboard, he turned to face Jim, who was standing in the kitchen, arms crossed, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Blair grabbed their wineglasses and topped them off, then handed Jim his and motioned towards the living room. With a resigned air, Jim went over and sat down on the loveseat.

Blair lowered himself to the couch and picked up a large, leather-bound book from the side table. He quickly opened it to the page that he had marked earlier. Pulling his glasses down from their resting place on the top of his head, he cleared his throat loudly, then started to read aloud in a clear, resonant voice. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and summer's lease hath..."

"Sandburg, what the hell is this?" Jim interrupted, sounding annoyed and confused.

He looked up, fixing Jim with his best wide-eyed-innocent expression. "Declaiming," he replied, in a tone of voice that implied that this should be perfectly obvious.

"De-whatting?" Jim asked, eyes narrowing.

"Declaiming. To read something aloud, usually for dramatic purpose. A crucial step in the courtship rituals of most literate cultures - it represented one of the traditional ways by which the suitor demonstrated his seriousness to the parties involved." He met Jim's stare with a frank, steady gaze. "Judging by what you said this morning, you seem to think that maybe I'm a little naive; that I lack maturity, gravitas, because of my age..."

Jim groaned, rubbing his forehead. "Chief, I didn't mean...when I said that...that was..."

"A bullshit excuse that you thought up on the spur of the moment because you didn't want to tell me what the problem really was?" Blair asked, purposely gentling his voice to take the sting out of his words.

Jim exhaled heavily. He leaned back and his head fell against the back of the loveseat. "Yeah," he said quietly.

Blair closed the book and put it carefully back on the side table. "So, what is the problem, then?"

Jim sat for a long moment, head back against the loveseat, looking up at the loft ceiling, jaw working. Finally he rose and walked over to the doors that let out onto the balcony, where he stoo