Author's disclaimer: This is not for profit, but for love. Nothing belongs to me, so I have no problems sharing!

Author's notes: This story is for Mona. And thanks to those on alt.tv.sentinel who answered some questions for me!

Love's Austere and Lonely Offices
by Brighid

Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

Robert Hayden

I wake up to the phone shrilling loudly about a foot away from my right ear. Jim snuffles and grunts and reaches over me, grabbing the phone, pulling the cord across my body. "Yeah, Ellison," he says, grumpy and too damned awake for four in the morning when we were working a stakeout until three. I yawn, stretch, roll over and cuddle up to him, but his body suddenly goes stiff and tense and way, way awkward. "Yeah, yeah, Sally, okay, I'll be there. How long ago was he admitted?" I stiffen, too, at that, at the cold control of his voice. Sally. Admitted.

Something's happened to Jim's dad.

He asks a few more questions, scrambling out of the bed, pulling on his clothes. I am right behind him, pulling my jeans up off the floor, my T-shirt and pullover. They are closest at hand, the quickest to get to, and I seriously doubt there will be time for me to wear anything else. Jim hangs up with a clipped good-bye, pulls his sweater over his head, then just pauses, stands there looking somehow both furious and lost in the middle of our bedroom.

"That was Sally," he says, unnecessarily. "She just called to tell me my dad's in the hospital. He had a stroke." I can hear the little boy in his voice, the lost child. I want to reach out and just hug the hell out of him, but that's not what he needs right now, not what he'll accept.

"I'll drive," I say simply, and he nods, and follows me out the door, towards the front of the house. Six years ago, there would have been an argument. Now, he simply hands me the keys, touches my face as he does it, and it's all there, it's all frigging there.

Stephen beats us to the hospital, but it really doesn't matter, it's all just hurry up and wait. Sally's there, too, her face pale and tear-streaked. Stephen sits beside her, holds her hand tightly. Under the cover of our winter coats, I hold Jim's. He doesn't talk much, either to Sally or Stephen, or even really me, he just sits there, dry-eyed and angry looking, his jaw twitching in time to his pulse.

After the time his Dad got kidnapped, I thought they were working up to a real reconciliation. Not forgiving or forgetting the past, precisely, but just moving on. They caught some games together, had dinner, went golfing a few times. Hell, the old man even invited me along for a few of them. Took me aside, once, told me he was glad that I could help Jim, that someone had listened to him, believed him. I felt about six-foot-twelve when he did that. It was...good. Real good.

Then Alex happened, and then the dissertation, and he withdrew a bit. He was angry and hurt about what it had done to his world, what it had almost done to Jim. And you know, I could understand that, appreciate that. In his shoes, I'd've been just as pissed. But thing is, Jim was carrying around this huge load of Sentinel-sized guilt, seeing what'd I'd given up and not what I was gaining, feeling bad about his whole knee-jerk reaction thing. So he took a hell of a lot more offense than I did, and things started getting strained again.

About three months into our new partnership arrangement, we added another new dimension, one we'd been dancing around for months, since the Temple of the Sentinels. There was a lot of data there, a lot of pictures and diagrams. Even out of the university, I kept working on them. Figured them out. The temple was for Sentinels and Guides, together. He may have been programmed to mate with Alex, but the vision, the center of him, was...me. And from what I can tell, that's the way it was supposed to be. Once reproduction was taken care of, Sentinel and Guide crossed that last step, became partners in all things. Forever.

Took me a while to translate that from the photos. Hell. I reprinted the negatives twice, to make sure I wasn't misreading them. Then I told Jim. I half expected him to throw me up against a wall, or run out of the apartment or throw me out, or something. You know, classic Ellison. This was not something he had to be expecting.

Except, he was. He'd just been waiting for me to clue-in. Bastard.

Three months after that, we decided to move, buy a place together. A fresh start. Found a small place, still technically Cascade, but with some woods and water and land. Three bedrooms and a finished basement. We thought it'd be a good time to let our family in on our new dimension. Naomi was delighted, even bought us a really funky Wedding Ring patchwork quilt. Stephen wasn't precisely overjoyed, but he coped. Sally, bless her heart, wanted to throw us a shower or something, but Jim talked her out of it. She didn't get the whole two men together thing, but she was real good about understanding love, and giving it unconditionally. I like her a lot.

William Ellison was horrified. Not that he came right out and said so, but he withdrew almost perceptibly that night at dinner, couldn't look either of us in the eye, and left as soon as it was reasonably polite to do so. Shortly after, the invitations to dinner and golf just sort of dried up.

And Jim got madder and madder, until I couldn't even bring up the subject of his father, couldn't even acknowledge he existed. Until tonight.

Until now, sitting in a hospital waiting room, wondering if William Ellison is going to live through the night.

He's almost Jim's height, and built a lot like both his sons, but in the hospital-style bed, he looks pretty small. It's been almost three weeks since the stroke. For the first week, Jim and Stephen were with him almost constantly, keeping vigil, terrified of a second, fatal stroke. William had had an embolism, in his left hemisphere, and it had been fairly large, pretty severe. They had thought surgery might be needed, rather than the usual drug therapy.

As soon as it looked like William was out of the woods, the boys both faded into the background. Which has left, for the most part, just me and Sally. Not that they've forgotten about their dad. Jim and Stephen have both been in for meetings with William's doctor, gotten the lowdown on what life after the stroke will mean for their father. They've already hired a contractor and planner to make some changes to the house, to make it manageable for Sally and William. And Jim's been on my laptop, scouting out suppliers for household goods that are good for stroke victims.

But I'm the one on extended leave from work, without pay, I might add. And I'm the one who deals with all the ins and outs of William's life in the Grayson Care Facility, where we moved him after the first ten days in the hospital. It was interesting going at first, explaining I was his son-in-law, and the director trying to put that together with the fact that his only next-of-kin listed were two sons. Somebody's horizons got broadened in a hell of a hurry. Doesn't matter to me though, that's what I am, that's what I'll be to him. So I come in every day, and I read to him and wipe up after him and I will be the one that helps with his physical and occupational therapies, which are gradually stepping up. Jim and Stephen can't handle seeing their father like this, and I don't think he can handle them seeing him like this. He's not thrilled about me, either, but we've worked out an uneasy truce between us.

The way the room's set up, I come in on his left side, which is good, since he's not too aware of what goes on over on the right side of his body. It's partially paralysed, something called right hemiplegia, and his ability to perceive any information from that side is sort of fritzed out. I wave to him, catching his attention. "Hey, man, how's it going? Katie says you wouldn't eat breakfast today?" He refuses to eat about half the time. He's right-handed, and has troubles feeding himself with his left now, and he gets frustrated easily. The fact that the stroke screwed up his speech, his ability to string words together coherently, pisses him off even more. A hunger strike is his way of getting control of things. Right now, he turns his head away and tries to ignore me, staring resolutely ahead at the wall, like he's zoning on the soft pink of it. Another form of controlling things, by just tuning them out.

Too damned bad I'm used to dealing with control freaks. Almost got a freaking Ph.D. in one. I shake my head at him. "She's gonna be bringing in another bowl of cereal, and I'm going to help you get that shit into you, man." He rolls his eyes at me, and he's pissed, definitely gonna be one of those days. He shakes his head, makes a noise that could, if I were feeling optimistic, be interpreted as a 'no'. "Yeah, I know, nobody makes an Ellison do what he doesn't want to do," I grin at him. "But you want breakfast, you know you do. I can hear your stomach over here and I'm not Jim, so you've got to be hungry. So you can let me help you here, or you can fight me for a few hours, wasting precious time, and still end up doing what needs to be done. Your choice, William."

He makes a frustrated noise as the door swings open, and Katie brings in a bed tray and soft cereal. It's warm, but not that warm, and it looks a little too much like library paste for my taste. But it smells okay, and it's got honey on it, which William likes. "So, we're going to have another try at this?" she asks, smiling at him, her dark eyes showing nothing but good humour.

William forces his head into a slow, single nod, and I want to do a victory dance here. Small thing, such a fucking small thing, but I'll take what I can get. I take the tray from Katie and set it up for William. I thread the spoon through his awkward left hand, teach him how to maneuver it and keep it steady and train his brain on how to use this hand to get food from the bowl into his mouth. It's messy, a bit, but we manage.

The PT room at Grayson Care is nice. There's all the usual equipment, of course, but the walls are painted with quiet, pretty murals, as is the ceiling. I'm at the far end, watching Pete Saunders take William through the motions for today. Right now, most of his PT is just keeping his muscles on his right from atrophying. Eventually, by the looks of things, they may be able to re-train him to walk with a walker, but not quite yet. They are less hopeful about his hand. He's probably lost any hope of regaining the fine-motor control there, and the gross motor control might be a real problem, too. The stroke did a hell of a lot of damage in that department.

His speech is a little better. He can get words out, pretty clearly, though some of the hard sounds are still beyond him. And sentences are usually too hard for him, which pisses him right off. He can still read, and he understands what's said to him. He can even, after a fashion, write, but it's hard to read, mostly because he's right handed and all he can produce with his left is chicken scratch. Today, I just might have something to help with that.

I wait until the therapy session is over, and Pete's got William wrapped up to keep the muscles warm. I call out to him, and for a brief moment William's glance flickers over my shoulder, then flicks downward. "Beh," he says, but I know he's wanting Jim. I've managed to talk him into coming with me, once or twice, but usually he finds an excuse to be elsewhere. Stephen's by a bit more often, but not all that much, because his business has had him out of town for the last couple of weeks.

"Hey, William. Looks like you were working hard, but then, you're an Ellison, right?" I say to him, sitting down on the mats beside him and Pete. "I've been back to work part-time, this week, and I haven't been able to come by for this in a few days, man. Looks like you're making progress. More range and motion."

"Bet'r," William agrees, concentrating on getting the word out, working on making it understandable.

"I think," says Pete, "That we might be able to start working on the whole walking thing. He 's starting to get enough control in his legs to warrant it. He's been working hard, and I really think it's paying off."

"Cool. I'll tell Jim and Stephen. They'll be psyched. And hey, man," I turn to William, haul around the leather satchel I've been carrying. "I was talking to Lindsay, your speech pathologist. She says that you're still having trouble with the whole getting words out deal. So I did what I did best, some fast-talking. Charmed her, really. She agreed to let you use this, so long as you keep trying in therapy with her. It's for when you're really, really frustrated, all right? It's not a replacement or anything."

I open the case, pull out my old laptop, the one that's been obsolete for three years, but I kept for emergencies. "You can type, one-fingered, on this puppy, in the notepad program. No more chicken scratch and all that. You can also use it to help you practice putting your sentences together. Gives you some time to plan, edit if you want. How's that sound?"

His eyes are bright, and there are tears running down his cheeks, but I've learned not to notice them. He nods at me. "Yeh. Than'you," he says, and Pete unwraps him a bit, lets him get his left arm free. I power it up, show him how to open WordPad.

<yes thank-you> appears on the screen a moment later.

<jim?> appears next, with him working the shift key with his forefinger and the question mark with his thumb. It's really "Where's Jim?" but I don't have much of an answer for him, and he knows it, sees it in my eyes. His fingers stroke the keyboard idly, and the tears continue down his face. I know the doctors say this has little to do with any real emotion, that they're just little 'brainstorms', but I know, in my heart, that this one is different.

"He's coming tomorrow," I answer, firmly, confidently. And he is. Even if I have to pull a Scully and shoot him in the goddamned shoulder to convince him.

I'm waiting for him in the hallway when he gets home. "Gave your dad my old laptop today," I inform him even before his coat's off and in the closet. "First thing he did was ask about you."

Jim gets this look on his face, the 'I've got one nerve left, and you're getting on it!' one he's mastered. "Look, Chief, I'm sorry, but with you on half-time and Connor on mat leave and Brown sick, it's been crazy at work. Hell, I might have to go back in tonight..."

"I told him you'd come tomorrow," I tell him, cutting of his litany. "And you're going to do it."

He shakes his head, pushes past me into the living room, through into the kitchen. "Then you'll just have to explain to him why I can't make it," he says quietly, going into the fridge for a beer.

"No, you'll go in there and explain it to him yourself," I say, just as quietly. "It's been almost 11 days, man, and that last time you were in and out so fast you left a vapour trail. I know you're still pissed at him, and scared and upset and about a hundred other things you're busy repressing into that balding head of yours, but he's your fucking dad!"

He passes a hand reflexively over his thinning crown, and it's almost enough to make me smile. "You are so full of shit, Sandburg," he says, turning his back to me. "I'm not avoiding anything, and I'll thank you to keep your psycho-analytic bullshit to yourself. I'm not ditching my old man, all right? I'm neck-deep in work, not avoidance," he finishes, stirring the pot I've got bubbling on the stove. "You put too many peppers in the chili again."

I perch on the dark green counter, let my feet bang against the cupboard because I know it annoys the hell out of him. "Thank-you, Mr. Food Critic," I say drily. "And I talked to Simon and he says he can spare you for a couple of hours tomorrow. And it's not bullshit, you are avoiding him. As long as you don't see him, talk to him, you don't have to deal with how pissed-off you still are with him, pissed-off at the fact that he's helpless and you don't feel like you have the right to be pissed-off anymore. So it's easier to ignore him, push him away. Isn't it?" I let my voice rise steadily, push all his buttons with years of practice.

He whirls on me, and the beer goes flying across the kitchen in an amber arc. He's over and in my face, only thanks to where I'm sitting, he's got to look up a bit. I've learned to take what advantages I can get. "Fuck you, Sandburg. I do not need this crap from you, all right!"

I reach out, run my thumb over his angry mouth. "I beg to differ."

He slams his fists into the cupboards on either side of my head, but after all these years, this primitive male display doesn't intimidate me. Hey, I've watched National Geographic specials, seen the chimps and their chest beating. I learned a long time ago that in every way that counts, really, I'm the alpha here. I lead, he follows, most of the time. And I can hold my own against him. I grab his face between my hands, holding onto it even though he tries to wrench it away.

"What sort of monster do you think I am, holding a grudge against a sick old man?" he demands, his face twisted up in rage and grief, his voice a low growl in his chest. "Am I the sort of asshole who'd turn my back on someone I loved because I didn't want to deal with him?" His voice breaks on that, sounding like a rusty hinge.

I hold onto his face, make him meet my eyes, show him the memory of the loft, littered with boxes of all my worldly goods. "Yeah, I think you can be just that sort of asshole," I tell him. "When you don't know any other kind to be."

He pulls away from me with a curse and a sound suspiciously like a sob, and stalks out of the kitchen, out through the sliding door, out into the night. He slams it behind him so hard that the glass rattles and shakes and one of the framed prints we'd bought together slides off the wall and shatters.

Well, that went well.

All in all, he's gone about an hour. I'm waiting for him on the deck, stretched out on the picnic table, wrapped in a blanket and holding a thermos full of coffee. It's February and fucking wet and cold, and he went out without his jacket. When he comes back and climbs the steps up to the deck, I hold out the thermos to him. He takes it from me, and pours himself a cup.

"So," I say as the silence starts to coagulate around us. "How's the back half-acre?"

"Wet and full of mud," he says, and I can hear a ghost of humour in his voice. "And dog shit. Let's not forget the dog shit. An amazing amount of dog shit, when one considers we don't have a dog." He sets the coffee down, gingerly pulls his shoes off, and pitches them onto the mud mat.

"Ah. Didn't really need Sentinel senses to pick that one up. What were you focusing on instead of watching out for landmines?" I ask, sitting up a bit, opening the blanket and offering him a space beside me.

"Throttling you," he admits with a wry chuckle, curling up beside me, for once taking rather than giving body heat. "You don't know when to stop, sometimes, Chief."

I kiss his temple, then go back to watching the stars. The last of the clouds are clearing out, and it's a pretty damned good view, what I can see. "Yes I do. It's just never where you want me to stop," I reply at last.

We lay in silence for a time, and then he speaks. "I am still so pissed at him, you know? He's spent my whole life rejecting what I am, one way or the other, and I hate him for that, because you aren't supposed to ...to...to judge your kids. You're just supposed to love them, you know? I've always been a good person. I was a respectful kid, I got good grades. I served my country. I'm a good cop. And he was never fucking there to see all that, to weigh that against the parts he didn't like. I've tried so...hard. Spent my whole goddamned life trying. What the fuck more am I supposed to do?" His voice is hoarse with unshed tears, and he's asking these questions like a kid would ask them, like there's an answer. I pull him in tight to me, kiss that thinning spot, hold him close.

He trembles against me, lost and afraid in his own darkness, and for a while I just let him cry it out into my shoulder. He rarely ever allows himself this luxury, and mostly only in the dark, where I can't really see it. After a time he quiets, and I pull his face up, kiss the tears away, kiss his mouth deeply, wetly, putting myself into him, pulling him into me.

It's awkward, bundled up in winter clothes and a ratty old blanket, lying on a picnic table, but we manage well enough, use a non-verbal shorthand that's sprung up between us over the years. I find my way under his clothes, let my hand slip down to hold him, stroke him to arousal, and continue to kiss him as deeply, as fully as I can. I want him to know that I accept him, that I love him. That whatever else goes on outside this moment, I am not part of The Freaking World Against Jim Ellison.

His fingers bunch up in my hair, send my toque skittering over the deck, and it's like he's trying to grab purchase, get hold of something he's afraid will slip away. "I love you," I whisper into his mouth, over and over again even as my hands on his body say the same thing. He's whimpering now, against me, and it's desire and despair and longing and I take it all in, I swallow it down for him, because he can't carry it all alone anymore.

I feel him tensing against me, straining, reaching for something that is just that much too far away. I slide my left hand down the back of his pants, slip my fingers along the sweaty crease that separates his buttocks, down to the small pucker that flexes with each thrust up into my strong right hand. In one smooth move I push my tongue into his mouth, my finger into his body, and pull him hard, dragging his release from him. He shudders and shakes against me, like it hurts to let this go, and that's what this is all about. Letting hurt go.

We lie together for a long time in the silence, and he's still crying, but it's softer now, gentler. "I am so goddamned ashamed of hating him, being angry at him, but I can't make it stop, Chief," he says finally.

"You need to see him," I answer. "It's not going to go away, so you're just going to have to deal with it, deal with him, until you're both in a place where you can work it out. It's okay to be angry at him, you know? Doesn't mean you don't love him. Doesn't mean that the love can't come first right now. Now let's go have a hot shower and eat the chili I made, before you become permanently glued inside your pants, okay?"

He laughs, rolls off the table and then gives me a hand up. "I still say you put too many chili peppers in," he says as we wander inside the house, back into the kitchen.

I shoot a look at him from where I'm washing my hands in the sink, then move over to the stove. "Nah. I figured you'd end up tearing off into the cold without your jacket, and you'd need something spicy to warm you up again," I reply, stirring the chili in the pot, cranking the heat back up. He comes up behind me, hugs me so hard my ribs start making these really ominous noises.

"I love you, you know. Even when you call me an asshole." He says it into my hair, then kisses his way down my neck.

"Yeah, well, that's a good thing, otherwise this relationship wouldn't have lasted past the first week, huh?" He bites my neck at that, and I start thinking that maybe I should just turn the chili back down again. It's better the longer it simmers, anyway. Sort of like some Sentinels I know.

So, I'm watching Jim Ellison walking his Dad down the ramp, going backwards as he's talking the man through using his walker. It's a good thing to see, one of those moments Hallmark tries to get you to cough-up good money for. I'm proud of them both. Jim's been here a lot the last few weeks, having finally settled some of his personal demons about his relationship with his father. Right now, I'm the one working full time, and Jim's gone to part-time, to help his Dad. They haven't worked through much, hell, any of their old issues, but they've found neutral ground, for now, and are building on that.

I think what Jim finally understands, what he's finally learning to understand, is that just because his dad did things totally, utterly, fuck-uppedly wrong, it didn't mean he didn't love him. Just meant he didn't know how to show that love, how to share that love. Hell, there was a lot of that in Jim up until I pounded a few hard lessons into that thick skull of his. I suspect he's learning to recognize that. To understand that.

Learning to forgive his dad for being human.

William's made pretty good progress. He's a stubborn man, which explains a hell of a lot about Jim, and he's determined he's going to work through this like he's worked through everything else in his life: sheer bloody mindedness. He's doing better than anyone expected in either physical or occupational therapy; he's fighting for some measure of independence back. He's determined to be back home by Easter, and hell, I think he's gonna do it.

He's still got problems with the whole speaking thing. If he's tired, his sentences come out really slurred and muddled, but he's fighting through that one, too. He's gotten damned quick at left-handed typing, too, so he's feeling better about being able to express himself. Only William Ellison could manage to snap out orders in Times New Roman.

He's gone three feet further today than yesterday, and I can hear Jim praising his dad. Not effusive, but supportive and nurturing hidden under manly shoulder slapping shit. Not for the first time, I think Jim would make a good father. Pity I'm too damned selfish to share him with anyone. I grin at that thought, and push myself up off the wall, head over to them.

"Hey, Jim! Hey, William! Looks like you guys did good today!" I congratulate as I help Jim get his Dad back in his wheelchair. "I was talking to the Doc, and she said we could spring you for a few hours, take you by Stephen's place for dinner. Sally's been staying with him while they finish the renovations at your place, so the food should be good. Are you guys up for it?" I slip Jim a quiet kiss behind his father's back, but the guy must have some sort of heightened senses himself; he manages to turn around a bit and catch the end of it, and there's this look in his eye, this gleam. The left side of his face turns up in a smile.

"Dinner soun's goo'," he says slowly, carefully, reaching out to grab me with his good hand. "An' Blaih. Call me. Bill. Frien's call. Me Bill." His hand tightens on my arm, and it feels really, really good.

"Okay, Bill. Thank-you," I say, a little dumbfounded. I glance up at Jim, who looks about as poleaxed as me, then back down at his dad, who's got that same goofy grin I've spent the last six years loving on his son.

"Eat now, please," he says, but it's not a request, it's an order. Some things just don't change. Which is, I think, a good thing. We wheel him out to his room, on our way out to the first real family dinner we've ever had together. We definitely did good today.

An End.