Author's webpage: http://www.catmoran.com/warning.htm

Author's disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. I don't own the canon characters or concept; I do own this story.

Author's notes: Can two stories be a series? Will there be another story? I don't know the answer to the first question, and only the boys know the answer to the second.

Minor spoilers for STP2 and TSbyBS.

God Help Me
By CatMoran : catmoran@catmoran.com

God help me, I hate him.

And I don't know what I can do about it.

I hate myself, too. For being weak and making this necessary.

If I were stronger, I would just leave. Let him flounder, guideless, and save myself. He thinks he's been to hell before? Let him try to live as a sentinel who has been refused by his guide. There are parts of Burton's research that I have never shown him.

If I were noble and selfless, like the heroes of history and storybooks, I would die. The death of the guide is the only way I know to transfer the sentinel to a new guide. Incacha must have known another way, but I didn't think to ask him when I had the chance. Jim might know, but I won't ask him. If I do die, who will his new guide be? I don't know. His senses may just go dormant again, or a new guide may be available immediately. If he is very lucky, his new guide will be Simon. Or perhaps Joel.

See, I've come to a very unpleasant realization about the way Jim Ellison thinks. There are only two types of people he can trust and respect: people in a position of authority over him, and people who hate him. I'm not the first, so I have to be the second.

Sometimes my conviction wavers, but he's provided me with excellent fuel over the last few years. Anytime I feel the hatred falter, I only have to remember Alex. It doesn't matter that I once forgave him for that betrayal, it takes little effort to make the memory burn.

I hate 'them' as well. All the people who made him this way, men and women, throughout his life. William and Grace Ellison are first on this list. People he loved and trusted, who taught him the sick, warped lesson that he can't trust anyone who isn't using him.

Really, it's true. Let me give you an example.

The moment I declared myself and my life's work a fraud, I hated him with a passion. I was defenseless and surrounded by people who were about to tear me to shreds. Jim was at the station or out tracking Zeller, happily oblivious to the fact that my life was going down the toilet for him. And I suddenly realized that, as a person, he wasn't worth the sacrifice. As a sentinel, he was and still is; so as his guide, I went through with it. But as a person? He's frequently cold and hard to the people who care about him, unless everything is just as he likes. He returns hard work and sacrifice with lame jokes and primitive, territorial behavior. So I hated him.

And the moment he saw that, he became a completely different person toward me. Kind and thoughtful, he makes every effort to accede to my wishes. Frequently he seems to read my mind and does just the right thing before even I know what I want. But the one thing I most desire, he can't give me.

I want to stop hating him without losing his trust.

I think I'll kiss him today. It will devastate him. And just for an instant, too deep within myself for him to see, I can forget what we've become.

God help me, I still love him.

The End
(c) CatMoran 2000