Control Issues
Rated ADULT
Angst Ahead! Character rape, social issues, sexual content, de facto slavery

ONE
***
Jim leaned back in the airport chair, cracking his back and trying to pretend that the roar of the crowd and the smell of old food and stale smoke and heavy perfume didn't make him want to tear off his own nose. Control. It was all about control.

An officer walked by, looking suspiciously at Jim's sunglasses, and his long, unwashed hair. Control. Jim let his eyes drift aimlessly as though he really didn't care about this guy giving him a second look. No way would he have spotted Jim as a Sentinel, not here where most Sentinels would have gone insane from the sensory overload; however, he was suspicious.

Scratching at a spot on his arm when he really just wanted to rip his dirty skin off his body, he tried to ignore the slow circle as the officer returned to focus on Jim. Fuck.

Leaving his duffle bag on the floor, Jim stood and stretched, as if he were any other dirty, scruffy citizen who'd just gotten off one plane and was about to get on another. He could replace the contents of the duffle, so he slowly wandered toward the drinking fountain. Let the idiot just wander a little farther off, and Jim would duck out a door and find another way to make contact. So close. Just a little farther and he could lose himself in the wilds of Canada and no one would ever see him again. He'd reach sanctuary, and no one would ever be able to control him again.

Jim closed his eyes and let himself fantasize a world without screaming engines that ripped at his hearing and flashing lights and the sharp stink of chemicals. He longed for some place quiet. Some place where he didn't have to escape the police and lie about his senses, some place where he didn't have to fear getting caught and shoved into a legal system that would strip his control.

The officer was closer now, and Jim started considering options. A quick strike, and he could take out the guard, but how many people in the terminal would run toward him, and how many would flee? Jim looked at the children sitting in mother's laps and playing on the floor and thought about the possibility of a panic where small people might be crushed.

"You got a ticket?" the officer asked as he finally confronted Jim, standing not more than four feet away. Jim nodded without answering. He could take this guy easy. Instead he pulled out the dog-earred paper ticket.

"Why are you hassling me?" Jim asked in his best imitation of a whine. To pull off the act, he imagined the middle-aged hippy his unit had caught smuggling drugs from South America.

"You're heading to Salt Lake?" the cop asked as he looked at the ticket. Jim wasn't, but he didn't want to announce that he was a Sentinel trying to make it to the Canadian wilds. He had no intention of being on the plane to Salt Lake when it left.

"Yeah," Jim lied. "To see my sister, not that it's your business."

"What's in the bag?"

Jim again considered the feasibility of a direct attack. This was getting too serious. If his contact showed up now, he'd take one look at the officer hassling Jim and fade into the background. But if Jim attacked, someone would pick up his trail.

"Clothes. A bottle of vodka," Jim answered truthfully. The vodka was against airline rules, but it was a small violation and it matched the disguise Jim was using. Besides, when the headaches truly overpowered him, the booze could take the sharp edge off the pain.

"That's a violation of airline policy," the officer frowned, and Jim gritted his teeth at the unctuous and offended tone. He wasn't going to bribe his way out of this.

"Hey! There you are," called an unfamiliar voice. "Man, leaving your shit like that, on the floor, that is a great way to get it stolen. I got your hotdog, extra onions, like you wanted, but if you breathe on me, I am never forgiving you. Keep that killer breath to yourself, man." A young man with long curls and bright blue eyes bounced right up to Jim, giving him a bump with his shoulder, bare skin to bare skin, and JIm could only blink in shock.

"Hey, if you're hassling him, get in line behind me because I am not going another leg on this little journey before he takes a pitstop and washes off a layer of grime. Man, sitting next to him was an adventure I don't want to repeat." The kid thrust out his hand toward the officer. "Blair Sandburg."

"Officer Witthy," the man answered automatically. "Are you--"

"Witthy? Witthy-Witty, cool name man. Now that is a name I could have worked with, but Blair Sandburg? Oh man, let's not even get into 'Blair' which is a name that no boy in grade school should have to deal with, but 'Sandburg' which got turned into 'Snowburg' as in 'snowing' everyone to 'Iceburg,' which might be kinda cool if they meant that I was all cold and dangerous, but they were talking more lettuce iceburg than ice iceburg."

Jim could see the officer start to back away, intimidated by Blair's flood of words where Jim's size and dangerous looks hadn't caused him any worry. Opening his senses, Jim focused on the energetic man who had come to his rescue.

"Oh, hotdog. Man, it must be cold by now, sorry about that Big Guy," Blair said as he turned and held the food out to Jim again. This time, Jim took it, listening as Blair's heart pounded heavily through the lie.

"So, anyway, Witthy is much higher on the status ladder. It means noble innkeeper. Now Sandburg... it comes from Hamburg, and the family's big claim to fame is being in about a million little tiny wars over little tiny bits of land, and that is so not good for the karma, you know."

By now the officer was truly backpedaling, and Blair just followed him, still gesturing like a preacher who'd found an audience of the unsaved trapped in his church and ready to hear the inspired word of God, whether they wanted to or not.

"Chief," Jim called, "give the guy a break from the chatter, huh?" he asked with an exasperated sigh as though he had to put up with this all the time. The officer glanced toward Jim gratefully and then turned and walked briskly in the opposite direction. Blair Sandburg stood watching the retreating back, and Jim could hear the heart pound dangerously fast as he panted.

"Deep breaths, Sandburg," Jim counseled his rescuer as he put his hand on the man's shoulder. "Slow down your breathing or you're going to hyperventilate." Blair backed up until he just brushed against Jim's body, and then he struggled to follow Jim's advice.

"In," Jim whispered, trying not to attract too much attention. "Out."

"Oh man," Blair finally whispered as he caught his breath, his heart slowing.

"Yeah, close one," Jim agreed. "Magna send you? From asylum?" he asked, already knowing the answer. The hotdog Sandburg had shoved toward him didn't have any onions, and there was only one reason to lie about that--to convince the cop that Jim couldn't possibly be a Sentinel. Bonded Sentinels might be able to eat onions or walk through airports without their skin trying to peel off, but unbonded ones, even runners who tended to deal with the world a little better, wouldn't touch them.

"Magna?" Blair asked, confused, and Jim could hear the truth of that confusion in Blair's heartbeat.

"Then... who are you?" Jim asked, suddenly suspicious. The hand that had rested on Sandburg's shoulder now gripped it hard enough to make the man flinch.

"Hey, I'm just trying to help," he protested without struggling, and Jim could hear the truth of that too.

"Who are you?" Jim repeated the question.

"Blair Sandburg. I work at Rainier University. I am only trying to help you, and if you just ease up there, I promise I'm not going to run or yell for a cop or something."

Jim could see Sandburg's pain in the way his eyes tightened and his shoulders unconsciously hunched in response to Jim's harsh grip. He loosened his hand and glanced across the terminal toward the clock on the far wall. Magna's representative should have come and gotten him twenty minutes ago, and in the underground, twenty minutes late meant either they'd been arrested or they'd taken one look at Jim and something sent them running the other way. But that didn't explain Jim's new little buddy.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Chief, but let's go somewhere and have a little talk." Jim casually draped one arm over Blair's shoulder as he started eating the hotdog with the other. After two days without food, it was the best tasting thing Jim had ever eaten.

"Mind getting my bag?" Jim asked as he used his seemingly friendly arm around Blair's neck to guide him back toward the chairs.

"No problem," Blair agreed as they reached the place where Jim had sat waiting for someone to take him on the last leg of his escape plan. He bent over and grabbed the light duffle without even trying to move away from Jim's possessive grip. "I've got a car in short-term parking," Blair offered as he went where Jim guided him.

Jim used his senses to check the truth of that statement. "Anyone waiting for us out there?"

"What?" Blair demanded. "No way. Just a car and a way to get out of this airport which has to be bugging the crap out of you."

Jim tightened his hold on Blair's neck, and the kid stumbled a step before Jim loosened up. So he did know Jim was a Sentinel. Well, he wasn't having that discussion here.

"You a cop?" Jim asked.

"I'm a grad student. Rainier University. We went through this once."

"What are you doing at the airport?" Jim kept his questions soft and his expression pleasant as though they were two friends just walking out of the airport together, but inside he could feel fear cracking through the edges of his control. He turned the corner and pointed Blair toward the exit for the short-term parking. If this was a trap, at least then he'd have someone to fight.

"Right now, I'm saving the ass of this cranky dude who hasn't even given me his name before kidnapping me," Blair shot back. Jim blinked in surprise at Blair's answer.

"And what were you doing here before you decided to save the ass of the cranky dude?" Jim asked, a small smile escaping as he considered his kidnapee.

"People watching."

Jim tightened his grip.

"Hey, easy on the shoulder. Check my heart rate. I'm an anthropology student, and I'm doing this paper on proxemics and public space. I was people watching! I have a portable computer in my side pocket, and if you check, you'll see that I've been recording the distances people establish for themselves and their families as they wait for planes."

"You do this for a living?" Jim asked as he pulled Blair to a stop and looked down at the man. Blair was blushing.

"Okay, so it's not the best living in the world, but I could see an article on urban design to a magazine for $200, another to a modern anthropology magazine for $50 or maybe for a free year's subscription, and then I could get a grant for a few thousand to do a follow up study. And then, on top of that, I'll use the data in a couple of research papers at school and maybe even try to interest the airport in commissioning a larger study on how to rearrange their public spaces to maximize the available space."

Jim listened to Blair's heart, slightly elevated, but steady. He stared into Blair's blue eyes, measuring the diameter of his pupil and tracking the small movements. He breathed deeply of Blair's scent. The man was telling the truth.

"So, you're watching people, and you decide to save a rogue Sentinel and then cooperate in your own kidnapping?" Jim phrased it as bluntly as he could, looking for some reaction. Blair flinched.

"Oh man, that's not going to look good on the police report, huh?" Blair asked.

"Not really, Chief," Jim agreed. "Which is your car?"

"Black Toyota," Blair nodded toward the far side of the lot, and Jim started walking, his arm still thrown around Blair's neck. "Can I at least get a name? I mean, if the cops are going to look at me like I lost my mind, and you *so* know they are, can I at least show them that I had the brains to get that one piece of information?"

Jim pushed his lips out as he considered that. Right now, anyone looking for James Ellison would have pictures of him in his military outfit with his hair cropped short, or his jungle fatigues after being extracted from Peru. He couldn't afford to give up that advantage.

"Just call me Big Guy," Jim said as he thought about Blair's earlier nickname for him.

"Man, I'm not batting a thousand here," Blair complained softly as he dug in his pockets. He pulled out keys, and Jim held out his hand.

"Here ya go, Big Guy," Blair said as he surrendered them.

Jim approached the car carefully, searching the lines for any breaks that would suggest it had been modified. He'd heard of people getting in cars and then finding the doors locked automatically. Walking around to the passenger side, he paused with the key hovering. Standard operating procedure... put the prisoner in first. Jim considered Blair and then the lot.

A few people wandered to their cars, one man ran to the airport, his briefcase bouncing against his leg. A chain-link fence didn't really pose any barrier between the lot and the highway. If he put Blair in first, unlocking the passenger side, it might trigger some mechanism. That's how he'd rig a trap.

"Stay here." Jim gave the order and then quickly walked around the car. He was almost surprised that Blair just stood where told and waited as Jim unlocked the driver's side. He had to nearly fold his body in half to get into the seat to adjust it, and then he reached over and unlocked the door. "Get in."

Blair immediately tossed the knapsack into the back, but then he stood next to the open door, his heart speeding up.

"Man, you have an out, you have the car, so why take me along for a ride?" he asked.

"Maybe I like the company." Jim put the key in the ignition and started the vehicle. The engine whined unhappily before settling down. "You need new belts."

"Yeah, I'll tell my mechanic," Blair answered. "You need company like how a Sentinel needs company?"

"I'm not going to rape you," Jim sighed as he tightened his hands around the wheel. God, he hated this. He hated how anyone who knew his secret looked at him like a Sentinel and not like a human being.

Immediately, the car bounced as Blair got in and put his hand on Jim's arm. "Hey, Big Guy, I *never* thought you'd rape me. That is a total urban legend. A Sentinel is far more likely to get raped by someone who manipulates their senses with pheromones and steroids. Give Sentinels the right input, and they don't have the ability to say 'no.'"

"And that brings us to the next question. How do you know so much about Sentinels?" Jim asked, his hand slipping from the gearshift over to Blair's leg.

Blair sighed and pulled the passenger side door closed. "I've worked with them."

Jim tightened his fingers around Blair's knee until the man gasped and grabbed at Jim's wrist with impotent, fluttering hands.

"Hey, okay, that just hurts."

Jim let go of Blair's knee and grabbed his wrists in both hands. Blair didn't fight as Jim brought his wrists together and held them. With his other hand, he pulled his belt free of his waist. Quickly, Jim wrapped the leather around Blair's wrists and fastened the buckle before letting go.

"I so should not have gotten in the car," Blair said quietly as he let his bound hand rest on his lap, but his heart continued to beat steadily. When Jim had first grabbed him, his heart had raced, but now it settled into a steady ba-bum as Jim put the car into gear and headed for the exit.

"Here, hold this," Jim said as they approached the toll booth. He dropped his pack onto Blair's lap, hiding his bound hands. "Do I need to warn you not to call out?" he asked.

"Yeah, I saved you from the cop in there because I want you to get caught by the parking attendant out here. You've uncovered my master plan." Blair rolled his eyes and let his head fall back against the car's headrest.

"Smartass."

"Smartass and Big Guy. Sounds like a great title for a Hollywood picture," Blair answered. Then the car ahead went through. Jim pulled the parking pass out of Blair's window and pulled up to the attendant. Silently he handed over the pass.

The attendant looked at it, and then bent over and stared into the car.

"Hey, prof," he said. "You don't normally have company."

Jim froze, his hand going to his pocket where he had a roll of quarters. They'd give his punch some extra impact.

"Yeah, the big guy and I were testing responses to requests for help... perception of the counter culture, you know?" Blair answered quickly, and he shifted so that the pack half fell on Jim's hand while still hiding the fact that Blair was tied.

"You always have some weird ass-shit going on, prof. You have a nice day."

"You too, Bobby," Blair called, and then the attendant gave the parking pass back to Jim.

Taking it with a stiff smile, Jim slipped the pass back onto the dash and pulled forward into the airport traffic.

"Don't ever do that again," Jim warned as he checked over his shoulder and merged with oncoming traffic.

"What, try to keep you from hitting some poor kid who's working his way through auto mechanics school by sitting in a hot booth all day?"

"I wouldn't have hit him unless I had to. Despite what you have heard, not all Sentinels are raging lunatics."

"No one says they're raging lunatics."

"Sure. That's why in court, they're automatically labeled non compos mentis. They can't testify or control their own lives, but no one thinks they're lunatics."

"Oh man, you have serious control issues, you know this, yes?" Blair asked with exasperation. "Sentinels can go out of control, especially when they're stressed or when people do stupid shit like make them feel like they're in danger, but no one thinks they're raging lunatics."

"Whatever," Jim dismissed the argument. "So, back to my earlier question. How do you know about Sentinels."

"Do you have any idea where we're going?"

"Sentinels," Jim growled, not willing to be put off any longer.

"Hey, I'm totally okay with telling you everything. I just need to pee, so I hope you have somewhere to go, and if not, I'm offering my place because I really need a bathroom."

Jim didn't answer, he just looked over and glared at Blair.

"Fine. Sentinels. I work at Rainier, and after an article I wrote on eastern meditation techniques and how the west adopted and adapted them to fit western culture, and while I truly respect the origins of meditation, some of the adaptations really make a lot of sense given our own society is--"

"Chief," Jim warned darkly.

"Sentinels. Right. I gave a class on meditation at the university, and one of the students works at the Sentinel institute. She invited me over, and we convinced the head of the institute to let me teach Sentinels how to use meditation techniques to overcome sensory overload and prevent emotional outbursts."

"You taught the poor little Sentinels how to not throw fits. How sweet." Jim focused on the cars and not his own precarious hold over his temper and his senses and his life in general. Funny enough, he'd grown up around here. After the crash had reactivated his senses, Jim remembered as a child, his father's screaming face as he told Jim to fight it, to avoid becoming some freak. And now he was right back here in Cascade and right back to fighting his Sentinel instincts.

"Sentinels are incredible, man, incredible. They're the watchmen who are part of our culture. Gilgamesh who could see farther than any man and who fell into a trance that lasted for seven days and nights. Huangdi the Yellow Emperor was said to be able to hear silkworms in the trees and feel which soil would grow the best crops. Human civilization has depended on Sentinels."

"And yet, they have no more legal rights than a five year old."

"They work in dozens of fields. Every year, they save lives and solve crimes and help identify environmental disasters."

"All under the eyes of their owners."

"I live off the 2nd street exit if you're planning on letting me pee at my own house," Blair said suddenly. Jim saw the exit sign coming up. "And they don't have owners, they have guardians ad litem, and after the number of times Sentinels have been raped or forced to commit illegal acts or just been emotionally or mentally destroyed by those who have tried to abuse their skills, that's not a bad thing."

"You keep telling yourself that." Jim took the 2nd street exit. "North or south?"

"South to Prospect, then east. And I do tell myself that. If we lived in a society that wasn't so fucked up, our Sentinels wouldn't be in so much danger, but what would happen if some criminal mastermind had figured out your secret?" Blair demanded.

"I would kill him," Jim answered flatly, his memories providing that answer and the image of a thin faced thug holding a huge gun. The gun hadn't saved him.

"Oh man, okay, you might be able to do that, but most Sentinels are vulnerable. And the very fact that their senses sometimes cause synesthesia or make memories overlap onto current events... it just means that their perceptions can be manipulated."

"So, you're going to save us all."

"If I could, yes," Blair said quietly. Jim looked over and was shocked at the seriousness on the man's face.

"You would be happy if I drove up to the nearest police station and turned myself in."

"Yeah. It would mean I wouldn't have to worry about you. You look--" Blair hesitated, and then the pack slid to the floor as he pulled his bound hands up and let them rest against Jim's naked arm. "You look tired. You look like you're at the end of your running and you don't know where to go."

They were at a red light, and Jim let himself close his eyes for a moment. How long had it been since he allowed someone to touch him? Blair was right, the wrong person could turn Jim's senses against him, and so he had guarded against even casual contact.

A horn honked, and Jim opened his eyes to find the light green. He turned onto Prospect.

"If you think that, why did you help me at the airport?" Jim asked, his body starting to tremble with the beginnings of a collapse. He needed to get somewhere safe until he could rein his senses back in... until he could control the need to either touch or strike out.

"The guard was playing with fire, man. You looked stressed to the breaking point, and he wasn't picking up the signs."

"You thought I was going to go berserk," Jim tightened his fists on the steering wheel.

"I think that airport would have driven any other Sentinel to go berserk the minute they walked in. Man, that place was a field of sensory land mines."

"I can control it."

"Yeah, which is totally impressive. But if you did slip, you don't seem the kind to forgive yourself easily. That's my place on the right." Blair pointed to a building with a bakery on the first floor and a stair that led to upper apartments. Jim pulled in and parked the car.

"I'm not going to run... well, not unless you count running for the bathroom because the minute you unlock the front door, I'm making a mad dash for the toilet... but me walking in tied up is probably going to cause a few questions."

Jim looked at the building, and then stretched his hearing as far as it would go. Nowhere could he find anything that even whispered danger, so he reached over and unbuckled the belt, pulling it off. "Just do what you're told, and you'll get through this fine," Jim offered his kidnapping victim. Now he just needed to figure out what to do next.

TWO
***
"Man, move your ass before I pee my pants," Blair said as he tumbled out of the car and headed for the front door at a good clip. Jim might have worried about the kid trying to run for help, but he could smell the sour of urine already. Blair definitely needed to go to the bathroom.

Taking the keys and his bag, Jim followed Blair into the building and up the stairs where Blair stood outside apartment 307 bouncing from one leg to the other.

"Here, here, here," Blair pleaded as he held his hand out for the keys. Jim handed them over, and Blair immediately shoved a silver one into the lock and swung the door open. True to his word, he then ran for the bathroom, leaving the keys dangling from the door.

Jim pulled them out and swung the door closed. He liked the space. The walls were covered with masks and spears and blankets woven with reds and yellows and browns. A huge primitive painting hung above the television, surreal black dancers dressed in swirls of yellow and orange. Above, the bedroom was a loft, and clothes were tossed over the railing.

Jim walked to the table and shifted some of the books and papers. "Cultural Anthropology: the Human Challenge," "Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, Fourth Edition," "The Anthropology of Turquoise: Reflections on Desert, Sea, Stone, and Sky." Dialing up his sense of smell, everything confirmed that Blair lived here, alone, and had for quite some time.

The water ran in the bathroom for a second, and then Blair walked back out.

"I don't mind telling you, Big Guy, I was just about to seriously embarrass myself and offend that nose of yours."

"I didn't realize you needed to go so badly."

"No harm, no foul. From the way you wolfed that hotdog, can I assume you're hungry? I have some buffalo meat here."

"Buffalo?"

"Hey, it's better than beef, and way lower in cholesterol."

"At this point, I'd eat anything that didn't threaten to eat me first," Jim admitted as he dropped his pack by the door.

"How long's it been since you ate?" Blair asked quietly.

"Not that long, and I'd rather miss a few meals than give up my freedom," Jim quickly answered. For a second, Blair hesitated as though he were going to argue the point, but then he turned to the old refrigerator and pulled out the meat along with more food than Jim had seen in a week.

"Are you staying long or just using this as a pitstop?" Blair asked as he started chopping. Jim watched carefully, expecting the kid to try to slip in some hot pepper or pills or something, but he just fixed a mixed vegetable, dropping bits into water to boil. Jim thought about his answer.

"I don't know," he admitted. Sitting down on a kitchen stool, Jim finally allowed himself to feel the fatigue that pulled on him. He'd been running for nearly a year, and his resources were running thin, both in terms of money and strength. Magna was his last step, and getting to her had taken his last dollar... or nearly. He had about ten dollars in his pocket.

"Let's get you fed and then maybe things will look clearer," Blair offered. "If you're going to stay here overnight, I need to know what we're doing tomorrow. I teach a 9 am class, and if I want someone to substitute for me or even put up a sign saying I'm out sick, I need to call around tonight.

"Sure, I sleep and you call the cops," Jim snorted.

"No, you sleep before you do lose that control you're so proud of, and I will lay on the bed next to you where you can keep an eye on me or you can tie me up so you feel safe, whatever," Blair offered.

"What is your deal?" Jim demanded. He stood up and walked around the counter, getting right into Blair's space and grabbing the hand with the knife. He twisted the wrist out and away with one hand and caught the back of Blair's neck with the other. "You're awfully calm for a kidnapping victim," Jim said as he pulled Blair close and smelled deeply. He couldn't even find a trace of fear as Blair stood limp in his grip.

"You're a Sentinel. You don't hurt people without a reason, without feeling like you're in danger, or the tribe's in danger."

"You're an idiot, Sandburg," Jim snarled as he leaned closer. Blair's heartbeat sped up a little. "You're so busy thinking about me as a Sentinel that you aren't looking at the man. Look who you've invited into your home, Chief." Jim stepped back without letting go of Blair's knife hand, and he knew what Blair was seeing.

Jim had stringy hair that hung to his shoulders, making his receding hairline even more pronounced. He hadn't bathed in a week, mostly because people expected Sentinels to be fastidious, and the sour stench of his own body choked him. An earring dangled from one ear, and his clothing was worn and tight. He looked like a thug.

But Blair stood in Jim's grip calmly considering him. "I see a man who is tired beyond reason, and yet he's still going. I see someone who looked around that airport at the families, and then intentionally decided to not use his best chance at escape. I see a man who hasn't done anything to hurt me even though he's scared. I do see the man, Big Guy," Blair answered softly.

Jim dropped his hand and retreated to the far side of the counter. "You aren't looking hard enough. You don't see the killer. You don't see the soldier who snapped a guard's neck to escape the base."

"I know you're capable of doing that. I also know that it wasn't your fault."

"Because Sentinels are non compos mentis, not responsible enough or sane enough to hold them accountable for their own actions?" Jim turned his back and raged into the living room, looking out the wide windows into the blue sky. "I fucking killed a man, but no one will even question me about that because I'm a Sentinel. He must have done something to trigger my instincts. I can't be expect to control myself."

Drowning, drowning in words. Jim hadn't used so many in the last year, but now they bubbled out, and he couldn't stop them. "I fucking killed him. I made that choice, not my senses, and not my fucking instincts."

"Because you were afraid," Blair said quietly. He put the knife away and moved away from the kitchen, toward Jim. He held his hands out, and now Jim understood. Blair felt safe because he was going out of his way to make sure he was harmless. He was appealing to Jim's Sentinel instincts, and that frustrated Jim even more.

"You're putting a lot of trust in my instincts," Jim warned as anger wormed its way up through the layers of defensiveness he had built around himself.

"I am. I'm also putting a lot of trust in the man who looked at those children in the airport and risked getting captured rather than endanger them. I'm a student of human nature, and I trust you."

"You shouldn't," Jim whispered as he turned to the windows and slapped the brick column. "I killed. Oh, I've killed plenty of people--that's what my government trained me to do, but the guard when I escaped... he didn't deserve..."

"And he shouldn't have put you in a position where you felt you had to do it. If he lost control of the situation, he should have just submitted before you felt threatened."

"Excuses," Jim growled. "I deserve to be arrested for what I did. His family deserves the right to stand in front of a judge and ask him to throw the book at me because I took away their son, their brother. I deserve that punishment. But I would rather be facing a murder charge than a future where I'm never again seen as a man."

"Oh, Jim," Blair breathed. Jim was so caught in his own released guilt and anger that the word didn't sink into his awareness right away. He stared out onto the city, wrapped in his frustration as the reality slowly sank into him.

He turned. "What did you call me?"

Immediately, Blair's heart started pounding faster and his face flushed. Jim took an aggressive step forward. "What the fuck did you call me?"

"Jim. I called you Jim," Blair said softly, his hands coming up in a gesture of surrender. Jim felt the sides of the trap.

"You son of a bitch," he stepped forward and grabbed Blair's raised hand, yanking him out of the chair and dropping him stomach down on the couch. Blair grunted as he landed, but he didn't fight as Jim wrenched his hands behind his back. For the second time, Jim started winding the leather belt around Blair's wrists.

"Man, that is going to hurt. The coffee table. You'll find stuff," Blair said, his words muffled by the couch cushion. Jim ignored him and tightened the belt even more, buckling it so tightly that the skin around the leather turned white.

Once that was done, Jim pulled on the top of the chest that Blair used as a coffee table. It didn't move.

"The key is under it," Blair said as he turned his head toward Jim. Despite the tightness of the belt, he didn't complain as Jim retrieved the key and unlocked the chest. Sentinel restraints. Soft, leather padded restraints with hardened steel shackles and chains.

"You son of a bitch." Jim picked up a wrist restraint and looked at it. Blair intended to use this on him.

"You have back up," Jim said with confidence.

"They should have been here by now."

"Escape routes," Jim asked, not sure that he could catch Blair in any lie, but he needed information.

"We have your picture. We arrested a woman named Maggie Little three days ago. That's where we got your contact information, so she's your Magna, and she's sitting in jail after being denied bail. You've stayed under the radar because you look so different and do things that require so much control, but now that we know you have that control, you'll never make it across the border."

Jim tightened his hold on the shackle as fear crawled up into his belly.

"Jim, listen to me. You're tired. You've been running too long. You're starting to lose control, that's why I stepped in at the airport. Come on, man. You're tearing yourself up about one guard who rushed you when you were wild with panic. If you had taken a swing at that officer, if you had caused a riot in the terminal and some kid had gotten killed, would you be able to live with yourself?"

"Shit."

Jim turned and looked back out the window at a freedom he could feel slipping away.

"If you'd just let me get to the wilds, get up to Canada."

"And become prey? The Mounties do their best, but you guys scatter into the mountains, and they can't protect you. Lowlifes from a dozen countries sneak into Canada to hunt for and capture desperate Sentinels. You'd either be grabbed and manipulated into working for someone who wouldn't care about the fact that you don't want to hurt people, or you'd starve to death."

"Starving to death would be better," Jim announced as the adrenaline drained from him, making his legs shake so badly that he had to sit. He ended up on the floor.

"No, it wouldn't. You're a decorated hero. Working with the military or the civilian police or maybe a search and rescue team, you could have a life again."

"A life owned by someone, a life I have no control over." Jim shuddered as he considered that he might not have a choice, not unless Blair had a lot of drugs in the place. He'd considered that choice early on, and he reconsidered it now.

"A life with a guardian who would keep others from manipulating you," Blair disagreed. "And you would have the right to report any abuse, to request a new guardian, or to have a judge review any decision a guardian made. It isn't slavery, Jim."

"It's close enough."

Blair didn't answer for a long time. "My hands are really hurting, Big Guy. The shackle keys are in the trunk, and I don't have any spares lying around, so it'd be safe to use them on me."

Jim scrubbed his face with the heel of one hand. Shit. They had his picture. They'd cut off his escape route, and he didn't have the money to buy another. And Sandburg was right, he couldn't forgive himself if he got someone killed. Fuck. Jim considered and dismissed a dozen plans. If he had money, if he could count on his father to help, if Magna hadn't been arrested, if they didn't now have a better profile of him. If if if if.

Jim closed his eyes and dismissed plan after plan, each more dangerous than the last until he could only see one choice... the worst choice. Standing heavily, Jim pulled the belt off Blair's wrists. Blair just lay there, his hands behind his back as he waited.

"Was any of it true?" Jim asked quietly.

"Every word, man. You can't lie to a Sentinel. I do work at the University. I was doing a study on people. I did get into Sentinels through the meditation class. However, one of the Institute instructors convinced me to work as a consultant trying to help bring Sentinels in. From there, I got a part time offer from Cascade PD. I'm a detective in the Sentinel division working at both bringing Sentinels in and retrieving Sentinels in abuse or trafficking cases." Blair still didn't move as he lay on the couch with his hands clasped behind his back.

Okay, Jim remembered his training... consider it a capture situation and make the captor sympathize, and despite the fact that Blair still lay on the couch submissively, Jim knew he'd lost the power here. The cops had caught him. Soon enough, he'd be chained, and it was time for a new plan. "I hate being dirty," Jim said quietly as he looked down at the cop.

"Yeah, if I hadn't seen a picture of you, and if I hadn't watched you for so long in the terminal, I never would have spotted you as a Sentinel, and I'm a professional."

"I almost made it."

"Yeah. You have a lot of control, man. Seriously bad-ass control."

"There's no way out of this." Jim didn't mean it as a question. With ten dollars, no contacts, and slipping control, he knew when he had reached the end.

"No, there isn't. But that's not the end of the world." Blair's heart beat steadily, pounding out the truth of that statement, at least the truth in his mind.

"Do I have time to take a shower?" Jim cringed at having to ask permission, but that would be his life now. He would have to ask permission for everything. Blair smiled up at him and let his hands slide down to the couch.

"Hand me the phone, and I can get you the time," Blair offered, slowly moving to sit up. "You're doing it, coming in on your own?"

Jim took an unsteady breath; he wanted to scream no. He wanted to tell Sandburg exactly what he thought of his pathetic attempts to 'help.' Instead Jim walked to where a cordless phone sat on the counter. Picking it up, he tossed it across the room before walking to his pack. He had a plastic bag with one outfit in it. He'd planned to change into it when he reached Canada. Instead, he pulled it out now.

Blair dialed, and Jim could identify each number by tone.

"Hey, Rick. Nice job on backup," Blair complained into the phone. "Good to know you have my back."

"Yeah, well you're the one who got in the car with the Sentinel. There was an injury accident on the freeway, and we had to stop. You at the loft?"

"Yeah, it's all cool."

"So, want us to put out the picture before he gets too far?"

"No, he's still here," Blair said. "He's tired. He's ready to come in, but he just needs some time to get cleaned up and changed."

"Blair." The voice at the other end sounded exasperated, and Jim was glad that he wasn't the only one frustrated by Blair.

"Hey, it's okay. He's just getting ready to take a shower, and then we're going to eat something before we come in."

"Let me call the SI."

"No. Look, he's cooperative, and we don't need more people trooping in here."

"You mean, you actually remember that he's dangerous? That's new."

"Rick," Blair warned. Jim gathered the last of his toiletries and headed for the bathroom. Even there, with the hot water running, Jim could hear both sides of the phone conversation. Part of Jim demanded that he run, even if he didn't have anywhere left to run to. Another part just wanted to sink down to the floor and make them carry him to some institute. However, he couldn't very well argue that he had a right to control if he didn't exercise it. If this was the end, he'd face it with a little dignity, not get carried out, stinking and looking like some bum.

"Blair, can he hear us right now?"

"Probably."

"Turn on the white noise gen."

"No."

"Blair." Oh, this Rick sounded furious. Give 'em hell, kid, Jim thought as he stripped off his clothes which were stiff with dirt and sweat. He must have been a joy to sit next to on the plane, but at least his own smell had helped block some of the nauseatingly strong scents from the jet fuel and the perfumes.

"He's under control, and I'm not going to do something that makes him wonder what we're talking about."

"Blair, this isn't the case to lose perspective on."

Jim stepped under the shower.

"He and I talked about Richardson." Richardson? Who the hell was Richardson? The guard he'd killed, Jim realized. Guilt swirled with the rising steam of the shower.

"You talked to him?"

"Yes, we talked. He thinks he should be charged with murder. He thinks he should be going to prison instead of to an SI."

"But despite that, he killed the guy."

"Yeah, he did. But when I blew my own fucking cover, he didn't hurt me at all. We talked about options and the fact we have his picture and his only contact. I told him the truth and yet, instead of striking out, he just asked to take a shower. He asked for enough time that he didn't have to go to SI stinking and hungry."

"Damn it, Blair, tell me you didn't promise him more time."

"Just wait for me to call you back."

"Fuck. Sandburg, you are a walking disaster. Have you *ever* met a rule you didn't consider it a personal challenge to break?"

"It's what makes me so good, and you know it," Blair countered. "Watch the outside if you want. Put a Sentinel out there. Hell, use heat tracking scans if you want because we're not going anywhere, but you need to give him some time to adapt."

"Blair, you know SOP."

"I'm not slipping him some drug just because that's *your* standard operating procedure. I don't believe in slipping them drugs."

"Well, you can't do it now that you've talked about it around Sentinel hearing. No way would you get the Rypno in him now."

"I wouldn't slip it to him anyway."

"It would be easier on him, to not have to deal with the transition."

"No, it'd be easier on us, but he's earned the right to make his own choice on this one. I'll offer him the pill. After all, he's coming in voluntarily."

"After how many months and how many states? He wouldn't be coming in if he wasn't trapped, so I'm not willing to say that Ellison is coming in on his own."

"It's my report, and I am. He's covert ops. If he truly wanted out of this, he could kidnap me and get away."

"Don't give him any ideas."

"He won't do it," Blair said confidently. In the shower, Jim listened to his life dissected, and couldn't come up with the energy to care. "He's running out of that legendary control of his, and he won't risk other people getting hurt."

"You're putting a lot of faith into this one."

"Yeah, I am, but I haven't ever been wrong before."

"The problem, kid, is that on the day you are wrong, we aren't going to know it until your head is cracked open like an egg. So, how long are you planning on playing house up there?"

"He's showering now. My guess is that he wants to shave and cut his hair, and then I've started dinner. Oh SHIT."

"Blair? Blair?" Rick called over the phone. Jim shut off the shower as he listened to Blair's heart race. "Fuck, I turned the vegetables to fucking mush. Shit. Since I have to start dinner over, it may be a while."

"Sandburg." Rick sounded livid. "If you ever scare me like that again, I will personally haul your ass out to the obstacle course and make you run it until your hair falls out from exhaustion."

"Right. No problem," Blair answered absentmindedly. Jim could hear pans clicking and hot water being drained into the sink with a hiss.

"Oh for god... Blair, be careful."

"Always. Remember, I'll call when we're ready," Blair answered blithely as he clicked the phone off. Jim grabbed a towel and scrubbed himself, still feeling phantom dirt clinging to him after so many weeks.

Opening the medicine cabinet, Jim found scissors sitting on the shelf next to a nearly full bottle of migraine medicine. As the fog from the hot water made his figure almost ghostly in the mirror, Jim stood with the bottle in his hand fighting through a thousand feelings. This was it. The end. Jim just wasn't sure the end of what.

THREE
***
"Whoa, you clean up nice," Blair said as Jim walked out of the bathroom self-consciously rubbing his military-short hair. "You look like that picture from that news magazine."

"I was exhausted and shell-shocked when they took that picture," Jim pointed out dryly. It was strange, thinking that Blair had studied him, read all those old files, and yet he had stood under Jim's hands without flinching.

"I hate to tell you, but you're pretty exhausted and shell-shocked now." Blair dumped the vegetables into a strainer as the meat browned in the pan.

"You've won, Sandburg. All I want is a last meal for the condemned man."

"Jim."

"I mean it," Jim warned. Even with his plan in mind, his body struggled against the idea of surrender, even a temporary one.

"Okay, no problem. I just think you need some food and some sleep and things won't look as bad."

"Is this your idea of dropping it?" Jim asked as he sank into the chair at the table. All the anthropology books and papers had been dumped on one chair, and place mats set out. Blair came over with two plates, rolls and vegetables already on them.

"Yep. Rick tells me that I am constitutionally incapable of dropping anything."

"Rick's right," Jim answered as he took a bite of the roll.

"So, what do you want on your burger?" Blair asked from the kitchen.

"The works," Jim answered. "Except onions," he amended that after a minute. The room wavered, colors flashing neon for a second before they calmed back down into more normal colors.

"Man, you are not getting the onions or the jalapenos, not even if you ask for them." Blair came in with two burgers, and put one on Jim's plate. "Something wrong with the food?"

"What?" Jim noticed he'd stopped eating. He took another bite of his roll and used his fork to stab some vegetables. "It's fine."

"Okay. Right." Blair didn't sound convinced. He dropped the second burger on his own plate and then went over to his stereo, hitting the button. Jim could hear the wild pops and hisses as the electronics started up, and then soft Jazz filled the room.
Jim closed his eyes as the music first soothed him, and then it started slurring. First the low end disappeared leaving only the high notes screeching. The bass came back sounding like the music was underwater, warbling and wavering.

"It doesn't sound right, does it?" Blair asked quietly as he came back to the table and sat down next to Jim.

"It's fine. I just don't like Jazz," Jim lied. Blair snorted.

"Oh man, you are just something. It's called a sensory storm, by the way."

Jim sighed as he put down his fork. "It's called a pain in the ass," he said. "It's happened before. It'll pass."

"You should not have to go through this without help. You need constant input... a stable environment with no big variations in temperature, light or sound. Sometimes the trafficked Sentinels we find suffer from sensory storm, a dozen little spikes that don't last long, but they really screw with your head."

"My head is fine, Sandburg," Jim said as he took a bite of burger, the mouthful turning from mush to grit and then finally to meat as he chewed. The worst part was that Jim knew Blair had a small kernel of truth in there. Jim didn't need a guardian, he didn't need someone to tell him what to do and where to work and how to live, but he did need someone to stand between him and the world. He needed Incacha. But that door was closed, and Jim wasn't about to open that old wound.

"I could show you a meditation technique," Blair suggested gently.

"Is this how you bring in runners? Talk them into submission?" Jim demanded sarcastically as he dropped his fork. Blair raised his palms.

"Fine. Dropping it." He took a big mouthful of burger, and for the first time, Jim got some actual silence. He used it to focus on eating. Even if he felt like curling up in the corner until this sensory storm passed, he needed food for strength. Eat, make the captors sympathize with him, gather resources, and escape. Jim just wished this plan didn't include him having to go through Sentinel training. He glanced over toward the shackles still sitting on the coffee table.

"If you take the Rypno, you won't have to remember the transfer," Blair whispered. Jim glared.

"You aren't good for digestion."

"Your fears aren't good for digestion, and I've always thought that truth is a great killer of fears."

"Free choice is a great killer of fear," Jim argued, "but as a Sentinel, I won't get much of that."

"Once you go through training, you'll get the portfolios of anyone applying to be your guardian ad litem."

"And while I can tell the judge that I might prefer one or the other, the judge has the final say on who he thinks would do the best job of taking care of me," Jim finished. "I know the routine, Sandburg."

"Man, it's not that different from the military, and you've been in the service most of your life."

"I had a choice, Sandburg. I could leave the service. If they gave me an order that I couldn't in good conscience follow, I could refuse."

"And guardians don't have absolute power either. You can always appeal a decision, and case workers check up on you."

"Yeah, I appeal, and a judge decides whether or not I have to follow the order. It's not the same, Sandburg. A man is defined by his code, his ethics, but now I'm told that I don't have even the most basic right. I have only the right to ask someone else for help. That's not how men live."

"Jim."

"I was a captain. I commanded men in the field and made snap judgments that affected thousands of lives. I held the Chopec pass for eighteen months. I didn't do that because someone ordered me to, but because I thought it was the right thing. After my men died in that wreck, I led the Chopec, trained them in how to deal with modern weapons. I made decisions that risked my life and others'."

"Not as a Sentinel," Blair interrupted gently.

"Yes!" Jim exploded up from his chair, slapping his hands on the table. "Yes, as a Sentinel. The Chopec knew what I was immediately. They never even questioned my judgment. They followed me into battle, trusting me to use my senses to keep them safe. They trusted me." Jim trembled as struggled against the rage that lay just below his control. He couldn't afford it now. He couldn't afford anger when he had a job to do. He had to survive and escape.

"But zoning... spiking." Blair sounded confused now. "Sentinels always have guardians."

Jim closed his eyes against the fear that wrapped around him, setting into his bones. "Companions," he said gently. "Sentinels have companions who watch their backs. They have friends who will give them an anchor when the senses get to be too much. They don't have guards."

"You had a Chopec companion?"

Jim walked to the window and stared out. Letting his hearing stretch, he could identify the police radios and the sound of people surrounding the building. And now the trap had truly closed. Somewhere down there, a police Sentinel was listening to him, reporting everything he said to his handler.

"I worked with the medicine man. The chief led the tribe with Incacha's help most of the time, but when the men went to battle, I led them with Incacha's help. He would anchor me, have the men defend our position when I zoned, make sure that I didn't stretch too far. But in the end, he left me to make the choices that sent warriors to their deaths. And I lost some. I remember the name of every warrior I lost. But we took out a lot more of them. We shut down the Chopec pass and forced the drug dealers out of the area."

"As a full Sentinel?" Blair had stood at some point, and now he stood in the middle of the living room.

"Yes, as a full Sentinel. When the helicopter came to take me out, I wanted to hold on to Incacha. I wanted to either drive the soldiers away and stay there, or I wanted to drag him into this world with me."

"You bonded." Blair hoarsely whispered the words, his heart racing.

"Yes," Jim admitted, unable to even admit it to himself before now. He could feel the hole where Incacha had been ripped from his soul.

"Oh, Jim. Jim, you can't blame yourself for Richardson, not when you were suffering from a broken bond and desperate to find your guardian."

"My companion," Jim corrected him. "Incacha was my companion, but he told me that our time was limited. He said that another waited for me, and that when my people came, I had to leave his land."

"He rejected you." Blair breathed the words, shock clearly rolling through him. Jim glanced over and could see Blair turn pale.

"He made a choice. I'm not some fragile flower that is going to be crushed if you don't handle it carefully enough," Jim snorted as he focused back out the window. Below, he could hear the other Sentinel repeating his words. Someone called for a background check and medical records from when Jim had first been taken into custody. Jim knew they'd find what they wanted: physical evidence of a Sentinel suffering through a broken bond.

"You're strong," Blair said carefully. "But Sentinels..."

"Chief, cut out this Sentinel shit, and look at Captain Jim Ellison, Seventh Troop, Army Rangers. I survived just fine. And despite what you think, I'm not about to fall to pieces over losing my first companion."

"Jim, I...."

"Come on, Chief, you're the anthropology major, you're the one who's a great observer of human nature. Look at me. Think about how I was in the airport."

"Totally impressive. I'm not saying you weren't because you were so totally impressive, but you were still losing control."

"I was keeping control," Jim corrected him. "And I am keeping control, even though I can hear them out there. I'm keeping control. When they come in here and put chains on me, I will keep control."

"But a Sentinel needs..."

"A Sentinel needs a companion, someone who will anchor me when I spike or zone because those aren't controllable. If I use my senses, I risk that, and I need someone to be there to help me through that," Jim admitted softly, "but I'm not a child who needs someone to make decisions for me."

Blair didn't answer, and Jim turned and looked at him. Blair stood in the middle of the living room, and Jim could see that some little part of Blair had heard him, had processed the information. It was too late to help Jim, but maybe the man would think twice before capturing his next Sentinel.

The phone rang.

Jim and Blair continued to look at each other for several seconds before Blair shook, as though struggling to break some spell, and he grabbed the phone from the couch.

"Hello?"

"Blair, things are getting out of control. We're coming up."

"No," Blair immediately answered. "He's having a sensory storm. We just need to wait until it clears because it's not fair to drag him out into the sunlight with his senses going wild.

Jim turned back to the window, able to hear Blair's boss, Rick, both through the phone and downstairs on the first floor. It made an odd echo in his head.

"I don't like the way this conversation is going."

"Then we'll stop having the conversation. I tried to get Sandburg to shut up before, but I wasn't all that successful," Jim said in a slightly louder than normal tone as he walked back to the table and picked up the burger. His stomach churned, but he took a bite, ordering his body to relax and follow through on the plan. He could hear the other Sentinel repeat his words to Rick.

Rick laughed. "He has your number, Sandburg."

"He also has senses that are making it hard for him to even eat when he hasn't had food for days. He needs some time."

"Blair."

"Use the shackles," Jim said quietly after swallowing around the fear lodged in his throat. They would shackle him anyway, but maybe he could buy a few more minutes here before having to face some Sentinel Institute.

"Jim." Blair breathed the word.

"Blair, don't try it, we're coming up now. Even the most stable sometimes loses control when you try to shackle them."

Jim closed his eyes, nauseous as he realized his offer had backfired. Now they would come in here and drag him out. God, he wasn't ready to face that yet.

"Jim," Blair said softly. He opened his eyes and found Blair there with the shackles. Prickles of fear swept over him, but he held out his hands and Blair locked the padded restraints around his wrists quickly.

"He's shackled, and you don't need to come up," Blair said into the phone. Jim looked down at his chained hands and struggled to deal with reality. He was a prisoner, a prisoner of war even if no one else in the universe saw it that way. And as a prisoner of war, he had a duty to escape, but he wouldn't succeed if he lost control now.

"Blair Sandburg, consider yourself on report!" Footsteps still charged up the stairs, and Jim let his hands slide down into his lap. He could do this.

"And you charging up here yelling is not standard protocol either, Yaden. Just calm down because he was fine with the shackles, but you yelling is about ready to send him into a zone."

Jim smiled grimly. So the kid thought he was fine with the shackles. He wasn't the student of human nature he thought he was. A warm hand rested on his shoulder, and Jim fought with the urge to brush it away and the urge to press himself to that warmth. He recognized that feeling: the Sentinel's demand for a connection.

He stood. He couldn't let himself get attached, not now. Leaving Sandburg behind, Jim walked to the door and opened it. Like he expected, men stood outside, one with a tranq gun pointed at him. Jim raised his shackled hands, showing that he didn't intend to fight. A tall man, slender with a pock-scarred face stepped forward.

"James Ellison, I'm charged with taking you into custody pending a determination of your status in court."

Since he'd run out of words, Jim nodded and held still when another officer stepped forward and attached two lengths of chain to his shackles. An officer would walk on either side of him, holding the leashes. It would make running nearly impossible.

"If you have a guardian ad litem or a person you wish to act as guardian ad litem, you have the legal right to notify them of your location. Do you wish to contact anyone?"

"No."

Another officer appeared with thicker shackles, and Jim closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as the woman carefully bent down to lock them around his ankles. The two officers who controlled the leashes to his shackles watched him carefully.

"If you have family members you wish to notify of your situation, you have the legal right to notify them. Do you wish to contact anyone?"

"No."

A neighbor opened a door and peeked out through the slit as the female officer now searched Jim for any weapons. He hadn't bothered trying to hide one.

"If you have a job or legal obligations that would require you to appear in person, you have the legal right to contract your employer, lawyer, or any representative thereof. Do you wish to contact anyone?"

"No."

The neighbor slammed the door.

"If you have legal actions pending against you, the outcome of your Sentinel status may impact that action. Is there any court or legal representative we need to contact in your behalf?"

"No."

Jim stood motionless as Rick read him.... well, they weren't actually his rights, they were more like the rest of the world's right to not be inconvenienced or worried by his sudden disappearance. He certainly didn't have the right to challenge the legality of the entire mess.

"Jim."

Jim turned and looked at Blair whose certainty had somehow evaporated in the last few minutes.

"It's okay, kid," Jim shrugged, the motion tugging on one of the tight leashes held by the officers.

"Are you ready to go?" Rick asked, pulling Jim's attentions back to the other officers. He stared coldly at Blair's boss. Eventually, Rick nodded at Jim's stubborn silence.

"Okay, let's get home, folks," Rick called. The officers quickly arranged themselves. One of the leash holders went in front of Jim, the other behind. The man with the tranq gun took position behind the rear leash-holder. Rick headed for the stairs, the woman officer with him. Three more officers walked behind tranq guy. In the middle, Jim walked with heavy steps.

The whole group moved slowly on the stairs, and the rear leash-holder put a steadying hand on Jim's arm as he slowly walked the stairs. If he were going to make a move, their very caution with him made them good targets, but Jim didn't like his odds of being able to get the keys, free himself, and escape before they tranqed him. Better to stick with the plan.

At the bottom, Rick stopped. "If your sensory storm is still going on, the Rypno is your best bet to avoid some serious pain."

"I'm fine," Jim said, his eyes focused on the open door and not the crowd of officers all focused on controlling him. A familiar scent drifted past him, and he turned to see Blair standing near the bottom of the stairs, leaning on the railing and looking like a lost child. No wonder the kid had fooled him; he didn't look much like a cop with those wide, worried eyes.

The officer in front pulled on Jim's chained hands, and he turned back toward the door, walking where they directed him. The sunlight made him flinch back, and everyone paused as Jim blinked away the sparkles and flares that almost blinded him.

"Man, he's having a sensory storm. This is so not cool."

"If you'd given him Rypno, he'd be comfortably out cold."

"I'm fine," Jim growled, cutting off the argument, and both men fell silent as the guards started moving again, Jim let the pressure on his cuffs lead him out into the sunshine. A large blue van with "CPD: Sentinel Division" painted in white waited by the curb, and Jim walked straight toward his greatest fear, using his control to restrain his overwhelming need to snap the necks of everyone between him and the Canadian border. He'd come so very close to freedom, but sometimes life just didn't work out that way he wanted, no matter how much control he had.

FOUR
***
"I'm Sam Nunez," a man said. Jim could smell him over the scent of the flowers growing under a sunlamp against the back wall and the warm dirt and the cold concrete of the walls.

"Good for you," he answered as he lay on his bunk facing the light brown wall. The intake examination last night had frayed his ability to control his anger, and right now all he wanted was to close his eyes again and block out this world. He could still smell the sweet Sentinel-approved soap clinging to his skin. He'd showered in front of a lot of people in the service, and he'd long ago gotten over any need for privacy, but having three handlers stand at the edge of the room watch him had made him grit his teeth.

"What would you like me to call you?"

"Right now, I couldn't give a rat's ass what you call me," Jim snapped, "and any attempt to try and make me feel like I have some control when I clearly don't is going to be wasted on me."

"Okay, Mr. Ellison, I can imagine that you're fairly frustrated right now."

"You think?" Jim knew he shouldn't be doing this. He should be trying to convince them that he was going to be a good little boy. He should be smiling at their shit and spreading his legs farther for the Sentinel doctor who ran hands over his body looking for any rashes or irritated areas, warm oiled hands running down his legs and over his back and between his fingers and toes. He should convince them that he was ready to get his guardian ad litem and let them toss him back out into society.

"I would like to go over a few things this morning; it might make you a little more comfortable to know what's going on. I imagine given your background, that the lack of information is frustrating."

Jim sighed and turned over, sitting up on his bunk as he looked at the man standing just inside Jim's cell.

"Information is a tool when trying to decide what action to take. I don't have any illusions about having a choice here. You'll tell me what I need to do when I need to do it."

"A rather pessimistic outlook. May I sit down?" Sam Nunez gestured to two chairs sitting on either side of a small, round table.

"Knock yourself out."

"I agree that you have far fewer choices than you are used to. Your time as a non-Sentinel will make that difficult, but you do have some choices here, and you need to decide how to approach things."

Jim rubbed his face with a hand. "Think of it like being in the military?" Jim asked, remembering Blair's analogy.

"I'm not sure that's entirely accurate, but it's pretty close. I'd like to get you into classes as soon as possible. It's not healthy for anyone to sit in a locked room for too long."

Jim sat and waited for the man to continue. Nunez sighed.

"You aren't going to make this easy, are you?"

"Making your life difficult is one of my few remaining pleasures."

Nunez sighed again, and Jim gave him a not-so-nice smile.

"Let's start with some basics. Would you prefer a stereo or a television?"

"Not something I really care about."

"I'll put down television just so we can get something in here. If you disagree, feel free to say something. You've already found the refrigerator, and you can have any whole fruits or vegetables in here for snacking. Any preferences?"

"Wouldn't mind some Wonderburger," Jim answered obstinately. Nunez's pen hesitated over the form.

"I think we can skip the classes on control, but do you need to take the classes on recognizing the signs of zones or spikes?" he asked, completely ignoring Jim's non-answer.

"If I didn't know what they felt like, I never would have made it this far." Jim stood up and walked to the sink, pouring himself a glass of water that didn't have even a hint of chemical sting to it. The accommodations sucked, but the water was damn good.

"Meditation? Dealing with stress? We have a nice class on organic farming, which can be quite soothing on the senses."

Jim turned and looked at Nunez with unmitigated horror. "Gardening?" he demanded. "I've gone from being able to handle the stress of leading units into battle to being given classes in gardening. My life just keeps getting better."

"Maybe we should skip that class," Nunez offered as he wrote something on his clipboard.

"Maybe we should," Jim agreed.

"Okay, let's start with the required legal class. You need to know your legal rights and how to exercise them."

"I have the right to complain if I think my owner isn't being nice, that's about it," Jim answered. He tightened his hold on water glass and ordered himself to stop being so antagonistic. He wasn't helping his case, but Nunez's calm acceptance of every sarcastic remark made it just so damn easy to complain.

"The very fact that you think that suggests you need the course. A new one starts in six days. I'll sign you up."

"So you're my guidance counselor?" Jim asked, then he forced himself to stop complaining by drinking water. It drowned the angry words that wanted to come out of his mouth.

"In a way. I'm assigned to help you transition and to make sure you don't get lost in the system. We have a lot of vocational classes, and I really would like to get you into some of them. With your background, I think you'd enjoy police or rescue work, and we have excellent programs here. Police work in particular requires a lot of control since criminals have a variety of ways to try to throw Sentinels off track."

Jim thought about the similarity between police Sentinels and police dogs, but at least this time he had the good sense not to say it. Nunez waited, clearly expecting a smart-ass remark, and Jim congratulated himself on keeping the man off balance.

"Certainly the classes on avoiding anti-Sentinel maneuvers would apply to most law-enforcement situations. We've also had a request from the Rangers to assign you to military service, but, as you'll learn in your legal rights class, judges have very strict guidelines before assigning Sentinels to military service, including an ethical requirement to make sure that you want to go into military service, and that you have made that decision knowing what military service entails."

"I was military for 15 years, I know what military service entails," Jim pointed out dryly. He thought of Richardson's face, the shock when Jim's hands had closed around his neck, the man's futile punches to Jim's kidneys. Jim had pissed blood for a day or two, but it hadn't slowed him down as he cracked the man's neck. "I don't want to go back into the service."

"Fair enough. I just thought I'd let you know they requested you. An old commander of yours, Colonel Laraby, sent a letter the moment he heard you had surrendered."

"No."

Jim put the water glass down and went back to his bunk. It was the only place to sit other than at the table with Nunez, and he wasn't ready to do that yet, not when the most humiliating part of this whole ordeal was still coming.

"There's a class starting today on search and seizure procedure. It's run by a Sentinel and guardian pair out of the CPD with one of the highest arrest rates in the city. And while it focuses on narcotics, the basic search techniques could be applied to any number of situations. Or, if you want to get out of law enforcement altogether, there's a class on structural stability that's the first of nine courses designed to help you use enhanced hearing to check the structural stability of a building or other structure. The last course is off-site, visiting a number of different structures for field studies."

"I'll do the narcotics class," Jim said. He had a plan to get on with, and that meant convincing these morons that he would play by their rules. Sulking in his room wouldn't get him where he wanted to be. And as much as he hated admitting it, he didn't have enough control to sit through classes on structural engineering without losing his mind.

"Just try the narcotics class. If you aren't interested at the end of the day, you don't need to go back, or you can take the class later after you've adjusted some. I'll get a full brochure for you with a list of different classes and their starting times."

Jim clenched his jaw shut, and it ached with a need to scream his frustration at being treated as though he was one step shy of a total mental breakdown.

"This is the part that many Sentinels find difficult when their senses come on line late," Nunez said slowly.

"I already know what you're talking about, so I would just as soon get it over with." Jim kept his eyes focused on the wall. A crack interrupted one mortar seam, and Jim studied it with careful precision, imagining the thing spreading and flaring out until it ripped down the entire building.

"I need you to take your pants off," Nunez said slowly. Jim's eyes snapped to him.

"What?" he asked darkly. Nunez froze, obviously realizing the danger because he didn't move or speak for several long seconds as a clock softly ticked off the time.

"When Sentinels leave their quarters, they need to wear a chastity device. I thought you... you said you knew," Nunez said carefully.

"I was talking about the damn collar," Jim said as he narrowed his eyes. For a second, he glared at Nunez, and then he ripped his gaze away, forcing himself to focus on the floor as his rage swept up through him.

"Sentinels are vulnerable without a stable bond, and with your history of a broken bond, we just can't risk someone taking advantage of you. Of course, we can't risk anyone which is why the rule applies to all Sentinels outside their quarters."

"You want me to wear..." Jim's mouth refused to say the words.

"It's for your own protection."

"I thought this place was supposed to be safe," Jim said, struggling to control his temper.

"This place is as safe as we can make it. I promise you that nothing can ever harm you in this room," Nunez offered, his voice unctuous with a sincerity that might have even been real. Strangely, Jim would have preferred it if the man had been outright manipulative. If the asshole had simply announced that the chastity device was to take Jim's control, to belittle and humiliate him, Jim could have handled that better. He would have been able to simply turn his mind away and think of it as torture. Hell, it was a form of torture he'd been trained to expect in the Rangers because control over sexuality and bodily functions were key to breaking a prisoner.

"Forcing someone to wear something like that sounds like sexual abuse to me," Jim pointed out, using every bit of his control to keep himself from punching Nunez. "And for that matter, it won't stop an attacker. Locks can be picked, straps can be cut."

"But if someone tried, the staff would be aware immediately."

"So, you don't care about me being sexually abused as much as you knowing about it?" Jim asked, raising an eyebrow. That made Nunez stop for a second, opening his mouth without saying anything as he gathered his thoughts.

Jim tightened his fists, gripping the soft sheets and thick blanket as he tried to remind himself to stick to the plan: play good little defeated Sentinel, get out of this hellhole, escape. It was a good plan. Okay, it was a horrible plan, but it was his only plan, and at least ended with him free, so he needed to stick with it.

"Maybe this is too soon to discuss any of this," Nunez offered slowly.

"I want to take that class today," Jim disagreed as he stood. He started stripping off his pants, pretending this was one more military medical exam instead of a demented guidance counselor getting to degrade him. Accept the humiliation and torture without getting emotionally involved, he ordered himself. Follow his training. And no matter what shit Nunez spewed about protecting Sentinels, sexual control was about humiliation and control, not protection, so he wouldn't allow this to intimidate him.

"Mr. Ellison."

"Jim." He spit out his name.

Nunez hesitated.

"Mr. Ellison is my father, and William Ellison and I have a long and unpleasant history. I would prefer you call me Jim, but if that breaks some rule of yours, Sentinel or Sentinel Ellison is less offensive than Mr. Ellison."

"Jim," Nunez started again, "you're clearly not comfortable with this."

"And I never will be," Jim agreed, "but I don't want to be stuck in this room for the rest of my life."

"Other classes start soon; you don't need to do this today."

Jim stopped, his pants around his ankles as he stepped out of them. "I'm not going to be comfortable with this tomorrow or the day after or the day after that. If you want me to wait until I'm comfortable with something I find so intimately offensive, you might as well leave and seal that door closed behind you. So, how do we do this?" Jim kept his voice tightly controlled, but he couldn't keep the bitterness out of it.

"The gear is in the white cupboard," Nunez said. Jim walked over without his pants. The nice folks at intake hadn't provided any underwear, so he gave Nunez a floor show. Opening the cupboard, what he found made his mouth go dry with rage. He took several breaths before grabbing the plastic bin with all the materials in it.

"What next?" Jim asked, his fingers clenched around the plastic box just to keep them from going around Nunez's neck.

"I think that's far enough for today." Nunez slowly stood and backed toward the door. Jim swung around and glared the man into stillness.

"If you walk out this room, you'd better never come in here again," Jim warned.

"Sentinel Ellison," Nunez placated him, hands held out.

"I'm serious. I fucking hate this, and I'm doing my best to deal with it. I want out of this room that much. But if you can't respect my choice, I don't ever want to see you back in here again, not unless you want to see me truly lose my temper. And I don't mean go into a Sentinel rage... that'd be easy for you to dismiss. No, you either respect my decision to get this over with, or I will spend every breath telling you what manipulative fucking assholes you lot truly are... what perverts you all are. If you want me to ever deal with this shit, then you give me the right to make the very few decisions your rules allow me to make, and you don't fucking tell me when things are too much for me. You don't know the first fucking thing about me."

"You're clearly upset."

"No, I'm furious. One human being can be fucking furious with another without going off on some rage."

"I'll give you five minutes to calm down, and if your heart rate is back down, we'll keep going and you'll get to the afternoon class."

"If my..." Jim closed his eyes, one more illusion of privacy shattered as he realized Nunez had someone outside monitoring Jim's vitals. Jim turned away and retreated to the back where the sunlamp shone down on the growing flowers, individual drops of water trickling down the ridged back splash before dripping into the long trough at irregular periods. He heard the door close behind Nunez.

Closing his eyes, Jim thought of Incacha's face. He remembered the way Incacha would crouch in the dirt beside him, his hand streaking the black facepaint over Jim's cheeks as he taught him the language. "Wasi," he said and then he gestured toward his hut. "Wasi," toward the neighboring hut. "Wasi," toward the hut down the way. "Wasiy," Incacha changed the word slightly, pointing to his own house, the one he shared with his wife and Jim. "Wasi," he said the original word as he pointed to a second hut. "Wasi," he said pointing to a third.

Jim pointed to the house he shared with Incacha and Omili. "Wasiy." He pointed to one across the way, "Wasi." He pointed at Incacha's house again. "Wasi and Wasiy."

Incacha had smiled, and let his hand rest on Jim's naked shoulder. A connection flared open between them and Jim smiled back.

"Imaynatan munanki chaynallatataq munasunki," Incatcha had smiled and nodded. Jim hadn't understood Incacha's words at first, but he'd learned and listened and led when the warriors had looked for him to lead. Even when he zoned, he would wake up to find Incacha crouched beside him, a hand on his back as he hummed patiently. Jim had learned to not hate himself or the world in those 18 months, and now he held that memory like a shield.

Jim didn't realize the five minutes had passed until the door slid open again.

"Jim?" Nunez called.

"I want out of this room. I want to learn to deal with this shit because I'm not ever going to be able to turn these senses off." Jim didn't turn around, he just continued to finger the leaves of the flowers, his naked ass on display.

"This is not a perversion. This is the only way to make sure that no one can come in here and manipulate or abuse you."

"No one except you, you mean," Jim pointed out. He heard the zipper, and that made him spin around. Nunez pulled the band of his jeans down just far enough to show the edge of a leather belt around his waist.

"The chastity devices protect you out there, so the only place where Sentinels are vulnerable to sexual abuse is in their quarters. You don't have to wear it when you're in here. So, anyone who works with Sentinels in their quarters has to wear a chastity devise at work. I get the key to open it when I check out for the day. Unfortunately, in the past, there have been cases of instructors brought in for training taking advantage of Sentinels. But you're safe here. The process to become one of the in-house staff is extensive, and we are still not allowed to work with Sentinels without wearing a belt. "

"And you think that makes it even-steven?" Jim asked. "You can choose to never come back here again. You can decide to find another job, and not wear that thing. I don't have that choice."

"No," Nunez agreed slowly, "you don't. However, you were right that you do have a choice about when you deal with this. If you want to deal with it now, I shouldn't have tried to deny you that choice. I'm sorry."

"So, how do we do this?" Jim asked as he ignored his guidance counselor and looked at the offensive box on the bed.

"I can either talk you through putting it on yourself, I can put it on you today so that you know how to put it on yourself tomorrow, or I can put it on you each morning when you're ready to leave."

Jim hesitated. He didn't want Nunez's hands near him, but he didn't think he could control his temper as the man talked him through doing it to himself. "The second, where do you need me?" Jim asked quickly.

"Lean against the table or the wall with your legs spread, and we can get this over quickly," Nunez said with no emotion. Jim walked to the table and put his hands on it, spreading his legs and scooting back a little to open himself.

Without any explanation or apology, Nunez slipped the belt into place. The intrusion left Jim clutching the edge of the table and a clear plastic cup in front trapped Jim's genitals.

"The end of the strap goes through the small flat ring on the base of the butt plug so that no one can pull anything off," Nunez said as he demonstrated. He pulled leather tight. "I'll adjust the straps so that all you have to do is reach back here and get the fitting at the end of the strap up into the buckle, and it will lock into place."

Jim nodded, not sure he trusted his words at this point. Jim heard the piece lock into place, and he found himself staring down at his cock and balls trapped behind a long plastic shield. At the end, a slit allowed him to pee, but it wasn't his body any more. Behind him, Nunez stripped off the gloves with a snap.

"Any garbage with smells that might bother you, including fruit peeling or organic material, goes into the red trash chute. Paper products go in green. Everything else goes in blue. It's marked on the front of the chutes."

Jim nearly blessed Nunez's sudden dispassionate efficiency. It made the ordeal just a little more bearable. He went over to grab his pants, and walking was a new experience. When he bent over, he hissed as the straps pulled tighter.

"It will loosen up as you move," Nunez said, "So, you're signed up for the legal rights class in six days. That will run from 7am to noon for three days. At the end, you'll need to pass a test with a 100 percent in order to get the requirement signed off. The narcotics class starts in four hours. It runs from 2pm to 5pm for two weeks. Most of the Cascade police departments require you to have a 90 percent in each of your police classes in order to qualify for work. However, if you miss the 90 percent, you're welcome to retake the classes. Other major cities run about the same, but smaller towns will take Sentinels with scores in the eighties, sometimes down into the high seventies."

"Is it a test, like the legal class?" Jim asked, retying the string on his pants.

"No, the vocational classes are mostly hands-on. In narcotics, you need to be able to identify the drugs in a test scenario, and avoid or overcome the counter measures the testers will use to throw you off."

"So, it really is like training a police dog," Jim snorted. Nunez looked at him strangely, and Jim just shook his head, "Nothing."

"Jim, you're new, and still very stressed."

"Everyone's new at some point, and with you as my guidance counselor, I'm guaranteed to stay stressed for the foreseeable future," Jim answered. Then he saw what else Nunez had gotten out of the white cupboard. He closed his eyes in frustration.

"Is that really necessary?"

"When you're stressed, you need to learn to ask for help."

"And you think shackles are going to make me less stressed?" Jim asked.

"Without them, you have to exercise control all the time."

"And I have control," Jim said. He'd lost control once, exactly once, with Richardson. Even when he'd killed the thug who'd figured out he was a Sentinel, he'd done it with the calm efficiency of a soldier, not the hot rage of a Sentinel.

"You can't keep control all the time. Part of being here is learning how to ask for what you need." Nunez stood looking at Jim expectantly.

"No fucking way," Jim said as he crossed his arm. "If you want to chain me, I can't do much to stop you, but no fucking way am I asking you to chain me," Jim growled. Nunez nodded.

"There's time."

The words sank like a rock tied to Jim's soul and dropped into the ocean. He couldn't do this. He couldn't fucking do this.

Nunez walked closer, holding out the shackles, and Jim reluctantly surrendered his hands.

"The collars have to be specially fitted so they don't cause any irritation since they stay on all the time," Nunez said as he wrapped his hand around the short chain between Jim's hands. "Let's get your collar and then some lunch before class starts."

Shackled and strapped, Jim meekly followed Sam Nunez out the door of his quarters, resentment and fear wrapping around his limbs as he realized just how fucked he truly was.

FIVE
***
Blair slumped down on the bench at the bus station. This was the last contact from the Magna bust, and Blair rubbed his face as he watched the crowd. She wouldn't be coming in for an hour or two, but Blair needed to collect data for his anthropology paper anyway. He pulled out his computer pad and started inputting the physical set up so that he could gather his proxemics data.

With his hand on auto-pilot, Blair started considering the topic for his next paper. His dissertation committee was about ready to toss his ass right out of the PhD program because he wouldn't settle on one topic, but instead wrote whatever paper gave him the best cover for his work with the Sentinel squad. And now, Blair didn't know what he was doing here.

Watching people get off the bus and wander to various benches or exits, Blair made the appropriate marks on his chart. Maybe for his next paper he would make a historical study of how Sentinels interacted with society. Blair certainly knew of the widespread abuse of Sentinels all through the 16th and 17th centuries. Those early Sentinels had so often died in a country worried more and more about technology and less and less about their vulnerable protectors. The laws had been put in place to protect Sentinels as the tribal and village structure had fallen apart.

Maybe a study of how different modern societies integrated Sentinels. The ex-communist countries had very different views of Sentinels. Of course, they'd locked up a couple and let them rot, refusing to accept Sentinel rage as a defense and earning the wrath of human rights organizations around the world, but hey, Sentinels had rights. And Canada pretty much left theirs alone. South America though... the tribes still had tribal Sentinels, but the cities had pretty much degenerated into the same widespread abuse as Europe and North America in centuries past.

Blair curled a leg under him and wondered, for the first time, if any of the people around him were Sentinels. In the past, he'd always been able to spot them from a mile away... the flinching from noise and light, the tentative brushes against other people as they unconsciously sought the human contact they fed on, the fear when someone brushed against them as they struggled to decide if it had been an intentional attempt to manipulate them or just a casual touch. Jim had been the first to truly fool him.

Sighing, Blair opened the calendar keeper on his computer pad and typed in a reminder to make an appointment with the doc because this was quickly threatening to turn into a full-blown depression, and he could feel the pressure of a migraine nagging at the edge of his awareness.

Denise Churchly got off the bus, hugging her backpack to her as she edged to the side the minute she got off the bus. Shit. How could the others not see her as a Sentinel, Blair wondered as her eyes scanned the whole terminal. Blair returned to his data on proxemics and space. The team, including Richards and his Sentinel, Tony, would be locked on Blair, so Blair just needed to make quick contact with her and then watch from a distance.

Before Blair could start making any plans about how to initiate contact, he noticed her walking toward him.

"Hey," she said, "I noticed you watching."

Oh god. Blair smiled up, pushing away the realization that she was so vulnerable. If he'd been anyone but a cop, she would have just taken a step down a path that led to abuse and slavery.

"I'm watching everyone, but no one else seems to have noticed," Blair agreed as he held up his datapad.

"That looks like the station," she said, looking at the tiny diagram on the flat screen.

"Yep. I'm an anthropology student, PhD student actually," Blair said with a blush. "Well, a PhD student whose never going to get his doctorate if he doesn't find something horribly interesting to say about proxemics and public space, and I'm already bored by the topic." He shrugged. "It won't be the first time I abandoned a topic."

"A doctorate student? Wow. That's exciting."

Blair snorted. "Exciting? Oh man, not so much. It's more like one part excitement of discovering some really interesting new theory and then 6 parts boredom collecting the same data over and over and over and then 4 parts complete frustration as some old guys with degrees tell you how you screwed up the data."

"Oh." She looked around, and Blair saw his perfect chance for an exit. Make contact, break contact, let the team take the Sentinel down unless the situation required Blair to get the Sentinel somewhere private. This one didn't seem the type to go on a rampage and snap any necks, and Blair knew he should just excuse himself.

"You want some trail mix?" he asked instead.

"Sure." The woman sat next to Blair so close that their thighs pressed together and then she scooted away before putting a hand out for some food.

"You coming home, passing through, or here to visit?" Blair asked as he dumped raisins and seeds in her hand.

"I..."

She fell silent, cocking her head for a second before turning to look at him, confused.

"I'm visiting," she said warily. Blair could feel his heart give a jump. Busted. Fuck, his first time ever at getting caught, and it had to be by a woman who clearly needed help.

She narrowed her eyes, and Blair put the datapad down carefully and held his hands up in surrender.

"Hey, just calm down and I'll tell you everything."

The woman looked around desperately.

"It's already too late. The police have identified you, and they're just moving slow to keep you from panicking."

"To keep me from panicking? Too late for that," she snapped, then she cocked her head again.

"Blair?" she asked as she looked at him.

Blair chuckled. "I'm guessing you can hear my captain cursing me out."

"He says he's going to beat you to death with the rule book." She slid a little closer, and Blair could see the moment where she decided he was the innocent who need protection instead of the cop out to get her.

"He's threatened worse," Blair said soothingly. "He won't do it. He's threatened me with death so many times that if I ended up dead, he'd be the prime suspect, and he has too much work on his desk to take paid leave while they investigate."

"You're a cop," she accused him. Blair nodded.

"A cop and a PhD student in anthropology. I work with Sentinels."

"Hunting down runners who just want to be left alone?" she asked, her voice wavering between tears and fury.

"Most of the time, I work with trafficked Sentinels, men and women who've been subjected to some pretty bad stuff. I'm told I have a very soothing voice to listen to, but then Captain Yaden says that the sound of my voice makes him want to toss me off a building some days."

Denise looked at him with concern, and Blair smiled crookedly and smiled. "I have that effect on people."

"God, I thought I was going to make it. I just wanted to have a normal life. If I could have just gotten to Canada..."

Blair thought about that. "Maybe if you'd found a man who would act as your companion, who would let you lock your senses onto him without abusing you," he mused.

Denise cocked her head, listening. "Your captain says he's going to strangle the stupidity out of you," she said. Blair could imagine Rick used more colorful words.

"I'm just telling the truth," Blair shrugged. "But Denise, how many men have you met in your life who cherished and protected you without ever walking all over your feelings or taking advantage of the fact that you'd do anything for them?" he asked. For a second, she searched his face in confusion, and then she processed the answer to that question.

She slumped.

"Yeah, men suck," Blair said sympathetically.

"As a man, you're supposed to stick up for your gender," Denise pointed out.

"Oh, not a chance. I suck more than most," Blair said sadly. "I totally don't mean to suck, but I think the whole shafting people is hardwired into male brains the way the need to protect the tribe is hardwired into yours."

"Nature over nurture?" she asked.

Blair smiled at her. "Totally. Maybe," he amended himself. "I'm having a period of intense unsureness right now, so get back to me in a month or two and I may be back at my arrogant best."

"God, I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

"Just sit here with me, right now," Blair asked. She started laughing. Her laughter turned rough, sobs of breath between, and Blair let his hand rest on her arm. Eventually she sucked in deep breaths and controlled her laughter, but not her shaking.

"I don't think I could stand up and go anywhere if I tried," she admitted.

"There's a pill I could give you. You would fall asleep right here, and when you wake up, you'd be in the Institute with people who understand how hard this transition is," Blair offered.

She didn't answer either way, so Blair pulled out a small pillbox and handed it to her. "Your choice."

"If I say no?" she asked.

Blair flashed on the image of Jim, surrounded by chains and cops and Bill with the tranq gun pointed at him. He flinched away from the memory.

"That bad?" Denise asked.

"Oh man, I'm not supposed to be freaking you out. I'm sorry. I just... I don't like to see Sentinels scared, and without the pill, it's a scary transition. But whether you take the pill or not, just remember that you're safe."

Denise flipped open the small blue case and looked at the pill inside. "I don't think I can deal with being scared anymore. Will you stay here?"

"I'll be here the whole way. I'd stay with you until you woke up if they let me, but I think my captain is going to have me doing paperwork for the next month or so."

"I'm sorry I got you in trouble," Denise said as she let her hand rest on Blair's knee. Blair was used to frightened Sentinels touching him, so he let his own hand rest on hers.

"Hey, getting in trouble is like a family tradition. The only thing that keeps my mother from crying every time she thinks about me becoming a cop is the fact that I am *always* breaking one of their precious rules and pissing someone off."

"She's not a fan of the cops, huh?"

"Naomi? No."

"Tell her you're one of the good ones," Denise said. She took the white pill out and popped it in her mouth before pulling a bottle of water out of her bag and taking a big drink.

"How long will it take?" she asked.

"About twenty minutes. You'll start getting sleepy a long time before you actually fall asleep," Blair told her. "If you want to lie down, no one's going to hassle you."

"I guess they can't arrest me for vagrancy again," she agreed.

"They arrested you?" Blair asked. She nodded as he moved her backpack to the floor and slid down on the bench to give herself room to lay down.

"I was at this park. It was the only place in Chicago where I didn't feel like I was getting eaten alive by the fumes and the sounds. I hadn't slept in days, and I sat down on the grass just to relax, and I guess I fell asleep."

"You don't have to worry about that anymore," Blair promised as she settled her head in his lap, one of her hands curling around his leg as she held onto him. For a long time, they lay in silence as her body slowly relaxed.

"I guess I'll have a roof over my head now," she agreed sadly. "I always wanted the perfect little dream, you know? A house in the suburbs and a husband and kids. I wanted to be a nurse and volunteer afternoons at my kids' school."

"Hey, you could still have kids. Procreation is one of the basic human rights a Sentinel is guaranteed. Just let the Institute know, and they'll pair you with a guardian who wants lots of little baby Denises running around."

"That'd be nice," she muttered, the drugs clearly starting to kick in.

"And hospitals are always desperate for Sentinel nurses, especially in pediatrics where the kids can't always explain what hurts. Every test puts a child through some sort of pain, but you could just listen and hear a heart defect or smell the skin and identify some infection. It takes a long time studying to become a Sentinel nurse, but I bet you could do it."

"I'm not afraid of hard work," she agreed groggily. She turned so her face pressed to Blair's stomach and she curled an arm around his back.

"Tell me the truth, it's going to be hard, isn't it?"

Blair stroked her hair. "Yeah, it's going to be really hard. You're going to have to learn to let someone else take control."

Blair felt his own heart contract in fear that not everyone could do that. Not everyone could survive having all the control stripped away until only the vulnerabilities and the senses remained. Not all Sentinels survived the Institute. He knew the numbers. Sometimes, late at night, he tortured himself with the percentages of Sentinels who zoned and died at the Institute or the percentage labeled intractable and moved to permanent institutions.

"But if you try, you might find that future doesn't look all that different," Blair whispered. Denise smiled weakly.

"That's the first outright lie you've told me," she said as she reached up and brushed a clumsy finger over his lips. Her hand flopped back down, and her eyes closed.

Blair just continued to stroke her hair as Rick and the others came up. Richards and Tony stood back a bit, Richards' hand on his Sentinel's arm. The polished silver of Tony's collar rested loosely on his collarbones, warning those nearby that he was a Sentinel, unpredictable if annoyed. Unlike last time, they didn't have chains and tranq guns. This time, they had a stretcher. Pedestrians pulled back as the Sentinel team moved in around Blair and Denise. People pointed and whispered as Karen and Rick rolled the Sentinel's limp body off Blair and gently lifted her to the stretcher. Bill checked her heart rate and respiration and hooked a monitor to her before setting the control box on her stomach.

"Don't forget her bag," Blair said as he bent over and picked up the worn thing. He handed it to Karen who smiled at him.

"Blair, hon," she said sadly.

"I know, I know," Blair said as he held up his hand. "I so don't think Rick will give me a pass on this one."

"Damn right I won't," Rick growled as he carefully tightened restraints over Denise's limp body. "Tomorrow morning, my office, and you had better have that charmed tongue of yours ready because I am about ready to pull you from undercover," Rick threatened. Blair nodded mutely, not even sure he wanted to fight to keep the job, not now.

Morning came, and Blair still didn't have any answers, not for himself and not for Rick. Blair sat in his captain's office waiting for the man to get back from Records, and Blair had no doubts about which file he was pulling.

By the time Rick came in, mumbling to himself darkly, Blair pretty much figured that his job was over, and along with it, his secret fantasy of asking for custody of Jim himself. He could slip in a guardianship class between the end of the semester, and summer school. Part of Blair whispered that this was a poor way to make up for imprisoning the man in the first place.

"Okay, time for you to explain exactly what the hell you were doing yesterday," Rick demanded.

Blair took a deep breath and then couldn't find any words at all. They all abandoned him in his moment of greatest need.

"Fuck, Blair. What the hell were you thinking? Make contact, and then retreat, that was the plan. I signed off on Ellison because that guard nearly caused a fucking disaster in the airport, but then you got in the car with him. And then this shit with Churchly... I don't know what's going on in your head Blair, but you are off retrieval."

"Rick," Blair said.

"God, Sandburg, don't say something that will make this worse."

"Do you ever worry about whether we're doing the right thing by them, bringing them in instead of just focusing on stopping the traffickers?"

"And that would be the worse." Rick slapped the file down on his desk as he walked around and dropped into his seat. "Fuck and more fuck. Ellison really screwed your head on backwards."

"Rick..."

"No, you had focus before that case."

"But what if it's the wrong focus? What if we're looking at this all wrong? I was reading last night, and in the former Soviet countries, Sentinels have the full rights of a citizen. The rates of violence are actually lower than in the U.S. And yeah, there have been some pretty public cases where Sentinels went to jail for situations that we would have called instinct-driven, normal behavior, and maybe that's not the ideal world either, but are you sure we have the right answers?"

"Blair," Rick sighed as he let rubbed his eyes tiredly. "We're cops. We have to enforce the laws, and if the laws aren't right, then you get someone to change the laws, but you don't sit around discussing whether or not you want to enforce the law."

"Yeah, I get that but--"

"No!" Rick shouted. "Listen to what I'm saying, Sandburg. A cop doesn't interpret laws."

"I hear you, I totally hear you because that would be anarchy, but I'm just starting to wonder if--"

"Don't say it," Rick stopped him, holding up a hand.

"Rick," Blair said desperately. He wasn't sure if he wanted Rick to convince him that he had done the right thing in turning these Sentinels over to the SI or if he wanted Rick to give him permission to give the next one a pass.

"Blair, this is a topic for one of your papers. Academics sit around talking about the implications of laws and beliefs and rules. We enforce. If you can't enforce the law, you can't be a cop."

"Oh man, I know. And part of my brain keeps telling my mouth to shut up because I love this job. I love helping people, and I love the challenge, and I'm totally addicted to the adrenaline rush. But I can't just keep doing this, and you deserve someone who actually believes in what he's doing, and if we're going up against a trafficker, I am so right there with you, but runners... I just don't know."

"So, you'll send trauma victims from trafficking cases to SI, but you want an exemption for someone like Ellison?"

Blair got up from his seat and walked to the window. "I don't know. I guess... I guess I just want someone to ask the questions. Why was Ellison okay in that airport? If the fear-based reactions are that uncontrollable, why didn't he go off on the guard? Why didn't he snap my neck when I blew my cover? Man, he was furious with me. I mean totally ready to rip my guts out furious, but the worst thing I got was a rug burn on my cheek from him dropping me face-down on the couch."

"And if he had so much control, how do you explain a dead guard on that army base?"

"That's just it. I don't know. Shouldn't we know these answers before we go thinking that we can decide what's best for them?"

"Blair, these are questions for you to ask someone at the university. I can't even say I disagree with you, but you can't bring this into the department. We have a job here."

"Yeah, but I just don't know if I can do it anymore," Blair said, chewing at his lip. "I want to, but I outted myself with Denise. I looked at her, and I just couldn't tell her that I was there to help without wondering if I was telling her the truth. We've spent the last fifty years in this country trying to overcome racism, get people to look past skin color and then we turn around and put a shiny collar on Sentinels so that people don't even look as far as the skin... they see the silver collar, and they just stop thinking."

"And you'd rather have a world where some drunk shoves a Sentinel out of his way and gets his neck snapped? Those collars provide a warning, and they're obviously not too horrible or else we wouldn't have to keep confiscating counterfeits from the idiot teenagers."

"Yeah, but the teenagers have a choice to put it on or take it off, and *we* collar these people. Rick, that's..."

"That's the way it's been done for 200 years."

"Which does nothing to make it right. Man, I just don't think I can do this any more."

"And you're not the type to play in the backup band with the chains and tranq gun," Rick added. Blair shivered in revulsion.

"Blair, you have a couple of options here. You could quit."

Blair nodded. "Yeah, I've thought of that, and it sucks."

"It does, but option two would be to transfer to another department."

"What?" Blair looked up at Rick, suddenly confused because the conversation had taken a ninety-degree turn somewhere and he had clearly missed the exit.

"Blair, you're an incredible investigator, and you do fifty hours a week when you get paid for thirty. Every department in the station hates me because I have you and they don't."

"But, man, I just do the Sentinel thing," Blair objected.

"You do the Sentinel thing and the witness thing and the research thing, and the occasionally pulling brilliant ideas out of your ass thing."

"Another department?"

"Sanchez in Narcotics downstairs would be one option. Keller in Vice and Banks in Major Crimes over at Central precinct would be two more. You could pretty much take your pick of them, and none of them deal with Sentinels. I assume you don't have a problem going after pornographers or drug dealers or murderers."

Blair shook his head. "No, no problem at all. I'm just a little... okay, I'm totally like blown away because I never really thought of myself as a real cop. I'm just the guy who's good with Sentinels who you let hang around."

Rick shook his head. "Sandburg, sometimes you are more than a little slow. You've been a cop in here since the first day you put your life on the line when that scared Sentinel went for Karen. Cops look out for each other, and now it's time we look after you. So, what sounds interesting, professor?"

"I don't know. I mean, any of them could really have some interesting cases. Which department would you suggest?"

"Banks. I remember all the shit that man used to put our captain through when we started together over in Traffic about a hundred years ago. If anyone deserves to put up with your shit, it's Simon Banks."

"Major Crimes?" Blair thought about that for a second. Maybe he could still apply for custody of Jim, and at least then, Jim wouldn't have to put up with someone who didn't know what he could do. At least then, Jim would have a chance at freedom because Blair knew he didn't have the heart to stop the man a second time.

SIX
***
"Sandburg, this is Brian Rafe and Henri Brown," Simon introduced Blair to a good looking younger man and a smiling African American who he'd interrupted in the middle of telling his partner a joke. From the blush on Rafe's face, it wasn't a clean one.

"Hey," Brown offered with a nod.

"Gentlemen, this is Blair Sandburg who transferred over from Sentinel division."

"I thought you couldn't get approval for another detective," an older white man said as he walked up to them.

"Elijah Carter, Blair Sandburg," Simon introduced them. Elijah held out his hand and Blair took it, still feeling a little like a college student who someone had slipped into the room as a joke. "And we can't get another full-time detective which is why Sandburg is such a god-send. He's a university student, so he works thirty hours. As long as he solves as many cases in thirty as you mutts do in forty, we might have a chance to get caught up around here."

"I thought we liked always being buried in our own paperwork," Henri joked. Simon glared at the man.

"And this," Simon said, taking Blair's arm and guiding him away from the other detectives and toward a heavyset African American, "is Joel Taggart. He's captain of the bomb squad, but the man seems to live over here."

"You have better donuts," Joel smiled as he held out his hand. Blair shook it. "Actually, I'm always over here because any case that turns out to be a bomb and not just a teenager sticking wires out of a box for kicks is automatically a Major Crimes case."

"Yeah, that's a terrible thing to do," Blair muttered, blushing as he remembered a prank on Whitehall dorms his sophomore year.

"Oh hell yeah! Look at Hairboy's blush! I am no longer the only member of this department who had a little fun in his youth," Henri laughed.

Blair looked over at the amused acceptance in Joel's face and shrugged. "Sorry, man. It really seemed funny at the time. But in my own defense, I was about sixteen at the time, and sixteen year olds have a very tentative grasp of humor."

"So do people who act like they're sixteen," Banks muttered under his breath.

"Young at heart. You people just do not appreciate that I am young at heart," Henri teased. Blair smiled. So, Henri had class clown all sewn up, so he wondered what that left for him. He had that familiar feeling from childhood: starting at a new school and not really sure where he should slip himself into the pre-existing relationships.

"You were at the Sentinel division. People don't usually transfer out of there," Joel mused. Blair shrugged, and then glanced from Joel to Simon. No way had Joel heard Simon's comments to Henri and Brian, which mean that the two captains had already talked about this. Blair sighed. He'd assumed Rick would go over this with them.

"I love taking down the traffickers, but I just lost my nerve with undercover work. I mean, I couldn't lie to the runners anymore."

"If you could ever pull off a lie in front of a Sentinel, you're the greatest undercover man in history," Simon pointed out.

"Oh man, it's about not lying. It's about obfuscating and embellishing and totally believing what you're saying. And I was the best, but the last couple of cases, I just can't tell myself that the Institute is the best thing for men and women who are surviving on their own. Not any more."

"The Institute. I can't say I'm a fan of theirs, but it beats having Sentinels lose control because some drunk idiot takes a punch." Joel exchanged a meaningful look with Simon.

"There's your desk. I'll let you get settled before I drop a half-ton of files on your desk," Simon said, his voice suddenly efficiency and business before he turned and walked back to his office.

"Way to tread softly, there, Taggart," Henri commented before he pulled his partner away. Elijah sucked a breath and nodded his agreement with Henri's comments before he headed back to his area.

"Okay, I obviously missed something," Blair said as he looked around the suddenly quiet room.

"I'll show you the break room and fill you in. If you worked with Sentinels, you're going to hit a nerve sooner or later."

Joel headed out the Major Crimes doors, and Blair followed, feeling like he'd just stepped in quicksand and everyone was trying not to make eye contact with him in case he decided to drag them in with him. The break room wasn't as nice as over at Sentinel division, but the donuts sitting on the counter were definitely better than average. Blair chewed on a bearclaw, promising himself that's he'd drink two algae shakes tomorrow to make up for it, as he waited for Joel to settle himself at the table.

"Simon has Sentinel issues."

"Man, a lot of people are uncomfortable about Sentinels, and I totally understand that because ignorance--"

"No," Joel interrupted. "Simon's is a little more personal. He had a brother, well, a half-brother, a good deal older than he was. The fact is that Simon didn't even know his brother all that well. Darnell was a punk. He got good and drunk one night, and gets in a fight in some bar. When the first guy turns and runs, Darnell picks the next guy in line and sucker punches him. The Sentinel snapped his neck."

"But didn't he see the collar?" Blair asked, his stomach dropping as he considered his captain's past. He'd wanted custody of Jim. He'd even filled out the paperwork, and it was sitting on his kitchen table.

"Who knows what Darnell saw. He had a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit. But the part that always makes Simon see red... the Sentinel had a history of violence, and yet he was still out there, still walking around free."

"But, that shouldn't happen. If a Sentinel can't exhibit control, the guardian is put on notice to keep him closer. Where was his guardian?"

"Passed out in the corner."

"Oh, man."

"Yeah. The system isn't perfect, and it failed. This guy was one hell of a cop, and his brothers in blue covered for some pretty serious problems. The only thing is that Darnell paid for it. Simon isn't prejudiced, but he doesn't like the fact that this guy snapped his big brother's neck and no one even considered punishing him. He got removed from his guardian's custody, retrained at the Institute, and then assigned somewhere else, and no one is on notice that they have a killer in the middle of their department."

"The guardian would know," Blair disagreed. "And as much as I hate seeing the chains, if a Sentinel has a history of violence, especially out-of-proportion violence, a guardian has a duty to keep a Sentinel chained around any unpredictable situation, and a bar is about as unpredictable as they come."

"That doesn't bring Darnell back."

"No, but Joel, living your whole life in chains, isn't that punishment?"

Joel nodded. "Maybe it is, but it's the same punishment every Sentinel lives with every day. Whether the chains are on or not, they're wards of the state, and they're essentially prisoners. There's no consequence for taking a man's life, even though it was the fourth assault and the second murder this Sentinel had committed."

"The social worker or the judge should have removed him the minute they saw a pattern of violence."

Joel shook his head and smiled sadly. "Blair, you can't expect the system to work all the time. It doesn't."

"But, man, blaming all Sentinels..."

"He doesn't. But I thought this needed to come out now before you went and started talking about how wonderful Sentinels are. Simon doesn't need that, and sometimes, as much as I like Simon, sometimes I have to say that he can hold a grudge longer than a Christian should."

"Fuck," Blair breathed softly, looking down at his half-eaten donut. Could he bring Jim into this situation?

"Blair?"

"I have the paperwork all filled out to request a Sentinel," Blair admitted. Joel was clearly the peacemaker of the department, even if he technically wasn't in the department, so maybe Joel could help his sort this one.

"Ah." Joel took a drink of coffee and avoided saying anything else. Okay, maybe not.

"His name's Ellison. He was special ops, a runner for over a year, and a functioning Sentinel in South America for a year and a half before that. He went into the Institute three weeks ago."

"James Joseph Ellison?" Joel asked in surprise.

"You know him?"

"Of him, yeah," Joel agreed. "He's a local boy, so when my sister saw his name in the paper down in Houston, she sent me the clippings."

"Clippings?" Blair had read Jim's entire file, it was SOP on a retrieval case. He'd read the news clipping from Jim's rescue from Peru, including the front cover of a news magazine, and the much smaller stories when Jim turned out to be a Sentinel. He hadn't seen anything from Houston.

"Jim was in the METRORail hijacking outside that Museum in Houston five or six months ago."

"The one where the three guys who'd robbed the bank took a train full of hostages?" Blair asked. He remembered that case. He didn't remember any Sentinel, much less Jim Ellison, being involved.

"Yeah. Apparently he took control of the situation from the start, got the passengers settled down, acted as negotiator with the cops, all the time a gun pressed into the back of his head. When the end came, he disabled two of the gunmen in the middle of a teargas attack."

"Shit." Blair flinched at the idea of a Sentinel and teargas. The police had to pull all their own Sentinels out of a six-block radius before using tear gas, and Jim had been ground zero of an attack.

"How bad was he hurt?"

"No more than anyone else. Houston papers had pictures of him stumbling out of the teargas cloud with a gunman under one arm, and three guns in his other hand."

"But-"

"Yeah, but he's a Sentinel. They didn't know that at the time. He gave the name Frank Sarris. Turns out that was one of his army buddies. By the time the papers had tracked down background information and gotten through some military blocks to find out Frank Sarris was dead, Ellison had disappeared out of the hospital."

"Oh my god."

"Yeah, the national papers had pretty much dropped it by then, but someone from the army identified Ellison from the picture. He turned into a regular folk hero, and the whole disappearing act just made him seem like some comic book hero riding in, rescuing the innocent, and then disappearing into the night."

"But the teargas..."

"Blair, live as long as I have, and you figure out a couple of things. First, the system always breaks, you just don't want to be the one to break it, and second, people are very capable of doing the impossible on a fairly regular basis."

Blair sat and stared at the linoleum table top. His graduate degree had been on tribal Sentinel lore of Africa. He worked Sentinel division for three years. If he really understood Sentinels, they shouldn't be able to surprise him, and yet Jim did, time after time.

"I'm going to file for custody," Blair said quietly. He couldn't change his society, but he could at least give the man back as much control as possible. Blair remembered that large, powerful body laying on him, holding him helpless, and he gave a shiver. He wouldn't mind giving Jim control at all.

"Simon will deal, and if your Ellison really does have that much control, Simon will give him a chance. Just... just be careful how you bring it up," Joel warned.

"Yeah, thanks, man," Blair nodded as Joel pushed himself up from the table with a heavy sigh and headed out of the break room. Funny. One of the reasons he took this transfer was because Major Crimes would run into plenty of cases that needed a Sentinel and right now, there weren't any Sentinels assigned to any shift of Major Crimes. Now Blair knew why. Well, if he had to, he'd transfer again.

Jim eyed the chastity devise distastefully. The clock warned him that time was running out, though, so he hurried to get it on and get dressed before Nunez showed up. The man had a bad habit of nonchalantly watching Jim while discussing test scores and schedules and classes, and his very lack of reaction gave Jim a bad feeling.

He was used to locker rooms where men checked each other out with sidelong glances just to make sure they measured up. He was used to embarrassed eyes going everywhere but his equipment as men hid their desire. He even got a fair share of teasing from other officers, good natured insults that he didn't take very seriously considering he had nothing to worry about in the measuring department. He wasn't used to someone being in the room and not even noticing him, as though he were one more chair or table.

Grimacing, Jim pushed the plug into himself and awkwardly started strapping himself in. Anyone who could write a regulation to require a person to shove something up their own ass just to earn the right to leave the room obviously had a pretty deep streak of sadism.

Pressing the lock into place, Jim stretched and bent to get everything situated correctly before pulling his pants on. He left the drawstring loose since Nunez would want to check the lock before letting him out. Jim was just washing up when the door swung open without warning. The substitute duo who tended Jim when Nunez had a day off would knock first, but Nunez never gave Jim that courtesy.

"Morning, Jim," he said, his eyes on his clipboard.

"Morning," Jim answered as civilly as possible.

"The test scores are in for the Narcotics class." Nunez looked up and smiled. "100%. Top of the class."

Jim wanted to point out that this big achievement was learning a task normally reserved for a dog, but that would be sarcastic. It had taken Jim two weeks to earn the right to go to class without shackles and without Nunez standing at his side. He didn't want to lose the ground he'd gained. He had a plan to focus on.

"I'm glad," he said instead. "But it wasn't exactly a hard class."

"That qualifies you for a class in anti-Sentinel tactics offered by the FBI, interested?" Nunez asked.

"Yeah," Jim agreed quickly.

"Before you agree, you have to know that this is a tough one. White noise generators, pepper spray, sirens, terrorists will use pretty much anything to throw a Sentinel off, and the class does not pull punches. I've had some of my Sentinels sign up before, and they end up with their eyes burning, their ears ringing, and sometimes they go from the practice field straight to the infirmary."

"I was military. I'm not that easy to drop."

"Yeah, but these guys are trying to train you to deal with terrorists who are specifically attacking your senses. And the class requires you to train in full shackles, including the center chain."

That made Jim pause. He didn't bother hiding his hatred of the chains because he couldn't act well enough to pull it off.

"The instructors... they really push? They'll show some tactics for controlling the senses in those conditions?" Jim asked, remembering one horrible day in Houston when his eyes had burned so badly that it had taken every ounce of control to not literally rip them from his head. Sometimes he still had nightmares where his own hands pulled his eyes out, and yet Jim could still see them weeping and bloody in his hands.

"They have techniques to help you close down your senses when they're under attack, but not everyone can easily learn them. Most Sentinels just can't concentrate on shutting down a sense that is going out of control. And there is a serious risk of spiking."

"I'll deal with the shackles, sign me up," Jim said. The only part of this experience that made it bearable was learning how to better control his senses. Sandburg had been right about one thing, Jim was so overwhelmed in that airport that he had been close to losing control. Next time when he ran, he was going to be better prepared. Make the captors sympathize with him, gather resources, and escape, that was the plan. And information was the most valuable resource. He could afford to sacrifice a little dignity.

"The class starts in three weeks. I just want your word that you'll let me know if it gets too overwhelming."

"I'll be fine," Jim answered.

"That's pretty much your answer for everything," Nunez sighed as he sat at the table and pushed aside two of Jim's class books.

"And so far, I've been fine, so I'm right," Jim smiled back. He leaned against the wall waiting for the other shoe to drop because Nunez clearly had something else on his mind.

"Do you want to talk about Alex?"

"Barnes?" Jim asked. "She's a bitch, conversation over."

"The legal rights teacher said she's been targeting a few of you for some real harassment."

"Good to know the woman isn't totally oblivious. I thought maybe she had gone blind at some point because that would explain why she never calls Alex on any of the shit she pulls."

Jim walked over and grabbed his shirt off the chair. Same shirt, same pants, every day. Jim had never thought much about clothes, at least not when he wasn't undercover and trying to project a specific image, but now he would give anything to go shopping for polo shirts. The shirts they gave him had wide necks to show off his shiny collar, the one he avoided looking at every morning when he shaved.

"Are you angry with Alex?" Nunez prodded.

"I'm angry with myself for missing those two questions so that I have to take the whole fucking class over again," Jim answered quickly. "I'm really frustrated with myself over that one."

"How is most of the class reacting?"

"They stay away from her," Jim answered. Most of the students at the Institute had been raised knowing they were Sentinels. They'd gone to neighborhood grade schools, and then as they got older and the senses and instincts started appearing, they transferred to Sentinel high schools in the city or got home schooled. A few had gone through regular high school with aids who walked to classes with them. But no matter what, when they graduated, they transferred immediately to an Institute. For them, it wasn't different from their friends going off to college.

Alex, another runner who hadn't run very far considering her Sentinel abilities were triggered while she was in prison, made it a little hard for them to pretend the Institute was just the Sentinel version of college because the older Sentinel would have had her ass kicked out of college. The young Sentinels--seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old--would come to class gossiping and whispering and copying notes from each other. And then Alex would show up, shackled hand and foot, and cursing like no sailor Jim had ever met.

"Do you stay away from her?" Nunez asked.

"The best I can. The woman has issues."

"Yes, we're all well aware of that."

"And yet, no one calls her on them because she's a Sentinel, so her actions don't have consequences. Let her verbally attack some seventeen year old kid, and everyone just pats Alex on the head and says she's having anger issues." Jim shook his head in disgust.

"You think she should be punished."

"I think there should be consequences," Jim corrected him.

A little voice in the back of Jim's head told him to just drop it, to go along with the plan and play good little boy. Arguing with captors was dangerous because they held the power. It was human nature to want to survive, and so faced with conflict with a captor, the mind would be more easily influenced. Jim remembered the military instructor who had taught that class in capture and survival. He'd been a Vietnam war veteran, and near the end of class one day, he'd pulled his shirt back and shown a vicious line of scars, each a small, jagged, white cross etched into his skin from shoulder to hip. Jim almost wished he had a visible scar, one that he could point to. Instead he had plastic shoved up his ass.

"You think Alex should be... corrected for having anger issues."

"I think Alex should face the consequences of acting like a bitch."

"Alex acts like a bitch, and you can be one stubborn bastard, but I don't think either of you deserve to be abused because of that."

Jim narrowed his eyes and barely bit back a retort about being force to wear a collar, about having to shove plastic up his ass every morning and ask for guards to escort him to the bathroom to watch him if he needed to shit, about two weeks of walking around with his wrists chained and Nunez's hand constantly on him making Jim want to shrug his touch off like a horse sheds a fly. He had lots of examples of abuse, but he shoved that back. That wouldn't earn him a chance to escape.

"The military doesn't abuse anyone, but they sure wouldn't put up with shit like that," Jim pointed out carefully.

"What would they do?"

"I would have been doing push ups until I couldn't lift my arms for doing half the shit she does."

"But what if someone just refuses to do the push ups?"

Jim snorted. "Not an option."

"But it is. If a soldier just utterly refused to do what he was told. Just woke up one day and decided that no matter what anyone said, he wouldn't do it."

"He'd get court-martialed."

"And when his time in jail was up?"

Jim spotted the trap. No way to avoid it now. "He'd be discharged," Jim said, kicking himself for getting into this debate in the first place. Fuck. A month ago he knew better than to get into debates like this. But if he didn't... if they thought he hadn't broken, he wasn't ever going to get out of here.

"You're going to be Sentinels for the rest of your lives. And I know this is hard on you, but you have kept a good deal of your identity. All the classes you're taking are focused on law enforcement, a field you were interested in before the senses. You're still Jim Ellison. Alex Barnes was a thief. Now she's lost her rights as a citizen, a situation you should sympathize with, but she's also lost her identity because we certainly aren't going to pair her with a guardian who will take her out for some second-story work."

"She's still out of line," Jim growled.

"Yes, she is. So, how are the others reacting?"

"You mean other than crying?" Jim asked. Jim had sat with his jaw locked as Alex had targeted a girl straight out of a Sentinel high school. This was her first class, and Alex had called her a Sentinel whore, had asked whether she was taking classes to learn how to spread her legs for her new owners. Only Alex had used words that not even the most battle-hardened veteran Jim had ever worked with would have used.

The girl had stood for a moment on the verge of flying at Alex. Normally Jim did his best to quietly encourage the younger ones to show some self-control, but in that moment, he'd just wanted Becky to haul off and punch Alex. A handler had hurried in, and when she put her hand on Becky's shoulder, Becky had collapsed into tears, hiding her face in the handler's neck and clinging to her.

Alex smirked, and Jim fought as every cell in his body wanted to stand up and punch the woman. The only thing that had stopped him was the knowledge that he was so much larger that he probably would have killed her.

"Becky's fine," Nunez said quietly.

"And I didn't lose control," Jim pointed out.

"You're a good example for the others in just how much control you can have over your anger, but you could be modeling other positive behaviors as well, and maybe, at the same time, making it a little easier for Alex."

The Institute might be messing with Jim's head, but it hadn't made him stupid. He knew exactly what Nunez wanted. Clenching his jaw, Jim moved to the door.

"Is that all?" he asked tightly.

"Yeah," Nunez stood up. "You need these?" he asked, gesturing toward the table and the books.

"Not until this afternoon," Jim said, holding his breath against the expected order.

"Okay." Nunez stood up and walked over, pulling the back of Jim's pants down far enough that he could pull on the straps and make sure it was all locked. That done, he reached out and put his hand on the flat panel that would open Jim's door for the day. It would stay open until Nunez checked him in for the night.

"You're not going to..." Jim paused. He should just walk out the door and not mention it. The door clicked and then Nunez could easily push it back into the wall pocket.

"You haven't lost control, so I'm not ordering you to do anything. You know what would make it easier on Alex, easier on the other Sentinels. A couple of the boys are avoiding it too, probably because they look up to you, and one of the other employees certainly requested that I talk to you. They're afraid their boys are going to lose control."

"So just chain the boys," Jim said, clenching his fists in order to even say the words.

"But they're in the same position you are. They haven't lost control yet. You're the one who likes to talk about actions and consequences. We can't just assume they'll lose control, not even if we know they will."

Jim stood in the hallway outside his door. Fuck. It would be so easy to ask, and the fact was that a little part of Jim even suspected it was a good idea. He really had wanted to hit Alex, and maybe he was a little close to losing control. Maybe the chains would remind him that he didn't have control here. And he knew that eventually he'd have to ask for the chains. He wouldn't ever get placed in a less secure facility if he didn't.

Fuck and fuck. He just wished that his first time asking for them hadn't been a situation where he came so close to needing them. He should be able to control himself. Someone like Alex shouldn't be able control him, and yet, when he got to near her, he could feel her emotions pulling on him. The Sentinel biology class called it a sympathetic response. It meant their hormones were chemically similar enough to influence each other, but she sure didn't seem influenced by his control.

And Alex did target the Sentinels who weren't chained. He could understand her frustration because the first two weeks, he'd been angry every time he'd watched the young ones run around without restraints while he had his hands chained and Nunez's touch on his shoulder.

Jim gritted his teeth. "Maybe I should wear the restraints today," he finally forced himself to say.

"It would help the others. And it's okay to ask for help when you need it," Nunez quickly assured him as he hurried over to the white cabinet, pulling out the wrist cuffs.

Jim forced himself to stay still and hold out his hands as Nunez locked them into place.

"I'll meet you back here at lunch to take them off before your afternoon classes, okay?"

"Yeah, no problem," Jim managed through clenched teeth. He didn't need to mention to Nunez the military class in fighting cuffed. Hell, with this much chain, Jim could probably choke the woman to death with the restraints. However, from the way Nunez smiled at him, Jim knew he'd made the right choice. One step closer to his plan.

He headed down the long hall where the older Sentinels had private rooms and toward the classroom areas. And despite firmly ordering himself not to, Jim found himself straining against the restraints.

SEVEN
***
"Good job, Hairboy, we might actually keep you around. I mean, without you around, that so would have been me," Henri joked. Blair planted an elbow in the man's stomach as he came up behind him.

"Hey, this is my new shirt," he complained, even though Blair had seen him wear that same god-awful green and blue disaster a dozen times.

"Yeah, yeah, you say one more word, and I'm giving you a bear hug," Blair warned him. With the manure clinging to him, the threat carried some weight.

"If he hugs you, you're walking home," Rafe scowled from a safe distance.

"You're my partner, you're supposed to have my back!" Brown groused with mock pain as he glared at Rafe, but Blair could see the smile.

"You'll still walk."

"Good job people. This guy is going down for the count," Simon congratulated them as he walked up. "Now that we've made the filthy rich safe from blackmail, I think we might have a murder or two waiting back on our desks."

"Well that's a record for shortest time basking in the glory of a bust," Blair said as he grabbed the hose. "And next time someone votes for surveillance in a stable, count me out. I'm sure I'll have a test at the university or something that day." Blair turned the water on, and then pointed the hose at himself. The surveillance hadn't gone all that badly, but tackling the suspect right into the pile of horse dung had not made Blair a happy camper. His only consolation was the fact that the cuffed suspect was going to jail smelling like horse shit.

"You're just making yourself smell worse," Simon complained as the water soaked into the manure.

"Yeah, I'm figuring that out." Blair pulled his now soiled and wet shirt off and threw it in Henri's general direction. One of the uniformed officers at the scene gave Blair a quick wolf whistle, and Blair flipped him off.

"Good thing you don't have that Sentinel yet. You'd drive him out of the state with your smell."

Blair glared over at Henri, but the joker just smiled and headed for his car. Brown and Rafe had backed Blair up when the blackmailer wanted to meet his target at the track, but the case was Blair's and no one was going to stick around long enough to help with paperwork. Okay, technically the case was his and Elijah's, but Eli had been out with flu more often than he'd been in lately.

"So, how is it going with the request for a Sentinel?" Simon asked as he pulled a cigar out of his pocket.

"Still waiting for Ellison," Blair said as he aimed the nozzle to try and knock the worst mess off his pants.

"He's been in there a while."

"And he has test scores that are off the charts," Blair defended the man.

"It just worries me that they've kept him for over four months. I don't want a loose cannon in my department, Sandburg."

Blair rolled his eyes. "Ellison doesn't come close to being a loose cannon."

"Blair, you keep forgetting that he killed a man."

"Simon, what would you do if Peter in Narcotics got hurt or, god-forbid, died? Would you try to cuff Dana? Would you try to physically restrain her?"

"Hell no. I'd be hiding in a tree waiting for your old boss in the Sentinel squad to tranq her."

"Good thing too because everyone has a breaking point. Hell, how many times has some family member who wasn't a Sentinel attacked you when you delivered news of a murder or told them something they didn't want to hear?"

"Plenty," Simon agreed sadly. "And I understand that there are times, like in the case of a bondmate's death, when a Sentinel deserves a little slack. Hell, I think I'd hide in the tree even if it was Dana dead and Peter on the loose."

"Simon, Jim was suffering from a broken bond when a guard went against regulations and opened the cell to check on Ellison. Ellison tried to just get away, and the guard started a physical confrontation with an out of control Sentinel. Jim *still* blames himself for that guard's death. He thought he should go to prison for it; this is not a man who is going to run amuck in your department."

"I thought we already had this discussion. You already browbeat me into agreeing to take Ellison in," Simon growled.

"I'm just making sure you remember why," Blair shrugged.

"I just want you to remember your promise to take the first week slow and then have a serious discussion about whether he's going to work out in Major Crimes."

"I will, I will," Blair rushed to agree, "but you're going to be fine with him, Simon. When I blew my cover, I was alone in that loft with him, and the only thing he did was restrain me while he thought through his options."

"That was before four or five months in the SI. You don't know him now, and I really doubt he's going to be thrilled with belonging to the man who put his run to an end."

"Yeah." Blair turned the water off and considered that last bit. "I wish I could visit him or talk to him or something, but he still has himself on the no contact list. I just keep hoping that he'll remember that I truly wanted to help; maybe that'll be enough for him to give me a little trust. But it's going to be hard."

"And I'm telling you right now, Blair, I am *not* comfortable with having a chained man sitting in my squad room. Suspects are cuffed, the detectives investigating them sure as hell shouldn't be."

"No way. I will not bring him to work chained." Blair paused as he remembered his Sentinel-care class. He'd learned a few things he really didn't want to know. "Okay, the first few weeks, I have to bring him to work chained, but once we bond, you will never see those chains again."

"You're assuming he'll want to bond."

"He'll want out of the chains," Blair said softly, sure of that. "Besides, who can resist this body?" Blair asked as he opened his arms to show off his slimy, wet, manure-smeared glory. Simon snorted.

"So, if you don't get Ellison, are you going to try for another Sentinel?"

Blair stopped. He hadn't even thought past getting custody of Jim. The idea that someone else, someone who didn't understand Jim's need for independence, might get custody bothered him more than he could imagine.

"I'll worry about that if it happens," Blair shrugged as he started toward his car. He had a blanket in back he could spread over his seat. A quick trip home for a shower and then paperwork before dashing to his night class.

"Blair," Simon said behind him. Blair turned around.

"Most Sentinels, they aren't like your Ellison. The good ones learn to show some control because they don't want to disappoint their bondmates. The bad ones and the ones whose handlers don't have that much control over them... I won't have that in my division. I won't have suspects ending up dead and just sign off on the paperwork because it was a Sentinel thing."

Simon took a long drag on his cigar and studied Blair so long that Blair started to fidget. "If Ellison goes somewhere else, really think about this. If you bring some loose cannon into my department, if someone gets hurt because your Sentinel thinks he can do whatever he wants or because he knows you don't have the guts to discipline him, I will transfer your ass to Traffic. You'll be there for the two days it takes one of the other department chiefs to transfer you back out again," Simon admitted as he rolled his eyes, "but I'll transfer you and your Sentinel there just to make my point."

"Point, got it," Blair nodded before he turned back to his car. He'd get Jim. He had to get Jim. The alternative... well, the alternative was the thing that fueled his nightmares.

Jim heard his door open, and he stepped out of the shower.

"You're early," he said, drying himself off as he pushed the glass door back and greeted Sam.

"I have a new Sentinel, another retrieval."

"We seem to have a lot of adult Sentinels around here," Jim commented as he grabbed his chastity belt and lubed the plug. He'd learned to do it without thinking about it. If he turned his mind off, he wouldn't have that involuntary grimace that always made Sam look at him with concern.

"We specialize in retraining," Sam admitted. "I think it's because we're one of the largest Sentinel Institutes and we have such a wide range of classes. Any Sentinel can find something interesting to do. They ship retrieved and rescued Sentinels here from most of the west coast."

"And if there's nothing else to do, there are always video games," Jim pointed out. Alex had finally gone that route, striking out viciously, time after time after time. Even fully shackled, she'd attacked an employee. The cafeteria worker hadn't moved fast enough, and Alex had caught her around the neck with a wrist chain.

Jim had jumped into that fray, forcing Alex's hands away from the crying woman and pinning the Sentinel to the ground until guards had tranqed both of them. Jim had spend a week in restraints after that one, but the woman he'd saved had thanked him so much that Jim had become slightly embarrassed. Now Alex sat in her room playing video games and staring at the wall.

"I think we'd all like to avoid that."

"It'd drive me nuts," Jim admitted as he pushed the plug inside and then buckled the belt around his waist.

"That's because you have something to interest you. Another paper got filed today. That makes eighteen different officers from seven different departments who have filed for guardianship."

Jim paused, the belt half on. After a heart beat's time, he slipped the strap through the base of the plug and made one last check that everything was in place before he reached around and pushed the connector into the buckle, locking the chastity device in place.

"You're still not comfortable with the guardianship, are you?"

Jim walked over to the sink to wash his hands. He'd long ago figured out that Sam was the psychologist who was writing reports on whether he was prepared to go into the real world. With his plan shoved into a deep corner of his mind where it wouldn't lead him to make a stupid mistake, Jim had woven himself a new personality. He didn't hate being a Sentinel, he hated the idea of losing himself, his ability to help people, his ability to make a difference in the world. That was the motivation he allowed himself to feel as he hid his innate need for freedom from the man who had the power to keep him in the Institute literally forever. With a sigh, Jim turned around and leaned back against his sink.

"It's that word. When you talk about someone having guardianship or custody of me, I just can't get past the gut-level reaction. I feel like some kid, and I just feel like I'm never going to be taken seriously by someone who thinks of me like a child."

Jim didn't mention his specific discomfort with offer number one, the first to come in addressed to him specifically. The potential guardian wanted a Sentinel who would work in the Major Crimes division of Cascade PD, and had to have skills in a wide range of police investigative techniques. What had really caught his attention was the second part. The guardian also worked in anthropology and wanted a Sentinel with a high level of control who could help observe people in natural settings without becoming bored. It had to be Blair. Jim wondered if his capture had earned Blair that promotion to Major Crimes. He could feel anger wrap around his spine. The little shit caught a promotion while he was in here with plastic shoved up his ass, and now the little shit wanted custody of Jim. Part of Jim knew that wasn't entirely accurate, but the offer had shocked him.

"No one who ever met you would think of you as a child," Sam laughed, and Jim figured that meant he had successfully hidden his darker feelings. "You scared the crap out of me that first day."

Jim crossed his arms. "You're kidding. You didn't smell like fear at all."

"The soap they use at intake tends to depress the smell. And it was a good thing because my fear could have pushed you right over an edge."

"I was frustrated," Jim nodded. "After I'd run so long, I didn't think anyone would ever trust me out there. No matter what you said, I thought I was going to spend my whole life in here, die in here without ever getting to do anything that mattered ever again."

"You want to be out there," Sam prodded.

"Yeah. I want to do something more important than just take classes. When I took Alex down and saved that woman, that felt right," Jim paused. He'd learned to weave as much truth into his stories as he could, and sometimes he feared that the truth and the manipulations were blending even in his own mind. "I used my sense of touch to feel where she would shift her weight in the fight. I could hear her heart. I could almost taste her..." Jim paused, "her anger, maybe."

"And you liked that?"

"I liked feeling like the senses were more than some cosmic joke, I liked saving that woman. These classes, they're fine, but it's not like me taking a class is doing any good."

"It's preparing you for the real world."

"Which is where the real world part comes in. I want to actually do something with the senses."

"Which brings us back to the issue of guardianship."

Jim fought to keep his expression neutral. "I'm working on it," Jim said.

"And I'm impressed, Jim, I really am. When you go out there, though, you may have another difficult adjustment."

"Yeah," Jim said softly, "I know. In here, everyone understands, but I remember how some people would point and stare at Sentinels, how they would slowly slide away the minute they saw the collar."

"And others will talk your ear off and treat you like a hero even when they have no idea who you are."

Jim suppressed his own dislike of that reaction as well. People who had either reaction were trying to erase some part of Jim and replace him with a generic "Sentinel." Sentinels were brave or Sentinels were creepy, and both reactions denied the reality that Jim wasn't just some random Sentinel.

"I don't want people to look at me and see some freak, but I know I'll have to deal with that. If I'm working with officers who respect what I can do and victims I can really help, that's going to go a long way toward making this easier. I'll adapt; I'm nothing if not adaptable." Jim finally answered.

"You'll have to work in restraints until you bond."

"No biggie," Jim shrugged. "Hey, I ask for restraints when I have one of the Troll's classes. I even asked you to anchor the restraints that one day that he was really bugging me."

"And I'm proud of you for that. Truitt really shouldn't be working with Sentinels given his antagonistic attitude, but not many people will teach a hand-to-hand self defense class for Sentinels."

Jim shrugged. "I have to learn to deal with that once I get back out there in the world anyway. Any word on whether or not the guys upstairs will let me teach one of those self-defense courses?"

"You certainly have the training for it, the military sent over your records, and they're impressive. No wonder Truitt can't take you down, and you do know he'd go easier on you if you didn't put him on his back every single lesson, right?"

"Yeah," Jim smiled. "I know. But the restraints make it easier. When he picks on a man who's chained up, it just makes him look like a petty bully, which he is. That's revenge enough. I take it from the subject change that you're still getting the run around."

Sam laughed. "You're like a dog with a bone, Jim. And yes, I'm getting the no-answer answer every time I bring it up. The idea of two Sentinels fighting just worries a lot of people. You've asked about it every day this week, why is this so important to you?"

Jim walked over to the bed and picked up his shirt, slipping it on before he answered. "I guess I just like the thought that I'm actually doing something real. I've learned a lot about using my senses in the field, but most of these classes are information that I've already learned. I was in the military for 15 years, I know this stuff."

"And you want to have some sort of impact."

"I don't want to take any more classes just so I can get a score on the jacket of my file. Maybe if there were some more challenging courses. Anything new coming out soon?" Jim asked as he slipped into his pants.

"Not that I know of. Maybe we can whip up something a little more challenging than normal. Okay, do you need anything else?"

"Nah, no Troll today, so I'm good without restraints," Jim shrugged.

"Maybe you should do a few day's practice in full restraints. Sometimes in the field the conditions are overwhelming... a murdered child, a brutal gang rape. And if you can't move and work in restraints, you aren't much good on that kind of scene."

Jim looked at Sam in confusion for a second, and then he slowly started to smile. "Are you trying to tell me something?" The niggling hope starting to grow in his chest made even the thought of working in chains bearable.

"No promises, but at this month's review, my recommendation is that you be placed with the understanding that the transition might be difficult and your first guardian might not be permanent. It would help your case if the committee saw you were cooperative and willing to work in restraints."

"If it meant getting to track real criminals or real drugs, I would work in restraints for the rest of my life. I'm ready to not see you and these same four walls every single morning."

"Aren't you the sweet talker?" Sam asked sarcastically as he stepped closer. Jim turned around so Sam could check the connector on the chastity belt.

"No offense, but I would rather we were better strangers."

"Shakespeare?" Sam asked as he tugged the belt and then stepped back. Jim tied the drawstring before going back to the cupboard and getting the restraints.

"Yeah, I just don't remember which play. I'd ask for a copy of Shakespeare, but hopefully, I won't be here long enough to read it. Since I might be getting out of here, I definitely need to practice the restraints. That week after Alex, I almost broke my neck a couple of times when I forgot how to move with them on. Maybe I should take another class like the FBI one, the field work with full restraints. Anything coming up?"

"I can check." Sam put out his hand, and Jim handed the two sets of chains over before offering his wrists. Sam locked the shackles around Jim's wrists, and Jim moved his hands up and hooked the wrist chain over the back of his own neck as he'd been taught. It meant that Jim couldn't quickly bring his hands down in an attack as Sam locked the ankle restraints in place.

"We haven't worked with the center chain much lately, but your guardian or the supervisors at the half-way house may want to make sure that you aren't tempted to run, especially given your reputation, so let's use that as well."

Jim went back to the white cabinet, focusing his breathing on some calm blue center and not his frustration. They monitored his vitals any time Nunez was in with him, and Jim couldn't allow the least slip at this point. He pulled out the belt and long chain, and shuffled back to Sam to offer it to him.

Sam took the restraints, and Jim hooked his wrist chain around the back of his neck again as the handler locked the wide belt over Jim's shirt. The longer chain went down to the center of the chain between the ankle restraints.

"Wrists," Sam asked. Jim slowly brought his hands down and waited as Sam threaded the long center chain through a loop at the front of the belt and then locked to the wrist chains. If Jim kept his hands at his stomach, he could walk with his normal shuffle he used when restrained. If he sat or crouched, he would have a fair amount of movement with his hands.

Sam stood up. "So, are you good for the day?"

"Yeah. I'll be back about six if you'll be around to unlock everything." Jim just prayed that he didn't need to ask to use the bathroom because the classroom guards would not remove the wrist restraints. Jim would suffer through the cramps before going through that again.

"No problem. New Sentinels usually want to spend quite a bit of time in their own quarters," Sam offered.

"What? You don't expect them to blackmail you into letting them take a class on day one?" Jim teased. Some voice in that dark corner of the mind where he'd hidden so much of who he used to be sneered.

"I'm not expecting it, but then again, I've been surprised before."

"See you later, Sam," Jim said as he walked carefully toward the door. On the way past his table, he grabbed a book on criminal profiling.

"Have a good day," Sam called back. Jim left Sam and the quarters behind as he headed for the insulated classroom wing. He'd already grabbed fruit for breakfast, and he wanted some alone time before the instructor showed up.

"Hey, Jim," one of the younger Sentinels called. Jim turned to find four boys closing in on him. He stopped and leaned against the wall.

"Guys."

"What's up?" one asked, looking at the chains. Jim fought down the normal frustration he felt at having people see him chained up like an animal. They might think it was normal, but Jim sure as hell didn't.

"Doing some practice. I might be up for release next month, and it's been a while since I worked in the chains."

"Aren't you going to bond right away?" the shortest boy asked. Jim thought his name was Teeg, but he wasn't sure. So many of the young ones came and left in a month, grabbing the few required courses and heading out into the world. Jim, on the other hand, had been here nearly five months now. He felt like the old war-torn veteran. Hell, the kids sure as hell looked at him that way.

"Do you really want to bond before you know someone?" Jim asked gently.

"But the judge would make sure they were safe. My mom says that it's best to bond quickly and start building a life."

Jim shook his head. "Not everyone is as good as they look on paper. When you've bonded..." Jim paused, searching for a way to describe how it had been with Incacha. The boys considered him with something close to worship. "It's hard to tell where they stop and you start. You want what they want, but if you don't know the guardian before you bond, you'll never know if they're the kind of person who you *want* to have that kind of power over you."

The dark-haired boy snorted. "They have power over us anyway," he pointed out sarcastically. Jim smiled, he liked this kid.

"No, they have power over your body. Your senses... your bonding, that's yours. So take the time to get a few extra classes, try out a guardian or two until you find one you really like, and then bond," Jim advised them.

"I hear you have fourteen offers," Teeg said, his voice all wonder and admiration, with the same enthusiasm Jim had once talked about college acceptance letters with his high-school friends. For them, fourteen choices was incredible, but Jim still couldn't help comparing it to the world full of choices he'd once had.

"It's eighteen now."

"Eighteen," one of the previously silent boys whispered in awe. "Maybe I'll stay around and take more classes. I only have two offers."

"Take classes as long as you think you have something to learn or until you get an offer you really want," Jim advised, and the boy nodded.

"Yeah, but taking classes means no sex, and I am ready to be done with this thing," complained the rabble-rouser that Jim had already decided he liked. The kid poked a finger toward his locked up crotch.

"It's called a shower, a little soap, and five fingers. Get used to it," Jim suggested with a shake of his head. Of course the boys cared more about sex than life, they were teen aged boys. The boys blushed as they caught Jim's meaning. "I have to do a little studying," he excused himself. He turned back toward the classroom, the chains rattling as he shuffled forward awkwardly. He really had forgotten how to deal with the full shackles.

Jim reached his first classroom a good hour before the class began. Sitting on one of the wide comfortable couches, Jim pulled his feet on the seat to give his hands as much movement as possible. In the privacy of the unmonitored room, Jim opened the book so he would look like he was studying as he allowed his rage to flow through him.

His heart pounded heavily and his eyes stung as he pulled on the chains. Fucking assholes. The words on the page blurred, but Jim had read them last night anyway. He was so close. Jim struggled with the rage his new hope inspired.

Weeks, maybe days, and yet suddenly that seemed so fucking long. Make the captors sympathize with him, gather resources, and escape. Nunez was on his side, arguing for him. He'd gained a good twenty pounds of muscle in the last four months, so he was back in fighting shape, and he knew more about local police procedures and ways to control his senses in the field. The plan was working, but now that he was so close to the end, Jim could feel the frustration claw at him. He focused on the reviewing gains he'd made, and not how far he still had to go.

Letting his head fall back, he stared at the white ceiling for a second before closing his eyes. He forced his real feelings back into the dark corners of his mind and repaired the woven image of the good little tamed Sentinel reading his book so he could grow up and get himself a good guardian. Jim allowed himself one last fantasy of a wrecking ball tearing this whole place down before he focused on the book and the renewed hope for escape.

EIGHT
***
Jim sat in the comfortable chair, fingering the links of the chain. The clothes felt strange against his skin after five months of the Sentinel Institute uniform, which felt more like pajamas than anything else. Now the waistband of the simple pants irritated him, and somehow, Jim didn't think that was a coincidence. In fact, sitting in the isolated room with two other Sentinels, both of whom were fairly wild-eyed, Jim realized that the SI had reduced the stimulus so much that Sentinels coming out were damn near dysfunctional.

Oh, they'd been trained to function in the field, but now, with no task at hand, sitting chained to a chair jangled all Jim's nerves. Even through the soundproofing on the room, he could hear something heavy hit the floor above them, and the young, male Sentinel jumped.

The guard at the door shifted nervously, and Jim leaned forward as far as he could with the chain across his lap.

"Hey, Tony," Jim called softly, and the young man looked over with wide eyes. "Come on, just focus on me for a second here, Chief."

Tony blinked, and then Jim could see him truly focus on Jim instead of struggling to hear something just beyond range, at least for him. Jim could clearly hear the cursing as someone complained about the mess, so someone had dropped something.

"Yeah, it's just..." Tony started.

"I know. It's not like the Institute," Jim nodded. After five months of white noise generators and water dripping down into pools and dim lights and soft pajamas, even his senses were playing tricks. The kid didn't have much of a chance at control, and the female Sentinel, even though she was a little older, didn't look like she was having much more luck.

"Yeah," Tony breathed.

"Tony, listen for the heartbeats in the room," Jim counseled him. Tony looked at him for a second, and then he closed his eyes as he did what Jim said. His head started moving back and forth in time with one of the patterns.

"Isolate which heartbeat comes from which of us," Jim suggested, using the technique he'd learned from one of the FBI courses on overcoming sensory overload. Listening for something and dismissing all other stimulus worked far better than trying to filter out some disabling sound. When Jim glanced over to the second Sentinel, she had her eyes closed and was clearly following the same instruction.

"Focus on those heartbeats. Three of us, one guard. Don't stop until you can feel each one distinctly."

The woman's eyes popped open. "You have a heart murmur," she said to the guard. The man started.

"What?"

"A heart murmur. I can hear it. The blood is backing up into the heart; it doesn't sound right."

"Uh..." The guard stood, looking from the woman to Jim and down to his chest. Jim focused his own hearing toward the guard, who was starting to look a little pale. He could hear the steady beat, and he let himself focus on that until the sound cocooned him.

"I can hear it, too," Jim said. "I don't know if it's a murmur, but I can hear something that isn't in our heartbeats."

"I... Maybe I should call for someone," the guard reached for his radio. It wasn't exactly what Jim had in mind with the meditation exercise, but at least Tony was focusing on the sudden drama in the room and not on the distant sounds of the courthouse.

The first guard had been joined by three others, complete with tranq guns before someone finally figured out why the man had called for back up. In the middle of the drama, guard number five showed up with a clipboard.

"James Joseph Ellison?" he asked from the door as he looked from the guards to the three Sentinels.

"That's me," Jim offered with a small wave of his hand. The chain over his lap kept him from doing more.

"The judge is ready for you." Ignoring the other guards who were radioing a supervisor and trying to figure out how to get guard number one to the hospital to see his doctor, he reached over and unlocked the chain across Jim's lap.

The female Sentinel kept trying to tell them that it wasn't serious, and Tony watched with glee, his eyes darting from one person to the other.

"Thanks," Jim said as his guard got a hand under Jim's arm and helped him to his feet. In full restraints, the deep, cushioned chairs were sometimes difficult to get out of.

"You're welcome," he said as he divided his attention between Jim and the fuss.

"Baker, you okay?" Jim's guard asked.

"Okay? I have a heart murmur. Fuck. I can't believe this is happening to me."

"It's not serious. It's a small one, you don't need to panic," the woman desperately tried to reassure him.

Jim followed his guard out of the room. "Well, that was fun," he commented to no one in particular as they walked slowly down a private hallway.

"Fun?" the guard asked, his gaze slipping over to Jim before focusing on the hall again.

"It was downright boring in there until the nurse heard that murmur."

"It's supposed to be boring in there," the guard pointed out. He stopped in front of a double door. "The judge normally sees Sentinels in chambers, but they just painted in there, and she doesn't want you to have to sit in the fumes. Are you going to be okay in open court?" the guard asked seriously.

Five months ago, Jim would have rolled his eyes at the question. Five months ago he could walk through an open airport with screaming children and grandmothers who wore gallons of perfume. Now, Jim hesitated.

"I think so," he finally managed. The guard didn't look reassured.

"I'm not going to go berserk on you, but I can't promise I won't zone on something or have a spike," Jim clarified. The guard nodded.

"If you have trouble, let me know right away, and I'll get you back here as fast as I can," he offered.

"Thanks," Jim said as the guard pushed the doors open. The sound of voices, all competing, and the smell of bodies and the faint scent of paint and the sharp, chemical stink of perfume all hit Jim at once. He staggered back a step, his movements cut short by the restraints as he instinctively brought his hands up, nearly yanking his own feet out from under him.

The guard stepped back with him, half closing the door as Jim blinked. No way was Jim going in there with tears in his eyes.

"Give me a sec," Jim asked as he crouched down so that he could bring his hands up to his eyes and wipe away the tears caused by the sudden smells. "Any chance you could open that a little slower?"

The guard hesitated. "Yeah, no problem," he finally agreed as he slowly opened the door. Jim struggled to dial down scent and focus his hearing on his own heartbeat and not the hundreds of conversations stretching through the various hallways and courtrooms. Clenching his jaw, Jim slowly stood and faced the real world.

Fuck, this was definitely going to slow down the plan. Jim silently cursed Nunez and Sandburg and every other sick fuck who'd dumped him in the Institute for over five months. He'd controlled himself for over twenty years, but five months in that sanitized hell and he couldn't even face a courthouse. Well, he'd get his control back.

"You ready?" the guard asked quietly.

"Yeah, let's get this over with," Jim said stoically. He walked forward with the guard.

For the first time, he faced the world with a collar on. He could feel the heat in his cheeks as mothers and criminals and kids hanging on their parents all watched him shuffle through the hall in shackles.

The guard opened a door to one courtroom, and Jim followed meekly. The room was almost empty, just a couple of random spectators. A woman with glasses perched on the top of her head stood up.

"James?" she asked.

"Jim."

"I'm Steph Bennett, your social worker. I just wanted to introduce myself. You've been assigned to the Oak Street halfway house if you stay in town, which has an excellent reputation, and depending on who the judge assigns, I'll have you in the house with your guardian within the day. If you're going out of town, I already have transportation arranged."

"Thanks," Jim said absentmindedly as he listened to a woman in another room plead with her husband to just let something drop... to not testify. A kid screamed, and Jim tensed until the childlike laughter followed immediately after.

The guard pulled on his arm, and Jim let himself be led up to one of tables in front of the judge's bench. The judge was an older woman with gray hair and a horse face.

"James Joseph Ellison," the guard announced. The judge looked up and smiled.

"Thank you Roy. Now Sentinel Ellison, have you been given copies of all twenty-six requests for guardianship?" she asked.

"Yes, your honor," Jim said easily. He'd learned acting skills in the last five months that should have qualified him for an Academy award.

"Have you been given the opportunity to contact anyone and request a specific guardian ad litem?"

"Yes, your honor."

"And did you contact anyone?"

"No, your honor."

"I see here that your father, William Ellison lives in Cascade. Is there a reason why you aren't asking him to take custody? No compatible work interests?"

Jim gritted his teeth. "He's in business, and I would prefer law enforcement, your honor," Jim answered. The real truth was something colder, something about his father's furious face ordering him to hide this nonsense with his senses because no Ellison was a freak. The only upside to this whole experience was knowing that William Ellison couldn't hide his freak of a son anymore. Jim hoped all his father's golf buddies asked him about it every damn time the son of a bitch played a round.

"Just as well. You're certainly old enough to be thinking about a bondmate," the judge agreed easily, and Jim twitched at the idea of a judge thinking she had any say on that issue. They could demand a lot of him, but not that. "Twenty-six requests, all from law enforcement. I think that's a record. Two requests are from the military, and legally I need you to state a position on going back into the service."

"I don't want to," Jim said quietly.

"Any reason why?"

God-forbid that she just allow him to just make a choice. Jim considered his answer. If he wanted his plan to work, he needed to convince this judge to choose the guardian he wanted, and that meant convincing her that he was rational enough to be trusted to make a few choices.

"Military personnel are trained to have certain reactions. The man I killed..." Jim paused. He could see the guard go stiff. "We were both trained to react to perceived threats. His training led him to attack until I couldn't control my reaction, and I don't want to be in that situation again," Jim finished. He hated that story more than any of the other lies he told, but it was the party line. He was just one more Sentinel so ruled by instinct that he couldn't control himself.

"I read that report. I can't see that you had any blame in the matter, but if you aren't comfortable working in the service, that's your legal right." The judge took two files and set them to the side. "Any other requests? You seem to have twenty-four offers left."

"I want to stay in Cascade. I grew up around here, your honor." That would keep Jim from getting shipped off to Houston. Not only was that on the opposite side of the country from his Canadian goal, but he had more than a few bad memories of the town. And yet, there were no fewer than fourteen requests from the city. Houston must be seriously short of Sentinels.

The judge sorted more files. "Cascade the city, or would the surrounding towns work for you?"

Jim paused. Cities were more impersonal. If he could slip his leash, he had a better chance to lose himself in Cascade, but small towns often couldn't afford the security. Six of one, half dozen of another. "If the town is close to here, that might work," Jim finally said. He just needed to be close to the transportation grid.

The judge sorted more. "Well, you have seven offers from the Cascade police department. Surely we can find a fit in Cascade if that's what you prefer. Any other requests?"

Jim paused, he had to phrase this one right. He remembered his gut-level reaction to Sandburg--the way he'd trusted the little shit, and how that trust had been betrayed. And yet, at the end, he still remembered a warm hand resting on him. He couldn't afford to get attached. "I'm not sure I'm ready for something too stressful, homicides or major crimes. I've been out of the world for five months, and I don't want something that... important relying on my senses," Jim said carefully. The judge looked up at him.

"That's an unusual request, especially considering your test scores. The FBI even put in a request, so your abilities are not in question."

"Your honor," Jim said carefully, "If the detective is young, we can move up into the more important departments together. But I'm also not convinced I'll be able to bond right away."

"Gender specific? We have both male and female applicants here, so I can certainly accommodate any preferences," she said as she leaned her chin on her hand and studied Jim.

"I had a bondmate," Jim said. It was true, even if these people might not have recognized the relationship he shared with Incacha as bondmates. Jim knew the truth, and the medical records would show that he had a broken-bond reaction after being brought back to the states, and that's all they needed to know.

"Male or female?" the judge asked.

"Male. But I don't know if I can... Your honor, having had a bond break, I'm not sure whether I can open myself up like that again. And without a bond, the more difficult work in homicide and major crimes... it would be hard on me," Jim went for her pity even though it made him ill to pretend weakness. The simple fact was that he would bond again over his dead body, but saying that in court was a one-way ticket back to the SI. "I just need some time to decide if I can bond and if I want to bond with my guardian."

"You're certainly very articulate about your concerns, and I thank you for that. Two offers, one from Keith Walker in burglary and one from Jack Liu who works a neighborhood patrol, both fit your requirements. Neither is a request for you specifically, but I think they'd be thrilled to have someone with these test scores. Any preference?"

"No, your honor," Jim answered. The officers were low on the totem pole, but aggressive enough to want a Sentinel. It suggested they were young, and young meant more easily manipulated.

"Both have sterling records. Eeney meeny miny mo." The judge balanced the two files playfully, and Jim clenched his fists around the chains that reminded him that he didn't have control here so he couldn't call her a bitch for making light out of choosing his life for him.

"I think Mr. Walker is going to be the winner. Your talents are just too impressive for a patrol officer. And with your help, maybe Mr. Walker can move into a more critical area as soon as you two are comfortable with each other. Ms. Bennett," the judge turned her attention to the social worker in the audience, "do you have housing arranged?"

"Oak Street."

"Excellent. Roy, can you take Sentinel Ellison down to transportation while Ms. Bennett contacts Keith Walker and lets him know he's our winner?"

"Yes, your honor," the guard answered, his hand closing around Jim's arm, only this time he held on a little tighter. The story of Jim killing a guard obviously impressed him because on the way down the hall and to the Sentinel approved van, he didn't speak. He kept one hand on Jim's arm, and the other on his stun gun. Oddly, it felt good to have someone afraid of him, Jim realized as he climbed into the van for his trip to his new home.

"Blair?" a voice called. Blair blinked up blearily and then let his head drop back down to the table.

"Blair, all your hair is going to stick to that table if you don't sit up." Hands brushed the hair back out of Blair's face, and Blair managed to get an eye half open.

"I suck," he announced.

"You've sucked down beers all night, that's for sure," Carolyn answered. She picked up a glass and sniffed at it. "And the hard stuff. Blair, what is with you?"

Blair squirmed into a more comfortable position. At some point his ass had ended up right on the crack in the vinyl of the booth's bench. "I so totally suck," he repeated to the stunner who led the Forensics team.

"Let's get you home." Carolyn got a hand under Blair's arm and pulled him up. Blair managed to get his legs under him, but then he lost all balance and stumbled into the wall, knocking off a picture of a beer bottle. Carolyn grappled with him.

"Blair!" she cried.

"I got him," a deeper voice answered. Blair looked up into Simon's lopsided face.

"You're lopsided," Blair announced seriously. Simon reached down and settled Blair's glasses on his nose. "You're black," Blair corrected himself since Simon wasn't lopsided any more.

"Yes, Sandburg, I'm black. Thank you for the update."

"What got into him?" Carolyn asked as she took his other side. Blair pulled his legs up, amused at the way they dangled between the two sets of hands holding him up, but then all three of them started tumbling right.

"Sandburg, damn it! Walk!" Simon snapped.

"Walk on by, walk on by, make believe that you don't see the tears," Blair sang unevenly as he brought his feet down to earth. "They stole my Sentinel. Only he's not my Sentinel because possessives are like... possessive, and possession is very wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong."

"His Sentinel?" Carolyn asked.

"Don't go there," Simon warned. "Sandburg, you are about two inches from going on report."

"Not on duty!" Blair sing-song before breaking out into warbling song. "And walk on by. Don't stop. And walk on by. Dddon't stop. And walk on by." His words deteriorated into a hum.

"This is a side of you I never wanted to see," Simon said and then muggy Cascade air made Blair blink his eyes open again.

"Simon car. Car of Simon." Blair let his hand slap the top as Carolyn let go of one side.

"You throw up in here, and I will transfer you to Traffic so fast you'll still have the hangover when you're writing your first ticket."

"Should lock me up. Bad bad bad bad bad. So very very very very bad badbadbabababaa." Blair's words trailed off as he lost the ability to say the word bad.

"So very, very drunk," Carolyn corrected him. Blair smiled at her. "Pretty lady," he mouthed.

"God, he runs that charm even drunk," Simon snorted. "Plummer's pretty, I'm black, and you're bad. We got it."

"I wanted to fix just one. He who save the universe save th'... universe. No. Whoever saves a world, saves a life." Blair shook his head as Carolyn opened the car door. Simon pulled him away from the car and dumped him on the front seat. "No no no."

"Yes, yes, yes. I'm taking you home and pouring you into bed."

Blair waved his hand dismissively at that. "He who saves a life, saves a universe?"

"Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire," Carolyn supplied. Blair smiled widely.

"Pretty lady."

"Oh god." Simon slammed the door. Blair poked at the window as Simon came around to the driver's side.

"Didn't save the world, Simon," Blair said sadly. The world in question lurched, and Blair grabbed at his seatbelt. When did he put that on?

"You'll save it tomorrow, kid."

"Nope. World doesn't want to be saved. World doesn't think I'll save him. World thinks I'm bad bad badbadbad."

"Enough," Simon interrupted. "Blair, just let it go."

"Wake me up before you go-go."

"Oh god, it's like karaoke hell," Simon groaned as he drove a little faster toward Blair's loft.

NINE
***
"Jim, you have that Westside file?" Keith called from the hall. Jim rolled his eyes.

"I did before you 'borrowed' it and left it somewhere, Sport," Jim pointed out. He sat back in his chair at the edge of Keith's desk. At the next desk, Doug Turner snorted a laugh.

"I just had it," Keith complained as he came around the corner into Burglary. His short dark hair stood up in uneven spikes, meaning he'd been scrubbing it in frustration. By the time he was as old as Jim, he wasn't going to have any hair left at all..

"And you just lost it, like usual," Doug teased. "Jim, this is why he got a Sentinel. To hell with needing someone to track down the criminals, he just needs somebody to backtrack him and find his damn paperwork."

"Very funny, Turner," Keith complained.

"I'll find it," Jim said with a sigh as he stood up and focused his scent. After nearly a month, he should have known better than to give the kid the file and let him wander off. Keith reminded Jim of one of the recruits he'd known back when he'd done a stint training recruits in Florida. They both had flashes of brilliance interrupted with periods of intense absent-mindedness. The recruit had done a lot of push ups before he had learned to keep track of his own shit. Jim wasn't sure how to break Keith of this habit since he sure wasn't going to be ordering Keith to drop and give him fifty.

"Thanks Jim," Keith said, Sentinel-quiet, and Jim gave the kid a quick eyeroll as he started out toward the restroom where he'd last seen Keith heading. Luckily, Jim had handled the file so he should be able to track his own scent on the paper.

As he walked, the chain from the ankle restraints dragged across the tile, the sound now as familiar as his own heartbeat. It only took five minutes to turn the corner into records. Behind the desk, Darlene held up a file in her hands. She had just transferred in from Central Precinct, and Jim ordered himself to give her a polite smile.

"I knew you'd come looking. Keith is going to forget his head somewhere one of these days," she joked, her free hand coming up and brushing her long, blonde hair back off a shoulder.

"One of these days," Jim agreed, ignoring the scent of her arousal.

"Here you go." She held the file up, and Jim reached for it with both hands. The chain between his hands didn't allow him a lot of freedom to move one hand without the other.

"Thanks."

"No problem. No problem at all," she answered, leaning forward on the desk. Jim nodded, and wondered, not for the first time, if she was attracted to him, his Sentinel status, or the chains. Until Jim bonded, he wouldn't get permission to sleep with anyone else, but that didn't seem to slow her down at all. Then again, maybe she was looking for someone unavailable, and Jim was definitely that.

"So, are you going to stick around, do you think?" she called after Jim as he reached the door. Jim glanced back at her.

"Walker's a good man," he answered ambiguously. He had heard the chatter at the station about Walker getting such a high-level Sentinel. The gossip was split between Walker getting moved up and maybe even transferred to Central Precinct and Jim requesting a new guardian. But every day that Jim showed up in restraints because he hadn't bonded, the gossip started shifting toward the idea that Jim would choose to move on to a detective with more experience and status. Jim knew Keith worried about it, but the man stayed silent.

Darlene started to say something else, but Jim left, heading into the hall. A witness retreated to the side of the hall, his eyes wide as Jim passed, and Jim tightened his jaw.

"Look familiar?" Jim asked as he came back into Burglary, the file held up. He stopped at the sight of a curly-haired cop sitting in the witness chair in front of Keith's desk, a backpack over one shoulder. Jim lowered the file.

"Sandburg," he said carefully.

"Jim. Hey," the kid said as he twisted around to look at Jim. He still had the wide, tragic eyes Jim remembered from the day of his arrest, or retrieval, rather.

"Thank god. Where did I leave it?" Keith asked as he came forward and held out a hand. Jim surrendered the file.

"Records."

"Oh yeah, shit, I meant to tell you. These recent thefts of copper wiring... there was a case six or seven years ago linked to a construction company. It was before I was even on the force. I went over to Records to try and pull the files, but I can't remember the name of the company involved."

"Really," Jim said as he continued to focus on Blair Sandburg.

"You remember Detective Sandburg?" Keith asked as he finally noticed Jim's distraction. He nervously crossed his arms and slid forward so that he was between Jim and Blair. Jim blinked and forced himself to relax. Keith wasn't normally nervous and had even argued with the Oak Street supervisor to leave off the central chain, so Jim figured he was giving off a lot of hostile signals for Keith to get worried.

"Yeah, I remember," Jim agreed coldly. Blair flinched.

"He's doing some work on Sentinels and I said he could interview you."

Jim looked sharply toward Keith, and then closed his fist around the chain. Right. Keith meant well and was a decent guy, but Jim couldn't ever let himself forget that Keith didn't see him as an equal, someone to actually ask before volunteering Jim's time to some neo-hippy punk.

"Okay," Jim said carefully.

"Do you need the..." Keith waved toward Jim's shackles. Keith had the central chain in his desk.

"Keith, I'm fine," Jim reassured the kid. Worried brown eyes looked at him as Keith tried to decide whether he should take Jim's word on that.

"Blair's a decent man. I think he did a shitty thing, but then you annoy me every morning with your inability to keep your crap off the floor and I haven't clocked you yet," Jim joked. Keith laughed, the stress falling away as he headed back to his desk.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. You do know you're anal, right?"

"I know I can find my shit," Jim answered. "At least, I can when you don't throw a dirty towel on top of it."

"Someone has your number, Walker," Doug added from his own desk. "I'm telling you, Jim, before you came along, we found his crap from one end of this building to the other. If he wasn't so damn good as a detective, the Cap would have busted him back down to patrol."

"If you two are done ripping on me, Blair wanted some information for his dissertation. Do you want me to tag along?" Keith asked.

"Run down your construction company lead. If you find any suspects, we can do some snooping this afternoon," Jim said. "Blair and I can use one of the interrogation rooms for our chat."

Keith nodded, his mind already running ahead to the potential leads. One day he was going to be a frighteningly good detective. Right now, he was just scattered enough to be useful to Jim. "Come on, Sandburg," Jim said as he headed out into the hall.

Jim walked to an interrogation room, standing beside the door and waiting for Blair to go in first.

"So, you got promoted," Jim said as he followed the detective in. Blair had backed up to a corner and crossed his arms. Jim could smell the distress starting to flavor the air.

"Sorta," Blair agreed. Jim could hear the lie immediately.

"You aren't as good at lying anymore," Jim commented as he swung the door closed. "So, since Keith volunteered me for this, let's get it over. What do you want?"

"I..." Blair had been looking at the floor, and now he glanced up. Jim waited.

"Oh man, this is really hard. I suppose someone's out there monitoring us, huh?" Blair asked, suddenly changing the subject. Fear now tinted the distress. Jim started dialing down scent.

"Chief, what's up with you?" Jim asked. Yeah, he could be a hard ass, but the kid hadn't been afraid of him before, and now Jim was chained and they were in the middle of a police station. Blair's eyes kept darting over to the mirror. "There isn't anyone back there," Jim assured him. He moved closer and sat at the table. If the kid was freaking out, towering over him wasn't going to make him feel any better.

"I tried to get custody, you know," he whispered.

"Yeah, I got the offer."

"And you weren't too thrilled with the idea of me getting custody."

"Not really."

"I wouldn't have done it again. Oh man, I'm..." Blair stopped, and then he took a deep breath and looked right at Jim. "I fucked up."

"Really? From here it seems like you're pretty damn good at what you do," Jim said as he raised his shackled hands. "You certainly got the job done when no one else could." He gave the chain a nice hard yank.

Blair flinched. "Okay, I deserved that. I totally deserved that," Blair nodded, the scent of distress intensifying until it tickled Jim's nose and gave him that feeling like he was about to sneeze.

"What do you deserve?" Jim asked, leaning back in the chair.

"Pretty much anything you want to do to me since it's my fault you're sitting there in chains."

Jim cocked his head and considered the detective. "You've had a change of heart."

Blair nodded. "Hell, yeah. It's why I had to leave Sentinel division."

"It wasn't a promotion." This was definitely a surprise, but Jim would take any advantage he could find.

"Totally not. It was transfer or lose my job," Blair admitted. "And I guess I just wanted to see if you're okay."

"You wanted absolution," Jim said as he suddenly realized why Blair was so distressed.

"Okay, maybe," Blair admitted.

"You acted like a shit," Jim said instead of offering forgiveness. Guilt was a fine-edged weapon, and Jim knew how to wield it.

"Yeah," Blair agreed, the misery floating from him in tendrils of scent that were so thick Jim could practically taste them. "And I really don't deserve forgiveness. But this thing..." Blair waved toward the room, and Jim had no idea what the kid was trying to go for. He leaned back in his chair and waited.

"Okay." Blair took a deep breath and tightened his hold on his backpack. "I wouldn't do it again. I wouldn't turn you in."

"Good for you," Jim commented without emotion. He wondered how far this guilt went.

"I asked for custody because I wouldn't have stopped you again," Blair said, and Jim blinked in surprise. All the thoughts of maneuvering Blair into a position to help Jim fled as Blair offered himself up.

"A cop in the middle of a station is offering to help me run?" Jim asked incredulously.

"Yes," Blair breathed, and Jim could hear the truth of it in the steady heartbeat.

"I don't believe you." He watched curiously as Blair processed the accusation. He flushed.

"Oh man, you're a Sentinel, you know I'm not lying," Blair said as he moved forward quickly, leaning his hands on the table and looking at Jim earnestly.

"You're the only person I've ever met who has a chance of tricking me, so I don't take that as proof," Jim countered. Blair collapsed into a chair on the far side of the table.

"I can't lie directly. You know that. I've never even tried to lie to you, so I'm telling you that if you want help escaping, if you request a transfer over to me in Major Crimes, I won't even try to fight you."

Blair's heart never faltered. Jim gave the kid credit for having balls.

"So, you get custody, and then you just let me get on a plane and head for Canada," he mused.

"Yeah."

"Small problem," Jim said thoughtfully as he pursed his lips. "Until I bond, I wear the restraints, and that order is from the head of Oak Street house. You couldn't take these off if you wanted to," Jim said as he lifted his hands.

"Okay," Blair said slowly. "So, we bond and then you can take off."

Jim looked at the kid incredulously. "Chief," he said slowly, as if speaking to someone mentally challenged, "if we bond, I can't run." Jim thrust away the thought of taking Blair with him, of bonding and not giving him up the way he'd given up Incacha.

"You got over the first bondmate," Blair argued.

"I wouldn't get twenty feet in the air before the pressure to return got to great," Jim pointed out.

"Okay, so I go with you to Canada and then we can do something to break the bond up there," Blair countered. "I mean, if I'm going to tank my career in law enforcement, I might as well go out with a bang." Jim blinked in surprise and took a second to gather his thoughts.

"You're just full of surprises there, Chief," Jim said. He stretched his senses and felt them settle in around Blair. Jim could see the color in the individual strands of hair, and the warm musk of Blair floated under the distress. Jim yanked his senses back and stood up so quickly that the chair skittered backwards across the tile. Blair jumped.

"I'd do it, Jim. I know I fucked up here, and I'm trying to make it right."

"Sometimes you can't fix your mistakes," Jim said as he thought of Richardson. "Sometimes you just have to learn to live with them."

"But we can fix this..." Blair said desperately.

"No, we can't," Jim barked as he set his jaw. Blair crossed his arms aggressively and stood up straight in the face of Jim's anger. Jim narrowed his eyes in fury. "Five months in there. Five fucking months. I couldn't walk through that airport right now without cringing in a corner and putting my hands over my ears," Jim snapped. "If that guard got in my face today, I don't know what I'd do!"

It was true. He still hadn't gotten his full control back. He didn't bother mentioning that when he'd first gone to the half-way house he'd had Keith walk the block with him every night, and every night he'd ended up a shivering mass until he could finally make the block without falling apart. It took over a week with Keith walking beside him every step of the way.

Now he was up to walking three blocks. He would leave Keith at the corner, and walk the street shackled and alone, some people smiling at him, others making rude comments loud enough for him to hear, and most ignoring him. He couldn't walk that airport now, but he'd be able to eventually. However, if he let himself fall into the sensory lull that Blair offered... if he let himself reach out for another bondmate, his days of running would end because Jim would never give up a bondmate, not if he had a choice.

"But the SI, it improves control." Blair sounded so damn confused, and Jim silently cursed the man's naiveté.

"It improved my ability to focus on something specific, but just walking... just dealing with the constant stream of sensory input every day... After five months of a carefully managed environment, I don't have half the control I once did," Jim admitted. "I couldn't run now if you bought me the ticket and drove me to the airport, and I won't risk everyone else's lives. Besides, aren't you the one who told me I could still have a life after the Institute?" Jim asked sarcastically. Blair flinched.

"So, this is permanent?" Blair asked quietly. Jim could hear the plea for forgiveness. He tightened his jaw against the urge to comfort the man.

Jim jerked the chains, making them rattle and snap. "Until I bond, yep," he agreed. Unfortunately, the longer he was at the half-way house, the more he realized that he just might have to do something drastic if he wanted any chance to escape. His movements were too monitored. Even if he overpowered Keith and cut the chains, he wouldn't have more than an hour or two before someone checked on him. And if he wanted to earn his freedom, he would have to steer clear of Detective Blair Sandburg.

"You're going to bond with Walker." Blair sounded lost.

"You have a better suggestion?" Jim asked coldly. He watched as Blair folded in on himself, his determination of a moment ago wilting. Jim sighed.

"Chief, you did what you thought was right. I just don't know what you want me to say about it. So, are we done?" he asked, tacitly looking for permission to leave. Blair slowly sat.

"I'm trying to make up for it," he answered.

"Can't turn back time."

"I really did need information for a paper, though. I'm writing something on the integration of Sentinels into various modern societies. Canada's system of rights for native Sentinels along with an automatic defense of Sentinel instinct as a legal claim really does result in more acts of violence, especially when you look at the statistics for the Sentinels who immigrated. No wonder they allow extradition now. But Russia's system has even lower rates of violence than we do. True, their Sentinels end up in some pretty scary prisons, but you did once tell me you'd rather go to prison than to the SI. I think the system I like most is the Finnish one. Limited rights, but more than here. Limited responsibility, but more legal liability than here."

Jim leaned back against the wall and looked at Blair in amusement. "You don't take no for an answer very well," he pointed out.

"Hey, I'm just talking about my research," Blair defended himself. "And you're the expert in Sentinels among the tribes of Peru, which is still a modern society despite the fact that they live a primitive lifestyle. And I really wanted to contrast the modern legal system against the traditional ways the Sentinel fit into daily life."

"You want me to talk about the Chopec," Jim said, his voice low and dangerous.

"Well, yeah. And after this, I might do something on the effects of managed environments on baseline control of senses because I don't think that anyone means for the SI to actually degrade a Sentinel's control over his senses. The whole point of the institution is to make sure every Sentinel has equal access to education on how to maintain control and take advantage of the legal rights offered--"

"No," Jim cut him off. He didn't feel like waiting until the kid ran out of breath or words. From the little he knew about him, that might take a long time.

"No?"

"I'm not talking about the Chopec with you," Jim said quietly. The tone would have sent most men into full retreat, but Blair got up and came around the table.

"Man, if we can just get people to talk about Sentinels and rights, maybe we can start changing the way people see them."

"Ease your guilty conscience with someone else. Go track down one of the other Sentinels you captured," Jim said as he turned to the door and opened it.

"Jim," Blair called, his voice cracking. Jim stood in the open door and looked at the man's raw pain. "God, Jim, I'm sorry."

Jim stood in the doorway, caught between two courses of action. He locked his jaw and pushed aside some innate sympathy that reacted to that pain. "Chief, you're a good man, and I appreciate what you're willing to do here, but just go home." Jim pulled the door closed and shuffled down the hall, back toward his legal guardian. The scent of distress followed him down the hall.

TEN
**
"Long damn day," Jim complained as they walked into the rooms they shared in the half-way house. The single bed in the front room had Jim's bedding. He walked over and dropped onto the bed. Keith collapsed onto the loveseat in front of the television.

"No joke. Jim, you were incredible. That guy had the drop on me."

"I'm not about to let you get yourself killed, Sport," Jim said as he pulled off his shoes. "And good work with tracking down that lead." Jim tucked the shoes under his bed. He now owned two pairs of shoes, six slacks, and seven low-necked shirts that showed off his collar. As a Sentinel, Jim got a stipend that depended on his guardian's base salary, but Keith controlled it. Jim wondered idly if Keith would buy him that copy of Shakespeare he'd felt like reading lately. Probably. Jim was just too damn stubborn to ask for it. So, until he earned his freedom, he'd live with two pairs of shoes, six slacks, and seven shirts. Well, that and various underwear. Jim had never before appreciated normal underwear as much as he did now.

"No walk tonight?" Keith asked as he stretched, his back popping. The kid had held up well enough through the arrest, but Jim could smell his adrenaline and distress, and he fought his own reaction to the near disaster. He should have known better than to check out a lead without backup, even if Keith didn't. The fact is they were both lucky.

"I don't think I have the energy for a walk. Could do with a beer," Jim answered. He waited to see how Keith would react.

"She's going to give me shit," he said, his face twisting into an exaggerated horror. Jim could imagine just how much shit the kid would get for asking for beers. Madame Battle-Ax, head of Oak Street house, had very particular ideas about Sentinels. Besides, she already didn't like Keith. She was the one who had battered Keith back in his battle to let Jim leave the house without chains.

"She sure is," Jim smiled evilly.

Keith shook his head. "Only because you saved my sorry ass today." He stood up and headed back out the door wearily.

Jim pulled his shirt off and headed for the bathroom. Certain things Keith could get him, like a beer, maybe, but if Jim wanted more freedom, he had to risk everything.

Jim turned the shower on and let the steam warm the room as he pulled off his pants and tossed them in the hamper. Sentinel biology class went over bonding. Sex overwhelmed a Sentinel's senses, flooding the system with so many endorphins and so much input that the Sentinel reached out for someone to act as baseline, to define normal. So, as the Sentinel orgasmed, the partner became the bondmate, who the Sentinel then developed an instinctive need to protect. After the bond, sex with other people wouldn't necessarily disrupt the bond as long as the bondmate was given permission and was close enough to monitor the interaction. Of course, the guardian could fucking sleep with the entire fleet with no consequences except possible removal of the Sentinel if he brought a venereal disease home.

Utterly logical, and utterly wrong. Jim remembered his bonding with Incacha. He lay in the dark, his whole body shuddering with fever and his mind full of the horror of having buried his friends. The smell of burning flesh and hot metal had made him throw up a half dozen times as he worked. The Army thought Jim's senses had come on-line late, but he'd developed them right on time--on time to live through his father's furious insistence that he hide his senses and a life in the army with all its hazards. And he had lived through the crash with the perfect sensory recall only a Sentinel could manage.

The Chopec had found him afterwards, dehydrated, concussed, delirious, and clinging to an imaginary cat. They'd carried him to the village.

In Incacha's hut, Jim had given up. He had finally reached a point where he just surrendered to the darkness, and then Incacha had laid down next to him, putting a cool hand on Jim's fevered chest. The first sob had been ripped from Jim's throat, and the ones after that slid out on the emotional avalanche that followed. In the dark, he'd clutched Incacha and cried. Even without understanding a word of the language, Jim understood the comfort Incacha offered, and on that intense emotion, Jim's senses had reached out and locked onto his first companion.

There were plenty of nights after that. The first successful raid against the drug dealers, when they'd come home with all the warriors, Jim had drunk native wine until his head swam. He'd laid his head on Incacha's thigh and felt his senses stretch between the two of them. Other nights he would lay in their hut, and he would listen to Incacha and his wife grunt in pleasure, and his own cock would fill until he came with Incacha, their bond tightening.

So, Jim knew that he could bond without sex. The danger was whether he could have sex without bonding.

He'd always avoided intimacy because he'd understood the danger, but if he wanted to have any chance at a normal life, he had to convince everyone he'd bonded to Keith. Of course, the danger was that he might actually bond. If he did that, endgame. Jim wouldn't walk away from a bondmate, and he knew it. And as much as he might have a stray thought about Sandburg, grabbing him and dragging him off, it was a fantasy. Jim wouldn't take someone else's freedom any more than he would accept other people taking his.

Jim stepped into the shower and scrubbed away the dust that had settled into his skin at the construction site. Jim's stomach rolled at the thought of replacing Incacha in his soul. A part of Jim still felt his first companion, and if he did this, he risked destroying the last piece of Incacha he carried.

If he didn't do it, he'd never be free. Eventually, Keith would get tired of living in a half-way house, and Jim would be passed on to someone else. Jim refused to accept that future. He wouldn't live his life in chains. He refused to let other people control his future. With military efficiency and a new determination, Jim finished his shower.

"I got those beers, and I lost about half my manhood," Keith called as the door opened. Jim wrapped a towel around himself.

"I'm surprised you remembered what you were going for," Jim said dryly as he came out of the bathroom and snagged one.

"You're worse than my mother." Keith dropped onto the loveseat, and Jim sat next to him in nothing more than a towel. He noticed how Keith's eyes darted everywhere but to Jim.

"Maybe your mother's right."

"Don't ever say that near her because I will never hear the end of it."

"I want to bond."

Keith fell silent, his beer halfway to his open mouth as Jim's words caught him flat footed. Slowly, he lowered the bottle and blinked at Jim. Jim finished taking a drink and cocked an eyebrow at Keith.

"Okay, I hate that you can look cool when saying things that leave me scrambling to get my brain restarted."

"I have years of practice on you. You'll get there," Jim offered. He sat with his beer and listened to Keith's heart pound heavily in his chest. Keith brought the mouth of his bottle up and took a long drink. The silence lingered even after he lowered the bottle.

"Are you sure? I mean, Ms. Bennett warned me that this would probably be temporary because you could qualify for a much more experienced guardian and you were just a little unsure about your ability to deal with the real world."

"That's why you had so much patience with the walks," Jim said, suddenly feeling very guilty about manipulating the kid.

"Yeah, I mean, I figured that at most, you'd have some good things to say about me when you requested a change over to homicide or major crimes. Hell, I figured Sandburg was feeling you out about requesting a change in guardianship."

"I'm not going to request Sandburg," Jim said definitely.

"And you're sure you want me? This isn't just adrenaline? You know, from me nearly getting my ass kicked?"

"That affected the timetable, not the decision," Jim lied. Sandburg had affected the timetable. It was time to be in another timezone because Jim didn't think for a second that the man had given up, and Jim had a finite amount of control with someone who just felt so right to his senses.

"So, you were planning on bonding?" Keith asked.

"You're a good cop and a good man. If I can just train you to put your shit away, you'll get promoted. I'm not in a hurry to move up and I'm not in a hurry to work with someone else, someone who might not be such a good man."

"And the events of today?"

Jim tilted his head as he considered his answer. "It bothered me that the guy almost got you. If I could have moved faster, I could have protected you better," Jim answered honestly. The ankle chains had nearly resulted in the suspect clocking Keith with a brick, and Jim could feel the bruises around his ankles where he had fought the restraints to rush to Keith's side. Punching the suspect had felt good, and having enough control to stop before doing real damage had felt better.

"You shouldn't have to protect me. It's my job to protect you while you do your thing with the senses," Keith argued, and the guilt Jim had nursed evaporated when faced with Keith's unflinching belief that Jim needed protection. After nearly a month, if he didn't know Jim well enough to know that Jim didn't need protection, then he deserved what Jim was going to do.

"Out there, we're partners. We watch out for each other," Jim corrected him gently, reining in his own frustration.

"Okay. I'm not sure how to do this," Keith admitted. Jim cocked an eyebrow at him again. Keith blushed. "Hey, I *know* how to do this, I just don't how you want us to do this."

Jim could hear the uncertainty in Keith voice, but the musk of arousal already wisped into the air and for the first time, Keith let his eyes settle on Jim. Jim flexed a muscle, and the scent intensified.

"Let's just start and see where it leads, okay?" Jim asked as he reached over and touched Keith's cheek. The man swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. Jim traced a finger down his neck and started unbuttoning his shirt.

"I haven't showered," Keith whispered.

"Oh well," Jim answered, basically ignoring him as he popped one button after another. Keith's hand found his arm, holding on with trembling fingers. Jim let his hand run over Keith's chest, small hairs tickling the pads of Jim's fingers before he dialed down the sense of touch. He tweaked a nipple, and Keith gasped.

"Bedroom, get naked," Jim ordered tersely, his own thoughts clinging to the feeling of Incacha's warm hand resting against his cheek as a slightly drunk Jim lay on his lap and watched the victory dance.

Keith obviously mistook the tone for lust because he bolted up from the bed and immediately started shedding clothes. Jim rolled his eyes at the mess and followed and draped his own towel on the bathroom doorknob before he walked into the bedroom where Keith had his double bed. Their double bed, Jim corrected himself. He would share Keith's bed, and he would do it without bonding. He refused to accept any other outcome.

Keith was down to underwear, and was struggling to pull his right leg free of them as he balanced on his left. Jim reached out and put a hand on his hip to balance him. Keith jerked and lost all coordination, falling backwards. Jim easily caught him, his arms going around Keith's tall, lanky form, pulling him close.

Jim kissed the back of Keith's neck, and then the juncture between Keith's neck and shoulder. The body in his arms shivered. Jim moved forward, and then realized that Keith's legs were still tangled in the underwear.

Jim pushed, tipping Keith onto the bed. He lay with his arms splayed out against the rumpled sheets.

"Oh god. I just never--"

Keith stopped with a gasp when Jim let his hand rest against Keith's thigh and then followed the warmth up until he rested both hands on the hollows of Keith's hips.

"Jim, are you sure?" Keith asked, his voice strangled, but then most of his blood had gone to his cock which lay heavy and dark against his pale skin.

"I'm sure," Jim said, but he knew his own cock was only half hard. "It's just hard to open up. Just lay back and let me play," Jim whispered, and Keith breathed out, his body sagging into the mattress as Jim reached down and tugged off Keith's underwear.

The scent of pheromones lay heavy in the air as Jim crawled onto the bed, tugging and pushing Keith into position while Keith clutched at him, clearly fighting his own need to thrust up. With a needy moan, Keith grabbed Jim's shoulders, but Jim ignored the man's attempts to pull them together. Instead he lay down beside Keith and slipped his leg over Keith's form, holding him down.

Dialing down all the senses, Jim stroked the hot body below him as he sank into a memory.

Jim lay in Incacha's hut after a feast celebrating the tribe taking four gray deer. There was meat for all, and Jim was finally a warrior of the tribe, his skin streaked with red paint and the songs still in his ears as he lay down for the night. When Omili finally came to the hut, the moon cast pale shadows over the night which slipped into the hut through the gaps in the woven twigs. She slipped into bed with a giggle, and Jim listened as Incacha's hand whispered over his wife's dark skin.

She gasped her need, and the scent of her arousal filled the air. Jim had blushed, and held his breath as he tried to decide between waiting them out and fleeing into the night.

"Sentinel, you should enjoy this with us," Incacha whispered. Jim blushed even harder and stood to leave.

"No, do not flee," Omili had whispered kindly, her voice rough with desire.

"Stay," Incacha agreed, and Jim sank back to his pallet.

Incacha once again turned to his wife, trailing kisses across her neck and down to her bare breasts. She arched up, and Jim felt his cock harden. Feeling like a voyeur, Jim had turned his back, focusing on the woven sticks of the hut, but his hearing dialed up so that he could hear each strained breath, every sigh of skin brushing against skin.

Hell, he could feel the air currents shift as Incacha and Omili had twisted around, and the smell of lust and sweat had filled the air. Jim clutched the pallet, panting with his own need as Omili groaned and skin slapped damply against skin.

Jim felt his senses wheel out of control, his hearing straining and his body humping in time with the rhythmic thump of Incacha's thrust. On each one, Omili would mewl, and Jim could feel the air currents from her breath. The moonlight brightened until he could track their shadows across the screen of twigs that made the wall of the hut.

Unable to resist, Jim reached down and grasped his cock, sliding back and forth into his own fist until he gasped for air. His whole body unraveled and his senses spiraled out of control and Jim didn't even try to control either as he thrust faster and faster.

Omili screamed, and Incacha made a grunt of satisfaction as the thrusts grew harder and deeper so that Omili's scream became a low wail that filled the room. Incacha called out words that Jim didn't know, and then fell silent, his body collapsing over his wife.

Jim felt his own orgasm rip through him, releasing him, binding him to Incacha, draining him of energy, but filling him with all the sounds and smells of the jungle.

Panting, sated, happy, Jim slowly opened his eyes.

Keith lay with his eyes closed and his mouth open, the smell of their semen mixing in the air. Jim looked down and found his hand around both their cocks, and both of them were softening. For a heartbeat, he struggled with a reality that didn't make sense. Then grief and pain drove out the satisfaction.

Incacha had rejected him. Incacha and Omili were a world away, safe, happy. He was here. Jim's still raw senses sent flares of distress through him, and Jim clenched his jaw against the need to find his mate.

"Jim?" Keith said softly. Jim didn't realize he had closed his eyes, but he opened them when Keith's fingers reached up to his face, brushing away tears Jim didn't remember crying. "Are you okay?"

"I can see you have something to learn about the post-sex talking," Jim said lightly. "I'm fine."

"You're crying."

"It's just..." Jim paused. "It's just different for me, Keith. I'm good," Jim promised. He captured Keith's hand which lingered on his face and brought it to his lips for a kiss.

And laying in bed, Jim realized he was fine. His plan had obviously worked because instead of the joy of a bondmate, he could only feel the gaping, raw wound of Incacha's absence. The sex had only brightened the pain.

"Let's get cleaned up before we stick together," Jim said lightly. He would mourn Incacha's loss again, but not now. Now he had a plan.

Keith nodded and started rolling toward the bed. "Man, I don't mind telling you, you've ruined me for anyone else. My god, Jim, is that a Sentinel thing or just you?"

"Experience, Sport," Jim lied. "You'll get there."

ELEVEN
***
Pretending to window shop for hunting knives, Blair kept an eye on his target in the reflection of the window. The mall was the last place Blair expected Jim to go, but here he was, wandering through the mall with a shopping bag after coming out of a sporting goods store.

The detective in Blair was suspicious. The part of Blair that kept him up at night whispering that he'd unfairly stolen another's person's life was ecstatic.

Jim stopped at a food vendor and Blair wandered one store down to get a better reflection. He could see the kid behind the counter hesitate, his eyes scanning the crowd behind Jim, probably looking for his guardian. Jim crossed his arms. The kid jerked. Yep, Ellison had just verbally lashed him. And there went the kid rushing to fill Jim's order.

Take away the collar that warned the casual shoppers, take away the children who pointed at him and pulled on their parent's arms, take away the ones who slid away from him, and he was just one more shopper. Two months since getting out of the SI, just over three weeks since bonding with Keith Walker, and Jim was wandering the mall by himself.

Blair blinked and found himself eying pink underwear. Shit. Blair stepped away from the Victoria's Secret window and wandered to Barnes and Noble, casually sorting the discount books, as he watched Jim's reflection on a silver trash can. Jim headed for a table, and Blair shifted so that he could see him out of the side of his eye.

He looked good.

Jim shoved half a hoagie in his mouth and chewed while flipping through some sort of magazine or brochure. Seven months ago, Blair would have considered this proof that his work with the Sentinel division was justified. Seven months ago, Jim was dirty and tired and riding the thin edge of frustration. Now he sat in the middle of a mall flipping through a magazine and looking good. Really good.

But Blair remembered the man's fierce insistence on freedom, and that collar still sat on his neck. Okay, so some Sentinels were out of control and yeah, maybe society needed a warning that they were unstable. But what about Dooger? The senior punched out some clueless underclassman every single time he got drunk, and he definitely needed to come with a warning label. If his father didn't keep giving the university endowment money, he would have been kicked out long ago.

And that was just one more unfairness. Blair added a mystery novel to his small stack and headed for the counter to pay. Jim was busy with his fries, so he wouldn't move for a little bit.

Blair wandered back out the door, desperate to scratch his neck where he'd tucked his ponytail, but there'd be plenty of time to do that once Jim got on the bus and headed home. No way could Blair follow him there. Well, he could follow him, but he really wasn't sure what the point would be. Jim would go home and switch into a thin t-shirt before working on the front yard or the car, and Keith would come out with two beers, and Blair would decide once again that he hated the scrawny detective from Burglary.

Okay, maybe Blair was overgeneralizing. Maybe two evenings watching them had given him the wrong picture. Maybe Jim didn't look so comfortable with Walker on the other nights when Blair wasn't watching. Maybe on those other nights, Jim didn't brush his hand over Walker's back. Maybe he didn't spend those nights comfortably chatting with scrawny, stupid Walker. God, if someone had Blair under surveillance, he would sure notice, but not Walker. Idiot.

And Walker clearly didn't appreciate who had chosen him. If he truly understood Jim, the department would be whispering about how remarkable Jim was, and yet, Blair hadn't caught even a hint of rumor or awe about the new Sentinel. He did his job. He was protective of Keith. He had a fair amount of control. Every time Blair pumped someone from the Two-Nine, they shrugged their shoulders and repeated the same routine, ordinary comments about Jim, but Blair knew he wasn't an ordinary man. So, if there wasn't anything wrong with Jim, Walker was clearly an idiot. And scrawny.

Jim stood and picked up his bag and his tray. He dumped his trash into a can and headed for the exit nearest the bus stop. Blair sighed and headed for the exit just to the south. He'd parted his Toyota there.

His cell phone rang as he stepped out into the brisk fall air, and Blair pulled it out.

"Sandburg," he said.

"Hey sweetie," the voice on the other end answered.

"Dinah. How is the sweetest woman at all of Rainier?"

"Yeah, yeah, I bet you say that to all the secretaries you're trying to sweet-talk."

"You're the only secretary I sweet-talk," Blair disagreed as he headed out into the parking lot. Clouds wandered the sky so that huge nebulous shadows drifted over the cars. "Can I get on Edwards' calendar?"

"She has an opening next week, but Sweetie, you are running out of time with the woman. I don't think she would sign off on this dissertation change except that you really have some people talking about that last paper. Dr. Stoddard was in here saying words like 'ground-breaking,' and promises of good press turn her head nearly as fast as big donations."

"And I will bring her all the good press she can dream of, she just has to give me a little more slack," Blair promised. "And I owe you a huge box of really expensive chocolates."

"Make that chocolates and a kiss, and I might forgive you for putting me on the spot with the dragon-lady."

"A thousand kisses, all for you, Dinah," Blair promised.

"God you're a flirty little shit. I am so setting you up with my niece one of these days.

"If she looks anything like you, I'll be a lucky man."

"She looks thirty years younger than me, and she's still probably older than you," Dinah laughed. "You're on the calendar, and you have a nice day, Blair."

"You too. And thanks, Dinah."

"No problem. Bye."

"Bye." Blair clicked the off button on the phone. The next second the phone was plucked from his hand and Blair jerked away, his heart pounding wildly as he stumbled backwards... at least he did until he spotted the smirking face of James Joseph Ellison. The man leaned against Blair's car and looked curiously at Blair as he held up the phone.

"Charming the girls, huh? Good to know that I'm not the only one who's been taken in by that smile of yours." Jim tossed the phone, and Blair caught it.

"Oh man! You just about gave me a heart attack!" Blair complained as he took deep breaths.

"I doubt it."

"What the hell are you doing?" Blair demanded as he shoved the phone back into a pocket. A couple walking through the parking lot looked over, eyes wide, and then hurried for their car with worried looks towards Jim.

"What am *I* doing?" Jim asked, his eyebrows raising as he crossed his arms. Blair felt himself blush.

"Hey, you're the one scaring me into a heart attack," Blair pointed out. Jim just continued to stare. "I'm just shopping. You know, books." Blair held his bag up defensively. "Man, I know you are all special ops guy, but you do not have to pull that shit with me just to prove some point."

"Is that what I was doing?" Jim asked.

Blair glared. "I have no idea what you were doing, but that was so not cool."

"Why are you here, Chief?"

"I'm shopping. We went over this once already, right after you scared the shit out of me."

"So, you were shopping for women's underwear?" Jim asked with a wicked smile that made Blair blush to the end of his hair. "I'm wondering if that's so you can charm some lady or if you just have a secret kink. You were looking at that pink lace number a long time."

"I wasn't... I mean... I got books," Blair finally managed to say.

Jim shook his head. "Not buying it, Sandburg. You live on Prospect, you work at Central, and you have class at Rainier. This mall isn't anywhere near where you shop."

"Hey, I am not into the whole proxemics of consumerism. I mean, sometimes a person needs to get out of their comfort zone and just go explore the city, especially since Major Crimes covers the entire city. The whole city is my beat, man."

"So, you're parking a block down from Keith's house because you felt an overwhelming need to patrol the area?"

"What? No!" Blair hurried to say.

"If you keep tabs on all your old cases like you do me, you must not sleep much at night."

"Hey! I am not keeping tabs on you." Blair crossed his arms and tried to look just as annoyed as Jim, but from the way Jim raised one eyebrow, Blair was guessing he hadn't pulled it off.

"Sandburg, whatever game you're playing, please just leave me alone." Jim uncrossed his arms and stooped down to pick up his shopping bag.

"Jim, really, I'm not playing a game," Blair rushed to say. "And I know I don't have a lot of idiosyncratic credit with you, and I am totally okay with that, but I guess I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I don't need a babysitter," Jim growled. Blair hesitated a step, falling behind as Jim strode toward the bus stop, and he hurried to catch up.

"I never thought you did, man. I just... after you said you had less control after the SI, I wondered if you were getting your control back, and the anthropologist in me just sometimes gets a little curious."

Jim kept walking.

"I wrote a paper on that. Two of the other Sentinels I..." Blair faltered. What should he call them? Sentinels he retrieved or captured? He skipped the whole word-debate. "Anyway, I interviewed two of them about the long-term effects of life in the SI, and they both reported significant degradation of control, and then I did a study with short-term students who were in for just the required classes, two weeks, and I found significant changes after even a short-term stay. The paper isn't out yet, obviously. I just gave it to a couple of professors, but I have so totally caught people's attention. The professors are talking about it, and one sent it to a friend of his and it looks like it might be one of the lead articles in American Anthropologist and Eli Stoddard offered to co-author a piece with me for Anthropology and Humanism if we do something with a wider population because I just slammed through that first study." Blair took a breath.

"Chief, look," Jim snapped, turning around so suddenly that Blair found himself chest to chest with the man. Blair could see Jim's nose flare as he scented the air. "This doesn't have anything to do with me."

"I'm trying to do the right thing here. If I can show them the science, I might be able to get the SI to make changes in housing. It's not much, but man, I'm really trying."

Jim sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "I hope you get through to them. For the sake of the kids in there, I really do. But this still doesn't have anything to do with me, and I'm a little confused, and a little frustrated, about you watching me."

"Jim." Blair stopped he didn't really have an answer. "Let me give you a ride home."

"If you're looking for forgiveness..."

"No," Blair interrupted. "Hey, I'm totally okay with you being pissed at me. I'd be pissed at me too, if I were you. Hell, I'm me and I'm still pissed at me."

"So this is self-flagellation," Jim said dryly.

Blair blushed again. "Hey, if I have guilt, I deserve it, but that's not why I'm following you, honest."

"Then why?"

"I don't know," Blair confessed.

"Chief..."

"Hey, I am well aware that I'm not dealing with this very rationally, and as a cop, I know that I crossed the stalking line a while back."

"And you knew I'd catch you at it," Jim interrupted. "And I'm wondering why exactly you want me to catch you. Looking for an easy way off the force? A chance to stop being a cop without quitting?" Jim demanded.

"No!" Blair immediately insisted. "I'm good at my job; I don't want to lose it."

"Then why tail me?" Jim gave Blair a demanding look that made him feel about two inches high. "Are you so sure I won't turn your ass in? You certainly seemed okay with turning me in."

Blair cringed.

"Fuck," Jim breathed. "You screwed me over, and you're giving me a chance to screw you over? That it?"

"No!" Blair insisted. "Maybe," he amended it when he thought about that for a second. He took an uneven breath. "I just wanted to know. I guess I just have this academic curiosity going."

"Academic curiosity?" Jim repeated incredulously.

"I mean, you rearranged my world, and now I'm intellectually flopping around trying to figure out how much of what I know about Sentinels is bullshit. I mean, you're it." Blair struggled to explain something that wasn't even clear in his mind. "You're like this Rosetta Stone with the big answer... what's a Sentinel supposed to be like, and I just.... Fuck. When Naomi comes back, and I tell her what I'm thinking, she's going to cry over me finally getting it. Then she is so going to give me the lecture about how I totally just accepted the status quo, and I so deserve that lecture."

"Blair..."

"And she raised me better, you know? I mean, she raised me to look past society's shit. I was raised on the picket lines protesting the treatment of migrant farm workers and the dangers of nuclear energy, but I don't know. I just bought the company line about Sentinels hook line and sinker."

"And now?" Jim asked. Blair had taken to studying the buttons on Jim's shirt, and he looked up, flinching as his eyes skimmed past the collar. Jim looked genuinely curious.

"I'm an ass," Blair shrugged. "Took me a while to figure it out, but I got there. I mean, if you earn a collar by showing you can't control yourself, that's one thing, but no one should be judged without ever being given a chance. And if a Sentinel can earn a collar to warn people that he's unpredictable, then a non-Sentinel should be able to, too.

"And some of the Sentinel stuff? I mean, I went through that Sentinel class the SI puts on, and man, I would be ready to knock someone's block off for some of that shit. No one should have a right to... but they do that and if you tell them the truth, which is that they're all full of shit, they just put it down to you being a Sentinel and having no control." Blair turned away and pulled his ponytail out of his jacket, reaching back and scratching the itch.

"Man, I haven't ever fucked up this big before," Blair said quietly, "and then I go and discover that I've fucked so many people over that my karma is like this giant, overstuffed elephant... like huge. It's not good for my self-image, you know. And I guess I'm just trying to catch my balance."

"By watching me?" Jim's voice was soft now, and Blair closed his eyes.

"I don't know."

"I don't know either, Chief. But this watching me..."

"Shit. I'm sorry. I know I should just stop. I'm getting carpal tunnel from typing with the laptop perched on the steering wheel." Blair turned around and smiled weakly, but Jim's face was full of concern. It made Blair feel even worse.

"Blair, Keith and I are going camping for a week, just to get out of the city. Take the week off," Jim suggested. "Keith's going to notice you creeping from tree to tree behind us, and you need to get your head screwed on straight." Jim stepped forward and put his hand on Blair's shoulder. Blair leaned into the casual touch.

"I'm sorry," Blair whispered.

"I know you are, Chief. I'm sorry, too."

It wasn't quite forgiveness, but Blair managed a small smile, content to get what he could. "Let me drive you home," he suggested, looking up into Jim's dark eyes.

Jim stood silent for a moment and then shook his head. "No. You need to go home, Chief. I can take the bus."

"But--"

"No," Jim repeated. "Blair, this is it. I don't want to see you again." Jim turned and walked toward the bus stop, shopping bag in hand, and Blair bit his lip. He'd screwed with Jim enough; maybe it was time to admit that he wouldn't ever fix this mistake and move on. Blair turned slowly back toward his own car, for some reason, feeling worse than ever.

TWELVE
***
"Rise and shine, Sport. It's dark o'clock of the morning, and we need to get on the road," Jim said cheerfully as he shook Keith. Keith groaned and flopped a hand out.

"Too damn early."

"We talked about this yesterday. I want out of the city before the traffic starts," Jim said as he sat on the edge of their bed and pulled his shoes on.

"I don't mind traffic; I'll drive rush hour," Keith mumbled as he rolled over. Jim gritted his teeth. Okay, time to do something he really hated doing.

"Keith, the car exhaust on the freeway during rush hour is really hard for me. Don't make me do that," he said in the smallest voice he could muster, given how much he hated playing helpless.

Keith lay motionless for a second. "Right, moving," Keith answered as he rolled toward the edge of the bed groggily.

He reached out a hand towards Jim, and Jim took it, sitting on the edge of the bed by Keith.

Jim felt like a heel.

"Want to wake up properly?" Keith asked as he ran a hand over Jim's thigh. Jim could smell the desire on the early morning air.

"Keith..." Jim stopped. Up until now he had managed. He didn't always come, and the infrequent sex always left him raw and struggling with a grief that ripped into his soul, but he'd managed. However, now his emotions were too raw, his hope was too close to the surface to take the risk, not now, not when he could feel freedom crouching at the edge of his awareness.

"Keith, I want to do this properly. I don't want a quicky before we jump in the car."

Keith blinked at him, and Jim could feel the worry and stress.

"My first bondmate was in the jungle, Keith. It'll be easier for me when we're out in the woods, away from all this noise," Jim promised.

"We could try downstairs again," Keith suggested softly.

"After a week of getting to know each other, I'm sure downstairs will work fine," Jim whispered. He let his own hand trail over Keith's hip, feeling like six feet three inches of pure shit. Time enough to feel guilty later. Jim reached over Keith to the end table where he'd sat the mug he'd brought in earlier. Sex and coffee... two sure ways to get Keith moving in the morning.

"Got the coffee right here," Jim said, luring the man with the mug of coffee just outside his reach. Keith reached for it, and Jim surrendered the cup.

"So, are you actually awake?"

"Yep, awake, moving," Keith grunted as he took a sip.

"I'm going to get things ready; just get yourself dressed. Oh, did you call the social worker, let her know we were going out of town?"

"Yes, mother. God, you nag, Jim."

"God, you forget shit, Keith."

"Yeah, yeah. I called her, I told her we'd be back in a week. I stopped the newspaper. I have the neighbor picking up the mail. It's all taken care of, oh mother hen Ellison." Keith took a long drink of coffee and then put the mug down on the side table.

"Good," Jim said as he walked out of the room. He went back to the kitchen and picked up a box of non-perishables and took it downstairs into the Sentinel-safe room. Other than one of their "bonding" sessions, Keith had never used it. And after Jim hadn't come at all that time, Keith had locked the door and forgotten it. But just knowing it was down here.... Jim pushed open the door to the actual room. It had no windows, but when he turned the soft lights on, a filtration system rumbled softly behind soundproofed walls. The walls were soft brown, the floor a deep, padded carpet in beige. The only door led into a small bathroom. It reminded Jim of a padded cell in a nuthouse, and it really was used just about the same way.

Every guardian needed a Sentinel-safe room, but like with most things, Keith had gone a little overboard.

Jim put the box just inside the door and went upstairs. He could hear Keith in the back bathroom, turning water on and cursing softly about the time. Jim grabbed the radio and another box of food and a few books. He carried them down the stairs and then hurried back up.

By the time Keith came into the kitchen, Jim was packing the water canteens into a box destined for the trunk of Keith's car.

"I can't believe I'm moving before the sun is even up. I haven't done this since cub scouts." Keith scrubbed his hair, and the spikes were back.

"How much rent do you pay on this place?" Jim asked as he unfolded the maps, checking them before folding them back up and slipping them into the box. He had several maps. He hadn't yet decided on an escape route.

"What?"

"How much rent do you pay?" Jim repeated calmly. Keith looked at him a little strangely, and then shrugged. "Eleven hundred a month."

"How much rent do I pay you?" Jim asked as he picked up an apple and bit into it. Keith had torn open a breakfast bar, but he ignored it as he focused all his attention on Jim.

"Do you think I'd mismanage your money?" Keith asked, all the bleariness gone, his brows lowered in concern.

"I just think a man should know how much rent he's paying," Jim said easily. "So, how much?"

"Four hundred a month."

"And how much do I have in my account right now?"

"Is there something you need? Jim, you don't have to save up if it's something you really want. I mean, I don't really need that four hundred, so I'd be okay with kicking it right back to you." Keith put the breakfast bar down and took a step forward. Shit, this would be so much easier if the kid had beaten him or stolen his money, but Jim knew that Keith would never do either one.

"I just want to know how much money I have in the bank, Sport," Jim said as he put the apple down and stepped closer to Keith.

"Nearly two thousand," Keith answered.

"Don't you think that's something a man should know about himself? You know, I don't even know how much money I make a week. I mean, I know my salary is based on yours, but I don't know how much either of us makes. And I know that when I ran, I must have had at least sixty thousand in back salary. So, is that floating around somewhere or did the powers that be just decide that since I was a Sentinel now, they could save a little money?"

"If the army stole from you, we can call Ms. Bennett when we get back. That's not right, and if you have sixty thousand dollars coming to you, I'll make sure you get it."

"You will," Jim said quietly, dangerously.

"You know I wouldn't let someone steal from you," Keith assured. "Jim, are you okay?" He stepped forward and let his hand rest on Jim's arm.

"Keith, has it ever occurred to you that, as a man, I shouldn't have to ask you how much I make? I shouldn't have to ask you for permission to use my own money. I sure as hell shouldn't need you to fight my battles for me."

"Jim, what are you talking about?" Keith now started to smell of concern, and he studied Jim's face, his brows lowered in a tight frown.

"And your belief that I need to be protected is flat-out insulting."

"Whatever the problem is, let's just calm down here." Keith let his fingers circle soothingly on Jim's arm. The touch might have been calming except that Jim knew it was a calculated move meant to control him by short-circuiting his anger.

"The problem is that you, like all the assholes at SI, think you have a right to try and control me," Jim said softly. Keith's fingers hesitated before he started the petting again.

"Jim, I know that the instincts can get a little overwhelming at times..."

"No, the patronizing attitude can get a little overwhelming," Jim corrected him. "The having people assume that I can't control myself and the way that you all treat me like I'm a mentally damaged child is incredibly overwhelming. But the fact is that I have been a Sentinel for twenty years without having you manage my finances or give me permission to go to the mall."

"Jim..." Keith breathed the word, pulling his hand back as he inched a retreat.

"Keith, you look at me like just another Sentinel; you don't see me."

"I see you," Keith promised.

"Where did I train for the Rangers?" Jim asked. He crossed his arms and waited as Keith opened his mouth wordlessly. "What's my father's name? When's the last time I talked to him?"

"Hey, you aren't very big on sharing, and I'm okay with that. And your father is William."

"Which you got from my file," Jim said with confidence. "Which of us would qualify higher on the weapons range?" Jim mused. "I'm betting I would."

"You want a gun? Jim? Maybe I should call someone," Keith said shakily.

"You ignored my control, my real needs, my special ops training. Keith, you're going to be a good cop one day, but you have to start questioning what you see far more than you do now," Jim continued, completely ignoring Keith's comment, and the fear that now drifted through the air.

Keith suddenly twisted and lunged toward the phone, but Jim closed the distance between them in a single stride, grabbing Keith's arm and using the momentum to put him face first against the wall.

Keith struck out with a leg, but the kick was off-balance and ineffective, and Jim pressed his own body to Keith's back, trapping the man so that he couldn't move.

"Jim," Keith pleaded, and now the fear almost choked Jim.

"Keith, calm down," Jim muttered, unwilling to terrorize the man. Yeah, he was part of a whole system that had terrorized Jim, but the kid didn't know that. "Keith, I'm not going to hurt you, so just calm down."

"Jim, come on, you don't want to do this." Keith swallowed heavily and his words came out shaky.

"I want my freedom. That's all. I don't want you hurt."

"Jim, you don't want to put people in danger."

"I was helping people when you were still watching cartoons in your Spiderman pajamas," Jim pointed out. "So, we're going to walk downstairs. If you try to fight me, I will do what I have to in order to subdue you. The goal here is to get you downstairs without hurting you, so don't fight me on this one, Keith."

"Jim." Keith tried to turn, to face Jim; however, Jim captured Keith's arm and twisted it up behind his back.

"Downstairs."

Keith tugged once, and Jim wrenched his arm up higher, forcing Keith onto his toes and making him hiss with pain. When Jim eased up, Keith didn't fight any more. Slowly, Jim walked Keith downstairs and toward the Sentinel-safe room.

"You planned this. That's why you worked on getting me to agree to the camping trip. I thought the city really was making the bonding hard on you." God, the kid sounded like someone had just told him, for the first time, that Santa Claus wasn't real.

"You're a good kid, but no one has the right to own anyone else. I'm just doing whatever I have to do, here," Jim explained.

"When they catch you, they're going to give you to some hardass who keeps you chained and locks you in your room the minute you get home. Jim, I don't want that for you. Just let me go, and we'll forget this ever happened."

"Sport, if they catch me, they're going to lock me in some room in some Institute and leave me there until I rot," Jim corrected him. "But at least I'll rot knowing that I did what I could to earn my freedom. Besides, with a week's head start, their odds of catching me are not that good," Jim pointed out as he pushed Keith into the room.

Keith stumbled forward and then spun as if ready to take Jim on in hand-to-hand combat.

"Don't try it, Sport. You'll just get hurt," Jim warned. "I've left you enough food for a couple of weeks, but the captain will be calling as soon as you don't show up for work next Monday, so you shouldn't be down here more than eight or nine days. You have a radio, and some books. Is there anything else you need?"

"Answers, Jim," Keith said softly. He rubbed the shoulder Jim had twisted and looked at Jim in confusion.

"I deserve a chance to live free."

"But we bonded."

Jim shook his head. "No, we didn't. We had sex."

"That's why you sometimes had problems... why you couldn't come," Keith said softly.

"And I appreciate you not talking about that problem with the social worker," Jim nodded. "You're a good man, and if I had let myself, I could have bonded with you, but you aren't worth giving up my freedom. No one is."

Keith's confusion hardened into something darker. "So much for that whole story about the city causing your problems. You just played me like a fucking violin," Keith swore, which was totally out of character for the man Jim had grown to know.

"Keith, a Sentinel raised in the system would think himself lucky to get you as a bondmate. You're a good man, and I said as much in the letter I left upstairs. But you have to get this through your head. As a man, I have a right to be free. If other Sentinels don't fight for their freedom, that's their choice, but I won't walk away from a chance to be my own man. And I played everyone, from Nunez to the judge to you, so you're in good company."

Jim pushed aside the thoughts of Sandburg, who all the way up to the end seemed to sense something was wrong. Jim hadn't seen him today, but if the kid turned up trying to tail Jim again, he would have to do something drastic. He just had to fight the urge to grab the kid and make the run up the I-5 with him in the trunk.

"Jim, please," Keith tried one more time.

"You might want to spend the next week or so thinking about the unfairness of someone locking you up just because they can," Jim suggested before he pushed the heavy door shut. Sliding the bolt into place, Jim watched Keith for a second through the small shatterproof window. He stood with his hands hanging by his side, looking utterly lost.

Turning away, Jim headed up the stairs. The cool weather was the perfect excuse for him to switch into one of the turtleneck sweaters he'd bought with the allowance he'd begged from Keith. That would work until tonight when he could break into some place with heavy cutting equipment. Car body shop would be best. Sunday, and the gun shops were closed, so he could break into one and get something a little more effective than Keith's service weapon. By Monday, he could decide which escape route to use and head for Canada.

No more Sentinel Institute, no more guardian, no more chains or collars, and no more Blair Sandburg. He quickly changed shirts, grabbed the last box of supplies, and slipped out into the dark. No more putting his life on hold.

THIRTEEN
***
Blair stepped out onto the dark street. This tip might just turn out to be some cracked up homeless guy talking to the wall, but Ruby usually pointed Blair in the right direction when she called about Sentinels in trouble. Seven months ago, Blair would have called the Sentinel division and reported her call. Hell, seven months ago Blair would have *been* the Sentinel division. Now, nothing was quite as black and white.

Walking up to a graffitied door, Blair knocked on it, and then leaned back and watched his car. Okay, if he was lucky, he would come back to a car still mostly intact. If he hurried. Maybe. The door slid open with a screeching wail, and Ruby stood there, a solid shadow in the murky darkness.

"Hey, beautiful," Blair said as he stepped closer and leaned in to give her a peck on the cheek. Kids and gang members regularly shot out the streetlights, so even this close, he could barely see her smile.

"Blair, one day you're going to charm the wrong woman, and she's going to drag you to the church and make an honest man out of you."

"Never going to happen. I would never abandon you, Ruby."

She snorted. "Get inside before someone spots your white ass on the street," she stepped back into her kitchen and flicked on a light. Weak florescent lights flickered and finally illuminated the space.

Blair stepped into the immaculately clean kitchen. Huge pots hung from the wall and rows of spatulas waited for the morning rush when her volunteers would show up for a couple of hours of hard labor under Ruby while they fed hundreds of homeless and poor. And in the middle, stood Ruby. She was possibly the darkest black woman Blair had ever seen, and while she wasn't exactly fat, Blair, looked at her and thought of that old saying, 'built like a brick shit-house.' He wouldn't want to piss her off because she very possibly could break him in half.

"So, I hear you have a couple of Sentinels wandering around."

"Maybe," Ruby agreed carefully. "Some of the guys been talking about a couple of Sentinels down by the docks. You plan on tracking them down alone?" Ruby asked, her eyebrows going up.

"We don't even know if they are Sentinels," Blair shrugged. "So, what exactly have you heard about these two guys?"

Ruby cocked her head and considered him with narrowed eyes. "They say these guys are wandering down by the Wins warehouse. They're in bad shape if the rumors are true," she said slowly. "They're flinching away from noises no one else can hear and huddling in the shadows."

"Why do you think they're Sentinels?" Blair asked curiously. Ruby's eyes never left him; she studied him so intensely that Blair found himself squirming under her gaze.

"People down here are poor and uneducated, but they can spot a Sentinel," she finally said as she crossed her arms and silently dared Blair to challenge her. No way was Blair touching that challenge.

"Down by the Wins warehouse?" he asked, completely ignoring that creepy sensation that felt suspiciously like when his dissertation committee called him in and started demanding answers. Only, instead of facing 12 cranky, old, hide-bound men and women, he had to face one Ruby, and his dissertation committee freaked him out a lot less.

She stared at him for a second before she agreed with a simple, "Yep."

Blair sighed. Okay, choice one: call in the Sentinel division. And no way could he do that, not again. Choice two: find them and help them. Illegal as hell, but better for the karma. "I'll go check it out," he agreed as he turned toward the door.

"Hold on there, babe, where's your backup?"

"Ruby," Blair stopped. Funny, the minute anything Sentinel came up, Blair lost his bearings and struggled to make even the simplest of decisions. He took a deep breath and tried to find the certainty, the confidence in himself that he'd possessed eight months ago. He couldn't. "I'm not sure the Sentinel Institute is always the best option," he admitted softly. He turned around and faced her. "I think some Sentinels do just fine on their own, and need to just be left alone."

Ruby's eyes went wide and she stood silent as she considered him. Slowly she started nodding. "I respect a man's choices, but do you really think these two are going to be okay with just a helpful word and a meal?" Ruby asked without even batting an eye at Blair's confession.

She wasn't calling and reporting him, so that was a step forward, Blair thought as he gave her a smile and a shrug. "Probably not. But for all I know, they're two crackheads. I'll go down there and see what I can find. If I find two crackheads, I'll offer them a ride to rehab. If I find two Sentinels in really severe distress, I'll call in the Sentinel division."

"If you find two runners?" Ruby asked curiously.

"I'll clean them up, get them fed, and ask them what they want to do," Blair said honestly, well aware that he was admitting to a felony, which didn't generally look good on a cop's record. Simon would have a fit if Blair got caught.

"Honey, if I just thought they needed feeding, I would have fed them," Ruby said softly. "But you do what you need to do. If you think they're stable enough to hold themselves together, you bring them back here, and I'll help you get them cleaned up," Ruby offered.

Blair shook his head. "I wouldn't put you on the spot, Ruby. If someone's going to get his ass thrown in jail, I'm the better candidate. I mean, you're really needed down here. A lot of these homeless people count on you for more than just food, and if you get arrested.... I wouldn't put you in the middle."

Ruby laughed. Hell, Ruby howled. With one hand on a hip, she leaned against the gleaming prep table and laughed until her eyes crinkled at the sides and her eyes brightened with tears of laughter.

"Oh, honey. You are just such a little sweetie. First, I'm not going to jail. Second, I've been in the middle longer than you've been wearing long pants." She wiped a tear from her face and shook her head in amusement. Still shaking her head, she headed around the prep table to the large refrigerators and pulled out an apple. "You want one?" she asked.

Blair shook his head, struggling to understand when this conversation had gone south.

"Wrong answer, babe," she said as she pursed her lips and considered him. "Someone asks if you want an apple, you tell 'em how you can never resist the temptation, or maybe how you're tempted, but you shouldn't."

The words registered, but Blair's brain was still back on the Ruby being involved part, and it took a second for the meaning of her words to finally sink into his brain.

"Ruby?" Blair asked. He'd never been the kind of kid who sent off for secret decoder rings and played spy, but her knowing wink and the way she held the apple up told Blair just how big of a secret she had just entrusted to him. Fuck. How many doors would that open? Blair wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Hon, you're a good man. Sometimes men need a little more growin' up time than women do, but I knew you'd get there. So, you take my word for it that these two are hurting. I think you're going to have to call in for some help."

"Oh fuck," Blair breathed. A half-dozen times, Ruby had called him for some Sentinel that wandered into the area, lured by her food. But the Sentinels they'd retrieved from her tips had been traumatized, in one case, near coma. Their senses had been so out of control that they shivered in the corner or screamed and clawed their own skin. One woman had taken one look at Blair and had thrown herself at his legs, bruising and battering him in what seemed to be a psychotic attempt to climb into Blair's skin with him. Ruby never turned in a functional Sentinel.

Blair blinked at Ruby in surprise. She chuckled and shook her head. "Sometimes you men just aren't that quick on the draw, but the moment I met you, I knew you'd figure it out for yourself."

"But, Ruby," Blair nearly whispered. "I..." he stopped and looked around. "I have a white noise generator and a Sentinel safe room. I've got access to Sentinel medicines. I might be able to help them, even if you can't," he said, truly damning himself in the eyes of the law. Yep, he'd just gone from one to five years in prison to a good eight years... ten if he actually did take them home. Suddenly, Blair wished he wasn't a cop. It might be easier if he didn't know the law well enough to know how truly damned he was if he got caught. Well, at least Naomi would be proud of him at his trial.

"If I get there and they're that bad, I'll call for help," Blair promised. "But I can't just send two people to the Institute before I know for sure, and I'm not questioning your judgment because you have always been right in the past, but..." Blair stopped, unsure of how to explain this without sounding like he didn't trust Ruby.

Ruby nodded. "Knew you'd be worth your salt when you finally went and grew up. You do what you have to do. And if you think you can help 'em, you let me know and I'll get you some transportation."

Blair blinked at Ruby in surprise, wondering just how far her fingers went into the underground. Shit, Blair would have donated a kidney to get this much information eight months ago, and thank god she had never trusted him back then.

"You're a good woman, Ruby," Blair nodded as headed for the door.

"Damn right I am," she enthusiastically agreed. "But, Blair..."

Blair turned to look at her.

"You're a good man, and you always have been. Alls you've seen is the poor souls suffering under the pain of being a Sentinel. Maybe if you'd really seen the Sentinels who live just fine without all this Institute crap, you would have thought twice, but that's not your fault."

Blair stared at Ruby for a second, and then she sniffed, a sure sign of dismissal. "Get out there before those boys take your car apart one bolt at a time."

Not really sure what to think, and knowing that his car probably was in danger, Blair headed out the door. The cool fall air smelled of trash and coming rain. Blair headed for his car as pre-adolescent shadows darted away and ran for a nearby building with boarded up windows.

Blair pulled up on the south side of the Wins warehouse and reached into his pocket for the strip of metal he usually carried. This would be a hell of a lot safer in the day when dock workers from the nearby ships would be wandering through; however, since Blair wasn't on the right side of legal anymore, darkness was his friend.

He got out of the car, not bothering to lock it. In this neighborhood, the kids could open the door faster without the key than Blair could with it. Besides, hopefully Blair wouldn't have to go far; hopefully he could lure the Sentinels to him and get them into the car. Ruby might be willing to help, but Blair just wasn't sure he was ready to be part of the organized....

Blair stopped and considered the words he could use to mentally finish that thought. Underground fit best. And given the way society treated Sentinels, the comparisons with American slavery were pretty appropriate. Funny, until now, Blair really hadn't thought of people like Ruby and Magna as anything other than criminals; he'd pretty much lumped them in with traffickers. And bringing in a woman like Magna--Blair had thought of that bust as a way to save hundreds of Sentinels who she put at risk by helping them leave the country. Well, now he was picking up where she left off.

Walking closer to the building, Blair pressed his thumb to the metal strip and clicked it. The tiny strip created an almost inaudible, odd, off-key warble that tended to make Sentinels search for the source. He'd used it to find runners in a crowd when they'd had vague tips come into the Sentinel division. Now he used it to find the two Sentinels he wanted to help.

Blair clicked it again as he walked toward the west corner of the building. A crane rumbled in the distance, unloading some ship even in the middle of the night. Blair clicked the metal bit in his pocket three times and then stopped, watching the shadows for any movement. A van was parked near the corner, and a mailbox had bright red graffiti all over it.

Blair bit his lip to keep himself from just calling out and telling them to hurry before all three of them got spotted. Somehow he didn't think Sentinels were going to trust him if he went around yelling for them to get out there.

He clicked the metal again, and something caught his attention. He deliberately turned, slowly, pulling his hand out of his pocket. Simon thought he was nuts for going undercover without a weapon, but Blair had been working undercover with Sentinels so long that he had learned to trust instinct, and not a gun.

And his instinct had come through for him again. Leaning against a building stood a man. Blair couldn't see him in the dark, but from the way the shadow cocked his head, Blair suspected that the man could see him. Yep, a Sentinel.

"Man, this is not safe for you. People have seen you. Just come with me back to my car, and I can get you somewhere safe," he whispered. It felt like familiar territory. "I promise not to turn you in to the Institute," Blair added, a promise he never would have made in the past.

The man took a hesitant step forward, and Blair stood still. With a burst of energy, the Sentinel darted towards Blair and grabbed his wrist, yanking him forward. Blair gasped, but didn't fight as he found himself shoved between the man and the building. This close, Blair could see the ripped clothing and smell both the unwashed body and the sharp stench of blood.

"Hey, it's okay. I'm not here to hurt you. You just have to take some deep breaths and calm down."

Blair knew the Sentinel wasn't doing well with the calming down part when he gave a low growl.

"Hey, it's okay, there isn't any danger here," Blair reassured him, slowly reaching up and resting his hand on a trembling arm. The Sentinel started pushing on him, back towards Blair's car, and Blair let the man herd him backwards.

"Do you have a friend here? Man, I really don't want to leave someone behind if he's as freaked out as you are, but if you can get him to come out, we can all just get in my car and go," Blair said softly, well aware that the Sentinel might not be able to hear more than the tone of voice, and oh yeah, this really might be time to call for the Sentinel division.

"Hey, just say something so I know you're in there. Come on," Blair urged, his hand creeping into his pocket and fumbling for his phone. "It's okay, Sentinel; you're safe. Just focus on my voice."

Blair's fingertips found the plastic, and he closed his fist around it as the Sentinel looked down towards Blair in confusion. His blond hair had a streak of dried blood near the temple, and when he brought a hand up to touch Blair's cheek, the wrist was red and raw.

"Fuck," Blair breathed. This wasn't a runner, this was an escapee of some trafficker. Blair pulled his phone out and flipped it open. This was way beyond a meal and a couple of days in a safe room.

The Sentinel suddenly whirled, putting his back to Blair, and then backed up so that he pressed Blair between himself and the building so hard that Blair fumbled the phone. "Fuck," Blair cursed again as it clattered to the ground. Then he focused on the strong back that had trapped him and pressed on him so hard that he couldn't even take a deep breath.

"It's okay big guy. I'm just getting someone who can help. I know you've got to be hurting right now, and I know someone who can make that pain go away." Blair didn't add that they would also make the Sentinel's free choice go away, but right now, this man didn't have much free choice—he was injured and scared and functioning on just instinct.

Blair let his weight sag, struggling to squat down even as he slowly stroked the Sentinel's back. "It's okay," he crooned, wondering how much was getting through.

The Sentinel jerked and barked out the word "No!"

"Hey, just a phone. It's okay," Blair gasped, his air just about driven out of his body as the Sentinel slammed him back into the wall.

"No," the Sentinel repeated, his voice rougher, the word drawn out. He angled his head toward Blair. "Run," he whispered before he fell to one knee.

Jim walked down the street, ignoring a need to stroke his neck where the collar no longer sat. Once again, he could pass for any citizen. He still struggled with control, but that would return in time too; he had no doubt of that.

Detouring into an all-night café, Jim pulled out Keith's wallet with the trip money. A waitress smiled and nodded as she poured someone else's coffee.

"One coffee, black," Jim said as he passed her and wandered toward a booth.

Tomorrow he would collect some weapons, and then he'd hit the I-5 up to Bellingham, abandon the car somewhere that thieves would take it to pieces, and hike to the border. He'd considered taking the car all the way to Blaine, but he couldn't be sure thieves would get rid of his evidence there. He'd get into Canada, and then find Canada Highway 1.

Long before Peru, Jim had researched some of the tribes and their attitudes, and he figured on making a run for the Chehalis Indians or maybe even over to Kasabonika Lake Reservation. Despite what Sandburg thought, Jim had no intention of becoming prey for the Sentinel traffickers who bribed their way into Canada. If he could prove that he had a value to the society, Canada was famous for losing extradition paperwork even if someone did find out that he was an escaped Sentinel from America.

"Here you go, hon," the waitress appeared with the coffee and a menu. Jim handed her a bill and smiled at her attempts to flirt.

"Anything look good?" she asked, leaning on his table.

"Just some apple pie," he answered as he handed the menu back. She shrugged and disappeared.

Jim blinked, rubbed his eyes, and then blinked again. "No," he whispered to himself as the black panther came through the wall of the café.

He opened his eyes, and the cat was still there, pacing and sticking his nose in the air as he scented something that made him growl. Jim gripped the coffee cup and tried to ignore it as the cat leapt up to the counter where the waitress was now hitting on another late-night customer.

"Incacha," Jim whispered so softly that not even another Sentinel would have heard, "This is not fair. You can't send me away and then expect me to believe in this shit," he said as he forced his eyes away from the imaginary predator.

Twice he'd seen that cat before: once when he'd laid in the jungle dying after burying his men and the second time when Incacha had fed him some shit that the army definitely would have disapproved of before they went on their 'spirit walk.'

"The cat is your guide," Incacha said seriously as they walked through a blue jungle, which was Jim's first clue that he was stoned out of his mind. Back then, Jim had studied the animal as it leapt from a pile of boulders into the path ahead of them.

"The cat is a hallucination," Jim disagreed. Incacha looked at him with disappointment, and Jim tried to hide just how much that bothered him.

"The cat is part of your soul. You have chosen the form, but you cannot fail if you follow your soul, Enquiri," Incacha had said, calling Jim by the Chopec name with which Jim had just been gifted.

"I always do what I think is right, Incacha, you know that," Jim said as he turned to his companion. The discussion of failure… that wasn't where he wanted to go. He'd failed at being his father's son. He'd failed his men and had to bury their bodies because of it. He wouldn't fail as the Sentinel of the Chopec.

Incacha shook his head. "You follow your head, Enquiri. Sometimes you follow your heart. You must learn to follow your soul."

The drug-induced trip had simply gotten stranger from that point with temples rising out of the jungle floor and him tripping over a timber wolf that really had no business in a rain forest. Jim had woken the next morning with a hangover from hell and a new resolve to never again touch drugs.

"Not working," Jim muttered angrily as the cat snarled and paced the length of the counter. The cat looked at him with the same disappointment Incacha had in his eyes on that day long ago. Jim put his cup down so fast that the hot coffee slopped out onto his fingers. Ignoring the waitress who was coming over with his pie, Jim got up and left. He had a plan. The plan did not involve imaginary cats.

As he hurried back to his hotel room, Jim tried to ignore the black shadow that followed him, tail whipping angrily from side to side.

FOURTEEN
***
Jim turned the television up another notch. It helped him ignore the rumbles of the cat pacing the corner of the cheap hotel room. Shit, he hadn't slept more than three or four hours, and now he had to go check out a couple of gun shops. He had his eye on one across from a cafe. It seemed to have a lot of high-powered hunting weapons, and from what Jim had seen when he did a little window shopping, the security system was old. With the one obvious exception, the plan was going well. Grab some weapons and ammo, and then get the hell out of Dodge.

The cat screamed its displeasure, and Jim jumped.

"Don't you start. If I go flinching at sounds no one else can hear, this is going to be the shortest run in history," he complained to the cat. He got up and headed for the bathroom. The cat screamed again.

"You know, if I hadn't spent so much time thinking of Incacha lately, this would not be a problem," Jim complained as he started shaving. He could mark that one up to Sandburg, too. After all, he'd planned on just playing good little Sentinel so long that even the bitchy head of the half-way house gave up on the chains, but with Blair there in the background, Jim had to accelerate the time table. Blair had forced him into a corner where he'd been forced to fake the bond, and forced to hang on to the memory of his lost companion. God he was tired. The cat leaped into the bathtub and sprawled out.

"You wouldn't be so happy if I turned that shower on," Jim commented as he pulled the razor over his whiskers. The cat laid its ears back.

"And talking to an imaginary cat is not a sign of good mental health," Jim mused. "Maybe I'm getting pot fumes from the room." God knows the room had been used for drugs and sex more often than sleeping.

The cat jumped out of the tub and stalked out to the room, belly low to the ground in a classic attack pose.

Jim finished shaving and grabbed his shirt from yesterday off the towel rack. When he headed back into the main room, the cat was pacing near the door, a dark rumble in his chest.

"Feel free to disappear back into my subconscious," Jim told the animal as he pulled on socks and shoes. He'd left most of his gear in Keith's car, so all he had to do was tuck Keith's weapon into his belt and pull on his jacket. Unfortunately, the cat had other plans as he crouched near the door and waited for Jim.

Jim opened the door and headed for the car. The cat leaped past him with such a furious roar that Jim flinched. Fuck. Immediately he bent, pretending to look at his foot as though he'd stepped on something. Keeping his head bent, he used his hearing to check for any witnesses.

"Stupid cat," Jim whisper-growled before he stood up. Ignoring the cat's angry response, Jim pulled out the keys and opened Keith's car. The cat jumped on the hood. Jim stared out the windshield for a second, his fists squeezing the steering wheel as he fought the rising frustration. He had a plan, and the overgrown hairball was not part of the plan.

"Fine, we'll check out what you want to check out," Jim finally sighed. Whatever strange trip he was on, he obviously needed to do something before the cat distracted him into a mistake. The cat jumped down to the street and began trotting down the sidewalk. Jim started the car and headed down the road toward the warehouse district.

Jim parked the car near the docks. He'd lost track of the cat, but somehow he didn't think he had gotten rid of it yet. His luck hadn't been that good lately. Locking the car, he walked casually down the street. A pair of dock workers passed him, laughing and talking in Spanish, but Jim filtered out their voices as he scanned the area.

In the distance, two ships nestled up to the wharf: The Black Whale and the Choyang Zenith. The two workers angled off toward the Black Whale. More dock workers' voices competed with the sound of heavy machinery and trucks in that direction, but Jim turned away from the ships.

A faint snarl caught Jim's attention and he turned in time to see a black tail vanish behind a building. He wandered parallel to the water, past a block where a warehouse had burned, leaving a charred scar and a few steel girders pointing up to the sky. Construction and demolition equipment was already parked at the site, so it wouldn't take long for someone to put a new warehouse here. For now, the area was largely unused, only one large building nearby.

When he reached the burnt remains, Jim started feeling something prickling at his senses, like little ant feet crawling over his skin. He stopped and let his eyes scan the warehouses a little farther back from the waterline. A burly man leaned against a door of the largest warehouse, staring at Jim, and Jim forced his eyes away as he casually walked by.

Ignoring the danger of zoning, Jim pushed his hearing, visualizing himself listening past the metal walls of the warehouse. The building was huge, and at first, he could hear only the ragged breaths of someone panting and others sleeping. He could hear one person snoring, and a woman weeping gently. They were not the sounds Jim expected to hear in a warehouse.

Jim turned his back on his target and focused on the burnt building. Let the watchman think that Jim was some construction inspector or owner or something. Turning away made it a little harder to focus, but Jim could suddenly hear the clink of chain. It was a familiar sound.

"Asshole," a voice cursed weakly, and Jim cocked his head to better focus on the second floor of the warehouse.

"Comfortable?" another voice asked, and Jim could hear the sarcastic sneer in that voice.

"More comfortable than any Sentinel you strung up like this," Blair answered. Blair. Jim tightened his hands into fists and forced himself to wander the edge of the burned warehouse. Why was it that everything came back to Sandburg these days? Okay, sentry out front, probably that meant more inside. Jim certainly heard enough heartbeats from inside. And all he had was Keith's service weapon.

"Sentinels are sturdier than you do-gooders think. I've seen them hang for days, barely breathing, and then when you cut them down, they come out fighting. Sentinels are unpredictable, but you aren't. You'll hang there until your lungs compress and every breath is a struggle. Your muscles will spasm and swell and finally go numb, but all that swelling will make your lungs close in even more. And just when you're ready to pass out, I'll cut you down and watch you flop on the ground without the strength to even lift your head." The man laughed, and Jim could feel the rage swell up inside. Where the hell were the cops?

"You'll never get away with this Kincaid," Blair warned, but Jim could hear how the kid struggled for breath. He could imagine Blair strung up so that he could only stand on his toes. His muscles would eventually cramp, and as his arms bore more and more weight, he'd suffocate. It was an ugly death. Jim paced to the end of the burnt area and then turned and scanned the whole neighborhood. A second thug stood near the far corner of the warehouse. He didn't want to study the warehouse too closely, but he'd bet money there were sentries on the upper floors, watching out the dirty windows.

"I think I will, Sandburg. If you were on a case, I might worry, but I've been listening to the police chatter. And I know something you don't know, Mr. Natural. No one has even noticed you're gone. It does make me wonder what you were doing with two of my escaped Sentinels in the middle of the night."

"They aren't yours. Sentinels don't belong to anyone."

Jim could hear the fury and certainty in Blair's voice.

"Sentinels belong to whoever can bring them under control. You just don't like that I'm moving in on your territory," the other man, Kincaid, laughed. "You're just a tool of the dictatorial government that has hijacked our great democracy. At least here, these Sentinels will do some good; they'll bring money for the cause. With the money this bunch brings, I will buy enough guns for my army and finally restore freedom to the people."

"If you're really about saving people, you wouldn't do this to them," Blair argued. Oh Chief, how about worrying about yourself, Jim thought.

"They're tools. And the life I deliver them to is no different than the one you would deliver them to," Kincaid said, and Jim could hear shuffling and a grunt. He clenched his jaw as he realized that Kincaid was touching Blair, and Blair was doing his best to escape the touch. Jim started back towards his car. He couldn't take these guys on alone, so he needed to find a phone.

"The Institute does the best they can. They want to help Sentinels," Blair snapped, and Jim noticed that the man's description of the Institute had changed some since they'd last met. "They would never sell a Sentinel to someone who would turn them into a sex slave or abuse them."

"Aren't you the clever little self-deceiver? What do you call the way the system assigns Sentinels to people they've never met? What do you think a bond is, Sandburg? Whether a Sentinel is in my system or yours, they're nothing more than sex slaves; it's their destiny. Their instincts are designed to make them perfect slaves."

Jim cringed at the cold description that struck a little too close. Every time he'd laid down with Keith, he'd felt that pull to let himself focus on Keith, to allow himself to bond with the man. Before Incacha, Jim hadn't understood the power of the bond, but the fact was that it made it almost impossible to ignore the companion. Hell, here he was months later and thousands of miles away, and he had followed that damn imaginary panther because he could visualize Incacha's disapproval.

Of course, following Incacha's cat had led him to Blair, and Jim had no intention of even following that train of thought. If he did, he would have to admit that either he had sensed Blair in trouble from miles away or that Incacha's crazy talk about spirit guides had some credibility, and Jim really wasn't prepared to accept either theory. He was sticking to the belief that the animal was drug-induced.

"They aren't slaves," Blair disagreed.

"Such perfect self-deception," Kincaid repeated. "They are slaves, and you're part of the system that enslaves them, which is why it always pissed me off that you worked so hard to catch me. What I do is no different than what you do, Detective Sandburg."

"We're nothing alike. I'm not some narcissist who thinks he can use everyone else to get the power he wants. And that's all this is... for all your talk about restoring democracy, you're really just searching for power because you're a pathetic little man."

Flesh hit flesh, and Jim could feel his blood pressure rise. If he thought he had a chance in hell, Jim would rush the damn building himself right now.

"Now, play nice Detective Sandburg. Who knows, you might even survive this. Most of my clients prefer Sentinels; their senses do make them the perfect whores, but I know one or two that might like someone less willing."

Jim was so far away that he was surprised he could still hear the conversation, but his hearing seemed locked on that point behind him where he was leaving Blair alone. He gritted his teeth.

"You're scum."

Kincaid laughed again, the sound scraping across Jim's nerves. "I'm a revolutionary. It's better than being a dead do-gooder." Jim was nearly at the car and he broke into a trot. He'd seen a pay phone back by the bar on the corner.

"Long after you're dead and buried, I'm going to be remembered for saving this country from a threat others ignored. I'm giving this country back to the people who built it and made it strong, and you, Mr. Natural, are not one who will inherit this new world I'm going to create."

Jim opened the door and stood for a second. The voices were at the edge of his hearing, far beyond his normal range, and if he got in his car, he knew he'd lose that final connection to Blair. But if he didn't go, he couldn't do Blair any good. He stood, waiting for Blair's response.

"Dream on, Kincaid. You're never going to be any more than a pimple on the butt of the world, and no one is going to notice when someone eventually pops it."

Flesh hit flesh again, and Jim got in the car. The way the kid's mouth ran, he wasn't going to survive long enough to suffocate.

Jim didn't actually pay attention to the streets as he drove back toward the bar and the phone. Fuck. Whatever Blair had gotten into, it was bad. Yeah, Jim would admit to a fantasy or two about chaining the kid up with the same chains Sam Nunez had used on him, but even at his darkest moment, Jim never would have even imagined what Kincaid threatened. For the first time, Jim seriously considered that Sentinel laws allowed him to snap the man's neck with no consequences. After all, as a Sentinel, he was supposed to be irrational when it came to the tribe's safety.

However, Jim had never allowed himself to give in to his irrational side, and doing it now wasn't going to help anyone. He just needed to keep it together a little longer. He'd make a quick call and then get on with his plan, no more harm than an hour's delay.

Stopping the car outside the bar, Jim trotted to the phone. He pulled one sleeve of his jacket down far enough to prevent him from leaving any prints. If someone identified him and freed Keith too quickly, the plan was going to be more than just delayed. He dialed with the knuckle of one finger.

"911 emergency, what's your emergency?" a calm voice asked.

"There's a warehouse down near wharf 93, across from a burnt warehouse. They're keeping Sentinels in there," he reported quickly.

"How do you know?"

Well, Jim wasn't going to be telling her he followed his imaginary friend down to the docks and then used his senses.

"I work in the area. I saw two of them outside, in bad shape," Jim improvised. From the whimpering and crying inside, and from the fact that Blair had been trying to help a couple escapees, it was close to the truth, and Jim found that lies worked best when they were close to the truth. "They were pretty bad off, and these guys came out and dragged them away."

"And how did you identify them as Sentinels? Were they collared?"

Jim ground his teeth. If they'd been collared, they'd be from the Institute with guardians. "No, but they were flinching and hiding in the shadows. Look, I've seen Sentinels before, and I know what they look like."

"So, you saw two Sentinels. Can you describe the men who you saw take them inside?" the woman smoothly changed the subject. Jim glanced around. He needed to get off this phone quickly or he risked the officers showing up here.

"One was six foot or six-one. Dark hair, Caucasian but with a slightly darker tone, a couple of days growth on a beard, 220 pounds," Jim said quickly, describing the man at the door. "The other was five-ten or so, reddish-blond hair with a tribal tattoo around his wrist." Jim closed his eyes and imagined the second goon who'd stood on the corner.

"Can you describe the Sentinels?" the woman asked.

"I don't have time for this; I have to get back to work." Jim hung up the phone and walked back to his car. That should be enough. Part of Jim whispered that he should get in the car and go back to the plan. It was still early enough to do the job at the gun shop, and he could be on the road to Canada either tonight or tomorrow morning. It was the logical plan.

Instead, Jim drove the area. Kincaid had chosen well. On the west, the only neighbor was the burned out building, and during the week, the construction equipment probably helped hide any sounds, not that anyone other than a Sentinel would hear them. To the south, a chain link fence and security cameras protected a lot where extra equipment was parked. The west had a wide road. Jim parked his car on the next street over and walked to the warehouse north of the one where Kincaid was holding Sandburg.

With the cover of the smaller building, Jim could focus on studying the layout, and it didn't make him any more comfortable. Security cameras sat on the top of the building, which wasn't unusual for this area, but it was unusual considering that the rest of the building seemed largely unused. Unlike most of the warehouses, dust covered the loading bays and the windows were covered in grime. Focusing in, Jim could barely make out bars behind the dirt. Something glinted out of the side of his eye, and Jim could see the flash from a weapon in one of the second-story windows.

"Kincaid," a voice called. "The cops are dispatching a unit. Someone saw the two runners and called it in."

"Fuck," Kincaid swore. "We'll have to carry on this conversation a little later, Mr. Natural," Kincaid said in a voice that sounded friendly even while it sent cold shivers down Jim's back. Now that he focused, he could hear Blair's strained wheezing.

"Cut Mr. Natural down or our fun is going to end a little too quickly," Kincaid ordered. Jim could hear the fast footsteps out of the room, and then a body hit the ground. Oh yeah, Jim wanted to break every bone in Kincaid's body. The very strength of that desire drove Jim back to his car. He couldn't lose control now.

Jim waited almost an hour, but the only thing that had happened was that the warehouse fell silent. Jim recognized the odd hum of top-of-the-line white noise generators from his FBI training at the Institute. He struggled to filter the noise out, but he could only hear brief snatches of sound from inside the warehouse: a woman pleading, two men swearing over a poker game, a radio playing classical music.

A police car finally arrived on scene, the black and white unit driving slowly past the warehouse. Jim took a bite of the sandwich he'd pulled out of his supplies and tried to look like a dock worker at lunch. It must have worked because the Sentinel sitting in the passenger seat of the car didn't look twice at him. She scanned the buildings and cocked her head to the side, listening.

The officer slowed to a stop, and she rolled the window down as he got out of the car, one hand on his weapon.

"You have anything?" he asked as he walked around and stood next to her door.

"Nothing," she answered. "Just the guy down the street eating."

"I hate these prank calls," the officer sighed as he walked around the car back to the driver's side.

Jim silently cursed them, willing the Sentinel to focus her hearing long enough to notice the abnormal buzz. However, the officer got back in the car and drove slowly away.

"Hey, you want to have Chinese for lunch?" the Sentinel asked as the car passed Jim going back toward the street. Jim felt an overwhelming urge to start Keith's car and ram them, but that wouldn't exactly help Sandburg. Shit, without Sandburg, these keystone cops never would have caught him.

Sandburg. Jim glanced at the building again and started the car to head back to the bar.

"911 emergency, what's your emergency?" the voice asked. Different voice, but the calm cadence was exactly the same.

"There's a cop in trouble, Blair Sandburg," Jim said. "I'm down by Wharf 93, and there's a warehouse across from a burned out building. I saw them drag him in there."

"Who?" she asked, her fingers typing.

"Two guys. One was six foot or six-one. Dark hair, Caucasian, 220 pounds. The other was five-ten or so, reddish-blond hair with a tribal tattoo around his wrist."

Jim suddenly heard another voice in the background. "Keep the crackpot on the line, we have a car in the area," a man whispered. Jim hung up the phone and headed for the car. He wouldn't do Blair any good if he got caught.

Okay, it was time to take more drastic action.

FIFTEEN
***
Jim stood at the entrance to Major Crimes. This wasn't his department or even his building, but common sense told him to run for the hills before anyone figured out that he wasn't playing good little Sentinel anymore. However, he couldn't do it. He couldn't walk away from Sandburg. It had almost killed him to wait until Monday when Sandburg's boss would be back in, and the only thing that had made the waiting bearable had been sleeping next to the small warehouse where he could hear Blair's breathing once they shut down the white noise generators.

"What?" bellowed a voice. Rafe cracked the door open.

"Got a guy here who thinks he knows something about Blair."

"Get him in here," called a deep voice. Rafe threw open the door, and Jim walked into the lions' den. If this guy recognized him or spotted his senses, Jim was throwing away his last chance at freedom.

"Simon Banks," the man offered as he stood and held out his hand. He was huge, a towering figure even as he leaned over the desk.

"Joe," Jim offered a fake name in return.

"He does some work with Walker in Burglary over at the two-nine," Rafe said in the way of introductions.

"Snitch?" Banks asked, his eyes searching Jim.

"I tell him things I might hear from time to time," Jim answered almost truthfully. "But he's out of town right now, and I'm hearing some stuff on the street that I don't like."

"I don't know how much Walker pays," Banks said as he reached for his wallet, "but you help me get my guy back, and I will make it worth your while."

"Fifty," Jim answered quickly. He needed the cash, and a snitch who didn't ask for money would raise too much suspicion. Even so, he felt dirty as he accepted three twenty dollar bills from Banks.

"What do you have?"

"I was down at the docks, and some of the workers are whispering about Sentinels, a couple were wandering, confused and looking all wild-eyed."

"And you think Sandburg got wind of it? He would have gone to his old division captain, or he would have told us. This sounds like information for Rick Yaden."

Damn. Blair's old boss, no way would he not remember Jim. "That isn't the information. The word is some long-haired hippy type was trying to help them. Had his arm around one when the other dock workers were busy hiding," Jim said, making it up as he went along.

"That'd be Blair," Banks said fondly.

"Apparently they think it all ended well enough because some well-dressed guys came out and got all three of them."

"And now Blair's missing. You wouldn't be the guy who tried to call in with information on him yesterday?" Banks asked.

"Look," Jim said carefully, "I'm giving you the straight story here. If you act, fine. If you don't..." Jim let his words trail off, but the chances were that Banks wouldn't guess Jim's real thoughts. If the idiots didn't act on the information this time, Jim was going to commandeer large quantities of munitions and start blowing shit up until he got Blair out of there.

"Okay," Banks held up his hands in surrender, "I want the information, but I have to bring Yaden in on this."

"Yaden and I have had words. He may not remember them, but I'm not working with him, so if you call him, I'm out of here." Jim crossed his arms and gave Banks his most implacable expression, the one that had always frightened the recruits.

"Damn it," Banks cursed. "If there are Sentinels involved, that's his department. We don't handle Sentinel cases."

"I overheard the guys from The Black Whale. It's docked on the south end. They described a warehouse across from some burned out building. You bring Yaden in, and you can handle it from there," Jim turned to head out the office. It was almost a relief to have something force him away because the need to go into that warehouse had crawled under his skin.

"Would you know the sailors if you saw them again?" Banks quickly asked.

"In a second," Jim lied. "Look, Sandburg has a good reputation, and I'll go down to the docks with you to point these guys out, but Yaden... I'm not working with him."

"You really have issues with Yaden, huh?" Banks sighed and rubbed his hand. "If there are Sentinels, we'll have to pull him in. We don't have the resources to deal with traumatized Sentinels, but for now, we don't have any proof. We'll play this your way."

Jim nodded and turned toward the door.

"But Joe," Banks warned, his voice suddenly cold. "If you're playing us, if you waste my time when my man is out there, I will throw you so far under the jail, you'll never see the light of day again."

"Fair enough," Jim answered. "But I really hope this isn't your guy. If it is, Sentinel traffickers don't have much reason to keep him alive." He watched Banks, praying that this would make the man move a little faster because every second they were here, Blair was still in Kincaid's hands.

"Knowing Sandburg, he'll talk them into something," Banks muttered. Jim just hoped he was right. He just hoped Blair could hang on a little longer.

"Oh, and from the word on the street, these traffickers have an in with police... police radios, maybe even an inside guy or two," Jim said. Banks' face turned dark at the accusation, but he didn't deny it immediately.

"Rafe, get Brown and we'll check this out. If we find anything, we'll call in for back up. Get a secured radio."

"Yes, sir," Rafe answered as he hurried out into the bullpen.

"You want to follow us down to the wharf," Simon asked. Jim shook his head. He hadn't driven Keith's car with its police parking sticker into Central station. Keith's car and his weapon were hidden a couple of blocks from the warehouse, but at this point, Jim wouldn't be surprised if they were both stolen before Jim got back to them. He still had a week, though, and losing his supplies wouldn't be the end of the plan.

"I took the bus. If I could just ride with you," he suggested as both of them headed out of the office.

"No problem," Banks agreed as he pulled on his jacket and came around the desk. "Brown, Rafe, you follow in your car," he called. A second African-American in a horrible striped shirt had appeared in the squad room.

"You got it. And, Simon, we'll find Blair," the new man, Brown, said.

"Yeah, we will," Banks agreed grimly. He headed for the elevator, and Jim silently followed. At least one thing was going right; Blair had co-workers who obviously cared about him. For the first time since he'd heard Blair's voice inside the warehouse, Jim felt like there was an honest chance to get Blair out.

The drive to the wharf was silent. Banks smoked his cigar with the window cracked, but Jim still had to focus on keeping his scent dialed down. It'd been a long time since someone did something that Sentinel-unfriendly around him.

"There," Jim said when the dock came into sight. "Stop the car here."

Banks pulled the car to the curb and Jim got out next to the equipment parking lot. "The workers said they saw those guys pulling Blair into that building behind me," Jim said as he turned towards Banks. "You might want to have your guys park behind the smaller warehouse on the north side."

"I thought you said these workers were hiding," Banks said as he narrowed his eyes. "Where?"

"Plenty of places to hide if a person is desperate enough," Jim answered as he looked around. The place was fairly open with the exception of the warehouse to the north. Simon snorted as he picked up the radio.

"Brown, head to the north," he ordered as he put his car into gear and drove away, circling the block before heading for the north side himself. By the time Banks parked the car, Brown and Rafe were already there, peering around the corner at the warehouse.

"Something's stinky in Denmark," Brown commented. "Top notch security but no sign the building's being used."

"There's more," Jim said as he ducked down below the level of a stack of packing crates. He followed it down to the far end and then lay in the weeds, near where he'd slept last night. When he turned, he saw Banks had followed him.

"There," Jim said as he pointed toward the top row of windows.

"What am I looking for?" Banks whispered.

"Gun flash." Jim watched the window, using Sentinel sight to see the sniper casually sweeping the landscape with his rifle.

"Fuck," Banks swore when the sniper's arc brought the gun back in their direction for the third time. "You sure that's a gun?"

"I was a Ranger," Jim answered truthfully. "I know gun flash."

"How did you know to look if you just overheard some dock workers?" Jim's guts tightened, but he ignored the feeling and focused on the building. Whatever Banks planned to do, he needed to focus on Blair right now. They both did.

"How did you know where to look, Joe?" Banks demanded. Jim tensed. He had to tell at least some of the truth, and then hope he could get away before they figured out the rest.

"I could hear Sandburg in there," Jim admitted. "He was fighting with someone called Kincaid. Kincaid said that the Sentinels in there will be sold to finance his army, and Blair said some things that made Kincaid hurt him."

"Enhanced hearing?" Banks asked as he crouched next to Jim. The man visually relaxed at that news, which was ironic since he had to be at least considering that Jim was a Sentinel. Some people had one or two enhanced senses, but it wasn't the norm. "I've heard some guys will have their taste buds surgically removed to circumvent Sentinel genes from kicking in," he commented blandly, and Jim glanced over.

"No surgery," Jim answered as he refocused on the warehouse. "Shit, there are a lot of people in there. Two-three dozen at least."

"Sentinels?"

"No way to tell," Jim sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. "And no way to tell which is Sandburg until he starts talking."

"If he can," Simon said quietly.

"If he can't, someone is going to pay," Jim warned quietly. Simon shot him a curious look.

"For one of Walker's snitches, you seem pretty concerned about a missing cop from Major Crimes."

"I ran into Sandburg before," Jim said carefully. He'd all but outted himself already, but he could freely admit that not even the threat of getting put back into the Sentinel Institute could make him leave.

"He's a good man," Banks said thoughtfully.

"Yes, he is. And he's smart. He'll figure out a way to stay alive until we get him back." Jim said the words with as much conviction as he could. Leaving this morning, riding the bus to Central, had been the hardest morning of his life. He had lived every moment with the knowledge that Blair could be dying that very second.

"Keep an ear out, I'm going to check in with the others," Simon said as he moved slowly back, his movements suggesting a surprising grace considering his size. Jim opened his hearing and let everything flow in, knowing he was risking a zone, but willing to take the risk.

"He in there?" Brown asked when Banks got back to the shelter of the small warehouse.

"Joe thinks so. Joe also thinks we're looking at two or three dozen people inside, so we have a well-defended structure, either that or a lot of traumatized Sentinels, and neither scenario is particularly safe for us or for Blair."

"Joe thinks?" Rafe interrupted.

"He's definitely got enhanced hearing. Either that, or he's lying through his eye teeth, and if that's the case, he's going to regret ever being born," Banks threatened.

"So we're trusting him?" Brown asked.

"Until we have some other information, yes. I don't see that he gets anything out of lying. So, we're assuming that he's telling the truth."

"In that case, there's no way to grab Sandburg before someone puts a bullet in him, and not even Sandburg could talk a bullet into stopping." Jim could hear both the admiration and the frustration in Brown's voice. These people cared about Sandburg.

"And what about the other senses?" Rafe whispered.

"Maybe the conflict with Yaden is..." Brown's words trailed off, and Jim figured the man was probably silently mouthing the truth.

"Do we call Yaden?" Rafe asked.

Silence. Jim held his breath, trying to decide what to do now that he had a choice between his freedom or Blair's life. He heard the voice from inside he'd been waiting for. Blair cried out. The part of his brain the military had trained advised him to break for freedom, but he didn't move. He wouldn't abandon Blair.

Simon sighed. "He's not out of control, so right now, we have plausible deniability. I'm taking a chance that he'll help us get Blair back."

"Simon, how are we going to play this?"

"We get someone inside so that when we blow the front doors, our inside man can get Blair to safety or maybe just distract Kincaid."

"Kincaid?" Brown demanded. "Garrett Kincaid? The crackpot with the Sunrise Patriots?"

The three of them fell silent for a moment. Jim hadn't heard of the group, but between Brown's horrified reaction and Blair's weak cries as leather hit skin, he found himself digging his fingers into the dirt to control an urge to rip them to pieces with his bare hands. He had the training.

"That's a dangerous job. Kincaid's a whack job, and if he catches someone inside, he's going to put a bullet through Blair's brain."

"I can't ask any of you--" Simon started.

"I'll do it," Rafe and Brown both offered at the same time.

Banks paused, and Jim remembered that moment when as a commander you had to send someone into a situation like this. And the fact was that local cops weren't trained to deal with this. If someone didn't distract Kincaid, Blair was dead the minute a cop hit the warehouse door.

"We need uniformed officers, and let's get Joel and his guys out here to blow the front doors. Henri, I'm sorry, but Rafe's scores are higher than yours, Rafe's going in." Simon turned to the radio and started calling in the back-up that would save Blair, and that would eventually capture Jim again. Jim headed back toward the trio of cops.

He wondered if Keith would still have custody. If so, Jim figured he'd be spending a lot of time chained to the wall. Right now, he couldn't even blame the kid because after a few days staring at those blank walls, Keith was probably more into his own anger than really thinking about what Jim had said. Of course, it might not matter; Jim would probably get the Alex Barnes special: locked in a little room with a video game as company.

"I'll go in," Jim said as he came around the edge of the building. "Brown's right. If your man gets caught, Rafe and Blair are both dead long before the backup can get here."

"This isn't your business," Simon said with narrowed eyes.

Jim ignored him and grabbed a chunk of broken brick, bending down to the concrete where he drew a red square. "I can hear guards walking patrols here, here, here and here." Jim drew lines inside the square neatly boxing it. And there are stationary guards here and here at the windows." Jim drew x's.

"They have it covered." Banks growled.

"The front is covered just as well," Jim agreed. "That's why Rafe's not going in, I am."

"What?! No way. I may not know what's going on with you and Sandburg, but you are not to go anywhere near that building. They'd spot you in a second."

"I know," Jim answered. "I don't plan on trying to hide."

"And why the hell wouldn't they just shoot Sandburg and you?"

"Because," Jim said, "I'm going to give them what they want, a Sentinel."

"Fuck," Brown swore softly.

"Joe," Simon said, his voice low and dangerous, "I don't know what game you're playing, but if you get Sandburg hurt, I will personally skin you alive, Sentinel or no."

Jim smiled. "If I get Sandburg hurt, someone needs to skin me," Jim agreed. "But I can get in there; it will at least let him know that someone's out here, and it'll distract them from hurting him any more."

"I hate to be the voice of reason here, but we don't know if Blair is..." Brown stopped when both Rafe and Banks both glared him into silence.

"He's alive," Jim answered. "He's hurting, and every second I'm out here, he's hurting more, but he's alive. I go in there, and it will distract them long enough for you to get backup."

"Joe, what's really going on here?" Simon asked. "If you're a Sentinel, I don't have any jurisdiction over you. I'll have to call Yaden, but I won't stand in your way. I just have to know what your story is because this is my man's life hanging in the balance here."

Jim stared at the warehouse. He had the feeling if he walked right now, Banks wouldn't stand in his way. Rafe just looked confused. For a second, Jim allowed himself one last fantasy of Canada, of reaching some tribe and finding a companion and lover, of being a member of a tribe that respected him. Then he let go of the fantasy.

"I'm Jim, not Joe," Jim said quietly. "Captain James Joseph Ellison. Blair was the cop who finally brought me in, and he was a good man, a caring man. I won't walk away and let him die in there for trying to help other Sentinels."

"You're the Sentinel," Rafe said. "You're the one who ran for a year, Blair talked about you."

"Ellison. The one Blair requested. The one who turned him down," Banks said flatly.

Jim nodded. "Just stay out of my way once I let the Sentinel instincts take over. I haven't done this before, and I don't know how easily I'll be able to get control back," Jim warned. Simon opened his mouth to argue, but then closed it again as Jim focused his hearing. Now that he knew where to find Blair, he zeroed in on the heavy breathing punctuated with sobs. The sound of leather hitting flesh startled Jim, and he jerked at the sound of Blair's scream.

Jim let his anger rise up and wash away the part of his brain that considered angles and approached and strategy. To succeed, to distract them and put himself in a position where he could defend Blair, he had to become the one thing he hated more than all the Sentinel laws combined... he had be become an out of control Sentinel raging and focused only on finding his companion.

The emotions swelled up, and Jim allowed them to batter away his control. They were hurting his Blair. His. His companion. Jim summoned every sensory memory of that hour with Blair: the blue eyes that had looked at him with this trust as he held Blair close, the way he smiled, the way his body lay limp under Jim's. Blair screamed again, and Jim could feel the primitive surge crash into him.

"Mine," he growled low.

"Jim?" Simon asked. Jim swung his head toward the tall captain, his pupils black as his eyes searched for every detail.

"I'll fucking rip them to pieces for doing that to him," Jim snapped, and Simon took a step back. Jim shook his head and looked at Simon again. "If I don't make it, tell Blair that I'd rather go out this way than go back into the Institute. Don't you dare let him blame himself," Jim begged.

"You have my word, Jim," Simon vowed. Jim turned toward the warehouse.

"Blair," Jim breathed as he turned control over to the hungry predator in his chest. Without thinking, he started running, his body low as he covered ground as fast as he could, his senses tunneled forward.

The rear door posed a temporary problem, and he slammed his shoulder into it so hard that the metal shivered. With a growl, Jim yanked at the handle, shaking his head in frustration as it didn't immediately give. He jerked harder, pounding his shoulder against the door between each pull.

Something clicked, and suddenly the door swung open, Jim flung himself into the dark, his hands reaching for the figure standing in the shadow. His hands almost closed over the guy's throat when electricity ran through him, making him howl and drop to the ground. Jim twisted and snarled as he finally found the wires and pulled the barbs out of his skin. Turning toward the attacker, Jim dived forward, grabbing the man's neck as they both went down to the concrete.

Another shot of electricity poured into him, and this time both he and the man under him screamed in pain with him. The body under him struggled to wiggle away, and Jim landed a punch on the man's sternum that left him gasping and helpless. Then Jim sprang up and backed away as more men came running. Ignoring the men, Jim cocked his head and charged away from the group, toward a staircase.

"Fuck, intruder heading for second floor. It's a Sentinel."

SIXTEEN
***
Jim heard the words of warning echo throughout the building, repeated by dozens of radios, but that sound wasn't as loud as the pained whine above him.

A body appeared before him, and Jim neatly tossed the man off the stairs to the floor below without even slowing.

"Get the tranqs, tranqs!" The words echoed against the metal walls, and some part of Jim knew that he should do something, but right now, all he could focus on was the sound that called him.

He lowered his head and ran as hard as he could, the catwalk under him trembling with every step as he closed in on his target. A bee sting caught in him the back of the arm, and Jim swiped it away without pausing.

By the time he reached the hallway leading to the second floor offices, Jim struggled against the blasts of light that tried to distract him from his goal. Shaking his head like a dog trying to shed water, Jim bulled forward, his hand closing on a doorknob.

"He's at the office; he's already tranqed."

"Don't damage him. Give it some time," another multiplied voice shouted.

Jim stopped and cocked his head, struggling to find the source. Shaking his head again, he shoved his shoulder into the door, growling when it didn't open. The second time, he turned the knob and shoved, tumbling into the room so that one hand on the floor kept him from collapsing.

"It's okay, Sentinel, everything's okay," a voice crooned. Jim growled as he scanned the room. The floor twisted, and Jim widened his crouch to keep from falling over. Blair. There.

Jim surged forward and took his position above Blair, who lay on the cold ground, his body contorted. Watching the other men suspiciously, their bodies waving in and out of focus, Jim started carefully pulling on Blair, straightening his arms and smoothing his hair.

"Jim?" Blair muttered through a swollen jaw.

"Oh, lookie here, the do-gooder has a Sentinel of his very own. You see, that's what really gets me about you cops. You put on this whole show about us not taking Sentinels, but then you enslave them yourselves. I guess as long as you're the master, you don't mind slavery too much."

"Jim isn't a slave," Blair objected. He struggled to get up from the ground, the air wheezing in his congested lungs, but he failed. He sank back down with a small, defeated whine that made Jim fist his companion's shirt. They had to leave. Jim pulled Blair so that Blair's back rested against him, but when Jim tried to pull them both upright, the room spun and he crouched back down.

A man stepped closer, and Jim struck out with a leg, hearing the satisfying crack of shattering bone before he crouched once again over Blair.

"Stay back," the first man ordered as others came into the room. "He's a beauty, Blair. He's so good at playing bodyguard, I may even keep him for a while."

"Leave him the hell alone." Blair nearly whispered the words, his voice failing him as his heartbeat slowed.

"You aren't in much shape to tell me anything, and your little Sentinel is all too easy to control. Although really, he's not that little."

The man stepped closer, and Jim tensed to attack, however then something filled the air, something cold and bitter. Jim stood up, and the movement made the whole room tilt so that he fell sideways until he crashed into the wall.

"Jim," Blair's voice warbled from a distance.

"Poor little Sentinel fall down go boom," the first man said, the words chasing Jim through the lights that stained his senses. The voice sounded soft and encouraging, but some part of Jim knew those words, fed on the anger they brought. Kincaid, Jim thought to himself. He blinked long enough to see the handsome features twisted into an evil smirk. Jim stumbled forward with a new goal. He just needed one clean shot at the man.

"Come on, little boy, I have something you'll like. All the little boys love it," Kincaid cajoled as Jim backed away. Without the wall to steady him, Jim felt his body roll from side to side. The cold smell lingered in the air, but now something new flew at him, drops landing on the hairs of his arms as he fell backwards. Hot. Too hot.

His shoulder crashed into the wall where he slid down.

"Jim!" Blair cried. "You son of a bitch. I'll fucking kill you," Blair screamed as Jim wiped at himself desperately, his skin crawling.

Blair grunted as something hit flesh, and that brought Jim's focus from his skin to his companion who lay on the floor, one arm reaching to Jim and the other cradling his stomach as he vomited up bile and blood.

"You're all so easy. The right chemicals, and you don't have enough brain cells left to figure out what we're doing. So, let's get your loyalties figured out. Feel like a game of hide the salami?"

"Leave him alone," Blair snapped weakly. Jim shook his head again as Blair struggled up an inch before the man with the voice used a foot to push him back down to the ground. This time, Blair didn't move.

"Stay out of this. Or, actually, don't stay out of this. You stay away and watch as I turn your Sentinel into mine."

"No." Blair whispered the word so softly that Jim could barely hear the sound over the slow cadence of Blair's heart.

"Jim, he called you Jim, right?" the voice called. "I can make you feel better." The voice came closer, and touched him.

Jim sighed as the burning vanished, his skin still whole despite the pain.

"Jim, I can make you feel better. I'll protect you," the voice crooned as hands touched more, cooling palms sliding up Jim's arms. Jim focused on Blair, his face hidden by hair, his fingers curling against the bare boards of the office floor.

"You bastard," Blair croaked without moving, even his fingers going still as his temperature dropped. Jim struggled forward, but hands moved against him, confusing him.

"Of course I am, but by the time I'm done, you'll be dead, and your poor little Sentinel will be mine. You'll be mine, won't you Jim?" Hands ran up under the sleeves of Jim's shirt and the one hand reached down and trailed over Jim's stomach. "I'll take the pain away. I need you," the voice offered softly as a hand moved over Jim's stomach and reached up to run over a nipple.

Jim blinked. The hands cooled the fire in his skin, but Jim ignored that as he focused his senses on Blair. The man was failing. Outside, voices gathered. They were coming.

"You'll protect me. I need you to protect me," Kincaid whispered. Jim dialed down touch as he allowed the hands to roam over his body. Men leered from near the doorway, laughing at the Sentinel disabled by their drugs. Jim shoved aside a killing rage that made him want to snap their necks with his bare hands, especially since he doubted he could walk across the room to reach them right now.

"God, please, no," Blair begged. Jim glanced toward Blair before focusing back on the man whose hands touched him. He'd remember that voice, that face, that smell.

"So confused. Just listen to me," the voice suggested and then fingers were working on Jim's pants, opening them so a hand could slip in and rub his cock. "When you aren't so confused, you'll do this for me, use those senses to figure out how to please me. Won't you?"

Jim brought a hand up to the man's shoulder, bracing himself as the world wavered in and out of focus.

"Jim, fight this. You're stronger than this."

"No Sentinel is stronger than this," the man said as he pushed Jim's pants down. He couldn't fight. He wasn't strong enough. Voices gathered. Jim focused on Blair; filtering out the stench of blood and bile, he found the pure scent of the man in the airport, the heavy musk. He sank into the feeling of a hand on his cock, stroking him so that hot pleasure gathered in his groin.

"Poor Sentinel needs to bond."

Jim knelt as a hand pushed on his shoulders.

"Poor Sentinel is going to have a new master."

"Jim," Blair cried out, desperate. Jim let the voice echo in his head. He didn't like the desperate tone, but the voice was Blair's. Jim couldn't move his body as fingers brushed over his asshole. A slick digit slipped inside, and Jim let his head droop.

"You fucking asshole," Blair cried, his voice cracking.

Jim panted as a second finger pushed in and stretched him. The pain shot up his spine, but pain or pleasure didn't matter, only that the senses stretched, pushing against his skin until he felt as though he would burst.

"Oh, you aren't using the poor boy often enough because he's so tight. Let's get those senses to open up and lock on to me, my boy," the voice urged. Jim lowered his head to the ground and keened as something large pressed into him, stretching, burning, filling. A hand reached around and started stroking Jim to hardness.

"So hot. Nothing like a kneeling, helpless Sentinel. That's why people pay so much for them, you know."

"Bastard. Fucking bastard," Blair whispered, defeated. Jim blinked and struggled to raise his head, but a hand caught the back of his neck, and he didn't have the energy to fight, not with his senses clawing under his skin like an animal fighting to get out. His arms went cold, and Jim snarled and bucked.

"Impatient. They all are," the voice said smugly.

Jim felt the pressure build up in his spine, his nerve endings tingling. When the man angled and hit the prostate, Jim gasped and struggled back up to his hands and knees.

"That's right, boy, such a good Sentinel. Open up those senses."

Jim couldn't stop his hearing from snapping open until every sound crashed into him. He jerked, and the man thrust into him harder.

~~~"Taggart, we had better be ready."

~~"I'm moving as fast as I can, Simon."

~~~"If Kincaid has..."

~~A ship captain yelling in some Asian language

~~~Rats crawling through the walls.

"Good boy."

The whispered words rattled inside Jim's head, and now the scent of blood and sweat and dust and gun oil and bile and rat filled his nose.

The cock buried in him moved faster, and now Jim humped the fist wrapped around his cock, lost in the sensory input as the world expanded.

Panting, Jim twisted as the body behind drove forward into him and then stiffened. The smell of come colored the whole world as Jim came in thick waves. His senses snapped back into place, and Jim collapsed onto the floor, his pants still around his thighs.

"Good boy," the man said as he slapped Jim's exposed ass.

"Watching your face as I took your Sentinel was much more satisfying than just beating you to death," he chuckled, turning to Blair.

"God, Jim, I'm so sorry," Blair whispered desperately, and Jim could smell salt.

"Oh, you're going to be sorry, Mr. Natural. You should have stuck to your university. Dale, get the Sentinel cleaned up. He's not going to be part of the auction. However, email our clients and let them know we will have one slightly damaged and very unwilling cop with a very pretty mouth up for sale."

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, Detective Sandburg, you are going to be very, very sorry."

The voice left, and Jim struggled to push himself up as strange hands touched his exposed ass, not that the hands were any more offensive than the drying semen cooling against his thighs, but he didn't have any control over that. He struggled to roll to one side and pull his own pants up as strange hands tried to do it for him.

"Come on, boy, up you go. I didn't know the cops let their Sentinels run around without collars."

"Who cares? We'll get him his very own collar. Something in a nice shock-control steel model. I have a feeling Sandburg is going to take more discipline than his Sentinel will though. Isn't that right, boy?" Jim had fought his way up to his knees, and a hand came to rest on his head.

Reaching up blindly, Jim grabbed the hand and twisted it viciously, using the thug's body to find his balance and surge to his feet. Someone screamed, and Jim was guessing that was the man whose arm now cracked under Jim's hands, but the sound was lost in the explosion at the front door.

Jim squinted through the pain and yanked the thug to him as his buddies went racing out the door. With his unbroken hand, the man punched Jim in the ribs, but Jim ignored the pain and reached into the man's waistband for his weapon. Immediately, the man went still as Jim pointed the gun at him, an overwhelming need to kill nearly pulling the trigger even without Jim's conscious will.

"Get out," Jim tersely ordered as he let go of the man's badly broken arm. The thug howled in pain as the broken bones jostled against his side, and then he started backing toward the door, clearly more willing to take a risk with the cops than with a drugged, out-of-control Sentinel.

When he reached the door, he staggered out, and Jim stumbled forward, kicking the door closed before he went back to Blair's side. He would prefer to get his companion somewhere safer, but Blair wasn't breathing well and had lost consciousness. Jim simply sat next to Blair, one hand on a limp arm where he could feel the soft thump of life continuing to pulse within the still body. With his other hand, he kept the weapon trained on the door.

Hearing spiked dangerously high, making Jim's ears throb, but he ignored it as police moved through the lower floor. Banks' voice called to various teams, and Jim could hear him so clearly that he opened his mouth to answer, only to forget the question. The panther crawled in the room and crouched near the door.

"It's your fault, you know," Jim pointed out without much actual anger. If he hadn't come, Sandburg would have died. The cat didn't even bother glancing back toward Jim. Maybe the cat distracted him, because suddenly the door was already open and men in black vests screamed instructions.

Jim kept his weapon focused on the tallest one's head as bloated words slipped past him. "If it weren't for that damn cat, I'd be in Canada," Jim said, and this time he did manage to find a little frustration. Blair moaned, and Jim shifted closer as he moved his hand to Blair's cheek while still keeping his weapon trained on the strange man.

"Jim," a voice called, a different voice from the one before, but familiar. Jim cocked his head but kept his eyes focused on the head of the man he was going to shoot.

"Captain Ellison," the voice demanded, and Jim blinked and turned to find Banks two feet away. "Jim, put the weapon down." He turned away from Jim. "Mendez, Roberson, get out. You do not take on a Sentinel with an injured guardian."

Jim just watched Banks as the other two shuffled backwards out the door.

"Jim, give me the weapon."

"I hate drugs."

"Not fond of them myself."

"It's the cat's fault."

"Sure," Banks agreed. "Give me the gun."

"Blair's hurt," Jim countered.

"As soon as you give me the gun, the medics will come help him. Give me the gun, and Blair gets help." Banks paused a second. "Gun then help."

Jim considered the offer. He took the bullet out of the chamber and slid the ammo clip out of the weapon before he surrendered it to Banks.

"Simon, you are one lucky son of a bitch."

"I told you Rick, he has more control that most."

"And after Kincaid dosed him with Lomal and Amalynze-9, I'm surprised he's not shooting at the pretty colors. These so-called bonding drugs really leave Sentinels illogical, and his skin is white with all the residue."

Jim turned, his muscles moving like a rusted gate as he considered the new man.

"I don't like you," Jim said as he saw Rick Yaden standing in the door with a rifle. The man backed up a step and medics came in.

"We can't treat your man with a drugged Sentinel on scene. Either restrain him or we'll have to tranquilize him, even if he's been drugged already."

"Just give me the restraints."

Jim watched one medic hand familiar chains to Banks.

"Jim," Banks said quietly. "The drugs in your system make it dangerous to give you more drugs, but if you don't let me put these on, they're going to tranq you."

Jim stared at the chains.

"Blair's mine," Jim answered.

"Yeah, yeah. The kid's been yours for a long time now. It's called an obsession."

"Blair's mine," Jim repeated. He brushed the hair back from Blair's face, and black bruises made him look distorted. "Blair's cold."

"Shock. Get the restraints on the Sentinel or we're going to have to drug him," one of the strange voices said, and the sound mutated into a cartoon voice so that Jim looked over, expecting to see a white speech bubble floating over the man's head. No bubble.

Jim then turned to watch as Simon moved slowly closer with the restraints.

"I hate drugs," Jim announced again.

"Yeah, yeah," Banks agreed as he locked the manacles around Jim's wrists.

"Blair's mine."

"You have a one-track mind, you know that don't you?" Banks complained. Jim just watched Blair's chest rise and fall as Banks reached around him with the belt for the restraints. Jim struggled to remember something.

"I don't get paid enough for this. This is technically your job, Rick."

"Yeah, but you're the one who wouldn't let me tranq him."

"Don't you think he has enough drugs in him?"

Jim felt the belt tighten around his waist.

Simon came back around to the front and the long, center chain ratcheted through the ring with a familiar clatter.

"Come on, Jim, you have to turn around here. I need your legs," Simon complained as he pushed at Jim. "And considering how much I hate these things, which you wouldn't know, but I'm telling you now, I just want to get this over with so Blair can get help. I'd let them tranq you, but Blair is going to do drunk karaoke for the next decade if you go and die." Simon muttered in frustration until Jim finally settled from his knees onto his butt so that Simon could reach his ankles.

The soreness reminded him. Jim reached out and caught Simon's hand as he finished attaching the last ankle cuff. The paramedics moved in with a flurry of equipment as they called off vitals and shouted directions. The sudden movement left streaks dancing across Jim's vision.

"I hate drugs."

"We covered this."

"Rape kit."

Simon's eyes turned to Blair with clear horror, and for a desperate second, Jim thought Kincaid had come back to rape Blair. He awkwardly lunged forward, all but falling on one paramedic before Simon could haul him back.

"Shit. I'll kill Kincaid," Simon grunted.

Smelling the air, Jim assured himself that Kincaid wasn't back, and he started shaking his head.

"Jim?" Simon asked.

"Not Blair, me," Jim corrected him. Simon turned shocked eyes towards Jim. "Nail the bastard," Jim asked as more paramedics rolled in two stretchers. They moved Blair to the first one, wrapped in blankets and medical devises sprouting from him like an overripe potato.

Hands pulled on Jim, and he awkwardly stood and allowed himself to be tipped back onto the second stretcher where someone attached the chain near his feet to the rail.

"Blair's mine," Jim muttered unhappily, his fingers reaching out, but the chain stopped him.

"We'll get you to your guardian, Sentinel. Blair's right ahead of you," a voice assured him. He didn't know the voice. Jim focused on the colors draining down from the ceiling. He hated drugs.

SEVENTEEN
***
Jim lay in the hospital bed with his head pounding. Just out of sheer cussedness, he yanked on the chain that was anchored to the two hospital beds that had then been connected. It meant the chain vanished into the crease where the two mattresses met.

"This is your fault," Jim complained to the body lying next to him. "If you had just kept being a self-righteous, arrogant little shit, I could have made it to Canada." Jim sighed at the lack of reaction to his complaints. The machine beeped in time with the heart Jim could hear beating, and not even the Sentinel-approved cleaners could remove the sharp stink of blood.

"You need to learn how to keep yourself out of trouble. Not everyone lets their prisoners off as easily as I did," Jim lectured Blair. He traced a finger over the gauze that protected the injured wrists. The doctor said the right one was fine, but the left might suffer some ligament damage. Kincaid hadn't been very careful with his chains. They weren't the ones with soft padding like Jim now wore on his wrists and ankles.

Jim almost envied him the injuries. He wished he had something so tangible, so visual. A bleeding wound would be something he could poke and feel the pain and watch heal, but Jim had something else. He felt ghost hands drift over his hips, and he tightened his lips as he ordered his senses to forget it.

The door creaked open, but Jim ignored it.

"Blair doing okay?" a voice asked. Jim glanced over his shoulder where a familiar-looking man stood next to Banks. Banks had asked the question, though.

"He's had a rough weekend. He'll wake up when he's ready," Jim said with more confidence than he felt. Blair's breathing was shallow, and his skin had turned a color Jim usually associated with paper: old, dry paper that was ready to turn to dust at a touch.

"Are you okay?" Banks asked as he came into the room.

"I've been better," Jim admitted with another tug on the chains. Banks had the decency to look away, but the other man just continued to watch.

"I'm Rick Yaden, Sentinel division," the second man introduced himself.

"Good for you," Jim said sarcastically as he turned his attention back to Blair. He reached up and brushed curls away from his face.

"The hospital said you refused to talk to their counselor," Banks stepped closer, but Jim ignored the comment. If he wanted information, Jim was going to force him to ask for it. "They have a male counselor if it would make you more comfortable than the first one. They even have a Sentinel pair that could come in from the Institute," Banks continued.

"I'm fine," Jim insisted tersely. The counselor who had come in wanted Jim to describe how horrible it had been, but the worst horror had been the lack of horror. Despite the fact that Jim had never been bottom before, Kincaid had moved so slowly and carefully that he hadn't even torn Jim. But the very caution he'd used made Jim feel… unimportant. Looking at Blair, Jim felt guilty, but he envied the man. Kincaid thought Blair was dangerous. He hated Blair because of what Blair could do to him. Kincaid hadn't even bothered to hate or fear Jim. Eventually, the counselor had given up trying to get Jim to talk and had left the room.

"We need to get a little information here," Yaden finally said as he came closer. Jim shifted on the bed, bracing himself on an elbow so that he could at least partially sit up. With his ankles chained, it was the most dignified position that he could manage.

"Since I'm just a lowly Sentinel, and one whose judgment is highly questionable, I'm not sure why you're bothering to ask me anything." Jim watched as Yaden took a small step back. Banks sighed, studied the ceiling for a brief moment, and then focused on Jim.

"I don't like this Sentinel shit. I suspect that you dislike it even more, but there are some facts that we all have to deal with here."

"When the government says that you can be legally chained up for your own protection, I might be interested in having a discussion of facts with you. Until that time, I really don't see that we have much to talk about." Jim watched as Banks' back went stiff.

"Funny, I thought we had something in common," Banks snapped back, stepping close enough that Jim could see his jaw muscle work. "I thought we both cared about Sandburg here. But if you don't care that the kid is in more shit than he knows how to get out of, you just let me know. I'll have the doctors in here to tranq you and haul your ass out of here."

"What?" Jim demanded. He didn't even realize he was moving until his hands grasped Blair's arm, and the detective shifted in his sleep. Jim forced himself to loosen his hold. "Sandburg's a good kid. He stood up to Kincaid when most men would have been begging for mercy and offering anything in order to get out alive," Jim said as he avoided the way the threat to separate them ripped at his soul.

"Fuck," Banks whispered. "Yeah, that's our Blair. He has more heart than brains some days, even if he is a doctoral student. But you know he's in serious shit now or you wouldn't have asked me to do the rape kit," Banks quickly added.

Jim could feel the heat rise to his face. He'd survive the rape. He would. He just hated that his humiliation had become something so casually discussed.

He'd hated the obnoxious cheerfulness Kincaid had shown, as though he didn't need to strip Jim of power because Jim didn't have any. If Kincaid had chained him up and whipped him the way he'd tortured Sandburg… as perverse as it sounded, Jim would have preferred that. He would have preferred an enemy who considered him worthy of breaking instead of that asshole who assumed that as a Sentinel he came broken already.

And now Yaden and Banks came in casually discussing that rape, and Jim found his fingers again closing painfully tight around Blair's arm. Blair's breathing stopped for a brief moment before Jim realized just how tightly he was holding on. Fuck. It wasn't like the kid didn't have enough bruises already.

"You knew that Blair would be the first suspect," Banks said.

"He didn't do this; Kincaid did," Jim insisted. He definitely did not want to discuss this.

"We collected the rape sample from your kit, and we'll send that to the lab for testing. As soon as we have a court order or when Blair wakes up and gives informed consent, we'll send his sample to compare." The significance of Banks' words sank into Jim like lead pellets ripping through him.

"Informed consent," he said quietly. "You're arresting him."

Yaden stepped forward again. "Under the law, anyone who engages in sexual behaviors that interfere with a legally established bond is guilty of a class four felony rape."

"He didn't touch me."

"You weren't bonded before, and you clearly are now. That's not how this looks."

"The rape kit won't match him," Jim growled at Yaden as he narrowed his eyes and started considering all the ways he would like to murder the man. He knew ways to do it slowly… so slowly.

"Without his informed consent, we can't take that sample," Banks interrupted. "We want to help Blair, and that's why we're talking to you, off the record."

Jim sighed and spent a moment staring at the tiled ceiling. God, the plan had been so simple. Foolproof. Make the captors sympathize with him, gather resources, and escape. He'd carried it out perfectly. How had it all gotten so incredibly fucked up?

"I'm too tired to play this verbal fencing match. What do you want?" Jim finally asked. He focused on Banks, but Yaden answered.

"I looked up your records. Where is Keith Walker?"

"In his basement."

"Is he alive?" Banks demanded. Jim rolled his eyes.

"Keith is probably mad as hell right now. We're supposed to be on a camping trip, but I gave him a lecture about the evils of slavery and locked him in his own Sentinel safe-room," Jim explained. Banks blinked in surprise. "He deserved it," Jim brought home the attack, and he could see Banks shift uncomfortably.

"Is he unhurt?" Yaden asked.

"Yeah."

"How did you break the bond with him?" Yaden pulled out a notepad and started taking notes.

Jim laughed without any humor. "I never had one. Walker's a kid. He believed what I told him, and I told him I had bonded to him."

"You were planning the escape from day one," Banks said quietly. Part of Jim wanted to get some satisfaction out of this by telling them the whole plan. The fucking government had taken his freedom, Kincaid had taken his body, but maybe he could prove to these two that he wasn't the tamed animal they assumed.

"I was," Jim said simply. No matter how much he wanted to tell them the whole story, to tell them they were idiots who didn't understand the first thing about Sentinels, he couldn't. He couldn't ruin the next runner's chance of pulling the same trick. Let them think sex was bonding.

"So, how did you end up bonding to Blair?" Simon asked, and his eyes slid over to where Blair breathed with a rough wheeze. He'd been in bad shape with bruising and swelling, and he had caught a lungful of drugs used on Jim. The bonding drugs didn't have the same effect on non-Sentinels, but in his weakened condition, they had put Blair out cold. And he stayed out cold. Jim considered how much truth and how much lie to weave into his story. He reached up and brushed a curl back from the side of Blair's mouth. No matter what Jim did, the hair seemed to have a life of its own, creeping uncontrollably toward Blair's mouth.

"At the airport, when Blair first came up to me," Jim started carefully, "I felt pulled toward him. He was good. I didn't know how good until later. But he looked that guard in the eye and lied without batting an eye. He thought on his feet, he kept calm, even when I provoked him to get an emotional response out of him, he kept his cool. He would have been one hell of an operative."

"You wanted to bond with him?" Banks asked.

"Not bad enough to give up my freedom," Jim shook his head. "And then I figured out my freedom was gone, and I let myself focus on him. I let myself focus too much." Jim remembered how he'd grabbed Blair and thrown him on the couch. "I touched him, smelled his hair, held him down."

Jim laid the foundation carefully without overplaying it. He had to hide his own ability to function without a bond, to have sex without a bondmate. They still might take Blair away. Jim's fingers tightened on the fabric of Blair's shirt at the thought, but he knew they had that power. If they did, he could still salvage the plan. He just had to convince them that he couldn't replicate the same control.

Jim ignored the voice in his head that whispered thoughts of finding Blair before he ran. He had a fantasy of tossing Blair in the trunk of some getaway car and running for the border. After Blair's speech at the precinct when he'd visited, Jim wasn't sure the man would even object all that much. The problem was that Blair's plan had included going with Jim to Canada and breaking the bond, and Jim knew he couldn't do it. Either the judge would order his bond broken and he would suffer through the madness, or he'd fight to his last breath to stay with Blair.

Even while Jim's instincts geared up, ready to fight to keep Blair, he knew the best option would be to have the bond broken. He knew the pain of a broken bond. He'd survived it with Incacha, and he would survive it with Blair.

The beginnings of a new plan formed. It would take longer, but if he could convince them that Blair had been the unknown factor, he might repeat his success at escaping. He didn't even let himself consider what would happen if they broke his bond to Blair and shoved him in a locked room in some permanent institution. He wouldn't survive losing his companion and his freedom, and Jim wasn't sure just how he felt about that potential end.

"You started the bond with Blair before you were even arrested," Banks said, putting together the pieces Jim had neatly laid out for him. Jim nodded.

"That isn't possible," Yaden argued.

"We already know something impossible happened here, so one form of impossible works just as well as any other."

"I like Blair as well as you do, but this is a lot of coincidence. He's obsessed with Jim; he quits his job over him, and then he ends up being Jim's bondmate." Yaden counted off the chain of events on his fingers.

"I don't for a second believe Blair did anything wrong."

"I hope not, but I'm trying to be realistic here. I live in the real world, and in the real world, sometimes men get caught up by their own obsessions."

"Blair didn't do anything," Jim repeated.

"I know that," Banks quickly agreed. "Now we just have to get Sentinel division and IA to believe that."

"Simon, you don't have to convince me of anything. I know that even if Blair did step over the line, he did it with the best intentions. But you have to admit he plays fast and loose with the rules. But my interest here is in protecting Jim's rights," Yaden placated Banks, and Jim tightened his jaw against the accusations that threatened to pour out. What rights? He didn't have a single one worth mentioning. But Jim choked back those thoughts because he needed to play the game. He needed to get them to see him as helpless until he could stage another escape.

Invisible hands prickled down his back, and Jim shivered at the feeling of helplessness.

The door opened again and two new police officers walked into the room. One was a horse-faced woman with grey eyes, and the other was an older man with a limp, but their body language practically screamed 'cop.'

"Clark, Ferguson, I didn't expect to see you here until Sandburg woke up," Banks said slowly. Jim could hear the stress tones on every syllable.

"Captain Banks, we have a job to do. In the face of such obvious evidence, we really don't have a choice about putting Detective Sandburg under arrest," the man answered. Jim didn't know if he was Clark or Ferguson, but he didn't care. All he cared about was the handcuffs the man carried in one hand.

"No." Jim said as he stretched as far as his own chain would allow him and reached for the arm on Blair's far side before the asshole could handcuff him, but it lay just out of his reach.

"Sentinel, I understand that this is a difficult time," the man said as he stayed on the far side of the combined bed where Jim couldn't reach him.

"Blair has injuries to both wrists. He may lose partial use of one of them from ligament damage from Kincaid hanging him from chains," Jim quickly explained. He didn't have any other weapons to defend Blair.

The cop turned and glanced at Banks.

"He's right. If you have to restrain him, you'll get an ankle restraint. I will not have you physically disabling a good detective, and if you even think about it, I will personally pay for the lawyer he'll use to sue you," Banks quickly agreed even though he hadn't been in the room when the doctor had come through.

The man hesitated for a second and then looked at his partner who headed out the door without a word.

"Are you taking custody of the Sentinel?" the man asked Yaden. Jim clenched his teeth against the increasingly familiar feeling of helplessness. His senses made Blair the most important person in his world, and his senses gave everyone else the power to take Blair away from him. Jim fought the cold rage that built in his stomach.

Logically, he knew they would break the bond. Logically, he knew he should encourage that, he should try to find a way to salvage some part of the plan. Emotionally he wanted nothing more than to grab Blair and run. He waited as Yaden considered him.

"He's been tranqed, drugged, raped, and bonded. He's stressed enough. Luckily, he has a good judge on his case, so I'll give her a call and she can bring court to him and sort out this whole mess. Let's just wait and see what she has to say," Yaden finally announced.

Jim had been clutching the edge of Blair's hospital blanket, but now he allowed himself to relax. Judges didn't move fast, so if nothing else, he had another few hours where he could touch Blair, run fingers over the rough cheek and hear the heart beating. Jim knew from his experience with Incacha that those memories could carry him through some hard times. And now, bonded to Blair, the memories of Incacha had faded to normal, so Jim needed a few new ones, a few Sentinel memories with their perfect sensory recall.

The woman reappeared, this time with a thicker shackle attached to a short chain. She locked it around Blair's slack leg and locked the other end to the bed.

"You can guard the room from outside it," Banks snapped. Clark and Ferguson headed out. "You too, Yaden. Blair doesn't need people in here who aren't his friend."

Jim watched as Yaden flushed, the small capillaries on his face darkening as blood rushed to them. He opened his mouth, but didn't say anything.

"Get out," Jim said. His words didn't carry any authority, but at least he'd said them.

"Simon, I like the kid. I worked with him for four years, and if there's any way to clear him of this, I'll do it. I know he's innocent, but I'm just trying to live in the real world."

"I don't really like your version of the real world, Rick. I remember patrolling with someone who had a little more interest in right and wrong, and a little less interest in real."

"I just don't want to see you go down with him, Simon. We've been friends for a long time." Yaden didn't wait for an answer; he turned and headed out of the door leaving Simon and Jim alone with an unconscious Blair.

"If there's anything you need to tell me, I'm here to protect Blair," Banks said several seconds after the door fell closed.

"He didn't do anything," Jim repeated. Banks nodded, but they both knew the truth: a Sentinel's words didn't carry any weight in a court of law. "The sample from Blair—the only reason you need consent is to use it against him at trial," Jim guessed.

Banks looked up. "Yeah," he agreed.

"Take a sample. Blair was exhausted and collapsed on the ground the whole time Kincaid was raping me," Jim said quietly. "You don't need to use the sample against him, and no defense lawyer is going to challenge evidence that helps clear his client."

"I already have a sample. I just wasn't sure…" Banks stopped.

"Blair isn't a rapist," Jim warned darkly.

"No, but he'd do it to keep Kincaid from killing you or forcing another bond. He'd do it if Kincaid drugged him up enough that he lost track of reality. Blair has been obsessed with you ever since I met him. He drank himself stupid and cried all night when you rejected his request. He walked around the precinct like a man who'd just had to shoot his rabid dog for days after you announced you were going to bond to Walker. Give him enough drugs, and he'd be happy to try and create a bond," Banks said quietly as he stepped to the side of the bed. He touched Blair's arm lightly.

"I hope you know how much he cares about you." Banks looked up at Jim, and held his gaze for several seconds. "I hope you really get that."

"I'm the one with instincts that won't let me leave him," Jim pointed out.

"No, Blair doesn't have instincts. He just has this sense of morality and obligation big enough to match your instincts. Blair can't walk away from anyone who needs him. Other people's needs calls to him just like your need to stay with your bondmate calls to you," Banks said quietly. "Don't fuck with him, Ellison."

Jim studied the man for a moment and then nodded. Funny, he was chained to a bed, and yet Banks still felt a need to threaten him. It felt good.

"I won't," Jim promised, hoping he could keep his word on that.

EIGHTEEN
***
"Okay, let's get this show on the road," the judge said as she pushed into the hospital room. Jim ignored her, focusing on Blair's even heartbeat as he worried about the flurry of motion that trailed after the woman. Six hours. He'd had six hours with Blair, but Jim braced himself for the inevitable.

Rick Yaden followed her, and then Simon and a couple of doctors, only one of whom looked familiar, and her bailiff and a woman with a transcribing machine and Keith and the social worker. Jim flinched a little at Keith. The man didn't look any worse for wear after a long weekend locked in his own basement, but he could just imagine how angry the kid was.

"Captain Yaden, I'm going to have you recap this because I read the emergency custody report in the car on the way over, and I was getting whiplash just trying to keep up. Bailiff, clear out a corner for Tina; the woman doesn't have room for her machine."

The bailiff nodded and quickly moved the two doctors away from the table beside Blair's bed, putting the water pitcher on the ground before he pulled it across the linoleum with an ungodly screech. Jim narrowed his eyes, but Blair continued to sleep. Jim wasn't sure whether that was a good or a bad sign.

"Judge, Captain Banks from Major Crimes called me with information on a warehouse where Garrett Kincaid was holding a number of Sentinels for sale. We recovered James Ellison at that location."

"And you recovered Mr. Walker from his basement of his house. Captain Banks, you seem to have come into this a little earlier than Captain Yaden here. Why don't you start?"

Jim shifted around so that he could get one elbow under him and watch with a sort of resigned.... not amusement, but maybe irony. He knew the whole story, but the judge wasn't asking him any of it. He shifted forward and stroked Blair's cool skin as he ignored the circus.

"Monday morning, I got notification of a 911 call involving one of my officers, Detective Sandburg."

"And this would be the Detective Sandburg who is still unconscious after being tortured by Kincaid?" the judge asked as she seated herself on a folding chair her bailiff brought in from the hall.

"Yes, your honor."

"The same Blair Sandburg currently charged with initiating an illegal bond?"

"Yes, your honor."

Jim could hear the tightness in Banks' voice.

"And it's definitely the same Blair Sandburg who applied for custody of James when he appeared in my court. I have to tell you, I do not like coincidence."

"Your honor," Banks interrupted, "Detective Sandburg is an excellent officer. Dispatch had dismissed the report as a prank call after a Sentinel at the scene failed to find anything, but standard operating procedure put the report on my desk. When Detective Sandburg did not show up for work or answer his cell phone, I sent a uniform over to his house. Detective Sandburg and his car were missing. An APB found his car in the warehouse district, stripped to the frame."

"And no one had any report about James escaping at this point?"

"No, your honor," Yaden answered. "That would have come to my office, and we didn't have any reports."

"I was still in the basement," Keith interjected, his voice tight with anger.

"And this would be where it gets really strange," the judge sighed.

"A man came to the precinct, claiming to have information on Detective Sandburg. I paid him sixty dollars and he said that dock workers had described Sandburg getting dragged off when helping a couple of Sentinels in the same neighborhood as the 911 call," Simon explained.

"Which gave you reason to trust its veracity, but you didn't have any suspicions about James at all?"

"No, your honor. He looked strung out, his clothes were rumpled and dirty, and he hadn't shaved that morning. He looked like most of my snitches, except for being a little better fed."

"Which might have simply meant he was a very successful snitch," the judge sighed. "Okay, at this point, you called Captain Yaden." The judge said it in a tone of voice that made it very clear she knew he hadn't.

"No, your honor," Banks said. Jim looked up from Blair to see how Banks was going to talk his way out of this one. Jim knew he'd backed Banks into a corner, but the man had broken a few regulations on his own. "Joe, who I now know was Mr. Ellison, said he had a problem with Yaden and that we could find Sandburg on our own from there if we called him in."

"So, James clearly wasn't bonded to Detective Sandburg at that point if he was willing to walk away. However, I don't understand why you weren't on the phone with Captain Yaden two seconds later."

"Your honor," Banks said carefully, "most snitches know a lot more than they're willing to tell right up front. The longer you get them to talk, the more information they let slip. I took two of my men, and we headed for the warehouse district. Sure enough, Joe showed us a specific building. The moment he identified the building, I did contact Captain Yaden, and the Sentinel unit arrived twenty minutes later."

"I think you skipped a couple of interesting parts, Captain Banks," the judge said as she raised her eyebrows.

"Outside the warehouse, Joe showed signs of enhanced hearing. I questioned him, and he didn't deny anything, so I retreated to my team where we discussed the possibility that he was a Sentinel."

"And did someone get a tranq weapon?"

"Before we could make any decision, Joe came back and stood between us and the car with the weapon in the trunk. Rather than risk escalating a situation, I chose to not confront him. I suspected at that point that he might be an escaped Sentinel from the warehouse, in which case he had a legitimate reason to go into a rage. Police procedure is very clear in these situations. If the Sentinel can not be subdued, we keep property and civilians out of harm's way. Physical confrontation with an emotional Sentinel is a last choice."

"So, you thought Kincaid had your detective and that Joe had gotten away from him. And no one thought that the Sentinel in question had a guardian? You could have easily found out that James Ellison belonged to Detective Walker with one call to the precinct." The judge glanced over toward Keith.

"I didn't know who Jim was at that point."

"But I thought from the report..."

"He identified himself only after that point, your honor. He then started showing signs of Sentinel distress over Detective Sandburg. He insisted that he was going in after him."

"And you got the tranq and stopped him for his own good, correct? I just must have missed that part in the report," the judge said dryly.

"Your honor, he was still between us and the tranq weapon. Before we could do anything else, Jim charged the building."

The judge sighed.

Jim just couldn't keep his silence any more. "Kincaid was beating Sandburg, telling him about the sexual sadists he was going to sell Blair to. I couldn't stand out there and listen to Blair die."

"James, I understand that the recent breaking of your bond with Detective Walker and the forced bond with Detective Sandburg has, no doubt, clouded your judgment."

"I never bonded with Keith," Jim said, ignoring the part of him that wanted to point out that the whole system had a clouded judgment. It didn't matter what he said; as a Sentinel, it would just get dismissed anyway, so he saved his breath.

"Detective Walker, did you bond with James or not? I have paperwork you filed right here."

"I don't know, your honor," Keith answered honestly. Jim studied him, but the man kept his eyes focused on the judge or on Yaden or even the floor. Guilt tugged at Jim.

"Okay," the judge sighed, "I don't mean to seem condescending here, but do we need to have the birds and the bees talk? There really should be a yes/ no answer to that question."

"Keith and I had sex; we didn't bond," Jim answered for Keith.

"Dr. Tarlson, I know I've only been doing Sentinel law for, I don't know, thirty-six years, but maybe there's some fine print that I didn't know about. An unbonded, adult Sentinel has sex. They pretty much bond, yes?"

One of the two doctors looked up from his notes.

"Your honor, the literature would suggest--"

"Don't even start with your medical double talk. Someone in this room has to have a yes, no answer here."

"No," Jim answered in the following silence.

The judge looked at Jim, really looked at him, for the first time since she had come into the room. "Succinct. Not necessarily useful, but succinct. So, Dr Tarlson, could you be equally as succinct and a little more useful?"

The doctor in question stared at the judge for several seconds, no doubt adding up his bank account and trying to decide if he could afford a contempt of court fine.

"During the sex with Detective Walker, did you experience any change in your senses?" the doctor finally asked Jim.

"They started becoming more intense, so I focused on a memory to avoid really seeing Keith," Jim answered truthfully. "I never felt any strong protectiveness towards Keith although I do think he's a good officer, and I wouldn't stand by and let anyone hurt him. It wasn't even particularly difficult for me to physically overpower him and lock him in the basement." The doctor's eyebrows shot up, and he turned to the second doctor who just looked bewildered.

"So, sex-bonding, bonding-sex, what do we have going here?" the judge prompted.

The second doctor spoke for the first time. "Some Eastern researchers suggest that bonding is more emotional than actually..."

The first doctor cut him off. "I don't think we need to need to look toward bad medicine for an answer. Your honor, Ellison's actions in Detective Walker's house precludes a bond, so if Detective Walker confirms they had sex, I would call the case an aberration. Reviewing the records, Ellison has endured more stress than most Sentinels ever do, so it might be an inability to properly bond at all created by trauma or it may be some way in which post-traumatic flashbacks interfered with his ability to focus on the present."

"That sounds suspiciously like you don't know," the judge snorted.

"Your honor--"

"Never mind. Captain Yaden, would you be so kind as to describe the events in the warehouse?"

"We used a small explosive charge on the front of an armored vehicle to take out the front doors, and then we came in with the Sentinel unit and two SWAT units. On the first floor, we recovered fourteen Sentinels, all traumatized, starved, and physically beaten to lower their resistance."

"Too bad you didn't find Kincaid. I wouldn't mind sentencing him to some of his own medicine," the judge muttered. "Tina, don't transcribe that."

"He was on the second floor when the explosion hit, but not in the room with us," Jim added.

"Are you sure? The report says you had been heavily drugged and were hallucinating." The judge looked at Jim with the expression his father had always used when Jim had been a child and said something particularly stupid.

"He would have shot Sandburg if he had been in the room," Jim pointed out. "There were two men in with us, and neither was Kincaid. I broke one man's arm and the other fled."

"We did arrest one suspect with a spiral fracture of the arm," Banks confirmed.

"Well, good for you, James," the judge nodded with a small smile. "Couldn't have happened to a nicer slimeball. Tina, leave the slimeball comment out. Okay, let's table the discussion of sex and bonding and just say that James didn't bond with Detective Walker. Oh, and James, the letter you left was rather confusing. You lead me to believe that Keith was patient and competent, but then you locked in him in his basement. The ideas seem mutually exclusive."

The judge continued to sort the papers she had in the file balanced on her lap, so Jim didn't realize at first that she expected an actual answer. She finally stopped and looked up at him expectantly.

"Your honor?" Jim asked, not quite sure what she wanted answered.

"How did Detective Walker treat you? Was there some abuse there that interfered with your ability to bond?"

Jim hesitated. The judge stared at him, and Keith's back went stiff as Jim thought through various answers. "Keith treated me fairly, but to be honest, he never had a chance of bonding with me," Jim said, deciding in an instant to continue his lie from earlier.

"Gender specific? Jim, if you'd prefer a female guardian, you only have to request one," the judge said, clearly confused and concerned. Jim shook his head.

"In the airport, when I was captured," Jim said slowly. "Detective Sandburg was quick-witted and calm and he smelled good." Jim could see that the logical arguments didn't impress the judge, but she nodded knowingly when he mentioned Blair's scent. Yeah, just chalk it all up to a Sentinel thing.

"If you felt a connection, why did you reject Detective Sandburg's request? He was on my short list of choices for your guardian."

"I wanted to be free," Jim said quietly. The judge just blinked at him, clearly not understanding, and Jim tightened his fingers around the chains that locked him to the bed. It shouldn't be a difficult concept.

"I was avoiding Blair because I knew I couldn't avoid bonding with him. When Keith and I had sex, instead of focusing on Keith, I remembered Blair. When Kincaid raped me, I focused on Blair who was lying on the floor three feet away trying to goad Kincaid into torturing him and leaving me alone."

The judge glanced down toward Blair who still lay unconscious on the bed.

"He never participated in the rape?"

"He couldn't even move an inch," Jim insisted firmly.

"Doctor?" the judge turned toward the younger doctor, the one who had been cut off so quickly. Now Jim recognized him as the doctor who'd been in earlier to examine Blair.

"With the swelling and contusions, I doubt that Detective Sandburg could have even stood on his own feet. He wouldn't have been able to engage in any sexual act, in my professional opinion."

"We have a rape kit being tested right now," Banks added. "I'm sure it will prove that Kincaid and not Blair was the perpetrator."

"So, that leaves just a couple of problems. First, what do I do with a Sentinel who can clearly fake a bond? I mean, James, it's a little hard to trust you to a new guardian after this stunt. The safest course would be an institution."

"I wouldn't run again; I wouldn't leave Blair," Jim said quickly. He looked down at the slack face and remembered the way Blair had struggled to distract Kincaid. "I couldn't leave Blair."

"That's debatable. However, the more interesting question is how you found Detective Sandburg in the first place." The judge put the stack of papers down and stared at Jim. Jim tightened his jaw, unwilling to make himself look like a nutcase by describing the jaguar, but he obviously needed to say something. He sighed, realizing he truly was trapped on this issue. As much as he hated referring to his Sentinel instincts as having any control over his life, there wasn't any logical explanation for his behavior.

"I just felt like Blair needed me," he shrugged, the motion awkward with the chain in place.

"I had the car and the supplies. I had even picked out a gun store to rob before running for the border. I got the collar off." Jim looked down. "Then I couldn't leave. Something in me just knew that Blair was in trouble, and I found myself driving the warehouse district trying to find him."

"Your honor, there are case studies of Sentinels identifying danger to their guardians over long distances, sometimes even experiencing hallucinations as their senses process such vast quantities of data that they can sense bondmates dozens of miles away."

"Unsubstantiated and unscientific studies. Myths," the older doctor disagreed haughtily.

"But when I look at a case like this, those romantic stories do seem just a little more possible," the judge pointed out. "Obviously, I don't have any weight in the criminal proceeding. But in this country, a man is innocent until proven guilty. Unless a court of law convicts Detective Sandburg of this rape, I find him a suitable guardian for James Ellison. Tina, draw up an order transferring guardianship from Detective Walker to Detective Sandburg. Okay, unless someone has something else to say, I'm calling this one a wrap, a messy and legally questionable wrap, but a wrap. Captain Yaden, have someone from the Sentinel Institute in to get James a new collar, and make sure those chains stay on until Detective Sandburg is up and about."

"Yes, your honor," Yaden quickly answered.

"I just might have time to actually make dinner," the judge said as she stood up. She strode from the room, her high heeled shoes tapping sharply against the floor, and Jim watched the rest of the circus follow her out.

NINETEEN
***
Jim noticed the moment Blair's vital signs started improving. It made a nice change from staring at the white ceiling wondering if he could go insane by counting by the freckles in the finish. He hadn't started counting yet for fear that he could, but he'd been tempted.

Now he turned his head and watched as Blair's closed eyes twitched and rolled, obviously lost in a nightmare. Jim curled his fists, caught between fury for the man whose injuries had kept him from running for the border and sympathy for the man's pain. Sympathy won.

"Calm down, Chief," Jim muttered softly as he stroked Blair's arm.

Blair started twitching, his heart rate increasing dangerously.

"Blair. Wake up. It's just a dream; come on, Chief," Jim said a little louder. The heart rate spiked even more, fear scenting the air as Blair's eyelids finally fluttered open. Blair gasped, his near hand clutching Jim's hand while his eyes darted around the room.

"Calm down, Chief," Jim repeated. "You're in the hospital. You're safe."

"Wha?" Blair managed before he coughed, his mouth too dry to really talk. Jim rolled his eyes as he realized the bailiff had never put the sidetable back. Blair's water pitcher and glass were on the floor where neither of them could reach it, and the table was still over near the far wall.

"Hit the button," Jim said as he pointed toward the call button near Blair's other side. Blair swallowed and blinked for a second before he reached up and pressed the thing.

"How?" he asked, swallowing more as his throat protested. They'd pumped his stomach when they'd first arrived, and Jim could hear the pained grunt when Blair struggled to speak. He needed water.

"The police got there. They saved the Sentinels, but Kincaid got away," Jim answered. Blair's eyes had been traveling the room, but now they focused on Jim as he frowned. He made a circular motion with his hand, a clear 'go on' signal.

"I don't know what else you want. The police sure haven't given me any updates on Kincaid, so I don't know if they caught him."

Blair rolled his eyes.

"You," he hoarsely whispered. "Why are you here?"

Jim sighed as he considered all the possible answers to that question. "I'm going to assume you're asking why am I chained here with you as opposed to why I'm not in Canada where I should be, where I would have been if these damn senses hadn't suddenly decided to hijack my life again."

Blair opened his mouth, but Jim started talking before he could say anything. "Kincaid's little drug cocktail didn't work the way he expected. I couldn't totally control the senses, but I sure wasn't going to bond to the asshole who was raping me," Jim snorted. "The judge awarded you... custody... about two hours ago, but you slept through it."

Just then, a nurse walked in. "You're awake," she smiled brightly at Blair. "You were out for quite a while, so I can't offer you too much in the way of painkillers."

"He needs water," Jim said. "Some idiot moved the pitcher and didn't put it back."

"Oh," the nurse said as she looked around the room. "They did leave a mess. Okay, I'll pour you a glass, and then have maintenance move things back around in here." She bent down and poured the water before standing up with a single paper cup full. "Sentinel, can you help him? Make sure he doesn't spill or choke?"

"I was a medic; I can handle a glass of water," he answered dryly.

"*I* can handle a glass," Blair wheezed. The nurse looked at him suspiciously, but she turned to the bed controls, raising the head of the bed so that Blair sat up. Jim's bed moved with his.

"Those arms are going to hurt," she warned without giving him the water.

"Can you give me enough slack here to catch the glass when Mr. Overdoes It here drops it?" Jim asked as he pulled on the chain that vanished into the crack between the beds. The nurse looked at him for a second before nodding and moving to the foot of the bed where those controls were. A motor whirred, and Jim pulled the extra slack up.

"Thanks," he said tightly, still hating the fact he had to ask, but he was back to playing the game, and this time he couldn't afford a mistake. Okay, he couldn't afford another mistake because as far as the plan went, it was pretty much in shambles. Jim had fully expected to have the judge order him removed, and that would have at least put the plan back on track. He'd be miserable, but the plan would be on track. Now... okay now the plan was definitely derailed somewhere.

"Now, let's get Detective Sandburg some water," the nurse said as she walked around and handed Jim the cup. Blair glared.

"Drink up, Chief," Jim said sweetly. The nurse smiled; Blair glared harder. But as Blair brought his hands up to take the glass, he made a pained whine and let them fall back to the mattress. For a second he panted, his eyes closed as he muttered a string of 'fucks' that made Jim forget that he was angry at the kid. That had hurt.

"I'd give you something, but you were unconscious for a long time, and Dr. Moodie wants to have some tests done before we give you anything more," the nurse offered apologetically.

"It's okay," Blair lied. Jim held the plastic cup up to his lips, and this time Blair drank slowly without trying to take it himself. Seeing that Jim had his guardian in hand, the nurse gave him a smile and headed back to her station.

"Thanks," Blair said as Jim lowered the cup.

"Hey, I live to serve," Jim joked sarcastically as he pulled on his ankle hard enough to make the chain rattle. He watched as Blair's face slowly reddened. With Sentinel vision, Jim could see the veins darken and thicken under the blushing skin.

"I never meant..." Blair waved vaguely toward the chains.

"Sure you did. The chains you put on me in your apartment--they were yours," Jim pointed out. Blair's blush deepened.

"Okay, I deserved that. But what the hell is going on here? Okay, I'm very glad to not wake up as a sex slave to some sadist who gets off on torturing a cop, but I have to say I had kinda braced myself for it."

"Simon was outside before I ever came in the warehouse," Jim admitted.

"Simon... what? Why the hell did Simon let you come charging in then?"

"He didn't *let* me do anything," Jim snapped as he sat back, moving to the far side of his own bed. It only gave him about a couple of feet of space, but at least the distance helped Jim control his suddenly overwhelming urge to slap Sandburg. Hitting the guardian had absolutely no place in the plan. Well, not unless it included hitting him over the head, dumping him in the trunk of his car and running for Canada.

"So you just came charging in? Oh man, Kincaid could have just shot you. Okay, why didn't Kincaid's guys just shoot you?"

"Because they'd rather capture a Sentinel."

Blair narrowed his eyes and studied Jim for a second. "Okay, I have seen you, and without the collar, which you don't seem to have on, you are the most un-Sentinel like Sentinel I've ever seen. So, how the hell were they supposed to tell you were a Sentinel?"

Jim stared at a spot over Blair's head. "I let the instincts take over," he admitted. That somehow felt even dirtier than the rape he'd endured.

What Kincaid had done had been something over which Jim had no control. Hell, from the first time he'd looked across the football field and spotted his fallen watch, he'd known to expect that. He still remembered his father kneeling on one knee, explaining how Sentinels were raped and how he could never let anyone see what he could do. Jim remembered his father's fingers digging into his arms.

But letting go of his control had been a choice. If Jim had to do it again, he would in order to save Blair, but the memory of his body acting without any sort of plan, without any reason or logic, it made the hairs on his arms stand up.

Jim looked over to see why Blair was silent. The man stared at him, blue eyes searching for something in Jim's face.

"You lost control over me?" he asked slowly.

"Yeah," Jim reluctantly agreed. "I couldn't let Kincaid kill you."

"Oh man. Over me? But that would mean...."

"That means that you were an idiot for getting caught, and I did what I had to if I wanted to get you out of trouble, Shorty."

"I remember you charging in," Blair said, his voice faint as he struggling with his memory. "Kincaid thought you were my Sentinel."

"I'm not anyone's Sentinel. All this bullshit about guardianship..." Jim stopped before he could go too far. Damn it; this wasn't how to play the game.

"God, Jim, you don't have to edit yourself. Man, I know you think this is bullshit, and I think I've made myself pretty clear on the matter too. I mean, the very fact you have as much control as you do has seriously changed the way I see the whole thing. And then the whole point about the Institute actually reducing control... that really has made me rethink the whole Sentinel deal."

"I know you've changed since you brought me in," Jim said slowly, feeling out his words.

"But you think I'd what... rat you out? Go running to the judge and tell her you weren't playing good little Sentinel? Fuck, I wouldn't do that, and don't even go treating me like I'm one of the enemy. If you want to have it out, then let's have it out, but I'm not sending you to some permanent facility or requesting someone break the bond."

"Have it out?" Jim asked, amused by the way Blair's determination turned to sudden anger.

"Yeah!" Blair's anger faded as quickly as it had appeared. "Just, maybe we could wait on the whole having it out until some time when my head is not trying to stage a mutiny and fall off my body," he asked tiredly.

"I don't know. With my hands chained, you still might have the advantage here, Chief." Jim gave a dark huff of laughter before leaning back into the mattress and staring at the freckled white ceiling.

"Oh fuck, the chains. God, Jim, I'm just so tired that I'm fucking up. I know that. I'll call someone and get you out of them, and then we'll figure something out," Blair said as he reached for the call button again.

"Forget it, Junior," Jim advised. They won't take my chains off until they take your chain off."

"What?" Blair asked, his hand halfway to the button.

"Check out your left leg."

Jim watched in amusement as Blair kicked his left leg and felt the restraint pull tight.

"Oh man, what the hell is this for?"

"You're under arrest for rape."

"What?!!" Blair nearly squeaked. "Hey, that is so not fair. I didn't do anything."

"Fair. Fair. I remember that word from somewhere, but I just can't seem to remember where," Jim mused sarcastically.

"Okay, this is a bad dream. I only thought I woke up, but I'm really asleep in some drug-induced coma while Kincaid sells me. That would actually make more sense than all this. What do you mean I'm under arrest for rape? I would never do something like that. Never. I wouldn't even be able to get it up for a rape. And whatever explanation you use, just keep in mind that at this point, I suspect you might be a drug-induced hallucination."

"Chief, I know. Calm down," Jim said calmly as he heard the heart rate climb and the panic-sour leak into air around Blair. "Simon did a rape kit on me, and they're testing it now. They'll have proof in a day or two that you didn't touch me."

"Oh fuck. Kincaid raped you. Oh Jim. Man, I'm going to find that fucker and cut his dick off."

"No, you aren't," Jim snapped, and Blair's eyes went wide as he froze in place. "I am not some fucking child you need to protect, Sandburg. In case it has escaped your attention, I can kill him myself, far more effectively than you could. So take this patronizing attitude and shove it before I decide to shove it somewhere you won't like very much."

Jim stopped, his anger and his need to reassure Blair at war as he tightened his jaw and glared at his companion. For long minutes, they stared at each other, and slowly Blair's body relaxed.

"Okay, you're totally right. You're the covert ops guy, and I'm a grad student who they let play with a gun," Blair said. "But I was so not meaning that as patronizing; I was going more for righteous indignation. I would have said the same thing if the asshole had raped Simon or Rick or me."

"He'd go through my dead body first," Jim growled, realizing just a half second too late that his response was more instinct-driven than rational. "I wouldn't stand by and let Kincaid hurt anyone, and if there's a way to track him down, I will."

"Riiight," Blair said slowly.

"Don't start," Jim warned darkly. God, he couldn't get his balance here. His normally controlled emotions vacillated between extremes, and Jim took a deep breath as he tried to find the calm center where he'd always retreated when he'd feared losing control.

"Hey, I'm not saying anything about the fact that your instincts seem to be in overdrive," Blair said as he made a very odd face.

"Look, I never said Sentinels didn't have instincts. If we didn't, I would have left your ass hanging in Kincaid's warehouse." Jim failed to find his control, and he snapped the words out like knives. However, his anger vanished when Blair's heart rate spiked again. Fuck.

"Chief," Jim started again, far softer this time.

"Hey, I'm good. I'm fine. I"m under fucking arrest for rape and having nightmares about being turned into a sex slave, but I'm good, so you don't get to patronize me, either."

"I know about the sex slave fear," Jim sighed. "Look, I wouldn't have left you in there, instincts or no instincts. The Ranger's motto is sua sponte, and I live by that; I have for too long to change now."

"Of one's own accord."

"Exactly," Jim agreed with the translation. "Rangers don't wait to be told what to do. We just do the right thing of our own accord. Or at least, I did act on my own accord before someone decided that another Latin phrase fit me better: non compos mentis."

"Man, that sucks. I get that now," Blair nearly whispered. Jim looked over at the other man, and sighed.

"Yeah, you get it. You understand that it's wrong to take a man's freedom, but it doesn't really change much, Chief. Hell, right now, you don't even have the right to take these off me because I'm essentially under arrest as long as you are." Jim raised his hands and looked at the dangling chain.

"Arrested. Simon has got to be giving birth to kittens," Blair muttered. "And how long have I been out of it? I have class."

"It's Monday afternoon," Jim answered, "and you should be out of here just as soon as the rape kit comes back. After all, you didn't actually do anything illegal."

Blair's heart rate soared.

"Blair?" Jim asked as he twisted around to face the detective better.

"Hey, I did not do anything illegal that night," Blair emphatically insisted, and his heart rate remained steady.

"What did you do?" Jim asked as he narrowed his eyes. Yeah, Kincaid had said that Blair was trying to help some Sentinels, but Jim suddenly wondered what exactly had gone on.

"Nothing," Blair insisted defiantly. His heart rate climbed slightly until he tried to cross his arms, and then it spiked as Blair hissed in pain. "Fuck that hurts."

"Yeah, you're going to be sore for a few days," Jim agreed. "Finish off the water; it'll help your soreness. After they give you some drugs, we can do some stretches."

"I thought you hated me?" Blair asked as Jim brought the cup with the last of the water up to his lips.

"I hate the system, Chief. And I hate your part in the system, but I don't hate you. I just think you need a little retraining of your own." Jim took the cup away when Blair finished. Since no one had shown up to put things back yet, Jim flipped the cup over Blair's bed where it clattered to the floor.

"Retraining? I'm not a dog."

"And I'm not a slave," Jim quickly answered.

"Oh man, this is going to be fun, isn't it?" Blair asked as he stared up at the ceiling. "And here I was thinking that if I could just get custody of you, it'd all be magically fine."

"There's no magic here, Sandburg. Just two stubborn men, only one of which is right."

"Okay, I'm tired and in pain, so can we let the philosophical arguments go until I might have a chance of explaining my position?" Blair asked while still staring at the ceiling. "Right now, all I care about is getting some sleep and some pain killers, and I am so not one for drugs normally."

"I had hoped you'd agree to talk before the doctor came in here and prescribed anything," a voice said from the door. Jim ignored it. He'd registered the sound of footsteps in the hallway, and the scent of gun oil and copy paper and stale coffee just about shouted 'cop' to his senses.

"Aldo," Blair said, his voice full of quiet disgust. "Ray Aldo, Jim Ellison. Jim, this is Aldo from I.A."

Jim paid attention now. Distress radiated from Blair as his muscles tightened and his scent changed. Whoever this guy was, Jim already didn't like him.

TWENTY
***
"I always knew you were a fast talker Blair, but getting custody of the man you're accused of raping... that has to be a new low for our judicial system," Aldo said as he walked into the room, all classic Italian looks with dark hair slicked back and dark eyes. Jim pretty much hated him on sight. Behind him walked a woman, long red hair, and a silver collar flashing under the bright florescent lights.

Blair's eyes flicked toward the other Sentinel, but Aldo didn't introduce her. Jim hated him even more.

"What do you want, Aldo? Are you even supposed to be here if I don't have a rep or at least Banks here?" Blair asked as he squirmed to sit up a little more.

"I don't know; do you need a rep, Sandburg?"

"Man, I didn't do anything illegal, so don't go twisting this. Hey, since you're here, you mind dragging that table back over here?" Blair asked as he gestured toward the out of place furniture.

"Move it yourself," Aldo answered as he promptly sat on the edge of the table and pulled a notepad out of his pocket. The red-haired Sentinel stood near the door, ignoring Jim's attempts to make eye contact with her. "So, describe the events of this weekend."

"Describe the events?" Blair laughed. "Fine. I got a call, I investigated, I got kidnapped and tortured, Kincaid raped Jim and I did a big old nothing to stop it because I was flopping around on the floor like a fish, and then nothing, nada, comatose-land. That's my weekend. You know, I *still* bet it was better than yours."

Aldo glanced up from his notes with a frown. "Look, no one likes this. Not you or me or Banks. But let's face some facts. You're wandering the warehouse district alone at night. You end up with the one Sentinel you really lust over bonding to you, and you expect us to buy that nothing funny happened. If you're not going to come clean for yourself, then save Major Crimes the major embarrassment of having one of their own convicted."

"He's not going to be convicted of anything," Jim broke in. "The rape kit is going to prove exactly what I said: he never touched me."

"Sentinel, I'm sure your protective instincts toward your guardian make this difficult for you. The judge truly is an idiot for not protecting you by getting you away from Sandburg, but a criminal conviction..."

"Save it," Jim snapped. "And your chance of getting a criminal conviction is about zero and falling."

"I don't think you--"

"No," Blair snapped, "you don't think. You know what, just ask your damn questions and then get out of here so I can get some sleep. It's been a hard weekend," Blair snapped, shutting Aldo up for a second as he studied the two of them.

Slowly, the IA detective gave an unctuous smile. "Fine. Let's start with why you were down in the warehouse district."

"I got a call from Ruby, one of my old contacts. If you want her number, give Rick in Sentinel division a call. She offered--"

"You got a call from an informer from your time working with Sentinel division, and you didn't *call* the Sentinel division?"

Blair sighed. "Man, the point of interrogation is to get the other person talk. You don't get that, do you? A good ninety percent of the time, tips about Sentinels are nothing more than junkies talking to the walls. I went to check it out. When I discovered at least one Sentinel who was clearly in some serious distress, I immediately tried to call Rick."

Jim listened. Blair's heart beat steadily, but Jim was still getting the idea that the kid wasn't saying something. Hopefully Aldo was as stupid as he looked and he wouldn't spot the same creative skipping around the topic.

Blair coughed before he kept going. "Only when I tried to make the call, the Sentinel panicked and tried to protect me by grabbing me and getting between me and this car. At the time, I thought he was just being irrational. And then the phone got knocked out of my hand and Kincaid's men grabbed me," Blair finished. Aldo sat and stared at Blair for several seconds with an expression like he'd just found cockroach guts on his shoe.

"So, you're a trained detective, and you manage to lose your phone and your gun? Sandburg, that's impressive, even for you." Aldo looked over toward Jim. "But then he managed to overpower you too, so maybe it's just Sentinels you can't seem to handle? Is that why you left Sentinel division?"

"Fuck off, Aldo. The Sentinel was panicked. He wanted to protect me, but when he shoved me away, telling me to run, he accidentally slammed me into the building. I lost control of my weapon. He did his best to try and stop these two thugs, but by the time I grabbed my weapon, one of the thugs had a gun pointed at my head. I either had to surrender or have my brains splattered against the wall. And Jim had nothing to do with that night."

Jim jerked at his chains, the description enough to make him feel a surge of adrenaline. Aldo looked over, but at least Blair had the good sense to ignore it.

"They shoved me in the trunk, and when they opened the trunk again, the car was parked inside the warehouse and Kincaid was standing right there." Jim could hear Blair's heart rate slowly start to accelerate.

"And I showed up there later because I knew Blair was in trouble. He had nothing to do with it," Jim added, and Aldo focused on Jim now. "You can read the transcript from the custody hearing."

"I did. I'm surprised that idiot judge is still on the bench, but then again, I suppose her lack of judgment is why she's stuck babysitting Sentinels."

Jim felt a wave of rage that left him glaring at Aldo and considering any number of ways to inflict pain without leaving physical evidence. He shrugged coldly, as though the matter made no difference to him. "She makes more money than you," Jim answered, assuming that would strike a nerve. From the way Aldo tensed up, it did.

"So, you felt some sort of indefinable pull even though you had no bond with Detective Sandburg?" Aldo demanded. "This is strange enough to be unbelievable."

"I did have a connection," Jim corrected him. "I was attracted to Blair the minute he came up to me at the airport. He had guts. Guts and intelligence, and after a decade spent as a Ranger and months on the run, I've learned to respect those traits." Jim made sure to look at Aldo in a way to make his lack of respect for the other man perfectly clear.

"So, you started bonding? Well, that must have attracted some attention--you two doing it in the middle of the airport."

"Aldo, you are on dangerously thin ice here," Sandburg warned as he sat up. The movement cost him, and he grunted in pain as his heart raced.

"Save it, Chief. This guy's a moron. There's no reason to talk to him at all until the rape kit comes back."

"If you don't get this cleared up, your career is in danger, Sandburg."

"Jim's right. There's no point in talking to you, so, since I'm under arrest," Blair pulled at his leg, "first, you can't use that statement since no one read me my Miranda rights. At least no one bothered to read me my rights since I've been conscious. Second, I choose not to talk to you without my lawyer. Since I don't have a lawyer and I don't plan on getting one, that may be a while. Get lost, Aldo."

The other detective stood up and looked from Jim to Blair. "IA is watching," he warned.

"Oh man, do you have any idea how funny that sounds?" Blair huffed. "IA is watching," Blair mocked. "That sounds like 'Big Brother is watching.' But I don't think you're smart enough to have read that book, are you?"

"Funny, Sandburg, very funny. You step out of line, and you're going to find out how funny," Aldo threatened as he stormed out the door, his Sentinel hurrying after him.

"That doesn't even make sense," Blair shouted after the man, his voice cracking. "Oh man, now I want more water," he complained softly, dropping back onto the bed and sighing. "Fucking arrogant, ass-kissing, dumb fuck FUCKER," Blair shouted toward the open door, but Aldo was gone, nearly to the elevators now. Of course, his Sentinel could hear Blair, but she didn't seem to be repeating the insult.

"You feel better now that you got that out of your system?" Jim asked.

"Hell, yeah."

Jim listened as Aldo reached the elevator and got in while asking his Sentinel if she had detected any lies. She quickly answered that Blair had been truthful, and Jim smiled. The woman obviously didn't know Blair that well, and neither did Aldo. Carefully, Jim screened out the hospital noises as he searched for any electronic signatures from listening devices. The only heartbeat in the next room was sluggish, the breath wheezing. He couldn't pick up any recording devices at all. Finally, he asked softly, "So, what happened when you first saw that Sentinel?"

"Nothing." Blair's heart did a quick flip.

"Well, this is a great foundation for a partnership," Jim said thoughtfully as he lay back on his own bed. At least now he had enough chain to do it without having his right arm pulled awkwardly across his chest. He listened as Blair held his breath for just a second.

"Seriously. Nothing important happened," Blair finally said, his voice rough and fatigue slurring his words.

"Nothing important. I guess that, legally, you get to decide what's important for me to know, now," Jim responded, intentionally poking the one spot he was fairly sure would work on Sandburg. Some attack strategies required a little finesse.

"Fuck. Jim, it's not like that."

"Hey, you don't have to justify yourself to me. I'm just the Sentinel, remember?"

"Damn it. Fine. I thought the Sentinel was a runner. I promised to take him somewhere safe without telling the Institute, okay?" Blair whispered the words angrily.

Jim pushed himself up on one elbow and studied Blair, listening for any sign that the man was lying or creatively editing the truth. He wasn't. Jim struggled to even process that little fact. Yeah, Sandburg had offered to help him, but that had been guilt.

"Did you know him, from before?" Jim asked.

"No. I told Aldo the truth; I got a call and when I went out there, I found him."

"So, you promised to keep him out of the Institute, and then you turned around and tried to call the Institute in? Nice, Sandburg."

"He was hurting," Blair quickly snapped back. "He'd lost control of his senses. He was dirty and hungry and in pain."

"Feed him, let him use the shower, and leave him alone to get a good night's sleep," Jim held up his fingers as he ticked off the options.

"With his senses on overload? Man, if feeding him were all it took, Ruby would have done it."

"Ruby?" Jim demanded. Blair shut up so fast he almost sucked his own lips in. "Ruby?" Jim repeated. The little shit had a contact in the underground. Jim had to control the smile that threatened.

"When a Sentinel is that far gone, he needs something more than some quiet. He needs sedation and professional help," Blair insisted tersely.

"It'd be kinder to shoot him and put him out of his misery," Jim shot back. Blair had contacts with the underground. Jim started running that fact through his plan, and it opened a whole new set of doors. Being bonded to Blair tethered him here, but surely other Sentinels had decided to run after bonding. The underground would have to have facilities to help with that. They'd have a secure place to lock him up while the panic of a breaking bond ripped through his control. Jim nodded as plan version 2.0 formed.

"That's just..." Blair spluttered into silence.

"True. The word you're looking for is true, Junior. Dead is better than being a slave." Jim yanked against the chains so hard that the bed trembled."

"You're not a fucking slave."

Before Jim could answer, he cocked his head, listening to footsteps approaching. Banks was coming, the scent of his cigar floating ahead of him.

"What is it?" Blair asked.

"Well, it sounds like this is going well," Banks said cheerfully as he came in the door.

"Simon! Man, am I glad to see you. You have to get this straightened out," Blair said as he gave his chained leg a yank. Banks flinched, but he continued to Blair's side of the bed.

"I'm trying, Blair. The custody judge was willing to believe in a bond without sex, but IA is not being that flexible. It might have something to do with the Robertson case."

"Hey, if there are dirty cops in IA, someone has to investigate the investigators," Blair defended himself. "It's not my fault that the damn porn ring landed on my desk. But I'm too busy for this. You have to be able to spring me." Blair looked up, and Jim could almost see Banks' amusement as he got the full pleading treatment.

"Give it up, kid. I am not one of the women down in records you can blink your eyes at. Besides, if I got you out of here, I'd have to take you to booking, and I really want to avoid that."

"Shit," Blair said as his head flopped back onto the pillow in frustration.

"Jim," Banks said with a nod.

"Banks," Jim offered back.

"People in my department just call me Simon, unless I'm busy chewing them out at the time, then I'm Captain Banks." Simon didn't offer his hand with the introduction, but at least he'd acknowledged Jim.

"I assume I'll be working with you now?" Jim asked as he glanced at Blair. Technically a guardian could leave a Sentinel at home. Everything he knew about Blair said he wouldn't do that to Jim, but Jim didn't know that he trusted his instincts.

"We should be working now," Blair groused, "I have cases, and let's not even talk about the classes I'm missing and the papers I'm supposed to be writing. Man, I have a life; I don't have time for this shit."

Jim locked his jaw shut as Simon looked at Blair sympathetically. Yeah, the kid had a life to get back to and this arrest was taking a few days out of his life. Intellectually, Jim understood Blair's frustration, but it didn't make the knot in his gut any easier to carry.

"I brought you some work: a few files, your laptop, and that book you've been reading every lunch break." Simon put his briefcase up on the displaced side table before clicking it open.

"Put that side table back where it's supposed to be when you're finished," Jim said, aware even as the words came out of his mouth that he was being sharper than he intended.

"We can't reach the water and my throat is really bothering me," Blair hurried to explain, and Jim felt the knot tighten as the kid made excuses for his bad behavior. Jim focused on just staying silent and not letting his emotions spill out of control as the two officers talked about cases. Blair turned down the offer of his laptop since his arms hurt so bad and he didn't want it left in the room where it could get stolen or damaged. He accepted the various files and books.

"Jim, I asked Keith about your personal effects, but he didn't have anything more than clothes, and his car with your bags was stolen."

Jim shrugged. "Nothing personal in there anyway."

"I could stop by the bookstore or get you some magazines," Simon offered. Jim didn't think Simon would appreciate his taste in magazines or books. He'd learned in the Institute that showing an interest in political books or soldier magazines just made people nervous.

"Don't worry about it," Jim answered. "Being in a hospital, there's plenty to keep me occupied." Jim could hear dozens of conversations and the busy hum of machines and the distant waves of crying. This was the opposite of the Institute, and Jim took the opportunity to stretch and test his senses. Besides, the time gave him a chance to work out the new plan. He needed to find out more about Ruby. Someone with her connections could get Jim safely unbonded and then move him across the border and up into the mountains, and he wouldn't even need a week's head start.

"And Blair, I do need your signed consent form for the blood sample."

"You mean you haven't taken the sample yet? Oh man, how many days am I going to be here because chained to a bed is not my idea of a good time."

"Considering how often you pull all-nighters, this is probably good for you." Simon sighed. "We already took a sample since Jim insisted it would clear you. Plummer says she can have it processed in another day and a half. However, we don't have a signed consent form, and she's been on my ass about how this puts her in a difficult position."

"Whoa. Carolyn broke protocol for me?" Blair asked in wonder. He turned and looked at Jim with a wide smile and a wink. "I always knew she had a thing for me," he teased. Jim tightened his jaw until he could hear his teeth grind. He added Carolyn to the list of people who, like Aldo, he didn't like on principle.

"Look, just sign the damn form before she loses your sample to cover her ass," Simon said as he thrust a paper at Blair. "We're doing our best. We'll get both of you out as soon as we can," Simon promised. "Oh, and Jim, Keith said there's a problem with your back pay from the military?"

Jim took a second to wrestle his thoughts away from disliking Carolyn. "I never got any," he shrugged.

"That would be the problem. Do you want me to get the nurses to bring a phone in?" Simon asked.

"Man, they didn't give you your pay?" Blair asked, clearly horrified. "You were in Peru for eighteen months. That's got to be at least..." Blair paused. "A lot. A whole lot."

"I broke out of a cell and went on the run. I didn't hang around to ask the quartermaster to give me back pay," Jim pointed out.

"Yeah, but you've been--" Blair cut himself off as Jim glared. "Right, your money, your problem."

"Oh yeah, this is just a match made in heaven, I can see that now," Banks sarcastically muttered as he dragged the side table back into place, retrieving the water pitcher and the stack of plastic-wrapped cups from the floor.

"So, you want the phone?" Simon asked.

"Yeah," Jim nodded. "I might as well take care of it." Jim didn't even bother pointing out to either of them that he wouldn't control the money either way. Either the army had the money or Sandburg did, but his days of handling his own paycheck had ended. Jim let the frustration roll through him while he focused on weaving the fraying threads of his plan back together. He'd earn his freedom... eventually.

TWENTY ONE
***
"Home sweet home," Blair said as he unlocked the loft's door. "Oh god. The takeout food," he immediately apologized. The loft smelled of sour Chinese noodles, probably because he'd dumped some in the trash on Saturday planning to take it to the curb that night. Instead, here they were on Wednesday morning.

"God, Sandburg, whose body did you hide in here?" Jim complained, his voice strained, and Blair flinched. Yeah, great guardian he was turning out to be.

"Let me just take the garbage out," he hurried to offer. "In fact, I'm taking the whole garbage can out. We can buy a new one."

"You can buy a new one. It's your place," Jim corrected him as he headed for the windows, pushing them open to let in a fresh breeze. Blair didn't answer. If he did, he'd feel the need to snap at Jim about the fact that it was their place now, but Jim was too busy being a standoffish asshole to care. Instead Blair grabbed the garbage can from under the sink and headed back out the door.

"Sentinel-safe air freshener's by the sink," he called before he slammed the door shut. Rather than wait for the elevator, Blair trotted down the three flights and chucked the garbage in the dumpster, plastic bin and all. Damn it. He still had his shit in the Sentinel-safe room too. Well, there was one more excuse for Jim to look at him like he was some sort of screw up.

Blair leaned against the building. Who was he kidding? Jim didn't look at him like a screw up; Jim looked at him like a jailer. Even worse, Blair felt like one. Taking a deep breath, Blair tried to push aside thoughts of the Zimbardo experiment where normal college students got a nice push toward sadism just because they played guards in an experiment on prison life and got a little too addicted to the power.

Funny, the system was supposed to prevent the guardian from feeling powerful or feeling like a jailer. After all, the judge and the social worker and the laws that protected Sentinel rights all limited the guardian's authority. And most of the time, a Sentinel's requests carried a lot of weight in the court, but Jim still acted like everyone was out to get him. And considering that Jim's ultimate goal was still to be free--Blair had no illusions about that--the system was kinda out to get him. Blair just wished Jim would stop seeing him as part of that whole problem.

Yep, after years of Naomi making subtle little comments about Blair becoming part of the system, Blair finally felt like he had. And the system sucked. Except that it was the only system they had, and Blair had seen too many out of control Sentinels to believe they could just storm the tower and open the gates. Blair had seen Sentinels in so much pain that they struck out at anyone trying to help. The system was there to protect Sentinels from other people and other people from Sentinels.

But Simon had still lost his brother to a Sentinel... a Sentinel who was in the system. And considering the control Jim had shown after breaking the one gunman's arm, Blair had to wonder whether the Sentinel who had killed Simon's brother could have made a different choice.

Realizing that he was only succeeding in confusing himself, Blair gave up and headed back upstairs. "Honey, I'm home," he joked as he opened the door. When he didn't see Jim, his heart jumped into his throat at the idea that Jim had run. Ironically, when he finally did spot Jim, standing on the second floor with his arms crossed, glaring, Blair was disappointed he hadn't.

"I don't plan on playing the housewife, Junior," Jim said as he started back down the stairs.

"What? Hey, that was just a joke... a bad joke, obviously," Blair muttered as he turned toward the kitchen, checking the refrigerator. "I don't really spend much time here, so no promises about there being any edible food. You want to order out?" Blair asked. When Jim didn't answer he turned around to find Jim staring out the open window toward the water.

"Nice view," he commented.

"Yeah. It's one of the reasons I bought the place even though I never really intended to settle down. I mean, I was raised to sort of live a nomadic life, detach with love, to not get trapped by material possessions. But I was renting a place in a really seedy part of town, and these places were going up for sale, and Rick brought me over here." Blair hadn't found anything edible in the fridge, so he stood playing with the limp celery stalk he'd found on the top shelf.

"It only has one bedroom," Jim commented quietly, his voice a little too quiet, and Blair was starting to learn to watch out for that voice. That was the voice that had come right before Jim put him face down on the couch and tied him up all those months back. That was the voice Jim used on Aldo.

"It has a second bedroom under the stairs; I know it's small..."

"That's a Sentinel-safe room," Jim interrupted.

"I had to have one to qualify for custody. I put it in when I filled out the paperwork to request..."

"Sandburg," Jim cut him off as he turned around and faced Blair. "If I sleep in a Sentinel-safe room, I wouldn't be able to hear anyone coming. I would start having the same problems I had coming out of the Institute. Take away the world," Jim opened his arms, "and I can't function in it when I need to."

Blair stood, his mouth open and silent as he considered that. Okay, he really should have been able to figure that one out on his own.

"Man, the upstairs..."

"Share *your* bed?"

Even though the words, said with supreme disgust, cut pretty damn deep, Blair was proud of the fact he avoided flinching away from that disgust. "I'll stay in the downstairs room," Blair shrugged as he turned to throw the celery away. Half way to the sink he realized that he had gotten rid of his trash can. Standing in the middle of the kitchen with wilted celery, he suddenly didn't know what to do. Behind him, Jim sighed.

"Chief, I'm not kicking you out of your bed. I'll take the sofa."

"No biggie," Blair said, throwing the celery on the counter. "Man, I don't make it up the stairs half the time anyway."

"I'm not kicking you out of your own bed," Jim insisted, a mulish expression on his face.

"Look," Blair snapped as he spun around. "I don't sleep up there any more than I sleep down here. Use your precious nose and sniff around and check up on the truth of that statement for all I care, but I can and have slept in the Sentinel safe room, so I'll sleep there tonight. You can sleep wherever the fuck you want."

Blair headed for the bathroom, slamming the door behind him as he slowly slid down to the floor. Shit. He couldn't handle this. He could almost hear his mother's voice condemning him. And who the hell was he kidding. He wasn't saving Jim, he was just part of the system that trapped him. Like the fucking pay... that was Jim's pay that Jim had earned before the senses came on line. Okay, he'd been on-line with the Chopec, but the law was clear. He'd earned the money before he'd been legally declared a Sentinel. And yet, the military insisted on speaking with Blair. Yep. This was a great foundation for a relationship, as Jim had already pointed out.

Blair couldn't hear Jim, but he had no doubt that Jim could hear every bit of what Blair was doing. Why hadn't it ever occurred to him that having a Sentinel in the house pretty much ruled out any privacy?

With a cold determination to figure some way out of this, Blair turned on the shower and started stripping. After three days in a hospital bed with bed baths because he was chained to the rail, the water washing over his skin felt sinful... refreshing. He just needed a new way of looking at this.

Blair finished his shower and pulled on a robe before he headed out in a cloud of steam and padded upstairs in bare feet, ignoring the silent Sentinel still staring out on the water like a wild animal staring at the world outside the cage. Blair reached in his closet and grabbed all the clothes, pulling the hangers off the rod before he headed back downstairs with the whole armful.

"What are you doing?" Jim asked when Blair came back out of the room.

"I told you. I'm sleeping in there. With my late hours, I sleep in there sometimes anyway because the guy in 202 plays his music way too loud." Blair dumped the clothes on the bed and headed back up the stairs and started pulling stuff out of drawers. Rather than carry loads of underwear and socks, he just dumped it over the rail.

"I'm not taking your bedroom, Sandburg," Jim yelled up.

"Good for you. I'm sleeping downstairs, so you take the couch or the bed up here or the bench in the park down the street. Whatever floats your boat, Ellison," Blair yelled, inviting the man to leave. Blair paused in the middle of throwing a pile of sweats over the rail. Fuck, he should not care that much about Jim leaving. He finished his throw and went to the side tables. Simon had brought his recovered service weapon back here and put it back in the drawer. Blair pulled it and the ammo clips out of the drawer.

The collar and the gun, two serious symbols of power. Blair fingered the cold metal. He'd thought long and hard before he'd picked one up the first time. He remembered Naomi talking to him about the sacredness of life and the need to not damage those delicate threads that connected the world. Blair had countered by pointing out that he was saving people, saving Sentinels. Blair wasn't sure he could say that now.

He headed downstairs and put his gun and the ammo clips on the table before he started wandering the living room and picking up fallen underwear. The heavy door to the Sentinel safe room stood open, and Blair aimed his underwear at the opening with a single-minded determination as he worked his way from one side of the room to the other. He could feel Jim's eyes on him, and he ignored it as Jim slowly moved from the window, around to the door, and finally near the table.

When the last sock had landed in a disorderly pile inside the Sentinel safe room, now Blair's room, Blair stopped and leaned against the over sized chair so that he could stare back at Jim.

"What game are you playing?" Jim asked coldly.

"I'm not playing," Blair answered truthfully. Jim stood next to the gun, and Blair had on nothing but his robe, and even though he'd put himself in this position, he could feel the unease settle in his bones.

"Is this your way of placating my instincts? I seem pissed, so make yourself less of a threat by disarming yourself?"

"Is that what you think?" Blair laughed. "No, that wasn't the plan."

Jim picked up the gun, and Blair could feel his heart accelerate. He concentrated on breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth, visualizing a circle of ice and imagining himself balancing on it.

"What is the plan?" Jim moved forward, the gun pointed at the ground by his leg. Blair forced himself to look up from the gun and focus on Jim's face.

"I don't know. What is the plan?" Blair shrugged and held himself still as Jim moved closer. God, how could anyone miss noticing that the man was a predator, a hunter? He'd been trained as a Ranger, and Blair could see that in the easy way he moved, his joints fluid as he stalked a half circle around Blair, studying him. Blair spent the time reminding himself that Sentinels really didn't attack unless they perceived some threat. Usually.

"So, is this your way of offering me my freedom?" Jim asked as he twitched the gun.

"If you want it."

"IF?" Jim stopped, his full attention on Blair now. "If I want it? Do you have any idea what it means to have your government decide after 15 years of service that you're not competent enough to sign your own check?"

"No, I don't," Blair answered truthfully. "But I told you before, man, I'm not stopping you again."

"And you'd just sit here, not call anyone?"

"Yeah. The Sentinel safe room locks from the outside, so if you'd rather I go in there, I will," Blair offered.

"Oh Chief, we still have a problem. I've bonded with you. I couldn't leave you behind any easier than I could cut off my own arm and leave it behind."

"So you can do it, but it would involve a lot of pain and bleeding?" Blair asked. Jim opened his mouth and seemed to promptly lose his words. After a few seconds of silence, he started shaking his head.

"Let me edit that. I could cut off my own arm *easier* than I could leave you behind. I don't think I could leave you at all, not without someone forcing me."

Blair nodded. He'd known this was a possibility too, but he wasn't sure exactly how Jim would handle it. Hugging his arms around his waist, he nodded. "Okaaaay," he agreed. "So, how are we doing this?"

"How are we?" Jim blinked at him.

"I mean, I'd prefer to be dressed for this." Blair didn't bother adding that clothes would make him feel a whole lot more comfortable around someone who was clearly disgusted at the idea of a physical relationship with him. He stood and waited for some sort of permission.

"You expect me to kidnap you," Jim said, taking up the pacing again, but this time with a tight-lipped expression that made Blair focus a little harder on that circle of ice.

"I expect you to do what it takes to escape," Blair agreed. Jim took two large steps, closing the distance between them. Blair instinctively brought his hands up, and Jim grabbed his wrist, holding on with enough strength that Blair knew he couldn't physically free himself, even if it weren't for the gun Jim still held to his side.

"And when we get to Canada? I can't just snap my fingers and end the bond."

Blair took a deep breath. This was getting into territory he didn't want to think about. "Let's deal with that bridge when we get there," he suggested.

"And if I don't want to let you go? Are you going to be this complaisant if I decide I need you to keep my senses balanced and sharp? Are you going to accept it if I decide to keep you the way the legal system has given you the right to keep me?"

Blair thought about that answer while Jim's grip on his wrist tightened until Blair grimaced. "Man, I've screwed up enough that whatever happens is karma," he finally answered, but no amount of visualization could keep his heart from pounding dangerously fast.

"And if I put you on your knees? These tamed Sentinels of yours... they think it's their duty to spread their legs for whoever the court decides. Are you going to spread your legs for me the way the Sentinels who you captured are expected to? Is that karma?" Jim demanded, using his grip on Blair's wrist to pull him close.

Blair couldn't answer, fear drying his mouth out as he tried to not fight, not struggle away from that grip. Fighting an angry Sentinel wasn't smart, and Blair could see so much rage in Jim, more than the night of his capture. And if Blair hadn't captured him, Jim wouldn't have been around for Kincaid to rape.

Jim's lips thinned into a furious line. "I tell you that I have a problem with being a slave, so you think I'm going to turn around and enslave someone else?" Jim demanded, his face so close that Blair could feel the warm breath. "Is that what you think of me?"

Jim pushed Blair back and away before he stormed back to the kitchen table and put Blair's gun down. "*I'm* not the slaver here," Jim snapped, and that hurt worse than Blair's bruised wrist.

"Man, I am getting tired of telling you that you're not a slave."

"Then why do you think offering up yourself as a slave is fair compensation?" Jim demanded as he turned back around and closed the distance, standing so they were chest to chest and Blair had to look awkwardly up.

"I'm trying to find a way to make this work so you don't feel like a slave and I don't feel like a fucking jailer," Blair shouted right in Jim's face. "Everything I do, you take it like I'm trying to personally emasculate you. I'm sorry the army is made up of assholes who wouldn't give you back pay without talking to me. I'm sorry that the system strips you of your rights. I just don't need you blaming me for all of this. And if it comes down to a choice of being the slave or the fucking slaver, I'll cast myself as the slave first."

"But that's it--you'd cast *yourself* as the slave," Jim said, his voice sounding smug in victory. "I didn't get that choice."

Blair collapsed into the chair, his own frustration rising with every arrogant, self-righteous comment that fell out of Jim's mouth. "Fine. Do whatever the hell you want, Jim Ellison. I'm not your fucking jailer, and right now, I don't even like you enough to care whether you believe me." Blair immediately stood up again, but Jim didn't move back so Blair had to push his way past, his arm brushing by Jim's chest as he headed for his new room and slammed the door behind him. With the door closed, the sound proofing made his hearing feel muffled--the constant flow of the city silenced.

Shit. Why hadn't he thought about that? Two (Blair came in here for naps in the silence) plus two (Jim already said the sensory shelter of the Institute damaged his control) clearly equaled four. Only Blair had come up with 57. Sitting on the low bed in the padded, beige room, Blair tried to figure out exactly what he was supposed to do now. He kicked over a pile of clothes just for spite. Yeah, like that spited anyone.

"Screwed this one up proper, Sandburg," he said to the ceiling with its squares of acoustic tile. Even the window and door had been bricked over to make the perfect sensory cocoon. Yep, that should have been clue one. Ellison wasn't the sort you could wrap up and protect without getting painfully gutted for your trouble. Blair scratched his stomach.

Blair dug through the pile of shit from his end table until he found his phone. It took three phone numbers and a fifteen minute wait on long distance before he heard the voice he wanted on the other end.

"Sweetie? What's wrong?" Naomi was breathy and just a little shrill, panic bleeding through the phone.

"Nothing!" Blair quickly assured her. "I just wanted to see what you were up to," he obfuscated. The silence on the other end suggested he hadn't done it well. He waited for Naomi to say something that would give him a chance to cover his pain with words, but the phone remained silent.

"Mom?"

"I'm listening, Sweetie," she answered before falling silent again. Blair sighed.

"Mom, have you ever really, really screwed something up?"

Naomi sighed and fell silent, but this time Blair waited.

"Oh, Blair," she eventually answered. "Being human means making mistakes, and I've made huge ones. I try to learn from them, forgive myself, and move on."

"But what if you just keep screwing up over and over and you just can't seem to stop?"

"Honey, why don't you take some time off and come over here to France? You have to be done with your classwork by now, and even the police give vacation time."

"I have two classes I'm taking."

"Do you need them?"

Blair thought about that. "Not so much," he admitted. Really he just needed to write his damn dissertation.

"You need to process why you aren't finishing your PhD, Sweetie. Come out here. It will help you clear your mind and get some perspective on this mistake of yours."

"I have a Sentinel." Blair didn't say any more, but that did explain everything. Out of the country travel would now include hearings and permission and explanations. Either that, or Blair would have to request a secondary guardian be appointed or just leave Jim to the Institute. There was screwing up, and then there was unforgivable, and he didn't want to cross that line.

"Oh, honey." Naomi's voice had gone flat. "Is this the mistake?"

"Jim totally isn't a mistake. I just... I keep saying the wrong thing."

"What's the wrong thing?"

"Oh, anything that implies that he's one ounce less capable than Superman," Blair laughed roughly. "And I'm the one who brought him in as a runner, so he's not exactly predisposed to like me much."

"Blair, are you safe?" Naomi immediately asked.

"No, hey, he's not dangerous, at least not in a going out of control way. If I were a criminal, I'd so totally be buying a little extra insurance, but there is zero chance of him hurting me. I think there's more chance for me to hurt him. Either hurt him or just really piss him off--I don't know him well enough to say for sure which he's feeling."

"Being responsible for someone else like that..." Nomi's words trailed off, but Blair remembered her arguments from his childhood even if she had stopped repeating them once he took the job with the Sentinel division.

"Bad for the karma."

"You're an adult, and I respect your choices," she hurried to say.

"I quit the Sentinel division."

"Thank the powers," Naomi exhaled.

"I still work for the police," Blair added.

"But...?"

"Major Crimes. Mom, I helped take down a child pornography ring last month. I do good work."

"Honey, I hear you. I know you're a healer at heart and that you want to make the world better because you have a good soul."

I'm so hearing a 'but' in that."

"You can't save everyone. You need to take care of yourself first. Please, Sweetie, just come out here for a little bit. Get your balance back. How can you have any relationship with this Jim if you can't center yourself?"

"I guess that's why I called you, you know, just to talk things through." God, he was thirty, and he didn't have any friends close enough to talk through a crisis. How sad was that? Blair sighed.

"What's he like?" Naomi asked quietly.

"Before I helped bring him in, he had this wicked sense of humor, and he still has this totally centered morality where he'll put himself in danger just to save some guy he doesn't even seem to like very much. Only now, every time I say anything I just seem to piss him off."

"You're frustrated."

"Well, yeah. I'm only trying to help the guy. Hell, I even offered to go to Canada with him, to help him get away and break the bond up there, and he turned into this total asshole. Okay, turned might be the wrong word since he's been flirting with assholiness for the last few days."

"Honey, you know I love you, but no one is perfect."

"Okay," Blair said slowly. "That's sounding like you're leading up to something I really don't want to hear."

"Sweetie, sometimes you are a little manipulative. I totally understand that you want to make the world better, and I am so proud of how many wonderful things you have accomplished in your life. I brag to my friends all the time about what an incredibly moral, strong son I raised, but you have this legal power over Jim now and..." Naomi didn't finish, but Blair could see the dots laid out in a line.

"I have legal power over him, so me trying to manipulate him is probably not the way to make him feel less stripped of his power."

"I don't know that you've done anything like that, Sweetie. I'm not saying this is your fault because if he can't see that you have nothing but good intentions in your heart, then the man is blind, Sentinel or no Sentinel. I'm just making a general observation. You know I love you."

Blair could hear the desperate need for reassurance. "I love you, too, Mom," he offered. "And I might have manipulated him a little." Blair thought about the gun still sitting out on the table. "Okay, possibly more than a little. Shit, how do I fix this now?"

"Blair, you just make different choices. Life is just choice."

"Thanks, Mom," Blair said. "And I really do want to know how your retreat is going."

"Oh, it's wonderful," Naomi exclaimed, taking up the subject change immediately. "There's this guru here who teaches an Eastern meditation technique..."

Blair pushed the stacks of clothes off his bed and settled back on the pillows, listening to his mother's descriptions of all she was learning about herself and the universe. He let the familiar voice chase away the fear that he didn't know how to make different choices.

TWENTY TWO
***
Jim came down the stairs for the second time that morning, this time buttoning his shirt over shower-clean skin. Unlike Blair, he'd been given access to the shower, but chains made getting fully clean difficult.

Before heading for the kitchen, Jim pulled the door to the Sentinel-safe room open so he could hear Blair more easily. The kid had gone cheap on the room, and should probably demand some sort of refund since Jim could hear a good eighty percent of last night's phone conversation, but Jim didn't want to have to stretch his hearing past the muffling walls. Soft snores and a steady heartbeat reassured Jim that Blair was safely asleep, giving him some time to think.

Shit. If he'd been reassigned to some asshole like Aldo or even Keith, Jim would have kept control. Instead, he'd completely blown. Yeah, Blair deserved to get his ears boxed for the stunt with the gun, but Jim shouldn't have let himself do the boxing. Jim tried to suppress the guilt as he foraged for breakfast. After opening the last cupboard, Jim decided that Blair must not actually eat here much. Other than cans of tuna, granola, and algae shake powder, there wasn't anything edible. And calling those three edible was questionable; during survival training, Jim had seen bugs that looked more appetizing. He quietly closed the cupboard and looked around the loft.

Last night, Blair had dropped his wallet on the table next to the door. Even though it felt slightly wrong, Jim went and pulled a few bills out of it. The kid could take some money from Jim's account to cover it. Folding them in his hand, he grabbed the door keys and headed down to the bakery, still tracking Blair's steady breathing above him.

Jim settled in at a small table. The cashier had given his collar a furtive look before smiling and delivering his coffee and rolls, but Jim had grown used to those expressions. Luckily, the bakery was busy so she didn't have time to worry about him. And the customers hurrying in for coffee and donuts before work didn't stay long enough to notice the collar. Only one other customer sat down: an older man who was so buried in his paper that Jim could have grown a second head and he wouldn't have noticed.

Taking a deep breath, Jim savored the smells and the normalcy of it all as he considered his next step. Maybe he should have taken Blair up on the offer to run, but having the little shit disarm himself as though Jim weren't capable of taking that power if he wanted it... it was just too damn close to what Kincaid had done. Whether people had good or bad intentions, they saw the fucking collar, and they made huge sweeping assumptions about Jim's abilities.

And the longer Jim found himself in this role, the harder it was getting to remember that he was the soldier who had held the Chopec pass for eighteen months. He led the team inserted into Libya for those three days. He had laid on a rocky outcropping for nearly sixty hours, covered with brush, lying in his own waste as he held a sniper's rifle on a terrorist camp. When everyone else had failed, his bullet had ended one more dream of world domination. He'd done things that probably made the government shake every time they considered the fact that, as a Sentinel, Jim was immune to prosecution, so they could no longer legally enforce his confidentiality clause.

And as much as the assumption that Jim was helpless had rankled, he was even more annoyed at the sheer stupidity of Blair making himself a target. Jim had always felt the Sentinel instincts that everyone so feared, and he'd turned that into a fierce protectiveness of his whole unit. But now, all those emotions and instincts were concentrated into Blair, and the thought of Blair vulnerable just inspired rage. And all of that combined was still secondary to the cold fury at the idea that Jim would ever hurt Blair like that.

However, that left him some interesting choices. Ruby was probably still the best bet. If he could get to the underground, they would have resources for breaking the bond without Jim having to do something drastic... like indulging in a little fantasy of what life could have been like if he had ordered Blair into the trunk and just driven for the border. Sooner or later, Blair would have turned on him. Despite his offer, Blair was no more cut out to be a prisoner than Jim. And once they got to Canada, Jim knew he wouldn't have the control to break the bond without help. And help meant trusting someone. If he had to have help breaking the bond, he would rather trust the American underground with its long tradition of trying to screw the system.

Jim took a drink of his coffee and watched the city rush by. He had no idea what their schedule was for the day. Hell, Blair might be late for work right now, but he hadn't shared his plans with Jim, so if he was, too damn bad.

Almost like a fairy tale where saying a name made a person appear, a car pulled up to the curb and Simon Banks stepped out. He parked on the far side of the street and walked to the crosswalk, so Jim had time to finish his coffee before stepping out into the foggy morning air and leaning on the side of the building near the door up to the apartment.

"Simon," he offered when Banks came near.

"Jim. I just thought I'd stop by and talk to Blair." Simon stopped, but his eyes darted to the door.

"I didn't think you'd come to talk to me," he answered dryly. "But the kid's still asleep."

"Maybe we could go check," Simon suggested.

"I can hear him from here. He's still asleep," Jim repeated.

Simon studied Jim for a second, brown eyes searching him intently. "He isn't a morning person." Simon admitted after a second. "However, I need to talk to both of you before you come in to the station."

"I'm here, talk away," Jim suggested with a shrug without much hope that Simon would take him up on it. Simon hesitated, and Jim focused on the morning traffic.

"Fine, let's get some coffee." Simon headed back toward the bakery, and Jim followed, curious about why Blair's captain would talk to him without Blair around. It was against the rules. This time Simon bought the coffee, bringing it over to Jim who had taken the same chair that let him sit with his back to the wall and a view of the street out the window.

"I assume you're coming to work in Major Crimes."

"Not my choice to make," Jim pointed out as he concentrated on his cup. Not his choice. He'd said those words in his mind so often they should be easier to say out loud.

"Haven't you and Blair talked about this?"

"Blair talked." Jim shrugged and took a drink of coffee. Blair actually talked quite a lot. "I assume from what he's said that I'm coming to work with him, but he hasn't definitely told me. Of course, you assumed I was going to work with you when you asked me to call you Simon," Jim pointed out. That made Simon hesitate.

"I saw your file. I just assumed you would jump at a chance at Major Crimes after being stuck investigating stolen bikes." Simon sounded annoyed, not that Jim cared.

"Lots of assumptions." Jim nodded knowingly.

"Damn it. I'm not playing whatever little martyr game you have going here, Ellison. You want to work in my department or you don't. It's pretty simple." Simon brought his hand down on the tabletop with a slap.

"I don't have that choice. It *is* pretty simple," Jim countered.

"Oh, trust me, if you say you don't want to work cases, I will make sure you get your wish, no matter what Sandburg says," Banks threatened, narrowing his eyes. Jim put his coffee down and studied the captain. Rather than the carefully neutral or paternalistic, Simon just looked pissed. Jim could work with that.

"I want to work cases. I just don't like being collared when I do it," Jim finally said. Simon's eyes flicked to the collar before he focused on something on the wall behind Jim's head.

"I don't like this Sentinel crap. It's one reason why Rick sent Blair my way... because Blair was questioning whether all these Sentinel laws were justified or if they were just a giant load of shit."

"I think you know how I feel," Jim said quietly. Simon's eyes found his.

"I do. That's the only reason I'm letting you in my department. I've seen a lot of cops do things with Sentinels, get them all worked up over how some suspect is a danger to the community and then step back while the Sentinel does what the cop can't. And I've been on scene when Sentinels have lost control and thrown fits like spoiled five year olds."

"What are you saying?" Jim demanded. He'd started to relax around the captain, and now he could feel his anger rise at being compared to a child.

"I'm saying you have control, but not everyone does. Sometimes the guardians are the one to abuse their control, and sometimes a Sentinel abuses the fact that they can get away with anything. I don't like either. If you're in my department, I expect you to act like any other detective in my department. You do so much as slam one suspect's face into a wall, and I will personally fill out the paperwork to transfer you to Traffic. You go farther... well, if you go farther, I would recommend that you find another city. If you're going to take advantage of the Sentinel laws to turn vigilante, I don't want you inside Cascade city limits."

Jim sat, his hands around the cooling cup while he looked at the determination on Simon's face. "Understood. And I want to be treated like any other detective. You have a problem with the way I handle something, you come to me, not Sandburg."

Slowly, Simon nodded. "That's fair. Just as long as we understand each other."

"I never wanted a free pass," Jim pointed out.

"Funny how you get one anyway," Simon said, his voice dark. "Sandburg shoots some guy on the street, and he has to face the consequences of that. You snap some guy's neck, and you literally get a ride home and sent to time out."

Jim glared at Simon, but it didn't change the fact that the captain was right. "I wouldn't," he said softly.

"I don't think you would, but you understand this: I won't take anything from you that I wouldn't take from my other officers. I may not have any official right to discipline you, so I will transfer you out, no matter how good your scores or your closure rate." Simon leaned forward, glaring through his gold-rimmed glasses.

Jim nodded. "I have no problem with you running your department," he said slowly, understanding Simon's position. He'd led his own unit in the Rangers, and the commander needed authority over the men. "Normally you write a detective up or suspend them, right?" he asked.

"Yeah, I would."

"I fuck up, and I'll accept whatever discipline you think is appropriate," Jim offered. "I hate having to walk away from a job, but if I screw up bad enough to earn a suspension, you say the word and I'll take the time off. I'll sit home and curse your name, but I'll take it."

Simon studied him again, his fingers twitching around the coffee cup before he brought them up to his chin, scratching idly. "Legally, that should go through Blair," he said slowly, and Jim focused his gaze on the table-top, the control yanked away from him once again. "So, just don't let anyone know about this little understanding," Simon finished his thought. "And don't think I won't use it. You screw up, and you'll be home sitting on your hands. You screw up bad enough, and I'll still send you to Traffic."

"That won't happen," Jim promised. "Blair is starting to stir if you want to talk to him," Jim said as he heard Blair wake with some mumbled nonsense. He got out of bed and promptly either stubbed his toe or tripped on something because a thump was followed by colorful curses citing gods Jim didn't know.

"I probably should. Look, Jim, I realize that Blair and I have made some assumptions. You playing martyr isn't going to change the fact that we all need to learn to deal with each other professionally. You hear me?" Simon asked as he stood up.

Jim looked up at the man and nodded. "Yes, sir. I'm going to head down to that park a few blocks down, give you and Sandburg a little privacy." Jim stood up, and he half expected Simon to ask if he had permission from his guardian. Instead the man turned toward the door and headed out of the coffee shop.

Heading down the street in the opposite direction, Jim found the park and sat on the bench Blair had invited him to sleep on last night. Watching the joggers on the path, Jim let himself just feel the sun on his face as he tried to figure out how he would have reacted to Blair if he'd met the man before Peru. He imagined Blair showing up as a recruit, getting off the bus with all that hair. Jim could just imagine Sergeant Levkoff's face. The thought made Jim smile as he watched the people come and go.

The sun was playing peekaboo with dark clouds straight above him when Jim finally decided to head back to the loft. When he put his keys in the lock, he could hear a book fall to the ground with a thud. Opening the door, he found Blair scrambling to gather yellow papers scattered across the floor.

"Hey. I just, you know, dropped all my shit," Blair explained as he dropped a heavy book on the couch and started grabbing at his papers. "I was just writing," he explained, not that Jim needed the explanation. He could read the scrawling handwriting from across the room. Jim dropped the keys on the table.

"Your paper on Sentinels?" he asked.

"Yeah," Blair paused, looking at Jim curiously for a second. "The one on the way the Institute's sheltered environment damages long-term control. Man, I've written a shit-load of papers over the years, but Dr. Stoddard thinks this one could really get me noticed."

"Good for you," Jim said without enthusiasm. Blair's smile faded, and Jim mentally kicked himself as he headed for the kitchen. Control, Ellison, he ordered himself. It was just too damn easy to kick at Blair, but then the damn instincts made him hate himself every time that expressive face flinched away from the anger.

"It could really make a difference," Blair said, his voice unsure now.

"That's good." Jim offered the olive branch, biting his tongue to prevent himself from saying something cold and biting, like asking why Blair hadn't done something to help him when he needed it.

"Oh man, if you have a problem, just fucking say it. I can't do this!" Blair stood up, scattering the yellow pages again as he faced Jim.

"I didn't say anything." Jim used his tone of voice to warn Blair off.

"No, you don't. You just look at me like I'm shit. You just use that tone of voice that makes it clear I'm one step below a worm."

"I'm not using any tone of voice."

"Bullshit. Save that for someone who didn't know you before--" Blair cut himself off suddenly. "Forget it," he finished as he headed for the door.

"Before you captured me? Before you lied to me?" Jim offered. If they were going to look at the elephant in the room, it was a good place to start.

"I've apologized for that. If you can't just let this go, maybe this isn't the best partnership for either one of us."

Jim felt a flare of panic at the idea of Blair wanting out. He stepped forward so that he stood between the door and Blair, and Blair fell back a step instinctively.

"So, if I'm angry, you'll just call up the Institute and tell them this isn't working out, that they should come and pick up their defective Sentinel?" Jim demanded.

"No!" Blair just about yelled the word as he stepped forward into Jim's personal space. "God, you are the most frustrating asshole on the face of the planet. I just want you to forgive me for capturing you, for lying and for being a fucking idiot and for getting you raped." Blair's voice broke as his eyes shone with tears, and Jim's anger evaporated at the raw pain he could see there.

"Blair," Jim breathed, but Blair had turned and charged off toward the Sentinel room. Jim followed.

"Man, just give me some space here," Blair asked without looking at Jim when he found Jim's hand keeping the door from closing. Jim stood in the open door holding it open, refusing to move.

"No. Chief, we're talking this out right now. You are not to blame for the rape."

"I fucking drew you there. I was an idiot. My first time out there trying to make things right, and I got captured. It is my fault." Blair continued to stare at the far wall, but Jim could see the shivers that went through Blair's frame. He reached up to put a hand on a trembling shoulder, but he stopped, not sure that touch would be welcome right now.

"I made a choice. It was the same choice I made when I slept with Keith. I traded sex for some advantage I wanted, and I don't feel particularly sorry I did it."

Blair slowly looked at him. "Kincaid raped you," Blair whispered, tears brightening his blue eyes.

"Yes, he did. And I've lived my life since I was twelve years old knowing that sooner or later I was probably going to be raped." The words brought back that old memory: his father kneeling on the football field in front of him, shaking him by his arms as he told him what a Sentinel could expect. Before that, Jim had only vague, schoolyard descriptions of sex--a locker room fantasy of girls with big boobs that the boys would whisper when coach wasn't around. But what his father had described hadn't been fantasy or vague. It had been a vicious, cold description of a terrifying act.

"What?" Blair asked, clearly confused, but at least the confusion was driving away the horror and guilt that made Jim's guts twist.

"Chief, I wasn't a dormant Sentinel," Jim admitted. "And that is not to appear in any of those damn articles you write," he quickly added.

"Hey, anthropological standards don't differentiate between Sentinels and non-Sentinels. As a researcher, I can't ethically use any information without a subject's express permission. I promise, Jim, this is just us here."

Jim listened to the heartbeat, weighing his belief that Blair was telling the truth against the fact that Blair had successfully lied to him in the past. He made a choice. "I started showing heightened senses at twelve. Vision first, then hearing. I had developed all five by the time I hit fifteen," Jim admitted.

"But that's--" Blair started, and Jim glared.

"That's what happened. My father was very clear about a Sentinel's life, about how their sexual natures would be turned against them. He would describe in great detail how anyone who knew about my senses would either abuse me by raping me and then forcing me to protect them, or they'd just turn me in. And he made it very clear that if I was turned in, I would have to have sex with whoever the courts gave me to."

Blair's shoulder's sagged, and the room was silent for a minute as he walked to the bed and sat down heavily. "Oh man," he breathed. "That fucking bastard."

"He was trying to protect me," Jim growled, despite the fact that he had the same thoughts about his father on a regular basis.

"But Sentinels don't have to have sex or bond with their guardians. They can work their whole lives without bonding."

"Only if they want to be celibate, Chief. That's not a choice most teens will make."

"But Jamal, down at work. He had his brother as a guardian for five or six years until he met his wife. And yeah, his wife has guardianship now, but he still works with his brother over in Homicide. His life isn't all that different from anyone else's. He grew up, got a job, met a girl, got married."

"He doesn't have the legal right to divorce her without a court approving of it, he doesn't control his own money, his salary is still attached to whoever he works with. He doesn't have equality." Jim ticked off the differences on his fingers.

"Yeah, but he wasn't raped. God, no wonder you ran. Oh geez, you went through Ranger training with your senses." Blair's voice turned to dismay.

"Stop! Stop thinking that because I am a Sentinel I am less capable of doing my job. Damn it, Sandburg, I'm not pissed because you brought me in. I'm fucking furious every time you do something like this."

"What?" Blair demanded, sitting up straight on the bed and crossing his arms.

"Acting like you're surprised I'm competent."

"Man, you are totally competent, and I've never said otherwise, but Ranger training would have included things that should have disabled your senses."

"You assume," Jim snapped.

"Yes, I assume based on hundreds of studies, years of research, and documented case studies."

"That are wrong."

"Oh shit." Blair fell silent, blinking up at Jim. "What if they're all wrong? What if they didn't control for some variable? Okay, we already know that the whole Institute approach damages the control, but what if the rest is wrong?" Blair exploded off the bed so suddenly that Jim stepped back just out of surprise, and Blair was out the door before they could finish their discussion. Jim followed out into the living room, and Blair was pulling seemingly random books off the huge bookcase that covered one wall.

"Can we finish the first can of worms before we open the second?" Jim asked, wondering if maybe he should find Blair the name of a good psychiatrist specializing in adult ADHD.

"Oh," Blair said as he stopped in the middle of the room, three books hugged in his arms. "Yeah, we can do that."

"First, I do not blame you for what Kincaid did. I chose to go in the building knowing full well what would happen, and as an adult, I resent you implying that I didn't have a right to make that choice. And I am still angry that you captured me, but I'm not angry at you."

"That doesn't even make any sense," Blair cut in.

"I know. However, I'm probably going to be cranky about that for a while anyway. But I understand that you did what you thought was right, and I do respect the fact that you're an ethical man, even if your moral compass was a little rusty." Jim watched Blair blush.

"Okay, I'm okay with this part of the talk, so I'm wondering where the worms are in this can." Blair hugged the books to his chest even harder.

Jim sighed. "The part that just pisses me off is all the little stuff."

"Little stuff?" Blair asked when Jim paused.

"Where am I going to be working?" Jim raised an eyebrow and waited.

"With.... Oh," Blair interrupted himself. "Okay, I guess I never actually did ask, and with all that back pay, you can pretty much afford to sit home, or go to college, or pretty much do whatever you want."

"Exactly," Jim agreed. "Let's play a little game, Chief. Your mom's friend, Jim, who just left the Army Rangers after a twenty year career as an officer, comes to crash at your place. Keep in mind that this is a man with a college degree who has lived his whole life without needing you and who has been entrusted to protect national security on any number of occasions. What would you say to him about working?"

"Okay, man, I get the point. Hey, if you don't want to work with me, you can work with someone else without having to change guardianship. I told you about Jamal down at... and that's a slightly intimidating expression there, big guy."

"Think your mom's friend, the Army Ranger," Jim suggested. He could see the moment when it struck Blair, he physically flinched and blushed.

" I totally would not ever try to tell my mom's friend, the big bad Army Ranger officer, what to do about work because that would be a little..."

"Patronizing, emasculating, condescending...."

"Got it," Blair interrupted. "Shit, this is harder than I thought, and I so would have thought I would be better at shifting paradigms. But Jim, you gotta help me out here. I'm really trying, so when I go making assumptions, you need to give me a hand. Let me know. Maybe we can use some signal." Blair stepped toward Jim, dropping the books on the couch as he focused, and Jim could feel the sincerity.

"Maybe I could smack you upside the back of the head every time you do it," Jim suggested slowly as he leaned on the back of the couch.

"Funny," Blair complained. "Very funny. However, you'd probably give me a concussion, and after sharing a hospital bed with you for three days, let me tell you, you're no fun as a patient."

"Oh yeah, and you're a real joy," Jim said sarcastically. "The nurses were ready to drop you out a third story window, Mr. Hyper."

"Okay, let me try this again," Blair said. "Hey, I'd really like it if you wanted to work with me down at the station."

"I don't know," Jim shrugged. "Any interesting cases?"

Blair glared at him for a second and then took a step closer and leaned against the couch so that they stood shoulder to shoulder... or at least shoulder to neck. Jim hadn't realized just how much shorter Blair was until then.

"I have a case in the cold files I was going to reopen. A vice case with a slime ball named Dessy that got bumped up to Major Crimes after the harbor patrol found a key witness floating face down in the Sound."

"New evidence?"

"Kinda. Recently I was in the company of some criminals, and someone mentioned his name."

Jim turned and studied Blair. The kid had on an innocent expression that made him look anything except innocent. "Kincaid mentioned him?"

"One of his goons, yeah."

"You're going after Kincaid?"

"Oh, hell yeah. I'm totally going after Kincaid," Blair agreed. "Just, don't tell Banks I'm going after Kincaid. So, are you in?" Blair looked up at Jim and waited.

"Hell, yeah," Jim answered. The plan could wait; the underground would be there later. But if he had a chance to nail Kincaid before taking off, that would be the icing on the cake. "I want a piece of that." Jim smiled down at Blair, reaching over to rest a hand on his shoulder. "I definitely want a piece of that."

TWENTY THREE
***
"Hey guys," Blair called when he walked in the bull pen. Jim walked slightly behind him, but the minute they were through the door, he stepped forward. Even with a new button-up shirt with a collar, he knew his silver Sentinel collar shone below his chin, and he waited for the inevitable reactions.

"Hairboy," a middle-aged black man called out. "We just can't trust you to go anywhere on your own, can we?" Jim recognized him from his brief visit to Major Crimes, but they'd never been introduced. He'd been the one who'd gone with them to the warehouse: Brown. The other detective, Rafe, stood near his desk a few feet away.

"Hey, I'm not the one whose girlfriend tried to run a gambling ring off his cell phone," Blair shot back. Brown gripped his chest as though shot through the heart.

"Wounded. You wound me!" he laughed. "But if we want to get into girlfriends, I have one word for you: Sam."

"Hey, Sam never committed a felony on my phone," Blair defended himself.

"Girl tried to set your eyebrows on fire is all." Brown gave Jim a conspiratorial grin. "That girl is trouble, but when Blair sees trouble, he just charges right at it like a cat going for catnip, every time. And if it's trouble with long legs, well, the boy's got about as much self control as a stray dog going after a bitch in heat."

Jim could feel his guts tighten at the thought of someone physically endangering his guide, even though he knew from the tone that the men were joking about it. No one joked about a serious assault with fire, but all that logic frayed in the face of Jim's sudden need to push Blair behind him and find Sam so that he would know who to keep as far away from his companion as possible. And the part that really infuriated Jim was that Blair might still be dating the woman. He clenched his jaw and forced himself to stand still with a neutral expression as he casually looked around the room.

"I just appreciate the female form… or the male form for that matter," Blair pointed out. "But once again, because no one seems to be listening to me, my phone is felony-free."

Brown snorted.

"Henri, this is Jim Ellison. Jim, this is Henri Brown," Blair finally introduced them. "He just likes me because with me around, he doesn't get voted worst dressed anymore," Blair joked. Jim eyed the Hawaiian themed shirt the other detective wore. Given a choice, he'd take Blair's colorful vest and ethnic jewelry over green orchids on yellow any day of the week.

"Nice to meet you," Brown said as he stuck out his hand. Jim took it.

"We met at the warehouse. Thank you for that."

"Hey, Hairboy's like our mascot around here. With all that hair, we don't even need to get a costume," Brown joked, but then his face turned serious. "You gave up a lot to help one of our own. That carries a lot of weight around here."

Brown had stopped shaking Jim's hand but he held on for a second. Jim nodded; he'd gotten the message.

When Brown let go of his hand, his crooked smile returned as he gave Jim a wink. "Just one word of advice: don't let Hairboy near your computer. Him and hard drives have this whole hate-hate thing going on."

"Very funny," Blair deadpanned. "Next time you get a disk stuck in your computer, remind me not to help."

"Is that what you were trying to do when you got the paper clip jammed in my computer? No problem, refuse to help away, my man."

"And we've met," the well-dressed detective stepped forward, his eyes going from Brown to Blair. Jim knew from listening to Simon and Blair talk that Blair was the new man in Major Crimes, but Rafe seemed like the new guy—not quite sure how to fit into the war of insults. "Brian Rafe," he introduced himself unnecessarily.

"Nice to see you again," Jim said. Unlike Brown, Rafe's eyes did dart to the collar. Jim resisted an urge to button up his shirt over it, especially since the awkward bulk would just make him look very strange without actually hiding that he was wearing a collar. The first thing he'd done after getting back from shopping for non-Sentinel clothing was to try it. The best he could do was wear a shirt that made the silver difficult to see unless someone looked at him straight on.

"So you're... working with Blair," Rafe nodded, covering his momentary pause quickly, but not quickly enough to keep Brown from looking at him a little strangely. Jim just tightened his jaw.

"Yeah." Jim kept his voice neutral, but he crossed his arms as he waited for something definitive enough to take offense at. The insults that flowed just under the surface annoyed him worse than the open discrimination and hateful comments.

Rafe blushed, his olive tone skin turning a shade darker as his heart sped a little. Jim raised an eyebrow at him.

"Rafe and me have some interviewing to do. Some of us don't take four-day vacations in the middle of the busy season," Brown interrupted the silent war as he pulled at his partner's arm.

"When's it not busy season around here?" Blair asked with a laugh, but he sounded a little off-balance and nervous as well. He'd caught the near slip.

"Damned if I know. But watch your back, Blair. Aldo is still sniffing around," Brown called as he pulled Rafe out into the hall.

Even though they were gone, Jim could still clearly hear them as they waited for the elevator. He tilted his head and listened.

"What is your problem?" Rafe demanded angrily once the doors fell shut.

"So you're... working with Blair?" Brown mimicked, emphasizing the pause. "Bri, buddy, could you be any less subtle?"

"What?"

"He's a Sentinel, not a moron."

"I just... okay, I almost slipped there for a second."

"Oh, I know exactly what word you were thinking, and so did Jim, so let's just not mention it again," Brown advised at the elevator doors dinged open.

Jim did know what word popped into Rafe's mind; he'd ordered his own men not to use it often enough. But Jim had expected more derision, so having only one of Blair's co-workers act like an ass was actually not bad odds. He looked down, and Blair was watching him with wide eyes, waiting.

"Man, that was so not cool. Brian's normally a good guy, Jim, and I am really sorry," Blair said, and Jim realized that Blair had been waiting until Jim stopped listening to the other conversation.

"Don't apologize for someone else's stupidity," Jim said as he looked at the various desks. "Which one is yours?"

Blair wandered over to his desk in the back corner, the messiest in the room, and sat down. Right next to his desk was one that had been just brought in, and it was the only completely clean desk in the room.

"Mine?" Jim asked.

"Yeah," Blair agreed. "Simon doesn't put up with shit like that, and Henri will call Brian on that. He shouldn't say shit like that."

"He didn't say it," Jim pointed out.

"Yeah, but he all *but* said it, and when you think something out loud that loud, that's as good as saying it."

Jim turned a confused look toward Blair. "Look, Junior, a lot of people call it subbing. You're going to hear the term, and God knows I've heard the term."

Blair flinched when Jim said the word. "I get the whole borrowing of terms from one subculture to another, and yeah, people who are into the dom-sub thing use collars too, but this partnership is not about subbing. You don't sub for me," Blair assured him.

Jim looked down at the kid. "No, I don't," he said quietly. Blair looked up, his heart skipping faster for a few beats before it settled into its natural pattern.

"I know." Blair didn't say anything else as he idly chewed on his lip for a second. He blinked, and then he slid into one of his topic changes, his mood shifting as fast as a summer thunderstorm. "Okay, I'm the first to admit that my filing system is a little eccentric," Blair shrugged as he gestured toward the mountain. "I put any personal notes, you know, the kind of things you don't want accidentally ending up in the official record, in the yellow folders. The newer the case, the higher up it is in the stack, and I try to always work on at least one old file a week," Blair said as he craned his head to read the tabs on the various folders.

"One slip, and every file on your desk is going to end up on the floor," Jim observed, allowing Blair to change the topic now that he'd made his point.

"Oh man, don't remind me. Ricardo brought in this drunk guy, and he was staggering all over the place, and when Ricardo went to grab him, to keep him from falling on the floor, he like rebounded or something, and just plowed right into my desk. I was finding lab reports under floor mats for like a month." Blair gave a shiver of horror.

"And that didn't convince you to maybe change your filing system?" Jim asked, crossing his arms as he considered the mess. Putting the most recent on top wasn't the best system, but it was at least a system, and as long as the tabs were clear, it was a workable system. Leaving the files flat on the desk wasn't.

"It's not like I have room in the desk with all my project shit. I only work at the department part time because of my college schedule. Besides, if they're all right here, then I don't have to worry about putting them away, which so won't happen," Blair shrugged. "That's why Simon moved me back into the corner of the room... less chance of drunken filing disasters."

Sitting down in his own chair, Jim started pulling out desk drawers. His own desk was empty of anything except a paper clip caught in the joint of the top drawer. Jim pulled open the large bottom drawer. "Let's use my drawer for filing. You can keep two or three on your desk, and the rest will fit in here. When your stack gets too high, I'll just snag them off your desk and use the same system you use by putting the most recently accessed files in front."

Blair didn't answer. Jim sat back and studied Blair as he opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again.

"If you don't like the system, just say so. It's your job," Jim said tightly. That got a glare from Blair.

"Man, I'm trying to figure out how my mom's friend Jim would react to doing my filing for me," Blair finally said.

"Your mom's friend Jim would be fine with it if he offered. Since he was an officer, he's probably quite familiar with reports because you do not get promoted up the ranks without being well versed in filing forms in triplicate. Now, if you asked him to do your filing, he'd probably tell you to shove it up your ass," Jim commented mildly.

"Yeah, I knew that last part." Blair rolled his eyes. "And yeah, that sounds good. We don't have anything too urgent right now. Simon had Ricardo and Brown take my most recent cases. I need to follow up on the Taylor case, but Dessy's our top of the pile file." Blair finally found what he wanted in the stack. Holding the tower steady with one hand, he slowly pulled out two files from near the bottom. Jim waited for a disaster, but he somehow pulled them free without sending any files flying. He held out the two folders, one manila with an official sticker on the tab labeled 'Vice 55091-MC 3409' and a second, yellow one with a tab that read 'Dessy.'

"That's Kincaid's partner?" Jim asked quietly as he took the files.

"I don't know if partner's the right word. Kincaid is big time--huge time even. Until the witness ended up dead, Dessy was just one of those second level criminals that was just more annoying than most because we couldn't catch him. Case after case just sort of fizzled because no one could get a wire close to him and his people were way more loyal than the normal 'stab you in the back for a buck' sort that usually work prostitution and drugs. But if he's hooking up with Kincaid, he's looking to move up in the world."

Jim flipped open the official file and skimmed through summaries of phone tap transcripts and reports on a suspected prostitution and drug distribution operation that reached from 3rd street all the way over to Holgate Street. "With this many people involved, there has to be a weak link somewhere."

"Yeah, you'd think so. I mean, hookers and dealers are not well known for their loyalty, but man, vice never got anything to stick until they brought in Roberta Sanchez. She offered to turn if they found her a new home and helped her keep custody of her two kids."

"And she turned up in the river," Jim finished quietly as he turned over a report and found a crime scene photo underneath.

"Kincaid's more national that local. He deals guns and Sentinels to finance his counter-revolution against the government, but he doesn't have a solid base of operations anywhere. There's Camp Freedom that we hear rumors of, but the word on the internet is that it bounces between Idaho and Montana and western Oregon."

"What exactly did you hear in the warehouse?" Jim asked.

Blair's heart rate accelerated, and sour-sweat smell drifted into the air. Jim waited to see if this would be the moment where Blair finally really thought about what Kincaid had done to him, but then the heart slowed as he focused on the case. "One of his men said Dessy was waiting. Kincaid commented that they couldn't afford to keep him waiting too long. It was weird because Kincaid is the big fish there, so he obviously wants something from Dessy. And what Dessy is known for is having an entrenched network in Cascade."

"Most of Dessy's network are African Americans and Latinos," Jim commented. "Kincaid won't consider them real people. If something happens, he'll burn whoever he needs to in order to protect his own end of the business." In the hospital, Jim had finally amused himself by reading background on the man who had raped him and nearly killed Blair. Kincaid's political beliefs made this an awkward partnership at best.

"Dessy's African American, so I can't imagine what is going through his mind that he's willing to do business with a white supremist like Kincaid."

"Money," Jim answered simply. He looked at the crime scene photos from Roberta Sanchez's death. The woman lay sprawled on the shore, one arm obviously broken and her Latino-dark skin mottled with bruises. "They worked on her for a while before killing her if those bruises had time to form."

"Yeah, that's what the M.E. said," Blair answered. The distant tone made Jim look at him over the top of his file. Despite the fact that the kid was a cop, a Major Crimes cop for God's sake, he looked a little green. Jim tried to decide if Blair always reacted this way to death or if his own brush with it had made him more sensitive, but the simple fact remained that he didn't know Blair well enough to even hazard a guess.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, hey, I'm fine," Blair insisted as he swung his chair toward his computer, booting the system up. "And totally ignore what Brown said about me and computers. I do great with computers, but when I first got transferred, I downloaded this neat new program off the internet, and it had a virus in it. I couldn't get the thing turned off before it ate through my whole hard drive and tech support was like furious for days." Blair gave an exaggerated shudder. "You do not want tech nerds mad at you."

Ignoring the sudden shift of topic, Jim rolled his chair closer and reached for the Taylor case file. The sudden scent of panic filled the air, and Blair's hand darted out, but not before Jim could pluck the file away.

"Hey, you know, we should really focus on Dessy."

"You said we should look at the Taylor case," Jim said mildly as he opened the file. Blair's eyes were big as they watched him. It didn't take Jim long to figure out why Blair didn't want him looking at the file: Kari Taylor lay in a pink dress, her tiny hands curled around the fabric of the skirt, even in death. He read through the reports.

"I could do that one on my own," Blair offered softly. Considering the gaunt shade of white the man had turned, no way was Jim letting him wander anywhere alone.

"I served in Honduras before Peru," Jim started, thinking through what to tell Blair and what should remain confidential, not that he had any obligation at this point. "This one guerrilla 'general' was furious that a village helped the Americans, so he slaughtered their children as punishment. I remember this one little girl. She had this long black hair, but unusually pale skin, and she lay with her arms thrown over her face like she just didn't want to see the killing blow." Jim looked over at Blair who stared at him in horror. "Two months later, we were ordered to work with that same general because he'd decided that cooperating with the Americans on some projects was more advantageous."

"Did you kill him?" Blair asked, his voice barely even a whisper.

Jim rolled his eyes. "I wanted to, but if I had, I would have been in prison, not on a mission in Peru a year later. Just because I hate shit like this," Jim tapped the folder with Kari Taylor's autopsy photos, "does not mean that I'm going to go out of control." Blair opened his mouth to argue, but Jim pointed at the blinking box on the computer screen. "Log in," he said.

Blair swiveled his chair toward the computer, and Jim took the opportunity to give Blair's head a sharp smack.

"HEY!" Blair yelped as he jerked around.

Jim smirked. "You're the one who wanted a signal," he reminded Blair sweetly.

"Yeah, and I said hitting was probably a bad idea."

"You said concussions were a bad idea," Jim corrected him. "Something about how you're a bad, bad patient. I don't think I gave you a concussion, but if you want, I can check your pupils."

"Smart ass."

"I have more than one smart part."

"Yeah, your alec is pretty smart, too," Blair grumbled.

Jim laughed, until he spotted the Taylor file on the desk again. "You never had a Sentinel go over the scene," he said as he flipped open the file and looked at the cemetery where the child's body had been found under an oak.

"Sentinels and dead, abused children. Not generally a good mix," Blair shrugged. "Department policy is to make sure that never the twain shall meet, but I guess Simon just didn't think about that."

Jim liked to think that Simon had thought about that, but Blair might be right. "Let's go over there. I'm sure it's rained once or twice, but with a crime scene that large, something might have survived."

"If you're..." Blair started. Jim reached over and smacked the back of his head hard enough to send his head bobbing forward and make his hair flop around.

"Stop it," Blair growled as he struck out with an elbow. Jim caught the elbow only to have a foot kick him in the shin.

"Feisty little shit," Jim complained as he let go and backed away. Blair pushed his hair back and glared.

"Geez, I liked you better when you were cranky. You in a good mood is just dangerous."

"Only if you forget about your mom's friend, Jim. You keep your head screwed on straight, and we'll be fine."

"Right, screwing," Blair muttered as he stood up and grabbed the file. Jim had been ready with a smart alec comment, but his tongue tangled so badly that he didn't come up with anything until Blair was already to the door. Pushing away thoughts of Blair and screwing, Jim got up to follow. It was time to start earning his pay and showing that months of FBI training with his senses, added onto years of Ranger training, could do the impossible.

TWENTY FOUR
***
"So, how do we handle this?" Jim asked as Blair pulled in through the rusty gates of the cemetery where Kari Taylor had been found, large finger bruises around her throat and her hands clutching the dress that had been pushed up around her waist. Jim could feel the silent rage that everyone so feared in Sentinels, but he pushed it to