Control Issues
Rated ADULT
Angst Ahead!

Chapters 16-20
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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.

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