Shadows and Siege
Rated ADULT for language, and slash

Chapter 12

"Remember what I said about 'when you fucked up'?" Blair asked as he watched the new prisoners get poked and prodded down the basement steps. Jack was under one of Jim's arms and Daniel was under the other, and they were dragging an obviously-zoned Jim between them. They should just be glad Blair was in a cage or he so would have kicked Asshole O'Neill in the shin. Or at least he would have after they escaped.

"Shut up, Sandburg," Jack almost growled, and then one of the bad guys jabbed the colonel in the back with a zat.

"For cryin' out loud, I was yelling at him, not you," Jack snapped as he hurried a little faster. The goa'uld in front unlocked the cell next to the one he and Sam shared and stepped aside.

"It's a little damp, and the gothic theme isn't really my taste. I don't suppose you have another room available," Jack quipped as he helped drag Jim into the small cell. The aliens didn't answer as they slammed the door shut. Instead of using a heavy key, one of them touched a bright, shiny new square that had been installed over the lock with his palm jewelry, and something heavy slid into place. The two aliens walked out without a word.

"Lean him up against the bars," Blair said as he moved off the rough hewed bench and sat on the bricks near the bars that divided their two cells. "What did he zone on?"

"He was identifying heartbeats in the house. And you know, this would be why sentinels are obsolete," Jack said, but at least he carefully lowered Jim to the floor, cradling his neck until he could carefully settle the limp body against the cold bars. Blair reached through and turned Jim's face toward him.

"Come on back, buddy. I'm not in the same cell with the asshole, and I need you to wake up and punch him for me," Blair said in his calmest 'guide' voice. Jack looked at Blair strangely. "And after that," Blair said in the same calm voice, "I'm going to punch you for trying to hear through brick in a thunderstorm with aliens all around and without me. I mean, come on, you know better."

"Which is what I tried telling him back at the cafe," Jack said in a smug tone that did nothing to improve Blair's mood.

"You told him not to listen through brick for alien heartbeats all the way back at the cafe?" Blair asked. He still used his guide voice, but O'Neill obviously got the sarcasm anyway.

"I told him to not try and track you."

"Okay, I am naming O'Neill idiot of the year. I really need you to come back and punch him for me, big guy. I mean, what kind of an idiot thinks a sentinel can't track his own guide through a street? Seriously. I know you want to punch him for even thinking that about you," Blair told Jim, running his hands up and down Jim's arm. Jack said he'd zoned on hearing, but his eyes were huge and black, like his vision had been fully open.

This time Daniel interrupted, and from the look on Jack's face, Daniel was just making a preemptive move to avoid all-out war. "So, I guess we found their base of operations."

"Ya think?" Jack asked as he dropped onto the wooden bench in his cell. "If I get splinters in my ass, I'm blaming him," Jack said with a look in Jim's direction.

"Sir," Sam offered, and Blair was definitely getting the feeling that the two members of SG-1 were running interference for Jack's mouth, "if we can get one of the hand devices, I should be able to open the door."

"And your plan for getting a hand device would be..." Jack let his voice trail off. Sam got a sheepish expression and shrugged.

Blair ignored them. "Come on big guy," he said as he shielded Jim's eyes with his hand and kept stroking his arm. "Come on back now. I'm here, so you don't have to..." Blair stopped as Jim jerked and shook his head.

"What the fuck was that?"

"*That* was a zone," Jack offered.

"*You* are an asshole," Blair shot back before Jim had a chance to say anything. Blair could tell from the way Jim's body stiffened just how much he hated having zoned, especially in front of these people who weren't turning out to be the best allies in the world. "What did you see?" he asked Jim. There was nothing like the facts to distract the man when he got his guilt going.

"There was an alien."

"No... really?" Jack scoffed.

"Jack," Daniel warned softly, and Jack sighed and limited himself to glaring.

"There was a different kind of alien. The goa'uld were torturing it in the dining room." Jim's jaw had turned concrete, and Blair kept tracing soothing circles on Jim's arm through the bars.

"Aw, great," Jack sighed.

"Another kind?" Daniel asked at the same time.

"And we're stuck in here during a foothold situation... during two foothold situations," Jack corrected himself. "At least Teal'c is still out there."

"And our team," Jim added.

"Right, because I *want* your team to show up," Jack said sarcastically. "I know who you work for Ellison, and that does not inspire confidence."

"They get the job done," Jim said in that clipped and carefully controlled tone that told Blair that the man was just about ready to explode.

"I'd rather have my team show up because at least they aren't idiots and assholes," Blair jumped in. "Okay, one is an asshole of the first degree, but the others are competent, unlike some people."

"Hey!" Jack stood up.

"Jack," Daniel warned.

"No, no I'm not letting this slide. Look, Squirt, we got caught because your buddy checked out right in the middle of an op."

Jim almost bolted to his feet.

Blair followed Jim, getting up and pressing against the bars that separated him from O'Neill right when he wanted to deck the guy. "Hey, you are the one who asked him to listen. Let me give you a math test, and then in the middle of that test set off a fog horn in your ear and see how well you take it."

"I wouldn't zone out," Jack practically yelled.

"Jack!" Daniel said, clearly more desperate now.

"Sir, maybe we should try doing something to alert Teal'c to our specific location," Sam jumped in.

"Ellison endangered the mission," Jack plowed on, ignoring his team.

"No, you did," Blair almost screamed back. "You went into the field with the best soldier out there, one who possesses equipment you can't even imagine, but you didn't even bother to learn the tolerances or the specs or the safety features, and then *you* ordered the soldier to do something completely fucking stupid because you're too much of a fucking idiot to listen when I tell you that you're fucking up. Congratulations on getting *yourself* captured colonel." Blair was pressed up against the bars poking his finger in Jack's direction, and Jim caught his arm and pulled it close.

"Calm down, Chief."

"Calm down? Calm fucking down? He's trying to blame you! He never even fucking tried to understand, and then he fucking blames you?!"

"So he won't be getting a commendation for this mission," Jim said, and Blair was really annoyed by the hint of humor in Jim's voice. "But he's just believing his training. If anything, he's trying to cut us some slack because he let me track you and apparently the US government doesn't believe I'm capable of doing that without my designated babysitter."

"Oh please," Blair snorted.

"Chief, he can only know what his commanding officers have told him."

"Then his commanding officers are idiots."

"Hey! Oh wait, I might agree with that in some cases," Jack said. "Look, I never claimed to understand much about sentinels because I've never worked with them, but spacing out in the middle of an op is not really acceptable. And I'm not saying that to set you off again. Geez, is he always this annoying?"

"Yep," Jim answered cheerfully, and Blair poked Jim in the side.

Daniel stepped forward. "We all have the same goal here, and you're right that we don't know how to work with Colonel Ellison, but now that you're here, maybe we can focus on getting out," he said in a voice that reminded Blair of a psychiatrist... that 'talk nice to the crazy people' voice some of them had.

"Carter, you were here first, any good news?" Jack asked as he turned to the woman. Sam was kneeling in front of the door lock studying it.

"I wish I had something, sir. Without tools to break open this case, I don't really have any chance of picking the lock."

"Jim, what's wrong?" Blair asked as he watched the skin along Jim's arm goosepimple and twitch.

"I'm fine."

"Not even," Blair snorted. "Is it something you smell?" he guessed.

"He isn't checking into lala land again, is he?" Jack asked as he retreated to the bench and dropped down.

"Jack!"

"Daniel!" O'Neill shot right back in the exact same tone. The two of them glared at each other for a second.

"Isolate each smell, one at a time, and label it," Blair said as he ignored their sniping and worked with his sentinel. Pressing forward, he reached both arms through the bars.

Jim sighed, and for a second, Blair thought he might argue. Instead, he started working through the exercise. "Water. It's contaminated... rust particles... dry cleaning solution..."

"Oh man, PCE groundwater contamination. We are so ruining our earth," Blair sighed. "You know what contaminated water smells like, label that and set it aside, what else?"

"Chalk?" Jim cocked his head.

"From where?"

"The walls." Jim paused. "The limestone walls, they have a lot of chalk in them."

Sam stood up. "That would mean the walls have a lower density than high-quality limestone or granite. We might be able to blast through the section of wall where the bars are set... at least if we had any explosives," Sam sighed.

"Keep going, Jim, what else?" Blair said. The heat of Jim's body was starting to remind him of issues he was resolutely not thinking about, but he was having trouble not thinking about them, especially when Jim reached through the bars and laid his hand on Blair's thigh.

"Ozone."

"From the rain or the zat blast?"

"From the zat blast. It's clinging to your clothes." Jim turned and really stared at Blair, and Blair could feel the Blessed Protector crap start to gear up. Geez, he really had meant that as a joke.

"Hey, I'm fine. I'm way more pissed at O'Neill than Tweedles Dumb and Dumber upstairs. Come on, focus on the environment because something's setting you off. Set aside the ozone smell, it isn't a danger. Now I want you to identify the smell of each of us and set those smells aside as well."

Blair watched while Jim stared at each member of the team for a second before blinking and turning to the next one. Jack watched the process with undisguised skepticism, but Sam and Daniel edged closer. Finally, Jim nodded.

"Okay, start identifying what's left."

Suddenly, Jim jerked and gave a sound that came fair close to a hiss.

"Jim?!"

"Body parts," Jim almost growled.

"What? Where?" That had O'Neill on his feet, but Jim just shook his head.

"No, the aliens... that's why the smell bothered me so much, it's like seeing random body parts lying in the street. What the hell are they?"

Jack blinked at them for a second before looking first at Daniel and then Sam. "Okay, you two are the geeks, did that make sense to either of you?"

Blair glared at Jack for a second before focusing on his sentinel. "What makes them smell like body parts? Is it something to do with the host?"

Jim shook his head. "No, I can identify and separate the host easily, but the snake had human cells in it. It's like finding a piece of brain just sitting on the table."

"Okay, that's officially disgusting," Blair complained, and he didn't know what was more disgusting, the brain on the table metaphor or the fact that aliens had human bits in them.

Jack walked over, leaned on the bars and started at them with an inscrutable expression. "So, you expect me to believe that you can smell the cells inside a snake that is inside a host. Isn't that like smelling a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma?"

"Oh man, you never learn, do you?" Blair rolled his eyes. "I've seen Jim identify a compound from the contamination inside a single drop of water. Hell, the very first time I got kidnapped, he smelled water from a dead woman's lungs, and under all the human decay, still found the scent of duck waste, and he is so much better now. You have no clue about how much a sentinel can do."

"Chief," Jim said quietly.

"No. No, I've tried to play nice, but I so should have put his clothes in the shower and short sheeted his bed when I had the chance. He's an asshole. And he has no clue how powerful sentinels are when they're paired with the right person."

"Jack, maybe..." Daniel stopped when Jack shot him an angry look.

"Daniel doesn't have his appendix," Jim said quietly.

"What? And, so, therefore?" Jack demanded. "What does that prove?"

"I can smell the appendix on the rest of you, but it's missing with him."

"You probably saw the scar," Jack said dismissively, and Blair opened his mouth to rip the man again. Jim reached through and caught him by the waist, pulling him close to the bars. "Sam has had a snake in her. The snake inside Teal'c belly came from the same genetic line as the snakes in those goa'uld upstairs. Teal'c also has a faint trace of something that almost smells like an insect."

All three member of SG1 were staring at Jim.

"He could have been briefed," Jack pointed out.

Jim stared at Jack. "My employers either don't have that much information or they chose not to share it. I suspect at least one of my team members might know some of that, but then he's not big on sharing either. I collected all that information from my senses, and I'm telling you now that the snakes have entirely human cells inside their bodies."

For a minute, the room was so quiet that Blair could hear the faint sound of thunder through the heavy walls of their prison.

"We do know that the goa'uld started using human DNA when they created jaffa, in order to make the body chemistry compatible," Sam pointed out. Both Sam and Jack glanced toward Daniel, and when Blair looked over, Daniel was a brilliant shade of white. Oh, there was a story there.

"We always assumed it meant the queen created a hybrid with every cell containing some human DNA code."

"What?" Blair demanded. "Okay, that doesn't even make sense. No way would a snake have the same number of chromosomes, and no way would the genetic code be similar enough for a hybrid to work."

"The queens can directly manipulate the DNA, they could manipulate the code. But they might also be creating a chimera," Sam said slowly.

"Okay, I know this is Danny's territory with the pointless mythology, but isn't a chimera a lion-snake thingy?" Jack ignored the way Daniel had gone from staring at the ground in obvious embarrassment at the mention of hybrids to glaring daggers at Jack.

Sam nodded. "Yeah, but it's also the name for a condition where one creature has pieces of another genetic code inside. It happens with twins." She brought up her two fists side by side. "One twin dies in the womb, and the other twin grows around the first undeveloped twin." She covered one fist with the other. "The surviving twin is fine, but if we take DNA samples, we'll find spots where his DNA doesn't match because those are the bits and pieces of the other twin. That's a chimera. If the goa'uld are using complete sections of human DNA in their own body, that could mean..." she trailed off.

"What?" Jack prompted.

"I have no idea, sir. I think our geneticists would be more than a little interested in knowing though."

"Jim, now that you've identified the problem, are you okay?" Blair asked softly, but the cells didn't have a lot of privacy, and Jack turned and stared at them.

Jim nodded. "I'm fine, Chief. Ground me, and I'll see what I can find out about what's going on."

"Sure thing." Blair nodded and curled his fingers around Jim's arm. Jim's head tilted to the side, but instead of giving a running commentary, he fell silent. Only his hand on Blair's back moving in lazy circles told Blair that Jim hadn't zoned.

"So?" Jack finally demanded in the silence. Jim blinked and looked at the man.

"Rescue's coming."

"Go Teal'c!" Jack cheered.

"My team is coming," Jim said, and suddenly Jack wasn't looking so happy. "Don't worry, Colonel. The person at the top gave me clear instructions to protect your position at all costs. You are not disposable or recruitable," Jim assured him. That obviously made Jack relax a little, but it didn't make Blair feel one bit better because something still had his sentinel wound so tight that he was about ready to crack molars.

Chapter 13

Blair fidgeted, his gaze shifting from Jim to Jack and back as he tried to just wait for the rescue that Jim said was coming. Whatever was setting Jim off, he definitely didn't want to talk about it with Jack standing three feet away.

Jim's fingers tightened against his arm, and Blair's gaze darted to the door at the top of the stairs. Right on cue, a muffled boom echoed through the room.

"Dial it down," Blair said out of habit, but Jim didn't even twitch as figures in black darted through the smoke.

"Clear!" Jim called, letting the rescuers know that there weren't any guards. "Makepeace, you'd better have a good reason for breaking protocol," Jim growled as he stepped to the bars.

"Makepeace?!" Jack sounded about ready to swallow his own tongue. "Colonel Makepeace?!" he demanded as if he were hoping for some other Makepeace. He stepped right up next to Jim, and the whole atmosphere in the room shifted. Wisps of smoke from the explosion still drifted past, but they weren't enough to disguise the ex-colonel as the man stepped forward, only glancing at Jack before he focused on Jim.

"Change in orders from base. We were ordered in to assess and secure the area if feasible. It was."

"And the guest in the dining room?" Jim asked tightly, and then Blair figured out exactly why Jim was not happy. The spy Rebecca Clark stood there right behind Makepeace. Jim sidestepped, physically shoving Jack with his shoulder, and Blair just felt a helpless urge to shout 'watch out, mind-wiping alien.' Of course, the problem was that mind-wiping aliens could wipe out everyone's memory of him shouting that. It was a good three seconds before it occurred to him that Clark wasn't doing anything at all to stop the fact that Jim was trying to block her access. In fact, she just sort of retreated behind Makepeace rather than make any aggressive moves.

Now Jack—he was feeling more aggressive as he shoved right back, but despite a quick shoving match with Jim, his focus was clearly on Makepeace. "So, Robert, not good to see you again. Seen any good prison cells lately?" Jack said dryly. Jim's body was iron stiff.

"Makepeace, send Clark up to secure the perimeter and blow this lock," Jim snapped.

Makepeace opened his mouth to say something, but Clark slipped out from behind Makepeace, distracting all three men, and then Jim twitched violently. He stumbled back a step, and Blair cried out, not able to reach him. Jack was there, his hands at Jim's back helping to stabilize him.

"Fuck. What did you do?" Blair demanded. Stealth be damned, he just wanted some answers.

Clark ducked her head. "I'm sorry," she said softly as she again retreated, and Blair wasn't sure how to interpret all this. If she was aggressive, she so should have mind-wiped him, but instead she looked ready to run, as if he was the threat.

"Jim, come on man, come on back," Blair said as he temporarily ignored Clark and focused on Jim who blinked for a second, and then nodded.

"Chief, it's okay."

"Okay? It's not remotely okay," Blair growled. Whatever shiny new fake memories she'd given Jim, they weren't remotely okay.

"Chief," Jim said more firmly. "It's okay."

Blair looked at Jim in concern, but what he saw was a calm acceptance on Jim's face. Okay, calm might be the wrong word. He looked more than a little cranky, but there was acceptance there, too.

Jack looked from one to another. "I'd like to know what exactly is okay, because a traitor who's supposed to be in jail running round is not my definition of okay."

"Maybe there's an explanation," Daniel said hopefully, but no one hurried to provide one, and he was left looking from one person to another until even Daniel gave up.

Makepeace's face went stone cold. "Back off, O'Neill," Jim said. "Makepeace, blow this lock."

"Yes, sir," Makepeace said as he pulled out supplies. He handed half to Clark and she immediately went to the lock on Blair's cell and started attaching the explosives. Makepeace worked on the cell Jim and Jack shared, ignoring the shocked and angry looks he was getting from all of SG1.

Jack crossed his arms, and the same gesture that on Daniel looked shy on Jack looked like the man was ready to rip someone apart with his bare hands. "You know, a conviction for treason just isn't what it used to be. I remember the days when people actually took treason seriously."

"Sir," Sam said, "according to official records, Makepeace died of sudden unexpected cardiac death four months ago."

"He... what? Okay, he's looking good for a dead man, not that we aren't all known for getting up after a little dying, but short of a sarcophagus, shouldn't dead men, I don't know, stay dead?" Jack demanded as he turned to his second in command. "And shouldn't someone have told me?"

"I did," Daniel pointed out.

"No you didn't."

"Yes, I did."

"I would have remembered."

"No, Jack, you—" Daniel was cut off when Makepeace pushed a triggered the explosives. Two loud pops and the cell doors were open. Blair sneezed at the bitter smell.

"Jim?" he called.

"I'm fine, Chief. Makepeace, report, and keep it safe for little ears."

Blair snorted hard enough to make his nose hurt as he tried to avoid laughing at the murderous expression Jack shot in Jim's direction. Oh yeah, Section had changed their orders, and Jim was not having to play subordinate any more.

Makepeace, however, was all business as he held a P-90 out for Jim. "She's coming to deal with the unforeseen contingency and has an ETA inside an hour. We neutralized two NID agents and two more have retreated from the immediate area. Teal'c is outside the perimeter. Perimeter secure. No injuries." Makepeace didn't identify 'she,' but Blair could pretty much guess. Whatever was going on with the aliens behind door number two, it was enough to bring Nikita out. That wasn't actually a pleasant thought.

"We hold until she comes then," Jim said firmly as he checked his weapon and then accepted a smaller handgun from Makepeace. "Have Tobias give me an aerial of the area, I want all points of access identified as well as Teal'c's current location, but there will be no deadly force." Jim strode out of the cell, and Blair could see him slip into that role of 'colonel.' Blair darted around Sam to get to Jim's side.

"Tobias?!" Jack started coming out of his cell with an expression on his face like he had just bitten into a rotten egg. "It's just like old home week around here--Makepeace, Tobias... did Benedict Arnold come along too?"

Makepeace answered by raising his zat and taking aim. Jack stopped, his eyebrows going up. "Do you plan to graduate from treason to murder?" he asked casually.

Jim stepped to Makepeace's side. "Call Bruhn to take over down here. I want SG1 secure and out of the way until after she leaves." As Makepeace called for the backup, Jim turned to Clark, who ducked her head away from his look. She looked more like a frightened child than a mastermind who had infiltrated Section. "We'll talk upstairs," he told her, and she nodded mutely and turned to head for the stairs.
"So, we aren't invited to your little party?" Jack called. He was leaning against the side of the open cell door.

"You aren't to put foot on the staircase. If you do, either Makepeace or Bruhn will zat you," Jim said quietly.

"I'm sure you'd enjoy that, wouldn't you?" Jack demanded as he stared at Makepeace. Blair almost felt sorry for the man. All the time Jack had given them a hard time, he had never looked at them with the hate that shone through his eyes right now.

"No, Jack, I wouldn't," Makepeace said slowly as though afraid of what words might fall out of his mouth if he wasn't careful. "I've saved your ass often enough for you to know that's a cheap shot."

"That was you saving my ass when you sold us all out?" Jack gave the most annoying and unctuous grin Blair had ever seen. He wanted to punch the man.

"Jack," Makepeace said, emphasizing the colonel's name, and Blair was pretty sure that was an alpha-dog peeing technique... if you couldn't literally pee on someone, just deny them their title. But Makepeace's next words sounded almost wistful or maybe regretful was the better word. "I did what I thought was best for the security of our world."

"By pissing off our allies? Good call, there," Jack nodded in mock agreement. Makepeace went stiff.

"SG3, are they still in the field?" Makepeace asked, and for one second, Blair didn't think Jack was going to answer. Daniel had wrapped his arms around his stomach nervously, and Sam stood next to the open door to her cell, and the tension hung like wet cobwebs over everything. Bruhn appeared at the top of the stairs, but rather than come down, he waited, his eyes scanning the room nervously. The Section group was near the stairs, the SG1 members were still in the cells, and Blair held his breath as something dark and dangerous slid through the room. He so hoped no one started shooting.

"The rest of SG3 is great. A little embarrassed that their commanding officer was a backstabbing traitor, but other than that, good," Jack finally said.

"I never meant—"

"To turn traitor?"

"It's not like you didn't make command decisions that could have gone just as wrong, colonel," Makepeace almost growled, and Jack actually had the decency to look embarrassed. Daniel stepped forward, his arm just brushing against Jack's in some form of silent moral support, and for the first time, Blair could see how much this confrontation truly bothered Jack. Makepeace's eyes darted over to Clark for a second before he turned back to Jack.

"Colonel, don't leave SG3 out of all the diplomatic missions. Let them meet some aliens who aren't out to kill and conquer us. If the only aliens you ever meet are shooting at you..." Makepeace swallowed, "it skews your judgment. I would have followed you to hell, but hell was about the only place I ever followed you to, and that affected my decision-making process. Don't think I'm not still paying for that mistake," he offered.

Clark walked over and put her hand on Makepeace's arm, tilting her head to the side as she considered him. Makepeace almost had a human expression for a fleeting second, and then he backed up a couple of steps and took position next to the stairs with his back to the wall and his military persona back in place. Well shit. Something had sure happened between those two. Blair traded looks with Jim who had on a perfect poker face. Jack just looked shocked.

"Colonel," Jim said, "Makepeace and Tobias are working for an organization that the President has clearly been briefed on. I don't think you have the authority to countermand that. And as a member of my team, Makepeace doesn't have to put up with your shit. Makepeace upstairs," Jim ordered as he turned toward the stairs, "Bruhn," he said as the soldier started down the stairs, "you have permission to zat O'Neill if he even annoys you, and after spending one afternoon with the man, I suspect you may have to zat him a few times."

And then Jim was walking past, and Blair was hurrying after him, frowning at the easy way Jim allowed Clark and Makepeace to follow behind. Behind was where you let your allies walk, not alien enemies that might shoot you in the back. Oh yeah, something had definitely changed.

Jim pushed through into the main floor and headed down a hall without looking to either side. Blair was left trailing behind and feeling so very out of the loop. When Jim turned a corner and pushed through into a small dining room, Blair found himself frozen in the door, unable to move forward or go back.

And that was an alien.

That was not some alien inside a human host, that was an alien type alien. His face looked almost skull-like with a mouth that was too small and eyes that were too large and thick tentacle-like structures hanging from his head down his back where a person would have hair. His waist was impossibly thin, and his body looked emaciated, like the bones might come poking out the mottled brown skin.

Blair's brain took a second to process that before the other evidence started filtering in through the shock. Patches of skin had been burned black, and a purplish-red blood slowly leaked from a half dozen wounds.

"Please," Clark said, her voice desperate and high.

"Help him," Jim immediately said as he pulled Blair to the side so the others could get through the doorway. "Makepeace, find blankets, sheets, pillows. Drag a mattress in here if you can find one. "

"The perimeter," Makepeace objected for a second, but then he glanced over as Clark carefully unwound rope that had been tied so tightly that bits of skin clung to the fibers as she tried to untie her alien friend. Without another word, he nodded and disappeared.

"Chief?" Jim asked.

"Oh yeah, no problem," Blair said as he hurried to help Clark.

He knelt down and started working on the ropes around the alien's feet, flinching every time the alien make a clicking noise that was either a cry of pain or a curse. "Chief, take this," Jim said, and he held down a sidearm.

"I don't—" Blair glanced at Clark who was carefully not looking at them, and suddenly he realized he so could not shoot these people. He had a feeling these two really were the alien version of Ira and Edna Wiezman from Hoboken. A manipulative Ira and Edna who had clearly done some scrambling of memories, but then Blair had met a couple of Iras, and they were pretty manipulative, too. Making his decision, he shook his head no.

Jim sighed. "Chief, we still have NID out there. I'm going to hold perimeter with Knudsen, but if something happens, I need you to hold your own."

Blair glanced at Jim and then made a decision Jim was so going to kill him for. He turned to Clark. "Are you any good with guns? I'm not the best shot in the world."

Rebecca Clark hesitated, looking at him and then at Jim in clear shock. Slowly she shook her head. "My people avoid conflict. All we know how to do is hide. I don't think I could use a tool with the intent to end the life of another sentient being."

"Okay, that leaves me. I'm so not okay with ending a life, but if it's them or me, I can. I think. Maybe." Blair reached out and took the gun from Jim fully expecting the glare of death, but instead Jim just had a look of fond exasperation and a little worry on his face. Blair tucked the gun into his pants and went back to working on the ropes as Jim headed out of the room.

Blair worked in silence for a minute before he could even gather his thoughts enough to ask a half-way intelligent question. "So, you look like this?" Blair asked as he freed one foot and moved to the second.

"Yes. Except that I am female. The genitalia are different." Clark finished untying the hand and laid her palm on the alien's cheek, clicking reassuringly, but even Blair could tell the alien was drifting in and out of awareness.

"Wouldn't he feel more comfortable if you looked like you and not one of us?" Blair asked. "Especially since the goa'uld looked like us."

"You would not be bothered?"

"Oh, I'm freaking, but right now, the NID and the goa'uld and the fact that our boss with questionable morals is coming... that's all freaking me out way more than what you look like."

She nodded, and then in a shimmer, a brown alien to match the prisoner stood there. Just then Makepeace came in through the door dragging a twin mattress. "It's the best I could find," he said as he pulled it to a corner. When he turned, Blair saw the twitch of surprise when he found Clark in alien form, but then he quickly recovered. "Do you need water or blankets?"

"Just to lay him down," Clark said, and it was weird hearing her voice coming out of an alien, especially when Blair still had memories of her as a human, of her training with them in Section. Pushing that weirdness to the side, Blair finished untying the alien's foot and stood up, waiting to see what help Clark needed. She easily picked the alien up and carried him carefully to the mattress.

"I am so sorry I have deceived you both," she said as he knelt on the floor next to the mattress and gently stroked the injured man's limbs.

"Do you have medicine?" Blair asked, totally ignoring the comment. Yeah, he understood being scared and hiding, but a part of him felt totally violated. His brain... his memories... the thing that made him Blair had been invaded and violated and rearranged. And he couldn't even get too upset at the creature who had betrayed him because every instinct told him that she didn't have a cruel or malicious bone in her emaciated body. Manipulative... oh yeah. Makepeace had certainly mellowed a whole lot.

"If I can call for assistance, the others will come and help," she said as she looked up at them, clearly waiting for permission. Blair looked at Makepeace and the man actually looked uncomfortable.

"We need to wait for Nikita," he said unhappily. Clark nodded, the dreadlock-like tentacles bobbing. "I'm sorry," he said. "After what your people have suffered, I wish I could offer some sort of promise."

Clark's hands paused in their task for a moment. "Do not apologize. I have broken many of my people's laws. All of us who came here did. But Wayawayei did not deserve this."

"Oh man, no one deserves this," Blair echoed.

Blair sat on one of the dining room chairs and watched the two aliens and waited and wondered how exactly this was all going to turn out. He wished he understood what exactly had gone on with Makepeace. He wished he knew how Nikita was going to react. Hell, at this point he was just wishing someone would hit him really hard in the head so he developed a convenient case of amnesia.

Chapter 14

"Chief, how is he?" Jim asked as he came in followed by two Section techs who silently started setting up equipment.

"You're asking me?" Blair asked. "Man, I have no clue."

Jim hesitated a second before he turned to Rebecca Clark. "Is he going to be okay?" Jim asked tersely. She nodded and continued her soft strokes across the mottled brown arm. The alien had fallen silent, his huge black eyes closed and Blair could only hope he'd found some peace in sleep, but then he wasn't sure aliens actually slept. He had a weird flash of fantasy: him doing an anthropological comparison and trying to get it published. And his dissertation committee had thought Sentinel studies were off the mainstream. Blair wondered if Daniel ever wrote papers about alien cultures that ended up buried in some top security government warehouse.

Clark spoke softly. "He is injured, but I think he will recover."

Jim nodded and then came and stood next to Blair, his hand finding Blair's shoulder as the techs set up a large screen on the television.

Jurgen and Knudsen came in the door. Knudsen looked about fifteen with his wide eyes flitting everywhere except to the aliens. Blair could almost hear his internal chant of 'don't stare, don't stare, don't stare.' He was guessing that Knudsen would much rather be in the basement with Bruhn and SG1, which was fair since he figured Bruhn and SG1 would rather be up here.

Clare Tobias came in after them and moved to stand near Jurgen while Makepeace had moved to the corner behind the two aliens, apart from everyone else. Nearly the whole dysfunctional team was back together again.

"Jim, what happened to the goa'uld?" Blair whispered.

"Three hits with a zat. Let's see a sarcophagus fix that," Jim said grimly. "That was the mission, Chief."

"And one that I'm weirdly okay with," Blair answered. "Except for the part where the hosts so did not deserve that."

"And I think they're probably grateful anyway. If I were ever taken over..." Jim stopped with a shudder of revulsion, and Blair couldn't help but think he felt the same way. Death had to be better than watching your own hands torture some helpless creature who refused to kill even in self defense. Static from the television crackled and then Nikita's image appeared on the screen. Everyone in the room, including the two nameless Section techs, immediately focused on the screen. Nikita's eyes quickly scanned from one side to the other, and it took Blair just a second to realize the techs had set up cameras and she was actually looking at them.

"Ms. Clark... unless there's another name you'd prefer I call you," Nikita started without introduction. Rebecca looked up, her fingers still caressing her friend.

"Ms. Clark is fine. My name is not significant."

Blair's anthropological brain went into high-gear, but Nikita merely nodded. "Forgive me for not appearing in person, but you apparently compromised several of my men. I thought, however, that we needed to talk. Will your companion survive?"

"I believe so. If I could call for help, the others might be able to help heal him."

Nikita nodded, and one of the techs stepped forward with a normal-looking cell phone. Rebecca entered a number, and then started saying something in that wheezing, clicking language of hers.

"English, please," Nikita interrupted.

Rebecca paused and then nodded. "He's badly injured, and the goa'uld have followed." Blair jumped when the other side of the conversation was suddenly routed through the speakers on the television screen.

"How many goa'uld?" a man's voice asked in a strange accent.

"Several. Humans had to kill to defend me and rescue Wayawayei, and some humans were captured, risking death." Rebecca's voice was full of dark emotion.

There was silence on the other end of the phone for several seconds. "Then we must leave."

"Yes, but Wayawayei," Rebecca's voice was almost pleading.

Nikita interrupted the conversation. "I am Nikita, the leader of the group who has rescued your two people. You are welcome to come here, and we will provide security to the best of our ability."

"You don't know what it is to try and protect us from goa'uld. We should not have come."

"My team has already successfully eliminated the goa'uld on scene."

And that caused another long silence. Blair stood up and stepped forward, suddenly having a good idea about what the problem was. "It is our way to kill those who threaten us, to protect our place, but we don't kill those who are not a threat, tell them that, and tell them they are not to blame for our actions and our choices," Blair said to Nikita. She looked at him and then her eyes darted to the side where Jurgen stood. Whatever Jurgen did to back up Blair, Nikita nodded.

"Another wishes to speak with you," Nikita said. "You can hear him now."

Blair realized they were now on speakerphone with the aliens, which was definitely ranking pretty high on the weird scale. Taking a deep breath, he tried to just pretend that this was one more tribe with their own cultural beliefs, and he just had to explain one culture to another. "We have an instinctive need to protect our own territory and families, but that is not your fault. None of you are to blame for the deaths here. The goa'uld invaded and we acted on our instincts."

Another pause told Blair he was on the right track. "Instincts you would not have acted on had we not come," the man finally said. Nikita leaned forward, her chin resting on her fist as she listened to the conversation with a small frown. "We should not have come."

"But you did, and if you leave, that's your choice, but we hold no ill feelings toward you. I only wish we could have gotten here faster before Wayawayei was hurt so badly." Blair almost choked on the name, but years of practicing tribal titles and words helped him wrap his tongue around it.

"We shall come and retrieve Wayawayei and Uhalahatha and then leave. The goa'uld will know we are no longer here and they shall no longer come to this place."

"You came here for protection," Blair said softly. He looked at Nikita, and she gave him a nod. The problem was he hadn't actually worked with the woman long enough to know for sure if she was saying yes to what he was thinking, and he really, really didn't know if he could trust her.

Rebecca spoke up now. She had put the phone to one side, and so she spoke to the room. "We do not fight, but when the goa'uld destroyed my world, seeking the chemical we use to disguise ourselves, our people fled. Five of us came here thinking that the goa'uld might avoid your planet out of fear of some awesome weapon. We thought our ship might be destroyed just trying to land, but we were willing to risk death."

"But you aren't willing to risk others dying," Blair guessed. Rebecca shook her head.

"It is not our way."

Now Jurgen spoke up, his voice soft as he watched the injured alien. "The goa'uld tortured Wayawayei for the chemical, didn't they?"

Rebecca nodded. "They can only harvest it when we appear to change form. But the xchaalaa is for hiding. To use it for aggression is a great abomination. The ones who did not escape our planet were no doubt tortured, but the goa'uld still seek the chemical, so the captured ones died without compromising their souls, just as Wayawayei would have."

"How much information have you taken from my men's minds?" Nikita interrupted the solemn quiet that had fallen on the room. Rebecca looked over at the screen with a wide-eyed panic.

"Very little... we use the xchaalaa to implant a basic thought and an image, but the host weaves most of the story around the image. We can implant an image easily, and with a deeper connection, with the aalaatchea we can share our own memories with another, but we cannot take actual thoughts. We can only access general information that is in a part of the brain that stores language. I used the xchaalaa on your team to make them think I was Rebecca Clark and I had been with them for many weeks, but each of them filled in the details in their own minds. With Robert, I shared the aalaatchea, showed him my people, the spires of Yee raised to the moonlight, the great art of Ouoluthia painted in chalks across the buildings of Ou, the blue ocean of Uele whose sands turned red with the blood of the dead as my people ran for the Stargate, desperate to escape the slaughter."

"Ma'am," Makepeace said, his eyes still on the floor. "They would rather die than hurt any of us. Wayawayei and Uhalahatha," he nodded toward Rebecca and the injured alien, "are from a particularly strict religious group who believe that to even inadvertently cause a death is a mortal sin."

"No way did they cause any deaths," Blair shook his head.

"The goa'uld," Rebecca protested, "their hosts."

Blair shook his head. "No way. Makepeace, could you have captured the building by only zatting the bad guys and tying them up?"

"Yes," Makepeace agreed. "Those weren't the orders though."

"Exactly. *You* forced us to knock the goa'uld unconscious," Blair pointed out. "We took that one step farther and killed them because that's us and that's our instinct. You didn't cause any deaths."

Rebecca looked almost hopeful at that piece of logic, but there was doubt in her face as well. Maybe Blair could reach the other alien easier. "You do see that the deaths are our responsibility, yes?" Blair asked the screen.

Nikita blinked back at him. "The phone line went dead immediately after his last comment," she said with a hint of a smile.

"Oh."

"I will share my memory of your words with my people, Blair," Rebecca said. "We shall consider your words when weighing our own culpability."

"You have to process it," Jim said with more than a little amusement, and then he reached out and pulled Blair back to his side. "I have a partner who does the same thing, but don't try to blame yourselves for things you didn't directly control."

"I shall share your words as well," Rebecca said. "The others were not far, they should be here soon, and then we can leave." Rebecca looked at the screen. "What is the cost of your help and our freedom?"

Nikita didn't answer right away, but she sat up with a thoughtful expression. Rebecca's eyes slid to the floor. "You have said your instincts are to protect, even at the cost of a life, so we cannot give you the xchaalaa because any deaths you create with it will weigh our souls down. Even if you torture us, we cannot give that."

"I wouldn't ask for it," Nikita said quickly. "I can't guarantee the security of the chemical, and I would feel a lot safer if there was none of this xchaalaa anywhere on Earth. The damage an enemy operative could do..." Nikita shook her head. "We might be able to make another arrangement, though. What sort of communication devices do you use?"

Rebecca tilted her head, but even now her fingers still gently caressed Wayawayei's arm. "Our communications are much more effective."

"We will trade you protection in return for two communication devices."

"That is all?" Rebecca tilted her head at Nikita who simply smiled in return.

"We killed the goa'uld because that's what we do. I have killed hundreds of people who posed a threat to others, and I will kill many more in my time. Counting the number of people I've ordered killed, I suspect your kind would consider me quite a monster, but what I've done here is no great imposition. The price you're paying is only for the rescue and for my protection until you can retreat. Three different political groups are right now seeking you because the deaths of two NID agents has alerted the remains of the UDBA, the Slovenian secret police. They are now hunting you as well. Section operatives are laying false trails to keep them busy, and members of a third group are in the basement right now."

"You will kill them?" For the first time, Rebecca's fingers had stopped their slow movements, and she had pulled back her hands in horror. The injured man now started to softly moan, but Rebecca seemed frozen.

"No," Nikita quickly answered. "They are not a threat. We will keep them in the basement until you are gone so they cannot bother you, but I have given orders to not hurt them. My operatives would allow themselves to be killed before killing them."

Rebecca nodded, and her hands went back to work on Wayawayei. "I have a communication device. The goa'uld must have taken one from Wayawayei , so you probably have it in your possession now but do not recognize it." She reached inside her waistband and pulled out a curved piece of light mauve plastic. Three openings were deeply inset into the top. "Cover this first opening and release a chemical similar to the enzyme L-Pipecolic acid oxidase and a channel will open. You control the channel by sliding your finger back and forth along the hologram that will appear. The second opening closes communication. The third opening sets the device to either recognize incoming signals or ignore them." She held out the device, and before Blair could move, Makepeace had stepped forward and taken it from her. He delivered it to the tech.

Nikita gave her an honest smile. "Thank you. We will escort your people to wherever you need to go. "

Before Rebecca could answer, a new soldier appeared in the doorway. "Ma'am, we have three incoming alien forms without disguise."

"Pull back. Keep all personnel at least fifty feet from them and leave all doors unsecured. Tighten the perimeter."

"Yes, ma'am." The soldier vanished.

"Should we..." Jim stepped up behind Blair, his hand tightening on Blair's shoulder.

Nikita only shrugged. "You're already compromised, colonel. We just need to minimize the contamination."

Blair had about a thousand questions, but then the first alien appeared at the door. Even healthy, their face had the appearance of a skull, maybe because there was no actual nose, only a dark spot and a slit opening above an upper lip that had an almost beak-like point. And the body was truly... well, if Blair wasn't trained to be non-judgmental, he might say disgusting. It just looked too much like a holocaust survivor for him to completely emotionally detach.

Jim's arm slid around to his chest and he was pulled back tightly to Jim's body, and Blair just set aside all their problems in order to seek shelter in Jim's arms right now. A second and third alien came in, and all of them ducked their heads and gave that same aura of sorrow and harmlessness that just didn't fit their almost horror-movie appearance. Surprisingly, Makepeace stepped up.

"I'm sorry. If we could have provided assistance..."

One of the aliens looked at him and tilted his head. "You are the one with whom Uhalahatha shared the aalaatchea," he said in that same accent Blair recognized from the phone. Makepeace nodded. "Then you saw the fall of our world. You know that the goa'uld would not have been stopped and your people would have only died next to mine. Your ways are foreign and... disturbing to us, but you are good people. We would not have wanted you to have left your dead next to our own."

Makepeace stepped back, but Blair could see the need and the confusion still on his face. His fingers twitched, and Blair wondered just how much memory Clark had shared. Had Makepeace become one of them? Seeing just how fundamentally changed Makepeace was, Blair suspected that the aalaatchea came closer to living a memory than just seeing it.

Blair shivered at the idea of even vicariously watching his whole world blasted to ash and his people slaughtered and fleeing while still feeling that bone-deep need to not kill. Blair had always thought of himself as being fairly peaceful, but looking at these creatures, he decided he was pretty much the same throw-back to primitive man he'd once accused Jim of being—all humans were. Hell, look at his work with crime victims... humans dehumanized and destroyed by other humans. Jim must have felt something because his second arm came around Blair and tightened. Blair reached up and wrapped his fingers around Jim's arm and leaned back into the embrace, needing the connection.

The three aliens all crouched near Wayawayei, all their hands going over his form gently, and the utter stillness gave way to soft sighs and shifting as the alien slowly started to wake up. He whispered syllables that sounded almost Native American and one of the others leaned over and cupped his cheek with an emaciated hand before answering in the same tones. And then something shimmered, and Blair was looking at Rebecca kneeling next to an old man with gray hair and sad blue eyes that were only now blinking open. A fat man with heavy jowls struggled to his feet with the help of a woman in a red head-covering and housedress, and a young man who couldn't be over 16 kept his eyes on Rebecca and the old man still laying on the ground.

"Whoa," Blair whispered.

"Yeah, Chief," Jim agreed.

"Ah, since I see no difference, I assume that you have again affected my people's memory," Nikita said through the screen.

The fat man nodded. "Our appearance is disturbing to them, and we would not wish to disturb those who have offered us more than we have any right to ask."

"You didn't ask. I normally do not have a chance to kill goa'uld, but believe me that I sometimes wish I could. If I were not needed here, I would happily join the ranks of fighters."

The man shook his head. "The nox and my people, we are... not affected by a need to defend the flesh. The goa'uld and the jaffa and the unas are ruled by that need. Your people... they confuse us."

"Enlightenment, my friend," Blair breathed softly, and the man turned toward Blair. Jim's arms tightened just a little more, but other than that, Jim didn't seem to have the reaction around these aliens that he'd had around the goa'uld.

"What?"

"Enlightenment, trying to learn to let go of the material, to be one with the universe. Man, a lot of us try, but it isn't easy. Your whole race, though, that's your ethic, isn't it?" Blair could ask about a million questions at this point, but with SG1 downstairs and NID and Teal'c wandering around and this new secret police group out there, he probably didn't have time for any of them.

"It is. It is good to know that you know of enlightenment. I cannot wish you success over the goa'uld, but if you do win, I should be happy to sit with your people and discuss enlightenment," the man said.

"The team will escort you to the ship," Nikita said as Rebecca and the young man helped the injured man to his feet, but the fat one shook his head.

"As long as the goa'uld are gone, we can move much more quickly alone. We will make sure that the goa'uld shuttle records us leaving so you will have no more trouble."

Nikita smiled. "We make our own trouble, even without the goa'uld." She shrugged, and the man looked from her to Blair and back to Nikita in obvious confusion. "However, if you would rather go alone, our debt is paid. I'm sorry our world did not turn out to be the sanctuary you wanted."

"Others sought out other worlds. We will join one of those groups," he said. By that time, the old man was moving stiffly, and they started toward the door. Rebecca stopped and turned to Makepeace.

"I am sorry, Robert. I did not understand that it would hurt a warrior to see our world fall; I only meant for you to understand. I do not comprehend feeling guilt for another's behaviors." Makepeace had gone so stiff that Blair was fairly sure the man would just topple over if someone pushed him.

"Jim's the same way, man," Blair said, distracting her from Makepeace. "They want to make the world better, take out all the evil so those of us who are left can find enlightenment, and when they can't, man, guilt-city."

The fat man considered Blair with a frown as the woman in the house dress and the young man helped the old man out the door. "Your people are unique," he finally announced. Rebecca reached out, one hand brushing against Makepeace's chest before she turned and followed the fat man out the door. Blair breathed a sigh of relief and looked around. Knudsen looked shell-shocked, Jurgen was staring back at him with that same academic curiosity he always had, and Clare was just blinking as if her brain wasn't processing quite quick enough to keep up.

For long minutes, the room was still, even the techs unmoving as someone tracked the aliens' movements. Finally, Nikita's voice interrupted the silence. "They've entered the sewers and are heading north. Two teams will follow at a distance, but they don't have any company from the NID or the UDBA."

"So, is the mission objective a success?" Jim asked.

"Nearly," Nikita said and then the screen went blank. Blair looked up at Jim with a questioning expression.

"She's coming down," Jim said as he turned toward the door, obviously waiting for Nikita to come through.

Great. Aliens, asshole O'Neill, and now Nikita in person. Blair was so looking forward to repressing this whole damn day.

Chapter 15

Jim watched Nikita come through the dining room door with more than a little concern. She smelled of aggression, and he tightened his grip on Blair. Usually Blair would have been objecting with a sharp elbow to Jim's side by now, but instead he was holding onto Jim's arm and pressing back in a way that Jim's body couldn't completely ignore. Glancing at Makepeace, Jim could see the fear in the soldier. He'd been seriously compromised, and he knew it. Jim just had no idea how he or Blair would react if Nikita decided to cancel Makepeace here and now. From the carefully neutral expression, Jim could see that Makepeace had already accepted the possibility and didn't plan to fight.

Nikita gave the techs a signal and they packed the equipment with military precision and speed that any commander would have envied in a tech crew.

Jurgen stepped forward, offering his hand, and when Nikita raised her own, he brought it to his lips. "Nikita, how lovely," he offered, ignoring the well-armed goons that took position on either side of the door after she entered.

"Karl," she said in an honestly warm tone of voice. "Your observations of the goa'uld were invaluable, and I look forward to hearing your conclusions on this new species."

"No way are they enemies to profile," Blair almost snapped, and Jim flinched. Blair could mouth off to O'Neill all he wanted, but Nikita wasn't military, and her behavior wasn't dictated by the military code of conduct, not that O'Neill was particularly good at following it, but at least Jim could trust the man to not murder them.

"Blair," he warned softly.

"Dr. Sandburg," Nikita said as she turned her back on Jurgen and focused on him. "We profile both our friends and our enemies. After all, our friends often do us the most damage, even if it is inadvertent. For example, who knows how much damage Captain Makepeace has sustained by being forced to live memories through an alien perspective?"

Blair started to say something, and Jim tightened his hold until it had to hurt. Blair gave him a death glare, but at least he fell silent. And Makepeace wasn't saying anything.

"Our profilers will need to work with you again, Robert," Nikita suggested as casually as if she had been suggesting tea, but Jim remembered full well what those 'profilers' on base did.

"Yes, ma'am," Makepeace said, his gaze still firmly focused on the far wall.

"But we will give you time to adjust to your new memories before attempting a second profile. The R&R section has orders to house you for two weeks, after which you will be reevaluated for active duty."

Makepeace's gaze flickered, and he gave a little frown that Jim suspected had more to do with surprise than anything else. "Yes, ma'am."

"And if you don't think he can go back on active duty?" Blair demanded, completely ignoring Jim's desperate hold on him, but then Blair rarely listened when he didn't want to.

Nikita held up her hand to stop Jim from answering. "He is a soldier who has signed on to protect the interests of peace. If he can no longer serve that, I will give him a choice. He can either take a quick cancellation, and he will feel no pain or he can serve as the point on a mission with no exit protocol. There are many areas of the world, areas which are involved in developing nuclear and biological weapons. Some of these areas are so secretive and remote that any operative who carries communication equipment in will eventually be caught and killed, but that doesn't mean we can afford to ignore the threat."

"I would rather die on mission, ma'am," Makepeace said calmly, but Jim could smell the tendrils of panic from him. Of course, the smell was nearly overwhelmed by the panic and anger he could smell from Blair.

Nikita nodded. "I made the same choice myself years ago, and I managed to survive, so I thought you might prefer a chance to prove your skills or, at the very least, give your death purpose. I do have a question for you, captain. What is your impression of the NID forces on the ground?"

"Better informed than I had expected based on briefings, ma'am. I killed one as did Bruhn. The two who retreated seemed unusually good at evading Knudsen and Jurgen."

"And Clark," Nikita mused. "Could the alien have informed them of your location in order to prevent bloodshed?" No one answered, and Nikita turned and stared right at Blair. Jim could feel the man stiffen in his arms. "What's your opinion, Dr. Sandburg?"

"No way," Blair shook his head slowly at first, but then his body started generating that manic energy of his. "No fucking way. Helping either side would be an action that led to one side or the other winning, which would mean abetting a killing either way. They felt guilty for not understanding that the goa'uld would follow, so no way would they actually take action in a conflict."

"I concur." Nikita pulled out her sidearm and fired twice. Clair Tobias' body jerked, her arms splaying out to the sides as a large portion of her brains splattered against the wall. Jim instinctively thrust Blair behind his body, his muscles almost aching with a need to grab his own weapon, but the two goons at the door had their weapons already raised. Jurgen made a strangled noise of pain and took one step toward Tobias' fallen body. Only Knudsen looked largely uninterested as he sidestepped to avoid a quickly spreading pool of blood.

"Karl, she was feeding information to the NID. Either you knew and did nothing..." Jurgen shook his head, and Jim tightened his hold on Blair and backed up a step in case of another death. "Accepting that, then you allowed a double agent to use intimacy to cloud your judgment. I may tolerate a certain flexibility that my predecessor did not, but this behavior has consequences. Put him on the transport under guard," Nikita said as she stepped to the side. One of the goons stepped forward and grabbed Jurgen by the arm. Jurgen followed limply, his eyes focused on Tobias' body until he was pulled from the room.

Jim could feel the tremors of shock start running through Blair's body, and he turned to his partner. It took both his hands on Blair's arms to guide the man to a chair and get him to sit. Kneeling down in front of Blair, Jim ignored the rest of the room.

"Chief, come on, just mentally put this aside for another time. When we get home, you can burn sage and play that god-awful drum music and process until your hair falls out," Jim promised desperately. He couldn't have Nikita decide that Blair was too unstable for an operative. He couldn't. He'd die with Blair before he'd leave Blair's body laying in an obscene sprawl next to Tobias. "Come on, Chief, just breathe."

"Is he alright?" Nikita asked, and Jim barely bit off his own sarcastic response.

"He'll be fine, ma'am," he said as he wrapped his arms around Blair. Slowly, Blair's arms came up and slid around Jim's waist, holding on desperately as shivers shook Blair's frame.

"Dr. Sandburg is not particularly well-suited to violence, but he needed to understand the consequences of making a poor decision. I have no doubt that Ms. Tobias believed the NID were better suited to fight the alien incursion, but Section does not accept divided loyalty."

Jim just nodded as he ran his hand in circles on Blair's back, holding him just as tightly as he had held Blair when he'd been drugged and confused. Only this time, Jim didn't get to promise him that he would wake and find out it had all been a dream, a hallucination.

"Makepeace, Bruhn, you may wait at the transport," Nikita said as she dismissed the last two living members of the team. Jim could feel himself stiffen, and Blair's hand fisted his shirt.

"I thought we might speak," Nikita said as she sat in the chair next to Blair. Blair's breathing evened out and he let go of Jim's shirt, silently pushing against Jim's shoulder. Obeying, Jim stood up and left a red-faced and swollen-eyed Sandburg to face Nikita. All Jim could do was leave his hand on his guide's shoulder and mentally plan contingencies to back up whatever came out of Blair's mouth. If he took Nikita out first, the guard would shoot him in the back. Jim didn't think Blair had much of a chance with the guard, but he had even less chance with Nikita. Jim eased to the side so that his body would shield Blair from the guard if this turned ugly.

"You..." Blair swallowed. "You killed her."

"It could be argued that she committed suicide by spying against Section," Nikita argued calmly. "Would you ever turn information on me over to the NID or even SG1?"

Blair was shaking his head before Nikita had even finished. "No way, but that doesn't give you the right."

"No, it doesn't. Girard, wait outside, please." The guard silently retreated, and Jim could feel the itching of danger between his shoulder blades lessen. He couldn't remember the last time they'd been screwed this badly... not unless he went all the way back to the last time Section had taken them.

Nikita sighed and shifted in her chair until she got more comfortable. "Section does dirty things, and I try to keep too much power from gathering because that's not safe, but we are necessary. We are necessary and if our recruits think they can get away with betraying us, the consequences are such that a little abuse of power is excusable."

"The ends justify the means?" Blair almost yelled the words, and then he lost his breath as panic took a hold again. Jim tightened his grip on Blair's shoulder, and Nikita just waited. "Oh man, tyrants have always used that excuse. It's not excuse. You are so headed for hell, lady."

"I very well may be. I try to walk a line, but I know that in the long run I am unlikely to succeed. However, the organization will survive. And as long as we have our reputation and good people like Jurgen and Makepeace can make it to the top with some ethics intact, I think we will continue to do good work."

"Makepeace, you aren't going to cancel him?" Blair looked over in confusion, and Jim could admit he was a little confused himself, he just wasn't as likely to question Nikita about anything, not after seeing her commit cold-blooded murder.

Nikita considered that question for several seconds. "I don't want to. If his psyche is fragmented or too damaged, I may have to, but I will offer him a mission that will make his death worthwhile if it comes down to that. However, that is not what I wished to discuss. As I said before, you have received certain benefits from being under our protection. We have now received certain benefits from your assistance."

"Killing Alex is so not going down as a good think for your side," Blair snorted.

"Then, ignoring that, we prevented your dissertation from being published. We found you a research partner whose work allowed you to take a job with the police department."

"You manipulated our lives," Blair growled.

"Yes, we did," Nikita agreed amicably enough.

Jim's nose was starting to itch with the smell of death that was sinking into the carpet, and in the distance, he could hear O'Neill complaining loudly in the basement. Bruhn had retreated, locking SG1 in the basement. "What's the point of this conversation?" Jim asked as civilly as he could given the circumstances.

"You have earned a choice. We can continue as we have been: you remain on call, we remain vigilant in your protection."

Blair snorted.

"Or we can sever our relationship. Keep in mind that within the community, it will be noticed that Section operatives no longer maintain observation in Cascade. Others may try to recruit you."

"Recruit? Like you did? At gunpoint?" Blair demanded.

"Possibly," Nikita nodded. "We also ended one very poorly designed attack against Naomi Sandburg, so the recruitment may take more creative forms."

"So, stay in your employ or risk having everyone in the covert ops community out to get Jim?" Blair checked. "Manipulative doesn't even cover that."

"I doubt they want Jim as much as you, Dr. Sandburg."

"Me?" Blair squeaked the word, and Jim took a step forward before he could stop himself. He found himself facing the end of Nikita's weapon.

"Yes, you," she informed them as she slowly lowered her weapon while still giving every impression that she would shoot Jim in a second if he did that again. Her hand and the sidearm ended up resting in her lap, the end still pointed at Jim. "You informed Madeline that she had fundamentally misunderstood the function of guides," Nikita told Blair. "She believed you. Section now has dozens of Sentinels on staff and dozens of researchers, all of whom are discovering that your theories of Sentinels are right and the rest of the world, possibly the rest of the universe, is wrong. And Colonel Ellison still outperforms even our best operatives trained with the new systems which we are developing as a result of your dissertation."

"My dissertation? Shit. You're training an army of them." Blair's voice had lost all emotion, and that worried Jim more than anything else.

"Sentinels are never going to be super soldiers," Jim warned Nikita.

"No, but their usefulness on intelligence gathering and rescue missions has been greatly underestimated, and you are so remarkable that the NID and UDBA both took note. Given that your medical records are easily obtained within certain circles, you're clearly not medically different from any other Sentinel. The difference would appear to be Dr. Sandburg."

"I zoned," Jim protested, "that's not particularly remarkable."

"After tracking an impossible target through the rain without your guide. And in close proximity to goa'uld, you maintained control."

"God, you and O'Neill. Why do you talk like Jim needs a babysitter? Man, a guide is for when the unexpected happens or when he needs help. I am so not a babysitter, and Jim so does not need me to function." Blair crossed his arms.

"Exactly." Nikita looked smug. "You two have upended the entire intelligence community, and the focus will be on Dr. Sandburg. More significantly, the Sentinel department predicts that Colonel Ellison will be even more focused and effective after you two have bonded, and that level of control and effectiveness will be unparalleled in the history of Sentinels."

Jim could feel the heat gathering under his hand as Blair blushed, and he found an urge to pull his hand away. He needed Nikita to see them as a united front, even if he never would have the bond he wanted with Blair.

"I don't... I mean..." Blair just stopped.

Nikita nodded. "Profiling predicts that each of you wants the bond but is unwilling to push the topic with the other. Of course, profiling has been spectacularly wrong before when it comes to you two."

"So you want us to give you a lifelong commitment to Section right now?" Jim checked.

Nikita smiled and stood up. "Not even close, colonel. The President requested that Stargate Command have a chance to impress you with their program before you decided."

"What?" Jim frowned at the woman.

"As Dr. Sandburg said, I do constantly run the risk of hell, and so lately I have been trying to maintain a more diplomatic approach to other world powers."

"By giving us away?" Blair demanded. "Would you have given us to the Russians if they asked?!" Jim could hear the edge of hysteria.

"After we had to meet with the Russian President in his bedroom to discuss an issue of international significance, I doubt he would ask," Nikita offered with an unctuous cheerfulness that was really starting to annoy Jim. "However, if the French President had an operation which crossed ours and he found out about Girard or others, I might have made the offer. However, I only agreed to give the Americans access. In a week, you are to be back in your apartment, and then we can discuss whether you want Section's protection, the protection of the American government, or if you choose to operate outside any system."

Jim focused on Nikita. "What does the profiling department say about our chances of surviving as independents?" Jim asked.

Nikita looked at him and then holstered her weapon as she stood up. "They say you have less than a five percent chance of making it. Your best odds would be to run for undeveloped areas such as Peru before Section withdraws protection, in which case you have a nearly ten percent chance of surviving. Section will not chase down your tracking signals, and if you have them surgically removed, we will not show up at the hospital when the security of the chip is breeched. If you run now, I will simply take that as your decision to sever our ties.

However, the American President is under the impression that his flagship team will have at least five days to try and convince you to take employment with them. If you decide to run, I would actually recommend that you take a chance to visit a few worlds. P5C-768, a world called Eudora has an agrarian society that would welcome two strong hands to try and rebuild after a natural disaster. If I ever have a chance to leave my office, I've often considered requesting that the President allow me to retire there."

Jim could smell the truthfulness on her as she nodded her head in their direction and then headed for the door. "You'll be taking transportation with SG1. I'll see you at the loft in a week. If you aren't there, I will determine if it is by your choice and either retrieve you from the President or leave you to your new job. No hidden agenda here," she said, and Jim could see a weariness in her he'd never seen before. With a final nod she was gone, and Jim was left with a shell-shocked guide and a dead body. Oh yeah, and three members of SG1 locked in the basement.

"Well, shit," Blair breathed.

"That'd be one word, Chief. Come on," Jim pulled Blair up and herded him toward the door, trying to stay between Blair and the body.

"Man, the secret-spy industry wants me to train their Sentinels because they've fucked them all up," Blair summarized softly.

Jim snorted. "Two weeks of putting up with your dirty socks, and the Sentinels will be willing to do anything to get you to follow a few simple house rules," Jim said as he tugged Blair toward the basement door.

"We have to choose. Man, I like choosing even less than I like being choiceless. This is... this sucks."

"Big time, Chief," Jim agreed as he kept on moving. He turned the key in the basement door and opened it quickly, stepping back to avoid attack. Sure enough, Jack came bolting out the door and just about rebounced off the wall on the far side of the hall when he didn't find anyone in his way.

Jim held his hands up in surrender. "The house is clear, colonel," Jim offered.

"Yeah, sure, you don't mind if we check, do you?" he asked. Jim just stepped to the side as first Carter and then Daniel followed.

"Aw, crap." Jack was standing at the open door to the dining room, and Jim could hear Blair's heartbeat start speeding again. "Well, I guess that explains the gunshots."

Carter was next to Jack in the door. "Sir, I'm not sure, but that looks like..."

"Clare Tobias," Daniel finished as he stood standing behind the other two.

Jack turned and looked at his other two teammates. "Ya think maybe we're making a nice target of ourselves here? Carter, check upstairs for weapons or hostiles. Danny, you and I have ground floor. So, Ellison," Jack turned and looked at them. "Do you plan to share the weaponry or wait until Teal'c shows up and zats your ass?"

"I need a new word, something more of a pain in the ass than a hemorrhoid," Blair complained. "It's been a bad day, and now you're threatening us. I've been threatened way more than I really like in one day. My annoyance cup runneth over."

"It looks like Tobias' runneth more," Jack pointed out. "So, I'm just wondering what's going on here."

"Fuck." Blair thunked his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. For a second, Jim let his hand rest on Blair's shoulder.

"Our boss seems to have made a deal with your boss," Jim started as he pulled the strap of the P-90 over his head and offered it to O'Neill."

"George? Sweet!"

"George? Oh man, the President got in on this one. I have no idea who George is," Blair said without bothering to open his eyes, and now Jack frowned.

"The President?"

Blair opened his eyes and pushed himself off the wall. "Apparently you guys have five days to impress us with how necessary your work is in an effort to recruit us."

"Recruit you?" Jack snorted. "I hate to break it to you, Squirt, but you wouldn't pass the physical."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. I don't want to pass the physical. I don't want to be recruited. However, as much as I refuse to follow orders, some orders get followed." Blair started for the front door, but he stopped a half step before the dining room door, which still hung open. Jim stepped in front of Blair and pulled the door closed.

"She was still working for the NID," Jim answered the question in Jack's eyes. "Our boss decided to take a personal interest in her retirement."

Blair gave a laugh that turned into a half-sob, and Jim slipped his arm around Blair's shoulders and guided him past a now-silent Jack and Daniel. Jim headed out into the cool dusk night. The steps were wet, but Blair sat anyway, his breathing uneven as the last drizzle caught on his curls and made a maze of waterdrops.

Jim sat next to him, his arm around Blair's shoulders. Wordlessly, Blair leaned into him. Jim wished he had some words, some assurances, but he didn't. Section was the devil they knew, a devil that would allow them to keep some part of their life in Cascade. Stargate Command was the devil they didn't, and even if they were good people, the military implied military politics and control. And going independent? It would mean losing all contact with family and friends, and Jim didn't have a lot of illusions. The world was small, and someone would eventually find them. If all people wanted was a Sentinel, there were other Sentinels in the world, but apparently there was only one Blair Sandburg.

Jim wondered what his life would have been like if O'Neill had chosen him and the military with their limited knowledge of Sentinels had trained his senses into appearing. Would he have fallen for the lie, and lived the rest of his live believing that he couldn't survive without a keeper? Blair had given him so much more than Jim could ever repay, and the man didn't even understand that.

The shoulders under his arm started to shake, and Jim pulled Blair closer. Turning, Blair buried his face in Jim's chest and started to cry. Sometimes Jim wished he could let things go as easily, but the fact is he worried far too much about what others might say if he did. The sun was fading fast, and Blair was still crying when Teal'c appeared out of the shadows.

Jim made eye contact and jerked his head toward the door to let Teal'c know they were inside. For a second, Teal'c hesitated, and Jim could only hope the man wouldn't pull a weapon and order them up. Blair had taken about as many orders as he could without breaking today. Instead Teal'c inclined his head and then climbed the stairs, passing Jim and Blair before he went inside.

Chapter 16

"Colonel, colonel," the general said, greeting both him and Jack as they got off the transport truck. The man was older and almost completely bald, but even with the extra weight he had picked up, Jim could tell he still moved like a soldier. Jim was willing to bet this man had served his time in the field and still knew which end of a rifle to clean. Jim stayed close to the back of the truck as Jack's team tumbled off, unsteady on their feet after the long ride. Blair was the last off.

"Oh man, I have to use a bathroom, now!" Blair snapped as soon as his feet hit ground. The general's eyebrows went up.

"There's one in the guard station," he offered as he pointed, and Blair just about took off running. A guard stiffened, and Jim took a step toward him, but then either the general or O'Neill must have signaled him because he stood down and allowed Blair to go crashing through the narrow door.

"Long ride?" the general asked.

"Yes, sir, longer for having to put up with these two," O'Neill offered. "I'm sorry, did I say that out loud?" he then asked sweetly when the general gave him an unhappy expression.

"Colonel Ellison, I apologize for Colonel O'Neill. He's had a bad week."

"That's fine, sir," Jim answered, only half his attention focused on them as he listed to Blair. The man was cursing softly. "Sandburg isn't feeling well, he may be in there a while."

The general had a really confused expression on his face now. "I'm sure the young man will be fine. I promise you're both safe here, son."

Jim listened to Blair groan in pain as O'Neill and the general traded looks. Blair's cursing got more colorful as his guts finally gave and Jim could smell the diarrhea even from fifty yards away. Sometimes being a Sentinel had disadvantages. A soldier came trotting over double-time.

"Sir," he offered with a sharp salute.

The general returned his salute. "Airman?"

"The guest appears to be sick, sir. Should I call Dr. Frasier?"

Jim listened to Blair softly muttering. "He's upset by the... events of the day. He just needs some time to unwind, sir," Jim suggested. O'Neill gave him a strange look. "And possibly more fiber in his diet."

"Visitors need a check up anyway. Call for the doctor," the general told the airman who gave another salute and turned to double time back to the guard house. "I'm General George Hammond. The President tells me I have a few days to assess your skills and reconsider my position on Sentinels," the general offered a smile.

"Detective James Ellison," Jim said firmly. Hammond and O'Neill exchanged another look.

"Maybe I should check on Blair," Daniel said as he edged toward the guard house.

"I wouldn't without a mask and a can of air freshener," Jim said as he listened to another round of pained groans. Maybe Blair really did need some medical attention.

"Oh." Daniel stopped.

"Oh for cryin' out loud. He's an adult, let him catch up when he's ready," Jack said as he started for the large entrance to the mountain.

"Colonel!" General Hammond called out sharply, and Jim frowned at the subtext between them. O'Neill shrugged as though fully aware of why Hammond was upset and fully not caring.

"Sir, the cafeteria always runs out of green Jell-O first. You know I can't stand the blue," Jack said without stopping. Hammond looked at O'Neill for a second.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Jack," Hammond said as he held out a hand inviting Jim to follow O'Neill's retreating back.

"Never, sir, you know that," O'Neill replied cheerfully. Jim couldn't ever remember having such a casual relationship with his superiors when he was in the service. Simon was the first boss who hadn't inspired secret fantasies about short-sheeting.

"I should let Blair know we're heading down," Jim said as they neared the large cavernous entrance to the mountain.

"Let Danny. He's used to strange and stinky rituals. Not that long ago, I had to rescue him from an Unas cave with a bunch of escapees from the Land of the Lost. There was no word for bathtub in their language. And Danny didn't smell so good himself. Do you remember those lizard guys from Land of the Lost?" O'Neill asked as they headed into the shadow of the entrance.

"The sleestak?" Jim asked. Daniel looked at them for a second and then turned to head for the guard's room where Blair was now creatively cursing three generations of Nikita's family.

"That's it. Carter, why don't you ever know the important stuff like that?" O'Neill asked as they stopped at a guard station.

"I don't know, sir, too much physics homework maybe," she answered as a guard quickly frisked Jim and then offered a visitor's pass. "Or maybe because a show with that implausible of a premise wouldn't have interested me."

"That's what's wrong with you Carter. It's entertainment. You really need to get out more."

"Yes, sir," she answered while making it sound like she was completely disregarding everything he said. Jim watched the changed interplay wondering which was the real O'Neill and which was the act. He was clearly far more relaxed and even playful now, and that sudden change left Jim feeling a little unsettled.

"Sir," a woman hurried up to them. She was tiny with short brown hair and a white doctor's coat, and two men followed after her. "I hear we have a patient."

"Dr. Frasier, this is Colonel Ellison. Colonel Ellison, this is our base doctor." The general turned to her. "Dr. Sandburg is in the guard's station. He's Sentinel Ellison's companion, and he appears to be ill."

"Sir," Jim interrupted. "I don't plan on reactivating my commission, so I think Detective Ellison is a more appropriate title, and the term I use for Blair is 'guide'. Dr. Frasier, nice to meet you. Blair's been under a lot of stress recently, and he seems to be having some intestinal distress."

"Is this normal? Does he have a history of gastrointestinal distress?"

"No, but then he doesn't normally see a woman murdered a few feet away or get traded from one secret agency to another like a baseball card, so his life isn't exactly normal right now," Jim pointed out as he crossed his arms. The woman glanced over at the general before focusing on Jim.

"If you want to wait here, I'll check on him," she offered.

"No can do, doc. Jell-O waits for no man or woman. Sandburg is on his own," O'Neill said cheerfully as he went through a turnstile and headed for the elevators.

"General," the doctor said, and Jim could hear the stress tones in her voice.

"Yes, doctor, I am aware that Jack is pushing the bounds of good manners here. When you can, bring Sandburg down. We're going to debrief in the briefing room and then meet you in the infirmary for a standard set of tests for Ellison." Dr. Frasier looked from one to the other for a second, looking like she might argue the point.

"Yes, sir," she finally said as she hurried toward the bathroom with her two assistants following.

"So, green or red?" O'Neill asked as they all now headed for the elevators. An airman held them open for the group.

"Green or red?" Jim looked at the elevator panel in surprise. There were a lot more levels than he had expected.

"Jell-O?"

"Red, I suppose," Jim answered absent-mindedly. He could hear Blair telling the doctor where she could put her stretcher because he would be just fine once all his guts fell out. Daniel was playing peacemaker as the doc got more and more frustrated.

"Well, at least I won't have more competition for the green," O'Neill shrugged.

"Col—excuse me, Detective Ellision," Hammond corrected himself, and Jim had the pleasure of glaring at a general. "I know some in the Navy and CIA use the term 'guide' to avoid the sexual connotation of 'companion.' Where did you pick up the term?"

"Lee Bracket. Old CIA operative who went rogue," Jim said, most of his mind busy on cataloguing a dizzying range of sounds. Hundreds of machines were all going at once, and something deep in the mountain made the entire complex feel like a bees' hive against his skin. "He tried to blackmail us with stolen Ebola to force me steal a protype airplane."

"Ah, you've had an interesting career. I took some time to read your file, but while I saw you had arrested Mr. Bracket, I admit that I didn't see any report of Ebola," Hammond said in a friendly tone, but Jim could hear the stress tones just under the surface. The sound of Blair's voice had faded, and Jim could barely hear it bouncing off the sides of the elevator shaft.

"I'm sure one of the alphabet soup agencies covered it up," Jim answered shortly.

"So, do you get blackmailed and strongarmed much?" O'Neill asked.

"We haven't had much blackmail recently," Jim said as he wondered how much of that was Section's doing. Certainly, his secret didn't seem to be a very well-kept secret. "I don't think Sandburg's been kidnapped in at least two years, and I've gone a year and a half."

"I can't imagine why. I'd think people would be lined up to spend time with that annoying little shit," O'Neill muttered quietly, so quietly that only Jim heard.

Jim turned to look at the colonel. "Do you mean Sandburg?"

O'Neill just looked at for a minute, and then he nodded. "Yeah. He's an annoying little shit."

Jim shrugged. "You're not a joy yourself, O'Neill." Teal'c's eyebrow went up.

"Colonel, is there a problem?" General Hammond asked as the elevator started to slow.

"No, sir. No problem at all except Sandburg's attitude. Dr. Sandburg is an annoying pain in the nikta."

Jim didn't need a translation of nikta to get the general idea. "With all due respect, colonel, you were disrespectful, rude, and threatening."

"You broke into my hotel room."

"Under orders," Jim reminded the man. "Personally, I would be just as happy to never see you again."

"Colonel," General Hammond cut O'Neill off. "Both colonels, can we please have a little decorum?"

"Decorum? Sir, you should hear what the shrimp called me," O'Neill protested.

"I believe, Colonel O'Neill, that Dr. Sandburg only spoke in defense of Colonel Ellison," Teal'c suggested calmly.

"Detective Ellison," Jim corrected the man.

The general held up his hand. "I understand that everyone got off on the wrong foot. I'm hoping we can make some more favorable impressions in the next couple of days. Detective Ellison, your record in Cascade is impressive. How often does Dr. Sandburg work with you?"

"If you want to know if I need a babysitter, then ask," Jim said as he crossed his arms. Nikita could order him to spend five days here, but he was starting to think he preferred her overt power plays to this constantly shifting conversation where he could feel the undercurrent of anticipation and deceit.

Hammond sighed and then exchanged a knowing glance with O'Neill, the same sort Jim often exchanged with Simon. "Son, I would like to know if your skills are as good as I have been led to believe, and if they are, I would like a chance to offer you a job. If you aren't a hundred percent as good as promised, your senses and instincts will be far more of a liability off-world than an asset. I would just like a chance to decide that for myself."

The doors to the elevator opened, and Jim just stared at the general for a second. Idiotic command structure would have Hammond get out of the elevator first, and Jim wished Blair was here to ignore all the protocols and storm out of the elevator, leaving Jim and everyone else to follow. Instead Jim stood with his arms crossed as he waited for Hammond to make a move.

Finally, the man nodded and got off, O'Neill on his six, and Jim followed. His hearing was oddly distorted, pulled out into long tubes of sound defined by the various corridors of the underground labyrinth. Jim stopped so suddenly that Carter actually ran into his back.

"I'm sorry, sir," she quickly offered, but Jim ignored her.

"I can hear a woman scream two levels up, but I can smell your anticipation, General Hammond. Is this one of your tests?"

Hammond stopped and turned around. "It is," he said without apology.

Jim stared at him for a second, struggling to avoid saying something that would just make this whole situation worse. Finally, he just started walking, passing O'Neill and Hammond. "Then you need to get a better recording. I can hear the background static on that tape," he commented. Jim didn't bother watching them for a reaction, he knew what it would look like. They'd be shocked and impressed and O'Neill might start to do some recalculating of his position, but none of that changed the fact that Jim didn't want to be here.

"We're off to the left next turn," O'Neill offered as they came to an intersection. An armed airman watched with some concern, but Jim ignored him.

"Another test?" Jim asked as he glanced that direction.

"No, just our destination," O'Neill commented, and Jim nodded tightly as he smelled the truth on the man.

"Fine, but my bosses will come for us in about a week. I really wouldn't get in these people's way, colonel, you saw what happened with Tobias," Jim said as he turned left at the intersection. This area wasn't well used, and only the smell of regulation bedding interrupted metal, metal and more metal. He knew what holding cells smelled like.

"Detective Ellison!" Hammond shouted, and Jim realized that he had distantly heard but ignored the man's first two calls. He turned and Hammond was frowning. "What exactly do you think is waiting for you?" Hammond asked.

Jim crossed his arms and considered the general. Teal'c and Carter had vanished, but O'Neill stood next to the general, the two of them providing a united front with the armed airman behind them. Leaning against the wall, Jim considered just how confrontational he wanted this to get.

"Look, I can smell a holding cell as well as the next Sentinel, but I'm tired. I've had a hard week, and lost someone I considered a teammate even if I didn't particularly like her, someone who I should have spotted spying for the NID. So, if you want to lock me up, I'm just going to take the chance to catch up on my sleep. When Sandburg's guts stop trying to fall out, throw him in with me, and then you can explain to our bosses why we don't show up in a week. I'd update my life insurance if I were you."

"Colonel, I never intended to hold you against your will," General Hammond looked almost alarmed now, and Jim found that ironic because he didn't have the energy to fight his way out of a paper sack, so Hammond wasn't exactly in danger.

"Shit," O'Neill cursed, and Hammond spared him a quick look. "We're not the NID. Yes, those are holding rooms, but I've been locked down often enough to know they're not that uncomfortable. We just wanted you somewhere secure when you found out about Sandburg."

"Found out? About Sandburg?" Jim pushed off from the wall and took a step forward. O'Neill and Hammond both edged to the side of the corridor, and now Jim could see the airman had a tranquilizer gun. Jim reached out with his hearing, focusing on the last area where he had heard Blair, and he could still hear Blair, complaining just as loudly as ever as the doctor talked to him about fluids and insisted he needed an IV, and it didn't sound like he was in any physical danger. Why would they want him locked up before they—

Jim glared at the general. "You had one of the airmen give him something," Jim said, his jaw aching as he tried to control a good fury that threatened to come erupting right out his fists.

"Son, he's not in any danger. Sentinels are sometimes a little overly emotional, and on a mission, an injured man is a big enough liability without having a second team member emotionally disabled by the injury."

Jim glared for one more second, and then he headed for the sound of Blair's voice. O'Neill and Hammond moved, but the airman held his ground and brought the tranquilizer gun up. Jim could smell the distress; this wasn't a battle hardened soldier. "If you fire that, I *will* have a bad reaction to the chemicals, and then you're going to have to face my partner," Jim told the airman. "If you think I look like a hardass, wait until my partner rips you apart." Jim wasn't even exaggerating. If Blair found out they were playing these games, the man was going to rip someone a new asshole.

"Stand down," Hammond ordered, and the airman quickly and gratefully moved to the side of the corridor. Jim walked to the junction they had just passed and then spent thirty seconds quickly tracing the echoes and tunnels until he found the one that led to Sandburg. Turning right, he followed one corridor and then angled off to another, ignoring his three shadows as he came to a more crowded area of the base.

He could hear the doctor with the accent clearly now, and from the sounds of it, Blair was still giving her a hard time and getting just as hard of a time right back.

"I'll order them to get the restraints and then you can spend the next five days with the Guiding Light blasting from every television, understand?" she demanded.

"No way. You might be willing to torture me, but that is not only cruel, but you'd have to hear it, too," Blair pointed out.

"I have another office."

"As a doctor, you ethically can't give me anything that I turn down after getting full and completely disclosure. No way do I want any chemicals going through me. I just need to drink some water."

"You had a major gastrointestinal episode. You are not going to 'drink some water' and walk out of here. You'll either lie down like a good little soldier, or I'll give you an injury that's worthy of staying in bed." The doctor sounded about ready to inflict that injury as Jim came through the infirmary door. Blair was sitting up in bed in his shirt and a pair of scrubs for pants.

"Hey, Chief, are you giving the doctor a hard time?" Jim asked. Dr. Frasier looked momentarily stunned to see him, and she retreated to the far side of the bed.

"You could say that. He's about tied with O'Neill for worst patient right now," she agreed.

"Listen, western medicine is not the end-all be-all. My body is just off balance, and meditation and some fresh air will do a lot more good than that crap," Blair said as he gestured toward the IV line stuck in his arm. Jim was just grateful he hadn't pulled it out yet.

"Let her give you something, Chief, it turns out your stomach problems aren't exactly stress related," Jim said as he came to the edge of the bed and sat down. His hand rested on Blair's arm just below the IV line, and Blair frowned at him in confusion. Jim shrugged. "Turns out that O'Neill over there slipped you something nasty in order to see how bat-shit I would go when my guide got sick."

Jim leaned back and watched as the incredulity, the shock, the fear all passed through Blair's face, and then his mood settled on just pure fury. Yeah, the guys at the station had joked about there being a danger zone around him when he was in a bad mood, but no one could clear out the bullpen faster than a furious Sandburg.

"Sir?" Dr. Frasier asked, and she was sounding nearly as pissed.

"Calm down, Frasier. You know you like poking at the new guys anyway. We just gave you an extra reason to poke at Sandburg. Besides, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy." Jack leaned against the doorframe, but Jim could see the stiff tension in his body. O'Neill was still playing a part.

"You asshole. You fucking know that this has been the week from hell, and you know Jim has instinctive needs, and so you just decide to poke them for fucking fun?" Blair demanded.

"Hey, we needed to know if he could handle it," O'Neill shrugged. General Hammond had the good sense to move to the side, and Jim could see the anger really building now.

"Do you kick pregnant women, too? Hey, I know, take a diabetic's medicine away and watch the good times roll. I hear a diabetic coma is real fun."

"Diabetics aren't eligible for combat missions," O'Neill pointed out, and that was not the tactic to take with Blair.

"We don't fucking want a combat mission. We're here because we were ordered to play nice for five days, which is five days too fucking long. Seriously. Get out," Blair snapped.

"Colonel, I think you should leave," Dr. Frasier suggested as she watched the monitors. Jim wasn't too concerned; he'd seen Blair's blood pressure go a whole lot higher. Blair didn't pop often, but when he did, it was a sight to see. Sometimes Jim still fantasized about what Blair might have done to that mob boss who had tried to kill Brother Marcus. The only reason he had stopped Blair from beating the shit out of the man was because Blair would have hated himself the next day. Hell, legally he could have gotten Blair off easy after how they'd all been terrorized in that monastery.

"Oh for cryin' out loud. It was just some laxative."

"That you used to try and drive Jim into an instinctive rage. You walking hemorrhoid." Before Jim could catch him, Blair had grabbed a bedpan and flung it with all his strength at O'Neill. O'Neill darted out of the bedpan's way, but obviously had not anticipated the fact that it had been used. Everyone was still frozen in shock when Blair sent his soiled pants and then the bedside phone following after. O'Neill ended up ducking out of the room and taking refuge in the hallway.

"Okay, that's quite enough of that. One more anything out of you and you really will be restrained," Dr. Frasier said as she stood up and blocked Blair's path to the door and physically yanked a roll of toilet paper out of his hand. Of all the things Blair had thrown, Jim found it a little amusing that Frasier had stopped the toilet paper and not anything else. Blair opened his mouth, but Frasier just jumped in there first. "And I'll leave that mess on the wall and floor of MY infirmary to dry just so you can scrub it clean later if you say so much as one word."

"Chief," Jim said, moving his hand from Blair's arm to his chest. "Calm down and just let the doc give you something. I think you made your point with O'Neill."

"Oh man, he's an arrogant son-of -a-bitch," Blair said, and the fury had already faded, and Jim could feel the emotional fatigue starting to gather.

"He is," Dr. Frasier agreed, "but he's good at his job. And while I haven't worked with many Sentinels, my specialty is rare and exotic disease and disorders, so I have worked with them. Most Sentinels would have violently reacted to the thought that someone had attacked the companion. I've never known a Sentinel stable enough to take a frontline position, so Colonel O'Neill does have cause for concern even if his way of testing that concern is medically and ethically unforgivable."

Jim shrugged. "Blair's pretty good at taking care of himself. He doesn't need me to fight his battles," Jim commented as he listened to the conversation in the hallway. O'Neill was taking Blair's creative attack a lot better than Jim expected. Oh, he was cursing Blair's name up one way and down the other, but he wasn't actually angry. Hammond... he was a little less amused. It seemed that Jim had proven his emotional stability, and Blair had put his in question. Tomorrow Blair would have to decide if that was a bridge that he wanted to repair.

"Suddenly, all I want to do is sleep," Blair complained softly. Jim gave the doc a wry grin as he smelled the light sedative in the drip.

"Sleep is the best healer right now. You're exhausted more than anything, so just let yourself sleep," Frasier suggested. "Colonel Ellison, would you like the orderlies to pull a second bed up close? You look about as run over as Dr. Sandburg does."

"Yeah," Jim agreed, that'd be good.

The doctor nodded and headed off to find someone who could move the bed. Jim could have moved it himself, but the doctor was right, he felt about as run down as Blair looked. Blair's mouth was already hanging open in sleep, and Jim swung his legs up and just perched his body on the edge of Blair's bed, just to rest for a second before Dr. Frasier got him a bed ready. Just for a second.

Chapter 17

Blair woke in the middle of the night, his arm dead and his fingers tingling from Jim's weight. "Shove over," Blair whispered, trying not to bring the nurse over. Thank god the IV was out, and he really didn't need more medical attention. "Jim, man, you're killing my arm," Blair complained as he pushed at his partner's shoulder. Someone had pushed a second bed up and connected it because Jim was asleep right on the crack where the two beds med, right on top of Blair's arm. "Jim!" Blair said a little louder, shoving him again.

Jim grumbled and rolled in his sleep so his back was to Blair, and at least now Blair could rescue his arm. With the circulation returned, the pins and needles were even more painful and he rubbed his arm. Jim gave a heavy sigh and then rolled back toward Blair, reaching out and pulling Blair close. "Big Bad Ranger Snuggler," Blair whispered affectionately as he curled up into Jim's chest and closed his eyes. Let Jim get squashed and wake up with pins and needles if that's what he wanted.

When Blair woke up again, Jim was gone and he was sprawled across the double hospital bed.

"Well, how's my shit-flinging patient this morning?" a cheerful voice asked. Blair blinked one eye open just far enough to see the short doctor smiling at him way too brightly for safety. He checked her hands for needles or other sharp instruments.

"I don't know. What do you have planned?" Blair asked as he rolled to his back and sat up.

"After last night's performance, I'll even give you one day's clemency for being an ass yourself."

Blair smiled as he remembered Jack's face when the line of watery shit had neatly splashed across his shirt. "He deserved it."

"Oh honey, more than you know. Now normally I'd think flinging your poop was rather primitive, but we're all trained to make use of the weapons we have."

Blair looked around. An orderly or nurse was going through a cabinet full of bottles and boxes and a soldier stood at attention just inside the door, but no Jim. "Where's Jim?"

"He decided to follow his nose to the cafeteria. By the time the trays get up here, they're cold, and he thought he'd have time for a hot breakfast before you woke up. I guess you surprised all of us by waking up early. How does the stomach feel?" And then Frasier was poking and prodding and pressing down hard enough on Blair stomach that he came seriously close to peeing on her.

"Whoa, hey, unless you want more of my bodily fluids on your floor, give me a second to go to pee," Blair grabbed at her wrist. She raised an eyebrow at him before stepping back.

"Since you're going anyway, I'll let you fill this up for me," she said as she pulled a plastic cup off a tray and held it out for him.

"If I fill that, do you promise to not stick any more needles in me?" Blair asked suspiciously.

"Not even a chance in hell," she said with a bright smile as she handed him the cup. "Bathroom's right through that door." She gestured to the side before she turned and walked away, her heels clicking on the tile.

Blair knew when he'd been beat, so he padded barefoot across the cold floor and filled the cup before finishing. After two days of not shaving, his beard was coming in pretty good and his hair was greasy and hung in limp clumps.

"Any chance I could get a razor and some soap for a shower?" Blair called from the door of the bathroom. If he got in the bed again, no way would Frasier let him out until she had poked and prodded to her heart's content and he really wanted a shower.

"Will you be a good little patient then?" Frasier rolled her chair to the edge of her office and looked at him.

"I promise not to fling any more poop."

She laughed. Standing up, she grabbed a small plastic bin from a shelf and brought it over. When Blair saw the soap and shampoo and razor, he could have kissed the woman. "Thank you," Blair said seriously as he traded the bin for the cup of pee.

"You're welcome. Besides, the rest of us will appreciate you showering too," Frasier said with a nod toward Blair's hospital bed. Blair looked over and the orderly was already stripping it, but the white sheets were definitely gray. Blair wasn't surprised because he felt gray... gray and washed out. But hopefully washing up would make the world suck a little less.

After a long hot shower and a shave, Blair felt human, but not exactly better. Option A was Section with their very bad habit of taking people out and shooting them when they got to be too much trouble. Option B was SGC, and the only nice thing Blair could say about them was that their induction rituals were actually less painful than Section's had been. Blair still trembled at the memory of that room where Madeline had 'profiled' his reactions to pain and questioning. The fact that Makepeace had to go back through that made Blair actually feel sorry for the man. And option C was the big unknown. Blair wished he could believe that Nikita had lied when she said they probably wouldn't survive going independent, but she hadn't. He knew it and Jim knew it. And Blair really wasn't into dying.

Well, he couldn't hide in the bathroom forever. Blair came out and found Jim sitting in a chair with a magazine draped over one knee and a cup of coffee in hand. Now two soldiers stood inside the door, each with matching blank expressions, but Blair could guess what their orders were.

"You look comfortable," Blair commented, ignoring the guard. Jim also looked military issue. He had on the same black t-shirt and military green pants that everyone else had on. It bothered Blair enough that he made a mental note to meditate on it later.

"I'm not. Their laundry uses cheap soap," Jim commented, and Blair immediately dropped his towel and went over to Jim. Pulling up the arm of the shirt, Blair checked the skin underneath and found the skin slightly red, but not enough to quality as a rash.

"Oh man, we've got—"

"Chief, don't," Jim said quietly. "O'Neill and Jackson are coming, and the last thing I want is to reinforce this idea they have that Sentinels are helpless." Jim's jaw was twitching, the bulge popping until Blair imagined he could almost hear the molars groan in protest.

"Fine," he whispered as he heard footsteps, but if it turns into a rash, we're complaining." Blair stepped back and spoke in a louder tone. "Oh man, tell me you got me some coffee. I am dying from caffeine withdrawal here."

"On the counter. I picked up a couple of pieces of fruit since algae wasn't on the menu."

Blair headed over to the table next to the bed they'd slept in and found a huge mug of coffee, an apple, a banana and a huge muffin. Grabbing the coffee and the muffin, Blair announced, "I love you, you know this, right?"

"Yeah, Chief, you'd follow anyone home if they had food."

"No way, I followed Iris and there was no food involved."

"So, you're saying a promise of cheap sex is enough for you?" Jim asked with some amusement.

Blair glared, fairly sure Jim was intentionally poking that sore spot. "I don't know, are you offering me cheap sex?"

"Nope," Jim shrugged and took a drink of coffee. He had that smug look on his face, and Blair could practically read his mind. Jim was offering more than cheap sex, but of course, Blair still worried about why Jim was offering sex. Blair sighed and stuffed half the muffin in his mouth to just avoid the conversation. The answer to this dilemma was fairly simple, he was going to sleep with Jim even if all Jim wanted was a way to better control the senses. Some was better than none, and right now, Blair wanted as much of Jim as he could have.

"Is the coast clear?" Daniel asked from the door.

"He doesn't have any more pans of shit, if that's what you're asking," Jim answered for him since Blair still had his mouth full.

Daniel coughed suspiciously and then came in. "I heard about that. I'm sorry I missed the..." Daniel paused and Jack came in the door behind him.

"Careful Danny, you never know when you're going to find your stash replaced with decaf again." Jack walked in and poked his thumb, which was enough to make the two guards leave.

Daniel gave Jack a dirty look, but didn't seem particularly threatened. Blair swallowed and pinned Jack with a nasty glare, one that Jack returned.

"Change shirts?" Blair asked sweetly. Jack's eyes narrowed more.

"And here I thought the Sentinel would be the one with attitude."

Jim gave a wry laugh. "You seem to have some strange assumptions, colonel."

"That's just it," Daniel hurried to say as he stepped closer. "We're all making a lot of assumptions here, and we don't really know much about each other. How much can we really learn from reading each other's files?"

"Quite a lot," Jack interrupted. "Like Colonel Ellison was a captain two weeks ago. Whose butt did you kiss for that promotion?"

"Don't even start—" Blair snapped as he got ready to throw something at the man and really wished he had another bedpan.

Jim stood up and held out his hand. "Chief," he said quietly. It almost killed Blair, but he crossed his arms and settled for glaring as Jim put his coffee down slowly and carefully. "Colonel O'Neill, since I got here, you have lied, manipulated, and poisoned my partner."

"It was laxative. Laxative, not arsenic," Jack argued, and Jim totally ignored the man.

"You threatened to put me in lock-up and made assumptions about not only my abilities but about self-control. You have gone out of your way to belittle me and Sandburg, and my bosses arranged with the President for me to have a rank that would at least give me some protection from bullies like you."

"Hey!" Jack snapped, and Daniel's hand was there on Jack's arm. Blair watched in amusement as those two had their own staring contest for a second.

Daniel looked back at them first. "Jack may have been a little off base..."

"A little?" Blair demanded, but Jim just had his arms crossed as he stared at them.

"A little," Daniel repeated firmly. "He certainly has been showing you the same courtesy he normally reserves for visiting goa'uld and Russians."

"Hey, I resemble that remark," Jack said with a roll of his eyes. "Okay, let's lay the cards out here. I don't trust you two, and I don't know why the President wants you on the team. More than that, if your boss really is who I think he is, I don't know why Section would let you be here."

Blair looked at Jim with some alarm, but Jim seemed to take it all in calmly.

"Your intel is old. My boss is not who you think," Jim said as he gave one of those thoughtful frowns that Blair had so much trouble interpreting. He might be calculating the odds of decking Jack or just considering how much to tell Jack, who knew.

"But your boss is Section," Jack prodded. Jim nodded. "Okay, see, that would be why I don't trust you. You work for a shadow government. Tell me you aren't trying to get in here to spy on us."

"Whoa, why would we spy? Man, Section so does not need us to spy because as you already pointed out, they have your files. They have your files and they are backing your play. They ordered us to protect your position," Blair said as he poked his finger in Jack's direction. Jim came over and draped an arm over Blair's shoulders.

"The Israelis are usually on our side, and they've spied on us more than anyone," Jack almost yelled back.

"And this is completely off track," Daniel inserted as he again put his hand on Jack's arm. "Jack, just lay out what your concerns are and let's deal with them."

"Fine," Jack said, his jaw about as tight as Jim's. "Why would Section let you come here?"

Jim glanced down at Blair, but Blair had no idea what to say. All he knew was that he so did not want to end up like Tobias, but he didn't really understand where the line was. How much of Section was common knowledge, and what piece of information would get him a bullet in the back of the head? He stared back at Jim and could feel his heart start to pound faster. Jim's arm tightened on his shoulders, and Blair just leaned into that touch. "Because the President requested it," Jim answered simply.

"And Section takes orders from the President? See, I have a problem believing that," Jack said as he took a step back and leaned against the wall. "The Section I know was the wrench in the works any time they happened to cross purposes with a US mission."

Daniel looked at Jack with a frown. "Okay, Jack, can you give those of us without black ops training a primer here? I don't even know what we're dealing with."

Jack stared at Jim, and Daniel looked from one to the other before his gaze finally fell on Blair. Blair held both his hands up. "Don't look at me. I'm just so along for the ride and doing what Jim says when it comes to Section. I just know they're not nice people, but the times we've worked for them, they're going up against even less nice of people."

"They're black ops, a shadow government created to fight terrorism, but it grew out of the control of any one world power," Jim said shortly. "My Ranger unit was taken down by a Section team, and our rescue target disappeared."

Jack made a noise that drew Daniel's attention. "Most black ops soldiers have heard of them. They're ruthless. If you know a piece of information they want, they will get it out of you. There are stories of Section operatives taking out entire units. They're the boogey men of intelligence work."

"And you work for them?" Daniel asked as he looked at Blair in confusion.

"Man, I try to repress that thought any time it pops its head up," Blair sighed as he realized he did work for them. Shit, this was so not good for his karma, and he really disliked the fact that he was starting to see why Jack was so on edge. Of course, he wasn't sorry he'd flung runny shit at the man, but he could at least understand him. He didn't know whether to trust himself at this point.

"And now we have our very own Section operatives in the middle of the most secure base in North America. And the President seems to be under the impression that you're up for grabs, but then the President was never black ops," Jack pointed out. "Are you prepared to turn against Section?"

"No," Jim immediately answered, and Jack threw up his arm in a clear 'you see?' gesture directed at Daniel.

Daniel at least tried for calm even though Blair could see he was getting frustrated as well. "Okay, I'm obviously not understanding something. If you won't turn your back on Section, why would the President tell us that you were available and that he wanted us to try and recruit you?"

"Man, if that's your recruitment speech, I so don't want to be around when you decide you don't like someone," Blair said with a snort.

"I don't like you, Squirt," Jack immediately shot back, and Daniel glared at him. Jack put up a hand in surrender. "Fine, talk to the Section operatives all you want Danny, but I'm not about to let my guard down." Daniel kept glaring, and Jack sighed. "Look, Ellison, if you and Sandburg need help to get away from them, I'm going to be the first to step up to the plate. You have a good record, and some of the shit the service has thrown your way... you didn't deserve it. But you can't tell us that your loyalties are still with Section and not expect some suspicion on our part."

"I won't turn on Section, and you don't want me to," Jim said quietly. You're right that they're dangerous, and you don't want them wondering just how much you know."

"I'm a big boy. I can take care of myself," Jack said, and suddenly the man looked a lot more interested in what Jim was saying.

Jim just shook his head. "Not without authorization. Get the President to talk to our boss, and I will happily tell you whatever you want, but short of that, you aren't getting anything."

Daniel was biting his lip as he looked from one to the other, and Blair could admit to feeling a little panic here, himself. They were finally communicating, but the communication didn't actually seem to be improving anything.

"Okay, let's just focus on the now," Blair suggested. "Right now, we're here because our boss gave us an out."

"Working for us and spy on us," Jack said as he again crossed his arms.

Jim took a step forward so that he was between Blair and that glare and Blair had a nice view of Jim's black t-shirt. "Our boss offered to cut all ties. We can take you up on a job offer or try to run the gauntlet of intelligence services on our own."

"He's pulling security off you?" Jack asked.

"If we want, yes. If we don't, then we're in by our own choice."

"Instead of being in at the point of a gun," Jack guessed. The room went silent, and Jim slid back to Blair's side, again draping an arm over Blair's shoulders. "Your boss is a woman." Jack's statement, dropped into the middle of the silence made Blair jerk in surprise, and Jack nodded thoughtfully. "I thought you two were trying a little too hard to avoid pronouns. So, did that profiler take over?"

"I won't comment on Section policy or politics," Jim said firmly, and Jack pinned Blair with a hard look. Blair just stared back until Jack finally gave up, rubbing his face tiredly with a hand.

"You two are pains in the ass. Have you ever met a rule or regulation you didn't break?" he asked with a sort of weary admiration.

Jim gave a dark laugh. "I think with the throwing shit at a commanding officer, Sandburg pretty much finished our goal of breaking every rule in the book."

Blair was surprised to see Jack actually grin at that. "Didn't see that one coming, you betcha," he said ruefully. "Usually Danny just glares when I push too far. But I'm not seeing a logical solution here. I won't have men in my command who I can't trust."

"Man, when did you get the impression we wanted to be here?" Blair demanded. "Look, our boss ordered us to come here and play nice for five days because she's trying to play nice with the President. That doesn't mean we want to be recruited."

"You'd rather work for Section?" Jack demanded. Blair stopped, his brain not quite able to grasp the idea that the choices really did seem to be Section or Stargate Command. Cascade and their nice boring lives chasing serial killers never seemed so far away. Jim's arm around him tightened.

"Sir," Jim said carefully, and Blair could hear just how badly Jim wanted to go off in that one word. "We want to go back to Cascade and go back to our lives. Maybe we should just keep working for Section because at least that way we could pretend to have something normal between missions. If you have a secure room with more features than the cells on the lower level, I'd appreciate it, but at this point, I’m thinking maybe Sandburg and I should just spend the next four days in lockup. Give us a ride back to Cascade at the end of the week, and everyone is happy."

Blair wasn't happy. He could feel the tightness in his chest, the same panic he'd felt when the Section helicopter had landed next to them and Michael had jumped out. Blair had been sitting on the ground holding Jim's head, not knowing if the Sentinel was dying from the drugs Section had used. He had known their run was over and Section had won, and he had that same feeling of panic now. Section won. Maybe that's what all this was, some elaborate op to prove to them that even when there appeared to be an escape, that Section would always own them.

"Blair?" Jim asked.

"Is he okay?" Daniel's voice sounded funny.

"He's fine," Jim almost snapped at them.

"Just get the fuck out, okay?" Blair said as he looked up at Jack and Daniel. They both had concerned expressions, and Blair could feel the heat in his face. Yeah, Jim wasn't the one with control issues because Blair was dangerously close to breaking. "Just get the fuck out. Don't you get it? You don't have any more choice in this than we do. Section is using you like fucking pawns, and congratulations for playing their game, but just fuck off while we deal with the fact that we are exactly what you're accusing us of being. We're Section operatives and we always will be." Blair ended up yelling before he knew it, and Jack reached out and yanked Daniel back away.

"Look, Sandburg," Jack said.

"He's right." Jim's arms came around Blair's shoulders and pulled him close. "You won't trust us unless we turn on Section, Section won't let us live if we do. This is a game, colonel, a game designed to teach us all our place, and I think we all understand exactly where our places are."

Daniel started shaking his head like he was going to argue, but Jack pulled him close as he backed up toward the door. "If that's the way you want to play it, Colonel Ellison," Jack said. "There's a room ready one level up, if you'd like to follow the airman," Jack said as he stood in the open doorway and held his hand out in an invitation.

Blair crossed his arms, suddenly very aware of the fact that he was standing in scrubs, no shirt, no shoes and wet hair. Jim stared at the door for a second before reaching down and stripping off his shirt. "Here, Chief, you're already on the verge of getting sick." Jim started for the door, leaving Blair standing there just clinging to Jim's shirt.

"Aw, for pete's sake, we aren't monsters, Ellison. Danny, get Sandburg a shirt and some slippers or something," Jack sighed, and Daniel hurried over to a cabinet near the bathroom door.

"What size?" Daniel asked, and Blair could hear him struggle to still sound friendly, but Blair wasn't sure if the man was pissed at Jack or them.

"A medium's fine," Blair said as he handed Jim's shirt back. Jim slipped it back on and tucked it into his pants silently. Just as Daniel pulled out a shirt, Jim headed for the cabinet himself, and Blair froze as Jack suddenly had his sidearm out and pointed. Jim stopped without even turning around and put his hands up.

"I’m just getting him pants, colonel."

"Danny, get back here," Jack ordered, and Blair watched as Daniel detoured around Jim, who stood with his hands raised and his back turned. "You're good, Ellison. I've never seen a Sentinel half as good. I'm just sorry you put your loyalties in the wrong place."

Jim slowly lowered his hands and headed for the cabinet where he pulled out pants and underwear from the various shelves. "I don't give a rat's ass what you think of me, Colonel O'Neill," Jim said firmly as he returned and handed Blair the rest of the clothes. "You can change in the bathroom, Chief. We'll wait for you." Jim deliberately sat on the edge of the bed and crossed his arms as he watched Jack and Daniel with all the emotion of a dead fish.

Chapter 18

Blair walked into the room and looked around in surprise. A big king-sized bed and a television and a table with four chairs wasn't what he was expecting. He had thought they would get escorted to something a little more military... something done in a nice shade of olive green and bunk beds.

"Pick up the phone and whoever is on duty will give you meal schedules and options," Jack said, and then he closed the door and even Blair could hear the heavy lock slide into place. Walking over, he sat on the bed and collapsed back so he had a nice view of a concrete ceiling. "This is another fine mess," Blair said glumly.

"That I've gotten you into?" Jim asked as he came and sat next to him on the bed.

"Oh man, don't go there. I think we both know who's to blame, and I hope she takes that trip to hell faster than I predicted."

"Chief," Jim said in a warning tone.

Blair rolled his head to the side and looked at Jim. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Man, I'm not about to give these assholes squat, especially since it looks like we're still on Section's leashes." Blair reached down and scratched his chest right over where he knew the tracker was planted. They were literally on leashes. Yeah, a good surgeon could get the leash out, but Section would come down on them before the operation was over, Blair had no doubt of that now. And even if they did manage to slip the leash, who was waiting in the wings to snatch them up?

Jim's hand rested on his, stopping him from scratching. "Chief, we can still try to run for it."

Blair snorted. "Do you really think we'll make it?"

"No," Jim said quietly and honestly. Blair nodded. Sometimes he wished Jim would lie.

"You could," Blair said softly, and he could feel the pain as deep as any gunshot wound, but he knew he was right.

"What?" Jim frowned down at him, but Blair focused his gaze on the ceiling.

"You're a Sentinel, but medical records show you're a medically average Sentinel, so no one is going to be chasing you. You heard her, people think I'm the one who's different, so they'll come after me. We aren't bonded, so you can--." Blair waved a hand in a gesture that could have meant anything, but Jim obviously understood him anyway.

"You want me to leave you behind," Jim said, and Blair knew that tone of voice. The man was going to get stubborn.

Blair shook his head. "No, I want you to stay in Cascade. It's your home, man. I always did wander the earth, so it's not such a big deal for me to end up somewhere else."

"In some prison with a king sized bed and television?" Jim asked harshly.

Blair looked around the room and imagined himself locked in some room exactly like it for the rest of his life. They'd take him out, have him work with Sentinels who weren't Jim and then at the end of the day bring him back to a room that looked like this one. If he was lucky it'd look like this one. Maybe Section would pick him up when he tried to run without Jim. He could spend the rest of his life staring at stark white corridors and working to earn enough privileges to have a television in his room. "I always told my students to take a guess on a multiple choice exam. Even if you only had a fifty-fifty chance, that's better than zero," Blair said slowly.

"Chief?" Jim's hand moved up to his cheek, and Blair angrily wiped at his tears.

"Fifty-fifty shot at one of us getting out of this. It's better than zero. Man, I would just rather know you're free of this than have both of us doing this forever," Blair whispered.

"Blair, just hold on a second." Jim stood up and grabbed a chair that he put right under the camera with the blinking red light.

"If you have once ounce of respect, you'll give us some privacy," Jim sad as he stood on the chair and looked right into the lens. Blair chuckled at the view some tech had of Jim's eye... just Jim's eye filling the whole screen. The red light kept right on blinking, and Jim reached up and slammed the side of the camera with his hand once, twice, three times. Blair heard a sharp crack, and then Jim hit it again and again until the camera peered at the room through a drunken angle. Locking his fingers, Jim held onto the camera and let his entire weight drop. With a loud crash, the camera broke off and shattered on the concrete floor. Raw wires dangled from a pipe and Jim wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Coming over, he sat on the bed next to Blair and started carding his fingers through Blair's curls.

"You know O'Neill is going to come running," Blair said.

"Maybe. Maybe he has the decency to recognize that none of us are in this situation because we want to be. Blair, this isn't how I wanted our first time, but I do want to bond."

Blair nodded. He knew Jim wanted to bond. "I know, but if you find someone else, someone who isn't a liability," Blair started, and Jim's hand was covering his mouth.

"Listen you little idiot. I want to bond with you. I want you in my life, not some random person who just happens to be attracted to me. If you don't want this... if you're afraid of making a commitment that big and you'd rather take your chances running..." Jim swallowed heavily, and his Adam's apple bobbed in time with the throbbing in his jaw. "If that's what you *want* then you tell me that you don't want me enough to make a commitment, that you're afraid of settling down, and I'll accept that." Jim moved his hand and sat back.

"You think--." Blair stopped, unable to even start processing that. "You think I don't want to make a commitment to you? What were the last four years then?" Blair demanded.

"Friendship. Isn't that what you told me, that it was about friendship?" Jim asked. "Blair, I know you're attracted to me, but I also know that you stopped smelling of attraction the minute you found out a bond is sexual. If you're more afraid of commitment than you are attracted to me, I can live with that. That doesn't mean you have to leave. We're still in this together," Jim said so seriously that Blair could only blink at the man in shock, his brain obviously not keeping up with this new turn of events.

Jim must have taken his silence for an answer because he stood up and started pacing. "If you want to split up, Stargate Command might be the best place for you. You could give O'Neill a full briefing on the condition that you live off-world and train Sentinels there, but Chief..." Jim just stopped, and Blair almost threw himself off the bed and tried to catch Jim as the man slowly sank to the ground. Instead they both sank to the concrete floor.

"Jim!"

"I'm fine," he said, his face emotionless, but his hands trembled where they rested on his own knees.

"Oh man, you're freaking me out here. I don't want to leave you. I'll bond if that's what you want," Blair promised him as he knelt on the floor next to Jim.

Slowly Jim turned his head to look at him. "You don't smell of desire, Chief. You smell like fear. Do you really think I'd rape you just to get what I wanted?"

"What? No, no way. I know you wouldn't," Blair immediately reassured Jim, and then he tried to sort out his own feelings. Was he afraid? Oh hell yeah, of more things than he could shake a stick at, and most of them scared Jim, too. But that wasn't what Jim meant, and Blair knew it. "I'm afraid you don't really want me, that you just want a way to get better control of the senses, and I swear man, if you just get started, I'll be right there with you. Consider this just a roadblock, a mental roadblock which I am so working on," Blair said, hoping that Jim could feel the truth of his words.

"Chief, why wouldn't I want you?" Jim asked as he raised his hand and again used his thumb to brush away tears. Blair fought down an urge to scrub his face.

"Oh man, I'm so not your type. Carolyn could kick my ass. Hell, every girlfriend or boyfriend you've ever had could use me as a mop and toss me out with the garbage. I'm more the kind who cries and throws runny shit at people when life goes wrong."

Jim chuckled, and that wasn't the reaction Blair had been expecting. Blair frowned. And then Jim's chuckle turned into a laugh. "God, Chief, is that how you see yourself?"

"Man, that's how I am in case you haven't looked lately."

"Chief, do you remember the first time your mother came to stay with us?"

"What?" Blair was feeling a little like he had just fallen down a rabbit hole.

"Your mother, Naomi—the annoying but stunningly beautiful woman."

"That's my mom," Blair said as he aimed a punch at Jim's arm. Jim caught the punch and stood up, pulling Blair up with him.

"Yeah, and I begged you to send her to a hotel. I offered to pay for the hotel. I ordered you to not let her stay with us at the loft. Where did she stay?"

Blair frowned at Jim. Okay, if Jim wanted to go over old fights, this was a strange place to start. "Man, it wasn't that big of a deal. It was only three days."

"Three days of her staying at the loft, rearranging my furniture, burning sage, and telling me 'I hear that.' And that case we were working at the time... I begged you to go undercover. I even went to Simon and got Simon to try and talk you into it."

"And I did. Man, I thought I was going to piss my pants when we stole the Rolls Royce and you weren't in the fucking car. Shit, I thought they had nailed us. And when the guy showed up at the loft...?" Blair whistled at that thought.

"That's funny, Chief. The way I remember it, you put your foot down and refused to go. Simon and I struck out and you only went undercover because your mom ordered you not to," Jim said, and Blair frowned as he realized that was true. Man, he had never been so embarrassed.

"When we started, you remember Simon's rule? Observers stayed behind the yellow tape. Simon went from 'keep him off crime scenes'," Jim said in a fairly good impression of their captain, "to 'have the scene cleared before you let Sandburg out of the truck' to 'for God's sake, Jim, get the kid a bullet proof vest.'" Jim crossed his arms and looked at Blair significantly.

Okay, Blair remembered that. "Hey, Simon was just spouting department policy, but with your senses, it didn't make sense to follow rules written for actual observers, who are, for the most part, kids that want to grow up to be cops."

"Uh huh," Jim said as he sat on the chair he'd just used to break the camera. "And who convinced me that Harry Conkle was telling the truth about having cancer and not being the one who killed those cops during the bank job? And who followed me into an undercover job with the Lazar family and into Starkville prison, both after I specifically ordered him not to follow me? Who has my pin number and access to all my accounts?"

"Jim, fine, I'm not always the best at following orders. I don't 'stay in the truck' well." Blair rolled his eyes and made quote marks in the air with his fingers. "And I think I've admitted this. Why are you bringing this up now?" Blair sank onto the edge of the bed and stared at Jim in confusion.

"Chief, what did you say my type was?" Jim asked slowly, and Blair narrowed his eyes at the tone. No fucking way was Jim going to start acting all condescending toward him, not after the week he'd had.

"Look, Ellison, if you want to do your asshole impression, go practice on the mirror because I'm at the end of my rope here, and given a little time, I can come up with more ammunition for flinging."

Jim leaned back with that smug look, and then the pieces slid into place in Blair's brain so fast that it almost hurt. Oh fuck. Oh fuck and fuck. "No," Blair said as he looked at Jim in shock.

"Blair, you *made* Simon take you with him when you were investigating my disappearance. You're the only man I've ever seen make Simon back down. The reason O'Neill hates you is that he's the alpha dog around here, and you're peeing on his territory, or in your case, shitting on it. That was a little literal, even for you, but you made your point."

"No way. Man, I do not play alpha games," Blair protested.

"You don't raise your leg and pee on the tree," Jim admitted slowly, so slowly that Blair narrowed his eyes and waited for the punch line. "You just burn the tree down and squat on the ashes. But, Chief, just because you don't play the game the way most men do, that doesn't mean you aren't in there playing. Shit, I don't think I even recognized what you were doing, not until you moved into the loft and a month later I'm buying protein powder for your shakes. I'm standing in the store, and I suddenly realize that you have effectively just run a tight end play around all my defenses and have set up camp in my backfield. If I'd had any idea you were open to a homosexual relationship, I would have come home that day and seduced you. You're absolutely right, Chief; I do go for alpha partners. I have no idea how to make a relationship work, so I pick people who will hopefully run it for me, and I can go along for the ride. Blair, you've run this relationship since day one."

"Oh shit," Blair said as Jim stood up and slowly walked to in front of him. Reaching down, Jim put his hands on either side of Blair's face and then slowly leaned down, tilting his head so they could kiss. They'd kissed before: Jim's lips pressing against Blair's forehead when Blair had been drugged; a brush of dry lips when they'd been undercover as a couple. This was nothing like that. Jim's lips moved slowly against his, a warm tongue brushing against his lower lip so gently that Blair shivered. Reaching up, Blair hooked his hand around the back of Jim's neck and pulled him closer.

Jim lost his balance and fell forward, bracing himself on his hands as he arched over Blair, and Blair just deepened the kiss, exploring, teasing, pressing forward when he felt tiny tremors in Jim's body and easing back when he could hear the gasps that told him the sensory input had become too much. After long minutes, Blair collapsed onto his back and looked at Jim who was still braced on his arms and looking down.

"Do I smell like fear now?" Blair teased. Jim's eyes were black, and all the hairs on his arms were standing straight up.

Jim didn't answer.

"Jim?" Blair asked in concern, and as he started to sit up, and then Jim was next to him on the bed, his body beside Blair, one leg draped over Blair as he kissed Blair again. The first time, Jim had been gentle, and Blair had pushed, but this time, Jim moved in aggressively, his teeth capturing Blair's lower lip so Blair could only gasp for air. And then Jim's mouth was over his, and they were both reaching for each other, pulling each other closer. Finally, Blair pulled back, gasping.

Jim lay on his side, watching Blair, studying him with an intensity Blair had never seen before. "Aww, shit," Blair panted as he lay looking at the ceiling trying really hard to not come in his pants. Of course, if he did, they could just keep going; he was young enough to do twice in a night. If the rest of the sex was as good as the kissing, he was young enough to make it three times in a night. Blair looked over and Jim was still watching with that black-eyed intensity.

"Oh man, this is so not going to last long," he sighed as he pulled his shirt off. Immediately, Jim's hands were there, gently brushing over the skin, ticking and teasing until Blair couldn't just lay still. Reaching out, Blair yanked on Jim's shirt, and Jim pulled it off, revealing chest muscles that Hercules would have envied. Blair took one finger and ran it from Jim's neck down to his belt buckle, always keeping it just a millimeter above the skin. He watched as goose pimples formed, and finally Jim arched his back so Blair's finger brushed against the skin just south of his belly-button. Jim gasped and bucked, and for a second, Blair thought it might be over for Jim, but then he calmed and lay still as Blair reached over and kissed the skin he had just touched.

Jim actually squirmed, and Blair pulled back, breathing gently against Jim's skin as he slowly moved north, again, not actually touching as he watched the skin contract and goose pimple under him. Blair reached a small dark nipple and breathed on it, watching it contract and harden, and then Jim's hands grabbed his shoulders and Jim's hips thrust up. Well, Jim was young enough to go a second time if he had to. Blair reached down and took the nipple in his mouth, sucking the hard flesh as Jim bucked and fought under him. A hand found the back of his head and pulled him closer and Blair lost the nipple, gasping as Jim's knee slipped between his legs and pressed up.

"Blair," Jim cried out, and then Jim jerked and Blair found himself lost in his own orgasm and their sweating bodies pressed together. Clutching at each other, they both cried out wordlessly and then sank back down into post-orgasmic stupor.

Slowly cooling in the silent room, Blair lay with his head on Jim's chest and listened to his heart beat. Fingers slowly played with his hair, and Blair watched a muscle ripple right below Jim's collar bone each time the arm moved. Shit. He'd never come like that. Okay, he'd come that pathetically fast before, but never with that intensity. Fast orgasms were like popcorn, only this one was definitely breaking the rules because Blair could still feel the aftershocks like electricity randomly tingling down his backbone.

Blair could still feel the ripples of bliss as Jim's hand worked its way down to his back.

"You okay?" Blair asked fuzzily.

"Mmm."

"Not an answer," Blair pointed out, his voice as blurry as his focus right now.

"The senses are sharper, I'm happy," Jim said. "Except for me coming in my pants like a teenager because we don't have more clothes." And that sounded more like his always-practical Sentinel, his down-to-earth lover. Lover. Blair resisted an urge to giggle.

"Who cares? They were giving you a rash anyway," Blair shrugged as he struggled to reach down and found Jim's buckle. Who wore a belt with a t-shirt? Blair tugged at it several times before he could finally figure out how to get it off, and then he threw it across the room and got to work on the button.

"Fuck," Jim softly swore as Blair got the pants unfastened. When Jim raised his hips, Blair quickly pushed the pants down to reveal a soft cock nestled in the hair. Blair traced the edge of it, exploring the unfamiliar shape and just a little amused that Jim was circumcised and he wasn't, but then his mother wasn't exactly a traditional Jew.

Jim made a little happy grunt, and Blair let his hand explore, to trace the path of a muscle down onto Jim's leg and then up to the taut stomach. Blair own cock gave a tiny twitch as he watched Jim's hands fist the bedspread. "Dial up touch," Blair whispered, and Jim arched his neck without answering. Blair bent over and breathed over the soft cock, watching with fascination as the skin contracted and the hairs moved a second before the organ twitched.

Reaching out with a tongue, Blair barely traced the ridge, and Jim groaned and arched his back as the cock started to stir already, thickening slowly. Blair took a second to slip off the end of the bed and carefully pull off Jim's shoes. He could tell by the lazy roll of Jim's hips that touch was way up, he was feeling the satin of the bedspread. Hell, Jim was probably feeling fingerprints on the bedspread at this point. Heading over to the wall, Blair turned off the lights, and then realized there was a little problem because he wasn't a Sentinel.

"Okay, plan B," he muttered as he felt his way toward the bathroom and clicked on that light. By the time the much dimmer light came back on, Jim had kicked off his pants and was a good halfway to his second erection. Blair padded over to the bed, and jumped in surprise when Jim suddenly sat up. With the lights down low, his eyes looked all black and almost inhuman, and Blair didn't really have time to think about that before Jim caught him, his heels hooking the back of Blair's legs and pulling him so close that their erections rubbed against each other.

Blair found himself flipped onto his back, and Jim straddled him, slowly undulating so that their erections slid past each other. Jim did that several times before he settled on Blair's thighs, his knees open as he started his own exploration. Jim's hands were much more thorough, touching every millimeter with whisper touches until Blair squirmed and gasped with a feeling that was something between ticklish and being more horny than he ever had been in his entire life.

When Jim had finished mapping everything from Blair's waist to his fingertips, Jim's hands finally moved down to Blair's cock, which was nearly as hard as it had been earlier. Minutes earlier? Hours? Blair had no clue, but he desperately fisting the bedspread and struggling to hump up into the touch that explored the foreskin, stretching it to just the point of discomfort and then stopping. Jim closed his fist around the shaft and held it tighter and tighter, until Blair cried out and then Jim moved to cup his balls, feeling them and weighing them in his hand.

And then Jim sat back and just stared, his head cocked to the side, and Blair could see the 'otherness' in Jim.

"Jim?" he whispered, and Jim frowned as though the noise had been too loud. "Come on," Blair said, his voice little more than a breath, "don't do some weird zone on me because I am way too horny to try and talk your ass out of a zone."

Jim's nose flared, and he leaned forward, seeking a spot just under Blair's jaw. Jim licked it and then sucked the sensitive skin just hard enough to make Blair squirm. The second Blair moved, Jim laid his full weight on Blair, and Blair couldn't do much more than lay there as Jim's mouth worked around to the side of his neck and then down. A strong hand caught his wrist and pushed his arm up, and Blair just let Jim have his way since something was happening to Jim's senses. Besides, it wasn't like Blair was suffering. He was just glad he had come once or the frustration would have been killing him.

Jim worked his way down until his was mouthing the skin just in front of Blair's underarm, muttering almost silently under his breath before he again started sucking hard enough to leave hickies.

"Jim, man, I can't hold out. Have some mercy," Blair whispered as soft as he could, but the only reaction he got in return was a tightening of Jim's hand on his leg. Desperately, Blair whimpered and tried to push himself up on one elbow, but then Jim moved in and started sucking the skin between Blair's nipples. He slowly inched south, and every movement left Jim's weight on Blair's cock, and Blair panted and cried out as the need built and built only to have Jim slowly work south.

By the time Jim detoured around Blair's aching cock and started working on the crease between his hip and leg, Blair was fairly incoherent. Incoherent enough that when Jim flipped him and started working on the back of his knees with that talented mouth, Blair mindlessly humped into the bed and came for the second time. This time, he lay passively limp against the now-ruined bedspread, but at least now he was blissfully content as Jim continued his exploration of this new territory. Hot hands skimmed over his back, his shoulders, his buttocks and down his legs. Strong thumbs worked the bottoms of his feet and then the massage moved north while Blair just lay passively, completely destroying Jim's whole theory that Blair was alpha because right now Jim could do anything, and Blair was going to be a big pile of submissive goo.

Blair's eyes remained closed as Jim finished on the back and flipped Blair over again. "Blair?" Jim whispered so close to Blair's ear that it tickled the little hairs.

Reaching up, Blair caught the back of Jim's head and pulled him in for a kiss.

"You okay?" Jim asked, nearly Sentinel soft.

"More okay than I can explain, but you're looking sore," Blair said as he caught a glimpse of Jim's hard cock. Blair smiled as he considered repaying the favor and making Jim come on the bedspread. Or maybe he should do something more creative. Pushing on Jim's shoulder, Blair urged the man onto his back and started at a nipple before tracing Jim's own path down the center of Jim's chest and to the groin.

Oh yeah, Jim needed something. Just like Jim had left his hard and aching cock, Blair detoured around and tasted the musky skin on either side. Beneath him, Jim's legs trembled, and he made harsh sounds that Blair just couldn't ignore. Taking pity on Jim, Blair opened his mouth and took as much of Jim into his mouth as he could all at once, sucking enthusiastically. Jim screamed and thrust up so hard that Blair nearly choked before he backed off and got a hand around the shaft of Jim's cock and started working the head.

Blair no more than touched the slit and tasted salt before Jim came with a shuddering cry. Blair sucked until Jim finished and then licked his lips as he crawled his way back up to his lover.

"Blair," Jim breathed into the near-dark.

"If we're in lockdown for four days, can we do this for four days?" Blair asked playfully as he collapsed against Jim's side. His body was both relaxed and utterly spent.

"Didn't those reports say that it took many rounds of sex to finalize the bond?" Jim asked sleepily even though it was still morning.

"Yep," Blair agreed.

"Sounds like a mission to me," Jim said as he pulled Blair close. Blair let himself not sleep as much as just drift to the sound of Jim's heartbeat in the silence of the room.

Chapter 19

The phone interrupted Blair's lazy sleep, and Blair could only guess it was morning. The last request for a meal had brought pork chops, but they might have missed a meal somewhere, and neither of them had bothered turning on the television.

Leaning across Jim's body, Blair picked up the phone.

"Yeah?"

"Are you two decent or still fucking like bunnies?" O'Neill asked.

"Um, both." Blair rubbed his face and tried to ignore the frustration starting to build at the very sound of Jack's voice. Jim chuckled and large hands traced some pattern on Blair's hips that only Sentinel eyes could see.

"General Hammond is requesting your presence in the briefing room. I'll send an airman with clean clothes." The phone went dead.

"Sure, we'd love an invitation. How about tomorrow around noon?" Blair asked sarcastically as he hung up the already dead phone. Jim laughed again.

"We have to get out of bed at some point, Chief," Jim pointed out.

"We have. I've gotten out of bed to pee and shower. You've answered the door for food, showered, and spent an hour staring at a painting of trees. See, that's too much out of bed time already," Blair complained softly as he lay down on Jim's chest. Hands immediately ghosted over his skin. Unfortunately, a knock interrupted them when Blair was just sinking into that happy place that was all about lazy touches.

"Annoying minions of the assholed one," Blair said as he crawled out of bed and pretty much stormed over to the door and threw it open. The airman on the other side turned out to be an airwoman who immediately blushed dark red at the sight of Blair in nothing but his tribal necklace.

"Your clothing, sir," she said as she thrust the pile into Blair's arms before quickly turning her back. Blair kicked the door closed with a bare foot. When Blair turned around, Jim was smirking.

"O'Neill did that on purpose," Blair growled as he threw the neatly folded pile at Jim.

"Of course he did," Jim said. "I'll have to thank him later because the look on her face was really just about perfect. You're lucky she didn't knee you, run away screaming, and file charges for sexual harassment."

Blair flipped Jim off, and the other man just laughed as he dug through the pile for the clothes that would fit him. Blair watched Jim move, and was struck by how much more at ease the man seemed now. He laughed a lot more and smiled, and when their dinner showed up burned, had a hundred stories about the Army and bad food instead of growling his displeasure. "Are you getting dressed, Chief, or do you plan to meet with General Hammond naked?"

"Oh man, now that would be precious," Blair said with a wicked smile of his own. Almost immediately, the phone started to ring. Blair looked over suspiciously.

"Tell me he didn't hear that," Blair said as he crossed his arms.

"I picked up the echo from the bug yesterday, but they only have audio, no visual," Jim answered as he pulled on pants. The phone kept ringing. "Don't get your pants wedged up your ass, O'Neill, he's getting dressed," Jim told the ceiling before he tossed Blair the other pair of pants. The phone stopped ringing.

Jim padded over, still barefoot and shirtless, and Blair might have taken interest in a shirtless Jim except for the fact that he had come so much in the last two days that he was fairly sure he wasn't going to be able to hard again. Bending over, Jim whispered in his ear. "O'Neill's trying to give you a heads up that others have heard. NID on scene."

Turning around, Jim headed back for the bed and grabbed one of the black shirts. Blair twitched at the idea of one more secret agency running around. He was as much of a conspiracy theorist as anyone... more than most maybe, but he never wanted to have a close, personal relationship with the conspiracies.

With disgust, Blair pulled on his pants and ran fingers through his hair until he could pull all the curls back into a ponytail. Blair's mood didn't improve as they walked with their escort back down to the lowest levels of the complex. This time they ended up in a new room, a conference room with a huge table. General Hammond was at one end, and all of SG-1 lined up on his right. Blair gave Jack an extra glare before he focused on the other side of the table.

A sharp faced man sat in a tailored suit with a thick file lined up in front of him, but even Blair could smell military on the man, and beside him sat an older soldier in a dress uniform with body language that almost screamed its deference to him. Okay, this would be the NID agent.

"Detective Ellison, Dr. Sandburg," General Hammond said as he stood up to meet them. Jim stood stiffly, but Hammond just walked around the table and offered him a handshake. Once he had shaken hands with Jim, Hammond offered Blair his hand, and Blair shook it suspiciously.

"I'm sorry about the trick, Dr. Sandburg. This is not a traditional command, and I'm afraid that we do use rather unconventional approaches to evaluating our candidates' suitability in the field." Blair wished he could hate Hammond, but over the last couple of days, he had kinda figured that out on his own.

"Man, I just wish you had asked us if we wanted to be recruited before the hazing," Blair said with a roll of his eyes that reduced the whole event to an annoyance.

"Yes, I heard that O'Neill made a particularly bad impression on you both," the sharp-faced man offered. He was standing now, as were his buddy and SG1.

Hammond paused for just a second, just enough to let Blair know that despite Hammond's neutral expression, he didn't like the new guy. "Colonel Simmons, this is Dr. Sandburg and Detective Ellison. And this is Sergeant Collins." Simmons' military buddy simply offered a nod.

"Detective?" Simmons eyebrows went up and the amusement in his voice set Blair on edge. Before he could say anything, Jim had stepped forward.

"My commission hasn't been reactivated."

Simmons nodded. "I had noticed some rather confusing paperwork. Certain paperwork suggests you've been called to active duty, another paperwork trail says you're currently on loan to the FBI for an invisible taskforce, and a mysterious promotion was approved through equally mysterious channels, and yet no one wants to challenge any of it. Up until now you have had some powerful protectors," Simmons said, and if Blair thought they were going to start with the small talk, he was obviously wrong.

"And?" Jim asked dryly. It was the tone that often made suspects start babbling confessions just to avoid whatever might follow.

"And now you don't. Section has pulled out of Cascade."

Blair reached over and grabbed Jim's arm. No way. No way would Nikita tell them they had a choice, back them into choosing Section, and then abandon them. Okay, Nikita would, but not without some sort of reason. Jim reached down and rested a hand on Blair's back.

"Clearly you are less than impressed with the way Stargate Command is run, which is hardly surprising considering the number of times the base has been compromised." Simmons smiled with crocodile charm. "I will say, the bedpan was a nice touch, Dr. Sandburg." The smugness just set Blair's teeth on edge, and no one else in the room seemed to appreciate it either.

"I'm even less impressed with you than I am with Colonel O'Neill at this point," Jim said as he almost bristled with aggression.

"Hey, I could do an encore of the bedpan trick if you want." Blair crossed his arms and looked at Simmons to let him know exactly which direction the shit would be flying this time.

Jack got an amused look on his face. "Now kids," he said in a mockingly paternal voice, "you play nice."

Jim glanced over, and Blair couldn't quite identify the communication that passed between them before Hammond was moving back to the head of the table. "The President has given Colonel Simmons permission to offer you an alternative to working for Stargate Command." Hammond's voice was carefully neutral as he sat at the table. SG1 carefully settled back into their chairs, but Simmons walked around to the end of the table where Jim and Blair stood and offered his hand.

"Colonel Frank Simmons, and I'm sorry I seemed to have made a poor first impression because I think I can offer you a deal that can top anything the SGC can put together." Simmons had come at them with his an unctuous smile that reminded Blair of the Chancellor and all her butt-kissing politics, but before he could do much more than register his dislike, Blair found himself pushed behind Jim.

"Way to prove you're not a caveman," Blair whispered sarcastically, but Jim didn't move from the spot in front of Blair as he stood off against Simmons with his arms crossed. Blair could barely see the colonel as he looked around Jim's shoulder. Simmons' smile slowly faded as he pulled his hand back.

Jack really was smirking now. Smirking and leaning back in his chair with undisguised amusement. At least Daniel was trying for subtle as he watched with a gaze that flickered from them to the table, back to them and then to Jack.

"I can respect your suspicion given the circumstances," Simmons said. The warmth was gone from his voice, but he didn't sound hostile, either. "Perhaps you might feel more comfortable after looking at the details of my offer." Simmons turned back and flipped open his file folder. "I have all the specifics here, but let me outline the deal in broad strokes. Dr. Sandburg would work for us training Sentinels. We can set up a training facility outside Cascade, so you will be able to stay in the area and remain in close contact with friends and family. The training facility would house no more than three Sentinels at a time and a wide range of individuals would remain on base so Dr. Sandburg would have discretion regarding the choice of guides."

Blair stepped forward so that he could catch the packet of papers Simmons sent sliding down the table. "As you can see the salary starts at $117,000 a year, and if the program is successful, bonuses are possible."

Jack whistled. "I didn't know Satan paid so much for souls."

"Colonel," General Hammond said sharply.

Simmons glared at the man. "Detective Ellison," Simmons finally said as he turned back to Jim and Blair, "you may either choose to reactivate your commission and take a leadership role on base or we are prepared to hire you as a civilian consultant. In addition to the Sentinel work Dr. Sandburg will be doing, we will have covert training classes on base, which will provide the pool of potential guides. Your background qualifies you to either teach training classes or coordinate the facility, your choice."

"Wait! You're giving him his own base?!" Jack asked as he now leaned forward. The facetious expression was gone as he frowned at Simmons.

"What are you offering him? His own SG team? You're out of your league here, colonel," Simmons said with a dismissive expression.

"You're assuming I want a command," Jim pointed out dryly.

Simmons shook his head. "We're just as happy to hire you as a trainer, Detective Ellison, just as long as you remember that you will be answering to whoever is in charge of the facility under those circumstances."

"But you won't let him stay a detective with the Cascade police," Blair said the thing that really bothered him the most. Blair loved working with victims in Cascade, loved it. But he'd loved researching South American customs and he'd loved researching people with one or two enhanced senses, and he'd really loved annoying Jim to death with testing. As long as he had Jim, he'd be happy. But Jim was a cop. Blair couldn't really imagine him sitting behind a big desk doing paperwork, and while he could see Jim teaching classes on military tactics, he couldn't see Jim only teaching class.

Simmons sighed as though Blair had just asked a particularly naïve question. "Dr. Sandburg, we can't have you running into the middle of a firefight because Detective Ellison has a zone."

"Zones out," Blair corrected the man automatically.

"When he zones out.... I stand corrected. However, your expertise is simply too valuable to waste, either on the streets of Cascade or on an SGC team."

Blair looked from Simmons to Jim and then to the general. Okay, this was all getting officially strange.

"Why?" Blair asked.

That question caught Simmons off guard. He sat back in his chair and just frowned at Blair for a second.

"You have obviously developed new techniques for training Sentinels that are providing far more useful results. That's worth quite a lot, Dr. Sandburg. Furthermore, you have provided these techniques to Section. While certainly not a terrorist organization or even particularly hostile to American interests, Section is a competing agency. Some might believe that if you were to provide valuable information to a competitor and refuse that same information to the American government, that you could be accused of treason."

Blair could almost feel the aggression rolling from Jim. "So, if we don't work for you, you'll arrest us?" Jim asked.

"Assuming you don't disappear before we have the chance," Simmons said calmly. Blair could feel his stomach sour, and Daniel had an alarmed expression on his face now.

"Do they need lawyers here?" Daniel asked as he leaned forward. "Because they're civilians, and as civilians, they have a right to a lawyer if there's a question of legality."

Simmons gave Daniel a looked of amused condescension. "Dr. Jackson, we're simply discussing options and realities. No one is talking about arresting Detective Ellison and Dr. Sandburg."

"Yet," Blair spat the word. "No, you just make vague threats, but man, I have been threatened by better. And as far as working for you, I would spork myself to death before I'd work for the NID."

Jack spluttered with laughter as his attempt to drink water ended badly. "You tell 'em, Squirt."

Colonel Simmons stood up. "Dr. Sandburg, perhaps you should discuss this with your partner because I don't believe you understand the gravity of this situation. Section has withdrawn their protection, a dozen different agencies have seen what your Sentinel and what Section's Sentinels can now do, and now they're all looking to you for explanations. How many offers of protection can you afford to turn down?"

"Forget it," Blair said, crossing his arms.

Jack stood up. "Hey, you heard the kid, forget it Simmons. Go slime your way into someone else's life." By the time Jack finished, General Hammond and the rest of SG1 were on their feet.

"This is the security of the nation we're talking about, gentlemen." Simmons looked from Jack to Jim and back, clearly not sure who he was supposed to be fighting.

Blair had the weird feeling that he was the prize in a boxing match, and three colonels were about to start throwing punches. Blair inched closer to Jim. Yeah, Jim might think Blair was in charge in their relationship, but when it came to these overt, militaristic shows of power, Blair knew damn well that he came in a pretty sorry second to Jim. In fact, Jim had his arms crossed over his chest as he glared at the whole room in clear alpha-male warning of his own.

"I think my partner was pretty clear, Simmons. We aren't interested in working for the NID," Jim growled. Blair felt a heavy arm go over his shoulders, and he leaned into the touch.

Simmons stared at Jack for a second, a second during which Jack just smirked right back. "And how did you know I represent the NID?" he asked Jim even while still focusing on Jack.

"Hey, wasn't me." Jack held up his hands. "Ellison's got a good nose on him, who knows what he smells on you."

Blair choked back a laugh at the expression on Simmons' face, and Simmons turned to them. "Think about the offer. I'll leave the contracts with you," Simmons said with a nod toward the thick stack still sitting on the table in front of Blair. "We're offering you something that comes closer to your current life than anyone else could offer you."

Simmons stalked out of the room, his silent minion following close behind.

"Well that was..." Jack's voice trailed off.

"Disquieting?" Daniel suggested.

"I was going to go for something more inappropriate," Jack shrugged.

"Gentlemen," Hammond said, focusing on Jim and Blair as SG1 took their seats again. "The offer Colonel Simmons brought is genuine. I can't say I like the man, but I have it from the President that the government will honor any deals he makes."

"Funny, they're after the runt, after all," Jack said with a dry laugh.

"Colonel, that runt has given Section an advantage that's only now being recognized in the intelligence community. Old dogs like you and me were introduced to the idea of Sentinels as niche players with very little practical application in the field."

"Hey!" Blair protested. "That is so not true. Jim is a walking crime lab. Have you seen his case closure rate?"

"That's the point, Chief," Jim said as he tightened his arm around Blair's shoulders. "If the military had trained my senses, I wouldn't be a walking crime lab."

General Hammond shook his head. "Son, I doubt you'd be able to function as a detective at all. Hundreds of men and women have the potential for hyperactive senses, and for the most part, the military avoids activating them. Active Sentinels are territorial, aggressive, prone to seizures and allergies, and have limited control over their senses. Surveillance equipment is far more accurate."

Blair frowned at that description. "No way."

"Without your training, that is true of Sentinels," Hammond said.

Jack nodded in agreement. "But if you can train Sentinels as good as Ellison here, I can see the advantage of that. The General and I have actually been doing a lot of reviewing on your case and on some intel the CIA has gathered on Section, not that they have that much, but," Jack shrugged. "The point is that you're good, Ellison. I never would have dreamed of sending a Sentinel in undercover, and you've handled some difficult assignments, and from the oddities in your case files, you've used your senses heavily while undercover. I can definitely see the advantage of that."

"Indeed. Tau'ri equipment is conspicuous when attempting to conceal one's identity," Teal'c offered. Blair blinked, totally caught off balance by the sudden lack of aggression in the room.

"Would you like to take a seat?" Hammond waved a hand toward the half-dozen open chairs at the table, and Blair glanced up at Jim.

Jim had a curious expression on his face, but Blair wasn't about to ask what he was picking up on. He just followed Jim's lead, dropping into a seat and rolling it a little closer to the seat Jim had taken at the far end of the table from General Hammond. Now Jim and Blair were on one side of the table with the four members of SG1 on the other.

"Simmons and his buddy leave behind NID cooties?" Jack asked as he glanced at the empty chairs between Jim and General Hammond.

"I don't like the way he smells," Jim shrugged.

"Look," Daniel jumped in, and Blair could pretty much guess that the man hoped to talk fast enough to keep Jack quiet. Jack seemed to accept that Daniel was taking center stage because he leaned back in his chair and watched his teammate. "This mission left us all on edge. Let's start by defining the positions that we each feel are absolutely non-negotiable. If Section has withdrawn, you need protection, and maybe we can find some common ground."

Blair glanced at Jim, but the man had emotionally withdrawn.

"We aren't talking about Section. Man, I so do not even want to think about Section too loudly because those people are scary. Way scarier than you are," Blair said as he looked around the table.

Daniel glanced at Jack, but it was General Hammond who actually spoke up. "Son, did you choose to join Section?"

Blair snorted, but then shut up as Jim's hand rested on his arm in a warning.

Jack leaned forward. "I don't want Section getting first hand stories about what goes on in here. It's bad enough that the entire base knows that I got shit thrown at me, I really don't need that story going any farther."

Blair had no idea what to say to that. He remembered being in that chair, and the pain. He never thought he could hurt so much, and if it came down to it, Blair was fairly sure he would confess to shooting President Kennedy and fathering alien babies before he would hold out against that pain.

Luckily Jim spoke. "I can't make promises, Colonel, no more than any other member of your team could. I won't willingly give the information and if my information is time sensitive, I will hold out as long as I can to give you an advantage, but when it comes down to it, if Section wants the information out of us, they will get it."

Jack and Hammond traded looks. "That's fair," Jack said.

Daniel smiled at him. "Okay, so we have some common ground."

"They are not going on a team," Jack immediately countered in a tone that challenged anyone to argue with him. Daniel's smile vanished at Jack's tone of voice.

"Jim's the one who got the job done, not you," Blair snapped right back.

"I don't even know what job got done. He tells me there's a new foothold situation with an unidentified alien, and then he checks out for lala land. You think I'm going to have that in the middle of an op?" Jack demanded.

"Whoa, if you hadn't split us up, he wouldn't have zoned."

"HEY!" Daniel shouted over both of them. "We're defining positions, not arguing over the mission."

Teal'c almost smiled. "It appears they are, in fact, arguing over the mission," he intoned seriously. Daniel glared at him.

"No, they aren't," Daniel said firmly. Teal'c tilted his head.

Jack was still shaking his head. "Sandburg, I won't have you in the field and if you aren't there, I don't want Ellison close enough to even hear the field."

"Because of my theories on Sentinels?" Blair asked incredulously. "Man, I can give you a copy of my not-so-secret dissertation. It's not like I'm doing something wild and crazy; I just treat Jim like a competent human being."

Jack laughed and poked his thumb at Sam. "Carter here has a PhD in being way too good at knowing everything and is the leading authority on the Stargate, the dialing device, the hand device and just about every other piece of alien tech we've ever found. Daniel has PhD's in Archeology and Philology and can curse at me in more languages than anyone else--on or off earth. And Teal'c--" Jack looked over and Teal'c just gazed back. "Teal'c's Teal'c," Jack shrugged. "Look, if I was worried about protecting assets, I'd worry a lot more about their assets than yours. But they aren't going to have a panic attack in the middle of a mission."

"That wasn't--" Blair started, but Jim cut him off.

"That's fair," Jim said. Blair turned and glared at the man, but Jim had his stoic look on. "Chief, you always come through in the end, but if you panic on a mission, even for a second, you could make younger members of the team panic. If you're working with me or Simon, that doesn't matter. It would with some eighteen year old first lieutenant from Omaha. Besides," the corner of Jim's lips twitched, "do you even want a combat position?"

"So not the point, man," Blair said unhappily.

Jack just snorted at the admission that Blair didn't actually want the position. "It's not just you Sandburg. I won't have Ellison in the field either. As a captain, he'd be an asset, but as a colonel, he'd be an unmitigated disaster."

Jim's hand on Blair's arm tightened immediately. "Blair, I have to focus on my senses and let you watch my back. A team leader is supposed to be in control at all times. O'Neill's right; a Sentinel really is not designed for a command position." Blair opened his mouth to argue that piece of illogical logic.

"I wouldn't send Carter in command of a combat mission for the same reason," Jack said before Blair could even get out a sound. "She has saved our lives more often than I can count, but for her to use her skills, she needs to concentrate on whatever gizmo is trying to blow us up. It's my job to defend her so she can concentrate. Being a Sentinel is no different. Ellison can't be a colonel and a Sentinel at the same time."

Blair looked around the room and realized that as much as he hated it, as much as he thought of Jim as being damn near unstoppable, Jack was being frighteningly logical. "Man, it really sucks that you're being reasonable. I really preferred hating you," Blair complained, and even Hammond smiled at that. However, if Jim and Jack were going to gang up on a particular point, Blair had to admit that he probably wasn't going to win.

"So, let's define our positions," Daniel suggested. "You two won't be in combat and you won't willingly compromise security."

"No way do I want to sign up for the military. I'm not enlisting, and no way is Jim getting forced back in. I wouldn't do that even for Section," Blair added. Jack narrowed his eyes in confusion for a second, but Hammond quickly agreed.

"That's fine. You and Ellison can both take civilian positions. We do, however, require full confidentiality agreements."

Blair waved his hand at that. "Whatever. Man, secrets are not so secretive in this whole covert ops world, but I'm not going to be the one telling anyone anything."

"Blair, that means you can't use any of your research to publish," Daniel said seriously, and Blair stopped when he saw the curiously pained expression on Daniel's face.

"Oh man. Your life's work... you can't publish any of it," Blair said with a grimace. "Man, that seriously sucks."

"It'll be the same for you," Daniel warned, and Blair smiled at the concern in the other scientist's face.

"No problem. I write about my work in Cascade with the PD. I never have been able to take my primary thesis to any journals, but I can write a paper on anything; that's how I got into working on victimization." Blair didn't add that Section had set him up for that life.

"And now that you won't be working in Cascade, will you be equally happy without being able to publish at all?" Hammond asked just as seriously.

Blair stared at the man, and that little feeling of panic was back. "No way. No, I'm not going to spend my life underground in some secret facility. Man, I want to go home." Blair looked to Jim for backup on this one.

Jim was nodding. "We don't have a problem working for you. Blair can train Sentinels in Cascade, but we aren't going to disappear like Jackson here did," Jim said firmly.

"Jackson disappeared?" Blair asked, suddenly concerned. He so had not gotten the feeling that Daniel had been forcibly recruited, but now...

Daniel obviously knew what Blair was thinking. "I stood in front of a room and argued that aliens built the pyramids. Trust me, the disappearing was all about me saving face," he said wryly. "I was such a kid that I actually believed that people would listen just because I was telling the truth."

"Man, not smart," Blair sympathized.

"Sounds like someone I know," Jim said as he reached over and tugged Blair's ponytail.

"Yeah, that's Danny for you. He's the most brilliant man I know, but not a lot of common sense," Jack said fondly. "But Blair, you need to remember that people are interested in what you're doing. If you're in Cascade, there's a limit to how well we can protect you."

"I've read..." Blair stopped, not willing to talk specifically about what he'd read in Section documents. "Sentinels are protectors. If I'm working with military Sentinels, I'll be the most well-defended person in America. Old ladies with dangerous looking handbags won't be able to get near me."

Jack exchanged a look with Hammond, and now Blair just knew they knew something. "We need Sentinels who can go off-world, and that means going through the gate with them," Hammond said.

"Cool," Blair quickly answered, and Jack rolled his eyes.

"Look, kid, these men and women are going to be relying on your training and they'll die if you don't take this seriously."

Blair had stood up before he even registered Jim's grip on his shoulder. "Don't go there. You think I would ever short-change a Sentinel just because I think you're an asshole? No way. No fucking way. They're tribal warriors... they're watchmen patrolling the boundaries of the tribe, no matter how big that tribe gets. Their lives are hard enough without getting used like chess pieces on a board, so don't even try to tell me I don't take this seriously."

"Chief, just calm down," Jim said, and Blair found himself pulled back into Jim's chest and held.

"O'Neill, you're an idiot if you think Blair wouldn't give his best. But how many Sentinels are we talking about? From the sounds of it, you don't exactly want to set up an assembly line."

"To start with, two or three."

"Blair," Jim asked, "how long would that take?"

Blair thought about that. His work with Jim had taken years, but the research Section had done suggested that with a stable bond, a Sentinel was functional within weeks. Functional, but not at a level with Jim, not at first. Two of Section's Sentinels had numbers comparable to Jim's. Blair mentally reviewed those files. "I would need to work with them before they had a guide, explain what the senses are, how they affect daily life."

"I'll need to be there," Jim quickly added. He remembered when Blair had been working with Alex and the growing discomfort he'd felt until Section had murdered the woman and left her body in the courtyard of Rainier.

"They need a wide range of people to choose from," Blair said as he chewed his lip. "Simmons just wanted to pair Sentinels to other soldiers, but no way. People can't make life-partner choices based on what works best for the boss." Blair crossed his arms and dared Jack to argue with that one. He didn't.

"We have a lot of scientific expeditions: botanical, anthropological, astrological, archaeological," Sam said. The Sentinels would meet scientific and military personnel, and they would all be cleared for the program."

"And if two men or two women make a connection?" This time Blair looked right at General Hammond.

"Son, the military has been ignoring what Sentinels and companions did since long before you were born. No one is going to say anything."

"Oh, some might try, they just won't try for long once I find out about it," Jack promised with a dangerous smile. "So, what schedule are we looking at?" Jack asked again.

"I meet with them and work with them for a few days up front, maybe a week. They go to different posts and interact with a lot of people until they settle into pairs on their own," Blair said firmly. "Then I can work with the pairs, maybe a week-long session every two to four months."

"That's it?" Jack looked confused.

"The senses are natural. I have exercises that I can teach the guides to walk the Sentinels through and some tests to identify any weak areas like zoning during flashing lights, but yeah, that's it. Now do you see why this whole thing is idiotic? I have no idea what you've been doing to 'train' your Sentinels, but I'm thinking they'd be better off if you just got out of their way and let them figure it out on their own."

"Chief, I think you might be underestimating yourself," Jim interrupted. "General Hammond, Blair has a habit of just mentioning things in passing that end up being incredibly valuable to my control. After the pairs are settled in, you may want to have a longer term training session set up as a series of training ops."

Hammond nodded thoughtfully. "That's fair. We can set up a series of trainings."

"Man, that still leaves a lot of time unaccounted for," Blair pointed out. "I mean, a week at intake, a week at two and four months, and two weeks at the six month mark. Out of 24 weeks, I'm only working with the Sentinels for five weeks at the most. We could go home to Cascade," Blair argued as he rested his hands on Jim's arms. Jim held him tightly, and Blair watched as Jack and Hammond traded looks.

Jack looked back at them first. "You could work with the Sentinels individually. Three Sentinels would give you 15 weeks of work, and if you're anything like Danny, the extra eight or nine weeks would vanish under all that paper you academic types love to read and write on."

"No," Blair said firmly. "No way. I'm not having my whole life hijacked. If Section really has pulled out..."

"They have," Hammond said quickly. "The President has confirmation on that from both the NID and FBI as well as from Section directly."

Blair nodded, suddenly uncomfortable at the thought of not having Section there in the background, which was an issue he was so going to have to work through in meditation... possibly therapy. Blair strangled a quick and inappropriate need to laugh as he considered what type of therapist must have clearance to work with these people. The therapist was probably as crazy as the patients. "Okay, so someone's going to hijack our lives. Man, my vote goes to whoever hijacks it the least," Blair said firmly. "And that means Jim gets to work at least part time with Major Crimes."

"Chief, that isn't really--"

"No," Blair said firmly, refusing to let Jim say it. "I know you. You need to serve and protect, that's what you do. And if we were going on an active unit, that would be how you protected your tribe, but you are not going to get pushed into the background here, and I don't care what the government needs out of me."

"Is he always this pushy and annoying?" Jack asked with a sigh. Strangely his gaze quickly slid from Blair to Daniel.

"Yep," Jim said fondly.

Jack and Hammond exchanged a long look. Hammond spoke first. "It's theoretically possible, but you have to understand that any attempt to insert you back into your life in Cascade is going to come with a fairly high price." Blair narrowed his eyes at Hammond and waited for the other shoe to drop. He was really tired of dropping shoes at this point. "Section will continue with your security in return for some alien tech."

This time Sam spoke up. "The technology they requested isn't dangerous, but with the resources Section has, we don't know what they might reverse engineer."

"You mean, as opposed to what we reverse engineer?" Daniel asked, and this was obviously an old sore spot for them.

"Danny," Jack warned.

"Jack."

"This is not the time," Jack said firmly.

Daniel just rolled his eyes. "Yes, you see, Blair, there are those who feel that if we go out there and just tell people we represent the entire Earth, we don't actually have to share the technology we find with anyone else, even our allies."

"Section is not an ally," Jack almost yelled. "I don't care who's running the show over there or what they've told the President, the man is an idiot if he thinks we can play nice with Section."

"Colonel!" General Hammond ordered Jack down with a single word, and Jack subsided with a few last mutters.

"Section will protect you, we will pay for that protection with the tech," Hammond repeated. "It would allow you to reenter your life in Cascade, but with Section still watching you..."

Hammond didn't finish, but Blair could tell exactly where he was going anyway. They'd be on two leashes. Blair traded worried looks with Jim. These people added a whole new meaning to Machiavellian.

"You see why you're better off staying here?" Jack asked.

"Blair, I know this is hard, but it's not as if you'd be cut off from your friends and colleagues," Daniel argued earnestly. "You'd have free access to phones and Internet. There's an apartment free near my place, not that I'm ever there, but it'd be nice to have a neighbor who'd save my books if the complex caught on fire."

Blair closed his eyes, trying to just find a space inside his own head to think this through. He wished, just once, that Nikita would have just told them what game she was playing.

"Look, kid, you do this, and Section is still going to have a hold on you. They take you, and there's no promise we'll ever find you again." Jack said it so seriously that Blair was surprised into opening his eyes. Jack was leaning forward with his elbows on the table.

Slowly, Blair started shaking his head. "No. No way are they going to pick us up again. They got what they wanted out of me. Shit. They have my dissertation, my notes, they observed my interaction with Jim for years. They fucking used me to train their Sentinels, and now that they can't get any more out of me, they're trading me for a new, shinier toy. Damn it. Why didn't I see this?" Blair asked as he silently cursed himself.

"One that doesn't fling his shit?" Jack asked, perfectly deadpan. Blair glared at the man, but he just couldn't keep it up for long. Shit, Nikita had traded them away like an old car, and Blair suddenly didn't even have the energy to care.

"Dr. Sandburg, Detective Ellison, are you ready to risk your lives and freedom on that assumption?"

Jim answered first. "Sir, we've lived with that risk for years now. If anything, I'm more comfortable now because Blair's right, they've gotten what they want."

"And if they decide they don't want anyone else to have access to that information?" Jack asked.

Blair swallowed heavily and looked at Jim. He was man enough to admit that he might be totally fucking wrong and signing their death warrants. Jim shrugged. "They would have put a bullet in the back of our heads and left us on the floor with Tobias. Chief, you're right. We just got traded."

"So, do we have a deal, gentlemen?" Hammond asked.

Blair looked up at Jim. They hadn't talked about salaries or schedules or even asked Simon if this would work, but Hammond wanted an answer now.

"Yes, sir, I think we do," Jim answered for them.

Chapter 20

"Good of you two to show up again," Simon said as he met them at the door to the loft. "And next time, find someone else to pick up your mail. Your neighbor called 911 on me. The guys at the precinct are still giving me shit about that."

"Mrs. Pitman?" Blair asked as he dropped his bag in his attempt to fish the key out of his pocket. Simon already had his own key to the loft out, and Jim just thanked god he didn't have to try for his own key. He didn't have a free hand, and after three days of physically requalifying, he didn't have the energy to try fight with his bags. Hell, he'd been too tired to do more than fall asleep on Blair in an aborted effort to have sex. Carolyn would have castrated him if he'd fallen asleep on her that often.

"Is that the deaf old bat who keeps leaving rotting garbage in the hall?" Jim asked wearily as Simon opened the door.

"That's the one," Blair agreed. "She's really a nice woman, Simon." Jim gave Blair a sharp look. "Fine, so she has a few issues," Blair admitted.

"Issues? The woman is a racist," Simon growled as Jim pushed the door closed with his shoulder.

"That would be one of her issues. Oh man, just don't mention the Shoah unless you really want to hear some scary stuff. I'm thinking the woman was married to a Nazi."

"I think she was one," Jim said as he dropped his suitcase and then draped his garment bag over the back of the couch.

Simon glared at it. "For someone who got called out for some mysterious national emergency, you packed well."

"That's new," Blair said mysteriously as he headed for the refrigerator, and Jim glared at Blair. He really hadn't wanted to get into this tonight, but now Simon was giving Jim a look that made it clear he was not leaving until he had the whole story. Unfortunately, Jim was never going to be able to give him the whole story.

"Simon, you are a god among men," Blair said gratefully as he held up two bottles of beer that Jim knew hadn't been there when they'd left. Blair brought him one, and Jim smiled at his partner before taking a drink.

Simon snorted. "Stop changing the topic."

Bracing himself, Jim reached over and unzipped the front of the garment bag to show the dress uniform inside. Simon didn't even bother to say anything as he just waited with his arms crossed.

"Oh man, you should see him in it," Blair said with a wink, and Jim just thanked god that Simon was ignoring Blair as being his normal borderline-inappropriate self because Jim really only wanted to have one major conversation tonight.

"Detective?" Simon finally asked.

"It's a long story, Simon." Jim just headed for the chair and collapsed into it, trying not to notice how sore his left thigh was. Qualifying had seemed much easier a decade ago. "Let's just say this was more convenient than having someone randomly reactivate my commission every few months."

"Shit." Simon sat heavily on the arm of the couch. "When you were gone so long, I called Sandburg's friend at the university. He said there was some strange chatter in the covert communities about Cascade, but I was hoping that for once you two had managed to duck when the shit hit the fan."

Jim glanced over at Blair, and the kid lost it, laughing either at the memory of Jack O'Neill splattered with shit or just because they were so exhausted that everything was funny. Even Jim had to chuckle.

"All right, whatever you two hens are cackling about, I don't want to know. What I want to know is how this is going to affect you two. Are you leaving Cascade?"

"We're committed to eight weeks a year, Simon, unless something goes horribly wrong," Jim shrugged.

"Something like... wait, I don't want to know," Simon quickly added, holding his hand up.

"For once, it's not me; it's him," Jim said as he pointed his beer bottle at Blair. Blair mouthed the word 'traitor' at him, but all was fair in love and dealing with Simon.

Simon pinned Blair with his gaze, and Blair rolled his eyes. "Fine, so it's me this time. Last time covert ops people were sniffing around, it was so your fault," Blair said with a finger poke Jim's direction. Jim couldn't exactly argue.

"Sandburg," Simon said darkly.

"The Air Force has three Sentinels. And man, they so do not know what to do with them. I mean, monumental levels of stupidity, Simon."

Jim leaned back and listened to Blair weave his obfuscations. The Air Force commanded the SGC, but the first three Sentinels would be from three different branches, and they hadn't even been picked yet. The poor suckers didn't even know they were Sentinels, but Jim would be explaining the joys of waking up to the sound of the neighbor's dog's stomach growling. And he'd have that conversation before they agreed to the training that brought their senses online.

"Stupidity is the norm for the military, Sandburg," Simon pointed out dryly.

"Whatever. Turns out the Air Force and half the world have copies of my not-for-publication dissertation."

"Shit. And they picked Jim up," Simon cursed. "Because of your dissertation. Damn it, Sandburg, you said that thing would be buried so deep Jimmy Hoffa wouldn't ever see it."

Jim was almost touched at how angry the captain was, except that he was directing that anger at Blair, which made Jim more than a little uncomfortable. An urge to get up and shove Simon right out of the loft warred with his general apathy and sore body. A twinge in his left leg settled it, and Jim decided to let Blair fight his own battles.

"This is so not my fault. Jim sent someone a copy... and then my mother did, and the person she probably sent it to was a publisher who wanted to take it to press, and the NID... never mind," Blair dismissed the whole mess with a wave of his hand, and Simon went from angry to confused in one second flat. Jim hid a smile behind his beer bottle. "Look, that's water under the bridge. The Air Force just needs someone to come in every few months and work with these guys, help them get settled before the military gets their senses so screwed up they can't smell their way to a cookie factory."

"And Jim?"

"Simon, you remember that friend of Blair's who was murdered on campus a couple of years back?"

Simon nodded. "Bad case all around." Suddenly Simon's eyes narrowed, and Jim really wished he had not brought that up because Simon was sharp... he was very sharp, and Jim just did not need him making connections here.

Jim shook his head, "I don't know anything about the shooter, Simon. My point was that all that week I felt uncomfortable and cranky. Hell, Blair came home one day, and I didn't recognize his smell. I thought he was an intruder and I put a gun in his face."

"You what?" Simon was on his feet, and Jim had to hide another smile behind a poker face. Simon might grump and grouch, but he cared about Blair more than he would ever admit.

"Chill out, Simon," Blair immediately stepped in. "It's not like he did anything other than scare the piss out of me and then apologize for about a month. Man, he's welcome to stick his gun in my face again if it gets me a week straight of fresh donuts delivered to my room every morning. Besides, it was a territory thing. Two Sentinels... they need to look each other in the eye, check each other out, you know."

"Two dogs sniffing each other's butts?" Simon interpreted, and Jim turned his coldest glare onto Simon. Unfortunately the captain was immune. He just looked back with amusement making his lips twitch. "So, Blair is doing the work with the Sentinels, and you're there to sniff butts and threaten them," Simon checked.

"Simon, it's late and my shitty mood is getting shittier by the second," Jim warned him.

"We can talk tomorrow," Simon said as he headed for the door. "I'm glad you two are back, and we can figure out something to do with scheduling in the morning." He paused by the garment bag and pulled the plastic up a bit. "Jim, is this your uniform?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I thought you left the service a captain."

"I got promoted, and Simon, that really is a story you do not want to hear." For a second, Simon stood by the couch fingering the plastic on the bag and looking concerned.

"Jim, if you need anything."

"Simon, it's fine. These men... they could be me. I can't say I'm thrilled about having to put my cases on hold every few months, but when I compare that to letting some kid end up in an insane asylum because no one knows how to help him with his senses, it's a fair trade." Jim pushed himself up and realized that he meant that. He wasn't just responsible for Cascade anymore. The Sentinels he and Sandburg would teach would have to protect the Earth. Simon, Daryl, Naomi, Henri, Steven, Joel... everyone they cared about would rely on the SGC and the teams to keep the world free.

Simon nodded, still not looking happy, but willing to accept that. "So, I'm going to have to share you with one more department," Simon said with a disgusted look in Blair's direction. "I just hope Peterson over in Vice realizes that any time you take off is coming off his scheduled time."

"Love you, too, man," Blair told Simon, but he came and stood next to Jim's and leaned against him.

"You two," Simon said with a resigned shake of his head. "I'll see you tomorrow. And get some sleep; you both look ready to collapse." And with that, Simon headed out the door.

"I hate not telling him," Blair said softly as he slipped a hand around Jim's waist, and Jim let his arm drape over Blair's shoulders.

"Me too, Chief, but he doesn't need to be in the middle of this."

Blair just nodded. "I'm wiped. You ready for bed?"

Jim nodded absent-mindedly, annoyed as something teased the edge of his senses. Walking over to the balcony doors, he slid them open and scanned the street until he saw her leaning against a car far down the street.

"Jim?" Blair asked.

"Our escort tonight is a special one, Chief. Say 'hi' to Nikita."

"Aw, fuck. Man, I am too tired. There is a one kidnapping per month rule on this guide," Blair said as he leaned into Jim's side.

Jim could see Nikita smile from two blocks away, so she obviously either had the loft bugged or she was using a directional mike. "I'm not here to do anything other than make sure others who are watching know that you're important enough to warrant personal attention," she said so softly that a person standing next to her on the street would have strained to hear her, but Jim could hear clearly. He repeated Nikita's words as Blair studied the black night unable to even see the car that Nikita was leaning against.

"You're going to keep trading our services for tech until... until what?" Blair asked into the night. Jim flinched. If he had to face harsh truths, he'd rather do it on a little more sleep and maybe a home-cooked meal.

"Until I can't get any more out of them, and then I'll protect you for free, but don't tell them that," Nikita said with a small shrug. "It's funny, but they're still trying to protect their bit of turf... their country, their constituency. It's my job to make sure the pieces fit together, and the tech will help keep things in balance. However, that doesn't make you two expendable. I can't help them up there. I can only make sure they have the pieces they need to get that job done." Nikita looked up at the barely visible stars and the pale moon struggling to shine through the heavy clouds. Jim repeated the words for Blair, feeling odd at having such an intimate conversation across two blocks. If there were watchers, they were getting all of this.

Blair frowned at Jim in confusion when Jim finished. "But does she—" Blair just stopped.

"Chief, I can't pretend to understand her," Jim said. He looked back toward the street, and the car was pulling away from the curb, and Nikita was nowhere in sight. "She's gone."

Blair sighed and moved so that he was in front of Jim, holding him, and Jim rested his cheek on Blair's head, focusing on the scent of his exhausted guide and the steady beat of his heart. "Do you think one day we'll be able to look back and say, 'Hey, this is where we made the right decision,' or 'This is where we fucked up and we should have run for Peru?'" Blair asked softly.

"I don't know, Chief." Jim just stood with Blair in his arms for several minutes. The night was so quiet that Jim could track each person who wandered near the building. Mrs. Pitman was down by the garbage cans muttering in German. A couple of kids were spraying graffiti on the next building over. A man was sitting on a bench turning the pages of a newspaper. "Do you think we're doing the right thing? Right now, no trying to predict the future or outguess Section. Are we doing the right thing?" Jim asked.

Blair didn't answer right away, but his hands tightened around Jim's waist. "I want to help them. I can't stand the thought of what it must feel like to be called obsolete and aggressive and to be left in a zone because someone labeled it a seizure."

Jim knew that Blair was thinking of him, of what would have happened if Jim's senses hadn't gone back offline after Peru. When Jim had first come out of the Army, he was so angry that he couldn't even imagine what that type of disability would have done to him. And if the Army had ordered him to 'bond' the way the NID man had implied they ordered their Sentinels to... he would have eaten his gun.

"Yeah, I think we're doing the right thing," Blair eventually said.

"Then we don't worry about the rest, Chief. We're doing the same thing everyone else is: building a life and hoping some random event doesn't tear it down before we can finish. We'll be fine." Blair turned his head so that his face was buried in Jim's chest, and Jim knew his partner was hiding his fear. Jim just held on a little tighter and stared up at the stars. He thought they were doing the right thing, too, and if time proved them wrong, it wouldn't be the first time the universe laughed at Jim Ellison's expense. As long as he got to keep Blair, he would just laugh right back.

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