The Observer Part 3
  Chapters 11-16
Rated: Adult
Warning: Puppy Play, Dom/sub

Written for the Moonridge Auction, Beta'ed by Kitty_Poker1 and Slashpuppy and Jane Davitt (Thanks ladies!)

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CHAPTER ELEVEN
***
Jim woke, instantly knowing something was wrong. His fingers went to the arm, but everything felt normal, and the swelling had vanished in the night. Without opening his eyes, he felt the other side of the bed and found nothing.

"Damn it," Jim growled as he cracked one eye open and looked around the dimly lit room. The alarm would be going off soon, and no way had Sandburg gotten up before the alarm. Jim swung his legs out of bed and padded downstairs. Sure enough, Blair was still sitting at the table, one arm flopped out on the table top, his head resting on it, his other hand still resting on the computer keyboard, and his hair flopped over his face.

Jim picked up the old-fashioned alarm sitting near Blair's laptop and looked at it. The little arm for the bell had been pushed back down at some point. He wondered if Blair had forgotten to set the alarm or if he'd just ignored it when it had gone off. Jim brushed the hair back from Blair's mouth and revealed a sizable drool stain on Blair's arm, dribbling down onto the table.

"Nice," Jim muttered as he looked at it. New house rule: no drooling on the table. Since it was too late--or too early rather--to get Blair to bed, Jim moved quietly to give him a few extra minutes of sleep. Hopefully, Blair had got some rest last night because it was going to be a long day.

"Tonight you're sleeping upstairs in chains," Jim whispered to the sleeping man. "You aren't doing anyone any favors wearing yourself out." Warning delivered, Jim headed for the shower.

Jim bolted out of the showers minutes later when the phone rang. Dripping onto the floor, he grabbed the phone on the third ring, but the sound hadn't interrupted Blair's drooling.

"Ellison," he said softly as he headed back for the bathroom.

"Jim, the task force is official," Simon offered without any 'hello.'

"Tell me you got me on it," Jim begged as he pushed the door shut.

"You owe me. I've been here since five this morning, but you're heading up the Cascade division. Now, don't get upset, but Carolyn is on this one."

"Carolyn?" Jim asked as he frowned at the mirror.

"Collins talked to the FBI, and their profiler agrees with him. The bomber is most likely to focus on Cascade, so Tacoma is sending new two guys, ATF is sending two, and the FBI is sending a special agent. We'll make up the rest of the task force, which means Carolyn is going to be in on this for technical support."

"Working with Carolyn isn't a problem," Jim said dismissively. "But why is Tacoma sending new guys?"

"Shay isn't exactly up for an investigation," Simon pointed out sarcastically. "Besides, their captain does not like the idea that they're being targeted. He seems to think that The Switchman will try to take Collins out again if he stays. That's also why the FBI announced that you're heading up the task force; they seem to think that will prevent The Switchman from targeting other investigators. But, Jim, this also means that if this goes bad, the blame is falling on your shoulders."

"They're buying Sandburg's interpretation of the Switchman's motives," Jim said, trying to keep the smugness out of his voice. From the heavy sigh on the other end, he guessed he'd failed.

"Only because their profiler agrees. They wouldn't just base an investigation on a graduate student's ramblings."

"I didn't either. I simply listened to them as a source of potential leads," Jim countered.

"Fine. But between Collins and Brown, they have the profiler convinced that Sandburg is some kind of wunderkind. I hope you plan on being there to pick up the pieces when he can't deliver the way these guys seem to think he's going to."

Jim stopped, his razor halfway down his cheek when Simon made that comment.

"I'll take care of Blair," Jim said quietly as he finished the stroke.

"Jim, you're getting tangled here, and the longer I know Sandburg, the more I'm getting worried for both of you."

"Simon, I'm not having this conversation again. How many died yesterday?"

Simon didn't answer right away, and Jim focused on shaving with the phone tucked into the crook of his neck. "We were lucky. Only three. The little girl Sandburg pulled out, a Joseph Kirby, age 62, and Darla Simcox, age 43. We have three more still in critical at the hospital, but it could have been a lot worse. If this had happened a few weeks later when it was colder and fewer people were out with their boats, this could have been a disaster."

"So, Blair's right. This guy is ready for the grand finale. He's going to come after me sooner or later, Simon."

"Yeah, well, he can't have you, Ellison. You owe me too many favors. Besides, I deserve a chance to give you some of the gray hair you've given me over the years."

"Just do me one more favor," Jim asked.

"Do I want to hear this?"

"Keep the task force away from me. I'm going down to the marina to try and track a boat owner."

"Jesus Christ, Ellison. You just asked me to get you on the task force, and now you're avoiding them? You're the head of the task force; what exactly am I supposed to say to these people?"

"I'm the head of the task force so that they have someone to blame if it all goes wrong; they'll be just as happy to avoid me as I am to avoid them. I just need a little time to investigate before getting caught up in paperwork, Simon. The feds want requests in triplicate to wipe your own ass, and I just don't work that way."

"One day, Ellison, you hear me? You have one day, and then I want your ass in here playing nice with the other kids on the playground."

"One day, Simon. Got it," Jim agreed.

"Yeah, right," Simon snorted. "Go follow your marina lead." The phone went dead. Jim smiled as he dropped it and soaped up the other side of his face. For all his complaining, Simon was a good man, and Jim wouldn't want to work for anyone else.

Out of curiosity, Jim focused on his hearing, struggling to hear if Blair was up and about yet. The drag of his razor across his face turned into a roar, and the building itself seemed to moan for a second before Jim could hear the steady breathing and slow heartbeat in the main room. Jim quickly finished and then rinsed his face before going out to find Blair still asleep, the steady heartbeat unchanged.

"Chief, rise and shine. You have class to teach this morning," Jim said as he shook Blair's shoulder. Blair muttered and smacked his lips with a slightly disgruntled expression. "Correction, you have to wash the table and then teach class this morning."

"Jim?" Blair asked as he cracked his eyes open. He pushed himself up, and Jim could see the wince as his back protested.

"Note to self, do not sleep at the table."

"You can consider that a new house rule," Jim agreed, "right after the rule about no drooling on the table."

"Oh man. Okay, that's actually a rule I can get behind because that's kinda..."

"Disgusting?" Jim filled in.

"Yeah," Blair agreed as he headed for the paper towels in the kitchen.

"What happened to going to bed at midnight?" Jim asked casually as Blair ran a paper towel under the faucet.

"I had to check every case by hand, and I was almost through when the alarm went off. I only needed a few more minutes, but I guess I fell asleep." Blair wiped the table and then stretched his arms over his head as his back popped. "I won't be doing that again. Man, you have one seriously uncomfortable table."

"I wouldn't know; I've never tried to sleep on it," Jim said dryly as Blair tossed the paper towel out and came back to pack up the laptop.

"Okay, I have the disk with all the names I could find, listed by lawsuit and filing date. Hopefully, one will either mean something to you or match with one of the background checks. Just let me change shirts, and we can go." Blair started for the stairs.

"Blair, you have class this morning; it's Thursday," Jim pointed out. "Call my cell phone when you're done, and I'll swing by the university and pick you up."

"You don't need to. I called Kiersten and asked her to cover my class this morning, so I'm all yours," Blair said as he hesitated. "Oh man, I didn't even think about the enhanced smell. I should shower. Can you wait five minutes?"

"You what?" Jim demanded as he stared at Blair.

"I'll be out in five minutes," Blair answered, ignoring the actual question as he dashed for the bathroom. Seven minutes later, Blair came running back out of the bathroom with a towel, his unwashed hair pulled back into a pony tail, dripping water as he hurried up the stairs.

"Slow down, you're going to break your neck," Jim yelled after him. The towel came flying over the railing at him, and Jim could hear soft cursing as Blair got tangled in his own underwear.

"For god's sake, Sandburg, I'm not in that much of a hurry."

"I'm coming, I'm coming."

Jim snatched the fallen towel from the floor and draped it over the back of a dining room chair as he leaned against the pillar and crossed his arms. No way was the kid putting his career on hold for Jim's job. Jim was drawing that line in the sand right now. Blair came rushing back down the stairs, one shoe on and carrying the other.

"Okay, I'm ready," he announced as he sat on the stairs and pulled his last shoe on.

"You're not going," Jim told him. Blair paused in the middle of tying his shoes and looked up.

"What?"

"Forget it, Chief. I know you want to be involved with this case, but you are not going to put your job in jeopardy to spend time on this obsession. So, you are going to the university and teaching your class, and when you've finished with your responsibilities, I'll pick you up."

Blair stared at him stunned, and Jim stared right back, unwilling to compromise on this point. If Blair wouldn't put himself first in this relationship, then Jim would.

"You know, Ellison, you can really take the cake sometimes. What the hell gives you the right to tell me what to do with my job?"

Jim paused in the face of Blair's growing anger, but then he set his jaw. "I know you want to help, but you can't put this case ahead of your job. You have your own life, Chief. I'll find this sicko."

"Oh, for god's sake. Jim, you have the mothering instincts of a, well, pretty much any wild animal mother. However, I'm a grown man. You want to control my sexuality, and I am there with you, but you do not have control over what I do with my job."

"I control whether you ride with me or not."

"You don't let me in that truck, and I will follow you all day in my car."

"If I use lights, you can't keep up with me."

"I'll speed."

"I'll arrest you." Jim stepped forward, his arms still crossed.

"God save me from alpha males," Blair sighed. "You just fucking would. Listen, Mother Ellison, I do not owe you an explanation. However, I do not want to stand here and get in a metaphorical pissing contest with you because I already know I'll lose. First, Kiersten owes me because I covered her class for her. And since she's graduating, I either get the favor this semester, or I lose it, man. Second, me taking time off has nothing to do with the case. I have the legal research done, and I could just give you the disk. I'm going along because of your senses."

"What?" Jim had obviously missed something.

"Your senses," Blair repeated. "Once this thing with the police department is over, I'm going back to my research on heightened senses, and this is the ideal time to get some data on you. Three senses heightened--that's as many as anyone I've found. And I have a chance to go along with you and see if the senses make a difference in your investigation now that you're more self aware. I really wish I had baseline data on you, to determine whether the senses were triggered by the danger or just became more noticeable. I mean, have other cops commented on you knowing things when they couldn't figure out how you knew them?"

"My senses? You're coming along to observe my senses?" Jim asked.

"It's my dissertation, or at least it will be after my ride-along ends. Man, I am a big boy. I do not need you to tell me how to handle my job, and I am going along with you if I have to cling to the back bumper of the truck riding a skateboard."

"But." Jim just stopped. He had no way of answering that without losing more face. "The senses are gone," he lied instead. Blair looked at him strangely. "I woke up and everything's back to normal." Jim shrugged as he headed for the door. Blair grabbed his pack and followed.

"Everything's gone? Nothing unusual at all?"

"All perfectly normal," Jim confirmed as he headed for the stairs. That should leave Blair winded enough to just stop asking questions. Now Jim just had to figure out a way to evade Blair's questions in the truck. His stomach clenched at the thought of this conversation, something dark and fetid and bloated bobbing just under the surface of his memory. He pounded down the stairs faster, Blair falling behind as Jim hit the bottom and slammed the door open to the muggy Cascade air.

Blair still hadn't dropped the issue by the fourth marina. "Come on, just try to hear the birds over there," Blair asked as he followed Jim up the ramp. A few boaters were working on the pier, and Jim intended to ask them about the speedboat. Boaters noticed each other, so even if the Switchman had lied on official marina records, someone must have seen something.

"I'm working, Sandburg."

"I'm trying to work. But I have this really grouchy test subject."

Jim turned and glared, but Blair just smiled sweetly and blinked up at him. Rolling his eyes, Jim headed for the first boater.

"Morning. I'm Jim Ellison, Cascade Police Department, and this is a civilian observer with the department, Blair Sandburg. Do you have a minute?"

The older man frowned up at Jim's badge from where he was crouched on the pier adding a new screw to the ladder on the side of his boat. He pulled himself up and stuck the screwdriver in his pocket.

"Sure. This about the explosion yesterday? I wasn't even around."

"Only partially," Jim assured him. People didn't like getting involved in big cases, or at least many people didn't. He shrugged reassuringly as though this wasn't nearly as important as that. "We're just trying to find a witness, someone who drives a white speedboat, a Windy, with green trim."

"No, I haven't seen anything like that around, sorry." The man stood there awkwardly, and Jim nodded.

"Thanks anyway. You do see it, give me a call." He offered a card. The man took it, and looked at it, but Jim really didn't have much hope.

"Yeah, if I see anything like that," the man agreed before climbing up onto his boat.

"Well, this is going well," Blair whispered softly.

"Don't start, Junior; you're the one who invited himself along," Jim warned as he started to the next pier that stuck out into the ocean. Halfway down that pier, he could see a woman sunning on the deck of her ship.

"Aha!" Blair exclaimed triumphantly.

Jim turned and looked at him.

"You shouldn't have heard that," Blair announced, poking a finger towards Jim.

"Sandburg," Jim warned as he started walking again.

"Man, you only *think* the senses are gone. They're right there, just waiting for you to figure out how to use them. This could be huge, Jim. Enormous."

"Legally questionable," Jim pointed out. "Do I have to get a court order allowing me to use my enhanced hearing on a stakeout? If a suspect has an expectation of privacy and I listen in, I'm on some shaky ground in court."

"But the senses are normal. I can give the court at least a hundred cases of enhanced hearing, all documented. I've even written two papers on the connection between enhanced senses and creativity."

"Great, if I need a reason to take up finger painting, I'll have you explain it to Simon. But Chief, this is my job."

"Exactly, and the senses are part of you doing your job."

"You're like a bulldog with a bone," Jim sighed. "I'm starting to wish I had one of your gags here."

"Yeah, yeah, you can gag me later. But listen, Jim, this is a normal part of who you are. It saved my life. It saved Collins and Shay. Who knows how many times these senses have saved someone? You need to learn to--"

Jim reached out, putting fingers over Blair's lips. Tilting his head, he struggled to find what had caught his attention. "I hear something," he whispered. Metal scraped against fiberglass, followed by the softer brush of fibers. Rope or sail.

"What is it?" Blair whispered back, leaning forward so that his hands rested against Jim's back.

"Shhh," Jim admonished, annoyed with how loudly Blair had spoken. Focusing on the pier, he could hear the whorl-whip of a rope zipping through a pulley.

"I.." Blair started, and Jim growled. The man had the good sense to fall silent. A strange feeling of deja vu settled in Jim's stomach as he focused on those faint sounds.

"Damn it," a woman's voice cursed. He heard the faint tones of a dialing phone. For a second, the sound vanished under the crash of waves hitting the side of the boat and the creaking of wood.

"We're moving the final stage up." The woman's voice broke free of the waves and Jim scanned the marina for it. She had to be in one of the nearby boats.

"I don't care. Ellison is going down. I'm going to hurt him as badly as he hurt me when he took my father. So, you can either sell me the stuff, or I'll go somewhere else for the supplies."

Jim strained to hear the voice on the other end, his vision graying out. "Veronica, you're--" The words slipped away and Jim slid into a darkness where nothing existed.

***

"Jim, come on. No leaving the observer by himself, man. I'm about to call 911 if you don't wake your ass up, and you're totally freaking me out." The worried tone in Blair's voice dragged Jim back into a world where the sunlight threatened to burn out his eyes.

Throwing up an arm, he shaded his eyes and staggered back until Blair's hands at his waist helped balance him.

"Shit. You scared me out of two lifetimes of growth, man."

"Blair?" Jim struggled with his thick tongue.

"Unless someone knocked me out, dragged me off and then replaced me with a doppleganger, yeah. Of course, as out of it as you were, I'm not sure you would have noticed."

"What?"

"Man, you have been out of it for over five minutes, and in terms of seizures, that's a pretty significant one."

"Seizure?" Jim turned to Blair, leaning on his shoulder when his own legs threatened to collapse. "I don't have seizures."

"And that's the weird thing. I would swear that was a petit mal seizure, but primary generalized seizures, the absence type anyway, are almost always in children. But you checked out on me."

"The suspect."

"What suspect?" Blair looked around the marina, slightly panicked.

"I heard a woman. She's moving the timetable up. She's going to make me pay for taking her father."

"Oh shit," Blair breathed. "A few boats left, but I didn't even notice them. Man, I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault, Chief. Oh fuck, the light is strong," he cursed as his attempt to open his eyes led him to press them closed and put a hand over them to stop the red flares from invading the darkness.

"Let's get you in the shade. Just lean on me, Jim," Blair said as his arm tightened around Jim's waist. Jim could only stumble after him, his hand still covering his eyes as a drop in temperature told them they'd reached the shade of the small gatehouse near the parking lot of the pier.

"Okay, we need to get your vision under control," Blair muttered, but the sound was almost lost in the fast thumping of his heart. Even with his eyes closed, green light filled his vision, mottled as the sun filtered through the jungle canopy.

"Like a balance," Incacha said as he set a small branch on top of a rock where it tilted but then stilled. "Listen too much and the branch falls." Incacha moved the branch and it tumbled off the rock.

"I can't hear the birds, no one could," Jim argued. He just wanted to go back to the hut. He was here to defend the pass, not listen to this mumbo jumbo about being some kind of freak.

"Do you want them to call you a freak?" his father's voice intruded into the memory.

"Balance," Incacha demanded his attention again. "Allow someone to hold the other end, and you can reach the birds," Incacha explained calmly as he replaced the branch, but this time he held the short end while the long end extended over the rock.

"Fuck," Jim cursed, "not now."

"Hey, I think now would be a great time to get this under control because 911 is still totally an option. Not a good one, but an option," Blair disagreed. "I think I know what's going on, but I'm clueless about how to make this any better, so try and work with me here, Jim."

"Lost my balance," Jim admitted, hating it even as the words escaped.

"What?"

"With my vision. I lost the balance," Jim repeated.

"Oh. Okay, so that means that you just have to find the fulcrum again. Come on, if you lost your balance, that means you can find it. Find the point at which the light is just normal. Just, I don't know, slide around until you can find it."

Jim held Blair's shoulders and slowly the red glow behind his eyelids faded until he could risk cracking his eyes. Blair was looking up at him, worry etched deep into his face.

"Man, if you ever scare the shit out of me like that again," he breathed, and then he was plastered to Jim's front, strong arms wrapped around Jim, holding him.

"I'm fine," Jim promised as he let his cheek rest for a minute on the top of Blair's head. Then he released his own death grip, and they separated enough so that Blair could look up at him. He did feel fine, but Blair was looking at him in a way that made his disbelief silently obvious.

"I feel fine. And I've never had seizures before. Maybe..." Jim grasped at straws, not wanting to deal with the one explanation that now nudged his memory. "Maybe she slipped me some drug somehow."

"She?" Blair demanded.

"The suspect, Veronica. She was talking to someone on the phone, saying that she was moving the final stage up. She wants revenge because of what I did to her father." The name sounded familiar, but maybe the seizure or the drugs had scrambled his brains. Jim started down the central walk, listening for the woman's voice, but he could only hear sea birds crying through the cloudy sky.

"Jim?"

"I don't hear her now. Shit." Jim slapped his hand down on the flat wood rail as he stared across the boats moored here.

"Oh man. It's true," Blair breathed softly. "Can you read that?" Blair asked as he pointed off to the far side of the marina to a white sign with red lettering.

"Mooring costs $7.14 per foot per month, including leasehold tax," Jim read.

"Oh man," Blair breathed again, and this time Jim glared at him. "I can't read that."

"So I have better eyes than you do."

"No, Jim, I can barely see red squiggles on the white, and I have perfect vision with my glasses on. No one could read that from here."

"What are you saying?" Jim asked, his guts tightening. He didn't want to be different. He wasn't a freak.

"Man, you're it."

"Sandburg," Jim growled. "I'm heading back to the precinct."

"A Sentinel! You're a Sentinel. You have four enhanced senses, and the odds of your smell being enhanced without your taste being affected are negligible. And then the seizure. Burton called that a zone out. You're a Sentinel."

"One of your tribal protectors?" Jim asked suspiciously. He wasn't tribal, and right now, he was feeling more homicidal than protective. He crossed his arms, but Blair totally ignored his forbidding body language. Instead, he turned and turned back as though he couldn't decide what to look at. Smiling brightly, he bounced on the balls of his feet.

"It fits. Burton described Sentinels as having a companion who would watch their back because sometimes so much sensory input would come in at once that they just stopped. It makes sense. The brain gets too many neurons firing at once, and a seizure is the normal response. Man, you're a Sentinel."

"Normal response?" Jim demanded. "Freezing in the middle of a crime scene is a normal response? How the fuck do I turn off this normal response?" Jim demanded.

Blair froze mid-bounce, looking up at Jim."I don't know."

"Then use that famous brain of yours, get out your books, and find a way," Jim demanded before he turned his back and stormed back toward the truck.

"But, Jim," Blair protested as he chased after him. Jim ignored the little warning of dread in his stomach that told him not to turn away from his partner. Everyone else knew the cocky, mouthy, indomitable Blair, but Jim knew how fragile that facade could be. "You're a walking crime lab, a living observation post."

"It doesn't help if I can't do my job," Jim growled, ignoring the frisson of fear at the idea that he'd left Blair alone. For those five minutes, Blair had been alone in the middle of pursuing a mass murderer. Alone and undefended. He unlocked the truck door, but Blair wasn't going around to his side.

"Without your senses, you would not have heard that. I have excellent hearing. Hell, my students claim I have bat-hearing because I can hear a sarcastically muttered complaint from 50 feet, but I didn't hear anything out there. You got that it was a woman named Veronica who doesn't like that you did something to her father."

"Without my senses, I would not have left you out there undefended," Jim snapped back as he whirled on his partner. "You're an unarmed observer. If Veronica had come up behind us, what would you have done? I have no business taking you into situations if I can't defend you." Jim clutched the edge of the door so hard that he could feel his fingers strain and cramp.

"Jim," Blair said softly, moving forward and resting a hand on Jim's arm.

"No." Jim narrowed his eyes and turned his back on Blair before getting in the truck. He slammed the door and then waited as Blair went around to his side. "You either figure out how to turn this off, or I'm going on desk duty until we get it sorted." Jim wasn't angry. His hands gripped the wheel until his knuckles turned white, but he wasn't angry--just realistic.

Blair opened his mouth several times before closing it silently. Finally he found words. "Burton talks about what triggers the Sentinel abilities--a manhood ceremony or a time alone in the wilderness. I can see if anything would give us a clue about how to turn it off."

Blair didn't sound happy, but Jim didn't need him happy, he just needed to be able to do his job.

"I know you'll find something, Chief," he said with an encouraging smile before he started the truck.

CHAPTER TWELVE
***

Jim watched the drama with crossed arms as Simon came into the large conference room. From the unlit cigar stuck in his mouth, Jim guessed he'd just been getting chewed on by one of the higher ups. Now he'd come here looking for answers, but Jim wasn't sure they had any yet.

Someone had pulled two full-sized desks into the room. Special Agent Daniel Nakamura had commandeered one. He sat typing on his laptop and surrounded by stacks of files. Cheryl Meztger and Carlos Avalos from ATF had claimed the other desk, but they stood around the main table right now. Jim stood back some as Blair moved various papers around on the desk.

"No way. Whatever she has in her head, it's delusion. The way she addresses these emails to Jim when he isn't even in Tacoma shows that she is not totally gripping with reality," Blair argued with the FBI profiler, a sun-worn older man with skin like leather.

The profiler, whose name Jim had totally missed, shook his head. "She was trying to get us to put the pieces together faster. By putting Ellison's name in there, she guaranteed that he became a focus for the investigation. It's just one more carefully considered manipulation."

"He got involved the minute she sent that letter to Cascade. We're looking at someone who's just a little wacko," Blair argued, his hands gesturing wildly.

"I agree that she has her own internal logic..."

"That's not very damn logical," Blair interrupted.

"But she must feel like she has some reason for revenge," the profiler continued, ignoring the interruption without showing any frustration.

"Okay, maybe she feels that way, but I know Ellison, and he's, like, so straight that he has trouble turning corners."

"Thanks, Sandburg. You make me sound like I have a stick up my ass," Jim complained. Brown, over in the corner with Bannister from Organized Crime, snickered. Jim glared.

"If you guys are done trying to figure out where she's buying explosives, I'm sure I can find something else for you to work on... something with a lot of cross-referencing," Jim threatened. Brown held up his hands in surrender, but still smirked.

"Sorry, man, but if the shoe fits." Blair shrugged. "But I'm just defending your honor here. No way did you do something to deserve this kind of retribution."

"I never said Detective Ellison deserved this," the profiler protested. "I simply asked if he had any skeletons in his closet. Many female serial killers do focus on righting what they perceive to be injustices."

"Aileen Wuornos, who believed all men were trying to attack her." Blair nodded enthusiastically. "It matches the imagery of a switchman, trying to save people. Man, why didn't I stop and even consider that the bomber could be a woman?"

"Because it defies almost every profile," the profiler pointed out.

"Okay, you have me on that one, but whatever the connection to Jim, it's an imagined wrong. He so did not do anything to actually attract her attention."

Banks chose that moment to cough and get people's attention. Most of the room fell silent; only Nakamura kept working, his fingers clicking away at the computer keys.

"The mayor is looking for an update, so let's hear what we have." Simon looked straight at Jim for an answer.

"We know the Switchman is a woman named Veronica. However, according to the marina, a boat matching our witness description is owned by a John Smith."

"Original," Simon snorted.

"The address given is an old sawmill out in the middle of nowhere, but none of the employees remember who actually rented the slip."

"Could we be looking at two suspects?" Simon asked. Blair immediately shook his head, but it was the profiler who spoke up.

"Everything indicates a single person, obsessive about details, probably unwilling to have a partner because of the risk of the other person making a mistake. She feels like she's addressing some sort of wrong..."

"If that headache hadn't stopped me," Jim growled, repeating the story he'd used for having lost track of her at the marina.

Blair spoke up. "Hey, that is an unavoidable side effect. This one woman I tested got migraines from just a truck backfiring outside her house, and the musician with that perfect ability to hear every instrument at once? If he focused for more than ten or fifteen minutes, he would be so sensitive that even footsteps would bother him. Some people with enhanced senses have those kinds of trouble."

"Are you okay now, Jim?" Simon asked.

"I'm fine. I'm just furious that I lost her."

"Man, you discovered more in that three minutes than everyone else has been able to put together in how many weeks?" Blair protested. "I mean, just the fact that she's a woman is huge. It changes the whole profile. And then there's that bit with her father."

"I'm fascinated by these senses Sandburg is studying. We're just lucky Detective Ellison is on the case because the gender of the subject completely changes the profile."

Simon completely ignored the comments on Jim's senses, for which Jim would have to thank him later. "Any idea who that would be?" Simon asked.

"No," Jim quickly answered. "The profiler and Blair are guessing it's the daughter of someone I knew in the military, or possibly I knew her, and something I did impacted her, which had repercussions for her father."

"Something that is totally not Jim's fault, like not getting her home in time to see a dying father or something," Blair interjected.

"There were a very limited number of women under my command, though, so I don't think that's the best approach. Either way, it does seem like there's a military connection, which would explain why she started her attacks back where I started my military career."

"Not quite. I mean, when you lived in Tacoma you weren't in the military yet," Blair pointed out.

"I had already signed up. I just didn't want to go home until I had to report." The profiler glanced up from his papers, obviously interested in that tidbit, but Jim was not going there. In the last two hours of standing at the edge of the chaos, he'd had way too much time to think about things he had pushed into a dark corner of his mind.

"Oh, hey, you haven't gotten to look through the list of post office employees I pulled," Blair said as he grabbed for his bag sitting on a chair.

"How did you get that?" Nakamura demanded as he stood up and finally came out from behind his desk.

"Public records, man. Public records, a whole lot of caffeine, and not a whole lot of sleep."

"Sandburg's a resourceful little shit," Brown seconded from his own pile of papers.

"And a pain in the ass if he hears one little joke," Bannister added with a pained expression.

"Hey, joking about racial and gender inequity is part of the whole system that makes it harder for minorities to feel like they get equal protection," Blair said as he crossed his arms and glared at Bannister.

"I investigate every crime equally," Bannister defended himself.

"Totally. I know that," Blair said soothingly as he went back to digging out his laptop. "That's why those jokes are so not cool. It's all about perception. You make a joke or roll your eyes or make not cool comments about someone just because he's wearing some leather bondage, and next thing you know, someone is assuming that you're part of the patriarchal system of oppression."

Simon started choking as he yanked his unlit cigar from his mouth.

"I'm telling you, you won't win against Professor Sandburg," Brown laughed.

"I don't know why I bother. And I'm not part of any system of repression," Bannister complained.

"Oppression," Blair corrected him without looking up. He punched the button on the side of the computer to get the disk out. "My batteries are low, but this will work on your system. Let's head out to your desk, Jim," Blair said as he headed for the door.

"Jim, anything more to report?" Simon asked, not moving from the door as Blair tried to leave. Blair crossed his arms and glared at the captain.

"We're cross-referencing everything we have, but it's going to take time," Jim answered.

"I have an appointment tomorrow with the commander at Fort Lewis to request the personnel lists from Ellison's time in basic training," Nakamura offered.

"Well, let's get something before this woman strikes again," Simon said as he finally stepped aside just far enough for Blair to slide through. Jim shook his head as he went to follow, and Simon moved aside for him.

"Alpha dogs. Man, I bet you guys pee on your territories," Blair muttered, but Jim wasn't sure if it was actually loud enough for anyone else to hear. Jim followed Blair into Major Crimes, which had been largely abandoned. Rafe sat at a computer and Simon's secretary sat answering the phone. Blair plopped down in Jim's desk chair, leaving Jim to sit on Blair's chair, which now sat permanently next to his main desk chair. Jim frowned at how hard the thing was, which made sense since Blair had just commandeered one of the visitor chairs.

"I don't think Simon is the type to pee on things," Jim commented. Blair gave him a confused look before smiling.

"I have *got* to remember that you can hear it when I say that shit. But I'm still willing to bet that you and Simon are both like big cats peeing on your territory."

"I haven't peed on you," Jim whispered as he leaned forward and looked at the list of names over Blair's shoulder. Blair started sliding to the side, but Jim used his foot to keep the chair in place and let his hand fall on Blair's shoulder. He tightened his grip just hard enough to let Blair know it wasn't an accident. Blair sagged into the chair.

"Yet," he said dryly.

"Okay, Sandburg, that is one kink which we will not be exploring."

"Come on, you can't tell me that you haven't ever peed on someone's yard or on their stuff, just to, I don't know, prove a point. I bet if I ask a dozen cops, every one will admit to peeing on something, and you have more testosterone than most."

"When I was twelve, maybe," Jim conceded. "My neighbor was an asshole and I peed on his roses. He found the yellow residue on the leaves and was sniffing it for a good five minutes before he figured out what it was. Stephen and I laughed our asses off."

"I knew it."

"So, as a bottom, you've never peed on someone's stuff?"

"Oh man, I totally have. Like I said, I just do things a little differently, like not leaving evidence. I made sure to pee on the grass, nice and low where no one checks it. In fact, after my Master's thesis passed, I got plastered on rum and Coke, and then me and two of the guys went and peed on the Chancellor's lawn."

"Wait. You did this as an adult?" Jim demanded as he shifted his attention from the list of names to Blair.

"Trust me, the Chancellor totally deserved it."

Jim just looked at Blair as he tried to imagine a drunk Blair peeing on some manicured lawn. "You're lucky you didn't get arrested for public drunkenness and indecency."

"Hey, if you think I need to learn a lesson, I'm available for house arrest," Blair smiled.

"No way; you'd probably pee on the couch when I wasn't looking if I even tried," Jim said as he returned to studying the list. He leaned farther in and used the mouse to scroll down.

"With your sense of smell? No, thank you. There's punishment, and then there's what you'd do if I peed on your shit."

"I really wish you'd quit talking about my senses. I do not want this Sentinel shit getting out," Jim whispered roughly.

"I wouldn't!" Blair protested loudly enough that Rafe looked up from his desk. Jim sat up some and looked at Blair. He blushed. "I wouldn't," he repeated in a near whisper. "But you're already on record with two hyperactive senses."

"Two. Just two. And those two will be fading soon," Jim said as he clicked down for more names. Blair fell silent and Jim skimmed through the list. He froze when one name appeared at the bottom of his screen.

"Shit," Jim said as he pushed himself back. The name in black letters on a green screen brought back the image of a face twisted with pain under a green canopy ripped open by the falling chopper.

"I don't need the fucking painkiller. Just give it to Hayworth," Frank had insisted. He clenched his teeth, but didn't make a sound as Jim looked at the twisted leg and the broken ribs that had already started swelling. However, Hayworth was bellowing, his guts bloating as he bled internally. The other men were already dead, their broken bodies scattered.

"He won't..." Jim stopped. Frank might make it, Hayworth wouldn't.

"Give him the fucking drugs, Cap. Neither one of us is going to make it, and he needs 'em more than I do."

Jim pulled himself from that memory, and Blair was still looking from the screen to him in confusion.

"What?" he finally asked when Jim just stared, too shocked to even say anything.

"Frank Sarris. She hates me for letting Frank Sarris die," Jim whispered as he remembered the lieutenant proudly showing him a picture of a little girl with long brown hair. "Veronica Sarris wants me to pay for letting her father die."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
***

Jim walked into the loft, his nerves nearly shot after hours of tracking down Veronica Sarris. Her address led to a spot in the middle of the Sound, her employers said she had taken off for a long weekend, and the woman didn't seem to have any friends. Nope, all she had was a serious obsession with Jim.

The door slammed, and Jim flinched as the sound echoed in his head. He struggled to find the balance Incacha had once explained, and he didn't think the return of his memories had really improved the day as much as made it even more fucking miserable.

"You want to talk about it?" Blair asked as he walked around Jim to get to the kitchen.

"No." Jim walked to the balcony doors and pulled them open. She could be out there right now, watching. The traffic noise swelled until Jim felt like he was in the middle of the street with the engines roaring around him. A hand touched his back and the noise retreated as Blair held out a beer.

"Thanks," Jim offered as he took it. He drank deeply as he tried to wash out the remembered bitterness of burning metal and flesh. Blair disappeared, and Jim focused his hearing out toward the city. He felt off balance, like when the senses had first shown up in Peru.

"Do you want people to call you a freak?" William's voice floated out of the past, and Jim closed his eyes. Okay, so he had the senses earlier than Peru, but that was the first time he'd done anything other than hide them. Incacha had called them normal, like Blair had. Jim weighed those opinions against his father's disgust. Fuck, he was a grown man; he wasn't supposed to care what William Ellison thought about him.

"Jim?"

Jim sighed and stared at the water for a second before turning around. Blair stood there naked except for the plastic around his cock. Jim frowned and walked forward, staring at the clear plastic sheath that curved down, trapping Blair's cock inside. Attached to the top was a small lock. Blair held out his hand with a pair of keys sitting in the palm.

"Chief, it's been a long fucking day."

"Hey, I get that. You've had some weird shit hit you in the last 24 hours." Blair nodded. He didn't move when Jim stepped closer and reached down to trace the chastity device. The lock held the sheath to a ring that sat behind Blair's balls, and his ball sac hung down between the two pieces of plastic. Jim fingered the contraption and could tell that Blair wasn't getting it off without either cutting the lock or amputating parts that he was very fond of.

"I don't know that I have the energy to play tonight," Jim commented as he watched Blair's penis thicken in the plastic cage, quickly filling the space until the skin pressed against the plastic. One of Blair's hands came up to rest on Jim's shoulder.

"Hey, that's cool," Blair agreed tightly.

"Does it hurt?" Jim asked in concern.

"Only in a 'I really want to come' way." Blair shrugged. "But you know me; I don't mind that hurt at all. And this thing doesn't require any babysitting on your part. I can pee and wash myself and do whatever I need to do with it on, but you still get to decide when I come."

"Blair," Jim said as he looked up at his lover's face.

"One week. I figure at the end of the week, we can decide whether we want to keep playing this game."

Jim closed his eyes. "I already know my answer to that," he confessed. "But, Chief, I'm not sure you can go a week without coming."

"Hey, you could let me come at any point," Blair pointed out. "In fact, I plan to use copious amounts of begging here." He took one of Jim's hands and dropped the keys into it. "And I used to go days in bondage without ever coming. Most of my clients enjoyed watching me not come. I think you're the first partner I've ever had who actually made a point of seeing that I came."

"Chief," Jim said as he closed his fist around the keys.

"Just put those somewhere that I can't get them because, given the chance, I so plan to cheat," Blair added.

"I'll put one on my keychain, and lock the other in the safe with the important papers," Jim agreed. "But are you sure you want to do this? This is where I went wrong with Caro, you know. She tried too hard, and when she had to back off, I couldn't. I wanted this." Jim let his hands slip down to Blair's hips, and he could feel the keys pressed between his hand and Blair's flesh.

"Oh man, I always want too much. I mean, I'm out there fighting for so much in the world, and I just want to not fight. Man, I trust you, and I want this to be yours."

"Even if I have fantasies of taking you without ever unlocking this?" Jim asked as he tapped the hard plastic.

"Fuck, yeah," Blair agreed. "I can't explain it, Jim. I just know what I like, and I trust you. I trust you like I haven't trusted anyone else."

Jim stood with his hands resting on Blair's hips as he tried to sort through his feelings. He had a little guilt in there at the idea of his lover not coming. He'd spent a lifetime of always making sure his lovers climaxed before he did. But at the same time, he knew how much Blair enjoyed waiting. Decision made, Jim headed for the key basket, slipping the keys onto his ring.

"You do know I'll hear if you so much as touch that, right?" Jim asked.

"Yeah, I kinda figured. I also figure you'll smell it if I work out any other way of coming. But I'm sticking with the begging plan. I can beg really well. I'm told I have puppy dog eyes."

"Yeah, but I'm a hard ass, remember?" Jim asked with a smile as he came back and let his hand cup Blair's face. "So many restraints to choose from. So, what will I do to you tonight?" Jim paused. "Do you have any papers to grade?" Jim suddenly asked.

"I got most graded between Special Agent Nakamura with his Japanese curses and Simon demanding that Gary get Sarris' service records. I mean, yeah, for a DA, Gary's a miracle worker, and I'm the first to sing his praises, but the man has limits. I can grade the rest easy since I don't teach until Monday."

Jim nodded. No way was he going to question Blair's teaching abilities again. "Rambo's on TV tonight," he commented as he went for their toy chest.

"Oh man, you were in the service. How can you watch that commercial drivel?"

"It's an alpha dog thing," Jim shrugged as he lifted the plastic containers holding a variety of different restraints. He found one of the new toys near the bottom. "If you want anything to eat or drink, I suggest you get it now," he commented. They'd had dinner at the precinct, but Jim didn't like to start a session without giving Blair some warning.

"Right," Blair said and he turned to the kitchen. Jim listened to the water run for a second before Blair filled a glass and drank it. "Okay, ready when you are," he said cheerfully as he came back. He sank to his knees next to Jim and let his eyes scan the various toys and restraints Jim had moved around.

"Open up," Jim said. He slipped a ball into Blair's mouth. It was soft enough to fit the curves of his mouth and keep his jaw from getting sore, but large enough to keep him quiet. Jim pulled out a head harness with a wide strap around the mouth that would keep Blair from spitting it out. Blair knelt, his hands on his thighs as Jim buckled it in place.

Jim paused, playing with Blair's nipple ring and watching his cock fight the chastity device. Eventually, Blair's fingers found Jim's shoulders, pressing into them as he threw his head back and squirmed.

"So, what were you saying about begging?" Jim mused as he finally let go of the nipple ring. Blair looked at him and glared.

"Your choice, Chief. You gave me the power when you knew I loved to torture you. There's nothing like the sight of you squirming and helpless to really end the day right." Blair's glare softened and his fingers brushed Jim's jaw. Jim reached in the toy chest and brought out a lock. He slipped it into the gag's buckle, and he could see Blair's confusion in his expression.

"I've had a hard day. I'm going to go get a shower, and when I come back, I want this in you," Jim said as he handed his lover a large plug. Jim knew Blair would normally get hard just from the sight, and now he closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose before nodding.

"Have fun," Jim said as he got up and dropped the lid closed on the toy chest. A quick turn of the lock and Jim headed upstairs for his robe. Through his shower, Jim could easily track Blair's movements. He could even tell how far Blair had gotten in his chore from the whimpers he could hear over the sound of the water pounding the tile. Eventually, though, the sounds stopped, and Blair washed his hands in the kitchen sink.

When Jim came out, Blair was kneeling on the floor next to the couch. Jim stopped near the table and smelled the air. He could see the confused tilt of Blair's head.

"I can smell you," Jim said. Blair immediately looked down toward his body.

"Not in a body odor way," Jim corrected the misunderstanding. "I just realized that I can smell your lust. You're not exactly suffering here," Jim said. From the slight crinkling next to Blair's eyes, Jim guessed he was trying to smile behind the mouth guard.

Jim dropped his robe, draping it over the back of the chair, and he could hear that groan as loudly as if Blair weren't gagged. And as he walked closer, the cloud of lust and hormones nearly knocked him off his feet. He had been planning on waiting, but his cock had other thoughts.

"Up," Jim said as with a bent finger. Blair immediately got up.

"Hands on the arm of the couch," Jim ordered. Blair held up a finger for him to wait one second, and then he dashed to the kitchen counter. Jim watched with a little aggravation as he came back with a pad of paper.

"The whole point of the gag is to get you to stop," he pointed out as Blair handed him the paper.

'No condom' was written in bold letters.

"Blair," Jim breathed. "This isn't something to just decide in a second."

Blair pointed to the paper again and crossed his arms.

"If I do this, neither of us is going outside this relationship. One slip on that front, and the trust we're putting in each other would be gone."

Blair tapped the paper again before he moved to the end of the couch and braced himself on the arm, wiggling the ass that was up in the air. Jim debated for a second before he stepped up behind Blair, his cock already hard. Pulling the plug out, Jim slipped two fingers in to check for lube before he took his own cock in hand.

Bracing himself on Blair's hip, he slid forward into that heat without the plastic between them. He could almost feel every cell as he pressed until he was totally buried in Blair's body.

"God, Blair," Jim said before he pulled out and started thrusting. Blair grunted and pushed back in time with Jim's thrusts. The smell of his lust, and Blair's, swirled around him as he drove forward harder and faster until Blair made a muffled whine and Jim came with a roar.

Panting, Jim let himself lean for a second against Blair's solid back, his cock slowly softening before it slipped out.

"That was a little quicker than I planned," Jim admitted as he pressed the plug back into place. Blair gave a little half shrug, and Jim slapped the exposed butt. "Are you okay?" he asked. Blair immediately nodded.

"Wipe up and then go get the extra comforter out of the closet along with the bed pillows," Jim ordered. Blair stood up, his hands going to the chastity device for a second before he headed for the bathroom. Jim leaned against the back of the couch while Blair cleaned himself up.

"Oh, Chief. I seriously hope you know what you're getting into," he prayed as he turned to the fireplace, getting a small fire started before heading to the bathroom for a little cleaning up himself.

When he came out, the fire had almost died, and Blair had made a nest in front of it with the comforter and pillows.

"Find Rambo, would you?" Jim asked as he turned this attention to saving the fire. Blair made a noise that might have been a complaint, but then the television flickered to life as he flipped channels.

"Yeah, well, Rambo is better than those documentaries that you watch."

And that noise was definitely a complaint.

"Television is supposed to be escapist. If you want great social commentary, read a book," Jim argued. Blair found the right channel and put the remote back on the coffee table.

"Damn. Forgot the oil. There's massage oil on the bathroom counter. Go grab that, and bring me a cold beer on your way back," Jim said as he rearranged the pillows some and lay on his stomach, still nude.

Blair got up and hurried into the bathroom where Jim tracked him with hearing that was suddenly much more balanced than it had even been in Peru. In seconds, Blair came back with the massage oil in one hand and the beer in the other. Jim took the beer and took a deep drink.

"It's been a bad fucking day. I think you can figure out what to do with that," Jim said as he sank back down onto the pillows, his chin resting on his arms.

Behind him, Blair clicked the oil open and warmed it in his hands before he started working Jim's back, pressing into just the right muscles to make Jim's arms tingle as the tension eased.

Blair worked slowly down Jim's body, focusing wherever those talented fingers found knotted muscles. By the time Blair was pressing thumbs to the bottoms of Jim's feet, Rambo was escaping from the cave where the explosives had trapped him, and Jim lay nearly boneless on the floor.

"I'd totally forgotten until today," Jim muttered. Blair ran warm hands up his calves and over his ass until he was just gently stroking Jim's back.

"In the jungle, the tribe that found me had a shaman named Incacha. He called me a watchman. I thought he was nuts."

Blair's hands never paused in their gentle stroking.

"He taught me about my senses. He called it learning to balance them. He said that as long as I was by myself, I had to balance in the middle, near normal. Only when I had someone to balance me could I risk stretching out with my senses."

Blair's hands moved up to Jim's shoulders, but Jim could sense that Blair's tired fingers didn't have the strength to really rub any more.

"I don't want to get the bed oily. Go get some warm soapy water, a cloth and some towels," he told Blair. Blair immediately got up and headed for the bathroom.

"You know, Simon would faint if he could see you following orders. He has the impression that you do the opposite of what anyone asks you, just for the sake of it," Jim called. Blair couldn't exactly answer, but Jim could hear the water running.

Soon Blair came back with a pitcher full of warm soapy water and a bunch of towels.

"I have to do laundry tomorrow," Jim mused as he looked at the pile Blair set down. Blair pulled the washcloth from the pitcher and wrung it out before he carefully started wiping Jim down.

"When I talked to Incacha about coming home, he said I needed to find my..." Jim paused, struggling for a way to translate the term. "I guess ally would be the best translation. It's someone who gives me something to hold on to when I stretch the senses."

Jim knew that Blair's mind had to be going a hundred miles an hour, but he kept washing Jim's back with even strokes of the soft cloth over his skin.

"But if I ignore the senses long enough, deny them, they will fade. I'll go back to just being balanced near normal. The senses are too dangerous in the city, Chief. They were designed for life in the wild. I would hear a snake moving through the leaves as clearly as a car horn, but a car horn would deafen me."

"And if I use the senses, I need you around any time I'm going to use them. In four weeks, you go back to being a teacher and grad student who just lives with this cranky, old cop who never plans on letting you go. You can't be there, and I can't get used to using my senses. I just need to ignore them until they go back down to normal."

Blair's hands paused in their ministrations.

"I've thought about this since the memory came back this afternoon," Jim said firmly. "It's the best solution. This time, I just need to not accidentally repress the memories of my ally and my time with the senses when I repress the senses themselves."

Blair worked his way down Jim's body in the silence that followed, and the fire turned to embers as Rambo blew up a few more things. When Blair finished by washing Jim's feet, he stood up and took the supplies back to the bathroom.

Jim turned his head so he could watch Blair come padding back on bare feet and drop to his knees near Jim's head. Blair reached out and touched Jim's jaw with the back of a finger.

Jim captured the hand and dropped a kiss on the fingers before he released it.

"I love that you worry about me, but I'm a lot tougher than a few senses. This is the best solution, and you're not going to change my mind," Jim said as he stood up with a groan. "God, I feel good," he admitted as he rolled his head from one side to the other. Blair grabbed the pillows Jim had been lying on.

"I get it, you know," Jim said as Blair stood up, all four pillows from the bed hugged in his arms. Blair turned to him with a quizzical expression.

"It's about trust," Jim said. He let his fingers trace the edge of the leather that covered Blair's entire mouth. "You trust me, and you hope that you can show me how to trust you. You aren't quite as devious as you think," Jim said as he smiled. From the blush and the way Blair's eyes dropped to the ground, Jim knew he'd guessed right.

"And you aren't getting this off just because I figured out the game," Jim warned as he reached down and teased the exposed balls that hung between the locking rings of the chastity device. Blair nodded without bringing his eyes up.

"I'm taking the gag off, but you're going to be quiet. I want you to get whatever you need from the kitchen, use the bathroom, and then get up to bed. No more sleeping over your work, even if that means I chain you to the bed every night." Jim smiled when the musk of lust thickened in the air. Blair nodded.

Jim went over to the toy chest and got out the keys that went to their regular padlocks. He quickly had the lock off the gag and Blair was soon stretching his lips.

"Toss the ball in the dishwasher," Jim said as he took the pillows from Blair and headed upstairs. Blair didn't answer, but Jim trusted he was following orders. Jim was sitting on the edge of the bed when Blair came upstairs and sat on his side, groaning as his ass hit the mattress, and that was when Jim remembered Blair still had the plug in.

"Do you want me to..." Jim started.

Blair shook his head and lay down on the bed, holding his hands out toward Jim with an expression that made it clear that he was asking a question.

"You know, you talk pretty well even when you're mute, but I can't tell if you're asking if I plan to chain you or asking me to chain you," Jim admitted as he walked around the bed. "Not that it matters because I do plan on chaining you," Jim finished.

Blair stretched a little and pulled the covers up before he threaded his fingers and waited with his wrists together. Jim slid the chain through the railing before locking the padded restraints around Blair's wrists. He had walked back to his side of the bed before Blair spoke.

"You're only half right, you know," he said as Jim turned the lights out and slid under the covers.

"Which half?" Jim asked curiously.

"I do want you to know you can trust me, but that's not all this is about," Blair said as he shifted around so that he could better see Jim. "I've never met anyone I really trusted. I mean, my mom loves me, and she still left. I was sixteen, and I begged her to get an apartment near the college, and she left. That first year at Rainier, I was like this total jackass, all entitlement and attitude, because I was just so insecure."

"So all this?" Jim asked.

"This is as much for me as for you," Blair said, blinking at the darkness in a way that told Jim he couldn't see anything. "This just reminds me that I finally found someone I trust, someone who I think won't walk out on me."

"You've decided that after knowing me three weeks?" Jim asked.

"Hey, we moved in together after knowing each other one week, so I figure we're on the accelerated track," he joked.

"Not anymore, we aren't," Jim said as he thought about how fast the end had come with Carolyn. "We are officially off the track altogether because this is where I want our relationship to stay," Jim said as he wrapped his arm around Blair's stomach.

"Yeah, I'm good with that," Blair agreed sleepily. He shifted back around, and Jim spooned up to his back, listening to his heartbeat as he slipped into sleep.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
***

Jim woke when the first rays of sun were just creeping into the loft. His arm was still draped over Blair, and he tightened his hold, pulling the sleeping man back into his chest. Blair shifted, and the chain from his wrists to the rail clinked before he settled back into sleep.

Even though Jim could think of a dozen things he needed to do, he settled in and closed his eyes as he waited for the alarm to tell him that he had to get up.

"Your Guide, Enquiri, will lead you to your senses again," Jim remembered Incacha saying as they crouched beside the river, barbed sticks in hand as they waited for the fish.

"I won't need the senses when I go back to the city. They'll be more of a problem than anything else."

"You will always be a Guardian, a Watchman of the tribe. How can you fulfill you destiny if you do not accept your senses and your Guide?"

Jim snorted softly into Blair's hair. He'd told Blair that Incacha's word for the one who helped him keep his balance was ‘ally’. Not even close. Jim remembered that, at the time, he'd vowed to himself to keep the Guide as far away from him as he could if this mythical person ever showed up. The idea of following another person's guidance didn't sit well with him, especially after following orders had led to him being alone in the jungle with only seven graves to remember the men who had followed him.

Shit. And now he had to track down Frank's daughter. Jim remembered Frank Sarris as quick with a smile and always ready to pull a joke. Sometimes, the jokes had gone a little too far, and as the commander, Jim had come down on him, but Sarris would laugh off a weekend of guard duty as just the price to pay for a good practical joke.

Frank loved showing off his pictures of his little girl. Told everyone how she was a daddy's girl. Not long before the Peru mission, Frank had shown them pictures of his little Veronica all dressed up in her cap and gown for high school graduation. Jim remembered thinking he was getting old because he could recall when the pictures Frank shoved under their noses included a little nude girl with pigtails sitting in a bathtub.

Of course, all seven of the men who'd died in that crash had families, families who Jim would have informed of their deaths if he hadn't been abandoned and listed as 'presumed dead' himself. He just never expected this part of his life to come crashing back into the world he'd made in Cascade.

Blair shifted, and Jim realized he had tightened his hold on his partner. He loosened his grip, and Blair settled back into sleep. Unlike his other memories of the senses and the tribe and the determination to reject any potential Guide, his memories of Frank and the others had survived. Jim just didn't like thinking of them.

Pushing those aside for the moment, he focused on the newly-found memories that drifted through his mind. He struggled to recreate a time that had definitely gone missing in his brain. The manhood ceremony where Incacha had named him Enquiri, the day a drug-dealer's bullet had grazed his thigh and Jim realized that he could die out here and no one would ever know, the first time he'd zoned and woken with Incacha's hand on his back: they all slipped into place as Jim let himself remember a life where everything had been sharper and stronger and clearer.

The alarm interrupted his thoughts, and for a second Jim continued to lie in bed, holding Blair as he struggled to pull himself out of the past.

"I'm rubbing off on you," Blair mumbled without opening his eyes.

"What's that?" Jim sat up and hit the alarm clock with more force than absolutely necessary before he got up and walked around the bed.

"You usually get up before the alarm even goes off. You lying in bed through the ringing… face it, man, I'm rubbing off."

Jim unlocked Blair's wrists and dropped the chain into the box before pushing it under the bed with his foot. "You're growing on me like mold, Chief," Jim agreed.

"Har har. So, I'm up with the alarm. I seem to remember someone saying something about there being time for fun and games if I could just learn to get up with the alarm." Blair reached out and ran a finger along Jim's thigh.

"Oh, you remember that?" Jim asked as he sat on the very edge of the bed. Blair scooted back to give him more room.

"I totally remember that. I remember accusing you of operant conditioning, trying to turn me into a morning person. But if you're interested, I could definitely find a good reason to get moving this morning." Blair's palm rested on Jim's thigh, and Jim felt his cock harden in response. "You want some help with that?" Blair asked flirtatiously.

"I wouldn't mind some," Jim agreed as he shifted around. He moved so that he was leaning back against the railing, one leg hanging off the bed, and Blair leered.

"Oh hell, yeah. I've wanted to taste you since you showed up at Espinoza's house, all dominant and commanding and still amused by me ripping those idiots to shreds. And rubber is not my favorite flavor," Blair admitted as he shifted around until he was face to cock with Jim. He slowly licked up the quickly hardening shaft.

Jim gripped the railing to keep from grabbing Blair's head and gasped as his whole body shivered in lust. Okay, definitely no more condoms for them. Blair hummed, his lips tracing the ridge circling the cock-head, and Jim tightened his grip on the rail.

Shifting his legs open in invitation, Jim watched as Blair slowly took the cock in his mouth, looking up at Jim from under his lashes as he sucked. He started gentle and slow, just bobbing a little, his tongue tracing circles. Jim arched his back and let the pleasure build as the warm mouth teased him.

Just about the time that Jim was done with the teasing and considering flipping Blair over and pounding into him, Blair started sucking harder. Slowly, he built up speed, watching Jim as he sucked until his cheeks hollowed out.

"Shit," Jim gasped as he started bucking up into that mouth. Blair braced his hands on the mattress and moved faster, his hair draping down so that it tickled the insides of Jim's thighs. Jim thrust up, and watched as his cock disappeared into Blair's mouth before Blair swallowed, squeezing Jim so hard that he shouted out his pleasure before pulling out of Blair's mouth to just thrust up again.

"Blair," Jim strangled out, struggling to warn him before he started coming, but Blair continued to suck as Jim arched up and came in waves that left him sagging back to the mattress in complete satisfaction.

"Mmm. Finger-licking good," Blair joked as he crawled up Jim's body to lean against Jim's side. Jim could feel the hard plastic resting against his hip. They lay there, limbs tangled, and Jim could smell their scents twining.

"Feel like reciprocating?" Blair finally asked in the silence, and Jim watched as Blair's hand crept down to the chastity device, trailing over the hard plastic without actually touching the cock that pressed against the cage.

"Right now, I feel like lying here with my brains leaking out my cock," Jim groaned.

"You already finished leaking, and I wouldn't want you to feel guilty, you know, with the fact that you're ahead of me in the orgasms department."

"Not feeling guilty," Jim assured Blair as he let his hand stroke Blair's back. Feeling just a little evil, he reached up with his other hand and fingered the nipple ring until Blair gasped and clutched at the sheet. Jim smiled. "I figure that for the last two weeks, you've come every morning in the shower and every night. I usually get ready for work in the morning and I think there were two nights where I didn't come. So, you're ahead of me by about fifteen or sixteen orgasms, which, I don't mind telling you, is pretty impressive. I mean, you aren't a teenager any more."

"Thirteen or fourteen," Blair grumbled as he let his forehead rest on Jim's chest.

"What?"

"Oh man, if you're keeping track, you just got two in, so that leaves me thirteen or fourteen ahead. Next time, I'm skipping seduction and going for begging."

"I would have called that manipulation, but it was certainly seductive manipulation," Jim said. Blair poked him with a finger. "Okay, now that you're up, we need to get going. You get first shower since it takes forever for that mop of yours to dry." Jim tugged a chunk of Blair's hair.

"You're just jealous," Blair huffed as he pushed himself up.

"Not really," Jim said as he scrubbed his own military-short hair. "I may like that mop on you, but I wouldn't want to take care of it. Oh, and leave the plug out. Trust me, you're going to have enough fun with the new toy, which is definitely staying on."

Blair grabbed his robe and wandered down the stairs, still grumbling. Jim smiled as he stood up and started stripping the bed. Since he had to wash towels anyway, he might as well get a good load. Jim had put a new set of sheets on the bed, filled a laundry basket, and gone downstairs before Blair got out of the shower.

Jim dropped the basket on the couch as Blair came out, wet hair dripping down the back of his robe. "How did that work?" he asked as he stopped Blair from going up the stairs. He pulled Blair's robe open and checked the chastity device. The slots on the side had let the water through, and Blair smelled clean.

"Fine, Mother Ellison, but if you're down there anyway, feel free to take it off and get a closer look," Blair suggested with a honeyed voice.

"Forget it, Darwin. I take that off, and you're going to be so hard so fast that not even ice will get you back into it."

"I can think of one thing that would get me back into it, easy," Blair suggested with a wiggle of his hips.

Jim stood up and put his hands on his hips. "And what have you done to earn it? Like you said, I still have thirteen or fourteen orgasms to catch up, and as an alpha dog, being that far behind brings out my competitive side."

"Man, I wonder if I can pick the lock," Blair said sadly as he reached down and fingered the gold lock that sat on top of the contraption.

"Just don't get something stuck in there," Jim warned.

"Oh man, you did not have to say that. Now I can't even try to pick the lock without getting all paranoid," Blair complained as he grabbed his robe and wrapped it around himself, hiding the contraption from Jim. Jim smiled.

"Hey, while you're showering, I'm going to go downstairs and grab us some fresh pastries," Blair said as he headed up the stairs to get dressed.

"Trying to butter me up?" Jim called.

"Totally, man. I figure a day of placating your alpha dog status with a little metaphorical neck and stomach baring, some creative begging, and I'll get to come… oh, about next Friday, huh?" Blair called down.

"You never know. I might have mercy before the end of the week," Jim said as he headed for the bathroom. "Or not," he finished before closing the door. He smiled as he turned on the shower and listened to Blair make a number of rude comments about Jim's parentage, personal habits and attitude. Jim smiled as he made a mental note of each and every one to use as future ammunition. Blair kept up his quiet tirade the entire time he dressed before heading out the door to the bakery.

Jim was shaving, a towel wrapped around his waist, when something started nagging the edges of his awareness. At first, he thought he just needed a new razor, that the sound and feeling of the dull one was grating on his nerves, but his skin rose in goose bumps that refused to go away, even when he rinsed his face, only half shaved.

Opening the bathroom door, Jim walked into the living room, trying to place the growing unease he felt. Without knowing why, he grabbed his service weapon from the table and pulled his robe on over the towel. When he opened the door, the hall was silent, the elevator still.

"Sandburg?" Jim called. His hearing roared out of his control, and a half dozen televisions and conversations and engines all crashed in on him at once so that he physically fell back, his shoulder hitting the wall as he struggled with the lost balance.

"Man, you do not want to do this. I know your father died, and that is totally not fair, but Jim could just as easily have died. They both got screwed over… Okay, okay, I'm going," Blair quickly changed the conversation. Jim started running down the stairs in bare feet.

"He'll be sorry."

"He already is. They were friends."

"If he was my father's friend, he would have saved him. Get in," a woman's voice commanded. Jim heard a truck lid slam and he ran out into the street in front of the building. A woman screamed, and Jim flinched back as people took cover from the sight of a barefoot guy in a bathrobe waving a gun.

The car engine shifted into gear, and Jim turned and dashed for the alleyway. He reached the entrance just in time to see the rear end of a tan car vanish out the other end. Jim froze for a half second, and then turned to race for his truck, only to realize that his keys were still in the apartment.

"Fuck!" Jim slapped the brick as he realized that even a few seconds meant that Veronica had already disappeared into morning traffic with Jim's partner and Guide locked in the trunk.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
***
"Jim, what are you doing?" Simon asked as he used his body to physically block Jim's activities from the rest of the Switchman task force currently sweeping through the alley.

"I need an envelope," Jim insisted. Simon sighed and handed down a small evidence envelope. Jim scooped up a small chunk of dirt. "It fell out of the tread of Sarris' tire."

"Jim, this is an alley; there's dirt all over the ground."

"I can see the car tracks, Simon," Jim disagreed as he stood up and handed over the envelope. "Brown, is there any word on the car?"

"Tan Lincoln Town Car, late eighties, last two letters of the plate TL. We have fourteen hits, and officers are trying to track them down, but nothing yet. We have an APB out to all patrol officers." Henri Brown looked up long enough to answer the question, but then he went back to watching the CSI unit work the alley inch by inch.

"Jimmy, are you okay?" Carolyn asked as she left her team and came up to them. "I know Sandburg's been riding with you, and I can only imagine how you feel."

"No, Caro, you can't," Jim said shortly. She snapped her mouth shut and Jim forced himself to turn and face her.

"I'm sorry. I know you're trying your best. Sarris took him because of me, though. This isn't Sandburg's fight, and she's going to…" Jim stopped.

"We have some mud from a tire," Simon said as he held it out. "We need it processed as fast as we can get it."

"I'll do the best I can, Simon. Jimmy, I'm really sorry. If you want anything, call me," she said. Jim could feel her genuine concern, but it just aggravated him even more. He didn't need the sympathy; he needed her to do her job.

"I just need to know what you find out about that mud from the tire," Jim said, struggling to keep his voice even. Carolyn nodded and turned toward her own team. She handed the envelope to a worker who headed for one of the CSI vehicles parked at the edge of the chaos.

"We'll get him back, Jim. We're all working on this," Simon said softly. "But right now, Nakamura and Meztger want to talk to you."

"I don't have time for this," Jim growled as he paced the alley and studied the ground. He could see the tire tracks from the Lincoln, a waffle pattern curving through the dirt of the alleyway, a nail head interrupting the pattern at one point. Jim focused, seeing the round edge focus until it became a fractal of dust, the edges multiplying into landscapes of their own.

"ELLISON!" Simon shouted.

Jim shook his head and looked at Simon, who was standing with his cigar in one hand while his other hand was on Jim's shoulder. Half the cops in the alley were staring, and Jim guessed he had just lost time again.

"I'm just thinking," he said weakly. "She wants to make me suffer, so she won't do anything to Blair until she can make it really hurt. She wants me to feel responsible. That's why she took him from here and not from the university. He was trying to talk to her, to get her to see that I was Frank Sarris' friend," Jim said as he followed the faint tracks to the far end of the alley.

"What exactly did you hear?" asked someone else. Jim turned to see Nakamura from the FBI standing there, notepad in hand even though Jim had already given his statement to Simon. Well, he didn't have anything else to do until someone found a lead.

"I was shaving. I thought I heard something, so I got my service weapon and headed down the stairs."

"In your robe?" Nakamura asked.

"I thought it was probably nothing. I wasn't thinking at all or I would have taken my damn keys," Jim growled at himself. "Then I heard Blair say something about how 'you don't want to do this' and that life wasn't fair because I'd lost a friend at the same time. I realized he was with Sarris when she said that if her father and I had been friends, I would have saved him. I came running down the last flight of stairs--"

"You heard this from the second floor of the building?" Nakamura didn't even bother hiding his disbelief.

"Detective Ellison has... what did Sandburg call it?" Simon asked.

"Hypersensitive hearing. He did a study of people who had one or two senses outside of the normal range," Jim explained.

"Ah. Yes, he said something about that yesterday. That's how you overheard the woman on the phone," Nakamura nodded. "Has this ever been medically documented?"

Jim glared at the agent, struggling against the fury that would have him knocking the man on his ass and then searching the city street by street. Instead he took a deep breath. "Did you check out the sawmill she used on the marina forms?" Jim asked quietly.

"There was no one there. She left behind bomb making materials, some of her father's records, and magazines and clippings from your return to civilization."

"Until you have something more useful, I have work to do," Jim said through a clenched jaw as he walked away. He reached up to scrub his face and realized that he had never finished shaving when he'd gone upstairs to grab clothes.

"Jim!" Brown yelled from the far end of the alley. Jim took off at a run, just about colliding with one of Carolyn's people as his stomach twisted. "There's a video feed coming into the station. It's Sarris. She has Blair."

Jim detoured toward his truck without waiting for any details, but he found a hand on his arm physically yanking him to a stop. Jim turned, ready to fight, and found Simon standing there.

"Not a chance. You aren't safe to drive right now. Get in the car," Simon said as he pulled Jim toward his sedan. Jim hesitated, his need to do something nearly overwhelming his common sense before he nodded.

"Just get us there fast," Jim begged as they got in Simon's car.

Simon pulled into the traffic, the emergency light flashing over the traffic as some cars moved aside and Simon had to detour around others.

"What the hell is going on, Jim?" Simon finally demanded. "You see things that aren't there, you're hearing conversations from the other side of the building, and that stunt in the alley… you were blanked out for minutes. That's not just thinking. I don't know what's going on, but you're about to land yourself a desk job, and if that means you can't work the Switchman case, that's how it's going to be."

"Simon!"

"No!" Simon cut him off before he could go any farther. "Shit, you think I don't understand? No matter what I think of this whole whirlwind romance you have going, I know you put your heart into everything you do. I know you care about the kid, but if you can't get your head out of your ass, you'd be better off letting the rest of us find him."

"It's this thing," Jim started, struggling to find the words.

"Try me. At this point, I'm pretty much willing to believe anything from you."

"Blair calls it a Sentinel. When I lived in Peru, they called it a Watchman."

"Called what a Watchman?"

"Me," Jim said, tightening his fingers around his knees as he struggled against a desperate desire to not have this conversation. "I have all five senses heightened."

"What, like some sort of superhero? Come on, Jim."

Jim clenched his teeth as he considered how to best get his point across. He didn't have time for this game. "You had coffee with a hazelnut extract this morning. You stopped at McDonalds and had bacon, egg and cheese McMuffins. You had a breath mint soon after that. You used Polo aftershave and showered with Zest."

Simon drove in silence for several minutes. "Okay, I thought I was willing to believe almost anything," he finally whispered.

"In Peru, that's how I stopped the drug runners with nothing more than the Chopec and their primitive weapons to back me. I could hear their movements from miles away. I heard that conversation between Sarris and Blair from my loft door, Simon. I could see the Lincoln's tire tracks in the alley as clearly as I can see the traffic light. All five of my senses are enhanced."

"Aw, shit."

"The shitty part is still coming. If I focus too much on one sense, it's like I get lost in it. Everything just sort of falls away."

"Like in the alley?"

"Yeah, only if it gets bad enough, there's only one person who's going to be able to call me back, and that's the same person I need with me in order to use the senses--my Guide." A clump of traffic came to a stop, and so did the conversation. Jim stared out the window, fighting an irrational urge to get out and just fucking run the rest of the way.

"I'm not going to like this, am I?" Simon eventually asked.

"Blair."

"Yeah, I knew I wasn't going to like this. So, why can't you make Brown your Guide, other than the man's terrible taste in clothing which probably looks even worse if you have some kind of super-sight?"

"It doesn't work like that, Simon. I didn't even realize Blair was my Guide until the senses started coming back. Without him, I'm normal, but as long as he's around to ground me, I have an advantage."

"Unless he's not around and you do that freezing thing in the middle of a scene."

Jim pressed his eyes closed. "I know, Simon. Shit, I know these senses could be dangerous on the street, but so far, they've been totally under control as long as I have Blair around." Jim considered the incident on the dock, but decided it wasn't worth mentioning. He remembered his training now. He wouldn't make that mistake again. "Other people can't know, Simon."

"I hate to point this out, but a lot of people know, Ellison. A whole lot of people."

"Simon, they know about the hearing. If they know I have all the senses heightened, if they know I'm a Sentinel, there are other consequences."

"Jim, you're putting me in a strange spot here."

"If people know, there are too many ways to use my senses against me, and I need them. Right now, I need every advantage I can get, and my senses are a huge advantage."

"God, please just let that advantage be enough on this case," Simon prayed as he pulled into the station parking.

Jim didn't even wait for Simon to park the car. He got out near the elevator and headed for the sixth floor.

"Jim." Joel met him at the elevator. "We have the screens set up in the bull pen, but you need to see the taped bit first. This way," he said as he hurried next to Jim down the hall to the break room. A television stood in the middle, the blue screen casting an eerie glow over the room. A couple of officers from Traffic stood silent in the corner as Joel hit the play button.

When the image focused on Blair, his arms stretched over his head and chained to some sort of rafter, Jim had to restrain an urge to do something, hit something. A woman walked into the screen. Her curly hair and freckles didn't look like an insane killer; they looked like the pictures of the little girl Frank had shown around the base so often.

"I hope you're getting to see this, Captain Ellison. I thought I would attack your city. Make you remember all the lives lost because you weren't good enough to catch me. But then I thought that really wasn't fair to all those people who would die. And, after all, you're the one who should pay. So I had a change of plans. You took someone important from me, and I'm taking someone important from you."

Jim stopped breathing when she walked out of the screen and then the chains holding Blair's arms ratcheted up so that he started dangling, his legs swaying in the air.

"Come on. I know you don't want to do this. Man, killing some grad student, not really earning any big points from anyone."

"Shut up."

Whatever she did outside the camera's range, it made Blair shut up.

"Now here's where it gets interesting. See, my father didn't just die, he participated in his own murder. He followed you, Captain Ellison. He trusted you. Just like Blair here trusted you to protect him. So Blair's going to participate in a little experiment for me."

"Please," Blair said softly. Sarris walked into the camera's range, and shoved the gun deep enough into Blair's stomach to make him swing and slowly turn.

"Shut. Up."

"Please, Blair, just keep her happy until I can find you," Jim whispered.

Sarris disappeared for a second, and she came back with supplies. She started with a wobbly three-legged stool with uneven legs. She put it under Blair and then disappeared. Blair lowered a notch and then his feet were on the stool so that he was standing.

"Curious yet?" she asked as she came back into camera view. She pulled out a clear plastic box, inside of which Jim could see curls of wires and switches and a large enough block of plastic explosive to take out half a city block. There wouldn't be anything left of Blair. She set it under the stool. "Here's where Blair gets to participate." She pulled out string and tied one piece to each of his legs, then tied the opposite end of each string to a lever on the bomb.

"Here's how it works," she said cheerfully, looking like she should be explaining a cheerleading move to a bunch of teenagers instead of calmly discussing murder. "Blair is going to balance for as long as he can. How stable is that, Blair?" She turned away from the camera and looked up at Blair.

"Not very fucking stable," Blair snapped.

"I bet not. So, he's going to balance, and as long as he does, he's fine. But those two strings are connected to the bomb. So, when he slips, and he will, if the stool goes right or left, it'll get tangled in the string and set off the bomb. If it goes forward or backwards, Blair has a chance, but only if he can keep himself from kicking his legs, and kicking is a pretty basic instinct when you fall. Now, let's say he does manage to not kick. He then has another choice. He can either hang there and slowly suffocate from the pressure on his lungs from having all his weight hanging on his arms, or he can take the easy way and pull on a foot and set the bomb off."

Sarris walked over and patted Blair on the leg. Jim tensed and leaned forward as he could see Blair strain to keep his balance. "She's fucking insane," Jim cursed.

"I suppose you could rush in and save him at the last minute, but the odds of that, especially the odds of that given that Blair doesn't look so stable up there, well, they aren't that good." Sarris shrugged. She turned and walked to a chair behind Blair where she sat down and leaned back.

"You comfortable, Blair?" she asked.

"Fuck you," Blair hissed, obviously reaching the conclusion that sweet talk wasn't going to work with this one.

"Jim, we have the current feed in the squad room," Joel said quietly. Jim stared at the screen until Joel reached in and flicked the picture off.

"I'll fucking kill her."

"It that bomb goes off, you won't have a chance. She'll be dead with Sandburg," Joel said. Jim looked at the bomb captain and then headed out the doors and into the bull pen.

When he opened the doors, he was shocked to find sixty or seventy cops crowded into the space. The television was set up near his desk, and people moved as Jim headed for it.

"Where's the signal coming from?" Jim demanded.

"We're working on it. She's bouncing the signal off a couple of commercial satellites, but we're tracking it," some techie Jim didn't know answered. Walking up to the screen, Jim could see the strain in Blair's face as he kept his eyes focused straight ahead and concentrated on balance. His arm muscles were corded, and his lips moved silently.

"Where's the sound?" Jim asked as he studied that familiar face.

"Sarris isn't saying anything," someone answered.

Jim charged up to the television and hit the button to make the volume bars climb to the far side of the screen. A soft hiss of static filled the air near the TV, but Jim could hear something else too.

"Shut up," he yelled. A few people near him quieted, but those along the perimeter kept whispering, their feet shuffling loudly against the carpet, their hands rubbing over clothing with a soft hiss.

"Everyone, shut up. No noise at all, none!" Jim screamed, just about ready to take out his gun and shoot a couple of the louder ones. The room fell silent, and Jim focused on the static from the television.

"Drove an hour," Jim repeated. "Highway, then 20 minutes gravel road." The silence in the room grew deeper as Jim focused on the television. "Drove an hour. Highway, then 20 minutes gravel road. Jim, I hope you're getting this. Drove an hour."

"Blair?" someone asked. Jim nodded, recognizing Simon's voice.

"Get a tape of this down to the sound lab. Isolate Blair's voice," Simon ordered. Jim held up a hand as the pattern changed.

"Old barn near a bridge. Old barn near an old bridge. Old barn near an old bridge," Jim repeated Blair's almost inaudibly muttered words.

"Sound lab, NOW!" Simon bellowed. Techs flew into motion, one racing forward and hitting the eject button on the VCR before shoving a new one in. He made record time racing for the door, and Jim turned to Simon.

"We need maps of the area. We need something an hour away. That should limit the highways she could have taken."

"There's the 542," someone called out. "Or the 9," another voice added.

Jim held up his hand for silence. "Damn tired. Too damn tired," he repeated Blair's words, sorry he had the moment they left his mouth. "How long's he been up there?" he demanded from the room.

"Almost an hour," Rafe answered. "He's tough. He'll hold on until we find him."

"His calves have got to be cramping," someone in the back muttered. Jim whirled around and searched the crowd, but a group was already hustling the man out the door. Part of Jim knew that the officer was just saying what most of the people in the room were thinking, but he couldn't escape the irrational fear that saying it out loud made it real.

"He'll be fine," Jim snarled at the room. Faces nodded or people just slipped out the doors; Jim didn't care either way.

"Where's the trace?" Simon demanded of the room in general.

"We're still working," answered the techie sitting at Brown's desk.

"I have maps," a young uniform called as he came slamming in the doors. Jim practically snatched them from the man and spread them out over his desk, knocking things off randomly.

"Okay, figure an hour out on either the 542 or the 9," one of the guys still left from night shift started.

"No," Jim disagreed. "An hour total driving time. Forty minutes on the highway and then twenty on the gravel road."

"Jim, that's still a lot of ground to cover."

"A barn," Jim said. "She's parked near a barn; that's where she got mud in her tires, at the barn or on the road driving there."

Jim shoved Bannister out of his way and he raced for the door. Ignoring the elevator, he dashed down the stairs and ran down the hall to Carolyn's lab.

"Jimmy?" she asked as he charged in.

"The mud, the envelope Simon gave you at the scene, where is it?"

"What?"

"The envelope, Carolyn, where's the envelope?"

"Uh, in with the other evidence we collected at the scene," she said slowly; however, she gestured toward a table. Jim went over to the box.

"Hey, you can't get in there. That's violating the chain of evidence," Carolyn yelled, finally sounding sure of something. Jim pulled out the envelope.

"Simon, what the hell is going on?" Carolyn demanded as the captain came into the room.

"We need to check something," Simon offered vaguely. Jim turned his back to Carolyn and shook out the bit of dirt into his palm.

"That's evidence. This is against every protocol," she complained. Jim focused and brought the dirt up to his mouth, letting it dissolve on his tongue, and he reached out until he could feel his balance start to slip.

"Jim?" Simon asked, pulling him back to the present where Blair needed him.

"Mushrooms," Jim said as he looked at Simon. "Morel mushrooms."

The phone rang and Carolyn went to answer it.

"Morels? Those really ugly mushrooms?" Simon asked.

"They must grow near one of those roads. We need someone who knows mushrooms."

"Simon, Jim, they say they need you upstairs right away; it's an emergency." Jim stopped breathing as he considered just what that call might mean.

"We're on our way up," Simon said. Jim forced his feet into movement, standing beside the elevator doors impatiently, but without any desire to go up and see what he might have to see.

"Simon," he said.

"Don't borrow trouble. That kid gets into more trouble than twenty people, but he always comes out."

Jim nodded as the elevator doors slid open. If Blair didn't get out of this one… Jim cut off his own thought, refusing to even consider the consequences of losing Blair.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
***
"Jim, Blair's okay," Rafe said the minute they walked through the doors. Jim looked at the television, and Blair hung, his toes barely missing the top of the bomb as he dangled from his arms. Before Jim left, Sarris had been sitting behind him, but now she circled, studying him with her head cocked to the side and her gun dangling from one hand.

"He didn't kick once. I would have kicked," someone whispered.

Jim could almost feel his heart regain its normal pattern. He turned to the room. "We need someone who collects wild mushrooms," he called. Faces looked at him in confusion. "The suspect's tires had traces of morels. We need someone who would know where they grow," Jim clarified, annoyed at having to do so.

"My sister's boyfriend does that; I could call him at work?" one of the guys from Homicide offered.

"Then go!" Simon bellowed, and the man grabbed the nearest phone. One of the secretaries who had come up from records grabbed Rhonda's phone and started dialing.

"Detective Ellison," the secretary called out. "My sister's on the phone." She hit the speaker phone and the room went silent except for Sarris' footsteps on the rough wood floor, magnified by the television.

"We're looking for a missing… member of our team," Simon said loudly enough for the speaker phone to catch his words. "We know the suspect took either the 542 or the 9 out of town, about forty minutes in traffic. We also know there's about twenty minutes driving on a gravel road, and that there are most likely morel mushrooms either on the road or at the old barn where they parked." The phone was silent for a bit.

"It's late for morels," the voice on the other end started hesitantly, and Jim resisted an urge to reach through the phone wire and choke the information he needed out of her.

"The 9 is too built up. West of the 542 there's some good morel hunting, especially around the river," she said uncertainly.

"The bridge," Jim interrupted. "Blair mentioned a bridge."

"There's a river southwest of the 542 that has a lot of little streams. It makes for some nice mushroom growing," the unknown woman on the phone answered.

"Thank you," Simon offered. The secretary picked up the phone and turned off the speaker.

"Simon, we need some choppers up in the air," Jim started.

"Jim, slow down. We send choppers up, and she'll hear them. She can set the bomb off any time."

"Get us a chopper into Deming," Jim said. "Have Highway Patrol meet us with whatever off road vehicles they can get there in fifteen minutes. We can take SWAT with us." Jim stepped close enough that they could talk in a whisper, and officers drifted away, trying to give them a little privacy.

"We'll be driving around blind," Simon protested.

"No, we won't. I'll find him. If I have to, I will requisition a car and drive from here, Simon," Jim threatened in a whisper.

Simon's eyes darted to the television where Blair hung motionless, Veronica Sarris circling him like a vulture.

"Rhonda, get two choppers warmed up. Call Highway Patrol. I want off-road vehicles, and officers who know the terrain in Deming, as fast as they can get there. Someone get Captain Standish."

"I'm here, Simon. I'll have five of my best ready to go in five minutes," the captain of SWAT promised before he headed out the door.

Jim clutched his own knees the entire helicopter ride over. He didn't know what he'd do on the ground in Deming, but it had to be better than sitting in Cascade, waiting for Blair to twitch or Sarris to get impatient.

"Rafe? How's it going?" Simon called on the radio.

"He's holding on," Rafe answered from back in Cascade. "The sound lab says they're having trouble getting much, but they did get one additional piece. He said ‘dead trees’, but they couldn't get the whole sentence."

Simon covered the microphone on the headgear. "Do you want them to play it for you?" he shouted over the rotor noise.

Jim shook his head. "Too much noise. And the static of the radios would be too much."

Jim ignored the curious expressions of Joel and Vic Standish.

"We're landing," the pilot's voice came over the radio, and Jim waited impatiently as the machine bumped to a stop on the ground. He was out and running, bent over, before the pilot gave the word, so he beat the others to the Highway Patrol.

"We have four cars," an older man in a brown uniform offered. "We didn't get very clear instructions where we're going, though."

"We're looking for a gravel road that leads into morel territory. There's an old barn near a bridge, and probably pretty close to some dead trees," Jim answered as he scanned the trees, his senses dangerously out of control. He forced himself to focus on holding the balance.

The man raised his eyebrows and stared at Jim blankly. Simon, Joel, and Vic Standish hurried up as the second chopper landed with Standish's SWAT team, Joel dragging his portable disposal equipment. Hopefully, it would be enough. "I'm Captain Banks. Did Ellison fill you in?"

"Ellison described half the territory out here. I'm not sure how you expect to find that."

"Because we have to," Jim snapped.

"Ellison, Taggart, and I will take one of the cars, if you don't mind. Vic, do you and your team want to take another?"

"We'd better take the SUV. We couldn't bring all our toys, but we do have some cargo to carry," Standish said as the black-uniformed team got off the second helicopter, carrying enough weaponry to make even Jim happy.

Jim waited impatiently as the logistics sorted themselves out, but Simon finally got behind the wheel of one Highway Patrol truck, with Joel in back and Jim in the passenger side.

"Go right; I'll check out the woods south of us," Jim said as he scanned the trees.

"This is such a bad idea," Simon muttered as he pulled out and drove down the highway at speeds that would have made a grandmother proud. Even doing thirty, Jim could feel his head start to pound as he scanned every road they passed. He dismissed the well traveled ones. At others, he made Simon stop so he could study the undisturbed grass. Once he had Simon follow a path only to find a couple having sex on the still-warm hood of their car. However, on the second trail they followed, they found themselves driving over an old bridge with one guard rail completely washed away and wood that had turned gray.

"Stop," Jim said as the sounds of the forest yielded to the pained wheeze he could hear just beyond a stand of trees.

The cars stopped behind them, and Jim walked back to meet them. "We have our target," he told Standish. "The barn's right back there."

"We need to take Sarris out. All she needs to do is give Blair a push, and she'll blow that whole place up. And considering that she hasn't left the barn, she's suicidal," Joel suggested.

Jim looked at the bomb captain in surprise. Usually Joel was the last one to even suggest deadly force.

"If we can take a non-lethal shot far enough away from Sandburg to keep him safe, we should, but she'll take Sandburg out if she has a chance," Simon agreed.

"So, we're moving aggressively on this one. Let's go silent. Clark, Sanchez, you have east. Nelson, take point. Lopez and I will go west. Formation Charlie, and watch your crossfire," Captain Standish said, and his team immediately headed for the barn.

"Your people are good," one of the Highway Patrol officers said as he leaned against his car. "I'm amazed you could find this place."

"We're lucky and good," Simon corrected him. "Jim, where are you going?"

"To find Sandburg," Jim said as he turned back toward the woods. Simon followed him several steps.

"Jim, for god's sake, let SWAT do their job," Simon ordered quietly.

"It's not their job. He's my Guide. I need to be in there." Jim paused, struggling to explain it. He finally settled on, "He's my responsibility.".

Simon sighed. "You're not objective."

"That's the best reason to go in. No one has a better motivation for getting the kid back." Jim shrugged and headed for the barn. Turning his hearing up, he could identify every animal in the forest, every twig cracking as SWAT moved around the structure, every pained wheeze from Blair.

Jim ignored all that and listened for the footsteps of the woman he could just imagine pacing around Blair, waiting for him to jerk as his body struggled for air. Step. Pause. Step, step, step. Pause.

Moving in closer, Jim could imagine her location, just from the sharp sound of her shoes against the old boards. Pulling out his weapon, he trained it on the rotting and gaping boards of the barn. God, please don't let Blair jerk when he did this.

Jim focused his sight on a crack between two boards, throwing himself out there beyond any balance as he counted on the sound of Blair's steady heart and strained breath to balance out his vision. The crack seemed to widen, the dark interior lightening as he watched Sarris pace around Blair. She paused, looked down toward the bomb, and then reversed direction so that she was behind Blair again.

"Come on, come on," Jim muttered. She turned to complete her paced circle, coming around the side of Blair, and Jim pulled the trigger, his sight following the bullet as it ripped through rotted wood and slammed into her head. Sarris fell back, her arm coming up and firing by reflex as she fell to the ground, and Jim was running.

He reached the barn, still waiting for the explosion. SWAT came racing around the corner and Jim had shoved his gun into his holster and pulled his knife before he even yanked the door open.

"About fucking time," Blair complained weakly as Jim hurried into the room.

"Just keep still."

"Oh man, I think I'm doing that already. The next time you accuse me of not being able to sit still, I'm bringing this up," Blair complained as Jim carefully cut the string around Blair's legs and let it drop to the ground. Joel could disarm the bomb; Jim just wanted Blair out of here.

"Actually, scratch