Sentinel - Progression Series 07 Blessed Protector

by Beth Manz

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  Blair looked up as Jim walked into the bullpen, happily munching on a Baby Ruth bar. "Gee, Jim," he said, making a big show of looking up a the clock on the far wall, "You were sure down in Records a long time. Was Hannah having trouble locating a file?"

  "I'm not even going to dignify that remark with a response," Jim said, sliding into the chair beside Blair's desk. "Did you finish typing the notes?"

  "I did better than that," Blair said confidently. "I ran a check on all three men. None of them have been reported missing. And I called Rainier. Peter Latimere has shown up for every one of his classes this week."

  "So he's alive," Jim said, his brow creased in thought.

  "Looks that way." Blair pulled off his glasses, dumping them on the desk before him. "We just have to find him and ask him what's going on. And since I can easily get his class schedule..."

  "Sounds like we're about done," Jim finished for him.

  "Exactly." Blair leaned back in his chair and offered Jim a smug smile. "And you didn't want to take this case."

  Part Two

  Jim stood in the center of the loft's living area and turned a slow circle, taking in his surroundings. No. No! I don't want to be back here! The loft was once again barren, the curtain hanging at the doors to Blair's room. Wake up, Ellison. This is a dream. It's all a dream. Wake up!

  A knock sounded on the door. Jim jerked toward it, taken off guard.

  "Jim," the captain's voice filtered inside, the tone sharp and impatient. "It's Simon. Open up."

  Jim crossed to the door and pulled it wide. Simon strode past him, his brow furrowed in obvious concern.

  "What the hell is going on?" Jim demanded, closing the door behind him.

  Simon spun toward the sentinel. "You tell me. Dammit, Jim! You've been doing so well!"

  "Doing well? What are you talking about?"

  "I'm talking about Sandburg's death. I thought you'd finally accepted it."

  Jim shook his head. "No. This is a dream. A nightmare. I just saw Blair. We're working a case together."

  Simon moved closer, reaching toward him. "Jim--"

  Ellison dodged the captain's grip, shaking his head in denial. "Blair is alive," he insisted. "He lives here with me." He crossed to the room under the stairs, reached out and fingered the orange fabric of the curtain that hung at the door. "This is his bedroom. I... I put up French doors so he'd have more privacy."

  "No, Jim."

  "I helped him put up bookcases for his books and we painted--"

  "Jim! He's dead." Simon moved closer. "He's dead," he repeated more softly. "And everything you just mentioned about the loft.... you've told me all of this before. You tell me every time."

  "Every time...?" Jim shook his head, puzzled. "I don't--"

  "Every year, Jim. We go through this every year at the anniversary of Sandburg's death." The captain inched a little closer until he was near enough to reach out and grip Jim's arm. "He's gone," he whispered compassionately. "He's been gone for over three years."

  "No," Jim denied, pulling out of Simon's grasp. "He's my partner. He works me with down at the station."

  "Jim! You don't even work down at the station anymore."

  "What? No, Simon. I'm a cop--"

  "You're an insurance investigator." He stared at Jim, his eyes filled with concern. "Jim, I really think you should consider checking yourself into the hospital again. Just for observation."

  "Again? I've been in before?"

  "Six times in the last three years. After Sandburg died, you couldn't control your senses. I tried to help, but I just couldn't keep you on at work. It wasn't just your safety that I had to consider, but the safety of the men working with you. I had no choice."

  "No, Simon, this is all wrong. Blair is alive. He finally got his Ph.D. this year. You accepted it for him!"

  "That's what you wish had happened. Honestly, it's what I wish had happened." Simon's eyes clouded over with guilt. "It was a mistake to let him work with you. It's my fault the kid got killed. And the way it happened..."

  Jim's heart, which had been pounding heavily, seemed to suddenly cease beating in his chest. "Simon," he breathed out, his voice trembling with fear, "What happened to Blair?"

  Simon took a step back from him, shaking his head. "Don't make me tell you. Not again."

  "I have to know. Please."

  Simon crossed to the couch and dropped down heavily. Jim remained where he stood near the doorway to Blair's room, his back stiff, his eyes locked on Simon.

  "Lash took Sandburg to that abandoned warehouse over on the docks. We realized later that he'd taken all his victims there. You managed to figure out where he was... but it was too late. When we arrived, Lash had already drugged Sandburg and taken him down to that damn duck pond. That's where we found them."

  Jim shook his head. "No," he whispered. He didn't want to hear anymore, wanted to scream at Simon to stop talking, that this was all wrong. But he couldn't speak, couldn't move. Because a part of him needed to know the rest.

  Simon exhaled a long, weary breath before continuing, his voice barely audible in the quiet loft. "When we got there, Lash was still holding Sandburg under the water. But the kid was dead. Had been for a while."

  A shudder passed through Jim as his mind supplied images invoked by Simon's words. "No," he breathed. "It didn't happen that way."

  Simon stood and came toward him again. "Jim--"

  But Jim backed away, shaking his head adamantly in denial. "No. I saved him. I got to him on time. I saved him!"

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  The sentinel's eyes snapped open as he jerked upright in bed. His breath came in raging, heaving gasps. His heart pounded wildly in his chest, reverberated loudly in his ears.

  Jim Ellison sat motionless, afraid to move, afraid to even breathe. Afraid that he was still locked in the nightmare--that it was now his reality. His cold, cruel reality.

  No, that can't be! It was just a dream. It wasn't real!

  Closing his eyes, he sent out his hearing. There! Right where it was supposed to be... Blair's heartbeat. He relaxed back against the bed and wiped a trembling hand over his sweat-dampened face.

  What is happening to me?

  Sitting up, he pushed his blankets aside and stood. He wouldn't fall asleep again. Not tonight. Grabbing his robe, he headed downstairs... it wasn't until he actually had his hand on the door to Blair's room that he realized this had been his goal all along.

  The cold, stark loft, Blair's death--it was all a dream. He knew it was a dream. Yet he needed to see Blair, needed to make sure he was sleeping in his bed. Safe. Alive.

  You can hear his heartbeat, his breathing. You know he's alive. But Jim needed to see him. To touch him.

  Quietly, he pushed open the door and stepped into his guide's small room. Blair lay in his bed, curled on his side with his back to the door. Jim shuffled over to him and, crouching down next to the bed, lay a hand gently against his shoulder. Blair shifted slightly beneath his touch.

  "Jim..." he muttered.

  "Shhhhh, it's okay," Jim whispered, moving his hand up to Sandburg's hair, touching lightly at the back of his head. "Go back to sleep."

  Blair mumbled something unintelligible and settled down again. Jim remained where he was, his hand resting against his partner's hair, listening to his soft breathing.

  Who am I now?

  The words David Lash had scrawled on the mirror in the men's room at the station flashed through his mind. He closed his eyes as memories he'd thought he had buried long ago resurfaced.

  When Jim first realized that Lash had taken Blair from the loft, he'd felt a sense of fear and panic he'd never realized he was capable of. Blair had been involved in other situations that had been dangerous, but nothing like this. Nothing that had directly threatened his life, that was directed solely at him. Lash's attack was too personal--he wanted to be like Blair. Correction--he wanted to
be Blair.

  And the way Lash would have done it.... Jim had known what Blair's death would have been like. The horror of it had already been vividly spelled out in three previous files. The detective had played out the scenario of Blair's death in his mind at least fifty times before he had actually found the kid in that warehouse. And in his mind--in each scenario--he'd been too late to save his partner.

  But you weren't too late. You got there in time. You saved him.

  Odd to think about it now--how he had barely known Blair at all at the time Lash abducted him. They'd only been partners for a few months. Any familiarity that was forming between them was in its earliest stages, not even fully formed enough to be called true friendship. Yet Jim had experienced real panic when Blair disappeared--had known even at that early level in their relationship that this kid was going to be much more to him than some long-haired tag-along with nothing more to offer than a truckload of exuberant theories regarding Jim's senses. Already the young anthropologist had burrowed out a comfortable niche for himself in Jim's heart--a place that Jim could have never envisioned would become so necessary, so all encompassing, so beloved.

  And in the three years since Lash, he and Blair had become so much more--more than Ellison and Sandburg, more than sentinel and guide. They were partners... brothers.

  Who am I now?

  Lash's words flashed unbidden through Jim's mind again, but this time they took on a different meaning.

  "Who am I now?" Jim muttered. The visions from his nightmare washed around him--the suffocating aloneness; the barren loft; the precious, vivacious life that rested now beneath his fingertips extinguished, snuffed out forever.

  Who am I now? Without Blair, Jim was no longer sure.

  Part Three

  Blair stuffed his lecture notes into his backpack as the last of his students filed out of the classroom. He'd make a quick stop at the Registrar's office and get a copy of Peter Latimere's class schedule and then head out of here.

  The morning had been long, tedious. As soon as he'd gotten up today, he'd wished that he had turned Dr. Stoddard down when he had called and asked him to fill in this week for Dr. Girard. Blair wanted to be at the station with Jim, not on campus filling in for a colleague.

  Something was wrong with Jim, that much was clear. Blair shook his head in concerned confusion as he zipped up the backpack and hefted it over his shoulder. An indistinct memory niggled at the back of his mind. He was almost positive his partner had come into his room last night. He could remember waking momentarily, then Jim assuring him everything was all right. But everything was not all right. Blair was sure of it.

  Jim was on edge, but about what still remained a mystery. That's not completely true. Blair knew Jim had been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately. He'd had at least one nightmare about Marcus Grant that Blair knew about. But that dream was the only one Jim had talked to him about. Since then, Jim had claimed he didn't remember them or that they were nothing.

  Blair had hoped that the dreams would simply go away. Instead, he feared they were intensifying.

  "Blair?"

  He looked up at the sound of the voice calling to him. Ida Hillman stood at the back of the lecture hall, smiling. Blair returned the grin. "Mrs. Hillman, what are you doing here?"

  She moved forward, gesturing toward the door behind her. "I checked at the main office. They told me where I could find you. I hope that's okay." She held up a brown paper bag. "I brought you lunch."

  "You did."

  "Well, you looked too thin to me yesterday."

  Blair thought back to the conversation he'd had with Jim the day before regarding Ida Hillman--about his promise to be careful around her. But as he looked at the petite woman, he was unable to detect even the slightest amount of discomfort from being in her presence. There was simply no way Mrs. Hillman could be a murderer--no way!

  Pushing the conversation from his mind, Blair swung his backpack over his shoulder and moved toward the elderly woman. "I have to tell you, Ida, I can't remember the last time someone brought me lunch." Slipping his arm in hers, he escorted her from the room, heading toward the cafeteria. "I hope you know that I expect you to keep me company while I eat."

  Ida blushed deeply. "Oh, Mark, you always were so good to me."

  Blair's steps faltered for just the briefest of moments as her words settled over him. Mark. She called me Mark again. What significance did that name hold for her? But as she continued to walk beside him, clinging tightly to his arm, Blair felt no fear from her. Just a deep sense of loneliness.

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  Jim glanced at his watch. Where the hell was Blair? He'd agreed to fill in this morning for two classes but they should have ended at least an hour ago. What was keeping him? He pushed away the worry that was tightening his stomach and back. He's just late. Nothing's wrong.

  After waking last night, Jim had not gone back to sleep. Instead, he'd sat for some time just watching Blair sleep, taking comfort in the sound of his breathing, his slowed heart beat. When he'd finally left his guide's room, he'd sat on the couch waiting for dawn, watching as the sun slowly rose over the city. He didn't regret staying up all night. He preferred exhaustion over the continuation of that dream.

  "Ellison."

  Jim looked up wearily as Simon's voice reached him.

  "My office. And bring what you have on the Hillman case." With that, the captain moved back inside, the door left ajar.

  Jim pushed up from his desk and crossed the bullpen, the folder with the notes Blair had typed up along with his report on the missing men tucked inside. Stepping into Simon's office, Jim closed the door behind him and sat in one of the chairs flanking the captain's desk.

  "Fill me in," Simon said without preamble.

  "Sandburg and I interviewed Ida Hillman yesterday afternoon at her home." Jim flipped open the file; the photo of Peter Latimere slid out, fluttering to the floor.

  "What's that?" Simon asked as Jim bent to pick it up.

  "Photo of one of the men she claimed was missing."

  Simon held his hand out. Jim handed the picture over, once again unnerved by the man's likeness to Blair.

  "Looks a bit like Sandburg," Simon commented absently. "So is he missing?"

  Jim took the photo back. "I don't believe so. I think this whole thing is just a big misunderstanding." He closed the file. "Latimere's a student at Rainier. Blair made a few calls, found out he's still attending classes. He plans to get the kid's schedule today and we'll track him down from that. Ask him face to face what's going on."

  "Sounds like something Sandburg might do better handling on his own."

  Jim frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean if he finds this kid at Rainier, Latimere might open up to Sandburg more if he sees him as a professor and not a police consultant. He might just be more comfortable and willing to talk without the police angle."

  "So what? You expect Blair to handle this on his own? Talk to Latimere and then what? Go to Ida Hillman's on his own?" Jim shook his head. "I won't put him in that kind of jeopardy."

  "Jeopardy?" Simon leaned forward, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked at Jim. "I thought this whole thing was just a misunderstanding. What am I missing?"

  Before Jim could answer, there were two rapid knocks on the door and a moment later, Blair entered.

  "Sorry I'm late," he said, his gaze taking in Simon and Jim. "But you won't believe who showed up at Rainier. Ida Hillman."

  Jim pushed out of his chair. "That's it. We're off this case."

  Blair's eyes went wide. "What? Jim-"

  "Ellison, sit back down," Simon cut in.

  "Simon, you didn't see how this woman acted around Sandburg. She was focused on him, too focused. Now this? She's stalking him."

  Blair shook his head. "That's not how it is. She's not--"

  "Reassign it to Brown or Taggert," Jim said, his voice overriding Blair's. "I don't care. We're done." Turning, he
latched onto Blair's arm and pulled him forcibly from Simon's office.

  "Jim, dammit!" Blair yanked free of the sentinel's tight grip even before Simon's door swung shut behind them. "What is wrong with you?"

  Several heads came up, looking in their direction.

  Jim moved closer and lowered his voice. "We're off this case. No discussion."

  "Is that right?" Blair glanced around briefly before taking Jim by the arm and pulling him toward the breakroom.

  Jim stepped inside, flinching as the door slammed shut behind him. He turned to face his partner, surprised by the anger on the younger man's face.

  "First," Blair bit out, "Don't ever grab me like that again. Second, who put you in charge? 'We're off this case. No discussion,'" he said gruffly in imitation of Jim. "Well, there is going to be discussion, Jim. Because I'm making headway with this case and I'm not about to just drop it."

  Jim stepped closer, towering over Blair. "I don't like the idea of you going off alone with this woman."

  "When did I say I went off alone with her? She came to Rainier to bring me lunch. We ate in the cafeteria. The very public cafeteria." Blair ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "Jim, I'm not stupid or reckless. I would never just go off with someone I didn't know...especially if I thought there was any chance at all that they might be a killer." He stared up at Jim, his eyes earnest. "Ida Hillman is no killer, Jim. The way she acts with me....it's like a mother to a son."

  "How can you be so sure? We didn't see it in Lash."

  Blair let out a short, humorless laugh. "You're comparing Ida Hillman to David Lash? You can't be serious! Where is this coming from?"

  Reaching out, Jim laid a hand on Blair's shoulder, squeezing gently. "Chief, Lash was right under our noses and we didn't see it. What makes you think you'd see it this time?"

  "Because I know something you don't." He gestured toward the window, out into the bullpen.

  The sentinel turned, following Blair's sightline, and sitting before his desk was Peter Latimere.

  Blair sat across from Peter in interrogation room three, his hands clasped tightly where they rested on the surface of the table before him. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Jim pace back and forth, his jaw clenched tight.