by K Ryn
Together they began a lurching journey through the wasteland of debris. Blair seemed oblivious to the moans of the tortured ceiling above them, but Jim exchanged a wordless gaze with Jankowski and knew that the old man was aware of the danger.
They were halfway to the opposite end when Jim heard the sound he'd been dreading. He shifted his weight and sent them all tumbling backward. Before they hit the floor, an entire section of the ceiling gave way. Smoke and flames poured forth like a waterfall. The cascade of burning wood and smoldering insulation rained down, casting deadly sparks that eagerly sought fresh territory for destruction.
The bone jarring impact with the floor broke the Sentinel's control over his senses. A shaft of debilitating pain shot through him as he tried to roll off of his injured shoulder. Smoke filled his lungs with each breath, causing fresh blasts of agony each time he coughed. The scream of the fire deafened him. He kicked off the smoldering pieces of wood and ceiling tile that had fallen onto his legs and blindly reached for his Guide. Fingertips touched snarled silken strands and groped their way to the throbbing pulse point at the younger man's throat.
A hand locked around his wrist. Blair's grip was weak, but reassuring. Jim blinked rapidly, trying to clear his tearing eyes and found Jankowski crouched next to him. The old man had to shout to make himself heard.
"We're not cut off yet, but we will be if we don't get moving!"
The Sentinel nodded and with the old man's assistance managed to sit upright. He felt the grip on his wrist loosen and turned toward his Guide. The younger man was still crumpled on the floor where he'd fallen, half-buried under a smoking pile of debris.
Blair stared in horror and let out a choked cry as a line of fire sprang to life along the length of his shirtsleeve, feeding on the gasoline soaked cloth. Jankowski tore off his coat and beat out the flames.
Jim's eyes grew as wide as his Guide's. He levered himself awkwardly to his knees and crawled the few short feet to the younger man's side. The Sentinel grabbed a smoldering board and flung it aside. Cursing the injury that made it a one-handed effort, he ripped off the sling. He kept digging, ignoring the fresh bursts of pain from the bullet wounds and the burns that lanced his palms, working frantically to clear the deadly litter off of his partner's body.
Having dislodged all but one large wooden beam that lay across his Guide's left leg, the Sentinel rose to his feet and grasped Blair's wrist. He strained backward, hoping to pull the anthropologist free. His partner's strangled gasp ended that attempt.
"We're going to need help!" Jankowski shouted, his face only inches away from Jim's.
"GO!" the Sentinel screamed, waving the older man toward the door.
"Jim... go with him!" Blair urged. "Andrew... please... make him go!"
The old man hesitated, his gaze locking with Jim's. The Sentinel shook his head. Jankowski nodded and dug the gun out of the waistband of his pants. He dropped it and his jacket at the detective's side. Sketching a rough salute, the old man disappeared into the smoke.
Blair groaned in despair. "Damn it, Jim..."
"I told you upstairs... that I wasn't leaving you behind, Chief," Jim responded amidst a fit of coughing. "Just hang on."
His Guide's answer was drowned out by the sound of gunfire. Bullets chipped at the beam that held Blair's leg pinned to the rapidly heating floor. Jim snatched up the gun and swiveled in the direction of the shooter.
"You're dead, Ellison!" Jenson's scream of rage floated eerily out of the firey chaos. "You and that punk partner of yours ruined everything! Now you'll both pay!"
The Sentinel shook his head, trying to clear the smoke and sweat from his eyes. He scanned for Jenson's location, but the overwhelming barrier of heat and sound and smells resisted his efforts. Suddenly a familiar warmth pressed against his left leg. He absorbed the strength and grounding of his Guide's simple touch and sent his hearing questing outward. Jenson's enraged shouts drew him like a beacon. The ex-ranger raised the gun and fired, catching Jenson square in the chest, just as the crooked vice-cop emerged from the smoke.
The force of the bullet's impact drove Jenson backward. He staggered and started to raise his weapon, intent on finishing what he'd begun with his dying breath. The elemental entity that the fire had become acted before either detective could shoot again.
An agonized scream tore from Jenson's throat as tendrils of fire wrapped around him. Like fingers closing into a fist, the flames enclosed the writhing man and drew him backward into its deadly embrace.
Amidst the crackling harmonies of the fire, Jim heard Blair's harshly whispered prayer -- the Shaman's chant for a fallen enemy. He stared at the younger man in amazed silence for a few seconds, then shifted positions so that he could renew his efforts to move the beam.
Their world became a nightmare of heat and smoke -- and flames that the Sentinel struggled to keep from reaching his Guide. He beat back another tongue of fire that had begun to crawl up Blair's pinned leg and dropped, exhausted, at the younger man's side. He sought the Shaman's eyes and drew in a sharp breath. Blair's dark gaze was fixed on the wall of flames that danced only yards away.
"Guess... one trip... through the fire... wasn't enough..." the younger man murmured obliquely.
The oddly calm, accepting expression in his Guide's eyes terrified the Sentinel more than the fire. "Don't you even think about giving up on me, Sandburg," he ordered. "Say not the struggle nought availeth..."
Sluggishly, Blair turned his head toward Jim, the corner of his mouth lifting in a grimacing smile. "Didn't know... you had it... in you..."
The Sentinel bent forward to catch the soft words. His body shielded his Guide, cutting off the younger man's view of the flames. "What's that?"
"... never thought... I'd live to hear... you... quoting poetry..."
"I've still got a few... secrets, Sandburg," Jim managed a lopsided smile of his own. "Picked it up... years ago... I'll regale you... with the whole thing... if you promise... to stay awake..."
"... deal..."
Jim reached down and pulled at the front neck of Blair's t-shirt, shifting the cloth up and over the lower part of the anthropologist's face and nose to form a rough filter against the smoke. Gripping his Guide's hand, he began to speak. From the depths of memory and his heart, he cast the words of verse defiantly at the wall of fire that was nearly upon them.
Say not the struggle nought availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been, things remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke concealed, Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far back through creeks and inlets making Came, silent, flooding in, the main,
And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light, In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward look, the land is bright.
The Sentinel's voice trailed off as he looked down and met his Guide's eyes. He heard a muffled, "See you on the other side, Jim," before they fluttered shut.
The Sentinel felt the heat and screams of the fire at his back.
Trained to look death in the eye, he turned to face it.
And was rewarded with the sight of a full complement of firefighters stepping through the firewall to their aid.
Speech is a mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so is he.
Jim let himself into the loft, breathing a soft sigh of relief at having reached the quiet refuge of home. Hanging his jacket on the hook by the door, he located his partner, sitting on a chair on the balcony, bare feet resting on the railing.
The twitter of flutes and jungle drums danced in counterpoint to the fragrant aroma of lasagna wafting out of the kitchen -- fitting accompaniments to the litter of papers and books that covered the coffee table. The Sentinel smiled as he detoured to the refrigerator and pulled two bottles of beer from its depths.
>
Home. Filled with the sights and sounds and scents of his Guide. After three long grueling weeks, things were back to normal.
Jim frowned as he caught a glimpse of the piles of still unemptied boxes in the younger man's room.
Correction... almost normal.
He set the beers down on the table and headed upstairs to his bedroom to change clothes. He felt the twinge of protesting shoulder muscles as he pulled a sweatshirt over his head, but it was the pain of healing, not the agony of fresh injury. The burns on his palms were nearly gone, too, the bandages more of an inconvenience than anything else at this point.
Slipping into a pair of well-worn jeans, Jim padded down the steps. He paused at the bottom of the stairs, monitoring the young man on the balcony.
Blair was healing as well -- at least on the outside. The burns that he'd acquired in their escape had, thankfully, been minor. The bullet wound had been painful, but not serious and would leave only the faint trace of a scar. And his energy level, while still a far cry from Sandburg-normal, was vastly improved -- after spending several days in the hospital, lodged in a room with his Sentinel, the exhausted Guide had retreated to the quiet haven of his room, spending several more days in a sleep- eat regimen that Jim had eagerly encouraged.
Both of them had suffered surprisingly minimal affects from smoke-inhalation, although the anthropologist's voice still had a tendency to take on an unhealthy, raspy quality when he spoke for an extended period of time.
And talk they had. To the district attorney. To the mayor. To the commissioner. To Internal Affairs. To the media. They'd made statement after statement; reviewed every word of the painstakingly detailed written reports that Blair had kept; repeated the same story word for word until it was etched forever, not just into their memories, but into the legal paperwork that accompanied the completion of the case.
Simon had finally put his foot down during a meeting with Internal Affairs that had become more of an interrogation than a fact-finding session. The IA officer in charge had become almost belligerent when questioning Blair. The inquiry kept returning to the issue of how the young man had known where his partner was being held. His Guide's sudden increase in respiration and the pounding of his heart had sent Jim's Blessed Protector instincts into overdrive.
Banks had cut off the inquisition before the Sentinel had decked the man, announcing that he, as Captain of Major Crimes, was satisfied with the answers that the Observer had already given. He also made it clear that both Ellison and Sandburg were unavailable for further questioning, placing them on a medical leave of absence and banishing them from the station until further notice.
They'd spent the following days together, neither content to be far from the other's side. The partners had both indulged in a little 'mother-henning" -- Blair hovering and muttering about stubborn Sentinel's who didn't know enough to rest after having been pierced both front and back by foreign substances that had no place in the human body; and Jim hovering and muttering about headstrong Guide's that didn't know enough to stop tapping at the keyboard at all hours of the night when he should be resting.
The partners had been grateful for the respite. Joel, Rafe and Brown had brought Blair's possessions back from the motel, saving the anthropologist from having to revisit that scene. Andrew Jankowski had called several times, both to check on Jim and Blair, and also to deliver some good news -- the old man was heading up an effort within the neighborhood to buy back some of the properties that Jenson's group had gotten their hands on, and they were making surprisingly good headway in their efforts. Simon had continued to shelter them from the fallout from within the department and the insistent media pursuit, giving the Sentinel and his Guide the time they needed to recover not only their health, but their stability.
Jim had spent what he hoped was the last session with the district attorney that very afternoon. Simon had been there as well, rehashing the part that he'd played in the case. The detective had listened to his captain intently, searching for some tidbit of information that he might have missed before -- something that would give him a clue as to what was going on inside his partner's head.
Because there was still something bothering his Guide -- some inner turmoil that Blair was struggling with.
At first, Jim had thought that it was the ghosts of the men who had perished in the fire that haunted the anthropologist. Of the nine men who had been involved, only three survived the inferno that reduced the building to ashes. Smithson, Gordon and Barnes were in secure cells, guarded by officers that Simon had hand-picked. Internal Affairs and the DA's office were having a field day with the testimony that had spewed out of their mouths. Fortunately, the disease that Allen and Jenson had incubated hadn't spread any further. Still, Banks had been adamant that there would be no deals struck on his watch. His men had risked too much to allow that to happen.
The remains of Jenson, Hiller, Harris, Rogers, Randolph and Robert Allen had been identified by forensics after several days of detailed examination and sifting. It had been a time- consuming process -- the fire hadn't left much.
In the early hours of a sleepless night a week earlier, Blair had admitted to feeling some lingering guilt at being the cause of the men's deaths. He felt responsible for the fire, even though it had been Jankowski that had sparked the flames to life. The Sentinel had done what he could to put the loss into perspective, but he knew that the burden of those lost lives would continue to weigh heavily on the Shaman's soul for some time to come.
Blair had also confessed to feeling like he'd failed Jim in their final moments. The Sentinel's own memories of that time were fuzzy at best, but he had adamantly rejected his Guide's contention, reminding the younger man of his inventiveness and courage.
Jim had gotten the details from Simon the day after they'd been pulled from the fire. While Blair had dozed in the bed next to his -- an arrangement that suited both Ellison's preference, the doctor's requirements and the hospital staff's needs -- Banks had filled him in on the events that had transpired.
Rafe and Brown had surprised Barnes at the front entrance, before the shootout at the rear of the building had brought them to Simon's assistance. Smithson and Gordon had beat a retreat into the stairwell. Banks and his reinforcements had been ready to give chase. To their stunned surprise, the two felons had tumbled head over heels down the steps to land at their feet, saving them the chore.
Apprised by Brown that Blair had been no where in sight out front, Simon had attempted to reach the upper levels of the building from the rear stairs, only to be forced back by the billowing clouds of acrid smoke. Banks had ordered his men around to the front of the burning structure to meet the remaining backup and emergency personnel who had arrived in a blare of sirens and flashing bubble lights.
A soot-blackened, coughing figure had emerged at a dead run from the front doors as the first group of firefighters stepped foot off their trucks. Simon had been closest and had grabbed the old man. Barely recognizable under the grime and ash that coated his hair, clothing and skin, Jankowski had identified himself and crisply delivered his urgent message. Jim and Blair had been brought out only a few minutes later -- just seconds before the blazing structure collapsed inward.
The Sentinel remembered arguing the need to remain at his Guide's side until the younger man was freed. He knew that he had managed to scream a warning about the anthropologist's gasoline drenched clothing in between bouts of coughing -- one of the firefighters had draped a fire-resistant blanket around Blair before they lifted him off the floor. Once he'd seen that his partner was in good hands and on the way out of the hellhole that the second floor had become, his own pain had resurfaced, thrusting him up into the light of pure agony before drawing him down into velvety black darkness.
He'd awoken in a hospital bed. Two anxious blue eyes, burning with studied impatience, had fixed him with a glare. When he'd muttered some marginally intelligible responses to the barrage of questions that had poured forth, his Guide's exp
ression had softened to one of relief -- a feeling that the Sentinel wholeheartedly shared when his not-so-subtle monitoring of his partner revealed that he too was all right. The news that Andrew Jankowski had also escaped unharmed had generated wide smiles from both men, and the healing had begun in earnest.
Jim heard Blair stir and shift positions in his chair. With a determined stride, the detective retrieved the still-chilled beverages and crossed the room. Only a few unresolved issues still lingered and they all revolved around the young man on the balcony.
A soft, "Hey, Jim," greeted the Sentinel when he stepped out to join his Guide. He handed Blair a beer and settled into a chair. His own stockinged feet joined the anthropologist's.
"There's a welcome back party planned for Friday after the day shift's finished," Jim informed his partner casually. "We've been warned to leave the truck and the Volvo at home. Joel's going to chauffeur."
"Cool. Where's the bash?"
"Someplace where they won't mind you dancing on the bar, I presume," Jim responded drolly.
A low chuckle was the younger man's only response.
They sat together in companionable silence as dusk slipped quietly into the robes of night. Flickers of light dotted the city, challenging the pinpricks of stars in the cloudless sky for dominance. "I really missed this."
Blair's soft declaration floated out into the darkness. The Sentinel found himself frowning again at the sigh that followed it. He studied his Guide with eyes that pierced the shadows, but couldn't penetrate the invisible barrier that his friend had erected. There was a new, quiet strength in the younger man. There was also a sense of profound sadness.
"Then why haven't you unpacked?"
A sharp inhalation of breath met Jim's question.
"Because we need to talk... and after we do, I might be leaving," Blair finally answered.
The Sentinel feet slid off the railing and he sat forward in his chair, stunned. "Leaving? You want to leave?"