by Carol Roi
Closing his eyes, Blair let himself drift, believing she believed it, and hoping that would be enough.
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The alarm clock bit the dust that morning as Jim started his day by heaving it across the room. He'd taken Megan up on her offer last night, dinner and drinks, and she'd wisely limited his intake of beer to three, but that didn't save him from the return of the headache he'd been fighting for the last few days.
He knew what his problem was. The loft was too quiet; Blair had gone ahead to Seacouver with Dee and LaFollet leaving Jim alone. Without consciously thinking about it, he stretched out his hearing and located the gentle 'thumping' of another heartbeat, one that was becoming as familiar to the Sentinel as his own Guide's was. Megan Connor was across the hall, sleeping in Diandra's place, having brought him home sometime after midnight.
Going through his morning routine, and sweeping up the remains of his clock, he allowed himself to think about what he was going to be doing later that day, attending the funeral of Lee Eolia. The woman had blown into his life with all the subtlety of a typhoon only to leave just as abruptly. Thoughts of her, of what she had been, and what could have been if she'd survived her confrontation with Brad Ventriss, plagued him as he set about getting something to eat.
'It's no use.' His stomach was still unsettled by the pain in his head, and his heart. He ended up tossing the two eggs he'd started to cook into the trash. Grabbing his lukewarm mug of coffee, he headed up the stairs to change out of his bathrobe into something more suitable for an outdoor funeral.
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Megan Connor let out a small groan as she reached over and smacked the radio/clock alarm off. "It's too early for this shit." Rolling out of Diandra's bed, the Companion stretched and grabbed up the robe she'd laid across the foot of the bed last night. Walking down the stairs towards the kitchen she raked her fingers through her hair, giving herself a good scalp message at the same time, and flipped on the coffee maker as she made her way to the bathroom.
A few minutes later, showered, dressed in black jeans and a black cable knit sweater, she sat down in the living room sipping her first cup of coffee. 'Sandy and Jim have got to work this whole mess out between them; they have to.' But how that was going to happen was beyond her ability to predict. Both men were stubborn, Jim more so than Blair, but if they held on to the hurts they'd dealt each other, the rift between them would only grow wider and deeper, until there was no chance of reconciliation.
She'd found Jim, sitting alone with his thoughts, last night at one of the beaches and with a little friendly banter and commiserating had managed to get him to accept her offer of steak and beer. She'd even allowed him to drink more than he probably should've, not knowing what effects the alcohol would have with the medications he'd been taking for the headaches, but he'd loosened up enough to actually talk to her.
That was how she'd learned he had been seriously enough attracted to Lee Eolia that he'd asked the Immortal if she would consider relocating to Cascade. And the woman had actually accepted the idea. Megan's heart tightened as she realized that once again Jim had managed to miss a chance at love. But it wasn't his fault. She'd hoped she'd gotten him to realize that last night. Eolia had held all the cards, lied to all of them, for whatever reasons she had. Draining the last of her coffee, Megan chided herself, 'Megs, you have no idea if Lee had been lying to Jimbo, maybe she HAD cared for him. She just didn't know that everything had gotten so tangled.'
Glancing at the clock on the microwave, Megan realized that if she and Jim were to make it to Seacouver in time for Lee's funeral, they had to leave soon. Shutting off the coffeepot and rinsing her cup out, the inspector grabbed up her keys, pocketbook, and coat and headed over to Ellison's apartment.
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Brown corduroys, black turtleneck and his black, Army issued, 'all weather' coat would have to do. Besides, the somber colors matched his mood this morning. Jim had just finished lacing up his hiking boots when the knock on the loft's door startled him out of his thoughts. "Come in, Connor. It's open!" he called out, wincing at the pain that shot through his skull.
"Ready to go, Jim?" He noticed Megan had dressed in dark colors as well, leaving behind her 'pink dingo' coat in exchange for one that was less offensive to the eyes.
"Yeah, I guess." Getting up from the couch, he crossed over to where he had laid out his wallet, badge and sidearm, and the bottle of painkillers Dr. Douglas had prescribed for him. With the half pot of coffee he'd drank, the headache that had greeted him earlier had lessened and he didn't think he'd need the potent medication. 'But better safe than sorry.'
After putting everything in its place and grabbing the keys to his truck, he looked up to see Connor watching him. "What?"
"Uh, Jim, maybe I should drive this morning?"
With a tight nod of his head, he placed the keys back in the basket. "Fine. Let me see your set for a second." He escorted her out the door then, taking her copy of the key he'd given her to his place, locked up the loft. "Let's go."
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"Joe," Adam Pierson greeted the man standing at the entrance of his place.
"Adam, you sure you want to do this?" Dawson asked as he stepped into the small apartment at the back of the bookshop the other man owned.
Sighing, Adam nodded as he slipped into his overcoat. "I have to. She was my Student, my wife. I owe her this last tribute."
Joe didn't say anything else, just waited as the Archivist and oldest of the Immortals finished gathering up a few things around the place. Adam walked over to a bookshelf and pulled down a fragile looking scroll, placed it in a mailing tube, then shoved it into his coat pocket. The last thing he grabbed as he walked out with Joe was his sword. He knew he wouldn't need it on the island. It was holy land and the only people who would be there would be friends of his departed Student, but if there was anyone watching, there was always the chance that someone would take the opportunity to come after him, or one of the Immortals gathered there.
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Jan-Michel LaFollet had spent the night standing guard, one last time, over Lee Eolia's body. Now, as the sun rose above the horizon, he felt the pain of losing her stab him through the heart. Approaching the pyre and the linen covered body lying on top of the carefully stacked wood, he allowed the tears to flow for the first time since she'd died.
'Lee, I should've told you sooner how I felt about you. I'm sorry that I didn't. I don't suppose I'll ever know why you did what you did, why you hurt Pallas, Sandburg and myself, only to go and challenge Ventriss yourself.' The tears streamed freely down his face as he continued his silent conversation with the departed Immortal. 'I just hope that you're happy, that you've been reunited with Azir, and that you find the peace that eluded you since his death.'
Feeling the warning 'buzz' of an approaching Immortal, he wiped the tears from his face before turning to face the visitor. "Morning, Pallas."
Diandra nodded, and he knew she was pretending not to notice the tear tracks on his face as she walked over to him. "Morning, LaFollet. Everything okay here?"
"Yeah." He took in her pale complexion in the bright morning sunlight. "You didn't sleep very well, did you?"
"No. Neither did you." She walked around the pyre, inspecting the linen wrap one last time. "She'll be safe for a little while. Why don't you come up to the cabin for something to eat?"
The mere thought of food made his stomach roll. He'd not eaten in a while, and he decided the last thing he needed to do at Lee's funeral was to pass out because he'd not eaten. "If you think she'll be okay... " He allowed the woman to grasp his arm and lead him away from the site.
Driving u
p to Seacouver was usually a pleasant event. Today, however, it was just too damn quiet. Out of respect for Jim, who hadn't complained about his headache but showed all the signs of having one hell of a doozy, Megan hadn't turned on the radio. The only sounds in the cab of her Chevy Tahoe were the ones of wheels turning over pavement and the whir of the ventilation system.
Fifteen minutes ago, she'd managed to find the turn off which would lead to the private dock she was looking for. Now, she was just watching for the smaller road that would actually take her and her passenger right up to the lake's edge.
"Connor, should we be expecting someone?"
The first words muttered by Ellison in the past hour or so startled her. "Not that I'm aware of, why?"
"Company ahead."
'How in the... ' Sighing, Megan banished the question from her thoughts as she realized how Jim Ellison knew what he did. His senses, probably his sight, had clued him into the presence of the other vehicle parked near the dock long before her own eyes spotted the sedan. With the clouds covering the sun in a gray veil, it was hard for her to see who might be waiting for them. "Jim? Can you tell who they are?"
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The road was unpaved loose gravel, and had been disturbed recently. Following the tire tracks, Jim was able to spot the dark blue sedan and warn Megan Connor of its existence. Now, at her last question, he focused in tighter on the two forms he had spotted waiting inside the car. "Two men. Oh, I guess that makes sense."
"Who?"
"Pierson and Dawson."
"Former teacher and a Watcher. Yeah, I guess it does make sense. Eolia surely didn't have any real family in the area."
Nodding his agreement, he waited until Connor had stopped her Chevy, parking it behind the sedan. He stepped out of the warm cab just as Adam Pierson emerged from the driver's side of the other car. A few seconds later, Joe Dawson pulled himself out of the car on the opposite side. "Gentlemen," Jim greeted them.
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Methos tried to gather his thoughts, wondering why he had felt compelled to come to this event Diandra Pallas had dreamed up, a funeral for an Immortal. There were damn few of those recorded in the Watcher's database, and even fewer in his long memory, but this would be one of the first ones that would involve one of his students. He was pulled from his mental ruminations by a quietly voiced question.
"Adam? Did Dee say who all was going to be here for this?"
Joe Dawson didn't have to say just what 'this' was. Methos understood. "Just a few friends of hers and Eolia's. Why?" He glanced at the older mortal to see that he was looking out the back window.
"We've got company."
Instead of turning in his seat to see what the man was talking about, Methos looked up at his rearview mirror and spotted the dark green Chevy, watching as it pulled in behind his car. "The Cascade contingent." Opening his door, letting a blast of chilled wind inside, the Immortal stepped out to greet the new arrivals.
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Megan watched Jim greet Dawson and Adam Pierson succinctly, then added her own welcome to the Sentinel's. "Mr. Dawson, Mr. Pierson... Sad day, isn't it?"
"Indeed. One should never outlive one's students." She heard the grief in Pierson's voice, a grief not unlike what she had heard in Jim's voice last night. Odd, that a teacher would have cared for a student like that.
Shrugging off her thoughts, she turned to shake hands with Joe Dawson. "Joe, I didn't realize you knew Lee Eolia."
The other two men, Ellison and Pierson, had already started down the last remaining bit of road towards the dock, leaving Megan and Joe to catch up to them. She held out a steadying arm of assistance for the older man, as he gave his answer. "Not as well as Adam did, but I feel like I've known her for a long time through the stories he told me about her." His hand gently squeezed her arm, grabbing her attention. "He's taking this hard, Adam is. How's Ellison doing?"
Megan sadly shook her head. "I'm not sure. Jim's not one to talk about his emotions, but I have the feeling that he's in the same position as Lee's old college instructor." Damn, it was hard. She wanted to speak freely, but she didn't know how much Joe knew about Eolia, or Ellison's relationship with her. Let alone if he knew about the Sentinel business. She knew Dee confided in him, but the Immortal still had her secrets, as Megan had painfully found out.
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Joe, sensing Connor's reluctance to really talk about Eolia, stopped her on the short dock and turned to face her. "Connor, Adam knows. So do I." To demonstrate his answer, he pushed back the cuff of his coat, exposing the blue tattoo on his wrist. "He's a Watcher, like me, like Sandburg."
Her face lost a little bit of its high coloring, but he noticed that she seemed to take the information in stride. "Watchers, Immortals and Mortals. It seems that all touch each other, sometimes without knowing, like a massive jigsaw puzzle."
"It can get a bit confusing." He started walking towards the boat tied up along side the wooden dock. "But you're right, we all touch each other in ways that most people never know." With the aid of Ellison, who had apparently had decided to man the moorings, Joe climbed onto the boat.
It was one of the few motorized boats allowed on this lake, which was situated on the local Indian Reservation, and it belonged to Duncan McLeod. For this occasion, the Council of Elders had graciously decided to allow the 'mourning party' to travel from the mainland to their sacred island without having to resort to the canoes that were all that were normally allowed to ply the surface of the lake. For that, Joe was thankful, as the idea of having to paddle a canoe across five miles of waterway had almost, but not quite, deterred him from accepting Methos' offer to accompany him.
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Methos wasn't all that surprised when Ellison had offered to man the lines while he checked the controls and fuel tanks on the 1950's, open deck style inboard motorboat. Once all the members of the small group were seated, and after Ellison had managed to find a heavy lap blanket for Joe and Megan Connor to share, he started the engine and slowly pulled away from the dock.
Duncan's boat was in excellent condition, not that he was surprised about that. The Scotsman had a passion for restoring 'ancient artifacts' and took great pride in his work. The engine was relatively quiet, the wheel responded to the lightest of touches, and the bow sliced through the still waters of the lake's surface like a graceful swan.
Swinging around the island, he located the jetty that was situated under the cliffs on the west side, and, after killing the speed of the boat, Methos brought the craft alongside the stone and mortar edifice simply by gliding. He watched as Ellison hopped out of the watercraft to the new dock and made the lines fast, only to sharply glance in towards the shore.
Following the detective's line of sight, Methos was surprised to see young Blair Sandburg step out of the tree line and walk down to the shore and the jetty. 'Strange, it's almost as if Ellison heard him coming.' With Megan's assistance, he managed to get Joe Dawson safely to shore. Then the three of them walked over to where Ellison was softly talking to his friend.
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The trip from the mainland to the island was quiet, just the way Jim hoped it would be, as he was still in no real mood to talk to anyone. He knew he'd screwed up, possibly wrecking the relationship that he had with a certain anthropology student, but sometimes the 'kid' made him so mad. Hadn't Blair learned anything in the three plus years that he'd been hanging around the station? You do not hold back any information that may, or may not, prove vital to a case. As Adam Pierson swung the boat around the island Jim glanced up towards the top of the cliffs.
There, o
n the edge, he could barely make out what appeared to be a large bonfire structure, only there was something odd about it. Sharpening his line of sight, pupils reacting to his mental command, Jim Ellison took a closer look. He slammed his eyes shut as he realized what he saw. Lee Eolia's body, lying on top of the pyre, wrapped in unbleached cloth, ready for the woman's last journey.
Engine noise faded, and Jim felt the powerful boat ease up towards the shoreline as he opened his eyes and once again took action by manning the lines. Pierson did a fine job of bringing the watercraft alongside the stone, man-made, dock, and the detective grabbed up the ropes, jumped to the dock and made the boat fast against the jetty. Silently thanking his cousin Rucker for the summers he'd spent beating the knowledge of marine knots into a very stubborn head, Jim finished tying off the last line just as something made him look inward towards the island's center.