Author's webpage: http://www.spiritheaven.free-online.co.uk/Sigrid/

Author's disclaimer: Not mine, Pet-Fly's, blah blah blah.

Author's notes: Big bouquets to Carla and Cesca who really, really went above and beyond the call of duty. And to Jan, Laura, and Olivia, who all provided invaluable insight and assistance. Thanks!

(Blair's case from hell is, alas, based on a true story...)

Paradigm
by Sigrid

"Houston, we have a problem."

Blair crooked his cellphone between his ear and shoulder, frowning at the paperwork stacked on his desk. "What? Angie? What's going on?" Goddamn Jim for leaving him to deal with all this crap while he was away.

"The case just imploded. Look, there's nothing you can do but some support would be nice. Blair Sandburg, come on down. To the courthouse that is."

"Yeah. Okay, sure." Blair glanced at his watch. "What --"

"I'll save that for when you get there. Look recess is over. Gotta go." There was a click as Angie disconnected and Blair sat blankly listening to the dial tone for a moment. The Dean case was open and shut -- what the hell could have happened?

----::----

Blair arrived to see Tisha and Trevor sitting huddled against the Bentons, their foster parents, on a bench outside the courtroom. Tisha smiled unhappily in Blair's direction, but as Blair moved forward to say hello, he was waved away by Mrs. Benton. Reluctantly Blair took a seat on the opposite bench. What had gone wrong? Had the kid's testimony been disallowed? The defendant, their mother, had tried to claim that it would be too stressful for them, but the judge hadn't bought it. Whatever it was, Blair thought, stealing a glance at the Benton's stressed faces and the miserable expressions on the kids', it wasn't good.

Sighing, he sat and watched as the people passed down the wide hallway, past the busts of judges who stared out, empty-eyed, from the recesses in the walls. Leaning back he tried to relax, find a few minutes of peace. The week had been strangely stressful even without this latest development. He and Jim had worked together full-time for six months now and it felt...odd...not to see the man every time he turned around.

The court doors burst open and Angie emerged, with DA Mendez at her side. To say that they looked pissed was an understatement. But Angie's face softened and she stepped towards the kids and spoke a few quiet words. Mendez tried to get himself under control but was obviously agitated. He kept his distance.

In the quiet, Blair heard Tisha say "When do we get to go back in and tell the real story?"

Holy fucking shit. Blair let his head fell back against the wall with a thud.

----::----

"Hey. You're beating me." Angie's words were slurred.

"You're a little ole thing," Blair said. "Shouldn't try and keep up."

"Who you calling little?" Angie demanded.

"Hell, next to you I'm practically a giant. What are you? Five-two?"

"Five-four, thank you very much." Angie drew herself up on her bar stool then wobbled. "Christ, no one better call me tonight. Not that all of fucking Cascade doesn't have my phone number in case of emergency."

"Shit, Jim was supposed to call from Santa Fe. Oh well," Blair shrugged, ignoring the tiny piece of him that longed to hear Jim's voice. "So, what are our chances?"

"Chances?" Angie blinked. "Um, no chance in hell, basically."

"But..." Blair began to argue.

"Blair, the kids recanted their statements. That testimony is the only testimony the jury will hear from them. Sure, we have the forensics evidence still, but what the kids said -- that's reasonable doubt right there. There's no way."

"But Mendez could have --"

"Treated the kids like hostile witnesses? Yeah, that would have gone over big with the jury. DA harasses 8-year-old and 10-year-old. Lawyers may be sharks, but I don't think sharks eat their own young. Unlike some other species I could mention," she finished darkly. Blair sighed. "So what happens to the kids?"

"They go home to mama after she's found innocent. Which might be tomorrow. Friday, latest." Angie studied her glass owlishly.

"She fucking murdered someone. In front of them."

"If she's found innocent, there's nothing we can do."

"But... witness tampering! She..."

"Nothing, Blair. No thing."

"This sucks."

"This really sucks." Angie said, raising her glass.

"Yeah. I'll drink to that." Blair raised his glass in return.

----::----

"Ugh." Blair rolled off his futon and stood, wobbling slightly. "Oh, ugh." One thing about having forced himself into a routine for the past year was that it finally had begun stick. Only now he was up an hour early and there was no way he was going to try and go for a run. And Simon was going to take one look at his face, and know he'd been on a bender. He'd be stuck behind a desk all day, doing paperwork. Again. Fuck.

A shower improved his mood -- marginally -- and Blair went into the kitchen to find something that might settle his stomach. The answering machine was blinking, and Blair depressed 'Play.'

click

"Mr. Ellison?" a voice said. "A reminder that your dental appointment is next Tuesday at 3:30."

"Tuesday," Blair muttered, getting out a pen and marking the calendar.

click

"Blair? It's Simon. Look, got wind of what happened with the Dean case. Probably want to get down here early tomorrow and get all your case files together. We're probably going to be facing a lawsuit when... if the verdict comes back 'not guilty.'"

Shit. And his day was beginning to look brighter already.

click "Blair?"

Blair relaxed slightly at the sound of Jim's voice.

"Hey buddy, just checking in. Ah... Doing fine here, nothing out of the, um, ordinary. How's it with you? Simon said it's been a quiet week... So. Hope you're having a good night and it's um... nine here, eight your time, so if you get back in by ten, eleven or so, you can try and give me a call at the hotel. If you want. Talk to you later... Uh, bye."

click

Well, nothing out of the ordinary meant no zones which was a good thing, considering Blair was here and Jim was in sunny Santa Fe at a law enforcement convention. Yeah, sunny Santa Fe would be nice about now -- away from the cold and ice indeed. For a moment Blair was tempted to pick up the phone and call Jim's hotel now and complain about just how sucky Cascade was without him. But really, what could Jim do?

Not a damn thing.

----::----

"Sandburg, what's with the suit?"

Blair looked up from his coffee. "Oh. Hey Simon. Just in case I get recalled to the stand."

Simon nodded. "Come into my office."

Blair stood obediently and followed, settling into a chair as Simon closed the door behind them.

"Did you get my message?" Simon asked.

Blair nodded.

Simon sighed. "I'm sorry Sandburg but I'm pretty sure IA is going to want to talk to you.."

Blair opened his mouth and closed it again. The instinct was to get angry, but he just couldn't reach the emotion. Probably the hangover's fault. He nodded decisively.

"It's a formality, I doubt that there will be formal charges filed. Probably won't even appear in your record. The city will probably settle."

Blair bit his lip. "We didn't..." He cut himself off.

"Unfortunately, that's not the point. Call the union, get yourself a lawyer. Hammonds is a good guy."

"Right." Blair stood, walked to the door. He exited, and stood in the squad room for a moment. Then he grabbed his coat and walked out of the building.

----::----

Blair propped his feet up on the carrel and leaned back in his chair. Weird to be on campus -- it felt almost as if he were trespassing. Turning his head, he looked out the window, over the Rainier campus. He couldn't see Hargrove Hall from here -- it lay in the other direction.

Why are you here, Blair, he asked himself. Revisiting the scene of the crime? Well it had been over a year now. And as for the other crime that was occupying his mind...

A scummy lawyer and his equally distasteful client had cheated the system: it wasn't the first time, it certainly wouldn't be the last. So, what was the problem? Just that Jim wasn't hear to hear him complain about it?

No, the problem was that reality tended to be so much more complex -- and sucky -- than the easy myths of childhood. A half-year of being a full-time cop -- a real cop, not an observer -- had shown him that. But being a real live officer of the law had meant buh-bye blinders. Jim wasn't the lens through which he saw the world anymore.

No, the world was right there in front of his face and he really was beginning to see that he didn't like it all that very much. And he couldn't distance himself from the bad stuff by way of a few nice anthropological constructs. It used to all look manageable, comprehensible. But when it got so close to your face it started crawling up your nose, it was impossible to intellectualize. And this stuff had been crawling up his nose now ever since he had chucked it all and entered the academy.

For a moment he looked around the library, at the student engrossed in a book, another scribbling notes by hand, another clacking frantically at his laptop, oblivious to the irritated looks cast his way by others around him. This used to be his life. Now his life was long hours under the flourescent lights at the station, or hours hanging out at crime scenes, drinking coffee, cracking jokes.

Once he'd taken note of the jokes that cops used to tell after seeing something particularly horrific, analyzed the reasons why the jokes were told. Now he knew.

Yeah, he knew.

----::----

Blair sat at the table, his lawyer at his side. Whoopee. His first time as the subject of an IA investigation. He'd spoken to the lawyer yesterday, then spent the rest of the day waiting in the squawroot, hoping that he'd get recalled to the stand and that somehow he'd be able to make things clear to the jury. But the DA had chosen to hammer on the forensics evidence. Not that it had done any good. Court had been called back into session this morning and the jury had deliberated for all of an hour after the defendant took the stand and pleaded her innocence, begging to go home, to be with her kids. When the jury had returned, they'd rendered a 'not guilty' verdict. Case closed, thank you very much. And here was IA, on his ass in wake of the lawsuit the defendant had filed against the city. For prosecutorial misconduct and harassment and other various and assorted violations of the defendant's civil rights.

"So," IA guy number one said, "you were called to the scene."

"Yeah." Blair replied. "Homicide. Victim DOA, suspect apprehended on the scene, murder weapon recovered. The kids were witnesses." A blank recital of the bare-bones facts. No need to mention the sickly sweet smell of blood pooled on the linoleum floor. Or the footprints tracking through it -- the mother's, the kids'.

"And you took the kids' statements?"

"No. They'd given a preliminary statement to the officer who'd responded, they were taken to the situation and Angie... Dr. Angela Martinez, the psychiatrist attached to the DA's office... interviewed them. I was present for the questioning, however." They had spoken in quiet, low voices. Shell-shocked.

"And their story?"

"Mother was arguing with her boyfriend, the victim, over her cut in a drug deal. She grabbed a knife, and stabbed him seven times. ME says the blow that punctured the lung was the cause of death." Tisha had described how her mother had slashed at her boyfriend over and over again, then tossed the knife into the sink and screamed at the kids to leave her the hell alone.

"Who called for the cops?"

"The neighbors. An ambulance wasn't called to the scene until the uniforms arrived on the scene. Apparently Ms. Dean wasn't too concerned about the ultimate fate of her boyfriend." And Blair hadn't been too concerned either. A drug dealer, dead. No real loss to society.

Sometimes it amazed him that he had started to think that way.

It was just his luck -- had the boyfriend simply been a low-level dealer and not a sometime informant too, he would never have even been called in. What should have been an open and shut case had turned into the case from hell.

"The defendant in this case is making allegations that the PD coerced those statements from her children. That were it not for those kids' courage in the courtroom, she'd be serving a life-sentence right now."

Blair looked across at the IA guys. What, they expected him to confess to having forced two kids under the age of ten to implicate their mother? He stared at them, defiantly. Fucking morons.

"You've seen the interview tapes?" Blair's lawyer interrupted. "You know that the defendants' first lawyer quit the case after having talked with the kids himself? You know that a family court judge decided that it would be an abrogation of parental rights were those kids not allowed unsupervised visits with their mother during the months she was in jail awaiting trial?"

The head IA investigator nodded sharply.

"And you also know that all of my client's interviews with the kids were duly recorded, that they show no evidence of coercion on anyone's part, and that this fuck-up is no one in this department's fault, but rather the unsurprising results of witness tampering. And that the DA deliberately decided to not call the kids back on the stand and treat them as hostile witnesses because that would only have alienated the jury and done no one any good.

Blair sat back in his chair and let his lawyer do the talking. It was his job, after all.

"Look," the investigator said.

"I know," Blair's lawyer said, waving the man's words away. "There's been a lawsuit filed against the city. The defendant is seeking an enormous settlement. If you need my client's cooperation for a criminal or civil suit later on, I'm sure he'll be happy to oblige. But if you're looking for someone to pin this on, you're looking at the wrong guy."

The two IA investigators exchanged glances.

"Are we through?" Blair's lawyer asked rhetorically.

The IA guys nodded at one another and flipped their file-folders closed. "We're through."

----::----

His first IA hearing -- another cop rite of passage accomplished. And in record time, too. Just reciting the facts of the case had exhausted him. For a moment Blair allowed himself to wish that Jim were here. But what could Jim do? Couldn't change the past, couldn't make things all shiny and happy and bright. The world wasn't that way; things weren't that simple.

But he'd grown up around people who embraced an idealistic view of how the world could -- should -- work, and it had become a part of him. Even if those same people failed to live up to their ideals; even if they broke the rules and a few laws simply because the rules were, you know, stupid, man -- didn't apply to them. And the cops were fascist pigs; and the establishment was the mechanism whereby the elite held on to their power.

And yet... there had been those who had managed to both hold onto and live the ideal. The few summers he'd spent as a kid with Naomi's friend Rain and her husband Hal on their organic farm -- who'd farmed organically before it became trendy. They'd worked hard, given Blair a taste of what a permanent home could be like. They did live in harmony, they did do right, and good. But they were still viewed with suspicion and dislike by the other townsfolk who'd viewed them as hippy-dippy drugged-out weirdos. Hassled by the local police who were convinced they not only grew weed but dealt it, and everything else, to local kids. It was Rain, in fact, who'd been staunchly opposed to drugs, though she looked the other way when Hal indulged in a joint. Rain who had really helped Blair learn how to meditate. Blair had embraced these same ideals, believed them, lived them, despite the hangers-on and other assorted losers he'd occasionally come across as he and Naomi traveled.

Then years in academia. Sure, there were drugs. And idiots in fraternities. Not to mention more generic idiots. And people who sold term papers; or stole exams; or stole dorm furniture to furnish their off-campus apartments. When they weren't going on drunken sprees and tossing it out windows. But Blair had always kind of viewed it all with indulgence if he noticed it at all. It was 'striking back against the man, man.' Or adopted a 'they're just kids' attitude. Except, everyone has to grow up sometime.

When he'd become an observer at the Cascade PD, he'd been able to hang on to his ideal of how the world should be. Initially, it was the euphoria over having discovered a full-fledged sentinel. What greater proof could there be of a benevolent universe than Jim's existence? And for so long he'd been completely focused on Jim -- focused on helping his sentinel, focused on being the best Guide-with-a-capital-G. And despite Naomi's deep dislike of all things cop, the fact that a sentinel had become a cop in the first place meant that Naomi couldn't be completely right. Sentinels were an emblem of the natural world, and if a sentinel wanted to be a cop, well that meant that cops were part of the natural order of things. No value judgements like 'good' or 'bad' were applicable. QED.

And then he had actually become a cop; he wasn't just an observer anymore. But that was still fine because he was at Jim's side and, again, it was all part of the natural order. Sure there were scummy people who, if he'd thought about them too hard, could have destroyed his faith in humanity. But at Jim's side, it hadn't touched him. They were doing right, they were doing good, and that meant all was well with the world.

But all wasn't well with the world when despite your best efforts, a case could fall apart in your hands and two kids ended up having to pay the price.

----::----

Blair wearily unlocked the door to the loft. Entering, he dropped his keys in the basket, and looked around, momentarily lost. He'd spent the rest of the day after the IA interview color-coding all his and Jim's files. What a week. Suddenly Tisha's words echoed in his mind -- when do we get to go back in and tell the real story?'

Never, kid. Shit.

Blair walked to the refrigerator and took out a beer. Popping it, he stood in the middle of the kitchen and looked around the loft.

Blair Sandburg, this is your life.

Well, that wasn't a bad thing, was it? Mostly, no. He sipped the beer and listened. Quiet. Just him. No Jim. Who would he be without Jim. Where would he be? Teaching maybe. Or someplace warm, on a field study. Maybe even leading one.

Blair shook the thoughts way, suddenly feeling disloyal. This had been his choice. His choice. Closing his eyes he took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

If Jim were here, what would he say? It's not your fault. Them's the breaks. Basically all the things everybody had been saying to him. All the things that weren't really helping at all. He'd been too tired to talk to Jim the previous night, not wanting to deal if Jim was incensed over the impending IA interview. Now he stood before the phone, debating picking it up and calling. He picked up the receiver and half-dialed the number.

Then he hung up. Be a mensch, Sandburg, he told himself. Stop using Jim as your crutch. This is your life now. Figure out how to live it.

Blair grabbed a beer from the 'fridge and sat on the couch, trying not to think about the fact that he'd promised to get Trevor on the PAL baseball team he'd volunteered to coach. Simon had made it clear -- any further contact with the kids would be used as evidence in the suit against the city. He'd called Angie, hoping to hear her contradict Simon's ultimatum, but she'd just advised him to catch the clue bus and ride it until he had realized that he could lose his job over this. She had to let it go, too -- she had to hope that the people she was able to help balanced out those that she couldn't. And then she cut the call short because she had to go investigate a report of a kid being kept chained to a radiator in a basement.

The phone rang and Blair scrubbed his eyes as the greeting played. He really did not want to talk to anyone.

"Sandburg. You there? C'mon Chief, pick up."

Blair got up off the couch and moved towards the phone.

"C'mon Sandburg. My sentinel senses are tingling. You're there, I can tell. Pick up the damn phone."

Blair placed his hands on either side of the machine and listened.

"Okay. Look, this is what I have to say. Nothing you could have done would have changed the outcome. This isn't your fault. It's sucks that a case of yours had to come apart at the seams, but believe me, Chief, it happens to everyone. I know it's gotta be tough on you because of the kids. Chief, I swear... If you don't pick up the phone I'll..." There was a long silence and the machine clicked off.

Blair relaxed slightly, his finger hovering over the 'Play' button -- it would be good to hear Jim's voice again. And then the phone rang, startling him. He backed away. A sigh came through the machine, and a moment of silence. Suddenly Blair felt as if Jim were there in the room with him. His shoulders sagged and all the misery of the past few days rushed through him. And then Jim spoke, breaking the spell.

"...Well, Santa Fe has been nice, you'd like the heat. A coupla seminars you would've really liked too -- I've got some stuff for you to read. Oh, and I found a place that sells that herbal tea you liked. I'm bringing back a couple of canisters. By the smell of this stuff, the stuff you've been buying has been on the shelves for two years. Um." A long pause. "Look just call me would --"

The machine clicked off. Blair stood a moment longer, the echo of Jim's voice in his ear. And then he went to the refrigerator and got himself another beer.

--::--

"It's never easy to significantly rearrange your world view," Blair told Rafe the next day. He was attempting to don a philosophical attitude to cover the fact that he had his second hangover in three days.

Rafe said nothing, merely raising an eyebrow questioningly as he shuffled through one of the dozens of case files spread out across the conference room table.

"Someone once said 'We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.'" Blair paused. "Can't remember who. It'll come to me." Blair shrugged, then reached for a case file and flipped it open.

"Yeah. Right, Sandburg. When's Jim coming back?"

"T-minus-two man. Why?"

"He understands when you blather."

Blair raised his eyebrows as Rafe stalked out, file in hand, just as Simon entered.

"What's his problem?"

"I don't have any idea. How are you guys progressing?"

"Couple of leads. Turned out the gun used had been sold in Virginia. Trying to see if it turned up anywhere else between here and there because it was sold two years ago."

"No prints, huh?"

"Nothing that matched anything."

"So how're you doing?"

Blair sat up straighter in his chair. "What, everyone thinks I'm going to fall to pieces over one lousy case?"

Simon remained silent.

"I'm not, you know."

"Sandburg, it wasn't your fault. Let it go."

"Like that's so easy? Shit Simon. It was my case. And a woman got away with murder, literally, plus witness tampering to boot. If that's not bad enough, tell me what chance those kids have with a mother like that?"

"We can't save them all."

"So people keep telling me. Is it supposed to make me feel better?"

"No, it's just a little reality check. You should cash it in. Look, Blair -- " Simon hesitated. "You could go talk to the department shrink."

"Oh. Mmm-hmm. That'll be just dandy. Earthy-crunchy Blair just can't handle the pressure." Blair snorted dismissively.

A muscle in Simon's jaw flexed. "Fine. At least call Jim. He's worried sick about you."

"For Pete's sake, Simon. You're not my mother and neither is he."

"Call Jim, Sandburg." Simon glared, making it clear that it was an order.

"Geez. Fine."

----::----

But despite what he'd told Simon, he didn't make the call. He thought about it. He thought about it while making a comforting meal of spaghetti. He thought about it while sitting on the couch and clicking distractedly between an X-files rerun and a Nova special. And he actually managed to bring himself to touch the receiver when the phone rang. But still he let the answering machine take the call.

"Sandburg. Sandburg, pick up. Goddammit Chief. You're starting to worry me here."

Blair gritted his teeth and fought down the tension that knotted his gut.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you blaming yourself? Are you pissed at me for not being there? C'mon, pick up the phone and talk to me."

Blair returned to the couch and sat there, arms folded across his chest.

"Okay, we've covered the fact that this wasn't your fault. You know that, intellectually at least. You also have to know that it wouldn't have made a difference who was in charge of the investigation. Could have been any one of us. The woman was smart. Refused to talk without her lawyer. Lawyer was smart enough, and sleazy enough, to work on the kids. And I know it sucks that you can't help the kids now; I know you wanted to. It's the toughest part of the job, learning to let go of the ones you can't save. Learning that you can't save everyone. It can destroy you, I know that, but you need to let whatever you're feeling out. You need to..."

The machine clicked off and silence filled the loft. Defiantly Blair went to the fridge and got a beer.

And the phone began to ring. The machine picked up, the caller hung up, and thirty seconds later the phone rang again. And again. And again.

"Fuck you. Leave me alone," Blair said into the empty air.

Finally the machine clicked on and the caller didn't speak for a moment. And then Jim said: "I swear to God that when I get back I'm going to kick your ass for putting me through this. Be prepared."

And then Jim hung up.

----::----

Blair lay in his bed, the darkness in the loft enfolding him. He'd showered, stretched, meditated. Tried to figure out why he hadn't answered Jim's call. Tried to figure out why, having realized he was being tremendously passive aggressive about the situation, he still hadn't picked up the phone and called.

His life had never been the same since the day he met Jim Ellison. But then, it also seemed as if his life had been leading to that point from the day he found Burton's reference to sentinels. Finding a real-live sentinel had not been what he'd expected at all, and neither was the life he now found himself living.

In academia, you pretty much knew where you stood. It was predictable to a large degree, crappy thesis advisors aside. You worked hard, yeah, maybe you begged for that fifth extension, swearing this time that it was the last one ever but then you got your grade which reflected your merit and you went on. But this... This was turning up for a final exam, on time, and turning in the test letter-perfect. Only to find that you'd gotten an F for using the friggin' wrong color pen. Only here it wasn't just your diploma on the line, or a matter of summa versus magna cum laude but someone's life. Blair turned on his side, belatedly realizing that the third beer had not been a good idea.

It wasn't as if he hadn't made adjustments to being a cop. Gotten used to being on time, on-call. Gotten the procedure down when he'd always thought of himself as a free-spirited type. Hell, he even had a regular schedule he stuck to, lights out at 11 PM, latest. Up at 7 three days a week to jog five miles.

But despite the effort to straighten up and fly right, as an academy instructor had been fond of exhorting the cadets, he thought he'd managed to bring a certain je ne c'est quoi to the job. He wasn't Blair Sandburg, long-haired hippy-freak cop, he was, 'hip.' Envied from the outset because he was in tight with Major Crimes and slated to be the partner of the best detective in the department -- hell, in the PD. And he was the one who could relate -- using his gift of gab to get through to victims, to witnesses, to perps. He was one who could stand in an interrogation room while Jim was beating his chest and doing his alpha male routine, and then look at the perp, roll his eyes sympathetically, and bam, have the scumbucket eating out of the palm of his hand. Yeah, his gift of gab had actually turned out to be worth something. Except the benefits of that gift could be rendered null and void by various and assorted slimers.

Blair squirmed down into his blankets, trying to get comfortable. He sighed, wishing he wasn't being such a dick about the situation. Wished that instead of being alone in the loft, he was instead listening to the sounds of Jim making his final preparations for bed rather than the faint hum of the refrigerator.

Wished that he didn't feel so very, very alone.

----::----

Blair awoke with a start. Jim was going to be home tomorrow, and in addition to being really pissed about Blair avoiding him, he was going to be pissed about the state of the bathroom. And the kitchen. Sighing, he realized that he had to do quite a bit of housecleaning.

And then? Fuck, he had a date tonight. He was so not in the mood. But maybe it would serve to get his mind off things. Although somehow... he doubted it.

The fun had pretty much gone out of dating since he'd become a cop. All of the women he'd known at Rainier were now vaguely embarrassed by his existence, and all the other women he'd met (the ones who miraculously didn't know about his 'fraud') reacted oddly to his occupation. Women seemed to either think it was "really cool" (show me your gun, officer), or were vaguely uncomfortable. His last date had gotten a bit flippy about driving with him in her car -- as if he were suddenly going to pull her over and issue her a ticket. And smart women tended to think of cops as clueless, violent morons. Not that there weren't a few of those, but they seemed to generate enough of a bad rep for every cop on the planet.

The fact was, he wasn't interested in women so much anymore. What he was interested in, he wasn't even going to let himself think about.

----::----

Blair made a mental list of all the things he still had to do before Jim's return. Morning at the PD had gone well, and now it was just some routine paperwork to finish off what had been a relatively good day. So: The bathroom was semi-okay, the kitchen needed work. And he had to get rid of the stack of empties -- and get some more beer.

"Another day, another dollar, right Captain, sir?" Blair said as Simon walked by.

"Well, you're in a much better mood." Simon stopped and looked Blair over from head to toe.

"Heh. Got a break on the Vancetti case, got a witness..." Belatedly, Blair swung his legs from off of the desktop.

"And you got the suspect to knuckle under and confess?" Simon indicated that Blair should follow him into this office. Obediently, Blair stood.

"By the book, Simon, by the book. Nice and tight and no loose ends," Blair said triumphantly.

"Good job. So you doing anything special tonight?"

"Nah. Cancelled my date, gotta clean the loft before Jim gets home."

"He gets in tomorrow, yes?" Simon asked casually, closing the office door.

"Tomorrow, late morning."

Simon walked behind his desk and sat down. "And he'll find you ah, well rested?"

Blair drew himself up. "What's that supposed to mean."

"Means it hasn't escaped my notice that you haven't been in the best condition for the past few mornings."

"Simon, this case..."

"Is not an excuse to start drinking to excess. Jim's not here to give you hell for it, so I'm going to."

"I'm not a child."

"True. But that's not the point."

Blair dug his fingers into his thighs, his good mood totally destroyed. "Yes, Captain sir," he said sarcastically. "Am I dismissed?"

"Dismissed." Simon nodded and Blair left.

And once he got home, he spent the evening cleaning the apartment, doing laundry -- even going so far as to do Jim's. The question was, how to play it when Jim came home. Casual was probably best. 'Hey man, I know I acted like a jerk. But, like, this case was a one time thing, y'know. I had to deal with it in my own way...'

He could go and get some bagels to have for when Jim got in -- maybe the Danish that Jim liked. Meanwhile, he was going to sit here in the nice clean apartment, have one beer, and get a good night's sleep. Be back to his old self come morning.

That was most certainly the ticket...

-----::-----

Blair awoke with a groan. At least the smell of coffee greeted him. A nice cup of coffee, a hot shower, and then on to the rest of the tasks he had set himself to do before Jim arrived at home.

The sound of someone moving in the kitchen had him sitting straight up in his bed, his heart pounding.

"Relax, Sandburg. It's only me," Jim called from the kitchen.

Shit, thought Blair. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit... Girding himself, he slowly sat up. Relax, he told himself. He forced himself to relax, one major muscle group at a time. "Hey, Jim," he called, congratulating himself on his level-sounding voice. "You're back, uh, early."

"Wanted to see what you'd done with the place in my absence. It's still standing, that's a good sign."

Shit. The empties. He had never gotten rid of them. Shit. Time to bluff his way through this one. Grabbing his robe and belting it tightly around himself, he walked casually out of his room. "So, good flight?"

"Flight was fine," Jim said.

"And a good trip, overall?" Blair went to the fridge and grabbed the orange juice. The empties stood in stacks on the far counter.

"Yup."

"So..."

"So what the fuck is up with you?" Jim asked over the rim of his coffee mug.

Blair's guts coiled into a knot and he hesitated. For a long moment he considered just sloughing off the bitterness and resentment -- just letting it all go. The moment was there, waiting -- he could turn to Jim for comfort, let him try and pick up the pieces and put them back together. But the knot remained stubbornly tight and resentment pushed its way to the fore. He rode the tide, anger rising within him.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean," he answered.

But Jim didn't rise to the bait, just kept sipping his coffee and regarding him levelly.

"I had a shitty week. So what? It happens. Since when do I have to be Mr. Fucking Sweetness and Light all the time? You've been there -- have the courtesy to leave a guy the fuck alone."

Jim frowned, and Blair quickly interjected, "Hey, look -- it's cool. man. I can handle it, I've had the training, I know the drill. I don't need the pop psych -- I'm working from the cop playbook. Detach. Get pissed. Move on." He gestured to the stack of empty six-packs and added, "I can start by getting rid of these."

----::----

Blair set himself deliberately apart from Jim for the next few days. Jim would occasionally make an overture, Blair would rebuff him, and there would be a period of overly polite interaction in between. They each worked efficiently, effectively, but not as a team. And then, while taking a break from interviewing a suspect, Jim casually seconded Simon's recommendation that Blair go visit the department shrink.

"Oh, sure, that would be dandy," Blair said sarcastically as they walked down the hall towards the soda machine. "Little hippie-cop Blair, Jim's tagalong, can't handle the pressure and goes to see the shrink. As if I don't already have enough problems."

"Is that how you see yourself, as my tagalong?" Jim's tone was forcedly casual as he concentrated on dropping coins into the slot.

"Oooh. Taking counseling courses, Jim? Learning how to reflect the speaker's comments back... 'So, you feel as if you're merely Jim's tagalong do you?'" Blair mimicked, leaning back against the wall. "'So how does that make you feel.'"

Blair watched in satisfaction as Jim stiffened, but the relaxation efforts failed to work this time. Provoking Jim was becoming a point of pride, and Blair found himself vaguely despising Jim for not pushing back, for letting Blair walk all over him.

"No, Jim, I don't feel as if I'm your tagalong," Blair continued, "I'm just saying that, perhaps, that might be the dominant perception around here."

"That's bullshit, Sandburg," Jim said calmly as he bent to retrieve his soda from the slot.

"Careful, Jim. You're in danger of invalidating my feelings and that's not appropriate technique," Blair said smugly.

"Okay," Jim said levelly, "What I'm sensing here is that you don't want to do the counseling shtick"

Blair shot Jim a look. Jim returned the gaze levelly. "So is there a moratorium on 'Blair treats Jim like crap?' Because I'm coming mighty close to imposing one."

"Oh yeah?" Blair said, not liking the hint of anger that lay behind Jim's stone-faced expression.

Jim stepped forward and curled his hands on the lapel of Blair's jacket. "Yeah." For a long moment they remained frozen in place, each holding the other's gaze.

And then Blair deliberately looked away. "Well, why don't I just go elsewhere and leave you the fuck alone? I don't need you any more than you need me." Blair slid out of Jim's grasp, tugging his jacket into place as he did so. Deliberately he turned and began walking back down the hall towards the interview room. But the balance of power had shifted slightly, and Blair found himself ill-at-ease. At the end of the day he found himself saying, awkwardly, "So, my night to cook."

"Forgot to tell you," Jim said coolly. "I have plans this evening. Catch you later."

"Oh. Yeah, okay." And for a moment Blair felt bereft until he realized, suddenly, that Jim didn't really have any plans, that Jim was avoiding him, and then the anger burned more fiercely than ever.

----::----

It was late by the time Jim got home. Blair had tried to find make-work, too aware that a year ago he would have had a stack of exams to grade, or research to do. Or even the course material from the academy. He found himself hunched over his laptop before the coffee table, evaluating the criminology programs at nearby colleges and universities within a 100 mile radius.

Fuck it, he should just apply to Rainier, he thought, taking a pull on the single beer he'd been nursing all evening.

And then he heard Jim's key in the lock.

"You're up late," Jim commented as he walked in the door. His gaze slid over the beer bottle before fixing again on Blair's face.

Blair crossed his arms across his chest. "What, I'm not allowed a beer on a school night?"

"Sandburg, I'm not your mother."

"Damn right you're not. My mother's way cooler than you."

"Yeah. Too bad she never had the sense to give you a good swift kick in the ass."

"Now there's an enlightened solution." Blair leaned back in his chair and stared up at Jim.

"Like your way of dealing is any better. Do you have any idea what a pain it is being your wife?" Jim tossed his keys into the basket by the door, then wiped his forehead tiredly with one large hand.

Blair felt his mouth drop open. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means I never realized how freakin' annoying I was being when I pulled that macho-manly bullshit."

Blair jumped up, started pacing, trying to work up the energy to get angry. Really angry. "So this is just me copping an attitude, is that it? I'm some macho poseur, is that it?"

"Hell, yeah," Jim said, walking to the couch and sitting down wearily. "And believe me, I know -- it's my 'tude you're copping, copper." He let his head fall back. "Stop trying to be me, will you?"

Blair halted mid-pace and whirled to face Jim. "Wow. Just exactly how big is your ego, anyway?"

"You think I'm flattered that you choose to emulate me in this way? Think again."

"I can't believe this," Blair said.

"I feel," Jim said, reflectively, staring up at the ceiling, "like I should write a letter of apology to Carolyn. The last few people I dated. You, probably. "Dear World: Sorry for being such a dick."

"What, you're the center of the universe now? Talk about self-referential. As if this has anything to do with you..."

"This has everything to do with me," Jim said, tiredly. "I'm in the fucking middle of it. Don't you get it? I'm an asshole, you're learning to be an asshole by watching me. Meanwhile, I'm really, really missing the old you right about now, okay?"

"Yeah, I bet," Blair snapped. "The old, wussy me, you mean--"

"Will you cut this crap out?" Jim asked, suddenly up on his feet and looking furious.

Push him, he pushes back, Blair thought. We keep pushing, what the hell is going to happen? Perversely, he waited, wanting Jim to back down first. "When I do it, it's crap, is that it?" he argued. "When you do it--"

"--it's crap, it's still crap," Jim moved towards him, reaching him in two long strides and grabbing his collar. "It's crap when I do it, it's crap when you do it, it's crap period, okay? Macho fucking bullshit crap."

He was trying real hard to hold on to his anger, but there was something about Jim saying "crap" six times fast that made him have to fight to keep from smiling. "That's redundant," he said, finally. "Bullshit crap."

"There you go," Jim said softly, encouragingly. "Start with the rhetoric, and then take the rest of me apart, too."

"I'm not trying to take you apart," Blair said with a frown.

"But I want you to." Jim sounded sincere. "Take apart my whole rotten act. Take it apart, don't take it on." He sighed and took his hands off Blair's shirt, taking the extra second to smooth the collar down. I don't want you to end up like me."

"There's nothing wrong with you," Blair argued.

"Sandburg, I don't want to end up like me." Jim crossed his arms and stared Blair down. "You were supposed to be my way out of that, okay? C'mon," he said, his voice suddenly persuasive. "Lead the way."

"Why do I have to lead?" Blair said mulishly.

"Because that's your job. I'm the monkey-see, monkey-do guy, remember?" And Jim suddenly looked hesitant, as if Blair's refusal would be the end of the world. Jim's world.

Blair paused, then blew out a frustrated breath. "Apparently not." He snorted lightly. "After all, you're the one who noticed that I'd gone native." He rolled his shoulders trying to shake off some of the tension that had been singing through his system since.... Since Jim had left for the conference in Santa Fe, probably.

"Yeah, well, you live, eat, work, and breathe this stuff now. It can't be that much of a surprise." And Jim had relaxed too, as if some crisis point had been passed.

"Actually it is." Blair walked to the couch and flopped down. "I'd just about convinced myself that I had a new worldview. A perspective that had nothing to do with you."

Jim came and sat beside him. "Hell, maybe your perspective is unique, if warped." Blair shot Jim a look. "It's just that your coping mechanisms now suck as badly as mine do."

"Gee, thanks."

"You're welcome," Jim said politely.

Blair grabbed a pillow and stuffed it behind his head. "So what do I do?"

"Decide what you want, I guess. What's making you so crazy that you have to... change it."

The tension in Jim's voice was back again, but Blair ignored it in pursuit of what it was that he wanted. What he wanted. "I want," he said, and paused. "I want that Dean bitch in jail on murder-one charges."

"Not going to happen. Of possible things, what do you want? You want to quit the cop thing?"

"No! I'm a good cop. I like being a cop." Blair glared at Jim.

"Okay. Uh. Maybe you need... Your own space?" Jim said awkwardly. "I mean, if you're not around me all the time then you maybe won't pick up my bad habits."

"You trying to get rid of me?"

"Not at all, Sandburg." Jim's voice was quiet, serious.

"Okay then. I'm staying. Maybe I'll take some criminology classes. There're some you'd probably dig, too," Blair said meditatively.

"Work, live, and take classes together? I think we've established that too much togetherness is bad for your mental health," Jim said jokingly.

"Nah, man. This all began while you were away. Obviously the answer is to go through life attached at the hip."

"I thought we were." Jim's voice was gruff, and Blair turned to see him blushing slightly.

"We could go that extra step. You know, make it official," Blair teased. "You've already admitted to being my wife."

"Hah. Very funny."

"No, man, think about it. It would solve all our problems." He looked over at Jim again whose posture was suddenly ramrod stiff. "Hey, kidding. Just... Jim, sorry. Didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

"It's okay, Sandburg, I'm fine. Just... tired." Jim stood.

"Wait, wait," Blair said suddenly feeling as if this was the push that had pushed too far. He'd finally gone too far without even meaning to. "Jim, wait. I'm sorry." He reached for Jim's arm. Jim turned and looked him in the eye, embarrassment radiating from every pore.

Blair took a sudden step backwards. "You want that. I mean... You want it. Me, I mean. I had no idea..."

"Look, it's not a big deal." Jim said, looking as if he were torn between bolting up the stairs or out of the apartment. "If you're uncomfortable..."

"No, no. Wait." Blair held up a hand, shook his head disbelievingly. "You... God, why the hell didn't you ever tell me?"

Jim shrugged and Blair stepped forward and cuffed him. "You idiot. Why didn't you...? Why didn't I...? Oh man." And then a shock of desire surged through him with paralyzing force.

"Sandburg, you okay?" he heard Jim ask.

"I... If I'm not now, I soon will be," Blair said vaguely. Suddenly he grinned. "Basically, Jim, you're going to kiss it and make it all better."

And then Jim said "What?" in tones of such incredulity that Blair exploded with laughter.

---::---

"You are such a Grade-A asshole, Chief."

"No. No. I just..." Blair wheezed, finally getting himself under control. Man, Jim was pissed. "I'm serious. Totally serious. Completely and utterly serious."

But Jim was still giving him the 'if looks could kill, you'd be dead' look.

"I mean it," Blair said, finally shaking off the shocked hilarity. "I really, really mean it."

But the muscle in Jim's jaw was pulsing as he stood there, drawn up to his full height, arms folded across his chest. At this point, he wasn't quite sure he trusted Jim not to give him the ass-kicking he'd been threatened with earlier.

Blair stepped forward slowly and placed his hands on Jim's forearms as he reached up to brush a kiss along Jim's tense jaw. The muscle jumped underneath his lips and he sucked, gently, attempting to smooth away the tension. And then he let his lips drift down to Jim's mouth, keeping his touch soft, coaxing Jim's arms out from between them, encouraging those arms to come around his waist.

Jim remained stiff, only hesitantly returning the kiss, the embrace, but Blair didn't give up. Sliding his tongue between Jim's lips he lost himself in the moment, suddenly intent and greedy, anxious for the feel of Jim on him, over him, in him.

"C'mon," he mumbled between kisses. "I'm the guide, remember. Follow. Follow my lead now, Jim."

And Jim's arms were holding him firmly, sliding from shoulder blades, down the curve of spine to cup Blair's ass. Blair groaned and arched into the touch, rocking forward eagerly. Jim took a half-step back, recovered, and locked Blair's body more firmly against his.

Something within Jim finally loosened and he returned the kiss fully, covering Blair's mouth with his own, the first kiss tentative, then growing assured, focused. Highly focused. Blair sank into the sensation: the slide, the rasp of tongue against tongue, the warmth, heat, hot, wet.

"Hey, hey," Blair said backing away breathlessly. "Upstairs. Okay?"

Jim nodded sharply, then turned towards the stairs, towing Blair along by one arm. And then Blair was quickly undressed, firmly pressed back the mattress and left to lie there, waiting, watching as Jim efficiently stripped and quickly lay on top of him; attempting to cover every inch of Blair's body with his own as he tucked face into the crook of Blair's neck and sniffed, licked, tasted, nibbled, until Blair started to quiver helplessly.

Jim levered himself off to one side, his eyes locked on Blair's. The other hand began tracing across Blair's chest, down his body, and soon Jim was leaning down to follow the path the hand had scouted. Blair watched Jim's expression, so full of concentration, so focused, on him, on his every reaction...

And waiting, it seemed, for Blair to pull back, to stop this, maybe to throw up walls and establish distance, and generally revert to being an asshole again.

Blair laid a hand gently on Jim's head, stroking softly, and let his thighs fall apart, extending the invitation silently, hoping it would simply be accepted.

And after a brief moment of profound stillness, followed by a quick look up at Blair's face, it was. Jim reached up, across Blair's body, fumbling in the night table. And then Jim was preparing him, preparing him, eyes focused intently on Blair's, need right there for anyone to see, need for him, needing him...

"Yeah, man, yeah," Blair crooned. "That's it, that's the way. Oh, god, yeah."

And Jim shivered slightly, pressed Blair's legs back, pressed forward, pressed onward, and Blair gasped and sighed and writhed.

"You okay?" Jim said hoarsely.

Blair nodded and hooked one leg behind Jim's waist, pulling himself closer, Jim deeper. The other went over Jim's shoulder and Jim raised a hand to Blair's knee, smoothing his hand down to Blair's thigh where he clenched and unclenched his hand rhythmically.

"I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm better than okay," Blair said. "Man, needed this, needed you, always need you."

Jim's eyes closed then, and he surged forward again, his other hand grasping Blair's erection, slow smooth strokes before and behind that left Blair panting for air. Oh but god he wanted to see Jim's face when he came.

So he watched, watched as the lips moved until he finally realized what Jim was saying. Just Blair's name, over and over, silently, not a breath of sound. But he wanted to hear his name said aloud, wanted to hear Jim speak his name, scream it, whisper it... Blair began to clench his muscles around Jim's cock and Jim gasped. Again, and again and first it was a huff, and then it was a hoarse moan and then it was Jim's voice saying "Blair, Blair, god, Blair, god..."

"Yeah, c'mon, Jim. C'mon. Need this, need you..."

And Jim began to shake, biting down on his lip, holding back but Blair wanted it, wanted it now, wanted it all and he was going to get it.

"Now, c'mon need you, now, now, now, now..." And it began, a whisper of sensation that built and built, traveling up his legs and down his torso, his toes curling as the sensation built and built in his groin, "Come with me, c'mon, come, c'mon Jiiiimmm."

And he tried, really tried to keep his eyes open but it was too intense and he had to close them just for a second and when he looked back up Jim's head was thrown back, his face contorted, as his body shook and jerked violently and then Jim was collapsing forward, covering him again, and Blair's arms went to embrace him and all he wanted was to lick the sweat from Jim's neck and stay this way, stay this way forever...

Jim rolled to the side, tucking Blair firmly up against him, and let out a long sigh.

Blair pulled back far enough to see Jim's face, but Jim's face wasn't content, wasn't satisfied.

"You worry too much, Jim," Blair said.

"According to you, you don't need me."

Blair dropped a kiss on Jim's shoulder. "I say a lot of crap. A lot of bullshit crap, remember?" He bit Jim gently and Jim's arms tightened around him.

"Yeah, I remember." One of Jim's hands came up and began carding Blair's hair. Blair leaned into the caress with a sigh.

"So you can forgive the bullshit crap I dumped on you?" Blair asked, tilting his head back to meet Jim's eyes.

"So long as you don't make it a habit."

Blair smiled inwardly at Jim's stoic expression. "Nah, you're here to help me break bad habits."

"Oh, is that what I'm here for." Jim raised one eyebrow.

"Mmm. Among other things," Blair said contentedly.

"Really."

"Yes, really." Blair yawned. "You've got the perfect tool for it."

"I do, huh?" Jim suddenly grinned and Blair smacked him lightly, then smiled back.

"Oh yeah. Talk about positive reinforcement." Blair pressed a kiss to the spot he'd nipped earlier.

"So now I'm supposed to reward you for bad behavior?"

"Nah, giving me incentive to behave well."

"Ah..."

"I suggest frequent application of this new behavior modification technique," Blair said, yawning again and closing his eyes. "The results will astound you."

"Results guaranteed?"

"Oh yeah. Absolutely..."

Fin