Rated: probably PG - R
Warnings: Blair angst galore, AU-land, this sure isn't Kansas (or Washington) anymore.

Rafe's phone rang, startling him. When he turned back from answering, he stared at Joel, then down at Blair, a hateful look, intended to make him cower.

"Detective Taggart, sir, the Senti...the Sentinel needs...he's zoned, and Ms. Sandburg was there...she wants you to bring this...this impostor...to his office."

Blair rose from the wheelchair, strength flowing into his trembling limbs. Straightening his back, and looking up into Joel's eyes, he demanded, "Take me to him."

Joel blinked, and Rafe stepped back, unamused at the authority in the words coming from this pitiful stranger-impostor. "Detective Taggart, I don't think..." he began, speaking with a smirk that twisted his GQ handsome face.

Joel looked at the younger officer, in fact, he stared right through him into the wall. "Rafe, what you think and what you don't think means shit! You are my subordinate, under my command. The only opinion you have is mine! Do you understand me? If you and I can't reach the same conclusion on this some re-education may be needed."

Rafe jerked his wrist and elbow up, hastily in a salute. "Yes Sir, Detective Taggart. My opinion means nothing, sir!"

Joel did not smile, and Blair looking at this exchange between his two "friends" cringed. This place and these people are...

"Blair, Officer Rafe will take you on to the restroom for a quick shower and change of clothes while I phone upstairs to get some details. Why don't you sit back down for the ride?" And Joel smiled, at him, his sympathetic eyes softening out of that hard edged commanding officer demeanor put on for Rafe's benefit minutes ago.

"Joel," and Blair saw Rafe once again do a double-take at him, speaking to Joel as a familiar, "shouldn't I go to Ji...Capt. Ellison right away? Do ya know sometimes that zone outs can be physiologically dangerous to a sentinel? I've suspected it could develop into tachycardia, when pulled out of an prolonged zone, the heart rate and the blood pressure increases, often dramatically. And some...sometimes, when Jim is...his respiration..."

Joel patted him on the shoulder, interrupting. "Just go clean up, son. You'll get there in plenty of time, and Blair...don't worry."

Blair sat back down, deflated. 'Course I'm gonna worry. Dammit, I'm not this sentinel's guide. Where the hell is my counterpart? Has he taken my place with My Sentinel, wherever that world is? Oh my God, what if he's taken my place in Jim's bed? What if Jim is making love to him, right now? What if, what if, what if? Could Jim be deceived by him? This one Knew. He Knew from a few minutes onward I didn't belong to him.

Then he turned into a sadist, and that woman, she looked just like he supposed Alex Barnes' younger sister would, that if she had one.

Oh God, suppose I can't bring this man back since I'm not his own guide, and they decide I'm worthless. What if Jim zones out back home in the real Cascade and my "twin" can't help him either? Maybe he's been abducted like Ms. Sandburg thinks and he's still on this crazy planet, which brings me to big questions: Where is he? Where am I? How do I get home? How do I return to Jim?

God, Jim, I want to go home. I wanna go to bed with you, lie in your strong arms all night long. I want you to be in me, loving me and I want to feel you inside me. I want to be happy again! I'm not myself, I'm incomplete without you beside me. You're my soul."

Rafe, as he pushed the chair down the corridor, heard the traitor whisper, "my soul" and wondered if the Command structure would soon be making a big change. If Capt. Ellison were never pulled out of his zone by this faker, or permanently parted from his true Guide and lost his sentinel gifts, well then...he'd be Out, wouldn't he? The SNGRF would take him off to a small room with padded walls, oh yeah!

Rafe caught himself before he guffawed out loud. Oh yeah, Capt. Ellison's father...he remembered the story well. William Ellison's guide had left him high and dry, leaving their two genetic sentinel children behind. He'd heard the rumors that Grace couldn't handle the pressure of being a guide, a mother of two potentially strong young sentinels, and *The* role model for the SNGRF.

What'd they always say in that bonding oath: "I swear to Love, Honor, and Obey my Sentinel until we are parted by death in this world. I swear to defend and give my life if need be in my Sentinel's service; To foreswear all other commitments and break all unnecessary ties so that I may bind and pledge myself only into his service. So long as I draw breath. So long as my heart beats."

Yeah, something like that. Those bondings were private rituals with plenty of bloodletting and spit-swapping and orgies...so he'd read in The Snoop.