I didn't want to wake up. For once, I was warm, comfortable, at peace. There were strong arms, familiar arms that I knew from somewhere, wrapped snug around me. The chest under my head grumbled with rusty snoring, snoring as familiar as the arms. All I wanted in the universe was to stay like this until the last light within it went out. Deep sleep while I had been Leaping, especially since I had been doing it as myself, was rare, too rare to give up without a fight.
But all it took was the thought, and I awoke in a rush, expecting to feel the usual strangeness and distortions. For once, though, for *once* - Thank You! - the arms stayed familiar, and the snores I recognized without trying. Knowing I had a goofy grin on my face, helpless to do anything about it, I lifted up enough to look at my bed partner.
Al looked older, with more gray than I remembered in his hair, more lines in his face, but his body was as trim and compact as ever. Despite the years, he was beautiful! I squeezed with the arm I still had around his waist to confirm that he was real. Not a hologram, not a dream - real! At the feel of it, he rolled with a grunting snort onto his back, leaving one arm over mine, the hand digging into my shirt, hard. That suited me fine, and I lifted a finger to touch the end of his nose, just to see what he'd do.
Slapping at my hand as if it were a fly, he grunted a second time, and I was about to do it again, when my goofy grin died. The glint of gold from his wedding band winked at me from where his left hand fell to his chest. That reminder of why I made this Leap destroyed my simple pleasure at being with him again, and I tugged free, gently, taking a few seconds to soothe him back into sleep.
Once I stood by the bed, I looked around the room I hadn't seen the night before, searching for Jim Ellison and his partner. Through the partially open door that separated the bedroom from the small living room, I could see the couch bed was pulled out, and had two sets of feet on it, one of them nearly hanging off the end. Despite the seriousness of it all, I had to smile again. How many beds and other pieces of furniture had *I* been too tall for in my Leaps?
Quietly I moved into the living room, not surprised to see him and Chief - 'Blair,' I had to remember to think of him as 'Blair' - still fully dressed, and wrapped around each other much the same way Al and I had been. They were on their sides facing each other and Blair was tucked protectively against Jim's chest, just under the bigger man's chin. Without meaning to, I drifted closer to the bed, half-expecting to see some echo of Chief and Panther in the pair sleeping there.
To my surprise, there was none. They shared the same features, the same forms, but where I expected to see an overlay of a broken man and an enraged half-animal clinging together out of necessity and despair, there were only two devoted friends watching over each other in their sleep. Chief couldn't be seen in the articulate, vibrant, spirited person I had found here, and for the first time since I met him, a few weeks of my time ago, I wondered at the sheer magnitude of the torture needed to create that tortured soul.
Kneeling by the bed, I reached for the dark auburn braid hanging over the edge, meaning only to put it on the pillow. Before I could touch it, Blair shot upright, scooting for the headboard, and Jim pulled his gun from under the pillow, face hard and unrecognizing. Dismissing that because he wouldn't fire unless Ch...Blair felt I was a threat, I stared into the storm-colored eyes. He stared back, and I wish I knew what he read in me.
When the moment's awkwardness finally penetrated my brain, I spoke up without thinking to apologize. "I'm sorry. I haven't seen you...undamaged...before." As soon as the words were out, I started mentally hitting myself over the head and waited for the inevitable questions, trying to project my sincerity.
Instead of exploding with them, as I expected, Blair inched back into Jim, his hand tangling in his partner's clothes as he did. Startled, I checked Jim, to see his reaction and had to beat down the urge to flee from the fury I found in the diamond-blue hardness of his gaze. Disappointment and a sense of impending doom drowned the fear in a heartbeat, and the weariness that dogs me when I'm too close to my 'death' weighed me down.
Plainly not *feeling* that, but reading it in my face, Blair reached for me, his normal compassion coming to the front. Letting him go, his rage transmuting into the control I had seen in Panther, Jim left the bed so that he could sit on the edge of it, near where I knelt, holstering his weapon as he did. Before either of them could speak, stubby fingers appeared on my shoulder, almost petting in their gentleness.
"Hey, Sam?" Al's voice surrounded me, and all I wanted in this entire world was to be back in bed, safely asleep in his arms.
Wrestling with the tears to hold them in my throat, I pulled away from the three of them, turning my back. "Mind if I take the shower, first?" If the words wobbled, no one called me on it, and I didn't wait for their consent. Snatching up my duffel, I literally ran for the bathroom, not caring if I looked or felt like a fool. It was hardly new to me, after all.
By habit, I looked at myself in the mirror after my shower, both reassured and frightened by what I saw. It was me, my face, my body, not some stranger's whose image and life I was trying to fit into. I saw a tall, skinny man with hazel green eyes with a few crows feet surrounding them, sandy hair, a silver forelock peeking from it shyly; the same exact me that I had seen in all my Leaps since I had begun doing them as myself. How long I had been doing that was a pretty meaningless question, but if it were possible to count the accumulated days, there should have been *some* change. Some signs that I was aging.
I no longer believed that I would ever go home, but I wanted to think I would eventually stop Leaping. If this one didn't work, didn't free me from them, at the very least, I would become too old, wouldn't I? *Wouldn't* I? Behind me the door opened, slightly, and I hastily took out my razor to shave, ashamed of my self-pity, and not wanting to be caught at it. Al slid into the room, closing the door behind him, not saying anything. He didn't need to; his confidence in me, his faith, his trust, his belief shone from him like it had in so many other Leaps.
It was what I needed. I let go of my self-pity and my fear at how wrong things were going so far. Maybe for what had to be done, Jim and Blair weren't where they needed to be, but what we had could be enough. Would be enough. Too much depended on it. Feeling better, I managed a smile for him, and lathered up.
Bouncing lightly, he watched, hands in his pockets, a small smile starting and growing as the two of us settled back into each other. "Ellison wants to know if they were made," he said finally.
The knowledge was there instantly, the way it is sometimes. "No. Tell him Steven and his dad are safe. And they never looked for Naomi Sandburg at all." Then I met Al's eyes in the mirror, eyebrows raised.
Shrugging, he admitted, "I told them about Quantum Leap, you changing time, everything, last night after you crashed on us. And you can add the explanation for *that* to all the others you owe us."
Deliberately I switched my attention back to shaving. A peek told me Al was going to let me get away with it, but not for long. "Did they tell you why Weisman was looking for them?"
The question startled Al; he rocked back on his heels. "They told Emerson McNab that they only had theories on that," he said slowly. "Guess I never gave it any more thought." He said it questioningly, but I had to shake my head.
"It's up to them to tell you if they want you to know," I said reluctantly.
Al didn’t push; one advantage to being military is you know that it's nothing personal when you can't be told everything. Instead he asked, "Why are you here, Sam?"
Not wanting to answer him yet, I rinsed off my razor for the final time, started to check my face for leftover lather, and found the mirror steamed up. Guess I'd gotten good at shaving what I couldn't see and hadn't noticed. I wiped away the fog, revealing Al standing behind me wearing the same wary, closed-off expression that had been behind his gun last night. Holding in my sigh and regrets, I swept over the reflection a few more times, slowly, though all the mist was gone. "Go ask Jim if it's safer for us to stay here and cook some breakfast, or if we have to get going. I'll tell you after we decide what to do next."
The bathroom door was yanked open unceremoniously, and Jim filled the doorway, his anger expanding to fill the bathroom. "You don't know if it's safe here?" I did sigh out loud this time; of course he would have been listening to us.
Resigned, I adjusted my towel around my waist, and smiled; weakly, if the twist to Blair's mouth was any indication. "OUT!" I nudged Al, following him, and Jim gave way. Leaning on the doorframe once they were all seated - or perched on the back of a chair, in Blair's case - I started the first of the long, long explanations they were going to need. "Okay, when I'm outside of Time, I can watch and see things as they did/will happen. For example, that Jim would choose to give the McNabs the emergency escape route he'd planned for himself and Blair. Or, when they got shot and how badly; and that the two of you," and I pointed at the partners, "would be wearing vests and would put Al between you to protect him. Thanks for that, by the way.
"When I'm on the outside, I can influence things a little. Put a glitch in the security system of a parking garage so no one could see who came or left or parked on what floor. Make reservations, rent a car with computer records that cease to exist as soon as they're used. But once I Leap back into the time stream, I'm a *part* of events as they happen. I'm as much at the mercy of them as you are. My only advantage is the information I manage to hold onto when I Leap in."
"What's it like, being outside time? " Blair asked.
For a second the rippling, flowing colors of thoughts, time, gravity - life! - glowed around me, and I said slowly, "Ever had a dream that was beautiful enough for tears, but when you woke all you remembered *was* that it was beautiful?"
"Yeah," and his voice sounded wistful. Jim hitched an inch closer in his direction, and Blair did the same toward him. The sight of it encouraged me; maybe this was going to work after all.
Tugging at the towel that was slipping on my hips, I got back to business. "Look, I want to get dressed, and this will make a lot more sense if I start at the beginning. Besides I'm kind of hungry. You two," and I looked at Jim and Al respectively, "are the experts here. Not me. Al knows enough about Weisman to predict what he had for breakfast this morning, and with that Jim could guess pretty accurately what he'll do next. Do we stay and cook, or hit the road and eat on the way?"
"Wait a minute. Where are going?" Trust Blair to get to the heart of it.
"New Mexico," I said shortly, not wanting to be pulled back into more explanations. Al's eyes went wide, but he didn't say anything. "To destroy Stallion's Gate and Ziggy before Weisman can resurrect her."
***
It was no surprise that Jim preferred being on the move. For him, it was probably instinctive, a response to the uncertainty of the situation. While I made an escape to the bedroom to dress, the others packed and took care of their morning routines. By mutual consent, we concentrated on the mechanics of living - changing Jim's bandage, bagging the bloody clothes, brewing a quick cup of coffee in the kitchen alcove, and discussing our route - until we were all in the Wagoneer.
With the tinted glass giving us a semblance of privacy from the rest of the world, we sunk into our own thoughts for a time, listening to the police scanner for any hint that there was a manhunt on for us. It lasted until Jim put the beltway well behind us, then he flipped off the scanner, looked at Blair who sat next to him, then back at me. Leaning on the glass of the window, feeling Al stretch out from where he sat behind Jim to nudge my leg with his, I watched the world flow past us and away, and waited for someone to start.
"Why, Sam?" Jim blurted. To me, he looked surprised that he'd spoken first, but determined to go on with it, regardless. "Why did you let everyone who loves you think you were dead?"
"Jim, hard as this is going to be for you to understand, my memories of this time and yours don't match. *My* history, the one I originally lived, is the only one *I* know. In that history, there was no one to care if I were alive or not. The only thing I had in my life was my project, and one friend more important to me than it was." Beside me I felt Al jump, and he jerked his leg away from mine. The next second it was back, pressing more firmly this time.
"You know my dad died when I was still relatively young; shortly after that, Mom lost the farm, the only home I ever knew." I went on tiredly, closing my eyes but still seeing the road stream past. "Tom had died in 'Nam. With all the confusion and emotions of the young girl she was, my sister, Katie, blamed me somehow for it all, and refused to talk to me. My mom, well, I know she loves me, but I was away at school. And, after all, Katie was her daughter, her baby. She didn't pick sides, but she did give Katie all her attention and support. It kind of created a tension between us we could never bridge. The only woman I had loved left me standing at the altar. Every other relationship I had died because I was obsessed with my work, and my best friend was about to make mistake number six.
"When they threatened to shut down the project, I had nothing to lose, literally, by Leaping."
"It wasn't being away on Leaps that was the problem for us, Sam," Al said slowly. "In this history, when the smoke cleared from the...accident, they found a body. I'd swear on my children's lives it was yours. I mean, I *knew* about the Leaps, prayed that you were still doing them, but the body…." He stopped, choked.
"I don't know how to explain that, Al. Maybe this," and I slapped my chest, seeing in my mind's eye my unchanging face in the mirror, "isn't a real or at least, not a normal human body anymore. But for all that, I can't tell the difference. Or maybe what is your past is my future, and somewhere down the line I'll Leap back into the Project and really die the way you saw. I wish I could say for sure, but for now, I don't know, Al. I'm sorry."
"Well, you could have at least let me know you were alive in my present," he muttered unhappily.
"I'm sorry." Sighing, I stopped, then made myself go on; I had promised him an explanation. "Al, didn't you ever think it was odd, in *your* original history, that I never got closer to my own time than the late 80's? And don't give me the old meeting yourself time paradox; we did that, remember? No effect except to make my family think their sixteen year old son was crazy."
"Sam, are you saying you can't get close, time-wise, to your first Leap?" Al asked thoughtfully.
"Or my death, if you remember it that way. No, I can't and it's nearly impossible to effect any changes. It...it *hurts.* Even with as many years between it and now as there are, I feel cold and achy, like I have the flu." I opened my eyes and tried for a smile, but he didn't smile back, so I half closed them and looked away.
"Then, whatever you need to change now must be really important," Blair spoke up, unexpectedly. "More than just stopping Weisman from getting your computer back online."
"Much, much more." I shifted in my seat, not really trying to get comfortable as much as I wasn't sure where to start. "After I'd been Leaping a while, Al and I bumped into another Leaper, but she wasn't fixing time; she was reconstructing it according to some plan that she didn't even know the details of herself."
"I remember her," Al murmured. "You helped her get away."
"She wasn't the only one," I told him, tiredly. "I've run into several more since then, Evil Leapers Al called them, and I found out from the last one that Lothos, the computer that runs their Project, was created from Ziggy. Weisman is going to get her up and running enough to be able to pervert her into using her for that, and for some other equally destructive ideas he has.
"That's why he wanted you, Jim. If he could learn how your abilities worked, adapt them to the Imaging Chamber, there would be no such thing as 'top secret' any more. Weisman could find out practically anything he wanted to know, anywhere, any time and no one would ever be able to stop his operatives any more than they could stop one of the Evil Leapers." Involuntarily I shuddered. At least that much of Weisman's grand scheme had failed from the very first, thanks to Panther, however unplanned it had been.
"So by taking out Ziggy before she becomes her evil counter-part," Al said, "You'll be preventing Evil Leapers from ever being created, in the first place." He whistled, understanding as I had expected him to, how convoluted changing Time could be.
"They're not evil, really, nor is Lothos," I murmured, a fragment of memory from being outside Time teasing me. "Not even Weisman and The Shop's former Assistant Director, DeLacourte, are, though they're close enough to it for human standards, I guess. They think they're in charge, but they’re just being used by it like I'm being used by its counterpart."
"God, fate, or whatever," Jim said, dryly. Not believing, but not disbelieving either. When I shot him a glance from under my lashes, he caught it easily in the rearview, giving me the beginning of a smile in return. There was no hint of Panther in him, at the moment, and I found myself thinking I could like this Jim Ellison more than I ever could like his original. As if sensing that, or simply remembering my earlier words, he repeated, "Tom died in 'Nam…"
Forgetting he was driving, or assuming his reflexes and senses would cover the lapse, he half turned to look back at me. "If Tom died, how did *we* meet? He brought me home after…"
"Saving your butt from drowning in a surfing accident," I finished. "Yesterday was the first time I ever laid eyes on you, Jim Ellison. In my original history, I don't know if you were alive or not, or if you and Sandburg knew each other. I can tell you what would have happened to you in this one if you hadn't left Cascade."
"Damaged," Blair murmured, reaching over to lay his hand on Jim's arm as he continued to look back toward Sam. "Drive, man. Now is not a good time for an accident."
I sat up and crossed both my arms over the back of Blair's seat. He turned so that his back was against the door and he could see all of us at once. "You didn't seem surprised when I said that earlier," I prodded.
"We've seen it," he told me, not quite talking to me. Then he came into focus abruptly. "You've influenced events. I mean, that note you sent to Jim, warning him. It was you who sent Washaki to me. But you didn't send Frank Black to us, did you?"
My face had to be blank as I shook my head. "I have no idea who he is, but he told you about Panther and Chief?"
"Only the end results," Jim put in. "Not how it happened."
"In the history that I know for you," I started carefully, wanting them to keep the strangeness of how time could work in the front of their minds, "Jim was kidnapped by the Shop. I never had a chance to find out how they learned about you, and Panther didn't know either. They started performing, well, they called them tests. As a scientist, it sounded more like overgrown boys pulling the wings off flies, to me. About a week after that, they took Blair, whether as a way to control you or because they discovered through you what he was capable of, there's no way to tell, now. No more than there's any way to know why they took your brother, but left your father alone.
"After ten months of horrendous suffering, you managed to free yourself, Blair and Steven by burning down The Shop. You didn't mean for anyone to die; the fire was only supposed to be a diversion. But their flammables storage and fire suppression system weren't up to code. The small fire you set caused an explosion that crippled Steven for life. You managed to get back to Simon Banks, and he helped you, but by then it was too late."
"We'd changed," Blair said flatly, face and voice expressionless. "Jim was trim, hard, cold, mean. Dangerous because of a rage I kept leashed for him. I was thin, fragile, scarred; hair long and white, bleached by pain long endured, holding onto life and sanity with Jim's strength." It sounded as if Blair was quoting. "I don't know how, but we 'saw' through Frank Black, somehow. We *saw* Panther and Chief as the Shop made them." Shuddering, Blair scrunched himself hard into the corner of the jeep.
About to ask another question, I stopped, realizing that Jim was studying Al in the rearview. I looked closer at my friend, seeing the confirmation on his face. "You, too?"
"A dream. Chief told me that he could touch my mind while Time was being changed for them."
The implications of that left me speechless, and I looked at Blair automatically. There was nothing in his eyes but fear; pure, unadulterated fear. "I'm not him," he denied emphatically. "All we've got in common is a shared past, and only that to a certain point. Whatever you're expecting of us, whatever you think I can do, don't count on anything from me but what a normal, everyday person with a knack for insight can provide, okay?"
He spoke to all of us, but kept glancing at Jim as if daring him to deny or contradict the statement. Jim didn't, but his lips moved silently, obviously calming his partner with private words.
I lost my temper. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I was sitting there feeling used up and worn out, laying out secrets and confidences for two people who were strangers to me. I was doing it in hopes of preventing the worst evil that had happened to Time since it began, and they were trying to deny the one weapon I had counted on to stop that. Or worse yet, deliberately disarm it out of cowardice or some outdated, outmoded belief of what is scientifically possible.
"You know, Jim," I said sarcastically, "you don't have to move your lips when you're communicating with Blair. He's picking your words straight out of your mind, anyway. Why leave the visual cue? You, too, Blair. Jim's long since gotten past *listening* to you when you use your 'special whisper' because not even he can hear a sound when you do."
Jim nearly drove us off the road, and I swore at myself for my timing - and my approach. Having started, I had to go on landing punches hard and to the point. "Surprised? Don't be. You may know *about* the people you could become, but I *know* them. You may know you're changing, but you can't even begin to guess at your potential. I've seen it, watched it in action. These abilities, these gifts may have been born in fire the first time, but they have always been there. The only way either of you could have avoided what you're becoming is by having never worked together in the first place. It has always, *always* been a question of how much, or to what extent, not if. Whether or not it would create a better you if allowed to grow, or destroy you, like it nearly did when forced to the surface, is anybody's guess.
"The Shop tore you down to your basic animal psyche and forced you to rebuild from what was left. What you cobbled together worked, but just barely. The two of you couldn't be separated for more than a few hours without Blair falling into a coma. He couldn't bear to be touched, or be surrounded by people without you for shielding. You, on the other hand, killed mercilessly, remorselessly, because if you didn't, Jim, you took it out on Blair. You were being eaten alive by constant rage, senses out of control, *body* out of control."
"Stop it!" Jim ordered. "STOP IT! That's *not* going to happen!"
"No, not now. Not because of anything you've done, so far. Because Panther and Chief gave me permission to interfere, to change their past, so I could help all of Time. Are you telling me that those tormented, broken souls have more courage than you do? Less to lose? They gave up what peace and comfort they knew, what life they knew, for the sake of what was right. If you're not willing to do as much, you might as well drop me off at the next rest stop. Then both of you had better get the hell away from each other, separate countries would be good, cause that's the only way you can stop what's happening to you!"
As abruptly as I lost it, I shut up and threw myself back into my own corner, resolutely closing my eyes and shutting everyone out. There was dead silence, then Al asked plaintively, comically, "Can anybody tell me what Sam's talking about? Sam? They’re changing into what, Wolf Men? The next stage of human evolution? What?"
Hesitantly, probably checking with Jim for what to say and how to say it, Blair began to tell him about Sir Richard Burton, not the actor, and I drifted away into sleep.
The smell of food - fast food, but I was in no position to complain - brought me out of it, and from habit I took a second to assess my situation. It was in a way similar to the way I woke this morning. Sometime during my nap I had fallen over onto Al's shoulder, and I was curled onto him as much as my lanky form could fit. I smiled sleepily.
That Al put up with it was why I smiled though, and, as I considered why he would, it all made perfect sense. Being Italian, Al's a tactile sort of person, use to talking and thinking with his hands. Not being in touch with me for so long was going to have pretty much the same effect on him as it did on me. All the time I'd been awake I had found reasons to put my hands on him, just to assure myself he was real. It was like dreaming you found gold, and feeling the coins in your hand disappearing as you awoke. I had the feeling we were both reassuring each other and ourselves this was no dream, lest it slip through our fingers.
"Sam," he said quietly, and I heard the rustle of paper.
I sat up and tried to stretch the kinks out of my neck and back. Groaning I looked out the window and asked, "How far have we gotten?"
Al handed me a burger made just the way I liked it, then answered. "Halfway across West Virginia. Somewhere just north of Charleston, I think. Ellison paced a trooper for a while. We intercepted some of his radio transmissions, between chatting with Blair about some of the local Indian tribes that used to live in these mountains. There wasn't a hint of a federal manhunt. If you ask me, Weisman is assuming that Panther and Chief are still in D.C., and me with them, 'cause he'd think that's our power base."
"They told you everything," I mumbled around a huge mouthful of food.
Al nodded. "Though Sandburg had to do some testing to confirm your theory about their whispering."
"Bet Jim loved that."
"About as much as he loves any of my tests," Blair put in. He turned around to face us, automatically leaning on his partner for steadying against the swaying of the jeep. "And we still have questions; odds and ends, mostly."
"Shoot."
"You said you Leaped in to help us some years from now. I thought Al said you could only Leap within your own lifetime. Technically, that would have ended before then."
"Or it could be that the lifetime used is the one I would have had, if I hadn't stepped into the Accelerator." I shrugged, and kept eating.
"And you're Leaping as yourself now, instead of 'into' someone else's life."
Crumpling the paper from the burger, I threw it into the garbage to give myself time to choose my words. "I think," I started carefully, not letting anybody see my face, "that there might be a kind of, well, Law of Conservation of Time. Like Newton's Law of Conservation of Energy? I can't create 'new' time, or destroy 'old' time - just change it. But, with matter, an object at rest tends to stay at rest, right? So when I Leaped into someone to change things, I had to put something *into* what originally happened to redirect it. And it had to come from somewhere."
Al reached over, put his palm against my cheek and gently forced me to face him. I fought, but he deserved to know the truth. "You used yours up!" he accused. "Used your own string to fix the Time string of others."
"It's only a theory," I tried to dismiss it.
"Wait a minute. How does that explain you being yourself?" Blair asked.
"Tied the two ends of the string together: birth and death," Al said absently, still making me look at him. "Had to, somewhere along the line, or he could have never started Leaping in the first place. But with no string left, no time left, all that you would have is what you picked up from other people on the way, like converting potential energy to kinetic energy. You became yourself because you weren't displacing people any more; you created your own place as you went. You're literally a part of Time, now, aren't you?"
"It's only a theory," I repeated stubbornly, but I covered his wrist with my fingers and leaned into the touch a second before pulling it away to lay our joined hands on the seat between us. "All that I'm sure of is that the Leaps have changed. They're harder and longer. I don't always succeed, and sometimes I have to try more than once, coming in at a different place each time. I run into other Leapers besides the ones Lothos sends, but they're not like me. They're different in how and why they Leap, and I can't explain them 'cause they never talk to me. Just use my help, then go."
"And you're alone now." Blair put in, softly.
Feeling the tension in the corded wrist still under my fingers, I admitted reluctantly, "And I'm alone, now." Turning the tables quickly, before Al could start to question that, I asked as softly as Sandburg had, "Blair, why are you fighting your gifts? Incacha would have never passed the Way of the Shaman on to you if you weren't worthy, weren't capable of dealing with it."
Having his empathy reflected back to him caught Blair off guard, and he retreated, turning around in his seat to take his turn at letting the highway hypnotize him. Inwardly, I bet with myself, and won a split second later when Jim jumped into the verbal gap left by his partner. "Look, Sam; if you're serious about destroying the Stallion's Gate complex, I can see where you could use an ex-Ranger like me. The fact that I'm a sentinel is just a plus. What do you need Sandburg for, besides as my guide?"
So Jim would shield Blair, let him hide behind Jim's larger presence even when all he wanted was to get out of the hot seat. Good. They might not have the level of connection Panther and Chief did, but it was becoming very clear to me that they *could* have. Maybe all they needed was a catalyst, or the motivation. Then my momentary hope dimmed a bit. Perhaps all they needed was time. That, unfortunately, was the one thing we didn't have a good supply of in our present circumstances.
Shoving both the hope and the worry aside for later thought, I answered Jim's question, grateful for the distraction it was going to create. "Al and I designed the Project's compound," I began, flicking a quick glance to Al to see if he was beginning to understand. "We know the layout, the security measures, emergency procedures, everything about it, including all of the weaknesses created by budget cuts. With that, we could probably get in without any problem with the help of a Ranger. But Weisman made a big change, an important one. He moved Ziggy's mainframe and CPU into a special vault, leaving only peripherals in the complex, and applied added security measures. That calls for the help of a sentinel.
"The problem is, if someone were to try and take out the mainframe, I designed Ziggy to automatically back herself up to a special drive I set up for her, which is hidden in the control room. Ziggy, as Lothos, may or may not be able to do that, and Weisman may or may not have found out about that precaution by now. Besides, any attempt to take out the main control before the CPU would give them ample warning to back her up, manually if they have to, before we could take her out.
The imaging chamber, the quantum accelerator, and several other things in the project are valuable to Weisman, but he needs the hybrid computer for all of them. If any trace of Ziggy remains, he'll try to rebuild her. He'll have to, to keep the wolves away. Both Ziggy *and* the control room have to be destroyed, more or less at the same time. We're either going to need two sentinels to do that. Or…."
Hesitantly, carefully, I leaned forward to brush a comforting hand over Blair's shoulder. "Or," I went on, "A sentinel who can be two places at once, through his guide.
The desert skies stretched overhead, both forever out of reach and seemingly close enough to cup the warmth of the stars in a hand. In all his travels, of all the night skies that he had searched for familiar constellations, familiar patterns in the dancing light, this desert sky was the one that touched Blair deepest. In the hidden places of his mind, he heard the echo of forgotten music and laughter, felt an itch in his feet to dance and run.
Pulling his coat around himself tighter, unwilling to leave his rocky perch that rose out of the surrounding sand, Blair watched a falling star, and wondered wistfully what he should wish for. Unbidden, Jim's face rose in his mind, and he tore his eyes away from the peace above him to look into their campsite.
The clarity of the desert air made the distance inconsequential; he could see the tents, the camp gear, the people as clearly as if he stood directly in front of them. Sam and Jim knelt in front of the fire, going through the medical supplies, companionably arguing about what should go with them on their assault of Stallion's Gate. Their two heads were close together over the box, making comparison between them easy - and inevitable.
Flickering light from the campfire skimmed and flitted over both of them, but while it seemed to love Sam, making him glow and stand out from the night, it hid Jim by deepening the natural shadows and planes of his face. Uneasily Blair shifted on his rock. The differences went way, way beyond the appearances, and it didn't make sense to him because the two men had so very much in common.
Over the days of their drive to New Mexico the four of them had, with a conversation here, and a confidence there, forged a friendship, of a sort. Though Sam had no memory of him, Jim had treated the scientist like a member of his family that he hadn't seen for a while. Sam soaked it up, gave it back with a laughing, big brother attitude. It made Al beam over them, practically paternally, and he even went so far as to step in to referee in the mock-squabbles that the two liked to indulge in. Though Blair hadn't wanted to, and had tried to keep a distance, Jim had kept pulling him out to the fore, almost as if he were a favored child being put on display.
It had been so easy for Blair to be the center of their attention. Sam's interests and knowledge were as far ranging, if more detailed, as Blair's own, and they talked almost effortlessly about everything from Egyptology and its effect on modern culture, to the latest Jags game. Sometimes their chatter would cause a 'that reminds me of the time...' yarn from Al, or occasionally, Jim. When they had hashed out plans for what needed to be done, all of them had contributed, each able to add insight, knowledge or information.
As they had driven, stopping only to fuel the Jeep or themselves, Blair had learned that Al was mischievous, wily, clever, and far subtler than his flamboyant style of dressing would suggest. And Sam was loyal, honest, committed, stubborn, passionate in his beliefs, polite, conservative, shy - in other words, so much like Jim.
So why did the light love him and shun Jim? Both were trying to put right what went wrong, trying to help people to the best of their abilities. Did Sam's happy childhood make that much difference? Did Jim's life as a warrior and soldier taint him so much?
"You're going to lose him, you know."
With a garbled yell, Blair half-jumped off his seat, then spotted Al standing just behind him, his white mohair overcoat and hat making him a ghostly shadow.
"Didn't your mother teach you not to sneak up on people?" he blurted without thinking.
"Learn more by sneaking," Al grinned conspiratorially.
Out of habit, Blair peeked back at the camp, to make sure Jim hadn't been worried by his yelp. He and Sam were unconcernedly packing the first aid kit back up; the overgrown smart-ass had probably heard Al's stealthy approach and decided to let the older man have his fun. Re-seating himself, grumping a bit inside, he pointedly ignored Al and went back to stargazing.
From the corner of his eye he saw Al edge closer, looking into the camp himself. Drawing deeply on his cigar, Al watched Sam begin to change the bandage on Jim's neck, then sent a smoke ring in their general direction before turning back to Blair.
"And you know you're losing him," he said, taking up his original topic as if having never been interrupted. "Every day he inches closer to that invisible line deep inside him that separates Jim Ellison…."
"From his base animal nature," Blair snapped, uncomfortable with the accuracy of Al's observation.
Giving a clipped shout of laughter, Al rocked back on his heels and took another drag off the cigar. This time he sent the smoke ring out into the desert, floating past Blair and toward the horizon. "Calling the things humans do when they’re 'acting like animals' is slander to beasts everywhere," he laughed. "No, I was going to say Panther, a merciless, ruthless assassin and mercenary. In the first history, Ellison was yanked across that line, willy-nilly, with no choice but to adapt to what happened to him. In this one, he's sliding across it, digging in with his fingernails and holding on for all he's worth. Panther had a lot of power; not even Sam can derail the pressure Time can exert to keep status quo when there is that much mass involved. He has to have help."
"You think I can provide it," Blair said flatly, refusing to be relieved that someone was finally dragging it out in the open.
"You are the sentinel's Guide," the wraith put simply. Putting the cigar in his mouth, he turned his back on the camp. A few seconds later, another smoke ring began its journey into the night air. "Why aren't you guiding?"
"What do *you* know about it?" Blair snapped. He was not going to buy that he could have prevented what was going on with Jim, uh-huh, no way. No matter how often he felt that there was something just out of his sight that should be done, that bit of trouble lay squarely on the shoulders of Weisman and company.
"When Sam conceived of Quantum Leap," Al said bluntly, his eyes taking on an odd red gleam, possibly a reflection of the distant firelight, "he knew that the person Leaping would need a contact with their own time, an observer. That's why the Imaging Chamber was created. When the experiment didn't turn out quite the way he expected, the observer's job became more.
"Sam needed a guide, someone to show him the way through the confusion and conflicting situations he was tossed into. Be his anchor to himself, his shoulder to cry on, his listening ear and occasionally his kick in the butt. Tell me, how is that different from what you do?"
Slowly, almost against his will, Blair saw the similarities. He compared what he knew of the pair's lives while at the Project, and how the two of them were with each other now. Over and over he had seen Al take care of his friend, watching out for his health or comfort. Had seen Sam struggle against a desire to put Al safely out of harm’s way while he and Jim destroyed Ziggy.
In their camp, Sam and Jim were getting ready to call it a night, banking the fire and packing up what wasn't going to be used in the morning. Away from the fire, Jim blended almost imperceptibly into the night. Long practice was the only way Blair could spot him, himself. Slowly he admitted, "Maybe I'm the one who isn't a guide."
"Hah!" Al grunted. "You lost the chance of claiming that the minute your sentinel followed you away from his territory, his tribe, his lair, ignoring every instinct he had in the process."
Horrified, Blair gaped at the wan figure. "There was no choice; he'd be in Weisman's hands now if we hadn't left!"
"That's hindsight, kid. At the time you simply knew what was best for him and made him do it. The ultimate act of a guide; Beckett's had the same done to him, on occasion. Ask him if you don't believe me." Al gestured once, sharply, at the camp with his cigar. "Nor is it the only time you've acted for what is right for your sentinel without question. It's not the face of an orphan fawn he sees that stops his hand from shedding innocent blood; it's yours. You're the ledge Ellison is hanging onto."
Distantly wondering when Jim had confided so much to the admiral, Blair sought out his partner again, finding him standing watch over the camp, far enough away from it that none of the light from the banked flames could touch him. To Blair's eyes, he was looking at the campfire wistfully, longingly, as if knowing he was shunned by what should be his ally. Slowly, feeling every word like a knife to his gut, he asked, "One guide to another, then. What am I doing wrong?"
Back to Blair, Al stared up into the sky, his body subtly wrong, but Blair gave only passing attention to it, he wanted his answer so badly. "Are you sure you want to know, kid? Good chance you're not going to like it."
Though part of him was screaming 'no,' Blair answered, "I can't stand seeing him like this."
Blowing a smoke ring that spun and wobbled, Al said, "All right, then."
He walked away so unexpectedly that Blair blinked twice before he thought to get up and chase after him, indignation rising as he did. Ahead, Al's form became indistinct, insubstantial, bleeding into the desert night. Alarmed and distracted by the mirage, he heard the warning buzz from the rattler seconds too late. The sound hit the mammal mind living in the center of him, making his heart pound, slowing him and the clock down. Looking at his feet, unable to move, he watched the coiled snake shake its rattles again. Then in slow motion it struck at him, and all he could do was wait numbly, fatalistically, for the stab of pain from the fangs.
It struck, and stumbling back, he tried to form a word, to make a sound, eyes still fixed on the snake. Apparently satisfied that the intruder was leaving, it unwrapped itself and slid away into the sand. Sucking in a great breath, Blair tried again to call for help, but all the air was driven from his lungs as the searing poison attacked, incinerating his calf. Again he stumbled back, this time because his knees were giving out, and he could no longer stand.
Before he could fall, powerful arms swept him up, bringing him high off the desert floor. From far away he could hear Jim's voice shouting for Sam and the medical kit. Consumed by the freezing fire in his leg, Blair paid little or no attention to the quick trip back to camp and to the men huddled around him.
"Jim. Jim! Did you see the snake? Even a glimpse?" Cradled as he was in Jim's arms, leaning back against the solid chest, Blair was surrounded by Sam's heat and light as the physician reached up to take Ellison by the shoulders. Wishing he knew how to hang onto some of Sam's presence, Blair floated in his own head, trying to hide from the pain and only barely listening to the conversation around him.
"It matters?" Jim said shortly, beginning to rock ever so slightly with his burden.
"Yes! The anti-toxin for rattlers is species specific. I have to know what kind bit him to know what to use!"
"Damn. Damn. Damn," Jim said monotone. "I knew he was in danger only when he did. Didn't know what danger until I scooped him up, smelled the blood and saw the bite."
Giving Jim a final squeeze, Sam took his black bag from Al, who was already setting out his supplies for him. "It's okay, it's okay. We can still help," he reassured, and Blair couldn't tell if the words were meant for him or his partner. Not wanting to watch Sam work on his immense, blistering leg, he turned his head and looked at Al.
*Now what's wrong with this picture?* he thought fuzzily. Al's hatless head was bent next to his friend's, his hands going without Sam's asking to the things needed. Against the dark leather jacket Al wore, the metal of the scissors and the hypodermic needle gleamed cleanly. *When did he change?*
Coherent thought became an impossibility for Blair, as the cold licked up his torso, making him shudder and his stomach rebel against the meal filling it. Gulping, he tried to control the nausea, or at least to give warning. Mercifully Jim understood, and tilted with him, allowing him to spew into the sand.
When he was done, he was lifted again, gently, ever so gently by the other three and tucked into a sleeping bag in the tent, Jim spooned up behind him, holding his quaking body.
"Sam." Jim's one word held a world of pleading in it.
All Sam could do was smooth Blair's sweaty hair away from his face and shake his head sorrowfully. "We've done all we can. A lot of the venom was sucked out, and we got to him fast. That and the injections will help. Keep him warm, and don't hold anything he might say against him. He might hallucinate or convulse; restrain him if you have to. Other than that, all that's left is waiting to see if he's strong enough to fight off the venom. It's up to Blair, now."
"He's strong," Jim said confidentially. "And he'll fight to live. Won't you, Chief?"
Wanting to believe that, needing to believe that, Blair latched onto Jim's words and held onto them with all he had. As if knowing what he needed to hear, Jim whispered the words over and over into Blair's ear, wiping away the sweat with a damp cloth provided by Sam and keeping his curls out of his face.
Despite them, the icy heat licked higher and higher into Blair, finally spilling out into the tent around them. Terrified, he tried to dig into Jim's body, to escape the frozen flames surrounding them, warning Jim, and begging him to run from them while he could.
"Shhh, shhh, Chief. I'll hold them away, I promise. They won't get any closer, they won't hurt you."
It was true, Blair realized. The fire was caged in place, held there by another sort of blaze, a blue one that he'd seen many, many times hardening the eyes of the man holding him. Against the darker, stronger blue it wasn't enough, he saw. The paler color, steely and determined as it was, was being overwhelmed, covered by the other. Blair knew that blue, as well. Had seen it every time he had ever looked into a mirror.
Terror transmuted to horror; the destroying rage, the consuming inferno was his. Had been his all along. Unknowingly he had been shoving his own anger into his sentinel. Not knowing its source, Jim had sucked it up, called it his own, and worked to subdue it. Or perhaps he did know on some primitive level, and accepted it *because* it was Blair's. *Now where in his job description,* Blair thought maniacally, *does it say that he has to take on that load of crap? Man, what am I so pissed about, anyway?*
Driven by his guilt, emboldened by the strength supporting him, Blair reached for one of the arctic flames and let it flicker over his hand. The agony that swept through him was far too well known: Roy, his boxer friend who had been murdered and left in a drainpipe like a piece of sewage. As intense as the pain of that loss was, Blair was more surprised by the more powerful emotion he still felt over it - anger. Anger that he thought he'd processed through.
Less hesitantly, bracing himself for the pain, and unconsciously clinging to the steel bands across his chest, Blair reached for another fragment of his fury. The useless death of another friend scorched through him, the sorrow almost completely overshadowed by rage. Another - the death of his mentor. Yet another, more recent - Alyssa, the five-year-old girl Panther and Chief had rescued from her abusive mother, huddled into a corner, filthy and bruised, hands raised in pitiful self-defense.
Grabbing at the rest of the conflagration around him, Blair madly tried to understand *why* all the past griefs were haunted with fury. Within the constricting circle holding him, he churned and fought, grateful when he was turned to his back, Jim's full weight spreading over him in confinement. With that to push against, he was at last able to break through the holocaust to the core, and see it for what it was.
"I don't want it!" he moaned. "Don't want to be shaman, don't want to be guide, don't want to be responsible! Don't want it, don't want it! I *like* being the outsider, being the watcher, able to step in, siphon off what I want, step out again. Let them use me, for sex, for information, whatever, while I use them. I don't want to care for them, *feel* for them. I don't want to hurt for them! I DON'T WANT IT! I. DON'T. WANT. IT!"
His voice rose into screeches of pure rejection while his hands clenched wads of Jim's shirt, his back bowing to bring both of them off the ground, regardless of Jim's size. Incapable of sustaining such an output of energy from his poisoned body, he began to cry, noisily and messily, like a child, gradually relaxing, his face hidden against Jim's shirt. "I don’t wanna," he sobbed softly.
"So sorry, Blair, so sorry. Selfish of me to make you," Jim whispered back, brokenly. "Wrong of me to keep you with me. Fought against it, I swear, babe, tried to keep you out of it, lied to myself that you knew what you were doing when I couldn't. But I needed you with me so bad...sorry, oh god, sorry, sorry." His tears seeped instead of flooded, bare traces of light in the near dark of the tent.
A subtle change in the way Jim comforted him was the first warning Blair had. The next was an emptiness where there should be none. But, distracted by his hiccupping sobs, it wasn't until Jim actually began to physically lift away that Blair realized what his partner was doing.
Cutting him off, cutting him loose. Jim was severing the connections between them even as he removed his physical self. Frantic, Blair tightened his grip on the fabric still in his fists. In his mind, where Jim broke off one link, Blair created two in its place, a hydra of denial to re-capture the sentinel. "NO!" he shouted. "No! Jim, stay! Not your fault, not your choice. Mine. Mine!"
Winding his legs around Jim's longer ones, Blair hung on for all he was worth, and began to babble through the hitches in his breath to try to explain, to convince Jim to stay. "I want to think of myself as a good man, Jim, kind and caring. How could I see someone in trouble, in need of my help, and then walk away from them and live with myself? I can't, can I? Whether it's a girl looking lost and frightened on the street, or a murder that needs to be solved, I have to do what I can, or how can I claim to be a decent human?"
"You couldn't, Blair, because you are a good person," Jim told him quietly, no longer attempting to leave, but not returning to his earlier ease. "But it's not wrong to try to protect yourself from hurt, either. I build walls, try to keep it out. You got angry to shield yourself. That's not wrong; you're just trying to survive."
"Some shield. Resentment because I had to deal with corpses, violence, hopelessness. Frustration that there was nothing I could do to get away from it. Anger at what it was doing to my life. All seething and simmering, and I couldn't even admit it, cause it was *so* important to me that I be beyond that, more mature than that," Blair said tiredly, absently drying his face on the sleeve closest to him.
"Don't be so hard on yourself," Jim told him, stroking the back of his head and gradually soothing Blair's shaking limbs into comfortable positions. "You're an academic and scholar; nothing in your life prepared you to be my partner on the force or on the streets."
"Everything in my life prepared me to be your guide, Jim," Blair contradicted. "So many things I've picked up along the way; meditation, interest in holistic medicines, even how to cook."
"Or maybe if you had learned other things, you'd have applied them to working with me," Jim suggested, obviously working to infuse a bit of humor into his words to let them find their normal footing. "You're pretty good at using the tools on hand." He tucked the sleeping bag around Blair more firmly, fingers seeking out the zipper to seal him into it.
It worked enough for Blair to be able to produce a whiff of a smile, but then he wound his arms around Jim's neck and rolled into him again, pulling the covers with him to drape over them both. "Including this one. You are *not* sneaking out of here, Jim Ellison, and leaving me for my own good. I meant it when I said this life was my choice. You're not taking it away from me without a fight."
Flushing guiltily, Jim compacted in on himself without moving a muscle, shrinking away from Blair. "Why?" he demanded, half-angry. "Why hurt yourself? What can you possibly get out of it that makes up for what you have to go through? You don't need to stay; Weisman didn't even look for you, according to Sam. You can go back to Cascade and get back to your life. Or start over someplace else."
"It can't hurt me now that I've faced it and owned up to it, Jim," Blair said patiently. At Jim's disbelieving grunt, Blair clarified, smiling wearily, "I mean that. Yeah, I'll still ache when I see someone suffer needlessly, or I can't help enough. But now I can let it go and focus on what I am doing that's good. Practice what I preach, so to speak.
"As for why stay…." Blair trailed off, searching inside himself. "What I can do by myself is nothing compared to what I can do working with you. Jim, in case you hadn't noticed, we're actually trying to save Time here. How many people can claim to touch virtually everyone with one righteous act?" A glance at Jim from under his lashes showed Blair that he wasn't convinced yet.
"But you know," Blair decided to finish with a heavy dose of honesty before he collapsed into sleep, "even if it weren't for all that, I wouldn't want to leave. Wouldn't want to start over. I can never find what you've given me, anywhere else. I was skimming through life, just watching, not living, until I became your partner. Now I'm *in* life, standing on the stable platform you made for me and growing more than I ever thought I could. I'm using the knowledge I've accumulated, putting my beliefs into practice, using my mind like Academia never required. When it gets to be too much, you shelter me so I can rest, support me when I feel inadequate, back me when I'm insecure."
"Definition of a partner," Jim dismissed.
Feeling his last resources drain, sure that he would wake with the other three gone if he didn't convince Jim *now,* Blair turned until he could cup Jim's head between his hands. Looking into the uncertainty in those brilliant eyes, he opened his mind as wide as he could, knowing he could never shut it down as tight again, and poured all he felt into the sentinel.
Love. Pure, simple, strong.
"Jim," he whispered, last of his strength gone, "we're so far beyond friends or even partners, they need to invent a new word for us."
In the face of that, all Jim could do was lower his head to the bedding beside Blair's, surrendering his battle wariness and opening his own heart. It came as no surprise to Blair that what Jim gave was equal to what he had received. The only surprise came from the other man's silent admission that he had known for a very, very long time but not thought Blair would welcome having it named between them.
Carrying that with him, Blair dropped into exhaustion to let his body heal in sleep.
***
Dawn was brightening the tent when Blair was called out of his slumber. Not sure if it was a sound or something else, he fluttered his lashes, trying to clear his mind and locate what would wake him, but leave his guardian still soundly resting. Flat on his back, one each of Jim's arms and legs heavy over his chest and thighs, Blair couldn't move much more than his head, and he turned that to smile down at the top of the one resting beside his. Jim must have been nearly as exhausted as he was, not to awake at the same moment he did.
Since they planned to wait out the heat of the day before moving anyway, they might as well sleep in. With a bit of a wriggle, Blair started to nod back off himself, only to be jarred wide-awake by a frisson of pure pleasure chasing through him. Startled, he widened his eyes, and rubbed at them with a free hand. Remnant of a dream? Or?
Before he could finish the thought, another jolt of sensation hit him, clearly identifiable as sexual, centering in his nipples and gut. With a sharp intake of breath, he focused on the feeling that was plainly not his, and sought to pinpoint the source. Across the span that separated them, he heard a deep moan of arousal from Sam, then a low answering one from Al.
Blair caught his lower lip in his teeth, squinted his eyes shut, and frantically back-pedaled in his head to find a way to block out what he was feeling. Too recently ripped open, he couldn't darn the edges together in his mind enough to raise any defenses. Instead of pain from bitten flesh, his mouth tingled, softened, opening slightly as if to take a lover's kiss. "Oh, God," he breathed, trying to kill the erection he could feel growing heavy and thick at his groin.
Reaching desperately for *any* thought that wasn't sexy, Blair conjured the blizzard he and Jim had once hiked through, but it was blasted away by a fresh burst of need. Against his best efforts to stifle it, a soft cry was born deep in his chest.
"Chief, wha?" came a sleepy rumble in his ear.
Snatching at the sound like a lifeline, Blair blindly twisted toward his partner. "Jim! Man, gotta he..." The rest of it was lost as more passion was poured into him, this time holding a darker timber. Panting, Blair fought again to push it away, but too much had been demanded from him earlier, and he had nothing to give to this new battle.
Aware that Jim was sitting up, about to call out to Sam for medical help, Blair clutched at his arm. "No," he stammered out. "Making love, they're mak...God, Jim!" This time he could tell the more resonant lust was Al's, but Sam's bled into it, making something, something, so…."Beautiful," Blair whimpered. "So beautiful. Don't stop them, please. Might be only chan...ah, ah, ah, chance they get. Jus'...jus' help me keep them out!"
Catching Blair's tossing head between careful hands, Jim asked softly, earnestly, "How? What do I need to do?"
Wide eyed, Blair licked painfully dry lips, the discomfort calling him to his own very real needs. "Drink? Please?"
Within seconds Jim held a canteen for him while Blair gulped at it. The wetness spilling over his parched tongue and cooling its way down his throat was fantastic, and he concentrated on that, using it as a buffer against the now distant call of their friends' excitement.
Sated, he covered one of Jim's hands to let him know, and was surprised to find a tremor in it, barely enough to be felt. A quick glance up, and he could tell from the well-known expression that Jim was setting up some barriers himself. "Jim? You're listening to them, man?"
A hint of flush creeping up his neck, Jim hastily set aside the canteen. "Can't seem to dial it down," he muttered.
Without meaning to, Blair's eyes strayed down to his partner's crotch. A very obvious bulge strained at the zipper of his jeans, a damp spot already forming over where the head lay concealed. What sizzled through Blair at the sight of that had nothing to do with what the occupants of the other tent were doing. It was the strongest current of desire he had ever felt in his life, and it easily over-shadowed Sam and Al's loving. It ripped a groan out of him, and his own erection throbbed impatiently, as if to ask what he was waiting for.
*A woman,* he snarled at it, but it wasn't listening. All it knew was that it had been weeks since it had even had the dubious satisfaction of masturbation, and it didn't particularly care why it had been called into action. It was here, NOW!
The absurdity of it all hit Blair; he gave an odd bark of laughter, and tried to roll to curl around the stupid thing. His dick must have influenced him unconsciously; he turned right into Jim's muscular leg. Unable to prevent it, he groaned again. His eyes flew open -when had he closed them? - at the sound of Jim's echoing cry.
Sitting on his heels, hands knotted in his lap, eyes closed and head back, Jim was a study in restraint and frustration. From the telltale jumping in his jaw, to the corded neck, to the very stillness in the man, he gave the impression of aching hunger. Blair shuddered. As far as he knew, and he knew damn near everything about his partner, Jim had not taken a lover since they left Cascade. With the sounds and scents of sex now permeating the entire camp, Jim's hard-on had to be absolutely screaming at him to do *something,* damn it.
Never having remotely considered such a thing in his life before, Blair was shocked out of his mind when his next immediate thought was that the something Jim should do was him. Only vaguely aware of the mechanics of what men did to each other, he still found the idea of Jim simply touching him to be almost enough to make him spill in his pants.
Unbidden, his hand went down to soothe his ache, and he rubbed at it once. Jim's eyes popped open, the blue in them the same as the heart of a torch. Unerringly, they went straight to where Blair touched himself under the sleeping bag, and Jim's mouth dropped open slightly, air moving through it harshly. There was a flicker of pink as his tongue touched the center of his bottom lip, then darted back into hiding.
With a helpless little mewl, Blair began to undo his pants, staring at Jim's mouth as he did. Taking his length in hand, he pumped it roughly, moving from the hips into his fist. Without warning, Jim snatched away the bedding so he could see without hindrance. "Jim," Blair begged, for what he had no idea, but the name sounded so perfect for what he was doing, he said it over and over, practically whimpering the word.
When his orgasm crashed into him, he held the head with his other hand as it spewed, automatically attempting to keep the mess to a minimum. The semen frothed and creamed through his fingers, coating his shaft as he finished, making the last few strokes especially good.
When he was done, he held himself limply, dazedly trying to order his scrambled thoughts, still staring at his companion. "God," he mumbled.
As if that were a signal he had been waiting for, Jim knelt up, freed his own need, and arched over Blair. "Please," he ground out, through clenched teeth. "Only if you want to, but, please!" With a hand palsied from pent up desire, Jim guided Blair's slippery palm to his swollen member. "Touch me!"
Unhesitatingly, Blair took him into a loose grip, creating a slick tunnel for Jim to use. With a muffled scream, Jim thrust madly into the hold, his seed exploding almost instantly, spilling onto Blair's bared groin to join the liquid already there. The sheer eroticism of that sent another tingle into Blair's penis, making it stir with sluggish interest.
Jim fell to his side, somehow managing to miss Blair completely, and lay there, dragging hard lungs full of air into himself. After a minute, Blair fumbled to one side, found a cloth to mop himself up, then turned to lie facing his new lover. Practically nose-to-nose, there was only enough distance between them to see into each other's face clearly. The awe and contentment Blair felt was reflected in Jim's face, and he petted the strong features with a fingertip. Jim copied him, and they explored each other in that simple way while they rested.
Blair felt his lips begin to quiver, drawing his lover's attention to them, and he unconsciously lifted his face in invitation. Slowly, tenderly, Jim took him up on it, kissing first with only the barest caress of lips, almost shy in their approach. When Blair was dizzy with expectation, Jim teased along the sealed edge of his mouth, asking, and with a soft moan he opened to him.
This exploration of tastes and textures was as leisurely and thorough as their earlier tactile one, and Blair marveled that he could know someone so well, and still find this mystery to relish. Never delving past a drowsy search for old/new territory to share, they both drifted back into sleep.
***
"Are you sure we shouldn't take him to a hospital?" Al asked anxiously, studying the tent as if to see past its walls. Jim hadn't bothered to put on a lantern, as he settled in with his injured companion, so Al didn't even have silhouettes to watch for reassurance.
Pouring water into a small bowl, Sam shook his head. "There's not much a hospital could do for him that we can't, and it'd be too dangerous for Jim to go with him. That federal warrant hasn't been rescinded. And splitting them up right now would take away Blair's best reason to recover." Looking up at Al as he put a cloth into the water, Sam accused gently, "You really like him, don't you?"
Using an off-handed tone that he knew didn't even begin to sound convincing, Al answered, "The kid kinda grows on you." His voice sharpened considerably, and he pinned Sam with a searching look. "Do you know if he'll be all right?"
Straightening from where he had been slipping the dish and compresses under the tent flap, Sam looked away to where Al couldn't even begin to guess, eyes going abstract and inhuman. Al hated that look, had from the first time he'd seen Sam do it while in the station wagon running from Weisman. It was that expression that had made Al worry that he was *his* Sam, and not a Shop trick created by Weisman. It made him doubt to the point he had even drawn a gun on the person he trusted and loved most.
Now it spoke all too vividly of Sam's Leaps alone. How many of them and how long; how long alone and without help? Aching, Al dropped his head to hide, not really hearing when Sam said slowly, "I don't know; everything is in such turmoil. I...I can't isolate him from..." he trailed off, face paling. Automatically he reached for Al, almost stumbling into him.
At his movement, Al jerked himself out of his introspection and hurriedly braced his suddenly weak-kneed companion. "Sam!"
"Close, too close," Sam mumbled wearily. "Didn't know physical proximity was going to be a problem."
Arm around his waist, Al steered him toward their tent, stuffing him into it and into his sleeping bag. "Rest will take care of it, Sam. You just catch some shut-eye; Jim'll holler if he needs you." He helped him out of his pants and shoes, stripping him down to his boxers. Sam helped as best he could, but was already nearly out, and more hindrance than anything else.
With years of practice on his own children behind him, Al dealt with Sam efficiently, and soon had him tucked in. Like he would for one of the girls, he sat beside the bundled form, patting Sam's back until the strain faded into tranquility in his long limbs and pinched features.
Tending him did not stir paternal feelings in Al, and he had to fight the urge to touch his lips to Sam's lax ones, just to steal a tiny taste and see if it was as sweet as he remembered/dreamed. Vague pangs of guilt and embarrassment hit him, and he left the tent for the comfort of the fire.
At least, he made himself physically comfortable. Between the sounds of delirium and conflict from the pair in the other tent, and Sam's restless, murmuring dreams, Al could find no peace. Several times through the long night, he would rise to lift the flap to see Ellison wiping Blair's forehead or holding him secure against whatever nightmares tormented him. If either of them were aware of it, they never acknowledged him, and he left them the illusion of privacy.
More often he would have to calm Sam with a brief touch to his cheek or more pats to his shoulder or back. Long after Blair's troubled cries died to mild snores, Sam would flinch and twitch in his sleep, summoning Al to his side as surely as if he had asked. Each time it grew harder for him to leave, and not to crawl into the bedding with Sam to love him.
Dawn was a promise on the horizon when Sam, still mostly under and very tousled and tumbled looking, dragged himself out of bed and made for the edge of camp to answer nature's call. Building up the fire and putting on a fresh pot of coffee, Al waited for him to come back, all decisions clear in his mind.
Handing a cup to Sam as he sank down beside him, Al used the patience experience had given him and let him break their silence. It took a few minutes for the heat of the coffee and the cold night air to banish the fuzziness from Sam, and he snuggled into the sleeping bag he had wrapped around himself in lieu of dressing. "Standing guard, Al?" he asked, apparently unconcerned.
With a half shrug, Al told him, "We may be outside the patrol area *we* set for the project but there's no way to tell if that's been changed. Or a casual fly-by could pick us up."
The incredible eyes that turned up to pin him didn't buy his excuse. "It's also the first chance you've had the privacy to think since I literally crashed your party. Whatever you need to say, and I know there is something, Al, we're never going to get a better chance for you to say it."
"Huh!" Al snorted. "Know me too damn well," he grumbled under his breath. Louder, he added, "Or maybe not. Are you still magnafoozled, Sam?"
He shook his head slowly, smiling at Al's description of the holes in his memory that used to be caused by Leaping. "I have eidetic recall for my life up until the first Leap. After that it's all hazy and muddled, especially the personal ones. For instance, I never married Donna Elysee in my history, but I have a vague memory of simo-leaping with you and finding out I *had* married her." Uneasily, Sam shrugged himself, apparently not sure he was communicating how bizarre what time could do to a person *was.*
"Do you love her?" Al asked gently, not wanting to hurt him more than necessary, but needing to be sure of Sam's mind and heart.
Letting the dance of heat in front of him hold his gaze, Sam said carefully, slowly, "Does love ever really die, Al? Grow, change, and maybe be battered until all that is left is the memory, but doesn't your heart always harbor some spark?
"But the person I was when I fell in love with Donna and asked her to marry me hasn't existed for a long, long time, and I don't think the man I am now could be her husband. Too many...differences between us, I guess."
Shaking off his contemplation, Sam turned the question back on Al. "Do you still love Beth? Was coming home to her what you wanted it to be?"
Finding it hard to sit still, Al took up a stick and poked the embers in front of them, sending sparks flying. "Beth is my best friend, the mother of my children, and yes, I love her unreservedly. Having her there when I was repatriated was both wonderful and agonizing. Like you said, the love had changed and we weren't the same people any more. We made it work, though, and it's been a good marriage."
He took a deep breath, reached out with his free hand to capture one of Sam's, and asked the question that had been torturing him since the day of the 'accident.' "Did you know, Sam? Did you know when you talked Beth into waiting for me that you were using up your last bit of string? That you'd never be coming home again? Did you trade my family, my happiness for your own?"
There was an awkward silence, and Sam looked everywhere but at Al or where their hands met. Only putting up with it for a minute, he dropped his stick and reached to frame one side of Sam's face. Forcing him to look at him, Al asked again. "Did you know?"
Lips compressed into a painful white line, Sam's hand trembled in his grasp. "I knew I wasn't through Leaping yet, and that I would be doing it by myself," he confessed in a low voice. "I knew how much you missed her, and I broke the rules for myself, but the one time you needed me to do it for you, I wouldn't. That was wrong." His eyes flicked away once, then resolutely came back to Al's, though still filled with uncertainty. "I was given a second chance to fix it, and I did. I couldn't stand the thought of you being alone!"
"You promised me once that I would never be alone, that you would always be with me," Al said gently.
"You're not supposed to be able to remember that!" Sam gasped out, his alarm making him freeze in place.
"Oh, I remember," Al murmured, letting his pleasure at it show in his voice, praying it would relieve Sam's fear. "I remember very, very well." With that he did what he had been fighting for days, and swooped in to claim Sam's mouth. His intent had been to make it innocent and tender, to be more of a question than a pass.
But Sam's lips latched onto his as if life itself could be found in the touch, and he opened to Al immediately, pulling him into a deep, deep kiss. Together they moaned, filling each other with the sound, and Al threaded his fingers through Sam's hair to hold him motionless while he plundered the silky, welcoming mouth.
Sam broke away, retreating, and Al instantly knew why. "Beth will forgive me," he breathed, hovering inches away from the softness that had just been taken from him. "I care for her with all my heart, but you *are* my heart, *caro mia.*" Taking advantage of Sam's indecision, Al pressed into him, forcing his lean form down onto the sand and covering him. Brushing a suggestion of a lick over the strong jaw, Al moved to an ear and whispered, "Let me love you; it can't be wrong for me to show you how much you are to me."
"Al," Sam groaned. A spark of anger flared, and he jerked away from the coaxing words. "Don't you dare use your seduction techniques on me; I'm not one of your conquests!"
Pursuing him, Al found the dark, fragrant hollow of the long neck and filled it with tiny nips. "No, *caro,* I'm yours. Always thought of myself as a straight man, no doubts about it, 'til the first time I saw love for me in those wonderful, expressive eyes of yours. Deny that, and I'll let you go, though I think you need this. Need me."
Boldly Al lifted himself to match them, chest-to-chest, groin-to-groin, and was unable to stop from surging into the erection waiting for him. Sam arched under him, crying out, and he thrust raggedly, arms going around Al, to hang on him. "Damn you," he ground out, clearly still at least partly angry, but amused now, too. "You know I can't deny it, won't deny it."
"Then say it," Al mumbled, losing himself too quickly in the ancient rhythm between them. "Oh...ple...Sammy!" Urgently he scrambled to escape the peak coming at him, but the convulsive quaking under him, telling him of Sam's climax, knocked his control flat. With an incoherent shout he shot, feeling his hard-on pulse and twitch in his pants.
"Oh, jeez," he panted a minute later, too wasted to crawl off and hoping he wasn't squashing Sam. "I haven't blown it like that since I was a kid."
"Nice compliment," Sam told him. From somewhere he dredged up enough strength to tease, "Though I was expecting a little more, ah, finesse from you."
"Finesse?" Al repeated, acting mildly outraged. "I'll show you finesse!" With that he attacked Sam's lips again, kissing him thoroughly before backing off to grin at him. "Is that better?"
For a second there was a shadow of regret and sorrow in Sam's features, then he took on what Al had always privately called his 'stubborn' face. Even that was fleeting; he lunged up and fastened his teeth gently into the curve of Al's shoulder. After a fast nip that left Al shivering, he smirked, "I think *I* can do better."
At his urging, the two of them made their way to their feet and stumbled to their tent, Sam's mouth busy the entire way. Once inside, he efficiently stripped Al where he stood, making soft, appreciative sounds as he exposed Al's body. It flustered Al. Though he loved it when a woman came onto him aggressively, he had always turned the tables on her when it got time to get down to business.
Being completely passive was new, thrilling, and a bit weird feeling. Not sure what to do with his hands, he tentatively put them on Sam's shoulders, petting the taut skin there as Sam cleaned both of them from their earlier lovemaking. That attention was more than enough to bring him high and hard again, and it had the same effect on Sam. Kneeling in front of him, he ran delicate fingertips over Al's torso, tracing the swirls of hair and tapping at his pebbled nipples. A groan worked its way out of Al, leaving his knees wobbly.
"Mmmm," Sam approved, then laved one hard peak before sucking it gently. "You taste nice." He treated the other the same, then had to catch Al as his legs gave out.
"If you laugh at me, Sam Beckett," he moaned, "I swear I will find your hot spot and hit it until you beg me to stop."
"That," Sam laughed, taking time to trace a circle around Al's belly button, holding him steady at the hips, "isn't exactly a deterrent."
"Ahhh, you, ah, should consider th…that I don't know...jeez!...hot…hot spots. Ha...have to find…." Al lost the ability to finish his comment, and Sam was too preoccupied to call him on it. Inexpertly, but willingly, he tasted Al's arousal, and the mere sight of that treasured head over his groin was almost enough to send Al off again.
Inarticulately he tried to warn him, but then saw Sam stroking himself in jagged time to his sucking. Soundlessly Al lost it, fluid jetting from him almost painfully. A tattered noise told him Sam was with him, taking his own pleasure, and a second blast hit him, sending him into a whiteout of ecstasy.
When the real world filtered back in, Sam was curled around him, sleepily nuzzling at the curve of his neck. "Thank you," he murmured.
Puzzled, Al nuzzled back. "For what, *caro?*"
"Making me feel at home, for a little while."
"Awwww, Sammy." Al hugged him tight, but his lover was already asleep.
***
The moon path that stretched across the faded white of the desert sands was different from the one Blair had seen before. Pale, much paler, with dark patterns twining aimlessly over it, it faded before it reached the horizon. This path should not be trod, he thought, so he stood at the foot of it, wolf standing to his left and panther before him, waiting.
Clueless as to precisely what he was waiting for, he didn't find the activity a chore for once. Though the music was faint and distant, he could hear a steady drum beat behind it, and see in the wind-painted sands faint outlines of the dancers. One broke away from its revelry and scampered down the moon trail, coming to stand in front of him on the very lip of it. The weasel went to its hind legs, reaching *up,* elongating and changing, until the image of Al Calavicci stood in its place.
"One guide to another - did you find your answers?" he asked cheerfully, reaching into the white overcoat for a cigar.
With a delighted laugh, Blair spread his arms wide and rocked his torso back a bit, as if to embrace the entire world. "Yes! Yes!" Then he made as if to hug the apparition, stopping himself only in time as he saw the abyss between them. "And thank you, thank you for coming to me in the desert to teach me."
The spirit's answering laugh was long and low, and it lit the cigar with a flourish, ignoring the aborted embrace. After he had puffed on the tobacco several times, he pointed it at Blair, gently chastising. "Ironic, isn't it? Your sentinel pretends not to feel, but bleeds and weeps where no one can see. You bleed and weep, but long to be remote and detached behind it. You dig out his every thought and fear, but give nothing of yourself in return."
Taking the rebuke in stride because it was deserved, accepting happily that the lesson was being continued, Blair nodded and hastened to assure, "Not any more. I'm going to do it right, now."
"Hah!" Weasel/Al jabbed the cigar his way again. "You really think you can overturn the training of a lifetime with one class? You'll need to be shown over and over. Sometimes you'll go too far and nearly bleed yourself to death trying to stem the endless flood of human need. Sometimes you'll revert back, not even seeing it until your nose is rubbed in it."
Relenting a little, Weasel shrugged. "You're a smart one, though. Probably won't need to go to such drastic lengths again." He put the cigar in his mouth, and regarded Blair with beady eyes, lit with red, his features shifting, becoming sharper and more pointed. "Especially if you know the price, and it's a high one, young Shaman."
Gesturing at the trail behind him, he ordered, "Look! Carefully!"
Automatically following the command, Blair studied the road of light, wondering what he was supposed to see, until his eyes began to water from not blinking, and he was forced to rub at them. Through the film of tears, the dark lines in the path suddenly coalesced into the outline of a giant human, laid out in slumber. He was vaguely familiar to Blair, and he tried to place him, not recognizing himself until the resting man tossed his head fitfully.
Mouth dropping open, swaying back a step, he stared at Weasel. "Moon magic is through the body," the spirit instructed firmly. "You can't go around half killing yourself every time you need to have a point driven home! Now, listen!"
Fearfully now, Blair did as he was told, concentrating on the echoing refrain of wind, stars, and earth, trying to isolate the sound Weasel thought was important. The only one that sounded wrong was the steady beat he associated with Jim's heart. It was thin, thready, as if the power behind it was draining.
Startled, he met the other entity's eyes. "What…."
"You wouldn't have survived the snake bite, drawn and worn as you are, if your sentinel had not poured all he was into you." The other guide was stern and uncompromising. "This is very important, Shaman, heed me! He cannot help that; he will always give 100% of himself to his tribe, his beliefs - to you. He fights it, not wanting to surrender so much of himself, but a sentinel who cannot do so is a knife blade with no edge, useless to his people."
With an abrupt change in tone and stance, Weasel held out his hand. "Your knife, please." Hand flying back to the small of his back where its sheath rested, Blair covered it protectively. Weasel's eyes narrowed at the wordless refusal, but with approval. "You have the right instincts, at least. My honor, I will not touch or harm it."
Slowly Blair brought his blade around, laying it in the palm of his open hand to show it to the spirit. Keeping his word, Weasel sent a puff of smoke over it, the vapor caressing its way languidly from tip to hilt. "Washaki told you: the wood without the stone is simply a pretty thing without much purpose. The stone without the wood is a hazard. Matched they are a tool; mated they are a work of art. Your sentinel does not yet admit this, any more than he admits to needing to surrender himself to what he is. That lesson is not yours to teach. You could say you'll be the one to proctor the exam."
Despite the enormity and importance of Weasel's words, Blair couldn't prevent a bleat of laughter. Since it was probably the spirit's intent, Blair let himself respond with matching levity. "Something I know how to do, at least, but you wouldn't believe the image conjured of Jim's face when it happens! Speaking of which, why did you come to me as Al Calavicci at first?"
Becoming indistinct, Weasel chortled. "As I said, Shaman, one guide to another. As Calavicci's, I knew he needed to help, but didn't know how. I did, thanks to your associates there, and acted on his behalf." From beside him the Panther and Wolf loped forward to join their kin, all three of them beginning to dissipate. Through the vapors, the moon path glowed, brighter and brighter, until Blair had to turn his head away from the glare. It was everywhere, now, hurting, and he started to throw an arm over his face, only to have it held in place.
For a split second he struggled, afraid, then Jim's voice crooned, "Easy, Blair, easy. Sam only wants to take your pulse."
Peeling up his eyelids, thinking most of the desert must in be them, Blair focused on the concerned man bending over him, working to fit him into the remnants of his dream. "Sam," he croaked, then coughed. Instantly a canteen was at his lips, and as soon as he had wet his throat, he spoke again. "Sam, did Chief tell you how he learned to see through Panther's eyes?"
A brilliant smile illuminated the scientist's face, and Blair could see for the first time how Sam must have looked before Leaping began to grind away at him. "He didn't know," Sam said happily, "but between us, I'm sure we can figure it out."
To the casual eye, even Jim's, it was a rock outcropping like so many others in the desert, not unlike the one that had provided shade for them over the two days they had needed to heal, gain strength, and complete plans. And, perhaps like this one, that pile of stone and rubble had had a secret that couldn't be turned up by a superficial inspection, too.
*From the frying pan to the fire...* he thought as he ducked under the overhang, grateful to be done scouting and almost out of the roasting sunlight. He probed with skilled fingers until he found the small hidden switch. With a click audible only to his ears, an opening appeared from the sheer rock face. Three sets of hands reached for him, bringing him into blinding, but blessed darkness before the granite mouth could shut.
Jim allowed them to draw him along the welcomed cool of a corridor of Al's secret back door to the Project as he waited patiently for the sun glare to clear.
"Man, what took you so long?" Blair asked almost rhetorically, arm around his waist to guide. "If I hadn't been so sure…."
"Weisman's here," Jim cut in. "The guards at the main gate were talking about him showing up unannounced, and about a fight he had with the new head of security - DeLacourte! - concerning missing personnel."
Quietly, behind him, Sam asked, "Did you hear the names of the missing people?"
A feral grin stretched Jim's lips humorlessly. "Apparently the backbone of the new project, one Dr. Elysee, decamped rather abruptly with the project shrink, Dr. Beeks."
"Beth," Al breathed. "She and Verbena have always been close. She must have found a way to warn her about Weisman and his cohorts."
"Thank God," Sam echoed the relief in Al's voice. Belatedly Jim remembered who Dr. Elysee was, and groped to find Sam’s arm for a clumsy squeeze of sympathy.
The small company stopped in an alcove that held their weapons and supplies, and Jim was urged to sit. He felt Blair kneel beside him and his hands take off the extra dark sunglasses that Sam had provided to protect his sight against desert blindness. Then it was Sam touching him, peeling up his eyelids and applying drops of cooling, soothing fluid.
"Better?" Sam asked.
Another blink, and his sight adjusted to normal. "Yes, thank you." To one side he could see Al standing, looking withdrawn and worried. "Should we rethink our plans?"
They all gave Calavicci time to reconsider their options, but in the end he shook his head once, decidedly. "No - if anything Weisman's being here makes it easier. He likes to hold daily briefings during project shakedowns, and the control room will be the likely location as it's the only place big enough. He and DeLacourte are sure to alter security procedures, too, because of Donna and Verbena bugging out. Everyone will have to attend, and, since we're plugged into the system, we'll know when. We're still a go."
"Jim, you and Sam will take Ziggy's mainframe. The main vault is bound to be clear for the duration of the brief, if not, use the gas like we planned. We already know from our first foray that they're depending on technical security for the vault with only random checks from guards who're already stretched thin. Blair and I will take the control room, hiding in the imaging chamber's access closet that's right next to the door; we'll stay there until you two initiate the accelerator overload. Once the control room is evacuated for the emergency, we'll use the manual overrides on the power doors for entry. Special charges will be set to ensure the entire control room, Ziggy's backup and the vault are destroyed, just in case the overload and the feedback into her CPU doesn't do enough damage.
"Remember, the idea here is for everyone to think that Ziggy lost control of the automatic station-keeping for the accelerator chamber, accidentally destroying herself. Even the sleeping gas we're using for safety back up is designed to imitate an oxygen imbalance in the automated systems. If Weisman suspects otherwise, well, no problem; he's going to be up to his neck in ca-ca and much too busy to be able to prove there were outside agents."
All of them knew their roles, Jim thought to himself. They'd hashed them out a dozen times, continuously looking for flaws. But, no matter how many times the details were repeated, hearing them yet again provided a certain illusion of control over what was basically a very sketchy proposition.
"Do we have command over the security cameras?" Jim asked, inclining his head toward where Sam now sat opposite him, laptop in place and tapped into a digital line in their cubby.
"Man, you wouldn't believe how easy it was," Blair enthused. "Billions of dollars worth of government secrets being protected by a system with no more sophistication than the ones you and I have been crashing for the past couple of years."
"Nice little side effect of our campaign of deconstruction on Weisman," Al said smugly. "Congress is paying so much attention to where he's putting every cent, he didn't have any choice but to depend on low bid contracts. Besides, this is supposed to be a defunct project; why spend money on keeping it safe when you're the only one who knows there's anything to keep safe? Pays off in not many people to keep track of, too."
"The so-called random camera sweeps of corridors and accesses aren't so random now. We'll have a two minute window on our routes where the cameras will *not* activate," Sam confirmed, checking over the program he had slapped together.
"So the only thing we got to worry about is the timing: setting up the overload after we're in position so that the charges go off simultaneously," Al finished, blithely producing a cigar and popping it into his mouth. "That, I believe, gentlemen," and he nodded at Jim and Blair, "is your department, which I'm sure you have under control."
Without thinking, Jim met Blair's eyes guiltily, then the two of them were suddenly busy re-checking their packs.
"You *do* have things in hand," Al said slowly, suspiciously.
"Al," Sam cautioned, "they'll do their best. You know that."
"That's not what I asked," Al shot back, eyes narrowing.
Springing up, hands suddenly describing intricate circles in the air, Blair began talking very earnestly. "Well, we’ve been communicating without benefit of technology for some time, though I have to admit we weren't cognizant of that fact, and we, of course, suffer from the same difficulties that precludes the use of radios here, line of sight, underground you know. Despite that we seem to have an inherent inclination for each of us to perceive when the other is in difficulty and so it's a natural…."
"Blair," Al began wearily.
"Assumption that given the extreme stimulus…."
"Sandburg!" Calavicci said firmly.
"Of the proposed situation that any mental…."
"If you don't shut up right now," Calavicci said flatly, "I'm going to kiss you right on the smacker so hard your partner could dust your lips for prints."
"Trait that is present for the preservation of a sentinel/shaman relationship will be enhanced," Blair finished, unperturbedly. "And if you lay a lip-lock on me, I'll hurl onto your shoes. You are sooo not my type."
There was a second of dead silence in the small space, then Jim snickered, and Sam turned his head to hide a grin. The two smaller members of their party eyed each other in mock belligerence before dissolving into chortles.
"Okay, okay, junior, I'll back off," Al said, settling down near Sam, his back against a wall for support.
"We don't have the sense sharing under control, despite all the work we put into it yesterday. All we had to go on was Sam's theories and the half-memory of the one time Blair did it during a stay in a cave. It's just too soon; not enough practice," Jim confessed, catching a glance from Blair to confirm that he thought being up front was best. "But Sandburg is right in that we've always been able to connect when we need to."
"Blair will be able to use Jim's gifts well enough to overcome the security changes. Between that and the fact they never took your ID codes out of the system, you'll get in." Sam’s voice was off-hand, confident, and for a second, the three of them shared a very worried look.
Sam had been looking better during their rest in the desert, becoming more the enthusiastic, impassioned friend Jim remembered from his visits to the Becketts. His eyes had lost their faintly other world shine, showing their normal vibrant intelligence instead. But now it was back, evident despite the glare of the computer screen, and Sam's hands trembled slightly as he hit the keys.
Wordlessly, Al hitched closer to where his companion sat cross-legged with the laptop, so that their knees knocked together. The contact made him look up, blink, and then he was himself again. A very worn and tired Sam, but still without a doubt, it was Sam. Putting the computer aside, he made himself comfortable and muttered what all of them were thinking. "Nothing to do now but hurry up and wait."
When their tap into the intercom system announced the meeting, they rose slowly, taking their time to get stretched and limber, packs in place. Out of habit and training, the two soldiers checked their weapons one last time, Al saying to Blair as he did, "I'd still feel better if you were armed."
Tying back his hair, Blair simply shrugged. "I'm not trained, especially to use one of those. What is that anyway, an Uzi?"
Turning the short, box-like machine pistol in his hand, Al said admiringly, "No, a Mac."
Face turned down, Blair asked distractedly as he finished knotting the tie. "A Mac? You mean they named a gun after a burger?" With no way to see his face, and the tone so perfect, only Jim knew that he wasn't serious about the question.
"Jeez, Louise," Al muttered. "No, it's a Mac-9, 9mm semi-auto pistol. Besides, they've been around a lot longer than McDonald's."
"Wait a minute. You’re telling me someone named a sandwich after a gun?" Blair looked up, expression perfect in its outrage. "What kind of world is this, anyway? We sensationalize firearms in our every day lives, glorify them in movies. It's no damn wonder…."
Moaning in dismay at the thought of another non-stop Blair tirade, Al stepped back, then came in close with determined look in his eye. "Ruined shoes will be worth it," and he puckered up.
For a moment it looked as if Blair would call his bluff, but at the last second he grabbed Al's hands and spun him into a tango position. Grinning at each other insanely, they danced down the corridor, Sam and Jim bringing up the rear. Slowly, since the two of them were leaning on each other and laughing.
***
In the end, getting into the place was almost anti-climatic. Jim and Sam found the vault empty, just as Al had predicted. All of the security devices were easily dealt with, and the only challenge was the pressure-sensitive floor between the airlock doors. The warm surface made Jim ask what would happen if the temperature dropped. A quick Sam-induced bug in the system brought the air down another 10 degrees, and the floor offline.
Once inside, Jim disabled the doors so that they would remain open until he wanted them shut. They weren't concerned about keeping it a 'clean room' any longer, and he wanted to be able to watch and listen for security patrols without being hampered. Not to mention he was much happier being able to exit without waiting for the mechanisms.
While Jim set charges, Sam put his hand on a small pedestal on the control panel. "Dr…D...r...Dr…Be…cccccc...eettt." The voice rambled back and forth from male baritone and female contralto, ranging from pure machine-produced noise to completely human sounding timbres.
Looking at Sam over his shoulder, Jim winced at the sorrow he saw, but said casually enough, "Your computer talks?" he asked, putting explosives in place.
"She's a pretty extraordinary machine," he said a little defensively.
"V…v...very ex...tra...tra...or...ord...dinary!" the voice said, this time finding more feminine inflections than male. "W...what can...I...I...I do for you, Dr. Beckett?"
"Are you all right, Ziggy?" Sam asked back, instead of answering.
No one, no matter how cynical or hardened could have listened to the machine's response and not called it inhumanly pained. "I…I...h...hurt," it insisted. "Hurt-hurt-hurt."
Sam looked tortured, but pressed on. "How did they rebuild you?"
"Log bacccccccc ups."
"Oh, God," Sam muttered. "Not nearly enough traces left on those simple files to be able to reconstruct her right! No wonder she hurts. Donna must have been filling in the gaps from what she'd learned from briefings and bull sessions with Gooshie."
"Dr. Becketttt?" Ziggy asked mournfully.
"Yes?" Sam scrubbed at his face with his free hand.
"Make it stop hurting..ting..tin. Please turn me offfffff?"
Only a lifetime of discipline kept Jim at work and away from comforting his friend.
"Yes, Ziggy, I will; I swear. But first I need you to do something for me. Charge up the accelerator, slowly build up to overload, and jam the control room from turning it off until it's too late to stop it. Will you do that for me?"
"Now?"
With a glance at him, Sam asked Jim the same question. Pausing, timer in hand, he considered. He and Blair had decided the best way to make sure they connected was by relying on what they knew worked. Blair would set his mind to call for Jim when it was time for the diversion, working himself up into a panic if he had to, whatever it took to make the connection.
Closing his eyes Jim focused, listening for Blair, only to have them pop open when he bumped into the door, already moving to go to his partner.
"Do it," he told Sam.
Nodding once, sharply, Sam answered Ziggy, "Sound the alarm, but time it so that the overload doesn't happen for five minutes. Where are the logs they used?"
"I..iiiii….dddd.. destroyed themmmm dddduring rebuild."
While Sam worked with his creation, Jim turned his attention to giving sensory sweeps to the perimeter he'd mentally set up. Nothing was moving, no scent was amiss, but something was wrong; he was sure of it. An urgency was building in him that had nothing to do with Blair's call, one that he had long since learned never to ignore.
"It's now or never," he said urgently, "We need to get out of here!"
To his relief, Sam moved instantly, hitting various keys on Ziggy's panel while Jim activated the master detonator. "Five minutes," he read out loud.
Sam's response was to hesitate briefly, but say solidly, "Ziggy, I'm sorry, so sorry." One last button was pushed, then he bolted through the vault entrance, running for Jim.
Waiting for Sam to go past him, Jim sealed the door and fried its controls. But just before the door closed, from the interior of the vault Jim heard sweetly, gratefully, "Thank you, father." Jim spared a second to pray Sam hadn't heard it, then moved swiftly to take his position at point.
In spite of their speed, Jim was alert, careful, listening ahead and taking corners cautiously. When he went one way, Sam took him by the elbow and looked the other, asking without words why they weren't heading for the back door where they were supposed to meet their partners. The only answer Jim had to give him was to tug him toward the direction he felt they had to go.
Less than two minutes after the detonators had been set, he hesitated at an intersection, hearing someone coming at a steady clip, not quite running, from the other direction. A reflection in the glass of a door showed him DeLacourte, gun in hand, moving with single-minded determination. Without thinking, Jim brought his own weapon up, aiming for where the so-called human's chest would be when he rounded the corner.
As DeLacourte drew close, Jim's hatred for him jetted through his mind and heart, crystallizing as it rose into icy flames. This poor excuse for a man, according to Sam and Al, was behind the hunt that drove him from his home, away from his friends and his job, into constantly moving, running, always watching, worrying that he and Blair would be taken and made into specimens in a glass cage. DeLacourte had in fact, in another time and place, tortured and tormented Blair into a mindless, speechless, *helplessness* that Jim couldn't begin to imagine.
Steadying his hand, regulation style, he waited, feeling the vicious part of him under the ice distorting his features in a parody of calculated patience. Beside him, Sam whispered his name, once, in a voice filled with sympathy and coaxing, but Jim ignored him, shrugging off the hand on his shoulder. He stepped in front of his companion, working on auto-pilot to protect that precious soul. As if moving created the impact necessary to shatter his need to avenge, to kill, he kept going, catching Sam by the waist and pulling him into a dark room through a half-open door.
Three heartbeats later, hurried steps went past, and Jim waited until the echo of them turned into the next corridor, heading toward Ziggy. The sound matched the sudden leap of his heart in his chest, but there was no time now to consider what he hadn't done.
"Go!" he hissed, his own feet racing with Sam's as they ran from their hiding spot.
Two corridors away Blair looked up at them as he set a charge on one of the hinges in the doors to the control room. "DeLacourte locked everyone in!" he explained hurriedly, reaching for another charge. "Then shot out the access panel; they're trapped in there with that machine on overload."
On the other side of him, Al was duplicating Blair's actions. "Sam, how long until it goes?" he barked.
"Less than three minutes." Jim chose to answer with a quick glance at his watch. "Set these for fifteen seconds." Not wanting to interfere with their companion's actions, he and Sam kept back, snaring the bag of explosives to preset them.
"Why, Jim? Why would he do this?" Sam asked, honestly confused. "All of those people, some of them his own."
"Are potential witnesses. Right, Jim?" Blair said grimly. "Apparently he felt Weisman and this project was a lost cause, and decided to depart for greener pastures. Didn't want any loose ends."
"Sam," Al said, taking a charge from the ones prepared for them. "Please tell me these are strong enough to take down the doors. I know they were meant to destroy electrical circuitry, but they're all we’ve got."
"You're going to have to use them all," Sam said bluntly, looking to Jim for verification. "We'll worry about the back up after we've gotten everyone out."
Conscious of each second, they worked, moving as if choreographed, until all the explosives were placed. Intent on listening to the panic on the other side of the door, Weisman's mostly, Jim's warning that they had company came only as Al armed the detonator.
The sound of a hammer being drawn back made Jim turn, draw, and try to aim for DeLacourte, moving as swiftly as he could, but not as swiftly as the killer's bullet. Like a fist, the round hammered his chest, throwing him backward into the doors. His own shot went wild, but he saw the gun in DeLacourte's hand fly off; Al's shot hit it squarely. Before the admiral could fire again, a blur of swirling arms and legs attacked their assailant. It was Sam using his martial arts skills to take him down.
Blair pulled on Jim hard, yelling at Calavicci to help, help him, the bombs are going to go. Suppressing a scream of pain, Jim tried to get away from the door, using his legs to kick off from the floor even as he was dragged along. They shoved him into the opened access closet, Blair leaning onto the bleeding holes in his shoulder as soon as he was in.
Calavicci jumped back out, shouting for Sam, clearing the panel just before the blaze and concussion of the blast struck. The partners weathered out the crash of heat and debris, Blair arching protectively over Jim's head and upper chest. With a hasty thump to tell Jim to stay still, he darted out of the closet and into the hallway.
Muttering threats and insults, Jim struggled to his feet, using the corner of the tiny room to help him get up. He staggered out into the corridor, almost getting hit by several uniformed men who were frantically making tracks away from the fire that was beginning to burn along the ceiling in all directions. A few feet away, Blair was trying to lift one of the heavy doors, now twisted and charred, off Calavicci, grunting at the pain of his hands burning on the hot metal.
Not knowing how much help he could be, Jim joined his partner, using the hand on his uninjured side to pull up. A second later, Sam clambered over the wreckage to add his strength.
"No," Al said hoarsely. "The backup, Sam. Get it now. Now! Can't risk…." He coughed, whether from the smoke filling the area, or from being crushed Jim couldn't tell.
"Fuck the damned backup, Al!" The obscenity from Sam made them all pause, creating a surreal, almost silent moment of peace.
Al was the one to break it, speaking softly, serenely. "They'll find it, when they clean this mess up, Sam. Then all of this, all of what Jim and Blair and even you have gone through will just have to be done all over again. Do it right, okay, Sammy?"
Tilting back his head, face contorted, Sam drew in one long, hard breath, released it, and looked at his lover. "I am *always* with you," he swore, eyes wet. Then he was gone, vanishing into the smoke and flames.
Nearly falling, Jim peered underneath the wreckage, trying to find some advantage that they could use to free the admiral. "Ellison," the older man choked, half a crooked grin on his face. "If you get out of this, find that butt-sniffing, land-living spineless squid of a contractor and make his life miserable!"
Despite himself, Jim made a sound very close to a laugh. "Done."
Beside him, Blair was muttering, "Lever, lever," but before Jim could ask, his partner was gone. Seconds later, a long piece of metal, originally the center support of the control room exit, was wedged under the trashed door. A quick glance confirmed Blair was on the other end of it, and Jim grappled for a good hold on Calavicci.
"One, two, three...." Blair ended his count with an explosive grunt of pain from his injured palms as he put his full weight on his improvised lever. It worked enough that Jim could haul the admiral out, and pull him to his feet, then Blair was beside them again, steadying them both somehow. Draping the semi-conscious man's left arm over his neck so they could support each other, he let Blair tow them along, while he concentrated placing his feet so they wouldn't fall.
He could see white-bright flashes of electrical discharges, created by melting power cables, hear their crack and snap within the general clamor of the holocaust around them. Wincing at the jarring bolts of light slicing through the billowing smoke, Jim turned his vision down and let Blair navigate them through the wreckage and flames, past the arcing electrical lines.
"All the ways out are blocked!" Blair shouted over the roar of destruction around them, bringing them to a stop. "Suggestions?"
"Control room," Al groaned. "Metal ceiling and walls."
Either his partner heard him, or Blair came to that conclusion on his own. They passed through a draft of marginally cooler, cleaner air, then were surrounded by the echoing feel of space. Barely upright, his shoulder announcing in amped-out speaker warbles how *bad* it hurt, Jim swayed in place, trying to pinpoint their next best action.
A few feet away, Sam had a series of precision screwdrivers laid out in front of him, wrapping them in wires that were once part of an electrical cord. "Making electromagnets," Blair said, starting forward as if to help.
"No, no, head for the accelerator room, over there," Sam called out. He slammed the first of the screwdrivers into a small box hidden in a control podium. The others met the same fate in rapid succession, then he plugged the stripped cord in. Sparks flew, but Sam was already moving, joining them as they stepped through the door into the chamber.
"How long?" Blair asked.
"Thirty-five seconds," Sam answered grimly. He took them to a shimmering column of light, stood in front of it and helped Jim by taking some of Calavicci's weight. "Listen to me. We can't get through the flames." He paused waiting for Blair's confirming nod. "And we can't stay here; the explosion will kill us as surely as the fire. We have to Leap before the particle stream is destabilized."
"No Ziggy," Al moaned, holding his right arm tight to his side.
"I can control the Leap. I can't guarantee I can get you back to this time, but I can promise we'll make it someplace safe, as ourselves." He put a hand on both Jim's and Blair's shoulders. "You won't be separated or hunted at least, if you're stranded."
There was no time for the decision, and they took none. Blair stepped to Jim's good side, clutched his upper arm, and Jim said for both of them, "Go!" Blair wrapped his arm around the Jim's waist, as Sam did the same to Al on the other side, and the four of them stepped into the oscillating light.
As they did, a scream of overwhelmed machines and self-destructing electronics over-rode the racket from the ongoing disintegration of the compound. The wash of feeling that overtook Jim was beyond words: tingle, tickle, shiver, heat, and prick of hairs lifting. A splash of movement caught his eye; he twisted his head in time to see DeLacourte racing for them.
Their enemy entered the beam, and it charred away his skin, turning each layer to ash in turn until the clean, white bone was revealed. Then that, too, was ash, the whole process taking the bare moment Jim had before the odd sensation of Leaping absorbed everything, including his sight.
It faded back in almost at once, showing Jim a view well-known to him from a room he never thought to see again, with a single occupant whose big, broad back was as familiar as the smell of the cigar he smoked. "Dammit, Ellison," Simon Banks growled, "Where the hell are you!"
Feeling the weight of the universe on him, Jim still managed to say with a smile, "You might try turning around, sir.
I can't even begin to guess what Simon Banks thought as he turned to find the four of us - burned, bloody, battle worn, and hanging onto each other because none of us could stay upright alone - standing in Jim's loft where no one had been a second before. He had started toward us, grin already blossoming, arms going open, when our condition sunk in, I think. His arms dropped, hands going for his pocket and his holster.
Quickly, to stop him, Jim said, "It's okay, Simon, it's okay. I know we look bad, but no one is after us, right now, anyway. But no calls, no ambulance, nothing! So it can stay that way. Please. "
I wanted to add something, anything to reassure him and the others; I *knew* we were safe. But I was so tired, I couldn't even lift my head, let alone speak. Already it was as though I was looking at them through the wrong end of a telescope.
Blair added, "Please?" using the most incredibly gentle voice, and putting everything he had left into it.
Al's quiet moaning broke the paralysis holding Banks. Without preamble Simon started toward a pair of French doors. "Mattresses are still here, stashed in Blair's old room. Start cleaning up as best as you can while I run for bandages and stuff. Try and hang in there; I won't be long."
We started forward cautiously, Simon adding his support to our weaving steps. "The pack I'm carrying has medical supplies," Blair said through gritted teeth. I could sympathize with him. Personally I was trying not to pass out from pain and didn't really hear or see anything else until I was lowered to the floor.
When I was about eleven or twelve, I fell asleep at a poolside. For some reason, no one noticed I'd been lying in the sun for hours. That sunburn had nothing on the one roasting me from the inside out. My skin felt two sizes too small and ready to split if I so much as twitched. Through slitted eyes, I could see Blair bustling around the small space as if it had never occurred to him how exhausted he should be. His face carefully blank, Simon assisted him without comment, taking Blair's commands without hesitation.
The remnants of Jim's shirt were sliced away, and Blair grabbed a stethoscope and listened, I knew, for sounds of damage to Jim's lungs, then sighed in relief. Obviously having drawn on Jim's expertise as a medic, he looked to me, having done all they could do. Concentrating on what he needed, ignoring the agony that had replaced my skin, I found my voice and prompted him, while he cleaned, bandaged, and injected Jim.
All the while he worked on his kneeling partner, Blair murmured, "It's okay, hang in there, dial it down, dial it down, you can let go in a bit, but for now I need you to concentrate so I can get what I need. Hang in there, babe."
"Stoic" has a picture of Jim Ellison beside it in the dictionary. His only reactions to Blair's work and encouragement were the muscles tensing and relaxing in his jaw. As soon as he was done, Blair left Jim and zipped over to Al, running knowing hands over my lover's still body. "No internal injuries, no sign of internal bleeding, cracked ribs, broken upper arm, dislocated shoulder…." At the last, he put his foot into Al's armpit, held the arm above the break, and put the shoulder back into place. All I could do was be grateful Al had already passed out.
Stripping, taping, setting and splinting were done very quickly. There was something about the way Blair used his hands that told me it wasn't only knowledge he was taking from his partner. Then it was my turn, and he took one look at me and hissed, fingers hovering without touching. "Man, oh, man, oh, man, where have you been, Death Valley? Hasn't anyone told you about the virtues of sun block?"
"I'll remember that the next time I dive into accelerator beam set a few giga joules high of normal, I think." I muttered harshly, barely moving raw lips, forced now to think about my own condition. "I must have been manipulating it directly, bleeding off the excess somehow."
"All right, I can spray a topical on you and give you a shot. But, it's gonna hurt like crazy while I get what's left of your clothes out of the way. Once I;m through, it'll be better. You ready?"
He and Simon tried really hard, but the second they laid a finger on me, I screamed, then blacked out.
When I came to again, the sun had slanted long into the small room, and I knew it had been hours since we arrived. Simon Banks sat opposite us, leaning against the wall. His knees were drawn up, wrists crossed loosely over them, his gun hanging carefully from one hand. Staring at his friends, he had a look in his eyes that was a mix of fear and relief. Quickly I looked over at them myself; Jim didn't look too bad, though too pale and his bandages were stained with blood. He was sleeping on his good side, arm curled over Blair's back, his gun in hand. Blair slept tucked in a ball, head on Jim's upper arm, bandages on both hands and another wrapped around his head, covering his eyes. I sighed, realizing just then that jumping into the fire to help Al must have damaged them, as they had been in Chief's original history. He had to have been using Jim's sight when we arrived, probably not even knowing it until he finally released his sentinel into rest.
Banks heard me, turning my way, and I offered what I hoped was a friendly smile. Either the smile was less than convincing or he was that upset; his expression didn't change. Before he could speak, I asked, "What day is this?"
Confusion chased over his features for a second, then he answered, "You haven't been out that long. It's still Tuesday."
Patiently, though the pain was trying to push away the medicine Blair must have given me, I asked again, trying to strengthen my weak smile, "No, Simon, I mean what is the date, including the year?"
This time the confusion stayed to keep his fear and relief company, but he told me readily enough. It was four years to the day after Jim Ellison and Blair Sandburg disappeared from Cascade Airport, and nearly a year *after* we had entered the back door to Stallion's Gate. Somehow, all of us had jumped forward in Time, something I hadn't thought could happen while they were with me.
"Oh, boy," I murmured, and blinked. That was a serious mistake; the painkiller sat on my lids, thinking its battle with my over-cooked skin would be a lot easier if I went back under. I forced them up and mumbled, "What happened to Senator Weisman?"
Pushing aside his glasses to rub at his face, apparently deciding that it was the drugs talking, Banks said patiently, "Thanks to that police commissioner and his son, damn, I can't remember their names…."
"McNab," I put in quietly.
"The ex-senator will be lucky not to spend the rest of his life in a maximum security prison. That admiral who died because of Weissman's contractor kickbacks had some serious friends inside the beltway, including Jim's friend Tom Beckett. He went after him in a major way, even got included in the arrest, somehow.
"Now, can you tell me what the latest Capitol Hill scandal has to do with anything?"
"He was behind what happened to us," I said, not sure I could be heard. Again my will, my eyelids were drifting down, and deep inside, I felt the call of a Leap building. It wasn't demanding yet, telling me by that there was still something I could do here. "You don't have to guard over us, now, Simon. It's over. They really are safe."
"You're sure?" he asked, wanting to trust.
I forced open my eyes to hold his. "Yes. At least until Jim goes back to work, or one of his old cases comes back to haunt him, or, or Blair…."
"Leaves the loft for five minutes," Banks added with a chuckle of his own.
I wanted to laugh, too, but instead the pain jolted a moan out of me. Then, something squeezed my wrist; for the first time since I gained consciousness, I was aware of Al's fingers wrapped lightly around it. I turned my head to him, and saw he wasn't really awake. His color was good, and he was breathing well, if shallowly from the broken ribs. He was on his uninjured side, turned toward me, those fingers on my pulse our only contact with each other.
I don't know why that made me want to laugh again, knowing it would hurt, so I closed my eyes to stifle the urge.
When I lifted them again, the room was dark with early evening light graying what I could see of the twilight sky. Groggy, the painkiller still clutching to pull me back under, I glanced around to see what had been powerful enough to defy it.
Captain Banks was gone; both Jim and Al were in the same position, sleeping deeply. Only Blair had moved. He sat where Simon had been, as wrapped around himself as he had when lying beside Jim. Except now he was rocking, and after a moment I could hear the hitch in his breath that betrayed smothered crying.
I wanted very badly to tell him that the blindness wasn't permanent. I wanted to tell him that he *was* a shaman now, and that all people of great power have to sacrifice something of themselves for their gifts. That most give up any chance at love or companionship, but he would never walk alone. I wanted to tell him that it really was over, that he really was home, that he could stay, finish his work, teach, and be a part of the academic life he loved so much.
I didn't say anything. Some things have to be faced alone, or not in the company of near strangers anyway. The accumulated changes, all that had been lost or gained - such an enormous load for such slender shoulders and he deserved the privacy to begin the process of living with it. I blinked, again falling prey to the medicine, but before my eyes were all the way shut, I dimly heard Jim lovingly call Blair's name.
***
I was clear-headed and mostly pain free when I woke the last time during that long night. My skin was complaining, but it felt no worse than your average sunburn, thanks to the enhanced healing ability Leaps seemed to give. The discomfort was easily being over-shadowed by the desire to Leap. And by another desire.
I checked quickly to see our friends knotted together again under a pile of blankets, Jim's good hand buried up to the wrist in Blair's long curls. Gingerly I turned myself so that I was on my side, facing Al, our hands entwined from earlier. Light blankets had been pulled over us, and I pushed his down so that I could check his injuries. No sentinel, my own sense of touch was still enough that I could tell the arm had been set neatly, and the socket for his shoulder was undamaged. Through my ministrations, he slowly worked his own way toward wakefulness, sighing softly under my hands.
When at last I knew the extent of his injuries and how much they were likely to bother him, I scooted down and began to lick delicately at his throat and shoulder. Immediately he started making tiny pleased noises deep in his chest and restlessly threw back his head, offering me better access.
I’d always known Al was a hedonist. His honest enjoyment of all life's sensual pleasures, whether food, good clothes or partying didn't make it hard to figure that out. And I couldn't lie to myself and say that I had never wondered before my Leaps what kind of lover he was. After all, he never had any trouble capturing the ladies he wanted, despite his reputation - or maybe because of it. Either way, he had been on a casual drop-in-and-make-love basis with a dozen women in our time, which meant he had to have something going for him.
His secret was simple; he not only enjoyed making love more than anyone I'd ever known, he wanted his partner to enjoy it just as much and went out of his way to promote that. From the encouraging noises to his utter devotion to making it as good as possible, he gave unselfishly, freely and very enthusiastically. Even mostly asleep he reached for me, tangling his free hand in my hair and blowing a soft whisper of air over my ear.
I hummed my own approval and worked lower, finding one of his nipples peeking out over the bandage holding his shoulder and arm immobile. Laving it thoroughly, I gave it a parting nibble and sought out its twin and treated it the same. Under me, he moved hungrily, then froze, fighting to keep a pained cry inside.
"Hold still, Al," I cautioned, lifting my head enough to taste his lips fleetingly, my own too tender to do more. "Let me touch you; you don’t have to do anything but lie there and let me pleasure you. Please?"
His eyelids fluttered up, and I stared into the dark velvet of his eyes, cloudy with drugs and desire. "Beautiful," I murmured, and tasted, hummingbird quick, again. "So beautiful."
"*Caro,*" he rumbled sleepily. "You need to be looking into a mirror when you say that."
I brushed the knuckle of my first finger over his cheek, teased his lips with the tip of it, and then asked, "Have you been awake at all since we got here?"
Biting my fingertip gently, he answered, "Yeah, when Blair sent their friend home. They were both afraid that Banks staying here too long would attract attention we're not up to handling."
I looked away for a second to gauge the pull for Leaping and to search my thoughts. "I guess it's going to take a while for it to soak in that it's really over," I said distractedly. "Ow!"
The nibble on my finger had turned into a bite, and I looked down at my lover in surprise. "That's better," he said firmly, adding to my confusion, then reached up to lick tentatively at my lips. The fire tingled through me had nothing to do with the abuse my skin had taken.
Nuzzling at my ear, he added, "I don't have much choice but to lay here, *caro.* I can't think of a way to pet you that wouldn't hurt. Don't know how well the ole' one-eyed pants monster is going to behave, either."
"Don't care," I muttered, angling my head so he could play with my other ear. "Just want to love you."
"Ahhhhh, Sammy," he breathed. "Go ahead, do it. Whatever you want."
The few days we'd had in the desert had given me more than a passing acquaintance with Al's body; I already had a pretty good idea of where to caress him and how. It didn't take me long to work him up to the point he was swallowing little passionate cries, trying not to wake our roommates. I wouldn't have cared if he had, or if Jim and Blair had sold tickets and popcorn for the show.
Though my goal was to excite him past the point where his injuries or the drugs could bother him, it worked pretty well on me, too. I had never been so hard and randy by the time I gave his swollen arousal a last suck and raised my head. He *was* beautiful, sprawled out in abandon in front of me, head back and throat working.
A quick glance found the lotion I'd expected Blair to leave for my burn. Keeping Al occupied with random brushes of my tongue, I opened and lubed myself, pushing away the strange feelings doing so caused. As awkward as I found doing that, it was worse when I straddled my lover's hips, taking him in hand. His eyes flew open, mouth agape, and I touched the center of his lower lip with a shaking finger.
"I want this, Al! I can’t even begin to tell you how much or what it means to me." I felt him throb in my grip, and he simply relaxed under me utterly, nudging up the hand near his mouth so he could kiss the palm.
Even expecting the pain, it was powerful enough to drive every bit of air out of me, leaving me gasping when I pressed down on the head so that it breached me. "Sammy," I heard, faintly, and Al's voice was filled with worry. But I didn't answer him or stop either, inching my way down his length until I sat on him, completely filled.
Lungs working overtime, I waited until I could control the fiery pressure ripping at me. Bad as it was for me, it must have been great for Al. He shivered and shook under me, hands clenching and unclenching, moaning almost continuously. My own hard-on had fled, but as I had told him, it didn't matter. It was the connection I wanted, the feeling of being a part of him and him a part of me. It was a small comfort to carry through the rest of my life, but it was at least, all mine.
Hesitantly, I moved, and that actually helped, relieving the ache some. Startlingly, after a minute it even began to feel pretty good, and I was able to ride with something resembling enthusiasm. Then Al rocked up into me, deeper than he'd been before, and a blast of pleasure slammed through me, nearly making me black out. Before I could recover from it, he did it again, then again, and I was moving on him wildly, frantic to keep the sensation.
We were both in too bad a shape to go like that for very long. I felt a tremor in him, knew he was close, and grabbed my own newly hard erection to pump it so we could finish together.
"Jeez, oh...oh...oh..." Al groaned, back arching nearly off the mattress. There was a flood of a different kind of heat in me, his seed was inside me, and that triggered my own flood. It had never been so intense, and it went on forever. The only thing that kept me from collapsing completely was fear for Al's battered body, and I locked my elbows while I turned into Jell-O everywhere else.
Finally the ecstasy subsided enough so I could think, sort of, and I rolled to my side. There was a second of fumbling, then Al cleaned us up with something, mumbling lover's nonsense as he did. When his hand found mine, and he cuddled as close as he dared, I whispered, "Love you, Al."
His "Love you, too, Sammy," followed me into sleep.
***
The smell of coffee, fresh dripped and ready to be poured, teased me awake the next morning, and I grumbled at myself for falling for its lure. A Leap was coming soon, very soon, and I wasn't ready to leave, yet. Being honest with myself, I realized I had never been less willing to go, not even when I had Leaped home.
But once my nose informed on me, my bladder added its complaints to my general condition, and I was up, willing or not. The first few seconds were ugly; I wouldn't have been surprised to see myself shedding like a snake, I felt so tight and dry. Once I started moving, though, things improved, and I found my way to the bathroom almost by instinct.
Thinking a shower would be nice, I wandered back out, toward the kitchen, intending to ask if there were towels. Blair was there, dressed in jeans and flannel shirt, making some kind of breakfast and working effortlessly - despite the bandage over his eyes. Jim was where I had seen him a thousand times while watching over them; standing in front of the French doors of the balcony, staring out over the water. Wearing only his jeans and the bandages on his back and shoulder, he had his arms crossed over his chest, giving off a serious 'don't talk to me' signal.
Resisting the call to act was impossible. I wished helplessly that I had taken a second to say good-bye to Al, and went to stand beside Jim, looking out over the same view, ignoring his body language. He didn't move, simply stood there like a mannequin until my patience wore at him and he ground out, "How?"
"What were you thinking when you stepped into the accelerator with me?" I countered.
Reluctantly, he answered, "Here."
"And Blair?"
From behind us, I heard quietly, "The same thing."
I shrugged. "That's your answer. You both wanted to be in the loft, powerfully enough that you took control of the Leap."
"That isn't an answer, Sam," he said flatly.
Knowing he wasn't ready to hear all of it, yet, I asked instead, "You really hated being Panther, didn't you?"
If my abrupt change of subject matter bothered Jim, he didn't let it show. As flatly as before, he replied, "What's to like or not like? It's what was."
Not sure how to circumvent his barriers, I was saved from trying by Blair patiently pressing issue for me, "You really hated being Panther, didn't you?" He slid past me, coming to stand in front of his partner, putting one capable hand on the bigger man's forearm, being careful of the bandages on his chest. That telltale muscle of Jim's began to jump, but he didn't say anything.
"Jim," I asked, trying another angle, "why didn't you kill DeLacourte when he had to get past us to get to Ziggy?"
For the first time Jim looked at me, his head was tilted to one side as if to ask me if I was insane. But he replied mildly enough, "Too risky. I didn't know he had locked everybody in the control room. If I'd shot him, I'd have had to hide the body; that would have taken time we didn't have. Besides, it might have been found. Safer to let him pass."
Shaking my head slowly, I challenged him. "All that may be true, but you were ready to fire until the last possible second. What really made you change your mind?"
The knuckles where Blair touched Jim were turning white, but I had no sense of them 'speaking' to one another silently. Blair waited, as did I, and I think the weight of my question, as much as any thing else, forced Jim to blurt, "It would have been wrong! I'm not judge, jury, nor executioner! And you're right, I did hate being Panther, hated all the sneaking around, the hiding, staying in the shadows, playing at all three." Gradually his voice rose. "I'm a protector, a guardian, a *sentinel,* dammit! I belong in the daylight. *He* belongs in the daylight!"
He shouted the last, but I didn't really hear it. The eerie silence and rush of a Leap along my bones drowned him out. But before their world faded around me, I said calmly, "That's why you're home, Jim. That's why you're both home."
The Leap took me. I only had long enough to realize it was different, off-balance somehow, before I materialized with Al's arms securely around me. As always, knowledge swept through me, and I braced myself, enduring it easier this time because of the sturdy strength behind me. When my head stopped spinning, I turned, catching at Al's hand as I did, not sure if I was going to punch him or kiss him for coming with me. I settled for glaring at him, refusing to admit how glad I was he was with me and absently admiring how he looked. Seemingly about the age he had been when I met him, he was in full navy whites, cigar in hand, staring at our surroundings bemusedly, and that mollified my anger more, almost against my will.
"Looks like being in the middle of the aurora borealis," he mused, "except it sounds a lot better."
Tuning into the fragmented music, mixed laughter, and whispering voices, I couldn't help but say, "If you listen hard enough, you can hear a song or conversation that happened centuries ago. Once I listened to Mozart composing."
He looked at me, went back to studying the flowing colors and light, then did a double take. Still fuming slightly, I let him check me out and see for himself I was fully healed and comfortably dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. "We're outside of Time here; none of the regular rules apply. We look the way we do because this is how we see ourselves," I explained grudgingly.
Al glanced down at himself, shrugged. "Self image, huh." Gesturing at the area around us, he asked, "Is there where you always come between Leaps?"
"Since the very first time," I affirmed. "I didn't remember then, but after I started Leaping as myself, part of it stays with me, now. What did you think you were doing following me here? You have no idea what you're risking!"
"The exact same thing you've been risking from the first," he answered mildly, eyes and face so full of love for me that the rest of my ire evaporated despite my attempt to hold onto it.
"You should have asked me!" I tried, anyway.
"You would have said no." I couldn't argue with that, and while I tried to think of a decent rebuttal, he asked, waving at the nearest shimmer, "What's it for?"
Automatically I reached out and plunged my free hand into one of the colors streaming past as I tightened my hold on Al's, knowing without looking whose lives it was. "It's how I know what's happening, what has happened, and sometimes what will happen. See?"
***
Jim had been subliminally aware of Calavicci silently coming up behind Sam, working his arm free of the sling holding it in place as he did. But intent on the other man's words, and his own the anger and frustration, Jim didn't really think about it or even look at the admiral as he came close. Then Sam pricked Jim where he'd been hurting for so long he didn't even remember what it felt like not to ache there, and he roared at his friend, hardly hearing his own words, forgetting Al completely.
"...He belongs in the daylight!"
In the midst of it all, Sam seemed to gather the sunshine into himself, taking on its radiance. Al rushed forward, locking his arms around his companion's waist and they both exploded from the inside out. As the light fell in upon itself and the visage that had once been Sam and Al disappeared, the sentinel heard, "That's why you're home, Jim. That's why both of you are home."
"It's not that easy!" he yelled at the after-image of them, swinging to pound on the doorframe.
Before the motion could be completed, Blair caught his fist in burnt palms, and held it sturdily. "Yes, it is," he said serenely. "Deciding to stand in the light, to admit that you need your home, your friends, your *place;* that's the hard part, Jim. The rest of it," and he nodded at the empty loft and the world in general, "is just details that we can work out."
Trembling with anger, Jim honestly didn't know if he could let it go and believe that it was over. That their journey was done and all he had to do was accept it. Far away a gull squalled its protest to another bird, horns and tires of traffic on the street below drummed an irregular pattern, and Blair's heartbeat pounded on steadily, evenly, fitting precisely into place in his memories of home and hearth.
With a tired sigh he capitulated, and lowered his head until his cheek brushed his partner's, so that Blair would know through the bandages he was smiling - and crying. "So help me, Sandburg," he muttered thickly, "if you tell anybody I was homesick, I'll, I'll…." He floundered for a minute, not sure what threat was dire enough to keep the irrepressible man down. Suddenly he grinned and finished, "I'll lay a lip-lock on you so hard Simon will be able to dust for prints!"
Laughing, Blair leaned into him gingerly, taking him into a loose hug. "I hate to tell you this, man, but you are sooo my type...you'd better be careful!"
Hugging him back, Jim laughed as well, stropping his damp cheek over Blair's bandages. "Okay, but I get to lead, right, partner?" All the smaller man seemed to be able to do was laugh harder, tightening his arms as he did.
The flint knife in its sheath at the small of Blair's back nudged Jim's arm and on impulse he drew it. Stepping back, one hand resting comfortably on his partner's chest, Jim held it up a second to admire it.
"Jim?" Blair questioned.
"I don't know if it's too much TV or if it's actually true, but do you know the concept of 'blood brothers?'" Jim asked slowly.
As if he could see him, Blair tilted his head and offered up his hand. "In this day and age, when someone else's blood can literally kill you," he answered, "it means even more. You're right, Jim. We need to mark this ending/beginning. Go ahead."
Concentrating, Jim closed his eyes to let his fingers search out to find the nearly imperceptible mark left by the knife the first time Blair had seen it. Deliberately, holding the flesh in a tight pinch to deaden the sting, he nicked that same place. Finding the same scar on his own finger, he cut himself, then pressed the two small wounds together.
There didn't seem to be anything to say, and, he realized with huge relief, there was nothing more that needed to be said.
Tentatively he brought the fingers up to his mouth and kissed Blair's, tasting the salt and copper zing of the blood overlaying the sweeter flesh of his lover. To be able to touch Blair so intimately was so new to Jim, so strange on many levels he was always hesitant about it, nearly expecting to be rejected by his guide.
He was also helpless to resist the desire to do so. From the wounded digit, he moved timidly to Blair's mouth to find him waiting eagerly. Turning his hand so that he held the bristled jaw, the rasp of the stubble there enhancing the satin of the skin underneath, he savored the flavor and fragrance of his lover. Dragging his lips away, he tongued over a bedecked ear, murmuring, "Did Simon say when he'd be back when he dropped off the groceries earlier?"
"Nmmhmmm?" Blair's reply made no sense, and the compact body stretched up taller so he could take Jim's mouth back.
"Sandburg, when is Simon coming back?" Jim pulled far enough away that Blair wouldn't be too distracted to answer, privately thrilled he *could* distract him so thoroughly.
"Got to see about getting that Federal Warrant cancelled, and he said something about a meeting with the mayor. Not for hours yet," Blair answered huskily.
"Good." He almost purred the word, and drew his guide with him to the nest he had made next to the fire earlier, anticipating his warmth-loving partner's need for it. There was a momentary bobble when he pulled at his shoulder on the way down, and Blair was the one to ease back, cautiously testing the bandage.
"Um, maybe we shouldn't, um," Blair paused, not certain suddenly exactly what they were going to do.
"It's no picnic," Jim told him honestly. "But I have it dialed down, and it's not as bad as it should be. Maybe some of Sam's work? I didn't recognize half the drugs in his kit." He took his lover's lips again, lingering over their rich fullness and letting his hands rove indiscriminately over Blair's slender form. Coming up for air, he teased, "And, frankly, you're a wonderful diversion from it."
"In that case," Blair said breathlessly, and he finished the statement by wiggling against Jim's lower body enticingly.
Hesitantly, but with growing confidence, Jim delved into the welcoming heat and warmth of Blair's mouth again, taking his time with the kiss. After their brief encounter in the desert, neither had been ready for more than loving strokes and innocent explorations. In truth, though he knew Blair's body as well as his own, he had never looked at it as belonging to a potential mate before then, and still found it odd to do so.
And very arousing. Taking his time, he divested both of them of their clothes, setting aside the knife and his gun with surety for the first time since they left Cascade. Not hampered by his lack of sight, Blair used his blindness as an excuse to taste Jim everywhere, letting his mouth go where his hands could not.
At one point, he found himself on his stomach with his hips in the air, Blair's hot tongue whipping and swirling over his buttocks. Amazingly, he was close to orgasm from that simple caress, and when he tried to warn his partner, Blair merely bit him gently and went where Jim had never willingly allowed another person to touch.
Helplessly he reared back into the limber probe, hurting his wound and not giving a damn. "Oh...oh, god...unh! Babe, wa...GOD!" Shaking, he released his seed in hard pulses that came and went with the wet invader at his opening. Feeling Blair's hunger, he kept himself limp and open, not caring about anything but satisfying his mate.
Blair nudged him over onto his back instead and crawled over him, keeping his weight on his forearms. After dragging his need through the wetness on Jim's belly, Blair pushed into the crease between the hard thighs and began to thrust, gasping. Jim went with it, doing his best to drive his lover crazy. Freeing Blair's hair from the long braid, Jim worked his fingers through the clinging strands, draping them over the two of them like a sensual blanket.
It was like a hundred more kisses floating over him, and he groaned, feeling himself harden again. Meeting Blair's shoves more energetically, he reached for a kiss, feeling a fleeting disappointment and worry when his companion twisted away his head. Realizing it was because Blair was sparing him the lingering residue of his own scents and tastes, he merely dialed it down and claimed the full lips anyway.
With a stifled cry, Blair came, jerking with each spurt of fluid from him. When the last spasm had coursed through him, Jim gently turned them to their sides, keeping their mouths sealed together. Finally breaking away with a sigh, Blair put his face in the center of Jim's chest, and bit at the bandage circling it. "I smell blood."
Amused, Jim mumbled, "Which of us is the sentinel here, Chief? Yeah, I tore the bullet hole in my back open again. Can't even begin to feel it. We can add cleaning up the blood to taking care of the rest of this, this…." His words trailed off as he tried to find a word for the sticky semen all over both of them.
With a half snort of laughter, Blair snuggled in as much as he could. "Going to take me a while to get use to how much more messy it is with you than a woman."
For some reasons the words reminded Jim of all that had changed, and he said slowly, "So many differences."
Leaning up on one elbow, Blair shook his head. "Different isn't bad. Would you really go back to how it was? Parts of getting here may have sucked, big time, but do you *want* to undo this," and he poked Jim solidly on the sternum, "or this," - a thump to the forehead - "or this?" - a suggestive grind of hips.
"I love you, too," Jim smiled, tapping Blair's chest lightly, "I would miss having you in my head." Pecking a kiss onto the broad brow under the curls, he finished, re-introducing his semi-erect penis to Blair's with a bump, "And I can't imagine never making love to you again." His fingertips fluttered uneasily over the wrapping hiding Blair's eyes, saying without the words what he did regret.
"Jim, there's no reason to think it's permanent," Blair said steadily, repeating some of the promises Jim had made to him in the cold hours before dawn. "And if it is…." He had to stop and suck in a huge breath to fuel his honesty. "Well, I'm going to spend a lot of time pissed and re-learning things, but it's not as though I'm never going to be able to see again, which is more than every other blind person can say."
Holding Jim's face on the tips of his fingers, Blair finished calmly, lovingly, serenely. "I can live with spending the rest of my life seeing through Jim-colored eyes."
***
Removing my hand from the flow as Jim cut his own hand, I grinned at Al, watching the shock and pleasure in his face as the images he'd been seeing faded. After a moment he blinked, then reached for the same history himself, but I gently blocked his hand.
"Hey," he protested, "It was just getting interesting!"
I had to laugh. "Al, this place was made for you, you know that?"
"Better than the imaging chamber," he shot back smugly. "And I don't have to argue with Ziggy or Gooshie to see the juicy parts." Leering exaggeratedly, he peered at another life, as if he could *see* it by simply looking at it. "I don't suppose you know which of these belong to Playboy Playmates, do you?"
Because he expected it, I gave him my long-suffering prude look, but didn't say anything. It seemed to me the easiest way to explain things was to let him find out for himself, as I had on my first Leap, and I trusted his natural curiosity to lead him on. Without my prompting, he selected a history and visually followed it, going thankfully in the 'right' direction.
Determinedly, I kept my back to what he would see, not wanting to look myself. It wasn't necessary; the incredible beckoning brilliance was indelibly imprinted on my mind, its siren call as clear as ever. I saw the awe in Al's expression, knew my own reflected it, felt the urge to kneel in worship as he did. What kept us on our feet was the simple knowledge that this was only a pale shadow cast by the true Presence, and to worship it would not be right.
Breathing, "Tru...Trudy? Dear Lord, is that you?" Al stepped forward, but I intercepted him, blocking his vision with my own body. For a second his disappointment was tremendous, but then he wiped his face with a shaking hand. "Sam, what I saw...do, do you know what I saw?"
"Your father, and your sister." My voice was as loving as I could make it. "You can join them, if you want, Al. You've been called, and it's your choice if you want to go."
Looking at me without seeing me, he stood stunned, then, as if by instinct, he slowly turned, tracing another life in the other direction. This time, I did too, uselessly trying to prepare myself for its endpoint.
Like a negative print of a thunderstorm, the black limned *something* seethed and rolled with jagged tears of darker blackness ripping through it. It snatched at everything in reach, ripping and distorting all the lives around it, obliterating some, merely mangling others. The storm raged through countless histories, and Al reached reflexively toward the nearest to help.
Again I blocked him, tugging him away. "No, not so close. You can't change one that near to it. Find a snarl of strings and try to find the linchpin for it." His gaze focused on one; Panther's and Chief's, which was no surprise since we were close still. "Good, now backtrack...more, there, do you see it?"
A wave of motion sparkled down the wavering history, wiping away the damaged areas, recreating it whole and strong again. Blinding flashes darted from it, and I murmured in relief, "Their children being born." I had never seen children cease to exist because of my Leaps, but that had not been much comfort to the mercenaries when I persuaded them to let me re-do time for them.
When the change reached the devastation, their lives slithered free of the other trapped histories, and rose away, carrying many with it, but leaving many more ensnared. It reduced the power of the 'wrongness,' more than I had dared hope and I made a sound of satisfaction.
"That's why you keep Leaping."
Al sounded positive, but I confirmed it anyway. "Yes, though I never remember that during a Leap. I'm not sure why." A second later I added frankly, "And I have to choose every time I come back here whether to Leap again or walk into the light. Sometimes, I swear I'm done, I'm ready to go on, but then I get caught up in another person's life, another opportunity to fix what that destroyed."
"Are those my choices, too, Sam?" Al’s voice was neutral, and I held my own needs close, not wanting him to read me.
"You have another choice, I think. I can… *feel* your life waiting for you. You can go back if you want, probably Leaping back in only a few days after Jim and Blair returned to Cascade."
Al didn't answer me, but put his cigar in his mouth and stared at the destruction in front of us, carefully keeping the better view to his back. I understood that, since I did it myself to gain strength when I faced its enemy.
After a while he muttered, "Beth and the girls; they've already grieved for me, gotten on with their lives."
Playing the devil's advocate, I countered, "You've been returned to her before, and your daughters are young enough to be resilient. All they'll care about is that you're back."
"They're used to me being gone; that's the reality of being a Navy family."
"You could retire now, be there for them. Aw, hell, Al, the only reason you've been holding on was to spite Weisman; we both know that."
"Weisman...that damn son-of-a…." Not argumentative this time, he sounded reflective. "DeLacourte, their cronies and henchmen…."
"Jim, Blair, the McNabs, Tom."
"Still so many doing wrong, and not as many to right it." Abruptly he spun to face me, coming in close enough to almost be nose to nose. "What do you want from me, Sam?"
Keeping my face blank hurt, but I did it. "This is your decision, Al. No one can make it for you."
"Well, it's not much of a decision, now is it?" he yelled, genuinely angry. "How the hell can you expect me to snuggle back down into my nice, comfy home, complete with wife and kids, none of which I would have ever had, if it weren't for you, and leave you bouncing all over creation all by yourself, no one to watch your back or kick you in the butt when you need it!"
There was only one answer to that, and because I had to lie to give it, I looked down at my shoes. "Because I want you to, Al."
He didn't let me get away with it. "Look me and say that, Sam. Sam! Look at me!"
With all I had I tried not to, but I couldn't deny his demand or his right to make it. I raised my head, working to force the words to my lips and could not do it. Even if he hadn't been looking at me with compassion and tenderness, even if he didn't know me better than I know myself, even if it was the only way to send him home, I could not lie to the person who owned my heart.
Not giving me the opportunity to try, he let me off the hook and chuckled uneasily, anger almost gone. "I wouldn't go anyway, you know. How could I? Besides," and his eyes were twinkling. "Why should you have all the fun?" Backing off a bit, he rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. "Tell me, Sam, can I look in on the girls once in a while, like you did for me? Watch over them, make sure they're okay and stuff?"
Relief and delight made me dizzy, and all I could do was stand there shaking my head and marveling at my lover. Through my grin, I assured him, "No problem, Al. You can check on them all you want."
"Great, Sam, that's great! Hey," he enthused, "can I learn to do your whammy, too? Change things?"
Suddenly wary, I admitted, "Yeah, with some practice."
I had reason to be cautious; his eyes lit up. "Hot damn! Beth plays the lottery sometimes, so she won't have to worry about money…."
"Al," I warned.
"The baby wants to be an astronaut. Let's see, who do I know that can make the right contacts for her…."
"Al!"
"Boyfriends! I finally don't have to worry about what kind of nozzles are trying their sneaky, loathsome…."
"ALLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!"
finis
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