Not mine, not a one.

Heartfelt thanks to StarWatcher who has shown such tremdous kindness to me and has done such a fantastic job on betaing my TS fics. Words cannot express my gratitude for her interest and hard work. Arianna, who rivals StarWatcher in her kindess and interest in a TS newbie, and CaroDee who gave me some very handy tips on how to post to an unfamiliar archive. I write in several different fandoms, but none have made me feel so welcome as this one. Thanks guys!

N/A

This story is a sequel to: N/A

Blair Sandburg stood wedged behind the vending machine in the Major Crimes break room as, for the second time in three years, he hid from the bad guy of the week and mentally reviewed all the possible crimes he might or might not have committed in past lives to deserve this again. He stared blankly at the black plastic two inches from his nose and then cut his eyes to either side to check on the white faces of the women huddled against him. It was possible that he might have committed some great cosmic crime unwittingly, but he was fairly certain Rhonda and the donut girl hadn't. Wishing heartily he had just a fraction of Jim's Sentinel hearing, Blair cocked an ear and listened intently for a few seconds and then decided to risk a small whisper. "You guys doing alright?"

Both women jumped but Rhonda flashed a game smile when she met Blair's concerned eyes and nodded firmly. "I'm okay."

Blair turned his head as much as he could in the confined space and looked at the girl that had taken over from Iris, their regular donut provider, two weeks before and whom he hadn't really had a chance to speak to yet. "What about you?"

Eyes wide and terrified in a white face made paler by her dark hair, the girl swallowed and nodded jerkily. "Are they going to kill us?"

Not for the first time, Blair tried to work out when he had lost his surprise at being asked that question in his day-to-day life. "It'll be fine; Captain Banks and the other detectives are working on a way to get to us right now." Blair punctuated his nondescript reply with a bracing squeeze of his fingers around one shaking hand and deliberately avoided Rhonda's knowing eyes. He tensed along with the women as they heard the sound of the doorknob being turned and then they all held their breath as two unknown voices entered the room.

"Price says that he's got all the exits locked down, and all the detectives that were in the building when we took it are in the cells." The voice was surprisingly pleasant to listen to, deep and smooth -- not unlike Blair's own -- but the note of dark glee it carried sent a shiver of unease down the spines of the three unseen listeners. "The uniforms have been stripped and shut up in the locker room, we've got four people in the communications room monitoring the operators taking any calls that come in, and we're confident that we can be in and out well within our allotted time."

"Excellent." Blair started and was sure for a split second that the voice he heard did in fact belong to Montgomery Burns from the Simpsons cartoon, but then realised that was surreal even for his life, and tuned back into the conversation. "We have exactly eighty-nine minutes before the jamming signals are neutralised to eliminate the use of any hidden cell phones. I want a check every fifteen minutes that the loop in place on the landlines and ISBN lines is still active."

"You got it, boss." There was the sound of the fridge door opening and impatient hands rifling through the contents. "They've got bottle water, soda, diet soda and some kind of weird lumpy orange shit." Blair glared angrily at the back of the vending machine as he heard the description of his carefully blended orange, grapefruit and mango smoothie that he had been looking forward to all morning. "Or we can grab a coffee."

"I think I'll take the diet soda." Mr Burns, as Blair had christened him, made a disgusted noise. "Can't stand the full fat crap."

"Me either." There was the sound of two tabs being popped on cans of soda, and then footsteps were going out the door. It was shut with a firm click, leaving the three hidden listeners behind.

Blair tried to think calming thoughts to soothe his racing heart but, sadly, the only thing that came to mind was the brief glimpse he'd had of his roommate that morning, warm and still damp from his shower -- and he didn't think that would help the situation.

"Blair, what should we do?"

He jumped at Rhonda's worried whisper and felt his thumping heart drop to his knees at the realisation the two women were looking to him for guidance in their current predicament.

"This really isn't the time to bring up that I usually get told to stay out of the way and watch Jim save the day, is it?" Blair smiled shakily and reached out to grip a hand of each woman. "It sounds like they're pretty organised. Maybe when they've got whatever it is they want they'll just go. I don't think they'll hurt anyone unless they have to."

"But what are they after?" Rhonda gripped the cold hand in hers like a lifetime. "We have some highly sensitive information here, if it fell into the wrong hands..."

Blair stared at her and then sighed in gloomy resignation. "Oh, crap." He took a deep bracing breath. "Okay. Okay. Here's what we're going to do. You guys are going to stay here and out of sight, I'm going to try and get down to the others in the holding cells and get them out, and then they can get those fat, donut-loving asses in gear and save the goddamned day."

"I don't want to stay here." Donut-girl looked like she was going to burst into tears and Blair wondered if he'd ever looked that young and scared to Jim. "What if they come back?"

"Then you just stay quiet and out of sight." Blair wracked his brains to try and think of the girl's name, but a heavy work load at the University, seemingly endless hours working with Jim and Simon and his usual hit and miss approach to sleep had left him more than a little run down; he was hard pressed to remember his own name some days. "Don't worry, I've done this before."

Rhonda smothered a slightly hysterical giggle and squeezed Blair's hand tighter. "All of the detectives in the department say there's nobody better in these kinds of situations." She didn't see the surprised look on Blair's face as she leaned forward to try and see the younger woman. "Don't worry, Claire, you're in good hands."

Blair sighed with relief that at least someone in the room knew the poor kid's name, and then gulped as Rhonda turned determined eyes on her favourite observer. "But we're not letting you go out there alone, Blair; you need someone to watch your back."

"What? Oh no, no way." Blair shook his head emphatically enough to send his curls dancing. "No freakin' way. Do you know what Simon and Jim will do to me if I go dragging you both out there with me?"

Rhonda gave a soft snort, and gave her best imitation of Simon Banks' intimidating glare, which was actually pretty damn good, since she'd taught it to him in the first place. "Do you know what I'll do to you if you leave us behind?" She began to edge carefully to the side to try and get a glimpse out into the room and the windows overlooking the corridor. "I can have you and your partner so buried under paperwork that you won't see daylight for a month, Sandburg." She stuck her blonde head cautiously out from behind the vending machine. "Okay, I think we're clear. Claire, move slowly and stay as near as you can to the floor."

Blair made a grab for the women as they both tugged their hands from his, and then found himself alone behind the vending machine when Rhonda and Claire ignored him and began to crawl across the floor. "Well, shit." He stood for another few seconds and then began to sidle out into the room. "So this is how Jim feels when I won't stay in the truck."

Captain Simon Banks shifted uncomfortably on the hard bench in one of his own holding cells, where he was restrained by his own goddamned handcuffs thank you so very much, and looked around the room at his team of detectives, who were also restrained by their own handcuffs. And to a man -- or woman in Connor's case -- sulking their asses off. They were undoubtedly worried about their colleagues and friends in other departments and the hostage situation they all seemed to be unwillingly partaking in, but mainly sulking -- with the addition of snarling and pacing in Jim Ellison's case. "Jim, for god's sake, sit down man!"

Detective James Ellison looked around at his captain and friend, curled his lip and went back to stomping up and down the cramped floor. He hadn't had the best start to the day anyway because both he and Blair had managed to oversleep, and then argued all the way to the station about whose turn it was to go grocery shopping that night. When they had reached the station, Blair had flounced off to the break room to get a cup of coffee that would hopefully improve his less-than-sunny disposition. Jim had been so focused on not going after him -- to either strangle him or kiss him unconscious -- that he had ignored his surroundings when he had tried to work off some highly negative energy by stomping up the stairs instead of using the elevator, and been taken completely by surprise by masked gunmen.

And now Blair Sandburg, his partner and secret, completely clueless, love of his life, was somewhere in the building, alone and unprotected, and people kept yelling at Jim to shut up and sit down and wrecking his concentration when he was trying to focus in on his missing Guide. "Shut up, Simon." He narrowed his eyes at his colleagues and friends as they sat scattered around the holding cell, and asked again the question that was starting to seriously getting on everyone's nerves. "None of you saw Sandburg at all?"

"Ellison..." Joel bit back the uncharacteristically snappy retort that bubbled up in his throat as he caught a glimpse of the naked fear that was swimming under the fury in Jim's eyes. "Jim, I'm sure he's fine. He's probably being held with another department or something. He'll be okay."

Jim ground his teeth and carried on pacing. "You know what he's like. The last time someone pulled a stunt like this I had to go cuff myself to a helicopter to get him back." The angry flush faded from Jim's face and he went white. "Christ, what if they try and take him and I'm locked in here? Simon, I can't get him back if I'm in here, you've got to make them let me go to him."

"Jim, you're being ridiculous." Simon stared in disbelief as his best detective looked imploringly at him and started to bear a remarkable resemblance to a child whose security blanket had been snatched. "Pull yourself together; Sandburg's fine." He stared meaningfully at Jim. "I'm sure we'd hear if he wasn't. You know, we'd overhear people talking about it."

Jim gazed blankly at Simon 'subtle-as-a-brick' Banks and then snorted in annoyance. "Yes, I'm sure we would, sir." He resumed his stamping up and down. "But it'd be a bit hard to hear anything with us all in here and talking and..."

"Right." Simon was very thankful his dark skin hid the blush he could feel rocketing up his cheeks and glowered at his detectives. "Everyone shut the hell up." He ignored the puzzled looks from the people that didn't know about Jim's Sentinel abilities and joined Megan in looking expectantly at Jim. "Well?"

Blair, Rhonda and Claire were huddled in the corner of Simon's office and trying to come up with a plan. From what they could see there were only two gunmen on their floor, and Blair was assuming that the majority of the terrorists -- or whatever the hell they called themselves -- were busy guarding their hostages. Rhonda had picked up a surprising amount of practical knowledge over the years in her role as Simon's right hand woman and was putting forward a very credible battle plan. "Communications is three floors below us, and we should try and see if there's any way we can call for help and alert people to the situation. I don't think we should attract any attention to ourselves unless we absolutely have to. Blair, do you want me to see if Simon's spare gun is still in his desk?"

"I'm an observer, Rhonda, not Dirty Harry." Blair stared reprovingly at his friend. "You know how I feel about guns. Besides if we end up getting caught, it's not going to be easy to convince the bad guys we're harmless if we're armed to the teeth." He smiled at Claire, still trembling lightly but holding up well, and patted her arm comfortingly. "Don't worry, we've come through much worse than this." He risked standing in a half crouch to peer through Simon's windows into the bullpen, and then crawled across the floor to peer out of the other door into the corridor, giving Rhonda and Claire an unintentional happy moment as his butt wagged enticingly. "Okay, we should go now, coast's clear."

Rhonda couldn't resist a small smile as she motioned to Claire to follow and joined Blair by the door. "Sandburg?" She patted Blair's denim-clad flank when he looked back enquiringly. "Nice tush."

//Nice tush//

Jim frowned as he sifted through all voices and background noise in the station and caught Rhonda's softly spoken words to Blair. He glanced at Simon and jerked his head for the older man to join him, hoping that Simon would get the hint and realise he needed grounding, and then turned up his hearing dial a little bit more. There! Jim's face unconsciously softened as he found and isolated the beloved thump, thump of Blair's heart and he heaved a sigh of relief that his Guide was alive and well.

Then he scowled ferociously as he realised that, not only was Blair alive and well, he was also on the move and most definitely not restrained in any manner. Jim risked a zone and cranked up the dial a little bit more. Oh yeah, Blair was alive and well and he was not only on the move, he had picked up Rhonda and at least one other person and was carrying them along with him. A furious growl of anger bounced off the walls of the holding cell. "Sandburg!"

Blair paused as he led silently led the way down the stairwell from Major Crimes and darted a look back over his shoulder. "Did you guys hear that?" He watched as the two women exchanged nervous glances and then turned to peer worriedly over the railing at his side. "I could have sworn I heard someone call my name." He paused for another few seconds before starting down the stairs again. "Man, I am so getting too old for this crap. Jumping at shadows..." He let out a relieved breath as they came to the exit for the communications floor. "Okay, stay here, I'll go ahead and scope things out." Blair smiled what he hoped was a reassuring smile and then, after a quick glance through the door, was gone.

"He's WHAT?!" Simon looked nearly as furious as Jim upon hearing the news that Blair was loose inside the building and dodging their captors. "I'm going to shoot his ass myself."

"Ssh." Jim jerked his head to indicate the detectives huddled on the other side of the room, all valiantly trying to eavesdrop, and rolled his eyes. "Keep your voice down will you?"

Simon glowered at the reprimand but grudgingly lowered his voice. "So what's going on? Where is he?"

Jim listened intently for a few moments and then his annoyed expression melted slightly into approving surprise. "He's up on the communications floor. They've got some kind of loop going and our people are alive, but the guys with the guns are watching them. Rhonda and whoever the other person is have stayed behind in the stairwell while Blair's scouting out their defences. He's making his way from room to room, locking the doors after him so he's cutting off boltholes and escape routes..." Jim froze and held his breath for a moment and then sighed in relief. "He nearly got caught, he's okay, he's okay."

Jim looked around as Megan joined them and smiled absently as she looked worriedly at him before tuning back into Radio Blair. "He's talking to himself, doesn't realise he's doing it. Christ, his heart's gonna bust out of his chest if he keeps this up, he's so scared." Jim swallowed back his own terror and listened to Blair finish his tour of the floor and regroup with Rhonda and their companion. "He's safe, he's back with Rhonda. They're talking and...Oh fuck." Helpless, Jim pulled in vain at his handcuffs and looked around as though hoping a doorway would appear to help him escape his cell. "They're making their move, Simon, I've got to help him. I've got to!"

Blair crouched with Rhonda and Claire by the door in the stairwell and relayed in a low whisper all that he had learned. "Okay, good news is that it looks like they've disabled all the security cameras, probably so there won't be any chance of them being caught on camera, but it works to our advantage because they won't be able to keep track of us either. There's a two-man patrol covering this floor; I made sure I kept behind them and just followed them back around, but there's another two men in communications covering the operators. If we wait until the mobile patrol comes back past here, I think we should be able to surprise and disarm them, and then we only need to figure out how to get into communications and free things up there."

Rhonda nodded thoughtfully and then pointed to the fire extinguisher clamped to the wall by their heads. "Think you can work with that?"

"Please, remember who you're talking to." Blair stared in mock astonishment and reached up to claim his new weapon. "I can turn anything to my advantage, remember? We need a distraction so I can get the drop on them."

Claire cleared her throat and smiled tremulously. "I don't think I can fight, but maybe I can be bait?" She squared her thin shoulders under the sceptical looks of her companions and tried to look confident. "I can do this."

Blair opened his mouth to object but Rhonda laid a hand on his arm. "That's probably a good idea, Blair. Simon had me take some basic self-defence courses after Kincaid, and you'll need help to take two of them." She cocked her head as the sounds of booted feet echoed from the corridor outside. "Now or never."

"Okay, okay." Blair's voice was hoarse with fright and concern, but he nodded. "Claire, wait until you think they're near the door, poke your head out and let them see you, and then get back in here and up the stairs out of sight. We'll be behind the door." He tightened his hold in the fire extinguisher and stood with Rhonda to flatten himself against the wall. "Go on."

Claire closed her eyes and swallowed to ease her fear-dry throat before going to the door and pressing her ear against it. She visibly trembled and then sucked in a huge breath before opening the door and cautiously peering around the doorjamb. Her frightened eyes found two large figures not five paces away who stopped short when they saw her terrified face and then she was pulling back and running up the stairs as fast as she could.

Blair swore under his breath as he heard the loud exclamations from their quarry and he wished fervently that he had his usual cushion of comfort of knowing that a very annoyed Sentinel with a gun was somewhere in the immediate vicinity, but then there was simply no more time to think. The two gunmen burst through the door, one of them reaching for his radio as he pointed his gun down the stairs whilst his buddy pointed his upwards and Blair leapt forward and slammed his fire extinguisher into Radio Guy's head with a dull clang.

Rhonda kicked upwards as hard as she could between the legs of the man facing up the stairs and, as he crumpled with an anguished yelp, gripped the back of the ski mask he wore and cracked his head as hard as she could off the wall. Blair's opponent staggered but still remained on his feet, so the wild-eyed grad student hit him again with everything he had and then planted a foot on the small of the man's back to send him flying down the stairs face first into the wall. "Get the guns!"

Rhonda nodded and snatched the automatic gun from the dazed man at her feet and turned it on its previous owner. "Don't move."

Blair stumbled down the steps to where his equally dazed opponent was lying in a heap and kicked the fallen gun out of reach, before bending to pick it up. He nudged the man at his feet with a careful prod of his boot and then backed up a couple of steps. "We need to get them restrained before they start to recover."

"Here." A shaking hand appeared in front of his nose and Blair focused on a pair of plastic restraints. Claire smiled shakily at him when he turned his head and looked at her in query. "Rhonda got them off the other man."

"Right, right." Blair gingerly placed his stolen weapon on the steps behind him and edged unhappily nearer his moaning captive. "I hate doing this, man." He held his breath while he rolled the man on his stomach and hastily pulled the arms back and fastened the plastic restraints around the limp wrists. "Okay, done." Blair smiled sheepishly back at Claire and shrugged. "I'm always worried that they're faking how badly they're hurt and they're gonna get me the minute I bend down to cuff 'em."

Claire stared with wide eyes down at the man on the floor. "Do they do that a lot?"

"Well, that's what Jim and I do, so I kind of figured it was standard procedure in these sorts of situations." Blair glanced past Claire and up to where Rhonda was standing with over her captive with her own newly-liberated automatic weapon pointed calmly between the man's eyes. "How we doing, Rhonda?"

"All secure, Blair. I gagged him with his ski mask so he can't go yelling for help. We can't stay here long, they might be missed." Rhonda looked down and Blair realised that she was nowhere near as calm as she looked when he saw the fear in her eyes. "We also need to find out what they're after."

"Right." Blair nodded and then looked back down at the man by his feet with trepidation. "Let's hope I've been paying more attention to Jim's interrogation techniques than he thought."

Jim sagged against the wall with relief when he heard the successful outcome of the ambush in the stairwell and looked blindly into Simon's eyes when the taller man bumped his shoulder against his in concern. "They're okay, all of them. They've taken down two of the perps and have them secured." He snorted with sudden laughter as he listened to Blair do his own unique version of an Ellison interrogation. "He's apologising for hitting the perp and telling him that he'd better spill the beans on what's going on or else. Oh God, I know who the third person is. It's the fucking Donut Girl." A second snort, this time much more exasperated, exploded from Jim's mouth as he continued to listen to Blair. "Now he's offering the perp some gum to help him with the nausea when Blair hit him. Christ, Chief." Jim tilted his head back and closed his eyes, face taut with strain and fear. "Get out of there, you idiot."

"Simon?" Simon and Megan turned at the sound of Joel's soft voice, but Jim remained propped against the wall listening avidly to his partner. "Simon, what's going on? The natives are getting restless."

Simon frowned at Joel and then behind him at the rest of the room where Rafe and Brown were talking loudly to distract the five members of Vice that had been locked in with them. "Joel, I...."

"Simon!" Jim's body tensed and he hurriedly straightened up as he heard something that thoroughly alarmed him. "Simon, the guy talked, he told Sandburg what they're after."

Joel and the rest of their audience fell off Simon's radar as he heard the note of underlying panic in Jim's voice. "What is it, Jim?" He registered that Megan had moved to Jim's other side to lean her body in and touch Jim in a mirror of Simon's own pose to help ground the Sentinel as he cranked up his dials. "What are they after?"

"The Golden from Rafe and Brown's bust last month." Jim's eyes were dilating with anger and panic as he listened to Blair's fast, worried questions to the perp. "They're planning on blowing the evidence lockup and taking it back on the streets. Christ, there's over five million bucks worth." Jim's face paled and he licked dry lips. "Oh God, Blair's gagging him and going to try and take back Communications to get the word out. Simon, he's not thinking clearly. You know how he feels about that stuff after what happened, he's going to do something stupid and get himself killed."

Megan looked in confusion between Simon and Jim's grim faces. "What? What happened to Sandy?"

"It was before you came, Megan." Joel's eyes were wide in his face as he listened to Jim, and he couldn't for the life of him figure out what was going on. "Blair got hold of some pizza that had been sent to the station laced with Golden. He nearly died. Jim, you need to calm down. I know you're worried about Blair but there's no way you can be hearing him, it's just your imagination." Reproving eyes stared at Simon. "And you shouldn't be encouraging him, Simon. He's obviously upset over this and it's bringing back memories from Kincaid. Jim needs to stay calm."

"I need Sandburg, Joel!" Jim wasn't aware that he was revealing much more than a desire for his partner's safety and well-being, and he definitely didn't realise that the room fell totally silent at his angry shout. "He's up there with no backup and he's going to try and take on God knows how many gunmen with just Rhonda and the Donut girl because he can't stand the thought of anyone else going through what he did. The fucking idiot!"

"Um, Captains?" Brian Rafe joined the small group with his partner Brown peering inquisitively over his shoulder. "What's all the yelling about?"

"Sandburg's up on Communications and he's making a move to take back some kind of control up there." Jim barely spared the younger man a glance as he went back to focusing on Blair and his companions. "They're trying to work out a way of doing it without tipping off any of the patrols or the guy running the show. Blair's saying something about subverting instinctive defensive reactions into other primal ones to give them an advantage."

Henri blinked. "Are you trying to tell us you can hear Hairboy?"

Jim scowled in irritation at the interruption and replied without thinking. "Well of course I can hear him."

Rafe looked worriedly at Henri as he digested Jim's words. "Oh Christ, he's finally lost it."

Megan nudged him awkwardly with her elbow. "Shut it, Rafe, he needs to concentrate."

"Megan come on, you don't believe this shit, do you?" Henri was starting to think he, Joel and Rafe were the only people left in Major Crimes who were even part way sane. "Look, maybe Jim can hear something, but there's no way he can know it's Blair; it could be anyone." He frowned as Jim suddenly tensed and blinked blankly at the wall. "Now what?"

Jim was too downright astonished, not to mention baffled, at what he had overheard to worry that the Sentinel thing was no longer a secret. He turned puzzled eyes on Simon. "He's smearing strawberry jelly on Rhonda and the Donut girl and he's telling them to take off their shirts and rip holes in their panty hose."

There was a long thoughtful silence before Henri nodded reluctantly. "Okay, you got me, that does sound like Hairboy."

Rafe rolled his eyes. "Even in the middle of a hostage situation the guy gets more action than me. How is that fair?" His eyebrows shot up as Jim groaned in horror when he realised what Blair and the two women were doing. "What? What is it?"

//Okay, look as traumatised as you can. Go!//

"Okay, look as traumatised as you can. Go!" Blair gave the women a gentle shove as he led them out of the break room on the Communications floor, and he send a heartfelt prayer heavenward that the strawberry jelly currently lavishly smeared over both women would not shortly be replaced by the blood it so closely resembled.

The plan was simple. To get into the Communications room and wrest back some control over their situation they needed to distract the four gunmen in there from their hostages and, more importantly, from Blair as he snuck in the back door to the room and handed over their stolen weapons to someone actually prepared to use them. To do this they needed a distraction and, some hard thinking and a hop, skip and a brief side trip to the Sandburg Zone later, they had one. Nothing short-circuited a man's brain like a half-naked woman and Blair theorised, with a few breathless lectures on tribal customs and historic evidence, that the use of skin adornments and other visual distractions on the enemy were a huge advantage if utilised properly. Thus, Operation Optical Obfuscation was born.

Claire had led them to the stash of jelly donuts in the break room and from there it was but the work of a few minutes to transform the two women from neat and presentable city workers into hysterical females who had undergone the worst kind of assault. Strawberry jelly was smeared over bodies as clothes were removed and shredded and Blair was reassured that the overall effect was so shocking that vital seconds would be lost by the enemy before they realised there were actually no wounds for the bright red liquid to have leaked from in the first place. And now it was the moment of truth. The two women went one way, towards the main entrance to the Comms room, and Blair and the guns went the other to the back entrance and -- hopefully -- some more qualified help.

His heartbeat pounded in his ears as he made his way to his designated spot and he was afraid he would miss hearing Rhonda and Claire make their entrance thanks to the noise, but the loud exclamation of surprise and horror from inside the room galvanised him into action and he stealthily opened the door as the first cries rang out. All four gunmen were facing away from him towards the door on the opposite side of the room where Rhonda and Claire were crying and cringing in mock fear from the men as they stared at them. Both women looked like they had been the victims of horrific assaults; the jelly that had been smeared all over them did a remarkable impression of blood under the lights in the room, and Blair saw that Rhonda had ripped her skirt along a side seam to show a pale thigh and ripped stockings, leaving no doubt as to how she had been assaulted.

"No, no, please, no more." Claire held imploring hands out before her as she saw Blair ease his way into the room and run in a crouch to where an older man in a police uniform sat with the captured communications staff, staring with eyes full of pain at the two women. The man, Sergeant LaCosta, jumped as Blair touched his arm and then stared in astonishment when he was handed a weapon. Blair winked and touched a finger to his lips and the older man nodded in understanding. "Please, don't hurt us anymore." The tremble in Claire's voice was all too real as she backed away from the men with the guns, and she began to shake with tremors as one reached for her.

"Shit. I thought McGowan said we weren't supposed to touch the hostages?" One of the men raked disgusted eyes over the two women as they cowered back, and the man sighed in irritation as he took in their hysterical state. "Fuck. This was not what I signed up for."

"Me either, man. Don't turn around!" Blair's voice was hard as he could make it when his knees felt like they would give out with terror, and he shivered as a trickle of cold sweat ran down his spine. He jammed the barrel of his gun in the man's spine. "Put down the guns and no one gets hurt."

LaCosta moved slowly to the opposite side as the men froze and Rhonda and Claire slipped hurriedly out of the way and behind Blair. "Do as the man says, put your guns down on the floor and then put your hands on your head."

Blair held his breath as the men stared at LaCosta, and then air exploded out of his mouth in a relieved whoosh as they slowly obeyed. LaCosta nodded. "Okay, back up against the wall, turn to face it and then place your hands above your head."

Blair stepped back and kept his gun on the men as they moved carefully past him, then followed them as he called a low-voiced instruction to Rhonda and Claire. "Get those weapons out of the way and then find something to restrain these guys with."

"Already on it, Blair." Bob, a slender black man that worked as a civilian communications expert for the PD, hurried across the room clutching a fistful of handcuffs. "What do you want me to do?"

LaCosta answered the question by barking at his prisoners. "One at a time, left to right, you will pull your hands down from the wall and place them behind your back as you kneel on the floor. We will shoot you if you try any fancy moves. Do it!" There was a tense silence in the room as Bob hesitantly approached the men and cuffed them and then, finally, the new prisoners were secured. "Sandburg, what the hell is going on? Where's Ellison? What the hell is he thinking of letting you run around playing hero by yourself?"

Blair jumped at the angry tone of LaCosta's voice, but reminded himself that it was a trying time when you were held at gunpoint and he should make allowances for the older man. "I don't know, I think he's down in holding with the others. Rhonda, Claire and I got trapped in the break room by Major Crimes and we made our way down here as soon as we could. This floor's secure, we took out the patrol in the corridor as well." He glared at the older man slightly petulantly. "So, as you can see, I don't need Jim with me, man. I'm managing just fine with Rhonda and Claire."

LaCosta looked taken aback at the unaccustomed censure on Blair's face and dropped his eyes to the gun the observer was holding while he figured out how to reply. He blinked and then slowly smirked. "Yeah, so why is the safety still on your gun, genius?"

//Yeah, so why is the safety still on your gun, genius?//

Jim resisted the temptation to bounce his head off the wall at the question from LaCosta, and settled for groaning loudly in despair at his partner's stupidity.

"What? Is Blair, okay? Did they get caught?" Simon's heart plummeted at the despair on his friend's face, and he felt sick at what the Sentinel might have listened to. "Jim, talk to me, are they okay?"

"Blair just took on the armed personnel holding the Comms room with the safety catch still on his own weapon." Jim opened his eyes and looked glumly at the disbelieving faces gaping at him. "They're all okay. LaCosta's taken charge."

"Thank God." Megan slumped in relief for a moment and then nudged Jim. "Has he had any firearms training at all with you, Ellison?"

"He tried a couple of times, but just couldn't seem to master the basics." Jim tried to swallow to ease his dry mouth and shook his head with a bitter laugh. "I thought after all this time that he might be able to tell the difference between a weapon with the safety on or not."

"Obviously not." Simon glared at the floor and then at his friend. "Okay, what's going on now?"

Rafe, Henri and Joel, still half convinced that their friends were just to the left of crazy, all found themselves holding their breath when Jim obediently cocked his head and tuned into Blair again. "He's explaining the situation to LaCosta, and Rhonda's organising a few of the Comms staff into lookouts so they don't get taken again. Some guy called Bob is trying to access the system and take off the loop but he's afraid of alerting anyone to the fact that they're freed and able to communicate." Jim licked his lips again and paled. "Oh God."

"What?" Joel leaned forward, and ignored Rafe and Brown rolling their eyes as he became caught up in Jim's commentary. "What is it?"

"Sandburg's telling LaCosta that he has to stay in Comms and hold the room secure in case someone tries to take control back. Blair's going to try and get down here to us." Jim's eyebrows went up in surprise. "LaCosta disagreeing with him and Blair's losing it, he's getting angry. He says...he says..."

Megan and Simon exchanged resigned looks as Jim tailed off and Simon sighed. "Let me guess. He says that he has to get to you and he has to do it now. He doesn't care what might happen to him, you need him and he has to find a way to get to you."

"What?" Jim's heart was beating double time in his chest as he listened to Blair's impassioned speech and he could feel a warm glow spread through his body despite his utter terror that LaCosta would let his Guide go and not keep him safe. "How did you know?"

Megan huffed out an impatient breath. "That's what he always says, Jim. Sandy goes nuts every time you leave him behind and he thinks you need him."

The look of sheer astonishment and naked emotion on Jim's normally stoic face was almost painful to see. "Every time? He does this every time I leave him behind?"

"Uh-huh." Simon refused to be moved by Jim's reaction and ground his teeth. "And it's damned annoying." He growled impatiently at Jim's incredulous face. "For God's sake, Ellison, he's your damn Guide. You must have noticed, you're a goddamned Sentinel!"

"Every time." Jim stared with unfocused eyes past Simon as he tuned back into Blair and listened once more to the increasingly angry and frustrated student. "Every time."

Megan straightened and peered worriedly up into Jim's blank eyes. "Uh-oh, zone!" She reacted without thinking and stamped down heavily on Jim's foot. "Snap out of it, Jim."

"OW! What the fuck did you do that for?" Jim's haze of delight and humble emotion at his Guide's devotion to him was rudely shattered when what felt like an elephant slammed down on his foot. "That fucking hurt!"

"You were zoning and we don't have Sandy to bring you back." Megan raised her foot threateningly again as Jim scowled. "I'll do it again, Ellison, don't make me."

"Connor, you moron, I was not zoning." Jim shoved against the Australian and sent her staggering away from him. "You don't have to break any bones to bring me back, Sandburg just talks to me."

"Well Sandy's not here!" Megan fell against Rafe and managed to right herself. "And me and Simon have to do the best we can until he gets here, he'll never forgive us if we let anything happen to you."

"She's right, Jim." Simon spoke in a low voice and carefully eased between the two angry detectives. "Come on, we're just doing the best we can here, cut us some slack."

Jin's jaw tensed and for a moment he looked like he was going to say something, but he shook his head and, with one last dark look at Megan, went back to listening to Blair and updating his Captain. "Hell. He's managed to persuade LaCosta to let him go." Finely shaped eyebrows went up in shock as Jim continued to listen. "Rhonda and the Donut girl are going with him, they won't listen to LaCosta, they're refusing to leave Blair. He doesn't want them to come, says it's dangerous, they could be killed." Jim's face creased as he felt the first painful stab of an approaching headache, but he forced himself to go on. "They're going straight through LaCosta, leaving all the weapons behind with him. Blair's making them lock the door behind them and now he's leading them back to the stairs." Jim could feel his chest tighten with fear as he listened to Blair and his companions start down the stairs and make their slow way towards the imprisoned detectives, and then his face melted into an expression of surprise and indefinable emotion as he listened to Blair's next words.

//Hang on, Jim, I'm on my way. I know you're tracking me, man, I can feel it. You need to dial it down a little, big guy. Just take it easy, don't zone out on me, I'm gonna need you ready to move when I get down there. I'm coming, Jim, just a little longer, okay?//

Despite the fear and his helplessness, Jim relaxed at the familiar sound of Blair's soothing voice and smiled into Simon's tense face. "He's coming. Sandburg's on his way."

"Hang on, Jim, I'm on my way. I know you're tracking me, man, I can feel it. You need to dial it down a little, big guy. Just take it easy, don't zone out on me, I'm gonna need you ready to move when I get down there. I'm coming, Jim, just a little longer, okay?" Blair whispered under his breath as he moved as silently as he could down the staircase, not sure that Jim would, or could, track him in a building filled with so many different smells and voices, but needing to maintain the pretence of a connection anyway.

He held his breath as he led Rhonda and Claire past the exit for the fourth floor and then relaxed again when they started down the next flight of stairs without incident. "Gotta tell you, Jim, you make this covert thing look really easy when you do it; it's a lot harder than it looks, man. I am not loving today, I gotta tell you. Definitely not one of my better ones." Blair jumped as a hand touched his shoulder and he nearly fell down the remaining steps before he regained his balance and realised it was Rhonda touching him and not one of the bad guys.

"Blair, are you okay?" Rhonda narrowed her eyes in concern as she looked down into Blair's pale face. "You're talking to yourself." She smiled warily as Blair flushed an embarrassed red. "I heard you say Jim's name. I know you're worried, sweetheart, but I'm sure he's fine."

"Oh, yeah. Of course he is." Blair licked dry lips and tried for his usual disarming grin. "You know, Jim, always comes out on top." He eyed Rhonda suspiciously as she choked and clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her sudden attack of giggles. "What? I'm just used to doing this shit with Jim, y'know. It just seems funny doing it with a couple of women when I'm used to being with a man." Poor Rhonda was shaking so hard trying to suppress her laughter as Blair rambled on that now she was the one in danger of tumbling the stairs. "Rhonda?"

Rhonda gave a most unladylike snort as she fought to control her giggles. "Sorry. Just the stress." She bit down on her lip to stop another bout of laughter as she looked at Blair's completely clueless face. "It's a high pressure situation."

"Hmm." Blair eyed Rhonda for another few seconds and then wisely decided to leave well enough alone. "We should get moving." He turned away and ignored the muffled squeaking behind him as the women followed and Rhonda continued to stifle her mirth.

Claire tugged on Rhonda's sleeve as they followed Blair down the stairs. "Jim's his partner, right?"

Rhonda smiled fondly at the back of Blair's oblivious head and thought it couldn't do any harm to give cupid a hand just this once. "Yes. They live together as well." She raised her voice just a little to make sure Blair heard her next words, but the sudden stiffening of his shoulders told her it was unnecessary. "They do everything together. I've never seen a closer relationship, possibly even counting my own marriage."

Claire blinked doubtfully as she pictured Jim Ellison in her mind. "Is Jim the one that's always frowning and yelling?" She looked at the curly haired man stealthily creeping down the stairs in front of her and tried to imagine a world where he would be the natural choice as partner to the grim cop she tried to avoid as much as possible. "I think I must be thinking of the wrong man."

"Nope." Rhonda was amused to see Blair's shoulders were so tense he was practically twanging. "Jim Ellison, Super Stiff; that's the one. He's nice enough when you get to know him but he only has eyes for one person most of the time, right Blair?"

Blair, well aware of the speculation that went on behind his and Jim's backs, shot Rhonda a quelling look over his shoulder. "I don't know what you mean."

Rhonda refused to be quelled. "Jim was a real son of a bitch before Blair came on the scene, actually he still is mostly, but they hooked up and suddenly Jim had someone else to focus on other than the bad guys." She winked at Claire mischievously. "They're so cute together."

Blair swallowed to clear his suddenly dry throat and started praying that Jim wasn't tracking him; he had a hard enough time disguising how he felt about his partner as it was, without being accidentally outted by the hopelessly romantic Rhonda. "We're friends, Rhonda, that's all."

"I know that, Blair, I'm just saying it's very reassuring to see such a strong relationship flourish in this day and age." Rhonda found that, bad guys and guns notwithstanding, she was enjoying the hell out of her current situation. It wasn't often she got to spend any time with a member of Major Crimes without them demanding information or more office supplies, and it was even more rare that she got to speak to Blair without his shadow lurking two feet behind. "It really gives us all hope."

Blair decided a little misdirection was in order and laughed lightly. "That's what we're there for, Rhonda. We sit at home every night and plan how to display our perfect relationship to everyone we come across and spread a little light into your dull, loveless lives."

"You know, when I think of you and Jim alone, that's not the picture that springs to mind." Rhonda leaned to the side slightly and was delighted to see a flush of bright red colouring Blair's cheeks through his hair. "I imagine you're a lot more active together than that." She waited a beat. "You both play a lot of ball sports, right?"

Blair's breath left him on a wheeze of shock and he spun on the stairs to give Rhonda a piece of his mind, but the look of pure innocence on the older woman's face stopped him in his tracks. "I...er..."

Claire cocked her head and stared at the mortified anthropologist. "How long have you two been together?"

"A little over three years." Rhonda answered for Blair as he seemed incapable of understanding English at the moment, let alone speaking it. "One minute Jim was scowling and stomping around the city, frightening the life out of everyone he met, the next he's got Blair working with him and moving in and the world is a much happier place." She patted Blair on the shoulder and nodded her head helpfully down the stairs. "Shouldn't we keep going, honey?"

Blair directed a dark glare at both women and turned around to continue on his way with a bit more stomp than stealth to his step. Rhonda smirked. "There's a song that always reminds me of these two every time I hear it; it's quite old, so you might not have heard it. There was a man called Dean Martin who was very popular in the fifties and sixties and he had the most wonderful voice." Rhonda nudged Claire gleefully when Blair's stomp grew more pronounced as though he knew what was coming and she began to sing under her breath. "When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza-pie, That's Amore."

Blair's precarious hold on his temper snapped. "You even think about singing the 'gay tarantella' line, Rhonda, and I'll toss you to the next bad guy we find." He glared over his shoulder, then his lips twitched as Rhonda blinked ingenuously at him and he found himself laughing helplessly. "Besides, I always thought old Deano was more on the mark with 'Ain't That A Kick In The Head'. It's just more Jim, you know?"

//Besides, I always thought old Deano was more on the mark with 'Ain't That A Kick In The Head'. It's just more Jim, you know?//

Jim was torn between devastation that all his most secret dreams about Blair had been unwittingly destroyed by his friend and keeping a small flame of hope alive in his heart that Blair had thought of a sentimental song to attribute to his Sentinel. That had to mean something, right?

He ignored Simon trying to get him to tell what was being said and instead concentrated on passing on what was actually happening. "They're just coming to the last turn in the stairs. Blair's trying to get Rhonda and Donut Girl to stay put, but they're not buying it. Blair and Rhonda think that their best chance of reaching us is to get the beat cops out before they try and head down here. They're being more careful now they're out of the stairwell." Jim swallowed hard as he listened to the sound of three terrified hearts beat almost in time as they crept out from their precarious hiding place. "They've spotted the patrol and they're keeping behind them as they follow them to the locker room. Rhonda and Donut Girl want to try the shirt and jelly thing again but Blair's making them take a fire extinguisher each and they're going for a direct attack."

Jim's eyes got wider as he listened to Blair and the others creep along, getting ever nearer the locker room and the prisoners, and he completely disregarded the Vice cops that were now standing silently with the ones from Major Crimes, all holding their breaths as they listened. "Blair's got a fire extinguisher of his own now, there's three men guarding the locker room door. They're waiting until the patrol has gone past..." Jim began to sweat as he listened to Blair begin the soft countdown to his attack and he closed his eyes. "Christ, Chief, don't do it." His eyes snapped open and he stared with a wild expression at the faces surrounding him. "They're moving, telling the guards there's a fire, and the guards don't believe them." Jim jerked and shuddered back against the wall. "God, they've opened the nozzles on the extinguishers and they're firing into their eyes. The guards are yelling and the patrol's coming back, but Rhonda's opening up the locker room and...and..."

"What? What?" Parkinson from Vice shouldered past Rafe and forgot that ten minutes previously he'd thought Jim was certifiable. "What's happened?"

Almost crying with relief, Jim's knees buckled and Simon and Joel awkwardly braced him on either side as he continued in a hoarse whisper. "The beat cops aren't restrained like us. Blair and Donut Girl kept up with the foaming and Sergeant Samuels disarmed the guards in time to get the drop on the patrol. They've been disarmed, they're all okay, no one got hurt. Rhonda's laughing that they're all in their underwear and they just want to find some guns. Donut Girl's crying and Blair's insisting that they have to get down here." Jim shook his head in despair as he heard Blair once again start to argue with someone trying to come between himself and his Sentinel. "He won't stay safe in the locker room, he doesn't care that they've probably tipped off the other perps, he just wants to get to us."

Brown grinned and shook his head, already knowing the outcome of the argument before Jim told them. "How long before he gets here?"

"Ten minutes. He says he'll be in position in ten minutes." Jim, finding out the hard way how much harder it was to listen to someone he loved risk his life than to be the one to do it, wondered if his heart could take another second of the stress. "He says to be ready for when he makes his move. The little shit."

Simon nodded and glared at the assembled cops. "Well, you heard the man, people. Get ready!"

Blair Sandburg looked at the people crowded around him on the stairwell -- ready to move towards Holding and free their colleagues -- and thought that his life had finally reached the zenith of weird that it had been slowly creeping towards ever since he had met a certain Jim Ellison. On either side of him stood Rhonda and Claire, still smeared with strawberry jelly and wearing ripped and disordered clothes, and in front and behind him were the grim-faced beat cops they had just freed, mostly still in their underwear not having found more than a few pieces of clothing between them when they had finally abandoned the locker room. It wasn't the most professional looking rescue party he'd ever been a part of that was for sure. Blair grinned to himself in a sudden flash of humour; it came to something when he, Blair Sandburg Anthropologist and hippy observer extraordinaire, looked more like a cop than the cops around him.

"Okay, this is the plan." Sergeant Samuels looked around at his half-naked men and women and hoped to god this part of the hostage drama never made the news. "I'll lead Team A and Peterson leads Team B. The sharpshooters for each team take point and the unarmed among you stay back until we have the situation contained. Remember, they hold the advantage until we free the detectives and we can't afford to let them use our people to their advantage. Sandburg, you and your women stay back until I personally tell you it's safe. No more heroics, is that clear?"

Blair blinked in wounded indignation and ignored the annoyed hisses from Rhonda and Claire at their descriptions. "Absolutely, Sergeant. We know what to do." He finished his sentence inside his head as Samuels glared in justifiable suspicion at him. //We have to get to Jim and the others. Find Jim, Find Jim, Find Jim!//

Rhonda and Claire exchanged a look and each took a firm grip on Blair's shirt, neither one of them trusting Sandburg any more than Samuels did. Samuels glared one last time and then turned away. "Okay, let's go."

Jim and his riveted audience were tensed for action, none of them the least bit deterred by the fact they were all still cuffed, and had taken up positions around the cell door ready to make their move. While they waited Jim kept up a running commentary on the events unfolding outside. "They're in two teams, limited weapons. Samuels is making his move, no patrols yet." The Sentinel focused in on his Guide's heartbeat that, despite all orders to the contrary, was moving steadily closer with the rescue party. "Fucking Sandburg and the women are with them, they haven't stayed back."

Cold sweat dripped down Jim's face as Rafe and Joel groaned in despair behind him. Everyone jumped as a startled shout sounded from outside the door and gunfire exploded in the air. Jim flinched and nearly zoned but Joel and Rafe moved into position at a frantic shout from Simon, grounding the Sentinel with the heat of their bodies. More carefully Jim extended his hearing beyond the battle outside, filtering out the shouts and sounds of shooting, and listened to yells from the cops coming for them. "Our guys are holding their own, they're forcing them back." A frown creased Jim's face as he caught something else and then he was shoving past Joel and Rafe and hurling himself bodily at the door. "NO! SANDBURG, DON'T YOU FUCKING MOVE!" Barely registering the efforts of his colleagues to clumsily control him, Jim went wild with terror and frustration as he realised what Blair had just heard and what he was now attempting to do. "GODDAMN IT, BLAIR, GET BACK HERE!"

"Jim, what's going on?" Simon thrust his body in between Jim's and the door and wheezed as two hundred and ten pounds of enraged Sentinel hit him full on. "Jim! What's happening?"

"Blair..." The helpless moan torn from Jim's throat sent shivers down Megan's spine as she watched her friend stagger back and stare with frantic eyes at the door and the man blocking it. "He heard one of the perps radio down to evidence and tip off their leader the operations been blown." Faces paled all around Jim as his friends shared a sudden horrible suspicion what the man's next words would be. "Blair's gone after them. He's going to stop them."

Simon didn't waste any time; he turned to the door at his back and kicked it as hard as he could. "Samuels, get us the FUCK out of here. NOW!"

Blair didn't think twice when he heard the warning being given over the radio. He knew there was nothing he could do for Jim while there were a lot of angry people with guns blocking the corridor between himself and his Sentinel, but he could prevent the Golden that had caused this situation from leaving the station; he'd be damned if he'd let so much as a grain escape the premises while he had breath left in his body. It wasn't until he was trotting determinedly down the stairs towards the evidence lockup that he realised Rhonda and Claire were still with him. "What the hell?" Blair stopped and pointed back up the stairs where the raging battle was taking place. "Get out of here."

"No." Claire was shaking with adrenaline and terror, but her young face was firm with resolve. "We're not leaving you now."

"Guys, I don't have time for this, you have to go back." Blair bounced anxiously on the balls of his feet and attempted to make the women see reason. "This is dangerous."

"All the more reason to have backup." Rhonda grabbed hold of Blair's sleeve and yanked him down the stairs after her. "Let's go, Sandburg." She looked expectantly at Blair as they halted by the exit door. "What's the plan?"

"I don't have one." Blair's voice was almost a wail of anguish as he looked between the two. "I was just going out there and think of something on the fly."

"Oh." Claire swallowed and then forced herself to nod. "Well, I figure you know what you're doing, or we wouldn't have gotten this far."

"Please, go back." Blair wrapped a shaking hand around the arm of each woman and shook them urgently. "I have to do this. Jim..."

"What, Blair?" Rhonda gripped the wrist holding hers and squeezed. "Jim wouldn't expect you to do this, you know that. He'd want you to be safe."

Blair's mouth opened and shut for a few moments as he struggled for an answer. "I don't want to let him down. He wouldn't let this go. He needs to know he can count on me." Blue eyes that revealed far too much looked steadily into Rhonda's suddenly misty ones. "Being with him means everything to me, what we have is too important to screw up. I have to do this."

"Sandburg, when this is over, I'm locking you and your blockhead partner in a cell and I'm going to buy you both so many clues I'll bury you under them." Rhonda shook her head at the improbability of two of the smartest men of her acquaintance consistently being so dumb when it came to their feelings and then put her hand on the door handle. "Let's get this over with. Ready?"

"NO!" Jim's howl froze the blood of everyone within in his cell, and his colleagues instinctively knew that Blair was heading into danger once more. "Chief, you goddamned idiot!" Gasping for air, Jim began throwing himself at the cell door again. "Samuels, get me out of here! Someone unlock this goddamned door!" He bounced off the door. "Blair! Chief!"

//Right, this should be easy. Whoa, is that C4?//

"BLAIR!"

//Hell, I wish Joel was here. Hey, that's Cath Ricardo. Oh man, Cath are you okay? Where are the perps?//

"BLAIR!"

//Okay, I'll be the bait this time. Rhonda, Claire, you guys go to the right. Cath, you can take the left, right? They're probably pretty desperate so we need to move fast. On three...//

"Blair..." Jim didn't realise he had sunk to his knees, whispering his partner's name over and over again in despair. All that existed in his world was the sound of that voice and the thought that this could be the last time her ever heard it. And unlike the fountain incident, Blair's Sentinel wasn't able to get to him to call him back if something went wrong.

//THREE! Cascade PD, put down your weapons and...OH SHIT!//

Jim screamed as gunfire blocked the sound of his Guide's heartbeat and folded in on himself trying desperately to contain his heart that seemed to have exploded in his chest.

Blair stared down at the man at his feet and then at the metal evidence tray he had just smashed over the guy's head. He flinched and dropped it guiltily, before kicking away the guy's gun and accepting the handcuffs that Officer Cathy Ricardo, the cop in charge of the Evidence room, held out to him. "See, this is why you should always keep the safety catch on your gun. You never know when someone's gonna leap out on you and smack you over the head with something metal and heavy." He cuffed the unconscious perp and turned to check on Rhonda and Claire. "Hey, whoa, GI Jane. Let's just back up, shall we?" Blair hurried across the room and gently relieved Rhonda of the automatic pistol she had aimed between the sweating man's eyes. "He's not going anywhere, Rhonda. We did it."

"Who the hell are you people?" Blair frowned as he tried to place the man's voice and then realised that he was looking at the mastermind behind the whole situation; it was 'Mr Burns' from the break room where he and his two stalwart companions had started out on their whole crazy adventure. "And did that girl just hit me with some fruit?"

Claire raised a hand over her head, where she held a slightly squashy orange that she had grabbed from a fruit tray mouldering on the floor on her way in. "Yes, and I'll do it again!"

Blair grinned as he finally noticed the pulp and juice flowing freely down the left side of the man's stunned face. "Way to go, Claire. I always say you should choose the healthy option." He grabbed the man by the scruff of his shirt and shoved him down onto the floor, facedown. "Okay, let's get the cuffs on this guy. Cath, did they get what they came for yet?"

Ricardo shook her head. "No, they were just loading up when the alarm came over their radio." She sighed in relief as she stood from checking the pulse of the guy Blair had knocked cold. "Thank God, you guys came when you did. They've had a gun on me the whole time and I was beginning to think the cavalry would never get here."

"All part of the service, man." Blair tossed off a happy salute and clapped his hands together happily when he stood from cuffing Mr Burns. "Let's get the Golden stashed away and then we should get back upstairs, they're probably just about done up there now."

Ricardo nodded in agreement as she looked around the Evidence room and then glanced over her shoulder at her small office where she had been held hostage for the last hour and a half. "Okay. Can you guys take care of that? I really should check in and let someone know the situation and that it's been contained." She grinned knowingly at Blair's anxious face and read his unspoken request. "And I'll find out where Ellison is and let him know you're okay."

"Thanks, Cath." Blair heaved a sigh of relief and stepped over his victim on the floor to start transporting the coveted bags of Golden back into the secure safe they had recently been taken from. "Only, uh, could you not tell him what we did. Not like, lie or anything, maybe just um..."

"Gloss? Hedge? Mislead?" Ricardo's grin widened as Blair nodded gratefully and beamed at her in thanks. "Don't worry, Blair. Your secret's safe with me."

When Sergeant Samuels finally opened the door the holding cell which had been the unwanted home of Major Crimes and Vice some twenty minutes later, he couldn't have said what he expected to find but it certainly wasn't all the detectives huddled on the floor yelling and shouting at a practically catatonic Jim Ellison. "What the hell?"

Megan spun around so fast she overbalanced and fell onto her back, squashing her cuffed arms beneath her. "Samuels, you have to get down to Evidence. There's been gunfire and Sandburg..."

"Sandburg's fine." Samuels stared in astonishment at the suddenly silent room and then blinked. "How did you know there was gunfire down there?"

"What?" Simon struggled to his feet and felt the first stirrings of hope in his chest as he looked at Samuels, a man who definitely didn't have the look of someone bearing bad tidings; especially as he was only wearing faded Santa boxer shorts and a Cascade PD muscle vest. "Sandburg's okay?"

"Yeah. Ricardo's just been on the phone, says to say he's fine and that he'll be up as soon as he's finished helping tidy up some down there." Samuels leaned around Simon and peered curiously down at Jim as the shattered Sentinel looked uncomprehendingly at him. "What's up with Ellison?"

"Jesus, oh sweet Jesus." Joel could feel himself begin to shake with relief as he turned to Jim and shoved his face into the other's man's blank one. "Did you hear that, Jim? Blair's okay, he's not hurt."

"Blair?" Jim shook his head like he was trying to free water from his ears. "I heard...the gunshots..."

"Uh-huh." Samuels nodded carefully. "Apparently Blair smacked some guy over the head and the guy didn't have his safety on. Sprayed a couple of rounds into the ceiling as he dropped but he didn't hit anyone. How the hell did you know that?"

"Not dead?" Jim licked his lips and realised his throat was aching from his earlier anguished screams. He looked unseeingly at Joel and mulled over the concept of Blair being still alive and not dead as previously thought. There was obviously only one thing to do. "Somebody get me out of these cuffs and then find me my gun." Jim struggled to his feet and headed for the door. "If anyone needs me, I'm going to be down in Evidence shooting my partner." It was a testament to how reasonable he sounded that it took any of his colleagues a full thirty seconds to react and move en masse to follow him and prevent the murder of one Blair Sandburg at the hands of his loving partner.

"So, you three are SWAT, right?" 'Mr Burns' lay next to his unconscious accomplice on the floor, hands firmly cuffed behind his back, and watched as Blair, Rhonda and Claire carefully loaded the bags of stolen Golden back into the evidence safe. "Definitely SWAT, maybe some Special Forces training?"

Blair closed the door to the safe and spun the lock with a deep sigh of satisfaction then he turned and looked down at the bound man on the floor with confused eyes. "Excuse me?"

"SWAT. You three." 'Burns' eyed the younger man suspiciously as he suddenly flushed a deep red and his two female companions turned away to hide their giggles. "Has to be some military background too."

"Um." Blair shifted from foot to foot nervously and actually found a little pity inside himself for the rousted criminal and the highly unwelcome information he was about to receive. "Not exactly. I'm a civilian consultant with Major Crimes. Sorry."

Rhonda choked back a belly laugh at the look on the man's face and waved cheerfully to attract his attention. "Secretary."

Claire looked into the stricken, pleading eyes suddenly raised to her and smiled her first real smile since the whole mess had begun. "Me?" She bounced happily on her toes as Blair and Rhonda, behind her, laughed with relief and triumph that they had all survived. "I'm just the Donut Girl."

"Hey, Sandburg, just had a call." Ricardo poked her head into the small room and blinked in bemusement as she took in the three spluttering civilians and one horrified looking criminal lying on the floor. "Ellison's looking for you, you might want to get your ass upstairs. I think someone's told him what you've been up to."

"Right, right." Blair wiped away his tears of mirth and began to herd Rhonda and Claire ahead of him, eager to get to his Sentinel and see for himself that he was okay, and selflessly disregarding the BP lecture he knew was coming. "C'mon, guys. You gonna be okay down here on your own, Cath?"

Ricardo nodded and patted her recovered sidearm. "Yup, thanks for the help. Just get some uniforms down here as soon as you can, okay?"

Blair waved a hand in acknowledgment as he headed for the stairs and then broke into laughter once again when an outraged bawl followed in his wake. "A fucking DONUT girl?"

Happily chortling between themselves, Blair, Rhonda and Claire jogged back up the stairwell and out onto the floor where the holding cells were, much lighter in spirit and grinning wildly as they waved and nodded to their colleagues hustling captured gunmen into cells and up to booking. Blair had one thing and one thing only one his mind. //Find Jim. Find Jim. Find Jim.// He ducked a friendly slap to the head by Sergeant Samuels and turned the corner to where the concentration of cops and perps was densest. //Find Jim. Find Jim, Fi...//

"CHIEF!" Blair and Rhonda froze as they heard the bellow of what sounded like a wounded bull and Claire bumped into them. "SANDBURG! Goddamn, it has anyone seen my fucking partner? SANDBURG!"

"RHONDA!" Simon's voice rivalled Jim's in sheer volume and pissyness. "If anyone sees my goddamn assistant, grab her and slap a pair of cuffs on the goddamned woman."

Blair and Rhonda exchanged a look of perfect understanding and executed a swift one-eighty degree turn to grab the surprised Claire under her arms and beat a hasty retreat back the way they had come. "SANDBURG!" Blair picked up his pace as Jim's angry shout echoed down the corridor behind him and his internal mantra changed direction as smoothly as the rest of him. //Avoid Jim. Avoid Jim. Avoid Jim.//

Claire looked desperately confused as they burst through the door to the stairs and started to climb. "What's going on? Why are we running away from Captain Banks?"

"Trust me, we so do not want to be anywhere Simon or Jim are at the moment." Blair forced his legs to move faster as they hurtled up the stairs and darted quick look at Rhonda's grim face. "They need to take a few moments to regroup; they've had a very trying time."

Rhonda panted slightly as she climbed, but still forced her tired legs to move. "Uh-huh. Let's grab a cup of coffee and lay low for a few minutes." She yelped as the door to the Communications floor opened and LaCosta poked his grizzled head into the stairwell, grinning as he caught sight of the three fugitives.

"Just the people I was looking for." He placed himself deliberately in their way and raised the radio he was holding with an evil grin. "Captain Banks, it's LaCosta. You were right, they were heading for the Comms floor. I'll hold them till you get here, sir."

Blair winced as Simon's very annoyed voice came over the radio. "I'll be up in a few. Don't let them get away and if Sandburg tries anything, sit on him! Over and out."

Rhonda's shoulders drooped as LaCosta crooked a finger and motioned for them to follow him through the door. "Damn it."

Blair nodded in mournful agreement. "Loud and angry will be our world." He looked up at LaCosta and scowled bitterly at the look of glee on the cop's face. "To protect and serve, my ass!"

Blair, Rhonda and Clair managed to lay low for another ten minutes. Then Simon Banks had stormed through the door to the Comms room, glaring around until he spotted Blair stealthily trying to move himself and his two companions out of sight. "SANDBURG, RHONDA..." Simon paused for a moment as he realised he didn't have a third name to bellow and rallied magnificently. "DONUT GIRL! MY OFFICE. NOW!"

"Uh-oh," Blair sighed. He would have liked another hour or so to let Simon and Jim calm down before the inevitable confrontation, but a quick glance at Simon's twitching face convinced him that it was possible he was in more danger from his boss than the would-be thieves. He squeezed Claire's hand reassuringly and then shamelessly used Rhonda to shield him from Simon's wrath as they reluctantly made their way to his side. "Hi, Simon."

Simon ground his teeth and pointed over his shoulder to the elevator. "Get. In." As the jelly-smeared women and Blair obediently huddled together in a corner of the elevator, he eyed them sternly and stabbed viciously at the button to take them up to Major Crimes. He stood and watched Blair and his companions stare at him and the fierce tick in his jaw until the elevator pinged and let them out by Major Crimes, then pointed silently towards his office with another furious glare.

Rhonda swept passed him with her nose in the air, Claire huddled close to her side, and Blair sidled out after them, cautiously checking the corridor for a rampaging Blessed Protector looking for his renegade Blessed Protectee. Simon ground his teeth as he followed them through the empty bullpen and into his office and then took great satisfaction in slamming his door hard enough to make the windows rattle and the three heroes jump a foot in the air. "WOULD SOMEONE LIKE TO TELL ME WHAT THE HELL YOU PEOPLE THOUGHT YOU WERE DOING?"

Blair sighed unhappily; it was obviously going to be one of those debriefings. "Simon, what did you expect us to do? We couldn't just sit there and..." Blair became aware he was almost dangling off the floor as Simon took his shoulders and yanked him up onto his toes. "Uh, Simon? You okay, man?"

"Am I okay? Am I OKAY?" Simon shook Blair until his teeth rattled. "Do I look okay to you, Sandburg? I've been sitting on my ass in a holding cell for the last two hours listening to a gibbering wreck of a Sentinel report on all the ways his Guide and two of my civilian employees are trying to get themselves killed. Does that sound like a fun time to you, Sandburg? I had to practically chain the man to Joel to stop him coming for you himself and ripping you limb from limb! DOES THAT SOUND LIKE A GOOD TIME TO YOU?"

"Well of course not, Simon, but if Jim...if Jim...if..." Blair's eyes went impossibly wide as his face paled and he darted an anguished look at the two puzzled women. "Simon, you said...you said...Jim..."

"Has been outed." Simon dropped Blair back on the ground and poked him hard in the chest to send him reeling back into a chair. "In every sense of the word, if I'm any judge. Everyone in Major Crimes knows, including half of Vice that were in the cell with us." Simon stopped looking angry and started to look alarmed as Blair's breath began to hitch. "Sandburg, it's okay, just calm down." This did not appear to help matters, and Blair began to actively gasp for air. "Sandburg, I am ORDERING you to calm down!" Simon made a lightening decision and demonstrated why he earned the big bucks as Captain of Major Crimes. "Okay, Rhonda, I'm ordering you to calm him down."

Rhonda stared from the hyperventilating Blair to the now distinctly worried Simon and shook her head. "Simon, I have no clue what's going on here. What did you do to him?" She took two steps towards Blair and then yelped as the office door crashed open and Jim burst into the room.

"Chief!" Jim shouldered Simon out of the way and grabbed hold of his panic-stricken partner, all thoughts of dismemberment forgotten in light of Blair's obvious distress. "Its okay, pull it together, buddy." Blair clutched at Jim's wrists and fought for air. "It's ok,ay buddy, it's okay. Just do some of those breathing things you do and you'll be fine. It's okay." Jim looked up as Rafe, Brown, Connor and Joel barrelled through the door after him, and then looked back down at Blair. "It's okay, they know everything. It doesn't matter, they don't care."

Joel braced his hands on his hips and wheezed slightly as he looked at Simon. "We were downstairs helping book the perps in when Supercop suddenly took off yelling Blair's name." He wheezed again as he took in Blair's distraught face. "Hell, Simon, what did you do to him?" Simon scowled and opened his mouth, but Blair managed to beat him to the punch.

"You...told them?" The panic started to recede as white-hot anger made a guest appearance inside Blair's horrified mind instead. "Are you CRAZY?!" He shook Jim's hands off him and jumped to his feet. "What the hell were you thinking, Ellison?"

Jim gaped up at him for a second from his crouch on the floor and then flowed upright to tower angrily over his shorter partner. "What the hell was I thinking?" Jim planted both hands on Blair's shoulders and shoved him back a few inches. "What the hell were YOU thinking? You were fucking tackling armed suspects with jelly and the fucking donut girl! What the hell else was I supposed to do?"

"Well, duh! Maybe you could have gone against all your instincts for once and trusted that I actually knew what I was doing!" Blair shoved back considerably harder, not the least bit intimidated by the patented Ellison loom. "I'm not a damn kid and I did the same thing anyone else would have done to get my friends out of danger." Blair shoved Jim again. "You jerk!"

Claire looked at Rhonda as the two men began to try and yell over what the other was saying. "I thought they were friends? Why are they so angry with each other?" She stared around at the roomful of grinning detectives, all watching Ellison and Sandburg like they were witnessing something wonderful and sacred instead of two grown men swearing, spitting and screaming at each other.

"Like I said, it's a little more than that, sweetie." Rhonda was desperately curious to find out what Jim had let slip down in the cells that had Blair so frightened and angry, but she was also intelligent enough to recognise a heaven-sent diversion when she saw one, and figured she could find out from Megan or Brown in the morning. "Come on, while they're all watching the show." She took Claire's arm in a gentle hold and steered her stealthily around the oblivious detectives and out into the bullpen. "We can go over everything with Simon in the morning when he's calmed down a little bit. I'll drive you home." She grinned over her shoulder towards Simon's office one last time as the elevator doors closed and then looked at Claire's exhausted face. "I'll fill you in some more on the Ellison/Sandburg phenomenon in the car."

"You MORON!" Beside himself with anger, Blair was practically dancing on the spot with rage. "For God's sake, Jim, you know how to do this shit so no one finds out by now!" He slapped an impatient hand on his Sentinel's chest. "What's next, we take out a full-page ad in the Cascade Times?"

"What the hell are you so pissed about? It's not like I told them about the Shaman thing!" Jim slapped Blair back. "And I wouldn't have let anything slip if you'd have been with me where you were supposed to!"

Without taking his fascinated eyes off the floorshow, Joel nudged Simon in the ribs. "Jim's a Shaman as well?"

Megan perched on the end of Simon's desk and crossed her ankles elegantly before her. "No, Sandy's the Shaman, Jim's just the muscle. Kind of a brains and brawn relationship."

Rafe peered around Brown and looked at Megan curiously. "What's a Shaman?" His eyes darted back to Jim and Blair, anxious not to miss any of the action. "And how come you know about this stuff anyway?"

"Hmm? Oh, Alex Barnes was a Sentinel too. I found out in Sierra Verde." Megan winced as Blair began to pull on his hair in frustration at Jim's attitude. "That's got to hurt."

"For god's sake, Jim, why not give out all our secrets!" Blair missed the suddenly breathless silence as his gathered friends waited for confirmation that the long running are they/aren't they office pool was officially over. "Oh wait. YOU HAVE!" Gusty sighs of disappointment blew through the office. "I can't believe you've done this to yourself."

"Us, Chief, I did this to us!" Completely incensed, Jim's muscles were quivering with tension and he was barely restraining the earlier urge to strangle his beloved Guide. "We're in this together, remember?"

"Like I could forget." Blair's anger left him abruptly and his shoulders sagged. "Christ, Jim, how am I meant to fix this? I don't know what to do." The strain of the last few hours caught up with him and he swayed as he gripped Jim's arm urgently. "I don't know how to protect you now everyone knows."

Jim softened as he looked down at Blair's imploring face and he tugged his arm free to slip it around Blair's neck and pull him in for a hard hug. "Shit, Blair, I don't care about that. I was going out of my mind worrying about you." His Sentinel hearing missed the chorus of 'Awws' and Megan stifling a sniffle. "As long as you're okay, buddy, that's all that matters."

"Yeah, you too." Blair returned the hug and then tilted his head back to stare searchingly into Jim's smiling eyes. "You are okay, right? No zone outs or anything?"

Jim choked on a laugh. "Nope. Nearly stroked out a couple of times, but no zones." He let his arm slide free of Blair's shoulders, giving the back of his Guide's neck an affectionate squeeze before he released him. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah." Blair patted Jim's waist as he stepped away and flashed a rueful smile. "Got a whole new appreciation for what you go through every time I don't stay in the truck, but I'm okay." He started as he belatedly remembered that he and Jim weren't alone and frowned as a quintet of the sappiest grins it had ever been his misfortune to see beamed at him. "Uh, hi guys."

Jim frowned in confusion and then looked mortified that he had likewise forgotten their audience. Some Sentinel he'd turned out to be. "Oh. Sorry about that, Captain."

Simon waved a dismissive hand through the air. "Not at all, detective." His eyes flashed evilly behind his glasses. "Anything else I can assist you with? You already seem to have taken over my office, perhaps I can interest you in a pseudo post-coital cigar?" His grin widened as both men choked and began to splutter indignantly. "Maybe you'd like the use of my couch to get your breath back before going on to the second round?" Not-so-muffled sniggers from Joel, Megan, Rafe and Brown had both Blair and Jim flushing brilliant shades of scarlet. "I'm completely at your disposal, gentlemen, don't even give a thought to the cleanup needed to restore the station to rights after our latest disaster."

Sentinel and Guide both cringed at the cut glass tone of the last comment and exchanged wary, embarrassed looks as they stepped away from each other. "Sorry, sir. I'll start taking down Sandburg's statement."

Henri snorted and muttered sotto voice to Rafe. "By 'statement' he means 'pants'." His eyes widened as Jim glared at him and then he was hurriedly backing out of the office. "Damn, this Superman thing is gonna take some getting used to, babe."

Blair watched in confusion as Jim bristled at Henri's hasty retreat and absently put a hand on his Sentinel's arm as he glanced around. "Hey, where'd Rhonda and Claire go?"

"Goddammit!" Simon belatedly realised that Jim wasn't the only one not paying attention to his surroundings. "Where the hell is that woman?"

"Probably skipped out when Jimbo and Sandy were busy sparking up the room, sir." Megan came to the conclusion that the entertainment was over for the day, and reluctantly stood up. "I'll go see if she's still in the station. If not I'll drive over to her house and take her statement. See you." She waved cheerily at Jim and Blair and left the office with a big grin on her face.

"I'll, er..." Rafe pointed vaguely after his partner. "I'll...just..." He backed out the door. "Bye."

Joel was already in motion. "Going down to bookings, Simon. Later, guys." Simon watched his friend go with a dark look at Joel's unrepentant face and then turned back to Blair and Jim with a depressed sigh.

"Go. Do whatever it is you do that will make this look normal on the reports for the Commissioner." He pointed a finger at Blair as the observer looked relieved and slunk past him. "Don't think this is over, Sandburg. First thing tomorrow I want you, Rhonda and Donut Girl in my office, no excuses." Simon watched Blair scuttle out to the safety of the bullpen and then stared at the sheepish Jim. "I honestly don't know what's worse. You two together and taking on the bad guys, or you two apart going through bad guys to get to each other. Ah!" Simon held up a hand as Jim tried to speak. "Out. Statement. Book bad guys. Home."

Jim glowered at his captain, nodded and went after Blair. "Yes, sir."

Simon watched as Jim joined Blair at their desk and both men settled down to start on Blair's report. "Why did that 'Yes, sir' sound so much like 'Screw you, Simon'?" He slammed his office door shut for what he hoped would be the last time that day, and then moved to his desk to retrieve the bottle of scotch he had stashed there for the days when Ellison and Sandburg were just too much to handle without a cushion of alcohol between himself and the rest of the world.

Which, out of the rough estimate of nine hundred and ninety five days since Blair had first burst into their particular closed society, was approximately the last nine hundred and eighty six. Simon eyed the two fingers of whisky he had poured out; glanced out to the bullpen where Jim and Blair were huddled together and then topped his tumbler up to the brim. He was definitely going to need a bigger bottle.

Jim watched as his erstwhile partner signed his name with a flourish to the foot of the typically detailed report of his latest adventure and leaned back in his chair with a grin and huge yawn. "Done. Are you about ready to grab something to eat, man? I am hungry like a bear, buddy."

Jim opened his mouth to agree that he was indeed hungry and then found himself trying to stare in cross-eyed amazement at his own lips when something completely different emerged. "You scared the crap out of me today, Chief."

Blair blinked and instantly looked wary, tensed to flee at the first sign of one of Jim's trademark Blessed Protector lectures. "Yeah, well I wasn't exactly singing the hallelujah chorus either, Jim." He flashed a wide smile and shrugged disarmingly. "But you know, all's well that ends well. I could really go for Thai, you up for that?"

Jim's brain was sending frantic messages to his lips to shut up and seal themselves together tightly, possibly permanently, but unfortunately the lips had got together with his heart, and other important body parts, and had staged a bloodless coup in the hopes of becoming attached to Blair at some point in the near future. "No, I mean you really scared me. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you, Chief."

This time Jim wasn't the only one to be looking in disbelief at his mouth; Blair's eyes were bulging in his head as he stared at his friend. "Okay. I mean...y'know, me too, man, me too." He coughed nervously and his feet started to tap in agitation on the floor. "I was going nuts thinking you'd do something stupid to try to help everybody and I wouldn't be there to watch your back."

Jim registered the brief scream of protest in his head as his brain railed at the injustice of Blair overlooking his own actions that day, but his heart hurriedly cut in again and kicked his lips into gear. "The only person that I was focusing on today was you, Chief." His heart apparently decided the lips alone just weren't cutting it and Jim found himself watching his hand reach between them and link his fingers together with Blair's. He glared as his traitorous fingers wriggled happily against Blair's damp palm and then looked up into Blair's startled and confused face. "I heard what you said to Rhonda."

Blair's face went from confused, to blank and then to horrified understanding in under three seconds. "Oh God, look, Jim..."

"And the thing is...The thing..." Jim's heart started to pound with the added pressure of trying to help two deeply scared and blinkered men override their automatic defences, but it never doubted it was up to the job. If it could manage to pump blood through the system of a man who believed no day was complete without a rousing mile-long chase on foot and a brisk fistfight with an angry criminal to finish, then it was certainly up to the task of forcing one pair of lips to say five little words. "Chief...too...love...I...you." Or maybe not.

Blair, a man who was not an over-achieving graduate student for nothing, frowned and took apart the garbled words to reconstruct it into something approaching a recognisable sentence. "Oh." He ran the words through his mind one more time just to make sure he hadn't misinterpreted them and then a slow, joyful smile spread across his face. "Oh."

Jim, and his heart, sighed with relief. Thank God Blair was on the ball. So to speak. Jim's brain helpfully decided this was the moment to swing back into action and struck a deal with Jim's crotch to supply some x-rated pictures of Blair and balls that all interested parts of Jim could enjoy. A lot.

Blair looked down at their linked hands, then at Simon's office where their Captain sat still glowering at them through the glass and leaned forward to lower his voice to Sentinel level. "You want to get out of here, Jim? I love you, man, and I'm thinking we need to be elsewhere for this conversation to continue." He waggled his eyebrows as his fingers slipped in and out with lusty suggestion between his Sentinel's. "We definitely need to be somewhere with fewer cops and more soft, flat surfaces, y'know?"

"Oh yeah." Jim gave thanks that he was in slacks rather than his considerably tighter jeans, and stood to tug Blair up and into his body for a brief, very happy, moment. He reluctantly released Blair's hand, stepping away to grab his jacket and fold it casually in front of his groin to hide the joy with which his body was celebrating his getting with the programme at long last. "Home?"

Blair grinned. "Home." His eyes lingered over Jim and the grin widened into one of pure lust as he remembered their argument they'd had as they reached the PD that morning. "Let's forget about the grocery shopping and get take-out, okay?"

Jim leered back. "For as long as you want, buddy, as long as you want." He placed his hand on the small of Blair's back and guided him towards the elevator. "I was thinking forever."

Blair sighed happily and bounced inside as soon as the doors opened. "Works for me, Jim, works for me."

End Saving The Day by Karen: karen@klewis91.fsnet.co.uk

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