Chapter Text
Noel
by Romanse
Part One
Under the stars and shadows
I give to thee a gift
most excellent and fair.
And yet a dim reflection of
the Gift once bestowed with loving care.
Joyeux Noel
~S. Roman
For the tenth time that day since they had been propped next to the front door by their owner, Jim Ellison eyed with a mixture of resignation and amusement, the care-worn duffel bag that had long since past its better days, and the familiar sturdy backpack that Blair Sandburg carried nearly everywhere. Jim had hardly said a word all day; there was little need to as his roommate merrily chattered away nonstop about his upcoming two-week visit with his mother, all the while darting in and out of his little room under the stairs, alternating packing with cooking and cleaning chores. Blair was on cloud nine, and Jim didn't need his sentinel vision to see that.
Sandburg gave a quick stir to the pasta sauce he had simmering on the stove. "..... and pow wows are not just an important contemporary expression of American Indian heritage, you know, Jim...." Blair's words trailed behind him in an endless flow as he abandoned the sauce to bop back into his room to get yet one more item of clothing to pack into the burgeoning bag.
Jim sniffed the air. "Sandburg," he called, still watching Blair from his vantage point on the couch.
"... the key is not letting those reports pile up..." Sandburg moved from his room into the bathroom and began clearing his hair from the shower stopper before picking up his damp towels from the floor.
"Sandburg," Jim tried again.
"...check out the sound system on the Expedition? I can't wait to break open my new Angie Ferris cd..."
"Sandburg!"
Jim's raised voice startled Blair into halting in his verbal and physical tracks. He turned wide blue eyes on his friend, all the while looking like a little boy with his hand caught in the cookie jar. "Did you want something, Jim?"
Jim smirked in amusement, "Your sauce is about to burn if you don't turn the stove off."
"Really?" Blair too sniffed the air. "Wow, I don't smell a thing man. Thanks." Blair hurried to turn the stove off.
The sauce was saved, Blair's clothes were packed, and his cleaning chores completed. There was nothing left for him to do then but say
his
good-byes and get on the road. He grabbed his coat and hat from their hooks near the front door and began putting them on.
Sandburg turned and found that Jim was no longer sitting on the couch. The Sentinel had silently gotten up and was now standing right in front of him. Blair jumped in surprise and an awkward silence descended as for the first time in so many hours, Blair's seemingly endless flow of words dried up. Suddenly, it occurred to the young man that he'd had enough experience saying good-bye to raise it to an art form. "Detach with love" had always been Naomi's well-lived philosophy, and one that Blair himself had been forced to adopt out of necessity.
It made no difference to Blair now that he was only leaving for two weeks, not forever. However, this "goodbye for now" seemed harder to say than any "goodbye forever" he'd ever said. There was a fleeting look in Jim's eyes that Blair caught a glimpse of before it disappeared, that stopped him dead in his tracks. It was the look of some dark and unexpressed emotion, and the young man was baffled, unable to decipher it's meaning. Suddenly, the clue bus came to a halt in front of Blair. //He's afraid I'm leaving and not coming back. Why?//
The young anthropology grad student leaned up against the door with his hands in his jean pockets and casually inquired, "So Jim, ah - you know I'm coming back, right, man?"
"Of course I know that Darwin, why wouldn't you?" Jim clapped Blair on the shoulder and looked him straight in his eyes. There was no remaining trace of whatever Blair had glimpsed in Jim's eyes a moment ago. Only warmth and caring emanated from his Sentinel's eyes now. It warmed Blair's soul in a way that he had scarcely ever felt while growing up in a nomadic lifestyle that had left little room for forming long-term attachments.
Now it was his turn to play, "hide the emotions." Blair shrugged noncommittally, grabbed his duffel bag and slung it up and over his shoulder. Then he picked up his trusty backpack and waited expectantly, like a child awaiting instructions from a parent.
"Drive carefully Chief," was all the sage advice the detective imparted. He smiled, but his ice-blue eyes were serious.
"I will. Take care of yourself, Jim. I'll be back on Christmas Eve." The softly made promise was received by the Sentinel. Then Blair turned and walked out the door and was gone.
The Previous Week
For the first time since Detective Jim Ellison occupied apartment number 307 at 852 Prospect, festive signs of the holiday season adorned the interior. Even when Jim had been married briefly to Carolyn, the couple had not seen fit to decorate their dwelling. This year, the iron railing running alongside the loft bedroom was festooned with an artificial garland made from what passed as a decent representation of fresh-cut pines An equally artificial, but life-like Christmas tree decked out with white lights and colorful Victorian-style decorations stood in one corner of the open living room. A small Menorah had been lovingly placed on the dining room table. Ornamental objects they were, yet the decorations all served as outward signs that an extraordinary change had taken place in the inner heart of one Sentinel.
There were of course still those among Jim's colleagues in the Major Crime Unit who would insist first on seeing the apartment before believing that Detective Ellison had actually permitted, if not actually hung decorations himself. But those who knew him best had no doubt that Jim's roommate, a young man whom the detective had embraced as a brother, had fundamentally changed the ex-Army Ranger, turned cop, and that such a transformation in Jim's home was entirely possible. Up until Sandburg's advent into Jim's life as a civilian police observer and unofficial partner, he'd been a man who had habitually ignored the holidays, shunned the extended hands of friendship, and been perpetually uptight and focused only on getting the job done.
The young, long-haired doctoral student was about as far from anyone's idea of what a best friend for the detective would act and look like, but anyone who spent any time with the two of them quickly realized that Sandburg walked in confidence where other mortals feared to tread. The man Ellison's associates knew now was approachable, warmer - more human and less like the cold hard ass he'd been for so long.
Those years when Jim volunteered to work extra shifts because the holidays were like any other lousy day filled with crime, were over. Other officers had either wives, or husbands, and or kids to spend the holidays with. Back then, Ellison was newly divorced and had no kids. Consequently, he saw no reason why those who had families should be unhappy at having to work on Christmas when he had no one and preferred to work alone anyway.
All that was in the past. Pigs really did fly, and the devil needed a blanket. Jim Ellison had Blair Sandburg now; his free-spirited friend, his guide and younger brother in heart. The changes wrought in Jim Ellison's life by his association with Sandburg had taken place gradually, but steadily. The big detective had at first been somewhat disconcerted to feel bits and pieces of his emotional fortress crumbling in the face of Hurricane Sandburg, but that was then, and this was now. However reluctant Jim had been to embrace some of the changes in his life, celebrating the holidays for the first time as an adult was a change he had been looking forward to - far more than the usually perceptive Sandburg even realized.
Jim's low-key attitude towards having mutually agreed with Sandburg on a plan to celebrate the holidays together, especially Christmas Eve and Day, was a finely tuned facade. Jim had carefully hidden the deep personal importance of having Blair there in their home to share in the traditions of Christmas. Jim was a man whose deeply felt, and long suppressed need to have someone in his life to care and be cared for had been awakened by Sandburg's presence in his life. Even the shadows of his soul still remembered what it was like to share joy and love during the holidays. The holidays of long ago were times for family gatherings, giving and receiving gifts, singing, and eating one's fill of special foods. The Sentinel had once done those things - when his mother had been in the Ellison home, making it an intact family. But then Mrs. Ellison ran away one day and never returned or contacted her family again.
Grace Ellison's family desertion had left the father bitter and the two young Ellison brothers bereft of their mother's tenderness. The holidays were henceforth stripped of any real joy and meaning for the boy who grew into the repressed, intensely focused man that he had been for so long. Even then, every fiber in Jim's being longed to simply stop being that lonely outsider looking in. He didn't know it then, but the day Sandburg moved into the loft, Jim had taken a giant step towards that goal. Because of Sandburg, the building where Jim lived was no longer just an apartment, it was a home. Consequently, Jim looked forward to spending Christmas with his Guide with an inner intense zeal that only the similarly deprived could appreciate. On top of Christmas, Jim was also looking forward to participating in the observance of the Jewish holiday, Hanukkah, in honor of his young roommate's Jewish heritage.
The week before it had suddenly appeared that all of the carefully laid plans he and Sandburg had made, the secret desires Jim harbored in his heart for a normal holiday experience, were about to be dashed to pieces - all because of an out-of-the-blue phone call from Blair's mother, Naomi. In an instant, Jim had become a very unhappy man. Naomi had announced that she was flying in from India for a two week visit in the States. With all her unique brand of beguiling enthusiasm, she had invited her only child to come and join her at a holiday retreat being held at the Mission Mountain Resort, in Polson, Montana, before taking off again to parts unknown, for an unknown length of time.
Blair had been torn over the idea of leaving Jim and his first real home so suddenly, but there was no real question that he would go to Montana to visit Naomi. After all, the young anthropologist had not seen Naomi in close to two years - the longest he'd ever gone without a visit. In his mind, the only problem had been how to convince Jim that he would still be there to celebrate the holidays with him, despite the fact that he would be gone for two weeks right up until Christmas Eve.
Blair realized Jim still didn't feel entirely comfortable handling his sentinel abilities on his own, and that Jim still had not let down his walls enough to admit it to himself, much less Blair. He knew also that Jim was looking forward to the upcoming holidays; after all, they had together made plans and gone out to buy decorations for the Loft. But despite Jim's apparent willingness to observe the holidays with Sandburg, he had not seen fit to share with the younger man the deeper significance of having his friend there to celebrate with him. Sandburg then had no idea of the true degree his friend was looking forward to, and the significance of, spending the holidays with him Consequently, Jim's young guide was oblivious to the hurt feelings and irrational fears of abandonment that his decision to go had stirred up in Jim.
When Blair had excitedly broken the news to Jim, Ellison's face had maintained the smile, even as it disconnected from his eyes. A dull ache mixed with the sour wine of old, bitter memories drew down like a curtain over his soul. His ears heard "two weeks", but his heart registered "I'm bailing out on you." His reaction had been a typical reflection of old, in-grained habits. Initially, he was angry, but his pride and self-control would not permit him to reveal his wounded heart to Sandburg. Days later, Jim was very glad of that. He came to realize that his fear and anger were irrational; that Sandburg wasn't gleefully abandoning him in favor of a better offer. Sandburg had broken neither their plans, nor his word. They would still celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah together. If his unofficial partner had promised to be home by Christmas Eve, then he would be there.
Having settled the matter in his heart to his satisfaction, the Sentinel did what he did best: he moved into Blessed Protector mode and proceeded to make arrangements for his Guide to have a rented SUV, a black Ford Expedition with four wheel drive and studded tires, to take on his trip through the mountains in winter. Sandburg had at first protested; he didn't have the extra money to spend on a rental vehicle. His sporty baby blue Corvair would have to do for a trek though the mountains. Jim wouldn't hear of it though. He wore down Sandburg's defenses until they reached a compromise wherein Blair set up a time table to pay Jim back. Once the matter of securing safe transportation for his friend had been settled, Jim, with Blair, brought out their collection of road maps and together they devised a travel plan that would keep the younger man on the larger, four-lane interstate for as long as possible; the theory being that it would be safer for him - and Blair would be safe if Jim had anything to say about it.
Present Day
//In another realm, Fate watched as plans were made, bags packed, and two men, one Guide to one Sentinel, said good-bye to each other. Fate, in accordance with her capricious nature, took no notice of the holiday season of peace and goodwill towards men as she tossed the dice in the air. The dice landed and as she looked, her lips curved ever so slightly upwards.//
end part 1
Feedback very much appreciated