Work Text:
Second chances do not come cheap
by Kata Avalon
kata_avalon@yahoo.co.uk
It was a downward slide from the beginning, no chance for a change of direction. Wasn’t that how it always went with him? Full speed ahead, and watch for that brick wall. He had to admit it was all his own fault this time; he had failed in his most sacred duty, he had let down his sentinel. A guide protects and cares for his sentinel, he does not even glance at other sentinels and he certainly does not throw away his one and only for the second best. Jim had been his true sentinel, he could see that now. Why the fuck hadn’t he seen it before? Simple - he was too stubborn, too hung up on his so-called freedom to believe in something so old-fashioned as ‘till death do us part’.
Blair sighed. Acknowledging his sentinel would not have taken anything away from him, and he would have gained a lot. He would have finally found his own place in the world, his purpose. Isn’t that what he had always wanted? To be needed, to find his own task in this life? To be unique to someone or something?
He glanced out the window, at the cloudbanks rushing leisurely under the plane. Megan was snoring beside him in a truly unladylike manner. Blair was too wired: hell, too depressed to sleep away the hours. Just why *was* he here in this flying tin can? Why go after the sentinel he had cast aside so carelessly? Was there still a part of him that hoped that Jim would give him another chance? That the fates still believed in him?
Blair leaned back in his seat. He shut his eyes and tried to meditate. Somehow even that routine escaped him. His aura, spirit, whatever you wanted to call it, was all out of shape, bent at an unnatural angle. None of this was supposed to have happened. One guide, one sentinel: that was the golden rule, the one law no guide or sentinel was ever allowed to break. Blair shivered as he remembered the cold shoulder he had received from his spirit guide, and the snarl from Jim’s panther. They had appeared in his dreams just long enough to make their disapproval known. Blair had not even made it to the dreamplane since then, the gates were barred against him, the vile offender.
Jim had acknowledged and accepted the rule, maybe it was hardwired into sentinels or maybe it was just Jim. The sentinel hadn’t dated in a long time and not once had he flirted with a potential guide. Some had asked him out, but Jim had refused them all. Rafe came first to mind, and Gaines from Homicide. Would Jim take them up on the offer when he came back from Sierra Verde? If he ever came back.
Blair sighed. Back at the hospital, Jim had refused to bond with him, with an unfaithful guide. Why would he agree to do so now? Jim as a person could be unforgiving, let alone as a sentinel.
Blair opened his eyes and looked at the back of the seat before him. It was up to Jim now. The sentinel forgave the guide, Blair forgave Jim for not talking with him, and they tried again. Or not. It all depended on what would or would not happen when they met again.
He had been given a second chance at the fountain, Blair doubted he would be given a third chance in this life, but he would play with the hand he had been dealt. If anything, he was adaptable. He would go on, even with a part of his soul missing. //You never truly appreciate what you have, until you lose it.//
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