SquidgeWorld Archive

Why 2: Because
by Kerensa

Jim rose from the couch where he had fallen to when Blair stopped talking. He pulled himself up and staggered over to stand in front of the French doors that guarded Blair's room.

"Blair."

The name was spoken like a caress. Blair's voice, his very presence, had caressed and soothed Jim on more occasions than he wanted to admit to himself. He had never told Blair how much his voice calmed the pain of being a Sentinel.

This time there was no comfort to be found. Jim knew he had hurt Blair, his best friend, his Guide, the other half of his soul.

Jim bowed his head and leaned against the glass in the door. He could hear rustling inside and that frightened him.

Was Blair leaving him? Had he finally had enough? Was Jim's attitude the final straw? The final, last, rusty nail in the coffin of their relationship.

Jim ran a hand over the doorframe in a caress.

The jaguar could hear his wolf crying softly and roared in anger. The Sentinel could almost taste his Guide's despair and began to collapse from the weight of it. Jim could smell Blair's tears and felt his heart scream in pain.

"Blair."

Jim spoke louder this time. He could hear the bed springs squeak as Blair jumped in surprise. All movement stopped in the tiny room. Jim waited with a clenched heart for Blair to answer back.

"Chief...please."

At first Jim thought Blair wasn't going to let him in, wasn't going to let him explain what he didn't understand himself.

"Come in."

Blair's voice was Sentinel soft. Jim wasted no time, afraid that Blair would change his mind.

Jim's friend sat on the side of his bed. No bags were packed. No obvious signs of leaving were evident. In fact, nothing was out of place at all. Blair's room was neat and tidy...and not Blair.

There weren't any books or papers lying on every available, and some not so available, surface. Jim's breath caught in his throat when he saw a stack of cardboard boxes shoved into one corner. Ellison knew what was in them; he ought to since he packed them months ago.

'Blair never unpacked after Sierra Verde.'

Jim threw a quick, upset look over his shoulder and confirmed his fears; there was no tribal mask in the living room. Swallowing back the despair, his gaze tracked across the loft, noticing the lack of Blair in it.

The Sentinel, who could see a flower blooming across the park hadn't noticed the emptiness of their home. Jim was afraid that it was too late to notice it now.

Ellison crossed to Blair and stood there a moment, unsure how to begin. He ran his hand across his short hair in frustration. Talking things out was Blair's expertise.

'Only, we don't talk, not anymore. We haven't talked for months.'

Blair sat on the bed, fingering his journal. The younger man didn't look up. Blair didn't want to watch Jim's face as he tossed him out of the loft again. He didn't think his heart could take any more pain before he exploded into unrecognizable pieces.

"The loft became a home."

Blair looked up at the abrupt sentence. "What?"

"When you moved in, the loft went from some place I existed in, to being a home. The first real home I've ever had."

Jim was saddened to see the disbelief on Blair's tired face. He acknowledged that Blair had a right to doubt him. Jim hadn't exactly treated his best friend decently in the last several months.

Thinking hard, Jim realized that he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Blair laugh. Or the last time Jim had thanked him for all that he did, at the station and with his senses.

"I've lived a lot of places, with a lot of different people. Dad, the Army...Peru..." Jim trailed off uncertainly. "...but I've never felt..."

Jim struggled with what he wanted to say. It had never been more important than now. Now that Blair was looking up at him with those wide blue eyes. Eyes that once held trust and wonder. Eyes that were now full of hurt and suspicion.

"...I've never felt whole before you."

Blair blinked in surprise. His left hand kept nervously playing with the frayed corner of his journal. He wasn't sure if he could trust this, trust a Jim that was baring his soul.

"That scared the crap out of me. Dad was like some controlling warlord and Steven was just somebody to compete with. Even Carolyn didn't touch me like you do."

Blair took a hitching breath and felt his eyes prickling with unshed tears. The young man pinched his leg with his free hand. 'I will *not* get emotional. I will *NOT*.'

His inner turmoil was not unnoticed by Jim. The Sentinel dropped to one knee in front of Blair, barely wincing as his still aching leg protested the movement.

Automatically, Blair reached out and placed a hand on Jim's shoulder. He couldn't stop helping Jim any more than he could stop breathing.

"Clayton Falls was a shock. I guess I had grown complacent about your place in my life.

Jim ran a hand over Blair's long curls. He reached out and touched a fingertip to Blair's unadorned ear.

"I miss your earrings."

Jim sounded so wistful that Blair felt a moment of guilt. Only a moments worth, before Jim continued.

He got up from the floor and sat down on the bed beside Blair. "Clayton Falls was badly done all around. I felt like I was being smothered." He took hold of Blair's chin and tilted his face up. "Not by you, even though I thought that my job, the Sentinel thing and yes, even you, were the problem at the time. I was wrong."

"You were burned out." Blair's voice was quiet.

Jim shook his head. "No, I felt like a...pot with a lid on too tight. The pressure kept building."

"That was Alex. The Sentinel in you could feel another Sentinel invading your territory and you...reacted."

Jim looked at the bowed head and watched as Blair hugged himself. The younger man got upset anytime Alex Barnes' name was mentioned. That was one of the reasons he never talked about her...well, that was the reason he admitted to.

"I truly don't know why I read your dissertation. I just had to read what you were saying about me and I...I just don't know."

Blair nodded. "I understand." His hair slid forward and obscured the better part of his face in a curly brown curtain.

Jim took a fortifying breath. If they were going to do this, they needed to do it right. "Why didn't you try harder to tell me about Alex?"

Blair's head snapped up and he searched Jim's face, looking for more accusation. The pale blue eyes looking back at him held no condemnation...this time.

"You didn't want to hear. You haven't wanted to hear anything I've had to say for months now." Sighing, Blair turned away. "I didn't want to lose your friendship." Blair laughed sadly at the irony of that statement.

"I was going to try again, but then there you were meeting me at the door with your gun in my face. It seemed like no matter what I did you were mad at me."

"That night, I thought about it and I realized that I had to protect her privacy, just like I had yours." Blair turned to look at Jim. "I admit it, I wanted more data for my dissertation too. If I had another Sentinel I could actually submit it to the committee."

Jim frowned. "What do you mean, you could actually submit it?"

"I changed my topic after you read the opening chapter." Blair looked away and continued quietly. "I had to. When you read my findings, it corrupted the data. I couldn't do anything with it after that."

Ellison looked away sadly. "All that work, for nothing."

"No, not for nothing. It helped you with your senses, that's what I mainly cared about."

Blair's free hand rubbed back and forth on his bedspread. "I wouldn't have kept on with it anyway, not when I saw how much it upset you."

"But, what about the..."

The younger man interrupted. "So, I changed my topic to the police as a closed society idea." Blair laughed slightly. "I made that lie real, after all these years."

"Chief, what about the press conference?"

Blair swallowed hard as he thought about that humiliating moment. "I wanted to finish my thesis on Sentinels. I'd worked for it all my life, so I at least wanted a copy for myself."

He gritted his teeth in frustration. "I *did* have the file under password protection. I don't know how the hell Naomi opened it."

The young man slumped once more. "Nobody listened to me, they didn't want to hear the truth. So, I lied and got them off your back."

Jim closed his eyes to block out the pain. So much pain could have been avoided if they hadn't stopped talking.

The loft once more descended into silence. Jim knew he couldn't take away the humiliation his friend had gone through.

The silence deepened as both men struggled to find a way to breach it.

Jim thought about Blair's earlier questions and decided to clear the air some more. Maybe then they would be able to breathe. "I couldn't let you die, you are too important..."

"To who?" Blair's brow furrowed as he frowned. "My mother?" He snorted. "Right. Since she dumped me off at college when I was 16, I've seen her *maybe* a dozen times. Blair looked at his muscled and very handsome roommate. "Her visits usually coincided with my living with somebody good looking."

Jim's already low opinion of Naomi Sandburg, plummeted.

"Who else? Let's see, the academic community?" Blair shook his head. "Get real. I have always been a weird person with crazy ideas..."

Blair shoved his hair behind an ear and Jim noted the shaking hands. He reached out and took the hand in his. Blair gave him a startled look.

"Th-the guys at the station...I'm just some long-haired freak who wormed his way into a plum spot in Major Crimes."

Jim shook his head. "Not everyone thinks that way. Our friends..."

"Are your friends, not mine."

"That's not true! They really care about you."

Again Blair shook his head and looked at Jim sadly. He stood up, extracting his hand from Jim's. Both men missed the touch.

"No, if I died right now, it wouldn't matter. Oh, I know, they'd probably say how sad it was, but by next week I'd be largely forgotten.

Blair slumped a little and turned to leave the room. "I'm going to get some tea." His voice was even more dispirited.

Jim surged up from the bed and grabbed his retreating friend's arm. He knew, just knew, that if Blair walked out that door, he would be gone for good.

"You're wrong Chief. All of *our* friends care for you very much. Simon cried when you died at the fountain. So did Megan."

"Did they?" Blair's voice cracked with emotion. He looked back and Jim's legs threatened to buckle at the desolation gazing back at him. "I never saw any of that." He whispered. "No one, not one single person has told me that they were glad I didn't die. Not *one*."

Jim started to cry, realizing he was the *one* who should have spoken up. They all should have. Instead they distanced themselves from Blair when he needed them the most.

The Sentinel felt a hand running through the tears on his face. "You're crying." Jim cried harder at the astonishment in Blair's voice. He cried over the fact that Blair thought they didn't want him alive. That *he* didn't care whether Blair lived or not.

"I was afraid. Afraid I would lose you. I thought that if I pretended everything was fine, then it would be fine."

He pulled the young man closer and wrapped his arms around Blair's waist. Blair tilted his head back and looked up at Jim in wonder.

"Please don't leave me."

"Why?" Blair sobbed out his plea from the heart.

"Because this is why."

Jim leaned forward, falling into those depthless blue eyes and kissed Blair. With a gasp of surprise, Blair's mouth opened and Jim dove in. The two crying men held each other, kissing as if their souls depended on it.

Forgotten on the bed, Blair's diary lay where it had been dropped. The open page had one word written on it.

End?

Underneath, Blair's Swiss Army Knife lay waiting.

The End