Part 2

This would be the first real test of whether he would get into serious trouble for arresting the attacker instead of the victim who had fought back, Joel thought, leading the shabbily dressed man towards the booking area. No matter what happened he was trying to do the right thing. However, Simon was not going to be happy when he found out what he had done. He'd really like to be a fly on the wall when the D.A found out what Blair was doing, because the man was likely to turn several shades of purple a long with using the sort of language that you couldn't possible repeat in polite company.

He had to admit that the plan that she had come up with was not only a good one, but a simple one as well. The more people who knew what the law really was the more who would insist that it was enforced as it was written down. with it being election year as well they would have a chance to get rid of both the Mayor and the D.A by voting them out of office. To be honest he could see there being problems with that, but Blair did have a backup plan ready just in case the handout campaign didn't work. Admittedly, it wasn't something that he would normally approve of, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Yet, it was that backup plan that would attract a lot of attention from the D.A. He liked Blair and didn't want anything to happen to her, but it was likely to. Still, she had Jim watching her back so that would hopefully stop her from getting into too much trouble. However, he suspected that she was quite capable of finding trouble in a totally empty room.

She'd told him that it wouldn't be a good idea for him to come to the place where she was living, Malcolm Connor thought, but he just couldn't pass up the chance to see how his friend was doing. Sure, they'd spoken on the phone, but it wasn't the same as seeing her in the flesh. He knew that she was living with some cop, his contacts back in the commune had told him that, along with several very interesting rumors about what Nathan's reaction had been to her leaving. Sandy had never been one for taking the easy path when there was a harder one for her to follow. The two of them had had alot of fun back in the commune, and he had to admit that he was hoping that they'd be able to have some here as well as his charm wasn't working on any of the few women that he had met since coming to the city. Besides, he had some really good news for her so maybe that would be a good enough reason for them to go out and celebrate.

After having been in Cascade for a while now he knew that there was something about the city that really stank. As with a lot of other places that he'd been on his travels it was money and power that counted most, not what was right. Sandy had never been able to just stand by and do nothing while an injustice was being carried out. She also had the ability to get other people involved with her campaigns, which in this case was really important. The only way that people in power were going to go along with change was in they were forced to by the ordinary people. Most of the city was going to have to march on both the Mayor and the D.A's office before anyone took any notice of them. Sandy was exactly the sort of person who would make that happen. People were already wanting to know what the next step would be, because the law was still being broken and the police weren't doing a thing about it.

"You heard what I said," Joel snapped, "he broke in and raped her."

"So?" the desk sergeant said, "she shouldn't have been home on her own."

"I arrested him and I want him in a cell," he said.

"And where is the alleged victim?" they asked.

"In hospital, he broke two ribs and her nose when she fought back," Joel replied, know that his problem had just gotten alot bigger.

"You should have brought her in not him," they said, "by now you should know what the law is."

"It's not what you think it is," he replied, "you should read this, you might learn something," handing him a leaflet. "and I still want him putting in a cell," he added. It would only be a matter of time before word of what he'd done reached the Chief's office and then all hell would break lose. He doubted that Simon was ready for what might happen, and although he felt sorry for his friend, his conscience wouldn't let him do anything but the right thing. His entire adult life he had upheld the law and it hadn't made any difference at all. Well, now he was breaking the law and it would hopefully make a big difference to the city that he lived in. At least, it couldn't make things any worse than they already were.

"Wouldn't count on you having a job tomorrow," the desk sergeant said.

"No one will have a job if the Mayor replaces us the with Patriots," Joel said. He was packed and ready to leave Cascade the moment that the announcement was made, because the city would become a living nightmare within a week of the Patriots taking over.

"D.A's going to want to know what you're playing at," they said.

"I'm just doing my job," he replied, "the way that it should be done.

"Heard that Ellison's baby doll was up to something, would never have thought you would get involved with it though," they said, "thought you had more sense than that."

"Firstly, she's not a baby doll, secondly, she's a hell of a lot smarter than the D.A," Joel said, "and you can tell him that if he releases the man I've arrested I'll keep arresting him until he's charged with something." He wasn't going to just give up the first time that he ran into a hurdle.

"Still say that woman should have known better than to be at home on her own," they said, "she was just asking for trouble, they all are."

"You married, got a mother, a sister?" he asked.

"A sister," they replied, "I don't see what that's got to do with anything though."

"Just pray that she's never on her own when someone breaks in," Joel said, "or that she ends up in a cell for fighting back."

"My sister knows better than to go looking for trouble," they said.

"But what if it comes looking for her?" he asked, "think about it." Getting other officers to believe what he was saying wasn't going to be easy, but then nothing worth having in life was easy. All it would take was for one officer to believe him and try to do something about it, then the D.A would have two people to deal with instead of just one.

"Connor," Blair grinned after opening the door and finding him stood there. "What are you doing here?" she added. She'd told him not to come to the loft, because she wasn't sure how Jim would react to meeting someone that she had been involved with in the past. It had never been what you could call serious between her and Connor, but they'd had some good times while it had lasted.

"I was in the area and decided to drop by and see how you were doing," he replied.

"As you can see I'm fine," she said, "I'll call you later, okay."

"Sandy, surely you could invite me in for a coffee," Connor said, "I do have something important to tell you."

"Jim..." Blair started.

"Invite the man in, Chief," Jim said.

"You'd better come in then," she said, stepping to one side, "but you're not staying long." As soon as he started straying onto subjects that she didn't want Jim to know about he would be leaving.

"From the way Nathan tells it you're living in some rat infested hell hole," Connor said, looking around the loft.

"I wouldn't believe anything that Nathan says if I were you," Blair said, " he didn't want me to come here in the first place." She really didn't want to talk about her father after what he'd done.

"So it's not true that he hired the Patriots to take you back to the commune?" Connor asked.

"No, it was a detective," she replied, "but Jim dealt with him."

"Chief, don't you think that you should introduce us to your friend?" Jim asked.

"Sure," she said, "Macolm Connor meet Detective James Ellison and Captain Simon Banks."

"Banks," Connor said, "the asshole who won't give you equal pay?"

"I never used the word asshole," Blair said, "it was close minded jerk."

"It's the..." Simon began.

"So Mr. Connor how do you know Blair?" Jim asked.

"We're old friends," Connor replied.

"Connor stayed in the commune for a while," she said, "he's a lawyer, one of the good ones."

"Sandy found out that I was in Cascade and asked me to see if there was anything that I could do to help her," Connor said. "she can be pretty persuasive when she wants to be," draping an arm around Blair's shoulders.

"Sandy?" Jim asked.

"An old nickname," she replied, "do you still take your coffee with sugar?" removing his arm from around her shoulders.

"Two please," Connor said, "but I thought that you would have been more interested in what I have to tell you than making me coffee."

"So tell me," she said. The sooner that he had done that the sooner that she would be able to get rid of him.

"Are you sure that it's all right talking in front of..." Connor began.

"Jim's not the enemy," she assured him, "as for Simon he'll find out sooner or later."

"The D.A applies double standard, a couple of months ago a woman from one of the richest families in Cascade fought back and wasn't arrested," Connor said.

"Try telling me some thing that I don't know," Blair said. She'd done her own research and had discovered that if you had money you could get away with anything in Cascade.

"How about the fact that the Mayor hasn't been seen for two weeks," Connor said, "it's like he's just vanished in to thin air."

"He's hiding out in the Shades," Jim said, "under the expert care of Madam Doreen."

"And this is a man who's publicly stated that women are the weaker sex," Blair smiled. She really wasn't going to ask Jim how he knew where the Mayor was, because he had his sources of information and wouldn't want to put them in risk.

"I'm telling you that there is nothing to worry about," D.A John Southern assured his visitor, "no one is going to believe her no matter what she says." He'd worked long and hard to make sure that Cascade was ready for when the Patriots took it over.

"Then what the hell is this?" his brother demanded, slamming a flyer down onto his desk, "these things are all over the city."

"It doesn't matter how many of those are handed out, because I'm the law in Cascade," he replied, "one woman isn't going to change anything." She could march up and down in front of city hall for all he cared, because he'd just have her arrested for disturbing the peace.

"You'd better be damned sure about that," his brother snapped, "we need Cascade and you've had more than long enough to prepare it for us."

"It takes time to change attitudes in a city this big," Southern said, "to get rid of anyone who might stand up to you." The last stumbling block would soon be removed and then the city would belong to the Patriots.

"Times running out so you'd better hurry up," his brother warned him, "or you'll find yourself explaining to Kincaid."

"There won't be anything to explain," he assured him. He'd promised Kincaid that he would get the job done, and he would just as long as no one tried telling him what to do. By the time that the people who really mattered in the city realised what had happened it would be too late for them to do anything about it. "The police department will be gone by the end of the week," he added, "so all you have to do is walk in and take over." Even if the peasants in the city decided that they didn't want the Patriots running things a few well publicised executions would soon quell any rebellion that there might be.

"Just make sure that everything runs as smoothly as you say it will, otherwise I'm going to be an only child," his brother said.

"Trust me, I'm going to be around for a long time to come," Southern promised him.

He was being nice to the man because he was helping Blair, Jim thought, but he couldn't help but wonder what Connor was getting in return for that help, and if he touched his Chief one more time the man would be leaving via the balcony windows. Blair kept moving away from her friend when he tried putting his arm around her shoulders, why she just didn't say something was beyond him. Then there was the way that Simon kept looking at him as if to say she was asking for trouble. Well, she wasn't and he would defend her right to be friends with whoever she liked, even if he didn't like them.

"So Chief, what have you got planned for when all hell breaks loose with the D.A?" he asked. It was only a matter of time before the D.A found out who was behind those flyers and decided to clamp down hard on her.

"We're going to take the streets back," Blair replied, "there are going to be so many women on the streets that no one will dare to attack us all."

"Sandburg, a protest like that is illegal," Simon growled, "you'll find yourself staring at the walls of a jail cell for the next decade if you go ahead with this."

"It's not illegal," Connor said, "and if anyone on that march is arrested the police department and the city will be slapped with a huge lawsuit."

"I gave him a copy of the law book written by the D.A, but with the education system so screwed up..." Blair began.

"Then how do you expect women to be able to read those flyers?" Simon asked.

"Reading is one of the few things that woman can do without getting into trouble," Blair said, "it's not as if they can go out, is it?"

"She's right," Jim said. The only reason why his Chief was safe at the station was because everyone there knew that they would have him to deal with if they so much as looked at her in the wrong way.

"Jim, don't tell me that you think that this is a good idea," Simon said.

"Not only is it a good idea, but it's going to work," he said, "and don't forget she's doing this to save out jobs as well." Blair had told him that she was going to make a difference and he was starting to believe that she would be able to.

"You won't have a job if the D.A finds out about this," Simon warned him.

"You're going to tell him, aren't you?" Blair asked, "man, if you do that you'll be condemning the whole of Cascade to a living hell under the Patriots including Daryl."

"I'm well aware of the Patriots beliefs," Simon said, "but I took an oath to uphold the law."

"That oath doesn't mean a damned thing if the letter of the law isn't being followed," Connor said, "Sandy..."

"Connor, I know what the Patriots would do to me if they got their hands on me," Blair said.

"I'd never let that happen, Chief," Jim said. He would protect her with every ounce of strength that he had. "And the Patriots won't be taking over the city," he added. However, it was going to be a struggle to prevent that from happening, but hopefully there would be other officers who felt that way that he did, but even then they were likely to be outnumbered by the Patriots

"Lord, give me strength," she said, grabbing the nearest thing to her which happened to be a metal vase. What she was about to do went against everything that the police said, but Henri had shown her that flyer and the law said that she couldn't be punished for defending herself. Some people would say that it was her own fault for not having a man constantly in the house, but Henri had to go to work in order to support them all. A long time ago she'd had a job, but then someone in their great wisdom had decided that women didn't need jobs and so she'd been fired. Things had rapidly gone down hill from there. What those people who made the big decisions for the city didn't realise was that not every woman had a man willing to support her. Her husband had died while Henri had still been in high school, her son had had to give up his education in order to earn a living. Perhaps if this friend of his was able to change things then she might be able to go out to work again.

"Did you have to practically throw him out of the door?" Blair asked after both Simon had Connor had left.

"He wasn't going to leave under his own power," Jim replied, "and I thought that you would be happy to see him gone."

"He's my friend," she said, "and he's not taking a cent for helping me." She wouldn't have been able to afford to pay a lawyer even if she had been able to find one willing to help her.

"And what exactly does he get out of it?" he asked, "because no one does anything for free in this city."

"He gets to feel good," Blair replied, "to make a difference, which is why he became a lawyer in the first place."

"So why didn't he stay in the commune and do that?" Jim asked.

"He had a run in with my dad," she admitted, "Connor didn't like the way that he was doing some things. So he packed up and left, haven't see him since."

"How did you know that he was in Cascade?" he asked.

"What is this, an interrogation session?" Blair snapped, "I didn't ask him to come here, in fact I told him that it would be a really bad idea to." Yet Connor had turned up anyway, and now she was having to answer alot of questions that would ultimately lead to more personal ones. Well, what she'd done before she'd met Jim had nothing to do with him. "He won't be coming back," she added. If Connor turned up she would slam the door in his face until he got the message that he wasn't welcome in her home. That was what the loft was, and she had a right to decide which of her friends were allowed in it.

"Good," Jim said," there is something about him that I don't like."

"He's not usually that bad," she said. Connor had gone over the top and had ended up pissing Jim off. She had to admit that he had made her feel very uncomfortable with his before.

"Chief, he was pawing you," Jim said, "you should have told him to knock it off, Simon was embarrassed."

"I'm not responsible for what Connor does," she said. She could remember having a similar conversation with her father just before Connor had left the commune. Jim was her best friend, the man she relied on to watch her back so she really shouldn't be fighting with him over Connor.

"He's your friend," he said, "maybe in future you should be more careful about who you're friends with."

"From the way you're talking anyone would think that you were..." she started to add. No, he couldn't be, after all since that day at the beach he hadn't shown any signs of being interested in her.

"Would think that I was what?" Jim asked.

"Nothing," Blair said. If she told him what she was thinking then he would deny it and then it would make things even worse between them.

//"He's jealous," Blair grinned.

"Chief, that guy was practically molesting her," Jim said, "he has a right to object to that."

"She didn't do anything to encourage him," he said. But then she hadn't done anything to discourage him either. There was going to be real trouble if Connor came back to see his counterpart when her Jim wasn't there. The thing was that she had got it into her head that her Jim wasn't romantically interested in her when nothing could be further from the truth. Still, it had taken along time for him and Jim to get together. He just hoped that she wouldn't have to wait that long.

"Maybe you should talk to her," Jim suggested, "warn her what it could do to both of their lives if she keeps seeing Connor."

"She's not seeing him," Blair reminded him, "she hasn't been out since that night Rafe grabbed her." Hopefully, that would change once she'd rallied enough people to her cause.

"I can't help thinking about that bitch and what she did to you," Jim admitted, "I don't want to see them go through that."

"Trust me, they won't," he assured him, "try to think of Connor as a minor obstacle in their path."

"So why did he have a run in with Nathan?" Jim asked.

"He didn't like that way that Nathan was treating Blair," Blair replied, "and he found out about some of Nathan's shadier dealings. It was leave or be thrown out, so he left."

"She is better off away from Nathan," Jim growled, "and the sooner that she gets rid of Connor the better."

"She doesn't want him in the first place," Blair said. Not that that was going to stop Connor from trying to pursue her.//

The kid was going to end up in serious trouble and she was going to drag Jim into it, Simon thought. He could remember the last time someone had dared to rally people against the D.A, it had ended up with a blood bath. She might think that it would work, but it wasn't going to, because certain people had too much invested in maintaining the status quo. Although, these days nothing was as certain as it had once been. He knew that he should tell the D.A what she was planning to do, but she was right, this was a lot bigger than one person. Twice this week they'd had to increase security at Daryl's school in order to protect the female students. Not that things had been much better in his youth, but there has at least been some stability. Now there was only chaos and it was getting worse. Soon it would have reached the point where he would have to seriously consider sending Daryl out of the country in order to make sure that he was safe.

Ever since the kid had shown him those photos he'd done a little digging and had discovered a journal that another Simon Banks had kept. He hadn't told either the kid or Jim about it because she would have wanted to study it and there were some things in it that weren't exactly flattering about her relative. That Blair Sandburg had been a trouble magnet, but a good friend to have in a tight corner. Well, they were all going to be in a pretty tight corner soon. He was going to have to make a choice about what he was going to be do before much longer. However, it seemed that no matter what he decided to do he would be putting his job on the line.

She'd shown then the flyer but it hadn't made any difference, May thought, as she was led to a holding cell. They'd even refused to let Henri know that she was here and she didn't know what had happened to her daughters. Hopefully, a neighbour had taken them in for the time being, but there was no guarantee that they would be safe there. No matter what they said to her she knew that she had done the right thing, it didn't answer the question of what they were going to do to her though. By now her name would be splashed all over the news, she would be branded as a criminal for standing up for herself. Dear god Henri could end up losing his job because of this and she'd ruined her only vase. Still, she had to admit that it had felt good hitting that man over the head with it. After all, he'd had no right to break into her home.

"I have rights," she said as she would roughly pushed into a holding cell.

"You don't have squat," the holding sergeant said, "when are you women going to learn that you are here to serve us."

"Your mother must be very proud to have raised a son like you," May said, "would you throw her in a cell if she did the same thing."

"My mother knows better," he replied, "if you didn't want to be broken into you shouldn't have been alone."

"Maybe you could tell me where I would have been safe?" she asked, "it's not safe at home and it's not safe on the streets."

"That's not my problem," he said, closing the cell door and locking it.

"It will be when my lawyer finds out about this," she said. She didn't have a lawyer and she seriously doubted that she would be able to find one who would be willing to help her, not that she could pay them. Besides, she wouldn't get a fair trial, no woman had had one of those in Cascade for at least a decade.

He really didn't like Ellison, Malcolm thought, the man might have thought that he was fooling Sandy with that being nice to him act, but he certainly hadn't been fooled. Sandy deserved better than some caveman, namely him. The two of them had always been good together in the past and he couldn't think of a single reason why they couldn't be good together again. While he believed in what Sandy was trying to do, it wasn't the only reason he was helping her, they'd be able to spend a lot of time together, time during which he would be able to remind her of all the good times that they'd had. Ellison wasn't going to like it, but he didn't give a damn what Ellison thought. Sandy was the important one and he had to convince her that he was the only man for her.

"What do you want?" he asked answering his cell phone as soon as it rang, "I can do that, but it's going to cost her. On second thoughts I'll do it for nothing." He then closed his cell phone. It looked as if he had just found the perfect way to make his light shine a little brighter with Sandy and to make some money in the long run. He might be helping Sandy for free, but that didn't mean that he was neglecting his financial future. One day he intended to be a major player in Cascade and that took a lot of cash, something that was seriously lacking in his life at the moment. Still, once word got out that he was prepared to defend women in court for very little cash he would have more clients than he would be able to handle.

"Becky, it's okay," Henri assured her, "I'll take care of it."

"They dragged mom out of the house like she was a criminal," Becky said, "everyone was watching."

"You did the right thing in coming straight here," he said. At least here he would be able to protect her, at home she would be a sitting target for anyone who decided to break in.

"Mom's going to go to jail, isn't she?" Becky said, "we're never going to see her again."

"That is not going to happen," Henri said, "I'll make sure that it doesn't." He had to admit that he was still having a little trouble believing that his mom had hit a burglar over the head with a vase.

"How are you?" Becky asked, "I know what happens to women in jail. You have to get her out."

"I want you to stay right here," he said, "don't worry Joel will keep an eye on you. He's one of the good guys." Joel was one of the few people that he could trust to keep an eye on his sister while he tried to get his mom released. It wasn't going to be easy to achieve, but he wouldn't be leaving holding until his mom was free.

"Henri, you should have seen mom after she hit that guy," Becky said, "it was like she was a totally different person, someone who wasn't afraid anymore."

"Things are changing so that none of you will be afraid," Henri said, "before you know it you'll be able to walk the streets without having to look over your shoulder all the time."

"Well maybe you could point that out to those officers who arrested mom," she said, "because they don't seem to know that."

"Are you still mad at me?" Blair asked, handing Jim a beer.

"Chief, I'm not mad at you okay," he replied, "but you have to be more careful who you're friends with, because not everyone is as nice as you."

"You think that I'm nice?" she asked.

"You're probably one of the nicest people that I've met in a long time," he admitted. For too nice to be hanging around with him. "That's why I don't want to see you getting hurt," he added.

"Connor would never do anything to hurt me," Blair assured him, "he hasn't in the past."

"People can change," Jim said, "and this city has a habit of bringing out the worst in some people." He saw the consequences of that everyday at work, and while he'd done his best to try and shelter her from the worst of it, he hadn't always been successful.

"Not someone like Connor," she said confidently, "and you weren't exactly very friendly when I first met you."

"I was tired and stressed out," Jim replied, "with no idea what was happening to me. Then along came the answer to all my problems." Every morning when he woke up the first thing that he did was to make not only sure that she was still in the loft, but that she was fine as well . If he woke up one morning to find her gone he didn't know what he would do, probably reach for the gun that he always kept on his bedside cabinet and eat it. Blair had turned his entire life upside down, but he was a better person because of her presence in his life.

"I was already making plans to come and find you when you showed up in the commune" Blair admitted, sitting down next to him on the sofa.

"I can't see your dad being happy about that when you told him," he said.

"I wasn't going to tell him until I was leaving," she replied, "I'd casually mentioned the idea to him before and he'd said that it wasn't safe to leave the commune. And I knew that you'd stop for me, who else was going to help you with your senses."

"I'd have found someone eventually," Jim said.

"Yeah, sure you would," Blair said, "but they wouldn't have had my knowledge. Even in the other people's time no one was studying sentinels, and now most people don't even care about getting an education. Did you know that Rainier had banned women from it's campus, that means professors as well."

"I didn't know that," he admitted.

"Women are becoming more and more isolated in society, denied even their basic rights..." Blair began.

"Chief, you're preaching to the converted here," he said, "and when you hold this protest things I'll be right beside you."

"You will?" she asked more than a little surprised.

"You're going to need men on your side as well, and there are still a few good ones left in Cascade," Jim said. He'd really like to see anyone threaten his Chief while he was there, because they would soon realise that they had made a terrible mistake.

Part 4

He should have just taken his troops into the city and taken it over like he had originally planned, Adam Kincaid thought, instead of having to go through all this long term planning. You could bet that his famous ancestor wouldn't have messed around like this, he would have just taken what he'd wanted and put down any resistance quickly and harshly.

"Tell me about this Sandburg," he said. Now that was a name that had been reviled for a long time in his family.

"She..." Southern began.

"A woman is causing all this trouble?" he snapped.

"It's not just her," Southern replied, "she's gather alot of support from people."

"Your brother was supposed to have taken care of any rebels," Adam frowned.

"He wasn't expecting a woman to stand up to him," Southern said, "she's not even from Cascade."

"She can't have just appeared out of thin air," he said, "she had to have come from somewhere, find out where and make sure that they can't send anyone else to cause us problems."

"What about her?" Southern asked.

"I'll take care of personally," Adam replied. He would show her that no woman could stand up to the might of the Patriots and lived to tell about it.

"We might have a problem with the Mayor," Southern admitted, "if people start protesting on the streets..."

"Your brother assured me that there wouldn't be any problems so make sure that there aren't," he said. At times it felt as if he were surrounded by fools and incompetents who couldn't be trusted to make even the simplest decisions by themselves. Still, he wouldn't have become the man he was today without the help of his followers. He had promised them great things and so far he had been able to deliver everything that he had promised. New Cascade was going to be the jewel in his empire. An ancestor of his had attempted to take over the city but had been thwarted by Ellison and Sandburg. That wasn't going to happen this time, though, he was going to be victorious. He could see the day when the whole country would be under his control and then he would turn his attention to the rest of the world. There was no reason why a man with his drive and ambition couldn't end up running everything.

//She was going to be pretty disappointed when she realised that Connor wasn't acting with the purest of motives, Blair thought, but there wasn't anything that he could do to warn her. Still, even if he was able to stop her from making a mistake he wouldn't have done so, because she wouldn't have learned anything. Sometimes it was the big disappointments that brought the most understanding. She didn't know it yet, but she was responsible for the future of not only the entire police force but of Cascade as well. He'd been allowed a brief glimpse of her future and he could rightly say that he was proud of her. There were some advantages of being the Shaman of the Great City and he took them whenever he could get them. Like Jim, at times he wished that he could do more to guide her path through life, but that would have meant breaking more rules. He was just grateful that he had found a loophole and that he and Jim could use it from time to time.
Eventually one or other of them were going to realise that the other one had feelings for them. Her Jim had already had one chance to admit that and he'd totally blown it. Why was it that the Ellisons had such a problem expressing their emotions, it had never been a problem in his family. Although, Naomi at times had taken it too far for his liking, but at least she had never been afraid to say what she really meant even when it had caused problems for him. All it would take was one kiss and they would be together the way that they should be. However, that wasn't going to happen at the moment. Something major was going to have to happen before that kiss took place.//

She really wanted to believe that her brother would be able to get their mother out of that cell, Becky thought, but it was going to take a lot more than his being nice to the custody sergeant in order to make that happen. Unlike her mother she had friends and she wasn't afraid to call them and ask them to help her, because handing out leaflets on the street wasn't going to change anything in a hurry. Only when people started taking to the streets was anyone in power going to start paying attention to them. However, it wasn't without it's risks, she could get arrested as well, but it would be worth it if she could get her mom out of that cell. She knew that there were some protests being planned, but there was no reason why they couldn't be brought forward. first of all though, she was going to have to call Henri's friend Hippy Chick because she was the one who had started the ball rolling with the leaflets and she didn't want her thinking that she was trying to take over, because she wasn't.

Henri had told her to stay here, and she intended to do that, because it wasn't safe for her to go wondering around the station on her on. However, he hadn't said that she couldn't use the phone. He wasn't going to be too happy when he found out what she'd done, but someone had to do something. She was tired of not being able to go out without Henri being with her. There had to be a alot better way of doing things other than continually blaming the female population for what happened to it. It seemed to her as if the majority of men in Cascade had forgotten who had brought them into the world and had taken care of them when they had been small. Sure, you got some decent men but they were in the minority. She had never been on a date, because it was too dangerous to go anywhere with a man who wasn't a close relative even then it wasn't always safe. If the tables were suddenly turned and the men had to worry about their safety every time that they had to go out you could bet that they would be marching on city hall as soon as the first of them was locked up for defending themselves, now that was something that she would really like to see happen.

"Dad, is it true that Blair's planning a march on city hall?" Daryl asked.

"I don't know," Simon replied, "but if she is then I don't want you anywhere near it, is that clear?"

"But..." he began.

"Daryl, if there is a march it will get violent," Simon said, "people will get hurt."

"Why?" Daryl asked, "protests are allowed under the Constitution." That was something that they weren't taught at school, but since Blair had started tutoring him he'd wanted to find things out on his own. "There's the right to free speech as well," he added.

"That document was written along time ago," Simon said, "and it's been nearly a century since it was enforced."

"Before the VX attacks," he said, "things were a lot better back then, weren't they?"

"I don't know," Simon admitted, "why all the questions, don't you have any homework to do?"

"I've done it," he replied, "three more girls disappeared on the way to school this morning, one of them was in my class."

"That's terrible," Simon said, "but..."

"They shouldn't have been out of the house," he said, "what happens when they start going after guys our fault as well? Everyone knows that the Patriots are coming and that you're not doing anything to stop them."

"Daryl, I'm doing the best that I can," Simon said, "but I don't make the big decisions."

"And if you could?" he asked. What he wanted to hear was that things were going to be okay and that those girls would be back in school in the morning, however, he knew that wasn't going to happen. Some of his friends parents were planning to leave the city before the Patriots got here.

"It's not that easy to change things," Simon said.

"Blair thinks that it is," Daryl said.

"I hope that she's right, but if she's not then she's going to find herself in very serious trouble," Simon said.

"You mean she could go to prison, right," he said.

"They'd keep her in for a long time," Simon said, "and prison isn't the sort of place that someone like Blair should end up."

"A lot of other people end up there for protecting themselves," Daryl reminded him, "even I know that it's not right." His dad had taught him that you had to stand up for yourself, but when the girls still at school did that they got into trouble. A couple of times he'd tried standing up for them and had found himself in trouble with the Principal.

"Daryl, life is complicated and some times you have to do things that you don't like in order to survive and keep a roof over your head," Simon said.

"You don't think that it's right to arrest people for defending themselves, do you?" he asked.

"No," Simon replied, "but I really don't have a lot of choice in the matter, not if I want to keep my job."

"You won't have a job when the Patriots come," Daryl said.

"For now I have a job and I have to do it," Simon said.

"Don't worry I'll be there," Blair said. She then put the phone down. It looked as if her campaign against the DA and his abuse of the law was about to step up a notch before she was ready for it. Still, this was someone that she knew, albeit indirectly. Henri was a good friend to her and she really didn't like letting friends down when they needed help.

"Be right where?" Jim asked.

"The station," she replied, "Henri's mom was arrested for protecting herself and her daughter from some guy who broke into the house." From what she knew of Henri's mom it must have taken alot of courage for the woman to have done that.

"Chief, what exactly are you going to achieve by going to the station?" he asked, "they won't bail her."

"The protests kicking off tonight," Blair said, "we're going to have a sit in at the station." Not that she expected him to know what that was, but hopefully it would attract alot of attention to what they were doing.

"You do realise that this could get you arrested," Jim said, "how are you going to be able to help me from inside a prison cell?"

"We'll work something out," she replied, "and even you have to admit that you would be able to work a lot better if you didn't have to worry about my safety all the time." He'd be able to go out and have a social life without wondering all the time if she was all right on her own.

"I can't let you go by yourself," Jim said, "you probably wouldn't even get to the station in one piece."

"Try out of the building," she said, "maybe you could weld the door in my room shut or something." Every night before she went to sleep she made sure that it was locked, but even then she slept with the baseball bat that she had found in Old Cascade just in case.

"Chief, if you're that worried you can sleep upstairs for a while," he suggested.

"And you'd sleep in my room, right?" she asked.

"Sure," Jim grinned.

//Whatever happened to subtlety, Jim asked himself. Your guide was supposed to be courted and respected, not practically thrown over one shoulder and carried off. Although, he had to admit that there had been times when he had been more than a little tempted to do that to Blair. He knew why his counterpart had grinned at the thought of sleeping in her room, it would be full of her scent and her things. It was practically the next best thing to actually sleeping with your guide. On those occasions when Blair had stayed out all night he had gone into his friend's room and laid down on the bed. There was nothing like being surrounded by your guide's scent to relieve the stress while you were working on a difficult case. Even now he could still pick out Blair's scent from a thousand others.

When Blair had died he had missed him so much that he had taken to sleeping in his room just so that he would be close to him. In that room he had fought the urge to put his gun into his mouth and pull the trigger, the only thing that had stopped him was knowing that Blair wouldn't have wanted him to end his life that way. The way that he had eventually died had meant that he had gone down in Cascade history as a hero. That was a pretty big legacy for his counterpart to have to live up to. However, he didn't see his namesake dying in the line of duty, no, with any luck he would die surrounded by his family with his guide at his side. Firth though, they had to survive whatever the Patriots were planning.//

"Henri, I don't want you going to any trouble on my behalf," Mary said, "right now this is probably the safest place for any woman in Cascade to be." The cell wasn't that bad even if men did keep coming in to see the woman who had dared to fight back and then insist on her rights.

"Mom, I am going to get you out of here," Henri assured her.

"You should worry about your sister not me," she said, "I think that it would be a good idea if you got her out of the city before anything happens to her."

"And send her where?" he asked.

"Your friend Blair comes from the Commune, doesn't he?" Mary asked.

"Mom, Blair is a she not a he," he said, "and yeah she comes from the Commune, from what she's told me it's not a bad place to live."

"Maybe she could make sure that your sister finds a place there," she said. She might end up staying in prison for the rest of her life, but at least she would have the thought that her daughter was safe to comfort her.

"I can take care of Becky," he said, "she can come to work with until things change."

"What if they never change?" she asked. She believed that they would, but she wanted there to be a backup plan just in case they didn't.

"Mom, if you met Blair you would know that she's the sort of person who gets things done," Henri said, "she's the one who told me that if I could read properly no one would be able to rip me off."

"She sounds like a very special person," Mary said.

"Trust me, she is," he smiled, "I like her alot."

"Perhaps more than like," she suggested. She saw the way that her son's eyes lit up when he talked about this Blair. If she wasn't going to be around her son would need someone to take care of him.

"Even if I did it wouldn't do me any good," he said, "there's already someone in her life, someone who can protect her a lot better than I'll ever be able to."

"It sounds as if she doesn't need a great deal of protecting," she said.

"Blair's pretty innocent about a lot of things," Henri said, "but most of all she needs protecting from herself."

"This other man takes good care of her, doesn't he?" she asked.

"The best," Henri replied, "they make a good team and I wouldn't want to do anything that would ruin that."

Now he knew what all those phone calls on the way to the station had really been about, Jim thought when he saw the huge crowd of people outside of the station. This was probably the biggest number of women that he had seen in one place in his entire life. At the moment there were just a couple of officers guarding the entrance to the station, but he knew that would change as soon as the D.A found out about this.

"Chief?" he asked.

"You can't have a sit in without people," Blair replied, "this is going to be a totally peaceful protest."

"You know, both the D.A and Simon are going to go ballistic when they hear about this," Jim said. however, he was willing to act as physical buffer between her and them.

"This is going to put you in a really awkward position, isn't it?" she asked.

"Not that awkward," he replied, "it says in that journal that the sentinel is supposed to protect the whole tribe not just some parts of it." She came first though, the rest of the city could burn to the ground just as long as his Chief as safe. "So how exactly does one of these sit ins work?" he added.

"You sit down and don't move until you've got what you want," Blair replied, "trust me it's very effective."

"It doesn't seem that effective to me," he admitted, "and what is it that you want?"

"To begin with H's mom out of that cell, the right of self defense," Blair said, "no more blaming the victim."

"Good luck Chief," he said. She was going to need every bit of luck that she could get in order to even have Brown's mother released.

"This had nothing to do with luck," she said, "and everything to do with people being afraid. The law is on our side."

"Now all you have to do is convince the D.A, Mayor and city council of that fact," Jim said.

"As a couple of council members wives are over there I don't think that's going to be a big problem," she said, getting out of the truck.