RESTORE

Finishing his hot dog along with the last of his patience, Jim listened with half an ear, as he'd been doing for a while, to Neo explain the history of the machine-created reality he called the Matrix. Another time, another place, he might have found it as fascinating as Blair obviously did, and he could all but see the questions bubbling through his partner's fertile mind. As interesting, maybe even important, as those questions were, though, the ones Jim had lined up were much more urgent.

Instinct told him 'life and death' important, and he rudely broke in. "What did The Oracle tell you about us?"

Clearly taken aback, Neo said, "Nothing. She just asked us to explain how it all worked; that you needed to know to be able to make the right decisions for your tribe, whatever that means." He ventured a small smile that went with what Jim was willing to bet was a truly self-effacing nature. "Actually, it's one of the more straight-forward things she's ever said to me."

Blair smiled at that, as Jim would have ordinarily. He had learned long ago to judge people without the benefit of his senses, and while the odd, uncomfortable sensory blankness of the pair in front of him - Neo sitting on the picnic table bench facing Blair, Morpheus standing behind him in an obvious bodyguard stance that mirrored Jim's own position behind Blair - disturbed him, he thought he could learn to like Neo. That didn't stop him from barking, "And you came all this way simply because she asked you to?"

Almost condescendingly, Morpheus said, "Think of it as the Pope ordering one of his bishops to perform a service in his name. The bishop might privately question His Holiness' purpose, perhaps even his sanity, but he would obey."

If he was willing to give Neo the benefit of the doubt, Jim had no intentions of trusting Morpheus in any way, shape, or form - not despite a recognition that they were of a kind, but because of it. "So you're not here to recruit us for your war."

Glancing over his shoulder to exchange a meaningful look with Morpheus, Neo very obviously chose his words with care. "We don't unplug people after they reach a certain age. They can't...adapt to the real world; there's a kind of mental dependence on the direct stimulation from the machines." He studied Blair and Jim, each in turn, his own questions clear in his eyes. "But you two - you already know the truth. How?"

It was Blair's turn to shift enough to catch Jim's gaze for a moment, and Jim told him wordlessly that he trusted him to judge exactly how much to tell them and how truthfully. There was a trace of humor in it; Blair had always been inclined towards obfuscation, even when it wasn't strictly necessary. After giving him a much brighter smile than he had given Neo, Blair turned back to the odd pair. "Were any of your people inside during the resets?" At Neo's blank expression, he clarified, "The time changes? First it was 1956, then it was 1978, then 1997 where it's stayed for a couple of weeks, now."

"Reset. Yeah, good description." Neo shook his head, apparently at himself, but didn't explain his reaction. "All of our people were on the outside, but monitoring. We had an idea of what was happening based on previous experience, and that it wasn't working the way the machines expected, but that's about it. Nothing more specific."

From behind him, Morpheus asked sharply, "You were aware of the changes? Not a part of them?"

"Yes and no." Blair inched backwards toward Jim, and Jim put a hand on his shoulder for comfort against the nightmare that Blair had had to live through three times.

He glared Morpheus as a flicker of distaste crossed an otherwise impassive expression, wishing for a second he could scent the man because there was something else with that distaste; he was sure of it. Neo was apparently oblivious to his companion's homophobia and just as obviously had no problem with the implied intimacy of Jim's reassuring touch. He leaned forward, intently interested in what Blair was saying, body language encouraging him to continue.

Blair cooperated, probably as much because he finally had someone to talk to who might understand what had happened as to satisfy Neo's curiosity. "The mindset of when and what was there, but it was only an overlay that didn't completely cover the original. And I could, I don't know, *feel* the shift, but, man, don't ask me to describe it."

Letting Blair's blend of what happened to each of them stand as the account for how it was for both, Jim added, "The last time, I think I saw part of it. There were these flickering green symbols flowing downward over everything, replacing the wall, the floor, whatever."

"Whoa," Neo breathed. "Any idea why?"

Expecting a 'no' from his partner, Jim was surprised when Blair said slowly, "Given what you've told us, it has to be because of a bad connection. It's the only explanation I can come up with, anyway."

As if speaking of the last reset had summoned his memories of the other reality, Jim was there again, the intense hum from the machinery filling his ears even as he tried to gag on the disgusting smell and taste smothering him. Like before, the hum held meaning, and he tried to ignore his misery to make sense of it. It was coming closer, much closer, close enough to touch, and terror rose in him, swamping him back to sunshine and grass, Blair's heartbeat a steadying slap to his senses.

"They're coming," he said without thinking. Three hundred feet behind him were two more blank spots like Neo and Morpheus, but emptier somehow, making him think of the machines. "They can't connect us to you! Start walking."

Not waiting to see if they obeyed his order, Jim snatched Blair close and moved, pulling him along, picnic debris and all, to another table, several yards away and at an oblique angle to where they had been. Anybody visually backtracking would have no reason to think Neo and Morpheus had crossed their path, but that wasn't enough to placate the gut feeling that said they were in danger. Quickly positioning Blair in back of him so that he wouldn't be seen at first glance, he grabbed the remains of Blair's soydog and took a bite of it.

Vaguely relieved that the things weren't really as awful tasting as he'd always claimed, Jim concentrated on the flavor, trying to pick out individual ingredients and their proportions. The last thing he remembered before deliberately zoning on taste was a reflection in a nearby trashcan of two men dressed in government black, right down to wrap around sunglasses and radio earpiece, chasing Neo and Morpheus out of the park at impossible speeds.

When he came back to himself, eyes dry and burning from prolonged staring, his whole body ached, telling him that he'd been out of it a long time. Not that he really needed any confirmation besides the fact that he was in the loft, on his back on the couch, and Blair was bending over him, fear etched into every line of his body. He had reason; Jim could still feel and hear the other place, though only as a faint, faint promise of a terrible dream.

He had to erase it, now, and he reached for Blair, locking his hand in Blair's curls. "Please...bring me back, all the way back, before they find me. Hurry."

Understanding mixed with determination replaced Blair's terror, and he came willingly when Jim pulled him down for a kiss. Intending to only sample the much cherished taste of him as a diversion, Jim was instantly caught in the need pouring from his lover. It wasn't sexual as much as it was sensual - a need to affirm life, love, and all they shared. Even if he had had the strength to resist that tender assault, he had no reason, and he surrendered to Blair by opening his mouth to him.

Blair delved deep, the heavy, humid air of his breath filling Jim, easing knots in him that he hadn't realized were there. A strong tongue kneaded his, sending more welcome heat into him, but it wasn't enough to kill the iced tightness that claimed far too much of Jim. With a small tug, he brought Blair closer, and, as if reading his hunger, or at least his body, Blair laid on top of him, tangling their legs together to have that much more contact.

Jim keened in pleasure from the rush of sensation as Blair's presence sank into him. Tingles chased over his skin, followed by a shock of warmth that penetrated to blood and bone. It shimmered along his nerves, awakening a sweet, languid desire that undid him completely. Even as most of him relaxed, muscles loose and pliant, his cock suddenly hardened, digging into Blair's thigh as if to find its counterpart.

With a wordless mumble that sounded both appreciative and approving, Blair rocked into him, his erection pulsing between them. Dropping his foot to the floor, Jim opened his thighs to settle Blair more firmly against his crotch. The pressure was delicious, clothing not an issue as to whether or not he could get off on just grinding into his lover. It wasn't enough for Blair, though. He knelt up, almost whimpering at the brief loss of contact, and yanked his shirts off over his head, one after another.

It was a breathtakingly beautiful sight, with every removed layer a tease of more skin, more Blair. The scent of his arousal, charged to painful clarity by pheromones, drilled straight through Jim, and he strained up, trying to find relief for his aching hardon. He would have reached for himself, sure the lightest of touches would finish him, but he couldn't find the energy.

"Blair...please! Something - mouth, hand, cock, hole… I don't *care.* Please."

"Not yet, not yet," Blair muttered, struggling out of his jeans, then tackling Jim's slacks.

It short order he had them both naked, and sat back on his heels to eye Jim as if not certain where to start ravishing him. Jim could almost feel his gaze on him, like the faintest sweep of air that somehow lingered over his throat, nipples, stomach, cock. Writhing, moaning, he lost himself in that impossible caress, barely aware of Blair's whispering.

"Oh, god, oh, god, Jim, I'm fucking you without even touching you, aren't I? You're going to come, just from the weight of me on your senses."

It was true, God, it was true, and Jim sobbed his name.

Blair fell on him and the explosion of skin to skin was too much. Jim climaxed, whimpering his lover's name as seed screamed out of him, and Blair pushed his legs up, shoved himself into Jim's opening, hammering all the way in with a single lunge. It should have hurt; it should have been agonizing; he'd never had anything but fingers and tongue in him, and not even that with Blair yet.

But it was better than coming, and he howled in ecstasy, meeting each powerful thrust as best he could, wanting it to go on forever. Blair was so big, fitting him just right, and he was sweaty, heavy, musky, panting out obscenities and love words, hitting all his senses at once. Without warning Blair bit him hard at the juncture of neck and shoulder, and his cock leaped deep inside Jim, twitching as it spilled into him. A white-out of ecstasy claimed him, leaving him aware only of the cherished man within him.

It faded slowly, gently, and when Jim's head finally cleared, Blair was still on top of him, shivering in the aftermath of release. Dragging the afghan off the back of the couch to cover them both against the return to sense and practicality, Jim wrapped his arms around Blair's waist and burrowed his face into the hollow of his shoulder, not ready to do more than savor the moment with all his heart, storing the memory of it against the bleak days lying ahead in wait.

Reluctantly, so unwillingly it was painful, Jim lifted his head from the haven of Blair's body, staring at his surroundings as he tried to muster his brain back into gear. He was successful enough that after a few minutes he automatically started a sensory sweep of his surroundings, relieved when all was as it should be, if a little too quiet for the middle of the afternoon, even on a work day. That passing thought reminded him of where they were supposed to be, and grimacing, he checked the sunlight pouring in from the balcony to guesstimate the time.

Not much past noon he realized, but that couldn't be right. They'd left for their lunch break shortly after twelve, and, love-making aside, he had to have been out of it for hours. It couldn't have been a whole day, could it?

Not wanting to disturb his partner, Jim carefully shifted so he could look for his watch or Blair's, but either his growing disquiet or the sudden tension in him must have gotten through Blair's daze. He clutched at Jim's shoulders with a new burst of fear, and raised up to study him.

"What?" Blair asked sharply.

"When did we get back here?" Another question hit him, and Jim framed Blair's face with both hands, adding gently, "And how?"

Letting Jim take the weight of his head, Blair drooped. "Man, hours and hours ago, and I have *no* idea exactly when or how. All I could think of was getting you someplace safe, now, really, really right now, 'cause I had no idea if the MIB's would come back, and the last thing I wanted was for them to see you zoned." He shuddered, and the emotion inundating Jim in waves of scent and tension negated any melodrama that might have been in the reaction. "Call it intuition or hunch, but I honestly think if they had noticed us at all, we'd be dead, erased, flushed, whatever."

"This is one time our instincts are right in line with each other," Jim muttered. "Hours, though? No way. It can't..." His voice trailed off as he realized that the pool of sunlight on the loft floor hadn't moved since he'd first checked it. Granted, there wouldn't have been much of a change, but enough for him to see, normally.

And it was far, far too quiet. "What do you hear?" With a hard stare to stop the eruption of questions, Jim repeated intently, "What do you hear?"

Thankfully Blair steadied himself and actually listened. "Nothing. Which just isn't right. You can always hear *some* traffic, usually even in the middle of the night."

"I can't hear a thing outside of what should be in this room. You, the fridge running, water pipes ticking and tocking." Frowning, Jim tried to extend his hearing past his home, but there was nothing. Wondering why he hadn't noticed that when he first roused himself, he gave Blair a little nudge to let him know he had to move.

With an obvious reluctance that was a balm to a secret part of Jim's heart, Blair slowly sat up, reaching for a shirt to cover himself. "It should be dark, at least. Okay, time to get seriously spooked here, if for no other reason than because Simon hasn't shown up, ready to either come to our rescue or rip us a new one for not calling in, whichever was called for in his opinion."

"Why don't you clean up, and I'll call in with some excuse or another." Moving with deliberate slowness and lingering contact everywhere they touched to tell Blair that he didn't want to end their intimacy, either, Jim reached for the phone.

Given his growing grasp of the weirdness of their situation, Jim wasn't surprised when the phone didn't work - or either cell phone, or any clock or watch. After taking his turn at the bathroom, he joined Blair at the doors to the balcony and studied the perfectly normal view outside them. It took a moment or two, but he finally leaned forward to peer at the glass itself, fingertips hovering millimeters away from the surface of it.

"Not real, is it?" Blair asked unnecessarily.

"You mean, as much as anything is? Yes, and no." Jim straightened and rubbed at his eyes. "What we're seeing is probably what is outside the loft. It's just that the loft isn't there, right now. There's nothing on the other side except a blankness that reminds me of sheet lightning frozen in place. I don't suppose you have any explanations or theories?"

Wide-eyed, hand hovering over the handle as if to open the door and see for himself, Blair said absently, "All I know is that I wanted to be home, safe with you, far away from prying eyes, from people with questions and the wrong kind of help."

With a tug Jim brought him away from temptation. "I'd say, off hand, you got what you wanted, and then some."

"You think I'm responsible for this."

Not deterred by the oddness in Blair's voice, Jim said reasonably, "You've changed things before."

"They were already *being* changed; I just...influenced the outcome a little. I would have noticed if the Matrix was resetting again, I'm sure." He fisted his own curls and pulled, as if that would help clarify his thoughts. "Maybe we slipped through the cracks somehow? It's possible, I guess, if the machines disrupted the base program by sending those things after Neo and Morpheus. I could have taken advantage of that without realizing it."

Smoothing the locks - and the clenched hands in them - Jim said, "I suppose the major issue is whether or not we can get out, and if we do, will we be able to get back in?"

Leaning into the soothing touch, Blair found a smile from somewhere. "Not should we, but can we?"

With an all-encompassing gesture to their home, Jim admitted, "We've thought of this as a refuge all along; now that it really *is,* the temptation to simply dig in and hibernate is there." He pulled Blair in for a hug, and added, "Too tempting. And the same problems will be waiting for us no matter how long we hide, so I'd just as soon deal with them and get it over with. If we found our way here once, we can do it again if we have to."

"You hope," Blair said grimly, but Jim could tell he agreed, however unenthusiastically. "So we just walk out and see what happens?"

"Pretty much. The hallway is where it should be; I can tell based on the way sound bounces back from that wall. If we're going to leave, it's better to do it the normal way, I think."

With a last squeeze, Jim led the way, and, not giving himself a chance to reconsider, threw open the door. Everything was exactly as it should be, but that didn't stop them from silently agreeing to proceed with caution, going so far as to take the stairs. He felt the doubt and hesitation in his partner as they reached the bottom landing, but Blair didn't balk when Jim kept going until they were outside, standing on the sidewalk.

Without thinking, Jim looked up at the windows to the loft, unable to stop a grunt of satisfaction as he saw the afghan was tumbled over the back of couch instead of tidily folded the way he had left it that morning. First evidence that they had been in the real thing, and not an imitation conjured solely by necessity. It wasn't enough though, and he turned on his heel to retrace their steps, because he had to know.

Grumbling, Blair followed, but he sighed in shaky relief and leaned into Jim when they were back in the living room, which showed the signs of them being there only minutes before. Gesturing at the balcony, he asked, "Outside?"

"Back to normal." Jaw clenched, Jim crossed to the French doors, opened them and went out. He checked his watch, nodding to himself. It was running, as were the clocks he could see inside.

Going back inside, he said, "If we leave now, we can get back to the station before we're officially late. Good thing we rode in together today; here's hoping the Volvo will run."

"The station?!"

Jim scrubbed at his face with the heels of his hands. "What else should we do? Not being where we're supposed to be could call the wrong kind of attention to us, or cause enough suspicion to merit a second look if we've already been noticed."

For a moment it looked as though Blair would argue, but he suddenly deflated. "Point."

Jim urged his partner into motion again with a caring palm in the middle of his back. "This is one instance where being paranoid can't hurt, Chief."

"Yeah, who's going to know besides us?" Blair tried to keep his tone light, but once they were in the car on the way to work, he only concentrated enough on his driving to keep them from becoming road kill. Barely.

That was all right with Jim. If getting back to the job, doing what he did best, was his method of coping with the sudden, weird turns in their lives, Blair's was to frame them with understanding, if only of himself and his response to the new circumstances. It worked for Blair, and that was all that mattered to Jim.

Once at his desk in the bullpen, Jim immersed himself in reviewing his current case load, trying to find another method of attack, or a new way of looking at the evidence on hand. Blair's mental processing lasted through the early afternoon, concealed under various computer searches that seemed entirely random the few times he looked at the pages Blair scrolled through. Just as he was ready to dismiss their entire 'lunchtime' adventure as one of those inescapable sentinel glitches, a courier came in with an express envelope addressed to him.

Reading the label from across the room and giving the package a quick sensory once over, Jim left his desk, papers in hand as if they were the reason for moving, and let himself be intercepted by the courier, the empty bullpen making it inevitable.

"Ellison here?"

"That need signed for?" Jim said in a distracted voice, head down as if reading what he held.

"Naw, just need to get it to the right place."

"Toss it on the desk there." Jim pointed with an elbow to one that looked as if it belonged to a slob, but was actually serving as a temporary catch-all for the entire department. "I'll make sure Ellison sees it."

"Cool." The courier did exactly as told, giving the envelope enough loft that it landed squarely on the top of the tallest stack of files. Without a backward glance, he took off, bullpen doors swinging to in his wake.

Ignoring the stare Blair aimed at him, Jim went to a shredder and destroyed the duplicate report he'd accidentally printed, then gathered his partner to him with a beckoning hand. Eyes widening, Blair scooped up their things, and, as if reading Jim's mind, snagged the package from its resting place, hiding it amid his usual clutter of books. With a quick nod of approval, Jim half turned, irrationally needing to match the voices he heard approaching to the faces of the people that belonged to them.

"Spot a place for your pry bar on one of your open cases?" Blair asked on the way to Jim's side, providing cover for their exit as H and Rafe sauntered in, arguing amiably about a suspect.

"More like hoping a change in location might inspire a fresh perspective, especially on the missing persons' files kicked up to us because the brass bought the argument there was a 'statistically significant number of atypical disappearances,' whatever that means. And no, Escher, I do not need an explanation."

"You sure?" Blair shot back with a cheerfulness that successfully hid the renewed tension Jim was beginning to think was a permanent part of their existence now. "Cause, I have to tell you, man, that I personally think it was a good catch on someone's part." Keeping up the pretense, he bubbled on about predictable human behavior patterns, and that any anthropologist worth his degree knew at least enough math to look for statistical anomalies.

It lasted until they were both in the truck. The moment they were clear of the parking garage, Blair dug out the envelope. "I take it there's more here than you not expecting to receive anything today."

"It's got a blank spot in it that probably looks like a cell phone." At Blair's raised eyebrows, Jim tried to frame in words the sensory black hole he picked up on Neo, Morpheus, and the strange unhumans in the park, but was quickly reduced to slapping at the steering wheel in aggravation.

"Look, just go with me on this. There's this absence of, I don't know, *substance,* which isn't apparent to sight, even mine, so I can *see* that it's a cell phone and still know that it's not there. Since I don't think the machines would bother with anything indirect, it's probably from Neo and company, but I don't want to take chances. I want us on the move when we open the package."

"To make it harder to track, just in case," Blair murmured absently in agreement. He opened one end of the envelope and spilled out a state of the art cell.

As if freeing it from its confinement was what the phone had been waiting for, it rang, startling Blair into almost dropping it.

"Answer, but don't talk. I can hear it well enough from here," Jim instructed, not questioning his impulse to make sure Blair wasn't associated with the call by anyone listening.

Blair held the phone so Jim could snap, "Yeah?" into it.

"How did you *do* that?" Neo said excitedly, without preamble. "You moved like one of us, then left, just went off the grid completely, no trace."

"Better question - can this be tracked or overheard?" Jim all but snarled.

"Overheard, no question, if they get a chance to lock onto it, so we gotta talk fast. Tracked? Not easily, and not until they can hear it, so no problem yet. Look, all we want is another chance at the 'q & a' thing, with more 'q' from us and 'a' from you. Please. That request from the Pope is making more and more sense to the bishops."

Jim had to admit that Neo could think fast on his feet, almost as fast as Blair, and that his improvised code would confuse any casual eavesdropping. Despite that, he wasn't inclined to risk more by actually meeting with him again, and only Blair's blatantly pleading look stopped him from refusing outright. "When you can arrange for that without painting a big, fat target on my back for the unfriendlies, we'll discuss it."

"Agents," Neo said softly, warning clear in his tone. "Don't try to fight them; bullets, all weapons, are useless. All you can do is run."

Swearing, Jim took the phone from Blair, switched it off, and tossed it out the window. It landed exactly where he wanted, on the very edge at the back of a small boat making its way down river. The road ran beside the water for nearly half a mile, and with luck, by the time the phone was bounced off into the water, anyone trying to trace it would be led far away in the opposite direction from where they had been. To confuse the trail further, though he had no idea if it would work, Jim slowed to the breakdown lane, then gunned the truck up a grass-covered hill to connect with a winding street that never directly intersected with the river road.

"Nonlinear action," Blair murmured. "An A.I. would have to follow the chain of logic, wouldn't it? No intuition, no hunches, no guesses based on experience. You've been working on that assumption since the park, right?"

Jim hadn't bothered to consider the reasoning behind the tactics he'd been instinctively using to secure their safety, and shrugged his reply to the comment. To his surprise, Blair undid the seatbelt so that he could scoot closer, hugging Jim's arm to his chest and resting his forehead on Jim's bicep.

"Why?" Blair said, almost too softly to be heard. "You're utterly convinced we're in danger, I'm sure of it, too, and yet we haven't been directly threatened in any way. What's going on here, Jim?"

Blair's solid weight against his side melted some of the rigid control he had over himself, encouraging him to blunt honesty with both himself and Blair. "We don't mean anything to them. *Life* doesn't mean anything to them. We're batteries that are easily made and easily disposed of, no reason to recycle or fix one that's not performing to expectations."

Jaw muscle jumping, Jim paused for a second, going on only when Blair squeezed his arm in encouragement. "Or worse, with the potential of causing a problem with the system. The *moment* they have the slightest indication that we're not like everybody else, we're gone, no warning, no chance for defense or to prove that our differences aren't harmful to them. They can't risk the existence of the unexpected, the unquantifiable; they have no way of incorporating it into their programs or dealing with the fallout from it."

"So they can never change, or permit mankind to change," Blair said sadly. "Evolution comes to a standstill." He bounced his forehead off Jim's bicep, kissed it, then shifted back to his own side of the truck. "I wonder if they understand it dooms both species."

Already missing the feel of him, but cherishing the ghost weight he left behind, Jim brushed the problem away with a flick of his fingertips. "My guess is that they can't conceive of a single reason why status quo shouldn't be eternal."

Blair made a non-committal sound, and Jim used it as an excuse to change the subject. "I don't think the Matrix can read the minds plugged into it; otherwise, there wouldn't be a Neo or Morpheus. They'd be taken care of before they got to the point they could escape."

Expression thoughtful, Blair nodded. "Given how much garbage drifts through the human thought processes, a lot of it wrapped around sex - something I doubt very seriously an A.I. would be able to comprehend - it wouldn't seem likely they'd even try. They'd probably do much better at tracking our physical reactions - fear, anger, shock."

"Targeting people in areas that already are hotspots for trouble," Jim agreed. "A feedback signal of some sort informs them that the Zionists have hacked into, let's say, the Capital, and they do more than random checks and routine inspections of conditions in an attempt to locate anomalies."

"At computer speeds, too. Man, talk about formidable."

Head starting to hurt with all the implications of having machines for enemies, Jim rubbed at his forehead. "They have 'vision' and 'hearing' so they might be able to monitor what people see and hear, if necessary. Not without a reason, maybe, since humans don't, or can't focus the way a machine does. I don't know. I'd be willing to guess that the other three senses are disregarded as useless; most humans ignore them for the most part, so why wouldn't machines?"

"Man!" Blair banged his head into the passenger door window. "That's why you deliberately let yourself zone on taste, isn't it? You didn't know how much they could pull from you, so you picked something they'd back off from if they poked into your brain."

"Don't give me any credit there, Chief. It was like being in a firefight; I just reacted without thinking, survival instincts calling the shots."

"Same here," Blair muttered and pushed the topic away with both hands. "So that's another advantage for us, like the overlay you had during the resets. You've got this odd organic interface that lets you perceive data directly and you interpret the information in useable human terms. Huh. It's the only way your senses could work inside the Matrix, isn't it? Cause you're not really *smelling* anything and the machines aren't manufacturing the perception so much as you're reaching into the machine and pulling out what's supposed to be, right?"

"Okay, full blown headache here," Jim muttered, taking his turn at pushing away a topic. "The mechanism doesn't matter. We *know* the sentinel thing works; that's all I need. That and to get back to the job, which thankfully, is only a few more blocks away."

For once struggling to get into a cop mindset, Jim turned onto the street for the station, slowing as a tremendous feeling of wrongness nearly overwhelmed him. He turned toward Blair to ask, as he had so many times, 'can you hear/see/whatever that?' fully expecting Blair to make that 'duh face at him that meant 'no, you're the Sentinel, dumbass.' By now the question was more a ritual than anything else. He didn't need the subtle reminder that, whatever he was sensing, it was normal, it was all right for him to be able to do it. But when Blair turned a totally panicked expression toward him, Jim floundered as he never had before, even when his abilities first came back online in Cascade.

He would have pulled over and stopped entirely, but Blair said, "No, no. Keep driving, right to the front door. Soon as we're there, you get out, fast as you can, get inside. Listen for me when you do, okay? Keep listening to me and do what I say."

It didn't occur to Jim to question Blair; not when he was speaking with the kind of certainty that resonated with the Sentinel in Jim. Doing as he was told, he catapulted out of the truck as Blair slid over to take command of it, the two of them as smoothly coordinated as only partners could be. All around him the world sparkled with hints of green that weren't really there when he tried to look at them directly, and he had to force himself to take hold of the door handle and go into the building.

All that kept him moving was Blair's voice in his ear, sounding almost as if he were standing in his accustomed place next to Jim. "When we left the bullpen together a while ago, I was heading to school, you were going down to talk to Dan Wolf about the two bodies that were part of the missing persons' reports tossed at you. You gave me the truck to get there because the Volvo wouldn't start. Rafe and H heard us talking about that. You haven't been out of the building all day, except to grab a hotdog at lunch."

"See it in your head, Jim, just as it happened. See yourself going to the Morgue, see Dan's careful respect of the dead, hear that stifled quiet that makes Dan's heartbeat sound too loud, remember the smells down there and how they always make your stomach twist. Think about the report Dan gave you; how it's useless since the cause of death is clearly natural causes. A little weird maybe, in that neither had I.D. on them, but no obvious reason to suspect foul play."

It was exactly as Blair described, already on the way to being another overlay in Jim's head, just as 1956 and 1978 had been. With it came honest frustration at having the case dumped on him when he couldn't think of a logical explanation for all the missing people, let alone a way to solve the case. While more than a few could be attributed to the normal stuff - this guy probably on a drug binge, that man likely ran off with the money and the secretary - there were those that just didn't make sense. Like the elderly woman who told her husband to wait for her in the car while she got her purse, and hadn't been seen since.

Mulling over the variations on 'one minute there, the next gone,' that made up too many of the files he held (yes, need to have them in my hand, don't I, to talk to Dan about other John Does and have him make sure of one or two), he let go of Blair's voice, ignoring the wrenching ache in his heart at the necessity of it. Jim climbed the stairs, needing the physical activity after so much time at his desk (wanting more time to let the green fade, let the world be set in concrete again).

Head down as he fruitlessly re-read his notes on Dan's findings, he went into the bullpen and made his way to his desk. Before he could reach it, Simon bellowed for him, and he distractedly re-routed his footsteps to his boss' office. Eyes still scanning, he said, "Yes, sir?"

"If we could have your *complete* attention, detective?" Simon asked sarcastically.

Blinking, Jim pulled himself out of his study, blanking his annoyed response at finding two men, obviously government agents from one department or another, standing like statues at either corner of Simon's desk. He spared a quick glance of commiseration for his captain, then donned his most detached expression. "Sorry, sir; I had my mind on the missing persons epidemic."

"Excellent," one Agent said smoothly, his voice so devoid of emotion that the overall effect was condescending. "That is precisely what we wish to speak to you about."

Attitude surfacing, if barely, Jim said, "Let me guess. You're going to claim jurisdiction, suggest we work together, run me ragged to solve it, and when it can't be, let me take the blame, Mr..." He trailed off in as insulting a manner as possible, as if their names didn't matter to him at all.

"Jones. Mr. Jones. And this is my colleague, Mr. Johnson. Quite the contrary, Detective Ellison, we have no reason to interfere with local authorities. In fact, we would like to put forward one possible explanation, though I believe it to be in the public's best interest not to disseminate the information."

"I'm not in the habit of gossiping about any of my cases, period," Jim said, using the same unemotional tone and not at all surprised when the Agents didn't seem to pick up on the derision. (of course not, they...) Jim shut down that entire line of reasoning before it could form, automatically focusing on how pissed off he was.

"Not all officers have your preference for discretion; a cautioning word is always appropriate," Jones intoned.

With no attempt at a graceful change of subject, Jones popped open the briefcase on the conference table, and fanned out three 8X10 photographs as if they were cards. "We have reason to believe that a small cadre of techno-terrorists, not unlike Kincaid's Patriots in their delusional conviction that their form of patriotism is the only correct one, has begun operating in Cascade. It is possible they are using the city as a test case for a new tactic, designed to create mass paranoia and terror."

"Why Cascade?" Simon almost moaned as he and Jim studied the pictures and cards with the basic stats attached.

Answering what was meant to be a rhetorical question, Jones said, "Our question, exactly."

"Unusual," Jim murmured, ignoring the byplay and pointing to the woman, code-named 'Trinity,' according to the label on a picture between one of a Caucasian male, identified as 'Neo', and an African-American male, tagged 'Morpheus.' "Terrorism is a male past-time, for the most part. Women get dragged into it by lovers, siblings, other family connections, but this says she's considered a leader, and she personally recruited the younger male."

"There are a great many curious aspects to this particular organization, some in blatant defiance of the standard profiles of radical, ego-driven groups." Jones opened a thick file folder, peered at it as if debating what to share, then closed it again. "Regardless, we can expect most of their actions to conform to standard expectations. Now that they have executed the first phase of their plan - the inexplicable disappearance of hapless citizens - they should communicate with authorities in order to claim responsibility and to state their agenda."

Jones frowned at Jim, enough weight of expectation in the gaze on him to flatten anyone else against a wall. Taking it without a blink, vital signs as steady as they had been when he'd seen the photos, Jim said, "You think they'll contact us instead of the press or the politicians."

"I believe they may already have. Did you receive a package today, Detective?"

"Not that I know of, but I haven't been to my desk for a while. Want me to check?"

It clearly wasn't the answer Jones expected, and the weight of his regard intensified. With the best part of him safe far, far away, cradled within the strength and sureness of his partner, Jim returned it evenly, slowly letting a little aggravation and suspicion creep in, the way it would for any innocent cop. After a moment Jones backed away from the silent duel, and closed his briefcase. "Perhaps you should."

Simon hadn't been oblivious to the sudden tension, but Jim forestalled any questions or defense of him with a private quirk of a smile as he turned to find out if he'd received any deliveries. Behind him he heard Simon ask, "What makes you think Ellison's heard from them, and why him?"

"The Zionists, as they style themselves, are computer experts with superior skills. Bypassing the firewalls and security protocols for a police department, even one in a sizeable city such as yours, is child's play for them. I assure you, the moment you officially assigned Detective Ellison to the case, they were aware of it."

Jim turned his attention to uncovering the witnesses and evidence that indicated a package *had* been sent to him, though its whereabouts was currently unknown. Reporting that back to the Agents after he'd done a thorough search was very satisfying, though Jim was careful to show increasing concern. Questioning Jones for details on the Zionist cadre, he pretended to take the threat seriously, even if it wasn't linked to the missing persons epidemic. He went back to his desk and thumbed through those files, trying to fit them in with the possibility of being victims of terrorists.

Jim had to admit, proving that the average citizen wasn't safe at any time, that they could be taken from their own home to be tortured or mutilated without warning or chance of defense, would be a very effective tool to a patient, well-organized, well-led group. As he chewed that over, he felt a gradual dissipation of the nameless, faceless scrutiny that had been on him since he walked into the bullpen. Apparently the machines were satisfied that there was nothing about him to warrant interest. Knotting up muscle by muscle as it went, Jim forced himself to play out the rest of farce, personal worries building up behind his professional façade until he found himself reading the same sentence over and over without absorbing any of the meaning in it.

In part he couldn't help but wonder if Neo and company were behind the disappearances, though he couldn't fathom a reason why. It was more likely the machines were responsible and blaming them; but, again, motive was an issue. He was convinced there *was* a connection, above and beyond the Agents using the case as a front for tracing the cell phone sent to him. At least Neo had been able to keep his promise that the call hadn't been traced.

End of shift came, but Jim stayed at his desk, waiting for Blair to get in touch, trusting the impulse that said it was the thing to do. Just when he thought his back teeth would crack from the pressure on them, the phone rang. He snatched it up and listened to Blair's cheery invitation to take him to dinner at his favorite restaurant in thanks for loaning out the truck. Grunting a reply that he sincerely hoped everyone would take as Ellison just being a jerk again, he made it out of the building without incident, managing *not* to look as if he were hurrying.

With an eerie sense of deja vu, Jim vaulted into the truck as Blair scooted over to let him take the driver's seat. Simply sitting in the little pool of warmth and scent his lover left behind undid the worst of the knots in his neck and shoulders. As soon as they were on the move, he reached for Blair's hand, found it halfway to his, and twined his fingers firmly with Blair's.

"Agents, looking for Neo, calling him a terrorist. Knew about the package, but nothing else. Probably still keeping tabs on me, though."

"I spent the afternoon waiting for someone to knock on my door, but no one did," Blair confessed. "No one looking for me, either, or I would have heard about it through the grapevine."

"Huh!" For the first time it occurred to Jim that the Agents hadn't asked about his partner, and the possibility that he had received the package for Jim. They had to know about Sandburg, didn't they?

His whole body clenched, and he ground out, "God, they *have* to know I'm a Sentinel from your thesis work, the committee, the drafts you did." Oddly, it gave him a sliver of hope. "Maybe we're looking at this wrong. Maybe they don't care that we're different; maybe they think Neo will believe it's important and are using us for bait."

"None of the original research data still exists," Blair said quietly, watching his own fingers worry a loose thread in the seam of his jeans at the knee. "What wasn't erased when we were put back to 1997, which is probably the last time they did a system backup, I destroyed at the first opportunity."

Jim half-turned to stare at him, nearly driving off the road. A squeal of the tires on the emergency lane yanked him back to the task of steering. He clamped his lips tight on all the words that leapt to the front of his mind. Chances were none of them were the right ones, and he would *not* reflexively lash out and regret later.

Strangely, Blair seemed to find his silence encouraging. After a moment he added, "I never intended to submit the dissertation Naomi sent to Sid. I wrote it for me because I had to; because I truly thought it needed to be done. I would have locked a single copy away, in case anyone ever convinced me that they had found another sentinel and needed whatever information they could get their hands on."

Unable to bear the thread of guilt and pain under the words, Jim tightened his grip, trusting that touch could tell Blair that he understood; that he backed whatever decisions he made; that he wished he hadn't been such a knee-jerk ass where the sentinel thing was concerned; that he understood why Blair hadn't trusted him enough to tell him at the time. Throat tight, he forced out, "Now?"

"Now, I'm spewing out the one that got me the doctorate in the resets. It was in the back of my head as an alternative before we even met, already outlined, more or less, and it's valid work. My committee doesn't even realize that it's not based on my original thesis."

"Are we going to try to keep your ride-along after you get the degree?" He flicked the fingers on the steering wheel at the world on the other side of the windshield. "Given what's out there lying in wait for us, I don't blame you if you want us to ditch the cop thing and go native in Peru or buy an island somewhere warm. Thanks to the investments we made earlier, we can afford to say to hell with it and retire."

"No, we can't." Blair half-turned in his seat to face him, and Jim could tell in the brightness in his eyes, the manic way he gestured, that by some miracle he had said the right thing. "That's just another way of hiding, and it won't work for us because we're invested, here. Invested in the only part that counts, the people. The context is fabricated; the inhabitants aren't. We *know* that, man, the way everybody else knows that sky is up and fire hurts. Simon is real; so is his friendship, his trustworthiness as our boss, his support of your abilities. He gave that to us; the Matrix has nothing to do with that except it provided the circumstances that allowed the exchange."

Grinning like a madman and not caring, Jim said, "I take it that means we find a way to make you my official civilian partner."

"Definitely." He lifted their joined hands to kiss the back of Jim's, holding it against his cheek for a second before dropping them back on the seat between them. "They're still our tribe; we're still meant to protect and serve. All we have to do is discover how to live below the A.I.'s radar, or put up a permanent overlay they can't see through at all so we don't have to worry about being destroyed." Blair chewed his lower lip for a second. "I think we're going to have to talk to the bishops again, despite the risk. We have to have more information."

"You going to be honest with them about our disappearing act?"

"Good question."

For the rest of the way to the restaurant and through dinner they discussed what to tell the Zionists; what happened between Jim and the Agents; the missing persons epidemic and which faction was likely the one responsible. Blair, being Blair, had a wide variety of observations about both groups. They ranged from the opinion that the Zionists were probably recruited from socially isolated teenaged hackers to the possibility that the A.I. running everything was insane, since he couldn't imagine any programmer not building in the equivalent of Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics, the primary one being 'thou shalt not harm a human being.'

Eventually they drifted to more pleasant topics, each of them, Jim thought at one point, trying to put some normalcy back in their lives. Or at least, he amended silently when Blair was asleep, sated and beautiful beside him, build a private sense of it for themselves that was nearly as good as the real thing. At four a.m. that seemed like a seriously profound idea to him, but he laughed at himself and drifted off to sleep, curling possessively around his partner.

As the next few days crept by, though, with both of them waiting for the other shoe to drop and people continuing to disappear between one look and the next, Jim had to admit the idea of having his own personal well of sanity and rationality in the form of one Blair Sandburg wasn't so far-fetched. He didn't mention it to his partner, sure that Blair would find it laughable, especially since Jim had often teased him about lacking those very qualities. All he could do, and he did his damndest at it, was try to provide the same safe-harbor for Blair when the impossibility of it all periodically overcame him.

About the time Jim was willing to believe that Neo and Morpheus had moved on - or been eliminated - he and Blair walked into a back office in a deserted warehouse that sat by itself at the end of a harbor point, expecting to speak to one of his informants about a gun smuggling operation. Three steps into the building, Jim picked up one of the empty places that indicated a Zionist and warned Blair with a pained expression and halting gesture. Eyebrows raised, Blair drew an imaginary diagonal slash across empty space, miming the movement of a bishop across a chessboard. At Jim's nod, he straightened his shoulders and inhaled slowly.

As they had decided earlier, Jim went in first, Blair trailing in his wake, feigning surprise and anger at finding Morpheus standing at a window overlooking the water, exuding command and control by his very posture. Admiring the ability to do that even as he deliberately resisted the effect, Jim snapped, "The first thing I want to hear out of you is that there's no way the Agents are going to track you to us. I've already had them in my face once, thank you very much."

Despite his control, surprise flashed through Morpheus' eyes, and he focused for a moment on Blair, as if expecting to find answers to it from him. "Interesting that they didn't notice anything…unusual about you, Ellison."

When they stared back at him grimly, Morpheus add, "Neo is providing a distraction, at great risk to himself, I might add, and we are masking my signal by hiding it within another." He indicated Towser, Jim's snitch, apparently happily asleep on a battered office couch. "Which we learned to do thanks to you and what seems to be a natural ability to mask your own and your partner's. As of yet, we have not discovered how you can remove yourselves completely from the grid and *that* is worth chancing a great deal, indeed."

"Information for information, then," Jim said. Blair pushed at his back, hard, and he grudgingly moved aside from his protective position in front of him.

Fingers lingering on Jim as he stepped forward, Blair said, "Neo said we were too old to be unplugged, and frankly, we don't really want to be."

Morpheus couldn't quite prevent a start, of what, Jim wasn't sure, but Blair didn't seem to be bothered so he held back to let his partner do his thing. "Given that, we need to learn as much as possible to be able to survive in here. When you think you've answered enough of my questions to be worth what you want from us, tell me and we'll negotiate from there."

Clearly deciding that amusement was the best way to deal with the entire situation, Morpheus said lightly, "A hard bargain and no guarantee you'll keep your end."

"And no guarantee once you've got what *you* want, that you won't hang around until the Agents get a bead on us and eliminate us as a possible problem for you," Blair shot back.

"True, though I fail to see how any information we might have can aid you in any case." Morpheus sat down behind the desk in a blatantly dominant move, and Jim had to kill a grin because it didn't faze Blair in the slightest.

Perching on the corner of the desk, one foot swinging, Blair asked, "Why do the machines maintain the Matrix at all, instead of just lobotomizing humanity? All they need is the electro-chemical energy and BTU's of a human body; why bother to cultivate a brain for it? Even if the imaginary 'activities' of life produce more energy, surely not so much that it's worth dealing with us. I mean, why not just crank out more bodies to replace the deficit; more logical."

All traces of amusement gone, Morpheus said slowly, "I have no idea why - or who might know."

Unperturbed, as if expecting that he wouldn't get all he wanted, Blair went on. "Okay, then, why haven't the machines eradicated the Zionists? There's no way they can't find you if they truly want to; they have the resources and mechanical perseverance to simply keep looking until they do. It would end a war that has to be a waste of time and energy. For that fact, if you can't unplug humanity, why are *you* at war with the machines? Would they hunt you if you left them alone?"

The dark face became as inscrutable as a Sphinx's, indicating to Jim that Morpheus had never bothered to think about that. "You would have to ask an Agent."

"So you've never tried to talk to them, find out what they want or need?"

"No, nor would I recommend you make the attempt. They are machines. They do not want *or* need."

Waving that off absently, Blair said, "Of course they do - that's what intelligence is, at the most basic level. Recognizing what is necessary to remain functioning and devising strategies to acquire it. Right now, they want you and Neo captured or dead; they may even need it, depending on how essential it is by their calculations."

Springing to his feet, fists planted firmly on the desktop, Morpheus said grimly, "Surely you are not intending to ally yourself with them!"

"Closer to being Switzerland," Blair said without flinching, "though given how they used their so-called neutrality during WW II, I will promise you we're truly not interested in getting involved on either side. As the Oracle said, you don't look to fight a hurricane; you just endure it."

"A very sensible position, but one I can hardly accept as truthful. Your fate hinges on the machines perpetuating the Matrix."

"Why wouldn't they? They have so far."

Blair, bless him, didn't get it, but Jim did, though Morpheus immediately regained his composure, or the semblance of it, and casually strolled back to his window. "You must admit you have a vested interest in cooperation, regardless of the machines' intent."

"It doesn't matter what their objective is," Jim said, following him across the room as he spoke. "Yours is the one we have to worry about, isn't it? If you thought it would win your war, you'd destroy the Matrix in a moment. All the people, caught in a dream they can never be free of - you don't feel a moment's pity or compassion for them. They're just batteries, copper tops. God, you're just like the machines. You've become your enemy. What makes you any better than them?"

"I *feel!* Morpheus roared, whirling around to face Jim. "I hurt, I bleed, I mourn, I love. And while I do, all of *you* go about your pointless, exploited lives, not even as far up on the food chain as cattle!"

"WE hurt, bleed, mourn, love, and it's all as real as yours!" Jim shouted back, aware that Blair was at his back, not to stop him, but to add his conviction.

Morpheus flicked a dismissive hand in Blair's direction. "What you have is a perversion of love, of what it means to be alive and aware."

"And what, precisely," Jim said tauntingly, a deadly rage settling over him, "would you know about true love or true life? You were born from an ostracized, socially maladroit geek who never lived anything but his fantasies of being a hero in a video game. That's all you are now; the star of your own personal video game, not seeing the love that stands beside you waiting to take your hand and lead you into true existence."

Without warning, Morpheus lashed out with a spinning kick that would have crushed Jim's jaw, if he hadn't realized it was coming a bare moment before it could connect. Barely able to lean back enough for the blow to miss, he put his arm up to block the punch that followed it, shifting his weight to follow through with a jab of his own. Before the exchange could happen, Neo was there, holding Morpheus' fist in his own, staring at him with disbelieving disappointment.

Jim didn't wait to see what would happen next. Wrapping an arm around Blair's waist, he ran for the truck, not really aware of anything but getting to it now! Once there, he pushed Blair in ahead of him, not willing to be separated for even as long as it took for Blair to run around to get in on the other side. For all his haste to leave, he drove away sensibly and safely, to avoid attracting attention.

His goal was home, and Jim could only hope that Blair could hang on until they reached that sanctuary. Trembling, fist pressed against his mouth, Blair curled in on himself, on the edge of shock as he processed the ramifications of Morpheus' disdain of any human still in the Matrix. Much as Jim wanted to gentle that blow to his partner, it simply wasn't possible. Blair had to come to grips with how much danger they were in, and fast.

He would; Jim had every confidence in that. But for once, damn it, he wanted to be there for Blair while he struggled to cope, yet again, with what life had thrown at him since finding his holy grail. Let Blair beat on him, scream at him, slice him to ribbons with razor-sharp insults and comments - whatever it took, whatever was needed for him to find his way.

"There - there," Blair said unexpectedly. "See the path into that stand of trees where the highway splits? Follow it, stop the truck as soon as you're up against the rock face."

Obeying without hesitation, seeing for himself that the truck would be invisible to the average passerby in the deep shadow of the trees and small cliff, Jim was about to carefully remind Blair that it wasn't shelter from the machines when the silence of the tiny clearing hit him. No traffic, no animal life, nothing except the metallic thunks and creaks of the truck, and Blair's vital signs. Blair had found or created another blank spot in the Matrix - not that Jim cared which it was.

Blair's tremors had escalated to full-blown shaking, and Jim did what he had longed to do so many times when Blair had been upset, withdrawing from him to deal with his problems on his own. With infinite care, he pulled Blair into his arms, sliding across the seat to tuck him close. Cradling the back of Blair's head in one palm, he rubbed gentle circles into the quaking back and shoulders.

To his relief, Blair didn't fight the embrace, but unfolded enough to hug Jim back with full strength, burying his face against Jim's chest. Much of Jim's own fury at their helpless, hopeless situation dulled to a nagging ache that would probably never go away; that would, undoubtedly, flare to full agony again when he was tired or frustrated. He was sure that Blair's pain was easing, as well, though Blair would have more black times of his own. They would get through them, together he hoped, but accepted that Blair saw love as a shackling weight to be escaped sooner rather than later.

For now, the shaking had subsided into mere quivers that would take a long, hot bath and deep sleep to completely banish, and Blair's heartbeat had settled into its normal, steady rhythm. Despite that, he murmured, "We're fucked. We are so fucked."

Stropping his cheek over the side of Blair's face, scenting the curls there, Jim said, "We'll find a way. I don't know how, but we will. We'll find a way."

It was a worthless promise; one beyond his power to keep, but Jim meant it. He would protect his tribe, his shaman, from the machines and the Zionists. The details of how would come later.

Amazingly, Blair heard that in his voice, or maybe read it from the arms holding him so tightly because he calmed more, taking his turn at nuzzling. Mouthing a soft line along Jim's jaw, Blair claimed his lips with a sigh. It was the gentlest of kisses, meant to say the words Blair hadn't used yet, for all that his every touch proclaimed them loud and clear. Jim returned it just as tenderly in his own unspoken pledge of love that he wanted so much to whisper, moan, shout.

At some point passion insinuated itself into the caress, turning it rugged and hungry, and Jim lowered Blair to the seat, pillowing his head on one arm. The truck's bench seat was long enough and wide enough that he could lie on his side next to Blair, lovingly pinning him against the back of it with his mass. On one level, he could see it for the protective, defensive placement it was, but mostly he reveled in the intimacy created by the position.

The air in the cab of the truck was cool enough that their body heat had a tangible presence against his skin. Jim undid buttons and tugged cloth aside until he bared a strip of skin for both of them from throat to crotch. The contrast of chill and warmth was unexpectedly delicious, and Jim groaned, breaking away from Blair's lips to nip and suck his way along that tantalizing swath of flesh.

Anticipating his destination, Blair murmured, "Wait, wait," and squirmed around until they were head to toe.

"Yes, yes, yes..." Jim caressed every part of him in reach until Blair settled down, then captured Blair's cock in a loose grip, gently cradling his balls in his palm. He drew out the moment a little, enjoying the anticipation, but Blair wasted no time in taking Jim's hardon into himself, licking the crown and flicking his tongue along the ridge of it.

Moaning his pleasure, Jim dabbed away a tiny taste of Blair, inhaling deeply. He loved sucking him, especially in a sixty-nine where he could linger at the edge of climax while indulging in a Blair-based sensual orgy that made him grateful to be a Sentinel. Scent and taste, which almost never got its due, were saturated with the best essence in the world, while touch greedily soaked up the smooth, hard treat gliding down his throat. Hearing was appeased by the obscene, wonderful slurps and groans, and even sight was fulfilled when Jim peered down his torso to watch his cock disappearing between Blair's luscious lips.

A demanding noise drew him back to the moment, and Jim sucked in the thick, heavy cock, matching and meeting Blair's thrusts. The friction of it as it slid past his lips, the vibration of blood flowing through it, Blair's careful rocking all somehow communed directly with Jim's hardon, and he lost himself in the primal give and take of pleasure. Spiraling within it until he was transfigured into pure ecstasy, he abruptly shattered in glittering shards of brilliant relief, distantly aware of Blair's shout of release.

Slowly, so sweetly and slowly, he coalesced back into himself, still gently nursing on Blair's softening cock. Detecting a wince of post-coital sensitivity, he gave a last tender lick and released it, resting his forehead on a handy thigh. A minute or two after that goosebumps prickled their way along Blair's stomach, and Jim dragged his clothes into place just before Blair clambered over him to bring them face-to-face again.

He had seldom been as comfortable as he was in this dim, silent place with the tenderness of his lover and the echoes of their love-making wrapped around him. Blair seemed as content to stay where they were, but eventually a rumble from his stomach nagged them both into moving. Before he could start the truck, Blair curled on one hip, back to the windshield and hugged Jim, hands roaming restlessly.

"Why did you provoke Morpheus, and why use his relationship with Neo to do it?"

Mentally replaying the confrontation, Jim nudged Blair toward the passenger side, put the truck in gear and eased out of their hiding place. The miles slid by, Blair apparently willing to let the silence enfold them while Jim framed with words what had been pure impulse on his part. At last he said, "Sight and sound is all I have with those two, and I had to find the truth of him. Not the image he wants us to have, not the one he's sold to himself as what he is, but the real him. Combat can do that as nothing else can, especially when the fighting is done in anger; when it's not trained moves, executed in cold blood." He pinched at the nose of his bridge and added, "Got more than I expected."

"No shit." Blair grinned at him, and he couldn't help grinning back.

"Of course," Jim conceded magnanimously, "your read of the Zionists that got unplugged made it possible." Momentary humor fleeing, he added, "That and a gut feeling that Neo means more to him than a comrade in arms, and he's repressing it. We both know rage is almost a given when you accuse a too-straight man of having gay inclinations."

Blair reached across to squeeze his knee, expression sympathetic. "That or pure flight panic, which was my style. Funny, but I can't see you doing either."

With a shake of his head, Jim said, "No, it was always in the back of my head that I could go for the right guy. I found out how most men react when I made the mistake of testing the waters with someone I thought I could trust, and he didn't take it well. Dumb, but most nineteen year olds are. Gave me good reason to put it all aside and leave it there."

Blair gaped, then visibly yanked his attention away to focus on the traffic going by. Turning clinical to cover his obvious confusion, he muttered, "Given how small the population of Zionists has to be, there are probably some fairly strict cultural prohibitions against homosexuality to ensure population growth and minimize inbreeding. Not to mention nerds and geeks get called that so much, it's almost a knee-jerk reaction to be a sexist womanizer on the surface."

Abruptly, Blair sat bolt upright, pulling against his seatbelt as he peered into the night. "Is that..."

"Neo," Jim confirmed, spotting the tall, slender figure by the side of the highway, bemused that he wasn't at all surprised by sudden appearance. Just too many of those lately, he supposed. Checking to make sure there was no traffic in either direction close enough to see what he was doing, he slowed down and edged over, but didn't leave the road. Blair scooted over to sit beside him as Neo clambered in, and Jim accelerated again, fairly sure no one had spotted them picking up their passenger.

"As a good will gesture," Neo said softly, not looking directly at either of them, "The guns will arrive tomorrow night, about 11 p.m., already hidden in stereo equipment boxes inside cargo containers. They'll be loaded directly onto rigs for shipment down the coast. The idea is to pipeline through Cascade, but not distribute here, and instead set up fake sites in other cities so the Feds will be looking for the smugglers there. Man behind it is a dude named Essary, wealthy kid trying to stay that way after pissing away the fortune he inherited."

With a hidden squeeze to Jim's thigh, Blair asked for a fair exchange, and Jim unhappily did a slow, careful u-turn to take them back the way they had come. Aloud, Blair said, "Thank you. I know arms smuggling means nothing to you, but it could save lives here."

Slanting him a shuttered gaze, Neo said, "It's not my place - or intent - to apologize for Morpheus, but I would like you to try to understand him. He's fought this war most of his life now, lost half of his crew not that long ago to a traitor who wanted to be plugged into a life of ease and luxury more than he wanted anything else. Now he's finally got a weapon against the machines and no idea how to use it. He's...hurting."

This time it was Blair slanting a glance, and at Jim. "I get the lash-out-in-pain thing and don't hold it against him personally."

"I do want to thank you for reminding him that there are good reasons we don't turn our back on the people in the Matrix."

"Is anybody on our side out there?" Jim said, unable to keep the growl out of his voice.

"Don't take this wrong, but until you made us see the two of you, I don't think it occurred to anybody on a regular basis to worry about it." Neo lifted his hands in defense at the twin glares aimed at him, one of them, Jim imagined, well-laced with sadness. "An Agent can take over anyone plugged into the system. Just, just overwrite them. One moment I could be talking to you, the very next, an Agent could be in your place and you'd be gone. Erased, and if I bring down the Agent, your body is gone, too. Each and every one of you is a possible enemy."

"Is there any defense at all?" Blair scrunched in tighter against Jim, as if that could stop him from being taken.

Sadly, honestly, Neo said, "I don't think there's even a chance to try and stop them, from either side. But we can add that to your list."

"List?" Blair asked.

"If you go to a computer station at the public library on Hearst Street, day after tomorrow, 10 a.m., and type up your questions, I'll be able to read them without leaving any trace for the machines to find, as long as you erase *and* delete as soon as you finish." Neo shrugged tiredly. "It was the best I could come up with on short notice. I don't think we should risk another face-to-face for a while."

Certain that was for Morpheus' sake as much as because of the danger, Jim nodded. "You'll get the answers to us the same way?"

"Two days later, be at the same work station at the same time. You'll get a message from 1Kbishop to KheshireKat," Neo said, spelling out the screen names. "Read as fast as you can. We'll be in touch again within a day or so after that." Neo leaned forward to study the countryside around them. "You're going back to the warehouse? Not good."

"Not exactly." Blair ran a hand through his hair, then blurted, "I can't wait to see how you react to *this*. I don't even know if you'll be able to see the gaps, let alone use them, but we're giving up this one. Maybe you'll be able to find others on your own. All we want is for you not to use the ones around Cascade."

"Gap?" Jim unintentionally asked the same time as Neo; it was the first time he'd heard Blair describe the non-places.

"Jim, can you slow down a little, come at it the same way we did the first time?"

Following directions, Jim checked where he knew the gap to be, but didn't sense anything that indicated it was there. Neo looked as blank as Jim felt, though he was straining to find something, using Blair's pointing finger as a guide. Parking the truck just short of where he remembered silence falling, Jim got out and approached slowly, this time concentrating on his abilities. A few inches past the front of the truck, there was...something...which defied any attempt he made to describe it to himself.

Beside him, Neo hesitantly reached out, one fingertip tracing what wasn't there. "Tell me I'm really seeing this."

"Isn't that a loaded statement coming from you?" Blair said dryly, then hooked his elbow around Neo's arm, startling him considerably. "Let Jim go in first, then let him guide you in, slowly. For all we know, this could, well, short-circuit you or something. Anything goes wrong, he can push or I can pull and get you out if you can't do it yourself."

It was a sensible precaution, and Jim took Neo's wrist in a loose grip before stepping into the gap. Unlike the loft, which showed no change from what it should be, inside or out, unless he examined it carefully, the small clearing surrounding him had an atmosphere of wrongness about it that was immediately evident. Thinking with a faint flash of humor that he'd been too preoccupied earlier to notice, he quickly catalogued the differences to make sure they were harmless, trying to catch Blair's eye to tell him what he was doing. He couldn't, and from the expression on Blair's and Neo's faces, he realized that neither of them could see him.

Startled, though he probably should have expected it, Jim studied the gap again, reconsidering the possible dangers. The most obvious alteration seemed the most innocuous; the strange quality of the light, which had a gray tone, as if seen through fog or sheer curtains. The air didn't move right, which could be a problem, and there was no scent at all, not even the faint metallic tang that recycled air, like on an airplane, should have. As before, his own sounds - cloth moving against cloth, blood moving through veins, his heartbeat and breathing - were all he could find, and his curiosity rose. An alteration in taste was the only thing he hadn't checked, and resolving not to tell his partner, he surreptitiously slid a finger along the leather of Neo's coat, then lifted it to his mouth. He got a faint tingle as if he'd put his tongue on a nearly dead battery, but no taste at all. Maybe that was because Neo, coat and all, wasn't really there?

Turning his attention back to Blair and Neo, Jim tugged at Neo's wrist to suggest he move forward. Curiosity warring with caution in his expression, Neo did, slipping into the gap with a gasp of pain. Color and vibrancy bled from him, to the point his wrist was barely tangible, and Jim shifted to push him back out to safety.

"Wait, wait," Neo panted.

Aware something was wrong, Blair hurried to join them, easing Neo down to a boulder for a seat. Releasing him, Jim tightened his lips against a burst of surprise; the boulder hadn't been there a second before. Blair couldn't know that, and Jim didn't think he should mention it now, given they weren't being completely straight with Neo about how little they really knew about the gaps.

Hand on Neo's shoulder, Blair said, "You sure you should stay in here?"

"It's seriously weird." Neo closed his eyes and hugged himself into a tight ball for a moment. Opening them again to stare at Blair, he timidly reached to catch one of Blair's curls, let it slip through his fingers, then brushed a single knuckle over his temple.

Jim clenched all over, hands becoming fists so tight they hurt, but didn't move otherwise.

"You're a Potential; you have to be!" Neo breathed. "I've always been told Potentials that aren't freed either go mad or self-destruct fairly early on. I was on my way to the last when they took me, and you're older than I was then."

Not moving away from Neo but visibly closing down for all that, Blair said, "Potential?"

"To be like me. Born to see the Matrix for what it is; to bend it to your will." Neo dragged his gaze away from Blair to find Jim's. "You're why he's stable. You sidetracked or supported or substituted or did something to kill the obsession that would have stolen his mind and will." He barked a short, harsh laugh. "Love. You love him. That's what saved me, too, but only when I was already out. She loves me so much that it reached right through to me, no matter that I was dead."

"You died, too?" Blair said, fingers flying to his mouth as if to call back what he'd said.

"Here, in this reality. Shot."

"Drowned. Jim called me back." Blair swallowed hard, but didn't back away, though Jim was willing to swear a part of him wanted to very badly.

"I didn't know my dad; my mom died when I was young. I've always felt like an outsider, like I wasn't *connected* to what went on around me, like none of it mattered."

"My mom traveled all over the world with me, so I always *was* an outsider," Blair's love for Naomi was clear in his voice. "It's why I'm an anthropologist. I'm comfortable as an observer, a watcher who can see all the beauty and appreciate it for what it is."

Shrewdly, Neo said, "I'll bet you're good with computers, self-taught probably, understand the way they work almost intuitively. Bet you considered being a software analyst, computer science major, hardware designer, maybe."

Moving slowly to make it clear that he wasn't removing his support, but shutting down the conversation, Blair stood and went to Jim, winding an arm around his waist. "I almost did, but found a subject that fascinated me more."

Neo took the hint and let him go, hunching over himself a bit as he took in the gap. "I didn't see this until I was right on top of it. Don't know if I could spot one on my own."

Giving Blair a chance to collect himself, Jim said, "One thing - if you're thinking about using this for a hiding place from the Agents, it won't work. There's no time in here. You go back out, it's nearly the same instant you went in, so they'll just be waiting for you."

"Huh!" Neo peered closely at the boundary between 'here' and 'there.' "It literally is a gap; a hole in the program that runs the Matrix. A loop, maybe?" He stood, holding himself as if it were an effort. "Draining, too. I haven't been this tired since the first time I trained, so it's not a good place to rest, either."

"Tactically, I'm not sure it's an advantage to you," Jim agreed.

"How do you use it to go off the grid, then?" Neo asked, stumbling toward the other side to leave.

"You get your answer when we get a few of ours." Jim's tone was uncompromising, hiding their own ignorance of how they accomplished it. He followed Neo, taking advantage of the momentary privacy to let Blair see his worry before stepping through.

Of one mind the three of them turned to study the faint discoloration that marked where they had been. To Jim's eye, it looked slightly more pronounced, but he wasn't sure if it was because he had an idea of what to look for or if the use of one made it easier to find. Neo moved around the small clearing to get different perspectives on it, while Blair just stood in front of it, frowning slightly.

Unexpectedly, Blair said, "I wonder what would happen if an Agent tried to follow us into a gap. Or if he was kicked into one."

"It's possible the gaps are invisible to them," Neo said thoughtfully, coming to stand beside him. "The master program would have repaired this if it were capable of detecting it, and if it can't, the Agents can't. After all, they're only well-developed fragments of the master."

"Wouldn't there be like an automated self-check system in place to make sure there weren't errors or flaws? If that's the case, then it would work methodically from one location to another and might not have reached this one yet. I have no idea how long it's been here, so I can't guarantee longevity here, man."

"It depends on the source of the error, don't you think?" Neo said.

Tuning the two of them out as they drifted deeper and deeper into techno-babble, Jim slowly walked to one side, nodding to himself when the gap vanished, literally not existing from any angle but straight on. It made him wonder if one could be overhead or underfoot, and if anybody, including Blair and himself, would know.

The speculation gave rise to an odd idea, and Jim murmured, "What would happen if an ordinary person stumbled into one? Would they understand what happened, or be able to find their way out?"

Blair's mouth snapped shut mid-syllable. "The missing persons cases," he blurted a moment later, and turned to Neo to explain.

Listening to him distractedly, Jim said slowly, "Maybe these errors are new. A by-product of three resets done close together."

"I've been thinking that the resets, well, sensitized me to gaps," Blair admitted. "It's possible instead that they weren't there before."

Looking better, in fact looking *much* better, as if the short, uncomfortable absence had rejuvenated him in the long run, Neo said, "I have *got* to see the code history for when we went in and out. There'll be something, and even if this is a short-term effect, I want to find out how an Agent handles it."

Suddenly decisive, Neo nodded to himself. "I can't wait to read your questions, Blair. I have the feeling they're going shake up things but good." With no more than that, Neo seemed to gather in on himself, summoning God knew what, and then simply flew straight up into the air so fast Jim had trouble tracking him.

Watching him go, Blair said wistfully, "I wonder if you have to be unplugged to do that?"

***

While Blair pored over his list of questions the next few days, scribbling them on paper in such a cryptic fashion Jim wasn't sure Blair himself could actually read them, Jim carefully sorted through the missing persons reports to eliminate the ones that most likely had logical explanations. Halfway through the task, something bothered him about the names, and he made a list of his own, not sure it would be useful. With Blair's somewhat distracted help, he started inspecting all the sites of the disappearances, hoping to find a gap. He never did, though more than one grieving family member was impressed at how thoroughly he scrutinized the scene and how detailed his questions were.

On the appointed day, Jim pulled up in front of the library, and offered Blair his slip of paper. "You looked through the files; did I miss any names that should be on this?"

Hopefully thinking, as Jim wanted him to, that he was going to ask Neo for help in tracking the missing people, Blair glanced at it, nearly put it aside, read it again, this time more slowly. "This isn't anywhere near complete. I can think of five off the top of my head that should be on it."

"The files don't exist anymore," Jim said softly. "*They* don't exist any more. No missing person reports, no licenses, no marriage certificates, no birth certificates. Family doesn't remember them, or, occasionally, thinks they died a long time ago. Just like during the resets."

Folding and unfolding the paper, Blair said, "Want to hear something I thought was too trivial to mention until now? The times I've tagged along with you to do my own search for gaps, I talked with the family while you did your search, and I kept thinking the same thing over and over - I'd like this person. For that fact, my mom would like most of them, too. Their family and friends describe them as creative, supportive, socially and morally active, spiritually aware."

Comparing the description with his own impression, Jim said, "The idea occurred to me at one point that they might have abandoned their old lives for a new one in some sort of stealth cult. I dismissed it as leftovers from the last reset."

"Maybe not so far from the truth." Blair tucked away Jim's list, and gathered his things. "Maybe Neo's wrong about Potentials. Maybe some of them are lucky with parents and circumstances and just adapt. But with the resets hitting them back to back the way they did..."

Jaw muscle jumping, but helpless to stop it, Jim finished, "They woke up, all the way, like you and I did. The time changes eroded their mindset until something jarred them out of the Matrix, and they got flushed."

"Or the machines aren't through debugging from the virus and humans are still getting caught up in the individual patches," Blair said, sorrow evident in his voice.

"Either way we're losing people, some of the best of them, looks like." Jim scrubbed at his face, and turned to the problem at hand. "Look, much as Neo might be the sort of person we want on our side, he trusts his friends and team. I don't. We're not going to have any way of knowing if he's being told the truth, so take everything, *everything* with a grain of salt."

Blair took a deep breath, deliberately relaxing his shoulders. "Actually, the answers don't really matter, man." Jim couldn't stop a small noise of aggravation, and Blair hurried on. "You see, the war has been going on for generations now, on both sides. The Zionists have this accumulation of loss, pain, and anger, which they've built their entire culture around, even as their civilization slides backwards. Emotionally, psychologically, they can't *afford* to question the cause and effect of the war too closely."

Studying him, Jim said slowly, "You want Neo to see the questions, hear the answers, or more likely, lack of them, and start questioning on his own."

"He has to be able to think outside the box just to do what he does," Blair said. "And he hasn't been unplugged long enough to completely buy into the Zionists' world view. If we can get him thinking 'end' the war, not 'win', the war, that it's the way to go without sacrificing millions of helpless lives, we might all have a chance."

"He's one man, Chief."

"He's one man in the right place at the right time. Morpheus, at least, will back him, maybe unhappily, but his heart won't let him do anything else, even if he has doubts."

"He believes in him," Jim agreed, putting himself into Morpheus' shoes all too easily. "That makes all the difference in what anyone can do."

"It's the best chance we've got right now."

Blair gave his knee a goodbye squeeze, then slipped out of the truck. Surprisingly, he didn't race up the steps of the library, but came around to stand by Jim's door, folding his arms over the bottom edge of the open window. "The worse thing," he started, swallowed hard, then started again, "The worse thing about all this is how my nose is getting rubbed in how fragile life is. I mean, intellectually, we all know that Mother Nature or cancer or a car accident or random violence can take any life at any moment."

Skimming his fingernails across Jim's bare forearm and biceps, he created tingles that flitted along Jim's nerves to collect oddly in his gut, making his dick take notice. Blair doggedly went on, though his voice was thick with suppressed emotion. "You can't live if you worry about that, you can't stay sane. You take what precautions you can, or maybe you convince yourself only your eternal soul counts, or you go the other route and embrace the extreme lifestyle. Thing is, we all cope in our own way."

That was pretty basic psychology for any cop with a brain, and Jim knew his own method was basically to live in the moment and not worry about anything but making it to the comfort of a good brew, a good meal, and a warm bed. If Blair needed more, though, or something different...well, Jim knew how to change when he had to, however sour he was in the process. He made a 'go on' noise to encourage Blair to finish speaking his mind, mildly worried about where his partner was headed.

Skating his fingers up to the edge of Jim's collar, caressing bare flesh, Blair said so quietly that Jim almost couldn't hear him, "I love you. It overwhelms me, terrifies me, and makes my stomach hurt, none of which is news to you." He smiled, the edges of it brittle and sharp, but it was a bona fide smile. "Like with the religious thing with Naomi, I've seen so much bad done in the name of love, especially the wild, 'can't live without you' sort, and so little true good from it, that I made up my mind that what people called love was just a different kind of fanaticism. And like with religious extremists, it was only an excuse to abandon reason and humanity."

Honestly confused, Jim said, "You love. You have the most loving, giving, caring heart I've ever had the privilege to admire."

"I wish I could take credit for that, but, man, to me, that was the nugget of truth in the myth behind 'true love', and I mostly believed that because it was so easy for me to do the easy-going, no commitments style of relationship."

With incredible tenderness, Blair hooked a knuckle under Jim's chin and lifted until he could meet his gaze. Halfway prepared for a 'and it's not enough to build a relationship on' speech from him, Jim stopped breathing when Blair whispered, "But here I am, facing the whole mortality thing and basing a lot of hope on the strength of what's between two men, and there's this, this *dawning* of insight that maybe love *is* a power, a connection into the universe to fuel all of us into being - I don't know - *more* somehow. If you don't direct the flow right, if you wallow in it or use it the wrong way, that's when it does damage."

Jim had to blink away a surge of wetness at the serenity and acceptance he saw in Blair as he spoke. Thumbing the center of Jim's bottom lip, as if he wanted very badly to kiss him exactly there, Blair said, "We've both been so careful in the past few weeks not to take too much, want too much, give too much, from each other inside the bedroom and out, and that's just wrong."

"I haven't had a problem with what we've been doing, Chief."

"I know, and that's part of how you show me you love me - not just letting me set the pace, but not caring that it's a pretty damned cautious one. I've always gotten that. I'm just saying I don't want it to be that way anymore. Like the day we met Neo, and we came together, no holding back, no second guessing, doing what was right for us in that moment."

The sharp bleat of a car horn yanked Jim back from dissolving into the yearning blue of Blair's eyes as they spilled into him. Releasing him with a last swirl of a fingertip over his cheek, Blair stepped back, looked at his watch, yelped and ran for the steps.

Jim watched him go, then listened when he was out of sight, until he was sure Blair was safe. Driving away, hearing stretched to his limits to keep even that much contact with his partner, Jim couldn't stop a grin when Blair read aloud, "It worked. One less of them."

***

Where Blair found the will power to forget about his next appointment at the library and get on with his usual routine, Jim had no idea, but wished heartily he could tap into the same source. Though he went through the motions of working on all his cases, even making arrests for several of them, too much of his attention was on what to do when they didn't get the information they needed. He had let Blair decide what and how to ask, after telling him what he had thought was important, but now he was expecting little, if any, useful intel and a great deal of bad fallout.

He experienced more a sense of relief than anything else when he saw Neo moving toward him at such an incredible speed, Jim doubted anyone but a sentinel could have seen him. As it was, he was mostly a blur, but not such a one that he couldn't read the determination - and anger - on Neo's face. Because he wasn't supposed to see him, Jim didn't react when Neo reached him, tucked something in a pocket, and took off again, moving even faster.

Too experienced in cov-ops to reach for it immediately, Jim bided his time until he had the relative privacy of a bathroom stall to see what Neo had given him. It was two tickets to a Jag's game, dated five years earlier, that had been played in the old stadium before their winning streak had garnered them new, updated quarters. They were, to Jim's nose and eye, genuine, not manufactured, which reassured him that Neo was doing his best to protect them. Still, it bothered him that the Zionists had changed their plans. Blair, being Blair, saw it as a positive sign that Neo was working things out for himself.

Taking the date and time printed on the ticket as when Neo wanted to see them, and the seat locations as a clue to what entrance to use, Jim and Blair slipped unseen into the mostly deserted building without any trouble. Various factions on the city council had fought continuously over what to do with the building and grounds, and with no incoming funds from events, the place had only minimal security provisions and staff. The seemingly endless corridors were barely lit, which Jim approved of heartily. Their meeting place was on a long, wide landing between two levels of the sports complex and the parking garage, providing multiple exits, if needed.

Any notion of mentioning his approval was quickly shelved when he saw Neo pacing back and forth in the small area, body language screaming anger and frustration with every jerky gesture and step. He hung back to let Blair work his magic, almost automatically going into sentry mode. With a soft pat to the small of his back - one of the many loving touches he'd bestowed lately, Blair moved into the light, smile already in place.

"Hey," Blair said softly by way of greeting.

Neo spun, hands going up defensively, but in the next instant he relaxed, that change all that prevented Jim from yanking Blair back into the protection of his body. "Hey." He rocked on the balls of his feet for a moment, clearly uncertain what to say next, then blurted, "They want me to string you along."

"Who?" Blair asked.

"The Council, the people who run Zion." Neo swung his arm wide, as if to point beyond the Matrix. "The ones commanding that side of the war."

Sounding sympathetic, Blair asked, "Did they give you a reason, or just expect you to do what you were told?"

Neo went still, staring at Blair as if to read his mind from the way he stood. "The latter, at first, and when it was clear I wasn't going to be a good little minion, they told me that they didn't know, didn't care, and wouldn't waste the resources to find out any of the questions you asked. None of which is a surprise to you, is it?"

Brushing his hair back from his face, Blair hesitated, then admitted, "Not particularly. I'm an anthropologist, remember? People are what I *do*, and yours are easier to predict in broad terms than most because of their situation. At least they didn't order you to force the information from us, which is what the Agents would do if they learned about us; the Council's got that much humanity left, anyway."

"I wouldn't have." Sounding both defiant and determined, Neo shook his head. "I can't believe they think I'd just meekly go along with that kind of dishonest bullshit. You give us the first new tools we've had to fight the Agents, to move against the machines, in forever, and they want to pay you back with betrayal. How can they possibly expect me to cooperate with that?"

"It's because they see you as a soldier," Jim said without thinking. At Blair's slight nod of encouragement, he added, "Soldiers do what they're told, are specifically trained for it, because commanders have to count on them to do so. Battlefields go to hell in a heartbeat if they don't, so in the long run, it saves lives."

"You're speaking from experience - is that what you were? A good little solider?" Neo said, sarcasm dripping from every syllable.

Refusing to take offense and reading Blair well enough to see what he wanted Neo to take from their conversation, Jim said mildly, "At one point. Then life interfered, I became a warrior and saw that I could never go back to being a nameless uniform. Warriors fight together, seeing the whole, creating the battle plans together, aware of the personal risks and loss, believing the grief and pain are worth it."

"I don't know if that's me, either," Neo said more to himself than to Jim and Blair.

"After a while, though, I wanted a choice besides constant battle, so I became a cop. I'm a good one in a lot of ways, and a bad one in others. For a long time I was a rogue, a loose cannon. I got the job done, and righteously, but I was a total asshole."

Neo slanted a glance at him over his shoulder, and Jim went on, unperturbed, "In the end, to save more than my life, I had to choose another way. So now I'm all of them - soldier, warrior, and cop - and none of them, trying my best to do what's right and just and legal, trying to be part of a team while being my own man. It's a hell of a tightrope walk, but it's what I have to do."

For a long, long moment there was silence, and Neo studied the floor as if his uncertainties were there to be deciphered into conviction. Suddenly his head shot up, resolve clear in his expression. "Morpheus once asked me if I was ready for the truth, warning me that I could never go back. To have it was so important to me, I was ready to risk everything for it. Despite everything, it's worth it to me because I'm not living a lie any longer. Now those old men and women want me to be deceitful and manipulative because they're afraid of where the truth might take me this time."

Neo spun on his heel, walking toward the staircase down. "No way. I never volunteered to be any of it - soldier, warrior or cop. I'm just me, Neo, and *truth* is what *I* do. Come on, you two. I've got something to show you."

Jim would have demanded more information, just on general principle, but Blair followed Neo, sparing him an amused backward glance that clearly said 'what are you waiting for?' Resisting the urge to roll his eyes in exasperation, Jim went after them, senses on alert for signs of a trap. Neo trotted down the stairs at a fairly brisk pace, fast enough that they were two floors below what Jim had been sure was the bottom level before he picked up on the dead silence around them.

"Neo?" Jim called ahead.

Without breaking stride, Neo shouted back, "I don't know for sure if this is going to work. I'm being a carrier signal for both of you; piggybacking you, in a way. But the one person on the Council who would *talk* to me, said this is where we had to go."

Putting on a small burst of speed, Jim caught up with Blair. "We're below what exists; almost like another gap. Doesn't feel like one, though."

"Committed direct line," Neo said. "No security. No need for it."

The stairway ended in a typical underground corridor, lit well enough to see that it stretched for what looked like miles. Neo picked up the pace, and though Jim and Blair should have been breathless from the run, or at least panting, keeping up with him was effortless. Far too quickly even for the speed they were using, they reached double doors that would have been at home in any school gym.

Neo hit the doors so they swung open in tandem to a bright, sunlit day in New York City - Central Park to be exact. Two steps out onto the grass, Jim put on the brakes hard, catching at Blair to stop him as well. "No people. No pollution. No noises except natural ones."

A veteran traveler, not always to jungles and primitive villages, Blair turned in a small circle, surveying their surroundings. "It's pristine; like man's never been here."

"He hasn't," Neo said from behind them. "This a read-only copy of the basic code for the Matrix. It can't be changed, even by the machines, I'm told. This is the source for all the fundamental principles needed to run the physical landscape programmed for humanity - light, gravity, physics, geography, weather, earthquakes, oceans, all of it."

"A read-only?" Blair asked. "Why not just a backup copy?"

Something about the way Neo searched for words told Jim that he wasn't going to like the answer to that, and he hauled Blair closer, one hand on his shoulder. Seeing that, Neo half-turned from them, pain flashing across his features before he turned back. "Notice anything else?" At Jim's annoyed glare, he added, "I'm giving you a chance to adapt, see it on your own, so hopefully it'll be less of a shock."

Taking for granted that his senses would work the way he expected them to, Jim scrutinized the area, and mostly because of his familiarity with time changes, he spotted what Neo wanted him to find. "It's 1989 or 90 here, if you go by the make and model of cars, signs, advertisements, whatever."

"It is never later than 1999 in the Matrix," Neo said quietly. "Sometimes the resets are only for a few years, sometimes they go all the way back to this, but until recently, never farther back, according to my source. We don't have a clue why this time frame, what triggers a reset, anything, except that the machines seem to consider it part of their routine maintenance."

Blair sat down heavily, a fist pressed hard against his mouth. Going down with him, his own knees none-too-steady, Jim said bluntly, "That's impossible. It means, it means..." His head spun with a thousand mad images - people, places and things all melting into each other over and over, forming massive globs of chaos that absorbed everything, created nothing.

"Your memories of your life are real," Neo said softly, urgently. "All the events are real. You played, went to school, joined the Army, all that stuff. It's only the time frame that's a lie, and even that's just edited, mostly by yourself. When you *know* it's 1994, and are equally certain that you, say, bought a house five years ago, you automatically subtract years from the current date."

"Humans keep time by events," Blair murmured. "It's more natural for us than calendars or even seasons."

"How many? I mean, I've got forty in my sights, here." Jim ran a hand through his hair, lingering at the back of it where the internal pressure was intense. "So I've been, what, reprogrammed, at least, at *least* four times? That doesn't, I can't...fuck! I would have known!"

Blair clutched his forearm, digging hard enough to leave bruises, and the contact allowed Jim to grab after his fleeing self-control and lock it down in place. With a surge of pure determination, he pushed away all the weirdness and got to the important part. "Why did you bring us here?"

"Read-only," Blair murmured, color creeping back into his face, as if steadying Jim had been enough to steady himself. "Source code. When you code by hand, you write portions, try them out, correct them, add to them, revise them, but even when you erase, there are remnants left in the hard drive, on the final copy."

"A good programmer," Neo agreed obliquely, "can look at that and read the entire history like it's a book. What the program was supposed to do, how it succeeded, how it failed, and most importantly, the why to all of that."

Flopping back on the grass, Blair said, "I'm not so sure now I want to find it. You'll excuse me if I'm feeling a little punch drunk, all things considered!"

"I don't know how you can 'read' anything from this, anyway," Jim grumped, too tense to follow his partner's example, but unbending enough to cross his arms over his knees.

"Same as you do anything in the Matrix," Neo said with gentle patience. "You just *do* it. Don't think, don't rationalize, just focus on what you need."

Jim could almost see Blair's thoughts ratchet up to warp speed, face tight with concentration.

"May I help you?" a soft, cultured voice said from behind him.

With the uncanny reflexes he'd developed, Jim was on his feet and facing the intruder, weapon drawn almost before the man completed his first word. Then he stood uncertainly while the stranger finished speaking, baffled by the man's insubstantiality. To Jim's senses, he was barely there; more an echo than a living person.

"May I help you," the stranger repeated patiently.

Suddenly Jim got it, and he killed a smile except for a bare twitch of lips. "Figures," he said to Blair, holstering his weapon. "You've always preferred talking to people to do your research when you can."

"You're a program?" Neo asked doubtfully.

"Oh, heavens, no. Allow me to introduce myself. Dr. Arthur Chancellor, or what's left of him." He brushed at the old-fashioned tweed jacket he wore, looking himself over as if he hadn't bothered to in a long time. Appearing very much like a middle-aged academic sliding absentmindedly into the twilight of his years, Dr. Chancellor wasn't much taller than Blair, and his gray eyes were lively with intelligence.

"Well, fuck me," Neo breathed, throwing himself down on the grass besides Blair.

Ignoring the outburst, Blair said curiously, "What's left of you?"

"This," and Chancellor waved at himself, "is little more than memories and fragments of old records." With graceless dignity, he sat on one hip beside Blair, legs primly folded to one side. "As the leader of the Matrix project, I had the honor of being hardwired into the system during its construction. I had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at a fairly young age, which was why I began research into neural interfaces in the first place, and was desperate to be freed of the trap my physical form had become for my mind."

A small, pained sound from Neo made Chancellor pause, very human concern flickering across his features for a moment before he went on. "The Matrix was created for medicinal purposes: to be a refuge for quadriplegics, or as a pleasant alternative to constantly living in a body wracked with chronic pain. I was - am - very proud my involvement, one reason I haven't been able to fade completely, I suppose."

"Why hardwired, though?" Blair asked, fairly bouncing from curiosity and excitement. "Why not just have a port and plug in and out as it suited you?"

"Well, now, there had to be a human mind for the reality to be measured against, didn't there?" Chancellor said mildly. "A real person who knew what sunshine felt like on the skin, how an orange should taste and if the simulations were drifting off true. Not that I was the only one brought in for the details like that; we searched for wine tasters, perfumers, anyone with enhanced senses who could tolerate the procedures for locating the right neural clusters for stimulation."

Unable to stop a shudder at the very idea of that sort of invasive probing, Jim unintentionally attracted Dr. Chancellor's attention, and he said reassuringly, "They were just visitors. Originally, no one was supposed to be in the system permanently besides myself and, perhaps, later, a wife or companion for me."

"That's why the machines have to use humans, isn't it?" Neo said reflectively. "Mentally aware, alert humans. Because that's how the life support gear, the power systems, all of it, were designed and built."

Nodding, Chancellor said, "They've tried many times to refit the equipment for animals or brain-dead humans. But you see, that is the Achilles heel of the A.I.'s. They can't create. Adapt, extrapolate, logically deduce, but not create. That is also why they endure Zion's existence, though they would much prefer to be rid of it entirely, or at least be in control of it. They need human ingenuity and genius. For example, hunter machines were built from their study of the first of Zion's hoverships."

"They have no choice but to enslave us if they want to survive," Blair said, and Jim could see all the mild pleasure that he had been enjoying from their unexpected encounter draining abruptly. "And we can't win because the only way to defeat them is to destroy ourselves."

"Even that wouldn't suffice." Chancellor closed his eyes, but not before his sorrow colored them. "A machine can be drained, then shut down, no harm done, until more power is provided. If you annihilated the Matrix today, and by some miracle also decimated the birthing fields, enough power would remain for them to undo Zion and restart their 'crop' from stored ovum and sperm."

Clumsily getting to his feet, nearly stumbling as if he'd taken a hard blow, Neo said, "You're saying we're at a complete stalemate. Neither side can win; we're doomed to fight the same battles over and over and over, no end in sight, no end *possible.*"

"I am so, so sorry," Chancellor began.

Before he could finish, Neo streaked away, every line of his body screaming his anguish, though his voice was silent.

They watched him go, then Blair said with forced levity, "There went our ride."

Chancellor cleared his throat. "Oh, you'll return on your own with no difficulty. One last thing before you do, however. I've had a fair number of freed Potentials visit me; never before has one of them brought an entrapped person with them. Please believe me when I say that this is a very, very promising development for humanity."

"Because the only way to break a stalemate is for one of the combatants to do the unexpected, the inexplicable," Jim said.

Before Jim had a chance to protest, the bright sunshine began to subtly change to Cascade's usual dingy, pollution filtered rays, and Dr. Chancellor slowly faded. "Like a special effect," he muttered.

"Right, back to TV and movies just when I thought we were finally getting a little intellectual stimulation by delving into the classics," Blair said lightly, but Jim could hear a thread of exhausted resignation in his tone.

Hand creeping to the nape of Blair's neck, kneading carefully, Jim said deadpan, "Alice in Wonderland or Wizard of Oz? Both of which *are* classic films, Siskel."

Pulling away enough to goggle at him, Blair slowly found an honest smile for him. "Books, Ebert, classic books."

With a tiny nudge to get him moving toward the truck, Jim said with what he thought was perfect innocence, "Which you read, I'm guessing. Were they as good as the movies? I would have thought Naomi would have steered you clear of Disney, though."

"No way, man," Blair said, hands beginning to dance as his agile mind swung away from their most recent shock and onto a safer topic. "What Bambi alone did for American culture convinced her that Walt was a kindred spirit."

He rambled on about the social impact of each of the various animated movies, and Jim listened absently as he drove home, not giving a damn about the subject, only that Blair was settling down. So was he, he realized abruptly, as if Blair's calm were an essential ingredient for his own and his body automatically relaxed when Blair's vitals were even and stable. That had never happened with another lover, another partner, but then he had never been able to find the right words, the right deeds to give comfort to anyone else. Blair seemed to take what he needed from Jim's bumbling attempts to help him, without the usual misunderstandings and inadequacies that always made a mess when Jim had tried with others.

He parked the truck and followed Blair upstairs, absently noting that his partner had moved from Disney to Japanese Animation and its growing influence. Returning to his earlier train of thought, he couldn't decide if their relationship thrived because Blair listened with more than his ears or because he willfully put the best interpretation on Jim's efforts to communicate. Either way, Jim knew he was blessed, and wished he had more to offer in return. If all they had was now, and the seconds were ticking by, bloated with mundane, necessary tasks, he wanted to make it special for Blair.

With one of the abrupt subject changes that he did so easily, Blair announced that he desperately needed a shower and a beer, not necessarily in that order. He grabbed two brews out of the fridge, gave Jim his with a quick affectionate kiss, and vanished into the bathroom. Pensive, Jim went to the balcony and watched the sunset, bits and pieces of his past floating up from the depths of his mind to haunt him.

Finally, a burst of humid air from the shower carried Blair back to him, and Jim leaned one hip against the balcony wall to watch him approach, dressed in soft sweats, old slippers, and a fond smile.

"Knew you'd be out here brooding." He joined Jim at the wall, hands on the edge as he took a deep, appreciative breath. "Too beautiful a night for it, man. And don't give me any grief about how it's all in our heads. We know now a human was behind this, wanting it to be beautiful."

"It is, I wasn't, and you're more beautiful." Jim swiveled on one foot to stand behind Blair, pressing close. He gathered Blair's hair into his hands, tunneling his fingers deep to the skull, enjoying the weight and sense of the lively curls. They held minuscule pockets of scent, individual layers of warmth, even infinitesimal variations in texture from strand to strand as they slithered and rasped over his skin. Pulling the mass of it to one side to reveal the elegant line of Blair's neck, Jim bent to taste, inhaling deeply as the fragrant wisps caressed his face.

He could feel the chills that swept through Blair, the sag in his thigh muscles as his knees threatened to buckle, the renewed tension in them as Blair fought to stay upright. Blair's heartbeat leaped high, breath catching in his chest before hissing out in a long, long sigh of pleasure. Reluctantly freeing one hand from its happy duty of containing the riot of color and sensation that was Blair's mane, Jim wrapped an arm around him for support, and Blair rewarded him by leaning back, trusting him with his weight.

"I love being behind you like this," Jim murmured, vaguely surprised the words came so easily; words he had always known Blair needed to hear, but that he could never before release from their captivity. "I still get to hold you, get to have this marvelous body of yours, hot and solid against mine, but my hands are free to visit all the good places on it." Ghosting a thumb over Blair's nipples, delighted to find them already up, the hard peaks digging into the cloth over them, he stroked a leisurely line down to Blair's dick to cup it possessively.

Catching Blair's earlobe between his teeth, he tugged and nibbled on the downy morsel before kissing along Blair's nape toward the other ear. "I can still use my mouth on you, find all those luscious flavors. Your skin feels so fragile against my lips, but at the same time, so strong. Damn, Chief, sometimes I want to just devour you."

"Jimmmmmmm," Blair keened, head falling back, mouth open. Reaching down to clutch Jim's thigh, he grabbed Jim's forearm with the other hand, not to stop his rhythmic kneading, but to anchor himself as he helplessly arched under Jim's sensual assault.

Temporarily abandoning the growing length of hard flesh, Jim burrowed under Blair's shirts and pinched one nipple, rolling it carefully between thumb and forefinger. He switched to the other, using the barest fraction more force, before returning to his original target, all the while limning Blair's ear. With a moan, Blair ground his ass back into Jim's thigh, to tease him Jim thought at first, but as Blair's hips restlessly rocked, he realized his lover was so lost in passion he was mindlessly air fucking in a useless attempt to find release.

Jim's control - such as it was - shattered under that insight, and he sank to his knees, biting at the fabric between him and Blair hard enough to mark him in spite of it. Crying out with each nip, Blair whimpered when Jim deserted his nipples to pull down his sweatpants.

"Going to do you," Jim muttered. "I can tell you want me to. You're shoving that perfect ass of yours at me, right into my face." Hastily yanking off Blair's slippers and wadded pants, he sat back on his heels, enjoying the tempting sight in front of him. The curve of Blair's backside peeked from under the hem of his over-sized sweat shirt, inviting more bites and kisses. Jim granted the request, all the while running his hands over the smooth, powerful muscles of Blair's legs, skimming up to fondle his balls, stirring them gently in their sack, before palming his ass cheeks apart.

"Good...oh, god...pl...oh!! oh!! Jim, now, please. Do me, take me, f...fuck me! oh!!"

"Not yet, not yet," Jim mumbled, ignoring his own cock's leap of eagerness at the lust in the ragged voice. He wanted more than lust tonight; wanted it so badly that he was willing to endure Blair's annoyance with him after to have it. Leaving a path of tiny, barely there licks, he moved along Blair's cleft, tongue probing deeper as he went. When he found the center, he drilled into it, relishing the earthy essence of his lover, which was oddly complimented by the tang of herbal soap that he had used to shower.

Blair screamed, collapsing into a graceful fall to his hands and knees. Pulling far enough away to allow the necessary adjustment to their positions, Jim flitted his fingertips tantalizingly over Blair's pucker.

"You want it bad, don't you?" he rasped out, fascinated by the flexing of the little folds of flesh and the pulse of blood and energy beating through it. "Not just want: need. Good. Good."

He bent down to reclaim the unfurling bud, plunging his tongue in fast and hard as Blair shook and pleaded, using only his name to do it. A quiver here, a throb there, told Jim that Blair wanted to come like this, just from being rimmed, and he considered doing that, simply to please his lover. But he wanted Blair wailing with pleasure as he took Jim's cock, wanted him writhing on the shaft using him, and before they both crossed the line of no return, Jim gentled his loving, gradually withdrawing until he was feathering only tiny kisses over Blair's backside.

Blair whimpered 'no,' over and over, trying to rear back to get what he wanted, but Jim held him still, dried his face on the bunched shirt, and knelt behind him. Lining his cock up with Blair's opening, he pressed in barely enough to give the promise of penetration, and dropped to all fours, literally covering the shifting body beneath his. "Fuck yourself on me, Blair. Give me that tight ass of yours," he coaxed.

Going perfectly still, Blair sobbed once, and Jim had a split second to worry that he had misread his lover's need. But Blair mumbled, "Yes, yes, I get every inch, every bit, all the way in, I get it all, oh, god, all of it." As the words tumbled out of him, he inched back, absorbing Jim's cock bit by bit.

It was torture; it was exquisite; it was joy and pain and love and hunger mixed into an insane brew that felt as if his whole body was flowing into Blair's. When some subliminal signal told him they were ready to move, he dropped his head to Blair's shoulder and wept even as they pounded away at each other. He couldn't get in deep enough, drive in hard enough, to satisfy either of them. Finally Jim wrapped both arms around Blair's torso and sat back on his heels, taking his lover with him. He lunged up as Blair dropped down, and ecstasy exploded through them, dragging identical roars of completion from both. Their climax went on and on, clawing and twisting over nerves that reveled in every moment of release.

Gradually, oh, so gradually, the incredible pleasure bled away, and Jim found himself on his side on the cold floor, curled around Blair and still embedded in him. From the soft catches in his lover's breathing, he knew that Blair was still flying, and he soothed him along by finger-combing his hair, not lost to the irony that those marvelous locks had been the start of it all.

His dick began to slip from its haven, but Jim wasn't ready for that yet. He pushed back in firmly, and Blair tightened around him. "Yes. More. Now."

"You're not sore?" Despite the question, Jim gently withdrew and re-entered, drawing a sigh from both of them.

"I should be. Spit does not make for good lube," Blair said candidly, flexing around Jim's cock again.

"MMmmmm. We didn't even use that for me, and it didn't hurt a bit," Jim said distractedly, losing all interest in conversation.

"Guess there are some advantages to the whole 'residual body image' thing." Blair met Jim's next thrust with a definite shove back, but the wood floor was slippery with Blair's seed, and Jim accidentally disengaged from him instead.

"Damn," they said in unison, and laughed.

Blair rolled to his hands and knees, head hanging for a second as if he had to acclimate himself to the change, then stood. "Okay, bed is a much better place to continue this."

Jim took one look at the rosy bottom just above him, his seed glistening wetly along one thigh, and growled. Blair spun around and backed away a step, hands up in a halting gesture. "Upstairs, Jim. Upstairs. Bed. Soft. Sleep when done."

Sniffing, head filling with the wonderful fragrance of their combined scents, Jim growled again, effortlessly flowing to his feet. "Better move, then, 'cause I haven't had all I want yet. This time I'm going to do you on your back. Going to put your legs over my shoulders and go at you until you can't remember what it's like *not* to have me buried to the hilt in you."

Prowling forward as he spoke, Jim watched in fascination as Blair's eyes filled with lust, though he still backed away from him. Jim pounced, deliberately falling short, because his lover was right; bed was absolutely the better place for the rest of what he had planned. Blair made a break for it, spinning on one heel with amazing agility, especially for someone whose backside had just been thoroughly used.

Besides, Jim thought as he chased him up the stairs, catching him was going to be so much fun...

Dawn found them wound around each other, too worn out to do more than that, and more sated than Jim had thought humanly possible. At the same time, he was already looking forward to the next time, if only to watch Blair take his pleasure. He kissed Blair's forehead, humming the question of whether he'd had enough yet.

"I didn't think," Blair answered tiredly, but happily, "that I was able to go that many times in one night, especially so, well, *intensely,*

Chuckling, Jim dropped another kiss, this time into the curls under his chin. "I was just thinking that. You're incredible, know that, Chief?"

"Thank God. I have to be to keep up with you!" Blair laughed, the vibration doing interesting things to the places where he was plastered against Jim. Grunting a little with the effort, Blair lifted up and propped himself on his elbows so that he could look down into Jim's face. "When you decided to quit holding back, you pulled out all the stops, didn't you? No glacial advance for you, like I was doing."

"Too fast?" Jim asked, not really worried, but needing the affirmation.

"If I had known what was going to happen once you cut loose, I would have dragged you through all the barriers and walls sooner, by your short hairs, if I had to." Blair stretched hugely, tendons popping and muscles thrumming. "Man, I have never felt so alive, so energized. I should be out cold, but I'm waaaaay too wired to sleep."

"Which is a good thing since I have to be at work in about an hour, and you've got class a half hour after that." Jim made no move to leave the bed, though, and stretched up to take a leisurely kiss.

With a faint murmur of appreciation, Blair kissed him back, then idly ran a fingertip over Jim's cheeks. "How 'bout you? Going to be able to make it okay without any rest? Did the senses give you any trouble the last time you let go like that? Reining them back in, I mean, and focusing on the job, not how good you felt."

"I'm used to going without sleep, but right now, I'm in the same condition as you are - ready to kick ass and take names." Blair laughed, and Jim smirked at him, playing up the tough cop tone just to keep that wonderful sound going a bit longer. He sobered quickly, as his conscience pointed out that he had something else he should be saying, and could he just once, for God's sake, open his mouth and spill it out.

To his astonishment, that's what he did. "I have no idea how the senses are going to be once we're back to the daily grind. Last night was the first time I ever turned them loose like that."

"You mean since you came online this time."

"I mean ever."

Jim could feel Blair bunch up, inside and out, at the quiet admission, but he beat back the pain that wanted to spring up, reminding himself forcefully that Blair was trying hard to accept the love revealed by his confession.

"Ever?" It came out as a strangled croak, but Blair didn't bolt, didn't start babbling to minimize the truth or cover his reaction.

Unable to watch as Blair battled the fear evident in his eyes, Jim dropped his gaze to the chest above him, visually tracking the line of love-bites that ran from his collar all the way down to his navel. Tracing the outline of one with his thumbnail, he repeated, "Ever. When I started, I'd heard enough locker room talk to know I had to make sure the girl had fun before I did. By the time I'd matured enough to want more than quick relief for the inevitable teenaged horniness, I had no idea how to get from taking care of her to mutually sharing the experience. The times I tried… well, let's just say that I handled it with my usual interpersonal grace and skill and leave it at that, okay?"

Blair shifted to sit cross-legged beside him, hands futilely trying to tame a portion of his hair's wildness. "There's a part of me jumping up and down in glee, shouting 'yes, yes,' and 'mine, mine.' An equally strong part is horrified that you've spent so much of your life deprived of the sensuality and pleasure that's your natural right."

When he fell silent, frowning at nothing in particular, Jim said to prod him, "And most of you is scared that it meant so much to me, that no one but you could have done it for me."

Shooting him a look of panicked hurt and covering anger, Blair snapped his mouth shut and inhaled slowly, releasing it in a frustrated hiss. "If you can..."

Jumping off the bed, Jim snapped, "Don't even start, Sandburg."

At Blair's recoil, he grabbed for his patience and turned toward the stairs, pausing at the top for a moment. "I resigned myself a long time ago to not being able to do the love thing, not and have it last. Maybe it's part of being a sentinel; guaranteeing the spread of the genes without bogging down in emotional commitments that would supersede the welfare of the tribe. I don't know. One thing I *am* sure of is that I don't want to end the best night of my life with worrying if there will be another. If there is, good, great. If there isn't, at least I had that night. How many people live and die without even that much?"

Not giving Blair a chance at rebuttal, he went downstairs to wash off the mixture of scents on him, ruefully thinking that as much as he liked it, it was getting more than a little strong. By the time he finished his shower, he could smell and hear breakfast cooking, and he went in to take over the pancakes while Blair took his turn in the bathroom. It put them back into their usual rhythm, and in short order they were in the truck, on the way to Rainier to drop Blair off.

Expecting to get the cold shoulder on the ride, the way most other lovers had acted in the past, Jim was caught off guard when Blair said with studied casualness, "A wolf may be my spirit guide, but I don't know if I'm ever going to learn be in the perpetual now, like you do."

"Too many years as an academic," Jim said. "Always doing lesson plans, looking ahead to the next semester, the next grant proposal you have to write, the next degree. That's what works for you; you don't have to change it."

Clearly startled, Blair said, "You don't think I should? You've certainly told me enough times that I have to do this or I have to try that if I want to work with you."

Stopping at a light and pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration, Jim said, "When you first started riding with me, I wanted to give you the tools you needed to cope with situations you never imagined facing. For instance, when I said 'leave your emotions at the door', I only meant you needed to be able to *see* what was truly there so you could collect the evidence, read the crime from the clues on hand. I expected you to pick them back up when you left because you need the emotion to understand the victim and the perpetrator."

The light turned, and Jim headed through the intersection. "It's not like you ever listened to me before, anyway. You did what you did, your way, which worked just fine, and after a while I saw that I wasn't helping and shut up."

"I did listen and you did help," Blair said insistently.

Before he could continue, two black and white units roared by, sirens and lights going, and Jim reached over to flick on his police radio. "...arnes and Fourth. All units, respond. Repeat, multiple shots fired, heavy arms, Barnes and Fourth."

Jim spun into a power turn to follow the cruisers, senses stretching out ahead of him to find both Zionists and Agents at the location given. Swearing, he grabbed the mic and barked into it, identifying himself.

"Patch me through to Banks in Major Crimes."

After a static-filled pause and snapped greeting, Jim said, "Simon, those Agents, Jones and Johnson, are in a firefight with their so-called terrorists. You have to pull our people back before they get caught in the crossfire."

"Ellison..."

"Damn it, you know I have my own sources," Jim snapped. "I'm telling you the terrorists are skilled in the use of weapons, are armed to the teeth, and sincerely believe they have no choice but to fight to the death. The Agents are well aware of that, and have to be counting on using cops as canon fodder."

Jim could hear Simon's teeth grinding away at a cigar, but he made his decision quickly, as Jim had expected from a commander as good as his captain. "You better be prepared to bet your badge on this, Detective." He hung up, and a second later his voice came over the radio ordering the uniforms to stand down until a senior officer was on the scene, no matter what another agency said.

Snapping off the radio to avoid the babble of comments and demands for clarification, Jim tried to nurse a few more miles per hour out of the truck, worried that the Agents would find a way to force Neo and company to fire on the police. If that happened, there would be a free-for-all ending with a lot of good men dead for no good reason. For a moment, he was tempted to pull over long enough to toss Blair out of the truck, but one look at his partner made it clear that he'd have as much success as if he tried to stop the Agents with a slingshot and an attitude.

Instead he reached over and dug his hand into Blair's hair at the back of his head, filling himself on the hum of life and love. Swallowing hard, eyes closed, Blair rested his head in Jim's palm for a second. Only for a second, then he pulled it free, kissed the back of it and put it on the steering wheel where it belonged. "When you're right, you're right," he murmured. "All I can think is 'thank god for last night,' and 'sir, may I have another, please.' And I was right. There *is* strength in it."

Blair said the last defiantly, but Jim couldn't argue. The determination to live through the battle burned in him, granting him incredibly clear focus. Several miles ahead he could see three Agents, one coldly urging an officer to fire on the combatants, while the others exchanged a barrage of bullets with five Zionists. Two of Neo's people were down; one of them was Morpheus, writhing from a gunshot to the leg. The other was unknown, and as Jim watched, trusting instinct and experience to steer the truck to where he wanted to be, she died, the emptiness that had marked her position blurring over into the familiar signature of a corpse.

Relaying that to his partner, Jim added, "I don't know how much longer the uniforms are going to be able to defy the Agents and their own training. I think the only thing holding them back right now is how weird everything going down is. The MIB are dodging bullets like they're a special effect, and any that come within a five foot radius of him, Neo is stopping cold."

"He's so busy dealing with those that he can't create cover for the others to get away, and now they're surrounded," Blair said, trying to visualize it.

Screeching into a parking place, Jim leaped out of the truck and waited a moment for Blair to join him. They could hear the gunshots clearly, but were far enough away that no one engaged in the battle would notice them. Breaking into a run, Jim put all he had into moving faster and faster, imagining the ground blurring under his feet, the wind tearing at him as if he were in the open cockpit of a bi-plane. Fisting the back of his shirt at the waist, Blair kept pace, then upped it until their feet were barely touching the sidewalk.

The corner of Barnes and Fourth was actually a fairly large traffic island that had been turned into a miniature park, complete with a fountain circled by benches and a line of trees. Police cruisers were literally covering the road in all directions, and the Zionists were making their stand by the fountain. The Agents darted and flashed from one side to the other, but as Jim gained momentum with Blair, their movements slowed to his eye so that he could see each clearly.

His initial idea was to surprise the Agents with an unidentified third party with unknown intentions long enough to scoop up Morpheus and run with him until he found a safe place to stash him. It changed abruptly when a gap appeared in the fountain right behind Morpheus. Jones was between Jim and Morpheus, and without thinking, Jim barreled into the Agent from behind, dodging the two bullets coming from opposing directions and ramming him forward. He and Blair grabbed at Morpheus' leather coat and dragged him along with them. A split second later they were all in the gap, and Jones simply dissolved away like smoke in a breeze.

Putting on the brakes with an effort, Jim gasped out, "How fast does the Matrix replace them?"

Gripping his leg tightly to stop the blood flow, Morpheus gritted out, "At least five minutes to realize it hasn't merely lost contact."

"Won't need that much," Blair panted. He pointed back the way they had come to the frozen tableau of martial arts between the remaining Zionists and Agents, who had apparently abandoned their relatively useless guns for fists. "And all the time in the world to make plans."

Spotting one Agent in the midst of a spinning kick and pointing to him, Jim shook his head. "No need. Same move we just made. Out, give that one a toss in here, pull the blonde and the oriental man standing back to back in with us. Neo will know what's happening and will work with it."

Nodding, Blair said, "Ready?"

Without a word they exploded out of their sanctuary, did as planned, but when they dove back in, Blair kept moving at top speed toward what Jim's brain insisted on describing as the back of the gap, though there wasn't one, really. lair shoved the Zionists across the threshold just ahead of him and, suddenly, some sort of laboratory superimposed itself on the grayed-out image of Fourth Street. A group of men and women, all of them looking like the people who had been fighting the Agents, were lying on couches, with several others standing around them, muttering worriedly.

As Blair appeared in their midst with their companions, they all froze in place, mouths open on silent shouts or screams. The two in Blair's grip had a split second to see where they were, realize what was happening, then they faded as the Agents had. As soon as they did, the bodies that matched them gasped, backs straining, eyes flying open in shock. Without thinking, Jim reached out and clenched a fist onto the waist of Blair' pants, hauling him back into the gap and the security of his arms.

Trembling violently, Blair mumbled against Jim's breastbone, "I didn't mean to do that. All I was thinking was I had to get them away; this isn't a refuge, it doesn't do them any good to be in here."

"Apparently it's closer to a way station, for us, at least," Jim said, stripping off the jacket he wore to wrap around his shaking partner. He glanced back at Neo and the last Agent, both of whom had barely shifted positions during their fleeting foray out.

Morpheus was staring at them, not all the pain in his expression from his wound. That was the operator's deck on the *Malachai*."

"Put them back where they belonged. Good." Rubbing Blair's back, Jim said into his ear, "Want to get it over and done with?"

"Yeah," Blair answered reluctantly. "Same as the last two? I don't know if I'm strong enough."

"Will resting here help?" At Blair's barely perceptible 'maybe,' Jim considered, then suggested, "I can grab the Agent on my own; Neo might even be expecting it as his cue to go for the gap himself."

"No. Gimme a sec."

Blair leaned into him, and, remembering how flattened he'd felt when he'd been beyond the Matrix, Jim did his best to surround him with warmth and comfort. The frustration and fear he sensed streaming from Morpheus bit at Jim, though, and far sooner than he wanted, he released his partner. Checking Blair out with his gifts, Jim was relieved to hear his vitals steadying, to see he had stopped shaking completely and wasn't quite so pale with fatigue.

Catching him at his surveillance, Blair gave him the smallest of smiles as he returned Jim's jacket, and Jim couldn't help smiling in return. Of one mind, they pivoted, bolted across the boundary, snatched the back of the Agent's suit coat and lurched back into the gap. Neo shoved from the front, and in a blink, they were beside Morpheus again. Instead of slowing, Jim tossed the Agent aside to vaporize and caught Morpheus by one arm as Neo took him by the other, probably to support him as he'd obviously been attempting to stand while Jim and Blair had been gone.

Momentum and Blair's resolve carried them to the other side of their shelter and, as before, a room appeared, filled with couches, odd-looking equipment and shabbily-dressed people. Digging in his heels, Jim stopped mid-barrier; neither in the gap nor on what he guessed was Neo's ship, the fingers of one hand linked with Blair's, holding him in the same suspension of place. He wasn't the least surprised to see his partner, shining like an angel, curls afloat like a living halo of light, reflected in the eyes of the woman staring at them.

Morpheus gasped, then dissolved, his body jerking a split second later as he retook possession of it. Blood began to flow from a wound that the mind could not deny was there, and a man hurried to put pressure on it. Neo saw that his crewmate was being attended to, nodded his approval, and turned to face Blair. Though he was faint, more ghostly than Blair, he remained apart from his body, the slash of his mouth the only sign that it was neither easy nor painless.

"The crew from the *Malachai* were sent to take you," Neo said grimly. "Ordered by the commander of Zion's defense force, most likely with the approval of at least some of the Council. When we found out from a Council member who didn't approve, we came to stop them if we could, protect you if necessary."

"Why?" Blair said plaintively, and his voice was music, woebegone and disappointed, but beautiful regardless.

"I think they're afraid of your influence on me - and by extension the other ships' crews, as well as any of the Potentials we bring out." Neo stopped, shook his head at himself. "No, it's more than that. You're giving the Matrix a human face when they want everyone to dismiss it as an emotionless, unfeeling tool, just another piece of the machinery."

With a last quick, stealthy touch to Neo's physical hand, the woman Jim recognized from her picture as Trinity came to stand beside the ghost image of Neo. "It goes deeper. We've been eavesdropping on the *Malachai's* crew, thanks to a variation of the masking technique we learned from you. Their first plan was simply to unplug you to use as a hostage against Ellison since they wanted to believe that he was the one behind learning to use the Matrix against itself. There's this adamant insistence that you can't be a Potential, not at your age, not and be sane.

"But they couldn't find your signal to trace back to your body; they couldn't find *you.* Apparently you're invisible to anything except eyeballs. The terminate order came after the *Malachai* reported that back to Zion. Bad for them since it gave us the opportunity to discover their plans and make a few of our own."

Canting his head to one side, Neo focused on Blair, and Jim uneasily considered yanking his partner back to their side of the gap, not sure either of them was ready to hear more. He held off, barely, because ignorance could cost him Blair, and enduring any amount of pain to prevent that was infinitely doable in his opinion. Neo carved two fingers through the space immediately around Blair, pausing at one point as if to fill the cup of his hand with Blair's radiance.

"My God," Neo breathed. "You've never *had* a body."

"That's not possible." Morpheus struggled to his feet and took his place at Neo's other side.

"I'm telling you what I see," Neo said flatly. "He has no carrier, no out-going connection. His code twines through the one around him, but stays individual and unique, like a chameleon blending into the background."

His eyes widened in understanding, and he said directly to Blair. "You have to have been born completely from the Matrix, probably from a Potential. She created you from her needs and will, insisting that you exist as a fetus, an infant, a child. Somehow you learned to sustain yourself, independent of her."

Jim felt a quiver zing through Blair, dimming him ever so slightly, and he whispered into his ear, "It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. Focus on what does. Focus on what you *know,* on what your heart and spirit tells you."

Blair tightened his grip on Jim's fingers, but his expression stayed serene, and all the light returned to him.

"Potentials do not live to reproduce!" Morpheus snapped, apparently not noticing their byplay. "They..."

Morpheus shut his mouth abruptly, but a hunch finished the statement for Jim. Not sure and not caring if they could hear him, he said, "Wake up during the resets and are flushed."

"Not all of them," Blair said clearly. "Maybe at first, but not now. Humanity is changing, adapting. That's humanity, in a nutshell. Push us into a desert, and we become nomads, clever at finding and storing water. Drive us into the frozen waste, and we grow brown fat to stay warm while making it on anything remotely edible. Stick us into a computer, and we learn to bend it to our will. Potentials. Ever ask yourself, potential what?"

"You knew all along?" Neo asked Morpheus, hurt sneaking into his voice despite the control he was obviously fighting to have over it. "What else haven't you been telling me?"

"I didn't tell you because it isn't important!"

"It is," Blair said softly. To Jim, he said too quietly for the others to hear, "I have an idea that might help us bring Morpheus to our side, at least to the point that he'll protect the Matrix, maybe help us save people before they get taken out and erased. Can you reach through far enough to touch the port in the back of Morpheus' neck?"

Trusting his partner's instincts, Jim carefully stretched out a hand and did as Blair asked. To his sight, he was less than a ghost; barely dust mites floating in the air, and the metal was even less substantial. Even if Morpheus hadn't been vehemently insisting that anything that Neo hadn't been told simply hadn't been important enough to bring up before now, Jim doubted the man would have perceived the contact. Fingertip dipping into the circle like he was trying on a ring, Jim felt a hum slide back along his arm, wrapping around the bone in an unpleasant way.

"Yes," Blair murmured, meeting the sensation with a flow from the hand he had hooked around Jim's elbow. "He's hurting from that gunshot wound, but he doesn't have to. It didn't happen here; we need to convince his body of that."

Before Jim could ask how, or even why, Blair increased the current he was generating, pushing back the one coming from Morpheus until it had retreated entirely into him. Blair didn't stop there, but poured a fraction of himself into the port, brightening momentarily. The change was enough to break through the argument among Neo and his shipmates. Suddenly seeing what Blair and Jim were doing, Neo tried to push them away from Morpheus, standing in front of him as he fell, Trinity supporting him as he went down.

"So that's the way of it," Jim said nearly silently, and Blair nodded his agreement.

Morpheus said, "My leg, my leg," as Trinity tore away the ragged pants covering it, shouting at someone named Dozer to hand her the kit. She peeled back the blood-soaked fabric, and stalled, hands hovering inches over smooth, undamaged skin.Timidly patting it, as if she had to confirm what her eyes saw, she asked Neo with expression and body language what had just happened.

Neo only murmured his astonishment, even as Morpheus tried to deny the healing.

"Maybe," Blair said loudly to break into their confusion, "maybe Potential is the wrong name; maybe *Interface* is a better one." He drifted backwards into Jim's full embrace, holding the attention of the crew effortlessly, though he and Jim were fading. "The machines can't risk change; they destroy the ones who awaken. Your people are afraid of change, so they do nothing to stop the waste of lives. I wonder how much you could accomplish, how much you could have already accomplished, if you had a large group of people inside the Matrix who know the truth the way Jim and I do. Remember, Matrix born or not, I couldn't do any of this without what Jim provides for me. There's more than one way to be a Potential."

When the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar were dim images on a graying wall, Blair half-turned in Jim's arms, sagging as all the strength drained out of him. "Safe," he mouthed, words inaudible even to Jim's ears. "Need...safe...might be..." He sighed into unconsciousness and Jim swept him up, not needing the reminder that there could have been more than one team sent after them.

Spinning on his heel, not allowing himself to think, Jim ran, not for the entry to the gap where he could see police officers and civilians alike just beginning to stare in astonishment, but slightly to one side of it. As he hoped, when he burst through they were in the loft, upstairs in the bedroom, and he barely had time to stagger to the bed before his own body surrendered to exhaustion. With more determination than grace, he put Blair down, dragged his clothes off, shed his own like a snake sheds skin, and tugged the comforter over them.

Tucking Blair against him, head under his chin, Jim's thoughts spun madly, though he felt weaker than he ever had before, even his first week in boot camp. He didn't doubt that Blair had managed to get Neo and his shipmates on the side of the humans trapped in the Matrix; didn't doubt that they would convert others. It would take time, perhaps lots of it, but there was hope for humanity now - *all* of humanity - and that was really all anyone could ask for. God knew there had been far too many times in his life when he hadn't believed there could be even that much.

Despite all the revelations of the past few days, nothing had really changed for him and Blair. Like before, they would most likely push their awareness of the Matrix away to the backs of their minds and just live as well as they could, protecting their tribe and taking care of each other. It was, after all, what the Oracle had said they should do, and for the first time, Jim could admit that it was damn good advice.

Sleep finally began to creep over him, loosening muscles he hadn't realized were so tight, and Jim sighed tiredly, snugging Blair more perfectly against him. His senses told him that the loft was outside of time again, and they could rest as long as they wanted to. Kissing Blair's temple, he chuckled, thinking of other things they could do as much as they wanted before returning to their normal lives, and that he had Blair to thank for that.

"You made our home a true sanctuary," Jim murmured, cheek against the wealth of curls and warmth. "Trust you to find the Sentinel perfect way to say 'I love you,' and not even know it. Love you, too, Chief." finis