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"Got everything you need, Chief?"
"Yeah. I like to travel light, you know?" Blair Sandburg carefully avoided the eyes of his friend -- partner, housemate -- and hefted the battered, green duffle bag which currently housed nearly all his worldly possessions. It was heavy, but the weight felt good; mobile stability, permanence on a shoulder-strap. It might not look like much to an outsider, but to Blair it was a home on the road.
The sigh escaped him before he knew it was coming, and he closed his eyes, waiting. He'd hoped to get out of the loft fast so he could mope in private, on the plane maybe, but there was no way Jim was going to let him get away with that now.
"It's just six weeks," Jim said calmly. "You'll have a great time, forget all about the station and getting shot at or blown up or kidnapped by psychos..."
"At least we'll find out if it's you or me, man," Blair said, lips quirking upward in wry amusement. "Whoever survives will know it was the other one with the bad karma."
"Not funny, Blair."
"Come on, Jim. What's going to happen to me in the wilds of southern Louisiana?"
"They have alligators down there, you know."
Blair laughed, shaking his head. "In the sewers, no doubt. Man, you sure know how to look on the bright side. I'm going to be studying southeastern tribal art, not the local wildlife. It's perfectly safe!"
"Just stay away from swamp tours, okay? And from anybody who even looks like he might be considering a criminal act. I want you to cross the street to avoid jay-walkers, Sandburg, and when you do, I want you to look both ways first. Got it?" Jim was smiling, but there was a look in his eyes that said he wasn't exactly kidding.
Blair was learning every day how important his safety was to his friend. At first he thought it was because Jim would be held reponsible if Blair got killed by one of the seemingly endless procession of psychotic bad guys they ran into. Jim always got irritated when Blair was in danger. Not half so irritated as Blair, who kind of liked being alive and wanted to stay that way, but Jim was a lot more vocal about it.
Lately, though, Blair been watching a little more carefully. He'd seen Jim in a lot of tense situations, and they'd even confided in one another. Some. Okay, not a lot, but enough that Blair didn't feel like a total waste of space anymore. He felt like he'd helped Jim out a couple of times, and not just with the police thing or the Sentinel thing. He knew Jim felt that way, too; everything that had happened to them in Peru was evidence of that. Even with Blair standing there battered and tired and scared to death to be holding an actual gun in his hands, Jim had said he was glad Blair had come with him. It was the single most personal thing Jim had ever said to him, and Blair had been so surprised he'd almost forgotten to answer him.
So Blair knew his friend was really worried about him, even if Jim had to turn it into a joke to say it. Still, that didn't mean Blair couldn't ride him about it a little.
"What, you mean take care of myself?" Blair's eyebrows lifted, and he grinned at his friend. "I don't know, man. Don't want to step on your turf."
Jim reached over and bopped him on the back of the head, answering Blair's grin with one of his own. "You're a riot. Let's get you on the road before I die laughing."
"Never let it be said that I endangered the life of my partner," Blair replied solemnly, suppressing a smile as he turned to follow Jim into the living room.
He paused just inside the curtain covering the doorway, the brief moment of amusement fading as he looked at the room he'd just emptied. It didn't feel right, leaving it like that, but he really needed everything he'd packed. Without his stuff, it looked like a room in a motel; all Jim needed was a vacancy sign and an ad in the paper to close the Blair Sandburg chapter of his life forever.
A cold knot formed in the pit of Blair's stomach. It was like seeing the future. He'd gotten over thinking Jim was going to kick him out one day, but sooner or later, life would. Blair would graduate, or somebody would get married, or promoted, or transferred or something that would bring life as he currently knew it to a screeching halt. Maybe not today, maybe not for a few months or even years...but someday.
The thought, quite frankly, scared the hell out him.
A hand on his shoulder interrupted his thoughts, and Blair met his partner's eyes. Silent communication flashed between them, Sentinel to Guide, an offer of support made and accepted without a word. Blair tried to smile, to feed a little reassurance back across the tenuous link between them, but the connection faltered. It was still new and largely untried, most active in times of stress or danger; premature homesickness apparently didn't register as a much of a threat on Sentinel radar screens. "Sorry, Jim," he said, apologizing for more than just the pause.
"Six weeks," Jim repeated. He squeezed Blair's shoulder, and shook it gently. "It's going to be here when you get back."
Yeah. This time. "I know," he said. "It's just...You know the last time I stayed in one place so long?"
"When?"
"Never, Jim. I have never stayed over a year. Naomi wouldn't have it; 'Provincialism is for small minds' she'd say. 'We're citizens of the Earth, Blair, we owe it to ourselves to see the whole thing'."
Jim looked up at the ceiling. "'I hear that.'"
Blair nodded, smiling a little. "Yeah. I think between the ages of eight and eighteen I 'detached with love' from just about every major city in the world. After that, in college, I was always taking the summers off to go on expeditions, switching apartments every couple of months...I'd been in that warehouse for three months when I met you; longer than I'd lived anywhere since my undergrad days."
"You saying you're ready to move on, Sandburg?"
There was an unfamiliar strain in Jim's voice. Blair glanced up at him, just in time to see a flash of worry being covered over with studied indifference, and then quickly looked away, supressing a smile. No way was Jim going to admit out loud he wanted Blair to stick around. It just wasn't in his nature to talk about stuff like that. Blair could handle it; as long as he knew it, he didn't really need Jim to say the words.
"I'm saying I never had any place I wanted to stay before," Blair said. Keeping things bottled up inside wasn't in his nature. Positive things, anyway.
Another swift check confirmed it; relief flashed through warm blue eyes, quickly replaced by a patented Jim Ellison death-before-emotionalism blank stare. It was harder to hide the smile this time, but Blair was up to the challenge. He hadn't been studying the guy for a year without learning a thing or two. Jim had just come as close as he ever got to a declaration of friendship, and there was no way Blair was going to embarrass him over it.
"So, are we leaving, or memorizing the cracks in your walls?"
"There aren't any--" Blair stopped, sensing Jim's grin before he saw it and laughing in response. If the Sentinel said there were cracks, then cracks there were.
He spared one last glance at the barren walls, then took a deep breath.
"We're leaving."
[Six Weeks Later]
"...man, they were enormous. The gator's were afraid of them, Jim, I'm serious. That is the last time I go on an expedition to the South." Blair tossed his keys in the general direction of the basket by the door and dropped his duffle bag. "And the weather! I didn't think it was possible, but it rains even more there than in Cascade. The humidity is deadly, the sun is like a hammer..." He took off his jacket and hung it up, then threw himself down on the far couch.
"Mosquitoes bigger than alligators," Jim said, smirking. "You wouldn't be embellishing a bit, would you, Chief?"
Blair grinned. "They didn't just bite you, man. They hovered at the foot of your bed, talking about whether to eat you there or carry you outside."
Jim let out a startled laugh and Blair felt absurdly pleased with himself. Jim really did need to lighten up a little, and any sign of a sense of humor was more than welcome. He'd been getting better at it lately -- a lot better, considering the deadly serious, nearly-homicidal alpha-cop Jim had been when they first met. The laugh wasn't so rare now, and the smiles were getting almost commonplace. Blair liked to think his influence had something to do with that.
"Well, you seem to have handled them okay," Jim said, still smiling. "We'll work on the insect kingdom for a few more days, then see if you can defend yourself against small mammals. Poodles, maybe."
"That's vicious, Jim. I'm hurt." He was amused as hell, actually, but laughing wasn't part of the game. In the Ellison Zone, he who laughed last, won.
"Not yet," Jim returned. "But if that bag isn't off my floor in ten seconds..."
"Fine, fine. Some welcome..."
Still grumbling, Blair rose and grabbed the strap, groaning a little at the weight of it. His room was about to get a lot less empty; the bag was twice as heavy now as when he'd left six weeks ago. He thought about how crowded his room was going to be once he dumped the thing, and smiled. Crowded was good. The more stuff he had there, the harder it would be to move out. Blair was shooting for 'impossible', and was glad he had another bag down in the truck.
"I'll get the door," Jim said, moving ahead to Blair's bedroom.
The d... There was a door. Actually, there were two doors. Nice ones. "Jim...unless I'm suffering from late-onset heat-stroke, there didn't used to be doors to my room." Blair looked up at his friend, brow furrowed, and surprised a look of pleased self-satisfaction on Jim's face. "Jim?"
"I had them down in storage," Jim said, looking at a spot just over Blair's left shoulder. "Carolyn and I talked about turning the room into a study, and we were just getting started when... Well."
Blair looked away from Jim's obvious embarrassment, sure he hadn't meant to say so much about his ex-wife. Blair didn't really know Carolyn, and didn't care to. He was fairly sure the divorce had been mostly Jim's fault, what with the cop thing and the stoicism thing, but he wanted to stay on Jim's side and so he steered clear of Carolyn.
With a mental shrug, he reached for a doorknob and found it wouldn't turn. "This some kind of a hint, Jim?"
From his pocket, Jim produced a small silver key on a brand new keyring and dangled it in front of Blair's eyes. Blair took it, staring at it as if it might come alive and bite him. It was more than a key. It was privacy, something in short supply when you lived with a Sentinel -- and an acknowledgment that he deserved it. Finally, he brought his eyes up to Jim's. "Thanks, man," he said. If he said anything more, he'd embarrass himself. Jim had taught him a little about controlling his emotions, but a man had limits.
"Yeah. Well, the curtain didn't keep much noise in, Chief. The doors will make your taste in music a little less painful."
"You could have just told me to turn the stereo off," Blair said, smiling a little.
Jim focused on Blair's eyes. "I like the doors," he said firmly. "If you're planning to stay, we're going to have to do a little more in terms of soundproofing, but the doors are a start."
"If I'm..."
"Staying. Are you staying, Blair?" Jim's eyes on his were steady now, intense.
Blair didn't know who he was talking to. Friend? Partner? Sentinel? Some bizarre mix of the three? "I want to," he said finally. "Is this an invitation?"
Jim sighed. "You need it engraved, kid?"
"I just...." Blair stopped, frowned, started over. "You know, I..."
"Blair Sandburg, speechless?"
Blair shook his head, frowning slightly. "What are we talking about here, Jim? Is this about work? You didn't -- did you zone out? Oh, man. You had somebody there, right? Of course you did, Simon knows about zoning, he wouldn't send you out alone. Something else? Are those headaches back again?"
"I knew it was too good to be true," Jim muttered. Then: "I didn't zone out. This isn't about work."
"Okay, so--"
"You said a while back, when you turned down that Borneo expedition, that it was about friendship."
"So that--"
"I'm talking here, Sandburg."
Blair swallowed his next question, and nodded quickly.
"It's not about friendship." Jim let his gaze drop from Blair's eyes, and shook his head. "It's about family."
"Family." Blair's eyes widened.
"Yeah," Jim said, sounding a little defensive.
Blair held up his hands, placating. "Hey, that's cool," he said, starting to grin. "Family. Okay. We can do that. Only--"
"What?"
"That's kind of a long-term concept, isn't it?"
"You got some problem with that?"
"Well, no, Jim, but--"
"Don't get weird about this, Sandburg," Jim warned. "You're weird enough as it is."
Blair shook his head, watching Jim carefully. "I'm not letting this one go, Jim," he said, his smile widening.
Jim looked up at the ceiling as Blair's meaning hit home. "Christ."
"It won't kill you."
Blair held out his right hand, sighing dramatically as his friend hesitated. After a moment, Jim chuckled and met Blair's eyes. "What the hell," he said, taking the offered hand. He pulled, drawing Blair into a hug as quick as it was fierce. Blair's arms went around Jim and tightened for an instant before letting go. He shoved himself back, laughing as they both retreated into their own space, each a little red in the face. "Don't go all weird on me, Jim," he said.
Jim's disgusted look was ruined by the smile that followed it. "Don't you have some unpacking to do?"
Blair nodded, knowing when to back off. He was feeling a little overloaded himself. "I'm on it." He unlocked his room and went in, smiling a little as he ran the conversation again in his mind, committing it to memory. Later, he'd put it in his journal; for now it was enough to replay it, feeling a sense of security and permanence stronger than anything he could remember.
"Hey, Jim?" he called through the partially closed doors.
"Yeah?"
Suddenly he wasn't sure what he wanted to say. What words were there for a friendship so strong it made you brothers?
Only one, really. "Thanks," he said quietly, knowing Jim would hear.
A sound at the doorway made him look up. Jim stood there, leaning against the door frame. "Welcome home, Blair," he said seriously.
Blair nodded, then looked away quickly, not quite trusting himself to speak. After a moment, he heard Jim leave.
He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.
Family. Home.
Shaking his head, smiling softly to himself, Blair began to unpack.