I Shot the Shaman... but I did not shoot the sentinel

by Freya-Kendra

Rating: PG-13 Content warning: language

Summary: A crime story full of drama, angst and H/C, this one involves both our shaman and our sentinel getting shot in separate incidents, a hijacked truckload of guns that are hitting the streets, and a college freshman who's caught in the middle. The spiritual link Jim and Blair share as Sentinel and Guide is an important factor.

Notes: This is a fic derived from a filk* derived from the original song by Bob Marley,and later by Eric Clapton – an admittedly odd sequence of inspirational bouts! The filk came straight from the muses. Normally, my filks are either completely character based or they describe particular episodes. This filk, however, is neither. Instead, it came from an Original Character who crept into my mind for a little "sing-a-long" one day. Then, after the filk was written and I realized I had a mystery on my hands – i.e. this OC shot Blair, but someone else was apparently responsible for shooting Jim – I knew I couldn't leave it unsolved. Hence . this fic! {*The filk that inspired this fic is included at the end [App. 54 printed pages, including cover page.]

I Shot the Shaman... but I did not shoot the sentinel

by Freya-Kendra

Part 1: Tickin’ (Elton John)

Day 1: 4:20 PM

Blair checked his watch for the thousandth time. Matt Meyers should have been there twenty minutes ago. The dean was a patient man, but a thirty-minute window was about the longest they could hope for. If Matt didn't show up within the next ten minutes, that student's college career at Rainier was history. End of story.

Damn. Blair wished he could write Matt’s particular story differently.

He was tapping a pencil against his desk and blindly staring at a pile of papers when a shadow crossed his threshold. Finally! Blair was already up and grabbing his notes by the time his visitor stepped through the open door.

"Matt!” He greeted the student. “Where've you been? Don't you realize how important this meeting is? The dean's been waiting...."

The rest of Blair’s words evaporated when he saw the muddy fog in his student's normally brown eyes.

"You're high." It was a simple observation, drawn from plenty of experience working with hundreds of university students, both as a student himself and as a teacher. But there was nothing simple about today.

"You're high!" Blair said again, louder than before.

Shaking his head and gritting his teeth, Blair knew he had just lost any chance he might have had to help Matt resolve his problems with school. Blair took out his anger on his notes, angrily throwing them onto his desk. "I can't believe you did that. You blew it, man. You blew it." He dropped back into his chair. "You knew this was it, Matt. Do you have any idea how hard I worked to get you this meeting?"

Matt shrugged away from Blair's searching eyes. "You can fix it, right?" His words were mumbled.

"No, Matt. I can't. Not anymore."

"But you said you'd help me."

"Yeah, I did. But that was weeks ago. I've done everything I can. I'm all tapped out, man. I can't do anything more for you, especially if you don't care enough to do anything for yourself first."

"I tried."

"Really? Then why are you twenty minutes late and higher than a kite? Explain that to me."

"I was scared."

"Scared? You got high because you were scared about meeting with the dean?"

"Yeah. It's like my last chance. I was afraid to blow it."

Blair chuckled at the irony. "You were afraid to blow it. That's good. That's...." He shook his head again. "Well, you did blow it, man. You blew it big-time."

"No. I just needed to calm my nerves. I'm good. We can talk to him now."

"No, Matt. We can't. One look at your eyes and he'll shut the door right in your face. It's over."

"You can fix it." Matt's red, foggy eyes started to fill with water. He hunched his shoulders like a frightened child.

Blair had seen that look before. Fool me twice, shame on me. He ignored it. "Aren't you hearing me, here? Are you so high you don't understand what I'm saying? I've done everything I can. I can't help you anymore! It's over!"

"No." Tears started to spill onto Matt's cheeks.

Blair chose a new tactic. Leaning forward in his chair, he said, "What about that support group I hooked you up with? How 'bout I drive you over to the center --"

"No." The tears now streamed to Matt’s chin.

"Come on, Matt. I'm not playing games with you. You are the only one who can--"

"No," Matt interrupted in a loud, shaky shout.

Blair studied him, watching as Matt push his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket. The lost child act had achieved new levels of power. Blair had to reach beyond it. He closed his eyes for a moment, struggling to maintain his objectivity. It wasn't working very well.

Sighing, Blair rose and moved around the desk until he stood directly in front of the student. Maybe meeting Matt directly at eye level would help his message to sink in.

"Look, Matt," he said softly, offering the Sandburg compassion and sincerity that so often drew troubled students to him for advice. "Let me take you to the center, and --"

"No!" The child threw a tantrum. "No, no, no!" Matt's hands emerged from his pockets in a flash. Both were wrapped around the handle of a gun aimed at Blair's chest. "No! It's not over! Don't say it's over!"

Blair brought his own hands up on instinct and backed slowly away until he hit the edge of his desk. "Hey, Matt. Put that thing away, all right? It's not gonna help you."

"It's not, huh? Like you're not gonna help? You said you'd help. You promised."

"You're right. I did promise. So let me help, okay? Just put that away."

Blair saw movement from the corner of his eye. He caught a glimpse of white-blonde hair and let his eyes wander briefly to the hallway. Marianne Camdon, a young Teaching Assistant from Ancient Studies had clearly seen the gun. Her mouth dropped open in shock and she ducked back against the wall, out of sight from the open door. Good. Blair thought. She'd call for help. All he needed to do now was keep Matt talking.

"Come on, man. Put that thing away, okay? I can't do anything with a gun pointed at me."

"No. You can't. You can't do anything, can you? It's over, man. You said yourself it's over."

* * *

Marianne was shaking when she reached for the phone in the office next to Blair's. She dropped behind the desk, taking the phone with her, trying to stay hidden in case Matt should move into the hallway.

"911. What is your emergency?"

"He has a gun." It was the first thing Marianne thought to say, but she knew it wasn't enough. She had to keep her wits about her; she had to prevent herself from becoming the stereotypical, hysterical, useless witness. Taking a deep breath, she tried again. "I'm calling from Hargrove Hall at Rainier University. There's a student holding a gun on one of my colleagues. His name's Blair Sandburg. No, I'm sorry. I mean Blair's my colleague. The student with the gun is Matt Meyers."

"Thank you, ma'am. Police are being dispatched. Are you in a safe location?"

"Yes... no. I don't know. He's in the office next door."

"Can you get to an exit?"

"Wait...." Marianne put down the phone and cautiously peered into the hallway. Another student was about to walk past Blair's office. No! A distraction like that could make Matt pull the trigger. She held up her hands, desperately miming out a warning. Stop! Her gestures told the student. Don't come any closer! Then, with one finger pressed to her lips to urge silence, she held her other hand up, using her fingers to imitate a gun. It took a few tries, but the student finally seemed to get the picture. Wide-eyed, he nodded and backed away.

* * *

Margaret Reeves, the operator on duty who fielded Marianne's call, recognized the name of the hostage. Blair Sandburg. She'd never met him personally, but she knew he worked with the Cascade Police. He was an enigma over at Major Crimes -- an anthropology professor, or something like that, who moonlighted as a partner to one of the detectives there. How an anthropologist could help a cop, Margaret had no idea. But she knew he was both well liked and well respected.

As soon as she dispatched the nearest units to the scene, she scribbled a message on a note pad and waved it at her supervisor. Contact Major Crimes. Sandburg is one of theirs. Yet she never skipped a beat in her conversation with the witness. She had a responsibility to keep the caller safe.

* * *

"I think we can keep the hallway clear," Marianne told the 911 operator just before she heard loud shouts from the other side of the wall. "He's yelling now! God! Blair's usually so good with people. He should be able to calm him down."

"Ma'am, I need you to leave the building."

"No, I can't do that. I've got to help him somehow."

"The police are on their way, ma'am. What you can do for your friend right now is get yourself to a safe location."

* * *

Blair pressed himself tightly against the desk. "This is just one school, Matt. You can start fresh somewhere else."

"No. I can't. You keep lyin' to me, man." Matt started sobbing. "You keep lyin'."

"No, Matt. I have never lied to you. I can help you. But I can't do it alone. You have to help too."

"Then let's go talk to the dean."

"That's not the answer this time, man. Come on, put that thing away."

"It is the answer!" Matt shouted, locking his elbows and pointing the gun at Blair's nose. "It is!"

* * *

Day 1: 4:40 PM

Simon stepped into the elevator and punched the button up to Major Crimes. "The way I look at it, you owe me dinner."

"No, sir. I don't think so," Jim answered casually. "In fact, I'm pretty sure it's the other way around. You owe me this time."

"Uh, huh. And just what fool's logic made you come to that conclusion?"

"Just the plain, simple facts, Simon. Eddie Mandrake's a pretty small fish. If you'd have just let me play it out a little longer, he might have given us a better lead."

"You seem to be forgetting the bullet he was about to put in you."

Jim shrugged. "All I'm saying is we still have a cache of weapons out there somewhere, and I feel like we're back to square one."

"Yeah. I'll buy that. But that's the way these things go sometimes. I'd rather be back to square one with you standing here talking to me than all the way to Boardwalk with you lying on a slab at the morgue. Now, about that dinner --"

Simon Banks had been pleased to end his day with one more bad guy in jail and one less good guy laid up in the hospital -- or worse. He'd saved Jim's life just a few hours earlier, and despite the setback to the investigation, he felt today had been a good day, for that one action alone. But when the elevator doors opened and Simon saw two of his detectives waiting for that same elevator just outside Major Crimes, he knew his day was about to get turned upside down yet again. One look at his detectives made it clear that something was very wrong. Joel Taggart and Henri Brown were in a hurry to get somewhere, and apparently concerned they might not make it in time.

"What it is, Joel?"

"Simon. Jim.” Joel’s greeting was somber. “I'm glad you're back." Yet there was nothing remotely happy in Joel's countenance. "There's a problem at the university. A student with a gun.”

Simon knew there was more to it than that. After a brief pause he had his answer when Joel turned his gaze directly to Jim.

“In Blair's office," he said.

Jim stiffened, but he did not hesitate. He punched the button for the first floor. "Then what are we waiting for?" He said.

* * *

Matt was getting nervous, and that meant Blair was, too.

"Okay! Okay, Matt! You're right! That is the answer! We'll go talk to the dean, okay? But you can't take that with you, all right?"

"I have to."

"No."

The tension in Matt's arms relaxed noticeably. "It really is over, isn't it?" His tone had grown soft.

Relieved at the change, Blair started to lower his hands. "We'll fix it."

"You said you can't fix it. Not anymore."

"I'll help you get through this. Just put the gun away, okay Matt?"

"I'm sorry." Matt's words were nearly inaudible. They were whispered through an intense despair that tore into Blair's heart.

An instant later the metaphor seemed to come true with a deafening explosion as a bullet tore into Blair Sandburg’s chest.

* * *

The sound of the gun firing was the most terrifying thing Marianne had ever heard in her short life. She fought to swallow the scream she didn't dare voice.

"Oh God!" The words sounded strangled, forced beyond the tightness in her throat. "I think he shot him!" she told the operator. "I think he shot him!"

* * *

Day 1: 4:50 PM

"Shots fired," Margaret Reeves typed into her screen for the police dispatcher. "The witness reports one victim, with a gunshot wound to the chest. Ambulance is en route. The suspect is believed to have dropped his weapon and fled the scene."

There was nothing left for Margaret to do except wait and hope that this well-liked police anthropologist might survive thanks to the quick action and calm thinking of a very frightened young woman named Marianne.

* * *

Simon watched from the passenger seat as Jim's grip tightened on the steering wheel. The latest report from dispatch suggested they might already be too late. One victim, presumably Blair Sandburg.

"Damn," Simon couldn't help but respond.

Jim on the other hand remained quiet. His body language was as tense as Simon had ever seen it, his jaw locked so tight Simon could almost hear his teeth grinding over the sound of the truck's hard-working engine and the squeal of its tires. Perhaps Jim shouldn't be driving, yet Simon knew he would be worse as a passenger. At least Jim was in control of something rather than sitting idly by, doing nothing while his partner faced death at the hands of a nervous student with a gun.

When they reached the university, Jim parked his truck in the midst of the half dozen squad cars already on the scene, representing both campus police and the Cascade PD. The ambulance, having just been dispatched, had yet to arrive -- which meant Blair had yet to receive sufficient medical attention. That observation would not be lost on Jim.

Without saying a word to his captain, Jim Ellison jumped out of the truck and plowed through the crowd of students, staff and uniformed officers that had already gathered in front of Hargrove Hall. His eyes focused on nothing but the building, his senses surely already honing in on one particular room inside, he ignored questions and commands that were directed his way, leaving Simon to follow behind and fill in the blanks. Jim never stopped; he never slowed -- until he stood at the threshold to Blair's office. There, Simon saw him go absolutely rigid for a brief second. It was a telling sign and a disturbing message, one Simon would soon mirror.

Simon was only a pace behind when Jim entered the room. Taking his turn in the doorway an instant later, the captain surveyed the crime scene. His attention was not easily drawn away from Blair Sandburg. The kid did not look good. His face was ashen, his eyes open to murky slits. Semi-conscious, his lips moved, muttering softly, probably incoherently, in a voice far too soft to be heard from Simon's position. The most chilling image, however, was the blood already soaking Sandburg's blue flannel shirt.

"Get those paramedics in here!" Simon yelled to the closest uniformed officer while Jim knelt beside a young woman who was trying to staunch the flow of blood, her elbows locked before her, both hands pressing firmly down on the red puddle that had formed on Blair’s chest.

"I have to stop the bleeding." The woman resisted when someone in a campus police uniform tried to pull her away. "I have to keep pressure on it. I have to stop it." She was shaking, bordering on shock. Like Jim, she was singularly focused on one person, one goal. Unlike Jim, she couldn't see beyond the blood.

The detective looked at her, at her blood-spattered face, at the streaks that had clotted in the fine strands of her light hair, and said the first words Simon had heard from him since they'd left the elevator back at the station. "You've done what you can. Thank you. I'm his partner. I'll take over from here."

The woman hesitated before slowly moving her gaze from Blair to the man who had come to relieve her. "You're Jim?"

He nodded.

The gesture worked like a key, unlocking emotions she had been too busy and too shocked to acknowledge. She started sobbing, and her shaking intensified. "God, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I couldn't stop it."

Simon reached for her arm and gently lifted her away, leaving Jim to put his Army field training to proper use.

"I'm sure you helped slow the bleeding," Simon offered as he led her to a chair in the back of the room. "You did what you could, and we can't thank you enough for that." Taking off his coat, Simon placed it over her shoulders as his gaze wandered back to Jim and Blair.

"You let us worry about Meyers, Chief," Jim was saying, most likely in reply to his partner's quiet muttering. "I need you to think about yourself right now, you hear me?"

"No," the woman next to Simon argued.

The captain turned his attention back to her, giving her a curious look.

"The shooting," she added. "I couldn't stop it from happening. I couldn't stop it."

Simon shook his head slightly. "Of course you couldn't. That's the trouble with guns. There's not much you can do when it's someone else's finger on the trigger."

"I called 911. And I tried to keep people out of the hallway. But I couldn't help Blair."

"That's not what I just saw. You did help him. You did a lot more than most people."

"It wasn't enough. I should have tried to talk to Matt. Maybe I could've stopped him."

"No. That would have just put you in danger, too. And if Blair couldn't talk him out of it, I doubt anyone could. With that mouth of his...." Simon smiled sadly, realizing he'd not only grown used to Blair Sandburg's constant chattering, he'd actually grown to appreciate it. But the smile died in an instant when Jim's shouts pulled his attention back to Cascade's latest crime victim.

"Don't you talk like that, Chief," the detective insisted. "You've got to keep fighting here. We're partners, got that? We're in this together."

"You obviously know him pretty well," the woman commented beside Simon.

He considered the thought as he kept his eyes on the life and death struggle playing out before him. "Yeah. I guess I do."

"He's an easy person to like."

"I suppose that's true, too."

"I thought Matt liked him. That's what's so crazy about all this. Blair was helping Matt, sort of mentoring him, you know? But then he got into the drugs, and it just ... it changed him."

"Simon?" When Joel Taggart entered the room, thankfully followed by the paramedics, Simon excused himself and joined the other detective near the door.

Joel's attention was understandably drawn to Blair Sandburg, and to Jim Ellison's loudly voiced demands for his partner's well-being as the medical team took over. It was a long moment before Joel gave his attention back to the captain, his eyes reflecting the concern in Simon's own heart.

"We think Meyers is still on foot," Joel said finally, not giving voice to words that didn't need to be spoken. "We've beefed up the search coordinated between campus police and Cascade PD. If he is on foot, he's won't get far."

"For his sake, let's just hope we bring him in before Jim goes looking for him." Simon answered, his gaze focused on the man standing sentinel over their fallen friend. And God help that poor, doped up bastard if Blair Sandburg dies.

* * *

Part 2: Dust in the Wind (Kansas)

Day 2: 2:00PM

The night passed by in a blur of flashing lights and urgent calls.

The hospital emergency room had rarely seen such a steady stream of people, both civilians and police, uniformed and otherwise, all with one thing in common: concern over Blair Sandburg. The officers paraded in and out to check on Sandburg’s status and donate blood in between hitting the streets to find the fugitive, Matt Meyers.

It wasn’t until after midnight that Blair was out of surgery, and then hours more in recovery before they moved him up to ICU where Jim Ellison sat vigil, oblivious to the clock, to the movements of the sun, to anything beyond the weak sound of his friend’s heartbeat.

Simon entered the hospital room quietly, but he wasn't quiet enough to avoid disturbing the fitful sleep of a sensitive sentinel. Jim stirred in his chair and blinked his eyes open, nodding a quick greeting.

"You should go home, Jim," Simon suggested. "Get some real sleep."

"Maybe." Jim acknowledged, though he made no move to leave as he turned his attention back to the man in the bed beside him.

Simon knew there was no point to pressing the subject. "How's he doing?"

"He's weak -- but stable for now. He lost a lot of blood. At least we can be thankful the bullet missed his heart."

Mention of the bullet clearly drawing his thoughts elsewhere, Jim looked up at his captain, his eyes growing dark. "What about Meyers?"

"Still loose. But he'll turn up. As spaced out as that kid was, he's gonna need another fix. And we've got every informant on file looking for him."

"What about the ones who aren't on file?"

"Them too, believe me. Taggart, Brown and Rafe have stirred up just about everyone at Cascade PD. They're encouraging anyone who works in the building to make finding this kid their number one priority, and that includes the janitors." Simon chuckled softly, but the mood couldn't last. "You know, when you first introduced me to Sandburg, I thought you were nuts. I thought he'd be more of a liability than anything else, just one gigantic thorn in my side. But...." He sighed, unsure how to voice his feelings, until he settled for, "He's earned his keep."

"He didn't deserve this," was all Jim said in response, his gaze locked once again on his partner, his jaw locked as tight as ever.

"No. No he didn't. No one does."

The dark eyes shifted toward Simon again. "No one? How about Matt Meyers?"

"You don't mean that, Jim. Meyers is a kid, a screwed up kid on drugs. Add easy access to a gun, and ..." He sighed, not bothering to fill in the blank.

"You don't hold Meyers responsible, sir?" Jim's eyes went cold.

"Of course I do. But he's not the only one. What about whoever sold him the drugs? And where'd he get the gun from?"

"I'll settle for the one who pulled the trigger this time, Simon."

"Uh huh," the captain answered doubtfully. "And what if I told you the gun he used was from that same stolen shipment you were trying to get Eddie Mandrake to lead us to?"

Jim just looked at him curiously.

"The serial number confirmed it. You know, Jim, that same cache almost got both of you killed yesterday, by completely different perps under completely different circumstances. I, for one, will be far more satisfied if we can get our hands on whoever's responsible for letting those guns hit the streets in the first place."

Jim's eyes stayed on him. "Fair enough, sir. But, of course, we're back to square one on that investigation, as you'll recall."

Simon could not miss the anger in the other man's words. "And you're not lying in a hospital bed with a bullet hole in your back -- as you'll recall."

It took another moment before Jim shook his head and leaned back in his chair. "I'm sorry, Simon. I'm just...." He seemed unable to find sufficient words.

"I know. You need to get out of here for a while."

"Maybe, but...." He focused on Sandburg.

"You said it yourself. He's stable for now. And he's weak. Add it up, Jim. He's going to be asleep for a long time yet."

Jim nodded, sighing heavily, and rose. Reaching for Sandburg's arm, he gave it a tender squeeze. "I'll be back, Chief. I promise." A moment later he stepped past Simon, heading toward the door. "Let’s go find ourselves another Eddie Mandrake."

"What?" Simon called to his retreating back. "Jim? I meant you should go home and get some sleep."

"Don't need to. Sandburg's doing enough for both of us."

* * *

Day 2: 4:00PM

His shoulders twitching against a steady, cold drizzle, Rafe sniffed loudly and rubbed the sleeve of his gray, worn sweatshirt under his nose. "Where is it, man?" he asked impatiently as he leaned out past the dumpster to do another quick scan of the street beyond the alley. "I don't like hangin' around here. Know what I'm sayin'?"

"Who you worried about, 'Soos?" his companion asked, referring to the second half of his own, little inside joke. Accustomed to avoiding names in his chosen profession, he tended to greet anyone with brown hair and eyes as "Hey, Soos," clearly alluding to the common, Latin name of Jesus.

Rafe glared at the heavily tattooed skinhead in black leather. "I told you, don't ever call me that."

"Lighten up, Bro'! We're cool. We're cool."

"Just show me what you got, so I can get outta here, a’ight?"

"Chill out, man. Ain't nobody out there."

"Look, if you don't wanna do this, I'm gone." Rafe started to walk away.

"Woe, hold up, dude. Chill, okay?" The skinhead grabbed a black trash bag that had been stashed between the dumpster and the wall. He pulled out a handgun.

Rafe stopped and did another nervous scan before moving closer. He sniffed again, rubbed his nose, and took the gun when Skinhead handed to him. After giving it a full inspection, he finished by pointing it at Mr. Hey, Soos. He pulled the trigger. The shot would have been right between Skinhead's eyes if the gun had been loaded. The guy never flinched.

Rafe passed the gun back to him. "Ain't good enough. I need more fire power."

"What'chu need it for, man? Armageddon?"

"Now that ain't none of your business, is it?"

"Hey, look. You gonna be doin' some gang-banging? I can arm your troops, dude."

Rafe eyed Skinhead suspiciously. "What are you saying'?"

"I can get'cha lots more of these. Hell, I can show you whatever you want."

"Whatever I want?"

"You heard me. I'm talkin' a 'Guns-R-Us' grand opening super sale."

Shaking his head, Rafe started to laugh. "Man, you ain't serious."

Skinhead smiled too. "Sure am." Then the smile vanished. "But we don't give refunds. And we don't allow window-shopping. You try, you buy -- or you die."

Rafe met his glare for a long moment. Finally, he nodded. "A'ight. I'm in." He kept his jaw firm, his eyes cold. Yet inside he felt like he'd just landed a prize-winning fish, one that was clearly bigger than Ellison's Eddie Mandrake.

* * *

Day 2: 4:45PM

Simon clicked off his phone and turned to Jim in the passenger seat beside him. "Looks like we're in. Rafe has a meet set up for tonight."

The detective kept his eyes forward. "I guess you'll get your gun dealer, after all. You probably should've put Rafe on the case right off."

Jim just wasn't going to let this thing die. But Simon was bound and determined to force him to do just that. "Dammit, Jim. I refuse to apologize for saving your life yesterday. Would you listen to yourself? You sound like some spoiled kid who's pissed at his basketball coach for not letting him showboat to make the winning play. I don't want to hear about your --"

"Simon!"

The captain had been so focused on his ongoing tirade, Jim had to shout to make himself heard.

"See what you're doing to me?" Simon asked, exasperated, when his passenger finally managed to capture his attention.

"I'm sorry, Simon. Believe it or not, I wasn't even thinking about that. You did what you had to do. I know that. And I appreciate it, believe me. And you were right. I suppose I probably do owe you dinner." He tried a small smile, but it was absent in his eyes. "I guess I'm just mad at myself. Rafe did good work today. Maybe if he'd gone in sooner, we could've got the guns before...."

When he didn't finish, Simon looked at him, saw his eyes go distant and his jaw begin to twitch. "Stop second-guessing everything, Jim. You know what this job's like. Sometimes it's no better than playing the lottery. But Rafe didn't just happen to pick a winner. We have every available person working on this case --"

"It's okay, Coach," Jim interrupted. "I don't need the pep talk. I just need to get to work."

Doing something, Simon thought, even something as common as driving, is better than doing nothing at all, or just sitting uselessly while the world flashes by. Pulling into the university lot, Simon parked next to Jim's truck, which had been abandoned there when Jim had demanded to accompany Sandburg in the ambulance. The captain couldn't help but remember that same drive the day before, when he'd let Jim take the wheel and have that small amount of control.

"Yeah," Simon acknowledged softly before clearing his throat and signaling an end to the uncomfortable conversation. "The meet's scheduled for the rail yards at Fourth and Main. As long as you're sure you're up to it, I'd like you to liaise with the ATF agents and --"

"I can't do that, sir."

"What?"

"I'd rather be taken off that case."

"Wait a minute. Didn't I just hear you say you needed to get back to work?"

"Yes, sir. I need to find that kid, Matt Meyers."

"No. Absolutely not. You know I can't allow that. If you brought him in with so much as a scratch, IAD would be all over both of us. You're too close, Jim."

"I won't let anything happen, sir."

"You're damn right you won't, because you won't go after him. Come on, Jim. Put yourself in my shoes and then tell me, would you honestly set you loose on that kid?"

"Simon, I can find him. I need to --"

"We can find him,” Simon corrected. “Let the rest of the Cascade PD do what they are trained to do."

Simon stopped himself from saying more. Pausing, he took a moment to rethink the situation. Doing something wasn't always the answer, now was it? He should have realized that from the start.

"Face it, Jim," he said, "you're exhausted. I know you feel like anything is better than sitting on your hands. But believe it or not, there really are a lot of very competent people working on both of these cases right now. I probably should order you to take some time off, but I'd rather give you an option. So, here it is: you can work with ATF for this thing tonight, or you can go home and get some sleep. You decide. But there is no door number three."

Jim gazed out the window for a long moment. "Then I suppose sleep it is." He opened the door and stepped out. "Good luck tonight, sir."

When the door closed, Simon was left with an uneasy sense of finality. He suspected Jim had no intention of sleeping. But what was he supposed to do? Put a tail on his own detective for suspicion of poor anger management? More than ever, he wished Sandburg were there to keep an eye on the man. But then, if Sandburg were there Jim wouldn't need the scrutiny, would he?

“Damn,” he said under his breath. Stepping out of the car, he shouted across the roof, "Jim? Just do us both a favor and stay away from the Meyers kid."

The detective just waved back as he got into his truck.

* * *

Day 2: 5:30 PM

Jim sat in the parking lot for a long while, gazing out across Rainier's campus. He knew he should go home, knew he needed sleep. Yet at the same time, he knew sleep would be impossible. Though he was exhausted, he was also restless, and dangerously so. He thought of a mother bear pacing angrily and uselessly in front of one of her injured cubs. Or a jaguar, caged and stalking any opportunity to break free, waiting for someone to come within range of his claws.

Jim was that animal. Unable to protect Sandburg in the first place, his instincts screamed at him to lash out at the nearest available target in retaliation, and just about any target would do. Yet the thought of one target in particular made Jim's hands automatically curl into fists. Logic told him that was why Simon was right, why he couldn't even consider hunting for Meyers. But something deeper and more primal within him demanded he do exactly that.

Fighting against instinct, he started the engine, intending to force himself to head back to the loft. He shifted into gear. But he kept his foot on the brake. A moment later, he shifted back to park. Who was he kidding? Even if he made it to the loft, he knew he'd have to turn right around and come back here. This is where the story started. This is where his hunt would have to begin.

Turning off the engine, Jim got out of the truck and headed for the main entrance to Hargrove Hall. Rather than going in, he began to skirt around the building, looking for other exit routes the shooter might have taken to avoid notice. Jim mentally tagged each window and doorway. He used his keen vision to look for patterns in the ground, his sense of touch to explore peculiarities in broken stems of the plant life. He kept every sense alert for anything forensics might have failed to catch. There had to be something here, something that could still point him to Meyers.

More than twenty-four hours had already passed since the shooting, yet Simon had told him they'd found no solid leads. Despite the captain's confident attitude, it sounded like the kid had managed to vanish completely out of sight. Yet how could he? He'd been so strung out on dope, he couldn't possibly have been able think clearly enough to plot out an effective escape. He should've turned up hours ago, either passed out in an alley or wandering the streets, dazed and confused. And half the city's police force was looking for him now at any given moment. Why hadn't they found him?

"Hey, aren't you Mr. Sandburg's cop friend?" a young woman asked from the walkway as Jim explored a window ledge on the building.

The student’s long, red hair was pulled loosely into a ponytail that stretched the length of her spine, and a stack of thick books made all the muscles in her arms taut. But what Jim found to be most interesting about her was the worried expression in her gaze and the rapid beat of her heart.

"Yes," he answered as he stepped toward her and brushed dirt from his hand. "I am." He could sense fear building within her as she watched him.

"It's not true, is it?" she blurted out as her fear seemed to reach a peak. "I mean, he's not ... he's not dead, is he? They said Matt Meyers killed him. Please tell me it's not true."

He's not dead, is he? Jim froze at the sound of her words. He locked his gaze onto hers, saw tears pooling in her lower lids, the slight quiver of her lip.

"No," he said, despite the sudden realization that he couldn't really know for sure. Jim had left Blair alone at the hospital. Sandburg’s heart rate and blood pressure, everything was stable. But he wasn't completely out of the woods. There were never any guarantees. Infection could set in. His temperature could spike. The hospital will call if there's any change, Simon had insisted. But what if it was already too late by the time someone managed to make that call?

A small hand grabbed Jim's arm and shook him back into the moment. "Are you okay?" the woman asked, her wet, green eyes gazing deeply into his. He hadn't even been aware of her approaching him.

"I'm fine. Sorry. I've just got a lot on my mind."

"Of course, you do." She sniffed and wiped the knuckle of her index finger along the corners of her eyes. "Look, I'm really sorry to bother you like this. But all those cops who were around here all day, I just.... I guess I was just afraid to talk to them."

Jim tensed, raising his eyebrows in curiosity and finally honing in on the telling signs of her nervous actions. "Do you know something about what happened?"

"Well, no. No I don't. Not really. But Matt...." She shifted her weight to her other foot and dropped her gaze to the ground. Then, taking a deep breath, she forced herself to look at Jim. "I, um, I know where he got the gun."

* * *

Day 2: 8:00PM

"Nice ride," Henri Brown said from behind the wheel of the Seville they'd taken out of impound.

Rafe, in the passenger seat, looked over at him. "A lot nicer than I'll ever be able to afford."

"Let's all just remember to keep it this way," Captain Banks said from the back. "If we have to submit a claim for one more vehicle this year, Finance will probably start rationing out pencil stubs to bring us back in budget."

A report coming in through his earpiece made him miss Brown's reply. "Okay, gentlemen," he announced afterwards, "we're on."

* * *

Dusk was giving way to full night, draping the alley in one long, dark shadow. Jim became part of it, blending into a corner where a dumpster pressed against the brick and concrete wall. He stood frozen in time like the ancient stone guardians he'd seen in the jungles of Peru -- or like the sentinel Blair Sandburg had named him. His gaze was locked on the door opposite him, the one marked "Dirk's Dungeon" for the fantasy-themed hobby store within.

"The guy's a total loser," the young woman at Rainier had told him. "He runs some geeks role-playing shop, over on Jefferson. Dirk's Dungeon, I think it's called. He's a real freak, but they say he has connections, you know? Some kids go there to get hooked up with drugs and stuff. A friend of mine, Mindy, she knows a guy named Jack who tells her he saw Matt and that freak in the alley behind the store, he says he saw the freak give Matt a gun."

"And who is this 'Jack'? What was he doing in the alley?"

"I don't know. All I know is what Mindy told me."

"Uh huh. Then where can I find Mindy?"

The woman hesitated, her eyes darting away. "You can't. She ... she went back home, to Minnesota. Somebody died. She had to go to the funeral."

Jim said nothing. He just stared at her, his eyes all the ammunition he needed.

"Okay!" she said after a long, uncomfortable moment under his silent scrutiny. "Okay. But this is entirely off the record, all right? I'll deny everything if you sick a warrant on me, or whatever it is you guys do." She took a deep breath, and wiped her eyes again. "I saw it, okay? I was there. It was me. I needed... I needed to talk to him. I didn't know the freak was into guns, you know? Just ... just other stuff. Nothing dangerous. But when I saw the gun, I left."

"You're fooling yourself if you think drugs aren't dangerous. Look what they did to Matt Meyers and Blair Sandburg."

"No. Don't go there, okay? That's why I didn't want to talk to the police yesterday. But you.... You're supposed to be Mr. Sandburg's friend. And he's a good guy. This shouldn't have happened to him. Matt shouldn't have.... Look, I just wanted to help if I can. But I don't need any more bullshit lectures. I just wanted to tell you about the gun. That's all." She started to walk away.

"Wait," Jim called her back. "What about Meyers? Do you have any idea where he might have gone?"

Glancing around, she took a step closer. "Try the shop," she answered softly. "There's a back entrance that takes you to the basement, where the freak makes all his real money."

So far it seemed the young co-ed hadn't steered Jim wrong. He'd only been there for two hours, yet had already observed three customers follow a common, basic routine. Number four was no different. A kid no older than eighteen scanned the alley, his eyes moving over Jim as though he were nothing more than another empty shadow. When he was confident he was alone, the kid pressed the button to an intercom at the side of the door.

"Yeah," the box crackled softly.

"It's me," the kid answered.

"Me?"

"Mark Stuart. Come on, man, don't be a prick. Open up."

When the lock shifted with an electronic buzz, the kid went inside. And this time, so did Jim. As with the other, young careless customers, Kid #4 let the door close by itself behind him, not bothering to ensure the lock re-engaged.

* * *

Henri Brown drove past a series of broken streetlights and boarded up houses into the rail yards on the waterfront, an area that proved to be even darker than the streets outside. The Seville's headlights did little to penetrate the shadows cast by stacks of shipping containers and heavy equipment under the dim glare of the inefficient outdoor lamps.

In the back seat, Simon Banks tried to stay alert to whatever might lie in those shadows. A little help from the moon would have eased his nerves considerably, but a thick layer of clouds had stolen that option. It was dark. Period.

We sure could have used you tonight, Jim, he complained silently. Part of him wondered what the detective was up to. Another part didn't want to know.

* * *

Jim stood on the dark landing, focusing on the soft voices coming from below. They were muffled, as though filtered through a wall, a cue to Jim that he should be able to descend the stairs undetected. One more scan, this time for other sounds -- heartbeats, breathing, anything that could indicate a hidden presence in the darkness -- told him it was safe to proceed. All was quiet.

His gun in hand, he started down the stairs, cautiously, silently, his body fully in tune with the skills of stealth he'd learned from his training as an Army Ranger and later sharpened during his time with the warriors in Peru. As Kid #4 had earlier presumed, he was nothing more than a shadow, an empty presence joining the other shadows filling the corners of the dimly lit basement.

"Come on, Rick," Kid #4 was saying. "You know I'm good for it. I'll have the money on Friday."

"Marky, Marky, Marky," the voice from the box replied. Without the static of poorly wired electrical intervention, Jim could still hear a raspy resonance. This so-called freak was clearly not a young man. "You know the rules. I'm running a business here, not a soup kitchen."

They were in a room in the southwest corner of the basement, behind a closed door. And they were alone. Jim heard only two heartbeats. Matt Meyers was not with them. But that didn't necessarily mean Matt wasn't nearby. Focusing his sentinel vision into the multitude of black holes the ceiling bulbs failed to reach, Jim saw three similar doors amid piles of dusty, cardboard boxes.

"I got a five. That's all I got, man." Marky sounded desperate.

"Five bucks? That's shit. What good is five bucks to me?"

Jim moved closer to the first untested door, immediately to the left of where Marky's supplier was trying to do business. Focusing first on his hearing, then on his sense of smell, he detected nothing more than an old, musky odor mingled with a hint of ammonia.

"Okay, Marky. I'll do you a favor here. Five bucks will buy you a sample. But I expect you to come back on Friday to do me a little favor in return."

Rick's words, spoken with the grating sound of frost being scraped off a windshield, filled the basement with ice. Even Marky seemed to freeze up under their influence. He was silent for a long while, though his heartbeat intensified. "Yeah, Rick," he said at last, his voice softer than before. "Whatever you want." There was a brief pause, then, "When you're there for me, I'm there for you. You know that."

He's not there for anyone, kid, Jim thought angrily. That girl at the university had been only partially right. Rick was more than a freak. Jim was already determined to make sure the Cascade PD put a stop to the man's twisted business of twisting the lives of college kids. But that would have to wait at least one more day. There was someone else in Jim's sights tonight.

He heard something -- a cough. And it did not come from Rick's office. His senses on full alert, Jim tried to zero in on this new sound. But a clicking noise forced him to pull back. Someone was opening Rick's door.

"I'll be looking for you on Friday, Marky," Rick said as he walked out, barely six feet from where Jim stood. "Don't disappoint me."

"I won't, man," Marky said, following behind. "I won't."

Jim watched as young Marky and a sixty-something man with dark, hollow eyes and five-o'clock shadow made their way back upstairs. Then he waited longer still. He couldn't risk drawing attention to his position until he was confident Rick would not return. The sound of another door opening and closing upstairs finally gave him his signal. He slipped out from his hiding place and eased toward the door where he'd heard the cough moments before. Someone was inside. There was no longer any doubt. Jim now could distinctly hear the slow, deep breaths of someone asleep. His ears already tuned in, he reached out with his sense of smell, this time finding something familiar, but nothing he could immediately place. What was it?

What does it remind you of? Blair's voice called to him from some corner of his mind. Focus on that one smell, and tell me, what's the first thing you think of?

You, Jim realized. His mind played back the image of Blair Sandburg lying on the floor of his office in Hargrove Hall, his chest wet with blood. Tensing, Jim shook his head to force the thought away, and concentrated again on that unique smell.

What does it remind you of? His guide repeated.

The gun. Jim's mind showed him the weapon they'd taken into evidence, the gun Matt Meyers had fired and then left carelessly behind -- the gun Matt Meyers had held in his hand. Testing the air again, like an animal catching the scent of its prey, Jim felt his skin begin to tingle in anticipation. He'd found the scent of Blair's would-be assassin. He'd found Matt Meyers.

* * *

A vehicle ahead blinked its lights three times, drawing Simon’s attention away from speculation and back into the here-and-now. Coasting to a stop, Brown repeated the signal and shifted into park.

"Let's do it," Rafe said stiffly.

For Rafe and Brown, that meant getting out of the car. But for Simon, it meant easing back into the soft, leather seat and lighting up his cigar.

"Sometimes I really hate this job," he muttered to himself as he anxiously watched the two detectives move toward the goons emerging from the other car.

Sitting in the comfort of the Seville's plush seats, Simon Banks listened closely as the conversation between his detectives and Rafe's skinhead gun dealer moved in the direction they'd planned.

"You tellin' me that Mr. Big-Shot Caddy man over there can't find a bigger supplier than me?" Skinhead said through Simon's earpiece.

The captain took another puff of his cigar, well aware that the dealer and his goon were watching each red glow.

"He keeps a low profile, dude," Brown replied in that easy-going manner of his. "And we're about as low as he can go. Know what I'm sayin'?" He laughed.

Skinhead and his long-haired companion remained quiet.

"So what's it gonna be?" Rafe asked, seeming impatient. "Can you deal, or not?"

"We can deal," Skinhead said. But he sounded nervous. "We can deal," he repeated a moment later, this time with a little more conviction. "But we never carry that kind of load. You'll have to arrange a pick-up. Just you two and Mr. Big-Shot there. No one else, understand?"

"Just tell us where and when," Brown said.

"I'm serious, man. We gotta go with the heavy hitters for your spender. That means a whole lot more security than what we got goin' here. Anyone else shows up, and your Caddy will be cinders. I ain't jokin'."

"You got that kind of fire power," Rafe answered, "that just means you're the man we need."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm your man." He still sounded apprehensive, an indication to Simon Banks that the skinhead was going to lead them to the next biggest fish -- a step that could prove risky yet lucrative to the street dealers gathered there tonight.

Simon started to feel like he was playing within one of Daryl's video games. They kept moving to the next level, yet they still had a long way to go before they could even come close to saying they'd won anything at all.

* * *

Part 3: Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd)

Day 3: Midnight

Exhausted after two days of tense work and worry for the well-being of both Blair Sandburg and his partner, Simon did not argue with the feds for once. If they wanted to take charge of keeping Rafe's skinhead dealer and his long-haired companion under surveillance, they might as well go for it. Half the people in Simon's department were dead on their feet already, and he didn't see an end coming anytime soon. Until Matt Meyers was in custody and the person responsible for letting so many guns onto the streets was both identified and tightly locked up, no one was going to be getting much sleep -- unless Sandburg came out of this thing as well as they all hoped he would. Then the rest of it wouldn't have nearly the same impact it did now. For now though, everyone wanted revenge in one way or another -- a fact that made his duty as captain all the more grueling. It was up to him to make sure his people carried out justice, not vengeance.

And the first person he needed to keep a tight rein on was none other than Jim Ellison.

After a quick call to the hospital to make sure Sandburg's condition remained stable, Simon sent his officers home promising he would do the same. But he couldn't -- not yet. He hadn't been able to get a hold of Jim. According to the nurse he'd spoken with, Ellison had apparently been keeping close tabs on his partner, but the detective was making himself unreachable. Simon had persistently tried both the loft and Jim's cell phone, leaving countless messages in the process. Jim had answered none of them.

Trying the loft one last time, Simon tossed his cell phone on the seat beside him and buckled his seatbelt. "Why do I get the feeling it's gonna be another long night?" he asked the steering wheel. Of course, he didn't expect an answer. If he heard one, he figured his next stop had better be the loony bin rather than Jim's loft. There was a joke in that thought somewhere. But damned if he could find it.

* * *

In the alley behind Dirk's Dungeon, Jim held his position by the dumpster. Hours earlier it had been a struggle for him to make that final climb out of the basement, to let go of the doorknob leading to his prey -- to ignore the animal hunger Meyers' crime had awakened within him. But he'd had no choice. Jim was the criminal there. He was an intruder, having entered without a warrant, failing even to announce his presence to the store's owner.

What the hell are you doing, man? he could almost hear Blair complain. You're a cop, Jim. A cop. Not a thief. You're one of the good guys, remember?

He hurt you, Chief, Jim let his thoughts reply. He might have killed you.

So? If you hurt him, you become him, Jim. Don't you see that? You're one of the good guys, remember?

Though Blair wasn't truly beside him, the chain of Jim's thoughts made him almost believe something of his friend was guiding him still. What had started as an unlikely partnership had evolved so much that Blair Sandburg had actually become the anchor that kept Jim grounded. Somehow he could still feel the familiar comfort of that weight, despite the physical distance between them, even despite Blair's currently tenuous hold on life. Jim wasn't ready to let that anchor go. He had no choice but to let it take him where it would.

Thus he'd had no choice but to release the doorknob in the basement and retrace his steps to the alley.

Now he knew he should anticipate a long night. He wasn't about to leave until Matt was in custody -- or until the hospital reported a change in his partner. Good or bad, any change would suggest Blair needed him more than he needed to get Matt Meyers. Of course, getting Matt Meyers wasn't going to be easy. It would take a battle to get a warrant before morning, a battle he wasn't sure Simon would be willing to fight.

On what grounds? Jim could hear his captain asking. You want me to wake up Judge Andrews in the middle of the night because some college coed you didn't even bother to get the name of told you someone who you only know as 'Rick' is selling drugs and guns out of a hobby shop?

So Jim would have to wait. If Matt came outside, he'd have him. If he didn't, then Jim would get with Simon in the morning. He'd still have trouble justifying a warrant. But a stakeout was an entirely different story.

* * *

Day 3: 1:00 AM

Simon found Rafe, Taggart and Brown standing near their cars in front of Jim's loft. "I thought I told you all to go home."

"We will," Brown answered lightly. "We were just, you know, checking up on him."

Taggart smiled, nodding at the captain. "I thought you said you were going home, too."

Simon couldn't help but chuckle in response. "All I can say is I hope Jim has some coffee brewing."

"No dice, Captain," Rafe said then. "He's not home."

"You sure?"

"Truck's gone. The place is dark. No sign of man nor beast."

Simon breathed a heavy sigh. "Well then, we'd better find the man before he turns into that beast and starts howling at the moon."

"What moon?" Brown asked looking up at the cloud-shrouded sky.

While Rafe gave his partner a gentle punch, Simon couldn't help but let his gaze wander upwards. "Maybe that's something that'll be in our favor." Yet he noticed the clouds were starting to break. A bright yellow orb was coming into view.

* * *

Day 3: 4:00 AM

Jim checked in with the hospital, as he'd done countless times throughout the night, and was both relieved and disappointed to hear Sandburg was just as he'd left him. Then he turned off his phone and settled into a crouch that evenly distributed his weight, allowing his blood to flow freely through his limbs. It was a position he'd been taught in Peru by the tribe's hunters.

A hunt is not a chase, Incacha had often told him. It is a gift. First you must make a plea to the gods, but to do that you must know both where they are and what they are. Are they in the rock at your shoulder? The snail that crawls beneath? The leaf that alights on its summit?

The gods are everywhere, Jim said to the depths of his mind, in all things. A man who hears the voice of the leaf hears the words of the gods.

To hear the words of the gods, Incacha went on, a man must listen. A man cannot listen if he is chasing the wind.

And so Jim listened. He listened with every sense he had. He tasted blood in the call of the damp, night air. He found the stench of rot in the whining stream of the Dungeon's customers. He felt cold malice in the ragged cry of the building's crumbling walls. And he saw the heart of darkness in the small click of the Dungeon's alley door.

The worthy hunter is rewarded, Incacha had told him.

Maybe that was why Matt Meyers was finally coming outside.

No, Jim, Blair's voice seemed to whisper softly. If you hurt him, you become him.

I'm a cop. He's wanted for attempted murder. He'll be fine as long as he doesn't run.

You know he's going to run, Jim. He's scared.

He should be scared.

Jim, vengeance isn't justice.

The worthy hunter is rewarded, Incacha repeated.

Vengeance isn't a worthy trait, Jim.

The worthy hunter is rewarded.

"You owe me, kid!" The grating sound of old Rick's shouting scattered the whispers of Jim's absent friends.

Jim shook his head, realizing he'd lost himself in a zone-out. How much time had passed? His gaze moving toward the doorway, he saw there was someone else blocking his view, someone who made Jim’s nostrils flare in anticipation -- the predator catching the scent of its prey. Matt Meyers was standing hardly more than an arm's length away.

* * *

Blair forced himself out of the nightmare and opened his eyes to the sterile surroundings of an unfamiliar room. "Jim?" The word came out as little more than a ragged whisper. He coughed in an attempt to smooth away the raw edges in his throat, and regretted that action immediately. It sent a sharp wave of pain throughout his chest. Great. Not a dream, then.

"Jim?" He tried again as the pain settled into a duller throb. But a quick scan of the room made him realize he was alone.

Starting with the feel of acid in his empty stomach, an unwarranted fear began to build within him. It moved steadily upwards, rising into his chest and adding to the pain he'd already awakened until it gripped his heart with a fist of ice. He knew there was no reason for it. Matt was not there. Blair was safe, in the hospital. Still the feeling maintained its hold, refusing to let go. Breathe, Blair. Just breathe. There's nothing to be afraid of. What could be safer than a hospital, right? But that wasn't it. He wasn't afraid for himself, he realized then. He was afraid for Jim.

"Jim?" He rasped to the silent walls. Something was wrong. You're imagining things, Blair. You were shot. Damn! I was shot! Okay, I was shot. My head's spinning from the pain and the drugs. That's all it is. But somehow he knew that wasn't all. Something was very wrong. Jim was in trouble.

"Ji...." The word was stolen from him as the fist that had clutched his heart now wrapped itself around his esophagus. Fighting to breathe, he felt his whole body go rigid. Then he felt nothing at all.

* * *

Jim's heart hammered in his chest. Blair's would-be killer was standing right in front of him. It would take no effort at all for him to reach out and snap the bastard's neck. The effort to hold his position until he could give the kid a chance for peaceful surrender was almost more than he could bear.

"I'm warning you, punk!" Rick's shout forced Jim's attention back to the doorway.

What? Why was the old man aiming a gun at Meyers?

"I have to do it, Rick," the kid sobbed back. "I shot him, man. I shot him. I have to turn myself in."

"Shut up!" Rick answered in a cautious voice as his eyes scanned the darkness. "I told you to shut up! You go to them, and you're gonna talk about me. I can't let that happen."

"I didn't mean to shoot him, Rick." The kid agonized, dropping listlessly to his knees. "Why did I have to shoot him?"

Rick lowered his gun. "Come on back inside, Matty. I'll protect you."

"But you don't understand. I can't. They'll find me. I can't live like that."

"They won't find you. Not here."

"I don't want to hide here. I can't. I have to turn myself in." Shaking, Matt climbed back to his feet and took a couple of steps toward the street.

"Don't move!" Using a two-handed grip, Rick raised his gun and took careful aim. "Don't you move!"

"I have to, Rick. I have to." Another step.

Rick's finger pressed lightly against the trigger.

For an instant, Jim battled contradictory instincts. Then the cop in him took over. He shifted from predator to protector, jumping out of hiding with his own gun drawn. "Police!" He shouted. "Drop your weapon!"

"What the --?"

"I said drop it!" Jim repeated, continuing his slow advance.

"The punk tried to rob me!" Rick lied as he tossed his gun to the ground. "It's a good thing you're here. Go on, arrest him!"

Jim stepped past Matt Meyers, placing himself between Rick and his intended target even though the weapon had been discarded. "Put your hands where I can see them."

"What the hell you goin' after me for? I said that punk tried to rob me."

Reaching the landing, Jim eased forward to pick up Rick's gun. But the click of another trigger pulled his attention like a magnet before his hand even touched the cold steel. He looked away, focusing his sentinel vision into the darkness deeper in the alley.

The worthy hunter is rewarded, Incacha reminded him.

But somehow Jim had become the prey. He caught a glimpse of the barrel of a gun the instant it flashed, sending the dark heart of the alley burning its way into him.

* * *

"Shots fired, officer down, in the alley near Jefferson and First...."

Simon tightened his grip on the steering wheel when he heard the report coming through on his radio. Damn. He reached forward, ready to respond. But the chirp of his cell phone halted his hand in mid-air. A cold rush of anxiety raced through him. He'd been waiting for that phone to ring all night, hoping for a call from Jim. Now, however, he was hesitant to answer it. Somehow he knew this was not a call he'd want to receive. Yet he could not ignore it.

He picked up the cell phone and clicked it on. "Banks."

"Captain? This is Markov...."

Simon tensed. Markov was the agent in charge of the night's surveillance, and Simon had not expected to hear anything from the ATF at least until morning.

"... I understand you have a Detective James Ellison in your Major Crimes unit?"

"Yes. Why? What's wrong?"

"He's been shot."

* * *

Jim could see, but only in shades of blue and gray. Gazing out across a surreal jungle, one in which the voices of the gods were silenced, he felt utterly lost. There were no birds calling to one another through the trees. There were no creatures stirring the brush near the jungle's lush floor. Even the familiar feel of a hot, humid breeze was disturbingly absent.

Incacha? The name was a thought, nothing more. Even Jim's voice had grown silent. The old shaman could not hear his plea. Or maybe Incacha didn't exist in this dark, empty world. Jim was alone.

Yet he did hear something then, the distant sound of drums. They drew him forward, as though he had no choice but to respond to their call. Both the cadence and the volume increased with each step he took until he came to realize they weren't drums at all. Instead, they were the sound of two hearts beating. He stopped, hesitating long enough to filter through the beats, separating one from another. After a while, he discovered one was his own. Who else was there?

Desperate to find this hidden companion, he started forward once more.

"Jim?" a fragile voice called out to him.

"Blair?" he replied, glad to find that he could.

"Ji...." In an instant, the voice was silenced. The heart stilled.

"Blair?" Jim started running. He wasn't sure how he could reach his friend and partner, but knew that he must. Never slowing, he struggled to hear something more, something to indicate where Sandburg was -- something to prove to him Sandburg yet survived.

Like Don Quixote, he was tilting with windmills. His search yielded nothing more than the beating of his own heart and the rustle of leaves stirred by his own frenzied dash through the jungle.

"Blair!" he called again. Nothing replied but echoes.

* * *

Simon arrived at the crime scene seconds behind Rafe and Brown. Taggart followed soon after. They were all too late to check on Jim. The ambulance was already en route to the hospital.

"What happened here?" Simon asked Phillip Markov, the ATF agent in charge.

"We followed your gun dealers to the ally. Next thing you know, we hear a gunshot and some kid high-tails it out into the street."

"A kid?"

Markov nodded. "Matt Meyers. He fit the description from the APB you put out yesterday, and a witness confirmed it." He shook his head. "First he shoots some quasi-cop, and now the real thing. He's sure got shit for brains if he thinks he'll get away with it."

"Let's get one thing straight, here." Simon was way too tired and frustrated to ignore Markov's indirect attack on Blair's competence. "Blair Sandburg may not be a salaried detective, but he's not a quasi-cop. He's done some damn fine work partnering with Jim, and if he decided to go to the academy tomorrow, I'd hire him in a heartbeat."

Surrounded by three glaring detectives and one pissed-off captain, Markov raised his hands in mock surrender. "My bad, Captain. I apologize. All I meant to say was this Matt Meyers kid's marking himself as a cop-killer ... excuse me, as a would-be cop-killer, since Ellison and Sandburg are both still alive. And I don't care how controlled your officers are in the Cascade PD, they're gonna make damn sure he pays for what he's done, in one way or another."

"Where is the kid, now?" Simon asked, moving to the subject at hand.

"We lost him. But your PD has already started setting up a ten-block search radius. He can't have gotten that far."

"What about the gun?"

"We think he still has it."

Simon shared confused glances with his men. "This doesn't add up," he said then, turning back to Markov. "Meyers dropped his gun at the scene yesterday. You're sure he's the one who pulled the trigger tonight?"

"We got an eyewitness. Name of Rick Sherman. He owns one of the stores down there." Markov pointed into the ally with a tilt of his head. "Said the kid tried to rob him. Ellison showed up, but the kid fired first."

That made even less sense to Simon. Meyers was too shaken yesterday to be cool enough to beat Jim to the punch tonight, especially since Jim's senses would give him plenty of warning.

"What about the dealers?" Rafe asked.

Simon's phone rang, and he excused himself to answer it, yet he heard Markov's reply as he stepped away.

"We lost them."

"You lost them?" Rafe clearly was not happy to hear that.

Further discouraged by this latest turn of events, Simon shook his head and brought the phone to his ear. "Banks, here."

"Captain Banks?"

"Yes."

"This is Amy Jensen at Community Hospital. Carol Miller from the day shift left your number and said I should call if there was any change in the condition of one of our patients, a Mr. Blair Sandburg?"

For a second, it almost felt as though Simon’s heart stopped. Everything was going so badly, it somehow seemed preordained that this would too. He found he had to resign himself to hearing her out. "Yes, Amy," he said slowly. "Thank you. How's our boy?"

There was a pause before she answered, one that caused Simon to hold his breath. "I'm sorry," she said at last, "but I'm afraid he's taken a turn for the worse."

Feeling like a deflating balloon, Simon exhaled in a long rush of air. "How bad?" He closed his eyes as he waited for her answer, as though somehow the darkness behind his lids would make the news easier to bear.

"He had a seizure and went into cardiac arrest. We were able to resuscitate him, but he's no longer breathing on his own. Captain?"

"Yes," he replied, his eyes still closed. "Go on."

"Since he has no immediate family in the area, it might be a good idea for you to come in as soon as you can."

Hearing what he'd dreaded yet expected, Simon opened his eyes and took a deep breath. He looked up into the eastern sky, and saw that the horizon was growing paler, signaling the first moments of pre-dawn. "You don't think he's going to make it."

"There's no way to know for sure, Captain. Patients like this can sometimes bounce right back. And he is young and in good physical condition. That certainly goes in his favor. But you should be prepared for the worst. In all likelihood, the episode Mr. Sandburg experienced tonight could be the start of a steady decline."

"Damn," he whispered. "Thank you, Amy. I'll be right there."

Simon stood by himself for a while, watching as the pale precursor to dawn lit the eastern sky with an almost otherworldly glow. The past two days had been among the worst of his life. The third time's the charm, he told himself. He could only pray that might be true.

* * *

Part 4: Nowhere Man (The Beatles)

Day 3: 7:00 AM

When Matt Meyers reached the supermarket on Third Street, he hesitated. His attention was drawn by two employees inside, readying their produce selections for the usual 8AM opening. A thirty-something woman with red hair was laughing, while her companion, a balding man with a black mustache, pushed a cart loaded with now empty boxes toward the back of the store. The woman reached for a Styrofoam cup. And suddenly that small item absorbed all of Matt's focus. The steam rising from within reminded him where he was, and why. It called to him tauntingly. It represented warmth, comfort, normalcy, the kind of things he had managed to push out of his young and stupid life.

He shivered, as much from the chill in the air as from shock. Mr. Sandburg might be dead, and it was all Matt's fault. And someone else might be dead now, too -- that cop in the alley. Though Matt hadn't pulled the trigger, he still felt responsible. He couldn't help but feel responsible. If he hadn't shot Mr. Sandburg, he wouldn't have had to go to Rick; and if he hadn't been at Rick's place, the cop wouldn't have had to protect him; and if the cop hadn't had to protect him.... There were too many "if's," and they all led back to a gun he couldn't even remember getting.

It no longer mattered where he was. His thoughts took him elsewhere, to a place far darker and far colder than this sidewalk outside a supermarket on Third Street. But the sound of a siren screaming to life directly behind him brought him back. He jumped, his entire body twitching in surprise. A bright light temporarily blinded him, hiding the form of the man who yelled "Police! Freeze!" It might as well have been God, himself.

"I'm sorry!" Matt began to sob. He dropped to his knees. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" The words steamed into the damp, morning air like the warmth rising out of the redhead's Styrofoam cup. Somehow, Matt no longer felt the cold.

* * *

The elevator pinged, letting Simon know he'd reached the seventh floor -- and with it, the ICU. Yet when the doors slid open, he made no move to get off. He stared without thought, without purpose into the blindingly sterile hallway beyond. Numb from the barrage of recent events, exhausted both in body and spirit, he lapsed into momentary oblivion. He could remember being in the Emergency Room, waiting for word on Jim. He could remember a call coming through on his cell phone, telling him Matt Meyers had been arrested. But he saw it all as though from a dream. Nothing seemed real, not even this steel box he found himself in. He wasn't quite sure why he was there, or even where there was. If his scanning eyes hadn't landed on the familiar but startling image of his ex-wife, he probably would have ridden the elevator right back down again. Instead, he pressed back the closing doors and stepped through.

By the time he reached the waiting room across the hall, his mind had begun to function somewhat normally. He stopped in the doorway, his curiosity aroused when he saw the former Mrs. Banks tapping a nervous foot against the floor and gnawing carelessly at a red, polished fingernail. This was not the confident, controlling woman who had declared her own, personal independence from him just a few, short years ago. She looked ... scared.

Yet it was anger that greeted him when her lost eyes finally found his. "Do you have any idea what this is doing to your son?"

Sighing, he shook his head slowly, refusing the argument she seemed determined to initiate. "Thank you for bringing him," he offered instead. "Is he in with Blair now?"

"You know he is. He's devastated. I barely even know who this Blair Sandburg person is, yet Daryl is in there grieving over him as though he'd known him forever."

"Blair's been a good friend to Daryl. A good influence."

"A good influence? A good influence? You do know you're talking about the man who told Daryl he should go to the Police Academy, don't you?"

Simon smiled. "That's the one, all right. I can't say I always agree with what he says. But what's important is that he helped Daryl ... and me ... to see that he has to follow his own heart, his own instincts, and it doesn't matter what I ... or you, or what anyone else thinks."

"He's a teenager, Simon. The last thing you want to encourage him to do is follow his instincts."

"Touché!" Simon smiled again.

"I'm not joking." Her voice was shaking as she rose stiffly from her chair. "Simon, I've had it with the police. I'm tired of guns and fights and all that macho, testosterone mumbo-jumbo that you brought home with you every night while we were married. I don't want any of that in my life anymore. I don't want it in Daryl's."

Simon tensed as a surge of adrenaline pushed back against his exhaustion. "Well, the Cascade PD is a part of my life. And so is Daryl. And there's not a damned thing you can do to change any of that."

"Isn't there?"

"If you try to pull him out of my life, you know you'll just end up pushing him right out of your own."

"Maybe I think it's worth the risk."

"Is that what you came down here for?” Simon felt suddenly pushed beyond his limits. He had no time for trivial arguments with his wife. “A good man ... a good friend ... is in there dying. A young man with all of his best years still ahead of him. Blair's dying, for Christ's sake. And all you care about is trying to find a way to keep Daryl out of my life?"

"Not exactly. I just want to keep your life out of his. Daryl's a young man too, with all of his best years still ahead of him. I intend for him to live them."

"And you don't think I want that, too?"

"Dammit, Simon! I know you want that, but...."

"Then what the hell is your point?"

"I don't know. I don't ... know."

As confused as ever by the strange twists of this woman's thoughts, Simon turned away, unwilling to waste any more of Sandburg's precious time with her.

"If Daryl is this upset," she shouted behind him, "over a person he hardly knows, then how's he going to handle it if it's ever you in there?"

Stunned, Simon turned back to face her. But he couldn't respond. He honestly didn't know how to answer her. And part of him couldn't help but wonder if she was also concerned about how she might react to his death.

"Let's just hope we never have to find out," he said finally.

Ironically, she chuckled. "Well, there's a handy answer. It's your answer for everything, isn't it? 'Let's just hope for the best.' When are you going to realize that's just not enough?"

"As soon as you start to realize that sometimes it's all you can get."

* * *

As Simon reached Blair's room, he started to understand the phrase "mother knows best." Daryl was clearly hurting. Yet Simon knew the kind of pain his son was suffering neither could nor necessarily should be avoided. Pain was part of growth. And it was obvious that Daryl was growing.

"I'm just not ready for this, man," Daryl was saying. "I need you, Blair. I can talk to you, you know?" He sniffed. "You always listen, no matter what. And you don't judge. That's just it. You don't judge. Who am I gonna talk to if you..." He sniffed again, and then whispered, "Damn. This just ain't right."

Believing it was time for him to go in and begin the process of comforting his son, Simon started to move into the doorway when he heard the unexpected sound of quiet laughter. Curious, he waited, listening.

"But I can hear you, man," Daryl continued, chuckling softly. "I know what you'd say now. You'd tell me to talk to my dad." The laughter was repeated, intermixed with wet sniffles. "That's all right. He's cool. But he's my dad, you know? And he's a cop. I mean, damn! I don't want to end up in military school!"

More laughter, and Simon found himself grinding his teeth. What kind of trouble was Daryl getting himself into these days? But once again, his son's words stopped him from interrupting the moment.

"But I know it's not like that," Daryl said soberly, all sounds of laughter gone. "It's just... I can talk to you like ... like a brother. You listen. You tell me what you think, but you listen to what I think, too. But my dad, he's got to be responsible, you know? He's got to do the responsible thing. It's his job to make sure I grow up with my head on straight. But sometimes... Sometimes I don't need a lesson, you know? I just need a friend. Or a brother. And that's what you've been for me, man. It's just... I don't want to lose that, Blair. I'm not ready to lose that."

When Daryl started sobbing, Simon knew that was his cue. He stepped into the room and drew his son into his arms.

* * *

Rafe couldn't stop himself from pacing.

"Would you sit down, already?" Henri Brown complained. "You're making me tired."

"Sorry. I just..." He planted himself in front of the window to the nurse's station. "Why won't they tell us anything?"

Brown shook his head sadly. "Cos there's nothing new to tell."

"But they've got to know what's going on. I mean, why won't Jim wake up? The doc said he should be fine, the wound wasn't that bad. We've got to be able to ask him what happened in that alley."

"You saying you believe what that kid, Meyers, is saying?"

Turning to face his partner, Rafe nodded. "Yeah, I believe him. He's not even trying to deny shooting Blair. But with Jim..." He shook his head. "And what happened to the gun?"

"All I know is, you wearing a groove into this floor isn't going to make Jim wake up any faster or find us that gun."

"Then maybe we'd better find something that will." Rafe grabbed his coat and hurried toward the exit, pulling a bewildered Brown in his wake.

"What about Simon?" Brown asked. "He wanted us to keep tabs on Jim."

Rafe froze, dropping his head like a dejected puppy. "I know. But... I can't just sit here and do nothing. Part of me feels like I should be upstairs with Simon and ... Blair. I mean..." He turned. "What if he dies while we're still down here, still waiting for Jim to wake up, still doing absolutely nothing while those guns are still out there? That Meyers kid, he said he didn't even go looking for a gun. If it was that easy for him to get one, then I have to believe there's another Matt Meyers out there, and another Blair Sandburg, and I just..."

Henri reached out and squeezed his shoulder. "Come on, partner. Let's get out of here. We'll let Simon know what we're doing and leave our number with the nurse."

* * *

Day 3: 11:30 AM

As morning moved toward mid-day, the waiting area just beyond Blair Sandburg's room began to fill to capacity. The blonde woman from Rainier had arrived. She wasn't shaking like she had been when Simon had first met her. She was no longer splattered with Blair's blood. Yet she still seemed to feel it was her responsibility to try to keep him alive. Her eyes made that clear to Simon, even as she stood across from the room, giving Naomi space to do her unique version of mothering.

Naomi had arrived just a few minutes earlier. Her psychic friend, Charlie, told Simon he'd had a vision that Blair was in trouble, and had used his abilities to track Naomi down at some retreat in Mexico. That was their story anyway, and Simon didn't have the energy to question it.

There were others in the waiting area as well, cops, students, professors and people from other parts of Blair's life that Simon wasn't even aware of. Blair Sandburg was surrounded by the people who mattered most in his life, the people who felt the need to be there at its end. Still, there was one person missing. And Simon couldn't help but feel the void of that absence.

That feeling soon drew him away from Blair's bedside, and led him to the quiet solitude at Jim's.

"You wouldn't believe it up there, Jim," he said for no reason other than to hear the sound of his own voice. "It's almost like Woodstock but without the music." He sighed. "No it's not. Not by a long shot. It's just plain ... bad news."

Walking to the window, Simon looked outside without even noticing what was there. "I wish I could tell you something hopeful, but I can't. I'm afraid there's not much hope left."

He moved back to the bed. As though for the first time, he saw the small, white bandage on Jim's forehead, and the slow, steady rise and fall of Jim's chest. "Who am I kidding?" He whispered to himself. "You don't know a word I'm saying."

Or do you?

A moment later, Simon cautiously touched Jim's shoulder. Somewhere deep inside him, some small part that still believed in things beyond belief, things like sentinels and shaman guides, Simon wanted to imagine that touch, that tenuous connection might be enough to rouse his friend from this empty sleep. He had seen Blair accomplish more with less of a touch, bringing Jim back from a zone-out.

Was that what this was? Some sort of super-charged zone-out?

Sighing, he shook his head and let his hand fall back to his side. If it was a zone-out, it wasn't his touch Jim needed. "I'm afraid Sandburg can't help you this time, buddy," he said softly. "This is one time when he needs you more than you need him."

Yet he couldn't stop himself from trying again. He gripped Jim's shoulder, curling his long fingers around the firm muscle.

"Jim, I hope you can hear me. I really do. Sandburg.... Blair...." He took a deep breath, finding the rest difficult to say. Thinking the words was one thing; saying them aloud was quite another.

His throat tightening, Simon had to raise his voice to speak around a growing lump. Even his jaw resisted. "He's dying, Jim." He spat the words as though to rid his mouth of a vile taste. It didn't help.

"Blair's dying," he repeated, this time letting the words through without a fight. "And you can't just.... You can't let him go like this, Jim. You've got to find your own way back. And you've got to do it soon. You hear me, Jim?"

Before he knew what was happening, pain turned to anger. Simon's hand became a vice, clamped down hard on Jim's shoulder.

"You have got to be there for him, Jim. I know you can hear me. You've got to hear me. That's what Blair needs from you. He needs to hear you. Come on, Jim. That's all you've got to do."

Suddenly aware of the deep, purple marks he must already have burned into Jim's flesh, Simon let go and turned away, as much to protect his friend from further bruising as to hide the tears now warming his own cheeks.

"Don't let him go without at least hearing your voice." These last words came out as a whisper.

And it was a whisper that answered them. "Simon?"

* * *

Matt Meyers was exhausted past the point of caring. It no longer mattered what might happen to him. It stopped mattering the moment he'd realized what he'd done. Blair Sandburg wasn't dead yet, but he would be, soon. That would make Matt a murderer. He'd never dreamed such a word could ever be associated with his name. Matt Meyers: Murderer. Now his own life was over. He'd stilled another man's heart, a man who had tried to help him. Even if by some miracle he didn't go to prison, he'd punish himself for as long as his own heart continued beating. He could never make amends for what he'd done. But at the very least he could cooperate. Ignoring the advice of his court-appointed lawyer, he answered every question that was put to him.

"Who shot Detective Ellison?"

That question had been asked a million times, and Matt answered it just as he had each time before. "I don't know. Whoever it was, they were farther down the alley."

"But you didn't see this person?"

"No. It was still dark. I couldn't see anything, except Rick and the cop."

"What about this Rick Sherman?"

This question was new. And so was the person asking it. Matt gave this newcomer his full, albeit wary, attention. The man was younger than most of the other cops he'd seen, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties. A slender man with dark hair, he came in with another newcomer, a large, black man with gentle eyes.

"Do you think he might have known whoever else was in that alley?" the younger cop asked.

Matt was surprised by the idea, but not shocked by it. There was some sense to it, some logic. He remembered looking at Rick's face just after the cop went down. Though a mysterious shooter had invaded his alley, Rick had seemed neither afraid nor angry. Instead, the old man had worn a look of disgust.

"Yeah," Matt answered, intrigued. "Yeah, I think he did. As a matter of fact, he must have known who it was. I don't think there's a gun within a mile of him he doesn't know about. I mean, he's cornered the market in guns and drugs in that part of the city."

"How'd he manage to do that?" The black man asked.

Matt shrugged. "Easy. He recruited from the university. At least he did with the drugs. The guns, though, they're kind of a different story."

"How's that?"

"I never heard him talk about guns until a couple of weeks ago. Then all of a sudden he gives me one."

"He gave you a gun?" The younger cop asked.

"Yeah. I mean, not for free or anything. He said he wanted me to do him a favor. Then he'd do me a favor. I was failing my classes. He said he'd help make sure they didn't throw me out of school. So I did what he asked, and he gave me the gun. He said that was how he was going to help me."

"The gun was going to help you?"

He chuckled sadly. "Yeah, that was my reaction. It made me mad. But I took it, ‘cause he owed me and I knew it was all I was going to get. I didn't plan to use it. I never thought..." he swallowed hard and looked away. "Somehow, it just.... I don't know. It's like I didn't have any control."

"What was the favor?"

Matt looked at the young detective, confused.

"The favor? What did you do for Rick that made him give you the gun?"

"I made a delivery."

"What kind of delivery?"

"A car. An old, beat up car that no one would pay any attention to."

"A car?"

He nodded. "I'm sure there was something in the trunk. But I didn't look. I didn't want to know."

"Where'd you deliver it to?"

"A parking lot, way over on the south side."

"Where'd you deliver it from?" the black cop asked.

"It was parked in the street, out in front of a couple of abandoned warehouses in that old industrial park by Lincoln and 31st."

The two cops looked at one another. A moment later, they were gone, leaving Matt to wonder what kind of racket Rick was running.

* * *

Simon was relieved to see Jim's eyes flutter open.

Squinting, probably overwhelmed by the brightness of the room, the detective asked, "Blair?" in a voice scarcely more than a whisper.

"He's upstairs, Jim. In the ICU."

The patient closed his eyes and raised his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. After clearing his throat and apparently attempting to swallow the dryness out of his mouth, he gave his head a slow shake, his brow furrowing. "I heard him."

Simon knew that wasn't possible. "Jim, he's.... He's in a coma."

"I heard him, Simon. But I couldn't reach him."

"He's dying, Jim."

Jim's eyes came open then with intense clarity, as though he hadn't lost the past eight hours, as though he'd simply awakened from a brief, evening nap. "I have to reach him." He started to rise, but the effort was hampered by his own body's unwillingness to comply and by his captain's firm hand.

"Hold on, Jim. Let's at least do this the right way." Reaching across the bed, he pressed the nurse's call button.

"Come on, Simon. You don't think that's going to...."

When a woman in a uniform dotted with cartoon characters stepped into the room and interrupted Jim's complaint, Simon smiled. "You were saying?"

Minutes later, Simon and the nurse worked together to help Jim into a wheelchair. His mind still reeling at Jim's sudden awakening, Simon forgot about bruising the man's shoulder.

"Ow!" Jim cringed at his captain's careless touch. "What happened there?"

After thinking of sentinels and shaman guides and other things beyond belief, Simon Banks couldn't help but smile as he considered something far more down to earth. No one had ever accused him of being overly gentle.

Unlocking the wheels, he started pushing the chair out of the room in the direction of the elevators down the hall. Maybe, just maybe, the third time really was the charm. He was starting to feel that hope might remain a possibility after all.

* * *

Day 3: 12:30 PM

The mood in and around Blair Sandburg's hospital room changed abruptly when Captain Banks returned. It was the man with him who made the difference.

"Jim!" Joel Taggart, called out in surprise.

When Taggart had arrived a short while ago, he'd exuded a certain energy, something that might have been a sense of purpose. But after he'd asked where Simon Banks had gone, only to learn no one had given the other man's absence much attention, the somber atmosphere in the room had quickly sucked him in as it had everyone else. Like the rest of Blair's visitors, he was clearly devastated to see the young anthropologist's deathly pallor.

Yet Taggart's reaction now at seeing Banks and the semi-recovered Jim Ellison the captain brought with him had an almost tidal effect. Blair's room came alive in a way that made Marianne Camdon realize what had been missing for all these hours. The enthusiastic greetings and sudden chatter turned her thoughts to the Blair Sandburg everyone had come here hoping to see. This was what Blair was about, this was what he needed to hear and feel around him, not the dismal vigil they'd provided him with until now.

As that realization dawned, so did something else. Jim Ellison, Blair's friend and roommate -- and partner, as Blair would enthusiastically proclaim whenever he spoke of police work -- the man who'd taken over for Marianne after Blair had been shot, the man who'd exhibited so much strength and caring and focus that she could finally allow herself to believe Blair would truly be well taken care of -- that man met her gaze now and would not turn away. Nor did she want him to. She felt drawn into him, almost into his soul. They were connected. It was a link that had first formed back in Blair's office at Rainier, one that had been sealed by his blood as they'd both struggled to keep him alive. But their task shouldn't have ended then. Blair was still struggling. And he was losing the battle. Neither Jim nor Marianne could sit back now and allow that to happen.

No words passed between them, yet as Jim placed himself at Blair's bedside, Marianne instinctively took up her own position across from him. She'd avoided the bed until now. She didn't feel right displacing Blair's mother or any of his close friends. After all, she was nothing but a colleague. But with Jim's arrival, the feeling had changed. It wasn't so much her right to be there as it was her obligation.

What came next would never gain definition in her mind. It was as though she stepped into a dream. She was still in the room, still surrounded by antiseptic odors and the now hushed sounds of dying conversations against the backdrop of the rhythmic whoosh of a respirator, but she could sense other things as well, things that had no place in a hospital. Part of her, the part that couldn't help but look for logic and reason, tried to believe she was remembering a trip to the Amazonian aviary at the zoo, where she could hear the cries of countless birds and almost taste the thick, humid air. Yet another part gave in to the unimaginable. She found herself stepping to the edge of an entirely different world, one that thrived on what might be called a spiritual physicality.

* * *

Jim's senses were off. They weren't off-line, they were just off. Nothing looked quite right. There was a halo-effect surrounding everyone he saw. He could imagine Naomi telling him his senses had been expanded to allow him to see people's auras. But sounds were different, too. Voices seemed muted, yet not as they would if his ears were blocked. In fact, when he looked out through the window nearest the elevators, he found himself able to listen to the chirping of a bird sitting on the ledge. No, his hearing had not been reduced, just changed.

As Simon pushed him into Blair's room, the small crowd without was easily overlooked. Part of him recognized the faces. He saw Naomi, Joel, Daryl, and even that psychic, Charlie. Yet just as quickly as he saw them, he marked their presence in some obscure corner of his brain and summarily dismissed them from his thoughts. All but one.

The blonde woman who had struggled to save Blair's life back at Rainier, she was there. Jim's eyes locked onto hers, drawn by forces he didn't question. He felt a link with her, knew something passed between them in that moment, yet he might never be able to explain what. Later, he'd imagine it was an acknowledgement that they were both duty-bound to ensure Blair survived. Or perhaps it was more like a pact, though neither spoke to swear an oath to their intentions. At the very least, it was an understanding. They were in this together, whatever this happened to be.

Accepting her presence, holding her there in his mind, Jim tried to turn the focus of his attention to his partner. He failed. Machines stole his gaze, machines that held the key to Blair's life. No, that wasn't right. How could a steel box filled with wires and tubes replace the life that was slipping away? They couldn't. There was no life in steel.

Jim found his thoughts wandering into the jungle, to a place so infused with living things it was alive in its own right -- not like this concrete-laden city, or this antiseptic building that existed for the sake of life, despite the seeming irony. Suddenly the steady whoosh of air being forced into Blair's lungs began to present a rhythmic pattern, quickly evolving into the steady beat of tribal drums. The jungle was calling him. No. The jungle was calling them.

Feeling the woman near him and the machines guiding him almost as Incacha might have long ago, Jim Ellison finally let his eyes fall to Blair. His own breath caught to see the pale, gray tone in Sandburg's skin. Even his friend's hair, which always seemed to have a life of its own, lay flat and dark around a face that looked far too frail to belong to Blair Sandburg. There was something else about him though, something less distinct that bothered Jim more than these obvious signs. The halo or aura he saw everywhere else was nearly absent around his friend.

Jim glanced at the woman. He'd made an error in his earlier perception. He saw now that the halo surrounding her was less a vision of light as a bending of it. What ensconced her was more of a pattern than a color. It was like the wavy, shifting image of heat emanating off the surface of a car on a hot, summer day. In Blair, that pattern was barely visible.

Heat. Energy. Life. Again the jungle reached out to him. He could feel the hot, damp air against his skin, smell the heady scents of a thousand flowers, the musk of a hundred animals. This was the way it was supposed to be, not like it had been in that dream-that-was-not-a-dream. He remembered a silent, lifeless place. He remembered Blair calling his name. He remembered failing to reach his friend when Sandburg needed him most.

No. This was when he was needed, this moment, this place. Jim clung to the vision of this new jungle, a living thing, and, as in the dark dream, he let the jungle guide him.

* * *

Jim? Blair was lost. He came to awareness in a dark void, surrounded by emptiness. He was nowhere, with nothing before him and nothing behind -- yet even as he realized the physical impossibility of that thought, he accepted the reality of it. He existed. His world did not.

Jim? He repeated, his cry soundlessly blending into the silence around him. It didn't matter. No one was out there to hear him. He was alone.

He shivered, but not from cold. There was no cold. No warmth. No feeling. Maybe he didn't exist after all.

Is this death? He wondered. No. Death was a transformation, a changing from one form to another, a step from one reality to the next. It was not a nothingness. It couldn't be -- unless Death really was an end, and what he was experiencing now was a vanishing, a phasing out of existence.

Like the snuffing of a candle -- he was the trail of smoke drifting into the night sky.

No. I won't accept that. Incacha! He shouted without words. If this was Death, then Incacha was here somewhere. He had to be. Incacha!

For a long while, Blair -- or the last remaining thoughts of a man who once had been Blair Sandburg -- sent voiceless echoes into a soundless, empty realm. And for that long while, those cries were tainted with fear and desperation. Blair Sandburg did not want to end in nothingness.

Yet, in time, he found himself tiring of his hopeless pleas, and the bleak nature of his thoughts. It was a useless waste of whatever was left to him.

Okay, so, Incacha's not out there. No one is. I guess this is it, then. Letting that realization lead him to a sense of acceptance, he stopped calling for the shaman. Instead, he decided to give these last moments to the people this transformation was pulling him away from. He knew he could not reach them, just as he could not change whatever was to become of him once the candle truly went cold. But as long as he could see their images deep in the core of his consciousness, he could hold them there and say his good-byes. It didn't matter that none of them would really hear him.

Before he started, Blair was consoled by the sound of a solitary wolf howling somewhere in the darkness. Suddenly he didn't feel so alone.

Hey, Jim, he said to the first image that came to him. I'm gonna be okay. And at that moment he knew it was true, no matter what -- if anything -- was on the other side of the void.

More sounds found their way to him then. He heard other voices calling Jim's name. He heard excitement and laughter, so much so that his own being felt buoyed by the sheer joy of the moment.

Jim's gonna be okay, too, Blair told himself. Jim could handle things without Blair. He'd do well. Joel and Simon would take care of him. Hey, Jim, I want to be there, man. You know I do. But you have to work with the cards you're dealt, you know? Just, please remember some of the things we've done to avoid zone-outs, okay? It's important. It's....

That's when the anxiety returned. Acceptance gave way once more to fear and desperation. Yet the shift did not return him to silence. Instead, the sounds expanded and intensified until he could almost believe he heard the heartbeat of the world itself. The roar of a jungle cat made him wonder if he was hearing what Jim heard, if he'd been brought somehow into the world of a Sentinel. He was still marveling at that idea when the heartbeat slowly evolved into the sound of breathing, then even that changed, merging into hushed voices.

"Jim? Are you okay?" Joel's voice called into the void.

Next came Daryl: "What's he doing? It's like he doesn't even know we're here."

"Just let him be, son," Simon added. "He needs time to say his own good-byes."

"No." How was Naomi there? "He's not trying to say good-bye. Come on, Blair, sweetie. Jim's here. He's okay now, see? Come on, sweetie. You've got to wake up now, too."

"Wait, Naomi." Was that Charlie? "I think they're.... There's something going on here."

With those voices filling the still air around him, Blair began to regain a sense of feeling. He started to have an awareness of self again, a sense of being something more than the last breaths of a dying candle. He could feel his hands, and other hands holding them. In one, the grip was strong yet gentle. Jim. In the other, the touch was soft and delicate. It was a woman, but not Naomi. He wanted to see who it was. But even though he had hands, he still didn't have eyes.

"His hand!" Naomi began to say. "Did you see his hand? He moved his hand."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Sandburg." That was Simon. He really did sound sympathetic. "But I don't think...."

"Look, Dad! It's true."

"Well, son of a...."

"I'll get the doctor." Joel sounded excited.

"Come on, sweetie!" Naomi took hold of his foot, and began to massage it fiercely. "You can wake up now!"

Ow! Barely comprehending the significance of finding he had a foot now, Blair was something less than pleased by his mother's demanding touch. But he still didn't have a voice. He couldn't complain to her. He tried to focus instead on the more soothing motions covering both of his hands. Hey, Jim. Could you teach Naomi how to do that? He might have smiled - if he had a mouth. He wasn't really sure.

He thought of the other hand, and the woman who hadn't spoken. Who was she? He turned his head -- or he thought he did. And a bright light overwhelmed him. The last thing he saw before exhaustion sent him to an entirely new reality, one far removed from the black void, was an angel with golden hair.

* * *

Part 5: Taking Care of Business (Bachman Turner Overdrive)

Day 3: 1:30 PM

Jim's eyes were locked firmly on the closed door. He was zeroing in on whatever was happening on the other side, and Simon made no move to disturb him. The captain knew those eyes were seeing exactly what he was, which was nothing more than a closed, hospital room door. But there was a different kind of sight going on that Simon would never understand. He also knew Jim's ears would be ignoring all the idiotic ramblings from the psychic nut-case Naomi had brought with her, but picking up every word said by the team of doctors and nurses that had kicked them all out of Blair's room over an hour ago. Jim would know the verdict long before any of the rest of them.

"Detective Ellison? Yoo-hoo, are you in there?"

Charlie Springer was getting just a little too annoying now. Simon grabbed the man’s arm lightly and pulled him far enough away to allow Jim some space.

"What?" Charlie complained. "I just want to know what he did in there. Something went on. I could feel it. Couldn't you feel it? I didn't know he had it in him. Did you know he had that gift? What?"

"Could you just be quiet for a few minutes?" Simon sighed.

Naomi stepped up and smiled warmly, taking hold of Charlie's other arm. She said nothing as she started to draw him with her to the other side of the waiting room, and Simon suddenly realized she'd hardly said a word since arriving. As Blair Sandburg's mother, that had to constitute an enigma of cosmic proportions.

"Ms. Sandburg?" he called softly to her.

She seemed reluctant to turn back toward him. When she did, her eyes were equally reluctant to stay focused on his.

"He will get through this." Whether or not he believed it himself, Simon had no idea what else to say. As it turned out, he probably should have said nothing at all. The woman nodded briefly, probably only because it would have been an expected response. But then her eyes began to overflow with tears. When she put a hand to her mouth to stifle a sob, Simon found himself forgetting about her history as a flighty woman who had a tendency to exasperate him, and saw her instead as a mother who was facing the loss of her only son. Before he knew what he was doing, he moved toward her and pulled her into his arms.

Several minutes later, when the storm began to abate, Simon found his gaze drawn back to Jim. In that instant, Jim's eyes finally closed, and his chest heaved into a deep inhalation. Simon felt his own breath catch as Naomi pulled away.

"Thank you," Sandburg's mother said, patting his back lightly. "I'm okay, now. Really. I guess I just needed to do that. Thank you."

Simon barely heard her. "Jim?" He forced himself to ask.

The detective turned to look at him with a small, tired smile. It was a cue Simon had thought he'd never see. "He's gonna be okay," Jim announced.

Ten minutes later the door came open and the official proclamation was provided. While the doctor was neither as clear nor as optimistic as Jim, Simon no longer had any doubt. Blair Sandburg really was going to pull through this.

* * *

Day 3: 2:30 PM

Henri Brown returned from the break room with two sodas just as Rafe was turning off his cell phone at his desk in the bullpen. Brown passed one bottle to his partner and took a long swallow from his own, giving Rafe a moment to get out of character. Playing the role of an angry, young street thug was taking its toll on him. Toss in Blair's life and death struggle and Jim's shooting, and Rafe was not doing well at all. Henri chuckled softly to himself, realizing he wasn't exactly flying right either. But Rafe....

The moment passed and the other man gave Brown a slow, almost menacing grin.

"We got 'em." Rafe said it with such relish Henri started to believe the angry, young street thug and the vengeful, young detective weren't that different after all.

"I thought the shooting would have made them lay low for awhile," Brown answered, pushing past his concerns for his partner.

Rafe shrugged. "Or maybe it just forced them to hurry things up a little. The response was pretty intense after word got out that Jim had been shot. And we know they were in the area when it happened. Maybe all those sirens pushed their buttons, made them want to unload the guns as fast as possible. But whatever the reason, they are anxious to meet up with us again. I got it set up for tonight. And just take a wild guess where?"

"Wouldn't happen to be an old warehouse over by Lincoln and 31st now, would it?"

"You got it."

"Can't get much cleaner than that. The ATF's already confirmed Matt's statement about the car, and their intel agrees the arsenal's there. Now your two boys are just gonna walk right in and make themselves a part of the package?"

"Wrap it all up with a big, red bow. With any luck, the tie-in with Rick Sherman and his freaky, little shop will fall into place tonight, too."

"Sounds a little too clean to me," chimed in a new voice from the doorway.

Brown turned to see Joel Taggart approaching. "Hey, Joel! I thought you were gonna stay with.... You know, until...." He didn't quite know what words to use. He didn't like his choices.

Surprisingly, Joel smiled. "I don't have it in me to wait around there for another fifty or sixty years."

Henri Brown and his partner both stared back at the bomb-squad captain like two slack-jawed idiots who didn't have a clue.

"Blair's back," Joel explained. "He's out of the coma and he's breathing on his own."

A startled smile turned into a laugh Henri simply couldn't suppress. "Damn." He high-fived Rafe. "Damn!" He repeated, smiling about as broadly as he ever had. "Does that boy have a guardian angel, or what?"

"Yeah, he does," Joel answered. "And his name's Jim Ellison."

Henri's smile faded slightly. "Come on. Jim's good, but nobody's that good."

"I don't know. You should have seen them in there. I can't even begin to describe it. It was like...." Joel shook his head. "All I know is Jim came in, took Blair's hand, and...." He shrugged. "Blair was back. That woman from the college was there, too. Between Jim and her...." He shook his head again. "Look, all I know is Blair's back. And that's all I really care to know."

"Damn," Henri said again, more softly this time. He looked at Rafe, and was happy to see the rough edges around his partner's eyes starting to soften. "How much time do we have before we start getting it together for tonight?"

"Enough for a visit."

"You're reading my mind!"

Joel grimaced. "Blair's out of the coma, but he's not exactly awake and alert, either."

"Yeah," Rafe answered. "So?"

"And they're keeping the visitors down to one or two at a time. That is, when they let anyone in at all."

Rafe shrugged. "I'm good with just a quick look through a crack in the door. Just enough to convince me."

"Amen to that," Henri agreed.

Smiling, Joel followed them into the hall. "Hey, Rafe. Who's on stakeout at Sherman's right now?"

"Riggs and Marcetti. Why?"

"Before you give them the details about tonight, tell them about Blair. Riggs has been pretty uptight since it happened."

"I didn't know he and Blair were close."

"They aren't, not really. But Blair did him a favor once, the kind you don't forget, you know? He told me Blair restored his faith in people right when he needed it. I guess Blair got him to realize there are actually more decent people out on the streets than there are bad guys."

"That can be an easy thing to forget in our line of work."

"Yeah, but not with Blair around."

"You got that right."

"Damn straight," Henri said. "Now let's go see that boy, and then we can get ready to tie up that big, red bow you've been talking so much about, Partner. It'll be an early Christmas present for Blair."

"And Jim," Rafe added.

"And don't forget Simon." Joel put in. "Not only has this been a frustrating case, he's also had those two to worry about."

Joel Taggart felt an odd sense of déjà-vu as he joined the two detectives on the elevator down to the garage. He couldn't help but flash back to the moment these same elevator doors came open in the middle of a light-hearted spat between Simon and Jim. Joel and Henri Brown had had to interrupt with the news about the gunman in Blair's office. Though the news had been bad enough, seeing both of those men react with such dark and determined intensity had somehow forced him to believe the worst really could happen, and a sense of dread had settled onto his soul like a cancer, eating away at his own faith in humanity. It was a moment when Joel had truly understood the dark places Rigg's thoughts had gone before Blair's intervention. Now, unbelievably, that moment seemed to come full circle.

Joel took a deep breath, enjoying a new sense of optimism.

* * *

Day 3: 3:30 PM

Back in Jim Ellison’s own hospital room, the detective seemed barely conscious of Simon's attempt to brief him on the events surrounding the apprehension of Matt Meyers and the bust Rafe had been integral in setting up for that night. Maybe Ellison was just too relieved at the news of Sandburg's ongoing recovery to care much about police work.

"Jim? Are you even listening to me? We need to get your statement for Meyers' arraignment."

"My statement?"

Simon shook his head in exasperation. "Okay, so you weren't listening to me. What else is new?" He took a deep breath before back-tracking. "We need your statement regarding the shooting in the alley. With both your statement and Mr. Sherman's, it'll be cut and dry to hold Meyers on two counts of attempted murder."

"Two counts, sir?"

"Blair and you."

"No, sir. He didn't. I mean, it wasn't Meyers who shot me. That kid's so torn up over shooting Blair...." As Jim clenched his teeth and worked to steady his breathing, Simon could imagine the horrific scene in Blair's office starting to replay itself in Jim's mind. "I don't think Meyers will ever touch a gun again, Simon. Rick Sherman's to blame."

"What? Are you saying Sherman shot you?"

"No, sir. He might have. He was threatening Meyers at gunpoint, so I intervened. But he never pulled the trigger. No, the shooter in the alley was down further, in the shadows."

Simon sighed heavily. "I can hardly believe it, but that does corroborate with Matt Meyers' story. Okay, now about yours...." He rose and started toward the door. "Joel's out in the hall with Rafe and H. How 'bout I send him in to get your official statement?"

"Can't it wait, sir?"

Instantly angered by the detective's casual request, Simon crossed the room again and reclaimed his chair at Jim's bedside. Rage melted into confusion as he took in the man's calm, seemingly unconcerned expression. Only a slight tenseness at his jaw belied any of the emotions Simon expected to see roiling to the surface.

"What the hell's wrong with you, Jim? I thought you'd insist on pounding the pavement yourself by now. You didn't even argue when the doc wanted to keep you here for observation, and I thought I'd have to tie you down to keep you from joining the guys on that bust tonight."

"I'm tired, Simon," Jim answered coolly.

"Since when has that ever stopped you? Blair Sandburg almost died today. He came way too damn close for comfort. Frankly, I...." He cleared his throat, unable to continue that line of thought. "Yesterday -- at least I think it was yesterday; I can't seem to figure out what day it is anymore...."

Simon’s exhausted chuckle was lost on Jim. Puzzled by the emptiness he saw in Jim's eyes, Simon forced himself to continue, "Anyway, you were out of control, and I could understand why. I didn't like it, but I could understand it. But now.... It's almost like none of it matters to you anymore. And that I don't understand. What gives?"

The emptiness he thought he'd seen turned icy in an instant.

"I almost killed him, Simon. I wanted to. God, I could feel my hands around his neck. And I could’ve.... I would've thought it was justice for what he did to Sandburg. But ... it would've been nothing more than cold-blooded murder."

"And you would have been no better than him," Simon answered softly. "But you stopped yourself. And that's what makes you different. That's what makes you better."

"No. No, Simon. I didn't stop myself. Rick Sherman did. He had his gun trained on Meyers, and he was threatening him, warning him not to go to the police. Meyers was ready to turn himself in, sir. He wanted to confess. But Sherman wouldn't let him."

"Why not?"

"He said if the kid talked to the police, something would point to him. He's dirty, sir. He's dirty as shit. He's been manipulating kids like Meyers for god knows how long. He supplied the gun. He might as well have had his own finger on that trigger when...." Jaw muscles clenched and released with the look of a boulder rolling back and forth on the edge of a cliff.

"Can you prove any of this?"

"Not without a warrant."

"Will your statement provide sufficient just cause?"

"Officially, sir? No. All I have is hearsay."

"Unofficially?"

Jim's look gave the answer Simon expected.

"Okay. We've had him under surveillance since the incident in the alley. I'll give Riggs a heads-up on this. But Jim, I need that statement of yours. It can't wait."

"Of course, sir."

"And I need you back in action -- after the doc gives the okay, that is."

"Of course."

"Jim, you didn't murder anyone."

"I would have, Simon."

"No. You could have, but you would not have followed through."

"How can you know that?"

"Because I know you, Jim."

The detective shook his head as an ironic smile curled his lips. "That's funny. You know me, do you? I don't even know myself."

* * *

Day 3: 5:00 PM

Jim took a seat at Blair's bedside. His friend and partner was resting peacefully now. The gray shadows had faded, and there was a sense of energy emanating from him, something Jim could feel more than see. It was as though the auras he'd recognized earlier had lost palpable substance, but remained in existence nonetheless. If they were still visible, Jim was sure Blair's would be as active as anyone's by now.

Auras. Sandburg was going to love hearing about that one -- if Jim ever bothered to tell him. There were far more important things on Jim's mind than his ability to see people's auras.

"So what am I supposed to do?" he said out loud, looking to his friend for an answer he knew he wouldn't get. "I don't just want to see him dead, I want to see him burn in hell. Now there's an aura for you." Ironically, the image forming in his mind held more ice than fire. "If I get near him, I'll kill him," Jim continued, moving far past his own attempt at dark humor. "I know I will. But how's that going to help you?"

Listening to the silence, Jim studied the man in the bed. Sandburg looked so calm, so at peace despite the ongoing battle he was only just beginning to win.

"I don't care what happens to me," Jim said after a moment. "You know that already. I suppose that's one of the things that frustrates you about me, isn't it? I really don't care what happens to me. But ... I guess I do care how you see me. And I know you wouldn't understand." He took a deep breath and leaned back into his chair.

"No. That's not right. You'd understand. You just wouldn't accept it. I wanted ... I needed to see Matt Meyers dead after what he did to you. I still wouldn't mind seeing that happen. What he did was ... inexcusable. Unforgivable. But I understand it. I understand what happened. But I'll never accept it. He was victimized, and then he ... he victimized you."

Jim clenched his teeth to push himself beyond another replay of the scene in Sandburg's office. Finally, as the images began to fade, he repeated, "So what am I supposed to do? If I get my hands on Rick Sherman, I could get revenge on this whole damn business. I won't lie to you, Chief. It would feel good. It would feel damn good. But you wouldn't see it that way, would you? I would turn him into a victim.

"God, what a joke. Sherman as a victim. That sounds pretty unforgivable to me."

Though Jim could feel his own heart rate increasing, Blair Sandburg's remained steady. If he'd heard any of Jim's words at all, he was neither moved nor disturbed by the confession.

"Would you ever be able to forgive me?" Jim found himself asking his friend's still form. "Hell, you'll probably forgive Matt Meyers. I'll bet somehow you already have. But would you be able to forgive me?"

Jim rested his head on the back of the chair and stared up at the ceiling tiles. "Why can't I fix this? Why can't I make it right?"

"Jim?" Barely audible, it might have gone unheard if not for his sentinel abilities.

Wiping his eyes, Jim sat forward and touched Blair's arm. "Hey, Chief? You in there?"

Blair's eyes opened, squinted against the light and closed again. "Hey," he answered softly.

"You had us worried there for a while, buddy."

"Me too." Blair forced a small smile before carefully clearing his throat. "Water?"

"I'll get the nurse."

"Jim?"

"I'm still here, Chief."

"Noth--" The word was caught in Blair's raw throat.

Jim watched his friend struggle to swallow, clearly trying to draw enough moisture to enable himself to speak.

"Nothing," Blair said finally, "to fix."

Jim couldn't help but smile. He should have expected Sandburg to say something like that. So how was it the kid could keep surprising him?

* * *

Day 3: 11:00 PM

The bust went down just as planned, with everything falling perfectly into place.

"Hey, I'm not with them!" Rick Sherman shouted at the nearest gun barrel aimed in his direction after the police had finally moved in. "I'm not part of this!"

Rafe ignored the man. His own weapon was trained on Skinhead, aka Harold Parker.

Harold. Now there's a scary name for a street thug. The thought made Rafe smile.

Everything had come together just like it was supposed to. The Cascade PD, working with the ATF had caught Sherman, Parker, and the whole rest of their bunch in the act of trying to sell a large cache of very deadly, very hot guns. Only one person was missing: the one pulling the strings.

"I was just going after Parker there, is all," Sherman continued jabbering away. "He's the one offed that cop out by my store."

"Is that right?" Jim Ellison replied casually as he emerged from behind a crowd of cops.

Rafe had been relieved when Jim finally said he wanted in on this bust. Sure, he probably still belonged in the hospital. For that, Simon made sure he stayed on the sidelines until now. But it just wouldn't have been right for him to miss out. Closure. That's what this whole thing represented. Justice for Blair Sandburg and revenge for his friends. Jim needed that revenge more than any of them.

"You?” Sherman was obviously surprised to see Jim. “I thought you were...." He stammered, staring at Jim as though he were seeing a ghost.

"What?" Jim answered. "Dead?"

"Yeah. Well, Parker there, he shot you in the head for Christ's sake."

"Hey, man," Parker shouted back in Sherman's direction. "Shut-up! Shut your fuckin' trap, you lyin' son-of-a-bitch!"

"It ain't no lie and you know it!"

Simon apparently saw the hole Rafe was already latching onto. "If your friend there was the shooter--" The captain began before Sherman interrupted him.

"Ain't no friend of mine."

Simon sighed. "Whatever. Why did you finger the Meyers kid in your police report?"

"Yeah, well, I was scared, see? I knew Parker here would come after me."

"So you decided to go after him tonight instead?"

"Yeah, that's right. I'm not part of any of this."

"Uh-huh. You were afraid of him, so you decided to go after him and the rest of his gang in a warehouse full of guns."

"Well... I ... I didn't know...."

"You have the right to remain silent," Jim Ellison intervened, calmly approaching the old man with a pair of handcuffs. "Anything you say can and will be held against you. You have the right to...."

Rafe stopped listening. His own thoughts were focused on Harold Skinhead Parker. While the rest of his team got busy with handcuffs and reading Miranda rights, Rafe held firm, his gun raised, frozen in place and aimed at Parker’s chest.

"Hey, what you lookin' at, Soos? You lyin' piece of cop-ass shit? Huh? What? You wanna do me or somethin'? Fuck you, man."

"Is Sherman right?" Rafe asked. "Did you shoot him?"

"So what? What if I did, huh? You gonna shoot me? Here in front of all these cops?"

"You seem to be forgetting it was a cop you shot. You really think any of these guys is going to care what happens to you?"

Skinhead's eyes darted around the room. His face paled.

"You did it, didn't you?" Rafe pressed. "You shot him."

"Aren't you supposed to read me my rights, man? I ain't gotta say nothin' to you."

Rafe had him. It was over. There was no longer any need for the gun. Rafe knew that. He knew all of it. Still, he couldn't put the gun down. Instead of relaxing, he tensed. His hand grew so stiff it felt like he needed to press that trigger. Just a slight bending of his finger would set it off. It would feel so good to let it happen. He wanted to pull that trigger. He needed to pull it.

"Hey, it's cool, Partner," Henri Brown said beside him. "It's cool. You can put the gun down now, Bro."

"He shot him, H. He almost killed Jim."

"But he didn't," Jim Ellison said, coming up to his other side. Ellison placed his hand softly upon Rafe's rigid forearm. "Do your job, Rafe. That's all you need to do here."

"It's not enough," he answered. "Not after what happened to Blair. Not after what happened to you. It's not enough."

"It has to be." Jim said more sternly.

"No. No. It's not enough."

"Listen to me, Rafe. Don't make him a victim. He doesn't deserve that. You don't deserve that. And neither does Blair."

Confused, Rafe lowered his arm and turned to Jim.

"If you turn him into a victim,” Jim went on, “you make him look like he's something better than the lying piece of punk-ass shit he really is."

It was a strange thing for Jim to say.

“You sound like Blair,” Rafe said, bewildered.

Jim smiled and cocked his head in acknowledgement. “I know.”

Surprised, relieved, and maybe even just a touch this side of hysterical, Rafe shook his head and found himself laughing. "You son-of-a-bitch, Jim," he said softly.

"Yeah, that's me alright. Now why don't you read that scumbag his rights."

* * *

Part 6: Oye Como Va (Santana)

Day 15: 7:00 PM

Marianne Camdon felt like a traitor. Blair had only been home from the hospital for a few days and already he'd managed to talk her into bringing him some essays to grade. He was technically on a medical leave of absence, and for a very good reason. He needed rest, first and foremost. Yet here she was bringing work home to him.

Blair Sandburg, you're going to get a serious talking to.

Unfortunately, her resolve to chastise him faded entirely away when he opened the door.

"You look great," she found herself saying. It was easy to ignore the gaunt cheeks, the shadows under his eyes, and even the hunched over, old-man posture he'd taken on. Compared with the image of him lying in that hospital bed -- or worse, on the floor in his office -- he did look great.

"You think so, huh?" He raised his eyebrows and smiled. "Well, maybe for an old, decrepit gorilla."

"No. You do. You really do look great."

"Thanks. Uh, come on in. I don't mean to be rude, but it's still kind of hard for me to stand for too long."

Now Marianne felt chastised. "Oh, of course! Go," she commanded as she carefully nudged past him in the door. "Sit down and get comfortable. I'll make you some of that African tea you like." Setting his papers down on the table, she opened the brown, paper bag to let him inspect the contents.

His eyes widened. "Oh, you are so my hero!"

"Mine, too," Jim's voice called from the open doorway.

Both Marianne and Blair turned in surprise.

"J-Jim," Blair stammered. "You're supposed to be at Simon's for poker night."

"And you're supposed to be resting. What's with the papers?"

Busted. Marianne felt her cheeks reddening. "I'm sorry. That's my fault. I don't know why I let him talk me into it."

"I do," Jim answered. "Don't worry. He does that to everyone. He's got a certain way with wom--"

"Words," Blair interrupted. "Jim's always saying I've got a way with words. I can talk anyone into anything." He shrugged at Marianne.

"You'd better sit down, Chief," Jim commanded as Marianne had only moments before. "You're looking a little pale there."

As Blair shuffled off toward the sofa, Marianne sheepishly met his roommate's gaze. "I know I shouldn't have," she said, knotting her fingers together, "but knowing Blair...."

"It's okay," Jim answered with a startling smile. "It probably will be good for him. It should help him see that things are back to normal."

Marianne shuddered. "I'm not sure things ever can be normal again," she said softly. "The whole campus is reassessing everything from security to counseling. No one really knows what to do. And we're all pretty jumpy still."

"That's all to be expected," Jim answered equally softly, yet oddly without emotion.

"You really do get used to things like that happening, don't you?"

"No," he said quickly, almost coldly. "Especially not when it involves someone you care about. But you learn to look beyond it."

"I wish you could teach me how."

"It will come. In time. When Blair gets back to work, you'll see. Things will fall back into place for both of you."

"I don't know. I can hardly even look into his office. I keep seeing it the way it was...." When she hugged her arms around herself, Jim gently squeezed her shoulder.

"Um, Jim?" Blair called over from the sofa. "Marianne? Guys? Hello?"

Marianne glanced at him and met his questioning smile with a genuine smile of her own.

"I'm sorry. I really should be going," she said loud enough for Blair to hear her. "I'm supposed to ...," but she wasn't sure what she should say. What she needed to do was escape. With Jim being here, everything was starting to feel too close, almost as though the walls were pressing in around her.

With a shy grin to Jim, she started toward the door before remembering her promise to make tea. "Oh. Jim, do you think you could make some of this tea for Blair?"

"Why don't I make enough for both of you?"

"Thanks, but...." But what? What was she supposed to say?

It didn't matter. She lost the chance to say anything at all when a loud knock on the door was immediately followed by a small group of familiar men entering the loft. She recognized the faces both from those tragic moments in Blair's office and from the hospital.

"Jim," one of them greeted. Simon. That was his name. "You're holding out on us. It's good to see you again, Ms. Camdon."

She could feel herself blushing again. "Marianne, please."

"You're joining us for dinner, I hope," he added as he set three pizza boxes down on the table beside Blair's essay papers. "Maybe then these boys will see fit to act a little more like civil human beings," he said, tilting his head in the direction of the others who'd come with him.

"Oh. Um, no," Marianne answered nervously. "Thank you, but I really should be going. I just stopped by to drop off some things for Blair." And this loft is starting to feel uncomfortably crowded.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said with apparent sincerity as she edged her way toward the door.

She smiled back at him, and then turned her attention to a very bewildered, perhaps even dejected looking Blair. "Take care of yourself, Blair."

"I can't do much else right now," he answered with a sigh.

Marianne glanced at the men beside her. She was grateful to see them talking amongst themselves, thus giving her and Blair some space for a moment. "It really was good to see you," she said, returning her full attention to Blair.

"Yeah, you too." Blair smiled. "Come back soon?" Seeming desperate, he gave her those puppy-dog eyes of his that she could never refuse.

"How about tomorrow?"

Blair's wide smile seemed genuine. "That would be great."

"Okay," she said inching open the door. "See you tomorrow, Blair. Bye, Jim. It was good to see you again."

"Likewise," Jim answered, following her out and closing the door behind him.

"Marianne," he quietly added when they were alone in the hallway. "I'm sorry; I haven't had the chance to properly thank you."

She turned to face him, confused. "For what?"

"For everything you did to help Blair. You probably saved his life."

She shook her head, more than confused. She was bordering on angry. "No. I didn't. I should have been able to do more. I should have stopped it somehow."

"There was no way you could have prevented Matt Meyers from pulling that trigger. But you did do everything right."

"I didn't do anything right." She could feel the tears coming again. Damn. Hadn't she cried enough already?

"That operator told me to leave the building,” she explained. “But I didn't. Then those cops told me they'd take over, but I wouldn't let them touch him. I was too stubborn to let go. I don't know why, but I just couldn't stop trying to help. It was almost like ... like if I stopped putting pressure on the wound, like...." She was crying in earnest now. "God, I don't know. I just couldn't pull away until ... until you told me it was okay."

"You did everything you should have, and more. Sure, you should have left the building, but if you had, someone else might have been hurt. You kept the hallway clear until campus police could take over. And you kept your head through the whole thing."

"How... how do you know all of that?"

"I talked with the 911 operator and read the witness statements. It's all on record. I wasn't joking earlier when I agreed with Blair. You are a hero."

"No. That's just...." She shook her head and wiped her eyes. It's just crazy, is what she wanted to say. But somehow even crazy wasn't a strong enough word.

"It's just the truth," Jim finished for her. "No one could have stopped any of this from happening. But I am eternally grateful that you were there when it did happen. If it weren't for you...." He looked toward the door to the loft and shook his head before giving his attention back to Marianne. "If it weren't for you, I'm not sure he'd be alive today. And to say thank you just isn't enough."

She met his gaze for a long while, seeing within them something more, something deeper. She began to remember a strange, waking dream in the vision of a jungle. It was something she couldn't put to words, an understanding that passed between them again, right at that moment as surely as it had at Blair's bedside in the hospital. They were both committed to Blair's survival. Then and now.

Marianne nodded to break the connection, and then cleared her throat. "It's more than enough," she said finally.

Taking a deep breath, she nodded again.

"Thank you,” she added. “I think ... maybe ... I just might be able to start seeing beyond all this. Like you said."

He smiled. "I'm glad."

She smiled back. "Yeah. Me too."

Marianne Camdon felt as though the weight of the world had just been lifted off of her shoulders. She had no idea how it had happened. But she was truly grateful that it had.

* * *

Day 15: 9:00 PM

Blair was angry at first. Jim's little 'surprise' of moving poker night to the loft had intruded on Blair's chance to spend time with someone else for a while -- and a very special someone else at that. He'd genuinely wanted to talk with Marianne. Everything they'd said to one another since ... well, since what happened, had been cursory. They needed to talk about it, at length and in private. But poker night prevailed.

Oddly however, Jim apologized while the rest of the gang was deep into the poker and pizza, and appropriately unaware. "I'm really sorry, Chief," Jim said earnestly, leaving the others at the table to join Blair in the living room. "You should have told me Marianne Camdon was coming over. I would have given you some space. I just ... didn't want to abandon you tonight."

"Whoa. Wait a minute. First, the abandoning part. You don't have to mother me, Jim. I'm fine. I can get by on my own for a few hours. It's no big deal." He shrugged, winced at the twinge of pain that action caused, and then added, "Thank you, by the way. It's nice to know you care."

"Just don't let it go to your head."

"Yeah, well, on to the Marianne part. If I had told you she was coming over with those essay papers, you would have confiscated them at the door."

"True. But then you two still could have had a nice visit. You would have been able to--"

"Hey, Jim," Simon interrupted, waltzing into the living room and taking a seat on the other sofa. "Remind me never to let Rafe get away with a move like that again. He'll eat up all of Daryl's inheritance at the rate he's going."

"Don't worry, Simon," Rafe followed. "If we were really playing for cash, I'd set up a trust fund for him."

"Funny. Very funny."

And somehow poker night continued without the poker. Joel and Henri joined in, moving the conversation from trust funds to stupid investments and then off into so many different directions Blair found it hard to keep up. It was nice though. He was enjoying every moment of it, even when the laughter faded and the talk turned to something everyone had been carefully avoiding.

"It's too bad, too." Rafe said absently, taking a cue from Simon. "Sherman wants to cut a deal."

"A deal?"

Blair’s question caused nervous glances to be exchanged around the room. Obviously he had managed to remind his friends they were talking about something that was supposed to be taboo, although he’d never had a vote about it.

"Come on, guys. I'd like to know what's going on. I do have a vested interest after all."

"It doesn't matter, Chief," Jim answered.

"Yes. It does. I'd like to know."

Joel nodded. "Sherman says he can give us whoever was responsible for hijacking those weapons in the first place."

Blair nodded a silent 'thank-you' to Joel before responding. "The mayor ought to love that," he stated honestly. But a quick glance at Jim suggested the mayor wasn't going to get such a tidy package. Jim's gaze was so cold Blair actually felt a chill.

"That would be a good thing, wouldn't it, Jim?" Blair asked, puzzled as much by the uneasy silence that had fallen around him as by the cautious looks passing between his friends.

"No deals," was all Jim said.

"But you always want the biggest fish you can catch, don't you?"

"Not this time."

"Jim?" Blair focused all of his attention on his partner. "What haven't you told me?"

"Sherman is the kind of man we need to keep off the streets. End of story."

"No, Jim. That's not the end. What makes a middle-man like Sherman more important than the head honcho?"

Simon answered instead. "Sherman's not just a middle-man, Sandburg. He's a predator of the worst kind."

Joel added, "The kind that preys on confused teenagers, making them think he's the only friend they'll ever have or ever need."

Blair returned his attention to Jim. "This is about Matt Meyers, isn't it?"

Jim stiffened. "No. It's about a scumbag of an old man who lures kids into his shop so he can take advantage of their gullibility and make them do his dirty work."

"What you're describing is a bottom feeder; not exactly the kind of big fish Major Crimes usually wants to go after."

"What I'm describing is a punk who pushes kids to the bottom and holds them down until he bleeds them dry."

"Kids like Matt Meyers."

No one said a word.

Blair's gaze held Jim's. "Come on, Jim. Did you think I would be mad at you for not blaming Matt?"

"You're way off base on that one, Sandburg. It'll be a cold day in Hell before I forgive Meyers for shooting you."

"But Rick Sherman's the bigger fish in that particular pond."

Jim's jaw twitched from the rage Blair knew he was holding back. Jim might not be willing to forgive Matt Meyers, but his anger was directed point-blank at Rick Sherman.

"Why do you think you had to protect me from that?” Blair asked. “Look, I trusted Matt. I believed in him; if I didn't, I would never have invested so much time and effort into helping him. I'd even bet that if Rick Sherman never entered the picture, Matt would've come through like I expected him to. So, yeah, I can understand how you could see Rick Sherman as responsible for what happened. But that doesn't absolve Matt for what he did."

"No one said it should."

"Matt had a friend in me, but he just refused to accept that. Part of him had to want the crap Sherman pulled on him. So yeah, I do blame Matt. And no, I can't forgive him. But that doesn't absolve Rick Sherman."

Joel held up his bottle of beer and smiled. "So, no deals."

"Yeah, no deals." Blair smiled at Jim and toasted back with his cold mug of tea. "You sure you're okay with that, Simon?" He added.

"Believe it or not, yes, I am. That man could offer up the whole story behind Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance and I'd still say 'no deals.'"

"Jimmy Hoffa?"

Simon laughed with the others and gave Blair a helpless shrug.

"So you're saying throwing the book at two small-time hoods is more important that solving the crime of the century?"

Simon's laughter faded. "I didn't say...."

"I never knew I meant so much to you, Simon. I'm touched. I really am."

"What?" The captain turned to the others for help. "Did any of you hear me say that?"

"Yep." Rafe answered.

"Sure did." Henri agreed.

"Come on, Jim. Help me out here."

"Sorry, sir. No deals."

"Funny. Very funny."

Blair caught Jim's eye again and shared an appreciative smile. He was tired; exhausted, actually. And it was clearly past time for another dose of pain meds. Still, Blair was more comfortable in that moment than he could remember being for a long, long time.

* * *

~ the end ~

The Original Filk

Title: I Shot the Shaman

Author: Freya-Kendra

Originally: I Shot the Sheriff

Originally by: Eric Clapton & Bob Marley, each in his own right

I shot the shaman; but I did not shoot the sentinel

I shot the shaman; but I did not shoot the sentinel

All around in that college town

They're trying to track me down

They say they want to put me in a cell

For the shooting of a sentinel

For the pain of a sentinel

But I say,

I shot the shaman; but I swear it was in self defense

I shot the shaman; and it just might be a capital offense

Shaman Blair Sandburg, he trusted me

For what, I don't know

Every time that I smoked my weed

He said "stop it, you don't need dope"

He said "stop it, you don't need dope"

I say,

I shot the shaman; but I swear it was in self defense

I shot the shaman; but I swear it was in self defense

A big score came my way one day

And I started getting high

All of a sudden I see shaman Blair's eyes

Aiming to make me cry

So I shot, I shot him - why?

Now I say,

I shot the shaman; but I did not shoot the sentinel

I shot the shaman; but I did not shoot the sentinel

Reflexes got the better of me

And what is to be, must be

Every day some sucker meets his hell

And today my time has come

Yes today my time has come

I shot the shaman; but I did not shoot the sentinel