DISCLAIMER: Fox, Eglee & Cameron have dibs. No monetary gain here, but if any comes my way I'll hand it over.

A/N: I've always been a sucker for a good sidekick, and Bling is one of the best yet underdeveloped characters I've seen in a while. So this mostly Bling backstory, in 3 or 4 chapters. It will track within the 3 month gap the show gave us between the shooting and Max's visit to Logan, post-injury, at the penthouse. Though I'm sure this has been explored before, I'm still new enough I haven't discovered any other histories for him. Reviews/responses welcome– (solicited, craved...) I'm curious to know if others out there saw his history in any similar vein.

PROLOGUE:

Logan would remember only hazy, swirling, agonizing snippets of the moments and first hours after the shooting–the sounds of more gunfire, the cold, harsh bite of pavement against his cheek, calls & yells and sirens...searing pain...frightening numbness...hospital smells...

In and out of consciousness, shocky and unclear, he was only briefly aware of an ambulance ride, but remembered jolts and terse voices in the emergency room as he was lifted, dropped, turned and prodded...then nothing...voices appeared and receded; the words only partly intruded...until there was the moment that his fragmented thoughts started coming together...

...I was... hit? There was blood...

The pain was almost unbearable. The pain is...wrong.

The pain shouldn't just stop there...

And at the point when, in agony from another transfer and the dawning realization of what it might mean he started to panic, hyperventilating with his denial, a somehow familiar voice appeared at his side, a large hand on his shoulder... the voice was soothing, personal. "Logan, it's okay–relax..." it urged, calm amid all the swirling, frenzied, mechanical sounds working to repair the damage to his body. "We're taking care of you now. Just take it easy..."

Logan managed to turn his head and focus, moments before gloved hands reached to take his glasses, bent but intact, from his face. And at his eye level, from where he was immobilized on a back board, he saw black letters resolve into words on a small field of white moving with the voice's owner, clipped on a belt's ID tag to carry his identity : "BL Ingrum"

ANCIENT HISTORY

Bonner Lane Ingrum, Jr. was his granny's pride and joy. Of course, his doting parents were deeply, head over heels in love with their first- and only-born beautiful child, but when his mother and daddy had to travel when he was tiny, it was granny who cared for him, and wrapped him in that special, perfect love that only a grandmother can give.

It was summers, mostly, during university summer session; his archeologist father and linguist mother won grants to go off to exotic, wild places with foreign diseases and sudden dangers that could threaten even a precocious toddler. So those first years, it was he and granny, on their own, catching fireflies and making blueberry pies and singing songs in the back yard...

And it was Granny who first called him "BL." No boy child as sturdy and smart and handsome as this child should be called "Bonner Lane," even if it was his daddy's name, and it was she who gave him that name some twenty nine years earlier. No, as special as the son was, this Bonner was just about the best looking, smartest, bravest, happiest, strongest and cleverest soul she had ever met. And it was the same universal, grandmotherly adoration leading to that assessment that also led, for whatever reason, to her anointing him "BL" in the summer of his second year.

And it stuck. His mother and father never liked "Junior" and, besides, they not only loved Granny but delighted in the special bond between grandmother and grandson. By the time he started school, the child was definitely "BL" for good.

BL grew tall and strong and fast; by age seven he was accompanying his parents to the most exotic of locations and soaking up language and culture far removed from his home in northern California. During the school year he excelled in academics and sports; in the summer he ran with the youngsters in local tribes or hilly villages, rounding them up for makeshift soccer games with unripe melons or pinching old baskets to cut out the bottom, nail them to a tree to teach the locals the finer points of the hook shot.

No one was surprised when the good looking, scholarly athlete got a full ride to Stanford, pre-med; no one was surprised that he majored in biomechanics and sport training. No one was surprised when he signed up for a summer trip as a medical assistant to travel to the blighted, war-scarred areas in eastern Europe, a program offshoot of the old Peace Corps, volunteering his summer on an externship for the university.

They were, however, completely stunned when, upon his return, without telling anyone until it was accomplished, he quietly left the university, sold his car, and joined the Navy. He told no one his reasons, and few his plans, but once his friends and family were reconciled to his new job, they were not surprised when they learned he was accepted for SEAL training: one of his plans. Nor were they surprised when he accomplished the second part of the same plan: he trained as team member medic.

No one was surprised when BL excelled and rose in rank, was assigned to one of the most well respected, skilled teams the Navy SEALS had. But... sadly...no one was surprised when BL and his team mates left the Navy, scattering across the globe, in the wake of the Pulse and the deterioration of government responsibility and the rise of the rule of bribe and kickback.

They were pretty surprised when BL went off to an unspecified county in the Far East, but torn when they learned he was living as a student in a monastery studying philosophy and hapkido. And all were pleased–and, admittedly, relieved–when BL came home and returned to school, this time enrolling in the physical therapy program. He was still BL, but different: stronger, quieter...older. Clearly wiser... and he still kept his silence about what had changed his life so drastically, that summer several years before.

RECENT HISTORY

Bling looked down at the small container of Peter's possessions from the hospital property locker, and felt a lump growing in his throat. The man had no family; he asked that his few possessions and the small investments he'd managed be split among his former team members and the girl he was seeing. He'd left the arrangements to Bling. The men had been brothers in service and, for the past couple years, since Bling had moved to Seattle, brothers in retirement. It was Peter who had encouraged Bling to come to Washington; it was Peter who had brought him in to join him on occasional jobs for Eyes Only–and it was like old times, in the service. Peter had told him how important the work was, how much good he was doing, for so many people. He thought it was like what they used to do in the service–and what they couldn't do when things went down the tubes with the Pulse.

It was Peter who'd christened him with his "service" name: Peter noted the name on his name tag, early on–"BL Ingrum"–and given that the man had something, quiet, but the ladies really came around, tagged him "Bling." The name stuck to him more quickly and insistently than his grandmother's had.

Bling sighed. Peter had predicted this, after all. He was worried about recent work he'd been doing, and told Bling that he'd set up a safe deposit box with some final instructions that he trusted Bling to handle. He was insistent that if ever he was out of commission, that Bling make sure to do this for him. He had also vaguely hinted that if Logan Cale was also a casualty, that there would be additional matters to address...

First things first. He looked back toward the surgical suite where Logan Cale was still in surgery. Even Sam Carr's skills wouldn't put him back on his feet–Bling had seen the wound, the chart...under optimal circumstances he would survive the surgery, but in the present economy there was just no telling with anything. And...arrangements...he needed to see to Peter's cremation and ashes...

Still staring at the form on the operating table, Bling felt his indrawn breath shudder, the loss of his brother painful...he would honor Peter's memory by doing all he could to carry out whatever wishes he had tucked away for him. So first...he would go see what Peter had left for him in the safety deposit box, downtown...

...to be continued...