Continued from part 1 – all disclaimers still apply!

***

"Nice explosion." A tall, blond man commented to the darker-haired man next to him, who was standing looking over the scene with dark shadowed eyes. "But then you used a truckload of plastique."

"It was all we had on hand when the message came through," the other man replied, staring at the still blazing fire and all the activity below them. "Besides, you'll cover the cost with the profits from the Hessen deal, sir"

"Mm. I thought the plan was to get all of them as they entered the warehouse?" The taller man shielded his eyes, as the skeleton of the building burned bright in the dimming light.

"They hesitated and turned back. Ellison's partner raised the alarm, so Dawkins informed me. We still made an impact."

"You got Ellison and the leader of the investigation. The Board will be pleased."

"Yes." The response was cold and empty. "That was something at least."

"They were concerned about the involvement of Detective Ellison after you pulled that file on his recent cases and I took it to them. Especially after he managed to capture Astle. He was one of the best!" The blond man shook his head. "Shame, still ... at least he performed a service for us before he died."

"Who, sir? Ellison? Yes."

"You sure the illegal access and download was using Jacobs' secure login?" The blond man warmed his hands by putting them in his pockets.

"Yes sir, alarm bells will be going off all through the network, and neither of us will have been anywhere near this place at the time." Lyle Hawker looked around at the devastation he had caused. "They won't find Jacobs to question him either .. not that easy." He gave a slight, shark-like smile.

"You have the team ready for when they call the Board Meeting? Are you sure they will use the InTech building?"

Lyle could barely suppress his impatience at the idiocy of his boss. "Yes, sir. It's a new building, specialising in security systems and technology. It's got a helipad and is state of the art and the logical choice for a top-level meeting. It's considered impregnable." He gave a slight smile as he added, "Unless, of course, you are already on the inside."

The blond man laughed. "Well said. As long as the team is ready. The meeting is bound to be in the next day or so, that's for sure. You want a lift?"

Lyle Hawker shook his head. "No. Tonight, I think I need the fresh air," he replied, not wanting to spend any more time around the man than he had to. "Thank you, sir."

He turned to walk away, but stopped and stared at the fire one last time, giving a truly unpleasant smile as he did so, before walking steadily back off into town.

***

"The fire department are still working on getting the blaze under control," Joel reported to Simon back at Major Crimes "They say they must have used plastique or some similar sort of explosive for it to go up that thoroughly. I'd agree with that."

"Any chance of survivors?" Simon asked again, knowing the answer but having to ask anyway.

Joel shook his head slowly. "Not at those temperatures. I'm sorry Captain. Jim was a good man." Instinctively, both their gazes travelled to the soot-smeared form of Sandburg who seemed to be working intently on something with a tense sort of edgy energy that was almost painful to watch.

"The best, Joel," Simon said in a low voice. "You spoke to Sandburg after?"

Joel nodded. "We all have." They all knew. There were slim chances and there were fatal certainties … and all of them knew what had happened and which category this was. "He doesn't seem to accept it."

"Well, if we go through all the facts with him, maybe then ..."

"He knows them, sir. He was quoting them back to me. He knows what I told him is true. That no man alive could survive that collapse; that Jim gave his life to push Agent Hawker out to safety, as the place was about to come down. He knows that. He could probably recite all the statements backwards and forwards with everyone of them saying Jim Ellison is dead... but .." Joel swallowed a moment. "But he doesn't believe it."

Simon nodded slowly. "Agent Hawker was sure he didn't make it out behind her?" he asked, grasping at straws.

"She was barely conscious, sir," Joel replied quietly. "But I doubt it. She was caught enough in the explosion even as she fell that the doctors think it would be very unlikely that a second person could have cleared the worst of it."

There was little Simon could say to that and he swallowed, glancing away from the other captain. "Right." He looked at Sandburg again. "It's late, Joel, and we've all had a rough day. You all go home."

There was a time for them to be together, and a time for them to be alone, and remember. It was another unspoken ritual of their closed society. Remembering their fallen colleagues alone where no one would have to conceal the devastation of losing one of their own, and then later on coming together.

Joel nodded and moved off to pass the word around. Simon saw him tell Blair, and saw the polite brush-off, and the several attempts to get through to him but Joel might as well have been talking to a brick wall.

He acknowledged each of his team as they filtered out one by one until the office of Major Crimes was empty of everyone bar himself and Sandburg, sitting at Jim's desk working feverishly, the light of the desk lamp illuminating the haggard lines in his face.  Simon was abruptly convinced that the grad student was very close to a complete breakdown and considering what he had managed to bounce back from in the past, that spoke volumes about the relationship between Jim and him.

"Sandburg." He went over to the desk, feeling the sharp sting of memories of looking out and seeing Jim sitting here. Sometimes frowning and working, sometimes having made some joke and laughing at Sandburg, or bouncing a rolled-up piece of paper over his partner's head into the bin. Or working late to get the job done. The times when he had had a rough discussion on the phone and looked out of the window to see Jim focus on him and give him some small sign of support, his discretion absolute and his loyalty unquestionable. There was no pain like losing someone you cared for, and for cops there was the knowledge it was someone who put their life on the line for you, got hurt for you, went that extra mile because they cared. He couldn't give in to it yet. Not with the kid relying on him to be the strong one.

 "Blair. It's time to go home." Simon spoke softly.

The police observer looked up, the tiredness stark on his face, but his eyes were almost feverishly bright. "I can't, Simon, I've got to finish this." He continuing typing.

"Look, Blair, if you don't want to go back to the Loft on your own, I could ... I could stay, or you could come to mine." Simon offered gently, putting a hand on the younger man's shoulder. The thought of him going back to that empty apartment was somehow disturbing. He couldn't imagine going back into that place where memories of Jim would be spilling out of corner and object.

Blair shook his head. "No, look .. I've got to finish looking this up .I don't have much time."

That did not sound good. "Looking what up, Blair?"

"Details about Jim." Blair replied absently. "Time is running out for him."

Simon took a deep breath. Joel had been right, this was worse than he thought.  "Blair, Jim's gone. You've seen the reports - he's gone, son, I'm sorry, but he's gone."

Blair's blue eyes looking up at him were manic with a form of desperate denial. "No, Simon, he's not. I know he's not dead. He's.. changed."

Okay, if Sandburg was clinging to the edge it was on the side of insanity, not sanity. "Sandburg, I want to believe that, but it's not possible. I know how you must feel..."

He was totally unprepared for the way Blair whirled on him, "Do you? I don't think you could, Simon. I don't think anyone can. I don't think anyone can understand how I feel right now.  I'm failing him, Simon, every moment that I fail to find the solution to this problem is like knowing somewhere he's alive, in pain and needing rescue and I'm the only one who might even have a clue how to find him!"

"Jim is dead, Blair." Simon tried again to reason with him. "I know you and Jim had been having issues over this hallucination that he had changed into a .. cat or something, and believe me, if I thought it was at all possible I would seize the opportunity. Jim was one of my best friends, and I ..." His throat tightened as the lump of emotion there seemed to burn suddenly. "I want more than anything for him to be alive, someway, somehow, but it's just not going to happen. You've got to understand that, son. "

He blinked a few times, feeling the burning prickle of moisture in his eyes, taken unawares by that surge of emotion.

He felt a hand on his arm  "Simon .. Simon, you have to trust me on this. I'm not nuts."

That was enough to get an unsteady snort of surprise.

" Hey, no more than usual, then. Jim and I, we had an argument about this because I had some proof that he changed." Blair stared at the screen though it was evident he wasn't seeing anything. "He was still mad when he left this morning, only.."

Simon winced. Well, that explained Sandburg's refusal to let go of him.

"Only it is true. I've been doing research on it, I have data and hypotheses from the leading minds of anthropology. The concept of the Man-Jaguar is one of the most deeply-rooted commonalties to exist all through time and history in the Peruvian area. Man, the link with Sentinels is practically a given!" Blair was babbling, talking rapidly in the manner he used to try and persuade Jim one of his wild theories was correct. "The animal spirit, the Nahual, can be invoked to surface as the physical form, Simon, in times of need or by ritual. If today didn't count as a time of need, I don't know what is!"

"Sandburg, do you know what you are suggesting?" Simon resisted the urge to take a grip on him and shake him. "It's not possible. However much you want it to be possible, it's not. Jim is dead, do you understand that?"

"I understand that he will be if I don't work out the answer." Blair replied, facing the barrage of Simon's words and letting them hit him. "Without the proper .. I don't know, ritual or whatever, the nahual spirit dominates and then Jim will be gone completely. I can't let that happen, I just can't. That is what I am trying to work out."

Simon sighed, shaking his head in despair. "Blair, you can't seriously believe ..." He stopped, biting off the phrases that would have ridiculed the police observer's belief. Shock, the kid was in shock and trying to cope. And here he was trying to systematically knock down whatever fragile structures he was using to keep himself propped up and to cope with the loss of his best friend. "Look, go home. Take days off if you need to. This is going to be toughest on you."

Blair looked at Simon again, about to protest and then realised with a jolt how much pain the older man must be in. He didn't have even the glimmer of hope that he did. As far as he knew, one of his best friends had died today, set up in a raid that he had helped to organise. If you knew him the guilt was visible, the loss etched deep. And he wouldn't leave unless he did.

He stopped a moment and copied work into emails and sent them to his laptop. "I'm sorry, Simon," he said even as he closed down. "I didn't mean to do this to you, or the others .."

Simon stared, not following why he was apologising. "Do what?" he asked finally.

"Make you think you have to deal with a lunatic anthropologist as well as the loss of one of your team.  I know you're hurting, man. I'm sorry."

Simon was nearly speechless. Only Sandburg could do that to him. Here was the kid on the edge of a nervous breakdown, having just lost his best friend, and he was worried about him?

"You're unbelievable, Sandburg," he replied, shaking his head. "Unbelievable. Look, you want to stay with me tonight?" Maybe he could get him drunk, get the grief out that way, and wait for the devastation of reality to hit him. This obsession was NOT healthy.

"No, Simon, it's okay. I need to be back home." Blair replied, grabbing his coat. "I can do some more work on this, get some answers maybe. I'll be in tomorrow."

"You don't have .."

"Yes, I do, Simon, I have to be here." Blair stated firmly.

"You won't be doing anything outside of this office unless you promise me there will be no repeat of what you did after the explosion." Simon said gruffly as they walked towards the elevator together.

"What did I do?" Blair asked, obviously still thinking as the elevator started its trip down.

"Run straight towards the fire - what were you thinking?" Simon said with a little bit of worried anger escaping.

Blair glanced at him. "I was thinking I could help Jim," he said after a long pause.

The doors opened at the garage and they stepped out and Blair turned to head towards the Volvo.

"Jim wouldn't want you getting killed over him," Simon called after him even as the grad student bent to unlock his car door.

Blair seemed to freeze a moment and then just as Simon believed he had pushed him over the edge, he was amazed to hear a chuckle and then barely suppressed laughter. He looked over at Simon, his eyes dark and open with a brief flicker of nameless emotion that didn't match the smile and laughter.

"Man, you could have told me that, oh say ... about a month ago. "

Simon nearly dropped the cigar he had been automatically getting out of his pocket as he stared at the younger man.

"Night, Simon," Blair said, raising his hand in a wave and Simon automatically responded, too stunned by those words to even move as Blair pulled out of the garage, leaving him alone there in the dark.

The Captain of Major Crimes had never felt so uncertain, so lost while having the conviction that he might be on the verge of losing more than one friend one way or another. How could they have missed what had been happening to the young anthropologist? Why had they sat there discussing it with everyone apart from the person who it had happened to as if somehow he wasn't really there to answer anymore. In some strange way it was if a part of them had yet to realize he had come back to life.

Had Jim missed it too and now it was too late to ever undo that damage?

***

Blair considered that the problem with belief was that the more intensely you believed in something, the more solid, more real it was to you, the stronger was the doubt-shadow that it cast.

Though Blair believed that Jim was alive and in the nahual form of a Black Jaguar, he didn't know it. He also believed it as if his own life depended upon it, which in a peculiar way, he reasoned it did, but the doubt was still there. For all he didn't go to bed and was on the couch instead, with the balcony doors open, reasoning that if there were natural instincts dominant in Jim, the jaguar might return to its lair if it could, the shadow of a doubt still niggled.

It gnawed at him quietly as the fire of the stove died down, and remained a glowing ember in the darkness behind him as he stared out at the night beyond the window, willing Jim to come home.

And nothing. If he were truthful, he would have said he had hoped that the Jaguar would have been close already. It made sense.

With each moment that passed the tower of his belief was being relentlessly eroded by the self-interrogation of doubt.

'Mr Sandburg, can you really say you saw the shape in the smoke? Could you be a hundred percent sure? Hand on heart, swear on the religious text of your choice, completely sure that the dark shape in the smoke had been there?' And the whispered answer, if he was being truthful, was .. no. He couldn't be sure. For all the reasons that Simon and Jim had considered beforehand, he could not categorically say there wasn't a seed of doubt – and there was a possibility that he was wrong.

Truth was pain, he decided. Strange how he could feel this so acutely when his own emotional injuries were still numb. And he could feel it. He could feel even the possibility that Jim was gone taking on a shape that seized at him. Fear dipped icy fingers into the pit of his stomach and gripped, squeezing the emptiness into his body. A fear so insidious and pervasive that he lay there on the couch in the darkness as vulnerable to its touch as he had been to David Lash, unable to deny the whispers of doubt.

If Jim is dead..

All the evidence told him he was. Even the miraculous survival of Agent Hawker had brought with it more evidence for the death of his friend in her semi-conscious testimony to his self-sacrifice and bravery.

Please, pleaseplease.. Blair looked out into the night, his throat tight with a surge of fear trying not to succumb to that "what if."

He looked over at the answer phone again, drawn there. He wished he hadn't played the message automatically when he got in to the empty apartment. He wished he hadn't stood there as Jim's voice had rolled out of the machine into the space where he should have been standing next to him. There was no way he could ever describe the mingling pain and his curious need to stand and just hear the words, so mundane but .. oh God..

"Chief? You there? ... Pick up if you're there ..." He could hear the sigh and could imagine all too clearly how Jim must have turned and tucked his phone in to himself.

"Look, Chief, we've had another break - it's to do with your idea and I just wanted to say.." There was a pause as if Jim were searching for words, "I wanted to say I was sorry about going off at you this morning. It's .. well look,  I'll admit something is a bit screwy, I know I should have said it before, but you know.."

Blair found himself nodding to the recorded voice of a ghost. He knew, he understood. He should have pushed it the night before and he hadn't.

"Mind, I still don't think it is what you think it is, but I just wanted you to know that I'm willing to try and work with you on this. You're right .. it is my problem and not yours. So, uh, see you about seven, yeah? Get something in, my shout and we'll go through this together, Chief. "

The click had made him jump and he'd played the tape again and again, never quite giving in to tears, because that would be admitting Jim was gone. Tears were for the lost. Lost friends, lost loves, lost moments in time ... and Jim wasn't lost. Couldn't be lost. So no tears.

So he couldn't grieve, he couldn't deal with that aching loss inside though the rare Ellison apology discovered too late nearly destroyed him. He didn't want to be right, he never wanted that. This wasn't a game where he scored points for getting the right answers; it had stopped being about that a long time ago. It was, as he had said many times, about friendship; about what he could do for his friend not for any more reason than the fact he was his friend. Jim didn't understand that. He wasn't sure he understood it himself, it was just the way things were, and the way things should be. Being a friend was not about what a difference it made to the other person, it was what a difference it made to you; how it changed you, not them. And God, how he'd changed by knowing Jim, more than anyone could know.

The night wind swayed the drapes and he shivered, resisting the urge to play the message just one more time. He had never wished so hard for anything in his life, wished with enough intensity that it would burn him up inside, burn away that icy chill, drive off the nameless fear that ate at him.

But nothing, still nothing except an exhaustion that made him feel as if his limbs had been cast in lead, weighed down with depression and wrapped in the constriction of sorrow.

The nahual Jaguar didn't come, but sleep did, shaking vision-dreams featherlike from its silent wings.

***

Opening his eyes to a canopy of stars when he knew he was barely asleep inside an apartment indicated that he was dreaming. Realising that he was stripped to the waist and tied in place on something uncomfortable and stonelike was an indication this was probably going to be another nightmare.

A glance to one side revealed steps dropping away towards the dark sea of the jungle seething at night, an ocean of restless foliage. Flickering torchlight made the stone glow golden around him even as the night breeze whipped the flames higher. Around him he could smell the metallic tang of blood, taste the dark bitterness of death in the air, shocked at its familiarity.

His attention prickled and he looked over into darkness and there was the rumble of a large feline snarl in the shadows beyond the torchlight.

His heart rate leapt, with hope and fear mixed. "Jim?"

Being tied down to a large block, uh ... to a sacrificial altar was not a good sign when there was a hungry Jaguar lurking. Perhaps it wasn't Jim at all; maybe it was Alex or some other Sentinel hunting him in his dreams. He struggled then, thrashing to get free and then flinched as the tall shape of a warrior rose above him, a black obsidian blade glittering with the flickering light.

"No!" he protested. "No.." he realised abruptly who it was and gasped out as the knife raised high "Incacha! Please don't!"

The shaman spirit turned to him looking at him with wise dark eyes. "You do not wish to be free? You are not tied here, just tangled. " He asked as he slit the bonds holding Blair there and helped him to sit.

"Thanks. I mean ..." Blair was struggling to merge the urging of his observing mind, and that part of himself submerged in the dream. His observing awareness was clamouring at him to get answers, tap into the knowledge of these dream visions. The rest of him was just trying to cope - rather badly.

"Your Sentinel is being lost to the darkness."

"I know! I know, Incacha. I don't know what to do, though." It was that same powerless feeling he felt when confronted by Sentinel problems.

The shaman's spirit looked at him and said, "Save him or let him die. The choice is yours."

"But how? I don't know how. I'm no shaman, I know you said I was, but.."

"The way is in you," Incacha replied cryptically. "Would you sacrifice your life for him?"

"Yes." Blair replied looking at the bright golden eyes fixed on him from the darkness. Hungry eyes. Eyes that wanted to devour everything.

"Then the way is in you," Incacha repeated and pressed the obsidian knife into his hand. "There is much power in the choice of sacrifice. But this is your choice. Take or Give. You or him. Find your own choice and think and feel the nature of that choice. Understand it, shaman, understand the reasons behind instinct and with it will come the way. Be ready."

The obsidian shone like the bitter tear of some dark god in his hand and he looked up as the black Jaguar prowled forward, needful of something from him. He had the knife, he could fend him off, and likely both of them would die or he could just ...

Raise the knife and turn it inwards on himself and save his friend, by feeding the nahual with his own life.

A choice maybe, but for him not much of one; he could not allow Jim to fall into darkness if a mere exchange of his life for Jim was all that was needed to save him. It was times like this that the nagging feeling his life was on loan from his Sentinel came into its own. It made decisions like this a lot easier.

No need for this sacrifice to be tied to an altar and have his heart cut out, no, this one would do it himself and offer everything for the life of his friend.

Blair dropped to his knees in front of the panther, raising the blade in front of him and in the spilt second where he decided to plunge it to his own heart the Jaguar roared in protest and he woke with a start.

The noise seemed to echo in his own head in the predawn grey of the morning. He was shivering from the coldness of the room and he looked around hopefully. No Jim, no nahual ... nothing...

Things were not looking so good. He brushed back his hair and coughed a little.  He was tired and drenched in sweat and he felt like he was missing something, but was desperately afraid that he hadn't. Maybe this was why he had come back. Just for a short while, but long enough to save Jim from being lost. He could probably count it as time well spent.

He tried cooking some breakfast - some bacon and eggs, but he just sat and looked at it until it went cold. It was more Jim's type of breakfast, anyway.

And as that random thought crossed his mind, he could not stop himself from the conviction that he needed to put a breakfast out on the balcony, just in case.

It was with a mixture of hopeless embarrassment and defiant certainty that he put a selection of some of Jim's favourite things out on the balcony just as the sun rose over Cascade.

And every moment he hoped that the jaguar would appear. That something would come to prove his intuitions, but it didn't.

"Come home, Jim," he murmured in the chill dampness of the Cascade morning. "I need you. Come home."

But there was no miracle on this early morning and none even later when he made his way into the office, drawn there by the need for justice.

***

The nahual balam licked at its burnt and singed fur absently, even as its mind tried to process what had happened. The surety was there again, growing stronger in the heart of the self that was Jim Ellison.  He could remember, if he tried, some of what happened; he could remember walking on two-legs, a stupid inefficient way to move, it seemed, and being with the female - with Louise, and running to get out of the building and being trapped. It was getting harder to frame his own thoughts coherently. The jaguar-thoughts were like an insidious drug. Cats did not make mistakes. Feline thought centred on dividing the world into right and wrong, and what the cat thought was good was "right" and what was bad became "wrong". Jim was becoming rapidly aware of how much of the human mind and personality was defined by reaction to uncertainty, doubt, judging themselves wrong or incorrect. Cats did not do that, and having the shape of cat-thoughts in his head was like riding on a continuous high of heroin or another souped-up narcotic. He recognised that he'd sometimes touched the fringe of these thought-shapes before; when in the heat of the fray, his judgement became absolute and decisive, but as the thoughts remained present, more and more of the mind that was Jim was being smoothed away.

He remembered -What did he remember? The explosion and seeing that they had to get out, getting clear of debris and hearing the roar of fire behind him and the surge of heat. Pushing Louise in front of him and half throwing her out the window.

And running and knowing he had run out of time and jumping knowing he had to clear the collapse, fire all around him as he stretched, and carried on stretching, changing mid jump, cloaked in smoke as the building began to collapse. He had landed heavily, turning, seeing the female .. Louise had not cleared the danger zone and darting back to drag her away.

Only the fire ... the fire pushed at the animal instincts in this shape and demanded with an internal voice that he fought to control that he run, leave the dangerous hot fire ... run, run ... get away, for the bright hotness could not be fought, only evaded.

He'd managed to control that up until the point where Agent Hawker was clear and fiery debris rained down around him in the smoke and dust.

His control had snapped, and jaguar instinct had swallowed him whole, submerging him as he ran fast, away from that place, away from the smoke and heat, to hide and be safe.

When Jim had clawed his way back to the surface it had been night again and he had tried everything he knew to change back. He'd tried willing it. He'd tried breathing exercises that Blair had shown him, which he discovered were not suited to Jaguar bodies. He tried calling up a vision, but he was living a vision, so that was no good. Here he was, a massive black panther, the power of his body like a coiled spring, able to run, jump, move, kill in a ridiculously easy fashion, but he had never felt so helpless in his life.

He was drowning very slowly in emotional quicksand. Slowly but inexorably it was dragging him in, consuming him, and he was terrified.

That sounded good - Jim Ellison, terrified. Terror was something that happened to other people. Yeah, right - Blair had him nailed with the fear-based responses; he could see that and could feel that as the vital part of him that was resisting the absorption by the cat-thoughts.

He had only himself to blame. Sandburg had tried to warn him, to work with him and he'd spent all this time pushing him away because he hadn't wanted to face any more change and admit anything new about himself.

He'd struggled then to find his way to somewhere he could hide out until he could get back in control. Every time he approached a human, that sharp hunger rose and started to drown out his own thoughts, that need to devour and feed somehow connected to humans. Instinct warred with human reactions, but both sets of reactions drew him back towards 852 Prospect. In the dampness of the night he returned there, but to the roof. Try as he might he could not get the panther part of him to willingly enter that lair - apartment.

He could hear Blair's heartbeat, he could smell the fear, hope and anxiety on him. But the Jaguar hungered every time he thought of going near him and he didn't trust himself to control the beast if he became unbalanced by emotion.

That night a panther had slept on the roof over apartment 307, watching over the Great City with golden yellow eyes.

The following morning, Jim found the edges between him and his nahual-self blurring even more. Memories were merging, losing their shape and acquiring the fading soft edges of dreams. But he did remember that he liked the food that was put out for him even if he had to wait until Blair had left before he could drop from the roof down onto the balcony to eat it.

The hope he felt at that moment steadied him and gave him focus. Blair knew. Blair knew what had happened to him. If he knew his partner and friend at all, he wouldn't rest until he had an answer. That had been what he had always done, teased and pulled at the possibilities until an answer came loose that would work. Even when Jim told him not to bother, to ignore it, that it was stupid, that he was stupid...anything to get the tests and trials to stop. But they always found the answer in the end. He had to trust Blair could do the same this time.

In the meantime the nahual part of him wanted to hunt and that insistence was growing stronger as the sun rose.  Very well, they would hunt, but he would choose their prey. No one said he couldn't combine his instincts as a police officer with that of the nahual. Jaguars need to track and hunt; he'd go hunting whoever tried to have him killed.

***

Megan was watching Blair and steeling herself for the talk Simon had requested her to have with him as a friend. If there was anyone who looked like he needed to be taking time off, it was their police observer. She wouldn't put any money on him having slept the night before, not with him looking pale, with dark smudges of fatigue brushed under his eyes blending into the rainbow bruise colours on the left side of his head. When he crashed he was going to go down hard, she had to agree with Simon on that one.

And without Jim there, did he know there was anyone to catch him? Well, that was why she was going to talk to him, even as they tried to catch those responsible for his best friend's death.

Megan sighed a little. Jim being gone struck deep. She'd stayed because of him, because she had touched the edges of the sort of friendship that he and Sandy had and, with her typical Australian front, had pushed and pushed at them and instead of pushing her away, to her surprise, the pair of them had let her in. Since the fountain, she had experienced a kind of dread that she might one day have to deal with one of them after something had happened to the other.

And in all the times that those morbid thoughts had found her, she'd never been able to come up with anything to say that might be remotely helpful.

Still, Simon had asked her. She got the impression their Captain was too shaken by the loss of his close friend himself to deal with the possibility that Sandy might be having some sort of Post-Traumatic Stress problem. The fact that he said that the young anthropologist was acting strangely wasn't a good start, but she could hardly blame him for going off the rails a bit.

She managed to wait until he went in to look at the evidence pile that they had on the table in the briefing room alone and walked in after him, closing the door.

Blair glanced up. "Hey, Connor," he greeted her, looking back at the work in front of him. He rubbed his eyes a moment. He was starting to get disturbing flashes of images impinging over his vision. He was beginning to think that if this was what Jim had gone through while Alex was around, no wonder he had seemed distant and irritable. "Something I can do for you?"

"I came to see how you are doing," Megan said in a soft voice.

Blair shrugged. "I've been better." His tone was even as he flicked a look up at the tall woman.

"Simon's worried about you," she said, half sitting on the table. "He thinks you are .. um.."

"Losing it? A detective short of a Crime unit?  One anthropologist short of an expedition?" Blair replied, meeting her gaze dead on.

Megan couldn't quite suppress a chuckle at that. "Sandy, come on, he's worried about you. So am I."

"You don't need to worry about me, Megan. I'm fine. I'm always fine," Blair murmured, looking at the piece of paper in his hand again as if that would stop the other detective from prying into his thoughts.

"You know, Sandy, we get special outback training over in Australia. Part of that is the ability to smell a load of bullshit when it is shovelled your way." She leaned forward. "You're not alright – and you haven't been for some time."

The anthropologist put his pen down and looked up at her. "You know, I'll give you 10 out of 10 for observations skills and a big fat zero when it comes to timing." He said that  a little sharply. "Because frankly, everyone's timing sucks on this. I cannot do this now; I can't go through all of this now. If it's going to make you all happy and shut Simon up, I'm fully aware that I'm probably well inside the town borders of Nutsville and looking for a nice padded room to rent. But what I do know is that if I don't hold on long enough to solve this I will have failed the best friend I ever had and betrayed what little trust I managed to regain from him." His eyes were a too vivid blue then and he looked away again. "I swear ... Megs, just help me do this now and after, if I'm still around you can take me shopping for a nice straitjacket of my own. Because if I'm wrong, I'll need it."

Megan blinked a minute. "Wait .. wait, what do you mean, if you are still around? Sandy? What are you planning?"

"Hey, man, nothing –  just a melodramatic turn of phrase to get you on my side, you know?" Blair gave a hesitant smile to try and disarm the abrupt tension his comment had spawned. "Megan, please. Simon can't deal with it, but you at least have an open mind. I think Jim is still alive."

Connor stared, not having expected that as a twist. "Still alive? But  … the reports? I mean, Sandy, we were there, you saw what happened. There was no way Jim could have escaped."

"I told you there were some Sentinel things going on with Jim again," Blair replied. "We argued about it. Before he left that morning, because he couldn't believe it. What you saw the day before, what I saw when the sniper was about to kill me ... that was real."

Megan stared. "Sandy, you can't seriously be suggesting what I think you are suggesting, can you?"

Blair nodded. "I'm sure of it, as sure as I can be about any of this stuff. Otherwise, why would I know, like gut deep, that Jim is running out of time?"

"Because you are trying to make yourself feel you can change what had happened?" Megan suggested cautiously.

"No, no man, you think I don't know the difference between this and survivor's guilt? I've lost people I've cared for before, I do know what it feels like," Blair admitted in a soft voice. "This is different. After I died ..." He cleared his throat a moment. "After I died, I had this whole out-of-body thing which, I found out later, Jim shared. We merged then to bring me back. I don't know anything else about what happened, but that .. but we sort of connected and I can't help but feel I would know if he were really gone." He stopped, suddenly aware he had been babbling somewhat incoherently and backtracked hastily.  "Sorry. Sorry, you can tell Simon all his worst fears are confirmed, okay? I'll understand. It won't stop me from doing what I have to, though."

Connor was staring him as if he had grown a second head. "Sandy, don't you know what happened on that day? Haven't you even spoken about that?"

It almost sounded accusatory and she bit her lip as she tried to call that back.

Blair shook his head slowly. "Not an easy subject to bring up. But hey, I read the reports, so I guess that covers it."

"My God." Megan shook her head. "You don't know, do you? You don't know what he was like then?"

"I know that Simon told me that he wouldn't let me go, that he kept trying." Blair replied, "That he came after me, and that's all I need to know. That's all I need to know to do what I have to do now, to keep going. There is a hope, Megan, a slim hope but one nonetheless. I wouldn't be much of a friend if I didn't go after him."

"You always do, mate." Megan replied in a soft voice. She had a dilemma going on. If Jim was dead, then Blair was so far gone that he needed serious help, but if Blair were right, then, well, this could be their only chance.

She looked at her friend and colleague again, and realised something else. Blair thought he was completely alone in this. Whether Jim was out there or not became irrelevant. What he needed was someone with him, someone trusting him, and she could give him that at least.  He was looking down now as if drawing in on himself, not expecting anything from any of them because that was what he had had since he died.

"So, no worries, Sandy, Connor's on the case," she said brightly. "What do we need to do?"

The stunned amazement on his face was more than enough payback for that risk.

"You did hear everything I just said? You got the fact that I think Jim has turned into a black Jaguar in there?"

"Yep. You ought to see the things that happen in the Outback sometimes. Man turns into Jaguar? Pah, barely news," she disclaimed with a dismissive gesture. "So, we have an AWOL feline detective and a group of international gun merchants. What do we go after?"

She leaned over to reach for a file and felt a soft touch on her hand.

"Thanks, Megan." It was barely audible, but sincere and told her that he knew exactly what she was doing, and was appreciating it, so she nodded in response as they both continued as if that moment hadn't occurred.

"I need to get in to speak to Agent Hawker. I'm thinking that Jim – well, knowing Jim, Jaguar or not, he is going to go after the RedStars," Blair said, all business now. "And she was the last one to see Jim alive; she might have seen something."

"Like who set them up? You know the Feds think they made our computer hacking."

Blair shook his head. "No, I don't think so - I mean why post a message on the board, warning of the attack, if that was where you got the information from? I mean, man, that would be plain stupid. One of those 'Server temporarily down' pages would have done it. They didn't know that's where we got them, they found out elsewhere. A leak."

Connor nodded, following that logic. "Not one of Major Crimes and the only other contact was ..."

"Agent Hawker to her brother." Blair finished. "I've been looking up a lot about him, just in case."

"Anything?" The Australian leafed through the proffered file

"Impressive record. This isn't his first deep cover," Blair replied. "He's had commendations all over the place. It doesn't look like it's him, but I can't see where else it could have come from. It doesn't make sense!"

"There IS nowhere else it could have come from except between Agent Hawker and him. And if it was her, then she would have known when to get out," Connor mused. "Perhaps they were onto him and monitoring what he was doing?"

Blair nodded slowly. "That's a possibility, yeah. But I'm still thinking Agent Hawker is the key to this."

"Simon's got an alert coming in for him, the moment that she wakes up," Megan replied. "You'll have to hook up with him."

"Oh man!" Blair groaned. "He already thinks I'm off of this planet."

"Sandy, he thinks that about you at the best of times." Connor smiled a little as she said it.

"Thanks," Blair replied in a tone rich in sarcasm. "I'll speak to him. Um, I'll just take him a coffee or something and try and sweeten him up."

"Good luck on that one." The Australian inspector smiled at him  "But if anyone can do it, you can."

"Yeah, yeah." Blair got up and, with her ushering him out of the room, set about his next phase of investigation.

***

Jim had guided his nahual form back to the explosion site, the heat still in the stone and earth as he padded carefully around, unseen.

No different to doing what he usually did, looking, smelling, tasting, hearing - only a Sentinel Jaguar's senses were as clear and sharp as he had experienced coming out of the pool at the Temple of Light. He had that same feeling in him, the feeling that he had all the answers, that everything made sense and that it was only a matter of time before they came together. He was seeing smells, seeing with Sentinel vision what a feline saw. Heat, electromagnetic fields all blended and tangled into one - every person walked around him cloaked in a glory of rainbows, the energy fields of their bodies in constant motion. He didn't dare stare too long and hard in case he zoned or the nahual part of him dominated, but now he understood why cats sat and just stared. If they saw this every time they looked at a human or any other creature, then no wonder they would sit and just watch. And presumably at some point they learned to understand.

Staying out of sight was not so hard for a feline. Even for a hulking great panther. People didn't expect to see a panther loitering around Cascade, so if they glimpsed him at all he was written off as a stray dog or an aberration, at least for now.

He sniffed around the exit of the place, where he and the female .. and Louise (he'd have to remember to use names and focus) had entered. He smelt the trail of the two-leg ..the man, her brother, clearer and sharper away from the area. It smelt almost musty; a decaying yellow in his perception as if something was slowly rotting away. He certainly hadn't noticed that before when he had met him, not even a tinge of anything more than aftershave. Perhaps animals smelt more than just a physical smell, after all. It was easy to track ...what was peculiar was that he had obviously stood watching, because the smell was concentrated, and there had been another man with him.

Had it been him? The two-leg kin of the female? He raised his head watching the faint wavering yellow decaying trail flickering like a mirage to feline eyes. He would follow. That two-leg had moved into the city on foot. Easy prey for a skilled hunter.

The Jim part of his mind thought that was strange even though he couldn't remember why, but the nahual balam curled its tongue around the sensitive whiskers and stalked after its chosen prey, rumbling with anticipation deep in his chest. Hunts were simple and clear. He would hunt, he would feed the hunger that burned in him yet.

***

'He ran past the Temple rising up out of the jungle and turned, looking around for the sound that had called him.

There, there it was.

"Blair! Chief, I can't hold on ..."

Jim's voice, somewhere near. Wait a minute? Hadn't he been with Simon, waiting to be given permission to visit the recovering Agent Hawker - how had he slipped here? Had he fallen asleep or was he just sitting next to Simon, staring into space like Jim did in a zone?

Either way, he was back in the dreamscape and there had to be meaning to these experiences – and hopefully answers. He ran through the jungle, past the temple and then had to stop suddenly, teetering on the edge of a vast chasm. At the bottom, a mighty river thundered, a river that shifted before his eyes into thunder and boiling storm clouds, twisting and writhing alive.

"Chief ..."

He glanced over and saw Jim, slipped part way down the cliff, barely clinging on. "Help me, Chief, I can't .. I can't hold on."

"I'm here, man, I'm here. I'll get you up." Blair lay flat and reached down desperately with his hand, to try and take hold of his friend.

He stretched, Jim stretched and as Blair looked beyond Jim, the stormcloud river seemed to boil up beneath him, reaching for the trapped Sentinel.

"You'll need a rope!" Jim advised, sounding strained, looking at him, trusting him to find something.

"Shit, man ... I don't have a rope," Blair replied, reaching again, fingertips splayed and nearly touching his friend's questing hand.

"What's that wrapped around your wrist then?" Jim asked even as he slipped a little further. "Hurry, Chief!"

Blair looked and saw the rather surreal fact that there was a rope around his left wrist. Except it was a rope that seemed to be growing out of him. He gingerly pulled at it and nearly gagged as the rope seemed to unravel his skin, plaiting itself longer with strands of fresh blood. Jim was a long way down and he couldn't help but wonder how much it would take to reach him.

The swirling storm clouds behind Jim drew together into the snarling, roaring head of a panther, rushing up the chasm to engulf them.

No time to hesitate. He ripped at the blood-and-skin rope, hurling it down, feeling a deeper tug all through him as Jim's hand gripped it and the Jaguar storm roared with fangs of lightning and swallowed them both whole.

He yelped and startled awake, opening his eyes to the busy corridors of Cascade General.

"Easy." Simon patted his arm. "Didn't mean to scare you, Sandburg, just getting your attention."

Blair blinked blearily, having jumped nearly out of his skin at Simon's touch. "Wha?"

"You must have dozed off for a couple of minutes. Looked like you needed it." The police captain still looked at him, concerned. "You with me?

"Yeah, yeah sure, Simon." He got up stiffly "She's awake?"

"And talking. Her injuries could have been much worse, she'll probably be released by tomorrow. It was the concussion they were monitoring, mainly." Simon said, not unaware of the irony of telling Sandburg that. "Come on."

The pair of them entered the hospital room that it became evident Agent Hawker had only just been wheeled in to, as there was a nurse still fixing her up. She seemed alert enough, however, as she turned to see who had entered.

"Captain Banks .."

"Agent Hawker, good to see you are making a speedy recovery." He saw her glance at Blair. "This is Blair Sandburg, Jim's .. he was Jim's partner."

"I'm very sorry, Blair." The FBI Agent apologised immediately. "I owe my life to your partner's bravery and sacrifice."

"There's quite a few people who do." Blair replied, clearing his throat, to stop his voice getting rough. He tried a slight smile and was aware that she looked uncomfortable.

"Do you feel up to talking about what happened?" Simon asked in a low voice "Anything you can tell us? They knew we were coming, so there had to have been a leak."

"I've been thinking about that, Captain." Louise pushed herself into a half-sitting position. "The only thing I can think of is that my message to Lyle was intercepted somehow. I'm so sorry … The meeting went fine, and Lyle had arranged for us to get a download of the entire Red Star database. That's why we were still there when the building blew. Detective Ellison knew somehow that something was wrong, but he grabbed the CD with the download and. … it gets a bit fuzzy after that," she admitted.

"I can understand that. You haven't got anything? Anything that might help us?" Simon asked in a low voice even as the monitors continued their metronome beeping behind them.

"I had been scanning the entries as they downloaded," she replied. "One location kept coming up, one that linked in with previous information."

"Don't tell me - another warehouse?" Simon asked, having to stop himself from picking out another cigar.

"No, not this time. The InTech building. The more I think about it, the more likely it is that InTech is the shell company. You have to get licences to shift some of the technology they produce and have to avoid scanning with surveillance equipment in case it fries the chips. Perfect smuggling cover. If the big chiefs are in Cascade and that is their base, that is where they will go."

Simon glanced at Blair and nodded. " We'll check it out," he promised. "Anything else you can remember?"

"Lyle said there was an internal power struggle going on, that might make them careless." She was obviously struggling to stay awake, and the nurse frowned at them both.

Sandburg remained silent, just watching her intensely and she seemed discomfited by his attention. "I'm .. just really sorry about Jim," she said, feeling the need to apologise again to this young man who looked like he was teetering on the edge of some abyss. "If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be alive - I still don't exactly know how I got clear of the building after he pushed me out of the window. I thought one of your men had pulled me clear, Captain Banks, but apparently not. It's all still hazy."

Simon was disturbed by the light of hope that came into Blair's expression then and rested a cautioning hand on his arm. "No, Sandburg, just leave it, okay?" he murmured in a low voice. "Don't do this to yourself."

Blair looked about to protest and then backed off. "I'll just uh .. wait outside a moment," he muttered under his breath, turned and stepped out of the room.

That had to have been Jim, had to have been! Conviction flooded him with energy that ignored his exhausted state. To him, the random comment was proof that Jim had survived and not just that, that there was enough of him there to use that transformation to help a downed colleague. And if Jim was out there and still able to reason, he would have gone after those that set them up.

Simon exited the room and had a quick word with the security guards, getting them to take position at the door as he came over.

"I know what you're thinking, Sandburg," he said in a warning tone. "And it's not possible, okay?"

"Let's just assume we had the discussion and agreed to disagree, Simon," Blair replied, tying back his hair absently. "There was one thing about her story that she seemed to not pick up on."

"Oh?" Simon queried as they strode out of the hospital.

"If her brother arranged the download, surely he would have known roughly how long it would take? And if he did, then either way he was deliberately putting them in danger." The police observer looked at Simon. "Not very brotherly of him."

"I noticed that as well." Simon nodded approvingly. "But his record is squeaky clean."

"I know, but people change," Blair replied. "Everyone is squeaky clean until the first mud sticks."

That was not a Sandburg thing to say. Simon nearly had to do a double take to remind himself that it wasn't Jim walking beside him.

"Anyway, I think we need to head over to InTech. You can do the, you know, rattle a few cages thing." Blair looked enthusiastic about the prospect. "They've got no reason not to see you if they want to keep their cover story straight."

Again Simon was surprised. That had been much along the lines that he had been thinking, and the way Jim would think also. Jim had always said the kid was a quick learner. "Who said anything about 'we'?"

"Hey, man, I can be useful - trained observer, you know? I've backed Jim up for three years now, and he's more stubborn than you'll ever be," Blair commented and then turned serious on the police captain. "Don't cut me out of this, Simon. I need to be there." He kept silent the fact he believed if it was the front organisation to the Red Stars, then that was where he would find the Nahual and Jim.

Even if his own visions were telling him some rather worrying things about what he might have to do to get Jim back, but he'd worry about that when he was faced with it.

Simon turned and looked at him carefully. "Just don't do anything stupid," he cautioned as they got into his car "I've lost enough of my team to this case, I'm not losing anyone else."

***

This was a strange forest to hunt in. Sharp metal and clearness like ice everywhere, but no coldness.

Glass ... a submerged part of the nahual mind supplied, a building of metal and glass.

Still, it had many places to climb and thin ledges to jump from and cold metal stepping stones that allowed him to climb and lie, tail twitching, waiting for a moment to get inside. There was a cave beneath, where an opening was watched by a two-leg. The need to feed was distracting now; surely this one would be sufficient to hunt. If prey crossed the path, then one did not ignore it to struggle after the original trail. One pounce and the two-leg would fill his belly and rid him of this consuming hunger.

No.

The nahual balam lashed his ebony tail, frustrated at this inability to act as he wished. He snarled and pushed at the inhibition. It was weakening rapidly.

No, ignore the two-leg, hunt unseen in the dimming light, get inside the parking garage .. the cave, then hunt bigger game...

Reluctantly the panther moved, slinking in the dimming light into dark shadows and hastily jumped beyond sight of the two-leg. He prowled the perimeter and then, following an inner prompting, managed to break a handle and push a door open and slink up into the building, scenting the yellow spoor of its chosen prey drifting old and new around these strange trails.

***

"Captain Simon Banks to see your CEO," Simon announced gruffly at the secure reception area. "And Blair Sandburg, consultant to the Cascade PD."

"I'm sorry, sir, but Mr Gillick is holding an emergency meeting of the board," the security guard replied pleasantly. "He is unavailable."

"Son, I think you don't appreciate the gravity of this situation." Simon leaned forward. They had been stalled over and over by receptionists, assistants and now building security to get even this far. "I've already explained this four times, and right now I'm a hair's breadth from hauling the next person who annoys me up on charges of obstructing a police investigation. Do I make myself clear?"

Blair nearly smiled as he looked around the plush foyer, complete with sparkling feng shui water feature and a jungle of lush-looking plants amongst the stylish designer furniture. InTech was certainly doing well for itself, that much was obvious and Simon was in full flow.

"Yes sir. I'll, er, just try and contact his Personal Assistant, see if we can get a message into the meeting," the man said hastily, picking up the phone.

"See that you do that." Simon stood back to look at Blair. "And I thought the Mayor's office was bureaucratic. Jesus."

"Elaborate social structures accrue around hierarchies of power," Blair replied absently.

"What?" Simon looked at him. "You okay there?"

"Mmm hmm." Blair was scanning the area, looking for something, anything that might play into his intuitions. "Yeah, sure, Simon. Sorry, just taking a look around, you know?"

"Stay with me, kid," Simon cautioned, unconsciously mimicking the movement. "I have a bad feeling about this place."

There was a sudden distant crackling noise and Blair frowned. "What was that?" he asked, looking around again.

"Either this Board meeting involved a lot of celebratory champagne, or that was gun fire," Simon said and reached for his gun as he turned to the security guard. "What the hell was that?"

The man was looking a little panicked even as he said,  "I'm sure it's nothing, sir, please hold on while I contact upstairs and .."

An alarm sounded, and everywhere security lockdowns started to scroll through on the console desk that the guard lurked behind, looking more than just worried now. All around them, doors and shutters were locking automatically, as if this was some sort of high security vault rather than a regular business building.

"Man, this is not looking good!" Blair said, whirling around. "What's the deal with all this security overkill?"  He sounded nervous.

"InTech sell security systems, amongst other things," the guard said even as he tried to get the system to respond. "They turned the central hub of the building into a showpiece. Very popular with Middle Eastern clients with a good few million to spare. Shit, the lock down has been initiated from the primary console upstairs ... and, someone has just activated a release on the garage." He flicked the cameras that way and a group of armed men could be seen jogging inwards, heading to the lower stairwell entrance.

As if they had rehearsed the move to perfection, the three men turned to look at the stairwell door in a synchronised movement.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Simon said. "Sandburg, come on, they'll be here any moment!"

The security guard was frantically trying to phone out even as the entrance sealed again.

"Come on, man!" Blair encouraged, looking back over his shoulder at the guard.

"I've just got to ..."

Whatever the man had to say was drowned out by the staccato of automatic fire and Simon pushed Blair onward, running forward through the nearest doorway, half-ducking even as the attackers flooded into the reception.

Blair didn't even have time to think as he sprinted forward, into a large open-plan office. Thank God no one was working late in this building. Maybe that too had been deliberately organised.

"Dammit!" Simon was trying to call Major Crimes for backup. "The signal's bad. We need to get higher."

"Yeah, sure man. Run headfirst towards the gunfire, like that's a sensible thing," Blair muttered as they exited the office and ran down the next corridor, finding another stairwell.

"You should be used to that by now," Simon said dourly, following the grad student and then moving past to take point as they took the stairs at speed.

They ducked into another office level and hid out of sight as Simon tried again to call for backup.

Blair coughed, his lungs burning a little from the exertion. What was this all about? An armed raid, and obviously not for hostages. Well, aside from a couple of hapless members of Cascade's Major Crimes department who just happened to have a talent for turning up at the wrong time? He was damn sure it wasn't a ransom stunt.

So, maybe it was a manifestation of the internal politics Agent Hawker had mentioned; a challenge for power inside an arms-dealing organisation could be unpleasant, and possibly brutal - would it be an armed coup?

No reason why it shouldn't be.

"Geez, these guys take the term 'hostile takeover' way too seriously," Sandburg muttered. "Any luck, Simon?" he asked hopefully.

"Managed to get a text through," Simon said, breathing deeply as he checked his ammunition. "I'm thinking we find somewhere to hole up while they have their little corporate takeover, and when the cavalry turn up, then make a move to mop up the pieces."

"I can cope with any plan that involves sitting right now," Blair replied wearily. "That's a good plan, Simon"

"Yeah, well, that's why I'm the Captain and you're ..." Simon hesitated. It was a thought he had not wanted to face. So much of whom he thought of as Blair, was inextricably tied up with Jim. Had been tied up with Jim ... and after this? When it hit home that there was no miracle, what would happen to him then? Just on the practical front, where would he live? His dissertation gone, his reason to be with his extended family at the department vanished. And suddenly Simon found himself wondering what Blair had to anchor him here anymore. Not just here in Cascade, but here in this life.

"And you're the underappreciated anthropologist," he finally finished, and had a moment of satisfaction at Blair's surprised smile.

"Steady man, I might even start to believe you care," Blair said lightly.

"My word against yours, kid." The police captain smiled even as they leaned back, waiting. "It'd never get past the jury."

***

Simon was amazed they had managed to stay out of trouble as long as they had. He was even more astonished that Sandburg seemed to have dozed off, though his eyes were flickering under his eyelids and the pained sounds of the word fragments that escaped his restless dream eventually drove him to shake his companion by the shoulder and then to clamp a hand over the younger man's mouth as he nearly went through the roof in shock.

"Steady, steady," Simon whispered. "What the hell were you dreaming about to make you so jumpy?"

"Statues in a circle," Blair mumbled, the images still flickering there on the edges of his vision. "Oh man ..."

Simon raised an eyebrow at him and Blair sighed, knowing there was no way to convey the importance and impact of the circle of statues, the were-jaguar statues. He had seen the were-jaguar transforming in stone right round to the kneeling man, hands raised in supplication. The circle spun one way, then the other and he was swept in somehow, yelling for Jim, glimpsing some other statue in the centre he couldn't quite see, but which was familiar to him in some way. He knew it was important, because the urgency had been of some last desperate attempt to communicate with the familiar frustration he felt when he was trying to make someone understand something he was trying to tell them, only in this case he was trying to explain it to himself.

"We better move again. Backup is stuck outside at the moment." Simon helped Blair up. "Whatever else InTech is, it does sell a security system worthy of Fort Knox. Unless we can shut down the lockouts, we are cut off."

"And unless we move, we're dead," Blair added and tilted his head as the comparative silence was broken. He hushed his voice. "I hear something."

Gunfire, and close. The pair got up hastily and ran again, moving up another level, running into what appeared to be a research and development area, complete with pieces of machinery in construction and piles of stacked, half-unpacked crates. It was a long room, with a great deal of floor space and clusters of computer terminals and would have been ideal to hide in if quite a few other people hadn't decided to do the same.

Simon and Blair ducked down hastily as a group of men half ran into the space near to them. "What do you mean, you lost it? The thing is HUGE!" The man rasped down the radio. "It's ripped half the team to shreds! No one said anything about nine-foot fucking black attack cats in our briefing. I'm down to four men!"

Simon's eyes widened and he glanced at Blair silently, disbelieving what he was hearing –  and denying the fact that the coincidence was too great.

No, it couldn't be. That was too crazy even for them. A small voice inside asked if it really were any different from watching Jim drag Blair back to life, just by placing his hands just so on his best friend's face. Or watching him track someone with visions, or behave in a way that should have had that friend hating him with a passion, and then watching that friend doggedly believe in him, let every moment slide and then go on as if nothing had happened.

How much more extraordinary was this than the last month or so?

"Sir!" The tone of the man behind the leader of that group was one of terror as he pointed behind them all.

The low growl from the other end of the room carried with spine-chilling clarity, and was followed by the appearance of a heavily-muscled panther on top of one of the crates, staring at them with an intense glowing hunger in its eyes.

"Jim." The whisper was barely audible, but Simon heard it clearly just before panicked gunfire began. It forced them to move and provoked a startled reaction from the hunted team perceiving another enemy that made them targets as well. Before Blair knew it, the area was a blur of gunfire, with Simon pushing him down as he returned fire, even as the anthropologist tried to desperately think if somewhere in all his studying, his dreams, his slightly warped sanity, he had uncovered the solution to saving Jim. Because that was Jim, he knew it, for all Simon yelled at him to stop staring at the black cat, because that's all it was ... a damn big black cat.

And right this moment, the only answers he had were not necessarily good ones.

***

The hunger burned, and these ones were prey. They were loud and their colours and smell were sharp and offensive to him.  Their colours blurred on a dark background, like

... petrol pollution on water .. a faint part of him supplied.

But now he was so hungry, so full of the need, that he was willing to taint himself with the blood of these in the hopes it would assuage his driving instinct to devour everything that crossed his path. And nothing could stop that now. He would kill and kill until the hunger ceased, for all the part of his mind that was like the echo whispers in a deep cave begged this to stop. He could not now, never finish the killing hunt until the hunger was gone or he was no more.

He dropped down from on high onto one of the two-legs in the instinctive hunting manner of the Jaguar. His mouth gaped open and the gleaming incisor fangs connected with his victims' head first so the weight of his falling body focused on those ivory points and they punctured the human skull, like knives slicing through butter.

That man died immediately, grey matter from his brain mixing obscenely in his matted hair as the panther withdrew and then sniffed at him and snarled, frustrated as he continued to stalk the next victim.

The hunger driving him, the nahual panther sprinted at the next pair, knocking them both over and as one struggled beneath him, there was a lightning slash of the claws and the screams of the freshly disemboweled man were mercifully short. Once again, the berserk nahual sniffed and even licked a little at the mortal wound before turning away with a yowl of disgust and frustration.

Blair was watching the drama with wide eyes, stomach turning with revulsion, but trying to find the pattern, the feeling behind what the panther wanted and most obviously was not getting. He was also aware that it was more nahual than Jim right now and that filled him with a chill dread. The image of Jim from his dreams being eaten alive, falling into the chasm ... lost in the darkness … flickered urgently in the forefront of his mind, even as he ducked and shied away from the bullets sparking off the heavy lab machinery shielding them.

The second man that the panther had knocked over was pushing himself up and pushed himself to his knee, freezing there as the nahual balam's attention swung his way and with deliberate slowness the panther licked its muzzle clean of blood and regarded him intently. The man raised his hands defensively, "Please .. no .. don't."

Abruptly there was a sudden and visible shift in the Jaguar's behaviour. Suddenly, the nahual Jaguar, sleek and black, stopped, scenting towards the kneeling man, waiting with his tail sweeping in arcs of impatience.

Terrified, the gunman stared into the golden eyes of the Jaguar and froze completely, hypnotised by the form of death tensed in front of him.

The pair of them remained in this tableau for a moment while the other remaining attacker ran for it, exchanging fire with Simon as he fled, wild-eyed with fear, to the door.

The large police captain went after him even as Blair remained fixated on the scene before him. Something meaningful was happening, he could tell.

The Jaguar pounced, jaws around the man's throat. The gunman panicked, and tried to fire at the creature on top of him, a bullet tearing a long bloody streak through black fur as it slid over the Jaguar's flank.

In a single devastating movement, the Jaguar jaws snapped shut and blood spurted, the man gurgling a few last moments of life into the Jaguar's mouth before death claimed him.

This time the dissatisfaction was a roar of feline anger that shook the air as the black tail whipped angrily. Whatever the nahual jaguar had been looking for, that had not been it.

Simon thumped on the door, rattling it, trying to get out, discovering the man who had fled had the forethought to slam the locks shut, locking them in with the beast. He turned to see the Jaguar stalking towards them both and hastily checked the bullets in his gun.

"Shit." Only one round left, for all there were scatter guns around them, they were over there with the jaguar. "Sandburg! Dammit Blair, get back here, I've only got one shot." He sounded scared even to himself and decided he had the right to sound that way, having watched the creature kill three men in less than ten minutes.

"No! No, Simon, you can't," Blair protested immediately, his own expression wild as he flashed back to his first disturbing dream. "You know who that is! You want to kill your best friend?!"

"I know who you think it is." Simon felt the hairs go up on the back of his neck at another hunting rumble from the beast as it stalked forward. "But it's not. Look around you, Blair; the thing is dangerous, deadly. Would Jim have done this? Torn three men apart? This is a beast! If it were him, then I doubt it is now. It's got to die before it kills one of us and you know Jim would much rather die than kill one of his friends, even unknowing!" He adjusted the gun in his grip again, steadying it.

It couldn't be Jim, it couldn't be, but if it was, forgive me, Jim, because I know you wouldn't want this...

His grip nearly wavered again and he barely heard Sandburg talking, no pleading with him as the beast turned its head and snarled at him. All his instincts told him he was facing a deadly killer and it was going to be it or them that died.

"I know ... I know, Simon, but he is there, I KNOW it," Blair begged the police Captain to just listen. "If you will just let me try!"

"No," Simon refused sharply, and certain that he was right now he raised the gun and levelled it at the head of the approaching Jaguar. "Get behind me, Blair, we can't afford to miss."

It was most definitely an order and three years with Jim had made obeying Simon's decree almost second nature. Blair moved over to him, his mind understanding the reasoning Simon was making, but he could not explain why, when Simon went to pull the trigger he shoved him so the shot went wild. Instinct kicked in, the knowledge that perhaps there was a chance for Jim whispering at him made him risk losing their only way out of this situation.

"Jesus CHRIST! Blair, what the hell is wrong with you?!" Simon bellowed, frantically looking around for some other kind of weapon.

"I can't let you kill Jim ... I …" Blair looked at the Jaguar and the connections started to drop into place piece by piece.

The man that had knelt had been like the kneeling statue of the were-jaguar sequence. Incacha telling him to choose to do it; it had been rejection and reluctance that had failed the other man.

'I'm right. The sacrifice has to be a willing sacrifice, or the ritual doesn't work'. Blair considered,  'Am I willing? Incacha asked me that. Yes. Yes I am. If I had to give my life for anyone, it would be Jim, Naomi or my friends. I know he wouldn't want me to, but ... that's part of it, of how it works. The research translated the glyphs as a worthy sacrifice. Perhaps it was more than that. Perhaps it is a willing sacrifice.'

He straightened up. "Simon. Stay behind me." He said it firmly, reversing their roles as he went to step forward. "I'm going to try something."

"Sandburg, you CAN'T .."

"Yes I can." Blair replied in a voice as brittle as ice, committed to this now. "Don't do anything, no matter what happens. Don't make a sound. Trust me, Simon."

"Blair .. you .."

"Trust me." The young anthropologist repeated and then very deliberately walked towards the nahual panther and dropped to his knees, mimicking the posture of the statue and the gunman that had evinced the change in behaviour in the creature. Initially he bowed his head, his hair falling forward, long and wild even as he slowly raised his head and looked directly into those golden amber eyes, locking them together.

Simon nearly cried out again, paralysed by fear for the young grad student. "No, Blair, oh God.." but he stayed where he was as a rumbling indicated the creature was aware of his presence. A rapid move would provoke the beast and it was so close to Blair now that he couldn't even try to stop it in time.

The hunger of the creature was palpable, and golden eyes stared back at blue for a long moment, studying him with a focus of attention that was strange and intense. Blair's heart was beating hard in that way that gave him the impression someone in the next building could hear it, but he remained still, even as he spoke softly. "Here I am, Jim, it's Blair. I'm here. Hope you're not too far down that cliff, man - I'm not going anywhere ..."

The panther was staring at him and he could feel the tension coiling, ready to spring and he swallowed. He was ready for this. Ready, willing and shit-scared.  But as long as it worked, and Jim was okay and he could have his life back to normal without him, he could do this. That wouldn't be too hard. Megan knew about the Sentinel thing now and Simon would sort that out with her, and Naomi - she would 'process' it and would be fine, she was not the type to let grief stand in the way of personal growth.

He should care that this was going to be it, but he found that the fear was not there for death, only the manner of dying. The fear of an ending lived in that numbed, hurt place inside of him and he felt a sense of surrealism about all of this, that it was happening, but somehow it didn't matter. Calm and unmoving he waited, drinking in every detail of the creature. If he had to ask for one thing, it would be to know he had succeeded before he died. He'd try and hold on that long at least; maybe get to see Jim again before he went – if that were the way things had to go.

There was a stir of muscles rippling under black fur and the nahual pounced. Powerful jaguar jaws fastened tight around his throat, the heat of that mouth like a furnace on fear-chilled skin.

This is it, a squeeze, a snap and rip and life will be over and no coming back this time.

Blair closed his eyes as the press of sharp fangs delved into flesh, as the rumble of a jaguar growl vibrated through his body, curdling his insides with instinctive animal panic which he willed himself not to give in to. If he did, Jim would die, be worse than dead. Be lost forever, he understood that now. It wasn't just Jim's life he was fighting for here, it was his very essence and soul.

The pressure increased around his throat and he remembered rather absurdly that big cats sometimes asphyxiated their prey rather than tearing and killing. Of all the ways to die again, he had to choose not being able to breathe. Inhaling was hard now, he was suffocating, and choking, and he needed to get oxygen now! He should fight to breathe, shouldn't he?

No. Just let it go. Let the hard points, sharp and harsh over his jugular, pierce deep and the Jaguar could have the blood it seemed to crave and that would bring Jim back. He could feel that it would. He might get to see it if he held on.

He didn't move even though he could hear Simon yelling behind him; he lay there with the nahual over him, the jaws wanting to release the life in him, counting every second to be his last, fighting fear and doubt.

He had done that with Alex before the fountain, in the fountain.  He felt that same fresh clarity he had then, just before the final moments occurred. Those terrifying few seconds of conscious thought where he knew that death was in him and rushing towards his mind,  as the last few thoughts flared panic-bright in the overwhelming clouded darkness...

Only, nothing. The nahual panther released his throat and lay down wearily with his sides heaving as he regarded him expectantly with golden, slitted feline eyes.

Blair coughed and rasped weakly as he tried to breathe again, the air roaring in his ears as his heart celebrated the reprieve by throwing an adrenaline party in his chest. What now? If the panther wasn't going to kill him, what was meant to happen?

A massive paw shifted and planted heavily on his chest; ebony claws flexed out as the paw drew down, tearing the flannel shirt he was wearing down to his stomach. The paw lifted as if to swipe in the same gutting move that had disembowelled the other Red Star member, and Blair just looked into the golden eyes and trusted his instincts again.

 "Yeah, if you need it .. go on, Jim," he murmured, hoping that the tremors running through his body weren't counting as reluctance.

In the background he could hear Simons groan with fear for him as the paw flicked sharply and just left fine stinging scratches on the surface of his abdomen, in a movement that made him shake with another adrenaline surge.

Yeah. It's a test. To see if I'm willing or not. Blair considered, breathing again.

The nahual jaguar backed away from him then and lay down once again, flanks heaving with fatigue and tiredness, staring at him and waiting for his move now, with all its hunger and need focused on him.

In a strange almost-daze, Blair knelt back up, never taking his gaze from  the jaguar eyes that were reaching for something inside of him. The way inside of him that Incacha had told him he had to find. But what was it? Something emotional? Physical? Spiritual even, like the merge?

The image from the dream swept over him.

"You'll need a rope," Jim said, sounding strained, looking at him, trusting him to find something.

"Shit, man ... I don't have a rope," Blair replied, reaching again.

"What's that wrapped around your wrist then?" Jim asked even as he slipped a little further. "Hurry, Chief!"

Blair looked and saw the rather surreal fact that there was a rope around his left wrist .. except it was a rope that seemed to be growing out of him. He gingerly pulled at it and nearly gagged as the rope seemed to unravel his skin, plaiting itself longer with strands of blood.

Blood! Yes, that was it, a rope of blood to reach Jim, to feed the nahual spirit so that Jim could re-emerge. Jim had talked about hunger in the first dream, Incacha had talked about feeding the panther, and blood was the common theme in all sacrificial rituals, the importance of blood and its inherent power to influence the gods and spirits. The research he had done had described the evidence of how blood was collected, how all the religions of the Olmec, Maya up through to the Aztecs and Inca, made offerings of blood.

Offerings - funny how he had never thought about the word before, but it seemed obvious in its meaning now. You offered something to the deity involved, something of value; wealth, devotion, life.. yeah. Incacha had urged him to think about what sacrifice really meant, and only now he was coming to some sort of realisation.

What was it that people made an offering for? Made a sacrifice for? To gain something. To gain some sort of bargain with the divine, some sort of control over things. Not so much bribery as a covenant.

As if it was there in front of him, the missing statue from his last dream, the most recent hopeful attempt from his subconscious to communicate the answer to him, flashed into Blair's mind. The statue in the centre was the one of the shaman riding the jaguar. It was a literal representation of two entities, not a metaphorical one of a shamanic Journey as the texts had described. Sacrifice to gain control. He understood that now. The nahual spirit was never meant to rage out of control in its animal form, it was meant to be controlled and appeased through ritual and now at the last he seemed to know what that ritual required.

His thoughts cleared then, and marvelling in the simplicity of it all, Blair leaned forward and reached for the great paws in a solemn reverent motion and turned his arms so his wrists were upward, leaving the underside of his lower arms exposed. He didn't know how he knew this was the right thing to do, only that it was; he didn't know why when the nahual Jaguar placed its paws just so, that he knew somehow it would not sever major arteries, but allow significant bloodletting as he looked still into those eyes and nodded his permission.

And was still looking, without a sound, or a reaction as sharp ebony claws slid deep into his flesh.

It was the pain in a dream, the realness of it drowned out by the peculiar calm and altered state of consciousness he was experiencing. One part of him was telling him that it hurt, it hurt badly and another part drifted above that, telling him that there was more he had to do and that pain was nothing.

With deliberate slowness he pulled his arms away, allowing the claws to dig in and rip deep tracks in his flesh that immediately welled blood, crimson and fresh, pouring hotly down his arms. The nahual released him, waiting again even as he stared disbelieving at what he had just done. His arms were pulsing like fire now and he cupped his hands to collect the blood in them.

It was old magic, old rituals, all rooted in instinct and recorded in myth and legends across cultures, making a pact with blood with a powerful entity.

He offered the cupped, ever-filling makeshift bowl of his hands. "Drink," he urged the panther softly, the words strange in his mouth. "This is what you want. This is the rope of myself, this is the way within me that I was told to find. Drink your fill, nahual balam, so my friend will come back to me."

The great black Jaguar sniffed over the fresh crimson liquid and then lapped it with the enthusiasm of a cat discovering cream instead of water. It couldn't get enough and the hands remained there, continually refilling with Blair's life as the blood flowed down the deep channels of claw marks into the bowl of his hands, giving it away little by little as the great cat lapped it up.

Simon, who was on the verge of a complete break down in terms of what he could accept as even remotely sane, could only stand and watch Sandburg seemingly willingly bleeding to death, even as he could hear the repeated litany over and over of, "Come back now, Jim, I want you back now, you can't be much deeper, man, can you? I know you are in there, you know I won't let you fall, I can't let you go, man, you know I can't, so come back now, buddy, before your own buddy runs out of that rope you asked for..."

Even if he didn't understand the words, he could feel the intense reaching and yearning, which made the atmosphere electric.

But the panther remained a panther, and the blood continued to flow.

The nahual panther found the scent of this one bright with colour, had tested him, found no disagreement even from that other part of him that this one was not worthy and the sensation of drinking that crimson life, rich and dancing with the glow of energy, was not dissimilar to having starved for days, and being abruptly presented with ambrosia. It felt like he tasted food for the first time, feeling it fill everything deep inside, stopping that aching bottomless hunger and lighting the darkness.

The voice meant nothing to the nahual, but it felt compelled to listen even as it drank and as it went on and on something stirred in the depths of its mind.

Something was reaching for that sound, grasping upwards, something or someone that was hearing that voice and screaming soundlessly while engulfed in the darkness.

Jim was there; in the closest thing to hell that he could possibly conceive could exist. It was like drowning in the abyss, no sensation as he struggled, striving to get out –  but for all he knew he could be pushing himself deeper into the void. He was drowning in a thick sensory deprivation, everything that made up himself being stripped away, crushed, violated by the unnatural domination of the out-of-control nahual spirit. It was his dark side made manifest and unleashed, the predator in him that he had to acknowledge, even as he tried to repress it. There was no way to convey the horror that had occurred as he was consciously aware of being repressed himself as the unwanted part, being crushed and gradually dissected and ripped apart, feeling fragments drift even as he yelled for help, screamed in a voiceless desperation.

He'd lost hope. He'd run through the cycle of hoping that his friends would help him, then to doubt if they could and then finally, before he was buried alive, choking and fighting continuously for existence in the tomb in his own mind, he prayed that they wouldn't try to help him. Because that close to the nahual mind, he could feel the unslakable hunger, and his ability to stop the Jaguar's need to hunt and kill had faded as the hunger grew. He couldn't bear the thought that he might kill one of them like that. The thought that Blair might put himself on the line to save him, naively trust that Jim was in there somewhere and face the Jaguar in the hope Jim would be able to shake off the instinct in the manner of one too many bad plots in movies, terrified him.

It terrified him because Blair would be facing his friend, all the primal parts of himself without the human peculiarities of restraint, compassion or hesitation, so there was no possession to shake off, no spell to break. He was the nahual, the jaguar was him; but like this, not a part he actually admitted to himself he could be. He was terrified he would kill them all and that thought tormented him as he sank and was lost, buried in the depth of the nahual's subconscious like a mouldering subconscious skeleton who had no need for identity as the structure of everything he was rotted away.

And then there was the voice.

".. Come back to me, Jim, I'm making as long a rope as I can, but you have to take hold and .." 

Something about that voice, that started to pull together the eroded fragments that were floating in the void.

"..didn't do all this so I could lose you, Jim, because you don't know help when you see it .. Jim? I know you're there, I can feel you there  .. come on..."

 The whispering echoes of the repeated name 'Jim' formed a kernel for the rebuilding of a lost self, and he used all the energy he had to pull himself together as the world around him tilted and he seemed to be looking up…

"...Come on, Jim, come on, reach for me, don't know how much more of this I can do .. reach for me, man, you can do it .."

The voice drifted and faded on the wind. He frowned. He had hands again. He had a shape, a human shape here and he looked at his fingers with wonder. He had been convinced he had disintegrated forever, his very soul eroded and subsumed by primal instinct.

He looked up, sensing a movement above him in the darkness, the strange curling movement of a living rope slithering towards him. He stretched even as the surface he seemed to be standing on started to crumble as the mindscape around him wavered.

"No! No, I won't fall into the darkness ... No!" he shouted defiantly. He was NOT going to lose himself like that again. Never again!

With every last ounce of effort he could muster, he jumped for that rope, hands gripping tight and yelling incoherently as it twined itself around him like an anaconda.

"BLAIR! BLAIR, HELP ME!"

And there was a flash of light, a connection made and everything changed.

***

Simon had thought that Blair couldn't possibly look any worse; circumstances managed to prove his opinion wrong in one moment. The young man was looking pasty and his eyes half lidded; the whispered words were slurring slightly or tumbling over each other as he slumped inwards on himself. God alone knew how much blood he had given to the Jaguar; he only hoped it was less than it seemed. But it didn't seem to be doing anything, aside from saving their lives, and every time he drew close to try and stop this madness the creature rumbled at him warningly, and continued lapping from the cupped hands.

But then Blair went rigid, his eyes flying wide open and staring unseeing through him in the most chilling way that he had ever experienced. He parted the bowl of his hands, his entire body shaking as if he had received some tremendous shock, or been struck by lightning. 

Simon was half expecting him to collapse in convulsions or a seizure and started cursing under his breath as he moved closer very carefully. He knew he shouldn't have let this happen!

But strangely, Blair didn't collapse, but instead he said in a very clear voice. "I hear you Jim, I've got you. I think you should turn back now, you've been a Jaguar too long."

And the nahaul balam roared, a triumphant thunderous roar, and stretched. Black fur pulled in, bones slid and shifted before his eyes, ears withdrew and the features wavered momentarily between a strange deformed combination of human and jaguar, before snapping back then in a rush to reveal the kneeling form of Jim Ellison, presumed-dead detective of Cascade Major Crimes, clothed, singed and bloodied but most definitely human and alive.

What happened next was nearly as surprising as the transformation. Even as shocked as he was, Simon couldn't help but notice that Jim was shaking like a leaf, but he wasn't expecting him to lean forward and hold onto Sandburg for dear life. That was the only way it could be described. As if the fragile-looking, exhausted anthropologist was the strongest person on the earth at that particular moment in time.

"Oh God, Chief .. oh God..." Jim had never felt the need just to touch another human being so profoundly in all his life. "I was .. I was gone ... shit ..."

It was strange to speak; the returned detective's voice was rough from disuse and overwhelming emotion - and there was something else going on, something had changed between them. He could feel it, even as he felt Blair's arms wrap around him, supporting him in that long moment. He could smell the blood on him, he had to try and face what he had done, but not right now. He couldn't right now.

"..got you, Jim..." Blair managed, completely chalk-white then, even as he tilted and propped himself up against the larger man. "I knew I could get you back. You've gotta trust me on these things."

Jim gave a shaky laugh. "Yeah, chief. Fuck, I'm not doing this again. Ever."

Simon was just staring, blinking away the blurring distortions of emotions from his eyes, feeling their moisture as he rubbed the back of his hand across his face and then shook his head slightly. How the hell could he accept this? He couldn't, but he could ignore the fact that something had just happened and pretend he hadn't seen it and just move on. If he started to think too hard, he'd lose his grip on sanity.

"Sandburg, let's get those arms bandaged immediately," he ordered, focusing on the practicalities. He was fine as long as he did that. "You don't need to lose any more blood. Welcome back, Jim." He tried to think of something sensible to say, but failed, and settled for a rare partial hug to his returned-from-the-dead friend.

"Good to be back," Jim replied in a rough voice even as he turned over Blair's arms and winced. "I did this?" he asked in a tight tone.

Blair shook his head wearily. "No, Jim, I did. Which was kinda the point, actually. I'll explain it later."

"Now that's an explanation I'd like to hear, if only so I don't report you for giving me orders," Simon mock-growled, getting a weak smile from the grad student.

".. Is simple .." Blair looked like he was about to drowse off as his eyelids drooped. "Blood is a fundamental part of all pacts and rituals, and rituals are all about controlling things.."

"Sandburg, you are the only person I know who can confuse me while you are barely conscious," Simon retorted. "All I need to know about is results."

Blair waved airily even as Jim was trying to wrap strips of his partially-shredded shirt around his arms and wrists.

"Jim's alive. That's all the result I need."

Jim looked up at him quickly, feeling a definite tug of an emotion then that was not just his own.

"Thanks to you, Chief," he countered softly, still badly shaken. He had been .. no, he hadn't been anything at all, and that was the point. He'd been gradually eaten away, conscious of what was happening all the time, fighting it but helpless to stop it. He'd never been in that situation before; he'd always had a way to work on, a chance to take that he could risk. Not this time, not after he'd made the decision to reject all of Blair's offers of help.

"Better ask Simon for a raise, then," Blair replied, closing his eyes. "Oh hey, I forgot he doesn't pay me anything."

"In that case, I'm going to put in a request for double your current salary." Simon smiled at them both.

Blair half-grinned. "I'll settle for a one-off bonus."

The bandage strips were pulled tight even as Jim said, "What's that then, Chief?"

"The right to say 'I told you so' to both of you," Blair said with a weary smile and no real bite to his words. "But you know, man, I'm thinking karmically that's not such a good thing, so I'll settle for a retraction of the past few days' suspicions regarding Blair Sandburg's sanity."

Again there was a definite feeling there, something that filled Jim with an aching underneath the awareness of the light tone. There was a connection not unlike the sensation that had followed the merge; an intimacy that was one the one hand startling and on the other terrifying, but more to the point there was a … presence. Jim couldn't describe it any other way.  If he closed his eyes and tried to sense where Blair was in relation to him, he felt him pulsing inside his blood, literally under his skin.

He should have shrugged it off, he should have cracked wise and told him that declaring him sane was a little too unbelievable, but .. he didn't. He looked up at his partner and said, "I'm sorry, Chief. You were right, I should have known that" as he finished off the makeshift bandaging.

The absolute stunned amazement on Sandburg's face couldn't have been feigned. It was almost as if the last thing he ever expected was an apology, let alone one from Jim.

"Jim, I .. nearly.."

"No, Chief, you didn't," Jim said, cutting him off.

Simon was looking at them with a bemused scowl. "Look, this can wait; getting Sandburg to hospital can't, and that means getting out of this building. And from what was said downstairs, the only way to do that is to get to the control panel in the boardroom."

"Getting out of this room might be a start," Blair murmured. His head was thumping, he felt dizzy and nauseous as if he couldn't get enough air, and his heart appeared to be finding a way to climb out of his chest to escape the brands of fire on his arms. And he was tired. Someone had obviously seized the opportunity while he had been distracted to fill his bones with molten lead and siphon off the little strength and drive he had to push himself along over the past few days.

"Maybe Jim could turn into the panther again," Simon suggested, looking at the air vents speculatively.

"No!" Jims protest was instinctive and violent. "No, I'm not doing that ever again! Forget it!"

"You can't?" Simon asked, sounding disappointed.

"He can't," Blair said a little too swiftly, looking at Jim again and then away suddenly.

He knows. Jim wasn't sure whether he was relieved or anxious that Blair knew how deeply the experience had scared him. He knows I can't face that again. What else did he feel in that sudden rush?

"We can take the door out between us all," Jim decided. "Hold on, Chief, let's get you up." He eased his friend to his feet.

"Whoa." Blair wobbled, spots appearing in front of his eyes as he tried to stand even as Simon went over to the door.

"Steady, Chief." The touch made the connection brighter and clearer, and Jim lowered his voice. "What's .. what happened to us, Blair?" he asked quietly.

"You accepted my gift, the offering of blood," the anthropology student replied softly. "And I'm thinking that is how the ancient Olmecs and other cultures controlled the nahual sentinels."

Jim had a very nasty suspicion crawl out of the fear of his mind, ugly and terrifying in its conclusion. "You could make me change. You control that."

Blair nodded slowly. "I think so."

"Fuck." Jim Ellison, totally at the mercy of another person. Able to be plunged into his worst nightmare by someone else. Even with that person being a friend, a best friend – handing over that sort of control to anyone was terrifying. It was enough to through his newly reclaimed reason  and mind, still raw and fresh into an unreasoning panic.

"Promise me, Chief .. promise me that you will never under any circumstances do that to me. Swear it." He gripped Blair tight as he emphasised his point.

Blair nodded wearily. "I swear, Jim. I swear I won't. Trust me, I'd never do that to you."

Jim looked at him, fighting a terrible feeling of insecurity, as if he was dangling back over that chasm again and he could be pushed and fall at any time. The mere thought of it was enough to stir cold, hard fear to choke him, and he had to clamp down on everything to stop that from ruling him.

He couldn't even look at Blair then, wanting to shrink away, so he missed the expression of a tired exhausted hurt in his friend's eyes as Blair felt Jim flinch, saw the pulling away.

Sandburg wondered then if the warning that he could have died from the process might not have been a blessing rather than a curse.

Blair had to face an existence where the person he had done this for, been willing to give everything for, flinched from him, hated him. And yeah, he'd accepted the fact he might lose everything, but that didn't mean it didn't hit him with a surge of reaction that made him feel physically ill, his joints ache and everything he had used to keep himself together was disintegrating bit by bit.

His vision started to grey a bit and his balance went to pieces even as he heard Simon kicking hard at the door, repeatedly.

"Jim?" Blair realised his voice sounded echoey as if he was listening to himself through a plastic tube. "I've kinda got this..uh.. self-serving spineless goober thing going on right now," he said distantly, knowing Jim would understand the reference even if Simon didn't.

 That earned him a hasty check.

"How much did I .. take ..?"  Jim asked eventually, not liking the look of his friend at all. Guilt flickered over his expression, marking him with its warm touch.

"Couple of pints, maybe more." Blair admitted slowly, not really having a clue how much it was. He'd been in a semi-ecstatic altered stated of consciousness at the time and things appeared different then.

"Jesus, Blair! You shouldn't have…" Jim faded off at the silence from Blair that dared him to say he hadn't needed it or wanted it.

"I'll slow you and Simon down. You know it," Blair replied firmly, wishing the greyness to his vision would back off. "Man, if I could walk more than a few metres then I'd be with you, but.."

"You're a spineless self-serving goober, yeah, I know," Jim finished for him in a curiously concerned tone. "You sure you're going to be okay, Chief?"

Blair just gave a slight smile and shrugged a shoulder at him even as he wobbled again.

"We'll find you somewhere safe to rest," Jim promised. "Then get the reinforcements in and get you seen to."

"You too, Jim." Blair gestured painfully. "That bullet clipped you when you were a Jaguar. Burns too ..."

"I'm okay. " Jim glanced at his side. It hurt, but he was still running on adrenaline.

"Look, are you two just going to talk, or help? Jim, use that army training of yours and kick the damn door down," Simon interrupted grumpily.

"Sure." Jim kicked the door in the exact spot and the door flew open.

Simon scowled. "Smartass."

"Got to make up for the face somehow," Blair chipped in hazily.

"No kidding, Sandburg," Simon replied even as Jim used his Sentinel hearing to check there was no one close and led them out.

"We're finding Blair somewhere safe,"  Jim said quietly. "He can't move."

Simon glanced at Blair who did look like he belonged more in an ICU than clambering up a building after them. "I could stay," the police captain offered looking between Jim and Blair for an answer.

"No, Jim will need you." Blair was guided into a private office area and was put on the couch. "I'll be okay, just lie here until you do the good guys thing. You know, storm the board room, cavalry arrives, yay for the good guys .. that sort of thing. You save the day. I'll just ... take a load off."

He wasn't fooling either of them, but Simon had to agree it made sense. "Just stay out of sight, Sandburg, no heroics."

Blair snorted. "Are you kidding? Go ...go on, both of you. Hero stuff for you to do. Me? I'll be doing what all sensible anthropologists do in an emergency - falling asleep."

Simon snorted and had to wait for Jim who took great pains to make sure Blair was comfortable before they left him and headed up to try and take back the building.

***

"Is the building secure?" The tall blond man turned around to his aide.

Lyle Hawker nodded. "The protection detail near the ground floor experienced difficulties. I still haven't had coherent reports," he replied, "But the upper levels are ours. Congratulations, sir, you have nominal control of the Organisation."

The blond man nodded. "Stupid fools, not even considering the possibility of an internal coup. Still, they paid for their arrogance. Transport and cleanup is on the way?"

"Indeed, sir." Lyle nodded. "I am concerned about who might have been in the building at the lockdown. There is a faint possibility that it might be a certain Detective Ellison."

That earned him a sharp look. "The one in the file? I thought he was declared killed at the warehouse explosion."

"It's a possibility, sir. I've since discovered that the Federal Agent reported killed actually wasn't."

"Dammit, Hawker! You lured them in with genuine information. What if one of them still has it?" the man exploded.  "You assured me that information was secure and the login access and download would register to Jacobs!"

"It did, sir, or else the emergency meeting wouldn't have been called and your takeover wouldn't have occurred," Lyle replied, looking at the security system displays. "The Federal Agent doesn't have it, but Ellison is still alive ..." He tapped the screen.

"We have three heat signatures registering in the building that are not our people. These two seem to be making their way upstairs, and we'll have people waiting for them. This one has remained stationary for the past half hour or so."

"Wounded, you think?" the blond-haired man asked, raising an eyebrow.

Lyle nodded. "Easiest target of the three for information purposes. If Ellison is alive and has that download, then you have just taken over a death-trap of a business."

The man gestured. "Collect the third person, make them talk. Perhaps Ellison would surrender if an innocent were threatened. It would fit his profile. Whatever has to be done, do it .. but make sure there is no download or witnesses  to complicate things."

Lyle nodded in agreement. "As you say, sir. I'll take care of it immediately."

***

Taking stock, in amongst the moments where exhaustion dragged him out of consciousness, Blair was discovering something else. He was starting to hurt. His body hurt, various parts of it seemingly competing to get the most of his attention. Blood loss was worse than he thought, with the lowered blood pressure causing all sorts of strange effects. It felt almost like he were on the verge of a panic attack all the time, with his heart thumping away very loudly, his headache hovering just this side of a migraine and the nausea and dizziness persisting even though he was lying down. His arms were pulsing hot and painful and his throat felt bruised as well. All of this nearly, very nearly conspired to hide the fact that the numbed emotional wounds inside him were starting to regain their feeling.

Whether it was Jim's final flinching away from him that had proven to be the last straw, or something in the merging and connection had triggered it, he had no idea, but a month's worth of avoidance was preparing to hit him around the back of the head hard.

How could a single act of shrinking away be so painful? It wasn't like he hadn't experienced it before. Perhaps it was because this time, he knew this could be it. He knew about Jim and control. Hell, they made enough jokes about it, but it had a basis in fact. Jim might like him, or possibly care for him, but even if he loved him, how many people would give even the person they loved complete control of their worst nightmare? Jim wouldn't, not willingly at least.

And he wouldn't understand about the ritual tests because he hadn't experienced them, he wouldn't realise that Blair had mentally been willing to die in his place to bring him back, which surely was demonstration enough of his trustworthiness.

He was being attacked by wakening memories, glad in one way Jim wasn't here. Perhaps then it was best that he ... leave. But would that solve the problem, who only knew? Being hated would kill him; Jim had become his reason to exist after his death, and being rejected would leave him with … nowhere. He curled up and tried to stop the memories awakening, but the images were so demanding that he never heard the two men who entered his sanctuary and grabbed him roughly even as he startled awake.

"Hey! Get .. mmph..." Blair managed just before a rag was stuffed in his mouth, his arm yanked painfully behind him and secured and he was carried, thrashing and kicking enthusiastically, over to the temporarily-unlocked elevator.

He would have thought he might have known better by now. Staying behind in 'safety' was the quickest damn way to end up hip deep in danger, in Cascade anyway. Fighting wasn't winning him any friends either; one of his rather well-aimed kicks to the groin ended in him being dropped on the elevator floor and once the swearing had ceased there had been some rather swift and unpleasantly accurate retribution.

"Stop that." A new voice said as the doors opened. "He's not going to do us any good if he can't answer questions. Get him out here."

Blair became dimly away that he was being hefted over someone's shoulder and taken over to a couch.  Ironically being carried like that, head down, did a lot to clear the muzziness of his thoughts even though he blinked as he was thumped down and pain shot up his arms.

The makeshift gag was pulled out of his mouth and he coughed immediately, his lungs starting up that rasping sound that he now knew was the start of another chest infection.

"Well, well ... you know InTech have a very strict policy on breaking and entering, you know." A voice said near to him and he looked around, seeing Lyle Hawker in front of him.  His eyes widened a moment.

"I see you recognise me, which can only mean you work as part of Major Crimes, one of Cascade's finest." The man crouched closer, gripping Blair's face and turning it to show the technicolour rainbow of the healing bruise from his run-in with the sniper. "A-ha. The irrepressible Mr Sandburg, I believe. I have heard about you ..that makes introductions a great deal easier, doesn't it? We're almost old friends here."

Blair looked up at the man, "Screw you, man. What the hell is all this about? Aren't you a..?"

"A Fed?" Lyle shook his head, completely open about it in front of others, "Perhaps once I was. Things change, sometimes in a matter of moments, just like life and death. You of all people should know that, Blair. May I call you Blair?"

"You may as well, no one else does," Blair said tersely. "You can also tell me if there is any particular reason that you dragged me up here out of my nap. Perfectly good waste of sleep, man."

Lyle actually laughed a moment, though his dark eyes remained untouched. "Well, I was curious, Blair ... curious as to what you were doing here and who you were with. Because rumour has it that you and Detective Ellison are joined at the hip?"

"Well, I can see why you aren't a Fed anymore," Blair replied, allowing some of his anger at life in general to leak over. "That might be a bit difficult as my partner is dead - fucking set up by you!"

"I would very much like to believe that, but I'm finding it hard to ..."

"I wouldn't think that a man who could plan the death of his own sister would find much hard to believe," Sandburg shot back, the anger fairly crackling off of him as he strove to keep the man off balance. "Your buddies here know about that? How you are a sellout federal agent, and willing to kill your own family?"

The man covered the angry reaction smoothly and plastered on a thick fake smile. "The job does have some perks, after all."

"Yeah, I bet. Shit, man, you really are a piece of work! You think there is anywhere for you to go after this? Give it UP!" Blair looked at him in disgust. "And there is your sister, thinking you are doing all you can to bring down this organisation, and giving you the benefit of the doubt, and it was you all along ..or let me guess, you were misunderstood, you were found out? Oh no, wait, wait – the ends justify the means, that's a good one." Blair's eyes were electric with rage that seemed to pour out of him "Newsflash, man, there are some things that no ends can justify!"

"Oh ho ... You think so?" Lyle crouched and looked at him face to face. "You think you have anger, little man?" he hissed in Blair's face, his eyes dead, devoid of the spark of compassion and life. "There are some crimes that don't need justice, they need vengeance. The person you love being murdered is one of those." He gave a twisted smile. "You know what I like about vengeance? It strips away all weakness, all compunction, and makes you blind to any distraction. There might have been a time before when I might have resisted working over a civilian like yourself, Blair."

He smiled again, a shark smile. "That was before I was betrayed by my own people, my own sister, and nearly died in New York. People who, as an afterthought, killed the woman I had fallen in love with. I waited all my life for her - Elaine, and I found her in there, deep in the heart of the RedStars ... and God, I'd never been so happy or in so much danger in my life. But she's dead. And now that place where she should be in my life is filled with the need for vengeance.  And I'm telling you this, Blair, as a favour to you. I want you to abandon any hope that I might be bluffing, that I'm really a good guy because I'm not, but frankly, beating someone to death can be time-consuming and I want answers now."

He gestured and two of the men around him dragged the shaky anthropologist upright. Blair stood as straight as he could, glaring at them all.

"You get one chance to do this easy." Lyle sat back, leaning against the desk watching him a moment. "Where is Jim Ellison, and does he have the downloaded data?"

Blair shook his head. "Man, don't you listen to me? Jim is DEAD. You killed him. He saved your fucking sister and he was killed, for Christ's sake!"

It was evidently the wrong answer and Blair found himself doubled over in pain, considering where to decorate the floor if he gave in to the urge to vomit from the impact to his stomach.

"Wrong answer, Blair." Lyle tsked at him. "And here I was thinking we have a good relationship going on here. Shall we try that again?"

"Go to hell, Lyle!" Blair was clinging to the rage in him that had got him this far.

"I could give you directions, if you want," the other man replied coldly, "We know you are in here with someone, two people actually. I'm betting that one of them is Ellison."

"You'd bet wrong." Blair straightened again. "Is there a part of the concept of being dead you don't understand? Considering you've got such a chip on your shoulder about it. Or do you think SHE is going to turn up out of nowhere, too, huh? She'd be pretty fucking disappointed in you if she did."

Blair caught sight of the anger in the man's eyes. Well great, he'd managed to distract him by really pissing him off. He wanted to call to Jim, needed the help, but stopped himself because the 'reaching' was too strong. If he 'reached' he could force Jim to change, command him to come to him to rescue him.

But he had promised not to ever do that to his friend.

He had promised.

***

Simon nearly ran into the back of Jim as the ex-ranger suddenly stopped and swayed a little. "Jim?" he hissed in a whisper, checking the stairwell behind him. "You hear something? You okay?"

Jim shook his head. "No .. I felt something." He turned and looked around and Simon was amazed to see the hint of betrayal in his expression. "I think it's Sandburg. It feels like a presence tugging inside of me. Like a hand just held over the top of me. Dammit, Chief, you promised ..you..." He tensed again and then relaxed.

"Jim? What the hell is this?" Simon questioned again urgently as he glanced around for enemies.

 "Hold on a moment." Jim held up his hand and listened hard, scanning the building for Blair.

 Not where they had left him.

With a sinking heart he scanned upwards and then stopped.

.",, it's a simple question, Blair, all I need is a simple answer." A man's voice replied. "And we can stop all this unpleasantness, though I believe Russ there might want to ..um ..discuss a few things about you kneeing him the groin just then. He's not a patient man. But he's a fucking saint compared to me. For the last time, who were you with? Where is Jim Ellison and does he still have the downloaded data?"

He could hear the faint coughing and hitched breathing of someone in pain and then a hiss as long hair was used to pull back his partner's head.

"..He's dead...told you, man, Jim Ellison is ...dead. I lost him ..." There was the unmistakable sound of something hard hitting flesh hard, then the almost breathless, inaudible cursing from Sandburg, along with a heavy thump to the floor.

Jim's eyes widened in horror and immediately he was locked onto the sounds, the rasping pain of his friend's breathing, the sounds of him kicking out at anyone who came close.

"So who is the third man? We already know the second was Simon Banks. Shame he didn't make it." The male voice pushed again.

Jim heard the sharp inhalations of pain, a different kind of pain. "You're lying, man."

"Believe what you want. Who is the other heat signature?"

He heard Blair laugh, a short bitter laugh  ."You wouldn't believe it, man ..."

"Try me." The man did not sound amused.

"A panther. You did know you took over a building with a damn attack cat in it, didn't you?" Blair's voice was defiant and Jim could almost imagine him staring his interrogator down.

There was an angry silence and the sound as if someone had been hurled bodily across the room.

"I have no patience for games, Blair."

"I ... I'm serious." The words sounded a little ragged. "You think I got the rips in my arms from .. the security .. guard?" There was a pause and the sound of cloth being torn. "Ow! Shit, man! Don't wreck the bandages, Simon will be pissed at .."

A sharp pain on his cheek brought him round "Shit, Ellison!"

Jim blinked, coming around at the slap from Simon. "What?"

"Well, thank God for that, the kid makes it look damn easy." Simon replied. "Was that ..?"

"A zone? Yeah." Jim swallowed and turned haunted eyes to his Captain. "Blair's in trouble. They've got him  .. they're.trying to find out if I'm still alive and .." He reached suddenly to his pocket. He did still have the disc there. He had no idea how the transformation worked, but everything he had on him when he changed he had now. "And this." He pulled out the CD.

Simon stared at it as if it were the literal Holy Grail. "The information to eradicate the Red Stars Agent Hawker mentioned - you had it and it was thought lost .. with you."

Jesus, his friend was here evidently not-dead in front of him and holding the information for which they had been pulling overtime for months. The information seemed to hit him afresh and he kept waiting to wake, or something. But this was real. He looked the same, sounded the same, but after what had happened it was a wonder he wasn't losing it.

"How's Blair doing.. I mean, are they ..ah..?"

Jim nodded slowly, listening up the other stairs.

"Shit." Simon looked up as if he could see or hear the grad student as the ex-Army Ranger could.

"We've got to get there. They're waiting for us on both stairwells" Jim said, checking his weapon, desperation in his eyes even as Simon looked over the automatic he had acquired from their battles. "Come on! We've got to get to him."

***

Blair was lying face pressed into the floor. As he blinked, dazed again, he focused on the fact that he was making a large dark red stain from his nose on the rather expensive carpet.

That'll teach them, he considered muzzily. Yeah, watch me fight them with the ability to inconvenience their cleaning bill. Take that!

He became dimly aware that Lyle was talking to him again.

"You know, what I don't understand, Blair, is why you are trying to be so loyal to a man who's left you to die before."

"He didn't." Blair rolled to look up awkwardly even as the response came automatically to his lips, "He .. came after me."

Lyle laughed. "You are so naïve, Blair. I read the files on you and Ellison. It was obvious to me, stop fooling yourself."

Blair shivered a little as the words conjured up all the horror of that time. Why couldn't this have happened before, when his memories were still numb with shock?  It was a compulsion to ask the question even though he knew it was a trap, even as he swallowed, tasting the metallic tinge of blood as he did so. "What was obvious?"

Lyle laugh was cold and mocking. "You mean you didn't realise that Ellison and Barnes were both using you as bait? That's all you were to either of them ... bait to lure out the other. Good strategic move mind, if Ellison hadn't screwed up."

The impact of those clinical words hit him worse than any of the physical attacks. He stiffened as the possibility scratched like a fingernail over the emotional chalkboard where he had patiently assembled all his reasons ... excuses for Jim's behaviour, his own behaviour.

"My God, you didn't realise?" Lyle laughed at him incredulously, "You mean you've let him get away with it? He threw you out, tossed you out like a lump of meat to draw her in and you've been protecting him?"

Oh god, he wished the pain would stop now. He was too tired for this.

"He didn't know," he murmured softly. "He didn't know it was her."

"Really? I'm talking about that night. He knew it was her then, didn't he, and that she was on the loose? Knew that you and she knew each other. You tell me that a friend would let someone they even remotely thought might attract the attention of a killer be alone and unprotected, on a night she was on the loose? You were sold down the river, Blair ..or at least into the fountain." The ex-agent chuckled at his weak attempt at wit.

He shuddered, hearing that cold assessment. "He wouldn't. He came after me .." Blair mumbled again. "He'll come after me."

Lyle gave a triumphant smile "So he is alive. You know where he is, don't you? Does he have the data?"

"I don't know. I don't know." Shit, couldn't he even keep his mouth shut for one second?

A new voice spoke. "We can't wait much longer. Step this up."

"Patience, sir." Lyle replied to the man over his shoulder. "I have just the thing to get him to talk." Blair felt himself lifted. "Take him to the upstairs reception area ... I believe our hosts have got another one of those hugely expensive feng shui water features there as well as downstairs. May as well make some use of it. You two, bring Mr Sandburg. I've heard it can be rather beneficial to face your worst fears. It's not a big fountain like Rainer's, but you can drown in a puddle if you try, and this is bigger than that."

"..no.." Blair could barely raise a whisper, around the cold that flooded through him. No, he couldn't do that again. It was all he could do to walk past the damn thing at Rainer without flinching. This would have been a really good time for his strength to make a miraculous appearance. He tried to get his legs working as he was dragged through into an executive reception area and he could hear the bubbling trickle of water close and fear reached into him, a blizzard of shock and cold in his mind and body.

"No!" He shouldn't have had any strength left, but he found the energy to struggle released by that raging whirlwind of fear, but his arms were still tied behind him, his legs refusing to cooperate properly due to blood loss, and the various kicks he'd received seemed to have resulted in his knee refusing to bend.

He ended up bent over the side of the water feature, a hand pushing his face close to the surface of the water, which he was struggling to stay away from as if it were boiling acid. He was beginning to appreciate Jim's dread of feng shui in a whole different way.

"Last chance, Blair." Lyle Hawker's visage appeared close to his, his voice soft and private ."This must be pretty unpleasant for you. All those memories coming back to haunt you. Did you call for him when she was pushing you under?"

The question stung as it hit the mark, and Blair pulled away, even as he was pushed closer. "Screw you, man!" he gasped. "You know shit!"

"Tell me if he has the data." Lyle repeated, putting his hand on the curls on the back of Sandburg's head "Tell me now. Last chance, Blair. I want Jim Ellison and the data. Talk!"

 "How ..the hell would I know?" Blair replied, his voice rasping his defiance.

"Well, it was nice talking to you, Blair," Lyle replied, and pushed down hard, plunging the police observer's head deep into the chlorinated water.

Wisps of his hair floated wildly in front of his eyes as he held his breath and struggled hard. There was a knee in his back holding him down, preventing him from kicking and pinning his hands, too.

The first ache of the need for oxygen smouldered at the base of his lungs

Ohmygod,ohmygod, can't breathe, not again ..can't ..

His lungs started to burn with the pressure and he exhaled, feeling the bubbles of stale air roll up past his face to tangle in his hair.

He could feel himself 'reaching' again, the fear making him metaphorically search for a way out. 

It would be so easy to reach inside of Jim, to call forth the panther to save him. The temptation drifted like a lifeline before outstretched fingers.

He needed to breathe…he needed Jim ..he ...

Couldn't betray Jim like that again. He'd seen the darkness, felt it in that linking and realised it was a fate worse than death ... he'd promised.

"Well, Chief, I don't know what you want me to say. I don't know if I can get past this. To me, it was a real breach of trust and that struck really deep with me."

"I've got to have a partner I can trust."

The 'reaching' halted, trembling inside of him. No. He would not. What was the point of living if he screwed up again? Betrayed him again. It was over anyway, there was no one. Jim would be relieved not to have that threat in him and..

His lungs were wildfire now.

Had to.

Breathe ... water...

And he jerked and flailed as the first watery inhalation hit his lungs, the taste of chlorine burning all the way down his throat.

***

It was a little disconcerting to see Jim freeze midway through their firefight. They were barely a floor away from the boardroom and pinned down, as they made little progress to their goal.

Jim tensed again. "No...no..." he protested to thin air, "Don't, Sandburg.."

"Jim? What is it?" Simon tried to keep him with him.

"He's reaching for me again. Closer." Jim swayed.

"I still don't see the problem," Simon muttered and returned fire up the stairwell. "You made it through those gun battles to that lab room with only one mark on you. And that firefight at the warehouse. Looks to me that, a sentinel Jaguar can practically walk around bullets, so why the hell are you crouched down here when  they are working over your best friend?!"

"You don't understand what it was like, Simon. I'd rather die than go through that again!" Jim replied in a tight, intense tone.

The jaw was clenched and tight. "And Sandburg 'reaching for you' can .. what? Make you change?"

Jim nodded. "He promised. Dammit! He promised, Simon! He's going to, I can feel it." He tensed again.

" The kid's tough, we know that, so what the hell are they doing to him to make him do this? Simon demanded. "Jim? Jim!?"

~echoing splashes, muted sounds of terror distorted as if through water the reaching again~

"No..."Jim widened his eyes in anguish, partly of what was happening to his friend, and what he thought was going to happen. "Chief..." He half started up almost instinctively.

"Jim!" Simon pushed him away from the gunfire and swore.

"They're drowning him ..dr ..ahh..."

The reaching intensified and then it faded, as if the hand closed … and then his senses were filled with the sound of liquid gurgling down into lungs as Blair took the long-held breath under water. Jim flinched and stood totally bewildered and astonished.

"He didn't do it, he's drowning instead of doing it! I've got to get to him!" He looked like he was going to just run out into the middle of the gunfight and Simon grabbed his shoulder.

 "You idiot! You won't make it, not unless you change or something! You know that!"

"I can't, Simon," Jim refused, checking his gun, "I just .. can't. You don't know what you are asking!"

"Damn right I don't. And that's why I can ask it," Simon snapped back, worry making him sharp,. "I thought better of you, Jim. I don't know what I'm asking, and frankly I don't care. All I see is that somehow it's fine for Blair to endure his worst nightmare for you, but you can't face yours for him. That's what it looks like from here."

Jim looked at him, the sounds unbearable, all his instincts warring in that moment. If he changed now he might never come back and he would be worse than dead ...but ..

Blair. God, what he had done - no one had believed in him like that, ever. Simon was wrong, but in asking the question he had forced the answer.

"Get to the control board, Simon, there's choppers overhead ..ours, I think, but they can't land for some reason. I'm going after Blair," he said abruptly.

 He stood and reached for that place that tugged inside and the nahual form slipped its leash and he shifted into darkness, a piece of the night made flesh, with reflexes and speed that could not be matched.

Simon nearly dropped his gun in shock and with trembling fingers lifted it to aim again. He couldn't cope with the kid dying again. And he knew Jim wouldn't make it if he did. God, what a mess. To have the miracle given to him, then cruelly snatched away with interest claimed.

***

He was yanked up by his hair and his body convulsed, coughing the water out of his lungs painfully as he gasped for precious oxygen.

"You really want to do this again, Blair? You really want to go back in?" He was pushed under again, his straining lungs inhaling more water and then up again and he was held there when it happened.

The connection he had held back from rushed into HIS mind, much like the feeling of the merge they had experienced and he convulsed again as if struck by internal lightning. He could feel the energy from him begin to flow out, away towards Jim, draining him moment by moment. The blood had been the physical level and starting point of the ritual, but it appeared that for every transformation there was a sacrifice required – and normally this was energy, not blood.

It wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't lost so much blood, been worked over and then partially drowned, but he could feel himself going into shock ..and he could sense Jim's mind. Jim's mind was in control of the panther and he was coming for him, running, fighting, not letting anything stand in his way...

He was amazed that he could feel Jim's mind, sense the complexities and myriad emotions that made up his friend. He could feel the fear, the terrifying dread that he was going to fall into that hungry abyss again, but at the same time he could feel the flaming, blazing need in him to get to his friend, to rescue him.

It was a revelation of sorts. Like falling into fire, the emotion lit up in stark relief the dark flickering shadows of pain, worry, guilt, tangling through the fact that Jim cared deeply about him. That feeling filled the man, a restless ocean of emotion he didn't seem to know how to deal with, that he fought to contain and control, but it stretched out and ebbed and flowed with its own internal tides ... Jim probably hated the fact he had feelings like that.

He could hold on if Jim cared, had to, as the knowledge was instinctive that if he died now before commanding the change back, he would leave Jim trapped in his worst nightmare and condemned to a literal fate worse than death.

He could feel meaning, words mixed in with the connection. He didn't hear the words so much as he felt them mingled with images, the meaning somehow translating into his mind.

:I'm coming Blair, hold on, oh god don't die, please, I'm sorry, I would have understood if you'd made me change, I would have ..you didn't have to die for me again..:

 :I hear you Jim : He pushed back :Hurry, I 'm holding on, but I have no strength, and .. I'm sorry ..:

He didn't even know what he was apologising for, only that there was a need for it and an upwelling of dark regret that he could not stop.  His time was running out, energy pouring away like sand in an hourglass, feeding the nahual so Jim's mind remained intact.

:Chief?: the response was soaked in incredulity as well as recognition : I feel you, this isn't the same. The hunger isn't there, I feel .. it's taking from you, isn't it. Hold on, I'm coming. Who is there? :

Blair opened his eyes, discovering he had been dropped on the floor. His vision was fading and he coughed, his mouth filling with liquid warmed to blood heat in his lungs that gushed with the force of the cough behind it. Breathing in was a strain, water compressing the space, the oxygen he could get down there as he floundered, shaking all over. He couldn't stand any more.

"...pushed him too far, into some sort of a seizure." The other man was complaining. "We must leave. If we have to be sure, then raze the building, like New York."

"Ellison has a history of surviving the impossible," Lyle was saying. "And he will come after Mr Sandburg here. It's his weakness."

***

The change he had been so afraid of was smooth and somehow very different from before. He was dreading the emergence of the hunger and the presence of the insidious drug of jaguar-thoughts and yet … though he could feel the shape of them, he was himself, Jim Ellison, with all his very human thoughts, feelings and shortcomings intact. And that was a miracle in itself. All he felt this time was the power and the strength of the body he commanded, the reflexes that no human could hope to duplicate or counter.  Something, no someone was turning the nightmare around and there were no prizes for guessing who that person was. He bounded up the stairs, able to smell and sense when an opponent was about to fire, to zigzag and clear the route for Simon behind him.  It was ridiculously easy in this shape.

He could feel the presence again, stronger, complete inside of him. He could see and feel Blair's mind connected inextricably with his own and the pain in it nearly made him falter.  The colours, the feelings - he had never seen anything so beautiful. It was at a time like this he could appreciate the term brilliant, because Blair's mind glittered and shone in his awareness, lit with his emotions, which were light, warm and pervasive – and powerful. Incredibly powerful. And wounded. He'd been bleeding all this time, covering up that arrow in his centre all this time and pretending that nothing touched him, that he was coping and they'd let him because it was easier than facing what they had done and allowed to happen to him. He had loosed that vision arrow at his friend over a month ago, and never reached out to see if the damage had truly mended – and now all too clearly he could see that it had stayed, working deeper and deeper on a mental and emotional level that his partner was so adroit at concealing.

He could see the pain trying to strangle the bright thoughts, twisting in and around them, so although they were not revealed, the doubts were there, blended with the complete and utter isolation and despair he felt at trying to reach them while all the time bleeding emotionally and having them all ignore every attempt. His friend was tired beyond exhaustion, trying to cope with his own descent into darkness and return.

My God .. I never realised ..

:I hear you, Jim: The presence felt as if it was exhausted beyond the comprehension of normal limits of endurance, but was somehow carrying on … and he realised with a shock that the energy that made it so different to be the panther this time was coming from his partner and friend.

 :Hurry, I 'm holding on, but I have no strength and .. I'm sorry..:

The feelings then were of an anguish unfiltered by human perceptions or shields. He was losing him; he needed to get to him!

:Chief?: he responded, focusing toward him, trying to send reassurance : I feel you, this isn't the same. The hunger isn't there, I feel .. it's taking from you isn't it. Hold on, I'm coming. Who is there? : he repeated.

Images drifted back to him, from Blair's perspective and memories, saturated with the sensations of pain and exhaustion that showed him who was there, where they were. Blair was running out of time and instinctively he knew that meant he was too. He had been wrong; Blair hadn't leashed him, he had bound them both together, each as tied as the other, losing and gaining simultaneously.

He opened the door and slunk in and jumped up on the receptionist's desk, his black form mirrored in the fake marble surface. He let the hunting rumble escape him as his muzzle curled and he exposed the long gleaming white incisors.

Attention was dragged away from Blair, which had been the intention.  He roared and the sound was like thunder in the open area. And then he moved, and moved fast.

There was one major advantage of being the panther. No one thought to use people as hostages against a cat.  Blair was lying there, shaking in full view and no one was grabbing him and forcing Jim to back down, which was possibly the only thing that could have stopped him. He may not have been overwhelmed by his nahual spirit like before, but he was more than willing to share the elemental rage at what had been done to Blair.

He was on the first hired help in moments; the lunge and jump bringing his quarry down with a thump hard enough that the crack of his head on the floor would convince anyone he was out of the game. Jim found he could feel and smell the moment when bullets were being fired his way from the shifts in scent and aura and he leaped up, then sprang out over space even as people panicked and tried to shoot him.

He was dancing black fire around them, his panther body and reflexes combined with a human's reasoning ability making him impossible to evade. All the time he fought he was conscious of that presence in his own mind, fading and dimming moment by moment as Blair was slipping away. He had to get to him, protect him and get him to turn him back so he would not drain any more of his guide's remaining energy.

He jumped to the edge of the feng shui water feature and roared again, his large jaguar head swinging around as he heard Simon sneak into the other room to the control console that would deactivate the hi-tech security of the building. With his usual skill with all things electronic, Simon elected to shoot the crap out of the console, and the lights flickered and cut out abruptly.

He jumped down to Sandburg, seeing him shaking still, the scent of blood all over him, the sound of water in his lungs and the small convulsive coughs that had no energy in them somehow terrifying. The energy patterns with all their vivid colours were collapsing inwards in small vortices, drawing away from the surface of his body and curling up into a tightly knit area like a galaxy collapsing slowly into itself, and he could feel in himself the echo of pains stabbing all over him, centering on his chest. Blair would not be able to take much more of any of this. It was a source of amazement that he was still conscious even now.

"I can't see the fucking thing!" The voice sounded panicked

 "It was over by the water feature, you idiot - hose the area!"

Jim looked up, feline eyes seeing easily in the dark at where the blundering Red Stars were aiming. Blair was a trussed-up sitting duck in their promised line of fire. He should have jumped clear, but he hastily gripped Sandburg by his soaked shirt and dragged him out of danger so his body covered his as the bullets flew.

Pain, an impact in heavy muscle near his left shoulder and he yowled in pain as a bullet caught him, but got Blair out of the way before he stopped and the emergency lighting flickered on.

:Hurt … you're hurt.: Blair's presence once again in his mind.

:Nothing much, Chief. You can't take any more of this, can you?: Jim replied softly into that connection between them.

The response was a feeling of shame and guilt over not being able to hold on as long as Jim needed. :Too much already, I think. I'm so tired, Jim, really tired. I don't think ..if I sleep I'll be able to wake up again:

Fear struck at Jim then, not fear that he might be trapped, but fear of losing Blair again.

:Hold on for me buddy, just hold on. Bring me back now, I'll make sure we'll cope. Simon's released the security system, help is on the way. Just hold on a little longer Chief? Please?:

The response was shaky and weak. : I'll try. Taste some of the blood from me, Jim, it's part of the ritual.:

There was no lack of it and he let the Jaguar lick a spot on Blair's face, remembering how this had all started, and heard Blair wheeze out in a hoarse whisper. "Turn back, Jim, become human again."

It was like a switch was pulled and he could feel the change flow over him, the fur retracted, his bones shift and he was there, kneeling next to his friend. Unfortunately, bullet wounds were much more painful in this form and the bullet was obviously wedged in tightly at a peculiar angle.

"Blair, c'mon buddy, I'm here," he murmured, leaning over him, his left arm refusing to work properly. His friend was cold and clammy to the touch, and he drew his gun. "Just a little longer, they've landed on the roof. I can hear Connor."

The lights flickered on again as an emergency generator kicked in, and the men that Jim had left standing started to emerge. "All teams, get the hell back here, we're clearing out and covering tracks. If you are still in the building in five minutes, you take the consequences." The blond-haired man spoke into a handset and turned. "Set the timer, Hawker."

"You'll put the timer down and put your hands up." Jim's voice rang out as he stepped out from the niche where he had dragged Sandburg to comparative safety. "Cascade PD! Surrender your weapons, you are all under arrest!"

"Ellison - I am not surprised."   Lyle Hawker showed no inclination towards surrendering his weapon, and the others with him hesitated. "You seriously expect to take us out alone?"

"Not alone." Simon's voice announced his steady presence from the side entrance. "Your security lockdown has been released. You are moments away from a Federal task force descending upon you from all sides. Give it up."

Lyle smiled at them both. "Well played, gentlemen. But I am the one holding the timer, and we do have the equivalent of a self-destruct function. No 'building of tomorrow' is complete without one. I learnt that from the Bureau." His voice was sharp with bitterness as he held up an electronic timer undoubtedly similar to the one used on the warehouse that had nearly claimed Jim's life. "Clear passage or I blow us all to hell."

The man beside him looked at him, stunned. "Hawker.. you can't..."

"Shut up, Reinhardt," Lyle said, holding the timer in one hand and his gun in the other. "You should have stayed a freelancer like your brother, you don't have the head for big business."

Without needing to look he raised his gun and fired at the man standing next to him at point blank range in the side of the head. "I mean that literally now of course. Good-bye Mr Hettinger. Shame you made the same mistake your colleagues did. 'Stupid fools, not even considering the possibility of an internal coup', my ass." He looked scathingly at the corpse for a brief moment, smiling with faint satisfaction.

He turned back to Jim and Simon. "Safe passage out of here and the data download and I'll not blow up the building. Seems fair?"

"You won't do that," Jim said calmly, managing to hold his gun steady even with his own blood drenching his shoulder rapidly. Some of the nahual strength was lingering, but he could feel himself starting to unravel into fatigue and pain. "Why would you want to kill yourself along with us?"

Lyle laughed, a hollow husk of a laugh. "Because I realistically have nothing to lose? I'm the most powerful man on earth at the moment, Detective Ellison. I don't care if I live or die. I don't care who goes with me because both sides are as guilty from where I am standing. The Feds betrayed me, killed the woman I love and left me to die. My own SISTER led that raid. The only reason that I want that disc is so I can destroy the RedStars with what the crime families describe as 'extreme' prejudice'. I don't trust the Feds, or you or anyone to do it. Plus of course, there are the details of the financials on there – perhaps I might be able to find enough oblivion if I have enough money. But really, if it comes to it, I'll cut my losses. You think I care if I died now? Do you know what it feels like to lose someone like that? The person you need to live?"

"Yes," Jim said softly, glancing very briefly at the prone form he was standing over. "I do. And if they loved you and cared for you, they wouldn't want you to do this."

"But she's not here to stop me, that's the point. I've crippled the Red Stars, and I've taken a hit at the Feds, too." His face seemed pale and stretched over the bone in a rictus of decision. "You are going to let me go, Ellison? I can see you want me dead because of what I've done to your friend. The ends justify the means, you know. He seemed to think not, but he was wrong."

"Lyle." Every moment they continued talking was a moment that the reinforcements drew closer. "Lyle, think about this! Give yourself up, this can be dealt with and .."

The undercover agent shook his head. "I didn't get to bring her back Ellison, not like you with your partner. You know he's been on borrowed time since he was murdered, don't you? His time and yours have run out."

He raised the detonator even as a strong female voice rang out. "Put the detonator down, Lyle."

 The expression of the disaffected agent's face became beatific ."Perfect. Perfect. Hi sis, just the person I wanted to take with me."

"Lyle, stop this, please. We'll get you the help you need. Put it down or I'll have to shoot you." Her voice was pleading with him even as she levelled the gun to aim at her own brother. The barrel wavered just slightly as she targeted him, the anguish of seeing what her brother had become seeming to weaken her resolve.

Lyle shook his head and smiled at her mockingly. "You won't shoot me, Lou, you never did have the guts. I, on the other hand, always followed through."

"We're not kids any more, Lyle." His sister faced him down. "Don't do this. I'm sorry for what happened in New York, I didn't know it would turn out like that, I didn't know you were in love. Let's talk about this, please?"

He held up the timer and laughed, "When did talking ever work for us, Lou? Brother and sister, yet couldn't communicate worth a damn. Only one person understood me, and you killed her."

He gave a glassy manic smile to all of them and looked at her mockingly as he reached for the button to detonate whatever trap he had contrived.

 "Bye sis. See you in hell."

Even as Jim aimed and prepared to fire as he knew the man really was going to do it, a single shot rang out and Lyle Hawker collapsed to the ground, the timer unset and bouncing harmlessly over the carpet. His sister, her face still bearing the butterfly stitches and unhealthy pallor of her own close encounter with death, could have been carved in alabaster for the paleness and fixed expression she wore. She stared, just stared at the body on the carpet below her as she lowered her gun from the fatal shot she had made.

Perhaps it was only Jim who could hear her whisper. "I'm sorry, Lilly. So sorry. Forgive me, bro, I love you," even as she turned away to beckon the rest of the SWAT team forward to mop up.

To the rest of the world, she was as cool and professional as the first time he had seen her at Major Crimes.

The click of police issue guns from all around them told Jim all he needed to know. It was over, and they needed to get Blair to a hospital, and quite possibly himself. His arm was pulsing with a sick agony peculiar to the deep trauma of a bullet wound, and contrary to popular belief, he knew that shoulder shots were often very unpleasant indeed.

His own shoulder and side was stabbing at him sharply as he knelt down again. "Chief? Come on, Chief ..You still with me?"

"..can't go anywhere.." came the mumbled response and the cough bubbled unpleasantly, "Jim? I'm really tired, Jim."

He sounded it and that alarmed Jim more than anything. Blair couldn't go to sleep, he would most likely go into shock and that could be dangerous. Fatal.

"Here, buddy, let's get those arms untied." Jim was oblivious to everything else as he awkwardly undid the penknife from Blair's pocket and cut the tough plastic strip that had been binding the anthropologist's hands together.

His partner wasn't doing so well. To his Sentinel senses it wasn't surprising, with the blood loss, the beating and the near drowning, let alone the less obvious but no less debilitating energy drain of the nahual link all contributing to take Blair's vitals down to near critical levels. "Let's get a medic down here!" he bellowed out automatically, making at least three heads turn in his direction.

"Well, bugger me." He heard Connor's voice clearly, the surprise evident. "Ellison!"

"You have got to be shitting me!" Henri Brown was close behind her, pushing down the stairs to where Jim was lifting Blair to tilt on his side so the water would cough out better.

"Jim! Man, we thought ..You're looking pretty good for a dead man! Where the hell have you been?"

"Thanks, H," Jim smiled a little up at them and looked immediately back down at his partner. "They had Blair." He said as if his brusqueness had no further need for explanation. " I'll explain later, when everything is okay?"

They nodded and as they crowded around him, Jim realised with a clenching horror that somewhere in those last few moments when he had been talking, Blair had closed his eyes and drifted away from all of them, into the realms of unconsciousness that might prove deadly.

***

There was a pain in his chest. Quite a sharp pain that spread out into a dull throbbing sensation all over his body as if someone were striking a slow drum of agony in the centre of his chest, over his heart, that echoed in every part of him.  He was lying on the jungle floor, naked and hey, it was suddenly obvious why his chest hurt.  Fingers stirred and fluttered weakly around the arrow shaft that protruded from over his heart. He was trying to work out if the strange tinge to the light was the silvery blue of night or the steel grey of pre-dawn until it occurred to him that it probably didn't matter as he wouldn't live long enough to see either. The arrow must be in his lungs at least, hard edges sawing away every time he inhaled or exhaled.

Nevertheless, he was able to push himself up, looking again in horrified fascination at his mortal wound. Who had done this?  Who!? How long did he have?

He looked up, seeing a figure frozen over him, half reaching for him but locked in a moment of time he didn't seem a part of any more. The crossbow was in his hand and emptied as if recently fired.

Jim, his Sentinel, his best friend standing over him with the jungle equivalent of the smoking gun.

Jim had done this?  Jim was responsible?

"That looks uncomfortable." A voice said beside him and Blair turned, barely able to breathe.

"Incacha." Blair coughed weakly, the pain flooding through him, and the metallic taste of blood in his mouth, "I'm dying."

He was half amazed he had said it so calmly, even if it irritated him to sound like a whining fool stating the obvious.

"Perhaps." The shaman shrugged diffidently. "But then you could say equally that you are living."

"Not for long." Blair was sure you weren't meant to feel pain and physical effects in dreams, but he was. God, yes. His chest and back burned and stabbed at him with every breath, turning the knife with a torturous twist.

"Only humans measure time, young Shaman, and in doing so can learn to control it." Incacha looked at him, with a warmth in his dark eyes. "Would you prefer to not be living or dying, but ..healing?"

"Well, yeah, but …" he looked at the arrow again. "I can't take this out. I'll die."

"But it won't heal with it in there, will it? What is the point of holding onto it now?" Incacha looked at him again. "Why hold onto death? Is it that important?"

"Well, it was pretty important to me. I died, man, that counts as pretty major." Blair felt dizzy a moment. It was hard to talk.

"You didn't die, shaman. If you had died you would have passed on peacefully. Look at yourself and realise why you have refused to heal."

Blair coughed again, feeling blood in his lungs filling slowly. He was running out of time. What did Incacha mean? Everyone knew he had died; every time he looked at himself he could see the shadow of that death. He didn't fear death anymore, only the manner of dying and ...

It clicked then.

 "I didn't die, I was murdered," he said softly, half to himself.

Incacha nodded. "It is a different matter. Death itself is not the end, it is the means. But you need to understand that holding on to blame, and vengeance, leads to a more final destruction."

The Chopec shaman pointed to the dark glistening pool on the ground, where he had bled. The surface shimmered and he saw the manic face of Lyle Hawker, detonator in hand in the brief moments before he was stopped and killed. "The path of blame. Even success would lead to destruction."

"But I don't blame anyone." He looked at the frozen figure of Jim, seeing the eyes wide with horror and shocked guilt. "I don't blame Jim."

"It is not necessarily you that chooses to walk that path. You chose the other way."

Incacha gestured and the forest ahead of them parted, splitting trails into one that led to the high temple with the altar stone he had dreamt himself upon, and one that led to the dark chasm.

"The path of vengeance is rooted from this point here," Incacha told him and touched the fletching of the bolt still protruding from him.

Blair watched horrified as Jim unfroze and turned away from him, unseeing and seemingly blinded to the fact his friend was NOT dead, merely critically wounded.  The Sentinel started walking towards the crevice in an erratic line and around him, the shadowy forms of other friends joined him, all stumbling inexorably towards their doom in the hungry chasm

"No! NO!" It was practically a scream even though his chest felt like it was tearing apart. He pushed himself up, staggering forward. "Jim! No!"

He tried to walk after him and failed.

"You cannot save them unless you are rid of the death still in your heart," Incacha said, nodding to the arrow shaft.

Blair looked at them. Jim was close to the edge. He reached and, closing his eyes, gripped the shaft and tugged hard. Pain exploded in him, and he dropped to his knees "I.can't ...I can't do this alone."

Incacha smiled as if Blair had realised a great truth. "You don't have to anymore," he said and walked towards the temple. "And that is your lesson."

"Jim, help me ..." Blair fell back again, struggling uselessly to tug at the obstruction. "Help me pull the arrow out, Jim."

His voice sounded distant even to himself, "Can't save you if it's still there. I'll die before I can get to you."

He closed his eyes again and he could hear Jim's voice.

"Oh God, Blair. Not the arrow .. how?" There was the warmth close to him, the comfort of him near. If he was that near, he wasn't walking into the danger of the chasm. That was a good thing.

"Hurts ..Hurts .." The hand was over the pain now, warm and soothing. "You'll help me, Jim? Can't do it alone. I'm so tired. So tired of being alone. If you don't want me around, let me go, man? Please?"

"Chief.." The voice sounded choked. It had to be a dream then, because Jim never allowed himself to show emotion like that.

"I'll be here, Chief, I won't go anywhere."  The voice was close to him, and the hand rested on the exact point where the pain centred.

The warmth was enough to convince the patient Jim was doing something and he smiled weakly even as he open fever-bright eyes.

"Then neither will I," he rasped out and closed his eyes as another warmth stroked over his forehead, his body seeming to relax more and allowing him to rest rather than struggle. He could let go of the death in him if he had help, and Jim had promised. He hadn't lost him yet, so there was hope enough to draw him back.

"Jim?" Simon spoke up from the other side of the hospital room. He'd never seen his friend so close to cracking up emotionally. When Sandburg had started thrashing around and mumbling about an arrow in his chest, the police captain had thought he would have to call a doctor for the Sentinel, not for Blair. The colour had drained from him, leaving him a sickly fear-tinged grey even as he slipped his arm out of the sling to take hold of his partner's hand. "You okay, Jim? What was the deal with the arrows?"

Jim looked at Simon, guilt in his tired gaze. "Before Alex and the fountain, I had a vision where I was hunting and I shot a wolf in the heart with an arrow, thinking somehow that there was an enemy there. The wolf changed into Blair lying there with his eyes open and staring, and I realised I'd killed him. It flashed back to me when I realised that Alex had gone after him. I never told him. I never told him about that. And yet.."

He looked across at the young man's now resting features, some of his anxiety fading. "His temperature is dropping, I can feel it."

"Thank God for that," Simon replied fervently. "He's been too damn sick this time, When the doctors said.."

'I'm sorry, Captain Banks, but it's not hopeful. Frankly, it's surprising he is alive. He's lost a lot of blood and his body is on the verge of complete exhaustion and his vitals are very erratic... You have to consider the possibility that there is a chance that he might not make it …'

"..said how ill he was," he amended the thoughts in his own head, "I have to admit, Jim, I wasn't sure if he was going to make it."

"He can't leave me." Jim ignored the painful stiffness in his shoulder. "Not now. I'm going to talk to him about everything. If he wants to have nothing to do with me then, well, at least it will be his choice this time."

 "Sometimes, Ellison, I wonder about you." The police captain shook his head. "After all this? After this weird shit with the whole changing thing, and you still think he might abandon you? For God's sake, you must be the one who is not thinking straight. Get your ass back into bed before that nurse decides to strap you there. If she finds you out of it one more time, I swear she's just going to sedate you until your shoulder is healed."

"I shouldn't leave him," Jim protested as he was ushered over to his bed.

"Believe me, Sandburg will know you're here. He always knows when you are around," Simon replied. "I thought he'd lost it on me. Seriously gone. You didn't see him after we thought you were dead." The older man shook his head. "You wouldn't want to see him like that, but he still knew you were out there. All he was worried about was not whether we all thought he was due a visit to the local psychiatric ward, but whether he was letting you down and how I was feeling."

Jim nodded slowly. "Megan said he admitted to her like he was falling apart over the incident with Alex. And now this. How did it get so complicated? I should have just talked. Instead I waited to use it as a weapon, the one time he felt he couldn't go to pieces I brought it up and used it to make him back down."

"The argument?" Simon checked and nodded. "We've all let it slide, we can't do that anymore. I tell you, he might as well have hit me over the head when he made that crack about wishing I'd told him that you would have wanted him to die for you a month or so earlier."

Jim winced. "He died because of me, Simon. And he nearly did again. I could feel how close he was. I could hear him drowning again, them hurting him because of me."

"And you think he won't forgive you for that?" Simon said, looking at the pale drawn features. "Of course he will."

"Why? Why would he do something like that?"

Simon nearly spluttered a moment, trying to frame a coherent response. "Because he's Blair," was what he eventually came up with to encapsulate the complex reasoning in his head. "Anyway, you might have missed the fact you saved his life a couple of times in the mix here."

"Which wouldn't have been necessary if he weren't hanging around with me," Jim said quietly. "You can't deny that."

"No, no... But you didn't force him to stay. He chose to, Jim. He chose to stay with you and it's not like he didn't have opportunities to go," Simon pointed out. "But he didn't. He stayed. Even when you pushed him away, he still came back."

"I know." Jim stared at Blair again, hearing every painful hitch of breath in detail. "I'm a selfish bastard for allowing it, and now he'll feel I've trapped him."

"What do you mean?" Simon asked quietly, watching as the monitors next to Blair seemed to be evening out little by little. Jim had been right.

"The change, the Jaguar thing. After the whole deal with the blood, Simon, if I change it affects him." Jim replied. "I'm like a fucking vampire, Simon. As if everything else weren't enough."

"I'm sure you're exaggerating, Jim," the police captain replied, trying to calm the ex-Ranger and stop him from completely spiralling into depression. "Now stop this and go to sleep, okay? Sandburg isn't the only hurt person here, you know. The doctor said you needed a lot of rest as well before they will release you. So get. Rest now. That's an order,  Detective."

It worried Simon that his arbitrary order was obeyed without a word of protest, or even an Ellison quip. This was going to be a long, slow recovery for all of them, it seemed, not just those more obviously injured.

***

A hospital was not one of Blair's favourite places, it probably never would be.  He'd preferred it when Jim had been there and would sit with him, even though he'd kept falling asleep all the time, prompting a 'Gee, Chief, if I'm that boring all you had to do was tell me to shut up" joking comment from the Sentinel.  The tiredness was mainly due to the massive antibiotic doses he'd been given to try and combat the infection that had flared out of control the moment his system weakened. They always tended to wipe him out, and Jim had been really worried about him with the way he just kept drifting off. Well, that had been his interpretation of the way the detective hovered over him whenever he flickered in or out of consciousness. He'd been worried about Jim's arm, not believing Jim when he'd said he'd had worse fishing trout, but laughing at the Sentinel's hand-on-heart story of the one that got away and nearly took his arm with it.

It had been a couple of days before he discovered he'd been really sick, that he had been teetering on the edge of death again, and for how long. With that knowledge came the recollection of the last dream vision he had experienced – and the ones before that. After Jim had been discharged and on his insistence had actually left his bedside for more than ten minutes or so, and despite the very frequent visitors, he had a lot of time alone to think. And write. He'd taken the minor mercy that it was a good thing he had been out of the loop for the better part of a week as his arms were well on the way to healing by the time he was conscious. The doctors had informed him that somehow whoever cut him - as they had incorporated that injury and the damage around his throat into the 'Blair tortured for information' part of events - had very skillfully managed not to sever any tendons or his major arteries. It was still painful, but with patience, and his dictaphone, he was doing the old Sandburg thing of catching up with the theoretical while on medical leave.

The one thing he noticed about the dream visions was that they didn't fade in his memory. He would lie there late at night, when the lessening pain in his chest felt not so much like the stabbing pain of an arrow through his heart and more like someone poking at him with a blunt knife, and the visions would replay as he analysed them as he would some ancient text or anthropological source.

Hindsight was a marvellous thing, he decided. In the illuminated light of hindsight they all made sense. His first dream had been a warning of Jim's change having begun and the danger his friend was in; and what not to do, regardless of it being his first response and natural. Simon nearly shooting Jim had been an odd mirroring event of that warning, and he'd known the consequences as a result of that vision with enough conviction to stop it despite their apparent mortal danger.

The sacrificing dream. If Incacha was like that with Jim, then no wonder Jim was confused about his Sentinel abilities. He was sure as hell confused by his dream until he started picking it apart. It had shown him in the place, the Temple of the Sentinels, the origin of this transformation. It had shown him the possible consequences in the stench of death and darkness. He had even told him in a rather cryptic literal way how it had to be done and he had managed to miss his instinctive actions in that dream.

The vision of Jim falling over the cliff. That had felt so real. He'd felt like he had been losing Jim then, and it had been the fear he experienced with it that had prompted him to ignore the voice of the rational and follow his instincts.

Everything tied in together with a synchronicity that made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He'd entered the altered state of consciousness of a shaman which had been a shock when he actually realised that had been what he had done. He could see the patterns and that new part of him, felt a harmony in what had been accomplished.

The Blair Sandburg, mild-mannered ..uh, slightly hyperactive grad student part of him was running scared.  It was all very well for the universe to be happy that things had been sorted out, but that left him to deal with the fallout and somehow he was meant to know instinctively hao to do that.

He was going home today, and he had no real idea of whether he had a home anymore.

He knew Jim. He knew that the shift in the dynamics of their relationship would almost inevitably lead to its catastrophic collapse; how could the detective who struggled with control issues be able to even tolerate the fact that his life and his very soul were at the whim of someone he had not so long ago thrown out for betraying his trust?

Facts were facts, after all.

It hadn't helped that on Jim's last visit the previous night, he'd played turnabout on him;

"Blair, when you get home tomorrow we have to talk."

Never again would he underestimate the impact of those words. He'd used them on Jim a fair few times and never realised the effort it took not to flinch. Or the complete dread that took up residence in every waking moment as a result.

By the time Megan arrived to pick him up at Blairs insistence as, Jim's shoulder still making it impossible for him to drive and he didn't want to put him to the trouble of getting a taxi over , Blair was practically vibrating with nervous energy and his thoughts flitting in and out of best and worst case scenarios;

On the one hand, Jim had been very worried and, yeah caring about him since the take down of the Red Stars.

On the other, he'd quashed any attempts by him to talk about what happened.

But, he'd felt that Jim cared. More than cared, if he was truthful.

But then he had also felt the terror and soul-destroying fear in the man during the change, and his hatred of it and all things connected with it, which of course included a certain anthropologist.

It was better than watching a game of tennis, the way his thoughts bounced from one side to the other.

Tiring, too.

"Need any help, Sandy?" Megan asked as he limped painstakingly to her car.

"I'm fine." Blair was trying to stay upright, with mixed success. "Whoa, who put that tricky bit of pavement there?"

"Leapt out and got you, eh?" Megan steadied him to get in.

"I could give you a description to put out an APB on a maliciously uneven pavement with a loose curb," the anthropologist replied with a slight smile.

Megan was still not overly convinced Blair was ready to go home. The fact that he hadn't been clamouring to do so was a very worrying sign because usually it was all they could do to get the grad student to sit still long enough for treatment. That she was the one taking Blair home when it should have been Jim aroused her suspicions even further. Now he was accepting what they threw at him with only a hint of his old self showing through.

They drove in silence for part of the way before Megan commented.

"You don't seem that excited about going home, Sandy." She wasn't expecting a direct answer, but she got one nonetheless.

"I'm not sure if I have one any more," Blair replied, staring out at the road ahead of them.

"What?" Connor nearly slammed on the brakes at that.

"I don't think it's going to be my home much longer," Blair said evenly. "Jim wants to talk to me tonight. I'm guessing he wants me to leave."

"Sandy, you can't be serious." Megan sounded horrified, "Why would he do that to you?"

"To protect himself. To protect me. It's a Sentinel thing, Megs." Blair sounded weary again.

"The fact that he did change, like you said?" Megan guessed. "Something to do with that? And the scars on your arms?"

 He gave her a startled glance and she smiled. "Inspectors get that special outback training I mentioned before, remember? I'm not blind. So, spill. What's the deal?"

"It's complicated." Blair struggled for words. "I'm not sure I can really explain the depth of it, but the change doesn't just affect Jim, it affects me as well because of that ritual with the scars and all that. It sort of gave me .. power over him in some ways. That's what he sees and feels. And you know Jim. Control issues."

"And then some." It was Megan's turn to frown "You can't just stop it?"

Blair shook his head. "No. It's done; you can't pretend it never happened. I mean, hey, it's a whole lot more complicated than that, but that is what Jim will feel and remember. He couldn't look at me after the first time. He..."

His voice gave out and instead of embarrassing himself further, he just stopped. Tears were for the lost, and he hadn't lost anything - yet.

There was a long embarrassing silence until he cleared his throat.

"So, uh..yeah, if I call you later or something, would you mind picking me up? Taking me to a motel or something. I'd go to my office at Rainer like before, but uh, yeah, hey, probably not the best idea."

Megan was silent a moment longer. "Sandy, I think you're underestimating Jim here. Don't fix this in your head as something that is going to happen. I think ... he just wants to talk with you about things. Like we all do."

Blair glanced over at her, pushing his hair back a moment. "Oh. About that?"

She nodded. "Jim wants to talk first, though."

"Well, I feel like a melodramatic idiot now," Blair muttered sheepishly, "Man, I can be so stupid sometimes."

"No, no, Sandy, not at all." Megan pulled in outside of 852 Prospect and stopped the engine. "Look, if you guys have a blow out, you phone me, or Simon, and you stay with us. I'm not going to have you in a motel or something, not when you are just out of hospital, for Christ's sake. Not like before. That place was a pit."

"A cheap pit," Sandburg corrected, his smile a little more genuine at the offer.

"Sandy, a pit is a pit, cheap or not," Connor said disapprovingly. "I'll get you up there, make nice for awhile and then leave you and Jim to it," she said.

"Thanks, Megan."

"No worries, Sandy." She smiled and then looked at him seriously "Sandy, just one word of advice? If you've got him talking, don't let him stop, okay?"

"I won't, Megan, I won't."

***

Jim had gone to a lot of trouble, Blair could see that. He'd cooked some of his favourite things, which he appreciated the effort, considering the shoulder the detective was meant to be resting. But to start with, they talked about nothing much. A bit of station gossip, a bit of this, a bit of that, with Blair desperately trying to get some sort of feeling from him as to what Jim was thinking and feeling, or what emotional time bomb he might get dropped on him from on high.

It was made all the more disconcerting with the way that Jim was being nice. Like after Lash nice, like after the Golden nice, like after Maya nice.

That was throwing him for a loop. He'd sort of got the impression that after Alex he'd forfeited his right to that sort of treatment. After that incident even the concern that had been exhibited had had an edge to it, as if Jim were deliberately not allowing himself that concern, or pushing him away. Now, after those short intense moments where he had seen and felt the texture of his friend's emotions, Blair considered that it had most likely been an attempt to be normal made sharp and brittle by the enormous control Jim had been exerting on his feelings.

But even that knowledge didn't necessarily mean he had a clue what Jim wanted to say to him. He'd realised in his connection with Jim's mind, an experience he felt awed by in a way he couldn't describe, that human emotions were not linear. They were multi-level, multidimensional and in constant dynamic flux, evolving into more and more shapes and feelings. He could attempt to describe it as a feast, with an incredible array of subtle spices, rich and redolent, combining to produce something endlessly fascinating. He could try and describe it as a symphony of sounds too vast to absorb or analyse, only to feel; or perhaps colours blending, twisting in hypnotically beautiful lights, but none of these could tell him how to interpret the reasons why Jim felt the way he did, or what he might feel like in the future.

He was made comfortable on the couch, he was brought a drink, he was placed just so and in the end he felt like the proverbial lamb being led to the slaughter by the time Jim finally got around to what he wanted to 'talk about'.

"Chief, you feeling up to having that talk?" Jim asked casually. "I'll understand if you want to give it a rest." He glanced across at Blair, monitoring him automatically, even as he tried to steel himself.

You promised yourself you would do this. All those excuses you made of waiting until he was stronger, until everything was fine and that is should wait until he had recovered were just excuses. You knew he wouldn't truly recover unless you had the talk, but you put that down as worry talking.

But then they had experienced the nahual bond. And he'd seen, he'd felt and touched the edges of that pain inside of his friend. Blair had been walking wounded since the fountain, had been ready for the pain to end, and yet had gone on. Jim could scarcely look at him without remembering that moment where he felt him falling into that pain all over again.

"No, no man, I'm fine. Really." Blair sounded nervous even to himself. "Go ahead. Talk. I'll mark it off on the calendar."

Jim gave a slight smile and sat down, facing him. He had to stop and obviously consider where to begin as he started using the low soft voice that was frequently more worrying than when he shouted. "Through all of this, I've realised some pretty important things, Chief. Things that I should have done something about some time ago, things that I haven't said for one reason or another..."

Blair's heart was sinking without trace. So much for Connor's optimism; if anything it sounded like the start of a 'I'm really sorry, but it's just not going to work out' relationship break-up talk. He'd had a few of those in his time. He'd even on occasion been the one to give them, though that was not the usual profile of a Sandburgian breakup. It was kind of ironic he should be getting one of those from Jim, though perhaps he shouldn't be as surprised as he was. Three years of living together had been a commitment that a lot of relationships never reached, a level of participation and of living in each others' lives and memories that he would have to say he had never reached with another person.  He kept his face calm and interested as he listened, aware that Jim was giving him a slightly peculiar look as he continued.

"And this seemed like a time to get things out in the open, to talk about everything and.." Jim frowned again. He could feel a surge of anxiety and resigned expectation rise up in him and he wasn't completely convinced it was his own. Okay, this was another thing to add to the list of things to discuss. "..look at the future."

Blair nodded encouragingly, as the fragile hopes he had allowed himself began slowly and majestically to collapse inside. He was too much of a threat to Jim after all, he made the man feel too vulnerable and not unnaturally the Sentinel must want him to leave. Or perhaps, he couldn't cope with what had happened and was projecting that onto the only person available. "Sure thing, man. Where do you want to start?"

Jim marvelled. To look at him on the surface, he'd never would have realised what turmoil was going on underneath, but now he could feel it. Now they were back and close together, he could feel that echo effect again that, he reasoned, must be the result of the transformation and bonding, and Blair's emotional state was far from detached. The hurt was bleeding and raw in him, the exhaustion constricting, so every moment his friend was struggling to appear normal when underneath it he felt one slip would take him into collapse.

He revised his tactics hastily. "Actually, perhaps we should start with why you are feeling so uh...anxious right now?"

Blair looked startled. "What do you mean?"

"I can feel it, Chief. Not sure how, but I can feel it faintly, like I'm hearing an echo or something. I know it's you. Don't ask me how, though I'm betting it's all to do with this whole were-jaguar thing and what you did, but I know," Jim replied. "Talk, Sandburg. Tell me it's not true."

Blair shrugged, trying to appear casual about everything as they stepped into dangerous territory. Great, now they had an empathic connection of sorts? He might as well forget any hopes of salvaging their friendship, Jim would never cope with that sort of intrusion into his life. "I can't. I am pretty freaked out here, Jim."

Jim shook his head, focussing on him. "Why? I don't get it. What have I done?"

"It's more what you are going to do," Blair said, took a deep breath and continued in the face of Jim's incomprehension. "Look, it's no big deal, man. If you want me to move out, or stay away from you or something, I understand. Just give me a moment to phone Connor - she said she'd put me up for a few days until I can get myself sorted out and ..."

"Whoa, whoa, Chief." Jim looked stunned as he tried to fathom what was going on. "Where is all this coming from?"

"Look, man, it was pretty obvious that you weren't happy with what I did when you were the nahual," Blair blurted out in a rush, letting all his fears spill out somewhat incoherently. "And I'm sorry, Jim, I really didn't know that was what happened with it. I just thought that it would bring you back, not do that to you. I mean, I should have known, because I guess that's what I'm meant to do, right? But I guess, well hey, I must have sucked at the research, you know. Must have cut some corners or something and maybe not understood the dreams and visions I was getting then, because I understand them now, but you often do after the event. But I wasn't, like, completely with it then, Jim, and I'm sorry, but I understand why you might not feel comfortable having me around, man."

Jim was wearing the expression of someone who had been mugged by a passing mob of incomprehensible emotions.

"Wait, wait, you think I want to throw you out?!" he said, raising his voice a little. "Because you saved my life?"

"Well, not so much the saving the life thing - more the price paid side of it, you know?" Blair found himself prodding at the site of injury between the two of them in horrified fascination. "I mean, Jim afterwards you could barely look at me, man. You can't deny that. You hated it, and everything to do with it. Including me."

Jim pinched the bridge of his nose.

Damn. Of all the things he could have felt and seen, he had felt that?

"I'm sorry, Chief. It was reaction, I swear it. I wasn't really thinking straight and I didn't understand how it worked. I'm not sure that I do now, but I do know I was wrong to draw away from you then. To make you make that promise. Jesus, Chief, I never expected that from you." He tried to communicate his sincerity with his eyes and body language. " I never expected you to go through all that again for me."

"You heard it then?" Blair felt a chill steal over him, fixating on that aspect. He felt he'd been so weak then, so vulnerable. The thought of Jim hearing all that while Lyle Hawker had set about tearing apart all the illusions he held about Jim and Alex and what had happened to him - Jim must have heard the wavering of his certainty under that unbearable pressure. "You heard, what, all of it?"

"Some." Jim looked at him, struggling to find a way to open up the topic. "I heard enough. Why, Blair? Why did you let him do that to you?"

Blair looked stung and the hurt surfaced, as he reacted defensively, betraying the fact that he felt under siege somehow. "I did the best I could Jim, I just couldn't stop them, there were so many of them, man, and I tried to fight them, I really did, but I was pretty weak by then and, yeah maybe I should have found a different way, but shit, man, it's difficult to stop people when you are having the crap kicked out of you."

"No, no, Chief, I didn't mean that." Jim looked momentarily horrified at how his words had come across. "I meant you should have given me up to them. Should have called the Jaguar in me rather than drown."

Ah. The defensive hurt slipped away out of sight again. "I made a promise, Jim. I couldn't betray you again." Blair looked away, staring at the flicker of fire in the small stove. Last time he had watched that flame dancing he had been paying vigil throughout the night to an impossible dream. And even though he'd found his miracle it had still turned out to be a source of hurt and pain. Perhaps that was the way with miracles when it came down to it.

"Betray me? You've never betrayed me. Why do you think you ..oh." The last words he'd said to Blair before the Fountain; words born from a feeling he couldn't understand, insecurity and aggression that he recognised now as his human and nahual sides fighting for dominance. It was with a shock that the detective realised that the seeds of his recent ordeal had taken root then. If he had lost Blair then, he would have had his very soul eaten by his animal self until there was nothing left of Jim Ellison, Sentinel, Detective and sometimes world class Idiot by his own admission.

Jim met Blair's steady, sorrow-filled gaze, his expression steeped in the regret he had buried relating to that time. "Okay, look, this is where I was really going to start. I've been practising for days.  Back to the whole issue with Alex.  I look back at that time, Chief, and it feel like I am watching a stranger in my own memories. I look at you and every time I can't believe I said or did those things, that I threw you out, that, God, Chief, that I accused you of betraying me. I don't know why I said that."

"Because it was true," Blair replied, his voice oddly calm, though the feelings echoing hollowly between them told a different story of loss. "All true. I should have told you, Jim, I tried, but - look, it doesn't matter. Ignorance is not an excuse. It's the only one I have, though."

Jim shook his head, unable to contain his agitation now. He'd tried so hard over the past month and it had done more harm than good.

"No, Chief, it wasn't true. It's hard to explain, really hard - I'm not even sure I totally understand what was going on. Everything felt distorted and out of control, and you were there. You were the only thing I could control; I could let everything out at you and there was something in me that needed you away from me. I'm not sure why, half the time it was a need to be alone, and the other half a sort of fear for you that seemed irrational. And then it spilled out at others, and then..." Jim nearly choked as his habitual response started to try and prevent him from going any further. "I've never had the guts to say this to you, but I wanted to apologise for it, for all of it.  I don't know if you can you forgive that - I felt the hurt in you, Chief, you can't pretend that it didn't destroy you. I can't understand why you have stayed, or followed the person responsible for your death. I know you died because of me."

It was possibly one of the longest serious speeches Jim had ever made and he fought an completely irrational thought that Sandburg's complete stillness was a sign that the man had become literally paralysed in shock. He stared, begging him mentally to speak, to shout, and to do something aside from tearing them apart with this terrible silence.

Eternity had to be silence, he realised that. It was made up of the endless moments between something being said that could change everything, and the answer. A universe could be born and collapse in a fiery death in this trapped moment.

Blair's blue eyes were looking at him, studying him. There were times when Jim felt like the younger man could see past everything, right into the heart of him and this was one of those times.

The 'presence' in his blood pulled at him then and he didn't flinch, just met Blair's gaze as his friend and roommate finally spoke.

"You're wrong, Jim. I didn't die because of you. I came back because of you."

The anthropologists deep blue eyes looked old then, full of the shadows of experiences someone his age should never have faced. "And that's worse, isn't it? It creates a tie to you. Like this whole business with the nahual creates a bond to you. Dependency, you hate dependency, either someone being dependent upon you - and yes, that would be me, Jim, sorry about that, man, but I had to have a reason to come back, you know? - or you being dependent on someone. And hey, that would be me again. I don't have to be a genius to realise where this journey is leading, man."

It was a weary challenge. It was one of Blair's normal tactics that had the implicit 'Tell me I'm wrong, Jim, tell me I'm way off base. You know you can't' message woven into what he said.

He did strike a nerve, it was true. Maybe for different reasons than Blair described, but he could and would strenuously deny that what he wanted to do was throw his friend out. Somehow, for all of everything that had happened and how he knew he should be reacting, having Blair far away from him seemed incomprehensible. Unnatural somehow. And that was a big turnaround for him.

 "Chief, I'm not going to pretend I'm totally comfortable with everything that has happened, because you and I both know that would be a lie," Jim began in a low voice, leaning forward. "I screwed up, Blair. The fact I didn't really understand why it was happening is irrelevant, either with Alex or with this. You died because of me, and nothing I could say or do can ever make up for that, could mean anything. So I did the worst thing possible - I didn't say or do anything. I made these excuses in my own head - pathetic attempts to make things easier and I let myself believe them, even though if I were truly honest, I knew they weren't true. I told myself you needed time to cope, I thought I could make things normal again and that would help you recover somehow.

"You kept telling me you were fine, insisting you could carry on as if it hadn't happened, as if all those things I did in Sierra Verde hadn't happened either. And they hurt you. You brushed them off, but I felt them in you, Chief, I know they hurt. And it started there, when I should have trusted you and had the same faith in you that you seemed to have in me. I was the one who made the first mistake, and then afterwards I let it carry on, knowing that everything wasn't fine but finding it easier to pretend it was."

His mouth went a little dry at the peculiar glint in Blair's eyes then, as the police observer sat up straighter as if some of the crushing pressure on him had eased.

"Jim, you do know you are an idiot, don't you?"

Jim opened his mouth to respond and then stopped, waiting for the rest of it. If anyone was entitled to tear him to pieces it was Blair, and perhaps it would be the trigger to allow his friend let out that pain and anger.

"What are you? A reincarnation of some sort of early martyr? Are all the troubles of the world your responsibility? I mean, karmically, man, there's probably some universal law against it, you know? I mean, come on Jim, every time I get hurt, do you have to bleed?"

Jim interrupted then, unable to stop himself. "I think that's your deal, Sandburg."

The grad student flushed a little as he scored a telling point.

"Good point, but missing mine. Jim, I am an adult … yeah, yeah, save the derisive comments." Blair's voice was becoming animated, the words so long pent up starting to flow again. "Give me credit for making my own mistakes, hell, blame the universe a little for bringing two Sentinels together in the same time and place, and then failing to provide a handy instruction booklet that tells you what to expect as a consequence. You take me into the light, Jim, and I follow you into the darkness - it's a sort of balance, you know? Ying and Yang, a whole duality deal going on. Light and Dark, Sentinel and Other ... Guide, Shaman, whatever I am. Other is good enough, I don't need the label to define it, I know. But you have stop blaming yourself."

"And blame you instead?" Jim said sharply, thrusting away that. "No way, Chief. And you can't tell me that you don't blame yourself because I felt that too in the nahual merge; I felt everything - I don't understand it, but I know it was there. If you didn't blame yourself, then why is it still in you like, like a gaping wound in your centre?"

"The arrow. You know about the arrow," Blair stated, the choice of phrase ringing alarm bells. He read his friend's expression and comprehension dawned. "You've known about the arrow for some time." For the first time he started to look angry rather than hurt or exhausted.

In a strange sort of way that gave Jim a peculiar sense of relief. Blair had been taking too much in, too many carelessly hurtful gestures tossed at him, isolated as if shunned for a non-existent crime. Blair getting angry was a good thing. It was a way to let out the hurt in him.

"I had a dream vision, before Alex, before I threw you out, that I was hunting an intruder and there was danger. I was in the jungle and seeing movement of a strange wolf in my territory so I fired. I shot the wolf in the heart and it was lying there looking at me, and then turned into you. Dead. I'd killed you." Jim uttered in a tone as if he was confessing a heinous murder, which in his own mind he had comitted.

"Shit. Jim, why the HELL didn't you tell me about this?!" Blair nearly shot up out of his chair explosively, for all that his knee was unstable. "I dreamt this - I SAW this when I was recovering! It explained a lot man, if I'd known before.."

"I'm sorry, Chief. You've got every right to be angry."

"No, oh, no you don't. Don't think you are getting away with tricking me into getting pissy at you." Blair waved his arms at Jim aggressively, the movement exposing the layers of bandages around his arms as his loose top flapped its sleeves. "You are going to listen to me, Jim. Do you want to know what the problem has been? Really? Incacha told me in the follow-up to that vision I had to let go of death. I had to be willing to embrace it for the nahual and then I had to let it go. And I haven't been able to let it go, not because of you, Jim, or the fact I died. No, it was how I died that was the problem. Death, yeah, no problem - Me and Death, we're like buddies, you know? You realise that in the moment it happens ..it's.. shit, Jim, it's familiar. I mean it's like tasting something you'd forgotten you'd ever tried before. That's what death is like. But dying? Dying's another matter, Jim."

The feeling of the remembered asphyxiation welled up suddenly, dramatically, much to his irritation. If it weren't the memory of water, it was the hard warm pressure of a jaguar's jaws pressing hard on his neck, choking and terrifying. He started coughing a moment, the sound still raw and rasping and Jim stood to help him straighten up, unsure of how his help would be received.

"We can stop this, Chief, if it is too much?"

"Are you kidding me, man? Just when I'm getting to the point where I explain everything? You should know better than to try and interrupt me mid-cathartic purge, man." Blair took a gulp of his drink to try and ease that irritation as now the words were bubbling up in him, desperate to be released. "Jim, the reason I've been so screwed up is because I was murdered. Hell, man, it's the reason why everyone has been so screwed up over this.  It was a vision-induced revelation, man, you know? I suddenly realised that the pain was the fact that someone specifically wanted to kill me and they did it. Someone actually wanted Blair Sandburg dead. Not because he was a victim of opportunity, not because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or liked the wrong person or just picked up the wrong bit of pizza. No, they wanted me dead because I was ..me."

Jim shook his head, the mention of it taking him back to that time and the sour taste of regrets filling his mouth. "Chief ..don't, please."

"Hear me out, Jim. I'm sorry, man, but it's got to be said. First of all, it was Alex that murdered me. You gotta understand that. I remember it pretty damn clearly. It wasn't you, it wasn't anyone else, it was her. She did it very deliberately, and with full knowledge of whom she was killing. For once it wasn't the fact that I caught someone's eye, or that I was tagging along that put me in danger. No, Jim, she sought me out, took me down to that fountain, stunned me enough that I couldn't fight her and drowned me. I'd like to say I don't remember it, Jim, but I do. Very clearly. Which has weirded me out because in my dreams it's something else that has terrified me, something without a shape; and finally I worked it out. It was the fact that someone thought I was important enough to murder, that what I was doing was important enough to kill me over. Do you understand that, Jim? All of a sudden I realised that I had been treating what could be the most important thing in the world as a study, when I had been living it! Living a destiny instead of observing it, being a part of it. If I had just been a true observer, Jim, I would never have had to die. But I haven't been, not for a long time, but I've carried on with the fiction of it because it is that fiction that has allowed me to be where I need to be.

"Somewhere along the line, you, me us .. we didn't become the means to an end, we were the end. Sentinel and Other  - we're not the journey, we're the destination, and Alex saw that before we did. She saw that I wasn't just observing and studying, she saw I was a blockage to her and you and the instincts of the Sentinel. Did you know that some big cats only cross each others' territories to fight or mate? Sorry..."

Blair gulped some more drink after nearly splashing Jim as he waved his hands around with his glass still clutched tightly as he continued his impassioned speech.

"..And the problem with you guys, all of you guys at Major Crimes? You are all trapped in your own closed society reactions. And I'm an anomaly. I'm a living murder victim. I've seen you all with murder victims, and until I had the last dream, I didn't realise. That's how you are treating me.  You are going through the cycles that you all have to murder victims; of half blaming me for being murdered, to pitying me, to trying to distance yourselves emotionally and burying yourselves in normality, to covering up the pain and that sense of peculiar failure that I know you all experience on finding a victim."

Blair took a deep breath, nearly shaking now. "Only I didn't go away. I came back. I'm the murder victim who came back and whether you know it or not, half of the avoidance you are doing is because I am a constant reminder of the failure of your roles as protectors to save me. I tell you, man, this was like instant enlightenment. "

"But we did fail you, Chief, you're right about that," Jim said in a soft voice, those words striking an instant chord in him. They had let him down. How many times had he heard the guys say It should never have happened? We knew he was in danger, why did it happen, if only, if only..

As if he had died and not come back? Blair was right, they had been treating him like a murder victim and they all judged and assigned deep personal opinions on death, even if it were just pity and compassion at the waste of a life. It was still a judgement because that was what their job was and who, in the end, they all were.

"Jim, you didn't. You're trapped in your own social reactions, man; I'm the anomaly that's challenging everything, you know? People don't know what to do, so they opt for doing nothing."

"But we should have..." Jim tried again. His grand apology was being steamrollered, but Blair's eyes looked bright and alive again and this was the first time in a month he had heard Blair 'lecture'. He decided he could live with a month's worth of rehearsed apologies blown out of the water if it set that spark back in his friend.

"It's okay, Jim. If I didn't realise, and this is my job to notice, then why should any of you?" Blair replied. "I didn't like to think of myself as a victim - you know the whole powerless thing, and neither did any of you. Which is a compliment in a way. Means that you were all uncomfortable with the fact that I was a victim and preferred to try and make me fit into a different model, but were struggling with that and your need for justice. That's the crucial bit. Incacha showed me that ... if I didn't let go myself, I couldn't stop you being taken by the path of vengeance, like Lyle Hawker. I was having problems doing it for myself, but for you, for my friends I found I could. If you helped me."

"I was there, Chief," Jim replied, nodding agreement, "You were delirious, but I heard that."

Blair shrugged, feeling a bit embarrassed, "Well, yeah man, I guess I might have been asking for help pretty loudly."

"You got it, partner, you got it," Jim said softly, moving to make him sit down again. "Look, I'm just going say one thing, Blair. I don't want you to leave, not now n, not in the future because this is your home as much as it is mine. If you want to, then... I'll deal with that, but I don't want you to go, though I know you will find that hard to believe, but it's true. I'm not going to pretend that I'm completely together about this new thing of changing into a jaguar, and given a choice I wouldn't want it, but it's too late for that, isn't it?"

"From the moment Alex put you in that pool, yeah," Blair confirmed, his almost manic tones calmed now. "Sorry, Jim."

"Like I'm sorry about when you di..you were murdered? Yeah." Jim nodded, "Chief, I'm probably going to be an irritable son of a bitch about this, I'll admit it."

Blair raised an eyebrow and gave a rather startling grin "Really? You do surprise me, Jim. How exactly am I going to notice this radical personality change?"

"Very funny, Darwin." Jim found himself smiling back in response with a relief that was incredible. "Being the Jaguar is ..it's like mainlining hard drugs. Even with you there to steady me, I could feel the temptation. When I say I don't want to do it again it's not because it's agonising, it's because it's so tempting just to stay there in a shape where doubt and uncertainty don't exist. Blair, I'll work with you on this, but I need you to know that. And I release you from that promise, I should never have made you make it. Not then, not ever."

Blair looked at him steadily, shaking his head to disagree. "The promise stands, Jim. You choose the change."

"And I suck the life out of you. It nearly killed you, Blair," Jim pointed out, allowing some of his emotion to show through about that. "I attacked you as the Jaguar, I took the blood, too much blood."

"Just this time, Jim. Because of the blood offering, an offering, Jim, that was the point. The sacrifice had to be willing, had to be initiated by them, not the Jaguar. Makes sense, really. The Sentinel gets someone totally loyal in control of their nahual shape, but there is also the means to prevent them abusing the control by forcing the change through them being the source of energy." Blair sighed a little. Jim hated anything that involved him getting hurt, and he could see that he wasn't going to get any voluntary changes out of Jim on the basis it was going to 'hurt' his partner. "I'm thinking that was only as much as it was because you were right on the limits of, um, being.."

"Lost," Jim nodded. He remembered the hunger and the need for it to be satisfied and how it had grown. It made sense that the greater the hunger, the more of Blair's blood had been required to reach him. He had no idea what might happen now the connection had been made. "My mind was being eroded away bit by bit, Chief. I don't think I can explain what that was like; I don't think I want to."

"I felt what it meant, Jim, I know." Blair rested his hand reassuringly on his partner's arm. "I think what I most need to say is that this is what it's all about now, Jim. I'm not an observer any longer, I can't be - I'm your partner. I'll have to find a way for that to continue somehow after I submit my dissertation. If it means a different career path, then that's what I'll do."

Jim was stunned. "You can't do that, Sandburg!" he protested.

"I'll be submitting the dissertation soon," Blair replied with a slightly stiff shrug "I have to start thinking about it, Jim."

"Whoa, whoa - the dissertation?" Jim looked almost afraid and it was Blair's turn to feel a tug of fear and anxiety that was not his own. "I thought I was going to get to read it, Chief. You promised that I would get final say and .."

"And it's not the Sentinel dissertation," Blair replied gently, knowing now he had been right. "I'd already decided after the first chapter that it wasn't worth it. It wasn't a bluff, Jim. Some things are more important to me than the dissertation."

"But .." Jim was stunned and his expression reflected that.

"Its simple, Jim. A choice between my friends and an ambition, and the friends win every time." Blair smiled quietly to himself. "This is more important than personal ambition, Jim. I can get my doctorate on a different subject."

Which was a message for the Sentinel as well. Blair had followed him into darkness, and was doing so now, trusting implicitly that Jim could always lead them into the light. What could he do in the face of such a commitment?

The Sentinel nodded slowly and thoughtfully as a more comfortable silence enveloped the pair of them. He recognised this silence as the gentle ease that surrounded friends that had been long missing between them. The power of words never ceased to amaze him, and evaded him as a natural means of dealing with his own problems.  He would always regret what had happened.  But he would always regard it secretly with a wonder that would give him the strength to go on. The knowledge that there was someone in the world who had been willing to give up everything for him, as he did for the people he protected was as close to a feeling of salvation as he could imagine.

In light of what they had experienced, answers dropped into place, some of them with chilling impact - a Sentinel alone would become nahual. Primal, unconnected with the tribe and with a hunger so desperate it would consume them utterly, leaving the terrifying remains of a Sentinel Jaguar beast to terrorise the innocent. In the pool at the Temple it had been his awareness and guilt over the pain that had occurred to his friends, Blair in particular, that had stopped him rejoicing in the power of the nahual and allowing it to dominate. It was those moments when he remembered his friend's death, the hurt in his eyes when he had stood there mesmerised, kissing and enraptured by Alex and then let his best friend's murderer get away after holding his gun on him again. It was all the things he had discovered when he had been fighting against the jaguar-thoughts that made up himself as a human. It had been the regrets that made him a Sentinel rather than a nahual, and Blair's ordeal had been a necessary part of that. He had used his pain and regrets to draw that line and deny the siren call of the primitive power. To shout back to the waiting form of the lurking nahual balam, "This is not who I am!"

In doing so, he had chosen a way that could not abide in solitude.

And then of course, with the classic judgement of the Ellison clan, he had managed to miss that part of the arrangement and try and separate himself off from the one person who connected him with the world. Leaving him vulnerable once again to the growing strength of the nahual jaguar spirit. It had been too close this time. Too close for both of them.

"Been a hell of a time, Chief," he said succinctly.

"You're telling me." Blair smiled and gave a little chuckle. "Got a friend and roommate who can turn into a panther. I'm thinking of going shopping for a flea collar."

"I'm sure it'll look very attractive when you wear it, Chief," Jim replied, embracing the light banter like a long lost friend.

"Only if it doesn't have a bell on it," Blair retorted, grinning. "Though, you know.."

"No Sandburg, no bells," Jim said firmly.

"You sure?" The blue eyes were wide with feigned innocence. "It's just that it might be a good way of getting you out of zones, and.."

"You'd never be able to sneak in the fridge again," Jim pointed out.

"I can't now," Blair quipped back.

There was a pause, and Jim said carefully, a world of hope and offered friendship in his words,. "We okay now, Chief?"

Blair smiled, "Getting there, Jim. Definitely getting there," he replied, comfortable once again in his friend's presence. They had a lot to work on. There would be problems with the nahual shapeshifting, and his own newly awakened predisposition to slip into visions and dreams. The emotional bond that allowed them to peer so clearly into each others' minds and hearts was another complication, and at the back of it all Blair had the suspicion that this was just preparation for something else. The greater Jim's abilities became, it seemed that the greater the challenges they faced and if the universal rule ran true to form, they had some interesting times ahead of them.

For a brief moment he looked at Jim, their eyes met and they didn't need to have emotional bonds, or spirit guides or visions, to know that things were healing. Blair nodded at his best friend and Sentinel.

Yeah, he would continue following Jim into darkness, because he knew Jim could always find the light.

And all Jim had to do was remember the wonder of Blair's mind and emotions when they were linked to know he had already found the light he needed and that now he'd never lose it ever again.

The End

Authors note:- Thankyou to all the various people who manfully stabbed at beta-ing this (Deanna, Kathy and Daggy most of all) . I swear I'll learn the mysteries of the comma so it won't be so bad again. You may or may not be interested to know that the 'nahual' concept is real, the were-jaguars statues are real, in fact all the information described here is based on actual artifacts and theories. There's even a rather good black panther werejaguar set - It's only where I start experimenting with Sentinel things that we leave myth and jump into fiction! Anyway, thanks to everyone who helped me with this, I appreciate it! Hope you liked the story and feel free to feedback.