Disclaimer:- The standard thing applies. I don't own them, I never will! It would be nice if I did but we can't have everything. Set after SenToo, probably about a month in for those who need to know and some swearing and graphic imagery for those who like to be warned of such things. Otherwise, enjoy the ride. Hope you like it.

Nahual

By Peregrine

It was raining as he burst out onto the rooftop. Pools of water reflected the night in constantly disrupted motion, breaking light into gleaming fragments on their surfaces all around him. He paused to catch his breath.  Where the hell was Jim, anyway? He'd called for Blair to get up here, onto this roof, onto this damn roof with all its water, practically the middle of the night and the whole height thing, and he wasn't even here!

Blair tried to pull his jacket up against the rain, looking around and hoped the Sentinel was listening in - wherever he was.

"Jim, Jim man, I've just busted my ass running up however many flights of stairs and you're not even here. Where are you?" he asked aloud, as if he were impatiently praying to the night. The night was being stubbornly inscrutable in its lack of response, chastising him for nearly being late.

"Come on, man, it's wet -- and cold, I might add. Last thing you want is me smelling like a, um, a 'wet poodle' when we get home or whatever it was you said last time. Which was less of an insult than you would think as poodles are reputed to be very intelligent and ... "

His cell vibrated in his pocket and he nearly dropped it with fingers made cold and slippery from the downpour. "Blair here," he replied, looking around, squinting as cold rain trickled down across his eyes.

"Chief, what are you doing over there? I said five eleven, not five seven. And I said a spaniel. A wet spaniel. Look across from where you're standing." Jim sounded irritated.  Blair winced as he looked across at the adjacent rooftop. He could even see Jim pacing near the edge now that he actually knew where to focus his attention. If the weather hadn't been so bad, they could have done without the phones, though Blair didn't need to give Jim an excuse to shout at him.

"Hey, man, I'm sorry. I could have sworn that you told me that the meet was on five seven." Blair walked over to the edge of the building as if getting closer would help somehow. He peered over at the blurred lights through the rain and recoiled back from the dizzying height with a small grimace. He had no idea why he did that, as if one day he'd look and hey, that twisting gut clench of fear would have vanished. Needless to say, it wasn't today. "They there yet?"

There was a pause -- from the vantage point of roughly thirty feet away, through the sheets of rain, Blair recognized the slight tilt of the head and posture that said clearer than anything that the Sentinel was listening in that way only he could.

"Coming up the stairs now.  They better have that information. We need to find out who's been supplying the gangs with all this high grade weaponry before more people get killed, Sandburg."

"Yeah, I know, Jim." Blair mentally sighed at the implication that there was an answer he should have somehow. Jim had been obsessing over this case and had reached his tense, irritable stage, which would mean it was a short trip to 'intense' and obsessive. Which ended up in lines being crossed and risks taken, and the Sentinel going right to the edge. He could understand why, with this case, because the casualty and fatality rate involved in the gangs of Cascade having a supply of high-grade weaponry had escalated dramatically and the city was at flashpoint of gun paranoia.  It made him wary, and here he was on the wrong damn rooftop!  He saw other figures come out onto the roof behind Jim and said hastily, "Look, you go talk to them, I'll be over in the time it takes me to run down the stairs and back up again, okay?"

"Sure, Chief." Jim sounded a little more relaxed, and Blair was sure he could hear a smile in Jim's tone.  "Five eleven, Chief, just in case you decide to take another tour of the area."

"Yeah, yeah." Blair grinned to himself and hung up, even as he raised his hand to Jim, who returned the gesture, and then turned back to the meeting. He was going to be soaked and exhausted by the time he was done, but maybe he would sleep the night through for a change. He hadn't really, since, well ...

It wasn't worth thinking about, so he made sure he didn't – or at least tried very hard not to.  Yet there were still moments where memories ambushed him at 3 am. But then, what else was 3 am for, if not existential angst?   Blair shook his head and turned, heading for the exit down from the roof. It was a sheer fluke that the surface water had made the concrete slick enough that he slipped and lurched awkwardly.  His phone went skittering off into the shadows and he ended up on one knee in a puddle. Great.  Now his jeans were soaked and cold water was draining down his leg and his phone was floating on the surface ...

Oh, maybe not floating any more, more like upending like the Titanic and plunging to a watery grave.

Probably not the best analogy he could have made, considering, but even if he and Jim didn't talk about it, or anyone really, it didn't stop it from being there and surfacing in his private thoughts. But that wasn't helping his phone.  With a soft curse he scrambled into the shadows to rescue the sodden cell and hastily wiped it off.

The door to the side of him opened cautiously and he froze, swaying back into the shadows as the artificial lights on the roof glinted off sleek metal. Not just any metal, but the distinctive bluish gunmetal shine that he now recognized instinctively. A long barrel protruded and a large figure stepped out warily and  almost immediately walked to the edge of the building overlooking Jim's rooftop meeting, and leaned down to sight his gun on the group.

Sniper rifle. Blair paused, realization dawning. If news of the Cascades PD's meet with some of the gang leaders had been leaked, obviously there would be parties interested in stopping any collaboration. And you wouldn't go to the actual place of the meeting, would you? If you had the equipment, you would go to adjoining buildings, where no one except for lost and slightly hard-of-hearing anthropologists would be lurking. His grip was tight on his now-deceased cell phone. No chance of getting Jim that way. He could yell for help - and then what? Jim would turn to look and place himself right in the crosshairs. One bullet later and the world would be down one Sentinel and he would lose his best friend. That couldn't happen.  He hesitated and saw the sniper sight on the group and then threw his caution to the winds and darted out across the dark and wet. His splashing was drowned out by the rain, but the sniper did turn at the last as he thumped into him, using his speed more than his weight to overbalance him. Then and only then, grappling frantically for the gun, did he yell "JIM!"  trusting the Sentinel to hear when the others would not.

Thinking did not come into it. It was a joke of theirs - well, Jim's actually –  that Blair frequently did things on instinct that someone with a better-developed survival sense would have considered an unacceptable risk. Right now, everything was reduced down to trying to tug that gun free and get it away and unable to kill Jim. The metal was cold and slippery and the man was still surprised enough to not regain his advantage even when he dragged them both upright, swaying to and fro as they struggled for possession of the weapon.

"Get ... off of me!" the sniper gasped. Locked together, they were a grotesque parody of a dancing couple.  Blair gave up, hoping that the guy would let him lead -- he was considerably larger and obviously had some muscle from the way he was hauling Blair around.

Knowing he was outmatched on size and mass, Blair concentrated on yanking back the man's thumb. An interesting demonstration by a recent female acquaintance had proven to him that, no matter how big and tough you were, someone yanking back on your thumb would break the tightest grip. It was funny how little snippets of information like that came to you in the middle of a life-or-death struggle. At least this one was more useful than most.

It worked, but in the process the trigger finger squeezed and Blair felt the tug of the bullet clip the front of his jacket. No sting of pain-- it was just as well he wore baggy clothes, though he mourned the damage to one of his favourite coats. The thumb manoeuvre completed, the sniper lost his grip enough for Blair to wrench the gun from his grasp, and unbalance his assailant. Blair staggered against the barrier at the edge of the roof winding himself slightly, his eyes wild when he saw the drop below him again. He had the gun, which had been the whole point of the charge into danger ...

Well hey, score one for the good guys, he thought, as he tried to catch his breath and straighten up. He glanced up to see Jim's silhouette across from him, pointing his own gun right at Blair and shouting something incomprehensible.

Why the hell was Jim pointing a gun right at him? Why wasn't he targeting the bad guy? Surely Jim could tell them apart. Unless ...

I'm in the line of fire.

Blair whipped his head around just in time to take a cracking double-handed blow from the sniper on the left side of his face, metal-hard from a knuckleduster.

The shocked numbness of the side of his head and face told him this was going to be up there with some of the best concussions he'd had to date. If he survived, it might even make his top five.

He blinked dazedly, aware that somewhere, someone was yelling his name. Quite a long way away. Oh yeah, that would probably be Jim. But Ellison was on the other building and Blair was here, and somehow he was lying here with his hair floating in the shallow puddles and he was cold and probably going to die ... again.

Been there, done that, man, he thought while the sniper rifle was tugged from cold, resistless fingers.

But if he's got that rifle, then he's going to take a shot at Jim and the others.

He opened his eyes, blinking a little and pushing himself up, feeling a warm trickle down his face in amongst the cold rain streaming down from the damp curls of his hair.

"Hey, hey man ..." Even to himself, his voice seemed a little slurred. "You don't want to kill a cop, man." He tried to push himself up, looking up at the figure silhouetted in front of him, the clicks of the rifle sharply audible over the downpour. Jim wasn't going to get here this time - he was over on a building roof, probably able to hear every word, see everything, and killing himself trying to work a way to get over to Blair. That pretty much sucked.  It wasn't Jim's fault.

".. it's okay, Jim, it's too far," he murmured while he squinted up at the man who seemed to be taking no real notice of his words, but was methodically checking the weapon and then raised it in a fluid professional movement to sight on the dazed anthropologist's heart.

"Wrong place, wrong time, kid," he said by way of a final warning.

"Story of my life, man. ..." Blair managed weakly, mustering himself for one last desperate tackle. Might as well go down fighting, make the others proud of him if he could ... yeah.

He caught the faint appreciation of his bravado in the man's eyes.  He considered trying to speak again, but it was obvious the man was decisive and a finger was about to squeeze a trigger and this was ... it  ...

Only a piece of the night seemed to separate itself from the darkness behind the sniper. His murderer-to-be obviously thought his eyes were wide from fear, but he was way beyond that now. It was astonishment.

Something large, dark, heavy and powerful struck the man high in the back, felling him as certainly as if he had been hit by Jim's truck. He toppled onto Blair, who was flattened back into the cold and wet.   Blair saw stars when he stared upwards, stunned in more ways than one.

He was sure that what he thought he had seen was not part of his concussion. Maybe if it had ended there he could have written it off as his eyes playing tricks, but this wasn't just a half-formed delusion. This big dark shape, a black shadow in the night, pushed the unconscious man aside and drew close to Blair. Close enough that the feline eyes staring at him were moonglows of  reflection in which he could see his own startled expression

Wild.

There was a low rumble of sound, a deep thrum of a half growl as the black jaguar stood over him and then leant forward to sniff at the warmth trickling from where he had been struck. The interrogatory feline rumble was so familiar in tone that Blair answered on autopilot.

"It's nothing, Jim.  It's fine, okay?" he said before he stopped, aghast at his own words.

Jim? How concussed was he, anyway? This was a panther. Big. Furry. Which Jim was notably not. He tried to push himself up, felt dizzy, and had to close his eyes.

Maybe it wouldn't be there when he opened them again.

There was a huff of warm breath against his numbed cheek and then a sandpaper tongue against his skin.

"Hey - hey, come on!" Blair opened his eyes again and the flash of an incisor right next to his eye made him freeze.  It felt absolutely surreal, as if he had knocked back a heady cocktail of disbelief and astonishment.  Boldly, he raised his hand to push that large feline head away from his face, his fingers sinking into warm, newly-dampened fur, as sensitive whiskers brushed his skin.

"Much as I appreciate the concern, Jim, don't you think you should be calling this in?" he asked before starting to laugh almost uncontrollably, nearly choking on the rain. A jaguar calling for backup! How would he work the phone? Well, he could use the speed dial ...

And that would be important because of course he would be able to snarl instructions down the phone.

Blair laughed again dizzily, his vision blurring. "Hey, Jim, you could ask for Megan. You know -- she might have experience after Skippy the Kangaroo. 'What's that, Jimmy?" he parodied in a bad imitation of Connor's accent, "Blair's stuck down the well again? Well hell, as long as it's not a fountain he can wait until the rain stops."

A large paw pushed him down, and again the world spun.  The hard points of five rather sizeable claws pressed on his chest, hitching in the material.

 "You know, Jim, I'd like to go home now that I think about it, maybe after a visit to our friends at the hospital. I'm not feeling that good," he said conversationally. "For one thing - and you'll laugh at this - you're looking pretty much like a jaguar now. It's a good look for you, you know. More hair, for a start  ... But ... pretty heavy."

He trailed off as, before his eyes, those great cat eyes shifted from a molten gold to a familiar blue. Under his hand, he could feel the fur pull in, the skin shifting tangibly even under cold fingertips. A jawbone shifted and remoulded until he was staring up at the familiar, very human features of his friend and partner who was looking at him anxiously.

"... I said, are you with me, Chief?" Jim asked. Fingers probed gently around the area where he had been hit. "You're concussed. Just hold tight, Blair."

Blair; he called me Blair.  That must mean he'd had a near death experience. Man, Jim looked worried. It was probably the rain mixing with the blood, made the scalp would look worse than it was.  Despite appearing to be enigmatic and calm most of the time, sometimes, just sometimes, Jim's emotions stripped naked and ran around freely on his face. Blair nearly laughed aloud at that mental image.

"Hey, Jim," he began, a little incoherently. "Sorry about being in the wrong place.  How'd you get over here? "

Jim was easing him up out of the puddle of cold water. "I jumped, Chief, " he said absently, reaching for his phone to call for backup and paramedics. "Ran and jumped like hell."

Blair's blue eyes widened "No way! That's, like, Olympic distances ... I  ... oh God  ..." He squinted, sickened by his vision distorting.

"Chief? Chief, come on, you stayed awake this long.  This is no time to fall asleep on me." Jim's voice was urgent but getting distant.

Blair smiled a little and said, his own voice sounding faint now,  "It's just a concussion, Jim.  It's not like I haven't had one before."

But then he couldn't hear the answer because the roaring in his head was too loud, and he couldn't see Jim anymore because somewhere along the line it had become really difficult to keep his eyes open and it really had been a pretty long night...

He drifted into the relative calm of unconsciousness, oblivious to the fuss and excitement of clearing the crime scene. Jim on the other hand had to get the unconscious police observer as well as the unconscious sniper out of the rain, and the other hundred and one things that took up his time when all the detective wanted to do was get to the hospital and see how serious those head injuries actually were.

The Sentinel had heard the crack of metal against bone even over the pouring rain, reacting when rational thought would have told him to stop and think instead of flinging himself from rooftop to rooftop after his unofficial partner. How he actually made it there was a bit of a blur, lost in the murky haze of adrenaline. Never mind the rest of it; the hit to the head had been enough to hurry him anxiously through the necessary police work before leaving for the hospital. Blair had thought he was a jaguar, and hallucinations like that did not bode well for his friend's health at all.

***

"I thought you said they were going to keep him in another night?" Simon paused and looked at Jim, who was perched on the edge of his desk and perusing some of the files relating to the arms dealers case.

"Apparently he's been doing some persuading," Jim said with a faintly indulgent smile. "It helps that he can reel off the warning signs for head injuries better than most of the interns there."

Simon chuckled, nodding slightly. "Heh. Yeah, I can see that from Sandburg."

"Besides, the x-rays and scans didn't show a fracture after all," Jim replied   He put the file down and flicked open another. "Just bad bruising, and you know what he's like about hospitals, Simon."

Simon raised his eyebrows. Yeah, that he did. "Yeah, I think he caught that attitude from you. I've been going over your report, Jim. It's a bit sketchy on certain vital details. I'm guessing I know the reason why, but if I'm going to have to cover this, I need to know what I'm covering." His voice had unconsciously dropped low and Jim nodded.

"I know, sir," he answered, shifting into a more formal work mode.

Simon waited. "Well?"

"Oh, right, sir." Jim grinned a little, his humour much restored now that he knew Blair was coming out of the hospital later that day. "Sandburg got the wrong address.  I'm not sure how, but he did and he was up on that roof looking for me, and of course I heard him and called him to ride him a little about being in the wrong place.  So he told me that he was coming over.  I was distracted by Chavez and Deston turning up. The pair of them are paranoid to the hilt, it was raining hard, and I was trying to get them to calm down and tell me about the arms shipments."

"Not terribly forthcoming, were they?" Simon said, flicking his eyes over Jim's report again.

"No sir, but I think that was because they don't actually know a great deal. The arms sales were negotiated by a third party that neither of them had known before. They both said that it was a professional operation, though, and the price was cheap enough to tempt both of them to make that deal.  That means a lot of capital behind this," Jim noted clinically.

"Yakuza?" Simon suggested, considering some of the big players in Cascade.

Jim shook his head. "Don't think so, Simon, not according to Chavez. He made some joke about them buying instead of selling. I got that much out of him, though it wasn't concrete."

Simon grimaced, seeing the possibilities of this latest development in Cascade's crime scene. "That's just great. All we need is for them to get in on the action."

"These weapons are already finding their way from street to big organisations, Simon," Jim said earnestly. "Smacks of someone creating a market or stirring trouble deliberately, at the very least."

"That's the last damn thing we need in Cascade." Simon shook his head. "Go back to last night. So Chavez and Deston were vague but useful?"

Jim nodded briefly, picking up the report again. "Yes, sir. Next thing I know is that I hear Sandburg shout my name on the other building. I turn to see him trying to wrestle a sniper rifle off of some guy who looks twice his size. The rifle fired once during the struggle.  At that point, Chavez and Deston clued in and ran for it, thinking they were under attack. Like I said in the report, I pulled my back-up .38 and  took a sight on the sniper just as Sandburg pulled the  rifle  free. Only I didn't have a clear shot. Blair was in the way. I yelled for him to move and gave the official warning, but I don't think they could hear over the storm."

"Probably not, Jim. " Simon sighed. Not that it was likely to come up, but he didn't want this guy walking on a technicality. "We don't all have your advantages. Go on."

"That guy must have known I was trying to put a bead on him. Cracked Sandburg around the side of the head with a double-handed swing and got out of the line of fire. He just ... toppled out of sight. I knew I had to get over there. I found the narrowest point between the rooftops, took a long run up, and jumped. Barely made it and scrambled up over the edge." He looked ruefully down at his left hand where a torn nail and abraded fingers stood testament to the closeness of that jump. "By the time I was up and over the edge, the sniper was up, had the gun and was about to pull the trigger. I must have hit him harder than I thought when I took him down. I then spent the next ten minutes trying to get Sandburg to respond. He wasn't terribly coherent. Seemed to be hallucinating and not understanding me.  I started to get worried about that knock on the head then and that he might be going into shock."

Simon looked at Jim for a long moment. "Hmm, yeah, I can see how that might have worried you, Jim."

'Worried' was not really an adequate description for someone who had flung himself from one rooftop to another, in the middle of pouring rain, over a distance most people wouldn't even consider possible.  'Frantic' or 'desperate' might be more apt. 'It's an Ellison and Sandburg thing' was probably even better.

"He might have hit his head twice, with us both landing on him again, " Jim added. "That can send a concussion over the top."

"Yeah. Yeah, I read the report. " Simon nodded slowly, showing his concern and gesturing to the report. "You said the 'victim was incoherent'."

"Worse than Rafe's birthday," Jim replied with another worried smile. "He thought I was a jaguar or something."

Simon chuckled reassuringly. "The kid needs to get some other interests in his life aside from sentinel stuff if that's all he can come up with in a hallucination. Anyway, if you have to do this again, Jim, try not to hit the criminal quite so hard. He's not regained consciousness yet."  He raised his eyebrows at Jim until he got another nod. "In the meantime we'll have to make do with the file on our sleeping beauty.  Take a look. Jeff Astle - mild mannered businessman with a lucrative side-line in contract assassination. This is the first time anyone has managed to link him directly to this line of work, so as far as the Feds are concerned we've already scored some major points with you taking him down. No doubt we'll have them tap-dancing on our toes shortly."

"Sandburg did the most of it," Jim replied absently as he looked at the picture in the file and then at the sparse details about the professional killer. "A definite pro. He's been suspected in connection with a few fairly high-profile assassinations but always came out clean, looking at this."

"Including the MacIntyre killings in New York. This sort of area is quite a way off of his usual territory." Simon unwrapped one of his cigars thoughtfully, the familiar action soothing him. "I don't like it, Jim. This Astle character is a player, and for him to turn up for a meeting between you and local gangs means either Deston and Chavez knew more than they're letting on, or they have you marked down as a target."

"Do we know where he was staying?" Jim asked. He looked up at Simon, his blue eyes hard and focused. "I might be able to pick up on something extra."

Simon paused, thinking it over. Forensics just loved it when he let Jim follow up on their crime scene investigation. He had his own file where he put the weekly complaint letter. Still, that was why he was the Captain; he got to take the flak so others could do their jobs. "I'll get Rhonda to give you the address," he said with an internal sigh.

Jim nodded and put the file down. "I'll get on it, sir," he said, turning to leave.

Simon paused and then said, "Jim.." which made the other man turn to look at him questioningly.

"Tell Sandburg that was a damn-fool stupid thing to do, okay?" he said in a curiously concerned tone of voice. "And that I don't want him back in here until his brains have stopped rattling around in that head of his."

"Got it."  Jim grinned at his long-time friend and Captain, then left even as Simon leant back and lit up, puffing the rich tobacco into gleaming embers and blue smoke.

"Jaguar Jim." he murmured to himself under his breath and then snorted in a low laugh as the smoke drifted.  He shook his head in amazement at the imagination of their police observer.

***

Blair was busying himself at the hospital by poking gingerly at the side of his face as he waited to be picked up. There was a sort of compulsion there to prod around to determine the exact extent of the injury, and try and accept the level of damage that was there.  His face felt peculiarly pulpy and numb in some areas, which apparently had to do with swelling pressing on various nerves, but in others he would flinch at the sharp pain when he exerted the slightest pressure.

"Ow," he complained aloud, and then compulsively poked around a bit more. "Ow!"

"That looks like fun," a familiar voice observed dryly from the doorway.

"Oh, hey, Jim."  Blair looked up, giving a lopsided smile; a little embarrassed at being caught doing something that was probably very stupid.

"It will heal quicker without the prodding, Chief." Jim walked into the room, studying his partner. "You ready to go home?"

That brought a genuine smile from the anthropologist. "Yeah man, absolutely. Hospitals are okay to visit, but I wouldn't want to have to stay here. Well, not long, anyway," Blair replied, shying away from the fact he had stayed here about a month ago, and had discharged himself all too hastily to go charging off after the Sentinel into the depths of the jungle. He was half relieved when Jim let the inadvertent reference slide. Last thing he needed now was go into all of that and cope with the atmosphere that occurred whenever they brushed the edge of the subject accidentally.

"I've got a driver out front of your room with a wheelchair that looks like it was made around the same time as your car," Jim replied, cataloguing the damage to Blair carefully. Nasty. He was lucky not to have a skull fracture after all from the look of it, and the bruising was probably bad enough.  "It can probably go about the same speed, too."

"Are you speaking ill of the Volvo? She'll know, and the next time the truck is in the shop from a car chase you will be walking, my friend," Blair warned in good humour as he got up.

"Maybe not a bad thing, I'd get there quicker after all," Jim quirked a smile. "You need a hand, Chief?"

Blair looked up and shook his head, deliberately letting his long hair hang forward to cover the worst of the bruising. "I'm fine, Jim. Let's get out of here."

It was obvious from the careful way he moved that all was not quite as well as Sandburg was making out. Jim had seen that manner of moving before. He'd used it often enough himself; the 'oh shit this hurts, everything aches, but great, I'm fooling everyone because really it's fine and I'm a man!' walk. All his friend's movements were extra careful - slow and precise, and without the patented Sandburg bounce. Not that that had been evident for a while since ... Alex.

He's still in pain. Jim considered as he reached to guide and support his friend to the wheelchair. Even with whatever painkillers they've got him on.

He frowned and was about to say something when Blair practically brushed past him to his waiting chariot of a wheelchair, to be escorted off the premises; picking up his medications on the way, and blithely chatting to assorted nurses and orderlies as if he was at some sort of social event. It wasn't until after they got outside and then to the truck that Blair relaxed enough to show how much of the normality had been an act. Even then, he brushed off Jim's concern and made a big thing of how okay he really was and that he was fine.

In a fit of independence, Blair pulled himself into the passenger side of the truck and nearly dislodged the yellow memo sticky attached to the dash.

"What's this, Jim?" he asked curiously as he picked it up and turned it over to read. It appeared to be a hotel address and room number. "The Cascade Grand?"

"Where your assailant last night was staying." Jim turned the key in the ignition. "I'm going round there after I drop you back at the loft."

"The Cascade Grand is just around the corner," Blair gestured over towards the tall building visible from the hospital parking area. "You can't seriously be thinking of taking me all the way back to the Loft and then coming back here?"

That earned him an Ellison Look.

"Jim, Jim, come on, man ..."

"Chief, you have a concussion. You are the one that reeled off the importance of rest to the doctors," Jim cautioned, glancing at him as the engine idled.

"Jim, it's not that bad. Really. It looks worse than it is. It's not ..."

"Like you haven't had one before. Yeah, I know, Chief." Jim was hesitating and Blair seized on the moment.

"Hey man, I know when it's bad, okay? I'm like ... a connoisseur of concussions!"

Jim couldn't help the amazed chuckle of laughter. "Only you could come up with something like that, Sandburg."

Blair grinned, knowing he'd won. "So, let's go to the hotel room while we are here and save yourself a round trip, and then I'll rest while you make dinner. Deal?"

Jim chuckled shaking his head a little.  "Deal," he replied as they pulled away.

***

Half an hour later, Blair was considering that maybe insisting to come up to the hotel room with Jim had been one of his less-well-thought-out ideas. He had slightly underestimated exactly how much of his 'nearly feeling normal' was down to the marvels of prescription pills. He didn't normally like conventional medicine, but he had to admit there had been times when painkillers and antibiotics had been worryingly necessary. And it looked like this was definitely one of those times.  But, he wasn't going to let Jim see that, having practically forced him to let him tag along up here.

"You got anything, Jim?" he asked in a low voice, in case the Sentinel was using his hearing.

"Not yet. Not sure what I'm looking for." The detective stood in the centre of the room, looking for anything that seemed strange.

"Remember to use the sense of smell, Jim," Blair murmured. His head was starting to throb rather insistently, and he leaned on a chair surreptitiously. To him, the room looked like any other hotel room - if somewhat more luxurious that the sort of places he had stayed in.

"Smell, right." Jim felt more relaxed about diving intensely into the assault of stimuli with Blair there. Though he could - and occasionally did - utilise his sentinel abilities alone, he never felt quite so in control of them then, or able to go into them deeply, as he did when Blair was there. It was like knowing there was a safety net there that would catch him if he went over the edge, someone that would make sure he wouldn't remain lost in darkness; that was a powerful foundation to build on. He'd walk out on the tightrope of his senses a lot more readily with his partner there to catch him if things went wrong.

"Shampoo - herbal, gun oil ... down by the side of the bed," Jim commented, feeling the complexities of the smells as if they were tangible things, filtering them out one by one.

On Blair ... gunpowder residue, antiseptics, ointment, the smell of an animal of some type and the metallic scent of dried flecks of blood all over him …

The Sentinel's mouth suddenly filled with saliva and his stomach rumbled as he swallowed, surprised by the surge of hunger.

"Good one, Jim - forget to grab lunch?" Blair commented dryly.

"Must be hungrier than I thought," Jim replied, a little discomfited at that rather sudden reaction. "I'm not getting anything, Chief."

"You've hardly given it a go, Jim. Come on, you know how to do this. Try closing your eyes and filter out all of the ordinary known smells," Blair cajoled, resting his hand on Jim's back to ground him." You're looking for something that sticks out, anything unusual. Just breathe ... breathe ... Now open your senses to the room one by one."

Hearing was easily dismissed; the only sounds being that of Blair's heart and slightly raspy breathing, and the shift of his clothes against his skin. He concentrated, a sliver of that strange hunger sensation remaining, along with an almost peculiar sensation of something lurking at the back of his mind.  The smells were clear and bright and swirling around him as a smudge of earth under the bed drew his attention, and he paced over, opening his eyes.

Every fibre of the carpet stood out in stark relief, and buried in among it was a small amount of crumbled earth under the shadow of the bed. He reached in and picked a little of it up, sniffing at it, tasting a little. Immediately he was in deep, delving into the complexities of the earth in a taste explosion that made him flinch back, even as the textures of the sample impinged on his awareness without his volition, sending his concentration off the scale. He was nearly in a zone, and he struggled with the dials to push his senses' responses down one by one.

"Got something, Jim?"

Blair's low voice stopped him from dropping into the scent and taste completely; it seemed today that he was teetering on the edge of a zone, or something unknown, every time he used his abilities.

"Having problems getting my senses under control, Chief," he admitted reluctantly, stepping back. He didn't like this feeling of something going out of control. Well, more accurately, he could admit to himself that he hated it with a passion, and it frequently made him unreasonable and irritable whenever he experienced anything like it.

"You're using the dials?"  The anthropologist sounded concerned.

"Yeah, yeah, I am, only if I go to concentrate on one, the others are coming up with it. It feels a bit ... raw." The detective looked a little uncomfortable admitting that. It was all too like admitting he couldn't control himself and that he wasn't coping. That was a definite red light for him.

"We'll have to look into this, Jim."  Blair sounded thoughtful as he replied. "It might be a hangover from last night. We've already established that your emotional state can affect your senses - leave you wide open. And you were pretty wired last night."

"I was a bit concerned," Jim replied, deliberately not looking at Blair in that moment. Panicked would have been more appropriate, when he saw the sniper down Blair and focus on him, and Ellison knew he could lose him.  He hadn't even thought about it, just acted on blind instinct. It would have been too much to say he had even been aware of his actions; he just did them.  "You were hallucinating pretty badly, Chief."

"It didn't feel like an hallucination, Jim," Blair replied seriously, just going with the need to talk about what he had experienced. "It felt pretty damn real. One minute I was looking up the barrel of a rifle and the next the guy was knocked out and there were you ... there was this enormous black Jaguar practically sitting on me. It even sounded like you in a weird sort of feline way. It could be something meaningful, you know, like ... a vision or something."

Almost immediately he knew he had made a mistake. Visions were a very touchy subject for the Sentinel, since Alex. There, he could think about it even if there seemed to be a taboo regarding speaking about 'the dying thing' that everyone had tacitly joined. It was uncanny. It was making a very significant chapter in his 'other' dissertation, as he noted the responses to survival and mortal danger in a closed society. Jim was typefying the normal reactions. The incident didn't get referred to. Not yet.  He was meant to deal with it, only it wasn't like when he had been shot, he'd coped with that; and the way of dealing with it had been the sort of bravado and joking mixed with concern that was common in many warrior-based societies. No, he'd gone one further than that, and it had become something that pushed him away from the easy camaraderie of Major Crimes. As yet he didn't know why they behaved that way towards him, but hey, that was the point of the new dissertation. He was going to find out.

The 'dying thing'. It was like the proverbial elephant in the living room. Looming, quiet, and no one wanted to admit that it was there because it was too large and difficult to deal with. The added dimensions of guilt and visions and Jim feeling out of control had meant that the subject had been off limits since they returned.

And that he didn't really sleep through the night any more.

Mention visions and Jim could be seen pulling up all his shields, all his defences, and locking down like he was now.

"I don't think so, Sandburg," the taller man said flatly, and then made a conscious effort to unclench his tensed jaw. "You took a nasty hit to the head. There's no need to make any more of it than that. I think I would notice if I changed, wouldn't I?"

It was a rhetorical question and Blair just looked at Jim, suddenly too weary to fight his corner, especially when it was just speculation.  "Yeah. I guess so, Jim."

Jim looked a little uncomfortable, as if reading that he might have overdone the slap-down of a Sandburg idea, from Blair's slightly too easy back down. 

"Look, Chief, why don't you just sit down while I check the bathroom out? I won't be long," he said in a much gentler tone. It was his way of offering a strange sideways sort of apology for overreacting, but even he was surprised when Blair actually nodded and took him up on the offer.

"Sure," came the simple reply, and Jim realised that perhaps Blair, for all his assurance that he was fine and he wasn't troubled, probably wasn't feeling that good after all; and he'd been talking and poking verbally at him as if everything was fine and normal. He had to remind himself to give the anthropologist some slack.

The detective nodded and disappeared into the bathroom, to open his senses up and see if there were any clues there.

Blair sat down with a sigh of relief as Jim disappeared out of the room and could be heard moving around in the small bathroom area. Half an hour ago - and the miracle of painkillers - had him convinced that the knock on the head hadn't been that serious. Right now he was wondering how it was his head wasn't in danger of falling off, as obviously it had come close to decapitation from the throbbing, burning sensation he was feeling. He was amazed at how it could do a good impression of someone freezing, and yet burning the area, at the same time. Icy hot sensations crawled around the puffy area every time he flexed a muscle too much.  He was dreaming longingly of going back down to the truck and damn well dry-swallowing the painkillers if possible. He should have gone in with Jim if his senses were a bit wacky right now, but he'd obviously annoyed the Sentinel by talking about visions, so it was best to let that drop for the time being.

It didn't change the fact that it had been so incredibly real. Each detail was etched on his mind; the way the soft fur had felt under his hand and how it had changed, shifting to skin and a familiar jaw clenched with anxiety. The eyes - feline and golden on him - changing back to ice blue, the smell of damp fur, the feel of that solid warmth, and the rumble of a growl deep inside a jaguar's throat. It had seemed very real, all his senses believed it to be real.

How wild would that be? And how way out there was he to believe, even for a moment, that it could be true? Jim was probably right, head injuries were strange, mysterious things, and the only thing it would be good for was giving Jim a bit of a laugh. He gave a little chuckle to himself as he waited. And waited.

And waited some more.

Okay, so now he really needed to go get his tablets and go back to the Loft, he had been a bit overzealous in coming up here when he could be miserable at home.

 "Jim? Jim, are you done in there? I mean, uh ... done doing Sentinel things?"

He waited a moment, getting no response whatsoever, and then groaned. The detective had probably zoned on something without him there to pull him out if he was experiencing difficulties.

Blair pushed open the door and found Jim a statue of immobility standing there with his fingers spread over a folded newspaper, his eyes closed.

Now that was unusual, he didn't usually zone on touch, and by the looks of it he was in deep as well. Blair walked forward, noting like he always did that it looked like Jim dropped into a meditative trance when he zoned. 

"Jim?" He took hold of his friend's arm. "Jim, come on, man, come back to me here," he said with the smoothness of someone who had done this many times before.  Softly did it. It was sometimes the equivalent of being woken out of a dream, he guessed, from the way that Jim sometimes reacted. "You're in a zone, man, and I could really use going back to the truck soon, and you've got to cook that dinner for me, you know?"

Jim's hand suddenly clutched around his arm nearly painfully tight, and his eyes flew open.

Blair, who was in the middle of saying "It's okay, Jim, ease off on the arm" looked up to meet his eyes automatically, and then tried to stagger back with a cry of shock. The eyes staring at him were unmistakably feline. Golden amber with an ebony slit of a pupil that fixed on him as he tried desperately to get some space between them.

"Whoa ... whoa, Chief," Jim's voice sounded concerned, but just the same as always. "What's wrong with you?"

"Your eyes, man!" Blair replied, sounding strained, "Your ..."  Even as he spoke the blue flowed back in and the alien yellow vanished, the pupils flowing back to ordinary spherical shapes. "... eyes." He trailed off as they stared back at him totally normal, if concerned.

"What's wrong with them?" The taller detective turned and looked in the mirror, blinking at his own reflection.

Pale blue eyes looked back at him from the glass, and though he felt a little like he did after his sentinel vision retracted, they appeared normal. "They look okay. Maybe you saw them dilated or something."

"Yeah, now they do," Blair replied, looking pale with the shock of seeing it so vivid and close as he shook his head. "But they were ... different. Seriously, Jim, they were like a different colour and slitted."

"Like a cat's." Jim looked at Blair, feeling very uncomfortable hearing this. "Back to the Jaguar thing again?"

"Yeah ... yeah, that's it," Blair nodded.

Jim was silent a moment. There was only one thing to explain it; Blair did still have a concussion. He was obviously hallucinating, or having flashbacks or something. He needed rest, and here they were, still on the case when he should be lying down. What was he thinking?! "I think it's time we got you back to the Loft, Chief. Maybe I should take you back to the hospital."

Blair knew he should have expected that; he'd dropped right into the trap even though he knew how Jim would react. It did sound a little out there. Definitely out there, but even so ...

"No, no Jim, I'm okay. Just a bit headachy."

It created an awkward silence between them as Blair could practically read Jim's thoughts. At least the detective didn't go as far as to voice them aloud.

"You're looking a bit pale, though. Chief, I think I've done enough of a look around."

"Did you get anything? Off of the paper?"

Jim looked at him again and Blair gestured, trying to distract him from thoughts of his possible descent into mental instability. "You were zoned on the paper, Jim."

"What? Oh yeah ... yeah, I thought I could feel the imprints of some writing," Jim admitted, looking back at the newspaper "It feels like a name or part of an address."

"Excellent. What does it say?" Blair pushed.

"Sandford 4398," Jim replied, jotting it down properly so he wouldn't forget. "Look, we're going back now, and I'll get the guys at the station to run this down for me.  Simon will skin me alive if he finds out that I brought you here. He has already banned you from coming in until you are less rattled." His close appraisal of Blair after those words made it obvious he was beginning to doubt that the younger man was recovered.

"Aw man, you're kidding, right? Jim?" Blair protested even as he followed Jim from the bathroom.

"No, I'm not, Chief," Jim said, giving a last look around. "If you're getting these ... uh ... episodes, I'm inclined to back him up on this one."

Blair looked at him and sighed. "Fine. Fine, I'll rest, I'll take my meds, whatever."

Jim gave him a smile. "Come on, Chief. The world won't fall apart if you are not around for a few days, will it?" he said lightly.

"I guess not," Blair murmured to himself even as he watched the taller man walk over to the door, and grimaced at his sudden stab of depression. "I guess it won't after all."

***

After some heavy-duty painkillers, a rather nice meal courtesy of Jim's prowess in the kitchen, and a belated trip to the shower, even Blair was beginning to think that the change in Jim's eyes had been some sort of weird side effect of the crack on the head. He'd even started making fun of himself over it for Jim's benefit, and spent the evening lightly teasing his own tendency to look into things as research subjects by threatening to do a paper linking metaphysical beliefs to mild head injuries.

Jim's humour had been restored, and some of that anxiety when he looked at the anthropologist had vanished as Blair did a good job of demonstrating how normal he was. Well, as normal as he got, at least, as he discussed the case, random facts, his love-life or lack of it, all mixed into an animated hodgepodge of gestures and exuberance, until Jim had to threaten him to get him to go to bed. It meant that he was left there alone with his thoughts, and while his thoughts had been excellent company for years, in the past month or so some of them had definitely become unpleasant, as they picked away at the rawness that existed inside of him.

The 'dying thing' was notable by its absence in discussion. Again. Over a month and it still hadn't been talked about. He was starting to look at it as some sort of bizarre endurance test. Thirty-four days and STILL no one has mentioned the drowning at the Rainer fountain - how are they keeping this up? There must be special training involved.  Special forces trained in stoic combat silence! Blair sighed and shook his head at his own thoughts.

He would have gone to the departmental 'shrink', as Jim referred to her with a total lack of political correctness, because he knew the signs. He recognised that he was in trouble, because - hey - Naomi would pretty much disown him if he didn't have the self-awareness to do that, but he was trapped into inaction by the very circumstances he needed to discuss. There was no way he could plumb the depth of the issues he had without revealing Jim's secret. Even with the confidentiality ethic, the shrink would react either in one of two ways; believe him and react to Jim as a freak or a fascinating specimen - both unlikely - or regard it as a manifestation of a delusional psychosis developing in his rather off-kilter brain. The latter was most likely, the former not an option.

Either way, getting help for himself on that front would cause more problems than it was worth, and his membership of the Sane Anthropologists of America would be immediately revoked. Instead of just being on permanent review.

At least he could still amuse himself, even if the joke was rapidly going stale.

He sat on his bed, the bedside light dim as he stared up at the ceiling. So here he was, stuck with the fact that he might be just a little bit losing it in the sanity stakes, and no one he could talk about it to except for those who knew about the Sentinel secret.

Simon, Megan ... and Jim. Who were incidentally all cops and, hey, watch those closed society doors slam shut and deal with it THAT way.

It wasn't that he even got to try. If there was a way to approach a fellow cop about discussing how you felt about being murdered, and incidental issues that might have brought to light about the meaning of life, and reversals of priorities and - oh, hey  - a grand, almost obsessive, need to validate your continued existence, it wasn't something that had come up while standing at the coffee machine. Or eating donuts. Or doing the paperwork. Or stakeouts. Or standing in the restroom, wondering who the stranger in the mirror was with the wounded look in his eyes, as the guys chatted on beside him. And wondering how that person seemed to be answering normally, and even smiling as he responded, and yet no one noticed the aching hurt that was so raw in the blue eyes.

He'd come up with a simple hypothesis for that one. No one looked him in the eyes anymore. They looked at his face, at the rest of him, noticed everything they could about the rest of it, but no one really looked into his eyes any more. Or maybe the hurt was only in the reflection, and only he could see it, like the damn Jaguar. A theory still under investigation.

He'd tried helping himself. He knew he was doing what the textbooks described could happen after a near-death experience, because textbooks had been his only way of helping himself. It hadn't exactly been near death; there had been nothing 'near' about it. He'd made it all right, and then come back, but he wasn't going to quibble semantics with his only source of useful information. Near death, death or murder, whatever you called it, Blair had to agree he had come back with a desperate need to believe in something, just as the research described. As it happened, in his case it was a someone, and he knew it. It wasn't the sort of vague, but all-encompassing, belief that had set him on this path about Sentinels, but a highly focussed intense need to give his return to life purpose.

And now he was very much afraid that his mind was slipping into the obsessional, as the pressure built up, and remained unrelieved and unrecognised by those around him.

The experiences centred around this head injury had been full hallucinations. Tangible, vividly centred on Jim - who he could clinically admit was the centre of his 'post-death thing' focus. Real enough to sucker his mind into doubting their unreality. Hallucinations rarely touched ALL of the senses; he knew that from his own research. They usually focused on one or two, but this had been so real that, even as he recalled them, trying to find somewhere that the hallucination wasn't real and it showed, he couldn't. It was as real a memory as dinner last night, for example, and no amount of worrying at it, self-analysis and self-doubt was quite eradicating the niggling conviction that at the very least it had been a significant vision.

So he lay awake in the middle of the night, even though he was exhausted in an overtired way, worrying about his state of sanity, and waiting for the point when he could take his next batch of painkillers. He just hoped Jim wasn't listening in, because he would realise how little sleep he was getting, and that wouldn't get him back in the field with him any quicker.

To pass the time, because radio or music or TV would definitely wake the Sentinel, he picked up his jacket, wondering whether it was worth salvaging.

He poked his finger up through the entry and exit bullet holes on one side, stilling it a moment. It worried him. It worried him that he didn't really care that it had been that close, but apparently that was another common theme with those who nearly died. The fact they knew something was there, regardless of the experience, gave them calmness about facing death afterwards, though privately he noted the actual process of dying still gave him a lot of problems. The books glossed over that aspect, or perhaps it was the fact that most near deaths were accident-related, so the actual death part of it was the key thing, rather than the dying. He guessed it made sense, but it wasn't really normal. He should be having the jitters over it. He should be waking in a cold sweat. Instead he was rather calmly looking at his jacket, wondering if darning it would leave too much of a mark.

He spread the brown material out and frowned a little at the damage on the other side of the cloth. There were five small tears arranged over the left side in a rough semicircle, nearly invisible in the crumpled material, and some blood on there that didn't seem to be from him. He'd managed to stain most of around the collar and shoulder, but not down there.  He frowned a moment, a knot of tension tweaking at him as a memory drifted back to his awareness...

The Jaguar had pushed him down, and he had felt the sharp points of its claws through cloth on his chest.

He shivered a moment. "No way, man," he murmured to himself and examined the rips more closely.  One felt a little lumpy in the padded lining behind the tear and he poked into it cautiously. A little wiggling and poking and his finger closed around a hard, slightly curved object that he pulled free and held up to examine, and then froze.

How long he sat there staring, eyes locked on the inch and a half of curved ebony claw he didn't know, because it felt like the world had stopped, tilted upside down, and shaken him loose from reality.

A jaguar claw. A real, tangible, physical jaguar claw tip. Hard and smooth, curving to a sharp near-hook at the end.

"Shit," he managed eventually, turning it over, seeing, the jagged end where it had torn, and his mind, unbidden, pulled up the memory of Jim with a torn-off fingernail and abraded hands.

He must have snapped it jumping across to the roof. Hell, it was the only way he could have got a grip in that slippery wet weather Then it must have snagged in his jacket fabric and twisted off.

It was real. He had physical evidence. It was ... shit ... it was real.

All those careful rationales, doubts, and suspicions were shredded by the mere existence of that claw, and even his renowned open mind struggled to encompass this particular turn of events.

Jim had become a Jaguar. A literal, physical transformation. In the past, he'd spoken of the symbolic transformations in some of his visions, and there was, of course, the merge. He'd felt what that was like, where he had at once been the wolf, and outside of the wolf, experiencing both viewpoints. And there had been the events at the Temple of the Sentinels. What if that dip hadn't just enhanced the Sentinel's senses, but had increased his connection with his animal spirit? He had to do some research on this. Had to find out what had caused this, what it might mean, what it was ...

He noticed his hands were shaking slightly as he stared at the claw again, feeling it as a talisman against his own natural ability to doubt himself, as he considered what else he should do.

He should tell Jim.

And Jim would do what? Look at his reaction so far. It was much easier for him to believe that his partner was having a mental glitch than to believe he was a … what? A werejaguar? That sounded like something out of a cheesy B-movie. The kind that he and Jim sometimes watched together and threw popcorn at the screen over its hilarious melodrama.

His instincts told him it was connected to the Sentinel deal and so far he'd found his answers related to that in research. He'd have to present Jim with evidence, with some sort of proof before he broached the subject again. But there was something about this that seemed dangerous.  Maybe he had changed since the fountain, but he seemed more aware of Jim's senses, and the importance of controlling them and more in tune or affected by emotion, and he felt something just off about this. Maybe his death had knocked all he shields and defenses down and left him open to everything while he tried to rebuild them.

No wonder things seemed to hurt so much.

It didn't change the fact that he had come back because of Jim. That was a pretty defining point in anyone's life and Jim, willing or not, part of his self-appointed purpose was to keep the Sentinel safe, in control and though it was not something he spoke aloud, or even said to himself often ... to make sure he couldn't turn like Alex.

He knew. Just like he'd known after he came back how Alex's presence pulled and tugged at Jim when he had missed the signs before. He knew at the temple that there was a possibility Jim could fall into a darker version of himself and that he had to be there to stop it. That by just by being there he could show him there was another way even if he didn't have a clue how he was doing it. The same applied here with this feeling he could pick up with this transformation; now he could admit it wasn't him and a concussion dredging up these strange visions.

He lay back on the bed again, looking at the claw again and then folding it in the palm of his hand. He wasn't crazy. Well, not about this at least. There was a connection to Sentinels and he would find it while Jim thought he was being good and resting quietly. There weren't many quieter places than libraries, after all.

***

Jim sat at his desk at work in the morning and stared at the screen, not really concentrating. He couldn't stop seeing Blair's expression when he came out of the zone in the hotel room. Fear. Stark fear. Blair looking at him with fear in his eyes seemed so unnatural that it shook him to his core. Never that. Hurt he'd seen, doubt, indecision, courage, affection, intelligence ... there were a multitude of emotions and qualities he'd seen in Blair's eyes, but they'd never been darkened by fear of him before.

All this time he'd spent trying to make things the way they were before - before Alex. He tried so hard to provide the security, the stability that he thought Blair needed to get himself to a point where he could cope with what had happened and in the process he was discovering fundamental certainties about them just couldn't be taken for granted any more. He'd hurt his partner in a way that he just couldn't accept. He looked back on that time, what was it? Barely a month ago and it felt like he had been a stranger doing and saying all those things, but at the same time he had to acknowledge that it was him. He couldn't help but take responsibility for everything, but all the words in the world could not erase what had happened and he couldn't even find a way to attempt to try. Every rehearsed speech, every planned scenario sounded hollow and empty and like he was trying to excuse what he had done. Excuses were fragile twists of unsupported speculation that fluttered unsubstantially, threatening to rip with any mention, any discussion that exposed them to too much handling.

Most of the time he and Blair buried themselves in work. Blair didn't talk about it and seemingly didn't want to talk about it from the way he deflected discussion of the topic –  and it had gotten so he didn't spend all his time obsessing over 'what ifs' unless reminded.

Like this morning. When he put out Blair's meds on the side and stood frowning at the antibiotics that were included along with the painkillers and anti-inflammatories, Blair had shrugged his shoulders and told him in a casual tone that the doctor thought the lung infection might still be there and the wet, cold and head trauma might tip him over the edge. He stated it in a diffident tone without meeting the Sentinel's eyes and shrugged again at the detective's rather aggressive inquiry about why he hadn't said anything, responding that it was no big deal and just a preventative measure.

Jim had been angry at himself for not noticing, for not picking up on it, and a search through his memory had shown he had noticed, just as he had picked up that Blair's breathing had been raspy last night and then ...

And then nothing.

He'd done absolutely nothing about it. Hoped it would go away, let the moment slide past. It wasn't that he was being deliberately callous or hard, just ... not wanting to face what might happen as a result of bringing it up.  He didn't want to find out Blair blamed him , and face the loss of their friendship, most likely. And Sandburg seemed to be dealing with it fine. Better than fine. He'd scarcely know something had happened to him if he hadn't been there, fighting to cram life back into his body...

"Ellison!" Simon stuck his head out of his office and bellowed with enough volume to hush the busy office.

Jim blinked, startled out of his thoughts and got up, entering the captains' office and shut the door.

Simon was back in his chair by the time he got there, with a fresh coffee. Jim winced just a little as the strong smell momentarily brought his other senses up and online much quicker than usual.

"You wanted me, sir?" Jim watched Simon, well aware that the Captain was displaying all the signs that he had just been handed information that had soured his disposition and was going to pass it on.

"God alone knows why." Simon replied automatically. "How's Sandburg this morning? I was surprised that he hadn't followed you in anyway."

Jim sat on the edge of the table casually. "I told him you'd hang, draw and quarter him, and me if he came in. He's doing ... okay." He couldn't quite avoid a brief hesitation before he said that.

Simon paused. "That didn't sound too convincing, Jim," he queried, a little worried. "I thought you said he was okay. "

"Yeah, well." Jim rubbed the back of his neck, looking down, "He persuaded me to take him with me to the Cascade Grand. He had another sort of hallucination."

Simon's eyes widened as he looked at him. He didn't like to hear there might be a problem with one of his team, and he did regard Blair as one of his team even if they sometimes played around with the fact he was an observer. "What the hell were you doing, taking him there? You know that the hospital only released him on the condition he was going to get a lot of rest!"

Jim looked a bit sheepish, acknowledging the reprimand. "I know, I know, Simon. He seemed so normal – well, as normal as he usually is. When I found the paper, with the faint imprint, I zoned on it. He brought me out, but freaked out when I looked at him, saying I had jaguar eyes .."

Simon looked at him suspiciously, trying to work out if this was a wind-up.  "Damn. He wasn't just playing into the joke, was he?"

Jim shook his head, wishing that he could say yes. "You didn't see him, Simon. He was scared, he looked totally shocked and scared when he looked at me." He tried to say it evenly, but the tone wasn't convincing enough to fool his captain.

"Which explains why you have been staring into space this morning," he said in a more understanding tone. "Look, Jim, it's just the concussion. Remember when Rafe took the hit round the back of the head and thought the office smelt of roses and had been decorated pink for a week? It does funny things to you. I've seen you do the same thing, though you must have a harder head than most."

"Concussions aren't to be taken lightly, sir." Jim reminded. "I'm ... just concerned, that's all. That it might be about other things, or aggravated a situation."

"Ah." Simon looked closely at his best detective and winced a little. "I see. Haven't you spoken to him yet?"

Jim returned the gaze steadily. "Have you, sir?"

Simon met his gaze and shook his head slowly, reading Jim's own emotions with stark clarity.

"He doesn't blame you, Jim, I don't think it occurs to him to blame anyone apart from himself," he said quietly. "That's not the way he is."

Jim shook his head, backing away from the subject. "Maybe he's spoken to Conner."

Simon replied with a dubious "Maybe."

Shit, hadn't Blair talked about this with anyone? He made a mental note to check to see if he had taken up any of the counselling services that had been offered. "Anyway, perhaps it's just as well he's not underfoot. This deal is about to turn nasty on us, Jim. FBI are getting involved. Yours ... and Sandburg's takedown of Mr Astle has connected the weapons glut to a pipeline out of the Middle East that has been in investigation for some time. They've been tagged as the Red Stars because that is the only identifying mark, a very small insignia of a red star over a black crescent. They apparently busted the main conduit nine months ago in New York, but didn't manage to pull down the entire hierarchy. It's only been a matter of time before it resurfaced. You were right, Jim, it looks less and less like a one-off glut of weaponry that is going to be moved, but the start of something big."

Jim's expression had gone hard. "Why Cascade?" he asked.

"Why not?" Simon replied with a shrug. "You said yourself that Cascade is the most dangerous place in America."

"I thought I was joking," Jim replied, straightening up as there was a knock at the office door.

"Yeah, well the joke's on us, Jim." Simon said, looking up and waving Rhonda in.

"Federal Agent Hawker to see you, sir," she said in full professional mode as a very efficient-looking woman entered the room, dressed in the smart dark suit that seemed to characterise most of the Feds they had come in contact with. Jim remembered Blair's rather irreverent speculation that Feds took a Boring Suit seminar when they trained which entitled them all to get a special bulk discount price of the same type of professional outfit. It was enough to put what seemed to be a genuine welcoming smile on his face.

"Captain Banks? Federal Agent Louise Hawker. I worked on the Red Star case in New York." She introduced herself to him, shaking his hand in a businesslike fashion. "We have an unparalleled opportunity to perhaps get right to the top levels of this organisation this time, and I don't want to waste it."

The woman was sharp and her voice wound to the edge with efficiency and tension. There was no need to have Sentinel senses to know that this woman was buried so deep into this case that it was exceptionally personal to her.

"Pleasure to have you on board, Agent Hawker," Simon said with little of his usual suspicion that he reserved for the Feds, which made Jim gave him a second glance in mild surprise. "We're hoping you can perform the same trick in Cascade as you did in New York."

"I'm hoping for more than that." She put down her briefcase. "I'm hoping that we can get the top rank of this organisation. They will need to come and cement operations here and if we play it correctly we can get all of them. It's just luck that we have managed to catch it so early in their moving-in period."

Jim considered privately that maybe luck had been involved, but so had no little courage on the part of his best friend. He cleared his throat. "Excuse me, Agent Hawker ..."

"Louise will be fine, detective," she answered with a flash of a smile.

"Louise, then. We were just wondering what made Cascade the location they settled on?"

"We believe there is a significant Russian connection," Louise replied brusquely, as if  that were information that should be obvious to anyone with more than one brain cell. "Plus, Cascade has an active shipping route and enough private flights that smuggling is reasonably easy to conceal ... and there are most definitely active routes to and from Russia already established in Cascade. Combine that with large areas of wilderness which are ideal to lose people and items in, and Cascade doesn't seem that odd a choice. Why do you think you have had representatives of many different crime families and organisations here? Cascade has contacts and potential as a distribution point."

Jim nodded slowly. It did make sense, but it just seemed peculiar having his city ranked alongside New York as a problem city.

"Ms Hawker, this is Detective Ellison - he and his associate were responsible for the apprehension of Jeff Astle," Simon introduced him belatedly.

That earned Jim a more favourable glance. " That was good work, Detective Ellison. You and Mr Sandburg were exceptionally lucky. Jeff Astle has never yet failed on a contract." Agent Hawker looked up, her dark eyes assessing Jim carefully. "I was hoping to meet Mr Sandburg, and go over his statement."

"Sandburg is, uh ... on medical leave. Recovering," Simon interjected firmly. After Jim's comments, unless it was a matter of life and death, he wasn't having the anthropologist back in the office until he was fully recovered. "He took a severe blow to the head in the struggle."

"Pity." She smiled, the expression crisp and professional and lacking in warmth. "Well, gentlemen, shall we get to work? We need to be at this at twenty-four/seven to make it work. The Red Stars move fast, so we have about a week if we are lucky before they are so entrenched in Cascade you'll have a permanent weapons pipeline in your city to deal with – and I'm sure you would prefer that not to happen."

She unclipped her briefcase and handed out a couple of dossier files with brisk efficiency. "These are the case notes from New York, the profile of the organisation and any known members of their outfit. Unfortunately the end scene in New York turned into a bloodbath as we tried to reach the higher-level players when they met using a legitimate company building that turned out to be a front. The resulting firefight is not something that we want to see repeated here as there was a high fatality rate on both sides. Many of the members were killed, and as the building went up in flames it was difficult to ascertain which of these people survived. Including the deep cover agent we had managed to infiltrate into the organisation."

There was something about the quality of her voice as she said the last bit that made Jim look up from the notes he was scanning. Perhaps the changes in inflection were only audible to Sentinel hearing, but he got the distinct impression there was something about the deep cover agent that wasn't being said. "It was someone you worked with?" he asked in a softer tone.

"He w .. is my brother. Lyle Hawker." For the first time Agent Hawker showed a hint that there was a human beneath her professional persona as her poise slipped a fraction.

"There has been no confirmation that he was amongst the bodies recovered in New York.  So far."

Jim and Simon could tell how much the honesty of allowing that addition of 'so far' to her statement had cost her and nodded, as the unwritten rules of their closed society that so intrigued Sandburg came into play. Never give up for dead one of your own - a lesson still fresh for them as well.

"Besides, if I can make contact with him, then we stand a very good chance of bringing this down intact. He is clever enough to have used his survival of the New York bust to escalate him in the organisation." Agent Hawker added, all efficiency now the brief human moment had passed.

"You haven't heard from him since New York?" Simon queried, looking over the undercover agent's file. They shared a certain similarity in looks. The same dark brown hair and dark hazel eyes. This Lyle Hawker had a lean, almost hungry look in his photo. Simon had seen it often in people who lived dancing on a tightrope of adrenaline, wound so tight that they practically vibrated even in the glossy still of an ID picture.

The efficient agent shook her head. "No, but in deep cover operations that's not unusual. Anyway, I'd like copies of everything that you have from your investigation so far, right up to the minute."

"Forensics have just confirmed the imprint Jim located yesterday," Simon mentioned casually, and looked up as if he was telling the Detective some news as opposed to confirming what he had reported privately. "You were right, Jim, there were some writing indentations left on that newspaper. Looks like it might be a name or part of an address."

"Really, sir?" Jim replied, his tone bland. "Any luck on picking up a match?"

"Not so far," Simon admitted. "But Agent Hawker has access to more complete databases, so I would have thought they might turn up something there. Otherwise we have our guys working on the retrievals from Astle's room. His laptop especially. Encrypted, of course."

"I can have our experts take a look at it if ..." Agent Hawker's offer received a glimmer of irritation from Simon as the implication that they could not do their jobs effectively hung in the air not quite said, even though he smiled at her.

"Our team is more than competent, they have a great deal of hands-on experiences," Simon said pleasantly enough. "Though I'm sure they would appreciate access to some of the Federal technology to help them complete their task, rather than waste time dragging experts down here and having to start from scratch."

Jim had to give the Agent credit. She accepted the rebuke with a quick nod and replied, "I'll arrange to have resources accessible to them."

His respect for her doubled in that moment. Here was someone who was not going to get territorial about making this case. She just wanted it closed and would do what needed to be done to make it happen. Sandburg would have been amazed - their usual dealing with the Feds had resulted in clashes of procedure and personality. Maybe this time they could actually co-operate rather than just tolerate each other's presence.

Simon nodded, surprised by the easy capitulation. "Jim, you will be liaising with Agent Hawker here. I suggest you two get yourself caught up and start chasing down some of those leads. As she has so rightly pointed out, time in this case is critical."

"Of course, sir," Jim said, giving his best polite smile to his temporary working partner, as he picked up the assorted files and then opened the door for her. "We'll get right on it."

***

Sneaking out to Rainer would probably get him into a world of trouble if - no, when Jim found out, but there was some research that had to be done and an article to submit to convince the university that he was worth keeping on the payroll. It had been an interesting piece to research, about cultural clashes in the urban city environment paralleling the sort of displays seen between tribes whose territories encroached on each other, drawn from some of the cases that he and Jim had tackled – taking them into the heart of those situations. At least the powers-that-be were lapping up that aspect of it, and these justified his work with the police over the years, and built him a rather quietly respected reputation in criminal anthropology, much to his secret amusement.

He had several of the cases he and Jim had worked on written up as standalone case studies, and he often used those to keep his contributions to the anthropological requirements up to date. He might not be in his office that much any more, but they couldn't say he wasn't producing the work, even if a lot of it was written up when he was technically on medical leave, because otherwise he was with Jim, or doing his teaching stint.

Even so, those powers-that-be were keeping an eye on him since he had informed them he was changing the subject of his doctorate and then stirred up hell with the Ventriss incident.

He'd even made it sound convincing, in light of his recent experience, as to why he was suddenly filled with the desire to shift his focus to deal with the attitudes to death within a modern closed society. He'd been convincing in the fact that he was seizing on a once-in-a-lifetime - excusing the bad pun - opportunity to observe reactions and behaviour directed at him as a literal representation of that concept, resulting in something that would provide a practical insight into such a rarely observed subject. He 'd rehearsed that little speech quite a few times, without taking a breath usually.

The Board had to agree, and as it was a relevant topic, or at least more relevant than his previous subject of Sentinels, they had agreed to the doctoral subject matter once he had demonstrated that he had enough material already to provide a valid research base.

In doing so, though, he had made an exchange. It would not be Jim as such who would be laid bare for the world to see. It would be himself as he sacrificed his observer status to be a part of the process. The truth was, it wasn't just the incident with Alex that had prompted the change. Jim's reaction to the first chapter of the Sentinel dissertation had been devastating and he'd realised then, as he had many times before, that whenever he was offered a choice between his friend and his own ambitions and dreams, the friend won every time.  His offer to give it up had been genuine. He would rather be a friend than write a dissertation. If Jim had asked him to stop he would have; only, he realised that the whole reason why he would stop was exactly the reason why Jim wouldn't ask him. There had been a point where the Sentinel deal had become less about studying and more about experiencing. He counted himself lucky that friendship appeared to be the focus of that experience, for all of what happened with Alex. So, in the end he had done what he had then realised that Jim would never ask him to do, but would want. He'd changed the subject in a desperate attempt to start mending everything that had shattered to pieces in the fountain he flinched at every time he walked past.

Even so, changing your doctorate, even when they agreed with you, made the powers-that-be distinctly nervous, so Blair had found it politic to show his face -  even as battered and bruised  as it was which had been so far very good for sympathy and had netted him at least three offers of dinner when he was feeling better - just to reassure the University he was serious and worth their continued backing.

All that aside, he needed to get to some of the books in his office for that research on this latest possible development of Jim's Sentinel abilities and then plunder the library for some of the slightly more esoteric texts.

His office made him feel ... he wasn't really sure what he felt about it anymore. He'd expected to feel fear, panic - something definite at least. He felt none of that, which was almost more worrying than if he had sat down and had palpitations and panic attacks and all those other classic Sandburg reactions that he kept well hidden. It was as if that part of him had been anaesthetised and was still too numb to react. But sitting at his desk, reading selected books, well, it was like constantly prodding at the numbness in his injured face, waiting for it to hurt again. The whole thing was a mass of contradictions. On one level he was sensitive and open to other people's emotions, almost too empathetic from his recent over-reactions, but to his own senses there was a deadening, presumably so he could cope with going on.  Sensitivity to other people's situations was raw, sensitivity to Jim's moods and how they acted around him was so high it was like sandpaper on raw skin. But deep inside, when he mentally poked at what he felt there, was a curious feeling of numbed detachment.

But all anaesthetics wore off eventually, and from his now-extensive medical experience Blair knew that usually when they did, it hurt like hell. It crossed his mind in the form of a masochistic wry thought that that was something to look forward to, if nothing else.

Numb or not, the strangeness made him uncomfortable, so he was not going to sit here and read all of these texts, that was for sure.

"Uh, Mr Sandburg?"

He looked up to see one of his students loitering half in the partially open door and smiled automatically, if painfully. "Alison, right? Hi, come in, come in, what can I do for you?"

The young student entered. "I tried to come and see you yesterday, but you were called in sick," she explained, her gaze finding the now rather impressive bruising on the left side of his head and she looked a little startled. "We thought it might be the 'flu that's going around, but ... I guess not."

Blair looked at her, still maintaining the smile "No, no, not the flu, just a mishap in my own research. Looks worse than it is, really."

"It looks pretty bad." The young blonde anthropology student sat nervously. "I was wondering whether I could talk to you about the final assignment?"

"Sure," Blair replied expansively. "What about it?"

"Well, I know that it's a bit late in the day to be changing it, but ..." Alison pushed her hair back nervously as she began a rehearsed speech. "Well, I was doing the Mayan topic, and it was okay, but in doing that I started uncovering information about the Olmec, and ... I know it's not how Professor Bates describes we should be as anthropologists, but I really feel that I understand and have an empathy with that subject more than with the later eras."

Blair nearly laughed aloud. It would be the height of hypocrisy for him to deny such a change. "Never apologise for feeling enthusiastic about a subject, Alison," he replied kindly. "Too many people study with an attitude of indifference, and that is disrespectful to your subject. You don't have to tell Professor Bates this, but I feel that the really good anthropologists have a high degree of empathy for their subject matter - how else can they hope to comprehend a culture so far removed from their own? But they also have to have the capacity to take that empathy and analyse it objectively. I'm not going to penalise you for having the willingness to change your subject matter because you recognise that your interests are focussed elsewhere."

The young student looked relieved. "Thank you, Mr Sandburg."

"Blair, please," he corrected automatically.

"Thank you ... Blair. I, uh - I have a draft plan, if you'd like to look it over?" she offered, pulling out a folder hastily.

"I'm pretty sure it won't be necessary, but sure." Something prompted Blair to extend his hand to receive the bundle of papers. "I'll take a look at it later tonight, and get some notations back to you for tomorrow, okay?"

She nodded, relieved. "Thanks again, Mr .. uh, Blair. I really appreciate it."

Blair nodded, putting the folder into his backpack along with all of his books he thought might be relevant. "No problem, Alison. If you or any of the others need me, I'll be working at home using my laptop, so you can get me by mail. Strictly I'm meant to be resting, but there's only so much daytime TV a man can take."

She laughed as he had meant her to. "Glad I caught you, sir, and you really should rest as well as work … I mean, yeah."

She looked embarrassed at her boldness at mentioning something so personal and then blushed even more as Blair smiled a genuine smile at her, aware that he probably had set off another crush even as she left.

There was a lot of other stuff he should be doing, but he had to get home before Jim phoned to check on him. And he would, he knew his roommate. If he didn't pick up he would be around to see if he hadn't gone completely fruit loops on him.

Blair fingered the sharp curve of the jaguar claw in his pocket as a talisman for his sanity even as he shut the door on his office, and made a hasty retreat back to the haven of the Loft.

***

As lunch partners went, Agent Hawker was turning out to be reasonable if able to match Jim at his obsessive best regarding this case. Jim considered that if he had thought he was getting wound up over the weapons shipments, he was playing a rather muted second fiddle to Louise. Not that he minded talking business, but he did find himself wondering if he sounded like this when he got 'intense' over a case, as Sandburg described it.

"... and we could have brought them down, if the hit had been better coordinated. If I'd been able to get hold of Lyle beforehand then ..." Louise stopped a moment, her hazel eyes darkened as she paused. "He could have given me the information to break the perimeter."

And warned him to get out in time, Jim added mentally as he nodded in polite agreement.

"How would you have done that, though?" the detective asked calmly as he took a forkful of food." Did you have a means of communication?"

"I'd email a spoof email that looked like spam, and then he'd contact me, depending on when he was able. I had a series of them with key words and phrases in it to suggest the urgency of matters." She gave a barely audible sigh. "And before you ask, no, I haven't had a response back since New York, but that might be for a very good reason."

"Yeah, I've been undercover a few times. Sometimes it's just not possible to get a call out," Jim agreed, thinking back to his sojourn in prison. That had been too close, even with Blair there as a contact.

That brought a genuine smile which warmed her features a great deal, changing her from a crisp efficient mask into a real person. "Thank you, Detective Ellison."

"Jim, please."

"Jim, then. Thank you. You are one of the first people to even give credence to the possibility that my brother might still be alive." Some of the tension had vanished from her body, though barely discernible to normal vision.

Jim gave a half smile. "I've come to learn that usually what we consider to be impossible is often the most likely thing to happen. At least in Cascade."

Blair dying ... Blair being alive again ... Another sentinel finding them. A whole host of impossible things, nightmares and miracles intertwined. If there were a place where the impossible collided with reality, it was his city.

She gave a slight chuckle at that, the touch of humour lighting up her expression so that Jim had to admit she really was very attractive when she smiled. "Perhaps then we can perform a miracle of our own, and finally cripple this organisation once and for all. There's no point cutting the thing off at the tail end; every single time they grow back stronger, and trust me, you don't want that in Cascade."

"You are right, I don't like the look of what they are doing already." Jim replied, sipping at the juice he'd ordered, "We've had three fatalities so far that are directly linked to these new weapons, and a rash of shooting incidents. They're flooding the streets with them."

"Standard procedure - creating a market for them so that all the factions and gangs in the area need to have them and get them established as customers." Agent Hawker pushed the rest of her salad to one side. "Who would turn them in, or double cross them when they supply the firepower they need? - And if anyone who seems to be doing so gets eliminated quickly."

"So that's why the sniper?" Jim concluded, fitting the pieces together

"They've done it before." Louise looked at him appraisingly. "If not for your friend, they would have done it again with your contacts."

"Sandburg, yeah." That tickled off a mildly anxious thought and Jim glanced at his watch. "You mind if I give him a call? He's not the best at following doctors' orders."

"Sure, no problem. I'd still like to speak to him at some point." She pushed that point again.

"Maybe tomorrow or something, he's ... well, he was pretty concussed at the time and it's only the fact he can talk fast enough to persuade people to do anything that he's even out of the hospital." Jim got out his cell and pressed a speed dial. "Excuse me a moment."

The phone rang and rang. Jim frowned as he waited and met Louise's eyes as nothing happened and there was no pickup.

"Dammit, Chief." he murmured under his breath as he was about to hang up, visions of his guide suffering a relapse and unconscious on the floor already starting to pluck at his mind uneasily as he looked up at his dinner companion. "Uh, I better drop round there before we head back - something might have ha .."

"Blair here." The voice was a little breathless as the call was finally answered.

"Hey, Chief. I was just about to come round to see if you'd passed out in front of the TV or something."

Blair gave a short laugh. "No way, man, turned that off ages ago. Fuzzy-headed enough, you know?"

"Where were you?" Jim was unconsciously opening his hearing and listening to everything he could down the phone.

"Decided to take the garbage out. Had to run up the stairs," Blair replied easily enough, and Jim could hear the thump of his heart as if he had indeed just run up the stairs.

"Dammit, Chief, now is not the time to be doing spring cleaning," Jim said in a mild rebuke. "You have to wait until you have a concussion to do that?"

Blair chuckled. "Well, it's not the sort of thing you do while in your right mind, is it? How's the case going?"

"Pretty good. We've got people working on the information we picked up last night and I'm ... uh … liaising with the Federal agent who has worked on these people before."

"Liaising, huh? That's Ellison code for she's female, good looking and I've taken her out to lunch." Sandburg's voice sounded amused, and Jim felt himself startled anew at the accuracy of his unofficial partner's observation. "Does that mean I'm on my own for dinner?"

"No, no. Not at all, Chief, I'll pick something up when I come back," he said, making a mental note of the promise. "You rest, okay? Stop the cleaning."

"Never thought I'd hear the day when I'd hear you say that to me, man. Might have to get it in writing," Blair replied with that characteristic half chuckle in his voice. "I'll see you later."

"Sure thing, Chief." Jim found himself nodding as he hung up.

"I take it he is okay?" Louise queried, having watched the conversation closely.

"Yeah. Even if he has decided to clean up the loft now when he should be resting." Jim looked absently worried and then saw Louise's strange look and cleared his throat trying to explain. "He shares my apartment."

Even if he hadn't been able to put everything back just the way it was yet. Not since then. Not since he had moved back in.

"Ah."  Agent Hawker nodded, a world of assumptions in that movement, and Jim was too absent in his own thoughts to correct them.

She collected her bag and smiled. "Back to work, don't you think? See if they've made any progress with that address."

And Jim was startled out of his thoughts and nodded. They had a long afternoon ahead of them.

***

Of course, having told Jim he had been cleaning in not so many words, Blair then had to do it. He did the garbage, he cleaned the kitchen area and bundled the laundry up, and cleared out the living room area, leaving it immaculate, and by the time he was finished he was feeling distinctly shaky and stupid. All because he didn't like lying to Jim and saying he'd been cleaning would only really have been a lie if he hadn't actually cleaned. The time period was somewhat irrelevant.

After a shower and some more of the painkillers he settled down with the books from Rainer and started reading through them as he lay out on the couch.

Snippets and fragments were copied and he frowned frequently as something pulled at the hazy threads of memory. He considered he might have stood a better chance of recalling what he was missing if only he wasn't taking the damn painkillers, they always made his mind feel like it was wrapped in cotton wool. Getting frustrated, he finally made himself a fragrant herbal tea, and sat down to relax, closing most of the books.

He absently picked up the planned outline that his student Alison had given to him and scanned over it, tucking back his hair behind his ear as it strayed forward again. He had made a promise to get it back to her tomorrow, after all, and if nothing else he could send notes to her by email.

He tapped his pen absently as he scanned over the suitably general brief and then frowned and sat up.

"Attempt to show that the prevalence of the jaguar as divinity in this area over time is directly connected to the impact of the social and cultural structures of the Olmecs. Reference the Were-Jaguar statues (inclusion of pictures acceptable?)"

 Blair blinked several times and then hit his forehead - where it wasn't hurt, with the heel of his hand. "Stupid! Stupid, stupid! Call yourself an anthropologist? This is basic stuff!"

The Olmec man-jaguar figures, how could he have forgotten them? They were fundamental to the current theories of the development of the Peruvian races, all the way up through to the Aztecs. The whole basis of his theory of Jaguar symbology and the Sentinel connection was based on the evidence that there was a primordial universal belief in that area of a connection between position of authority and jaguars. He'd even expounded this theory to Alex, which might actually account for why it hadn't readily jumped to the forefront of his mind when this situation came up. In his mind he had catalogued the fact that the Olmecs as the earliest known race had shown evidence of Jaguar reverence, but had repressed the connection because of the memories associated with the last lot of discussion about sentinel symbolism. Great, not only was he fighting Jim's mental blocks now, but his own, too.

He would have to find a picture of them, study what he could find. But he did remember that it didn't seem to be a symbolic transformation. Perhaps his tentative views had more substance to them than he thought. Maybe the first Sentinels were more than a symbolic merging of the divine blood of the Jaguar deity and man. Maybe it was a bit more literal than that.

He had a place to start, a trail to follow. In its own way it was as convoluted and frustrating as the investigation that Jim was pursuing, but he couldn't shake the feeling that it was just as important. Who knew what was involved in such a transformation? What it might mean, what strengths and dangers it posed? In his own mind, he had the sneaking suspicion that this was connected to Jim's immersion in the pool at the Temple of the Sentinels.

It was meant after all to enhance the powers of the Sentinel, and perhaps it did more than that. Perhaps it developed a nascent ability, one more spiritually based as the Sentinel had been tested for his or her capability to enter that world. Perhaps by reaching into the Otherworld and pulling back a dead friend, to take an example at random.

Perhaps that was what he had been. A test.

But had they passed or had they failed?

And if they had failed, was it only a matter of time before everything fell apart? Not just things with him and Jim, but the natural consequence would be the tribe as well. All of Cascade.

That line of thought made Blair shudder a little and he turned back to studying. He knew where to look now, if nothing else, and if he had a suspicious mind, he would start wondering how conveniently that piece of information fell into his lap. That was a little bit of synchronicity to ponder. When his head didn't hurt and he had more time.

Right now the books beckoned and the calling was strong enough that he momentarily forgot even about Jim's work and concentrated on his own.

***

The sight that greeted Jim when he got in, complete with Chinese takeaway wafting its rich scents all around him, was so Sandburg he was almost tempted just to leave him there undisturbed.

The anthropologist was asleep on the couch, half covered by books, his laptop open on the low table next to him. His hair had escaped and was clinging to the cushions he used to prop himself up as if static was the equivalent of superglue anchoring him to the couch. His face was tilted just a little towards the door and his glasses were resting on his chest rather precariously. Even in the dim soft light of the lamp, Jim could clearly see that through the course of the day, the bruising on the left side of his head had purpled up to a rather unhealthy glossy sheen, marring the cheekbone with the abnormal colour.

Blair looked so young with his face unguarded like that, and Jim automatically felt the resurgence of a strong pang of guilt.  He was too young to have gone through what he had - in fact he couldn't ever think of a time where anyone would be old enough to deal with it. He looked tired. The few times he could catch Blair in repose recently, he was always struck by the way tiredness had etched deep into his friend's usually animated features. He kept telling himself that Blair's body had experienced a major trauma, and that it took time to recover. He was sure the restlessness was more a manifestation of other reactions rather an excess of energy. He knew what it was like to be running on empty and not being able to stop. Peru had been like that for him. He just didn't want Sandburg to experience the sort of crash that he had at the end.

He was half tempted to let him sleep, but he didn't want Blair to miss out on the food and he needed to build his strength up if he were still fighting infections, so he would have to disturb that rest. After he had put the food out and had it ready.

Jim moved over to the kitchen area, noting that it was all tidied with only evidence of a recently-made herbal tea impinging on his senses in amongst all the ecologically friendly cleaning fluid smells. The kid had been cleaning up too much by the look of it, no wonder he was tired. Maybe he would be better for a good night's sleep, though it was probably still too soon to take him into the station.  He resolved not to give in to Blair's inevitable arguments, because he knew that the young grad student might overstrain himself trying to help. He'd been too ready to let that happen recently, to pretend that things were normal, and everything was fine. And Blair had been just as bad in being that way with him. But every now and then he'd get the merest hint that his friend was acting a role rather than truly living it. From the way he deflected hesitant general inquiries about how he was, how he might be getting on or coping, he maintained his reputation as Blair Sandburg, master of obfuscation, and everyone co-operated so neatly with the easy lies.

Simon was right. They would have to talk, and soon. But not tonight, not with Blair still hurt and them both on edge with this case.

Jim put out the takeaway, complete with plates, and then very carefully shook Blair's shoulder, to wake him. "Chief ... Chief? Got some dinner for you."

Blair blinked open his eyes and focused, and there was no fear, no flinching back, for which Jim was eternally grateful. That had been an oddly wounding experience, the night before at the hotel room when Blair had pulled away from him in fear. It made him realise that he had been taking something for granted that he realistically had no right to expect, not in light of recent events at least.  Blair had an implicit trust in Jim that hadn't been shaken. The older detective hadn't realised how much of a foundation stone that was in his life until it had received a good shake. It wasn't the same as obedience or following his orders, because God alone knew that Sandburg went his own way, but there was a sense of faith in the Sentinel's instincts, in Jim himself, something so deep that compelled him to choose to follow Jim time and time into danger. How the hell that had survived Alex and … everything, Jim had no idea, but seeing Sandburg's reaction to him the night before had been enough to shake him badly and point out to his mind that this wasn't something that should be taken for granted.

"Hey, Jim." Blair pushed his hair back a bit, away from his face. "Man, I must have been out of it, didn't even hear you come in."

"You were studying the insides of your eyelids very hard, Chief," Jim replied, "I got food in. You want?"

"Chinese? Cool." Blair propped himself up. "And on the couch as well. What, I did something good?"

"Well, the cleaning if nothing else," Jim replied, cracking open the cartons and passing them over "... oh, and maybe the whole tackling a professional hitman thing. But the cleaning is better."

Blair grinned at that. "Uh-huh. Well, I did that and some research stuff, and obviously that was more than I could cope with." There was a brief pause of uncomfortable silence where Jim tried to work out whether he should use that to hook the moment to open the discussion about everything.

Blair flickered away from that bait as he said, "So, the case? How's it going? And this new Fed? What's she like?"

"Louise? She's pretty focussed," Jim replied in between mouthfuls.

"Man, nothing like you then, hey, Jim?" Blair gave a bit of a chuckle even as he ducked away from the swipe from his partner.

"Nah, she's got a more personal connection. Her brother is - or was an Agent in deep cover in that organisation. There's a possibility that he might have been killed in the New York bust, but no one actually knows," Jim explained, watching him from the corner of his eye

"Man, that sucks." Blair considered that fact. "She must be pretty in deep over it. Can you imagine? Believe someone that close to you dead? But not really knowing?"

"Yeah." Jim looked down at his forkful of Chinese a moment. Yeah, he could imagine it all too well. Better than knowing and the helplessness that came with that knowledge that there was nothing that could be done. "Yeah, well, she's got it under control, I think. Though you can hear it, you know?"

"Well, you can hear it," Blair corrected. "Most of the rest of us would probably be taken right in. So, where you going with the investigation? The words you found? Any luck on the address?"

"Nothing. We tried all the Cascade databases, Louise is having it run through the Feds database now, but nothing so far."

Blair mused. "Well, it's got to mean something - I mean, come on, a bonafide clue, man."

"And you know as well as I do that clues can be misleading," Jim replied, standing up and getting a beer. "Concentrate on the detail too much and you can concoct elaborate theories and miss the simple answer."

"I'm down with that, man. The Sherlock Holmes thing, you know?" Blair went off at a tangent.

"What?" Jim was appropriately derailed.

'

"You know, the whole 'When you have eliminated everything else, the remaining explanation, no matter how improbable, is the correct one'. That sort of thing," Blair replied, glancing at him suddenly.

Jim glanced sharply the young grad student. He had a sudden suspicion that this was more about the hallucination stuff. Was he seriously trying to suggest something HAD happened? "Well, yeah. What are you trying to say, Chief?"

Blair shrugged. "Nothing, man, just, you know, getting into that whole open mind thing." He backed away from the subject hastily, not entirely sure of what he was trying to say.

This was awkward. Uncomfortable. He so didn't want to have being around Jim, being at the Loft, feel like he did at Rainer. He didn't want to have that natural shying away, that deadness in him spread here and to Jim.

It was better to feel, no matter how painful, than lose that, so...

Unless he was a hundred percent convinced, a hundred percent sure it was necessary he wouldn't dare bring it up. He knew it would be a big deal for the detective and it took a lot of energy to face him down on the occasions that it had proved necessary. Energy he didn't really have right now.

Jim gave a hesitant smile as he recognised the backing away from the sensitive subject. "Something else to drink?" he offered, getting up. "You want the TV on? Or you need more rest?"

"Hey, don't mind me, man. Put it on," Blair replied, shrugging a little with a smile. "Simon going to let me come in tomorrow, you think?"

Jim paced back, pausing a moment. "Nah, not yet. He's not convinced those brains of yours have stopped rattling around yet, Chief."

"I feel fine, Jim," Blair protested mildly. "Seriously, man, a few painkillers and ..."

"..you're passed out on the couch. I saw," Jim finished off. "Not what you would call compelling evidence to persuade Simon you are fit to come down."

"But I'm your backup, Jim, you know that," Blair tried again. He could not explain the need he had to be there, the low-level fear that murmured at him when he wasn't there to watch his partner's back. Since the fountain that had become acute and much more pressing, the anchor to stop him following his first instinct which had been to run away from the problem. Instead, bright and fresh as his new life it had tugged him out of a hospital bed and to the middle of the Jungle, knowing that Jim needed him there.

The evidence seemed to speak against it, though. He still wondered even now if he had really had to be there. He had the strange feeling it had been important that he had physically been there even though he'd taken some of the biggest emotional knocks of his life. Just as well he somehow managed to feel them then. But most of all he felt useless. As if he ... wasn't wanted, or needed. And the worst thing of all was that he was really starting to believe that observation had been right on the money, for more than just that one trip.

It could be explained away as a direct psychological result of being isolated and everything else that had happened. But it felt like more. It felt like there was something important, some reason for him being here, a purpose, and he was missing it somehow. There HAD to be a reason ... otherwise why had he come back at all?

.

"Yeah ,Chief, I know." Jim sounded uncomfortable as he said it. "But you should rest at least another day. It's not like I don't have someone there to help me at the moment."

The words were meant to be reassurance, but the brief shadow that passed over Blair's expression showed they hadn't had that effect. Quite the opposite, in fact.

"And what if you zone, or need some help?" Blair asked with a little more force. "Is Agent Hawker fully up to speed on your Sentinel abilities already?"

It sounded just a little childishly jealous and he knew it. He had to bite his tongue almost literally to stop from guilt-tripping the Sentinel. The last thing he needed was his guide whining at him, and he felt like he was whining. Okay, he definitely had been whining with that crack about Agent Hawker.

"No, Chief, of course not." Jim at least seemed to be appreciating that part of problem. "I know you want to get back into the game, Sandburg, but the way you are now ... a day won't harm, surely? If we make any major breakthroughs I swear I'll call you, but if tidying the loft had you passed out on the couch, what is running around all of Cascade going to do?"

Blair looked a little embarrassed. It made sense; of course it made sense, it just felt wrong. "Uh, yeah ... sure. I guess there is some more research I could do." He forced himself to smile a little.

Jim smiled, trying to ease them out of the awkwardness. "Sorry Chief, but you know I'm right, huh?" He could sense his roommate's unease and upset and tried to soften the blow a little.

"There's a first time for everything," Blair replied with a small laugh mixed into his words even as he sat back and deftly deflected further issues. "Hey, turn up the TV, man, some of us don't have your hearing."

"It's plenty loud enough." Jim answered automatically.

"If you're a Sentinel who can hear an ant put on its pants, yeah sure." Blair gestured peremptorily even as Jim started laughing.

"An ant pull up its pants? Where the hell did you get that from, Sandburg?" he asked, obeying the command.

"Does it matter? All I know is that you will be listening to the next ant that comes along, won't you?" Blair replied with a half grin and then rocked away even as Jim went to mock-hit him.

"Going around listening to ants pulling up their pants. Pervert," he accused, half laughing, highly amused at Jim's burst of laughter.

"I swear, Sandburg, one day they'll produce maps to the Sandburg zone ... and all this will be explained." The detective chuckled even as he relaxed back onto the couch.

"It's an ever-changing place, Jim, it's more about the journey than the destination, as Naomi would say," Blair replied. "Now shut up and let me watch the news. Some of us were studying the inside of our eyelids the last time it was on."

Still laughing, Jim sat back and the uncomfortably tense feeling of the middle of the conversation was swept away by the banter the pair of them used to disguise feelings that were too difficult, too hard to deal with in words.

***

Standing in the middle of a jungle when he knew he was in Cascade (and with any luck asleep in bed) was usually one of the giveaways that he was dreaming. Blair prided himself on being a pretty lucid dreamer anyway, and though his dreams were usually vivid and real, he frequently noticed the incongruities that jarred him into the dream state where he became aware of the fact he was dreaming.

Opening his door and finding the living room was a deep jungle, complete with vines snaking up the stairs towards Jim's room would trigger that awareness, for example, and he could feel a part of himself step aside a moment to observe his own interactions in the dream state. The living room even smelt like the jungle, rich and deep, that characteristic feel of life teeming all around him in hot humid air. The atmosphere thrummed with the sounds of insects, birds and all manner of noises that formed the pulse of the deepest heart of nature.

He looked around and felt the humid, green-tinged warmth of sun filtering through a leafy canopy coming to rest on his bare arms as he watched a cloud of exotic butterflies waft past in a dazzling array of colour. Compared to some of the dreams he had been having recently, this was downright pleasant and relaxing. No fountain, no replays of those moments that he could never quite remember but that woke him with a nameless dread and a cold sweat night after night.

After that, a thick jungle in the living room was almost a vacation and he amused himself by laughing at the stream of ants he could see swarming up the tree to the left of the couch. None of them were wearing pants, much to his disappointment.

All of a sudden though, the relaxed atmosphere around him silenced and drew taut with wary tension. He'd heard that sound - or absence of sound - before, once, when a predator had moved into the area where he was studying a half-buried statue remnant in the jungle and it had begun stalking him and the other student with him.

The hairs prickled on the back of his neck and an utter certainty that there was indeed a predator close by swept through him. He froze, trying to see or feel somehow where it was in relation to him. A prickling sensation indicated it was above him, high in what should be Jim's room, in the darkness shrouded by intertwined foliage.

A seed of fear in the pit of his stomach accelerated its growth so he felt twined all through with anxiety. It was a living thing inside of him, threatening to paralyse him until he heard a low growl that appeared to echo above him.

And realised that it wasn't him that was in danger after all.

The Jaguar was hunting something - no, someone else.

Without real thought, he ran and clawed his way up what should have been the stairs to Jim's room. They seemed to extend further and further up, getting steeper and more treacherous as he tried to get there in time. The stair became less metal and more branches and vines as he hauled himself upwards, desperate to get there in time.

He was close to the top when it became too late; he could hear a shout and a protest of pain that made the pit of his stomach freeze in sympathetic shock. A familiar cry of pain, a familiar voice.

"Jim!" Blair struggled, hauling himself up over the edge to the canopy top, and there, sure enough ,was the sleek powerful form of the black jaguar, crouched over its prey.

"Jim ... shit  ..." He hesitated and the massive head of the Jaguar swung around to stare at him with golden attention, and with exactly the same motion Jim's head mirrored that movement.

"What's wrong , Chief?" Jim's voice was coming from the Jaguar's mouth even as his human form seemed pale and drained of life. There were large bleeding chunks torn from him even as the Jaguar licked blood from stained, curved incisors.

"What ... what's going on?" Blair hunted around for something, anything to fight the Jaguar away from his friend. Although what could he do? Jim was already badly hurt. How could he save him if he was already hurt?

"Hungry, chief. So hungry ... can't you feel it? Needs to feed and what else is there to feed from?" Jim's voice replied evenly.

 Blair could feel it now, he could suddenly feel the unreasoning hunger, the need to devour, to consume until the hunger left, but he could also feel for all its feeding on Jim, the hunger was growing, not vanishing.

"But it's killing you!" Blair put his hand down and felt the metal of a gun barrel beneath his fingers. Jim's gun. With shaking hands he picked it up, feeling for the trigger a little inexpertly. "It's eating you alive, man! Can't you feel it?"

"All I feel is the hunger, Chief." The words were sounding more like a half snarl even as Blair levelled the gun at the beast, the metal feeling alien and wrong in his hands. He had the distinct impression that this was the wrong move, but what else could he do? This was the only option he could see.

"That's not the way, Sandburg." The voice was stern and filled with a growling threat. "That's not going to save me."

Blair aimed again, thought and panic overriding the instinct of wrongness of this option and went to squeeze the trigger.

"Don't!" The human Jim held up a hand even as the thunder of his shot cracked apart his dreamscape. The bullet struck the Jaguar straight on, but as Blair watched it was on Jim that the blood bloomed. He raised a hand to his chest and looked up at Blair with an expression of complete hurt and betrayal before slumping back into a rictus of death. Somewhere in Blair's desperate remorseful approach to his friend, he dropped the gun and the form of the black Jaguar vanished completely, and he knelt beside Jim's body, attention captured by the pale blue eyes open and staring.

"Jim! Oh God, Jim ... no ... no, it was meant to SAVE you ... Jim ..."

He didn't startle awake. He didn't sit up and fumble for the light to let the dream dissipate into the shadows as he opened his eyes. He lay there, staring at the ceiling, waiting for that feeling of impending danger to fade, but it lingered, echoing its images back at him, bright and vivid. The inside of his head felt raw and a nameless anxiety settled into his bones. He knew it was a dream, but it held a taint that burned the images, the feelings of it into his mind indelibly.

Where the hell had that come from? It didn't feel the same as his other dreams recently, and none of them had been particularly pleasant. It felt like something had been clawing at the inside of his head, leaving it open and vulnerable, a feeling that persisted even as he lay there willing it to go.

The only other time his head had felt like this had been after the fountain ... the 'dying thing'. The vision that he and Jim had shared of that split-second merge that had been tucked away out of sight but always there, defining and secretly providing him with an anchor point. He was all too aware that he relied upon it perhaps a little too much at the moment to answer the questions he'd been unable to even ask Jim and the others. At the moment, it was practically the only thing that was even remotely holding him together. Perhaps this experience had been more than a dream after all and he ought to look at it as a vision. Why the hell not? Perhaps Jim wasn't the only one who had changed after the fountain.

He could hear movement out in the kitchen and he lay in bed a moment longer, feeling his old urge to rationalise the experience sweep back over him. He must have heard Jim prowling around and maybe he had made some noise and maybe that had triggered the dream and ...

Maybe nothing. Shit, it was early. It was only just six, what the hell was Jim doing up at six?

He staggered out of bed reluctantly, stricken with a strange urge to check that Jim wasn't standing at the table growing ears or something. Well, cat ears, not ordinary ears, obviously, because everyone was growing ordinary ears and wasn't that one of those things that never stopped growing? Or was that the nose, or hair, or something? Anyway ... he was down with the whole animal spirit thing, but this seemed out of control. Jim was the most in-control person he knew and he couldn't understand how he couldn't see all this, or at least sense it when it seemed to be going out of its way to flag itself as a problem to the anthropologist.

Research and evidence, Sandburg - it's the cops' way, he cautioned himself even as he wobbled out tiredly into the dim morning light.

"Morning, Chief," Jim hailed him and then frowned. "You okay? Didn't you sleep last night? You look like shit."

"Well, good morning to you, too, Jim," Blair replied, plunking himself down at the table. "I slept. I think." He yawned.

"You better get back there and try again. Obviously didn't get it right the first time."

"Great, now you're my mother." Blair yawned, putting his aching head down to pillow on his arms.

"Can't be, Sandburg, not a caftan to my name."

The thought of Jim Ellison in a caftan was enough to nearly choke Blair on a chuckle as he closed his eyes.

The next thing he was aware of was a prod to his arm and waffles being waved under his nose. "Chief, eat this and go back to bed, okay? God only knows why you are up, anyway. Just because I have to go in early doesn't mean you have to get up."

Blair rather sleepily obeyed, attacking the fresh food with an erratic fork. "... just checking ..." he mumbled.

Jim paused even as he picked up his keys. "Just checking what, Chief?"

Blair waved a fork around even as he swallowed a mouthful of food, "... that you were okay," he replied and smiled a little lopsidedly as the bruising felt stiff and painful this morning.

That surprised Jim.  "I'm fine, Chief. You're the one with the knock to the head, remember?"

Blair nodded. "Oh hey, yeah, I know. Just had a bit of a bad dream and wasn't quite awake, you know? Just had to check everything was okay. No biggie."

Jim looked at him, studying him a moment. "Okay. Look, I'll see you later, I have to pick up Louise and get in early - see if they have had any progress on the case overnight."

"Let me know if there is?" Blair requested, still with his mouth full.

"Sure. Back to bed, okay?" Jim replied as he headed for the door. For the hundredth time in the past month since Alex and everything, he very nearly stopped and said something else.

But he never did, because it might open up the whole can of worms and there was this case and it was important and that moment translated to a brief hesitation and then a hand raised in farewell as he left the loft.

The emptiness he left behind him seemed to sap Blair's appetite and he slowed eating. He didn't know what he had expected. Another change of eyes perhaps? Some sign that something was insidiously happening to Jim? If it were, then it was very, very well hidden because his roommate looked just like he always looked in the mornings. A bit grumpy and as if he could use a few hours more sleep. And a little bit worried about him.

Well, that makes two of us, Blair considered, giving up on the food. But maybe by the end of the day he'd have some answers, and for Jim's sake he hoped so, too.

***

"Nothing?"  Jim said again.

"Like I said, Jim, absolute zip." Brown put down the file again as he half leaned, half sat on Jim's desk. The bullpen was abnormally busy for this time of the morning, with double shifts being pulled. "Nothing coming up from the Feds' database either - which isn't pleasing Agent Hawker much. "

"Yeah, I heard," Jim said ruefully. He'd heard more than most when she exploded into a diatribe about incompetence, betraying the fact that she, too, had hoped that they would come in bright and early to some answer and a new lead.

"Man, the entire city did." Henri grinned a little. "Simon is getting heavy grief from the Mayor and from the Feds, so if you value your body parts, stay well clear until the second cup of coffee."

"Gotcha," Jim nodded. Piles and piles of paper and not even a solid enough lead to jump onto. Usually they were out there, making the connections, tracking them down, leaping tall buildings in a single bound ...

Yeah, all you need is a cape, Ellison, he considered, mocking himself with the words of Quinn. Sometimes his imitation of superman fell flat on its face, and right now felt like one of those times.

He might have enhanced senses and animal spirits lurking mysteriously, but it meant absolutely nothing at the moment compared to solid police work. Evidence, leads, research, that's where the hunt began.

He wished Sandburg were there. It seemed with the police observer there to bounce ideas off of, or his crazy stories about this or that tribe, somehow that Sandburg zone they joked about often provided a neat little shortcut to the answer.

But Blair didn't deserve this sort of pressure right now. Didn't deserve Simon bellowing at everyone, metaphorically cracking the whip, pushing them harder and harder. If they didn't get a break soon, Cascade would be compromised irretrievably if the information Agent Hawker had provided them with was correct. And that would mean more deaths, more killing, more major organisations moving into the area - bloody warfare on the streets of Cascade, with the cops right in the middle of it.

Dammit, that couldn't happen. He hadn't spent all this time throwing himself off of things, into things, handcuffing himself to helicopters, losing his gun and being clipped round the back of the head or nearly shot and seeing his friends suffer the same to have the whole thing go to pieces in one fell swoop.

They had all of two very slim hopes - finding out what that writing meant, or waiting for the bad guys to make a slip up. Which they couldn't count on. Which left most of them here, running like crazy up false trails as time ticked on.

And he wasn't helping much with this headache just refusing to go away and his sensory control slipping just a little every now and then. He winced at a sudden sensory spike as he heard Taggart talking to Conner over the other side of the bullpen.

"... Jim would let us know if there were anything really wrong with him, Megs," Joel was reassuring her.

"Joel, he hasn't been in for days. That's not like him. I've seen him drag himself after Jim when he can barely stand. Sierra Verde? Hospital bed - need I say more?" Megan said in a low voice.

"And maybe Jim has wised up to that," the larger man said soothingly "Relax. Blair is pretty indestructible."

"No, Joel, he's not," Megan said firmly. "He just thinks he has to be and he's doing a damn fine job of pulling the wool over our eyes. The problem is he's never seen the really hidden side of us, the point where we take care of our own."

There was a brief silence from the captain, who nodded. "You think that is why he hasn't talked to anyone about ... it?"

Jim could hear Megan sigh. "That's exactly my point, Joel. We can't even acknowledge what happened. He didn't get shot or injured this time. He died. Actually died. Who knows how long he was gone before he came back, and somehow we are all sitting here pretending it didn't happen, trying to carry on as if it were nothing important. Shit, Joel, what's Sandy meant to do about that?"

Jim's hearing and vision spiked then with a blinding pain as someone spoke close to him. "Jim?"

He practically flinched away, pressing his fingers to his temples as he tried to quell the migraine pain, and reoriented his senses with difficulty. What was wrong with his senses? It had been a long time since he had this sort of lack of control. Three years of tests, constant practise had made him pretty much in control of using them and now mostly Blair found new uses for them, new ways to deal with their capabilities. The pool in the Temple had made them more sensitive again, it was true, but he thought he had dealt with that.

"Are you okay?" Agent Hawker leant a little closer and the scent of her perfume made him feel like someone had thrown a bottle of a cloying fragrance in his face. He nearly choked as he hastily dialled down.

"Just a stress headache," he replied hastily. "Staring at the screen a little too long."

"You sure you're okay? Maybe you need to sit this one out," she offered, frowning a little.

"Sit what out?"

Simon came out of his office, walking briskly as he announced to the room around him, "We have gunfire being exchanged down near the waterfront. If we haven't got sellers down there, we've got buyers, and buyers might have a lead. Let's get down there now, people."

He raised his voice stirring things to action around him, even as Jim automatically grabbed his coat, ignoring Agent Hawker's uncertain look even as he took the lead. Finally! Some action.

***

Blair had ignored the suggestion to go back to bed, for all the fact he could feel a tiredness underlying his every move. He was up, awake and after a shower considered himself reasonably conscious and ready to start on his research. Books were brought out, the laptop plugged in and fired up, paper strewn about the sides and pens and herbal tea at the ready.

Hours later he was still there, the only change being the way the frown had deepened dramatically as he made copious notes.

This was not good. All he'd had to do was type in 'were-jaguar' in a search engine online and information started flooding in - some wild and wacky, but a great deal about the Olmec connection. Those generally led him to more serious sources and to in-depth anthropological and archaeological treatises, references that he noted down, intending to use his qualifications to sign into online reference libraries. Even so, the picture that was emerging was most definitely supporting the fact there might be something more to this idea than a concussion-induced fantasy.

He tapped his pen anxiously as he read over his own summary points, frowning with concentration.

The Olmecs and subsequent peoples of Meso-America certainly believed that there were such things as were-jaguars, but not in the same manner that things like werewolves were portrayed. They weren't so much supernatural in the same way as werewolves were, complete with myths of silver bullets and infectious bites, but appeared more an extension of the natural into the realm of spirits. Which, as he thought about it, did tie in reasonably with the sort of perceptions he had gleaned about Sentinels. Their abilities were classed as natural and spiritual rather than supernatural and magic as such. It appeared that there was a widely held belief in that area of the world in the presence of totem spirits and the ability of certain individuals to take the literal form of specific spirits.

The word that had filtered through time for this phenomenon was 'nahual', and he caught himself mouthing the word, almost as if to taste it for its sense of reality. The naming of things could make them real, it was the belief of many cultures he had studied, and for the first time he really, truly felt the sense of control and relief that came with naming the unknown.

Nahual  appeared to be either the animal spirit or the connection between the totem spirit and the human, so profound that the physical forms could become interchangeable. It was believed that in certain circumstances a physical transformation was thought to take place  ...

And there were the obligatory stories of hunters shooting at jaguars and finding a man injured or dead the following day, or them changing before their eyes, or wronging someone and being found clawed to death the following day.

Normally he would have catalogued it as a fascinating phenomenon, but today those stories made his blood run cold.

It tied in all too obviously with his dream about Jim. He had shot the jaguar, and it had killed Jim. The nahual balam, the Jaguar form of the were-jaguar, was powerful and stronger than a man, and possibly possessing more abilities than even a normal jaguar, but it was still vulnerable. It could still be killed or hurt. The sense of dread that lingered with him seemed to respond to that. How had he known that? He had known this before he read about it, unless it was assumed he had read this a long time ago and his subconscious dredged it up where he had forgotten the information.

He discovered in his reading that there were the usual mythologies surrounding it, the reverence of the nahual as the animal-form and the nagual who was the man-form, forming trails of investigation that made him raise his eyebrows and long for the time and energy to tie all of this together and make a paper out of it.  He found, not to his surprise, that were-jaguars were revered, that they had always been treated with respect and surrounded by rituals due to them sharing the blood of the Divine Jaguar. That these special individuals would hunt and provide game and protect and defeat enemies for the people that were in their territory, whereas others would rule in arrogance, demanding worship.

Blair nearly laughed aloud at that one. Certainly sounded like Sentinels, or the start of Sentinels. The weight of evidence seemed overwhelming.

He found the associated legends fascinating, that the shamans and other chosen ones who were nagual or able to change into a nahual form often did so by performing rituals that involved feats of agility, to invoke the transformation. Either that or the contortions shown by the carvings that had been found meant there were some really unpleasant side effects to the process. He was particularly impressed by the statue that had a man curved into a bow-shape, pushed up on his hands with one foot arching over so it stood over on the crown of his head and the other leg pointed upwards. He had snorted aloud, thinking of Jim doing that sort of manoeuvre - that was more Naomi in her deep yoga phase.

It made a bizarre form of sense; Jim's first transformation seemed to have been forced by a desperate feat of agility. Making a jump he couldn't possibly have made, but doing it somehow.

He'd found several places that held pictures of the original Olmec transformation statues and had sat there just looking at them as if the answers would flood into his mind just from trying hard enough to understand. He understood one part of the dream vision he had experienced now, but not the other. He knew that to kill the nahual was to kill the man - but he hadn't found out the meaning of Jim being eaten alive by his own animal spirit.

He had dismissed one of the first pictures as irrelevant, that of a shaman riding a jaguar, and focused on the tableau of a sequence of statues that had been presented in the major exhibition on Olmec culture a few years back in Washington. There was one figure kneeling, facing a series of other figures, that seemed to be the same person, but in differing stages of transformation. They ranged from just showing the incisors to what seemed in the end to be a jaguar standing upright with barely any human characteristics at all.

He stared, feeling something shifting uneasily in him as he regarded the figures again. His professional detachment was definitely shot out of the window on this one and he knew it, but he wasn't doing this research as a professional - for all he would make use of the resources available to one.

Gulping his now-cold tea, he navigated to the Rainer site to access the anthropological data there. The login screen popped up, waiting for his user name and TA pin number, so he typed in, "'Sandburg, 2876" and hit enter.

And then paused. Why did that simple act seem important somehow?

The homepage, complete with the new slick message board where you could query for resources or recommendations, flashed up, welcoming him to the Rainer's On-line Reference section in all its glorious up-to-the-minute technological splendour.

Blair stared at it. So maybe he had been out of it, but something important had just happened. He blinked.

"Mmm, man ... think, think ... what am I missing?"

Then realisation dawned, slowly and majestically, and he scrambled to find his cell, and then realised it was still dead from the trip into the water and got up and half-ran to the phone to call Jim, half bouncing in his enthusiasm to get through and share his idea.

Only, Jim's phones was most obviously turned off – and so was Simon's, and even Connor's, which also meant that something was going on with the case. Maybe they had cracked it themselves without him, which there was every reason to believe would happen.

He tried not to sigh as that was singularly depressing thought and it would be too easy to drift back into his 'not needed' mindset. Well, he could keep researching and keep trying them and try and stop the sudden knot of anxiety that curled in his stomach at the thought of Jim out there without him to watch his back.

***

"Tell me again whose bright idea it was to rush down here to get involved in this firefight?" Jim muttered to Simon in a gap between bursts of gunfire from where they were pinned down behind one of the trucks.

Bullets zinged in ricochets all around them and every time there was a moment's respite it was soon broken by the harsh sound of automatic gunfire from the warehouse that made him wince.

"I like to think of it as a group decision," Simon replied dryly, taking a grip on his gun and returning fire before hastily dropping down as those inside returned fire. "These guys have more firepower than the army! We've got all available units here and they are still managing to hold us off!"

"I know, I know." Jim was trying to listen and was finding himself reluctant to let himself sink in too far. The dials seemed strange; not out of control, but prone to slip unpredictably, and he was wary of plunging himself into a sensory hell.

"... Forget about them!" A panicked voice inside said urgently, the undertones of a Mexican accent audible.

"Jess is DEAD ... what is Carlos going to say?" came a reply from deep inside the building.

"Worry about that if we get to see him!" came the terse response. "You should never have accepted the meet - you know Mendoza has been watching to see when we did a buy."

"Yeah, but he won't be watching any more, will he?" There was a hint of satisfaction in that response. "Look, they're concentrating on the north side of the warehouse. If we go out with all our fire power on the eastside, the truck is waiting up there, si? Take what we can carry and take the loss, the damn things were cheap enough ..."

"In two then."

Jim was conscious then of being shaken by Simon "... is no time for a nap, Ellison!"

He blinked, the light sharp and bright and making him wince before he focused on Simon's rather anxious expression. "They're going to break on the east side," he said, getting into a crouch, ready to run. "Conner and Hawkins are there, Rafe too, but if they all come out like they are planning, they won't stand a chance. I'm going over."

Without waiting for a reply, he was gone, running in a half crouch over towards the left.

"Jim, wait for back up ... for Christ's sake, Ellison! Aw shit!" Simon groaned and began bellowing orders for a squad to follow him before the detective could get himself killed.

Jim ran and paused in cover, checked his gun, then ran again with his gun at the ready, held ready to respond to anything as his pale blue eyes focused on every detail around him. He could hear the gang members inside mustering, about to make a break for it and he half ran around the corner just as the firefight began. Conner's car was not so much being hit by bullets as systematically taken apart and stripped down to the innards shot by shot even as she, Agent Hawker and Rafe returned fire almost frenetically. As he yelled out his challenge and fired, he saw Megan take down two opponents in a row before flinching back, twisting and collapsing against Rafe as one of the many flying bullets clipped her right arm.

He was not entirely sure what happened next, only that he knew he had to get to them before they were cut to pieces. The sharp metallic smell of the blood in the air seemed to fill his mind with a red mist that settled into a strange absolute feral certainty of what had to be done. He ran through the heart of the firefight, everything seeming to slow around him, so he could aim as he ran and seemed to have reflexes that were absolutely certain and dead on with each shot he made. He'd never been this good before, never been this sure of his physical reactions in his life and that every shot he made was completely accurate and totally justified.

He was scarcely aware of who he was, only of what he was doing. He seemed more real than the world around him, more alive than these empty figures that stank of fear and blood. The hunger was bright in him, he wanted to stop this seemingly casual destruction of the lives around him and tear the throat of one of the fallen prey and feed the hunger. To roar out his challenge to those who would hunt in his territory...

His gun was abruptly empty and he looked up into the face of a terrified gang member, nearly on the point of a snarl. The man opposite him looked even more shocked than he was and automatically raised his gun to try and remove him as a threat.

Instinctively Jim slashed out with his left hand at the gun hand, so fast that it seemed impossible. A part of his mind was telling him that wasn't what he usually did, he would try and grab the wrist and twist - not try and knock it aside ... and rip ...

The man yelped, the weapon going flying as he snatched back his hand, blood appearing from a gash even as he met Jim's gaze and his face dropped into a horrified expression.

"Get away! You FREAK, get away from me!" He staggered back and fell over and the words seemed to shock Jim back to himself. He blinked and looked at his hand. Was that a smudge of mud or oil or something on it? It looked sort of dark. Black even. Even his nails, which, hang on, weren't they just a bit long?

He looked at Megan who was staring at him in amazement, even as Rafe was right behind her now, helping her keep pressure on the wound on the outside of her arm.

"Bloody hell, Jimbo," she said, fixing him with her keen gaze even as he automatically stood down as others handcuffed their prisoners. "What do you do for an encore? Walk on water or something?"

"What?" Jim was still feeling a little dazed and he glanced at the back of his hand again. There was the weirdest effect going on - like a pool of ink shrinking, reabsorbing into the back of his hand, that strange darkness was vanishing. With a peculiar sort of itching sensation his fingers prickled and he automatically flexed his hand and it appeared that with a slick snick of a feeling his nails were suddenly normal again. Aside from the blood that was apparently drying on his hand.

"Ellison!" Simon's concern turned immediately to half anger. "What the hell was that about? I have never seen such a disregard for procedure or idiotic display of heroics," and that word was uttered with dripping sarcasm, ".. in my entire career!"

Jim was suddenly conscious that everyone seemed to be staring at him and he shifted uncomfortably. The expression of the perp he had disarmed seemed fixed solidly in his mind. He was convinced that the words "freak, abnormal, different" were moments away in their thoughts of him and that called up a core of brittle fear from his childhood.

"It seemed appropriate, sir," he said formally. "Conner, Rafe and Agent Hawker were pinned down and under heavy fire. I, uh, guess I acted on instinct."

"So your instinct has developed a death wish - I see," Simon replied, glowering. "You and I need to have a few words, Detective. Conner, you alright?"

"No worries, Captain. Just nicked the outside. Up and around in no time. I could probably drive myself ... uh ... maybe not." Megan brushed the concern off as unnecessary even as Rafe helped her up, but she was still staring at Jim in a disconcerting fashion.

"Agent Hawker? You managed to stay out of the line of fire?" Simon queried even as he waved on the clean-up operation. For the first time Jim realised quite how many bodies were lying around the area and that, more than anything, shook him. He had torn through them like some sort of.. berserk creature. Totally out of control.  He felt obscurely lost and panicked by that thought, but nothing of his inner turmoil showed in anything save the characteristic flex of muscle in his clenching jaw.

"Yes, Captain Banks - if you don't mind, I will go along with your people so I can start the interrogation process," she informed him calmly, for all she was watching Jim with a curious intensity.

"Of course. Detective Ellison will join you after I've had a private word with him." Simon took out a cigar automatically. "Ellison - step into my 'office'," he ordered, striding off away from the crime scene aftermath.

Jim saw the somewhat sympathetic looks from his colleagues at his impending doom even as he turned to follow his captain around the corner out of sight. Simon actually looked angry as he whirled around. "For Gods' sake, Jim! What the hell was going on there? This is not you Jim, anymore. You haven't done this sort of thing since..." he paused "..Since Sandburg has been your shadow. One minute you're fine, the next minute you are violating every form of procedure we have, running out into the middle of a firefight and how the hell you didn't get shot I'll never know - you deserve to have taken a bullet for that stupid risk. I'm very nearly tempted to do it myself, just to teach you a lesson! Jim.. Jim, are you listening to me? What the hell is WRONG with you?"

Jim blinked and pinched across the bridge of his nose as the rawness of his headache threatened to become solid in its intensity. "I don't know, Simon. I wasn't myself. That's all I can say to explain it."

Simon stared at him as if looking to read some sort of hidden answer in his face. "Tell me this isn't one of those Sentinel things," he said finally in a low voice.

"I don't know, Simon. Things just went strange," Jim replied uncomfortably, some of that feeling of wrongness lingering. "I don't know why. I'm fine now, though."

"You need Sandburg here." Simon took a long draw on his cigar, looking wary for a moment. The last time there had been a 'Sentinel thing', he had experienced the terrifying fact of Blair's death - and the even more terrifying fact of his resuscitation. The fact that it was impossible was yet another thing that they just didn't talk about.

"It's nothing," Jim said automatically. "Just stress sending things a little off kilter."

"When you go off kilter, Jim, it's the equivalent of a tornado hitting Cascade, complete with the trip to Oz," Simon replied dryly. "Just let the kid do whatever it is that he does to sort you out."

"I can't put any more pressure on him, Simon ..."

"Why break the habit of a lifetime?" Simon replied a little sharply and then continued in a softer, more reasonable voice. "Look, Jim, whatever the reason is, you need to deal with it. And I haven't yet heard of one of your problems that the kid hasn't come up with an answer for, or seen you through it. You're having problems now and if it's to do with everything from what you went through a month ago, then if it makes you feel better I'll order you to speak to him about it. There's no money in the staff welfare fund for a departmental funeral, Jim."

The detective nodded slightly, recognising and acknowledging the concern. "I'll talk to him, just ... when he's recovered"

"If you let it go on, you won't get the chance." Simon gestured with his cigar to emphasise his point. "You better take a look around here, then catch up with Agent Hawker."

Jim nodded as he reached to put on his phone again and immediately it began to beep with a warning of missed calls. "Looks like Blair's been trying to get hold of me," he said, automatically sounding worried. "I'll just give him a call back."

"Yeah, yeah, sure, Jim." Simon let the smoke drift, as he surveyed the clean up operation. If this was a taste of things to come, it was a tang of putrid corruption he could do without. Cordite and blood were strong enough that even he could smell the acrid metallic evidence, let alone what Jim might have experienced, so no wonder his Sentinel detective might have gone a little off the rails.  He listened absently as Jim paced as he made the call, realising now, as never before, that Sandburg was necessary, not just an asset. God alone only knew what would happen when Sandburg finished his dissertation. That was something he really needed to give thought to.

"Chief, something wrong?" Jim said as the phone was eventually picked up.

"I should be asking that." Blair's voice had undertones of anxiety. "You okay?"

Jim frowned, his head still feeling raw and aching. How did he know ... how could he know? He couldn't, so he could bluff it. "I'm fine, Chief, why do you ask?"

"I just, well you must have had a break in the case, yeah? Just checking there were no zones or ... anything." Blair's voice had a peculiar twist of tension in it that was only noticeable to some who knew him well.

He couldn't know. For all the last word was uttered in a questioning tone and seemed to be signalling that Blair knew something, he couldn't know. "No, just a bit of a firefight. Conner took a hit to the outside of her arm, but it's nothing serious."

"Oh God, Megan? She's definitely okay?" Blair sounded really concerned then, and was successfully distracted.

"Rafe was helping her, but she was all for driving to the hospital herself," Jim answered, to reassure him. "So, you were just checking I was okay?" he asked.

"Oh.. yeah, no, no Jim. There was something else." Blair's voice became more animated. "I was doing some more research, you know, looking around on the internet and needed to go onto the Rainer's site ..."

Jim bit back the urge to ask if this was relevant as the sounds around him were making him rub his temples, but he managed to keep a lid on his headache-fuelled irritation as Blair carried on and he listened.

".. And I was, you know, having to log into the secure server to get to the online database and message board and ... thought, hey, 'Sandburg 2876, that reminds me of something .. and bam! I had it - the imprint you found."

Jim frowned, "What about it? " he asked.

"That Sandford thing -it's not an address or whatever. I think it's a username and pin number to a secure server website." Blair said triumphantly. "It has to be, man, you know, it makes sense. He had a laptop, right? Once they are into that they can do that thing where they recover all the cookies or look in the cache and find the site."

Jim's eyes widened slightly. They hadn't got as far as considering computer logons. "You sure about this, Chief?"

"Well, it's a good guess. You've been looking for over twenty-four hours for names, aliases and addresses and not getting anywhere. It's logical in this day and age. Rainer's secure server is meant to be hacker proof or thereabouts ... " Blair trailed off and coughed a little uneasily. "It's probably not so important if you've made a bust down there."

"Still important, Chief. I'll pass it to the guys working on the recovered laptop, see what they can bring up. Might take a while," Jim said even as he started moving towards the inside of the warehouse to look around the area carefully. "That's good work, Chief."

"Great. Hope it comes to something." Sandburg's voice sounded a little happier at that, but then there was a long pause and that thread of tension was back again. "Jim, when you get back later .. I think we need to talk about something, okay?"

That was never a good sign. "We can talk now if you want," Jim said in a lower voice.

"No, no ... It's probably best face to face, you know? " Blair sounded anxious and Jim inadvertently tuned in on the thud of his heart. He was stressed, if nothing else, from the increase in heartbeat

. "It's, uh, no biggie, Jim."

"Okay. I'll see you later, okay? Make sure you get some more rest, Sandburg," came the order as he hung up, and then looked at the phone thoughtfully for a moment before putting it away.

Simon walked up to him. "Sandburg okay?" he asked, noting Jim's stiff posture.

"Yeah - yeah, he had an idea about that word fragment. Reckons it's a username and PIN login for a website rather than an address," Jim replied a little absently.

Simon nearly dropped he remains of his cigar. "That's ... damn. That's probably the answer! I'll call the team, see if they can concentrate on that ..."

He was so taken with the idea he failed to note the pensive cast to Jim's expression as the Sentinel looked around the kill zone. The shock of what had happened, of what he had done was starting to set in, and he hated the thought of being out of control of himself again ... reacting in alien ways without knowing why. Driven by instinct again.

And that hadn't exactly turned out well the last time his instincts had ruled him. It had led to him doing some of the worst things in his life to someone who deserved it the least. He had felt betrayed for some reason, nothing he had ever been able to quantify and all the time he had an awareness that his reactions were off, were skewed, but could do nothing about it. And at some points, to his very secret shame and hidden guilt he hadn't wanted to do anything about it, even if he could have done. In retrospect, what had happened this afternoon had been terrifying and  .. compulsive. He had again touched what it felt like to know what to do, and have no doubts, no guilt at all, just a pure innate sense that his was the power to wield and he had the inalienable right to do so. How many people ever touched that level of surety? Had that sort of self-image?

Jim Ellison most certainly didn't, and that was the problem. Whatever he had been, whether idiot or hero, cop or Sentinel .. in those moments he hadn't been himself, and that woke that deep fear again.

He couldn't go through this again. Not just for his sake, but for what he might do. He could never lose control again.

***

Blair's research had eventually taken him into that 'something has to be said' realm and a brief conversation with Megan dropped him deeper into the waters of anxiety.

The fact that he had, every time he attempted to stop, rest or nap, flashed back onto his nightmare of the Black Jaguar eating Jim alive, little by little, had wound him to a fever pitch. How the hell was he going to broach the subject?

Hi Jim, you may have noticed you're sprouting a bit more hair recently?

Hi Jim, I've got good news - If they cast Attack of the WereJaguar, you're a natural for the part?

Hi Jim – uh .. you know you thought I was hallucinating? Turns out you're the one with the problem, not me ...

Oh yeah, any of those would go down like a lead balloon with a load of dynamite set to explode when it hit bottom.

Whether Jim was late back because he knew that they were meant to talk, Blair didn't know, but either way, he was one step short of pacing by the time the detective came home.

"Hey, Chief." The door was closed carefully and Jim went straight over to the fridge for a beer. Not a good sign.

"There's some leftover pizza still warm if you want it," Blair replied helpfully from his vantage point on the couch, even as Jim found it and ate it still standing. "You should have said. I would have ordered more."

"Just need a snack," Jim replied, rummaging in the fridge. "Eaten already, but still hungry."

"Uh-huh." Blair was a little bit wary of that. "Spoke to Megan on the phone They've released her already. "

"Good." Jim swallowed a gulp of beer, pulling the pizza out and taking a bite of something strange and vegetable in the topping.

"Yeah, she told me what happened earlier on. " Blair eased into the subject carefully. "Sounds like a hell of a standoff, man. And she says she owes you dinner - unless you've gone into feeding the five thousand as well.." He gave a small, slightly nervous chuckle as he said that and deliberately left it open for Jim to comment on.

"It wasn't much," Jim replied, equally deliberately not rising to the bait. But in his head the sound of the perp yelling 'Freak' at him echoed again, souring the taste of food hitting his stomach.

"Sounded like you went on a bit of a rampage," Blair put in awkwardly, "Like, righteous berserk, you know? Which is actually a commonplace phenomenon, Jim, in many tribal cultures as lots of warriors go ..."

"I'm not from a tribal culture," Jim stated flatly, interrupting Blair's explanation. He was normal. He was from a semi-rich suburban culture, not a jungle, not anything else. A normal American citizen who just happened to have a bit of an edge when it came to senses.

Ah. So that was the way they were going to handle it. Or not handle it, as the case might be. If it weren't for the fact that Blair had a conviction in the heart of him that Jim was in a whole different manner of danger, he would have been backing off and possibly making an excuse to leave the loft for a couple of hours right now. The detective was practically bristling with the warning signs to let the subject lie … that he had come to appreciate over the years of them working and living together.

"No, well .. there are similarities which are .. well okay, that's not strictly relevant, Jim," Blair replied and took a deep breath. "Something did happen today, didn't it, Jim?"

"Nothing important," Jim responded, looking out of the window, to avoid having to meet those serious blue eyes.

"Yeah, right." Blair got up and walked closer. "Come on, Jim, you know this isn't about me and a concussion any more. Work with me, man, We've got to look at this."

"No, we don't," Jim said instantly. "This isn't going to happen again. Nothing is going to happen."

"If saying it would make it so I would back off now," Blair responded earnestly. "But it won't, Jim - it won't."

"Just drop it, Chief." It was almost a plea as much as a demand.

"Yeah well, that would be ideal, Jim, but it doesn't solve anything," Blair replied, pushing forward again into dangerous waters. "And you can't just ignore this and it will go away. We have to deal with it."

"You deal with it, Sandburg." Jim replied slowly and said very deliberately, the cold in his voice having a real edge. "There is no problem."

He was not out of control, he was not feeling like something inside him was breaking down into something more primitive; he was not feeling like his very self was trickling away like blood through his fingers.

"Jim, you can't believe that. I mean, you must be feeling something?" Blair pleaded, trying to reason with him and inadvertently hitting all the sore points that would make the man react. "Look, Jim, you changed. I mean, literally changed. There is precedent - all the research points to this being deeply rooted in Meso-American archaeological evidence ..." He followed as Jim started to try and literally walk away from him, irritation in his stride. "There's a series of statues that depict a man actually physically changing bit by bit into a Jaguar. I mean an actual transformation, Jim!"

"Sandburg, I did NOT turn into a Jaguar. End of story." Jim's tone was sharp and sliced out at the grad student warningly. "I've just been under a bit of pressure with this case and everything - so have you and …well, the mind plays tricks."

"No, Jim.  Not in this instance. Sure, yeah, I thought it was concussion or stress or whatever. I was more than ready to believe myself going nuts than to believe the impossible. Hell, why wouldn't I?" Blair admitted, opening his hands expansively. "But that was until I found my coat had these ... claw marks on it." He grabbed and tossed the item of clothing over and Jim caught it automatically, looking at it slowly as if it were something alien.

"… and this  was torn off in the lining." He raised the small ebony arc of the jaguar claw, looking at it in awe. "I mean, when I found it, I nearly freaked, man. By then I was convinced that you were right, that it was the knock on the head and homegrown Sandburg weirdness. But after that .."

Jim could see every detail of the claw, he could even smell the scent of feline clinging to the coat, feel the rips and they all combined to ignite the fear and paranoia that existed in him of being a freak. His instinct was to deny everything and he went right with it to protect his crumbling façade that he was a normal human being.

"Chief, I'm seriously worried about you," he replied in a too-gentle voice. "Christ, I can't believe you've gone to all this effort to make it seem like I turn into a Jaguar, but.. shit, I even think you really believe it!" Jim dropped the coat and turned ice-cold eyes to challenge him, trying to conceal a brittle, ever-growing fear.

"Will you listen to me?" Blair said, starting to lose his own patience, taking the implication on board that he was somehow elaborately hoaxing his partner and trying to not let it hurt. It was Jim, this was what Jim did. Yeah, fear-based reactions -  he had to let the hurt go, and deal with the problem rather than let it affect him and get in the way of trying to get through to the Sentinel. Just because it wasn't an obvious danger didn't mean it wasn't a danger, "This is not some sort of delusion, Jim, this is real and it's something we have to deal with. Any of your Sentinel abilities can become a threat or a liability to you if it is out of control. Remember what you were like at first? Now you hardly need any prompting at all ...but now there is this new aspect to deal with and it needs working on, tests and ..."

"And that is what this is about ..." Jim was metaphorically pushing back hard, pushing him away with a reflexive emotional shove. "It's about you. Can't you see that? "

"So I like setting myself up for a fall?" Blair questioned, squaring up to the Sentinel, his waving hands reflecting his passionate belief that what he was saying was absolutely necessary. "Sure, Jim, yeah. Look, you think I'd even dare bring this up unless I was sure there was some danger to you? That the shift could ... well, that there is something important that means we have to control it!"

"No, Chief, you want to control me!" Jim retorted, his voice growing louder, and more aggressive as he rejected the theory. "You just want another Sentinel weirdity to add to your dissertation, something to make me even more of a spectacular freak!"

"This is not about things being weird or freaky, Jim, this is about survival man, and ..." Blair was nearly gabbling as he refused to let Jim back away from him, stepping too close into the detectives' personal space.

 "Forget it!" Jim turned and grabbed hold of the top of the grad students arms, as if he wanted to hurl the possibility and the man forcing him to confront it as far away as his strength could manage. "It stops here, Sandburg. Everything stops here!"

Blair had frozen to the spot, those words dropping into a upwelling of tension that seemed to engulf them both. "What do you mean, Jim? You mean – everything?" he asked quietly, looking straight at him with a weariness in his deep blue eyes that mirrored a soul-deep exhaustion. "You want me to leave?"

There was a long pause before he added into the stunned taut silence. "Again."

All of Jim's old habits demanded that he wanted to be alone, that yes, it was best to be alone. Nothing good ever happened to Blair if there was something wrong with his Sentinel abilities and something was going on. But when Blair added the word 'again', he felt like he had been punched. His eyes widened in shock a little and he released his very tight grip from Blair's arms.

"No, Chief," he said, his hands nearly shaking, "I just want you to back off this ... theory."

"It's not a theory, man, and you know it." Blair pushed at him emotionally, not taking his eyes from his face. "I didn't do this research to make you a freak - I did it so we could control this ... Jim, you've got to let me do this! For your sake, please, man, I'm not trying to screw you around here, but I'm worried about what this might mean for you, for us."

"No. No, this is impossible. Enhanced senses are one thing, this is something completely out there ..." Jim shook his head, rejecting what Blair was trying to tell him.

"Yeah, like we haven't been out there before," Blair replied vehemently, "Jim, we've already broken out of the possible by current definitions. We're dealing with something that has existed and can exist and DOES. I'm thinking that the immersion in the pools at the Temple of the Sentinels not only upgraded the your senses again, but I think that the point of it was meant to be to connect the spiritual with the physical and open up those areas for exploration. " He mimed the process of the linking with his hands.

He was very carefully avoiding aspects of that trip that had never been dealt with, all the personal issues they'd never done more than brush over with vague generalities. This was more important than the past. He couldn't live in the past anymore, if only because he had died there.

"You are seeing something that isn't there." Jim denied Sandburg's theory again, with increasing stubbornness visible in the flex of his jaw. "You are making something more of this ... obsession than there is. It CAN'T be."

Blair looked at him again, the glimmer of hurt beginning in his eyes for all of his resolve not to let Jim's defence tactics get to him.

 "Words can't change the past, Jim. It's happened." He cleared his throat. "Believe it, man ... Believe me! This is real, this is happening here and now! Burying your head in the sand is going to end up with people dead!"

And he barely stopped short of saying 'again' there as well, though he might as well have shouted the word with all the body language he possessed.

"Dammit, Sandburg! What the hell are you trying to DO to me?" Jim exploded out of shock, stung with an angry hurt. "Isn't it enough that I'm a freak of nature without turning me into some sort of horror movie reject? Can't you get it through your head that I can be normal, I don't have to have every moment of my life as the Sentinel experience - sometimes I'm just ... me!  But every time I think I'm getting a handle on this, something happens and hey ... here's Sandburg with another 'way out there' theory which  means tests, which means more ... of everything! I'm sick of it! You have no idea what it is like to be told 'Hey Jim, guess what, you are even more of a freak than we thought … and wow man, that's really GREAT ...' "

"Yeah well, it ain't been no picnic from my end either, Jim" Blair replied forcefully in the face of his wrath, "I've been trying to help you and I'm trying to help you again and .."

".. it's not exactly a success story, is it, Sandburg?" Jim snapped back without thinking. "You ever think that maybe someone is trying to tell you something?"

He saw Blair swallow abruptly and a flush of heat rise to his face, though he still met his challenging gaze defiantly. "Yeah. Yeah, maybe they are." He cleared his throat again. "But I choose to believe that if we face this we can control it."

"And there's the fundamental difference, isn't there, Chief?" Jim snapped back, the rage so close to the surface it was all he could do to control that, which left his words running amok. "You CHOSE to be interested in Sentinels. Everything you have done has been a choice!  I didn't get that, I was born abnormal with this damn 'genetic advantage' and the last thing I need is someone rubbing my nose in the fact that I'm a freak by delighting in the fact that I have another problem that I can do nothing about!"

Blair's expression was wild with emotions he desperately was trying to rein in by the time Jim had vented his anger at him verbally.

"Bullshit, man, complete bullshit!" He jabbed a finger at Jim's solid chest. "You've had all the choices you need. They couldn't have been any clearer - but the difference between you and me, man? I accept responsibility for the consequences of my choices. You CHOSE to be a sentinel Jim, maybe not the first time, but the second and the third ... Don't give me this shit about having no choice. You even had handy visions that told you what those choices might entail. That's a damn sight more than I've ever had!"

Jim had to resist the snarl that seemed to be lurking in his throat. "You don't understand, Sandburg ... you don't understand what it is like to be totally out of control of your emotions and actions because they are being driven along by things and forces that you don't understand ..."

Blair gave an amazed hollow laugh. "Sure I do, Jim, so does the rest of the world. That's called Life."

Jim looked irritated and blindly frustrated, "Don't give me that, you know what I am talking about ..."

Blair looked serious. "Yeah, Jim. Yes I do ... you better believe I do understand. Otherwise … fuck man, why the hell do you think I am still here?"

The words hung in the air between them, a curdling knot of all their anger stopped dead and left hanging like a spectre of doom separating them.

Blair froze momentarily. He'd said more than he had intended; the subject needed to be avoided at all costs. He couldn't go into this now, maybe not ever. Jim was just staring at him as he looked away, staring at him with Sentinel eyes as if trying to pierce through to his heart.

No, no don't say anything Jim, not now. Don't say it because if you do I might break and that will mean I can't be there to help you ... and like it or not, partner, you need me right now..

"Blair ..." Jim said softly, his expression unguarded and emotion flying through the storm-sky blue of his eyes. "I ..."

"No, Jim." He flinched away. "No, I can't do this ... not now." He breathed a moment, trying to pull his emotions back in though he felt like he was going to shatter from the internal pressure. "Will you let me help you?"

"I can't believe it is true, Chief ... I'm sorry," Jim replied regretfully, looking at his friend. "There's nothing to help with. Everything is fine, it's just stress."

Blair rubbed his uninjured temple a moment. "Okay. Okay, fine. When you come to your senses ... and yeah, that was deliberate, Jim, and realise that I might actually have a clue about this and if you can feel that you can trust me enough to help you ... I'll be in my room."

"Chief ... I ..." Jim started but the anthropologist was resolutely walking away to his room and disappeared inside, trailing hurt and rejection almost palpably behind him. The mention of trust soured everything, dumping a clinging load of guilt over him - but it was liberally mixed with anger at Sandburg pulling such a low trick as his automatic defense kicked in to push away anyone or anything that added to his feeling of vulnerability. No one could get to him like he could and for all he tried to hide from him, the fact remained that he was convinced that sometimes Blair could see into the heart of him.

Half of Jim wanted to go after him right here and now, but that would mean admitting that the grad student was right and he really was turning into a Jaguar. Which couldn't be true. Maybe something else Sentinel was going on, but it couldn't be that. There were a lot of things he could stretch his mind to encompass, but actual, literal shapeshifting? No way.

Only, he had to admit the way his hand had looked, the feeling of long nails – okay, claws - maybe there had been the very real sensation of them withdrawing inward. He couldn't deny he had been experiencing the alien feelings inside of him, all those different ways of thinking. Addictive ways of thinking, with their allure of complete certainty, control and poise. Something he could get lost in and truly become a monster as a result.

"Shit," Jim murmured to himself, looking at the door to Blair's room. He shifted a little as if he was going to walk there now and the moment teetered in the balance, but then prompted by fear of the unknown he whirled and practically stomped up to his own room, angry, guilty and chronically insecure.

***

The next morning had been strained, to say the least. Jim seemed to be making a point of ignoring his roommate and barely talked to him as they performed the early morning rituals of getting up, having breakfast and preparing to leave.

Blair had watched him, his heart sinking. He had pushed too hard and instead of opening up to him, Jim had closed down. When would he learn? Just because he sometimes had to be pushed to talk about things didn't mean that Jim reacted the same way. In his anxiety, he had pushed too hard and succeeded in only making things worse.

Stupid, stupid, stupid... his mind chanted to him as he tried desperately to break into the stony wall of silence that he had helped to create.

Each foray was met with a rebuff. Each comment was adroitly deflected with a brusque reply. Attempts at conversation were thwarted and followed up with a stinging, curt, controlled response designed to leave him in no doubt that Jim was hurt, angry and thoroughly pissed off at him for even trying to make him bring this up again when the subject was most definitely CLOSED.

A final desperate attempt just to drag the whole thing out in the open had resulted in a defensive verbal thrust from the Sentinel that had shocked Blair speechless and left him stunned as Jim stalked out of the apartment without him, slamming the door to emphasise the hurled verbal grenade and avoid the consequences of its detonation.

Blair sat down, amazed that he wasn't shaking from the impact of those words.

"Whoa, whoa, Sandburg! If I did have a problem I don't need you to help me deal with it ... I don't NEED you, I don't need anyone! Now, get the hell out of my way!"

Short, sharp and very ugly. Cut out the heart of him and then threw it away when he offered it as the only thing he could give.

How could Jim seem to see exactly where to paralyse him with an emotional hurt when he seemed to be so damn blind to everything else about him? Was it some sort of perverse talent that was inborn in Sentinels, or was it just Jim who had this ability?

The door had closed on him, denying him a chance to respond. He wanted to throw something. He wanted to yell something. He could feel every injustice that had ever happened bubbling up to the surface of his mind demanding to be heard, demanding to be spoken, shouted ... whatever.

Yeah, sure you don't need me, Jim. You didn't need me the first day that we met, did you, when I saved you from the truck. Or when you fell in the oil vat,... or a lot of the other times when I covered your back and took a chance for you and you know, nothing was said. And hey man, I understand that, but shit, you needed me then...

And then immediately he countered his own internal diatribe with his other voice, his anthropologist voice, the observer trying to remain untouched by emotion.

Does it matter? He has saved your life, you've saved his. Does he have to acknowledge that he needs you for you to help him? Isn't that like making your friendship conditional?

His hands shook a little as he popped the pills out of the packaging and coughed a little. No. No, this wouldn't affect him like that. He could see what Jim was doing, and yeah, maybe he was being used as an emotional punching bag, but he'd got in a few hits of his own the night before, so what did he expect?

He'd walked away. He'd walked away last night. Yeah, okay, he had let himself be pushed into a corner and allowed Jim to see a glimpse of something he had promised himself he would never bring up, but he should have been strong enough to see it through with Jim regardless. After all, he at least had some knowledge of the danger … and Jim was acting at least partly from ignorance and a very natural fear of the unknown. He should know by now that Jim very, very rarely made the move when it came to anything Sentinel. Somehow all of that was firmly his tagalong's responsibility. As Jim had said on the beach at Sierra Verde, 'What do you mean, you don't know? This is your area!'

Which explained a lot, really. If something went wrong with Jim's senses it wasn't,  "Jim, what's wrong with you?" It was, "Sandburg, what's wrong with him?" As if he were responsible for anything that was Sentinel-related and had to accept the consequences as his fault.

He should have realised that sooner. Maybe that explained why he was getting the cold shoulder from them all at the moment. If he was seen as being responsible for anything Sentinel-related, then he was responsible for his own throwing out, for all of what happened to Jim, for all of Alex, for ... his own murder.

Now that was a weird concept to conjure with.

Great. It made a rather peculiar form of sense. Why Alex being a Sentinel was his entire fault and his involvement in trying to help her had been such a major betrayal of trust to Jim, maybe? No .. .no, that was a weak theory, wasn't it?

Weak or not, it was one of the only ones he had and he was too tired to think of any more. Blair felt like he could sleep for the best part of a month and maybe then he might just feel human again, but there was something pushing him to keep going all the time. He would sleep and then wake feeling more tired than he had before he went to bed, as if his dreams were spent fighting, struggling, running, hurting, leaving him aching in the morning as if he needed to spend the day in bed just to recover enough to go to sleep again. But everyday he was pulled after Jim, tugged by loyalty, friendship, and his own need to be there, so he got up, got dressed and pushed the fatigue deep inside and faked energy from somewhere.

He downed the pain pills and swallowed. He had to convince Jim that it didn't matter about anything else, that they just had to work on a plan to get this shape-shifting under control and the rest could wait.

The only problem was, he didn't really know how to do it. Only that there were evidently ways to trigger a full change, and ways to trigger the change back.

Exactly what they were, no one seemed to know; but he had to find out before Jim changed again because everything he had read indicated that unless the spirits were appeased in some way, an uncontrolled change would result in him not being able to change back.

And the Jaguar would eat his friend alive.

***

As he sat working on another dead end lead, the Sentinel of the Great City decided he was feeling pretty shitty, all told, physically and emotionally. His head felt worse if anything, he was edgy and jumpy and guilt? He had smothered himself in the emotion and felt it in every breath and moment that swept him further away into silence and away from an apology.

Something was happening to him. He'd spent all night hunting in his dreams, the taste of blood hot in his mouth as he ripped out the throats of unsuspecting prey, as he dropped on them and crushed their skulls ... as he tried to find the one thing that would assuage the terrible hunger in him.

There seemed to be nothing that could stop it gnawing away at him as it spread like a contagion all through his body, into his mind.  He had tossed and turned all night, either lying awake replaying what Blair had said, or not said, or drifting into intense surreal dreams.

The final dream had been something different and disturbing in its clarity and content.  He'd thought he had been taken back to the Temple of the Sentinels, but it wasn't cloaked in jungle and half falling down. It had been night and it had been lit by flickering torches that stabbed at his eyes, even as the shadows they cast seemed to make the carved glyphs move and live under their motion. He remembered looking up, hot blood streaming down his face, feeling empty and wild and desperate.  Around him bodies, dressed in ceremonial garb, lay in postures of death fresh and violent and he knew he was running out of time, that there had to be one worthy, one last sacrifice that could satisfy this hunger.

There had been only an emptiness surrounding him even as the stench of death cooled around him ...

And in the dream he had known despair, pure and simple, as he felt the sense of his self slipping away and as he raised his head to scream a protest to the night that this couldn't be, the most terrifying thing of all was that there was no words that came from his throat, only the thunderous sound of a wild jaguar's roar.

His heart hadn't stopped thumping for a good hour after that one. The feeling had faded a little, but it seemed more alive in his head now. As if it were prowling, waiting for a moment to seize control, getting worse as time crept on.

He'd made a mistake. He should have listened to Blair, and he knew it. How often had he had to admit that? And why did he always have to wait until it was nearly too late and he had nearly caused irrevocable damage to do it? Because amongst other things he was stubborn and boneheaded and his only redeeming feature was that he could admit that on the odd occasion. Remembering Blair's expression from that morning and the previous night was akin to a subtle form of torture to himself and one that he felt he thoroughly deserved. As was often the case, he'd said things to Sandburg he wouldn't dream of inflicting on anyone else. Why? Because when it came down to it, he did trust his unofficial partner, more than he had ever allowed himself to trust anyone. That trust enabled him to be open enough with what he really felt, so much so that it could hurt him. The kid would probably have found him a much more pleasant roommate and study subject if Jim didn't like him, or care for him so much. Instead, Blair ended up bearing the brunt of his pain, his paranoia, insecurity and frustration because he was one of the few people the Sentinel could allow close enough to see that side of him.

However preposterous the idea of transformations into Jaguars was, the offer of help wasn't. Whether the changing part of it was real or not, something was going on, and like it or not, every time there had been a new quirk before, it had been Sandburg who had solved it.  He worked through it with him, guided him patiently through his fits of irritation, sarcasm and downright disgruntled behaviour until they worked out what was wrong, what had to be avoided, controlled, focussed on until at the end he always knew if the situation arose again he could master it.

It was another one of those things he had taken for granted up until the point on the beach at Sierra Verde where he had practically demanded Sandburg just fix everything and had experienced shock when his friend had told him he didn't know how. He was in such a state himself that he'd almost felt betrayed by that and only later realised that he had no right to expect Blair to have all the answers – even if usually he did. Jim sighed again, staring through his computer screen as he made a reluctant decision

He was going to have to apologise.

He could do that. He'd made apologies before and let it not be said that he couldn't learn from his own mistakes. Maybe he should call him now and just let him know he was willing to talk about it now he had settled down and got himself sorted out.

"Jim, my office." Simon beckoned him over and he realised the entirety of Major Crimes seemed to be making their way over as well. "We've caught a break."

Music to his ears. He was the last one in as Major Crimes crammed in there.  Louise nodded to him as he shut the door behind him.

"We've finally got a lead," Agent Hawker announced without pause for preliminaries. "Not that long ago, our technical team managed to break the encryption code to get into Jeff Astle's laptop. It is worth saying that it was at a whole new level of hardware and software security to get into that thing, so all credit to them for getting in even as quickly as they did." She nodded to the various representatives of that team who were attending the briefing and Jim was pleased she had acknowledged their major contribution as he smiled over at Dawes and Martinez, who were trying not to look too smug at the attention from their peers.

Agent Hawker nodded and then continued.

"When we got in and broke into his files, sure enough there were details of his various hits, also encrypted and, following a suggestion by Mr Sandburg yesterday, the recovered forensic evidence from his hotel room secured by Detective Ellison was applied to recovered cached web pages." She gave a brilliant smile. "We lucked out, gentlemen. The password was to a secure server message board that could not have been accessed by any other means, as incorrect logins apparently block the IP address automatically, and too many attempts would have resulted in the whole thing packing up and going home, leaving us out in the cold. As it is, we got in the first time – and before you, you will see the printed out transcript of the posts on that board, complete with names, dates … and most importantly, at least one viable shipment location. It appears to be a storage facility leased to several companies in Cascade - Morton's Antiques, InTech Ltd and Cyclops Oil. We're following leads relating to all these companies, but if we can get in there quickly, we can hopefully secure people who work for the Red Stars … and by threatening their operation, get the higher-ups to show their faces."

The group nodded, appreciating the opportunity, though Jim was considering that a little more background on the companies would be useful before they went in with a full team, all guns blazing as it were.

Simon looked up. "I want full protective gear for this one, people. I can only imagine that a weapons distributor would have a pretty good means of protecting their shipments. We are going to move in one hour - full gear, high security protocols. We're going to be working with the Feds on this one and have their manpower behind them."

"Sir...?" Jim raised his hand. "Shouldn't we be trying to get people inside rather than revert to a siege situation if they have so many weapons available to them?"

"A good point, Jim." Simon replied, nodding to acknowledge the suggestion "Agent Hawker?"

"The information on the message board confirmed one other thing. The inside Agent under deep cover is still alive and currently in Cascade. With that in mind, we could potentially arrange to get in, and get out discrete information before the main force moves in.. The raid still needs to go ahead, but .... " She smiled again, some of the tight professionalism and wound-up stress that had characterised her presence at Major Crimes relaxed. "It is an opportunity worth taking."

Simon nodded. "In which case, Agent Hawker, the rest of us will get set to make a move and you try and make that contact - take Ellison with you. We'll begin the raid regardless of your progress in one hour on that location."

"That should be more than enough time," she replied as she got up. "Ellison, you're with me." The meeting broke up and Jim followed her out of the room.

He was suddenly very sure of something, just from watching her, the way she moved, it seemed to telegraph to already acute senses that there was something else he should know. "Let me guess," he said in a low voice "You've already made contact with your brother."

Surprised, Louise turned and met his eyes  "What gave you that idea?"

"You didn't seem at all surprised when I made the suggestion to try and infiltrate. You were already planning a meet, yes?" Jim sat at his desk a moment, getting his things together.

"I recognised the ID of one of the people on the message board. It was him." She leant over and called up the site on his PC. "See? Username of Lilly. It was something I used to call him when we were young. It used to really, really annoy him and as a cover for Lyle, it's pretty effective. From there it was pretty easy. I spammed his registered email address and had my mobile worked into the code. He texted me back and we talked. He's up for a meet."

"Looks like you are well on it. Any reason why you haven't said anything to Simon about this?" Jim asked in a low voice, staring at the screen a moment longer.

"He'd insist on someone coming along, which has happened anyway. " Louise replied, giving Jim a more animated smile. "Though after yesterday, I'm thinking you can more than hold your own. The meet is for about 15 minutes before the deadline  - Lyle's going to make sure one entrance to a disused part of that warehouse area is unguarded so we can get in. Quiet and discrete. We get in, and he gets a chance to be one of the few that made it away from that bust alive .. and he'll use that to get close to the higher-ups."

Jim nodded slightly and gave a half smile. "Looks good. We better move out. I've just got to make a phone call."

Agent Hawker smiled. She didn't need any qualifications to work out who he was going to be phoning. She waited discretely fetching her coat as she waited and surprised at the short length of time it took him to finish the call.

The tall detective seemed to notice her attention and gave a worried shrug. "Wasn't in. I just left a message. Let's get moving." He said sounded distracted for a moment, but he held the door for her as she led the way out.

***

 "Come on, come on ..." Blair tapped his fingers impatiently on the edge of the steering wheel of the Volvo as he waited for traffic to finally start moving again. He hadn't been able to wait any longer. He had the clamouring feeling inside of him that it was going to be too late unless he got to Jim, and was with Jim, and man, if he didn't stop this whole adrenaline thing he was going to end up with a panic attack or something.  How long could it take to get to Major Crimes, anyway?

He'd already decided he'd do whatever needed to be done to get Jim to listen to him. Heknew that calling wouldn't be sufficient and if he tipped the Sentinel off that he was coming in, Jim would find some excuse to be out of the office. No, he had to corner him there and force this information down his throat. He'd drag him in front of Simon and get him involved. He'd throw a fake mental episode of lunacy if it would get him to humour him and listen for just a few moments.

Jim had to be taken out of action until he had managed to find out how to control the change that was going on. If there was one thing he had worked out is that having first shown the Nahual signs of a spontaneous and partial change, the full transformation would inevitably occur and if the proper .. what? Ritual? Process? Whatever, was not followed, the change would not reverse. In his own mind, he decided that the symbolism of the dream meant that if that happened, the Jaguar spirit would eventually dominate over Jim's essence and nothing of him would remain at all. That was a fucking terrifying thought and the moment he thought of it, it had galvanised him into action.

Dammit! Today of all days the traffic had to be at a standstill. He'd been here at least half an hour before the clogged arteries of the city streets started to move again. By the time he screeched into the garage at the precinct and leapt out of the car any observer would have thought he was on an errand of life or death.

It wasn't very heartening when he burst into Major Crimes and found the place practically deserted save for Rhonda and Megan who was manning a phone with her arm still in a sling and despite being told not to come in at all.

No, Simon, no Jim ... He made his way over to Connor's desk and sat on the edge until she finished her call.

"Sandy! Geez, now I know why you haven't been in." Without a trace of self-consciousness she reached up and brushed his hair to one side to expose the livid bruise he had nearly forgotten in his rush to get here. "That's a nasty one. Cracked you good and hard."

"Looks worse than it feels by now," Blair admitted with a half smile, "All, like, numbed out with painkillers - look, Megs, I need to get hold of Jim. Really urgently."

"Not sure if you can, Sandy. There was a break in the Red Stars case." She was watching him carefully, picking up on the fact he was practically vibrating with tension. "Sandy, are you okay?"

"What? Yeah, fine. " Blair shifted awkwardly under her scrutiny. "Why?"

"You're looking a bit ... rough," Megan said with characteristic bluntness. "So is Jim."

Blair looked uncomfortable. "We had a bit of an argument last night."

Connor lowered her voice even though there was no one else in the office. "There's something going on with him, isn't there? Like before – a ... Sentinel thing?"

The look from Blair was all the answer she needed. "What makes you say that?" the grad student asked warily.

"I'm not blind, Sandy; if you'd seen how he moved yesterday ...  the only time I've seen him move like that was at the Temple," Connor replied in a low voice.

Blair winced. "Shit."

"I'm going over the statements of those we arrested and we had one who was swearing that Jim's eyes glowed a sort of yellow. The officers checking him in assumed he was high on something, but .." Megan paused a moment "I thought I saw something strange, too, though I was a bit muzzy from being shot."

"What did you see, Megan?" The intensity in Blair's low voice was enough to confirm her suspicions that there was indeed something going on with their own Detective of the Year.

"I thought I saw his hand and it was sort of dark and something like claws," she admitted quietly. "I didn't say anything, Sandy, because I thought it was me, but … he's been really on edge here since you haven't been in, and I'm ... well, well I'm a bit worried that it might be something like last time."

The look in her eyes showed that she was really concerned; 'last time' had encompassed a whole lot of things she had absolutely no idea how Blair had dealt with. Not least the fact he had been dead. And then stood by Jim, had faith in him even while, from her perspective at least until she had worked out what was going on, the police detective had aided and abetted the young grad students ... murderer.

"I'm not sure exactly what it is," Blair replied, gesturing with his hands. "But it is really important I get to him as quickly as possibly, even - no, especially if he is heading into danger."

"They're about to crash a Red Stars operations base," Megan replied. "They found the location using that idea of yours about passwords and the like."

"They did?" Blair looked pleased, but then frowned. "I have got to be down there, Megan! I need to .. damn."

He was going to upset Simon and Jim by horning in on the operation, but his instincts were overriding that fear that had held him back for so long. "Where are they?"

"Here, let me pull up the message board that we got into, it has the details." Connor moved around to let Sandburg look over her shoulder as she found the web address and logged in, pulling up the message board still intact.

Blair blinked a little. "New message," he said, catching the date and time. "Sent not that long ago."

"Bloody hell, Sandy.." Megan was scanning through the contents of the short message. "They know they are coming! How the hell could they know they're coming? We only cracked the code a few hours ago and there was no electronic trace left!"

Blair pushed his hair back so he could read more easily. "They didn't know that it was this board we are monitoring, otherwise they would have just shut it down. They must have found out a different way. We've got to get to them. What time are they due to raid? "

"In a bit under ten minutes. It's a silent Op, Sandy. The Feds were worried about leaks tipping them off so we won't be able to get through to them unless we physically get through to them," Megan said, awkwardly grabbing her coat as they both started to almost half run to the elevator. "Looks like they had good reason to be worried too."

"We can stop it then .. we can get to Simon and stop them going into the trap," Blair said with relief as he mentally calculate3d the distance.

Megan looked at him even as the elevator doors closed with unbearable slowness. "Only, if things are going to plan ... Jim and Agent Hawker are already inside."

The horrified look Blair gave her then was enough to make his fear contagious and she stabbed rapidly at the down button to try and hurry them along.

***

Jim had to admit he was impressed at how smoothly their part of the operation was running. Agent Hawker and her brother were both pros, and the entrance to the Warehouse was sufficiently far away from the main working area that there were no random watchers. There was enough cover to make sure their progress was easily disguised and a brief use of his senses showed that working machinery was principally over the other side of the building. All in all a pretty discrete set up and a good place for a meet.

The pair of them entered the back entrance of the warehouse undetected and moved silently through the dark corridors, Jim listening for anyone approaching until they reached the designated meeting spot in a dustsheet-covered room. It reminded Jim rather bizarrely of Sandburg's original place to stay, with that same sort of musty smell that came from dust and slightly damp cloth.

Agent Hawker loitered by the door as he checked the contents of the room in case they had been compromised and there was an ambush lurking. Nothing, all rather surprisingly clear. He turned and nodded, glancing at his watch. A couple more minutes.

"Hope your brother is punctual," he murmured in a low voice. "We've got about ten minutes to get out of here. "

"He'll be here," she replied even as Jim looked up suddenly, hearing the echoing steps of someone approaching quietly, the scent of gun oil, cordite, plastique and weaponry approaching. In other words, the presence of someone who spent most of their days dealing with weapons.

"Company," he murmured, pulling his gun discretely.

She looked carefully out of the door. "It's him." Her smile was genuine as the man, standing equal in height to Jim and looking suitably in contrast to his sister's neat FBI suit, paused, looked around warily, frowning and then appearing to recognise Jim.

"Lyle! God, it's good to see you.." Louise risked a hasty embrace even as the man looked over her shoulder, jumpy and paranoid.

"I thought you said you were coming alone?" he asked, frowning a little at Jim and pulling away. "Lou, I'm sorry about New York, but they locked down everything. Spent some time recovering. I can't be sure they haven't picked up what we've done, but I had to risk it."

"Why?" Louise asked. "What's happening?"

"It's coming to a head in here." Lyle Hawker was looking around warily. "Internal politics. The New York deal destabilised everything and it's turning into a mess of cutthroat politics. Rumour has it that there is some sort of takeover brewing which means they might be distracted."

Louise nodded. "What have you got?"

"You'll have to hurry and get it. I'm expected in five minutes in the centre of town and I'll barely make it, but they think I left about 10 minutes ago. I managed to set up a terminal in one of the rooms upstairs. Stole a logon, and I have left it linked into the main database. You should just have time to get up there, transfer the files and get out before the bust. That way they'll think it was another leak, I'll be in the clear with an alibi and I can get close to the big boss.." Lyle told them in a low voice and pulled out a blank CD. "Here, it's ready to roll. If you can get the information out it should be able to take out the whole group. " He turned to leave. "You better leave if you don't want to get stuck in your own raid; I have got to go...I'll soon be out of this, sis, don't worry."

"Thank God, Lyle." Louise nodded, relieved. "Where is the computer?"

He was already turning to leave, glancing over his shoulder with wary dark eyes. "Stairs along there, up and first room on the right. Hurry, there's not much time."

Jim didn't even get a chance to say anything before the undercover agent whirled out of the room and headed off.

He didn't like it. Something seemed off in their interaction. Surely there would have been something more from him than fear and anxiety on being reunited with his sister? He could smell the paranoia on him, but nothing else.

"Is he always like that?" he murmured as they half jogged up the stairs.

"What? Lyle?" Louise glanced at him as she opened the door cautiously "He goes in deep when he's undercover ... that's what makes him one of the best."

Jim had already checked with his hearing. There was no one there and the only sound was the hum of electrical equipment. Seemed to fit the description. They entered cautiously and found the covered-over monitor, concealing any light that might attract attention.

"I would have thought he would be more pleased to see you," Jim remarked, niggling at that point as he put the blank CD Lyle had passed him into the CD writer's drive even as Agent Hawker was typing carefully and dragging files over for copying.

"He'll show that when the job is done," Louise said confidently. "Big files ... going to take some time ... looks to be an export of their database. We'll have them, Jim, we'll be able to take the whole damn lot of them down." She grinned triumphantly, watching the files transfer.

Jim looked at his watch again. "We have seven minutes at the outside."

She looked at the computer as the information started to burn across in a whirring flicker of a red light and smiled. "We'll make it, even if I have to get out and push."

***

"Your team ready, Joel?" Simon asked quietly into his handset.

"Just say the word. Two minutes, sir." The captain's voice crackled back.

"On my mark, everyone." Simon broadcast on the secure channel. He clicked it off.   

"Damn, I hope Jim is out of there."

This raid had pulled in some heavy armament from the Feds and it would be lucky if there was anything left of the place once they were through with it. Jim was meant to page him the all clear, but so far ... nothing. And they still had a go for ... two … no, one minute's time.

"Shit." He muttered under his breath, looking at his watch again on the off chance it might have stopped and buy his friend some more time. They had to make a go of it, but ..

But nothing, risks had to be taken, and Jim of all people knew the risks.

"Move out," he ordered finally, even as he was dimly aware of a car screeching to a halt behind him, outside the perimeter.

***

"We've got to go," Jim murmured urgently, looking at his watch. They would be moving in.

"Just one more minute," Louise replied.

Jim was edgy. This had seemed too easy. Way too easy. That raw feeling was back in force, and the urge to pace was nearly overwhelming. He listened, the crunching of stealthy approach from outside clear and...

Wait a moment. The absence of sound suddenly impinged on his consciousness. Where were the busy sounds of working people in the warehouse? With a frown he concentrated his sense of hearing into the building. There were plenty of mechanical sounds, machinery sounds, but if he filtered those out and concentrated, he couldn't hear any heart beats .. only the multiple quiet electronic beeps of timers.

Timers? Eyes widened and even as Louise ejected the complete copy of the CD, he grabbed it and grabbed her. Hissing, "It's a set up! This place is rigged to blow!"

"Wha..? What do you mean?" Louise hesitated as if she was going to try and get something else from the computer.

"We've got to get out of here." Jim was already moving and tugging her behind him as he fumbled for his phone, trying to get through to Simon.

He should have his phone on silent, unless he'd left it in the car.

"It's rigged to explode."

And the most strategic moment for it to explode? When all of the FEDs and Cascade PD stormed the building which would be any moment ... now ...

***

Blair sprinted up to grab hold of Simon who was partway to the building, panting for breath "Call it off! " he gasped out, even as Connor followed, favouring her arm as she tried to run. "They know - it's a trap!" 

Simon nearly shrugged him off irritably and then stopped, looking at him sharply. "They know? How?!" It came out more aggressively than he anticipated.

"He's right, sir." Conner said, wincing as she drew up level, the running having jolted her arm. "Some sort of leak. We saw a message on that board warning about it!"

Simon grabbed his handset and bellowed into it. "Cease advance! Cease advance! Units return to position!"

"Where's Jim?" Sandburg queried urgently, looking at the group hesitating and then starting to fall back,  "Where's...."

The crack of sound as the bottom level of the warehouse exploded gave them a moment to flinch even as the shockwave knocked them off of their feet and showered them with scintillating pieces of shattered glass and the thump of debris. The air was squeezed around them, a giant hand momentarily crushing them to the ground even as curling tentacles of fire and smoke rose and wavered to the sky, a leviathan monster of smoke and flame erupting from the shell of the building.

For a brief moment, the event was so shocking that nothing moved, that all the downed police officers seemed lifeless until the initial stunned horror wore off.

Simon wished he hadn't looked up, wished that he hadn't seen Blair pushing himself up and staring at the burning building with eyes so dark that they reflected the destroying flames on their surface.

Perhaps it would have been easier if he had yelled out, protested what had happened somehow instead of just staring at the flames as if someone had just gutted him, and ripped the purpose of his existence from his life.

Simon blinked, feeling the warm trickle of blood from a small cut run down near his eye even as he struggled to stand. He brushed it away irritably, too near shock for his emotions to surface. Jim had been in there, perhaps already dead before the trap was set for them - and part of his mind could see that was real and wanted to rage that a good friend was gone - while the other part with his ingrained training kicked in and demanded he look after the living first.

He shook his head, partially deaf from the explosion and saw Sandburg stagger to his feet and try to jog unsteadily towards the blazing deathtrap of the warehouse.

"Sandburg!" he called out and coughed at the bitter taste of smoke in the air. "Blair, get away from there!"

The look flashed over his shoulder was as close to someone on the edge of endurance as Simon ever wanted to see. "He could still be alive in there!" came the rough-voiced response. "He'll need help getting out."

There had been plenty of miracles with these two in the past, but Simon had to make the hardest decision of his life and give up his own hope for another miracle as he gave a curt order.

"Joel! Stop him!" he yelled, knowing if Jim had survived, he would kill anyone who allowed Sandburg to endanger himself for him.

The burly-looking captain stood and grabbed at Sandburg, missed and had to run after him to the point where skin grew taut and smarted with the radiating heat, even as Sandburg tried to find a way in through the barrier of flame. Joel tackled him, bringing him down, as part of the building started to collapse, flailing at the ground around them with angry lumps of red-hot masonry.

"Blair, no! No, give it up ... no one could survive in that!" Joel yelled, even as Blair struggled again to get to him.

"He's alive, man," Blair insisted, his voice cracking with the force of his denial.  "He's got to be alive! But he'll be in trouble. Let me go, Joel! Let me ... go!" He twisted aside as a billow of smoke and thump indicated flooring was giving way inside the building, spewing out more debris.

"No, babe, come on, he wouldn't want you getting killed." Joel grabbed him again and started dragging the anthropologist away even as the front of the warehouse started to collapse inexorably towards them. 

"Joel! Get the hell out of there!" Simon bellowed, running towards them to grab Sandburg's other arm and drag him bodily out of danger.

Blair turned and looked over his shoulder as he was carried away and the brief flash of image that he saw in that momentary glance seemed to burn permanently on mind.

A noticeably feminine shape seemed to crash forward from a second floor window as if pushed hard, just ahead of the start  of a catastrophic collapse. Explosions surrounded the falling shape wrapping her in a shroud woven of fire and  debris.

Thick dark smoke belched forth as the wall itself tumbled and for a split second there was a flare of brilliant light behind it, revealing for the briefest moment, the darker silhouette of a feline shape leaping outwards and down as the wall collapsed down behind it.

That moment crystallised in his mind, complete with the stench of acrid fumes that made his eyes water.

Yeah..acrid fumes, he was sticking to that story ...

He stopped fighting them then. There was no point, Jim had changed in reaction to a mortal danger and he needed to find him in his Jaguar form ... and work out how to bring him back. He hadn't imagined it. It was real. He had to believe that, otherwise he had to ask himself, why was he still here?