Sense of Wonder
by lindaljc
Summary: Jim has regrets. Blair tells why the senses are a gift.
A/N: I've been looking back at some of my very early stories, written for the television show The Sentinel. I've decided to post a few of them here. If you're not a fan of the show I will still be writing and posting stories for Stargate Atlantis.
Warnings, Ratings: Death of a minor character, and a bit of profanity. This is NOT a song fic.
Thank you, Lyn, for working your magic.
Disclaimer: All characters, places, and objects from The Sentinel belong to Pet Fly Productions, UPN, Paramount and the SciFi Channel. No money is being made. No copyright infringement is intended. Any resemblance (of original characters) to any person living or dead is purely coincidental. No similarity to any person either living or dead is intended or should be inferred.
This story was written by lindaljc with the love of the show in mind.
...
I hope you never lose your sense of wonder ...
Lee Ann Womack - I Hope You Dance
...
As Jim finally took notice of his surroundings, he slowly lowered his umbrella. The rain had finally ended, but the clouds remained. The temperature had been hovering around freezing this morning and now, after the rain, tendrils of dense fog were forming. It seemed a fitting ending somehow. They shouldn't wait too long before they headed back to Cascade.
Still, his thoughts kept him there, standing stiffly near her grave. Alex. Alexandra Barnes. His jaw was clenched to the point of pain but he couldn't seem to ease the tension until a hand gently touched the middle of his back. He didn't understand why he was so upset at her death. He should feel... What should he feel? Not happy, even after as much as Blair had suffered at her hands. Even Blair would never expect that. Maybe relieved? Still, he wished she'd never crossed his path. Never crossed Blair's. Yet he didn't hate her, and he didn't quite understand that. She'd almost killed Blair; almost destroyed his guide and the best friend he'd ever had; the man who had saved his sanity and probably his life.
Maybe what he regretted was the loss of another sentinel; someone like him, at least physically. He might have thought he was going crazy when his senses came back on line, but he was sure he'd never have sunk to her level. He'd have made sure of that, no matter what Sandburg's thoughts were on that subject. Blair had never been pushed to the brink like he had. Jim had coped with some bad situations in his life, but there was no way that he'd have let his life end like she did. That was a burden he never wanted on his soul.
Sandburg never looked at things the way he did though. He'd told Jim several times that a sentinel's enhanced senses were a gift, that as a cop, he could be a human crime lab. Jim just wanted to be a good detective and stop the bad guys from hurting anyone, and with Blair's coaching, he'd managed to do just that. He wished there was something more he could do to show his gratitude. What little he did to help the kid out wasn't sufficient, but Blair had seemed happy with the arrangement, at least up till now. But after Alex? He just didn't know.
He felt Blair shiver through the touch on his back. This wet weather wasn't good for him. He sighed and turned toward him, taking in the weather-flattened hair, the skin pale and damp from the cold rain. "Come on, Chief. Let's go home."
The priest had already left, and they'd been the only mourners. They walked back to the truck that was parked close by. When they got inside, Jim turned the heater on high. "Hey, take your jacket off. It's soaked." When Blair moved to comply, Jim reached behind the seat and pulled out a blanket, unfolded it, and handed it to him.
Blair rubbed it roughly over his face and hair then wrapped it around his shoulders. "Thanks, man. Are you okay? You've been pretty quiet."
"I'm okay. Just sifting through what ifs and might have beens. I have more than a few regrets about her."
Blair ducked his head. "I'm sorry."
Jim was startled into saying, "What?"
"She - she was like you..."
"Sandburg, she almost killed you. That's my main regret. The only one that really matters. As for being like me... I hope to God we're not alike..." Jim tried to calm his voice. He didn't want to deal with more misunderstandings concerning Alex. "Sandburg, I know what you mean, but Alex and I didn't really have anything in common but the physical stuff... the senses... and the... attraction... but that wasn't me, that was the sentinel. Sometimes I feel like two different people. Sometimes I want the sentinel part of me to just disappear, and sometimes it makes me crazy to know that I'm Detective Jim Ellison, Sentinel, human crime lab. I can't get away from him."
"But being a sentinel is who you are, just like you're a detective..."
Jim looked at him, and he couldn't help it that resignation and disappointment colored his expression. "Yeah. Forget it. To you, we're both sentinels, and that's been your Holy Grail. It's okay, Sandburg."
"Jim... man, I'm really sorry that I've made you feel that way. I never wanted you to feel like a thing, a subject. You've never been a guinea pig to me, Jim. At first, you were larger than life, almost a superhero, but I never thought of you as having super powers, man. It wasn't that at all. You have a gift..."
Jim turned his head away in frustration. He stared unseeingly out a window that was fogged opaque.
Blair reached out a hand and touched his shoulder gently, but Jim shrugged it off. Blair sighed and shrank back against the door, resting his knee up on the seat. He began tentatively, "You never did understand that... and you'd never let me really explain." Blair hunched into the blanket, trying to draw some warmth from it.
He paused for a minute before looking up at Jim. Jim hadn't set the truck in motion yet. He was still lost in his own thoughts.
Blair must have taken that for a sign. He cleared his throat softly and began, "When I was little, maybe seven or eight, Mom and I lived in this commune in Montana. I was hiding out from doing chores one day. I'd found this great book, and I found a warm spot out behind the barn and read until I was half way through it. Well, I started to yawn, and nobody had yelled for me yet, so I put on a pair of Naomi's old sunglasses and lay back on some loose hay. I just put my hands behind my head and lay there for a while. I was feeling pretty cool and then I just, I fell asleep." The sigh that followed was full of pain, and when Blair continued, Jim knew why.
"I... fell asleep in the sun with those cheap sunglasses on. It really did a number on my eyes. I woke up, and... you know how your eyes are when you've been out in the sun a long time and you go inside and you can't see? It takes a while for your eyes to adjust. But, it didn't happen quite like that. My eyes were sunburned. Man, they hurt so bad." Blair had unconsciously hunched his shoulders. "Mom got a doctor to come, and he made Naomi promise to keep me in a dark room for a week. No light. No reading. No moving for a week. He prescribed some eyedrops and a mild painkiller, but that was all he could do.
She kept a cloth over my eyes during daylight, even though the windows were completely covered, and wouldn't turn a light on at night. Man... she tried to downplay the seriousness of it, but I knew. She told me stories, and talked about places we'd go when we left the commune. She made up little games we could play to keep me amused. At night… she'd sing or hum and just hold me still. When she couldn't stay awake any longer, she'd leave the commune's radio by my side so I'd have something to do when she fell asleep.
But Jim... I was scared, man. I was scared I'd never see again. So scared that I never even asked Naomi to finish reading that book to me. It was, like, if she didn't read it to me, then I'd be able to read it to myself some day. Well, anyway, for days I was terrified, and then one day, after my eyes stopped burning so bad, I heard a bird singing. I think Mom was getting lunch so she wasn't there to ask about it. Anyway, I heard the bird and I didn't know what kind it was, but I've seen one like it many times since. I still don't know the name but it wasn't important. You understand? Because I knew that bird. I knew its song. And sound was suddenly magic. After that I'd turn off the radio after everyone went to bed and I'd just listen. Wind and trees became something alive. Rain had rhythm and flow. Even that old house spoke to me with its creaks and groans."
Blair had relaxed into his corner, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes as he continued. "But that wasn't the only magic, there was touch. All week I'd been listening to Mom and I'd been rubbing this little rock that I'd picked up and put in my pocket. It was smooth on one side, and pointy on one end, grainy-rough on the other side. I was careful not to rub the grit away. I knew that rock's surface. Memorized it. Since I wasn't allowed to move, I had turned my focus on that rock.
Then Rosemary, she was four years old, brought me a dandelion. I didn't know a dandelion could smell so good. Not like a rose, but... like itself. It smelled like outdoors, all green and fresh like a meadow. I couldn't be outdoors, but I'd discovered that I could hold a little bit of life in my hands, and I treasured it."
Blair breathed out a long sigh, "Taste was... well, Mom was always bringing me something to tempt me to eat. I was so scared that my appetite had pretty much disappeared. It was almost too much to try to focus, but I discovered that it's a lot more difficult to identify something if you can't see it, so I tried to catalog all the tastes that she brought me. There were the easy ones, sugar and salt, pepper and vinegar, hot, sour, and buttery. There were lots of herbs and spices I couldn't identify then." Blair slowly smiled to himself. "I didn't know what good experience all of that was for living with a sentinel."
But the smile faded as Blair went on. "But all I really wanted at the end of the week was to be able to see." He swallowed hard as he whispered, "I promised myself that I'd never take it for granted. I wanted to see those things I'd finally really heard, touched, smelled, and tasted. I wanted to see the sunset, watch the clouds, dream with the stars wheeling above me. I wanted to watch that bird fly. I wanted to see the colors and flecks of mica in the stone. I wanted to bury my nose in the dandelion and be able to see the field of yellow that it came from and the little puffs of fluff when they floated on the wind..."
He suddenly opened his eyes and saw Jim staring at him.
"I - I'm sorry..."
Jim shook his head, "What for, Sandburg?"
Blair ducked his head once again, "That was my experience. It isn't yours. There's no real comparison. Mine was normal. Yours causes you pain. I'm sorry."
Jim stared for a moment. "Stop saying you're sorry. You shouldn't be."
"But..."
"No, you shouldn't be. We just see enhanced senses differently. I wish I could see it like you do." Jim went on, "I really wish I could see it as a gift... as the gift it could be."
Blair stared sadly, "I - I wish I could have helped you do that, Jim. I really want you to feel the joy I felt. The wonder and the beauty, the range, the depth..."
Jim could hear the excitement building again. Blair put his heart and soul into whatever he was doing. Maybe it was that early experience. Maybe it was just Blair.
"Jim, that's all I ever tried to do. I tried to make you see the marvelous things that were possible... only for you. I'm sorry I failed."
Blair had never looked that dejected, not even when... Maybe there was something he could give Blair.
"Chief... maybe you haven't tried the right test."
"What?" he asked tentatively.
"Yeah, I'm talking... test. Look, I was always fighting the tests. Fighting the senses. Expecting pain no matter what I did, with only the hope your dials gave me to fight it, to ease the pain of the spikes, to keep me from zoning. I... I want your experience. Not a test exactly... more an exploration."
"But haven't you? Haven't I let you? Jim, I'm so sorry..."
Jim rolled his eyes, then closed them, "I hear a bird, Sandburg..."
...
finis
Note:
It was probably sixty years ago that Mom fell asleep in the sun.