Away From The Sun
By Romanse
This was my very first Sentinel story originally posted on the SentinelAngst list many years ago. In the episode "Warriors", Jim was not the only person to suffer the sudden loss of a friend through violence. Blair lost a friend, too, when that friend was brutally murdered. By the way the episode ended, you'd never know that Blair was devastated or that he blamed himself for what happened. This story is an attempt to correct that impression.
'Cause now again I've found myself
So far down, away from the sun
That shines into the darkest place
I'm so far down, away from the sun
That shines to light the way for me
To find my way back into the arms
That care about the ones like me
I'm so far down, away from the sun again.
Away From The Sun by 3 Doors Down
It seemed to Blair as if theirs was the only car jetting down the road that morning as he reclined lazily in the front passenger seat of the Mustang and simply enjoyed the ride in the convertible with the top down. The warm summer sun felt good on his face, the warm breeze caressed his skin and made his long curly hair fan out and wave like a symbolic banner of youth, life and freedom. Blair smiled as he glanced over at his beautiful, vivacious friend, Janet Myers, as she drove the two of them down the scenic stretch of highway in her car.
He was thinking about the rally the day before and how amazing it was that everything went down the way it had. As long as he lived, he would never forget how it felt to be in the middle of all the civil disobedience and drama of chaining themselves to giant redwoods in an effort to save them from being hewn and hacked to pieces. Right along side him had been his friend Janet. Blair's agile mind would have normally been thinking about the next project or event that needed a helping hand, but right now he refused to think about that next rally or worthy cause. He wanted this contented moment, The Right Now, to last forever. The radio was tuned to a classic rock station and Janet started to hum along to the smooth, soothing sounds of "Ventura Highway." Blair closed his eyes and let the music take him away….
Asleep in his bed in the room loft, Sandburg turned over and his lips curled into a slight smile as the last dream ended and a new one began.
Blair was riding in a car again, but not Janet's. It was his best friend and roommate's car, and Jim Ellison was at the wheel, driving in endless circles around Prospect Street looking for the Chopec Shaman, Incacha. Blair was feeling increasingly frustrated knowing that Jim was operating without the use of his heightened senses as a result of having renounced them. An ominous sense of foreboding seized the young police observer as he tried but failed to get Jim's attention.
"Jim, c'mon man, we're gonna be late! I told Janet we'd meet her 15 minutes ago," Blair said urgently.
Blair's feeling of dread began to increase exponentially when his roommate and best friend turned a chilling grin on him and replied, "Relax kid, what's your hurry? We've got plenty of time."
"No we don't, Jim, your senses are gone!" Blair frantically shouted. He had no idea why he felt so suddenly afraid. It was as if it wasn't really Jim, Blair's "Blessed Protector" sitting there next to him, though he looked exactly like him. All he knew was that Jim was acting strange and that he had to get off of this street and down to the garage where Janet was waiting.
Blair began to beg the Jim look-alike to either let him out of the car or take him to the garage. Finally and to Blair's complete relief, he felt the car continue to go straight in a direction towards downtown, rather than turn for another fruitless spin around the block.
Back in the loft, the smile that had graced Blair's face in sweet repose had vanished and his body was now moving restlessly, causing the sheets to tangle and the pillow to fall to the floor. The bizarre dream that Blair had fallen into was morphing into a full-fledged nightmare…
The car bearing Jim and Blair finally pulled into the underground garage where Janet was supposed to be waiting. Blair looked around worriedly when he didn't see his friend, but he relaxed somewhat when he saw the old familiar Mustang. Perhaps Janet went back to her office to wait, or perhaps she was leaning across the car seats napping? Blair approached the car, and in the way that bizarre dreams sometimes play out, it seemed to Blair that the car was all the way at the end of a long tunnel, and it was taking an excruciatingly long time to reach. Blair finally got to the car and looked inside, but Janet was not there. Cold dread once again gripped Blair, and he frantically began running back towards 'NotJim' who had not moved from his car. As if deeming it time to become helpful to Blair, 'NotJim' startlingly and ghost-like appeared at Blair's side, and the detective grabbed his arm to stay Blair's flight.
"Are you looking for this?" NotJim asked in a sardonic tone of voice. With one swift motion, the Sentinel-look-alike reached beneath the car and began to drag out the mutilated, bloody corpse of Blair's friend, Janet.
Sandburg stared in abject horror at the thing that once was a loved friend and colleague. His heart beat a frantic staccato and his guts roiled around sickeningly. Janet's cold brown eyes stared up at Blair accusingly, and he had no problem reading clearly the message that was being shouted from her wide open dead orbs: 'WHY? I TRUSTED YOU AND LOOK WHAT IT GOT ME? DO YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW I DIED, BLAIR? DO YOU? I DIED SCREAMING DAMNING YOUR NAME TO HELL! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, BECAUSE YOU COULDN'T GET HERE ON TIME!'
"Noooo!" Blair wailed, as the crushing weight of guilt and horror fell on his soul, his anguished cry echoing eerily in the hollow acoustics of the garage.
Blair bolted upright in bed, his chest heaving and his protest of "no" still echoing in his ears. He looked frantically around him, disoriented and shaking until he recognized where he was. Sandburg listened for a moment for what he was sure would be Jim's steps coming down the stairs to check on him, but he heard nothing. His Sentinel was not at home; apparently the older man was continuing in the pattern that Jim had begun since the case surrounding Incacha's death and Cyclops Oil had concluded.
Ellison would be gone from the loft early in the morning and return late at night, so that Blair felt that he was continuously trying to catch up to his Sentinel - his Sentinel who apparently hadn't thought anything about renouncing his heightened senses. The message of Jim's actions had been loud and clear in Blair's mind, and he still felt the hurt at knowing just how easily and gladly Ellison could rid himself of his heightened senses and, thus, Sandburg at the same time. An ugly insidious feeling flared briefly in Blair's heart, but he clamped down on it immediately. It wasn't safe to examine that feeling, or to even dare name it. It was dark and poisonous.
The edge of darkness receded and was quickly replaced by a deep sense of sadness at the thought that he had been mistaken in believing that Jim was getting better, that this would be the day that Jim would actually stop and ask him how he was coping with the death of his friend. Wearily, Blair wrapped his arms around his legs and put his head down on his bent knees, remaining completely still until the cold sweat dried on his face.
The harder he tried, Blair could not release himself from the merry-go-round of endless recrimination that was getting harder and harder to ignore. The one person, whom Blair should have been able to talk things out with, and share his grief, was still very much inaccessible to Blair. Incacha had died and Jim hadn't handled things very well.
"I'm sorry Janet. I'm so sorry," he whispered brokenly, as he was once again swamped by feelings of guilt and grief over his friend's death. "I never should have involved you in the case. I should have been there to meet you on time!" 'Jim shouldn't have had to waste time looking for Incacha because he turned his back on his heightened senses,' the dark, unbidden thought replied in a mocking whisper. "Oh God, I'm so stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"
Ever since that day, ten days ago, when Incacha had bled his life out on the sofa in the loft shared by the Sentinel and Guide, Jim had been caught up in a maelstrom of grief and seething anger at just about anything and everything. Unfortunately, and on more than one occasion, Blair had stood in the direct path of the Ellison storm and had tried his best to comfort him, as well as siphon-off some of the pain his best friend was feeling. He was silent when Jim told him to stay out of his face; he said nothing when the detective left for work morning after morning without inviting Blair to come to the station with him. Blair said nothing when he picked up the pieces of the broken coffee pot that Jim had thrown against the wall; when Jim was short and made biting comments to his fellow detectives in Major Crime, it was Blair who ran interference on those rare occasions when he dared to come uninvited to the station.
Blair was afraid for Jim. Afraid that Incacha's death had somehow been the final nail in the coffin, and that the man Blair had grown to think of as his brother had been permanently destroyed. So while Blair struggled to hold Jim together and not burden him with his own grief, there was no one to tell Blair that Janet didn't really blame him for her death. There was no one to wake him from the vivid nightmares where the corpse of Janet mouthed words of damnation at him night after night. Blair had missed the memorial service so there was no place for Blair to gather with others who had known and loved Janet for the taking and giving of comfort. There was only Jim's rage alternating with indifference. Blair was being consumed with guilt by day, and eaten alive at night from nightmares featuring the accusing Janet, and the mocking tones of Jim calling him, "Table Leg," and then walking away. Though Sandburg had lost weight, and he looked perpetually wan and tired, his Sentinel saw nothing, did nothing to help his suffering Guide.
But the pain that Blair tried so hard to alleviate in Jim was like a living creature with a finely honed sense of self-preservation. It wanted to survive and it needed a new home to do so. The pain used it's cunning to weave a web of deceitful lies to find that new home. And so it found one in Blair Sandburg. It was almost as if the young man had absorbed Jim's pain on top of his own, unexpressed anguish, and every time Blair thought about how, if they had just come fifteen minutes earlier, Janet would still be alive, he felt something dark and ugly stirring inside.
Two weeks ago, when Jim and Blair had walked into the headquarters of Cyclops Oil, Blair got the surprise of his life when he saw who was employed there. Janet, his socially conscious friend and fellow environmental activist was there working as a consultant to one of American industries top corporate giants.
Blair had only been sixteen and a freshman at Rainer University when he'd first met Janet. Over the next few years they worked side by side at many events of mutual interest. Even though Blair hadn't seen Janet in years, and she was now looking ever so corporate, she was still the same vivacious girl committed to making things better in the world. When asked to look around and collect evidence against her employer, Janet had readily agreed to help - and was brutally murdered for her efforts. She had died twelve days ago, one day before Incacha's death, when the case was still ongoing.
Jim was without his heightened senses, raging, barely in control of himself. There was no time to observe the rituals of burial for either one of them because they had bad guys to catch and little time to do it. So, while Blair was busy managing his Sentinel and keeping his mind on the case by putting a freeze on the part of his soul that felt pain and guilt, Janet's body and been taken to the morgue and her family contacted. Janet's mother, fiancé and brothers arrived to collect Janet's things and escort her body back to the little town in Michigan where Janet had been born and raised. Without Blair's knowledge, she was cremated three days after her death, leaving Blair with no opportunity to say good-bye or to grieve, much less accept her death.
So the days went by, and Jim gradually moved farther away from the fresh pain of Incacha's death, and back to his old self. Jim, the man with five heightened senses restored and a love for the younger man, whom he protected like a brother, was oblivious to the fact that his Guide was deeply wounded on the inside. Jim had, to the best of his ability, avoided Blair both physically and emotionally, so he didn't realize that Blair no longer slept well, that he barely ate anything, or that the light in his eyes was slowly being extinguished. Blair's struggles to suppress his grief and guilt over Janet 's death in deference to his Sentinel's pain, deepened, but didn't begin to match the strength of the simmering cauldron of that other emotion lurking underneath.
******
Detective Jim Ellison sat at his desk in the bullpen of the Major Crimes Unit. He had just come from the gym after a vigorous work out, and he was feeling particularly well and more like himself than he had in days. With the exception of his boss, Simon Banks, the other MC detectives had pretty much tiptoed around Ellison the past few days. Simon had watched as, one by ones each friend in Major Crimes who wished to offer condolences had their heads summarily bitten off and handed back to them. Simon had seen Jim like that before and was not unduly alarmed. His frank advice to the rest of his team was to give his best detective and friend a little space, which they were glad to do at that point. Now, what really bothered the big Captain was the notable absence of Jim's unusual partner. Blair Sandburg had become a fixture in the unit and, although he both taught and attended classes at Rainer University, Blair usually managed to make it to the station almost every day, but the last time Simon could recall seeing Blair at the station was at least four days ago. "Enough is enough," Simon growled decisively. He rose from behind his desk, opened the door to his office and bellowed, "Ellison, my office now!"
Jim left his desk immediately and snagged a seat in the nearest chair in Simon's office as if nothing out of the ordinary had been happening the last few days. Simon was tired of the bull and wasn't having any more of it. He leaned forward and gave his wayward detective his most authoritative stare.
"You look better, Jim, how are you doing?" Simon asked him in a tone of voice that indicated that it was time to talk or take a walk.
Jim looked into the face of his captain and answered truthfully, "I'm doing a lot better, Sir. I want to thank you for putting up with all the crap going around this place for the last few days - I know I'm responsible for most of it." Pausing, he shrugged and added for good measure, "I uh…I guess I need to make some apologies."
"Good." Simon replied. "And what about Sandburg?" he asked, still pinning Ellison with his dark eyes.
Jim sighed. "What about Sandburg?" Jim knew full well what Simon was asking, but wasn't prepared to discuss his partner just yet.
"When is that partner of yours coming back on a regular basis?" Simon asked, annoyed that he was being made to play that game.
Jim glanced out the window and then back at Simon. "I'm going to call the kid this morning and invite him to come down to the station. I know he doesn't teach or have class this morning." Jim sighed again and looked uncomfortable. "I know I treated him like shit these past few days and I should have woken him up this morning and apologized. It's just… I knew this is one of his rare mornings to sleep in late, and I wanted to give him a break."
Silence fell between the two men while Simon continued to look at Jim, as if measuring the veracity of Jim's words. He broke it off before it became strained.
"Okay, Jim," he said. "Now tell me what progress you've made on the Fellman case."
Relaxing, now that things were relatively smoothed over, Jim proceeded to brief his captain on the case, and have a comfortable exchange of ideas before heading back to his desk to make that phone call to the loft. First though, he had a few stops to make. Jim sought out his colleagues and, one by one, offered thanks for their understanding and an apology for his behavior. It was clear to the other detectives that something had occurred, even if they weren't privy to the details, and that Jim, though, still grieving, was on the road to emotional healing. There was a collective sigh of relief breathed and much goodwill banter exchanged before Jim made it back to his desk.
The detective sat for a minute staring at the phone without dialing. He was thinking about his behavior of the last few days and how he felt much better emotionally. He had pretty much worked out his own sense of closure to Incacha's untimely death, and his senses were fully back online again. Jim had never meant to freeze Blair out, and he certainly had never meant to hurt him in the wake of Incacha's murder, but he had been profoundly angry at what had been done to the man who had helped save his life in the jungles of Peru. The wise Shaman had been a mentor, a great warrior and friend to him, and now the much beloved and respected Chopec was gone as a result of corrupt, American corporate greed. At the moment of Incacha's death, Jim had felt a burning rage. He dimly recalled screaming at Blair as the authorities came to take Incacha's body away. But the rage Ellison felt eventually burned itself out, and was instead replaced by an all-consuming, deep-seated fear - everyone he cared about left him, either in death or desertion.
When Incacha passed on the way of the Shaman to Blair with his dying breath, Jim's understanding of the relationship between he and Sandburg had become terrifyingly clear: no matter how smart Blair was, brave Blair was, skilled in fighting, it was just a matter of time before he too would end up on the floor dead, his life's blood pooling around his corpse. Jim would be alone, cast adrift in the stormy sea to deal with his senses on his own again, and he would have no one to blame but himself. How could he even think to bring an innocent like Sandburg into his dangerous world? He didn't have the words, much less the ability, to communicate that to Blair. In his mind, Jim believed he just needed to work things out in some sort of solitude that Blair's presence did not allow.
Finally, Jim broke himself out of his reverie and dialed the number to the loft. After what seemed an interminably long time, he heard the receiver being picked up followed by Blair's weary voice. "Blair?" Jim asked softy.
"Yeah, Jim, I'm here. Why are you calling?" Blair added, his voice suddenly rising in concern.
Jim ran his fingers through his short hair and said haltingly, "I'm calling to tell you that I'm grateful to have had a friend like you who's seen me acting my very worst these last few days. I know I was hard to live with after Incacha died, and that I've treated you like shit, but if you're willing to come down to the station this morning, I'd like a chance to make things up to you."
For a moment Blair was confused. His mind was slow to register the fact that Jim, his cold, angry Sentinel of late, was actually offering an apology and an invitation to rejoin him? A ray of sunshine penetrated the darkness around Blair's heart and for a moment, the seething cauldron of that emotion that Blair refused to name, ceased to bubble and churn.
"Chief, ya with me?" Jim asked, concern in his voice as waited for Blair's response.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm good, Jim! I'll be there. And Jim?"
"Yes, Chief?"
"You sound so much better. Thanks for inviting me."
"See you later, Chief." Jim smiled as he hung up the phone, but something was nagging him, a voice suggesting to him that all was not right.