Five Moments in Search of A Meeting...
He returned from Peru with nightmares in his eyes, and few answers to their questions. So many questions, about the crash, about the Chopec, about the time he was alone. He wanted to let it go, forget the screams, deaths, and months of fighting, holding the Pass, obeying his orders, waiting for relief.
His answers weren't what was wanted.
Still, he was called a hero. He didn't argue, he left the questions unanswered, and he went home. It wasn't long before light became duller, sounds became fainter, touch became... rougher. Till something he didn't know was alive in him died.
~oOo~
"More institutions, sweetie?"
Oh yeah, Blair heard that his mom wasn't happy - the thin, sharp scrape in her voice sort of gave it away.
"Master and Doctorate, Mom. Then I'm free."
"You could be free now, in the University of Total Real Life Experience -"
"Or the School of Hard Knocks?" Blair snorted. "Mom, please."
"You don't even know what you want to study!"
"I've got ideas." Strange, elusive ideas, but all his own.
"Be real, sweetie."
"I am being real, Mom." He hugged her, hard. "And I'll get to that Experience and Hard Knocks soon enough. You'll see."
~oOo~
It was over... with the closing door and the dull, sad shine of a ring sitting where his wife had dropped it.
It had been a slow, dreary slide, and Jim couldn't say when they'd finally lost it. They no longer fitted - if they ever did - but they were still friends of a sort, that was something.
It hurt... dully, like the shine on that ring. But he couldn't deny, underneath that all-too-familiar ache, a thread of, yes, relief... and freedom. His space, his life, was his once more, and he wasn't about to share it again. Ever.
~oOo~
Man, there is something about old bookstores, y'know? The light, the dust... the feel of old paper... really really love it, man. Nothing here I can afford, though.
What's that? Just a look...
Old, battered leather, faded letters in worn gilt... NTINELS OF PE... Oh man, that's got to be a hundred years old, and you can see every year of it. Shabby, decaying, there's no way...
Richard Burton... oh yeah, the explorer. No, don't open it, Sandburg, you can't afford it, you just can't... but a look won't hurt.
Just a quick look...
Oh. That picture...
That's... a Sentinel?
~oOo~
"Blair."
The message was hissed from the nurse's station, with eyes on the door behind which a big, cold, distraught cop with abnormal reactions and scared, angry eyes waited for a doctor; with a sheet of test results anxiously crumpled in one hand; and with a grin in spite of her nerves at the stammering, mixed-up babble of thrills and excitement and sheer joy tumbling through the phone from her flaky, fascinating friend with the brilliant mind, the totally-off-the-wall theories, and the baffling fixation on just about anyone this odd.
"Oh yeah, I definitely think I've got someone for you."
- the end -