Author's note: The below is Not To Be Construed As Medical Advice for either diabetics or sentinels.
Disclaimer: The Sentinel and its characters belong to Pet Fly, UPN, and Paramount and no copyright infringement is intended.
First Aid
by Helen W.
Sometime shortly after 'Siege'
"Do I need to learn how to shoot?"
"No. Not if you won't pack."
"Or clean a gun, or..."
"No."
"But wouldn't..."
Jim looked up from the small stack of forms they had to finish filling out before Blair's ride-along status could be upgraded to a six-month pass. "Listen, Sandburg, if you want to know which end of a gun the bullet comes out, how the safety works, whatever, I'll go over it all with you. Probably wouldn't be a bad idea. But the local firearm classes for civilians are taught by the NRA, and..."
"And what?"
"And I'm not about to inflict you on them, or them on you. Now if you wanted to get a license to carry, to back me up, you know, maybe we could work something out with the PD, get you some real training."
Blair sighed. He really didn't want to have much to do with guns, and he never wanted to aim one at a person or anything like that, or even own one. He'd leave that to the professionals. It was just... well, one of things he'd always liked about fieldwork was the stuff he'd had to learn to do it. Things like jungle survival or local Native American dialects or, heck, even how to drive an 18-wheeler like he'd done with his uncle that summer for his first 'closed societies' work, his Junior Subject Proficiency paper.
Okay, so maybe he wouldn't be learning much about guns. Whatever. "What about a self-defense course?"
Jim shrugged, twisting his pen in his right hand. "You can take something if you'd like, but most are just about how to annoy a mugger. I've seen you in action - you do okay already, you don't have to be taught not to lose your head."
The compliment was nice, but Blair wanted to LEARN something. "What about Karate?" he pushed.
"Sure, whatever, knock yourself out," Jim replied, "And if I thought you needed, you know, self-confidence or whatever, self-assurance, that sort of thing, I might push you to do something along those lines. But, honestly, Blair, none of that will tell you how to take out a terrorist with a vending machine or a toilet stall door."
"Well, there's got to be something I could be working on, on my own. How about Chinese? Think that would help with when you're working in Chinatown?"
"Nope, already speak a bit of Cantonese."
"What! You're kidding, right, man?"
Jim just chuckled and started flipping through the pages on the desk in front of him. "Yeah, I thought I remembered there WAS something you had to do. You've got to take a first aid class."
Blair practically bounced out of the chair next to his desk. "Great! Like, EMT training? Or do I have to go all the way to paramedic? I've always wanted an excuse to learn..."
"NO!" Jim cut through. "NOT EMT training. A first aid class. A three-hour class, probably given by the Red Cross, some Saturday morning, the sooner the better."
"But I've..."
"Sandburg, if you want to spend all your nights and weekends for the next nine months in class, go ahead and get yourself first responder training. But I don't know when you'll have time to work with me."
"But all you learn in those first aid classes is to call 9-1-1. I mean, they show you how to do a splint or whatever, but it all boils down to don't-really-try-this-at-home-folks."
"You've had a first aid class before?"
"Yeah, and CPR, a couple of times," said Blair.
"Less than two years ago?"
"Uh - no."
"Then you've expired. Give the Red Cross a call right now, then I can put down when you plan to do training and get this stuff submitted."
Jim handed one of the forms to Blair and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Here, fill in what you can, and I'll sign everything later," he said.
"Headache?" Blair asked.
"Nothing new there," said Jim.
Blair started to say that Jim was handling it all wrong, that he should move his hands THERE and rub - but stopped himself. If Jim's headache was from too much stimulation, would any tactile ministrations make it worse?
So he attacked the form without comment, wishing there was a first aid course he could take which would cover what he needed to help Jim, his sentinel, instead of just rehashing the same-old same-old.
The following Saturday, Blair found himself in a community center multipurpose room immobilizing a twelve-year-old babysitter-in-training's right arm and wrapping a tourniquet around her left. Two weeks ago, if someone had said he'd be spending this morning tying up someone named Candi he'd have been all ears, but, honestly, it wasn't much fun when he was fully clothed and Candi hadn't hit puberty yet.
And tied really tight knots.
"Good work," said the instructor, a way-too-jolly middle-aged grade school gym teacher named Hank. "Of course, if someone was actually bleeding badly enough to require a tourniquet, what would you have done first off?"
"Dialed 9-1-1," Candi and Blair said in unison.
"Right," said the instructor. "When in danger or in doubt."
As he wandered off, Candi whispered, "I guess we're not going to get to brain surgery today."
They rewrapped the bandages and Blair looked at the clock. Two hours of bandaging and going over the airway-breathing-circulation routine and practicing pseudo-buddy-breathing and whacking upside-down dolls on the backside, and he was yet to learn something that he didn't already know, let alone anything that might help him with the sort of investigative police work Jim did.
"Now, I'm going to ask you a question," the instructor said. "What do you do if you see someone acting out-of-it and they tell you they're a diabetic?"
Diabetes? That fell under the purview of a basic first aid course? Blair'd always just considered it a chronic condition, not one that the average person might have to deal with in an emergency situation.
"Well, it depends on whether they're hypoglycemic or hyperglycemic," said his partner. Okay, it made sense that a girl named 'Candi' might know just a little about it.
"Big words! And, you're right, diabetics can have either problem," said the instructor. "But, you know what? The first aid for either condition is the exact same - provided they stay conscious, you give 'em some candy, or, better yet, soda or fruit juice. Because if they have two much sugar in the bloodstream, well, that's a dangerous condition long-term, but it's not going to kill 'em right in front of you. But if you don't deal with severely low blood sugar immediately, well, that's another story. In fact, even if someone doesn't identify as a diabetic, or doesn't know they're a diabetic, you might as well give them some candy. Makes the world a sweeter place."
So now Blair knew some basic first aid for diabetics - the morning wasn't a complete waste. He'd learned nothing useful for working with a sentinel, though. Except - maybe there WERE some parallels between diabetics and sentinels, come to think. They both had to manage their exposure to something that everyone, themselves included, needed. For diabetics, this was carbohydrates, and, for sentinels, sensory input.
So what would first aid for sentinels be like?
And it came to him - maybe it was just like for diabetics. Maybe a sentinel could block out too much of the normal sensations of life, and then be in trouble. Would one be able to tell, though, what a sentinel in trouble was experiencing - too much input, or too little?
Blair bet the first aid for either extreme would be the same - you touched the sentinel, you talked to the sentinel, you have him something sweet to eat.
So Blair gave it a shot. Touched Jim on his arm or back when the sentinel seemed to be losing control, or looked like he was hurting, or needed to focus better, even when Jim was giving off leave-me-be vibes. Talked to him constantly, yelled at him, even, if he wasn't getting through. Sometimes - usually - Blair tried for subtle, but he found he sometimes really had to get into Jim's space.
But it worked.
THE END
All feedback welcomed, negative particularly!