Disclaimer: The Sentinel belongs to Paramount, The Scifi Channel and Pet Fly Productions. "Traveling Soldier" belongs to the Dixie Chicks. No copyright infringement is intended and no money has changed hands.
Author's note: This was something that popped into my head and wouldn't let me go. I credit most of the story to the song. I just filled in the details and added the ending. It just basically called out to me, especially as it gives Naomi a reason for her anti-military attitudes.
The Soldier
Naomi watched with silent pride as her son walked across the graduation stage. That pride was not dimmed by the fact that she had expected it to be a different stage or that he would have been dressed in a cap and gown rather than a set of dress blues. Blair had always excelled in any endeavor he attempted, so the fact that he was graduating from the Academy with high honors didn't surprise her at all. Unbidden, the thought came that David would have been so proud to see this.
The pain that accompanied the thought was well worn, blunted by thirty years, thousands of miles of travel and the light of her son's love. It was old and familiar, and it didn't show on her face, but it still hurt, even after all that time. As her son and his partner embraced in celebration, she made a decision to do something she had never thought she would have to. Blair certainly hadn't gotten his fierce loyalty and determination from her, so maybe he should finally know where he DID get it from.
Jim had been watching Naomi through out the graduation ceremony, wanting to make sure she was really okay with her son becoming a cop. He had seen her eyes cloud for a brief moment, but her expression had cleared quickly, and it had never lost it's pride. She had to be worried, as Blair was sure to get into plenty of dangerous situations, but she still seemed happy for him.
Not that Jim wasn't worried about the same thing. Some cops went their entire career and never had to draw their weapon outside of a shooting range, but the way their lives ran, Blair would not be one of them. Oh, he would still use his mouth as his primary weapon. That was just who he was, a vital part of him that was never going to change. But the time would come when talking wouldn't be enough. Jim knew Blair would use the gun. They'd had several heart-to-hearts on the subject, Jim worried that he would get himself killed because he didn't like guns, but Blair had convinced him that he would do what was necessary in the situation.
The Sentinel had worried that Naomi wouldn't accept this change in Blair's life, that she would reject him as having turned to the enemy, no matter that she had sent him there with her foolishness. Just as he had, but that was a thought Blair had continually berated him for, so he dismissed it out of love for his friend. Naomi seemed to be okay with it, though. Part of the reason was probably that she had finally seen that the cops in Cascade were much different than the ones she had met as a war protester.
The new members of Cascade's finest had finally all been handed their badges and were standing at attention in front of the stage. The Academy Administrator and Captain had finished their speeches and welcomed the new recruits into the fold, and now they were all shouting and throwing their hats into the air. The ceremony was over.
Jim worked his way through the crowd, closely followed by Simon and the rest of Major Crimes. They were almost as eager to reach the anthropologist as he was, but not quite. Still, they all arrived at about the same moment and started clobbering Sandburg with affectionate punches and whaps to the newly-shorn head.
The hair. Yet another thing Blair had changed to become a cop. And yet, the guilt didn't rankle as much as it once had. Blair had told him repeatedly that he put no blame on Jim for the path his life was taking, insisted that there was no blame to be had by anyone. He was where he wanted to be. And hair would always grow back.
Naomi had finally managed to get through the crowd and to their sides. She'd had a tougher time of it than all those buff cops, who were trained to be able to push people out of their way. She hugged her son, then stepped back to get a good look at him. "Oh, Sweetie! I'm so happy for you!"
Blair smiled at her. "I'm glad, Mom. Are you coming to the party tonight? I need someone to help me show these guys how to have a good time."
She grinned at him. "Sure!" Then she sobered. "Blair, we need to talk, Sweetie. I probably should have told you something a long time ago, but now it's definitely time."
Concerned, Blair said, "What's wrong, Naomi? What is it?"
She shook her head. "Nothing's wrong, Blair." She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. "It's about your father."
Blair started. "My father? I thought you didn't know who he was."
Suddenly Naomi had the attention of the whole group. Everyone knew that Blair had missed the knowledge of who his father was, and now it looked like she had known the whole time. It had become a sure thing with Major Crimes. No one got away with hurting Blair. He was one of them, and they wouldn't tolerate it.
Blair sensed that they were about to go ballistic on her, with Jim at the head of the line, so he said, "Why don't we go find a place we can talk privately?" As he extricated his mother from the crowd of cops he threw a significant look at his partner. Jim understood. If he tried to listen in on their conversation, his life wouldn't be worth much.
They found an empty spot on the bleachers and sat down. Blair watched his mother as she calmed herself down, then he said, "Now, what's this all about?"
She took one last deep, cleansing breath, then said, "When I was sixteen, I was still living with my parents in Spokane. That summer, I was working at a little cafe by the bus station as a waitress, just trying to make a little extra spending money. This was before I was so into the hippie movement. I dressed that way because it was stylish, not as a protest, and I was against the war, but in a distant 'It's not my problem.' kind of way. The world was still reeling from President Kennedy's death, and the War in Vietnam was still top priority in the news.
"It was late August and school was starting in a couple of weeks. There was a young man there that day, David Nelson. He was dressed in Army fatigues and he looked sad, so I went to take his order planning to talk to him, just to cheer him up, you know.
"He'd been drafted and he was supposed to take a bus that night to a training camp in California. He was really shy, but I guessed he liked my smile, 'cause he asked if I could sit and talk with him a while. He seemed so sad, so I told him I was off in an hour and I knew where we could go and talk without being disturbed. His bus wasn't due to leave 'till midnight, so he agreed.
"I wasn't as naive as you'd think at sixteen. I knew he wanted more than just talk, but I figured he could use the send off, and I liked him. I took him down to the lake and we sat on the pier and we talked for an hour or so. He'd just had his eighteenth birthday and it seemed like no one around him even cared that he existed. He said he thought I probably had a boyfriend, but that it didn't matter to him. He didn't have anyone to write home to, so he wanted to write to me, just so he'd be able to write to someone. I told him I didn't have a boyfriend, and I'd love it if he'd write back to me. Then we made love there on the pier.
"He had to be back at the bus station before midnight, and I had to be home by eleven, so we went back and I kissed him and I went home. That was the last time I saw him." Naomi had to stop for a while, as the old pain choked her throat for a moment. Blair had said nothing while she spoke, sensing her need to get it all out and into the open, and he still said nothing, letting her compose herself, but he wondered why the man had never returned to the only person he could write home to. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like the answer.
"He wrote me for two months, first from the camp in California, and then from the lines in 'Nam. I wrote him two letters a week, and we fell in love through the mail. I told my parents about him, and they went ballistic. They tried to tell me I was too young for him, that he had just been using me, tried to get me to stop writing him, but I swore I wouldn't be with anyone else. I was young and in love and I wouldn't be dissuaded.
"Then I found out I was pregnant. I wrote to tell him, but I don't know if he ever got the letter. The last one I got from him told me that his unit had been assigned to take some hill or other and to not worry if he couldn't write for a while.
"I hadn't heard from him in over a month and I started to get worried. I went on as usual, playing piccolo in the marching band and going to all the games. Every game, they would read the list of local boys who had died in Vietnam that week. That week David's name was on the list. I was heartbroken, so much that I couldn't keep playing. I ran under the stands, crying. No one else seemed to care, other than the fact that another soldier was dead, but I did.
"After that, not a lot seemed to matter but you. My parents kept trying to convince me to put you up for adoption, get on with my life, but I couldn't give up the only thing of David I had other than his letters. Finally, I was so angry at them for their attitude and at the government for the war that had stolen David from me that I joined the anti-war movement and hooked up with this group of hippies who were passing through town. You were born in the back of their van."
Blair took a moment to organize his thoughts, then asked quietly, "Why didn't you ever tell me?" He couldn't believe she had hidden this from him.
Naomi sighed. "It was too painful to talk about, and I was afraid that you would romanticize the life he lived and want to follow in his footsteps."
Blair sighed. "That's why you were so freaked out when I started hanging out with Jim and the cops."
She nodded. "David had always been so loyal to the Army, even though he thought that the war was wrong. He still went with it out of a sense of honor, and it got him killed. I could see you doing the same thing, helping the police and getting into deadly situations. I couldn't stand it if I lost you too."
Blair shook his head. He was angry, but he understood now why she'd left him in the dark. "Did you ever plan to tell me? If I hadn't become a cop?"
"I don't know. It just got easier after a while to keep the secret. I know that was wrong, but I just couldn't bring it up. It was just easier to say I didn't know who your father was. I hope you can forgive me."
Blair nodded. "At least you finally told me." He sighed. His father had been a soldier. That was something he had never even suspected, given his mother's attitudes toward the military. She'd made sure he would never find out on his own, but couldn't open the wounds to tell him herself. Well, now he might be able to find out a few things. He looked out at the field of mingling graduates and their families. There were a few non-police uniforms in the audience, Army, Navy, one or two Air Force. He wondered if, had the man survived and known about him, he would have been here.
He must have said it out loud, because Naomi said, "Of course, he would! He'd most certainly have been here if you became a cop, but things might have been very different if he'd have been there for us. He told me in one of his letters that he wanted to have a family some day. I doubt he would have expected one so quickly, but he would have been glad to know about you. Who knows? He might have gotten that last letter. If so, he knew about you before he died, and he loves you, where ever he is now."
Blair spotted Jim across the field. He was looking at the trophies on the table, probably trying to keep himself from listening in on their conversation. Still, he would probably hear his name if it were called at any kind of volume. Blair grinned at the thought. His Blessed Protector was still on duty, as always. "Jim, why don't you come on over."
The Sentinel looked up from the trophies and turned to look at his partner in a way that asked, "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure, Jim."
Naomi watched the exchange and shook her head. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that."
Both men grinned at her discomfiture. After all, they'd had four years to get used to the ramifications of the Sentinel thing, and now that Jim had worked past all of his own personal demons about it and personal loyalty, they didn't trip over it. The dissertation disaster had pushed quite a few things home for him, as well as for Blair, and they had come out a smoother team. They were brothers, in all but blood.
Once Jim had joined them, he said, "So, Chief, do I get to know the family secret?"
"Yes you do, partner."
Jim sat with Blair at the party, watching him think over the revelation his mother had sprung on him. Naomi's attitudes toward the military now had a firm basis, and it seemed she had worked very hard to get past them so as not to hinder her son. He wished he could do something to help them both. Blair now had to deal with having found out who his father was, only to never be able to know what had happened to him on foreign soil.
The Sentinel thought about the things he might be able to do to help his Guide. He decided he would try to find out about Private Nelson, how and where he had died. Maybe he had a grave somewhere in the states, or at least a spot on the Wall. It would give Naomi some closure, and give Blair a chance to pay his respects. In fact, Jim thought he might like to do that himself. After all, that young soldier had been instrumental in the creation of the one man who held the key to his sanity. It wouldn't hurt to thank him.
As they finally walked into the loft, Blair was thoroughly sloshed and Jim had to help him to his bed, where the rookie promptly collapsed. Shaking his head in amused affection, Jim took Blair's shoes off and maneuvered him until he was on the mattress and covered him up. It felt good to have his partner at home, safe from the world for the night. He knew that he wouldn't be able to keep his partner out of danger any more. He wouldn't be able to tell him to stay in the truck and call for backup. It was his job now, too, and his duty to go in with his partner. He'd be in just as much danger as Jim from now on, and there was nothing Jim could do about it, and as much as he wished otherwise, that was as it should be.
Jim sighed and walked out to the balcony, looking out the glass doors over his city. Surely there was some way to find out what had happened to his Guide's father. He still had contacts in the military. Maybe one of them would know something. Nodding to himself, he decided to get things started tomorrow.
It was two weeks before his investigation bore any fruit. He hadn't told Blair that he was looking into it, just in case he couldn't find anything. That way he wouldn't be disappointed. But an old buddy of Jim's knew of a man who had been in a MASH unit with Nelson and remembered the young man. He contacted the vet and they agreed to meet for lunch and talk.
Tim Merket was minus a leg below the knee, and he told Jim that he wouldn't have made it out alive if not for David Nelson. "That kid not only dragged me out of the swamp we were stuck in, he kept me from bleeding to death and kept me awake so I wouldn't slip away on him. He talked for ten hours straight, which was how long it took to drag my carcass out of there and into the nearest army camp. Thing was, he wasn't even supposed to be there, but he misread the map he'd been given and ended up twenty miles off course. Damned lucky for me! He left the next day for the position he'd been supposed to report to, but reports said Charlie caught up to that place long before he could ever have gotten there."
Jim blinked. Before-- "Did he come back to your position?"
Merket shook his head. "I never saw that kid again. There was a lot of speculation, but most of it was saying he probably walked into that camp expecting it to be full of American soldiers and either got caught or got dead. I don't know which. I tried to contact him when I got back to the States, but he'd been declared dead already." Jim gave a frustrated sigh. This just kept getting more convoluted. "Funny thing, though."
"What's that?"
"The day they declared him dead? Well he was with me in that swamp that day. Seems to me that kid was resourceful enough to get his ass out of any trouble he might have walked into."
Jim grinned. "Sounds like someone I know."
Merket looked at the detective with an appraising glance. "You look a bit too old to be the kid he was talking about. What's your interest in him?"
Jim started. "Kid?"
"Yeah, one of the things he told me while he was dragging me out of the swamp. He said that the little girl he'd left behind had sent him a letter twice a week, and in her last one she'd told him she was pregnant. He seemed so excited that he was going to be a father. He was going to go home and marry her and raise his kid. I think he planned on starting up a furniture shop, hand-made stuff. Said he liked working with wood, the way it felt when it was finished and before it was polished, like satin he said. That was how he'd support his family once he got back home. I don't know if he ever made it, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit. So what's got a Cascade cop interested in this kid?"
"His son is my partner and room mate, Blair Sandburg. His mother didn't tell him about his father until just a couple of weeks ago. Her parents kept trying to get her to give him up, and when she heard that Nelson was dead, she went hippie and left town. She's traveled all over the world, but I don't think she ever returned to Spokane."
Merket frowned. "Hippie?"
"Yeah. Mad at her parents and mad at the government and the war, and one thing Naomi Sandburg isn't is quiet when she's mad about something." Jim sighed. "I guess I'll have to keep looking. At least I have something to work with now. Which MASH unit was it?"
Jim ran himself ragged over the next week, the combination of working his own cases and tracking down one Private David Nelson beginning to take it's toll on his fatigue level. Blair noticed the change, but Jim managed to avoid the questions, just saying that he'd had a lot of paper trails to follow, not telling him which case it was about. He knew it was a stop-gap measure. Nothing would hold his Guide off for long when the Sentinel's health was at risk. But he wanted to hold off for as long as he could until he found what he was looking for.
Nor was Blair the only one who noticed. Simon cornered him one day and asked what was going on. "You're starting to worry me, Jim. Nothing you're working on right now should be making you so tired."
Jim sat down in one of the office chairs and rubbed his hands over his face. Blair hadn't told any of the others in Major Crime about his mother's confession, though all of them had heard her at Blair's Graduation. He didn't know if Blair wanted them to know. But he needed help. He wasn't getting anywhere. No one seemed to know what had happened to Nelson's unit, at least no one who was still alive.
Looking at his captain, Jim decided there was no one else he could trust to help him with this. He told him the whole story and about his own efforts and the dead ends he had been running up against. "Damn, Jim! That's a lot of work. No wonder you're dragging around. Let me help you start tracking down this guy."
It only took them one more week to find Nelson's C.O. Captain Paul Baker was retired, living off a government pension in a small apartment in San Francisco. Choosing a day when Blair had to be in court and Jim didn't, a hard thing to find as close as they were, Simon sent Jim to California to talk with the man, promising to cover for him with Blair.
Paul Baker was a tired old soldier. His face was scarred with four separate knife wounds, ones which had become infected by the look of the scars. He invited Jim in and indicated he should sit on the couch while he took the arm chair. "So, Detective Ellison, what's got you interested in my old unit? I understand you're former Army yourself."
Jim nodded. "Rangers. I've been trying for more than a month to find anyone who could tell me what happened to your unit, but it's been like you all disappeared off the face of the planet. The last reports I've been able to find had you in position, and then three days later the whole camp disappeared. The last known comuniqué was from Private David Nelson, saying he was on his way back to camp from delivering a message. Now he showed up a day and a half later at a MASH unit carrying in a wounded man, who he found because he misread his map and went the wrong way. He headed back out to get back to you and no one heard from him again."
Baker said, "So you want to know what happened after the kid left camp? I guess you're looking for him, right? Well this ain't a pretty story, so be prepared. I sent the kid east to the 35th to relay a message. We were afraid that Charlie might be listening in on our radio frequencies, so I was sending couriers instead of risking the information. I started to worry when he didn't come back within two days." He snorted. "I should have known he'd get lost in that jungle. That kid was not meant to read a map!" Jim chuckled, knowing now that his partner's map reading skills (or lack there of) weren't entirely his own fault. "Anyway, on the morning of that third day, the jungle just seemed to explode. Charlie was everywhere. They had surrounded the camp in the middle of the night, and killed the sentries. We didn't know they were there 'til they started shooting into the tents. They took us out easily, and they took prisoners."
Baker stopped for a moment, the memories threatening to overwhelm him. The POW camps in 'Nam weren't kind places. Jim said, "It's all right if you can't go there. I understand."
Baker nodded. "Yeah. It's the Nelson kid you're tracking, isn't it? Okay. Well I guess you know at least some of what was going on in the camps, right? Well, we'd been there for maybe two weeks when I spotted him for the first time. He was hanging around the perimeter of the camp, assessing his chances of getting us out of there. He had another kid with him, a native civilian. For a week they systematically took out individual soldiers, whittling down the strength of the camp, until they were running on a skeleton crew. They'd always mess with the bodies, too. They'd prop them up like they were still alive and their relief would find them like that, or they would leave them in the middle of the camp for the whole unit to see. They were never seen unless they wanted to be, like when the kid showed himself to me. I heard the rumors start to fly that there was some kind of evil spirit in the woods that was mad at them. It was all I could do not to start laughing my ass off. Not a good idea when they have the guns and I'm in the cage.
"Once they were done reducing the threat, they came through the camp in the middle of the night and started popping the locks on the cages. They had brought help with them, some of the people from the village his young friend was from, so anyone not able to walk out was carried out. They got us all back to their village, which wasn't that far away, and they radioed out for an evacuation team. The kid who'd been helping Nelson held some kind of weird position in the village. His name was Osaki, but they called him by some weird name I can't remember, but I asked Nelson what it meant. See the kid had this thing with languages. He could pick one up within a week of hearing it enough to get by. Anyway, he told me it meant Sentry, but it had some other weird connotations he hadn't figured out yet.
"It only took two days after that for a rescue team to get there. Nelson insisted they evacuate the village as well, and knowing that none of us would have gotten out of there without their help, the whole unit backed him. There were only about thirty people in the village, including women and kids, so we didn't have to argue too hard. I kept track of the village, and they were all granted refugee status once we got back to the states. As far as I know, Nelson wasn't recalled. The whole unit was sent home."
Jim started. "He's alive?"
Baker looked at him strangely. "You didn't know?"
"He was declared dead while he was in the swamp helping that soldier, but there was never any mention of him rectifying the situation, so I thought he died later, but he still hadn't made it. Man! And Naomi would already have been traveling with those hippies she joined up with when he got back, so she didn't know."
"Naomi? She's still alive?" Baker had sat up straight at the mention of her name. "Damn, Ellison! Her parents told Nelson she had died in a car crash, her unborn baby with her. It broke the kid's heart. Why are you looking for Nelson? What's your connection to Naomi?" Baker was starting to get protective. Jim had done it enough with Sandburg to recognize the symptoms.
Jim smiled. "Blair, her son, is my partner. Naomi just recently got up the nerve to tell him that his father was a soldier in the first place, and that he had been killed in 'Nam." Jim told him what Naomi had told he and Blair about Nelson and the reactions of her parents to the whole mess, how she'd left with the hippies in reaction and had never given up on that way of life. "I've been trying to find a grave this whole time, to give her closure, you know, and to let Blair pay his respects. Now I'll be able to do something much better. Question is, how's Nelson going to react to this? What's he been doing since he got out of the service?"
Jim stood in Simon's office, just having told him what he'd found out in Frisco. Simon sat back in his chair. "Damn! There's a lot to go over there, not the least of which is the fact that this Osaki sounds like a Sentinel, and that stunt they pulled sounds like something Sandburg would come up with. They were acting like you and Blair, Jim, so Nelson is probably Osaki's Guide. You get near Nelson..."
Jim nodded. "I know. I'll set off every alarm Osaki has, just like Alex did with me." He sighed and sat in one of the available chairs. He hated thinking about that time. It had not been one of his most stellar moments. His fears and his misinterpretation of his visions had caused his Guide's death, even if he had been able to bring him back. Still, he tried to be objective about the way he had been feeling that day. The words of his animal spirit came back to him. What do you fear? What had he feared that day, other than the thought that he could harm his Guide? He thought about it, tried to remember. "I was afraid she would try to steal him. That was why I was so freaked out. An unbonded Sentinel might try to steal another's Guide, if they're crazy enough from the senses."
Simon thought about it. "How do you fix that? How do you make contact with Nelson and not set Osaki off on you?"
"His C.O. gave me his phone number. I explain why I'm coming, make sure to mention that Blair's my partner. I leave my gun behind. He'll smell the cordite and react. I bring my badge so he'll expect the scent at the next meeting. I'll also bring that picture we took at Blair's graduation of him, me and Naomi." He sighed. "It's a good thing Naomi's parents are already dead. I think I could do some serious damage otherwise. I can't believe they did that to him after the hell he had just been put through!"
"Yeah. When are you planning on telling Blair and Naomi about all of this?"
He sighed. "I want to know how Nelson's going to react before I tell Sandburg. I'm hoping, but..."
Simon nodded. "I hear that. I'd hate to see the kid having to deal with that kind of rejection." He paused for a second. "I don't think he will though. From that story, I'd say Nelson is a lot like Sandburg, and he would never reject family out of hand. Don't worry too much about that." He sighed. "Meanwhile, the kid is starting to get suspicious. I'm betting you can expect to bet grilled when you get home."
Jim frowned. "Shit."
Simon grinned. "Yep! Hip deep! I guess you'll have to take a page out of Blair's book. Obfuscate."
Blair was standing by the balcony window when Jim walked into the loft, staring out into the city, his arms crossed over his chest. His expression was carefully blank, and Jim knew he was in deep trouble with his partner. Like Simon said, hip deep.
The rookie detective waited until the door was closed, the keys were in the basket, and Jim's coat was on the hook before turning around. His face was emotionless, as sure a sign that he was pissed as it was on Jim.
Ellison knew instinctively that obfuscation wasn't going to work. Blair was looking for it, and he'd only get madder. He decided a preemptive strike was in order. "Simon told me I could expect to get grilled the minute I walked in the door. I'll tell you right now, Blair, I'm not hiding things to hurt you."
Blair said, "You never intend to hurt me, but somehow you always manage to pull it off. I'm getting tired of it, Jim."
"Let me explain, Chief. I can't tell you about this thing because it would ruin the surprise, and honestly I've worked too hard at it to allow that, but I won't let it come between us either."
Blair's harsh stance melted, replaced by a look of embarrassed contrition. "I'm sorry, Jim. I should have just asked. All this time I--." He couldn't continue, couldn't tell his partner just how badly he'd thought of him.
Jim moved to stand beside Blair in front of the windows. "You thought I was pulling away again." Blair nodded, ashamed. Jim sighed. "It's all right, Chief. It's not like I haven't given you plenty of reason to think that in the past. And after the last two times--." Alex. The dissertation. Blair had more than enough reason for his conclusions.
Blair sighed. "Yeah." He looked up and smiled. "So, a surprise, huh?"
Jim grinned at him. "Yeah, Chief. And you can just stop any thought of playing twenty questions right now. I'm not telling you until it's finished, and that's final."
Imitating an excited five-year-old, Blair bounced on his toes even more than he usually did, and said, "Please, please, please, please, please!"
"No!" Jim laughed. Then he got serious again. "Are we okay here, Chief?"
Blair smiled gently. "Yeah, we're okay."
Jim was nervous as he called the number Baker had provided him. What would they do if Nelson didn't want to have anything to do with either Blair or Naomi? He said a silent prayer as the phone rang on the other end of the line.
Two rings and the receiver was picked up. "Hello?" The voice was very similar to Blair's.
"Private Nelson?"
The speaker snorted. "I haven't been a Private for a long time. Just call me Nelson or David. Who is this?"
"Jim Ellison. I've been trying to find you regarding a woman you once knew, Naomi Sandburg."
Nelson's heartbeat picked up at the name from his past. He quietly said, "What about her? She died a long time ago." The pain in his voice was palpable. Jim was glad he would be able to tell him the truth.
"I'm happy to tell you that's not true. She's very much alive. I know what her parents told you, but they were angry at her."
"What!? But she wasn't there! I know she wasn't there. I looked!" Nelson was panicking.
"Calm down. It's not your fault. The parents didn't like the fact that she was pregnant at sixteen and kept trying to get her to arrange for adoption. When you were reported dead it got worse and she joined up with a group of hippies, protesting her parents attitudes. Later she started protesting the war she thought had killed you."
"Pregnant. God! I have a child." The shock was evident in the man's voice.
Jim smiled. "Yes. Your son is my partner. We're detectives with the Cascade Police. His name is Blair Sandburg."
A gasp came from the other man. "The press conference."
Jim winced. Damn. He didn't want to deal with this over the phone. "He didn't lie. The only lie he ever told was that damned press conference. And if he had told me what he was going to do, I would have stopped him, I swear it to you!"
"So you're really a Sentinel? A Danhtù?"
"Yeah. I'm a Sentinel, Blair is my Guide. I talked to Captain Baker. From the description of your attack on the POW camp, I'm willing to bet that your Osaki is a Sentinel, as well. Now I'd like to meet with you, but the one thing we can't do is keep this from him. Two Sentinels meeting is like two panthers meeting. I'll be encroaching on his territory, and he'll automatically go on the defensive, especially since I'm trying to contact you."
Nelson paused for a minute to absorb that. "Sounds like the voice of experience."
"Yeah. I nearly lost him because of my ignorance, my reactions and the fact that the other Sentinel was a psycho. I won't make the same mistakes again." Jim was glad that the other Guide was listening to him. He would hate to be the cause of any distrust between Nelson and his Sentinel, though that part of it might have just been his own stupidity. "Now, I've only been able to find out your phone number. I don't know where you live or what you do for a living or anything else, though from the area code, I'm guessing you went back to Spokane."
Nelson chuckled. "Yeah. When I got back, my old man had passed away without a will, so I inherited the house. I turned it into my furniture shop just to spite him. He had never liked my artistic leanings, convinced that I'd never get anywhere as an artist, that I could never survive on it and I'd end up living off him for the rest of my life. He was actually glad when I was drafted, said it would whip me into shape for the real world." He snorted. "Didn't matter to him that I could very easily have ended up dead in that damned jungle. The shop is called The Butterfly." Nelson gave him the address and directions to get to the shop from I-95. "I'll talk to Osaki tonight, tell him that you're coming to town. When can we expect you?"
"We'll be there tomorrow, probably in the afternoon. We have to be there tomorrow anyway for this law conference at the convention center, but once we're done there, we should be able to swing by. Oh, and all Blair knows is that I'm working on a surprise. He needs a new bed anyway, so your shop will be the perfect excuse to go."
Nelson took a deep breath. "What about Naomi?"
Jim shook his head. "I don't know where she is. I'm trying to get a hold of her, but she's traveling, which makes her very hard to keep track of. I've left messages in half a dozen places, but there's no telling when she'll return any of them."
Nelson said, "Tell me about my son." So for the next hour, that was all Jim talked about, from the first day and "Dr. McCay" onward. He didn't hold back anything, knowing that the other Guide was well aware of the whole Sentinel thing.
Blair had gone to run some errands, leaving Jim in the loft alone to complete his search, but now Jim could hear the distinctive sound of the Volvo pulling into the lot. "I've got to go. He's home. We'll see you tomorrow. If Osaki has any objections, call me. We'll set something else up. I refuse to become a wedge between you two." Jim's memories of Alex were too strong for him to take their message lightly.
"I understand. See you tomorrow." The man on the other end of the line sighed and hung up.
Jim hung up as well, then moved into the kitchen to start getting lunch ready. From what he could infer from their conversation, Nelson and his partner lived together just like he and Blair did. He wondered if that was normal for Sentinels and Guides. He knew the reason he had wanted so badly for Blair to stay with him was so that he was close enough at night for his heartbeat to be a constant ground while he was sleeping, not to mention that he was close enough to protect if danger came in the night. With their luck, that was always a possibility. He wondered if that was a Sentinel instinct. If Osaki was doing the same thing, it made a lot of sense, pun not intended.
Blair arrived at the door, fumbling with the knob in an attempt not to drop everything he was carrying and grumbling about Sentinels not aiding helpless Guides. Jim grinned at his cursing and went to open the door for him. "You kiss your mother with that mouth, Chief?"
The look he shot at Jim could have peeled paint. "Funny, Ellison. Now get your ass out here and help me with these bags before I kick it on general principles."
After they had brought in all the bags, Jim finished the soup he'd been making and set the table while Blair freshened up. He was still trying to figure out how to bring up the furniture store when he started smelling sage. As usual, the scent alone was enough to start his nose twitching, and once the door was opened, he would sneeze violently. "Naomi's here, Chief."
Noticing the watering eyes of his partner, Blair said, "Dial it down, Jim." He complied, and immediately the histamine reaction was reduced. He would still sneeze, but maybe it wouldn't hurt this time.
Naomi knocked on the door and Blair opened it, letting the happy, flamboyant woman into the loft. "Hi, Blair!"
"Mom, it's good to see you!" He hugged her briefly, then pulled back. "What brings you here? Last time we talked, you were headed for a retreat in India."
She nodded. "I went, and it was wonderful. Brother Kwami was just great! He and the other monks were very good to us, and I learned a lot. You should try it next time you get a vacation, Blair." She looked up where Jim was puling out enough dishes for another place at the table. "Hi Jim! So how are my two favorite boys today?"
Jim grinned at her. Then he had a flash of inspiration on the matter of getting Blair to his father's shop in Spokane. "I'm doing just fine today. Tomorrow might be another story." At her raised eyebrow, he said, "We have a conference to go to in Spokane. I get the feeling I'm going to be bored to death." He put the soup on the table, which was actually vegetarian by coincidence, and said, "I had planned to check out this furniture shop called The Butterfly during the lunch break. I heard some good things about it, and that futon of yours is starting to look a little ragged, Chief." Jim had watched Naomi closely for any reaction to the name of the shop, but she didn't have one, so he figured his surprise was intact.
Blair nodded. "Yeah it is, but what's wrong with the shops in Cascade?"
Jim shook his head. "Nothing's wrong with them, but this place has something they don't. I've got a catalogue upstairs if you want to look at it."
So Blair and Naomi looked through the catalogue after lunch, talking together about the furniture while Jim did the dishes. He shamelessly listened in on their conversation, and was delighted when Naomi suggested coming with them while they did their shopping. Good. He wouldn't have to ask her himself, which would be very out of character for him. This could go off much better than he'd anticipated.
Blair looked up at Jim, figuring that he had been listening. "What do you think, Jim? There won't be too much time during the lunch hour. Why don't we go after the conference is over so we can look around a lot more?"
Jim nodded. There would also be a lot more time for the reunion that way, as well. "Sounds good. I'll just tell Simon we won't be back in town 'till late so he won't try to call us in." He'd also call Nelson and inform him of the change in schedule and tell him that Naomi would be there as well. He smiled inwardly, thinking of all his hard work finally coming together. His Guide's family would finally be reunited, and that was worth every hour of work he'd put into making it happen.
Blair knew something was up, and though he figured it was the surprise Jim had told him about, nothing would convince the older man to reveal his secret. He'd just grin and say, "You'll see, Chief." It was infuriating!
Whatever it was, Jim seemed inexplicably pleased that Naomi would be shopping with them this evening. Normally, the thought would have had the Sentinel trying to find an excuse to get out of the trip, but not this time. He had even suggested a few pieces he thought she would particularly like, and he had been right, except that she didn't have any way to carry the things with her in her travels. He wanted both of them there for his surprise.
He made more than one call. He said he was going to call Simon, tell him they wouldn't be home 'till late, but the call lasted a lot longer than that, and then he called someone else. And what did all that mean? Not a clue, except that Simon was in on this, too.
Blair had no doubts that he would like whatever Jim and Simon had been cooking up, but that didn't mean he wouldn't be getting back at them for all the secrecy. Vengeance was his privilage, and payback's a bitch.
The conference wasn't as bad as the pair had feared. There were seven one-hour classes, each with a different subject, with two hours out of the middle for lunch. One group discussion about unarmed escape tactics ended up running overtime because of Blair's experiences as an observer.
But finally, the day was over and they could pick up Naomi and head for The Butterfly. Blair had already picked out which design he wanted from the beds displayed in the catalogue. The headboard had a beautiful carving of a wolf at its center, with two separate relief scenes carved to either side of it.
They walked into the shop and were initially met by an older oriental man. He introduced himself as Osaki and Jim suddenly went on alert, not heavily, but noticably. What was going on here?
Jim held out his hand to the other Sentinel. The man was wary. His instincts were probably on high alert, and that was why Nelson was not in sight. Protect the Guide. Jim didn't attempt to hide his own Guide from sight, a gesture of good faith, saying that he didn't feel the need to protect Blair from the resident Sentinel since he wasn't here for a confrontation.
Osaki took his hand in a firm grip, then sniffed the air, no doubt picking up the scent of Jim's gun. His eyes narrowed for a moment. Jim said, Sentinel soft, "Police."
His expression cleared and he released Jim's hand, relaxing a bit. He nodded and said, "Welcome to our shop. Go ahead and look around and I'll go get the owner. He is most anxious to meet you."
As he walked around the corner, Blair looked up at Jim, confused. "What was that all about, Jim?" Their behavior was very strange, like a couple of cats sniffing at each other around the boundry of their territories.
Jim smiled. "That was about him making sure in his own mind that I'm not a threat."
Blair was no fool. He understood his Sentinel's behavior, and his actions pointed to only one thing. "He's a Sentinel, isn't he. That's why you brought me here." How could Jim take that risk? How could he even think about exposing him to another Sentinel after all that had happened with Alex Barnes?
Jim grinned. "Yes, he's a Sentinel, and no, that's not why I brought you here. That's just why I had to be very careful in just how I did it. He already has a Guide, Chief, and he's very protective of him, just like I am of you. If we had just waltzed in here and he hadn't known I was coming, he would have gone all teritorial like I did with Alex. I wasn't about to cause that for them."
Blair nodded. "So what is it? If getting to talk to another Sentinel, one who's actually in control and not a psycho, isn't the surprise, what is it?"
Just then, Osaki returned, another man walking behind him. Naomi gasped, her heart going like a triphammer. Blair saw his face at the same time and did a double take. Jim just stood there with a smile on his face, glad that all his work had fome to fruition and his Guide's family was together again.
David Nelson stepped out from behind his Sentinel. The only difference between the faces of father and son was age. He'd grown his silver-shot hair out longer than Blair ever had, the curly strands tied at his neck and reaching to the middle of his back. There were several more lines around his mouth and eyes, but he looked much younger than his forty-nine years, despite the silver. The two men were the same height. Blair was a bit broader in the shoulders because he had to keep in shape to keep up with the crooks, but not by much since David had decades of woodwork behind him.
Naomi knew how much her son looked like his father. There was no mistaking who this man was, not for her, and yet that wasn't possible! She stepped forward, afraid to hope. "David?"
There were tears in the man's eyes as he walked to stand in front of her. "God, Naomi. I missed you so much!" He lifted a hand to touch her face, and she leaned into the touch.
She wanted this so bad, but she had to ask. "Why?" Why hadn't he come home? Why hadn't he been there for her? For their son?
David understood what she was saying. "Your parents told me you were dead. I grieved and built this place in your memory. You have always been my Butterfly, and one of only two things that has brought light into my life. Can we get to know each other again?"
Tearfully smiling, Naomi nodded her head vigorously, too choked up to speak. He embraced her, hungry for the touch of the one he'd loved for so long and been denied.
Blair's eyes were suspiciously wet as he watched the reunion of his parents. David looked up at him and smiled. "Well I guess there's no worry about guessing which one of you two is Blair."
Blair shook his head. "No, I guess there's not. God, I've got so many questions! I guess the biggest one, though, is what happened?"
Naomi nodded. "Yes, David. What happened? I thought you were dead!"
Osaki said, "We should discuss this over dinner. It's ready in the dining room. I'll just lock up the store and put out the closed sign, then I'll join you."
David nodded. "That would be best. Jim told us you were coming, so I made plenty."
Once they were all settled at the table, David began his end of the story Jim had been gathering from second hand sources. "I was sent to the 35th to relay messages. Comunications had been compromised, so we were using couriers, and I drew the short straw. I got very lost trying to make my way back and I found this soldier, one of ours, badly wounded. He knew where there was a MASH close by and he gave me good directions. I kept him awake talking, and he made it. The MASH gave me better directions to camp, but when I got there, the place was destroyed."
David paused, remembering the fear of that time. Osaki's hand came to rest on his shoulder, lending him the strength to continue with his tale. "I was a decent tracker, so I was able to find the POW camp, but I couldn't do anything about it. I was on my own, deep in the jungle, and I didn't have a clue as to where I was or where any other patrols were. Osaki found me lurking around the edges and grabbed me, tied me up, gagged me and took me back to his village." He snorted at the memory. "I'm good with languages, and I'd already picked up some Vietnamese, so I didn't have too much trouble understanding them when we got there.
"Osaki told me that he didn't want to hurt me and I asked him for his help. He agreed. It turned out that he was what his people called Danhtù. A Sentinel. He and I worked together to weaken the camp, taking out one soldier at a time. I stayed with Osaki in the village in between excursions, and I got to know him and the holy man, Li, very well. Li said I was destined to be Saki's partner, the one who would always keep him stable and help him with his senses. I could feel the truth in what he was saying, so I agreed.
"Once we had whittled the camp down far enough, every adult male in the village went out with us to help get my unit out of there. While we waited for the evac team, Osaki and Li told me more of what a Dantù and his partner were about. The Sentry was responsible for protecting the village, using his senses to their advantage. The Watcher was responsible for protecting the Sentry, both from the world and from himself. Li named me Osaki's brother and taught me what to watch for.
"Then two days after we got the unit out, the evac got there. I insisted that the village be evacuated as well, since they had helped us so much, straining their supplies to the limit, and for no other reason than that we needed help. The rest of the unit backed me up, so they called another chopper in, gave everyone thirty minutes to pack, and then we were out of there."
Blair said, "So once you were discharged, you came back here."
David nodded. "Yeah. I came back here, and I went to Naomi's house. I've never gotten a colder reception in my life. Then Mr. Sandburg told me that you had both died in a car crash, that you'd run away from them and it was all my fault. I actually looked for you, just in case he was lying, but you weren't in the house."
Suddenly the older Guide was on his feet and pacing, so much like his son when in an emotional quandry. "I should have taken you with me like you wanted, Saki. You'd have known the old man was lying! Damn it!" Guilt was written plainly on his face as he turned back to Naomi. "I would have tracked you down! I wouldn't have made you raise our son alone! Instead I believed the words of a spiteful father and planted my butt in this town, never leaving it since it was the only place I'd ever seen you face to face."
Osaki put his hands on his Watcher's shoulders, forcing him to stop pacing and look at him. "David, this is not your fault, and it is not hers. The fault lies with the dead. You cannot change the past. It is time now to build your future."
Naomi stood and went to embrace him. "He's right, David. You can't blame yourself for my old man."
"Yeah, David." Blair piped up. "We're here now, and we can get to know each other now. I've waited for this moment my whole life, and I never thought I'd get to see it. So let's not ruin it with useless recriminations and what ifs. I want to know my father and his Sentinel."
David nodded. "I want to know my son and his Sentinel as well." Father and son shared a hug, both basking in the promise of a new relationship.
Once they were done, Jim said, "Good. Now that's settled, I have more stories to tell you."
Blair looked at him nervously. "Ah, Jim? What have you been telling him?"
Grinning with mischief, he said, "Oh, I haven't even gotten to the good stuff yet."
"Jim!"
Both Sentinels and the older Guide chuckled. "Don't worry, Darwin. I haven't told him anything really embarrasing...yet." The grin widened at Blair's glare. "Let's see. I've told him about Dr. McCay, the Switchman, Kincaid, and Juno. I believe the next story to tell would be Lary, the half-pint primate vandal."
"Jim! That was not my fault!" Laughter rose from all around the table, the newly rebuilt family happily enjoying the embarrassment of their youngest member. Yeah, Blair reflected, life was good.
Naomi decided to stay with David and Osaki rather than come back to Cascade with Jim and Blair. Neither was surprised. They hadn't been together in thirty-one years, so they would be making up for lost time.
They had talked for hours about their lives, and listened as the other pair spoke of their own in Spokane. Blair had promised to bring them the only hard copy of his dissertation on his next visit. It was going to be interesting to compare the two Sentinels, but Blair had decided not to write any of it down. He wouldn't risk the information falling into the wrong hands again.
As they drove toward home, Blair asked, "How did you pull this off, Jim? How did you follow a trail that led from a dead soldier to a living carpenter?" Jim grinned and told him the story.
Home at last, once everything was unpacked, Blair stood with a beer out on the balcony, looking out over the city. Jim walked up behind him. "You all right, Chief?"
Not turning, the anthropologist detective nodded. "Yeah, man. Just thinking. It's wierd, you know? I've gone from having no father, to having a dead one, to having a living one in just a couple of months. It's a lot to take in." He went silent and took another sip from his beer. Jim could tell that he was only thoughtful. His heart rate and breathing were both calm, at rest.
They watched the sun set together before Blair said another word. The younger man turned to his Sentinel and said, "Thank you, Jim. You've given me something I never thought I could have."
Jim shrugged. "It's only fair, Chief. You paved the way for me to have relationships with my father and brother again, not to mention you've kept me from going insane because of the senses." As Blair would have denied it, Jim interupted him. "No modesty, Sandburg. You keep me grounded. Without you, I'd zone and be dead or locked up within a month. You are my focus. Without you, the Sentinel thing just wouldn't work."
Blair quoted at him. "'A Sentinel will always be a Sentinel if he chooses to be.'"
"Without you, the choice would be clear. I can't do this thing without you, and from what Osaki has said, that's the way it's supposed to be. A Sentinel without a Guide ends up crazy, and according to him, they would always kill one that went nuts, not only to put them out of their misery, but because they might make an attempt on another's Guide."
Blair stared at him. "Alex."
"Exactly."
The Shaman shrugged. "At least we know better now. We won't make the same mistake twice."
Jim just nodded, and they turned to look out over the city again, the street lights painting a mosaic of the Sentinel and Guide's territory. All was right in their world for the moment. The tribe was safe, the family was reunited, and the Guardians were in place, watching over their territory. And that was enough for now.
End.
Traveling Soldier: Dixie Chicks.
Two days past eighteen,
He was waitin' for the bus in his army greens.
Sat down in a booth, in a cafe there,
Gave his order to a girl with a bow in her hair.
He's a little shy but she give him a smile,
So he said: "Would you mind sittin' down for a while?
"And talkin' to me. I'm feelin' a little low."
She said: "I'm off in an hour and I know where we can go."
So they went down and they sat on the pier,
He said: "I bet you got a boyfriend but I don't care,
"I got no one to send a letter to.
"Would you mind if I sent one back here to you?"
I cried: "Never gonna hold the hand of another guy."
"Too young for him," they told her.
Waitin' for the love of the travellin' soldier.
"Our love will never end."
Waitin' for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letter says,
My soldier's comin' home.
The letters came from an army camp,
In California, then Vietnam.
He told her of his heart, it might be love,
And all of the things he was so scared of.
He said: "When it's gettin' kinda rough over here,
"I think of that day, sittin' down at the pier.
"And I close my eyes and see your pretty smile.
"Don't worry, but I won't be able to write for a while."
I cried: "Never gonna hold the hand of another guy."
"Too young for him," they told her.
Waitin' for the love of the travellin' soldier.
"Our love will never end."
Waitin' for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letter says,
My soldier's comin' home.
One Friday night at a football game,
The Lord's Prayer said, and the anthem sang,
A man said: "Folks would you bow your head,
"For the list of local Vietnam dead."
Cryin' all alone under the stands,
Was the piccolo player in the marching band.
And one name read and nobody really cared,
But a pretty little girl with a bow in her hair.
I cried: "Never gonna hold the hand of another guy."
"Too young for him," they told her.
Waitin' for the love of the travellin' soldier.
"Our love will never end."
Waitin' for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letter says,
My soldier's comin' home.
Well, I finally finished it. You can quit grumbling now. (grin) Feedback is welcome!