(part 3)

"Jim?" Blair said uncertainly, interrupting his thoughts. "I didn't mean--"

"I was just thinking about Carolyn," Jim reassured him. "Wondering why it didn't work out. Guess I don't learn; she said I didn't talk enough too."

"It isn't just a matter of talking," Blair said. "It's also a matter of listening -- for both of us." Blair ran a hand through his hair. "I didn't mention this before... but I did try to tell you about Alex. I just didn't try hard enough. It was the night I came home and you greeted me with a gun to my face. I should have realized something was wrong then, I shouldn't have given up." Guilt-filled eyes met his own.

"Sandburg! You couldn't have known..." Jim said. He cast his mind back to that night. "I remember... I thought I heard growling outside the door. I didn't hear you at all."

"Another jaguar warning," Blair mused. "We definitely need a time-out signal of some sort."

"Shopping. Tomorrow," Jim said, writing on an imaginary list. "Item: one toad."

Blair smiled. "Well, it doesn't have to be a toad," he said. "And it would have to go on a place other than someone's bed."

"Item: one floppy toy of some kind," Jim said. "We can put it on the coffee table when it's needed."

"I've got it!" Blair bounced in place. "A panther!" He grinned at Jim.

Jim smiled back. "What about a wolf?"

"Both?" Blair proposed. "One each. The panther means you've got something to say, the wolf means that I've got something to say."

Jim considered this. "That's only half the problem, Chief. The "not listening" half. What about the "not talking" half?"

"Do it the other way around," Blair suggested. "I put the panther out when I think there's something you need to tell me, and you put the wolf out if you think I'm holding out on you."

"But what if there isn't anything being held out?"

"But if either one of us feels that there is, even when there isn't, doesn't that need to be sorted out just as much?" Blair said earnestly. "If you see what I mean..."

"I see what you mean, Blair," Jim said. If I stop trusting you, I'm sunk. That was what it boiled down to. No more stubborn self-reliance. No more safe room to retreat to, no last bastion of Fortress Ellison. The prospect frightened him, but not as much as the alternative -- life without Blair. "Which gets us back to my original question: once your dissertation is finished, what then?"

"No more ride-along, Jim," Blair said. "Why do you think I was stalling?"

"You said something about missing the excitement, if I recall," Jim said, carefully neutral. Is it the excitement he would miss, or me?

Blair seemed to read his mind. "If that was all, I would have gone to Borneo," he said. He leaned forward and clasped Jim's arm. "This is -- you're my friend, Jim. The best friend I ever had. Not just the Sentinel of the Great City. Not just the subject of my dissertation."

"But if you don't finish your dissertation, your career is shot," Jim pointed out.

"Stalled perhaps, but not shot," Blair said. "I could always change to the "police as closed-society" idea."

"That isn't the problem, Blair," Jim said.

"It isn't?" Blair raised his eyebrows. "But I thought you were -- that you didn't want me to publish. The nightmare --"

Jim covered Blair's hand with his own. "The nightmare woke me up, Chief. I've done some thinking. There's a difference between plastering my name all over the front page, and suppressing knowledge altogether. It wouldn't help protect me to suppress it. Brackett got enough out of your undergraduate paper to figure out I was a Sentinel. And that was written before you met me. But what about all those other Sentinels, or potential Sentinels out there? They aren't lucky like me -- they'll never meet you. But if you publish, they've got a chance. A chance to be helped, instead of locked up in a loony bin because they hear voices, or gag at a smell that nobody notices, or choke at food with too much paprika, or can't stand their own clothing against their skin. How dare I condemn them to insanity just because I'm afraid?"

"Oh, man..." Blair breathed, eyes wide. "I didn't think... Of course you're right. I just didn't think..."

"You didn't think what, Chief?"

Blair sighed, not meeting his eyes. "Lots of things, Jim." He shook his head. "Never mind." He shrugged. "It's all very well talking about its potential, but we don't even know if my dissertation will be accepted, let alone published. It's by no means a sure thing." He snorted and shook his head. "Talk about means and ends! When I met you, you were the means to an end -- to get a dissertation. Now the dissertation is the means to an end -- to stay working with you."

"So we just have to use another means," Jim said, his heart warming at Blair's stated desire to work with him -- and the offhanded way it was said, as if there was no question that that was what Blair wanted. "What if Simon were to offer you a position? I think we could talk him into it."

"As a cop?" Blair said. "We've had this conversation before -- no can do."

Jim shook his head. "No, as a special consultant. God knows we call you that often enough, unofficially. What if we could make it official?"

"What if you can't?"

"Won't know 'til we try," Jim said, but he was confident that Simon would go for it, even if the budget wouldn't. "Simon won't want to lose his best team."

Blair considered that for a moment. "Even if half the team has another job?"

"I'll take what I can get, Chief," Jim said.

"What if what you can get isn't enough?" Blair said worriedly. "I've been thinking... since Megan knows you're a Sentinel, with some training, she might make a good backup."

"You are my backup, Chief," Jim protested.

Blair raised his hands in placation. "I know, I know, but even the backup needs backup, Jim." He waved his hand towards Jim. "When I can't be there, it would make me feel better, and you feel better, and Simon feel better, if there was someone else there who could back you up in a crisis."

"Simon --"

Blair rolled his eyes. "Simon's the Captain, Jim. He's got other responsibilities. But it wouldn't look strange if Megan were with you." Blair gave a small smile. "Don't worry, I'm still your Guide. She won't be taking my place."

"Guide, Chief?" Jim queried. "That's the second time you've called yourself that. Isn't that what Brackett called you?"

Blair made a face. "I suspect that Brackett had access to more than just my own work -- I didn't come across a clear reference to a Guide until just this week." At Jim's inquiring look, he continued, "I'm pretty sure that it's another name for the Sentinel's partner. When you were in the hospital, while I was trying to track down what caused the coma, I came across a reference to a Watchman and his Guide... while foraging, they ate some mushrooms. The Guide felt no effect, but the Watchman "swelled up and died"."

"So what makes you think this Watchman was a Sentinel, and the Guide was his partner?"

"Watchman and Sentinel have a very similar meaning, Jim," Blair pointed out. "What the text described sounded very like an allergic reaction to me -- something that Sentinels are very prone to, as you know. But the clincher was that the Guide was considered responsible for his death." Blair's eyes locked with Jim, as he said, "The Guide was responsible for the welfare of the Watchman. He failed in his charge. Consequences -- well, it wasn't clear whether he committed suicide or was executed. But I know exactly how he felt."

Jim went cold at the look in Blair's eyes. "Blair, you aren't responsible --" Jim began, but Blair interrupted him.

"Look, Jim -- you try to protect me from psychos, and I try to protect you from a hostile environment. We've both failed at it. But neither of us can stop trying any more than we can stop breathing. Just accept it."

Accept it? But it's not the same... But another part of him countered, Isn't it? Blair was always looking out for him, in his own way. That Blair could feel the same kind of guilt, the same responsibility that he himself did... Why not? What makes you have a monopoly on responsibility? Or on guilt? Are you better than he is? Or worse? "Blair," Jim said, "you aren't responsible for things outside of your control --"

"Neither are you!" Blair returned. "But that doesn't stop you either."

Jim stared at Blair. So what does that mean? If I'm guilty, he's guilty? If he's not guilty than neither am I?

"We all make mistakes," Blair continued. "The trick is to learn from them," he said wryly.

"I'm trying," Jim said softly. God knows I'm trying. A sudden thought occurred to him. He struggled with the implications, and then stopped. Trust Blair or you're sunk, remember? "I need to give you my power of attorney."

"You what?" Blair's eyes widened.

"How many arguments did you have with the doctors when I was in a coma?" Jim asked.

"Um, a few," Blair admitted.

"Having my power of attorney would make it easier to look after me, wouldn't it?"

"Jim, you don't need to do this..."

Jim raised an eyebrow. "You have my power of attorney, and you can train Megan."

Blair upped the ante. "We train Megan, and you have my power of attorney too."

"We, pale face?" Jim said.

"Hey, you learn by doing," Blair said. "I can't train her to look after you just by talking about it."

"With you, I bet you could teach monkeys to type Shakespeare," Jim returned with a smile.

"No, just watch television," Blair smiled. "Except Larry wasn't a monkey." Blair became more serious. "We train Megan. Both of us. And two powers of attorney. Equal partners, man."

"All right," Jim conceded. Partners. Oh yes. "I'll call my lawyer in the morn..." A yawn cut off the rest of his sentence.

"A bit tired, are we?" Blair teased, his eyes sparkling.

Jim picked up a cushion and made as if to throw it at Blair.

Blair scrambled away, putting up his arms protectively. "Hey, man, no need to get violent!" he said, grinning. He picked up a cushion from the other couch and held it before him like a shield. "Avaunt thee, foul beast!"

At that, Jim did throw the cushion at him. It bounced off Blair's make-shift shield and the anthropologist let out a whoop and danced a triumphant war-dance, still holding his pillow-shield in front of him.

Jim noticed Blair's breathing catch, and he was suddenly reminded of the fountain, Blair coughing out the water in his lungs, not so long ago. Jim was about to say something, when his words were swallowed by a yawn.

"I think it's time you went to bed," Blair said, putting his cushion back on the couch.

"But I've been sleeping all day," Jim protested, and yawned again.

"Bed!" Blair ordered.

"I'm not --" Another yawn interrupted him.

Blair waggled his eyebrows. "And here I thought I'd gotten you to realize that your welfare is my responsibility. Go. To. Bed."

It suddenly occurred to Jim that if he went to bed, then Blair might actually get some rest himself. Maybe. He didn't trust Blair not to push himself, like he'd been pushing himself in Mexico, and since. Anything to increase the chances. Jim went to bed.