Chapter 6

Blair ushered Corey through the door, closing it behind them. He was going to have to get to know both her and Maria better before he could hope to be very helpful.

"This is like a bad dream," the young woman told him, dropping onto the couch in the far corner of the room.

Blair moved to sit beside her. "I can imagine. This is a scary time."

"She's all I have left. I don't know what I would do without her. And I just feel… so unprepared to handle any of this."

Blair considered for a moment before responding. He rested one hand on her knee, turning to face her.

"I'm going to tell you something I've never told anyone before," he told her. "And I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't repeat it, because Jim doesn't know and I think it might upset him a little if he found out."

"If it's something that'll help Maria, your secret is safe with me."

He nodded. "Okay. Truth is, when I went into this with Jim, I didn't know the first thing. Everything I did and said was based on guesswork and supposition, because it was all so new to me. And I was terrified. Afraid that I'd screw up and something catastrophic would happen. Jim would get hurt, or he wouldn't catch the bad guy and someone else would get hurt. Scared that he would get sick of me or figure out that I didn't know any more than he did…"

She stared at him with wide eyes. "Did you? Screw up?"

"Sometimes," he admitted, nodding. "But, in the end, it didn't seem to matter. It wasn't that I did no wrong, 'cause I sure as hell did. But I also did it all from my heart, and that changed something in both of us. Maria needs more than just someone who knows what's going on with her. She needs someone who loves her unconditionally. When she has that, a lot of the rest is going to take care of itself, I promise you."

"You really think so?"

"I really do," he assured her. "You have a loving heart, Corey. And that really counts for an awful lot in this kind of thing. You're going to be just fine. Both of you."

"I always knew she was special, right from the first time I held her. I just never knew being special would be this hard on her."

"Being special is never easy, but she'll learn to cope," he promised. "It'll be easier at her age, actually. Children are way more adaptable than adults."

She nodded slowly. "Helen says you think she'll grow up to be some kind of uber defender of the faith?"

"Well, I don't know about the 'faith' part, but Sentinels have almost always existed to protect their people. Jim was a soldier first and now he's a cop, because protecting people is in his blood."

"Our dad was a cop."

He nodded, encouraging her to continue.

"Mom was a nurse. They both took care of people because they said that was what real members of the human race do."

Blair smiled. "We all find our own way to make the world a better place. I always thought that my calling was teaching. Then I met Jim and realized what my true calling had been all along. Academia was just a means to that end."

"Must be nice, being so sure of yourself and your role."

"You'll reach that point, too," he promised her. "You'll reach it before you realize you have. But, one day, you'll wake up and just know in your heart that everything's changed. And that the world is just a little better off for your efforts."

"No. Maria might make the world a better place, but what can I do?"

"You can help her. That's all. Just make it easier for your Sentinel to do her job."

"What do I have to do?"

"Mostly just be there for her, smooth her way. She's going to need someone who can help her deal with her spikes and her zones. I can teach you all of my techniques, although you may find that you have to modify them a little in her case; everyone's different. The person she really needs, whether you call that person a Guide or a Shaman or anything else, is just one who's willing to understand."

She slowly nodded. "For my Maria, I can understand almost anything."

He smiled encouragingly. "We need to settle on a course-of-care. Why don't you tell me about her?"

"What do you need to know?"

"Well, let's start with basics. Her likes and dislikes. How you calm her down when she gets worked up, what she does for fun, what she'd do anything to avoid. What she's like as a person."

"She's… so special. Smart and independent and… and she loves old music. Ninety percent of what's on her MP3 player is from the seventies or earlier. I got her a karaoke machine a couple years ago and she makes me play with her every night. She loves music. When she's scared at night, she makes me sing to her."

"Okay, okay. This is a good start. It's important to isolate the things that help her calm down and retain control. They'll help her now even more than they did then. What scares her?"

"High places. She won't even go on a swing."

"Just like me," he answered, smiling at her. "Does she like school?"

"She says she likes classes but hates being in class. She says there's too much there. I never understood what she meant before. But it must be all those people."

"Probably," he agreed. "Too much stimulus, being surrounded by all those people. But she's always managed it before?"

"Except once or twice. Sometimes, especially if there's like a party or something, she ends up in the nurse's office with a migraine."

"See, that suggests to me that her senses were online, just more controlled, before she was lost in the woods. Jim manifested occasional spurts of Sentinel senses while he was a child, too."

"If she's had it before, that means she can have it again and still be kind of normal?"

"Not normal. Never normal. She's something special and don't you ever forget it."

She smiled. "I couldn't if I tried."

"Good." Blair nodded. "Tell me more about her."

0101010

Henry Foss had wandered into the office during Jim's discussion with Will to work on the computers. Something about a new firewall and some surveillance tracking program that the psychiatrist wanted installed onto his system. When Will was called away to deal with a patient, Henry stayed even though he was done on the computer, looking eager to speak but still reluctant to open his mouth.

"You got something to say, just say it already," Jim suggested. Knowing that Blair would want him to be polite, he added belatedly, "And sorry about pulling a gun on you last night."

"Hey, you thought I was a threat." Henry held up both hands. "Honest mistake. No harm, no foul, right?"

Jim frowned. "You're pretty laid back for a werewolf."

"My brother, they call it valium," Henry answered, grinning. "Need it to keep my symptoms in check. Nice side effect is that everyone else turns a lot more mellow after I've taken some."

"Right," Jim agreed with a bemused smile. "Your name's Henry? I'm Jim."

"Nice to meet you, Jim. You think we can talk for a minute? I was wondering how you handled the enhanced sense of taste and smell. Looking for a few pointers, honestly. I still haven't figured out how to ignore it, and it drives me crazy sometimes."

"You can't control it?" he asked, frowning.

"These things manifest themselves at different ages. I didn't have my first transformation until a few months ago. That means no enhanced senses until that same time. Not a long time to learn, you know?"

"Oh."

So Jim described the various ways in which he dialed down a sense that was troubling him, sometimes by directly engaging a dial, others by forcing himself to focus on something else entirely. Among other techniques. Henry absorbed it all, an eager and studious pupil who was, obviously, genuinely appreciative to receive the knowledge.

Henry was a likable kid. He struck the right note by bringing Jim to the 'family' kitchen and breaking out a six-pack. They soon got to talking about things other than their unique abilities: sports and current events and the flaws and merits of various handguns. Henry had a mouthful to say about the overly-restrictive nature of various extradition treaties, a topic which apparently affected the work of the Sanctuary at times, and Jim heartily agreed with most of what he had to say. But the conversation did eventually turn back to their respective 'problems'.

"Convinced myself it would never happen," Henry admitted with a shrug. "I mean, sure, objectively, you know that if you're born a werewolf, you're eventually going to change. But being with Helen and Ashley just made me feel so human. I got to figuring I'd never change after all. Like maybe being away from it had cured me."

"I know what you mean," Jim agreed. "I had these skills as a kid and learned to suppress them, or was forced to. I don't really know which any more. But it got to a point where the adult me truly believed that all that in the past was just pure childhood imagination, like none of it had been real."

"Then, when it hit, it was that much more of a shock," Henry agreed, nodding. "'What did I do to deserve this? I was good, I played by the rules. Why am I being punished?'"

"Exactly." Jim pulled two more beers from the fridge and passed one to Henry.

"And all the time, the one question that you can't ask, because to say it out loud is to admit that you're different…"

"'Why can't I just be like everyone else?'" Jim sighed, nodding.

"You know what I finally decided?" Henry asked him.

"What?"

"I decided 'screw normal'. Never have been, never will be. I'm what I am, all right? I can use what I can do to help people. And I have. And what the rest of the world thinks of me doesn't matter one little bit. Because the people who count don't care. Ashley loves me and Helen loves me and no one else really matters."

"I'd say that's a healthy attitude." He smiled. "People who think I'm a freak are a dime a dozen. The people who know I'm special? They're priceless."

Henry snorted. "Man, you sound like a Mastercard commercial."

"Must be the beer," Jim answered, grinning at him. "But it's true."

"I went through this period where I was willing to go through a pretty serious invasive, life-changing surgery to change what I was," Henry admitted. "I started to think twice when Ash came and told me she didn't want to lose who I was."

"The people who love us, they help us to be ourselves. I think I've learned that in the past several years. People, normal people, they try to shape us in their image. But the ones who really care about us, they only want to help us reach our full potential."

"Right on, man," Henry agreed.

Jim put down his half-empty bottle of beer. "I should go see how Blair's holding up."

Henry nodded but asked, "Are the two of you going to be at dinner tonight?"

"Probably, depending on how things are going with Maria."

"Sweet. Bigfoot makes a mean pot-roast and Helen says she's got a couple bottles of wine that she's been saving for about fifty years to go with it. Plus, Ashley's out, so she'll have a new war-story, which is always fun."

"People keep mentioning this Ashley," Jim noted. "She sounds like something special."

"Killer," Henry answered, his smile ridiculously wide. "Ash is something else."

"You sound proud of her."

"Always," Henry agreed. "Her enthusiasm for life is straight-up infectious. Granted, she can be damned unsettling to the uninitiated. She's still a gem. Absolutely killer."

"I definitely have to meet this girl."

"You just watch it, Ellison," he warned, waggling a finger at Jim. "That's my best friend you're talking about."

"Going to go all wolfish on me?"

"If I have to, yeah." The effect of Henry's warning was ruined by his laugh a few seconds after delivering it. Damned threatening werewolf. Not. "I don't have to be threatening. Ashley, she's that way all on her own. Takes care of herself and doesn't thank me to interfere. Come on, I'll walk you downstairs. I've got to get back to work anyways. No rest for the wicked, right?"

"If you say so," Jim agreed, climbing to his feet and following.