By A Thread Danae Disclaimer: The Boys don't belong to me. Unfortunately. They do belong to Pet Fly though and while I am borrowing them for a bit, I will return them relatively unscathed. Well, maybe a little scathed. At any rate, I'm not making money off of this. I'm just having a little fun. No harm intended. Thanks to my betareaders, Missy, Laura and Beth. To Michelle, Gen, Sorcha, Daydreamer, Mary, and Sairobi, my cheering section. And to absolutely everyone who writes with feedback! Thank you for reading, thanks for writing! There be spoilers here!!!! For S2. And perhaps for Rogue as well. It's not a S2 epilogue though. Just happens after it and supposes that some changes took place in The Boys' relationship after that day. NO! Not that kinda change! Geez Louise! It is a little strange though actually. I don't know where this came from. Just an odd little idea I had. Nothing new there! This one's for Missy. Here's a Brackett story for you! Oh! And one more warning.... There are kitty sues here! Yes, they are ALL mine! I am the Crazy Cat Lady, after all! By A Thread Danae ________________________________________________ Awareness seeped into his sleeping mind and woke him and with it, it brought the fear. Cautiously, without movement, without opening his eyes, he assessed his surroundings. The screams and blasts were not present in his ears. Neither was it silent as a grave. He could hear birds and the soft sounds of someone trying to be quiet in a far off room. Through closed lids, his eyes registered neither blinding light nor the absence of it. It was not too hot or too cold. The scents of cedar, vanilla, and sage softly exploded in his mind with every breath. Beyond those smells, he found some that made his stomach growl and his mouth water. He relaxed. Safe, he reminded himself. *I'm safe.* The thought was so loud in his head that he wondered if he had actually said it aloud. But he had not and perhaps the effect was just a revenant of his nightmares where everything was too loud or too quiet, too light or too dark, too much or too nothing. Knowing he should but dreading it just the same, he examined the latest rounds of dreams that had plagued him for anything he could use to make sense of the jumbled images that were his memory. He ran the reel of them behind his closed eyes in slow motion and felt his heartbeat quicken in his chest. There, a face he should know. The man. He froze it and heard his own voice ask it, "What's my name?" He heard someone enter the room and felt the touch of a soft hand on his forehead but he refused to open his eyes until the strange man answered. He had to know. And then he did. He said his name aloud even as the vision from his dream spoke it to him. "What, Baby?" asked the soothing voice he had come to know when he knew little else. He opened his eyes. "My name. My name is Blair." ______________________________________________________________ Two months earlier "Who are you?" "Dr. Patricia Powers. Your psychologist tells me that you have been telling some pretty fanciful stories about men with enhanced sensory powers." Lee Brackett got up from his bunk in his tiny cell and neared the glass partition, eyeing the woman suspiciously. "They're not fanciful stories and if that sadist is a psychologist, I'm the Pope. What do you want, lady?" "Well, you see, I'm in need of a research project. Something big. Something impressive. Something unique." Lee scowled at her. "Then look elsewhere. I'm not a lab monkey. And besides, haven't you heard? I pissed off the wrong people. I'm gonna be a guest here for a while and the CIA doesn't like to share." "Yes, I know, you got yourself in quite a bit of trouble out in Washington, didn't you? But your former employers could have let you go to prison out there. I think they were pretty generous to pull you out before you got thrown into the Washington State Pen or whatever they call it out there. Here, you've been given treatment for your delusions of grandeur and may one day be ready to take your place in society." Lee laughed openly then. "Treatment? That's a good one. Almost as good as being able to take my place in society again. Lady, I'm never getting out of here. The only reason I'm still alive is because I still know things that they think I need to tell them. And yet, when I tell them, they think I'm nuts. Now, you show up. Let me guess, I don't have a choice. I'm your new guinea pig." "Not exactly. You see, I believe you. I want Ellison and Sandburg. And I want you to help me. I can get you out of here, Mr. Brackett. In return, you will get them for me. I have money, a lab, staff, everything I need to do a comprehensive study. I just need them. What do you say?" Immediately, the wheels began to turn. If he could get out, if he could get his hands on Ellison and Sandburg again, if he could help her out for a while and learn more himself, yes, yes, he would be very happy. But details had to be worked out. Rules had to be set up. After all, how could he break the rules if he did not know what they were? He smiled and she returned it with one as sinister as his own. Perhaps, he had found a kindred spirit. _______________________________________________________________ Two weeks later "What do you mean, you only want Sandburg?" Lee followed the woman down the hallway of her lab to her office. To think that he had thought the woman was a kindred spirit. Lee already hated her and they really had not started the operation yet. She treated him like a flunky and held his ever possible return to captivity over his head like a sharpened sword. "I mean, I only want you to bring me Sandburg. For the time being anyway. I want to see Ellison in the field without Sandburg. I've seen him with Sandburg. Now, I want to see him alone. I want to see just how necessary Sandburg is and if there is any kind of connection between the two of them that will lead Ellison here. I can't do any of that if we go snatching up Ellison, now can I? Don't worry. You'll get your chance with the man. In the meantime, you have a job to do. Don't screw it up." "I won't screw it up." Lee sneered at her. "But I'm telling you now, Ellison will be on the warpath when Sandburg goes missing. Your guys are going to have to be extra careful with their surveillance or they will get caught and he will tear them apart." "I'll convey your warning. You need to go. The pilot is waiting for you topside. Hurry back." She grinned at him and walked away. _____________________________________________________________ Four hours later, Lee stood outside the Hargrove Building at Rainier University. Powers' surveillance people had told him that Sandburg was inside, working late. Ellison was at home. It was dark and the campus was nearly deserted. It was a perfect opportunity. Lee would simply wait for Sandburg to leave, tranquilize him in the parking lot, and have him back at the lab before Ellison ever realized that something was wrong. While he waited, he began to plot his sabotage and takeover of Powers' operation. He would learn what he could from her little experiments and then find a way to destroy her and take Ellison and Sandburg. Ellison would then be the instrument of his former superiors' destruction. Nobody screwed over Lee Brackett and locked him away to torture. Life was about to get very difficult for certain people and that made Lee very happy. Sandburg's appearance at the doors of Hargrove Hall brought Lee back to the more immediate task at hand. As soon as the young man made it to his car, Lee moved swiftly from his hiding place and grabbed him from behind. Lee had thought it would be a simple task. However, Sandburg proved that he had learned at least a little from hanging out with Ellison and Lee reminded himself not to underestimate the man again. Sandburg got in a wild swing that busted Lee's lip and another that had his eye throbbing. He frowned at the knowledge that it would be black and blue soon. A swift kick to the knee and Lee was limping as he plunged the syringe into his captive's shoulder and dragged him toward the waiting rental car. Lee was pretty sure that Sandburg had never even seen him coming, probably did not even realize who had grabbed him even as he succumbed to the tranquilizer. He tied a blindfold over his captive's eyes and handcuffed him to the door of the car and then climbed in himself. Just as he turned the key in the ignition switch, he saw the man watching. It was not one of Powers' people. He knew them and he knew that they would have been hidden better. He debated going after the man who was trying to shrink into the shadows but decided that it did not matter. He did not care if Ellison found out that he took Sandburg. If anything, it would make Ellison all the more determined and that was part of what Powers wanted. Not that he was that terribly concerned with what Powers wanted but hey, it could be interesting to see what Ellison would do to her when he found his partner. Besides that, by the time that Ellison got word about the kid's abduction, they would be in another state. ______________________________________________________________ "Jim! It's Simon. I'm at the university--" "I'm on my way!" Jim slammed the phone down. He did not need to hear the rest. Simon sounded frantic and he was where Blair should be, therefore, logical deduction, something was wrong and it involved Jim's guide. But something more than logic had been pulling on his mind even before Simon's call. He felt that something was not right. He had been trying to sort it out but it was little more than a flash and then it was gone. He now knew that his feeling had been right. He scolded himself for the doubt as he grabbed his jacket and ran out the door. Jim broke every traffic law he had ever learned on the way to Rainier, his blue lights giving him, if not the right, then certainly the opportunity, to do so. His mind raced even faster than his old blue and white Ford as he imagined scenario after scenario. Blair was shot, Blair was stabbed, Blair was robbed, Blair was missing, Blair was... No, he was not going there. His guide was very much alive. Jim would know if that were not the case. *Wouldn't I?* nagged the question inside his troubled brain. He brought the truck to a screeching halt a mere foot from a patrol car. He was out of the vehicle and barreling toward the figure of his captain before the patrolman in the car was able to breathe again. "Where is he?" he asked, though his senses had already informed him that his partner was not present. Simon caught Jim by the shoulders as he tried to get past him and over to Blair's car where some of the forensics people were already working to find clues. "Jim, he was abducted. We have a witness. Rafe and Brown are talking to the man now." "Witness." Jim stated as his eyes scanned the area and picked out Rafe and Brown with a small, bookish looking man in a gray tweed coat. Jim pushed Simon's hands away and headed for the trio with Simon right behind him. "And what happened next, Professor Hazelton?" Rafe asked the man. "The man dragged Mr. Sandburg to another car and placed him inside, blindfolded him and handcuffed him and got in the car himself." "And what did you do?" Jim demanded as he approached them. "I hid, naturally. The man would have made short work of me, I assure you. Blair is much stronger and younger than me and he was unsuccessful so I certainly wasn't going to try my hand at the thug. I called the police as soon as I could." Jim was furious. "Just how much did you see while you stood and did nothing?" "Enough to identify the man, sir! I'm terribly sorry that I didn't manage to get myself killed in hand-to-hand combat with a man three times my superior in strength. I would have rather thought that you might prefer a live witness to a dead and quite unsuccessful would-be hero," Professor Hazelton said indignantly. Jim knew he could not argue that point. He mumbled an apology under his breath and turned back toward the scene. He heard Simon make excuses for him and he heard Hazelton's sympathy for him as Simon told him that Blair was Jim's best friend. Jim swallowed the lump in his throat as he began to inspect the area around Blair's car himself. The next thing he was aware of was Simon's hands on his shoulders shaking him and his captain's harsh command, "Damn it, Jim, snap out of it!" Jim felt as though his lungs were on fire. *Breathe!* he ordered the traitorous organs. The sharp intake of breath relieved the burning in his chest but he found then that his legs no longer wanted to support him. Only Simon kept him from falling flat on his face on the pavement. "What happened, sir?" Simon looked around them to make sure no one was within range. "You zoned. What the hell caused it?" "I was looking over Blair's car for anything out of the ordinary. How long was I--, you know?" "I'm not sure. But you weren't breathing. You scared the hell out of me." "I'll be fine." "Sure you will," Simon remarked sarcastically. "Sandburg is missing less than an hour and you zone out. This is not good, Jim." "I'm just a little wired, that's all. I need to find Blair." Jim declared solemnly. "No kidding." Simon mumbled. __________________________________________________________ Lee watched solemnly as Sandburg was dragged out of the tank. The young man's head was lifted by his hair and Lee frowned at the vacant look in the dark blue eyes. "Well, this seems to working real good, Powers. What the hell caused that?" Lee pointed to Sandburg's eerily still and silent form being held up by two technicians. They had been forced to remove the man from the tank early because he had started convulsing. However, by the time they got to him, he had lapsed into this catatonic state. "I don't know. Could be the medication." "Medication! That's a gentle euphemism, don't cha think? You're pumping him full of painkillers just in case the sensory deprivation tank isn't enough to cut him off from his senses. He can't feel anything and he's totally out of it. What's this supposed to prove?" "If I can affect his senses, perhaps I can affect Ellison's through him." Powers growled through clenched teeth. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. This is why you've been doing this for four days?" "Why did you think I was doing this?" "To be totally honest, sheer meanness." Powers smirked at him. "I reserve that for you, Lee. I'm a scientist. I'm experimenting. That's what we scientists do. You, on the other hand, are a tool to be used in order to carry out those experiments. Just like Mr. Sandburg here. What do you say, Lee? Want to see what it's like in there?" "No thanks." Lee walked away, thinking of the numerous things that he would like to do to Patricia Powers. None of them were in the least pleasant. _______________________________________________________________ Patricia Powers sat at her desk and wrote out her report to her superiors. So far, she had nothing to report but the formality had to be observed. She shook her head. She had begged and pleaded for the chance to test her theories and they had granted her request out of curiosity, more or less. Whether that curiosity had to do with Ellison and Sandburg and the possibility that they were some sort of Batman and Robin or had to do with wondering if Brackett had snapped, she did not know, nor did she care. This was her chance to prove that she could succeed in the good ol' boy world of covert ops and the CIA. She needed this operation to be a success. She needed to make her name and do it in such a way that no one would ever forget it. If she could not only discover the secrets of what Blair Sandburg had called a Sentinel in that paper she had read, but control a Sentinel, she could write her own ticket. And why stop at the CIA? There would be a market much more lucrative for someone of her talents out there if she could just get Ellison under her complete control. Control through threats were fine but if she could actually control Ellison's senses without the interference of his will, there would be no end to what she could accomplish. Sandburg had to be the key. _____________________________________________________________ Simon Banks put one hand to his aching forehead and lightly squeezed his temples. The pounding there did not ease at all. He sighed and slumped back into his chair. Blair Sandburg was gone without a trace. His abductor was identified by Professor Harvey Hazelton as being none other than Lee Brackett. The rogue CIA agent had put Jim and Blair though hell shortly after they started working together and then disappeared before he could be put on trial. Apparently, he was back. And Jim Ellison was a man possessed. It had been nearly a week and Simon feared for Jim's sanity and his life. Jim seemed lost without his guide. He was unable to focus on anything but finding Sandburg and even then he seemed erratic. Jim had always, even in the worst times, been methodical and ordered. No longer. Simon had only seen this kind of behavior once before. Simon grimaced at the thought of Alex Barnes. Jim had separated from Blair by choice then and it nearly cost them both their lives, Jim in the warehouse, and Blair at that damn fountain. And if that were not bad enough, the zone outs were back. Simon had thought that the Sentinel's zone outs were under control. Perhaps they had been while Sandburg was there to guide Jim, but they were back with a vengeance. In the last week, Jim had been plagued by the sensory blackouts and Simon was forced to have to consider pulling the man off the streets for his own safety. Of course, Jim being Jim, that would not go over well at all, and surely as Simon lived and breathed, Jim would go on investigating Blair's disappearance on his own and put himself in even more danger. Simon sighed again and decided that being captain really sucked sometimes. Simon watched as Jim's head nearly struck his desk as the sleep- starved detective almost nodded off. He awakened an instant before he would have given himself a monster headache. Simon shook his head and got up. He made his way out of his office and to Jim's desk. "That's it, Jim. You're going home and this time, you're staying there." "I'm waiting on a call back from Jack Kelso, Simon. He could call at any time. I have to be here." "You have to sleep. If you don't, I'm pulling your badge and suspending you, do you understand?" "Simon, I--" Guilt swept through Simon as Jim's head dropped and his eyes closed. "I have to find him." "I know. But you can't very well do that from a hospital bed and that's exactly where you're headed if you keep this up. There or the morgue. I, for one, do not want to have to tell the kid that you got yourself killed trying to find him. How do you think he'd feel about that, Jim? I'm taking you home and I'm staying there with you to make sure you go to sleep." Jim nodded reluctantly and stood. He swayed dangerously and Simon had to steady him and yet Simon was relieved. The argument was much easier won that he had thought it would be, a testament to just how exhausted Jim was. They made their way out of the building and to Simon's car. No sooner than Jim was seated in the passenger's seat did Simon realize that the man was already asleep. He cursed Lee Brackett and drove out of the parking garage toward 852 Prospect. Simon examined the man asleep in the passenger's seat as he drove. Ellison was falling apart. If Simon had ever wondered about Blair Sandburg's importance to Jim and to Jim's abilities before, his questions were being answered in essay form. The dark circles under Jim's eyes and the strangely unfocused behavior he had exhibited over the past week were proof enough. Sandburg was Jim's family, that Simon knew. What was added to Simon's definition of Sandburg as he looked at his oblivious friend next to him in the car was that Blair Sandburg was Jim's control. Before the kid showed up with his "thin blue line" story and seemingly unending ability to at least look like he knew what he was doing with regards to this Sentinel stuff, Jim was a wreck. The man thought he was going crazy. He was there at that point again. Perhaps even worse. Yes, Blair was necessary. He was important. To Jim's well-being, his mind, and his heart. __________________________________________________________ "Damn it!" Lee glanced up from his newspaper and over to Patricia Powers. "What?" "There doesn't seem to be any correlation between Ellison's zone outs and Sandburg's sensory deprivation time. I felt sure that if I affected his guide's sensory input, I could affect his. To top that, I felt reasonably sure that Ellison would be able to locate Sandburg through their connection. Okay, okay, I'm not done yet. We'll try sensory overload and see what happens. Maybe deprivation is not traumatic enough to affect them." "I told you this is a waste of time. There is no weird psychic connection between them. I would have noticed. Even if there is, maybe it doesn't work long distance. We're in Nevada for god's sake. If you wanted Ellison to find him, we should have stayed in Cascade," Lee told the woman. "You need to let me pick up Ellison and then do your damn experiments on him. Sandburg is the guide. That's all. He helps Ellison focus and keeps him from zoning out." "Well, you are right about that. Nine zone outs in six days. Some of that may be stress but do you realize what that means? It means that Ellison is effectively useless without a guide. I wonder if that guide has to be Sandburg. If there's no connection between them, I don't see why it would have to be. Then again, you admit that they had not been working together very long when you met them. The connection may not have been made yet. No, I'm not ready to give up yet." She threw down the spread sheets in her hand and pressed the intercom button. "Noah, I need you to prep the other room." "The overload room?" came the question from the intercom box. "I thought you were saving that one for the other guy." "Changed my mind. I want to try Mr. Sandburg in there as well." "Sure thing. Consider it done." "There," she said, smiling at him. "You know, if Ellison gets himself killed because he zones out in a shootout or something, then your research goes right to hell with him. The longer he's out there alone, the greater that chance is." "Don't worry. It won't be too much longer." She drew the curtain closed over the observation window, picked up her spread sheets again and walked out. Lee stared at the door for a moment after she had gone before turning to the drawn curtain on the far wall. He stood and walked over to it. He pulled the cord and drew the fabric back once again to reveal the two way mirror behind it. It was dark in the room beyond. He had to look down into it to see the huddled figure in the corner. He could just barely make out the outline of the person. He shook his head. Perhaps this had been a bad idea. Ellison was probably going to get himself killed and Sandburg would not have enough mind left to use a door knob by the time Powers got through with him. Lee had thought his CIA "psychologist" was sadistic until he saw Powers in action. She had Sandburg drugged and placed into a sensory deprivation tank everyday for several hours at varying times while the surveillance team on Ellison recorded the times and duration of his zone outs. Even with all the time that Sandburg spent in the tank, only three of the nine zone outs had taken place while the experiment was going on. The rest of Sandburg's time was spent in the small dark room that Lee gazed down into and in total silence, given that it was sound-proof, except for the sound of his own voice. But he had hardly made a sound since the fourth day and Lee was worried about that. The sounds he did make were horrible. At times, during the last few days, he would start screaming at them then suddenly fall into some sort of convulsion. Powers figured that it was a reaction to the drugs that she was giving him and yet she did not stop giving them to him. Twice, he had gone into convulsions while he was in the tank and they had to pull him out. Her new plan was all the more cruel given the time Sandburg had gone without stimuli. He already shielded his eyes from the smallest light and cringed at the sound of a normal voice. Sensory overload, Lee imagined, would be unbearable to senses that had been cut off for a period of time. Lee swallowed the lump in his throat and turned his attention toward the ceiling as whimpers drifted to his ears from the speaker next to the window. It was starting again. Powers was a bitch, he decided. Someone entered the room with him then to take Powers' place watching Sandburg. He left the curtain open and gathered up his newspaper. With one last look back, he left the room. He did not wish to see another of the kid's strange attacks. They were hard on the eyes. And if Lee was honest with himself, on the heart that he did not know he had. Until now. Since he had to be in Nevada, he might as well get some business done and have a little fun. _____________________________________________________________ Blair heard the sounds but could not control them any more than he could control the frantic beating of his heart or the blind panic that was swallowing up all reason and thought in his head. He had to get out. He had to run. His hands went to his head and he began to pull his hair and he could not stop them either. In his mind, he heard his spirit guide howling. He shook his head and refused to answer the wolf's call. *Better me than him,* he silently, resolutely told the wolf. The convulsions started with a tremor that ran through his body that finally grabbed hold of his stomach and his head, sending waves of pain and spasms out to the rest of him. It was as though his refusal of the wolf had brought them on. As the pain and tremors subsided, he lay on his side in the corner of the dark room. Before his ability to think was stolen from him by the sensory blackout, he managed to send up a prayer that Jim was not suffering this same fate. *Please be safe,* he prayed as his eyes dimmed and the feeling of the cold linoleum underneath him faded. _________________________________________________________________ Simon handed his friend a cup of coffee as Jim wandered out of Sandburg's room toward the kitchen. "Thanks." the man mumbled as he took a sip. "How did I get down here?" "You wandered down here at about three a.m. calling Sandburg's name." Jim blushed and Simon put his hand on his shoulder. "Sorry, Simon." "No reason to apologize. You were dreaming, I guess. You seemed to realize that I was here after I followed you in there and tried to get you to go back upstairs. You were upset that he wasn't here. You told me you were going to find him but then you lay down on his bed and I let you stay there." Jim put the coffee cup down and flung himself on the couch. "Sorry you had to deal with that. I sort of remember not being able to find his heartbeat. I tried beyond the loft and still couldn't find it. Damn it, Simon, Lee Brackett has my partner. I expected some sort of demands, some message that I had to commit some crime to get Blair back, but there's been nothing. What the hell has that bastard done to my guide and why can't I find him? Shouldn't I be able to find him, Simon? All these damn senses and that only thing I can do is zone out and damn near get myself killed. I've found him before. Why not now? Why all these zone outs? This is worse than it was before Blair." "I don't know. Stress, probably. Exhaustion, definitely." "What am I going to do, Simon?" "I don't know. I just don't know." Simon watched Jim lower his head into his hands and prayed for Blair's safe return. Jim would not survive without his guide. _____________________________________________________________ Lee bit his lip and swore under his breath as he stood outside the room that Powers called the sensory overload room. Inside the room was Blair Sandburg, doctoral candidate at Rainier University and quite possibly the world's only expert on Sentinels. Lee kicked the wall across from him and banged his head against the door behind him. He could feel the heat on his back and skull coming from the room. He could not hear the noise, however, because this room, like the one where Sandburg was held captive and the one where the deprivation tank was located, was soundproof. He had heard it earlier though as Powers had flipped the switch for the speaker in the observation room and tried to determine if Sandburg was adding to the screams with his own. It had been deafening and blood-curdling then. He also knew that smoke was being piped into the room. Not enough to be life-threatening but enough to register and just about overwhelm the sense of smell. Sandburg had been in there for four hours and he would be there six more before she took him out. The worst of it was not seeing the kid huddled in the corner with his hands over his ears though. No, the worst, the thing that had driven Lee from the observation room, was the seizure that sent the young man into a self-destructive panic. Lee shuddered involuntarily as his conscience ran the scene in slow motion for him to view again. Sandburg had torn at his long curls and beat his head against the floor. Then the seizure started in earnest. Lee had to leave at that point. Actually, it was more what Powers had said than what he saw. The woman had honestly chuckled and remarked that they were about to see another floorshow. "Monster," Lee muttered as he tried to catch his breath. *Then what are you?* his conscience whispered. As horrified as he was, he was still curious as to the outcome. His plans were not complete. Perhaps he would have to steer clear of the sensory rooms for the time being. _________________________________________________________________ One week later He had to have a name. Everybody had a name. Why was he here again? He had done something bad apparently. He wished that those animals would go away. They were stalking him. The big cat and that wolf paced behind his eyes every time he closed them. She was always there too. The woman would not leave him alone even in his sleep, what sleep he got anyway. He could no longer determine most of the time what was sleep and what was awake. They seemed the same so often. Nothing or too much. Too much or nothing. And those stupid animals and that woman. And the hands and faces that tugged at him. All the same, asleep or awake, they were there. He shivered in the cold and tried to pull his legs up closer to his body. Maybe he was never awake at all. Or maybe he was never asleep. Maybe they were not real, the animals, the hands, the faces and her. But maybe, he was not real. No, he was real. He had to be real. Otherwise, he would not feel the pain. And if he was real, then he had to have a name. But it was not Jim and that was what made the difference. It was Jim who was important. She had told him that. ______________________________________________________________ This was getting very interesting. Part of Lee wanted to just sit back and enjoy Powers' frustration. Talk about a floorshow, he thought, remember the woman's own comment a week before. She was the one that knew how to put on an interesting show. She stomped and fumed and fretted and threw things. It was quite entertaining. On the other hand, however, Lee was not quite ready with his plans. If she failed so miserably this early in the operation, Lee would not have the opportunity to take advantage of that failure and regain his upperhand against Ellison. He needed her to find something he could use and yet he needed her to eventually make a mistake that he could capitalize on, maybe even use to get himself back on the inside track and put her in his old cell. So far, all she had done was turn Sandburg into a virtual zombie. Lee pushed that thought out of his mind. He had managed, through staying away from the actual experiments, to give himself some distance. He was more comfortable that way. Still, he needed something to change and soon before Sandburg was totally irretrievable. Then something occurred to him. In all the time that Sandburg had been there, he had never once, that Lee could recall, asked about Ellison. A theory began to take shape in his head. Maybe there was a connection after all. Maybe through it, Sandburg knew that Ellison was not there. Maybe Powers' failure was by design. And maybe that design was not Lee's, but Blair Sandburg's. He weighed his options and decided to try to help the woman out a little and see what she would do with it. "What if Sandburg is somehow blocking the connection?" Lee proposed. She was pacing in front of him in the observation room. The last five days of sensory overload had been completely unproductive. She could find absolutely no correlation between what she was doing to their guest in the room below and Ellison's zone outs. The sensory overload experiments had been as much a failure as the sensory deprivation. In short, the good doctor was not happy and Lee hid his smile as she turned to look at him. "What do you mean? I thought you didn't believe that there was a connection." Powers looked interested despite her remark. "I'm not convinced but think about this. The whole time he's been here, he's not once asked about Ellison. I've been thinking about that. I think he knows that Ellison isn't here. I think, that if there were some connection and he had some control over it, he would try to protect Ellison through it." Powers looked thoughtful. "So, what do you suggest?" "Force him to open that connection back up." "How?" "I'll tell him Ellison's dead. He'll not want to believe me but it'll put enough doubt in his head that he'll have to try to determine the truth for himself." "I don't think he has that kind of control. I think Ellison's the controller." "Never know until you try." She thought about it for a minute more before nodded. "Go for it. It'll be interested to see how he reacts if nothing else." Lee got up from his chair and strode out of the door. He walked down the short staircase to the door to Sandburg's little room. He slipped his pass key into the door and pushed it open as the green light flashed. The room was cold and very brightly lit. He frowned. That was Powers' punishment for Sandburg not being a good little guinea pig, he assumed. He knelt in front of the shivering form of Blair Sandburg. "How're you doing, kid?" Sandburg cringed away from him and he lowered his voice. "Look at me." The young man followed the direction and Lee was stunned by the total lack of recognition in the blank stare he was receiving. "Who are you?" came the whispered question, confirming what Lee feared. "I don't suppose that matters now, does it? I have something to tell you. Jim Ellison is dead." Lee waited for a violent response, a vehement denial, any sort of reaction. What he got nearly floored him. "Okay. Then that's it. It's over. Have you come to kill me?" Despite the fear in the voice, the tone was matter-of-fact and strangely calm. "No. Why would you think that?" "Because he was the important one. I don't remember why but I remember that he was the important one. I don't really matter." "What?" Lee found himself sitting fully on the floor, staring at confused and frightened blue eyes. "Why do you say that?" "That's what she says." Lee did not have to ask who she was. "What if she's wrong?" "No, she's not. He mattered. I don't." Lee got up slowly. "I'll come back later, okay, kid." "Okay." Lee had almost made it out the door when Sandburg spoke again. "Mister, she told me that I didn't have a name. I do have a name, don't I? Can you tell me? What's my name?" Lee felt his heart flip over in his chest and he had to fight to catch his breath. "B--Blair. Your name is Blair. I'm sorry, I have to go." Lee slammed the door after himself and stood leaning on it for long moments. He knew the minute that she exited the observation room. Her shadow was cast over him and he raised his eyes up to hers. "What the hell have you done?" She spun on her heels and walked away. Lee watched her go, while all his plans crumbled to so much dust around him. Things had changed. Sandburg was of no use to him or to Ellison, for that matter, in the kid's present condition. And if he remained where he was, he would be permanently damaged. That was unacceptable. "Okay, on to Plan B," he muttered under his breath. There was just one problem. He had not come up with a Plan B. He was getting careless, he could only conclude. Usually he not only had a Plan B but a Plan C and D, just in case. He looked back to the door to Sandburg's prison. He would have to come up with one and fast. _________________________________________________________________ He was standing at the top of a great cliff with one end of a rope in his hand. In front of him was his spirit guide jaguar. The great cat was screaming in frustration and prowling the edge. Jim followed the path of the rope to where it hung over the cliff. He took a step closer to the edge and looked over. There below, hanging at the other end of the rope was his guide. Jim told him to hang on and he started to pull the rope. Then he noticed a problem. As he pulled, he realized that the rope was getting thinner and thinner. Worried by this, he looked back down to Blair and saw that the end that Blair held in his hand was little more than a thread. Somewhere off in the distance, Jim could hear the whimpers of a dog. No, a wolf. He looked around frantically for something else he could use to save his guide but the cliff was barren. He looked over the edge again to try to reassure his guide but Blair simply gave him a sad smile and let go. "Blair!" Jim sat up in bed. "Jim? Are you okay?" Simon's voice came from the bottom of the stairs. Jim frowned. He felt foolish with Simon there. His captain had taken to coming home with him and spending the night whenever he felt Jim had been working himself too hard to find his guide. "I'm okay," he answered. "Just a dream." Just a very frightening dream, Jim kept to himself. Blair had given up. "No," Jim whispered, anger and fear welling up in his chest and threatening to choke him. The whole Barnes thing had taught him to pay attention to his dreams and this one was telling him that if he did not find his guide very soon, it would be too late. ______________________________________________________________ "This is my project. I'll run it as I see fit." Patricia Powers said calmly. Lee stared at her in disbelief. He had finally cornered her after she had refused to talk to him to the day before, saying that she did not owe him an explanation. "Don't you get it? You won't have a damn project if you destroy Sandburg! What were you thinking?! He doesn't even know who Jim Ellison is anymore. He doesn't know who he is anymore. Why the thing about his name? Tell me that." "I was attempting to make him angry. It was an experiment that didn't work." "Gee, nothing new there, huh? What was this one supposed to do? Make Sandburg mad here and see if Ellison punches a suspect's lights out there?" "Basically. Not quite that simplistic but the general idea is there." "You are an idiot! How the hell did anyone as stupid as you get a damn doctorate? Blair Sandburg has more intelligence in his little finger than you have in your entire body. Correction, had more intelligence. After you get through with him, his ABC's may be too much of a challenge. What else did you tell him to make him mad? That he wasn't important? Oh, did you touch on his questionable parentage?" "Yes." "And what did you find?" "Nothing." Lee smirked at her. "I think I told you this before, did I not? Even if there was some sort of connection, you've broken it now." "I do not need advice from you, Mr. Brackett. I think that you had best remember why you are here and that with one word from me, you could be back where I found you." Lee scowled at her and had the woman any more common sense than the thimble full she possessed, she would have been frightened. He said nothing though, just took a deep breath and sat down in the chair closest to the observation window. He glanced down into the little room. Sandburg sat in the corner of it, his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them. Out of the corner of his eye, Lee saw the man he had come to know as Noah come in and hand Powers some printouts. He dismissed it and continued to watch Jim Ellison's guide. He knew the moment that one of Sandburg's strange seizures was about to start. The young man screamed and raised his hands to his tangled hair. Powers simply glanced up and then went back to her spread sheets. After a moment, Sandburg stood and began pounding on the padded walls of his little room. Then the convulsions hit him and he fell. Lee swallowed hard as he watched and shook his head. The shaking and jerking stopped and he seemed to drop into a trance of some sort and would remain like that for a bit, never the same amount of time as before. He would come back to himself and move silently back into the corner of the room. Lee waited for that to happen. "Have you ever figured out what causes that?" he asked, pointing down at the man. Powers shrugged. "No. I've been recording them though, times and durations." "Just like Ellison's zone outs?" "Yes. That's what this is." She indicated the printout in her hand. "They aren't getting any better at all. I think we have at least determined that Ellison does need a guide. He had three zone outs just yesterday. One at eleven, one at three, and one at seven thirty." Lee suddenly felt like one of those cartoon characters with a light bulb over his head. Ellison had three zone outs. He seemed to remember that Sandburg had three seizures. He would almost be willing to bet that the times would match up. He debated with himself on whether or not he should say anything to Powers. No, he decided. But the matter was taken out of his hands in the next breath as Powers quickly reached for another printout on the table. "Oh my God!" Lee frowned. He really did not want this bitch to figure this out. "What?" he asked, though he knew what her answer would be. "I have been looking at this completely backwards. Look at this." She shoved the two printouts at him. "Every time that Ellison has zoned out corresponds to one of those seizures. The connection does exist but it's Ellison that affects Sandburg. What's more, it means that the connection hasn't been broken even though Sandburg's memory of Ellison is gone. I need to get in touch with the surveillance team and find out if Ellison is zoning right now. Then I want you to go and get Ellison." She started out of the room. "Oh and Mr. Brackett, don't screw it up." Lee resisted the urge to punch the woman in her smug face and turned back toward the observation window. Yes, this was a very bad idea. Sandburg was back in his corner and Lee examined the man. The idea of Ellison and Sandburg in the hands of Patricia Powers was appealing to him less and less. She had already damaged Sandburg and Lee had no doubts that she would do plenty of damage to Ellison if she got her hands on him. Definitely not acceptable, he decided. At some time in the future, Lee would want to obtain the services of the Sentinel and his guide again. That would not be possible if Powers turned them into vegetables. Lee picked up the papers Powers had left behind. He looked them over as his theory continued to grow and shape itself in his head. Sandburg's seizures had not started until the fourth day. Ellison's zone outs had started almost immediately and had gradually gotten more frequent and longer lasting. Powers would never listen to him but Lee knew that he had been right in his assumption that Sandburg had the majority of the control of whatever the connection was between the two men. If Sandburg controlled the connection and he wanted to protect Ellison, he would have cut Ellison out of the connection to keep the man from walking into a trap. Maybe he then had to pay a price for that. Perhaps the price was the seizures. It made a sad, twisted sort of sense. The last thing Sandburg would want is for Powers to get her hands on Ellison. He would know what the sensory experiments would do to the Sentinel. Maybe he had hoped at first that Ellison could save him but as time went on, he decided to save Ellison instead. Then he cracked and did not even remember why this was happening to him and did not know how to stop it or re-establish the connection that would stop the seizures. That was the really sad part. Sandburg, having lost his memory of Ellison, did not even know why he was suffering. Perfect, sad, cruel sense. Part of Lee wanted to test his new theory somehow. Even started trying to devise some sort of test. However, another part of him was screaming of the inhumanity of it. Lee rubbed his temples to try to get that part to shut up but it screamed louder instead. Lee felt an unfamiliar and entirely unpleasant tugging in his soul. He stared down at Sandburg huddled in the corner of the room, shivering from either the temperature of the room or from fear. Either way, it was uncomfortable to witness. He turned away and tried fruitlessly to harden his heart against the young man in the room below. It was not working, his distance was gone again and Lee swore under his breath. He made a decision. Maybe he was getting soft but he could not leave Sandburg in Powers' hands any longer. There was no way he would deliver Ellison to her either. No, he rationalized, not soft, just practical. Powers was destroying perfectly good tools. When children did not know how to take care of valuable things, one should take those things from them. Lee smiled at the image that created in his head. He needed that Plan B that he had yet to fully develop. In the immediate, he needed to get Sandburg out of the lab. That would be easy enough. Then came the hard part. He had some decisions to make there. What would he do with Sandburg when he got him out of there? He could take him back to Cascade and drop him off. Very risky. If he was caught with the kid, either by Powers or by Ellison, he would never see the light of day again. Sandburg was a hot commodity. Everyone on both sides of the fence would be turning over every rock searching for him. He could just call Ellison and have the man pick Sandburg up from somewhere. He shook his head. There was heavy surveillance on Ellison. In top form, Ellison could elude or eliminate the surveillance team if he knew they were there. The fact that he obviously did not know they were there was a good sign that the Sentinel was not in top form. Even if Lee told him about them, there was no guarantee that Ellison would find them all and then Powers would have both men. He could not leave that to chance. He would have to eliminate the surveillance himself which meant careful planning and execution. He needed time and a good hiding place for the kid. He had a friend, Sherry, in Reno. She was a stripper and sometime companion. Maybe he could leave Sandburg with her for a few days. Powers knew of Sherry but no specifics about her. As for Lee himself, he would be hiding in plain sight, looking oh- so-innocent. That would give him time to sort out the details, maybe even sabotage Powers' operation, as he had originally hoped to do. That was definitely a priority as well. Lee wanted to be sure that Powers failed so miserably and that not enough of a paper trail was left to follow that the next Frankenstein that came along would look elsewhere for guinea pigs. Perhaps he was selfish but he sort of liked being the only puppeteer in this show. At any rate, if he got rid of Powers' surveillance on Ellison, made sure that Sandburg was hidden, and slowly destroyed Powers and her little shop of horrors from the inside, he could once again be free as a bird and that lone puppeteer. He really hated competition. Then there were Sandburg's seizures to consider. So far, they had not seemed life threatening. In fact, the worst part of the seizures seemed to be over fairly quickly. The kid would survive. Just in case, though, he would have Sherry watch him pretty closely. It could work. ______________________________________________________________ Perhaps it was wrong. What she was doing. But she honestly did not care. It surprised her to realize that. Patricia smiled a little as she grabbed a fistful of Blair Sandburg's hair and snatched the man's head back to stare into his fear-filled eyes. "How are you feeling today? Never mind. Don't bother trying to answer. It really doesn't matter anyway. I could just kill you and get it over with. With Ellison dead, what good are you anyway? Of course, you could prove me wrong. Just do what I want you to and maybe I'll reconsider." "I don't know what you want," was whispered on a sob. "Then you'd better figure it out." She motioned for him to be taken out of the room. So, given her new discovery, she had to change her plans. As he was dragged away, she tried to figure out how to turn this new development in her favor. So far, she had not figured out anything yet. In the meantime, she would go on with her present course. If Brackett was right, then Ellison was unable to find Sandburg because of Sandburg. If she could make the young man desperate enough, perhaps she could force him to re-open the connection. She had to find something. She had to find some way to make her plan, her study work out. If not, she would lose more than her job and a little money. She would lose face and possibly her freedom. They had locked Brackett up for his claims and he had not cost them a small fortune in lab and surveillance equipment and salaries for technicians who sat around watching a whole lot of nothing. If she failed, she might just find herself in a cell next to Brackett. Or worse. ______________________________________________________________ "Jim? Do you have any new leads? Is there something any of us can check out for you?" Jim looked up into the hopeful face of Joel Taggert. Glancing around Joel, he noticed the anxious stares of his other colleagues. The bull pen was as close to silence as it ever got. "No, not right now. I'm expecting a call from Jack Kelso. If I'm not in, tell him to call me on the cell or at home. Other than that, I've got nothing new." "Jim, you know that we all like Blair and we want to do all we can to help find him but--" "But what?" Jim stood suddenly, his chair banging against the wall behind him. "But what, Joel? You think he's dead? Well, he's not. Do you hear me? All of you, do you hear me? Blair is not dead. Brackett has him and he wants something from me to get him back. He'll be in touch or I have to find him. Either way, Blair is alive because Brackett isn't stupid and he doesn't have a death wish. Is everybody clear on that now?" Jim grabbed his coat and left the bull pen then. He was aware in the back of his mind that he had not sounded exactly sane but he was tired and he was worried and he did not care. He wanted his guide back and he could not make the others understand Blair's importance without giving too much away. He did not wait for the elevator. He took the stairs down to the garage. He had to get away from all of them and think. He had to come up with something. He had to find his guide. When the call came in over the radio, Jim answered it out of habit. The 211 was right around the corner from where he was and he responded. It all happened very fast. He arrived at the scene and found that two uniforms were there. The suspects were hold up inside the convenience store and had already shot the clerk. Problem was that Mills and Walker were unsure about the possibility of other hostages. Jim, again out of habit, extended his hearing out. The gunshot resounded in his head and sent him into a tailspin. He did not remember standing up later. He did not remember much of anything later. Just Mills impacting with his body and taking him down. ______________________________________________________________ Powers' own arrogance made it very easy. Lee had access to the security camera tapes. After all, he would not dare cross her, right? A little creative taping and a modified remote control unit meant that the cameras would show no record of Lee's nocturnal activities. All he needed then was to make sure that whoever was in the observation room took an unscheduled nap. As a final touch, Lee stole a pass key from one of Powers' assistants so that the computer records would not finger him as the culprit. It would be child's play to return the key later. It took nearly a week and a half but everything was in place, In the meantime, however, Powers had continued her physical and psychological torture of the kid, grabbing hold of the story that Ellison was dead and holding it over Sandburg that without Ellison, he had no purpose. Lee had never been more ready to get out of a place or situation before in his life. Lee announced just before dusk that he would be leaving the grounds to visit a friend in nearby Reno. The friend was Sherry. She was ready with his alibi and she never asked questions. Unlike other women in his life. So he left the facility, or at least he seemed to according to all recorded data, and waited. Slowly, the lights in the various labs and sleeping quarters went out. Still, he waited. He listened to the sounds coming into his earpiece from the listening device he had hidden in the observation room. As soon as he could hear Noah's loud snores, he grinned and slipped from his hiding place. Minutes later, after a quick stop in the observation room to get rid of the remainder of the drugged coffee he had so considerately brewed for Noah, he was at the door to Sandburg's prison. He stepped inside and made his way over to the huddled figure in the corner. The light in the room hurt his eyes and it was unbearably hot. It had been cold and dark earlier in the day, Lee remembered. He shook his head as he kneeled down beside the young man. "Hey, kid, come on. Let's get you outta here," he said, making sure to keep his voice very low. "Are you gonna kill me now?" came the question softly, the head never raising up from his knees. "No. I'm gonna get you the hell out of here. You do want to leave, right?" Sandburg nodded, looking up into Lee's eyes with hope shining in his own even as he blinked in the light. Lee swallowed around the lump in his throat and wondered, not for the first time, why he was going to risk his freedom by doing this. He reached out to help the kid up but Sandburg instantly recoiled from his touch. "I can do it." Lee backed off and let him use the wall to get to a standing position. "Okay, can you walk?" A quick nod and a tentative step was his answer. "Stay behind me and stay close. If you don't follow my instructions, I'll carry you out." It was almost too easy. Lee led Jim Ellison's guide out of the underground complex and to his hidden vehicle. He opened the car door for Sandburg and motioned for him to get in. As he did, Lee cursed himself for not thinking about getting the kid any clothes. He wore only a thin hospital style gown and boxer shorts and was visibly shivering as Lee closed the door after him. He rounded the car and got into the driver's seat. "I'll get the heat going in a minute," he promised. They had only been on the road for about an hour when the seizure started. The scream nearly gave Lee a heart attack. He swerved to the side of the road and brought the car to a sudden stop. Fearing that the kid would try to run and get lost in the surrounding desert, Lee grabbed him and wrapped his arms around his chest, pinning his arms down in the process. Sure enough, he began to fight and once almost managed to escape Lee's hold. Then the convulsion itself began. Lee was shocked and somewhat annoyed by the tears that came to his eyes as tremors wracked the frame of the smaller man and choking sounds emanated from his throat. "Damn, Ellison, get a grip. You would freak seven ways from Sunday if you knew this was happening, wouldn't you?" he spoke to the man hundreds of miles away. All movement ceased suddenly and Lee panicked as he realized that all breathing had stopped as well. Quickly, he spun the younger man around in his arms and shook him. "Snap out of it!" he yelled into the blank face before him. "Jesus Christ! Damn it! Breathe!" he shouted. A gasp brought life and terror back to Sandburg's eyes. Lee let go and let him scuttle back to the passenger's side of the car where the kid apparently was trying to become one with the door. "It's okay. Everything's fine, kid. It's over. Chill out." Lee soothed, even though his own heart was racing. "I'm scared." "I know. Look, I can't deal with this. I don't know how and quite frankly, I don't have the time or the patience. I was going to take you to a friend's house but I think that this may be above and beyond the call of duty for an occasional lay, you know what I mean? She'll freak out and probably tell us both never to come back. Okay, think." "About what?" "Not you. Talk about above and beyond the call, thinking is probably not going to be in your repertoire for a while." The kid actually looked insulted. "Sorry. All right, there is one more option. A better one really. Talk about obscure, nobody'll be able to trace this back to me. I didn't want to ever use this one but I don't have a choice. Just try to relax over there, okay. We're going to change direction here." Lee turned the car around. ______________________________________________________________ "I'm sorry, Jim, but this is for your own good. I can't let you continue this way." Simon watched as Jim paced the loft's living room like a caged cat. He had once again followed Jim home and he sat on Jim's couch delivering the decision that he did not want to make. "I'm not going to stop looking, Simon. You can take my badge and my gun but you can't stop me from looking for him." "I know that, Jim. I just can't allow you to go out there on the streets in an official capacity in the shape you're in." Jim nodded. "Okay, fine. Besides, if I don't have to work, I can spend more time looking." "Jim, I'm going to say this again. Do not get yourself killed here. The kid will not thank you for that." "Thanks for the advice, sir." Jim took out his badge and gun and placed it in Simon's hand. "I'm going up to bed." "Jim, I am sorry. I'll help any way I can, Jim. You do know that, don't you?" "Yeah, Simon. I do. If you're staying, you know where the blankets are. Good night." He was gone then, up the stairs into his bedroom, leaving Simon rubbing his temples to try to ward off the headache beginning behind his eyes. He had held off as long as he could before pulling Jim's badge but his latest zone out had nearly gotten two other officers killed as they tried to save the sentinel before he was killed. Jim had zoned in the middle of a shootout and was standing in the open. Mills and Walker had both tackled Jim and taken him down out of harm's way. But not before Mills got a bullet in the shoulder. "Where are you, Brackett and what the hell have you done with Blair Sandburg?" he whispered before going to get the blankets to make up the couch that was becoming more familiar to him than his own bed. _____________________________________________________________ "What's wrong with me?" The softly spoken question broke the tense two and a half hour-long silence in the car. Lee glanced at his passenger. "It's hard to explain and it's just really a theory right now anyway." "Have I always been this way?" "Now, that I don't know exactly. Have you always had those seizures? No. Have you always been the way you are that makes you have the seizures? That's something you could have answered better than me if the bitch from hell hadn't gotten a hold of you. But she did, so I guess we'll have to wait until you get better to find that part out." "How long?" "How long what? Were you at the lab?" Sandburg nodded. "A little less four weeks." "Seems longer." "I bet it does. Look, I'd take you back home if I had the time but I don't. And besides, right now, you probably wouldn't even know that you were home. But this place where I'm taking you, there's somebody there that will take real good care of you until you're able to get yourself put back together or I'm able to get back to get you. Okay?" "Okay. Why are you doing this?" "Let's just say that I have some interest in your well-being and being there was not in your best interest and therefore it wasn't in my best interest." Lee told him. "Here we are." Lee pulled the car off the interstate onto the exit ramp. "Now, listen closely to me. I'm not going in there with you. I can't. You're going to have to go by yourself. See that little diner?" Lee pointed to the building on the opposite side of the road from the stop sign at the end of the ramp where they sat. The kid nodded. "You go in there. Here, put this on." Lee pulled off his jacket and handed it to him. "Then what?" The kid took the jacket, gratitude in his eyes. "Don't worry. Sit down at the counter and ask for help. That's all it'll take. Trust me. But stay away from the law and stay away from hospitals. Got it?" "Why?" "You don't want them to find you, do you?" "No!" "Then do as I say. Okay?" "Yeah. Where will you be?" "Long gone, kid. But I will come back later. When I can. Now go." But the kid did not move. "Go on. You'll be in good hands. I swear." Finally, Sandburg opened the car door and got out. Lee watched for a few moments to make sure that he was really going into the restaurant that the sign above the door dubbed as Ethel's Diner. When the kid reached the door, Lee pulled off, went under the bridge and turned the car back the way he had come. He had to go cover his ass and put the rest of his still developing plan into action. ___________________________________________________________ Lucy Baldwin raked a stray red hair from her ponytail back from her face and picked up the plate by the grill. She scooped up the greasy hashbrowns sizzling on the hot surface of the grill and flung them on the plate. She spun around, nearly tossing the plate on the high counter behind her as slapped the bell there with the end of the spatula in her other hand. She cursed her absent cook and she cursed the sign in the diner window that proclaimed that the diner was open 24 hours a day, and last, but certainly not least, she cursed her ex-husband. She sighed then. Her life was not all bad. She had always wanted to own a restaurant. So Ethel's was not Spago's but it was hers. And it fit with her sense of humor. Her name was Lucy and she owned a greasy spoon called Ethel's. Her mother had always been a big Lucille Ball fan, thus Lucy's name and Lucy's own love of "I Love Lucy" re-runs. Plus, that miserable excuse for a human being, that for reasons she had completely forgotten, she had married, would never think to look in the middle of the Nevada desert in a road-side diner for her. He would look for hospitals if he looked at all, for in another life, Lucy had been a nurse. She grabbed a couple of eggs from the carton next to her and quickly cracked them, letting them drop onto the grill, and then reached for the loaf of bread over her head. Pulling out two pieces, she plopped them in the toaster to her right and then flipped the eggs, all the while wondering why people always seemed to want to eat breakfast in the middle of the night. "Lucy! Got steak and eggs, rare and over easy. Hashbrowns, toast and bacon." Carol called out as she grabbed the plate of hashbrowns and sausage that Lucy had placed in the window for her. "Steak and bacon," Lucy mumbled, "A walking heart attack there, I'm sure." But she grabbed what she needed and started the order just the same. There was no sense lecturing truck drivers about nutrition. Then a little sound caught Lucy's attention. A little scratching noise coming from the back door made Lucy smile and throw an extra steak and another egg on the grill. She had visitors and they were always hungry. Minutes later, Lucy sat on the back steps of her diner, scratching the scruffy head of a little dog and accepting the purrs and affectionate rubbing of an old orange cat. The two animals had enjoyed their steak and eggs and while they would be back at some later date, they were two that did not want to go home with Lucy. They indulgently allowed for a few moments of petting and loving but would leave and come back for more steak and eggs whenever the mood struck them. Lucy figured that it was just as well. Her menagerie was getting a little ridiculous anyway with six dogs and ten cats. The folks in town had dubbed her house Lucy's Zoo already. But animals kept showing up and she just did not have the heart to leave them all alone in the world and so they found a home and she was not alone in the world either. "Oh well, guys, back to the old grill for me tonight. That twit, Pauly, called in again tonight. Don't cha just hate him?" "Meow." "Yeah, me too." She got up. "See you next time." She re- entered the building and glanced up at the wheel where Carol pinned up orders to see that there were none waiting. She was just about to sit down next to Carol at the counter when the bell over the door sounded. She frowned and headed back toward the kitchen without turning around. She stopped, however, when Carol gasped. She turned to see what had caused the sound from the waitress. Sad, scared blue eyes met her green ones from under a tangle of uncombed curls. He took another step then stopped. Lucy watched as he swallowed and glanced around himself at the occupants of the diner, Lucy, Carol, and two burly truck drivers. Self-consciously, he tugged on his jacket and wrapped his arms around his body which drew Lucy's attention to the hospital gown that he wore under the jacket. He did not even have on any shoes. "Are you okay?" she heard her own voice ask. He opened his mouth and for a moment nothing came out. The voice shook and the words were barely audible when they finally came. "I need help." "I'll call the sheriff," Carol offered. "No! Please, don't! They'll find me. Please, don't let them find me." He held out one hand in entreaty and his fear-filled eyes begged for understanding. "Did you walk out of the hospital? Where? What hospital?" Lucy moved slowly toward him. "Not a hospital. Don't make me go back, please." "Okay, okay. It's all right now. Let me take you to the hospital then." "No, no. They'll look for me there. The man said so." "What man?" He shook his head. "I don't know. The man. He helped me. Will you help me?" "What do you need?" Lucy asked. The question seemed to confuse him. "I have to wait here he said." Lucy sighed with relief. Whoever this man was would be coming back. "Are you hungry? Come and sit down to wait. You look tired." She motioned toward the counter but he looked around at the others in the room and seemed afraid to get any closer to them. She reached out to touch him, perhaps guide him but as soon as her hand came into contact with him, he flinched and raised his arms in a protective gesture. "Whoa, it's okay. I'm sorry. Nobody here is going to hurt you." Lucy felt as though she was talking to one of the many abused strays that she had taken home over the years. Perhaps that was indeed what she was dealing with, she realized, and her heart broke for the man before her. "They're staring at me," he whispered. "Well, honey, it's not every night that we have patrons come in dressed in a hospital gown and a leather jacket. I promise you, you're safe here. Come on. Let's get you something to eat." He nodded and inched toward the counter slowly. She kept eye contact with him as he sat down then she rounded the counter and headed for the kitchen. Carol was right behind her. "You should get his order, Carol." she gently reminded the waitress. "Lucy! He could be an escaped mental patient or something. We should call the sheriff." "Carol, he's scared and I think he's been hurt. This guy he was talking about helped him and he's coming back to get him so he won't be here long. In the meantime, we are going to have a little compassion and give the poor thing something to eat. Now, go find out what he wants. Besides, it's not like he can hide too many deadly weapons in his state of undress, now is there?" Carol did not seem convinced but she headed out of the kitchen and Lucy watched her go and shook her head. She looked over the ledge of the window as Carol placed a menu in their strange patron's shaking hands. It was going to be an odd night. _______________________________________________________________ Jim Ellison stood on his balcony and stared out across the dark sky. He was at a loss. He had looked everywhere, called everyone he had ever known that might have information about Brackett, sent out APB's and posters all over Cascade and then the whole state and still, nothing. His guide was gone. And so was his control over his senses. He should have learned something in all that time with Sandburg and yet it seemed that he had not. He silently scolded himself for being so stubborn about Blair's tests. He mentally kicked himself for ever taking Blair for granted. He resisted the urge to extend his unreliable senses out. For the first week that Blair was missing, he would stand just where he was and try to use his abilities to locate his guide. It never worked. He would zone and Simon would have to shake him out of it or get overloaded and have to pull back. Still, Jim reassured himself that he would just know if Blair was dead. That kept him going. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "No, gotta give it one more shot," he said aloud. He shook himself and stood up tall. Simon was not there and it was a risk without that safety net but he had to try just once more. He pictured the dials that Blair had taught him to use. Hoping to avoid a zone out by having two different focuses, he slowly turned up both sight and sound. Filtering the everyday noises of the street, he catalogued and dismissed sounds after sound, one by one, while trying to search far away streets with his eyes. He felt the zone coming, saw his eyesight start to fade as sound took over his brain. Yet, he was powerless to stop it. Just before his eyes stopped working altogether, he caught a fleeting glimpse of a man with a camera seemingly pointed toward him then the image was gone as Jim lost the battle with his own ears and drifted away on a sea of strange heartbeats, still frantically searching for one that was familiar. One that had come to signify home. _____________________________________________________________ A keening sound and a crash brought Lucy running from the kitchen. "What the hell is going on here!" she demanded. Carol stood in a puddle of coffee and broken glass, pointing at the man at the counter. He was screaming and pulling his long tangled curls. "What did you do?!" "Me!? He's crazy! I didn't touch him!" Carol insisted. Lucy rushed over to the young man and tried to pull his hands away from his head. "Shh, it's okay. Calm down. I'm going to help you." When the convulsion hit, it threw both of them to the floor. Recognition blossomed in Lucy's head as she moved quickly to her knees to grab a towel off the counter. She then positioned herself to keep him from striking his head on the hard floor while her eyes searched for a medical alert tag anywhere. There was not one anywhere on him. She shook her head. "I'm calling an ambulance!" Carol screamed. "No need, Carol. He's just having a seizure. If it doesn't end soon, we'll call somebody but this may be nothing to worry about." Her hands roamed over his head just the same searching for a possible head injury that could explain his present condition. Again, she found nothing. "Lucy, there is something wrong with that guy!" "No kidding!" Lucy snapped. "He has a seizure disorder! Big deal! It's not contagious and hardly ever even serious, much less fatal. Just give him a minute and he'll probably be asking for more coffee." "How do you know that?" "I was a nurse in a different time and place." Lucy explained and then instantly regretted her choice of words, knowing Carol's fascination with all things fantastical. "You were reincarnated!?" "Oh, for god's sake, Carol, no! I just meant before I came here." Her attention was drawn back to the man in her lap as the muscle spasms stopped. Apparently, however, the seizure was not over. The grand mal had given way to a petit mal or absence form of seizure and Lucy was just beginning to think that she was going to have to call that ambulance after all when he drew a sudden breath and blinked at her. "Welcome back." She smiled and was rewarded with a tiny smile in return. And Lucy was hooked. If the mysterious "man" did not return, Lucy was more than willing to take this stray home. ________________________________________________________________ "Goddamn it, Jim! What were you thinking? What if I hadn't decided to stop by?" "I was thinking that I have been trying everything I know how to do to find Blair in this past week except use my senses, the senses that he taught me to use. I figured I owed it to him to try one more time before I gave up." Simon softened his tone and sat down on the opposite end of the couch from Jim. "Did you find anything?" "No. You know, Incacha said that a sentinel is a sentinel as long as he chooses to be. But what the hell good does that do when you can't get the damn stuff to work right? I tell you, Simon, if I wasn't so sure that Blair was still alive, I'd shut this shit off and forget I ever had hyper-active senses. If Incacha was telling the truth and a lie is like the ultimate sin to them, so he had to be telling the truth, I can choose not to be a sentinel. If Blair---" Jim stopped and turned his head to stare out the window. "Don't think like that, Jim. You said yourself that you think he's alive." Simon's hand closed over Jim's knee for just a moment in a comforting gesture. "Yeah. But I can't find him. I don't know how to explain this but I have always been able to find him before. I couldn't say to you with all certainty that he was here or there but I've had feelings and hunches that have always been right. But this time, there's nothing. Nothing at all beyond that he is not dead. Even that feeling comes more from knowing Brackett than from any sense of Blair's presence or whatever. Brackett wanted him for something, not to kill him." "You sense Sandburg's presence?" "Normally, yeah." "Jim, I would hardly call that normal." "Whatever, Simon. Let's just say that I know when Blair's around and when he's not. Lately, sometimes I can even tell you where he is when he's not around and I don't mean because I called on the cellphone and asked him." "When the hell did this start?" "After Barnes and that whole fiasco. I didn't say anything before because the mystical side of all this bugs me. And if it bugs me, the guy who sees big black cats that nobody else can see, then I figured it would make you crazy." "That's too weird." "Then you probably don't want to hear about my dream." "Thank you, no. Jim, I think we need to widen the search. The feds have stayed out of this because Sandburg's an adult, there have been no ransom demands, and we thought it was a local thing. I now think we need to call them in. Maybe you can't sense Sandburg because he's not in Washington anymore. Maybe Brackett took him out of 'your territory' or range or something." "Like the feds have been so very helpful before, Simon." Jim snapped sarcastically. "Well, I'm out of ideas, Jim. You got any better ones?" Jim remained silent. He really did not have any better ideas. He did not have any ideas at all. ______________________________________________________________ "Come on in. Don't mind the cats. I put the dogs up. I didn't think you were up to dealing with them. They can get a little boisterous." Lucy gently tugged at the sleeve of the leather jacket to pull him into her mobile home. Behind him, the sun was coming up. He had waited at the diner all night but the mysterious man had not shown up to retrieve him. Carol had nearly fainted when Lucy had announced that she was taking him home with her. Lucy grinned a little remembering Carol's ranting. Carol was not sure if Lucy's new guest was a serial killer, a escaped psychopath, an alien, or a secret government experimental genetic mutant. After all, nobody had eyes that blue naturally, Carol reasoned. "You know, here I have brought you home and I still don't know your name." He looked puzzled for a moment and then sadness flooded his blue eyes with unshed tears. "I don't remember it. The man told me but I forgot it again. She said I didn't have one but the man said she was lying." Lucy swallowed tears of her own and reached out to touch his arm. "It's okay. We'll deal with that later. You must be exhausted. Let's get you to bed, okay?" She tugged on the sleeve of the jacket again to get him moving then led him down the narrow hallway to her bedroom. Hers was the only bed in the house and she figured he needed it more than she did at the moment. "Get out of that coat and climb in. It's all yours. Hope you don't mind the aromatherapy in here. Vanilla, cedar, and sage are supposed to enhance sleep. At least that's what the lady in the shop said and I don't seem to have trouble sleeping. Anymore." she added, remembering a time when she was afraid to close her eyes. She banished those memories though and smiled at him. Hesitantly, he removed the jacket and she took it from his hands and draped it over the bedpost. He seemed self-conscious without it, his hands fluttering over the thin material of the hospital gown. She understood that. The flimsy garments left little to the imagination. "By the time you wake up, I'll have some clothes for you. Pauly is about your size and he owes me big time for calling in last night. Little jerk shoulda been sick after he tried to drink the whole state dry the other night. I must warn you, he's a little flamboyant. To be a cook in a greasy spoon, he sure spends a lot of money on clothes and flashy ones at that." He sat down while she was talking and gently she urged him back until he was lying down. She pulled the covers over him. "Of course, he still lives with his parents so I guess he doesn't have any bills to take up his money. I'll tell him to pick out something casual and understated, okay?" She tucked him in, feeling quite maternal all the while. "You shouldn't go to any trouble," he told her. "No trouble. Besides, we're just borrowing them. I'm going to make him work double shifts for a few days too. That'll teach him. When you're up to it, if you're still here, we'll get you something more suitable of your own." "Why are you being so nice to me?" "You're easy to be nice to and you seem like you need somebody. Now go to sleep. We'll talk more after you've had some rest." She walked the short distance to the door and was about to close it behind her. "No! Leave it open. Please." She smiled and nodded, then made her way into the living room. She had a million questions but she wondered if he would have a bare handful of answers to them. Who was this "she" and the "man?" What the hell had been done to him? And why? Carol had a tendency to blow things out of proportion but she might have hit on some possibilities in her ravings. Escaped mental patient, maybe. But she felt in her heart that he was not dangerous. Government lab escapee.... she'd heard that the government still had labs in the Nevada desert and chalked the stories up to paranoia for the most part. Part of her, though, the part that had seen what the government could and would do, condone, sanction, and/or order, wondered. Drugs could cause seizures sometimes. Was he given some experimental drug? She sighed. It was all speculation. And Carol's speculations, which in all seriousness, most of the time could not be seriously considered. And the rest of Carol's tirade was ridiculous. Her waitress watched too much television. One too many X-Files episodes and a few too many Unsolved Mysteries had pushed the woman over the edge. "Alien, oh please." ____________________________________________________________ Jim sat at the table staring at his untouched breakfast. What would he do today, he wondered. He was on administrative leave from work. He had followed every lead no matter how remote and improbable. He had called everyone he knew, twice. He did not know what else to do, where else to look. He closed his eyes and shoved the plate away from him. He felt tears threaten to fall and shoved them back from his eyes with a shake of his head and a deep breath. He got up and shuffled off to the bathroom. He had not shaved after his shower and he supposed that he needed to do that. He reached for the medicine cabinet and stopped as he caught his reflection in the mirror. There were dark circles under his eyes. Simon would pitch a fit if he saw him. Hell, Simon was already pitching fits. The rest of Major Crimes all seemed to be *in his neighborhood* a lot lately, too. Joel, Rafe, Brown and Megan had all been by. It was a chore to be nice to them. He knew that they were trying to help but having them around just served to remind him that Blair was not around. It was an even bigger chore to get rid of them once they got there. Jim was too tired and too wired to deal with any of it anymore. Insanely, he cursed the day he met Blair Sandburg and then hurriedly took back the curse, guilt sweeping down on him like black shadow to squeeze the air from his lungs. How could he even think that? Without Blair, he would have long since been locked away in some asylum, trying to convince some nurse that he could not fingerpaint with the others because the smell of the paint was suffocating him. Blair had saved him from that. But Blair had also opened Jim's heart even as he opened up Jim's mind to his hyper-active senses. He had shown Jim the benefits of them all, the open heart, the open mind, and the very things that he thought would drive him insane, his senses. It just was not fair that he should gain all of that, all that Blair had to offer him, learn to live with it, thrive with it, and then have it all taken away. Jim leaned back against the door and sighed. That was when he saw it, an image behind his eyes, not before them. A flash of a face, the memory of something, someone out of place. The zone out came back to him, the man with the camera staring at him almost as though he were on the other side of the mirror. Jim raced out of the bathroom and to the balcony. Praying that he could manage to retrace the path of his senses without zoning, he scanned the area. He had almost given the image up as an illusion when a ray from the rising sun glinted off something in a window two buildings away. Shaking off the pain from the suddenly blinding light, he focused in. A telescope was the first thing that he registered. Further into the far-off room, a man with a camera and telephoto lens. Jim's rage blinded him momentarily. When he could see again, he made a note of the location and headed up the stairs to get dressed. Minutes later, Jim slipped out the back of 852 Prospect, cursing his own stupidity at not having noticed the surveillance before. He was looking for it now though and these folks were in for a surprise. He had scanned the loft for listening devices and found none. Apparently, they were not interested in what he was saying, just what he was doing. He spotted another man on the second floor above the bakery across the street from the loft. He would be easier to get to than the other one. A smile that would have scared the hell out of his partner crossed Jim's face. Payback time had begun. ________________________________________________________________ Simon Banks nearly choked on his coffee when Jim Ellison entered the bull pen dragging a barely conscious and bloody man behind him. The big captain slammed the coffee cup on his desk and made it to his office door in record time. "What the hell is going on, Jim?" "This bastard and at least one other have been watching me. How much you wanna bet that they know where Blair is? But, for some reason, he don't want to tell me, Simon. Tell the man what a bad idea it is not to tell me what I want to know, Simon. Tell him." "Jim, you've been under a lot of strain. Just let the man go and we'll question him. That's why you brought him here. Now, let us handle it." Simon tried to make his voice calm and soothing like Sandburg did when Jim was upset. "Actually, Simon, I brought him here to keep him alive. If I kill him and I do want to kill him, I still won't know what happened to Blair and I'll have to try and catch his buddy and this time, it may be a little more difficult. I'd rather he tell me so I can just kill the other guy out right and be done with it." "Jim, you're a cop. You don't just kill people out right." "Wrong. Right now, I'm not a cop. Right now, I'm just one really pissed off Sen---" Jim glanced around at the audience he had acquired, the cops of Major Crimes all present, and did not finish the word, "with a missing partner." "Let go of the man, Ellison! Do it now!" Simon shouted, giving up his poor attempt at a Sandburg imitation and going with his no nonsense captain voice. It worked as Jim flung the man on the floor. Rafe and Brown swooped in and picked the injured man up and carried him off to an interrogation room. "Jim, I want you to go into my office and don't come out of there until I get back." Simon watched as his best detective stalked into the office and slammed the door behind him. "This just gets better and better," he mumbled to himself. ______________________________________________________________ So hot. It was so hot. Smoke choked him and explosions hurt his ears. His head pounded and his eyes burned from the smoke and blinding light. There were screams so terrible and so loud that he could feel his heart speed up with every one of them. Then it was gone. All of it and she was there. She stood over him flipping through several sheets of paper. He blinked around the spots dancing in front of his eyes and watched her. "Clean him up and put him back in the observation room. In the dark." Hands grabbed him and dragged him down the hallway and into a room with a shower head in one corner. The hands, that did not seem to be attached to any people that he could see, stripped him and hot water poured down over his head. The hands traveled all over his body and he tried to get away from them. They held him fast and got him down on the cold floor and continued their work. He heard screaming again and a new set of hands closed over his wrists. He jerked away and struck his head on something he could not see. He opened his eyes to find it and the hands were gone. So was the shower. A wood paneled wall was behind him and he had hit his head on a bedpost. "Are you okay?" came a soft question from his left and he jumped despite the honest concern he heard in the voice. He turned to look at her. Dark red hair framed a face with a fair complexion and bright green eyes regarded him with kindness. It was the lady from the diner. He searched for her name in his memory. "Lucy." he said aloud and she smiled sweetly at him. "You remembered my name." He nodded. Too bad he could not remember his own, he thought. "You were having a nightmare. I didn't mean to startle you. I was just trying to wake you up. Do you want to talk about it?" Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard his own voice asking someone else that question but he could not bring a picture of the person into focus. He shook his head. "Okay. I can understand that. I made some lunch. Why don't you take a shower while I get the table set." He thought his heart would explode then as flashes of the dream came back. His panic must have shown in his eyes because she reached out and softly touched his hair. He watched her stroke the tangled mess. "You're safe here, sweetie. Anybody that comes here after you is going to have to get through three very large dogs and one very large gun." "Sweetie?" he repeated, the endearment sounding so familiar though the voice was not right. "Sorry, I do that. It's a hold over from my days as a pediatrics nurse." "It's okay. Gotta call me something." "You know, you're right! We do. Let's see. I'd call you Ricky but you don't have the right accent." She giggled but he did not understand what was funny. She saw his confusion. "My name is Lucy, I own a place called Ethel's, if I called you Ricky, we'd just need a Fred. Okay, silly, I know." He laughed then, finally getting the reference. "I Love Lucy." "Right! Anyway, Ricky doesn't suit you. Okay, what about Sam. Had an uncle named Sam. Talk about funny, that was funny, telling people about my uncle Sam." He shook his head. For some reason, he just did not like the name. "Oh, we're picky, huh!" she teased. "I've always liked the name Casey." "Sounds like a girl," he complained, enjoying the name game they were playing. "What about James, or Jimmy, something like that?" Suddenly, he was not enjoying it anymore. "No." "Is something wrong?" "He's dead. I don't want his name." "Who, baby? Who's dead?" "Jim, Jim something. They said that he was dead. I thought they would kill me since he was the one that was important. I wasn't important but they didn't kill me. They just kept on. They wouldn't leave me alone and it's his fault. He shouldn't have been important. He should have done something. He shouldn't have died!" He was aware of his voice rising and he was aware of how crazy he sounded but he could not help it. His chest was starting to hurt and he could not breathe very well. "Oh, sweetheart, it's okay. Calm down now. You're hyperventilating. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you." She wrapped her arms around him. For a split second, he wanted nothing more than to escape her but she was so warm and so soft and she smelled good. Suddenly, he was holding on to her and he did not want to let go. An hour later, he was showered and dressed. The clothes she had procured for him did fit. Somehow, though, he did not think they would have been his choice of style, however. The bright Hawaiian print shirt and dress dockers just did not seem to fit with the long hair and he felt very uncomfortable. He sat down at the kitchen table, to the lunch that she had reheated for them. "I've got it," she announced. "The perfect name for you." "What?" "Justin," she paused, "or Nicholas. One of those, I can't make up my mind. Nicholas was my father's name and Justin was my brother's. He died in Desert Storm. Friendly fire. My brother, I mean. My dad died a long time ago." "Nicholas then." "Can I call you Nicky? My mom always called my dad Nicky." She was grinning at him. "I think that she would have called him Ricky if she could have gotten away with it. Mom loved Lucille Ball." He smiled at her. He liked her. She was funny. "Okay, I can live with that." He had a name. He had a friend. The man would come back someday but until then, he could live here. _______________________________________________________________ "What do mean he's gone!?" Jim boomed. "Just that. He was in the holding cell last night when I left and then he wasn't this morning. Jim, the feds aren't even attempting to help us out. Your spy is gone and we sure as hell didn't let him out. Lee Brackett was here and gone with Sandburg before we knew what hit us. Is this adding up to you?" Simon stood behind his desk while Jim Ellison fumed on the other side. "Yeah, it's adding up to me. It's been adding up to me. I've been talking to Jack Kelso out at the university." The detective started pacing. "And?" "And Lee Brackett was in a CIA prison until a month ago and then he just wasn't, sort of like the guy that has apparently disappeared from the holding cell. The surveillance on me is gone though, Simon. I looked last night and this morning and nothing. What does that mean, Simon? Where the hell is Blair? If they have given up on me, what have they done to Blair?" Jim stopped pacing and his ice blue eyes held a pain that Simon had only seen there once before. Simon still did not like fountains. "Jim, I think maybe you should try to accept that Sandburg may be gone." "You mean dead? I can't. I won't. He's alive, Simon. He's gotta be. I won't believe otherwise. We thought he was dead before by that fountain and he came back. He'll come back now." Jim stormed out of Simon's office, his way of refusing to talk about the possibility of Blair's death anymore. "If he can, Jim." Simon sighed heavily. Jim's badge and gun were still in his desk drawer and he wondered if the man, his friend, would ever be able to get them back. Simon stared out the window of his office and tried to come up with some new strategy. He just was not sure what that strategy should entail, trying to convince Jim that Sandburg was not coming back or trying some new angle to find the anthropologist. He would like nothing better than to have Blair Sandburg enter his office without knocking at that precise moment. He wanted to hear the young man launch into some obscure lecture on some off-the-wall-topic that would clear up an entire case that had kept the whole of Major Crimes baffled for weeks. There was just one problem. Blair Sandburg was the case that had them baffled. A knock on his door startled him and for one absurd moment he hoped like hell he would turn and see the object of his thoughts. Of course, that was not even remotely possible. Blair would not have knocked. "Come in." The door opened and Simon turned to face Taggert, Rafe and Brown. "Simon, can we talk to you?" "Of course. Come on in." "Simon, we're worried about Jim and we know that you've been sort of looking out for him and we've been trying to stop by when we can but--," Taggert said solemnly. "Yeah?" "Well, we wanted to know if there was anything at all we could do to help. He looks awful and he won't even let us talk to him about Blair. Simon, do you think the kid's still alive?" "I don't know, Joel. Jim seems to think he is." "But sir, it's been so long and there hasn't even been a ransom note or anything." Rafe nearly whispered. "We haven't found anything. And neither has Jim." "He needs help, Captain. I think he's going off the deep end." Brown spoke up. "What do you suggest I do? Have him committed?" Simon snapped and then instantly regretted it. He held up his hand in apology. "Sorry. This has been hard on all of us. Sandburg became one of our own when we weren't looking." "Yeah, he did, Simon. But it's been hardest on Jim and on you. We want to help too. I know you've been spending quite a few nights at Jim's. Any one of us could take a few of those nights, Simon, so that you could go home." Simon wanted desperately to take Taggert up on that offer but he hesitated. Jim's nightmares were pretty bad and Simon knew that Jim was embarrassed that Simon was there to see them. He would not want the rest of Major Crimes to bear witness to them as well. Not to mention that Jim sometimes said and did things in his sleep that would be pretty hard to explain. Like the night that Jim wandered down to sleep in Blair's bed. And the muttering about Sentinels and Guides that Simon could sometimes hear if he listened close. He would have to remain Jim's sole support in this. "No, there's no need for that. I'm getting used to Jim's couch. It's pretty comfortable. You--uh--just keep working on anything and everything you can think of. Joel, did you find out anything about Brackett's family?" "He's got an ex-wife in Georgia, according to records but she disappeared shortly after their divorce. Knowing Brackett, the sick bastard might have killed her. His mother hasn't heard from him in about four years. She's in Florida." Simon listened to the information that his men had accumulated and felt his heart sinking even as he did. They had nothing. All the words that drifted to his ears meant absolutely nothing. It was all information that they either had the first time Brackett had entered their lives or leads that had already ended in dead ends. Bad choice of words, he groaned inwardly. ______________________________________________________________ "Since our surveillance on Ellison has been compromised, I see no reason why we shouldn't turn our full attention to locating Sandburg. The traitor that helped him escape refuses to acknowledge his guilt much less tell us how he managed it or where he left the object of our experiment. He's being dealt with accordingly." Powers paced back and forth behind Lee and the others seated at the conference table. "I hate to say I told you so, but since the opportunity has arisen, I told you so. You're lucky you got your man back in one piece. I'm surprised Ellison didn't kill him." Lee shifted the focus away from Sandburg's escape subtly. He felt a twinge of guilt for the fact that the idiot whose pass key he had stolen had gotten the full blame for what he did but such was life when one had to cover one's ass. He did not even want to know what being dealt with accordingly entailed. He had bigger things to worry about at the moment. He had to make sure that Powers did not look anywhere near Ethel's Diner for her lost guinea pig. He had to get into Powers' database and get copies of everything and then destroy it. The information was too useful to lose but too dangerous to leave. And he had to find a way of notifying Ellison of where the kid was so that neither side, Powers or Ellison, got a fix on him. Getting away from the lab was difficult these days, however. Powers was suspicious of everyone and everything. Calling Ellison was third on the list of priorities at the moment, anyway. With Lee himself heading up the search, which he fully intended to do, nobody was getting remotely close to Ethel's and he knew for a fact that the kid would be well taken care of there. No, calling Ellison could wait until his other objectives were accomplished. "Oh well, doesn't matter now. Anyway, here's our situation. We need to find Sandburg and then Brackett here will pick up Ellison. It won't be that difficult. He's pretty desperate. All you will have to do, Lee, is tell him you can bring him to Sandburg and he'll come. Without Sandburg though, the research can't go on. Evidently, he's much more important than I thought. We now think that he is the heart of the connection. Ellison can't operate properly without him present. He's some sort of grounding force. So, here's the plan. Simms could not have gotten far with him and gotten back without being detected. Sandburg is an amnesiac so start with hospitals, psych wards, police reports of John Does. Then we'll canvas the whole state." "That's not feasible." Lee protested. "And we're liable to stir up a hornet's net. We have to be a bit more low key than that. It won't do any good to find him if we cause too many questions to be asked that we can't answer. Check the hospitals and such but leave the canvassing to one person. I'll do that. I can say he's my brother or something. You send out legions of folks in lab coats and the media will be on you like an insect swarm." "Good point. Okay, you canvas. The rest of you, search data bases for reports of John Does. Let's move, people." Lee breathed a sigh of relief. For the moment, they were all safe. He, Sandburg, and the one person in the whole world that ever made Lee regret his life. ____________________________________________________________ One week later. "Nicky!" Nicky turned to see Lucy coming out of the trailer, wading through a sea of meowing cats. He threw Churchill's stick once more and watched the big ugly dog run after it. "Yeah?" "That damned Pauly called in again. I have to go into the diner. Are you going to be okay here by yourself or do you want to go with me?" He walked over to her. "I'll be fine. You've missed too much work as it is, taking care of me. You go on in." "You know when a seizure is coming on, right? When you feel it, sit down or lie down. Keep Church with you. He seems to know too." Nicky glanced down at the dog at his hand, patiently holding the stick and waiting for Nicky to throw it again. "I will. I'm not having quite so many now. I promise, I'll be okay." "Okay. I'll be back a little after midnight. Jackie said she could take over for me then. I'm going to have to listen to Carol until then though!" She laughed. "Does she still think I'm an alien or is she back to the fugitive from justice thing?" "Genetic mutant created by the government," she answered too seriously and Nicky had a flash from his latest nightmare. Needles in his arm and not being able to feel them or anything else for that matter. The nothingness closing in on him and stealing his senses from him. He could not see, could not hear, could not feel. "Nicky!!" He blinked and Lucy's worried face appeared. "Dear God, I lost you for a minute. You were back in the lab, huh? I'm sorry, I shouldn't have told you that. Hit a little too close to your nightmares, didn't it? I'm sorry, Baby." She smoothed his wind blown hair and pulled his head down to kiss him lightly on the forehead. "I just wish I knew what I was there for. It was something about this Jim person but I don't remember what or why. I wish I knew if I was always like this. You know, the seizures. The man said that I wasn't but then he said that I was or something. What he said made no sense really. What if Carol's right? What if I am some kind of experiment?" He turned away from her gentle touch, taking the stick from the mutt still waiting at his hand and throwing it. "Stop that! You are not an experiment. You're a human being that some monsters decided to torture for their own twisted reasons. But you don't ever have to go back there. You're safe here, Nicky. If anybody comes here, they'll have to get past Church and Scarlett and Rhett. Then they have to get through my dad's shotgun." Scarlett and Rhett, the pitbulls, Churchill the mutt, a shot gun older than Nicky looked and the stubborn and beautiful owner of a diner in the middle of nowhere were his protectors. Oh, he could not forget the cats, Bonnie, Clyde, Catriona, Eliza, Eleanor, Bart, Alexandria, Penelope, Cleo, and Caesar. And the Pekinese, Shakespeare and the two Shih Tzus, Einstein and Da Vinci. He chuckled. "Thanks." "Tweren't nothing, Sunshine, but I am worried. Why don't you come with me? I'll feel better." "I can cook, you know?" he offered. "You can?" "Well, I think I can. I can try. I'll come with you if you let me help out." "Deal. But if we're both going, we need to feed the zoo. I'll get the dogs and you get the cats." Minutes later, they were on their way in Lucy's old Honda station wagon. Nicky tried to brush away the multitude of cat hairs sticking to his clothes. Thank God, he had his own and Pauly's had been returned. The jeans and t-shirt he was wearing looked more natural on him somehow. If he could just manage to get rid of the fur clinging to them, he would be happy. Suddenly, a lint roller was in his hand. "Thanks." "Don't mention it. I keep one in here for just such emergencies." "Now I know why I got the cats," he accused. "Not so!! Besides, it's an honor to be so loved by cats that they have to give you some of their fur!" "Ancient proverb?" "No, but maybe it should be." Nicky laughed. "I like that sound," she told him. "What?" "You, laughing." "I'm happy here with you. I've been thinking that maybe I don't need to remember. Maybe I just rather stay with you." He felt a blush spread across his cheeks. She pulled up in front of the old diner and stopped the car. She turned in her seat to look at him. "I kinda like having you around too." "Cool." He leaned forward a little, just a little to see if she would meet him halfway. She did. On to Part two!