And Dream that I am Home Again

by Lois RH Balzer

  Banks' tone changed again, the frustration still there, but there was compassion and support clearly heard over the phone lines. "What can I do?"

  "Oh, we'll be fine in a few days, Simon. It's just all hitting me, I suppose. A good sleep is what I need." He opened his eyes as Sandburg stirred, restless, pushing back the thin blanket that covered him.

  "Have you done any more of that . . . that pain transference thing you do?"

  "The what? Oh. No. At least I don't think so. It's not something I think about doing."

  "Well, considering what has happened to you each time, how worn out you get, it's best not to do that when there's not someone else around."

  "Yeah." He could see the pain on Sandburg's pale face, the thin sheen of sweat on his brow.

  "Well, let me know if you need any help, Jim."

  "Thanks." He hung up the phone and entered his guide's room.

  * * *

  .Banks sat at his desk for several minutes, lightly drumming the surface with his fingertips. He hadn't passed on Harvey Leeks' word of warning. How or why, the captain wasn't sure, but the San Francisco detective had the premonition that all was not well with Cascade's sentinel and guide. He'd called to ask how they were only half an hour before.

  And now Ellison had just confirmed that something was wrong, at least with the sentinel half of the duo.

  So, what was he supposed to do about it? Barge over and demand they see a counselor?

  His phone rang again, shifting his attention to the mayor's office and their request for a report on what had happened in Seattle. Then Henri Brown called about his partner, two newspapers wanted an update, and Daryl called to see if he was okay. Before Simon knew it, he was heading home and the digital clock on his car dash said it was ten at night -- too late to phone. Both men should be long asleep, and he wasn't about to wake them up. It probably wasn't anything that a good night's sleep wouldn't cure.

  But at 7:30 the next morning, there was no answer to his call to the loft. He let it ring until the answering machine came on, then called into it, but no one responded. Even if Jim had been sound asleep, he would have heard that. He tried the local hospital, the one Ellison inevitably went to if there was a problem with one of them, but it had been a relatively quiet night, and no one had remembered seeing the detective.

  With a well-rehearsed, long-suffering sigh, Banks threw on his lightweight suit jacket and headed out into the day, deciding he would stop and check on the partners on the way in. It was probably something simple. They were sleeping, maybe, and Jim had taken the phone off the hook -- no, had unplugged it. That's probably all it was. Something simple.

  With those two. Right . . .

  The truck was outside the apartment, next to the Volvo. After ringing the bell for the loft and being ignored, Simon dug his keys from his pocket and entered the building, taking the stairs to the third floor. He found a loaf of bread in the stairwell, sitting near the exit. He left it where it was, wondering if he'd have to come back and dust the plastic for fingerprints.

  There was no answer to his loud knocking. He readied his gun and inserted the key in the lock, easing the door open. No response. No one in the kitchen or living room. He stepped inside, moving near the couches to look upstairs, his gun still out before him. From what he could tell, the bed was empty. Backtracking, he went into the kitchen, past the half-open door to Sandburg's room. He glanced in, then froze.

  Blinked.

  Well, that wasn't exactly what he had been expecting.

  He lowered the gun, then remembered the bathroom and checked it before returning to the entrance and shutting the loft door. He slipped the weapon back into his holster and stood once again at the door to Sandburg's room, scratching his head.

  Jim Ellison was curled around his partner on the bed. Powerful arms surrounded the young man who lay huddled, wrapped in a thin blanket, his head tucked beneath the detective's chin, his long hair fanned over Ellison's bare arm. Their hands were joined, fingers interlocking. The picture alone would be worth his weight in blackmail material, depending on whose hands it fell into.

  Once the initial shock was over, Banks ignored the thousand none-of-his-business questions and stepped into the room. He would just make sure they were okay, then he would go. No comments. "Jim?"

  There was no response, not even a flicker of muscle moving. Ellison's face was blank, eyes closed. Simon cautiously reached out and touched the man's shoulder, but there was no reaction to his light touch. The bare arm was cool to touch.

  "Sandburg? Blair?" He tried the guide, lightly tapping the young's man's face, staying clear of the bruises. "Blair? Wake up." Still no response. Sandburg was cool, as well. Almost as if he was . . .

  His hand darted to Ellison's throat first, checking his pulse, relieved to see he was breathing evenly. Same with Sandburg. Breathing was slow and regular, as though they were deeply asleep. But someone asleep should be able to be woken up. "Blair?" he called loudly, shaking the young man's shoulder, then the detective's. "Jim!"

  Why hadn't they answered the phone?

  Why weren't they awake now? Why had the Sentinel let him walk in the loft, without being challenged? Was it because Jim knew the intruder was Banks? Or was it because Jim was unaware there even was an intruder?

  Or was it something else? That something that had made Harvey Leeks call him, worried.

  With a desperate grasp, Simon tugged Sandburg onto his back, separating the two men, but the reaction was not what he had been looking for.

  Sandburg screamed.

  Part Four

  * * *

  .

  Blair Sandburg screamed as the first violent shock ripped through his body and Jim Ellison dissolved into utter darkness. The warm, pleasant breeze of the jungle evening transformed into a sick, chill wind that engulfed and surrounded him, banishing all that was normal and right in what had been his world. Consciousness fled, and returned, only to drop from under him again. Awareness flickered in and out like a dying electrical circuit, snapping and crackling, a flourescent light on a neon sign frantically seeking to make a connection to keep it all together, to keep the light shining in the darkness.

  "Jim!" he cried out, screamed out, during one moment of connection. "Jim! What's happening? Jim! Jim!" he yelled -- or tried to yell -- his voice breaking from disuse. He tried to turn back, to find and grab hold of his partner, to remember where he had been, but he felt himself dragged from Ellison's side, torn without warning from the fabric of their existence, spun around and then hurled through space and time away from his sentinel, his friend, and his destiny.

  Flashes of blue. His world was stained with blue.

  Then even that was gone, and color blinded him.

  He could hear Jim for a brief moment, and strained to hear the faint echo of his name try to claim him back, but the words were not enough to bind him in place, and the sounds swirled down the cosmic drain. Jim was gone, siphoned away from his life, the gurgle of his voice a final death rattle.

  Sandburg tumbled in the void, dizzy, spinning, lost. His skin was raw, whipped by sharp sand hurricanes, buffeted by pounding war drums echoing in his head and chest until breathing was agony. "No," he sobbed, trying to breathe, but another scream forced its way through the grimace of his lips. He fought again to find the solace of his sentinel. Where was Jim? Why were they not together? He flung his head back, the sound breaking from his heart, tearing through his lungs. "No, damn it! Where are you? Jim? Find me!"

  His bones rattled, brittle and feeble against the onslaught of emptiness. He felt truly, utterly alone, and at that moment, he knew he would not survive; death had come for him as well, for in his tortured mind, nothing could be as cataclysmic as being severed from his sentinel. He had been with Jim, and now he was not.

  "Jim," he whispered, then whimpered deep in his throat. "Jimmmmmm."

  Darkness consumed him and he had lost the desire, the reason, to fight back.

  His sentinel was gone, beyo
nd his touch, beyond his reach. They had fragmented somehow, split into shards of flesh and soul. He was not quite . . . complete.

  He had shattered his spirit, cracked it open, but in that gaping hole was a fractured piece of Jim Ellison. Not the whole man, just a tiny reminder of what it was like to have the sentinel in his life, a taunting memory.

  It was not enough.

  He turned toward the darkness and the emptiness, walking slowly, his feet dragging on nothing, and wondered where he was.

  * * *

  .

  Simon Banks jumped back as Sandburg screamed, his hand snatched back as though burned. A half second later, a blur of motion robbed him of air. He struggled, trying to talk, trying to unravel the hands clenched around his throat. "Jim," he hissed. "Jim, let go. It's Simon."

  James Ellison had risen from the bed, teeth clenched, eyes narrowed in a fierce glare, his face twisted with promised violence. There was no recognition of his captain, no acknowledgment of Simon as friend. Seconds passed, long terrifying moments that pushed into a full minute while Simon struggled desperately against his captor. He was caught, unable to move, impossibly tight fingers digging into his throat, his breathing cut off. Black spots threatened, then robbed his vision, but the hand around his neck neither tightened further nor released him.

  "Jim!" he struggled to get out, the word distorted. "Ell's'n!" His hands tried unsuccessfully to pull at the vice-like grip on his throat.

  But the sentinel was frozen, as though he had zoned on the instant, teethed bared in fury, eyes flashing indignation and outrage, like a 3-D photograph a large cat in mid-attack. No sound issued from him, no attempt to communicate, just the one movement that culminated in Simon being trapped, unable to shift at all for fear of crushing his own larynx.

  "Jim. Jimmmmmmm." Sandburg's voice cut through the room, the word moaned from below Simon somewhere, a lost cry.

  The captain took his eyes off the fierce face inches from his own, long enough to dart a quick glance to where Blair lay abandoned on the bed. When the sound repeated, the sentinel's head tilted, listening, hearing something now that registered his complete attention and appropriated every ounce of awareness. He turned, hands dropping from Simon's throat to tenderly gather his partner in again. He lay back down, Sandburg within his grasp, eyes closing as both men retreated to whatever existence they were trapped in. Case closed. The intruder forgotten, ignored.

  "Shit."

  Simon backed from the room, shaking, stumbling to sit at the table outside the French doors. What the hell was that about? He coughed loudly, gasping in air. "What the hell was that about?" he demanded, as soon as he was able, leaning forward to rest his head on the table as he massaged the memory of being strangled from his abused throat muscles.

  Of all the strange things those two had done, that was in the top three for the strangest, the most bizarre, the most rattling moment he had endured with them. Taking first prize was the worst moment -- the best moment -- at Rainier University, scarcely a month before, when Ellison had turned around and returned to his partner's side -- his dead partner -- and somehow, some way, brought him back to life.

  That was the only way Simon could describe it. If he thought about it -- and he tried not to -- he knew that Ellison hadn't literally brought Sandburg back to life. But the sentinel had been there, and he had done something. He had been the hands that were used, the mouth that breathed air and life. If anything, the will that had willed his partner to his side.

  And now. This. Whatever this was.

  It was too much to deal with. Not after everything they had been through during the last month. Simon waited until his heart beat resumed a somewhat normal cadence, then he did what he always did under stress. He got to his feet, as soon as he was able, made up a pot of coffee and went out to the balcony to smoke his cigar. If Jim didn't like it, well, Jim could come out and tell him. The notion flitting through his thoughts that maybe he should smoke it in the living room of the loft and see if that warranted any reaction from the detective. Jim hated his house rules being violated and would surely rise from the dead to enforce them.

  Bad analogy, Banks.

  He laughed, then tried very hard not to cry, leaning over the balcony and looking out across the morning haze to the skyscrapers of Cascade's downtown, pinpointing the Cascade PD building with practiced ease. Over the bridge, it was just twenty minutes away. It might just as well be on the other side of the continent. None of the resources at his disposal would fix this particular mess. His men - his friends - were drifting away from him and there was nothing he could do to stop them.

  Thirty minutes later, clutching the tattered corners of the only idea he could come up with, Simon put down his empty mug and went back to the door of Sandburg's room, his heart rate speeding up as he watched the two men lying motionless on the narrow futon, Jim wrapped around his partner. Too damn weird.

  Okay. I can do this. Wiping damp palms on his suit pants, Simon entered the room and carefully sat down again on the edge of the bed. One hand ready to defend himself, he called to Jim, then Blair. Then he called to the Sentinel and the Guide. He methodically coaxed them, shook them gently, and finally barked an order to them to wake up. They ignored him. Granted, under normal conditions they often ignored him, but this was different. This time he was frightened. In no way was this normal, even for them.

  Desperate times called for desperate actions. He stood, crouching at the side of the bed, then got his arms under Sandburg and in one mighty lift, grabbed the anthropologist and ran from the room to drop with him to the couch. For all his frantic rushing, Ellison hadn't followed, at least not that Banks could tell. There was no movement in the other room, no sound of Sandburg's bed creaking, no furious grizzly bear came lumbering through the door toward him.

  This time, it wasn't a simple scream that tore from Blair's mouth, though, but a near silent cry of pain as the young guide suddenly reacted to being pulled from his partner's side and struggled wildly to get away from the captain.

  * * *

  .

  A flash of pain, a burst of blue light, and his world changed yet again. He was so tired of being tossed back and forth.

  The rumble came next. A sound apart from the void. The rumble became words and suddenly, arms held him, desperately, firmly, but with a grip that he recognized as gentleness and not danger. The spinning stopped. He had been caught and reeled in, the sharp hook removed from his heart, which still ached with fresh piercing pain. He was being rocked, but it was not Jim who rocked him. He tried to find the word, the name, the reason for his feeling of relative safety apart from his sentinel.

  "Blair. Oh, God . . ."

  His name. Spoken in sorrow and pain.

  "Hush. I'm here. You'll be okay."

  A promise. Spoken in a voice he knew, but not Jim's voice. Not the voice he wanted, but yet one he trusted. The name escaped him.

  Blair stopped moving, stopped thrashing around, trying to halt his tumble into the endless, frozen, forgotten, forbidden wasteland. Someone had caught him. He shivered, cold and weary, his body relaxing into the embrace, even while the shivers multiplied in a palsied shaking.

  "Blair?"

  His name was a question now, as if the speaker wasn't sure he was really there. Am I? Without my sentinel, am I really here? Or do I simply not wish to be here.

  "Come on, Sandburg. Answer me right now, or I'm calling 911. I swear to you, I will."

  It was Simon, Blair realized with a sudden jolt. Simon Banks. Captain Simon Banks. It was Simon who held him.

  He opened his mouth, and on the third try, he formed the name. "Simon?"

  "Oh, shit, Sandburg. Blair, are you okay? What happened here? What's wrong with Ellison?"

  Too much. The words were too quick and he couldn't grasp them all. Except that Simon was frightened about Jim. Which meant Blair was terrified.

  "Jim?" Blair tried to open his eyes, but the effort was beyond his skill. "Jim?" He tried to raise one hand b
ut it was trapped beneath Simon's arms. Think! Think! What's wrong with Jim? What was happening, last I can remember?

  Nothing unusual. They were hunting, talking about being hungry and what to eat. Jim wanted meat. Blair was happy with fruit. Jim was laughing because Blair kept tripping over tree roots, three times in the last half hour. "It's dusk," Blair had retorted, grinning up at him. "How do you expect me to see anything, Long Eyes? It's your job to keep me walking the straight and narrow."

  "My job? I don't think so. You need to pick up your feet, Short Stuff," Ellison had said, mussing his hair as he pushed past him, eyes already seeing what he wanted.

  "Who are you calling 'short'?" Blair had said, just as his world was pulled out from beneath him.

  And now. And now, he was with Simon.

  Tears ran from beneath his closed eyes, tracking down his cheeks. He shuddered, his face tucked into the cool fabric of Simon's cotton shirt, smooth against his rough stubble. "Jim?" he tried again, knowing it was useless. "Jim," he pleaded, begging for a reply.

  "Jim's right here," Simon said, still patting his arm in gentle circles. "Jim's here, in the other room."

  "What?" The quiet words had startled him. Here? Then why did he feel so devastated? So lost? "Where?"

  "In your room."

  "Where? Where?" He tried to see, but it was all blurry. Nothing looked right. "Where?" he cried out.

  "Here." Simon sat him up, then lifted him, and half-carried him for a moment. "He's here, Blair."

  Sandburg waited until the world stopped spinning again, and finally he was able to force his eyes to open as he was placed on something.

  He was in a room of some kind. On a bed. There was a desk. Books. Shelves of books . . . He blinked again, recognition settling. His bedroom at the loft. He was in his bedroom at the loft, and Jim was lying on the bed beside him, not wearing his camouflage army pants, but a pair of khaki shorts. He was curled on his side with--