Title: Watercolor Memories

Author: Lyrastar

Series: The Sentinel

Pairing:  Jim/Blair

Rating:  NC-17

Beta:  Sara--who deserves so much more credit than that.

Disclaimer: The characters, and all things Sentinel including related are the property of Paramount/Pet Fly Productions--at least, as far as I can remember.  Several sentences of the opening dialogue are taken directly from 'Sentinel Too' under fair use laws.  No infringement is intended and no money is being made.

The challenge: The cliché I was assigned: someone gets amnesia and forgets that they were/weren't lovers. Part of the Cliché Fest at www.kardasi.com/Cliched/

Summary: Anthropologists say that myths of death by water usually signify a rebirth.  Anthropologists are pretty smart.

Feedback: Any kind welcome at lyrastarwatcher@yahoo.com or www.geocities.com/lyrastarwatcher

Watercolor Memories

What's too painful to remember,

We simply choose to forget.

So it's the laughter we will remember

Whenever we remember

    --The Way We Were, words by Alan and Marilyn Bergman

Blair flinched. 

The student nurse held Blair's penis with one hand and gave a little tug on the catheter with the other.  The foley slid out without a hitch.  Blair sighed in relief.  The student carefully disposed of all the supplies in the biohazard waste container and made a final check. 

"Nicely done, Bruce," his supervisor said, making a note on her clipboard.

"Thanks, Tanya."  The young nurse beamed.  "Take care now, Blair," he said.  Bruce swung his hips and smiled as he brushed past Jim and out of the door, back towards the nursing station.

Tanya did a final check of her patient and readjusted the tape on his IV line.  She said to Blair, "Remember, if you can't void without the catheter, just press the call button and we can have it replaced it in a jiffy."

"It'll work," Blair hastened.  "Trust me, I'm an expert." He hastily checked himself where the catheter had been.

She shook her head playfully and sidled past Jim to make her way into the hall.  Jim watched her go.

 Now they were alone.

Jim stepped forward up to the head of the bed. "You know, Chief, if you want to meet nurses there are easier ways."

Apparently satisfied with the way things had come out, Blair settled back down in the bed. "That's great man; that's great.  Now you tell me."

Blair looked up, the predicable retort bursting on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it back instead.  For when he looked, he found Jim staring at him hard.  A chill ran through him and again the thought occurred that despite Jim's words, catheters and nurses all aside, this was no joke.  Not three days ago he had died.  He was here against all science or reason only because Jim had simply refused to let him go. 

"Thanks, man."  He didn't mean about the nurses.

Jim responded gruffly, "I couldn't let you die.  You owe last month's rent."  The words were light, but Jim's haggard face belied the silly banter and Blair took it all in.

Growing up at home, Naomi had nattered continually about men refusing to express their feelings.  Blair had always thought she was mistaken.  They did; you just had to know where to look.  He could have taught Naomi a thing or two about men.

Including when not make a scene.  Blair just said, "Oh, that's right.  Sorry about that."  His voice was very gentle.  It wasn't clear to either of them if they were still talking about the rent. 

Jim couldn't hold the moment any longer, nor did they need to.  He accepted the sympathy without comment.  He'd learned his lesson in that sickening half-hour by the fountain.  Some things were just visceral; he needed Blair in his life.  They were a part of each other now.   The thought of separation was unfathomable.

Jim cleared his throat.  "You doing all right?"

Blair did a mental one-eighty and focused in on the memory of the experience that, paradoxically, was sharper than any recollection from when he was alive.  "Yeah, you know.  I'm all right.  I saw it.  The whole out-of-body experience thing.  It wasn't like that classic light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel thing.  There was just a jungle.  I was this wolf and I was running towards a black jaguar.  Then we collided and there was this big burst of light.  Next thing I knew, I was spitting up water.

"The doctors are trying to tell me it's some type of an endorphin rush when the body starts to shut down, but it was--"

"The same image.  I saw the same image," Jim cut in.

Blair blinked.  "You had the same vision?"

"Yeah.  It was Incacha who guided me how to bring you back."

Blair shook his head in incredulity.  As if this day could get any weirder.  "I can't believe this.  Einstein said that the greatest experiences we can have are the ones with the mysterious.  We are definitely there, my brother.  Come on in, man.  The water's nice."  He beckoned with his fingers in invitation.

Jim balked.  "Chief, I don't know if I'm ready to take that trip with you." 

"Aw, come on, man.  I already did the hard part." Blair winked.

"You?" Jim blustered.  "I'm the one that--"

Just then the door swung open again.  It was Dr. Patel, the medical intern on Blair's team.  Her oversized white coat hung bedraggled from her shoulders and she appeared very tired indeed. 

She was a tiny thing, of Indian extraction Jim supposed.  She couldn't have weighed more than ninety pounds soaking wet.  Simon had joked about her having to stand on telephone books to see over the operating room tables, but she sure did know her way around a patient.  In seventy-two hours Blair had come from being declared dead to being nearly ready for discharge. 

Except for one tiny, little detail.

With a brief nod to Jim, Patel stepped up to check her patient's pupils with a penlight.  "Hello, gentlemen," she said, in pleasantly accented English.  She picked up the bedside nursing chart and surveyed it with apparent approval then stuck her stethoscope out to his chest. 

"Deep breath," she ordered.

Blair complied.  Patel checked the IV fluid as Blair pushed himself up in the bed and tented the covers modestly over his chest.  He gave her his most charming smile and tried the line she had doubtless never, ever heard before.  "What's up, doc?"

Patel made a face.  "Of all the things for you to remember it has to be bad jokes.   It's time for twenty questions again.  Can you tell me your name?"

"Blair Sandburg."  Blair answered with complete assurance.

"And where are we, Mr. Sandburg?"

"Cascade General Hospital, fourth floor, room 426."

"And what day is it today?"

"May 22 1998." 

"Which day of the week?" she prodded.

"Friday."

"Excellent." Her smile brightened and her eyes appeared just a little less heavy.  "That's a huge improvement from this morning." 

She continued down her rote list. "What is this?"  She pointed to her wrist.

"A watch."

"And this?"  She raised her pen.

"A pen."

"Who is the president?"

"Bill Clinton," Blair answered easily.

"Excellent," she said with evident surprise.

"One could argue that," Jim mumbled under his breath

"And who am I?" she finished.

"Doctor Priya T. Patel, angel of mercy, bringer of deliverance, and incarnation of Lakshmi here on earth." Blair gave her his broadest smile batted his eyelashes shamelessly.

"I'd say he's recovered," Jim said dryly.

"Mm," agreed Patel. 

She continued, "And who is this?" She gestured to Jim.

"Jim Ellison, detective extraordinare and my partner of three years." 

Patel glanced to Jim for confirmation.  He nodded curtly.

Replacing the bedside chart, Patel said, "Well, Mr. Sandburg, I have to agree with you.  You appear to have made an excellent neurological recovery.  Let's see how you do without the oxygen, get you walking around and, if all goes well, we'll write your discharge orders this evening."

"Yes!" Blair hissed.  He whipped the oxygen cannula off of his face.  With the force of the sudden movement, the index card of cheat notes popped out from under the covers and fluttered to the ground.  It landed, incriminating side up, of course, right at Patel's feet. 

Jim studied the fire sprinkler in the far corner of the ceiling with a sudden, intent interest.  Even Blair had the grace to squirm.

Patel picked up the card.  The handwriting was impeccable.  "Friday, May 22, 1998. Spring. Cascade General Hospital room 406,..." It got worse from there.

Doctor Patel sighed in exasperation.  "Really, Mr. Sandburg, how can I be expected to help you if you aren't going to be honest with me about the severity of your amnesia?  An anoxic brain injury is very complicated. Each case is different.  The neurological deficits are unpredictable.  Prognosis depends upon the severity of the insult to individual cells.  Which ones lived and which ones died.  Which ones are 'stunned', so to speak, but recovering. 

"It's not something we can put through an MRI or a PET scanner and point to.  The only guide I have to your progress is these neurological checks.  Now really, how much do you remember?"

"It's spotty," Blair confessed.  "I could give you a word-for-word recipe for my mother's humus, but I don't remember when I made it last or what's in my kitchen.  I can give you exact directions to my office, but I can't remember where I live.  I can tell you all about the Lumbee Indian subtribe, but not where I get my hair cut."

"That's because you don't get your hair cut," Jim interrupted.

Patel chuckled.  "Actually, that doesn't sound too surprising.  When did you get that recipe?"

"'Why' would be a better question," remarked Jim dryly.

"Years ago.  It was one of my mother's favorites."

"And you have lived where you do now for--?"

Blair looked at Jim.

"Almost three years," Jim filled in.

Patel nodded. "Again, it's not a rule but in general, in retrograde amnesia, older memories are preserved better than more recent ones.  I would expect there to be more holes the closer you get to present events.

"So, let's try it again," she said. "Who's pitching for the Mariner's this year?"

"Aren't they on strike?" Blair tried hopefully.

Jim dragged a hand across his eyes.  "Look, doctor, you already said that physically he was okay.  Why not let him go home?  Surely any memory recovery he is going to have would be faster in familiar surroundings."

"Absolutely," Blair chipped in.  He gestured to his groin beneath the sheet.  "Like you said, I'll just take Mr. Watermaker here for a test drive and, if all goes well, we'll be on our way."

Doctor Patel looked at Jim skeptically.  "I really can't advise that yet, sir.  Without being sure how stable his neurological status is, he shouldn't be alone."

"He won't be alone," Jim said irritably.  "We live together."

"Oh." Patel blinked.  "Detective.  When he said 'partner', I thought--"

"And Jim is very in tune with my needs," Blair oozed sweetly.  "He's really very sensitive--able to pick up on the smallest details--you'd be surprised.   If anything happens to me, day or night, he'll be the first to know and have me back here in a flash."  Blair tossed an exaggerated wink and a pucker his way.  "Won't you, dear?"

Patel blushed the most interesting shade of pomegranate through her natural dark coloring.  "I'll make the recommendation to Doctor Flocks and see what I can do."  With one hand she crammed the stethoscope down deep in her coat pocket and scurried out the door.

The door swung closed behind her keeping her from hearing the rest of their words.

"Now, Chief, that wasn't nice."

Blair fumbled with the bed railing.  "Maybe not, but I think it did the trick.  Now give me a hand here.  I want to see if my thing still works.  I'm not sure that kid knew what he was doing."

"Jesus, Chief!  Can't you do that for yourself?"

"The IV pole, Jim.  Would you hold the IV pole and tubing for me while I stand up?"

"Oh.  Sorry."

Blair shook his head.  "And they say I'm the one with the brain damage."  With a roll of his eyes, he grabbed the IV pole out of Jim's hand and padded off to the bathroom.

******

Four hours later Jim unlocked the door to 307 and pushed it open.  "Well?"

Blair stepped past him and into the loft.  "Somehow I expected it to be homier," he quipped, taking in the empty space. 

Out of long habit, Jim started to toss his keys into the basket.  He stopped his motion back when he remembered that not only the basket, but also the table and all the rest of the furniture, was no longer there.  He tossed the keys onto the kitchen counter instead.   The clang reverberated around the bare walls.  "Yeah," he said uncomfortably, "Sorry about that.  Rafe and Conner are supposed to be getting your stuff from the motel and bringing it over later."

"The motel?  I am definitely missing a big chunk of something here, man," Blair complained.

"It's complicated," Jim said.  He screwed up his face and stretched his tired neck with his arm.  "We had a fight.  You left."

"I left?"  Blair repeated blankly.

"Okay, I threw you out.  I'm sorry, alright?  There's a lot going on right now.  I'm not going to bother you with the details but--"

"Are we lovers?"  Blair blurted.

"Jesus H. Christ!  Sandburg, where the hell did you ever get an idea like that?"  Jim looked ready to explode on the spot.

"Come on, man, it's a fair question."  Blair gestured around the empty loft. "Fights, packing bags, hotels, apologies--sounds like a lover's quarrel to me.  I mean, I don't know.  Gimme a break.  This is all new to me."

"Sandburg, absolutely nothing you did in your spare time would surprise me anymore but trust me on this, I for one, am not a fag.  No, we definitely are not lovers.  That was just--" As quickly as it had come up, the wind went out of Jim's sails.  He gestured helplessly with his hands, "a bad day."  In his mind he saw Blair lying on the grass, cold and gray.  I'm sorry, guys.  Oh, Sandy.  Let it go, baby.  No.  Oh, god, no.

Jim slumped over the counter and squeezed his temples between his hands, the exhaustion taking over at last.  "A really bad day," he repeated quietly.

Blair walked over and laid a hand gently on his back.  "It's okay.  It's over."  He twisted his face.  "Under other circumstances, I would say I'd forgive and forget but considering the circumstances--"

Jim's back began to shake with the rumble of the chuckle building inside.  He whirled around and caught Blair's head in the crook of one muscular arm and gave him a ferocious noogie.  "You idiot!"

Laughing, Blair wiggled away.  "Uncle, uncle!  I give!" 

They stood across from each other, catching their breath as the tension drained away.

Jim broke the moment.  "Chief, I hate to do this to you, but I've got to get some shut eye.  While you've been loafing around in bed, I've been pacing the halls for three days and nights."

"You stayed at the hospital the whole time?" Blair asked?

"Yeah, pretty much. Anyway, I'm going to take a nap.  If you need anything come get me, otherwise, make yourself at home until Conner gets here."  Jim headed for the stairs.

"Sure."  Blair called after him, "Hey, Jim?"

Jim looked down from the upper loft.  "Um?"

"Where's my room?"

Jim pointed down.  "The door in front of you.  But, sorry, no bed.  Guess you'll just have to make do." Jim gave a quirky grin.  "Night, Chief."  And Jim disappeared over the railing.

*****

Left to his own devices, Blair wandered around the loft.  He studied the inside of the apartment door.  There were sticky lines marking a large oblong area, as if a poster had hung there before.  Try as he might, he couldn't remember what it had been of. 

He scoured the nearby wall for clues, anything that might tell him which spaces had been his, what mementos he wanted to have around and why.  He found hooks and nails and scuff marks but no answers.

He crossed to the stove.  The burners were clean.  He ran his hand over the counter as and picked up Jim's keys.  He fingered the one that had opened the door, sure that he had never seen it before.  Out of curiosity he reached into his front pocket.  Sure enough, there was a matching one.  He tossed it back and continued to the end of the kitchen and opened the fridge. 

Blue and red containers were stacked neatly on the shelves.  He recognized his favorite yogurt and a bottle of organic carrot juice as his, but had no recollection of how they came to be there.  The fan spun around behind his head, almost hypnotizing him to the spot.  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing came back at all. 

He crossed to the room Jim had said was his.  It had been stripped bare to the wood panel and floorboards, as if no one had ever lived there at all.  He studied the marks on the floor trying to deduce what he had owned and where it had been and how it had fit into his life.  What a cosmic joke, he thought, to be brought back to life only to find that that life had gone and disappeared in the process.  He supposed some people would have welcomed a fresh start, a chance to live a different life entirely.  Somehow, he suspected he was not one of those people.

With a sigh he passed through the doors to his room and back into the open area.  He wrapped his fingers around the corners of a wooden pillar and twirled around it, as if he could extract information from it by a touch. 

And then he saw the feather.

Down on the floor, wedged in the tiny crack between the flooring and the pillar was a tiny, little gray feather.  He squatted down and pulled it free.  A flash came back to him as he curled it in his hand.  A painted man he didn't know speaking in a tongue he didn't understand, dying in front of him on a sofa.  Blair glanced to the living area, where the sofa should have been.  Now he could almost see it--and the multicolored rug.  He crushed the feather tighter and felt a hand on his arm, a weight on his heart.   He wants you to guide me to my animal spirit.  I'll break every one of those cameras.... I don't want you to calm down.   I need your emotions up and I need them open.  A spiritual transition--Jim and him--outside, on the roof?

Blair reached back toward the mental fragments, but nothing more was to come.

Giving up, Blair poked the feather into his pocket and wandered out onto the balcony.  The sun had set and Cascade was lit up below.  He hung over the rail and stared.  He knew the city in a distant kind of way, but he would have sworn he had never seen it from this particular view.   And yet something about the sounds, the smells that wafted up on the young night air seemed hauntingly familiar.  It stirred something deep inside.  He closed his eyes and reached in for it but the harder he tried, it just darted farther away. 

Sighing, he yielded to the inevitable.  Blair sank into the corner, pulled his knees to his chest.  He closed his eyes and prepared to let whatever it was that was going to come to him come as it would.

The cool air blew over his body and took him back to the rooftop once again.  The forest in the sky.  He heard his own voice first.  "So make that choice, dammit."

”How many times are we going to do this."  Jim's voice floated back unseen.

 "Travel to where the animal spirit lives. A forest in the sky."

And then they were flying high up in the sky, seated on the wings of a great bird with only water below.  Jim reached over between his legs.  "Need any help with that tight little butt of yours, lambchop?"  A firm hand raked up his inner thigh and cupped the front of his pants, massaging him with its fingers. Blair felt his groin stiffen and a blast of heat run through his body. He tossed his head back and groaned and then they were falling.

His own voice came urgently, "You're on top of this.  You're on top of this, right, Jim?"

 "Blair, you all right?  Dammit Sandburg, can you hear me?"  They hit the ground and rolled to a sit, then Jim's arms were around him.

Blair dropped the hand with the gun; Jim took it gently, caressing his hand in warmth, the firearm forgotten.  He could see nothing but a brilliant golden haze but he could feel the strong hands in his hair and the warm body rocking him gently against his chest. "You've got to clap your hands.  You did it. You did it."    Jim's hands stroked his hair and crept slowly down his neck.   They explored his chest and worked their way down to his groin.  He thrust his hips gently, luxuriating in the feel of himself in Jim's hands.  The golden voice soothed as it surrounded his body,  "It's okay. Hang there, it's all right."

And then they were rolling together, rolling in the street, rolling together, over and over. A car squealed by but they paid it no heed.   And then Jim was on top of him, heavy and hard, his breath hot down his neck.  Blair craned his neck and kissed his mouth and they pushed their bodies closer together in the street.

They undressed together in a frenzy and lay naked together in the street.  Blair lay on his back and lifted his legs offering himself without shame. Jim loomed over him his, face earnest and needy.  And then as he watched, Jim lowered himself down into him.

And he was floating. Floating totally at peace.  Everything was all right--except he was so alone.

This can't be happening.  This can't be happening.  Oh, Sandy, no.

And then there was a kiss.  As cool and clear and sweet as anything he had ever known.  Jim took his face in his hands and kissed him full and hard and deep, touching him in a way he had never known.  He couldn't pull away, never would, as the beauty of Jim's life-force filled him completely.  Their lips stayed locked.  He couldn't breathe.  He needed to breathe or to cry or to move or to come but he couldn't do any of it.  He battled with his mind, battled with his frozen body, desperate now for any kind of release, until--

Blair awoke, gasping for breath.  His heart hammered in his chest and his whole body trembled.  His eyes dashed around.  The sky was dark, the loft was quiet and empty, and he was still quite alone.  He put is head down to his knees to calm himself.

Absently he noticed that his forehead was clammy.  Strands of hair clung to it and he pushed them aside with his fingers.   As he focused his thoughts on regaining control of his body, he noticed something else.  His crotch was wet and sticky and his penis irritated and over-sensitized.  Dammit.

He opened his eyes and straightened his legs.  Ruefully he inspected the dark stain widening slowly on his jeans.  Jeez, Sandy, it's been a few years since you've done that.  I guess wet dreams aren't just for kids any more. 

He pushed himself up and out of the corner and headed to the bathroom.  Great.  No towels.  And no fresh clothes, of course.  He contented himself with a splash of cold water across his face and finger-combed his hair.  He flipped his head back and straightened to meet the mirror.  "Who the hell are you anyway, kid?" he asked.

But the stranger in the mirror just stared back at him blankly.  He had no answers either.

Someone did, however.  Seeing little choice, Blair marched up the stairs to find them.

***

Upstairs, Jim lay bare-chested on the mattress on the floor, his legs tangled in the single blue sheet.  At the waist, just a hint of black silk shorts peeked out from underneath.  His chest rose and fell in easy movements until something touched his shoulder.

In a reflex action, Jim reached under the pillow and rolled to his elbow with the police issue 9mm now in hand.  The barrel came to rest directly in the face of the man hanging over him.

Blair raised his hands over his head and jumped back two feet at least.  "Easy, easy big fella.  I've already died once this week.  Isn't that enough?" He regarded Jim with apprehension, his eyes darting continuously between the gun and Jim's face.

"Shit, Sandburg!"  Jim's pulse dropped back to normal as he lowered the gun and reset the safety.  He returned it to its place under the pillow and fell back down on the mattress. 

"You ought to know better than to sneak up on me like that," Jim complained.

Blair sat down cross-legged by his side.  "Me?  I don't know anything, remember, man?  That's the whole problem here.  And as for sneaking up on you, I've been calling your name all the way up the stairs.

"What kind of a sentinel are you any way?" Blair joked dryly.  "An assault team could've crashed in here and you would've slept through it."

Jim snapped, "I told you, I'm tired.  If you needed anything I would've--"

Then something caught his nose. A sour scent hung in the air.  It was the sickly sweet smell of fear and sweat and something else as well.  Jim stopped and focused on Blair for real now.  "Are you okay?"  Jim asked as he sniffed again. 

Then he placed the smell.  Oh, kids.  Barely out of the hospital and at it already.  At that rate you'd think he'd wear that thing out.  Jim relaxed again.

"Yeah, it's just that I had a dream," said Blair, apparently oblivious to Jim's reaction.

"Another vision?" Jim asked immediately intrigued.  "I don't think I did.  I haven't seen anything except the inside of my eyelids since I hit the bed."

"No, not a vision.  No wolf, no jaguar.  Just a normal dream."

"Oh, I see," Jim said.  His mouth twisted humorously and he gave a little nod towards the telltale stain darkening Blair's crotch. 

"Yeah, that's what I mean," Blair said ruefully as he shifted in a futile effort to cover the stain.  "Like I said, no wolf, no jaguar.  Just a normal everyday wet dream.  It was all real.  All here and now.  I think a lot of it was memories trying to come back but it was all about you and me."

"Huh?"

"Jim, I had a very erotic dream about you."

"Huh?"  Jim repeated dully.  Without thinking, he pulled the sheet a little higher.  "Well, Chief, it's no big deal.  Once I dreamed that I was the lead singer for Nazareth, but that doesn't make it true--or mean that I wanted it to be true."

Blair shook his head. "No, it's not the same.  This dream was tied in to my lost memories somehow; I know it.  I spent the evening just wandering around looking for hints.  Then I found this."  He pulled the feather from his pocket.  "I fell asleep and dreamed about you and me, and then you kissed me in the grass by the fountain. When I woke up it was with the feeling that for the first time that I was finally on the right track to getting myself back."

"You're way off base, Chief.  That was just a dream.  Nothing like that ever happened."

Blair waved the feather in front of Jim's face, his anger for real now.  "This is from your Chopec friend isn't it?  Incacha? The shaman who led you to bring me back.  And now you're going to try to tell me it was just a dream?  Please," Blair scoffed.

"Come on, man.  I need to know what's going on.  Why is this happening to me?"

Jim jumped from the mattress and paced restively from one wall to the other looking much like a feral cat pacing the limits of a hated cage. He stopped at the metal door, his back to Blair.  "Dreams are weird.  You've got it all wrong.  It wasn't a kiss.  It was just CPR."

Blair kept his voice carefully neutral.  "Just CPR?"

"Blair, I am not gay."  It sounded like a plea.

Patience almost at an end, Blair snapped. "This isn't about you, man.  I'm struggling here.  Your feelings and what you do with them are your own business and you don't have to tell me anything personal, but you're the only one in this room who knows the stuff I need to know about me.   I think that as a friend, you owe me what you can tell me about that, don't you?"

Blair continued, "All I know is that that--that kiss--was the closest I have come to feeling real, to feeling like Blair Sandburg--whoever he was--since I woke up in the hospital.  So I'm asking you, why is that, man?"  His eyes burned into the back of Jim's head.  One didn't have to be a sentinel to feel it, but it sure did make things worse.

"It wasn't like that," Jim said with the sound of a man speaking mostly to himself.  "I thought you were dead."

He turned and faced Blair, his hands spread wide in the universal gesture of defeat.  "I thought you were dead.  I thought I would never see you again."

But it was Blair who gave in.  He stood up and went to Jim. He stood, not touching, but close enough for Jim to feel the nearness of his body.  "It's okay, man.  I just had to know.  It was making me nuts."

Jim snorted humorlessly.  "Yeah, I know the feeling."

Jim battled with his senses as Blair stood there, open and vulnerable before him.  He could feel the crackle of the electrical impulses as they passed through Blair's body, hear the beat of his heart in his chest. The very presence of him was almost overwhelming.  The body heat rolled over him in waves, almost stifling him in its intensity, and Jim backed away from it a fraction.

Blair caught the movement.  "So," he continued cautiously, "we really weren't lovers?"

"No."

"But you--? We--?"

Jim snorted as his head cleared.  "You're okay to have around.  What do you want, Sandburg?  A testimonial dinner?"

"No, Jim, I don't.  All I want to know is why it is that when I think about kissing you, I don't care if I ever remember anything else.  Can you explain that to me, please?"  Blair turned his long lashes up towards Jim.

"No, I can't."

Blair's face deflated.  The hurt in his voice was almost palpable. "Okay, if that's your answer."  He started to turn away.

"Aw, hell, Sandburg."  Contrition settling over him, Jim reached out and grabbed Blair's wrist.

At the contact, something between them changed.  It was like an entirely new kind of sense--one Jim had never experienced quite this way--not even in the jungle.  Under his fingers, Jim felt heat of Blair's body as it pressed warm into his palm. He isolated the pulse of the blood as it surged through the arteries and veins.  He felt the tickle of fine forearm hairs as they brushed gentle against his wrist.  He smelt the special complexity of peculiar scents that was Blair's and Blair's alone.   Perhaps most sharply of all he noted clinging odor if the chlorine and the musty spore of algae that served as a bitter reminder of what he had almost lost.

But it was none of these mundane perceptions that gave him such pause.  No, what stunned Jim utterly was the simple sense of Blair's continued existence--solid, real and vital beneath his hand.  Some elemental sense of the wonder of a life force--a life force he had thought he would never know again--overwhelmed him and Jim's face went through the most amazing transformation.  With his unrelenting strength he pulled Blair slowly towards him.

"Jim?" Blair asked but got no response.

Instead Jim reached over and slid his other hand through the lengths of Blair's hair.  For several heartbeats Jim just fondled his scalp with the pads of his fingers, as if learning the nuances of each ridge and buckle of the skull and the subtleties of each and every shaft of hair.  Blair leaned willingly into the caress, his face molding itself to the movements of Jim's fingers.   Jim locked their eyes together and drank in the love and trust he saw gazing up at him.  And then, almost without conscious thought, he drew Blair forcefully into a kiss.

At first the kiss was tentative, scouting out unknown territory.  Then it was exploratory, determined to learn every nook and cranny at once, and finally erupted into pure desire, too hot to be contained within.  Jim's fingers roamed compulsively through the waves of hair.  Blair's hands raked over Jim's back with all their strength.  They kissed until the need to breathe became more urgent than the need to be one.

Blair broke away first.  "Geez, man--"

And then Jim began to cry.

It started as a breath; an exhalation; a shudder, but it turned into a spasm; a rack; and then into simply sobs.  It was as if the dam had broken and all the pain and emotion of the past few days--or had it been longer? --was set free at once.   Jim leaned in against the hollow of Blair's shoulder, eyes closed and just hung on.  In a choked voice he repeated over and over, "I thought you were dead.  I thought you were dead." 

Blair just put his arms around him and held until it stopped.  And longer.  "I'm not," he said at last.

"Yeah, I know."  Jim wiped a hand roughly across his face and jerked away. 

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," said Blair, squeezing the broad shoulders rhythmically, refusing to let go.  "I don't want an apology, just an explanation.  I just want to know what's going on here."

Jim dropped to the mattress.  "So do I, Chief.  All I know is I never felt a pain like that before in my life.  Ever.  It was like a part of me had been ripped away.  A part I didn't even know I needed."

Jim slid over to make room as Blair crawled up beside him on the bedding.  He stiffened, but didn't protest as Blair wrapped him in his arms.

"So, what do you think that means?" Blair ventured. 

It doesn't mean anything," Jim said roughly.  "You died.  I was sad.  That's normal.  This," Jim gestured over their bodies lying awkwardly together, "is not normal.  Carrying on like this much longer means I'll never be able to show my face in the station again."

Blair rolled his eyes.   "You're subscribing to a cultural myth.  Actually, law enforcement has the same percentage of homosexuals as does the general population.  What you're perceiving is just male posturing, which is fairly consistent from culture to culture, albeit over different issues.  Men with insufficient ego strength feel a need to assert a preconceived concept of masculinity to protect their territorial imperative.  They typically express it as a reaction formation response against the stimulus.  In fact, you're doing it too."

Blair changed his tone to that of a sidenote.  "Although, ironically, in your case it's probably meant as much as a courtship display of masculinity to impress me as it is to reassure yourself.  You know, peacocks strut their feathers, whales sing their songs, moose shake their antlers--"

"Sandburg!" Jim snapped.

"It's alright, man, I understand.  There's just one thing I don't get.  Put your arbitrary psychosocial categorizations and banal societal folkways aside for a minute--if we both want the same thing, what's the big deal?"

Jim shook his head.  His voice dropped low and he licked his lips before he spoke. "It's not arbitrary to me, Blair.  It's my identity.  It's who I am.  If I lose that I lose myself."

Blair cocked his eyebrow and shot him a quirky smile.  "Oh, is that all that's bothering you?  Don't worry. I know all about that.  It's not so bad.  You get used to it pretty quickly."

"Blair, I am not like that.  I don't have sex with men."

Blair looked down and cocked his eyebrow. "Well, I don't want to be the one to pour salt on your Cornflakes, but you are in bed with a man right now--"

Jim rolled away onto his back and threw his arm across his eyes, the surrealism too much too comprehend.  "I don't believe this discussion."

Blair pulled himself over onto Jim's stomach and pushed the arm aside, forcing reality upon him once again.  "No, really, Jim, answer this one: if you have to fight so hard to maintain an identity, is it really who you are?  It seems to me that an identity should just--be."

Jim looked up into the earnest face hovering above him.  "Chief, in this great transcendental state of just being that you've achieved, are you telling me you don't you see a problem?  You don't see anything strange about this?"

Blair shrugged his eyes and joked lightly, "Nah.  But then again, I was dead three days ago so my comparison scale may not be the same as everyone else's--"

An unpleasant suspicion began to percolate through Jim's brain.  He blurted it out.  "Sandburg, are you bi?"

"I don't know.  I don't remember," Blair said casually.

"You don't remember?  What the hell does that mean?" Jim snapped.  "I'm not asking you for a license plate number.  This is not a hard question.  Do you make a habit of picking up guys or don't you?"

"I really don't know," Blair made a face.  "I have amnesia, remember?   I remember a handful of girls, but as for guys, don't know if I have or not."  Blair added parenthetically, "Although there was this--person in Borneo who was pretty ambiguous.  I'm not even sure what you'd call that.  She, or he, had a--"

"Oh geez; this is insane." Jim tried to shuffle away but he found himself already at the far edge of the mattress.

"Jim."  The urgency in Blair's voice caught Jim's ear and pulled him back.  "I don't know.  I don't know how to answer that, okay?  I don't remember much about my life in Cascade at all.  But when I woke up in that hospital bed and saw you guys all there around me, yours was the only face I recognized.  I looked at you and, without even knowing your name, I knew in my heart that you were the one I loved.  If that means I'm gay, fine.  If that means I'm bi, then that's fine too.  It doesn't change anything.  I'll accept whatever label you put on me, but please don't disregard my feelings as insane.  They're all I have left."

Jim swallowed. It would be impossible to dodge that kind of naked honesty.   "Blair, maybe you're okay here, but you've got to give me some time on this one," Jim tried.

"Sure man, whatever you need." 

Jim relaxed visibly.

"Just, you know, try to make it before next time."

"Next time?"

"Well, nothing's forever, Jim.  We both live in a dangerous world.  When you thought I was dead, what is it you thought you'd lost?  And do you really want to risk having those loose ends hanging out there again?"

Jim stared into those calm blue eyes. He said quietly, "When you died, I thought my life was over.  I don't think I can go through that again."

Blair snuggled in against Jim's chest.  "Well, that works for me.  Dying isn't exactly my first choice either." Blair found a small smile somewhere and it rolled across his face like sunshine.

They held each other's eyes for a series of heartbeats, then neither could have said who moved first. All at once, they were kissing again.  Their lips met with a purpose and Jim melted into the sensation. 

Blair's hand snaked around his waist pawing compulsively over the broad expanse of Jim's bare skin, stimulating him with a desire that was alarming in its ferocity.  Jim wrapped an arm back around Blair as well and pulled him in tight against his body.  The throb of his erection pressed unremittingly into Blair's thigh, but this time Jim did not shy away.  Instead, he slid his fingers deliberately under the waistband of Blair's jeans wiggling and working them down to the curve of Blair's butt.  Suddenly, Jim jolted back.

"Cripes, Sandburg!  Didn't your mother ever teach you to wear underwear?"

Blair blinked, confused at the abrupt transition.  "No.  She never bought any.  For either of us.  Why?"

"Oh, this is really not going to work," Jim groaned.  He rolled over on to his side and pressed his thighs together, the pressure in his balls almost painful by now.

"Jim, Jim, Jim," Blair tugged at his shoulder insistently until Jim rolled back. "Don't get so bogged down in the details.  This doesn't have to be all at once you know.  You said I'm supposed to be your guide, so trust me.  Why don't you just relax and let's see where this takes us?  It's worked pretty well for us so far, hasn't it?"

Jim yielded. "Yeah, Sandburg, we're pretty good together."

"But, maybe it could be better?" Blair ventured. "The fight, me moving out?" His voice trailed off.

Jim shook his head. "It wasn't like that, Chief.  There was never really a fight.  It's a long story, but things were--good--between us."

"But maybe they could be better?" Blair pressed.  He rolled his eyes, puppy-dog style.

Jim laughed softly.  "Maybe," he agreed and pulled Blair into a firm embrace, cheek to cheek.

All but forgotten, Incacha's feather blew softly around the floor until it drifted down the stairs, out the patio doors and over the rail into the wind.

~Lyra

September 2003