A Fair Distance: Comes a Time. Chapter Twelve
Title: A Fair Distance: Comes a Time. Chapter Twelve.
Fandom The Sentinel
Author: Laurie
Type: Slash
Rating: PG-17 (for the series)
Word count: 3532 words
Warnings: Link to warnings for the entire series
Written for Sentinel Thursday Challenge 187. Supernatural
Beta’ed by t_verano Thank you once again, Good Buddy.
Summary for A Fair Distance: A year after Blair left Jim, and Cascade, they meet again in a small Tennessee town. Blair's been arrested and is being held for questioning at the request of the Cascade PD.
This is the third and final arc to the story, and the two earlier arcs, A Fair Distance:Running on Empty and A Fair Distance: Ball and Chain, as well as several time stamps, can be located at my LJ here or at Artifact Storage Room 3 here or at AO3 here. I believe that AO3 has a nifty feature that allows you to download onto E-readers.
* * *
Shortly after Steven and I had parked in the driveway of William's house, the sky just starting to take on the tinge of dusk, Jim pulled up. I told Steven we'd join him in a minute, and he unlocked the front door and went inside.
I walked over to the old Tennessee truck that Jim had sacrificed his Sweetheart for so he could sneak me out of Tennessee without being tailed by any other hitmen, and waited for Jim to climb out. I hadn't realized that the swap was permanent until I'd been out of the hospital for a few days and I'd asked when Jim thought we should rent a vehicle or fly out to pick up his truck.
I'd felt bad for Jim when he explained what he'd done because I knew he'd loved that truck. Jim had gently bopped me on the back of the head and told me that he didn't regret losing it.
He planned on trading the current truck in for something a little sturdier, but I didn't know if he'd ever find a truck he'd liked as much as Sweetheart.
Jim got out and joined me; I bumped his shoulder with my own.
“Hey. Are you ready to do this?”
Jim slung his arm around my shoulders before he answered me, tugging me along with him as he headed for the front door. “Has to be done, Chief. Steven and I agree that we're going to sell the place and split the money with Sally. It should be enough, along with the money Dad left her in his will, to let her buy a small house of her own.”
“She hasn't changed her mind, then? About coming back?”
“No, she said she's sure. Steven cleaned out her things weeks ago, right after the funeral.”
God, the funeral. That had been painful for the small group who'd attended. I'd been torn between wanting to be there for Jim and being afraid that my presence, since William's thwarted attempt to kill me was the catalyst for his suicide, would be inappropriate. Jim's cousins were going to be there, as well as Sally and Steven, and I didn't want to make anybody uncomfortable. Jim asked me to come, unless it was going to freak me out, so for Jim, I went. I stood at Jim's side and when things looked like they were becoming overwhelming for him - repression usually does have a time limit - I slipped my hand into his, and he held onto it like I was his lifeline.
The press showed up but didn't disrupt the graveside service. Jim answered “No comment” to questions directed his way afterwards, although a picture of the two of us holding hands, dressed in our funeral suits, made it into the paper the next day.
The press really liked the idea of Jim and me as a couple and rehashed all the old crap that had been previously printed or broadcast. They'd even gotten their hands on some outtakes from the scuttled True Crimes episode Wendy Hawthorne had filmed about Jim some time ago. She'd given Jim the tapes when she decided not to run the story, but these scenes had been missed by her cleanup of that mess.
I remembered that Wendy and her cameraman had surprised us early in the morning and Jim had answered the door in his boxers, pointing his gun right at the camera, with me right behind him dressed only in the ratty undershirt and boxers that I'd been sleeping in. Of course, nobody now believed that at the time we'd only been friends and that we'd slept in separate beds.
Looking at that picture of almost naked Jim, which accompanied the gossip news story, I'd wondered why I'd waited so long before making a pass at the guy. I didn't really blame the news crew for being skeptical and pressing us to say when we'd become involved romantically. We'd refused to answer any questions they threw at us, though.
They'd also republished an old closeup news photo of me looking a little out of it, and, yeah, I could admit it, kind of vulnerable, tucked up against Jim as he walked me to his truck after Lash had set up his last tea party, with me as his guest. Really, the EMTS wanted both of us transported by ambulance to the ER - Jim had crashed down flights of stairs and through rotten floors and I'd been drugged by the S.O.B. - but Jim drove us to the hospital instead. Anybody could see from that photo that Jim cared about me a lot. At the time, I hadn't been ready to really translate that look on Jim's face. Now, though, I could see the love he hadn't been able to keep hidden.
Thinking about some of the comments and looks we'd gotten back when I'd been Jim's observer at the PD, it must have been more apparent to other people how we'd felt about each other than what we had realized for ourselves.
It had been annoying to ride out the press storm, but we knew that eventually things would die down, that the press would find another story to follow. We'd lived for that day and it hadn't come soon enough
* * *
Stopping Jim before he could open the front door to William's house, I said, “I think I'm ready. I did a lot of meditation this afternoon, but if you feel overwhelmed we can go back outside, or even leave. Remember your breathing; center yourself, okay? Listen to my heartbeat... well, only listen to it if I can keep it steady. I don't want to trigger you into sharing my panic attack if I do lose it.”
Jim nodded and squeezed my shoulder before he opened the door.
Steven had turned on lights and had made a pot of coffee. That was a good idea although we'd have to drink it black unless there was some powdered creamer in the cupboards; Steven had emptied the refrigerator of perishables the week after William died.
Steven was waiting at the cherry wood kitchen table with a large legal pad and waved us over. I fixed cups of coffee for Jim and me, rummaging around to find some flavored creamers that I suspected were Sally's. Jim didn't like them, but I did. I remembered from my last time here that William, like Jim, had liked his coffee strong and black. I felt my chest tighten a little, thinking about how we had sat together at this table and eaten Sally's apple turnovers and drunk our coffee, mine poisoned with his medication. I ran through a calming mantra and took a couple of deep breaths, before carrying our coffees to the table and sitting down.
Steven suggested that we go through each room and decide what things to keep. The rest would be sold or given away. He and Jim could decide later who got the items listed in the “to keep” section. I volunteered to bag up the itemsto give away and load them in the truck. We could stop at Goodwill tomorrow and donate them. It would help me to be able to do something, and not just listen to Jim and Steven do their co-executor thing.
Getting up to find where Sally kept the trash bags, I patted Jim on the shoulder. He looked up at me and I could see that while it was hard for him to be here, he was coping.
Good. Jim was amazing. He had faced so much trauma in his life, I was in awe of how he could just keep going and do what needed to be done.
We'd emptied the pot of coffee and I'd made myself several cups of tea before we finished the lists for all the rooms except for the study. I'd had to bat Jim away from carrying out the bags for me. I told him it was good exercise, and it was. I was tired of feeling like a ninety-pound weakling and building up my strength and stamina was pretty high up on my priority list.
By mutual unspoken agreement, we'd saved William's study for last. Guys who were pros at crime scene cleaning had tackled it, and to my eyes there weren't any traces of blood. Despite that, I thought if Jim kicked up his senses he could still see and smell traces of the carnage that had happened in that room. He didn't try to, though.
Joel had looked through William's documents and the computer to see if there was anything there that could lead us to who William had contacted for the hit on me. Neither he nor the tech wizards from the station had found anything. William hadn't been a whiz at using the computer so there hadn't been any hidden files, and he hadn't really understood how cellphones could be tracked or he wouldn't have had me come over to his house. I might have made a phone call while there using Jim's cell, and the cops could have figured out where I'd been.
His whole plan to kill me that night seemed extremely impulsive. We could guess at his motives, but nothing found in writing had explained his actions.
There was another possible way to find out what William's problem with me had been. Jim told me and Steven that he was going to meet with an old friend of his dad's tomorrow, and that probably he'd been the leak at the P.D. That old friend of his dad's, Assistant Chief Sullivan, had been rabid on the subject of me not working at the station under any circumstances. Perhaps enlightenment was around the corner.
In the study, Steven sat down on the couch, legal pad and pen ready to record, but I preferred to stand. I didn't have good memories about that couch since I'd been dumped there, helpless and dying. Jim stood behind me and drew me back against him. He tightened his arms and Steven started asking Jim about William's desk. Jim didn't want it, but Steven did; it was an antique and actually quite beautiful. I hadn't noticed how lovely it was when I'd been in here the first time.
Jim whispered in my ear, while Steven was writing down the disposition of the couch and recliner, asking if I was okay. I nodded, and he kissed me softly on the side of my face.
The ceiling lights flickered and then blew out.
“Crap,” Jim said as Steven got up and crossed to the desk, turning the desk light on.
It promptly blew also.
“I'll go check the fuse box, see if we've blown a breaker,” Jim said tiredly, and stalked out of the room.
Steven sighed and stood up. “I know where Dad kept the flashlights: I'll get some in case you and I need them. I guess Jim can see in the dark, right? If a circuit has gone bad, we'll have to call an electrician to fix it before the house sells. And this room feels a lot colder to me. Do you notice that, too, or is it just me?”
Now that Steven mentioned it, it was cooling off in here. Whatever had screwed up had affected the furnace controls for this room.
I rubbed my arms. “It's definitely colder in here. Weird, I wouldn't have thought the temperature could drop that fast.”
“Well, keep an eye on things, in case something else goes wrong. I'll be back in a jiffy,” he said, and left the room.
I shivered, and moved back into the kitchen. Immediately the air was warmer. That was strange.
Carrying a package of light bulbs and a small stepladder, Jim returned from the basement and carted his supplies into the study. I stayed put in the kitchen, wanting to stay warm.
Jim said, “The breaker was blown and I reset it. Let me replace the bulbs and let's see if it does it again.” He turned off the light switch and efficiently changed out the bulbs in the two ceiling lights.
He folded the ladder up and carried it out to the kitchen, handing it to me to lean against the wall. He went back into the study and cautiously turned on the light switch. We were rewarded by the bright glow of the lights.
Steven came in with flashlights and dropped them on the kitchen table. Jim explained what he'd done and Steven went down to the basement to look for a desk light bulb.
Jim went back into the study and started moving furniture away from the walls.
“What are you doing?” I asked him, confused.
“After the rats you've lived with, you have to ask?” he responded.
Ah, yeah, I should have thought of that. “You think mice might have chewed on the wires, screwed things up?”
“There was nothing wrong with the lights before Dad died, Chief. The house has been empty since then so maybe mice moved in. But so far I don't see or hear any evidence of them.”
“Could it have been a power surge?”
Jim looked thoughtful. “Maybe, but then why didn't it affect the other rooms?”
I shrugged. I didn't have an answer.
After Steven came back and replaced the desk light and nothing happened with the lights, I joined Jim and Steven in the study to finish the list. The temperature was once again normal, I noticed. I picked up the paperweight on William's desk and held it cupped in my hands.
Jim must have tuned in to the fact that I was feeling troubled, because he came over to me and asked what was going on.
“Ah, nothing really. I was just remembering how hard I tried to move this sucker when I was out of my body. I thought maybe I was dead, and if I was then I wanted to be like a poltergeist and use this paperweight to clobber the thugs that were shooting at Henri. I tried and tried to use mental energy or whatever, but I couldn't budge it.”
Jim took it out of my hands and placed it back on the desk, then pulled me into a hug, dropping a kiss on the top of my head.
All of the lights exploded again, and this time the windows rattled, too. The temperature dropped so fast that when Jim and I sprang apart, I could see our breath misting.
“What the...” Steven stood up from the couch, shaking his head, and quickly moved back into the kitchen.
“Jim... This is really weird.” I'm a scientist. I design a hypothesis and then try to prove it or disprove it. The one that I was coming up with I hoped would be proven false.
I grabbed Jim and turned him towards me and then I went up on tiptoes and kissed him. It wasn't a little peck across the lips, either. This was a Sandburg special and I gave it everything I had.
The windows shook harder than before, the air became colder, and things on the desk and the small table that I'd tripped over when I'd been drugged started rising in the air, whirling in a counter-clockwise movement.
I broke away from Jim, deciding it was time to get out of Dodge, and the folders, magazines, pens, papers and - oh, shit - the paperweight all were violently thrown my way.
I might have been hurt, except Jim shoved me out of the way, narrowly dodging the barrage of stuff that had been flung at me.
I caught my balance, and then felt myself shoved again. Only this time it wasn't Jim trying to help me. Jim wasn't close enough to touch me.
“Jim, get out of here!” I ran for the kitchen door and experienced another hard shove, making me stumble. Once in the kitchen, Jim and Steven beside me, I saw the crap that had fallen on the study floor rise again, then just hover in the air.
Shit, shit, shit. I started yanking open kitchen cupboards until I found a familiar cylindrical package, the little girl in her yellow raincoat and umbrella a welcome sight.
I grabbed it, went back to the door and poured a thick line of salt across the doorway. Then I ran out of the kitchen into the hallway.
“Blair, where are you going!” Steven yelled at me.
“Stay put,” I hollered. “I'll be right back.”
I kept running down the hallway and skidded to a stop in front of the other study door and repeated the salt line there.
If the lore was correct, we were safe enough now.
I hustled back to the kitchen and watched in awe as the windows stopped rattling and the objects in mid-flight dropped back to the ground.
“What in the hell!” Steven said urgently.
Jim hadn't said anything and I looked up at him. I didn't try to touch him, and he clenched his fists and opened them, but didn't use them to hold onto me, either.
“Jim, can you see him?” I asked.
He shook his head and gave a great sigh.
Bewildered, Steven asked us, “What happened in there, and why did you dump salt on the floor, Blair?”
Jim answered him. Jesus, Jim and Steven so did not need to have this added to their plate.
“Stevie... I'm... what we saw in there, the lights, the stuff moving on its own. It's our dad. Well, I'm pretty sure it's Dad's ghost, and he really doesn't like Blair and me touching. Shit. Blair are you okay? None of that stuff hit you, did it?”
“No, it missed me, thanks to you. But Jim, William shoved me. Twice. The salt I poured in the doorway, folklore states it will keep a ghost contained, but uh, maybe we should call it a night, okay? Let me do some research on how to handle this. We can't leave him to be stuck on this plane of existence. We just can't.”
I hated to think of William in limbo here, not able to follow the path to whatever came next after death.
Steven looked shell-shocked; Jim noticed, too.
“Come on over to our place, Stevie. There's a bottle of whiskey with our names on it and you can sleep in Blair's old room.”
We left, Jim turning out the lights and locking the door, and he threw his arm around me as we headed for the truck.
“Fuck you, Dad,” Jim muttered once we were in the truck. “I'm not giving him up, so you can have your tantrums all you want.”
Jim started the engine, and pulled out fast, Steven following us.
“Jim, we'll figure this out. Did you notice anything at all with your senses?”
“The temperature dropping, but then you did too, right? I don't really want to take that stuff again that let me see Molly that time.”
“It might help you to communicate with your dad, but you saw Molly's ghost the first time without taking Niktabi. You don't have to do anything you don't want to, ever, Jim. I'll see what I can find out, do some searches on-line, hit the library. We'll figure this out, okay?”
Jim reached for my hand and drove rapidly, his hand gripping mine, his gesture an echo of how he'd tightly gripped my arm when we'd left Sweetwater, Tennessee. I'd been his captive then, given over to him by legal means into protective custody, but despite the anger I'd felt I'd known he was doing it because in at least some way he still cared about me.
Jim loved me. I had no doubt about that, and I tightened my own grip on his hand. Our lives were intertwined now probably even past the curtain of death.
When I died, would I refuse to leave this earthly plane unless Jim was with me? Would Jim? If souls returned housed in new flesh, would Jim and I find each other again? We'd blended souls, I believed, when Jim had come for me as I lay dead on the grass by the fountain. How can you leave a part of your soul behind?
'You did,' I reminded myself, 'when you left Cascade.'
Jim had come after me, finally, thanks to Simon. If he hadn't, would our paths have crossed again, either in this life or another future one?
“Hey.”
Jim shot me a questioning glance.
“You're stuck with me, you know.”
A small grin stole across Jim's face.
“I'm not complaining.”
Jim slowed down to the speed limit, and my thoughts turned back to William. We'd help him make that final crossing, if he couldn't manage it on his own. He was part of Jim's tribe, his family, and that made him my family, too. I wasn't going to let him suffer as one of the restless dead.
~oo~oo~oo~oo~
Laurie
A Fair Distance. Comes a Time. Chapter Thirteen
Fandom The Sentinel
Author: Laurie
Type: Slash
Rating: PG-17 (for the series)
Word count: 3532 words
Warnings: Link to warnings for the entire series
Written for Sentinel Thursday Challenge 187. Supernatural
Beta’ed by t_verano Thank you once again, Good Buddy.
Summary for A Fair Distance: A year after Blair left Jim, and Cascade, they meet again in a small Tennessee town. Blair's been arrested and is being held for questioning at the request of the Cascade PD.
This is the third and final arc to the story, and the two earlier arcs, A Fair Distance:Running on Empty and A Fair Distance: Ball and Chain, as well as several time stamps, can be located at my LJ here or at Artifact Storage Room 3 here or at AO3 here. I believe that AO3 has a nifty feature that allows you to download onto E-readers.
* * *
Shortly after Steven and I had parked in the driveway of William's house, the sky just starting to take on the tinge of dusk, Jim pulled up. I told Steven we'd join him in a minute, and he unlocked the front door and went inside.
I walked over to the old Tennessee truck that Jim had sacrificed his Sweetheart for so he could sneak me out of Tennessee without being tailed by any other hitmen, and waited for Jim to climb out. I hadn't realized that the swap was permanent until I'd been out of the hospital for a few days and I'd asked when Jim thought we should rent a vehicle or fly out to pick up his truck.
I'd felt bad for Jim when he explained what he'd done because I knew he'd loved that truck. Jim had gently bopped me on the back of the head and told me that he didn't regret losing it.
He planned on trading the current truck in for something a little sturdier, but I didn't know if he'd ever find a truck he'd liked as much as Sweetheart.
Jim got out and joined me; I bumped his shoulder with my own.
“Hey. Are you ready to do this?”
Jim slung his arm around my shoulders before he answered me, tugging me along with him as he headed for the front door. “Has to be done, Chief. Steven and I agree that we're going to sell the place and split the money with Sally. It should be enough, along with the money Dad left her in his will, to let her buy a small house of her own.”
“She hasn't changed her mind, then? About coming back?”
“No, she said she's sure. Steven cleaned out her things weeks ago, right after the funeral.”
God, the funeral. That had been painful for the small group who'd attended. I'd been torn between wanting to be there for Jim and being afraid that my presence, since William's thwarted attempt to kill me was the catalyst for his suicide, would be inappropriate. Jim's cousins were going to be there, as well as Sally and Steven, and I didn't want to make anybody uncomfortable. Jim asked me to come, unless it was going to freak me out, so for Jim, I went. I stood at Jim's side and when things looked like they were becoming overwhelming for him - repression usually does have a time limit - I slipped my hand into his, and he held onto it like I was his lifeline.
The press showed up but didn't disrupt the graveside service. Jim answered “No comment” to questions directed his way afterwards, although a picture of the two of us holding hands, dressed in our funeral suits, made it into the paper the next day.
The press really liked the idea of Jim and me as a couple and rehashed all the old crap that had been previously printed or broadcast. They'd even gotten their hands on some outtakes from the scuttled True Crimes episode Wendy Hawthorne had filmed about Jim some time ago. She'd given Jim the tapes when she decided not to run the story, but these scenes had been missed by her cleanup of that mess.
I remembered that Wendy and her cameraman had surprised us early in the morning and Jim had answered the door in his boxers, pointing his gun right at the camera, with me right behind him dressed only in the ratty undershirt and boxers that I'd been sleeping in. Of course, nobody now believed that at the time we'd only been friends and that we'd slept in separate beds.
Looking at that picture of almost naked Jim, which accompanied the gossip news story, I'd wondered why I'd waited so long before making a pass at the guy. I didn't really blame the news crew for being skeptical and pressing us to say when we'd become involved romantically. We'd refused to answer any questions they threw at us, though.
They'd also republished an old closeup news photo of me looking a little out of it, and, yeah, I could admit it, kind of vulnerable, tucked up against Jim as he walked me to his truck after Lash had set up his last tea party, with me as his guest. Really, the EMTS wanted both of us transported by ambulance to the ER - Jim had crashed down flights of stairs and through rotten floors and I'd been drugged by the S.O.B. - but Jim drove us to the hospital instead. Anybody could see from that photo that Jim cared about me a lot. At the time, I hadn't been ready to really translate that look on Jim's face. Now, though, I could see the love he hadn't been able to keep hidden.
Thinking about some of the comments and looks we'd gotten back when I'd been Jim's observer at the PD, it must have been more apparent to other people how we'd felt about each other than what we had realized for ourselves.
It had been annoying to ride out the press storm, but we knew that eventually things would die down, that the press would find another story to follow. We'd lived for that day and it hadn't come soon enough
* * *
Stopping Jim before he could open the front door to William's house, I said, “I think I'm ready. I did a lot of meditation this afternoon, but if you feel overwhelmed we can go back outside, or even leave. Remember your breathing; center yourself, okay? Listen to my heartbeat... well, only listen to it if I can keep it steady. I don't want to trigger you into sharing my panic attack if I do lose it.”
Jim nodded and squeezed my shoulder before he opened the door.
Steven had turned on lights and had made a pot of coffee. That was a good idea although we'd have to drink it black unless there was some powdered creamer in the cupboards; Steven had emptied the refrigerator of perishables the week after William died.
Steven was waiting at the cherry wood kitchen table with a large legal pad and waved us over. I fixed cups of coffee for Jim and me, rummaging around to find some flavored creamers that I suspected were Sally's. Jim didn't like them, but I did. I remembered from my last time here that William, like Jim, had liked his coffee strong and black. I felt my chest tighten a little, thinking about how we had sat together at this table and eaten Sally's apple turnovers and drunk our coffee, mine poisoned with his medication. I ran through a calming mantra and took a couple of deep breaths, before carrying our coffees to the table and sitting down.
Steven suggested that we go through each room and decide what things to keep. The rest would be sold or given away. He and Jim could decide later who got the items listed in the “to keep” section. I volunteered to bag up the itemsto give away and load them in the truck. We could stop at Goodwill tomorrow and donate them. It would help me to be able to do something, and not just listen to Jim and Steven do their co-executor thing.
Getting up to find where Sally kept the trash bags, I patted Jim on the shoulder. He looked up at me and I could see that while it was hard for him to be here, he was coping.
Good. Jim was amazing. He had faced so much trauma in his life, I was in awe of how he could just keep going and do what needed to be done.
We'd emptied the pot of coffee and I'd made myself several cups of tea before we finished the lists for all the rooms except for the study. I'd had to bat Jim away from carrying out the bags for me. I told him it was good exercise, and it was. I was tired of feeling like a ninety-pound weakling and building up my strength and stamina was pretty high up on my priority list.
By mutual unspoken agreement, we'd saved William's study for last. Guys who were pros at crime scene cleaning had tackled it, and to my eyes there weren't any traces of blood. Despite that, I thought if Jim kicked up his senses he could still see and smell traces of the carnage that had happened in that room. He didn't try to, though.
Joel had looked through William's documents and the computer to see if there was anything there that could lead us to who William had contacted for the hit on me. Neither he nor the tech wizards from the station had found anything. William hadn't been a whiz at using the computer so there hadn't been any hidden files, and he hadn't really understood how cellphones could be tracked or he wouldn't have had me come over to his house. I might have made a phone call while there using Jim's cell, and the cops could have figured out where I'd been.
His whole plan to kill me that night seemed extremely impulsive. We could guess at his motives, but nothing found in writing had explained his actions.
There was another possible way to find out what William's problem with me had been. Jim told me and Steven that he was going to meet with an old friend of his dad's tomorrow, and that probably he'd been the leak at the P.D. That old friend of his dad's, Assistant Chief Sullivan, had been rabid on the subject of me not working at the station under any circumstances. Perhaps enlightenment was around the corner.
In the study, Steven sat down on the couch, legal pad and pen ready to record, but I preferred to stand. I didn't have good memories about that couch since I'd been dumped there, helpless and dying. Jim stood behind me and drew me back against him. He tightened his arms and Steven started asking Jim about William's desk. Jim didn't want it, but Steven did; it was an antique and actually quite beautiful. I hadn't noticed how lovely it was when I'd been in here the first time.
Jim whispered in my ear, while Steven was writing down the disposition of the couch and recliner, asking if I was okay. I nodded, and he kissed me softly on the side of my face.
The ceiling lights flickered and then blew out.
“Crap,” Jim said as Steven got up and crossed to the desk, turning the desk light on.
It promptly blew also.
“I'll go check the fuse box, see if we've blown a breaker,” Jim said tiredly, and stalked out of the room.
Steven sighed and stood up. “I know where Dad kept the flashlights: I'll get some in case you and I need them. I guess Jim can see in the dark, right? If a circuit has gone bad, we'll have to call an electrician to fix it before the house sells. And this room feels a lot colder to me. Do you notice that, too, or is it just me?”
Now that Steven mentioned it, it was cooling off in here. Whatever had screwed up had affected the furnace controls for this room.
I rubbed my arms. “It's definitely colder in here. Weird, I wouldn't have thought the temperature could drop that fast.”
“Well, keep an eye on things, in case something else goes wrong. I'll be back in a jiffy,” he said, and left the room.
I shivered, and moved back into the kitchen. Immediately the air was warmer. That was strange.
Carrying a package of light bulbs and a small stepladder, Jim returned from the basement and carted his supplies into the study. I stayed put in the kitchen, wanting to stay warm.
Jim said, “The breaker was blown and I reset it. Let me replace the bulbs and let's see if it does it again.” He turned off the light switch and efficiently changed out the bulbs in the two ceiling lights.
He folded the ladder up and carried it out to the kitchen, handing it to me to lean against the wall. He went back into the study and cautiously turned on the light switch. We were rewarded by the bright glow of the lights.
Steven came in with flashlights and dropped them on the kitchen table. Jim explained what he'd done and Steven went down to the basement to look for a desk light bulb.
Jim went back into the study and started moving furniture away from the walls.
“What are you doing?” I asked him, confused.
“After the rats you've lived with, you have to ask?” he responded.
Ah, yeah, I should have thought of that. “You think mice might have chewed on the wires, screwed things up?”
“There was nothing wrong with the lights before Dad died, Chief. The house has been empty since then so maybe mice moved in. But so far I don't see or hear any evidence of them.”
“Could it have been a power surge?”
Jim looked thoughtful. “Maybe, but then why didn't it affect the other rooms?”
I shrugged. I didn't have an answer.
After Steven came back and replaced the desk light and nothing happened with the lights, I joined Jim and Steven in the study to finish the list. The temperature was once again normal, I noticed. I picked up the paperweight on William's desk and held it cupped in my hands.
Jim must have tuned in to the fact that I was feeling troubled, because he came over to me and asked what was going on.
“Ah, nothing really. I was just remembering how hard I tried to move this sucker when I was out of my body. I thought maybe I was dead, and if I was then I wanted to be like a poltergeist and use this paperweight to clobber the thugs that were shooting at Henri. I tried and tried to use mental energy or whatever, but I couldn't budge it.”
Jim took it out of my hands and placed it back on the desk, then pulled me into a hug, dropping a kiss on the top of my head.
All of the lights exploded again, and this time the windows rattled, too. The temperature dropped so fast that when Jim and I sprang apart, I could see our breath misting.
“What the...” Steven stood up from the couch, shaking his head, and quickly moved back into the kitchen.
“Jim... This is really weird.” I'm a scientist. I design a hypothesis and then try to prove it or disprove it. The one that I was coming up with I hoped would be proven false.
I grabbed Jim and turned him towards me and then I went up on tiptoes and kissed him. It wasn't a little peck across the lips, either. This was a Sandburg special and I gave it everything I had.
The windows shook harder than before, the air became colder, and things on the desk and the small table that I'd tripped over when I'd been drugged started rising in the air, whirling in a counter-clockwise movement.
I broke away from Jim, deciding it was time to get out of Dodge, and the folders, magazines, pens, papers and - oh, shit - the paperweight all were violently thrown my way.
I might have been hurt, except Jim shoved me out of the way, narrowly dodging the barrage of stuff that had been flung at me.
I caught my balance, and then felt myself shoved again. Only this time it wasn't Jim trying to help me. Jim wasn't close enough to touch me.
“Jim, get out of here!” I ran for the kitchen door and experienced another hard shove, making me stumble. Once in the kitchen, Jim and Steven beside me, I saw the crap that had fallen on the study floor rise again, then just hover in the air.
Shit, shit, shit. I started yanking open kitchen cupboards until I found a familiar cylindrical package, the little girl in her yellow raincoat and umbrella a welcome sight.
I grabbed it, went back to the door and poured a thick line of salt across the doorway. Then I ran out of the kitchen into the hallway.
“Blair, where are you going!” Steven yelled at me.
“Stay put,” I hollered. “I'll be right back.”
I kept running down the hallway and skidded to a stop in front of the other study door and repeated the salt line there.
If the lore was correct, we were safe enough now.
I hustled back to the kitchen and watched in awe as the windows stopped rattling and the objects in mid-flight dropped back to the ground.
“What in the hell!” Steven said urgently.
Jim hadn't said anything and I looked up at him. I didn't try to touch him, and he clenched his fists and opened them, but didn't use them to hold onto me, either.
“Jim, can you see him?” I asked.
He shook his head and gave a great sigh.
Bewildered, Steven asked us, “What happened in there, and why did you dump salt on the floor, Blair?”
Jim answered him. Jesus, Jim and Steven so did not need to have this added to their plate.
“Stevie... I'm... what we saw in there, the lights, the stuff moving on its own. It's our dad. Well, I'm pretty sure it's Dad's ghost, and he really doesn't like Blair and me touching. Shit. Blair are you okay? None of that stuff hit you, did it?”
“No, it missed me, thanks to you. But Jim, William shoved me. Twice. The salt I poured in the doorway, folklore states it will keep a ghost contained, but uh, maybe we should call it a night, okay? Let me do some research on how to handle this. We can't leave him to be stuck on this plane of existence. We just can't.”
I hated to think of William in limbo here, not able to follow the path to whatever came next after death.
Steven looked shell-shocked; Jim noticed, too.
“Come on over to our place, Stevie. There's a bottle of whiskey with our names on it and you can sleep in Blair's old room.”
We left, Jim turning out the lights and locking the door, and he threw his arm around me as we headed for the truck.
“Fuck you, Dad,” Jim muttered once we were in the truck. “I'm not giving him up, so you can have your tantrums all you want.”
Jim started the engine, and pulled out fast, Steven following us.
“Jim, we'll figure this out. Did you notice anything at all with your senses?”
“The temperature dropping, but then you did too, right? I don't really want to take that stuff again that let me see Molly that time.”
“It might help you to communicate with your dad, but you saw Molly's ghost the first time without taking Niktabi. You don't have to do anything you don't want to, ever, Jim. I'll see what I can find out, do some searches on-line, hit the library. We'll figure this out, okay?”
Jim reached for my hand and drove rapidly, his hand gripping mine, his gesture an echo of how he'd tightly gripped my arm when we'd left Sweetwater, Tennessee. I'd been his captive then, given over to him by legal means into protective custody, but despite the anger I'd felt I'd known he was doing it because in at least some way he still cared about me.
Jim loved me. I had no doubt about that, and I tightened my own grip on his hand. Our lives were intertwined now probably even past the curtain of death.
When I died, would I refuse to leave this earthly plane unless Jim was with me? Would Jim? If souls returned housed in new flesh, would Jim and I find each other again? We'd blended souls, I believed, when Jim had come for me as I lay dead on the grass by the fountain. How can you leave a part of your soul behind?
'You did,' I reminded myself, 'when you left Cascade.'
Jim had come after me, finally, thanks to Simon. If he hadn't, would our paths have crossed again, either in this life or another future one?
“Hey.”
Jim shot me a questioning glance.
“You're stuck with me, you know.”
A small grin stole across Jim's face.
“I'm not complaining.”
Jim slowed down to the speed limit, and my thoughts turned back to William. We'd help him make that final crossing, if he couldn't manage it on his own. He was part of Jim's tribe, his family, and that made him my family, too. I wasn't going to let him suffer as one of the restless dead.
~oo~oo~oo~oo~
Laurie
A Fair Distance. Comes a Time. Chapter Thirteen