Fic: Aguas Profundas (Sentinel, Gen, R) (Part 2 of 2)

[sara_merry99]

Title: Aguas Profundas
Author: Sara

For disclaimers and ratings and thanks to the village that helped raise this child, please see part 1.

If you missed it, part one is here.



"He's sleepin' now, Detective Ellison, but you can go on in if you want," the nurse said, smiling at him. She handed him a clear plastic bag. "Here's his personal belongings."

Jim nodded and took he bag. He knew this nurse, remembered her from when Blair was here during the Golden overdose. He dug through his memory, finally pulling up a name, "Thanks, Glory. You'll be keeping an eye on him, then?"

She smiled, white teeth flashing, "Not as good as you, Detective, but I'll be here until tomorrow morning."

"Good," Jim said to her with a nod, then pushed open the door. Blair was pale, but solid and reassuringly alive. He had an oxygen mask on and an IV in the back of his right hand. Wires ran from his chest to a monitor that beeped overhead. Pulling up a chair, Jim sat heavily and rested his hand on Blair's arm. He felt cooler, still feverish but no longer blazing.

Jim sat there for an indefinite time, eyes closed, paying attention to nothing but the steadiness of Sandburg's heart, the worrying rattle of his lungs, the solidity of him, flesh and bone and skin under his hand.

Outside of the area of awareness he was allowing himself, shadows flickered and flashed, snarled and howled, but this living Blair was real. So he kept his attention there. Not quite zoning, but deliberately unaware of the rest of the world. Clinging to reality.

Jim didn't notice Simon's arrival until he felt a touch on his shoulder. He tensed, then relaxed when he picked up Simon's familiar scent--tobacco, coffee and Old Spice. Safe. Trusted. He shook himself out of his focus on Blair and, without looking away from his friend, took stock of his surroundings. The shadows had shifted well around the room; morning had turned into golden afternoon and Jim hadn't even realized it.

"How is he?" Simon asked, pulling up another chair.

Jim cleared his rusty throat, then said, "His fever's down. His lungs sound clearer than this morning, so the antibiotics seem to be working."

"Good." Simon looked at Blair, then back at Jim. "He was doing something strange in a store room. We found candles. Markings on the floor. One of the professors said it looked like a ritual of some sort." He paused, then went on, voice tight, "Jim, we found a mortar and pestle with traces of sedatives in it."

Jim rubbed his forehead with his free hand. " You can see what he took here." He handed Simon the clear bag from where it lay next to him and pointed. "Over the counter sleeping pill. Doctor says he didn't exceed the listed dose." He looked away from Blair for just a second and faced Simon. "He wasn't trying to kill himself, Simon." His shoulders were square and his voice firm. The best way to sound confident...

Simon looked into the bag, avoiding Jim's eyes. "So what was he doing?"

Jim shook his head and let his gaze go back to Blair. "He passed out just after I found him and hasn't woken up since."

Simon shifted the items around in the bag. "What's this?" he asked, then handed the bag back to Jim.

His finger was indicating a twist of cloth, shimmering water-blue fabric wrapped around something. "I don't know," Jim said, opening the bag. The bundle was heavy for its size, and tied tightly. Jim fumbled with the knots, the silk slipping through his fingers.

When he finally got it open, he found inside two smaller bundles one red and one black. Unwrapping the black fabric he found a crudely carved grey-stone figurine of a wolf. It was barely recognizable, only the perk of the ears and the line of the tail showing what it was. The red fabric contained a slightly less crude figure of a black jaguar. The tail was wrong, but the curve of the spine and the springiness of the limbs were exactly right. Where had Blair found these? What were they for?

When he touched the statues with his bare hand, the world shifted around him. All he could smell was wet jungle, all he could hear was danger hidden in the blue-black foliage. Next to him, Blair's breath faded out, his heart stopped. Panicked, Jim turned to him and saw Blair, IV and oxygen mask gone, mouth slack, lying on the bed. His skin was wet and the light gleamed off it in blue sparks.

Jim shifted the fabric and the statues into his right hand and with his left reached for a pulse. Blair's heartbeat and breath, colors, chilled hospital air, Simon's cologne--all of reality--slammed into him. The change was so sudden it left Jim's head spinning and his stomach churning.

Simon was saying something, but Jim ignored him.

Guided by some impulse he didn't question, Jim spread out first the blue cloth, then the black, then the red on the table next to Blair's bed. He was nervous about handling the figurines again, going back to that place where Blair was cold and dead, but aside from a howl from a blue tinged shadow as he set them shoulder to shoulder on the cloths, all was normal.

"Jim! Jim, are you okay? What the hell are those?" Simon asked when Jim had backed away from the table. His voice was rough with concern and irritation.

Before Jim could answer, Blair, voice faint and raspy, muffled by the oxygen mask, answered from the bed, "Us. Red and black. Life and death." Jim whirled to look at him. Somehow he looked even more fragile and thin awake than he had asleep. More wounded somehow. Weighed down by the hospital trappings.

Jim sat back down, unable to support his weight under the onslaught of his emotions, relief, anger, worry, fear, love, stress. He modulated most of that out of his voice, keeping calm for Sandburg's sake. Sandburg looked like a whisper would break him, let alone a shout. "Hey, Chief. Welcome back," Jim said, resting his hand on the arm in front of him.

Blair's eyes flew open and his gaze locked with Jim's. When he spoke his voice was hardly more than a breath, "You...you were there. You know? You saw? Did we...?" The tumble of words triggered a coughing fit.

In the background, barely noticed, Simon slipped out the door of the room.

As Sandburg's coughing calmed, Jim said, "You're okay, Chief." It wasn't true, but he hoped that the words would help make it so.

Blair shook his head, controlling his breathing into shallow pants. "No, I'm not. You stopped me. Damn it, Jim, you stopped me," his voice crackled with anger and ached with sadness and Jim didn't know what to make of the combination.

"I don't even know what the hell you were trying to do," Jim said, irritation hardening his voice. "You drugged yourself and were heading toward the fountain. Of course I stopped you. You could barely walk and you were burning up. What did you expect me to do?"

Blair closed his eyes. "I didn't expect you to be there at all," he snapped. His words ended in a choked cough that was followed by a soft whisper, "But I hoped you would help." The quiet words were a gut-punch.

While Jim was reeling, the doctor came into the room, followed by Simon. "Hello, Mr. Sandburg. I'm Doctor Slaten. It's good to see you awake. You have a nasty bacterial pneumonia, probably as a sequel to your recent drowning. It's a good thing Detective Ellison brought you in when he did."

"When can I leave?" Blair asked. "I've got to go."

Simon caught Jim's eye from his position by the door and whispered, "What's going on?" Jim's only response was a shrug and a shake of the head.

"Well," the doctor answered, consulting his charts, "We'd like to keep you here for a day or two, just to replenish your fluids and bring your temperature down. If you continue to respond to the antibiotics, you'll be able to leave the day after tomorrow."

Blair shook his head and struggled to sit up. "Not good enough. I've got to be...," his words were interrupted by a cough. "I've got to get out of here."

Jim eased Blair back down onto the bed. "That's not going to be possible, Chief."

Blair fought against Jim's hands. "It's not up to you, Ellison," he snapped, voice fierce. But even that little bit of defiance exhausted him and he collapsed against the bed, overcome with a coughing fit so intense it looked painful.

While Blair was coughing, Jim said to the doctor, "I'll talk to him. See what I can do."

The doctor closed Blair's file with a decisive gesture. "He checked himself out AMA after his drowning. This is quite probably a result of that decision. If he leaves again, I hate to predict what could happen." He walked out the door without looking back at his patient.

Clearing his throat discreetly, Simon said, "I'm going to get back to the station, Jim. Consider yourself on leave for the next couple of days. If you need more time than that, let me know." He looked at the bed where Blair lay, breathing normally now, eyes closed. "Let him know I was here, will you? I'm not sure he ever saw me."

Jim nodded. "Yes, sir. I really appreciate all your help. Last night and today. I owe you one."

With a chuckle, Simon said, "Jim, for this you owe me more than one," and walked out the door.

Jim sat back down with an exhausted sigh. With the solidly normal presences of Simon and the doctor gone, the shadows growled at him and the fluorescent lights flickered blue overhead, specks of light through a jungle canopy. Blair, though, was reassuringly real, skin warm under Jim's hand. Warm and alive. And awake, though he was trying to pretend otherwise.

Rubbing his temple, Jim said, "Will you tell me one thing, Chief?" Blair didn't answer, but Jim went on anyway, "What were you..." He took a deep breath. He couldn't figure out how to ask what he needed to know. "You weren't planning to..." Fuck. He let anger take his voice and give shape to his words. "Do you really want me to help you kill yourself, for God's sake?" he snapped.

Blair opened his eyes wide. "Where the hell did that come from?" His voice was laced with more than a little irritation as well.

Blair's anger fed Jim's own, giving him strength. He rose to his feet to lean over Blair and said, "You drugged yourself and were going to the fountain where you fucking died. You were going to die there all over again." The anger left him in the horror of the thought, and he sat back down, saying, "I can't lo...go through that again."

Blair twitched his hand on the bed and Jim took it into his own. "No, Jim. No. That's not the plan. I need to do something in the fountain. So we, I, can move on. Will you help me?" He squeezed Jim's hand.

Jim rubbed his temple, trying to calm the throbbing of his head, and found himself saying, to his surprise, "What do you need me to do?"

As soon as the words were out of his mouth the scene shifted in a scream of blue. Blair's hand in his was wet, cold, limp. He jerked away. Blair lay on grass, wet hair trailing in streamers around him, mouth agape.

Fuck. Not again. Not dead again.

The blue light made the air thick, like water. He couldn't breathe, but he heard a voice, his voice, shouting, "This can't be happening." He looked around, there should be EMTs, Simon, Megan. People. There was no one there. They were alone. He was alone. He reached for Blair, hands on his chest, hands on his face. God. Nothing, nothing.

Again.

Out in the jungle the wolf howled and the jaguar roared from a different direction. Too far apart, the jaguar would never get to the wolf in time. All around them, him, were growls and snarls, the voices of unfamiliar threats.

He pounded on Blair's chest, beating a heart rhythm into him. Trying to save him. But this wouldn't work. It hadn't worked and he knew it. His hands were stained with blood from the three cuts across Blair's chest.

This wasn't the way.

But he didn't know what else to do. Couldn't do anything.

He looked back at Blair's face. Open blue eyes. Staring at him. Staring, but still dead.

Jim's horror struck gasp brought him the taste of the hospital, antiseptics and the breath of a thousand diseases. His eyes flew open to see Blair in his bed, alive, oxygen mask firmly in place.

Blair was looking at him, eyes huge and holding more questions than Jim could possibly have answered. Only one came out, though, "What the fuck was that?"

Jim clenched his teeth together to control the tossing of his stomach. He couldn't answer, not just yet, couldn't even think about it. He looked into the corner of the room, the same corner that had been shadowed and growling moments before. It was sunlit now, bright. But on the floor, half hidden by a chair, Jim thought he could see a pool of water that glinted blue in the sunlight.

He closed his eyes.

Once his stomach was under control, Jim looked back to Blair. He'd turned his head away from Jim, and his eyes were closed tight, and moisture stuck his lashes together. Jim sniffed. Salt. "You okay, Chief? Hurting? I could get the nurse."

Blair didn't answer, just hunched in farther on himself until Jim was afraid he'd disappear altogether.

Fuck.

Jim rubbed his forehead. He was on a precipice as he had been with the warrior in Peru. Forward or back, those were his choices and only he could make the decision. He looked over the cliff for a moment then made the only decision he could make.

"That was your death, Blair. Again," he said quickly, hand on Blair's shoulder.

"Jesus," Blair said, turning to look at him. The unhealthy pallor of Sandburg's skin had bleached even further and his eyes burned red, but Jim couldn't tell if that was from illness or tears. "Again?"

Jim nodded. "Again. All day," he said, then propped his elbows on the edge of the bed so he could rest his forehead in his hands. "What did you see?" he asked. He was afraid of the answer, afraid to hear that Blair was sharing the visions of Jim completely unable to help him, unable to save him. Unable to do anything.

"I was standing by the fountain. A black jaguar, your jaguar, leapt out of my chest. Then all I could see was you..." His voice hitched and his heart sped up. He coughed and that triggered another fit that went on for a full minute.

When it was over, Jim offered water, but Blair refused, waving him weakly away. He sagged back against the pillows, worn out.

Jim sat back in his chair, eyes closed, hearing dialed down as far as he could without losing the sound of Blair's heart. He didn't want to know about the shadows that throbbed with menace. He needed to close them out, keep focused on Blair if he was going to be able to help his friend. To save him.

When the rhythm of Blair's pulse changed, Jim opened his eyes to see Sandburg's blue eyes staring at him. He forced a smile. "Good nap?"

Shaking his head, Blair said, "Not really. I was thinking about what you said, about seeing my...me." Jim sat up straight in his chair, head pounding again. "What...what do you..." Blair bit his lip, then blurted out, "What do you do when you see me...dying?" He swallowed hard. "In these visions."

"I try to revive you, what the hell do you think I do?" Jim asked, voice harsher than he intended it to be. He clenched his teeth together and braced for another question.

But there wasn't one. Blair just nodded and closed his eyes again. Not sleeping, not even resting now. He was thinking hard, and from the racing of his heart, Jim guessed they weren't good thoughts.

After at least ten minutes, Blair said, "I've got to get out of here. I've got to be back at the fountain before dawn or it will start all over again." He pushed himself up to a sitting position. "I can't go through it again."

"Can't go through what, Chief?" Jim asked. As soon as the final word passed his lips the world shifted around him and he was in the jungle again, crossbow in his hand. Blair's scream shattered the air into a million blue droplets and he took off running. Two, three steps and then he could see, could see what was happening.

Across a clearing he could just make out the fountain, almost hidden by a flurry of movement. There were screams and shouts and a gibbering howl that stopped Jim in his tracks. He could hear Blair's voice in the din, but he was barely visible, surrounded by black shapes, huge and amorphous. Made of shadow and water, they extruded and retracted arms, tentacles, ripping claws as they tore at Blair. Beat him. Pulled him between them.

Blair screamed in agony, in anger, and Jim felt a fierce flash of pride when he saw a line of burning blue stripe across one where Blair struck it. He was fighting back, hurting them.

Jim raised the crossbow, sighted. As he aimed at the wounded one, a claw whipped out from another and with the speed and power of a flash flood ripped Blair open from throat to pelvis. Blair's guts spilled out in a dirty tumble of pink and brown, lit with blue fire. Jim fired his shot, striking the injured one. It exploded in a black mist that obscured Blair, coalescing in the air around him. Muffling his screams.

Jim was jerked back to reality by a hand on his shoulder and a friendly voice nearby. "Detective Ellison, maybe you should go home and get some rest."

"Blair," his voice was rough and his tongue thick and slow. He looked past the nurse, who was taking Blair's temperature with an ear thermometer. Blair lay on the bed, pale and still. His heart rate was fast, racing, and Jim wondered that Glory hadn't noticed. The oxygen mask had been removed and was hanging by the bed.

"He's sleeping sound, didn't even wake when I took his blood pressure," Glory said, gathering up her kit. "Go on home, Detective. He'll be right."

As soon as she left the room, Jim put his hand on Blair's forehead. At the touch, Blair's eyes flew open, terrified until he saw Jim. He inhaled too sharply and triggered a coughing fit that seemed as though it would never end. Jim held him through it all, arm around Blair's shoulder, supporting him, making comforting noises. Jesus, he was grateful just to have Blair there, whole.

Slowly Blair's coughs eased, and Jim hoped that he would fall asleep, really asleep, not back into the blue jungle that was filled with nothing but danger for him. He settled Blair back in the bed, easing his hold now that the crisis was over.

Eyes closed Blair said, "You saw." There was no doubt in his voice, no question. He knew.

Jim was past denial, past looking back. He was over the precipice now and all he could do was hope to survive the landing. "I was there. I shot one of them," he said.

Blair blanched. "Thanks for trying to help. It'll be back next time, though." His skin looked clammy, pearled with sweat.

"Next time?" Jim asked, unable to control his horror at the idea that Blair had been suffering like that, screaming like that, alone. For how long?

"Yeah, they've been after me since I...died," Blair's voice cracked and the last word came out as a raspy whisper. "Every time I fall asleep. It's getting worse too," he whispered, looking embarrassed. "It's starting when I'm awake now. I'm losing it, Jim. I can't..." He opened his eyes and stared at Jim. "I can't take much more of this," he said, and his voice was shaky.

Jim pulled the chair up close and sat down, arm on the bed. Within a second, Blair had moved so that they were touching, arm to arm. Jim wished he was wearing short sleeves so he could feel Blair's living skin against his own.

Jim wanted to deny that what he had seen had any importance, any reality. But he couldn't. Not with Blair lying there next to him pale and shattered looking, wet with sweat, eyes bloodshot with lack of sleep. Sleep, God, how could Blair possibly sleep with those things waiting to, to...he swallowed convulsively again.

"What do they want, Chief?" he asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

Blair winced. "They want me. My life. They feel cheated because I didn't die when I should have," his voice was soft and defeated.

A fierce energy rose in Jim, dark and potent and predatory. "They can't have you," he snarled in a voice that shook with power. Jim heard a roar from inside the room and was surprised that it didn't come from his own throat.

Blair heard it too though; his head whipped around to the table next to Jim, where the wolf and jaguar figurines were. Jim followed his gaze. The wolf was on its side, knocked over at some point during the afternoon. The jaguar seemed larger now, or maybe it was just catching the light strangely, almost glowing. Highlights on the shiny black rock pulsated with energy. He could feel Blair's gasp before it happened and Jim grasped his arm. "It's okay. Stay calm. You don't need another coughing jag, buddy."

Blair nodded and inhaled slowly, carefully. "I've been reading up on this," he said after a moment. Jim wondered what books Blair had found on the subject of blue visions and amorphous monsters with claws. "I think it's a shamanic initiation thing," Blair went on." The books say I need to offer them something. A substitute." He looked at the figurines again. "That's what those are."

Jim stood the wolf up and set it next to the jaguar again. The stone felt warm in his fingers and his skin tingled at the contact. "You carved them," he said, understanding some of what Blair had been up to while he was gone.

"Yeah. They suck but I'm hoping they'll be good enough. I mean I could have bought some that looked better, but surely the..." He paused, blinked. "I can't believe I'm talking about this with you." He looked at Jim, head cocked. "I can't believe you're listening."

Jim pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm having a little trouble with that, too. But with the day I've had..." He looked up, met Blair's eyes squarely, and straightened his shoulders. "It's time for me to take that trip with you, Blair. Like it or not, ready or not, we're on it."

A flicker of something, sadness, pain, crossed Blair's face. Exhaustion, probably, Jim decided. With a serious nod, Blair said, "Water's gotten rough, my brother, and there are sharks in it now. Are you sure?" He sounded nervous, but met Jim's gaze steadily.

Jim clasped Blair's arm and Blair's hand wrapped around his forearm in return. An unbreakable bond. "I don't think either of us has a choice. And I won't let you face whatever this is alone."

Blair smiled faintly, his eyes shadowed. His gaze shifted to the window, where dark was gathering. "Thanks, man," he said softly. Jim squeezed his arm, the only way he could think of to tell Blair that thanks weren't necessary, weren't even appropriate, but stayed silent.

"So what do you need to do, Chief?" he asked after a moment, hoping he'd be able to accept the answer.

"I need to be at the fountain tomorrow morning at the same time she killed me. Dawn, just at dawn. To give them, those." He gestured toward the jaguar and the wolf, now looking like nothing more than poorly carved soapstone, all the energy gone from them. "Hopefully they'll leave me alone after that."

"Okay. Do you need to do any preparation? Simon said they found evidence of a ritual in one of the storerooms," Jim asked, voice tight. Jesus, he hated shit like this. How could Sandburg talk about this crap like any of it made sense? He heard a roar from outside in the darkening night. Blair swiveled his head to look and Jim touched his shoulder, saying, "It was a jaguar. It's okay."

Relaxing, Blair said, "I don't know if I need to do all that again. I don't know if I ever needed to do it, Jim. I'm way out of my depth here, learning something that should be taught master to apprentice from goddamned books." His voice rose as he spoke until he was almost shouting the last words, which then collapsed into a coughing fit. When it passed a few moments later, he whispered, "Sorry, man." He rubbed his forehead with the hand that wasn't still holding Jim's arm. "I don't think we have to do anything before."

Jim nodded. "Okay. Then we can stay here for most of the night."

"No. I've got to get out of here. You said you would help me," Blair said, struggling, trying to pull away from Jim's grasp.

Jim held tight, saying, firmly, "I will. But whatever's going to happen out there, you'll need your strength. The antibiotics are helping already, I can tell. And your fever's going down. We don't have to be there for nearly 12 hours, so heal as much as you can."

Blair lay back on the bed but his muscles quivered with tension. "What if I need the fever to get into the spirit world? What if I can only communicate with the...them because I'm sick? If I get well, I might be lost."

"There's got to be a way, Chief," Jim said, voice tight. "We're not saving you from those fucking...things only to lose you to pneumonia."

Sandburg patted his hand. "Okay. Let me think." He lay back against the bed, regulating his breathing into a deep slow, pattern that pulled Jim along with it.

As his breathing deepened the air became wet and steamy, thick and Jim fought against it, gasping for air. He turned to Blair, sure that he was having trouble breathing the sticky air, but he wasn't there. Jim whirled around, scanning the jungle with his senses. No Blair.

Fuck.

He ran back down the path he'd been walking. Blair was back there somewhere. Jim rounded a tree and saw Blair lying on the ground, naked except for a yellow scarf around his neck.

Jim shouted, a wordless yell of fury, and ran to Blair, dropping to his knees beside him. This was wrong, all wrong. This had never happened, couldn't have happened.

He looked around them and saw indistinct figures at the edge of the trees. Vague, shadowy. The creatures again. The yellow scarf unwound from around Blair's neck and was pulled back into the body of one of the monsters, disappearing into its shapeless mass. It turned to Jim with a leering gash splitting the blackness where a face might have been. Eyes appeared to stare hungrily at Blair.

Jim shuddered with revulsion and, without rising from his crouch, moved between the thing and Blair. With all the authority he could muster, he said, "You're not getting him."

He heard laughter from all around him. Spinning he saw more shadowed things. Laughing and gibbering and creeping, oozing, flowing toward them. "He's already ours, Sentinel." "We have him." "You can't stop us." "He'll give himself to us." A dozen voices whispered and cackled and shouted, the noise overwhelming him.

He tried to keep them all in sight, in his line of vision, but he couldn't--there were too many, constantly moving, surrounding him, surrounding them.

"After we take him," a voice dripping with malice said in Jim's ear, "you're next." Jim gasped and whirled, catching only a fleeting glimpse of a heavy, liquid shape before he was snatched back into the hospital by Sandburg's hand on his arm.

"Jim?" Blair said, "are you okay?" He looked frightened and his heart was racing.

Jim petted his shoulder for a second, guilty for having worried him. He tried to explain, but words were hard to come by. "I...," he rubbed his temple, "Did you see?"

Blair shook his head, "It was all black. I just heard you yelling and...and noises, gibbering and squeaking and something like words, another language maybe." He closed his eyes and turned his head away. "It sounded like insanity," he whispered, voice weary.

Jim didn't say anything. What was there to say?

If Sandburg was wrong, if they were wrong, then both of them were slipping into madness together. If they were right...madness might be the least of their problems.

Jim squeezed Blair's hand.

There was nothing to do but wait for dawn.

***

The night passed in a slow crawl. Every visit from Glory, gratingly chirpy in her insistence that Jim should go home, every sound of footsteps in the hallway, every beep from Blair's monitors wore at Jim's nerves, eroding his control over his senses and his emotions. He wanted to yell and rage and storm around the room, to weep, to gather Blair up and keep him in safety, to hide under the bed. It took almost all he had to sit quietly in his chair, offering Blair water when he needed it.

With his control over his emotions strung so tight, he was unable to keep his grip on the real world, so he was continually battered by flickers of the blue jungle, sounds and smells that shouldn't be there, couldn't be there. He spent minutes watching a jungle bird, the Chopec called it taraqchi, fly around the room before it perched on the IV stand. It disappeared when he looked away to give Blair more water. Beeps turned into roars. He heard so real a growl from the hall that he expected a monster to walk through the door instead of the technician, there to take a blood sample.

The knowledge of what was waiting for them if they slept, insanity, water and death, kept them both awake. The knowledge that there was nothing they could do to plan or prepare kept them quiet.

Sandburg broke the silence around two in the morning. His voice was rough when he tried to speak but he waved away water when Jim offered it. "I don't want you to come with me, man," he said, voice ragged.

Almost deafened by triumphant screams from the rainy night, Jim said, simply, "Tough."

Blair took Jim's hand in his. "No, I'm serious, Jim. I don't want you...there. I think..." He squeezed, then said, "After they get me, they'll go after you."

Jim held Blair's hand so hard he could feel the bones shifting and roared, "They can't have you!" He heard the flapping and squawking of jungle birds startled into flight by the jaguar's cry.

When the echoes died away, Jim came back to himself. He eased his grip on Sandburg's hand, feeling carefully for broken bones and immeasurably grateful to find none. "This is not something we're discussing, Chief." He released Blair's hand gently, patted it, then said, "They're not going to get either of us."

With an indescribable expression--pleasure, anger, relief, sorrow, a dozen other conflicting emotions--quirking his lips and wrinkling his forehead, Blair settled back into his watchful waiting.

The haunted quiet settled over them again with a grating buzz of jungle insects.

***

When the time came to leave, Jim took out Blair's IV as gently as he could, pressing a gauze square over the wound. "Here, Chief, hold this," he said, putting Blair's other thumb over the square. He found a roll of medical tape in a drawer and taped the gauze down, smoothing it carefully.

"Thanks, Jim," Blair said, softly, not quite meeting his eyes.

Jim ruffled Blair's hair, then dropped the plastic bag with his possessions on the bed. "Here are your clothes," he said as gently as possible, "Put your pants on. When I turn the ECG off, someone's probably going to come check on you so leave that alone until we're ready to go. You can put on your shirt in the elevator. We don't want to get held up on the way out."

Jim walked openly out of the room and pushed the elevator call button. When it arrived he ducked inside and pressed the stop button.

Back in the room, Blair was dressed, except for his shirt; the hospital gown lay in a puddle on the floor. The ECG pads were still on his chest and the wires connected him to the monitor like an umbilicus. He gathered up fabric and figurines from the table. "We're going to need these," he said, as he stuffed the whole bundle into his coat pocket.

Jim nodded. The package of sleeping pills lay on top of the plastic bag. "What about those?"

Blair shook his head. "I don't...," he started then shrugged. "I don't know. I don't think I need them."

"Okay. You ready?"

"Yeah, it's time," Blair said, voice soft.

Before Jim could switch off the monitor, there was a commotion from further down the hall, squealing machinery and shouts of "Code blue" and "Get the crash cart!" Grateful for the cover, Jim offered a quick hope for the person in danger, then switched off the machine and pulled the pads off Blair's chest.

He turned to look at the nurses' station as they passed. He could see a red blinking light with Blair's room number under it, but there was no one there to see. Perfect.

Blair started coughing once they were in the elevator, but the coughs had passed before the elevator reached the ground floor. They were able to cross the lobby and exit past the security station without raising so much as a glance from the guard.

Once outside the door, Jim turned to Blair, "So, Chief, you up to walking to the truck with me, or do you want to wait here while I go get it?"

Blair didn't say anything in answer, but turned and walked toward the parking lot, his hands in his jeans pockets. Jim smiled and walked beside him, glad not to be letting Sandburg out of his sight.

***

That trip to Rainier was the worst drive Jim ever had. The roads were wet, reflecting the streetlights and illuminated signs on their path. Despite his efforts to hold onto reality, the blue jungle flickered in and out around him, paved city streets going to rutted jungle tracks, the sounds of the few other cars becoming howls and hisses. In the far distance, in the direction of the University, he could hear the roar of a waterfall, growing steadily louder as they approached.

He gripped the steering wheel tightly, hoping to keep himself locked in reality enough that he didn't miss a light or have an accident. As he had that morning, he held his attention on the mechanics of driving, pressure of foot on gas, on brakes, clutch, hands at ten and two. Didn't matter what was past the headlights anyway, buildings or trees, people or.... He refused to think about that.

It was harder than it had been the morning before. Things slithered across the road just beyond the headlights, leaving slick trails that made the truck shift and slide. The steering wheel under his hands, hands at ten and two, changed from hard plastic to vines to coarse spun Chopec ropes and back to plastic again.

At a light, he turned to check on Blair. His skin was grey with bluish highlights, all other color leached out of him. He was leaning on the window, eyes closed, arms wrapped around his chest. If it weren't for the support of his seatbelt, he'd have fallen over. He looked like hell. Jim didn't have to stretch with his senses to hear Blair's breathing; air was rattling in and out of his lungs audible even to normal hearing. Alive then, thank God.

Jim tapped Blair's knee. "Hey, Chief, you with me?"

Blair made a hazy noise and opened his eyes. "Yeah. I'm not sure where we are though." He closed his eyes again with a wince.

Jim looked out beyond the road illuminated by the headlights of the car and saw, for a moment, stone ruins covered with lianas and ferns. Then he was back in reality, approaching the last turn before the university. Finally. "We're almost to Rainier, buddy," Jim said. "You ready?"

Blair pushed himself upright and wiped his eyes. "You can see where we really are?" he asked, his voice tired.

Jim clenched his teeth, navigating around a fallen stone that became a slow moving car as he passed it. "Mostly. Enough. We're turning onto Chancellor Street now." The car became a stone again and the road became rough, jostling both of them. Afraid they were off the road and crossing over the campus lawn, Jim slowed, pressure of foot on brake enough reality to get him through the last turn, then there was nothing but straight up onto the sidewalk and park a few feet away from two vine-covered tropical trees where there were normally stone buildings. "We're here," he said, putting the truck into park and turning on the mars lights.

Blair nodded, then pulled the bundle of fabric out of his pocket. "Let me get this ready before we go in there," he said, wrapping the black jaguar carefully in the red fabric. As he worked he murmured softly, "Red for the life giver. The Sentinel's life. A gift for the water." His eyes were closed but his fingers were sure, folding the fabric with precision until he had a neat little bundle of red silk.

That done, Blair turned to the wolf. "Black for the empty one. The Guide's death. A gift for the water." Jim gasped, but Blair didn't react, he just twisted a corner of black fabric around the wolf's neck before wrapping it up with the same care he'd used on the jaguar. While he worked he repeated, "Red for the life giver. Black for the empty one. Red for the life giver. Black for the empty one. Red for the life giver. Black for the..."

The words were chilling Jim, freezing his blood. Something wasn't right. Not right at all. Through the arch of the jungle trees, Jim could see black and shapeless things oozing out of the fountain and flowing toward them, gaining strength as they formed, feeding on Blair's words.

With each repetition Blair's voice grew louder until, as he wrapped the smaller bundles in the blue cloth it seemed to Jim that Blair was shouting, shrieking, "Red for the life giver. Black for the empty one." His voice echoed, shaking the blue trees around them, rippling the raindrops on the truck's windshield.

"Damn, Blair, what the fuck is that?" Eyes ahead, trying to find a safe path to the fountain, Jim shook Blair's shoulder. His skin was cold and his clothes were damp and Jim could smell water and death on him.

Jim turned to look, tearing his eyes away from the coalescing horrors ahead only to see a horror to his side. Blair dead, bloated and greenish grey, with patches of sloughed off skin. He looked like...like a weeks dead corpse. Like he would if he'd stayed in.... Jim wrenched open the door of the truck barely in time to vomit onto the dead black leaves outside. Leaves where there should have been grass and pavement.

He staggered out of the truck as Blair's chant gave the things form and set the jungle to screaming and howling. All the beings that sleep at night woke up, coming to the kill. Holding himself up on the truck, Jim fought against the pressure of Blair's shouted words, which battered him with the strength of a gale, and wrenched open the truck door. The air was foul with death and decomposition.

"...the empty one. Red for the life..." Jim put his hand over Blair's mouth, the skin cold under his hand, and stopped the flow of words. Jim clenched his teeth against the stench, against the sight of Blair, dead and drowned and gone but still moving.

As soon as he made contact, Blair turned toward him, dead eyes opaque and shrunken in his bloated face, and nodded once. He offered Jim the bundle, saying with a whisper that skittered over Jim's nerves like rat claws, "Carry this." Jim took the bundle. It was easier to obey than to hear that voice again..

He helped Blair out of the truck, his skin screaming at the touch, and supported him as they walked through the arched trees into the indigo beyond.

Blair was silent, not even a heartbeat or breathing to show his presence, just the smell of death and a cold that seemed to be sucking heat from the very air around him. But the jungle echoed with Blair's chant, unseen voices repeating, "Black for the empty one. Red for the life giver. Black for the..."

Jim turned to Blair, who seemed not to be hearing at all; he kept his head down and walked toward the fountain as though it was calling him home. Around them the formless horrors, so clearly visible from the truck, had faded back into the shadows of trees and fallen stones, only manifest in glimpses of toothed maw or writhing appendage. A scrap of yellow fabric on a branch before them was whisked away as they approached, only to reappear draped over a stone a few feet ahead.

"Red for the life giver." The echo was stronger now; not an echo anymore, but new voices repeating the horrible chant. All wrong. Even with his hearing dialed down, Jim could feel the words on his skin, like the lapping of water. Or like a million biting insects, each syllable taking a piece of him away.

The fountain appeared before them, suddenly right at their feet. Blair stepped over the side into the water. Jim heard the splash as he stepped in, but the liquid looked opaque, black, thick. It crawled slowly up Blair's legs, the water itself coalescing into a new shape around him.

"...the empty one. Red for the..." Blair took up the chant with the rest of the jungle, with the horrors now surrounding him, pulled out of blue light and nothing into forms almost recognizable. The yellow scarf appeared around Blair's neck, wrapped tightly. Behind him something briefly took the form of a decaying spotted jaguar before dissolving again into shapelessness.

One by one, each of the shapeless, unspeakable things approached Blair and flowed over him, adding themselves to the water that was still creeping up him, halfway up his thighs now, covering him, or pulling him down. Jim couldn't be sure.

"...life giver. Black..."

He stepped forward, reached for Blair but before he could touch, Blair turned to him, eyes now shockingly alive in his corpse face. "Give them the offering now, Jim." He looked to the last of the creatures, a solid glimmer of black at the edge of the pool, and said, "A gift for the water."

The words were spoken softly, but echoed like a shout. The formless shadow looked at Blair with eyes of cobalt hunger. It was motionless, but Jim saw, felt, a possibility of claws and threat. Layers of unreality merged and shifted and without any of them moving, Jim saw Blair ripped open again, gutted, and screaming.

In the background, the voices were howling, "Black for the empty one. Black for the empty one."

Jim shouted, "No!" and threw the bundle into the fountain. It sat on top of the black water, not sinking, for several seconds.

The cobalt fire eyes turned to Jim with a malicious grin that made his blood thicken in his veins and said, voice dripping, "A gift for the water." Then it turned back to Blair and began to merge over him, into him, the dirty blue-pink guts that both were and weren't there turning black where it touched.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Jim heard a scream from the panther to his left. There was light, suddenly, like a gateway into an even further beyond and the wolf was getting pulled toward it by black tentacles. The panther clawed and bit at the tentacles, teeth and claws and eyes flashing in the light.

No. NO!

Something was horribly wrong.

Jim reached into the water, feeling for the bundle, just out of sight in the black water. The water was cold, so cold it burned and Jim had to dial up his touch so he would know if he'd found what he sought. Dial up until he felt the cold in his muscles and his bones. He was losing his hand, he knew it, it was going to be frozen and dead and shattered before he found the bundle, but he couldn't, wouldn't, give up.

Beside him Blair was struggling against the enveloping ooze, fighting weakly, but it was almost over him. The blackness covered him up to his throat, his jaw, his mouth.

Finally, finally, just as the filthy ooze was filling Blair's mouth, and the wolf was whining and the jaguar screaming in the distance, Jim found the bundle and managed to pull it out of the water. "NO!" He shouted to the thing, no longer rising over Blair, but not retreating either. "I am the Life Giver, and I say NO!" The jungle fell completely silent, even the echoes and reverberations of sound suddenly and unnaturally still.

The hateful blue eyes materialized out of the blackness covering Blair's mouth. "Then give us something else, Sentinel," it said, through a mouth that appeared in Blair's chest.

The black water moved toward Jim, and he backed away, clutching the bundle to his chest, where it ached against him, hard and cold and powerfully wrong. Looking around, frantic--damn it, he needed Blair for this--he saw the wolf on the ground, dying again, with the jaguar next to it.

Wolf and Jaguar.

Wolf and Jaguar.

Together.

"Yes. Something else." He unwrapped the bundle, using his teeth to unravel the tight, water soaked knots, since his hand was still frozen and dead. The water tasted foul, rotted and stagnant, but he went on, unwrapping first the blue cloth, then the black, one, freeing the wolf figurine, carefully unwrapping the cloth from around it's neck.

In the fountain, Blair began to emerge from the black covering him. His eyes became visible first and he looked at Jim. It wasn't a plea for help, he was offering his strength. Offering the strength that had brought him back here, back to face these monsters, back to try and fight for his life by the strange rules of this place.

When Blair looked at him, Jim understood. They were stronger together. Yes. Yes. Jim unwrapped the jaguar from the red fabric and brought the two figurines together in his hand.

As soon as they touched, the blackness surrounding Blair exploded into a thick miasma, only to coalesce again a few feet away with a hiss of disappointment. "Very good, Sentinel," it said in its liquid, sneering voice, "But it won't do. We want more. We want some of him."

"Yes. I know what you want," Blair said, voice deep and strong like Incacha's had always been. Jim turned to Blair, who still stood in the fountain though he was free of the blackness that had covered him. The water stayed away, not touching him at all. His hair floated on currents of crackling energy.

"Blair, no!" Jim shouted, but his words were stopped in the air by Blair's raised hand.

"It's okay. I know now," he reached out his hand toward Jim. Jim stepped forward and offered him the wolf and jaguar, now wrapped tightly in the red fabric, though Jim couldn't remember doing that. Blair smiled at him and wrapped his square hand over Jim's unfrozen one and the figurines, holding on tightly to both.

With his free hand, Blair struck across his own bare chest, leaving three perfectly parallel wavy gashes that dripped blood.

The thing moved forward, a thick black tongue reaching out as it approached. Blair took the bundle from Jim's hand, shifting it into his bloodied palm without losing his grip on Jim. He wiped the blood off his chest with it. "Blood for life," he said, offering the bundle to the form before them.

The blue fire eyes leapt and danced at the sight, then flickered in Jim's direction. "What of him?" it asked, thin voice dripping and splashing around them.

Blair shook his head. "No. He doesn't want this and you have no hold on him." The strength left his voice and suddenly he sounded weary and sad. His voice and his stance weakened, faltered.

The blackness drew itself up, gaining strength from Blair's weakness, and moved toward him again. Jim stepped into the fountain and stood next to Blair. "What do you want from me?"

Blair whirled on him in shock. "Jim, no." he shook his head. "You don't know what you're doing. You'll never get away from here," he waved, taking in the jungle, the wounded wolf, now standing next to the jaguar, the ruined temple around them. "Not entirely. You'll always be part of this place."

Jim remembered the feeling of the jaguar jumping into him, the surge of energy, of power, of strength. He remembered the feeling of bringing Blair back from the dead, jaguar and wolf merging and becoming so much more. No more denials, he thought, and squeezed Blair's hand, saying, softly, "I already am."

He turned to the shadow, looming over them and asked again, "What do you want from me?"

"The same as from him," it said, shrinking again, sidling up to them. "But from here." It lashed out with its razor sharp talon and ripped across Jim's frozen hand.

Jim screamed as his frozen, dead hand came back to life, sense of touch fully open to the burning slashing pain. His hand felt like it had been ripped apart. Across the back of it were three perfectly parallel wavy lines cut almost to the bones. He curled around the injury, cradling his hand to his chest while he mentally scrambled for control.

Blair gently took his hand, and the pain retreated, became bearable, at his touch. He blotted off the blood with the red silk, staining it. Inside the fabric, the stone figurines shifted and moved.

Blair turned to the shape in front of them, which lazily licked blood off its talons with a pointed tongue, and said voice clear and strong, "Red for the living ones. Blood for the living ones." Then he dropped the bundle into the water, where it sank slowly, the blue light giving the red fabric an eerie shimmer. As it sank, Blair threw his head back and shouted, "It is finished!"

The jungle was silent for a moment, the very air stunned by his words, before the echoes rolled back to them as if from a very great distance. In the silence, the horror before them melted into the ground, disappearing with a final flash of blue and a scrap of yellow fabric fluttering in the new breeze.

When the echoes of his shout had faded, the jungle around them began to dwindle, retreating before the golden, normal, sunlight slowly spreading across the courtyard. The trees and fallen stones fading out into grass and walkways. Hargrove Hall, solid and familiar, emerged from the fading blueness. The yellow scarf on the ground turned into a piece of golden paper advertising a Calculus 102 review session on Thursday. Day after tomorrow.

Reassuring as the transformation back to the familiar was, Jim could still smell Blair's blood. He could smell his own as well, feel pain in his hand, but he set that aside as completely unimportant. He turned to Blair, who swayed slightly where he stood. His shirt was closed, but Jim could see blood stains from the three cuts across his chest.

Jim's attempts to open Blair's shirt were hampered by Blair's efforts to get a look at his hand. After a moment of struggle, Blair smacked Jim's good hand away, saying in an exasperated voice, "Stop that. I know what I did to myself and it's not that bad. Do you trust that..." he waved his hand toward where the thing had disappeared "not to have really hurt you?"

With the reminder of the attack, Jim's ability to ignore the pain slipped and he clenched his teeth together, holding in an embarrassing sound.

Blair snorted. "Thought so." He held Jim's hand for a moment then looked around them; traces of the jungle lingered where they stood in the still-shadowed fountain. "Come on, let's get you into the light. That'll probably make a difference." Jim grunted but allowed himself to be led.

They helped each other out of the fountain and crossed a few feet of grass. As the sunlight hit his hand, the pain receded noticeably, and Jim took a deep breath that tasted of his own blood.

Once they were fully in the light, Blair blotted Jim's hand with his handkerchief. Across the back of it were three cuts, deep enough that they would certainly scar, bleeding profusely. Blair wrapped the handkerchief around it and said, "That needs stitches, my friend, but you'll be okay." He turned toward the truck.

Jim held his shoulder. "One second, Chief, let me get a look at you." Blair nodded, then stood still while Jim unbuttoned his shirt. The cuts on his chest were seeping blood, but didn't appear deep or dangerous. Jim used his own handkerchief to blot at the blood, buying time to think of a way to ask a question he wasn't sure he wanted an answer to. "How did we get hurt?"

Blair's forehead wrinkled. "You were there, Jim. You know." His breath became quicker and he seemed on the edge of a coughing fit.

Nodding reluctantly, Jim patted Blair's back for a second until his breathing steadied. "Yeah. I was there. But that wasn't real." They started to walk toward the truck, shoulder to shoulder, steadying each other.

"It is real. It's just a different sort of reality," Blair said in his teacher voice. "When Alex drowned me, I was really dead and you really brought me back. The EMTs may not know how it happened, but their report shows that it did. This morning, we were really cut and those injuries are going to have to heal in their own time. They're as real as the fact that I'm not dead."

Off to the side, the panther and wolf appeared, walking along with them for a few steps before disappearing into a wrinkle of blue light.

"Right. Okay," Jim said through gritted teeth. "But what would someone else have seen?"

Shrugging, Blair said, "I don't know. Maybe you scratched yourself on the fountain. Maybe I used my pocket knife. It doesn't matter." Blair's sigh ended in a cough. "We're going to have to talk about this. You know that, right?" He pulled away from Jim and walked a few feet away, arms wrapped around himself against the cold.

Jim reached for him and pulled him close again, warming him up. Warming them both up. "Yeah. I know." He huffed out a breath. "You know I'm going to hate it, right?"

Blair chuckled. "Duh. Of course you will. But you'll do it."

"Later," Jim said, voice as gruff as he could make it, "Right now you're going back to the hospital, Junior. And this time you're going to do everything the doctor tells you."

Blair beamed at him for a second with one of those smiles that had warmed Jim's life since the day they met. Laughing, he said, "I am, am I? What about you?"

Ignoring the question, Jim slung his arm around Blair's shoulder, unable to contain a smile when Blair's hand rested on the small of his back. Familiar, comfortable. They'd walked like this a hundred times before Alex, but this was the first time since.

It was going to be okay now.