New Fandom Fic: TS: The Observer
Title: The Observer
Author: luvspnl
Fandom: The Sentinel
Characters/Pairings: Blair Sandburg, Det. James Ellison, Capt. Simon Banks, Major Crimes Unit, Naomi Sandburg
Summary: AH. Cascade’s best detective, Jim Ellison, finds himself the target subject interest of a young college student, intent on observing the so-called closed society in the police.
Does a canceled show need spoiler warnings?
Author's Notes/Warnings: I've never written a TS story, but I've read A LOT of them. Also, I've seen most season 1 of the show. - If anyone knows where I could see more I will love you forever!!!!
AN2: AH - Alternate History, in which Blair may have found his father in one James Ellison, and neither might be all that glad about it.
Also, this pretty much rewrites the pilot episode, The Switchman, to incorporate my AH. But, it would probably help to at least know what happened in that episode, since I’m only going to be following Blair around in the story, and not the other parts that happen.
Disclaimer: I was all of six years old when the Sentinel premiered. If I could come up with something like this back then, HA! I would be a TV-prodigy. Alas, I was too busy watching Barney and learning to read and write. - The Sentinel and its characters are not mine.
Enjoy!
Blair Sandburg stood by the entrance to the Cascade Police Department, clutching at his backpack strap. He readjusted the strap for the fifth time and nervously licked his lips. He bounced slightly on his feet. He sighed.
Blair shook his head, and for the third time that week, he turned around and started walking away. He just couldn’t do it. While Blair had always been curious about his father, having grown up with a free-spirited and often absentee mother, the thought of actually meeting the man, actually coming into physical and verbal contact with the man, well it was taking him some time.
Walking over to the bus stop, Blair thought back on the last few months of his life.
Blair was a student at Rainier University, having gotten into the school at a very early age. He’d lived on campus, his mother Naomi going off to continue her trips and protests. For the first two summers, Naomi had come back to take Blair with her to during the summers, and it had been as amazing an experience as only traveling with Naomi could produce. But it had gotten to be a bit of a hassle for Naomi, someone who wasn’t used to having to keep track of her schedule or consider someone else.
It had hurt, but had accepted Naomi’s absence as he did most things, and tried to find the good side. This would free Blair’s summers and breaks to do things that he wouldn’t have thought possible to do before.
Since then, he’d seen Naomi three times.
The last time had been a few months back. Naomi, fresh from a retreat in the Amazon - though what she was retreating from Blair couldn’t surmise - she had surprised Blair with her presence in his apartment late one night.
“Naomi?” Blair said, surprised as he opened the door to his apartment and found his mother standing their smiling back at him.
“Hi Baby!” Naomi greeted, taking Blair’s face in her hands and staring into his eyes. “Your soul brims with wonder and enlightenment!”
“Um, thanks, Mom. I’m happy to see you too.”
That night, the Sandburgs had stayed up, even watching glimpse of the rising sun from the window, talking and generally trying to catch up.
When Naomi was readying to leave, some three days later, Blair had a batch of mixed feelings.
On one hand, Blair wished that his mother would stay longer. His greatest wish would be for her to stay with him, for her to set a base down with him, in Cascade, but if he could at least get a week with her than he would take it. However, Naomi already had a ticket paid for by a ‘friend’ to head over to a resort in Florida.
The other part of Blair was kind of relieved that his mother would be leaving. As was her way with everything, Naomi had found a need to comment about each of Blair’s classes, the few friends that had stopped by, his lacking love life, and - remarkably - his seemingly minimalist living style.
“I thought you said, materials are just things holding us down?” Blair asked, seeing his mother frown at the barren apartment. In fact, apart from the couch that double as his bed and some crates he’d managed to grab a hold of to use as chairs, tables, and bookcases, Blair’s apartment was lacking.
“I said that?” Naomi frowned, placing her coat over the couch back.
Blair nodded.
“Well, if you’re already tying yourself down here, it might as well look good. Like Joao’s house,” Naomi sighed, she turned sinking herself into the couch and pulling Blair’s blanket around her snuggly. “You should have seen it, baby. It’s so immense, and all the paintings, food, oh and the parties!”
“Is that where you came from?” Blair asked, taking a seat beside her on the couch. He remembered, briefly, going to a Joao’s in his youth.
Naomi nodded. “It was divine.”
She had even commented against his car, a purchase that had been beyond his meager savings, but a necessity nonetheless. He was a bit proud of himself, having bought the thing pretty cheap and having the thing not fall apart on him in the months he’d had it.
“Oh Blair,” Naomi had said, tossing her luggage back into the back. “You know how unhealthy having an automobile is! Not just for the environment and our animal brothers, but for you too.” She got into the passenger side, Blair closing it gentlemanly behind her, even as he groaned as side as he walked along the back and into the driver’s side. “But for you too, baby,” she added patting his arm. “People who drive are more inclined to rush through things. They don’t appreciate nature, just guzzle through thousands of gallons of gasoline, and for what…
And so had been the ride to the airport.
There, as they were saying their goodbyes, Naomi turned at the last moment and said something that would change Blair’s life forever.
“Oh! Blair, baby,” she came back, looking at the cumulating line for the boarding plane.
“What’s wrong? Did you forget something?”
“No, no. I was wondering, are you still interested in learning about your father?”
The question had come out of nowhere, startling Blair. How many times in their years together had Blair tried to start that conversation? But Naomi had always brushed him off, redirected his interest elsewhere, or flat out told him that either she could be certain, or that he wasn’t old enough to know.
He’d given up on getting any kind of information out of her years ago.
“Wha-Yeah! Yes, Naomi, you know that,” he said, calming himself before he got into a ramble and lost control over his mouth and thoughts. “Why? What do you know?”
“Oh, good,” Naomi said, ignoring her son’s curious glances and frantic questions. Instead, she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a small envelope, folded over in half. “Well, here you go,” she said, handing over the envelope. If she noticed the slight chill in her son’s hands, she didn’t comment. “That should help.”
“What? What’s this? Mom, what’s going on?”
“Oh honey, I have to go!” she reached out, cupping his face like she had done days ago as a greeting, and leaning forward to kiss him.
And then, she was waving goodbye again, walking towards the terminal.
“Bye Blair! Take care, and study hard, okay? I’ll…I’ll call you soon okay!”
Curiosity had burned at him for all of twelve minutes, enough time for him to get out of the airport and to his car.
There, he sat, eyeing the small envelope as he leaned it against the steering wheel.
Are you still interested in learning about your father?
His father. Blair touched the envelope delicately. The package was a bit thickened, a piece of paper folded over multiple times to comply with the small size. Maybe multiple pages.
How much would they tell him about the man that had helped to create him, give him life?
And why couldn’t Naomi just come out and tell him?
They had spent three days talking about his classes and squids and global warming and anything but about this.
But Blair had long ago stopped trying to understand why Naomi did or didn’t do certain things. Even going against her own, so-called, principles and morals. She’d protest a car, but she was just as quick to step into a limousine or Jag or Lamborghini of the man she had coveted throughout the world.
So Blair stopped thinking, and ripped into the letter. And he read through the slants and curves of his mother’s writing. And he breathed through the truth and the knowing and the hurt.
Blair rode the bus all the way back to the university. He didn’t have any classes or meetings that day, which was a first in two weeks that Blair had managed a free day. It had been the perfect time to set out and meet one James Ellison, but he had chicken out. Again.
Before he had tried to stop by between his errand runs, telling himself that if he only had five or ten minutes to spare, than he would be forced to talk fast and leave before either he or his father would make any kind of emotional decision. His father would know he was his father, but he wouldn’t have the time to express disappointment or anger, or even joy and understanding if that were to be the case.
Instead, he would head over to his office, where he could surround himself with books and facts and not think about what a coward he was.
Reaching his office, Blair just barely puts his bag down and starts to unzip his jacket when his phone rings.
More to follow...Saturday!
Part Two