Two days later.....

"Sandburg? Open up, it's Simon. Sandburg?" Simon sighed and pulled out his keys, finding the one Jim had given him for emergencies.

He wasn't sure this qualified as an emergency, but he was worried about the kid. He wasn't taking the absence of his partner very well. Not that SImon could blame him- Jim's disappearance was starting to wear down a lot of people. Everyone in Major Crimes donated countless off-duty time to .........following tips, tracking down friends and family, harrassing Morgan McCullough in his prison cell to try and weed out what he knew about these men he had sent to keep Jim away. Nothing worked, it was dead end after dead end.

Blair had spent almost two straight days at the station and out tracking clues, and Simon had finally had to order him home to sleep. Blair had sworn he would be back at the crack of dawn, but it was now almost noon and the kid wasn't even answering the phone.

Simon let himself in quietly, not wanting to wake Sandburg if he was still sleeping, just wanting to be sure he was alright. He went through the quiet stillness of the living room and cracked open the door of Blair's bedroom.

He frowned. The bed was empty and made, looking like no one had gone near it last night. Simon shut the door slowly and turned to the living room. No, there was the kid's backpack, he was here, or he had been.

Simon glanced towards the stairway, and inspiration struck. He climbed the steps and slowly opened the door to Jim's bedroom.

Yep, there he was, snug and sound asleep in Jim's bed.

Simon took a step inside, looking down at the peaceful face of the younger man. Sleep hadn't erased all of the deep worry-lines that had formed in the last two days, but it had relaxed the kid, and that was what he needed.

"Sandburg?"

Blair groaned and rolled over, mumbling something too low for Simon to make out.

He felt guilty for waking the tired observer, but he knew Blair would be more angry if he let him sleep the day away. "Sandburg? Rise and shine."

"Wha..." Blair's eyes blinked open. "Jim, leave me alone. Class doesn't start...whoa. Simon. What time...oh, damn. I overslept! Simon, I'm sorry! I just...I mean...Jim sets his alarm so low, you know any noise wakes him up. I guess I forgot to turn it up."

"Hey, relax, kid. What're you doing in here, anyway?"

Blair looked around the room, then back at simon, not meeting his eyes. "Uhhh....I just, you know, couldn't sleep...."

Simon almost laughed. The kid was embarrassed. "Blair, I understand."

Blair met his eyes, and the two men shared a brief moment of connection.

"Ahem. Now, if you'll get your lazy butt out of bed and into a shower, I'll throw some breakfast together, and we'll go out and find your partner."

"Roger, captain," Blair smiled thinly and jumped out of the bed.

Simon watched him as he vanished out the door, and followed slowly, climbing down the steps and into the kitchen. Blair was shielding a lot of feelings from him, he knew that. It didn't surprise him, much. Blair and Jim confided in each other- that was about it. And Simon certainly didn't present the warmest, most comforting image. It was rough on the kid, not knowing where Jim was, if he was alive, if his senses were going haywire. There was a lot more than just not being able to sleep that had led to Blair climbing those stairs and sleeping in his roommate's bed last night. And he also had to deal with the dissappearance of his girlfriend, which seemed to worry Blair almost as much. He was constantly reminding them that she was just an innocent bystander, she'd been dragged into this from the very beginning against her will.

The only thing that brought Blair much relief was knowing that the girl and his best friend were together, whereever they were.

Poor kid.

But Simon was determined- they would find Jim. If it took weeks, which he was equally determined it wouldn't, they would find him.

As he quickly through some eggs into a pan and watched them cook, the phone to the loft rang. Knowing Sandburg probably didn't hear it in the shower, Simon went out to the living room and picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

"Captain?"

"Taggart, what's up?" Simon had told Joel where he was headed when he walked out of the office twenty minutes ago.

"We've found something. Could be a waste of time, but it looks promising."

"What is it?"

Simon listened as Joel explained about an uncle of one of the men they were after, Peter Staff, who had died a few months earlier. He had a cabin about two hours from the city that was currently unoccupied. Simon felt a twinge in his gut as Joel talked.

"Thanks, Joel. I'm taking Sandburg, we'll check it out."

"I've got a feeling about this one, Simon."

"I'm getting it too, Joel." Simon confirmed.

"Be careful, eh?"

Simon smiled. "Sure. I'll call when we know anything."

"You'd better."

Simon chuckled as he hung up the phone. Joel Taggart, demo expert and captain, was a good friend, but he came across like a worried mother sometimes.

The minute Blair stepped foot out of the shower, dressed and looking ten times better than when he's stumbled out of Simon's car last night, Simon rushed him. "Eat up, kid, we've got a lead to follow."

He explained quicklyto Blair, who shoveled the eggs into his mouth in less than a minute and raced to get ready.

They had a two hour car ride ahead to pray that they weren't going to be too late to save their friend.

Jim couldn't remember laughing so hard in all his life. He had to grip his side as he gasped for air, listening to Angela finishing her story.

He had finally found someone who could give Blair Sandburg a run for his money when it came to telling a story. This one, an anecdote about a time Blair had taken her to one of his favorite health food stores, would have been worth a chuckle coming from anyone else, but she affected the voice and manner of her subjects so well it made him roar.

"-and the minute we get out the door these kids who are watching the store, these brats with earings sticking out of their faces in ten different spots, target Blair, figuring he's the quintissential hippie. They start laughing at him, you know, things I'm sure he's heard a million times before. So one of them gets too close, looks like he's about to knock the bag out his hand, and Blair suddenly erupts in this shriek and throws the sack on the ground. The kid just freezes, and Blair gives me this wink so I'll follow his lead, and he backs away from the bag, telling these teenagers that there's some kind of herbs in there that can't ever mix together, or else, and rattling the bag may have mixed them. And he's looking so terrified one of the kids asks, 'or else what?' So he starts going on, pulling out some stuff about some ancient Hindu legend of a man who inhaled these two herbs at once and died on the spot. So I'm, you know, pretty good on my feet, and I join in, reminding him of the more modern case of these two explorers in Kenya and this witch doctor they insulted, and the witch doctor using these two herbs to make their limbs fall off and their skin turn green...by the time these kids got themselves together and ran away from that bag, we had them convinced that what we had inside it was going to turn them into potted plants or something."

Jim laughed, shaking his head. "Sounds like you two make a good pair."

She grinned. "Yeah, we did. We do. Blair's one of a kind, that's for sure."

He felt a twinge of something in his gut at her wistful sigh. "Yeah, he is."

For the last two days, Jim and Angela had sat alone in thir one-room prison, standing and pacing around for mkinutes at a time to avoid cramping up, settling into light, fitful sleep now and then, waiting for the moment to come when their attackers would come back. Jim grew more worried, but he didn't let it show. He did study every inch of the room, espeically around the door, looking for some way he could get them out. But he didn't see anything. The walls were made of cement, the door was tightly hinged, the hinges were on the other side. If they had just been dumped in there and abandoned, it was concievable they would die in that room.

But Angela helped him take his mind off his fears, off their prison, and off what was happening outside of it. She kept her spirits up, laughing it off every time their stomachs growled, or she was awakened from a restless sleep by nightmares. She knew as well as he did what could happen, but she refused t give in to it, chatting with Jim and echanging stories as though they had chosen to shut themselves up there, just for the conversation.

Jim found himself responding to her more and more as time went on. As the hours dragged, feeling like eternities, he let himself be distracted by her, he let himself respond to her.

But every time Blair's name came up, or Jim saw his innocent roommate's face in his head, it wedged between them like a wall. Jim felt guilty, and he became more and more aware of why.

He liked her, he really did. The more he knew about her, the more he wanted to know. He felt more at home there with her than he ever had when he'd lived with Carolyn. And when she had jerked awake from her latest nightmare and finally let herself give in to the tears that had threatened since she was attacked, her held her closely and comforted her, wanting more than anything else in the world to erase the memories that made the remarkable girl sob.

But she was Blair's girlfriend. And that meant she was off limits.

The two of them had never really talked about that before. It had never come up- Blair's dates normally weren't the type Jim would be interested in, and when Jim found a date, Blair was usually so happy for his relatively misanthropic partner that it didn't occur to him to actually like Jim's girlfriends. But it existed now, now Jim was trapped with Angela, and all he could think about was how well she would fit into his life when they got out.

But Blair was too important to him to let Jim even consider losing him over a woman, even one as amazing as she was.

So he told himself strictly that she was hands-off, and now, when she grew so happily wistful at the mention of Blair's name, he told himself that the twinge of pain he felt was only hunger.

"You've gotten quiet," she commented, jerking him out of his thoughts.

He shrugged. "Just thinking, sorry."

"Think all you want. It's Blair, isn't it?"

"Yeah, mostly."

"Come on, Jim. You know he's okay. He's tough, he can take care of himself."

"Even if he did get to the station okay," Jim argued reflexively. "He's probably driving himself crazy right now trying to find us."

She nodded a rueful agreement. "Probably hasn't slept an hour since they grabbed us. He's a good friend."

"The best," Jim agreed firmly. And he couldn't help but use to conversation to make sure his decision to keep away from her was right. "You two are pretty close, right?"

She smiled. "Yeah, I guess so. I don't suppose anyone could ge closer to him than you are, though."

He blinked. "You think?"

"He talks about you all the time. I got a daily report on you before I ever met you, Jim. You know how Blair loves to talk."

Jim gave a long-suffering look. "Do I ever." He looked away from her pointedly. "Can't imagine why he'd talk to his girlfriends about me, though."

"Girlfriend?" Her expression of surprise came as music to his ears. "He didn't call me a girlfriend, did he?"

Jim hid the smile that threatened to form. "Not exactly, but he said you two had been going out for weeks."

She laughed. "What do you call it when the two of you go out for beers at the end of a night? Going out doesn't mean we're, like, a devoted couple."

"So you're not?" He heard himself, sounding like a hopeful teenager, and wondered how she could keep that look of bafflement on her face.

"Blair's one of my best friends. Hopefully he'll stay that way for a long time. But he'd never think of me as a girlfriend."

"Why would you say that?"

She shrugged self-consciously. "Look at the women he has draped over his shoulder all the time. He gets pick of the litter. As well he should, he's a great guy."

"Huh." Jim sneaked a glance over at her. The self-doubt on her face was genuine, he knew. "Blair doesn't have enough sense to grab the pick of the litter when she's right in front of him," he blurted suddenly.

She looked up at him, surprised. "What makes you say that?" she asked hesitantly, as though a part of her knew what he meant but the rest of her couldn't believe it.

"I mean, Blair should have been smart enough to rope you in when he had the chance. Now he's left you open for other offers." He met her eyes.

She still looked as though she didn't believe what he was saying. "Other offers, huh?" she said quietly, giving a small, nervous laugh.

Jim was completely serious. "Alright, Angie, I'm laying it on the line here. If I'm wasting my time with this, tell me fast, cause I don't have the greatest luck where women are concerned. If there's any chance you'd be interested in...well, I mean, just tell me. Don't let me sit here rambling on and on like..well, like Blair would, if you know you'd never want to-"

"Jim,"

He broke off at the quiet word.

She looked at him, a wondering look growing in her eyes. "You mean you're interested in me? Really?"

He nodded.

"I told you I was gullible, Jim. If this is your idea of a joke, I can tell you right now I'm not going to get a big laugh out of it. You know I don't really have-"

He cut her off abruptly, grabbing her hands and shutting her mouth with his own.

She relaxed at once, returning the kiss with passion.

Jim felt a thrill of energy running through him, and knew he'd made the right decision. The relief and sudden happiness he felt made everything they had gone through at the hands of these men worth it. He finally pulled away for air, and saw the same emotions playing on her face that he felt surging through him.

She was looking into his eyes, the same look of wonder on her face. "Wow," she said finally.

He nodded. "Yeah."

There was a pause. Jim half-expected the happy silence to be interrupted by one of the bad guys- this was the spot in the movies where they would bust in, interrupting the couple and proceeding to do all sorts of bad things to them.

Luck seemed to be on their side, though, and they had the next few hours to themselves, their conversation following this sudden new change in their relationship. They chatted about what they were going to do, what Blair would say when he found out they were slightly more close than last time he saw them- Jim had to admit that thought made him pause.

And the bad guys didn't burst in until three hours or so after that fateful kiss.

The sound of the door opening took both of them by surprise, and Jim was immediately on the alert.

"Get up. We're getting out of here," it was the blonde, Steven Varnes, that same SOB.

"Are you crazy? You shut us in here for-"

"Ellison, you get up and move it or we'll knock you out again and drag you."

Jim shut up. Whatever was happening now, he had to be conscious if he was going to take advantage of it.

They slowly stood themselves up, tired, weak from lack of hunger, both hurting from their wounds, Jim limping badly on his damaged leg, and they went where Varnes gestured, going up a dark staircase through a trap door that opened on the floor of what appeared to be just a simple rustic cabin.

"Hurry up, they're coming!" The dark-haired man was calling from the doorway of the cabin.

Jim's thoughts were racing. Who was coming? The police, probably. That was what he'd been looking for. Now all he had to do was stall, either get the two of them away from these clowns, or keep them all there until the police showed up. He deliberately stumbled, falling to his knees.

"Get up, Ellison!" Varnes demanded, poking the larger man in the back with the barrel of his gun.

"Can't....leg. Hurts," he inserted a genuine-sounding catch of pain in his voice. The dial was still low- the shoulder and leg wounds were only small throbs in his body, but they had no way of knowing that.

"Dammit, Varnes, what's taking so long?"

"The cop's hurt, Pete."

"Bull shit. Get him up and out of here, come on!"

Jim heard a stifled cry behind him. "Get up, Ellison, or the girl buys it right now."

Damn it. Jim stood slowly, making it look like more of a struggle than it was, and stumbled forward.

He aimed his hearing forward, and could hear it- a car, one single car, coming towards the cabin. No one else anywhere nearby. They had picked a good spot, he would give them that.

He tuned the car out, and could tell from the muffled sounds behind him that Varnes still held Angela, dragging her along with him, somewhere behind Jim's back.

"Shit! Steve, they're here. Go back," The dark-haired man, Pete, came in and shut the door behind him.

"Who's coming?"

"The cops. A car, right outside."

"A car? One car?" Varnes studied his two captives. "Even if there are four cops in that car, we can get past them. We have hostages, after all."

Pete stiffened and stared at the man. "This has gone on long enough. Steve, all we were supposed to do is send this guy a warning. Next thing I know we're kidnapping cops, James is dead in some morgue, and now we're gonna play hostage-takers to get away from the police. I hate this, man, this isn't what I signed up for."

"Tough shit. What choice do we have?"

"Give up," Jim said firmly.

Varnes laughed. "Yeah, right."

The sounds of a car pulling up on gravel came from right outside.

"They're here," Jim said quietly, turning slowly.

"Stay where you are!" Varnes almost shouted.

Jim froze, but kept talking. "If you give up quietly, they'll go easy on you. McCullough's the one that put you all up to this, we can pin most of it on him. Just come quietly. You don't have any other choice." He spoke with conviction, hiding what he knew from personal experience. If these guys did listen to him- not that they ever did in these situations- he would see to it they did the hardest time there was, no doubt about it.

There was a tense pause as Pete looked over Jim's shoulder at Varnes, and then there was a sudden knock on the door. "Is anyone home?"

Simon. Jim looked around, searching desperately for something he could use as a weapon to help his captain out.

Suddenly a near whisper reached his ears. "Jim, get down, get Angie down. Simon's going to break in and start shooting. Count of ten."

Blair. Jim almost grinned in relief at hearing his partner alive and unharmed. He did as instructed, letting his leg buckle under him again and falling, hard.

"Get up!" Varnes hissed, obviously at wit's end.

Jim could face him from where he sprawled, and he met Angela's eyes, his eyes going to the floor and back up to her a couple of times.

Her eyes grew with understanding and she gave him the tiniest smile before her eyes rolled up in her head and she collapsed, looing like she fainted dead away.

Varnes' hand was locked on her arm, and his gun hand dipped as she fell. "What the hell is-"

Suddenly the door flew open and Simon was crouched in the doorway. "Drop it! Varnes, drop the-"

While Jim's eyes were on Simon, there was the sound of a gunshot, cutting off Simon's voice.

"No!" Jim heard the cry, saw Simon reacting, aiming and knocking off two shots. Pete raised his hands shakily as Simon's gun turned to him, and he let the police captain come in and disarm him.

Jim suddenly felt the adrenaline rushing out of him, and the effects of the last three days piled up on him, making him stay on his knees, one hand braced on the floor, his head spinning. He heard a familiar voice and squinted up. Blair?

"Jim? Can you hear me?"

He realized he hadn't spoken his name out loud. He tried again, opening his mouth, but the darkness that threatened his vision suddenly closed in on him, and he didn't say a word.

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