The detective stood up quickly and backed away, stumbling over the coffee table. Disconcertingly, Blair's head turned slightly to follow him, the eyes not tracking, as though he were truly blind.

Jim bumped into the love seat and dropped down into it, his eyes fixed on Blair's face. It remained turned toward him, sightless eyes unblinking.

"Jesus Christ," Jim breathed.

A part of him felt a peculiar fascination, thinking, *So that's what it looks like.* Thinking, *My god, that was fast!*

He couldn't seem to look away from those empty eyes, finding the zone-out--Blair's blind, immobile silence--weirdly mesmerizing. He wondered just how long Blair would stay like that.

Suddenly, that thought brought terror--how long *would* Blair stay like this? How the hell was he supposed to get him back?

"Sandburg? Um, wake up?" he said hopefully.

Blair remained frozen in place.

Jim's mind raced as he recalled the times Blair had talked him out of a similar situation. What had Sandburg done?

He touched--Jim's arm, his shoulder, his back. Blair touched. That was a start.

Jim wiped his sweating palms on his pants and knelt in front of Blair. He lay a hand on his partner's arm. There was no response, so he gripped the arm hard. Still no sign of life.

*He looks dead--*

Jim shook his head, wrenching his mind away from that thought. But it was true. Though open, Blair's eyes were utterly empty, as though nothing lived behind them. He seemed barely even to breathe. Jim shuddered.

Though he remained lost in the zone-out, a milder, answering shiver shook Blair.

Startled, Jim nearly let go of Blair's arm. Shit, that was unnerving. But it was something at least, a reaction of some kind.

"Sandburg, do you hear me?" And just like that, they were back to no reaction at all. Not even a blink.

Jim felt the first twinges of panic. What if he couldn't reach him?

"Sandburg, goddamnit it, you're scaring the hell out of me!" he yelled into his friend's face.

Singularly ineffective on the zone-out, of course, but it helped Jim chase away the panic. He forced himself to think, to put aside his doubts, and think about what to do.

Okay, so Sandburg touches. Then what?

He talks. Oh, yeah. He talks all the damn time. Especially when this happens.

Jim swallowed hard, licked his lips, and began to speak. "Um, h-hello in there, Chief. I--" The arm he held jerked--it definitely moved. But why?

The nickname?

"Chief?" Jim said, and nearly laughed out loud when Blair's arm twitched again. "Okay! All right, buddy. Um, Chief, listen to me. I *need* you to wake up. I need you to hear me."

Yeah, hear. But hear what? What was he supposed to say?

"Okay, okay. Chief, listen to me. I want you to...pretend, uh, you're in a tunnel. My voice is, uh, is a rope pulling you out of the tunnel. You're coming back out of this tunnel you've fallen into. I'm standing outside it, and you're coming back outside to me."

Blair's expression was decidedly less distant now, his breathing more obvious and rapid.

It was working!

"Come out of the tunnel, Chief. Follow the sound of my voice and come back to where I am. I'm outside, and you're almost with me. Okay. Now, you're outside. You're back outside with me. Are you with me?"

Blair gave a small start. He blinked a few times and looked at Jim. "Of course," he said. His face showed confusion for an instant, then his eyes widened. "Oh, man! I did, didn't I? I actually zoned out!"

Jim nodded silently. He looked down at his hand still gripping Blair's arm. He couldn't seem to let go, though he willed the hand to relax. He had to lift each finger away one at a time. Blair's left forearm bore the white imprint of his grip; the kid was going to have one hell of a bruise.

"Jim?" Blair said softly. The older man kept his attention on the rapidly reddening handprint. "Hey, you okay?"

"Sorry about that," Jim murmured, indicating the incipient bruise, and still not looking at Blair. "Sorry."

"Stop it! It's just a bruise," Blair told him and rotated his arm and hand. "See, no permanent damage. Right now, we need to talk about your dream. And I'm the one who's sorry; I wasn't really listening before. But you have to admit, it sounds crazy. Of course, by now you'd think we'd be used to that. Crazy 'R' Us, right?"

Jim looked up at him, saying angrily, "How can you joke about this?"

Blair managed a smile. "You know me, man. Laugh in the face of danger--that's the Sandburg Creed." He punched Jim lightly on the arm.

Jim's response was a long time coming, but at last he said, "I thought the Sandburg Creed was 'You go ahead, Jim; I'll call for backup.'"

A weak chuckle. "Nah, that's an old rule; my new one is 'Don't go near the water.'"

Jim stood abruptly and walked away.

Blair said quickly, "Hey, man, take it easy. That's old news, you know? We gotta move past it."

"Old news? This from the man who for a week talked about nothing but...but...what happened," Jim finished lamely.

"Say it, Jim. Say it out loud. Say the D word."

The detective's face was hard, but Blair knew the pain kept tightly in check beneath that stoicism. Though he'd been the one to die, he'd been brought back by Jim. The paramedics had given up, but his sentinel had not; it was purely on the strength of Jim's will, and somehow his abilities as a sentinel, that Blair had been given back his life.

Jim had refused to relinquish Blair to death itself.

Put like that, the younger man thought, it was pretty mind-blowing. But Jim couldn't see that just now; all he seemed to see was guilt.

"Jim," Blair said softly to the unyielding wall of his friend's back. "If I can learn to deal with my own, um, death, then you can. So come on, say it--'Blair died.' You make yourself say that, and I'll make myself say--" He grimaced. "Alexbarnes. Alex. Barnes. Your turn--'Blair died.'"

"Why don't you say the rest of it?" Jim snapped, still not facing his friend. 'Blair died...and it was Jim's fault.'"

"No! The only person to blame is Alex Barnes. You hear me? Blame her. The blonde bitch murdered me!" Blair said indignantly, then looked startled. "Whoa, there's a pairing of words I never thought I'd be using--'murdered' and 'me.'" His eyebrows rose expressively. "But you have to admit, man, she had a body to die for--and I should know, right? Fell head over heels for her--head over heels right into the damn fountain. But I'm trying to let that go. Detach with, uh, resentment. So can we please get off this topic, and get back to your dream? Remember--the dream that's turned me into Blair The Reluctant Superhero?" He snapped his fingers several times, as though to get Jim's attention. "We gotta focus here, Jim, focus on *this* week's crisis. Okay?"

As his speech wound down, Blair saw that Jim's shoulders were shaking very slightly. He made no sound, but the shaking got worse.

Astonished, Blair catapulted to his feet. "Jesus, Jim! Are you--I mean, it'll be okay. I didn't--"

The face that turned toward him was transformed by helpless laughter. Drawing a deep breath, Jim said, "How do you do it? How the hell can you make me laugh at a time like this?"

Grinning with relief, Blair crowed, "He's back, folks! The iron-headed, Kevlar-chewing son of a gun we all know and love."

Jim gave him a glare. "Iron-headed. Now that's nice."

Blair shrugged. "I meant to say 'iron-jawed,' but it works either way."

The phone rang.

"Witch doctor," Jim muttered and went to answer the phone. The caller began speaking immediately. Wincing, Jim held the phone away from his ear, as though he was being yelled at.

Blair bit his lip and decided an experiment was in order. He pictured a dial, like the volume control on the stereo, but linked to his ears. He imagined rotating the dial clockwise--as the numbers increased, his hearing should go up. The knob clicked up to one, then two, to three, four--

<<"--nothing better to do on a Sunday than sit in my office waiting for you to get your ass--!">>

Simon Banks's gruff voice boomed in Blair's head. It was so abrupt and so *loud* that he lost his concentration completely. He staggered backward, and the voice cut off abruptly--in fact, everything cut off. Jim was looking at him, lips moving, but Blair heard nothing. Not even the sound of his own breathing, which had to be pretty frantic right now.

"What's wrong?" Jim asked his partner. Simon's voice growled a confused question at him and Jim said to the phone, "Give me a second, Simon. Sorry. Just a second." Jim covered the transmitter with one hand and asked, "Hey, Chief. What's wrong?"

Shaking his head helplessly, Blair said loudly, "Jim, I can't hear you! I can't hear anything at all!" He was pressing his palms against his ears and shaking his head.

"Take it easy, buddy. It's okay," Jim said, putting the phone down on a table, and moving toward his wild-eyed friend.

Blair could see that Jim was speaking, recognized the "calm down" gestures he was making with his hands, but the silence in his head was becoming oppressive. It pushed against his eardrums, painful and disorienting. He stumbled against the couch.

"What? What'd you say?" he exclaimed. "Am I talking out loud? I don't hear *anything,* Jim!"

Jim took hold of Blair's frantically waving hands. "I hear you, Blair. Calm down," he said, enunciating each word carefully. "Dial. Remember the dial. Turn it up *very* slowly."

Jim pantomimed turning up a knob, then put his hands on each side of Blair's head, against his ears. Pressing hard, holding his friend steady, Jim said, "Look at me, Blair. You have to turn it up again. Slowly."

His eyes locked on Jim's, Blair nodded and concentrated again on the image of the volume control.

"Say something," he demanded, then exhaled and added, "Never mind. It's back. Oh, man, that was not pleasant."

Jim, still holding Blair's head, shook it gently side to side. "Okay now?"

Blair nodded sheepishly, saying, "Yeah. Thanks, man."

"The wages of eavesdropping," the detective joked, patting his cheek. Blair smiled.

Suddenly, both men heard the distant, tinny voice of Simon shouting from the telephone on the table: "Ellison! Ellison! Damn it, answer me!"

"Oh, boy." Jim picked up the phone and held it away from his head. Shouting back, he said, "Simon! Simon, it's okay! Stop yelling!" When the noises from the phone had subsided to a bearable level, Jim put the instrument to his ear and said, "I'm sorry, Simon. I'm here....No, nothing like that. Everything's okay. Well, not really, but mostly....Yes....Yes, he's here. He's fine. Well, not really, but....No, I wasn't going to say 'but mostly.'"

As Jim attempted to reassure the police captain, Blair went over to the sofa on shaky legs and sat. He breathed in and out a few times, chasing away the last remnants of the weird deafness.

You just gotta be more careful, he admonished himself. You were the one who invented the whole idea of the dials. You can do this. Jim has to do it twenty times a day. Just be more careful. Can't be a coward about this. Gotta seize the opportunity--carpe sentinel.

Closing his eyes, he relaxed and concentrated.

<<"--sounded like all hell was breaking loose--">>

This time Blair was prepared for Simon's voice. Though the volume fluctuated oddly--it was difficult to find a level that worked for both the distant Simon and the much closer Jim--he was able to keep the sound at a manageable level.

"Simon," Jim said, "we have a, uh, situation here right now."

Blair rolled his eyes.

<<"A situation? What the hell does that mean? What kind of situation? Sounded like Sandburg was being murdered!>>

Jim flinched.

Nice word choice, Simon, Blair thought angrily.

<<Sorry, Jim.>> Simon sounded flustered. <<I shouldn't have said--I didn't mean--well, hell, you know what I meant. Is it a situation with Sandburg?">>

"Sort of."

<<"I thought he was okay. He seemed okay. Has something else happened?">> There was no answer from Jim. <<"Ellison? Ellison, are you there? Has something else happened?">>

Blair wondered why Jim wasn't talking; he got his answer when Jim walked into the living room waving a hand to get his attention.

Jim pointed to his own ear then drew a finger across his throat. "Power down, Chief," he said softly.

Blair sighed and carefully dialed his hearing back. "Testing, testing, one, two, three," he said, then nodded at Jim. "Okay, Phone Cop. No more ears."

Jim returned his attention to the phone. "Simon, stop. Stop," he said, interrupting his captain's questions. "I can't explain it over the phone."

"Tell him we'll be there in a few," Blair said, rising from the couch. Jim shook his head, but Blair nodded, saying, "I'll be with *you,* man. It'll be okay. Besides, we can't just sit around here staring at each other until this passes, whenever it passes."

Still frowning, Jim said to the phone, "Simon, we'll be right in to pick up the tickets....Oh, yeah, we'll tell you all about it." In a mutter, he added, "Then maybe you can explain it to me."

Before Jim disconnected, Simon's bellow crackled out of the instrument. "Bring breakfast!"

Blair winced. "I heard that."

"Canada probably heard that." Jim put the phone down. "Chief, you have to be careful fooling around like that; there's no telling what might happen. And are you sure about going in? I think it would be safer to stay right here."

"Yes, I'm sure about going in. I want to get out and see what I can see, hear what I can hear." Blair grinned suddenly, exclaiming, "Hey, I did it! I could hear both of you, man. It worked perfectly. Well, aside from the little deafness thing." He shivered with the memory, but his enthusiasm didn't abate. "And that's a glitch that probably gets worked out with practice. Right?"

"Practice? Yeah, Sandburg, it takes practice. Which you are not going to get much of. This is temporary, remember?"

Quickly, Blair said, "Jim, man, this is *so* temporary. I'm no sentinel, I know that. Got no desire to carry that responsibility. I got enough to deal with being the guide. But you have to understand--this is just so amazing. I feel like...like...."

"Blair The Not-So-Reluctant Superhero?" Jim suggested.

"No, man! No! That's not it at all. Jim, this is, like, the most amazing piece of fieldwork I'll ever do! I've been given the chance to see what your world is like. Not the whole deal, maybe, but at least part of it. I never expected that, never even considered it could be possible. It's fantastic." He pushed his drying hair away from his face. "Does that make any sense?"

"To see through other eyes," Jim said, repeating Incacha's words from his dream. "Of course it makes sense. Seems to be the point of this little exercise. But it's not all fun and games, you know."

"Have I not been on this ride with you since the garbage truck ran over us?" Blair asked sarcastically. "Was it not me who sort of, you know, drowned? I *know* it's not all fun and games. I imagine *that's* part of the point of this little exercise, too. And that's okay. To really understand a culture, you have to experience the bad as well as the good."

Jim sighed. "I'd just as soon read the book, Chief."

Blair chuckled. "We better get a move on or Simon'll freak." He disappeared into his room to change clothes.

Jim stared after him.

First, I'm worried how he'll deal with this thing that's been dumped on him, Jim thought. Then I'm afraid it's all turning into a power trip for him. *He's* talking about fieldwork, the chance to see what my world's like, experiencing another "culture."

Jim shook his head as he headed to his room to change. Apparently, Incacha was right; he didn't understand. But if the old shaman was right about that, he was also right about the rest of it--

Jim *did* value.

"With your strength, he can face his fear. With his, you will conquer your own," Incacha had said. What fear did Blair need to face? Jim wondered. And how could subletting a sentinel's senses help him do it? Did Blair fear death--hell, everybody feared that. Or maybe he feared getting thrown out of his own home by his "iron-headed" partner.

Dwelling on Blair's fears kept Jim from facing the much more uncomfortable corresponding question--which of his own fears was he supposed to be "conquering"?