They took the elevator back down to the garage.

"Chief, about your revelation--"

"Hey, Jim, I have--"

They grinned at each other and Jim gestured for Blair to go first.

"Jim, I have an idea."

The detective regarded his friend warily. "Four words to send a cold chill down my back."

"Seriously, man. It's about that revelation you just mentioned--the one I had in the truck earlier. I think I figured out part of the little word
puzzle Incacha left you."

"With your strength, he can face his fear," Jim quoted.

"Yeah, that part. I need to go to the U. I want *us* to go, um, to the fountain."

When the elevator doors opened on the garage, Blair headed out immediately. Jim came more slowly after him. Walking toward the truck,
Blair realized he'd left his friend behind and turned. "Jim, did you hear me?"

"I heard you," Jim replied. He looked at Blair speculatively. "The fountain. Is that, uh, is that your fear?"

Blair reached the truck's passenger side door. Looking down, his face stiff with discomfort, he said, "Well, let's see. Been back at work for
more than a week now, and haven't once used the front door. So, yeah. I'd say so."

"The front door?"

Blair's voice was tinged with self-loathing. "The front door that faces the goddamned fountain," he growled. "Because I can't get anywhere
near the goddamned fountain. But I have tried--three times. The first time, I left my office headed for the front door...couldn't even open it.
The next time, I managed to get out the door but then I froze on the steps. Stood there like an idiot, staring at the fountain and pouring
sweat, for maybe five minutes, till classes changed and the rush of people knocked me on my ass. After which, I put my tail between my
legs and went out the back door again."

Jim leaned against the truck, his forearms resting on the hood. He began, "Chief, you don't--"

The younger man held up a hand. "No, wait. You don't wanna miss the best part. See, I decided I'd sneak up on the thing from the other
side. I was walking toward it, across campus, and doing pretty well, but--" Jim didn't need a sentinel's vision to see the color drain from
Blair's face. "Well, there was this woman sitting by the fountain. She had blonde hair and looked a lot like--" A pause, then he finished, "It
was humiliating. I mowed down four or five people just trying to get away."

Blair shivered and pulled his jacket closer around himself.

"If it's any consolation, Chief, I haven't been near the place either. Not since...not since it happened."

"No?"

"Haven't had a reason to go there, but if I had, I'd've come up with an excuse not to," Jim admitted. "When I found myself there in my
dream last night, I was pretty much scared shitless."

"That sums it up, all right. I was just thinking that I might be able to do it now, if, um, if I didn't have to do it alone."

*With your strength, he can face his fear.*

Jim opened his door. "Get in the truck, Chief," he said. "We're going to slay us a demon."

* * * * *

At Blair's suggestion, Jim parked in a lot some distance from Hargrove Hall, so they could make their way on foot across the campus. "To
give us time to adjust," Blair explained. Jim was all for adjustment time; this was going to be hard for both of them.

With the capriciousness of a Cascade March, the temperature had risen to a much more reasonable sixty-three degrees and the sun
was breaking through the cloud cover. Jim took off the outermost layer of flannel he wore, leaving it and his jacket in the truck. Blair found
himself warm again, too, so he shed his own jacket.

The campus was deserted, students and faculty away for the spring break vacation. As the men walked across the quad toward Hargrove
Hall, Blair's steps got slower and slower. Jim was finding it equally difficult to make that walk.

"Hey, Jim," Blair said. "Show me where the wolf came from."

"Sure. You think it's important?"

"No. But I *really* need something else to think about right now." He gave his friend a quick look.

Jim nodded. "You got it."

He led Blair to the end of the row of shrubbery where the wolf had emerged in his dream. They came around the tall hedgerow and,
without a word, both men stopped. The fountain was some ten yards ahead.

It wasn't turned on--just like in his dream, Jim realized. Yet this time, the water in its basin wasn't a dead flat pool of gray. Now, the sun
flashed on a surface slightly ruffled by the breeze and reflecting the fast-moving clouds.

This was a different angle from the way he'd approached the fountain that other day--the day he'd raced toward the front steps of Hargrove
Hall on his way to Blair's office. The day the sight of what lay in the fountain had stopped him cold.

Stopped him cold. Figure of speech. Statement of fact.

For no more than the length of time it took for his heart to beat twice, Jim had thought the kids had put a mannequin in the fountain. Maybe
the Engineering students, who, Sandburg had told him, made it a point to dunk first-year grad students in its water.

Then that last instant of blessed ignorance passed and icy fear solidified in his stomach. The figure in the fountain was wearing
Sandburg's clothes.

He wasn't racing toward the fountain, his heart in his throat. He wasn't turning the figure over and seeing that it wore not only Sandburg's
clothes, but Sandburg's face as well. He wasn't dragging the lifeless body of his best friend out of the water.

Jim wasn't doing those things. It wasn't conceivable that he could be doing those things, because it wasn't conceivable that Blair
Sandburg could be dead.

A low groan cut into Jim's nightmare. Though only just audible over the wind rustling through the trees, it pulled him out of the past.

Blair stood ahead of him, five or six feet closer to the fountain. The groan had come from him.

Whatever it was that impelled him--"guide stuff" or friendship or a combination of the two--Jim moved. Without further hesitation, against
the powerful tide of his own memories, he moved. Toward Blair.

Blair found that his legs weren't working. He could have sworn they were, could have sworn the fountain was coming closer. Yet when he
blinked several times, he saw it had been some trick of his vision--or maybe of sentinel vision. In actual fact, he was standing rooted to
the ground, unable to will himself any closer to the thing that haunted him.

He was never going to get through this.

With a groan, he closed his eyes. The wind in the trees echoed in his head, sounding eerily like water splashing in the fountain. As it had
sounded *that* day. He shivered, suddenly cold. As he had been *that* day. The splashing sound grew louder, and his chest felt tight. It
was becoming difficult to draw breath.

A hand came to rest on his shoulder, and Jim said, "Chief, you sure you want to do this now?"

Blair concentrated on that hand, on the warmth and the weight of it. Its heat seemed to penetrate to his very bones, spreading over his
shoulder, down his chest and legs and out to his fingertips. The painful tightness in his chest faded.

He turned his attention to the pulse he felt in Jim's hand. Carefully, he dialed up hearing and searched for a particular sound. It was
difficult, since the one he wanted was buried deep beneath so many other distracting noises (Jim always made it look so easy!), but
finally he had it. He let the low beating of Jim's heart guide his breathing. Inhale for three beats, hold for three beats, then exhale for three.
Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Steady, reliable rhythm.

Jim felt the tension in Blair's shoulders ease, saw his breathing steady and deepen. "Hey," he said, squeezing the shoulder. "You okay?"

"Shh. I'm listening."

"To what?" Jim whispered.

Blair exhaled. "Your heart."

Jim's pulse sped up slightly, and Blair smiled. He opened his eyes. "Okay, let's do it," he said, starting forward.

Their progress was slow but steady toward the low concrete wall that ringed the basin.

Blair didn't stop until he was close enough to touch the wall with one finger. "And the crowd goes wild," he said, his voice a mocking
whisper.

The wall was still slightly damp from the recent rain. Jim remained on his feet, but Blair crouched down beside it. No longer touching it
now, he made himself look around and really see it.

The surface of the water in the basin was liberally sprinkled with leaves, twigs, and other debris. The pillar from which water normally
sprayed was draped with wet, disintegrating toilet paper--a farewell gift from the vacationing students.

Blair frowned and mumbled something.

"Little louder, please," Jim said. "You've got my ears, remember."

"Just said it's filthy." Blair wrinkled his nose at a soda can floating nearby, and added, "Needs a pool skimmer."

Jim nodded thoughtfully, looking at the murky, leaf-strewn water. "Yeah. Maybe some chlorine, too. It smells pretty unhealthy."

A snort of amusement was surprised out of Blair, and he looked up at Jim. "Unhealthy," he murmured, and now his smile held no
bitterness or mockery. "Oh, yeah, it was *very* unhealthy."

Jim's grimace for his own choice of words was quickly erased by that smile, and he replied, "A pool skimmer?"

Their laughter was brief and weak, but it dissolved the awful tension.

"It's just a fountain," Blair said, putting both hands on the wall. "A slightly neglected, what-were-they-thinking-with-that-new-sculpture
fountain. Not a demon. Not a nightmare."

"Just a fountain."

Blair moved to sit on the wall. He looked toward the place he'd lain when they fished him out of the water. "I wonder," he said, "if I could
see strands of my hair or fibers from my shirt on the ground over there--"

A hand came up to cover his eyes. "You don't want to know, Chief. *I* don't want to know," Jim said. He took his hand away as his own
eyes were drawn to that spot of ground.

Though the campus was deserted this Sunday morning, to Jim's eyes that place was crowded with people--with the ghosts of that day.
Blair's cold, still body lay in the center of a vortex of laboring paramedics and anguished, helpless police detectives. Jim could see them
plainly, could hear their voices in his head.

The paramedics were giving up, saying that Blair was gone. Simon was pulling him away, telling him the same thing: "Jim, he's gone. Let
him go. He's gone." Jim could hear the faint sound of Inspector Megan Connor's shocked gasp.

In that split-second, when his mind had finally registered the fact of Blair's death, Jim had gone cold.

A fist had squeezed his heart.

Eyesight had narrowed to focus on the corpse that wore Blair's face.

He would never laugh again, never yell at Jim, never talk him patiently out of a zone-out. Those eyes would never regard him with
exasperation over the rims of reading glasses slid halfway down his nose. That voice would never exclaim with mile-a-minute
enthusiasm over some newly discovered sentinel fact.

It was gone.

All of it.

Forever.

Suddenly, Jim had been able to feel. But it hadn't been sadness or guilt or loss that he felt.

A single emotion had flared in his chest.

Rage.

A hot, deadly anger had engulfed him. Anger at Alex Barnes for causing this. At himself for not arriving in time. At the paramedics for giving
up. At Simon for telling him Blair was gone.

At Blair for dying.

"Jim? You okay?" Blair asked, looking up at his partner. Jim was swaying slightly, his face pale. Blair cocked his head. "Man, your heart is
racing! You look like you're gonna keel over. What's wrong?"

The detective sat down abruptly on the wall by his friend. "Angry," he said softly, taken aback by the truth of it. "I was angry at *you*. By god,
I was furious!"

The eyes that turned toward Blair positively glittered, and the younger man felt his own heart speed up. "Uh, Jim," he said uncertainly.
"What's the problem? Is something wr....You know, I wish you wouldn't look at me like that. Really, it's--hey!"

Jim's hands shot out and grabbed Blair's arms so quickly that the younger man yelped. Surprised, he tried to pull away.

The strange expression suddenly faded from Jim's eyes. "Jesus, Blair, don't look at *me* like that," he said. "Makes me feel like a crazed
killer."

Blair chuckled, a little nervously, but he relaxed in Jim's grip, no longer trying to escape. "Not a killer, man; never that. But the crazed
part...."

"Listen to me," Jim told him, his hands tightening unconsciously. "I haven't been able to get over feeling guilty. I thought it was because I
hadn't saved you, or because I threw you out of the loft in the first place, but it wasn't. Until just this second, I hadn't realized the real
reason for it."

The nervousness was gone now, and Blair urged, "Tell me."

"I felt guilty because when everybody told me you were...dead, when that finally registered, I didn't feel sad or upset or sorry or any of those
things--"

"Not even a *little* sad?"

Jim shook him, not gently, and Blair's teeth rattled together. "Shut up, Sandburg, I'm confessing something here," he growled, though he
couldn't stop the smile that quirked his mouth. "I just realized that I felt--" A wondering shake of his head. "Rage. I felt *rage.*"

"At me," Blair said softly.

"Yes."

Blair swallowed. "For not telling you about Alex, for betraying--"

"No!" The denial was so loud, Blair winced. Jim's grip on his arms eased, becoming a gentler pressure. "No," he repeated more calmly.
"I was mad as hell at you--I *blamed* you--for dying. Because you left me."

Blair protested, "Hey, you sort of *left* me first. Drop-kicked me right into the street!" Then he grew thoughtful. "But, as we've already
established, you were one deeply confused, irrational, and screwed up guy just then."

Jim said nothing, just continued to stare at his friend. Blair could almost see the wheels turning in his head. Could see the light dawn
behind the older man's blue eyes.

"You just figured it out, didn't you?" Blair murmured. "Incacha's little puzzle--'With your strength, he can face his fear. With his, you will
conquer your own.' That second part....you just figured it out. What, man? Something to do with making me leave the loft?"

Discomfort was evident on Jim's face, and it took him a few seconds to answer. But he did answer. Being here, where he'd come so
close to losing Blair, he knew he had to speak. He owed his guide the truth--or at least as much of the truth as he thought he'd figured
out.

"Yeah. I think I just realized why I did it." A deep breath. "I've always expected you to leave. It, um, seemed to make sense at the time...that
it'd be better, uh, less painful to get the waiting over with. So I kicked you out. And then you really were gone...permanently."

"You've always expected me to leave?" Blair repeated incredulously. "You decided it'd be better to--Jim, why the hell would you *expect*
me to leave?"

"Chief, before this little Freaky Friday bit here, I never really knew how--" He searched for the right word. "--how connected a guide was. I
mean, it's pretty obvious I'm dependent on you to figure this sentinel stuff out. But it'd never really sunk in that you were...." His voice trailed
off.

Blair smiled. "Committed?" he finished. "Jim, I'm not going anywhere."

"Okay," Jim said softly. "Now if I can just remember that the next time one of us does something stupid--"

"That'd be *you,* man."

Jim punched him on the arm. The lightness faded from his face, replaced by a more serious expression.

"Uh-oh," Blair said. "I know that look. What's wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong. It's just...there's something else, something I think I should tell you. I'm still not really sure *how* I was able to, well,
bring you back. But I remember thinking that if you really were gone--" He paused and tried again. "I mean, if you really were...dead, then I
thought--"

When he didn't continue, Blair said encouragingly, "Just say it, whatever it is. Just tell me."

"If you were gone, then I was going with you."

Silence. As the significance of the blunt words sank in, astonishment left Blair speechless. He stared at Jim, and the longer he
considered it, the more that simple statement scared him. Overwhelmed him. Worried him.

And, for just an instant, quite perversely, lifted his heart.

Jim didn't look away. He watched as Blair's blank surprise was replaced by concern. Then the younger man dropped his eyes and the
frown became a small, very private smile.

After a few seconds, Blair looked up at Jim again, his mouth opening to speak. The words froze in his throat. He stiffened suddenly, an
arrested expression on his face.

Jim didn't have to ask what was wrong. All at once, the Sentinel was a sentinel again. A barrage of sights, sounds, and odors rushed at
him and he compensated with an ease born of experience. The world was brighter, smells seemed stronger, sounds were clear and
sharp. A grin transformed his face.

Then Blair spoke, and the older man's happiness was tempered by the sadness in his voice. "It's gone, Jim," Blair said. "Everything's
gone."

"I know, Chief. Apparently, I'm back in business again."

"Back to normal."

Jim shook Blair's shoulder a bit. "Hey, buddy, you okay?"

"Yeah, I guess, but I miss--" Blair sighed, his expression wistful. "I miss the connection." A hand waved between Jim and himself.

Jim leaned over a bit, to catch his friend's downcast eyes. He placed a hand flat on Blair's chest. "But it's still there," Jim insisted. "Right?"
 

Blair looked at the hand resting on his chest, resting on the soft green flannel of his borrowed shirt, then his eyes flickered toward Jim's
face.

Two sets of blue eyes met, then Jim grinned suddenly and wiggled his eyebrows. "Riiiight?" he repeated.

A smile teased Blair's lips and he agreed, "Yeah, Jim. It is." He grinned back at the Sentinel.

Jim tapped his guide on the chest then stood and held out a hand, saying, "How 'bout we get the hell out of here, Sandburg?"

Blair let Jim pull him to his feet. As he stood, a loud noise interrupted the silence, and he looked at Jim's stomach, eyebrows rising
quizzically.

"What can I say?" Jim said, shrugging. "I'm a growing boy, and you ate my breakfast."

"'I'm a growing boy?'" Blair said. Looking up at the taller man, he repeated Jim's earlier comment: "Four words to send a cold chill down
my back."

Blair dodged the slow punch Jim aimed at his head.

As they walked away from the fountain, Jim turned back once. The sun was out, the water glinted brightly. It was just a fountain, and the
ghosts were gone. Blair wasn't there any more. Blair was here, where he was meant to be.

Where he would always be?

Jim sighed. Incacha had said his fear would be overcome only "in time." But Blair had come back and now they had that time.

"Hey, Jim," Blair said, "come on. That demon's history."

"Old news," Jim said, nodding. Still looking at the fountain, he added, "Sandburg, promise me something."

"Uh-oh. Lay it on me and we'll see."

"No more dying."

Blair glanced at the fountain, then fixed his eyes on Jim. *If you were gone, then I was going with you.* That simple statement was about
as world-altering as anything he'd ever heard. He knew it was going to require some serious thought.

This entire day was going to take some heavy-duty processing.

But not right now. Right now, he was back in the guide business, Jim was looking at him with eyes that could once again count the
freckles on a flea, and things were better than they had been in a long time.

So Blair shrugged, spread his hands, and said lightly, "Can I help it if I'm a sentinel-magnet? But I promise you this, man--next time a
long-legged, blonde, sociopathic, female-type sentinel comes my way, I'll run screaming in the other direction."

Jim draped a long arm across his friend's shoulders and said, "Running would be good, Flash. The screaming is optional."

The End

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