Jim stood in his bedroom frowning down at the shirt he'd just taken off and laid on his bed. How, he wondered, had he managed to get ketchup on the thing? Breakfast--no ketchup. Lunch--no ketchup. Dinner--well, he hadn't had dinner yet, so no ketchup there either. Yet his nose told him quite clearly that the spots on the sleeve were ketchup.

As he went to his shelves to get a clean shirt, he heard the door open downstairs. "Sandburg! You eaten yet? How 'bout we--" The slamming of the front door cut off Jim's question and caused him to wince. "Hey, Conan, take it easy on the door. You're gonna break--"

The slamming of the French doors leading to Blair's room ended that sentence abruptly as well. Jim frowned. What was going on? Sandburg had been in an exceptionally good mood lately. Something had certainly put an end to that.

The sound of banging from Blair's room overrode sentinel scruples. Jim enhanced his hearing and eavesdropped on his roommate.

He froze, head tilted to listen. Was he hearing what he thought he was hearing?

Abandoning his search for another shirt, he pulled on a T-shirt and headed down the stairs. He paused outside Blair's room and listened. Sure enough there was that sound again.

Crying. Sandburg was crying, and his heart was racing. A loud thump echoed in Jim's head, bringing another wince, and he pulled his hearing back to normal range. More thumps and bangs were easily audible, as though Sandburg was opening and closing drawers and throwing things in his room.

Jim knocked. "Hey, Chief?"

"Not now!"

The sentinel was surprised by the anger in his normally easygoing friend's voice. What was going on? He put his hand on the knob to open the door.

And stopped.

Sandburg was upset, obviously, but did that give Jim the right to barge in and demand an explanation? Didn't Blair have a right to his privacy?

Jim frowned. Well, of course he did, but that didn't change the fact that Jim was worried and wanted to help. Didn't change the fact that his hand positively itched to turn the knob and confront his guide. The memory of that racing heartbeat still filled his head.

He pulled his hand back from the knob and said, "Uh, Blair, what's wr--"

The door was wrenched open suddenly and Jim took an involuntary step back. Blair stood in the doorway, tears running down his face, yet looking as though he wanted very much to hit something. Or someone.

"Jim, can you just give me some space here? Do I have to leave to get a little damn privacy?"

Holding up both hands in a gesture of surrender, Jim replied, "Easy, Chief. I was worried about you. Just wanted to know if I could help."

The glare held for another few seconds, then Blair's flushed face crumpled. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I'm s-sorry. It's not you. It's just...oh, shit! I wasn't going to cry. I wasn't going to--" The sobs he'd been holding back finally got the better of him, and Blair gave in to them. Taking a step forward, he leaned his forehead against Jim's chest.

Startled for only a moment--Blair had gone from furious to crying in seconds--Jim brought his arms up to encircle the smaller man. His friend's obvious distress pained him and he held on tight even as he wondered what could've happened.

"It's not Naomi? Your mom's not--" He felt the bowed head move in a negative, even as Blair continued to cry. "Okay. It's okay, buddy. Whatever it is, I want to help."

When the worst of the shuddering sobs had passed, Jim helped Blair to the couch. The younger man started to pull back after they'd sat down, but Jim held onto him. He could still feel the tremors shaking Blair's body. With a sigh, Blair relaxed onto his friend's shoulder.

His chin resting on the curly head, Jim said, "Tell me, Blair. Tell me what happened."

Soft, hopeless voice. "Amanda's dead."

Amanda? A girlfriend? A student? "I'm sorry, Blair, really I am. But who--"

"AnthroFan Number 1."

Understanding dawned. "Oh no. Oh, Blair, not the girl you've been emailing for the past two months? That grad student's cousin?"

"Sister. She's--she was--Frank Abel's kid sister. She was eighteen, Jim. She was so excited about coming to Rainier this fall and getting into anthro. God, she'd even read Burton!" The tears came again, thickening Blair's voice, "She was just a kid, Jim! A kid! I just can't believe...I mean, it's just so damned unfair!"

Jim patted his friend's back, making soothing noises, yet he was deeply shocked. He knew how close Blair had gotten to this girl, though they'd never laid eyes on each other.

Sociology graduate student Frank Abel had asked Blair if he'd mind giving his kid sister a little advice. She was a budding anthropologist and was planning to attend Rainier in the fall. Blair had gladly agreed, teasing the extremely protective Frank by saying that the world needed more anthropologists, especially female ones.

What had begun as a favor for a friend had quickly become much more. Amanda Abel--who's email handle was AnthroFan1--had come across in her correspondence with Blair as a vivacious, eager, and extremely bright young woman. They talked daily, sometimes several times a day, about what courses she would take, where she would live on campus, and about the work of Sir Richard Burton.

And now she was dead? Jim couldn't take it in. Eighteen years old. Sandburg was right--she was a kid. How could she be gone?

"Chief," Jim asked softly, "what happened? How did she die?"

"Cancer."

Jim stiffened in surprise. "You never told me--"

Blair lifted his head, looking at the sentinel with blue eyes shaded to indigo by strong emotion. "I didn't know! Jim, she'd known she had it for the past six months, but she never said a word to me. I had no idea. Oh god, man, if I'd known...if I'd known, I would've...." He shook his head helplessly.

"What? What would you have done?"

"I don't know!" Now anger twisted Blair's tear-damp face. "I don't have any idea! But I would've done something! I should've done something! I would've been..." Blair pulled away from Jim's hands and stood suddenly. He began to pace in front of the balcony doors, the light from the setting sun giving his pale face a deceptively warm glow. "I would've done something. I would've been more careful! I would've treated her--"

"Differently?"

Blair stopped pacing and stared at him.

"Maybe that's why she didn't tell you, Blair. Maybe you did her the best favor in the world by just treating her like a person...not like a person with cancer. Chief, you read me some of her emails. Sounded to me like you and she were good friends. Like you were treating her exactly the way she wanted. What did she say in that one message? Something about 'You don't talk down to me and treat me like a kid.'"

Blair was nodding slowly, expression distant as he recalled the words. "She said I didn't talk down to her and treat her like a kid or tell her anthro was just a phase she was going through. Apparently, her parents thought her anthropology kick--that's what they called it at first--was something she'd outgrow. But they came around. I mean, Amanda was an amazingly persuasive and persistent person."

The bright look faded, crumpling instantly into pain. "And she's gone! I never even got to meet her. She'll never get to realize her dream. God! It's so unfair!" He turned suddenly and slammed his open hand into the glass of the balcony doors.

"Chief!" Jim was on his feet at once. Blair gasped in pain and cradled his right hand in his left. "Let me see," Jim demanded. "Let me see it."

"It's okay. It's--aaahh!"

Jim had taken the hand gently in both of his and was turning it this way and that, bending the fingers carefully. Blair hissed in pain a few times, but Jim reported in relief, "Nothing broken, but that was a foolish thing to do, Chief." He let go of the hand and took his friend by the shoulders.

Staring down at Blair's angry, sorrowful face, Jim said firmly, "No, it's not fair. It's absolutely unfair. Even the little I knew of her made her seem like a hell of a person."

The anger couldn't hold out against the sorrow and Blair leaned toward his friend, once again resting his head against that strong chest. "Oh man, Jim. I just can't believe it. I can't even think about her without crying like a baby. It's just so sad. So painful. So--"

"Are you sorry you knew her? Wish you'd never agreed to help her?"

The blunt words made Blair's head come up with a snap. "What?! No! Of course not. That's a stupid thing to say. I don't regret a minute of knowing her. She was terrific. She'd read Burton and didn't dismiss his work on sentinels as fantasy. She even had some ideas that....well, she was green, sure, but her mind was, like, totally amazing. She made me think about things differently, made me see things in ways I wouldn't have otherwise. Like I said, she was unbelievably persuasive and persistent."

By the time Blair finished speaking, the sentinel was smiling.

"What?" Blair asked, nettled. "What the hell could be funny right now?"

Shaking his head in fond exasperation, Jim told him, "Sandburg, if you change the gender on those last, um, three sentences, you could be talking about yourself."

"Last three sentences?"

Blair was obviously too upset to get the point, so Jim recited the sentences in question, with the gender change. "His mind was, like, totally amazing. He made me think about things differently, made me see things in ways I wouldn't have otherwise. He was unbelievably persuasive and persistent." The sentinel smiled down at his friend. "Buddy, I could say those same things about you. Hell, I probably have said 'em, with maybe a few, uh, colorful exclamations thrown in."

Blinking in surprise, the grad student finally nodded. With a small smile, he said, "So you saying you're not sorry you met me either?"

Jim gave him a shake to emphasize his words. "Blair, if I hadn't met you, I'd be dead. Or at the very least locked up in some loony bin."

Blair bit his lip, and his face twisted with some strong emotion. Concerned, Jim drew him closer. "Chief, it's okay. It's all ri--"

And then Blair began to laugh. A soft chuckle at first, the amusement seemed to feed on itself and he was soon nearly doubled over with laughter.

"Chief? Uh, Sandburg, you getting hysterical on me here?"

Blair waved that notion away with one hand, the other holding onto Jim's arm for support. The laughter, coming on top of the other strong emotions of the day, left his knees weak, and Jim found himself supporting the smaller man as he leaned on Jim helplessly.

"Oh man. Oh, Jim. S-sorry. Whew! Oh boy. It just suddenly s-struck me. It was just too funny," Blair wheezed, finally getting himself under control. "Man, I need to sit down. My knees are shaking like Jell-O."

Settling him on the couch again, Jim said, "I think your brain's Jell-O, too. What's so funny?"

"I just remembered something Amanda said. We were talking about the, uh, farfetched notion that there might be actual sentinels in the world--"

Jim waved a hand. "Too weird for me, Chief."

Blair flashed a grin and went on. "Anyway, she said she'd always thought it would be really hard for a sentinel to survive in the modern world. She said--I swear these were her exact words--she said, 'If he tried to tell people he was hearing voices from miles away, seeing things nobody else could see, smelling weird stuff, he'd definitely find himself locked up in some loony bin.' But she said she'd always wanted to find one--an actual sentinel. Said it was one of her dreams. I told her that had always been my dream, too." The look Blair turned on his friend caused Jim to flush slightly, disconcerted to think of himself as the realization of somebody's dream. Of Sandburg's dream.

Blair sighed, drawing Jim's attention away from his own mild embarrassment and back to his hurting friend. The grad student said, "I never even met her, but I'm going to miss her. Miss her a hell of a lot, Jim."

"I'm sorry I never got to know her. She sounds terrific. Well, actually, she sounds a lot like a female version of you. Oh, sorry. That was a nasty thing to say, wasn't it?"

Blair gave him a mock glare. "Ha, ha. I was really looking forward to introducing her to you. She talked faster than I do."

"I thought you only corresponded by email?"

"Yeah, but we'd do real-time chats occasionally. Frustrated Amanda no end that her computer couldn't keep up with her flying fingers. And her typing couldn't keep up with her thinking." He grinned. "Jim, did I ever tell you what happened when Amanda's folks offered to buy her a new dress for the senior prom?"

"No, you didn't, Chief."

"Man, it's so funny--" Blair's laugh cut off abruptly. He looked suddenly uncomfortable and glanced out the glass doors toward the balcony. "Oh, hey. Sun's gone. It's late. You must be starving. I didn't mean to...I..."

He started to rise, but Jim's hand on his arm pulled him back. "I won't starve, Blair." Peering closely at the other man's face, Jim asked, "What, Chief? What's wrong?"

A guilty look and a slight hunching of the shoulders. "It's not right. I shouldn't be sitting here telling funny stories when Amanda's...dead."

"Why not? Why shouldn't you be telling me funny Amanda stories? Do you think you're doing her memory a disservice by remembering her with laughter? Do you suppose she'd want you to sit around crying every time you think of her?"

Blair looked at him in surprise. "N-no. I don't...I mean, I hadn't really known her that long, but I don't think she'd want me to sit around--"

There was a pause while Blair thought about it. "Remembering her with laughter," he said, repeating Jim's words softly. Giving Jim a considering look, he added, "Okay, who are you and what've you done with my stoic, man-of-no-words partner?"

"You just bring out my deep-thinking side, Grasshopper." Jim's light blue eyes twinkled as they rested on his friend. Leaning back in the couch to get more comfortable, he said, "Tell me about the prom dress, Chief. Did Amanda want a really expensive one?"

Blair shook head, and the grin found its way back to his face. "Nah. It's like this: her folks offered to buy her a new dress for her senior prom. She told them she'd rather use the money to buy a book she'd seen in a rare bookstore--a famous old anthro textbook. When they started to argue about it, she told them--" The memory brought a laugh. "She told them they were coming out ahead. All she needed was the money they were going to spend on the dress. They could keep the cash it would've taken to buy new shoes to go with the dress!"

Jim chuckled. "Clever. So she skipped the prom?"

"No way! She said there was going to be a live swing band and dancing. She just went in an older dress. Her folks decided to spring for a new pair of shoes anyway. Frank told me they were amused as hell at the deal she'd made with them to get that book she wanted so much. After that, they stopped calling anthro a phase, and started supporting her decision."

"Sound like good people."

"Yeah, totally. They really got behind her once they saw how serious, how committed she was." He laughed again. "Speaking of committed, I gotta tell you about the time Amanda went to Machu Picchu."

Though part of him was listening with genuine interest to the story, another part of Jim kept remembering what he'd said to his young friend earlier.

Blair, if I hadn't met you, I'd be dead. Or at the very least locked up in some loony bin.

Sorry he'd met Blair Sandburg? Hardly. The thought of never having known him was enough to give a tough-guy detective the shakes.

Jim laughed at a particularly funny part of the story, and Blair suddenly paused in his narrative, his eyes regarding the sentinel warmly. "Thanks, man," he said. Jim's eyebrows rose questioningly, and Blair added, "For listening to me. For...giving her back to me. For helping me see it's okay to...laugh."

There flashed through Jim's mind two memories: the man he'd been four years ago--angry, out-of-control, unhappy--and the man he was now, because of the advent of a certain Sandburg into his world.

He smiled. Giving the younger man's shoulder a squeeze, he said, "Just returning the favor, Chief. Just returning the favor."

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