It wasn't raining. That's why Blair Sandburg had forgone the dubious luxury of taking his Volvo three blocks to get lunch. Instead, he had walked, basking in the rare warmth, tying his sweatshirt around his waist when (o wonder of wonders) it got a little too hot for comfort. It was shaping into a pretty great afternoon, actually, with a little breeze that ruffled his loose hair and carried mouthwatering aromas from the cluster of tiny shops he was passing.

Blair was so intent on the steaming loaves of sunflower wheat-berry bread being set up in one window display that he almost didn't hear the first child's cry. Distracted, he looked around, scanning his immediate area for signs of trouble and found none. With a shrug, he turned back to the window, and heard it again, a child crying, and then shouting adults.

Blair had never been the type to mind his own business. A childhood spent at Naomi Sandburg's side had taught him that "citizens of the world" get involved. Add to that upbringing enough curiosity for three men, and the results were Blair trying to track the sounds to their source, wishing for just a little of his partner's special abilities.

He managed to locate the disturbance in a nearby alley between two abandoned buildings, and he paused a moment to asses the situation. Two men, both larger than he, were shouting and shoving at one another. One woman, in rather garish finery for early afternoon, leaned against a damp brick wall, blood leaking from beneath the hand she held to her bruised and swollen cheek. Another woman knelt beside a crying toddler, her cap of coppery curls bent over him, murmuring nonsense in a soothing voice.

One man, the biggest of the two, made a charge at the bleeding woman, and the other shoved him back hard, landing a solid punch on the unshaven jaw. The apparent object of their fight joined the younger looking woman and the child, who began screaming again when he saw his mother's injuries.

"Tammy, you can't go back to him. For Ryan's sake, if not for your own." Clear gray eyes in a smudged face looked up and saw Blair, then glanced back at the fight, now escalating into a winner takes all brawl.

"Can I help?" Sandburg asked, and the red haired girl shook her head.

"It'll be all right, but you'd better go. I'd hate for you to get in.ARGH!!"

A meaty hand with bleeding knuckles was dragging her back, fingers tangled in her short hair. Tammy's "boyfriend" had managed to daze his his current opponent. "You stay out of our business, you nosy bitch!" he hollered, and slammed the younger woman across the face.

That was all Blair needed to see. Without thought, he leapt into the fray, jumping on the bigger man's back with an angry shout of his own. The slight street woman broke loose, but she was staring at them with not quite focused eyes, slow to move. Her male companion shook off his own fogginess and dove past her into Blair's opponent, just as the hulking man clubbed the grad student off and kicked at him viciously.

The curly haired girl saw a glitter of metal, managed to focus on it, hollered "BeBop!! He's got a knife!" while she frantically searched for some kind of weapon. A battered garbage can lid, and a chunk of brick came to hand and she charged after her friend. He was already bleeding from a slash on his arm. The blade crashed on her makeshift shield and she smashed up at the twisted face with the sharp edged brick.

When the bruiser pulled back to avoid her hit, he tripped over Sandburg as the smaller man was trying to get to his feet. They fell together and the knife sank into Blair's flesh with a flash of white heat too painful to feel at first. Adrenaline gave him the strength to push his attacker away.

BeBop and the redhead came to his side as the hulk shambled out. Tammy and her son had fled during the fight, and now the two friends were alone with a bleeding Blair in the alley. They stared at each other, still panting, then, as the stranger groaned, the girl knelt beside him. She gently probed his side, finding the blade, and the blood that gushed from his wound.

"BeBop, he's bleeding really badly." Her grimy face had a smear of blood on it, her skirt and hands were becoming soaked with it. "We've got to get him to a hospital. I don't dare to touch that blade, it might be holding something important together."

The tall, slender man cocked his head, pale dreadlocks swinging around his face. An instant later, she heard the sirens too.

"No time," he said quietly. "Jazz, they're gonna think that we did it. If we leave him, the cops.."

"The cops may not find him in time. We can't let him die, he may have saved our lives today." Her gray eyes looked down into pain-filled blue ones, and she managed a reassuring smile. "We aren't going to leave you, mister. You're gonna be okay."

Too exhausted to question her, Blair nodded slowly. The last thing he was aware of was someone trying to lift him. The pain drove him into darkness.

Blair dimly recognized that a voice was speaking to him, the words were somewhat familiar. Another hospital stay. Terrific. Jim was going to be pissed. He could hear him now. "If you have to jump into a fight, Chief, pick on someone your own size, will you?" Deciding that he was better off just facing the music, he opened his eyes...and stared.

He wasn't in a hospital room. And the person beside his bed wasn't Jim. He had to be there somewhere. "Jim?" he croaked, his voice hoarse from all the earlier yelling and someone held a glass and straw to his lips. Blair sipped cautiously and tasted...nothing. Cool water soothed the irritated tissues in his abused throat. After a few sips, the glass moved and he lay back, becoming aware of a radiating pain in his side. Experimentally, he probed the site, encountering a thick pad of bandage. The woman beside him gently lifted his hand away.

"Don't mess with that right now, you might start it bleeding again, and you've lost too much blood as it is. Would you like some more water?"

"Where's Jim?" he asked, confused, blinking up at her like a blue-eyed owl. Some kind of soft lighting behind her lit her cap of curls into a fiery halo as she sat on the edge of his bed.

"There isn't any Jim here. Is he a friend of yours? What's your name, anyway?"

"Jim's my roommate. I'm Blair, Blair Sandburg."

"I'm Jazz. Do you remember the fight in the alley?" At his nod, she smiled "Good. Sonata said that she wasn't too worried about that bump on your head, and as usual she was right. Doesn't look like it did much damage." She had a sharp little cat's face, too thin for beauty, sunflushed on her nose and cheeks. The loose knit sweater she wore over a t shirt was too big and obviously second, maybe third, hand. Her loose sweatpants had patches on the knees. Not a nurse.

"Where am I?" Blair winced at the question from a thousand melodramas but Jazz took it in stride.

"You've probably guessed that you aren't in a hospital. You were bleeding so badly, we were afraid to leave you for the cops to find. They might not have done so in time. If we had gone for help," she glanced down at her comfortable, worn clothing and around at the dark shabby room. "We're street people, Blair. They'd have arrested BeBop, or me, or both of us for stabbing you. We couldn't risk that, we don't have any money, or anyone who could speak for us. So, we brought you here, where we live. Our doctor is really good, and I knew she could tell how badly you were hurt, could get you stabilized."

Blair took another look around, his eyes eager now. "Okay, so what is this place then? Who is 'we'?" Even flat on his back, the idea of being among a different culture got his interest going.

Jazz laughed. "Look at you! I was afraid you'd get all freaked out. We, well, we're this little group of runaways. Throwaways, homeless. America's Most Unwanted. Not all of us are illiterate, or crazy, or criminal, you know. Some of the others and I got to talking and we decided that if no one else wanted us, maybe we could take care of each other. You know, be like a family. A really dysfunctional one.. but family. It's crazy, but it works. We've got musicians, theater people, a doctor. A few people volunteer at Goodwill and the Salvation Army, they get to bring home the stuff  not good enough to sell."

"And nobody notices this community within a city just existing here?"

"Of course they notice. We have to move when someone does, because we aren't licensed and trained and taxed and regulated. The cops would kick us out, or arrest us for something." The red-haired woman looked around the room with a fond smile. "This is a pretty good place, though. We've been here for months without a problem." Gray eyes, the colour of pewter in the soft light, silently pleaded with Blair to understand the significance of what he was being told. Pleaded for a promise of silence.

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