Sand and Water

*All alone I came into this world and
All alone I will someday die
Solid stone is just sand and water, baby
Sand and water, and a million years gone by*
- Beth Nielsen Chapman

The moon must have come out while I was sleeping, because the loft is lit with a cold brightness, like daylight without color. Every detail is in sharp relief, all the edges stark and bare. If I want to get back to sleep I should probably dig out my eye mask or just put a pillow over my head, but it seems like too much trouble.

Blair sleeps deeply beside me in a sprawl of smooth shoulders and tangled hair. I want to run my hands down his back, touch all that pale skin from the soft nape of his neck down to where the sheet twines around his hips. I want to push his hair back from his face and kiss him in the moonlight, but the too-sharp angles of his shoulder blades remind me that I need to let him sleep and get strong again. I notice the slight bruising left by my teeth on his shoulder, and I turn away before I leave a trail of those marks down his spine.

A few hours ago I woke up in his bed, wrapped so closely around him I could feel each breath he took. For the first time in weeks he seemed to be sleeping easily, and I hoped his exhaustion had finally caught up with him. I carefully pulled out of his arms, but by the time I finished my shower he was awake. He cleaned up in the bathroom while I warmed up soup, which for some reason made him smile, and then I spent a surreal half hour listening while he talked.

Over the Jags game on the radio and a bowl of lentil soup, Blair told me that he saw Gabe at the station, and spoke to Alita in the park. In a matter-of-fact voice he told me how Roy had warned him about the door he didn’t close, and about the blue, silent place that seems to wait for him around every corner.

I didn’t know what to say. I just listened, and then led him up the stairs. Blair didn’t question; he simply crawled into my bed and fell asleep between one moment and the next, as if he’d stepped off a cliff into oblivion. That was fine with me because he needed the rest, and I needed to be next to him.

Lying here now, I’m not thinking about the afterlife, or ghosts, or even Blair’s tenuous grasp on this world. I’m thinking about how we ended up in his bed in the first place. I’m thinking about slow kisses and frantic passion, and how reality can be better than your imagination sometimes.

I’m wondering what will happen tomorrow; if Blair will wake up wanting to forget this ever happened, or worse, blame me for it. After all, I had months to come to terms with how I felt about him, and to decide exactly what I wanted. As far as I can tell, Blair had thirty seconds to consider it while I held him in my arms and told him I’d never let him go. For all I know he’s so desperate and scared right now that he would cling to anyone who offered him an anchor.

Not that the state of our personal relationship matters if we don’t figure out how to close this “door”. For now, at least, I need to let him decide what happens next. If anything.

I make this decision just as I notice his breathing change. I look over at him in alarm. No longer deep, each breath is shallow and infrequent, and without a doubt I know he is slipping away again to drift outside his body.

“Blair?”

My voice sounds odd in the quiet, and I brush back his hair to see his face. It doesn’t seem right that the events of the last few weeks have polished him somehow; lit him with some inner fire that magnifies his beauty even while it burns him up from the inside.

My first impulse is to shake him awake, but instead I ease him into my arms, and pull him close. I feel like I’m indulging myself, learning his face with my mouth. I kiss the smooth skin of his temple and the shadowed roughness of his jaw.

“Don’t go,” I breathe. “Stay with me.”

The words are hypnotic, we are sharing one breath, and I feel like we are floating somewhere outside this bed and this room. For a few moments the moonlight takes on a bluish cast, and I can almost believe that we are in Blair’s waking dream together. He moves against me, and I lean back to look at him. He opens his eyes, crystal blue and startling.

“You followed me,” he whispers.


***


Jim and I are on the way to the station, driving through the drizzling rain that hasn’t let up in days. For two people who spent the night practically sharing the same pajamas, we are very quiet.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so awkward now if Simon hadn’t called about two minutes after the alarm went off. I felt like he was in the room with us, like he could see us in the same bed, Jim in boxers and me trying not to stare. No one should wake up looking that good. I know I don’t.

Jim mumbled into the phone, rubbed his eyes, and mouthed, “Simon” at me, and that was it. I was down the stairs and in the bathroom with the shower running before Jim could say a word.

We didn’t have time to talk after I got dressed, either. Jim, casually perfect as usual, handed my jacket to me as I walked out of my room. Apparently Alita Murdoch’s boyfriend broke down when confronted with her body and confessed to involuntary manslaughter. Simon wanted us both to come in right away. I guess my banishment has been temporarily rescinded.

“I can’t believe it’s raining again,” I comment when the silence stretches too long. It worries me that the only topic of conversation I can come up with concerns the weather.

Jim looks up at the sky through the windshield. “These clouds came in fast. It was so clear last night. All that moonlight kept me awake until just before dawn.”

I look at him strangely. “Jim, it’s been raining for days. This cloud cover hasn’t broken in almost a week. There couldn’t have been moonlight last night.”

“What are you talking about? Of course there was moonlight…” he trails off, looking at me until an angry horn pulls his attention back to the road.

“Fuck,” he whispers, shaking his head.

I just rub my eyes, thinking I’ve never felt this weary.

“I need to figure this out, Jim. It’s obviously getting worse.”

“Roy didn’t give you any kind of a hint about this door thing?” He sounds frustrated, and a little sarcastic.

“No, he didn’t. Alita didn’t mention it at all, and Gabe was just… Gabe.”

“You need to talk to one of them again.”

“Sure. No problem. Can I borrow your cell phone?”

“Sandburg - “

“Okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just don’t – I mean, how do I do that? Do you have a suggestion?”

Jim is quiet, and I think he might be irritated, but then he says, “You saw Alita in the park, by the murder scene. And you saw Gabe in the hallway of the station.”

“Yeah…”

“They died there.”

I shiver a little. “That’s true. But what about Roy? I saw him in the loft.”

“Well, sure, but you two were friends. You knew him pretty well.” Jim is warming to this idea.

“Why would that make a difference?”

“How the hell would I know?” he says, without heat. “Do you have a better idea?”

“No,” I admit. “But two pieces of supporting evidence and one contradicting isn’t really a big enough statistical sampling to prove your theory, either.”

“Are you writing a paper on this, Sandburg? Humor me.”

He gives me a look, the same one I get every time I fall into scientist-mode, and I’m really happy to see it. I have to smile.

“Fine, man, you win. Let’s give it a shot.”

“Station or park?” He doesn’t mention the drainage ditch where we found Roy, and I’m grateful.

“Park. If we’re going to have a seance, I’d rather not have an audience.”

Jim turns the truck around, and I lean my head on the window, my amusement gone as I think about what I’m going to try to do.

“Chief?” Jim says after a few minutes.

“Just thinking. It’s weird, you know? If you’re right about this, I guess I would have been hanging around the fountain forever.”

Jim looks stricken, like I just punched him.

“Hey… I’m sorry…” I say uselessly. By this time we’ve reached the park, and Jim pulls over without answering me.

Everyone in our neighborhood calls this place “the park”, but it’s really just a city planner’s afterthought in an attempt to keep some trees in the urban area. It is a tiny, wooded block of green bordering the lake; with a path winding through the trees that will take you the same place the sidewalk does, only with a better view.

It’s the perfect side trip for a morning run, or the perfect place to have an argument late at night. As we duck under the yellow police tape over one of the entrance gates I am picturing Daniel and Alita walking this way two nights ago.

It is so quiet at the murder site, where the path turns toward the lake and we can no longer see the street. The police tape at both gates has so far kept the curious out, and we are completely alone. Now that we’re standing here I feel foolish, and have no idea what to do next. Jim is watching me, and I look at him and shrug.

“Anything?” he asks.

“Other than a really intense sense of deja vu, no.”

I walk to where she fell, but there is no sign of any disturbance. It’s like it only happened in my mind. So I close my eyes until I can see Alita’s face, pale in the moonless dark, with her hair trailing on the ground. I can feel the wind biting at my face as it sends rain spattering against the leaves, and I can hear Daniel’s panicked footsteps running away.

In the shadows of this memory, something lingers, waiting. Watching.

I try to see it, to give it a name, but the dark night I remember is fading, suffused with a soft blue glow that flows over me like cool water. It takes so much effort to turn away from this shining silence that I fall to my knees. Then all at once I am back in the quiet gray of the morning, staring at the ground and feeling the damp soaking through the denim of my jeans.

Jim’s hands are on my arms, gripping tightly. We look at each other for a second and then he helps me up.

“What happened?” he asks quietly, but I can hear his voice shaking.

“I can’t do this again,” I answer him. “I can’t go looking for them. I won’t get back.”

We start walking. Instead of heading back the way we came, we continue on the path toward the lake and the other gate. There is a wooden bench just out of the trees near the shore. Jim stops and sits on the back of it, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his feet on the bench, staring out at the water. He looks so downcast, as if this latest failure is hard to shake off.

I shiver in the cold damp. The rain is just mist now, but I feel it seeping into me.

“It was a good idea,” I say softly, standing beside him and looking at the shore line. He shakes his head and looks at his clasped hands.

“Blair, if it isn’t up to you – if you have no control over this, how can we stop it?” He sounds so tired, so worn out. Out of habit I lay my hand on his shoulder, wishing I could do more.

But I can do more. The thought makes me hold my breath. Up until yesterday, touching his shoulder in sympathy would have been all I was allowed to do, but today… Tentatively, I reach behind his neck and stroke the soft hair at his nape.

He looks at me in surprise, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him either. Staring into sky-blue eyes, I realize I can kiss him – right here in the park at 8:30 in the morning. I curve my palm over the sharp edge of his jaw, and he looks so unsure – of what is going to happen, of me - that I just lean over and do it.

The shape of his mouth is still unfamiliar. Making love to him last night is just a haze of sensations now; it happened so quickly that I didn’t get a chance to notice how smooth his lips are, how firm against mine, how unbelievably warm… I suck gently on his lower lip, fascinated. If I can just get closer, maybe I can get warm again, too. I tug softly on his chin with my thumb and lick his mouth open, so I can get to that sweet, wet heat.

Oh, God. This I remember. His mouth is deep and slick and perfect. He tastes of something so addictive that I want to sink into him, make him part of me. I slide my hand into his hair and pull him close, sealing our mouths together.

Then he is shifting, standing, and moving into my arms. His hands move possessively over my shoulders, my back, pulling us together. He is kissing me with such gentle urgency that I think I could do this forever.

Or at least until the insistent voice inside suggesting I pull him down to the ground takes over.

“Jim?” I mutter.

“Mmmm?” That wordless question murmured into my mouth sends a soft vibration through me that makes me moan, makes me kiss him some more. He is endlessly distracting, but I try again.

“Jim.”

“What?” he says against my cheek.

I lean back to look at him very seriously. “We’re making out in the park.”

The laughter bubbles out of him in a low chuckle that is so arousing I try to drag his mouth back down to mine, but he drops his head onto my shoulder before I can do it.

“You’re right. That’s what we’re doing.” He takes a deep, steadying breath. Then he laughs again, like he can’t help it. He sounds about twelve and despite everything I have to laugh, too.

“We should probably stop; because, you know… it’s the park.”

“Yeah, Sandburg, I got that part.” There is amusement threaded through his voice, muffled against my jacket, and I listen to it with something close to wonder. It’s been too long since I heard him laugh like this.

“We could get arrested,” I growl in his ear, just to see what will happen, and sure enough, he leans against me again, his shoulders shaking.

“You are one easy audience, Ellison,” I tell him, but I’m grinning, too, and wishing I could make him laugh like this every day for the rest of his life.


***


Blair and I get to the station, and walk through the parking garage. It felt so good to laugh, mostly out of sheer relief at holding him again. Unfortunately that slightly hysterical euphoria is fading and I feel drained and disconnected.

The elevator is empty, and as soon as we step in Blair moves to lean against the wall, as if he needs the support. I glance over at him, concerned. He is too pale in the harsh fluorescent lighting, all eyes and cheekbones and that mouth that’s becoming my obsession. He notices me watching him, and looks up to give me a slow grin that sends heat spiraling down through my body.

Careening between soul-deep worry and mind-fogging lust is exhausting. It’s only nine a.m. and all I can think about is taking him back to bed.

“Simon is probably losing it,” he comments, but he doesn’t sound too worried about the prospect.

“He might be a little irritated, yes.” I can’t really work up a lot of concern either.

“We need a good excuse.”

“We could always tell him the truth, Sandburg – we were checking out the crime scene.”

“And trying to contact the murder victim,” he adds.

“Maybe we should skip that part.”

“How about making out in the park – should we skip that part, too?” he continues teasingly.

“Hey, if that’s what you want to tell Simon, it’s fine with me.”

The words fall between us, deliberate and serious. I had been trying to tease him back but it didn’t come out that way. I realize I meant every word, and Sandburg realizes it, too. He is looking at me in guarded silence, but there is a strangely vulnerable expression on his face that I can’t interpret.

So much for not pushing our relationship. Damn it all to hell.

Before I can say anything else the elevator door opens onto the lobby and a few people get on, including Megan.

“Good morning, gentlemen. I see you’re still standing, Sandy. That’s good.”

I think that’s a strange comment to make until I remember that I more or less fled the crime scene yesterday with no more explanation to her than that there was something very wrong back at home.

We stand in awkward silence for a few seconds, facing the door.

“Sorry.” I finally say.

“Fine.” She waves her hand in the air, but even I can tell she’s still annoyed.

“Probably should have called you or something.”

“Or something. But it’s fine. I assumed I would have heard if something were seriously wrong.” I decide that it’s more than her accent that is making her words sound clipped.

“It got late,” I say, a little desperately.

“I’m sure it did.”

At this point Sandburg is looking at me like I’m dropping IQ points, but it’s too late.

“You know how it is… one thing led to another… ”

At this point Conner turns completely around and looks from me to Sandburg with eyebrows raised, and I think very seriously about kicking myself. Blair is staring at me, and if I listened very hard I could probably hear him thinking, “Shut. Up.”

Thankfully the doors open on our floor, and we head out together. Simon steps out of his office before we are completely through the door to the bullpen.

“He’s losing it,” Conner informs us under her breath, before veering off toward her own desk and out of firing range.

“Well, well. I’m glad you two could work us into your schedules,” Simon comments darkly.

“Sir – “ I start, but he cuts me off.

“Look, we don’t have time for this,” he begins as Sandburg and I hang up our coats. “In my office, both of you.”

We sit in front of Simon’s desk, and he leans back in his chair to look at us.

“The DA wants us to wrap up the Murdoch case. Rafe and Brown have the kid in interview.” Simon looks down at a file folder on his desk, and continues, “This kid, Daniel Vasco, has got a record. Nothing major, but it looks like he was escalating – possession, assault... There’s nothing new there, but here’s the problem, gentlemen. He admits to being there and to pushing the girl, but now he says that someone else was there, too.”

Simon looks at Blair and leans forward over his desk. “Sandburg, I need you to tell me how you knew where to find the Murdoch girl’s body.”

“He was home that night,” I say, before Sandburg can speak up. “We were both awake at the time of the incident. He wasn’t there, Simon.”

“I was online,” Blair says softly. “I sent a few e-mails – at least 5 or 6 of them. You can check my computer.”

I hope my relief doesn’t show on my face.

Simon is staring Blair down, and then lets out a harsh breath. “Vasco doesn’t have a description of this alleged other witness. There’s no evidence that anyone else touched the body. We’ve got her co-workers who say she was planning to break up with this kid, and a witness on the street who saw them enter the park alone. I think we can avoid a problem here.”

Simon pauses and then folds his hands. “It won’t leave this office, but I want you to explain what happened here yesterday. The truth.”

We both look at Sandburg, who is hunched in his chair, looking up at Simon with a haunted expression. Finally he says in a low voice, “I dreamed it.”

“What?” Simon sounds like he wishes he hadn’t asked.

“I’ve been seeing things in dreams. Things that are really happening. People. Places. I think I just happened to be… passing by that night.”

Simon looks out the window, his expression particularly long-suffering. Eventually he looks back at us and says, “Okay. Rafe and Brown are in the interrogation room talking to our guy. Sandburg, I want you to get your ass over there and listen in from the observation room. Don’t interrupt them; just see if the kid’s story checks out with… what you saw.”

I get up when Blair does, ready to follow him, but Simon stops me. “Not so fast, Ellison. You get Conner and start interviewing the co-workers. We need to establish motive. We’ve got them waiting outside the conference room.”

“But Captain –“

“Look, you’re not primary on this one, Jim. I’m sorry, but that’s my final decision. Get moving.”

I’m about to argue, to tell him that I don’t give a rat’s ass who takes primary on the case as long as I don’t have to let Sandburg out of my sight. Blair grabs my arm and shakes his head.

“It’s okay. We need to take care of this.” His voice is quiet, and he won’t look at me. I know he’s right, but I don’t like it at all.

“Fine,” I agree. “But come get me as soon as you’re finished.”

Finally he looks up at me, almost smiling, and I am reassured by what I see in his eyes. Maybe I haven’t screwed things up completely yet.

We part at the door to the bullpen, Blair heading off to the right to the interrogation room, and Megan and I in the other direction. I watch him walk down the hallway until Megan slaps a file folder against my chest.

“What’s this?” I ask, taking it from her.

“The first witness.” She is still looking at me, with a smile lurking around the corners of her mouth.

“What?” I ask, looking at her in irritation.

“Is there something you’d like to tell me, Detective?”

She is trying not to smile. I feel a cold nausea settle in the pit of my stomach.

“No.” I start walking a little faster.

“No, there’s nothing to tell, or no, you just don’t want to talk about it?”

I stop and take her arm, gently, and make her look at me. “Megan, don’t. Please. Not now.” She looks up at me curiously.

“Okay,” she says. “Hey, you know I’m your friend, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I know.” The silence goes on a beat too long, and I have to smile. “Are we having a moment?”

“Keep dreaming. Come on.”


***


After leaving Jim and Megan at the doorway I’m still feeling stunned. I know Jim wasn’t suggesting we actually tell Simon what we were doing in the park. He was just telling me how far he’s willing to go. I feel bad that I didn’t say something, *anything*, but at the time I was too shocked by what he was ready to risk. I don’t think I’ve ever been that important to anyone before.

As I walk, I notice that I’m starting to wheeze. The farther I get down the hall, the harder it gets to breathe, like the air is getting thick. It’s happening again, just like yesterday, but this time I know what it means. I stumble into the men’s room. If Gabe is going to make an appearance, I don’t want to be in the hallway talking to myself.

I hang onto the sink as the pressure gets stronger, leaning over and hoping I don’t pass out. It builds and builds, and then just like that, I can breathe again. I bend over the edge of the sink in surprise, just letting everything come back into focus. When I feel well enough to look up, the room is still empty, but there are two of me in the mirror.

The other face in the mirror, the one that smiles next to my shocked and pale reflection, is shifting slowly, the features elongating and stretching, then flowing back into place. But the eyes that meet mine in the mirror never change. They are dark, shark-dead eyes, holding every nightmare and half-forgotten fear I’ve ever known. Looking into them is looking into the abyss.

My legs turn to water and I sink down to sit on the floor, my back to the wall. I put my forehead on my knees and close my eyes, a six year-old’s reaction to the monster in the closet, but right now the only thing I am capable of is waiting for it to go away.

“It can’t come through yet.” When I open my eyes, Roy is sitting next to me, his elbows on his knees. I am too shaken to be surprised at seeing him.

“What - what is that thing?” I whisper, my voice trembling.

“Something very old. And it’s getting closer,” Roy tells me.

“What does it want?”

“Someone weak. Someone damaged. So it can come back.”

“Me?” My voice is a shredded whisper of sound.

For the first time, Roy smiles at me. “No, not you. You’re too strong. It’s already found someone it wants to be. But it needs to come through you.”

“Through me.” The idea makes me feel ill, and I take a breath to keep my voice steady. “There must be a way to stop it.”

“Close the door,” Roy says gently.

I could almost laugh. Or cry. “How?”

Roy simply presses his fingertips against my forehead. I lean into that soft touch, and close my eyes.

“I don’t think I can do this,” I tell him.

“You can,” he says softly. “You were the bravest person I knew. Don’t be afraid.”

Roy is gone before I open my eyes. Somehow, I make it out the door without looking at the mirror and stumble down the hallway. My first impulse is to find Jim, but everyone I pass in the hall stares at me in wary concern, and I realize I must look crazed. I need to get myself together. I’m supposed to be watching Rafe and Brown interview that Vasco kid anyway, so I duck into the observation room.

The room is empty, and I lean against the wall near the one-way glass. The interrogation is going on in the adjoining room, the voices coming faintly through the speaker. I clench my hands to stop them from shaking.

“So you’re telling us that you took your girlfriend into the park at 2 a.m., in the rain, to talk?” I hear Rafe say in a skeptical voice, but I’m not really listening.

Instead I’m thinking that it isn’t bad enough that I can wander outside my body, and actually have to concentrate not to do it. It isn’t bad enough that I can talk to ghosts, who keep showing up to make cryptic comments whenever the mood hits them. No, now I find out that this door I left open is about to let in a hell of a lot more than just a few dead people.

“I just wanted to talk to her alone, that’s all.” The kid in the interrogation room sounds exhausted, beaten down. “I don’t know what happened.”

I want to see Jim so badly it hurts – just grab onto him and tell him everything that happened, but with sudden finality I know that I can’t. He would do anything to help me, anything at all, and that’s the problem. What could he possibly do to combat that thing I saw? The idea of it anywhere near him makes me sick with fear. I guess I’m on my own.

“I know what happened.” Brown’s voice through the speaker is scathing. “You got angry and you shoved her. And then you ran away.”

I have to think. Someone damaged, Roy said. Someone weak. I hope to God he knew what he was talking about when he said I was too strong for this thing to take over, because I’m feeling pretty weak and damaged right now.

“I ran,” I hear Daniel say. “But there was someone else there… something else.” His voice is so low that I almost miss the last two words.

*It’s already found someone,* Roy said.

Someone weak. Someone damaged.

I wasn’t the only one watching Daniel and Alita that night.

I open the door to the hall and walk unannounced into the interrogation room.

“Sandburg, what the hell?” Rafe is angry, and I realize this is the second time in two days that I’ve interrupted one of his statements, but this is too important.

“I need to talk to him,” I say, nodding at the kid sitting at the table. Daniel is looking at me like I’m insane, and he might be right. I sit down across from him, and lean forward so I can see his eyes.

“You loved her. And you left her there to die. Why?”

His lower lip is trembling, and he’s crossed his arms in front of himself protectively.

“I was afraid,” he whispers. “I was afraid of it.”

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. Suddenly Daniel is lunging for me, but he doesn’t do anything more than grab my hands across the table.

“Keep it away from me,” he hisses. “Protect me.”

“I’ll try,” I tell him.


***


I walk up the stairs to the loft at a quick pace. Earlier, in tight-lipped rage, Simon sent Blair home. The statement turned into a fiasco after Blair talked to the Vasco kid, and I can’t remember the last time I saw Simon get so angry.

I wanted to take Blair home, but Simon made it clear that if I intended to continue my career with the Cascade PD I’d better stay there and finish up. I might have quit right then if Blair hadn’t intervened, saying he really needed some time to rest and think anyway.

I stood on the street with him while he waited for a taxi, a stilted silence between us.

“What was that about in there?” I asked him.

“I saw Roy again,” he said, not really answering my question.

“What? Jesus, Sandburg - ”

“And I saw something else,” he said, looking out at the street. “I don’t know what it is yet, but – it’s pretty bad, Jim.”

I felt a chill. “Sandburg, I’m coming with you.”

“No! No. It’s okay - don’t worry. There’s time, I think.”

I wanted to insist, but Blair’s distant manner and the awkwardness I’d felt between us since my comment in the elevator stopped me. The taxi pulled up to the curb then, and Blair looked at me for the first time.

“I’m sorry about the interrogation. If you talk to Daniel Vasco, tell him – tell him I’m going to do what I can.”

It seemed like a strange thing to say, and I thought about that comment for the rest of the day.

When I open the door, the loft is quiet and dark. I hear him sleeping in his room, and immediately look in. He’s just a pile of blankets against the wall, sleeping quietly. I can’t help it, I need to go over and brush the hair away from his face; reassure myself that he is just sleeping, not drifting away.

He doesn’t stir as I warm up leftover takeout and eat in front of the television, and he sleeps through the noise I make getting ready for bed. When I look in again, he hasn’t moved, and I don’t have the heart to disturb him. It’s only nine, but I am completely exhausted. I head up to bed, too tired to do anything but shrug out of my clothes and slide beneath the sheets.

No moonlight tonight, real or otherwise, just dim reflections from the city lights around the building. The loft is silent, and I am dozing off when I hear Blair get out of bed. I listen to the water run in the bathroom, and then I hear him hesitating at the bottom of the stairs.

I almost call to him, but he starts up the steps. I sag against the mattress in relief, and sit up against the wall to wait for him, the sheet pooled in my lap.

“Jim?” he says softly into the gloom, and I know he can barely see me.

I can see him perfectly, unfastened hair and silver loops in his ear, loose drawstring pants slung low on narrow hips. He pauses for a second, and then folds himself onto the end of the bed, the dim light picking out the sleek lines of his bare arms and shoulders.

“Is this okay?” he asks. “You know, me being here?”

I have to swallow before I can talk.

“Yeah, Sandburg, it’s fine.” I have a true talent for understatement. “You okay?”

“I guess,” he says quietly, rubbing his forehead with his palm. “I’m just so tired.”

“We’ll figure it all out,” I tell him. “You aren’t in this alone, Chief.” That statement makes his breath hitch, and I want to reach for him.

“When did you get home?” he asks, changing the subject.

“A while ago.”

“You could have woken me.”

“I let you sleep. You needed it.”

He nods, and looks down. “You could have joined me,” he says, smoothing his hand over my blanket.

“I wanted to give you some space,” I say quietly.

“Why?” He glances up at me, sounding honestly confused.

“I thought maybe… after what I said in the elevator, I just thought maybe… you needed space,” I finish lamely. In light of looming, impending evil the state of our personal relationship suddenly seems laughably minor. I wonder if he even remembers what I’m talking about. He is staring at me in the darkness.

“You really don’t get it, do you?” he says, so softly I can barely hear him. “You’re the only reason I’m still here.”

It takes a second for the meaning of his words to sink in. It stuns me, freezes my blood, and then I am rising to my knees. I reach for him, pulling awkwardly, and tumble him down to lie beneath me. In what feels like one motion I knot our legs together; wind my arms behind him and into his hair, holding my weight off his chest so I can look at his face.

“What are you saying?” I whisper fiercely.

“It’s true.” He sounds breathless, shocked by our sudden change in position. He touches my face, blind in the dark. “I don’t care about the rest of it anymore.”

I shut him up with my mouth. His hands come up in surprise, then clench in my hair with sudden strength, crushing us together. I am intent on consuming him and he lets me, licking my lips, stroking my tongue with his until our kiss becomes rough and hungry. I pull one hand out of his hair to run over supple skin and lean muscle, feeling a nipple pearl up against my palm and skimming the slant of hair that arrows down his stomach.

The knotted string at his waist comes loose beneath my fingers and I tug the soft cotton down his legs, kicking it away. I need his skin against me, all of it - so I roll to my back, taking him with me and exploring his body with my hands. I can’t be gentle; I can’t get to enough of him. I knead his firm flesh, fill my hands with him, and follow the hard curving lines of him from shoulder to thigh.

He is trying to kiss my neck, my chest, but my touch is distracting him and making his breath come harsh and fast. His legs cradle my hips, so I cup solid muscle and drag him over me. The abrupt, needy sound he makes sends hunger knifing through my body. We shift, align; heat and need and rigid flesh fusing into a loose rhythm that feels as easy as breathing, as falling. We are close, so close, until I run my hand up the seam of his body, and ghost a fingertip inside.

Then suddenly he is surging up, leaning over to kiss me hard, dark silk falling across my face. I am dazed by what that light, intimate touch did to him; the images brought to mind send me reeling. His arms braced to hold himself over me are trembling slightly, and his breathing is ragged.

“We can,” he says hoarsely. “If you want.”

I want him; I am suddenly out of my mind wanting him, but this isn’t the time. Not when we are so new to each other; not when he seems so fragile to me. Before I can change my mind I push him to his back and arch against him, bending over him to trace his jaw with my tongue. When I reach his ear I grind out, “Not yet. Not this time.”

“Don’t you want - ”

“Don’t ask me again,” I hiss into his neck, not recognizing my own voice in that ragged whisper. I am biting at his neck, marking him, turning my mouth on him with wet, wide-open kisses against his throat. His erection is a heated ridge gliding against my hip in trails of hot, silky liquid, and I want to writhe against him. Instead, I wrench away with a groan and move down to taste the slope of his chest and the flat plane of his stomach; the slight indentation of his navel and the hollow of his hip, leaving marks on the smooth skin.

He is incoherent above me, grasping frantically at my hair, my shoulders. He tries to move, wanting to thrust against me but I lay one forearm across his hips, and push him into the mattress, imprisoning him there. Ignoring his desperate moan, I lean down to learn the contours of his body; tracing his length with slow, rhythmic strokes of my tongue, brushing my fingertips through filmy drops until finally he is begging me, pleading. As I finally take him in my mouth I slide my hand beneath his body to sink a slick finger into him, and then he is arching up, gasping, coming hard against my tongue.

The sensation is strange and astonishing, sea and heat and Blair. Afterward I breathe against his stomach, feeling his hand cupping the back of my head.

Eventually I crawl up to collapse next to him, lying on my side to look at him. His eyes are closed, and he’s breathing like he’s been sprinting. He squints an eye open at me, and I try not to look too smug.

“I think I’m going to revise my earlier statement,” he says, closing his eyes again. “*That* is the only reason I’m still here.”

“Not bad for a first try, I guess.”

“I’m not kidding. That may be the reason I came back in the first place.” His weary smile warms something deep inside me.

“And here I thought it was my cooking,” I mock gently.

“Not even close.”

I am still caressing him, running my hand lightly over his chest. He must feel the urgency in my touch because he glances over and turns on his side to face me, reaching out. His fingers on my body are like soft rain, easing over my chest and my hips and my abdomen in light, sweeping strokes.

“What do you want, Jim?” he murmurs. Then his mouth is open and hot, on my lips, on my face, on my neck. He is gentle, relentless, loving me with hands and mouth and body until I can hardly speak.

“Anything you want. Tell me.”

My mind glazes over at the thought of turning him, blanketing him, molding myself to his body and sinking deep into tight, searing heat.

“Just touch me,” I whisper, swallowing. “Put your hands on me.”

“Just touch you?” he says, with a wry grin, easing himself closer. “I can do that.” His reaching hands are firm, hard and purposeful, making me moan.

“Love touching you,” he says in a rasping whisper. “Love looking at you. So beautiful…” His touch is making me crazy, his voice flowing over me like honey. “Show me what you want…like this? Is this good?”

“God, Blair, I - ”

“That’s it… ” His mouth is so close to mine I can feel the air move with his words. “Just let go.”

I close my eyes and grip his shoulders hard, letting him take me wherever he wants, until I am shuddering, coming apart beneath his hands. For a few minutes everything is fractured, disjointed, and I have to wait for the world to put itself back together.

When I open my eyes we are lying face to face, a few inches apart. I expect a teasing comment, maybe a self-satisfied grin, but he is simply watching me quietly. When I touch his cheek he leans his forehead against mine.

“Love you,” he says softly.

For a second everything stutters to a stop. Then I am knotting my hands in his hair and rubbing my face against his, not able to get close enough to him.

“I wish I’d never met you,” I tell him.

He shakes his head, confused.

“I didn’t want this,” I whisper harshly, pulling him closer as if I can absorb him through my skin.

“I don’t understand,” he says against my cheek, unsure.

“You show up in my life, so confident in me, so sure you can fix everything – “

“Jim – “

“and so god-damned beautiful I can’t keep my hands off you… How could I fight that? I let you take over my whole life, and now you’re the only part of it that matters.” I kiss him, hard enough to bruise.

“I never wanted anyone to be this important to me,” I say against his mouth. “What the hell do I do now?”

The sound he makes is wordless and sad, and then he gathers me to him, making me lie against his chest. It feels awkward to be held like this, and at first I resist. Blair only pulls me closer.

“C’mon, just let me,” he says quietly. I give in and surround myself with him - the scent of his skin, the sound of his heart beating, the feel of his strong arms.

“Promise me something,” I grate out.

“Anything.” He soothes me with his hands, running them gently over my shoulders. “What is it?”

“Promise you won’t do this alone.”

“Jim… ” His hands still, and I can feel how exhausted he is in the loose way he embraces me.

“Promise me.” I tighten my arms around him, trying to drive the chill from his body.

“I don’t know if it’s possible.” It worries me how hopeless he sounds. I pull myself up on one elbow to look at him.

“I followed you into that fucking blue world last night, you said it yourself. I followed you there when you died.” I lean over, trying to make him look at me.

“I can help you,” I tell him. “Promise that you’ll let me.” He closes his eyes, too tired to keep them open any longer.

“Okay. I promise.”

“Okay, then. Good.”

I don’t know what else to say, so I lie down next to him again. He pulls himself close to me and in seconds he is asleep, in that deep, completely still slumber that overtakes him now whenever he lies down to rest. I listen to the reassuring rhythm of his breathing for a few minutes before I realize with a start that I never told him that I love him, too. Not in the words he gave me.

According to the clock next to my bed, it isn’t even eleven yet. I am completely awake, listening to the sounds of the night. Then downstairs, muffled by my jacket pocket, I hear my cell phone ringing. It isn’t loud enough to disturb Blair, but I know that if I don’t get up and answer it, whoever it is will call the loft number next.

I slip out of bed, grab my jeans off the chair and head downstairs.

“Ellison,” I say into the phone, holding it against my shoulder with my cheek as I try to pull my jeans on.

“Jim, it’s Simon.” I can tell by the background noise that he’s in his car.

“What’s going on?”

“Just had a call from lock-up. Daniel Vasco is on his way to Cascade General.”

“What the hell happened?”

“Attempted suicide. Found him in his cell 20 minutes ago.”

“Wasn’t he under a watch?”

“No. Another fuck-up. I’m on my way to the station. I need you to meet Conner at the hospital.”

“I’d be happy to, Captain, but I’m not primary on this one,” I tell him, with a great deal of satisfaction.

“Don’t start, Ellison. We don’t know if he’s going to make it, and I’ve got to hash this out with the DA, not to mention avoid a potential PR disaster. I need you there to help with damage control. And, Jim,” he pauses, but I know what he’s going to say next. “Leave Sandburg at the loft.”

“Simon, you can’t possibly think – “

“Look, I don’t what I think. What I know is that the kid is neck-deep in this thing, and if we want to keep him out of it he needs to keep a low profile. I expect you there in 20 minutes.”

After Simon hangs up I head upstairs to get dressed, deciding that I won’t wake Blair. He needs to sleep more than he needs to hear about Vasco – there’s nothing he can do about it anyway. Besides, I’ll be back before he knows I’m gone. Before I leave, I lean down to brush my lips over his.

“I love you too,” I whisper to him. I step back, feeling a little foolish and sentimental, but glad I said the words.

I let myself out of the loft as quietly as possible, locking the door behind me.


***


“Do you know why I wanted to be you?”

Drifting up through sleep I find myself begging, “Please, please let this be a dream.” But I know it’s not. I am lying on my stomach, clutching a pillow in my arms, my face buried deep in the soft folds. Instinctively I know Jim isn’t here, that I am alone with whatever is speaking to me.

I open my eyes and see the rails guarding the upper loft, trying to see nothing but what is directly in front of me. Even so I can tell that the loft is lit bright as day, with a cold, indirect light that immediately turns my blood to ice.

“Do you know?” the voice repeats. It is close, in the room, at the foot of the bed. I’m not sure I can make myself move, but I turn with a ragged breath and sit up to face him.

I think I always knew he’d find me again. Even when I saw his body, saw him lying dead on the floor in that warehouse, I didn’t believe it was over. Not really.

I’ve tried so hard to forget, and I don’t see him every time I close my eyes anymore, but David Lash’s face is burned into my consciousness. He makes no move toward me, just sits there, and I realize he’s waiting for an answer.

“No, I don’t know.” My voice sounds small and hollow. “Why did you want to be me?”

He is staring at me, and I realize that there is something different about him. It’s his eyes – they aren’t dead and black. They are deep, and infinitely sad. I lean forward without thinking about it to peer at him closely. The side of his mouth quirks in a half-smile.

“I wanted to be you because you could have him.”

This stops me cold.

“Any time you wanted,” he continues. “You didn’t know it. Neither of you knew it, I guess, but I did. I saw the way you looked at each other, the way he looked at you. I’d never seen anything like it.”

I can’t move; all I can do is listen to his voice, and wonder why there is no malice in it.

“I thought - well, part of me thought - that if he looked at me like that, I could be free. So I wanted to be you.”

“Free?”

“Yes. Of it.” I can hardly breathe. Echoes of something Lash’s father said, years ago, come back to me.

*Why didn’t you do something to help him?* I had asked.

*I hoped she would kill him,* he had said.

*He was a demon.*

“What do you want?”

“Nothing. Just to warn you. See, it’s coming back. It’s very close now. And it wants him, too.”

“Why?” I can barely get the word past my lips. There is bile in my throat at the thought of that thing I saw in the mirror turning its sights on Jim.

“Revenge,” Lash whispers. “It spent millennia here, and he banished it. It knows only rage, and it wants to destroy him. You need to stop it.”

I feel like my mind is moving through slush, my thoughts icing up, grinding to a stop.

“I know where it’s going,” I tell him, and even that thought is an effort. “Even if it gets through me, Daniel Vasco is locked up.”

Lash is shaking his head.

“Very soon Daniel Vasco will have no more cares in this world.”

My mind is in chaos – it takes a few seconds for me to realize that Alita’s boyfriend is going to die, if he isn’t dead already. If that thing does make it back here, it could go anywhere, be anyone at all. The enormities of this fact, the implications, just begin to hit me when Lash touches me for the first time. He lays a hand on my arm, and I think I might be sick.

“You’re the only one who can stop it now. Do what you have to do.”

“Why are you helping me?” I ask.

“He ended my pain.” Suddenly Lash stills, looking out, past me and this room into a place I know well.

“It’s coming,” he breathes. He turns to me, suddenly intent. “Go. *Now.*”

In an instant the loft is plunged into darkness, so complete that for a second I think there is something pressed against my face. I actually try to claw it away before I figure out that the otherworldly light has disappeared as if turned off by a switch. I stumble out of bed, realizing even as I tear the blankets away from my legs that there is nowhere to go.

Halfway down the stairs the pressure hits, worse than anything that has come before it – it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt. It is suffocating, crushing, a punishing weight pressing me flat. No air, no light, no hope. There is nowhere I can go to get away, no place where it can’t find me. Except one.

So for the first time I just let go; release my fingertip grasp on this world and fall into the blue. After fighting this with everything inside me for so long, I greet the rushing silence with relief.


***


The emergency room of Cascade General is in complete chaos when I get there, and it takes me a few minutes to find Conner arguing with a nurse at the admitting desk.

“Vasco, V-A-S… look, he should have arrived just a few minutes ago. Don’t you keep records?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Detective, we are dealing with multiple accident victims here – your prisoner is going to have to wait,” the nurse tells her.

“He’s not my prisoner – “ Conner begins, but the nurse has already rushed off to meet an EMT team crashing through the door with a stretcher.

“What’s going on here?” I ask.

“Four vehicle pile-up. Vasco is in there somewhere, presumably,” she says, gesturing toward the glass doors behind the admitting desk, “but they can’t seem to find him at the moment.”

“Then I guess we’d better start looking,” I tell her, and push through the doorway. The scene behind the doors is like a snapshot of hell, and I have to dial way back before my senses overload. Even so, it takes me a few seconds to adjust to the shouts and moans, frantic movement and sharp stench of blood.

“Dear God,” Conner breathes, and I grab her arm and start moving through the chaos.

“We’ll split up,” I tell her. “Look for the prison guards – they should be here, too.”

As soon as I leave Conner I have my arms full of a weeping woman who has seen my badge, begging me to tell her how her mother is doing. I gently disengage, putting her in the hands of an orderly who is passing by, and step back into a stretcher pushed against the wall. The person lying on it grabs my arm.

“Help me,” he whispers, and I turn to tell him that I’ll find a doctor when I see Daniel Vasco’s pale face lying on the pillow.

“Well, well. We’ve been looking for you. Okay, don’t worry, we’ll get someone over here to help you –“

“He said he’d try to protect me, but he can’t stop it,” he hisses at me.

His words make me pause. Distantly, I hear Blair on the street earlier. *Tell Daniel Vasco I’m going to do what I can.*

“What are you talking about?” I ask him. His hand around my forearm is surprisingly strong considering his wrist is encased in bloody bandages, but his face is ghastly white and covered with sweat.

“It’s coming for me, I can feel it.”

*And I saw something else,* I remember Blair saying. *I don’t know what it is yet, but – it’s pretty bad, Jim.*

I feel dread building. “What’s coming for you?”

“He thinks he can stop it, but he can’t. No one can.” Vasco’s voice is hollow.

“You’re talking about my partner, right? The man who talked to you earlier? Is he the one who can’t stop it?” I know the answer before Vasco nods, his eyes wide and wild.

My head is beginning to pound, over and over like a warning.

“You have to help me,” Vasco repeats.

“I’ll help you, but you need to tell me exactly what’s going on,” I tell him urgently.

“It wants to be me,” he whispers. “I can’t be here when it comes. Use your gun.”

“Okay, just calm down - ”

“You found him,” Conner says from behind my shoulder, flanked by two prison guards.

“I can’t be here!” Vasco is suddenly frantic, pulling at the bandages around his wrists, tearing at them with his teeth.

Then everything happens at once. I grab at his hands, trying to pin them down. The guards try to help me and only get in the way while Conner shouts for a doctor. With shocking strength Vasco flings himself off the stretcher and into one of the guards, and they both go down. Vasco rolls away to sit against the wall, but now he’s holding the guard’s gun pointed directly at us.


***


No sound here. No feeling, except warmth, finally. Weightless as the azure light that surrounds me.

I am not alone. The thing that tried to come through me is here, too, and I can feel its rage at being thwarted. I feel capable of effortless movement, and so I plunge further in, speeding through vague impressions and fragmented pictures of everything that makes up my life. If I just go faster, I think I might see the pieces of the universe unfolding before me.

The creature made of darkness follows, somehow matching my speed and random directions. I feel no fear, just determination to leave it behind. I go faster.

Gaining speed, I am rushing toward another presence, one as bright as the thing that follows me is dark. I recognize it, seeing it clearly for the first time – how is it possible that I didn’t see through the disguise it wore outside the blue? I wonder briefly if anything of me will remain when I reach it, and then it is engulfing me.

For one moment and forever, we are one. Then I am falling. The darkness that pursued me is now following the light that is rushing away, and I am alone again.

I open my eyes at the bottom of the stairs, my head bleeding from a gash above my temple. If I had any doubts, I know I’m back in my body because sitting up causes every bruise I picked up in the fall to scream at me.

I can’t waste time finding out if I’m badly hurt, though, because now I know what to do. That dark thing is going to find me again, and soon. I can’t destroy it, but thanks to Gabe I know how to contain it, make it shrink in on itself until it loses touch with this world. The answer lay in the blue all along – I just needed to let go.

I hurry into my room to get dressed. I need to get out of here before Jim gets back. If this works, I’ll be able to explain it to him and make him understand why I had to leave. If my plan doesn’t work – well, I can’t let him stop me.

At the kitchen island I scrawl a quick note and then grab something out of the top drawer, not looking at it. I don’t hesitate, because there is really no other decision to make. I need to have a Plan B. Just in case.


***


“I can’t be here,” Daniel Vasco sobs softly. He is holding onto the gun with both hands, its wavering barrel swinging past all of us. Conner and the other guard have pulled their weapons and are pointing them at Vasco, shouting at him to drop the gun.

“Daniel!” I say firmly, trying to get his attention, holding my hands out to show I won’t hurt him. “We’re going to help you, but you need to put down that weapon.”

Daniel shakes his head, tears streaking his face.

“No one can help me,” he whispers, and I hear Conner’s cry as he turns the gun on himself. I turn my head away, and the sharp crack of the pistol reverberates through the emergency room. The room erupts in confusion, a wave of screams and shouting, running people and hoarse questions. I look at the ruin of Daniel Vasco and all I can think about is Blair. I start running for the door.

“Hold it!” Conner is right behind me. “Where are you going?”

“Home. I have to get back there now.”

“Are you crazy? We can’t leave the scene!”

“Conner, Vasco was talking about Blair. ‘He can’t stop it.’ He meant Blair.”

“What can’t Blair stop?”

“I don’t know exactly… I don’t have time to explain. Just cover for me, okay?”

“Not this time. I’m going with you.”

There’s no time to argue, and I pull her after me through the commotion.


***


It’s cold out here now that the wind has picked up again. I should have taken my jacket along – Jim would never have forgotten his. I’m probably lucky it’s turning into a wild night – there was no one to see me on the street and call the police about a coatless maniac with a bloody dish-towel pressed to his forehead. Not to mention carrying a gun.

All the rain over the past few weeks has turned the drainage ditch into a roaring flood, clogged with fallen branches and debris. The overflow is pouring out of the huge pipe with such force that I can feel the spray all the way at the top of the hill.

The morning that Jim and I found Roy here was so quiet, so still. I barely recognize this spot now, but at the same time I’ll never forget it. Roy is standing next to me, looking down at the site where we found his body months ago.

“I never wanted to see this place again,” I say to him, shivering in the wind.

“It’s just a place.”

“You’re not – you’re not here, are you? I mean here in this place? All the time?” My throat constricts at the thought of the man I knew tied to this grim spot forever.

Roy reaches out and lays a hand on my shoulder in comfort. “No, Blair, I’m not. There’s so much more than this. This place is easy for me to find, that’s all. Like the way I can always find you.”

“If this works… ” I can hardly get the words out. I try again. “If I shut the door, I won’t see you anymore, will I?”

“Not here.” His voice is gentle.

“I never did get to say good-bye,” I tell him. “I guess I should be grateful.” Everything I want to say to him is crowding my thoughts, but somehow he already knows, and he just smiles at me.

“Goodbye, Roy,” I whisper, and then I’m alone.

The hill is slippery, and I have to watch my footing on the way down. I wedge myself into the space between the pipe and the hillside, where it is so dark and so loud that a Sentinel, even a desperate one, couldn’t find me.

Thinking of Jim makes my chest ache. I wonder where he is as I cradle the gun in my lap. I hope he can forgive me. My hands are shaking from the cold, and I worry I might fire the gun accidentally. The last thing I want to do is use it. Actually, that’s not true – the last thing I want to do is let that demon back into this world, and if I have to use the gun to prevent that from happening, I will. But I’m not waiting around to see if it shows up – I’m going to go out to meet it.

I still feel the bruises from the last time I went willingly into the blue, so this time I prop myself up, making sure that I won’t fall when I leave. I lean my head back against the cold cement pipe and let go.


***

I can’t hear any sound coming from the loft when I pull the truck to the curb. My brain refuses to accept that fact, and I open my senses up wider, listening for any sign of him as I pound up the staircase.

Megan runs after me, taking the stairs two at a time, my panic leaching over onto her. When we hit the third floor I smell blood, unmistakable through the slightly open door. I shove it completely open, and run inside, immediately seeing the smeared red on the staircase. I stop briefly to touch it, noticing it has only just started to dry.

I’m about to check out the upstairs when Megan says, “There’s a note.”

She’s standing by the island, holding a single sheet of paper, and staring at it with an odd look on her face.

“What does it – “

“It says, *Jim, I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my promise. I can’t let it hurt you. Now I know how to close the door. I’ll –* “ She stops for a second, looking up at me, then continues softly, “*I’ll love you no matter where I am.* No signature. I don’t really like the sound of this… ”

I’m not listening to her anymore.

“His coat is still here,” I say, looking around frantically for some indication of where he went. “He didn’t take his wallet, or his keys – “ With a sudden, sick sensation I open the top drawer of the island. It’s empty. I feel my hands go numb.

“Jim?”

“He took my gun. My extra piece – I started keeping it here after Alex… God, Sandburg, what are you thinking?”

Megan clears her throat.

“He wouldn’t – he wouldn’t use it on himself, Jim. No matter how bad things have gotten, I know Sandy. He’d never do that.”

“Unless he thinks he has no other choice.” The numbness has spread from my hands to my body, and I am seeing Daniel Vasco’s shattered face in my mind.

Megan’s hand clutching my arm barely registers, but her voice is strident. “Where would he go? No keys, so no car – somewhere close by – think, Jim!”

I know exactly where he’s going to go.

“Here. Take my keys. Start looking for him – try the park where we found Alita Murdoch’s body first.”

I am practically pushing her out the door, and she is staring at me in bafflement. “I’ll call Simon and get some more people out there…”

“Fine. Do that.”

“Wait, wait – don’t you want to come with me?”

“I’ve got to do something first.”

***


It’s hopeless. I’ll never be able to combat something so immense, so dark that my mind begins to spin away in terror whenever I look at it. But I know I can’t let it through to where everyone I care about is waiting. To where *Jim* is waiting. I have to try.


***


This isn’t the blue jungle world of my visions; here I am disembodied in an endless sea, in the open ocean of my nightmares with a black, whirling maelstrom at its center. Inside that blackness there is hatred and madness and a waiting, conscious presence. If Blair is here I can’t feel him.

Suddenly the darkness begins to fall in upon itself, shrinking down into nothing. I feel like it creates a vacuum in its wake, an absence of being that draws me closer. Before I can begin to fight against this pull, I am hit with a violent blow that pushes me away with frightening speed. In horrified fascination I watch the blackness shatter outward, dark fragments knifing through the blue like a mirror splintering on concrete. Some of them go through me, and I want to scream in defiance.

Then there is only silence, and the blue isn’t frightening any more, simply quiet and still. I see a distant light, and know instinctively that it’s the end of Blair’s journey. I finally see the place that has been calling to him since that morning weeks ago when I dragged him back from its edge.

This time I can’t make that choice for him – I shouldn’t have made it in the first place. This final decision is his alone. I feel sick with grief as I turn away.


***


“Does he have a pulse?” The words come from far away, carried on the freezing wind that feels like it could take me with it. I feel dazed, remembering shredded darkness against blue. I don’t know what went wrong. Gabe told me the creature couldn’t be destroyed, but then it flew apart. The memory of those scattering pieces is disturbing, but I can’t focus enough to figure out why.

“I don’t know. I’ll check.” This voice is shouting, right next to me, and I open my eyes to see a young uniformed officer who looks vaguely familiar. The rushing water has risen up nearly to my legs but I can’t move because the cold is making my body lethargic and breathless. The officer notices that my eyes are open, and he smiles at me with a strangely distant expression. I feel his hand against my neck, pressing against my carotid artery to feel for a pulse.

“I’m okay…” I whisper, but the officer only smiles wider, and presses harder. Fragments of light begin to fly in front of my eyes, and then suddenly Joel is beside me, still stumbling from the sharp incline.

“I think you like causing trouble, Blair. What the hell were you thinking? Half the force is out looking for you.”

“Pulse steady,” the officer says, “but I think he needs a doctor.”

“I don’t need a doctor. I need a ride.”

Joel reaches down to help me up. “We’ll see about that after we get you out of here. What’s this?” Joel’s voice is wary and he steps back, and suddenly I’m staring at the barrel of the officer’s gun pointed directly at my face.

“Lower your weapon, McGovern,” Joel demands. “Don’t overreact here.”

“He’s armed,” the uniformed officer says, and I look down at the gun in my hand.

“Drop the gun, Blair,” Joel says calmly, and for just a minute I feel like I’m looking at a stranger.

“I just – “

“Drop it!” McGovern shouts. The sharp click as he cocks his pistol is almost lost in the roar of the rushing water. My hands are numb, and don’t react immediately, but I set Jim’s gun down on the grass next to me.

“See?” Joel says, leaning down to pick up the pistol. “No problem here. I believe I told you to lower your weapon, Officer.”

My cold-numbed brain is convinced for just a second that the guy is going to shoot me anyway. Then he is holstering his pistol and reaching down to help me up. Joel grabs my other arm and the two of them practically drag me up the hill.

They put me into the front seat of Joel’s sedan, and McGovern’s partner joins them. I am too tired to try to listen to their conversation, but I think they are discussing where to take me. Eventually Joel gets into the driver’s seat while the two officers get into their squad car and drive away.

“I’m going to take you home, Blair. You can try to explain all this to Simon in the morning. Unless you want me to take you to the hospital?”

“No. Home is great.” As Joel starts the car, I ask, “How did you guys find me anyway?”

“We knew you were on foot, so we’ve been cruising the local area. I was at the other end of the street when McGovern and his partner radioed. I think McGovern saw you. Good thing, too, the way that water was rising.”

“He saw me from the street? Through the car window?”

Joel shrugs. “Good eyes, I guess.”

“Yeah. Real good.”

The drive back to the loft is short. Before I get out of the car in front of our building Joel hands me Jim’s pistol, his face carefully neutral.

“Thanks, Joel.”

“You take care of yourself, Sandburg.”

By the time I get upstairs I’m beginning to shiver. I open the door to dim, fire-lit warmth. Jim is near one of the large windows, his arms crossed in front of his chest as if he’s cold, too.

I know he heard me come up the stairs, but I see the tension go out of his shoulders as if he wouldn’t let himself believe it until he saw me. He is looking me over as we walk toward each other, his gaze stopping at the cut on my temple. I touch it self-consciously, glad to find it isn’t bleeding anymore.

I hold out the gun, and he takes it from me without a word.

“This door,” he finally says, his voice hoarse. “It’s closed now.” He makes it a statement of fact. I nod, knowing I’ll never be able to keep my voice steady.

“I wasn’t sure you were going to come back,” he says, and the raw pain in his words tears me up inside. I want to shake him for doubting me, for thinking I would ever willingly leave him.

“You’re here,” I say instead. He finally looks at me, and I smile at him, a little weakly. “Where else would I go?”

He reaches for me then, pulling me into him. I reach up to enclose him in my arms, as closely as I can, trying to make him stop shaking. Or maybe it’s me who’s shaking, I can’t tell anymore.

“You’re so cold,” he whispers, rubbing my arms and my back, trying to warm my lips with his. “I don’t want you to be cold anymore.”

“I’m not. It’s okay now. I’m not going anywhere,” I tell him, and I mean it.

That door is closed to me now, even though I can still see the edges, like the entrance to a lighted room seen from a darkened hallway. I’ll probably always see it there, until it opens wide again some day.

Until then, I feel like the universe has given me a second chance. I have all I could ask for in my arms. I can wait.