A Positive Sign

By Gillian

"Boo, hiss." I tossed a handful of popcorn at the screen and grinned as Joel followed suit.

"You're cleaning that up, Chief." Jim reached over and grabbed a handful of the popcorn, probably trying to make sure he got to eat some before it ended up on the floor with the rest. I pulled a face at him and he retaliated by tossing a kernel at me.

"Can you believe this?" Simon was saying as he waved his half-full beer bottle around in exasperation. "Will somebody tell me why I don't give up on this team?"

Just then, there was a roar from the TV set which was swiftly echoed by the five men clustered around it in Jim's loft.

"That's why," I raised a fist in the air triumphantly. "Because sometimes the Jags pull it out of the fire."

A moment later, the phone rang and Jim climbed to his feet and crossed the room, purposely slowing down as he crossed in front of the screen, grinning at the howls of protest from the avid Jags fans glued to the game.

"Yada, yada." He made a semi-obscene gesture over his shoulder as he plucked the receiver from its cradle.

I just happened to be glancing over towards the refrigerator as Jim answered the phone, wondering if I dared leave the game long enough to grab some more brews, sure that as soon as I jumped up the Jags would make another spectacular play. So I happened to be looking right at my friend when Jim's happy grin was wiped right off his face by whatever the person on the other end of the line was saying. I forgot about the game and focused on Jim as the older man turned his back on the cheering crowd in the lounge room.

'When?" he asked quietly, and then, after a few moments, "Are you sure?"

I stood up, responding instinctively to the stiff set of Jim's broad shoulders and the jerky way he replaced the receiver. Circling behind the guys I crossed the room. "Jim?"

Jim turned back around and I recoiled a little at the blank dullness of his expression. When was the last time I had seen such a look on my friend's face? With a shiver, I recalled; when Danny Choi had died in Jim's arms.

'What's happened?" I demanded softly, aware that the others in the room were turning to look at us now.

Jim focused on me, and I had the strangest feeling, as if for a moment he didn't even know me.

"My brother was killed in a car crash," he said baldly.

I was aware of Simon standing up with a muffled exclamation and one of the guys reaching over and switching off the TV. The room was suddenly silent.

"Oh, man," I whispered in soft sympathy

"On the road through Olympia Peaks," Jim continued in the same even tone. "That was the sheriff's station in Jackson County. They want me to ID... To ID him."

Simon was there a moment later, taking charge of the situation, and I noted it with a dull gratitude. God, Jim's face, his voice. He sounded really out of it.

"We'll take your truck," Simon said authoritatively. "I'll drive."

For a moment, Jim frowned at his boss' face, as if sure he should be making some protest. Then he just nodded.

"I'm so sorry, Jim," I said quietly, laying a hand on my friend's forearm, but Jim just nodded and turned to get his coat.

The other men echoed the sentiment and Taggart quietly murmured to me that they would tidy the place up and lock up behind them. I pointed out my keys in the basket by the dresser and then grabbed my coat and followed Jim and Simon down to the garage.

000

The drive up to Olympia Peaks was mostly silent. Simon asked what Steven had been doing out here and whether he had been alone, but I guess he soon realized by Jim's blank face that the other man hadn't a clue to the circumstances surrounding his brother's death. I was glad to see Simon let the subject go and concentrate on navigating the icy roads. It would be the ultimate twisted irony if we got killed coming up here to ID the victim of a car crash. Not just any victim, but Jim's brother. I shivered again. It seemed like Jim was losing everyone he cared about. Danny had been like a brother to him, a son, even. And Carolyn moving away had hit Jim harder than he liked to admit, even though they had been divorced for years now.

And, God. How would Jim cope with losing Steven, so soon after they had been reconciled? I leaned my head on the cold glass and looked up at the twinkling night sky. I'm not sure what I believe in when it comes to the big issues like omnipotent deities, but one thing I know for sure. whatever's out there, it sure can be cruel. I glanced forward, trying to catch a glimpse of the expression on Jim's face, but after a moment, I gave up. what was the point? Jim was not gonna break down any time soon. That blank face would stay firmly in place, right through the very natural shock, covering up the grieving process, and probably carrying right on into the mourning period. It was how Jim Ellison operated, it was how he coped. Hell, in the end, it was probably the key to his survival. It wasn't my way, but it sure seemed to work for Jim.

000

The ordeal at the Jackson County sheriff's station was one I knew I'd remember for the rest of my life. Jim insisted on IDing his brother's body alone and I was left outside, exchanging helpless shrugs with Simon. Jim emerged from the tiny basement morgue with the same blank expression on his face, only his extreme pallor giving away his shock. About then I felt the last tiny flame of hope I had been nurturing go out. There had been a small chance that it had all been a mistake, but the dull gaze Jim turned on us told its own story. One of the deputies had warm sweet tea for him and Simon and I also accepted a cup, gratefully wrapping chilled fingers around the warm mugs.

Of course there was a battery of paperwork to be done and Jim groped his way through it, signing where he was told to and nodding his head when the deputy told him what arrangements he would need to make to ship his brother's body back to Cascade. I wondered just exactly how much he was taking in.

The sun was just appearing over the horizon as we drove back over the city limits.

"Drop Blair home will you, Simon?" Jim said quietly. I almost jumped at the sound of his voice, only then realizing he had not spoken the entire trip home. "I want to go into the station for a few hours."

"Jim," Simon protested, but I already knew it would do no good. Jim was wearing his stubborn face, his jaw clenched in that characteristic tic that anyone who knew him would tell you meant he was not gonna budge on this one. "You need sleep, man."

"I have time to sleep, Simon," Jim said lowly. "But I also have a lot of last minute work to do on tying up the Berman case before the hearing tomorrow. The next few days are going to be... hard. I have to get it done now."

Simon gave me a look, but I just shrugged. Jim was probably not the best judge of what was best for him now, but who was gonna try telling him that? Not this little black duck. Simon pulled the truck up in front of the apartment.

"Jim." I tried to get through to my friend one last time before I left him to face this day alone, but the look he turned on me told me he still wasn't hearing much. "Call me if you need me." I mimed holding a phone to my ear and after a beat Jim nodded. I watched the back of the truck as it sped away, feeling the pull of weariness in my bones. Something was telling me I should have stayed with Jim, kept close by his side, probably my Guide genes kicking in. But that was just impossible for me today, I was teaching a class for an absent professor, and if I let the dean down on this one, he was likely to kick my butt a good one. What with all the little inconveniences I'd been through in the last year, like getting shot and kidnapped and overdosed, I had kinda missed a lot of important stuff and let down a few important people. I really had some serious brown-nosing and hands-up-volunteering-for-shit-work to do before my blotted copy book was clean.

And, frankly, selfish as it might sound, I figured I might as well take care of this. Jim was gonna cut through this day like an ice-breaker through the Antarctic. He sure didn't need his little dinghy trailing along after him.

000

The day flew by, and although I didn't really expect the phone to ring, I kept it close by, all the same. I was walking in the door by four, and there was no sign of Jim. A quick check of the laundry hamper showed he hadn't been home, or that if he had, he hadn't changed. I decided to whip up some of his favorite stir-fry for him, to tempt his appetite when he came home. Dollars to doughnuts he hadn't had a bite all day. First I picked up the phone and dialed Simon at work.

"Captain Banks."

"Hey, Simon. It's Blair. Is Jim still there?"

"Yeah, but not for much longer, if I have my way. I've been tellin' him to go home since lunch-time, and if he doesn't listen to me soon, I'm gonna carry him outta here, even if I have to get three other guys to do it."

The helpless frustration in Simon's voice was evident. I could picture him rubbing wearily at the bridge of his nose where his glasses sat.

"How is he?" I ventured.

"Spooky," Simon said tersely. "Closed up, tight-lipped, face like a stone. He's Jim Ellison, what else do you expect?"

"Yeah." Simon had been his friend a long time before I came on the scene; there wasn't much I could tell him about Jim.

"By the way, Jackson County Sheriff's Department has come back to me with an accident report. No suspicious circumstances, in fact nothing to make us suspect this was anything other than the tragic accident it seems."

I remembered the deputy's details of the accident from the night before; Steven had skidded on a patch of ice and hit a telephone pole. Even with his seatbelt and an airbag, he had died instantly. Broken neck.

"Anyway, I'm sending out our own accident investigation unit to take a look-see. After all, Jim is a high ranking detective in this department."

Simon didn't have to defend his actions to me. Jim might not be thinking too clearly right now, but when his head cleared, he would want to know all the questions had been answered.

"But, frankly, Sandburg, I have no doubt this was an accident."

"Yeah." The kind that happens every day. But always to someone else, not to you or the people you cared about. "Thanks, Simon."

I hung up and started piling ingredients on the countertop. Stir-fry a La Sandburg was a complex dish, usually involving every item in the refrigerator and quite a few from the pantry shelves. By the time Jim walked in the door an hour later, I had a huge wok-full simmering and every surface in the kitchen was littered with evidence of my culinary efforts. I was in the bedroom when he let himself in, changing a CD on the turntable. I like music when I work.

"Sandburg." Jim's voice was grim and I turned the music way down and emerged from my room.

"Hey, Jim. How--" He cut me off.

"What's going on here?" he bit out.

I stifled the urge to ask him what it looked like was going on, and just smiled politely. "Cooking," I answered simply. "How are you feeling, Jim?"

"Fine," he snarled. "I'm fine. Peachy. Dandy. How the hell am I supposed to be?"

Oh, boy. Jim's voice was sliding up the scale with that sentence. By the end, he was yelling, not something I was used to in Jim Ellison. Walk softly and carry a big stick is a saying that could have been designed just for him.

"Um," I said, not very coherently.

"I've spent the whole day with every person I know, and quite a few I don't, coming up to me and asking how I am. I swear, if one more person asks me that, I'm going to explode."

And I believed him. He certainly looked as if he was on the verge of an explosion. His face was dangerously flushed, and veins I didn't even know he had were popping out on his forehead and neck. All of a sudden it hit me where this was coming from. When Danny died, Jim had compressed all the rage and grief inside of him to a diamond point and focused it on bringing down Tommy Juno, Danny's killer. In the process he had lost control of his senses and almost ruined his career. Then, when his old partner's remains had turned up, four-year-old grief had been channeled into bringing his killers to justice.

But where was Jim's grief to go this time? A patch of ice? A telephone pole? I was afraid I knew the answer.

"They just care about you, Jim," I soothed, thinking fast. Was trying to calm him the answer? He obviously needed to vent some of his grief and clearly it was coming out in anger. But just how angry was it safe to make a man with a gun in his jacket? Just about then, the decision was taken out of my hands.

"Care?" Jim's hand swept out, indicating the messy cooking surfaces. "This is caring? I'm so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open and I walk into my home and find this.. .this pigsty." His hand swept out, catching a metal strainer and sending it clattering to the floor.

Whoa. I stepped back. That wasn't an accident, although Jim was looking as surprised by his action as I was. But even before the last clanging echoes of the metal strainer hitting the hardwood floor died away, his other arm swept out, catching the vegetable peelings and the chopping board and dashing them to the floor. I took another step back.

This time Jim didn't look surprised, he looked wild; intent on doing as much damage as possible as he began grabbing things off the packed bench tops--not just dropping them now, but flinging them to the floor. Spice jars and sauce bottles described colorful arcs with their contents as they bounced or shattered; a pot of drained noodles flung along with the rest, long thin strands of mung-bean vermicelli catching like sticky Christmas decorations on door knobs and towel racks. China followed, thundering with satisfying crashes as it shattered into hundreds of razor sharp shards. I winced as a favorite bowl bit the dust. I didn't even realize I had still been backing up until my back met the wall.

Physical violence has always been pretty intimidating to me, and traditionally something I've gone out of my way to avoid. I'm not ashamed to admit that. Always being the smallest guy in the class can affect you like that. A lifetime of tall jocks doing their damnedest to rearrange the face nature blessed you with had given me strong leg muscles at least. All that running. But there was no running from this, however appealing that sounded with my best friend in the world doing a great impression of a whole room full of Greek waiters.

But this was my best friend. And I couldn't walk away from him now, when he needed me most. But what the heck was I supposed to do for him? God, a zone out was easy compared to this.

"Goddamn it," Jim was repeating over and over beneath his breath. "God, God, God, God damn you!" he shouted, so loudly I winced. Then he stopped dead, his face an agonized mask and then... Oh, God, he was shaking, his shoulders trembling with sobs, hands coming up and pressing to his face tightly. "Oh, God," he moaned again, sinking down onto the floor as his legs folded up under him.

His image was blurring and I realized I had tears in my eyes. This was so hard for him! It shouldn't be so hard for a man to grieve, should it? Why did he have to literally fall apart emotionally before he could allow himself to cry for his brother? And what tears! The sobs seemed torn from his body, seeming to physically hurt him as his chest heaved.

I felt the crunching under my boot before I realized I was going to him, uncaring if the violence was over or not. Something warm squished under my knees as I dropped down next to him, instinctively trying to draw him to me, to absorb some of his agony into me.

"No." He fought me, just a little, hands still pressed tightly to his face, but I was having none of that.

"Jim, it's me. It's Blair. I'm here, Jim. I'm here."

His feeble attempts to push me away faltered, and his hands dropped away as his heavy head came to rest against my chest.

"Oh, Jim," I murmured, trying to hold him even closer. I couldn't tell him everything was gonna be okay, but I could let him know he wasn't alone. "Hold onto me, Jim. I'm here." And then I got my wish with a vengeance. His hands clutched at me, his face pressed hard enough against my breast to leave an imprint. Instead of calming, he was sobbing more loudly, tears soaking my shirt. Good, I thought. Let it come, let it all out.

His big hands were bruising where they gripped, his mouth opened against my shirt, the warm dampness searing my skin, and the sobs turning to moans and howls arrowing straight through my chest, echoing through my ribcage right into my heart, and I got my wish, all right. I was taking his pain into me.

000

"Oh, man."

I hardly recognized Jim's voice; it was crusty with overuse.

"Oh, man." He sniffed, pulling his hands clumsily from around me and rubbed them over his face. "Man, I can't believe I did this." Jim shakily attempted to stand up, but his legs wouldn't seem to hold him.

"Whoa, big guy." My own legs were a bit cramped from kneeling for so long, but I managed to catch him as he half-collapsed. I braced his weight and stood up, arm around his back. He was swaying, face pale, his eyes puffy and red. Flour and what looked like egg yolk decorated his face and neck. God knew what else was clinging to his shirt and oozing down his trouser legs. He looked like hell and I didn't feel much better myself.

"Oh, God," he moaned, his eyes drooping at half mast.

"You need sleep," I murmured, carefully guiding his steps through the mess littering the floor, wincing as the various remains of the kitchen crunched under our shoes. We reached the edge of the mess and I measured the distance to Jim's staircase and up to his bedroom with my eyes and then studied my drooping friend closely.

"We need to strip down first," I ordered, already grabbing his t-shirt and pulling it up and over his head.

"I'm so sorry," Jim slurred, clumsily helping me pull his stained shirt off. "So sorry."

"Don't worry about it, Jim," I assured him, unlacing his boots and helping him strip his pants down over his legs and off his feet, taking everything but his boxers with them. Leaning him against the bench, I quickly stripped down to my underwear and then I guided him up the stairs, finally depositing him on the edge of his bed.

He sat obediently and I realized he was more asleep than awake, shock and exhaustion leaving him on the verge of a total collapse. Darting back down to the bathroom, I grabbed a couple of towels and dampened one down under the hot water tap, almost scalding myself in the process. Jim was still sitting where I left him, swaying with exhaustion, his puffy eyes closed, and I felt my heart wringing in my chest at the sight of this strong man brought so low by his grief.

How he was going to hate this, I thought as I gently took his big hands and wiped them carefully with the warm damp cloth, separating the fingers like he was a five-year-old. I was going to have to handle the aftermath of this breakdown very carefully indeed. I wiped his face and then rubbed over his shorn hair.

"There. That will have to do until you can shower tomorrow," I said quietly. "Lie down now, Jim." At my prompting, he lifted his feet and rolled over into the middle of the neatly made bed. I didn't even attempt to get him under the covers. Pulling a quilt out of the blanket box at the foot of the bed, I laid it over him.

"Blair." His eyes opened and he pinned me with his bloodshot gaze, hand shooting out and capturing my hand where it still lay on the quilt. "Blair, don't leave me," he whispered hoarsely.

Well. Anyone peeking in on Jim's bedroom, seeing him tucked cozily in his bed and me leaning over him in my underwear might be forgiven for misinterpreting this request. I admit, for a few moments, my heart pitter-pattered in my chest as his words echoed an old and secret dream of mine, long since tucked away.

But only for a moment.

Because of course I knew what he really asking me, begging me to do. Don't leave me, Blair. Like everybody else has left me. Like Steven and Danny and Carolyn and Jack and God knew who else, stretching right back to his mother all those years ago, had left him. That's what he meant.

I leaned down and covered his hand where he still grasped mine. "No, Jim. I won't leave you. I promise."

"Promise," he repeated, closing his swollen eyes, but still not letting go of my hands.

"Promise," I whispered in return. I didn't even try to free my hands. Climbing up on the bed, I snuggled under the quilt next to him. When he slept, his grip would relax and I could leave him without distressing him. But when his hand finally did let mine go, it was only so he could wipe roughly at the slow tears leaking from the corners of his eyes.

Oh, God. I didn't think he could have any tears left. But these weren't the great tearing sobs of before, wrenched from his body against his will. These were slow, gentle, healing tears. Resignation tears. Acceptance tears.

"Oh, Jim," I whispered, raising up on one elbow next to him.

"There's no one left but me," he mourned lowly.

"That's not true," I vowed. "I'm here. I'll always be here." Gently, I leaned and pressed a chaste kiss to his forehead, the way a mother blesses her sleeping child. Then I kissed the soft skin under his eyes, tasting his salt tears and kissing them away. I explored the gentle crinkles at the corner of his eyes and then brushed my lips over the slight sand of his jaw. Finally, I touched a light kiss against his parted lips. And then another.

Unforgivable? Probably. Poor Jim. Here he was, heart-sore and laid bare to the bone by his emotional outburst, and here I was, his trusted friend, taking advantage of his vulnerable state. But in truth, there was nothing sexual in the kisses I gave him, any more than there had been in the comforting words and hugs. The kisses were instinctive, pouring from within me from the same place, like an endless well of comfort for this man. And it was comfort Jim was taking as his lips moved under mine and responded to the long sweet kisses that followed.

And then, just like that, between one heartbeat and the next, Jim was asleep. And, still in protective Guide mode, I wrapped my arms around him and held him all night.

000

It was early when I stirred awake the next morning, vaguely aware that, for a change, it wasn't my bladder sending me strong signals to wake up.

Clash! Clang!

I immediately located the source of the noise as I cracked my eyelids just a little. Full recall washed over me.

Thud! Ching!

Lying back on the nice soft pillow, I stretched my arms over my head and enjoyed the unusual experience of waking in Jim's bed. Unusual? Exceptional would be a better word. Downstairs, Jim finished his symphony of cleaning with a chorus of cutlery being dropped from a fair height into the drawer that housed it, and then with deliberate thuds, he made his way into the bathroom and loudly closed the door. With difficulty, I suppressed a giggle. Really, it wasn't funny. Poor Jim. He could have cleaned up the results of his explosion with cat-like efficiency if he'd wanted to; obviously, the bulk of the work had been done without waking me. But as time crept on and I still hadn't stirred, Jim's brain would have been ticking over and he'd hit upon the plan of waking me with the noise.

He'd succeeded. My part in this drama was to rise from this bed and flee in all my underwear-clad glory from the scene of the crime. Next, I was to slink into my room like a chastened puppy and in all likelihood feel honor-bound never to mention this whole ugly incident again. That was my task, my duty, if you will. I turned back over and dozed.

Jim opened the bathroom door downstairs and I didn't need Sentinel hearing to know he was standing just outside it for a moment, listening hard. There was a disgruntled sigh from him as he realized I had failed to live up to my end of his bargain and then he disconsolately trailed up the stairs. I kept my eyes closed while he nipped in to his walk-in wardrobe, not feigning sleep--which would have been impossible with Jim, anyway--just enjoying a few minutes' extra snooze time. Finally, Jim came back into the room and I opened my eyes.

"Morning, Jim," I said placidly. He was brushing his hair, quite needlessly, I might add.

"Morning, Chief." He sounded okay, but I had to ask.

"How are you feeling this morning?"

"Okay," he said automatically.

"Okay?"

Jim put the brush down on the chest of drawers with a deliberate motion, and then turned and looked at me evenly. "Yes," he said quietly. "I'm okay. I just feel... a bit of a fool. Last night..." He trailed off, turning back to the chest of drawers and fiddling with some of the stuff on top of it. The back of his neck was red.

I sat up, tucking the cozy quilt around me and rubbing a brisk hand over my stubbled face. "Last night..." I prompted. This had to come from him.

Giving up his uncharacteristic fiddling, Jim sighed and sat on the end of the bed, his back to me.

"I've never done anything like that before in my life," he swore to me, his voice grim. "I can't believe it was me down there, ranting like a lunatic, ripping up the kitchen..." His voice faded, this time in disbelief. I sympathized; I was still having a difficult time with the image in my head, too, and I had been on the outside looking in. What must it have been like for this rigidly controlled man to lose it in such a fashion?

"For what it's worth," I said quietly, "I think last night was one of the most positive things I've ever seen you do."

That, at last, had him turning to look at me, disbelief written large on his face.

"Positive?" he repeated a bit faintly. And then more forcefully. "You call ripping up the kitchen and throwing food around like a two-year-old positive?"

I shrugged. "I admit, the ripping and throwing parts were the downside, but every positive action has a negative side." I scooched down in the bed until I was closer to him. "Jim, you needed last night. You needed the emotional release. And don't you feel better for it?"

He blinked, a little surprised. I sighed. Wasn't that just like Jim? Climbing out of bed in the glimmering dawn to clean the kitchen and shower, without even stopping for a quick analysis of his own feelings on the way.

"I feel.. .sad." Jim rubbed at his chest, as if rubbing at an ache he was only half aware of. "But I guess I don't feel as angry as I did. Yesterday at the station I thought if one more person asked me how I was I would.. explode..." He winced and cocked a look at me. "Hmmm."

"You needed to vent," I said, throwing a Naomi quote at him in return. "And if a decent dinnerware set was the price of that..." I shrugged.

"Noritaki," he said incomprehensibly. At my blank look, he expanded, "A wedding present from Carolyn's mother. I have the feeling Carolyn's gonna be back to ask for it one day."

"Tough."

"Yeah." He looked a trifle smug at that and I felt my heart melt. From where I was perched I could see the vulnerable nape of his neck, soft and pink and bristling with shiny golden stubble. How I longed to extend the lovely intimacy of this moment, to bend and press a gentle kiss into that alluring place. No, what I really wanted was to do it and know it would be welcome. Jim shattered the cozy scene by jumping to his feet.

"Coffee's done. You want some?"

My mouth watered and my tummy grumbled simultaneously. "Desperately," I declared. "But I'll grab a quick shower first."

Jim headed down the stairs. "Simon's on his way up," he threw back at me over his shoulder, unlocking the front door on his way past. Sure enough by the time I ventured out of bed, Simon was crossing the threshold, grumbling under his breath.

"I hate when you do that." He closed the door behind him as I headed down the stairs.

"Mornin', Simon," I greeted him mid-yawn as I strolled past. He didn't answer and as I strolled on, some instinct had me turning back around. Simon was gazing thoughtfully back up the stairs I had just dragged myself down, the edge of Jim's bed with its tumbled quilt visible from where he was standing. His thoughtful gaze then shifted back to me, perusing my tousled, underwear-clad form from toes upwards. when he finally met my eyes, I was ready, and I gazed back at him fearlessly for a few seconds. Then I quite deliberately winked and turned back to the bathroom, wiggling my hips just a little as I crossed the threshold. Fortunately, Jim had been pouring coffee and missed the whole thing.

By the time I emerged from the bathroom, Simon was gone and I darted into my room and dressed hurriedly, anxious for the first sip of the delicious smelling coffee. I dived into the first cup; it barely touched the sides on the way down. Jim helpfully topped up my mug and I took another sip. A folder was lying discarded on the spotless bench and I nodded towards it.

"The accident report?" Jim cocked his head curiously. "I called Simon before you got home yesterday and he told me he had sent a team up there. Is it.. okay?"

Jim dished up a plate of bacon and eggs and I tucked in, noticing that he was drinking only coffee. "They didn't find anything unexpected," Jim supplied. "I didn't really expect them to. What's on your schedule today, Chief?"

I had to think for a minute. "Umm, some work to finish up. I should be done by lunch. Why?"

Jim looked down into his coffee cup and I took a moment to study him, marveling at his strong recuperative powers. His eyes were just the tiniest bit puffy this morning, and hardly even bloodshot. A look in the mirror earlier had told me I hadn't fared as well.

"I have arrangements to make today," he said quietly. "Stuff I avoided doing yesterday."

I knew the kind of arrangements he was talking about. Grief aside, life had to go on, and arrangements for funerals and services had to be done.

"Do you want some help?" I asked sincerely. My work could wait. Jim shot me a grateful glance, but shook his head firmly.

"I need to do this," he revealed huskily. "I can't do anything else for Steven. I owe him this much."

I wanted to reach out and cover his hand, but I kept my hands on my knife and fork and finished up my breakfast.

"After lunch, I thought I might drive up there, to the Peaks. I want to see the place it happened." Jim didn't meet my eyes. "I'll understand if you don't want to make that drive again."

"Hey, Jim," I chided gently. "You know I'm there for you, man."

He smiled gratefully again.

000

The sky was overcast, and now and then a scatter of rain hit the windshield and was blown away, but the drive was made fairly quickly and by two o'clock we were pulling onto the shoulder of a road called The Seven Mile Stretch by the locals. It was cold up here and I zipped my jacket up to my throat, rubbing my hands together firmly as we emerged from the car and walked slowly along the grass verge. There was no need to guess if this was the place; black tire tracks careened in a huge arc, ending abruptly at a mangled telephone pole fifty yards down the road. Jim stopped and crouched down, gazing at the sharp black marks on the faded old road.

"I talked to one of the other lawyers from Steven's firm," he said quietly, touching a finger to the black scar. "He and the site manager for the property they were inspecting decided to stay on in Fountain Bluff. But Steven wanted to get back to town." Jim laughed mirthlessly. "Turns out he had tickets to the game."

The game. My mind flew back the forgotten pleasure of that night, tucked up in the loft with good friends, enjoying the game. Oh, God.

"Pretty pointless epitaph, huh?" Jim stood and looked over the site one more time before turning and striding back to the truck. I followed him and climbed in, but he didn't start the motor straight away.

"When you think of all the dumb chores you do in a week, all the trips you make in all kinds of weather. No one ever thinks it could happen to them. I'm no fatalist, Jim, I believe we decide our own fate - but maybe when your time's up, it's up. It could just as easily have been a trip to the dry cleaners or to the drugstore 'cause he'd forgotten to buy condoms."

A small smile quirked Jim's lips.

"Steven's epitaph will be the way he lived his life. Not how he died."

"How he lived his life," Jim repeated softly. He turned to me. "He was my brother, Blair, and I hardly knew him. What does that say about me? A man who spent his adult life dwelling on the grudges of adolescence. And now he's gone forever, and I have to live the rest of my life without ever knowing my only brother."

"He was an adult all those years, too, Jim. You don't carry the blame for that time alone. Just the burden. But, Jim, at least you made your peace, man. You found each other and came together before he died. Imagine how you'd be feeling now if you'd got this news a few months ago."

Jim shivered. A moment later, he started the truck and without another word, he reversed and headed back the way we came. Half an hour later, my stomach growled audibly and Jim shot me a look.

"Hungry?"

"Starved, man. Can we stop at a diner or something?"

"I've got a better idea." Jim pulled in at a truck stop and disappeared inside, emerging a little while later with a bunch of fragrant bags. Then he swung the truck around and headed up a side road I'd barely noticed before.

"Where are we going?" I picked at one of the packages, my mouth watering at the smell of hamburgers and fries.

"There's a lookout up here I've heard about," Jim said, and I remembered the truck stop we had just been to had been called Craven's Lookout. "I've always meant to stop here, but every time I've driven these roads I've been in a hurry to go someplace else and I haven't taken the time. Well, I've just decided not to put things off any more." We rounded the corner and pulled into a small fenced-off parking area. Tucked between two of the peaks we were certainly not on the highest point on the bluffs, but we sure were in one of the best vantage points I had ever seen.

Forgetting the food, I climbed out of the car. "Wow," I breathed. The area was sheltered from some of the wind that continually ripped around these peaks and there were a few picnic tables and trash cans scattered around. And the view...  was magnificent. I've been all over the world and seen some pretty wonderful things, but I'd never seen anything to equal the sight of the purple-shaded countryside spread out before me. In the distance the twinkling line of the ocean was visible.

"Still hungry, Chief?" Jim had set up the picnic on the table with the best view and I hurried over.

"This place is great," I enthused, sitting up on the table for a better view and picking up a burger.

"Yeah," Jim agreed, and for the next few minutes we ate steadily. I watched Jim carefully, figuring this was probably his first decent meal in days, but he ate carefully and slowly, and seemed fine. We finished and tidied our rubbish away, and then I perched back up on the table, not yet ready to leave this place.

"Uh, Jim?" I hesitated. I was dying to mention last night, which, as I had predicted, had been completely ignored by Jim today. Finally, I lost my courage, telling myself this was neither the time or the place. "Um, never mind." I turned back to the view. Jim nimbly perched next to me and studied the view.

"It's okay, Chief," he said quietly, swinging to face me. "Blair. It's okay."

His voice was so gentle, so soft it choked me up for a moment, so that by the time I turned to face him I had tears standing in my eyes, and I barely understood why. He was smiling gently at me, and his face was so soft, his eyes so approachable, I screwed up my courage.

"Last night..." I whispered.

"Last night..." he prompted, as I had prompted him a few hours earlier. I wondered if my neck was red.

"How do you feel about.. .that?" We both knew what I was referring to.

"Oh, no." Jim's eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled. I watched, fascinated, as he shook his head a little. "I think I've done enough emotional blood-letting." He touched a playful finger to my nose. "It's your turn, Chief. How do you feel?"

How did I feel? My skin was tingling where he had touched it, my heart was singing at the delightful intimacy of his confiding smile, and somewhere, deep inside me, old dreams I didn't know were still alive stirred hopefully. How did I feel? I showed him the best way I knew how. I picked up his hand where it lay perched on his knee, the hand that had just reached out to touch me, the hand that last night gripped mine and begged me not to leave him. Raising it to my lips, I bent the final few inches and laid a warm kiss on the back of his knuckles, then turned it over and laid another in the lined surface of his palm.

I could feel the air rush out of his lungs with shock at the gesture, and I waited, head still bent, for his judgment. He'd asked how I felt. There was no way I could have lied about it, or given a flip answer, but as the seconds stretched on, I felt my heart squeeze in my chest as the silence echoed between us. What had I done?

The it was my turn to take a jerky breath as Jim's other hand cupped my chin and lifted my face to his until our eyes met. His eyes were intent on mine, serious.

"There are... parts of myself I have always... kept locked away," he said quietly, groping for words. "For good reason, I thought. First, my father, and then later, when I knew I wanted to make a career in the military." His fingers still touched my chin, gently stroking, his eyes were still intent on mine, and I sat still under his gaze, not moving, barely breathing, desperately afraid he would end these confidences and let me go. Don't let me go, Jim, my heart whispered to him.

"It wasn't that hard to suppress those parts of myself, and after a while it became second nature. In truth I never met anybody to make me rethink that long-ago decision. Until I met you."

My heart leapt in my chest and Jim smiled as his hearing picked it up. He released my chin and laid his free hand where our hands were still joined.

"You had me rethinking in a big way. It's been... tough dealing with the way you make me feel."

"Why didn't you say anything?" I burst out, unable to keep quiet any longer, and pretty sure now that this conversation wasn't going to end any time soon. No, it was going somewhere, I just wasn't sure where yet.

"When exactly?" Jim demanded without heat. "The first time we met and you asked me to try to pick up some co-ed for you?"

"She was a teaching assistant," I explained, a little embarrassed.

Jim continued relentlessly. "Or maybe a couple hours later, when you were flirting with the sales assistant in the perfume place?"

"Hmm." I couldn't deny that. I was just naturally flirtatious.

"Chief, you are the most devoutly hetero guy I've ever met. And to tell you the truth, I was kinda glad of that."

"Glad?" I repeated, puzzled.

Jim smiled and shook his head. "The way you go through women? It's criminal. Do you think I want to set myself up for that kind of grief? No, it was better that we stay friends. Much better. And that's enough for me, Blair. It's been enough."

I was speechless. I couldn't believe this had all been going on inside Jim's skull all this time. Well, sure, I loved women. I wasn't going to apologise for that. But it's not like I'm some kind of Don Juan or something. I'm not that bad. Am I?

I turned and gazed out over the rolling vista before me. Was this it, then? All I wanted within my grasp, only to have it slip away because of my lousy track record with love? Well, not love, really. Sex. Dating.

No way. Blair Sandburg doesn't give up that easily.

"So," I began, keeping my voice pitched low and my eyes on the view, "we're just gonna forget all this happened, go on with life as if neither of us bared our hearts to each other?"

"Blair." Jim's voice was uncomfortable, and I knew why. For a guy who cried all over our kitchen last night Jim was not a man who liked emotional scenes. Well, that was just tough, 'cause he was about to get a dilly.

"This is probably not the time for this," I echoed my earlier thought aloud. "But I have the feeling if we don't get this sorted out now, we never will." I turned to look at him, trying to project my sincerity. "Last night, I felt closer to you than I have to any other person in the world, with good reason. I am closer to you than anybody else in the world. I love you."

Jim looked stunned. What had he been expecting?

"I've loved you for a long time, but I didn't do anything about it for a lot of the same reasons you didn't act on your feelings for me. And a whole bunch of new ones that you might never have thought of." I took a deep breath. This was not going to be easy, but, as Jim had pointed out, it was my turn to do some blood-letting. "My life hasn't exactly been littered with successful relationships. No need to get to sentimental, but it wasn't easy for me as a kid. Naomi and her endless boyfriends. We moved around a lot. And wherever we ended up, I was always the odd one out, the geek, the nerd. I was pretty funny-looking as a teenager, well, you've seen the pictures." I felt my face flush hotly. This was a lot harder than I thought it would be.

Jim stroked the top of my head, running his fingers through my hair and cupping the back of my skull, tilting my face to his again. "You were beautiful," he said sincerely and I felt my eyes fill again. I blinked rapidly; this was not the time for tears.

"I was all eyes and hair," I said huskily. "I was sixteen when I arrived at Rainier and... I wasn't very successful with the opposite sex, to put it mildly. I worked, I studied, I traveled. And then one day, it was like everything was different for me. I don't know, looking back, I think it's when I started to gain confidence in myself. I'd never really had much before. But suddenly there were women, lovely women, who wanted to be with me." I looked away from Jim's intent gaze. "It was.. heady."

"It must have been." Jim's voice was thoughtful.

"You see so much with those eyes of yours, Jim," I murmured. "Can't you see my relationships for what they are? I date a certain kind of woman, who's looking for a certain kind of relationship. And believe me, permanence isn't on the list of things either of us wants. In fact, the only time I've come close to really caring, to loving..."

"Was with Maya," Jim recalled.

"And I didn't choose her. I would never have gotten to know someone like her. I would usually have avoided her like the plague."

"But why avoid love, Blair?" Jim asked curiously. "After all those years without it?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. Does anyone know themselves that well?"

"Are you afraid of it?" Jim probed relentlessly, like the cop he was.

"Shouldn't I be? Aren't you? Isn't that why you're pushing me away before we've even had a chance to get close?"

Jim backed away a little as I turned the attack on him. "That's different," he defended.

"How?"

Jim pushed himself up and away from the table we were seated on. He paced to the barrier and jammed his hands in his pocket.

"How do I know I would be any different from the rest of them?" he said so lowly I had to strain to hear. "How do I know you won't get bored with me and follow the next TA that sashays past? How do I know I won't be the one sitting in a sushi bar waiting for you to show up?"

I groaned under my breath. Man, I was never gonna live that down. I sprang up and grabbed his arm, swinging him to face me.

"Haven't you been listening to anything I said? I never loved any of them. I love you, you big lughead." I gave up on words and let my instinct take over. Jim was taller than me, but I'd dated women that were taller than me, and I had the moves down pat. I moved in on him, wrapping my arms around his neck and applying just enough pressure that he stooped without even realizing what he was doing. At the same time, I was up on tiptoe and my lips were taking his in a kiss I put all my soul behind.

Of course, the tall women I had moved in on didn't usually outweigh me by sixty pounds and have muscles like tree trunks. If Jim didn't want this, I would know it soon enough. Heck, if Jim didn't want this, he could pick me up and throw me over Craven's Lookout.

But he didn't. What he did do was meet my kiss, wrap his arms around me and lift me up so that our faces were level. Our lips parted for a moment; his were red and tempting, mine felt dry and I licked them. Jim groaned and we were kissing again.

"I am afraid," Jim panted out a few minutes later when we parted for breath. "I couldn't take losing anyone else, Blair. I think it would kill me."

I pulled his head down to my shoulder and held him tightly. I could point out that it wouldn't hurt any less if we weren't lovers, that, in fact, it would probably hurt a lot more knowing we had had the chance at love and let it slip away untried. But I didn't say any of that. Jim knew it all, he didn't need to hear it. I just held him close and told him what he needed to hear most of all.

"I'm not going anywhere." It was a promise.

000

The day of the funeral was sharp and cold, but clear as a bell. One of those days when the sky is so crisp and clear, so unbelievably blue it hurts your eyes. Steven had requested he be cremated, so there was no coffin, no open hole in the ground. Just a circle of people standing around under a tree in a beautiful corner of the crematorium, listening to the words of a priest as he spoke of Steven's life and the lives he had touched.

Jim stayed close to my side and I understood why. Most of the people there were strangers to him, a painful reminder that most of his brother's life had been a closed book to him. We pretty much stood to one side, Jim and I, Simon and Joel and some of the other guys from the station who had met Steven when we had worked the racetrack case.

Jim had chosen not to attend the wake that Steven's girlfriend was holding, and I understood that, too. While the glances he was getting from Steven's friends and associates were not openly hostile, you could see the questions behind their eyes, the curiosity about a brother most of them had never known existed.

Besides, Jim hated wakes. He'd been to too many.

So we stood and listened to the words, and then when the priest was finished, the mourners slowly turned and walked away. Jim shook hands with his friends, thanking them sincerely for being there for him and they all drifted away. Eventually, everyone was gone but Jim and I. We stayed under the tree, breathing in the late autumn scents surrounding us, the earth preparing itself for the long winter freeze ahead. Jim reached out and took my hand. I held his gladly, wishing I could have kept hold of it throughout the service. Jim's tiny crinkly-eyed smile told me he wished the same.

"Let's go home," he said quietly, and we fell into step and walked back to the truck.

The End.

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