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B.J Sandburg Part Twenty.
Jim closed his eyes, focusing his hearing keenly. An hour before he couldn't have done this, his head was ringing so badly. But now he could feel his senses settling down, and he used the moment to do his own checking.
The doctor in the emergency room had assured them that Blair was fine, and the babies heartbeats were strong. But Jim knew he wouldn't rest until he listened for himself. So while Blair cleaned up and changed, Jim listened in.
Blair was owing and ouching as he carefully showered, and Jim listened in for a while, finding even the sound of his lover rinsing his long hair a comforting one. Finally he reluctantly tuned out Blair-sounds and probed deeper still.
And there they were, rapid little heartbeats, surrounded by that curious shushing noise that seemed to be so comforting to them. From this place it was almost as if Jim was in the womb with them, feeling what they felt, hearing what they heard...
"Jim? Follow my voice back, Jim."
Jim opened his eyes to find himself still sprawled in the armchair where Blair had left him. The young woman was wrapped in his thick terry robe, hair twisted into a towel atop his head. Bruises had started appearing on his face and neck, and lines of worry circled his eyes.
"You all right, Chief?" Jim asked huskily.
Blair sat back on his heels. "Am I all right?" he repeated faintly. "You were zoned, man! You scared me to death!"
"Zoned?" Jim repeated. He hadn't zoned in months.
"What were you zoned on?" Blair frowned. "The pain meds?"
Jim shook his head to clear the fog from it. A shower of dust made him sneeze.
"You need to clean up," Blair fretted. "Let me get a plastic bag to wrap your arm in." He bustled away.
Jim stretched, feeling strangely enervated despite his body feeling like one big bruise and his arm throbbing.
"Maybe I shouldn't leave you to shower alone," Blair worried aloud, bringing the plastic bag and tape to the couch.
Jim caught the busy hands and stilled them, drawing Blair down next to him. "Sit down, Chief," he said softly. "Rest. You've had a busy day."
"I'm all right," Blair insisted, trying to stand.
Jim held him firmly. "Help me tape this bag on," he asked. "And then put your feet up and close your eyes for five minutes.
Blair looked tempted. "But you zoned," he reminded Jim.
"On you," Jim told him. "I was checking up on you and the pods, and I zoned on you."
"Really?" Blair looked fascinated. "You could hear the pods from out here?"
Jim described the experience as Blair taped him up. It was worth the zone to watch Blair's wide eyes as he absorbed every word, turning it over in his head, weighing it all up.
"Wow," he said at last. "Sounds like you really bonded with them." He looked a little unsure. "I think I'm jealous."
Jim laid his free hand over Blair's slight swell. "No," he said gently. "I think I am."
Blair's eyes widened.
********
"You were joking right?" Blair asked for the third time.
"I just came out of a zone," Jim reminded him. "I didn't know what I was saying."
"Uh huh," Blair said dubiously. He was silent for long moments and Jim took the chance to close his eyes. "But what did you mean?" he finally asked.
Jim sighed and opened his eyes again, staring at the darkened ceiling. Blair leaned over him, blocking his scintillating view.
"Jim?"
"I was still weirded out from the zone," Jim explained. "It just seemed to me in those moments to be something really amazing, that's all. Having those two little lives inside you."
"Amazing," Blair repeated, laying back.
"Like I said, I was still weirded out," Jim said self-consciously.
Blair was lying next to him, hands on his belly. "It is amazing," he said in wonder. "And a huge responsibility."
Jim turned onto his good side, surveying his partner with loving eyes. This was what Blair needed. That old enthusiasm for all the wonders in his life. "We're up to it," Jim told him softly.
"Course we are," Blair said scornfully. "It's a piece of cake."
Jim lay back, suppressing a grin, and swearing to himself that he would never remind Blair he'd said that.
********
His conviction to that oath was tested sooner than he thought. The next morning he found Blair sitting on his old bed, the contents of his closet strewn about the room.
"This just isn't funny any more," Blair said gloomily. "Nothing I own fits me!"
"I never thought it was funny, Chief," Jim said, sitting by him on the bed.
"I worked so hard to have all this mix and match stuff," Blair complained. "Trying to spend as little as possible and still making it look like I had a lot of different outfits."
Jim looked around at the tangled clothing, mystified. He had no idea so much planning had gone into Blair's wardrobe. Now he felt guilty for not noticing. He also wondered when he had last complimented Blair on the way he looked.
Jim resolved to make an effort to be more complimentary in future.
"This is all happening too quickly," Blair moaned. "I only just found out I'm pregnant, and I'm already expanding out of control. Have you seen the size of these?" he implored Jim, cupping his breasts.
Jim blinked and opened his mouth to frame some noncommittal reply. He never got a chance to squeak.
"They're huge!" Blair exclaimed. He sank back into gloom. "I look like a cow."
Gamely suppressing a inconsiderate grin, Jim went to bat. "You don't look like a cow," he said sternly. "You're barely even bulging yet."
Blair grunted.
"Tell you what," Jim offered nobly. "When we've visited Simon, we'll go shopping."
Blair looked up at him in suspicion. "Together?"
"You and me," Jim confirmed.
"You're offering to go shopping with me," Blair mused wryly. "Well roll out the barrels. What's the occasion? I know it's not my birthday cos I still have boobs."
"I'm offering to do something thoughtful here, Chief. Don't rain on my parade."
"We can't afford a whole new wardrobe for me," Blair pointed out fretfully. "We still have to find all that money."
"Uh uh," Jim shook his finger. "I told you not to worry about the money."
"I'm not Lucy and this isn't the fifties, Jim," Blair retorted. "I'm not 'the little woman' you have to shelter from all that scary financial stuff. I'm really worried here. I don't want us to lose our home over this."
Then he blushed bright red. "I mean, your home."
"Our home," Jim corrected. "This has been our home since the day you moved in."
Blair shook his head. "I worry about that too," he confessed. "About what's gonna happen after. But I know you don't want to talk about that."
Jim sighed. He really didn't want to talk about that, but it looked as if he had to bite the bullet.
"It's okay, Chief," he said gruffly. "I know what you're worried about, because I'm worried about the same things."
"I know you'll always love me," Blair said earnestly. "I believe you when you say that. But I want you to be in love with me too. And I don't see how you can be when I'm not a woman any more." He snorted. "God, that sounds like the headline of the National Enquirer."
Jim half smiled. "Tell me about it. I wish I knew the answers. I just know I love you now, and that no matter what happens we'll build a life together."
"Even if you don't want to have sex with me ever again," Blair said grimly.
"I think there's something you're forgetting here, Chief," Jim pointed out. "Before you lay all this at my door."
Blair looked at him, one brow raised.
"I'm the same man I always was," Jim reminded him. "A little more open minded than I was a year ago, with a few more grey hairs, thanks to you and the pods, but the same man. You're the one who's changed. And who's to say that when you're a man again you won't look at me and wonder what the hell you were thinking this year?"
Blair opened and closed his mouth in shock. "I wouldn't do that," he finally said.
"But you can't know," Jim said gently. "Neither of us can."
"I'll always love you, Jim," Blair said, and his eyes told Jim he wasn't unaware of the irony of that statement.
"Then don't worry about the future?" Jim asked. "We'll get through it. Together." He wrapped his good arm around Blair's shoulders.
"Together," Blair repeated, leaning against him.
"And don't worry about losing our home either, Chief," Jim advised. "If it comes down to it I'll go to my Dad for money."
Blair slanted a glance up at him. "You'd do that?"
Jim smiled. "We'll just wait till you're nice and round with his future grandchildren and hit him up for a loan. Piece of cake."
********
Jim paused outside the hospital room, taking a deep breath. Now he would find out once and for all what Simon remembered.
"Hi, Jim," the Captain greeted him wearily as he entered. "How're you feeling?"
Jim flapped his plastered arm up and down in its sling. "Not looking forward to a month of desk work. You?"
"Still alive," Simon said, easing himself up on the bed as he depressed the button to raise the mattress. He groaned a little, straightening his back. "I tell you, Jim, I don't think this old body can take much more."
"It's not the years, it's the mileage," Jim quoted with a wry grin.
"Oh, it's the years too," Simon corrected. "How's B.J?"
Jim stiffened. "She's fine."
"Glad to hear it. She sure kept her head considering the circumstances." Simon scratched his nose with one plastered finger. "Listen, Jim." He paused, clearing his throat.
Jim braced himself.
"You'd tell me, right? If I said anything... embarrassing when I was hurt."
"Embarrassing?" Jim probed carefully.
Simon's face was flushing. "I have the feeling I was raving a bit there towards the end. Shock, you know."
"Oh, I know," Jim said fervently.
"I vaguely remember hallucinating..." He shrugged uncomfortably. "Well, let's just say they were some pretty crazy hallucinations and leave it at that."
"Simon," Jim began carefully. "You were hurt and in shock. Please don't worry about anything you might have said."
Simon winced. "I knew it," he said ruefully. "I hope I didn't embarrass B.J too much. I'll apologise to her when she arrives."
At that moment Jim heard Blair in the hall and he breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like they might get away with this by the skin of their teeth.
Blair pushed open the hospital room door and smiled uncertainly. "Hi, Simon."
The Captain froze, looking into blue eyes as if pole-axed. "Oh my god," he said in a stunned voice. "It was real."
Jim closed his eyes. Rats.
Blair's smile turned down. "Did I come at a bad time?" he ventured.
Simon was wiping his forehead with a shaking hand. "I can't believe this," he muttered.
Blair closed the door carefully behind him. "Go with that instinct, Simon," Blair advised.
"How?" Simon appealed to Jim. "Is it... Is it a Sentinel thing?"
"Don't blame me for this," Jim said defensively, holding up his hands. "It's a Sandburg thing."
"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Simon said despondently. "I need a cigar." He studied Blair from top to toe, so thoroughly the young woman was positively squirming when he was done. "How?" he said again. "Did you have a sex change operation? Impossible, you just didn't have the time."
Jim watched ruefully as Simon's quick brain sorted through one alternative after another, discarding one logical solution at a time.
"Don't try to look for logic, Simon," he advised. "It'll just drive you nuts."
"Maybe I should just try looking for the Candid Camera instead?" Simon said tartly. "Please tell me this is all some elaborate practical joke?" he pleaded to Blair.
"This is all some elaborate practical joke, Simon," Blair said carefully. "We're just humouring you because you took one too many blows to the head. When you wake up this will all be a dream." Blair waved his hands in front of Simon's eyes and made a spooky voice. "All a dream," he repeated in a monotone. "All a dream..."
Simon waved his hands away irritably. "Now I know it's Sandburg," he muttered. "No-one else could annoy me so quickly."
Blair pulled up a chair and sat down. "And I thought you liked me," he said mournfully.
Simon's confusion had changed to fascination. "My god," he swore. "You're really a woman under there."
Blair smiled placidly. "One hundred percent grade A."
"Don't be inane," Simon snapped.
"Then don't say inane things," Blair returned smartly.
"Well how do you expect me to act?" Simon said furiously.
Jim sighed and leaned back against the wall.
"Explain this to me," Simon ordered. He settled back against his pillows with his arms crossed across his chest.
So Blair explained The Curse of the Sandburg's, nobly ignoring Simon's rude grunts and snorts.
"What a load of crap," Simon said in disgust when Blair had wound down. "Did he just make that up?" he appealed to Jim.
Jim shrugged. "What you see is what you get, Simon," he answered. "Like I said, looking for logic will just drive you crazy."
"I should be used to that around you two," Simon said irately. "Sentinels and Guides and Spirit Animals. Even ghosts, for god's sake. And now Blair's turned into a woman. What next?"
Jim thought of the twins Blair was carrying and kept his mouth firmly closed. There was a wicked glint in Blair's eye and Jim frowned at him menacingly. That was a conversation that could wait for another time.
"Wait a minute," Simon said thoughtfully. His head whipped back and forward as he looked both Jim and Blair in turn. "Wait just a minute. You two... You two are having an..." His cheeks flushed again. "Or were you before? Having an affair?"
"No," Jim shook his head. "Not before."
"But you are now?" Simon said pathetically.
Blair fluttered his eyelashes at Simon flirtatiously. "You'd be surprised at the offers I've had, Simon."
Simon opened his mouth and closed it again. "You know what? I don't want to know."
"I don't blame you," Jim inserted. Blair gave him a poisonous look.
"If I'm lucky I'll wake up and find this was all some drug induced dream," Simon said hopefully.
"We know we can trust you to keep this to yourself," Blair said carefully.
"And who am I gonna tell?" Simon said in disgust. "Without ending up in one of those attractive jackets that fasten at the back?"
"Good point."
Simon narrowed a stare at Jim. "Ellison?"
"Yeah?"
"There isn't anything else, is there?"
Jim hesitated and Simon held up a hand. "Never mind!" he said in alarm. "Forget I asked!"
********
"Well that went well," Blair said in the elevator.
"You had to do it, didn't you?" Jim accused. "You had to aggravate him."
"Hey, it's Simon. Getting annoyed is how he deals with things. I was doing him a favour by goading him."
Jim shook his head. "Wait til he hears the rest."
"Poor Simon," Blair chuckled. "All he wants is the quiet peaceful life of an urban hero. And he gets stuck with us."
"You're really enjoying this, aren't you?"
Blair shrugged, a grin still playing around his lips. "A girl's gotta have some fun."
********
"Why did I ever agree to this?" Jim groaned in the third store.
"Guilt," Blair answered absently, holding up a t-shirt and eying it in consideration.
"Maybe you should call your mother?" Jim suggested. "You know she'd love to shop with you."
"Sure, if I want to look like an earth goddess," Blair said sardonically. "I grew out of my hippy stage a long time ago, Jim."
Jim pictured Blair in one of those flowing things Naomi always wore and frowned. Maybe that wasn't a good idea.
"Hey, look at this!" Blair held up a t-shirt. It had a pea pod with smiling baby peas nestled inside printed on the front. "Pods!"
Jim grinned. "Put it in the cart, earth mother." He rubbed his aching back. "I'm starved," he tried slyly.
Blair licked his lips. "I could eat," he admitted. "And my feet are killing me." He surveyed the contents of the cart, expandable jeans and three t-shirts. "We can get some more after lunch," he decided.
Jim trudged after him to the check out, like a condemned man going for his last meal.
End of Part Twenty.
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