This Side Of Heaven.

By Gillian 

"At least it's not raining," Blair piped up cheerfully.

"Don't talk to me," Jim called over his shoulder.

"Oh, come on, man." Blair brushed the hair out of his eyes and adjusted the pack on his back. "You got us back on the right path. We're not lost any more."

"Every time I let you navigate this happens," Jim fumed. "I'm more angry with myself for ignoring my better judgment and giving you the map."

Behind his back Blair pantomimed his friend's nagging, pulling silly faces and waving his hands around, confident that not even a Sentinel had eyes in the back of his head. Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks, assaulted by a sensory warning that took him completely by surprise.

Not now, he thought desperately.

Jim turned impatiently. "What?"

"Um." Blair thought furiously. "Jim, can you hear anybody approaching?"

Jim put his hands on his hips. "Huh?"

"Listen," Blair entreated, looking over his shoulder nervously. "Can you hear anyone?"

"What on earth makes you think there's anyone out here but us?" Jim bit out. He must have automatically focused his hearing because he paused, the impatient expression on his face melting into surprise. "I'll be damned." He cast a long probing look down the path behind them. "How did you-"

"Come on," Blair interrupted, grabbing his sleeve and hauling him along. Jim allowed himself to be tugged down the path, a bemused expression on his face.

"How did you know?" he demanded.

Blair released him and sped off down the path, confident that his partner would follow. Blair's heart was pounding in his chest. This could not be happening now! He had successfully avoided other immortals for years, in the city it was usually a simple matter to find a back door or blend in with the crowd. But out here what the heck was he to do?

The path widened into a clearing by a look-out and with a curse Blair peered down the rough cliff-side, realizing he had done it again. He had led them to a dead-end.

"Genius," Jim muttered from behind him, still not taking the situation seriously.

Well how could he? Blair thought to himself, tugging his backpack off and unbuckling it quickly.

"Care to tell me why we're fleeing from some hitch-hiker?" Jim drawled, pulling his own back-pack off and dropping it onto the ground. "And how did you know he was there anyway?"

From the bottom of the pack Blair pulled a fabric wrapped bundle and quickly shook it loose.

"This is not the way I would have chosen to tell you," he said rapidly as three pieces of metal tumbled onto the grass. "But now I have no choice."

The smile faded from Jim's face as Blair clasped a hilt and fitted a piece of blade onto it. Then he fitted the last piece of metal, the sharp tapered end of a sword. Standing he twisted his wrist and the sword blade cut cleanly through the air with a snap. He looked at Jim soberly.

"You have to understand what you are about to see."

*** *** *** ***

Jim took in the sight his bookish young partner made carrying the now seamless looking sword. His hair was tied back in a tight pony tail, with just a few curling wisps escaping around his wide forehead. He was standing with his feet apart, loosely relaxed, sword held in his right hand. He should have been a comical sight. But Jim had no urge to laugh.

A snapping twig distracted Jim's incredulous attention from the incongruous picture before him. "He's about a hundred meters down the track," he reported quietly. "What's going on here, Chief?"

"I don't know for sure, Jim," Blair said, his face serious. "This could be either friend or foe approaching, we'll find that out soon enough. But whatever happens you cannot interfere. Do you understand? No matter what happens."

"No, I don't understand," Jim said irritably. "Talk to me, Chief."

But Blair had turned his back on him and was standing in the center of the clearing. A man appeared on the path, and to Jim's horror he too was carrying a sword, one roughly twice as long as the sturdy Roman style sword Blair held.

Jim's mind was buzzing with questions, incredulity, even a kind of hysterical laughter, but a soldier's instincts kept him silent. There was a deadly tension in the air despite the surprised expression on the newcomer's face. Jim realized abruptly that the man had expected to see someone other than Blair.

"My, my," the man drawled. He was maybe a little older than Jim, forty perhaps, with long fair hair tied back and plaited. "You are not my quarry. What a coincidence. I am Martin Radcliffe."

"We have no quarrel," Blair said lowly. He did not relax his defensive stance.

"No," the man agreed, holding his empty hand aloft and slowly turning his sword and driving it's point into the soft ground. "No quarrel," he repeated.

Blair lowered his sword a fraction and shot a glance over his shoulder at Jim, and it was in that moment the newcomer reached behind his back and drew out a snub nosed semi-automatic.

"No!" Jim was yelling and rolling, reaching for his gun and firing even as the armed man spat a spray of deadly bullets at Blair.

Jim's three shots were grouped at the gunmen's heart, but he already knew he was too late, his peripheral vision caught Blair jerking painfully as the bullets struck his unguarded flesh.

The gunmen fell twitching to the dirt, and Jim scrambled over to him and hurriedly ascertained that he was dead. The cop turned in despair to his friend. Blair's eyes were open and he was still breathing, but there was way too much blood on his chest, spattered up on his face and running in rivulets down into the ground. They looked like tears.

"Oh god, Blair." Jim dropped to his knees by his partner's side, his hands outstretched, wanting desperately to touch, to comfort, but terrified of inflicting more pain on the shattered, bloody body before him.

"Jim, oh, it hurts." Blair's voice was a gurgle of sound, blood bubbled in his throat and ran from the corner of his mouth. He struggled to roll to his side and then collapsed back, groaning in pain.

"Lie still, Blair." Tears obscured Jim's eyes, grief choked him. "I'll get help, try not to move."

"Jim." Blair's bloodstained hand reached out and grabbed the cop's shirt front. "Jim, I'm dying, and there's so much I should have told you."

Tears overflowed from Jim's eyes. "Me too, buddy." Jim couldn't deny that Blair was dying. The close range fire had ripped into the young man's chest with horrible ease. With the amount of damage done, Jim was amazed he was still breathing.

"Help me up, Jim, please," Blair pleaded with his eyes, making a huge effort and succeeding in sitting up.

"You shouldn't move," Jim protested, automatically supporting his friend's drooping form.

"I have to get to him." With Jim's help Blair stood and half stumbled, was half dragged to the dead man.

"Blair, he's dead," Jim said quietly.

Blair stood over his murderer, one arm held by Jim, the rest of his weight supported by the sword he still held, braced against the ground.

Then, with a last surge of energy, Blair was thrusting Jim away from him and raising the sword over his head, bringing it down in a short economical chopping motion, taking the corpses head off neatly at the shoulders.

"Blair!" Jim screamed in shock and horror, and then Blair was dropping. Jim knew he was dead before he hit the ground.

Bile rising up in the his throat Jim tried to crawl to his friend. But something was holding him back. A strange wind was rising in the previously still clearing, swirling an odd mist into strange patterns and shapes. Lightening struck the ground near Blair's motionless form and Jim automatically covered his head. More lightening was striking from the cloudless sky, large branches cracked and fell, dropping heavily around them.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The clearing was still, only one living man with his hands over his head, and two corpses laying in their own blood. Jim stiffly uncurled from the protective huddle he had assumed.

Pointedly keeping the headless corpse out of his line of sight Jim crawled to Blair and gently turned him over, carefully brushing away the leaves and twigs that were sticking to his face. Lifting his friend up into his arms he cradled him close to his chest, needing these last few moments with his partner before that last of Blair was gone forever.

For a few more moments Jim could ignore the questions clamoring in his brain, the screams of grief and denial backing up in his throat.

"I love you, Blair," Jim whispered, burying his face into the cloud of Blair's hair which was now loose around his face, trying to imprint the fresh herbal scent into his brain, desperately ignoring the fresher tang of blood overlaying it. "I'm so sorry I didn't tell you before, but I was scared. I wonder, was that what you wanted to say... to... me?"

The first sob broke from him then, and Jim let it out, his throat aching with the tide of grief backed up inside him. He pressed Blair's still form ever closer to him, ignoring the sticky blood that passed through his clothes and adhered to his skin. His body shook with pain, and he was so wrapped up in his grieving that at first he didn't notice when the world turned on its head. Blair's cooling form began to warm just a few degrees.

Finally the change was great enough that Jim could no longer ignore it. Choking back a sob he pulled away, peering through swollen eyes at his friend's still face. What was happening?

And then he heard it.

Lub dub.

"Oh no." Jim shook his head in superstitious denial. "It can't be."

Lub dub. Lub dub. Lub dub.

With each beat it grew louder, stronger, more unmistakable. Blair's heart was beating.

The evidence was under Jim's very hands and still he couldn't accept it. He knew death, he knew it as intimately as a lover. In the jungle he had pulled the mangled bodies of his comrades from the tangled wreck of the helicopter, straightening or replacing their broken limbs before laying them in the graves he had dug with his own hands.

Their blood had soaked through his clothes too, staining his skin, imprinting itself on his soul. No one comes back.

A narrow line maybe, dividing life from death, possibility from hopelessness. But once crossed, as surely as Blair had crossed it, there was no coming back.

No one comes back.

But Blair's heart was beating beneath his hands, Blair's skin was warming against his, Blair's breath was hitching in and out of his chest.

Dimly Jim was aware that he should be pretty scared by now, terrified in fact, that one of nature's toughest laws was being broken before his eyes, under his hands.

But in reality all he could feel was a bone deep gratitude to whatever nameless force had broken that hard rule.

Blair was alive.

"Oh, that smarts," Blair coughed, his body jerking as his breath evened out. Jim found himself mute with wonder as the impossible happened and Blair returned to life before his eyes.

"Oh, Jim, man." Blair peered up at his friend with big eyes. "I am so sorry." He reached up a blood stained hand to touch a finger to the wet trail on Jim's cheek, then grimaced at the gore ingrained into his skin.

Uncaring, Jim caught the fluttering fingers and pressed them to his face. He was still speechless, his eyes open wide, drinking in the beloved voice he'd thought stilled forever, the mobile face he'd thought doomed to decay.

With careful fingers Jim pulled open Blair's torn and bloody shirt to reveal his unblemished chest, the curly hairs stiff and sticky with blood from wounds that no longer existed. He stroked a hand down that perfect chest. "How?" he asked simply.

"Oh boy." Blair coughed a little and rubbed his jaw with trembling fingers. "I have so much to tell you, Jim, as you can imagine. But I have other duties that cannot be ignored." Carefully he turned his head to face the headless corpse.

Jim swallowed, nausea again rising in his throat as he relived what Blair had done. "Duties?" He again assisted Blair to his feet and Blair stood for a moment, taking deep breaths. Then he looked up into Jim's dazed and wondering eyes and smiled gently.

"Hey, Jim. It's nice to be back. Didja miss me?"

The smile alone was Jim's undoing and with a broken sob he wrapped his big arms around Blair and crushed the smaller man to his powerful chest.

"Guess so," Blair wheezed, his smile wide and smug.

*** *** *** ***

Blair pulled a fold-up shovel from its slot on Jim's back-pack. Its main function was latrine digging, but Blair was hoping Jim would understand the more sinister purpose it would be put to now. Quick as ever, Jim did. He flicked a glance at the headless corpse and then back at Blair.

"We don't have to do this," he said quietly. "You acted in self defense, I can call Simon."

"And tell him what? That I just happened to have my trusty sword handy?" Blair returned mildly. "And that I decided to chop this guy's head off after you shot him? Jim, there's no explaining to Simon or anybody else what you've seen here today. I'm gonna have a tough time getting you to believe the truth, and you've just seen it with your own eyes."

Jim shivered a little as the events of the last hour rolled over him again. "At this point, Chief, I'm willing to believe just about anything you tell me."

"I'll remind you of that later," Blair said with a twinkle in his eye. Blair proffered the shovel and Jim took it. "You dig, over there." he indicated some brush set back from the clearing. "I'll do the dirty work." When Jim opened his mouth Blair held up a hand to forestall the protest. "Don't worry, it's nothing I haven't done before."

This shut Jim up effectively and he was silent as he spent the next half an hour digging a grave-sized trench in the sandy soil. When he was done he silently joined Blair in dragging the headless corpse, now securely tied in one of their ground-sheets, and rolling it into the hole. Blair had already wrapped the head, first in his shredded shirt, and then in one of the plastic bags they used to dispose of their rubbish and return it to town with them. Jim made no protest as Blair carried the head over and laid it in the trench with the corpse.

Their eyes met across the grave, both their faces grim and sober. Blair tossed the long sword into the pit, and turned away. Then, still silent, Jim began shoveling dirt into the hole.

The sun was lowering in the sky when Jim and Blair shrugged back into their packs. They took one last lingering look around the clearing, the site of so much pain and turmoil, and then Blair turned and lead the way back down the path. A hundred or so meters on their way Blair felt a heavy hand fall on his shoulder and he cast a look back at Jim.

"I'll lead the way, Chief," Jim said firmly, his first words for a long time, and with a grin, Blair fell back and let the big man pass him.

With Jim leading the way they found their pre-chosen camping site before the sun set, and the two men hurriedly set about putting up the light weight two-man tent. Then Jim began to build a hearth while Blair gathered enough wood to last through the evening.

"You hungry?" Jim gestured towards the container of steaks he had been so eagerly looking forward to just a few hours before. Blair grimaced and Jim sighed in agreement. "Yeah, my appetite's gone as well." He brewed some coffee though, and rested the blackened old pot over the flames to heat.

Blair rubbed his hands briskly up and down over his jean clad thighs. "Brr, it's getting cold."

Jim reached over and zipped up Blair's duffel coat. His fingers lingered near the collar, then slipped up and tilted Blair's chin to face him. "It's time, Chief," he said quietly.

"I know," Blair's agreement was just as quiet. "I'm just not sure where to start. I've never had to put it into words before."

"Begin at the beginning.

"The beginning..." Blair's wide blue eyes grew reflective as he seemed to slip back in time for a moment. "I'm not sure exactly what year I was born. 1695, or thereabouts."

Jim's face was solemn in the firelight. "1695," he repeated softly. 

"I know you said you'd believe anything I told you, but this is pushing it, right?"

"1695," Jim said again, as if trying to push it into his brain for processing.

"I was born in London Town," Blair continued. "They were tough times, Jim. Tougher than you could imagine."

"I've seen poverty in third world countries, Chief," Jim reminded him gruffly.

"Through the eyes of a first world man," Blair said gently. "But the world I lived in looked on in acceptance as people were tortured for evidence, locked in the stocks for crimes, hung or transported on a magistrates whim. Where families could be turned out of their home, where children lived and died on the streets with breathtaking frequency."

Jim moved closer and laid a hand on Blair's knee. "Tell me, Chief."

"My family lost their money in one venture or another. I have little memory of them. I was about eight when Naomi found me on the streets of Winchester."

"1703," Jim calculated.

"November 26, 1703," Blair agreed. "I remember because it was the night of the Great Storm. I was huddled against a wall in the alley, freezing cold and trying not to get blown away by the fierce wind when she appeared."

"Naomi," Jim breathed, as if just remembering her. "She's... like you?"

"Immortal," Blair said solemnly, speaking the words for the first time.

"How old is she?"

Blair smiled. "I'll leave that for you to ask her next time you see her. I've never been able to get a straight answer from her."

"Then she did raise you?" Jim questioned.

"She's my mom, Jim, in every way that counts. She appeared out of the darkness and the wind, like a legend in a fairy tale, long red hair streaming out behind her. Women didn't walk the streets of London Town after dark, you understand. But she sensed me near I suppose, and wouldn't abandon me to the storm."

"Sensed?" Jim asked. Sudden realization struck him. "Immortals sense one another," he said in enlightenment. "That's how you knew that guy was coming."

"Radcliffe," Blair agreed grimly. He pulled a wallet out of his coat pocket and handed it to his partner.

"You took this from him?" Jim asked, flipping through the expensive wallet. A Maryland drivers license, a wad of cash, a small slip of paper. Jim pulled it out and squinted at it. "Duncan MacLeod," he read out.

Blair squinted at the paper in alarm, unable to make out the letters in the dim light without his glasses on. "What?"

"That's what it says here," Jim reported. "Duncan MacLeod, and a Seacouver address. A place called DeSalvo's. Ring a bell?"

"Oh, man," Blair breathed. "Please let this be the guy he was hunting. Cos if I just killed a MacLeod I am in deep shit."

"You've heard of this guy?"

"Vaguely," Blair said, leaning forward and poking at the fire with jerky movements. This was very bad. The last thing he wanted to get Jim caught up with was a bunch of vengeful immortals. "This couldn't have been him, though. The only MacLeods I've heard of have been good guys. They would never break the rules like this Radcliffe creep."

"Rules?"

Blair sighed tiredly. "Oh, Jim. There's so much I have to tell you. But I don't think I have the time or energy to tell you about The Game tonight."

"If this Game includes immortals chopping off each others heads, I can't wait," Jim said grimly.

Blair chuckled. "That's pretty much it."

"And they do it for that energy, right? That lightening storm? It was something in him leaving and going into you."

Blair looked at him in admiration. "Man, you weren't Detective of the Year for nothing. The 'something' is called Quickening, Jim. I guess it's a kind of life force, probably it's whatever keeps us from aging beyond our first death, as well as whatever heals us."

"First death?" Jim repeated.

"Up until we die the first time we're mortal, Jim," Blair explained gently. "I was 28 when I died the first time. I awoke as an immortal."

"And that's how Naomi sensed you that night? An immortal can tell when a mortal is going to be one of them?" Jim said shrewdly. He tried to catch Blair's eye, but the immortal purposely looked away from him. The cop saw too much, and Blair didn't want Jim to see what was in his eyes now. Finally he heard his partner sigh, then get up and grab some more wood for the fire.

"So, tell me about your first death," Jim said. He was sitting again, this time on the other side of the fire.

Blair sighed. There was no telling how Jim was going to react to this news in the long term. For now his curiosity was driving him, but soon enough he would begin to think, to weigh the implications of the years of lies and deceptions Blair had perpetrated upon him.

"It was 1723, and we were traveling in Marseilles. I got the plague."

"The bubonic plague?" Jim said incredulously.

"The Black Death itself," Blair confirmed. He suppressed a yawn. "It wasn't as bizarre as it sounds, Jim. In the decades before I was born seventy thousand people in London alone died in the Great Plague. It popped up every now and again. Hell, people in this country are still dying of it, just go out to some of the Indian Reservations."

"You died of the plague," Jim said in wonder. "Were you... scared? I mean, did you know?"

Blair nodded. "Yes, to both. As a child it never occurred to me to wonder why Naomi saved me from death in the streets of Winchester. When I was older she told me all she knew of Immortals, and taught me all she knew of fighting. She told me when I died I would be like her, and, trusting, I believed. It was only later, as a man, as I lay dying, that I wondered if she had lied to me. Told me a story so I wouldn't fear death."

"But after you died, what? You just awoke?"

"I just awoke," Blair agreed simply. "And I've never known illness again. There's more though, something I didn't know at the time. Pre-immortals are only born to immortality when they die a violent death."

Jim whistled. "Why?"

"No idea. But I was dying of the plague and I guess Naomi didn't want to lose me. I barely felt the knife slide into me."

Jim's eyes widened. "Naomi killed you?" he asked incredulously.

"And gave me life at the same time."

Shaking his head Jim struggled to take it all in. "And you heal in moments. Is there a downside to this?"

"Other than people hunting me to chop off my head and take my quickening?" Blair said acerbically.

A smile crossed Jim's face for a moment, and then melted away again. "I feel like I should be running around flapping my arms and making chicken noises," he said soberly. "I thought I'd never get used to this Sentinel business. Immortals might be more than I can take."

"We're as much a part of the world as Sentinels," Blair assured him. "Just a hidden part. You don't want an enemy knowing your secrets and weaknesses, and we're the same. In fact-" A warning washed over him again. "I don't believe this!" he said under his breath.

Jim straightened in alarm. "What?"

"Another immortal," Blair said grimly. In moments he was up and reassembling his sword.

"What is this, a convention?" Jim muttered. He pulled out his gun and flipped it open, checking his ammunition. Blair looked up, alarmed.

"Jim, you can't interfere in this," he said urgently.

"Say what?"

"There are rules to The Game, Jim. And whether I believe in it or like it, I must obey the rules."

"Like Radcliffe did?" Jim said harshly. He cocked his head. "This new guy's close," he said quietly. "I've got your back, Chief. No-one is taking your head while I'm around."

Blair realised he should have been telling Jim the rules of The Game for the last hour, instead of gossiping about old times with him, but it was too late now. The buzz was strong in his ears, and this newcomer was upon them.

*** *** *** ***

Jim again watched Blair fall into this new persona. Or rather, an old persona long hidden from his partner. The sword upright, stance relaxed, booted feet braced on the hard earth of the campsite. Boots still spattered with blood from Blair's death, just hours before. The sight of the rusty red stains made Jim more determined than ever to protect Blair, no matter what nonsense he spouted about rules and games. In the case of immortals, Jim suspected, it was probably better to shoot first and ask questions later.

A man appeared at the edge of the campsite, Jim's Sentinel senses picking him out easily. Blair, he realised, was standing to the right of the campfire, allowing the light to fall on the pathway the newcomer stood on, but not outlining himself in the red glow, and therefore making himself an easy target. The man stood in a similar stance to Blair, feet apart, a sword drawn and raised. He studied Blair in the flickering light.

"I'm Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod," he said easily. "I don't want any trouble."

"The last guy I heard that from pulled out a gun and ruined my best hiking coat," Blair returned conversationally. "As you might understand, I'm a little wary of strangers today."

"If the man you're talking about was called either Radcliffe or Shigeta, then we have a mutual enemy."

"It was Radcliffe, and he's not an enemy you have to worry about again," Blair said. "Not this side of heaven, anyway."

MacLeod lowered his blade a fraction. "I owe you a favor then. He's been tracking me for two days. It suited me to lead him out here away from... my friends. But tonight I thought I felt him close and decided to get it over and done with."

"No favor," Blair said, lowering his own sword a little. Remembering what happened last time, Jim kept his hand on the butt of his pistol, buried now in his coat pocket. MacLeod however, made no sudden moves. "I didn't want his head," Blair continued. "He sealed his own fate."

"A warning then," MacLeod said, already stepping back into the darkness of the path. "The other man I mentioned, Shigeta? Radcliffe traveled with him. Good luck to you, both." With that he was gone.

Jim and Blair both remained silent for long minutes as the Sentinel tracked the retreating man. He didn't pause on his way, and Jim listened until he could hear him no more.

"He's gone," he finally announced.

"Thank god!" Blair said, collapsing to the ground.

Fearing some kind of immortal relapse Blair hadn't told him about, Jim rushed over and knelt by his partner's side. "Chief?"

"I hate this!" Blair said violently, tossing the sword away from him as if it were contaminated. "I hate being afraid, and not trusting my own kind, and fearing every shadow behind me."

Jim recalled his own experiences in battle, feeling those every same things. Glimpsing the 'down-side' of immortality that he had joked about just minutes before, he laid a sympathetic arm around his partners shoulders.

"I had your back, Chief," he murmured. "If he'd even looked like he was gonna come at you with that sword, I would have blown him away."

"Jim!" Blair said, pulling away. He looked appalled. "You can't do that!"

"Like hell," Jim said calmly. "If you think I'm gonna watch some guy with a sword hack you to bits and chop your head off, you're fooling yourself, Chief."

"I understand where you're coming from here, Jim," Blair said earnestly. "But the only reason I took Radcliffe's head the way I did was cos he broke the rules first. Even then, if I'd been in the city I probably would have run for my life and let him live."

"I'm not suggesting you would have taken MacLeod's head when he was down," Jim said mildly. "We could have just tied him up and high tailed it out of here."

"And the other immortal MacLeod spoke of?" Blair said seriously. "If he took MacLeod's head because we left him helpless, we would be just as guilty of his death as this Shigeta."

Jim looked away.

"Jim, if it gets around that I am breaking the rules, then I am dead. Other immortals will not rest until I am dead. Men like MacLeod have many friends and long memories."

"Then what do you do?" Jim said in despair.

Blair leaned forward again, wrapping his arms around Jim and holding him close.

"I live," he said simply. "And love. And try to keep those I love safe."

The words made Jim's heart bump loudly in his chest. "I love you too, Chief," he said softly. "When I thought you were dead... I regretted that I hadn't told you. When the impossible happened and you came back to me, I swore I would never pass up the chance to tell you that again."

"I had regrets too, Jim," Blair said, pulling back and looking into Jim's eyes. Blue eyes met blue in the flickering light of the dying fire, and then as on they were leaning in and their lips were meeting.

Jim tasted Blair for the first time, and knew, no matter how long he lived, he would never forget this moment. The other man's lips were warm and soft under his, the slight buzz of his stubble a sexy caress against Jim's sensitive skin. A tongue tip flickered out and Blair's essence exploded against Jim's taste buds.

"God, Chief," Jim groaned, feeling passion rise in him incredibly quickly. "We shouldn't do this now. That other immortal-"

Blair pulled back, and Jim groaned again at the sight of his red swollen lips.

"I'll know when he comes," he said simply. "And you'll hear him."

They kissed again, pressing closer, strong hands slipping easily past the barrier of clothes, to touch warm masculine flesh below. Blair's hungry mouth nipped at Jim's lower lip, then his jaw, sliding greedily down the strong column of his neck. A light rain dropped from the sky above them, and Jim tilted his head back, eyes wide open, passion engulfing him as he watched the silver drops fall out of the darkness, wondering that they didn't sizzle as they spilled upon his passion dazzled skin.

The rain increased in intensity and Blair pulled away from him, clambering to his feet. "It's raining!" he shouted throwing his own head back in joy.

"Come on," Jim called, stumbling through the downpour toward the tent. They clambered in, laughing and soaked, drawing the flaps closed and zipping it up behind them.

"Wait!" Blair called out in alarm, unzipping it and running back out into the rain. He was back a moment later, his sword in hand. Jim felt himself sober at the sight of the weapon in his lover's hand, but Blair was already tossing it aside, zipping up the tent and then struggling with the buttons and zippers on his wet clothes.

Jim couldn't help the smile that lit his face again, as he watched his horny young partner strip down to his skin, he face flushed with passion, tongue tip caught between his teeth. Not-so-young partner, he thought ruefully. With gentle hands he reached out and caught Blair's busy hands in his own. When the immortal looked at him questioningly, Jim leaned forward and captured that tongue tip gently with his lips.

The long kiss drew a sigh from Blair as his urgency faded into the longing sensuality that Jim wanted.

"Hush, Chief," Jim muttered. His old nickname had become an endearment between them. "Gently. We have all the time in the world."

Blair's eyes were wide in the darkness of the tent, and Jim wondered if he were thinking about the inevitable future, a future where he was destined to stay young and beautiful while Jim withered and aged and died.

"Jim-" Blair began, but Jim silenced him with another kiss, and soon nothing was heard in the tent but lush sighs and hoarse masculine groans of passion.

*** *** *** ***

Blair woke to the buzz of immortal presence in his head. Jim was on his knees in an instant, fumbling for his gun in the darkness. Outside the rain was still pounding, hard.

"He's coming," Jim said loudly. "Fast!"

Blair reached for his sword as Jim unzipped the tent and began crawling into the wild night. "No, Jim!" Blair yelled, scrambling, still naked, after the equally nude form of his partner.

The next few moments were a blur of sound and motion. The buzz in his ears was deafening, and Jim was pointing to a place behind them. A flash lit the sky and gunfire burst out. Blair leapt for cover, but Jim was returning fire, crouching and focusing with his Sentinel sight. Someone screamed in the bushes, and then a man came running out towards them, one hand bloody, the other clutching a sword. Blair scrambled to his feet, just as Jim toppled over onto his side. Lightening lit the campsite, and now Blair could see the bloody wounds on his lovers chest, skin where hours before Blair's lips had played, now torn and shredded from the uncanny speed of the semi automatic pistol.

"God damn you!" Blair screamed into the teeth of the wind, running forward to meet his opponent with his blade high. It had been more years than he cared to admit since the stocky immortal man had spent any serious time training, but his old skills re-awoke with vengeance as he struck the first clanging blow against Shigeta's katana.

The ground was a swirling mass of mud beneath them, and whatever else Shigeta had been expecting, it probably wasn't the screaming harpy he faced now, naked in the face of the storm, teeth bared in the savage growl of a wolf, short powerful sword swinging like a hammer against an anvil as he rained blow after blow on the thinner katana.

Shigeta was probably better, faster, more skilled, and on a level playing field he might have wiped the floor with Blair. But slipping and sliding on the mud, facing the fearsome anger of a bereft lover, he was all out of luck. The knowledge that he had badly miscalculated in his plan to take the armed mortal out and strike a still sleep befuddled immortal in the dark of night was on his face as his right leg went out from underneath him.

Without missing a beat Blair thrust the blade deep into the Japanese man's chest, following him down ruthlessly until the tip of the short sword was buried in the mud, and Shigeta was pinned down, thoroughly dead.

Blair released the sword's hilt and flung himself down into the mud by his fallen love.

"You won," Jim croaked.

"Yeah," Blair agreed, flicking wet hair from his eyes. He lifted Jim up against his knees.

"Finish him, Chief," Jim urged, head lolling slackly. Blair gently cupped Jim's chin.

"There's plenty of time for a Quickening," he murmured. "Lie still, Jim. It will be all right, I promise."

"Well, this is familiar," Jim said huskily. A drop of blood rolled from his lips and Blair tenderly wiped it away with his finger, leaning forward to shelter Jim as much as he could from the still pounding rain. "But I don't think I'll be coming back."

Blair smiled tenderly, stroking Jim's strong jaw with his free hand. "Yes, you will, Jim," he said.

Jim's eyes flew open and he stared at Blair in shock. "You-" he broke off as a slice of pain shredded his chest. He groaned, riding it out, his life ebbing away. Blair remembered what a curious sensation it was. "You're lying to me," Jim managed. "Trying to stop me from being afraid."

"I wouldn't do that to you," Blair said serenely. "I promise, my love. When you wake up, all will be well. You will never know illness again, and you and I can be together forever."

Jim searched his face, still obviously unconvinced. "You promise?" he said weakly.

"I promise," Blair returned, bending to lay a kiss on Jim's forehead.

"Then I only have one question," Jim said softly, his strength almost gone.

Blair bent closer to hear. "Yes?"

"Why couldn't this have happened... when I had... more hair?" Jim whispered. Then he died.

Blair froze as Jim's life flame flickered out, and then his love's last words hit him and he laughed, his body shaking with the force of it. The rain was still pounding on his naked skin, near him lay an Immortal in serious need of having his head snicked off, and poor Jim was going to be freezing when he eventually woke. But for now all he had the will to do was kneel in the mud and hold his partner close, waiting for Jim's immortal flame to flicker into life, so that their new life together could begin.

The End.

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