Disclaimers: I don’t own them, I lease them month-to-month. This is a sequel to Raising Hopes and Raising the Bar. Much thanks to the girls on Livejournal, who helped me ride out the rough spots when writing this, and to my wonderful betas, Sheila, ShayAlyce, Pamh and Caro Dee.
Bullet wounds do not heal neatly. The starburst pucker took a while to mend, and by the end, Blair was quite sick of wearing a sling and was so looking forward to not popping antibiotics every few hours. But the best part of losing the sling and bandages was the relief in Jimmy's eyes when the doctor took the stitches out and said everything was healing well. The kid had no reason to blame himself for Brackett's shooting Blair, but there was no denying the newfound lightness in his steps as they walked home from the hospital together.
But when the elevator doors opened outside their apartment, Jimmy froze. "There's someone in our house."
Blair's heart raced. He grabbed Jimmy's collar and pulled him back into the elevator, repeatedly smacking the 'door close' button. "Are you sure?"
"Heard a heartbeat. And I smelled something burning, sharp. Sage."
Blair's hand shot out to stop the elevator doors before they could shut. "Come on, big guy, it's okay." He opened the door to the apartment to reveal a woman wearing a long dress and tribal jewelry, standing in their living room. "Naomi!" he yelled, throwing his arms around her and ignoring the resulting twinge in his shoulder. "How did you find us? What are you doing here?"
"My flight to Bali's been delayed because of the airport strike, so I thought I'd take the cosmic hint and drop in on you," she said.
Jimmy finally emboldened himself enough to ask, "Is she your girlfriend?"
Both grown-ups laughed in surprise and Blair yelped, "Jimmy, she's my mom!" at the same moment that Naomi said, "I like this one. What's your name, sweetheart?"
"Mom, this is Jimmy," Blair said, and then paused. He and Jimmy had never talked about exactly how they felt about each other. Jimmy never talked about his father, but he'd already been eight when he'd been orphaned, and he'd only known Blair a few months. Blair loved Jimmy, no question about that, but Jimmy called him Blair, not Dad, and might get angry if Blair tried to usurp his real father's place. "Jimmy's the newest addition to the Sandburg clan," he finally sidestepped. "I'm his guardian."
"Oh!" said Naomi, her eyes going wide. "Blair, sweetie, I'm so not ready to be a grandmother."
Jimmy's eyes widened at that last word. Blair grinned. "Oh, you'd be a great granny," he teased. "You could knit little hemp mittens and go to Florida for your meditation retreats."
Naomi shuddered. "Not in this lifetime. But I think I can manage spoiling him rotten. So, Jimmy, how's Blair shaping up as a parent?"
"Fine," said Jimmy.
Naomi looked over Jimmy, who clearly bore no resemblance to Blair, and asked, "So you just decided to adopt out of the blue?"
Blair had no intention of embarrassing Jimmy by explaining the details of how they had met. Jimmy shouldn't have to worry that any time someone asked, they'd hear about how he was beaten up and unwanted. "He just kinda won me over," Blair simply said. "We make a good team." The smile Jimmy shot him warmed Blair to no end.
Blair's watch chose that moment to beep. "Man, I should really switch that timer off," Blair said to his mother, his heart speeding up a little. "I set it to warn myself when my Tuesday-Thursday class ends, but the rest of the week it's just annoying." He walked off to the bathroom, backpack still casually slung over his shoulder, and murmured Sentinel-soft from the safety of the bathroom as he shook out his antibiotic pills, "Whatever you do man, please don't tell Naomi I'm taking western medication. She'll completely flip out. Talk to her, distract her, do something."
"Soooo..." Jimmy started, and then there was a pause. "Um, how come Blair doesn't live with you?"
Naomi chuckled. "Because Blair and I need very different things at this point in our lives. When he was younger, we both loved meeting new people and traveling to far-off places, but right now studying is very important to Blair, so he wants to stay put for a while."
"Don't you miss him?"
Blair had swallowed his medicine, but he lingered in the bathroom, curious to hear the answer. "Yes, I do miss him sometimes, but I try and remember that he's always in my heart, and I carry him with me wherever I go. You don't lose your connection to people just because they're far away."
Blair exited the bathroom and smiled nonchalantly at his mom.
"He's such a polite little boy," said Naomi. "Is he giving you any trouble?"
"No, no trouble," said Blair quickly, wondering if she'd somehow seen the local news.
Naomi's eyes brightened dangerously. "I can't seem to find your books on Gandhi or King anywhere. Jimmy's education isn't complete without some knowledge of peaceful resistance..."
"Thank you, Mom, I think we're good."
"Just trying to make sure you experience all the joys of parenthood, dear." Naomi knelt and winked conspiratorially at Jimmy. "You will run him ragged for me, won't you, Jimmy? If I'm going to be a decrepit old granny, I'm just going to have to relish the few pleasures left to me. Did Blair ever tell you about the time he convinced all the children on the commune to hold a sit-in to protest chores as unpaid labor?"
Naomi stayed for supper, testing Blair's powers of obfuscation to the limit as he tried to prepare dinner without giving away the fact that he'd been shot. When she noticed his twinge as he pulled out a skillet, he passed it off as a pulled muscle from basketball, sidestepping her offer to massage it. And his refusal to drink alcohol neatly fell under 'trying to be a good example to Jimmy.'
But it was great to see her again, the way she exploded into his life with a riot of color and excitement and flew out again before he'd even caught his breath. His childhood with Naomi had often felt like a roller coaster ride, terrifying and exhilarating, and there were times he missed acutely how awake and alive he felt around her. He needed something more now, needed bedrock under his feet, but sometimes he wished he didn't have to choose between the two.
In the quiet aftermath of Hurricane Naomi, Blair looked up from his laptop to find Jimmy curled up in a corner by the glass balcony doors, staring out at the rain. Blair walked over and settled cross-legged next to his son. "You're up late. Something bothering you?"
His question was rewarded with a shrug, and Blair felt a pang of envy for Naomi. Surely it was easier getting a hyper kid to pipe down than it was getting a stoic, troubled one to open up. Getting Jimmy to talk was like pulling teeth. "Whatever it is, you know you can tell me."
Jimmy was silent for a long moment, whether debating the merit of that statement or ignoring him entirely, Blair wasn't sure. Finally the soft voice asked, "Do you think my mother is out there somewhere? I mean, maybe she came to look for me and couldn't find me because I moved around so much."
"I don't know," said Blair. "But we could find out."
"Yeah, right. How? She disappeared four years ago."
"In case you've forgotten, some of our best friends are police detectives. They do stuff like this all the time. If you want to do this, I'm sure they'd love to help."
Hope flickered in Jimmy's eyes, then he withdrew further. "No, forget it. I mean, what if she doesn't want me? Then I'd just be bothering her."
Blair hugged him. "You're a great kid, Jimmy. Your mom would love you." He thought for a moment. "You said she left four years ago, right? And your dad died two years later?"
"Yeah?"
"So she probably doesn't know. She probably thinks you're still at home with your dad. If she'd known, she would have come back for you."
Jimmy snuggled closer, burying his head against Blair's chest, and Blair's hand automatically rose to cradle the back of Jimmy's head. Finally Jimmy said, "I want to know what happened to her." He looked up. "Is that okay? I mean, are you mad?"
Blair shook his head without hesitation. "I always wanted to know who my father was. It didn't mean I loved Naomi any less."
Rafe was happy to help, and his years with Juvie meant he knew a lot of good places to start. "We can't look through your file with Social Services, not without a court order, because of confidentiality," he explained, "Although if it comes to that, we'll just officially declare her a missing person and get a subpoena. Our best bet is to start with your old house, find the name of the lawyer who handled the transaction, and where the money went. People tend to stick to one law firm, so the same firm that handled the estate probably also split up the assets when they divorced; they'll probably have a forwarding address for Mrs. Ellison's counsel. Jimmy, do you remember where you used to live?"
Jimmy screwed up his face, trying to remember an address he hadn't used for two years. "1152 Pine Street," he said.
Rafe's eyebrows rose at that, but he just said, "Pine Street it is. Let's go."
As they turned onto Pine, Blair saw why Rafe had seemed so surprised. Large, tasteful Colonials and manor houses sat sedately back behind carefully groomed estates, separated from the world by high, manicured hedges or neat brick walls and wrought-iron gates.
Blair shot surreptitious glances at the boy in the rearview mirror. He had thought Jimmy was happy with him, and certainly Blair was a step up from Jimmy's last foster father, but God, the kid must spend every minute of every day wishing to wake up from this nightmare, to be back in this fairy-tale mansion with his real parents.
They went up to the door, which was flanked by columns, for God's sake, and Rafe rang the bell. Blair was surprised when a trim, red-headed woman in a business suit answered after a short wait; he'd half expected a butler or a French maid. "Can I help you?" she asked.
"Mrs. Potter?" Rafe asked.
"Yes?"
"Excuse me, ma'am, I'm Detective Rafe, Major Crimes," said Rafe, flashing his badge. "I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions? It'll only take a moment of your time."
The woman eyed the unlikely trio, but finally gestured for them to enter. "Let me get you something to drink. Coffee? Maybe some milk for the boy?"
Jimmy shook his head, quietly looking around with a wrinkled forehead at the trappings of the house. Everything must seem so different from his memories, Blair realized. His childhood's been erased from this house. "Jimmy's got a lot of allergies," he said. "Just water, please."
Once she had them settled, her hostess duties out of the way, she asked nervously, "Now, how can I help you gentlemen? Is there some sort of trouble?"
"No, ma'am, no trouble," said Rafe smoothly. "Just trying to tie up loose ends from a cold case. You've lived here how long?"
"A year and a half, I suppose," she said. "May I ask what this is about?"
"I'm sorry, ma'am, we're trying to keep it quiet for now," said Rafe, offering her an appealing smile.
"Don't be sorry, Detective. Living in this neighborhood, I appreciate that the police understand the use of discretion. The press can be so sensationalist when you have a little money and a minor misunderstanding to resolve."
"Absolutely," Rafe agreed. "We were wondering if you knew how we could go about contacting the previous owners of this house, the Ellisons."
"Ellison?" The woman frowned in confusion. "I'm sorry, I think there may be a mistake. We bought the house from a woman named Sally Wong."
Jimmy startled a little at the name; clearly it meant something to him.
"Do you know where we can reach her?" Blair asked.
Mrs. Potter shook her head. "I'm sorry, no."
"Thank you so much for your time, Mrs. Potter," said Rafe, standing to leave. "If you remember anything, please contact me at this number. I'd appreciate it."
"I hope you catch whoever it is," she said, leading them out.
"Thank you, ma'am. So do we."
The three of them walked back down the hedge-bordered lawn to the car. "All right," said Rafe, "Clearly the next step in the puzzle is to find this Ms. Wong--"
"I don't want to talk to her," Jimmy blurted.
"Jimmy? Something wrong?" Blair asked.
"This was a stupid idea," said Jimmy. "We should just stop."
"Come on, we can't just give up!" Blair protested. "We've barely even started! This Sally Wong could know how to find your mom."
"I don't want to talk to her, okay? This was a bad idea."
"Jimmy--"
"No! I say stop, so we're stopping." He held his breath, cringing like he expected Blair to hit him, though he had to know Blair would never do such a thing.
Blair shot Rafe a concerned look. "Sure, Jimmy. What's say we call it quits for now, huh? Go run some tests."
Instantly relaxing, Jimmy groaned and butted his head against Blair's ribs. "Not more tests, Blair!" he whined.
"Come on," said Blair, "I think you'll like this one. We'll be measuring taste."
Jimmy licked his lips. "Good tastes?"
Blair grinned. "Oh yeah. Rafe? You want to tag along?"
"Wish I could, but I've got a bit of a caseload backed up," said Rafe. "Rain check, okay? I'll see you guys later."
"You got it, man. Thanks."
Blair had Rafe drop them in midtown, outside a little restaurant with exposed brick and tables made of strangely shaped pieces of driftwood. "Welcome to my laboratory, Monsieur Ellison," he said. "We're going to do a favor for a friend of mine; is that okay?"
"What sort of favor?" Jimmy asked nervously.
"Well, this is Penny's first gig as head chef, and she's really nervous. So I thought we could taste-test things, tell her which kind of salt she should use, or whether the dark chocolate cake is better with whipped cream or without."
"With!" Jimmy said instantly.
"Oh, you and Penny are going to get along just fine," Blair chuckled. "Come on, I'll introduce you."
Blair couldn't stop thinking about how upset Jimmy had been. Who was Sally Wong, and what the hell had she done to make Jimmy so scared of her? No way was he letting this go.
Sally Wong was in the phone book, so, when Jimmy had basketball practice two days later, Blair drove down to Whitehall Street to get a look at her. Whitehall was in one of the shabbier middle-class districts, a scant step up from the neighborhood where Blair and Jimmy lived. And the attractive, middle-aged Asian woman in the print dress who opened the door didn't look like a money-grubbing heiress or a tight-fisted lawyer. But even more perplexing was the little boy watching cartoons in the living room, a boy who looked like a younger, less guarded version of Jimmy.
"Can I help you?" Sally Wong asked.
"That depends. Do you know a kid named Jimmy Ellison?"
Sally immediately flashed a glance at the child watching cartoons, but he was oblivious. She turned back to Blair. "Is he all right?"
"He's fine. I'm his guardian, Blair Sandburg. I had some questions I wanted to ask..." He trailed off with a glance at the little boy.
Sally stepped back, motioning Blair into the kitchen, out of the child's earshot. "Please, come in. Can I get you something? Tea?"
When they were both settled at the formica kitchen table, Blair said, "I have to ask, the kid in the living room--"
"--Is Jimmy's brother, Steven." She blushed slightly, busied herself with the tea. "How much do you know of what happened to their parents?"
"I know after Mrs. Ellison went away, Mr. Ellison died in a car crash," said Blair.
Sally nodded. "Mr. Ellison was a very sharp businessman, but much as I hate to speak ill of the dead, he had a blind spot where his family was concerned. He was sure Mrs. Ellison would come home any day. He never changed his will; when he passed on he left everything in her name, except the house, which he'd left to me. He'd made no arrangements for the children."
"No money?"
Her chin came up sharply. "No money and no guardian. I'd taken care of the children for years; I thought it would be no trouble." She wrapped her hands around her teacup and lowered her eyes again. "But Jimmy kept getting harder and harder to manage, getting into fights, making up stories, failing classes, hurting himself. Sending him away was the hardest decision I ever made. I'm not proud of it. But he needed more help than I could give him, and I had to choose between helping the child I could save, or letting them both get swallowed up by Jimmy's problems." She looked up at Blair hopefully. "But you say he's all right now?"
Blair thought about the cry of pain that had made him confront a total stranger in a parking lot to stop him from hitting a defenseless kid, the scars that made Jimmy too self-conscious to swim. If this woman had tried harder, been a little more understanding--
Of what? In the end, Blair knew the real root of Jimmy's problems hadn't been anger over losing his parents, it had been his untamed senses. And no amount of therapy, or pills, or discipline, or even love could have cured that. Blair was furious with her for giving up. But he couldn't blame her for failing.
"He's doing better," he finally allowed. Much as he wanted to punish her by telling her about the abuse, it wasn't his to tell. "But that's actually not why I came. I was wondering if you knew what city Mrs. Ellison moved to when she went away."
"What city?" Sally echoed, perplexed. "Mr. Sandburg, Mrs. Ellison is still here in Cascade."
The kids were still horsing around after basketball practice when Blair got back to the gym, and Blair let them play. The longer he could avoid this conversation, the better. Jimmy's head swung up to look for him the instant he heard Blair's heartbeat, but Blair gave a reassuring wave and Jimmy went back to horsing around with his teammate, Ben.
Finally the two boys laughed and separated, and Ben headed off to the showers. Jimmy jogged across the gym to Blair. "Man, you should have seen practice!" he enthused. "Gary made a basket from halfway across the gym; it was so sweet!" His grin faded around the edges. "What's wrong?"
"I've got something to tell you, and it's going to be hard for you to hear," said Blair.
Jimmy took an involuntary step backward. "W-what is it?" he asked. "Are you going away?"
"No, Jimmy, I'd never leave you," Blair reassured him. "We're a team, right?"
"Right," said Jimmy, a nervous edge in his voice.
"Sit down," Blair encouraged, clearing his jacket off the bleachers next to him. He waited until Jimmy complied before continuing. "I went to see Sally Wong today."
"I told you not to do that! I didn't want you to know!"
"Know what, Jimmy?" Blair asked.
"That I was bad. Sally was the best person in the whole world, and even she got sick of me."
"No, she didn't," said Blair. "She didn't know how to help you, and she was hoping you'd be sent to someone who did know what you needed. But it made her very sad to send you away. She still feels bad about it. You're not a bad kid, Jimmy. Jimmy, look at me." Blair enunciated very carefully, "You're. Not. A. Bad. Kid."
Jimmy burrowed under Blair's arm, hiding his face against Blair's ribs.
"I'm not going to get tired of you, and you're not too much trouble, if that's what you're worried about," said Blair. "We've whipped this whole Sentinel thing into shape, if you ask me."
Jimmy mumbled something into Blair's armpit.
"What was that?" Blair asked.
"I said, Steven's cuter. And he's not messed up like me."
"Aw, who wants a baby like that? I want a kid I can shoot hoops with." Blair kissed Jimmy's hair and then froze, worrying if the gesture was too familiar, too fatherly. But Jimmy didn't seem to mind, and Blair relaxed again. "Jimmy, I still need to tell you what I found out. And it's going to be hard for you to hear."
Jimmy sat up and watched his face, waiting.
"Jimmy, what do you remember about when your mom went away?" Blair asked cautiously.
Jimmy thought about it. "There was screaming all the time."
"Do you remember what the screaming was about?"
Jimmy shook his head. "We hid in the closet and I'd hold my hands over Steven's ears so he wouldn't hear."
Blair chose his words carefully. "Jimmy, there were a lot of things going on at the time that you were too young to understand, and from what I can gather, Sally and your dad weren't comfortable talking clearly about what was going on, either to each other or to you. Your mom didn't just leave, Jimmy. She got very sick after Steven was born, and kept getting sicker. At first they thought it was something called postpartum depression. That means sometimes after a woman gives birth, she feels really sad. But now they think she had other problems too, and the depression just made them come out. She's in a mental hospital, Jimmy. She's been there for four years."
"Will she get better?"
"They don't think so," said Blair. "I'm sorry."
"I want to see her."
"I'm not so sure that's a good idea."
"No! I want to. I need to see her. I need to know she's really sick."
Blair studied Jimmy's face for a long moment, trying to imagine what must be going through his head. But finally, quietly, he said, "All right."
Jimmy paused at the doors of Collins Memorial, unconsciously pressing himself closer to Blair. His dad looked down at him and asked, "Are you sure about this, big guy?"
Jimmy studied his sneakers, unsure how to answer. He was the one who had started this, the one who wanted to know what had happened to her, but all this time he'd imagined her off living some place like Arizona, with a deep tan and maybe a cat. He'd imagined her throwing her arms around him and crying, saying she hadn't known, could he ever forgive her, how much she loved her precious little boy. He'd never pictured her in a loony bin. Would she be in a straightjacket? Would she yell weird stuff? But he had to know. He had to see her. "Let's do it," he said.
He wasn't sure what to expect as they walked down the halls; he'd never been in a crazy house before. He'd expected padded cells and screaming patients, but though the hallways had linoleum floors for wheeling meal carts, he could see though a few open doors that the rooms were wood-paneled, hung with quiet, cheery paintings of waterfalls and haystacks and women in little cafes.
They came to the correct door, and Blair's hand was a comforting weight on his shoulder as the nurse ushered them inside. Jimmy took a deep breath and looked at his mother for the first time in four years. Grace Ellison looked older than he remembered. Maybe his memories were wrong? Her dull brown hair was heavily threaded with white, her face lined and slack. But as they drew closer, Jimmy realized that what he had thought were wrinkles were in fact thin, pale scars on her cheeks and arms. Leather manacles bound her wrists and ankles to the bed rails, but why did they have to tie her up, when she stared at the ceiling with such frightening blankness?
Jimmy paused, unwilling to move closer.
"Is it all right to touch her?" Blair asked the nurse.
The nurse nodded. "Sometimes she screams and flinches when you touch her or talk to her, but she's having one of her quiet spells now. You could run a marching band through here and Miz Grace wouldn't know."
Blair reached out and gently stroked Grace's cold hand. Jimmy felt bad, like he should have been the one doing that, but he couldn't make himself touch the zombie chained to the hospital bed. "Grace?" Blair said gently. "You don't know me, but there's someone special here to see you. Your son Jimmy is here, Grace."
Jimmy edged closer, shivering a little as Blair's voice instinctively slipped into his 'Guide' tones. Was he trying to reach her, or did he realize how scared Jimmy was and want to reassure him? "You should see him, Grace. He's got your eyes, and your hands." Blair began gliding his hands up and down her arm, and Jimmy edged a little closer, wondering if it would be okay for him to hold her other hand. "You would be so proud of him, Grace. Ten years old, and he's already studying chemistry. He likes theater, too, and basketball--" Blair broke off as the fixed pupils suddenly dilated and frightened blue eyes locked with his.
"Hurts," Grace whimpered hoarsely. "Hurts..."
Jimmy jumped backwards, but Blair's voice held only the slightest edge of alarm and surprise as he asked, "What hurts, Grace?"
"Lights, clothes, burning, hurts," she said.
She's a Sentinel, Jimmy realized, backing away until he was flat against the wall. All the stuff Blair had been teaching him, it wasn't enough, not if he was going to end up like that, like his mom. Now he knew just how bad it could get. The light could burn so bad you had to claw your own eyes out, tear off your itching skin, beat yourself unconscious against the wall just to escape the rank smell of the world, take your meals through a feeding tube because nothing was bland enough to stay down. He was going to be just like her someday.
Blair's heart was pounding, but his calm Guide voice brooked no argument. "Grace, listen to me. I want you to picture a set of five dials, like the dials on a stereo, all right? One for each sense. They're all up pretty high right now, aren't they? The first dial is for sight. I want you to picture yourself turning the dial down, just turn it down, can you do that?"
It took half an hour, but by the end, Blair's voice was completely hoarse, Grace was calm, and the nurse was beside herself. "Four years," the nurse whispered fiercely. "Four years she's been here, and nothing could ever call her back from one of her fits. How did you do that?"
As the last of the tension eased from Grace's face, Blair smiled and asked, "Jimmy? Do you want to say hi to your mom?"
Grace looked over Blair's shoulder and her eyes filled with tears. "Jimmy? You've gotten so big." She reached out, looking hopefully at Jimmy, and it was just too much. Jimmy turned and ran, thundered down the corridor until he could no longer hear them calling for him, until he slipped on the gravel walkway and scraped his hands bloody, screaming at the mild sting because any minute now the dials were going to spin out of control and they'd lock him up too.
Blair turned back to Grace and gripped her hands gently and reassuringly. "It's okay. He's just a little overwhelmed. I'll be back in a sec." His heart was pounding as he hurried down the corridor. Oh god. There were two of them. It really was genetic. This was incredible, more than he'd ever thought possible when he'd found Burton's hints of tribal protectors sandwiched between volumes of The Arabian Nights and The Kama Sutra.
But the sight of Jimmy white-faced and bloody on his knees by the parking lot was a cold slap of reality. The kid had bitten through his lip to keep from screaming, his eyes clenched shut. Blair knelt and stroked Jimmy's arm to soothe him. "That scraped knee looks pretty bad, Jimmy; what's say we see if the nurse has a band-aid and some antiseptic?"
"Don't touch me!" Jimmy hissed, jerking away, and Blair realized he'd been stroking Jimmy's arm the exact same way he'd touched Grace.
"That was pretty scary back there, huh?" Blair asked.
"I don't want to talk about it." Jimmy snuffled and scrubbed away tears. "Can we go home now, please?"
After a childhood of wrangling therapists, Blair knew avoidance when he saw it, but Jimmy was bleeding, and there were better times and places to have this conversation than sitting on gravel outside a mental institution. "No problem, big guy. Let's go home."
All the way home, Jimmy waited for Blair to call him on his behavior, make him talk about what he was thinking and feeling. He didn't know what he was feeling. It was too much to deal with. He just kept seeing those scarred arms, trapped by manacles, reaching for him like claws.
When Blair had first told him about going to see Sally and finding his mom, he'd had this crazy fantasy that his mom would get better and she'd marry Blair and then they'd all live together: his mom and his new dad and his brother, and maybe Sally if she was really sorry and still loved him like Blair said.
Now it looked like the only family reunion he was going to get would be getting tied up in the bed next to his mom, staring at the ceiling like a zombie. Did they make manacles for kids? He was big for his age, though. Maybe they would fit okay. Would Blair come and visit him sometimes, maybe hold his hand the way he'd held Mom's? Maybe it wouldn't be so scary then, locked up with her. He could be brave for Blair.
When they got into the apartment, though, Jimmy saw the pocket watch, the mayonnaise jar full of flowers and the dish of oil, vinegar and water Blair had laid out on the table that morning. Jimmy had been bugging Blair to help teach him to fine-tune his dials, filter some sounds or smells up and others down. He wanted to be able to hear a panicked heart racing anywhere within a five minute sprint without going deaf from all the other noises around, because he'd overheard Captain Banks say that most crimes were over in less than five minutes. Now he stomped past the table and went for the TV, flipping on afternoon cartoons and keeping his back to his dad.
"Hey Jimmy, I thought you hated that show," Blair tried.
Jimmy ignored him.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Jimmy focused on the whiny voice of the animated cat and waited for Blair to see through him, ask the questions Jimmy was terrified to answer.
But Blair's next words were painfully gentle. "Jags game on TV tonight. Pizza sound good?"
Jimmy ventured a smile. "No veggies, okay? I hate broccoli, especially on pizza."
"How about veggies on my half?"
Jimmy groaned theatrically. "Aw, come on, Da-Blair, it'll taint the plain side! There'll be a taint!" And he sagged in relief to hear Blair clearing the mess off the table and calling Vincent's pizzeria, but he waited until the pizza arrived before he shut off the TV, just in case Blair thought it was safe to try talking to him again.
Grace was asleep when Blair came next, but her eyes opened when he stroked her hand. "It wasn't a dream?" she asked softly. "And my son Jimmy was here with you?"
Blair nodded. "I'm his guardian."
"His--" She broke off sharply. "What's happened to my husband?"
She took it rather well, Blair thought, as he hesitantly told her about her husband dying, her children being scattered to the four winds, the senses she'd passed on to Jimmy, and what it meant for her to be a Sentinel, guiding her, in the space of an hour, from the fugue state she'd spent the last four years in to the waking nightmare that was now her life. She cried, tears rolling down her otherwise expressionless face, as his early hesitancy changed to a nervous flurry of words as he tried to ground her with whatever comforting details he could dredge up: She wasn't crazy, the senses could be honed, her children were well-cared for, Jimmy helped the police with important cases, but it wasn't dangerous, don't worry, and did he mention that Jimmy played basketball at the Y? He was--
Grace shook her head, stilling the assault of information. "Please, please hold still a minute. It's too much." Her hands twisted uselessly in their restraints.
Blair took a deep breath, looking at this woman whose muscles had atrophied, who might have permanent scars from the restraints on her wrists and ankles, who'd spent the last four years zoned, spiking, or in a drug-induced haze. Some anthropologist he was, not recognizing culture shock when it stared him in the face. "You're not crazy," he repeated gently. "Everything you're seeing and hearing and smelling is real. I'm going to teach you how to control it, and you're going to get better." He waited while she absorbed that, quietly repeating, "You're not crazy, you're not crazy," letting her wrap her mind around the relief of it. And then, when it had sunk in a little, he said, "I want to walk you through the dials again, like we did last time..."
Blair kept trying to walk Grace through the meditations Jimmy had taken to like a duck to water, but it was slow going. Each time he met with her, he felt like they were starting over from the beginning again. He would have liked Jimmy to tag along for one of Blair's visits and explain to his mother exactly what fine-tuning Sentinel senses should feel like, but Jimmy refused to come back, refused to talk about Grace at all.
Aside from how important it was for Jimmy get to know his mother again, Blair wanted Jimmy to see how Grace had improved. He wanted Jimmy to regain his confidence that being a Sentinel wasn't a death sentence, that his mom had just had a few tough breaks. Plus, Blair had to admit that he was curious to see if Jimmy would lend a hand teaching Grace. He wondered if that might get Jimmy to open up and explain some of the stuff he did with his senses that he found so hard to articulate to Blair, but might find words for that another Sentinel would understand. The secret language of a closed society of two.
Blair tried for weeks to convince him, but Jimmy wouldn't budge. In fact, he'd retreated, not just from Grace but from Blair. His control over his senses was slipping, too, and Blair couldn't figure out if it was due to the emotional shock of meeting his mother, the drop in time and attention that Blair could offer him, or some actual, physiological reaction to having another Sentinel in his territory, leaving her scent on his Guide. No matter how hard he tried, Blair felt like he was failing them both.
That didn't mean he was going to stop doing his damnedest to help them, though.
"How's my favorite student today?" Blair asked, tapping on the doorframe of Grace's room.
She pursed her lips in irritation. "I had a bad spike this morning."
"Any idea what set it off?" Blair asked.
She shook her head. "I nearly choked to death on the scent of a rose garden on the other end of the grounds. I can't live like this, Blair. I'll never be well enough to live out in the real world."
"Grace, two weeks ago, you had to be tied down to keep from hurting yourself. Look at how far you've come since then; give yourself a break, huh?" He pulled a chair up next to her bed and settled in. "Now, I want you to tell me where the dials are--"
"I don't know!" she snapped. "Blair, I'm sorry, I've tried and tried, but I can't hold on to the idea of those dials."
Blair frowned and studied her for a moment, taking in her frustration. Then the lightbulb went on. "Grace? You're not a big fan of machines, are you?"
She shook her head. "Not as I recall. My husband used to get the stereo tuned exactly the way he liked it and then everyone else kept their hands off."
Blair nodded; why hadn't he thought of this before? "What about faucets? Imagine the smell of roses pouring out of a kitchen faucet, flooding the room. Can you turn the faucet down to a trickle?"
She looked at him like he was the crazy one, but obediently closed her eyes. A moment later, a faint smile warmed her creased face. "By George, I think I've got it."
Blair grinned and bounced in his seat. "Way to go! Now, can you imagine five faucets like that..."
It was still hard, helping her visualize and control things the way Jimmy did. Children played pretend as easily as breathing; Blair remembered how simple guided meditation had seemed as a child. Grace mentally thrashed about like a drowning swimmer, unable to clear her mind or let go of dizzying reality. But now that she had an image she could hold onto, she eventually slid into a trance state where he could guide her to a stronger sense of control. By the time he left that afternoon, he felt like getting her to the point where she could have a conversation or crack a joke someday, be human and sane again, wasn't such a crazy hope after all.
The smell of his own hair was making Jimmy sick. He'd washed it three times this morning, first with the all-natural, hypoallergenic shampoo, then again, twice, just with water, and he could still smell the sickly sweet shampoo, feel the wet trickle of water down the back of his neck, smell the wet hair, feel each individual hair separating as it dried. The more he thought about it, the worse it got. He couldn't stand it! He scrubbed his hair with his fingernails, trying to scratch away the itchy, crawling feeling, and then he saw blood under his nails and buried his face between his knees, shaking on the bathroom floor.
A terrible clattering resolved itself into the key scratching in the lock, and Jimmy scrubbed his face angrily with his sleeve. Stupid crybaby. He couldn't let his dad see him like this or he'd start crying all over again.
He walked out into the living room, where Blair was putting away groceries. The smell of the hospital still clung to him. "Hey, you're home from practice already?" Blair asked. "Help me put this stuff away and I'll make some chicken cacciatore."
The hospital smell had permeated the groceries, too. "I'm not hungry," said Jimmy.
"Okay," said Blair, opening the fridge and taking out the onions he'd left to soak in milk. The milk neutralized the onion juice that could make Jimmy tear up a block away; but his dad saved those treated onions for when he thought Jimmy was having a bad spike and couldn't handle dialing down.
"You don't have to do that! I'm not a crybaby!" Jimmy yelled.
Blair put the onion back and came over to Jimmy. "What's wrong? You okay, big guy?"
"I'm fine," Jimmy growled. "I just hate it when you treat me like a baby. What, you think I can't dial down now? It's kid's stuff. Any idiot can do it."
Blair got that look, like he was going to park himself in Jimmy's face until Jimmy broke down and told him what was wrong. He'd know. He'd know Jimmy was losing it. "Just leave me alone! You stink like hospital cleaner," Jimmy snapped, and slammed the door to his room.
He spent ten excruciating minutes crying into his pillow, the gut-wrenching stink of onions filling the apartment like teargas. How could Blair turn around and use regular onions when he could see something was wrong? Didn't he care? Jimmy grabbed his backpack and stormed out of the apartment as fast as he could to avoid breathing anymore in. "I'm going to sleep over with Daryl; I'll call from Simon's house. Bye!" And he ran, pounded down the stairs and into the twilight before Blair could say a word.
The campus theater was the best place to go be pissed off. Bruce had just gotten a new box of color filters for the lights; he'd probably love it if Jimmy came by to help him figure out which would work best for the upcoming African dance show. He tried to get a hold of himself before he got there, but Bruce must have seen something in his face, because he gave Jimmy a worried look before handing over the box and letting him scramble up to the overheads.
After a while, Jimmy heard the familiar heartbeat approaching, but he ignored it and deliberately climbed higher, to the scaffolding directly over the stage. His dad hated heights; he'd get the message and back off.
Blair stood right underneath him and called up, "Hey. Thought I might find you here, big guy."
Jimmy ignored him, pointedly checking the difference in light quality between the three blue gels.
"Come on, man, don't make me come up there."
You won't, Jimmy told himself, holding one gel up to the light and squinting through it.
His dad walked over to the side of the scaffolding, and Jimmy dropped the gel with a surprised clatter when his dad started to climb. Blair's heart raced, and he grunted every time his bad shoulder had to hold his weight, but he slowly made his way to the top and edged along the catwalk, chanting under his breath, "dontlookdown dontlookdown dontlookdown..."
A flash of intense love and frustration swept over Jimmy. Why couldn't his dad just hit him or order him around like a normal dad? In the whole time they'd known each other, Blair had never even yelled at him. He hated times like these, when he just wanted to go be pissed off, but couldn't bring himself to yell at someone who wouldn't get mad back, who'd hurt his bad shoulder just to talk face to face with him.
"So," Blair said breathlessly, his hands trembling on the guide wire, "We were going to work on filters tonight after dinner."
"I don't wanna," Jimmy muttered. His dad was starting to hyperventilate. Jimmy felt like the worst piece of trash. "Da-Blair, if you look at me, you won't notice how high we are."
His dad's eyes flashed open, watching his face, and he managed a shaky smile. "Oh. Hey. That does help. I really, really hate heights, Jimmy."
"I'm dialing my senses down and breaking the dials off. I'm not doing this anymore."
"Because of your mom."
"I hate it when you do that! You always talk like you know what it's like, but you don't. You don't know anything."
Blair sighed. "You're right. I don't know what it's like, not really. But I've worked with you long enough to know two things. The first is that if you could shut these senses off, you would have done it already. For better or for worse, they're a part of you, and you're going to have to deal with that. And the second is that you can deal with that, Jimmy; you're a very strong, bright kid, and you've got me to help you, and we can handle this. We are handling it."
"But I still zone! I still have spikes!"
"When? When was the last time you had a spike before you started getting rattled about your mom?"
"When I got that filling at the dentist and he gave me Novocain."
"So you're allergic to Novocain. Are you going to have it every day? A lot of people feel wonky after oral surgery. It's normal. You're normal."
"But my mom's like me and they had to lock her up because she'd gone crazy. You saw what she'd done to her face! She's really crazy, Blair, she's crazy because of the senses."
Blair reached for Jimmy's leg, checking Jimmy's eyes for permission before turning back the cuff of Jimmy's jeans to reveal an old burn. "How did you get that, Jimmy?"
"I zoned too close to a heater," he said. Blair knew this already, knew the history of every scar on Jimmy's body.
"That was back before anyone knew how to help you with the senses and your zones," said Blair. "Your mom spent years trying to cope with something she couldn't understand, without help. She had a lot of accidents like you used to, and I'm betting she scared herself and other people pretty badly, because they didn't know how to stop it. You're not going to turn out like your mom, big guy. But I'm hoping, if I can teach her like I've taught you, that someday she may turn out just like you."
She looked better this time, sitting up and reading with a pen in her mouth. She looked up and saw him hesitating in the doorway, and her face broke into a creased smile. "Jimmy!" She patted the bed beside her chair, uncertain herself. "Would you... you can sit, if you like. Where's Blair?"
"He, um, he wanted to give us some space. You know," he said, fidgeting. The scars were still a little scary, but she looked much more together than last time, almost bouncy. Dressed in bright pink hospital scrubs, with her hair up in a ponytail, she looked like she was hanging out in her pajamas, relaxing with a book like a normal mom.
He crept a little closer. "Whatcha reading?"
"It's a book on fusion cuisine," she said, showing him the cover. "It's amazing how popular chefs and cooking shows have gotten in the last few years. So much to catch up on."
"You like to cook?" Jimmy asked, struggling to think of something to say.
"You don't remember?" she asked, looking disappointed. "I used to make jelly doughnuts for you from scratch with blackberry preserves because you hated strawberry."
"Yeah," he said, brightening at the memory. He could remember counting off the seconds as the dough sizzled in the oil, then the squirt from the weird cloth funnel before she'd hand over the powdered treat, still warm and gooey with blackberries. "You had a special thermometer for the oil."
"That's right," she said, smiling again. "You know, before I met your father, I actually reviewed restaurants for the Gazette?"
Jimmy hadn't known. He'd sorta thought she was always a mom. "I bet you'd be good at that. With the senses and all," he offered.
Grace reached up to finger her scars for a moment before determinedly flattening both hands on the book in her lap. "Maybe," she said. "Actually, it's more helpful to be good with words, and to know food trends and cooking styles so you know what someone's trying to do and whether they succeeded or failed. I guess having a good sense of taste or smell would be good if you were going to be a chef, but even when I was growing up, girls could be cooks but not chefs. A lot's changed in the past few years." She pressed her lips together. "It's a little scary thinking about what I'm going to do when I leave here. I was still living with my parents when I met your father; I've never really taken care of myself before."
"You could talk to Blair," Jimmy said. "He knows everybody. And a friend of his just opened a restaurant, maybe she could help."
She hesitated. "Maybe. I just don't feel comfortable depending on Blair for so much. I don't want to fall into the same trap of depending on one person for everything."
Jimmy could understand that. His dad had a whole bunch of people he could turn to if he needed different stuff; if one couldn't help, he just called the next one down the list. And Jimmy knew for himself that if anything ever happened to his dad, Joel would be there for him, and maybe Simon. He had a whole family he could count on now. But his mom didn't have anyone, and that had to be scary.
He realized suddenly that he was listening to her heartbeat, that he was tuning in to it for comfort as he usually tuned in to Blair's. "Are you listening to me?" he asked abruptly.
"Do you want me to stop?" Grace asked, sounding insecure.
"That's okay," he said.
She flared her nostrils a little, scenting the air, and he did the same, trying to filter out the hospital's reek to catch a trace of something familiar. The smell of her hair, her sweat... there was something familiar about her that made the tension in his stomach relax, made him feel safe. She looked at him for permission, then kissed his hand, tongue flicking across his skin for a moment.
Jimmy bit his lip, trying to figure out if this was too weird, but of all people, his mom was the only one who really understood. He copied her, raising her palm to his face and giving it a tentative lick.
A brief flash of salt, a deeper hint of pine needles and brown bread and flowers, the rhythm of her heart, it shook him to the core, like his whole body was this giant tuning fork, humming with recognition. The hand he had brought to his mouth reached up to stroke his hair, draw him closer, and as he leaned in to her chest, he felt warm and safe and home.
When they finally let go of each other, Jimmy was embarrassed at the tearstains he'd left on her shirt. "I, um, I'd better go."
"Come back soon?" she asked.
He smiled at her. "...Yeah. Yeah, I will."
Once Grace took that first, terrifying step outside the hospital after her release, it was immensely gratifying to see the success of her fragile efforts to put her life back together. It wasn't just that this was the first time in four years that she was permitted to make choices for herself, from the trivial (going to the bathroom in privacy, or ordering take-out instead of choking down institutional peas and carrots) to the immense (finding a home and a career). It was that this was the first time in her life that Grace was making decisions for herself as an independent adult. Finally asking herself what she wanted, instead of deferring to others, she discovered passions and interests she had never admitted to before. And despite the newness of her independence, most of the choices she was making seemed to be good, solid ones.
Moving in with her old housekeeper and confidante, Sally Wong, had been exactly what she needed. She hadn't felt ready to live alone right off the bat, and Sally's friendship was like an anchor that made everything else, even her senses, easier to handle. The two of them had never paid much attention to the barriers of class back when Sally had worked for her, and now that their situation had changed, Sally made it clear that Grace was not a nuisance at all, but a dear friend and a welcome housemate. Sally insisted that she made enough from housekeeping to support them both, and that the remaining savings from the sale of the house should really be Grace's anyway, but Grace needed to feel that she was pulling her weight, so for now she had taken over the cooking and chores. Between Blair Sandburg and a couple of old college friends who were delighted to hear that Grace was "back in town," after her long absence, she'd managed to pull together a couple of restaurant reviewing assignments for local papers. It wasn't enough to really contribute towards the rent yet, but it would hopefully lead to more.
The living arrangements also gave Grace a chance to slowly reintroduce herself to Steven, who had only been a toddler when she'd had her breakdown. The first grader was delighted to have both a Mommy and a Sally, and had more than enough love to go around. Things were not nearly as simple with her older son. She and Jimmy had hyperactive senses in common, it was true, though it was strange having a ten-year-old understand her so well. But Jimmy kept her at arm's length, and she often felt like she was trying to coax a wild creature to eat out of her hand when she tried to charm him into opening up to her. She understood; he remembered her breakdown, he remembered her leaving, and she'd caught hints that he hadn't had the easiest time of it since then. He had every right not to trust people without reason -- her least of all -- but she was sure that in time she'd earn back the love he guarded so carefully.
But that was why today was so important to Grace. She and Blair and Sally had put a lot of careful planning into organizing this family outing, a chance for Jimmy not only to spend time with his mother, but also to see Sally and Steven for the first time since entering the foster care system. Steven was curious about meeting the older brother he only had vague memories of, but Sally had spent several late nights agonizing that Jimmy would accuse her of failing him and abandoning him to the system.
So Blair had argued that, considering how tense things were probably going to get, the Cascade fairgrounds were probably the best place for a meeting. "Jimmy and Steven are both pretty young, so they're not good at saying what they're feeling," he'd explained. "They'll probably have an easier time getting to know each other by playing together. The benches in the grass by the concession stand are quiet enough that we can have some good discussion time, but if anyone needs to take a breather and come back, we've got built-in excuses to go do something else for a half-hour."
Jimmy and Blair met them by the ice cream stall, and Grace rubbed Sally's back reassuringly as she scented a burst of unhappy fear from her friend. "It'll be all right," she said.
Sally nodded tightly. Steven, oblivious to the tension around him, sized up the approaching ten-year-old. "I'm Steven," he introduced himself. "I've growed up, so I don't know if you remember. Can you do a cartwheel? I can do a cartwheel." He waited, clearly expecting his brother to beg him to demonstrate this trick, and finally asked, "Can I show you?"
"Okay," said Jimmy, who looked completely out of his element. He gravely watched Steven make two or three wobbly cartwheels and obligingly echoed the adults' clapping when the six-year-old stood up again.
"Okay, what flavors do you guys want?" Grace asked. "You can have anything you want."
"Jimmy wants vanilla," Steven told her.
"No, I don't," Jimmy argued, though his lips had just been forming a 'v'.
"You always used to get vanilla," Steven insisted, "I remember."
Jimmy looked over the list and decided, "I'm getting moose tracks."
"There's no such thing," said Steven. "I've never heard of it."
"Right there," Jimmy pointed it out.
"What is it?"
"It's good," said Jimmy.
Steven looked up at Sally. "Sally, I want moose tracks, too."
Sally took out money to pay for two cones, but Jimmy balked. "Th-that's okay. Blair's paying for mine," he said.
Sally tried to hide how much that rebuff stung, but Grace could see it had hit home, and she ached for them both. "That's fine, Jimmy," said Sally.
Moose tracks turned out to be vanilla ice cream with thick ribbons of fudge and tiny peanut butter cups throughout. Steven attacked his cone with delight, getting as much on his hands and face as he did in his mouth. Jimmy closed his eyes and licked the circumference of his cone, face going slightly slack as his body relaxed along with his senses. Grace couldn't help watching; she'd spent weeks fighting to turn her senses down, and it was strange to see her son take pleasure in turning his up. Blair kept insisting that someday Grace would see her abilities as a gift, but only now, seeing the contrast between how both boys took such pleasure in the same treat, did she began to believe him.
Then Jimmy's eyes snapped open and he grabbed Blair's sleeve. "Something's wrong." He scanned the amusement park and finally pointed. "The Ferris wheel. Something's wrong with it."
Blair shook his head. "Jimmy, those things are rigged to fail every time. Couples like getting stuck at the top so they can kiss; that's why they ride it."
"No, it's--"
Before he could finish the sentence, there was a terrible screeching sound. Time seemed to slow down as one of the supports crumpled in a shower of sparks from loose wires, sending the enormous wheel crashing onto the crowd below.
Jimmy threw his cone to the ground and dashed across the grounds towards the wreckage, Blair close on his heels. The crowd fleeing in the other direction kept Jimmy from getting very far, and Blair quickly overtook Jimmy. Grace was about to breathe a sigh of relief, but instead of pulling Jimmy back, Blair grabbed Jimmy's hand and started fighting his way through the crowd, bellowing for people to move, grabbing someone with a cell phone and demanding they call 911 before plunging further into the crowd.
Horrified, Grace grabbed Steven's shoulders. "Stay here," she ordered, and then raced after Jimmy and Blair, desperate to stop them from getting hurt. What in God's name did they think they were doing?
She stumbled through the crowd and stared at something out of a nightmare. Twisted metal girders crushing candy-bright stalls. Thin, panicked wails of children, the kind they made when they were too badly hurt to scream. Dust-gray girlfriends clutching bleeding boyfriends, parents yelling for their missing children. Snapping, sparking electrical wires. Grace's senses were overloading and she fell to her knees, clenching her whole body to try and shut out the screams and the smell of blood and death.
Then she felt a hand on her back, a familiar heartbeat, and she clung to both like a lifeline, pulling herself together. Sally was here. Grace stood up, gripping Sally's hand, and tried to find Blair and her son.
Blair stood on top of a pile of rubble, shouting orders at the half-dozen park workers who dragged people from the wreckage, and she raced towards him. He had his hand on something, and as she got closer, she recognized it as Jimmy crouching with his back to her. "Over there, the green tee shirt, do you see it?" Jimmy asked, and Blair hollered to the men and pointed out the bleeding, unconscious man.
Jimmy gave a cry and jumped down from the rubble, starting to dig with his hands, and Blair followed. They dragged a little boy from an overturned bumper car and Blair pulled a little plastic device out of his pocket, stuck it in the boy's mouth and breathed into it.
Jimmy caught sight of Grace and called, "Come on, we need help!" and Grace found her legs obeying before her brain fully caught up to the idea.
It was terrible, horrible, and everyone seemed to know what to do except her. She ran to help two park workers move a beam off someone's back and Sally pulled the man out by his armpits. He was screaming about his daughter and Grace thought she saw a bloodstained pink tee shirt a little further in, but a tug on her arm stopped her before she could dig deeper. "There's nothing you can do," Jimmy informed her calmly. "Can't you hear her heart isn't beating? Listen for the heartbeats, using your eyes is just confusing." And with that piece of advice, her ten-year-old child scrambled past the dead girl without a backward glance, looking for someone he could save.
Grace stumbled backwards over a piece of plank. Then she remembered what had slipped her mind in all the panic. She ran over to Sally, who was just coming back to her. "Steven, where's Steven?" Grace asked.
"I told the ice cream vendor to watch him," said Sally. "I was afraid you'd spike or zone before you could get to Blair and you'd get trampled by the crowd. We should go get him; he must be very upset."
They made their way back through the rapidly-emptying fairgrounds, arms around each other's waists for more than physical support. The moment Steven caught sight of them, the little boy dashed from the vendor and launched himself at Sally's waist. "Where were you?" he wailed. "I thought you'd gotten hurt!"
Grace couldn't help feeling a moment's jealousy that her son needed Sally more than her at the moment, but Sally reached out and drew Grace into a three-way hug and Grace concentrated on making soothing noises and stroking Steven's hair until he calmed down.
"We should take him home," Sally finally said.
Grace shook her head. "We can't just leave Jimmy and Blair..." she paused, feeling a wave of relief as she heard the wailing chorus of ambulance and fire engine sirens growing louder. She'd never been so happy to hear that sound in her life. "Let's wait another few minutes. Now that the firemen are here, they'll tell all the Good Samaritans to leave everything to the professionals."
She was afraid to extend her senses in the midst of all this chaos and terror, but forced herself to calm down and open the faucets in her mind marked 'Sight' and 'Sound', hugging Sally and Jimmy tight to ground herself. She watched the firemen and EMS workers pull up close to the shattered Ferris wheel. The Fire Chief leapt out of his car and started telling his men where they were needed, while the EMS workers began triaging and treating the victims that had already been pulled out of harm's way.
The Fire Chief marched over to Blair and Jimmy, but Grace felt her relief turn to ice in her belly as she watched the Fire Chief greet Blair by name and ask what their status was. She watched the interplay between Jimmy and the rescue workers as he led them to the injured and obeyed their warnings when they told him pieces of wreckage were unstable. Then Jimmy walked away from the rubble and Grace felt a moment's hope that it was over, but Jimmy simply walked over to the EMS triage station, poured a bottled water over his head, drank another bottle, and walked back into the disaster.
"Let's go home," Grace heard herself say. "We shouldn't be here."
They drove home in silence. Grace couldn't stop seeing those bodies twisted and bloody under the girders. She kept coughing against the brackish dust that clung to the back of her throat. Every time she remembered Jimmy telling her to leave that little girl, that girl who was younger than him, she cringed and wanted to weep. He was a child! How could he be so detached? He was supposed to be innocent, he was supposed to enjoy his childhood and let the grown-ups shoulder problems this overwhelming. Steven was still huddled in her lap, trusting her to chase the monsters away. Tomorrow, he would be back to watching cartoons and playing with his friends. But Jimmy?
Blair had mentioned that he and Jimmy worked with the police sometimes, rescue work, but she had thought... she hadn't thought about it, really. At best she'd assumed they helped with Amber Alerts or something, trying to find kids lost at the mall. She'd never imagined anything like this.
She spent days marshalling her arguments, then called Blair to meet at a coffee shop. She waited for him to bring his tea to the booth, then took a deep breath. "Blair, I wanted to thank you for everything you've done for us. Taking care of Jimmy when he needed someone, helping me get well enough to leave the hospital, I don't think I could ever repay you for what you've done."
"I was glad to do it," he said sincerely.
She nodded tightly, wishing there was an easy way to do this. "I... Now that I'm out of the hospital and things are settling down, I think it's time for Jimmy to come home and be part of the family again."
Blair sloshed hot tea over his hand and gave a yelp of pain, biting his lip as he pressed a handful of paper napkins against his scalded fingers. Grace knew how much Blair loved Jimmy, and she braced herself for him to fight tooth and nail for Jimmy, expecting him to argue that she wasn't a fit parent, that she didn't have good enough control of her own senses yet.
Instead, unable to meet her eyes, he murmured, "I'm not sure Jimmy's ready for that. He still doesn't call your house when he knows Sally or Steven might be home and pick up. I think he's still too raw to try living with them again."
It was a good point, but Jimmy would surely be less scarred in the long run by a little tension in the house than he would be dealing with bloody bodies every other week. "Jimmy's afraid of being rejected again, I understand that. But I think knowing that we want him to live with us, even if it's awkward in the beginning, will do more good in the long run."
Blair was still clutching his fingers, hunched in on himself, and Grace had to keep reminding herself that this was for Jimmy. She had to do what was right for her son.
"I'll tell him," Blair promised.
Blair stumbled out of the coffee shop, hugging himself instinctively to keep from falling apart. It felt like getting shot, like he was too deep in shock to really register pain. She's taking him away.
No, he corrected himself sternly. She's taking him back. He's her son, not yours. You have no right to even think that way, no more than Naomi's friends would have felt this way about you. You were just a temporary guardian. Why did it hurt so bad? He hadn't even known Jimmy a year, why should he feel like his child was being ripped away? I didn't know it was temporary when I signed on for this, he realized. I signed on for 'forever.'
He couldn't think like this. He had to think about what Jimmy needed. He'd been in Jimmy's position more than once, staying with friends of Naomi the few times she couldn't take him where she was going. He'd loved staying with all those different people, playing with their kids or helping them dry herbs or weave tapestries, but truthfully, he'd missed his mom, and he'd always been overjoyed the day she came back to pick him up. Mommies go away sometimes, but they always come back. Blair had learned that lesson early; it was part of what allowed him to take risks with both his life and his heart, stay open to what came his way without becoming bitter when he lost someone or something he cared about. Jimmy had lost so many people in his life; he was far more guarded and scarred than any ten-year-old should be. Now, three of the people whose abandonment had hurt him the worst wanted him back. It would take a long time to heal the pain of that abandonment, but ultimately, knowing that his family loved him that much could only help Jimmy.
They had known Jimmy all his life. Blair had known him a few months. They were family. Blair was not. It was obvious what the right thing to do was.
He just wished it didn't hurt so damned much.
Even if he hadn't scented the misery pouring off his dad, Jimmy would have known it was Really Bad News because his mom and Blair were sitting next to each other, facing him. Any time the adults had bad news, they ganged up on you.
"Jimmy, we have something important to tell you. Don't worry, it's something good," Blair hurried to add.
Jimmy winced.
"You know I love you very much, and I always will," said his dad.
Oh, Jimmy did not like where this seemed to be headed, not one bit. He nodded. "You got shot for me," he agreed, watching his mom's shocked face. He was surprised to see Blair wince, though. Since Blair got shot, it was like an unspoken code that brought them closer together. Blair's scar meant that Blair loved Jimmy, and Jimmy had stopped worrying about covering up his own fading scars all the time, because there were never going to be any more of them, not while he was with Blair.
"That's right," said Blair. "Jimmy, for a long time, your mom was sick, and Sally didn't know how to help either of you. But your mom's better now, and I've been teaching Sally how to help when I'm not there..." His voice sounded strangled, and he rubbed his throat.
"We want you to come home," his mom took over, smiling brightly at him.
Jimmy narrowed his eyes. "I am home," he said.
"Home with me and Steven and Sally," she explained.
"Is Blair coming, too?" Jimmy asked, already bracing himself for the answer.
"Blair's not family."
"He's my dad. And he's my Guide. I saw you with Sally at the fairgrounds, so I know you know what that means. If she's family, so is he."
"Sally's different, sweetie, she helped raise the two of you from when you were born. And Blair is not your real father. He's your foster parent. Foster parents just take care of kids for a while until they can go home to their families again."
Jimmy's whole body trembled with rage, and he jumped out of the chair. "You wanna know what my 'real dad' did after you left? He used to make us fight over everything; he said it would toughen us up. Every time I saw something or heard something I shouldn't, he'd call me a liar and punish me. Sometimes he'd yell at me if I just had a headache. And don't tell me he didn't know about Sentinels, or he was scared! Blair didn't know in the beginning either, and he found a million ways to make things easier on me. He listened to me." He turned to Blair, pleading. "Why won't you listen to me now, Dad? I don't want to go. I want to stay with you."
Blair had almost gotten control of himself, but Jimmy had never called him 'Dad' out loud before, and the word seemed to break him again. It was a while before Blair could speak, but when he did, his voice was firm. "Jimmy, your mom's right. You need to have a relationship with your mom and your brother... and even with Sally. You have every right to feel hurt about her sending you away, but if you and she don't deal with that, it's going to ride you for the rest of your life. All of those are very important things, and I'd be wrong to get in the way of that. You can always call me or come visit if you want. It's not like we won't see each other."
"Come visit? What about homeschooling?" Jimmy stared at his mom, horrified. "You're going to send me back to school, aren't you? I hate it there! I hate the teachers and I hate the kids! I hate you! I wish I'd never gone looking for you! I wish you'd never woken up! You're ruining everything!"
He stormed out of the room and slammed the door to his room so hard it shook.
He flung himself down on his bed and waited for her to go away, waited for Blair to come in and tell him he didn't have to do this. Instead, after a few minutes, he heard his mother open the door and close it behind her.
"Go away," Jimmy mumbled into the pillow. "I don't want to talk to you."
His mom sighed. "I'm sorry this is so upsetting for you. But growing up sometimes means doing things you don't want to do." She sat down on the bed and Jimmy squirmed away from her, further towards the wall. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to say this, but I don't have a choice. Blair is a very good person, but he's not always right about things. When he told you about being a Sentinel, I don't think he understood that you're still a little boy. He made you feel like you had to take on a grown-up responsibility, one that's too hard for most grown-ups. If this is something you still want to do when you're older, you can, but first you need a chance to be a child. You need to be able to play. Blair doesn't mean to, but he's stealing your childhood, your innocence, and that's something you don't get back." She sighed. "If I have to, I can take Blair to court and make him give you up, and the judge will agree with me. I know you don't want to put Blair through that."
Jimmy rolled over and glared at her. "You don't know anything," he snarled. "If you ever tell this to Blair, I'll say you're lying. I don't want him to worry about me. But before I met him, I thought there were two kinds of people in the world: the bullies who did whatever they could get away with, and the victims who let them get away with anything." He paused for a second, not wanting to do this, but she needed to understand. He pulled off his shirt, blushing and ducking his face at her cry of horror at the cigarette burns and the fading belt scars. "A-and then I met Blair," he said. "And I found out there are three kinds of people. The bullies, the victims, and the ones who do something about it, even if it's none of their business, even if they could get hurt. People like Blair, or our friends at the station. I wanted to be just like him when I grew up." He took a second to put his shirt back on; when he looked up, her hand was trembling as though she needed to touch him but was afraid to, and her eyes were blurry with tears. "And then I found out about Sentinels. And I realized I didn't have to wait until I was a grown-up to be a real person, not a victim or a bully. I don't want lose that. I don't want to wait until I'm eighteen to feel like a person. Don't take that away from me, Mom. Please."
The tears spilled over her cheeks, and she reached out for him, held him against her chest, but he couldn't relax into the hug, not until he knew what it meant. "I'm sorry," she whispered. Then she stood and left the room.
Jimmy extended his hearing, heard his mother tell Blair, "This was a bad idea. I'm sorry," before hurrying out of the apartment.
Blair tapped on Jimmy's doorframe. "Are you okay, big guy? What did you say to her?"
Jimmy stood up and hugged Blair, breathing in his scent, listening to his heartbeat. "I told her I'm not going. She's my mom, but you're my family. She gets it now."
Blair's arms tightened around him. "Thank God. I wasn't sure I could take it."
Jimmy grinned against Blair's chest. "I knew you'd miss me."
"Damn straight," Blair mumbled into Jimmy's hair. "We're a team."
End.