Blind Justice

The package had a Maryland postmark and the return address of the FBI office there. It was sent FedEx security service, which made him wonder.

"Yes, that came in today's mail." his wife said as she came into the living room. Her hands were filled with paint samples and magazine clippings. His first project as an official retired person was to help her redecorate their home, the house they had lived in for the last twenty-three years, since the children were teenagers.

Mike knew that his decision to retire had taken her by surprise, but she didn't seem unhappy about it. She was very good at telling him when he was doing something she didn't like or understand.

But she wouldn't understand the connection between his retirement and this package.

"I'm going into the den to watch this, do you mind? Give me an hour and then we'll shop for wallpaper."

"And look at living room sets?" her grin told him that she knew she was taking advantage, but he could only grin back. After 38 years of marriage she was still just so darn cute, and she knew it.

With that settled he took refuge in his den, the only room in the house that wouldn't be getting a makeover in the coming year, as it had had one when he went to work for IBM.

As he waited for the video to rewind, having noticed that it wasn't, he thought about things. Since leaving the Ellers house reluctantly two months ago, he'd been contacted by Panther and Chief's primary liaison, for want of a better description, and they'd made him an offer. A reasonable income to supplement his retirement if he wanted to work for them. After brief consideration he'd said yes, wanting to remain a part of their lives.

Blair must have learned that I wanted to retire when he connected with me, he mused. Although he didn't fully grasp the intensity of the young man's abilities, he was sure that something that obvious had been easy to read. It gave him time to spend with his wife, to repay her for all the years he didn't have any, and take her to all the places he'd gone that she hadn't been able to visit. Seeing them again through her eyes would remove any taint his past activities had on them.

The elderly video player clicked to a halt and he pressed play on the remote, then sat back, wondering what he would see.

The camera was filming a closed wooden door as a large black hand rang a bell on the side.

"Hey, there you are! I was thinking you weren't going to make it, man!"

The voice made him sit straight suddenly. It sounded like - could it be? - The door opened and suddenly the screen was filled with a face so familiar and yet so alien from the one he knew that Mike had to snatch up the remote and hit pause.

After thirty seconds of staring he realized that his hands were shaking. Relaxing the deathgrip he had on the remote, he gently released the inoffensive piece of plastic and lay it on the end table and started the tape again, hands resting now in his lap.

Those eyes...he knew those eyes. They dominated that face.

But he'd never seen them like this - bright and alive and sparkling with excitement and mischief. In fact, he'd scarcely seen them at all the first few times he'd met the man, hidden as they were behind mirrored sunglasses. And even when revealed, they had been either shadowed and dark with sorrow and an unrelenting fear or flat and dull and lifeless...blind.

Such life, so much beauty in those eyes.

Clasping his hands together, Mike forced himself to sit back and watch as he discovered what had been lost, to him and everyone who knew these men.

"Jim. C'mon, man, give me a hand with this bird!"

The voice, a light baritone filled with laughter, echoed in Mike Cullen's head, only to be overlaid with howls of agony in another voice entirely. It took him a long, concentrated moment to silence that shattered echo in his mind.

"I'm watching the game, Sandburg." Grumbling, the smaller man - he moved so lightly, with such grace, bouncing - reached far into the big oven and wrestled with a cast-iron roasting pan.

Chin-length brown curls fell across his sweaty face and he tried to use his elbow to push them away, over balancing as he lifted the pan at the same time, threatening to drop what had to be a thirty-pound turkey.

"Oh, man..." the whine was soft, but then a second pair of hands, wrapped in dishtowels, came around him and grabbed the edges just as the whole thing started to tilt past the point of recovery.

"Gotcha there, Chief. Have I ever let you down?"

Effortlessly lifting the pan over Blair's head, Jim set it securely on the kitchen countertop. With an exaggerated sigh the smaller man shoved his hair back and leaned against him while Jim grinned with genuine amusement.

Mike was caught by the moment. The smile on Panther's face - soft and tender and so un-Panther-like - and the animation and energy the smaller man poured off.

So completely different from the way they were now.

With a welling sadness he watched the rest of the tape, nearly two hours of it, realizing anew with every revelation, who these men had been and just how much had been lost.

Stephen, walking tall, slow-dancing with Wanda. The young FBI agent as a brash teen wrestling with Blair on the floor, rolling together like puppies.

The distance between those men. Even then a connection had been visible, a bond between them, strung of friendship and respect.

Had torture been the only thing that would have pushed them over that line?

Watching, learning, entirely forgetting his promise to his long-suffering wife, Mike finally decided; No. They would have become lovers eventually. It was already there, in the air between them. The way Jim touched him, the smile on Blair's face as he gazed up at him. They even danced once, Blair dancing with

Wanda and Jim cutting in with a laugh, twirling him expertly,

Blair laughing back and then both sobering as they felt something that changed the atmosphere.

Everyone Mike had met or heard of was there. Dr. Dan dropped by, bearing gifts of fruit. Simon looked more than a single decade younger.

But the greatest changes were in Panther and Chief. The rage that surrounded the older man was so vividly absent that the ex-CIA agent had to reconsider his thoughts; Panther was as changed as Chief was, although Chief's differences were more physical and more obvious.

The sadness that welled within him was so powerful that Mike Cullen sat alone in his study, and cried, until his wife of nearly forty years broke a cardinal household rule and entered without permission. Without a word she stopped the tape and sat beside him and held him until he could speak, and then forgave him when he didn't.

They could shop for wallpaper another day.

* * * * * * *

SLAM!

The crash of the back door rang through the house, causing Simon to jump up from his desk chair, reaching for the gun that had become a part of him in the past years. Just as quickly he put it back down and approached the angry, gesticulating man that was standing in the center of the cozy family room of the beachouse. As he walked up, arms spread in a welcoming pose, he got a brief memory flash; Blair as he was superimposed over Blair now.

Ten years ago the younger man would have been pacing wildly around the room, arms flying as he punctuated his words with gestures.

Now even his hand movements were small, restricted to body space, lessening the chance of an accidental contact even here, where he was safe.

These flashes had become rarer as time went on, but they were still as disconcerting to Simon as they had always been.

"What happened? What's he doing?" Stopping a foot away from him, Simon reached slowly, carefully, giving Chief plenty of time to react. The smaller man was controlling his breathing, nostrils flaring. Although he could speak and sometimes did, especially when he was one-on-one with Simon, the person he was closest to next to Panther, at the moment he was too worked up, too angry to make the effort to form words. "It's okay. I'll wait. Do I need to go stop him?"

Dark blue eyes, shot through with pain, blinked at him thankfully. Arms coming up, crossing his chest to hug his shoulders, Chief made a small, unhappy sound and nodded his head toward the door. Without a backward glance the older man left the room, crossing the deck and trotting down the steep stairs that led to the pristine beach below.

The beach where Panther, wearing only a pair of loose black gi pants, was forcing his still-not-completely-healed body through a series of excruciating stretches and contortions.

Despite the fact that he *understood* why the man was doing this, Simon became angry and bellowed down at him, a brief reminder of their previous life together.

"Ellison! Man, are you trying to kill yourself or what?!"

Running across the hot sand to him, the older man wrapped his arms around his friend and held him in a bear hug.

Exploding into action, Panther - his old friend Jim was becoming harder and harder to find in this stranger's closed face and cold eyes - struggled for his freedom. It was clear to Simon that he was actively trying to avoid hurting him and he appreciated that, but it didn't make him any more inclined to release the struggling body.

Chief appeared on the deck, arms crossed tightly over his chest, breathing ragged and uneven as he fought to absorb as much of his partner's anger as he could. He'd described it to Simon once as 'swallowing chunks of jagged glass whole' and the emotion behind the words had made them hurt even worse than the voice they were spoken in.

As often happened during a rage, with Blair struggling to control the emotions being forced into his soul, it fell to Simon to make Panther understand.

"You have to calm down, Jim. Jim, you're hurting him. You're hurting Blair. Feel him, feel what he feels..." The words were calm despite the battle taking place, and Simon shut his eyes briefly, the flash of memory bringing yet another wave of pain.

This, too, was a reminder. How many times had he listened to Blair speak to a zoned-out Ellison in just this tone? Soft enough to make him listen, loud enough to cut through the other stimuli.

Now Simon filled the role of Guide when the parts of Blair's life - past and present - collided and the world spun out of control.

His words got through where nothing else might have.

Sagging, Panther looked over to Chief, who was making a little gasping moan that even Simon could hear, and then the mercenary dropped to the sand, his knees buckling so fast that Simon couldn't catch him.

The ex-police captain took one step back, and then two more.

His friends were frozen on one of their moments. Like statues, they faced off across the white sand, Panther's hands in it, gripping great handfuls, Chief's uncovered eyes glowing with an unnatural light.

"Oh, shit." Simon whispered, hands fisting at his sides as he backed off a few more steps. "Not again."

The words had barely left his mouth before Panther lunged to his feet, a growl rising from him. It became an animal scream and before he cleared the rails of the deck he was something less - or more - than human.

And Chief had vanished, running desperately from the man that was now hunting him.

Sighing deeply, feeling an irrational urge to weep, Simon followed. Passing through the house he grabbed truck keys and boat keys and the well-stocked first aid kit, stuffing all of it into a backpack. He didn't have time to change, but that was okay because he was wearing jeans and a polo shirt and sneakers. Good enough to follow them in.

Emerging from the front of the house, it didn't take Sentinel senses to pick out the trail the two had left. The widely-spaced footprints of running men were clearly marked in the soft dirt of the parking area, headed back toward the beach.

Clamping down on the sorrow and rage he was feeling - that two such men should be reduced to this! - Simon shifted into a steady jog and hit the trail. It had been a long time since this had happened, they had all thought they were safe from it now.

But Panther's rage was a living thing and only a hunt could appease it. In his current condition, half-healed and still troubled by bouts of weakness, the only prey he was suited for was the one that would let him catch it.

Chief would lead him as long a chase as he could, both to wear him down and to get it out of his twisted system. Simon just hoped Panther was worn out enough by the time he caught him that he didn't hurt the younger man, thus hurting himself further.

All he could do was keep up and show up afterwards in time to patch the wounds.

* * * * * * *

Chief ran. His blood pounded with adrenalin, his feet hit the hot sand steadily. It was easy to call upon the earth for strength, here, next to the greatest source of earth power. The ocean called him, caressed him, encouraged him.

And Panther pursued him. Out of control, his rage taking over. The need to hunt, to dominate, filled him and Chief reeled inwardly from the power of it. Under normal circumstance they would have taken a job to ease this rage, to sooth the beast. But Panther wasn't healed, wasn't yet well, and the only prey he could hunt safely was Chief.

Over a dune, high, almost tripping over a scraggly patch of grass, shorebirds flying up in a sudden burst of movement.

Sliding down the other side on his bottom, leaving a clear trail.

He needed Panther to catch him, they both needed it desperately, but only after enough energy had been burned off, after the rage had been banked.

Briefly he touched Panther's mind, not surprised to find nothing to grab onto, no intelligence to converse with. Until this was over he was alone.

But never really alone....Panther's roar was close behind him. Regaining his feet, Chief darted around the next dune just as Panther crested the top of this one.

This had happened before. Jogging over the sand, Simon followed the trail his friends had left, so clearly marked in the packed sand. The last time hadn't been due to an injury, but rather a dry spot in their mercenary lives. Interpol had gotten too close and they'd had to lie low for almost a year. Hiding out here, despite Simon's encouragement that Blair spend some time doing his thing, by the end of it the chases were occurring almost weekly. Chief had been worn and drawn by the time Steven decided the heat was off enough to allow them a job, but also perversely radiant, as if the chases were feeding him energy.

Simon paused, head snapping up. There was a roar off to his left, toward the dunes that bordered the soft sand beach.

Heading that way, he ducked behind a dune as Chief bounced past, running with the leaps of a gazelle. Behind him Panther lunged, his form dark and sleek, not quite human anymore.

Chief didn't hesitate, but went directly into the pounding surf. Panther paused at the water's edge, arms spread as he paced, a few steps one way, a few short steps the other.

Waist deep in the water, Chief met his gaze with blue eyes so bright that they could have been stars. Unaware of Simon's presence, or perhaps uncaring, he raised both arms over his head, taking his shirt with them.

Panther froze, then growled, low in his throat, the sound rumbling over the beach, causing tiny avalanches in the dune sand. One of them caught Simon in the back of the neck and he silently bent over and shook it out, missing the next action.

When he looked back up Panther had the discarded shirt in his hands, pressed to his face, scenting it deeply as the growl rose in volume.

Chief stood with hands on his hips, staring at Panther.

Simon knew what he was waiting for. It was the same reason he'd taken to the water. Panther tended to get overly excited during these chases and let his control slip too far. Although Chief would take him in any form, he refused to make love to the cat Ellison now occasionally became. Fortunately, the cat hated the water...

Watching as Panther drew himself together, body straightening, color lightening, Simon breathed a sigh of relief.

Then Chief grinned and turned, running again, this time through the water, once again away from Panther.

With a peal of dark laughter, Panther followed, charging into the surf, stopping just long enough to drop the interfering sweatpants.

Simon sighed and left his hiding place to follow again.

Their property ran ten miles in either direction, but if they got outside that boundary there would be trouble with the local law, which didn't approve of public sex. He had no idea what he would do to distract them if it ever came to that. All he could do was hope that Chief was watching it as closely as he was.

Chief kept the lead for the first two miles or so. It seemed impossible to Simon, who knew exactly how strong Panther was now, that the small, frail man could do this - run away from Panther and keep running. And even with the strength he drew from the earth, Chief was frail. Buffeted by emotional winds on every side, he was prone to any number of physical ailments that echoed the mental stress.

But now he ran with single-minded joy, thrashing through the waves, Panther not too far behind.

{I'm too old for this.} Groaning mentally, Simon picked up his pace and jogged along the tidemark, staying far enough behind them that Panther, in his aroused state, wouldn't take offense at his presence.

Six miles later, and Chief was slowing, throwing glances over his shoulder at the man chasing him. Panting hopefully, Simon came to a stop and found a dry spot to sit when Chief stopped at last, turning to face his destiny.

Panther grinned, feral, and prowled around him as Chief edged his way toward the shore, moving sideways to keep Panther in his view.

It became a dance. Allowing himself a smile, Simon saw the beauty of it - feint, retreat, counter. Back, forward, side and back again.

There was so much beauty there; Chief's waist-length hair, soaked, hung over and around his shoulders, clinging to his this torso, metallic in the sunlight. His eyes sparkled and shone.

Panther moved with such grace and ease, it brought tears to his  friend's eyes.

They had lost much in the last ten years, lost so much in that lab. But they had found so much to replace what they had lost - it almost came out even. At least at times like these, when the connection between them was almost visible to an outsider.

The dance went on, Panther gradually getting closer as Chief's movements became smaller, more intent upon reaching the shore than avoiding Panther.

Catching the look in Panther's eye, Chief busy measuring the distance between himself and the beach, Simon held his breath.

Panther pounced.

He didn't catch Chief by surprise, that couldn't happen anymore, but he did catch him off-guard. Bearing the smaller man to the ground, he rolled them over and over until they were lying in the foam at the edge of the beach, where the water dissolved into gentle white bubbles.

With one hand between Chief's shoulder blades, Panther held his upper torso down, straddling his thighs and using his weight to keep him there. Chief didn't offer any resistance, but Simon, up again and creeping closer, could see the tremors running through him as he shook.

Panther's free hand went to the waistband of Chief's jeans and ripped them cleanly down the seam with one pull. The smaller man moaned, loud enough for Simon to hear it fifteen feet away, and his hands, in the sand over his head, dug handfuls of it.

Watching, Simon quelled a queasy feeling. Panther was lowering his head, sniffing and licking at Chief's back and buttocks until his face was pressed between them. The older man couldn't see exactly what he was doing, but didn't need to see to know. All he would let himself feel was a brief thankfulness that

Panther was taking care to open Chief properly instead of going ahead without lubrication. And Chief certainly seemed appreciative, moaning louder now, thin body taut on the sand as Panther rimmed him for long slow moments.

Then the bigger man pulled back, sat up, both hands reaching for Chief's. With his arms twisted back behind him, held high, the smaller man was bowed into an arch and Panther drove his erect cock into him with one clean stroke.

Chief screamed.

Simon jumped.

Teeth gritted, lips drawn back, Panther just pulled out and slammed in again.

Chief's mouth opened but no sound came out. Simon took several steps forward, suddenly worried, but forced himself to stop. He'd seen this before, Chief wasn't being hurt. It was almost as if they were reliving what that first time in the lab *should* have been like. What the scientists had intended it to be like.

The rape that hadn't happened, despite their best efforts to make Panther crazy.

Still worried, Simon watched more closely than he had before. Chief's face was drawn up in a grimace that certainly looked like pain, but his eyes were closed and he was moaning again.

Panther continued to slam into him, rocking the arched body.

The surf broke over their legs, bouncing against his curved back as he pumped strongly.

The strokes became faster and faster and Chief again became quiet, only Panther's loud grunts punctuating each stroke to be heard over the wash of the ocean. Even the seagulls had taken cover, leaving the scene cast in an eerie silence.

The sun beat down, but it seemed darker somehow.

{This is something that should happen at night.} Simon thought, hoping it was almost over. {They need shadows and darkness to make this real.}

But it was real enough. With one final, brutal thrust Panther pulled Chief further back, bowing him into a spine-cracking knot, and froze, shuddering visibly.

Then he collapsed, his weight shoving the younger man into the sand, eyes closing even as his hands dug into the sodden mass of hair, grasping great fistfuls of it.

Watching again. Simon reflected that this seemed to be his role in this ongoing drama. He watched. And now he moved, walking and crouching close as Chief's head turned to the side, to face him, blue eyes glazed with satisfaction, face red as he struggled to breath under the weight of Panther's inert body.

"Up." he grunted. Reaching one hand, Simon waited for more, but none came. Chief blinked slowly, and exhaled. But he didn't inhale again, and Simon realized that this was becoming a problem.

Carefully he shook Panther's shoulder.

And fell back, sprawling on his ass on the sand, as the other man lunged at him. Panther crouched over him, fist drawn back; nude, wet, spotted with sand and mud, teeth showing in a snarl. Simon raised both hands before his face and closed his eyes, preparing himself for the pain he knew was coming.

And then Chief was leaning over Panther, one hand running down the tensely flexed muscles of his arm and closing over the cocked fist, the other stroking his shoulder, soothing. He made a low crooning noise - it skipped and cracked - and the mercenary relaxed, sagging backwards into Chief's arms, to be cradled against his bare chest, Chief wrapping him in a tight embrace.

Chief's hair blew in the breeze that came off the water, long tendrils of it crossing his face, caressing Panther's.

Rising slowly, more convinced than ever that he was truly too old for this, Simon sat beside his friends, arms crossed over raised knees.

At some point during his vigil Panthers - Jim's - hand crept over and grasped his forearm, holding gently. Simon covered it with his own hand.

"I can't wait any longer." Sounding rusty, as if he hadn't spoken for days, Panther opened his eyes. He was staring at Simon and not Chief, who still had his eyes shut. They tightened with those words, lines appearing on the smooth forehead. "But I can't do it alone, not like this."

"I'll help you." Simon said, giving in to the inevitable.

The rages would continue until Panther had punished the ones responsible for them.

"Ask Daryl." Chief's harsh whisper was even more pained than usual.

"Yes." Panther agreed. He stood, and bent to lift Chief in his arms. The younger man was quiescent, allowing himself to be carried, cradled close to the strong chest. His tattered jeans were left behind on the sand. Closing his eyes, his head bobbed in time with Panther's footsteps.

It was a long walk back to the house. Simon offered to go get the buggy, but Panther said no. He wanted to carry Chief.

Wanted to work off more of the energy that still ebbed within him.

So they walked, across the hot sand, sometimes splashing through the breaking waves on the beach to cool off. Once Panther waded deeper and Simon followed, and they swam a ways, Chief clinging to Panther's back like an otter cub to his mother.

They didn't make very good time. Simon was worried about the sunburn he saw developing on Panther's bare back, but at least Chief's white skin was protected by Panther's larger body for much of the walk. For himself, Simon soon gave up his shirt and shoes and walked the edge where the sand was cool, swimming in his jeans.

Almost three hours later they reached the house. Panther carried Chief directly to their bathroom while Simon sought refuge in his own. The clean cool water was like a benediction and he stood under it for a long time, letting it wash the sand and heat and tension from his body.

He was lonely.

{Seeing them together just reminds me of what I've been missing.} He thought as he scrubbed with a sponge and herbal-scented shower gel.

There had been no one in his life since that day, just over ten years ago now, the day Jim had knocked n his door in the middle of the night, Blair a shivering ghost of himself standing behind him, Stephen battered and bleeding in his arms. Unable to trust Amy with this secret, he had broken off with her and then this life of deception had begun.

{It's time to stop.} Getting out, he dried off and dressed in loose shorts and a cool, billowy shirt. {They've done enough. We have to find a way.}

Walking through the house, he knocked on their bedroom door.

Getting no answer, he listened, but there were no sounds of activity, so he went in.

Panther slept on his side, curled so completely around Chief that it couldn't be comfortable. Even in sleep the empath, still tuned high from the day, sensed him and stirred. A soft whimper and Panther's hands were automatically soothing him, stroking, without even waking.

{We'll talk when they wake up. Jim will be hungry, at least.} It was yet another worry he pondered. Chief ate less and less, drawing more and more of his energy from Panther, trying to take as much of the rage as he could, but at what cost to himself?

Simon watched them sleep for a few minutes longer and then went to start dinner.

* * * * * * *

"Hey, Dad."

"Daryl." The gladness in Simon's voice echoed through the living room. It had taken only a day for the FBI agent to take leave from his position and make up an excuse for his wife.

"How are the girls?" Always eager for news about this family he'd never met, Simon was quick to accept the package of photos that Daryl extended.

Now four and three, Daryl's daughters were too young to understand the situation. His wife, LaShane, knew some of it, but nothing that would make her valuable to their enemies.

"That's Tessa at her dance recital." Sitting beside his father on the couch, Daryl walked him through the photos. It was possible that he took more pictures than any father he knew, and this was why. "And there's Lily with the new litter of kittens. She loves them so much, we keep catching her trying to take them to bed with her."

Tears stung Simon's eyes. He'd missed so much. Daryl put an arm around his father's shoulders and gave him a hug.

"They're ready to meet you anytime, you know."

"It - it wouldn't be safe..." Simon muttered, embarrassed by the show of emotion. He had always dreamed of grandchildren. And these beautiful little girls, in their pretty dresses and flannel nighties, these were his son's children.

"I have good news for you." Daryl grinned, but it was slightly sad. "LaShane's pregnant again."

"I thought you were going to quit doing that." Jim's voice preceded him into the living room. He was alone, Blair didn't like to be around Daryl any more than he had to be. The mixture of emotion the FBI agent put out when he visited was too twisted and convoluted, it made Blair sick to his stomach.

"I thought so too, but it seems my wife had different ideas. She's convinced I need a boy." Daryl shrugged, and stood, offering a hand to him. Panther shook it briefly. Then they all sat again. Daryl didn't ask about Blair.

"So, what's going on this time?"

Panther sat back in is chair. One hand hung over the side and, out of the corner of his eye, Simon caught movement.

Chief had crept into the room and was sitting behind the chair, holding Panther's hand like a lifeline. Daryl hadn't noticed, unfamiliar with their quirks, and so his father said nothing about it.

An extended explanation later, the younger Banks wasn't looking happy.

"You want me to help you hunt down this guy so you can kill him."

"No. We want you to help us hunt him down, yes. But once we have our information from him he'll go into your custody. There are at least ten international warrants on him, think of the boost to your career. You could ask for any assignment you wanted."

"You're not going to kill him?" Daryl was doubtful. "And then what?"

"We've been talking about it." Panther tugged on Chief's hand and the smaller man peered from behind the chair nervously.

Daryl had to smile at the picture he made.

"It's okay, Blair, I remember the rules." the maturity in his voice was so obvious that his father stared. "I'm sorry that being around me hurts you, but I can't help what I feel."

Blair nodded once, and then stood and crawled into Jim's lap, burrowing his face into the larger man's neck and curling up impossibly small. Jim held him tightly.

"I was thinking, yesterday." Simon spoke up suddenly, breaking the awkward silence that was building. "We have to stop this, Jim. You have to stop this. Find another life for yourselves. Eventually you'll be hurt and then you'll die and he'll die too. You don't want that. I don't want that. I want you to have a chance to live out the rest of your lives doing things you love, not hunting and fighting and killing."

Panther closed his eyes, holding Chief's curled body tightly.

"I know. I can't keep going. But have to do something, Simon. I can't control it. I can't use him to channel it either, it's too much for him."

"He's lost weight." Daryl observed.

"Too much." Simon agreed.

"That's what I mean." Sounding plaintive now, sounding a lot like the old Jim Ellison, Panther ran a hand through the loose hair that flowed over Blair's back and shoulders.

"Maybe this can be the last time." Simon said. "You don't need the money - none of us needs the money anymore. Pick an identity and live in it. Cullen will protect you and we have other friends in high places."

"But what will *I* do?"

"Take care of him. It's what you've always done." Daryl smiled sadly. "After a while my dad can become a part of my life again. Someday we can tell the kids who he really is."

"If we get rid of whoever hired Hik and take him out. He knows too much."

"If we catch him and turn him over to the proper authorities." Daryl corrected.

"I promise I won't kill him." Panther said quietly. "I won't make you an accomplice to murder."

"I appreciate that." Daryl said, standing and stretching.

"So, am I in the guestroom again? Do we have any leads on this guy?"

"We have a plan." Simon said.

"What are you going to do?" His son looked curious.

"We're going to hire him." Panther answered. "Or, rather, Stephen is."

"For what?"

"To kill Mike Cullen."

As Daryl's jaw dropped to the floor Chief whimpered and pressed closer to Panther, trying to crawl into his skin and hide there.

The mercenary dropped his head, kissing the white hair beneath his lips, and tried to sooth his partner.

When that didn't work, Chief trembling violently and whimpering at an almost inaudible level that set the men's teeth on edge, he stood, the smaller man in his arms, and made his apologies.

"I'm sorry, Daryl, but you're going to have to excuse us. Why don't you and Simon drive into town for dinner? He should be settled by the time you get back."

Ready to protest, Daryl bit it back when Simon's hand closed on his shoulder.

"Remember that place we went to last time, for the barbecue? Believe it or not, it's gotten even better."

"I'm going to have to do an hour in the weight room after this, aren't I?" his son said with mild humor as he let himself be steered from the room. Behind them Panther carried his distraught partner to their bedroom, ready to calm him the only way he knew how.

* * * * * * *

Everything was in place. Three Bad Bros had privately contracted Hikaru Ford to kidnap and assassinate Michael Cullen, one time director of the CIA, ex- international trade coordinator for IBM.

They made it look personal. Unable to allow Hik to meet Stephen, everything was conducted through a middle man, a role played by Simon Banks. Aided by Hik's relative inexperience at this end of the mercenary scale, he accepted the job with little investigation and few questions. And a lot of excitement.

They told him they had heard about the hit on Panther. That he had followed difficult instructions so well that he had been recommended to them.

They never let go of the knowledge that Hik Ford was a very dangerous man. Everything was set up around that wisdom.

Three Bad Bros hired Hikaru Ford to kidnap Mike Cullen, deliver him to the proper place, and then kill him after he had been questioned about IBM's marketing strategies. Since Stephen's company was in competition with IBM, it looked entirely legitimate.

He was strongly cautioned that if Cullen were delivered in less than mint condition, his moderate - translate 'amateur' - fee would be cut in half.

The drop point was a warehouse in Chicago, where Daryl was stationed with the local field office.

* * * * * * *

Panther was sitting, alert, behind a screen of empty boxes.

The warehouse was owned by the FBI, occasionally used as a safe house. It had never been compromised in eight years of use and over 200 missions. How Daryl had aquired the keys was a mystery, one he was't sharing. But they all knew he would do almost anything to get his father back into his life safely.

All the research Stephen had been doing pointed to continued observation of Jim's father. As far as they knew Naomi was still safe, screened from them by her vagabond ways and early efforts on Stephen's part. Stephen and his family were as well-hidden as they could be.

Chief was in Panther's lap, curled so tightly he looked uncomfortable. With his hair up under his hat, face relaxed in troubled sleep, he looked about ten years old.

Stroking that face, Panther allowed a frown to cross his own. In seconds it was echoed on Chief's and Simon, beside them, shook his head at Panther.

"Don't wake him. He's upset enough already."

"Don't I know it." Sitting stiffly, Panther tried to ease a cramped leg by stretching it out to the front. This caused a shift in the way he held Chief and this whimper was louder. The small hands clutched urgently at his black jacket. "He's down to a hundred pounds." Panther complained, lifting and re-settling him. Then he looked at Simon, also dressed in black and armed, although not as extensively as Panther. "We're not just doing this for you."

"What will you do when it's over?" They whispered although there was no one to hear them.

"We're going to try a normal life. Maybe he can find a regular teaching position. I always enjoyed being his bodyguard. And Dr. Roderaff does have a well-designed history."

"And what will you do about the -?" Not finding a word that described the personal demons Panther fought, he let the question hang in the air.

"I don't know." the mercenary shook h is head, sadness in his eyes. "He has some ideas...we're going to try something with whoever hired Ford."

He seemed ready to say more, but then Daryl's voice spoke up, carrying clearly through the quiet, empty space.

"Heads up, guys I see the van."

Panther hugged Chief tighter and closed his eyes. Great pain crossed his face and Chief twisted painfully in his arms, suddenly fighting the embrace. Eyes still shut tightly, lines creasing his still-handsome face, Panther increased the strength of his grasp and held on.

"He's here." Daryl's voice came again. Standing, Simon lay a spread hand on the top of Jim's head briefly, like a benediction, and stepped around the boxes to confront their enemy. Leaning over the curled body, Jim focused his gaze on a crack they had left between the boxes and stretched his vision across the warehouse to a clean spot in a window on the front.

The van was dark blue and dirty. It circled the parking lot once, pausing beside the economy car Daryl had arrived in, and then parked right in front of the warehouse door, the double doors of the van facing it.

Ford appeared, a gun tucked into his waistband. He came around and opened one door. Reaching in with one arm, he pulled out a blindfolded, handcuffed man.

Chief whimpered. Panther increased his already tight grip, and began rocking gently. The slender body twisted restlessly, small hands clenching white-knuckled in his jacket.

Stepping back far enough to glance at them, Simon frowned, concerned. The one-time anthropologist had not opened his eyes or responded to anyone except Panther since they got on the plane that morning, the small private jet owned by Three Bad Bros, flown by Stephen himself, now waiting at the airport for them. He would return Mike to his wife as soon as they were done.

Mike Cullen was cooperative and compliant as Hikaru Ford drug him forcefully into the warehouse. Simon snapped his attention away from his friends and back to the situation at hand.

Sandburg was safe, for the moment, and he could concentrate on ending this ten year nightmare - or at least beginning the end.

"Are you the one they call the Brat?" Stopping in front of a casually dressed Daryl, Hik gripped Cullen's shoulder tightly.

His free hand clenched the gun at his waist.

"You came armed." Daryl smirked. "Not very professional, man. What, you think I'm not going to pay you?" Walking to a long worktable, bare metal top holding only a leather-bound briefcase, he touched his thumb to the keypad and it opened. "Here it is."

Shoving his captive closer, the small mercenary leaned over the case. Cullen bumped into the table and made a small sound of protest.

"We need him undamaged." Daryl reminded Hik. "Did you have any trouble picking him up?"

There had been some question in the group of how easy to make this for Ford. In the end they had decided that Mike should make himself an easy target, but resist capture somewhat. He'd scheduled an appointment here, in Chicago, with a big-time financial advisor, and that had been legitimate. But Simon had called with apologies just minutes before the scheduled time, and there was no-one to raise an alarm when he didn't show.

Ford had taken him at a convenience store a few blocks away from the airport, catching him by surprise and forcing him into the van in a matter of seconds. If the man hadn't been an enemy Daryl might have admired him. He had so much potential.

"Good." Ford grinned. He knew better than to count it, that was the act of a rank amateur who expected to be cheated. "Where do you want him?"

"In the office over there." Daryl pointed to a walled-off space in the right-hand front corner. It was windowless. "There's a good lock on the door and I've already checked it for security. We'll get down to business as soon as my associates arrive."

He watched closely as Ford stashed the still restrained man in the fifteen-by-fifteen office. The walls were painted, he hoped Hik would do nothing that would clue him in to the fact that the surface beneath the paint was armored, a last-resort in case of an attack when witnesses were kept here. Protection for Mike in case things went bad.

Behind the boxes Panther stood slowly, shifting Chief until the smaller man was wrapped around his front. He knew he needed to get him on his own two feet, but considering what was coming he didn't think that was going to happen. So they would deal with this, as awkward as it was.

Ford returned shortly, sliding the bolt home securely and going straight to the money.

"Now what?" he asked. His expression was wary.

"Now you tell us who hired you."

Simon's voice was harsh and low. Hik spun around, already reaching for his gun but the older Banks already had the drop on him.

Behind him Daryl pulled his weapon as well, and walked up to Hik, holding it where the would-be assassin could see it.

"You hired me." Feigning confusion, Ford looked from one to the other, measuring, plotting. "And I did the job. What more do you want?"

His grammar improved when he was threatened. That was interesting.

"We want your soul." Panther said, walking around the boxes with as much dignity as he could, Chief clinging to him like that. "But you've already sold that, so we'll settle for your head."

The man blanched. His skin, swarthy from his mixed heritage, became so shocky white so fast that Daryl looked worried.

"What the fuck are you doing here?!" Ford snarled. "This is my job, my business now!"

"Your business is over." Panther said, shifting, holding Chief around the waist with one arm while the other aimed a mean-looking Luger. "It ended the day you shot me."

"Hey, man, it was just a *job*." Ford sputtered. "You know how it is...all in a days' work, no hard feelings, right?"

This brought stony silence. Then Chief whimpered loudly, breaking it.

"I was doing you a *favor*." Hik added with a sneer. Apparently he'd decided to die with bravado, and they had to give him points for that. "Better to die now than later when you can't protect your little faggot toy!"

"I didn't die." Panther said quietly, free hand running up under Chief's falls of hair to tenderly caress the back of his neck. The smaller man settled again, silent. "And you won't today. That young man there is an FBI agent, he's going to take you into custody and turn you over to Interpol and whoever else wants you. What happens to you then is their business. What happens to you before that - that's up to you."

"You aren't going to let me live." Disbelieving, Ford studied Daryl with angry dark eyes.

"I give you my word. I'll protect you until the minute I turn you in." the agent said firmly.

"And if I don't tell you anything?"

Daryl shrugged, then nodded to his dad.

"*I'm* not asking you anything." he said, and turned away, walking to the office. Hik stared as he let himself in and closed the door behind him.

"I'm the one doing the asking." Panther said.

"This is a setup?" Ford understood that, he was just playing for time. Time to think. Panther understood that. "This company, the brothers thing - that's legit. I checked it out as well as anyone could have. You didn't just make it up. Why would they let you use them like this?"

"Because we *are* them." Panther's grin was quick and vicious. "Me, my brother and his brother, my mate." Ducking his head, he kissed the top of Chief's. "We are the 'Three Bad Bros'. A little joke about the life we used to have."

Simon stepped forward, gun at the ready.

"Just tell us and it will all be over." he said quietly.

"I'm not telling anything. I'd never get work again."

"You're going to be in prison for the rest of your life."

Panther said. His voice had become just as soft. "You won't need to worry about finding work."

"Surely we can make a deal..." Hik frowned and then turned to Panther. "We've worked together, side-by-side. The others will never trust you again if you do this."

"I don't need the others. I have all the money I could ever want and soon I'm going to have the last bit of information about the people who did this to us." Panther grinned, but it faded as Chief squirmed and whimpered again. "Tell me, and I won't hurt you."

Eyes widening, Hik crossed his arms over his chest. For one brief moment he looked like nothing more than a stubborn child as he answered, lower lip thrust forward in a mulish pout.

"No."

"Too bad." Simon said. Then he nodded to Panther and, while Hik was still bracing himself, the older mercenary, encumbered as he was with Chief clinging to him, moved so swiftly he couldn't have avoided the blow if he'd seen it coming.

The heavy handgun smashed down on Hikaru Ford's head and he collapsed gracelessly to the floor.

Panther stood over him, already breathing heavily.

"Here?" Simon asked, or there?" he cocked a head toward the back of the warehouse, where a small sleeping area was set aside, again screened by boxes for privacy.

"Here." Panther responded, moving to sit on the floor beside the downed man. With careful hands he began working Chief off his body. The smaller man didn't resist, but didn't help either. "I don't want him near us afterwards."

Simon nodded and then turned his back while Panther placed a shivering Chief on the floor. The smaller man had deteriorated so much in just the last week, he couldn't help wondering why.

"C'mon, Chief. Only for a minute, just long enough to give me a glance. Get me into his head and I can find what we need to know. Then this will be almost over. We can start new lives again."

"N'ver be d'sm." The words stuttered from between clenched teeth, the voice as horrible as ever.

"No, I know." sitting behind him, Panther wrapped himself around his partner as tight as he could. Chief's hair tangled in his clothes, fluttered into his face, basically got everywhere. He'd lost the hat at some point and Panther didn't remember missing it. "It will never be the same. But this time we can be who we want to be and stay safe..."

Chief closed his eyes and made a tiny whimpering noise in the back of his throat. Listening, Simon quelled a shudder. This was killing him. All of it, just draining the life from him. They had to end it, one way or another.

Then Chief bit back the whimper. Panther gasped and Simon glanced back, wincing as he saw the trickle of blood where Chief had bit his lip to stifle his noises - and then the big man shuddered as the younger mercenary leaned forward and placed one bare hand on the side on Ford's face.

The reaction wasn't as dramatic as Simon had see it before.

No convulsion, no screams. Just a noticeable stiffening of the small body and a low, broken moan.

Then Panther was standing, teeth clenched, eyes narrowed. He carried Chief like a ragdoll, the smaller man just hanging in his arms.

Emerging from the office, Mike gave them a tired smile as they passed. Daryl grimaced but gave his father a brief thumbs-up. And Simon smiled. He meant it to be encouraging to his friends, but he could feel the way it was twisted out of balance.

Probably more of a snarl than a smile, but he was trying.

He wanted this to be over. Once he'd wanted his friends back, at any cost, but he was beginning to think this price was too high for anyone to pay. Too many people were involved now.

Too many people hurt by ten years' worth of secrets

"Please, God." He directed his eyes heavenward as Panther and Chief went behind the screen of boxes. "Please. They've suffered enough. Let it be over this time."

God had no direct answer for him, no chorus of angelic messengers appeared, but his son - tall and strong and good - embraced him in a rough hug.

Simon hugged him back while Mike Cullen kept watch.

"Almost done." The ex-secret agent spoke to them both, seriously. "It's almost done."

They gathered up the hired killer and moved outside, where the sounds of a broken man's pain and passion couldn't reach them.

* * * * * * *

"Jim?"

Walking to the back of the plane, leaving Daryl in the cockpit comparing children's stories with Stephen, Simon approached the fold-out couch with some hesitation. The couple had been sleeping since they boarded the plane two hours ago, after most of the night spent in the FBI warehouse.

The bigger man stirred and opened his eyes, arms tightening around the smaller as he whimpered pathetically.

"How is he?"

"Not so good. Hik wasn't truly evil, so everything he got from him is confused."

"Has he figured out who hired him?" Sitting gingerly on the edge of the bed, Simon brushed a hand through the air over Blair's head, not quite touching him.

"He will soon."

"Stephen says we have another twelve hours of fuel, so we can stay up until you decide where to go."

"We're going to end this, Simon." Jim said quietly. "It's going to be over."

"I'm really looking forward to it." His smile was genuine this time. "I want to meet my grandchildren."

Jim shifted as Blair stirred. The long white hair was tangled and spread around them both. Running a large hand through it, he leaned over the smaller man and kissed him gently.

The blue eyes opened, and stared.

"Hey, sleeping beauty." Simon greeted.

"Nebraska."

The single word seemed out of context, but Simon stood and went straight to the cockpit. Mike stood and followed him, leaving a game of solitaire behind.

"He says Nebraska." Simon told Stephen.

"I'll make the landing arrangements." Crippled on the ground, Jim's brother had learned to fly years after the explosion. He'd regained a lot of his self-image with the license.

A phone rang. They exchanged looks and then Daryl pulled his out of his pocket and answered it.

"Yes? Hello, Vanuga. How did it go? Mm-hm..." He listened for several minutes, a small smile playing on his lips. "Great.  Thanks. Call LaShane for me, will you? Oh, they are, are they?  Okay, kiss the girls for me, and tell your boys to play nice."

The others listened while he exchanged insults with his  partner, and then hung up.

They looked at him expectantly.

"That was Jeff." he said, meaning his partner of four years, Agent Jeff Vanuga. Simon cuffed his head gently.

"Tell us."

"Ford was picked up without a problem. He hasn't mentioned  Panther and Chief or even Mike Cullen, but he has confessed to  about a two hundred international crimes including two murders.  Apparently he feels the need to clear his conscience."

"That's our Chief." Simon grinned. "I'll go tell them."

"We'll land in Rogue Hill, Nebraska, in about four hours."  Stephen said as Simon started back. "Tell Jim he needs to get up  and get them dressed and fed."

"Ten-four." Calling the words back, Simon felt a lightening in his heart.

Maybe it was going to work.

The real test began almost five hours later. Cleaned and  dressed in the plane's luxurious bathroom, Panther and Chief were the first ones on the runway.

Everyone stood for a moment, the manager of the small  airport fussing around them. Simon, Panther and Mike made a screen around Chief, who still didn't look great. He'd refused to let Panther braid his hair after the shower - Mike had even offered, having some experience from his daughter and grandchildren - and his clean clothes were worn carelessly, buttoned crookedly and such.

But none of that, not even the wrap-around mirrored shades, hid the pallor of his complexion and the beauty he almost exuded  through his pores.

Even the airport manager noticed, pausing, eyes widening.

Leaning into Panther, Chief tucked his face into the mercenary's neck and Panther spoke.

"We need to find Shermanville." He told the others. Stephen was still on the plane, resting. Daryl had chosen to stay with him, overseeing the refueling and a maintenance check, to avoid accidentally witnessing any illegal activities.

"I've arranged your car rental." the manager was saying, as they started in the direction he indicated. His interest in them was clear, his bright brown eyes darting from the two men dressed in black to the apparent bodyguards and back again to linger on the fall of white hair that cloaked the smallest man's shoulders and back. "The largest thing they have is a minivan, but it's less than a year old and has all the bells and whistles."

Simon went to the rental desk and laid one big hand on the  counter, credit card help out.

"We can do the paperwork, but I need the keys now." he said harshly.

The woman behind the desk frowned.

"That's not the way we do things."

"Excuse me, please, but he's not feeling well and he'd like to lie down where there isn't a crowd." Mike put in from a few steps back, keeping his place by Chief's side.

"Here's the card." Simon was struggling to remain polite.

There was an air of anticipation growing about them. Soon it would all be decided. Soon they would know who the enemy was.

"The keys, please."

She picked up the card as if it might bite her.

"I've never seen one like this before."

She played with it, tilting and turning it to see the hologram change - from Simon's face to the bank logo and back again.

"Platinum. Unlimited." Simon snapped. "And I can have you fired in ten minutes." He snarled the threat, ignoring Mike's warning hand on his back.

Taken aback, frightened but angry, the woman stared. The card dropped from her suddenly limp fingers.

"What?"

"Excuse me. Linda -" The manager pushed past Mike and joined her behind the desk. Reaching beneath it he handed Mike a set of electronic keys. "The black one. You go ahead and we'll take care of the paperwork here."

Taking them quickly, Mike turned and hurried after Panther, who had swung Chief into his arms and walked off as soon as the man said 'the black one'. Behind him the manager was trying to sooth the angry, frightened woman and deal with a still-angry Simon, wrapped up with nerves over the mission they were on.

Opening the van door, Mike watched, worried, as Panther stretched out on the back bench seat, settling Chief over him, the smaller man curled into a ball, his knees between Panther's legs, his face tucked into Panther's neck.

"Why is this so hard for him?" Starting the engine to get the heater going, Mike spoke from the driver's seat. Laying his head back against the tinted-glass window, Panther spoke with his eyes closed, arms tightening visibly around his partner.

"When we find the guy - if he knows as much as we think he does - Chief is gonna try something new. Something we never considered before. He's afraid. It might hurt, it might burn him out."

"Then why try it? Why not just take care of the guy the way you usually would?" Carefully choosing his euphemism, Mike moved to a middle bucket seat to talk to him.

The mercenary's voice sounded very old, and world-weary. "If we don't find a way to purge this rage inside me, we're trapped in this life. Nothing else will control it. I have to get rid of the rage."

"And he thinks he's found a way to do that." Seeing Simon hurrying across the parking lot, Mike climbed back into the driver's seat and started the engine.

"But he's afraid of it." Panther said quietly. Looking back as Simon got in the passenger door, Mike smiled. An honest, friendly, caring smile.

"This is going to work, Jim. Tell him I'm sure."

Faintly Jim returned the smile, his eyes still closed. "He knows."

Looking from one to the other, Simon held up a small roadmap.

"Shermanville is almost five hours' drive. We should get on the road."

"Can we stop for coffee?" Jim asked almost normally.

"Absolutely." Mike replied, pulling out of the almost-empty parking lot and leaving the plane behind.

* * * * * * *

"We're coming into the town." Simon turned to look back at his friends. Panther's eyes snapped open, but Chief didn't move in his arms. Getting up from his seat, Simon bent over to come back to them, crouching beside them on the floor, one hand on the seat.

"He looks really bad, Jim."

Shrugging, Jim restlessly stroked the flowing long hair. In all these years, with all of their missions, it had never been cut and Simon had never asked why. Yes, it was beautiful, thick and heavy and glinting silver-white. But it made him so obvious, so memorable, it would have been so much safer to cut it.

Feeling the end approaching, wanting to believe that this nightmare was finally over, he looked up at his friend and one-time colleague and asked.

"Why didn't he ever cut it?"

With a small, sad smile, Jim caught a handful of the silky stuff and brought it to his face, scenting it. He didn't meet Simon's eyes.

"Because they kept his head shaved. It reminds him that he's not there, even in the middle of a nightmare. Even when he can't see and I'm too far away to feel him. He can feel it, touching him, the weight of it, and he remembers that he's not there anymore."

The words brought a new wash of pain to the heart of a man who thought he was all filled up.

"In the lab." Simon said softly. His hand stole up the seat and one finger cautiously stroked an errant lock.

"Yes." Jim agreed, resuming his steady stroking of Blair's hair. "In the lab."

It made far more sense than Simon wanted to think about.

Just the idea that Blair needed that kind of constant physical reminder - ! Leaving the lock of soft hair, he lay the hand on Jim's shoulder.

"This is going to work." He said steadily. "I know it is."

"We'll never really be safe." Jim nodded slowly. "But with this last evidence gone and Mike on our side to keep the president off us - and the lawyers and resources we have now - no one should be able to touch us again." He closed his eyes, lying his head back on the seat with a sigh. "I just worry about Nina and the boys."

"No one has ever connected you to them. Even if you become a more active part of their lives, no one will ever know that they are your children and not Stephen's. And they have the same money and resources protecting them. And they'll know what to look for." Simon added.

"I'm really relieved that none of them are showing signs of any sentinel senses." Jim said, shifting as they turned a corner and Blair slid a little bit.

"We all are. Your abilities are a gift, Ellison, I've always believed that, but I think they're a gift this world has forgotten how to appreciate."

"Almost there." Mike's voice was low and firm. "I'm going to park a few blocks away first, so you can listen in, like we planned."

"Good." Jim nodded at Simon, who got up, still bent over to prevent banging his on the low roof. "I need to get him up. Give us a few minutes alone, okay?"

Nodding, Simon went back to the front and sat down.

"Find a convenience store. We can park and get coffee and give them a some time."

"Yes." The ex-spy said, flipping his turn signal and changing lanes to reach a 7-11. "I could definitely use some coffee."

Neither of them spoke of the confrontation to come, or they hopes they were hanging on the outcome.

Leaning against the side of the van, in the shade, Cullen and Banks sipped coffee and ignored the curious glances of the people who passed them.

It was midday in a small suburb, men in suits with a black van certainly looked interesting.

There was a loud sound from inside the van. Startled, Mike jumped, and Simon rested a hand on his shoulder.

"It's okay. He wakes that way sometimes, when he's not at one of the houses where he feels safe."

Another sound, a louder moan that carried through the lazy air, drew the attention of several people. A truck driver stood beside his open rig door, wiping his hands on a grease-smeared rag while he stared at them thoughtfully.

Blair cried out a third time. Now he'd found his voice, or what there was of it, and this shriek split the air. Turning, Simon slid the passenger door open a few inches and spoke into the warm interior.

"He's starting to draw attention, Ellison." Without sticking his head in to look, Simon listened as the mercenary shifted in the seat, crooning to Chief, his low words too soft for the older man to hear.

"I'm working on it. He's going to have to get out, use the bathroom. Are there a lot of people around?"

Glancing around the large parking lot, Simon sighed. The truck driver was still staring, his rag now tucked into his belt, and a cashier had come out to stand beside the glass door, a portable phone in her hand.

"Uh, yeah. And some of them are looking very concerned right now."

"Damn." Mike hissed, stepping in front of Simon's turned back. "We're attracting too much attention."

On the other side of the lot the truck driver exchanged glances with the cashier. He nodded, and then slammed his door as if he's made up his mind. Shoulders set, he strode towards them purposefully.

"We're going to have company." Mike said quietly over his shoulder.

Inside the van Blair began to make little short pained noises.

"He sounds bad." Simon observed.

"Yeah. Give me a hand, I can't lift him." Leaning forward in the seat, the movement straining still-healing wounds aggravated by recent exertion, Panther grunted with effort, his face going pale.

Climbing quickly into the van once again, on his knees, Simon accepted the transfer from his friend. Curled into a tight ball, Chief felt stiff and too light. But the minute Panther's hands left him he threw back his head and opened his mouth to howl.

"AAAAaaaaAAAAAaaaaaAAAAAAAAaaaaaaAAAAAAAA!!!!!"

The good-samaritan truck driver ran now, toward them, his face set in fierce lines.

Quickly Mike moved out to confront him, one hand in the air and the other beneath his jacket, reaching for the gun he hoped he wouldn't have to use.

"Damn, damn, damn!" Simon spit the words out even as he backed out of the van and gained his feet. "Ellison, what's wrong with him?!"

The bigger mercenary staggered as he tried to negotiate the drop to the ground and Mike turned just in time to catch his arm and keep him from falling. Panther clung to the van with one arm and Mike's shoulders with the other, his face pale and sweaty.

But he released Mike and reached for Chief just as the trucker arrived.

Presenting a stoic facade, Mike got between the would-be do-gooder and his friends.

"You're not needed here."

"Sounds like he's hurt. I had medic training in the marines." Folding his arms over an impressive chest, all the visible skin on those arms covered with well-done tattoos, the man stood his ground, looking past Mike.

In the back of his mind Simon noted that the cashier was on the phone now.

As soon as Panther seemed steady Simon handed Chief back to him and then watched, worried, as his friend staggered, his arms enclosing the smaller man. Without the support of the van he swayed and it seemed that he would fall.

Like an ice-cream cone melting suddenly, the big man crumpled to the ground, Chief still secure in his arms.

The truck driver tried to move around Mike, but the agent stopped him firmly with a hand on his chest.

"What the hell's going on here?" The man ground out, pushing at him, one hand locked around Mike's wrist. "What are you, cops?"

Refusing to relinquish his hold, Mike grimaced.

"Not anymore. This is private business, we've got it under control."

Suddenly, as if a switch had been thrown, Chief quit screaming.

The silence rang over the hot asphalt.

Cautiously the cashier is approached the group, brandishing the phone like a weapon.

"I called the cops!"

"Shit." Simon's single word breaks the silence left behind.

"We don't need the cops." Mike said calmly, trying to maintain control of the situation. "He's prone to nightmares and easily frightened by waking in a strange place."

"Like the back of a van." Simon added. Slowly he knelt beside Panther and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Can you get him up by yourself?"

Shaking his head no, the mercenary answered in the affirmative anyhow.

"I have to. He's too sensitized to be touched by anyone else right now." Hurt crinkled Simon's face and Jim closed his eyes briefly. "It's not you. It's - there's - I can't explain."

"It's okay. Just let me help you up, I won't touch him." Quickly Simon moved behind the two men on the ground, working his hands under Jim's arms.

"See, everything is going to be fine." Mike told the truck driver. He threw a meaningful glance at the cashier. "We don't need the police here."

"You could be kidnappers or something." She said defensively. "Drug dealers."

"If we were, you'd be dead by now. Running out here to tell them you called the law on them." The truck driver rolled his eyes at her young face and she blushed.

With a heave Simon helped Panther rise to his feet, the silent Chief clinging to him desperately.

"I've got him." Panther took a step and swayed.  Immediately Mike moved to flank him, Simon on the other side.

"No, bring the van around. We need to get him out of here."

Cullen told Banks. "I'll get them into the restroom."

Reluctantly Simon went to the van to do as Mike suggested. The truck driver moved out of the way. As Panther walked by the girl leaned in to get a closer look at Chief and Mike's hand was there to block her.

"No. You should call the police, tell them there's not a problem."

Her eyes flickered to the truck driver, who was looking at Panther and Chief with unveiled curiosity.

The older mercenary was dressed as always, all-black topped with a trench. Chief's hat was still in the van and his hair stirred slightly in the faint breeze.

The smaller man looked chalky white and emaciated, the tendons in his hands standing out as they gripped the lapels of the coat with stubborn strength. They were all startled when he opened his eyes and blinked, his shades left in the van as well.

He squinted into the sun and peeked at Mike, who smiled gently at him, leaning around Jim's bulk.

"Hey. Welcome back, sleepyhead." The agent said softly.

"Ingj?" The nonsense word was grunted and Panther tightened his arms.

"You don't have to talk." Mike said hastily. "We're going to get you into the bathroom and then we'll get back on the road."

Blinking again, Chief made a little face and then closed his eyes again, with a sigh. His hands relaxed and Panther shifted him to a more comfortable position, the white head riding gently on his shoulder.

"Everything's under control." Mike told their audience.

"Everything's fine. See? He's happy, he's safe..."

"He's Dr. Roderaff." The truck driver spoke suddenly. "My daughter went to one of his lectures, I remember him now. There's something wrong with him, right?"

As he spoke they reached the bathroom door.

"I've got it from here." Jim told Mike, who opened it for them. Then the CIA man shut it after they went inside and took up a position in front of it.

"There's nothing 'wrong' with him." the agent told the trucker. "He is the way he is."

There was a moment of silence, and then the cashier backed up a few steps.

"I don't know what's taking them so long." she grumbled, staring at her phone as if it were responsible for the tardiness of the police.

Reaching out, the trucker grabbed the phone and dialed.

"They're out dealing with real crimes."

The van pulled up in front of them and Mike gave a smile when Simon jumped out and hurried around.

"Everything okay?"

"Everything is good." Mike answered.

"Are we going to get on the road again soon?"

The door cracked open and Jim shouldered it the rest of the way, Mike reaching to help. Giving them all one last look, the trucker took the cashier by the shoulder and steered her away, back toward the store, while he spoke on the phone.

As they loaded back up Simon leaned back and faced Panther, concerned.

"Are you listening to him?"

The big merc nodded, settling back into his seat.

"It's taken care of. Let's go, so I can listen to somebody more important."

Back on the road, Mike drove while Simon sat turned in his seat, keeping an eye on his friends.

* * * * * * *

"Anything yet?"

Shifting restlessly in his seat, Simon tried to rub discreetly at a cramped calf muscle, asking his question in a sentinel sub-whisper. In the seat behind him Panther shook his head.

"Not yet." He answered in a normal tone. "He just sat down to watch Nightline, he may be up for a while."

"Tell me again why you need to catch him in bed?" Having turned around in his seat hours ago, Cullen had been calmly reading the latest Tom Clancy novel, using a tiny booklight that clipped to the page. Simon wondered meanly if Jack Ryan got swollen ankles from sitting too long now.

Panther shrugged. The movement made Chief's head roll on his shoulder. During the first hour of their impromptu stakeout his lover had braided it for him, the lithe body laid over his lap like a child ready for a spanking. The image had made Cullen and Simon uncomfortable and they had both told dirty jokes to cover their discomfort.

It was past midnight. The man inside the house - four blocks away and a street to the side - had eaten Italian food, delivered to his door, and then showered and spent some time on his computer. Now he was settling in to watch TV, a glass of strong red wine in his hand. To keep himself sharp Panther related the details as they happened.

"He says it has to be that way." Dropping a kiss to the pale forehead, the mercenary frowned briefly, the expression immediately echoed on the sleeping man's features. "He wants him to feel vulnerable, the way he - the way *we* did."

Nodding, Cullen went back to his paper and Simon returned to his cramp. It was almost rubbed out by the time Panther spoke again, almost thirty minutes later.

"I guess he doesn't care much about the state of the union. He turned it off when they started discussing the Senate hearings and now he's getting into bed."

"You mean it's time?" Feeling mildly shocked, Simon just stared. Then he transferred the stare to Cullen. "Are we going to just let them break in there and do what they will to this guy?"

The ex-agent gave him a mild look.

"They're your friends. You've been protecting them for years, you've given up your life to protect them. Would you really stop them?"

Closing his eyes, Simon shook his head and swallowed heavily. Then he opened them and stared at Panther, knowing the man could see him in the dimness of the van.

"This is it, right, Jim? After this it's over?"

"It's as over as we can make it, Simon. Mike will keep the government off our backs, Stephen will use computer magic to hide us and Daryl will keep an ear to the ground for danger. It will never be any safer for us to start living again."

"I'm really glad." The older man said with a sigh. "Because I've got to tell you I'm getting damned tired of this shit."

Chief stirred in Panther's arm, eyes blinking open, the clouded blue changing to bright in seconds.

"So am I." Panther said, shifting his partner to his feet. "So am I."

The night was dark, but the affluent neighborhood was well-lit by streetlights. Fortunately there was no manned security, doubtless the local cops had more important things to worry about than multi-million-dollar mansions with security systems to match.

Still, by the time Panther hit the sidewalk, he was again something more than human. Watching from the van, Cullen and Simon both noted the change in him, the smoother way of moving and the darkness that seemed to welcome him, surrounding him, with raised eyebrow and nods.

Beside him Chief glowed gently. The pale yellow light was drawn to him, seemed to caress him, to bathe him as tenderly as possible. But Panther's darkness balanced the light and, as they stepped across the street, Chief safely in Panther's shadow, they were barely visible to normal eyes.

Cullen whistled softly under his breath.

"It's something to see, isn't it." Simon agreed.

"I'm glad I got the chance, but I don't think I'd want to see it twice."

They exchanged a look of understanding and returned to their vigil.

After a few long moments Cullen spoke again. "I wonder what they're going to do."

Simon, having no answer to this, returned to rubbing his leg.

* * * * * * *

Blair was there.

He was always there, in Jim's head. Awake, sleeping, it didn't matter. And from the first Jim hadn't begrudged his partner this constancy.

It kept him connected. Kept him whole. Kept him sane.

He'd never tried to explain it to anyone. No one had ever really asked, although Stephen had tried. But the words refused to cooperate, and how do you ask if you don't know the right question?

The constant presence of Blair, lodged safe and warm in Jim's mind, flooding him twenty-four/seven with a running stream of vivid mental images.

But no words. There hadn't been any words in ten years. Even now, when Blair needed to speak, or just wanted to, he had to take the words from other peoples' minds. Jim knew that their friends, Mike and Daryl and Stephen and Wanda, would never understand this. Blair wasn't just an empath, he was only empath.

Reduced by the lab to nothing more than a huge emotional sponge, he'd lost the ability to screen emotions from others. Even when he wasn't touching them. But touch made it unbearable. Lifting words from random minds, his lectures were uniquely tailored to his audience, making him possibly the best teacher the world had ever known.

Tonight, as they crossed the street and slipped into the backyard of the man who had attempted worse than to kill them - he'd tried to separate them! - Jim kept pace with Blair's mind easily. It was like surfing, he just hit a thought and rode the crest until it broke and another one rose behind to lift him. It had taken so much work to learn to do that, to pick and choose the images he saw, as compared to the ones that just flowed past him, of the thousands he received in a moment. Blair had learned too, learned to strengthen the important ones, to make it easier for Jim to recognize them.

Tonight Blair was amazingly single-minded. Everything was focused on or about the man they were going to meet tonight.

The last time, Jim told himself and, in doing so, told Blair. The last time.

His partner agreed with such painful joy that Jim had to pause and breath around the ache it caused.

So many years. So much pain.

What they were doing was right. It would work.

"There." He spoke aloud, as was his habit, as the back gate swung free, the security system so easily circumvented that he felt a moment's pity for this man who didn't realize what he'd started.

Entry to the house was accomplished with the same ease.

Remembrances of waiting for warrants and devising excuses to enter-and-search brought a brief smile to the older man's face as Blair's thoughts were amused, skittering on that for a moment, and then dark again, heavy with the weight of what they were doing, and all that they had done.

The opulence of the house was startling, especially in its rather pedestrian suburban setting. Although extravagant, it was tasteful as well Jim was aware of Blair's feeling; a mild sadness that this was all wasted on a man who didn't deserve it, whether he appreciated it or not, and a desolation that this would all be lost to the world tonight.

He stopped to run his fingers delicately over a vase. It was on a pedestal, set into a corner of the room, carefully lit for the best effect. The white china was so thin that the light from behind shone through it, giving it an ethereal presence.

It reminded Jim of Blair, and he took his partner's hand and smoothed the small square hand over the hand-painted flowers he had just touched.

The finish was so fine that the smaller man, without the enhanced sense of touch Jim used automatically, could scarcely feel it.

A bare breeze floated through Jim's mind, demonstrating a metaphor for the vase.

"The blue is the same color as your eyes, it's lit from within just the way you are." Leaning close, Jim whispered the words just behind his partner's ear, earning a faint shiver.

A tilted head, a small smile of thanks was offered, and then a reminder of what they had to do, and why.

Leaving the vase with the sense of loss intensified, Panther led Chief to the master bedroom, in the back of the house, where their prey slept unknowing.

Gregory slept peacefully, as always. In his dreams his twin spoke to him, and they were boys again, before their careers and choices pulled them apart physically. It had never been a secret, that he and his brother had been born joined. But it had been an early separation for Siamese twins, and so only one short operation had been required to part them, leaving only a long, thin scar that faded as they grew and that wistful longing to be together again. It had led them to grow 'joined at the hip' as their friends said, never knowing that they were speaking what had once been literally true.

It wouldn't have mattered to the men who entered his room as he sighed and turned to the other side, his brother safe in his dreams, no longer screaming as he burned. Blair would have been interested in the clinical aspects of it - separated conjoined twin were rare and post-op studies of their psychological wellbeing even rarer - but, although he was capable of feeling sympathy, the empathy he was now cursed with would have drowned that out before it had a chance to gurgle a protest.

Panther stood over the bed while Chief slunk from his shadow and slid to the other side of the bed, perching lightly on the heavy silk comforter and staring at this man who had almost ruined everything.

Silently Jim asked him if Gregory - it was always better when the devil had a name - had ruined them or saved them? With his spread hand passing through the air over the sleeping man's head, Blair answered with action instead of thoughts.

With a quirk of his lips that could have been called a grin, he bounced on the bed. Panther gasped and gaped and then beamed, always thrilled to see he traces of the original Blair in this shopworn model.

"Wha-?" Sounding groggy, Gregory sat, looking around, one hand reaching reflexively for the bedside lamp. But Panther's hand was there before his and he snatched it back as the switch was turned and his face illuminated. "YOU!"

"You should pick your assassins more carefully." Panther snarled, hands on the bed, leaning in to give the man the full effect as his face and body changed, that bizarre 'just a little bit changed' stage where he was still human but obviously not. It was clear that Gregory saw it, because he recoiled and scrambled toward the headboard with a frightened glance at Chief, and both hands now clutched the bedspread and pulled it high.

"I told him not to kill you. It was an experiment!" He shouted the words, but there was as much anger as plea in his voice.

"We -" Chief croaked, then shook his head, gagging, and tried again, "We've had enough ex-per-I-ments."

"So now you're here to kill me." the man seemed to accept this, growing calm again, one hand smoothing the wrinkles from the spread. "I wouldn't recommend it. If anything happens to me certain people will be notified immediately, and they'll use the materials I've given them."

"No they won't." Panther said with a sigh.

Gregory gave him a curious glance, and then saw Chief's hand, already in the air, reaching for him. He pulled away but his shoulder hit the rock wall of Panther's chest as the bigger man crouched beside the bed and pulled him into a rough restraining embrace.

"I hate you." Chief croaked matter-of-factly as his palm cupped Gregory's cheek almost tenderly. "For making me do this."

On his other side Panther also extended a hand and grasped the man's stubbled cheek, gripping it more forcefully than his partner did.

Gregory gave an almost comical gasp, and then collapsed.

* * * * * * *

"How long has it been?" Simon asked. Not because he didn't know, he just wanted acknowledgement that Mike was worried as well.

"Five hours, sixteen minutes. The sun is rising." Raising his head from the hand it had been resting on, the ex-agent stiffened. "Wait, there they are."

Hopping out of the van and leaning on the hood, Simon Banks watched as his two best friends in the world walked out the front door of the house they had broken into. Or, rather, Panther walked out, carrying Chief, who had some sort of small blanket-wrapped bundle that the bigger man was having trouble keeping in place.

Chief was dead weight, head lolling against Panther's chest, one hand trailing lifelessly in the air, flopping as he walked.

"Start the car." Simon told Mike, fear rising in him, threatening to choke him. Angrily he bit it back, fought it down, before it could make him less capable.

"Got it. I'll call Stephen. He'll have Dan waiting."

The sun was risen now, the street bathed in pale light. Chief glowed with some surreal energy.

Then Gregory came to the front door and waved at them cheerfully, before turning to go back inside.

Jogging across the street, Simon reached for the object Panther was trying to balance with the fingers of one hand.

"Be careful. It's priceless." the big mercenary said.

"Is he okay?" They walked together, Simon glancing from side-to-side, wondering how many neighbors were watching, how many had seen his face, and what the hell had happened anyhow.

"I don't know." Panther said softly, calmly. "He's not really here."

That sounded like a death knell to Banks, but Panther shook his head firmly as the black man opened his mouth and he closed it again without letting a word pass his lips.

Then they were in the van, and Mike was driving, and Panther was curling on the floor, half-under the seats, Chief cuddled to him, covering him, shielding him.

"What happened?" Mike asked after thirty minutes of silence.

The road slipped past the windows, the morning bright and sunny and beautiful. Songs had been written about this morning.

"I don't know."

"Mind if I listen to the news?"

"No, go ahead. I'd like to hear it too. Maybe Congress has done something right today?"

"Not likely." Mike grinned at him as he pushed the button on the radio, already set to the local news station.

"A four-alarm fire has been reported in the Lakes area of Shermanville, an expensive housing complex. The fire was reported by neighbors, it seems that the owner of the house, Gregory Ferni, was asleep in his bed when it started, but escaped the house unharmed. A financial consultant retired from Wall Street, Ferni is known as an international art collector whose private collection showcased at the home is said to be valued at over fifty million dollars, all of which seems to be lost at this time. The origins of the fire are unknown..."

Quickly Simon reached over and flipped off the radio.

"I think that's more news than I needed."

Mike nodded, and drove.

On the floor Panther grunted and curled even closer, tighter around Chief. When Simon looked down at him there was little left of the man there.

"Don't look down." he told Mike, who had no information to prepare him for this mystical transformation. "You don't need to look down."

Nodding again, Mike resolutely kept his eyes focussed on the road, even when a scratchy snarl was heard.

They had a couple of hundred miles to drive. Idly Simon counted the times Panther changed.

Human-Halfway-Panther.

Human-Halfway-Panther.

Human-Halfway-Panther.

And again and again and again, the cycle repeated.

Occasionally he was granted glimpses of Chief's face, chalk-white and slack, as still as his body.

He was wondering if he would be building a large outdoor cage at the cabin soon, if that would be required if Blair - somehow, someway - did not survive whatever he had done this time.

* * * * * * *

A status quo was reached by the time the plane was in sight.

Considering it, Simon was sure that Panther had realized that a deadline of sorts was approaching and regained control of himself. The panther was still present in his form, but only just enough that his oldest friends could detect it when watching him.

Carrying the vase, which had made the journey strapped into a bucket seat, Simon got them on the airplane and Stephen got them into the air. Mike stayed behind to return the rental car and monitor the situation in Shermanville for a day, and then he would take another flight home, to his wife, who had been made anxious by the subterfuge

At last, safe in the air, in their plane, Panther lay on the couch, Chief still unmoving in his arms, and told Simon about it as he drank water and ate fruit.

"He took it, Simon." was the first thing he said after is friend sat across from them. "All of that rage, that need that has filled me since the time in the lab - he drew it out of me and poured it into that man."

"But I saw him." offering another chilled bottle of water, Simon accepted the return of the empty one. "He was at the door, smiling and waving like you were his best friends."

"He gave him all that rage and then he gave him the way to redeem himself."

"The fire?"

Panther nodded, pausing to take a bite of his green apple, chewing thoughtfully.

"You don't seem very worried." Simon said quietly, touching Chief's jacket with a tender hand.

"I think he's okay. Just resting."

"Have you checked his pulse?" Not looking up at his friend, Simon held his breath, afraid of the answer. No matter how much he hated saying it, Blair looked... dead.

"It's very slow, but his heart is beating." Panther reassured. "He's breathing, but you can't see it." His freehand petted the smaller man's side and hip. "Blair told him to destroy all the evidence. And to spend the rest of his life and his fortune making sure no one ever gets any more, from anywhere."

"And he'll do that?"

"He just burned down his house, Simon, and a priceless art collection that it took him the better part of twenty years to gather."

"Then it's over." With a sigh the older man sat back, grabbing a bottle for himself.

"Well, the fat lady hasn't quite finished, but the aria is winding down." Jim's grin was quick and cocky and Simon chuckled in spite of himself.

"Does this mean the old Jim is back? And Blair?"

"As much of them as we can find, Simon. Panther and Chief are just another memory, but we're still the people we are now."

"It's about time." Raising the water bottle, Simon grinned when Jim clinked his own against it in a silent salute. "I like the people you are now."

"I don't know if I do." Jim looked thoughtful, sipping and then setting the bottle in the holder and scooching further down on the couch to snuggle Blair closer. "I feel like I'm waking from a ten-year nightmare only to discover that it wasn't all a dream."

"But you're awake now and you can deal with it." Simon said, leaning to squeeze his shoulder. "Everything has to be better after this."

"Yes." Jim agreed, kissing the top of Blair's head where it rested limply on his chest. "Everything *will* be better now."

Then he looked around, out the small window. "Where are we going?"

"Stephen's." Simon answered, slightly surprised that Jim hadn't assumed that.

"I want to go home. The cabin."

"But Dan is waiting for -" waving a hand at Blair, Simon grimaced.

"He doesn't need a doctor. Just time to work that man out of his system. He had to, I don't know, go deeper than he ever has before. To pull me through him."

"I could help you at the beachhouse." The tone was worried but not desperate.

"We'll be fine." Kissing Blair's head again, Jim nuzzled it, eyes slipping closed, then opening after a moment and gazing at Simon, who stared. There was peace in those eyes. Peace he had never seen there before. "You have grandchildren to meet."

"I do, don't I?" Accepting this judgement, Simon thought that maybe he could breath again.

They shared a smile, and then went to the front to have Stephen change the flight plan.

* * * * * * *

Almost two years passed at the cabin. Jim's cellphone, set on vibrate, rang frequently as he received updates on LaShane's pregnancy and finally word of a son for Daryl, named Simon James. Nina took first prize in her elementary school science fair, and the tornadoes started playing soccer.

Gregory Ferni, a changed man after losing his life's work in a fire - the cause of which was never determined to the satisfaction of the insurance company - turned his still-sizeable fortune and an almost religious zeal toward controlling the government, exposing the first of what everyone was sure would be many secret 'black' operations that were not supposed to exist, much less be funded by taxpayer money. Newspapers called him a hero, Mike Wallace interviewed him on 60 Minutes.

Ferni seemed like a nice man, oddly humble, who, while happy to give details, said that he had some wrongs to right in the world.

Wanda Ellers published her first novel 'National Security', a thriller about a team of mercenaries who were bonded by more than loyalty. They were led by a homosexual couple, one old, one younger. There was talk of it being picked up as a movie. Around the world powerful people read it and wondered that this pediatric nurse from Colorado had heard of the legendary Panther & Chief.

The man known as Panther kept busy. Working via computer, he consulted on several tough FBI cases under his most comfortable pseudonym, Andrew-the-Bodyguard. The dock was strengthened, and, in his copious spare time, he built a second cabin. Larger than the first, it had two cozy bedrooms downstairs that could sleep four people each, and a sleeping loft over the living room, perfect for children, and it's own deck in the back that joined the original. It was connected to the first small one by a breezeway on the kitchen side, so a second kitchen wasn't needed.

Because, frankly, he hated plumbing. Too much digging. There was a well-appointed bathroom in the new cabin, right up against breezeway wall so all he had to do was tap into the kitchen plumbing. He got the plans off the internet, which he knew would amuse Blair.

Deliveries came frequently; food, mail, lumber, supplies. And the people who brought them would never have believed that there was a second man living there. They were invited in for coffee, some stayed to chat, or occasionally offer advice on a piece of carpentry or a tiling problem. It was a wonder to some how he'd managed to raise the walls alone, how he'd lifted the roof trestles to the twenty-foot height they rested upon. The decided he was even stronger that he looked. If he had wanted to Jim could have told him that the panther let him do it.

Because Blair certainly hadn't helped.

He slept on, sometimes vaguely aware of what passed around him. This awareness made him restless, so Jim would hold him and sooth him until he slept again, safe in a cocoon of dreams.

Every night the older man would shower and then slide into their bed. Blair slept deeply, unmoving. Nude, he was bathed every other day by his conscientious lover, and his skin rubbed with sweet-scented lotion. Jim spent an hour morning and night running him through range-of-motion exercises, but he didn't really think they were necessary. They were attached on every level now and Blair's body showed signs of benefiting from the exercise Jim took daily; hammering, climbing, lifting, swimming.

"There you are, caro." He crooned, slipping in behind the sleek body, which was beginning to fill out at last, fed liquid supplements through a straw twice a day. With prompting he would drink, and could then be roused enough to be coaxed into the bathroom to take care of other needs. "You smell so good."

Selfishly he'd chosen the lotion according to his own tastes, and the faint herbal-apple tang seemed a perfect complement to Blair's own natural scent.

In the darkness of the cabin, usually late at night, he would gently, tenderly open his lover and take him as he slept.

They were so close now he was completely aware of Blair during these long moments, as he moved within him and Blair welcomed him joyously, his mind singing with the happiness of it. Aside from his mental chorus, though, Blair neither participated nor came. Most of his psyche was occupied, carefully rebuilding itself after the most traumatic event of a lifetime of them.

Painstakingly each new pathway had to be forged, each connection re-linked. Afterwards Jim would lie, panting quietly, and 'listen' as he rested, to his Blair coming back to him, a piece at a time.

And eventually the time came when Blair began to stir on his own. Jim would be outside, working on something, perhaps pounding in roof nails, and an actual question would float into his mind.

Sometimes it would be about what he was doing, other times it wouldn't seem relevant, perhaps something about the last time it rained or whether the owls were nesting in the big oak by the dock again. As time passed the questions became more focused and actual conversations took place. One long day early in the second spring there was a discussion of carpet colors - which Jim was installing in the sleeping loft - that came close to a real argument. Blair thought the green color Jim had chosen was disagreeable and liable to give the children nightmares. Laughing aloud, happily, Jim had torn up the carpet he'd just installed, and ordered new, using the computer again, choosing the color with Blair this time, a soothing grey-green that would make the floor float like a swell of sea.

Then came the day Jim came to find that Blair had showered on his own. The evidence was plain; several wet towels left lying in untidy heaps on the bathroom floor, the shampoo left uncapped, and a batch of long white hairs caught in the drain. He was predictably overjoyed, and annoyed as well. But one look at his again-sleeping partner quelled that, and a quiet joy filled the room.

Things were getting back to normal.

* * * * * * *

"If anyone would like to discuss this further, there is a sign-up sheet for office visits on the table by the exit. Choose a time and come on in." The electronic voice spoke fluently.

Closing his computer with a grin to the assembled professionals and students, Dr. Roderaff ran a hand self-consciously over his hair, loose over his shoulders, hanging past his waist, uncut now for almost thirteen years. He was getting to an age - 42 - where the color wasn't quite so unusual, and wore it loose often when inside. Outside the wind just caused too many troubles.

The audience waited expectantly. There had been an article in the campus paper the previous semester about this new professor, his brilliance and the sadness of his disability and his private battle to overcome it. This was his third seminar-lecture of the previous schedule and at both of the previous ones, the first two weeks ago, he had tried to speak aloud to the crowd, and failed.

Now they all sat very still, every one of them aware of how easily he could be startled, or sitting beside someone who made it clear they should be still, and waited, holding their collective breath.

They watched as he glanced to the side of the stage, where a large man sat on a folding chair, arms crossed casually over his stomach. Wearing tan khakis and a blue sweater, the man was handsome but clearly older than the professor. He smiled encouragement and Roderaff returned his attention to the lecture hall.

"I -" The single vowel croaked out, sounding harsh, and he stopped, swallowed, and tried again. "I want to-to -" A few people in the front row flinched at the grating voice, and one of his colleagues laid a hand on a fidgeting freshman's shoulder and squeezed to still him.

"I want to thank you all for coming." The words came out at a measured pace, but the voice was still horrible to listen to.

In the back a graduate student with dark curly hair turned to his partner and whispered.

"He's getting better." Misha said softly, not wanting to be heard. Beside him the young woman, Carla, nodded happily.

"Maybe we helped." her smile was teasing.

After the hall was emptied Andrew, as the bodyguard-lover was know, escorted his charge off the stage.

"That went really well. I think they kept up," he teased, an arm securely around the professor's waist. Blair still dressed in black, and now Jim claimed it was just for the contrast that made his wonderful hair stand out so clearly.

The answer was loud and cheerful in his mind. Somewhere during his long sleep Blair had rediscovered thinking with words, and communication between them was perfect now.

{I did try to slow down for the old ones - like you.}

Naughtiness danced in his eyes, which looked younger than his face, which itself looked young for his age. The lines around his eyes now appeared to come from experience and not pain, the creases in his face had reformed into the patterns of a man who smiled often.

"You'll catch up soon enough." Jim scolded, dropping a kiss to the top of his head. "What are we doing now? Home for dinner with the family or out for pizza?"

{Is Wanda still pregnant?} the thought had a definite rhetorical tone.

"Baby any day now. Another wild little Ellers to terrorize the world." Going down the hall, Jim kept Blair against the wall, and the people left talking made it a point to get out of the way. Since he'd accepted this permanent position here as a full professor over a year ago, everyone had been very nice and very careful to give him what he needed in terms of space and quiet and privacy. The Anthropology building was the calmest one on campus, students from other disciplines even came there to study and take advantage of the peaceful atmosphere.

An accidental touch would still hurt him, his empathic abilities were as strong as ever, but now he ventured from the protection of Jim's shadow more and more frequently, although never going so far that he lost the sight he borrowed from his partner.

Now a familiar face appeared before them, several feet away, as Misha, Blair's personal assistant and one of the four graduate students he was in charge of, waved one hand and thus asked if he wanted to stop and talk.

Blair nodded and Jim stopped, allowing his partner to step in front of him, his back still touching Jim's chest, as Misha stepped closer but still left about two feet between them.

"We're going for pizza, Doc. Want to join us?"

Jim's stomach rumbled on cue and Blair grinned widely, glancing up at his partner.

"Yes, I think we'd better." Jim answered for him, as he almost always did.

"Maybe he'll let you eat pepperoni this time." Misha teased, going back to his friends to tell them the news.

Blair's frown put an end to that idea.

{Fifty year old men, even ex-mercenaries, have to be careful what they eat.} He began scolding almost automatically as they left the building and walked down the brick path that served as a shortcut to the nearby pizza joint. {I'm going to make sure you're gonna hang around for another fifty, and that means no pepperoni.}

"You're so mean." Jim shook his head. "How about double cheese? You *love* double cheese."

{Only if you have a salad...}

They argued cheerfully, no one paying attention to them as Jim spoke and Blair was silent. It really wasn't important anymore, there were several quick and successful treatments for the clogged arteries that used to cause heart disease, but it was familiar and Blair would still rather not be away from Jim even for the day it would take him to undergo one of them.

"Hey, you're home!"

"Stephen?" Greeting his brother as he hung up his coat in the hall closet, Jim took Blair's leather jacket as well. "Yeah, we went for pizza, there wasn't anything special planned for dinner, was there?"

"Nah." Wheeling toward them, Stephen was in his pajamas. During the day he now wore an exosuit, one of the first made, that allowed him to walk, albeit slowly, but he often returned to his chair in the evening as his muscles tired quickly. "Nothing going on here. We were just comparing our name lists again. Blair, Naomi called, she wants to meet you online tonight, said you'd know the time."

Nodding, the smaller man leaned up to give Jim a quick kiss and jogged off to the library, where the general-use computer was.

"She's in Australia, I think." Jim told his brother as they went through the house, heading for the informal living room where Wanda was resting. "They might talk all night."

Wanda was propped on each side by cushions, her swollen ankles elevated on an ottoman, and Jim dropped to sit on the floor by her feet and rub them.

"Ahhh..." she sighed appreciatively. "Can't beat Sentinel senses for a proper massage."

Stephen grinned. He'd experienced that talent himself, when he had sore muscles, when his long unused legs protested the insistence of the exosuit that forced them to work, and before, when his hands cramped after a day in the chair.

"So what are the choices this time?" Jim concentrated, listening to Blair's soft mental chatter with one half his mind and paying attention to what he was doing with the other.

He'd named all of the children. Stephen and Wanda had wanted him to, it was important to them. Jim had insisted on a compromise; they agreed on a short list of names they liked and he picked from it. With Blair's input, of course.

"Hmm, here we go." Wanda smiled and picked up the small datapad she'd been working on. The portable reusable design had been patented by Three Bad Bros and sales were exceeding their initial expectations. Not that they needed the money, but it was nice to have. "For a boy; Graham, Jericho, Jasper, Devon, Nathan, Blair and James." She grinned at him and Jim groaned. They always included those two, and he never chose them. "And for a girl; Shea, Emily, Michelle, Debra and Naomi."

They also always included Naomi, which pleased Blair.

"I think Jasper for a boy - it goes with the others - or Nathan. Then there would be two N names and two J names."

"And for a girl?"

"It's going to be a boy." Stephen objected. Jim bit back a grin, listening to Blair's suddenly interested commentary.

{It doesn't feel like a boy, Jim. I think we've got another Nina on the way here.}

Not wanting to give away the secret, Jim answered mentally as well.

{So which do you want? Naomi would go with Nina, you know. And since this one isn't mine...}

This pregnancy had been planned and executed the same as the others had, with donated sperm substituted for Stephen's, as he was sterile now, but this time Jim had said no. After a long talk with Stephen and Wanda, he'd explained that he wanted Blair to have a child as well. It hadn't been a stretch for Stephen, who considered the younger man a brother as much as Jim was, but

Wanda hadn't been so sure. She wanted all of her children to have the same parents.

"They will have the same parents." Jim had said softly. "You and Stephen. We all know that no one can ever know whose children these really are, no matter how many precautions we take."

There was some question as to whether the children would ever actually figure it out, but they thought that the children would understand. Some day, when they were all old enough, they would be sat down and everything would be explained to them.

{They'll understand.} Blair assured him, currently cruising anthropology chatrooms while waiting for his mother to arrive.

{I'll make sure.} There was a hint of something darker in that.

"Naomi." Jim said quietly. "Or Shea, if you'd rather."

"Naomi fits." Wanda smiled at him. "It sounds like a part of our family."

{Are you going to tell her?} Jim asked Blair one more time as his partner met his mother online and greeted her happily.

{Tonight.} Blair responded, sounding sure. {It's time she knew.}

Over the past year Naomi had become Gramma to all of the children, but knowing that one of them was her own flesh and blood would be important to her, Jim knew.

"I like it best." Stephen told him, leaning to give him a cuff to the head. "And while you were out goofing around today I got the prospectus done on that new project..." Going to the small desk at the side of the large room, he brought a folder over to Jim, who opened it and studied it while he continued to rub Wanda's feet.

"I like the way that works out." he pointed to a line and Wanda made a sound of protest and he began rubbing again, and then he and Stephen were involved in the conversation and she was dozing off and all was right with the world.

* * * * * * *

It was late. Jim had been in bed for more than an hour, after helping Stephen get settled. His brother had overdone it again, as he often did.

{Just signing off.} Blair said. He sounded somewhat subdued.

In the shower now, he was bathing quickly. He wanted to get to Jim, felt a need to be touching him, *wanted* that safety with a strength that still shocked the older man on occasion, especially these nights when everything was good, everything was fine and still Blair felt it.

Then he was there, in the room, in Jim's arms, clinging to him with that surprising strength, his mouth covering Jim's aggressively.

"Mmmm..." Sighing, Jim opened himself to Blair, mind, body and soul.

There was so much to their lovemaking now. It was still necessary, still the link that drew them together, that cemented the bond. But more, it eased Blair's mind, soothed the frenetic pace it ran at, and each time they came together a bit more pain was erased. Not gone forever, but wiped down to a faint outline of its self.

Ten years' pain was slowly being edged out by new memories and new feelings.

"You're so beautiful, Caro." Jim sighed. A part of him would always be Panther and he kept himself in top shape, ready to protect his mate and his family, but didn't expect to ever actually need to again. And he would always love Blair the way Panther loved Chief.

The line wasn't as clear for Blair. Although improved, he was still a vast distance from what was considered normal and further yet from what he had once been. And neither of them thought that was a reasonable goal anyhow, to become that person again. His voice might return somewhat, but his sight was forever lost and touch would always be a risk. The circle of people he could actually talk to had grown much larger, and included Daryl's wife and children as well as Daryl himself, and the student Misha every once in a blue moon; when the two were alone he managed to get out a word or two and had even touched the younger man once accidentally with no serious consequences.

{Naomi is getting married.} He told Jim now, with a rush of  emotion so hot that Jim couldn't sort it before it was gone.

{She's found someone to love.}

Holding him still, using his greater size, Jim pressed the smaller man to the bed and felt him shiver beneath him.

"That's good, right? We'll check him out and make sure he's clean and she'll be happy again, right?"

{I - I -} Unable to even put the thoughts to words, Blair resorted to pictures again. He gave Jim a vision he'd cherished, of Naomi moving in with them, living with them, being a part of their lives, the children's lives. {I wanted that. I wanted my mother back.}

"After ten years of exile, I understand." Kissing him deeply, Jim put everything into that kiss, physical and emotional. "She loves you, Caro. She just doesn't know you anymore."

{And she blames you.} With a low moan Blair accepted the inevitable, both the sex and his mother's choices, and spread his legs wide for Jim. After so many months of being unresponsive, he was still slightly passive in bed. But Jim didn't mind. This, too, was improving. And it held strong echoes of their early days, when Blair was so badly wounded he couldn't respond and the sex was the only sure way Jim had to reach him and calm him.

"Now we can do it for fun, too, not just when we have to." Jim purred, kissing his way down the white-furred chest, licking each individual rib and suckling each nipple to hardness. Blair's small sounds, gasps and moans, were still the most normal he made.

{Yes, inhale me, eat me alive.} Blair begged mentally as he writhed and twisted on their big bed.

Words from his partner during sex were still unusual and Jim continued to tease, trying to get more of them, but the younger man's mind was quickly reduced to a stream of vivid images that raised Jim's blood pressure higher than should be safe.

He rolled to his side and entered Blair. The smaller man's body was used to him now, opening, accepting him, molding around him. Jim fitted his body around the smaller one tightly, arms crossed over his chest, one knee tucked tightly under Blair's, the other wrapped around his legs as far as he could get without  slipping free.

"There." Blair blurted the word, and stilled.

"Yes, caro. There." Jim crooned, one hand petting the hair that swirled and settled over them both, a thin cloak of raw silk, ethereal and surreal.

They lay together.

{I feel God.} Blair sighed, his body relaxing into Jim's, melding with it. Jim could feel his own body softening and yielding. Reality blurred and then neither could tell where the other started and they ended.

"I worship thee." Jim sighed, and began to move. Burying his head at the back of Blair's neck in his hair, he breathed the scent of this man who was the greater part of himself. His strokes were short and gentle, not seeking completion, only action to relieve the tension that was beginning to grow between them.

Their bodies danced silently while their minds tango'd, a sometimes dizzying exchange of information; knowledge, love, security. Images of the past, both pasts, before and after, the present and the future as they envisioned it together. Who they had been, who they had become and who they would always be.

No matter what had happened to draw it out, they had found their true roles in life in Panther and Chief. Under ideal circumstances those roles would have been fulfilled protecting the tribe and not themselves and their very small tribe of family and friends. That was the way it should be, between a Sentinel and Shaman. But the price had been too high and now they were only a part of what they were intended to be. They could live with that, as long as they had this. Damaged, wounded, both had lost essential pieces of their psyches and would continue to live with only a fraction of what they could have been. Jim dreamed occasionally of running through the jungle on big flat panther- feet, of changing at will and enjoying the world through the unsullied eyes of his spirit animal. Blair dreamt of seeing, of being able to stay apart from Jim for more than a few hours at a time, of speaking to strangers on the street.

But mostly they dreamed of this, and of each other.

Now Jim moved faster, pulling out farther and sliding home fully. Blair moved with him, his back arched dramatically, the top of his head grinding into Jim's shoulder as he pounded back onto the penis that impaled him. Dropping his hands Jim wrapped both around Blair's own organ and the smaller man thrust into them roughly, a rough groan growling from his mangled throat.

For a few strokes - three, five, and then perhaps seven - it was perfect, they met perfectly, Blair's ass rising and falling to meet Jim's strokes at exactly the right second, Jim's hands tightening on Blair's penis just at the moment the base of it passed through them.

Then they were coming, both of them, and orgasm was a revelation of how it could be. On and on it went, both bodies pumping helplessly, both nervous systems spasming until they shorted out, actual moments later.

It was so good, and lasted so long, that Jim sometimes thought they could live there, in those moments when there were *no* barriers between them, when he knew Blair and Blair knew him and both found the other beautiful beyond bearing.

But their bodies, as always, betrayed them, unable to withstand the intensity of the experience any longer, and shut down.

Unconscious, uncaring, they slept but did not sleep, their minds so fully entwined they were as if one.

And so they were.

~~ finis~~

saraid@wf.net