It was an ordinary day like any other. It might even be considered a beautiful day by Cascade standards, only mildly overcast, not particularly cold or hot. He was sure even Cold-And-Wet-Is-My-World Blair would approve.

A pity Blair couldn't join him at the station, Jim mused as he savored a leisurely lunch, but it had been an unusually slow week, and he knew the busy grad student was grateful for the suddenly freed time to catch up on his work at the university. They'd been enjoying an unprecedented run of good luck, without the usual serial killers, psychotic terrorists, senselessly violent punks, inexplicable accidents, or strange, dangerous women to start doomed relationships with.

So why was he filled with this strange sense of foreboding? Perhaps it had to do with the way the hyperactive anthropologist attracted trouble like bullshit attracted flies.... A day that he would find so pleasant surely meant that somewhere, the fates were planning to redress the karmic imbalance with interest.

But that was unfair; somehow Blair had managed to survive twenty-six years with only Naomi's dubious protection, if that much, and he'd had his own share of truly foul luck from time to time, so maybe what seemed like incredibly bad karma on the poor guy's side was in fact their combined allotment of nastiness? He felt vaguely guilty about that.

On the other hand, Blair did manage to get into lots of scrapes on his own, with no help from his hapless Sentinel, so it couldn't be entirely his fault. Which of course got him to wondering how the crazy kid had managed to get through all those years without him and/or Naomi...sheer good luck?

Now that was the true mystery...was Blair's luck in fact good or bad? So great that he went on in spite of all the fates could throw at him? Or perhaps just good or bad enough that any misfortune was always non-fatal? Or really ten-days-old-fish rotten, but his wits balanced it? Contemplating the possibilities was mind-boggling and quite pointless since he didn't see how knowing the answer for certain would make much of a difference either way. He remembered why he didn't like philosophy.

To return to the issue that bothered him most: just what kind of nasty surprise was in store for him and his Guide today?

He had only just finished the thought and moved on to wondering if his partner would get home in time to fleece the guys at poker when the ear-splitting wail of a siren made him gasp and cover his ears as an ambulance zoomed past him from the direction of the university.

His ears ringing, he heard vaguely in the wake of its passage a woman's voice, choked with sobs as she pleaded, "please, Blair, you can't die, oh God, please, no...."

Dazed, he stared frozen after the rapidly shrinking vehicle, but all he could hear was the siren, then he lurched into motion, awkwardly at first, then running for his truck.

---------------

It took longer than he'd expected to reach the hospital, far too long with the traffic snarled up again, if not worse than before as other vehicles tried to jockey for the space left once the ambulance had passed, and his truck too large to be effective.

He half-stumbled into the emergency room, looking around for Blair, overwhelmed by the smells of blood and sickness that were always strongest here, trying desperately to hear a familiar voice through the groans of suffering people, the screaming of a hurt child and the harried mother trying to soothe it. But not wanting to hear him. There was the sound of a woman's sobbing. He started to wave away a concerned nurse, then changed his mind, clutching at her arm as she turned away.

"Just a short while ago...the ambulance--who was brought in?" he demanded, almost begged, afraid to say his name, as if doing so would somehow make it real.

"Let me check," she said with a look of understanding, and he followed her to the counter, waiting dumbly as she flipped through the register. "Two were brought in; who are you looking for?"

"Blair Sandburg," he exhaled.

The nurse was a pretty, youngish woman Blair would probably have tried to charm the telephone number out of, he thought half-distractedly, then his heart squeezed painfully in denial as her face turned immediately, professionally sympathetic. "Are you a friend or relative?" she asked gently.

"Friend," he responded, then unable to restrain himself, prompted, "How bad is it?"

"I'm very sorry, sir. It was too late when he came in--you should sit," she said with genuine concern, but he heard it indistinctly, as if in a dream, swaying slightly on his feet.

"No," he said, and started to reach for the file to see for himself, disbelieving, then his cell phone rang. "Ellison." he answered automatically, turning away. Another patient arrived and the nurse moved on.

"Jim, where the hell are you?" came Simon's strident tones over the line.

"Hospital," he snapped, wanting to look at the list of those admitted.

There was a short, stunned hesitation. "What are you doing there? Is Blair with you?"

The small, spidery script was upside down from his perspective, but he could still make out...Blair Sand--his vision was suddenly blurry, and he shook his head, trying to clear it. "Jim?"

He gulped air, which seemed suddenly in short supply. His lungs were burning, he was drowning, he...this was what Blair must have felt that day in the fountain-- "He's not dead, Simon, he can't be--" he gasped, and the lights overhead were too bright, the sounds, the smells the tastes were closing in on him-- "he's not, Simon," he repeated in a small voice he could not recognize as his own, "dead."

"What the--Jim, don't go anywhere, I'm coming," Simon ordered urgently, but he didn't hear, only heard the woman's sobbing, crumpled in on himself. "Jim, are you still there? Jim? Jim!"

---------------

He knew, without opening his eyes, that he was in a warm bed, and that the room smelled of disinfectant and medicines, and more faintly, cigars and coffee. Simon must have sat with him a while, but not long enough to leave strong traces of his scent, beyond the cigar he always carried but rarely used. He was in the hospital, he decided sleepily, drifting with the muffled, indistinct murmur of low voices outside his room, not registering the words.

He didn't feel injured, so why was he here? For all that he didn't like hospitals, he felt strangely calm, safe. Even comfortable, strange though the thought might be. A hand clasped his, warm and dry, callused, workman-like, the steady pulse of blood through veins as soothing as a lullaby. And he remembered.

Blair. His distinctive scent, of herbs and musk, permeated the room, a signature he knew so well he no longer noticed it most of the time, except to check on his physical and emotional states. He was oddly touched that, even dead, Blair's spirit would be concerned enough to sit vigil by his side, gently holding his hand for all the world like some anxious parent reassuring a frightened child, usurping his prerogative as Blessed Protector. Deliberately keeping himself still and relaxed, terrified that if he opened his eyes he would discover it all to be no more than some vividly detailed hallucination, or dream, he lay as quietly as he could, not wanting to frighten the presence away, remembering clearly the horror of not being able to find any trace of it: sight, smell, or sound, and of having found it only to discover it dead.

"Jim," came the familiar, well-loved voice. "I know you're awake. Open your eyes and look at me," it coaxed. "I can't stay long."

No! His hand tightened involuntarily, squeezing Blair's hand, which did not vanish as he feared, but he still did not slacken his grip, not wanting him to go.

"Jim," said the voice patiently. He steadfastly ignored it, and the tones of fond exasperation that crept into it through the worry. "We've got to figure out some way to keep you from freaking out like this every time you think I'm dead. Accidents *happen*!"

Not on *his* watch, they didn't; he wouldn't let them, not if he could help it. But too often, he couldn't. He kept failing--

"Jim, you've got to let go. Come on, man, I really need to use the bathroom!" His eyes snapped open at that, his heart leaping with wild hope, in the desperate belief that a ghost would not need the bathroom, no matter how real it was.

"Gotcha," said Blair, grinning.

"no," he protested, not sure what he was protesting, but certain there was a trick somewhere, squeezing Blair's hand until the bones creaked and Blair winced, but did not let go, gripping Jim's hand as determinedly as Jim held his.

"I'm not going anywhere," he assured Jim with absolute certainty.

---------------

"You're not dead," he croaked disbelievingly, and he knew it was strange, considering how determined he had been to believe Blair wasn't dead at first, refusing to acknowledge his presence, afraid he would prove to be a phantom and vanish.

"Surprise," replied Blair blithely, patting Jim's clenched white knuckles with his free hand. "Lose the death-grip, man, that hurts."

He obeyed numbly. Blair pulled his hand back and flapped it to restore the circulation. "Ow, ow, ow," he grumbled, then picked up a glass with a straw in it. "Wanna drink?" The tone now had dire warnings that he'd better say yes and follow up on his word, and with his mouth too dry to form words, he thought it was a good idea. Meekly accepting the straw Blair offered him, Jim sipped gratefully, unable to take his eyes off the miracle before him, Blair whole, alive, unhurt aside from his squashed hand.

"How?" he managed to ask once he felt his throat was sufficiently moistened.

"I wasn't the one in the ambulance, Jim. I only got here when Simon called the U to find out what happened. He was really scared for a while there. I don't think I've ever seen him quite that happy to see me before. Strange thing is…that guy who died, his name was Blair Sandberg, with an E." Blair frowned in thought, wrinkling his brow as he picked up an apple and began to peel it absently. "It's so close to mine no wonder everyone was confused. You know, the Chinese believe that there is a register with the names of everyone, listing the times they're supposed to die. Wonder if they could have picked up the wrong person by mistake--OW, Jim!" He yanked his hand back from Jim again, his finger nicked. "What, you're not happy I'm not the one lying in bed?" he demanded testily.

"It's not funny, Chief. Don't even joke about it," Jim gritted out through clenched teeth.

"I know that, you big marshmallow," he sighed, and rolled his eyes. "It's just been a seriously weird day for me. You know, it isn't everyday you can make someone happy just by being alive, which is really funny if you think how they get when you're dead." He gave Jim a meaningful look, the import of which Jim didn't really want to consider. Blair continued, "I'm a little touched, you know. I mean, that you guys think I'm important enough to freak out if I die unexpectedly, but it's usually hard to tell. Some days it seems like you wish you could, like, detach with love to protect the sanctity of your bathroom drains," he finished with an accusing look.

Jim snorted, but guiltily. "I do appreciate you, even when I don't show it, you hear me?"

Blair beamed. "Even when I leave my hair in the drain and drink algae shakes?"

He struggled upright impatiently. "I appreciate you, Chief, not your perversions. Now let's get out of here."

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