New
Arrivals
Author-Allmoran
Titles
Rescue from Without
by Allmoran
Summary: Blair is losing his mind...but he gets it back.
Warnings: A bad word or two. A lot of made-up stuff about Rainier University.
Author's Note: This is my first, humble response to the fine fanfic I've been reading. I've been inspired to try it myself. I write all the time-but have never done any Sentinel fanfic. I wanted to write a detailed piece from Blair's POV, full of exasperating University officials and wayward papers and elliptical speculation...and showcasing a mini-crisis of faith about his ability to handle all of his callings.
Disclaimer: Pet Fly ,Paramount, and UPN own them. This is not-for-profit borrowing and no copyright infringement is intended. Please don't shoot! (or sue.)
{Title is a chapter subheading from Joseph Campbell's The Hero with A Thousand Faces.}
"Where is my mind?" -The Pixies
I am sitting at my desk, staring at the new sheet of Astro Yellow paper with the dates and times on it, trying to figure out which set of meetings this might be a schedule for. It is a rainy Friday afternoon in Cascade, and I have not stopped moving since Monday morning: Deciphering a Departmental dictum is no small feat.
This morning I woke up late, shoved my feet in my old New Balances only to discover that the left lace was inexplicably missing, lost my glasses (twice), got yelled at by Jim for putting "dirty string" in the dryer (the shoelace?), spilled cooling coffee all over the dash of the Volvo while attempting to speed-grade a student's paper at a red light, then sprinted to my mailbox with five minutes to spare before class-only to discover a neatly processed, formally worded letter informing me that I'll need to prepare a "teaching portfolio" for the Department by early next week, and that one of the Social Science deans is coming to observe my Anthro 101 discussion section at *his* earliest possible convenience. To make matters worse it's Burke, the dean I most dislike since he cuts budget like it's so much hair, and who has disliked me ever since he discovered me one afternoon slumped in the hallway outside my office, covered in mud and a fine dusting of sharded glass, with the Department Head's computer monitor in my lap and a Cascade PD baseball hat perched jauntily on my head. Don't ask.
I am losing my mind.
I fading from myself into a suspension from which I suspect even the most highly developed shamanic skills could not free me. (or the most kickass operation of Cascade's Finest)
I am going fuzzy around the edges. I feel like poor Phil Overman, the hapless 10th year Ph.D. candidate who foolishly left a Polaroid of himself lying around the graduate lounge one day. We stuck it up on the bulletin board with a neatly worded message on an index card tacked underneath: FORGOTTEN BUT NOT GONE. (penned in glittery purple ink by second-year Andraya, Rainier University's biggest Phish fan; she wants to specialize in trickster figures in native cultures and goes around in sparkly green eye makeup and clouds of strawberry blond frizz...bless her little fairy-dusted , but still ironical, heart.)
It's karma, man. I showed Phil no human mercy that day, and now I am doomed to emulate him-a ghost, a shadow, here but not. I toss the Astro Yellow meeting schedule into the circular file and drag down the hall to the moldy men's room, where I catch sight of myself in the mirror: I am not a pretty sight. My hair is standing up and sticking out every which way, as though its growth patterns are based solely on defiance-of gravity, that is. I am approximately the color of milk with a little mustard mixed in, (and I know because I concocted this noxious mixture once as kid-OK as a third-year grad student-and used it to, oh, never mind) except for under the eyes, where I am blue as a new bruise. My eyes are sitting in their grapey sockets like a couple of blue and white marbles spatter-painted in flamingo. Oh but that's a bad simile, and too much even for me. I brace my forehead on the cool, sticky mirror and groan.
As little Alex said in Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange": "My mind is a blank." And as Joseph Campbell wrote in The Hero with a Thousand Faces: "The hero may have to be brought back from his supernatural adventure by assistance from without."
I begin muttering this Campbellian insight to myself like a mantra.
Shine Mowitch, one of the associate professors, sticks her beaded and braided head into the men's from the outer hall.
"You alright in there Blair? " she calls anxiously, "'Cause I heard something weird."
Shine doesn't pull any punches. It is not at all out of character for her to walk into the men's room-with probable cause, Shine will pretty much go ahead with any old tenure-jeopardizing thing, like getting up in Dean Burke's face about the budget or telling the Department Head that his committee work leaves a lot to be desired. (only in less polite language.) She takes quick stock of me and strolls right over, humming.
"You don't look so good, kiddo," she says.
I give her a look. Shine is only about 6 or 7 years older than I am, maybe 36 at the most. But she's motherly as hell when she's not berating the administration for the evil that they do. And she's (god forgive me) taken a *shine* to me, treating me to a combination of mentoring, mothering, and, very occasionally, flirting. Shine is brilliant, athletic, and, hey, good-looking-her features a harmonious blend of African, Cherokee, and (as she likes to joke) Texas white trash beauty queen, her body strong and curvy under her wrap skirts and fetish necklaces. I don't mind the "kiddo" bit all that much, actually.
"I'm losing my mind," I tell her. I rake my fingers up through my hair and, in the mirror, it stays exactly where my fingers leave it.
She laughs and palms me on the shoulder.
"God, if that's all you've lost," she says. "But seriously now, you got to get some sleep or you'll collapse. You look like you're going to right about now."
"I know; I know," I tell her. "I'll try to take it easy this weekend."
"So you *say*," she retorts. "I want to see you looking rested on Monday, or I'm going to have to take it up with Burkey-baby. And you know how that usually goes."
I groan again. Shine feels my forehead with the back of her hand and shakes her head.
"Hear me now and believe me later," she says. She turns to go.
"I'm gonna go pee where I'm supposed to," she quips over her shoulder, "Or Burke might try to have me fired for creating a hostile working environment."
I have to smile at that. Then I catch sight of my sad self in the mirror again.
Damn. Jim will surely flinch in that subtle but infinitely pained way of his when he sees me, when he picks up on my stressed -out little twitches and my alternately thrumming and sluggish pulse; he'll arch an eyebrow, punch me lightly and say, "You OK, Chief?" He might even feel my forehead too, and try to send me home. Oh no, wait...what Jim's really gonna do is kill me, because last night I left that heap of reports I said I'd finish lying on the floor under his desk after I ...man, what was it that made me stick those reports down there in the first place?
It's long past high time for me to slow down, I know. But there's no chance of that anytime soon. I've fallen behind with the dissertation because Jim has been in no mood lately for my artfully devised tests, and he'll be in even less of a mood for them if I'm late for our stakeout this evening. I have no idea who we'll be lying in wait for...but I had better get up to speed before I meet Jim at the station at 6. And I can already hear Simon shouting: "Sandburg, get your sorry butt into my office, now!' I don't know if this is a paranoid delusion, a premonition, or a reasonable expectation based on my latest exploits-seeing as I can't remember what my latest exploits are and whether or not they might be acceptable to the irascible Captain. And after all that there's a weekend of paper grading, reading, class prep and that damned teaching portfolio to look forward to. (What the hell I am gonna put in there? And when I attempt to update my CV for Burke and his minions am I gonna put down, "Conducted field work on sentinels in loft at 852 Prospect"? Am I gonna do myself proud by adding a line that begins, "Was instrumental in busting..."? No, by the gods, I am not.)
I need the deepest breath, the heaviest-hitting herbal teas, the full lotus. I need a week in Madagascar. I need four Arabian horses (black, gray, gray, white) being led by a beautiful dark-eyed woman ready to bear me away to ...oh wait, that was my dream last night, and not at all a bad one though my post-dream trippage on the way to the bathroom woke Jim of course, and he was none too pleased.
I cast my bloodshot eyes at the mirror in sudden wild hope... but I don't see my mind in there. I'm gone.
****************************
When I finally get to Major Crime, all is remarkably quiet. Jim is working on his computer, pecking serenely away at the keys. Then he senses my entrance and looks up, on the alert, I know, for my particular, pungent brew of levity and trouble.
I don't know about the levity today. I ditch the pack and sit down.
"I've lost my mind," I tell him.
"Is that a Major Crime?" he quips. "You might try Missing Persons."
"That's funny," I say. I notice he has picked up the wayward reports, stacked them neatly on his desk, and likely finished them himself. He doesn't seem angry. He looks solid and present and calm. He gives me the once-over.
"So, rough day, Professor," he says. It is a statement-question, a repetition of what I have implied, designed to encourage divulging on my part. I understand that he has learned this technique from me, and whenever he uses it I get a strange little knot just below my collarbone. Not the gratification of a teacher so much, but the gratitude of a friend.
"Uh," I say. I sink down further down in my chair, rubbing my temples. Jim is looking at me thoughtfully, listening to me, assessing me. For once, I just sit there and let him.
Simon does not appear right away. And when he does he nods in my direction and says, "Jesus, Sandburg, you look like shit. You better get some shuteye before next year."
There is no yelling. Simon cuffs me playfully. But the gesture is not, I realize, as it once was. It is different. It is firmer and less condescending, a little off the mark. It does not further ruffle my gravity-defying hair. I hear the sudden intake of my own breath: I am not the little professor-puppy I once was, tagging around after Jim, getting in the way and generally muddying the waters of unequivocal fraternity and moral clarity. It's a brotherly cuff, a cuff of acceptance, almost, a cuff which hints of crossing over, almost, the fabled Thin Blue Line. I realize that of course I have known about my status change at the station for quite some time now; I have intellectualized and understood it. But the gesture, like any rite of passage worth its salt, drives the point home emotionally at a moment when I need it more than I really care to admit, when I am in danger of slipping into a zone of almost terrifying indefiniteness. It gives me hope.
Jim grins at me. And that does it.
I shuck my academic exhaustion and I slip into it neatly- my Zone, the little bubble of creativity and joy that keeps me going: studying, writing, putting myself in harm's way, watching out for Jim, doing what I have to do. Help, I think, my sense of purpose is returning. Help! I am becoming defined at the edges again. I sit up straighter in my chair. I slap my hand flat down on Jim's desk. I think:
I will show Burke what an outstanding teacher and researcher I am turning out to be.
I will get some beauty sleep and dazzle Shine not only with my youth.
I will write the finest dissertation Rainier has ever seen.
I will do Cascade's Finest proud with my burgeoning detective skills, and my street smarts not in the least dulled by years of bookishness and endless meetings.
I will learn all there is to know about Jim: I will be the friend and guide I am (I think) meant to be.
I will tackle the mystery of existence- and, of course, the mystery so very particular to us. (Or I will give it the old, well, college try, yes I will.)
Oh, I am getting ahead of myself. I am getting manic and outlandish. I am tumbling over myself thinking about all of this as Jim and I lurch out into the dark streets. He sits at the wheel, driving mindlessly and eyeing me thoughtfully.
I shift in the shotgun seat and begin talking. I hear myself-excited, running down my day and my doubts, and subsequently erasing these with an influx of hopes and insights. I go off on tangents. I am divergent and circular and brilliantly witty. I begin to gesticulate wildly. I am happy! I will never be Phil Overman. Phil Overman is a loser! (But I wish him well.) I am happy, solid, real. I am about to crack a case. I am about to find and ground myself in all that I am meant to be.
I am trying to express the more ephemeral aspects of this philosophical position to Jim when he suddenly shoots me a disgusted look and reaches across the seat to slap at my laceless left shoe.
"Sandburg," he says, "Would you mind getting your foot off the shift?" What? Oh, I ...
am such a verbal contortionist that sometimes my body follows.
"Would you prefer it on the accelerator? I ask. I shift over again and Jim smacks me companionably on the left thigh. I grin at him.
The night is young. And I know my mind is out there somewhere.
The End