New Arrivals
Author-Lorelie
Titles

Kryptonite
by Lorelie

Summary: Written with the song Kryptonite in mind. Jim's thoughts as he travels to Central America to see a dying Blair. NOT a death story.

Author's Notes: I was heading to work one day and happened to hear the song Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down. It remined me of Jim and Blair immediately. A month or so later, this idea for a story popped into my head. It's not actually a story, more the thoughts of one of our beloved boys. It's not really A/U, but let's just say I did use a little creative license here.

Disclaimer: The Sentinel is the property of Pet Fly Productions.

I took a walk around the world to
ease my troubled mind
I left my body lying somewhere
in the sands of time
I watched the world float to the dark
side of the moon
I feel there is nothing I can do, yeah

I watched the world float to the
dark side of the moon
After all I knew it had to be something
to do with you
I really don't mind what happens now and then As long as you'll be friend at the end

If I go crazy then would you still
call me Superman?
If I'm alive and well, will you be there holding my hand?
I'll keep you by my side with
my superhuman might
Kryptonite

You called me strong, you called me weak but still your secrets I will keep
You took for granted all the times I
never let you down
You stumbled in and bumped your head, if not for me then you would be dead
I picked you up and put you back
on solid ground

If I go crazy then would you still
call me Superman?
If I'm alive and well, will you be there holding my hand?
I'll keep you by my side with
my superhuman might
Kryptonite

If I go crazy then would you still
call me Superman?
If I'm alive and well, will you be there
holding my hand?
I'll keep you by my side with
my superhuman might
Kryptonite

......... -- 3 Doors Down (the better life)

I step off the plane into the oppressive Central American heat. Making my way through Customs and then Immigration, I look around the small airport and a short man in rumpled clothing catches my eye as he starts to move closer to me.

Holding out his hand, he introduces himself. Funny, I've spoken to this man so many times on the telephone in the past weeks that it seems that I already know him, although we've never met.

I take his outstretched hand and shake it, resisting the urge to put my hands around his neck and wring it.

Professor Eli Stoddard. The man who single handily convinced my best friend and partner to travel to this god-forsaken country. Who allowed Blair go off on his own to study a temple that had been found during their little expedition. Who called me ten days ago to tell me that Blair was missing. Who, while I was making my plans to travel down here to do my own version of search and rescue, called me again, to tell me Blair had been found, but contracted some rare jungle fever while lost.

Who told me that my best friend was dying.

In the car to the hospital, Eli is silent, as am I. The older man keeps looking at me, a combination of pity and guilt on his face. It's the guilt that hits me. As much as I want to hate him for convincing Blair to come down here, deep down inside I realize that it was Blair's decision. And I also realize that Blair didn't have a choice. Lord knows I certainly didn't give him one.

My mind travels back to that fateful day six weeks ago when Blair dropped the bombshell on me. It had only been a few weeks since Blair had declared himself a fraud in front of a nationwide television audience. His decision brought sanity back to my life, but stripped him of his future. Simon and I had come up with a brilliant idea, or so we thought at the time. We spoke to the Commissioner, as well as the Mayor and convinced them to give Sandburg his own gold shield, with the provision that he attend the eight-week training at the Cascade Police Academy and pass the firearms test.

Initially Blair had jumped at the opportunity. He had told me before that he'd have some misgivings on returning to the boring life of an academic once his dissertation was done. The only problem was that the next Academy class wasn't starting for two months, and Sandburg was out of a job until then.

That's when Professor Stoddard called. He was out of the country, on an expedition in Belize, and didn't see Sandburg's press conference. He'd called Blair at the university and had been surprised when his office had told him that Blair had been fired.

He'd said as much to Blair when he reached him, and also told him that it didn't matter, he still wanted him to join him in Belize. Blair tried to tell him that he was no longer a part of that. That he would be starting at the academy in a couple of months, but Stoddard refused to be deterred. They'd found ruins, he said, in the middle of an unexplored area of the jungle. There were carvings and markings on the ruins that no one had been able to translate. He was sure that Blair would be able to. And it didn't matter that Blair no longer worked for Rainier. Stoddard had the authority to hire anyone he wanted to. And no matter what anyone said, he did not believe Blair was a fraud. All Blair needed to do was come down for six weeks, he'd be back before his classes started

I do have to give the kid credit, he did try to resist. But let's face it, anthropology is his first love. And Eli's next words to him got him, hook, line and sinker. Stoddard told him that the only part of the carvings they'd been able to decipher said something about a watchman and a pathfinder.

That was all Sandburg had to hear. He told Eli he'd be there in three days. Then all he had to do was break the news to me.

I knew that something was up the minute I got home that night. Blair Sandburg is not a still man, nor is he quiet. Even when he's sitting down, he's always moving and talking, his arms moving wildly about.

That night, my friend was strangely silent.

As we sat down for supper, I couldn't take the silence anymore and asked Blair what was up.

He knew better than to try to lie to me. One thing he'd learned living with a Sentinel, is that I can tell when he'd lying literally in a heartbeat. It's one of the things that makes doing my job easier, but it's got to be hell for my friends.

So Sandburg told me everything. That Stoddard had called. That the man wanted Blair to join him is South America to see these ruins they had found. And that Blair had agreed to go.

Looking back on it now. I realize that I handled the situation entirely wrong. Big surprise right? Hell, looking back on my entire friendship with Sandburg, sometimes it seems that there are more situations I handled wrong that right.

My first thought was of course, selfish. That he'd get down there, and decide not to come back. Deep down inside of me, I know that Blair was settling on being a cop. That if he'd had the chance, he'd go back to anthropology in a second. Sandburg denies this of course, but come on, you don't spend that many years in college working for your Ph.D. not to resent the person who caused you to lose it.

Anyway, I flew off the handle, telling him that he was deserting me, that Simon and I had to jump through hoops to even get him the opportunity to join the force.

Even when he told me what the professor had said about translations that had been made on the artifacts that had been found, I wasn't satisfied. I accused him of using the Sentinel thing as an excuse for going.

Needless to say, my temper tantrum only solidified Sandburg's resolve to go. Three days later, he kept his word to Eli, and left Cascade.

We pretty much weren't even speaking by the time he left, but he was kind enough to let me know that he'd arrived safely. That strained conversation was the last time I spoke to my best friend.

As the weeks went by, I started feeling really crappy about the way I had treated Blair, and the things I had said. I kept hoping he would call, so I could apologize, and ask him to hurry back. My senses had gone haywire soon after he left, and Megan had pretty much given up on trying to help me. Not to mention the horrible migraine headaches I kept ending up with. Simon finally ended up putting me on sick leave until Blair got back.

Then four weeks after Sandburg left, Eli called. Blair and two other colleagues had become lost in the jungle while searching for additional ruins. The growth in that part of the jungle was extremely dense, and the thought was that they had lost their way in it. The bodies of the other two had been found a few days later, dead of dehydration. Blair was nowhere to be found.

And so I started to make my plans to travel back to Central America myself. To try, as I said before, my own form of Search and Rescue. That's another positive to having hyper-senses, you can see and hear things no once else can. My only concern was, as I had learned trying to work without Blair in Cascade, it was a lot easier to use my abilities with him there to ground me.

It was while I was waiting for these plans to finalize that I got the second call from Eli. Blair had been found. Near a new set of ruins, previously undiscovered. He'd survived his ordeal in the hot, humid jungle. But had somehow contracted a virus of some type, leaving him delirious.

He'd been taken to the local hospital, they'd tried to treat the fever with antibiotics, to no avail. Eli's last conversation with me before I caught my plane out of Cascade yesterday was to hurry, Blair had slipped into a coma and wasn't expected to last much longer.

We pull up to the hospital, and enter the small hospital, which looks more like a motel than a medical facility. I follow Stoddard down the long hallway to the Intensive Care Unit. We are met by a young woman in a white coat, who is introduced to me as Dr. Ruiz. She smiles and shakes my hand, then proceeds to update me on Sandburg's condition. It hasn't changed much since Eli had left to pick me up at the airport. Blair remains a coma, completely unresponsive. The doctors are puzzled. By all rights, he should have been dead several days ago.

As we make our way to his room, thoughts continue to spin in my head, fighting to be heard. It hits me that this is probably the last time that I'll see Blair alive, to hear his heartbeat. How sad that I won't be able to hear his soothing voice, or see his expressive eyes once more.

Dr. Ruiz stops at a doorway and opens it, moving back so I can step inside. Looking at the small figure lying in the hospital bed, it is then that everything becomes clear. I suddenly realize just how awesome a loss I am about to experience here, how much of a loss the world is about to experience.

All the events of the last four years run through my mind, from the day I walked into Blair's cluttered 'office' to the day he held that fateful press conference.

Then, I hear Incacha's voice in my head. "You finally have learned the truth."

Tears well in my eyes as I move to stand next to Blair's bed, taking one of his hand in mine.

Yes, I finally realize the truth. This 'Sentinel thing' isn't just about me. It's about us. Blair and me. He called it on the first day we met. Every Sentinel needs a Guide, someone to watch his back. And Blair was... is my Guide. As predisposed to be one as I am a Sentinel.

And now it's too late. I finally realized that he's as much of a brass ring as I am, and I'm loosing him. This man, my partner, best friend, other half of my soul is slipping away from me, and there's nothing I can do to stop him.

The tears are falling in earnest now, and I do nothing to stop them. They drip down onto the sheets and fall onto our clasped hands.

I know I may only have a few moments to tell him how much he means to me, so I take a deep breath and begin to speak, my voice breaking with emotion.

I tell him how sorry I am about everything. What I said before he left Cascade. About the whole dissertation fiasco. How I treated him when Alex showed up. Everything. I pour my soul out to him. Then I tell him what I've just realized, that it takes both a Guide and Sentinel to make this thing work. That he's as much a part of this whole thing as I am. Then I implore him.

"Please Blair, don't go, I need you."

The beeping on the heart monitor begins to slow, telling me what I already know by monitoring my Guide's heartbeat myself. I realize that I am too late, that in minute he will be gone.

Then suddenly, the beeping increases, and I feel the hand I am holding squeeze mine. Looking down at the beloved face, I see his eyelids flutter against his pale skin. Then miraculously, they open, and a small smile appears on his face.

At first I think that I must be dreaming, or I've zoned and am seeing things. But then I hear his voice, a raspy whisper that only my hearing can pick up.

"I'm not going anywhere Jim. I learned my lesson in the jungle, I just had to make sure that you had learned yours."

The change in monitors have alerted the medical staff, and Dr. Ruiz rushes in with several nurses.

As I'm ushered out of the room, I catch Eli's eye, trying to reassure him that somehow a miracle has happened here.

The look on his face is not so much relief, but of satisfaction. As if he himself has performed some great trick.

The past few days have been such an emotional rollercoaster that the look doesn't even surprise me. At this point, I don't care about anything except the young man lying in the hospital bed.

Somehow, we both had an epiphany, and I thank God that it didn't come to late for either of us. There are many questions to be asked, and answered, and I can't help but think that our lives will never be the same. But that doesn't matter. I know that Blair will always be by my side, and we will continue to exist as Sentinel and Guide.

Finis