Warnings, etc. see "Reunion - Prologue"

The next morning dawned late and slow. But that was okay; they'd both needed the rest. And when, after waking, Blair began to leisurely divest both Jim and himself from their clothes, then, just as leisurely, start working his talented hands and mouth all over Jim's body, it was clear that they were both equally starved for a little unhurried and relaxed love-making after the mostly fast and frantic sex of the previous weeks, the residual stink of harbor water be damned.

Without hesitation, and with a guttural groan, Jim gave himself over to Blair, soaking up his skillful touch that always hit the right spots with the right intensity, sometimes feather-light, sometimes teeth-on-nipple sharp. Growing waves of pleasure rolled from his toes to the roots of his hair and back, until it centered, glowing hot, in his gut and he came into Blair's mouth in an orgasm so long and drawn out, he thought it would never end.

"Morning," Blair greeted him when he woke up not much later, sneezing. Looking at Blair he found him smiling wickedly to himself, the feather he'd tickled Jim's nose with still in his hand. Jim glanced at the clock on his nightstand and saw that it was almost eleven but, for his part, it was still too early for speech. Instead he answered Blair with a sloppy kiss and, to his pleasure, Blair yielded to his tongue immediately, making those sweet and irresistible purring noises Jim loved, fueling his intention and desire to even the score between them before they got up. Roaming Blair's body with touches from his own hands and mouth, he didn't stop until he'd transformed Blair into a slobbering, blissed-out mound of flesh, softly snoring in the aftermath of what he hoped was as earth-shattering a climax as his own had been. He sighed happily and relaxed back into his pillow. So what if Simon dropped in on them while they were still in their pj's. It wouldn't be the first time.

As it turned out, though, they'd long since showered and dressed, and still Simon hadn't shown up. It was well past noon by then and, standing in the kitchen to put together a late breakfast, Jim wondered if he should make enough for Simon, too. Then again, he assumed Simon was being held up at the station and there was no telling how long that would take. The thought filled him with sudden gratitude that the times when his and Blair's lives had been dictated by rules, reports and shift hours were long over.

Not that he'd ever been too much of a 'by the book' kind of guy, of course. Thanks to Simon he'd been able to conduct most of his cases pretty much on his own, but it hadn't been the same as being your own boss. He'd never been independent for real, never truly free; the fear of consequences, the worst of which he'd considered to be the loss of his job, had always been looming somewhere in the back of his mind. It had been liberating, to say the least, to learn that not being a detective any more wasn't the end of his world. And yeah, not having to turn up at the office after a day like yesterday definitely had its perks.

He shook his head, wondering about the train his thoughts were taking and the odd mood he seemed to be in. On the surface he felt as relaxed and happy as he had been in a long time, almost giddy with relief that last night was over and that he and Blair had come out of it with nothing more than a few bumps and bruises. All morning he'd latched onto every positive thought his mind came up with like a starving man. Like how cute Blair looked just now while he concentrated, reading the news on the net, how lucky they were to still have the ingredients for his special breakfast omelet in their otherwise yawningly empty cupboards, or -- yeah -- how it was the best thing since the invention of weekends that they didn't have to go into the station today.

As if any of that mattered. As if it wasn't just so he didn't have to think about what else lurked in the back of his mind: the knowledge that not everything was quite that peachy today; that -- the very real danger the operation had presented aside -- much of what had worried him about the reunion before hadn't yet been settled at all, not everything was resolved, and the specters of his doubts and worries were still hiding in the shadows.

Had been hiding. Fuck. From one moment to the next, now that he'd acknowledged their presence, the chasm between his high spirits and what his subconscious had been hiding from him opened up like an abyss before him and he felt his good mood slipping away like water down an icy hole. Suddenly it wasn't as easy anymore to just lightly whip the eggs. Rigid tension took hold of him, inevitable and uncontrollable. He tried to counter it with brute force but that only made it worse. The whisk's handle slipped from his fingers and jumped out of the bowl, coating the counter top and God knew what else with slimy, foamy eggs.

"Fuck!" This time the curse erupted out of him as he ripped his apron off and threw it into the sink; it was all he could do not to follow through by swiping the bowl and everything else from the counter as well, as a sudden, vicious wave of anger and frustration rolled through him. With monumental effort he rammed both his palms against the rounded edge of the counter instead, leaned his weight on his arms and started taking deep, panting breaths.

A hand appeared on his shoulder, warm and pleasant, kneading the tense muscles there firmly. Reluctantly, not really wanting Blair to be witness to his losing control like that, but inexorably glad for his presence nonetheless, Jim leaned into the touch and felt calm and reason radiating from it, smoothing his temper like only Blair's presence could.

"Why don't you come sit with me for a while," Blair asked, his tone gentle and low but not rising to make it a question. "I think it's time we had a talk."

Jim shook his head, sure he didn't want to talk any more than he'd wanted to give control back to the dark thoughts that had plagued him for weeks, least of all with Blair. But he couldn't resist that voice, Blair's guide voice, the one that reached right down to his soul, that promised peace and relief when nothing else would help, when even his own mind and body had forsaken him. Trance-like, only dimly aware that Blair leaned on him as much as he guided Blair to keep weight off his foot, he followed him to the couch and sat when Blair indicated the seat beside him.

A long silence followed, but Jim wasn't about to break it unprompted. He just sat there, quietly, while the last of his anger seeped out, to be replaced by a low hum of nervousness for what was to come. He really, really didn't want to talk.

"First of all, I owe you an explanation," Blair said at last, straightening as if to brace himself. "I should have told you about Kelly and me from the start but it was...I just couldn't. I hope you can forgive me for that."

Jim frowned, staring at Blair. This was not what he'd expected. "Chief, you have nothing to apologize for. You don't owe me a thing!"

Blair smiled sadly and shook his head. "Yeah, I do. I knew you were getting the wrong idea about everything and I should have talked to you about all this weeks ago, but...I guess I was just too fucked up about all of this and not thinking too straight, you know? Maybe I'm not even thinking straight now, but I gotta try. Just...just hear me out okay?"

Jim shrugged, even more confused but also relieved not to have to bare his own soul just yet. "Okay," he said. "I'm listening."

Blair smiled, gratefully if not actually happily, but he found and squeezed Jim's knee. Then he took a deep breath and his expression slackened as, Jim assumed, his mind traveled years down memory lane.

"All of this...it's happened so long ago," he began, shaking his head. "Until a few weeks ago I thought I'd left it all behind me but...I guess I was just kidding myself. Seems I...uh...when I want to I can be just as good at repressing things as you are," he said, pulling his lips into a self-deprecating grimace while Jim's frown deepened.

"Kelly and I...I can't explain why; it wasn't love or anything. But we really hit it off back then. Right from the start. Without her...it's pretty safe to say that my year at East Green High wouldn't have been half as much fun. In fact, it probably would've been pretty Goddamn awful. We met during the last lesson on my first day at school and, man, she was my savior. Everybody else had treated me like a dork until then, which, considering that I was two years younger than most of them and looked like a dork, wasn't too surprising, I guess." He said this with a small grin, shrugging his shoulders with a kind of what-can-you-do resignation, but the gesture couldn't hide that he probably hadn't been so cool about it at the time. Jim was reminded of Alec Summers and Blair's reluctant admission that he hadn't been so different at that age, and from that image it wasn't hard to guess how difficult a time Blair'd probably had getting accepted among the other students.

"Anyway," Blair continued, "the last class that day was a literature course and Kelly was unlucky enough to get seated next to me. I mean, seriously, from the way everybody else had reacted so far, you'd think I had bubonic plague or something. But not Kelly; she actually smiled at me when I walked up, so she made instant first place on my list of people who maybe didn't suck." He chuckled. "Well, and when she started ticking off the books and plays Mrs. Hintermeyer said we were going to study that semester, you know, like she'd read them all already, she scored about a million points more. I mean, I'd read them all, too, but I hadn't met many other people yet who read as much as I did, let alone people my age, so talk about being seriously impressed." He grinned and blushed a cute red.

"Guess I must have been kinda obvious about that, too, 'cause she looked over at me then, and when she noticed I'd ticked off my list, too, she gave me another smile. And then she almost killed me by pointing at herself and mouthing 'bookworm'. I don't know. She could have turned out to be a complete asshole after that and I'd still have liked her." He shrugged, grinning, then seemed to notice what he'd said and hurried to add, "But she didn't, of course. Turn out to be an asshole, I mean. She was just as nice as she looked. I found that out right after class when we could talk. She was totally interesting and actually respected me. We got so carried away that neither one of us got home for hours that day. We just went out, hung around the park and discussed books. "

Blair was smiling, his look almost dreamy, much like he'd looked the first time he'd told Jim about his year at East Green High. And now Jim realized that, even though the name 'Kelly' had never made it past his lips at the time, she'd had to have been at the root of Blair's fond memories all along. If it hadn't already been obvious, he'd know just from that that she'd been more than just a friend. It seemed Blair had found in her a kindred soul, unlike anyone else he'd ever met before.

Maybe not even since, Jim pondered, and though he immediately chastised himself for the thought, it caused a small twitch in his gut.

"We became inseparable after that. Seriously. We hung out together all the time. We even managed to find a job together at the local library. It was the perfect deal for them; they ended up having two people working for the price of one 'cause we'd always both be there, even if only one of us was on shift. And when nothing else was going on I took Kelly home with me. As it turned out, she and Naomi got along great, too. Mom didn't even mind that Kelly always called her a guru and said she was talking nonsense when she told us about one of her, you know, more esoteric ideas. Naomi'd just say 'I hear you' and that was that. I guess she adored Kelly too much to take it personally, and, anyway, deep down inside I think they both had more respect for each other than they'd ever have admitted to."

Jim nodded along to this. Over the years he'd had many disagreements with Naomi, not all of them resolved, but theirs had always been a relationship based on deeply-rooted mutual respect, too. That and their common goal of having the best for Blair at heart, of course, though that was also what they often didn't see eye-to-eye on. But in the end it was just that honesty and outspokenness between them that had brought Naomi closer to him than any of his own family had ever been.

"It was almost like we were a family," Blair sighed, jerking Jim out of his musings with his unconscious mirroring of the same line of thought. "Like Kelly was my sister or cousin or something. I mean, she spent so much time at our house it was almost like she lived there, too. And it was so great to always have somebody to talk to, you know? I mean someone who wasn't my mother. I can't remember ever having been so happy before," Blair said, still with that captivating, dreamy look on his face.

But then he blew out a breath and brushed a hand through his hair, taking his time untangling the thick curly strands; and all the while his face gradually lost its smile until he sat there, obviously still lost in thought, but with all trace of happy memories gone.

Only then did Jim remember the conversation between Blair and Meinberg in Simon's office and that, despite how otherwise fondly Blair remembered his time at East Green High, his and Kelly's story must have taken a rather sharp turn at some point. He also remembered that he'd been very curious, not to mention a bit alarmed by the hints that had been dropped, but, with the guilt and worry that Blair's reaction to the reunion invitation had already brought back that day, awakening his ever-present doubts about his influence on Blair's life, he'd already been walking on eggshells around Blair. Making Blair talk more about his past had been the very last thing he'd wanted. And, in the end, knowing that he would not -- could not -- ask Blair about it, he'd just pushed the whole thing from his mind. So much so, it seemed, that he'd almost completely forgotten about it.

As he watched, Blair's expression changed from solemn to closed off and a growing tension took hold of him. He started to knead his hands in his lap, nervously fumbling with the bandage around his wrist, and Jim realized that he couldn't find any more desire in himself to make Blair relive this part of his life now than in Simon's office, if for slightly less selfish reasons.

"Chief, you don't have to tell me this. If you don't want to, you---"

But Blair wouldn't even let him finish. "No, Jim, it's okay," he interrupted. "Really. I need to talk about this. I've been bottling this up far too long as it is. Just...give me a little time and hear me out, okay?"

Jim sighed, feeling uncomfortable and having his doubts that this was a good idea. But it seemed that it was his problem. If Blair wanted him to hear this he would damn well listen.

"One day, just a couple of weeks before graduation, I got out of class later than Kelly. But we had this meeting point where one of us would always wait for the other, so that's where I went. Only when I got there, she wasn't alone. There was an older guy with her and it looked like they were arguing, like he wanted Kelly to come with him, but she didn't want to go." He waved a hand in the air. "I guess I don't have to tell you that I didn't like what I was seeing and grew worried, but at first I wasn't sure what to do. I'd never seen the guy before. All I knew was that he couldn't be her father because Kelly had told me her father had died years ago. In the end I decided to just find out what was going on and walked up to them." He shrugged a shoulder and chewed his lips for a moment, while his expression grew even darker. "I still remember how Kelly looked when she saw me. I'd never seen anybody so scared. The next thing I know she suddenly changed her mind and let herself be pushed into this guy's car. They'd driven off before I could catch up."

Jim swallowed, remembering more about the conversation between Blair and Meinberg, and that it had included Kelly having filed charges against an F.B.I. agent for abuse. "I take it this guy was---What was his name? Thorpe? Thor---"

"Thornton," Blair answered, blowing the name out on a derisive sigh while pulling his hands through his hair. "F.B.I. Agent Mike Thornton, as Kelly told me later. I called her immediately after I got home. She also told me that this guy was her mother's boyfriend. And when I asked what the hell had happened there at school, she just said that it had been some misunderstanding and that there was no need to worry." Blair pressed his lips together, shaking his head. "I didn't believe her, of course. It sounded way too fishy, but then...I also didn't know what to believe. It was so surreal, like a bad dream or something. And then, when Kelly came by later that night and seemed fine...I don't know. It was just so easy to pass it all off as some fluke, you know? Especially since it was clear that it would only annoy Kelly if I went on asking her about it."

Blair pulled his hand through his hair yet again and then rubbed his face. "You don't know how many times I've thought about this and asked myself, how I could have been so fucking ignorant. I mean it wasn't as though I hadn't, in some way at least, recognized other things, too. Odd things, you know? Like how she never really wanted to talk about home, much less had ever invited me there; how I'd never even gotten to know her mother; how she wore long trousers and long-sleeved shirts all year around and how the stress of finishing the school year was making her, like, the clumsiest person I'd ever known from all the times she managed to fall or bump her head against something or hurt herself in other ways. But then again...we'd always made fun of that together, you know? And all along I was just so damned happy at having her around all the time, I...I didn't find anything wrong with it."

Tears were beginning to form in Blair's eyes and he wiped at them angrily. Then he turned to Jim and...he didn't look at Jim -- of course he didn't -- but his forehead was creased, his eyes wide, and it was so easy for Jim to imagine those blue eyes penetrating his soul like they had so often before, filling it with the emotions he could read in every line on Blair's face: the pain of disbelief, the self-accusation and vulnerability as he doubted and questioned himself and his long-ago actions, or lack thereof.

He reached out with a hand and squeezed Blair's thigh, desperate for words to convey how unfair he thought Blair was being towards himself, how much he -- Jim -- didn't think Blair had anything to feel guilty about. But before he could say anything, Blair took a deep breath and the moment had passed.

"It wasn't until weeks later that I found out what went on, for real. That day Kelly didn't come to work. By then we'd graduated and had started this summer job at a law firm doing research for some of their cases. I was worried when Kelly didn't show up and hadn't even called. So I called her and got her mother on the phone. She told me that Kelly was sick but that 'I didn't need to worry'". Blair raised his hands to make quote signs in the air. "Talk about alarm bells going off, man. It sounded dead wrong, like she'd been crying or something. And all of a sudden I remembered Thornton and almost panicked. I didn't even wait for her to agree. I just told her that I'd come by immediately and set off.

"Thornton wasn't there when I arrived, fortunately, but when Kelly's mother opened the door and I saw her black eye, I knew what had happened. I mean, a part of me still didn't want to believe it, but there was just no denying that she'd been hit. And then she showed me into Kelly's room, and...she looked like road-kill, man. Black and blue everywhere I could see. It was awful."

He shook his head, compressing his lips. "I don't remember much of what happened after that. I guess I was in some sort of shock or something. But I think I called an ambulance because I remember arguing with Kelly about it. After that, the first clear memory I have is sitting next to her bed at the hospital. That's when she told me what was going on."

Jim noticed that Blair's legs had started to twitch uncontrollably. It was a sign he'd always read to mean that Blair needed, desperately, to pace, but was suppressing the urge for obvious reasons. Not today, though. In a sudden flash Blair's nervous agitation seemed to be getting the better of him and he stood, his injured foot forgotten, finding his way around the couch in jerky but deliberate movements. Eventually he stood, one hand on the back of the couch, and began to pace the length of it. It only took a couple of repetitions back and forth until the hand was no longer needed and he let go of the couch, pacing freely. If it helped him Jim couldn't tell.

"She told me Thornton had been abusing her mother almost since the start of their relationship two years ago, but that he'd only started getting physical with her around the beginning of the year. I don't know if that was supposed to reassure me, but it definitely didn't. Not even when she said that, like with her mother, it had started slow. All I knew was that this guy had been beating her regularly for months, while I'd been standing by, blind to it all, ignorantly living in my own happy little world."

Blair paused, balling his hands into fists, and this time Jim couldn't let what he'd said go by. He had to say something, so he said the first thing that came to his mind. "Don't forget that you gave her a happy world to retreat to whenever she was with you, too, Chief. I bet that played a big role for her and was the reason she didn't want you to know."

It wasn't a bad argument, he thought, but Blair shrugged his shoulders, seeming far from convinced. "Well, you have a point," he said, though, surprising Jim, but then ruined it by explaining. "'Cause as it turned out, I wouldn't have been able to do a damn thing anyway. I'd just have realized that earlier." He pushed out a breath, and Jim braced himself, too, fearing he knew what was coming, reminded of what else had been said in Simon's office.

"I already knew Thornton was F.B.I.. But, despite what you might think about how Naomi raised me, I had trust in the police and law enforcement system of our country. I didn't think it would matter who Thornton was. Nobody was above the law. Of course, if I'd stopped to think it through, it might have occurred to me that neither Kelly's mother nor Kelly herself were just letting Thornton treat them that way without reason, but I didn't. So, when I confronted Kelly about it, asking her why the hell she hadn't filed charges against Thornton yet, it hit me like a ton of bricks when she told me that she knew the police weren't interested in helping them; that they'd been called several times by the neighbors in the past but had always left after Thornton had exchanged a few words with them, never so much as checking up on either her or her mother personally. She also had an explanation. Apparently Thornton had come up through the ranks of the police before he'd become a Fed, and had worked at the local department. She said he still had friends there, monthly poker rounds included."

Jim ground his teeth. It wasn't as though this was news to him; he'd remembered as much from Blair's argument with Meinberg, but it still wasn't easy to hear about such corruption on his home turf. "I don't know what to say, Chief," he commented when Blair paused. "This almost makes me ashamed to have been part of that same organization."

Blair rolled his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous. We were both cops at CPD. We know something like that couldn't have happened in Major Crimes, but we also both know that it has happened and does still happen in other departments. Still doesn't mean the whole outfit is corrupt." He waved the issue off. "Anyway, as I found out, the cops' ignoring the neighbors' calls wasn't even the worst of it back then." He shook his head at himself. "Which, I guess, is also my fault. I sort of pushed them into a corner," he said, blowing out a shivering sigh.

"The thing is, even after what Kelly had told me, I just couldn't believe that the cops really wouldn't do anything if someone actually pressed charges, you know? And I was so afraid about what would happen the next time Thornton got into one of his tempers. This time Kelly had been lucky. Her injuries had looked far more severe than they'd been, and she was released from the hospital the next day, but she'd as much as told me that things were getting progressively worse. I just couldn't stand by and let that continue."

He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. "So I talked to her; for three days, non-stop, to convince her that she couldn't let this continue either, that she had to do something about it. It was a horrible time; we argued and argued and I wouldn't let up, even though I knew I was hurting her even more by pressuring her. And eventually I got her to the point where she gave in. It probably really was just so I'd shut up, I guess, but I was relieved anyway. She agreed to try and file official charges against Thornton and, a week later, we took the photos they'd made of her at the hospital and I accompanied her to the police department."

Blair had stopped his pacing at one end of the couch at that moment, though not because he was any calmer than before. He was breathing hard, shaking a little, but trying to control his agitation. Jim could see his face twitch, as if he felt physical pain at the memory. He wanted to get up and take Blair into his arms, tell him that it was okay, that he didn't need to know all this, that Blair didn't have to tell him. But he knew the comfort wouldn't be appreciated. Not yet. Blair was deeply caught up in this story now, and the only way out of that self-imposed prison was to finish it.

When he spoke again, Blair was talking faster. "I'd been talking myself into this so much that I was completely convinced that this was gonna be the solution," he said, making his point with his hands that snapped through the air. "There was no risk. This was it. After Kelly had given her testimony, after they knew what he'd done to her, seen the pictures, they'd be fucking forced to help her and would arrest Thornton immediately. It would all be over. Kelly and her mother would be free," he said, balling his hands into fists. But then his shoulders sank and he let them fall. When he continued he looked nothing but defeated, almost sick.

"You already know it didn't happen that way, but...after Kelly's testimony, when they told us that her case wasn't 'believable', almost threatened us, accusing us of attempting to soil the reputation of an upstanding officer of the law, I...I couldn't believe it. I thought I was dreaming, that it was a nightmare, that I had to be waking up from it any moment now."

He shook his head in grim defeat, now looking more disgusted than sick. "But it was all true. And it only got worse when we left the station. Because that's when I understood what I'd done. As I said, I'd never actually thought about what would happen if going to the police didn't work out. It just hadn't been an option. It just...I'd never thought about what...what would happen if Thornton found out."

He squeezed his eyes shut again, making tears run down his cheeks. "Of course it was far too late to start making plans by then, so I panicked; told Kelly that she couldn't go home that night, that she needed to come live with me; at least until college started, that Thornton would kill her if he got a hold of her. But she simply refused, said she wasn't gonna leave her mother alone, and that was that. It was...it was almost scary. Like she didn't care at all what happened now. Like she'd expected this all along and had resigned herself to her fate."

There was a small silence, then Blair admitted in a low, breathless voice, "At the time I was almost ready to give up, too. I just didn't know what else to do. And the way she'd talked about not leaving her mom...it dawned on me then that college wouldn't be the solution either. She hadn't said it in so many words, but that day I knew she wasn't gonna go to UCLA, not as long as it meant leaving her mother behind, at the hands of that bastard."

He let his shoulders slump and sighed. His hands fell back to his sides making him stand still and looking forlorn.

As much as Jim didn't want to hear any of this he wished Blair would just get it over with. Because clearly there was more. He cleared his throat, resigned to have to ask Blair what had happened next, but then Blair shifted his stance, the noise having shaken him out of his reverie already, it seemed.

"Served me right to feel as I did," he started, "but as it turned out, there was no need. Seems the cops had some decency after all. Obviously they just filed the complaint away and forgot all about it. I don't believe they ever told Thornton about what Kelly and I had tried to do. At least Thornton never said anything. Which doesn't mean it didn't get worse, though, just not right away."

He blew out a long sigh and, though his stringy, sorry looking hair couldn't possibly be tickling his face any more, pulled his hand once more through his curls.

"On the surface, things actually got back to normal at first. Kelly and I were working at the law firm again. I'd made Kelly swear to tell me when he hit her again, but she said things were okay. Whatever that meant. And eventually I relaxed enough to believe that at least our going to the police wasn't gonna have consequences.

"Only a couple of weeks later, however, the same thing happened again. Kelly didn't show up for work and this time I didn't hesitate. I called her home right away, and when nobody answered, I panicked. I don't know what I'd have done if Kelly hadn't called, herself, at that moment. From the hospital. Only this time it was her mother who'd been hurt.

"Kelly was too upset to explain what had happened on the phone, so I couldn't tell if it had been Thornton or an accident. What she said just didn't make much sense. When I got to the hospital myself I understood why. Apparently her mother and Thornton had had an argument and Kelly's mother had fallen down the stairs. And whether she'd been pushed or stumbled was hard to tell, because Kelly's mother had been completely drunk at the time."

He said that with a poisonoulsy false tone of cheer in his voice, pulling his mouth into a disgusted sneer, then let it sink in and sink in it did. An alcohol problem on top of it all, Jim thought. But it wasn't really a surprise. Actually it was par for the course in domestic abuse cases, but that didn't make it any easier to imagine the situation Kelly and Blair had faced.

Meanwhile Blair had shuffled to the dinner table, groped for a chair and had let himself fall into it. "Another thing I hadn't known, by the way," he stated. "Kelly said her mother's drinking hadn't gotten really 'bad' until recently, after Kelly had come out of the hospital, but it obviously wasn't new, either. Then again, it didn't really matter for how long I'd managed to miss that, too. What was obvious was that the whole situation was just steadily getting worse. And if nobody put a stop to it...." He trailed off.

Jim swallowed hard, trying to reassure himself with the knowledge that it couldn't have come to the worst in this case. Somehow it had all ended okay.

"Kelly finally began to realize it, too," Blair continued. "At least I think she did. The scare with her mother---I mean, like Kelly, she'd been lucky, too, in a way. She'd hit her head and there was a bleeding in her brain, but the doctors were able to drain it without complication. And after that she recovered pretty quickly. But it could have so easily ended a whole lot worse, and coming so close to losing her mother must have---I don't know---flipped a switch in Kelly."

Jim tensed, his discomfort at listening to this painful story shifting to unease. "What do you mean, Chief? What did she do?"

Blair had started to tremble, Jim saw. First only ever so slightly, but, as he asked, it got more pronounced. It was then that he realized that they hadn't gotten to the worst yet after all; the climax of Blair's story was yet to come. His stomach bottomed out at the thought of what might top all the tragedy and horror Blair had already told him about. "What did she do, Chief?" he repeated, barely able to squeeze the words past the constriction in his throat.

Blair's voice was just as breathless. Jim had to turn up his hearing to understand him. "She set me up, that's what she did. She set me up to kill Thornton and she almost succeeded."

"WHAT?" Jim erupted. He was up from the couch and around it in a few quick steps, coming to a halt a couple of yards from Blair. "She did what?"

Blair stood up, too, his lips pressed together, his face glowing red. He gripped the edge of the table so hard his knuckles showed gleaming white. "She set me up!" he repeated from between clenched teeth. "She made sure I knew she had a loaded gun in her nightstand and set Thornton onto me, hoping I'd kill him for her."

This was too much for Jim. He closed the gap between them and gripped Blair by the shoulders. "Whoa, Chief! Back up there for a minute. This is going a little fast for me. First of all, how did she get a gun?"

He'd meant to ask gently, just to get the information. But he was upset and the question came out rougher than he'd intended. He regretted asking it as soon as it was out, but by then it was too late.

Blair twisted away from him, shaking off his hands and bringing the chair in between them, his movements screaming anger. "How am I supposed to know?" he shouted. "Are you accusing me of giving it to her? Is that what you're thinking? That I thought she'd stand a chance of defending herself against Thornton with a fucking gun?"

Jim raised his hands in supplication. "Whoa, whoa, Chief, I said no such thing, and I wasn't thinking it, either. I'm sorry the question came out that way. I was just...shocked."

"Yeah, well," Blair said, deflating only a little and staying behind the chair. "So was I when she showed it to me. All I could think to do was to tell her that she had to get rid of it immediately, that it would only get her killed. But...but she simply refused and put in her nightstand instead. Right in front of my eyes. So she could be sure I knew where it was, too."

"Jesus," Jim sighed, brushing both hands over his face until he had them folded in front of his chin, tapping his lips with his forefingers. Then something occurred to him and he frowned. "You said you were at Kelly's? But I thought you never spent any time there?"

Blair grimaced. "Yeah, but that was before Kelly had been injured. When she got home from the hospital, no way was I not going to see her until she could go out again by herself. So we worked out this system of how I'd sneak out her window when Thornton showed up. It was close a few times, but I never got caught. And, well, then Kelly's mother was injured, too, and when she was released from the hospital she couldn't stay alone all the time, either. So Kelly cared for her and I helped her."

Jim pursed his lips. "And sometime during that time she showed you the gun," he asked.

Blair nodded.

Jim took a deep breath, making sure that, this time, he'd be in control of his voice. "Okay. Now tell me how the rest of it happened, Chief. How did she manage to set you up?"

Blair had his face turned away from Jim, but he could see that Blair had his mouth clenched firmly shut. For a few moments he wasn't sure Blair would answer at all. Then Blair suddenly turned the chair and sat down again stiffly. He brushed his hands over his face, then folded them in his lap, finally looking as though he was ready to speak. But it took another eternal minute until he actually did.

"I was in her room. Her mother was sleeping and Thornton was not supposed to show up again that day. Kelly said it was his poker night." He pursed his lips, then chewed them for a second. "I guess she must have known where he was and called him or something. To me she said she was going to grab a shower but she didn't come back for ages. Eventually I was getting a little worried and was about to go look for her, but before I could make it out of her room Thornton was there, looking madder as hell and talking about breaking every bone in my body for getting Kelly pregnant."

Jim's eyes grew wide, but he quenched his urge to comment. The faster Blair got this out the better.

"There was no time to think. All I knew was that this guy was going to kill me if I didn't do anything and that there was a gun in the nightstand. The next second I held it in my hands, pointing it at Thornton." Blair took a shaky breath. "Talk about shock, man. For a moment I think he was just as surprised as I was. Unfortunately he recovered, and it was clear that he didn't take me seriously. He came at me and the gun wasn't working, and in my mind I was already flashing on how he was going to kill me with his bare hands. Finally I remembered that I'd forgotten the safety and switched it off. That's what stopped him. Suddenly he actually looked afraid. Which is understandable, I guess. I was, like, shaking from head to toe and beyond scared and that must have worked to my advantage. Thornton must have realized that the gun could have gone off in my hands any moment even without me consciously pulling the trigger."

There was a small pause as Blair seemed to be reflecting on what he'd just said, how close to killing Thornton he'd come. His face was white and he swallowed a couple of times.

Jim just stared at him, open-mouthed.

"I have no idea how I actually got past him and out of the house," Blair continued. "But the next thing I remember is puking my guts out in my mother's garden after I'd run all the way home. That and being horrified when I found I was still holding the gun. It was all I could do not to just fling it away into the bushes. Instead I put the safety back on, dug a hole under the rose bushes and hid it."

Blair slumped against the back of the chair, blowing out a long breath, relaxing for the first time in what seemed like eternity.

Jim didn't quite feel that way. He was still reeling with what Blair had told him. Logically he knew, of course, that it had all happened more than a decade ago, that it must have ended more or less okay, but he shook with the horror of all the could-have-beens, how Blair could have easily been killed by that monster, or worse, might have been forced to kill a man himself. "Fuck, Chief!" he exclaimed when he had himself under enough control again to form words.

Blair nodded, his expression serious. "That's pretty much what I thought, too."

Jim rubbed his neck, finding muscles rock-hard with tension. "What happened then? Did Thornton come after you? Did you go to the police?"

Blair puffed out air in exasperation. "The police," he stated in annoyed disbelief.

Jim wanted to smack himself. "Of course, Chief. Sorry. But Thornton didn't just give up, did he?"

Blair shrugged. "Actually he did. But only thanks to Kelly, as I found out later. Apparently she'd never actually told him that I was the father of her 'child'. She'd just counted on him thinking it was me at first and 'corrected'" -- he rolled his eyes at the word -- "the misunderstanding when she realized her plan hadn't worked. The interesting thing is that, even though he must have been angry as hell with her, he never touched her. Seems hitting a pregnant woman was crossing a line even for him."

"I don't understand, Chief. So Kelly was pregnant for real? By whom?"

"No, no, of course she wasn't. It was all a lie. She was just smart enough not to tell Thornton that."

Jim massaged the bridge of his nose while dropping down into a chair across from Blair at the table. He was getting a hell of a headache.

"So...I guess you were pretty angry with her, weren't you?"

Blair didn't answer right away and again Jim realized too late that his question was far from as innocent as he'd thought. New tears appeared in Blair's eyes and his jaw quavered as he suppressed a sob. "You have no idea, man," he said eventually. "You have no idea."

A memory from the previous night came back to Jim. With everything else that had happened he'd forgotten all about it, but now he remembered how Blair and Kelly had greeted each other at the reunion, and how Blair'd said he'd finally 'forgiven' Kelly. At the time he'd found it an odd thing to say, but now the meaning was clear. And he was beginning to truly understand why all of this Kelly business had affected Blair so much -- was still affecting him. It couldn't have been just the abuse or even the scene with Thornton, not by itself. Maybe with another person Jim would have expected something like that to be enough to traumatize them for life, but not Blair. It wasn't the horror or the danger that stayed with him after things were over. Or the could-have-beens that so often plagued Jim at the end of the day. Blair's resiliency in that regard was one of his most surprising and admirable strengths. No, for this to have left such a lasting impression on Blair until today, there had to have been more to it. Something a lot more personal.

Kelly.

She'd gotten under Blair's skin like nobody else; Blair had allowed her to come closer to him than any other person in his life before. And she'd ended up betraying him in one of the worst ways Jim could imagine.

She'd known Blair wasn't naive. Despite his looks and upbringing he wasn't just a peace-loving hippie who didn't know when it was time to use force to defend himself or somebody else. He'd proven that more than once during his time with Jim, and Kelly, even if she hadn't known for sure, must have counted on it, too; to the point where she'd expected him to use a gun and kill someone when he had to.

But violence was only ever a last resort for Blair. And Jim thanked all the Gods that, if nothing else, Blair had at least been spared the trauma of having to actually kill someone during his line of work with him at the station. He had no doubt that Blair would have done it. Especially if someone else's life had been at stake, but Jim didn't want to think about the price it would have come at. He was sure it would have changed Blair in ways that not even losing his sight had.

And Kelly must have known that, too. Blair's respect for life was something so deeply rooted, it had to have been just as strong even then. And Jim knew from experience that you couldn't know Blair well and not...feel it.

Yet Kelly had purposely put Blair in a situation where, rationally, he should have had no other option but to chose his own life over Thornton's and kill him. That it had come differently in the end was nothing short of a miracle; Blair's doing, only, and a measure of just how much it would have cost him if he'd actually pulled the trigger.

Acid burned in his gut as Jim reflected on all that, and he ground his teeth. He found that, not even 15 years later, and knowing what else Kelly had been through in the meantime, could he find it in him not to hate her for what she'd done to Blair, what she'd willingly put him through. As his friend.

But that was the point. She hadn't been Jim's best friend, his sister, in heart if not blood. And, more importantly, he wasn't Blair.

"I couldn't forgive her," Blair said then, as if reading Jim's thoughts. He was crying now, really crying; tears running freely, racked by sobs. He was hardly able to form words but he fought them out anyway. "I tried. God, I tried. I even managed to get rid of Thornton for real not long after, thinking that it would help. But it didn't. I...I was just so fucking angry. I couldn't bear to be around her any more, or even think about her. I just couldn't. So I---When Thornton was gone and when she'd accepted her scholarship to go to UCLA, I...I told her that I never wanted to see or speak to her again. That..." he hiccupped and it was really hard to understand him then, "that I was sorry but that I was never going to forgive her and that it was best for the two of us to forget about each other."

He buried his face in his hands then, and it was clear that it would be a while until he'd be able to talk again.

Not that Jim thought there was much more to tell. He would have liked to know how Blair had finally gotten rid of Thornton after all that had happened, but he supposed he could ask another time. It was hardly significant in light of what he was beginning to understand; the full extent of Blair's pain.

It wasn't the anger or the disappointment over what Kelly had done, after all. That had to have hurt enough, Jim was sure. But Blair had known he had a right to these emotions after what Kelly had done just as much as Jim thought he did.

Only, Blair being Blair, he had also expected himself to forgive Kelly eventually; worse, he'd desperately wanted to forgive her, and found that he couldn't. And that was the pain that had gotten to him. That was what had made him cut off all ties with her, had made him try to shove all that had happened with her and Thornton to the furthest recesses of his mind, only to discover that it didn't really make the pain go away. That, from time to time, it would come back, hurting not less but worse than before, like a wound that never heals and only opens again, the way things that have no closure will haunt you forever.

Jim knew a thing or two about such ghosts of the past. And it had been Blair who had helped him find closure for some of his own largest wounds: his estrangement from his family, what had happened with Emily and Jack Pendergrast's death, and, of course, his crash in Peru, the loss of his team and 18 month of living in exile -- the emergence of his senses. There'd been countless other little things more. But, most importantly, Blair had kept him from doing it again, repressing stuff; had taught him how important it was to face up to what had happened as soon as possible, however hard it was.

Which was why it doubly shocked and saddened him that Blair himself had been suffering from just such an old and festering wound all this time.

He got up and went around the table, standing behind Blair and placing his hands on his friend's shaking shoulders to gently massage the taut, trembling muscles there. Blair accepted the comfort but didn't say anything, still crying. Jim let him. It seemed like a kind of cleansing. The reunion, and now Blair telling him his story, had gotten him that much farther to the closure he needed, but Jim knew it wasn't complete yet. And as he gave as much physical comfort to Blair as he could, he formed a plan.

Minutes later, by the time Blair had finally calmed enough under his hands and made a move to get up, Jim knew what he was going to do.

"Why don't you get cleaned up a little while I get things squared away in the kitchen?" he asked. "It's definitely too late for breakfast now, but how about I order us some lunch?"

Blair hesitated. "We are not really done talking yet, you know? This was...this was only the start," he said, cryptically, making Jim wonder what he was talking about. "But I guess I could eat," he added, and Jim relaxed, deciding to ignore the remark.

"And I should probably do something about my hair before Simon comes over," Blair went on, combing his fingers through a strand of curls. "It feels worse than gross. You think you could help me wash it again? Don't want to get the bandage wet."

Jim studied Blair's hair and had to agree with his partner's assessment. But though he was pretty sure Simon wouldn't care about the state of Blair's curls, he decided that he didn't want Blair to feel self-conscious later.

"Sure, no problem. Chief. Just go get started while I get this mess cleaned up and make the call to Benito's. I'll be with you in a minute."