PATHS THAT WIND
So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs.
--Ella Wheeler Wilcox
“HURRY!” Blair shouted toward the front of the ambulance.
“Sir!” The paramedic reached across the gurney and yanked Blair’s arm.
Blair looked at him, knowing that yelling at the driver – who couldn’t even hear him – was ridiculous. But the blood was everywhere, covering Jim, and nothing the paramedics did seemed to be enough.
The paramedic met his eye. “Please stay calm. We’re going as fast as we can and not cause an accident.”
Blair lowered his eyes to the gurney. Of course, he knew that.
Jim was quiet, an oxygen mask over his face and nose, but his eyes were open and looked so stunned, as he stared at the ceiling.
“It’s going to be okay, man,” Blair whispered past his tight throat.
Jim didn’t show a reaction.
Blair tried to swallow. He didn’t want it to end like this… brought down in any alley by a lucky shot from a couple of hoods. Jim hadn’t been wearing a vest; it was a routine call and not one where any gunfire had been expected.
Jim had shouted at Blair to stay back, before turning, gun raised, to face the hoodlums.
They had turned and fired, hitting Jim in the chest.
From where he lay in his room – his first morning out of intensive care – Jim watched Blair wander about the room, then stop to look out the sun-filled window.
Blair grinned. “There’s a couple of dogs running loose and the owner is trying to catch them.” He glanced at Jim. “I wish you could see them.”
The bed was too far from the window and at the wrong angle for that to be possible. Jim managed a tiny smile.
Obviously, he was going to live. All things considered, he’d been pretty lucky. He’d given Sandburg and the whole Major Crimes gang a scare. He knew that fact with a first-hand knowledge that few patients were privy to.
He continued to watch Blair grin at the commotion outside the window.
Blair’s nervous energy wouldn’t allow him to sit down. No doubt, a combination of relief and exhaustion. But it was good to see him in such good spirits, rather than so… worried. And scared.
Jim closed his eyes. He knew he’d already made a decision that he was going to tell Blair what he’d experienced. It was a matter of picking the right moment. He’d wanted to pretend that he could wait until he was back at home. But he felt a need to unburden himself from his secret, and he had no doubt that Blair would want to know.
“Blair.”
Blair turned to look at him, then came toward the bed. “Yeah?” he said gently. “What do you need?”
Jim wished talking – anything – didn’t hurt so much. He knew he was on watered-down painkillers, because his records showed that he was sensitive to the reactions of any kind of drugs. He’d learned that the best way to deal with pain was not to fight it, but to accept it – embrace it as a part of his being until it eventually disappeared. Focusing on pain dials was impossible in his medicated state.
“I want you to sit down here,” Jim’s eyes indicated the chair next to the bed. He tried to keep his voice from sounding ominous, though it was hard because of the lack of moisture in his throat. “And listen to me.”
Blair obeyed, his expression taking on worry.
Jim allowed himself a breath. “I want to share something with you.”
Blair nodded slowly, his mouth open, as he learned closer to Jim.
“Just between us,” Jim added, feeling his voice failing.
Blair looked nervously toward the door. “Maybe I should lock the door?”
Jim nodded. He was grateful to be in private room. Locking the door might be overkill but he didn’t like the thought of being interrupted.
Blair left his seat and moved to the door. He shut it, fiddled with the knob a moment, then returned, pouring Jim a cup of water before sitting down.
Jim managed to raise his hand to take the water. Blair’s hand hovered near, ready to assist, as he drank.
“Thanks,” Jim said, making an attempt to clear his throat. Damn that hurt.
Blair clasped his hand. “Are you sure you’re up to talking?”
“I want to.”
Blair leaned closer, so Jim wouldn’t have to make such an effort. “What’s wrong?”
Jim felt his mouth break into a smile. He wondered if he was foolish to think he could share this with another person – even Blair. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“Oh.” Blair relaxed and nodded at Jim to continue.
In some ways, Jim thought, Blair seemed so innocent. So eager to know all about the world around him. In other ways, he seemed way too wise for his age, and had suffered through quite a bit of pain in his years of following Jim around. Then, six months ago, there had been the fountain….
Surely, Blair would understand.
At the very least, Blair wouldn’t ridicule him or laugh at him – or launch into scientific rationalization.
“When I was on the operating table,” Jim began, holding Blair’s gaze, “I….” Could he really say this?
Blair leaned closer.
“I floated up from my body.” He watched Blair’s eyes widen. “I saw the doctors and nurses working on me. Then I floated out into the hall, where you all were waiting.”
Blair’s enraptured eyes grew moist.
“I wanted to tell you all that you didn’t need to worry. That no matter what happened on the table, I was okay.” He waited until a tear splashed down Blair’s cheek. “I had no pain. I could hear a river running behind me. I knew… if I turned around and crossed the river… I’d never have to feel pain again.”
Tears trickled down both cheeks now. But Blair didn’t move.
Jim had always been amazed at how much Blair was willing to demonstrate what he was feeling. It was such a contrast to how he himself had been raised.
“I heard you all talking. About how strong I was. A fighter.” Jim took a breath and swallowed. “From where I was, the idea of fighting seemed so irrelevant. Whether we’re fighters in life, or not, it’s such a small thing in the larger picture.”
Blair closed his eyes and swallowed.
Though it hurt, Jim slowly reached up with his right hand and rested his thumb against Blair’s cheek. He massaged the skin covered by tear tracks.
Blair’s watery eyes opened.
“You said, ‘Jim will never give up.’”
The tears started again.
“I wanted to tell you that I already had – because I liked where I was – and I didn’t think any less of myself. I didn’t want you to, either.”
Jim drew a careful breath. “I didn’t know how to tell you that. I tried speaking, but you weren’t hearing me. Then I realized I had to come back, so you wouldn’t live the rest of your life disappointed in me, because you thought I had given up.”
Jim swallowed thickly. His own throat was so tight, he could barely whisper, “I came back, for you.”
Blair drew a shuddering breath, then gathered up Jim’s hand in both of his, careful of the IV line. He pressed his forehead against their combined fist and choked out a few sobs.
Jim didn’t know what he could say to offer comfort.
Blair looked up, sniffing loudly, and forced a watery smile. “Is this your way of blaming me for all the pain you’ve been in since waking up?”
Jim gave him a tired smile back, grateful that it was a rhetorical question.
Blair squeezed his hand. “Thank you,” he said roughly. “Whatever the reason you came back, thank you.” He applied quick kisses to Jim’s hand.
“Chief?”
Blair looked up, his face flushed red and his nose wet.
“You need to blow your nose.”
Blair gazed at him a long moment. “I love you so much, man.”
That statement was rhetorical, too. Jim managed a small smile. Then he repeated, “You need to blow your nose.”
Blair sniffed and got up from the chair, placing Jim’s hand against the bed with a final squeeze. He went into the bathroom and Jim heard the noise of toilet paper being unrolled.
Then loud blowing.
A knock sounded at the door.
Jim darted his eyes there. That, at least, didn’t hurt.
Simon’s concerned face took up most of the window.
“Oh, shit,” Blair said, coming out of the bathroom, wiping his nose with a tissue. “Oh, shit.” He glanced at the window. “Oh, shit.”
Jim could sympathize. Anyone seeing Blair like this would wonder why he was so upset. And Simon was probably one of the last people whom Blair would want to see him like this.
Still, Blair opened the door, while saying over his shoulder to Jim, “I’m going out. I’ll be back in a bit.”
He managed to sneak past Simon’s large form with a muttered, “Hi, Simon.”
Simon watched Blair’s retreating back a moment, then cautiously approached the bed. “Jim? He okay?”
Jim managed a smile. “He’s fine.”
Simon furrowed a brow. “You sure?”
Jim tried a small nod. Ouch. “We were just talking.” He hoped his lack of elaboration would hint that it was something private.
Simon got the message and sat down. “How you feeling?”
Jim looked away. “Been better. But not too bad, all things considered.”
“You look a hell a lot better than a few days ago.” Simon then talked about cases. They had already caught the perps who had shot Jim the next day. When the dramatic recitation was over, Simon said, “I got all the paperwork turned in for your medical leave.”
“Thanks.”
“Blair tell you that he took off the whole next semester?”
“Yeah, he told me.” There had only been two days left in the current semester when he’d been shot.
And now Blair had paved the way to be completely available to Jim for at least the next four months.
“Your doctor give you any recovery timeframe yet?”
“Not yet,” Jim said. He knew that when the doctor did talk to him about it, he would only give a guestimate. Having been in both the military and the police force, Jim was all too familiar with the fact that major gunshot wounds could mean permanent disability. He particularly remembered one cantankerous sergeant in his rookie year at the Cascade PD. Donald Evans had been shot three times in the belly. When Jim and the other uniforms came to visit him, Evans was boasting about how he’d “be back at work in no time.” But sheer determination hadn’t been a cure for the lingering effects of his injuries. He’d been put on permanent disability, and finally moved away, the rumors rampant that he’d ended up angry and bitter at his body’s betrayal.
It was too soon to think about the future, but while Simon strolled to the window and looked out, Jim considered that, unlike most people he knew, he’d never had a dream he wanted to achieve. Oh, sure, when he’d been a boy he had the usual fantasies of being a star player in the Super Bowl, scoring the winning touchdown as the clock ran out in the final seconds. But after ending up as an angry adolescent, who wanted to escape his father’s house, the military’s routines had given him the assurance that obeying orders meant he was doing the right thing. The tough regiment also became something that he thrived on in and of itself. He woke up in the morning determined to do his job well – and never projected out ahead to the next day, or the next month, or the next decade.
And he hadn’t since. His mind didn’t work like that.
The possibility that he might never return to detective work would be easier to swallow if he, in turn, had some sort of dream to pursue instead.
But he didn’t.
Yet, he felt a strange lack of depression about the idea of losing the identity that had come with his job, that had defined his sense of self for so many years.
He wondered if that was because of what he had experienced during surgery.
Blair woke.
It was early evening, and he was curled up on his bed, fully dressed. He felt refreshed, after bawling his eyes out when he came home from visiting Jim.
He and Jim hadn’t talked further after Simon left, other than Jim’s sleepy encouragement that he go home.
So Blair had. But he couldn’t shake the sense of… whatever it was… and had finally decided it would make more sense to just give into it.
He figured he was overdue for a meltdown, considering all the stress and worry after Jim had been shot. But he knew that wasn’t the whole story, not by a longshot.
Jim is alive because of me.
They both had done their share of looking out for each other, if not outright saving each other.
Jim lived because he didn’t want to disappoint me.
Blair wanted to deny that, had Jim died, his last impression would have been one of disappointment. He couldn’t imagine his feelings being anything other than sheer grief. Jim had a right to leave this world, when he had the opportunity, but he had chosen to stay, even knowing the pain he would face in the weeks to come.
He lived because of me. What I wanted was more important to him than what he wanted.
Blair sat up, letting his face rest in his hands.
What a sense of responsibility that was… yet, such a joyous one.
Hasn’t that always been the definition of love? He wondered. When the other person’s wishes are more important than your own?
Blair raised his head and blinked.
Jim loves me.
That was nothing new. They’d had their ups and downs in their time together but he had never questioned how Jim felt, deep down.
I matter.
He furrowed his brow, wondering why that thought crossed his mind. All human beings had value and purpose; he had never questioned his own.
But… I matter because I saved a life. I saved Jim. Because he loved me enough to…
Blair closed his eyes and drew a deep, steadying breath.
He even told me about it. He wanted me to know. That, in particular, seemed so un-Jimlike.
Blair wondered if that was because of his own near-death experience. In his case, he’d seen their spirit animals, and the flash of light when they joined. And then he was spitting up water. But he’d never had a sense of choice.
With Incacha’s help, Jim had brought him back – insisted that he come back.
And then, when all Blair could do was wait helplessly while Jim had been in surgery, Jim had been floating around the ether and witnessing his worry… and determination that Jim would live.
Okay.
That was all on the table and acknowledged. What now?
He tried to project ahead, when Jim would be mostly housebound – probably for months. He was sure to get restless and edgy.
Blair knew there would be only so much he could do. He would accept that and not take personally any frustration that Jim directed his way.
He wondered what he could do to be the most helpful.
“Hey, Chief,” Jim greeted quietly as Blair entered his room the next morning. “I’ve had breakfast and haven’t thrown it up yet.” He tried to sound cheerful, though his stomach felt heavy.
Blair smiled, his eyes soft and warm as he sat by Jim’s bed and clasped his hand. “It’ll stay down,” he said.
“Doctor says he thinks I’ll get sprung in about a week.” As he spoke, Jim studied Blair’s expression. There was something different about it. Almost… serene. Confident.
He wondered if that was because of what he’d said yesterday.
He hoped so. For himself, he had expected to feel a relief from being the only one who had known about his little spirit journey and why it meant he was alive now. Instead, he felt… restless. As though he wanted something in return from Blair. But he didn’t know what.
He hadn’t intended to expect anything back.
“Jim?”
Jim’s eyes flicked to Blair.
Blair squeezed his hand and leaned closer. “What you told me yesterday… it really meant a lot. I-I want to be worthy of it.”
Jim tugged just enough to pull his hand from Blair’s grip. Then he stroked along the top of Blair’s hand with his fingertips. “You already are,” he said, meeting Blair’s gaze. “It mattered to me to come back for you.”
Blair’s face looked like it was going to crumble again. Almost. Quickly he said, “Don’t ever let anyone ever tell you that you’re selfish.”
Jim looked away then. He knew he really could be selfish.
“Have you ever been sorry?” Blair asked. “When the pain gets bad?”
“No, no,” Jim said, looking at him again, and sorry only that Blair felt a need to question that. “I’m here. I’m committed to living. I’ve never been one to look back.”
Blair nodded.
“It’s funny,” Jim said gruffly. “But knowing it’s all going to be okay after this, and this is just a drop in the bucket of the grand plan of it all… it makes me value this life all the more.”
Blair smiled, his eyes almost as watery as they had been yesterday. “There’s something to say for the little drops, isn’t there?”
Jim managed a small nod. Then he realized what he’d wanted from Blair yesterday. To not just tell Blair what had happened, but to discuss it. They hadn’t had that chance.
“I don’t feel all that different,” Jim said, even as he was aware that taking the initiative in the conversation was out of character. For that matter, so was wanting to discuss it. He’d always believed in life after death. He wasn’t sure why; maybe it was simply a matter of wanting to believe. But he hadn’t resisted when he saw Molly’s ghost. It had helped, so much then, that Blair had been an ally, rather than someone questioning his sanity.
Blair’s eyes deepened with a shared knowledge. “But you know…,” he hesitated, then finished his thought, “that there’s something after this.”
Jim slowly nodded.
“Then I know too,” Blair said in a loving tone, “because you shared it with me.” He lowered his eyes thoughtfully, then said, “Not that I doubted it. But not-doubting and truly knowing are two different things.”
Jim realized he was starting to get uncomfortable. “I’m still the same person.”
Blair’s face slowly broke into a grin. “I love you so much for that.” The grin widened. “And I know you’re going to be hell to live with while you’re recovering.”
“I’ll try not to be,” Jim said, meaning it.
He didn’t know what the next few weeks or months were going to bring. But Blair would be with him through all it.
That meant it would all be okay.
END PART ONE
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