Back into the Water

Danae

Disclaimer: Not mine.  No money made, no harm, no foul, and all that other stuff.

 

It was supposed to be simple.  It was supposed to be a walk in the park kind of arrest.  Just show up, walk in, pull out the handcuffs, and take the bad guy in.  That was the way it was supposed to be.  That is not how it happened.  And Jim Ellison found himself sitting in the hospital waiting room, wondering where the hell it went wrong.

The Starlight Inn used to be a Holiday Inn.  It was one of those cookie cutter two story motels built back in the 1970's.  They all looked the same. Room doors on the outside of the buildings, the buildings built around the pool.  The fucking pool.

Randy "Ratman" Martin was turning himself in.  Easy shit.  There was not supposed to be a fight at all.  But apparently, the "Ratman's" associates had different ideas about what the "Ratman" should be doing.  Jim had the man in custody when all hell broke loose.  One minute, Blair was standing on the walkway outside the room, making jokes about Jim's last really bad choice of a woman.  Old hat and nothing unusual, right?  The next minute, he was gone and some guy that Jim should have heard coming was calling him out. Jim came out all right, with his gun drawn and zeroed in on the man's head. There was just one problem.  His head was behind Blair's head.

"Let him go!" he ordered.

"I don't think so.  You just drop your gun and back up.  I just want Martin, cop.  That's all.  You give me Martin; I'll give you your partner.  Fair deal if you ask me."

"I'm not asking you."  Jim locked eyes with his partner, who was trying to telegraph a silent apology with his expression.  Jim smirked at him.  Old hat, nothing unusual here either.  Blair always seemed to find a way to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Briefly, Jim wondered how much of that was Blair and how much of it was Blair's association with him.  And then the "Ratman" decided he needed to quit the scene.  Problem was he had to go through Jim, which was exactly what he tried to do.  He head-butted Jim in the stomach and the fight was on.  The next few minutes were chaos. In the end, Jim had two more prisoners in hand-cuffs and Martin was babbling about how sorry he was, he was just scared, please don't press charges for resisting arrest, he had enough on his record already and Jim realized that Blair was gone.

"Sandburg?!"  No answer.  "What the hell?  Where's my partner, asshole?" he demanded from one of his prisoners.  The man gave him a sneer as an answer. "Shit!"  Jim opened his senses, listening for his partner's voice, a getaway car, anything.  What he heard was the soft lapping of water against the sides of the pool.  The fucking pool.  A feeling of dread and déjà vu swept over him and he turned to look over the balcony.  "No."  It came out as a whisper.  Suddenly, he could not draw a breath.  His mind flashed back to that morning and a fountain.  The memory overlaid itself on the present. "Not again!" he screamed without even being aware of the words leaving his lips.  He ran.  No, the stairs were too far.  A half a second of hesitation which he would berate himself for later and he jumped over the railing, launching himself into the water below.  He surfaced, gasping for air as much from panic as from his dive.  A few strokes and he closed a hand over Blair's jacket.  It was a different jacket, of course.  Blair had tossed that one out.  He complained that he could not get the chlorine smell out of it.  Jim knew better.  He had not seen the rest of the clothes Blair had had on that morning again either.  Another jacket for the trash?  And these jeans were new, he thought, realizing even as he did that the thought was absurd given their present situation.  He flipped his guide onto his back, getting his face out of the water and then swam for the side.  He pulled himself out and reached back for Blair.  Again, déjà vu hit him hard and he struggled to catch his breath.

He was not breathing.  And there was blood this time.  He had hit his head or one of those bastards had hit him.  "Oh please, dear god.  Not again," he mumbled as he tilted Blair's head back.

"What's going on?" the desk clerk came running out of the office.

"Call an ambulance!" He commanded.  That was all the attention he was willing to give the man.  He had something more important to do.  "Breathe, Chief.  Please breathe."  He started the CPR and prayed aloud in between breaths.

An eternity later, Jim was still praying.  Blair was breathing but he had not regained consciousness.  They had finally let him come in and sit with his guide.  The doctor was guardedly optimistic.  The x-rays had not shown a skull fracture.  Oxygen had not been cut off for long.  A concussion, that's all, they said.  "Old hat, nothing unusual here either, Chief."  There might be a few problems associated with the drowning though.  Blair's lungs had scar tissue from his first time in the water.  Pneumonia, pleurisy, diminished capacity were just a few of the things they mentioned.

"Jim?"

He turned to meet the gaze of his captain.  "Hey, Simon.  You guys get Martin and his buddies squared away?  Sorry about just abandoning them there."

"Yeah, they're squared away.  It was funny as hell actually.  Martin was holding your gun on them when we got there."  He pulled Jim's gun from his coat.  "Here it is, by the way."

Jim took it from him.  "I had Martin in cuffs."

"Yes, you did.  But somewhere in the scuffle, you lost your gun and Martin got it.  The 'Ratman' knew he was safer with us than with his former associates."

"I'm gonna have to superglue this damn thing to my palm one day."  A smile ghosted over his lips for a moment before he turned back to man in the hospital bed.  "Blair has threatened to do it a couple of times, you know?"

"Jim, sometimes, I have considered buying it for him."  Simon pulled up the extra chair.  "So, how is he?"

"The doctor's worried about his lungs.  I'm worried that he's not awake."

"He'll be okay.  He always is.  He's tougher than he looks."

Jim only nodded a little.

"What say, I get you some coffee?"

"Thanks, Simon."

"Not a problem."  The big man clasped his shoulder as he rose and then left the room.

Jim stood up and moved to bed slowly.  This sucked so very much.  He had had a lot of time to think in the waiting room.  A lot of time to remember.  The first time he was here, he shut Blair down.  The first time, he had turned away from his guide.  He had made a few really bad jokes and trusted Blair to accept them as an apology.  He had read somewhere that life was a series of lessons.  If you failed at one lesson, it was presented to you over and over again until you finally got it.  Well, he would not repeat this lesson again.  It was too damn hard on his heart.  "Okay, Chief, here's the deal. The way I see it, this is some cosmic payback for the way I screwed this scene up the first time.  The gods, powers that be, whatever felt I needed to learn a lesson so they sent you back into the water.  Well, I get it now. I've learned now.  I'm ready.  You hear me, Blair?  I'm ready to take that trip with you, buddy.  Come on, Chief.  I need you to lead the way.  I'm ready to go, anytime you are."  Jim smoothed back unruly curls from the precious face of his best friend and his only real family and moved back to his chair.  He was just about to sit down when he heard it.

"Jim?"

He spun around and saw deep blue eyes regarding him with curiosity and affection.  "Hey there, Chief.  It's about time you rejoined the world."

"I heard you.  You were talking about a trip.  Are we going somewhere?"

"Yeah, anywhere you want, Chief.  As long as there's no fucking pool within a 100 mile radius."

The End