By Cheryl R.

Jim and Blair were walking out of the grocery store when Jim accidentally bumped into a man who was walking in the door.

"Oops, sorry," Jim said. "Are you okay?"

The man looked puzzled at first and then with a start of recognition replied, "I am because of you, Dr. Ellison."

"I… I," Jim stuttered and then a face swam into memory. "Senor Hijar?"

"My whole family thanks you," Senor Hijar said. "Little Jemsa is almost ten years old now. We have had years of joy instead of sadness because of you."

Jim shifted his feet as the words of praise continued. "Senor Hijar, I did very little. Are you in town on business?"

"Si, si. Business and pleasure. The entire family is here. Capac is looking at universities in the United States and he insisted we come to the city of your birth to check first. We are then going to the wonderful state of Iowa and so on, until we find the right location and university. If I am not too bold, would you have any time to talk to Capac? He is thinking about pre-med and any advice at this point would be wonderful."

Jim glanced over at Sandburg and saw the questions forming in his eyes. He shifted the bag a little. "Um, sure…"

Senor Hijar interrupted, "Forgive me for keeping you. You were on your way out and my enthusiasm has detained you most rudely."

"Don't worry about it, Senor Hijar. I would be pleased to show Capac around Rainier." He dug into his pocket for a business card. "Here is my card, feel free to call me and we'll set up a time."

Senor Hijar took the card, looked at it and then pressed it to his heart with both hands. "Eternal thanks and happiness, Dr. Ellison. I will call you."

Blair looked at the departing man and then turned to look at his uncomfortable roommate. "So Dr. Ellison, anything you want to talk about?"

Jim's phone rang.

"Ellison," Jim barked. After listening to the caller for a moment, he looked down at the sack in his hand and responded, "Yes, sir. We'll be there right away." He turned toward Blair and said, "It's a good thing we didn't get any perishables. We're back on the Miller case. Patrol just found another dead body."

Blair gave Jim a frustrated look. "Don't think this is the end of this conversation."

"I couldn't be so lucky," Jim muttered.

----

Jim rolled his shoulders and tried to get his neck muscles to relax. It had been a week from hell. They had finally managed to find Miller, but not before several more bodies had piled up. The press blamed the police department for 'letting' all those young people die. "Incompetent" was one of the more polite terms used. The entire MC unit along with most of Homicide and Patrol were exhausted. They'd been pushed too hard by the press and a soon to be up for re-election mayor and police chief.

Jim had been averaging two or three hours of sleep at night. It wasn't the first time in his life he'd had to perform under stress with little sleep. Heck you'd think my body would be used to this by now.

"Ellison," Captain Banks bellowed from his office.

Jim flinched as his headache inched up toward migraine level again. "Sir," Jim responded as he stood and walked carefully toward the captain's office. He gently closed the door behind himself and gingerly took the offered seat.

Simon Banks looked at the worn out man in front of him. "Jim, take your partner and go home," Simon said quietly. "You have the rest of the day off and tomorrow too, as long as nothing urgent comes up."

Jim just stared at Banks numbly, swaying slightly from side to side as he tried to keep his eyes open and focused. "Home?" Jim asked in childlike wonder.

Simon walked around his desk, opened the door and motioned for Sandburg to join them in the office. "Take your partner home and make sure he gets some sleep."

"Sure, Simon," Blair said. "Hey Jim, let's go home okay, big guy," Blair said as he levered his partner up out of the chair and draped one of Jim's arms over his shoulder. Jim swayed a moment then locked his knees to remain upright. "That's it, Jim," Blair said softly. "Your bed is calling your name. Can't you hear it? Jim… Jim… I'm lonely with just the pillows for company."

The detectives and officers chuckled tiredly as they listened to Sandburg babble to his partner as Blair directed and supported Jim out the door. H and Rafe got up to follow in case Sandburg needed help with his larger partner.

Blair kept up the gentle word stream on the way home as he tried to give his friend something to focus on besides the pain in his head and the exhaustion both men felt.

The two men stumbled in the door of the loft and Blair heaved a sigh of relief. The hard part of the battle was over. Even if they made it no further than the couch, they were home.

"Jim, couch or bed?" Blair asked.

Jim turned his bleary eyes toward his partner and tried to make sense of the words. He knew it was a question, but he wasn't sure how he was supposed to respond. "Huh?"

"Oh man, you're in bad shape." Blair led and supported Jim until they made it over to the couch. He helped his partner sit down. "Wait here. Let me get you that pain medicine that worked for your last headache and then you can get some sleep."

Jim sat on the couch in a daze. I'm forgetting something. "Capac. I never called Senor Hijar back." Jim struggled to stand up and go to the phone. He almost made it up before he overbalanced and fell back to the couch.

"Jim, stay put!" Blair said coming toward him with a bottle and a glass of water. "You did call Senor Hijar back. I took Capac on a tour of Rainier four days ago. They've already left for Iowa. Take this," he handed over a couple of the pills and then the glass of water. "Let's get you tucked in right here. I don't think either of us is up to getting you upstairs right now."

Jim sagged down further on the couch and grabbed the blanket off the back. Blair gave him a pillow and helped him settle in.

"I'll be right here, Jim. I'm not going any where for a while," Blair promised.

"Must be the years," Jim muttered. "My brain hasn't hurt this much since med school."

Blair did a double take. "Jim, what did you say?" But the exhausted man was sound asleep.

"We will talk later," Blair promised as he tucked his partner in and then went off to bed himself.

----

Jim bolted upright on the couch looking around wildly as adrenalin pour through his system. "Code Blue," Jim rasped, struggling to get to his feet.

"Huh," Blair mumbled as his eyes partially opened.

"Tension pneumothorax … We need x-rays and blood work stat. Get the OR set up. We don't have much time," Jim barked. He managed to get to his feet but the pooling blanket tangled around his legs pitching him face first toward Blair.

"Whoa, Jim. What the hell?" Blair asked. He reached out and tried to catch his roommate or at least slow down the fall. The two men tumbled gracelessly to the floor with Blair on the bottom. "Hey, are you okay?" Blair gasped breathlessly. "Jim? Big Guy? Do you think you could move just a bit to the left?"

Jim jerked and then rolled to his side. "Crap, Sandburg… what the hell? Are you okay?" He sat up and checked his roommate over for injuries.

"I'm fine, Jim," Blair reassured his concerned friend. "But, I asked you first. Are you okay?"

"Fine, fine," Jim said offhandedly as he finished checking Blair's neck and spine then moved down to his legs.

Blair shot Jim a look and said, "Tension pneumothorax… x-rays… blood work? Something you want to talk about Jim?"

"Huh," Jim grunted, not really paying attention to what Blair was saying as he continued to check for injuries. He rotated Blair's right and then left arm, grunting again when Blair let out a small exclamation of pain when the left arm was moved. Jim helped Blair back on to the couch and then went to the freezer for a bag of peas. "Um, sorry about that," Jim said as he tried to get Blair comfortable on the couch propping a pillow under his left arm and placing the peas just so.

"Better my arm than your head," Blair said.

Jim winced and started to apologize again.

Blair cut him off. "So are you listening to me now?"

"Um," Jim said.

"So, now seems like a good time to talk," Blair said.

"Sandburg, we haven't had enough sleep all week and now that we have a chance, you want to talk," Jim blustered.

"Well Jim, I'm not the one trying to kill myself by responding to nonexistent medical emergencies. All on," Blair took a quick glance at the clock, "two hours of sleep. So, maybe a quick conversation and then we can both get some more rest."

"I told you I was a medic in the Army," Jim said, trying to bluff his way out of this conversation. He hadn't had near enough sleep to get much past his too sharp roommate.

"Un huh, you've told me that many times. Seems like current evidence is leading us to a slightly different, maybe more complex version of your ‘Army medic’ background," Blair stated.

"I always wanted to help. Just help," Jim waved his arms in frustration. "It didn't matter how, but I… I thought… maybe rural medicine would be nice. Somewhere where I could really make a difference, you know?" Jim asked.

Blair nodded in understanding and tried to send encouragement and support with a look.

"I was always good in school. It kept the old man off my back and the longer I was at school the less I was at home," Jim said with a shrug. "I thought about being a beach bum for a while, just to piss off the old man," Jim sighed and looked down at his feet. "But I really wanted to help people," he mumbled.

"So I decided to thumb my nose at my dad and went to the University of Iowa. I'd taken a lot of AP classes in High School and passed the tests," he shrugged again, this time in embarrassment. "I took as many hours as they would let me, including summer school the year I graduated High School, so I ended up graduation in May of '82 with degrees in Chemistry and Foreign Language and a minor in History," Jim said.

"Two years?" Blair clarified. "Damn, Jim that's impressive."

Jim grunted. "Pops thought so. He showed up at the graduation ceremony all proud, an 'I knew any son of mine could do it' smile on his face and letters from several universities he just happened to have in his pocket to tell me where I should go next."

"Ouch," Blair winced in sympathy. "So you…"

"Told him to fuck off and went to Peru for Medical School. The only problem," Jim said with a sigh, "was that I basically fucked myself at the same time."

Blair tilted his head in confusion. "How?"

"The AMA has a strangle hold on doctors. If you don't graduate from a US medical school it's almost impossible to get into any resident program much less a good one. I didn't figure it out until I started getting rejection letters back." Jim snorted at his own naiveté. "Shortly after that the Army made an offer of their own and I accepted."

Jim turned and slowly walked toward the windows. "Turns out they were looking for medical doctors that didn't mind ignoring the non-combatant status that doctors usually operate under. They wanted a "new breed." Ones that didn't mind getting dirty. People that had good working knowledge of the human body and its frailties." Jim glanced back at Blair to see if he understood what Jim wasn't saying.

Blair sent Jim an encouraging look and a sad, sympathetic smile. "That's when you started your Special Ops work," Blair stated calmly.

"Yeah, um," Jim looked back out the window and muttered, "I guess I'm not the healing kind."

"Jim," Blair's voice resonated with strength and determination. "Don't make me get up off this couch and knock some sense in to you. You are one of the most considerate, most compassionate, most… most healing kind of guy I know."

Jim sent Blair a grateful look. "I had always planned on going back to being a doctor after I retired from the Army… I just." Jim bit his lip. "I couldn't." He turned back toward the window. "Not after Peru… my team …and the Chopec.... I just… I'm not a doctor. I'm not!"

"Jim," Blair soothed as he got off the couch and slowly approached his roommate. "It doesn't matter what your title is or isn't. You don't have to be a doctor to help people. You help so many people every day and I'm not talking about by being a cop. Just by being who you are. You. Help. People. Every day," Blair stated emphatically. "Now come on, let's go lie back down and get some more sleep. We can talk about this more later."

Blair tucked Jim back in on the couch and spread the blanket over the tired man. He winced a bit at the pain in his wrist.

Jim's eyes flashed open and stared at Blair.

"It's okay, Big Guy. No big deal. I’ll just put the peas back on it when I lie down," Blair assured.

"It's not broken," Jim muttered as he started to drift off to sleep again.

"I'm sure you're right, Jim." Blair soothed. "You would know. Go to sleep. Rest well my friend. Sweet Dreams.

The end

Feedback is greatly appreciated. Cheryl R

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