I see a little silhouetto of a man
Scaramouche,scaramouche
Will you do the fandango
Thunderbolt and lightning
Very, very frightening me

Galileo, Galileo
Galileo Galileo
Galileo, figaro
Magnifico

The speakers at the front of the club screamed, and Blair put his hand on Jim's back where the muscles had tightened into thick cords that slowly loosened as Blair traced a small circle on Jim's skin. Blair continued until Jim's back had relaxed--a sign that the Sentinel had found the setting on the dials that made the club bearable. The overhead lights flared with the words creating a strobe light effect that made Blair flinch, but Jim gave a small hand gesture, and Blair pulled back.

Blair had missed the non-stop rollercoaster action of Major Crimes, and now not only had he gotten back on the roller coaster, but Simon had loaned them out to a joint FBI investigation of a serial killer or killers in the area. Blair started walking the perimeter of the room, letting his body sway in the time with the music as he bobbed his head. Even now that he was getting older, he could still blend in just because he knew how to let his body go. Jim on the other hand was looking a little painfully stiff as he made his way over to a spot near the bathrooms.

Of course, what the two agents in the room didn't know was that Jim could hear everything in the room. He and Blair had practiced this exercise. Jim would let his eyes sweep the room, and his hearing would follow, allowing him to concentrate on a conversation in the far corner while still blocking out the blaring music. However, Blair was still a little worried about the strobe light effect affecting Jim's vision.

Meanwhile, Blair danced his way through the crowd looking for the most vulnerable targets. He didn't have far to look; he soon found himself weaving to the beat next to a small gaggle of pierced and colorful and mostly nude young women. Their eyes focused on the distant lights flashing in the ceiling, and Blair recognized that blissed-out expression of ecstasy.

As the song changed, Blair let himself jerk to the new beat, his eyes half closed. He wondered if any of these kids even listened to the lyrics which screamed about making mistakes, facing mistakes even when you wanted to run. Blair understood that need to both run and to face up to his mistakes, but he didn't think these kids were hearing anything other than the beat. And the very fact that some asshole was using this weakness to turn these kids into prey… that infuriated Blair. If the FBI was right, somewhere in this crowd, one or more rapists stalked these girls whose only sin was being lost and confused and young and in possession of a fake ID. But none of those offenses deserved the punishment that Blair had seen in the FBI photos of the dead bodies.

As Blair let his body fall into the rhythm, he tried not to see these girls’ faces superimposed over those broken and dirty bodies. Instead he tried to imagine them growing up and growing into something healthier, better. And if he could help that by catching these assholes and putting them in jail for the rest of their lives, he would do what he needed to do to make that happen.

Blair glanced over towards Jim, but his partner was still scanning the crowd, which meant he hadn't heard anything yet. Even while keeping an eye on this group, Blair started threading through the thundering crowd. The FBI agent had seemed cynical when Blair had claimed to be able to profile possible victims from the floor, but Jim had backed his claims.

Of course, the fact that the two lead agents had asked whether he and Jim were planning on going renegade on this investigation was a big hint that the agents had called around and gotten his Phoenix record, and that probably helped Blair's case too. No matter what had convinced them, he now moved from one group to another, looking for girls who fit the profile and any man or men who might be watching them. Men who might be a little too sober or too observant to fit in at a rave.

For three nights he and Jim had done this, and for three days the only report to Simon the next morning had been that they had wandered through the crowd unable to identify anyone suspicious. But Blair still clung to the hope that tonight would be it. The timing was right, and Blair *needed* to get these guys.

When he had first seen the FBI file, Blair had felt his stomach curl in revolt: both at how many girls disappeared and in how vicious the attacks had been. The attacker or attackers had worked their way west to Cascade, and these were sadists who left no evidence behind. Well, unless you counted the bodies with their red tracks and curled burns. But nothing had led back to any suspects.

Blair spotted a blonde near the back door. She had a streak of blue going through her hair and blue eye makeup that made her look vaguely clown-like, but her expression was one of utter despair. She was on a trip, and from the expression on her face, it wasn't a good one either. Blair watched as she put a hand on the wall to brace herself, her fingers splayed across the white surface. Blair had seen enough bad trips to know one when he saw one, but what interested him a lot more was the man who watched her from the shadow of a pillar.

The man was unremarkable in his normalcy. No birth marks, no unusual characteristics, nothing remarkable at all. He swayed as though dancing, but his body moved to some internal rhythm that had nothing to do with the music, so he moved out of sync and awkwardly. Someone else might have mistaken that motion for being stoned; however, as he moved, his gaze remained locked on the blonde. Blair's alarm bells went off. While this might just be some perverted businessman trying to pick up an underage date, Blair didn't think so. In fact, he was so certain he signaled his partner.

Blair let himself be swept back into a clump of dancers as the thundering music kept him from using his radio. Well, technically he could use it, but he didn't think anyone on the other end could hear him. Blair orbited around the girl and her watcher, determined not to let her turn into one more body that would be dumped on the street in a week.

Blair smiled as a cute red-head flashed him a grin full of metal from a tongue ring and a lip ring before she curled her arms around him. With the girl clinging to him, Blair felt safer staying in one place and watching. He took a quick peek over her shoulder and saw Jim working his way through the crowd, but Jim wasn't close enough and the man with the girl was entirely too close to the back exit.

Blair worked his way slowly toward the wall so that he would have a clear shot at the door if worse came to worse. Of course he was hoping for better, for Jim to have signaled the feds, for backup to be outside the back door, but he had learned to prepare for the worst.

Jim had almost reached him when the man made his move. Blair watched as Mr. Normal moved in and slipped a sympathetic arm around the blonde's shoulder. At first the girl flinched back, but then the man must've whispered something into her ear because she leaned into him. The hand that had been braced against the wall now curled against his shoulder, her bright red fingernails contrasting against the man's black T-shirt.

Blair danced closer, unwilling to let this creep get far enough away to have even the slightest chance of escape. Looking back he saw Jim now shoving through bodies recklessly.

Blair screamed something at his dance partner that he suspected she couldn't hear over the thundering music, but his gentle push certainly told her what she needed to know. She made a rude gesture in his direction before turning away and curling herself around an orange-haired black boy.

Blair abandoned his attempts to be subtle in favor of making a straight line toward the suspect and the girl, but the man didn't even notice. He had already pulled open an exit door that was supposedly alarmed and was busy herding the girl out the door. Blair ran the last few steps and the cold night air hit him in the face at the same time as he pulled his weapon.

Standing at the door to the club, Blair took aim and yelled his warning. "Cascade PD! Stop right there!"

Blair wondered why he even bothered yelling because no one ever stopped. This man was no exception. The arm that had soothingly embraced the girl shoved her away so that she hit a blue dumpster and rebounded onto the concrete ground in the alley. His other hand pulled a gun from waistband and brought it up.

Blair ducked just as the blast from the gunfire rang in his ears. For one blind moment, Blair thought he'd been shot. Then he brought his fingers up to his face and realized that a bullet had shattered the wood frame of the door leaving a trail of splinters down his cheek. Blair wasn't about to let that stop him, so just as Jim reached the door, Blair darted across the alley and used a dumpster on the far side for cover. Jim had his own weapon out and pointed down the alley instantly.

As it turned out, neither of them needed to do a thing. Agents and uniformed cops swarmed the alley from the far end, and faced with such overwhelming numbers, the man held up his hands.

Blair nodded as another officer gave him a 'thumbs up' gesture. This had been a large operation and the arrest meant that a dozen teams that had been canvassing a dozen raves had congregated on the site.

"Not bad, Sandburg," offered one of the same FBI officers who had earlier demanded to know whether Blair and Jim planned on going rogue.

"Thanks," Blair grinned back and then winced. He could afford to give up grudges tonight. One bad guy in custody, and Blair could tell from the snippets he'd overheard that the man was singing like a bird. Blair felt the normal adrenaline rush of the arrest, and part of him wanted to go run the mountain. Instead he struggled to sit still on the cold metal.

"Definitely not bad, Chief. If he'd gotten out that back door unseen…" Jim leaned against the open door to the ambulance and Blair flinched as the medic pulled another splinter.

"Ow!" Blair complained.

"This would be a lot easier if you'd go to the hospital," the medic complained, but Blair just glared up.

"No way, man. No hospitals."

"We're going to need your statements," Agent Berger interrupted, ignoring both the medic's soft Spanish curses and Blair's outburst.

"Oh shit, please tell me I have time to change," Blair begged as he gestured toward his shirt with splatters of blood and a ripped collar where Jim had been a little too enthusiastic about checking out the injury. Then he yelped again as the medic pulled a deep splinter out of his cheek near his hairline.

"I think we can wait a few minutes for the walking wounded to change," Berger agreed with a crooked smile. "Ellison, we'll need yours right away."

"No problem," Jim answered, but Blair noticed that his lover's eyes never left him. He thought back and realized Jim had always done that when he got hurt. He would talk to Simon while still watching Blair. Blair wondered if it was a Sentinel thing or if Jim had been falling way back then. Jim interrupted his thoughts with a far more mundane question. "Chief, do you want me to drive you home or do you want to bum a ride off a black-and-white?"

Blair tried to relax his face and wait for another splinter to be pulled before answering. At least this time he managed to limit himself to a hiss. "I think I can bum a ride, unless Dr. Frankenstein here leaves me permanently disfigured,"

"Very funny, tough guy," the medic rolled his eyes and then got revenge with another splinter. "I think that's the last of them," he announced as he ran a gloved finger over the sore skin.

"Yeah," Blair agreed. "Feels like."

"Right, so if you'll sign here that you're an idiot who doesn't want to go to the hospital where they have topical anesthetics and antibiotics, I'll go find someone who's actually injured." Blair signed the paper that the grouchy medic thrust into his hands.

"Hospitals are dangerous, man. You have no idea how many diseases those places have," Blair defended himself as he handed the paper back with his signature.

"You cops are all the same. You'll face some psycho with a shotgun but you run away from one little germ." The medic rolled his eyes again, and Blair just shrugged his answer.

Blair hopped off the end of the ambulance and Jim followed him over to the main FBI van. As they walked, Jim's hand found the small of Blair's back, and Blair let himself bounce a little at getting one more scumbag off the street, and getting credit on the arrest didn't hurt either. Blair hadn't said anything, but he and Jim had traded glances as Simon had failed to assign Blair as primary on any cases.

Jim had been wonderful about remembering the lessons of Phoenix and giving Blair room to use his own talents, but that didn't stop Simon's actions from stinging. But now, Blair smiled as he reached the van and then regretted it when his sore cheek started to tingle and throb. Well, Simon couldn't ignore the fact that Blair had identified the suspect, and Blair had gotten primary credit for the arrest. Blair even planned on being there when the FBI agents questioned the other suspects.

"What do we have, people?" a deep voice bellowed, and Blair thought of the old saying about speaking of the devil. He immediately regretted it, especially since the Simon had gotten Blair his first badge and convinced Roth to hire him in Phoenix. In fact, it was Simon who had sent to Jim to Phoenix in search of the serial killer in the hopes that the two men could recover their friendship. Blair knew he had a lot to think Simon for, but somehow that still didn't make up for the fact that Simon couldn't seem to give him the one thing Blair truly wanted: respect.

"We have a viable suspect, a confession, and two teams going to pick up co-conspirators," Agent Finnegan, Berger's partner, said with obvious glee. "You have a damn fine team here, and if I thought it would do any good, I'd try to get them federal badges."

"Don't even think it," Simon threatened as he took the cigar from his mouth and pointed it in Finnegan's general direction. "But you're right about them being a good team. One of my best." Simon smiled widely and stuck the cigar right back in his mouth, even if it wasn't lit. Blair felt the warmth of the praise even if he didn't dare smile back. Instead he ducked his head a little in embarrassment.

"Your man identified and flushed him. Sandburg's quite the cop," Finnegan hadn't quite gotten the end of his sentence out when Simon's shocked voice cut him off.

"Sandburg?!" Simon demanded incredulously as he snatched the cigar from his mouth again.

Blair's head snapped up at the tone of voice, and his eyes caught Simon's gaze.

"I mean, of course they're both excellent officers," Simon stumbled, but Blair felt the warmth of the compliment darken into a blush as the three FBI officers turned to look in confusion at Simon's disbelief. Blair could feel Jim tighten up next to him, a subtle shifting of weight that told Blair that Jim wanted to attack something, and would be very much in need of a backrub later.

Blair waited for the explosion, but Jim remained quiet, and Simon quickly turned the conversation to other matters. However, Blair didn't miss the glances the agents would give him. As soon as he could, Blair pled exhaustion and went in search of a ride home. He wasn't surprised when Jim followed, the statement and Blair's offer to catch a ride with a black-and-white forgotten.

Blair slammed the passenger side door shut on the truck a whole lot harder than necessary, but Jim didn't comment as he started the engine.

"Do you want…"

"I don't want anything other than a change of clothes, a quick statement, and a good night's sleep. I need a chance to think about just what I want to say," Blair snapped back. He instantly felt guilty about taking his anger out on Jim, but Jim just nodded slowly as he navigated the streets of Cascade.

As they walked, Jim's hand touched the small of his back where Jim often let his hand linger, since long before they'd become lovers, but now Blair walked faster. He knew that hand would sooth him, just like Jim intended it to, but he needed to stay good and angry. Behind him, Blair heard Jim's footsteps pause for a moment, and then Jim followed several steps behind.

When Blair pushed open the double doors to the bullpen, he stood for a moment unsure about what exactly he was supposed to do. Part of him said to push everything from his desk into his bag and just get the fuck out, but he'd tried that once and it hadn't gone well. If he were to be perfectly honest, all the things that had gone well hadn't made up for the lack of Jim in his life.

He needed to find a new pattern, and he needed to tattoo that pattern into Simon's hide. Blair's stomach tightened into knots at the thought of confronting Simon. He would rather face five armed suspects than Simon. If there was any way in the universe of avoiding this, Blair would take it. Unfortunately, the only way to avoid the confrontation was to swallow his pride and allow Simon to keep treating him like the tag-along observer trotting after Jim. Blair clenched his jaw and took deep breaths as he strode forward toward Simon's office.

When his hand closed around the doorknob, Blair glanced back, and Jim was sitting on the edge of his desk watching. Part of Blair wanted Jim to deal with this while Blair stood back, but that wasn't exactly a good solution for either of them. Instead Blair knocked sharply on the door and waited for Simon's answering bellow.

The moment Blair opened the door, he knew that Simon didn't want to deal with their problems. That was evident in the way that Simon instantly frowned as Blair came in the office.

"Sandburg, I don't have time for this today." Blair could feel the urge to back down crawling up his backbone like ice water, but he steeled himself and dropped into one of the chairs across from Simon.

"Oh no, man. No, we are not dropping this."

"Sandburg, get out," Simon said as he turned back to his computer screen.

"Not a chance. We need to talk about what happened last night."

"Dammit, Sandburg, I don't have time. I'm not telling you this again."

"Simon, you make time for every other detective on this floor, and if you won't make time for me, then I guess that says what my status is here, doesn't it?" Blair snapped even though the confrontation made his morning bagel churn uncomfortably in his stomach. Blair just hoped he got through this before he had to throw up because running to the bathroom in the middle of this conversation wouldn't exactly improve his standing.

"Don't you dare tell me what your status is or isn't in my department." Simon stood up and leaned over his desk, but Blair refused to back down.

"You humiliated me out there. You really expect I'm just going to let that slide?" Blair demanded incredulously.

"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say it. But I don't have time for this right now," Simon said as he dropped back down into his seat.

"You didn't mean to say it? Great! So that supposed to make everything okay?" Blair could feel his anger override his meditative breathing as he considered Simon's unmoving attitude. "You may not have meant to say it, but you were fucking surprised that I had done a good job. What does that say about me as a detective? What does that say about your expectations of me?" Blair demanded, his voice rising and his bagel turning to lead in his stomach.

"Sandburg, I said you were a good cop. Look, I slipped and I didn't mean to. So, take it however you want to, but I'm busy."

"You don't think I can't do the job." Blair's voice dropped to a near whisper in his rage and hurt.

"I never said that," Simon quickly snapped back.

"You don't have to, Simon. If you thought I could do the job, you wouldn't have been fucking surprised when I got it done. If you thought I could do the job, I would have cases of my own out there instead of tagging after other detectives."

"Is that with this is about? You're upset about how I assign cases?" Simon growled dangerously, but Blair had long since passed the point where he could be intimidated. Simon's distrust of him was far more painful than Simon's anger.

"I'm upset about how you don't assign cases, Simon. Come on, man, look at the board! I don't have a single case. I never have."

"You and Ellison have plenty of cases. If you want more, just let me know and I'm capable of burying you under cases."

"No, Simon. Jim has cases; I tag along after Jim."

"What is your problem, Sandburg?" Simon demanded in an exasperated tone of voice.

"Damn it. You don't even see it, do you? Brown and Rafe work together most of the time, but each one gets his own cases. But not me! No, I'm just the tag-along who follows after Jim. I don't count as a real detective up there on that board."

"You can stop the histrionics now, Sandburg." Simon's voice dropped into a low rumble that warned Blair that the man was no longer amused, not that he'd been all that amused at the beginning.

"Oh man, if I wanted to be hysterical, I would've done that in front of the FBI agents when you humiliated me by implying that me doing a good job is somehow surprising. If I wanted histrionics I'd go to the commissioner and point out the fact that I'm a detective in my own right and yet I don't have any cases.

"I'm not an observer anymore, Simon. I'm a fucking cop, and I can do my own job without having to tag along behind someone else. They offered me my own corner office down in Phoenix, and they don't do that because somebody's good at following along. For three months I worked down there without Jim at all! And for two of the months when Jim worked there, we had very few cases together. But you? You just still see me as the observer. If I can't be a detective in this department, then find me a department with a captain that will let me do my fucking job."

Blair had pushed himself up to his feet before he even stopped talking. And without waiting for any sort of response or reaction, he slammed out of the office. Jim quickly stood, and Blair had no illusions about privacy when there was a Sentinel in the building, but he also didn't want to talk about it right now.

So instead of stopping at his partner's desk or at his own desk, he grabbed his leather messenger bag and slammed back out the bullpen doors. Blair stormed down six flights of stairs before his stomach forced him to find a bathroom where he could empty out his morning meal. Waves of guilt and fear and tidal waves of anger and fucking tsunamis of uncertainty crashed into him.

Blair couldn't stay at the precinct, and so he pushed his way outside to his own car, thanking God that he had insisted on driving himself to work today. He wasn't fit company for anyone, not even Jim. Maybe especially not Jim.

Blair was sitting on a bench that overlooked the commercial docks with the huge barges being towed through the sluggish waves. The water in postcards always looked blue, but from here Blair could only see grays and black and a few shades of dark green.

"I thought I might find you here," Jim said as he came and sat on the bench.

"You did, huh? How's that?" Blair asked. This wasn't exactly a normal hang-out for him. In Phoenix he had always retreated to the mountain, but in Cascade, Rainier had once been his safe retreat.

"I put an APB out on your plates," Jim admitted with a shrug. Blair couldn't help but smile a little. It was such a damn Jim-thing to do.

"I'm fine," Blair promised.

"That's good because Simon's not," Jim answered. "Simon is chewing through his entire cigar stash at a pretty good clip."

"Good," Blair said uncharitably. He didn't have the emotional energy left for charity.

"He really hadn't realized that he'd been shutting you out."

"Did he realize that before or after you told him he'd been shutting me out?" Blair asked, well aware that his tirade had expressed his anger, but it hadn't changed the stubborn expression on Simon's face.

"I might have told him that if he treated you like that again I'd kick his ass," Jim admitted.

"My Blessed Protector," Blair sighed, but he had to admit that it was nice knowing that someone would always take his side. He had known it wasn't going to be easy coming back, but now that he was here, he realized that Phoenix had never been home. He had never tried to make anything permanent there. He had never hung decorations or put down roots. He missed Roth and Bets and the others more than he had expected, and he had expected to miss them a lot, but he didn't miss Phoenix. Looking out over the grey water and bluish-grey sky, Blair realized that it was because Cascade would always be home to him in some intangible way. He just hated the fact that Major Crimes might not be home for him.

"I'm not the only one, Chief. When I left Simon's office, Taggart was waiting outside and he had a look of thunder on his face," Jim added.

"Really? Over me?" Blair looked over, and Jim nodded with an expression of pity, but somehow Blair didn't think the pity was for him.

"Oh yeah," Jim said in a tone that made it clear he expected Simon to walk away from that conversation missing a limb. “And then Brown was explaining what happened last night to Megan, and both of them looked fairly pissed. I might have mentioned that you had asked for a transfer if Simon couldn't respect your judgment and trust your abilities as a cop." Blair flinched as he imagined what Megan would have to say to Simon.

"Oh man, that wasn't very nice," Blair said as he looked at Jim. Jim looked over at him with a small smile, and then the expression faded under something more unreadable.

"What are you thinking?" Blair asked since he couldn't quite identify Jim's emotion.

"I'm thinking how many of us owe you, including Taggart, including Simon, including me. But before you left…" Jim paused, and Blair could feel his partner struggling for the right words. "I don't know." Even though Jim had fallen silent, Blair could feel the apology and the guilt. Rather than say something that would embarrass both of them, Blair slipped his hand under Jim's arm and let his fingers trace the sensitive skin of the inside of Jim's forearm.

"I won't lose you again, Chief. Not over this job I won't." Jim's voice was rough and gravelly even though his face remained stoically unemotional. Blair looked out over the water where Jim had focused his own eyes.

"Oh man, you won't," Blair promised. "Ever." Jim's hand came down and rested on the top of Blair's thigh, and they sat and watched the boats navigate around each other in the crowded harbor.