Shadows and Siege
Rated ADULT for language, and slash

Chapter 6

Blair tapped the little communicator built into his watch with weird memories of old spy shows running through his head, although right now he was feeling much more Max Smart than James Bond. Of all the gin joints, in all of Eastern Europe, why did Jack O'Neill have to drop in on this one? Oh shit. There was probably a goa'uld in here somewhere.

"Blair, are you okay?" Daniel asked, his hand resting on Blair's arm. Blair's brain spluttered for a fraction of a second before the lies started flowing again.

"Fine. Absolutely fine. Well, not really fine, more like I’m feeling a little sick. Ethnic chicken liver dish. My partner warned me to not try it." Blair slipped his recorder in his pocket and got up. A few seconds and Jim would come through that door… and now that Blair had already sent the signal… NOW it occurred to him that Jim was going to come in here and there was probably a goa'uld in here, and Jim's senses were being wonky. Oh yeah, this was a recipe for disaster. "I just need to use—" Blair gestured vaguely toward the doors as he slid past Daniel. Just be cool. Just stay cool and pretend to not see the special ops colonel watching. Just stay cool and don't search the room for the alien snake burrowed in someone's brain. Shit.

"You're really pale. Maybe I should—" Daniel started to get up.

"Hey, no. No. Take some notes for me, okay?" Blair pushed Daniel back down with a hand on the other man's shoulder and then turned and practically dashed for the back doors to the conference room. The doors hadn't even drifted shut before Jim was there, his hands on Blair's shoulder.

"Blair?"

"Hey, are you sure you're okay?" Daniel's voice came through the doors a half second before Daniel himself appeared. He stopped when he saw Jim, his one hand rubbing his opposite arm nervously. "Blair?"

"Daniel. Yeah, I'm fine. This is my partner… my work partner, Jim. Jim, Daniel's an archeologist studying Egypt," Blair provided quick introductions even as he backed toward the bathroom. "I just need to, you know, go." Blair gave Jim a desperate look before he turned and dashed for the bathroom. Okay, just get everyone away from the conference room with the colonel and the alien. That was goal one. Goal two was to get the hell out of here and tell Jim that they had bigger problems than the NID. They could shoot NID people… Blair wouldn't be happy and he was definitely voting for shooting them in the leg, but he could understand the necessity to do it if they had to. But if O'Neill was around, that meant that they had another competing interest for the goa'uld, and this time, they couldn't shoot him. No way. No, there would be no shooting of people who had saved the planet.

"Chief?" Jim called and fast footsteps followed as Blair threw himself into a stall and locked the flimsy little latch.

"He said it was something he ate." Daniel's voice echoed off the tile as he followed too.

"Oh man, are we women flocking to the bathroom like this? Where's the privacy?" Blair complained Sentinel-soft. "Jack O'Neill is in the conference room watching the crowd, so I'm thinking alien," he whispered as he braced his hands on either side of the stall and stared at the slightly bluish water in the white tank.

"He really got pale in there. Maybe we should call someone," Daniel continued since he couldn't hear Blair.

"He's fine," Jim was saying, "he just has a weak stomach. I told him to avoid the chicken and stick with American food."

Blair faked a few vomiting sounds for effect.

"Danny?" a new voice asked.

"In here," Daniel answered, and Blair made a couple more vomiting sounds as someone turned on the water. Blair was guessing Jim since he was the one who had an interest in hiding the fact that Blair wasn't actually vomiting.

"For cryin' out loud, Daniel. You nag me about how you have to come to this and then you hide in the bathroom?"

"I'm doing it just to annoy you," Daniel said in a sarcastic tone, and then he sighed. "Jack, this is Jim. His partner got sick while we were sitting next to each other."

The bathroom was silent for a second, and Blair made another retching noise.

"Uh huh," the stranger commented. "Jack O'Neill," he introduced himself. Blair didn't have to fake the noise that came out of him that time. Oh fuck. Jim was going to kill him. He had an entire conference full of nice boring academics, and he'd sat next to someone who knew Jack O'Neill. Blair gave a pained groan when he realized what was even worse. He'd sat down next to someone who O'Neill cared enough about to follow into the bathroom. Shit.

"Jim Ellison," his partner offered without even the slightest trace of horror, which was more than Blair could have done right now. Blair could feel his heart thump heavily. "Chief, are you alright? You need anything?" Jim called through the door.

"A new stomach." Blair hesitated. "A time machine so I could go back to this morning and do this whole fucking day over." He didn't even have to pretend to sound sick.

Jack O'Neill laughed at that. "Had those days myself. Come on, Danny, let's leave him to turn his guts inside out in some privacy."

"Nice… uh, meeting you," Daniel offered through the stall door.

"Same here," Blair offered back as he waited for the echoes of their footsteps to disappear before he opened the stall door and peeked out. "Jim, I swear—"

"Shhh." Jim held up his hand, his head cocked to the side, and Blair hurried to Jim's side, resting a hand on his arm as Jim listened.

"O'Neill recognized me. He's calling Major Carter, having her check to see which agency I'm working with."

"Oh fuck." Blair's already queasy stomach did another twist and he glanced over at the toilet wondering if he was going to have to use it after all.

"He's guessing NID. Okay, Chief, we're going to have to move quick. I think he's staying far enough back to make tailing us difficult."

"Tailing us? He wants to tail us?" Blair took several deep breaths and tried to keep his mind from spinning out of control as Jim just about pushed him out of the bathroom with a hand on Blair's back. Okay, he could do this. Blair had been on plenty of undercover assignments with Jim, and this was just one more, that's what he told himself.

Jim chuckled. As they were walking out into the sunlight, he actually chuckled as he hurried Blair down the stairs of the university building. Blair looked up in confusion.

"He's giving Dr. Jackson a hard time for sitting down next to the only NID agent in the room."

"Technically, I sat down next to him," Blair pointed out as they walked quickly through the square and toward a street they hadn't been down before. Pedestrians chatted and shoppers sat on benches with bags gathered at their feet, but Blair didn't see any sign of Daniel or Colonel O'Neill or aliens with ray guns. His life had officially taken a turn for the strange when he had a reasonable fear of aliens with ray guns.

"Why am I not surprised you'd sit next to him?" Jim asked with a resigned voice.

"It's not like I knew him."

"I know, Chief. I had the files on SG-1, but they weren't supposed to be here and you had your hands full with the Sentinel files, so I didn't add them to your pile. This is my fault as much as anyone's."

"Are they following?" Blair whispered as they hurried past a building with old fashioned gargoyles peering down at them.

"Yeah. Hard to miss them with their fighting," Jim confided. His voice got distant, and it took Blair a second to realize Jim was repeating someone else's words. "'Yes, Jack, I intentionally found the only NID agent and sat next to him just to give you a reason to bitch.' Dr. Jackson sounds cranky," Jim finished as he guided them around a corner and broke into a trot. "Knudsen, keep your distance," Jim muttered into the lapel of his jacket.

They turned another corner, and Jim yanked Blair through an arch and down a half dozen steps into a sunken entryway shaded by a cascade of leaves from an overgrown flowering vine that had buried the iron fence that shaded the secluded spot. Blair almost stopped breathing as Jim pushed him against the cold brick, pressing his own body to Blair's and trapping him there. Jim's hands rested against the wall on either side of Blair's head, and he tipped his head to one side. For a moment, Blair stood awkwardly, not sure what to do with his own hands. Finally he settled them on Jim's hips, giving his Sentinel the contact he needed to use his senses.

He'd read the Section reports. He knew that pheromones affected Jim's ability to use his senses. He just really wished that Jim didn't know that, because now, as Jim leaned in with his lips so close to Blair's neck that his curls fluttered with every breath Jim took, Blair couldn't quiet the little part of his brain that whispered that Jim just wanted him for his hormones. The thought made him want to laugh, and for a second, Blair toyed with the idea of pushing Jim off, of telling him that this imitation of intimacy was worse than Jim's weird refusal to be intimate at all. He even raised his hands to Jim's shoulders so he could push him away. Instead, his hand found Jim's neck and rested there, the warmth of Jim's skin under his palm infinitely more sensual than any foreplay he'd ever engaged in. He groaned as his body reacted.

Jim's head tilted and he got that same detached tone to his voice as he whispered into the microphone in his lapel, repeating what only he could hear.

"Maybe he's just here with Dr. Sandburg."

"Yeah, sure, you betcha. It's just coincidence that a covert ops soldier shows up in Maribor at the same time as the goa'uld."

"It could be—"

"Maribor."

"Jack—"

"Maribor, Danny. Maribor. We aren't in the middle of New York here. People don't just randomly come to Maribor."

Jim had been whispering Daniel and Jack's words, every syllable brushing warm air over Blair's neck, but now he could hear the two men on the street for himself as they reached the sidewalk right next to the secluded spot where Jim and Blair waited.

"You'd think I'd learn to spot them after a while," Daniel was saying, and Blair recognized that self-deprecating tone even when it was whispered so softly that he could barely hear it.

"Not your job, Danny. I'm supposed—" O'Neill's voice faded. They were speaking so softly, that even holding his breath and standing inches away, Blair could only catch those few words. Now he let his breath out loudly.

Jim glanced down at him. "Give them a second, and we'll head back to the hotel."

"But what about the mission? How can we—" Jim held up his hand and let a finger rest on Blair's lips. Blair opened his mouth to protest and Jim leaned in so close that for a second he thought Jim would kiss him. This was so similar to his dreams that Blair's brain fogged for a second until he processed the soft words Jim was breathing even quieter than a whisper.

"They're coming back. Let them pass, and we can head back to the hotel to get further instruction from Section."

Not exactly sweet talk. Blair nodded and tried to think the unsexiest thoughts he could to try and regain some control over his brain, which had started to leak fantasies. Chancellor Edwards. Chancellor Edwards in a bathing suit. That hooker with the big open sores on her lips they had questioned during the McGraw case. Lash and his dentist chair. Okay, that last one did it for him. Blair could feel the rising lust evaporate as his balls actually drew up in disgust. Jim frowned and glanced down at him, but Blair kept his eyes firmly on the blue door behind Jim.

Eventually Jim nodded. "Okay, it's safe." Taking Blair by the elbow, Jim hurried him up the stairs and down the street away from the hotel.

"Um, Jim?"

"We'll double back," Jim said shortly.

"Oh man, why did you give him your real name?" Blair asked in despair as he considered just how complicated this mission had just become.

Jim frowned, and the muscle in his jaw bulged a little before he took a deep breath. "O'Neill recognized me the minute he walked into the bathroom. I thought giving him a fake name would probably make him even more suspicious," Jim pointed out as they turned a corner and Blair caught the dark blue of the Drava river as they headed back east toward the hotel.

"But… how?"

Jim casually flung an arm over Blair's shoulder and leaned in as if they were lovers exchanging private words as they strolled down the street. Blair wasn't fooled because he could see the tightness in Jim's face that suggested the Sentinel was heavily relying on his senses. "If that had been a sociological conference on crime, how many of the people would you have known?" Jim asked.

Blair shrugged his shoulders. "Probably several."

"How many would you have recognized from journals articles or the backs of their books?"

Blair frowned for a second before answering. Sadly, he was way more familiar with the people studying criminology than tribal anthropology right now. "Probably quite a few."

"Exactly, Chief. Covert ops is the same. It's a small community, and he's been a colonel a long time. Chances are that my file has gone across his desk several times. Even if I never made the cut for one of his teams, I'm not surprised he recognized me."

Blair nodded. "And then you were on the cover of News, not to mention that anyone who has been through Cascade would have seen you on the news."

"I'm not exactly low-profile," Jim agreed wryly.

"Which is why people other than Section haven't picked you up," Blair guessed. Jim's arm tightened around him and he glanced down at Blair without breaking his stride.

"Probably part of it," he admitted. "If I'm around other players, someone is going to know me. News wouldn't have gotten clearance to put that picture of me on the magazine if I hadn't already resigned my commission."

Blair leaned into Jim for a second, watching the waters of the Drava through a break in the houses. "And now that we're out in the field and they know you?" he asked. He had no idea how this would change the mission. Maybe Section would just want the aliens shot and them out of here. At least at this point Blair was fairly sure that the aliens weren't the equivalent of Ira and Edna Wiezman from Hoboken. The careful way they had maintained status with each other made Blair uneasy deep in his soul, and Jim's reaction confirmed it. As far as Blair was concerned, Sentinel instincts existed to protect the tribe, so if these things set off Jim's alarms, it's because they were a danger to the tribe in some way.

"We'll talk about it back at the hotel." Jim sounded distracted, and the tightness in his face became a tightness in his whole body as he just stopped and stood still in the middle of the sidewalk.

"Jim?"

The head tilted a little, but then Jim seemed to lose his balance, slowly swaying back until Blair grabbed him by his jacket and yanked him forward. "Jim, man, not now. Follow my voice back. Come on, don't do this in public, you'll hate yourself when you wake up."

Blair now had to practically catch Jim as he overbalanced and started falling forward. "Jim. Follow my voice. You have to turn hearing down," Blair said, guessing at the sense that Jim had taken too far. He put his palm against Jim's cheek and let his thumb rest against Jim's lower lip hoping that smell and touch would help balance the out of control hearing. "Don't do this, man. Not now. Not here." Blair was starting to feel a little desperate and then Jim blinked and shook his head as he brought his hand up to rest it on Blair's shoulder.

"What was it?" Blair asked. "Goa'uld?" He whispered the word, but Jim only shook his head.

Jim's hand tightened on Blair's shoulder for a second, and Jim looked like he might say something, but then he shook his head again and started down the street, his arm once more over Blair's shoulder.

"Beautiful afternoon," he commented casually. "We'll have to stop and get something bland for your stomach. No more trying out exotic foods for you, my little guppy. I did not fly half way around the world to watch you heave your guts out in a toilet. You can do that at home."

"Not really how I planned to spend the day," Blair answered as he slipped an arm around Jim's waist and tried to look casually sick.

"Feel better now?"

"I don't feel worse," he shrugged, but he wasn't telling the truth. Jim's sudden act was making cold run up his spine. "Actually, now that I emptied my stomach, I am feeling better, but maybe we can stop somewhere and pick up some 7-up or something," Blair suggested. His guts really were starting to ache from all the tension. Part of him wanted to start searching the area for whatever danger had put Jim on high alert, but for all he knew, Jim was hearing someone a mile away and just being overly careful. And with goa'uld in the area, who knew how accurate his senses even were. The aliens obviously affected Sentinels because the report from the one sent to observe Seth showed a total lack of control and physiological symptoms of shock and stress. Even Jim was crankier than usual just being on the same street with the two aliens.

Just to distract himself from the possibility that armed aliens were right behind them, Blair started creating a mental list of reasons why Sentinels would react to the aliens. He had a list full of everything from genetic Sentinel memory to alien body chemistry by the time they reached the hotel. He couldn't test a single theory, but he sure had theories.

Chapter 7

"Get Section on the line," Jim ordered as he swept into the room where Clare was sitting crosslegged and tapping away at the computer in the middle of the huge bed.

"Sir?" she asked.

"Get Nikita on the line, soldier," Jim snapped, obviously not in a mood for having anyone question his orders. The sudden snap from the forced casualness on the street to this military sharpness caught Blair as off-guard as anyone, so he could only watch as Jim paced the room and glared at Clare as he waited for her to get the connection live.

Karl Jurgen slipped into the room and glanced questioningly at Blair, but he could only shrug his shoulders. He certainly had no idea what had driven Jim into military-mode. "Colonel," Karl said carefully, and Blair noticed that it was the first time Karl had ever used Jim's rank… the first time Karl had even revealed that he knew Jim's rank. "What's the situation?"

"Colonel O'Neill, Dr. Jackson, and Major Carter are all confirmed. Teal'c is no doubt somewhere close. And I'm not sure, but I think I caught something following us, possibly NID." Jim stopped at the covered window and stared at it.

"Oh." Karl didn't say any more, but Clare had turned a lovely shade of white.

"Colonel?" she said softly as she turned the laptop toward him and abandoned the bed, "I have Nikita on the line."

Jim went and sat near the computer, his fingers hovering above the keyboard for a second. "Tobias, Jurgen, walk north perimeter. Knudsen," he said into his lapel, "get Bruhn and walk south. I want listening bugs planted at twenty yard intervals."

"Should I get Makepeace and Clark?" Clare asked. Jim's fingers twitched, violently curling before he stretched them out again. "No." He said the word sharply enough that Clare came to attention before Karl's hand rested on her shoulder.

"We'll gather the supplies," Karl said quietly and then he was pulling Clare out of the room.

"Oh man, what the hell is wrong with you?" Blair demanded the second they were alone. Jim looked at him blankly for a moment and then started typing.

"Nothing."

Jim stared at the screen as though expecting something to jump out at him. His whole body was tense.

"Don't shut me out," Blair warned as he turned a wooden chair backwards and straddled it.

"Chief," Jim strangled the word as he hit the computer keys a little harder than really necessary.

"Jim, man, we're in this together. Look, I don't know if it's the goa'uld or this whole bonding situation, but you are like seriously freaking out here."

"I do not freak out," Jim said darkly.

"Of course not," Blair snorted as he watched Jim pound the computer even harder. "You just do a good impression of freaking out," he added. Jim just stopped, his hands curled into fists on either side of the computer.

"Do you trust me?" Jim asked, and he looked up with such fear and despair in his eyes, that Blair immediately moved to his side and leaned into him.

"Without reservation. I trust you more than Naomi, and I adore my mom, you know that."

"You trust me even if I don't seem to be acting rationally?" Jim asked.

That made Blair pause. He studied Jim's face, and the immediate and simplistic answer died on his lips. Remembering how the other Sentinel had reacted to Seth, Blair could admit to having just a little bit of fear curling at the bottom of his stomach. "Oh man, I believed when you saw a ghost, but there are limits. If you start doing something like sitting in a bell tower with a high-powered rifle I'm so not going to be the one handing you ammunition."

Jim snorted and scrubbed his face with one hand as he watched the computer screen. Blair tried to edge closer, but Jim gave him such a cold look that he stopped and held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Fine, geez, you seriously need an attitude check."

"Sandburg," Jim practically growled, and then he was typing again, this time a little slower. "Blair, give me your impression of the team."

"The whole team?" Blair retreated to the chair and straddled it again. Jim glanced up and then focused on the computer again without answering. "Okay, the whole team. Clare and Karl are so totally doing it… either that or they're about to."

"That's not your impression of them, that's just a statement of fact," Jim said with a wry expression.

"Fact? Really? Oh man, I knew it. Knudsen and Bruhn are too, aren't they?"

Jim rolled his eyes. "Either that or they're bathing in each other's sperm. Chief, I need your impression of the team members, each of them. Limit yourself to three words per person."

Blair looked at Jim for a moment. "James Joseph Ellison, occasional asshole," he started. Jim barely twitched. "Hannu Knudsen, loyal. Of course, maybe that's because of what Bruhn did for him, but I'm fairly sure he'd be happy to die if it meant saving Bruhn."

"That's more than three words, Chief," Jim said, but his voice was distracted as he typed on the computer.

"James Joseph Ellison, often an asshole," Blair amended himself softly, "and that's three words." Jim just grunted. "Fine. Korporal Miko Bruhn—unflappable, professional. Rebecca Clark—calm under fire. Robert Makepeace—hates me. Clare Tobias—smart and nervous. Karl Jurgen--." Blair stopped. No way could he describe Karl Jurgen in three words or less.

"Nevermind," Jim said with a frown.

"Oh man, you're freaking me out here," Blair said quietly. Jim stopped typing and rested his head on the heel of his hand, his elbow propped on his knee so that he looked like the perfect image of exhaustion. For a long minute, he sat there, unmoving, as the computer beeped for attention.

"Jim?" Blair got up, concerned that his Sentinel had slipped into another zone, but Jim took a deep breath and sat up before focusing on the computer screen.

"You know, I used to call all the weird shit in my life the Sandburg zone," Jim sighed.

"Used to?"

Jim shook his head, refusing to answer, and that cold touch of fear skittered across Blair's nerves. "Go get the rest of the team. As soon as the listening bugs are planted, I want everyone in this room."

It was the first indicator that Jim had turned off his lapel mike that kept him connected to the rest of the team, and the cold fear sharpened. But all Blair could do was nod in agreement. This wasn't his world, and he didn't know how to keep them safe, so he had to rely on Jim. He just really wished he understood what was up with him.

Since Blair didn't have a mike that everyone automatically heard, he took the long route and just walked the area, casually giving the others a little circle with his finger to tell them to head to the rally point. Clare and Karl were holding hands and wandering the street, stopping to kiss and slip listening bugs into inconspicuous corners. Knudsen and Bruhn were playing friendly drunks having a good belching contest and generally convincing the people of Slovenia that Americans were as crass and disgusting as the worst stereotype they could imagine. Their American accents weren't doing much to improve the locals' opinions either. Bruhn sounded like an escapee from the Dukes of Hazard and Knudsen's voice was all nasal tones. And what was really sad was that they totally sounded American.

Upstairs, Clark and Makepeace had both retreated to their individual rooms, and Blair gave each door a quick knock before heading back to Jim's side. When he got to the room, Jim was still in front of the computer, but now his sidearm was out, resting on the bed next to him, and Blair was truly ready to freak.

"Come sit over here, Chief," Jim said quietly, gesturing toward the portion of the bed behind him.

"Tell me you're not about to do something stupid," Blair begged.

Jim's face hardened into something cold and unflinching. "Blair, trust me," he said calmly. Right, this just might be the rifle in the bell tower moment, but looking at Jim's face, Blair couldn't do anything but trust him. He walked to Jim's side and sat behind him on the bed. Rebecca Clark and Makepeace got there first, both looking confused. Clark's ponytail had lost several strands of hair on one side, and Blair was guessing that he had woken her. She'd had night watch, so she probably hadn't gotten enough sleep. Jim nodded to them and kept his eyes focused on the computer. Makepeace immediately went to parade rest and ignored them, but Rebecca shot a confused look in Blair's direction. Blair could only shrug helplessly.

Clare and Karl slipped in next. Clare looked a little more comfortable, but she still had a slightly nervous expression. Out on the street, Karl had taken care of that by kissing her until she had stood with her eyes half closed in a look of pure bliss, but Blair didn't figure that strategy would work well in this room, especially considering Jim's foul mood. Finally Knudsen and Bruhn appeared, closing the door behind them. Jim sat up straight and considered everyone in the room.

"We have a situation. SG-1 is on scene with orders to neutralize the goa'uld. NID agents are also confirmed on the ground, and their intel seems to be better than anticipated. SG-1 and the NID have all tracked the goa'uld to the university although neither team seems to have identified the aliens yet. Section does not want a conflict with SG-1, so the mission protocol has changed."

"Sir?" Clare asked, and the fear was just below her façade of calm.

"You and Makepeace are to remain out of sight at all times," Jim said. "Tobias, continue trying to track the goa'uld through their computer activity. Makepeace, you and Clark are in charge of security for Tobias and the computer and communications equipment. At no time are any of you to leave this building."

"Sir," Makepeace said, his lips drawn to a thin, tight line. "What is the mission protocol if SG-1 breaches security?"

Jim stared at the man, and it took Blair a second to process what Makepeace was asking. Blair knew that Colonel O'Neill had arrested Makepeace after they'd served together for years, but Blair couldn't even guess whether Makepeace wanted permission to shoot the colonel or a promise that he wouldn't have to.

"Stay out of sight," Jim repeated. "If all else fails, wipe the computers and meet at checkpoint delta. If cornered, surrender, but you are not to provide any information to Stargate Command for any reason. Understood?" Jim looked from one face to another and they all nodded.

"What about me?" Karl asked calmly.

"You, Bruhn and Knudsen will form second unit. Spend as much time as you can tailing our two goa'ulds. Record all contacts and make your observations. You need to report back to Makepeace and Tobias… and Clark every four hours, keep downtime limited to the local area." Jim's eye had that minute twitch that suggested he was on the verge of completely losing his temper, and Blair touched his back, silently offering his support.

"And you?" Karl leaned forward, his face a study in polite curiosity and nothing more.

"Blair and I have our own orders. Dismissed." Jim stood up with his sidearm in hand, and for a panicked second, Blair had the vague impression he was going to use it on the team. Instead he slid it into the hidden holster at the small of his back.

Rebecca hesitated for so long that Makepeace gently slipped a hand under her elbow and twitched it to move her along, and then Blair found himself sitting in the room with a pacing Jim who was looking more like his spirit animal with every passing second.

"Jim," Blair said slowly and carefully. He took all his frustrations, labeled them and neatly set them aside as he tried to focus on the reality. "Jim, you need to talk to me before I do something drastic and unpleasant."

"Something—" Jim choked on what sounded like a laugh.

"Man, I am not kidding. I understand that on the street we can't talk. I am there with you on how you needed to maintain authority in front of the others. But this is just the two of us, and if you don't stop shutting me the fuck out, you're going to wake up with schmuck tattooed on your forehead in tribal symbols. And man, you do not want to know the tribal symbol for schmuck, much less have it tattooed on your head."

"Blair," Jim sighed.

"Unless the next words out of your mouth are an explanation or an apology, save it. I'm not a member of your team, I'm your fucking guide."

Jim opened his mouth, and Blair sprang up off the bed. "And if you say one fucking thing about me not actually being your guide because of this bond, I will strip naked and tackle you right now."

"You think you could take me?" And now Blair could see amusement in Jim's face and the deepening of those little lines at the corners of his mouth even if he wasn't technically smiling.

"I know more about your senses than you do, Ellison. If it came down to a fight, I’m betting on me." Blair gasped and took a step back as he realized what he had just said. "Shit. I didn't mean that. I'm frustrated, and I'm taking it out on you."

"So," Jim said as he crossed his arms, "you *don't* think you could take me?" he asked in a deceptively quiet voice that so wasn't fooling Blair.

"There is no answer that won't get me in trouble, so I'm taking the fifth," Blair quickly answered as he held his hands up in surrender. For a moment, he thought Jim might start yelling, or even worse, storm out, but instead Jim just scrubbed his face with his hand and took a deep breath.

"I am sorry, Chief."

"That apology had better be because of your shitty attitude and not because of some bizarre sense of guilt for dragging me into this, which you didn't."

Jim nodded and came over to the bed, sitting down heavily before he reached over and flipped the laptop shut.

"That bad?" Blair asked.

Jim nodded. "Out there. I zoned."

"Oh man, I was there. I haven't seen you check out like that for a while."

Jim was still nodding, and Blair sat next to him, so close that their thighs touched. Jim's hand reached out and hovered over Blair's knee for a second before he pulled it back without touching. "Clark isn't one of us."

"Rebecca? What? Oh shit. Is she a spy?" Blair hated this espionage crap. He wanted to trust people. He didn't want to turn into someone so closed off and suspicious that he couldn't open his heart to trust. Besides, of all the people on the team, he actually liked Rebecca the most. He so could not see her spying for the NID.

The low, strained chuckle from Jim made the hairs on Blair's arms stand up. "Jim?"

"She isn't one of us at all. She didn't come with us. She was on the street and she did something and all these memories came flooding in… meeting her in Section, training with her, the way she was the only one of the team to stick up for you when you kept screwing up during drills."

"But… Jim, that did happen." Blair could feel the panic start. Something was seriously wrong with Jim. Seriously.

Jim was already shaking his head. "No. It didn't. I could remember those things like one sheet of stained glass laying over another so that the pattern was distorted, so I just confirmed with Nikita. Our team has seven members: Makepeace, Tobias, Jurgen, Bruhn, Knudsen, you and me. There is no Rebecca Clark."

"But—"

"Chief, trust me," Jim said with such seriousness that it derailed all of Blair's objections. "Whatever she did, it couldn't override the senses. She isn't one of us. She did something to make us remember things that aren't real. Section has no record of Rebecca Clark even existing."

"Fuck." Blair breathed the word, his brain still struggling to sort through memories that he suddenly found he couldn't trust. "What else is wrong in our memories? Oh man, this whole conflict we're having over bonding… is that real?"

"As far as I can tell, Rebecca Clark just added herself to our memories." Jim sounded tired.

"So, when you told them that we have a different mission protocol—we're going to find out where she came from?"

Jim sat and stared into space for so long that Blair just knew he wasn't going to like the next words to come out of his mouth. "We are officially compromised," Jim finally admitted.

"That's sounding ominously… ominous."

Jim shook his head and reached over to rest his hand on Blair's knee. "They aren't going to cancel us," he quickly reassured Blair, and Blair could feel his heart start to slow. He hadn't even realized it had been racing until that point. "They just don't trust us to be in command with compromised memories. They're sending another shadow unit to watch Clark, Makepeace and Tobias, and we have orders to make ourselves available to the other unit capable of eliminating the goa'uld threat while Section evaluates the Clark situation."

"In English?" Blair asked. He sure didn't know about any other units in the area.

"We're supposed to let SG-1 capture us so they can use my senses to identify the goa'uld," Jim said quietly.

"Aw, shit." Blair groaned and fell back on the bed so he could stare blankly at the ceiling. "Man, do you have any idea how many ways that could go wrong?"

"Yeah, Chief, I do. But it's that or disobey Section orders."

"Which is up there with suicide by cop, but with even more of a chance of ending up dead," Blair agreed.

"Yep. And we are not to mention Clark or her amazing ability to manipulate the human mind."

Blair rolled onto his side and frowned at Jim. "Wait. We aren't supposed to tell the frontline defenders of the Earth that either a new species of alien is invading or the goa'uld have a bright, shiny new toy that fucks with the mind? Jim?"

"I know." Jim scrubbed his face even harder. "I know, but those are the orders."

"Stupid orders, and you know how I feel about stupid orders."

"And if we do tell them?" Jim demanded as he stood up and started pacing again. "She slips false memories into their heads and they'll do whatever she tells them. She could convince them she's the president. We can't afford to compromise them. Our orders are to provide assistance and maintain a safe distance between Clark and SG-1."

"So we compromise Makepeace and Tobias by leaving them here with no warning." Blair knew he had scored a direct hit when Jim's jaw locked and his face lost much of its color.

"I know," Jim said softly. "I hate this, but we have to contain Clark and we don't know if she can remove thoughts as easily as she implants them."

"Jim, she could be reading us right now," Blair said, and now he could feel his heart starting to pound painfully fast.

"I felt it, Blair. Whatever she did, I felt it. And she was close to us on the street even though she looked different at the time. She was the heavy woman with the flower dress standing near one of the houses. But this power she has, it has to be chemical or biological because my senses can distinguish the real memory from the planted one. So, we just have to leave quickly without spending any time with her."

"And we leave Makepeace and Tobias."

"They're safer not knowing. She's here for information, and as long as Jurgen is bringing information back through here, she won't hurt anyone."

"You're hoping," Blair pointed out. Jim stopped mid-pace and nodded.

"I know the risk, Chief. And better than you, I know the consequences of having my judgment be fatally wrong. Get your jacket because we might be out late tonight. We aren't coming back here."

"Oh man, I'm going out to intentionally get myself captured by government agents. I need therapy. Lots of therapy."

"You've had lots of therapy, Darwin."

"Yeah, well, it obviously didn't take."

Blair sat up and stared at Jim before getting up and heading for the door. When Jim reached over and ruffled his hair, Blair closed his eyes and just tried for one second to pretend that this wasn't all completely freaking him out. It didn't work. They were so incredibly fucked.

Chapter 8

"This is… this is so stupid I'm out of words, man," Blair muttered as he flipped through television stations so fast that not even Jim could tell what was on.

"How would you make contact?" Jim asked. "Then again, you already sat down next to one by accident. So, how would you make contact this time?" Blair stopped flipping for a second and glared. For a half-second, Jim thought he was about to get an earful of just exactly what Blair thought, but then he sighed, and went back to flipping through stations on the television.

"We obviously work for the cheap end of the conspiracy network. SG-1 gets a suite all to themselves," Blair pointed out as he glanced around at the hotel room. A fresh floral bouquet on the dark wood dining room table in the corner was starting to wilt, so Jim could guess the team had been here for three to four days with strict orders for housekeeping to not come into the room. Even so, they should have secured their room more effectively. Jim found it frighteningly simple to break in.

"We had an entire wing of the hotel," Jim pointed out.

"So not the same thing. We lied and cheated our way into that. Our tax dollars are actually paying for this," Blair said with a wave of his hand at the entertainment center, the small kitchen against one wall, the open doors into the two large bedrooms tastefully decorated in shades of red. "They have king sized beds. You think their team spends as much time screwing each other as ours?" Blair asked casually, but Jim had to grit his teeth to avoid snapping at the unasked question he could feel just under the surface. Yeah, Blair kept pushing the sex, but it wasn't easy to take when Blair had almost totally stopped smelling of desire. In the past, Blair had been a constant source of pheromones, to the point that Jim sometimes expected to be able to see a cloud around him like Pigpen in the comic strip. Jim hadn't been joking when he suggested that Blair might do a table leg because as horny as Blair was all the time, he might have in the absence of a better partner. Only now, the pheromones were almost absent.

"Military frowns on that, especially within a unit," Jim said shortly.

"Yeah, but I didn't see any signs encouraging it at Section, and our whole unit is getting more sex than Marilyn Monroe at a free-love commune," Blair pointed out.

"There's no smell of sex." Jim held the back of the chair tightly, resisting the urge to go sit next to Blair, to let his hand wander to Blair's knee and lean close. It would get him what he wanted in the short term, a burst of that delicious Blair lust. In the long run, it would cost him his friendship with Blair, and he was just starting to understand what he would do to avoid that.

"Man, you totally ruined my fun. I was going to try and figure out who slept with whom," Blair said, but his voice was strangely flat where Jim expected teasing playfulness.

"Blair," Jim sighed. Maybe he should deal with this issue head on. He would if he could figure out how to start, but how the hell did you demand an explanation when your partner wasn't doing anything consciously? Blair couldn't exactly control his hormones, and if the idea of having Jim physically addicted to his pheromones was enough to scare him out of having any pheromones, Jim couldn't blame him. But he couldn't find a way to tell Blair that he didn't blame him without it sounding like blame.

"Yeah?" Blair was staring at him in concern because Jim had hesitated too long.

"They're coming," Jim said, actually relieved that SG-1 was going to save him from the most awkward conversation of his life. Chasing a man was supposed to simplify things. He still remembered being nineteen and the unit captain coming through when Jim was taking some personal time to practice on the obstacle course. Back then, he'd been slightly on the scrawny side after growing faster than his body could keep up, and he'd struggled to make the Ranger requirements. The captain had leaned against the fence and watched for a long time as Jim ran the course, pushing himself to move faster and more efficiently each time.

'Nice form, Ellison.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'You ever tried fucking a man, Ellison?'

Jim had lost his balance and grabbed at the guide rope to keep from falling off the narrow plank. 'No, sir.'

'Think about it.' The captain had walked away. Twice more he'd watched Jim work on the obstacle course, offering advice on how to approach training and shave seconds off his time. The third time, he'd asked Jim if he wanted to trade handjobs. It really had been that simple. But with Sandburg, nothing was that simple. Four years of living together, and it still wasn't that simple.

Jim glanced over and Blair was clutching the remote tightly enough to break it, and his heart was pounding. With a frown, Jim moved around the chair and let his hand drop to Blair's shoulder. "Calm down, Chief. These are the good guys."

"Right. I know this." Blair nodded absent-mindedly, and Jim tightened his fingers a little. "Okay. I know, they're all about saving the world, not shooting two potential NID agents who've broken into their rooms without giving them a chance to explain."

"They have an archaeologist on the team. I don't think they're the shoot-first type," Jim pointed out. Blair nodded as if he understood, but his heart was still pounding too fast, and he really was about to strangle the remote control. Jim inched closer so that his hip pressed into Blair's arm as he reached down and gently liberated the remote. Letting his hand rest on Blair's wrist, Jim hated himself for needing the faint trace of pheromones that seeped into the air before Blair's face twisted and all hint of desire vanished. Getting the message loud and clear, Jim moved to the end of the couch so that he would be between Blair and the team.

"They know we're in here," Jim said as he leaned back against the arm of the couch and half-sat on it, trying for casual. "Colonel O'Neill is ordering the zats out, so even if they are the shoot-first sort, it's not going to be any worse than training."

"I'm still saying this plan sucks," Blair muttered.

"Yeah, but it's the one we were ordered to do," Jim pointed out. Blair glared at him, making it perfectly clear exactly what he thought of orders.

Jim tilted his head toward the door, watching the green light on the swipe-card lock flash before the door exploded in and armed SG-1 members stormed through. O'Neill was first, his zat held high as he lunged right. Teal'c held his zat lower and went to the left. Major Carter remained with her body half hidden by the door, and Jim could barely see Jackson's glasses as he peered from behind her. Jim just waited with his arms crossed, still leaning on the couch as he let them get into strategic positions.

"Did you get lost on the way to the registration desk maybe?" O'Neill asked as he lowered his weapon, but he could afford to. Carter moved into the room, and both Teal'c and Carter still had weapons trained on them. Jim deliberately leaned back in a position where he would have trouble countering an attack.

"I found the right place," Jim offered calmly. "Calm down, Chief, they're not going to shoot us," Jim said as he tilted his head toward Blair.

"Yeah, yeah, you say that now, but man, I know how annoying your cryptic act gets. Totally annoying." Blair crossed his arms over his chest and inched closer to Jim. Immediately, Jim could feel the shift in the air. Dr. Jackson slipped into the room, closing the door behind him, and both O'Neill and Carter relaxed slightly. Teal'c didn't. Even with the bandanna tied around his forehead, Jim could see the outline of the tattoo pressing against the fabric, and the feel a goa'uld larva this close made his skin crawl.

"Aren't you supposed to be in Cascade chasing down pickpockets and litterbugs?" O'Neill asked with more than a little sarcasm as he headed for the refrigerator in the kitchenette area.

"Pickpockets?" Blair almost yelped. "Oh man, that is so not cool. Reinforcing your own power construct by degrading others is the lowest form--"

"Relax, Chief," Jim interrupted before Blair could get going good. "He's just trying to let us know that he had us checked out."

"He could have done it without the insult. Totally not cool," Blair complained a little more quietly. Teal'c raised an eyebrow, but the zat remained steady.

"Hey, you're the ones who broke into my hotel room," O'Neill pointed out as he turned around with a soda in his hand.

"Dr. Sandburg, maybe you could explain what you're doing here," Jackson quickly interjected as he stepped forward, watching O'Neill for tacit permission to get in the middle. O'Neill leaned against the wall with his soda, and that seemed to be what Jackson wanted. "I read your paper on victimization as a form of psychological infantilism. Fascinating work."

"Um… thanks?" Blair said, obviously put off-balance by the sudden change of topic, and if Jim had to guess, that was Jackson's whole point.

"I have to wonder why you would be breaking into my rooms. There's not much about late dynasty Egypt that would be of interest, and I certainly would have offered you any assistance if you had asked."

Blair snorted. "And the zats are just Egyptian stelae, I suppose?"

Jim watched while SG-1 exchanged cautious glances. "We know about the goa'uld," Jim said calmly. "I've already identified two hosts and was working on identifying more when our paths crossed." Not even the way O'Neill focused on his soda could erase the impression Jim had that he had just aggravated a very powerful man. The casual attitude as O'Neill fingered the tab on the can didn't do anything to hide the steel under that exterior.

Eventually O'Neill made eye contact, and Jim stood up straight as the man evaluated his options. Blair started to say something, and Jim reached down and let his hand rest on Blair's shoulder, silencing him. O'Neill had to make this choice on his own.

"NID?" O'Neill asked.

Blair choked. "Oh man, not even. Those people suck, and not in the sexually satisfying sort of way."

Teal'c's eyebrow rose an entire inch and Dr. Jackson's face twisted and twitched for a second.

"Not fans of the NID then?" O'Neill finally turned his focus toward Blair, and Jim had to fight an urge to put himself between the two men.

"They want to capture the goa'uld, and excuse me, but capturing brain-sucking aliens is stupid on a level that I don't normally see outside of a horror flick."

This time, Dr. Jackson choked on something, and O'Neill's mouth actually twitched in a smile.

"They're not known for their great thinking," O'Neill admitted, "but that still doesn't answer the question of who you work for."

"Sir," Jim interrupted, "I don't have the authority to discuss my employers, but we were led to believe you would not get involved on Earth. In your absence, we were ordered to identify and eliminate the goa'uld."

This time O'Neill snorted. "I'm not letting snakeheads set up shop on Earth. However, I still don't see how a cop from Cascade is involved in this, and the amount of classified information you seem to have access to suggests that the safest course of action might be to transfer you to the nearest military facility."

Jim could feel Blair fist his shirt so tightly that it pulled across his chest. "You could do that," Jim agreed. He certainly wasn't going to try and get in a pissing contest with O'Neill over that. "However, I wouldn't be much help to you behind bars."

"Help?" O'Neill sounded way too amused, and Jim could hear Blair's heart start to pound a little faster as the smell of sour fear gave way to sharp anger.

"Oh man, Jim has done what you couldn't. We already know two of the goa'uld, and you're throwing away the best chance to identify the rest before they go off breeding or eating brains or whatever they do when they aren't playing their power games," Blair snapped.

O'Neill's mouth twitched in amusement before something more calm and serious settled across his features. "And how exactly has he done that?" O'Neill's voice was so quiet that Jim could imagine people falling for that facade of indifference. Blair didn't. He snapped his mouth shut and glared murder at the man.

"It's okay, Chief," Jim said as he turned enough to untangle Blair's hand from his shirt. "I'm a Sentinel. I can spot the goa'uld pretty easily, even from a distance. I can tell you that Teal'c is a jaffa, not just from his file, but from the way I can sense his goa'uld." Jim watched O'Neill's face. "You don't look surprised," he commented. Blair stood up, and Jim shifted to keep himself between Blair and Teal'c.

O'Neill was already nodding. "Your records said you had potential, but not that the senses had expressed. It's one reason why I always passed on your file when you were doing covert ops. My teams tended to go into isolated areas in small teams or pairs, and I didn't want you expressing those senses in the field."

"Sentinel?" Jackson asked. "Is there something you're not sharing with the rest of the class, Jack?"

Blair jumped in before O'Neill could answer. "Did you ever read Sir Richard Burton's work?"

"The guy who married Liz Taylor?" O'Neill immediately asked, and Jim flinched at the beginnings of a pissing contest between O'Neill and Sandburg as they rushed to interrupt each other. Jim had experience accepting orders, but for Blair, the concept of commanding officer didn't fit into his vocabulary. The concept of not interrupting a commanding officer obviously didn't exist either.

"The explorer," Blair said dryly as he rolled his eyes.

"He translated the Kama Sutra. We talked about him at the conference," Jackson agreed quickly. "You said he got you interested in anthropology."

"Totally. But as soon as I got over the fascination with bizarre body positions, most of which don't seem very enjoyable to me, I moved on to his work with South American natives."

"I thought he did most of his work in Arabic speaking areas," Jackson said with a frown as he moved forward a step. O'Neill didn't stop him, and Jim could only hope that indicated some sort of truce because he really didn't want to end up locked under some military base.

Blair smiled. "Oh yeah. Snuck into Mecca, which at the time was like... whoa! But he did work in South America with Sentinels--human beings with five senses heightened beyond the normal range. They can see birds a mile away and smell the game as it moves through an area. They're guardians used to protect the tribe."

"And some branches of the military use them as scouts and spies," O'Neill added, and Jackson turned to the colonel with a wide-eyed expression of shock.

"You knew about this?"

O'Neill shrugged. "No one uses them much since the seventies because, face it, technology pretty much makes the senses obsolete."

Jim flinched before Blair even got his tirade started. "Buddy, you're an idiot. An idiot with issues. No way does technology make the senses obsolete. That's like saying a bird is obsolete because we have airplanes, which is a total fallacy. The senses are integrated and more adaptable than any piece of equipment." Blair had slipped out from behind Jim, and Jim reached out and caught his guide's shoulder, reeling him back in when Blair's finger poked the air a little too close to O'Neill. "Otherwise, how is it that Jim has spotted the goa'uld, and you--for all your precious technology--are still bumbling around like the keystone cops?"

"Chief," Jim warned as O'Neill's face went blank. That wasn't an expression you ever wanted to see on the face of a commanding officer or someone holding you at gunpoint. "Our orders are to cooperate and to offer assistance in identifying the goa'uld. If you don't want assistance, I'll describe the two hosts I have identified, and we'll go our own way."

"Back to your handlers," O'Neill stated.

"I assume they would collect us," Jim agreed. "As of right now, I don't have a way to contact them because it was assumed that you would rather I not report on your activities."

O'Neill gestured toward Teal'c, and he lowered his zat, sliding it under his jacket. The man looked as dangerous without the weapon as he had with it drawn.

"So, you were ordered to report to me?" O'Neill checked.

"Yes, sir," Jim agreed. Blair stood stubbornly silent on the matter.

"Sweet," O'Neill smiled. "Then as your commanding officer, I would appreciate it if you left your weapons here and waited in the far bedroom." Even though O'Neill had a friendly, suddenly pleasant expression, Jim could feel the dread settle in his stomach. Right then, O'Neill would be calling for MP's to come collect them. There wasn't much he could do about that now. He just nodded and slipped his arm around Blair's shoulders to push him toward the bedroom.

"We didn't bring weapons."

"I'm sure you won't mind if I send Teal'c along to check on that." Jim stopped for just a second, but it was long enough to signal Blair there was a problem.

"No way," Blair blurted as he slipped out from under Jim's arm. "He's already controlling himself around one of those alien things, but you can't expect him to stand still and let one touch him. It's instinctive. He knows that thing is a danger to the tribe and it sets off his internal alarms. Man, you may have heard of a Sentinel, but you have no clue what the fuck you're doing if you ignore his instincts."

"Blair, enough," Jim snapped as he reached out and grabbed Blair's arm. He had to use his superior strength to physically haul Blair back when the man clearly wanted to rip O'Neill's eyes out. "I'll deal. Move." Jim still ended up just about dragging Blair back to the bedroom and then standing between Blair and the door.

"He's an ass!" Blair declared the second they were in the room.

"He's an ass who you've been ordered to report to and who can hear you," Jim countered. Jim had the pleasure of hearing O'Neill's team pretty much tell him the same thing. At least Jackson was. Jim tilted his head, and immediately Blair was there, his palm resting against Jim's chest as his warmth soaked into places where Jim was increasingly feeling cold and achy. Bending down, he repeated the furious whispers he could clearly hear from the front room.

"Jack, that was out of line."

"Give it a break, Daniel."

"No, Jack. They probably think you're calling for the firing squad."

"For cryin' out loud. I'm calling the General."

"And how are they supposed to know that?" Jackson hissed angrily.

"He's a Sentinel!" Jack yelled that one loud enough that Blair jumped, obviously hearing that shout on his own. "He is probably listening to every word."

"Sir," Carter said, her voice much softer than the other two, "if he can identify goa'uld maybe we..."

"Don't say it Carter."

"But, sir."

"Literally. Don't say it. He has to be listening to every word. Write whatever you're going to say."

Pencil scratched across the rough surface of paper for several seconds, and Jim almost lost himself in the rub and brush of the strokes before Blair's hand cupped his cheek, pulling him back to the present.

"They're writing notes to each other," Jim whispered.

"I don't suppose you'd be up for a test to see if you can identify the pen strokes--you know whether the sound is going away or coming toward you and how long the stroke is?" Blair said hopefully. Jim looked down at his guide with fond exasperation.

"How am I supposed to know if I'm interpreting the sounds right?" Jim asked.

"Yeah. We should do that under test conditions, but I so need to remember that one."

Jim sighed at the idea of even more tests. Of course, the only thing worse than the idea of more tests was the idea of Blair being so turned off by the thought of bonding that he left altogether. Jim didn't like the idea of spending the next thirty years with Blair without being able to bond. He liked the idea of thirty years without Blair even less.

It was like reading that Section report had opened this hole and all he wanted to do was fill it by pulling Sandburg into his life so tightly he could never leave. But he wouldn't do that to Blair. Not even if it meant living without the pheromones that Blair used to put out with such startling regularity. Maybe if Blair got back to his own life and got to chase a couple of lab techs, the scent would be back. Jim shoved down a little primitive part of his brain that wanted to kill anyone Blair lusted over.

"Carter's coming," Jim said as he pushed Blair a step farther into the room and turned around to face her. It took only a second for her to come in the door, her face an impassive mask even though Jim could smell distress on her. Whatever the colonel had written, she didn't like it. But like a good little soldier, she'd go along; Jim had no doubt of that.

"Colonel O'Neill asked me to check you for weapons. I need you to move to the wall," she said, her voice almost apologetic.

Blair grumbled about territories and pissing contests as he moved to the wall and got into the position. Jim moved to his side and did the same, pressing his lips closed against all the angry words that wanted to come out as Major Carter quickly and efficiently frisked him. He really didn't like being on this end of the situation. He didn't like anything about this end of the situation. Unfortunately, he couldn't figure out what to do about any of it.

Chapter 9

Jim sat on the end of the bed and listened as Dr. Jackson turned the pages on some book. Since Teal'c, Jackson, and Carter were in the other room, he didn't know whether the man was reading a mystery or Jim's covert ops file, but from the slow, regular rub of page against page, Jim was willing to bet he was engrossed in it. Someone, probably Carter, was making little clinking sounds, one piece of metal sliding against another in a distinctly mechanical noise. Teal'c made no sound, but Jim could still track him from the squelching sound of the snake in his stomach. The very sound of the alien made Jim's skin ache like it had touched something frozen.

Blair, meanwhile, was back to madly flipping channels, this time on the bedroom television. "Asshole," Blair grumbled again. For the last hour, he'd been randomly blurting curse words, and Jim was guessing they were all for Colonel O'Neill. Jim wasn't feeling particularly fond of the man himself, but he understood the colonel's need to be a soldier. Blair lacked that perspective. Suddenly, Blair stopped flipping and the television settled on a news station showing images from a protest with a lot of Asian people. "Oh man, we should short-sheet his bed or put all his clothes in the bathtub and turn on the shower," Blair said in a pretty vicious tone of voice. And since they'd been confined to the room O'Neill and Jackson shared, Blair could do it.

"What happened to turn the other cheek?" Jim asked.

"I'm Jewish. We don't have to turn the other cheek. We are so totally still on the eye for an eye."

Jim crossed his arms and just looked at Blair. The sense of righteous anger drained, and Blair slumped on the end of the bed.

"Fine," Blair finally groused. "No torturing the colonel, but he's still an asshole," Blair relented. "He's an asshole, and my karma is growing by the second. I'm risking a lifetime as a cockroach here."

With a sigh, Jim reached over and draped his arm over Blair's shoulders. "He's a commanding officer looking out for his team."

"And doing it by showing off his amazing power of being an asshole," Blair snorted. Jim just continued looking at Blair until the man finally sighed in exasperation. "Fine!" he growled. "He's looking out for his team, but that does not mean that he has to act like we're public enemy number one."

"From his perspective we are dangerous. We work for what is possibly the only agency in the world more secretive than his, only our boss doesn't answer to the President."

"Work for?" Blair made an amused sound. "Work for would imply we get paid, and the only things I've ever gotten from Section are a concussion and a tracker buried so deep in my back that I'm surprised I didn't cough it out when I got pneumonia. Jim, do you ever wonder if we could get those trackers surgically removed before Nikita or some retrieval team showed up?"

"No," Jim said firmly, "And Chief, not here," Jim looked quickly toward the door out to the outer area.

"You think the big one has Sentinel-sharp hearing?" Blair asked as he followed Jim's gaze. With a smile, he mock whispered loudly, "Jack O'Neill is an arrogant son of a bitch."

"Colonel O'Neill is looking out for his own team, and we are the ones who broke into their hotel, targeted Jackson at the conference…" Blair opened his mouth and Jim stood up and held out his hand to stop Blair from interrupting. "Even if you didn't target Dr. Jackson, you've been around police work long enough to know that it appears that you targeted him. And we work for an agency outside the United States which may or may not have the same agenda as O'Neill. I can't even offer him any reassurances that we're working for the good guys because I don't know for certain that we are. Are you really sure that you can blame him for not liking this situation?"

"Oh man, do not go there. I do not want to be reasonable and consider this from his point of view. He fucking called you obsolete," Blair complained, but Jim knew that frown. It meant that Blair was thinking … really thinking about something he didn't want to think about. At least now O'Neill's wardrobe wouldn't end up in the bathtub—hopefully.

"He's coming back," Jim said quietly as looked at the closed door to the main room. In the hotel room, O'Neill had limited himself to asking the general for the location of the nearest secure phone, which meant that Jim had no idea what O'Neill and his general had decided. However, he couldn't hear extra guards coming with the colonel, so hopefully that meant that they weren't going to get dragged off to the nearest Air Force base and thrown into a cell.

"He's alone," Jim reassured his partner. Blair closed his eyes and nodded, and Jim could almost see the fear drain from Blair.

"Man, I do not want to end up under some military jail. I like my life. Do you know how long I worked for that PhD?" Blair whispered Sentinel-soft as he stood and stepped to Jim's side.

"I know, Chief," Jim said, resting his hand on Blair's arm. Hopefully this time the meeting would go a little better, but Jim wasn't counting on it. "Just don't poke at him, okay?"

"Man, if he plays his alpha games with me, I am so poking him right back," Blair snorted, and Jim had to roll his eyes. For someone who insisted that he didn't play 'alpha games', Blair spent a whole lot of time making sure that he didn't end up at the bottom of the pile.

"I'm back, kids," a cheerful voice called and within a couple of seconds, the door came open. Colonel O'Neill stood there in his jeans and a casual shirt and a wide smirk that made Blair tense up immediately. Jim tightened his hand around Blair's arm. "Why don't we have a little talk?" O'Neill invited them into the main room, stepping back without ever blocking Teal'c's line of fire, a fact Jim certainly didn't miss. He stepped forward, watching the jaffa as he moved to the side of the room and leaned back against the desk. Blair crossed his arms and glared at everyone in the room as he took a position just in front of Jim.

Jim's instincts screamed at him to pull Blair back, but Jim knew that the danger here wasn't from physical violence. These people weren't going to shoot them; they might, however, lock them away, and that was a threat Jim couldn't defend against. If he and Blair went fugitive, they wouldn't last long and they would lose everything that they had built.

"So…" O'Neill drawled the word out cheerfully, "I have permission to do whatever I want with you two. I think now would be a good time for you to convince me to not throw you under the nearest stockade," O'Neill grinned as he sat on the arm of the couch.

"You're an asshole," Blair immediately snapped, and Daniel half turned away and started cleaning his glasses with an expression that came close to amusement. O'Neill, however, did not look amused. "Man, we offered to help. We offered to identify the two goa'uld for you, but you have to play your fucking games. We're offering the same thing now that we offered before, so what exactly did you gain, here?"

Jim rested his hand on Blair's shoulder.

"I'm guessing you truly aren't military," O'Neill commented as he considered Blair with a tight smile.

"Jack," Daniel jumped in, "they're offering to help us identify the goa'uld, so maybe we could start with that."

O'Neill sat on the couch, his gaze still locked on Blair. Blair just crossed his arms and glared right back.

Jim had to stifle a sigh of frustration. "Sir, our objectives are not at cross purposes. If you know about Sentinels, then you know there's an…" Jim hesitated, hating to even say the next part, "instinctive drive to protect the tribe. I want to help you identify and eliminate this threat."

"And your handlers? Are they always this accommodating?" O'Neill asked as he leaned forward.

Jim frowned as he scented the air softly drifting from O'Neill and toward him in the lazy drafts from the ventilation system. "Did your commanding officer give you permission to question us about our handlers?" Jim asked as he studied the man.

O'Neill's heart thumped steadily and his eyes remained steady and focused as he raised an eyebrow. "In case you didn't get a thorough briefing, I'm the officer in charge of security for the whole planet," O'Neill said, "So, yeah, I get to question you on anything I want. And when I'm through, the general is going to question you, and then the president. Or, you might not rate the actual president. I'm guessing a presidential flunky will get that honor."

When Blair's heart rate soared, Jim gave his friend's shoulder a quick squeeze. "You're lying," Jim said confidently.

Almost immediately, Blair's fear-sharp scent took on the musk of anger. "He's lying?" Blair almost squeaked in his outrage. "Oh man, you are officially the biggest asshole I have ever met. A walking hemorrhoid!"

O'Neill's mouth tightened into a straight line, and Daniel coughed and spluttered as he tried to clear his throat.

"Look, Squirt, I'm cutting you some slack because you're obviously a civilian, but I know more about Sentinels than you think, and there's no way—"

"You smell like you're lying," Jim interrupted. "You're right, your heart rate and pupil dilation are steady, but no human can control his smell."

"And no Sentinel can smell truth," Jack countered.

"I can."

"Oh man, he so busted you," Blair laughed. "And we are so testing this when we get home. Why didn't you tell me that lying makes a person smell different?" Blair demanded as he looked up at Jim. "It has to be stress hormones, cortisol or norepinephrine. Seriously, why didn't you ever tell me?"

"Because most people give themselves away with heart rate and pupil dilation." Jim looked down at his guide fondly. The anger and fear had almost instantly vanished, and now he had the bounce that Jim associated with him getting stuck doing a lot more testing. "However, even your training can't make a lie smell like the truth," Jim told O'Neill with confidence. He could see O'Neill waver, his pupils dilating now as he considered what to do now that his bluff had been called.

"Sir, if they identify the goa'uld, Teal'c or I could confirm the identification. We wouldn't need to rely on their information," Carter offered softly.

Blair snorted. "This is so not fair. I finally offer to help the military instead of picketing against them, and I still get treated like shit."

"Not a fan?" Daniel asked with a smile.

"Are you kidding? The military is like secret central. I could go on for hours about how screwed up the U.S. military is, and that's not even counting the whole hiding-the-aliens conspiracy."

"Crap," O'Neill sighed. "I just totally lost control here, didn't I?"

"Indeed you did not," Teal'c offered with a calm assurance, and O'Neill looked at him with an expression Jim couldn't read, it looked something like resignation.

"Fine," O'Neill told Blair as he stood up and went for the refrigerator. "The president apparently believes that we should have a handcuffs-free policy toward you two. He seems to feel that your agency is more likely than not to help us on this mission. He also doesn't trust either of you as far as he could throw you, and with his recent heart trouble, that wouldn't be far. I doubt he could even throw you, Sandburg," O'Neill dug in a little bit. Jim could have told the man to give up trying to insult Blair about his lack of muscle or size, but he figured as long as O'Neill was focusing on that, he wasn't hitting any of Blair's real hot buttons.

"Whatever," Blair said dismissively.

O'Neill glared a little harder, obviously annoyed that Blair wasn't even a little offended. "And this is highest security clearance. That means that the details of this mission or anything regarding Stargate Command cannot appear in any of your mother's crackpot conspiracy theory groups."

Jim still had his hand on Blair's shoulder, so he could feel the man tense up the second O'Neill mentioned Naomi. That would have been part of a standard background check, but it had obviously caught Blair off-guard.

"You do see the irony here, yes?" Blair demanded. "I mean, you're calling Naomi a crackpot for believing in conspiracies, which would be way more convincing if you weren't part of a government conspiracy."

"And you aren't?" O'Neill demanded as he pulled a bottle of water out of the refrigerator.

"Government conspiracy? No way. Well, not until now. Our conspiracy is totally non-governmental," Blair said, and Jim tightened his hand in warning. O'Neill had to suspect Section, so they really didn't need to give him any clues. As usual, Blair totally ignored him. "And you don't have to worry about your precious secret, because while I would love to piss you off, being tortured to death is so not on my list of life experiences to try out."

"Tortured?" Daniel abandoned the wall where he'd been doing a good impression of unobtrusive and stepped closer. O'Neill just gave Blair a particularly searching look.

"We have a job to do," Jim said as he stepped forward and not-so-subtly pushed Blair back behind him. "If you have a map of the city, I'll show you where we identified the two goa'uld. If we stake out the area, we might be able to identify them again. I'll recognize the feeling of having one near me the second time around," Jim said, quickly distracting all of them from Blair's little announcement. Jackson looked ill. Carter was just standing there with her eyes wide. O'Neill's narrow-eyed look pretty much suggested that he had just put 'torturing their own operatives to death' together with 'Section,' even if he didn't know the actual name. And Teal'c… well, the alien looked pretty much like he always looked. However, Jim could see the tension on either side of the man's eyes that suggested the idea of a group torturing their own operatives to death bothered the man.

"Blair?" Jackson asked, and Blair looked over. "Are you in danger?"

Blair snorted. "Nietzsche would have loved me, man. I'm all about living dangerously."

"And we're all in danger until we find out what the goa'uld are doing here," Jim interrupted. "Map?"

"Yeah, I have one here," Carter offered as she went to the desk and pulled out a map of Maribor. Laying it out on the coffee table, she glanced toward O'Neill, but he was back to watching impassively. Jim gave Blair's shoulder one last squeeze before he walked over and sat on the couch.

"We encountered two hostiles here," Jim said pointing at the street. "The two were walking east, and we confirmed that they ended up at this hotel. We don't have information about when they left."

"You lost them?" O'Neill asked as he finally left his casual slouch against the wall and came over to stand by the coffee table. It left him perilously close to Blair, and Jim had to fight his instinct to get between the two of them. Right now, Blair wanted to punch O'Neill. And since Blair wasn't one to solve his problems with fists, he was probably trying to figure out how to verbally eviscerate the colonel, and O'Neill wasn't the type to take that kindly.

"We were ordered to break all contact with our team, so we have no information on when they left or if they left," Jim corrected the man. "Nor will either of us identify other members of our former team."

"Yet you left them," Teal'c said. The words may have been a simple statement of fact, but Jim felt the sting of them anyway. Of course, Teal'c didn't know that it was even worse than that. Jim hadn't just left his team, he'd left them with an impostor in their midst and no way of identifying her. He'd left them when the team was so fragmented that no one person could take command, not without Nikita's specific sanction. Makepeace would never listen to any other member of the team, and neither Bruhn nor Knudsen would take orders from Makepeace. They weren't a team Jim had chosen, but neither was the group he'd led to their deaths in Peru.

"I wasn't asked for my opinion on the feasibility of leaving the team," Jim said as he tried not to clench his jaw with only limited success.

"Don't go there," Blair warned as he practically shoved O'Neill aside in order to reach the couch and sit next to Jim, but O'Neill's glare of death was lost on the younger man.

"Look," Jim said as he leaned back and looked up at the members of SG-1 who had gravitated closer, Daniel standing just behind O'Neill, Teal'c near the television cabinet, and Carter half way between Teal'c and O'Neill. "You want the aliens dead, yes?"

"Yeah," O'Neill said suspiciously.

"I really want the aliens dead, so let's work together so that we can get this done and never see each other again," Jim suggested.

O'Neill was silent for a moment before he nodded. "I can work with that."

Chapter 10

The street was quiet. The low clouds had chased most of the tourists inside, and the natives hurried along the sidewalks hoping to get home before the rain started.

"So, how did an anthropologist end up working with a sentinel?" Daniel asked as he walked next to Blair. Blair fought the urge to turn around and check to see where Jack and Jim were. Yeah, they were somewhere behind them, but he hated having Jim so far out of his sight. Weird. In Cascade, Jim did his thing and Blair was off somewhere else about as often as not. But right now, every inch of space between them made his skin itch as though he were the sentinel.

"Blair?" Daniel asked, frowning in concern.

"Not really the time," Blair pointed out with a wave toward the street in general.

Daniel blushed. Blair had to remind himself that most of Daniel's missions were off-planet where the chances of being overheard by the wrong people weren't actually that high. When Blair had a really uncharitable urge to say something unkind about Daniel's inadequate common sense, he clamped down on it.

"So, how did you end up working with Jim?" Daniel edited his question.

"How did you end up working with Jack?" Blair shot right back, not really in the mood to play nice. He hated this whole situation, and a little part of him knew that Daniel was just the most convenient target, but that didn't change the fact that Blair was enjoying taking a few shots at the man. Blair didn't know what aggravated him more, O'Neill's shitty attitude or the fact that Daniel obviously disagreed and still stood silent and let Jack get away with being an asshole. And the fact that he had actually liked Daniel all the way up to the point when Daniel let Jack go ripping into them... that just made him all the crankier.

"I got hired to do some translating work," Daniel answered in a surprisingly friendly tone. "Jack was really just about ready to kill me the first time we worked together." Daniel chuckled. "But after he saved me from my own curiosity a few times, he got used to having me around. Besides, life is never boring with me." Blair glanced over, and Daniel had a self-deprecating grin on his face as he shrugged.

"And the fact that he's an asshole doesn't bother you at all?"

Daniel pursed his lips and paused for a second. "We all have our faults. Jack likes to point out that my overdeveloped curiosity and underdeveloped sense of self-preservation are both dangerous. But then again, Jack's no saint. Not only is he an asshole, but he's terrible with names, he has no patience for the fact that archeology and diplomacy both take time and patience, and he's obsessed with fishing and the Simpsons." Daniel gave a small laugh. "He does seem to have more faults than most people, doesn't he?"

"Like being a rude, arrogant prick?" Blair suggested as they reached the main square and settled in on the same bench where Makepeace had been sitting hours ago. Blair firmly kept his eyes focused on the trailing edge of a gray cloud. If the others were here, he didn't want to see them. Blair totally sucked at pretending to not know people and he knew it. The thought of the rest of the team back at the hotel with a potentially deadly alien right in the middle of the team made him a little queasy, but he couldn't do anything about that, not without telling SG-1 everything, and that was dangerous on so many levels that Blair didn't even want to think about it.

"Oh, I don't know. He's not arrogant enough to break into someone's room and set up camp," Daniel pointed out. That distracted Blair from cloud watching.

"No way. We were just trying to cut through the bullshit."

"By invading our space?"

"By not playing these alpha chest-thumping games and laying all our cards on the table."

"Not playing alpha?" Daniel choked a bit before the expression turned to laughter. "Right. Invading someone else's territory and then facing them down… that's your definition of not playing alpha?"

Blair narrowed his eyes. "I liked you a lot more when you were doing research for some crackpot theory on Egypt."

Daniel crossed his arms, and Blair wasn't sure if that was an aggressive or a self-protecting gesture because the man's face lost all emotion.

When Daniel didn't say anything, Blair sighed and yanked the hair tie out of his hair, tangling a couple of curls in it so he ripped out a few hairs. "Oh man, I am approaching Jack O'Neill levels of asshole here. I'm sorry. I'm just really about ready to explode over this whole…" Blair gestured toward the whole world. "I'm not normally this defensive."

"Or aggressive?" Daniel asked.

"Or aggressive," Blair sighed as he realized he really had been out of line. He was totally out of line, and Daniel was actually being a pretty good sport about it. "No way do you deserve it because I know you do good stuff, which we will not be discussing here, but man, I am totally in awe of what you do. It's just… it's been a hard week, you know?" Blair pushed his hair back into a new ponytail and wrapped the tie around it again.

"Oh, I know," Daniel agreed with an expression that made it very clear he'd had more than his share of shitty weeks. "No hard feelings."

"Been there, bought the t-shirt?" Blair guessed.

Daniel gave a fleeting frown before an impish grin appeared. "More like the wardrobe."

"Oh yeah. Man, we're academics. How'd we get in with serial killers and wack jobs and alpha dogs, oh my?" Blair jokingly sing-songed the words to the tune of Wizard of Oz. A woman with a paper shopping bag hurried past, barely sparing the two of them a glance even if they were pretty suspicious sitting out in the open waiting for the rain to drench them. Blair fingered his umbrella and gave the sky another look.

"What? Your university didn't have wack jobs and alpha dogs?" Daniel asked incredulously. "I've watched teaching fellows chew their own arms off to escape the grip of some tenured professor from hell."

"Oh hell, yeah. Totally. My friend got stuck teaching for Dr. Wizeman over in engineering at Rainier. The man does not believe in awarding more than one A per semester, and that's not even per class. He won't have more than one A in all of his classes combined. Anyway, my friend filed the grades he believed students had earned, and Wizeman shows up at his office, confiscates the students' final exams, and then overrides Rick's grades. He drops everyone at least a letter. He was taking off points if the students fucking bent the corner of their test, and the students assumed that Rick just turned into an asshole at the last minute. Fucking alpha-dog one-upmanship bullshit."

Daniel nodded enthusiastically. "At the Oriental Institute, there was this one professor who gave a test by handing out a blank piece of paper and seeing how we'd all react to it," Daniel shared with a shiver of dread. "Then, when people were confused, he started lecturing about how we're all sheep and don't know how to think and no matter how smart we'd been told we were, we weren't. It came down to a simple equation: we were all idiots, and he was brilliant. All hail Professor Appleton." Daniel shook his head. "Alpha posturing is not relegated to physical confrontation."

"That's true," Blair snorted, "and then there's the whole system of have and have not. I mean, when I was a teaching fellow, I taught three classes, took two or three classes every semester, and was working on my dissertation, but they wouldn't give me one inch of office space to myself. But Dr. Paulson, who'd had a stroke and hadn't been on campus for over a year, still had his office with his nameplate. Man, it made no sense. Five years of that, I put up with five years of that. Putting up with Jim's anal-retentive house rules is nothing compared to that."

"I'm glad I skipped that part of the experience. I did my one required teaching semester at UCLA, and then I ran from the teaching fellowships." Daniel stretched his legs out in front of him.

"I wish I could've afforded to run," Blair said as he thought about how much easier life would have been without teaching. Some of those semesters, he'd sleep in the truck while Jim drove to the station just because that hour was the only sleep he'd get in a day. "How'd you get so lucky?"

"Dead parents."

Blair froze and then cringed. Oh yeah, there were shitload of scholarships available for orphans, but that was so not a good trade-off. Shit, and here he'd been giving the guy a hard time. Yep, schmuck, thy name is Sandburg.

"Oh man, I'm sorry," Blair said softly, and now he felt like an even bigger jerk for giving Daniel shit. A little part of his brain whispered words like argumentum ad misercordium and objected that Daniel had backed up Asshole O'Neill, orphan or not. Blair quickly shoved that entirely too logical part into the tightest box he could and slammed the lid. The guy deserved some slack, especially considering that he had saved the world, which trumped the times he and Jim had saved some woman or even saved entire parts of Cascade. "I didn't know. I didn't read any files on you guys."

Daniel shrugged. "It was a long time ago. Jack can be an asshole, but he's the closest thing I have to family. I've pulled some pretty dumb moves, and Jack is always there, even when he'd be better off cutting ties and running for the hills."

"Yeah, same for me and Jim," Blair agreed.

"You don't have your folks, either?" Daniel pulled up a leg and tucked it under him, and Blair caught a glimpse of Jim walking near the same tourist stall where Jurgen had been shopping earlier.

"I have my mom," Blair shrugged. "She's sort of the wild child type. You know, never tied down, not even by a kid. I don't know who my father was."

Daniel nodded.

"You're good at your job," Blair offered with admiration.

"What?"

"Your job... getting people to talk, to start dialogue and negotiation. Man, you're good. I was all ready to hold this against you, and now… not so much. I still think Jack's an asshole, though," Blair added after a pause.

Daniel smiled, and he looked far too young to have saved the world. "Some days, I would agree. But he's still my friend and the leader of our team."

"An asshole leader."

"You don't let things go easily, do you?" Daniel asked, his smile widening.

"Not so much, no."

"So, do you need help to get away from whoever is pulling your strings? We could help you, give you a new life or just help you escape." Daniel asked so casually that it took a second for Blair to really register what the man was offering. And then, the first feeling Blair had was fear… no, terror. Terror that someone would overhear and then Section would come sweeping in and take Jim away. For a half-second, Blair was back in that white room, watching Jim's stoic expression as the Section operatives cuffed him and took him away. He remembered the pained and helpless expression on Jim's face in that moment, and the way Blair had firmly believed in his heart that he would never see Jim again. When the guard had come for him, he'd gone every step expecting a bullet in the back of his head. And then he'd seen the operating table, and he'd fought, he'd fought with every ounce of strength, and he'd been helpless as they'd stripped his shirt and tied him down on that cold table.

"Breathe, Chief, just breathe." Jim's voice floated in on the waves of dizziness that had left Blair seeing spots and holding onto the bench with a death's grip. "Slow down there, Speedy. In… hold… out," Jim coached him. Blair struggled to get control of his breathing, and slowly the feeling of pressure choking him subsided. "Shhh," Jim hushed him, and Blair realized he was clinging to Jim with one hand and the bench with the other and he had pressed nearly his entire body up against Jim so that he could smell the faint traces of soap on Jim's skin and feel the soft cotton of his shirt under his cheek. A hand rubbed soothing circles on his back.

"Is he okay?"

"He's fine," Jim said sharply.

"Yeah, sure, you betcha, he looks fine," the voice answered sarcastically, and Blair pushed himself away from Jim. He wasn't a wuss. Okay, he was, but he could pull himself together after wussing out. Jim was sitting next to him on the bench, watching with a frown.

"Hey, no problem," Blair said weakly.

Jack O'Neill snorted, and Blair opened his eyes enough to glare at the man.

"Your man started this," Jim snapped as he glared at Daniel.

"I was just… I wanted to help."

"Oh man, you can put your Blessed Protector badge away, Ellison." Blair reached over and squeezed Jim's arm so the man would know he meant it. "He really was trying to help."

"By sending you into a panic attack?"

"Panic attack my ass," Jack said as he crossed his arms. "Ellison, you and I have both seen enough PTSD to recognize the signs. If Sandburg isn't steady in the field…"

"He is," Jim almost snarled.

"Look," Blair said as he stood up. He ended up having to grab for Jim's shoulder to stabilize himself, but at least that looked like one friend seeking normal and natural physical contact with another. . . hopefully. "There are just certain topics that are not good for the mental health. I know you were trying to help," Blair said to Daniel, "Totally. And I appreciate it. But short of leaving the planet, I'm not so sure you can help."

"Danny, what were you two talking about?" Jack asked as he looked over.

"Jack, there's no way that Blair would willingly be part of some secret agency."

"Daniel." That was not a friendly tone Jack was aiming at Daniel, and the look was even less friendly.

"He works with victims. His mother's a vegan pacifist."

"Daniel."

"He's a genius. He started college at 16 and by the time he was 18, he had a juvenile record for protesting *against* violence."

"For cryin' out loud," Jack snapped.

"Jack." Daniel's voice had a pleading tone to it.

"Daniel, what did you say?" Jack demanded as he crossed his arms over his chest.

Jim stood up, his arm sliding around Blair's waist. "He offered to help Blair start a new life, to escape."

Jack stared at Jim for a second before studying Blair. With a sigh, Jack looked up and muttered to the sky above. "No problem, simple mission, pop in-kill a snake-pop out. Danny, you never make things easy."

"Me!?" Daniel demanded, clearly ready to fight over that statement, but Jack held up his hand.

"Yes, you," Jack said firmly. "You just have to go and poke people with a stick until you find out the truth, don't you?"

Blair glanced over, and Daniel looked as confused as he felt.

"Actually, yes," Daniel answered.

Jack sighed and rolled his eyes again before he focused on Jim. "Sandburg panicked when Daniel talked about escaping, so I'm guessing you've tried that before. And if you've tried escaping, that means you aren't willingly working for your handlers. And you and I have both worked this field long enough that there's really only one non-governmental agency with that much control inside US borders."

"That's not something I will discuss," Jim said slowly and carefully, and Blair could feel the man's body stiffen.

Jack nodded. "Right, so we're going with denial. I can do that. I think that's stupid because you're talking to someone who has the ear of the President—the actual President, mind you, not the president of the Hair Club For Men—which means we could help, but if we're going for denial, I can do that, too."

Jim had gone stone-faced, and Blair could only lean into his partner and study a tiny weed struggling up through the cracks. He wondered if someone would have to get down there and pull it up by the roots or if the city just sprayed massive amounts of poison on everything.

"We have a job to do, and I can feel the goa'uld, that way," Jim said as he tilted his head toward the east. Immediately, Jack's expression cleared, and he ducked his head and whispered into his lapel.

"Murray, we've got company coming from the east, stay sharp." Blair couldn't hear the response, but Jim must have approved because he started moving, the hand at Blair's waist urging him in the direction of the goa'uld.

"Whoa there, bucko," Jack said as he reached out and caught Jim's arm. "Let's leave the doc at home for this one. Carter can come in and escort him back to the hotel."

"No fucking way," Blair snapped as he stepped away from Jim and got so close to Jack that he had to look up at the man. "I'm Jim's partner, and no way is he going in there without me."

"Hey, I understand about sentinels and companions, and I'm an open-minded kinda guy, ask Daniel," Jack said with a nod toward Daniel, who remained silent until Jack gave him a dirty look and started talking again, "but I’m not taking someone with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder into a stressful situation. Stressful situation, stress disorder. Are you connecting the dots there, doc?"

"I'm fine. And I'm going with Jim," Blair said mulishly.

"Then you and Ellison will both go back to the hotel while we identify the snakes from your description. I won't take you in the field." Jack stared down coldly, and Blair got the feeling that no amount of cajoling or harassing was going to make the man budge. That didn't mean he was going to give up easily, though. There was more than one way to skin a stubborn colonel.

"Oh man, don't you get it? Jim's your best chance of identifying them from a distance. Who's to say that this is going to be the same goa'uld? For all we know, there are dozens here. And without Jim, you have zero chance of spotting any of them. Think about that," Blair said, playing on the man's need to accomplish his mission. For a second, he could feel Jack's indecision, and then the man shook his head.

"Not a chance, tough guy. You can go back with Carter or you and Ellison can go back with Carter, your choice." Jack looked back across the plaza, and Blair glanced over to where Carter was walking, a huge purse on her shoulder and a very touristy camera dangling from her neck. Blair glanced up at Jim, but the man was still doing his statue impression.

"I will protect Sandburg. He won't be in any danger, sir," Jim offered.

"No, he won't because he'll be back at the hotel with Carter watching Radio-teve-zeeza."

" Radiotelevizija Slovenija," Daniel corrected him.

Carter saved Daniel from any verbal retaliation. "Sir," Carter asked, "who's heading back for the hotel?"

"Well, kids?" Jack asked as he focused first on Jim and then on Blair. "Clock's ticking, here."

"Chief, do you want me to come back with you?" Jim asked.

Yeah, the only thing wimpier than getting kicked off a mission was dragging other people down too. "Hey, I'm fine. Seriously," Blair added when Jim looked at him suspiciously. "Man, just go identify some bad guys and hurry back. I'm not exactly thrilled with the backup here."

"For cryin' out loud, Sandburg, we do know what we're doing. If we didn't, you'd be worshipping some snakehead right now," Jack complained.

"Yeah, and you're completely clueless about sentinels. Less than clueless. You called him obsolete," Blair pointed out, still angry about that one.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Fine, I misspoke. I do that a lot with big words. Maybe I meant obscene or obscure or even obstreperous. Look, I'm not going to let anything happen to Ellison... or to you."

Blair snorted. "I might believe that if I thought you knew what you were doing. Look, the goa'uld are getting closer."

Jack glanced toward Jim, and the sentinel nodded.

"And if you knew what you were doing, you already would have known from his reactions," Blair pointed out, and that made Jack raise his eyebrows. "So, here's the deal. I'll go quietly with Carter, but we get to stay close enough to come running when you completely fuck up."

"Fuck up?" Jack demanded.

"Clock's ticking, here," Blair said sweetly, throwing Jack's words back at him. Jack glared even while Daniel had to turn around to hide the smirk Blair had glimpsed. "The café a block down?" Blair offered as a compromise. The hotel was just too far away.

"Fine," Jack snapped. "Carter, don't let the kid talk too much, he's worse than Daniel. And if he tries to start sweet talking you into something, shoot him with your zat."

"Yes, sir," Carter said with a smile as she slipped her arm around Blair's as though they were lovers walking arm in arm.

"Be careful," Blair said as he was pulled away from Jim.

"I'll be fine. You just watch out because you do not have a good record with armed women," Jim returned with a small smile, and Blair felt some of the ice around his heart soften. If Jim felt confident enough to joke, maybe things weren't completely screwed up.

"I haven't shot a date yet... at least not recently," Carter said with a smile as she tugged Blair into motion, and then Blair had to turn away from the other three because they were walking too fast for him to keep watching Jim. For several minutes, they walked in silence, Carter's boots clacking against the stones as they hurried. A few drops of rain splattered against Blair's face, but not enough to pull out his umbrella.

"They'll be fine," Carter said softly.

"O'Neill has no idea how sentinels work," Blair said softly.

"The colonel plays down his intelligence, but he knows what he's doing," Carter said as they stopped in front of the café and stopped to look at the outdoor menu. Blair moved closer and whispered.

"Lady, the people we worked for thought they had a clue until they met Jim. The colonel is so far out of his depth he doesn't even—" Blair broke off mid-word when Carter shoved him back so hard that he stumbled, caught his heel on a loose stone and ended up windmilling his arms and practically running backwards in a futile attempt to catch his balance. When his back hit a solid and warm chest, Blair finally looked up to see Carter hit with zat energy right before her body collapsed to the ground. The zat from her hand clattered uselessly to the ground.

"Aw, fuck," Blair cursed as he looked up at whoever he had fallen against. Sure enough, it was goa'uld number two from earlier. An inhumanly strong hand shoved him away, and then Blair's world erupted into pain as the zat blast ripped through every cell in his body. Well, fuck.

Chapter 11

Jim froze in the middle of the street. Daniel noticed first, resting a hand on Jim's arm, and the creeping feeling of cold wrongness sank into Jim's flesh. Without a word, Jim turned and ran toward the plaza where he'd last seen Blair.

"Ellison!" Jack snapped, but he kept his voice low. The goa'uld they'd been tracking was on the other side of the Drava, the murky waters keeping them from getting close enough to have any shot at taking him out, but right now, Jim couldn't care less. The alien could have all of Slovenia if he wanted it, he just wanted his guide.

Jim charged through the plaza and toward the street where Carter had pulled Sandburg.

"Ellison!" called a voice behind him, but Jim filtered that out as he focused everything on scent. The bitter smell of ozone and zat discharge made his nose ache, and when he reached the café, the scent was almost overpowering.

"Soldier, you'd better explain yourself," O'Neill hissed as he came to a stop behind Ellison. "Danny, get Carter."

"She's not in there," Jim said before Jackson was half way to the door of the café. "Someone discharged zats, multiple firings."

"Multiple?" Daniel swallowed heavily.

"Check the café," O'Neill ordered calmly. "Ellison, you take east, sweep the area." O'Neill ordered Jim to cover the area they had just covered, but Jim ignored him. "Murray, we need you to sweep north of the current... hey!" O'Neill had been quietly speaking into his jacket, but the last bit he shouted in Jim's direction. Jim just kept walking north, reaching out with his senses as he sifted through every scent in the street. The rain was starting to sprinkle, each drop pounding against the stone as Jim walked faster.

"Ellison!" A hand grabbed his arm, and Jim shrugged off the touch with a growing impatience.

"Stand down, now!" When a body appeared in front of him, Jim stopped and blinked at the image of a very angry O'Neill, his zat gun out and held down by his leg.

"They have Sandburg," Jim growled.

"And Carter. We'll get them back. But right now, we don't even know who has them."

"The goa'uld," Jim said as he wrinkled his nose at the unnatural scent. And now, with Teal'c codenamed Murray coming closer, that unnatural scent intensified.

"You can tell that... in the rain... without your companion even here to center you?" O'Neill didn't even pretend to hide his disbelief.

Jim glared at the man and clenched his fists in an attempt to not grab O'Neill and slam him into the nearest wall. Daniel came running up.

"They're not there," he said.

"No shit, Sherlock," Jim offered as he started walking again. O'Neill didn't move, and Jim ended up chest to chest with the man. "Colonel, get out of my way," Jim said slowly.

"Stand down, Ellison. You agreed to take my orders, remember."

Jim struggled. If this were Simon, he would have no trouble following that order because he could trust Simon to act with Blair's best interests in mind. He didn't know O'Neill well enough to make the same assumption. On the one hand, the aliens had taken Carter, too, so he had a good reason to want to track them down. However, a man didn't reach O'Neill's rank without making sacrifices and learning to live with the consequences. That was the main reason Jim had left the service. After Peru, he knew he could never make a command decision again because he wouldn't put other lives on the line.

Jim cocked his head to the side and listened to distant whispers distorted by the rain that was now starting to fall a little harder.

"Does anyone have a visual on Blair?" That was Bruhn in the distance, his voice muffled by the rain and the echo from the buildings between them. Jim couldn't hear the answer, but Bruhn quickly followed with, "Keep on him. Ellison may follow. Do I offer Ellison backup if O'Neill becomes a problem?"

Jim really didn't like the sound of that. "I don't need back up," Jim said, hoping they either had him bugged or they were using a directional mike.

"I'm not offering backup. In fact, unless I started randomly blurting alien words again, I ordered you to stand down. Daniel, I am speaking English, yes?" O'Neill asked. Jim couldn't hear any response from the distant shadow, but he didn't know why. Bruhn might be following orders to not interact with him or Jim might have lost the sound in the rain which was falling with a steady patter now, mimicking a white noise generator.

"Unless there's something wrong with my hearing, yes," Daniel offered and he was looking strangely at Jim as well.

"My team has confirmed a visual, but I am under strict orders to keep the two teams separate," Jim explained briefly. Teal'c materialized silently from the shadow, but Jim wasn't surprised. The prickling feeling of the alien in Teal'c body made his stomach lurch queasily, so Teal'c had no chance of sneaking up on him.

"I heard no such confirmation," Teal'c said as he stood near the others, the rain soaking into his bandana so that the symbol below was even more visible.

"That's because you're not a sentinel," Jim said. "Sir, I can follow, and if you want to trail after me with your zat pointed at my back, that's fine, but I won't be able to keep the trail for long if it starts really raining." Jim forced his fists to unclench as he waited for O'Neill's order.

"If I say no, you're going anyway, aren't you?" the colonel asked.

"Yes, sir, I am. This is Blair."

"That's kinda my point. With your companion missing, should you be doing this?" For the first time, Jim could see the unmistakable signs of distress on O'Neill's face. The man had a good poker face, but not good enough to fool a sentinel. He was actually worried. Jim revised his impression of the man just a little.

"Sir, I track without Blair all the time. I'm a cop, and if I waited for Blair to get back from his endless meetings, I'd work about twenty hours a week instead of the forty or fifty I put in every week. Blair was right when he said you don't know the first thing about sentinels."

"I know exactly what the US military knows," O'Neill pointed out. He sighed. "And this would not be the first time the military didn't know nearly as much as they thought they did. Go. Find your partner," O'Neill said as he stepped to the side.

"Yes, sir," Jim agreed as he started trotting down the narrow road, his sense of smell wide open. The rancid smell of alien hit him so hard that he immediately gagged and had to brace himself against a brick building as he struggled with a need to not vomit.

"Okay, this is what I mean. This is not inspiring confidence, Colonel Ellison," O'Neill pointed out.

Jim carefully stood, his sense of smell dialed down as he looked at Teal'c who still stood behind Daniel even though Jim could smell him so clearly that he felt suffocated by the scent of something reptilian, but not, something so alien that Jim's every instinct was to rip it out and strangle it. "No offense, but that... thing," Jim gestured toward Teal'c stomach... it smells worse than any rotting body I've ever stood downwind of."

Teal'c's eyebrow rose. "I was unaware of any particular odor."

"It's there," Jim said as he started backing away. "I need to smell for Blair, before the rain washes the scent away, and I can't with you so near."

Teal'c's eyebrow twitched up another notch. O'Neill rolled his eyes. "Teal'c, you have our six. Danny, stay close and try not to get captured. Ellison, you have point."

Jim nodded and trotted down the road, getting a hundred yards or so before he started opening up smell again. The rain was pulling down scents from the air, the bitterness of sulfur oxides and the tang of ammonia trapped within each drop. Jim filtered that and focused on the scent of Blair. He'd seen whatever hit him... had seen it and had time to produce stress hormones, but when he'd been through here, he'd been unconscious. Jim picked up the pace, trotting down the road as the scent thinned. They'd put Blair in a car, but the windows had been open, so particles of Blair were still scattered in the air, floating like those messages tucked into bottles and tossed into the ocean.

But the bottles were getting fewer and farther between as the rain started coming down heavier now. Jim settled into a loping run, dodging locals who dashed from car to doorway and stray dogs seeking a dry stoop. Jim almost missed the turn. He had totally lost the scent and stood with the rain sliding down his back, and then the scent of Carter caught him. Thank god she was a woman, and a woman who was still young enough and healthy enough for menses, he thought as he doubled back and took a side road that was more alley than road. The neat trimmed streets were wilder here, weeds sticking out from the trellises and vines, and Jim slipped into double time.

His legs ached, and he dialed down his sense of touch as he pushed himself harder. He lost his balance once, slipping on the mud and falling to one knee before he could catch himself on a rail fence, and a body just about crashed into him from behind.

"Geez, Ellison, take it easy on an old guy with older knees."

Jim glanced back and O'Neill held the fence with one hand and shaded his eyes from the falling rain with the other. For all his complaints, the colonel looked fine. Jackson was wheezing as he caught up and grabbed at the fence. O'Neill's hand went to Jackson's back.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine," Jackson panted.

"Yeah, you look fine."

Jackson waved his hand in a gesture obviously meant to wave O'Neill off. It didn't work.

"Are we near?" O'Neill asked as he looked around. Jim truly studied the area for the first time. It was raining harder than he thought, and the clouds were thick enough that he wasn't sure how much detail O'Neill could actually make out.

"Fairly close. I can smell Carter."

O'Neill frowned at him. "Carter? I thought sentinels were better at tracking their companions than random people. Ellison, if you're angling to take my astrophysicist away, I'll arm wrestle you for her."

"Carter is just easier to track right now," Jim said, not wanting to invade her privacy more than he had to.

"Which would indicate that you're beginning to bond with Carter. It's not happening colonel." O'Neill stepped forward aggressively, and Jim fought an urge to tell the man to fuck off.

"He's bonding with Sam?" Daniel stood wiping his rain-spotted glasses with his rain-soaked shirt. He shoved his glasses back on and then sighed unhappily. Jim suspected the man couldn't even see out of them. And O'Neill was worried about Blair in the field?

"No, he won't be," O'Neill warned darkly.

"She's just easier to smell this time of month," Jim finally snapped as he turned back toward the squat building in front of him.

"Oh." O'Neill didn't say anything else. Daniel cleared his throat and tried to clean his glasses again. Jim ignored them both and edged closer to the back of a red brick building with decorative bars on the windows, his hearing focused on the distant heartbeats muffled by the brick.

"That the place?" O'Neill asked, and Jim flinched as the words blasted through him, echoing against the inside of his skull. Jim glared, but O'Neill didn't react as he studied the building.

"Two heartbeats below the first level. Three on the main level, two more in the upper levels."

This time O'Neill did give Jim a long, hard stare. "What margin of error are we working with here?" he asked.

Jim flashed the man a cold look. "None."

"And I don't know how many are aliens," Jim added as he struggled against the creeping feeling of wrongness, "but some of them are."

"So, it's time for a little poking around," O'Neill offered with a grim cheerfulness. "What can you tell us about the inside?"

Jim glanced over, not sure what exactly O'Neill wanted, or if O'Neill just wanted to keep him too busy to break down the door and try to rip the goa'uld apart with his hands. The rain created tiny magnifiers that made the pores of the colonel's face zoom in and out of focus as they fell, and Jim turned back toward the house. "Second floor, third window in. It isn't latched," he said as he watched the warm air from inside the house swirl out into the growing chill of the evening.

"One of the heartbeats upstairs is slow: sleep or meditation probably. The two heartbeats in the basement are fast... I'm guessing at least one of those is Blair. On the main level, there's a..." Jim paused and tilted his head to the side. He could hear it, but he couldn't quite understand what he was hearing. He focused on the curtains on the first floor window until the weave became huge and he could see between the individual threads. Aw shit.. like things weren't weird enough already, he thought to himself as the brown on brown mottling magnified until he could see those distant pores, and then nothing.

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