Title: One Moment in Time

# 13 in the Father Figure Series

Author : Amethyst

Pairing: none

Warning: none

Summary: Jim's thoughts.

This is the standard disclaimer. They don't belong to me. This story is not intended to violate any copyrights held by Paramount, UPN, or Pet Fly Productions.

Thank you to my beta Reva for all her hard work.

Blair and I have been in the air for five hours. We're going home, returning from a trip to Mexico City. One hour outside of Cascade, Washington, I glance at the small, sleeping figure beside me for what must be the hundredth time since the plane took off. Blair is curled on his side, cuddled under a pale blue blanket, head covered, legs partially drawn up. He looks like a crescent moon, shoulders and hips, knees and feet, all forming craters and valleys on the moon's pale surface.

I reach out and touch a hand that has escaped from under the pale blanket. I softly stroke the back of it with my thumb momentarily before slowly returning it to the warmth of the covers, absently reassuring myself of the presence of life flowing through the still body.

A small movement shakes the surface of the moon and two deep dark blue eyes groggily focus on my face, as that same hand pulls back a corner of the blanket. Moist with sleep, they catch the dim lights of the cabin and sparkle like two stars in a midnight sky.

"Jim?"

"It's okay, Chief. Go back to sleep. We're still about an hour away from home."

A brilliant, dazzling smile lights up his sleepy face. It's like the sun rising in the early morning, warm and beautiful to see.

"Mm, home. That sounds good, Jim, real good."

I reach out and gently ruffle his sleep-wild curls, returning his smile with one of my own.

"Yeah, Chief. It does."

His brilliant smile turns soft and sleepy as his head slides back under the surface of the blanket. I tuck the cover more securely around him, leaving my hand resting on one slight shoulder, taking comfort from the rhythmic rise and fall caused by his breathing.

The sun, the moon and the stars, they make up the universe. What better way to describe what he means to me? Blair is my roommate, my partner, my best friend, my guide and my son -- my universe, the sun, the moon and the stars of my world.

Everything I need. Without him my universe becomes decidedly out of perspective. My senses become raw, exposed and bleeding, my control weakens. My ability to function normally is impaired. My home is silent and sterile, my life lonely, my heart empty.

I always wonder just what kind of a bastard people use to think I was. Not that a few don't still think it but people who knew me before Blair came along tend to look at me and stare. First at me, then at Blair and then back at me. They seem to want to ask me something but almost none of them do. They just keep wondering or decide on a reason of their own making for any changes they think they see.

It could even be amusing if it wasn't so insulting.

I'm the oldest son of a moderately well off businessman, raised to be competitive and successful no matter what. Yes, the gentle, loving touch of a feminine role model was absent most of my adolescent years, but I was taught to be protective of and responsible for my family none the less, not tolerant or forgiving but protective. Even after all these years of non-communication, I may not forgive my father and brother for events in our shared lives but I will protect them. They live in Cascade. They are a part of my tribe.

I'm not uneducated. I'm a college graduate. I've even taken courses in psychology. I understand the advantage of a stoic, guarded facade. Blank walls that others can not breach. I like it that way. I'm a private person.

My feelings are no one else's business.

I'm an ex-Army Ranger, trained to obey orders and kill when necessary. I'm good at following orders. I'm even good at killing when necessary. I was raised to be good at whatever I chose to do, just like millions of other successful people. My father wasn't wrong to teach me that. I learned that lesson well. I did my job during a tour of military action. I did my duty.

Why do people think that makes me heartless?

I'm a police detective, hired to be a protector of the city of Cascade. I follow orders, more or less. I still kill people, occasionally, in the line of duty of course.
Just like in the army. I solve crimes and catch the bad guys. I have seen some of the worst this world has to offer, the monsters masquerading as human beings, the horrors genuine evil can inflict and the true sorrow of life's unfortunate accidents. I have the ability to see these things for the ordinary ugliness that they are. I don't have to dwell on them or analysis them. They exist and I do what I can to stop them. It doesn't require my agonizing over them or reliving every event in my mind. Again, I'm good at what I do. My father taught me well. A lesson that has helped shape my life. His methods may have been harsh but the end result has helped me stay alive more than once. I will succeed in my chosen profession.

Why do others think that makes me hardened?

I'm a sentinel, guardian of the place of my birth. A man with heightened senses, with a territorial imperative to protect my tribe and it's surrounding environment.
I was born this way. I haven't always accepted my role or even understood it but I am beginning to be good at it, with my guide's help. Even if these genetic abilities frightened my mother away and terrified my father into turning his love for me into harshness and pain in an effort to strengthen me for the years of turmoil ahead. Maybe he thought if he was harsh enough during my adolescence, what the rest of the world had to offer would seem mild in comparison. I hope so. It makes me feel content with my teenage years if I look at it from that viewpoint. No one besides Blair, my guide and son, and Simon, my captain and friend, know about my abilities as a sentinel. Even Simon sometimes looks at me with a cautious glint to his eyes, unsure of the 'freak' of nature.

I have the ability to see people's actions thought to be private, to hear whispered words and the heartbeats of those nearby, to feel the intensity of the vibrations of changing air currents, to taste the delight of a beautiful day ahead in the moisture of the morning air and to smell the salt of unshed tears and the sweat of terror.

How can they assume that a man with heightened senses doesn't have a capacity for caring and love?

Once again, for the one hundredth and one time, I glance down at the bundle of momentarily contained energy beside me. I rub my hand lightly over the slender shoulder. I smile as I watch the riotous curls slowly emerge from their hiding place beneath the moon's surface. Half-lidded eyes peek up at me through stray strands of brown silk and once again the sun comes out as Blair smiles.

"Home?"

"Yeah, Chief, we're home."

"Cool, man. Home."

He straightens and stretches, lightly nudging my arm. With a shy smile, he drops a still-heavy head to my shoulder, a small hand tucks under my arm and leaden eyelids droop closed once more. Smiling, I pat down the curls tickling my jaw.

Only Blair understands and accepts me as I am. My guide and my universe. He doesn't need to see past the walls but he does. I lower them for him and take him inside, this vagabond child of my heart. I am his Blessed Protector, guardian and father.

He hasn't changed me.

He just knew how to look for the man I am, have always been, behind the privacy-giving walls. These walls are not so blank. You just need to read them from the other side, the side by my heart, the side where Blair is.

Maybe, just maybe, the walls aren't quite as high as they used to be.