What Love Is 2-Blair's POV

Author/pseudonym: lsorrell/Cherokeegirl

Email address: www.lsorrell@bellsouth.net or cherokeegirl13@hotmail.com

Rating: R for m/m content.

Pairings: Jim/Blair

Fandom: The Sentinel

Status: Complete

Date: May 13, '99 (date first written, my forty-fifth birthday!)

Archive: Yes, if you wish, just tell me where.

Archive author: Yes

Archive email address: Yes

Series/Sequel: Yes

Category: Romance First time

Author's website: Not yet still trying to get one up. Hope to me up soon with more poems and stories.

Summary: Blair thinks of his love for Jim.

Disclaimer: Not mine, I just borrowed them. They belong to Petfly and Paramount. So, I'm not getting any money. Just enjoying them!

Author's Note: This is Blair's POV to What Love Is. These two POV's are my first posting. This was written about a day after the first. When (Please note not IF, this time) I get the web page up I am going to expand these stories into a journal series. With more angst and a lot slashier. I want to think Shar for the handholding. Thank you so much. Also thanks to S'belle and Candy Apple for their help and support. I really couldn't have done it without you (I would never have had the nerve.)! Also THANK ALL OF YOU, who responded to the first story. I'm glad this group doesn't allow flaming because that is probably closer to what the story deserves. It is a humble little piece. Please note that Blair's POV is longer. Let's face it he talks A LOT MORE! Please send me feedback and let me know what you think (she begs while peeking out from the hole
she is hiding in).

What Love Is-Blair's POV
by Cherokee Girl

I was a free spirit, raised by Naomi, a flower child of the sixties, who believed in what she called "free-love". I never knew my father. Naomi wasn't even sure who he was. I always wondered about him, wondered if things would have been different if I had known him. You see, Mom was always on the move, always searching for that elusive "something". I was never sure what it was; I don't think she was either.

Because I never stayed in one place for very long, I grew up alone. Never forming any real attachments. Just when I would get settled into a new school and start making friends she would whisk me off to some new and exotic place, looking for what was just over the next hill, just beyond the next rainbow, her "Holy Grail". Or, there were times when she would send me to stay with friends while she searched for what was just over the next horizon. She would tell me she loved me, kiss me and then walk away. Sometimes, I would wonder if I would ever see her again. My books became my only friends. I knew I could always count on them. I knew they would never leave me.

When I became a man, I spent my life in search of knowledge. I was always asking questions and seeking the answers. I lived my life one day at a time, never looking ahead to the future, I was afraid that I would see only emptiness. I became an anthropologist to study human-behavior. To answer the question of "Why are we the way we are?" Or maybe it would be more accurate to say, "Why am I the way I am?" But one question remained, the answer elusive, "What is love, the real love, the kind that lasts, the kind that endures? Where is the kind of love that I have always heard about? Where is the love that lasts a life time, the one that the love poems are written about, and where do I find it?"

I never I married, I was afraid of allowing anyone too close, afraid of allowing anyone inside to even glimpse my heart. Even though I looked for love, I was afraid to find it. I was afraid the words 'I love you' really were another way to say goodbye. So, I loved them and I left them. Thinking it would hurt less if I were the one to say leave. They thought I was selfish and immature, incapable of love. They didn't understand that it was only fear that caused me to keep my distance. But the result was still the same. I was alone.

But then you came into my life. Man believe me, I `SO' didn't want to go there! There you were, ex-military, a cop, establishment with a capital E. Everything I was raised to distrust. When you stormed into my office and threw me up against the wall, I saw the pain and fear in your eyes, and something more. That's when I said, "Bham! I found my Holy Grail!" I knew then that I would do anything to take away that fear, to ease that pain.

After my apartment blew up I moved in with you. In exchange for a place to live, I helped you work on getting your senses under control. There you were with your stupid 'house rules' and your anal-retentive attitude. And me, with my creative abilities at stretching the truth, and my love 'em and leave 'em attitude. I look back on it now and I have to wonder how we kept from killing each other. But somehow we made it work. In the beginning you allowed me in, allowed me to help you out of desperation. But, somewhere along the line it turned into trust. Believe me I understand how hard that was for you. Man, I've been there, done that and bought the T-shirt! Each day that went by, saw you gain more and more control of your senses and the pain and fear leave your eyes. The kind, loving and gentle man that you are, came to the surface. That's when I knew that you had captured my heart.

I said, I would never tell you. I said I would never risk opening myself up to you. I almost lost you so many times, yet I kept my silence. Each time you took a call, each time went out on the streets, I knew that you would put yourself between danger and the innocent people you were sworn to protect. You seemed to think you were invincible, that you couldn't be hurt. But, you were hurt! And, every time it happened, I would ask myself, "Is this it? Is this when I lose him?" There were times when I was hurt too. Lash, Kincaid, so many even I have lost count. Yet, somehow, we both managed to survive. But this time, I came so close to death, in fact I did die, because of Alex Barnes and my own stupidity. I remember everything so clearly. I was floating up over my own body lying face down in the fountain. Then I saw you run toward me. You and H pulled me out of the water. You trying so hard to revive me! Everyone was gathered around, trying to pull you away, trying to tell you it was too late! I wanted to tell you they were right, that you should just let me go, it would be so much better that way! It was then I heard your prayer asking God, fate or whoever was in charge of such things to give you a second chance to tell me you loved me. I made my decision. I knew that no matter what lay ahead, I could never leave you. I never wanted to be the one that caused you that much pain. I went back into my body, me heart started to beat again giving you the second chance you had prayed for.

You rode with me in the ambulance, as the paramedics worked with me checking my vital signs, making sure I was stable, you held my hand. I tried to tell you that I heard you, that I understood. But, with the oxygen mask on my face I couldn't speak.

I heard that you had paced the floor in the emergency waiting room while the doctor's and nurses checked me over and settled me into my room. I'm sure you were thinking of all the other times we hadbeen there for each other, of how close we came then to losing each other.

Finally you were allowed to see me. As I looked at you, I saw the old fear and pain return. I felt like my heart was going to break. I closed my eyes to block it out. When I got up the nerve to open them again I tried to make a joke about what happened. I told you to come on in the water was fine. As I watched, a tear slowly rolled down your face. And you told me you're not ready to take that trip. And I think: No please, let's not ever take this trip again.

Then, you lean over and gently kiss me. You whisper that you're in love with me. You tell me how frightened you were when you thought you had lost me, and how you promised that if you were given another chance, you would tell me. That's when my heart knew it had found a home. I whisper, "I love you too Jim, I always have".

I came home from the hospital today. To our home, our bed and our life together. We made love for the first time tonight. When you slowly entered me, I cried out your name in passion. As I spilt my seed between us, you came inside of me. I knew in my heart that this was the forever kind of love I had been searching for all my life. Now we are lying here in bed holding each other after our lovemaking, and I'm looking forward to our future together. A future I only dreamed existed. But, that spark of fear is still there, as I wonder what I would do if I ever lost you. I look at you and see such love in your eyes that I know that will never happen, we'll never be apart. I whisper back "I will always love you and I will never leave you."

As you pull me closer, I breathe a silent prayer of thanks. For, because of you,

I truly know what love is.

*

END
If I don't hear back from you guys, I'm just going to stay in this hole never to come out again.