What Sentinels See and Don't See

by Seaward

Summary:

Blair's thesis on Sentinels and his career in anthropology are supposed to be behind him, forgotten by everyone. Except, he keeps getting calls--the first from an old friend, Daniel Jackson.

Notes:

Timelines were gleefully altered in the making of this AU. Many thanks to Elayna for helping with this (twice!). Any remaining errors are mine and will now be considered features.

Chapter 1: Alone

April 17, USA

If conference participants mistook him for a security guard, Jim Ellison didn't mind. He shifted between his chosen vantage points. First he surveyed a side entrance to the Bay Tech archeology building. Next, he held position in a shadowed doorway across an interior courtyard. It didn't matter that the detective was on vacation and had no jurisdiction in California. He would run his own patrols for as long as Blair remained inside with his newly reacquainted "friend," a friend who just happened to have some undefined connection to the US military. Of course, when Jim shot off his mouth about his suspicions ahead of time, Blair's curiosity bounced right over them. In the end, Jim caved and insisted on accompanying him for this dubious expedition.

Only when Jim saw his black jaguar stalking along the stucco walls of the archeology building did his paranoia fully kick in. He risked increasing his hearing to better locate his Guide, moved inside the mission style building, and scrambled to find a doorway with line of sight on Blair.

The jaguar spirit animal crept ahead.

Jim gritted his teeth at the beast's presumption, but the jaguar seemed to be his best ally in protecting Blair, so Jim followed. Dialing up his Sentinel senses as far as he dared, Jim skipped past the sounds of numerous conversations and the scents of too many people crowded together until he heard Blair's familiar heartbeat. When he saw a taller man in a dark suit advancing on Blair, Jim shifted into the doorway. He could smell Blair's fear.

#

"Ignore him, Rhonda. Blair Sandburg is a liar and a fraud."

Blair froze, at a rare loss for words, caught in the middle of a poster session, two hours into the first academic conference he'd attended in two years. The insult shouldn't hit him so hard. He'd heard similar slanders many times over the last year, as he packed up his office at Rainier, then trained at the police academy, even shopping in the local grocery store. No matter how hard he tried to move past the humiliation, it struck him like a kick in the gut whenever he wasn't expecting it. Not able to live with his guard up all the time, his emotional life became a police blotter filled with random assaults.

Rhonda Franklin, the junior author of the large research presentation poster exploring the influences of traditional family networks, past and present, in the Congo, stopped mid-sentence. She turned from her previously animated discussion with Blair to focus an arctic glare on the towering man who had interrupted. "Excuse me? Do I know you?"

"Dr. Sebastian Melnoth, I'm a post doc at Cascade University, and honestly I'm disappointed that a conference of this caliber, a conference intended to bridge the gap between anthropology and archeology by building cross-disciplinary professional ties, would admit someone like Sandburg." His voice turned nasal as he continued, "This charlatan was expelled for leaking his sensationalized doctoral thesis to the popular press, embarrassing both himself and the university when he was forced to admit the entire work was a fabrication."

During his diatribe, Sebastian stalked closer and closer to Blair. He spit the words out in a tone that wasn't overly loud but nonetheless captured the attention of everyone within sight of the confrontation. That group included at least two dozen students or professors who would in the next minute or so decide what they thought about Blair Sandburg.

Blair needed to reply quickly, needed to dissemble, make some glib remark and draw Sebastian aside to talk his way out of trouble. Recasting a situation had always been one of Blair’s talents. Thinking back, Blair remembered the man from Rainer as a bit of a kiss up to the tenured professors and not the most popular lecturer, but not someone who had any personal bad feelings toward Blair. Now Sebastian stopped less than a foot in front of Blair, looming above him, close enough that Blair could smell the other man's sweat under the trappings of professional dress.

Blair felt himself tremble even as he saw Jim flash in through a door at the far end of the poster room. For a moment Blair caught sight of a dark presence at Jim's side, but then he met the Sentinel's eyes, embarrassed and momentarily angry. Jim had agreed to stay outside, and even if Sebastian threw a punch, Blair would rather defend himself than play the damsel in distress. Jim must have read the emotions from Blair's face or using his heightened senses, because he held his position.

Blair warmed with gratitude and stopped shivering. Seeing Jim's large build across the room put the physical menace of the scrawny but tall anthropology post doc into perspective. This was a situation Blair could handle, whether with words from his academic background or with physical self defense from his police training as needed.

Blair took a step back and said, "Your opinions aside, this is a forum for academic discussion. If you'd like to discuss personal history, perhaps we should move out of everyone else's way." The words didn't meet Blair's usual standards for clever comebacks, but his voice at least came out sounding calm. Only Jim might know how fast Blair's heart was beating or hear him gulp as he swallowed.

"You always were a smooth talker, Sandburg, especially with the ladies." He nodded back toward Rhonda and her poster. "But reputation is everything in academia, and I wanted to warn my colleague before you tarnished hers by association."

Keeping his mouth shut, Blair forced down the urge to confess, to say he agreed about the importance of reputation, no matter how unjust his personal situation. In willingly giving up the respect of his peers, he'd turned his back on academia and his chosen career, which left Blair wondering why he'd risked coming to this conference to meet with Daniel.

Sebastian, perhaps sensing Blair's uncertainty, took another step forward. This time Blair stood his ground. Seeing that Sebastian refused to be appeased, Blair hoped a show of strength would discourage violence. Planting his hands on his hips, Blair tried to look fierce. His inner anthropologist thought about male dominance displays as Sebastian rocked forward on the balls of his feet and Jim flexed his muscles back in the doorway where his tense stance suggested he was barely containing the urge to rescue Blair.

The voice of Daniel Jackson coming from behind and to the right took Blair totally by surprise. "What my colleague is too polite to mention in this public forum is that Rainier University was complicit in publicizing a draft manuscript taken from his computer without his permission and never intended as anything other than fiction. If we extend the spirit of cross-disciplinary understanding to an appreciation of modern literature, we must, no doubt, acknowledge the recent expansion of a journalistic style in which fiction is couched in non-fiction forms, from simulated blog posts to fanciful academic papers."

Blair could almost hear opinions shifting across the unnaturally quiet room. His own ingrained self-assessment wanted to bend under the onslaught of Daniel's words and the insinuations as he stressed certain parts of his speech.

"Dr. Daniel Jackson, is Sandburg your plus one for this conference?" Maybe it was wishful thinking on Blair's part, but Sebastian's nasal twang sounded more defensive than denigrating now. "In matters of reputation, perhaps you're planning to mentor him on defection to a rival field, as you did after destroying your reputation with theories about aliens designing the pyramids."

"I'm flattered that you've studied our curricula vitae so thoroughly. Perhaps you're exploring a sideline in journalism yourself, trying to write an exposé for your local paper?"

Blair saw Jim signal a thumbs-up and heard Jackson laugh. "That's it? Seriously, were you trying to incite an incident during a conference of this caliber to create your own news scoop? Perhaps you should look to your own reputation." Daniel neatly shifted his attention with a dismissive lift of his chin and smiled to say, "Ms. Franklin, if you'll excuse us, I have business of my own to discuss with Mr. Sandburg."

Just like that, Blair found himself leaving the room with Daniel. Sebastian was left standing speechless while amused whispering broke out around the room. A last glance at Jim confirmed the Sentinel was easing back from the other doorway with a small parting smile directed toward Blair.

Blair wasn't sure how he felt about Daniel stepping in to fight his battles for him, but then the man giggled in his ear, "Did you set that up? You couldn't ask for a better chance to ridicule your detractors. Come on. I've found a complementary espresso cart."

#

Gabi pulled on the orange vest with "SECURITY CADET" stenciled on the back and then switched her two-way radio to the campus security channel. She had a job to do as well as a secret mission to complete on behalf of her robots and herself.

Five hours a week of wandering around campus with a radio and an orange vest fulfilled Gabi's work-study requirement. During her first year, when she wasn't even sixteen yet, Bay Tech had waved that requirement of her free ride to college, but for the most part, Gabi liked the job. It was amazing what an attentive person could hear, and occasionally see or smell, wandering around a campus like Bay Tech. Sometimes, Gabi could far surpass normal attentiveness.

Today she was trying for normal as she took the first part of her loop through the biotech complex (nice fountain, not currently pranked, courtyard empty, DNA art in the tile pattern clearly visible) and down the orange tree walk (too early in the year for blossoms to smell sweet or pollen-ridden). From four buildings away she could hear the archeology mixer and smell cheap beer. She considered her hearing within bounds at the moment but was pretty sure others wouldn't smell the beer from so far away. Archeologists loved their beer and tended to have loud parties, especially just after five o'clock on a Friday. This week, they were hosting an elite African Archeology and Anthropology Synthesis Conference, so they were partying harder than usual.

In her security vest, Gabi had access to every social event on campus. Her plans for today relied on that. While she wasn't an archeology major, she'd passed this building a few weeks back and heard a student asking Dr. Oliver Michaels about a dig he planned for South Africa during summer vacation. It seemed that Michaels planned to take two undergrads and one grad student, and he'd emphasized the dig team would have limited time and not be able to fully explore the designated site, let alone its surroundings. As pieces fit themselves together in Gabi's mind, she'd constructed a plan to test her robots and possibly find her father.

Photos in the front hall of the archeology building had allowed Gabi to scope out what Michaels looked like. Now she spotted him in a far corner of the courtyard, part of a small group chatting under an olive tree. He was about Gabi's height but easily twice her mass, and he wore exactly the sort of tan pants and tweedy blazer that she'd expect on an archeology professor.

Gabi set her shoulders back, held her head high, and patrolled the perimeter of the courtyard, waiting for her chance. The ratio was about two to one, male to female, better than physics, but not by much. There were fewer guys with really long hair, but a lot who seemed to think shaggy was a fashion statement. One small, wavy-haired man bounced into Gabi as he waved his arms and talked excitedly about ancient religions and closed societies. Gabi froze for a moment when the touch shocked her suddenly oversensitive skin out of all proportion to the brief impact. As she forced herself to keep walking, she caught an apologetic nod from the sandy-haired professor-type with glasses to whom the gesturing man addressed his enthusiasm. The more academic-looking man replied by calmly explaining that he'd given up those theories on pyramids years ago.

Gabi watched and waited for a pause in conversation at the far back corner. Then she seized the moment to introduce herself when most of the chatting group broke away. "Professor Michaels, I'm Gabrielle Hansen, but you can call me Gabi. I wanted to tell you about a robotics project that could help at your dig this summer."

Michaels shook her hand, the picture of polite amusement. "Pleased to meet you, Gabi. This is my wife, Charlene Michaels." Charlene wore a blue knit tunic. She smiled, shaking hands shyly with almost no pressure. Gabi had braced for the required contact, but her sense of touch had reverted to normal, so it wasn't an issue.

She turned more toward the professor. "Next year, I'm finishing dual majors for my bachelor's in engineering and physics simultaneously with a master's in astrophysics. My master's project, with Dr. Nicholson in planetary science, could be useful for surveying a large dig site as well." She pulled out her phone to show pictures. "You see, I've designed this array of microbots that dig into soil, using vibrations to create images of soil density and inclusions accurate to a five millimeter feature size."

She flipped through pictures to show sample images, but Michaels' face didn’t display much interest. Her plan relied on convincing him. While Gabi was good at planning for machines and computers, she didn't always know what to try when she had to allow for human variables. "I have scholarship money to cover summer work for everything except travel expenses. I just need to collect test data. At a dig site, I could map one or two potential meter-squares per day, to a depth of five meters, so long as a few of them were then dug up for comparison to my data. It could give you a better chance to target interesting areas while helping me test my microbot array."

"And why aren't you working through your own department?" There was a hard tone in Michaels' voice that sounded more suspicious than Gabi thought reasonable, but she was determined to work in South Africa with this man, no matter what.

"While long-term applications on other planets might map mineral or even exo-biological finds with minimal ecological disruption, that would be years in the future. I need documented test data first."

"And you're an American citizen?"

She wondered where he imagined she was from. Her mixed Dutch and South African ancestry sometimes threw people, but well-traveled adults usually insisted, in a not so flattering way, that her speech and mannerisms pegged her within minutes as someone raised in the States. "I'm American, so no travel hassles. I already have a passport with more than a year before it expires."

"Hmm," was all the professor said. His wife smiled and shrugged.

Before Gabi could think up another social or scientific ploy to try, she felt something nudge her foot and glanced down to see a thin gray snout withdraw. Before she could look for the intruding animal, she identified a worrisome odor. Turning toward the concrete building that housed the archeology offices made the scent stronger, and squatting to sniff low to the ground gave Gabi an almost certain identification of a gas leak.

Crouching on the ground, her fingers suddenly felt colder and wetter than they had a moment before. A quick glance at the professor showed he hadn't noticed if she'd been frozen there half a minute, but his wife was peering down nervously, and Gabi figured she'd just had another absence seizure. The stronger her unpredictable senses became, the more seizures she seemed to have. A few anecdotes Gabi's mom used to tell, suggested that Gabi's father might have been the same, which gave Gabi even more incentive to get to South Africa and search for him before matters escalated. But first, she had to deal with the immediate threat.

Gabi pulled out her radio and pressed to transmit: "Security Cadet Gabi to Captain, over?"

"Yes, Cadet?"

"We have a gas leak at the southwest corner of the archeology courtyard."

"How was this reported, Cadet?"

"I'm here, and I can smell it."

"I'll start Facilities on evacuating the building."

"There's a department and conference mixer in the courtyard right now. Should I suggest they move?"

"Sure, find someone in charge, but don't send anyone inside. We'll have the building clear in three minutes."

"Okay. Over and out." Then she turned to Michaels: "Would you be the one in charge here?"

He looked at her with more interest than he'd shown for her microbots. "Close enough, but I don't know where we'd move everyone."

"The biotech courtyard was empty and looking good a few minutes ago."

"If you want to tell people to move, go ahead."

Gabi heard the note of skepticism in his voice, but this was something Gabi had learned how to handle in three years of being a young female at a prestigious tech college. She stepped up on a chair. Being nearly six feet tall already, that put her head higher than even the tallest men in the crowd. She held her radio up and toggled the control to release a loud screech of static, bracing herself within all her senses in an effort to keep her hearing from overreacting.

"Attention everyone!" She waited a moment for shocked quiet. "I'm from security, and we've identified a gas leak here. We're going to clear the building while Facilities takes care of it, but meanwhile, I need each of you to pick up a chair or a tray of food and walk on over to the biotech courtyard." She pointed the way. Then she spotted two buff-looking grad students by the snack tables and said, "And I'm sure these two gentlemen would be happy to move the cooler with all the beer." She smiled, and sure enough, everyone started moving.

When she stepped down from the chair, Michaels finally looked like he was paying full attention to her. She held out her hand again. "Professor, it was good meeting you. How about I send you an email tomorrow summarizing my proposal?"

He barely nodded, but as she was leaving the courtyard amid a stream of relocating archeologists, her hearing extended enough to hear him tell his wife, "The young lady knows how to get things done, at least."

Then a siren sound sent her expanded hearing thrumming out of control. Gabi could barely force herself across the orange walk to a semi-secluded doorway. Vision graying out, she pressed her hands to her ears and tried to pull herself together. Hiding, appearing normal, those became most important. She focused on the chill of her hands and the smell of her own sweat mixed with her supposedly unscented laundry detergent. Breathing deep and slow, she tried to pull herself together, hoped Michaels hadn't seen, hoped she could get to South Africa and find some answers about her father and whatever was happening to ramp up both her senses and her seizures.

#

Brett gave in and answered his phone on the third ring as a siren sounded in the distance. Not answering would mean dealing with his father later, yet he knew his father could be useful.

"Hi, Dad."

"Brett, so nice to finally hear your voice."

"It's on my voicemail, too."

"How's Chris?"

Brett glanced over at his current boyfriend, sprawled across Brett's bed with his shoes still on and his shirt off. "My dad asks how you're doing."

Chris raised his eyebrows, trying to look sexy and only managing because Brett was already turned on. "Doing good, and you?"

Brett rolled his eyes, "He says he's good, and you?"

Brett's dad cleared his throat, playtime was over. "Honestly, I'm a little concerned over a form letter I received saying you've changed your major from business to anthropology. Is this perhaps a mistake?"

"I had anthropology as a minor anyway."

"Is business going to be your minor now?"

"Really, I'm thinking of archeology as a minor. What would you think if I joined a dig in South Africa this summer?"

"The AIDS capitol of the world?"

"You're dating yourself, Dad. No one says that now. Anyway, I don't plan to have unsafe sex with anyone, here or there, so you can rest your worried parental mind."

Chris started toeing off his sneakers, rolling his hips suggestively.

"If you think you'll be accepted into an MBA program with a bachelor's in anthropology—"

"I thought maybe I'd go for a doctorate. Wouldn't you like to have a doctor in the family?"

"A doctor of anthropology? What would you do with that?"

"I could teach or write or work in the field." There were things Brett couldn't explain to his Dad, or even to himself. But for the first time in his education, he knew what he wanted to learn. He had his own sense of direction.

"And live off your trust fund."

"Go ahead, disown me. You know you want to." Banter, that's what he needed, not to acknowledge the risk.

"Right, that's why I pay for your college, ask after your boyfriend, and take you to Europe every summer."

"I'd really rather go to South Africa."

"Is Chris going?"

"He's a lit major!"

"Still? So, who's sponsoring the dig, and what can I do to help?"

#

A siren went off and Jim Ellison slammed his hands over his ears. Luckily he'd been focused on checking the gas scent as much as tracking Sandburg's conversation, and the scent kept him from losing it over the sudden loud noise. There was definitely a leak, but nothing to suggest criminal activity there.

He moved to the corner of the next building over and watched as a parade of archeology conference participants left for the biotech courtyard. Spotting Sandburg and his friend, Daniel Jackson, Jim dialed his hearing back up to target their conversation.

"Of course, I already had my doctorate before falling out with the academic community," Jackson was saying, "but I wouldn't have been invited to this conference without my affiliation at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey."

"Lucky you can still publish in linguistics. Are you teaching there now?"

"Occasionally."

Jim's hand ghosted instinctively over his side arm. That was as close to an admission of doing classified work for the military as Sandburg was going to get. If he didn't see the trap closing—

"What are you trying to get me into, man?"

There was a pause long enough for Jim to calm himself and acknowledge that Sandburg wasn't any kind of an idiot.

"Come back to my room and talk?"

"That's why you talked me into this conference, I guess."

The two split off from the mass of academics, turning down a broad walkway lined with orange trees. Jim heard a sharp inhale from a nearby doorway and moved instinctively to a defensive position with line of sight on both Sandburg and the doorway. Then he saw it was the security girl in the orange vest, gasping as if she was startled or upset, but she was huddled up in a corner facing away from him and definitely not a threat. In another time and place he might have gone to check on her, but at the moment he couldn't risk the distraction.

Jim continued to monitor his partner's progress back to the hotel. He thought that if the government was planning to grab or coerce Sandburg, it wouldn't happen until he was out of public view.

When Sandburg finally entered Jackson's room on the seventh floor of the conference hotel, Jim took position in a vending room down the hall. He carefully tuned out the rumblings of the ice machine as he tuned back into his partner's conversation. While Blair had done fine at the police academy (and Simon had somehow convinced them to ignore his hair with an excuse involving ongoing undercover work), Jim knew the kid still struggled every time they worked near a university or ran into faculty or friends who shunned Blair for the work he'd passed off as fraudulent. When the mysterious Jackson re-entered Blair's life with a conference invite and hints about a way to earn his doctorate, it had been the perfect lure. Too perfect, and that made Jim suspicious.

"So what's up, man?" He heard Sandburg slide into his "trust me" voice, and wasn't surprised when Jackson answered in similar tones.

"I still work in archeology, Blair. Most of what I write can't be published. Much of what I read hasn't been published either, and some of it has to do with sociology and anthropology as well as linguistics."

"Which relates to me how?"

"I read something you wrote. I want some advice, off the record. Depending on how things work out, I might be able to set you up with a doctorate on the record, at least enough on the record to ease you back into some anthropology-related field, eventually, if that's still what you want."

There was a long silence, and Jim wished he could see the non-verbals in the room. If Jackson was referring to Sandburg's withdrawn thesis that named Jim as a Sentinel, this could be a trap about to close on them both. Jim extended his hearing to check for movement or heartbeats in surrounding rooms and realized there was someone other than his partner and Jackson in the bedroom area of the suite where they were talking. He couldn't detect anyone else nearby on the seventh floor, but one properly trained agent could be enough of a threat.

Jim drew his gun and crept toward the door Blair had entered. He was almost in position when he heard the person in the bedroom open an interior door and step into the room with Jackson and Sandburg.

"Time's up, Danny," a rough male voice pronounced. "His partner is about to storm the door, and he's armed. Come on in, Captain Ellison. And don't go shooting the geeks or me, okay?"

The voice switched from clearly military to something else on the last sentence. Still, the reference to Jim's military rank confirmed his suspicions. These people could recall him to duty, and if they wanted to test what Sandburg had written about him, he'd be at their mercy. Already out-maneuvered, Jim saw no better choice than to play along. If a doctorate was the perfect bait to draw Blair Sandburg, Blair was the perfect bait to draw Jim Ellison.

Jim pushed on the door, then came around with his gun up. Jackson was the only one who startled at his hostile entrance. Blair knew him too well, and the graying military man in front of the bedroom doorway obviously had some sort of surveillance in place. Surprisingly, the older man who instantly triggered all of Jim's military alarms wasn't visibly armed. He gave a good impression of nonchalance with a slouch and a raised eyebrow, although Jim could hear the man's elevated heartbeat.

Jim could smell that the unknown man and Jackson had been intimately involved in the hotel bedroom sometime that day. The bed still reeked of it to Jim's Sentinel senses, even if both men had showered since.

"Ooookay, time to put the gun down and our cards on the table. I'm Colonel Jack O'Neill, and I'll give you my word that neither of us means either of you any harm."

"And the government?"

"Oh come on, you can't expect me to vouch for the entire government." O’Neill rubbed his brow as if the mention of politics upset him more than the armed man in front of him. "I'll vouch for Danny and myself and that we'd rather keep all this unofficial, at least for now."

As Jim lowered his gun, O'Neill continued. "Great, now we're all friends, I'll share my potato chips." He grabbed an open chip bag that had been sitting on a sofa, moved it to a coffee table between the sofa and two chairs and motioned for everyone to be seated.

When the others sat, Jim holstered his weapon, but he remained standing, hands on his hips.

"So," Jackson began with a quick glance at Jim and then back to Blair, "Let's jump forward to where I say I read the supposed work of fiction you wrote about Sentinels and was wondering if you'd be able to run some of the tests you mentioned developing for these fictional heightened senses."

Sandburg glanced Jim's way, and Jim stared back. "Your call, Chief."

"Exactly who would I be running these tests on?"

"That'd be me," the Colonel raised a finger in a very non-Colonel way.

"I'd think your surveillance of me in the hall would answer enough."

"Wouldn't ya?" O'Neill shook his head, "But Danny here thinks we need numbers and ways to measure improvement."

Jim started to feel some sympathy for the guy. Sandburg's tests were not a lot of fun. "And then what?"

Jackson answered. "Depending on the results and how much I can reproduce on my own, I might ask Blair to consult sometime in the future."

"And about him getting his degree?"

"Can you hand me that coaster?" O'Neill interrupted, pointing Jim toward a small stone disk over by the television.

Jim reached for it without thinking, then dropped it when it lit up in his hand. He had his gun out and had jumped back to cover the room before he knew what to think.

"Calm down, man," Blair was saying, reaching a hand toward Jim even though they were too far apart to touch.

"What is it?" Jim demanded, glaring at O'Neill with his gun still more than half raised.

"To answer that, I'd need you both to sign paperwork, lots and lots of paperwork. For now, let's say we liberated it from some smugglers who knew less about it than we do. But if Danny's right, it might be another way to test for Sentinels. Now put the gun away, Ellison. Seriously, you're making us Sentinels look paranoid."

Jim could barely swallow after the casual phrase "us Sentinels" and the crazy light up disk that was evidently part of some classified project. "Sandburg, I think maybe we need a little break from your friends."

"Keep your cool, big guy." Blair still held a tentative hand extended in Jim's direction as he faced the other two. "Daniel, Colonel, do you think we could finish this later?"

"Blair, don't you want to—"

"Danny, give them some time. I'll order take out and maybe they'll come back for dinner." O'Neill turned to face Jim, and his slouch was replaced by straighter shoulders and a challengingly direct gaze. "Chinese food here in an hour?"

Jim nodded and holstered his gun but kept one hand over it. As Blair stood up and offered whatever socially acceptable babble he deemed necessary, Jim positioned himself between Blair and the other two men until they were safely out the door.

#

As soon as he'd shut the door to their own hotel room, Blair said, "Are you okay, man?"

Jim responded by walking the perimeter of the room, cocking his head the way he did with raised hearing, so Blair kept quiet and still. Then Jim finished next to Blair and the door, motionless, eyes closed. Blair moved his hand to the Sentinel's back to help ground him as he focused intensely on whatever he was trying to sense.

Finally, Jim opened his eyes. "Okay, I think it's safe to talk in here." His voice was barely more than a whisper.

"Should I be worried? I get that you're feeling protective and maybe blindsided, but are you picking up on any second Sentinel stuff?"               

"You mean like with Alex?" Jim shook his head. "No."

Blair's entire body relaxed. He hadn't realized how terrified he'd been that Jim's allegiance would shift to O'Neill in some crazy way. Memories flashed through his mind: how he'd felt being drowned in the fountain at Rainier University, and later, watching Jim kiss the Sentinel who'd drowned him. His body must have signaled his remembered fear and sense of betrayal, because Jim reached out a hand to roughly muss Blair's hair. Blair closed his eyes and clung to the simple reassurance in that touch, until his pride kicked in and he pulled back.

"Shake it off, Sandburg," Jim teased, then he was back to whispering, "I think O'Neill probably is a Sentinel. The way he tracked me in the hall was exactly how I would have done it, and I didn't hear the buzz of any surveillance there or in their room. Also, the way he watched my reaction with that glowing coaster thing, that was a total set up and he was watching me like a hawk. Maybe the weirdness with Alex was all because she was crazy?" Jim gave Blair a hopeful look, and Blair knew he was trying to fix things between them in his inscrutable Jim way. "The danger here isn't a crazy Sentinel; it's one who works for the military."

"And you're afraid he's going to snatch us?"

"Not anymore, they would have done that already. But he mentioned paperwork. You sign anything, and they can find a way to take you legally."                                                                   "And you?"

"I signed a ton of shit when they dragged me back from Peru. They could recall me to active duty anytime they wanted."

Blair ran both hands through his hair trying to calm himself. He should never have put Jim's name in his thesis, even if he hadn't intended for anyone to see that draft. He'd been naïve, and all the fears he knew Jim harbored about being used or dissected by the government were one step closer to reality. "So what do you want to do?"

"It's up to you, buddy."

"Really?" Blair could see the strain on Jim's face. Jim hated having others make decisions for him, and if Blair decided to work with the military, that could endanger Jim's privacy, his job, and certainly his comfort, if Blair was going to be away for long stretches of time. He wondered if Jim was just playing it cool because he'd learned Blair always put his Sentinel's needs first.

"They're offering you another research subject and a chance to finish your doctorate."

"Yeah, I never thought my studies would lead to deals with the military. Then again, I never planned to become a cop." Blair sank onto the couch, and Jim was suddenly beside him. Their knees barely touched, but the pressure and warmth reassured Blair. He wondered if it reassured his Sentinel too, if all the little touches over the course of a day were more important than Jim realized.

"Whatever game you want to play with them, I'll try to play it your way, but I'm staying with you," Jim whispered.

Blair looked up and Jim was gazing at him with eyes wide open. "What do you mean?" Blair whispered back, blown away by Jim's offer and wondering if Jim really thought someone would be trying to listen in. Blair was suddenly sure that Jim had his hearing dialed up, listening for anyone coming close enough to hear, even if it was only close as measured by a Sentinel. "You want me to call Jack Kelso before we go back for dinner? I could let him know who we're eating with and set up a time to call him back later."

Jim nodded. "You're going to make a deal with them? You want your degree even with those strings attached?"

"If you're willing to let me work with other Sentinels, how can I not? There's got to be some way we can set this up, some minimum amount of time away from Cascade. I can explain to them about territories and play up how you need to be there."

"And that I need you with me."

Blair's stomach flipped at the declaration, even if Jim probably didn't mean it to sound the way it did. If Jim with all his control issues could say he needed Blair in any way then that meant a lot. As they planned which assurances to ask for and how to back up their position, Blair basked in the rightness of their working together. Less than a year ago, after his mother released his non-anonymized thesis, Blair had worried they'd never build back to this.

Then Jim caught him out of the blue with the comment, "You know they're sleeping together?"

"Huh, who?"

"Your friend, Jackson, and Colonel O'Neill."

"How do you—Why are you telling me this?" Blair didn't think Jim was homophobic exactly, but Jim had so completely avoided the topic in the past, Blair had assumed his time in the military and then the police made Jim, at a minimum, uncomfortable with the subject. It was the main reason Blair had never, even when things were easier between them, so much as hinted at his own bisexuality or his other feelings toward his Sentinel.

"I just thought you should have all the facts, and if O'Neill is a Sentinel, he should have known I could tell with us meeting right next to their bedroom and all."

"You know 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' is over and done with? They don't have anything to hide?"

"I know." Jim wasn't making eye contact anymore. He didn't look defensive exactly, but his fingers were scratching a little at the couch.

"Does it make you uncomfortable to work with them?"

"No, of course not. You don't think that of me, do you, Chief?" Jim's eyebrows scrunched down, and Blair knew he'd misread something.

"No, Jim. I just don't understand your reaction."

"Nothing. I just thought if you're going to test stuff—and I don't know if Jackson thinks he's O'Neill's Guide or what—I just thought it might make a difference. You have a problem with any of that?"

Now Jim was looking directly at him, and the thoughts racing through Blair's mind were enough to get him into trouble if he didn't set them aside until later. "No problem at all. You're right, whatever personal connection they have could be relevant if Daniel is acting as a Guide. I'll keep it in mind during testing. Now, I'll need to gather some materials from here and from downstairs if we're going to set this up."

#

After a quick scan when they re-entered O'Neill and Jackson's room, Jim was startled by a buzz that turned out to be Jackson's phone.

"The delivery guy is downstairs, and I need to go down to meet him."

As he left, Blair brought his hands together and rocked to his toes, while Jim braced for a moment of crazy Blair inspiration. "Both of you, come with me. I know what our first test will be."

O'Neill raised an eyebrow but followed. Jim went with them, heading left down the long hallway, but he let his hearing follow Daniel to a bank of elevators to the right. He was able to hear Daniel cross the lobby and identify himself to the delivery man, who did in fact sound like a Chinese restaurant employee. Then Blair was leading them into a stairway at the far end of the hall, and Jim had all he could do to check for potential threats around that echoing, tall space.

Blair only took them down one level and out into an almost identical corridor on the sixth floor. Then he was on his phone, and Jim listened in on both sides of the conversation.

"Hey, Blair. Something up?" Jim recognized the voice as Jackson.

"Yeah, I came up with a good first test involving dinner. You're going to come back to an empty room, and I just need you to open one item, put it on the table, and wait."

"Sounds fun."

Blair left the phone connection open and Jim could hear the elevator ding as Jackson headed back up.

O'Neill mumbled, "It's all fun and games until we're stuck eating cold Chinese food."

Jim kept quiet, enjoying his role as the less grumpy Sentinel for a change.

As soon as they moved back upstairs, Jim recognized the smell of lemon chicken.

Blair asked O'Neill, "Can you smell the food at all?"

O'Neill's lower lip tightened, but he shook his head.

"I know." Jim offered. The brief flash of pride across Blair's face made Jim want to laugh. O'Neill pretended not to notice.

Blair pulled out a notebook, wrote the time and the room number they stood in front of, then pushed it at Jim. "Write what you think it is and what number you think you needed to be at on your dial to smell that." Then he said to O'Neill, "Move forward slowly until you think you can scent something."

O'Neill rolled his eyes, shoved his hands in his pockets, but started moving forward a few steps at a time. When they were halfway back to the room he said, "I'm not very good at smell?"

"Would it help to have Jackson here?"

The General shrugged in a very unmilitary way. "I do better when he's nearby." He took a few more steps and held up a hand. "Lemon chicken."

Blair wrote down the time and room number in his notebook, then lifted his phone again. "Was it lemon chicken?"

"Got it in one. Shall I open something else?"

"Sure."

Jim had no trouble identifying beef chow mein, one of his favorites, even if it was a more subtle scent. He gave Blair a nod, and when Blair handed over the notebook, Jim wrote down his information.

A few seconds later, without moving forward, O'Neill said, "Beef chow mein. I think now I've locked onto Danny's heartbeat, I'm going to be able to do all of these. How 'bout we quit the party tricks and go eat?"

"Patience," Blair said. "Jim, can you pick up Daniel's heartbeat from here?"

Jim piggybacked hearing on scent and immediately confirmed, "Yeah."

"Great," Blair bounced on his toes a little but kept his voice soft. "What would you say your hearing dial is at?"

"Eight."

Blair made a note. "Okay, just for scientific confirmation. I'll tell you both when to start, then I want you both to silently count Daniel's pulse until I tell you to stop."

O'Neill said, "He can hear you through the phone, and his pulse picked up when you said that."

"You okay?" Blair asked into the phone.

"Yeah, just an involuntary reaction I guess."

"I'm going to hang up now, so they won't be hearing anything through the phone. We'll join you in just a minute or two."

Then Blair hung up and said, "Go."

When he said "stop" they both replied with "thirty-seven."

"Nice," Blair said. Facing O'Neill he asked, "Do you use a dial with numbers? Can you tell me what your hearing is at?"

"Yeah, we got that from your paper. I think it's just all the way up, so ten, but it maybe doesn't need to be. Give me a minute and I'll see how low I can go and still hear it." He looked at the floor for a few long moments and said, "Maybe down to six or so?"

Blair wrote and then asked, "Did you learn about piggybacking your senses like that from what I wrote, or did that occur to you naturally?"

"What you wrote, and Daniel tried to run his own experiments with me. Can we go back to the room to discuss this? I can hear Daniel getting into the egg rolls, and he's not just opening them for us to smell."

Blair laughed, and they all headed back for dinner. Jim tried to remember if he'd ever told Blair how often he listened to his heartbeat. Pretty much any time they were in the loft or bullpen, Jim had some awareness of Blair's pulse, and he'd pick up on fear or other strong scents from his Guide without even meaning to. He knew he could zero in on Blair's heartbeat from farther away than anyone else's, and he could pick it out in a crowd. The next time Blair made him talk, he thought maybe he should mention it. He wondered if it would make Blair nervous or uncomfortable, the way he presumed it had affected Jackson when his heart sped up.

When they walked into the hotel room, O'Neill took a half eaten egg roll right out of Jackson's hand and slid the rest into his own mouth.

"Sensing must be hungry work," Jackson teased.

O'Neil just smiled at him.

Jim was surprised to end up enjoying their evening with Jackson and O'Neill. Mostly, it was a relief to see someone else subjected to all Blair's enthusiastic testing and, if Jim was honest with himself, to see his partner so excited again. Blair produced herbal tea for another smell test, mixed extremely dilute salt and water samples to taste, and worked with items already in the room to measure hearing, sight and touch. Jim didn't even mind acting as a control or saying what number he'd associate with his senses for some tests. It was worth it to hear Jack moan, "I was never good at tests!" and later "What's a rooibo anyway, and why should I know what they smell like?"

After all Blair had been through with the thesis fiasco and rearranging his life to be a cop, it was great to see him back in his element and getting some of the respect and praise he'd been denied. Still, Jim's paranoia snapped back the moment O'Neill brought out a thick pile of paperwork.

"What's the minimum he has to sign?" Jim butted in.

O'Neill and Jackson exchanged a look. "For tonight, just these three pages from both of you that say you won't discuss anything you learned or inferred here," Jackson said, then he turned to face Blair. "I think you demonstrated that this is real and worth studying, so if you want to work with us and finish your doctorate, I'm pretty sure I could set it up. But they're going to want more of a background check. Also, there might be related projects that you'd benefit from knowing about. If we can get you clearance for those, you'll be signing dozens of non-disclosures."

"There are other projects related to this?" Blair leaned half out of his seat as he followed Jackson's words.

"Maybe." O'Neill bit off the word and glared at Jackson. "We can't know yet, and we can't tell you any more tonight."

"Take some time to get used to the idea," Jackson said. "I'll be in touch when we're ready to talk details."

"You understand that Jim and I are a package deal, right?" Blair asked, and Jackson nodded. "And that he has a job and some territorial imperatives right?"

"I don't get this territory stuff," O'Neill waved a hand. "I go all over the place, and this senses stuff hasn't changed anything about it."

Daniel smiled. "Well, I guess that's something else we can study."

O'Neill scowled at him. "How about a beer on the balcony before we call it a night?"

#

Blair stayed quiet on the balcony as Jim and Jack started up some Sentinel version of a pissing contest to see who could read street signs or license plate in the semi-dark of the city. Given how both men ridiculed his tests, Blair found it pretty amusing that they were effectively designing their own.

"The street past that?" Jack asked.

"Roosevelt. The car parked at the corner?" Jim parried.

"STV 753," Jack answered slowly, and Blair's Guide instincts started him watching for signs that Jack might zone out as he strained for the visual stimulus.

"But what about the bumper sticker?" Jim asked without noticing how Jack was freezing up. Just as Blair was about to say something, Daniel slid his palm over the back of Jack's hand where the older man was clutching the railing. As Daniel's thumb stroked the side of Jack's palm, Blair could see the military man relaxing and taking a deep breath, possibly drawing in Daniel's scent.

"It says, 'My other ride is a drone.'"

Jim's eyes glanced sideways, either impressed or annoyed that Jack had managed. Then his eyes flicked to the overlapping hands on the balcony rail and briefly over to Blair as Jack asked, "How about the sign in the shop window one block past there?"

As Jim's annoyance visibly shifted into the concentrating look he got while working cases, Blair raised his hand to Jim's back, just as he would anchor Jim at a complicated crime scene. After all they'd been through, it was gratifying to have Jim relax into the touch and throw out, "We reserve the right to refuse service no matter who you are or how many shares you own. Next sign, orange, two blocks farther." Jim smiled.

Daniel said, "I think they're just showing off now."

"I think you have a Guide's instincts to know when he's about to zone."

Daniel looked down at his hand on top of his Sentinel's and smiled. "I can't seem to resist becoming whatever he needs."

That hit Blair in the gut. He'd wondered more than once if he'd crossed a line between being the Guide Jim needed and adjusting his life to whatever Jim required. Shoving those thoughts aside he asked, "How much experience have you had with pulling him out if he actually zoned?"

"Not much, except in the—" Whatever Daniel had been about to say was cut off by Jack clearing his throat loudly before answering Jim's latest challenge. "Sorry," Daniel said. "You'll have to decide how many non-disclosures you're willing to sign."

Blair was trying to guess what sort of classified projects might trigger zones when he felt Jim tense under his hand. He glanced at his Sentinel's face and saw his unfocused eyes and still features. Jim was partway into a zone and close to losing control. Blair rubbed his hand in a small circle and said, "Jim, I think that's enough for tonight."

Jim finally blinked and said, "I guess he had to do better than me at something."

"If you'd like, I could demonstrate a few other skills where I could kick your butt," Jack said in a sweetly sarcastic tone.

"Really, guys," Blair interrupted, "If we could run just a few quick follow-ups, I could get a baseline for each of you working with a Guide."

Both Sentinels groaned as they trudged back inside.

#

June 4, France / South Africa

Paris Charles de Gaulle international airport had chairs with the texture of human skin. Gabi couldn't stop running her fingers back and forth, around in circles—the softness with slight, slight ridges kept her attention. The surrounding atrium should have been perfect for sleeping between flights. Gabi was tired but knew she wouldn't sleep.

Brett displayed no problems with sleeping sprawled out in the seat across from her, his stupid blond surfer dude hair pointing every which way. Whatever he put on it caught the light, sunbeams from the skylights. Gabi would have worried about the reflections and her heightened awareness of them triggering her seizures, but she was probably too tired to focus that much. Her eyes were half closed as she watched flashes reflect off tufts of Brett's hair, imagining that it clumped that way from salty damp air and wind at a beach, rather than from product applied before their first ten-hour flight. Gabi wondered if Brett's hair would still look artfully tousled when they arrived in Cape Town. Then she realized she could smell whatever he put on it from across the aisle, if she tried. It wasn't a bad scent, something like eucalyptus and aloe overlying Brett's own natural scent. Maybe she even liked it.

Joe, the grad student traveling with them, was on his phone over by the wall, actually talking not texting. Gabi hated speaking on a phone, and felt an echo of that dislike as she watched Joe. His dark curls seemed to absorb rather than reflect, but his face was golden and healthy-looking in the sunlit atrium. Gabi caught herself tuning in to his conversation.

"Neither of their phones have service, but we've set them up for South Africa," Joe said. "They're both clueless undergrads."

Gabi pulled her hearing back trying not to eavesdrop, realizing she shouldn't be able to hear from across the room, even if Joe was probably talking about her and Brett. Instead, she took out her own phone and swiped the screen, resetting her passive seizure alert and incidentally calling up her microbot demo vid. The tiny bot trails falling down the screen reminded her of raindrops hitting a mostly dry window, each leaving a downward trail of unpredictable jags and variations. She imagined how it would feel to follow gravity down through the soil like a tiny probing robot, carving a trail grain by grain, and she closed her eyes.

#

Brett suspected Joe of being as bored as he was when Gabi stopped again to take pictures, this time of a parked car's bumper sticker. They were all tired and killing time in a Cape Town neighborhood known as Woodstock. Gabi had already stopped to photograph three walls of graffiti, a semicircular metal chair she said she'd like to build herself someday, and a sidewalk sign for "Honest Chocolate" (no sugar or milk added). They'd driven out to see penguins and the Cape of Good Hope first thing after arriving at the airport, and Gabi had taken more pictures of bizarre trivia (like the triangular warning sign that said only "Baboons!") than she had of anything scenic.

Now she was obsessing about a bumper sticker that read "Howl – City Lights Bookstore." Brett understood the reference, since they all attended Bay Tech, which wasn't that far from San Francisco. He could see why Gabi might find it humorous and want to frame a photo where the words were identifiable in the context of South Africa. But she kept stepping into the street, dangerously close to whizzing traffic, then squatting in front of the parked car where someone pulling in might not see her, and generally acting embarrassingly like a tourist.

Joe had turned away with hands on hips to study the window display of an artsy bookstore that was being renovated. Inside people were painting and assembling shelves. A large and muscular man stood in the bookstore doorway, then ducked inside to talk to one of the workmen, after which he came back out and watched Gabi. Everyone at the bookstore, and pretty much everyone in sight other than the three of them from Bay Tech, was fairly dark-skinned black by American standards. It didn't make Brett as uncomfortable as some neighborhoods in Oakland might. He couldn't pretend to understand South African sensibilities yet, but there wasn't the defensive posturing or half-lidded staring that sometimes met him in parts of Oakland. Still, Gabi was sort of toast-colored, Joe was white with a golden tan, and Brett was pale and blue-eyed with dirty blond hair, so he felt they were conspicuous even without Gabi making a spectacle.

"Gabi." Brett intentionally spoke loud enough so the man in the doorway could hear. "I get why the bumper sticker is amusing, but you might be making someone nervous when you photograph the car over and over."

She gave no sign of hearing him.

"Come on, Gabi. You're acting like the stereotypical rude American tourist."

Still focused on the phone she was using as a camera, Gabi said, "Finally, a way in which I can be a stereotypical American." But then she stood up, scrubbing damp waves of dark hair back from her face, and slid her phone into her pouch-style purse. Still standing partly in the street behind the parked car, she visibly scanned her surroundings for the first time.

If anything, the large man in the bookstore doorway looked less welcoming as her gaze crossed his, but Gabi just smiled in a froggy, crooked way and said, "Hey, is this your car? I live near City Lights Bookstore, and I'm a big fan of Allen Ginsberg, so I was amused to see the bumper sticker here." She pointed.

When the man didn't answer, she stepped up to the sidewalk, adding a couple inches to her height, and with her long, willowy frame, that put her almost at eye level with the much bulkier man. Despite her height, Brett was struck by how young she looked, and suddenly she didn't seem rude at all. "Really, I'm more a techy type usually, but I went through a phase after I read ee cummings and W. H. Auden where I tried to decipher poems like they were puzzles. I'd gone through a cryptography phase before that, and I was only fourteen at the time, so there was a lot of stuff about Ginsberg and the beatniks that I didn't understand. Anyway, now I'm trying out photography, sort of also looking at things like they're puzzles. Seeing this bumper sticker here was like a puzzle piece connecting where I live to where I am now. I wanted the picture to capture that. You see?"

The man tilted his head and raised an eyebrow, but then he smiled. "Howzit? It's my friend's car." He motioned with his head back toward the people working inside the bookstore. "I'll tell him you liked the bumper sticker."

Smiling bigger and bouncing in a surprisingly girlish way, Gabi said, "Thanks," and started walking down the sidewalk as if it were only natural that Brett and Joe would follow her. They did.

Because Joe had wandered a ways ahead, Brett ended up trailing the other two. He watched Gabi with a new appreciation despite himself, amused at how her ridiculous and rambling explanation had charmed the African man in the doorway. He wondered if being female helped with that, because Gabi standing tall or in motion probably counted as reasonably attractive for those who were interested that way. Regardless, Gabi's appearance was intriguing. Brett couldn't begin to guess what her ethnic background was, with her high cheekbones and small nose under skin that was definitely not white or Asian, but not all that dark either. He could imagine her looking like an exotic model if someone intervened with a complete makeover for clothes, hair, and makeup.

Joe on the other hand had a gorgeous ass and romantic dark curls. His expensive but poorly chosen clothing screamed "straight, very straight" and he didn't ping Brett's gaydar at all. In most ways, that was probably for the best. Brett had sworn off sex for the summer, so working an archeology dig where no temptation would arise with his housemates should simplify matters.

As they walked down the street, Joe cast several sideways glances at Gabi in ways that Brett suspected could count as checking her out. That didn't matter to Brett one way or the other, even if Joe was a grad student and looked several years older than Gabi. It was none of Brett's business.

Joe's phone rang, and Brett overheard snatches of, "Sort of a club, isn't it?... Just flew in…Late night…Call back…"

When Joe put his phone away and looked over his shoulder, clearly intending to talk, Brett hurried forward, closing the gap between them.

"That was one of our digmates from the University of South Africa," Joe said. "You know? The ones who brought the van out and left it at the airport for us? They're heading over to get dinner at this club place, and they were wondering if we might want to join them. They promise we don't have to stay too late if we're tired, and you never know…"

Gabi rolled her eyes so far her head tilted back. "Not really my thing, but if you guys want to go, I have an infinite amount of reading on my phone." She patted the black woven bag that hung against her left hip.

"Drinking age here is only eighteen," Joe said, in a way that sounded just like a frat boy trying to talk a girl into more than she wanted.

Raising her wrist toward Joe's face with a queenly wave that made a medic alert bracelet flash, Gabi said, "I don't drink, and those places tend to have flashing lights and lots of noise, also known as seizure triggers."

From the thoughtful look on Joe's face, he already knew about whatever medical condition she referred to, but Brett wished he'd been in the loop. What if Gabi had suffered a seizure during their two long airplane flights, or standing in the street photographing a bumper sticker?

"Well, we could find our own restaurant and then hang out at a coffee shop until the local crowd is ready to head back to the dig," Joe offered with a soft-spoken lack of enthusiasm.

"I don't drink coffee or tea, but I'm happy to do something like that. And seriously, you two shouldn't miss out because of me. I don't need a babysitter."

"Trust me, I don't think you look like a baby." Joe let his arm brush up against Gabi's at that point. Brett would have slipped back again to give them space for what was clearly a two-person discussion, but Gabi's arm tensed and she moved about half a foot away, so Brett kept his position just behind them.

While Joe was still recovering from the obvious sidestep, Gabi pulled out her phone without looking and, using just a glance down and one finger, found something that made her smile. "Here's a place, Rococoa. They specialize in hot chocolate, serve basic meals, and they're in a sort of shopping mall, so probably pretty safe. You can drop me off there, go network or socialize or whatever, and come back for me when you're done. Really, it's close enough that I could walk from here."

"I'm happy to stay with you," Joe said in a voice that meant anything but. "Dr. Michaels told me ahead of time about your condition, and I'm sure he wouldn't want me leaving you alone."

Gabi stopped so suddenly that Brett almost ran into her and did brush up against her sleeve before dodging. She tensed as she had at Joe's touch but held her ground. She had turned to face Joe and said in a clipped tone that wasn't the slightest bit polite, "I have done just fine on my own with my condition since I came to Bay Tech at the age of fifteen. I will be nineteen next year when I graduate with bachelor's degrees in both engineering and physics and a master's in astrophysics. Later, I plan to win a Nobel Prize. I will be fine on my own in a café for a few hours."

When neither Gabi nor Joe looked willing to compromise or even be the next person to speak, Brett decided to take his turn. "Look, no offense to anyone involved, but I'm not really interested in going to a club or meeting new people tonight. I'd be happy to hang out at a chocolate café if Gabi will have me, or I can find something else at the mall. Whatever works."

In the end, Joe went off to meet the local students from the dig, and Brett was allowed to sit with Gabi on the understanding that she intended to ignore him and read articles on her phone. Brett didn't mind much, because the café she'd found with a ten-second search on her phone was awesome. They walked through a chocolate shop to reach the tables, and the whole place was permeated by the smell of chocolate. In addition to a large bittersweet hot chocolate, Brett ordered a chicken salad with cacao nibs and homemade bread that came with butter and a chocolate nut spread. The walls were covered in ads with old-time chocolate slogans that made Brett chuckle: "Baker's Chocolate: A Perfect Food" and "This Cake Belongs to Daddy."

When Gabi set her phone down to lift her hot chocolate with both hands, Brett said, "I like your taste in diners."

"Sure. I bet you have a mug that says, 'Save the Earth. It's the only source of chocolate.'"

"Do I need credentials to compliment the food?"

"You're interrupting my reading and chocolate sipping."

"Shutting up now." He mimed zipping his lips, but couldn't be annoyed because Gabi's rudeness had started to amuse him. He thought about pulling out his own phone to see if he had any messages, but he'd just heard from his father and wasn't sure Chris planned to keep in touch at all. By looking out though the entryway chocolate shop, a small portion of the mall was visible for people-watching. Brett watched two young men load a pallet by a furniture store as he worked his way through his salad. Their body language was different from men working together in the States, whether they'd been black or white, gay or straight. He tried to sort the differences into words but couldn't.

When he next glanced at Gabi, she seemed unusually still. Her eyes were focused on a display of shiny cooking pots rather than on her food or phone, and her eyelashes were vibrating although her eyes were only halfway open. Brett watched for about half a minute, wondering if he should do or say something, until Gabi suddenly came back to herself and caught him staring. She glared at him, then pointedly looked away as she lifted her hot chocolate again.

#

Gabi knew Brett had noticed her seizure. She could smell on him the tang of adrenaline associated with fight or flight, and his heartbeat was fast and loud enough for her to hear, which it shouldn't be for any normal person. She took a sip of her hot chocolate and focused on the comforting smell and taste to prevent another seizure.

Brett looked prepared to ignore it, and Gabi was tempted to let it go. Almost any other time, she would have let it go, but he'd been very patient with her demands for silence through most of their meal. "It's called an absence seizure. How long did it last?"

"Maybe twenty seconds that I noticed. Not long." Brett visibly relaxed back in his chair, but Gabi could tell from his heart rate that his posture was mostly for show.

"That's typical. Most people don't even notice, and there's nothing you can do. Is there more you want to know?"

"Well, if we're going to be working together all summer, is there more I should know? You'd be the one who would know what I should know, if you know what I mean."

He smiled, and it was forced, but the scientist part of Gabi respected the desire for more complete information. "Okay, I prefer the term seizure disorder to epilepsy, although I'd generally prefer not to mention it at all. Usually I have typical absence seizures like that, which last less than a minute and seem like I'm staring into space. Very rarely, I have atypical absence seizures which last longer and may cause me to slump or even slide out of a chair. They may take a little longer to recover from."

"Any way I can help with those?"

The answer to that wouldn't be found in any medical textbook, because Gabi was atypical after all. Still, sitting with her hands wrapped around soothing hot chocolate and feeling relatively safe in the quiet, friendly café she'd chosen, Gabi told him. "Hopefully you won't ever see one, but just in case, you can try talking to me, and if that's not enough, try taking my hand. Just narrate what you're doing, don't stop talking or let go, and don't freak out. There, you now know more than most doctors I've ever met."

"Good, thanks."

That was it. He nodded and picked at the remains of his salad. Gabi felt both scared and furious, as if he'd violated her privacy somehow, even though she'd volunteered all the information. Her heartbeat sped up as his slowed down, but rather than risk talking anymore, she buried her thoughts in the article she'd been reading on her phone.

#

When they entered the vacation rental and Joe made a beeline for the door off the front of the living room, Brett guessed it was the best room. Joe's maneuvering didn't offend Brett, since he didn't care where he slept, and he didn't object to grad student posturing or someone using their knowledge from previous visits for self-benefit. As it was, he could tell with a glance through open doors that both of the small bedrooms at the back were identical: bed, desk, window. They were like dorm rooms with a shared bathroom in between. Gabi shut herself into the room on the right, and Brett dropped his luggage in the one on the left before going to explore the kitchen section of the common area.

The kitchen was better appointed than he'd expected. There were plenty of pots, pans, casserole dishes, and cookie sheets. The refrigerator was empty, but the cupboards offered flour, sugar, salt, and a few random spices. He found an unopened container of shortening and decided despite the late hour to make cookies. A couple years of sharing space with guys who were even less talented at cooking (or even grocery shopping) than he was had granted Brett the ability to create comfort food from practically nothing. So he mixed up a batch of the world's simplest shortbread cookies.

As the smell permeated their small quarters, Joe emerged from his room and grabbed a TV remote. He sank down on the only sofa as he channel surfed." Just four stations, and right now it's news or sports."

Brett slid some cookies onto a plate and let the rest sit with the cookie sheet on top of the stove. He took the plate with him as he claimed the opposite end of the sofa from Joe, leaving plenty of room for cookies in between. Joe said, "Thanks," without raising an eyebrow as they both stared at a soccer game between two South African teams.

#

Having her own room and closing the door filled Gabi with a warm sense of relief. She hung her clothes in the closet, then put socks and underwear in the bottom desk drawer, since there wasn't a real dresser. The wooden drawer stuck and required a little wiggling as she tried to push it back. Gabi put a few other supplies in the top desk drawer, which also stuck a bit, but most of the essentials remained in her purse. Just when she would have plugged her phone in to charge and started getting ready for bed, she heard the television switch on in the main room. It wasn't quite loud enough that she couldn't sleep through it, assuming her hearing stayed under control, but it would be hard to ignore until she knew the place better.

Sitting down on her pleasingly firm, full-sized bed, Gabi closed her eyes and slid through a sort of meditation routine she'd developed when she was ten. Back then, her outlandish senses had offered occasional insights into forbidden areas and had rarely been strong enough or triggered suddenly enough to arouse much suspicion. Her incentive to practice meditation had been her desire, even then, to control the increased input, to turn it on or off at will and without triggering seizures. At the time, it mostly worked, but for the last year as everything ramped up, meditation was a stopgap at best.

As a first step, Gabi took stock of the obvious sounds around her, the television, something rattling in the kitchen, forced air from the vents. Then she went deeper and listened to chirping crickets outside the closed window and traffic whooshing far away on a main road. There were other television and conversation sounds from the converted vacation housing around them. From what she understood, most people working the dig were staying in this development that catered to tourists during the local summer. June was the beginning of winter in South Africa, but Gabi doubted the temperature outside was below sixty, and at the moment she didn't hear any wind.

She opened her eyes, not trying very hard to settle her vision, because her eyes were dry and tired with a bit of a headache forming behind them. She glanced around the room for anything that might trigger a seizure or otherwise agitate her, but the room was bland, all tan and white, and lacked distractions. Cleaning product scents annoyed her nose, and the bedspread was scratchy, but nothing she wasn't used to. There was also the undeniable scent of cookies coming from their kitchen, making her mouth water. While it seemed way too late by her internal clock, even for her sweet tooth, Gabi was drawn like a moth to flame.

As she entered the common room, both Joe and Brett were seated on the couch facing away from her. They were watching a soccer game, and Gabi worried she would intrude on some male bonding moment. Eyeing the cookies left on the stove top, Gabi wondered if she had to ask before taking one.

Then Brett looked over his shoulder and said, "Help yourself," and the solution to her uncertainty was more welcome than the snack.

"But where did you get the eggs?" she asked before she thought better of it.

"The trick to these cookies is they don't use anything perishable."

Gabi decided she'd rather seem cooking clueless than admit she'd made an unappreciated Dr. Who reference. She took two cookies and stepped out the front door.

Outside softer sounds surrounded her, because the TV inside didn't overwhelm them. Grasses rustled from a barely existent breeze and a small animal scratched at hard ground behind one of the nearby buildings. The nature smells—dirt, pollen, a hint of saltwater nearby—predominated even in the tight cluster of human housing. A bite of cookie melted light and sweet in her mouth.

Plenty of stars lit the sky despite the light contamination. She found the Southern Cross, Centaurus, Scorpius, and Hercules. She couldn't see the Milky Way this night, but it was still deeply satisfying to stare at a different set of stars from a different continent in a different hemisphere. Even if her plans for the summer (winter, she corrected in her head) didn't quite make sense, there was something amazing about physically seeing a different view of space.

#

June 5, Antarctica

Rodney did not consider himself to be good with people, but it was obvious to him when things were broken. The new and shiny Major Flyboy they'd dropped into the control chair wasn't working so well anymore, and Rodney wanted that fixed. Now.

"Hello! Major Chia Pet! Where has that tiny brain of yours gone off to?"

The man sat rigid in the still glowing chair, staring into space. He didn't even blink.

Rodney escalated to a tone known to cower lab minions from seventeen countries. "Major, tell me about the power supply, or I'm going to force that Ancient-phobic doctor back into this chair and he will kill us all with squid missiles!"

Beckett's disembodied voice drifted across the open area from a side room where he shouldn't even have been able to hear as he shouted, "Rodney!" He managed an impressive tone of menace for someone who was mired in murky non-science and overly fond of sheep, but Rodney would never admit to being impressed.

Rodney bent over his keyboard and muttered to himself, "Seriously, if they could find one decent technician to operate this, I'd have the data to understand the power source and the weapons platform that the colonel wants to play with so badly. But he can't sit still more than two minutes or stay down in this freezing nowhere more than two days. He leaves me a terrified voodoo practitioner and a slouchy flyboy WHO CAN'T REMEMBER TO SPEAK ONCE HE'S IN THE CHAIR!"

After another non-response, Rodney turned to see the spiky haired major in his khaki jacket and camo trousers still staring off into space. "What do you need me to do, hold your hand?"

Rodney had turned back to his computer but his mind's eye conjured memories of Daniel Jackson constantly drifting his hands across Colonel O'Neill's during their brief turns at the control chair. Jackson still didn't have the address he wanted for Atlantis, and Weir was frantic with both him and Rodney—like it was in any way Rodney's fault! Finding the address was Jackson's project. But Jackson did seem to keep the colonel focused when they were searching. He used some combination of constant questions, touches to the top of the hand on the sensor pad, and occasion pokes to the colonel's shoulder. As an experimental hypothesis, Rodney thought what was good for the colonel might be good for the major.

He walked over to the chair, and deliberately set his hand on top of Major Stepford's, or whatever his name was. "Listen, I need you to determine the status of the power supply for this base, anything you can tell me about it, but saying something sooner rather than later would be beneficial."

"Potentia." John said the strange word as if he'd been nothing but responsive the entire time.

"Oookay," Rodney replied. "Care to elaborate?"

"It uses a potentia to operate main systems."

"What, pray tell, is a potential?"

"You don't know either?" The major's eyes flickered open, looking straight at Rodney. It wasn't clear whether they were blue or hazel or maybe blue-gray with green at the center. When Rodney caught himself staring into the man's eyes while still touching his hand, he took a step back and said, "Maybe you could describe it?"

"Oh." The strange eyes blinked several times, and one raised an eyebrow. Then squinting as if he was trying to look closely at something far away, the military man said, "Well, it looks sort of like stained glass, with yellow and red and maybe some green?"

"What shape?"

The major shook his head, as if to clear his vision, and Rodney thought he might have fixed his broken Major. "Sort of like crystals growing down from a base that's almost round with maybe ten sections marked on top like a clock. But then the crystals growing down aren't that regular, and it's glowing inside, so that's probably the power part."

That confirmed they were on the right track, because Rodney was sure the man had never seen the device he was describing, and the description wasn't bad for a military mind. Rodney rushed to find out as much as he could while he had a gene-bearing minion to operate the chair, a minion who was finally accessing the right data and staying focused for at least a few moments. "Can you see what's inside?"

The smoky blue-green eyes squinted until they closed, and the man's face continued to wrinkle up until he resembled a small child holding his breath or trying exceedingly hard to make a wish. Rodney tried to be patient and quiet—not his strong suits at the best of times—until he realized four minutes had passed and remembered his earlier ideas about touch and talking. Resting his hand lightly over the nearest one activating the chair he asked, "Did you find out what's inside? You look like you're concentrating on something, but in case you didn't notice, you've stopped talking again." When nothing happened, Rodney patted awkwardly at the hand beneath his and tried again, "Come on, Major, just tell me what's inside the power source and maybe I can set some of the only mostly useless scientists around here to work on it. Is there anything you can tell me?"

The hand beneath his shivered, and the shiver seemed to travel up the man's arm until his whole body twitched and his eyes opened with the pupils blown wide. Blinking his eyes rapidly the major shot out of the chair and half threw himself across the room, down the nearest hallway, and into a tiny room that they were using as a supply closet.

Rodney followed him questioning, "What happened? What did you see?"

When he opened the door to the supply room, the major threw his arm over his eyes, pulled Rodney to him, and closed the door fast. Then Rodney found himself pushed up against the closed door, with a warm body pressed full against him and pinning him in place. His heart raced. Both their hearts were racing, and Rodney could feel their hearts thumping as the major buried his face in Rodney's neck, breathing hard.

"Right, well I haven't been in this situation since Russia, but really I'm not getting any, so I'm probably up for whatever you want. Just, can you tell me first what you found out about the power source?"

#

John's head was throbbing like ice picks had been jammed through his eyes. For a moment, when he'd opened his eyes in the chair, he'd thought he'd gone blind, except everything was bright white instead of black. As he rushed across the room to get away from it all, he felt like he was navigating by sound or sonar or something, because he really didn't think he could see.

Now, with the scientist's voice and racing heartbeat, with the feel and smell of a warm body pressed close, he was starting to calm down. Blinking in the nearly dark room, he could see the fine hairs on the back of the scientist's, Dr. McKay's, neck. So he wasn't blind; he'd just had a bad reaction to the light. But now McKay was babbling about Russia and, oh god, he thought John wanted to have sex up against the door. John hadn't done anything like that, hadn't had any sort of sex with another person, since the incident in Afghanistan. But here he was, pressed up against another man, and what was he going to say, "I freaked out, and burying my face in your neck was the only way I could calm down?" No, sex in a storage room would be better than admitting to that. Besides, McKay smelled really good, tangy and turned on. John rubbed up against McKay, and surprise, both of them were sporting erections, so maybe this wasn't a bad idea at all.

"Just first, before you forget," McKay was saying, and how could he keep talking, even now, even as his voice reverberated through John's skin, "Can you tell me anything about the inside of the power source?"

John tried to remember, and he kept rubbing against McKay and breathing in his scent, because something told him he'd lose it all over again if he stopped. "There was nothing, like space. And then something really small, smaller than an atom would appear and be destroyed, and then it was empty again. I don't know, something about always being empty meaning it couldn't be emptied. Can I?" He reached for the button on McKay's pants, shiny in the dark.

"Yeah, great, wow. That totally fits my theory. I don't suppose you've studied quantum mechanics?"

John didn't answer. He slid down Rodney's body until he was on his knees, but he kept as much of his chest and forearms in contact with Rodney's legs as possible, even as he opened Rodney's pants and pushed them down with the scientist's boxers. He could see the constellations decorating the black boxers as they slid over milky white legs, and figured he had nothing to worry about with his vision. Then he eyed the mostly erect cock standing out proud in front of his face and took the tip in his mouth. Nothing had ever tasted so good, so complex and raw. John groaned and wondered how he could have gone so long without this warm, smooth glide in his mouth.

"Ooh!" said McKay. "First you dazzle me with science and now, wow, your mouth."

John smiled and licked along the underside, tracing the nerve from base to tip. "Keep talking, about anything, and I'll keep doing this."

"Talking, I can do that. Especially if you keep doing—oh yeah. So, what you were saying, about there being nothing, then something, then nothing, and if I take it as read that you were actually accessing information from Ancient sources and hopefully about the power source as directed, the nothing you described is vacuum. Even at zero point energy, particles would appear spontaneously and be annihilated by antiparticles. In theory, this would be a non-depletable energy source. Of course, in theory, practice is the same as theory. With Ancient technology… Oh god, what you're doing there. That's really—do you still want me to talk about science?"

John didn't care what McKay talked about, but he held onto the breathy voice like a lifeline while his own body went crazy with the feel of skin. The silky, burning cock slid along his tongue, sent vibrations across the roof of his mouth. Where John's hands and arms touched skin, any skin, warm shivers transmitted through to his bones and spread to the rest of his body. Every tiny hair seemed to pick up on its own frequency. It was the best thing ever, but John thought he could get lost in all that skin. Rodney's voice, while not melodic or soothing by anyone's standards, was somehow comforting. It was a lifeline that kept John in his body, kept him sane. It was like MREs after months of living on a foreign base, not necessarily his favorite food, but something safe and reliable and just what he needed then.

He took Rodney deeper, back into his throat, and McKay let out a moan in the middle of some explanation involving subatomic particles. The taste of the scientist's pre-come burst across John's tongue, and he thought physics discussions might be enough to get him hard in the future. The taste and the smell as he pushed his nose down to touch sweaty skin and pubic hair, the flood filling his senses had John hard and straining against his pants. He really didn't want to come in his pants.

He could hear McKay's speech become ragged and his heart speeding up. John moved a hand to press behind the scientist's balls and suddenly his mouth was flooded, and John had to swallow and swallow, which seemed to make McKay come harder and harder. The bitter, overwhelmingly male taste coated John's mouth and throat, became a scent that filled his nose as well.

John unzipped his pants to relieve the pressure as he got his own feet under him and stood beside a dazed and panting McKay. McKay's breathy words no longer dealt with science but had devolved to, "Oh my god, oh that, oh my god."

John was going to jack himself off but McKay reached out a hand to join his and the touch of those strong, blunt fingers sliding between John's, offering just the pressure he needed, had him coming within a couple strokes.

Then they were both panting and tucking themselves back into their clothes. McKay produced a handkerchief, which he shared as they both wiped their hands. John wanted to bury his face back in the man's neck, but he knew that would be impossible to explain now that he'd worn out the excuse of quick and easy sex.

"I'll leave first," he said. With one deep breath, that unfortunately filled his nose with McKay's scent and didn't do anything for his casual military charade, John stepped out into the hall.

#

June 5, South Africa

Brett was surprised that they could walk to the dig site in the morning. It was less than two miles from their housing, but none of them had quite caught up on sleep, so Brett was glad he didn't have to find it on his own. Joe knew the way from working an adjacent section last vacation session, and Brett and Gabi followed with barely a word.

The site included a basic string grid with a few shallow pits started in some squares. Five tables on the north side under large shade tents held bins and tools for sifting dirt removed from any given square. The south side sported a random collection of picnic tables, card tables, and folding chairs shaded by smaller tents or table umbrellas. The coolers suggested that would be a snack or lunch area.

Brett found his name on a weekly schedule posted by the larger tents where he was assigned to "microfossils" for the morning. From a previous short visit at a dig near Bay Tech, he knew that meant dirt sifting, a lowly but necessary task. Most archeologists dreaded sifting, but Brett was suddenly awake and eager. He didn't expect to make major discoveries on his first real dig, but the reality of being part of a significant excavation in a foreign country made the work matter in a way none of his previous jobs had. He asked around until he was assigned a bin of dirt from grid square nine to sift and sort. It was quiet, simple work, letting him get to know the local soil and observe the other twenty-six people he counted working the dig. Most of them were students, with a couple who might be post docs or young professors. Many looked sleepy. Some carried coffee cups or thermoses. But each took a position and started in on a task, adding to a chorus of scrapes and thumps and conversation that Brett absorbed as the sounds of his first real dig.

Professor Michaels showed up within half an hour. He sought out Joe first, and Brett watched as Joe pointed to where Brett was working and then to Gabi who was by herself out at square fifty.

Brett hadn't figured out what Gabi was doing. She'd assembled a square-framed device that filled most of her string-marked meter-square space. Moving all around it, she adjusted bits on sides and corners, then spent a lot of time peering underneath, laying her head practically on the ground at each side. Brett could see the layer of dust on her dark hair. He watched her fiddle with something on her phone and then re-adjust a knob on one side of the metal device.

He was still watching Gabi when Michaels approached the sifting tent. The old man greeted a female student, who appeared to be a local, with a firm hand rested on her shoulder. She smiled and nodded at whatever he was saying, and Brett figured she had worked a dig with him previously.

When Michaels reached Brett he sat down beside him on the bench and said, "Good to see you, Brett. How was your trip out?"

"Good." Brett tried to match the professor's tone and relaxed body language. The man was in his sixties, and Brett had no idea why he'd accepted Brett for the summer position, unless Brett's dad had greased the wheels. Regardless, Brett intended to stay on the professor's good side. "I thought a full day of air travel might be stressful, but after finals, it was like a forced vacation. I even caught up on some sleep."

"Oh, to be young again," Michaels said. "I see they're starting you out with a lot of microfossil time. Don’t feel you have to sit the whole shift. Get to know people. We have some guests coming to share intel on other local digs at lunch, and next week we're arranging a trip to the Kruger Game Park. I know you get class credit for being here, but it shouldn't be like you're still in school."

"Looks pretty different from Bay Tech." Brett gestured to the tent ceiling.

"That's why half of us go into archeology." Michaels smiled and thumped the table. "We need our time with dirt and tents. Nice that we have permanent housing here, though. You kids wouldn't believe the flea-ridden rain forest I slept in on my first dig. Luckily, South Africa's a very civilized country."

Brett nodded his way through most of the conversation. Michaels seemed like a nice guy, or at least like he wanted to come off that way.

When he watched Michaels check in with Gabi, Brett saw him squeeze her shoulder the same way he had with the local young woman. He also saw Gabi stiffen at the touch. If it was enough to be visible across the dig, Brett wondered how Michaels didn't take the hint, but maybe it was how that generation was raised.

A couple hours later, when Brett saw a few people gather at the snack tents, he wandered over to practice his water cooler conversation. He found out the others were all from the University of South Africa and had come to the dig a week earlier when their winter break started. The most exciting discovery so far that morning looked like a potsherd. Otherwise people only reported micro fossils that might turn out to be bits of bone or teeth, much like what Brett had sifted so far. The local students were looking forward to the speakers coming at lunch and were hoping to score invites to other digs.

As everyone wandered back to their assigned jobs, Brett thought about taking a soda out to Gabi. Then he saw Joe was crouched on the dirt beside her and decided to just get back to work.

Over the next half hour, Brett couldn't help watching Joe and Gabi. It was almost comedic seeing Joe shift closer until they were touching, and then moments later Gabi would reach for something or wave her hands while talking and expertly shift away. When they both looked at something on Gabi's phone or the laptop she'd set up, Joe would rest his hand on her shoulder in a strange parody of Michaels' moves. It creeped Brett out to see Joe ignore the way Gabi stiffened each time and took the next chance to shift away, and Brett wished she'd just say something to make Joe stop.

When Joe finally left Gabi to head over to the snack table, he didn't just bring her back a soda. He persuaded another student to help carry the smallest shade tent, which had been covering a currently unused table, to square fifty where Gabi now sat cross-legged typing rapid fire on the laptop. She looked up to thank Joe and the other student without even a break in her typing. When she looked immediately back down at the screen, Joe sort of shrugged to the other guy, and they both walked back to get sodas for themselves.

#

At lunch Gabi had to approach a local woman digging in a nearby square to help carry the little shade canopy back to where people would need it while eating. The woman was nice enough but gave no sign of wanting to sit together at lunch, so Gabi took her food and went to sit next to Brett.

"Hey, Gabi," he said. "I see they had you out on your own all morning."

"When people weren't dropping by to chat forever."

Brett raised an eyebrow, and Gabi guessed he was the type who'd rather chat than get work done. He said, "If you don't like what they say or do, you could tell them."

"Yes, that always goes over so well." She knew from experience that most people eventually stopped bothering her if she just refused to talk about anything but her work, so she was somewhat amused by Brett's next question.

"What were you doing out there anyway?"

"It's a stringbot array. The framework above ground records and transmits data from microrobots that tunnel into the ground trailing tiny vanadium dioxide antennas. The antennas look like strings, hence the nickname stringbots. The way the vibrations travel through the pseudo-strings allows a detailed map of anything in the ground. Because the robots lower themselves by vibrations displacing soil, they won't destroy any fossils. One application would be helping archeologists perceive what's underground before deciding where to dig."

"Then why's it in an already marked square?"

"This one's a test. We'll compare the results when they actually dig to what I map today."

"Cool. How'd you land a plum assignment like that rather than sifting dirt?"

"It's my master's project. I designed the stringbots and programmed the analysis software. I had help fabricating the actual bots and the array framework."

Brett's eyes went gratifyingly wide. Gabi knew her project was cool, even if she felt like a bit of a slacker taking the whole summer off for this archeological field test. Anyway, she had her own reasons for wanting to visit South Africa. It wasn't like they were going to let her test on Mars, so bringing her array to an actual dig site that happened to be where she wanted to go anyway was icing on her cake.

At that point a jeep drove up, and three older adults in typical dig clothes and sunhats piled out. The black man in strikingly white clothing who addressed their group first gave an overview of historical digs in South Africa, focusing on the Blombosfontein region, where they were working, and especially on the Blombos Cave. The mousy man who spoke next discussed several current digs being sponsored by the University of South Africa. The elegant woman with the wide-brimmed straw hat and pale skin who spoke last talked about a special botany project to identify any fynbos species in the area. She passed around samples of a few plants that represented the unique floristic region found nowhere in the world except the southern tip of South Africa. Her research team had recently discovered a few of these rare plants growing in isolated patches of sandstone soil around Blombosfontein, so they were asking all researchers working nearby to keep an eye out and report any sightings.

When Dr. Tasha Matteoli gave her contact info, Gabi entered it into her phone. While holding the phone, she automatically reset her passive seizure alert system. Then she took pictures of the samples as each came by and used her own personally developed techniques to memorize the feel and smell of each. Although she'd never mastered raising an individual sense at will, she knew that stroking her fingers lightly across a textured surface tended to capture her attention, causing her to zoom in on details and lock them into sense memory. Recently, as she had experienced more and more trouble with other senses expanding when she didn't want them to, she'd also had more success in triggering a single heightened sense intentionally, as she did now with smell by waving the plant samples back and forth beneath her nose.

After the lunch presentations, Brett offered to help her move the small shade tent back to her square, and she let him. He looked at her instruments as if he'd like to stay and chat about them, but when he didn't ask directly, she didn't offer. Gabi had a lot of sensor readings that had piled up during lunch, and she wanted to sort through them as soon as possible.

#

It was great to have some time out actually digging in square nine during the afternoon. The sun was bright, but given that it was winter in Africa, Brett didn't overheat in the long sleeved shirt he wore for sun protection. A few drops of sweat tracked down his back, but mostly he felt gritty from dust collecting over sunscreen. There were a few South African students with skin that might burn as easily as his, but mostly he thought any skin other than his would be a bonus for archeology.

He couldn't help looking over at Gabi, a lot. He'd heard her telling off Joe and pretty much bragging about how young she was and how she'd have a master's in addition to two bachelor's degrees next year. But the fact that she'd designed and was field testing some sort of robotic sensor system while she was still three years younger than Brett brought home to him how impressive she really was. The words child prodigy and genius came to mind, and he couldn't help being amused by her bluntness and bragging.

His new insights and Gabi's comments about people stopping by to chat made Brett uncommonly annoyed when he saw Joe hanging out under her shade tent for most of an hour that afternoon. He wasn't touching her as much as earlier, but he hovered just behind her shoulder as she worked on her computer.

Dr. Michaels had disappeared after lunch, along with the guests and a couple of the more senior researchers on site. Knowing archeologists, Brett would bet they'd gone off to a bar. Many of the students were kicking back and socializing. In a week Brett might take advantage of such opportunities, but this was his first shift actually digging, albeit with a tool barely larger than a tablespoon. He was enjoying the cool graininess of previously buried dirt on his fingers in addition to the miniscule chance that he'd come across that next big find. Thinking back to the topics at lunch and to his class at Bay Tech on early hominids, he carefully scooped dirt from square nine into the bin that someone in the microfossils tent would sift and sort later.

Then he looked up to see Joe standing behind Gabi with both arms reaching around her. She was holding a laptop with both her hands as if showing him something, and he was pressed up close enough behind her that she'd at least feel his body heat if he wasn't actually touching her. He was pointing at the screen with his left hand and tapping something on the bottom right of the keyboard, possibly arrow keys, with his right hand. Gabi was frozen rigid, and her eyes were shifting like a trapped animal.

Without another thought, Brett stepped out of his square and hurried toward them, still carrying the small digging tool in his hand.

When he came within a couple yards, both Gabi and Joe looked his way, and Joe dropped his right arm. Gabi took the chance to step away, and that shifted the computer out of Joe's left hand as well. Brett breathed deeply as if the air had become a little cleaner.

"Hi, Brett," Joe said, as if he had no idea he'd done anything wrong.

Gabi cradled her computer closer and said nothing.

Brett gave Joe his best glare, and Joe just said, "What?"

"Don't you think you were coming on a bit strong there?" Brett asked.

"What?" Joe glanced over to Gabi. "We just got wrapped up in the work."

"She got wrapped up in your arms, and it was very clear she didn't like it." Brett realized he was waving the tool in his hand and stopped. He didn't want to look too ridiculous. Glancing back toward the pits and the tents, he didn't see anyone staring. Presumably no one could hear what was actually going on.

"She's a legal adult. If she doesn't like something, I'm sure she'll let me know."

"She was letting you know. She goes rigid every time you touch her."

Gabi snapped shut the cover of her laptop. "She's standing right here. And yes, I am eighteen," she glared at Brett. "I also have an absolute rule against dating or getting involved with anyone I've known for less than two years. And guess what, I've had extensive self-defense training, so while I was trying not to offend you," she said to Joe, "Take it as read that I'm not interested, and if you surround me like that again, I can hurt you in ways you really don't expect and don't want to know about." She pulled the laptop in tight to her chest in a stance that looked insecure to Brett, but went with a scowl on her face that could recast the pose as fierce. "Now, I have work to do and would like to be left alone."

Brett and Joe both looked at each other and then backed away in different directions. Brett returned to his square feeling like he'd done the right thing, but it had left him unsettled. Even if he found Gabi's prickliness amusing, it dampened his enjoyment of the dig to know she was annoyed with him, and he didn't know why he cared so much about her anyway.

#

When the dig van took the students grocery shopping that evening, Gabi made a point of sitting with a woman from the local university. Gabi answered the woman's questions about Bay Tech and California and in exchange found out the woman was named Martha and that she came from Pretoria.

That night Gabi only left her room to make herself soup and use the bathroom.

#

June 6, USA

"We should work at least another week before asking Simon for more time off." Jim leaned back on the couch in the middle of the loft, trying to pretend the game on TV held more of his attention than this conversation.

"Sure. Daniel doesn't have exact dates to offer yet anyway, although he says we'll be approved any day now. You sure this is okay? And that you want to be there with me the whole time? I'm going to be testing at least two other potential Sentinels, and we don't have much data on how Sentinels react around each other."

"I thought O'Neill said he'd been around both without issues."

"Well yeah, but he denies any territorial imperative, too. Some things could be different between individual Sentinels, or Burton and other researchers could have been misled. Or maybe all military counts as his own tribe to O'Neill and if the other Sentinels we're testing are both military—"

"You think I'm the only one who might freak out."

"No, man. I don't know enough to even speculate."

"You don't want me around your other research subjects."

"No. Stop that. I totally want you around. We just need to think things through." Jim appreciated Blair's words, but his accelerated heartbeat suggested he was still worried about bringing Jim along, even though they'd agreed on that condition from the start.

"What if I asked O'Neill to set up guards?"

"Guards?"

"You're going to be working on some military base. They're bound to have plenty of security forces. We'll design a protocol to separate all Sentinels, including me, if any of us start acting crazy. Well, I mean crazy in ways that aren't spikes or zones and aren't sensing things the grunts think are imaginary—the protocol could mention aggressive or sexual behavior."

Blair took a deep breath and turned to face Jim more directly. "Okay, I'm impressed that you're even discussing this. But seriously, the people working there won't know what Sentinels are. And if you and O'Neill know the protocol, won't you be able to get around it?"

"Is there some safe way to gas everyone in a room without hurting Sentinels? Heck, if they're all as chemically sensitive as I am, you could probably find something that takes us out while barely affecting anyone else, but oh god, do we want to help the military figure that out?"

Blair reached across to Jim's right hand where it rested on the back of the couch and patted it. "I wouldn't be the one to come up with that part anyway. You know the guy already working on this is an M.D., right?"

Blair's hand had stopped moving but still rested on top of Jim's. Jim didn't remember Blair ever touching him that way, but he remembered being jealous when Jackson touched O'Neill's hand to ground his senses on the hotel balcony in California.

Jim realized he must have been silent too long, because when he met Blair's eyes, they were wide and patient and waiting.

"Spit it out," Blair said.

"Ever since—" Jim stuttered to a stop, two words farther into this admission than he'd previously managed.

"Since I became a cop?" Blair asked, after a long pause.

"No." Jim didn't know what he was going to say until the words escaped him, "Since the thing at the fountain—"

Blair froze, and Jim knew why they never talked about this. Blair had died, and then Jim had acted all crazy, in both violent and sexual ways, while pursuing Alex. Jim knew most police partnerships couldn't survive something like that. Also, there'd been the moment when Blair's wolf and Jim's jaguar passed through each other. While Jim hated talking about the spirit plane crap in general, he didn't think he'd ever find words for what happened in that moment. Still, he really wanted to know what Blair thought about it and if he'd experienced it the same way.

The best Jim could finish in words was, "I get the feeling something's bugging you."

#

Blair didn't know how to react to what Jim was saying. As a Guide, he wanted to be glad that Jim was finally talking about what happened at the fountain. As a person who'd spent the last four years trying to work with Jim Ellison, Blair feared this talk could leave him homeless again far too easily.

"You don't think anything about that day should bug me?"

Jim cringed and looked away, but at least he wasn't getting angry. Blair focused on his own breathing and staying calm. He left his hand where it rested against Jim's, afraid to make any sort of move.

"I think everything about that day should bug you. I don't know why you stuck around from then until the thesis crap. But in most ways, I think we've been doing better since you became a cop."

"So you're asking if there's something that still bothers me, since what happened at the fountain, something that isn't getting better?"

"Yeah." Jim touched a finger to his nose and nodded at Blair as if they'd just achieved successful communication.

Blair really wished he knew how to answer.

Jim's attention gradually drifted back to the Jags game on TV, and after a few minutes, Blair wondered if Jim truly wanted an answer. Sometimes it seemed like Jim forgot conversations in midstream, especially if there were long pauses. It was frustrating when that happened with topics that Blair cared strongly about, but this time Jim had brought it up. Blair couldn't figure out why Jim would broach such a difficult subject and then just leave it hanging. Maybe he'd reached his conversational or emotional quota for the day, or maybe he assumed Blair would answer in his own good time.

Blair's mind was still spinning frantically with possibilities when he felt Jim's hand shift under his. Still seeming to focus on the television, Jim rotated his palm up and wrapped two fingers loosely around Blair's wrist. It wasn't quite like they were holding hands, but Blair was at a loss for anything else to call it.

#

That night, Jim heard Blair thrashing in his sleep, heard the hard shift one way, then the other, then the writhing. He knew that pattern, but unlike every time before, Jim didn't want to ignore it anymore. He was down the stairs and slipping into Blair's room before the writhing was half way done. He saw Blair's hand grasping above the covers, closing on nothing, and he moved forward to take that hand.

Blair had been whining deep in his throat. In that instant he quieted, tossed his head twice more and then half opened his eyes.

"Shhh," Jim said. "I've got you, Chief. Go ahead and sleep."

Blair's forehead wrinkled in half-asleep incomprehension, but his eyes closed.

Drifting along, listening as Blair's breathing and heartbeat returned to a comfortable sleep rhythm, Jim wondered how he'd let this go on so long. The Sentinel had heard every nightmare since the fountain, and he'd guessed what Blair was dreaming when he fought and thrashed and then succumbed to stillness each time. There were other times when Blair slept restlessly or even thrashed and moaned in what must be different nightmares. But this one, the drowning nightmare happened several nights a week, sometimes night after night, sometimes twice in one night. Jim had never told Blair how aware he was of Blair's presence since the fountain, even when they were both asleep. He'd never admitted to hearing Blair's nightmares. Sure there were lots of excuses he could give himself about not wanting to violate Blair's privacy, intrude on his space, startle him in his sleep. But on some level he'd known that it would be like this, that he would be able to comfort Blair, make him feel safe, release him from the nightmare.

The next morning, Jim peeled and sliced one of each kind of fruit they had in the house. He left them all on a cutting board on the table and dug out the recipe for buckwheat crepes. They didn't taste as good as regular crepes or pancakes, but they were the nicest thing Jim could think of that Blair considered acceptable breakfast food.

Blair's face when he stumbled out of his bedroom went past bemused and into shock. "Wow, that's quite the spread, big guy." Blair glanced at his hand as if wondering whether to say anything about the past night, but Jim handed him fresh squeezed tangerine juice and nudged him to sit at the table.

"Eat up," Jim said.

"Sure. Thanks." Blair still looked befuddled even as he gave a small hum of appreciation upon tasting the tangerine juice. "Is there a holiday I forgot about?"

Jim's superior sense of smell allowed him to almost taste the juice before he even poured his own. "Nope, just a regular Sunday with nothing much to do, but I had an idea."

Blair smiled, a smile Jim recognized as his partner's game face. Blair was waiting for the other shoe to drop, expecting Jim to drag him into something Blair wouldn't like. Jim could only sigh. "I was thinking that using my senses might be like building muscles or learning to play the trumpet. Maybe they'd get better if we practiced."

Blair looked up as if he expected a safe to fall on his head, like the universe had changed every rule on him without warning.

"Is this some competitive streak triggered by O'Neill? I mean, I would be very happy to help you with whatever practice you'd like, but I don't want you to feel like he's threatening your position or—"

"Chief, give me some credit. I know I can be a dick, but I can also learn."

Blair just nodded, wide-eyed and uncertain.

"If I can learn to use my senses better, then I should do that, just like you went through training to be a better cop." As he brought the tray of crepes and joined Blair at the table, Jim wished Blair had his Sentinel's ability to read his sincerity.

"Right, that's very logical, and I would be thrilled if you're really interested in embracing all of your Sentinel abilities." Blair nodded as he chewed a large bite of cantaloupe, and Jim noticed the shiny juice gathering at the edges of Blair's lips. "But why now? There's some piece here I'm missing. Did Daniel's offer to help me get my PhD make you feel guilty about me giving that up? Because while that was a bad time for me," Blair hesitated and shook his head, "a very bad time, I choose my path, and most of that wasn't your fault."

"But what happened after the fountain was."

Blair set his jaw and ran his hands back through his hair. "No man, you were out of your mind. I know you'd never—"

Jim heard Blair's heart speeding up, saw him swallow. Jim reached across the table and for the second time in as many days put his hand on top of Blair's. "Some of that, I was out of control, and I still don't know exactly why. But even after Alex was taken away, I chose not to deal with things, kept you at a distance, ignored your nightmares, left you hurting."

Blair's heart was pounding. His face was pale. It took a while before he spoke, "You couldn't have known what it was like for me."

This was the part where Jim really wanted to run away, the part he'd been avoiding to one degree or another ever since the fountain. "I know more than you think. When our spirit animals merged, didn't it change anything for you?"

Blair stared, then he sniffed, then he swatted at his eyes.

"You tell me I'm repressed, and I guess this is what you mean. In that moment, I knew you trusted me, that you accepted me, and I turned my back on that. Partly I couldn't get over what happened with Alex, but beyond that, I needed to prove I was still in control of myself. I didn't want to need you, and I didn't want you to need me. I made a whole bunch of excuses to myself, because I didn't want to deal with any of that mystical mumbo jumbo."

Perhaps because that was the longest heartfelt speech of Jim's life, Blair managed to pull himself together by the end of it. "Have you been replaced by a pod person, or was the pod person the one I've been living with since the fountain?"

"Take your pick."

"I'll choose you, for sure." Blair smiled, but it only lasted a moment and didn't reach as far as his eyes. "I have some idea how hard it must be for you to say all that, and I'm ashamed I didn't see it coming and wasn't there to help you process—"

"Stop, Chief. If it's okay with you, I'd rather not hear you apologize for anything. Maybe we could just enjoy the breakfast, even if it does involve buckwheat. Then we can set up whatever practice and just act like decent people and get on with our lives. What do you think?"

"I think this is the best breakfast I've ever had." And he dug in like he meant it.

#

Late in the afternoon, after hours and hours of trying to improve Jim's use of his senses, Blair excused himself to meditate in his room. He lit a candle, and sat down in half lotus, trying to relax.

His mind and body were buzzing with all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Jim had initiated a serious conversation. He'd apologized and willingly mentioned spirit animals. Finally, on his own terms, Jim seemed to be embracing being a Sentinel.

A couple of years ago, Blair would have been overjoyed. His enthusiasm to press forward and try anything Jim wanted would have been overwhelming, and well, it might have overwhelmed Jim in a bad way, so maybe it was better that Blair had taken a more professional attitude toward his role as Guide. Only now, he was finding that professional demeanor challenged. Most of Jim's ideas for exercising his skills required Blair to be right there with him, touching him, speaking softly by his ear. Of course, Blair had always done those things when needed. It was part of being Jim's Guide. But from the incident at the fountain until the thesis fiasco, Jim had been mostly hostile to needing any such support from Blair. Even after Blair became a real cop and Jim started to treat him better, Blair had been careful not to set Jim off. He'd tried to be as professional in his role as Guide as in his role as police detective.

Taking a deep breath, Blair tried to find his center. He'd completely distracted himself from his planned meditation. Whatever conflicts and emotions Jim's declarations had caused, Blair needed to be steady and calm if he was going to properly ground his Sentinel. He sought that inner acceptance and sense of connection that made it possible for him to care for Jim through both good and bad times. It eluded him, and he tried to accept and open himself to whatever he was feeling.

While he could still find the trust and love that Jim had finally acknowledged feeling when he brought Blair back to life at the fountain, that pure sense of himself as Jim's Guide now seemed tattered and stomped down. A sweep of insecurity that Blair had only half acknowledged before now rose up and overwhelmed him. Despite trusting Jim with his life every day, something inside Blair screamed and kicked against the idea of trusting Jim emotionally. He didn't want to believe Jim's words or enjoy his touch, because he was pretty sure Jim could still turn on him the next time he was really angry. Blair had absorbed some truth about Jim as well when their spirit animals merged, and while the core of the man was selfless and good, he had layers of damage and defenses that frankly terrified Blair. Unless Jim had worked through far more of his issues since the fountain than Blair thought likely, there was no way Blair could leave himself vulnerable to that.

It hurt Blair to confront how negative his feelings toward Jim had become over time. Some romantic, optimistic aspect of himself still wanted to believe Jim could heal, that what Jim had shown him this weekend evidenced an amazing personal effort to work through his issues and reach out to Blair. For someone who was usually so closed off and opposed to introspection, it really was a startling achievement. Blair wanted to appreciate Jim's efforts and help him keep building in a positive direction as both a Sentinel and a human being. But Blair also had to respect his own boundaries, if he couldn't honestly feel safe with his Sentinel, then there was only so much he could do. For Blair's own sake, and for the sake of his research, it would be better if he maintained the professional status quo.

#

June 8, South Africa

After three days of Gabi hiding in her room and barely speaking, Brett took a plate of cookies to her bedroom door and knocked. When there wasn't any answer he said through the door, "I made some cookies. These not only include eggs but chocolate, too. They're still warm, and I'm leaving a plate just outside your door."

The next day when Brett was sifting and brushing microfossils, Gabi came and sat next to him.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi."

"So, if you'll show me what you do here, I'd like to help."

Brett showed her how to sift dirt through a screen, catalog anything of note, and dispose of what was left in the backdirt piles. If she didn't seem entirely comfortable, she at least asked reasonable questions. At some point, after a lengthy silence, she said, "Thanks for the cookies."

#

The morning they left for Kruger Reserve, Gabi made a point of sitting with Martha. Joe was driving, but the van only seated twelve, and Brett ended up just in front of Gabi. They were all part of every conversation in the back of the van, but mostly Gabi tried not to talk.

When the conversation turned to what animals they might see at Kruger, Brett turned to her and asked, "Which animal do you most hope to spot?"

Knowing she'd have to confess sooner or later, she admitted, "I want to see cheetahs, but not at Kruger. I'm continuing on to Pretoria with Martha in the van. In the morning I'll catch a ride to the Cheetah Center that's just outside of town."

"Huh." Brett's eyes fixed on her like his mind was processing more than she'd said. "What do you mean by 'catch a ride'? Why not take the van?"

Gabi gave him her best withering glare. "I don't drive." She caught his quick glance toward her med alert bracelet, and decided to let it slide. The seizures might keep her from driving, but mostly, she'd been busy at college with no one to teach her by the time she reached driving age. "Anyway, there are vans a lot like this one that go between Pretoria and Johannesburg, and the Cheetah Center is right off the main road."

"Like hitch hiking?"

"No, passengers pay, and there is a set of hand signals for rides and destinations. Martha taught me."

Brett looked at Martha, "And it's safe for an American traveling alone?"

Martha and Gabi shared a look, almost rolling their eyes. Then Martha told him, "You sound like my brother, who would rather I not go anywhere alone. It's safe enough. She'll be fine."

Brett smiled and ducked his head at Martha, "And you'd rather go to Pretoria than Kruger?"

"Pretoria's not so much to look at," Martha said with a chuckle and brushed long bushy hair back from her face. "But I grew up there, and my brother lives there. Besides, I've been to Kruger a couple of times."

"And this Cheetah Center?"

"I went with a school fieldtrip once. It's nice, but tiny compared to Kruger. It's mostly rescue and rehabilitation for cheetahs and a few other species."

Brett nodded. "Don't they have cheetahs at Kruger?"

A boy across the aisle, another of the South African students, said, "A few, not likely to see them. Hard enough to find a leopard, or even a lion, but the cheetahs don't go for tourists."

Gabi was happy when the conversation drifted elsewhere, but Brett sought her out when they stopped for lunch. He stood blinking half in and half out of her small patch of shade. It looked uncomfortable for him, but she already felt crowded.

"Would you get pissed at me again if I wanted to tag along to the Cheetah Center?"

"Yes. It's really not a top attraction, and I don't need a babysitter." She ignored the voice in her head that told her to be nice and the clenching in her gut that meant she didn't want any more drama between them. She liked Brett well enough to wish he'd just settle in like wallpaper and not provoke her to push away.

"But what if I really wanted to see the cheetahs?"

"Why?" And why couldn't he stop pushing into her space?

"Why?" He raised his eyebrows and in one breath said, "They're the fastest land animals, with non-retractable claws that work like cleats. They use their tails like rudders and have black patches by their eyes that work like sunglasses. They can purr and make all sorts of unusual sounds, and they kill with a bite to the neck that suffocates prey. They've kind of been my favorite animal since I was a little kid, and I swear I'm not trying to co-opt your idea or act like your babysitter."

Gabi sighed. Brett was cute and had the whole charm thing down pat. She'd like to believe that stuff didn't work on her, and she was pretty sure he was gay anyway, but she just couldn't tell if he was faking his interest in cheetahs or was sincere. "I'll have to ask Martha, because she's letting me stay overnight at her brother's place."

Brett smiled, just a little, with no teeth showing.

#

By the time they reached the Cheetah Center, Brett was not only excited to be there but very glad Gabi hadn't gone on her own. First off, Brett had seen some of those vans the locals caught rides on, and most of them were overcrowded and a little rough looking. While Brett strongly considered himself a feminist, he'd have to side with Martha's brother on that one. More importantly, the road into the Cheetah Center from the highway had numerous gates, presumably to keep cheetahs and other wild animals in. Brett was pretty sure they didn't expect guests to walk from the main road.

At the front desk, a perky young blond woman with a name tag that read "Sophie" asked if they wanted to see the cheetah run that morning before the regular tour. Brett saw Gabi glance at the price list and start to shake her head. The cheetah run only happened twice a week and cost more on its own than the whole regular tour, but Brett didn't want to miss it.

He said, "Yes, please, two of us for both the cheetah run and tour," and he quickly handed over his credit card.

"You can't pay for me," Gabi whispered. Sophie pretended not to hear as she rang up the purchase.

"I would have missed this place entirely if you hadn't mentioned it," he whispered back.

"You could have been at Kruger," Gabi hissed.

By that point, he had a credit card receipt to sign. "You can buy lunch."

The cheetah run turned out to be more than worth the cost. For cats that might be placed back in the wild, the Center had rigged up a motorized pulley system so the cheetahs ran at least 40 miles per hour to catch their meat. Brett could see marks left by those famous non-retractable claws when the cheetahs pivoted at speed to follow their substitute prey. The visitors stood behind a hide, but the cats were panting and kicking up dust just a few yards in front of them. By the end of the first run, Brett was breathing fast in sympathy with the cheetah. By the end of the last run, his skin and ears buzzed as if he'd spent a night out dancing.

On the way back, they walked by Anatolian shepherd dogs who were being specially trained to chase cheetahs away from livestock (so farmers would be less tempted to shoot the threatened species). Gabi had been keeping her distance from Brett since he'd bought their tickets, but he noticed now that she was asking Sophie, who'd turned out to be their tour guide, lots of questions about working at the Center. At one point Gabi pulled out a piece of paper, but was too far away for Brett to see what was on it.

For the regular tour, during which they rode in a semi-open cross between a jeep and a bus, Gabi sat beside him. She was quiet and didn't look as excited as he was, but when he smiled at her she said, "Okay, the cheetah run was really cool."

Then they drove past a pack of African wild dogs with pups. It was only when a black man carrying a large stick jumped off the back of the vehicle and started feeding the dogs that Brett realized the man was there. A second later Brett realized how white everyone on the tour was, including the tour guide. Since they'd arrived in South Africa, everyplace they'd gone had been mixed or mostly black except for them, and it made Brett a little uncomfortable to be on a tour that seemed so segregated.

Then he saw Gabi beside him, watching the man feed the dogs. The dogs jumped and made a noise very much like chirping, and he imagined he could see Gabi turn her ears toward the noise. She watched and listened with such intensity that Brett studied her face to make sure it wasn't another seizure, but it looked nothing like that. Gabi was focused on the dogs the way she focused on the stringbots or sometimes her phone, and it made Brett want to see exactly what she was seeing. When he realized she wasn't taking pictures or video, Brett pulled out his phone and collected some of each.

After the next set of fences, the cheetahs fully captured both of their attention. The way they moved, even at a distance, looked mechanically perfect and impossible. When the cheetahs drew in close to the tour vehicle, knowing the black man with the stick would put out food, they seemed to be the lean, majestic version of what other cats aspired to be. Brett would have forgotten to take pictures of the cheetahs if the tour hadn't stayed to watch for over twenty minutes. When he finally pulled out his phone, he realized he probably wouldn't have noticed if Gabi had gone through a seizure there. He did observe that her phone was in her hand now, but she still didn't seem to be taking any pictures.

At the end of the tour, Gabi hung back as the group disembarked. Brett hovered a couple yards away and watched as she tipped the man who'd fed the animals. The man took her money, but kept looking at the ground.

"Thank you. You were amazing with the animals," she said.

"You're welcome," he nodded.

"By the way," she pulled out the paper she'd shown Sophie before, and now Brett could see it was a picture. "Is there anyone here who might know these people? They worked here nineteen years ago. The woman is Amelia, and the man is Thabo."

"No," the man shook his head.

"Do you know who I might ask? Here or in Pretoria or some other town?"

The man just shook his head, keeping his eyes down, and finally Gabi thanked him again and gave up. She walked back into the Center courtyard looking sad, but she made her way to the gift shop where she asked an older woman at the counter similar questions. The woman just shook her head and shrugged. Brett wondered at the quick brush off, but he made his way around the gift shop, pretending not to notice.

He picked up a book on the history of the Cheetah Center and saw that the founder still lived on the grounds and had signed the book. He also read through sponsorship material, and saw the founder occasionally met with those who donated money. Picking up a kids book on African wild dogs as well as the history, he went to the counter and set out to charm the woman at the register.

#

"Gabi, let me borrow your picture."

"What?" Gabi looked up from a pair of socks that illustrated two different cheetah coat patterns. She hadn't really been shopping, just killing time while Brett made his purchases. Now she was startled by what he was asking.

"The woman at the register says she'll show it to the founder and see if she remembers the people you're asking about while we get lunch."

Gabi felt her eyes water in some combination of annoyance and appreciation. She gave the picture to Brett and watched him take it to the register. The woman wrote the names Amelia and Thabo on a post it and set that and the picture just to her right.

"What did you do?"

"I just asked."

"But I tried that."

Brett waved the bag with his purchases, and then motioned toward the door. "Come on, there's sandwiches for sale outside."

Over mediocre sandwiches served on hard rolls Brett said, "With all the pictures you took in Cape Town, I was surprised you weren't photographing today."

Gabi was relieved he didn't ask about the picture they'd just left in the shop, and she scrunched up her forehead trying to decide what reply to give. She couldn't say that pictures didn't do justice to the way she tuned her vision to something beautiful, but it seemed like Brett deserved a somewhat real answer. "I guess I think of photography as a sort of art form, even if I don't consider myself artistic. If I think I can frame a photo to capture something interesting that I notice, then it's worth trying. With the animals, I'm not sure any photo could do them justice, but if I wanted to try for that, I know a lot of good photographers with really good cameras already make those sort of pictures available."

"So it's not worth doing if you can't be really good at it?"

"No, it's not worth missing out on the real experience to take photos I'll have no use for."

Gabi watched his eyes get wider and his pulse speed up, and she knew she had his attention, but she needed to know something else. "You're not much into girls, right?"

To his credit, Brett didn't sputter or even show much surprise. He just smiled around his sandwich. "If you're asking if I'm gay or queer, I'm not much into definitions, but yeah."

"I'm all for making my own definitions, but how do you feel about numbers, like the Kinsey Scale."

"5.3"

"You hate definitions but embrace decimals?"

"Started out with a psych minor, but it didn't really suit me. How about you?"

"You already know my majors are phys, mech E, and astrophysics, so if you're asking for a number, I'd say three but still largely hypothetical. As I said before, I have a two year rule. I just wanted to avoid any misunderstandings, and I'm not quite sure why you're nice to me."

"Wanting to be friends is too clichéd for you?"

"We'd never settle on a definition for that."

"What are you so afraid of?"

He asked it like a joke, and Gabi knew she needed to keep the banter up within a certain time frame or else he'd realize it wasn't a joke to her. She was afraid, almost all the time, especially lately. That was part of why she'd come to South Africa, in some crazy attempt to understand herself better by finding out about her father or her heritage. But she couldn't tell Brett about that, couldn't tell him that her senses were getting out of control and triggering more and more seizures lately. She couldn't admit to how frightened she was on some basic emotional level or any of the reasons why, and she knew she'd let the silence go too long.

Brett let her off the hook with a long, "Okaaay. Well, if it helps, I have no intention of hitting on you or anyone else this summer. I have a boyfriend I'm planning to go back to, and I've had more than enough experience that was not hypothetical to say I'll probably not try sleeping with any woman ever again. I'm not real interested in quickies or one night stands with anyone at this point, and I can't see myself having more than that with a woman. So I like you, and if I could hang around with you some this summer without causing any trouble, that sounds good to me."

Gabi watched his hands on his sandwich, unable to meet his eyes. "Wow, that was really nice. Usually even people who find me interesting don't put up with me like this. And the part with the picture—why would you even care?"

"Well, don't take this the wrong way, but you're eighteen and flashing a picture of a man and a woman from nineteen years ago. I figured it might be important to you."

It frightened Gabi that he'd paid enough attention and stuck with her long enough to figure even that much out. She'd never intended to tell anyone her real motivation for visiting South Africa, and she hadn't wanted anyone to get close to her right then, even as an undefined friend. At the same time, part of her was amazed and a little embarrassed to be the focus of so much attention, and she hoped Brett couldn't see how he'd slid right through her defenses. "Do you think it's been long enough to check back at the gift shop?"

"Sure," Brett smiled, and it moved muscles that changed his whole face in a beautiful way. They cleaned up their small mess from lunch and went back to find the woman who had Gabi's photograph.

"Sorry," the woman said. "The manager thinks the cheetah in the picture is Overland, one of their first successful re-releases, and she thought the girl might have been one of the students they took from Holland back then. She says the man's name, Thabo, comes from the Tsana tribe, and many of the men who worked here came from that tribe, but she didn't know anything more. Our computer records don't go back that far. Hope you enjoy the book."

#

Brett didn't expect Gabi to talk in the car. She'd been quiet for most of their sixteen hours on the road the day before and silent this morning, except for helping with directions from her phone. On the drive back to Pretoria, she kept her phone in one hand and the picture in the other.

Then Gabi said, "It's nice to know the cheetah made it back to the wild. My mom had told me his name was Overland, but I think she left while he was still at the Center."

Brett wanted to ask a million questions but decided to wait it out. It seemed like Gabi read his mind.

"So yeah, you probably guessed about right, and Thabo is my father, but they were still dismantling apartheid then. My mother says Thabo told her to go and raise me in the States, where she'd wanted them both to go. She wouldn't have stayed with him anyway. Maybe he knew. She never stayed anywhere or kept in touch with anyone. Now she's living like a hermit off the grid and sometimes she'll reply somehow if I send her email, but I wouldn't be surprised if she stopped checking email someday. She told a few stories about my father, and I think he might have had the same seizure disorder I have, so I thought it wouldn't hurt to try to find him. And there, that's the whole strangers on a plane spiel, except you're not quite a stranger and this is a van rather than a plane."

"You have a minor in psych?"

"No, I just pick stuff up."

"So what are you going to try next?"

"That was the only lead I had."

"You could write to the Tswana tribe."

"All I have is a fairly common first name and a very old photo."

"But what have you got to lose?"

#

Coming back to Martha's brother's house was like coming home. It was a tiny concrete house with a solar panel on top, what Martha called an RDP house, because it was originally provided by some government program after Apartheid. The night before they'd barely been introduced to David, Martha's brother, before Brett was offered the couch and Gabi had followed Martha to her room. They'd slept for six hours, and those six hours seemed a lifetime ago to Gabi, even though they made it back to David's house while dinner was still cooking.

Martha made them all hamburgers with a side of pickled vegetables. Gabi was caught off guard by the complicated tangy smell of the vegetable. It drew her in and when she saw how people had moved without her noticing, she guessed she'd had an absence seizure, but no one else remarked on it. When they sat down to eat, Martha asked Gabi how the trip to the Cheetah Center had gone.

"The cheetahs and wild dogs were amazing, and I guess it's good that Brett came along, because he talked me into seeing the cheetah run, and everyone there liked him better."

Martha exchanged a look with her brother, and he nodded to her and then to Brett. David was a big man, and Gabi couldn't read him at all. She felt like everyone else at the table knew something she didn't, and all she could say was, "What?"

"Were they rude to you?" Martha asked.

"Not exactly, just kind of stand offish." Gabi shrugged. It hadn't surprised her that people liked Brett better, he was more of a people person and really good looking, too.

"Even once they knew you were American?"

"Yeah, I think so. It's not like I had to show my passport, but it seems to be obvious to everyone that I'm not local."

"There's still a lot of bias here, especially outside the cities, against mixed marriage," Martha said.

Gabi gave half a laugh. "I think that's nearly universal. I lived in Georgia, in the U.S., for a winter as a kid, and someone said to my face 'mixed marriages never work' and acted like it should make me feel better about not having a father."

"That's too bad," David said, and he sounded very earnest, as if he'd hoped the rest of the world was better.

Gabi could hear and smell the tension around the table, even from Brett, and somehow it made her want to open up in a way she never did with more than one person at a time. She pulled out the picture and said, "Anyway, my dad was South African. His name was Thabo, and someone at the Cheetah Center said he's probably from the Tswana tribe, but no one knew anything else. Brett thinks I should try writing to the tribe or something."

Martha took the picture and then passed it to David.

"Could I copy this?" David asked. "It probably won't help, but I could show it to a few people, some Tswana. You never know who might come up with something useful."

"Yeah, that would be great," Gabi said.

After dinner, they went to a copy center and made half a dozen color photocopies. Gabi wrote a note on the back of each one that included her father's name and one of Gabi's email addresses, but didn't say the woman in the picture was her mother.

That night, before everyone went to bed, David hugged his sister goodnight. It was a brief hug, but Gabi couldn't help watching and wondering how it would feel to have a brother like that. She could almost touch the warmth and pressure of the hug around her own back and shoulders.

#

June 12, Antarctica

"Try picturing where the Ancients stored extra drones," Rodney said.

"It just doesn't work that way." John felt his thoughts run up against a solid wall when he asked the chair about drones, and he knew his mind shifted a little sideways already to access this Ancient device. Or maybe he was doing it wrong or trying to access the wrong information.

"Will it tell you how to build a drone? Or maybe about the coding to control them? Now that would be interesting, to see how the Ancients…"

John could sort of tell when Rodney was talking solely to make noise. They'd given each other a hand a few more times since their first panicked effort in the storage room. John had continued encouraging Rodney to talk, and Rodney seemed to have taken it to heart even in work situations. That turned out great, because John thought he might be going a little crazy. Like now, he thought he saw a crack at the edge of the ceiling across the room. He imagined he could hear dust scraping from the crack as ice shifted outside. When he seemed to hear ice shifting even farther above their outpost, he reined in his hearing until he was focused on Rodney's grumbling voice again.

"Maybe there's something about the chemical structure of the materials used to make drones…"

A flash of movement caught John's eye. It was like a black bird, possibly a crow, darted through his peripheral vision. This was another reason John thought he might be a little crazier than when the powers that be first sent him to Antarctica. He knew there weren't any crows here, outside or in, but this was the third time he'd thought he saw one. Where his eyes tried to follow the crow, he saw only a tiny crack, too small for him to possibly see even if there were a crack. Then his vision seemed to zoom in, showing the crack like torn skin over a broken arm. A blueprint of the support behind the ceiling sprang into John's mind, and the section behind the crack seemed to be blinking in and out.

"Are you hearing a word I'm saying, Major?"

John felt warmth on his hand and knew Rodney was touching him again. John's skin mapped the warmth in the exact outline of each of Rodney's rough, square-tipped fingers. He wanted more but was also worried how this casual touching might look to others. Don't Ask Don't Tell might be history, but homophobia was alive and well, especially in the U.S. military.

"Speak, now."

"There's a crack," John heard himself say.

"What? In a drone?" The pressure on John's hand increased, as if that might make John communicate more. Perhaps it worked.

"I'm not sure, but the chair is showing me a diagram of the structure behind the ceiling with one part flashing as if it might break." John hedged a bit on the next part, figuring when in doubt, blame the chair. "It's showing me a tiny crack in the ceiling right over there." John pointed with the hand Rodney wasn't touching. He managed to keep his palm resting on the sensor pad, in case disengaging would disconnect his view of the diagram.

"Here. I'm going to slide a pen into your fingers and put paper just beneath. See if you can sketch what you're seeing without fully lifting your hand off the chair."

"You want me to sketch the crack or the diagram?"

"The diagram! I'll get some peon to look for the crack." Then louder and facing away from John, "You, military person, yes you! Get something to stand on and a magnifying glass. I need you to check for a crack in the ceiling."

By the time Rodney had someone in position, who with John's directions had managed to locate the crack, John had made a messy sketch of what hopefully lay behind that patch of ceiling. When Rodney took the top page of the notepad and started to move away, he said to John, "Go ahead and try to draw anything else it shows you."

As soon as John processed the words, the chair started showing him other diagrams. They looked like grids and then tinker toys and then representations of very complex molecules. At first the images changed too fast for John to take in all the parts, let alone make awkward sketches. But when John frantically wished for everything to slow down, the chair complied. It showed each image until John had sketched what he could and flipped to a new page of the notepad.

"John, John, open your eyes."

Rodney's voice sounded impossibly loud. John's hands flew to ears, and he heard the notebook and pen he'd been using crash to the ground louder than all the storm winds and ice shifting sounds from outside.

Then John felt warm hands on top of his, warmth in the shape of Rodney's fingers, just like before, but touching both hands now. Sitting forward John found his face buried in Rodney's neck again, and while Rodney didn't pull away, John could feel him stiffen. He fell back on his readymade excuse and whispered, "Tonight, I want you to fuck me."

Rodney's stiffness changed to a whole different flavor of physical tension, and somehow John could feel that shift from just Rodney's hands, or maybe it was his smell. John realized he hadn't opened his eyes yet. When he did, red and green after images flashed against the brightness of the room. His body felt feverish everywhere except where cold drops, like cold rain against hot skin, seemed to be pelting him.

Then the sound of the storm outside disappeared as Rodney said, "My room, eleven o'clock." He felt Rodney squeeze his hands before pulling away, and John pretended to stretch his back against the chair for a moment as he waited for his vision and sense of touch to fade back to normal.

#

At ten past eleven Rodney heard a tap on his door. He opened it holding the little notebook from before in his hand and yanked John inside saying, "Finally, I need to know what you were drawing here."

Then he locked the door behind John and walked forward until he had John up against the wall with only an inch between them.

"Good line," John said.

"Yes, but I really would like an answer." Then he let his thigh brush between John's legs as if offering an incentive.

"I have no idea. The structure of something. I think it zoomed in three times on each."

"I saw there were three types of diagrams, repeating, but with no labels they're hard to interpret."

"Sorry."

Rodney snorted in frustration and tossed the notebook on his dresser. Then he pressed the length of his body up against John and pressed his hands on top of John's, pinning him to the wall. John shivered and pushed his hips forward. "I'll figure it out in time. Genius here. Meanwhile, I've figured out something for you. Let me try?"

"I thought you were going to fuck me."

Rodney shivered. "I will, but I can make it better for you if you let me. You do what I say until I say it's over. You can have a safeword or use stoplight colors."

"Stoplight colors?"

"Green for go or good, amber for slow down or unsure, red for stop right now or definitely not."

"Yellow instead of amber—you can't make me talk like a Canadian—and you have to keep talking the whole time."

"Agreed. Take off your clothes."

It would have been easy for Rodney to describe how much he liked John's body as it was gradually uncovered—from the soft brown hair that outlined John's nipples and groin to the long muscles that shifted and stretched in John's arms and legs—but he was pretty sure John already knew he was good looking, and Rodney liked for praise to mean something when he gave it. So he let his eyes and his growing erection demonstrate his attraction while he talked about the diagrams John had sketched. "I don’t know how you managed with your hand curled up like that, but it was obvious your drawings came in sets of three. If I knew what sort of thing they were, I think you captured enough detail to be useful. But I don't even know if they relate to the ceiling problem, now fixed, or drones, or something else in the lab or weapons platform. Any thoughts?" Rodney asked as he reached out an arm but didn't quite touch John.

"None at all." The three words were breathy and slow, as if John were already too turned on to speak. His face was flushed and his eyes half closed.

"Lie down on the bed."

John lay down on his back without seeming to look behind him. Rodney pushed John's hands up to the top of the mattress. "Can you keep them here or do you want me to tie them?"

"I can keep them there."

"Good. I want you to lie there and let me play. You can make whatever noises come out but only talk if I ask you a question or you need to say yellow or red. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

Rodney started to stroke from John's wrist down the inside of his arm, and John began to shiver. "I knew you'd be responsive. There's something about you that begs to be touched, but you keep people at a distance." Rodney stroked up to John's ear, traced it, and let his fingers glide back down John's neck. "I was surprised the first time you wanted me, but now I think you were looking for someone who could figure out what you needed. I'm guessing you don't even know. Maybe you've never played this way before." Rodney brought his other hand up and flicked both of John's nipples, making him buck up from the bed, then Rodney traced symmetrical patterns across John's chest without so much as brushing the nipples again. It didn't matter, they stayed hard as pebbles, and John's cock was fully erect and starting to leak. "I've seen other military types who needed to let go, wanted someone else to call the shots for a while, but I wouldn't have guessed that from you right off."

Rodney slid his hands in long light strokes down John's sides, hips, and the outside of his thighs. He paused with his hands on John's knees, watching all the skin he'd touched develop goose bumps. Then he blew across John's crotch, where he hadn't touched at all, and watched John writhe. He was going to keep talking about what tipped him off that John might want this, how John would seem to lose himself in the chair or when they were having sex. But then he saw John's eyelids start to flutter, and instead he said, "Stay with me, John. Look at me. Focus on me."

This was the first time they'd had sex where they could really see each other, where Rodney could watch John and see when he was getting lost in sensation. He knew in that moment that the trick would be keeping John's attention while letting him give up control, pushing him as far as he could go while making him feel safe. "I'm going to take my clothes off now, and I want you to watch. Did you know there are over a thousand nerve ending in an average square inch of skin?"

He kept talking about touch as he slowing pulled off two layers of shirts. Sensing that John would feel better with some parts of their bodies touching, Rodney kept his knee against John's thigh. The only other touch he offered was a faint brush of fabric before he tossed each shirt aside, and he saw John startle and shift fractionally toward the touch each time. John's skin proved more sensitive than the most responsive partners Rodney had ever been with, and he thought he could find ways to make that really good for John if they kept getting together on a regular basis. He talked to John about silk scarves and ice cubes, and John shivered and twitched in response to every word. Just to see if it mattered, Rodney tried talking dirty as he pulled off his pants. He made a point of brushing up against John as he talked about pushing into John and taking his time until he found the angle that would drive John crazy. John's eyes and attention stayed fixed on Rodney, but it didn't seem to matter whether he talked about sex or skin or science, so Rodney let himself babble about the simulations he was running as he leaned forward over John's body. He wanted to keep his mouth where his lips brushed John's nipple as he spoke, but John bucked up against him so hard he thought the man might come just from that. Some other time, he'd love to see if he could make John come twice in one night, but for now there were enough variables in play.

He reached to his bedside table for lube and a condom and saw that John was glassy eyed. "Are you with me, John? Are you tracking?"

There was a moment when Rodney worried, but then John gasped out, "Yes." Rodney kissed John's nipple and slicked up a finger. He talked about friction and the challenges of modeling it properly as he skated the finger behind John's balls and brushed lightly down and across his hole and then back again to his scrotum. Tremors like an earthquake traveling out from the epicenter spread from John's hole to his inner thighs and abdomen. His cock was so hard and red that it was probably beginning to ache.

Rodney traced around the hole and tried to ignore John's tiny insistent movements until he was ready to let one fingertip slide in. John's body convulsed as if the sensation was electric, and given how the man reacted to other touch, Rodney really wished he could know how it felt for John. The scientist let his free hand rest solidly beside John's nipple, and John's chest pushed into the touch even as his ass tried to push down onto Rodney's finger. That was enough to make Rodney interrupt his discussion of friction to say, "I think you're the hottest thing I've ever seen."

He talked about force and momentum as he worked the first finger all the way in and then added a second. John was very tight, and while Rodney was almost certain that John had done this before, he guessed it must have been a while. He wondered if John had let himself really feel it before. When John broke into quick gasping breaths as Rodney found his prostate, it was clear he'd reached the edge of John's control. Rodney eased away from the sensitive spot and concentrated on scissoring his fingers, adding a third, and stretching.

When Rodney pulled back to put on a condom, John's eyes fixed on him, and while the pupils were blown and John's mouth was open, Rodney could feel John's attention staying with him like a physical force. Rodney was glad to have the condom to hold him back a little or he wouldn't have made it past pushing into John.

He'd planned to have John roll over, but now he knew that the eye contact was going to make it better for both of them. He positioned John's legs carefully and eased his way in. When John let out a long "ooh" sound, Rodney realized his incredibly responsive bedmate had only made breathy sounds and sighs up until then. The "ooh" continued until Rodney was all the way in, and then John's blissed out face broke into a smile. John started to hum, almost the way a cat would purr, and Rodney carefully moved out and in with long slow strokes. John moved just slightly to meet each thrust.

At some point Rodney drifted to talking about math, but his real thoughts were all about John and how peaceful he looked as their bodies moved together. Rodney was more certain than ever that this was what John needed, but he wasn't sure that he understood all of what was going on. There was definitely part of John that needed to give up control, to let someone take care of him for a while. But as they moved together and Rodney felt them both pulling closer and closer toward climax, it felt like something else was playing across John's body. John's muscles and skin flowed in waves from his up-stretched arms all the way down to his toes. The humming sounds John made somehow reflected that motion, Rodney's continuing monologue, and what they were doing together. Rodney kept to the building rhythm until he knew he couldn't hold on much longer. He wrapped his right hand, still somewhat slick with lube, around John's cock and pulled with intent until John was coming and panting out a sound that was more grunt that music but pushed Rodney right over the edge with him.

Afterward Rodney took care of the condom and used tissues to clean them up without leaving the bed. John was completely limp beside him. When Rodney realized he'd forgotten to speak since they both came, he propped himself up on an elbow and gazed at John's completely relaxed body and face. He whispered, "I hope you don't need me to talk much more, but I'd really like you to stay for a while. Does that work for you? You can do what you want now."

He pulled John's arms down one at a time, sliding his hands along the smooth muscles and chafing the skin a bit. John's hands were warm, so he didn't worry too much about circulation. When John looped those arms around Rodney, it seemed to be answer enough. Rodney reached across to turn off the bedside lamp and let himself doze with his head on John's shoulder.

Sometime in the middle of the night, Rodney woke to find John's face buried in his neck, a position he was starting to find familiar. His skin by John's mouth was damp, whether from a kiss or moist breath, Rodney couldn't tell. John's hands were petting in long strokes down his body, and Rodney wished he could make the purring or humming sound that John had made before.

"I was waiting for you to wake up so you wouldn't think I'd just left, but I should probably go now," John said.

"Like this," Rodney mumbled, wondering if he should wake up more to argue. John's hand was ghosting across Rodney's hip, each fingertip barely making contact.

"Me too, but it's a very small base, and while I won't lie directly, I'd rather keep this private, at least for now."

"For now," Rodney muttered and then thought what that implied. "You'll come again?"

"Oh yeah." John kissed Rodney's neck and buried his face for a moment. "Also, I think the drawings might be crystal structures."

By the time Rodney's sleep and kiss muddled mind realized how the diagrams John made in the chair might represent crystal structures, John was gone. Rodney was left shaking his head and sighing into his pillow.

#

When John crept back to his room, it was easy to hear the men on watch and the few scientists still tapping on computers. He could hear every sound of movement in the Ancient base and casually avoid being seen. Something in his mind wanted to push farther and hear the ice shifting around and above them, but whether that was madness or just too distracting, John restricted his hearing to the already overwhelming sounds within the base. Rodney's heartbeat called out behind him as if Rodney were the most important person in John's little world, but it also reminded John of campfire stories like the tell-tale heart, so even as he listened he tried not to think about it too much.

Safely back in his room, John stripped off his clothes and crawled between his sheets naked. The sheets felt too rough, but his clothes had been even rougher. He ran his hands up and down his body and remembered the way Rodney had touched every inch of him, even inside. Then John had taken his chance to touch and smell and taste Rodney while the scientist slept. Somehow he'd been sure Rodney wouldn't mind, wouldn't mind in the future if John came to his room almost any time asking to do almost anything. Sex and touch had never been so intense for John before, and he wondered if he was in love with the cranky scientist or if it was all part of going crazy. Whatever it was, he didn't think he could live without it right now.

Lying safely in his own bed, John thought of the nest he'd seen the black bird building on top of the file cabinet in Rodney's room. The nest had crystals woven into it, which clued John in that he'd been drawing crystal structures earlier in the chair. But if the bird hallucination was giving John hints to explain his time in the chair, and if most of the hallucinations and crazy stuff seemed to happen while he was in the chair, that made John wonder if he was really going crazy or if his mind was changing somehow in response to his time in the device. Of course, if seeing and sensing impossible things was a response to using the Ancient technology, that didn't explain the way all of his senses went into overdrive when he had sex with Rodney.

Tonight, after sex and a post coital nap, John had awoken wrapped around Rodney, completely submerged in the smell and taste of his skin and the rhythm of his heart and breathing. He'd been able to see every exposed inch of Rodney's body and the rest of the room as if the room was at least half lit. What's more, he'd clearly seen the bird he'd only glimpsed before, and now he thought it might be a raven not a crow, because close up it seemed so much more impressive than any crows he'd known. Beneath it, building from the base of the file cabinet upward, had been a beaver, which in a world of impossible things was no more impossible than a raven under a mile of ice in the middle of Antarctica. As he finally fell asleep, John wondered if the animals would still be there if he returned to Rodney's room the next night.

#

June 15, South Africa

On Monday morning, Gabi walked away from the dig, out of sight, with Joe and Prof. Michaels and all the equipment for her stringbots. None of them came back for hours, and Brett kept looking in the direction they'd gone. He kept imagining them touching her, not in a seriously bad way, but as if it was okay even when she tensed and pulled away.

He remembered her speech about taking care of herself and having plenty of self-defense training. He also remembered the open longing on her face when David hugged his sister goodnight. Brett had wanted to hug Gabi then, and he didn't think it was some sexist, patriarchal feeling. It just seemed like she needed to be hugged, like she wanted to be touched in a way that wouldn't make her pull back. Brett wasn't sure she'd let anyone do that, or maybe not anyone she'd known for fewer than two years. His growing desire to hold her, to protect her, was hard to explain. He wasn't falling love. In some ways it was more and in some ways it was less, but Brett was pretty sure he was falling into something.

When Gabi came back for lunch, Brett tried not to hurry too obviously when he went to sit beside her. "So where were you all morning?" His tone wasn't as casual as he'd intended, but Gabi didn't seem to be paying much attention as she lifted the edge of her sandwich and sniffed inside.

"Oh, hi, Brett." She shifted over to make room. "We set up my sensor array in Blombos Cave. Remember, they told us about it that first day, where they found engraved art and composite tools from the middle stone age?"

Brett nodded as he started eating, and Gabi seemed to talk even faster and grow more excited. "Well, I'm not working in a sensitive area right now. It's sort of another test to see how the bots do with the harder ground and whether they can still penetrate a full five meters, but it would be the perfect sort of place to find small artifacts made of different materials, so the stringbots could map them by the difference in composition."

"That's really cool. I wish I could do what you're doing."

Gabi smiled, looking just a little smug if Brett were honest, but he figured she deserved to be. Then she said in a perfectly humble tone, "There's really not much to do. Once the array is in place, it's best not to touch anything. I can look at the map forming from transmissions in real time, but other than watching for problems, the data could be more efficiently analyzed by waiting until the bots finished and resurfaced."

"But you like monitoring it, right?"

"Sometimes. A lot of the time I do other work on the laptop or my phone. Mostly I want to make sure no one comes by and breaks or takes anything. There's supposedly another group working at sites in the cave, although we didn't see anyone this morning."

"I'd like to see the caves."

Gabi looked around. "Come with me. No one will miss you for a while. It's only another mile or so from here."

They took their sandwiches and drinks with them, and Brett followed Gabi down a dusty path that led mostly straight, with occasional curves around boulders or small hills. The sun poured down brighter and hotter than any other place they'd visited, and Brett was happy to sweat through a more stereotypical African experience. He was surprised when he heard the ocean, even though he'd known they were near the coast. Then they reached a high spot and he saw the cliffs and the water below.

"I had no idea this was such a short walk away."

"Couldn't you smell it?" Gabi asked, and he saw her nose twitch, but he hadn't. He hadn't realized at all.

She led him to a roped off area with a locked grate in the ground, and she pulled out a key. Unlocking a chain, she pulled the grate up, like a door opening into the ground. There was a metal ladder leading down a few feet, and at the bottom was a box of hardhats with lights, as well as several spare electric lanterns and flashlights.

They donned hard hats and left the grate open above them. Then Gabi led him a short ways in to where her metal square was set up, attached to a small black box of outlets that in turn attached to two large rectangular batteries. There was a spare set of batteries behind those. Gabi took off her backpack and pulled out the laptop she'd been using at their original dig site. She plugged it in to the black box and motioned Brett over to view the screen.

"See, this is the map as it is being generated." There was a three dimensional grid outlined in green with wavy lines and a few shaded inclusions throughout. After several seconds a dark line passed across the image from left to right, presumable updating, although Brett couldn't see any difference.

"We can choose a cube to zoom in on." Gabi clicked a cube near the bottom and a new grid appeared. Gabi pointed to one of the dark inclusions. "That's probably just a rock that's denser than the surrounding ground, but the more readings the bots make, the more details we'll have, and we might even be able to tell if there was engraving. More likely, a real artifact wouldn't be smooth and round like that. It would have flat cut faces."

Gabi clicked on the rock, and it became a slightly fuzzy round shape filling the screen. "As the bots descend, the umbilicals that connect them to the frame above ground carry vibrations and detect vibrations from the other strings. Those vibrations are used to update the map the whole time the robots are below."

"And then the robots come back up," Brett asked, "So you can reuse them?"

"Yeah, they follow their strings back up much faster than they went down. It might take hours for them to penetrate ground as hard as this, but they'll retract in minutes when I'm done here."

"And you designed all this for your master's project?"

"Well, other people have used similar microbots. Mostly I came up with the strings and using vibrations for mapping without significantly disturbing the soil. In this application, it would suggest where to dig for regular archeology, but on another planet, it would map layers of different substances, detect micrometeorites, even identify possible biological materials, all in a minimally intrusive way."

"Wow, you really are some kind of genius."

Gabi smiled but looked a little pained at that. Again Brett felt the desire to touch her, to bump her shoulder or clasp her hand as reassurance, but he knew she didn't expect gestures like that.

Instead he asked, "Are you allowed to look at the rest of the cave?"

"I don't know why not. I was told the real dig sites are down this way." She pointed with a flashlight.

They explored farther in and found four roped off dig sites, which they conscientiously avoided, and beyond that the cave was sectioned off with caution tape. Brett could see light and hear the ocean somewhere at the end.

"Are Joe and Dr. Michaels coming back?" Brett asked.

"No, it's my site for the week. I guess they might check in sometimes."

Gabi seemed fine with that and still had her attention fixed toward the warded off end of the cave, but Brett was concerned. "So you'll be in here all alone each day?"

Gabi sighed and pulled her phone from the pouch that seemed permanently fixed at her hip. "I'll have my phone." She squinted at the screen and clicked on a counter he'd seen as her start up page before. "It had reception back where I set up my test." She started walking back and held the phone out to show him three bars when they reached her contraption.

Brett held his tongue on what he really thought of the professor and grad student leaving her alone out here. "Let me give you my number. You can call if you want me to bring out snacks or something."

She rolled her eyes to show he wasn't fooling her at all, but they exchanged numbers. "It's better to text," she said. "I don't like talking on the phone."

After that he headed back to the main dig site, but he made a point of texting every hour or so, sharing a pic of something happening above ground or a quote from whatever people were talking about around him. She wrote back each time, usually with a fair amount of humor, and Brett was really glad they'd had an excuse to exchange numbers.

#

Gabi was walking back to the cave on Wednesday after lunch when a strong breeze caught her full in the face, and she smelled something slightly familiar. She stopped, looking around, facing into the current of air. She tried to focus and increase her sense of smell. It had always been the sense she found hardest to manage, and for the last three years at college, she'd mostly ignored her senses rather than force any of them, telling herself they were fading to normal as she became more adult. But everything had run amok the last few months. She was constantly assaulted by smells or sounds, sometimes even her other senses would pull at her until she either managed to force her perceptions back into place or slipped into seizures.

Facing the wind near her cave, she tried for focus and control. The smell of water and salt, even dust, was reassuring. Reaching past those newly familiar markers, she found the trace that had startled her. It was one of the plants the botanist had passed around their first day at the dig site. It had a distinctive green tang, and she liked it, even more now when she smelled it fresh.

Following her nose, she left the path and wound behind a rise in the ground to a small drop off. It wasn't like the cliffs facing the ocean, more like a vertical face on a sand dune where half the dune had fallen away. Growing beside that vertical face was a little seam of plants like the ones Gabi had seen and smelled the other day.

She took a deep breath and reached into her pouch for her phone. Her fingers didn't find the phone in its usual inner pocket, and Gabi let her hand scramble blindly as panic rose from behind her ribs up into her throat. There it combined—weaving itself within the scent of the plants until she was left staring—until nothing was left but her panic, the sharp small smell, and the ropy green stems and leaves holding up tufts of orange flowers.

#

Wednesday was the first time Gabi didn't respond to a text within a few minutes. It was about an hour after lunch and Brett tried again sending, "R U napping?"

After that he tried calling, but that went directly to voicemail, so he got up and started walking. Halfway to the cave he thought maybe he should have told someone that he was going to check on Gabi. His mind conjured images of thugs beating her up in the cave, but he dismissed them. It was much more likely that Gabi had wandered a little farther than usual into the cave or lost cell reception for some other reason.

Only when Brett reached the roped off area and found the grate that covered the cave entrance closed and locked did he begin to panic. He got down on his hands and knees and shouted though the grate, "Gabi!"

Then he stood up and turned around a couple times shouting in all directions, "Gabi! Gabi! Gabi!"

Finally, he pulled out his phone, and started dialing Dr. Michaels' number as he retraced his way along the path to the main dig.

"Hi, Dr. Michaels?"

"Yes?" Michaels answered.

"Hi, this is Brett. I went out to check on Gabi, because she wasn’t answering her phone. She's not at the cave, the entrance is still locked, and she doesn't answer when I shout into the cave or out here."

"What? Are you sure? I'll come out immediately. Call the dig site. Maybe someone there will know."

Brett wasn't sure where Dr. Michaels spent his time when he wasn't at the dig. Maybe he was in his housing, near theirs, or maybe he was off at a university someplace. There was no telling how long it would take him to arrive. So Brett called Joe, since his was the only number Brett had for someone at the dig. Brett started out with the same explanation he'd given Dr. Michaels but interrupted himself as he saw footprint leading off the path.

"She didn't answer when I called or shouted—But, hey, there are footprints here that could be hers, going away from the path about halfway between our site and hers. I'm going to follow them. Still, she's not answering her phone, and it's been over an hour since she came this way. You should probably call emergency services or something."

Brett was looking down, following intermittent footprints in shallow dirt as he talked, and he still had the line open to Joe when he saw Gabi lying on the ground. For a moment he couldn't talk. He couldn't breathe. Her backpack was tossed a few feet away. She lay on her side with one arm above her head, and he couldn't tell if she was breathing.

Brett rushed to Gabi's slack body, taking her hand in his free one before he remembered that she didn't like to be touched. Then he thought back to what she'd said in the chocolate shop and started speaking, as quietly and calmly as he could, just assuming Joe would figure out enough over the phone line, even with Brett's phone now lying on the ground.

"Gabi, are you okay? Can you hear me?" Her hand was warm in his, which he thought was good. He slid his thumb down her wrist and pressed until he was sure he felt a pulse. "It's Brett. I want to help but I don't really know what to do." He circled his thumb on her wrist and then her palm. "Can you wake up? Open your eyes?" Her eyes fluttered.

Without letting go of Gabi's hand, he brought his phone back to his mouth, "Joe, are you still there? I think she's waking up. I think it was one of her seizures, maybe. Can you bring her water or something? I'm sending you GPS from my phone, or you can just shout out from the path until I hear you."

At that point Gabi's eyes opened all the way and met Brett's. They were brown and deep, and he wasn't sure if the pupils were larger than they should be. She looked dazed and vulnerable, and he couldn't just leave her lying in the dirt. Setting down his phone again, Brett slid his hand behind Gabi's neck and shoulders and pulled her up to lean against him as he sank lower onto the ground beside her.

"Gabi, are you all right?" He felt himself wanting to speak faster, to say she had scared him, but she'd told him to be calm and quiet. She'd said it might take longer to recover from this sort of seizure. He felt Gabi shift in his arms, but she wasn't pulling away. She moved her head so one side of her face pressed against his chest.

"I'll be okay. Just give me a minute. Don't let them call an ambulance or anything."

"Are you sure?" Brett had to remind himself to keep his voice soft. "It's been over an hour since lunch. If you've been unconscious all that time, shouldn't we have someone check you out?"

#

Gabi felt safe with her ear pressed close to Brett's heart. She was hot, but she liked the warm press of his chest and arms around her. Talking was still difficult, requiring her to focus on words when she didn't want to, when her mind wanted to drift in more captivating directions, following a tangle of plant, water, salt, and fish smells. She didn't know what they would charge for medical services here, but she knew from long experience that it wouldn't do any good.

"No, please," she said, "This happens sometimes. There's nothing doctors or EMTs can do."

Brett spoke to whoever was on his phone, saying Gabi didn't need medical services.

"Water? Food?" Brett asked her.

"Water would be good," she said, and Brett relayed that into his phone.

"My phone's gone," she said.

Brett looked at her like she wasn't making sense.

"I found the fynbos," Gabi pointed. The faint smell expanded to fill her senses now, but she didn't have the energy to focus on it. "I was going to send a picture and GPS to the botanist, but my phone was missing from my pouch. I think someone took it."

"We'll find it," Brett said.

He was still holding her and staring at her face. While it felt safe in a way, Gabi was coming to herself enough to know how freakish the whole situation was going to seem in a minute. She shifted to sit on her own and said, "Could you take a picture with GPS and send it to the botanist for me?"

She pointed at the flowers again, and Brett seemed to see them for the first time.

He took a picture, paying more attention to her than to the plants, then showed her the result. She nodded carefully, and his eyes tracked the movement of her head. He looked at her as if he was beginning to catch up with how weird this all was.

"You have her phone and email info, right?"

He shook his head but said, "Yeah. Give me a moment to find it. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Really, I am." She nodded again, which made her head hurt as she knew it would, but she also knew better than to let that show.

By the time Joe came shouting down the path, Brett had sent the picture to the botanist. More importantly, his heartbeat, still loud and clear despite Gabi trying to rein in her senses, had slowed to the calm Brett was only pretending to have before.

#

As Joe came around the ridge, Brett saw Gabi's posture stiffen and her eyebrows pull together, forcing one of her more typical, skeptical expressions onto her face.

Joe had two phones, one in each hand, and he said, "Are you all right? I found your phone on a table."

Gabi reached for it and said, "Was it making any noise?"

As Joe shook his head and handed over the phone, Brett realized the absurdity of the question. He'd never heard Gabi's phone make any sound. Although she fiddled with it and held it in her hand at least half her waking hours, Brett had no idea what ring tones she used and had never even heard the buzz of a phone set to vibrate.

"I hadn't gotten through to emergency services, but are you sure you don't need anything?" Joe asked as he pulled a bottle of water from his pocket and held it out.

He loomed over Gabi and Brett where they sat in the dirt. Gabi moved to stand up, and Brett reached to help her, then thought better of it and only braced himself behind her, in case she needed him.

She stood gracefully enough, looking fully recovered in an instant. "I'm fine. I'd rather get back to work."

They all followed Gabi as she headed back to the path. When she turned toward the caves, Brett knew he couldn't stand to leave her alone for the afternoon, no matter how much she'd resent his protective instincts. "I'll stay with Gabi until Dr. Michaels comes."

"What?" Gabi said.

"You called Michaels?" Joe asked at the same time.

Brett answered Joe, knowing he was on safer ground. "I called Michaels when I saw the cave still locked up. I'll call back and tell him it's not an emergency, but I'm sure he's already on his way."

That seemed to be enough to allow Brett to follow Gabi as Joe headed back to the main dig. Brett called and left a message on Michaels' voice mail as Gabi shot him annoyed looks. Still, she unlocked the cave entrance and passed him a safety helmet without fuss. Brett tried to stay quiet, remembering Gabi's complaints about people chattering and slowing down her work.

Her stringbot square was set up deeper into the cave this time, and Gabi quickly pulled the laptop from her backpack and brought up several graphs as soon as she had everything hooked up. Brett sat a couple feet away and watched, glad to see her awake and studying the screen with typical Gabi focus. He listened to her breathing and the click of computer keys and was surprised when she spoke.

"Thanks for trying to stay calm about it."

"No problem," he said and couldn't help but smile that she wasn't bawling him out for following her back to the cave. "Do you mind if I ask you something?"

"Go ahead," she answered with a sigh that said she might well mind but was giving in anyway.

"What kind of noise were you expecting your phone to make?"

Gabi's hand slid down and rubbed across the phone in her pouch as if by reflex. She turned to look Brett right in the eyes and said, "I have a song set up to play louder and louder if I don't touch my phone for fifteen minutes during the day. Sometimes the song might pull me out from a seizure."

"I've never heard any sound from your phone."

"I try to deactivate it before fifteen minutes. Also, I have very good hearing and am usually closer to my phone than anyone else is. "

Self-consciously, Brett wanted to know more about Gabi's seizures and how she'd set the system up on her phone. Instead he heard himself ask, "What song?"

She laughed and pointedly looked away from his eyes. "It's a joke, just an old song called 'Touch Me' by a group called A-Ha."

Brett smiled, not knowing the song, but appreciating the humor of the phone singing touch me when that's what she needed someone to do. He noted the irony too, given Gabi's usual aversion to touch.

"If no one touched your phone for an hour, the song should have been pretty loud when Joe found it?"

"And I have never left my phone lying on a table. It's always in my hand or in my bag." She pulled the phone out, searching through screens, and it looked completely natural in her hand, reminding Brett of how often he'd seen it there. He'd never seen her set it down anyplace.

"Everything important is password protected and mostly encrypted. I don't think anyone touched that. I don't see any obvious signs of someone trying to break the security, and I can't imagine someone stealing my phone to listen to my music, but maybe if someone's a klepto? You haven't heard of anything else going missing and then showing up again?"

"Dig tools maybe, but that's pretty normal. Of course, people misplace their keys and phones all the time. In your place, I couldn't have been sure I didn't leave my phone on the table."

"Well, we might notice if it happens again."

"Yeah, I'll watch. You're not freaked about the phone or being unconscious for an hour where we might not have found you?"

She shook her head slowly, "I would have woken up eventually. If I'd come back here on my own, I probably wouldn't have told anyone or thought much of it. This shit has been going on my whole life. It's just acting up lately."

"Doesn't that worry you?"

She shrugged but fixed her gaze back on the computer screen. Brett changed tack before she could shut him out completely. "How did you find the fynbos plants?"

"A shift in the breeze let me smell them."

"I didn't notice their smell at all. Guess you're better than average at both hearing and smell."

He saw her shoulders tense. "And you're a genius who programs tiny robots." That got her to relax some. "Have they found anything here?"

Gabi opened a new window and pulled up an image with a notched blob circled in green with an arrow out saying "possible artifact?" She said, "There may be other items of interest down here." She scrolled to show other green circled marks. "But that top one could be engraved like other key finds at this site were. Unfortunately, the team excavating here apparently won't be back until next week, and then they might not want to change whatever priorities they've already established. I'll show them all the scans from this cave and ask them to document whatever they eventually find for comparison."

"What about our main site?"

"Already started, and I'll do more there next week when these guys are back working their dig. I've already been promised some timely data from our site for my thesis work."

"But you really designed this for space? To look for alien artifacts?"

Gabi smiled big, so most of her teeth showed, and it made Brett relax and release some of the fear he'd held onto without noticing, ever since finding Gabi unconscious.

"Alien artifacts would be beyond amazing, but micrometeorites or other inclusions, let alone fossils of microbial life, would be more than enough. On Earth, we can dig to see what's under the surface. Off planet, some sort of microbots might be the least intrusive way to scan and map deep underground with minimal disturbance. Not that NASA's likely to try anything like this for quite a while."

"But it's cool to think about."

Gabi smiled, mouth closed, making a sort of goofy face, and Brett stayed with her until Dr. Michaels showed up.

#

When Gabi heard a knock at bedtime that night, she didn't want to open the door. She'd already washed her face and feet to get the grit off, and put on the fuzzy socks and flannel pajamas she found most comforting.

"Yes?" she said without getting up.

"It's me, Brett."

When he didn't continue, she stood and opened the door. Phone in hand he said, "I heard back from Dr. Matteoli, with the botany project. She wants to come visit tomorrow. Should I tell her okay?"

"Sure," Gabi said.

Brett stood in her doorway as he typed the reply. Then he continued standing there, phone dangling idly in one hand.

"Was there something else?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Can I come in for a sec?"

From what Gabi saw through her door, the common area they shared was empty. She could hear Joe occasionally tap at a computer in his room and from the very faint music she heard when she tried harder, she guessed he had ear buds plugged into his laptop. Still, she stepped back, allowing Brett to enter. He glanced back but didn't close the door.

"Look, I don't want to insult your independence or make a big deal out of what happened today, but the way I saw you lying on the ground…" He swallowed. "I thought for a moment, I mean, I guessed right after that it was a longer seizure, and I know these things seem fairly run of the mill for you, but—"

"But you're freaking?" Gabi cut him off, closing her eyes.

"No, really, no, not like that. I just, for a stupid moment I thought you might be dead, and I can't get the image out of my mind."

Gabi took a deep breath. She didn't remember anyone saying that before, and she felt a little guilty for not realizing how differently Brett might have experienced the whole day. Still, she didn't know how to help him.

"Well, what can I say? I'm not dead? I'm sorry it looked like that, even for a moment. You know, freakish as I may be, I don't think I'm more likely to die early than anyone else our age, and I've never had any major lasting effects from my seizures. Does that help?"

"Yeah, a little." He was looking her up and down. "Can I give you a hug goodnight? Just like David hugged his sister? I swear it's nothing else."

Gabi held out her arms, and he reached around her. It was forced at first, like she threw up a force field to protect her from feeling too much. But Brett held on anyway, and Gabi felt his shoulder warm against her jaw and remembered resting her face on his chest earlier. Her body relaxed a bit and suddenly she felt warm and safe and didn't want to let go. She loosened her hold anyway, wanting Brett to know he could pull away when he'd had enough. Still, the hug lasted a while longer, and Gabi was mostly fine with that. Only a couple of rogue strands of thought in her mind objected.

Then Brett pulled back and said, "Goodnight."

He closed her door as he left, and Gabi climbed into bed feeling strangely calm and warm all the way through.

#

Dr. Matteoli arrived around nine the next morning in floppy hat and khakis almost exactly like those she'd worn two weeks before. Brett texted Gabi and led the botanist to meet her by the fynbos.

There was plenty of hand shaking and "Call me Tasha" when they met up. Brett watched Gabi closely, making sure the fynbos didn't somehow trigger another seizure.

Then Tasha asked Gabi, "How did you find these?"

"I smelled them from the path yesterday and followed my nose."

Brett figured he wouldn't mention the seizure if she didn't.

"They don't have that strong of a smell. Most people don't even notice it."

Gabi shrugged and said, "Might have been a trick of the wind, and I made a point of sniffing them when you passed the samples around."

"I think she has better senses of smell and hearing than most of us," Brett put in. Gabi gave him the expected flick of her eyes, but Tasha took a long, openly appraising look at Gabi.

"Have you ever tried to locate something by scent?" Tasha asked.

Gabi shook her head.

"Would you be willing to try?"

"I guess."

"Great." Tasha gave a little clap and started pacing away like she was counting off strides. "Come far enough away that you can't smell that bunch, then just try wandering around and sniffing. If there's one patch of these fynbos—this kind in particular are protea if you're curious—then there could easily be more hidden in cracks and crevices nearby."

Gabi followed Tasha, and Brett followed Gabi. Then Gabi walked well past where Tasha had stopped, chose a smooth open path, and closed her eyes. She turned slowly in a circle, sniffing and pausing, as if it took time for her to process whatever she smelled. For a moment Brett wished he'd put on cologne or something, but it was early enough in the day he wasn't sweaty at least.

When Gabi opened her eyes and started walking, haltingly, following her nose, Brett moved to her side. He watched resolutely for any sign of fluttering eyelids or change in posture. There was a moment when it looked like her eyes stopped tracking, and instinctively, Brett brushed his hand against Gabi's.

She twitched a small startle and looked at him. Perhaps what she saw worried her, because she took his hand and held it as she moved forward. A minute later they were standing beside another patch of well-sheltered and therefore well hidden protea.

Tasha pulled an iPad from her purse and started documenting. "This is wonderful. Can you find any more?"

Gabi led Brett away without a word, and her tug on his hand felt strangely confident.

#

Gabi was caught up in the smells of everything around her. It was as if she'd entered a new country all over again. Somehow, touching Brett's hand made it easy to extend her sense of smell without risking the strained sort of focus that sometimes preceded her seizures and often indicated that she was too intent on a single sense. Now she placed the smells around her in a map that overlaid the scenery her eyes found. The ocean was a stew of smells that she cataloged and dismissed so she could focus on smells of plants and soil.

Then Brett gave a sudden tug, holding her back, and she smelled his fight or flight response. Her smell map collapsed around her as she studied his face. He was staring at the ground a few feet in front of them, and she followed his gaze to the orange and black snake curled on a rock, sunning itself.

Slowly, she stepped back, and Brett stepped with her, until they were a couple yards away from the sleeping snake.

At that point Tasha caught up with them, and said, "I see you've found a tiger snake. Nothing terrible to worry about, although they can bite and are slightly poisonous."

"How likely are we to stumble across something worse?" Brett asked.

"Out here on the dry open land? Not too likely. South Africa does have several poisonous snakes, but not here, and you spotted this tiger snake just fine."

Gabi squeezed Brett's hand and carefully led them around the snake. Then she started rebuilding her sense map. They worked their way up the coast and eventually found two more patches of protea.

Tasha was delighted. As they walked back she told Gabi, "If you're interested, I know an anthropologist who collected some stories about people with heightened senses. I think some tribes had a tradition of someone like that finding medicinal plants. She might have mentioned more about other senses and stories, like you mentioned hearing. I'd be happy to put you in touch with her."

"Um," Gabi realized she was still holding Brett's hand and quickly let go. "I guess you could give her my email and cell number."

"I should get those from you anyway. You know, I only have Brett's."

"I didn't have my phone last time." Gabi felt herself tensing up again as she pulled out her phone. They exchanged information. Brett stood by, a solid, somewhat reassuring presence. Tasha was so happy about the plants that even as Gabi's mind raced with how openly she'd admitted to and displayed her freakish senses, it still felt like she fit in, like what she did was useful rather than frightening.

A few hours later, she received an email thank you and an electronic introduction to Lerato Khumalo, the anthropologist.

#

Across the dig, Joe was digging in square twenty. Brett watched Joe with his latest . . . conquest. The word "conquest" didn't seem quite fair, but Brett couldn't bring himself to label her as Joe's "girlfriend" or "lover" even if either term could have passed within current usage. It seemed unlikely that the word "love" had started Brett on his longstanding war against definitions and labels, but "love" certainly caused enough of his doubts. By some usages of the word, he could probably say he'd loved or been in love with any guy he'd been involved with for more than one night. But if he used it that way, then he didn't have a word left for deeper feelings. Also, shallow as his relationships might have been, they hadn't all been the same. What he'd felt for his boyfriends, or what he thought they'd felt for him, had covered quite a range of emotions, even leaving aside the depth of each experience.

None of which helped when he looked at an almost indecipherable microbot image Gabi had sent with the message "bots find their first seashell" and felt a tightness in his chest that extended deeper than what others might call "love." It really needed its own descriptor. If he had to name the parts, the closest he came up with was "connection" and "affection" but there was an overlying sense of "protectiveness." No, "protectiveness" wasn't the right word. He wanted to keep Gabi safe, but he also wanted to be with her because that felt safe to him. He wanted her close and well, but it wasn't because she needed protecting. Brett cared about her on a gut level in a way he hadn't cared about anyone before. Probably it wasn't how most brothers felt about their sisters, especially with how drawn he was to touching her, but he could imagine feeling that way about a sister, especially if she'd been like Gabi, which he knew was circular.

It didn't seem right to forward her micro bot news to anyone. Instead, Brett pulled out his phone and sent his dad the picture he'd taken of the fynbos with a quick note about Gabi discovering it in this previously undocumented range and how Brett had helped spot a snake when they were tracking down more samples with a botanist. Brett thought his dad would like Gabi, if they ever met. He felt a pang wishing that Chris would be okay with Gabi hanging around in the fall, but Chris hadn't replied to any of Brett's messages lately and wouldn't appreciate news about Gabi, the fynbos, or the dig. Brett went back to sifting for microfossils and accepted that whatever he felt about Gabi was best labeled as "how I feel about Gabi."

#

June 20, USA

By mid-afternoon the day before they were scheduled to leave, Jim was packed, had the loft in order for their week away, and desperately needed some downtime with Blair. They'd had a frantic two weeks wrapping up a murder investigation and tracking down a jewelry thief and her creative redistribution network. Then there had been piles of paperwork to complete, clarify, or set in order to hand off. Overall, it meant lots of late nights, and while Jim and Blair spent a lot of time together working, Jim needed something else before taking on the strains of the military machine and Blair's new research.

Jim tapped on the French doors to Blair's room and pushed one open. Instead of a hurricane of frantic packing, he found Blair sprawled on his bed reading.

"Everything packed?"

"Yes, Dad," Blair teased without looking up from his journal.

"I was thinking before we ditch Cascade for a week, maybe we could go see that Peruvian art and artifact display you've been talking about, then maybe pick up dinner at the Mexican place near there."

Blair glanced up. "Oh, I stopped by the exhibit last weekend when I was out shopping."

"Oookay. You have any more practice you want me to do or anyplace you want to go for dinner?"

Blair closed his journal but used a finger to keep his page. "I thought you'd want to relax, watch a game on TV or whatever. We can get something delivered if the kitchen is already cleared out."

It felt wrong to Jim, but he didn't know what to say. He was never good at figuring that stuff out. If Blair wanted to veto his suggestions, Jim didn't know how to argue. Instead, he went to the living room and watched TV alone.

#

The first day at Fort Carson, just outside Colorado Springs, energized Blair like the first day at a new school. Daniel met Blair at the entrance to the Veterans' Brain Injury Center while O'Neill took Blair's place in the car with Jim, presumably to show him where they'd be living for the next week and get them settled in. Before Blair knew what hit him he had an ID badge with a scan card hanging from a lanyard around his neck, and he'd been dragged down two halls and through a set of yellow double doors that required his scan card to open.

"Dr. Carson Beckett," Daniel said as a man in traditional white lab coat rose to greet them, "It's my pleasure to introduce you to Blair Sandburg."

"Aye, Mr. Sandburg, pleasure to meet you. I've heard nothing but praise for your work, and I'm looking forward to our collaboration."

As they shook hands, Blair was overcome by the sincere positive attitude focused on him by the smiling doctor. He'd forgotten what that sort of initial, untainted respect felt like, even though it was something he used to take for granted. "Please, call me Blair."

"And I'm Carson."

"Like this fort?"

"No relation." The words rolled with a rich Scottish accent, and the man's smile could probably win over any patient in a minute. "I don't have any papers to show you on my efforts so far, but if you're interested, I've prepared some slides on my computer."

Daniel practically vibrated with suppressed energy as the three of them sat down. Somehow, his archeologist/linguist friend was now Blair's thesis advisor and the third member of the team researching Sentinels, although he promised there would be an actual anthropologist to sit on the thesis committee. It had all happened so fast that Blair was a little unclear on the details.

The three of them pulled their chairs as close as they could to Carson's computer, close enough that Blair could feel the heat of Caron's knee beside his and smell the half full cup of tea sitting by the computer. "All right then," Carson began with a nod to Blair, "My work focuses on individuals who can activate certain artifacts. Daniel tells me you're cleared to know more if you choose to sign further non-disclosure agreements, but for now, I'll just call these people ATA positive. It was Daniel who brought your work to my attention and suggested there might be some correlation between those who are ATA positive and what you call Sentinels. You already know about Colonel O'Neill, and I'm told the Sentinel discussed in your paper also triggered an ATA test device."

Blair nodded, wondering how much more sense Carson's explanation would make if Blair went ahead and signed the paperwork relevant to the activated devices.

"In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I'm one of the five ATA positive individuals identified so far. From questions Daniel's asked, I don't think I'm really a Sentinel, and the newest person we've identified as ATA positive doesn't seem to be either. However, I'm happy to participate in any tests you develop. The major we recently identified is stationed far away, but we'll bring him here if that seems useful later on."

"What do you mean by 'not really a Sentinel'?" Blair studied the Scottish doctor as if he might see the man squint or cock his head in some meaningful Sentinel way. All Carson did was rub his eyes tiredly.

"Well, I've had a few incidents of seeing microscopic samples that should have been too small without a microscope. And anecdotally, I purchased new sheets before I'd heard any of this from Daniel, because my old ones had seemed scratchy when I had trouble sleeping some nights. But that's about it, no other heightened senses and no control, so it might be hard to test. My ATA expression doesn't seem to be very strong either."

"And the other subject, the major you mentioned?"

Daniel jumped in with, "His ATA abilities may be the strongest we've seen, but when I asked him if he'd ever seemed to have sharper senses than other people, he just shook his head and raised an eyebrow at me."

"So you've met him in person and didn't notice anything unusual?"

Daniel shook his head and shrugged, as if there was more he wanted to say but couldn't without discussing other projects. Blair would have signed papers then and there if he didn't have Jim's privacy and warnings about the military to worry about.

Carson picked up where he'd left off, flipping through screens showing five different protein structures, none of which meant much to Blair. "My focus has been on seeking genetic markers and protein expressions common to our ATA subjects. These are some proteins I'm investigating. I've already started tests for anything expressed through the skin during activation. I am also interested in any physiological or psychological correlates common to ATA subjects, and the veterans' center here has promised us time with their MRI machine. I thought we could use functional MRI both during device activation and whatever Sentinel tests you can set up."

"Wow." Blair felt like a kid in a candy shop: multiple Sentinels and brain scans to work with. He wished he had time to take a course in brain imaging. "The tests I've used so far would be more like field tests than something we could run in an MRI or using earphones or whatever. I'd need to read up on research previously done on sight, hearing, or other senses within an MRI environment."

"Luckily, I already have a few software packages we might customize."

That led to half an hour of Carson demonstrating options while Daniel and Blair chimed in with ideas for grounding and protecting Sentinels in a noisy and vibrating MRI machine that might trigger zone outs or sensory spikes. By the time Jim and Jack joined them in the late afternoon, Blair was ready to set them both up at separate computers to test their visual and auditory ranges with the software Carson had suggested.

"Just sit right here. Jim, you can start with the headphones and hearing test. Jack, you can do vision."

The two military men glanced at each other blank-faced before taking their respective seats. Blair and Daniel exchanged more animated looks behind their Sentinel's backs.

"We're in trouble if they start ganging up on us," Daniel said.

Blair shivered, "Don't even joke about that."

#

Sorting through his duffel that evening, Jim found the healthy snack foods he'd packed for Blair. They'd been assigned to tiny private rooms next door to each other, so Jim had to go out in the hall to knock at Blair's door.

"Hey, man," Blair answered standing in the doorway. Behind him, Jim could see papers and print outs scattered across Blair's bed.

"Didn't mean to interrupt, but I packed this stuff for you."

Blair took the food with a smile but didn't invite Jim in, so Jim just shrugged and went back to his room. At least they'd given him a TV.

#

By Tuesday, Blair and Carson had good baseline results both in and out of the MRI from tests they'd run on Jack and Jim. When their new subject, Sergeant Markham, showed up, all Blair knew was that the marine was stationed nearby and that Daniel had identified him as both ATA positive and a possible Sentinel.

Blair watched the young Sergeant work through the computerized vision and hearing tests they'd prepared. He looked clean cut and unremarkable, not like Jim and Jack who seemed to exude a sense of authority and control. In a way, it was reassuring to know that wasn't a necessary part of the Sentinel package.

When Markham finished with the computers, Blair brought him to a conference room they had set up with good ventilation to allow for taste and scent tests. A flat of 100 tiny numbered vials was already set out on the table.

"Please, have a seat," Blair said. "For the next test, I'll need you to unseal each vial in order. Tell me if you think you can smell anything and what you think it is. If two vials seem to have the same scent at different intensities, I'd like you to rate them relative to each other, and it is fine if you need to go back and compare. Any questions?"

"No questions, sir."

"You can call me Blair."

The young man's eyebrows rose in what might have been surprise, but he didn't say anything. He just reached for the first vial to begin the test.

By the time they'd finished both smell and taste tests, Blair had given up on getting the Sergeant to call him anything other than "sir." When he asked Markham to remove his shoes and socks for the final test, the marine once again raised his eyebrows and for his first question of the day managed, "Sir?"

Blair tried the smile that had always charmed nervous undergrads back when he was a TA at Rainier. Markham blinked at him in surprise. "I need to test your sense of touch. Tomorrow we're going to run you through some of these tests again with you lying still in an MRI machine. So I need to ask you to identify touches to your feet, because that will be the easiest for us to replicate when you're in the MRI machine tomorrow."

Markham smiled and shook his head minutely like he couldn't believe the things he was being asked to do, but he started to unlace his boots without another word.

Blair stood to move an extra chair into place to prop up the sergeant's feet, then he brought his own chair around so he could sit within reach of the now bare feet. Shaking his head at how bizarre the next request was going to sound, Blair said, "One more thing, you're going to have to wear a blindfold and noise cancelling headphones for this, so that I know the results rely only on touch." To his credit, Markham kept a straight face through that pronouncement. "Just remember you need to tell me as soon as you feel any touch to your feet, and then do your best to describe the details of what you feel." Blair handed over the blindfold and headphones and Markham had no problem putting them in place.

The touch test had been the hardest for Blair to devise, because he wanted results that were as consistent and quantifiable as possible. He started with a fan set to a very low speed at a fixed distance from Markham's feet. He'd increased the speed two notches before Markham commented on feeling air moving, like a faint breeze. Blair continued with a powder released in front of the fan, plastic and metal probes applied in various numbers and combinations with the fan still running and then without. He was just finishing up with a feather test and then feather combined with fan when the door opened and Jim stepped inside.

Jim glanced at Markham, who hadn't noticed his arrival due to the blindfold and headphones, not to mention the fan which probably camouflaged any shift in air currents from the door opening. Besides which, Markham's senses didn't seem to be as strong as Jim or Jack's.

Blair saw a flash of something pained cross Jim's face before he raised an eyebrow and said, "His buddies would never let him live it down if they saw this."

Blair rolled his eyes. "I'm in the middle of a test. Aren't you supposed to be out leading some exercise with the colonel?"

"I'm doing my job, don't worry. Just thought I'd check in with you."

"You aren't reacting to anything?"

"Huh?"

Blair gestured inadvertently with the feather and his test subject dutifully described the touch, oblivious to the changed context. "You aren't reacting to me being with another Sentinel or anything?"

Jim just shook his head and looked Markham over rather thoroughly.

"Jim, you really shouldn't be here. This isn't very professional, and I need to concentrate on my work."

"Right, Chief, keep working hard then. I'll just get out of your way."

And with that Jim left, and Blair looked up to see a glazed look on Markham's face. It took him just a moment to recognize a probable zone. He wrapped his hand firmly around the foot he'd just been testing, and the Sergeant didn't say a word.

Blair quickly turned off the fan and walked around to remove the noise cancelling headphones and blindfold.

"Sergeant Markham, can you hear me?"

There was no response, and Blair realized that while he usually relied on touch for extra sensory input to pull Jim out of a zone, that probably wouldn't work if Markham had zoned on touch, though he tried chafing the young man's arms as he spoke just in case. He kept talking as he moved Markham's feet off the chair and down to the floor, but as he did so he couldn't help noticing a bulge in Markham's lap. Perhaps the feather test had been arousing and that had been too much for a Sentinel, already deprived of two senses, to keep control. He'd already run the same test on Jim and Jack, but he certainly wasn't going to ask either of them for feedback on that aspect. Maybe he'd just remove the feather from the test protocol.

Unstoppering the scent bottle that he knew had caused the strongest reaction before, he waved it under Markham's nose and asked, "Can you smell the peppermint? Can you hear my voice? I need you to focus on what you're hearing and smelling and try to calm your sense of touch back to normal."

Blair could feel himself edging toward panic, and he was tempted to call Daniel to see if he might do better at pulling this Sentinel out of his zone. But first Blair set aside the peppermint sample and tried prying open Markham's right eye. The sudden light caused Markham to twitch, and Blair started in with a litany of, "There you are. That's good. Open your eyes and take in the sights around you. Listen to my voice. Can you return your sense of touch to a normal level? My hand is on your arm. Use that as a baseline for normal touch."

The sergeant blinked but looked self-consciously away from Blair. "I'm all right now, sir. Sorry about that."

"No problem. That's a normal reaction from trying to tune in too much with one sense. I call it a zone out or zoning. Can you think of any times something like that happened to you before?"

"Um."

"This is all confidential, if that helps. Nothing's going to hurt your job. I might even be able to teach you some tricks that would help you avoid zoning."

"It's never happened on the job, not since the first time."

"First time?"

"Um, shortly after I started working with—with the stuff I'm supposed to activate for the scientists… Anyway, I was on the firing range and all of a sudden it all seemed impossibly loud, and I had to cover my ears. Then the lights seemed too bright so I closed my eyes."

"What happened then?"

"The guy shooting next to me, a buddy of mine, got me to the infirmary. They thought it was a migraine or something at first. Then Dr. Jackson came and asked me about this stuff a couple days later and told me what you wrote about dials and helped me practice."

"Did he tell you about spikes and zones?"

"Yeah, sort of. So I guess that first one was a spike?"

"Right, and what happened today was a zone. You implied you might have had other zones, just not while working?"

"Well," the Sergeant looked away again. "There might have been times when I lost a few moments but wasn't sure. Someone calling my name was enough to get my attention back. But one time, another time with touch, I think something like this happened."

"And how did that end."

"Off the record?"

"Sure."

"With a kiss."

"Did the person who kissed you realize what had happened?"

"Not exactly. I think—in was in an intimate situation and maybe my lover sort of panicked and didn't know what else to try. It was embarrassing."

"Did it only happen that once?"

Markham nodded, and he seemed to be calming down now that he'd said what he needed to.

"Do you have any idea why it might have happened that time and not since?"

"I don't close my eyes anymore." With that confession Markham smiled and ducked his head. Blair thought he might be blushing.

"Do you know what a Guide does for a Sentinel?"

"Daniel talked a bit about it when he taught me about dials, and he said he's a Guide for a different Sentinel."

"So aside from actually teaching you how to control your senses, a Guide is someone who can pull you out of a zone more easily, someone whose scent, voice or touch might make it easier to keep control while really extending your senses. Do you think your lover or someone else might be your Guide in that way?"

"I couldn't say."

"It would be really helpful for my research if someone who might act as a Guide with you was willing to come in and see if you did better on any of these tests with that person present."

"I don't think that's possible."

"If it's someone else in the military or someone who might not want whatever relationship you have to be public, I could arrange it so no one else would know."

Markham sighed, and Blair could see him struggling to keep his face neutral. Blair imagined how Jim and Jack had probably learned to hide their emotions back when they were that young. "Is this like an order or something?"

"No, I won't let anyone make it an order. I'll give you my card with my private cell phone number, too. You can talk to whoever it is, and call me if that person is willing to try under whatever conditions. But if you think it's going to hurt your relationship, I'll understand if we can't test that part. Maybe I can give you some information to share with your lover, just in case anything happens in the future?"

"Yeah, that might be good."

#

Jim knew he shouldn't have kept listening. He shouldn't have barged in on Blair's work in the first place. Unfortunately, with the airflow from the fan, he'd been able to smell the Sergeant's arousal through the door, and it was only natural to want to make sure his Guide wasn't being forced into some uncomfortable situation. Jim really didn't think he'd behaved unreasonably, even if Blair's questions had sort of implied he had. But Blair had been oblivious to the subtext of the situation. At least at the point when Jim walked in, it was clear Blair didn't realize the other Sentinel was responding to him in a sexual way.

Now Jim was picking his way across Fort Carson, making less effort than before to evade the soldiers who were trying to track him. O'Neill had roped him into a field exercise to test if security on the base could detect and locate an intruder, and the answer was pretty clearly no, at least not if that intruder was a Sentinel. Even staying within the tiny area demarcated for the not even war games, Jim had been eluding his searchers for over five hours and had managed to pick up lunch and stop to use the bathroom then drop in on Blair without any extreme efforts at evasion. Figuring he'd have to make things even easier if he wanted the exercise to ever end, he climbed up on a rooftop, from which he could actually see a pair of the soldiers who were looking for him. For a long while given the hot sun, he just stood there and watched, waiting for one of them to look up.

He thought back to how the other Sentinel had zoned, and Jim wondered if distracting Blair had triggered that. Then the guy had started talking to Blair about his sex life, and it was clear to Jim from the way that both sides of the conversation avoided pronouns that Blair quickly guessed the Sergeant's lover was a guy. Jim was sure Blair had put two and two together then, but it didn't seem to bother Blair that his test subject had been turned on by Blair touching his feet. The way Blair dealt with the whole thing showed the thoughtful consideration and problem solving Jim and all their friends at Cascade PD had come to expect of Blair.

Moreover, none of the issues Jim had experienced around Alex Barnes, had been problems here. Jim couldn't begrudge the other Sentinel whatever help Blair could give him. That was just what Blair did, part of his essential Blairness. Still, Jim felt like there was something more, something in what he overheard that made Jim want more of that Blairness for himself. He just didn't know how to get it.

The soldiers Jim had been allowing to find him went off in a different direction without ever scanning the roofs. It took Jim four more hours of increasingly reckless exposures before a different pair of searchers finally spotted him. He led them on a merry chase then, only partially allowing them to catch him by refusing to use any of his heightened senses. The whole group ate dinner as they debriefed. O'Neill laughed as Jim explained all the times he'd given the soldiers chances to spot him (many of the lessons simplifying to: look up!).

Jim went to bed fairly tired that night. Still, he woke to hear Blair starting the drowning dream next door. Jim was out of bed, both feet on the cold floor, before he realized he'd have to go out in the hallway and knock on Blair's automatically locking door to get to him. There were also guards on patrol, and the protocol Jim had helped arrange included questioning any curious behavior from him or other Sentinels, not that Jim placed much stock in the security details after their all day hide and seek adventure. Still, there were cameras in the hall, so whatever he did would be recorded.

Jim could hear Blair thrashing and he moved to press his hands against the wall between them. Blair had seemed accepting of Jim's intervention with his nightmare before, maybe even appreciated it. But things had been very cool between them in the two weeks since. Their last day at home, Blair hadn't wanted anything to do with him, and it had been a long time before that when they'd last gone out together, just for fun. Jim wondered if he'd blown it that badly by ignoring Blair after the fountain and then losing his temper with the whole dissertation fiasco.

He heard his Guide whimpering through bad memories on the other side of the wall, heard his head thrash side to side, and he wished Blair had Sentinel senses so he'd be able to hear if Jim spoke through the wall. He wished he knew what to say to make things better.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his black jaguar walk partway through his door and turn to stare at him accusingly. Jim hung his head in shame, but it was already too late. Jim knew the pattern of Blair's drowning dream, and it was almost over.

When he finally heard Blair go still, Blair's wolf walked through the wall, directly from Blair's room to Jim's. Without a glance in Jim's direction, the wolf curled up with Jim's jaguar. They made a smooth ball of fur, each resting his head on the other's side, eyes closed as they relaxed into each other.

#

June 23, South Africa

The next week Brett was sick. He stayed home from the dig on Tuesday and Gabi found herself texting him every hour, much as he'd texted her when she was off at the cave. By the end of the day, she could barely force herself to stop and wash up before going in to see him.

She knocked tentatively at his door.

"Come in," Brett said. He sounded mostly normal.

She opened the door and went in to stand by his bed. He didn't bother to sit up, just smiled from his pillow.

"Did I miss anything exciting at the dig?"

"No, most boring day ever. Can I get you something?"

"I'm fine."

Gabi rolled her eyes. "Why do people say that? You're sick. That's not fine. Remember when you worried about me? Well, I worry about you, too. Anyway, I've always wanted to take care of someone who was sick."

"Why?"

Gabi could see the wheels turning behind Brett's eyes as he asked, even if the eyes were a little bloodshot and the face around them flushed. He was always trying to figure people out, and it was annoying now, when he was sick, when he should be focusing on what he needed in order to feel better. "I like the idea."

"Has anyone ever taken care of you?"

"If I answer all these questions, will you eventually tell me what you want and let me do it?"

He nodded, hair rustling against the pillow and sticking out in all directions. The skin around his eyes was dark, and his face was greasy, but somehow Gabi's eyes were drawn to him even more than when he was healthy and perfect looking.

"It's just, I never know if I'm sick or just being weird. So I never tell anyone."

There was a long pause while Brett watched her and she watched him. "If I let you take care of me, will you tell me?"

Gabi let out a breath she hadn't meant to be holding, "I'm not even sure I get sick."

"Could you tell me when you feel weird?"

"Maybe. Can I get you water or something now?"

He let her bring water and help him sit up to drink it. Then she made soup and propped up pillows so he could eat in bed. She rearranged the pillows when he lay back down, and it felt like a kids' game to her, where she was pretending to be his mother or something. Her mother had never acted like this, but it fit some cultural stereotype that she'd always wanted to play out. Her brain spun plenty of side comments about co-dependence and sexist stereotypes, but she knew better than to take that part of her thinking too seriously. Taking care of Brett felt useful. He seemed comforted by it, and she was much more relaxed sitting with him than she was trying to focus on her work all day while not knowing how sick he really was.

Finally he said, "I think I might fall asleep now."

"Can I stay and sit here a while? I could read to you."

Brett smiled with his eyes already closed. "I don't think I'd listen very well, but if you want to do your own reading in here, I like having you around."

Gabi smiled, knowing he wasn't watching. She pulled out her phone, where she had a new electronic issue of an astrophysics journal she subscribed to. But sitting beside Brett's bed, she kept being distracted by the urge to look at him or touch him.

Finally, she whispered, "Are you asleep?"

"No," he smiled with his eyes closed again, and she was starting to really like that.

"Would it be okay if I touch you? Just hold your hand or something?"

He smiled and brought an arm out from under his blankets. "Yeah, I'd like that." His eyes opened for a moment, and she felt self-conscious. She took his hand. He closed his eyes.

Gabi stared at their linked hands. His skin was lighter than hers, rougher with larger pores, and traces of hair on the back where she had none. He had tiny, light brown freckles that were only twice the diameter of the largest pores. The tendons and veins in his hands were more obvious than hers, but somehow they fascinated Gabi, like seeing the gears and brake system on a high end bike.

She became aware of his heartbeat and breathing as both started to slow, easing him into sleep. Her gaze shifted to his face and she watched as the little bit of tension remaining there drained away. There was a tiny bit of fluff on the end of his nose that rose and fell with each breath, and she watched it so intently that she wasn't sure if she had a small absence seizure and lost a few seconds. It didn't really matter, except that she tried to avoid them.

Letting her eyes drift to Brett's tousled, crazy hair, she remembered the first time she watched him sleep in the Paris airport. How distant and anonymous he'd seemed then. Now she was holding his hand and watching him sleep in his bed.

She wanted to reach out and touch his hair, but that seemed like too much. Instead she let herself catalog the faint aloe and eucalyptus scent of whatever he put on his hair. His soap or deodorant or whatever had more of a chemical tang, which she didn't like, but the rest of him smelled amazingly nice for someone who'd been sick in bed all day. She could feel a slight fever from his hand and radiating off his body, but he was not sweating too much, and there was no stress smell to the sweat. His scent was a bit like a sweaty little kid, and she wondered when she'd cataloged that smell, because she didn't consciously remember.

While she wouldn't let herself touch anywhere other than Brett's hand, she let her thumb stroke the back of it. Then she shifted and traced slow circles into his palm. His fingers seemed to relax when she did that, and she hoped he found it comforting, even if he was asleep.

#

While Brett was still home sick the next day, he was well enough to be awake most of the time. He was thoroughly bored and eager to see Gabi by the time she returned from the dig.

She sat down by his bed and said, "You look better."

When he reached for her nearest hand, she shifted to give him her right hand instead. He squeezed and held it, then kept it while his arm rested back on the bed. "How was your day?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Do you need food or water? I could read you astrophysics stuff."

He didn't want her to get up and leave, so he said, "You could read a bit."

She reached into her pouch for her phone and fumbled a bit. Then she rested it on her knee and poked at bits to bring up the article she wanted. Finally she lifted the phone and read aloud an introduction about planetary nebulae, space telescopes, and emissions discrepancies. Brett wanted to share her interest, but when she set the phone down on her knee to slide to the next page, something about the motion wasn't right.

"Why aren't you using your thumb?"

She gave him a deer in headlights look, and then dropped the thumb in question behind her thigh, out of his sight.

"It's hurt."

"How?"

"Joe tried to close the van door on it."

"Did you go someplace today?"

"No, he asked me to help load samples at the end. I think he was annoyed because Dr. Michaels had me talk about my project at lunch."

"Wait. What? You think he closed a door on your thumb deliberately."

Gabi nodded like it was the most normal thing in the world, and Brett got angry when he realized she wasn't angry. "Let me see it."

She held her hand in front of her, so it was a couple of feet from Brett's face. His room was still dim, and he couldn't see well enough. He reached out with his free hand and, after a hesitation, she let him pull the injured hand closer to his eyes. Her body language was incredibly tense, and he wasn't sure if she was reacting to whatever happened to her thumb or to having both of her hands in his. He squeezed her uninjured right hand and slid his grip down to her left wrist as he moved her hand a little to each side so he could see the bruising on her thumb.

He felt her relax. Pulling her right hand up beside her left, he compared the thumbs. The injured one was definitely swollen.

"It's not broken," she said. "I've had broken fingers before, and I can tell."

"Is Joe around?"

"I think he's over at Jen's again."

Brett had noticed that Joe didn't come home after going out with Jen on Saturday night, but he hadn't been sure if Gabi knew. Jen was one of the local students working the dig, and Brett hadn't seen anything between them until they hooked up, but for the time being they seemed pretty attached.

"You think he did this on purpose, because he was jealous?"

"I don't know. He was definitely annoyed with me, but I can't prove anything."

It was probably good that Joe wasn't in the house, because Brett wanted to punch him or at least tell him off, and he wasn't really up to either at the moment.

"Have you put ice on it?"

Gabi tried to pull back, but Brett kept hold of her hand and wrist until she calmed. "I don't like putting ice on things. It's cold."

"We can have hot tea at the same time."

"I don’t like tea."

"How about tea without the tea?"

"What?"

"Come on and try it. I need to get out of this room anyway."

Brett pulled back the covers and sat up. He was wearing a tee shirt and sweatpants, but the room felt chilly without his blanket. He let go of Gabi's hands and pulled a sweatshirt over his head. She stood and hovered as if waiting to help him, but he pushed himself up off the bed and walked to the living area.

When he turned toward the kitchen area, Gabi said. "Sit on the couch. I can make tea." He was going to argue, but she said, "I want to, okay?"

He went and sank into a corner of the sofa but said, "Just heat some water in the kettle. Then bring the milk and sugar over here."

When she had the kettle on, Gabi came across the room and stared at his feet. "You need socks or slippers."

Brett noticed that Gabi was wearing the fuzzy socks she seemed to change into each night, and he smiled, "Not really my thing."

"You should try it," she said, "since I'm trying your not tea thing."

Brett shook his head as Gabi took off down the hall and returned with a blue pair of her own fuzzy socks bundled up together. "I have socks of my own, and my feet are probably too big for your socks."

"I've worn men's socks. My feet are pretty big for a woman. Anyway, these are good lounging around sock, soft and warm."

Then she knelt down on the floor and rolled socks up his feet from his toes to his ankles. If she'd been a hot guy, it would have been arousing. If she'd been a tiny Asian female, it would have seemed offensive. But it was long limbed geeky Gabi sliding fuzzy blue socks onto his feet, and Brett was too shocked to protest. Besides, the socks really were soft and warm and stretched over his skin in a very pleasant way. "Thanks," he said.

Then Gabi was off setting up a tea tray, and she scrounged up ginger cookies that she must have had hidden somewhere and brought it all to the coffee table just in front of the sofa.

Brett smiled and leaned forward. "When I was little and didn't like tea, my mom would fill a cup partway with hot water," he poured, "then add milk and sugar." He added some. "Try that, and then you can decide if you want more milk and sugar."

She tried a sip, then added more sugar. She sipped again and smiled at him.

"Now go and get some ice or frozen corn or something and a dish towel."

Gabi rolled her eyes at the command but went anyway. Brett made his own tea, then huddled back in his corner of the sofa, tucking his feet up under him. Gabi returned and curled up across from him with ice in one hand and her cup in the other. She kept glancing at her thumb, and despite being almost as tall as Brett, he thought she looked about five at the moment.

"You weren't going to tell me about your thumb?"

"It's stupid," she said.

"Is this like not telling people when you might be sick?"

"It's like not complaining about things that can't be helped."

"Like being sick, but you said you'd tell me about that or feeling weird."

"Which has nothing to do with my thumb."

"Except I think it kind of is the same thing, and I want to know."

"Why do you want to know?"

Brett wasn't really sure what he was seeing, but he knew it had something to do with trust. When he heard Gabi's question, she sounded like an adult women who didn't trust his motives. When he saw how she held her thumb and curled into the sofa, he saw someone much younger than him who needed to be protected. "I told you I wasn't much into definitions, and I'm an only child, so I never had a sister. But I kind of feel toward you like I might hope to feel for a sister."

"I lived with someone we called my brother for a while," Gabi said, "but we didn’t have enough of a relationship for me to even dislike him strongly. Still, he was annoying."

"Okay, forget what might really go with the word or with a real sibling, but I want to know what's bugging you. I can't help but worry about you even if I know you don't want me to. Still, you seem to want to take care of me, which I'm not used to anyone doing. And you know I have a boyfriend, so it's not like I'm hitting on you."

"Sounds like a very romanticized view of having a sister."

"I have it on good authority that I'm a hopeless romantic." He heard some bitter resignation seeping into his voice and tried to tamp it down.

"Who's authority is that?"

"Chris, my boyfriend." Brett tried not to put any tone of doubt in the statement.

"And you say you're not used to anyone wanting to take care of you?"

"Don't start with it."

She gestured zipping her lips.

"I'll do my best to control my own romanticized notions, and I assure you they'd mostly be about my obligations to you." Brett had no idea where the words came from. Interacting with Gabi was like nothing he'd ever known before.

"I don't want you to feel obligated."

"Words. Definitions." Brett threw up his hands, sloshing the tea in one as his head began to pound. "I feel what I feel and I don't need words for it."

Gabi took longer than usual to answer. "Oh, then you can think of me as your sister if you want, I guess."

Brett smiled. He couldn't help it.

"Can I put the ice away now? I finished my not tea."

Brett took the last sip of his tea and set the cup back on the tray. "Yeah, thanks."

She took away the tea things and ice, and Brett closed his eyes and thought about innocence and trust. He wasn’t really sure Gabi counted as an innocent, but the way she hardly let anyone touch her and the two year rule she'd espoused made Brett worry about taking advantage. He felt very safe with Gabi. He liked being touched by her and sensed that she wanted to be touched back, that maybe she felt safe with him. Maybe she felt safe because he didn't want to seduce her, but that didn't mean he wouldn't be playing on her emotions no matter what he did.

Gabi came back to the sofa, curled up at the other end and rubbed his foot though the incredibly soft, clingy socks. It made him want to pull her close and hold her tight, which he might mean in a brotherly way, but it would still probably be a bad idea.

"Turn around. Let me give you a back rub."

She squinted and lowered her eyebrows at him.

"Don’t tell me you've never had a back rub?" He didn't really think it was possible until he watched her face shift from embarrassment to confusion to doubt.

She finally said, "Maybe, kind of, not really. I'm supposed to be taking care of you."

"Turn around," he repeated. He would have had her lie down, but that seemed a bit too intimate. "See if you can make yourself comfortable against that cushion and the arm of the sofa."

She turned and squirmed and adjusted the pillow using only her right hand. She kept her left thumb well away and ended up with her left arm hanging over the end of the sofa while her chin rested on her right forearm. It didn't look comfortable at all, but Brett scooted closer hoping it would all work out in time.

He started rubbing across her back gently, giving her a chance to relax. Her back was completely rigid at first, and then when her shoulders started to slump he could feel how tight the muscles were underneath. He'd given more than a few backrubs to guys over the year, and Gabi's shoulders were as broad as some of theirs, though running into bra straps was a little annoying and bizarre. He vaguely remembered giving a couple of women back rubs when he first came to college, but maybe he hadn't been so used to guys' backs at the time so the bra straps hadn't surprised him.

He worked his way down the sides of Gabi's spine, and when he loosened a knot beneath her shoulder blades she let out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan. He couldn't pretend his body reacted completely platonically to that sound, but he'd admitted to being a fraction of a point away from six on the Kinsey scale. Besides, even a mythical zero or six might well react to a sound like that.

He remembered describing Gabi as his ideal for a sister and did his best for her with the back rub until he was tired again.

#

June 24, Antarctica

"Something is going to break," John finally ground out.

"In the chair, in the ceiling, what is it this time?"

John could have felt guilty when he heard the note of panic in Rodney's voice, but at least he'd finally escaped the line of questioning about weapons systems that the chair clearly didn't want to explain to John. "How about something in my brain?"

"You need to practice using it."

"My brain?"

"Quite possibly, or possibly the chair. Either way, we don't have time to break anything right now."

"Time is not the problem. The chair wants us to ask different questions."

"It's a device. It doesn't want anything, and don't even try suggesting there's some AI in there, because I've already had that argument with Kavanaugh and his so called reasoning is more flawed than that metaphor about black holes and whirlpools…"

John let Rodney's words wash over him. Now that the scientist wasn't telling John what to search for or think about minute by minute, it was possible for John to flip his mind around to the way the chair approached information. As he thought through the moments when he'd interfaced most successfully, learning about the power source with spontaneously created particles and the crystal structures he'd seen at three different magnifications for each, a larger concept seemed to pull at or in John's mind.

"The sketches of the crystals." John could barely force the words out fast enough as the images he'd drawn over a week ago suddenly flashed and twisted behind his closed eyelids. "Do you still have them, the pages, in order?"

"What, why?"

John had broken through a Rodney rant, and he could hear the tenor of Rodney's voice shift and slow as his attention focused in on John. "If you lay the pages out in a matrix, the first three forming the first column, the next starting from the top in the column beside them, and so on, I think you can twist every other column and the structure will line up at different points."

"Why would I want to do that?"

"Um, not sure." John tried to ask the chair. "Maybe so energy can flow in instead of out?"

"Are you saying we can recharge a ZedPM? What's the power source?"

John tried mentally asking about the power source and saw some sort of glowing dog shooting a laser into the first crystal pattern. What looked like a laser from a dog became a line of light that traced through the altered crystal pattern that John finally had clearly focused in his mind's eye. But he didn't want to tell Rodney about the dog any more than he wanted to mention the bird or beaver he'd seen before. Instead, he asked the chair to explain further. Being a most unhelpful and crazy-making device, it showed him an anteater and a cheetah curling up in a puppy pile with the dog. All three glowed together and the laser like beam of power grew brighter without growing wider.

Finally, John heard Rodney asking again and rubbing John's hand in a quick chafing motion that shouldn't have been pleasant, except John got a little turned on anytime Rodney touched him these days. "It's representing the power source with pictures of animals that sort of glow. Then the power siphons into the first crystal and traces through all the rest."

"I'm sure Jackson would say something about animal sacrifices that would be disgusting if it wasn't too boring to listen to. Here, I have the drawings taped up on a whiteboard in front of you. Open your eyes and see if it matches the pattern you're seeing."

John opened and closed his eyes a few times. "Yeah, it matches."

"And the power enters here?"

John nodded as Rodney traced the path John had been seeing in his head.

"Up! Out of the chair. I'm going to remove the ZedPM and see if this means what I think it means." Raising his voice, Rodney shouted, "Zelenka, I'm taking out the ZedPM!"

John removed his hands from the sensors on the chair, and the whole device shifted upright and shut down. John didn't stand immediately, because he'd learned that his eyes and ears sometimes played tricks on him after time in the chair, especially when Rodney didn't stay right beside him. Still perched on the edge of the chair, John watched as Rodney pressed a corner of the chair platform and something began to rise.

"What is this you are doing?" Zelenka asked as he rushed to Rodney's side.

"We need to scan the ZedPM to see if some crystals match the patterns Major Sheppard drew with the help of the control chair."

"O'Neill threatened to kill anyone who broke the ZPM."

"Not breaking it. We might be able to recharge it."

"Using what?"

"I'll solve that later. Just look at the diagram on the white board. Some of these crystals need to shift around, if we mock up an x-ray for crystallography—"

John's mouth fell open as he saw the giant crystal rise. "That's the power source I told you about."

"Of course it is. Don't interrupt unless you have something useful to contribute, like which crystal goes with which drawing."

John thought he could have asked the chair about that, but now the chair was turned off, and John clearly wasn't needed. He would have liked to drag McKay off to a supply closet, but the scientists were already setting up gadgets, screens and wires to surround the ZPM.

For hours, John managed to play soldier and ignore the increasingly frustrated rants and curses that came from Rodney and others working on the ZPM. He watched from a distance as others added colored lines to his original crystal sketches. He wouldn't admit to understanding the geometry any more than he would admit to the animals he'd seen. But as the guards switched to night shift and Rodney was still muttering over the ZPM, John couldn't keep away any longer. His skin itched with a need to touch Rodney, and while he imagined he could hear the scientist's heartbeat and smell his skin from across the room, John wanted to move close enough for his imaginings to be real.

Armed with a cup of coffee from the only machine Rodney tolerated, John cocked his hip and leaned against the table where Rodney now worked alone.

"Coffee?"

"Yes!" Rodney guzzled the whole cup, then looked sadly at the bottom.

"More?" John asked.

The smile that lit Rodney's face would have had John on his knees in a different situation, and he realized he might have something more going on than a crush and great sex. Taking the cup, John rushed to refill it and gain some control of himself.

Rodney took the second cup of coffee in one hand as he turned the ZPM with his other.

John watched the light glint off of each crystal face, then was caught by the patterns reflecting from small crystals in the base.

The next thing John knew, Rodney's cup was on the table and his still warm hand was covering John's. "What is it, Major?"

"That one." John pointed to a greenish crystal in the base. "That goes with the first set of drawings. The red one beside it would need to be rotated. I think the rest proceed clockwise around the base.

"Why didn't you say so?"

Rodney's voice sounded too loud, and suddenly John's eyes swam from looking too closely at the crystal. He could hear his own heart pounding and Rodney's beating only a little too fast. If he told Rodney he hadn't known until just now, it would mean the chair was changing John even when he was away from the device and it was powered down.

John wanted to beat a strategic retreat to his bunk, but he reached out to Rodney's shoulder and shook the man instead. The hold made John feel steadier on his feet and let him focus on the scientist's irate face.

"You did that on purpose. You let us waste all day—"

"Calm down. I didn't realize until I saw the crystals on the bottom. I hadn't looked closely at the power source until now."

"But you saw it from the chair. You found out as much about how it worked as we'd been able to derive, and more!"

John shook his head, hand still grasping Rodney's shoulder. "You never told me that."

"I didn't know you were thinking about it after that one day."

"Neither did I," John said.

Rodney took a breath as if to start on another long rant, but his eyes met John's. All of a sudden, it was as if the laser power John imagined from the dog was passing between their eyes and completing the circuit through John's hand. John felt his cock swelling in an uncomfortable position and adjusted himself. He knew Rodney caught the gesture as his eyes flicked briefly to John's crotch.

"I need to work on this," Rodney said. "I have to have it back in place by morning shift."

If he played dirty, John thought he could tempt Rodney away, at least for a little while. But Rodney already looked pretty tired, and John knew how exhausted they'd both be after even a quickie at this hour.

With a final squeeze, he released Rodney's shoulder. "I'll refill your coffee before I go to bed."

#

June 25, South Africa

Thursday Brett came back to the dig. Gabi kept an eye on him as she used her string bots to test areas within sight of the current grid, hoping to find the best way for the dig to progress in future years. Her thumb still hurt, and it was hard to remember not to use it while typing, so she spent a lot of time surfing the net from her phone instead. Part of the time she was really working, but most of it she was trying to learn about massage. It didn't seem fair that Brett had ended up taking care of her when he was sick. And even if he claimed to be well today, she could see the exhaustion in his face from across the dig, if she tried. She wanted to be ready to offer at least a competent massage by that night, and in time she thought she could learn to be pretty good at it. Most of the techniques she researched seemed to rely on understanding anatomy and having good attention to detail and touch. Being a genius and better at controlling her sense of touch than any of her other senses, it seemed like a fine skill for her to master.

That night Gabi took her shower first and then made chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese while Brett was in the shower. Joe came through the kitchen while she was cooking but didn't say anything beyond "hi." When he took a microwaved dinner to his room, Gabi was pleased to see him go.

After dinner, Gabi sat across the table from Brett not knowing what to say.

"Should we see what's on TV?" he asked.

They'd never watched TV together before, and she was pretty sure he was picking up on her nervousness, so she just plunged in. "I want to try giving you a massage."

"Okay," he glanced over at the sofa.

"Everything online says sofas aren't very good for massage. They mostly recommend a blanket on the floor, but the floor here is hard and cold, and the beds aren't very squishy, so I think they'd be fine. Whichever you prefer."

"Okay," Brett said again. It made Gabi uncomfortable, because she could tell he was thinking through a lot more. They cleared the dishes and he said, "I guess my bed will work. I changed the sheets and everything since I was sick."

Gabi followed him into his room and watched him lay down on his stomach. His feet were bare again, and she wondered if he didn't like the socks she'd given him. "You could take off your shirt, if you're comfortable with that. I'm sort of new at this, so it might help if I can see what I'm doing."

He reached both hands backward over his shoulders and across to the opposite sides of his back. Then he quickly gathered up his shirt with his fingers, pulled it over his shoulders and off his head. It was a bizarre move that looked very well practiced, and Gabi smiled wondering if there'd been a time when Brett actually practiced tricks like that.

Then she moved over beside the bed and started with a long stroke down from his neck to his waistband. She slid her hands out and up his sides, coming back under the shoulder blades to follow the spine up to the neck again. It really was easier without a shirt, so she could see where she was moving. Most of the online sites recommended using oil, but she didn't have any and thought it would have been awkward to suggest. She made a couple more long strokes over Brett's back and tuned in to his heartbeat and breathing, which both seemed calm and steady. She began working on smaller circular strokes, carefully keeping her left thumb up and out of the way.

It was amazing how smooth Brett's skin was. He had almost no hair on his back, and while the pores still seemed large to her, the skin wasn't dry or rough anyplace she could see.

When she started kneading a bit with her palms and fingers, she heard Brett's breathing change and felt his muscles soften and relax. From there she mostly followed her instincts trying to get tight places to relax and never moving too fast or removing her hands completely.

"I'm going to try your feet now." Gabi avoided asking a tag question like "okay" so Brett wouldn't feel he had to talk, but he talked anyway as she slid a hand down the side of his body so she wouldn't remove her touch completely as she moved.

"Where did you study this online?"

"Lots of sites, but don't worry. They were very clear about what counts as intimate or erotic. I'll treat you like a brother. Just tell me if something bugs you. Are your feet ticklish?"

"Not usually."

She started with circular motions at his heals. The foot part would have been a lot easier with thumbs, but using only fingers and one thumb forced Gabi to concentrate on Brett's reactions. He didn't make any sound, not even a sigh. But she could follow his heartbeat, and it was easy to feel bits of his feet relax. Working between his toes did produce a bit of a twitch or ticklish reaction, but Gabi just slowed down and pressed a little harder until even Brett's toes relaxed. Then she worked her way up each calf in turn, but decided not to try even the part of thighs and hips that most sites didn't count as erotic.

She had Brett roll over, and he didn't question it. His heart rate was almost to sleep levels, and Gabi thought that meant she was doing well, but it could mean he was still exhausted from having been sick. Whatever the case, she did her best with his upturned calves. Then she slid up his side and worked on his arm. When she reached the hand she couldn't help but remember rubbing little circles when he was sick. Now she felt much better prepared.

After rubbing both arms and a bit of his shoulders again, she moved to sit at the top of his bed and started massaging his scalp though the hair, releasing the tangy eucalyptus smell that was becoming very familiar. Finally, she felt Brett really relax, and she thought he might be falling asleep. She took her time, moving from nape to temples. The smooth coolness of hair between her fingers contrasted with the healthy warmth radiating from his skin beneath. She watched his face relax completely even though she hadn't tried facial massage, and Gabi made a few smooth circles through his hair that reminded her of petting a cat.

Then she whispered "good night" and left, creeping back to her own room. It was only after she'd gone to bed that she realized her hands still smelled like the aloe and eucalyptus of Brett's hair.

#

At the dig the next day, when Brett stopped for a snack, he overheard Joe chatting quietly with another woman. People called her Kag.

Joe was saying, "Can't stand spending too much time with him and his little fag hag."

Kag looked either confused or like she was trying to be diplomatic.

Brett barely thought before saying, "'Fag hag'? Do people still say that? I thought this was the era of 'my gay best friend.'"

He took some juice and left. Kag still looked blank, and Brett didn't think Joe would be scoring with her anytime soon.

When Brett looked far across the dig to where Gabi was testing on the periphery, he could have sworn she was watching and smiling like she'd heard them.

#

June 26, USA/Antarctica

By Friday morning, Blair had finished up the full battery of tests he'd devised for the four subjects he had access to. Tentatively, he wanted to include Carson as a Sentinel, even if he'd never managed to demonstrate a heightened sense of smell, Blair had been able to elicit at least some results with each other sense that fell beyond the normal human range. If anything, Carson lacked control, and neither Blair nor Daniel acting as Guides seemed to make any difference.

Blair was busy at a computer trying to figure out a secure testing protocol for at least hearing and sight that could be self-administered. He thought he could offer that for Markham to try with the person who might be his Guide there to anchor him, and he was hoping the other ATA positive subject could use it at his remote location. Daniel and Carson had both offered to run in person tests with the fifth subject, which made Blair wonder if his location wasn't so much remote as deeply classified. Blair was sorely tempted to just sign whatever was needed and find out what his collaborators weren't telling him, but he knew he had to discuss that with Jim first, and it wasn't a conversation he wanted to have while they were still on a military base.

To be honest, other than the one incident where Jim walked in on Markham's testing, everything had gone very smoothly, and Blair had enjoyed the break from living in Jim's pocket day in and day out. He knew Jim had been struggling to make things better between them for weeks, and Blair had been feeling vulnerable and keeping his distance. Now, after a week of positive interactions with colleagues who respected him and work that excited him, Blair was feeling more like his old self. Also, seeing how well Jim held it together in the presence of other Sentinels and in the middle of a military base cut off from his own territory, friends, and work, Blair was wondering if he might have judged his Sentinel too harshly. Maybe it was time to at least talk about their issues.

Then Jim rushed into the lab where Blair and Carson had been working and said, "You need to turn off your smart phones. Daniel thinks he's been hacked, and he doesn't want it to get any further."

Hours passed and it was late in the afternoon when Daniel called a meeting, and Blair was surprised to see Jim and Jack there when he reached the conference room.

Daniel greeted him with, "Have a seat. Carson went to round up our tech specialists."

"Are they part of this base's security force?" Jim asked.

Jack glared at him and said, "No, though I suspect these two would never look up at a rooftop either. They're the best we have to consult on hacking. Daniel owes me big time for pulling strings to get them brought in."

Daniel's hands waved back and forth, "No one here had the clearance. And while I didn't have anything classified on my phone, of course," he paused briefly to give Jack a look that spoke volumes about some past argument, "Certain people might read between the lines based on articles I downloaded or contact information from—"

At that point Daniel's rapid fire diatribe was overrun by a louder, faster-talking man who was herded through the door by a red-face Carson and a silent, athletic-looking man with dark eyes and dark hair who was carrying two computers, a shoulder bag, and a box full of cell phones. "As if anyone should care what soft science over-simplifications you read in your spare time. Still, you were right to call us in, because the worm used to gather and transmit data from your phone was actually quite sophisticated, suggesting foreign government or NID involvement—"

"McKay!" Jack's serious tone somehow stopped the loud, balding man with his mouth open.

Then the man, evidently known as McKay, crossed his arms over his chest and huffed out, "What?"

"This briefing only involves clearances for the Sentinel project. You'll have to watch what you say."

"By what stretch of military intelligence does it make sense to clear someone to work on the Sentinel project without clearing them to know who might be attacking them."

"Anyone might attack anyone, McKay. Think of all of the other things we protect people from knowing about."

"As a Canadian, and the most intelligent person on the planet, I reserve the right to disagree with many decisions made by your government and by—"

"McKay…"

"Other organizations known by acronyms which I wasn't going to specify. The further point being that we can't know which project the worm in Jackson's phone was targeting because it gathered everything he had downloaded, and it successfully transmitted before being detected. We don't know if the attack had anything to do with this Sentinel project or if those receiving the information will now take an interest in any of Jackson's assorted, and may I say rather obscure and incredibly impractical, downloaded material. Most likely, whoever is trying to read through it will either fall asleep or be baffled as to why anyone would gather such an assortment of research." Without stopping for breath the speaker turned to Daniel and said, "Seriously, Jackson, the fact that you would keep a copy of a twenty page paper on the derivation of words meaning "grandmother' in Polynesian languages disturbs me more that the military kink porn that I found on the servers at—"

"That's enough, McKay." Jack cut in with amazing ease as Daniel turned an impressive shade of red behind him. "Did you have any results to brief us on?"

"Results you'd understand?" Rodney fixed Jack with a scornful look, then smiled. "We fixed Jackson's phone."

"Is that all?"

"We checked the other phones and computers brought to us and found no further signs of that worm. We vastly improved the security on all devices, although I can't do much about it if idiots insist on using free wifi in coffee shops when everything they even think about is supposed to be classified."

"So you're done, then?"

"My assistant," McKay waved a hand at the man beside him who didn't speak but stiffened, perhaps at being casually dismissed as an assistant, "Is still trying to trace the worm, although it's probably too late already. Meanwhile, I was promised coffee and pie when I was so abruptly summoned to play tech support to your anthropology project."

"Why don't we all walk over to the mess, where I had them set aside a pie specifically for us—"

"Us!" McKay squeaked. "Me! I'm the genius being inconvenienced here. That's my pie that I earned."

"What about Dr. Peter Grodin?" Daniel asked in a teasing tone, and Blair bit his lip to hold back a chuckle as he noted it wasn't only Blair's professional standing that Daniel sought to defend.

McKay rolled his eyes, "He is less useless than most and may have helped a bit. Not that I'm even sure if he eats pie, but if there's a whole pie set aside, he can have some. Then after I've had a serving befitting my efforts, perhaps there will be enough for the rest of you hangers on."

"So gracious of you to offer," Daniel replied as one of the phones in Grodin's box started to play "Frosty the Snowman."

"Hey, I thought those were turned off," Jack said. "That's my ringtone for command at, well, where McKay came up from."

Dr. Grodin was already handing the phone in question to Jack as McKay said, "We had to turn them on to check them. Even your limited military mind should be able to realize that without—"

"What now?" Jack said loudly into his phone. "Oh really…Don't panic. I'll get someone down there to help you faster than the next transport."

As soon as Jack hung up, Daniel opened his mouth to speak, but the Colonel silenced him with a raised hand. Instead he turned to Blair, "Your other possible research subject has been unresponsive for over an hour, and it sounds like a zone to me. So the question is, do I send Daniel to try to deal with it, or are you ready to sign the big bad paperwork to learn the rest of the story?"

"Jack, that's not fair," Daniel said.

"The major has been sitting, frozen and silent, in the device for over an hour, Danny-boy. Do you want to risk handling this on your own, or are you going to bring the expert you recruited for your Sentinel project?"

Blair was more than ready to sign anything they offered. He was tired of not knowing what his colleagues knew and requiring them to watch every word they said around him. He turned to Jim, prepared to argue his case, but Jim just nodded and said, "I'm staying with you."

Blair turned back to Jack who said, "Get your go bags and meet us back in the conference room in five minutes."

#

Rodney McKay didn't call himself the smartest man in the galaxy for nothing. He'd put together unresponsive, major, device, and Sentinel project and realized that whatever new clearance he'd been given when called up to fix Jackson's phone might now be important to helping John Sheppard. He turned to Grodin and held out a hand saying, "Briefing material on the Sentinel project."

He sputtered when handed an armful of computers and cell phones instead, but seeing that Grodin was digging in a shoulder bag, presumably for the papers McKay had requested, he turned his ire on O'Neill. "Don't think you're sending me back there without my pie."

"I would never default on a promise of pie." Then turning to Daniel he said, "I'll hit the mess and grab our go bags if you'll herd the rest of them back to the conference room."

By that point McKay was immersed in a rapid scan of the report on Sentinels that he had not bothered to read earlier in the day. By the time they reached the conference room he waved the papers in Jackson's face saying, "You're O'Neill's Guide, aren't you? You talk to him and touch him to keep him from zoning in the control chair. How could you not mention this? You talk almost as much as I do, but the one time you had useful information to impart it didn't occur to you to tell the rest of us who were working with ATA carriers using the chair? No, no, don't bother to explain, just tell me everything you know about being a Guide."

"Are you saying you're Sheppard's Guide?" Jackson's eyes went wide behind his glasses.

"At the moment I have only the flimsiest social science excuse for an understanding of what a Guide, or for that matter a Sentinel, is. I need data, now talk."

#

From several hallways beyond the conference room, Jim tuned in to the sound of Daniel's excited speech as he told all about Sentinels pushing the limits of their senses and about Guides providing a sensory baseline and also encouraging Sentinels to split their focus between senses to avoid zones. He was not at all surprised upon entering the room that Daniel handed both Jim and Blair fat stacks of paper marked with post-its for signatures without pausing in his explanation to McKay.

When Grodin fished in a shoulder bag and handed them pens, Jim thanked him. Grodin's reply of "You're welcome" came in a distinctly British accent. While Jim might not have expected the accent based on the man's vaguely Mediterranean appearance, Jim was more startled that even with his expanded hearing and almost compulsive cataloging of voices, he had not heard the man utter a word since they'd met. Jim had wondered how any Sentinel could stand McKay as a Guide. It was possible the constant talking helped control sensory spikes by splitting senses and made it easier to keep track of the Guide's location and relative well-being. In which case, it wasn't surprising that his Sentinel zoned when McKay was removed from his environs.

By the time Jack returned with two duffel bags and a pie box, Jim and Blair were almost finished signing everything.

"Okay," Jack said, "to bring everyone up to speed, aliens are real and helped us build a cool space ship that happens to be in orbit at the moment. We're going to beam up, then beam down to an Ancient outpost in Antarctica. Ancient in this case means aliens who brought technology to earth thousands of years ago that people with the ATA, or Ancient Technology Activation gene can use. One of those ATA carriers, Major John Sheppard, has been unresponsive in an Ancient control chair for over an hour, so while Daniel didn't identify him as a Sentinel before, it looks like he might be one after all, and might be in a pretty bad zone. Is everyone ready to go?"

"Umm," Daniel said, "McKay might be Sheppard's Guide."

"What?" Jack scrunched up his nose as if the very idea offended his Sentinel senses. Jim couldn't help but smile.

"He saw how I used hearing and touch to ground you and tried using the same techniques to help Sheppard, even though he didn't know what the problem was."

"And it worked?" Blair asked McKay.

"Well, of course, I'm a genius."

"When I asked Sheppard, he said he hadn't noticed anything unusual about his senses," Jackson muttered.

McKay rolled his eyes toward Carson and said, "Tell them what the major said after a collapsing tunnel dislocated his shoulder and left him buried in snow for half an hour."

Carson chuckled. "He said he was fine, not even cold compared to his chopper."

Jackson tilted his head and raised an eyebrow.

McKay nearly shouted. "He's military. He's a very private person. He's trained not to admit to anything. Whatever. Let's go get him out of that chair."

At that, Jack did something on his phone and a sudden bright light and sense of unexpected movement caught Jim off guard.

Jim kept his eyes closed for several seconds as he reset the dials on all his other senses. He noted and tuned out the hum and rattle of a great deal of machinery and many more voices and echoes than had surrounded him in the conference room. After cataloging the flow of cooler air and the smell of ozone and oil, Jim opened his eyes to see the earth surrounded by a dark field of stars.

"Wow," Blair said beside him, "We're in space."

"Worth signing on the dotted line now?" Jack quipped.

No one answered before another burst of whatever transporter beam they were using sent Jim and the rest of their group into a high-ceilinged room filled with patterns carved into gray walls with a massive ornate chair raised up on a dais that glowed with blue light. As the rest of his group rushed to the man frozen in the chair, Jim turned his head taking in all the smells of humans crowded together in an enclosed space with recycled air along with oil and ozone smells similar to the spaceship they'd just left. He wondered if the smell accompanied the transport beam or the other alien-looking machinery, consoles, and view screens scattered around the room. Behind him, there were half a dozen people working. Perhaps they were quiet to avoid interfering with the chaos enveloping the chair, but Jim thought it might be like working in the bullpen: having people beam in and rush to solve a problem might not be that unusual in this work environment. The walls behind him seemed to be partly natural stone, sliced vertically, and John's hearing tuned to tell him he was far underground. Slight shifting sounds and O'Neill's mention of Antarctica made him realize they were under large amounts of ice.

Then Jim saw something truly out of place. His jaguar was pacing by the arch that opened on to an adjacent hall. Jim took a step in that direction and his spirit animal led him several doors down until he stopped and raised a paw as if scratching to be let through the closed door. Jim reached out expecting the door to be locked but it opened for him, and his jaguar went inside and bent his nose to the ground where a small brown animal was wrapped around and rubbing its nose against an unmoving bird. Spotting the wide tail, Jim concluded the furry animal was a beaver, and the size of the black bird suggested it was a raven. The two were encircled by a structure of sticks with symmetrical patterns and points rising up around a file cabinet with an elaborately decorated nest at the top. For a moment Jim wondered if the bird should be lifted back to its nest. Then he shook himself realizing the beaver and bird must be McKay and Sheppard's spirit animals, and belonged curled together the way his jaguar and Blair's wolf did.

Taking a deep breath, Jim smelled that this was McKay's room, and while the scent was faint, from the bed Jim could smell a male lover who he'd just bet was the unconscious Sentinel in the control chair. If he ever earned his way back into Blair's good graces, they definitely needed to talk about what constituted a normal Sentinel-Guide relationship.

Jim nodded to his jaguar as the cat sat between the door and the other animals in a posture that radiated protective instincts. Jim shut the door behind him as he left, certain the animal could walk right through it when not leading him, and he hurried back to get Blair.

Instead, he returned to the sound of McKay's shrill voice intoning, "Out! Everyone out!" as the man in the chair clung to his arm, eyes squeezed shut in a way that could only mean pain.

The men and women who'd been quietly working when they arrived showed no hesitation at fleeing in response to McKay's demands. Only O'Neill and the Sentinel project group were ignoring the determined scientist.

Jim stepped up beside Blair and whispered, "I think the spirit animals want McKay to take his Sentinel back to his room. Can you convince the rest of them to let me help Mc Kay move Sheppard there?"

To Blair's credit, he only gave Jim the big-eyed skeptical look for a moment. Then he announced, "Daniel, Carson, Jack, I think we need to leave. Jim is going to help these two get to where they need to be, and we can sort the rest out later."

Jim wasn't sure why it worked, but the others instantly responded to the authority in his Guide's voice. Even McKay seemed to accept Blair's pronouncement, and as soon as the others were gone he let Jim help him lift Sheppard out of the chair and take one side as they all but carried the cringing Sentinel to the room with their spirit animals.

Once they laid Sheppard on the bed, Jim asked McKay, "Do you see anything unusual over there?" He gestured to the file cabinet with the three animals and the complex wooden structure.

McKay shook his head. "Who are you?"

"Jim Ellison, another Sentinel. Do me a favor and ask him as soon as he's ready. If he sees anything, tell him to come talk to me. Really, I think you're both going to need to come out and talk as soon as possible."

"We'll come out when he's fully ready, and you can tell the others that if anyone bothers us before then, I will make them pay in insidious and creative ways. Also, no Sentinel snooping. He's a very private person." McKay looked at his Sentinel with such open affection that Jim didn't want to invade their privacy for one moment longer. He let himself out and carefully kept his hearing and other senses to baseline levels.

#

Blair breathed a sigh of relief when Jim returned. He could tell from his Sentinel's face that everything was going to be all right for McKay and Sheppard.

Jack evidently didn't see the same. "What was that? We show you all the cool toys and two minutes later you're ordering us out of the control room and leaving McKay in charge of an injured man?"

"McKay pulled him out of the zone, didn't he?"

"Yes," Blair answered, realizing Jim hadn't been in the room at the time. "It took him less than a minute, but then Sheppard was overwhelmed by having so many people around him."

"So McKay was a Guide taking care of his Sentinel, and I agreed when he told the rest of you to leave."

"And why didn't that ruling apply to you?"

"I left, see? And McKay has threatened some pretty strange vengeance on anyone who disturbs them before they're ready." Then he looked at Jack and added, "Also, no snooping."

"Where are they now?" Carson asked calmly.

"McKay's room, a few doors down the hallway, has a large file cabinet in the corner."

"I understand needing to move a Sentinel to someplace calm, but good medical practice would dictate that a doctor check someone over after a loss of consciousness. Perhaps we need to agree on some procedures for dealing with Sentinels," Carson said.

"I'm sorry, doc, but I think you should defer to the Guide when a Sentinel is involved. I've had some bizarre reactions to stuff, and sometimes I needed Blair to intervene for me."

It warmed Blair to hear Jim express such respect for the role of a Guide and for him in particular, but there were questions he needed to ask Jim that he thought might be better asked in private.

"Listen," Blair said, "We all have a lot to process right now. I don't think McKay and Sheppard are going to be joining the discussion for quite a while. Maybe we could all take some time to regroup, then meet and share ideas over dinner."

"Or we could eat McKay's pie," Jack suggested

"Don't even think about it," said Daniel, who had ended up holding the pie box. "I wouldn't put it past McKay to turn off heat for anyone who takes his pie, and this place is cold enough already."

Jack visibly sized up his Guide and the box he was protecting. "Well, let's hope they come out before dessert. Day old pie would be such a waste. I'll show Blair and Jim to a spare room. I'm guessing they'll need to stay until at least tomorrow to run tests on our newest Sentinel."

Jack showed them to a simple gray room with two beds and said, "I guess this will have to do."

Then he was gone, and Blair found himself standing in the middle of the room as Jim worked his way around the perimeter, clearly checking for listening devices or cameras. When he finished he turned to Blair and said, "You hungry? I know secrets for finding snack foods, even on the most remote base."

Blair patted his duffle bag. "I still have some of what you packed from my stash at home." He fished out a bag of roasted pumpkin seeds and offered Jim a handful. "What I really want to know is where you went and why you came back ready to help McKay."

Jim lifted a single pumpkin seed to his mouth and nibbled at it. Blair couldn't guess what was happening in his Sentinel's mind right then, but he was growing pretty curious. Then Jim said, "My jaguar led me to McKay and Sheppard's spirit animals."

Blair's mouth fell open to hear Jim speak so forthrightly about mystical matters he usually denied. Then his brain caught up and he said, "How did you know they were their spirit animals and what they wanted you to do?"

Jim smiled a little shy smile, and Blair realized he only saw that expression when he expressed enthusiasm about something Jim did or said. Blair couldn't remember the last time he'd seen it.

"Well, there was a beaver wrapped up around and sort of nuzzling a raven that was lying completely still. Up above them on a tall filing cabinet was a fancy sort of nest, but it was surrounded by a structure that came up from the ground and sort of circled around and directly through the file cabinet. I'm pretty sure that was made by the beaver. So they'd been working together before. The beaver was trying to comfort the raven. My jaguar positioned himself to protect them both, so I thought it was kind of obvious. I could tell by scent that it was McKay's room, and there was another scent I guessed was Sheppard. When I returned to the rest of you, I confirmed that was Sheppard's scent, and he was clinging to McKay. All pretty obvious, and I'm sure my jaguar will come get me if they need us."

"Wow, all of a sudden you're ready to talk about stuff, and you trust your spirit animal to come get you."

Jim's eyebrows arched up, and for a moment he looked really sad, but he didn't say anything further. Blair waited, letting thoughts chase around his mind, wondering if there was something he'd missed.

Then Jim sat down on his bed and started eating his pumpkin seeds more seriously, though still one at a time. Blair realized he hadn't taken any for himself before he put the bag away. He hovered undecided between digging out more seeds and sitting on his own bed, wondering again what Jim was thinking and what made him say so much sometimes and then just stop.

"Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?" Blair asked.

Jim kept eating as if he hadn't heard, and Blair lay back on his bed. Staring at the ceiling, he threw an arm over his eyes to block the light. By the time Jim finally spoke, Blair wasn't expecting it anymore.

"Whenever I see your wolf, it's curled up with my jaguar."

The words were like a fist in Blair's gut. He was glad his face was half covered, and he wondered if Jim was more comfortable that way too and that was why he'd waited to speak. Without moving his arm, Blair asked, "How often do you see them?"

"More since, you know. And even more since I've been trying to do better."

"Oh, Jim," Blair's body tensed all over, "I'll try my best to meet you half way, but I'm not very good at reading your mind."

"After the fountain, I felt like they were pushing me, and I wasn't ready. Then as I felt more ready, the jaguar showed up more to lead me, or to let me know when I was screwing up. Then I'd see them curled up together, I guess when one of us needed comfort, even when I didn't know how to—" Jim cut himself off, and Blair could hear the big man shifting around on the military bunk.

"I don't know. I don't know how to comfort you most of the time. And I know you want me to talk, but I don't know what to say. You don't tell me anymore. You used to get on my case or explain things. I think we were supposed to get better after our spirit animals merged, but instead everything got worse, and now I think you've given up on me."

Blair took a deep breath and as calmly as he could said, "Jim, I would never give up on you."

"Are you sure?"

Blair thought about how often he'd chosen to be alone in the last couple years rather than risk arguing with Jim, how often he'd bitten off what he wanted to say, rather than risk a bad reaction. He'd thought Jim was the one who changed. He thought Jim had chased him away, but on some levels he had stopped trying. After Jim said he wasn't ready to take that journey with Blair, Blair had stopped asking Jim to meditate or talk about the spirit plane. Now it sounded like the spirit animals hadn't given up, and eventually, Jim had been ready to follow their lead and believe in them. Maybe Blair needed to learn from their example.

"What do you want me to do, Jim?"

"Give me another chance?"

Part of Blair wanted to run away or fall apart or say he just wasn't strong enough to go through it all again. A month ago, he might have given in to those impulses. Instead he said, "It's not going to be easy. It might take a couple years, not because I'm trying to test you. I just can't know if what you say this month will change by next month, and after years of never knowing when you'd hate me or when you might kick me out, it might take years to really believe that's over."

"I guess that's fair."

The words sounded like a promise to Blair but also sounded like Jim could barely choke them out. Blair heard rustling sounds from Jim's side of the room and, carefully, Blair lifted his arm so he could sneak a glance at Jim. His Sentinel had curled up on his bed facing away from Blair. Somehow the big man looked small and vulnerable. Blair remembered Jim coming to Blair's room to comfort him the last time he'd had the nightmare about drowning when they were still at home. They'd never talked about it, but Blair hadn't had that nightmare again until they were in Colorado.

"Jim, is there something I could do now that would make you feel better?"

There was another very long pause. Blair thought it had been at least five minutes before he heard Jim say, "I might be jealous of how our spirit animals curl up together."

It was hard for Blair to believe that Jim would want to cuddle. The man didn't seem comfortable even hugging another guy. Then again, Jim had cradled Blair in his lap after the fountain, and there must have been some reason why their spirit animals merged and brought Blair back to life.

Pushing himself off his bed, Blair crossed the room to sit on the edge of Jim's bed. Instinctively, Blair wanted to ask permission, but he guessed the words would be harder for Jim to handle than the action. So Blair laid a hand firmly on Jim's shoulder. The Sentinel didn't flinch. If anything he pressed back a little into the touch. Trying not to press too hard or too lightly, Blair stroked Jim's arm from shoulder to wrist and then repeated the motion. The only time Jim tensed at all was when Blair's hand lifted for a moment to move back up to the shoulder. All at once Blair wanted to curl up around his Sentinel. He felt empty and touch starved, and he wondered if Jim's heightened sense of touch made him need physical contact even more. Blair lay down behind the larger man, positioning himself with an arm around Jim's waist so he could press his chest firmly against Jim's back but keep his groin area well below Jim's hips. The way Jim's legs were curled forward, that kept the cuddling fairly innocent.

Jim made a low rumbling sound somewhere between a hum and a sigh, and Blair relaxed. He let himself squirm a little until his lower arm supported the weight of his head while the side of his face pressed against Jim's shirt. The warmth of Jim's body was soothing, and even though it was mid-afternoon, Blair drifted into sleep.

#

Jim could tell when his Guide fell asleep, and that's when he knew he'd truly been given a second chance. His whole body seemed to sing with it. His skin had felt electrified since Blair first touched his shoulder, but when Blair's arm wrapped around him, and especially when Blair's face pressed against his back, it was as if Blairness vibrated all through Jim's body, making him feel molten and warm throughout. He didn't want to fall asleep, didn't want to miss a moment, even if it might take years to win Blair's trust, that seemed fair enough given some of the idiotic crap he'd put Blair through in the past.

Now he needed to learn how to be what Blair needed. Blair had pretty clearly told him to control his temper and never kick Blair out of the loft. That much Jim was sure he could do, but he knew there had to be more. He didn't quite understand why making breakfast for Blair had been good but inviting him out to dinner had been bad. He was deeply pleased that whatever they were doing now and what Jim had done when he came to Blair during his nightmare had been okay. Jim wondered if they could sleep together every night and how he could make the offer in words without messing everything up. He thought maybe if he just stood by Blair's bed that night he'd be invited to curl up for at least a little while. Jim couldn't say why, but he thought that was the next step. It felt right. He wondered if Blair's wolf was curled up with his jaguar as they kept watch over the new Sentinel and Guide. He hoped so.

#

When John came to his senses, he was in Rodney's bed, and Rodney was curled around him, petting him and talking.

"…The very people who should have told me what to expect, told you too, I mean, you're the Sentinel. But you gave some flip answer to Daniel Jackson, and really, how long have these idiots been dealing with military men? Even if he didn't know you personally, Jackson should have realized that self-response answers are notoriously unreliable. I mean, he's a social scientist. If they don't teach them that in college, what are they teaching? Do you hear me yet?" John heard, but he was too comfortable drifting along on Rodney's voice to answer. "I'm hoping if I keep talking and touching, and I guess you can smell me too, that's supposed to help you reset your senses. At least if we believe Jackson and Carson and whoever the new guys with them are, then you're one of these Sentinel people, and sometimes your senses can reach much farther than other people's. So then you need to renormalize, and usually Sentinels use their Guide as a baseline, and well, I didn't mean to become your Guide, but if that's why you let me close to you and why you seem okay working with me, when well, most people don't really like working with me… Anyway, I'm a genius, so I can probably figure out how to be exceptionally good at this Guide job. I mean, I seem to have figured out enough without Jackson even bothering to tell me about Sentinels until he called me away to fix his pathetic, unencrypted, minimally-secured phone. I wonder how long it would have taken them to tell us if they hadn't screwed things up by snatching me away from here. I mean, maybe we would have handled things so well on our own that they never would have noticed. Still, you must have been aware of something. I'm pretty sure that day you saw the flaw in the ceiling, you saw it with your eyes and then accessed the blueprints via the chair. But if it only happened when you were in the chair, maybe you didn't know you were using your own senses. I wish you'd get better and tell me. I'll talk all day if I have to, but it would be nice to know if you're even hearing me."

"I hear you," John managed, though his voice sounded scratchy and too loud in his own ears.

Rodney's response was to pull him in tight with arms and legs in some sort of octopus hug. It felt great, and neither of them was even hard.

"Did you hear what I said about a baseline for your senses? After you zone, which you did, you need to reset everything. They suggest picturing a dial or slide bar with numbers one through ten. You can use my voice as a baseline for hearing, although they also mention the Guide's heartbeat as grounding. Not that they say what number baseline should be. If your hearing can zoom in like your vision when you saw that crack, then you probably need to use a logarithmic scale. Maybe if my voice was two and my heartbeat was three? Can you actually hear my heartbeat?"

"Yeah, I can." John's voice sounded better. Rodney's heartbeat got faster.

"You'd tell me if there was anything wrong, like arrhythmia or heart murmur or something, right?"

"Of course I would, Rodney."

"Guess being a Guide comes with medical benefits. Have you managed to set your scale for hearing yet?" John pictured a number line and filled in up to three, where he could hear Rodney's heart. Then he slid back to where Rodney's voice sounded normal and labeled that two. Like most things with numbers, it seemed to come easily to John.

"Hearing's all set. What next?"

"How about sight? Have you even opened your eyes? The room is pretty dim at the moment, but I can see fine. So on any relevant scale this would still have to count as normal. I guess that could be two, or maybe one point nine."

John dutifully filled another imaginary number line to one point nine as he studied the mess of coffee cups and powerbar wrappers on Rodney's desk. He tried to ignore the animals no one else could see until Rodney asked, "Do you see anything in the corner by the file cabinet?"

"You see them too?" John heard his own heart accelerate, and visualized how his hearing had slid back up to three. Rodney's heartbeat and breathing were holding constant.

"No, but I saw where your eyes moved. Some other Sentinel saw something when we brought you in here. He told me to ask you about it, so this is me asking."

"Oh, cool. The wolf and panther, or whatever it is, must have come with him. They're curled up in front of the door. But the raven and beaver we always have are curled up in the bottom of the nest or wooden model or whatever they've been building in that corner. Your beaver is holding my raven."

"My beaver? What kind of a stereotype is that? Just because one of my doctorates is in engineering and all engineering departments obsess over beavers as mascots—"

"Don't worry, McKay." John wanted McKay to appreciate the animals and structure, even if he couldn't see them. "I think your beaver is a genius, too. You should see what he built. It's like a miniature city, laid out in the shape of a snowflake, with spires and towers and runways."

"Runways? Does it have little tiny fighter jets?"

"Not yet, but I keep hoping."

"How long have you been seeing this?"

"The first time we came back here, the crystals in the raven's nest at the top made me realize I'd been seeing crystal structures, but I'd seen the raven before that."

"Are these the animals you saw feeding the ZedPM?"

"None of these in particular. Those were a dog, a cheetah, and maybe an aardvark, but now that you mention it, it would make more sense for them to be like these rather than real animals."

"And if someone else had asked you about this?"

"They'd have to admit they saw it first."

"But you tell me because I'm your Guide?"

"Whatever." John rolled over on top of Rodney. "What am I supposed to use for a taste baseline?"

Rodney smiled, and John leaned down to kiss him. Even when Rodney hadn't brushed his teeth since morning and had eaten something with onions for lunch, he tasted like Rodney. John slid his tongue along Rodney's and then traced behind his teeth as he set his taste dial to three, not thinking he could have appreciated this as much before he became a Sentinel, or whatever he was.

He breathed in the scent of Rodney, remembering that Rodney had been away earlier in the day as he smelled some sort of antiseptic and dust that came from outside, not like Antarctic dust that was mostly decomposing skin cells or whatever. He gave the scent a three and went back to licking Rodney's mouth.

The longer they kissed, the less he could taste Rodney's lunch and the more he tasted pure Rodney and the two of them together. Now that he knew he really could taste more, John managed to separate out the trace tastes of food, coffee, and toothpaste before exploring the subtle differences between Rodney's tongue and the roof of his mouth. John could smell Rodney's growing arousal, and now that he understood about heightened senses, he thought he could have some fun with them.

He hadn't found a baseline for his sense of touch, but he started rubbing against Rodney, still kissing, and he pictured his number line for touch with no numbers yet. He imagined drawing a line that went up and up until the feel of Rodney beneath him was almost painful and almost enough to make him come just from rubbing together in their clothes, then he eased the line back down to where he'd need it to keep control.

He ran a hand through Rodney's hair and was pretty sure the tickle of each separate hair was still more than a normal person was supposed to feel. So he traced along Rodney's ear until it felt like just an ear, and he tentatively labeled that two on his number line.

Then Rodney gasped and John leaned over to suck on his earlobe. As Rodney started writhing beneath him, John tried sucking and licking behind Rodney's ear and down his neck. When Rodney whined, "Clothes," John noted that his normally talkative lover hadn't been talking for a while. Unzipping Rodney's orange fleece, John realized he'd always asked Rodney to keep talking before, and probably he had been trying to control his senses by using Rodney's voice as some sort of baseline. As he removed Rodney's fleece and then his tee shirt he said, "I think you're right. We did do pretty well at this Sentinel and Guide thing without anyone telling us."

"We are doing much better than pretty well." Rodney tugged at the bottom of John's shirt and jacket, and John maneuvered himself out of them. When John next rubbed their chests together he felt the friction of every hair, and before he forced his sense of touch down again, he took a moment to appreciate the way Rodney's nipples hardened, their smooth, chilled pressure as they skidded along his skin. When John shifted to lick and blow on one nipple, he felt goose bumps rise around the areola, and he tried licking and blowing on other parts of Rodney's chest to see which patches of skin reacted the most.

"You're playing with your super powers, aren't you?"

"And you like it."

Rodney thrashed in a most gratifying manner. "I'm going to come in my pants if you don't get them off. We should both be naked. Now."

John took care of their clothes while exploring the skin beside Rodney's hip bone and along his inner thigh.

"It's like you're adjusting my sense of touch up. You can't do that can you? This is just sex, right?"

"Just sex with your own personal super hero. Bend your legs up, I want to explore someplace else."

"Oh my god!" Rodney squealed as John licked at his perineum and then sucked at his balls.

"Is it okay if I taste you everywhere?"

"Nngh. When I'm cleaner sometime, okay." Rodney was panting. "Please, let me come. You can do whatever you want after, but I don't have the choice to dial it down, and you're driving me crazy."

John had a lot more he wanted to try, but he could feel the tension in Rodney's body and see the beads of precome on Rodney's cock. John licked up the shaft, and his tongue spread wider to feel the smooth, pulsing skin. He wondered how he'd never realized that his tongue was amazingly sensitive to touch, not just taste. The taste of Rodney's skin was pure Rodney, or maybe Rodney with salt, until John reached the crown of Rodney's cock. Then the taste of Rodney's precome overwhelmed him, and even though John had tasted him before, it was like the first time. Now he knew he was tasting everything at some amazing level. His senses must have already been trained to Rodney in some way, because everything about him tasted and smelled and felt like exactly what John wanted.

In an instant John's senses flipped, and where he'd been mostly aware of Rodney's body before, John was suddenly aware of his own as well. His skin tingled all over, and as he bobbed up on down sucking Rodney into his mouth, John noticed every place where his skin grazed against Rodney's legs. He shifted so Rodney's calf was between his knees and felt his own cock bump against Rodney's leg as his mouth explored each ridge and pulse point on Rodney's cock. John kept part of his focus on the bitter but perfect taste of Rodney's cock and the salty and musky smell that was Rodney sweaty and aroused. He didn't need Rodney to talk like he'd used to, but he basked in the continuous breathy gasps and occasional moans that rose over his Guide's heartbeat. My Guide, mine, John thought, and suddenly he was coming with barely a touch to his own cock, Rodney was screaming and coming down John's throat.

#

Rodney woke to the feel of rough, wet terrycloth on his chest. The cloth was warm, but the air in the room was cold on damp skin as the cloth moved on.

"What are you doing?" Rodney asked without opening his eyes.

"Washing you. Looking at you. Smelling you. Then I'm going to taste you all over."

Rodney felt his cock harden as John spoke. Then John's hand was resting there, not stroking or squeezing, probably just feeling. Never before had a lover shown such interest in Rodney's body beyond the basics involved in sex. He wasn't ready to open his eyes and see John studying him, but with his eyes closed, he liked the idea. He even liked the wet, warm, then chilled sensation from John washing his skin, now that he knew what it meant.

His thoughts drifted back to the incredible sex they'd had before falling asleep, and Rodney wondered that his body could show interest again so soon. "What time is it?"

"2100."

"We missed dinner?"

"I can smell the stash of food in your footlocker, and I bet you have sealed packages that I can't smell, too."

"Spaghetti MRE."

"Are you placing an order?"

"I'm hypoglycemic. I need to eat."

The hand John was washing him with stopped, and the hand that had seemed to just rest on his cock stilled. "Sorry. I didn't know. Should I try to scrounge up some real food for you?"

"I like spaghetti MREs. That's why I keep them around. Sometimes I work all hours and need to eat without interrupting my train of thought."

"I'll get you one," John said as he tucked the covers up to Rodney's chin.

He must have dosed again, because the next thing Rodney knew John was waking him and pushing him into a sitting position with blankets tucked around them both and an MRE ready for each of them.

As they ate John said, "I guess people probably know we're an item now."

"I have no idea what people think they know. It wouldn't surprise me if Jackson got everyone clearance and is conducting a sensitivity workshop about Sentinels and Guides. It's also possible that half the base still thinks I'm in Colorado. Are you going to freak out?"

"I wouldn't know where to start. Super powers and ghost animals sort of trump keeping our relationship low key and private, I guess."

"There wasn't anything about the animals in the briefing I read. When we leave this room, they're probably going to ask you a ton of questions."

"Do you think we can put it off until tomorrow?"

"I believe I intimidated them sufficiently for that."

"Good. I have a lot more I want to explore with you."

"For this, I'm willing to be your guinea pig."

"Not my beaver?"

"That has other connotations."

"My Guide."

"I'm starting to like the sound of that."

"Me, too. And now, if you're done eating, your Sentinel wants to touch and taste you some more."

"As you wish."

Rodney wasn't sure if John had ever seen The Princess Bride, but suddenly they were kissing, and Rodney thought he could admit, at least to himself, that he was in love with his Sentinel and couldn't think of anything better.

Then John pushed Rodney face down on the bed, cleared their MRE containers, and came back with a bowl of warm water and a wash cloth. He washed Rodney's back like he was half flirting and half giving a massage. Rodney let himself moan and gasp as each touch came to him, figuring there was no sense hiding anything from John anyway. Soon Rodney was fully hard against the mattress, and John had washed all the way down to Rodney's feet.

When John kissed his way up Rodney's legs, repositioning and pushing at his knees as he did so, Rodney felt like taffy being pulled and stretched. Then John dribbled warm water from the washcloth down the cleft of Rodney's ass and followed with a terry cloth covered finger. Rodney was rock hard and panting before John's tongue made its first warm slide across his hole. It wasn't something Rodney had experienced before, and he didn't know if the bursts of fireworks behind his eyes went with the erotic act or the talents of his Sentinel lover. Being a genius, he quickly decided it didn't matter. He buried his head in his pillow and screamed as John made quick precise licks all around his hole before pushing his tongue inside and fucking him with his tongue. The sensations were overwhelming, around him, in him, warm, and wet. Rodney was coming, coming hard, before he knew what hit him.

John's hand reaching around to stroke him and pull the orgasm out longer even as John's tongue slid in and out a few more times. Then John was trying to unbend Rodney's knees, but Rodney found his voice to say, "No, I want you in me."

John kept one warm hand on Rodney's ass, but he heard the man rifle through a bedside drawer to find the lube. Then John's fingers stroked inside and Rodney knew he was still loose and relaxed from the orgasm and John's tongue. Entry was easy, and Rodney was floating as John stretched him. Rodney needed more of John inside to keep him from drifting away.

It seemed like John could read his mind, although Rodney realized touch and hearing could probably tell the Sentinel all he needed to know. John pushed into him without causing any burn at all. Then he slid easily in and out until he found an angle that made Rodney shudder even after two amazing orgasms in one day. He didn't know how John did it. He must have been controlling his sense of touch to make it last forever and hit exactly where Rodney wanted him, because Rodney felt like what they were doing should go on forever. He didn't think he could ever make love with someone else after this. At the moment he didn't even care about his work or science. As John stroked and kissed his back, Rodney dissolved as if they were merging into one being, like John wasn't just touching him inside and out but permeating his being on some molecular level.

Finally, when Rodney thought he might lose consciousness soon, John sped up his thrusts. There was a faint whine beneath John's gasping breaths, and Rodney didn't think he could possibly come again, but his body was definitely trying. Then John's hand was on Rodney's cock, a clever finger rubbing in a very sensitive spot just below the head, and Rodney was coming. John was coming with him. It was so overwhelming it almost hurt inside Rodney's head. Everywhere else it was perfect.

Rodney's eyes drifted open when John pulled out of him. He saw the beaver, the raven, the wolf, the jaguar, and the amazing structure made out of sticks. Somehow, he wasn't surprised at all. John curled up around him, and they both fell asleep.

#

June 27, South Africa

On Saturday, Gabi sat surprisingly happy in the living room while Brett did something with dough and soup in the kitchen. Joe passed in and out of his room in near silence a few times. Gabi kind of wasn't speaking to him, although she didn’t think he'd noticed. But she couldn't be angry or sad about him calling her a "fag hag" because she's been too pleased by Brett's quick defense. For anyone else to call Brett her "gay best friend" would have pissed her off, but the way Brett had said it touched something inside her. It made her feel warm, although her sunny spot on the couch might have helped with that, too.

There was a knock at their door.

Gabi wasn't sure anyone had knocked since they'd moved in. Joe was currently in his room, and Brett was sticky with dough, so Gabi answered the door.

The woman on the other side had strappy sandals, a crinkly billowing blue skirt, and a white blouse that set off her deep black skin. She also had dangly metal earrings with little gears that rang against each other in the breeze like wind chimes.

The woman held out her hand, "I'm Lerato, Tasha's friend." When Gabi didn't reply immediately, the woman continued, "I'm an anthropologist who studies, among other things, people with extended senses."

"Oh, come in," Gabi said. "I’m Gabi. This is Brett."

Brett waved a floury hand from across the small kitchen space. Lerato stepped inside saying, "Pleased to meet you, Brett." She had a sparkly white smile that made Gabi a little jealous, but she loved the way the anthropologist's earrings tinkled and her skirt rustled.

"There's also Joe," Gabi said, as Joe passed through the room, picking up a tote bag as Lerato set down a purse nearly the same size.

Joe stopped with an appraising gaze, even though Lerato was probably twice his age. She was kind of stunning. "Pleased to meet you. Unfortunately, I'm on my way out."

Although she hadn't really been angry with him before, Gabi was pleased to hear Joe was leaving now.

Once Joe was out the door, Brett said over his shoulder to Lerato, "Care to stay for lunch? I'm making chicken and dumplings."

Lerato walked close to where Brett was working, very close so she was peering around his shoulder. Gabi found herself across the room and beside them without really thinking about it.

"Is that American?" Lerato asked.

"Yeah, I guess," Brett said.

Gabi smiled, trying not to hover. "Funny, I always thought of it as Southern, but that doesn't make much sense when we're at the southern tip of a whole other continent now."

There was a pause, then Brett said to Lerato, "Your accent is different from most students at the dig. Are you South African?"

"You mean it's stronger or you're studying dialects?"

Brett shrugged.

"I grew up on the eastern coast, near Swaziland. My ancestry is Zulu, but I spend time with lots of rural groups, so my accent slides around."

"And languages?" Brett asked.

"A little of most things spoken in South Africa, and you?"

"I'm only fluent in a couple of languages, but pick bits up, and I was studying the intersection of psychology and linguistics for a while."

Gabi noticed the moment Lerato looked at her, saw her hovering on Brett's other side. Somehow it was a relief when the other woman took a step back and said, "You're the one who held Gabi's hand when she was sniffing out plants?"

Gabi felt her face flush, but Brett just said, "Yep."

"I'd love to stay for lunch, if neither of you mind."

It was only toward the end of lunch that Brett got Lerato talking about her research. "There are stories from different tribes of people with one or more heightened senses, senses that might only be extended when needed or when requested, or to protect and benefit the tribe. I haven't found a similar story tradition in Europe or North America, but that sort of research isn't really my strong point. I'm mostly trying to documents tribal knowledge here before too much is lost."

"My father was South African," Gabi said. She'd been thinking it since she met Lerato. Part of her mind thought it was silly to bring it up, but a louder part thought it might help Lerato's research, and maybe she could help Gabi.

"Really, what tribe?"

"His name was Thabo. Someone here told me that was Tswana. I don't know much about him other than this picture." Gabi pulled the picture from her purse, sliding a finger across her phone in passing.

"This is the Cheetah Center up by Pretoria?"

Gabi nodded.

"That would be near Tswana areas. Are you trying to find out more about him? Would you know if he had unusual senses?"

"You and your friend, Dr. Matteoli, are the first people to suspect I have unusual senses, so I'd hardly know that about him. However, some comments from my mother made me think he might have a seizure disorder like my own, with absence seizures, and I've thought sometimes those might be triggered by my senses."

Gabi felt like she'd just flayed herself open. Brett was looking at her a little wide-eyed, as if he understood or maybe wanted to. Lerato took it all in and lifted the picture as if it were her due.

"May I photograph the picture?"

"Okay," Gabi said.

"I must admit you surprise me. Tasha didn't mention your heritage or your seizures at all. I came to share stories with you, but now I'm wondering if you'd sit for a few measurements with me first. It wouldn't take long, and I have everything we'd need in my bag."

Gabi nodded. Brett started to clear the table as Lerato retrieved her large shoulder bag and started unloading little glass bottles numbered one through twenty. She pulled out a stenography pad and said, "If you're willing to smell each of those and tell me what you think, that's the most obvious measure for you."

Gabi opened bottle one and with barely an effort said, "salt water." She recognized some scent with about half the bottles, although one she could only call "floral" and one "fruity, kind of sweet and sour." She wasn't too worried about triggering a seizure while focusing on scents in her own living room, but she didn't push herself as hard as possible either.

Then Lerato asked if Gabi could try the whole set again while touching Brett.

"Why?" Gabi asked as Brett came back to the table and sat down. Gabi suspected he'd just been staying out of the way in the kitchen while taking in the whole experiment. If Gabi were honest, she'd been feeling more than a little nervous and freakish, which somehow made her want to touch or talk to Brett, although it wasn't quite the feeling weird or possibly sick that she'd promised to tell him about.

"Some of the stories that tell about people with extraordinary senses also tell of them having Companions who keep them grounded in this mortal plain. With your talk of seizures and the way you two are together, I thought there might be something like that."

"The way we are together?" Gabi asked.

"You look at him a lot, and he looks at you, but not the way lovers would, unless I miss my guess. Also, when I first stood by him at the stove, you started getting all protective. Then while you were smelling the samples just now, he was too worried to keep his eyes on what he was tidying."

Gabi wondered how true Lerato's observations were. What she said certainly sounded observant, sort of in the way Brett tended to be observant.

"Have you ever thought you might be one of those grounding people?" Gabi asked, and was pleased by Lerato's startled expression. It was the first real slip in composure she'd seen from the older woman. Gabi saw Brett notice it, too, which pleased her again.

"You keep making me revise my estimation of you," Lerato said. "But if you don't mind, I'd really like to know more about you before I bias your replies with my own thoughts. You're scientists. You understand that."

"Confidentiality?"

"Whatever you want. It's not like I'm publishing a formal paper."

"I'm okay with trying. What about you, Brett?"

"I think I've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone, but I'm good with trying. Am I just supposed to sit here?"

"Whatever works for Gabi." The anthropologist opened her notebook again.

"I guess I held your hand last time," Gabi said.

Brett reached across the table and took her hand with a warm squeeze. Gabi felt the touch relax her almost as well as the backrub he'd given her on the couch a few days before.

Then Gabi looked at the first little bottle and realized she couldn't unscrew the top one handed. "Maybe you could hold my wrist so I could still open the bottles."

Brett slid his hand to her wrist, stroking the inside pulse point once and then just resting, and Gabi wondered if Brett had already learned what sort of touch she'd like or if she'd learned to like the way he touched her. Either way, the bizarreness of the situation was replaced by comfort and curiosity as Gabi unscrewed the first bottle.

"You want to try?" she asked Brett.

"Okay."

She held it under his nose, but he just shook his head. Gabi sniffed and said, "Still smells like salt water to me."

As they moved through the twenty samples, Brett denied smelling anything. Gabi was able to smell something from each now, and she still didn't feel like she was pushing herself. It was just easier to smell until she found something when she had Brett holding her wrist.

When they finished Gabi said, "That was weird."

"I think it's cool, like super powers," Brett said.

"That's what's weird though. It's like something that was kind of alienating and potentially dangerous is being recast as an ability that can be controlled and improved. And well, it does seem a lot more positive, though not much of a super power." Even as she said it, Gabi wondered if she should admit to hearing things she knew others couldn't hear. That was the only part that had ever felt like a super power before, but it was also the part she most worried about keeping secret.

As if she could read her mind, Lerato said, "Tasha also mentioned that someone, maybe Brett, said you had very good hearing. Could we test that?"

Brett looked at her with wide, expectant eyes. It felt disloyal, but Gabi realized she had more to fear from him as far as confidentiality than she probably did from Lerato.

Gabi turned to Lerato, "Can I talk to Brett privately for a moment?"

The anthropologist gave her first obviously fake smile of the day but started to push her chair back saying, "I'll just wait outside."

"No," Gabi stopped her. "You can stay here. Is your hearing mostly normal?"

Lerato nodded, and Gabi stood, shifting her grip so she had Brett by the wrist even as he still held hers. "Come to my room for a minute." She pulled and he followed without pause.

Once her bedroom door was closed behind them, Gabi felt even more unsettled and could barely make herself release Brett's wrist. But she let go and he did, too. She couldn't meet his eyes as she said, "Look, Brett, right now I really like you and want to trust you. But realistically, people tend to like me for two months to two years. Then they lose interest, and sometimes it's bad. I don't think anyone can promise not to lose interest or not to get angry or vengeful even. But do you think you could promise not to ever tell anything about my senses, whatever it is we learn here?"

"I promise," Brett said.

"I need you to really think about it and mean it. This matters a lot to me."

Brett touched her arm and she froze, but he didn't pull his hand away. "Look at me," he said.

She had to force her eyes to meet his, and she was sure he'd know how scared she was with just a glance. "It makes me angry to see how much some other people have hurt you, but heck, I've never had anyone significant stay in my life for even two years, so I get what you mean. I can promise not to tell about whatever this is, and I mean it."

Gabi felt something like love and terror mixed up inside her, and rather than cry she hugged Brett. He hugged back and pressed his head against hers, and they stayed like that for at least a couple minutes. His heartbeat was steady throughout, but Gabi heard her own heart racing and focused on slowing that down as a way to calm herself. That too seemed to be easier while touching Brett.

"Okay," she stepped back, "Let's do this."

When they walked back to the common room and sat at the table, Lerato said, "So were you deciding to mislead me or to be honest?"

"To be honest. Do you see this a lot?"

"Not too often, but you were kind of obvious." Lerato still looked a little unhappy.

"I've known Brett less than a month," Gabi said, "and I've never talked to him or anyone else about any of this."

"Oh." Lerato smiled a more sincere little smile. "That changes my point of view."

With that the anthropologist pulled what looked like an oversized iPod out of her bag and hooked up large padded earphones rather than earbuds. "I need you to put these on and say aloud any words you hear. If it's okay with you, I'll signal Brett partway through, and we'll see if the results change if he holds your hand or wrist or whatever."

"Okay, but this is the sort of thing where if I try too hard I might trigger a seizure. I'm willing to risk that, but when I'm absent, I won't respond to anything, which might mess with your data."

"How long do the seizures last?"

"Usually less than a minute, but the one when I found the fynbos was more like an hour. Brett might be able to bring me out of it with touch or removing the headphones and talking to me." Lerato was taking notes. "If it matters, the smell of him and his hair when he gets closer might also help bring me out of a seizure."

"My hair?" Brett asked.

"It smells like aloe and eucalyptus." He blushed and Gabi didn't know why, but she wanted to reassure him. "I like the smell, but it's kind of unusual, so it was one of the first things I noticed about you."

"You can't smell it, right?" Brett turned to ask Lerato.

She laughed the way an adult might laugh at a cute kid or puppy. Then she calmed and said, "I hadn't noticed it at all, and Gabi's sense of smell tested as much more acute than normal, even without your help. For the sound test, why don't we have Gabi try as hard as she's comfortable on her own. If she has an absence seizure that lasts more than thirty seconds, we'll see if you touching her ends it. If so, we'll just continue testing with touch. If not, we'll stop the test and you do whatever you need to. Does that sound reasonable?"

Gabi and Brett both nodded. Then Gabi put on the large headphones, closed her eyes and listened. When she heard the words "nu means mouse" she repeated them out loud. They gave her a starting point and she listened as if checking for fainter voices in the background. She recited "cop coon is a way to say thank you." Then somewhere around the fourth or fifth phrase she felt herself in danger of seizing.

She tried to back off from listening, but the next thing she knew was Brett's thumb stroking her wrist, and sure enough, she could smell him and his hair stuff. She couldn't hear his heartbeat, realized that was due to the earphones, and then she heard a faint phrase and repeated, "dee mock means very good."

She knew the test was over when the headphones were lifted from her head. Opening her eyes, Gabi saw Lerato taking the headphones and Brett holding her wrist and smiling.

"Did you know your eyelashes vibrate during your little seizures?" Brett asked.

"No one ever told me that, but it might not be the same all the time."

"It happened at the chocolate shop, too."

"Oh," Gabi didn't know what else to say. It seemed like something she should know, but as usual with such things, it was both pleasant and disturbing to think of Brett paying that much attention to her.

"You didn't recognize the language taught on the recording, did you?" Lerato asked.

"No, what was it?"

"Thai. No one here has recognized it, so I use it for this, but I realize the Thai population is greater in the United States."

"If they'd talked about food I might have had a slim chance, but that's about it."

"That shouldn't be enough to matter. I took down your pronunciation phonetically, since it makes a better test than words you could partially guess. I will say, you didn't show any sense of tone. I'm guessing you haven't studied a tone based language or much music."

"Not really."

Brett said, "I bet I could get the tones if I could only hear it."

Gabi tilted her head to encourage him, and Brett said, "I've studied Mandarin and several string instruments."

"I should learn more about you at some point," Gabi said.

Lerato smiled indulgently again and asked, "You willing to try this for your other senses?"

"At the end will you tell me how I did?"

"I don't really have standardized scoring, but I think it would be only fair for me to answer whatever you want to ask about then."

"Okay, bring it on."

The vision test involved words and symbols hidden within what appeared to be plain black lines in a picture. The touch test used a cotton swab and a regular sewing needle. The taste test came last and Gabi thought all the infused piece of paper tasted awful without any assisting touch from Brett.

"Can I rinse my mouth or brush my teeth or something before we do that again?" Gabi asked.

"Go ahead and brush your teeth or whatever. I don't think that's worth doing again because you identified everything well enough, and I don't have any fainter samples."

Gabi rushed off to the bathroom with relief.

When she came back, Brett asked her if she'd like not tea or hot chocolate.

"You have hot chocolate?" Gabi asked, and Brett just smiled.

"What's 'not tea'?" Lerato asked.

"Just hot water, milk, and sugar," Brett answered.

"You don't like tea?" Lerato asked Gabi.

"Not tea, coffee, or soda. Just hot chocolate, real juice, water, and sometimes milk."

"You seemed strongly reactive to tastes. Is that ever a problem with water or food?"

"Some water is disgusting, but mostly I learn the regional variations, just like the smell of the air, and I think I tune it out of my senses if I'm around something stinky or loud or whatever for long enough. Milk is probably the riskiest of things I drink. Sometimes it seems a little off or has extra tastes I can't ignore."

"How long have you known that you were more sensitive than most people to such things?"

"Always?" Gabi shrugged. "I've been told I reacted badly to almost all touch as a baby and small child, but now that's the sense that gives me the least trouble. I might startle sometimes, but I don't remember ever having a seizure triggered by touch."

Brett looked over from the stove, looking sort of sad but like he needed permission to speak.

Gabi went over to him and asked, "What?"

"You still seem to mostly hate being touched." He looked very concerned as he said it, so she reached out and squeezed his wrist, a reversal that made him smile.

"I think that's mostly for other reasons," Gabi said, "but I guess it could have roots in my childhood and all this stuff. There was a time when I cut the tags out of all my clothing and couldn't stand to wear jeans or socks."

"But you're never barefoot now!"

Brett's startled indignation made her laugh. "Socks were a whole lot better once I started shaving my legs." Then she held out her foot to wiggle her fuzzy slipper sock, purple today. "And I really like these. They're made with bamboo and lycra."

"You don't mind if I take notes on some of this, do you?" Lerato asked, pad in hand.

"I just don't want any of it connected to me. I consider this all very private."

"No names. I won't even identify you as American."

Soon they all sat down again, this time with hot chocolate.

"This is good chocolate," Gabi said as the taste saturated her tongue.

"Local and organic," Brett smiled.

"You're nearly too good to be true," Gabi said as she sipped.

Brett blushed and said, "You're the one who turned out to have super powers."

After a pause, Lerato said, "I can't prove it, but what you're doing with touch, Brett, may be as unusual as what Gabi does with her senses. It's harder to study and measure."

"Because it's only useful if I have someone like Gabi to assist?" Brett raised an eyebrow and slumped back in his chair, but Gabi thought some of his skepticism was an act. His heart rate speeding up seemed to confirm it, and she wondered if it was an invasion of privacy when she monitored his autonomic reactions that way.

"Earlier Gabi asked if I was like you, like the Companions in stories who keep those with heightened senses grounded in the mortal world. I waited to answer, because this part becomes complicated and differs more between stories or traditions. In the stories that mention Companions, they may be referred to as shaman or witches or healers who see spirits or demons. They may act as Guide to the tribal Guardian both in a spiritual plain and in bringing her or him back to what we call reality. This is, of course, much harder to study than heightened sensory abilities. So I don't really measure it, but I collect what information I can, and others have suggested I might have some affinity that way as well."

"So there's nothing specific or testable these Companions or shaman can supposedly do?" Brett asked, still sitting back in his chair but missing casual by a mile.

From the bunched-up, close-mouthed smile Lerato gave Brett, Gabi guessed he wasn’t fooling her either.

"Some stories make claims about psychic abilities or transforming into animal forms, but I haven't met any living person who claimed those abilities in a testable way. A few have claimed they could send their animal spirits to warn others, especially if they were bonded to a Guardian, but then they claim the spirits can't be ordered around lightly, for a test. Of course, any real life situation has too many variables to verify that a message couldn't have been sent or guessed some other way."

"When you say bonded to a Guardian, what does that mean?" Gabi asked.

"I have one good story recording I could leave you for that, and you might even want to visit the storyteller I recorded. He keeps a sort of folk library. But again, the various traditions disagree about bonding, and the meaning is vague and hard to test. In those communities where Guardians are believed to work better with a Companion to ground them, some believe a specific Guardian is born with a bond to a specific Companion. Others believe any suitable person or shaman can be bound to a Guardian, sometimes though ritual, sometime through sex or marriage, sometimes by one saving the life of the other."

"And a Guardian means someone with heightened senses?"

"It's one of the terms used. Such people are often seen as protectors who watch over their people."

"Huh, maybe that's my problem, I don't have any people," Gabi said.

Brett wrinkled his nose. "You were pretty determined to take care of me when I was sick. You said you'd always wanted to take care of someone."

"Yeah, I did." Gabi wondered if she could live up to what Brett saw in her. In some ways he seemed to know her better than she knew herself, but each detail he noticed both pleased and intimidated her.

Lerato jotted another note in her pad. Then when no one spoke for a bit, she pulled out her computer and a flash drive. "Here, I'll copy a couple of stories for you, and the current location of the storyteller with the collection of folk tales. He doesn't have a phone or anything, but if you want to visit, just bring a gift of food or something and try to act respectful. You can tell him I shared his whereabouts and stories. He'll be fine with that. I wish I could give you more answers about your abilities, Gabi. They all tested at least twice as strong with Brett assisting. Your taste without help blew my test away, and your hearing was maxing out the test with Brett's touch."

Gabi nodded and thanked her. Once Gabi had copied the information onto her laptop, they said their goodbyes. When the door was shut and they were alone, Brett held out his arms and Gabi let him hug her.

"I like this hug thing," Gabi said, hugging him back.

"Okay," was all Brett said.

Gabi didn't know whether to be comforted that it was that simple to Brett or to be insecure because it didn't mean as much to him, while the simple gesture cut deep into her in a way she found more than a little bit frightening. She wondered if rather than being the safest of her senses touch might be the most dangerous after all.

#

Lerato left. Gabi went to her room and didn't come out for hours. When it was well past their usual dinner time, Brett reheated some chicken and dumplings and went to knock on her door.

"I'm not ready," she called from the other side of the door.

"Ready for what?"

"I'm catching up on my alone time."

"I brought you food."

She opened the door, "It feels like the part of hide and seek where someone yells 'ready or not here I come.'"

"How about if I say 'Olly olly oxen free' and you stop hiding."

She reached for the bowl, and he pulled it back just a bit.

He said, "Either come out to eat or let me come in. Let me at least hear the storyteller recording."

Gabi looked down, and her posture said no, but she walked back into the room, letting him follow her.

She pulled out the chair at her desk, brought forward a folder labeled Lerato, and motioned him to sit.

He handed her the bowl of chicken and dumplings, and she silently took it to her bed. She sat and ate without another word or another look in his direction.

Brett pressed play on the first audio file, and an old man's voice with an almost musical tone filled the room. Despite understanding the words and finding the voice captivating, Brett had trouble relating to the story. It told about a group of young people on a journey to find another young person. The travelers were named after salt and pepper and other spices, and they were sort of mean to one they called stinky. Then at the end of the journey, stinky was the one who was kind to an old man, and thereby learned what was needed to be accepted by the young man they sought. It was a classic morality tale, and it referred to taste and smell indirectly, but none of the characters seemed to have heightened senses. He guessed smelly could be a Guardian first being selected by a Companion. If this were the sort of source material Lerato had to work with, Brett didn't envy her job as an anthropologist.

Brett asked Gabi, "Am I missing something here?"

Gabi just shrugged.

The second story actually used the word Guardian to refer to a boy who warned his hunting party when he heard hyenas, lost himself in the spirit plane, and found his way back with a spirit plane aardvark following the scent of herbs that the village shaman used. Next he warned the village about an elephant stampede using heightened sight, but lost himself and was nearly trampled. This time the shaman held him tight behind a rock and a python led him back through the spirit plane. He warned of tainted food by smell and poisoned water by taste, being rescued by seeing and hearing the shaman and being guided by a spirit falcon and wild dog respectively.

Brett would have commented on the noises of the wild dog showing up in folk lore, but when he looked at Gabi, she only stared at her bowl.

The final part of the story told how the Guardian felt the earth begin to shake and called children away from a cliff before it crumbled. Then a zebra in the spirit plane guided him back, using its excellent sense of taste to find the best grass for grazing. The Guardian woke to the taste of his shaman's mouth in a deep, drawn out kiss. Then the shaman announced to the tribe that they were bound for life and the Guardian would never be lost where the shaman could not find him.

Both the shaman and Guardian were male, and Brett appreciated the romantic ending and the implied acceptance of the storyteller and the tribe in the story.

He looked over to Gabi who was scowling at her half finished meal, and it pretty much killed the mood. For a moment he resented her negativity and distrust. Then he remembered how boring his summer would be without her and how kind she had been while he was sick. The good and bad of Gabi were too entwined to wish for one part without the other.

Brett went to sit next to her on the bed, and Gabi pulled her bowl close to her as if it were a shield.

"Okay, Gabi, what's wrong?"

Her mouth dropped open, and she looked at him as if he was stupid.

He looked squarely back at her and waited.

Finally she asked, "You're saying that second story didn't freak you out at all?"

"No, I kind of liked it. Not too many folk tales with a boy gets boy ending, you know?"

"But I'm not a boy," Gabi mumbled.

"And you aren't protecting a tribe from wild animals and natural disasters either. It's just a story."

"But both end up with the Guardian and Companion stuck with each other at the end."

Brett thought back to the first story and realized that might be a reasonable conclusion, although he hadn't focused on that part himself. "So you're worried about your independence or you're worried I won't stick around?"

Gabi glared at him and went back to eating her dinner. He watched her eat, and when she finished he set the bowl aside and put an arm across her back. She tensed, and he waited for her to relax, but instead she scrunched her eyes shut such that her whole face tightened up like a fist.

"Okay," he said and removed his arm.

"What does that even mean?" she practically whined.

"What does 'okay' mean? In this case, it means I'm accepting that you don't want to be touched right now."

"And also when I said I liked the hug earlier?"

"I was accepting that you liked the hug then?"

"So you just say 'okay' and accept things and never say how you feel or what you want?"

"This should be funny. Chris gets annoyed at me for saying mushy stuff or being a romantic, and you point out how much I don't say."

"Maybe you're different with him."

"I wish that was it."

Gabi looked up. "So what are you saying? You wish he wanted to hear the sappy, romantic, honest stuff that you wanted to say?"

Brett shrugged, wondering if that was what he wanted and wondering why he was discussing it with Gabi.

"I'm really trying to think well of this guy, Chris, because you clearly care a lot. But sometimes I want to pin him down and tell him off for not appreciating you enough."

Brett did a double take looking at Gabi's strangely fierce expression. He imagined her pinning down Chris, who was a lot beefier and stronger than Brett. Brett wouldn't be able to pin Chris down himself, except as a part of sex when Chris might let him. But imagining a lightweight like Gabi pinning Chris down in a rage made him snort and then laugh out loud.

Finally, when the laughter passed and Gabi just looked at him as if he was crazy, he said, "Thanks."

#

It took Gabi a moment to remember what he was thanking her for. She still had trouble imagining how Chris and Brett related to each other. How could anyone care about Brett and not want him to express himself? How could Chris not want to hear how much Brett cared about him?

"What would be perfect," Gabi said, "is if people could say and do whatever, honestly, and other people would just say if it was a problem."

"Okay."

Gabi ground her teeth together and refrained from growling at him. "What do you mean by 'okay'?"

"Let's try it."

Gabi opened her mouth, but for once she had no words.

"I want you to trust me, and I'm trying to earn your trust. I can't promise I'll always be there for you, but I like the idea of being like a brother and being there for you as much as I can, indefinitely."

"You really are a romantic."

He threw his head back with a smile that looked pained. Gabi wanted to reach out and touch him, but hesitated and then couldn't make her hand move.

"I think it's a good thing," Gabi said. "Hearing you say how you'd like things to work out feels good, like when you touch me, or like just having you there."

Brett tilted his head to meet her eyes again, and she knew she had his full attention. "I kind of hate to play the cynic to your romantic, but we each have one more year at Bay Tech, then we'll probably end up in different parts of the country if not the world. Maybe we'll keep in touch by text or email. Honestly, I doubt it, since everyone gets bored with me in two years or less, and you said you hadn't had any relationships longer than that. But even if you kept in touch through some brotherly bond or obligation—"

She realized what she'd said and started freaking out all over again.

Brett reached out with one hand taking her wrist and the other on the back of her neck, he pulled her tight against his side, and she felt her panic drain away.

"That's almost creepy. You know just how to touch me, and I calm down whether I want to or not. What if we're already bonded? I could make arguments for every sense but taste. What if you keep in touch with me because there's some weird imperative involved, but it just causes us both problems because we'll have different careers and you at least have a boyfriend."

"What if this works for now? What if I actually want to keep in touch with you and you with me? Maybe the whole bond thing is just a metaphor for having someone you can trust and depend on. Or maybe you'll find someone later who you connect to differently or even better. Lerato said the stories were all different. We can find our own way to work with this."

"For you it's just a game, playing with mythical powers you'd never thought of in your life. For me it's seizures that are getting worse and more frequent, and I don't see any spirit plane with helpful animals to lead me back. I don’t have a boyfriend or girlfriend or anyone to go back to. Instead you've shown me everything I want but can't expect to have."

"Don't say that." Brett pulled her closer, and she not only let him but seemed to melt into him. "You'll find someone to love you. What do you mean the seizures are getting worse?"

"Since I was fifteen and got recruited by Bay Tech, I thought I was outgrowing them or learning to control or limit them. But this year they kept getting worse. That's why I took this crazy chance to come to South Africa and try to find my father and maybe learn more. I had so much more studying and research I could have done, and PhD programs I could have researched and visited. Instead, I'm here barely keeping up on the physics journals I get electronically and gathering semi-useful proof of concept data for my master's thesis. And what's scary is when you touch me or bring me food or say I'm like your sister, I fall down the rabbit hole and for those moments I really like it. Then the rest of the time I miss it, and I want to reach out to you, but I don't feel I can."

"But you can. We just agreed to be honest and say and do whatever."

"Part of me wants to fall down the rabbit hole and stay where I'm touching and smelling and hearing and seeing you all the time. I don’t know if I could kiss you, if that taste would release me from wanting so badly or if it would bind me to you such that I wouldn't care about my research or my independence or anything else."

Brett pulled her closer, up against his chest, and stroked her back. "Okay, I'll admit that at some point I worried you'd fall for me and it would be a problem when I couldn't return all your feelings. But I guess you are some kind of genius, because you've come up with a much more creative and involved sort of freak out than I ever imagined."

Gabi sank into the touch and let Brett hold her until she couldn't bear the silence anymore. "Tell me you're going to state some opinion on what comes next and this isn't another 'okay' moment."

Brett ran the hand on her back up into her hair, and while she heard his heart beat faster, she didn't smell any panic or fear. "You can't expect me to have real answers. Maybe I'd like to be a wise shaman, but as you said, I'm really new to all this. I don't think we should jump into anything, and while I'm not sure I even believe in 'bonding,' we saw that you did better using your senses when I was touching you and I seem to be able to help with the seizures, at least sometimes. So there's something real going on here. I want to find out more along with you, and I'm probably willing to try whatever you ask, but I don’t want to risk trapping you somehow or scarring you emotionally."

"I think I'm a little bit in love with you." Gabi knew it was a risky thing to say, but if she didn't she'd just keep thinking it and know she couldn't be honest about anything else.

After a while Brett said, "My first reaction was to say, 'okay,' but you've taught me better already." His teasing tone released some fear she'd barely been aware of, and all of a sudden she could breathe easily and the air tasted clean and sweet.

"What I said about words and definitions before, I still don't like them." He combed fingers along her scalp and she wanted to purr like a cat. "Whatever I feel for you is crazy, like falling in love, given how few days I've known you. Yeah, it's probably more of a brotherly love, but then I would have known you your whole life and not just be falling into it like this. I like touching you and being touched by you. Maybe it doesn't mean as much to me as to you, but I've been skin starved before. I can remember and empathize. I don't think I'd mind you touching me as much as you want, if you can deal with how other people will see it and if you can deal with it not being a sexual thing for me. I don't know about kissing. It wouldn't be a hardship for me, but I'd kind of like you to hold out for someone it could mean more to, someone worthy of all that kiss could be. And yes, that is exactly the sort of sappy, romantic thing I've been trying to teach myself not to ever say out loud, so let's look up where that library is before I die of embarrassment."

Gabi laughed against his chest, then said "okay," then laughed some more.

Brett caught the laughter from her and ended up pulling her over to the computer, where they looked up the storyteller's address and realized they could get there by bus in under an hour. They made plans for the next day, and Gabi kept at least a hand touching Brett as they planned. Everything seemed to be more than okay.

#

June 27, Antarctica

Rodney woke to a pounding knock on his door. John threw himself off the bed into a protective stance between Rodney and the noise, still completely naked. The beaver and raven both lifted their heads and looked around alertly, while the wolf and jaguar still curled in front of the door barely twitched their ears and half opened their eyes.

Rodney went from deeply awed that he could still see all the animals to deeply annoyed as he heard O'Neill say through the door. "Both you and Sheppard better be in the conference room in ten minutes for a briefing and breakfast, or so help me, I am eating that pie."

As Rodney and John hurried to wash themselves off at the sink, since the showers were shared and usage severely limited in the under ice outpost, the raven flapped up to its nest and the beaver started rushing around the base of its construction, for all the world looking like an engineer checking his work. Rodney suppressed a smile, never having admitted to the charms of certain LOLcats either. He offered John his choice of clean undershirts and shorts, in case the previous days clothes bothered him.

#

John sniffed the clothes he'd stripped off yesterday and decided they were fine. Since being recruited to help at the ancient outpost, he'd worn identical black uniform pants and one of the two fleeces he owned every day, so he doubted anyone would notice. Then he remembered what Rodney had said about the other ATA carriers also being Sentinels and realized they might be able to tell quite a lot with heightened smell. He was very glad Don't Ask Don't Tell was, at least officially, a thing of the past.

As he pulled on his boots, he noticed the raven was picking at the crystals lining his nest, and the beaver seemed to be pushing itself into a tight weave of sticks near the floor. As John stood up from the bed, the raven hopped up to grab a perch at the very top and gave one enormous flap of his wings.

The towering snowflake structure lifted smoothly with the beaver securely fastened in at the base, and the raven flew it right through the closed door.

Rodney immediately palmed the door open, chasing the flying structure and muttering, "This would defy several laws of physics if any of this physically existed."

"That take off shouldn't have provided enough lift either." John was relieved and a bit disturbed to know Rodney could see the hallucinatory animals now. Still, he was right on his Guide's heels as they chased the vision down the hall until it passed through a solid wall. He turned to see two men standing behind them. From the way the larger man stared at the dead end, as if he'd seen what just flew through it, and from the way the wolf and jaguar stood beside him and the smaller, long-haired man, John guessed this was the other Sentinel and Guide pair Rodney had mentioned.

Before John could think of anything to say, Rodney sprinted out to the control room and started pounding on control consoles near the chair shouting, "Did any of our instruments pick that up? Are we tracking anything outgoing?"

After a few minutes of scientific hub-bub, O'Neill came through and herded them all to the conference room where there was in fact a whole pie as well as the usual reconstituted eggs and oatmeal. John smirked when no one in the room interrupted as Rodney belabored the inadequacies of Ancient equipment while serving nearly a quarter of the pie onto his plate along with a generous pile of scrambled eggs.

When the rest of the room pounced on the remaining pie, John almost lost a hand before successfully nabbing his own slice. The pie appeared to be apple or maybe apple with peach. Either way, John had to force himself to put other breakfast foods on his plate. Any pie was guaranteed to be better than the usual reconstituted mush served on base. The others seemed to have left him a seat next to Rodney, so John sat down and used his food as an excuse to avoid looking at anyone.

Of course, it only took a few minutes for the others to perform introductions (mostly for his benefit, he gathered) and summarize the emergency call O'Neill had received and their deductions that John was a Sentinel who had zoned and Rodney was his Guide. Then the colonel was asking John, "Now, Major, we'd like to hear your version of the incident in the chair yesterday, this Sentinel-Guide business, and whatever the hell happened this morning."

"Well," John started, "what you all said sounds about right to me."

"Major!"

John sat up straighter before he could stop himself then leaned back into a more controlled slouch. "I guess what happened in the chair could have been a zone. I don't really remember much except it didn't want to show me whatever the other scientists were asking about. Then McKay talked me out of it and taught me the trick with using number to adjust my senses, and that seems to mostly work. If that's what it means to be a Sentinel and Guide, then okay."

"Are you having any trouble with your senses now?" the smaller man, the wolf Guide, asked.

"Nope."

"Had you been before?"

"Um, maybe in the chair."

"Definitely in the chair," Rodney said and went on to describe how he spoke or touched John's hand to keep him present. Then he gave a long explanation about the crack in the ceiling and John zooming in on his crystal drawings while in the chair.

John was disappointed at the end of it all that O'Neill still remembered the rest of his question.

"And what happened this morning?"

When John hesitated and Rodney opened his mouth instead, O'Neill slid in with a rising tone that brokered no disagreement, "Major?"

"Well, sir," John licked his lips and noticed as Rodney's eyes flicked to his mouth for a moment. It would have amused John under any other circumstances. "It started with this raven, except at first I just caught flashes of black out of the corner of my eye, and obviously there couldn't be a bird down here, so I tried to ignore it."

"How long has this been going on?"

"A few weeks, possibly since the second or third time I sat in the control chair."

"Right. And it didn't occur to you that this might be a problem, something you should talk to a commanding officer or the base shrink about?"

"We have a base shrink?"

O'Neill scowled. "Continue."

"Well, the raven might have been a bit more obvious the day it pointed out the crack in the ceiling, and then it started building a nest on McKay's file cabinet. When I saw the crystals in the nest, that's when I told McKay that the sketches I'd made in sets of three might be crystal structures."

"And did you tell McKay about the raven?"

"No, sir."

"Don't 'no, sir' me. Just tell the whole story."

John definitely didn't think that would be a good idea, regardless of current military policy. "I thought maybe it was just, you know, my mind's way of telling me something I'd figured out myself, like maybe I was tired and daydreaming or something."

"And this morning?"

"I don't know. All of a sudden McKay seemed to see it when the raven flew this giant stick structure out of the room. And he'd told me that another Sentinel had asked what the animals were building in the corner. So, well, they just flew through a door and then a wall."

"They?"

"The raven flew it, the beaver was in some sort of riding harness at the bottom, and the wolf and jaguar who'd been guarding the door seemed to follow along to watch."

There was no way John was going to look at whatever expression was on O'Neill's face or anyone else's. The silence stretched.

"God dammit," O'Neill muttered. "Can anyone here explain this so I know what to write in my report?"

There was some sort of scuffle under the table, and John was pretty sure one of the new guys had just kicked the other.

"I saw the whole structure and the animals yesterday when I helped McKay with the major. I asked McKay to ask him about it later. From what Blair and a shaman named Incacha have told me, I'd say the jaguar is my spirit animal, the wolf is Blair's, so the other two probably go with McKay and Sheppard."

Jackson, who hadn't spoken all morning, suddenly sat forward saying, "You see spirit animals? Numerous cultures from Africa to the Americas have developed seemingly independent mythos involving spirit animals. How often do you see them, and do they always go with a specific person?"

The other Sentinel, Ellison, was now twirling his fork through the remains of his eggs and pie. John appreciated the gesture as the man answered without looking up, "Mostly I see my jaguar, sometimes with Blair's wolf. There was another Sentinel we met who had a spotted jaguar. That's all I'd seen until last night when I saw the bird and beaver and the huge stick city they built."

Jackson asked, "Blair, did you know about this?"

"Yes, of course."

"Can you see spirit animals, too?"

The Guide shook his head, for all the world as if he was sad about it, or maybe sorry to admit it. John wished he could give the guy his visions. He didn't want to worry about seeing imaginary animals. He couldn't bear to be taken off duty as a pilot.

"Still," Jackson said in a quiet but stern whisper, "This might be relevant to the Sentinel project. Don't you agree?

"I have no idea how we're going to test for it, and I didn't want to make claims that couldn't be supported with hard evidence."

Jackson nodded to O'Neill and Dr. Beckett. "I don't suppose either of you have caught glimpses of what might be spirit animals?"

Both men shook their heads. O'Neill's posture shifted from commander to schoolboy as he studied Jackson's face. "Don't tell me you're going to make us do more tests."

"We have to try something."

"I told you not to tell me. Anyway," he sat up straighter, "For now you have the major here to run through your whole rigmarole, and I'm sure McKay is itching to get a new Sentinel ATA carrier into the chair. Pie's all gone, dismissed."

#

No one told Jim the chair was going to light up and move as soon as he sat down. He tried to hide his startle, but Blair reached out to cover his hand, which had been discussed as a new sort of protocol, and Jim was sure his Guide had noticed the involuntary twitch.

McKay's voice cut across the room in his usual bossy tone, so Jim guessed he hadn't noticed at least. "Picture where we are in the universe."

Jim tried to picture it in his mind, but if anything happened with the chair, he wasn't noticing it.

"Well, nothing's lighting up above your head, so you'll have to tell us what you see."

Blair squeezed his hand.

"Not seeing anything I couldn't picture in my own head."

"Okay, try not to set anything off, but ask the chair for a list of what you can do."

At first there was nothing, and then a fuzzy image formed in front of him. He tried to zoom and focus the same way he controlled his enhanced vision and soon had a bird's eye view of a city.

"If you need me to, I can keep talking," McKay said from somewhere behind Jim. "But it would be much more efficient if you could provide some sort of running commentary on what you're seeing."

"I'm looking down on a city."

"What city?" Now McKay sounds at least a little bit interested. Jim increased his hearing and heard both Blair's and McKay's hearts beating faster.

Jim zoomed in and said, "There's a river, some train tracks… Hey, that's Cascade… If I zoom in I can see the building where we work, but I can't seem to keep it in focus well enough to identify individual people coming and going."

"Great. His first time in the control chair he tries to spy on the people back home."

"He's a Sentinel checking his territory," Blair answered in a tone that had been known to bring hardened criminals up short.

It didn't seem to affect McKay who said, "The first time Sheppard sat in the chair, it displayed our place in the universe above his head."

"Hey," Jim said, "It just showed me Sheppard's bird flying that stick contraption through space with your beaver."

"Really," McKay's voice and heart rate showed he was getting excited again. "Can it tell you where they are or where they're going?"

Jim tried to frame that as a picture in his mind, tried to picture a path that started from Antarctica on the third planet in their solar system and flew outward, but the chair just showed him a glowing ring and a bunch of animals walking up a ramp to follow the raven through it.

"That's weird."

"What?" McKay asked.

Jim sat up and pulled his hands up from the arms of the chair. "I need to ask Sheppard about something."

#

Blair was caught off guard when Jim jumped out of the control chair to look for Sheppard, but he soon caught up saying, "You can't interrupt. Carson is running his hearing and vision tests."

"I can wait 'til he's done."

"But then they'll need Rodney to stay for the tests with a Guide, and we won't have time to try more in the chair."

"Besides, what can Sheppard answer that I can't?" McKay snapped, catching up to them.

"I need to know more about what spirit animals he saw. Anyway, I don't think the chair wants to work with me."

"Oh no, you're just like that sheep-loving doctor," Rodney complained.

Blair, trying to think like a professional and not be offended that his Sentinel was basically ignoring him said, "Look, Jim, it would be more scientific if you told us whatever you saw before you talk to Sheppard."

Jim stopped at that, and Blair was surprised at the warm burst of respect he felt from just being listened to in that moment.

"Okay, if you want to talk about the spirit animals now, I'm ready to take that trip with you." Jim met Blair's eyes, and Blair knew they were both remembering the day when Jim had said he wasn't ready. It was only McKay's blustery admonitions about how it couldn't really be called science even if they documented everyone's visions of the animals, as he nonetheless produced a pen and paper to take notes, that gave Blair time to recover from the hot and cold feeling Jim's declaration had pulled from him.

The three of them ducked back into the meeting room they'd used earlier and Jim said, "The chair showed me the raven flying through a carved circle that seemed to be filled with water, followed by the beaver and a bunch of other animals I'd never seen before."

"Wait, what did the ring look like?" McKay shot out when Blair was much more interested in asking about the animals. He took a deep, calming breath and waited for Jim to describe the ring.

"Um, I didn't pay that much attention, but it was either metal or very smooth stone with symbols carved around the sides."

"Could you draw any of the symbols?" McKay asked holding out the pad of paper.

"Probably not. Don't you want to hear about the animals?"

"Yes!" Blair answered as McKay gave a reluctant, "Whatever."

"There was a cheetah."

"Not a spotted jaguar?"

"No, definitely a cheetah, and it was standing very close together with a strange sort of bony-looking dog and something that I think was an aardvark. They're the anteaters with sort of rabbit-like ears that live in Africa, right?"

"Sounds like an aardvark," Blair agreed. "What else?"

"Then there was a prairie dog or groundhog or something walking up the ramp with a mongoose. So there were seven animals if you include the raven."

Blair couldn't believe Jim was now telling him and an almost complete stranger about animal visions with barely a hitch. He remembered how Jim had stood quietly by his bed the night before until Blair invited him to lie down. Jim had curled up behind Blair, the total big spoon with all spoon parts touching. He'd shown no embarrassment but also hadn't tried anything further. Blair thought that in addition to writing up a new thesis, he had a lot of personal understandings to reconsider when they got home. For the time being, he tried to pull his professional act together. "Anything else you can remember?"

"Not really."

"We could go back to the chair and try following whatever it seems inclined to show you," Blair suggested.

"Let me check in with O'Neill first. He might want to be in on this." McKay tapped his pen along the spine if the notepad.

"Why?"

"First, I think you're going to have to sign some more non-disclosures."

#

Jim wasn't thrilled to be pressured back into the chair while Sheppard was still off testing with Carson. He wasn't excited to have O'Neill and Daniel hovering along with McKay and Blair, and he certainly wasn't happy about the pile of paperwork they were now expected to sign because he'd accidentally found out about a Stargate that basically teleported people to other planets. His only consolation was that if he'd already signed off on knowing about spaceships, transporter beams, aliens, and Ancients, it probably didn't make any difference how much more he had to not talk about. He wondered if they were really going to let him and Blair go home tomorrow as planned.

When he sat back in the chair, it took him right to his previous view of Cascade, centered on the police department, except the streets around the building had been cleared now and there was an ambulance and fire truck parked outside.

"Wait, is this real time?" Jim asked aloud.

"Do all of you lose the ability to communicate when you sit in that chair?" McKay's clear whine cut through the other's question of "what" and "where."

"Cascade PD. They've cleared the streets, and there's an ambulance and fire engine standing by."

"The chair probably doesn't want to talk to you because you are so small minded."

"McKay!" Someone shushed him, probably Daniel.

Jim identified the voice as definitely Daniel when he said, "We don't exactly have cell reception here, but I'll ask the communications officer to check in with Cascade PD."

Jim opened his eyes, saw his view of Cascade overlaying the real room around him, and rapidly closed his eyes again.

"Ellison," That was O'Neill's voice, "I know you're concerned for your people, but we can't do anything to help them right now. Can you ask the chair to show you the Stargate again?"

The picture in Jim's mind shifted to show a bear and a glowing jellyfish passing through the ring Jim now knew was the Stargate. "This time it's showing me two different animals going through the Stargate."

"To the same place?" O'Neill prompted.

"How would I know?"

"Ask the chair."

Jim tried but the picture didn't change. "I don't think I can get that."

"What are the animals?"

"A glowing jellyfish and a bear. The bear is brown, but I don't know if that makes it a brown bear or a grizzly or what."

"Does the jellyfish look normal?"

"No, it's like it's made of light. Why do you ask?"

"Just try to remember what it looks like and I'll show you something afterward."

"Jim," that was Blair's voice, "Can you ask the chair who the animals are or for any more information?"

"Huh, I think it wants the bear to sit in the chair."

"So probably the bear is a Sentinel."

"It shows the bear shooting something out of the chair, something that looks like a sea animal, maybe a cuttlefish, but I don't think it's an animal."

"A cuttlefish?" O'Neill's voice sounded distinctly non-military as it rose on that question. "I don't even know the difference between cuttlefish and jellyfish. Bet that's why it wants to show you all the animals. Can it tell you about any of the rest?"

Jim had a sudden, bright flash of the raven perched in a very similar chair, except inside the stick structure. It wasn't made of sticks anymore. It was all clean lines and glass and maybe metal. The next thing he knew there was warm friction on his hand and Blair's voice saying, "Jim, can you hear me? Focus in on my voice Jim."

"I’m back," Jim said, without opening his eyes. He lifted his hands off the chair, sensing it was done talking to him anyway.

"Do you need to reset your dials, Jim?"

"Just give me a minute and let me tell you the last thing I saw. It was John's Raven, sitting on a chair very much like this one, but I think it was a different chair. The chair was inside something huge that looked a lot like what the spirit animals made except it was full of light and looked like a city with lots of windows and shiny metal spires. I think the chair was trying to tell us that Sheppard is supposed to use that chair. Maybe the bear is supposed to use this one, but I'm pretty sure it's tired of working with me. It thinks I should go home. Any news on that?"

"Not yet," Daniel answered, and Jim opened his eyes to see Daniel had rejoined the group around the chair.

"Did you hear the part about cuttlefish and jellyfish, Danny-boy?"

"Just the tail end. Time for show and tell?"

O'Neill nodded and Daniel led them to a locked storage room. Once inside, he lifted a tarp off a table and there was a truly alien looking device that did look a bit like the cuttlefish, although the tentacles were much more obviously mechanical than what Jim had seen. He reached out to touch it, and O'Neill slapped his hand away with a gruff, "No touching."

"Does it glow when it's activated?"

Both Daniel and O'Neill nodded.

"Then that's probably the cuttlefish thing that I thought wasn't really an animal when I saw the bear shooting it out of the chair."

"Bear in chair shoots drones in air," O'Neill smirked.

"Careful, Bear-boy," Jackson said.

"Who are you calling a bear?"

"Bear in chair shoots drones in air?" Daniel repeated with a knowing lift of his eyebrows.

"It could be showing him the future or ten thousand years ago."

Jackson gave O'Neill a meaningful look that shut the older man up. Then he turned to Jim and asked, "How glowy and how gelatinous was the jellyfish?"

"I guess it wasn't really gelatinous, but I definitely got the impression it was alive, like the other animals, not like the cuttlefish drones."

"Tell me everything you can remember," Jackson prompted.

Jim closed his eyes and felt Blair's hand rest on his back. Thinking back to years ago when Blair tried to teach him meditation techniques to focus on his sense memories, Jim said, "It was like a ball of light with tentacles of light trailing out of it, and it was floating at eye level with the bear. Did I mention the bear was standing on its hind legs? So the jellyfish looked like it was poised so it could talk to that bear, and its tentacles didn't quite reach the ground."

"Oh shit. Are we going to have to print out non-disclosures for that one, too?" O'Neill shoved his hands in his pockets as he deferred to Daniel.

"The way this is going, they're going to have to be cleared for everything the scientists working here sign for, just to let Blair and Carson finish their research, especially with McKay and his demands."

"Hey, we're going home tomorrow," Jim said, thinking he'd rather go back today and see what was happening at the police station. "I don't suppose you could just beam us back to Cascade once Blair finished the tests on Sheppard?"

"I'll see what I can do," Jack promised. "Let's see if communications has any news for you yet."

#

Blair was on his final tests with Sheppard, fan on and Sheppard's eyes and ears covered, when the door eased open. He was already flashing back to the last time Jim interrupted this test and trying to control his anger when Daniel slipped through, and the look on his face was enough to derail Blair's indignation.

"Sorry," Daniel shrugged. "It took this long to get through to Cascade because a bomb went off at the police department, a couple hours after Jim's vision in the chair of the ambulance and fire truck standing by. Anyway, Jack's making arrangements to beam you and Jim back as soon as you're done here."

Blair froze for a moment, thinking how upset Jim must be. He was sure to think he could have saved his city, or at least the PD, if they'd trusted what he saw in the chair. "I can be done," Blair said. He'd just been retesting for consistency, but he knew how anxious Jim would be. He probably had them both packed already, not that Jim had much of his own to pack. "Can you…" Blair started to ask, glancing briefly at Sheppard.

Daniel nodded, "Go."

#

June 28, South Africa

The hairs on the back of Brett's neck prickled. He felt eyes noticing him and Gabi as they waited for the bus and even once they were seated. The looks were strangely familiar from the way people sometimes watched him with another guy in the states when they held hands, leaned against each other, or even bumped shoulders too often. Today Gabi held his hand, but he'd seen far greater public displays of affection since arriving in South Africa, and she was a girl with a guy. It wasn't until he looked at her again, leaning against the bus window, looked at her hand in his that he thought of skin color. In a place where most people were either very dark or else very light skinned like Brett, Gabi was light for her mixed heritage but very obviously mixed. He wasn't sure if she would have drawn looks regardless of who she was with or only because he was so fair. There was no way he would point it out to Gabi if she didn't notice on her own, but it gave him a different perspective on race in South Africa. Overall, he still thought attitudes were better than in many parts of Oakland, but the differences taunted him.

#

Gabi moved toward the concrete RDP house at speed, eager to meet the storyteller, identified as Noko on the recording. Brett's hand was warm and steady, and he seemed happy to let her hold on as long as she wanted. Strangely enough, she found she wanted to hold on.

Then at the door Brett surprised her by greeting the storyteller in another language and dipping his head. The old man showed no surprise but returned the greeting and then switched to English to say, "Welcome, you may call me Noko."

"We're so pleased to meet you. I'm Gabi." She held out her hand, and he shook it while looking her hard in the eye. It made her a little too nervous to keep smiling. Instead she noticed that he was dressed in grey suit pants that matched the color of his hair and beard, and a neat white shirt, making her feel underdressed and possibly too young to be taking up his time.

Brett let go of her hand to offer his to Noko. "I'm Brett, and I made some scones for you." He passed over a white lunch bag and the man looked inside and said "thank you" without any warmth or smile.

"We heard you kept a library that might have tales of Guardians and shamans."

"Shamans appear in several stories, but the only piece I have here that might represent a Guardian is the picture by that door."

Gabi felt a stab of disappointment but tried not to let it show. Instead, she moved toward the picture that seemed to show a tall, lean African man standing beside a black leopard. The lines of the picture stood out as slightly uneven, like yarn glued to a page, and as Gabi approached she made out letters hidden in the lines. Gabi motioned for Brett to join her, "There are words, but not in English. Do you know what this spells: Umqaphi futhi Umholi."

"Sorry, no. The greetings I've heard around town comprise most of my African language knowledge. Maybe we could write it down and look it up later?"

"I regret," Noko said, sounding anything but regretful, "that in deference to a mostly oral tradition, we ask that no one copy by hand or other means what is found here." Gabi was pretty sure her disappointment showed before the man said, "However, I will translate for you this once. The phrase is 'Guardian and Guide.' The fact that you can read it, even without understanding means that I may show you to another room, but first you must tell me your relationship to the young man."

"He's a friend, and well, possibly a Guide, but that's part of what we're still trying to learn about."

"Then he may accompany you. Much of the material is in English, and while I might help with a word or two of translation, I do not have time to offer more. You understand that this is a gift that is not yours to give to others?"

"Yes," Gabi answered quickly.

Brett looked between Gabi and Noko as if he disliked the arrangement, but he answered, "Understood." Gabi noticed Brett's heartbeat and scent were unchanged, and only then realized she'd been monitoring them.

Noko led them through the door by the picture and into a short dark hall where he gestured saying, "This room, on the right, may have what you seek. The room across is the washroom. I will be in front for several hours."

With that they entered a room that could barely have held a queen size bed if it had not lost a foot on each side to bookshelves. Instead, the shelves barely left room for two hard wooden chairs. There was no window, and a dim overhead light provided the only illuminations. A few of the shelves held regular books with titles including, Twelve African Tales and Ould South Africa. An entire bookcase, about four feet across, held portfolios of art, mostly portraits. They were in magazine boxes labeled A to Z, but Gabi only glanced at a couple before moving on. Most of the shelves contained binders or folders or hand written journals. Gabi had no idea where to begin but was finally drawn to a slip bound document of perhaps fifty pages, because it reminded her of a doctoral thesis.

The essay was in English and titled, "The Sentinel" by Blair Sandburg. A penciled in notation read "discarded doctoral thesis." Flipping through, Gabi saw several chapters on a "Sentinel" in the United States who was drawn to careers in law enforcement and the military. The work detailed sensory aptitudes and a territorial desire to protect that the author related to historical accounts of South American tribal Sentinels. Without looking farther, Gabi settled into a hard wood chair and was soon reading about what the author called "zone outs," triggered by focusing too deeply on a single sense or being surprised by a sudden overwhelming stimulus, especially a loud noise. The zone outs sounded incredibly similar to her absence seizures, and the techniques for ending one were more like what worked to end her seizure than the standard advice she'd been given. Sandburg also mentioned drugs and chemicals which might incapacitate or even kill a Sentinel and suggested mild natural soaps and cleaning products to avoid interfering with elevated senses or causing skin irritation.

Gabi had never had much trouble with rashes or what she'd call skin irritation, but she'd always preferred soft, loose clothing, and as a child she'd cut out labels and hated rough knit sweaters. Now she wondered how much she'd learned to ignore or how lucky she'd been that her sense of touch rarely gave her trouble.

Thinking about touch made her miss holding Brett's hand, and she stirred herself to see what he was reading. He had never sat down, but was browsing documents of no more than a few pages each. Gabi slid up beside him, squeezing the hand that hung free at his side. "Whatcha find?"

"They appear to be transcriptions of folk tales or conversations about Guardians. Most of them amount to 'Guardian gives advance warning and saves lives' but some tell of using scent or heart rate as a sort of polygraph or diagnosing illness in a child too young to speak by a Guardian using smell, hearing, or in one case taste."

Gabi could hear Brett's heart speed with his excitement. She thought about how cynical it might make her if she learned the polygraph trick but how much sharing Brett's excitement pleased her. All she said was, "The Guardian tasted a sick child?"

"Yeah, licked his forehead. Evidently salty meant the child shouldn't eat dairy."

Gabi raised her eyebrows. "Let's remember they're only stories like Paul Bunyan or Johnny Appleseed."

"Johnny Appleseed is largely based on truth."

"And I hope some of these are. For example, this appears to be a doctoral thesis about Guardians in the United States and South America, except the author calls them Sentinels."

"Does it say which university published it?"

"It's not a final published copy, but it mentions the Police Department in Cascade, Washington several times."

"That's where Rainier University is based, I believe."

"Maybe we could search out Blair Sandburg when we get back."

"I wish we could take stuff with us or take photos with our phones." Brett squeezed her hand.

"Me, too. But mostly I'm glad this place exists."

"It still seems strange that something this amazing could stay secret."

"Maybe being a Guardian is more common here or more common recently than it was before or elsewhere." She didn't mention the more disturbing idea that Guardians who made their abilities known might be conscripted or killed to suit other's interests, but Brett began to rub circles on her palm, and she wondered if his thoughts were similar.

They spent most of the day browsing, separating and coming back together to compare notes. Then Brett came to her and held out a portrait drawn in charcoal and protected by a plastic slip cover. "Does this image look familiar?"

It was the spitting image of her father in the photo from the cheetah center. When she turned the sketch over to see if there was more information on the back, what she found was a charcoal sketch of a cheetah.

"Where did you find this?" she asked.

"In the 'G' file of pictures."

"You haven't figured out the filing system, have you?"

"Not at all," he said. "Shall we go ask the librarian?"

Gabi thought of the prickly man who'd greeted them before. "I don't think he likes us much."

Brett squeezed her hand, then used it to pull her closer and out the door.

They found the old storyteller sitting in the sun. His eyes were open, but Gabi thought at first he might be dozing anyway.

"Excuse me," Brett said. "We found this picture in the 'G' file and were wondering how to find more information on the man."

Noko took the picture, looked at it front and back, then asked, "Why do you want to know?"

Gabi pulled the photo from her pouch and handed it over silently.

The old man looked her up and down carefully, "Your father?"

She nodded.

"I filed it under 'G' for Gauteng, the region it came to me from. I'd assumed the cheetah was his spirit animal, but perhaps not given the real cheetah in your photo. Why are you asking me about him?"

"I never met him," Gabi said.

The old man looked disapproving again but said, "I might know who passed this on to me and could see if anyone wanted to communicate further, if there is some way they might reach you."

Gabi worried for a moment, remembering her misgivings about someone recruiting or killing off Guardians. But she'd already circulated her phone number and email with the photo, and if someone thought her father was a Guardian they could already connect that to her. She gave the storyteller her contact information and said, "Thank you, and thanks for keeping all these papers here."

"You're welcome," he said, and for the first time Gabi thought Noko might not dislike her too much.

#

Brett felt heavy as they walked from the bus stop back to their housing by the dig. He was a bit tired of holding hands too, but he wasn't tired of Gabi. He didn't think he was ever going to be tired of Gabi, and she could hold his hand twenty-four seven if it made her feel better.

As they approached their building, Gabi hesitated, and Brett noticed their front door was standing open. Her grip tightened on his hand, and she said, "There are two extra people inside, and they're shifting things about."

"What do you want to do?" Brett asked.

"Do we have any choice?"

"There's a police car," Brett pointed down the street as he looked around for any other clues they'd missed.

"That should mean it's safe to go in, right?"

Gabi's voice was strained, but Brett couldn't think of any way to make it better, other than holding her hand as he already was. They walked forward and through their front door into a scene of chaos. Joe was sitting on a hard dining chair. Every cupboard was open and a South African police officer was searching the sofa with cushions already removed.

Joe didn't greet them but said to the officer, "These are Brett and Gabi."

"Good." The officer turned to them, "I am Sergeant Botha." He pulled out a paper. "We are authorized to search your persons and your dwelling. First you," he motioned to Gabi. "Hold out your arms." He began to pat her down, removing her purse and unzipping her sweater. Gabi did not speak. In fact, she looked completely blank and passive, which triggered a surge of anger in Brett. He clenched his teeth and bit the anger back, for the time being.

Brett tried to keep silent when the officer searched him as well, but when the man reached into his pocket he said, "Hey!" without thinking. He couldn't remember anyone ever reaching into his pocket like that in a non-sexual situation. The officer just pulled out Brett's wallet and set it on the counter with Gabi's purse. Brett's phone followed, but Brett didn't say anything as it was pulled from his other pocket.

"Take a seat," the officer said, apparently to both of them. He held up Gabi's phone with the paper he'd produced earlier and asked, "Could you tell me the number for this phone?"

Gabi gave the number. By this time another officer had come out from searching the bedrooms.

"I am confiscating this phone as specified in our search order." Sergeant Botha said. "I would like to ask you questions in relation to this phone and a smuggling incident. We can record this conversation here or take you in to the station."

Gabi looked to Brett and then Joe, as if seeking guidance, but finding none she said, "Here is fine."

The second officer produced a small, black recording device, started it, and identified himself as Sergeant Naidoo. He obtained permission again for the recording and asked each person in the room to identify themselves. Then the first officer asked Gabi, "Tell us what calls you made a week ago on Wednesday."

Gabi's eyes widened as she looked at him. "Actual calls where you speak on the phone? I haven't made any of those since arriving in South Africa."

"Do you know anything about the following phone number…" He read a number from his paperwork.

"No."

"Do you know someone named Simone Patel?"

"No."

"Did you lend your phone to anyone else on that Wednesday?"

"No, but it was taken from my purse at lunch, and I didn't see it again until Joe returned it after I had a seizure."

"What? I don't remember anything like that," Joe said.

Brett looked first at Joe, not believing what he was hearing. Then he looked at Gabi, whose eyes were fixed on Joe, with a bit of a squint.

Gabi said in a nearly calm voice, "You're lying. Why would you lie about that?"

"I'm not lying," Joe said. "I just don't remember anything about your phone that day."

"But you remember that Brett found me passed out between the two dig sites, called you, and you came out."

"Yes, of course I remember that."

When the two of them fell silent, Sergeant Botha asked Gabi to give her version of events that day, which she did with much detail, including that Brett sent a picture from his phone because hers was missing.

"Is this the phone you alleged he used to send that picture?" Seargeant Botha lifted Brett's phone from the counter.

"Yes," Gabi said, and Brett nodded along with her.

"I will need to confiscate this phone as well. Do you have any additions or correction to make regarding the events of that Wednesday?"

"Everything Gabi said sounded correct."

The officer turned to Joe. "Tell me in detail which portions you disagree with."

Joe sat up straighter and said, "Just the part about the phone. I never saw it or had anything to do with it."

The police then asked both Brett and Joe if they knew anything about Simone Patel or the phone number offered before. They both said no.

Then Sergeant Botha turned back to Gabi and asked, "What do you know about rhinoceros horn?"

#

The room was cold. The mattress was wrapped in plastic, and the sheet between it and Gabi was scratchy. She'd been allowed to keep her clothes, and she hadn't taken any of them off to sleep. She also hadn't slept. Her internal time sense was never too good, and she couldn't know if she'd lost any time to seizures since they left her in the little room, but she'd guess it was midnight or later. At least she was alone. For once she'd played the medical card for all it was worth, explaining all about absence seizures, how she would be completely vulnerable during a seizure if they locked her up with anyone else.

The jail was made of concrete, which helped mute sounds from other rooms if Gabi tried to tune them out, but the concrete seeped cold and damp. The ventilation system wheezed in a way that reminded Gabi of someone old on a respirator.

But the smells were the worst. The mingled body odor of dozens of frightened, unwashed people was forced upon Gabi with the forced air. The room retained scents of feces and blood that Gabi suspected couldn't be cleaned away, since the smell of bleach and a fake lemon scent in the room were enough to make her eyes sting and forehead throb. She'd tried closing her eyes and trying to lower her sense of smell until she couldn’t smell even what a normal person would. The thesis she'd read in the library suggested Sentinels could dial a sense down to zero or near nothing, but Gabi couldn't manage it. Focusing on any sense tended to make it stronger.

Instead, she focused on hearing, hoping to distract herself. With effort, she could reach beyond the whine of ventilation and seek out human voices. The first conversation she overheard was two men complaining about and tacitly blaming a rape victim. That turned Gabi's stomach and left her even colder and less able to sleep. She searched farther, past a couple of people speaking in a language she didn't know, and heard someone giving a statement about a robbery. When that turned to a graphic depiction of assault, Gabi felt her own panic response kick in. She tried to decrease her hearing, worrying that she might set herself up for a bad seizure. But the room she was in left her so isolated and worried that she sought human company by extending her hearing again. This time she focused on heartbeats, counting the number of living individuals around her. She'd passed a dozen when she tuned in on one specific heartbeat.

Gabi knew it was Brett's. She would have been hard pressed to explain in words how she could be sure. Brett's heart could beat at different speeds like any other person's. The basic lub-dub noise was universal, and there was no extra sound or off beat that might indicate an identifying disorder. Still, some part of her brain that detailed sounds and not descriptive language, latched onto that heartbeat.

#

Brett was woken from exhausted sleep, and at first he feared some sort of coercion or interrogation. Then the guard said, "The girl you came in with, you know how to deal with her medical condition?"

"Gabi?" Brett struggled to process as he came abruptly awake and sat up. "What happened?"

"She's unresponsive and nothing we try can wake her. She'd told us not to leave her with anyone but you because of the seizures. Do you know how to fix it?"

"Let me talk to her."

"We can't put the two of you together. It's against regulation."

"But a familiar voice or touch is the best way to stop the seizure. Do you know how long it's been?"

"Not more than four hours. Someone checked at midnight and she was awake."

That told Brett it was around four in the morning, but it didn't tell him anything useful about Gabi's condition.

"I think it's dangerous the longer it goes. The longest I know of before was about an hour, and that took her a while to recover from. Surely you could let me help her if I don't say anything about the case."

Brett did all he could to sound reasonable and non-threatening. The guard left the room without saying anything but came back in what couldn't have been more than two minutes with another guard and said, "Okay, he'll take you to her."

The new guard pulled out handcuffs, which hadn't been required up to this point, but Brett offered his arms in front of him and allowed himself to be handcuffed and led down the hall.

"Whatever you say, keep it simple, in English, and unrelated to anything."

Brett would have been amused by the last instruction, except it made clear how arbitrary his confinement was. He was still pissed that Joe hadn't been charged and arrested. The lie about Gabi's phone was enough to convince Brett of who was really to blame. Brett had managed to wheedle a call to his parents, asking if they could arrange a lawyer and hopefully bail. He'd pleaded for them to help Gabi too, telling his dad that she was only eighteen, an innocent young girl with a serious medical condition and probably not much money or family support. Brett was pretty sure Gabi would hate being described that way, but he knew what would get through to his father.

Now Brett just had to get through to Gabi. After checking in with two other guards, Brett and his escort were allowed into Gabi's room. She laid mouth open and slack-jawed on her cot, fully-clothed and cocooned in her covers.

There was no hand visible to reach for, so he knelt near Gabi's head and said as calmly as he could, "Gabi, can you hear me? This is Brett. I'm going to touch your cheek."

His eyes flicked up to make sure the guard wouldn't hit him or otherwise object. Then he reached out with his cuffed together hands and touched the back of his fingers to her right cheek as he continued to talk. "Gabi, I don't know how long it's been, but you need to come back to us."

Her eyes opened slowly and she turned her head so her cheek pressed his fingers between her face and the pillow. She closed her eyes again and rasped out, "Don't move or I might throw up."

Brett stayed as still as he could, kneeling on the concrete floor and remembered that Gabi had asked him to keep talking before. Acutely aware of the guard at his side, Brett spoke softly but made sure each word was clear and meaningless. "Okay, just lie there. Let me know if there's anything else that will help. I'll stay as long as they let me and try to make sure you're okay."

#

Gabi's body was a tightly coiled screaming ball of hurt within a universal storm of attacking hard particles of hurt. Somehow she'd made it to the back seat of the van, and she believed Dr. Michaels was the one driving. It hurt to think about anything that had happened since Brett pulled her out of what must have been a doozey of a seizure that morning. She'd somehow said what was needed in front of a judge. She thought whoever paid bail for Brett had paid hers too, but trying to think that through pushed her nausea to the point where she stopped thinking. She couldn’t remember the last time she ate or drank anything, vaguely thought that might help, but also thought there was no way she could manage it.

Brett was seated beside her, carefully not touching. She knew she'd told him to keep away at some point, but she wasn't sure if she'd used words or just growled or something.

After a while he said quietly, "Just tell me, did anyone mistreat you?"

The words swam around her head. She didn't remember anyone mistreating her personally, but she remembered someone joking about a rape victim, someone describing violent assault. She remembered everything hurting, and it still did. Nothing anywhere seemed safe, and she couldn't stand feeling so vulnerable and out of control. There was a feeling in her skin, like it would rip apart if anyone, even Brett, touched her, and she wished he'd sit farther away to avoid accidents.

"Okay, how about this." He was speaking again, calm despite his rapid heartbeats, too quiet for Dr. Michaels to possibly hear. "Is there any chance you're hurt, were exposed to any diseases, or need medical attention?"

Some part of her finally understood what Brett was asking, and she managed to shake her head. Then she closed her eyes as pain burst behind them at the sideways motion.

"Good. Thanks. I'll back off because that seems to be what you want right now, but when you're ready, I'll do anything you need. Remember all that stuff about being honest and how you promised you'd tell me when you were sick or felt weird? Well, sometime you're going to feel better enough to want something, and I'm asking you now to please come to me then, wake me up if you have to. I won't mind anything."

Then he was quiet, except for his heart, which made it easier to withstand all the hurt.

When Gabi could think clearly again, she was a little sore from sleeping curled up in a ball. Her left hip, the side she was lying on, felt bruised. The bombarding pain that had seemed to immobilize her from within and without earlier had faded to a dull headache.

She was finally warm, with all of her bedding tucked around her preventing even a small draft. It seemed a pity to leave her shelter, but any change in position would disrupt it, and she needed to change positions. She also needed to use the bathroom, and desperately longed to brush her teeth.

Struggling against her blankets, Gabi stretched full length, toes pointed. She forced herself up from her bed and into the hall bathroom as quickly as possible. Then after using the toilet she washed her face and brushed her teeth. A shower would have been nice, and she needed one. But she couldn't stand the idea of taking her clothes off. The slight pressure of cloth on her skin was comforting, and as she felt that, she felt how much she wanted more. She wanted to be held. Even while she hated the vulnerability she remembered from the van and before, she wanted to go to Brett, to trust him to make things better and keep her safe.

She closed the toilet lid and sat for several minutes nerving herself up to seek out Brett or head back to her own room. In the end she went to Brett's room, rushing in and closing the door behind her without knocking or speaking.

He had been lying down in bed, most likely asleep. There was plenty of light in the room, so she knew it wasn't night, but he probably hadn't slept much the night before either.

He said, "Gabi, I'm glad you came." Then he sat up, sitting sideways on the bed and leaning back against the wall. He was wearing a grey tee shirt and she could see the waistband of either sweats or pajama pants. His bedding still covered most of his legs and lap. "You're welcome to sit as close or as far away as you want."

Without moving from the door she asked, "How did you know what to say and that I'd want to be with you later?"

"Been there. I've known my own bits of trauma and can recognize something similar. Make yourself comfortable and I'll listen to whatever you want to talk about."

She went and sat on the edge of his bed, then she snaked a hand back to touch his.

He wound their fingers together, and the comfort flooded through her system. She wanted to curl up against him and share as much touch as possible, but she didn't move. With a sniff she said, "You took a shower. I should probably clean up."

"If you're worried that I mind, don't. I wouldn't have noticed."

"Nothing really bad happened to me in jail. I just worried and let myself hear too much, but it's not like I never felt that way before."

"But whatever's happened before tells us what to worry about."

"I don't think I've ever had a seizure that bad before."

"You looked like you were in a lot of pain and not really tracking afterward. That's why I worried."

"But you asked something in the van like you thought I'd been raped or something."

"The way you pulled away from touch worried me."

"I think some of my reactions to touch come from bad experiences like that, but I've never been raped."

"It doesn't have to involve intercourse to be rape, you know."

"If you want to know, there were maybe two times that could have turned into rape, but I was serious about the self defense training when I told Joe. And I gave a couple of hand jobs before then that probably counted as coerced but didn't lead to further problems. The people I actually cared about probably hurt me more."

"How so?"

Gabi knew the calm voice was forced, because she could hear his heart racing, which reminded her of the polygraph comment but not in a bad way. It made her want to give Brett truth in return. "Well, I think I may have fallen in love with my freshman roommate. She hooked up with a guy the day after school started, and they never studied. But she was bright, and I could tell she wanted to do well or at least not flunk out of college. So I finally talked her into dumping him and helped her study and catch up in everything. She started collecting pets, and I never objected. Our dorm allowed anything but dogs, and by second term she had rats, hamsters, guinea pigs and a chinchilla. The smell was awful, but she needed something to pet and take care of. I think I kind of wanted her to take care of me. Instead, I took care of her. Sometimes she let me hold her and stroke her hair.

"Then one day she told me my vision and determination were overwhelming her sense of self. She made it sound like a compliment but insisted she needed a normal roommate or friend. A week later she brought home a dog and they forced her to find other housing. I later heard she flamed out and left school, which made me so sad I cried myself to sleep at night.

"The thing is, everyone breaks away from me within two years. Mostly I think they find me too annoying or I bore them after a while. But I think she really cared about me for a while. Maybe she couldn’t keep track of what she really wanted compared to what I offered or thought she wanted. What she said, about overwhelming her, seemed totally honest and as real as any explanation anyone can give."

"And you're saying that put you off touch more than the almost rapes and coerced hand jobs because you both meant well but you both got hurt?"

"Something like that. I think I'll understand better if anything ever works out."

"Is that the best experience you've had with anyone?"

"I think she might be the only person I fell in love with. It was something different, but I don't know what to call it. I had some friends when I was younger that I wanted to be with all the time, and we pretty much lived in each other's pockets until they rejected me. So those could count as better or worse."

"Were you ever the one to end any of your friendships or relationships?"

"Not with anyone I felt close to. After the almost rapes and stupid hand jobs I ended those."

Brett was silent for a while. His body seemed calmer to all her senses, but his fingers kept moving across hers. "What do you want?" she asked.

#

Brett didn't know how to answer Gabi's immediate question or what she'd just told him. He was pretty sure she'd told him her entire relationship history just because he'd expressed worries in the van. The thing was, he'd wanted to know. She'd seemed so innocent in some ways but cynical in others that he'd half convinced himself she'd been raped or abused. Now he believed she had given him the truth, and it wasn't what he expected, but the enormity of her hurt still weighed upon him. It only made sense that her experiences and what she took away from them were as unique as she was.

"Do you want to be held?" he asked.

Her shoulders curved forward in a shift that could have been pulling away but seemed more like needing comfort. Her fingers rubbed against his and she asked, "Do you want to hold me?"

"Only when you want it."

"Yeah." She scooted back beside him. He looped an arm around her back and pulled her close, but it didn't feel satisfying.

"Can I hold you in front of me, or would that be too much?"

"Nothing's going to be too much, but I'm not sure I understand what you mean."

The answer seemed so honestly Gabi that Brett just scooped her sideways so she was sitting between his legs but on top of the blankets. He pressed his chest along her back, wrapped his arms tight, and hugged her close. He could feel her body relax into his and there were a couple of heart wrenchingly vulnerable sounds, but he pretended they were just hitches of breath, knowing vulnerability embarrassed Gabi.

"I didn't mean for this to be one sided," Gabi said. "I can listen to what you want to say and try to give what you need, too."

"Maybe you're better at knowing what you want or giving what I want before I know it.

"That doesn't sound good."

"You completely surprised me in the best possible ways by wanting to take care of me when I was sick and when you taught yourself massage. I like you just being you."

"But you don't trust me to really know you?"

"I don’t think that's true. I don't mean for it to be like that."

"You're very good at being helpful and even showing appreciation, but you don't seem comfortable being needy." Gabi twisted her head to hide against his neck after she said it.

"Maybe it's a guy thing."

"You are not going to live down to the American stereotype of guys."

"Gay guys have different standards."

"Like not romanticizing things?"

"I'm not sure if that's a stereotype or an anti-stereotype, but girls who don't want to live in Disney towers shouldn't throw stones."

With a sharp jerk of her head to face him, she stuck out her tongue.

"You've more than half convinced me that Chris was being a jerk when he said that, and honestly, I think he's seeing other people while I'm gone and not missing me much. He never replies to my messages. I guess most gay guys I know wouldn't want to go two months without sex, let alone two years or more like you plan to."

"So what do you want?"

"Eventually, I guess I'd like a boyfriend who would stick around and want me to be myself. In the meantime, I want to find a way to be friends with you for more than two years no matter what sort of boyfriends I have or where each of us goes for grad school."

"You're sure what I want isn't overwhelming you somehow? Because what you said is exactly what I want for you."

"I'm pretty sure I know for myself." He leaned his head forward to rest his chin on her shoulder and the side of his head against hers, then heard her breath catch. "You will tell me if something I do is too intimate or crossing some line, right? I get that you consider yourself bi, and I'm not trying to be a tease."

She giggled, and it wasn't a noise he'd ever expected to hear from her. "If you're being a tease, it's not a matter of being male. I think it may be some Guardian bonding thing, if any of that's even real. If you want to know, I haven't felt any desire to kiss you, but since you moved this close, I keep wanting to lick your neck, or behind your ear, or just under your jaw. How's that for inappropriate?"

"I'm not afraid of that commitment, even if I'm not sure we understand it. If licking me seems right to you and you're ready to take a chance on the whole five senses bonding thing, I think I know my mind well enough to say you aren't pressuring me into anything."

"But will you regret it later?"

"Either of us could regret it either way. You seem to be by far the more cautious of the two of us, so it's your call." He felt her smile with her face next to his as her body curled into him even more. Then very daintily, like a cat, she licked behind his ear.

The sensation jolted him, and he couldn't have sworn that it wasn't erotic on some level. Whatever he felt, it was amazing and electrified his whole body from his hair follicles to his toes. His body instinctively folded more tightly around Gabi, so they were pressed together as much as possible. He never wanted to let her go.

#

Gabi thought she might have a seizure after she licked Brett. Her body tightened inside and out and then expanded in tiny increments to connect more fully to Brett. The taste of his skin went so far beyond what she'd expected from scent that it overwhelmed rational thought. The texture was delicate enough against her rough tongue that she thought for a moment she had broken the skin. There was something raw, like when she burned her tongue on hot chocolate, except it tasted like he was burned into her. Gabi could have sworn she could taste the blood pulsing beneath Brett's skin, warm and full of oxygen, but maybe a little low on sugar and nutrients. She wondered in a flash if she could tell how long he'd gone since eating, but then her mind was caught by the salt on top of his skin and a tang that wasn't panic but might have been worry a little while ago. Beyond it all was something that made sense with the scent and heartbeat that she already knew was uniquely Brett. She felt like he was hers to know and love, protect and appreciate, and she thought maybe she'd try to live near him forever, because the thought of not sensing him nearby for days or weeks seemed wrong in a way she'd never known before.