Chapter FOUR – CRUSHED BY REALITY

Now you have seen for yourselves how the Dream World traps you in its grip. The reality begins to lose its hold, pain vanishes under the lighter load of denial and disenchantment. There is one chance for escape... Death!

~*~*~*~

Dreams plagued his every sleeping hour. His mind played games through out the night teasing him with memories of long ago that he no longer understood. Nor did he care to understand them. Whatever the dreams were saying meant nothing to him now. Now, his mind rested within the void of its own creating.

The hopes and dreams he may have once had were long gone and there was nothing left to focus on other than death. Both a death in the past and the death he now waited for. That was all that was left, just death.

The man woke with a start. His wasted body wracked with shivers, horrible tremors that wouldn’t release their hold on him. All he had to cover him was a ragged shirt that had seen better days. His pants, denim jeans, were ripped and torn. His hair was ragged, his face was covered with several weeks of growth. His eyes were devoid of colour and equally empty of life. The sunken depths showed a deep hidden sorrow beneath many layers of neglect and a lack of caring.

He blinked for several seconds to clear his eyes and head of the remains of sleep and the nightmare. Whimpers emitted and grew in strength, small cries emerged breaking through what might have once been a strong control but no longer. The shakes started to grow in strength and some small semblance of cognizance told him to move and move fast. Get away before it could get him again.

The man stood and staggered to the street. The light was still predawn but it showed enough for him to continue down the street. Not sure where he was heading and once more not caring. He seemed oblivious to the wind that blew or the freezing rain that fell in torrents out here in the open. He was not aware that the coldest storm of the year was fast approaching.

He was moving faster, cries escalating. The few people who remained on the streets avoided him, moving out of the way as he approached. The strange gleam in his eye warded off any and all who came within seeing distance of him.

Running now, he continued on, oblivious of all the stares and curses thrown his direction. He ran now from the past, the memories that threw the nightmarish images at him. He ran from those same images, the ones he feared the most, the ones that brought the feelings back, the ones he couldn’t face. Screaming, he ran on and on and on…

~*~*~*~

“Noooooooooooooooo!” the scream woke Simon from a dead sleep. Frantically he struggled out of the bed sheets and raced down the hall to the spare room when his temporary roommate lay writhing with the horrors in his mind.

“Jim,” Simon shook the other man by the shoulder. “Jim, Damn it, wake up.”

“BLAIR!!!!!!!!!!” Jim woke suddenly, sitting upright, his breathing a heavy pant, chest heaving from the strain of whatever nightmare had woken him.

“Jim, you with me?” For long moments Simon watched as his friend struggled to collect himself. The eyes that had for so long now been void of any emotion, filled with sorrow and unshed tears. Silent, Simon offered his support and comfort as the forty year old former detective broke down and wept for the residual nightmare, the loss of his best friend and for the part of himself that would never heal.

Simon’s own vision began to blur as he helplessly watched his friend, the former covert ops specialist crumple in on himself, lying back on the bed, clutching the pillow to his chest. He stroked Jim’s back soothingly, not saying anything, just being there. It was the only thing he had to offer now.

Jim Ellison was slowly dying, figuratively as well as literally. He was losing the last dredges of his sanity. He’d always known this would happen without Sandburg but Simon had never wanted to believe it. However, seeing the sorry truth made it very hard to deny. Jim Ellison had no time left at all.

“Oh God, Simon. What have I done? Oh, Blair I am so sorry.” Jim sobbed, repeating it over and over again as he rocked himself like a child. Simon could only comfort him as best he could, his own tears falling in silent tracks down his own face.

He was no longer sure how any of Major Crimes was ever going to survive this. Megan was home resting now after a weeks stay in the hospital. She’d been back for six weeks and it would be a few more before she would be ready to return to duty.

Rafe was still in the hospital, still paralyzed until the swelling around his spine diminished enough for the doctors to go back in and remove the bullet. The bullet remained lodged too close to risk the operation yet. His fiancée Lucy waited by his side faithfully. Brown keeping her company whenever he could. Brown and Taggart and Simon himself were the only senior officers remaining in MC. The others consisted of mostly rookies and transfers from other departments with Walter Graf and Kent Parker being the only other members of Major Crimes, both beat cops on loan from Homicide.

It had been a hard two months since Blair had vanished. It almost seemed as if the city's stock of career criminals knew that the Sentinel of the Great City was no longer functioning as its protector. A wave of crimes spread the already thin department even more until Simon was no longer certain it could continue without additional help.

The mayor had been on his back to hire replacements for Jim and soon. He wanted the man either fired or returned to active duty, neither of which Simon felt he could rightly do. He'd filled in and submitted forms to place Jim on paid medical leave. The only concern he had with that was that now that option was dying out. The PD's medical leave plan only allowed for two months and it had been that long already. He'd managed to extend it for a few more weeks but unless Jim snapped out of this tainspin he was in, there would have to be more drastic measures taken.

Not that Jim was really with them anymore. His lack of caring and his failing grasp of his mental faculties forced Simon to remove him from active duty. He watched in silent angst as his one-time best detective slowly deteriorated. The Sentinel of the Great City no longer existed. James Ellison, Cop of the Year was another lost member of society.

Simon sat for a long time until the tears stopped and Ellison drifted back into an uneasy exhausted sleep. He shook his head at his own lose. This had been the first time in over a month that Jim had mentioned Blair and the first time in two full months since Jim had displayed any sort of emotion at all. In one way Simon was glad for the emotional outburst and in another it saddened him greatly.

Where was Blair and why couldn’t anyone find him? Simon had sent out a nationwide APB but there had been no bites. Nothing. The kid had vanished from the face of the earth. Simon needed to find him, and find him fast. If he didn’t he knew that Jim wouldn't last much longer.

~*~*~*~

The night was cold but the man who stood deep in the shadows was warm through his whole body at the turn of events. Sure things hadn’t gone exactly as he’d wanted but he’d found the little hippie.

He watched the huddle figure trying desperately to get warm. Already he’d been sick twice. The rotten food he’d scavenged from the garbage can had made him so violently ill that the watcher was certain he wouldn’t last the night. That was just fine with him.

Although his original plans had fallen through with the sudden attack on Blair by his roommate, all of course carefully orchestrated by yours truly, the man didn't mind. He watched the suffering that could be clearly seen on the former teacher's features. The gauntness of neglect, hunger and malnutrition were strongest but hidden in the dull blue eyes lay the pain of betrayal, the hint of fear and the need for something undefined.

The watcher stepped into the shadows as he heard footsteps approach. No one entered the alley but a couple of street walkers passed the entrance, neither glancing his direction. If they had they might have thought that the man might have money for them in exchange for services; they would have been wrong.

The once handsome man cared little for their type of services. Time in prison, short though it might have been had been very hard on him. His youthful face and high brow attitude had made him a particular target for the sick perverts that still haunted his every waking moment and terrorized his sleeping ones. They were faces, and deeds, that would be with him even long after his death. The ugliness and cruelty he'd experienced there were more than he'd ever known in all his twenty some years. The pain he'd been dealt, the things he'd been forced to do... these he blamed on the man who lay before him.

The man whose sense of justice and rightness had set a stream of events in motion that had put him in that place. This one small underweight and miserable excuse for a human being had interfered and cost the watcher much. Too much.

He'd lost his girl, his home and his freedom. For that the trembling body on the ground was paying, nothing more. If he'd kept his nose out of the watcher's affairs, dropped his pursuit to clean up the injustice done to his students then there would have been no need for this. None at all...

A smile that grew on the watcher’s face that would have terrified even the most stalwart of men. There was pure hatred there. Evil almost. A strange gurgle sound came from between those same lips. A gurgle that turned into a horrible mutation of a laugh, ugly and to be much feared by all who heard.

~*~*~*~

The young bedraggled man moaned as a particularly violent tremor ripped through him. He awoke from the pain and his eyes flashed open suddenly. He sat upright, regretting it immediately as bile forced its way up his throat, burning already tender flesh. He heaved dry heaves voilently for several seconds until he was too exhausted to do anything more than collapse into the small pile of that same bile.

His dead eyes leaked tears. Where there should have been fear of the death he faced there was only relief. He knew that the much waited for end was soon in sight. The pain in his belly was growing worse and worse. Sharp stabs of agony raced up from his stomach to his head and the same from his spine right through into his brain. The spasms wracked his frail frame. He couldn’t take much more of this. Finally, to distract himself from the wrenching pain he got to his feet and headed for the street.

A sharp contraction of his muscles caused him to stagger to his knees but he forced himself upright again. His vision blurred with the tears that fell. He couldn’t see where he was going.

He bumped into a solid object that swore and shoved him away. He twisted and staggered, tripping off the edge of the sidewalk and into the street. The shriek of tires and the scream of a car horn ripped through the early morning air and he turned to see what it could have been. It was the last thing he heard for a long time. The last thing he felt was the sensation of flying through the air. He never felt the impact of the truck with his body or the impact of his body hitting the street.

~*~*~*~

Simon woke at the shrill cry of pain that erupted from Jim. He bolted out of the chair to Ellison's side. The former detective was sitting upright, breathing hard, panting almost.

There were tears coursing down the man's face but he was oblivious to them. In fact he was oblivious to everything. Simon recognized the blank look in Jim's eyes. He recognized a zone out when he saw it, especially one this deep. He'd seen enough of them over the years to notice the signs.

Simon shook the smaller man slightly, then harder. Finally he resorted to slapping the one-time detective across the face, hard. There was no response.

"Damn it, Jim. Not now. Please." There was desperation in the Captain’s tone. A desperation he felt deep to his bones. Tears leaked from dark ebony eyes. Simon hadn't cried since he was just a small boy and had broken his leg falling off a trampoline.

This was so hard though, watching as your best friend slowly and intentionally stopped his own life, drifting away from reality into a world where pain, betrayal, fear and need no longer existed. A world where Simon couldn't follow.

The faltering breathe from the sitting man drew Simon's attention back to the present reality. He dove for the phone, dialling 911 as he struggled to keep Jim upright.

Without preamble he demanded an ambulance to his home and threw the phone away from him. Jim collapsing back on him even as he did so.

"Jim, please, stay with me, Jim. JIM? JIM!" Simon held his friend tightly, not caring who would see this once the EMT's arrived. Somehow he knew that both he and Jim needed this closeness. That Jim needed to feel someone close or he would be gone forever. It was vitally important that Simon hold him until help arrived.

Not sure where that thought had come from, Simon followed his instincts and held tightly to the catatonic man in his arms.

~*~*~*~

Sirens blare and lights flash as the ambulance raced through the streets towards the hospital. The paramedics fought to keep the injured man alive long enough to arrive.

One medic, a youngish man with brown hair and a name tag reading Johnson, maintained constant attention to the oxygen being given while his partner, an older woman with a name tag letting people know her name was Carlton keep watch over the vitals and called out instructions being given over their communication link with the hospital.

With one last wail of the siren, the ambulance came to a stop outside the emergency entrance. A trauma team met them and with much haste they transferred the man to the trauma unit where they immediately began assessing his injuries.

~*~*~*~

A loud knocking roused him from a self-induced mini-trance. Simon gently laid his friend back down on the bed and ran to let in the EMT's. Brown and Taggart were behind him.

"Simon? What happened?" Joel asked in concern.

"Jim... He..." Simon paused unsure of how to answer that without giving away Jim's secret. "He was having trouble breathing." There, that was plausible. True too.

"My god, Captain." Brown hissed. "You think this is related to that whole thing with Hairboy?"

'Yeah, probably. He hasn't recovered fully from that and now this." Simon nodded as he answered.

"Captain Banks, sir." One of the EMT's called. Simon hurried into the room. Jim lay on his back, eyes closed, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm.

"Is he okay?"

"Seems fine, sir. He's breathing regularly, vitals are good and there is no sign of anything other than severe exhaustion. We will transport him to the hospital for confirmation and observation." He finished, turning to help his partner ready the prone man for transport..

Simon, Joel and Henri watched in silence. Each man prayed that this was the last episode but they all knew that this was just the first problem of many yet to come.

~*~*~*~

The hospital kept Jim over night. He awoke the next morning with no memory of what had happened to send him into that zone or what had brought him out but now Simon had to assign someone to stay with Jim 24/7. He picked Megan who was still on desk duty and because she already knew his secret. Not to mention that she was more than willing to do it.

This left time for Simon wo do his own work at the office. And do it he did. He had everyone searching the database for anyone that Jim and Blair had dealt with together. It was almost four complete years of teamwork but something in there would have to be the answer they sought.

Brown and Taggart both watched out for their boss. Joel had told Brown what he'd over heard the night after Jim's attack on Blair. About what Walter Graf and his partner thought and how his subsequent search revealed that Graf had tried on several occasions to get a placing within Major Crimes but how his background of brutality made him an undesirable candidate. Not to mention that he was blatantly racist towards Blair.

Joel had learned that several times, Graf had approached Blair while the student was running errands for Ellison and harrased him for no reason other than the fact that Blair was where Graf wanted to be.

Parker was more subtle but he had told a number of people how he thought Blair didn't belong at a real cops side and that he should stop playing cops and robbers and leave the real detective work to those who were trained for it.

Both Henri and Joel knew that Graf and Parker needed to be watched. Their instincts screamed that somehow one or the other or both were somehow involved.

~*~*~*~

“What are you talking about?” Simon bellowed into the phone. Even through the closed doors, everyone in the bullpen heard and all activity ceased. “God damn it! Why weren’t we informed earlier? Why wait this long?”

Silence.

“Fine! You do what you have to and so will we.” There came the sound of a phone being slammed down. “Taggart, Brown. Get in here! NOW!”

Both men exchanged concerned glances. They hurried into their Captain’s office, closing the door behind them.

“Taggart, you worked with Jim on the Ventriss case. I need you and Brown to hunt him down. He managed to escape during a routine prisoner transfer. That was the prison warden letting me know this. I hate to think what that scum is doing on our streets. And I want to know if he is behind all these so called accidents happening around here.”

Joel caught Brown's eye and received a faint nod of encouragement.

"I hate to bring this up Simon but Henri and I have discovered something else." He paused and Simon grunted for him to continue. "Well, it would appear that Graf and Parker have been making threats against Blair. Neither are happy that Blair is working as Jim's partner. Graf has tried several times to get a transfer to MCU and..."

"Yeah, I keep turning him down. He is too violent. There are several complaints of police brutality on his file and he just doesn't have what it takes to make it here."

"I agree, Simon, really I do but I think it might give them both motives."

"I agree Captain." Brown concurred. "The only thing we disagree on is that neither man has the brains to pull something this elaborate of on their own. Besides how would they be able to get Jim to turn on Blair like that?"

"Good questions. I want you two to go back to the loft and search it thoroughly. I'll bet there are some answers to be found there. I don't want you thinking that this Ventriss thing is done either. I want him found. There is something very funny going down here and the timing is too good to ignore as a coincidence." Joel recognized the dismissal and pulled his temporary partner out of the office with him.

~*~*~*~

Simon smirked as his newest team headed out the door on their assignment. He felt better, a little bit better anyway knowing that there might finally be some answers to the strange puzzle that his life had become. He'd nearly lost two very good friends and two very good detectives, he still may never get them back permanently but at least they were alive.

He picked up his coffee cup. He took a sip only to find it empty. He rose and turned to get more, only he was no longer in his office

The cup was gone, his office walls and furniture was also gone. Instead he stood on a very hig rock wall. It was deep grey with years of grime on it, wide enough for him to walk on and yet somehow he seemed closer to the ground than he normally would. It was then he realized he was on all fours and that his hands and knees were four very large, very hairy... PAWS!

In his mind, Simon swore. "I've stepped into their world." He groaned with the implications. He was quickly aware that he wasn't alone. On one side of the wall lay a massive grey wolf. It lay on its side, chest heaved for air and a forlorn howl emitted from its throat.

In reply a loud shriek of anger and despair was heard from the other side of the wall where a panther, black as night, stalked back and forth. Every few seconds it would try to jump the wall but the stone edifice was too high for it and the magnificent creature would fall back, growls of frustration growing in strength.

Simon realized he was witnessing the strange separation that was effectively keeping Jim and Blair apart. "These must be their spirit animals. Jim told me about his. The wolf must be Blair." He thought.

He tried to scope himself out to determine why he was shorter and had paws. He realized then he was not a man but a bear, large brown and with wicked claws. Simon moaned. "The last thing I need is a spirit guide who is a bear, just like me." He grinned and set his mind to figure out how to remove the wall between his friends and to precipitate a reconciliation.

With that promise, he found himself back in his office, pouring coffee into an overflowing cup. Cursing he put the pot back on the machine and began to clean up. "Guys, if this is how things are going to be with my taking these weird walks and making a mess, I don't need this." He said outloud but for once, there was hope in his voice.

Chapter 5

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