Disclaimer:  The Sentinel's not mine, and no money is being made off this story.  Like I could even if I wanted to.

Notes:  I am the worlds clumsiest person.  You should have seen what I originally had in store for the guppy, thought up in my concussed brain (A wall clock fell onto my head).  But, I toned it down some.


Blair's Bad Day

by ShrinkingViolet


Blair Sandburg was not having a good day.  Classes, papers, and his now spluttering, dying, car, compounded into one very big headache.

"C'mon c'mon c'mon come on come on!"  He begged the Corvair but the automobile gods must not have been listening, for the car's engine died.  Blair managed to glide over to a side street and park.

"Please, just two more miles, two more miles!"  He urged (reminiscent of the Nixon campaign, four more years!  four more years!), turning the key.  Nothing.  He tried again, and again, and again.   Nothing.  So he climbed out, stood up, and calmly kicked one tire.  Hard.

"Oh, Sh--!!!"  He screamed as waves of agony shot up his now broken toes, up his leg, and directly into his spinal column. He collapsed onto the curb, cradling his injured foot carefully and gently.

"Ow ow ow ow ow,"  Sandburg chanted a few minutes to a half an hour later as he stood and hopped one legged over to his car.  Leaning heavily against it, he reached into the open window, dug through his backpack, and held his phone up triumphantly.  That is, until he was bringing it up to his year and saw the battery was dead.  Then he let out a low, painful, moan, and...

It started to rain.


Anyone driving by on Prospect Avenue that night would have seen him, a limping, shivering figure, clad in Salvation Army rejects and carrying an old, stuffed, leather backpack, practically crawling those last several hundred feet to freedom!  warmth!  and bed!

"I want to be home I wanna be home!"  Blair Sandburg sang through a congested nose.  And, finally, 852 Prospect was in sight.  "Oh, yeah!"  He cried out with all the feeling of a man trapped in the desert seeing water.  He shuffled as quickly as his sodden clothes, depleted strength, and injured toes would allow and tripped inside.

His shoulders shook with relief as he pushed himself up of the ground, and did a slow limp over to the elevator.

Out of Order.


One.  Two.  Three.  Four.  Five.  Six.  Seven. Eight nine ten.  Sandburg kept a count of each step he managed to crawl up.  Fifteen sixteen seventeen.  Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five.  But it was when he reached forty-seven that IT happened.

"Chief!  Are you all right?"  Jim hollered, just loud enough not to wake his neighbors, and then watched in horror as Blair looked up, stood, and then started to- fall.

"Sandburg!"


"Blair!  Are you all right!"  He asked anxiously as he reached his partner lying spread eagle at the bottom  of step thirty-one.  The anthropologist's eyes opened and he spoke.

"I hate my life."  He said calmly, and promptly passed out.


Later, at the hospital, as most of Major Crimes waited anxiously for any word, Jim waited most anxiously of all.  Finally, a doctor stepped into the tiny, crowded, claustrophobic waiting room.

"He'll be fine."  The doctor answered before Jim got a chance to answer his mouth.  "He has a cold, three broken toes, skinned knees and elbows, a concussion, and is suffering from mild exhaustion.  And yes, you can take him home.  You'll just need to pick up his prescription for antibiotics before you leave.  We don't want his cold to turn into pneumonia."

Jim's mouth shut with an audible snap, then opened again.

"Room three fifteen."

"Thanks,"  the detective managed, before rushing away down the hallway.

"Deal with those two before, doc?"  Simon Banks asked idly and the doctor nodded her freckled face.

"Too many times."

"Well, thank you, Doctor."  And then he turned to detectives Brown, Rafe, and company.  "I've got a plan."


It was about two a.m. before Detective James Ellison finally steered a drugged Blair Sandburg into the Loft.  As he turned around to close the door, a 'huh?  What?' from Blair got his attention.  As he looked into the living room, an uncharacteristic giggle almost escaped him.

Pillows and padding covered the walls and floor, and most other hard surfaces as well.  A note lay on the made-over kitchen table so Jim bounced over to pick it up.

//We wouldn't want anything else to happen to Sandburg today, would we?//  It was signed Major Crimes.


The ending sucked, I know, but any feedback, public or private, in now officially begged for.  Plllllllleeeeeasssssee???  Pretty please with a cherry on top?

Just please be nice.  I'm a delicate flower.  <g>

Email M
shrinkingviolet@usa.net

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