By JudyL

January 2, 2004

This fits in right before the last scene in the bullpen.

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"What I can't figure out, Jim, is why you didn't hear Pam when she took the bullets out of your gun. You must have been sleeping pretty soundly to miss that, not to mention the thunder," Blair said pacing back and forth in front of Jim as they both waited to be released now that the doctor had checked their injuries.

"I don't know, Chief," Jim replied just as confused as Blair. "I was deep asleep until that one really loud blast of thunder." Jim frowned. "Normally that would have put me on the floor, but it only woke me up."

Blair stopped his pacing and frowned thoughtfully at the Sentinel. "Maybe we need to rethink this dial thing." He met Ellison's gaze. "Describe the dial you pictured for me, Jim."

Ellison's eyebrows rose then he sighed and shrugged. "It was just a dial, Chief. A big plastic dial with little notches on it."

"Okay… Did you have numbers on it?"

Jim pushed his tongue gingerly against the sore spot on his lower lip and shook his head. "Nope."

"How far did you turn the dial, Jim?" Blair asked watching his friend intently.

Jim shrugged again. "I don't know… Almost all the way. I could still feel the wound, but like I said it just felt like a scratch after I dialed it down."

Blair nodded his eyes focusing on some unseen thought. "What about you're other senses, Jim? Did they seem different after that?"

Ellison frowned trying to remember. "I'm not sure. I sat down and felt really relaxed. The storm was just a bit of background noise." He paused. "You know, come to think of it," Jim looked at Blair wide-eyed with discovery, "the lights were off except for a lamp or two, but even with them on it was dark. I couldn't see all the way across the room."

He watched Sandburg process the information. It was a fascinating experience seeing Blair think. Dozens of thoughts flashed through his mind showing up visibly on the anthropologist's face as a myriad of small changes of expression.

"That's got to be it, Jim!" Blair finally said. "I think you envisioned a single dial for all of your senses. Then you turned it down to almost normal. As in normal normal. That's why you didn't hear Pam and couldn't see across the room and the pain was reasonable." Blair started pacing again. "This is incredible Jim… We need to do some tests man! I think you need to assign a single dial for each sense. Just imagine the control," he turned a blinding smile on the Sentinel.

Jim hid his own grin and held up a hand. "Whoa! Hold on there Darwin. Let's just calm down and talk about this when we get home, okay?"

Blair continued to grin and bounced just once then grimaced and grabbed his middle to support the sore ribs Weston had given him. "Sure Jim. No problem. This is too cool," he said then fell silent.

The Sentinel stared at his friend aware that the sudden silence meant Blair was hard at work planning numerous tests. He sighed and decided to just enjoy the silence while it lasted.

It makes sense I suppose. I wonder if I can separate my control. Never really thought about it before. I just concentrated on the sense I needed to use. But if I could turn down one sense and keep the others at a higher level… It might be useful. Got to admit, the kid's a genius. Jim grinned as he watched Blair pacing slowly back and forth across the treatment room. Not that I'll tell him that. He closed his eyes and imagined a row of dials.

Okay, that's sight, a mental label appeared below each dial as he named them. Smell, hearing, taste, touch… six? What the? No. I don't even want to know. No way I'm telling Sandburg about that one! Jim opened his eyes and saw that Blair had stopped pacing and was now making notes on a pad of paper. No way in hell.

Finis

Please let me know what you think. Judy

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