Blind
by
Setcheti
July
Challenge by Enola: I
would like to see stories where a physical change of some kind happens to one
or more of the Seven, how he and the others react to it. Any change you want,
as long as it's physical -- some kind of disability, sense removal, becoming
another gender or another age -- anything! All I ask is, please, no death
stories. If it's temporary or permanent, that's up to you. Any
universe. Have fun!!
Note: Someone else owns the guys and Mac, and Mog created the ATF AU.
Josiah had actually
known for a while that his eyes were getting worse, so his optometrist’s latest
diagnosis wasn’t as much of a shock as it might have been. It was still a shock, though.
He was going blind. Within the next six months, he would be blind.
He gave himself a day to
come to terms with the situation, and then he told them. His friends reacted with varying degrees of
shock, sorrow and anger but they each took turns reassuring the older man that
he would always be one of them even though he wouldn’t actually be on the team
anymore…all except for two.
While the others were
commiserating and telling the profiler how much they were going to miss him,
Ezra corralled JD and dragged him back to his desk. “Pull up the
Americans with Disabilities Act and Mr. Sanchez’ employment records,” he told
the younger agent in a low voice. “I
could see by the look on your face that like myself you don’t believe a
person’s usefulness is at an end simply because they lose their sight –
although it is obvious that our associates can only see tragedy and a tin cup
full of pencils in Mr. Sanchez’ future.”
“I noticed.” JD sounded disgusted. “Know just what part of the Act you want,
too; I went through training with a guy who lost his leg in an accident, the
law says they have to make reasonable concessions.”
“Yes, they do – and we
must get that information to Judge Travis before the others carry their little
Greek tragedy up to him. If Mr. Larabee
reaches him first Josiah will be retired before the elevator can get back down
to our floor. The man is a profiler, I
am positive that his job description does not require field work.”
“Nope, he’s just been doin’ it,” JD agreed.
“But technically he’s supposed to stay in the van with me during a bust
to monitor the wires and pass advice along to you when he can.”
“And after we remind the
judge of that we can inform Mr. Larabee as well – at gunpoint if necessary,”
Ezra said. “Now let’s be quick, we have
next to no time to accomplish this coup de at if it is to be successful.”
The two agents were
still explaining their position to Judge Travis when their team leader came
storming in. “Agent Larabee, there is
such a thing as knocking,” the judge told him with mild exasperation. “I am assuming you’re here to tell me about
Agent Sanchez pending disability?”
“Among other things,”
Larabee ground out. He glared at Ezra
and JD. “What I want to know first is
what the two of you are doing here and why you felt the need to go behind my
back to the judge.”
“I felt we needed to
make a few things clear to Judge Travis before you came up here to take away
Mr. Sanchez livelihood,” was the cool reply from the undercover agent – who had
stepped forward just enough to put himself marginally between Larabee and
JD. “The law is very clear regarding the
treatment of individuals with disabilities, but I knew that the judge may not
have had prior experience with such a situation and felt it necessary to see
that he had all pertinent information at his disposal.”
Chris snorted. “And you dragged JD along with you why? To hide behind?” He made a dismissive gesture. “It doesn’t matter,
I’ll deal with you later. Right now the
judge and I need to talk about finding another profiler for Team Seven…”
“That may not be
necessary,” Travis said slowly.
“According to the research your men here did, it is possible that Agent
Sanchez could continue on with his job even after his sight is gone.”
“No, he can’t.” Chris gave Ezra a scathing look. “I don’t know what these two told you, but
Sanchez will be completely blind within the next six months so no, obviously he
can’t continue to do his job. I don’t
want to see him go either, but if he can’t see he can’t do the job he’s been
doing and that’s just the way things are…”
“No, Mr. Larabee, that
is not the way things are,” Ezra contradicted firmly. “That is just the way you have been running
things. According to his job description
as per his employment contract with the federal government, Mr. Sanchez is not
required to be an active participant in the field save
by monitoring what comes over the wires.”
Chris didn’t budge. “He won’t be able to watch the surveillance
tapes.”
Ezra snorted. “He doesn’t now – I do. We came to the conclusion early on that I was
more efficient at that task than he was and I have ‘assisted’ him with it ever
since. And before you say it,” he
silenced Larabee’s objection with an upraised hand,
“we have never made a secret of our arrangement and you know it, you simply
ignored it because it wasn’t an issue.
Just as you ignore the fact that Mr. Tanner is not capable of writing
his own reports; again, so long as the job gets done and no one complains it is
not an issue. This new situation will
simply involve a slight extension of the same tolerance.”
“It involves more than
that, I like all my men in the field…”
“Yes, we know you do,”
JD snapped, surprising him. “And how
many times has that gotten Ez into trouble because
Josiah wasn’t where he was supposed to be to help monitor the situation?”
Chris turned red. “Buck…”
“Is not a profiler, nor
does he possess more than a rudimentary popular knowledge of psychology,” Ezra
interjected hotly. “You and I both know
why Mr. Wilmington is normally placed on duty with JD and we will not go into
the ugly details here; suffice it to say that you trust him and your suspicions
are of more importance than my safety.”
Travis came halfway up out of his seat. “What?!”
Ezra snorted again, but
more respectfully this time. “Please,
Judge Travis, you hold me in very low regard as well; do not attempt to take
the moral high ground to our team leader.
But none of this is the issue; what we are arguing here are Mr. Sanchez’
rights under the law with regard to the situation, and the law says that what
Mr. Larabee is trying to do is discrimination, plain and simple. And the federal government does not condone
such actions, nor will it support them if a case is brought.”
Travis allowed himself
to be redirected; he’d seen an expression of compounded shock and guilt flicker
across Larabee’s face and he knew that he’d
momentarily worn the same expression after the undercover agent’s offhand
accusation. But the man had a point, they needed to get back to the matter at hand. “He’s right, Chris. The law is clear.”
“A blind man doesn’t
have any place in law enforcement!” Larabee almost yelled. “You name me one person…”
“Pete Thornton, director
of the Phoenix Foundation,” JD said in a flat voice. “He went blind on the job, kind of like
Josiah is, and they made allowances for him – and his job did
include field work. He’s still there,
too. Face it, Chris, it wouldn’t be any
problem to keep Josiah on the team and we wouldn’t have to make that many
changes to accommodate him not being able to see, you just don’t want to.”
Larabee’s
jaw set. “I don’t have
to. I won’t have anyone on my team who
can’t pull his own weight, and I insist that all my men be ready for the field
on every case. If he wants to go along
with this bullshit he can, but if he wants to stay with the ATF he’ll have to
transfer to another team, end of story.”
Ezra shared a look with
JD, then nodded to the other two men. “In that case, I believe there is nothing
more to be said. Judge, if you’ll excuse
us, I believe there are more productive things that Agent Dunne and myself
could be doing than arguing with a blind man.”
“Thank you for coming,
gentlemen,” Travis answered, waving them toward the door. As soon as the two agents were gone he cocked
an eyebrow at Chris. “Well, this has
been a much more interesting day than I was anticipating, I’ll give it
that. And now I believe we need to
discuss your position on this with regards to the law, Agent Larabee; you have
a right to your opinion, of course, but your way of expressing it could get the
department sued…”
Ezra and JD had
disappeared for a short time and then they had both blown back into the office
before Chris had time to return from upstairs and had immediately asked Josiah
if they could take him to lunch; they had at the same time not-so-subtly let
their other teammates know that the invitation wasn’t open to anyone else. They went to Inez’ place, to their usual
table, and once the waitress had been dealt with Ezra got right to the
point. “Mr. Sanchez, JD and I have
gotten an idea for a possible business venture and we had wondered if you might
be interested in joining us.”
Josiah raised an
eyebrow; it hadn’t escaped his notice that both JD and Ezra had slipped away
after he’d made his announcement to the team, but he knew both men well enough
to know that whatever they were about to offer him would be a serious
opportunity and not one concocted out of pity.
As a matter of fact, it rather looked to him like both of the younger
men were holding back a good deal of anger at the moment although it didn’t
seem to be directed at him. “You two are
starting a business together?”
“We’re discussing it,”
JD answered. “I’ve been feeling…well,
underutilized here,” he explained.
“Actually, a lot of my skills are going to waste in this job and even
though I like what I do I’m starting to get tired of that.”
“And I am getting old
for undercover work,” Ezra added. “I
can’t bounce back like I used to anymore, and in my line of work that is a
pending death sentence. There is,
however, a need for experts such as ourselves in the private sector, and we had
wondered if you would like to put your talent for profiling and psychological
evaluation to work in a slightly different venue?”
“You’re talking about
doing security investigations,” Josiah concluded, nodding. “It sounds like a good idea, boys, but in six
months I’ll…”
“You’ll have had just
about enough time to get used to the special software on your computer,” JD
interrupted. “We should have time before
your eyes get too bad for you to make sure it all works the way you want it to,
work out all the bugs.”
“What you do so well is
in no way dependent on your sense of sight, whether our stubborn leader will
admit it or not,” Ezra said with conviction.
Impulsively, he put a hand on the older man’s arm and squeezed. “Josiah, you are a man who loves what he
does, you should not allow the prejudices of others to take that away from
you.”
“What are you up to, Ez?” demanded Buck’s voice from behind them, making both
Ezra and JD jump. The ladies’ man had a
disgusted frown on his face; he’d followed the three men down to the bar,
wanting to know what was going on. “I
don’t see how even you could try to pull the man away from retirement just to
help you out in whatever scheme you’re up to, and usin’
what’s happenin’ to him to do it is the lowest damn
thing I’ve ever heard of. And I bet you
tricked the kid here into goin’ along with it by playin’ on his ego, too, there just ain’t no excuse for
you.”
“We are offering Mr. Sanchez an option,” Ezra corrected.
“Something you and our other teammates do seem to think that he has, professionally
speaking. He abandoned retirement due to
boredom two years ago, we wanted to make sure he knew
he did not have to return to that life simply because of a quirk of fate and a
stubborn boss.”
“And no one tricked me
into anything, Buck,” JD asserted coldly.
“The fact that I know a hell of a lot more than you all give me credit
for isn’t ego, it’s just the truth.”
Buck looked taken aback,
and Josiah had to smile. “I have to
admit, I wasn’t lookin’ forward to being retired again,”
he admitted, further shocking the ladies’ man.
“I’d like to know a bit more about this option of yours, though. How flexible will my hours be?”
Ezra’s green eyes
twinkled. “If you wish things to be
arranged so that you can do some of the work from the comfort of your own home,
that would certainly be acceptable,” he said.
“But I feel we would have to insist on a certain amount of time spent in
the office as well.”
JD winked at him,
ignoring Buck. “Yeah, Josiah, we can’t
just have you hangin’ around the house in your hippie
clothes and only showing up at work when you want to. But I could really easily set you up a
network connection at home so you could split your time between the two.”
“I’ll have you know that
most of my ‘hippie clothes’, as you called them, are older than you,” Josiah chuckled.
He was starting to feel better already; his two young friends were
serious about this, and they were letting him know that although they were
prepared to be accommodating they weren’t going to coddle him or treat him any
differently than they had in the past.
“I like the idea of a split schedule, though, sort of the best of both
worlds. I’m guessing the three of us
will be taking a pay cut until the business gets off the ground?”
“Unfortunately correct,”
Ezra agreed. “But on the upside all
three of us should be able to retain our current insurance coverage
indefinitely, and once the business is established I believe we can add
supplemental insurance through the company that will eliminate deductibles
altogether. Your special equipment, of
course, will be tax deductible for the company and some we may even be able to
claim reimbursement for through one or more of the government agencies who make
individuals with disabilities their concern.
We will definitely not have to cut any corners where that is concerned.”
“Sounds like it won’t
put a hardship on the business, either, that’s good to know.” Josiah looked up at Buck, who was still
standing there with a singular expression of shock on his face. “Problem, brother?”
Buck closed his mouth,
which had been hanging open, and dropped into the chair that JD kicked out for
him. “I…I just don’t know what to
say. I thought…”
“You thought that if I
couldn’t see my life and my career as it had been was over,” Josiah finished
for him gravely. “I’d been feelin’ that way myself, but thanks to our younger brothers
here I can now see some light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. He winked at JD again and was pleased to see
the younger man break up into quiet giggles.
“I do have one final question for these two, though, and it isn’t ‘when
do I start’ – I’m assuming that will be right at the end of my two weeks
notice, which I’m prepared to put in today.
No, what I want to know is if the two of you are certain that you want
to give up your careers with the ATF and strike out on your own.”
Two pairs of eyes, one
green and one brown, met his and not a flicker of doubt was to be seen in
them. “Yes,” two voices said at
once.
“I believe neither of us
actually has a ‘career’ with the ATF, only a job,” Ezra clarified quietly. “A most rewardin’
and entertainin’ job, but not one in which either of
us could remain indefinitely. And as we
will be remaining in
“Your friends too, son,”
Josiah corrected softly.
Ezra shook his
head. “No, that would be overstating the
mutuality of my relationship with the others considerably; bein’
a friend is not the same as havin’ one, I’m afraid.” He changed the subject before anything more
could be said about it. “So we are
agreed, the three of us are handing in our resignations today preparatory to
striking out on our own?”
Buck winced as the three
glasses clinked together, hearing the breaking of the fellowship the seven men
had built, and after a few awkward moments he excused himself and left the bar
to head back to the office. Two weeks
…he would talk to the others, a lot could happen in
two weeks.
It turned out that a lot
could happen in two hours, too. When
they got back to the office and JD, Josiah and Ezra went to Chris to hand in
their resignations, Larabee startled everyone by firing Ezra on the spot –
everyone but Ezra, that is. The
undercover agent appeared resigned, almost as though he’d been expecting it; he
simply nodded, dropped his letter of resignation on the floor at Larabee’s feet and walked out of the room without a
word. JD immediately turned on
Buck. “You…you…” At an apparent loss for words scathing enough
to express what he thought of the older man, he drew himself up stiffly and
glared. “I’ll have my stuff out of the
apartment tonight – and out of my desk here in the next ten minutes, you can
shove that two weeks’ notice up your ass, Chris.”
Larabee angrily stepped
forward to stop JD leaving the room but found his way blocked by Josiah. “This isn’t about them, Chris,” the profiler
said in a flat, angry voice. “It isn’t
even about me losing my sight, is it?
It’s all about you and your obsessive need to be in control.”
“I’m the boss,” Chris
snarled. “Something some of you seem to
have forgotten. I won’t keep a man on my
team who betrays me, Standish is lucky all I did was fire him.”
“He didn’t betray you,” Vin said suddenly, surprising everyone. “He stuck up for Josiah because you were
being a stubborn ass, and you firin’ him while he was
givin’ you notice was just your way of punishin’ him for callin’ you on
it. It was petty and mean…and I damn
well quit too.”
Chris’ eyes widened in
shock. “Vin…”
“You’re playin’ favorites and I won’t be part of it.” Vin’s blue eyes
hardened. “I tell you off when you’re
wrong too, but you ain’t never fired me for it.
And dyslexia as bad as mine is considered a disability, but you’ve never
said I needed to find another line of work.”
“It’s not the same
thing,” Buck began.
“It’s one hell of a
liability in the field because in a pinch I might not be able to read somethin’ right and that could get someone killed – we wear
jackets with letters on ‘em, remember?” Vin shot back. “Now
I’m goin’ to go pack up my shit and apologize to Ez for not backin’ him up
earlier, maybe see if this company he and the kid are startin’s
got a use for an ex-bounty hunter.”
“I’m certain it does,”
Josiah said firmly. He bent over and
retrieved Ezra’s letter of resignation from the floor, then plucked his and
JD’s from the shocked team leader’s hand.
“You want to play things this way, I think
we’ll all be happy to accommodate you, Chris.
I appreciate what Ezra and JD did for me, and it wasn’t just offering me
a job; they reminded me that losing my sight isn’t the end of things for me, it just means some things will have to change. And I would have understood if you didn’t
want to deal with those changes as far as work goes, that’s your call to make
and I respect the fact that it’s a tough one.
What pissed me off is that this team was more than just seven men
working together, we were a family and you’ve almost always handled things with
that in mind…until today, when everyone needed it most.”
There simply wasn’t much
anyone could say after that.
Travis stepped out of
the elevator to see four of his best agents standing there holding their
belongings while Larabee scowled at them from his office door. “Well, that explains that, then,” he muttered
under his breath. Aloud he said, “Just
what is going on here?”
“A mass exodus brought
about by a show of solidarity, Judge,” Josiah answered gravely. Ezra flinched and the big man patted his
shoulder. “Son, it isn’t your fault.”
“The hell it isn’t,”
Nathan muttered. He was torn, wanting to
back up Josiah and his other friends but yet not trusting the Southerner’s
motives. “Don’t make excuses for him, Josiah, he’s the one that stirred everyone up…”
“No, that was me – I
made an announcement this morning, remember?” the profiler corrected his friend
gently. Nathan had the good grace to
look abashed. “It’s all right, Brother,
emotions are running high right now. And
I may have lit the fuse in this situation, but it was Chris who blew it all to
hell.”
“He had help,” JD said
disgustedly. “Things might not have
worked out this way if Buck hadn’t followed the three of us to lunch and then
run back here to ‘report’ to Chris.”
Now it was Buck’s turn
to flinch. “It wasn’t like that! I was hopin’ that
if everyone knew what was goin’ on maybe we could do
something about it. I sure as hell
didn’t expect Chris to fire Ezra the minute he walked in the door…”
“Of course not, but you
were more than certain an hour earlier that I was blatantly using both JD and
Josiah to further my own ends,” Ezra shot back scathingly. “I knew you were there to spy on me from the moment you stepped into the Saloon, Mr.
Wilmington, but your doing such a thing to your friends was inexcusable.”
“What about you though, Ezra?”
Nathan wanted to know; he was positive there was a catch somewhere, he just
couldn’t see it. “You had to have known
Chris would fire you for this, for goin’ against him
and all. What would you have done if
he’d seen reason and let Josiah stay on?”
“I would have applauded
his decision,” was the even answer.
Josiah’s eyes narrowed;
he had no doubt Ezra was telling the truth, but along with Nathan he realized
that there was something…suddenly it hit him, and he gasped. “You expected him to do just that, didn’t
you? Expend all his anger on you, then
calm down and change his mind about me?
You didn’t think it would go this far.”
“No, I did not,” Ezra
admitted with a barely audible sigh. He
cast a quick, worried look up at the older man.
“Not that the offer of alternative employment was a
ruse, Mr. Sanchez, it was and still is genuine. I had simply hoped it would not be necessary
for you to take me up on it.”
Josiah nodded, but he
wasn’t finished. “What about you,
then?” The undercover agent cocked a
puzzled eyebrow, but the profiler didn’t buy it. “What about you, what if Chris had reacted
the way you thought he would? What would
you have done?”
Ezra shrugged. “I honestly hadn’t thought much about it;
that was unimportant. I knew that if Mr.
Larabee could be made to accommodate you he would then be persuaded by you and
Mr. Wilmington to do something for JD as well, and
that would have been the ideal outcome for all concerned. I apparently miscalculated Mr. Wilmington’s
ability to influence him and I failed to predict Mr. Tanner’s disaffection with
the situation and so my plans went rather awry…and for that I apologize.”
Travis decided it was
time for him to reenter the conversation.
“If you are apologizing for failing to be God, Agent Standish,” he said
dryly, “I’m afraid I’ll have to inform you that you never were him to begin
with. And for the record, you did your
best to help and I find no fault with your actions today given the
circumstances.” His upraised hand
stopped Larabee’s objection. “Agent Larabee, I have been making exceptions
for this team ever since it’s creation, I am not going
to stop now just because you sat on a stick this morning. That, however, is not the reason I came down
here. Agent Dunne, did you by chance
sometime this morning contact a ‘friend’ at the Phoenix Foundation?”
JD blushed. “Uh, yeah – Mac’s boss went blind just like
Josiah is, I wanted to ask him some questions. And he called me back about half an hour ago
to see how things were going.”
“And I’m guessing you
told him,” the judge said. He smiled
slightly at the young man’s look of discomfiture. “You didn’t do anything wrong either, Agent
Dunne; there is no regulation in this bureau that says you can’t tell a friend
you’ve quit your job – or that several of your associates quit with you. You might be surprised to know, however, that
the director of said Foundation just contacted me with some questions about the
four of you. Apparently he’s decided
that my loss might be his gain.” He shot
Chris a dirty look. “Imagine how
surprised I was to discover I was about to lose four members of my best
team. When were you planning to tell me,
Larabee, at the office Christmas party?”
Chris looked back at him
with a disrespectfully exasperated expression.
“This all happened kind of fast, Judge.”
“Obviously – but you and
I just as obviously need to have another talk about where the chain of command
does and doesn’t stop.” Travis sighed
and shook his head. “As Agent Sanchez
mentioned, emotions are running high right now, and so far as I can see this
isn’t just one problem but a whole bucketful.
You feel betrayed by Standish because he went over your head to me and
then came up with his own solution to the problem when you wouldn’t listen to
him, Wilmington is unsure of you right now because you’re overreacting and
won’t listen to him either – not to mention you put him in a position where it
looks like he betrayed his friends.
Chris shot a surprised
look at Buck. “You think I’m using you
against the others?” The other man’s
lack of response was answer enough, and Larabee made a face. “Shit, Buck, I wasn’t trying to do that; I
just knew I could trust you…”
“You should have trusted
all of us,” Vin
interjected gratingly, with a pointed look at Ezra, who was looking everywhere
but at someone. “But you’ve been playin’ favorites all this time, and not just with me.”
“Now Vin, that ain’t
fair,” Nathan began. The judge’s
accusation that he hadn’t been paying attention to his teammates had stung – especially
since he knew that sometimes it was true.
“Chris has got a tough job, trying to balance out this team so that it
works all the way around, but I know he always tries to do the right thing, to
be as fair about things as he can…”
“Oh, shut the hell up,
Nathan,” JD snapped tiredly. He looked
disgusted. “You’re even worse than Chris
is; at least he’s seen everyone’s record and knows something about all of us,
you just pigeonholed everyone the first time we met. And if you don’t believe me, think about all
the wrong conclusions you’re jumping to all the time and then tell me what
you’ve been basing them on.”
The ex-paramedic
couldn’t find an answer for that. “JD,”
Ezra said quietly. “Mr. Jackson is only
trying to defuse the situation…”
“Yeah, by pinnin’ everything on you,” Vin
snorted. Ezra looked away again. “But one way or the other we all had a hand
in this mess, and we ain’t gonna fix it standin’ around here peckin’ at
each other.”
“I agree,” Travis said
firmly. Then he sighed and shook his
head. “I must admit, I’d hoped to come
down here and find the seven of you wrangling your way toward some sort of
solution…”
“We still could, Judge!”
Buck interjected hopefully. “Everyone
keeps sayin’ it, ‘emotions are runnin’
high right now’. Maybe if everyone takes
a little break, once we’ve all had some time…”
“No.” Everyone froze; there was no room for
compromise or argument in that hard little word, just the icy chill of
implacability. “No,
not this time.” Travis shook his
head. “You’ve worked through problems in
the past, but that’s because you were all trying to work
through them and everyone gave a little to get there. Now Larabee is refusing to give at all,
Standish is trying to sacrifice himself and the rest of you have pretty much split
right down the middle – I think I probably came down here just in time to stop
things getting even uglier than they already are.” He sighed heavily. “This is not the kind of rift a law
enforcement team can recover from, gentlemen, except on television. And seeing as how this unfortunately is real
life I will not risk any of your lives in a foolish attempt to prove
otherwise. You four gentlemen may
consider your resignations accepted as of this moment and the penalties for not
giving notice to be waived due to the circumstances. Mr. Sanchez, I can’t express how sorry I am
about what is happening to you, but you have my utmost admiration for the way
you’re facing it.”
“I had a little help
with that,” Josiah rumbled, casting an affectionate glance at Ezra and JD. “I may be losing something, but I think I’ve
gained something today that’s even more precious.”
“I think so too,” the
judge agreed warmly. “If there is ever
anything I can do for you, don’t hesitate to call me – and that goes for all
four of you. It’s been a pleasure to
work with you all.” He shook hands with
each man and herded them into the elevator at the same time; Standish was last,
and Travis murmured something in the undercover agent’s ear that made the green
eyes widen in shocked disbelief. The
judge patted his shoulder in a fatherly way and then gently pushed him toward
his waiting friends.
Once the elevator doors
closed, Travis turned around and faced his remaining three agents. “Agent Larabee, I will meet with you and
Agents Wilmington and Jackson first thing tomorrow morning so that we can
discuss where to go from here.”
Chris looked at him…and
then turned on his heel and disappeared back into his office, shutting the door
hard but not quite slamming it. Buck
looked from the elevator to the closed door and back, then turned his eyes on
the judge. “So…that’s it? It’s just…over?”
“I’m afraid so,” Travis
told him. He wasn’t unsympathetic to the
three remaining agents, but he was disappointed in them. “However, I’m sure that after a little
cooling-off time most of you could probably remain friends.”
“Yeah, most of us.” Nathan, too, shot a look at Larabee’s closed door.
“Judge Travis, if I could ask, what did you say to Ezra that startled
him like that? Man looked like you’d
slapped him.”
“No, just opened his
eyes. He said earlier in my office that
I held him in very low regard, I just took this opportunity to correct him” The judge chuckled
at their obvious confusion, but there was little humor in the sound. “There are different kinds of blind,
gentlemen, and not just the sort that Mr. Sanchez has in his future. Chris Larabee’s
variety comes and goes, and even though blackness may obscure his vision from
time to time it will eventually crack and allow through some light; it just
didn’t crack fast enough this time. But
Mr. Standish…he can’t see because he believes the darkness is all there
is. I have to admit,
I’d rather be afflicted with Sanchez’ kind than his any day.”
Deciding he’d given the elevator
enough time, Travis stepped forward and pushed the button. “I’d advise the two of you to keep an eye on
Larabee tonight,” he called back over his shoulder. “He needs to learn from the mistake he made
today, not drown it or run away from it.”
Before the doors slid closed he saw both men nod seriously and was
satisfied; he really didn’t want Chris left alone tonight, he was afraid of
what might happen.
Should he have told
them? The judge wasn’t sure. He wanted to make sure the reality of what had
happened sank in with all three of them, and he’d decided that telling them
The judge just hoped it
didn’t prove to be too drastic. He’d
been blind himself, he knew; he’d gotten caught up in the fantasy, let himself
be entertained by Team Seven’s antics and puffed himself up with pride over
their successes…but he’d forgotten that they were real people and not
two-dimensional heroes from some old dime novel and so he hadn’t been in a
position to help them solve the problem before it went too far. But, he’d done what he could. He just hoped Pete Thornton wouldn’t make the
same mistake he had.