Summary: Halloween story.

Disclaimer: All things Sentinel belong to Paramount and Pet Fly.

I've Only Got Orange For You
by Jael Lyn

Jim Ellison leaned his head against the driver's side window of his truck, mentally calculating how much sleep he might get before the light changed. Not that you could actually nap during a traffic light, but to just close his eyes sounded like the most seductive, enticing, tantalizing...

Green. Green, dammit! Move!

Jim resisted the temptation to give the finger to the hotshot blasting the horn behind him. Okay, okay, so he was a little slow off the mark. Where was the idiot headed? A fire? A meeting with the President? Shit. He'd just missed his turn. How do you miss the turn three blocks from your own place?

Obvious answer - you miss the turn when you're officially asleep at the wheel but your eyes are still open and the engine is running. Sandburg was going to kill him, or he would kill him if he knew. God, he was tired. Or old. Or both. A couple of nights on stakeout shouldn't be this bad. Jim shook his head, blinked half a dozen times and took the next left, doubling back to the loft. All he wanted was a beer and a bed, in that order. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.

His usual spot was taken. The skies opened up and soaked him to the bone. He stepped in a puddle and one sock was soggy wet. The elevator was broken. As he plodded up the stairs, he was just too damn tired to get angry. Beer and bed, beer and bed he muttered as he slogged up the stairs.

Sandburg's voice floated down the stairwell. His partner was on the phone. Jim didn't listen, too absorbed in his own mantra until he opened the door and...

"Sandburg!" he shouted.

Blair turned, scowled, but kept talking on the phone. "Never mind, he's here. Yeah, no problem, at least now that Jim's here there's no problem. See you in a couple of hours."

"Sandburg!"

"Good," Blair snapped. "You remember my name. Why didn't you remember you were supposed to be here two hours ago? Get over here and help me."

Jim gaped. His home, his castle, was orange. Pumpkins on the stairs, pumpkins in the kitchen, pumpkins on the table, on the floor. Orange , orange, ooraange...

"Jim. Come on man. Come on back to me. No zones man, we don't have time."

Jim blinked. Blair had him by both shoulders, nose to nose. He was still talking, but Jim couldn't quite unscramble the words.

"I said, are you okay? Talk to me here."

"When was my home invaded by alien fungus? Alien orange fungus."

"Don't pull this crap on me, Jim. You volunteered, and volunteered me by extension, to do the jack-o-lanterns for the 'Kids of Cascade' party. Now quit messing around and pick up a knife."

"I did not."

"Jim, this is so not funny. Kids of Cascade is your dad's charity, and Steven's charity, and I most certainly did not arrange the delivery of God knows how many pumpkins."

Somehow, that sounded vaguely familiar. From some distorted, hallucinogenic nightmare perhaps, but familiar. He could almost hear Steven's voice asking, and his voice answering. What had he done? "But I just want a beer. I want to go to bed. I want to sleep."

"And I want to get back the two hours I just spent washing mud off pumpkins, waiting for you to get here. I was on the same stakeout, correction, stakeouts, plural. Mucho plural. Now get over there and start carving."

"I can't. I plead insanity."

"You're right. I'm going insane. For you, on the other hand, insanity is no defense. You start on the big ones, and I'll do the little ones."

"Was I drinking when this happened?"

"Maybe. Since it was preseason basketball on a fall afternoon, watching the Jags, I'd say highly likely. But you were with your family, so tough. Now carve."

Jim looked at the ocean of orange, taking in the scope of the disaster. Blair, unfortunately, was having none of it.

"Jim, listen to me very carefully. Your partner isn't a happy man. If you don't start sawing on the nearest gourd, I will kill you with my bare hands, and no court in the country will convict me, insanity or no." Sandburg slapped a good-sized knife in his hand and steered him toward the table, which judging from the amount of newspaper spread out, was the operating theater for this little extravaganza. Blair expertly lopped the top off his pumpkin, and started scooping pumpkin guts out with a vengeance. Anger vibrated off him in waves.

"Sandburg, seriously, I can't. I don't exactly know how this happened, but I don't do pumpkins."

Blair didn't look up from his task. "Yeah, yeah, and I don't do windows. You're not prepping for surgery, man. Get busy."

"No. I mean it."

Blair looked seriously annoyed. He already had pumpkin guts smeared up halfway to his elbows. "Jim, every kid on God's green earth carved a pumpkin. It's like riding a bicycle. Dig in."

"sallydidmine."

"What did you say?"

"sallydidmine."

Blair set the spoon he was wielding down and stared. "Are you trying to tell me that despite the fact that you are pushing forty, a big, bad detective with time in the big, bad army of the U.S. of A, that you are afraid of pumpkin guts?"

"Yeah."

"And you didn't remember this when you volunteered?"

Jim shrugged. Sandburg was right. No court in the land would convict him. "I guess I was thinking about the cut-the-teeth-and-the-nose part and not the ookie inside part."

"The ookie inside part?" Blair asked, clearly incredulous. "You mean to tell me that for all of your growing up years, you depended on Sally, that dear sainted woman, to do the pumpkin guts?"

Jim gave him a tentative smile. "She toasted the seeds, too. I always liked the seeds."

"How does Steven not know this?"

"Sally is nothing if not discreet."

"Okay. I am calm." Blair surveyed the task at hand. Jim surveyed the possibilities of tossing himself over the deck railing as a viable alternative. He also considered making a last ditch plea for mercy, to be excused, but it was all too - pathetic.

Blair very deliberately led Jim to the island and placed the phone in his hand. "Call for pizza. One veggie, and one mushroom with olive, which happen to be my favorite. You're buying. Then you cut the tops off and move them over to me at the table. I'll gut and bring them back for you to do the face. I don't do laundry or cook for a month. Consider yourself spared by divine intervention."

Jim had to admit, Sandburg knew how to deal with a crisis.

Blair went back to scooping in complete disgust. Jim called for pizza, left the money by the door and was happy to do it. He considered the sentence proportional to the crime.

Besides, there was plenty of time to talk Sandburg into toasting some seeds.

THE END

Dedicated to my farm boy, linebacker, son-in-law, who loves to do the faces but gets my baby girl to do the guts.