Written 15/08/99

Disclaimer: We won't even go here. There's no point. What kind of fool would even think some big-shot TV Exec's lawyer would ever be reading *this*?!?

Authors's Notes: Well, we did it again, folks. Just can't trust Fred and I when we get together. Whatever sanity we manage to trick the world into believing we possess gets dissolved when we come into contact. Then we go and share the product of our insanity with you! (Aren't you lucky? Mwahahahaa!)

This is the sequel to Snowballed.

Summary: Camping in the woods with the MC gang...? A recipe for disaster!

Mis-tik-oos-kaw
by Moonbeam and Timovena

"Pass the marshmallows, Sandburg." A bag of the standard camping fare came sailing over the fire to whack the Captain in the chest. "Gee, thanks," Simon said, false sincerity dripping from his words.

Sandburg merely grinned, unrepentant. Picking up one of the sweet treats, he held it up to the light of the fire and examined it speculatively. "How do you describe a marshmallow?" he wondered out loud. "I mean, it's white, sweet, fluffy, and... round...? Um, help me out here, guys."

"It's a damn marshmallow, Chief. Get over it." Jim grouched irritably from behind the precariously half-pitched tent.

"Sandburg, quit playing with your food. Just eat it." Banks's tone was similar to the one he used when his son, Daryl, acted like a two-year old. Why not? It was equally effective. On one of the pair, at least... "Jim, are you sure you don't need any help putting that up? I'd like to get to bed some time tonight, and I'm not too fond of sleeping under the stars."

A low growl and a dull thud were the only response to his comments, until he looked down at the quivering tent peg embedded in the dirt beside his leg. Uncomfortably close to certain valuable extremities, he realized with a start. Simon scrambled backward with a curse.

"Dammit, Ellison! I need those parts!"

On the other side of the fire, Blair doubled over laughing, barely able to hear his partner's ‘Careful Chief, don't want to singe your hair' hrough his uncontrollable giggles.

Moments later, Ellison proudly strutted back to his friends, chin up in triumph. He had finally succeeded in conquering the damnable tent. Jim sat down, still muttering something about "stupid new-fangled, high-tech camping tents. Must have been designed by a Canadian. Too complex for us Americans." His friends astutely ignored him.

Jim sighed and stretched in the heat of the flames, idly watching a rock roll past his feet. He lazily followed its path as it approached the recently-erected tent to clank loudly against the central tent-pole. Tensed in alarm, Jim held his breath anxiously, dreading the next few seconds. When nothing happened, he let out a thankful sigh of relief. Just a moment too soon, it turned out. Because as if in slow motion, he watched helplessly as the pole toppled and the tent crumpled in on itself.

"Noooooo!" His anguished moan echoed through the forest.

"Oops, sorry ‘bout that, mate," Megan called cheerily as she entered the clearing, closely followed by the other Major Crimes detectives. "We thought we'd all join you boys for the weekend." She was completely oblivious to the danger she'd just placed herself in.

Ellison silently stared at his fallen tent, his face expressionless. His icy blue gaze flickered repeatedly between Connor and the collapsed tent. No other reaction was visible. Then with cat-like grace, Jim stood up casually and started towards the Inspector.

Belatedly, Megan's innate self-preservation instincts kicked in and she began to back away from the steadily approaching Sentinel. Ellison continued his advance, stalking his prey purposefully. Taggert, Brown, and Rafe abandoned the Australian to her fate to converge in the safety by the fire.

"Don't worry about her," Blair interjected calmly, "there aren't any walls he can slam her up against around here."

A faint thunk and quickly stifled ‘oof' floated to them from the darkness.

"Oops, forgot about the trees."

Everyone cringed in mutual sympathy, though not a soul got up to intervene.

After the theatrics were over, Megan was left to re-pitch the fallen tent alone, while her male companions set up Joel's larger one through mutual effort. Unfortunately, Jim was dismayed to see that she managed the job easily. She smirked at him, saying coyly, "hey, I'm a woman" as if that explained all. He refused to dignify that with a response. Instead, he turned resolutely to unroll his sleeping bag in the other tent. The rest of Major Crimes soon followed his lead, and they settled down for the night.

The annoying chirp of overly-ambitious robins hoping to catch that proverbial worm snapped Blair's eyes open at dawn. Determinedly, he slammed his eyelids shut and burrowed further into his sleeping back, hoping for another hour or four of sleep. A few minutes later he gave up with a groan, resigned to the fact that he was now officially awake. Muttering angrily to himself, he clambered over Jim and exited the tent.

Rafe, who was already up, froze with the coffee pot in hand and stared in shock at the frustrated Guide.

"What the hell are you doing up?" It was a well-known fact that when not required to be up early, Blair could and would sleep in past noon if given the chance. It was also equally well-known that if awakened before he was ready, the normally peaceable man became a real snarling beast.

"Don't start with me, man," he all but growled the words, "it's damned unnatural for *anyone* to be up at this ungodly hour. Most of all me!" Blair disappeared into the forest edge to answer the insistent call of nature.

The angry and not-so-quiet conversation obviously awakened the other Major Crimes members, because less than a heartbeat later Jim suddenly bursted out of the tent with his gun up and ready. Captain Banks not far behind, though following a bit more sedately.

"What happened? Where's Blair?" Senses on full alert, the Sentinel scanned the surrounding forest for his missing Guide.

Confused by the barrage of questions and stunned beyond being able to understand whatever the hell Ellison was talking about, Rafe just stood there with coffee dripping from his over-flowing cup.

"Ellison! Put that gun away! Now, Detective!"

"Huh?" Brought out of his light zone-out by his Captain's thundering order, Jim looked down at his hand. He was mildly surprised to see his service weapon aimed at the still paralyzed detective. With a sheepish look, Ellison flipped the safety back on and holstered the gun.

Turning to Rafe, Simon barked in his deep baritone, "And you! What are you, a man or a mouse? Stop standing there like an idiot and do something useful--like pouring me a coffee!"

Megan, with a natural Aussie talent for finding potential trouble and getting right into the thick of it, picked that moment to saunter out of her ‘new-fangled, high-tech Canadian tent'. Not even bothering to concern herself with the weirdness of Yanks, she blissfully ignored the tension in the air.

"Hey! Look what I found!" She proudly displayed a furry brown squirrel clutched tightly in her fist.

The squirrel however, being a creature considered edible by far too many bigger creatures in its opinion, was not as pleased with the situation it'd found itself in. With vindictive desperation, it sunk it's sharp little teeth into the nearest piece of human flesh it could reach.

"Bugger!" Megan cried, as she reflexively dropped the pesky rodent. Freed from its brief captivity, the squirrel quickly fled into the woods.

"Hey!" Stumbling out of the same trees the squirrel had just entered, Sandburg cursed the furry critters inventively in as many languages as he could remember this early in the morning.

"What's the matter with you, Sandy?" Connor asked sweetly as she stealthily approached him, nursing her wounded thumb.

"I almost got run over by a squirrel, that's what!" he groused.

Suitably outraged on his behalf, she keened sympathetically while rubbing his arm.

No one noticed Jim's low proprietorial growl as he watched the by-play with predatory eyes, as Henri just then lumbered noisily out of the tent. With a yawn and a spine-cracking stretch, he stepped forward without seeing the protruding root before him. He had barely enough time for a startled "whoa!" before executing an 8.9-point swan dive straight into the coffee puddle left over from Rafe's earlier impersonation of a statue.

The momentary silence that followed was broken by a resounding chatter, which sounded suspiciously like the laughter of small woodland creatures. This, of course, set off the human spectators Brown used to consider friends into cackles and guffaws that would do any witch proud.

With the chorus of laughter doing much to alleviate the remaining tension, the gang continued to chuckle as they gathered their fishing gear and headed down to the river.

Undisturbed in the empty campsite, Joel merely shifted under his sleeping bag.

If rivers could burble happily, this one surely would be, Rafe thought as he surveyed the serene vista set out before him. Jim, Blair, and Megan stood clustered by the shore with their fishing lines cast out into an eddy. The Captain stood on a rock out in the middle of the fast-moving river, patiently watching the rapids just in front of him. And from the rustling of leaves behind him, he knew his partner was still wandering through the woods looking for a suitable stick to scratch his back with.

Henri Brown smiled in satisfaction as he spied the perfect branch. Bracing himself against the trunk of the tree, he latched on to his desired prize and started pulling at his new back-scratcher. The limb snapped then gave, causing the tree to whip backward. An unsettled squirrel was knocked down onto Henri's head, who loosed a shocked yell when the little animal scampered under the collar and down his shirt. Flailing wildly as little feet tickled where they touched, he wriggled and hopped toward the water while trying desperately to shake the critter off his person.

"Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!"

While the others watched in amusement, Henri dove into the river head first. The squirrel, realizing it was time to abandon ship or risk an impromptu drowning, climbed out of Brown's sleeve and leapt for shore. It disappeared into the underbrush at about the same time that the large detective's body hit the water with a loud ‘splash!'.

In response to the sudden underwater intrusion, fish darted for deeper waters. Simon Banks, not so distracted by his crazy detectives as he should be, instinctively slapped out at the flash of silver flickering in his peripheral vision just below the water's surface.

"Ha!" he exclaimed smugly, observing the salmon flopping in the spot Rafe had been sitting in moments before. The flighty detective stood fidgeting nervously several feet away, having vacated his place in record time.

Jim watched the proceedings with puzzled interest. "Is it just me, or is something weird going on?" he marveled to himself. Receiving no response, as expected, he shrugged the feelings off. He'd learned long ago that it was safest not to question the oddities in his post-Sandburg existence.

The fire crackled audibly, causing a jittery Rafe to jerk at each pop. Twilight had descended as the group settled down for their evening meal. Blair, assisted by the ever present Australian (despite Ellison's unsubtle efforts to keep her away) had cooked the fish and made a salad out of forest greens. The fish had been shared among the Major Crimes bunch, but the salad was currently being hoarded by Det. Brown.

Blair sighed, exasperated. "H., man," he explained with tried patience, "the point of passing the food around was so everyone could have some."

A noncommittal grunt was his only response.

Rafe's constant twitching escalated into a nervous jump when Joel finally emerged from his nest inside the tent. Blinking owlishly, the big Captain innocently asked, "what's for breakfast?"

"What?" he added defensively when everyone just stared at him, all sporting similar dumfounded expressions.

"Do you realize," Banks mentioned nonchalantly, "that you've been asleep all day?"

Taggert look at the dark sky in faint surprise. "Well, how about that," he murmured calmly, then continued without missing a beat, "anyway, back to my question. . .?" He was oddly unbothered by the unusual circumstances, and didn't think twice about it.

Jim sighed, shaking his head. The strange events of the day were starting to come together in the detective's sharp mind. Something weird was going on, but he wasn't sure what. Quickly deciding he needed more information, he kept his own counsel and answered his co-workers question. "Well, there's some fish. And if you can wrestle the salad away from our resident herbivore here," he said, motioning to Henri, who was still wrapped possessively around the salad bowl, " you can help yourself."

Joel glanced at the zealously guarded greens and wisely opted for the fish. Didn't matter, he supposed. He was feeling more carnivorous himself anyway. . .

Once the meal was finished, Joel and Simon cleaned up the remains while the others got ready for bed. Rafe vanished into the tent and under his covers instantly and wasn't seen again that night. No one thought it strange in the least.

Another ‘snap!' crashing through the stillness of the night tempted Ellison to step out of the tent and kill whatever animal was keeping him awake, putting it permanently out of his misery. He'd never had a night camping where he couldn't sleep, for all the natural noise of a living forest. It didn't make any sense, nature was usually a balm to his senses. But tonight . . .

Finally frustrated into considering suicide as a reprieve from the cacophony, the Sentinel rolled out of the tent and onto his feet in one smooth move. His eyesight automatically adjusted to the lack of light and focused on the source on the annoying sound. What he found was a rhythmically swaying Joel staring intently into the trees. Out of curiousity, he followed the older man's gaze. There, in a small tree hollow, was a sleeping (and snoring, unless he missed his guess) squirrel.

"Joel?"

"Hmm?"

"What are you doing?"

Taggert stopped swaying and looked at Jim with a bemused expression. "You know what? I have no idea." He grinned suddenly, as if he just realized the bizarreness of his actions.

Jim stared at him. This scenario, just weird enough to make him think he should be looking for pods, almost made him forget his initial irritation. Until he heard another twig snap between the Joel's fingers and his anger flared up again.

"Well stop it!" he snapped, getting a perverse pleasure in startling the nearly self-hypnotized man. He growled once more for good measure before going back to his sleeping bag for another attempt at an illusive peaceful slumber.

Joel Taggert sat twiddling his thumbs, resolutely not playing with any vegetation of any kind. He'd slept all day and was now wide awake. And bored. Very bored. But Ellison had already griped at him once, and he had no intention of risking that again.

He sighed and looked up at the stars. An owl glided silently over the clearing, obscuring his view of the moon for a moment. Joel watched it disappear into the trees before impulsively getting up to follow. No point hanging around here doing nothing, he reasoned. . .

Jim's hand lashed out in a well-trained covert-ops reflex when he awoke to find a knee on his bladder. His eyes opened at a strangled ‘It's just me, Jim' and blinked at the limb wrapped securely around Taggert's throat. "Sorry," he mumbled absentmindedly as he relaxed his grip. He was back asleep before his hand had fallen back to his side.

Taggert cocked his head in bewilderment, but with the sun beginning to rise over the mountains, decided he was too tired to think about it. He crawled into his own sleeping bag and burrowed down for good day's rest.

Still fighting the annoying urge to wake up, Blair heaved a sigh. A sigh which was answered by a high-pitched cheep from the vicinity of his chest. His eyes snapped open and he found himself face to face with the dark beady eyes and button nose of a vicious, pine cone stealing harry rodent staring at him with a malicious glint in its eye.

Blair held his breath, not wanting to startle it into biting his nose or something. Except without warning, Henri's arm flopped across Sandburg's stomach as the big man shifted, landing squarely on the animal's precious bushy tail. The squirrel let out an ear-piercing ‘SQUEAK!', then lunged forward in panic. Out of pure instinct, the offended beast bit the tip of Blair's nose as it ran over his head and out the open tent door. Sandburg yelped more from surprise than pain, but it had the same effect. Jim was immediately sitting bolt upright in a typical ‘Blessed Protector' reaction in response to his Guide's distress.

Blair threw back the blankets in disgust and crawled out of the tent. "Okay! Okay! I'm up! I'm up, already!" Muttering under his breath about homicidal squirrels attacking unsuspecting Guides at daybreak and how they should all just be eradicated on principle, he stomped angrily out into the brightening morning.

Getting up to join him, Jim mentally added another conspicuous occurrence to his checklist of weirdness.

Walking along the trail, observing her fellow officers occupied by Sandy's lecture on something-er-other, Megan decided the hike they were taking would be an excellent opportunity to practice her hunting skills. Keeping her expression carefully neutral, she surreptitiously stepped behind a high-strung Rafe. Closer. . . just a little closer. . . She slowly reached out her arm, holding her breath so as not to give herself away to the flustered detective.

"CONNOR!"

Megan jerked back guiltily, fighting to hold back a snicker as the man she'd just been stalking nearly jumped out of skin. Drat, she thought, she almost had him, too. . .

Rafe, for his part, had finally reached the end of his rope. His nerves were so wound up that every little noise sent his heart rate into the stratosphere. He had to get out of there before he died of a heart attack.

Without so much as a backward glance at his tormentors, he bolted back down the path to the cars. With an audible squeal, the other Major Crimes personnel could hear Henri Brown's car making a quick exit.

Brown, who until this point had been deeply involved in watching a butterfly, shot his head up at the sound. "Hey! That's my car!" With a shout at his soon-to-be-a-smear-on-the-pavement partner, he took off in a cumbersome trot after his stolen vehicle.

With the dust settling, Connor realized that a strategic retreat was perhaps in order. Judging by the varying degrees of glares being directed at her.

"I'll, um, go check on Joel. Yeah. Um, see if he's sleeping alright and all that. Yeah. Um, bye." Without waiting for a response, the Australian vanished up the path.

"Okay, that's it," Jim stated in frustration. "Something weird has been going on here all weekend and I've just about had enough."

Sandburg looked at his partner speculatively. "You have a point, Jim. I've been waking up at the crack of dawn each morning, which is really driving me nuts, by the way. And Joel's gone nocturnal, sleeping all day and staying up all night. . ."

"And have you ever seen Brown so clumsy or out of it?" Simon added, beginning to see where his two best (and admittedly strangest) detectives were going.

"Sorry, sir, but you're not one to talk. Since when do you catch salmon with your bare hands?"

The Captain blinked at that, only now recognizing his own peculiar actions. "It seemed so natural at the time, though," he mused thoughtfully.

"Man, that's weird. I noticed Megan torturing Rafe all day, too." Blair mentioned.

Jim snorted, mumbling, "when she wasn't drooling after you," under his breath. Out loud, he said, "hmm. And Rafe? He's been acting like a timid mouse trapped with a bunch of predators."

"Hey, wait!" Blair exclaimed in excitement asan idea began forming. He continued down the path as he tried to collect his thoughts into some semblance of order, his two friends following. "Jim, have you noticed anything unusual about your senses?"

Before Ellison could answer, Simon jumped in with his own comment, "you have been taking this Sentinel thing to a whole new level, Jim." In his mind, he flashed back to several moments when his detective had been extremely protective, excessively so, of Sandburg this weekend.

Jim's mind must have flashed back to the same thing, because he spoke without a trace of hesitation. "My senses have been a little strange. More intense, sharper almost. I don't think I've ever been this in tune with my abilities," he reflected, then smirked when a thought struck. "Well, except for one or two times when I ‘became one with the Jaguar', as Sandburg puts it."

Beside him, Blair was nodding enthusiastically as pieces to the puzzle fell into place. "Spirit Guides. . . mmmhmm, that makes sense, almost. Well, kinda. But how?" he queried absently as he muttered to himself.

Jim had been watching a bird soar overheaded and only half-listening to Sandburg prattle on. When the bird landed on a rock mostly covered by vegetation and started pulled at the greenery, a small glint of metal caught the Sentinel's eye. He walked over and brushed the plants off the rock to reveal an old, tarnished bronze plaque.

"Hey Chief! Check this out!"

Blair, with an ardor only an anthropologist (or any reasonable fascilime) can have for old moss-covered artifacts, shoved his larger partner aside to read the faint and worn inscription.

"I don't believe it." Simon grumbled, tenaciously determined not to get sucked into the Sandburg-Zone.

Blair looked at Jim with an ecstatic grin. "Are you pondering what I'm pondering?"

"Don't even say it, Brain. Let's just go home and forget this weekend ever happened."

"But Jim!" Sandburg whined, rather eloquently in his opinion.

"Forget it, Sandburg." Captain Banks sniped, a headache making his voice gruffer than normal. He grabbed hold of the over-excited Guide's elbow and started pulling him back toward camp.

"Just who's idea was it to come here anyway?"

Extra Authors's Notes: After the making of this travesty we call a story, Fred was last seen being carried away by vigilante, terrorist squirrels to answer to her crimes against all small woodland creatures. Bob, sadly, had to reluctantly decline Fred's plea for rescue when a birch tree cornered her between a rock and a hard place (another rock, actually, go figure?). *sigh* It was a dark day for all.

P.S. "Mis-tik-oos-kaw" is Cree for "mini-trees" -- and if anyone believed that whole Shaman shtick... what are you smoking?!