Leave It by Rachel Martin (R)

[hanarobi.livejournal.com]

Fandom THE SENTINEL
Pairing pre-slash Jim, Blair, and OFC (female soldier)
Length Part 1 is 9,889 words and Part 2 is 7,143 words
Author on LJ rachel_martin64
Author Website not known
Why this must be read:

The time line for the series has always driven me crazy. At the beginning of the series, Jim has been a cop for five years. In those five years, he recovers from his 18 months in Peru, has R&R in Bali and meets Lila, goes to the Academy, spends the requisite time as a uniformed police officer, makes detective, meets, marries, and divorces Carolyn, works in both Vice and Major Crimes, establishes himself enough to work alone and call his own shots, and becomes Simon's trusted friend. All in five years. The mind boggles.

But even more boggling is that while he must have spent at least 10 years as a soldier, we hear so very little about this time in his life. Certainly he doesn't tell the kind of stories from his time as a soldier as he does about his earlier years as a cop, such as the story he tells Drennan about seeing his partner get shot or about Quinn killing Brody.

Jim as a soldier, in extreme conditions, covert ops, etc., just fascinates me. I love Soldier!Jim stories. This story, "Leave It", is one of the best of this genre. Jim is competent, conflicted, disillusioned, and pretty sure he is going insane because he is seeing and hearing things that he really shouldn't be able to see or hear.

Blair shows up and stumbles into a very bad situation and the chemistry between them is there, but offset with Jim being focused on everything else but this annoying American hippie kid who Jim has to get safely out of the jungle.

This story is intense, realistic, gritty, sad, and one hell of a ride.

Leave It
(The link will take you to Part One. You can get to Part Two by clicking the link at the end of Part One.}

Comments

[tingler.livejournal.com]

I was really struck by this story the first time I read it and then I couldn't find it again for a very long time. Thanks!

[hanarobi.livejournal.com]

You are most welcome! Enjoy!

[magician113.livejournal.com]

All in five years. The mind boggles.

And he also had to fit in bonding and losing Jack as his partner. I always thought they should have added a couple of years to his cop career. You can just hear the writers of the pilot saying "five years -- yeah, that's a good round number!" Duh. Sadly, they glossed over so much of his life, I guess under the excuse that much of it was classified.

Thank you for recommending this story. I read it a while back, perhaps when I was more infatuated with Blair than Jim. This really was quite a wonderful look at the grittier aspects of the Army; not just the hardships endured and danger constantly looming, but the political BS realities. This Jim squares with the canon Jim in my head; eminently competent, eminently fair; eminently human.

Thanks for the chance to re-read and for the month of good recs. Brava

[hanarobi.livejournal.com]

This Jim is very much the Jim in my head as well. And this story makes his time in the Army, such a massive chunk of his life, come alive for me.

I want to thank you for your encouragement. I had a great deal of fun doing the recs this month and I would have (a) never done it without your pushing and (b) given up after screwing up the first rec if you hadn't been so encouraging and supportive.

This fandom is just so very very lucky to have you.

[hanarobi.livejournal.com]

Oh, and also...have you read rachel_martin64's other Sentinel story? It is called Year of the Dragon and it is amazing. It is a total mindfuck of a backstory for William Ellison.

I really wanted to rec it here but the author says it is a WIP. The story is actually finished, in that the ending is there. There are just chunks of the story that need to be filled in. But there is most definitely an ending.

Anyway, if you haven't read it, you should go take a look. It's a bit hard to get to order of the parts correct, but you can flip back and forth a few times and figure it out.

http://rachel-martin64.insanejournal.com/6166.html

[magician113.livejournal.com]

I remember reading this a few years back when she had a different site. I liked it because it was such a full and interesting take on William. Since she marked it as a WIP, it sounds like she intended to do more. A shame it hasn't happened yet.

[magician113.livejournal.com]

And you as well. I actually feel that this fandom is fabulous -- so many great writers and readers.

I hope you'll consider signing up to do another round. We need the diversity to get all the great stories out there recced. Ta

[magician113.livejournal.com]

Updated link info. Can't get either her LJ or IJ links to work but Leave It is at Cascade Library.

http://tslibrary.skeeter63.org/authors/auth-rachelmartin.htm