Anniversary Story by Francesca (rating: PG at most)

[unbelievable2.livejournal.com]

<b>Fandom:</b> THE SENTINEL
<b>Pairing:</b> Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg
<b>Length:</b> about 5,000 words
<b>Author on LJ:</b> cesperanza
<b>Author Website:</b> http://www.trickster.org/francesca/

<b>Why this <i>must</i> be read:</b> Hello, I'm Ann, and I have the honour of driving the Van for The Sentinel during this lovely month of May.
I'm pretty new to TS, literally just discovering it and the reams and reams of glorious fic that goes with it, sometime last year. Furthermore, now that I have found Jim and Blair, I have grabbed hold of them tight and don't intend to let go!

I came into the fandom in perhaps an odd way: I found the fics before the episodes. I had no idea The Sentinel even existed until I stumbled upon Allaire Mikhail's wonderful "Storyteller's Campsite", looking for something else, and found  fantastic recs for a whole pile of fandoms, TS included. Francesca's work was some of the first stuff I read, and so I am starting with a fic from amongst her many and varied, but always excellent, work.
Francesca is rightly famous for her series, but actually I prefer her stand-alone stories. Anniversary Story is a treat from start to finish. The voices are absolutely spot-on, the dialogue hilarious, the scenario entirely believable. But I also adore the way that she has completely captured the mess of contradictions that is Jim Ellison, a man so up-and-at-'em in his professional life but in his personal life so cursed by doubt and hesitation. In this story a chance remark jolts Jim out of what he believes to be his comfort zone and into contemplating a massive step forward. The whole story is told from Ellison's POV, a spot-on inner dialogue of doubt and frustration mixed with exasperation in equal measure.

Completely adorable. Oh, and it has the best mountaineering joke in all of fanfic.    

http://www.trickster.org/francesca/Anniverstory.html