This was originally posted to the Sentinel Angst List. It centers around the events of TSbyBS, so there are spoilers for that episode.

Masterpiece

by Autumnburn

This one is his to keep. He picks it up carefully and wraps it in newspaper. It goes into the box marked 'Sandburg'.

This one isn't his. Just as carefully he picks it up and turns it in his hands one last time before wrapping it. It goes in the box marked 'University'. That box is almost full.

He turns and starts on the last shelf. Already his office feels deserted – an empty shell left behind when all its occupants had moved on. As much an artifact as the things he's packing away.

He picks up a slightly dusty Kachina and brushes it off. The colors of the paint have held surprisingly well, bright and lively even in the dim artificial light of his office. He holds it close to his face and admires the how intricately it was carved. It's a masterpiece, Blair thinks as he grabs another sheet of newspaper.

Masterpiece. Blair smiles as he remembers an art history class he took many years ago, in which they covered the origin of the word. There was a time when nearly all artists had to be guild-members in order to get work. A young artist would take an apprenticeship with a guild-member, building his skills as he worked alongside the master. When he had learned all he could, he would create one piece to show to the guild and to prove that he too was now a master.

Blair knows there aren't any real masterpieces in the two cardboard boxes sitting on the floor. Most of the artifacts are objects made for daily use, and come from a time much longer ago. But the skills are always passed down through time in the same manner, and there's no way to say if any of the pieces marked a turning point in the artist's

life. Those stories have moved on long ago, too.

The last artifact is a small clay lamp. Blair takes his time folding the newspaper around it. He sets it slowly in his own box and then straightens up.

What should he feel? Sad, empty, discouraged? This wasn't going to be his office forever, but he never imagined he'd be leaving the university so quickly and completely. In a way, it's as if the last half-decade was wasted.

He doesn't quite feel that way, though. Yes, all the credits and classes, and the building of his reputation and his social network have come to nothing. His thesis, the epitome of his years of grad school, has come to nothing.

But his heart is strangely light as he picks up his box and shuts his office door behind him. Jim is waiting back at the loft with a warm smile and a cold beer for him, and Blair knows that the thesis was never his masterpiece, anyway.