So this idea's been nagging at me. I choose to believe it is why I can't focus on "Matter of Blood," so I figured I needed to purge it once and for all, lol. Hopefully I can knock it out in about three parts. So here is part one. And thanks to imagine for keeping me TP inspired!

Oh, and I still don't own them... sadly.


Vendetta, Part 1 by NR Levy

She woke with a start, her eyes blinking against the bright light coming in through the window. Looking down, she discovered she was naked, her body wrapped in soft cotton sheets on a large, comfortable bed.

Her first thought was where the hell am I?

Her second was that she was going to be sick.

Rising, she bolted from bed and searched for the bathroom. She found it just before her stomach rebelled against her completely, leaving her weak and shaking on the tile floor.

[i]"Stay calm. You're safe.[/i]

She shook her head. The words had come from inside of her mind, but they weren't her thoughts.

[i]"Stay calm."[/i]

But she wasn't calm. She was scared and confused and she felt like hell.

Rising on unsteady legs, she made her way to the sink and ran the tap, using the cool water to rinse out her mouth. Then she looked in the mirror and saw the stark blue eyes and dark hair in her reflection staring back.

The realization that she did not know the name of the face staring back at her left her trembling as she slid back to the floor.

*****

Jarod rushed down the street, the supplies he'd needed jammed into two shopping bags. When his cell phone rang, he shifted his purchases into one hand and grabbed the ringing device with his now free right hand.

"Hello."

"She's panicking," Ethan said. His voice was strained and halting--a definite indication that not only was he correctly assessing his sister's emotional state but that, as usual, her upset was paining him physically.

"I'm almost back at the apartment," Jarod reported as he picked up his pace.

"They're trying to help her relax, but she's terrified. I'll... I'll get there as soon as I can."

"We'll be waiting for you."

The call ended, and Jarod shoved the phone back in his pocket, moving even more quickly. When the brownstone came into sight, he broke into a full run, taking the steps two at a time as he made his way up to the entrance to his unit.

"Parker."

He called out to her, the door closing loudly behind him. When he was met with only silence, Jarod dropped the bags on the couch and headed into the bedroom. When he saw the bed was empty, Ethan's words played back in his head.

"Parker, it's Jarod. Where are you?"

A soft whimper reached him from the bathroom, and Jarod moved toward it. He tried to muffle the sound as he gasped at seeing her sitting on the floor, her knees drawn to her chest, her body draped in one of his black t-shirts. She was shaking, tear stains on her cheeks, and Jarod was certain that even in their most intimate of moments, he had never seen her less Miss Parker-like than she was now.

"I'm sorry I had to leave you." Jarod spoke as he moved still closer to her. When she drew back from him, he stopped cold. Something was wrong.

"Parker?"

"Is that my name?"

She sounded devastated and weak and hearing it nearly killed him.

"Yes," he replied, making his voice as gentle as he could. "And my name is Jarod."

His stomach tightened as he eased down to the floor so that he could look at her eye-level, hoping it would make his presence less intimidating to her. She glanced toward him, then lowered her eyes back to the floor.

"What happened to me?"

Jarod drew in a long breath as he fought to keep his own fear in check. Parker had lost her memory. More than likely, that was just temporary, but right now, he had to find a way to help her deal with the panic Ethan had sensed.

"I'm not sure," he finally answered. "You called me and asked me to meet you here. We, uh, meet here sometimes."

She looked at him doubtfully, but then he saw her right hand rise up and rub at her temple, her eyes closing reflexively a moment. Finally, she looked back to him.

"Why did I come here?"

He shook his head. "You wanted to wait until we were together to talk. I got here first, and then you were late. You're never late. I got worried, and I went out to look for you. Then early this morning, I heard a knock. When I opened the door, you just collapsed in my arms."

The weight of her eyes on him compelled Jarod to try and find more information to give her, though he knew there were certain facts he would continue to withhold. Parker was already overwhelmed.

"You have a concussion. A pretty bad one, considering your memory loss," he explained. "You also have some scrapes and bruises. That's why I went out. I needed some supplies to take care of you."

Jarod waited for some acknowledgement that Parker had heard him, but then she clutched at her head and groaned.

"I can't... it won't stop."

"What won't stop, babe?"

The endearment slipped from his lips and though he was terrified of making her more fearful, Jarod eased closer to her.

"What is that... thing... in my head?"

"It sounds like talking, only you can't pick out any of the words?"

Parker nodded and raised her eyes to his.

"It's... that's not something that's easy to explain." Jarod paused, truly stymied. How could he possibly explain her inner sense to her when he could barely fathom the odd gift she and their brother shared? But he had to try. "I guess it's like... something inside of you that tries to help you know what path to take, what to do. You've gotten pretty good at reading it, but you're hurt, and right now, I think the voices are just trying to help you feel better."

She nodded slightly and closed her eyes before her head leaned back against the wall. Jarod watched and noticed her drawing in deep, slow breaths. He stayed still, unsure if she was in pain or trying to think through what he'd told her. Then her blue eyes shot open.

"What's my brother's name?"

Jarod smiled. "Ethan. He's on his way here to help me take care of you."

"That's... that's what they said."

Hope sparked at the realization that even in her current state, Parker's instincts were working. She wanted proof that she could trust him, and confirming the nearly indistinct whispers in her head had given her evidence she could process in spite of her absent memories.

"Jarod... I don't... I don't feel good."

Moving slowly, Jarod inched closer to her and he carefully lifted his hand up, moving to brush the hair out of her face.

"I know," he replied. "You need to rest, and you're dehydrated, so I need to get you hooked up to an I.V. Parker... I promise you, you're safe here. I won't let anyone hurt you. I won't hurt you."

He had hoped she'd take his hand, at least let him help her up and back to bed. When Parker instead leaned into him, her head coming to rest on his shoulder, he nearly cried with relief at having her safely tucked against his body, and his arms instantly wrapped around her.

"I believe you," she whispered.

Though he could have held her indefinitely, Jarod had been very serious about her need to get back into bed so he could give her the medical care she needed. He slipped his right arm under her knees and lifted her up, cradling her against his chest. Then silently, he carried her back to the bed and laid her down in the center of it.

By the time he pulled back to tell her he was going grab the bags of medical supplies, Parker was sound asleep.

Taking his time, he repeated the careful examination he had done earlier, fearful now that he might have missed an injury that was contributing to her amnesia. But he found nothing. Parker had been hit in the back of the head and hit hard, and she had fought like hell with someone in order to acquire all the small wounds on her body. He cleaned the cut on her head and probed gently to be sure the swelling hadn't worsened. Then with great care, he tended to each nick and bruise on her skin. Finally, he set up the I.V. and began the important process of re-hydrating her.

And then Jarod leaned down and laid his cheek against Parker's stomach so that his eyes
were staring up at her sleeping face. The blood test he had snuck into County Hospital to run had not only told him what her body needed, but had also confirmed what he'd discovered during his earlier examination. He knew it was why she had wanted to see him, and he could only pray now that what had befallen Parker had nothing to do with the secret she had so wanted to share with him.

"We'll figure this out," he whispered, making the promise to himself, to her and to the life they had made together. "We'll be okay."

*****

Lyle stood at the gravesite and stared at the small marker she had left behind. Almost no one else would have understood its significance, but he knew... and he could imagine the care his sister had taken in choosing just the right rocks to make the small pile of smooth stones that were so oddly out of place here in the middle of the woods.

Leaning down, Lyle picked up one of the small objects and held it in his hands.

"She loved you so much," he whispered as he looked not down at the ground but up into the sky, some part of him hoping that all the stories he'd heard growing up about heaven were true... even if it also meant that hell was real and it was where he'd be spending all of eternity.

"I hope you know that, wherever you are. I hope you know how much you meant to her. Maybe in that place, you even get to know what you meant to me."

The chirping of his Blackberry shattered the quiet of the sacred space, and Lyle returned the stone to the exact location he had taken it from, then walked back to his car before looking down at the message he'd received.

"I missed this time. But next time..."

Lyle fought the urge to smash the device as fury raged through him.

There would be no next time... Lyle would see to that. No one was going to make him break his promise.

*****

Jarod eyed the clock and then let his gaze drift back to Parker. She was still asleep, and he hoped that she was getting some real rest and that it would help her begin to recover her memory.

Though it had terrified him to see her so vulnerable, so confused and uncertain, he was not wholly surprised that, given a traumatic incident, Parker's mind had acted to protect itself and provide a layer of insulation against more pain, more darkness. After a lifetime of accumulated hurts, Jarod knew that this past year had left fresh wounds that had barely begun to heal before another one was torn open.

He remembered always thinking nothing could do as much damage to her soul as the murder of her mother. The effect of that particular Raines' brutality was evident in almost every aspect of Parker's life--her fear of love, her distrust of happiness, her instinct to strike first and ask questions later. But never had the pain of Catherine's murder been able to fully undo all the good that the mother had crafted inside her daughter before being torn away. At the center of her being, Miss Parker was every bit Catherine Parker's daughter. It was that fundamental truth that had allowed her to retain her humanity despite the Centre. That Parker was the one Jarod had never been able to leave behind.

Restless, he stood and stepped a bit further away from the bed so that his movement wouldn't wake her. Sometimes, back before that odd and fateful week had changed everything, Jarod had wished so much that he could somehow break the connection that kept him bound to Parker. It would've made it all so much easier, allowing him to focus on finding his family without the distraction of "is she all right, does she need me?" running through his head all day and all night. But he'd never given voice to the wish, and now Jarod wondered if he'd simply been afraid it would be the one prayer God would've grant him.

[i]"She needs you, Jarod. You have to find her."[/i]

It was the sadness in Sydney's voice more than anything that had made it clear something was desperately wrong.

[i]"It's Johnny. He... he died."[/i]

Jarod closed his eyes at the memory of Sydney's words. Johnny... John... the child that had gone from being Parker's half-brother to a tragic Centre ward with the revelation that Mr. Parker could not father children. But to her, it had never mattered. John needed a family, and she had become it. She ignored Raines' warnings of punishment if she interfered in the boy's training and glared at the gossips who spoke in hushed tones about who the boy's real father must be. It was she who had decided Baby Boy Parker needed a name, and she'd simply tagged him with John and dared anyone to say otherwise.

Parker had brought John into the world. She would not abandon him while she remained in it. It had never occurred to anyone that he would be the one to leave her first.

When he had found her at Sydney's lakeside cabin, Jarod's heart had nearly stopped. She was broken... finally, completely broken. And then the powerful muscle in his chest had literally skipped a beat when he'd realized that the gun in her hands was pointed not at him, but at herself.

[i]"Parker."

"I can't... I... I keep trying to pull the trigger, and I can't."

He moved to her instantly, kneeling in front of the couch, his hands carefully wrapping over hers so that she could not move the gun.

"No," he said, "you can't, because this isn't you, Parker. It's your grief, and I understand, but you can't do this."

"I promised him." Her voice broke as tears flowed over her cheeks, her eyes unblinking as she stared through him. "I promised Johnny I would protect him. But I couldn't save him. I couldn't save him."

She let him pull the gun away, and Jarod threw it across the room out of her reach. It was only when he tried to wrap his arms around her that she fought him, her formerly limp body suddenly powerful as she beat at him with her fists. But Jarod fought back, accepting the blows against his arms, shoulders and chest so that he could finally gain position on her and drag her against him, her arms pinned at her sides.

"Let him go, Parker. You have to let him go. Let him go."[/i]

He had whispered the words against her hair over and over, softly, calmly, until finally the fight had gone out of her and instead grief poured freely from Parker's body. It purged itself in the wetness of her tears and the sound of her screams and while it raged, Jarod held fast.

For long hours that night, the pretender had faced his worst fear--not Parker's death, but her destruction. And when she had finally drifted off to sleep in his arms, he had been genuinely afraid of who he would see in her eyes when she finally awoke.

That he felt a similar fear today only set Jarod's nerves more on edge. Surface-level, his worries were about their physical survival. Someone had attacked her, and he still had no idea if it was random or if someone had targeted Parker for reasons still to be uncovered. And personally, he wondered at his own ability to stay rational if months of his life... of his life with her... were now gone from her memory never to return.

The soft beeping of the security system panel told Jarod someone had accessed the building. He moved to the monitor and saw Ethan preparing to put his key in the lock of the front door. A moment later, the brothers greeted one another at the entry.

"How is she?" Ethan asked as he pulled back from their embrace.

"She's lost her memory. Physically, other than that, she'll be fine."

Ethan nodded. "Did the voices frighten her?"

"A little at first," Jarod replied, "but she trusted them instinctively. They told her she was safe with me, and she believed them."

"That's good," his brother said. "Her amnesia can't be that deep if she's clear that her inner sense is protecting her. We just have to help her fight her way past whatever's blocking her. And then I need to go to Blue Cove."

"Blue Cove? Why?"

Jarod stared at the young man before him and waited as Ethan turned and fixed his eyes on Parker's still sleeping in the other room. The tension in his shoulders and the slight grimace on his face told Jarod his brother was still feeling a fair amount of discomfort from his deep psychological connection to the sister he had come to adore.

"He knows something... something about what happened."

"Who knows, Ethan?"

"My brother. My other brother."

Anger surged through Jarod as he realized who Ethan meant. "Lyle?"

His half-sibling's dark eyes sought Jarod's out. "He didn't hurt her. But he knows something... and I think I can get him to tell me."

"What in the world makes you think Lyle would do anything to help you or Parker?" Jarod asked angrily. "He's tried to kill her himself a half dozen times at least."

"He could be playing a game," Ethan answered, "but I doubt he could control it well enough. This feels real to me."

"What does?"

Ethan sighed and leaned against the doorjamb. "It's hard to explain exactly. But... he's reaching out... he's trying to find me. And I need to find out why."


TBC :)

Vendetta, Part 2 by pretndermp

Parker spun on her heel and took another look around the room. There was something wrong about this. Jarod's lairs were always an oddly perfect balance of clean and messy in that he had sanitized it enough to leave no concrete leads about where he was headed and messy in that he was perhaps the biggest lover of clutter she had ever seen. This place was out of balance. Too clean... and too something else.

The uneasy feeling in her gut was only intensified by the certainty she had that the timing of all this was off. Jarod had just finished a pretend in San Francisco three days ago. It was too soon for him to show his hand again, even if he was just playing a game and baiting her all over the country to distract the Centre from something else he needed cover for. It just wasn't Jarod's way. He'd have taken more time to set it up, or he'd have sent in one or two random clues to draw out the torture.

So a sighting of Jarod in Philadelphia while she was still knee-deep in a report on his latest West coast adventure made no sense. But her arguments had fallen on deaf ears, so she had boarded the Centre jet with Lyle, Sydney and Broots and come here to find a lair that looked and felt remarkably like the dozens she'd seen over the years.

But she couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't Jarod who had filled this room or who had laid out a trail to bring them there.

Parker drew on her shades and walked out into the bright sun. The cars were parked in a line in the alleyway, and as she took a step toward them, her ears picked up the sound of Lyle beginning to throw a tantrum about Jarod getting away... again.

The ripple of sound that only she could hear--the sensation she'd come to recognize easily as her "inner sense" at work--hit her as she neared her twin. Though she continued to work with Sydney to gain more insight into how her gift worked, Parker still found herself unsure what the scattered words, sounds and images meant. But on this occasion, the communication was clear and concise, and she saw a figure move on the rooftop across from them in her mind even though her eyes were on Lyle. As the internal warning of danger repeated, she pushed her brother to the ground and held him there as two bullets drove into the wall behind them.

The sweepers went into action immediately and took off in search of the gunman, but Parker could already tell the man was long gone. Despite that, she followed when Lyle crawled into the car to take cover behind the bulletproof glass.

"Why did you do that?"

She looked at him and saw genuine fear in his eyes. Somehow her brother clearly understood that he'd had a very real brush with death, and along with the terror that brought, he was fiercely confused by her actions.

"Don't read too much into it," she answered. "It was instinct."

The fact that she was lying was irrelevant. Lyle didn't need to know that the voices had played any part in what had happened. He did nothing but mock her gift whenever it came up, and so to save herself the aggravation, she turned away from him and stared out the window.

Sam climbed in the limo five minutes later. He handed Lyle a piece of paper. Even if she hadn't seen the look that passed over her brother's face, the whispers that more and more guided her actions warned Parker that whatever lay scrawled in the note was important... and terrifying.

"What does it say?"

Lyle looked at her hesitantly. After a moment, he looked down and stared at the white sheet in his hand.

"She didn't do you any favors," he read aloud, then he handed it to her. Parker took the page and read the words, confirming them.

"Confident psycho," she said. "He took the time to drop us a line. Now if he'd just told us what the hell it means."

Parker lifted her eyes to meet her brother's... but suddenly, everything she saw began to shift, morphing into odd geometric shapes, twisting, turning, making her feel ill.

When the motion stopped, she was in the Centre infirmary, Johnny's small, feverish body laying limply in her arms as she moved him back and forth in the rocking chair Sydney had brought to the boy's bedside.

"That's my boy, Johnny. Just stay here with me."

His fingers twisted into her shirt, clutching the fabric.

The doctors didn't know what was causing the fever, and the more tests they ran, the higher his temperature rose. It had been hovering at about 104 for nearly 12 hours now.

Parker's eyes drifted from the motionless child she held to the gaggle of men standing just beyond the slightly open curtain that surrounded Johnny's bed. Raines, Cox and Lyle spoke in hushed whispers, and every so often, one of them glanced her way and then looked down at the ground sharply.

The overwhelming sense of dread that had filled her that morning when the child's temperature had risen two more degrees continued to fill Parker's heart, and though she refused to stop fighting, everything in her was telling her it was a losing battle. But she couldn't face that, couldn't accept the idea that her love and the simple concept of right wasn't enough to keep the little boy alive.

"Lyle, do something!" Parker screamed as she stood up with Johnny cradled in her arms. Her cry drew the eyes of the men back to her. Her twin took a few tentative steps closer and stopped, his hands hanging at his sides.

"I'm not a doctor, Parker."

"You're his father!" She yelled the words, giving voice to the secret that everyone knew and never spoke of. "Make them take him to a hospital or bring in another doctor, a team of doctors. Do something other than just stand there. Please."

When he came toward her, she reflexively pulled Johnny closer to her, anticipating him trying to wrench the boy away. Instead, she was stunned to feel his arms come around her and his son. She gave in as he guided her back into the chair, then Lyle knelt before her.

"We've sent his lab work to half a dozen of the best hospitals in the country, Parker. No one can figure out what's wrong with him. We've tried. There just aren't any answers."

A gasp tore from Johnny's throat and Parker looked down at him. His hand tightened where he held to her clothes and then she saw his fingers go slack and fall away.

A moment later, her body slammed into a fence as she took a blow from her attacker. Parker stayed curled in the defensive position she'd taken after the man had first grabbed her, throwing her deep into the alley she'd been walking by.

Instinct had helped her ride out the first two hard blows, a kick aimed at her stomach was deflected with her hip, thwarting the bastard's attempt to paralyze her diaphragm, and then he'd thrown a hard strike at her lower back to try to drop her to her knees, but she had managed to crouch down enough to take the strike higher in the stronger part of her back. A rain of sharp hits followed as Parker was driven backwards.

She knew he thought he had the upper hand, but Parker hadn't survived this long to be taken out in some random alleyway. She maneuvered herself into a disguised offensive position, and as her attacker came closer, Parker jabbed her right hand quickly before delivering a kick of her own. Hers landed, but the man came at her again quickly and Parker felt a sharp jolt of pain as he drove her backwards into the wall of the building. Her head felt like it would explode from the impact, and Parker knew if she lost consciousness she was dead. Light flashed across the face of the man in front of her as she reached for her gun, pulled it forward and fired.

"Jarod!"

Parker's panicked call brought both Jarod and Ethan to their feet, and they both raced in from the living room. The pretender slipped onto the bed, his body wrapping around hers as she struggled to catch her breath, her eyes still closed despite her scream.

"It's okay, babe, I'm here. It's okay. You're safe now."

Her hands gripped his body where they could, and Jarod felt her turn into him. She said nothing more, and he fell silent, simply holding her, letting his presence ease whatever nightmare her mind had conjured. Slowly, her breathing returned to normal and Jarod felt Parker relax in his arms.

"She's remembering things," Ethan whispered. "Snippets... but she's not sure what they mean."

"Can you make sense of them?"

Ethan shook his head at Jarod's question. "It doesn't work like that. I can feel what she's feeling, but what I see isn't any clearer to me than to her."

Jarod nodded and placed a soft kiss on Parker's forehead.

"She remembers the baby."

That drew the pretender's eyes back to his younger brother.

"You're sure?"

"The fear I can feel... it's for the baby, not for herself."

This prompted Jarod to draw the sleeping brunette even closer and he dropped his right hand down to lay flat against her belly.

"Our baby's okay. I'm sorry you didn't get to tell me yourself, but I promise, you're both going to be fine, Parker, and I will not let anyone hurt you again."

She sighed in her sleep, and Parker's palm moved to settle atop his hand.

"You should stay with her," Ethan said softly as he rose up off the bed. "I need to take care of some things."

Jarod felt his mood darken because he knew exactly what "things" Ethan was referring to.

"Ethan, trusting Lyle is a mistake. It could get you killed. If your sister were herself right now, she'd tell you the same thing."

"I never said I trusted him, big brother. But I need to talk to him. Parker needs me to talk to him."

"She needs you to stay safe and alive," Jarod replied.

"I'll be back soon."

With that promise, Ethan headed out into the living room. The older man thought about arguing, but knew after more than an hour of debating the topic already that it was pointless. A few minutes later, the front door opened and closed. Using the remote he kept in his pocket, Jarod keyed the security system to high alert status and then settled down into the bed more comfortably with Parker, her head resting on his chest.

"I know that you're still lost, babe," Jarod whispered to the sleeping form, "but I'm right here. And I know you'll find your way back to me."

*****

From the first day that Lyle had arrived at the Centre, the large and looming body of water to its left had plagued him. He made it a point to avoid going near the shoreline altogether, and went whole years without even looking out an upper-level window so that he could try to forget it was there.

But randomly, Centre business would force his hand and drive him out to the sandy beach and Lyle would push down his dread and go outside and try to finish his business as quickly as possible so that he could retreat within the gray stone walls again.

The idea that the Centre was "safe ground" on those days was laughable, but it was also true.

Because weakness was to be avoided at all costs in his life, he told no one about the disturbing sensations the water and the waves caused him. But on a few occasions when the near paranoiac need to steer clear of the beach tortured him, Lyle had caught Raines watching him, studying him... and the younger man had wondered if it was all tied to yet another secret his "mentor " had hidden from him.

The truth was so obvious now, Lyle wondered how he had missed it for so long. Part fear of knowing, perhaps, with a healthy dose of Centre cover-up. But he'd found his answer in the unlikeliest of places.

Now Lyle stood on the shore and stared out at the water and closed his eyes, forcing his ears to listen to the sound of the water lapping against the sand, the dull roar and delicate slap of the tides moving the liquid back and forth. In his right hand, he held one of the smooth stones he had picked up from the beach. He turned it over and over against his palm.

"Where is the boy?"

Willie looked up at him and gave Lyle a look filled with frustration.

"She has him. She took him outside again, this time to the beach. Mr. Raines is going to lose it if he finds out."

Lyle glanced around John's room and saw the tasks Raines had left for the boy completed, lined up along the edge of his work table. It was barely 2:00 in the afternoon, and the boy had already finished the five projects expected to take him two full days.

"I'll get her to bring him back," Lyle told the sweeper. "Just tell the rest of the team to keep this quiet... for everyone's sake."

Willie nodded and moved off to speak to the rest of his sweeper team. Lyle choked down a shudder at the thought of going near the water and cursed his sister for always finding the best way to torment him, even if she didn't realize it. Then he headed out of the bowels of the Centre's sublevels and towards the open air.

To anyone who didn't know the truth, the scene he came upon was one he imagined took place on beaches all around the world. Parker had shed her suit jacket, her tank top letting the sun on to her shoulders, and her perfectly tailored slacks were rolled up to keep them off the sand, where she stood barefoot. The boy was enraptured by what she was explaining to him and a bright grin illuminated the tiny face.

The only thing that communicated that they weren't a typical family enjoying a lazy outing was the presence of Sam, who stood sentry a few feet away. Lyle wondered if the guard was there to protect John from potential dangers or was at his post to keep unwanted Centre eyes away.

"Mr. Lyle," the big man said, his eyes flashing towards him. Lyle gave a nearly imperceptible nod in answer, then stepped closer to his sister and the boy.

It was how he tried to always think of him... "the boy." Ever since Parker had named him, though, that had been harder. Most everyone kept up Raines' mandate that the child not be addressed by the name, but even if Parker walked into a room and whispered, "Johnny," the child's eyes lit up, making it clear it didn't matter who else used the name so long as she did.

That same sparkle was in the little boy's eyes now as he laid his palms flat and Parker placed one smooth stone into each hand. The small fingers closed up, and John giggled when she put her own hands up to show that he now had all the treasures she'd held in his own grasp.

"Lyle," she said, without looking up, "it's just for an hour. Even the Tower agrees that isolating the past pretenders so much was a failure. He won't be any less brilliant because we played on the beach today."

"You could've gotten clearance," he replied. "If you're so sure the Tower would back you..."

Parker glanced at her watch and then looked at him, her piercing blue eyes burning into him. "Ten more minutes... unless you want to tell that face he has to go in now."

Looking down at the boy, Lyle saw the child's expression and knew instantly that he was not in the mood to become the bad man who ruined his play time.

"Fine, ten more minutes. But you don't mind if I stay to supervise, do you?"

Just then, John looked up at him and extended his left hand, palm open. A shiny, black rock, worn smooth by the water, lay there.

"Want one?" the boy asked.

"That's okay," Lyle replied. "You can keep it."

John nodded and ran forward a few steps, Parker following after him. The twosome stopped just short of where the water brushed up on the shore, the little boy squealing as his feet got wet by a few far-reaching ripples.

The water's movement made Lyle move in exactly the opposite direction, and he loosened his tie as his breath began to come in shorter gasps. And then it was there... the thing that made him hate this shore, the water and the sound the waves made, and for the first time, Lyle understood why.

A faint buzz-like noise that seemed to be laying at the base of his skull and made his neck tighten and his stomach swirl was there... and it sounded exactly like low, dull roar of the waves heading into shore.

He closed his eyes, hoping it would go away. But instead, it intensified, causing him to sweat. Lyle pulled at his jacket, drawing it off his body so fast, he nearly tore it. And still the odd noise grew louder, grew stronger, and just when his breath threatened to turn into hyperventilation, a word... clear and undeniable... shot through his mind in a voice so similar to his sister's that Lyle would've sworn she had tricked him somehow and made it happen except that he could hear her laughing and playing with John at the water's edge.

'Protect.'

Now the buzz was replaced by a beeping, and Lyle opened his eyes, looking for the source.

"Time's up!" John said, his hands reaching up to grab Parker's wrist and turn off the alarm she had set.

"That's right, time's up. But we can take these in with us as a reminder of how much fun we had."

Slowly, Parker gathered the group of five stones that she had kept to the side while John had great fun throwing the rest back into the water. She placed them in the little boy's hands and cupped his tiny fingers around them.

"We'll find a special place for them in your room, okay?"

The boy laughed and leaned forward, and Parker opened her arms and drew him against her. Lyle marveled as the notorious ice queen picked up the small child and hugged him, not caring about his wet, sandy feet knocking against her expensive clothes.

"See, Lyle," she said as she passed him, "no damage done. You can tell Raines you made sure I didn't run off with him."

He only wished now that she had. John would still be alive and Parker would be... safe, at least far safer than she was now. But neither of them could see the haze of evil that had begun to drift toward them even before that day on the beach when Lyle had experienced, for the first time, what it felt like to hear his mother's voice come from a place so deep within himself, he'd not known of its existence until that day.

In truth, part of Lyle's need to reflexively snark on his sister's inner sense had been a underlying jealousy of it. It had seemed to him that both Parker and Ethan had received their mother's gift, and he had been left out in the cold. But as was so often the case, his envy of his siblings was proven to be unwarranted. Surely Parker had been spared a childhood as horrific as his, but Lyle had seen over the years that the loss of the facsimile of a happy family she'd known had damaged her just as deeply as Robert Bowman's abuse had him, even if the scars left behind were very different. And while Lyle struggled with a sense the he'd been Raines' first crack at creating a controllable pretender with Ethan being the newer, shinier model, the DSA footage he'd seen of his half-brother's tortured mental state made it hard for the older man to really wish he'd been in Ethan's place.

Coming to understand that day on the beach that the murmuring, the hushed whisper in his head was really a confirmation that he had not been left out of Catherine's dubious legacy had opened Lyle's eyes, however, to a new history of manipulation he had suffered at the hands of Raines and the Centre. While Parker's inner sense had been left unfostered, it had not been manipulated, and when she had finally gotten out of her own way, she had learned to understand and coexist with it. But in the interest of experimentation, Lyle had discovered, his own abilities had been pushed down by psychotropic drugs and hypnosis. All that had remained was a sense of the sound in his head, the feeling it caused him, and so Lyle had projected the discomfort on to the first thing to remind him of both--the ebb and flow and rush of the ocean.

What Lyle did not understand was what had allowed the voices to finally break through and reach him. He guessed that if he were the type to mention it to Sydney, the shrink would've suggested it was the complexity of the emotions Lyle felt for both Parker and John that had allowed the warning to somehow reach him. Lyle would dismiss that, of course, denying that he had feelings for either. But as he stood on the shore today and listened to the water and waited for the voices to come, he knew that in some way, Sydney would be right. He only wished that he'd understood the warning sooner.

'He's here.'

The voices were a whisper now in his mind. He'd learned to quiet his own thoughts just enough to let them seep through, his mother's always the lead, always recognizable to him because of the resemblance she shared in every way with her daughter. Lyle curled his hand closed and moved it to his suit pocket. The stone dropped to the bottom of the lined pouch, and then he turned and headed back to the Centre to retrieve his car.

There was no telling where 'here" was, and Lyle knew he had to simply go about his day and wait for Ethan to find him. The young man had grown skilled at playing hide-and-seek since Jarod and Parker had freed him from Raines' control. He would not risk being captured again, especially not when Parker needed him, and Lyle could tell that she did even if he was unclear as to why.

When Lyle pulled into the parking space at his apartment building, he climbed from his car and headed for the elevator. Anticipation curled in his gut and began to make him impatient as he sensed his brother's closeness. When he pushed the button for the penthouse and the elevator instead descended to the basement, Lyle knew his wait was over.

"Parker would be proud," he quipped as he stepped off the elevator, hands automatically raised to indicate he held no weapon. The doors closed and a flashlight bulb flicked on and was turned directly into his eyes. Lyle flinched, but held still in every other way.

"Open your jacket slowly, take it off and drop it on the ground."

Lyle did as he was told. The light continued to shine in his eyes for several moments, then it was flicked off.

"Don't blink. Close your eyes, take a few breaths, and then open them."

Again he followed instructions, and though he was still met with shapes and swirls in his cloudy vision once he lifted his eyelids, Lyle found he was able to at least see what surrounded him instead of being blind as a mole in the dimly lit room.

"I could have a gun hidden somewhere else" he said, feeling the need to test the waters with this unknown member of his family.

"Yes," Ethan said as he stepped into view, "you could, but you don't. I would've seen the outlines of an undershirt holster or hidden weapon because of the light, and your pants are tailored too perfectly to show off your physique for you to have one hidden on your legs. You should be a little less vain and a little more interested in protection."

Lyle chuckled and moved forward a few steps, his hands dropping to his sides. "You've spent more time with her than I thought."

Ethan nodded and motioned toward two large boxes he'd set out to act as chairs. "All the time that I can."

Lyle felt his face fall a bit as he gave into the gnawing sense of worry that had been dogging him for days now. "Is she all right?"

"No," the dark haired man said, his own face a display of deep concern. "She'll recover, but she's been hurt, and I think we both can tell the danger's far from over."

Lyle nodded. "I don't know who it is, but I do know that you're right. It's not over, and she's not the only one in danger. Whoever this is, they're exacting retribution... for what, I don't know, but it's clear to me now that we're all targets, even you."

"Why would someone want to hurt both you and Parker?" Ethan asked. "The two of you have been enemies from the day you met from what I understand."

"We have been," Lyle admitted. "And you should believe everything she's told you about me. I'm not a good man in any way, Ethan. I have no intention of pretending otherwise. There's no salvation to be found for me in doing this."

"Then why do it? Why have you been trying to get me to come?"

Lyle looked at his brother with questioning eyes. "Then you... you did hear me?"

"Yes," Ethan replied. "I knew that you needed to see me. What I couldn't tell was why... if it was to use me or to help her."

He drew in a deep breath and then Lyle motioned toward his jacket. Ethan nodded and the older man stood and walked toward it, reaching into his pocket to retrieve the stone he had taken from the beach earlier that day.

"Whoever is waging this vendetta against my family... our family... tried to kill me first. Parker stopped them. So he or she went for the heart next because they knew it would leave us all vulnerable."

Lyle squeezed the rock in his hand and then he offered it to Ethan. The younger man took it and stared at it a moment.

"Parker keeps one of these in her coat pocket. They remind her of Johnny."

"I know," Lyle said before he sank back down onto the box he'd been sitting on a minute earlier. "She used them to mark his grave--a perfect little pattern of these laid in an infinity symbol."

His voice trailed off as he remembered the grave, remembered watching her set the marker into place. Lyle had never seen someone grieve so deeply, and yet in seeing it, he knew he'd been given a glimpse of what it was that had saved Parker from becoming the person the Centre wished her to be.

"Lyle..."

The younger man's voice pulled Lyle back to the basement, back to the present and the fight that lay ahead to prevent any more graves from being dug.

"What does Johnny have to do with what happened to Parker?"

"The hunter has less work to do when he's tracking wounded prey," Lyle said. "It's strategy... you want to destroy something more powerful than you, you have to weaken it, make it vulnerable. And what better way to break the seemingly unbreakable Miss Parker than by tearing her heart in half?"

Ethan stared at him disbelieving. "You're saying that Johnny's illness..."

"Was no illness." Lyle stood and began to pull his jacket back onto his body. "John was poisoned. He was murdered, right under our noses, with all of us running around looking for the cure to an infection that didn't exist. And now whoever did it is after Parker... and the rest of us."

The quality of study in Ethan's eyes nearly unsettled Lyle, and he felt his neck tighten as he looked away for a moment to try and steady himself.

"You keep saying 'whoever' or 'him or her,' but you have suspicions, don't you, about who it is?"

Lyle nodded and then looked back toward his brother. "Other than Raines, who wouldn't sacrifice the potential John had even to get at Parker, there's only one person I can think of who hates us all that much."

*****

Jarod felt himself coming awake and, in deference to the warm form pressed against him, he willed his body to release the tension his dreams had created so he would not jar Parker or frighten her.

The effort reminded him of that first morning at Sydney's. That it was only months ago rather than ten times as long boggled the pretender's mind. So much had happened between now and then, and yet those days had changed their lives.

His fears from finding her with that gun in her hand had made sleeping nearly impossible, but perhaps for once, sheer exhaustion had beaten Jarod, forcing his eyes closed. He was relieved to wake with Parker still in his arms, to find her breathing even, calm. But he'd remained terrified of what he would see in her eyes when she woke. To find that Johnny's death had finally broken her, Jarod knew, might have the power to break him, too. But then she shifted and pushed away from him, sitting up.

"I buried him," she said softly, her voice worn down but still very much hers.

"Where?"

"In the woods on the other side of the lake."

She stood, and when she wavered, Jarod moved to her side, his arms falling around her. Parker's hand fell on his chest, and she took a moment and steadied herself before she looked up at him. That's when he knew that, despite the enormity of her grief and the edge it had taken her to the night before, Parker had stepped back and found a part of herself to begin to rebuild from.

"Come with me?"

Jarod nodded and the hand that lay on his chest dropped, gripping his fingers. He followed as she pulled him toward the door and out of the cabin.

They walked in silence on the trail that led around the trout-filled lake, their hands linked. The sun had just crested over the mountains and the sky was bright, clear. It felt odd that a day could seem so beautiful and warm when tragedy had walked into their lives again so recently, but Jarod hoped that the blue hues and shining sun might help Parker focus on what had been wonderful about Johnny and not on the desolation of the past 72 hours.

When she stopped, Jarod felt her pull her hand away, and reluctantly, he let the contact break. Then she crouched down beside a small mound of freshly moved earth.

"Raines was going to do... what Raines does. I screamed and screamed when they tried to take him from me, though. He was in my arms when he died."

Jarod closed his eyes, the image of her holding the small boy so strong, it made his chest ache. Of course she'd been there holding him, fighting till the bitter end and even beyond to try and keep him safe.

"Sydney and Raines were arguing and Sam was standing between me and Willie, and then Lyle came back in." She paused a moment, her palm going flat against the grave. "He'd walked out right after Johnny's heart stopped. But then he came in and he went up to Raines. I don't know what he said, but Raines took his goons and they left. And no one tried to stop me from taking Johnny away."

Her voice broke and Jarod was almost grateful when he squatted down beside her and saw tears on her cheeks. She was crying, not fighting the pain or being torn apart by it like last night.

"He was just a little boy, you know?" she said, her eyes turning toward him. "I couldn't let them treat him like an experiment gone wrong. I just... he was Johnny, he wasn't a subject."

Bringing up his left hand, Jarod reached over and pushed Parker's hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear.

"He was a well-loved little boy, Parker. You have to remember that. You gave him that gift... you let him know unconditional love even in the middle of hell."

Parker sniffed and her hand moved to his cheek. "He reminded me so much of you--so curious and fast and so in love with every small thing the rest of the world found ordinary. I couldn't let them break that in him."

It made him a part of something beautiful to her, and Jarod smiled. Then her hand fell away and she stood, her eyes returning to the spot he knew would always draw her back in the same way her mother's grave did, that Thomas' did.

"I need to mark it somehow," she said. "I'll have to think about that. Just so someone passing by knows this place is special, even if they don't know why."

He'd moved to her side, his fingers slipping into hers again. Jarod felt her close her grip, holding tight, and then slowly they made their way back to the cabin. It was the only time they had visited Johnny's grave together, and if she returned again during those few days of recuperation, Jarod was unaware of it. But he did know that, weeks later, she had returned to the woods with the stones she and Johnny had collected at the beach on their trips outside to play, and she had placed them in an infinity symbol atop the child's final resting place.

She'd told him about it as they lay in each other's arms here in the brownstone on what Jarod felt certain was the night the child Parker was carrying had been conceived.

There'd been no real indication that's where they were headed during those days at the lake. But something had changed between them; that he'd been certain of. Jarod had sat on the porch wondering at it while Parker was showering or when she drifted off for a much needed nap. He wondered if the subtle shifts in their relationship over the past few years--the frank, honest talks about Thomas, the shared moments of discovery as they'd found Ethan and explored their muddled, intertwined pasts on Carthis--if all of that had finally cemented itself into something that transcended "you run, I chase" in the second where Parker had almost given up hope and he had faced the reality that she was hope to him, and so he could not lose her.

He saw it in the ease between them when they made a meal together or when they sat in total silence in front of the lake as the sun set, the quiet comfortable, without either of them feeling the need to fill it up because being together was the point, and they were. Their friendship had been reset, the interference and manipulation of the Centre vanquished by the simple reality that they were at their best together, when one could glean strength from the other and know it was being given without judgment.

It was why, when she said on that last night that it was time for her to go home, Jarod didn't panic and he didn't waste his breath trying to sway her. Instead, he seized the opportunity to give her a concrete symbol of just how far he felt they had come.

"You understand, don't you?" she asked. "I just feel like now isn't the right time for me to leave."

Jarod set his palm open on the table, and Parker gave him a small smile as she pressed her hand into his.

"You and I have learned to trust our guts," he said. "It's probably all that's kept you alive and me free. No reason to start doubting that now. Just promise me that if you want to talk, you'll find me."

She smiled wider and leaned forward. "I usually only find the back end of you, remember? When you're running around a corner or up a staircase or..."

"You know, I've always meant to ask you..." Jarod stood and bounded into the living room as he called back over his shoulder. "How do you run in those heels anyway? I've done injury simulations on this, and you should've broken your leg by now."

As he came back into the kitchen and joined her at the small table, she laughed, and Jarod's heart swelled at the sound.

"I guess I'm just too much of a badass."

He chuckled then reached out and drew her hand back to his. He pressed a key and a business card-sized piece of paper into her hand.

"What's this?" she asked.

"How to find me. It's a safe place. I never do pretends or access Centre sites from there. It's... it's where I go to put my head together after some of the uglier secrets I learn make me lose my way."

She didn't need to say anything to acknowledge the trust implied in his inviting her into his safe place. Parker simply nodded and slipped the key and address into her pocket, accepting the gesture without question.

Later, when sleep wouldn't claim him, Jarod wandered down the hall just to peek in to see if she was sleeping, hoping she was and that her mind was at least quiet even if it was too soon for her dreams to turn sweet again. But he found her awake as well, sitting up in bed, her knees drawn against her chest as her eyes stared out at the stars visible through the window.

She waved him in when she noticed him, and Jarod moved through the room in the dark, sitting on the end of the bed. He began to speak but wasn't sure what to say, so he sat and looked out at the stars with her. When Parker's hand fell on his shoulder, he started, his attention so fixed outside, he hadn't realized she had moved.

"Thank you for coming for me," she whispered. "I'm not sure I would've..."

Her voice trailed off, and Jarod took her hand and kissed it. "You would've. For all of us who need you, you would've."

Parker shrugged, unconvinced.

"Having this time to remember him, to share him with you... it's meant so much."

Her hand pulled free of his grasp and Jarod tried not to gasp when he felt her fingertips move up his arm.

"But this... this isn't about Johnny. This is just us, Jarod."

He felt like he was holding his breath until her lips brushed against his, and Jarod sighed at her kiss, his body turning into her, drawing her closer. The inevitability of this moment had been there for so long, he didn't need to question the truth of her words. He had suspected always and had become certain on Carthis that it was a question of when rather than if.

Parker eased back on the bed, pulling him with her, and he knew that when was now and that from this moment on, all pretense of his life being separate from hers was ended.

Jarod sighed as his memories receded and he tipped his head down, placing a kiss atop Parker's head. They had survived so much to find themselves, and he shuddered as he realized that, again, some dark force had reached out in the night and tried to steal her away.

Almost as if she'd read his thoughts, Parker shot up out of his arms, her eyes searching around wildly before she focused on him.

"Jarod, where's Ethan? Is he all right?"

"He's fine, Parker. He's... he had somewhere to go."

"Syd, Broots... they're fine, too?"

Hearing the familiar names, Jarod realized that Parker had regained more of her memory, but he was distracted by the worry he could see in her eyes.

"Parker, what is it? What did you remember?"

She was looking right at him but not seeing him, and Jarod recognized that the voices were pulling at her attention, drawing her away for a moment.

"Lyle?"

Her brother's name came out as a question, and given her concern for their brother and his knowledge of where Ethan had gone, Jarod put his hands on her shoulders to draw her focus back to him.

"Is Lyle the one who hurt you, Parker?"

"What? No," she said, shaking her head. "No, not Lyle. It was Alex. And he's not done. He's coming after all of us."