[Two households, both alike in dignity]

Household. Split in pieces before fully formed. Stolen before there was anything to steal but a boy. A family, shattered; struck in the centre by the Centre; like glass into fragments and missing pieces.

Dignity. If the word contains sub-divisions: murder, extortion, kidnapping. If mendacity and hate permeate the family’s subsistence and a cloak of feathers made by loves broken wings veil that love.

The same in that the hate being equal and opposing, different in the perpetrator and the perpetrated. War thrives on anger and anger thrives on hate, hate thrives on vengeance, vengeance on actions not forgotten and often long ago. Both alike in their misfortune, both alike in their survival. But dissimilar; one the hunter one the hunted, one of power and one life of a rat, scurrying and keeping to the shadows, scattered by the hunter, by the cat.

Two households, both alike in dignity and in hate.

[In fair Verona, where we lay our scene]

This time it was Venice Beach. It could never be the same place, as with a normal relationship, for neither had a home to retreat to at the end of the chase. So they traveled, independently from one hotel room to another across the country.

Venice Beach, on the driest day of the year they met in a poor motel. At the time, their actions had been merely that: pulls and thrusts and skittering fingertips. They weren’t in love, not then. But it was only tragic when they were never given the chance to find out. And so the question remained, If given time, could it have been more then actions?

[From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,]

The danger and exhilaration of what would happen if they were caught only fueled the passion already kept burning for over thirty years.

“What would they do to you, if they found out about us?”

She’d quit denying it sometime ago. It may not have been intimate and loving, but the ‘us’ he spoke of was there. Always had been.

“One way ticket to renewal wing,” she answered honestly, gathering her clothing off the floor. His hand grasped around her arm, gently so as not to bruise the soft skin, but strong enough to pull her back into his arm.

“I don’t want you to die because of this,” he murmured, brushing the side of her cheek with the back of his hand. She wasn’t sure why she let him touch her like that, like he cared.

“We’re not supposed to care, remember? That was the deal.”

“I don’t care,” he whispered, his breath dancing across her ear.

“Liar.”

[Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.]

“You’d kill me if you had to, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes.” The answer came without the desired hesitation. “So would you.”

“No.”

“If it came down to me or her, you know who you’d choose.”

“She’s a civilian.”

“She’s a human being. You protect humans.”

“You’re human.”

“No.”

[From forth the fatal loins of these two foes]

“So,” she hissed. “I guess it is, ‘back to normal’.”

“With a twist. Whichever of you brings Jarod back first will have a long-term future here, and a future in the Parker legacy.” -Just what she wanted-

“And whoever fails?”

+

“I don’t know. I can’t believe- Where have you been?”
“In the shadows, waiting. Watching. Now that we’re together again I can finish this.”

“Finish what?”

“I sent a package of photographs that’ll bring the others here soon. It’s almost over, brother.”

[A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life]

“I can’t do this anymore, Sydney; I can’t live like this!” She ran her hands through her hair and dropped her shoulders with a sigh.

“So don’t.”

His answer caught her surprised and she turned, a slight crane to her neck and a crease in her brow. Sydney stood slowly and carefully, painfully aware of his old, aching bones.

He strode over to the box in the glass cabinet in the corner of her office, and retrieved the aged weapon gently; he held it as if it were a small child he was afraid of dropping.

“End your misery, Parker,” he said, offering the handle of the gun. Her eyes widened and looked from the engraved ring of fire to his eyes, warm and sympathetic as usual.

“I don’t understand.”

“You are more like your mother then you think,” he said softly, and kissed the top of her forehead.

[See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,]

Miss Parker didn’t come to work the next morning. Or the morning after, or the one after that. Her viciousness no longer stalked the hallways and her heels no longer clicked against the linoleum floor. Lyle found her at home, curled in the bed, spilled pills and several empty orange bottles scattered about the room. He held her wrist for over an hour, until he was assured there was no pulse.

In that hour he stayed close, her entire house was covered in white sheets; the windows were boarded up and the doors were tightly locked. Her body was taken back to the Centre and she was to be cremated. By Sydney was adamant. She would be buried next to her mother, like it was supposed to be.

“Catherine’s not even in her grave, Sydney,” Lyle reminded him.

“No… but her spirit’s there.”

He’d wanted to tell Broots, who grieved so fiercely, that she wasn’t dead, just asleep, but the fear of spoiled plans stopped him. He needed to speak to Jarod, quickly, before he found out.

But time betrayed him. And Lyle’s incessant pestering went to long, and Broots answered the phone in her office instead of him. Broots told him that his lover was dead, not knowing otherwise.

[That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.]

“It’s a good thing, Son; a start for the better. You’re free. She doesn’t bind you to that place any more.”

“But that’s the problem,” he answered. “Now I’m bound to nothing.”

“I don’t understand. She chased and tormented you. She betrayed your trust and she lied at every chance she could. She was no friend of yours. I don’t understand your grief.”

“She was my friend, for the longest time.”

“A long time ago.”

“Yes, but a bind like that, it doesn’t break.”

“She broke it.”

“She tried, but never could. She was the reason behind every action, every choice I’ve ever made. I’ve given up my life, my freedom and my soul for her.”

“And what did she give you in return?”

“Everything. She showed me what it was like to be human, to be a person instead of a thing.”

“She loved you?”

“No, never. But she understood me. No one else does; no one else can. No one else grew up like we did, alone and afraid. We were the only thing for each other, and in many ways still are.”

“You’re gong with her, aren’t you?”

“I don’t really have a choice. Everyone thinks that she followed me everywhere I went, but it’s the other way around. She never sought me; I sought her.”

[And I for winking at your discords too]

They ignored for as long as they could the winding cord that attached them at the soul. They ignored the fact that, the harder they tried to pull away, the harder they bounced back, into each others arms again.

Maybe if things had been different. If alternate paths had been chosen that would have led them on different experiences but to the same conclusion, maybe then she would have loved him. Maybe without issues of trust or defensiveness. Maybe if her mother hadn’t died so young, or if she hadn’t grown up so quick. Maybe if Sydney had been her father, and showed her how to cry, emotions would have come a little easier. Maybe if she hadn’t gone away to boarding school, or maybe if she hadn’t returned. Then, maybe, she would have loved him. Maybe then she would have known how to love.

Maybe, if things had been different. If he hadn’t been raised in a hell dimension, or if Lyle had never gotten his hands on him. Maybe if he’d have escaped sooner, or had more friends before hand. Maybe if she hadn’t been the one chasing him, he might have had a little more empathy.

But who knows. Maybe those alternate paths they spoke so fondly of would have veered completely, and their tightly wound bond would have snapped. Maybe then, they would have been free.

[Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd.]

“All are punish’d! All are punish’d! All are punish’d! All are punish’d!”

“Angelo, please!” Sydney tried to reason, but he kept screaming, and flailing and pointing dramatically- “All are punish’d! All are punish’d!” –at Mr. Parker, solemn in the corner.

Maybe.

[A glooming peace this morning with it brings;]

“Where is he, Sydney?”

Sydney took a shaky breath and turned his head away. “He tried to follow you, Parker. He always tries to follow you.” His voice couldn’t raise above a whisper.

“No.”

Sydney looked back, over his shoulder with tears in his eyes and an emptiness in his chest and nodded. She pressed slender fingers to her mouth and remembered his touch. Sometimes bruising, sometimes gentle, but however much the intensity, it was always his. No one else would ever claim her lips.

[The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:]

Light shone through the window and made him look alive, as if only deep in sleep.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s been days. We keep waiting to see if he’ll wake up, but…”

She sat on the bed next to him and brushed the hair from his eyes. Why did tender caresses come only after they could not be felt?

“He looks so peaceful, Syd.”

“You both deserve some peace.”

“She’s going with him, isn’t she?” Broots asked as he closed the door behind him.

“Someday,” he answered quietly, as not to miss the stifled sob from behind the wood. “But not today.”

[Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;]

A silence rolled over the Centre in waves. Lyle had no one to torment with sick innuendos and because the danger of his sister was no longer present, even lurking around and tormenting Broots had lost its fun. Everything seemed the same, by appearances. Secretaries still cowered, Broots still spilled coffee all over himself, and Lyle continued to order brides. The Centre continued with its sick experiments, until finally the law caught up with them, and prisoners were released into the light of day and the captors led into eight by eleven cells, just like the ones they’d reigned over before.

But that was not for years to come, and in the months directly following the deaths, whispers were exchanged in shadowy corners; none were brave enough to speak her name in front of the Chairman or his son, accept the psychiatrist, who dutifully reminded him every year of her birthday and the anniversaries of her death. There were two of those.

[Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:]

“All are punish’d! All are punish’d! All are punish’d! All are punish’d!” cried the savant, insane in all his wisdom. And still he pointed to the place the father had stood, and still he cried for his friends at night, rocking himself back and forth in the smallest duct in the vent.

Sydney, in his office, closed the book and placed it on the desk.

“For never was a story of more woe,
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

+ + +

end