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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Part 19
Blue Cove, Delaware
Sam gently put the unconscious woman down on the back seat of the car before getting in beside her and resting her head on his lap, starting to stroke her hair. Jarod fastened the seatbelt around the empath and got in behind the wheel, looking over his shoulder, as he started the engine, but it was Sam who broke the painful silence of the car.
"Helen said she created a nullifier for the gas, after Eddie found her on the floor of her lab. I know you won't have it here, but Angelo might know about it."
Jarod glanced over to see that the empath was already holding up a vial and, in spite of the extreme seriousness of the situation, was unable to help grinning.
"Go ahead, Angelo. You obviously planned for this whole thing."
"Yes." The empath filled a syringe and injected himself with it, blinking suddenly a moment later, before looking at Jarod. "Sydney."
"You're right." Jarod took out his phone and brought up the programmed number, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.
The psychiatrist filled his mug from the kettle before answering the phone when it rang, glancing at his watch with a startled expression on his face.
"This is Sydney."
"The four of you need to get to New York."
"Now?" the older man demanded.
"If you go to the Centre, you won't get out alive."
"Fine. We'll see you in a few hours."
Sydney disconnected the call before dialing the number of a new cell phone Helen had given Broots, as she had to each of them, before they left Ashe.
"It's me. Get Debbie, grab some things and come around here now."
"On our way."
After making a call to Miss Parker, Sydney packed some clothes in a bag, and took it to his car. Looking around, he could see that the street was empty until the two cars arrived at almost the same moment.
"What's going on?" the woman demanded.
"I had a call from Jarod and it was serious. Get in. We're going to Ashe."
"Not without me." The young man ran up to the group, slightly out of breath. "She told me about it."
"What is there to tell?" Miss Parker looked at her brother as she got into the front seat, leaving Broots, Debbie and Ethan to get in the back.
"Helen was tricked into going to the Centre last night. Jarod and Sam got her out less than an hour ago."
Sydney looked sharply in the rearview mirror. "Is she alright?"
"She's alive,” Ethan admitted. “But that's all I know."
Border of Pennsylvania and New York
"How's she doing?" the Pretender demanded.
"She's still out."
Jarod's hands tightened on the steering wheel before he glanced at Angelo. "Do you know what's happening in the Centre?"
The empath's hands closed around the key Jarod had stolen from one of unconscious sweepers and he shut his eyes briefly before looking up. "Still drug."
"Good. I thought that many would have to work for a number of hours longer than normal."
"What are you going to do, Jarod?" Sam demanded, his eyes fixed on the unconscious woman in his arms.
"Didn't you say they were in a state of blockade?"
"Yes, so?"
"So I think it's time it was made permanent until we decide how to deal with them, once and for all. As soon as they get to Ashe, I'll get Broots to do just that."
"Is there any way to destroy the Centre without going near it?"
"It's almost destroyed anyway. All it needs is one last push and it should topple in silence." Jarod picked up the phone. "I've got to call Steve. He'll be worried."
"Did he know?"
"He knew she went to the Centre. He called me just before you did."
Jarod dialed the relevant number and heard the familiar tones on the other end.
"Jarod?"
"Yes, Dad, it's me. Who's there?"
"Just Jon and me. I left everyone else someplace safe, but he came with me in case you needed a hand."
"Are you sure the other place is safe?"
"Positive. Is Helen okay?"
"She's alive. Are the kids okay?"
"Fine. Steve's been trying to get into the security system but he can't."
"It's in a state of blockade. They were trying to prevent us from getting her out but we managed it anyway. I doubt he'll be able to hack in, but he might as well keep trying."
"When will you be here?"
"As soon as possible." Jarod glanced at his watch. "Probably half an hour, but it won't do for the kids to see her like this. Get Jon to take David into the room where his train's set up before we get there."
"Will do. And the others?"
"Sydney and the rest are on the way. Sam's with me. We can trust him."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive."
"All right, Jarod. Be careful son."
"You too, Dad."
Ashe, New York
Sam picked the woman up from the seat and carried her into the house, Angelo following them.
"Where?" the sweeper demanded.
"Her room."
Nodding, the man climbed the stairs after Jarod and gently placed the woman down on the bed. The pretender performed a rapid examination before pulling a bundle of papers out of his pocket and skimming through them.
"What's wrong with her? Why is she still unconscious?"
"She's still under anesthetic, but there's also a concussion from that blow to her head. However she was given a drug that was supposed to wipe her memory so they could retrain her and that's the real problem. We have to find a way to either neutralize or counteract it."
As his father and Jon entered the room, Jarod stepped over, noting the emotion that appeared on the boy's face and just as rapidly vanished as he looked at the older man. "What do you want me to do?"
Pulling the syringes out of his pocket, Jarod handed them to the boy. "Find out if they all contain the same thing. I want a complete chemical breakdown of the contents."
"Isn't Helen's lab locked?"
"Steve will know where to find the key."
Nodding, the boy disappeared through the door and hurried downstairs. Turning back to the bed as his father also left the room, Jarod saw Sam sitting down beside the woman, gently touching the bruise on her face. As he watched, the sweeper bent down, kissing the unconscious woman's forehead, before standing up and turning to the Pretender.
"Let me know if there's anything I can do."
"I will, Sam."
The psychiatrist put a gentle hand on the sweeper's shoulder, feeling him jump at the light touch, before Sam turned.
"Where is she?"
"Upstairs."
Sydney nodded and silently ascended the stairs as the other two people came in.
"Where's Debbie?"
"Ethan took her down to play with David and his train."
Broots sat down and Sam looked up at him. "Jarod asked if you could try to find a way around the blockade and to make it permanent."
The technician nodded and pulled the laptop towards him as Miss Parker took a seat opposite the sweeper.
"Why didn't you ever tell me, Sam?"
"Tell you what, Miss Parker? My personal life? I haven't had one of them since I began working at the Centre, and there didn't seem any point in mentioning what happened before then. Besides, it was just that - personal."
"She means a lot to you, doesn't she?"
"Even after I knew I was trapped, that they’d never let me leave,” he agreed, “I still thought about going back to her. I hadn't seen her in person - able to talk to her - since I left Minnesota, and that was fifteen years ago, until I happened to see her the other day in Lyneham." He looked at her. "I imagine it might be a little like you seeing Thomas again."
The woman nodded slowly, glimpsing genuine emotion in the man's eyes for the first time.
"Jarod?"
The psychiatrist tapped gently on the partly open door, entering the room, and Sydney's eyes were immediately fixed on the woman. "How is she?"
"No change." The Pretender straightened up and glanced over. "I'm expecting the anesthetic to wear off within the next ten minutes or so, but it won't make much of a difference."
"Do you know what they did?"
"Yes, but until I know exactly what they gave to her, and they don't specify that on these sheets of paper, I can't work out what to create as an antidote. I asked Jon to break down the chemical compositions of the things they had ready to give to her next, and once we know that, we can sit down and work out what she needs."
"What chance has she got?"
"Well, she won't die, unless she has complications from the blow that knocked her out, but according to the details here,” he waved the sheet of paper before Sydney took it from his hand, “her mind and memory have been wiped or blocked, and that leaves her with nothing." Jarod looked down at the woman to see that her eyes had opened, unblinkingly fixed on the ceiling.
"How would they have retrained her?" the psychiatrist asked somewhat absent-mindedly, as he read the page.
"By exposure to continually repeated stimuli - images or sounds - until they became a part of her thinking process, but first they’d have administered another of the drugs we took so those parts of her mind that would be of most use – such as all of her knowledge of chemistry - could have been more easily recalled. I've considered giving that to her and using the same process to recall more information, but I can't bring back all her emotions and feelings. She'd be an automaton, with only the practical knowledge that she had before."
"She would hate that."
"She wouldn't be the only one." Jarod shook his head. "Don't worry, we won't do that. Instead, we need to create something to break down the other drug and without knowing what it was made up of, we can't."
"Are we working within time restrictions?"
"Not as far as Helen's concerned, but we can only keep David away from her for so long and he's very attached to her now. It would be terrible for him to see her like this."
"It was so hard to leave Minnesota because I didn't know if I'd ever see her again, and there were a lot of times, particularly in the last few years, that I wished they had never come to that state, or that I'd never accepted that job. I've spent hours contemplating what life could have been like if it hadn't happened." Sam smiled faintly. "The strangest part was the thought that I might have been helping Jarod stay out of the Centre, instead of doing everything I could get him back or keep him there."
"So you think she was helping Jarod from the start?" Miss Parker interrupted softly.
"No, Helen snuck into the Centre in the first place because of Margaret. She never told me that she was doing it. I suspected, especially after I read Jarod's simulation results, that it was her, but I never asked because, if she wasn't the one, I didn't want to put the idea into her head, and if it was, all it could have done was potentially strained the friendship we still had."
"Did you ever mention Jarod to her?"
"In my first letter, yes."
"And how did you know about him?"
"My first duty at the Centre was to be the sweeper present at quite a lot of Jarod's SIMs. When he escaped, I was put on the pursuit because they thought I was at least a partly familiar face."
Miss Parker watched the sweeper stare down at his hands before asking her next question. "Did you ever plan to marry her?"
"I’d thought about asking, but five months seemed like such a short time, and I didn't want her to feel pressured. Besides, it wasn't as if we could ever have a family of our own, so it didn't seem to matter how long we waited before taking our relationship to any further level."
"She told you?"
"We were both completely open with one other. By doing so, I could be another source of comfort when she was having problems coping."
"And did you mind?" Miss Parker asked gently.
"Like Helen, I’d always wanted kids, but I wasn't going to throw away the wonderful things we had just because, through no fault of hers, she couldn't have them. And there are other options. If we'd been able to stay together, then we might have had a chance to explore those possibilities."
The woman raised an eyebrow as another question occurred to her. "Did you actually break up?"
"It wasn't an official break-up, no. We talked about it and decided that it would be too hard to have to deal with the relationship over such a big distance, especially as we both had new jobs to cope with - me at the Centre, and her at a local hospital not far from our apartment."
Miss Parker’s eyebrows shot up as she took this in. "A Catholic girl like her lived with a man she wasn't married to?"
The sweeper smiled in response to the amusement on the woman's face.
"One night she stayed at my apartment because the weather was too bad for her to walk home. I was planning to sleep on the sofa and let her sleep in my bed but we started talking, sitting on the rug in front of the fire. A couple of hours later, we were both still there, and I've never been able to remember what we talked about for all that time."
Sam's eyes softened at the memory, his smile becoming tender, staring at the fire burning in the grate in front of him.
"I got up to make us some coffee and when I came back she was asleep on the rug, her head resting on one of the cushions that we'd been sitting against. Somehow it just seemed natural for her to be there and I lay beside and just watched her sleep for an hour until she woke up. That was also the day of our first kiss."
Blinking suddenly as he broke out of the reverie, his expression became sad again as Sam looked at up the woman opposite him.
"I'm not sure why I'm telling you this."
"It always helps to talk."
"I thought Sydney was the psychiatrist."
Miss Parker smiled. "Maybe it's rubbing off. What happened later that day?"
Sam couldn’t help laughing. "I appreciate your tact in not asking 'what happened next', but, no, we didn't sleep with each other, not that night. We spent the rest of it talking and I walked her home later that day. After that night, almost all our time was spent together, except when we were studying or working. Then, because my lease was about to expire, Helen suggested that I move in with her."
"So you lived together for five months?"
"Until the Centre offered me a job, yes. We discussed for ages if I should take it, if Helen should move to Blue Cove with me and get work there, if I should reject the Centre job and complete my engineering course..."
"You were studying engineering?"
"Is that such a surprise, Miss Parker?” Sam commented with a faint smile. “I had to be studying something."
"Well, I never picked you as the engineering type."
Sam smiled. "Actually, neither did I. My dad told me if I studied it he’d give me a job with his engineering firm. He died about six months before I met Helen. If the Centre hadn't offered me a job, I'd probably have completed the course out of respect for his memory, but things changed."
"And your mother?"
"I haven't seen her in a few months, but I write and call her regularly. Helen met her just before I moved away and they got on like a house on fire. Mom isn't very far away, actually. I should bring her here to make sure she's safe."
"Do you want me to?"
He turned startled eyes on her. "You'd be willing to?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Why not, Sam?"
"It's… just not something I was expecting," he explained somewhat incoherently.
"Give me her address and a note and I'll bring her here."
The technician looked up, having been unwilling to break into the discussion until now. "You can take your time, Miss Parker. The Centre's completely locked down and nobody can get in or out. No messages can be sent by telephone, email, fax or even cell-phone."
"Is that what Sam meant before by a blockade?"
"Yes. It's an emergency procedure. Obviously Helen's brother believed that she was important enough to them to make it necessary."
"Considering the damage she did, by shutting down the mainframe, and by getting Steve and the others out, it's probably justified."
"They put it in place?"
"Yes, but I overrode the order and activated my own blockade. It's centralized and one directive shuts down the whole place, but we can look into anything we want, to keep an eye on them."
The sweeper looked over at the technician, curiosity in his eyes. "Can we see what's happening in the room on SL-24 where they took her?"
"Sure." Broots typed in a direction before turning the machine so that the other two people could see it as well.
"You know," Miss Parker remarked after examining each occupant of the room visually for a few minutes. "I'm surprised Willie isn't there."
Sam's face became sober. "It's hard to be unconscious when you're dead."
Her eyes widened. "Dead?!"
"I shot him when he was trying to prevent us from going in to get Helen, just after Angelo stabbed him with a syringe, like he did when Jarod was trying to rescue Davy Simpkins."
"So he's…?"
"He and Raines both, but I didn't shoot Raines, although I've often wanted to."
"Who did?"
"Nobody. According to what I was told, he was murdered by the same method as that which killed Mr. Lyle."
"Well, Lyle would be pleased to know about that if he wasn't dead. He didn't like Raines any more than the rest of us did."
"So who's left?" Broots asked.
"The Triumvirate, and Cox, for the moment,” Sam told him. “The same person who told me about Raines said that Helen's brother put Cox under guard, to be shot if he attempted to escape."
"And he will?" Miss Parker suggested.
"Probably." Sam shrugged, his eyes fixed on the figures that he could see on the screen. "It's his choice."
"So we're left with the Triumvirate," the woman finished.
"Exactly." The sweeper's expression became darker as he saw the first individual rise unsteadily to his feet. "If it wouldn't kill innocent people, I'd fill that place with poisoned gas and then blow it sky-high."
"Sydney tried, remember?” Miss Parker reminded him. “It didn't help."
Sam smiled grimy. "He was unlucky. The shot to Raines' tank missed as well. I wouldn't make that mistake."
Jarod looked over the papers that Jonathon handed him and then sat down in the remaining chair around the table that had been brought into the bedroom.
"Did you two discuss it already?"
"Yes." Steve pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and pushed it across to the older Pretender. "That's the three options we came up with."
"If one fails..." Jarod began.
"Neither of the other two would cause enough problems to prevent us trying a third," Jon finished for him.
Sydney had listened silently to this, but now spoke. "How long will any one of the treatments take to undo the original drug?"
"It varies. Unfortunately the one that's most likely to work will take longest."
"How long will it take you to make them all up?"
"About an hour each. Everything's already here, which helps."
"What are the three time periods?"
"The first possibility should produce a result - if it does, and that's the least likely - in under twenty minutes. The second should take about three hours and the third anywhere from thirteen hours to fifteen."
Jarod glanced at his watch. "It's ten, so we might not get a definite result until six o'clock tomorrow morning, and there should be some effects from not only all the drugs, including the anesthetic, but also the concussion, which she isn't able to sleep off because she isn't able to sleep."
"And will the Centre be able to have any idea where we are?" Sydney proposed.
"No." Broots told them as he entered the room and closed the door. "I maneuvered around their original blockade and put my own in position. The Centre is closed to any and all communication, whether incoming or outgoing."
"Good." Jarod looked at the technician. "The occupants of the room in SL-24 are in what state?"
"Shaky but conscious. Oh, and,” he added with a grin, “slightly upset to find that the door doesn't open."
"I bet." With a faint grin in reply, Jarod looked at the two people opposite him. "I don't like to leave Helen here without one of us. Do you two feel able to create the three drugs without my help?"
"Ready and willing, as well as able." As Jon got to his feet, Steve took the papers from the oldest pretender's hand.
"We'll bring up the first as soon as it's done, while we make the second," Jon added.
"Good." Jarod looked Broots as the other left. "How's Sam?"
"Concerned. Very concerned. But Miss Parker was helping."
"Miracles will never cease. Where is she now?"
"She's gone to get Sam's mother and bring her here. He was worried in case the Centre was able to send people to get her. If he hadn't thought you might want him for something, he’d have gone with her."
"So where is he?"
"He's trying to distract himself by playing with David and the train set. He said he could come up if you wanted him to."
"Tell him that there's no point at the moment because there's no change. I'm not sure whether he should come up during the time when we might get results from the drugs either, considering we don't know what's going to happen, but,” Jarod finished as a realization of what that phrase would do to Sam struck him, “it might be better if you don't say that last part to him."
"I can't stand this." The sweeper got to his feet beginning to pace the room. "There has to be something else we can do."
"Sam, you've done everything you can,” Sydney reminded him. “It's out of your hands now."
"It shouldn't be." The sweeper glared at the floor. "I don't see her for fifteen years and then, when it seems like we might get another chance, it's taken away from us by the very people I've worked for during the intermediary period. How fair is that?"
"Who ever said anything about fair?" Sydney spoke calmly. "This whole situation is the fault of the Triumvirate, and nothing they've done could ever even remotely be considered 'fair'."
"Her own brother causes this." The man turned to glare out of the window. "And, what's more, he took pleasure in the fact, both that it was his sister, and that he was doing something that would destroy her. I'd take pleasure in wrapping both hands around his throat..."
"Sam!" the woman at the table admonished sharply and he turned.
"I'm sorry, Mom, but you have no idea..."
"Perhaps not, but I'm beginning to develop one, and I don’t like the one I'm developing."
"If you'd seen and heard..."
"I have." She reached out and took his hand. "And I didn't like it either, but justice isn't your responsibility. You need to be there for Helen when she needs you, not off risking your neck by trying to injure the man who did it."
"And, if she doesn't..." the man choked, unable to continue.
"Then you need to help Jarod and the others care for the children,” his mother finished. “Knowing it to be what she would want you to do. David, at least, already adores you, going by expression on his face when you walked into the playroom, and Michael’s happy when you're around as well. You can do an awful lot to help them."
"Like what?"
The woman ignored the snide tone in the man's voice and responded seriously to his question.
"Like being there to protect them if it should happen that the Centre finds out where they are and comes to get them. It would be foolish for you to go near that place, but there's plenty you can do from here."
"That's what I said to her as well."
"And so did I." Sydney leaned forward. "But Helen went because she believed that Angelo was in danger, not to exchange some files this time. This was different. I'm sure that, if Helen could have found another way, she would have done so, but she must have felt that only she could save him. I can only imagine that she felt guilty at the thought of his potentially being in danger because she didn't take him with her when she brought Steve and the others back here."
"Where is Angelo anyway?"
"Downstairs, playing with David and Ethan. All four of them, including Debbie, are getting on well, and it lets Jon and Steve work on the next formula while Jarod stays up with Helen. Broots, Miss Parker and Major Charles are keeping an eye on the Centre."
"Are they still all locked in?"
"Yes, but we need to come up with a solution for that. We can't leave them there indefinitely."
"Want to bet?" the sweeper demanded.
Sydney smiled faintly. "Okay, we can theoretically leave them there but, for the same reason that you wouldn't flood the place with gas, the way you suggested to Miss Parker..."
"How did you know?"
"She told me, and I appreciate your comment on my aim, as well," Sydney added with a smile.
"Life would have been a lot easier if you'd just shot the bastard."
"For whom? Raines, possibly, but not the rest of us. It wouldn't have got rid of the Triumvirate, and Raines was only ever acting on their behalf anyway."
"Except when he was acting against them." Sam sat down beside his mother and looked at the psychiatrist. "So we need to work out some way to take down the Triumvirate."
"Precisely."
"Gee, it's great to get the easy job."
Jarod glanced at his watch and then went over to the bed, putting his hand on the woman's wrist and timing her pulse.
"Helen?" He shook her gently. "Helen, it's Jarod. Can you hear me?"
The woman continued to stare blankly at the ceiling and the pretender turned to the young man in the doorway, shaking his head.
"It's been over thirty minutes now. If it were going to work, it would have. We'll try the next one."
Steve nodded. "That was the one we had most doubt about anyway. The second treatment's still being distilled but it should be ready in twenty minutes."
"Fine, bring it up then and we'll see what happens."
Jarod watched the man leave the room and then reached down to pull up the second blanket that lay on the end of the bed, gently covering the woman before he placed a hand over her eyes and closed the lids. Hearing a gasp from behind him, he turned to see Miss Parker in the doorway and stepped over to put a hand on her shoulder.
"No, Parker, no. She's alive, it's all right."
"So… so why…?"
"She can't blink, Parker, and if her eyes get too dry, they could get damaged."
"Have you done it before?"
"I didn't think about it until right now. If I'd known you were there I wouldn't have done it at all. But Helen's still alive."
"Do you call that alive?"
"In the most basic sense of the word, yes."
"And, if we didn't do anything, what would happen?"
"If we didn't do anything, or if the treatments don't work, which might be the other possibility, her body will slowly waste away. We could keep her alive for years by tube feeding, but she’d always be like that."
He waved towards the figure on the bed, watching Miss Parker give a slight shudder.
"Is she...suffering?" the woman asked hesitantly.
"No,” he assured her gently. “She has no idea what's going on. She can't see, hear or think now. If any of the treatments work, she won't remember any of this."
"How did you know what to give her?"
"When we went into the room to get her, there were a few syringes on the table next to her. Most contained drugs that they were going to give her next, but one, fortunately, was the used syringe that had put her into that state." He glanced at the bed before looking back at the woman in front of him. "Using that, and having worked out the contents of the drugs they were going to give her, we've got a very complete picture of the whole project - and it's a nasty one."
"Who was doing it?"
"David," Jarod admitted after a moment of silence.
"What?!" She stared at Jarod in shock. "A four-year-old?"
Jarod response was quiet. "I did a similar simulation at that age. This one had different eventual results but Raines exploited the fact that a four-year-old couldn't have a strong moral conscience to persuade him that the drug he made wasn't very dangerous."
"How did you find that out?"
"Broots hacked into the system to find out about the project. Although it was done by a codename – as they all are – Helen had retrieved David's real file when she got all three of them out, as you know, and the name was in there." Jarod glanced at the woman on the bed and his eyes became sad. "If the boy ever found out that he was responsible for doing this to the woman he's starting to love like a mother, it would destroy him."
"So we don't tell him." Miss Parker shrugged before looking more closely at the man. "Is that why you didn't just ask him what he'd made?"
"Exactly. That child is amazingly quick, and I'm sure he would have got at least a hint as to why we wanted the information."
"As quick as you were at his age?"
Jarod smiled faintly. "Probably."
"Sam asked if you'd come up with any way to beat the Triumvirate," Miss Parker queried, after a few minutes of silence
"I suggested he and Sydney try that."
"He felt that with the benefit of three, no, four," she rapidly recalculated. "Five pretenders in this house, leaving something like that to people without such large advantages would result in a second-class plan."
Jarod raised an eyebrow, thankful to have something to take his mind off its current problem. "He said that?"
"Every word, except for the extra numbers."
"I never knew Sam was that articulate."
"Except when he's in Sydney's office, he seems to be," she agreed with a faint smile.
The Pretender smiled also. "I was impressed that you lasted for that entire conversation without speaking."
"I just wanted to see his response when he finally know I was there," she told him.
"And was it as good as you were hoping for?"
"Better. I didn't know people could jump that high without a springboard."
"Thank you, Miss Parker," Sam remarked, as he appeared in the doorway. "I'm not willing to say many other positive things about the place, but the Centre does have a fitness regime that has to be considered first-class."
"Is there anything you wanted, Sam?" the other man asked.
"I've got something to show Miss Parker and, when I found that she was up here, I thought I'd see how Helen was as well."
"She’s no different." Jarod moved aside so the other man could see the woman on the bed. "The first possible treatment didn't work so Steve and Jon are preparing the next one."
"Do you think that one will work?"
"We won't know until we try, Sam." He nodded at the laptop in the sweeper’s hand. "What did you want to show Miss Parker?"
Walking over to the table, the man placed the machine down and opened it, activating the file that showed the Triumvirate meeting discussing the capture of Helen and stepped away so the others could watch it. For almost ten minutes there was silence, before Miss Parker finally spoke.
"If Raines wasn't already dead, I'd happily shoot the bastard myself."
"Why lower yourself to second best?" Sam's tone was bitter. "Why worry about Raines when the devil incarnate is sitting in that chair and directing his helpers?"
"Did Broots find that?"
"Yes, and something else as well." He started a second file and turned away from the machine to walk over to the bed and sit down on the edge of it, putting out a hand to touch the woman's face. Once the file, showing the discussion of a planned T-Board for the pursuit team, finished, Jarod stepped over, placing his hand on the man's shoulder.
"Sam, we'll do it. I swear to you, we'll pay him back for everything, but it wouldn't be fair to Helen for any of us to risk our lives yet. She needs all of us." Hesitating, Jarod leaned forward slightly. "Especially you."
"Always assuming that these drug treatments of yours work."
"If they don't work, then we'll try everything we can think of, between the three of us, until we find something that does." Jarod moved around until he was standing in front of the man. "Sam, Helen is almost as important to all of us as she is to you, and we all owe her large debts. We aren't just going to leave her like this."
"She'd be better off dead," the sweeper muttered.
Jarod forced a note of firmness into his voice. "You can't give up on Helen, not yet. I know seeing her like this makes it more difficult, but you have to try and believe that something will work, that she's going to return to the way she was before."
"Will she be? If one of these should happen to work, will she be the same or will it have affected her in some other way?"
"I don't know, Sam," the Pretender responded. "I'd like to tell you definitively, one way or the other, but I can't know that. Nobody does."
"So she could end up, what, handicapped in some way?"
"It couldn't be worse than the way she is now," Miss Parker stated softly from on the other side of the room. "No matter what she became, even if she had no idea who any of us were, it could only be better than the state she's in now."
"I even denied knowing who she was."
The sweeper's voice became a pain-filled whisper as he muttered the sentence and Jarod's hand tightened its hold on the man's shoulder.
"If you hadn't, we would never have got her out. I couldn't have got past Willie on my own - I didn't even bring a gun with me last night - so right now she’d have been being 'retrained' by her brother and you would either have been in the same situation yourself, or else dead, if you hadn't done it. Helen would - she will understand the necessity of it."
The sweeper hesitated for a moment before looking at the man who was standing in front of him.
"Give me something to do, Jarod, please. I can't stand this."
"You can make lunch for everybody - you and Miss Parker. I know," he added as he saw the look of frustration in the man's eyes, " it doesn't sound like much, but it's as important as anything else we're doing. We have to give an impression to the children that everything's all right and meals at the usual times are a good way of doing that. Besides," he added quietly. "It might help take your mind off things."
"Sam."
The man looked up as he entered the living room to see the small boy scramble down from Charles’ lap father and run towards him. The sweeper picked him up.
"What is it, David?"
"Where's Helen?"
"She's in bed, baby. She's not very well."
"Oh." The boy looked at Sam. "Are you worried about her?"
"Yes," the man admitted softly.
"Do you care about her?"
"Very much."
"She cares about you, too." The child gave a satisfied smile. "I saw it in her face when both of you were talking in the kitchen."
The man half-smiled. "I thought you were reading one of your new books then."
"I was, but I could hear the way she talked, too." The boy put both arms around the man's neck and hugged him. "Are you going to make lunch now?"
"What would you like for lunch?"
"Ice cream?" the child suggested.
Sam's smile widened somewhat. "Not for a meal, David. That's only for dessert. You have to eat proper, healthy food, before you get to dessert." He carried the boy into the kitchen and opened the fridge. "What do you want? You pick."
David looked from the food to the man who was holding him. "Is Helen too sick to eat?"
"Yes, baby."
The man tried to prevent himself from wondering if the woman lying upstairs would ever eat again, but the thought came into his mind before he could stop it, and he saw from the expression on the boy's face that David had noticed a flicker of emotion in his eyes.
"We should keep that," David leaned forward and touched one of the containers, "for when Helen can eat, ‘cause it's her favorite."
"Did she tell you that?"
"Uh huh, when she was making it last night."
Sam shut his eyes briefly to force back the wave of emotion that he was feeling and then looked back at the boy, whose expression was one of growing concern, forcing another smile. "If we're keeping that, what should we have?"
"This one."
David touched another large container and Sam picked it up with his free hand and put it on the table.
"What else?"
"Isn't that enough?"
"We've got a lot of people to feed, David." He closed the fridge and went to the pantry, opening it. Taking out a number of other tins that the child indicated, Sam placed them on the table, before putting the boy down on the floor. "You help Miss Parker make lunch, okay?"
"Where will you be, Sam?" The woman spoke quietly from the corner.
"I'm going for a walk." The sweeper took his coat and pulled it on. "I won't be long, but you don't need to keep anything for me."
"You have to eat."
"I'll have something later if I'm hungry."
"Sam." The woman's voice was warning.
"Please, Miss Parker, don't make things more difficult right now." The man turned, and she could see the pain in his eyes. Slowly she nodded.
"All right, but don't be too long."
"I'll try not to be." The door slammed behind the man and David looked up.
"Is he mad?"
"No, sweetheart." Miss Parker picked up the boy, forcing a smile. "He just needs a bit of time on his own."
"Is he going to cry?"
"Maybe."
"Helen said to me that, if I ever want to cry, I should just do it and not keep it in."
"Sam's a grown man, baby, and adults don't cry in front of other people."
"Even if it's better to let out what you're feeling?"
"Even then."
The boy considered this for a second. "Isn't that kind of silly? If you don't show it, people won't know what you're really feeling, and they won't know what to do to make you feel better."
She laughed awkwardly. "That's very true, David. You're a very clever boy."
"Indeed," commented a soft voice from the doorway and the woman jumped before turning.
"I didn't know we had company."
"Considering how many people are in this house right now, it shouldn't be all that surprising that one comes into a room where you are, should it, Parker?"
"I've hardly seen any of them. Where is everyone?"
"Steve and Jon are in the lab making up the third treatment, Angelo and Debbie are playing with Michael, Jarod's father, and Sam's mother are talking while Broots and Ethan are keeping an eye on things in the Centre. You, David and I are here, Jarod is up with Helen and Sam's walking."
Miss Parker rolled her eyes. "No wonder we needed so much food. We've got to supply an army."
"As long as the army gets the job done, Miss Parker, then it doesn't really matter, does it?"
Meeting the psychiatrist's eye, and understanding the underlying meaning behind his words, she nodded slowly and, putting David on a chair, they silently began to prepare lunch.
