Darkness Series
Part 13:...Down, Dark Places...

The psychiatrist disconnected the call and stared down the surface of his desk, struggling to deal with what he had just heard. Jarod is dead. The three words made their way to the forefront of his mind, forced themselves on his attention, but he couldn't take in their meaning.

"Sydney?"

Slowly raising his head, he saw Miss Parker in the doorway. She walked in and shut the door.

"Did she say... what I think she did?"

"That depends, Miss Parker." His voice was gentle. "What do you think she said?"

She looked up at him, seeing the shock in his eyes and a lack of emotion on the rest of his face.

"We should go there. Tomorrow. Perhaps we can..."

"Can what, Parker?" Sydney looked up. "It's too late to do anything now. Jarod's dead." He stated the words without really believing them, staring down again.

"We need to be sure - see a report or something. The Triumvirate won't be convinced without it."

"The Triumvirate..." His voice was a faint whisper and she looked at him sharply.

"Sydney, are you okay?"

"I'm alive, Parker."

"That wasn't the question," she told him sharply.

"No." He looked up at her. "But that was the answer."

* * *

Sydney got into the back seat of the car, the autopsy report still held firmly in his hand and his eyes fixed to the floor of the vehicle as his mind went back over the conversation in that room.

"... Personally, I'd say the chances of him knowing anything after the building came crashing down on his head were pretty remote."

Those harsh words, that grim reality, forced him to open the folder and extract the photos, eyeing every mark, every wound, every bruise and finally the picture showing the man lying on the bed, surrounded by machinery, his head and face marred by the injuries that the falling structures had caused.

"Syd?"

He raised his head as Miss Parker slid onto the seat beside him, leaving Lyle and Broots to take those in the front. Gently she took the photos out of Sydney's hand and looked at them while he read the report. Jarod Hamilton. Deceased. Still, the term had no meaning. It wasn't that he was denying it. Just that the word had no meaning. Nothing did. Not anymore.

As she felt the car stop, Miss Parker lifted her head to see a pile of rubble in front of them.

"Well, that's it."

"That's what, Lyle?" She looked sharply at him and he held up a slip of paper.

"That's where it happened."

"How do you know?"

"Only building to collapse in this area five days ago."

She nodded, her eyes traveling over the heap of stones and twisted metal, trying to imagine what could have prompted Jarod to go inside it. Looking back down at the photos, her eyes wandered over the bruises and cuts on his face, the closed eyes and the tube that vanished into his mouth, the other end having been cut off several inches above his lips. She managed to prevent herself from looking at the misshapen head, the twisted limbs and the deep cuts that were shown on the other photos, focusing only on that showing his face, which bore an expression that could almost be called peace, if it wasn't already more accurately described as death.

* * *

He stepped out of the vehicle and stood for several moments, staring blankly up at the building in front of him.

"Sydney?"

"Major." He turned and held out one hand. "Thank you."

"For?"

"Trusting me enough to meet me here."

"You said it was important."

"It is." Sydney pulled the folder out from under his arm. "I think, though, that you should sit down before you look at this."

Major Charles narrowed his eyes. "What are you trying to tell me, Sydney?"

Sydney swallowed hard and then looked at the man again. "That your son is dead."

"No..." The man's voice was a faint whisper and he put out a hand, grasping at the top of the car, trying to hold himself up.

"I'm sorry." Sydney offered the report. "I really am so sorry."

"But... when?"

"Fifteen days ago."

"And you waited until now?!" A tone of anger came back into the father's voice as he reached out a hand and seized the folder.

"I couldn't tell you before now, because I didn't believe it myself." The sadness in Sydney's voice broke through the anger in that of the other man. "I couldn't try to convince you of something that I wasn't able to believe."

Major Charles looked up, pain in his eyes but calmness on his face. He waved towards the house and blinked away tears. "Come in, Sydney. Come in and help me tell the others."

* * *

"So... why did you come, Sydney? Why not just..."

"Just what?" The psychiatrist looked up as the young woman asked the question. "I couldn't have sent it to you because there was no guarantee that you would have received it."

"Why?"

"The Centre's tightened their controls on us - on all of us - since we first heard about it. If I'd sent it to you, it would simply have led them to you."

"But - you aren't leading them to us now?"

Sydney looked over at the young man who sat quietly in the corner, the pain he felt increasing as he eyed the boy's features, forced to remember the man he came from. "I took a chance that I had while out with the others in the hunt for you all to slip away and made my way here." He wearily passed a hand over his eyes. "I've been driving for three days trying to make the path as complex as possible, so that they wouldn't find you."

"So... if they're not looking for him anymore, does that mean...?"

"The hunt for all of you has been intensified. They're determined that they won't get the chance to 'lose' any more of you." Sydney's lips twisted as he said the words, struggling to maintain control. "That's all they view it as - a simple loss of a 'project'. Nothing more."

"What are we going to do now?"

Sydney looked at the older woman, who hadn't spoken before this since his arrival, tears pouring down her face as she absorbed the news of her oldest son's death.

"I know what I'd like to do."

"And that is?"

He met Major Charles' eye as the other man asked the question. "Avenge your son's death in the only fitting way."

"You mean...?"

"The Centre's destroyed lives for forty years. I think it's time they stopped." He paused. "That they were stopped. By us."

"Five of us?"

"Nine of us," stated a new voice.

The group turned, as one, towards the doorway to see the other four that stood there. Sydney got to his feet, feeling the others tense.

"Please Parker, no."

She shook her head, understanding. "No, Sydney. I'm here for the same reason you are. If you're going to destroy the Centre, I want to be a part of it. We all do."

* * *

Sydney looked over at Angelo and Ethan, seeing the expression of frustration on the latter's face as he read through the article that had come about as a result of the months of hard work.

"What is it, Ethan?"

"It's not true, Sydney. He's not dead."

The older man leaned forward. "I know that it's hard to come to terms with..."

"So why is she telling me that he isn't?"

The psychiatrist's eyebrows rose. "I... I don't understand."

"Ever since my sister turned up one my doorstep, I've heard her voice saying to me that he isn't dead, but that there's a good reason for the whole thing."

"Ethan, much as I want to trust the voice you hear, I can't deny what was in front of me. I saw that report and heard what the doctor said." He swallowed painfully. "Jarod is dead, Ethan, and we're just going to have to accept that."

"Not... dead..."

The two looked over at the empath and a tear dimmed Sydney's eye as he shook his head. "Yes, Angelo. He is."

Ethan turned on him angrily "Doesn't it tell you anything that both of us are being told he's alive?"

"It tells me," Sydney said quietly, "that you're in denial, and that Angelo is absorbing that emotion. It's the same sort of denial that I was in for the first two weeks."

"No, Sydney, I..."

"Ethan, please." The older man looked up. "She's got no reason to lie. If the Triumvirate had told us that Jarod had died and I'd seen an autopsy from them, I might have had my doubts, but this is from somebody totally unconnected with the Centre. She has no reason to make something like this up and that convinces me more than anything else that it's true."

As he got up to leave the room, he saw the expression in the eyes of the woman who had silently entered some time before and obviously heard at least some of what had passed. With an effort, he avoided Miss Parker's eye and Sydney closed the door softly behind himself as he left.

* * *

Sydney felt the pain in his head before he was fully awake and squinted into the bright sunlight as it streamed through his bedroom window. Struggling into a sitting position, Sydney waited for his eyes to adjust and then slowly got out of bed. He could feel vicious throbbing in his temples as he headed into the bathroom and moaned softly. The pain, which had begun soon after finding out about Jarod, had been gone for the last couple of weeks but it was clearly now back, and worse than he remembered it. As water filled the sink in front of him, he leaned his head against the tiles for a moment and then looked up at himself in the mirror.

"Sydney?"

Turning, he saw Michelle in the doorway. She walked over and slipped her arms around him. "Are you okay?"

"I'll survive."

"That pain's back, isn't it?"

He nodded silently.

"Why don't you go and see somebody about it?"

Shrugging, Sydney turned away. "It's probably nothing."

"But it might be something. Something serious."

"If it gets worse, I'll think about it."

"If it gets too much worse, you might not be able to think at all." She cast a frustrated look over her shoulder as she left the bathroom. "I'm going to start breakfast. Don't be too long."

* * *

"Dad, are you okay?"

Sydney looked up to meet his son's concerned gaze. "I'm fine. Really."

"Well, you don't look it." Nicholas looked up as his mother entered the room. "Have you noticed it too?"

"Of course I have." Michelle's tone was sharper than usual. "And I've been trying to persuade him to see someone about it for a year now."

Nicholas looked startled. "A year?"

"A little over, in fact, yes." Michelle got up as there was a knock on the door and opened it. "Miss Parker! How nice to see you."

"Hi, Michelle. We were in the neighborhood..."

"We?" Sydney glanced up to see Broots in the doorway behind Miss Parker and tried to smile.

"Hi, Syd."

Broots spoke before he looked at the older man, and then his eyes widened. A subtle nudge from Miss Parker made him keep silent as she spoke.

"We brought something that you might be interested in seeing."

She pulled a magazine out of the former technician's hand and, opening it at a certain page, gave it to Sydney.

"Debbie left it on the kitchen table when she went to school and I saw it." Broots sat in a chair that Michelle indicated, his eyes fixed on Sydney's face, seeing the emotion that appeared in the older man's eyes. "I told Parker about it and she suggested we bring it to show you."

Michelle looked over his shoulder to see the two models on the page. She couldn't recognize the woman, but thought that she would have known the man anywhere, having seen, every morning, a photo of Jarod that sat on a shelf in Sydney's room. The psychiatrist's voice, as he gazed down at the face, was choked.

"And... is it...?"

"It's an old shoot, Syd. More than two years old. We rang the magazine to be sure, but I thought you might want to see it anyway."

Sydney's eyes seemed caught in those of the man who stared out of the pages at him. Emotions that he had been suppressing for so long, aware that they swirled just below the surface, were now rising up and making it difficult to breath. Finally a movement from the other side of the room broke the spell and he looked up.

"Thank you."

Miss Parker nodded, her eyes on his face as he slowly rose. Michelle placed a hand on his arm.

"Where are you...?"

"I'll be right back."

* * *

It was Miss Parker who found him, slumped unconscious in the doorway of his bedroom, his face chalk-white, nearly twenty minutes later.

"Sydney?" She dropped to her knees and shook him. "Syd, wake up. Come on, look at me."

Placing one hand on his wrist, she found his pulse and was reassured that it was still fairly strong as she raised her voice and called for help.

"Dad?"

Nicholas knelt beside his father and rolled the man onto his side, feeling for pulse and respiration, before looking up at Broots. "Call an ambulance."

"No..."

The man's voice was faint and Nicholas looked down in time to see his father's eyes open as he slowly shook his head and struggled to sit up. His son prevented it. "Dad, you're not well. Surely you can see that. Let us take you to a doctor."

"No, I'm... fine." Sydney swallowed with difficulty. "I just need... rest."

"You'd rest better in a hospital. Then we could find out what's really wrong with you." He looked up as Miss Parker placed an arm around Michelle's shoulders. As Nicholas nodded, the younger woman led the older one back into the living room. The young man looked again at his father. "Dad, please. We're worried about you."

"No, Nicholas." Sydney pulled himself into a sitting positing, leaning against the doorframe. "I'll be fine."

"You don't look fine." With nobody to stop him, Broots spoke the words that were in his mind. "In fact, you look terrible."

"Thanks." Sydney smiled faintly and then looked at his son. "Just... help me into bed and then go check on your mother."

Nicholas raised an eyebrow, his eyes traveling over his father's white face. "Sure?"

"Positive."

* * *

Sydney glanced at Michelle, frustration evident on his face. "I think this is somewhat needless."

She looked at him. "Sydney, you've fainted four times in the last four months and that's four times too many for my liking. I'm tired of finding you lying on the floor." As emotion came into Michelle's eyes, she covered his hand with hers. "Please, I'm worried about you. We both are. Let's just see what she says."

He nodded slowly, slipping one arm around her shoulders. "All right."

She leaned back, resting her head on his arm and looking up at him. "And you'll do what she tells you to, right?"

"We'll see."

Michelle pulled away. "You'll what?!"

Sydney tried to smile. "I was only joking."

She narrowed her eyes. "I don't think I like your jokes."

* * *

"Sydney, I wish you'd come to see me earlier about this." The doctor looked up at the couple that sat opposite her. "I'm not comfortable with my own diagnosis. I want to send you to a specialist."

Michelle's voice was tense with anxiety. "Dr. Hutchinson, what do you think it is?"

The woman looked down at the results of the blood tests in front of her and then up again, with a sigh. "As I said, I'm not completely satisfied with my own diagnosis but it... looks like cancer." She eyed her patient with a certain degree of severity. "As a doctor yourself, Sydney, I would have expected you to see the warning signs and come to me earlier than this."

She looked down, quickly writing a letter, which she slid into an envelope, thereby missing the sharp glance that Michelle shot at Sydney, to which he responded with a weak smile.

"This is my referral to Dr. Crawford at St. Luke's. He's an expert in this field. His rooms are within the hospital itself, so I'd like you to go there and let him run all of the relevant tests there."

"St. Luke's?" Sydney, attention caught by the name, looked up. "Do you mean St. Luke's Hospital in Helena?"

"You know it?"

"I've been there once." He paused. "Has Dr. Crawford been there long?"

"As I understand it, no." Dr. Hutchinson handed the letter over and leaned back in her chair. "He's only been in his position as head of the hospital for five and a half months. But I've sent several other patients to him and I'm satisfied with him. I think he'll be able to give you the best treatment. I'll see if I can make an appointment for you now."

As she picked up the phone, Michelle saw the tears glinting in Sydney's eyes and placed on hand on his, her voice low.

"What is it?"

"That's the place where..."

"Jarod?"

He nodded speechlessly and looked down at the envelope. His breath caught in his throat as he held it out to her. She glanced from him down to the hand-written direction. Dr. Jarod Crawford. Michelle gently squeezed his hand and watched as he fought to keep away the tears.

"I've made an appointment for later this evening." The doctor looked up. "It's the only chance for some time, and I'd like to get the results as quickly as possible, so that you can begin treatment immediately. His secretary said she would arrange a hotel room for you close by, so you can get there easily."

The man looked up, startled. "A hotel?"

"Sydney, I want you to take it easy and you won't do that if you have to sort it out for yourself. My secretary will be able to give you the details when you leave and I'd suggest you go home, pack a few things for a couple of days' stay and then catch a train." She eyed him severely. "No driving, understand?"

He nodded and got to his feet, holding out a hand. "Thank you, Dr. Hutchinson."

"Give my compliments to Dr. Crawford when you see him."

"I will."

* * *

Sydney made his way slowly along the street, stopping in front of the familiar building and looking at it for several minutes, blinking the tears out of his eyes, before he slowly made his way up the few stairs.

"Can I help you sir?"

He smiled faintly at the woman. "Can you direct me to Dr. Crawford's rooms?"

"Which one, sir?"

Sydney looked startled. "Dr. Jarod Crawford." The name, for some reason, came out easily.

"Certainly." She smiled. "The elevators are just around the corner to the right and his consulting suite in on the first floor. You'll see the sign as soon as you get out of the lift."

"Thank you."

Sydney looked around as he waited for the elevator to arrive, hating deju vu he was experiencing. Dr. Austen's room had also been on the first floor. Struggling to suppress a shudder, the man got into the lift, and, as he had been instructed, saw the sign the moment that he came out. Dr. Jarod Crawford, and, below it, a sign for a Dr. Nicole Crawford. Slowly he walked in the direction that the first sign indicated.

* * *

He watched as a patient came out, speaking with the receptionist before leaving the office and he was alone in the waiting room. After a brief period, the woman lifted the receiver of the phone.

"Dr. Crawford?"

Sydney was unable to hear the response but could hear the next comment. "You have another patient to see. He made a late appointment on a referral from Dr. Hutchinson. I'm still filling out his card."

After a pause, she hung up the phone and then turned to him. "You can go in."

He smiled faintly at her as he stood and went over to the door, opening it and, without looking up, closed it behind him, his mind so busy that the words spoken by the occupant were nothing more than a low murmur. Slowly he turned, raising his eyes to look at the medical practitioner, and Sydney's eyes lit on the dark head bent over the paperwork. 

For an instant, just as he had on so many other occasions over the previous two years, he could have believed that the man at the desk was Jarod. He blinked, knowing that the delusion would vanish when he refocused, the same way it always had - but somehow, this time, it didn't. 

He narrowed his eyes, studying what he could of the man's features, unable to make sense of what he was seeing. Blinked again. Stared. And, as the man turned his head to look at the folder to his right, Sydney heard a gasp that he only realised at the last minute was coming from his mouth. 

The other man glanced up at the sound, and despite the new addition of the glasses over which the doctor looked, Sydney could no longer doubt the evidence of his eyes. 

"Jarod?" he demanded as a gaping sense of disbelief opened inside him, swallowing the ever-present pain in his head. 

"Sydney?!" The man removed his glasses and stood up. "What are you...?"

The voice banished the last remnants of doubt, even if the question of how this was possible remained. "I could ask you the same question," he retorted, unable to keep the sharpness out of his voice. 

"Sit down." Jarod waved at the chair on the other side of the desk and resumed his seat, his dark eyes travelling over Sydney's face.

Sydney sat down, thankful to do so as his knees turned suddenly weak with the emotions filling him. "Aren't you supposed to be dead?" he pointed out, his mind suddenly full of the autopsy pictures that were a frequent feature of his nightmares.

"I just haven't stopped moving yet," came the reply in Jarod's most teasing tones, and Sydney felt suddenly angry at the flippant manner in which everything he had suffered was being dismissed. Perhaps Jarod realised this, because his next words held none of the light-heartedness of his earlier comment. "Jarod Hamilton has dead and has been for quite a while now."

Two years, one month and eight days, Sydney said to himself. 

"Jarod Crawford is alive, well, and running a large hospital in Helena, Montana," that man finished. 

"But - why?" Sydney demanded, that same sense of disbelief filling him again. 

"It's a long story." Jarod gave a small sigh and leaned forward, activating what was clearly a small intercom on his desk. 

Sydney paid no attention to the interaction between the man and his secretary, instead running his eyes over the contents of the room in which he sat. He paid special attention to the numerous framed certificates on the walls, wondering if any of them were genuine, and moreover how Jarod had managed to wangle himself the position as head of a hospital. 

Even as he thought this, Jarod finished the conversation and looked up at him. "Did you come because you realised it was me," the younger man offered, "or because you actually wanted to consult me?"

Sydney couldn't help smiling rather wryly, and perhaps with a hint of bitterness, at this. "I was intending to consult a doctor," he retorted.

"You are." 

Jarod's hands gestured at the certificates, and Sydney narrowed his eyes slightly, not taken in. 

"No, I meant a real doctor," he retorted, quite prepared to argue the point, even if he had complete faith in Jarod's ability to carry out the pretence quite as far as either of them deemed necessary. 

"Again, you are," Jarod insisted, and something about his tone was surprisingly reassuring, even if he grinned at the way Sydney's expression clearly changed to reflect his thoughts, "and I really am one now." He held out a hand. "Can I see the referral please?"

It was on the tip of Sydney's tongue to correct the younger man's grammar, but he restrained himself, merely offering the envelope from Dr Hutchinson. While Jarod glanced over the two-page letter, Sydney studied the younger man's features, reaquainting himself with Jarod's appearance, still not quite believing that this was truly happening. 

"Do you want me to run the tests you were sent here for?" Jarod asked at last, returning the letter to its envelope.

"I suppose you'd better," Sydney replied, unable to help wondering what Michelle would say if he returned home without having done so. 

Amused comprehension sparkled in Jarod's eyes. "Should I assume you aren't here of your own accord?"

"Michelle's been talking me into it for a while," was all Sydney would concede, but he was fairly sure that Jarod understood what he was not saying. 

Jarod was clearly about to reply to this when a knock at the door interrupted the conversation. "Yes?" he called out instead, and Sydney's eyes saw Jarod take a quick glance at the clock on his desk before looking at the door.

"Jarod," a female voice began, and Sydney knew at once that this woman was familiar, even if he could not place her voice right away. "I wanted to ask if you were ready to go," she continued, and then peered around the door, her manner changing immmediately. "Oh, I'm sorry, Dr Crawford," she apologised, taking a step forward, although Sydney could still not quite make out her features as they were still hidden by the heavy wooden door. "I didn't know you had a patient with you."

"No problem, Nicole." Jarod's tone was light, and Sydney heard more in it than mere professional courtesy. Suspicion sprang to his mind at once, and he cast a sharp glance in Jarod's direction. However the younger man had his attention focused on the door and never saw it, continuing almost too casually, "Come in. Recognise a familiar face?"

The woman walked into the room, and now Sydney understood exactly why she had seemed so familiar. As if he could ever forget the sound of her voice on the phone, nor her face as he had stood in her office and received the autopsy report. She clearly found him just as easy to identify. 

"Sydney!" Her eyes were wide. "What are you doing here?"

"Dr Austen." He swallowed a lump in his throat as he began to understand just how all-encompassing this pretence had been. "So you knew all along..."

"I don't like making things up," she admitted, and he could hear the guilt in her tones, "but it seemed like the best thing to do in the circumstances."

"What...?" he began, but had no chance to finish the question. 

"I think," Jarod interrupted, "this discussion would be better in a more comfortable environment, like at home. Sydney, are you at a hotel?"

"A few blocks away, yes," Sydney agreed. 

"And is Michelle...?"

"No, I came on my own," Sydney admitted, remembering how insistent he had been on that point, to the extent that they had had an argument on the way home from the appointment with Dr Hutchinson. Sydney had also not been about to admit that he had had no intention of submitting himself to any tests suggested by the specialist. Nor that his attitude regarding that determination had undergone a complete reversal given what he had discovered in this room. 

Jarod studied him for a moment, and Sydney had the feeling that the younger man knew exactly what Sydney would not have said out loud. Then he turned to the woman standing quietly to the side of the desk. Sydney glanced the same way and saw, for the first time, the gold band on the ring finger of Nicole Austen's left hand, and which he was somehow certain was new since the last time he had seen her. A quick glance at Jarod did not satisfy Sydney's curiosity on the subject as that man's left hand was concealed beneath his right as they rested on the envelope in front of him. However Sydney was unable to help feeling that the framed photo on one corner of the desk, and which he could not see from his present position, would be a wedding picture featuring the two people in front of him. 

"Nicole," Jarod said at last, "what say you get the guest room ready for company and make us some coffee, or, even better, dinner? We'll be there in about half an hour."

The woman smiled and turned to the door. "I'll be waiting," she remarked as she opened the door, and closed it behind herself the next moment. 

Sydney turned back to Jarod in time to see that man pick up a number of slips and pulled a face inwardly as he realised what they were. Jarod left him in no doubt. 

"These are the test orders for tomorrow," he said, picking up the phone. "They don't normally do appointments on Saturdays, but I'll get them to make an exception for you. If you'll just give me a moment..."

Listening to the teasing banter between Jarod and the person on the other end of the line, Sydney suddenly realised how much must have happened in that man's life over the past two years. It was clear that he was well-known, and also well-regarded, in this place, not least for him to have been appointed by the hospital board to the position he now held - a position that seemed genuine and not a pretend, as it might once have been. 

Finally the dark-haired man finished writing times and details on the slips, handing them over as he hung up the phone, and Sydney's eye was caught by the gleam of gold on Jarod's left hand as he put down the receiver. There was a teasing tone in Jarod's voice as he spoke. 

"What is it, Sydney?"

"Are you - married?" he asked, deciding at the last minute to ask the question directly instead of hinting at it as he had considered doing when he first became suspicious of the matter. 

Jarod lifted his left hand so that the thick gold band was all too clear. "For almost six months, yes," he agreed. 

"To Dr. Austen?" Sydney prompted, and was amused by the heightened color that flushed Jarod's cheeks. 

"Is it that obvious?" he demanded, grinning, and then rose to his feet. "Come on, let's get your things. I won't have you in a hotel while you're a patient of mine."

Sydney stood up and watched as Jarod patted his pockets, clearly checking that he had everything, before turning off the lamp on his desk and coming around to the other side of the room where Sydney waited. The younger man waved him out of the consulting room into the empty waiting room, picking up the keys from his receptionist's desk. A moment later, when they stood in the hallway, Jarod locked the outer door, putting the key into a key-safe attached to the wall outside the door, and then slid his hand around Sydney's arm in a supportive hold as they walked towards the elevators. 

The warm, firm grasp of Jarod's hand caused a flush of emotion in Sydney that brought tears to his eyes, but the man blinked them away. Still, it was proof of how much he meant to the younger man, and that, after such a long time, went some way to healing the sore place in his heart that had been there for more than two years. 

It was as they were getting into the elevator that Sydney noticed the way Jarod leaned more to the right, favouring that leg over the other, and finally spotted the slight limp that was more obvious as they came out into the underground carpark. His anxiety about what had caused what was clearly not a new injury made him wonder again just what had happened to Jarod over the past two years, and Sydney waited impatiently for an opportunity to bring up the subject as Jarod approached a car and unlocked it, gesturing at Sydney to get in. 

* * *

He raised the fork to his mouth, eating a small amount of meat and with his eyes fixed on the man seated opposite, who protested indignantly.

"Sydney, it's hard to eat under such close scrutiny!"

"Oh, come on, Jarod." Nicole sipped her wine, smiling. "He hasn't seen you for so long that surely he's allowed to look at you."

"I don't mind him looking at me." Jarod put the fork down beside his plate and looked up. "But it's making me feel ever so slightly self-conscious when I'm being inspected at such close quarters." He paused. "I don't think Sydney would be very happy if I was doing it to him - and, as his doctor, I'm even allowed to!"

Laughing, Jarod continued to eat the meal his wife had prepared, looking up occasionally. Finally Nicole broke the silence.

"I just had a thought."

"Did it hurt?" her husband enquired, laughing.

She playfully slapped Jarod's arm. "Thanks ever so much!"

"You're ever so welcome."

Sydney looked over at her. "What was your thought, Dr. Austen?"

Jarod sent a mock-glare over the table at him. "Two points to remember, here, Sydney. First, and foremost, she's married now."

"Dr. Crawford, then." Sydney's lips twitched as he pronounced the name. "What's the second?"

"She has got a first name."

"I couldn't..."

"I'd rather you did, Sydney." Nicole reached out to place a hand over his. "We don't usually invite patients around for dinner, so that puts you in a special league immediately. And secondly, after everything I've heard about you, I don't think I could bear it if we used titles and surnames all the time. So, please, call me Nicole and I'll call you Sydney. After all," she laughed, "I called you that the first time we ever spoke."

Jarod grinned. "And very impolite it was, too."

"Well, you should have put his last name into your phone and then it would have been easier."

"All you had to do was ask."

"Uh, Jarod, dear, might I remind you that you weren't supposed to be particularly conscious at the time. As far as most people knew, you were as unconscious as it gets."

"Hmm, yes," Jarod mused. "I had forgotten, actually. Funny how life gets in the way of little things like that."

In an effort to hide the emotion he felt at Jarod's words, Sydney spoke again. "So what was your thought, Nicole?"

Hearing the tone of his voice, Jarod looked up sharply but remained silent. His wife answered the question with a smile. "I was thinking that one of you should probably call Michelle once as we've finished dinner. I'm sure she's worried. After all," Nicole cast a teasing glance at her husband and then at Sydney. "You've been to see a specialist who's the head of the hospital, which must make him..."

She stopped suddenly as Jarod placed one hand over her mouth. "While I might think your idea's a good one, I'm not going to let you finish that sentence, no matter how much you might want to."

"You never like flattery." Her voice was slightly muffled but still audible.

"Nor do you." His eyes twinkled. "I have a vague recollection, one day when I was still a patient at our hospital, of a certain Dr. Barnard being flattering at the same time as he was trying to get me off his hands, and you..."

She wriggled out from his grasp and placed her own hand over his mouth, laughing as she spoke. "You ought to have been in no fit state even for vague recollections at that time." Nicole narrowed her eyes. "Or had you pulled your I.V. out again and were just pretending to be sedated?"

"Hey, I promised!" he protested indignantly.

His wife looked over at Sydney. "Does he keep his promises?"

"Well, he used to," the older man admitted.

Jarod caught the tone in his voice and the amusement died out of his eyes. He put his knife and fork together on the plate and looked up.

"Should we call Michelle?"

* * *

"Do you have everything you need, Sydney?"

He looked up to find Jarod leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded and a smile on his face.

"I think so." Sydney glanced around. "This part of the house is newer than downstairs, isn't it?"

"Yes. While we were vacationing after the wedding, the house was renovated so that it was better suited to a family and not two single people." Jarod grinned. "They even managed to get it done on time."

"You didn't build it yourself, then?"

"Hey, I'm a doctor! Doctors don't build!"

Sydney's lips twitched in amusement. "And builders don't usually doctor."

"So when was I a builder?"

"Oh, at some point, I'm sure." The look of humor vanished. "In fact, I'd suggest that was how you and Thomas met."

"You're right." Jarod stepped into the room, his own face serious and eyes sad. "It was."

"I thought so." Sydney swallowed hard. "One day Parker started talking to me about comparisons between the two of you." He looked up. "It was hard on her when she thought you'd died, Jarod."

"Death is never easy, Sydney. Even for the deceased." Jarod hesitated. "By doing what we did, it meant that I was cut off from everyone that I may have wanted to contact - my family, you, in fact all the people who were important to me. But it seemed like the only possible solution at the time. Regardless of the way I was, they would still have dragged me back and worked out a way to get me to do simulations. I couldn't even walk at the time, let alone run, so the chances of them catching me were high."

Sydney nodded. "I can understand how you would have felt that way. I just wish, after you knew it was all over, that you'd let us know you were still alive." His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "How did your family find out?"

"Just a sec. I'll show you."

He heard Jarod's footsteps descending the stairs and used the time to sit in the chair beside the bed with a weary sigh.

"Tired?"

Sydney stared up at him in disbelief. "How on earth did you hear that all the way down there?"

Jarod raised an eyebrow, grinning. "I've just lived for months without sight. As you, of all people, should know, it improves your hearing." He held out an album so that Sydney could see a copy of the picture showing himself and the former head of the hospital. "They found that and realized it had to mean I was still alive, so they came by and gave me the fright of my life by sneaking up on me one day when I was in the park." He chuckled, taking the book out of the older man's hands. "And now, as your doctor, I'm ordering you to go to bed."

Sydney rolled his eyes. "You're going to take this all the way, aren't you?"

"Oh, of course," Jarod grinned. "With such a wonderful opportunity, I'd be silly not to, wouldn't you say?"

* * *

"Goodnight, Sydney." 

Sydney watched as the door closed behind Jarod, seeming to see that man's smiling features even after he had been alone for several minutes. There was still a faint sense of disbelief in him that this was real, that everything he had thought and felt and believed for the past two years could have been upended in such a ludicruously short time.

Perhaps he should be angry, should rage against the lie that had had such an impact on his life. 

He couldn't, though. Not with Jarod.

Part of Sydney could understand the fear that would have driven Jarod to go to such extreme measures. The fact that he continued to limp even after two years showed the severity of injuries that would have made running impossible, and Sydney's own experience of blindness meant that he could easily empathise with everything the younger man had suffered in that respect. The inability to keep track of his pursuers would only have magnified that terror.  

If anything hurt at all, it was the knowledge that Jarod had not contacted him in all that time. He tried to imagine how it might have happened, what he would have said if he had answered the phone to find Jarod on the other end. 

Sydney was forced to admit to himself that he would have refused to believe it, that, once he had finally accepted the idea of Jarod's death, he would have been unable to accept the new reality of the inverted situation. Only an event such as that which occurred today, unexpected and shocking as it had been, could have forced this new truth on him. That Jarod was not gone forever. That all those lost opportunities Sydney had mourned for so long were not out of reach after all. That they would have time to spend together again...

At that moment Sydney realised tears were sliding down his cheeks. He reached up to wipe them away, staring at the glistening dampness on his fingertips, and inhaled a shaky breath. Blinking hard, he changed out of his clothes and into the pajamas he had packed only a few hours earlier, when the world had seemed like a much harder and darker place than it did now. 

It was as he settled into bed and turned off the light that he heard the muted sounds of voices from the other room. Making out individual words was impossible, but the timbre of Jarod's voice was unmistakable and seemed to resonate within Sydney. A reassurance that he was still here. The final whispers inside him that questioned this reality were finally silenced and he could really, truly believe it. 

Sydney put his face into his hands and wept. 

Relief and thankfulness and pure, impossible joy made it difficult for him not to sob aloud, but he stifled the sounds, wiping at the fast-flowing tears with the sleeve of his jacket. 

Perhaps counter-intuitively, the pain in his head that seemed to have found a home there for two years eased as he let the tears flow, and he wondered at that, even as he realised that this was the first time he had properly let himself cry since first receiving Dr Austen's phone call. In that room, the sounds of muffled voices carrying softly through the walls, Sydney finally let himself experience all of the pain and grief he had been carrying for two long years, even if he knew that it had all been for nothing. Perhaps it was for this reason that he allowed himself to let it all go. 

It took a long time for the tears to run out, but, at last, exhausted, he was able to wipe the final traces of them from his cheeks and rest his head back against the pillow. His temples ached again, as they had done for months, but it was a different pain now, not so sharp, and he knew it would be gone in the morning. 

There was another deep murmuring from the other side of the wall, and he lightly pressed his hand against the smooth paintwork. 

"Goodnight, Jarod," he said softly, and then closed his eyes and, for the first time in more than two years, fell asleep immediately. 

* * *

"Why do you call him that?" 

Ann glanced at Sydney. "What 'Mystery Man'?" She laughed. "When Jarod turned up at the hospital, he had no identification and nobody he wanted us to contact. That was interesting to start with but then I began to learn all sorts of things about him, including the fact that the last name he gave us wasn't his real one. After that, I learnt about the Centre."

He looked at her in astonishment as she steered the car out of the hospital parking lot. "You knew about that? How?"

"Nicole told me, in case someone, like Lyle for instance, decided to come and ask me questions."

Sydney nodded. "So you know about me, too."

"Not really. Nicole thought you'd be the least likely person to come."

"I did think about it on a few occasions," he admitted. "But I didn't really want to know."

"I can imagine." Ann's voice was soft. "I think that in the same situation, I wouldn't have wanted to know either."

Blinking to erase the memory of the autopsy pictures from his mind, he looked up at her. "But you weren't ever his doctor?"

"Not really. My work is in Emergency. I patch them up and then hand them on to someone else to deal with." Ann rolled her eyes. "And in his case, I was glad to do so."

Sydney raised an eyebrow. "Jarod was a difficult patient?"

"Well, let's just say that's the only time I ever heard that name and the word 'patient' in the same sentence..."

* * *

Sydney looked up as Jarod was drying his hands and found the younger man watching him. "I'm not your patient anymore, Dr. Crawford," he laughed. "So I think you've just lost the right that you claimed last night."

"Not at all." Jarod grinned. "You're still under medical supervision - at least until you get rid of the traces of those shadows under your eyes, anyway. And your newly-found fainting tendencies."

"Michelle told you about that, I take it."

"She and Dr. Hutchinson. But I think it was rather careless of you not to tell me yourself." Jarod became more serious. "I would have kept a closer eye on your blood pressure."

"There's nothing wrong with me," the psychiatrist insisted.

"And Michelle was very relieved to hear me say so."

The older man raised an eyebrow. "So you told her before you told me?"

"I'd had the results delivered to me just before she rang so I told her while I wrote up my report. I didn't think you'd mind."

Sydney nodded slowly and then looked up again. "What else did you say to her that you haven't told me yet?"

Jarod raised his hands innocently. "What makes you think that?"

"That very familiar expression that I can see in your eyes right now makes me know that." Sydney caught Nicole's eye. "It's the same as the one I was telling you about earlier."

"I should never have left you two alone together," the younger man muttered.

"Well, you did, so it's a little late for regrets now."

"Thanks." Jarod looked at his wife. "Your support is invaluable."

She laughed. "Hey, I can't support both of you at once!"

He smiled at her and then turned to stare out of the window for several moments.

"Jarod," the other man stated flatly, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

"Well?"

"You still haven't told me what it was."

Jarod raised an eyebrow as he looked over. "And my dad called me tenacious!"

"Are you going to tell me what it was or not?"

He rolled his eyes, looking up to see the expression of amusement on his wife's face. "For that, Nicole, you can say it. After all, it was your idea, not mine."

"Oh, you would have come up with it eventually. After all, you're the genius."

"But you were the one who did come up with it, so you can ask him."

"Are you sure you don't want to?"

"Is anybody going to say it or should I give up hoping here and now?"

Jarod laughed as he looked at Sydney. "What happened to the tenacity?"

Nicole smiled. "It was an idea I came up with last night." She glanced at Sydney, her face serious. "As you know, we had a new bed delivered today and it struck me that we seemed to have a new occupant delivered as well." Her lips twitched as she saw the laughter in her husband's eyes. "So what I'd like to ask is whether you and Michelle would like to consider this as much your home as anywhere else that you've been living."