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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Part 12
by N.R. Levy
Parker blinked, trying to will herself to have some reaction. She needed to speak, to move, to do something to let the woman before her know she had not been struck deaf, dumb and blind. She could not. As she felt Elizabeth step forward and embrace her, all Parker could think was that her world was about to be turned upside down.
Elizabeth stepped back from the embrace surveying the young woman before her. She was Catherine duplicated, only with shorter, darker hair. Watching the ice blue eyes stare at her, Elizabeth could only imagine what thoughts must be swirling through Parker's mind. Soon enough, all of her questions would be answered - but there was no reason the older woman could see to start prattling off secrets at the poor thing the moment she hit the porch.
Smiling, Elizabeth stepped away and moved to the door, taking the suitcase from the front porch. Parker still thought herself unable to move, but a gently prodding hand from Angelo finally got her underway, and before she knew it she was inside a house that glowed with warmth. Angelo pulled her into a comfortable living room and as Parker's eyes scanned it, her eyes fell on the quilts, which draped the couch and chairs inside. She thought of the old quilts she kept at her own house. These looked so much like them, only hers had all come from her mother.
Angelo stopped moving once they reached the edge of the couch, and Parker sank down onto it, needing support beneath her. Her brother then did something else that surprised her...he kissed her hand and then walked away.
Now that she was alone again, her brain began to function, and it closed in on the first thing she'd noticed upon her arrival -- there had definitely been a change in her brother since she'd last seen him, and she was burning to know what had happened.
That led her to another thought - after all the years of wondering about her mother, and the weeks of wondering what answers Elizabeth could bring, suddenly her priorities had shifted - for the first time since Thomas' death the present was finally as important to her as the past.
Elizabeth returned to the room carrying a tray of tea and a delicious looking pound cake, and Parker forced herself not to revert back to the state of shock that had held her in its grip earlier. Yes, the woman looked like her mother, but that was no reason to get all...well, to start acting like Broots. Soon, the two women were seated side by side, and the tray was on the table in front of Elizabeth, who was pouring two cups of the steaming liquid.
"Well, I see you're starting to get comfortable around here. Good. Now, I want you to settle back and have a snack, and no arguments. You probably didn't eat a thing the whole way here."
Parker smiled, and took the offered cup of tea. This woman had to have children. She had the tone down pat. Parker placed her cup on the table to take the next offering from Elizabeth, and her mouth watered at the scent of the amazing looking cake. She was just about to take a bite when she was rocked by a memory from her past...
"Momma, what is pound cake, anyway?"
"Well, you put in a pound of sugar, a pound of butter, a pound of eggs, and a pound of flour, mix it up and then..."
Catherine Parker picked up her five-year-old daughter and squeezed her tightly in her arms.
"You add in about 100 pounds of love and some giggles." The little girl laughed hysterically as her mother tickled tummy.
"Parker, are you all right?"
Parker felt a gentle touch on her leg, and she looked first down at Elizabeth's hand and then up at the woman herself.
"Where'd you go, Little Cat?"
"I'm sorry, I just...why do you keep calling me that?"
"It's what I've always called you." That made Parker's eyes widen with curiosity, and she took a sip of her tea to calm her nerves before continuing.
"Always?"
"Since we met, the year your mother died. A few weeks before, actually." Elizabeth could see the confusion growing in Parker the moment the words were out of her mouth, and it only confirmed the awful suspicions she and Jarod had formed after discussing Parker's lack of memories regarding her childhood.
"I don't remember you. I don't remember ever seeing you or being here."
"But you were. You and your mama came here because...well, for the same reason you're here. She needed answers, too."
Parker was becoming agitated, partly from her own confusion and partly because some part of her was already beginning to sense the Centre at work in her life again.
"That's impossible. I was old enough to remember being here, and I don't."
Elizabeth said nothing. She took a drink from her tea and waited. Jarod was right. Parker was definitely volatile when it came to the truth. Elizabeth knew it was only from fear - fear of knowing that she'd been lied to again, manipulated again, but that fear was a powerful force, and it had to be navigated carefully.
"Are you planning to explain this to me?"
"Are you planning to listen?"
The question rocked Parker not only because of the words themselves, but because of how they'd been said. For just a moment, she would have sworn her mother was standing in front of her, scolding her for being impolite. It was then that Parker realized that she had crossed her arms defensively in front of her, assuming her best "I'm in control" posture. Forcing herself to relax, she eased her arms down to her sides and sat back against the sofa. Seeing Elizabeth glance at her teacup, Parker reached out and took it and slowly sipped from the cup.
"All right then, first things first. My full name is Elizabeth Jamison, and I'm your aunt. Your mom's twin sister."
That had always been the most obvious answer of course, but Parker had not let herself believe it. If her mother had a twin sister, then... She felt her aunt's eyes on her and knew that Elizabeth was waiting for her full attention before continuing.
"Sorry."
"It's okay, honey. I know this isn't easy for you. It wasn't easy for her when she started to remember."
"Remember?"
"There was a lot about your mom's past that had been, well, for lack of a better word, stolen away from her. I was part of that."
Unease crept up in Parker again. Stolen away - that could only mean the Centre. Suddenly she felt a very strong urge to go and hide. How much truth was she ready for? Picking up on these feelings, Elizabeth decided to change the subject.
"Your brother couldn't wait for you to get here." The mention of Angelo brought a renewed brightness to both the younger woman's eyes and her smile.
"Is he - I mean, has something happened since he came here?"
"I've been working with him some. Before I settled down here with Harry, I was a doctor - a specialist. I worked with autistic children."
"Angelo isn't autistic."
"I know, but he does suffer from some similar symptoms. His emotional withdrawal, his difficulty communicating - clearly caused by physical trauma, but they respond to some of the same techniques I used to use with my kids."
Parker nodded, her thoughts on her brother and on how amazing it had made her feel to see his excitement and feel his arms around her.
"I would really appreciate anything you can do for him."
Elizabeth reached out and took her niece's hand, squeezing it tightly. It was clear that she loved her brother very much. It was unclear how much progress Angelo could make using her techniques, but Elizabeth intended to go as far as Angelo - and Parker were willing to go.
"Did my father...is he the one who made my mother forget you?"
The change of subject came in a hush of words that Elizabeth barely heard, but she completely understood the question Parker had just asked her. So much to tell her, and all of it so painful, the older woman sighed, only wishing there was a way to spare her. What was it they said, "the truth will set you free?" That was their hope for Parker, hers and Jarod's. Elizabeth only hoped that it didn't crush her under its weight.
"No, honey, our father did."
****
The name Garvey was little heard in the Centre. The only people who actually knew who he was were the Triumvirate and, of course, Mr. Parker, and a select few operatives who worked directly for him. That Mutumbo's secretary was trusted to come and go from his office was evidence that her loyalty was above reproach, and that she had been hand-selected for her position by the man himself.
She arrived and handed him the report that detailed Damon's demise. Without a word, she turned and left the room. Garvey picked up the report and opened it, scanning its contents. Damon's loss did not please him, and once again, he found himself thinking of the pros and cons of Mr. Lyle's continued involvement in the Centre.
The man had his uses. He was an effective manager, and he had a reputation that kept fear in both employees and enemies alike, and he had stepped into the power void left by Mr. Parker's forced absence admirably. The problem was he was power hungry. Sometimes, Garvey had allowed that driving need a wide berth in which to grow. He had, of course, known that Lyle faked the lab results that "proved" he was the other Parker sibling. He was the only one that did know. The only one who knew the truth about the decision made all those years ago, and the placement of the Parker boy. He had handled it all personally knowing that a secret kept by more than one man is not a secret.
It had been unfortunate when Jarod had accessed the Red Files and determined the potential identities of Miss Parker's twin. Still, Lyle's interception of the test results and his manipulation of them had accomplished two things - it had kept Miss Parker in the dark about Angelo, and it had allowed him a reason to grant Lyle re-entry into the Centre. As he said, the man had his uses, and handling Damon for him had been one of them.
Now he was becoming a problem. He had let Damon slip through their fingers after all the careful steps that had been taken to keep him alive following the shooting in Washington D.C. He, too, had had his uses, now that was all lost to them. On top of that, his "extracurricular activities" involving the young Asian women in the area were getting out of hand.
It was time to teach Mr. Lyle a lesson, and his current obsession with tracking down Jarod's family might be just the thing to use to trap him in his own arrogance.
Picking up the phone, he dialed a number he rarely used and then sat back and waited for his operative's arrival. In less than three minutes, he heard a knock on his door.
"Come in."
The door swung open and Mr. Cox entered. The man's icy blue eyes were always a bit unsettling, and Garvey wondered again why that was. After all, they were a family trademark, weren't they?
"You and I need to talk, Mr. Cox, about Mr. Lyle."
****
Elizabeth looked at her niece as she settled deeper into the pillows and blankets of the guestroom bed. The sight made her sigh. She'd made the decision to put the sedative in Parker's second cup of tea when she'd seen the horror her revelation had caused the younger woman. She hated to do it, but there was so much more that Little Cat had to hear, and she needed her strength to handle it. Clearly, the physical ordeal Parker had recently endured had taken its toll, and the realization that her mother had been little more than a pawn to all of the men in her life - save one - had been very difficult for her to hear.
The teacup had fallen out of her hands when Elizabeth spoke the words "our father." According to Jarod, Parker had always believed her maternal grandparents had died when her mother was 10 years old, and she had never known that Catherine had a sibling. Of course, Elizabeth knew the latter to be untrue. She had once known about her mother's sister, but the Centre had stolen that knowledge away, just as they had stolen so much of Catherine's past, and, Elizabeth acknowledged, her own.
"My father was - is a man determined to have all of the power he can get. He is ravenous for it." Elizabeth spoke as she cleaned up the teacup mess. She left with the dishes and returned with a fresh cup. Parker had had no idea the sedative was in it and had drunk it down quickly, trying to calm her nerves.
"Who was he? Was his name even really David Jamison?"
"Yes, it was, and he really did found Jamison Medical Technology and he did a lot of good, but it was all just a front for what he really wanted, which was to develop the cutting edge technologies that would revolutionize medicine - and give him an empire beyond anyone's dreams."
"I don't understand." Elizabeth could see that the sedative was slowly beginning to take effect. She leaned back and waited as Parker spoke. "If my mother didn't remember you - I mean, how did that happen?"
"My father's doctors were always trying to outdo each other, wanting to be the one who found the great scheme that would please him. We used to see them instead of going to the hospital for check ups and things, and apparently, they detected an anomaly in our blood - one that, at the time, they had only seen in Catherine and myself.
"They began trying to find out what it was, and through research, they realized that it predisposed us to a naturally heightened intelligence. We had both always tested above average in our I.Q. testing, so that wasn't such a surprise, but that it was organic in nature was.
"They began finding reasons to conduct massive clinical trials, searching to see how common the trait was. That's when they began to identify in certain people what they then called "The Genius Gene.
"What they didn't know then, what they only discovered as we reached adulthood, was that if we were paired with men who also carried the gene, our children would have super-intelligence - gifts that could not occur without both parents being carriers of the gene."
Parker's eyes were growing heavy, and she fought to keep them open. What she was hearing horrified her, and yet she had to know more. She couldn't imagine how she could feel so tired when everything she'd ever known was being turned upside down.
"I don't understand."
"My father wanted to have these children, the special ones who would be capable of greatness, but he needed to engineer their creation. The chances of it occurring naturally were too slim. He needed a place that would allow that to happen. Your father had already founded The Centre, and they were already doing groundbreaking work in fertility studies - and he wanted in. So he made your father a deal he couldn't refuse...Catherine for the Centre."
"But Mama told me she met Daddy during a trip to New York when she was dancing there..."
Elizabeth knew that Parker was close to losing her battle with the sedative. Quickly, she stood and reached out for her niece's hands.
"You come and rest now. We'll talk more later."
She guided Parker to her room and settled her into the bed. Parker was still fighting, wanting desperately to know more, yet her body felt as if it were being weighed down by cement. Still, she managed to turn to Elizabeth for one last question.
"Elizabeth, how did Jarod find you?"
"He didn't, honey. I found him."
The words had barely reached Parker before her eyes closed for good. She'd been sleeping now for close to an hour, and Elizabeth had just stayed close to her, hoping that the rest would renew her spirit so she could hear the rest of her mother's story.
The sound of a car door alerted Elizabeth to someone's arrival, so she stood and headed out of the room, closing the door behind her. She reached the front door just as Jarod entered, his arms laden down with shopping bags. Emily followed close behind.
"Is she here?" Elizabeth could sense his nervousness and though she thought it terribly endearing, she decided it was better not to say anything to him about it just now.
"Yes, but she's sleeping."
"Sleeping?" Jarod set the bags he had down on the dining table as they headed into the room, and glanced back over at her. "I figured she'd have you talking for hours, or be ready to kill me, one or the other."
"She got pretty upset by just the little I told her. I decided it was better if she got some rest."
"How did you get Parker to do anything she didn't want to do?" The comment came from Emily, but it was exactly what Jarod was thinking. He looked back at Elizabeth again as he unpacked the items he'd purchased in town, waiting for an answer. When none came, his brow furrowed as he began to frown.
"Elizabeth, what did you do?"
"Jarod, she needed to rest, and..."
"Do you have any idea how angry she's going to be when she wakes up? She hates being drugged. She wouldn't even let the nurses in the hospital give her painkillers once she was awake enough to argue."
"Well, she's never had to fight with me before. You just don't worry about it, Jarod. I'll make sure that she knows it was all my doing."
Emily looked from Elizabeth's determined face to Jarod's worried one and she could not help but let go of a small laugh. That was when both faces turned toward her, both now showing confusion.
"What, little sister, is so funny?"
"You two. Would you both stop trying to guess how Parker's feeling or what she might think and let her tell you, for goodness sake? She has managed to survive the Centre for 32 some odd years. Give her a little credit."
Now Elizabeth's face turned into a smile and Jarod began to blush slightly. They were both kind of underestimating her, after all, Parker was the most formidable woman either had ever known, and they wouldn't have brought her here if they'd really thought she couldn't handle the truth. Shaking her head at her own overprotectiveness, Elizabeth began waving her hand at the Russell siblings.
"You two out of my kitchen, I got to put dinner on."
*****
Mr. Cox sat in his car, watching as Lyle walked around the side of his car and helped the attractive young woman out of the passenger side. Not surprisingly, she was Asian, about 25, and had legs that would have rivaled Miss Parker's if such a thing were really possible.
Mr. Garvey would not be pleased to know Lyle was back at it. Clearly, the man thought his sickness had gone undetected by the Centre, and he felt free to do whatever he wanted.
It amazed Cox that this man had been able to pass himself off as Miss Parker's brother for so long. Though he pretended to be Lyle's friend, he did so only because it was part of his job. He found the man offensive in nearly every way -- too obvious, too slick, and definitely too careless. Miss Parker was none of those things. Everything about her was a contradiction, and he loved it, loved watching her. He knew what everyone else thought of her, that she was arrogant about her looks, that she was merciless, and that she cared about no one. It was the image she kept in place for the world. Their few encounters, however, had told him that none of these things were remotely true.
He was glad that Mr. Garvey had not called him in to discuss Miss Parker again. He knew the Centre was watching her to get to her father, and though he had no love for Mr. Parker, he did not want to be used against the woman he had come to admire so much. Then again, Garvey seemed predisposed to keeping Miss Parker out of the line of fire. It was he who had made certain the sweeper who had shot her last year had died a long and most painful death. Curious. He would have to keep his eye on that.
Though it was Garvey who brought him into the Centre, Cox felt he knew little about the man. He had said once that he knew Cox's father, but when he had asked his father about it, the man remembered no one by that name. Well, another mystery for another time. Right now he had to focus on Lyle. He'd been told to gather as much information as he could on the man, and then formulate a plan of attack to teach him the lesson Garvey wanted him to learn: nobody played the Centre and got away with it.
A few more days of observation and then he and Mr. White would meet to discuss the status of the search for Jarod's family. Then he would know how to proceed.
*****
Parker woke, stretching as she came up out of the bed. Her eyes immediately fell on her brother. Angelo was sitting on the floor beside her bed, his eyes fixed on a picture book he held on his lap.
"Hey, there, handsome. What you doing?"
"Pictures. Happy place for sister."
Parker leaned down to look at the book, and saw that he was in fact looking at photos of a place that made her happy every time she thought of it. The English countryside - she had loved touring it when she went abroad after high school. The gardens made her think of her mother, and she dreamed of someday owning one of the old, sprawling estates, though she had no idea who, other than Angelo, she would have to share it with.
Ruffling her brother's hair, she climbed from the bed and stood in front of the mirror. She was rumpled from her nap and so she grabbed her makeup bag and headed out into the hallway in search of a bathroom. She found it behind the third door on her left, and as she tied back her hair and washed her face, she slowly began to let the words she'd heard earlier to rise up in her mind.
Was it possible that her mother's whole life had been a lie? It broke her heart to think so. She remembered the stories her mother had told her about her friends at the convent growing up and the days when she'd first fallen in love with her father - was it all just some fabrication the Centre had created? If it was, she could only hope that her mother had never known - and yet, if she'd come here looking for answers, she must have at least begun to suspect some of what had been done to her.
Parker dried her face with the soft towel she'd found in the cupboard and then let her hair down. She brushed it and briefly considered putting on more makeup, but then thought it silly.
After returning her things and finding that Angelo had taken his book and left, Parker decided to venture downstairs. She could hear laughter coming from the kitchen, and recognized the sounds of both Elizabeth's and Emily's voices. She was about to head there when she heard hammering coming from the back part of the house, and then another familiar voice uttering the word "damn" very loudly. Parker ignored the sensation of butterflies fluttering in her stomach as she stepped toward that voice.
She found Jarod sucking on his thumb, trying to alleviate the pain he had caused himself by hitting it with the hammer he held in his other hand. He moved his thumb to look at it and survey the damage, his distraction allowing her to make it all the way into the room without him noticing.
"Guess carpentry's not a genius kind of thing, huh?"
Jarod's eyes rose up and as soon as she saw her he felt his stomach begin to do loops. He could tell from the flush in her face that she had just washed it, and he could see that without so much as a spec of makeup on she was still the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.
"Um, hi. Yeah, I, uh, really haven't done too thorough of a pretend on the subject."
She smiled at him and his heart melted. She wasn't yelling and she hadn't pulled her gun on him, those were both good signs, weren't they?
After a moment, the smile disappeared and she looked down at the floor, her feet moving nervously. As she began to speak she crossed the room and headed for the window, her eyes focusing on what lay outside.
"So, um, Elizabeth said she found you? Can you please explain how that happened? I mean, I look for you all day everyday and I never find you."
Jarod put down the hammer and crossed over to her. He could feel how confused and scared she was, and he wanted so much to take that away.
"You'd be surprised how close you've come. I've had to make some very fancy moves to escape your clutches more times than I care to remember."
She smiled slightly, and hugged her arms a little tighter around herself. She fought the urge to look over at him, not sure why she wanted to or why she would not let herself.
"As for your question, well, she noticed my web site, the one I have about my family, and started sending me messages. At first, I thought it was a trick, but I did some checking and realized she might be legitimate. I agreed to meet her and when I saw her..."
"I know what you mean. I'm surprised I didn't pass out on the porch. I mean, I know I'd seen the picture, but I just wasn't prepared for how much she looks like..."
Parker's voice trailed off and Jarod decided to let the silence stand until she broke it. She leaned more into the window frame, her eyes casting downward.
"She's going to tell me some really awful things, isn't she?"
Jarod looked at her, seeing the same face he remembered when he had told her that Faith was dying. God, he wanted to spare her this, but he knew that what she learned here would be what finally pulled her away from the Centre, and he wanted that for her more than anything.
"Yes, she is, Parker. I wish you didn't have to hear it, but I think you need to."
Parker nodded, her teeth grazing her lower lip. After a moment, she finally brought her eyes up, her gaze falling on him, and he could see tears glistening in her eyes.
"Will you stay?"
"Yes, I'll stay, Parker. As long as you need me to."
She nodded again and lowered her eyes back to the floor. Suddenly Elizabeth's voice floated in from the doorway.
"Okay, you two, dinner's ready."
Parker's mood clouded further as she turned and looked at her aunt, her eyes narrowing.
"Did you drug me?"
Elizabeth crossed her arms in front of her and dug in, ready to stand her ground though the glare she was receiving from her niece definitely qualified as frosty.
"Yes, I did. You needed the rest. Any problem with that?"
Parker crossed the room, stopping only when her eyes were level with Elizabeth's. She, too, crossed her arms in front of her body.
"Since you're new, I'll let it slide, but no one makes decisions for me anymore, got it?"
"I'll do what's best for you, young lady, whether you like it or not."
The two women stood there, eyes blazing with determination, and when it was clear that neither would back down, Jarod stepped forward putting his arms around both of them. 'Oh, God,' he thought, 'two of them!'
"So, ladies, what's for dinner?"
He began to walk them toward the door and both Parker and Elizabeth allowed him to do so. Dinner was soon on the table, and it though it began with a cool edge to it, by the time the dishes were cleared away, both Parker and Elizabeth were talking again and Emily and Jarod were breathing a sigh of relief.
The Russells excused themselves to do the dishes, and Elizabeth and Parker moved into the living room again. Parker sat down in the arm chair this time, needing some distance from the woman who was already becoming such a presence in her life.
"I'm sorry you're upset about the sedative, Little Cat, but you were exhausted and you did just get out of the hospital a little while ago."
"Whatever, it's over." As much of an attrition as she would make, and Parker watched Elizabeth, her gaze saying that it better be enough. She relaxed some when her aunt leaned back against the couch.
"Do you remember everything I told you earlier?"
"Yes."
"Are you ready to hear more or should we wait?" Good, Parker thought, she was going to let her set the pace.
"Can you please explain what you meant when you said my father took my mother in exchange for the Centre?"
"It wasn't just your mother, of course," Elizabeth began, "he got all of the power that came with the Jamison empire. By then, our father had disappeared from public life. He was consumed with his quest for power. He forced our mother to take us away to Switzerland the year we turned 11, and we went to convent school there until we were 18. She was not allowed to come back or to take us out of the school even for holidays, and she didn't know that my father had faked a plane crash, which had supposedly killed them both. He completely cut us off from the rest of the world."
'So,' Parker thought, 'at least the convent part was true, but what about the rest of it?' "Why would he do that?"
"It's easier to take what you want when no one knows you're out there trying to take it. He absorbed company after company that would serve his purposes, and built his sick little empire. Problem was, he still didn't have a facility advanced enough to do what he wanted - engineer genius children. Then he heard about the Centre, and he met your father.
"Mr. Parker was a young ambitious man, a lot like our father had been, and though the Centre had given him prestige and power, he wanted more. When he saw your mother, realized he could have her and all that went with her, he agreed to sell the Centre to our father, provided he retain the Chairmanship and a position on the executive board. If it means anything at all, I don't think he had any idea what my father was planning to turn the Centre into. He was ambitious, Parker, but not evil."
Parker nodded, again trying absorb all the information that was coming at her.
"So, you and Mama were together all that time? How could she forget you then?"
"Mr. Parker wanted a perfect wife, one devoted solely to him. My father's companies had already done a great deal of development in mind altering drugs, and so he...he let them erase the parts of her life that weren't "convenient." That included me, and our mother. He gave her the life she needed to have to be ready to meet your father. Afterwards, she went to New York and a meeting between the two of them was arranged."
"So that part was true? I mean, about how he saw her dance and then came to take her to dinner?"
"Basically, and it all worked exactly as they hoped. Your mother believed she had lost her entire family, that she'd been alone for years, and now here she was with a man who could care for her and loved her...how could she resist?"
"But you remember everything? You had the gene, too, right? Didn't they do the same thing to you?"
"No, it turned out they didn't need to."
Parker felt her body cool suddenly, as if she had been hit with a burst of cold wind. She wrapped her arms around herself and looked at Elizabeth.
"Why not?"
"Catherine was the good girl. I...well, let's just say I wasn't. The year we turned 18, I got pregnant."
"By the man they wanted?"
"No, but my father decided to allow the pregnancy to progress. I guess he thought the child might be useful anyway. I gave birth to a son."
"What happened to him?" Parker was shaking now. Somehow, she didn't want to know, yet she knew she needed to.
"They told me he died. I've never been sure if that was true or not. I also had some complications, so I was of no further use to them - I couldn't have any more children."
"And your father just let you go?"
"No, Little Cat, he didn't. He made it clear to me that I could go do whatever I wanted, have a life, pursue my own goals, but that if I ever tried to find Catherine, he would kill her and my mother. I had no reason to think he didn't mean it. So I just disappeared."
This time, it was Parker who could see the pain the words were causing Elizabeth. She was reliving all of the pain, all of the grief she'd experienced when she'd been forced away from her family. No longer able to keep her distance, Parker stood and moved to the seat next to her aunt.
"I think I'm going to need some time before we do anymore, okay?"
Elizabeth tried to smile as she nodded, aware of what Parker was doing, but too grateful to do anything but accept the gesture. The two women said goodnight and both retired to their rooms to deal with the heavy emotions that were weighing them down.
*****
Hours later, Parker sat in her room staring out at the moonlight. She knew she needed to try and sleep more, yet she could not. Her mind was a tortured jumble, and every time she closed her eyes, all she could see was her mother's innocent, beautiful face, and it broke her heart to remember it.
Suddenly, the sound of Jarod's voice calling out into the night caused her to jerk out of her seat, and Parker moved into the hallway, finding the room where the sounds were coming from. She opened the door and entered quietly so she would not startle him.
He was in the bed, barely covered as he thrashed about, fighting an invisible enemy. His body was covered with sweat from his efforts.
"No, I won't let you hurt her. I won't let you hurt Parker again."
She heard the words and suddenly knew exactly where it was Jarod was trapped. Damon. She knew he felt that what happened to her was his fault, and though she had tried in the hospital to tell him otherwise, she had suspected the words had fallen on deaf ears. Now, she was positive. Cautiously, she moved toward the bed, her hands reaching out for him.
When she first touched him, he jerked away, and it was only when she began to whisper to him, her hand stroking his face, that he began to calm down.
"I'm sorry, Parker. I'm sorry he hurt you."
She knew he was still talking to the Parker in his dream, but she answered him anyway, needing to give him whatever comfort she could.
"It wasn't your fault, Jarod. I'm okay, I promise."
He did not wake, but he did settle down, and Parker was able to sit down beside him, her hands moving through his hair and against to his cheek.
"It's okay, Jarod, I promise. It's all going to be okay, somehow."
She wasn't sure what made her feel capable of making or keeping such a promise. Her whole existence was being revealed to her to be a giant conspiracy, and Jarod's life...well, what more needed to be said about that? Yet sitting there, watching him, she was suddenly desperate to make the promise come true.
It was nearly sunrise when Jarod stirred again, his body leaning back against the warmth behind him. He felt arms tighten around him, and soft voice filtered into his consciousness as he drifted back into a deep sleep.
"I won't leave you either, Jarod. I'll stay as long as you need me, too. I promise."
