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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Part 21a
by N.R. Levy
The elevator doors opened and Cox and Sam emerged, providing a sight that both amused and shocked the Centre personnel who were present to see it. The two men looked as if they'd been, to use a cliché, road hard and put out wet. Cox had a large bruise on the side of his forehead, dirt encrusted in his hair, and his suit had been torn in at least a dozen places. Sam looked as if he could barely move his jaw, the scrapes and bruises there were prominent, and he walked as if he had a metal pipe sewn into his right leg that prevented him from bending it.
As the two men made their way across the lobby, eyes turned down quickly and hands raised to mouths to cover their snickers and smiles. Sam had long been regarded as the toughest sweeper in the Centre. Hell, to be Miss Parker's chosen man, he had to be. And Mr. Cox...well, there was no end to the people who quaked in fear just seeing him walk into a room. No one could imagine what had happened to them to leave them in such a state.
Hobbled by their injuries, the two men had barely made it to the elevators that accessed the executive floors when the doors opened and Mr. Parker stepped out flanked by a unit of sweepers. Cox and Sam stopped dead in their tracks at the site of the Chairman.
"I can assume from your state that Jarod got away."
Both men looked Mr. Parker dead in the eye, but it was Cox who responded to the older man's statement.
"Yes, sir, he did."
"Does he have my daughter?"
"We never saw anyone but Jarod," came Sam's reply.
The Chairman cleared his throat and motioned to the sweepers. The men divided in half, three to a team, and moved to either one of the two returned prodigals.
"You two will need to be debriefed. There was some trouble here while you were gone, and we need to determine if you know anything about it."
"Of course, Mr. Parker," said Cox, wincing a bit to emphasize his discomfort. "Whatever you'd like."
Mr. Parker nodded with satisfaction and watched as the two were led away by the sweepers. As they rounded the far corner, Mr. Parker glanced upwards toward the spot where he knew a camera, one with very limited access, had just watched the whole scene unfold. Mr. Garvey was personally going to assess the probability that Cox had been involved in the escapes. For all their sakes, Mr. Parker hoped that Cox would pass the test. It had been he who brought Cox into the Centre, and it would not please Garvey if someone he'd recommended had become a traitor.
On Sublevel 20, Cox watched through the glass of his own door as the sweepers secured Sam in a separate room. They had expected as much. Broots and Sydney had gotten word to Jarod about the T-Boards and the suspicions Lyle had cast on Cox's actions. Though the video of he and Sam in bondage and unconscious, respectively, had bought them a certain amount of credibility, both the doctor and the sweeper had known that they would need some extra insurance before they waltzed back into the Centre.
Thinking back on the amused faces of the junior staff members as he and Sam had walked in, Cox wondered just what they would think if they'd seen what had occurred a few hours earlier when he and Sam had squared off in Harry and Elizabeth's barn and beaten each other senseless in order to fabricate their cover. Jarod had thought they were both crazy when, bloodied and exhausted, both men had collapsed on the ground laughing. Perhaps they were crazy...they were both risking everything now. Yet Cox knew that at least for himself, everything had taken on a whole new meaning in the last 48 hours. Everything was a mother and a cousin and her children...everything was the truth.
Cox eased himself down on the cot and laid back to get what rest he could until they came for him. His mind, muddled so desperately after Elizabeth had revealed his own past to him, was clear now. He knew that he had been betrayed by his father and, as it turned out, by his grandfather. And though he would have sworn to anyone who asked him just a few days ago that he didn't want or need a family, now that he had one, it meant...well, not to repeat himself, he thought, but it suddenly meant everything.
Parker blinked her eyes open, the light hurting them a bit from all the time she'd been unconscious. All day long, she had been drifting in and out of sleep. Each time she opened her eyes, she found herself surrounded by those she loved. Angelo was always around, huddled in a corner or lying close to her. Elizabeth had read to her and Emily had brought Matthew into the room and laid him on the bed so his little hands could touch her. Though she'd been half-asleep, Parker had felt a surge of completion run through her as Matthew's fingers curled around her own. And though she wasn't sure if it were real or a dream, Parker could have sworn that at one point she'd awakened to find Jarod and Will talking to one another without an ounce of tension in the room.
Her body ached from the ordeal it had endured. Stretching cautiously, she couldn't hold back a slight groan of discomfort as her arms and legs tried to uncoil despite the stiffness left behind by the horrible tremors she'd gone through courtesy of Raines' gas. The groan brought movement in the room, and the blinds were quickly closed. Now able to open her eyes a little more, Parker looked to her side in time to see Will sit down beside her.
Her son...strange how it seemed he had always been hers when she'd only known of him for a few short days...her son looked tired and thin and about a year older than when she'd last seen him. The memory of his pleas for her, of his calling out to her as the sweepers took her away, would stay with her forever. Parker only hoped that they would have enough time together to make a host of newer, happier memories to try and bury that terrible one deep inside.
"How long this time?"
Will smiled tentatively as he glanced at the clock.
"Three hours, but you need the sleep, Mom."
His mother nodded and shifted very slowly, making herself more comfortable. Will wondered if she could hear his heart. Actually, it was pounding so loudly, he wondered if the whole house could hear it.
This wasn't the first time she'd been awake when he was in the room, but they hadn't spoken much. She'd still been so weak. Only now did she seem close to her real self. And Will was nervous. He knew that she loved him, that she had forgiven him, but he didn't know how to forgive himself for what he'd done to her. One careless act, and it had almost cost him the most important person in his life.
Sensing the teen's raging emotions, Parker lifted her still shaky arms and motioned for him to come to her. Will hesitated, but only until he felt the dam of tears he was fighting begin to break. He leaned forward, burying his head against his mother's chest as she wrapped her arms around him.
"I'm so sorry, Mom. I'm so...I was just so angry."
"Shh, I know, baby. I told you, that only proves that you're mine. I hurt people I love all the time when I get angry or scared."
"But I should have known you weren't like that. I should have trusted..."
"No one has taught you how to trust, Will. You can't know how to until you see it."
"The Major...my grandfather...he tried, and I did the same thing to him."
Parker mustered all the energy she could and wrapped her arms even tighter around her son. How well she knew the place where he was at this moment, and she knew that all she could really do for him was hold him and hope he could feel how completely he now owned her heart.
"Just remember that I love you. Focus on that, baby, and everything else will be okay. I promise."
Out in the hall, Jarod leaned against the wall as tears streamed down his face. He wasn't certain what it was...the sound of Parker's voice so strong and confident again, the pain his son was feeling, or just the reality of all that had changed in the past week, but what Jarod did know was that he was going to do whatever it took to protect the two people in that bedroom, the baby boy down the hall, and everyone else that they all needed in order to be a happy family someday.
Searching for his composure, and knowing that Parker and Will probably needed more time alone, Jarod headed downstairs. His mood, darkened slightly by thinking of all that his family had lost, lightened immediately as his eyes fell on the scene that met him in the living room. Angelo and Emily were seated on the floor on either side of Matthew, their legs open in wide Vs. Matthew, now contented by his mother's strong presence in the house, was giggling as he displayed his talent at rolling over from side to side, his laughter and energy spurred on by the applause and squeals of the adults.
He'd thought to join them, but something made him turn to look the opposite direction. Elizabeth was sitting across the hall in the dining room, her eyes fixed on the window and the view outside. Knowing that his youngest son was happy and safe, Jarod walked toward Parker's aunt and turned his gaze in the same direction as hers. Harry was walking toward the barn, Angel, Angelo's puppy trailing after him. The little dog that Parker had pegged as a survivor was growing every day, and her devotion to the family was evident. Yet despite the cute and captivating scene, Jarod doubted it was what had caught Elizabeth's attention so completely. Rather, he imagined she was trying to look all the way to Blue Cove, Delaware. He knelt down beside her, his hand reaching out to take hold of one of hers.
"He'll be all right, Elizabeth. He comes from good stock, a true line of survivors."
That made the older woman smile slightly, and she moved her other hand atop the clasped twosome of her right hand and Jarod's left.
"You're still not sure you trust him, are you?"
Jarod could have tried to lie to her then, but she deserved better than that, and he knew it.
"No, I don't. I've spent a lot of months building up a healthy mistrust of Mr. Cox. Daniel, your son...that person is someone I don't know. He could be back at the Centre right now telling them chapter and verse how to find us and what we have planned."
"I know," Elizabeth responded, nodding slightly, "but I don't think he'll betray us."
"I know you don't. Angelo doesn't either. That's why I agreed to the plan. If you two feel you can trust him, I want that to be true. And I can't ignore what he did for Parker and Will. If he hadn't helped Sydney and Broots find her..."
She didn't need him to finish the thought. Elizabeth knew all too well how close they'd come to losing Little Cat.
"It's just, I have so much to lose if we're wrong, Elizabeth."
"We're not wrong. I know it doesn't make any sense, Jarod. I never even saw him when he was born, yet the first time I laid eyes on him, I knew. I saw those eyes, and I knew he was a part of me, of my blood. He won't betray that."
Jarod stood, walking in front of Elizabeth and closer to the window, his hands diving into the pockets of his jeans.
"But he's Garvey's blood, too."
"Yes, he is," Elizabeth said, "but so am I, so was Catherine, so are Angelo and Little Cat, and both of your boys. Yet we've all walked a better path, a truer path than him. We found each other. We have to believe that Daniel will find his way home, too."
"Uh, Dad?"
Jarod turned sharply at the sound of Will's voice, momentarily alarmed that the boy's presence meant something was wrong with Parker. Will instantly read the look on his father's face and shook his head.
"No, she's fine. Maj...uh, Charles is with her. I wanted to talk to you for a minute."
The tenuous bond between these two was palpable in the room, and Elizabeth decided to excuse herself and go start lunch. She knew that they would find their way together, their mutual love of Parker and Matthew would ensure that. And nothing would foster that connection between them better than communication and time alone.
Jarod smiled a thank you at the older woman as she left the room, and he watched as Will stepped nervously toward him. There were still faint tearstains on his cheeks, and from someplace filled with natural instinct Jarod felt the urge to reach out and wipe them away. Yet he knew that his child was not a child, he was a young man. Will was learning to deal with what it meant to be a man in the world, to be part of a family, and to take responsibility for his choices. And that, as his father, was what Jarod had to let happen, no matter how much he wished he could spare him the pain that would go along with that growth.
"Mom's doing better."
"That's good," Jarod said as he sat down, motioning for his son to take another one of the available chairs. "It helps her to spend time with you and Matthew."
"Yeah, I'm gonna take him up later and read them a story. Uncle Harry said something about a book called 'Green Eggs and Ham.' Sounds like an odd food choice, but I guess that's why they wrote a book about it."
That got a chuckle out of his father. The innocence of worldly things reminded the Pretender so much of his own child-like wonder just a few years ago. It made him happy to see it. Despite everything, there was still some little boy left inside of the young man. And Jarod knew his job would be to teach him how to enjoy that side of himself.
"Anyway, I...well, I got to thinking this morning that, you know, we had to leave Blue Cove without anything. None of Mom's stuff, you know, and maybe...well, I mean, I know she can borrow stuff from Aunt Emily and Aunt Elizabeth, but I just thought she might like some stuff of her own. And since you've known her so much longer than me, I thought maybe, that, you know, we could go into town and get some things for her."
It had taken a lot of words to put the simple request out there, but Jarod understood that it had been a Herculean effort for the boy to come to him now that the crisis was over and suggest an idea regarding Parker's care. It was entirely possible that, while her health was still in question, Jarod had been willing to listen to any suggestion, even one from a son he didn't trust. It was just as probable now that, with her on the mend, he'd turn back toward his resentment of his oldest child rather than embrace him. Of course, it was an impossibility on Jarod's part, but Will didn't know that yet.
"I suppose we can find a bottle of Chanel somewhere in town. If we head out now, we can probably make it back in time for lunch."
The smile that broke out on Will's face was worth more to Jarod than almost anything he could imagine. Within minutes, father and son were in the truck headed to town on their first outing together, and for a few precious hours, the Centre and its dark specter were far away and all that mattered were silk dresses and sterling silver hairbrushes with which to pamper the woman that was the very heart of their universe.
The halls of Sublevel 20 were silent, and much to Cox's amazement the quiet had lulled him to sleep. Not that the rest was really peaceful. His mind kept fixating on an image of young Will holding his baby brother. The idea that those two boys were connected to him, that they had almost been denied their natural right to be a part of their own family-well, it seemed to echo the truth of Cox's own life, and it brought forth in his unconscious a well of hurt and longing from his childhood that the man hadn't even been aware existed inside of him.
The silence soon erupted into a clatter of noise as a door slammed shut and several sets of footsteps began to move closer to Cox's cell. He moved his sore body to the door in time to see a fleet of sweepers escorting Sam away, most likely toward the T-Board room.
Well, there was step one. Jarod had called that one perfectly, and Cox sensed that everything else this day would progress just as Jarod had simmed it. Cox smiled as he remembered. It seemed almost comical that he and Jarod were working together now, had been since Cox had made the fateful decision to help in Miss Parker's escape. But the real moment of truth had come when Major Charles had discovered he and Angelo working at the computer in Angelo's attic space. Cox could still feel the older man's incredibly strong hands on his shoulders, pulling him away from the computer.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" The Major's voice was low and measured, a controlled anger lurking so close to the surface that it was palpable in the room. Cox, who was used to always being in control of himself, was stunned to find he was grasping for words to describe just what exactly he was doing. Thankfully, Angelo had stepped in.
"Help family. Help Sister, now help all of us."
Charles shook his head, unconvinced.
"He's part of the Centre, Angelo. He could hurt all of us."
Charles started to reach for Cox again, not anticipating that Cox had sensed the movement and was preparing to fight if he had to. He would not be restrained or locked away from his family again, not when he knew that what he and Angelo had already begun was perhaps the only way to keep them all safe. Had he had time to think about it, Cox might have marveled then at his sudden feelings of familial affection, but there was no time. Angelo grabbed Charles' wrist to stop his action.
"No! Helping is his chance. Can't take that away. Sister wouldn't want that. I don't want that."
A slight gasp came from the stairs then, and the men all turned to see Jarod standing there. In all the years Jarod had known Angelo, the man had never once uttered a phrase with the word "I" in it. It was as if when Raines had driven his personality inside, anything identified as "I" had gone with it, and Angelo had been left only able to identify himself as an entity. Whether this sudden change was a result of Elizabeth's psychiatric care or his flourishing bond with Parker was really irrelevant. The end result was that this man who had spent so much of his life in a damaged state seemed to be healing, and the strength of his determination could not be ignored.
Charles watched as his son walked over to the small group. Jarod looked tired, but relieved. Now that Miss Parker was on the mend, they were all breathing a little easier, but this sudden reminder of the threat Cox could pose to them had Charles on edge again.
"Jarod, I caught him at the computer with Angelo."
"Angelo has thought of a way to get Sam and I back into the Centre," said Cox, and Jarod narrowed his eyes at the man.
"What makes you think I'm going to let you go back to the Centre?"
"Because the only way for you and the people you love to be safe is for the Centre to be neutralized. And I'm the only one who can do it." Cox's voice was calm and it possessed a definite confidence. What it also had that Jarod couldn't help but note was a sense of sincerity. Still, Jarod's anger at the Centre, at what those bastards had done to Parker and their children, it was too strong for him to think in terms of anything milder than total obliteration of the entity that had nearly ruined his entire life.
"The Centre doesn't need to be neutralized, it needs to be destroyed."
"No, Jarod, that's where you're wrong." Cox stepped closer to Jarod, making certain his eyes and the Pretender's were locked so that his meaning would not be misinterpreted. "The Centre can't be destroyed. If it could, don't you think that Catherine Parker and your father and all the people who've tried to get in their way over the years, don't you think they might have made a dent? The Centre is a power structure bigger than even you can comprehend, and dismantling it will take decades."
"My children don't have decades."
Cox nodded. "I know. That's why I have to go back. Don't you see, Jarod, I'm his choice. Miss Parker's humanity 'failed' our dear grandfather. I'm the one he expects to succeed him. Proving my loyalty is the only way to keep that expectation alive. By doing that, I can be in position to do the one thing we can do to protect our family."
Charles cleared his throat, the tension in the room making him feel as if he couldn't quite catch his breath. "And what is that one thing?"
"Take control of the Centre, and make that son of a bitch pay for what he's done to all of us."
Now Cox stood within the Centre, their plan firmly in action. When he heard several sets of footsteps coming toward his cell, Cox stood and straightened his disheveled clothes as best he could. It seemed it was time for phase two to begin.
