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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
"I'm not shouting at you and I'm not being disrespectful. I simply want the answers I'm entitled to."
"I didn't think it was necessary. Your plate is full at the moment and I wanted to spare you the extra stress."
"That is straight off the stall floor and you know it. I should have been the first one you notified." Lyle protested, pacing rapidly back and forth before Mister Parker's desk.
"After the Tower, of course." his father reminded him, a half-smoked cigar frozen halfway to his mouth, eyes suddenly harder than they'd been a minute ago as he waited for his son to show that he regretted his slip of the tongue.
Reading the clear reprimand in the face of the older man, Lyle responded immediately, a rare flash of anger momentarily overcoming his usually rock solid self control.
"I am not a three year old. If you question my loyalty, then say so, but leave that "what's the magic word" crap in the compost heap where it came from. I just found out I had a sister. What could possibly make you think that keeping me ignorant of her abduction would be good for me? You had to know I'd find out eventually. I won't lose her, not now and especially not to Jarod. There has to be more you can do than sit there chomping on that absurd cigar and blowing pretty smoke rings for the benefit of the ceiling tiles."
Already fatigued by the demands of his work and the constant calls from his superiors, Mister Parker drew a deep breath, expelled it slowly and depressed the button under his desk that would bring any nearby security immediately to his office. As he had seen to it that, lately, one or more of their number was never out of earshot, he didn't have to wait very long before two guards appeared in his office doorway.
"Gentlemen. Mr. Lyle seems to be lost. Would you be kind enough to show him the way back to his own office?"
"Of course. This way, sir."
For the briefest of moments, Lyle considered shaking off the hands that were persistently turning him away and moving him out into the hallway. The moment passed, however, and he settled for throwing his father a last challenge as he was led away.
"Don't think I'm dropping this. If you won't even try to find your own daughter, I will."
Too tired and frustrated to formulate a suitable reply, Parker merely watched his son as he was guided back toward his own door and given a none too gentle push in that direction. Staring at the pile of papers heaped on his desk, he slowly gathered them up, stacked them neatly and slid them to one side. Rising from his seat, he made his way to the sofa that he had recently bought and tucked into a discreet corner of his office, laid down slowly and threw an arm over his eyes.
A moment later, he stretched out the same hand, grasping the framed photo on the low table in front of the couch, gazing at it quickly, then clutching it to his chest under his folded arms as his eyes slid closed. It was only in moments of severe anxiety, such as the bout he was currently suffering through, that he could admit that he really only kept the picture around for sentimental reasons. He didn't need one to recall her face; he never had.
"Where are you when I really need you, angel? Our little girl's in trouble. Then again, when is she not?" he chuckled softly at the thought, surprising himself, but sobered quickly. "Help her. Keep her safe for me, my love."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SEACOUVER
Nearly half an hour after he had first entered her room and presented his gift to miss Parker, Macleod was still exactly where he had been at the start; seated half on and half off the large table in the middle of the cubicle, patiently waiting for her to make the first move, to take a step, even a small one, that would wedge his foot in the door and provide him a place to begin.
Less than a minute later, when she raised her eyes to his face at last, he cheered her silently, but did not move from his position. He waited until the second hand on his watch had completed two more full circuits before he met her eyes, allowing her the security of her habitual dominant role for a while longer. Still silent, he held his hands up palm out, to show they were empty, then dropped the left back to the table and used the right to slide the basket a little closer to her, encouraging her to investigate its contents.
After a very brief staring contest, which he allowed her to win, she peeled back the tissue paper covering the top, took a fast inventory of what he had brought, then set the basket on the floor beside her chair and resumed staring at him.
Satisfied that she believed herself the victor in the battle of wills, Macleod stood, made a small bow and walked out the door, knowing everything had gone like clockwork and already preparing Miss Parker's next lesson.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"How much did you see?"
"Almost all of it. I was only going to watch for a minute or two, but I got so fascinated by what you were doing. That's not like any trust exercise I've ever heard of."
"It's a technique I developed for working with patients with her kind of background. Trust isn't just anathema to her, it's beyond non-existent. I'm not sure she even gets the concept behind the word. She thinks she trusts the people around her every day, but it's not real. Her faith in them is faith out of fear, necessity or pure survival instinct. Once I get her to see that,...."
"Then she'll know true trust.... in you."
"Precisely. From there it's a short hop, hopefully anyway, to the point where she's ready, willing and able to be confronted with the whole truth, including the nausea inducing stuff on that disk."
"Ready for dinner?"
"Oh, yeah. It may have looked like I was doing nothing in there, but keeping my mouth shut that long really takes it out of me."
Laughing companionably, the two men strolled off to the kitchen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Having fortified himself with an excellent meal of Jarod's creation, Macleod stood, once again, just outside his "patient's" cubicle, observing her on the monitor. He watched closely as she made several furious circuits of the room, stopping occasionally at the large table to snatch a quick swallow from a bottle of upset stomach remedy; one of many items he had stuffed into the care package delivered during their last session.
When she disappeared from his line of sight, he switched to the feed from a second camera and discovered that she had walked to the edge of the bed and now stood before it, contemplating it as if she'd never seen its like before. Believing he understood what she was mulling over, Macleod took that moment to unlock the door and enter, disrupting a likely plan of tearing the bed apart and using various parts for weapons and escape tools.
Maneuvering the padded desk chair he had brought along into a satisfactory position near the table, he lowered himself into its relative comfort (at least compared to a seat on a table edge) and crossed his knees, prepared to wait her out once again.
Despite her knowledge that she was no longer alone, Parker stared at the bed for a while longer, wanting the small container of neon pink fluid on the table more than ever, but knowing she would have to pass close to him to retrieve it, increasing her nausea and defeating the purpose of the trip. Another moment or two and a particularly violent twitch from her stomach decided her.
Turning slowly to face her tormentor, Parker raised a hand stiffly, pointed in Macleod's direction and then at the other side of the room in general. Confused, but knowing he couldn't afford to antagonize her, Macleod acceded to her silent request, stood and moved several feet in the direction she had indicated, watching her all the while.
When she was satisfied he was far enough away, she strode to the table and retrieved the medicine, vaguely waving him back once she'd reached the bed once again. Dropping to the mattress, Parker lifted the bottle to her lips for a long moment, then capped it tightly and tossed it on the comforter beside her, favoring the man across from her with the darkest look in her repertoire; the one designed to bore holes in cement walls and send anyone who witnessed it into screaming fits as they dived behind the nearest solid object. To her further frustration, it seemed to have no effect whatsoever. His face expressionless, he simply continued to gaze at her calmly and with great interest, as if he had discovered a new species of bacteria and was still caught up in marveling over his find.
As he watched her anger grow with every passing minute, Mac knew their stalemate wouldn't last much longer. Studying her background and personality, and sensing all the rage and sorrow she had repressed and denied, had told him that she was headed for an emotional explosion of nuclear proportions somewhere in the near future, but he knew if he, or Jarod, were to get anywhere with her, it had to happen soon. The pressure cooker atmosphere he and Jarod had designed would force her into confronting her past on their timetable and in a controlled environment, where the coming blast could at least be contained.
Gazing at her, his mind drifted back to Methos' claims that Parker had reacted to him as only another immortal would have; that, somehow, she had known what he was. Mental wheels and gears picking up speed, he began to wonder again why she had ordered him away from the table before she would go and get the bottle she had left there. Deeply curious now, he knew he would have to test the theory forming in his mind or the questions would bother him until he did. Standing, he began to slowly walk toward her, checking every step of the way for even minute changes in her appearance that would indicate his presence was affecting her in some unusual way.
When he was still over four feet away, he noticed signs of an internal struggle begin to show in her eyes. At three feet, she grabbed the medicine and fled to the other side of the room, leaning into a convenient corner and guzzling what little was left in the bottle. After wiping her lips somewhat daintily with an index finger, she spoke the first words either of them had since Macleod had first shown up earlier that day.
"You did that deliberately, you son of a bitch."
Never dropping his eyes from hers, Macleod inclined his head slightly in an admission of guilt.
{There goes your dominant status, lovely.} Mac thought, laughing to himself. {From here on in, we fight as equals; as warriors should. En Garde. The battle starts now.}
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLUE COVE
"Pardon me sir, but I only witnessed the accident. I wasn't driving the car. Of course. Apology accepted. We both saw my personal physician. He said hospitalization wasn't necessary. A few days bed rest and we'll be feeling like ourselves again. Yes. I'll pass on the message. Please excuse me. I have another call. I'll be right back to you. Hello."
"Hello to you."
The sound of his former student's voice sent memories and images from the difficult afternoon just past spinning through Sydney's head, stunning him briefly and forcing him to take a deep breath or two before speaking.
"The answer is no, Jarod. Please trust me when I say I had no part in..... in the horrors that disk contains."
"I believe you didn't know Catherine would be killed. That's all I believe. You were practically head of the project, Sydney; second only to Raines. It would have been nearly impossible for you not to know about Miss Parker."
"Of course I was aware..... She was scheduled to be placed with Raines. I couldn't let her be subjected to...I tried, Jarod. God alone knows how hard I tried to get them to allow me to teach her, as I was teaching you. They were having none of it. After Catherine's... after that day, the child's name was struck off the rosters. I don't know why, but I thank God for it every day. It was my job, Jarod. I didn't know the truth then. You must understand."
"I didn't know. I tried. They wouldn't let me. They all sound like excuses, Sydney. Poor excuses for betrayal of a child's trust."
"Jarod...."
"Face it, Sydney. Even if you'd been allowed to train her she would have ended up exactly like I was; a desperately lonely and frightened eight year old child in a thirty year old body, who just wants the games and the sims and the pain to stop."
"Yes, and instead she grew up with a father who had not the first clue how to relate to a little girl except to turn her into the same unfeeling Centre automaton that he had become."
"Pointless arguments, Sydney. I just wanted to let you know I'll be out of contact for a while. Things are getting hectic here and I can't spare the time. When we're finished, maybe...."
"I'll look forward to hearing from you....."
The dial tone in his ear stopped Sydney mid-sentence. Brushing moisture from his cheeks that he hadn't realized was there until just then, he quickly composed himself and returned to his conversation with his employer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SEACOUVER
His dark eyes fused to her lighter ones, Macleod took a half step toward the corner then stopped. Parker, her survival instinct kicking into high gear, felt a rush of adrenaline flood her system as her spine straightened automatically, her hands lifted into defensive positions and her well trained body prepared to defend itself.
"Relax. You have my vow to stay at least ten feet away. Conditionally of course."
"If I wanted to take you apart, ten miles wouldn't be far enough."
"Tell me why I can't get close to you, and I back off. Easy." Macleod offered in a "let's be buddies" tone of voice, while moving another half step closer. "We got along fine at the Centre. I've trained boxers who couldn't handle clinches half as well as you did that afternoon."
"You have two choices. Get out of my face and live or keep coming and I gut you, hang you upside down and turn this place into a slaughterhouse. Up to you."
"Tell me. That's all it will take. One more small step brings me into that four-foot zone. Tell me why I shouldn't take it. Help me understand."
"Hope you keep the name of your chosen funeral parlor in your wallet."
Shaking his head, careful not to let even a trace of his amused fascination show, Mac took another step. As he had theorized, whatever she was feeling kept Parker precisely where she was, unable to move close enough to carry out her threat, though the burning desire to rearrange vital parts of his anatomy still glowed white hot in her eyes. Hoping to stave off a painful confrontation, he asked a question designed to throw her completely off balance and distract her from lethal thoughts. It did its job so well that she had answered him before she could even think about the consequences of opening herself up to the man she had been prepared to murder two minutes before.
"It was like this at the airport, wasn't it?"
"Airport? Hell, no. He was like driving into a cement wall. You just make my hangover worse."
"It isn't the alcohol. At least not completely. Some people react badly to chloroform."
"Chloroform? You chloroformed me?!"
"Not me. I didn't get here 'till after breakfast. You'll have to take that up with my associate."
"God! No wonder I have no memory of how I ended up in this sick little experiment. I assume you're watching, you sadistic.... You can't possibly imagine what I'm going to do to you, Jarod. What is it they say on that game show? Come on down. Well, why don't you? It'll be a challenge for me to see if I can finally kill someone without the usual messy cleanup."
"He will. It isn't time yet. You and I still have work to do. You'll probably see him in a few days, if you're a good girl and cooperate with teacher. Describe the feeling to me. Tell me exactly what happens when I get too close to you."
"Give me a reason."
"I'm curious. Is that good enough?"
A sneer and a decidedly unfriendly show of teeth were all the response Mac received. He debated pushing her further, but only for a split second.
"It's true. I don't understand your reaction. It makes me curious." he rationalized for her benefit as he took another step forward, watching her like a hawk every second. "You don't have to keep suffering. Just talk to me."
Her eyes mere slits now, Parker grimaced and shot her answer through tightly clenched teeth and between short, labored breaths.
"Damn you. I could.... rip your lungs out.... through your navel with one hand."
"Probably, but that has nothing to do with what I asked you."
"I... already explained. If you.... weren't paying attention.... you deal with it. Not my problem."
"You said I make your hangover worse. You didn't explain how."
"You back off."
"I said I would. I keep my promises."
"No. You first. Then I talk."
For several seconds, Mac hesitated to do as she was asking, but conceded in the end. Several minutes later, after drawing enough deep, strong breaths to clear her head and allow her to straighten previously unstable legs, she pleased him no end by keeping her part of the bargain.
"The headache and the nausea..... somehow, being close to you intensifies them. Happy?"
"It'll do."
"To hell with you. I gave you what you wanted. You could have the decency to at least look smug instead of distracted."
"Sorry. I was thinking about a logic problem. Nothing to do with the real reason we're here."
"Which I trust you'll now tell me?"
"Soon. When our work is done. You can have a seat on the bed if you'd like. You've been standing long enough."
"Aren't we suddenly Mr. Warmth and Charm." Parker responded caustically, never taking her eyes off him as she made her way to the cot.
"We do try." Macleod returned with a small grin, searching at the same time for the spot where she had stored the basket he'd delivered earlier. When he found it, he rooted in it for a few seconds, extracted a small vial from beneath the other items, placed it on the floor some distance from the bed and strolled back to his seat.
Still wary, Parker retrieved the tiny bottle and withdrew quickly back into her comfort zone.
"The top twists off. Take a couple deep breaths of that and then we'll get back to work."
"How much of an imbecile do you think I am?"
"No more of one than you must consider me. If I wanted to make you sick, I'd give you a hug. That vial is nothing but a mixture of plant extracts; green apple, jasmine and rosehips to be precise."
"Aromatherapy? After what you did to me last night, you expect me to believe this is aromatherapy. I've used every scent blend there is. What you described doesn't exist."
"If it were a commercial product, I'd agree. It isn't. I made it for you. Green apple for the headache, jasmine for anxiety and rosehips for the nausea."
"It just gets better and better. Good looking, charming and a master herbalist. What a guy."
"Just open the bottle. We have work to do, and I need you concentrating on me, not whether or not you're about to toss your cookies."
"What a great bumper sticker writer you'd make. 'Your bun's in my oven and I'm tossing my cookies over you.' "
Getting frustrated with her stalling tactics, Macleod decided using shock and indignation might get her back on track.
"Did you ever consider that? As a reason for the nausea I mean. It's quite possible it wasn't a bad reaction after all. The way Jarod described your personality, I just assumed you hadn't played.... bounce the box spring, shall we say, in months. Maybe even years. Assumptions are often wrong of course...."
When he turned to gauge her reaction, he found she had removed her shoes and placed both feet flat on the floor. Both hands were wrapped around the edge of the bed frame, and he could almost see the tension flowing in waves from her ramrod-straight back. Glancing at her face, Macleod suddenly felt a strong urge to run for the nearest exit well up in his throat. Shoving the doubt away from him, he mentally reset his cool, calm facade and continued.
"Good. Now that you're taking things a bit more seriously, we can move on. Open the bottle."
Following his every move with her eyes, Parker did as she had been asked. The moment the vial was opened she immediately knew Macleod had told the truth about its contents. Bringing the small glass container close to her face, she drew four deep, slow breaths, resealed the tube, slid it into a pocket of her slacks and relaxed against the wall.
"Better?" Macleod asked, fighting to keep a smile from his lips. At a small nod from his subject, he continued. "Good. I have an offer for you. Whether you accept is up to you, of course, but I hope you see the benefits to agreeing. The deal is that I tell you only the God's honest truth, and I expect the same from you."
"Impossible. Men are born knowing how to lie and they'd lie to the priest on their death-bed if they thought they could get away with it."
"All men?"
"All... of them."
"There isn't one man you can name who you believe would always tell you the truth if he knew it meant everything to you?"
Gazing intently into the solemn, azure eyes of the woman seated across from him, Mac realized she had an answer, but wouldn't surrender her choice easily. He sat silent, waiting for her to make the next move, knowing he couldn't let control of the moment pass out of his hands, but still uncertain how far he could push her before she would retreat to a place where he couldn't reach her. When he spoke again, he deliberately softened his tone and, for the first time that day, allowed a tiny amount of the genuine concern he felt for her seep into his words and his expression.
"There is one, isn't there? I can see it. You want to tell me but you're terrified of betraying his trust. You think he'd turn his back on you. He won't."
"Where do you get off.... you don't know a damn thing about me. If there was a man like that in my life, what the hell makes you think he wouldn't head for the hills if I said word one about him to you?"
"I wouldn't. Besides. Any man strong enough to care for you would never give up that easily."
"Jarod must have warned you. I take care of myself."
"Of course you do. You're a competent, secure, fully grown woman." Mac agreed, standing now and pacing away from the bed. "Only children need their every scrape and knock tended to, physical or otherwise. You and I... we tend to our own bruises don't we?"
"And I'm damn good at it."
"Self-reliance is a marvelous gift."
"Greatest one my father ever gave me. As long as I'm not counting on someone else to cover my ass, it won't get blown off."
"It isn't him, though. It's not his identity you're protecting. Everyone in your world knows how it is between you two. No need to safeguard a relationship that's on public display. Well; that's one down. I will figure this out, you know."
"I told you, there's....."
"I know what you said. Even if there was a man...." The answer suddenly popping into his head, Macleod hid his small triumphant smile by turning away from his subject until he was able to restore his former casually interested expression. "So. Do you accept the agreement or not? Complete honesty for complete honesty."
"Drop this line of questioning..... and the answer's yes."
"Agreed. Tell me about your father." Macleod suggested gently as he returned to his chair.
"Specify."
"Anything will do. Whatever you feel like bringing up. How about your first memory of him? Or any early memories for that matter."
After a long pause, her expression altering only slightly in response to the emotions the question engendered in her, Parker finally answered.
"Sorry, handsome. Out of luck on that one. Never had 'em, never will. So much for psychoanalysis."
"Yes, you do. You just haven't looked in the most obvious place. You aren't sure what you'll find, and that frightens you."
"I fear nothing. Another one of Daddy's valuable lessons."
"You fear everything. You've become a raging, passionate workaholic because you know fear is the worst enemy you'll ever face, and the only one you can't crush under your three inch stiletto heels, so you think you can intimidate it into submission."
Her gaze locked rigidly with his, Parker repeated her previous statement, separating the words as if she were instructing a mentally disabled child.
"I. Fear. Nothing."
"You fear me. You're terrified someone will learn all your secrets before you do. You're terrified that Jarod already has."
"Keep pushing. Even if I puke all over you doing it, I will rip your heart from your body with my teeth and make you swallow every last bite."
Laughing quietly to himself, Macleod swiveled away from the table and pushed off, sending the chair drifting slowly backwards.
"Good Lord, you have an active imagination. The fact that it's mired thigh deep in gore isn't exactly endearing, but...."
"You don't really want to know what I'm imagining right now."
"Later pretty, later. We were discussing early memories I think."
"Why don't we discuss your hearing problem, Beethoven? I told you...."
"You do have them. I can prove it."
"You couldn't prove piss is warm if you had transparencies and an overhead projector."
"As terrified as you are of me, I'm sure you'll do that for yourself any minute now."
Eyes widening, Parker started off the bed, intent on ripping apart her tormentor, but was slammed back by the wall between them. She was left curled in a near fetal position on the floor, cursing her luck and her traitorous body and spitting venom in Macleod's direction.
"What have you two done? What the hell is happening to me?"
"Hang in there. Once the alcohol and the sedative quit complicating things, it won't be so hard on you. You'll get used to it, I promise."
Mac waited for Parker to pull her self together and find her way back to the bed before renewing his verbal assault. "So. Do I get to prove I'm telling the truth, or not? I'd hate to be accused of breaking our agreement."
As he watched Parker recover her composure, Macleod sensed her back-pedaling. She had refused to respond, choosing instead to sit completely still and not look at him at all.
Concerned about losing her completely, he immediately took a different tack; one designed to re-engage her, prevent further retreat and begin honing her innate, but still raw, skills as a Pretender, without her knowing what was happening.
"Okay. New subject. Game time. Pick a room, any room you know really well. You get thirty seconds to study it in your head, then you have to describe it."
"I detest games. Go play in a toxic waste dump for all I care." Parker snarled, still staring at the quilt.
"Oh. So you don't give a damn what the real challenge is."
Moments later, when her eyes lifted to meet his, Mac breathed a mental sigh of relief, knowing he had her back, even if only temporarily. "The hard part is, you have to picture the room the way it was five years back. The second round is a different room and ten years, and so on. You get the point. I'll go first."
Closing his eyes, Mac pictured himself and Tessa still on the barge. When his past threatened to derail his present, he pulled his inner sight away from his image of her and refocused on the room, examining every object quickly but thoroughly and then describing them to Parker in minute detail.
In response to his questioning eyebrows, she merely nodded yes, that she believed him and kept silent.
"Your turn."
Straightening, her eyes hard and calculating, Parker envisioned her office as it had appeared before Jarod's escape had tripled her daily stress load, before she'd had to deal with her brother, Raines and the Triumvirate on an almost daily basis.
"My office. The desk was on the west wall, facing away from the door. The computer center was on the north wall, facing the window with the ocean view. There was a couch on the east side and two chairs opposite it, but I have no clue anymore what color they were."
"You're there, remember? Just turn and look and tell me the color."
After another moment or two of contemplation, eyes turned away, Parker spoke again.
"Wine. I should have known. I always.... A mahogany coffee table in front of the couch and an end table by each chair, both with Lalique lamps. There was a piece or two of abstract hanging on the walls. That's all I remember."
"Who were the paintings by?"
"I should know? Who am I, the New York Times art critic?"
"You don't know what artists you chose for your own office."
"I didn't."
"Didn't know or didn't choose?"
Shooting him her "melt steel doors" glare, Parker refused to answer. Macleod responded without looking at her even once, focusing variously on his fingernails, the door, the floor and the wall just above and behind Parker's head.
"Oh. I should have guessed. Daddy made most of the decorating decisions, didn't he? You probably hate abstract art. You're a logical, analytical, closet romantic. I'd say the impressionists are far more your speed. Maybe even Serrat. Yeah. You probably get really into big doses of linear. Abstract is for people who don't have a real strong idea of who they are. They need to see the world as being just as off-kilter and out of whack as they feel. Straightens things out for some; confirms their worldview. That's not you. You're far too blunt and honest for abstract art."
When he finally went eye to eye with his subject again, Mac was momentarily thrown off his stride by the look on her face. Instead of the ice-queen glare he'd been expecting, he found an intensely interested expression in control of her features, at least for the moment. He sensed she was waiting for him to continue, and if what she heard next displeased or disappointed her, he would lose more than one level of whatever progress he had made so far.
"Go on."
"Shall I? How about photo-realism? That seems to appeal to the depressives, those prone to it anyway. It disturbs them to consider there being anymore light or color in the world than they themselves perceive, which isn't much. They lean toward black and white when they paint. Sometimes a little crimson or midnight blue sneaks in there, but neutral shades represent more of their idea of how things should work. Everything either is or isn't."
"Is or isn't what?"
"Whatever concerns them at the moment. Right or wrong, stupid decision or smart, the easy path or difficult. It's my turn isn't it? Ten years ago. God, I still had the gallery then...."
Over the next fifty minutes, Macleod led an increasingly less recalcitrant Parker back through college memories and teenage angst, deftly and convincingly creating a modern past for himself when the truth became unfeasible. When he knew they were approaching the critical time period, he began to lessen the detail in his false recollections, claiming age and failing memory, until most of the burden of the game was on Parker's shoulders.
"Well. Looks like the game is called on account of memory loss on both sides."
"Not necessarily. I told you I could show you where to find yours. Up for it?"
"Absolutely. I can't wait to see you produce something I know damn well doesn't exist."
"Good. Step one is to close your eyes. Step two; visualize yourself looking in a full-length mirror. Instead of the adult you see every day, the reflected image is of a young girl, maybe seven or eight years old. Got it?"
When Parker nodded, Mac continued. "Alright. Now eliminate the mirror, but hold tight to that image. Don't try to see her as being anywhere yet. It's just you and her in a dark empty space. All you can see now is her face. Just her face. There's nothing else. Give me the first word you connect with that face. Don't think, don't analyze, just say it."
"Tears."
"Whose?"
"Hers. She's sobbing, wailing."
"Why?"
"She's terrified. Someone she tru.... she's trapped, locked in. Her heart is racing and breaking at the same time and she's afraid it will drive her insane."
"Why?"
"She saw something, something.... horrific. Now she can't get out and she can't stop seeing it. She's so afraid of this place, but she scares herself more. The person who.... they make her feel...."
"What?"
"Rage. Pure, unadulterated rage. She can't reconcile hating someone she loved and trusted so completely. She wants more than out. She wants to ask them why."
"Out?"
"Out of that tiny room, out of the dark, out of the way she's feeling. Out of the nightmare.... someone dumped her in."
"How?"
"She's finally realized that screaming and crying aren't getting her anywhere. She's sitting on the floor. Too quiet, too pale. She still believes that someone will be back for her."
"And?"
"Noone has. It's been three days. She's had no food, no water except what she was able to scrounge. She doesn't really know what's going on anymore. She's losing touch with reality. The door opens. It scares her so much she crab-crawls into a corner to hide. She's...."
"What?"
"She gave up hope of ever seeing anyone. She's petrified of.... whoever has come to rescue her."
"Who?"
"It's too bright, Her eyes can't adjust fast enough...."
"Who?"
"I told you, she doesn't know. She's being held.... too tightly. She fights like a demon."
"Who?"
"I said...."
"Who?"
"She can't see...."
"Who?"
"I couldn't see, damn you! How was I supposed to know if I couldn't see!?"
For the briefest moment, Macleod remained perfectly still, allowing the change of pronoun to impact her conscious mind, then stood and moved for the door, leaving her a final thought as he exited.
"If I were you, love, I'd take a closer look at your "convenient" lack of early memories.... and who it's most convenient for."
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