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Chapter or Story
EARLY AFTERNOON- BLUE COVE:
"Look. Don't push, Syd, okay? It won't make me have an appetite, so give it up."
"You'll never sleep if you don't try and eat something."
"Don't have an appetite for that either. You eat. You go hit the sheets. I'm gonna watch T.V. for a while." Broots replied, his voice flat and devoid of inflection or emotion as he rose from the kitchen table and moved slowly into the living room, Sydney following right behind.
"What's going on? Are you feeling alright?"
"I'm fine. I'm just not hungry or tired."
Dropping beside his friend on the couch, Sydney tugged the television remote from his hand and turned Broots to face him instead of the entertainment center.
"You're not being honest with me. We spent last night within ten feet of each other. I know how little you slept and I watched you not eat dinner or breakfast this morning. Talk to me. Tell me what's happening. We can work it out together."
Rising, Broots began to pace in and out among the furniture, tracing weird patterns as he walked.
"Forget it. Just leave it alone, alright? You already said you can't take this... thing in my head away, so... forget it. Go get some rest."
"You believe it's my fault, don't you?"
"Your... No! I know it isn't. I'm mad at them. I want this to go away. Why can't it just evaporate the same way it showed up?" Broots snapped, finally returning to his seat on the sofa.
"I'm afraid it doesn't work like that, at least not this time. Whatever this ability is, or might become, it was induced by a chemical that lay dormant in your body for five years, and yet was still strong enough to activate when it came in contact with the contents of the injection. I'd wager this is something that will be with you for the rest of your life."
"If I had the guts, the rest of my life wouldn't be all that long..." Broots moaned, his voice breaking as he leapt from the couch again. Ignoring his own physical pain, Sydney rose, reaching his friend within a step or two, and spinning Broots around.
"Do you even understand what you're contemplating? Could you actually do that to your own daughter?"
"You don't get it! I can't take this! I don't want it to happen again. I'm terrified to go to sleep. If I do doze a little, it's getting so I don't trust what I see when I open my eyes."
"Come. Come sit down with me."
Seated once again, Sydney gazed into Broots' face and struggled not to turn away, the plea for release he found in his friend's eyes nearly more than the older man could bear.
"If there was something... anything I could do, you know I would. The only option left is damage control. I can show how to begin to harness the visions, how to interpret them. Will you let me try? The sooner we start, the better."
Slowly, his face seeming to collapse in on itself as reality sunk in, Broots leaned forward, near tears and trying desperately to hold them off. Hanging his head, he began to run his hands through his hair and over the back of his neck restlessly as he tried to wrap his mind around the ninety degree turn his life had taken without asking his permission.
"How can I even start to figure anything out when I'm still hung up on why? That's what I really don't get. I've always done my job the best I knew how. I've always been loyal... up until the past year or two, but there's no way they could know about the... the things you and I and Miss Parker... Any time I breached security it was justified... in my mind anyway. Why would they do this to me?"
"Remember, too, that you were given the drug before Jarod's escape even happened. I wish I had an answer for you. Perhaps they reasoned that a Centre employee was easier to put their hands on if something went wrong... or right. Their... loyalty would also make them less likely to resist whatever the research or med teams wanted to do to them."
"I guess we kind of messed up their plan, huh?"
"Yes. I think we may have. Now that Lyle is taken care of, my priority is protecting you. If anyone at the Centre were to discover that you've developed this ability, I don't even want to consider the lengths they'd go to in order to secure you away from the outside world."
Lifting his head finally, Broots met Sydney's gaze, one or two of the tears he'd been trying to suppress now rolling down his cheeks.
"Locked away from Debbie and you and...I'm never going back. You know that, don't you?"
"You must. If you don't, they will absolutely know something's wrong. Raines already suspects..."
"I can't. Not now, not knowing what they really did to me. It would show every time I looked anybody in the eyes. I won't go back in that infirmary, Syd. Before I let them at me again I really will do it. I'll die before...
"You won't have to go back. I swear it. I'll think of some way to protect you..."
At a signal from the security system, Sydney momentarily gave up on trying to calm Broots and moved to the intercom, though he vowed that the break in their discussion would be as short as he could make it.
"Yes?"
"Abe? It's Terri."
"I'm sorry, Terri. This isn't a good time. We're both fine. It might be better if..."
"Look. Let me in. Please? I... I don't feel real safe out here just now."
Confused, Sydney hesitated, then released the lock on the back door and let her in.
When she burst through the kitchen door and nearly flew to his side, her expression turned his concern over her uncharacteristic behavior into genuine fear for her well being.
"What is it? You look so pani... My God. Who did this to you?" he exclaimed quietly, at last noticing the prominent redness and swelling on her neck and the backs of her hands.
"I don't know, but when I find them, I swear they won't be conscious long enough to even think of doing it again."
Leading her to the couch, Sydney turned to ask Broots to retrieve the first-aid kit only to discover his friend had slipped from the room.
"Please stay right there. I'll only be a moment."
After a few frantic moments, Sydney found Broots in the bedroom and dragged him back to where Terri waited. "I need you in my sight for the time being. I won't let you be alone right now." Sydney reassured him, leaving again and returning a few seconds later with the emergency kit. "Tell me what happened, Terri."
"When I was opening up my office this morning, I got grabbed from behind. Before I could do anything, someone stuck a live wire to the back of my neck and my knees turned into marshmallow fluff."
Lifting up the simple braid into which she'd plaited her hair that morning, Sydney discovered two small, well-separated, red areas at the base of Terri's neck.
"Stun-gun. Go on." he encouraged, beginning to treat her burns.
"I was only fuzzy for a minute, but I guess it was enough for these three Nazis to drag me to their limo and throw me in. They kept asking me how I knew you. I didn't say anything. I think I was still knocked half loopy from the attack. When the driver p-pulled the... the cigarette lighter... all I could think was... great, two goons are practically sitting on me, and now he's gonna stink up the car... but it... it wasn't a lighter... it put out so much heat... all they had to do was get it close to my face and I started screaming..."
Anguished and ashamed at having been the cause of yet another person's pain, Sydney pulled Terri's head to his shoulder, trying to dry her tears and comfort her, but she would have none of it and resisted his attempt at consolation. "No. I can wipe my own face, Abe. What I want from you is answers, and I want them now. What have you dragged me into?"
"Terri. I can't, in good conscience..."
"Uh-uh. I can't let it slide this time, Abe. They came after me. I'm a part of this now. I need to know."
"Your life is worth more to me than an explanation that would only cause you further pain and upset..."
"Forget it. I trust you, Abe, but I've waited a long time already. Now I'm caught in the middle of something I don't understand, and that scares me. It's my life to defend, and I don't need your good conscience. I need to know what I'm facing so I can fight back."
Staring into Terri's eyes, part of Sydney's heart sank as he realized her determination not to surrender to the Centre's intimidation, even at the cost of being hurt far worse than she already had been.
"I'll make you a version of the promise I made Broots. You'll hear all I can tell you and be sure that you'll stay safe. I just can't do it right now. There's so much still to do before Broots and I are safe and free... for a while at least..."
Fatigue glazing his eyes and forcing them closed for a few brief moments, Sydney sighed heavily, then pushed most of his weariness aside, gathered his thoughts and re-focused on Terri.
Her own pain and fear subsiding, Terri finally saw how drawn and pale Sydney looked and how hard he was working to hold himself together. Kicking herself for allowing a minor incident, one that had never genuinely threatened her life, to blind her to a friend's suffering, her expression softened.
"What do you need help with?"
"Help?"
"Yeah. Help. Your fight, my fight. I'm assuming you could use another lieutenant for the duration of the war. Am I wrong?"
"No. No, you aren't wrong."
"Okay. I'm here as long as you need me, then. Answers will keep. You go get some rest. Petey and I will be fine out here."
"But..."
"Get gone, Abe. You're wrung out and that shoulder won't heal if you don't sleep. Petey will tell me what he wants to and we'll go from there."
For several more confused and doubtful moments, Sydney remained where he was, seated between his friends, gazing back and forth from Broots, who had crumpled himself as deeply as he could into a corner of the sofa, to Terri who stared fixedly at Broots, suddenly seeming to see Sydney as nothing more than an obstruction. When his companion voice spoke up briefly, he finally rose and walked back to the bedroom, still uncertain what was about to happen, but a little less worried that it would be disastrous if he weren't there.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You understand your orders?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you're prepared to carry them out?"
"I am, sir."
"Excellent. Go. If you fail me, I wouldn't advise returning... or letting me find you."
"Clearly understood, sir."
His mouth abruptly lurching into what passed for a smile on his horror of a face, Raines watched his hand-picked military underling make an exquisitely precise turn and stride from the room, then twisted in his seat and spoke to the deeply unhappy man behind him.
"He's the best. He'll fulfill his orders... whatever it takes."
"It won't work. Best or worst, noone will find either of them now. Not even him."
"Are you implying I don't know my own protégé?"
"No." Parker stated firmly, rising from his chair, "I believe I'm implying that my children won't be returning to the Centre. Therefore, plans need to be made, contingencies executed... yes. Things need to get done."
"Mister Parker..."
"Your man will fail, Raines. There's nothing he can do that I and a hundred other men couldn't. Thank you, though for the effort."
Without even a glance behind him, Mister Parker strode away from Raines and out of the room. The confusion and lethargy that he'd shaken off after injuring his hands reclaimed him suddenly in the corridor, but for a moment only. Recovering himself, he walked on, his mildly disturbed expression the only sign that anything had occurred at all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SEACOUVER:
"Hello. Lunch is served. Oh. There you are."
Looking up from the spot in the center of the floor where she sat meditating in lotus position, Parker gave her inquisitor a cursory glance then returned to her contemplations. "Let me guess. You weren't exactly thrilled with the results of this morning's exercise. It's okay. I didn't expect you to be jumping for joy. You want lunch now or not?" he repeated, waving a covered container of dark brown liquid in her direction.
Gazing at him once again, Parker rose with a litheness that Methos envied, circled him once slowly, as if he might have hidden the meal he'd promised, made a thoroughly inappropriate comment about the cup he held and walked away to drop into one of the chairs at the large table.
"Ugh, and may I also add, blech! If you don't want the shake, say so, but that really was above and beyond the call of insults. I may never be able to look at a cappuccino again."
"Get out."
"Can I assume you don't want lunch, then?"
"Lunch! That? I think I already expressed my opinion."
"Yes, this is lunch; and dinner and breakfast for that matter. You're on a cleansing fast as of this moment. For the next forty-eight hours you get no solid food, no dairy, no sugar and no salt. Pure water, fruit juices and soy only. Oh, and the vitamins. Here." he said, tossing her a small bottle, which she caught with one hand and launched back at his head. He pulled it from the air as deftly as she had, walked to her side and held it out until she surrendered and took it from his hand.
Dropping into the chair beside her, he began to speak, knowing the caring and compassion behind the words would find their way in no matter how hard she tried to block them.
"I know you understand what the liquor and the cigs are doing to you. Understanding's easy. Now you have to start caring. If you don't let all this... stuff go, you'll never heal emotionally, and that will keep you from healing physically. Right now, I know you don't give a tinker's damn about your mind or your body, but I guarantee the time will come when you do. When will you start believing you deserve to feel decent; to be strong and healthy and whole?"
"If I didn't care, I wouldn't take the pills at all..."
"You take it out of habit and because you know how bad you'll hurt if you don't. Do you really think noone's noticed what you've started taking them with by the way? Whiskey and a 'scrip? Lethal habits you're developing, love."
"I did it once..."
"That could have been plenty. You keep on this way and pretty soon whatever you're taking won't be strong enough to kill all the pain. You'll convince the doc to give you something bigger; something to really put out the fire. You'll chase it with a double shot one day, not even thinking... and it'll put you out instead. Do you really want to be an eggplant; lying in a bed with just enough gray matter left to understand everything going on around you, but not enough to speak or even open your eyes?"
Parker suddenly rose and began to wander aimlessly, as if unaware that Methos was even still in the room, finally ending up by the rear wall. Bracing against it, she slid down into a crouch, eyes on the floor, hands rubbing together absently.
"You have to take me back in there. I tried and I can't do it alone."
"Back where?" Methos demurred, stalling for time, even though he knew exactly what subject they had abruptly jumped to.
"Back into that room. I want it back on."
"The security system?"
"No. The neon "I'm an imbecile" sign on your forehead. What do you think?"
"I think I want to know what you did at the Centre before Jarod escaped. You weren't always a bounty hunter, right?"
"You did hear what I said... right?" Parker spat back at Methos.
"I heard. You know I can't do that. Now, come sit down and let's discuss your duties before finding Jarod and drinking yourself into oblivion became your life's ambitions."
Rising to her full height, Parker advanced a step back toward Methos.
"You can. You showed me how to turn it off, you can reverse the process."
"I can't, and I wouldn't even if I could. Come have your shake, love, before it gets warm. Soy shakes are really disgusting warm..."
"You hear about as well as your partner. Do it now or I'll..."
Finally deciding the situation called for something a little more drastic, Methos rose and advanced across the room until he and Parker were close enough to be dancing. He waited for her to get uncomfortable enough to back off, then repeated the move, backing her into the wall again, hands propped on the masonry on either side of her head.
"What? What will you do? I didn't shut the system down, sweetie. You did. If you can't go back and change it, then you aren't supposed to. That's why your mind's road-blocking you every time you try. You keep showing me all this anger, but you don't even believe it yourself! You put it out there for the world to see and genuflect to, but it isn't even half real, and you know it.
It's a stone wall you use to hide the fear and the desperation and the ripped up heart of a little girl who watched her world vanish in one second of brutal, callous violence and who hasn't even begun to figure out how to find it again. You've taken all your pain and disappointment and genuine rage and shoved them behind that wall for over twenty years, and now you're seeing it being pulled apart, brick by brick, faster than you can fit them back in.
The famous Parker self-control is deserting you isn't it? Suddenly you have to try... really put forth an effort to maintain that mask of disdain and who gives a flying fart in a high wind what anyone else thinks. Gets pretty tiring holding a mask in place, doesn't it? The biceps and the forearms start to twitch... then they start to tremble with the strain. Eventually you have to put it down whether you want to or not."
Dropping his hands, Methos stepped back a bit, finished his spur-of-the-moment truth tirade then walked away. "Twenty-odd years is one hell of a feat of endurance, love, but I'd say you've about run dry. That wall's coming down and your facade with it. I just pray to God you don't get crushed under one or the other... or both."
Once back in his usual chair on the far side of the long table, Methos jotted in a notebook he'd brought with him to the session and pointedly ignored Parker, who hadn't stirred from where he'd left her except to watch his progress back to his seat.
Her face frozen in an expression of disbelief and bewilderment, she simply stood on the wall, waiting for the anger to rise in her to a point where she could beat her tormentor to death or tear him apart and not feel or remember it, as she'd done once or twice before.
Though the stories had swirled around her for days after both incidents, she'd blocked them out as efficiently and ruthlessly as she'd blocked the memory of whom she'd killed and why.
When the emotion she wanted wouldn't surface at her command she tried to force it into being, pulling all her most potent rage triggers one after the other; the gullibility with which she'd fallen into Jarod's most humiliating traps, his ability to elude her no matter how close she thought she'd gotten, her father's emotionless reactions despite how much of herself she always put on the line to try and please or satisfy him.
Even her last resort, recalling visions of her mother's death, failed to act as the release Parker needed, sending her into a crying, screaming fit of frustration, pounding the wall hard enough to have created several holes had it been made of anything less than concrete, and scratching her own face and hands when she couldn't damage the wall.
When her cries alerted him to the situation, Methos ran up behind her, grabbing and securing her hands, then embraced her, crossing her arms around herself and effectively thwarting her self-destruction campaign. Holding her this way, he bent his knees and lowered himself to the floor despite how hard she continued to fight the loss of her freedom of movement. Speaking just loud enough to be heard over Parker's non-verbal expressions of terminal frustration, Methos began to try to soothe her out of the fugue state and back to reality.
"You're alright. You're alright, girl. Mother of mercy, you're strong... Stop it, love. Hurt me if you need to, but I won't let you hurt yourself. Not... an... option."
As Parker's struggle intensified, Methos began rocking her back and forth as best he could, still hoping to calm her and bring her back down with reason and quiet words. "Shhh. C'mon sweet. This can't be doing that lake of eternal fire in your belly any good. You have to listen to me."
Minutes later, instead of the slow surrender and relaxation he'd been hoping for, Parker went abruptly limp in his arms.
"Oh, no. Not what's supposed to happen, dear. Let's see..."
Turning Parker around to face him, Methos panicked at first, as her eyes were shut tight and her breathing frighteningly shallow. What he found when she opened her eyes was, all at once, the exact thing he'd been privately hoping for and, potentially, everything they all feared most. The gaze that met his was so filled with confusion, loss and heart-rending sorrow that he fought the urge to look away. Gently restoring her disheveled hair to some semblance of order, he smiled at her grimly.
{Damn. I wondered whether I could trigger a regression. I guess I can. God, I'm sorry love. I didn't mean... I wasn't trying for this. I just wanted you to face a few truths... At least I know now that the immersion has a chance of working. Well. I suppose I'd better see if I can get you out of this as well as I was able to put you in it.}
"Hello, sweetheart. Can you tell me your name?"
A shake of the head and sudden fear in her eyes was the only response he received. "No, hmm. Shall I guess? Let's see. You look like a... Molly."
When Parker began to slowly relax and ceased pulling away from him, Methos drew a deep shuddery breath of relief, let it go again, and continued. "Can you speak to me at all, hmmm?"
When it became obvious she couldn't, or wouldn't, speak, Methos reassured her once again of her safety, then rose, lifting her in his arms, amazed at how little she actually weighed compared to the suit of armor over a dozen bullet proof vests image she projected. Halfway to the bed where he intended to set her down, she realized his intended goal. Eyes widening, she began to fight him, flailing, kicking and whimpering in abject fear. Her struggle lasted only a few moments before she was unconscious in his grip a second time, her face rapidly paling. Placing her gently on the cot, Methos pulled a small handy-talkie from his pocket and activated the page feature, hoping one of the other two had theirs on.
"I'm here. What is it?"
"Jarod. I need the black leather bag under the sink in my room, a bowl of cool water and a cloth. Cool, not cold mind you. In the cell and make it a rush job alright?"
"What happened?"
"When you get here. Just do what I asked, son."
Several minutes later, Jarod appeared at the door. Methos took the satchel and bowl from him and turned back to tend to Parker.
"You're welcome in as long as you keep your voice down and vanish as soon as she shows signs of coming to. The plan calls for you two to get together, just not yet."
"What have you done?" Jarod asked, the implicit threat in his tone telling Methos just what would meet anything less than the truth.
"She fainted, but she seems to be fine. I just need to make absolutely sure."
When Parker began to stir a moment later, Methos began to try to encourage Jarod out of the room, but the younger man would not be moved. "Look. I told you the truth. Go. I'll take care of her, I swear it."
Jarod stood gazing into his eyes for so long that Methos was sure he'd intended to stay no matter what, but he eventually turned and walked back down the hall.
On his knees at Parker's side, Methos snapped open the satchel, removed a blood-pressure cuff and wrapped it around her right arm.
"Just be still for a minute, love. You're okay." he soothed, wringing out the wet cloth then laying it across her forehead. "I'm just going to check you out, alright? Take it easy."
When her blood pressure marginally met his approval, he removed the cuff, stored it again and slid the bag under the long table.
"What happened? How did I get here?"
"Shhh. Rest, now. You passed out."
"And, what, I levitated to the cot?"
"Stop. No more questions. No more fighting. You're to stay in bed for the rest of today and you're to stay quiet."
"Fighting... Hell with you. I demand to know..."
Grasping her chin firmly, he brought her gaze to his.
"Look at me. Look right in my eyes. With a B.P. of 100 over 65, you're in no shape to demand anything. You know better than anyone how close that puts you to having a needle in your arm and a plastic bag hanging over your head for the next two or three hours. A couple points lower on either number and that's exactly what you would have woken up to. Are we clear?"
He waited for her slow nod before releasing her chin and rising to his feet. Moving to where her handbag sat, he pulled her medicine from the outer pocket, selecting one out of the four or five small bottles. Stepping to the table to grab the shake he returned to her side with both items.
"Here." he said, handing her the pills while he pried the top off the drink container. Once she'd extracted a dose, he traded her for the drink, brushing off the look of utter disgust he received.
"It's soy. And chocolate."
"It's that or water. Trust me. This is better."
Once she'd downed the pills, she paused, glanced from him to the drink, then drained the glass and laid back. He replaced the cool, damp cloth on her head. She pulled it off again. He relented.
"I repeat. You're to stay in bed and you're to try and stay as calm and quiet as possible. If you need your meds, I'll be checking in every couple hours to be sure you're alright."
Moving back to a seat at the table, he slid a book out of his back pocket and began to read.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Sitting here till you fall asleep. What does it look like?"
Bewildered by his answer, Parker found herself unable to think of a response, until her eye fell on the empty glass on her night table. Grinning, she hefted one of her pillows then hurled it with deadly accuracy into Methos' face.
"Yes?"
"Strawberry next time."
Laying his book face down, he walked to her side, fluffed the pillow and slipped it under her head.
"Glad to oblige."
As he took up his reading again, he stole a brief glance at Parker and was pleased to note she had retrieved the cloth, tossed it over her eyes and was breathing slowly and regularly, though he was certain she wasn't yet asleep. He rose and left only when she was.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Look. Don't push, Syd, okay? It won't make me have an appetite, so give it up."
"You'll never sleep if you don't try and eat something."
"Don't have an appetite for that either. You eat. You go hit the sheets. I'm gonna watch T.V. for a while." Broots replied, his voice flat and devoid of inflection or emotion as he rose from the kitchen table and moved slowly into the living room, Sydney following right behind.
"What's going on? Are you feeling alright?"
"I'm fine. I'm just not hungry or tired."
Dropping beside his friend on the couch, Sydney tugged the television remote from his hand and turned Broots to face him instead of the entertainment center.
"You're not being honest with me. We spent last night within ten feet of each other. I know how little you slept and I watched you not eat dinner or breakfast this morning. Talk to me. Tell me what's happening. We can work it out together."
Rising, Broots began to pace in and out among the furniture, tracing weird patterns as he walked.
"Forget it. Just leave it alone, alright? You already said you can't take this... thing in my head away, so... forget it. Go get some rest."
"You believe it's my fault, don't you?"
"Your... No! I know it isn't. I'm mad at them. I want this to go away. Why can't it just evaporate the same way it showed up?" Broots snapped, finally returning to his seat on the sofa.
"I'm afraid it doesn't work like that, at least not this time. Whatever this ability is, or might become, it was induced by a chemical that lay dormant in your body for five years, and yet was still strong enough to activate when it came in contact with the contents of the injection. I'd wager this is something that will be with you for the rest of your life."
"If I had the guts, the rest of my life wouldn't be all that long..." Broots moaned, his voice breaking as he leapt from the couch again. Ignoring his own physical pain, Sydney rose, reaching his friend within a step or two, and spinning Broots around.
"Do you even understand what you're contemplating? Could you actually do that to your own daughter?"
"You don't get it! I can't take this! I don't want it to happen again. I'm terrified to go to sleep. If I do doze a little, it's getting so I don't trust what I see when I open my eyes."
"Come. Come sit down with me."
Seated once again, Sydney gazed into Broots' face and struggled not to turn away, the plea for release he found in his friend's eyes nearly more than the older man could bear.
"If there was something... anything I could do, you know I would. The only option left is damage control. I can show how to begin to harness the visions, how to interpret them. Will you let me try? The sooner we start, the better."
Slowly, his face seeming to collapse in on itself as reality sunk in, Broots leaned forward, near tears and trying desperately to hold them off. Hanging his head, he began to run his hands through his hair and over the back of his neck restlessly as he tried to wrap his mind around the ninety degree turn his life had taken without asking his permission.
"How can I even start to figure anything out when I'm still hung up on why? That's what I really don't get. I've always done my job the best I knew how. I've always been loyal... up until the past year or two, but there's no way they could know about the... the things you and I and Miss Parker... Any time I breached security it was justified... in my mind anyway. Why would they do this to me?"
"Remember, too, that you were given the drug before Jarod's escape even happened. I wish I had an answer for you. Perhaps they reasoned that a Centre employee was easier to put their hands on if something went wrong... or right. Their... loyalty would also make them less likely to resist whatever the research or med teams wanted to do to them."
"I guess we kind of messed up their plan, huh?"
"Yes. I think we may have. Now that Lyle is taken care of, my priority is protecting you. If anyone at the Centre were to discover that you've developed this ability, I don't even want to consider the lengths they'd go to in order to secure you away from the outside world."
Lifting his head finally, Broots met Sydney's gaze, one or two of the tears he'd been trying to suppress now rolling down his cheeks.
"Locked away from Debbie and you and...I'm never going back. You know that, don't you?"
"You must. If you don't, they will absolutely know something's wrong. Raines already suspects..."
"I can't. Not now, not knowing what they really did to me. It would show every time I looked anybody in the eyes. I won't go back in that infirmary, Syd. Before I let them at me again I really will do it. I'll die before...
"You won't have to go back. I swear it. I'll think of some way to protect you..."
At a signal from the security system, Sydney momentarily gave up on trying to calm Broots and moved to the intercom, though he vowed that the break in their discussion would be as short as he could make it.
"Yes?"
"Abe? It's Terri."
"I'm sorry, Terri. This isn't a good time. We're both fine. It might be better if..."
"Look. Let me in. Please? I... I don't feel real safe out here just now."
Confused, Sydney hesitated, then released the lock on the back door and let her in.
When she burst through the kitchen door and nearly flew to his side, her expression turned his concern over her uncharacteristic behavior into genuine fear for her well being.
"What is it? You look so pani... My God. Who did this to you?" he exclaimed quietly, at last noticing the prominent redness and swelling on her neck and the backs of her hands.
"I don't know, but when I find them, I swear they won't be conscious long enough to even think of doing it again."
Leading her to the couch, Sydney turned to ask Broots to retrieve the first-aid kit only to discover his friend had slipped from the room.
"Please stay right there. I'll only be a moment."
After a few frantic moments, Sydney found Broots in the bedroom and dragged him back to where Terri waited. "I need you in my sight for the time being. I won't let you be alone right now." Sydney reassured him, leaving again and returning a few seconds later with the emergency kit. "Tell me what happened, Terri."
"When I was opening up my office this morning, I got grabbed from behind. Before I could do anything, someone stuck a live wire to the back of my neck and my knees turned into marshmallow fluff."
Lifting up the simple braid into which she'd plaited her hair that morning, Sydney discovered two small, well-separated, red areas at the base of Terri's neck.
"Stun-gun. Go on." he encouraged, beginning to treat her burns.
"I was only fuzzy for a minute, but I guess it was enough for these three Nazis to drag me to their limo and throw me in. They kept asking me how I knew you. I didn't say anything. I think I was still knocked half loopy from the attack. When the driver p-pulled the... the cigarette lighter... all I could think was... great, two goons are practically sitting on me, and now he's gonna stink up the car... but it... it wasn't a lighter... it put out so much heat... all they had to do was get it close to my face and I started screaming..."
Anguished and ashamed at having been the cause of yet another person's pain, Sydney pulled Terri's head to his shoulder, trying to dry her tears and comfort her, but she would have none of it and resisted his attempt at consolation. "No. I can wipe my own face, Abe. What I want from you is answers, and I want them now. What have you dragged me into?"
"Terri. I can't, in good conscience..."
"Uh-uh. I can't let it slide this time, Abe. They came after me. I'm a part of this now. I need to know."
"Your life is worth more to me than an explanation that would only cause you further pain and upset..."
"Forget it. I trust you, Abe, but I've waited a long time already. Now I'm caught in the middle of something I don't understand, and that scares me. It's my life to defend, and I don't need your good conscience. I need to know what I'm facing so I can fight back."
Staring into Terri's eyes, part of Sydney's heart sank as he realized her determination not to surrender to the Centre's intimidation, even at the cost of being hurt far worse than she already had been.
"I'll make you a version of the promise I made Broots. You'll hear all I can tell you and be sure that you'll stay safe. I just can't do it right now. There's so much still to do before Broots and I are safe and free... for a while at least..."
Fatigue glazing his eyes and forcing them closed for a few brief moments, Sydney sighed heavily, then pushed most of his weariness aside, gathered his thoughts and re-focused on Terri.
Her own pain and fear subsiding, Terri finally saw how drawn and pale Sydney looked and how hard he was working to hold himself together. Kicking herself for allowing a minor incident, one that had never genuinely threatened her life, to blind her to a friend's suffering, her expression softened.
"What do you need help with?"
"Help?"
"Yeah. Help. Your fight, my fight. I'm assuming you could use another lieutenant for the duration of the war. Am I wrong?"
"No. No, you aren't wrong."
"Okay. I'm here as long as you need me, then. Answers will keep. You go get some rest. Petey and I will be fine out here."
"But..."
"Get gone, Abe. You're wrung out and that shoulder won't heal if you don't sleep. Petey will tell me what he wants to and we'll go from there."
For several more confused and doubtful moments, Sydney remained where he was, seated between his friends, gazing back and forth from Broots, who had crumpled himself as deeply as he could into a corner of the sofa, to Terri who stared fixedly at Broots, suddenly seeming to see Sydney as nothing more than an obstruction. When his companion voice spoke up briefly, he finally rose and walked back to the bedroom, still uncertain what was about to happen, but a little less worried that it would be disastrous if he weren't there.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You understand your orders?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you're prepared to carry them out?"
"I am, sir."
"Excellent. Go. If you fail me, I wouldn't advise returning... or letting me find you."
"Clearly understood, sir."
His mouth abruptly lurching into what passed for a smile on his horror of a face, Raines watched his hand-picked military underling make an exquisitely precise turn and stride from the room, then twisted in his seat and spoke to the deeply unhappy man behind him.
"He's the best. He'll fulfill his orders... whatever it takes."
"It won't work. Best or worst, noone will find either of them now. Not even him."
"Are you implying I don't know my own protégé?"
"No." Parker stated firmly, rising from his chair, "I believe I'm implying that my children won't be returning to the Centre. Therefore, plans need to be made, contingencies executed... yes. Things need to get done."
"Mister Parker..."
"Your man will fail, Raines. There's nothing he can do that I and a hundred other men couldn't. Thank you, though for the effort."
Without even a glance behind him, Mister Parker strode away from Raines and out of the room. The confusion and lethargy that he'd shaken off after injuring his hands reclaimed him suddenly in the corridor, but for a moment only. Recovering himself, he walked on, his mildly disturbed expression the only sign that anything had occurred at all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SEACOUVER:
"Hello. Lunch is served. Oh. There you are."
Looking up from the spot in the center of the floor where she sat meditating in lotus position, Parker gave her inquisitor a cursory glance then returned to her contemplations. "Let me guess. You weren't exactly thrilled with the results of this morning's exercise. It's okay. I didn't expect you to be jumping for joy. You want lunch now or not?" he repeated, waving a covered container of dark brown liquid in her direction.
Gazing at him once again, Parker rose with a litheness that Methos envied, circled him once slowly, as if he might have hidden the meal he'd promised, made a thoroughly inappropriate comment about the cup he held and walked away to drop into one of the chairs at the large table.
"Ugh, and may I also add, blech! If you don't want the shake, say so, but that really was above and beyond the call of insults. I may never be able to look at a cappuccino again."
"Get out."
"Can I assume you don't want lunch, then?"
"Lunch! That? I think I already expressed my opinion."
"Yes, this is lunch; and dinner and breakfast for that matter. You're on a cleansing fast as of this moment. For the next forty-eight hours you get no solid food, no dairy, no sugar and no salt. Pure water, fruit juices and soy only. Oh, and the vitamins. Here." he said, tossing her a small bottle, which she caught with one hand and launched back at his head. He pulled it from the air as deftly as she had, walked to her side and held it out until she surrendered and took it from his hand.
Dropping into the chair beside her, he began to speak, knowing the caring and compassion behind the words would find their way in no matter how hard she tried to block them.
"I know you understand what the liquor and the cigs are doing to you. Understanding's easy. Now you have to start caring. If you don't let all this... stuff go, you'll never heal emotionally, and that will keep you from healing physically. Right now, I know you don't give a tinker's damn about your mind or your body, but I guarantee the time will come when you do. When will you start believing you deserve to feel decent; to be strong and healthy and whole?"
"If I didn't care, I wouldn't take the pills at all..."
"You take it out of habit and because you know how bad you'll hurt if you don't. Do you really think noone's noticed what you've started taking them with by the way? Whiskey and a 'scrip? Lethal habits you're developing, love."
"I did it once..."
"That could have been plenty. You keep on this way and pretty soon whatever you're taking won't be strong enough to kill all the pain. You'll convince the doc to give you something bigger; something to really put out the fire. You'll chase it with a double shot one day, not even thinking... and it'll put you out instead. Do you really want to be an eggplant; lying in a bed with just enough gray matter left to understand everything going on around you, but not enough to speak or even open your eyes?"
Parker suddenly rose and began to wander aimlessly, as if unaware that Methos was even still in the room, finally ending up by the rear wall. Bracing against it, she slid down into a crouch, eyes on the floor, hands rubbing together absently.
"You have to take me back in there. I tried and I can't do it alone."
"Back where?" Methos demurred, stalling for time, even though he knew exactly what subject they had abruptly jumped to.
"Back into that room. I want it back on."
"The security system?"
"No. The neon "I'm an imbecile" sign on your forehead. What do you think?"
"I think I want to know what you did at the Centre before Jarod escaped. You weren't always a bounty hunter, right?"
"You did hear what I said... right?" Parker spat back at Methos.
"I heard. You know I can't do that. Now, come sit down and let's discuss your duties before finding Jarod and drinking yourself into oblivion became your life's ambitions."
Rising to her full height, Parker advanced a step back toward Methos.
"You can. You showed me how to turn it off, you can reverse the process."
"I can't, and I wouldn't even if I could. Come have your shake, love, before it gets warm. Soy shakes are really disgusting warm..."
"You hear about as well as your partner. Do it now or I'll..."
Finally deciding the situation called for something a little more drastic, Methos rose and advanced across the room until he and Parker were close enough to be dancing. He waited for her to get uncomfortable enough to back off, then repeated the move, backing her into the wall again, hands propped on the masonry on either side of her head.
"What? What will you do? I didn't shut the system down, sweetie. You did. If you can't go back and change it, then you aren't supposed to. That's why your mind's road-blocking you every time you try. You keep showing me all this anger, but you don't even believe it yourself! You put it out there for the world to see and genuflect to, but it isn't even half real, and you know it.
It's a stone wall you use to hide the fear and the desperation and the ripped up heart of a little girl who watched her world vanish in one second of brutal, callous violence and who hasn't even begun to figure out how to find it again. You've taken all your pain and disappointment and genuine rage and shoved them behind that wall for over twenty years, and now you're seeing it being pulled apart, brick by brick, faster than you can fit them back in.
The famous Parker self-control is deserting you isn't it? Suddenly you have to try... really put forth an effort to maintain that mask of disdain and who gives a flying fart in a high wind what anyone else thinks. Gets pretty tiring holding a mask in place, doesn't it? The biceps and the forearms start to twitch... then they start to tremble with the strain. Eventually you have to put it down whether you want to or not."
Dropping his hands, Methos stepped back a bit, finished his spur-of-the-moment truth tirade then walked away. "Twenty-odd years is one hell of a feat of endurance, love, but I'd say you've about run dry. That wall's coming down and your facade with it. I just pray to God you don't get crushed under one or the other... or both."
Once back in his usual chair on the far side of the long table, Methos jotted in a notebook he'd brought with him to the session and pointedly ignored Parker, who hadn't stirred from where he'd left her except to watch his progress back to his seat.
Her face frozen in an expression of disbelief and bewilderment, she simply stood on the wall, waiting for the anger to rise in her to a point where she could beat her tormentor to death or tear him apart and not feel or remember it, as she'd done once or twice before.
Though the stories had swirled around her for days after both incidents, she'd blocked them out as efficiently and ruthlessly as she'd blocked the memory of whom she'd killed and why.
When the emotion she wanted wouldn't surface at her command she tried to force it into being, pulling all her most potent rage triggers one after the other; the gullibility with which she'd fallen into Jarod's most humiliating traps, his ability to elude her no matter how close she thought she'd gotten, her father's emotionless reactions despite how much of herself she always put on the line to try and please or satisfy him.
Even her last resort, recalling visions of her mother's death, failed to act as the release Parker needed, sending her into a crying, screaming fit of frustration, pounding the wall hard enough to have created several holes had it been made of anything less than concrete, and scratching her own face and hands when she couldn't damage the wall.
When her cries alerted him to the situation, Methos ran up behind her, grabbing and securing her hands, then embraced her, crossing her arms around herself and effectively thwarting her self-destruction campaign. Holding her this way, he bent his knees and lowered himself to the floor despite how hard she continued to fight the loss of her freedom of movement. Speaking just loud enough to be heard over Parker's non-verbal expressions of terminal frustration, Methos began to try to soothe her out of the fugue state and back to reality.
"You're alright. You're alright, girl. Mother of mercy, you're strong... Stop it, love. Hurt me if you need to, but I won't let you hurt yourself. Not... an... option."
As Parker's struggle intensified, Methos began rocking her back and forth as best he could, still hoping to calm her and bring her back down with reason and quiet words. "Shhh. C'mon sweet. This can't be doing that lake of eternal fire in your belly any good. You have to listen to me."
Minutes later, instead of the slow surrender and relaxation he'd been hoping for, Parker went abruptly limp in his arms.
"Oh, no. Not what's supposed to happen, dear. Let's see..."
Turning Parker around to face him, Methos panicked at first, as her eyes were shut tight and her breathing frighteningly shallow. What he found when she opened her eyes was, all at once, the exact thing he'd been privately hoping for and, potentially, everything they all feared most. The gaze that met his was so filled with confusion, loss and heart-rending sorrow that he fought the urge to look away. Gently restoring her disheveled hair to some semblance of order, he smiled at her grimly.
{Damn. I wondered whether I could trigger a regression. I guess I can. God, I'm sorry love. I didn't mean... I wasn't trying for this. I just wanted you to face a few truths... At least I know now that the immersion has a chance of working. Well. I suppose I'd better see if I can get you out of this as well as I was able to put you in it.}
"Hello, sweetheart. Can you tell me your name?"
A shake of the head and sudden fear in her eyes was the only response he received. "No, hmm. Shall I guess? Let's see. You look like a... Molly."
When Parker began to slowly relax and ceased pulling away from him, Methos drew a deep shuddery breath of relief, let it go again, and continued. "Can you speak to me at all, hmmm?"
When it became obvious she couldn't, or wouldn't, speak, Methos reassured her once again of her safety, then rose, lifting her in his arms, amazed at how little she actually weighed compared to the suit of armor over a dozen bullet proof vests image she projected. Halfway to the bed where he intended to set her down, she realized his intended goal. Eyes widening, she began to fight him, flailing, kicking and whimpering in abject fear. Her struggle lasted only a few moments before she was unconscious in his grip a second time, her face rapidly paling. Placing her gently on the cot, Methos pulled a small handy-talkie from his pocket and activated the page feature, hoping one of the other two had theirs on.
"I'm here. What is it?"
"Jarod. I need the black leather bag under the sink in my room, a bowl of cool water and a cloth. Cool, not cold mind you. In the cell and make it a rush job alright?"
"What happened?"
"When you get here. Just do what I asked, son."
Several minutes later, Jarod appeared at the door. Methos took the satchel and bowl from him and turned back to tend to Parker.
"You're welcome in as long as you keep your voice down and vanish as soon as she shows signs of coming to. The plan calls for you two to get together, just not yet."
"What have you done?" Jarod asked, the implicit threat in his tone telling Methos just what would meet anything less than the truth.
"She fainted, but she seems to be fine. I just need to make absolutely sure."
When Parker began to stir a moment later, Methos began to try to encourage Jarod out of the room, but the younger man would not be moved. "Look. I told you the truth. Go. I'll take care of her, I swear it."
Jarod stood gazing into his eyes for so long that Methos was sure he'd intended to stay no matter what, but he eventually turned and walked back down the hall.
On his knees at Parker's side, Methos snapped open the satchel, removed a blood-pressure cuff and wrapped it around her right arm.
"Just be still for a minute, love. You're okay." he soothed, wringing out the wet cloth then laying it across her forehead. "I'm just going to check you out, alright? Take it easy."
When her blood pressure marginally met his approval, he removed the cuff, stored it again and slid the bag under the long table.
"What happened? How did I get here?"
"Shhh. Rest, now. You passed out."
"And, what, I levitated to the cot?"
"Stop. No more questions. No more fighting. You're to stay in bed for the rest of today and you're to stay quiet."
"Fighting... Hell with you. I demand to know..."
Grasping her chin firmly, he brought her gaze to his.
"Look at me. Look right in my eyes. With a B.P. of 100 over 65, you're in no shape to demand anything. You know better than anyone how close that puts you to having a needle in your arm and a plastic bag hanging over your head for the next two or three hours. A couple points lower on either number and that's exactly what you would have woken up to. Are we clear?"
He waited for her slow nod before releasing her chin and rising to his feet. Moving to where her handbag sat, he pulled her medicine from the outer pocket, selecting one out of the four or five small bottles. Stepping to the table to grab the shake he returned to her side with both items.
"Here." he said, handing her the pills while he pried the top off the drink container. Once she'd extracted a dose, he traded her for the drink, brushing off the look of utter disgust he received.
"It's soy. And chocolate."
"It's that or water. Trust me. This is better."
Once she'd downed the pills, she paused, glanced from him to the drink, then drained the glass and laid back. He replaced the cool, damp cloth on her head. She pulled it off again. He relented.
"I repeat. You're to stay in bed and you're to try and stay as calm and quiet as possible. If you need your meds, I'll be checking in every couple hours to be sure you're alright."
Moving back to a seat at the table, he slid a book out of his back pocket and began to read.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Sitting here till you fall asleep. What does it look like?"
Bewildered by his answer, Parker found herself unable to think of a response, until her eye fell on the empty glass on her night table. Grinning, she hefted one of her pillows then hurled it with deadly accuracy into Methos' face.
"Yes?"
"Strawberry next time."
Laying his book face down, he walked to her side, fluffed the pillow and slipped it under her head.
"Glad to oblige."
As he took up his reading again, he stole a brief glance at Parker and was pleased to note she had retrieved the cloth, tossed it over her eyes and was breathing slowly and regularly, though he was certain she wasn't yet asleep. He rose and left only when she was.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
