܀

I want a rabbit but my daddy won't let me have one.

The ones that are genetically identical always find their way to each other.

܀

Your father, the Centre —manipulation is what they do. The only gift they've ever left us with is emptiness.

All those Parker graves out there go way beyond empty. Which brings me back to wondering-

Who it is you really are?

I don't know now if I really ever wanna know.

Yes. Yes, you do. The Centre wants us to believe that finding the truth is a mistake, that looking for answers about who we really are is futile, and finding any kind of---connection outside their control is wrong. I know you don't want to hear this, but you can feel it. You've been a Centre prisoner all these years, just like me. And with every discovery, you find you- you're every bit the outcast. Just like me.

Just like me.

Just like me.

Why is it the one person that I've been trained to distrust, to hate, to capture is always with me during the most difficult moments of my life?

Maybe-

Maybe that question had been answered years earlier:

The ones that are genetically identical always find their way to each other.

܀

He was roused from a drunken stupor by footsteps, the creak of door, and clatter of empty bottles. The formidable predator in all her glory and professional prowess sought and found him huddled in the corner of an untidy kitchen.

"How the hell did you find me," Jarod asked, swallowing the query with a mouthful of Booker's and wiping residual liquor from his lips with the back of a hand.

"The same way I've always found you."

"I'm assuming this isn't a social call," said Jarod, flatly. "Pray tell, Miss Parker," he cooed, "to what or should I say to whom do I owe this pleasure?"

"No clues, no calls. Freud's feathers are ruffled."

Jarod chuckled. "Ever the mother hen," He remarked dryly. "So, you've come on Sydney's behalf to retrieve me."

"I wanted to make sure you weren't in any-" Parker fell silent with alarming abruptness and after a moment hastily amended, "to shut Sydney up."

"Careful, Miss Parker," cautioned Jarod. "Someone might get the insane notion that you actually give a damn about the Centre's rat."

Parker chose to not contravene his words. Instead, she surveyed the scattered contents of the apartment. "Why are you drinking? What's happened? Is your family all right?"

Jarod offered Parker a melancholy smile that portended unpleasant developments.

"What is it," Parker asked with growing concern.

"Why are you here," Countered Jarod.

To hell with the games.

"I've been thinking."

"About," Jarod sang, lifting the bottle to his lips.

"Us," answered Parker softly.

"Oh, yes," Jarod purred. "I run. You chase. And it would appear that you've captured me, Miss Parker. Congratulations," he added, dimly. "Before you call in reinforcements, however, who—I've no doubt—will swiftly return me to the Centre there's something you should know about your father- uh your real-"

"No," Parker interrupted, brusquely. "No, Jarod. I'm not here to take you in. Or to talk about Daddy. You were right."

"Well, I am a genius," returned Jarod smugly. "I'm right about many things. Please, tell me what you're referring to."

"There has always been something more to our lives, something more than you run and I chase. That moment of weakness—"

Jarod became quite serious suddenly. He frowned deeply, stumbled to his feet, staggered. "Miss Parker," He stammered.

"I was confused," Parker continued softly, ignoring Jarod's attempts to silence her.  

"No, Miss Parker, please."

"I'm still confused about--- everything," Parker confessed with a soft, mirthless laugh. "I don't know what this is or why, but I want to know. I want-- you."

"You can't want that," Jarod argued, desperately. "No, don't," he demanded, his voice sharp and tight, when Parker's lips parted. "Don't say another word. Please, leave. Now."

"Are you-"  kidding?  Jarod, clearly, was not. Rather than vanish entirely, the smile Parker wore morphed into stunned incredulity. "I don't understand."

"Turn around," Jarod instructed, sternly. "Go home."

Parker advanced nonchalantly. "No. I have a plan, Jarod. I know what I'm--" Parker's voice dissolved into silence when Jarod retreated from her. He matched her step for step, expelling a tremulous breath when he could retreat no farther. "Jarod," Parker assured him softly, "I'm not here to take you in."

"I wish to God you were," he said gravely. "That would be preferable to this-- hell."

"Jarod, what are-" began Parker forcefully, studying Jarod's face through blue eyes tightened in evident perturbation, and instinctively reaching for him.

Jarod intercepted the touch, seized Parker's shoulders. "It can never happen. Us- what happened on that island," He added with a fierce headshake. "That can't ever happen again. This can go no further."

"Jarod—"

"Please," cried Jarod wearily, shouting her name. "The samples were tampered with. Lyle isn't your brother."

Parker's eyes flickered with a modicum of hope that, considering Jarod's behavior and words, did absolutely nothing to dispel her confusion. "Are you saying that Angelo is my brother?"

"You know that I'm not," Jarod answered softly and observed as realization, at last, touched Parker's features.

"That's impossible," murmured Parker absently. "Please, tell me that this-" Her gaze swept the room. "If this is a joke- "

"No. The truth is in a file on the table," asserted Jarod curtly, releasing her. "It's unmistakable."

"You said those same words when we were in Stone Mountain. Y- you said that either Lyle or Ang-"

"I was wrong then," Jarod said. "And I wish- God, I wish I was wrong, but I'm not. I know this is a shock and I'm very sorry about that but we're going to have to move fast. My father has been in contact with colleagues of his, men he flew with in the Air Force. We wanted to ensure your safety before we acted. He's probably on his way to your house now."

"Acted?"

"I'm going to end this madness, find our brother. In the meantime you're going to be living with Emily and Josh. You belong with your family, your real family."

"No," Insisted Parker. "Stop this, Jarod."

"It's the truth. You are family. You're my sister."

"Don't say that," Parker tearfully demanded.

The sooner you come to terms with this, accept it, the easier it'll be for you, for all of us. You should be safe in your home until my--our," amended Jarod softly, "father arrives for you. This- Miss Parker, this is goodbye."

Goodbye. It wasn't a word they often used; spoken by Jarod the word seemed entirely foreign to Parker, echoed its permanence. She preferred the sound of a dial tone in her ear, the clatter and clanking and Jarod's occasional obscenity as the mobile collided with other objects in his haste to angrily end telephone conversations.

Those were all preferable to goodbye. Her heart crumbled beneath the weight of the word.

Jarod approached her tentatively.

"Don't- please don't cry," He said, despondently, pushing away a tear gently,  blinking back his own. Instinctively, he drew her into his arms—their first and final embrace as adults.

They remained frozen for several moments, locked in their inescapable hell.

All the years, the questions, and searching-- only to find the answers too difficult to accept.

Jarod closed his eyes and wept for chances lost.

Temptation, inexplicably, battled logic; the latter was falling far behind.

"I beg you," Jarod pleaded with Parker. "Please, leave me now. Go before it's too late."

Parker, instead, sidled closer, close enough to feel the sparks between them. She craved the fire's burn, was beckoned closer still.

"No," Murmured Jarod, his voice strained and tremulous, the command directed not at Parker, but at himself. Jarod wouldn't regret his disobedience, the absence of discipline, propriety's fierce and glorious death.

His lips collided with hers in a hungry, demanding kiss that ignited every forbidden passion.

Jarod unceremoniously hoisted Parker into his arms and, acting on blinding impulse, lifted her skirt. Bracing himself against the wall that stood behind Parker he snatched aside black panties and entered her.

Jarod inhaled Parker's sharp gasp, groaned when her teeth sank into his lips.

Surrender burned white hot, tasted bittersweet; the blaze roared through their bodies, their condemned hearts.

Moral atrophy felt strangely righteous.

There was an abject honesty in the collapse of convention, a brilliant truth in the lies they had been told.

Logic defied logic; the pieces fit—even if they weren't supposed to.

Tangled together, neither felt a shred of compunction.

They felt nothing-- except each other; the pair disregarded yesterdays, tomorrows, wrong, right. They shut out the world and everyone in it, devoured each other as a covetous flame devours oxygen. 

There were no half measures—not the first time or the next. 

If we're going to burn at all, then, by God, we're going to burn in the hottest of flames.

܀

I know you've suffered
But I don't want you to hide
It's cold and loveless
I won't let you be denied

Soothing
I'll make you feel pure
Trust me
You can be sure

You trick your lovers
That you're wicked and divine
You may be a sinner
But your innocence is mine

I want to reconcile the violence in your heart
I want to recognize your beauty's not just a mask
I want to exorcise the demons from your past
I want to satisfy the undisclosed desires in your heart

—Undisclosed Desires

Muse