Sezione Due: Quando il gioco é finito, il re il pedone vanno nella stessa scatola... Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.

In the old days, the ease with which he slid into the seat adjacent to hers at the small table might have (ok, would have) infuriated her but curiosity had apparently taken the lead. And something else, the realization of the proximity in which the legs of two exceptionally long-legged people would be... at a table designed for two... in a country with a populace not especially known for their height. She quickly shoved that thought aside. She would not be intimidated. Another one of those old habits, apparently.

"You look well, Miss Parker. La dolce vita agrees with you."

That playful tone, those soulful eyes behind tasteful wire-frame glasses. He was gray at the temples. Perfectly, infuriatingly gray. Of course. Like some damned college professor straight out of a story in a collection of women's erotica... the lovely young graduate assistant, visiting his office late, seeking guidance and getting so much more. She almost laughed at the thought but stopped herself. She knew how easy it would be to slip back into that old banter, which both had employed so effectively to dance around the matter at hand. But the matter at hand was what in God's name he was doing here. Now. After all this time. And she wasn't in the mood for dancing.

"As do you, Jarod," coolly. "Would you like to join me for a drink while you tell me what brings you to Rome?"

A slight upturn at the corner of his mouth, a whisper of that smirk she knew all too well. "Don't mind if I do," he replied as he signaled for the waiter then ordered, in perfect unaccented Italian, ‘what the lady is having.'

Arching a brow she pressed, "So, tell me, what brings you to my little corner of the world?"

Gesturing toward the square he replied wryly, "It's quite a corner, Miss Parker. You haven't exactly retreated to parts unknown. As it happens, I have accepted a visiting professor position at the American University. The appointment doesn't start until the fall term but I had a light teaching load in the spring so I submitted my grades early and left Berkeley right after classes ended. No need to stay through finals - I'm not a big believer in tests as a measurement of achievement."

She hadn't really heard anything after ‘American University,' as in the American University a mere three minutes from her home... on foot. What the holy mother of fuck?!?!

Fifteen years ago she'd made a decision to end the game, once and for all, and doing so involved a whole lot of things that still occasionally kept her up nights, in spite of the best efforts of Dr. Keppler. It also meant making one hell of a deal with the feds that spared those she cared about at the Centre from prosecution. And all it had cost her - thanks to her cooperation and the bargaining chips she'd accumulated through Broots's skill, Angelo's gift, Sam's loyalty (for which he paid with his life, another one of the ghosts that still haunted her), and some plain old-fashioned violence - was 36 months of her life. A pittance really, given how she'd lived her life up to that point, but he had been incandescent with rage. Whether it was because she'd set everything in motion without him, he'd been powerless to control it once it was set in motion without putting himself or his family in serious jeopardy, or because at the end of the day he hadn't been able to convince her to end it on anyone's terms but her own, she wasn't sure. All she knew was that, once she was sentenced, all communication had ceased. Not a single visit, call or cryptic message as she sat there in the Federal Correctional Institution in Phoenix, AZ. (Under the circumstances the feds thought it best to house her outside of the mid-Atlantic states, just in case. The way she'd seen it, they were at least sending her someplace warm.) And not a word since. The man could really hold a grudge. And now here he was, so...

"Parker?"

"Wh... where are you staying?" a little off-balance. Damn. It.

"Temporarily, I have a room at the Villa Urbani. I assume you know it?"

"Yes, I know it, it's around the corner from my home which I assume you already knew."

That tease of a smirk again. Ah, this particular corner of hell, it was all coming back. Grasping for terra firma, "You shouldn't wait to look for a place. Vacancies get snatched up quickly, well before classes begin. I assume you'll want your wife to join you before the break is over so you can enjoy Rome together before you start work."

A flicker of something, something she recognized, crossed his eyes. "Monica will not be joining me. She's staying at the house in Berkeley. I... haven't lived there for a while."

Sydney had neglected to mention this fact in any of their recent conversations, nor for that matter had he mentioned Jarod's appointment in Rome. Note to self: strangle Sydney. There was a brief twinge of regret that she didn't keep a gun anymore, save the prehistoric shot gun that came with the Umbria house which she doubted even fired anymore. Strangling someone was hard work and she wasn't getting any younger. She'd shot the man once, who's to say she couldn't do it again?

While there had been no direct communication, for the last decade she had known exactly where Jarod was, what he was doing, and (to a lesser extent, apparently) how he was doing because she had asked and Sydney had - no doubt only after consulting with Dr. Keppler early on - told her. Not that she couldn't have found out on her own with a simple Internet search. She knew that, after falling totally off the grid during her incarceration - not even Sydney had known where he was and, to this day, still did not know where he'd been - the man who could do anything had settled in the Bay Area and settled upon classical literature and theatre, authored several brilliant articles for peer-reviewed journals (publish or perish!) followed by no less than four equally-brilliant books. Obviously, he had put to good use the wee hours he'd previously used to torment her.

She'd read everything he'd published, pondering the fact that he had settled on the humanities rather than the sciences, where one might expect a genius with a hero complex to end up. Then again, it made sense somehow that when Jarod finally dedicated his life to one thing it was the exploration of some of civilization's earliest reflections on the human condition. People had always been the biggest mystery to Jarod, and his greatest fascination.

The flicker was gone; he'd apparently rejoined her on terra firma. "Given what I do for a living it isn't exactly a stretch that I'd end up in Rome eventually."

"Around the corner from my house." Deadpan. Deadpan is good.

"Around the corner from your house," that cheeky smile finally emerging, the laugh lines around his eyes somehow making him even more handsome. Maybe there really was a lovely young graduate assistant, the reason behind his change in living arrangements and convenient if hasty retreat from the Berkeley Classics Department to a gig overseas. But that didn't sound like Jarod, at least not the Jarod she had known. And why show up virtually at her door and literally at her table? To show off?

Gesturing for the waiter he requested the check, again with an accent that suggested he was Lazio born and bred. The waiter handed the check directly to him and he paid cash. She knew there was no point in raising an objection. She wasn't in Delaware anymore. Only then did she become cognizant of the fact that it was now well and truly dark out. It had to be at least 8:30. Her traitorous stomach picked that precise moment to protest its emptiness, audibly.

"Join me for dinner?" he offered smoothly, ever the opportunist. "I've found a place I really like near the Largo di Torre Argentina. We can drop your bags in your trunk on the way."

Because of course he knew where she'd parked. He'd likely been tailing her since he arrived. She wasn't the only one holding onto old habits. If ever there was a time to get angry this would be it, but she was tired and hungry and there was that damned curiosity that would not be denied.

With a cock of her head, "You can help me carry my bags."

With that look, "I can manage all of them."

"Be my guest."

What the hell, she thought, in for a cent in for a euro.