Chapter 3 - Looking In The Mirror

The smells of a well-cooked meal finally wended their way up the stairs and under locked bedroom doors, making Jarod's stomach growl unhappily. He'd been sprawled on the bed, staring at the ceiling for over an hour trying to figure out just what it was that he was missing. Sydney had told him he had all the pieces, and to put it together for himself. Parker had told him 'you won't forgive him, you refuse to trust him — and that's why you've lost him.' Was that the key — forgiveness and trust?

For over thirty years, Sydney had broken every trust Jarod had ever attempted to build — at least, Jarod's every attempt to build an emotional bond between them. He knew that there was an explanation, Sydney had offered it often enough since his escape: had he ever let slip that he and Jarod were forging emotional attachments to each other, the Centre would have used those bonds against them both. And for all that it sounded like a mere excuse, Jarod knew the Centre fully capable and willing to do just that. And so Sydney's pushing Jarod away emotionally HAD been a form of protection — weak and ineffective as it turned out — and a way to keep them together over the years that had worked despite the illogic behind it.

And as for all of the people harmed by his SIMs, he'd heard that argument before as well. The gun is not to blame for hurting a man — although that is what a gun was created to do originally — no, the blame is ultimately borne by the one who aims the gun and pulls the trigger. His work HAD held the potential to both help and hinder — it had been the Centre, and behind them the Triumvirate, who had made the decision as to which use was more profitable. Sydney had had no part in that whatsoever. He'd been a pawn in their hands, manipulated and lied to and eventually blackmailed and threatened into cooperating. The few times he'd stood up to his superiors on Jarod's behalf, or out of pure outrage, he had ended up terribly hurt. Jarod had always judged him a weak man for not walking out or refusing to cooperate. For the first time he took the time to ponder the possibility that it might take an incredibly strong man to stand knee deep and swimming in evil and try to undermine it one iota at a time in order to protect one weaker than himself. And for the first time, he wasn't sure which judgment was the more real.

Then there was that fantastic epiphany that Parker had given him about forgiveness and forgetting. To him, the two had always been inextricably linked — when one forgave a wrong, one then forgot about it as the next step. What if forgetting WASN'T necessarily part of the process? What if forgiving was merely a deliberate decision to stop assigning blame and nothing more?

All of these questions milled around in his brain, none of which would be answered with him hiding out in the bedroom — all of them needed Sydney's input, or at the very least Miss Parker's. And he was hungry he decided when his stomach growled again a little louder this time. From the smells sneaking in under the door, it seemed that somebody had finished fixing the meal that he had started.

Not exactly sure what he would be walking into, he opened his door and walked down the stairs and paused at the edge of the kitchen to see what was going on. Sydney and Miss Parker were sitting at the small kitchen table, talking softly between them. The hard edge that had characterized Miss Parker's voice for so long was missing, and her facial expressions were soft and almost child-like. Sydney's gaze was filled with an open fondness and warmth that Jarod had always wanted to see aimed in his direction.

"May I join you?" he asked cautiously, bringing both pairs of eyes to him. Miss Parker just nodded and gestured for him to take a seat, while Sydney's expression immediately closed down and grew cold. He made his way to the table and sat down opposite his former mentor, who had fallen very silent and now refused to look at him. The air of hostility and rejection from across the table took the edge from his hunger, and he helped himself to only a very small portion of the casserole and then spent more time pushing the food around on his plate than moving it into his mouth. Finally he could stand the silent treatment no longer. "At least tell me what I've done wrong."

Sydney threw his utensil down on the plate. "I think I'm going to go for a walk on the shore, Parker," he announced, pointedly ignoring Jarod entirely. "I'll be back in a while. I need some air." He rose, carried his plate to the sink, and walked out the back door without another word.

Jarod felt like he'd been kicked in the stomach, and turned hurt and confused eyes to Miss Parker, who simply shook her head at him and bent to finish her own food. "What did I do NOW?" he demanded. "I feel like I'm in a place where no matter how hard I try, nothing I can do will be right."

"You're still looking for others to give you your answers, Jarod," she told him with a note of frustration. "You're not offering anything of yourself, but demanding everything from Sydney at a time when he has very little to offer." She carefully cleaned the last bits of food from her plate. "Incidentally, we've talked it over — and we think we'll spend the night here, and then move on in the morning."

"Parker," Jarod looked up in distress. "No…"

"If we stay, we'll only make you more miserable. Sydney wants to get away as soon as possible, to save us all grief in the end. You can go back to your Pretend and help all those people after all."

"But I want to help…"

"Then DO something, Jarod," Miss Parker snapped at him tiredly. "Ask yourself just how much you'd be willing to do to make things right — to what lengths you'd be willing to go — and then make things happen. Because as long as you insist on remaining in the driver's seat on this, you'll get nowhere."

"What do you mean?" He had a feeling she was on the verge of telling him what he needed to know. He put a hand on her arm. "Please, Parker… talk to me."

She stared at him, dumbfounded. "God, you're being dense — and I honestly can't tell if it's deliberate or not."

"Will you PLEASE try to make sense?" he sighed in frustration.

She sighed. "OK. I'll take you through this step by step — but only this once. After this, if you're still confused, then we're outta here in the morning. First — and think before you answer — what is it that you REALLY want?"

"I want…" Jarod started, then stopped when putting his actual desire into words clearly demonstrated how unfocused his idea of what he wanted truly was. "I want… things to be the way they used to be, to be able to talk to him again — to have him not turn away."

"And why does he turn away?"

"Because… he's angry at me. I can't forgive him."

"Can't — or won't?"

He stared at her for a long moment, not exactly sure how to answer that. "I'm not sure," he finally admitted. "I want to, but…"

"What's stopping you?"

"I can't forget all the people who died because of the work he made me do." The mere thought was almost more than he could bear entertaining for long.

"Who killed those people, Jarod — really?"

He nodded. This part he knew. "The Centre — and the people they sold my work to."

"But if it was the Centre and these others who killed those people, why does remembering those people keep you from forgiving Sydney? By your own admission, Sydney didn't kill those people — he had no part in that." She leaned her chin into her hand.

"But he was the one directing my work," Jarod complained.

"Ah. So even though he didn't know how the work was being used for the most part, and even though he had no say in selling the work or choosing the buyers, you can't or won't forgive him because of his role in those people's deaths? HE was the one that deliberately used your work in a destructive way and so killed those people?"

"No, but…"

"But what, Jarod?"

She had him. There was no mitigating factor to lean on. Miss Parker waited for the 'but' for a while. Then, "Let's go back to you can't forgive Sydney because you can't forget all the victims of your work," she said and watched him sigh as he realized she was taking him off a hook of his own baiting. "Why do you think you would have to forget the victims to forgive Sydney?"

"Because," he started again and again tripped over the lack of focus for his reasoning. He frowned as he realized that he'd never before thought this through this succinctly, this carefully. He'd always approached the issue emotionally, not rationally — and in so doing, let his anger and hurt cloud his perspective. "Isn't the saying always 'forgive and forget'?"

"That's a cliché and clichés don't always apply," she replied. "Sometimes forgetting is impossible — or not even wise. I told you that the two aren't the same process. Given that, answer the question again. Why, if you don't have to forget the victims, are you unwilling or unable to forgive Sydney?" He gazed long into her eyes, then looked down at his food when he realized that the answer wasn't as simple as he'd always thought it was. "Fine — here's a final line of questions for you." He looked up again, now almost shell-shocked. "Say that for some strange reason you suddenly find it possible to forgive him. Is that suddenly going to change his attitude towards you?"

"Probably not," he replied sourly.

"What else will it take to make things right? What will be needed to get him to talk to you — to stop turning away?"

"I'll have to apologize myself… for being so blind and pig-headed… for taking him for granted…" he mentioned, knowing that to be at the very top of the list of things that needed doing.

"And…?"

He stared at her dumbly. "I don't know," he admitted, startled that he somehow wasn't wrapping his mind around this at all well.

She sighed. "I'll give you this little hint: I didn't make any progress with him either until I'd not only apologized, but asked HIM what it would take to make things right between US again — and then met his request. HE'S the one who has turned his back on you now — so the job of setting conditions for fixing things is HIS, not yours. He needs you to let him set his boundaries a little."

Jarod stared at her with his mouth open. "And that's why you let him go," he stammered finally, understanding at last.

"Exactly. You have to find out what it is that Sydney needs from you besides your forgiveness and your apology for your behavior — and then the responsibility for filling that need is yours, not his. You need to decide just how much you'd be willing to give or do to make things right again. The fact is that unless you become as willing to cooperate with him as you've expected him to cooperate with you all this time, you'll just be setting yourself up to fail just as efficiently as you set him up to fail years ago." She laid her hands flat on the table and pushed herself to her feet. "I'll be back in a little later to clean up the kitchen — you cooked…"

"You did too…" he interrupted. "I'll clean tonight."

She picked up and carried her plate to the sink. "Fair enough. I'll be outside with Sydney, and we'll be back after a while." She gazed at him. "I think you have plenty to work through now."

Jarod nodded and looked down at his food, which he continued to push aimlessly around his plate. He never even heard the back screen door slam when she left.

oOoOo

She found Sydney standing on the shore, where he'd said he'd be, looking out over the darkened water. She walked up next to him and merely pressed her arm against his, savoring the shared warmth. "You aren't thinking of just walking out into the water and disappearing that way, are you?" she asked cautiously.

"No, at least, not at the moment," he shook his head. "It makes a big difference to me to know that I'm not completely alone in the world after all."

"I'm so sorry…" she started.

"Stop that." He put his arm around her shoulder gently. "I didn't say that to make you feel badly again."

"I know — but I feel badly anyway," she countered, leaning and knowing how close she had come to losing this. How long it had been that she'd wanted someone to know her for who she was and care for her anyway — and how blind she'd been to the one who'd been doing so all along. "What I said to you was inexcusable."

"It's in the past now, Parker. Let it go." He pulled her along as he began to amble along the water's edge, feeling her finally match her step to his. "We have to figure out where we go from here, not beat ourselves up with our past continually."

"We'll have to ditch the Boxster fairly soon," Miss Parker mused after a long pause. "They'll be looking for it as soon as they figure out that I was the one..."

"We'll need a vehicle, though…" he commented quietly.

There was another long, comfortable period where the only sound to be heard was that of the water washing the shore. "I only have thirteen hundred or so left from my big withdrawal just before I left Delaware," she informed him ruefully.

He nodded thoughtfully. "That will have to do, for now…"

"I'm scared, Sydney," she said suddenly with a shiver. "I don't want to go back, but I don't know how to keep us safe."

The arm about her shoulder tightened. "We have to fade into the background, Parker — we have to become part of the scenery. They won't find us if we don't call attention to ourselves."

"They'll be looking for the two of us together, you know…"

"I know," he sighed, "but I don't think either of us has what it takes to survive alone right now. I know I've had enough of that to last me the rest of my life."

"I didn't knock you out and drag you half-way across the continent just to walk away from you either," she leaned into him briefly. "I'm afraid you're stuck with me for the time being."

Sydney chuckled. "I can think of worse fates than that…"

"I don't know about that," she smiled against his shoulder. "I can be pretty difficult to put up with."

"I think I'm very aware of your capabilities in that respect, Parker," he reminded her gently.

"Do me a favor?"

"What's that?"

"Next time, get mad at me — yell at me. Do SOMEthing to let me know when I go over the top." She leaned harder. "Nobody ever told me where the limits were. You tried every once in a while — I KNOW you tried — but back then, I wasn't hearing you. But now I want… I need to know." She paused. "I never want to hurt you like that again."

"I've never been much of one to yell when I get angry," he told her truthfully, "but I will try to find a way to tell you when you're pushing the envelope before things get out of hand." They walked along slowly for a while. "But you have to do something for me too."

"What's that?"

"Don't let me get too full of myself, or psychoanalyze everything under the sun." He looked out over the water ruefully. "After living an entire lifetime doing little but psychoanalyzing everyone and everything around me, I'm afraid it has become a rather bad habit."

"That sounds like a fair trade," she agreed easily. They walked along the water's edge in comfortable silence for another long moment. "I wish we'd tried talking — REALLY talking — a long time ago," she said wistfully.

"We're talking now, Parker," he replied gently. "That's good enough for me. No more looking backwards."

"You'll have to keep reminding me for a while…"

He squeezed her shoulder again. "I can do that…"

oOoOo

Jarod was still sitting at the kitchen table when the two walked up the back porch steps, although the kitchen was spotless. The Pretender looked up and watched as Sydney's expression once more hardened and closed down as he came through the back door and saw his former protégé still in the room — and Jarod swallowed hard and took a deep breath. "Sydney, can I talk to you for a minute? Please?"

"I have nothing to say to you," Sydney snapped and began moving towards the door leading to the front of the house and the stairs.

"You don't have to say anything, just listen." Jarod shot a pleading look at Miss Parker. "Please, for God's sake, can't you just listen for a little bit?"

"It's OK, Syd," Miss Parker put a gentle hand on her friend's arm and moved carefully past him. "I think you should let him talk and hear what he needs to say. At least give him a chance. As for me, I need to sleep myself out yet — so I'll see you in the morning." She leaned up to brush a gentle kiss across his grizzled cheek.

Jarod watched, feeling left out again, when Sydney's expression softened as the older man returned the caress and then followed her exit from the kitchen with his eyes. Then, his face hardening again, Sydney turned. "Start talking."

"Sit, please." Jarod rose and pulled a chair out to invite his former mentor to take a seat. Sydney shot Jarod a distrustful glare, then slowly moved into the chair. "Can I get you some tea?" The Pretender stepped quickly to the stove, where he had the teapot already prepared and two mugs ready. He brought them all back to the table and poured the tea without waiting for an answer.

"Quit stalling and say what you have to say," Sydney growled finally.

Jarod fidgeted with his tea mug, working up the nerve to begin, then took a deep breath. "I've been thinking…" he began, then glanced up into his mentor's face guiltily. "I haven't been very fair to you. I've been… selfish in my perspective, not trying to understand where you were coming from. And…" he shot him another guilty glance, "it took Parker to put all the questions into the same bin so that I could see the mistakes I've been making clearly."

He paused, and suddenly realized that Sydney was still sitting at the table, listening. It was a tiny opening — and there was no room for error if he was going to make the best of it. "I was wrong… Sydney… I think I heaped all the blame for everything that had happened to me in my life on you because you were the only one I actually could touch or talk to. You were the convenient target — even if you weren't the right one all the time. It wasn't fair, and it wasn't right, and I'm sorry I did it. You weren't the one who sold my work to people who would use it to hurt others, and I was wrong to blame you for that. Some of the things you made me do…" He looked up, and found the chestnut eyes of his mentor closed. "Some of what you did had no excuse — but it's done now and can't be undone. You had your reasons, and I can even understand some of them, if I try hard enough. I know you, though, and if I were honest with myself, I'd know you weren't ever deliberately trying to hurt me. I was wrong to try to blame you for that too."

"I hope it's not too late, but I want you to know that I finally figured out what forgiveness is about and where it comes from. I thought it meant to forget, and that to forgive you I'd have to forget all the people that were hurt by the work you had me do. Parker set me straight on that one too." He looked up again and found Sydney watching him with extreme wariness. "I was wrong not to forgive you when you asked it of me — and I was even more wrong to ask you to tell me things that you knew nothing about as a part of that. All these years, blaming you hasn't done me any good — because for as long as I could blame you I could blame myself and make myself miserable, and then blame THAT on you too. I don't want to be miserable anymore. I'm tired of blaming you for everything — especially now that I know how unfair that is. You asked for my forgiveness — it's yours."

"Are you done?" Sydney asked blandly. This was a huge admission from his protégé — obviously Jarod had done a great deal of soul-searching to come up with this, and done so more or less on his own too. But still…

"No, I'm not done." Jarod knew now why Parker had asked him that final line of questions — and this was where things would get difficult. "I've taken you for granted, and used you — and I'm sorry for that too. I want…" Finally he looked Sydney directly in the eye, letting his sincere remorse show. "I want to know what I'd have to do to make it up to you. I don't want this… horrible… gulf between us. I miss you, Sydney…"

"You created this situation all by yourself," Sydney informed him without any expression in his voice at all. "All I did was finally let you push me away and take one step more myself. This IS what you wanted."

"Maybe so, but I was wrong," Jarod said in a shaky voice. "I wasn't thinking things through — didn't see that by doing what I did that I was hurting myself as much if not more than I was hurting you. I…" He drew in another deep breath. "I can't take back what I've said over the years, but I'd like a chance to make amends."

"That was never enough for you," the Belgian said archly. "I helped you uncover facts about your parents, and still you wouldn't allow that to even begin to make amends — even though that was what you demanded of me. Why should I be any less discriminating than you've been all this time?"

"Because you know better than to make that kind of mistake?" Jarod answered hopefully.

"That's a cop-out, and you know it," Sydney snapped at him. "You're still looking for a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card, and I'm fresh out." He rose, never having touched his tea. "And now, if you'll excuse me…" He turned for the door again.

"Sydney — wait!" Jarod's voice was breaking. "You're right — even when you did as I asked, I wasn't satisfied. All I knew was that I hurt and wanted to hurt you back — and look what it's gotten me: nothing. I was a fool, and I was wrong. Please… I'll do whatever you ask. Just… tell me what it would take to make things right again."

The psychiatrist paused halfway to the door and then turned, his expression no longer hard and cold but rather deeply saddened and defeated. "I honestly don't know that there is anything you can do to make it right again, Jarod — anymore than I know that there's anything I can do to make amends for all the years of pain I caused you. Maybe there is a certain point past which no amends can be made. You and I have made a lifetime's work of hurting each other — two lifetimes' worth. We passed that point of no return long ago."

Jarod's face was one of pure devastation. "I don't want to lose you."

Sydney shook his head. "We already lost each other, Jarod — a long time ago. I do appreciate all the soul-searching you've done, don't get me wrong. If this were another time and another place, I could forgive you, you could forgive me, and we could have a perfect world. But as it is…" He turned away.

"I can't accept that," Jarod cried softly. "There has to be some way that we can work around or through this. Why can't we… why can't we both just set our grievances aside and start fresh?"

"What?" Sydney turned to face him again, startled.

"I mean it. We don't have to forget everything that's happened — I honestly don't think either of us could — but we don't have to let all the hurt stand between us if we don't want it to, do we?" Jarod's eyes glittered — he had to reach his mentor somehow, before the man walked out of his life in such a way that he'd never come back again.

Sydney closed his eyes. He could feel the younger man's anguish reaching out to him, and knew that Jarod must have been turning over every rock in his soul to come to the point where he could make the kinds of admissions he had. His protégé had come a very long way in a very short amount of time. And what Jarod was suggesting was precisely what he and Miss Parker had just done. The difference — a rather significant one — lay in the magnitude of what would be set aside and the fact that the hurt in this case was a mutual one.

"Jarod," he sighed, then relented and went back to his seat. "What you're suggesting IS possible — but it's far more difficult in application than it sounds. Blame is a game of habit — we learn to think of things in a certain light. Turning our very perspectives around one hundred and eighty degrees isn't something… You have blamed me for everything from a lost childhood to never having had ice cream — every time you went through anything that was ever difficult or painful, every time you got angry at the Centre, you laid the blame for it at my doorstep. It will take a great deal of effort for you to abandon that perspective."

"But it's worth a try, isn't it?" the Pretender pleaded. He finally took a chance and reached out to put a hand on Sydney's forearm as it lay against the table. "I won't accept that we can't mend things between us somehow. If not this, then tell me what you want from me! I'll do anything…"

"I know you would. But Jarod, in the end, there is something you've wanted from me for years — something that you still want — that I can never give you. I can never be who you want me to be," Sydney told him sadly. "I'm not your father, no matter how much you've tried to make me into one over the years. The fact is that you have a family of your own. You don't need me anymore to…"

"Yes, I do. I need you more than you think — and more than I've wanted to admit to myself lately," Jarod said, feeling the truth of his statement to the very bottom of his soul. "Even though you've always tried to distance yourself, you were still the closest I came to having a family for most of my life. And as I try to put those years in perspective, I can't turn my back on how important you were to me all that time — and still are." His dark eyes were frantic. "How can I ever hope to put together a family with people I hardly know when I can't hold it together with the one person I've known best all my life — with you?" He could see he was at least making Sydney think. "Please, Sydney — let me at least try!"

Sydney sighed. Jarod was trying so hard… It was so hard to say 'no' — it always had been hard to say 'no' to him — and he hadn't said 'no' to Miss Parker's anguished plea in the end. "What do you want of me?" he asked finally, knowing he could never walk away now — that he'd never really wanted to in the first place.

"Just a chance — just a little time — the space to see if we both can start over." Jarod was hanging onto Sydney's arm with every bit of strength he had now. "Don't leave in the morning. Stay. It's quiet here — the Centre has no idea this place even exists. The nearest neighbor is over a mile east of here. You and Parker will be safe here." He added his other hand to Sydney's arm. "Please. Let me try."

Tired beyond belief, Sydney nodded agreement and closed his eyes as Jarod laid his head down on his hands in relief. "You two are very persistent and stubborn people," he commented wryly. "In so many ways, you've both kept me at arm's length for years — and yet the moment I gave up trying to get close and tried to move further away, you both grabbed hold and hung on and wouldn't let me go."

"I told you in the car. We care. You are important to us." Jarod looked up into Sydney's face, his gaze piercing and sincere. "You are… our family."

"So it would seem," Sydney laid his free hand on Jarod's dark head, finally accepting that out of the depths of despair, this part of his life had suddenly been returned to him as well. "So it would seem."

oOoOo

When Miss Parker finally rose the next morning, she could smell the scent of fresh coffee wafting up the staircase from the kitchen below. She threw back the heavy covers that had protected her nearly nude body from the nighttime chill and quickly dressed herself in clothing she'd been wearing already for two days longer than she should have. She'd have to drive into Vermilion soon and see about getting herself the beginnings of a new wardrobe, she decided. She padded across the cold linoleum in her bare feet, unwilling to slip into high heels so early in the morning on a day she didn't have to go in to work.

A pause by Sydney's door assured her that the good doctor was still sawing logs noisily, and she smiled to herself as she slipped silently down the stairs. She hadn't heard any loud or angry voices after she'd left the two men alone in the kitchen the night before — with any luck, that meant that they were at least speaking to each other in a civilized manner sometime before they turned in. She'd have to ask Jarod what had gone on.

"Jar…" There was nobody in the kitchen. The coffeemaker sat on the counter warming a relatively full pot of coffee. A toaster had been brought out along with a loaf of fresh bread and a stick of butter to provide a breakfast of sorts that was far more nutritious than she expected Pez-Boy normally served. But there was no sign of the Pretender until she heard a muttered curse from outside. Miss Parker poured herself a cup of coffee — something she would have had a hard time waking up completely without, especially after the long, hard drive — and walked to the back door to peer out into the yard.

Her Boxster was sitting up on blocks in the middle of the drive, with a long pair of legs protruding out from underneath that belonged to the lost Pretender. Cupping her mug of coffee close to her chest on the brisk morning, she pushed through the screen to lean against a porch post. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

The legs jerked, and there was a thud and a slightly louder "Ow!" — and then Jarod was scuttling out from beneath her car, already covered with dust and oil stains on his forehead. "It's Monday," he told her, pointing out the obvious, "and I decided to make sure that there weren't any electronics hidden in your car that the Centre could just turn on and tune in to find out where you'd gotten off to." He was digging in his jeans pocket and then dragging out two fairly small devices. "So far I've found a listening device in the carpet of the floorboard under the driver's seat, and a tracking device inside the wheel well for the spare tire." He dropped the two little gizmos to the ground and stomped on them hard, sending small parts flying in all directions. "Haven't gotten into the engine compartment yet — thought I'd check out the undercarriage first."

Miss Parker frowned — she didn't even want to know where he'd gotten the keys to move the car. "Son of a bitch!" she reacted to the news of all the bugs and tracking devices he'd found.

"Yeah," he answered, wiping the perspiration from his forehead onto a forearm. "And since you two are staying…"

"What do you mean, we're staying?"

"Sydney agreed to it last night." Jarod's voice was quietly contented. "You don't have to worry about getting behind the steering wheel and driving again for a while. So, since you're staying, I decided to make SURE the Centre never finds out about this place. Your car and your clothing — both of you — are the only things that might have been bugged."

"Our guns too," she mumbled, remembering a seminar she'd attended where Centre R&D had spoken of the ability to hide devices within gun butts. "I'll tear them apart after I've eaten. But you said Sydney agreed…?"

"Yeah." Jarod gazed at her. "You were right. I apologized, I talked my way all the way around what I'd done wrong, how badly it had messed things up, and how sorry I was —but in the end, I had to be willing to do whatever he wanted."

"And the verdict was…"

Jarod walked over to where his own coffee mug had been placed safely out of way on the porch railing and took a deep drink. "We're going to give ourselves just a little bit of time — to see if we can just set aside all our grievances and start over fresh."

"I'm surprised," she admitted frankly. "I have a feeling that your unwillingness to forgive has been weighing very heavily on him for a very long time. You must have really outdone yourself in the defense department to get him to give you a second chance."

"I'm not saying that I didn't deserve to have him turn on me like that," he replied, walking over to lean on the banister to the back steps just beyond where she was leaning against the support post. "I deserved every little bit of his anger. I have a sneaky hunch that his finally turning his back on me and refusing to have a thing to do with me was probably the only thing that would have made me wake up to how stupid I'd been behaving all this time."

Miss Parker thought for a moment, then patted her jacket pocket and pulled out the note that she'd found at Sydney's. "For what it's worth, THIS was what got me," she said, handing it to him. "I think you should read it too."

Jarod gazed at her, struck by the sense that she was sharing something intensely personal and precious, and then took the note from her to start reading. Miss Parker could tell when he'd reached the part in Sydney's letter that mentioned him by name, for the Pretender suddenly turned himself away from her and dropped the hand with the letter in it to stare out across the lake for a long moment. Finally he sniffed and raised his hand again to finish reading. He couldn't look her in the eye as he returned the letter. "Thanks. You're right, I needed to see it."

"I don't know about you," she said, folding the letter carefully and slipping it back into her pocket, "but I don't ever want him to doubt that I feel as close to him as he's felt to me all these years. I just wish…"

"I know," Jarod said quickly, knowing exactly what it was that she wished. It was the same thing that he wished: that Sydney had just given some sign of the esteem he held them in, some indication that he had indeed felt an emotional attachment. The Pretender blinked hard against tears that threatened, lifting his face to the morning sun, and then turned back to the car. "I need to finish this before too much more time goes by," he told her brusquely, to hide his emotional vulnerability. "And we'll need to decide just how and where we get rid of it. They'll be looking for a black Boxster for sure now."

"How long do you think we can stay here safely?" It was an important question, now that evidently he'd talked Sydney into stopping running — at least for the time being.

"Once I make sure this thing's clean and that neither you nor Sydney have anything on you, a week, maybe two. My friend — the man who owns the place — is on vacation in Spain this time of year, but he'll be back about two weeks from now." Jarod was back on his back on the piece of cardboard that he'd thrown down to protect his clothing from the sharp edges of the gravel. "We have a little time to decompress before we need to discuss just where we go next." He gave her a sharp look before disappearing under the belly of her car, and his voice sounded slightly pinched as he exerted himself to move. "And we'll need to discuss ways in which to change our appearance. The Centre will be looking for you two looking and acting like yourselves — not three of us looking decidedly differently."

"What about your Pretend?"

"What about it?"

"Can you go back and finish it?"

The long legs pushed the body a little further under the car while Jarod grunted with effort. "Damn! That's the second tracking device, Parker. I'd say that they haven't trusted you for a while. This one's newer than the last one. I'll be my bottom dollar that they either forgot about the other one or added this one to it because its range was greater — and you know as well as I do how often the Centre just forgets things..."

Miss Parker saw the little device land in the gravel not far from the steps, and she put her coffee mug down on the porch, walked down the steps and moved the tracking device to one of the flagstones. She then walked gingerly in her still-bare feet across the gravel of the drive over to the Boxster, pulled a crowbar from the still-open trunk, and then back to the flagstone where she used it to smash the device. "So it seems," she agreed, leaning the crowbar against the lower step and sitting down to finish her coffee. "About that Pretend…"

"No, Parker, I can't go back. So much of what I do on a Pretend is time-sensitive." The legs pushed again, and Jarod grunted again. "Once I knew that my priorities were going to call me away before I could finish things, I dumped my suspicions on a local cop, along with the evidence I'd gathered so far. With any luck, the guy can figure things out on his own." The legs started scrabbling again, and soon Jarod appeared from beneath the car. "That's it — except for the engine compartment."

She smiled at him, all covered in dust and oil smudges — and then she started to chuckle.

"What's so funny?"

The chortle grew louder, and she pointed to his face. "I never imagined I'd see a bonafide, documented genius looking just like any other grease monkey climbing out from under my car."

Jarod got to his feet and started walking very deliberately in her direction after taking a forefinger and wiping some of the excess grease from a particularly thick smudge on his forearm. "I'll give you grease monkey…"

"Jarod! Stop!" she shrieked and pushed to her feet to climb the steps again. She put the porch support post between them. "These are the only clothes I have until I can go shopping – now behave yourself!"

"Apologize for calling me a grease monkey…"

"What I CALLED you was a bonafide, documented genius, Wonder-Boy. I just said you LOOKED like an ordinary grease monkey." She chuckled and then gave another low shriek and swatted at him when he thrust his oil-smudged finger at her. "Stop that!"

Jarod finally relented, wiping the oil on his dusty jeans and chuckling heartily. "I've missed this."

"What?"

"Playing with you," he answered, his smile warm, "and having you play along too. I've missed my best friend, Parker."

She gazed at him, knowing exactly what he meant, and then lowered her gaze and cleared her throat self-consciously. "Yeah, well, I think I'm going to go in and see what, besides toast, you've got for breakfast. Sydney's been running on little or nothing for a while, and I'll bet he's going to be hungrier for something other than just toast."

Jarod watched her walk back towards the kitchen door, smiling when he noticed that her walk was a deliberate sashay with a mischievous glance backwards over her shoulder at him, and then turned back to the Boxster. Getting it down off of the blocks would take a little doing, but it would keep his mind occupied with something other than the fascinating idea that he'd suddenly found his friend again – after so many years and so much grief between them. The most important thing was to make sure they were safe now from electronic surveillance from the Centre – anything else would have to wait until that was assured.

Miss Parker heard the screen door slam and gave a slight frown. Yes, she remembered telling Jarod that they needed to set aside their bickering in order to help Syd get his emotional feet under him again without chaos reigning between them, but this wash of warm feelings was unexpected. She had to admit that their brief horseplay had been a refreshing return to the friendship that they'd enjoyed many years ago, but that was where it ended – it had to. Life was far too complicated with putting together a new and closer relationship with Sydney without having to juggle an amorphous feeling of goodwill and… whatever… with a lab rat.

Wasn't it?

She pulled open the refrigerator door and bent to study the contents unsure that she'd managed to come to any conclusions. First things first – and making breakfast seemed like a good place to start. Figuring out where she stood – or wanted to stand – with Jarod could wait until later.

By the time she'd found the eggs and butter and had a skilletful of scrambled eggs almost finished, she heard shuffling behind her. "What time is it?" Sydney asked in a gruff voice that said clearly that he'd not been vertical for long.

"Almost nine-thirty," she answered after a quick glance at her watch. "I'm glad you slept in, though. You needed it." She jerked her head in the direction of the coffeepot. "Liquid ignition is over there. Better help yourself before I drain the pot."

"Where's Jarod?"

This time she jerked her head towards the door. "Out there, disassembling my car in search of listening and tracking devices. He'd found three of them by the time I came back in."

"Did he tell you about our not leaving today like we'd planned?"

"Uh-huh," she nodded and moved with the skillet to divide the eggs between three plates. "So I guess you're stuck with both of us now."

"It seems that way," Sydney replied, reaching around her for her coffee mug so that he could refill it.

"Here," she handed him his plate, then picked up the two others and carried them to the table. "You sit down and begin to eat before the eggs get cold. I'll see if Jarod's almost finished."

"Parker…"

"What?" She looked down at him quizzically.

"You don't mind staying?" Sydney asked carefully. "I mean, you and I HAD decided…"

She had already started shaking her head. "I only went along with that when it seemed that you and Jarod wouldn't be able to work out your differences. To be honest, I'm just as glad I don't have to look at the inside of a car for a day or so – or until you two decide you can't stand to be around me wearing the same clothes day in and day out and Jarod takes me shopping." She put a hand down onto his shoulder. "I don't mind, Syd."

He patted her hand on his shoulder, finding it a little strange but not unpleasant to have her showing at least a little consideration and open friendship for him for a change. They had all been so tired the day before – and emotions had been running rather high. Many things had been said – only time would tell whether either of those two meant what they'd told him. Still, that hand at his shoulder told him that whatever had transpired the evening before hadn't been entirely illusion.

Or, at least, stood a chance of lasting until they heard of what he'd been forced to do before he'd left the Centre for home that last day.

After that, all bets were off.