The Damage Done

Utter silence reigned in Pete's office for several beats, as father and daughter, face-to-face for the first time since before her mother's death, stared into each other's eyes.

Then Rose's face slowly crumpled, fresh tears slipping down her cheeks, and she whispered brokenly, "Daddy?"

Pete's own face twisted in response, the hand holding her hood balling into a sudden fist betraying the impulse to strike out. "Don't call me that! You're not my daughter!"

She collapsed onto herself, sinking down from her knees, her head falling to her heaving chest as sobs began to escape. "I'm s-sorry! God, I'm so sorry!'

"Sorry?" He couldn't believe his ears. "You caused your mother's death!"

"I didn't know!" she sobbed back. "I didn't know! I didn't know you were involved – either of you!"

"What?"

She looked back up at him again, pleading. "I didn't know you were part of it. I didn't even know what I was doing. I was drunk – I was stupid, I was so stupid, and I let Jimmy get me drunk, and then we were talking, we were just talking, and I didn't know what I was saying." Her words were coming faster and faster, as the awful story came out. "I didn't know what I'd done until later, when it was too late. It was too late..."

"Jimmy? Jimmy Stones, your boyfriend?"

She nodded, desolate. "I didn't know... I was so stupid..."

He shook his head violently, rejecting it all. "But then you stayed with him after!"

She stared. "I didn't have anywhere else to go!" she wailed. "I knew you were never going to forgive me – nobody was, by that time everybody knew what I'd done, because of those damn posters! I'd dropped out of school, no job, no skills... There was nothing I could do, nowhere I could go! I had to stay with him."

Pete was breathing hard. "And the General?" he hissed. "Did you have to go with him?"

Her eyes dropped to the floor again, cowed. Still sobbing, she choked out, "He offered me a comfortable life, out of the shithole I was trapped in with that slimebucket. He offered me security, and comfort, and a shot at a singing career. I'm not going to apologize for taking the only chance I thought I'd ever get to get away from that bastard, and make my life a little better." She looked up at him again. "And then I realized he was telling me things, that I could pass on to you, to try to help you."

That completely threw Pete. "What the hell are you talking about?"

She stared at him again, nonplussed that he hadn't made the connection. "Dad... I'm Gemini!" At his blank, unbelieving expression, she went on, crushed anew. "Don't you remember the game we played when I was little? You were Prince Aries, and I was Princess Gemini? I chose the name for that... I... I thought you'd remember!"

Jared couldn't remain silent any longer. He took several steps away from the corner, where Rose and Jackie were clutching each other, hands over their own mouths to keep from crying. "What frequency?"

Father and daughter both turned to him, startled and confused. "What?"

"How were you sending those messages?" he tried again.

She shook her head, confused at the stranger's sudden appearance and the seemingly out-of-nowhere question. "It was... a short-wave radio set I nicked. The frequency was... it was encrypted wavelength six fifty-seven using binary nine."

Jared looked at Pete. He didn't have to ask, the other man's face said it all: that was Gemini's frequency.

Rose shook herself free from Jackie, gently pressing her to stay put out of her double's line of sight – the broken girl wouldn't be able to handle seeing the ghost of her dead mother yet. But she herself walked slowly towards her father's twin. "Pete..." She reached his side and placed a hand on his arm. "I believe her. There was a Jimmy Stones in my life, too. He didn't lead me that far astray, but... he sure as hell wasn't a positive influence."

Pete stared at her, feeling so far out of his depth that he wasn't sure he'd ever swim again. He looked back at his daughter, still kneeling on the floor – and the sight hit him again, hard. "Get those ropes off her," he told Jared, squeezing his eyes shut.

Jared helped her up off the floor and whizzed the sonic behind her back, and the ropes fell to the floor. She brought her hands back around, absently rubbing her wrists, all the while staring at this other woman in shock. Even with the makeup, and her hair darkened, it was like looking in a mirror. "You... you really are my double... It was you up in Liverpool, wasn't it?"

Pete was still fighting to make sense of it. "If you had such a comfortable life, why are you here now?"

She stared at him, then dipped her head at her twin. "Because of her! After the stories came out, those two men disappearing and the others saying I had been there, he thought I had something to do with it, even though I had been right there with him the whole time. I think he started to suspect me of passing information. He told me some things last night – things I'd normally pass on, but the way he said them... I think they're fake. I think it's a trap, for me and for you. And I realized..." She'd been going strong, showing hints of the strength that must have been hiding deep inside, if she was anything like her parallel, but now she faltered again. "I can't stay there anymore. It's too dangerous... and I hate it. I hate him touching me... I hate faking smiles at everyone. I can't stand all those people. I can't do it anymore." She shuddered, then took a deep, bracing breath. "So I sent a message asking for a pickup – me. Please, Da –" She choked off the word, trying to gather up some shreds of dignity even as she pleaded her case. "Please. Just... Help me get away. I want a new life. I want to start over. I know I don't have any right to ask you for anything, I know you'll still never forgive me for what I did. But if you can... maybe help me get to America, where I can disappear and start over. Please..."

Pete was completely at a loss. He didn't know what to think, to say, to do. His eyes slid off his daughter towards her double, who he'd been laughing with – and loving – such a short time before. But then those eyes stopped, drawn past the three in front of him towards the far corner, where Jackie still stood silently in the shadows, hands over her mouth to hold back her sobs, her tears all for this lost soul, her own daughter's other side.

He looked back at his daughter, seeing her afresh: lost, alone, bereft, struggling, used, betrayed, damaged. Suddenly the tears he'd held back since his own Jackie's death were pouring down his face, and he reached out blindly, with a wild sob, and gathered his prodigal daughter tight in his arms, holding her like he'd never let her go again.

Jared grabbed his Rose's hand and turned, pulling her and Jackie silently out the door, and left them to their joyous, tragic reunion.