Chapter Nine

Colwell Cemetery,
Dover, Delaware.

"I miss you Tommy."

Miss Parker was crouching down by Tommy's grave, replacing the flowers she'd left last week with fresh ones. As always there was a second bouquet there, yellow and white chrysanthemums, and as usual there was no indication as to who sent them. She had her suspicions, but out of respect to Tommy had decided not to follow up on it.

Everything surrounding Tommy's death was still like an open wound to her, one of the few chinks in her otherwise impervious armour, and another chapter of her life that remained incomplete. She knew that the Centre had a hand in his death and subsequent cover up, but as yet had been unable to uncover who ordered the hit or who really pulled the trigger. She would though and when she did, they would pay the piper.

The buzzing in her pocket, indicating that her phone was vibrating, pulled her out of her thought and she answered it while standing up.

"Hello?" she snapped, her tone indicating she was in no mood for conversation.

"Hello Miss Parker."

"Jarod," she sighed irritably, "I really don't need your mind games right now, so either tell me where you are or get the hell off the phone."

"No games Miss Parker, no riddles, and no wild goose chases. As for where I am, you know I won't tell you that."

There was a tone in his voice that stopped her from cutting the connection. "So what do you want?" she asked eventually.

"I want to talk."

"That's it? You want to talk?" she asked, her voice loaded with doubt.

"That's it. I'll make you a deal; you don't ask where I am or what I'm doing, and everything else is free game."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just as it sounds Miss Parker, as long as you don't ask me where I am or what I'm doing, I give you my word that I'll answer any questions you have as honestly and frankly as I can."

"What's in it for you?" she asked, almost certain that there was some ulterior motive for Jarod's actions. The reason she was certain was because there was always an ulterior motive to Jarod's actions.

"I get to have a civilised conversation with you, something we haven't done in a very long time."

"Why now Jarod?" she asked.

"Do you agree to my terms Miss Parker?" he replied, indicating that she would only receive an answer if she agreed.

The prospect of getting the answers she'd been striving for all these years was simply too tempting to resist. "Yes, now answer the question."

"Because I wanted to talk with someone who I didn't have to pretend with. Wherever I go I make friends, but they're never really mine, instead they're the friends of who I was pretending to be at the time. I can be in a room full of people and feel alone, because no one knows whom I truly am. With you I don't have to pretend because you already know who I am." He paused for a moment. "Do you like the flowers?"

He didn't need to say what flowers he was talking about. "They're beautiful," she answered truthfully. "Why do you send them?"

"Because he was my friend too."

"You knew Tommy?" she asked, surprised.

"Yes, he helped me during a pretend to expose a rival contractor of malpractice. I'm glad he talked to you that day, otherwise I would have never had a chance to escape."

"You were there!" she exclaimed, finding herself amused by the fact.

He laughed. "If you knew just how many times you'd come close to catching me, you'd be kicking yourself."

"No doubt," she grumbled, but she was surprised that she didn't really feel all that angry.

"You are a formidable adversary Miss Parker."

"Is that how you see me? As you adversary?" she asked, not liking the thought.

"… No," he replied eventually, "I don't, and you know that."

"How do you see me Jarod?" she asked before she could stop herself.

This was one of the reasons she never talked with him for long, the way he managed to slip through her defences so effortlessly. He had the potential to hurt her more than anyone else, alive or dead, and she doubted he had the slightest clue.

"I see you Miss Parker," he answered softly, "just you. I would ask you the same thing, but that is the one truth I'm not sure I'm ready to discover just yet."

"Jarod…"

"You should get something in the post from me in the morning Miss Parker," he said cutting her off, knowing that neither of them were in a position to allow that line of conversation to continue, at least not yet. "It is going to be difficult for you to believe what you find, but I give you my word that it is the truth."

"What is it?"

"The catalyst for my escape three years ago."

"What does that have to do with me?" she wondered aloud, not really expecting an answer from the Pretender given that the answers were already on their way.

"That is a question I would be wise not to answer whilst you're using a Centre issued phone Miss Parker," he answered carefully, mindful of their agreement, "for your safety as well as mine."

"Broots checks my phone every day for bugs, I don't like being spied on."

"Gemini was not the first time the Centre have played God Miss Parker," he told her uncomfortably, unwilling to get into this without her holding hard facts to support him, "and what I've sent you explains just what they did."

She could feel that Jarod didn't want to tell her any more, and decided not to push the issue, as he might have broken the agreement in order to keep silent, and there were other things she wanted to talk about.

"Who ordered Tommy dead?" she asked eventually.

"Your father."

The answer was immediate and final, and she just knew he was telling the truth. She had thought the same thing many times herself, but had never wanted to believe that her own father could do something so cruel to her. She knew he wasn't perfect, he did run The Centre after all, but she had always thought that when it came to her it was different.

"You're sure?" she asked, hoping the answer would be no.

"I can send you the termination order if you like."

The thought that whatever documentation he would send might be forged was immediately quashed. Jarod may have hurt her with the things he'd helped her discover, but he would never manipulate her like that. She found it strange that she could be so certain of that, but certain of it she was.

"How do I know you're telling me the truth?"

It was a question borne out of desperation, and knew what the answer would be before he spoke it.

"Because I promised you that I would."

Jarod's word was one of the few things that Miss Parker never had to doubt; he would never go back on his word and never has, even when doing so would spare him pain. That realisation was a hard pill to swallow, given the circumstances. Having no other option but to believe her father had her boyfriend killed, she pressed on.

"Who killed him?" she asked, knowing that while her father signed off on Tommy's death, he wouldn't have pulled the trigger.

"Brigitte."

Again the answer was immediate and final. This time she wasn't upset, in fact she was almost glad, as it meant she now had ample reason to shoot the bitch right between the eyes.

"I'll kill her," she whispered, her tone as hard as granite.

"Don't forget she is carrying your brother or sister," he told her, once again trying in his own way to stop her from doing something she might later regret.

She appreciated it, even if she never said so. Sydney was the only other person who cared enough, or was brave enough, to do so. Broots had made an abortive attempt or two when he thought what she wanted to do was wrong, but he didn't have the backbone to follow the thought through.

"Daddy is infertile," she replied eventually, trying to convince herself as much as Jarod. "The chances of it being his are…"

"100 given the circumstances," he completed for her. "Do you honestly think he would be acting the way he is if he weren't certain the child was his?" he asked, his tone indicating his scepticism. "Your father has never struck me as an overly affectionate person, and yet he fawns all over her."

The way her father treated Brigitte made her sick to her stomach, especially as he was never that loving to her mother, or herself. The foetus in Brigitte's womb might be her brother or sister, but she couldn't bring herself to care either way when compared to the fact she killed her Tommy.

"So what? Like I need another sibling to ruin my life like Lyle."

"Did you ever double check the results, or do ones of your own?"

She didn't need to ask what he meant by that. "What do you mean? You yourself told me that my brother was either Lyle or…"

"Angelo. What do you think your father would have done to Raines if Angelo was found to be his son, after all the things he has subjected him to?"

The implications of that question made her smile one moment and pale the next. While the thought of the ghoul finally getting what was coming to him was satisfying, the thought of what the Centre had done to Angelo was more than enough to extinguish any such feeling. When she was alone she could admit that what The Centre had put Jarod through was abhorrent, but even he would readily agree that he had got off lightly in comparison to the empath.

She remembered listening to Angelo, or Timmy as he was then, playing to her after he decided to help Davey by sacrificing his own sanity. It was the first time in a long time that she'd allowed herself to cry freely in front of someone else, as his playing got progressively worse as the effects of the drug wore off and Angelo's personality re-asserted itself.

"Are you saying that Angelo is my brother?" she asked, her voice no more than a whisper.

"I honestly do not know for certain," he admitted, "but given the choices I know which one I'd rather be related to. I suggest you run your own tests and find out for certain."

"I will."

She wasn't sure what the consequences would be if Angelo truly were her brother, but one thing was certain; if it turned out that he was, there was no way she'd leave him in The Centre.

"Getting back on topic," Jarod began, regaining Miss Parker's attention, "that baby has as much right to live as Tommy did. Do you really think you could live with yourself if you denied him or her that?" he asked, knowing what her answer would be.

"… No. I suppose this means I can't kill her until after she's given birth," she sighed, her conscience finally kicking in and telling her that it agreed with Jarod; no matter how deserving of a bullet the blonde bitch was, the life growing inside her was not.

"If her medical records are anything to go by, you won't get a chance."

"What do you mean?"

"There is every chance that she will die during childbirth."

"A life for a life. Who says there isn't a God?"

"I must admit that I can see the irony of the situation. Miss Parker…"

"Why do you always call me that? You know I don't like my first name being used, but at least Sydney just calls me Parker. Do you have to be so formal?"

"One should always be formal when addressing a lady unless given permission to do otherwise."

"Well I'm giving you permission. Call me Parker… please?"

She wasn't sure where the please came from, having so rarely said it in recent years, but there had been a time when she would ask instead of order, and this conversation reminded her of that simpler, and quite honestly happier, time.

"Okay, Parker, if I were to ask you a question, would you give me an honest answer?"

"That would depend on the question."

"Given what you now know, do you really think your father would fulfil his end of the bargain you made to bring me in?"

"How do you know about that?" she asked, surprised that he knew for a moment before she remembered just who she was speaking to.

"I was curious as to why your father had chosen you to be the one to bring me in, given his distaste for our friendship when we were younger."

"Why did you never say anything before?"

"Because I can not and will not begrudge you from wanting the same thing I wanted all my life. So, do you think he'll let you walk away from the Centre?"

"I have to believe it Jarod, I need to believe it."

She started to think this was a bad idea. No, she knew this was a bad idea. This conversation had been the longest they'd had since she was a child, before her father had sent her off to boarding school and they'd lost touch. As nice as it was to talk to him like this, it only made her job that much harder.

All the time she thought of Jarod as the labrat, like she had when she was first brought in to track him, it was easy for her to pursue him. Seeing him as Jarod the person, or worse Jarod her childhood best friend, muddied the waters and plagued her conscience.

He wasn't a criminal, in fact he was a victim, and yet here she was trying to bring him back to the place that had taken him from his family as a child, denied him his freedom, and used him as nothing more than a resource. When she allowed herself to think of what she was doing, late at night when she was alone with her memories, she could barely look at herself in the mirror the next day, but despite all that her only chance to gain her freedom was to deprive Jarod of his.

"I have to go Jarod," she said, unable to handle the emotions running through her at the moment.

She disconnected before he had a chance to respond and, after taking one final look at Tommy's grave, made her way back to her car. It wasn't until she went to open the door that she realised she took the flowers that Jarod had sent with her.

Jarod's Apartment,
Sunnydale, California.

Jarod stared at his cell phone for several seconds, berating himself for asking her that question, despite the fact that he desperately wanted to know the answer. It had been the longest and most civil conversation they'd had in a long, long time and he'd ruined it by asking her the one question guaranteed to do just that.

As he had told her, he could not fault her for wanting out of The Centre, for it had been the same thing he'd wanted since he could remember. It had taken the discovery of Xander's existence for him to muster the courage to escape; he hoped that it would have the same effect on Mi… Parker.

How could such a small thing like that, make him feel so good? The feeling that flowed through him when she told him he could call her Parker was beyond his ability to describe, and that was saying something from a man who had the entire English dictionary memorised, as well as several foreign dictionaries.

That glorious, almost overwhelming feeling, made him finally accept something that he had tried in vain to ignore or deny for most of his life; he was in love with her, and had been from the moment he had first laid eyes on her all those years ago.

This only made things worse in his eyes, because he would no longer be able to behave objectively when dealing with her and, if he showed how he felt to the others, they might use it against him. He would not put it past Lyle or Raines to use Parker as bait to capture him if they knew, and he would take the bait in spite of the knowledge that it was a trap, because he could not and would not take the risk of her being hurt or worse because of him.

On the bright side, his acceptance of how he felt for her would please Xander no end. He could tell in his communications with him, and when he talked to him earlier today, that Xander would like nothing more than for them to be a family; not like his childhood with the Harris', but a real, loving, family. Now he was no longer denying his feelings for her, Jarod wanted the same thing too.

Now more than ever did he hope that everything would go to plan, because the stakes had gotten that much greater.

Summers Residence,
Sunnydale, California.

Joyce Summers had gone through a lot in the last few years; a divorce that was on the wrong side of messy, dealing with a daughter that at the time she believed had a psychotic break, moving to a small town, starting her own business, and most recently dealing with the fact that her only daughter had run away from home. Each one had been a major undertaking by themselves, together they could easily test the most level-headed of people. Despite it all, Joyce knew that in the end it was all a part of the tapestry of life, hers was simply one of the more colourful.

Being a single mother was a thankless and tiring job at the best of times, but for the most part it was a fulfilling one. She loved her daughter dearly and wouldn't trade her for the world, but having to deal with a daughter that would be out at all hours of the night, with bruises appearing in the morning that weren't there the night before, was a job that no amount of money could compensate.

For two years she had worried about her daughter, wondering what sort of things she could have gotten caught up in a quaint little town like Sunnydale that made her sport the amount of injuries she'd gotten, but never knowing quite how to broach the subject with her.

It had all come to a head this summer when her daughter had told her she needed to go and stop her former boyfriend from destroying the world. She hadn't taken it well, which looking back wasn't all that surprising, and they'd had a screaming row that ended with her telling Buffy that if she left the house she wasn't welcome back.

It was a spur of the moment thing to say, borne out of desperation at the prospect of her daughter going out and doing something beyond imagining. While she hadn't meant a word of it, Buffy had believed her and, after dealing with the apocalypse (she still couldn't believe she was thinking about the possible end of the world without the need for medication), had fled Sunnydale and left for parts unknown.

It was several months before Buffy returned, and it had taken time after that for them to become comfortable around each other again. Dealing with the fact that her daughter could easily lift her above her head one handed, something she actually did as a last ditch effort to prove to Joyce that she was indeed telling the truth, was something that even now made her shake her head in disbelief.

During her absence the others had tried to explain the situation to her, and looking back she was appreciative of it, but at the time she hadn't been able to take much of it in. Mr. Giles had given her an academic description of what her daughter was and his role in her life, which had ended with her knocking him on his ass and yelling at him to leave. Willow had made several abortive attempts to explain, but she either changed the subject before she could finish or she spoke so fast Joyce didn't catch a word of it.

It was Xander that made the biggest inroads when it came to helping her with her fears. He was the only one who told her, with sometimes brutal honesty, what Buffy and the others had dealt with since their arrival in Sunnydale. He had reminded her of every time she had thought something strange had occurred, only later to think it was something innocuous, especially the time at the parent teacher evening when she had hit that 'person' over the head with an axe. To be told, and to actually believe, that he had in fact been a vampire and Buffy and the others had driven him and the others with him off, made her feel extremely proud of, and afraid for, her daughter.

While she could understand Buffy wanting to spare her just how dangerous their lives were, knowing that they had faced sometimes seemingly insurmountable odds and survived gave her hope.

It also helped that Xander seemed unaffected by the experiences he'd had, and was even able to make light of otherwise life and death situations. She remembered having to suppress a smile at the deep blush that appeared on his face when he recounted an incident concerning a love spell where all the women of Sunnydale had fallen in love with him, an episode that she had passed off as a strange, if somewhat pleasant, dream.

As he talked, it was as if a veil had been lifted from her eyes and she began to see things in a different way, most importantly that she didn't own a barbecue fork so there was no way she could have stabbed herself with one. When she told Xander this he had explained that she had in fact been bitten by a vampire by the name of Darla, whom she was happy to hear had been killed not long after.

Now there was another girl in Sunnydale that shared Buffy's duty/calling/whatever you wanted to call it, and she was moving in with herself and Buffy. The reason for there now being two Slayers, she didn't like that name but used it to appease her daughter, was due somehow to Xander, although no one had explained it to her satisfaction concerning just how he had done it.

When it had been explained to her the circumstances surrounding Faith's arrival in Sunnydale, she had immediately offered her a room, not even needing to think about it. There were some legalities that would need to be resolved, but Mr. Giles had assured her that they would not be a problem, as his employers had experience in this area. She wasn't quite sure what to make of that, but said nothing in case it caused further problems.

Tonight would be the first proper night in her new home, last night didn't count due to the circumstances, and Joyce had taken the day off to prepare her room and ensure that they all had a nice meal to celebrate the fact. Giles would be joining them as well, to explain the situation to Faith and what they would like to do.

Using the Council's influence, they were going to make Joyce Faith's guardian until she turned eighteen, where they would review the situation and see what she wanted to do. That gave Faith two years for her to work out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, beyond her slaying duties.

Personally Joyce had always wanted another child, another daughter in fact. Having Faith live with her and Buffy meant that she got to have that, without having to go through the pregnancy, labour and baby years. She just hoped that Buffy could adjust to having another person around.

For the last couple of years, although they may not have been exactly usual, Buffy has had Joyce's complete and undivided attention. Even during the Ted incident, which freaked Joyce out a little given what she now knew he had been a robot, she still gave Buffy most of her time. Now though her time would have to be split between her and Faith, for favouring one over the other would only lead to problems.

She decided not to dwell on that too much right now, as that was something that wouldn't really come in to play for a few weeks, after the transitional phase was over and they had all settled in.

The sound of someone knocking on the door brought her out of her internal monologue and, after putting the finishing touches on the apple and blackberry pie she had made and put into the oven to bake, went to open it.

The explosion that greeted her sent Joyce flying through the air, and she was unconscious before she hit the ground.