CHAPTER 37
CODE PHRASE
The image suddenly froze. Eustis turned to the Doctor with a look of utter revulsion on his face. It was a look mirrored by many in the gallery. "Doctor, must we be subjected to this unpleasant scene a second time?" he asked in distaste.
"You should try living through it," the Doctor shot back, the words out of his mouth before he realized. "Sorry, my lord," he said quickly. "I am trying to make a point."
"Then please do so."
"The only way to get that bomb out of me short of surgery was to reach in and grab it, which is exactly what Prince Jason did," the Doctor stated flatly.
"Your highness, why not just tell the Doctor what you intended?" the prosecutor wanted to know. "Why allow him to continue to believe you intended him harm if, as you maintain, you did not."
"I actually had intended to, my lord prosecutor, before everything got turned on its head. I didn't know that the Benefactor hadn't told him I'd purposely sent him to the Sanctuary," Jason replied firmly. "Or that he had given him the impression we were partners, making the illusion of enmity even stronger. I thought the Doctor understood when I told him it wasn't real. That it was all an illusion."
Fitzhugh blinked, throwing a quick glance in the Inquisitor's direction and seeing he was equally bewildered. "I'm sorry, your highness, at what point did you do this?"
Jason stepped up to the controls, rewound the extract and hit play. "Right here!"
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The Doctor pulled against his bindings in frustration. "More deception? Just how much of this is real? Where does deception end and reality begin?"
"Are you saying deception isn't reality?" the Alterran said as he slowly crossed the room. "Maybe some things are more real than others."
"That's not what I meant and you know it!"
"Do you really want me to spell it out?" Jason said in a slightly surprised tone. "Okay, my hatred isn't real. My anger, feelings of betrayal, mistrust, and rage that I feel every time I look at you…they aren't real either. None of this is real. It's all an illusion and I don't really want to kill you." He paused, asking sharply, "Does that clarify everything?"
The screen froze and Jason glared at the prosecutor. "Well, my lord prosecutor? Does that clarify everything for you?" The Doctor touched his arm and he pulled away sharply, his eyes blazing.
"Calm down," the Doctor said softly. The last thing he needed was for the volatile Alterran to lose his temper. Jason drew a deep breath to get control of himself.
Fitzhugh waited until the Prince had composed himself before going on. "Your highness, did it ever occur to you that the Doctor misunderstood what you were trying to tell him?"
To everyone's surprise save the Doctor, Jason replied, "Yes."
The prosecutor actually jumped when he heard this. "Er, when?"
"When he asked if I was going to kill him," came the mournful reply.
"Wouldn't that have been a good time to correct the problem?"
"As I said at the time, I don't think the explanation would've gone over very well," Jason replied sharply. "And then the conversion rush hit full force. I only had a limited window of opportunity before I started to burn out. That's why I used a code phase."
"Forgive me, code phrase? What was this, code phrase?"
Jason gave a small smile. "Do you trust me."
"Obviously, he did not," Fitzhugh replied contemptuously.
"Objection," the Doctor snapped.
"Sustained." Eustis gave Fitzhugh a reproving look before turning to the Doctor, a look of confusion on his face. "Doctor, do you know to what his highness is referring?"
"Certainly," the Doctor replied with a grin.
"Would you please enlighten us?" the Inquisitor encouraged.
The Doctor threw a quick glance in the Alterran's direction before replying, "For several years, Prince Jason was my traveling companion. During that time, we used code words and phrases quite often. Normally when asked, 'Do you trust me?' the answer is 'yes' or 'why?' Prince Jason believed that I'd answered the latter. I should've realized at the time what he meant."
"If his highness had simply been straightforward to begin with, it never would've been necessary to use this…code phrase at all," the prosecutor retorted sharply.
"Straightforward? On almost every occasion, Prince Jason told me the literal truth, but I was too blind and, I'll admit, too terrified to realize what he was doing."
"Doctor, would you have us believe that all your previous testimony was false?" Fitzhugh asked suddenly, and Jason saw the same predatory expression on his face as when he learned he would be testifying.
"My previous testimony was wrong, because my view of the facts was wrong," the Doctor replied tersely. "If I hadn't overlooked the most fundamental aspect of his personality, I never would've misunderstood his intentions. Prince Jason is first and foremost a Healer. He always has been and always will be. If that point isn't glaringly obvious by now, it will be made abundantly clear in the events that occurred after I lost consciousness."
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