Balancing The Scales - Part 11
by MMB

Miss Parker stood in the Tower elevator car with her new escort, holding a thick folder with the latest findings uncovered by the use of the password she'd been given that hadn't yet been sent to Africa. Broots had been waiting in her office with the information, and she'd had exactly fifteen minutes to scan through as much of it as she could before the two African bodyguards who had escorted her the day before had come to take her to her meeting with Ngawe. In their faces she could see that her appearance and demeanor today was far more impressive and respect-generating than her diminished state the day before had given them reason to think. Indeed, this morning she was calm, rested, relaxed, steady on her feet, mentally sharp and radiating understated competence - in essence, appearing the way a head of SIS for the Centre was expected to appear.

Then she was walking briskly from the elevator and down the short hallway toward the frosted glass doors that swung back as she approached, giving her entrance to the Chairman's office and the elderly black gentleman who sat behind the carved desk awaiting her.

"Ah, Miss Parker!" Ngawe gushed, rising to his feet and extending a hand across the desk to her. "You are looking much better today. We take it you are completely recovered from your... adventure... yesterday?"

Miss Parker shook hands with the man firmly. "Thank you, sir, yes. I'm much better and eager to make my report to you to the best of my ability." She handed him the folder. "This is the latest collection of documents and files that I and my assistant have unearthed on Mr. Raines' and Mr. Lyle's activities outside the Triumverate directives."

Ngawe motioned for the woman in the smart, black tailored pantsuit to take her seat in the comfortable chair in front of his desk, then seated himself and opened the folder. He read the contents report with interest, then looked up at her. "We're sure you realized that we spent the better part of the day after you left debriefing both the sweeper and the psychiatrist, and listening to your aide explain all that he knew. In your experienced opinion, do you believe there is any more information still to be found about other projects launched or continued contrary to directives, or do you believe we have a fairly good handle on the greater share of what has been going on behind the scenes now?"

"I think we have a general idea of the scope of the situation, sir. I'm sure details will continue to surface for a while yet; but in a nutshell, it has become very obvious that Mr. Raines and Mr. Lyle never shut down either the Pretender or the Gemini Projects. They did shut down the older, more obvious elements of each project for appearance's sake while still keeping or making monies available for ancillary elements that could be more easily moved and/or hidden from scrutiny. Broots and I did occasionally run into one of these schemes off and on over the last five years, as you know, and put a stop to them - but obviously the one biggest remainder of each project was extremely well-hidden beyond my security level to oversee."

"Most of the documentation you have today," she pointed at the folder the African was now sifting through, "like much of the documentation I'd sent you earlier, concerns Project Redux - its financing and the strategies by which additional funds were to be gotten from the Yakuza in Japan. The last page, sir, is a summary of previous experimentation and details of the efforts in motion just this past week - of which my brush with surgery yesterday was an essential part."

Ngawe nodded absently, his interest apparently having been caught by a detail of a particular page. He looked up at Miss Parker with a calculating curiosity. "You were aware that the child ostensibly born to your father and his second wife, Brigitte, was another part of the Gemini Projects?"

"My adopted son, Davy," she nodded, growing wary. "Yes, I am aware of that. Part of the supplemental evidence, which Broots is currently cataloguing and organizing for ease of review, is a DSA where execution of Davy's birth was being discussed. I was NOT aware of this information when I adopted him, however."

"Do you ever intend to allow your son to be tested..." the African began.

"Absolutely not," Miss Parker interrupted him with vehemence. "Considering that I myself essentially have seen first-hand as a child what happens to children caught in the Centre..." She shook her head firmly. "No, sir. My son will not be tested until he's old enough to decide for himself - IF then."

Ngawe put up a hand. "We understand fully, Miss Parker. Our question was only one of curiosity, since he WAS a part of an experiment on breeding the super-intelligent. Considering the questionable ethics of the premise of the experiment to begin with, we assure you that the suggestion was meant only as a reasonable exploration of a point of curiosity."

He deliberately and with finality closed the folder she'd given him and handed it off to one of his associates, standing close at hand behind the desk with him. "You've carried out your assignment in this matter very capably, as we were certain you would. This makes us much more confident that you will again be more than able to carry out our next assignment for you..."

"Uh..." Miss Parker shifted in her chair. "I'm not sure..."

"Well, We ARE..." Ngawe smiled widely at her, the brilliant white of his teeth a stark contrast with the ebony darkness of his skin. "We will be removing Mr. Raines to Africa with us when we depart, along with the sweeper and the psychiatrist. Removing him from his position here leaves the Centre without a designated authority in place to make executive decisions, however. After conferring with our counterparts in various corners of the globe, it has been decided that the best person to take the reins here at the Centre is you, Miss Parker."

Miss Parker stared at the elderly man, dumbstruck. "Me?... Sir?..."

"Absolutely. We can think of nobody more fitted to the job and already familiar with the greater share of the organization and its many facets in whom we can invest some considerable confidence. We would really prefer not to have to wonder what our American division is up to that would give our stockholders conniption fits, if you follow. You have shown incentive, perseverance, and dedication to following directives to the letter. And you are a Parker - it is only fitting that the job be offered to you first."

"But..." Her mind spun. To be in charge of the Centre, the Chairman... To have the chance to take the entire direction of the organization and turn it around so that it could be of genuine benefit to the world... To feel she was doing something that would make her mother proud of her... "I don't know what to say, sir... I'd... I'd like the opportunity to think about it... if you don't mind..."

Ngawe nodded, not surprised at the request at all. "We don't mind at all - as a matter of fact, we were hoping you would be wise enough to want to think it through first before giving us your answer. It IS a big decision, which will require much dedication from you to fully assume responsibility for administering Centre business. Today is Friday. Would... letting you have the weekend to consider our offer be sufficient, so that we could know your answer by Monday morning sharp?" He glanced up at his flanking associates. "We would like to be heading back to Africa no later than Tuesday, so..."

Miss Parker still hadn't completely processed what she was hearing, still sat stunned and with mouth slightly agape. "Th... The weekend would be appreciated... sir..."

"Very good, then." He rose. "We will meet again Monday morning, eight AM sharp to discuss your decision then." He once more extended his hand over his desk.

She rose and slowly moved to shake hands with the Triumverate head. "Eight AM sharp Monday it is, then. Thank you, sir - both for the offer, and for the time to consider it properly."

"Good day, Miss Parker."

Almost in as much of a daze as she had been under the effects of the anesthesia, she walked from the office and headed back towards the elevator, only this time she noted that her escort was no longer present. Grateful that she was no longer under direct scrutiny, she punched the button for the Tower floor where both she and Broots had their offices, then deliberately turned into her friend's door rather than finish the walk down the hall to her own office.

Broots looked up from his computer terminal and frowned at the distracted look on her face. "Oh man!" he whimpered in a voice that was reminiscent of years gone by. "What is it NOW, Miss Parker?"

Miss Parker seemed to deflate into the chair at the side of his desk. "He offered me the Chairmanship of the Centre," she explained in a flat, disbelieving tone. "Raines is, apparently, on his way back to Africa with Ngawe when he leaves, and I'm to take the weekend and consider the offer."

The balding computer specialist leaned back in his chair and stared at his superior. "You're kidding!" he gaped. She shook her head, staring off at a point on his wall, obviously still processing the information. "Just wait until Syd and Jarod hear this!" he exclaimed, his face slowly gaining a huge grin.

Miss Parker leaned her forehead into her hand at his words. She already knew that Sydney would probably just glow with paternal pride and satisfaction, and throw his complete support behind whatever decision she would make. Sam would be insufferable to his sweeper buddies for a while, nothing they didn't deserve, however. As for Jarod...

Her mind skidded to a stop thinking of Jarod.

That morning, standing in the shower while he made her a light breakfast, it had occurred to her that the dilemma he had been mulling all night - to the point of insomnia - could be separated out into two distinct decisions. The first was whether or not he wanted to be emotionally involved with her - which, if their kiss yesterday afternoon was any indication, was essentially a moot issue. So, in her mind, his entire problem boiled down to a simple question of where and with whom he intended to settle down with the two of them when everything was said and done. Would he choose to stay in Delaware with Syd and Broots and Debbie - close to her family - or want to return to California with Margaret and Ethan and Jay and Em - close to his?

She had even come up with a compromise solution for them if neither scenario was satisfactory: they each could agree to move somewhere completely new and begin a completely new life together, each of them putting distance between themselves and their respective families. Such a thing wasn't novel nowadays, and both of them were sufficiently talented and trained in their professions that establishing themselves in a new locale could be accomplished rather easily. But she had been too rushed that morning before work, and neither the time nor the mood had been right to attempt to continue the previous day's conversation. And now...

Damn.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Damien Winwood was tired, his butt hurt from being just a little too wide for the uncomfortable molded-plastic seats, and he wanted to find out just what the hell these Japanese fellas wanted with him. The call had come to him two days ago from his ex-cell-mate Jerome that some Japanese dudes wanted to meet with him and, if they liked him, would pay him a shit-load of money for him to do a major job for them. With a wife and two mistresses to support, each in a lifestyle that maintained the women and their respective children quite comfortably, he was never reluctant to go to interviews for jobs that would be particularly lucrative.

And so he had been sitting here in the general aviation terminal of JFK, waiting for customs to finish with the passengers and luggage of the sleek little Leer jet that had arrived just a half-hour ago from Tokyo. Finally he saw the tight knot of Asian men in VERY expensive suits exiting the US Customs area and heading across the mezzanine, and he stood so that they could quickly locate him. Feeling awkward, towering over the tallest of them by at least 18 inches, he made a rough stab at a bow.

One of the shorter men stepped forward after the entire group had bowed in return in graceful unison. "You are... Winwood-san?"

"Yup," Damien responded, moving his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other with his tongue. "You must be..."

"Ah-so! I am Fujimori Torii, translator for Tanaka-sama." Fujimori indicated the youngest member of the group, and Tanaka dropped his chin as he heard his name mentioned by his associate. "Yoshikata Haruo-san," he pointed and the shortest member of the group dropped his chin in the same way. "And this is Ikeda Masao-san." The grey head of the oldest Japanese man dropped his chin.

"We can meet here," Damien indicated a grouping of seats off to the side of the mezzanine, or we can..."

"We prefer right the seats here, Winwood-san. Please to join us?" Fujimori bowed very shallowly and then, with an abjectly deep bow to Tanaka, indicated that the group should congregate and sit down in the seats off to the side.

Damien waited until all the Japanese had made themselves comfortable in seats that were probably manufactured in China for people their size, then spoke right up. "Look, I don't like staying long in open, public places, so perhaps we can get right down to it. What is it you want handled?"

Fujimori translated the man's words to Tanaka, who then nodded at Ikeda. Ikeda pulled his briefcase up onto his lap and opened it just enough to extract a single sheet of photographic paper and hand it to the American, who studied it without a single sign of recognition.

"Impressive. Where is it?" he asked, not interested in niceties.

"Delaware, just outside a small village on the coast called Blue Cove. The place is called The Centre," Fujimori informed him, noting his continued lack of recognition or worry. "You have heard of it?"

"Nope," Damien answered shortly. "What do you want me to do?"

Tanaka had taken great pains to brief Fujimori on the details of just exactly what he wanted done, so Fujimori didn't need to translate for his boss. He just began explaining what was desired. "The taller part of the complex - that area in the middle of everything - is called the Tower. This is the portion of the facility we want gone. Most especially we want to make sure the building falls on," Fujimori turned, and Ikeda pulled another photo from his briefcase, "this man."

Damien gazed at the face of the bald man with the sunken eyes that was the closest he'd ever seen to epitomizing the phrase 'walking dead man'. "Who is he?"

"None of your concern," Fujimori stated firmly.

"If you expect me to off the guy when I take out that building, that MAKES him my concern," Damien retorted impatiently. "Look. You're askin' me to run a big risk here. With a building that size, it means that to get to the one dude you want offed, I gotta take out a whole shit-load of others too. Fact is if I get nabbed for this job, I end up on a table with a needle in my arm. If you guys wanna hire an assassin to take out the guy by himself, then fine - knock yerselves out. I do buildings, not people. Expecting me to do people too makes me nervous; and when I get nervous, I want more info. That's the way I work, like it or leave it." He crossed his arms over his barrel chest and sat back as best he could, and waited.

The four Japanese pulled into a tight huddle. "You know," Tanaka growled, "if we didn't need the services of this gai-jin [barbarian], I'd let Yoshikata-san at him with the garrote for his rudeness."

"Gomen nasai [Please excuse me], Tanaka-sama, but the gai-jin has a point. We are in a country with a death penalty - he is merely protecting his own, very wide, ass." Fujimori visited the stony American with a glance of disdain. "But then, we ARE, out of necessity, dealing with ronin here - men who work for money and not reputation. We can ill-afford not to meet his terms if we want our goal met."

Tanaka glared at the American with a casually smiling face. "You are right, Fujimori-san. Give the ronin the information he wants."

Fujimori bowed and then turned to the American. "Very well. The man's name is William Raines."

Damien uncrossed his arms. "There now. That wasn't so hard, was it?" He paid little attention to the sudden look of pure fury on the youngest man's face as his words were translated. "Now, how much time do I have to do the job?"

The Japanese men conferred briefly. "We would prefer that your action take place as soon as possible. How much time do you think you'll need?" Fujimori asked by way of response.

The American scratched his forehead at a spot his hair was determined to abandon. "A day to acquire the necessary supplies, another day - maybe two - to study the blueprints I'm going to be getting from you folks so I'll know where I need to plant the explosives to take out both the building and your... Mr. Raines..." That one caused a flurry of whispering as it was translated. "A day to physically case the joint and find a way inside, then the next morning... BOOM!" He chuckled as if he had made a joke.

The Japanese weren't laughing.

Damien decided that since their mood was already serious, he might as well deliver the rest of the bad news. "And since this job entails murder as an essential element, the price is gonna go up."

Tanaka's brows knit together and he snapped a comment. Fujimori bowed and translated, "Go up by how much?"

"Over triple," the American stated in a manner that told his potential employers that he was not open to negotiation. "Five hundred big ones now, to buy the supplies and get things moving; five hundred big ones once the place is a smoldering pile of rubble."

"Outrageous!" Fujimori didn't need to wait for what would be the bellow of his boss at the outlandish quote of a million dollars US for the job.

Damien shrugged and handed the two photographs back. "Take it or leave it. You want a lot, you pay a lot."

Tanaka was still spitting and fuming over the price change. "Just who the hell does he think he is, asking for a million US?" he bellowed.

"He's the one man that I have been assured by several of my American contacts is CAPABLE of doing the job, Tanaka-sama." Fujimori shrugged. "Perhaps the ronin is right - we should just hire ourselves a good assassin, or better still, let Yoshikata and I chase the ball-less bald man down ourselves and then take him out slowly while you watch."

"I want to hurt the Centre, not just in personnel, but physically!" Tanaka's voice had grown lethally quiet. "I want Raines for cheating me of a project I bought and paid hundreds of millions of yen to control - and I want the Pride of the Centre brought low to send the message that 'pride goes before a fall'."

"Then, Tanaka-sama, I think we are caught by testicle-fur," Yoshikata commented with a wry look on his face. "This American ronin comes well-recommended as a master of his craft. To do what you want will take a genius of such a craft."

"And as the saying goes, you get what you pay for," Ikeda, always a man of few words, finally chimed in. "The price he's charging means he know that either delivers quality - or we take the difference out on him, neh?"

Tanaka was so angry he was trembling. Finally he exploded, "Bah... He has his deal." He motioned to Yoshikata, who opened his briefcase and showed to the American that the case was packed nearly full with bundles of one hundred American dollar bills.

Fujimori pointed to the cash. "This is one hundred thousand US. Give us the address you'll be staying at tonight, and we will have the rest of your down payment delivered to you no later than six PM. We will expect news broadcasts of fire in Delaware no later than Tuesday night - or we will be coming to look for our money back, plus interest. Is that understood?"

Damien didn't bat an eye. "Whatever floats your boat. Just so's I have the money by tonight." He reached into a pocket, hauled out a matchbook, opened it and wrote in it quickly. "I'll be stayin' here."

Tanaka barely dipped his chin before he was stalking away from the group. Fujimori nodded, and Yoshikata closed the briefcase and handed it to the American and then dipped his chin and followed his master. Ikeda stood, silent and watchful, as Fujimori followed the gai-jin tradition of shaking hands to seal the bargin, and then the two turned their backs on the man themselves.

The arsonist hefted the briefcase appreciatively, then walked steadily and calmly in the other direction. This would take care of some home improvements on all three fronts rather nicely - as would the boatload of green arriving later that afternoon. After a long, dry spell when it came to fires by hire, it was once more time to go to work.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Broots was still guffawing as he knocked on Miss Parker's door, not long before the end of the day.

Grateful for the diversion from both her contemplation of the choices she had to make soon and the never-ending reports reviews that were the bulk of her duties as head of SIS, she called out permission to enter and closed out the document she'd been reading at her terminal. "God, Broots, I haven't done much today, but I feel like I've been drug through a knothole sideway - twice!" she sighed as she leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes and relaxed. "OK..." she straightened up at the sound of a muffled snort from her associate and took in Broots' expression of intense amusement, "what has hit your funny bone so hard at this time of day?"

He approached her desk and carefully laid a folder open in front of her, with his index finger indicated a point in the document displayed where she should start reading, then stood back with a wide grin on his face. He chuckled again, he hadn't been tickled like this in a LONG time.

Miss Parker read the section of the report, looked up at him with wide eyes, then read it again - and then burst out laughing herself. "You mean to tell me..."

Broots joined her in her laughing. "That's right - Lyle didn't know we had stolen the Redux vial and switched it for another when he stole it and, presumably, tried to buy his way into the Yakuza with it. And Raines didn't know that we'd switched it either when he had that one surrogate mother implanted with a selection of embryos from the vial that said "HS" on it, just before Lyle stole the vial."

She stopped laughing and looked sideways at her associate. "You know, it really ISN'T funny that the poor woman Raines had impregnated was going to be the mommy of a litter of rats," she said, then snorted again. "But it's still SO fitting..."

Broots had also stopped laughing, but continued to smirk. "And that means that the vial that the Yakuza got from Lyle was the one with the rat embryos as well. So when THEY get ready to start their own version of Redux..."

"Trust me," Miss Parker said, remembering her younger days of dissipation in the arms of Tommy Tanaka - and his transformation over the years of his father's incarceration into one of the toughest crime bosses the Yakuza had seen yet - "the switcheroo couldn't have happened to a more deserving man."

"Is he ever gonna be pissed when he finds out..." Broots was chuckling all over again, only eventually noticing that Miss Parker had grown suddenly quiet. "Hey!" he called out, his hilarity fading fast into concern at her distant expression of listening, "what is it?"

"You're entirely right, Broots," she said softly, seemingly coming back to herself and suddenly getting very busy getting ready to leave for the weekend. "He is going to be pissed to no end - and at the Centre in general this time - for screwing him over one more time. And we all know how wise it is to piss off the Yakuza, don't we?" She put up her thumb and then tucked it into her fist, reminiscent of Lyle's sacrifice to the first time he'd run afoul of the Tanaka crew.

Broots stared at her in consternation. "Oh, man..."

"Pack your gear and clock out, Scooby," she directed with no trace of laughter left in her voice whatsoever. "We're all heading out to Ben's for the weekend, remember? We want to get started soon so we can get there sometime before midnight. And I'm glad we're going. Something tells me we haven't heard the last from Tommy yet - and it scares me."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jarod was just coming down the stairs with his well-stuffed gym bag and a smallish suitcase as Miss Parker walked through the front door. He took one look at her face, tight and tired, and put the bags at the foot of the stairs and came over to her. "You look positively whipped. What happened?"

She glanced up into his face with a guilty look, not exactly sure how she was going to deliver her news. "Plenty," she commented cryptically after a thoughtful pause. "We're not out of the woods yet - on a number of fronts."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, simply taking her by the hand and leading her over to her couch, sitting her down and then sitting down next to her. "We've got some time before Broots gets here. Talk to me."

Miss Parker went to rub her tired eyes with the palms of her hands, then threaded her fingers into her hair and pulled it back from her face absently as she gazed at him. "I gave Ngawe my report..." she began slowly.

"And..." he urged with a hint of impatience.

"And... he offered me the job of Chairman of the Centre." She closed her eyes and relaxed back against the padding of her couch with a sigh. "I have until Monday morning to make up my mind if I want it or not." She felt him shift on the couch next to her and didn't dare open her eyes.

"What else?" he asked eventually, his voice a carefully schooled neutral that told her absolutely nothing about what he was thinking or feeling. "That wasn't all of it, was it?"

"Isn't it enough?" she asked in frustration, then opened her eyes so she could see him to put her hand on his as it lay in his lap. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap. The rest of it is more a... gut feeling."

That seemed to help him recover from his neutral aloofness. "What kind of gut feeling?" he asked with genuine interest.

"You know the Yakuza - what they're capable of," she began, and watched him nod. "Well, then imagine their reaction when they discover that the vial that they stole from Lyle - who stole it from the Centre after Syd had switched them around - ISN'T Redux, but lab rats."

Jarod's chocolate eyes widened, then he sat forward, blinked, wiped at his face with one hand and then gazed at her again anxiously. "And you're actually considering taking over the place," he asked askance, "with the possibility of Yakuza repercussions coming at you?"

"I had no part in what went down - not as far as Lyle or Raines was concerned, and certainly my name wouldn't be anywhere on any Yakuza list," she hedged carefully.

Jarod reached out for her hand and chafed it between his. "Yes, but Parker, the Yakuza way is sometimes to make political statements, not just take straight-forward revenge. In such a case, we have no way of know where, when or in what manner they might come at the Centre to express their... disapproval." His one hand tightened on hers. "This might be a good time for you to finally walk away from that place, once and for all."

Miss Parker looked down at their enmeshed hands. "I'm not going to deny that thought hasn't occurred to me," she admitted softly. "That damned place has been like a prison sometimes, only without bars."

"Yeah," Jarod let go of her and smoothed his hand down one arm. "And just think of it - with Raines and Lyle gone, this may be your one and only chance to just turn your back and walk away without having to worry about repercussions." He smoothed his hand up and down her arm again. "Maybe I could even convince you to walk all the way to California?"

She shook her head. "What about Broots? Sydney? I can't just..."

"Sydney said it himself: he's close to retirement age. Frankly, I was going to begin working on him to walk away himself once things were taken care of properly. And without you or Syd there, and with Deb in college, I doubt Broots will stick around very long either."

"There are a lot of if's in what you're suggesting, Jarod," she informed him, very slowly and carefully pulling her hand from his keeping. "Syd's home is here, and you know it. Whether he's still employed at the Centre or not, he'd probably not be all that eager to pull up stakes and move - especially since here is the one place he knows that Michelle would know to come looking for him. He still loves her, after all these years, you know..."

"I know that..."

"And Nicholas and Kate aren't that far away either - as long as he stays here, he gets a chance to see them occasionally. As for Broots, you MAY have a point. But still..."

Jarod reached out for the escaped hand again. "What about you?"

"What about me, Jarod?" she said, this time pulling her hand free a little less patiently. "I told you, I'm thinking over my decision. If, in the end, I decide that staying here and doing my damnedest to make the Centre something my mother would be proud of, then this entire discussion is moot." She looked at him with a challenge in her eyes. "Why don't you finish all your business in California and move back here to Delaware - help me run the place PROPERLY for a change?"

"What?" The Pretender's mouth dropped open.

"Why not?" she challenged, sitting up straighter. "We both know that getting the Centre out of the business of skullduggery and subterfuge and into the business of up-and-up cutting-edge medical and scientific research is going to be a massive job. If I'm going to take it on, I'm going to want the best of the best people around me to get it done right the first time. Syd's too old to want to be in charge of Psychogenics much longer - as you say, he's pushing retirement age real hard. That means that, as Chairman, I'll soon need to find another crackerjack psychiatrist to fill his spot. Frankly, I can't think of anybody who'd be more fit to step in, or that I could trust implicitly, who'd need only minimal briefing than you - except, perhaps, Ethan..."

Jarod gave a sharp, cynical laugh. "Ethan would NEVER..."

"Exactly. AND Ethan is already your partner in practice in California, handling all your cases in your absence, right?" Jarod nodded. "See? All you have to do is tie up a few loose ends over there, and..."

"What about my mother?" Jarod's soft question put the brakes on Miss Parker's reasoning. "She'd be back in the same position she'd been in forever - having her family separated by miles and miles."

"There's nothing that says she couldn't visit back and forth with all of you," Miss Parker answered gently. "None of us are exactly lacking in funds to underwrite the airline industry to keep her close to any of us, no matter where we settle. And, to be honest, I'd like very much to get to know your mother - she and my mom were friends, and I'd like to learn more about my mom through her eyes. Besides, I think it would most appropriate for her to spend some time with us - get to know her other grandson - don't you?"

"'US?'" Jarod inquired, eyebrows rising.

Her grey eyes met his without flinching. "Yes, Jarod, 'US'. We're dancing around it, avoiding touching the topic directly, but we both know and accept as a given that the emotional attachment between us is there. Just listen to the way we were talking just now - you're suggesting I come to California to be with you, I'm suggesting you move back here with me. That screams 'US'." Her voice was firm and steady despite being soft. "That's the two of us working hard to put together a family for ourselves once and for all - with the only two questions left being when we actually commit to each other and where we intend to settle down afterwards."

The slam of a car door outside, announcing Broots' arrival so that they could travel to Ben's inn together, broke the intimate mood that had been starting to form. "We will talk about this more at Ben's," Jarod suggested warmly.

"You can count on it," Miss Parker affirmed with a soft and tired smile, then deliberately changed the topic. "I hope you rested this afternoon, Lab-rat, because I know both Broots and I are bushed from work - and you just wore me out the rest of the way. So the vote is preordained: YOU get to drive."

Jarod nodded. "I think I can handle that."

"I still have to pack."

"No you don't." Jarod pointed to the small suitcase next to his gym-bag near the stairs. "I took the liberty of putting together some things I figured you'd need, in case you got off late."

"You're gonna make some girl a fine wife someday," Miss Parker smirked at him, then rose as the doorbell chimed.

"I'm working on it, I think," Jarod mumbled more to himself than her, then rose to greet Broots as he came through the front door. The Pretender grabbed up the luggage he'd set together for the weekend jaunt and led the way through the house to the garage door and Miss Parker's comfortable sedan.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Damien sat on the bed of his hotel room, grinning from ear to ear as he rifled through the gym-bag filled with wrapped bundles of US one hundred dollar bills that a very solemn-faced Fujimori had delivered to him. He hadn't seen THIS much money all in one place since he worked for the mint in Philadelphia, and never had this much money been all HIS! The mere idea was intoxicating, and he would love to be able to break down and celebrate.

But he now knew better - and now he knew why the Japanese hadn't thrown nearly half the fit he'd expected when he capriciously decided to triple his usual fee. He'd used part of the deposit handed over to him earlier that day to buy himself a computer and then an Internet account - so that he could research just what kind of place this Centre was in the privacy of his own place. What he'd read had both impressed and scared the hell out of him. The Centre was a massive organization, with deep and long-standing ties to the government and law enforcement. Getting a rough layout of the Delaware facility had been easy - and getting the idea that he would have his work cut out for him just to get within eye-shot of the place was even easier.

The Centre was on an isolated strand of Delaware beach for a good reason: the ocean protected the complex completely on one side. The land entrance to the complex was heavily guarded - it seemed the Centre had its own equivalent of a well-armed and highly-trained police force on hand at any given hour. Moreover, the complex itself - including the Tower, which was his designated physical target - was surrounded by vast open lawns. There was no prominent vegetation to hide a surreptitious approach.

Next he'd typed in the name of the man the Japanese indicated they'd wanted taken out with the building. It seemed that William Raines was the Chairman of the Centre - the top dog himself. The picture on the website had been obviously dated - compared to the picture the Japanese had provided for him, the man on the website had hair and was missing the oxygen canula. Considering the resources the Centre had to provide security for its top executives, getting close to Raines - after somehow managing to get inside in the first place - would be difficult indeed.

Remembering all the information about his next job that he'd discovered over the course of the afternoon, the smile on his face faded like the sun behind a cloud. What good was all this money if he wouldn't be around to spend it? It was painfully obvious that if he stuck to his pattern and took on the job alone, he was so desperately out of his league it wasn't funny. So, like it or not, he was going to have to have at least SOME help with this job. He'd have to share some of this beautiful money with somebody else, or he'd never get his other half payment and be able to retire. Damien pulled out a little black book from his inside breast pocket and leafed through it until he found the first name he wanted, then dialed.

Somewhere, somebody had the blueprints of this place on public file. And he knew just the man who could find them for him. THEN he could make arrangements to get the plastique...

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Bet you're not feeling like such a tough guy anymore, are you?" came a rough voice intruding into Willy's dreams. Then, without even letting the former sweeper rouse from his fitful sleep at all, a hand caught him up from his thin pallet by the front of the shirt and tossed him against the wall of his cell like so much trash.

The dark-skinned sweeper's eyes blinked open and found the hanging light fixture of the room turned on as brightly as it would go. Against the far wall, close to the open door, stood Frank, who had once been William Raines' personal sweeper before Willy had come in and bested him at both sharp-shooting and personal defense. Frank had thrown his coat over the surveillance camera's lens so that Jesse, another sweeper who had been stepped on quite hard and cruelly by Willy in his climb to the top rung of the sweeper ladder, could do as he wished without it being recorded visually.

"Jesse..." Willy managed before Jesse's fist drove hard into his gut, doubling him over.

"You know better than to mention names, boy," the sneering sweeper with the crew cut growled at him and then slammed him with a heavy blow to the shoulders that drove Willy to his knees. "You've had this coming for SO long..."

Frank chuckled at the sight of the arrogant black sweeper on his knees before a known racist. "We figured that since them African fellas intended to take you back to your home with 'em, we'd give you a little 'going away party'," he told Willy snidely. "And since you aren't exactly dressed to have your party in the sweeper's lounge, we thought we'd bring it to you here, in your new 'luxury' digs."

Jesse guffawed nastily and hauled Willy to his feet and threw him with his back against the wall again. "You ain't got that walking dead man around to give you backup, do you now, boy? You ain't much of nuthin' without your pet whitey..."

Willy caught his red-necked attacker by surprise, recovering from the slam quickly and throwing a hefty punch of his own that doubled the man over where he stood, whereupon Willy caught him with an upper cut that laid the former enforcer for the KKK out cold.

The sounds of the struggle had been broadcast to the security station on SL-17, even though the visual had been lost - so Willy wasn't surprised when three of the huge Africans barreled into the cell. The first one through the door caught Frank by the throat just as he was getting ready to throw a punch of his own at Willy, while the second one quickly tugged Jesse's jacket from the surveillance camera.

Willy, knowing his best interests were served by staying very clearly and firmly on the same side as the Africans, backed up to his bed frame again with his hands in the air, moving away from the unconscious man on the floor and further from the door. The second sweeper's gaze swept over him coldly, noting his total acquiescence, and then the man signaled to his helper to grab up Jesse from the floor while he went to help haul Frank from the little room.

As the metal door clanged shut and the lock was engaged, Willy felt his legs turn to jelly, and he fell back onto the thin mattress. Until now, he had hated the venue of his custody - it had reminded him continually of the many other permanent Centre residents who had ever occupied similar cells in the past and present, and how he had, for all intents and purposes, joined them in solitary confinement. Now, however, he could see that door as a shield, protecting him from the consequences of his own ambitious actions in climbing through the ranks to become the former Chairman's personal sweeper - as well as the actions taken to jealously guard that status.

These past few minutes - and the fact that the others had gotten to him at all - had proven to him that the Centre's security force were ready and willing to 'take care of' one of their own who had slipped from favor. Without the intervention of the Africans, his life would have been over - but not before he'd been made to pay for his ruthless ambitions. He was now convinced that had Miss Parker not spoken up for him, and had he not willingly given up his recollections of every contrary-to-directives order that he had been given by his old boss, these Africans would most likely not be defending him at all.

But they weren't allowing anything serious to happen - AND they intended to take him back to Africa with them, undoubtedly with Raines in tow, probably Vernon as well. Perhaps there was a chance, slim though it might be, of gaining useful employment with the Triumverate itself if he continued to spill his guts and his mind. He wasn't sure, but he was in no position to want to take chances. He knew quite a bit more than anybody suspected, thanks to an eidetic memory he'd never disclosed to anybody else and a tendency to enjoy standing close enough to closed doors to hear much of what went on beyond them.

One way or the other, however, after today, Willy knew that he would never be so glad as on the day that he put the Centre, his tenure with Raines, and his entire past as a sweeper, behind him.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Randy Obayashi handed the security guard at the Centre foyer his employee's pass to be swiped, put his eye to the retinal scanner for verification, then lifted his eyes to flirt ever so subtlely with the buxom blonde gai-jin security guard, as he had everyday for the past four years. Only this day, his inviting smile was met with a dour black face - darker and less open than any face he'd seen in a very long time, not to mention decidedly masculine. The little janitor bowed his embarrassment and confusion, automatically reverting to the customs of his youth, and then headed off in the direction of the maintenance office for deployment for the day, and then the locker room to change.

SOMETHING had obviously happened in the two days since he'd been at work last. The halls were crawling with big, beefy, unreadable black sweepers speaking with a musical accent that was hard to penetrate. The mood of the place seemed at once oppressive and yet liberated.

"Hey Randy! Enjoy your days off?" Charlie, one of the day-shift crew, was still crawling out of his overalls in front of his locker.

Randy put his lunch box down on the bench in front of his locker and began working the padlock. "Say, what's with all those new sweepers out there? Looks like we've suffered an invasion of some kind..."

Charlie shook his balding grey head and chuckled softly. "Something like that is about right. Seems our high-and-mighty Chairman Raines has gone and pissed off his African bosses, and they done swooped in on him and carted his ass off to a cell 'way down on SL-25. Right now the Chief High Muckie-Muck Ngawe himself is sitting in The Big Chair until we gets us a new CEO."

"You're kidding! Raines is out?" Randy gaped at his friend, then resumed manipulating his lock.

"Raines AND his pet sweeper are in lock-down somewhere down below," Charlie intoned solemnly, pointing straight down. "I hear they're on their way back to wherever these fellas come from when the time comes," the older man slammed his locker closed and spun the dial on his combination lock. "I heard a couple of our old sweepers talking while I was dumping the trash in the sweepers' lounge this afternoon. They're taking bets down there that Miss Parker gets the nod."

Randy just shook his head disbelievingly as he pulled out a clean pair of grey, industrial-issue overalls and laid them on the bench next to him while he stripped down to his T-shirt and briefs, barely deterred by the stubby remnants of the pinky finger on his left hand. "Hard to believe," he commented as his friend passed behind him on his way out of the door.

"Know whatcha mean. See ya tomorrow," Charlie called back, then left Randy alone in the locker room.

Randy's eyes narrowed in frustration. He had an entire shift to work now before he'd be able to leave the Centre and make a phone call to New York City. Tanaka-sama would, no doubt, find the information he'd just gathered interesting, given the amount of business dealings the Yakuza had had with the Centre over the past few years. A change in administration at the Centre would be important, perhaps critically so. And since his work assignment tonight was the Tower mid-level and higher, perhaps he'd have something else to go with that information from a trash can or blotter paper.

For four years now, he'd been feeling more than a little useless - ordered to one of the most menial, degrading job known in this cultural backwater known as Blue Cove. It had been a dream of his that something he'd pass along would be sufficient to give him his ticket home to Osaka. Surely the time would come when Tanaka-sama would forgive him - he hoped it to be sooner than later.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The lights were all still on in the main area of Ben's inn as Jarod carefully steered Miss Parker's car into a parking space near the front entrance. "End of the line," he called out loudly enough to awaken the man in the back seat snoring, and he put a hand on the knee of the woman in the passenger's seat and shook it gently to rouse her. "Rise and shine, Parker - we're here. And it looks like they waited up for us."

She took in a deep breath, then reached down for the control that put her seat up straighter again. "I can't believe I slept the entire trip," she yawned widely.

"You and me both," came an equally sleepy rejoinder from the darkness in the back seat.

"Both of you dropped off almost the moment I hit 36," Jarod commented, scratching his beard tiredly and then adjusting his glasses. "And in case you never have anybody around to tell you, Broots, you snore like a buzz saw! I didn't have to worry about falling asleep with you just behind my ear..."

"Very funny, Jarod," Broots grumbled as he opened his door and the overhead interior light came on.

Jarod reached across a still rousing Miss Parker to open the glove box and pop the trunk open with the push of a button. "All ashore who's going ashore," he called out, then climbed out and stretched out his back, his hands over his kidneys.

The front door of the inn suddenly opened, and Debbie and Sam spilled down the steps toward the recent arrivals. "Daddy!" Debbie yelled happily and sprang into her almost-prepared father's embrace.

"Whoa!" Broots struggled to keep his balance by hanging onto his daughter. "Now THIS is what I call a welcome!" Once he'd gotten free of her, he reached back in and dragged his own gym-bag from where he'd thrown it on the seat next to him. "Lead on, kiddo!"

Sam had come up to the passenger side of the car and opened the door for Miss Parker. "Good to see you, Miss Parker," he stated with quiet deference, extending down a hand to help her out. "I'm glad you're OK."

"Thanks, Sam," she said, surprising both him and herself by putting her arms around his neck and giving him a quick hug. "I never knew how much I appreciated having you around me all the time until I had to make do with other bodyguards." Sam harrumphed in embarrassment and very carefully hugged her back, then stepped back out of her reach. She looked up at the inn expectantly, waving at Ben as he stood holding the door open. "Where are Syd and Davy?"

"Davy lasted until ten-thirty, when he just crashed on the couch. I put him to bed. Sydney, on the other hand, has been in the middle of a very serious discussion with Kevin for the better part of the evening. I don't even know if he knows you're here yet." Sam hoisted out the suitcase and Jarod's gym-bag. "These it?"

"Yeah." Jarod took the bags from the sweeper after closing the trunk down. "Thanks."

Broots and Debbie were already up the steps, and Debbie was introducing her father to their host for the weekend. With Jarod and Sam flanking her, Miss Parker followed them and then moved ahead so that she could give Ben a huge hug. "It's been too long," she apologized.

"I'm just glad to see you, from the sounds of your friends when they got here," Ben squeezed his Catherine's little girl gently. "You had all of us mighty worried there for a while."

"I'm fine," she reassured him with a kiss to the cheek, then moved aside so that Jarod could shake the man's hand once he'd put her suitcase on the ground.

"Jarod, I haven't seen you for..."

"WAY too long," the Pretender finished for the older man, then let the handshake become a quick welcoming hug.

"You know him?" Sam was confused and turned to Miss Parker. "He knows Ben?"

She sighed and turned to respond after retrieving her suitcase. "He worked for Ben for a while, when he was first helping me uncover the truth about my mother. He knew Ben before I did - arranged for us to meet, as a matter of fact." She stepped past Ben and into the foyer of the inn and put her suitcase on a low bench then headed for the spacious common area after giving and receiving an emotional hug from Debbie.

She no more had gone two feet into the room before she heard a familiarly accented, "Parker!" She turned and saw Sydney struggling to rise from a very over-stuffed chair, only to accept a helping hand from a very handsome young man who rose quickly to come to his aid without being asked. She didn't pause long to study the young stranger; for her old friend had put out his arms expectantly and she hurried to him and let herself be wrapped in his paternal love and warmth. "Now I can rest easy," the older man murmured in a voice meant for her ears alone. "Are you sure you're OK? They didn't hurt you..."

"I'm OK, Sydney, really," she reassured him repeatedly, brushing her lips across his cheek, leaning into him and holding him back as tightly as she dared. "And God, but I'm glad to see you again! How are YOU doing?" she worried back at him.

Sydney finally let her go so that she could move back enough that they could see each other's faces again. "Kevin here has been keeping me nicely dosed with pain meds every time he sees me grimace, although," he aimed the next remark at Jarod over her shoulder, "not such high doses anymore. I just need something to take the edge off, not something that puts me to sleep for hours."

"Provided you're behaving yourself and staying very quiet otherwise," Jarod spoke up from behind Miss Parker, and put a hand on Sydney's shoulder by way of greeting, "that should be OK." He turned to Kevin. "Thanks for taking good care of him for me."

Kevin blushed, but managed not to look away. "I'm... enjoying getting to know Sydney. Thanks for asking me to take care of him."

Jarod's eyes brushed Syd's, and the older psychiatrist saw in the quick smile and nod that Jarod had intended for things to happen just the way they had. Of course - Jarod had met Vernon! No wonder he had pushed Kevin at him. More than anybody else, he would have been aware that the young Pretender needed a more realistic frame of reference regarding authority figures - and who better to demonstrate that difference than Jarod's own mentor.

"Parker, this is Kevin," Sydney took charge of the remaining introductions to be made. "Kevin, this is Miss Parker, Davy's mother and my... my unofficially adopted daughter. And that fellow over there is Broots - Deb's father." Broots heard his name and raised his head to pay attention. "Broots, this is Kevin." The balding technician raised his hand in greeting rather than call one out across the room, and Kevin mirrored the gesture back.

Miss Parker pulled one of her hands from around Sydney's back and extended it to Kevin. "Thanks for taking care of Sydney for me... us." She glanced at Jarod and saw the quiet amusement in his eyes at her gaffe, then at Sydney and saw the greying eyebrows climbing the forehead at the many implications of that one small word change. "Nice to meet you," she continued, deliberately not paying attention to the small commotion she'd caused.

Kevin found himself staring - he couldn't help it. Miss Parker, while obviously nicely settling into middle age, was a tall and strikingly beautiful woman with dark hair and intense grey eyes. He lowered his head in a nod very slowly. "Nice to meet you too," he repeated after her, hoping it was the proper way to respond.

"Hey, Kev! C'mon over here - I want you to meet my Dad!" Debbie called to the young man, who blushed.

Miss Parker looked over at the young woman and noted a certain flush of excitement about her, then turned back to the young Pretender and jerked her head in the Broots' direction. "Go ahead," she said gently. "Broots is really a nice guy. You'll like him."

Sydney nodded at his young friend as well, so Kevin was feeling just a little reassured when he turned and walked across the room to join Debbie and her Dad. Sydney looked over at Jarod. "Kevin has had quite an introduction to a more social lifestyle over the last day or so," he reported softly to the assembled foursome. "Sam and Davy have given him enough physical activity out in the fresh air to wear him out more than once, and Deb... well..."

"Say no more, Syd," Jarod was already chuckling. "I can remember the first time a girl turned MY head." He looked over at Miss Parker with undisguised fondness.

Sydney caught the glance Jarod and Miss Parker were sharing and cleared his throat, and the suddenly self-conscious reaction of the pair to the sound made it very clear that this was an area he was going to want to stay clear of - at least for the time being. "And anyway, I suppose you all are pretty tired from your trip. We should probably head off to bed and get some rest."

"I was going to say," Ben added from the doorway to the common room, "that if you folks would follow me, I'll show you to your rooms before I hit the hay. I'll be having breakfast on the table for everyone at 7."

The newcomers all grabbed up their luggage and, after seeing that their friends were also going to be trudging upstairs to retire, followed the innkeeper. He had keys for the various rooms in his hand, which he doled out as the rest of the group each claimed their doors and Ben moved the newcomers past them to their rooms. Broots he put in the room next to his daughter's, and then Miss Parker in the room next to her son. Jarod he put in the room next to Miss Parker. There was a moment of quiet cacophony as eight tired people bid each other a good night and then one by one vanished behind closed doors.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Randy Obayashi wheeled his cleaning cart out of the final office at this level of the Tower, heading for the elevator which would take him to his finally assignment of the evening: the very pinnacle of power itself. The janitorial staff had become accustomed to being randomly rotated from one assigned area to another. In the four years that he'd worked there, Randy had quite literally cleaned the Centre from top to bottom - from the Chairman's office to the even dark oubliette of SL-27 once, just before a bomb had toasted the entire sublevel, again.

It was now after two in the morning. Those few late-working night owls in middle management had, to a man, now taken off for a few hours rest before coming back to their cubbies and offices. The pickings, information-wise, had been incredibly lean tonight. It seemed that simply discarding documents was not the protocol used by those mid-level executives while under the watchful eye of the new regime from Africa - no, instead, nearly every document shredder on that level had been used extensively and effectively. Randy had nothing to quietly leaf through except bag after bag of the white, fluffy stuff - and he had neither the time nor the patience to try THAT.

But, for a change, Randy had drawn the plum assignment: that of taking care of the Chairman's office, as well as that of his/her secretary-receptionist. With any luck, considering the chaos changing administrations would naturally create, there would be SOMETHING... He headed behind the heavy carved desk, finding little in the trash to empty and so looking elsewhere for tidbits.

Ah-so! There were plenty of impressions in the Chairman's blotter paper for the day - and he'd be willing to bet that whoever had been sitting in The Big Chair thought they were SO smart to remove the top paper themselves to prevent information leaks. The janitor positioned himself very precisely in relation to the ever-present and never-off surveillance camera so as to be as invisible in his actions as possible. Then he quickly folded the paper carefully and put it inside his overalls, then zipped them up again completely before anyone was the wiser.

Another information coup, hopefully. He could almost hear the temple bells of Osaka already.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Damien removed a very thick envelope of bills from his jacket pocket and slipped it across the café table. Raul, his favorite New York City explosives dealer, pulled the tongue of the envelope open so he could run a thumb down the one corner and make sure the amount he'd been given matched roughly the amount he had quoted. He'd done this often enough that he could be fairly precise in his estimations of the amount of cash he'd been handed.

With a foot he pushed the briefcase on the floor from next to his chair under Damien's. "Always good doin' BEEZness with you, Weenwood," he slurred in his Puerto Rican accent that he used for his more public appearances. "Next time, ése..." He rose and, in his own distinctive style, sauntered from the diner whistling a jaunty Carribean melody.

The paunchy arsonist reached down a hand and pulled the briefcase more officially into his keeping. He had estimated the amount of C-4 explosives it would take to bring down a building roughly twice the size of the Centre Tower and bought it, just to be on the safe side. It was always better to have too much, and blow the place to absolute smithereens, than not have enough and leave a salvageable hulk standing. The Yakuza wanted the 'pride' of the Centre brought low.

Well, low was what they were going to get, by God - and with William Raines in the Centre of the rubble too. Damien began to chuckle at his own humor - 'at the Centre of the rubble'!

Now all he needed were blueprints and a plan, and he'd be in business for the last time.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The sounds of soft voices in the hallway had roused him from his light slumber, and Davy had sat up the moment he'd recognized the sound of both his mom's and dad's voices. His father HAD kept his promise - he'd found Davy's mommy and brought her back with him. Barely able to contain himself, he waited until the voices in the hallway outside his room had all died away before climbing out of bed.

Ben had said that when Jarod and his mom arrived, he'd be putting Mom in the room next door to him. So Davy didn't have to wonder or guess where she'd gone. He padded across the room in bare feet that curled away from the cold hardwood of the floorboards, and quietly pulled the door open. Sticking his head out into the hallway and finding nobody out there to notice his late night wanderings, he tiptoed away from Grandpa Sydney's room close to the stairs and then stood outside the door of the room on the other side of his, listening.

Inside he could hear the stirrings of whoever it was, probably getting ready for bed. Excited, he knocked softly at the door. The stirring ceased, and the floorboards within creaked as the person inside walked across the room to the door and opened it - and then he was looking up at the silhouette of his mother, clad in familiar silken bedclothes.

"Mommy!" he exclaimed very softly, and threw himself up into her welcoming arms.

"Davy!" Miss Parker whispered as she clasped her little boy to her heart tightly. "My little man!"

Davy wound his arms around her neck tightly. "They took you away," he whimpered. Grandpa Sydney's assurances that his mother was safe had taken the edge of extreme anxiety away, but he still had trouble escaping the angry voices of the night that had seen his mother forcibly stolen away from him. "I heard you yelling, and then I heard them hit you..."

"Oh, baby!" Miss Parker carried her son to the easy chair by the window and sat down with him in her lap and cradled him tightly. "That was really scary, wasn't it? Mommy was scared too, you know."

"Did they hurt you?" the boy wanted to know as he snuggled closer and closed his eyes to soak up the comfort and security his mother's arms around him never failed to provide.

"They tried, baby, but I'm OK. They didn't touch me." She pushed at him to get him to sit up straighter and pay attention. "Look, Davy. I'm fine. See?"

Davy's expression bespoke his skepticism; but he looked her all over - her arms, her chest, her face - then, satisfied she was indeed fine, dove for her embrace again. "Can I stay with you tonight?" he asked in a small voice.

Miss Parker wrapped her arms around her son again and rocked him for a little bit. He had come about as close to the same kind of life-shattering loss that she herself had gone through as she ever wanted him to get. She could see that even though he had had a supportive father and grandfather and cousin around him to help allay the fears, the experience itself was clearly still fresh and raw - and probably had spawned its share of nightmares already. "Sure you can, baby," she whispered into his tossed dark hair. She kissed him on the top of the head. "They'll never pull that kind of stunt again, my little love, I promise you!"

She felt her son give a huge sigh and then relax, and she realized that Davy had fallen asleep in her arms. She relaxed back into her chair and leaned her chin on the top of his head gently. It had been a very long time since she had rocked or held her son in her arms as he slumbered; and after the last two days of upheaval and indecision, this was the kind of moment that all of that worth while.

There was another soft knock at the door, and then Jarod's head peeked around the corner at her. "I thought I heard voices," he explained very softly, feeling his heart thump hard at the sight of mother and child.

"He just wanted to make sure I was OK," she explained back in a whisper, smoothing the boy's hair back tenderly.

Jarod came more fully into the room and closed the door behind him. "I'm not surprised," he commented. "Do you want me to take him back to his room?"

Miss Parker shook her head. "He asked to stay here with me, just before he dropped off. Just help me get him into bed here, OK?"

Jarod very gently slipped his arms beneath the sleeping child and lifted him up, then turned and waited for Miss Parker to turn down the covers of the bed so that he could lay Davy against the pillows. "I've done my good deed for the evening, and now I should say goodnight again," he said, straightening and turning her. "I'll see you in the morning - at breakfast?"

"Jarod..." Her hand reached out and caught at his forearm as he turned to leave. "He's just had a pretty bad scare, what with me kidnapped practically in front of him. He could use both of us tonight, don't you think, to give him just that much more of a sense of security? Stay..."

"And scandalize Sydney anymore than he already is in the process?" Jarod inquired with raised eyebrows. "He's already figured out that SOMETHING is going on..."

"I've scandalized Syd a whole lot worse than this before, and he's survived his shock, trust me. He tends to scandalize easily anyway..." Miss Parker chuckled at the memory of her surrogate father stepping outside the boundaries of their formerly distant relationship to express the kind of paternal disapproval she'd never been able to elicit from 'Daddy', no matter how hard she'd tried. Despite being irked by his chiding at the time, the fact that he would care enough to at least notice and comment from time to time had been a subtle comfort to her for years. "Besides, I don't think he'd disapprove this time, do you?"

Jarod stepped closer to her and cupped his hand against her cheek. "Parker, this isn't something we're going to be able to take back if we change our minds in the morning... So are you really ready to publicly be an 'us' - especially in front of Davy?"

She raised her grey eyes to him. "Are you?"

Jarod bent his head and put his lips to hers in a tender and electrifying kiss. When he raised his head again, his chocolate eyes were warm. "I guess this means we've answered the questions of 'if we want this' and 'when we make a commitment'. All that's left us now is..."

"...figuring out where we'll end up living," she finished for him, then stretched up a bit and returned the gentle kiss. "And that can wait for tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that - or maybe even until after work on Monday. But for now, let's get a good night's rest, and give our little boy the kind of love and security he deserves."

"OK. You talked me into it," Jarod said quietly, then stepped back and then around the end of the bed after turning off the overhead light. They both slipped beneath the covers from either side then, after Miss Parker turned and extinguished the lamp on the night stand, rolled toward the center and each put their arm around their son - touching each other as they embraced their child between them.

It didn't take long for either of them to drop off into restful, dreamless sleep.


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