See part 1 ("Another Woman") for disclaimer.
Author's Note: This is arriving a little later than planned. Still, you have no idea how grateful I am to be able to deliver this. REALLY, you don't! Thanks to everyone who responded so kindly to the cranky ramblings in my previous post. Rather ironically, the cosmos have since sent me a few things to be legitimately cranky about but I'll have none of it. Ginger has a new lease on life and you know what that means... uh-oh!
The Friendship Cycle Eleven: Conclusion
By Ginger
It was her first free afternoon in weeks and Parker resolved to make the most of it. Stretching out on the chaise in the small, pretty, and fragrant garden, she picked up her book to settle in for a nice long read. She could definitely get used to a place where winter was just around the corner and it was in the mid-seventies. Curitiba, Brazil was definitely a far cry from Blue Cove, Delaware.
She caught sight of her pale peach toenails and wiggled her toes. In her simple cotton shift dress of cornflower blue with her hair piled haphazardly on her head and without a lick of makeup, Parker figured she was nearly unrecognizable to anyone who had known her previously. She was barely recognizable to herself.
*Who the hell is this woman?*
Emitting a soft, wry chuckle, she used the toes of her right foot to scratch an itch on her left ankle. One concession to her previous incarnation was her hemline; it remained well above the knee. There was no point, after all, in throwing the baby out with the bath water. Sighing contentedly, she crossed her long, tanned limbs at the ankles and drew her eyes to her book.
An enigmatic smiled appeared on her lips even before a shadow moved across the page, but she did not immediately look up. Instead, Parker cleared her throat and remarked,
"Excuse me, but you are blocking my sun."
* * * *
Neither of them spoke right away. He dragged over a patio chair and sat down to face her then simply stared into her eyes for what seemed an eternity but may only have been a minute or two. Finally, he offered,
"You're looking well."
"As are you."
And indeed he was. He was wearing jeans - faded blue not the usual black - and a button down, collarless shirt of pale gold. His hair was a bit longer than the last time she'd seen him but his face was mercifully clean shaven. He appeared rested and relaxed, but what struck her most were his eyes: the complete absence of that haunted, searching look that had been there for as long as she'd known him. Jarod wasn't running anymore; he knew who he was. Beautiful couldn't even begin to describe it.
Looking around he remarked, "Nice place."
"It's a small house but it doesn't require much upkeep, which is perfect for a busy single parent."
Smiling he asked, "And how is young Mr. Parker?"
"He's active, bright and growing like a weed. He's started attending a local preschool a couple afternoons a week, which is where he is now. You should hear his Portuguese; he's just soaking it up. We call him T.J., by the way."
Nodding and blinking away he responded softly, "So I've heard and I am honored, Parker."
Shrugging she explained, "It was an inexcusably sentimental thing to do, but I guess I'm getting soft in my old age. I'd like to think that Tommy would be honored too."
"I haven't the slightest doubt in my mind," he said and, meeting her eyes again, continued, "I think it's marvelous what you're doing. I... I must confess to being a little surprised when I first heard. Stunned, actually."
"That makes two of us," she replied with a snort then went on to explain, "When everything began to change and I was suddenly faced with the question of what to do about him, I... I don't think I've ever felt so unqualified to make a decision in my life. In fact, I didn't for several weeks. I just did my best to take care of him and keep him safe. All the while, I kept telling myself that I'd find a good home for him. God, poor Sydney... I must have gone over it with him a thousand times... how a child would be better off with a loving family, two parents, a white picket fence, a minivan... all the things I couldn't give him."
"So what happened to change your mind?"
"I'm not sure that I *have* changed my mind. I have no idea what I'm doing but... when I get him up in the morning or put him down at night, he looks up at me with such trust, as though he's convinced that I can actually *do* this."
"Because you can," Jarod interjected with warm smile.
"I guess we'll find out," Parker stated, sighed and continued, "For whatever reason, he seems to need and want me. I'm all he's got. Besides, as Syd pointed out, nobody can protect him the way that I can because nobody will or could comprehend where he came from, not the way that I do. Except maybe..." She looked intently into his eyes and tacked on, "You."
He nodded solemnly then observed, "It's amazing how quickly things started to unravel... after."
"Isn't it though?" she replied with a snicker.
"I guess your father really was the heart of the place."
"I suppose that's true in some ways but, if anything, it proves something I've suspected for quite a while: that the whole thing was just an elaborate house of cards. When Daddy was gone it created a power vacuum or the perception of one, anyway. The wrong person got twitchy, blinked, and it set off a chain reaction."
"You have no idea how worried I was. More than once I considered breaking my promise to you."
"I'll bet you did," she commented with a smirk. "But, in the end, the best thing you could have done was stay away. It got a little dicey there for a while but, ultimately, we simply got lost in the shuffle. I guess it was pretty apparent that the Chairman's daughter wasn't interested in inheriting his job, and Lyle clearly was so he drew most of the attention. Besides, you obviously weren't coming back so they lost interest. It's kind of funny, really. One evening Syd, Broots and I were talking when it suddenly hit us. *Nobody* would be coming for us. We weren't even important enough to kill. God, we must have laughed for a solid hour."
"After all those years of struggle," Jarod muttered, shaking his head.
"Ironic, isn't it?" Parker observed with a grin then added, "So, there we were."
"Free to make your own plans."
"And cover our tracks. We had a couple immediate concerns, namely Angelo and, of course, my baby brother."
"Angelo seems to be adjusting well. Sydney has a real knack with him."
"Ah..." She nodded. "You've been to see them." He nodded and smiled in response.
Parker went on, "T.J. proved more problematic. I had no idea where he was. Daddy had moved him out of Blue Cove early on to keep him safe and refused to tell me where. I had Broots working on it around the clock but we weren't getting anywhere. I was close to giving up when Lyle showed up at my door at 3:00 a.m. with T.J. in his arms. He handed him over and said, 'Break the cycle, Parker.' That's the last time I saw him. I don't know whether he's alive or dead but, regardless, I don't expect to see him again."
Jarod averted his eyes, taking a few moments to contemplate his shoes as he processed that last bit of information. Lyle was a difficult topic of discussion for obvious reasons, and she certainly didn't expect her report of the one decent thing her brother had ever done to wipe away all the pain he'd inflicted on Jarod and his family.
When he finally spoke, it was to offer a soft, heartfelt, "I am sorry, Parker, about your father. Really, I am."
"Thank you. I truly appreciate it."
"It must have been very difficult for you."
Shaking her head she commented, "You should have seen him. He was positively incredulous. After decades of surviving at the Centre, he simply could not believe that he wasn't going to be able to talk, bribe, intimidate or charm his way out of it. By the time he was diagnosed, the cancer had already spread from his kidneys to his lungs. It was over very quickly. I found out Labor Day Weekend and he died a week after Thanksgiving."
Frowning, Jarod inched his chair forward then reached out to take her hand. He pressed her palm to his then used his other hand to tenderly stroke the top of hers. Parker smiled, warmth spreading through her body as she watched him stare at their clasped hands. Without looking up, he whispered,
"You've had quite a year."
"It had its moments... but it wasn't all bad. The time with Daddy, at the end, was alright. He was at home with around the clock nursing care and I moved Sam in to keep an eye on him. I was there virtually every evening and stayed most nights. At first it was fairly awkward in that typically dysfunctional Parker way but the closer he came to the end, the easier it got. I even summoned the courage to tell him about us."
Looking up at her, incredulous, he asked, "You did?"
Nodding she replied, "It was Thanksgiving evening. Lyle had left and I had given Sam the day off. By then, Daddy was in a hospital bed in the den and receiving morphine intravenously. I guess part of me just figured, what the heck, what harm could it do? And I guess another part of me didn't want my father to die without knowing who I really am."
"And what did he say?"
"Calm down, Angel, and don't be so damned dramatic!" She smiled wistfully as she recalled her father's words.
"Huh?"
"Well, I was pretty defensive. I told him that I supposed he could still burn me, even from that bed. He could spend his last moments ensuring that I was punished for my disloyalty if that's really how he wanted to finish things. He was quiet for a while then he shrugged and said that, deep down, he'd always known it was only a matter of time. Then he asked me what our plans were."
"What did you tell him?"
"That, as far as I knew, we didn't have any. You were gone and I had my life to get on with. Beyond that..." She smiled and squeezed his hand. "I just hoped to see my best friend again someday."
Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed it and said, "You had to know you would."
She nodded and shrugged. Silence reigned as Jarod looked around the garden then again at her hand, which he continued to hold in his. She waited patiently for him to say what he needed to. There was no hurry; she wasn't going anywhere. Fixing his gaze on her, he shook his head and sighed,
"Oh, Parker."
She raised her eyebrows expectantly. He sighed again then swiftly scooted forward, pivoted and sat down beside her on the chaise. Pressing her hand to his chest and gazing off into the distance, Jarod muttered,
"Do you have any idea how much I've..."
"Oh, I think I do," she interjected.
Turning to look at her he stated, "I am going to go down in history as the world's biggest idiot."
"I very much doubt that, but I am curious as to what makes you say so."
Blinking away he smiled and said, "You mentioned a white picket fence earlier. We have one, you know, at the house where the family's been living. Seemed like a dream come true in the beginning... only..."
"What?" she softly prodded.
"After a while I grew to hate that fence. It made me feel, well, fenced in. And *that* made me feel guilty because Mom and Dad finally have their family back. Everything they had lost has been restored." He frowned then tacked on, "Well, almost everything."
"I guess it's all a matter of perspective," Parker observed. "It makes sense that a man held captive most of his life would have an aversion to fences of any kind."
"It was more than the fence," he said looking knowingly at her.
"I know," she replied with a sympathetic smile.
"It wasn't like I thought it would be," he reflected.
"In life, things rarely are," she sighed.
"We were. I thought... no, I *knew* we would be fantastic and we were."
She nodded, they exchanged a smile and Jarod continued, "Don't get me wrong, a lot of it has been wonderful. On our first day together, my mother and I just held each other and cried. I had my first ever birthday party - the first one I remember anyway. And the whole family was together for Thanksgiving and Christmas."
"I'm glad," Parker offered with a squeeze of his hand. "That's what I wanted for you. That's what I would picture whenever I'd wonder what you were doing. It made it easier... well, it made it bearable... almost."
Shaking his head he lifted her hand and pressed it to his lips then muttered against her flesh, "I am an idiot."
"You already said that but, okay, if you insist."
He rolled his eyes at her and said, "It never occurred to me that it might be difficult. The fact of the matter is that, in many ways, we were strangers. The visits with Dad, Jon and Em had always been great, but they were temporary and it was all about fun. Once we were all living together under one roof the differences became glaringly obvious. Sometimes it felt as though there was an invisible line dividing the family: those who had been in the Centre and those who hadn't."
"Again, hardly unexpected under the circumstances."
"Maybe not but that didn't make it any easier. Sometimes I felt so alone. I missed... I missed the people I never had to explain anything to. I missed the people whose habits, tastes, and desires I fundamentally understood, the people who knew me equally well. I missed Sydney. God, I missed..."
Jarod turned over Parker's hand and pressed his thumb into her palm, gently rubbing back and forth. The gesture was somehow intimate, sweetly erotic. Her body seemed to shift of its own accord to be closer to his. He looked into her eyes - longingly and worshipfully - the same way he'd looked at her the very first time they met.
"I missed you so much it was like a raw, gaping wound. Everyone could see that I was in pain but nobody knew why. I..." He looked away guiltily and whispered, "Kept it to myself."
"Ah, so you never confessed that you'd been sleeping with the enemy for a year," she commented evenly.
Snapping his head back to face her he protested, "That wasn't it! For one thing, the woman who orchestrated our reunion is hardly considered the enemy. Far from it, actually. Jon never stops asking about you. Apparently you made quite an impression in your brief encounter."
"Must be genetic," she teased.
"That's not funny," he retorted. "I feel sorry for him. Where on earth is he ever going to find another?"
"How old is he now?" she asked with a devilish grin.
"Again, not funny," he replied with a grudging smile then continued, "Dad and Em aren't stupid and I suppose they suspected *something* when I ended it with Zoe. But they never asked and I never told. Once we were all together, I don't know, I just wanted to keep it here." He pressed her hand to his heart again then added, "Besides, I thought it might hurt them if they knew that I..."
"Missed the people from your *previous* life."
He nodded and explained, "So we all soldiered along - awkward and tense - until the one person who knew the whole truth decided to blow into town for a visit."
"And how is baby brother?" Parker inquired with a smile.
"Trouble, as usual," Jarod replied with a sigh. Raising his right arm, he wiggled his wrist and said, "I never take it off. Well, almost never. While my family had obviously seen it, they had never seen the inscription on the back. No one had, not even Ethan but I guess *he* wouldn't actually have to *see* it to know it was there."
"Guess not," she concurred with a shrug.
"One afternoon I was out in the garage helping Dad with a woodworking project and left it in my room so it wouldn't get damaged. That's when Ethan took it upon himself to swipe it and bring it to Mom. He said something like, 'This was a gift from my sister and I think it's time you ask your son about it.'"
"He didn't," she said biting her lip.
"Oh, he did, and it made for some rather lively dinnertime conversation that evening." Chuckling he added, "I could have killed him with my bare hands. But, in the end, he did me a favor. He did us all a favor. The next week or so was intense but we were all finally able to speak freely and without guilt or fear of hurting one another's feelings."
"Ugh, sounds awful," Parker remarked.
"Well, I wouldn't want to do it again," he replied wryly then sighed and continued, "A light bulb finally went on. All this time I've been searching for who I really am, and I was positively certain that finding my family would bring me to the real Jarod. I was single-minded. It was the premise around which I built my entire life, affecting every decision, every move, I made."
"Everyone wants to know who they are, Jarod."
"Precisely, and to a certain extent none of us will ever truly know because we're all left to wonder who we would be if the circumstances of our lives had been different. Maybe because mine qualifies as a bit of an extreme case I didn't see it sooner, but the fact remains that for seven years I was looking for the person I would be if I hadn't been abducted by the Centre."
"Have you found him?"
"No, because he no longer exists. He disappeared in 1963 and he's not coming back. Meanwhile, the real Jarod has been here all along. He's the person who, as a boy, delighted in the company of an amazing, beautiful girl - his best friend. He's the person who's spent thousands and thousands of hours in conversation with Sydney, and in those conversations learned how to be a man in the world. He's the person who became reacquainted with that girl from his childhood, only to find that she had grown into a goddess, a cranky goddess, but a goddess nevertheless."
She shot him a look. He grinned and went on, "He's the person who went out there, saw the world, and met all kinds of interesting people. And, along the way, did some good... maybe. And he's the man who somehow managed to get his best friend back and then fell deeply, passionately in love with her. Incidentally, I love you, Parker."
"Incidentally? Are you kidding?"
"I'm sorry. I have been waiting one year, twelve days." He glanced at his wristwatch. "Five hours and fourteen minutes to say that so, in some ways, it seems like old news to me."
"Not to me... I..."
"I didn't say it to hear it. I didn't even say it for you. I said it because I needed to. Do you understand?"
Jarod raised an eyebrow at her, casting her a lethally handsome look. Parker rolled her eyes and glanced away, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Giving his hand a hearty yank, she muttered,
"Come here, you idiot."
Grinning ear to ear he gleefully scrambled up on the chaise beside her then drew her into a long, slow, tender kiss. Afterwards he kissed her forehead and she nuzzled against him, maneuvering to sling one of her bare legs across both of his. There was silence as each adjusted to the renewed sensation of the other's touch. It was an easy adjustment.
After a while she kissed his chin and asked softly, "What about your family?"
"My family is very important to me; I love them. They are and will remain an integral part of my life. But I can't give my parents back the child they lost any more than they can give me back my lost childhood. The best we can do is enjoy who we've become, the people we are now. And the person I am now is at his best when he's with you. They'll miss me but they understand. In fact, my father lit a fire under me. He said that a woman like you won't stay available forever and that there are plenty of guys out there as cute as I am, even cuter."
"Ridiculous," she commented with a smirk.
"That's what I said," he replied with one of his charm-your-pants-off smiles.
"You know," she advised with complete deadpan. "Everything is different now. My priorities have changed. I am not that fun-loving, carefree chick you once knew."
"I'll take that under advisement," he said with soft chuckle.
"But, seriously, it's not just me anymore. Besides, who knows if it... if *we* will even work. When you add it all up, our time together was only a matter of weeks. We never even fought, not once."
"That's because we kept conversation to a minimum," Jarod joked.
"Precisely!" Parker proclaimed as she sat up to look into his eyes.
Shaking his head he reflected, "Which just goes to show that we always made better friends than enemies."
She cast him a skeptical look then settled back down beside him as he continued, "Look, I know you have T.J. now and that he has to come first. Believe me, I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm the one who disappeared for a year, and I hardly expect to breeze in here and become an instant family. I would just like the opportunity to get to know him while I get reacquainted with his... mother. That's all, really. I need to have you in my life right now and I'll take what I can get."
Sitting up again Parker raised an eyebrow and remarked, "Now where have I heard *that* before?"
Jarod shrugged and pulled her back into an embrace then sighed, "Do you have any idea how good you look, smell and feel? I thought I remembered but I really didn't. Nothing imagined approaches the reality."
"So, what do we do now?" she asked softly as she nestled her face in the crook of his neck.
"I don't know. Anything we want, I guess. Strange concept, I know. You seem to be settled in here for a while. I'm renting a small place nearby. I heard that you've been keeping tabs on the remnants of the Centre. So have I, actually. There's always the chance that the whole thing could reassemble again. And, of course, there's the Triumverate. I see no reason why we can't continue to keep an eye on them and, perhaps, come up with some methods of quietly upsetting their apple cart. Might be fun to work *together* for a change. Oh, and I'd like to spend some time with Sydney, like we did at White Cloud. He could come down here. I think T.J. would be good for Angelo and vice versa. Angelo has such a way with children. Maybe we could have Broots and Debbie down too. It could be a real reunion."
"Good lord," she muttered with a smile.
"And... if you'd be willing... I'd really like you to..."
"What?" she inquired looking up at him.
"Spend some time with my family. I know you've met my father but I think he'll find you even more charming when you're not pointing a gun at him. I'd really like you to get to know Emily and Mom and, of course, see Jon again before he drives everybody crazy asking about you. And I'm sure Ethan will materialize to spend time with big brother and sister."
"That all sounds super, Jarod, but I was thinking more short term. What do we do *now?*"
Narrowing his eyes he brushed his fingers lightly across the soft skin of her thigh and inquired, "What time did you say T.J. is due back?"
Casting him a look of mock disdain she observed, "I do believe that you traipsed all the way down here just to get into my pants."
"Not *just,*" he responded with a wink adding, "It has been an awfully long year."
"So," Parker drawled with a wicked grin as she climbed across him to straddle his lap. Placing her arms around his neck she inquired seductively, "What do you want to do *second?*"
Grinning Jarod replied, "Dance."
# # # #
FIN
You *had* to know I was kidding about the Zoe thing! Besides, sometimes you just need a happy ending...;-)
Author's Note: This is arriving a little later than planned. Still, you have no idea how grateful I am to be able to deliver this. REALLY, you don't! Thanks to everyone who responded so kindly to the cranky ramblings in my previous post. Rather ironically, the cosmos have since sent me a few things to be legitimately cranky about but I'll have none of it. Ginger has a new lease on life and you know what that means... uh-oh!
The Friendship Cycle Eleven: Conclusion
By Ginger
It was her first free afternoon in weeks and Parker resolved to make the most of it. Stretching out on the chaise in the small, pretty, and fragrant garden, she picked up her book to settle in for a nice long read. She could definitely get used to a place where winter was just around the corner and it was in the mid-seventies. Curitiba, Brazil was definitely a far cry from Blue Cove, Delaware.
She caught sight of her pale peach toenails and wiggled her toes. In her simple cotton shift dress of cornflower blue with her hair piled haphazardly on her head and without a lick of makeup, Parker figured she was nearly unrecognizable to anyone who had known her previously. She was barely recognizable to herself.
*Who the hell is this woman?*
Emitting a soft, wry chuckle, she used the toes of her right foot to scratch an itch on her left ankle. One concession to her previous incarnation was her hemline; it remained well above the knee. There was no point, after all, in throwing the baby out with the bath water. Sighing contentedly, she crossed her long, tanned limbs at the ankles and drew her eyes to her book.
An enigmatic smiled appeared on her lips even before a shadow moved across the page, but she did not immediately look up. Instead, Parker cleared her throat and remarked,
"Excuse me, but you are blocking my sun."
* * * *
Neither of them spoke right away. He dragged over a patio chair and sat down to face her then simply stared into her eyes for what seemed an eternity but may only have been a minute or two. Finally, he offered,
"You're looking well."
"As are you."
And indeed he was. He was wearing jeans - faded blue not the usual black - and a button down, collarless shirt of pale gold. His hair was a bit longer than the last time she'd seen him but his face was mercifully clean shaven. He appeared rested and relaxed, but what struck her most were his eyes: the complete absence of that haunted, searching look that had been there for as long as she'd known him. Jarod wasn't running anymore; he knew who he was. Beautiful couldn't even begin to describe it.
Looking around he remarked, "Nice place."
"It's a small house but it doesn't require much upkeep, which is perfect for a busy single parent."
Smiling he asked, "And how is young Mr. Parker?"
"He's active, bright and growing like a weed. He's started attending a local preschool a couple afternoons a week, which is where he is now. You should hear his Portuguese; he's just soaking it up. We call him T.J., by the way."
Nodding and blinking away he responded softly, "So I've heard and I am honored, Parker."
Shrugging she explained, "It was an inexcusably sentimental thing to do, but I guess I'm getting soft in my old age. I'd like to think that Tommy would be honored too."
"I haven't the slightest doubt in my mind," he said and, meeting her eyes again, continued, "I think it's marvelous what you're doing. I... I must confess to being a little surprised when I first heard. Stunned, actually."
"That makes two of us," she replied with a snort then went on to explain, "When everything began to change and I was suddenly faced with the question of what to do about him, I... I don't think I've ever felt so unqualified to make a decision in my life. In fact, I didn't for several weeks. I just did my best to take care of him and keep him safe. All the while, I kept telling myself that I'd find a good home for him. God, poor Sydney... I must have gone over it with him a thousand times... how a child would be better off with a loving family, two parents, a white picket fence, a minivan... all the things I couldn't give him."
"So what happened to change your mind?"
"I'm not sure that I *have* changed my mind. I have no idea what I'm doing but... when I get him up in the morning or put him down at night, he looks up at me with such trust, as though he's convinced that I can actually *do* this."
"Because you can," Jarod interjected with warm smile.
"I guess we'll find out," Parker stated, sighed and continued, "For whatever reason, he seems to need and want me. I'm all he's got. Besides, as Syd pointed out, nobody can protect him the way that I can because nobody will or could comprehend where he came from, not the way that I do. Except maybe..." She looked intently into his eyes and tacked on, "You."
He nodded solemnly then observed, "It's amazing how quickly things started to unravel... after."
"Isn't it though?" she replied with a snicker.
"I guess your father really was the heart of the place."
"I suppose that's true in some ways but, if anything, it proves something I've suspected for quite a while: that the whole thing was just an elaborate house of cards. When Daddy was gone it created a power vacuum or the perception of one, anyway. The wrong person got twitchy, blinked, and it set off a chain reaction."
"You have no idea how worried I was. More than once I considered breaking my promise to you."
"I'll bet you did," she commented with a smirk. "But, in the end, the best thing you could have done was stay away. It got a little dicey there for a while but, ultimately, we simply got lost in the shuffle. I guess it was pretty apparent that the Chairman's daughter wasn't interested in inheriting his job, and Lyle clearly was so he drew most of the attention. Besides, you obviously weren't coming back so they lost interest. It's kind of funny, really. One evening Syd, Broots and I were talking when it suddenly hit us. *Nobody* would be coming for us. We weren't even important enough to kill. God, we must have laughed for a solid hour."
"After all those years of struggle," Jarod muttered, shaking his head.
"Ironic, isn't it?" Parker observed with a grin then added, "So, there we were."
"Free to make your own plans."
"And cover our tracks. We had a couple immediate concerns, namely Angelo and, of course, my baby brother."
"Angelo seems to be adjusting well. Sydney has a real knack with him."
"Ah..." She nodded. "You've been to see them." He nodded and smiled in response.
Parker went on, "T.J. proved more problematic. I had no idea where he was. Daddy had moved him out of Blue Cove early on to keep him safe and refused to tell me where. I had Broots working on it around the clock but we weren't getting anywhere. I was close to giving up when Lyle showed up at my door at 3:00 a.m. with T.J. in his arms. He handed him over and said, 'Break the cycle, Parker.' That's the last time I saw him. I don't know whether he's alive or dead but, regardless, I don't expect to see him again."
Jarod averted his eyes, taking a few moments to contemplate his shoes as he processed that last bit of information. Lyle was a difficult topic of discussion for obvious reasons, and she certainly didn't expect her report of the one decent thing her brother had ever done to wipe away all the pain he'd inflicted on Jarod and his family.
When he finally spoke, it was to offer a soft, heartfelt, "I am sorry, Parker, about your father. Really, I am."
"Thank you. I truly appreciate it."
"It must have been very difficult for you."
Shaking her head she commented, "You should have seen him. He was positively incredulous. After decades of surviving at the Centre, he simply could not believe that he wasn't going to be able to talk, bribe, intimidate or charm his way out of it. By the time he was diagnosed, the cancer had already spread from his kidneys to his lungs. It was over very quickly. I found out Labor Day Weekend and he died a week after Thanksgiving."
Frowning, Jarod inched his chair forward then reached out to take her hand. He pressed her palm to his then used his other hand to tenderly stroke the top of hers. Parker smiled, warmth spreading through her body as she watched him stare at their clasped hands. Without looking up, he whispered,
"You've had quite a year."
"It had its moments... but it wasn't all bad. The time with Daddy, at the end, was alright. He was at home with around the clock nursing care and I moved Sam in to keep an eye on him. I was there virtually every evening and stayed most nights. At first it was fairly awkward in that typically dysfunctional Parker way but the closer he came to the end, the easier it got. I even summoned the courage to tell him about us."
Looking up at her, incredulous, he asked, "You did?"
Nodding she replied, "It was Thanksgiving evening. Lyle had left and I had given Sam the day off. By then, Daddy was in a hospital bed in the den and receiving morphine intravenously. I guess part of me just figured, what the heck, what harm could it do? And I guess another part of me didn't want my father to die without knowing who I really am."
"And what did he say?"
"Calm down, Angel, and don't be so damned dramatic!" She smiled wistfully as she recalled her father's words.
"Huh?"
"Well, I was pretty defensive. I told him that I supposed he could still burn me, even from that bed. He could spend his last moments ensuring that I was punished for my disloyalty if that's really how he wanted to finish things. He was quiet for a while then he shrugged and said that, deep down, he'd always known it was only a matter of time. Then he asked me what our plans were."
"What did you tell him?"
"That, as far as I knew, we didn't have any. You were gone and I had my life to get on with. Beyond that..." She smiled and squeezed his hand. "I just hoped to see my best friend again someday."
Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed it and said, "You had to know you would."
She nodded and shrugged. Silence reigned as Jarod looked around the garden then again at her hand, which he continued to hold in his. She waited patiently for him to say what he needed to. There was no hurry; she wasn't going anywhere. Fixing his gaze on her, he shook his head and sighed,
"Oh, Parker."
She raised her eyebrows expectantly. He sighed again then swiftly scooted forward, pivoted and sat down beside her on the chaise. Pressing her hand to his chest and gazing off into the distance, Jarod muttered,
"Do you have any idea how much I've..."
"Oh, I think I do," she interjected.
Turning to look at her he stated, "I am going to go down in history as the world's biggest idiot."
"I very much doubt that, but I am curious as to what makes you say so."
Blinking away he smiled and said, "You mentioned a white picket fence earlier. We have one, you know, at the house where the family's been living. Seemed like a dream come true in the beginning... only..."
"What?" she softly prodded.
"After a while I grew to hate that fence. It made me feel, well, fenced in. And *that* made me feel guilty because Mom and Dad finally have their family back. Everything they had lost has been restored." He frowned then tacked on, "Well, almost everything."
"I guess it's all a matter of perspective," Parker observed. "It makes sense that a man held captive most of his life would have an aversion to fences of any kind."
"It was more than the fence," he said looking knowingly at her.
"I know," she replied with a sympathetic smile.
"It wasn't like I thought it would be," he reflected.
"In life, things rarely are," she sighed.
"We were. I thought... no, I *knew* we would be fantastic and we were."
She nodded, they exchanged a smile and Jarod continued, "Don't get me wrong, a lot of it has been wonderful. On our first day together, my mother and I just held each other and cried. I had my first ever birthday party - the first one I remember anyway. And the whole family was together for Thanksgiving and Christmas."
"I'm glad," Parker offered with a squeeze of his hand. "That's what I wanted for you. That's what I would picture whenever I'd wonder what you were doing. It made it easier... well, it made it bearable... almost."
Shaking his head he lifted her hand and pressed it to his lips then muttered against her flesh, "I am an idiot."
"You already said that but, okay, if you insist."
He rolled his eyes at her and said, "It never occurred to me that it might be difficult. The fact of the matter is that, in many ways, we were strangers. The visits with Dad, Jon and Em had always been great, but they were temporary and it was all about fun. Once we were all living together under one roof the differences became glaringly obvious. Sometimes it felt as though there was an invisible line dividing the family: those who had been in the Centre and those who hadn't."
"Again, hardly unexpected under the circumstances."
"Maybe not but that didn't make it any easier. Sometimes I felt so alone. I missed... I missed the people I never had to explain anything to. I missed the people whose habits, tastes, and desires I fundamentally understood, the people who knew me equally well. I missed Sydney. God, I missed..."
Jarod turned over Parker's hand and pressed his thumb into her palm, gently rubbing back and forth. The gesture was somehow intimate, sweetly erotic. Her body seemed to shift of its own accord to be closer to his. He looked into her eyes - longingly and worshipfully - the same way he'd looked at her the very first time they met.
"I missed you so much it was like a raw, gaping wound. Everyone could see that I was in pain but nobody knew why. I..." He looked away guiltily and whispered, "Kept it to myself."
"Ah, so you never confessed that you'd been sleeping with the enemy for a year," she commented evenly.
Snapping his head back to face her he protested, "That wasn't it! For one thing, the woman who orchestrated our reunion is hardly considered the enemy. Far from it, actually. Jon never stops asking about you. Apparently you made quite an impression in your brief encounter."
"Must be genetic," she teased.
"That's not funny," he retorted. "I feel sorry for him. Where on earth is he ever going to find another?"
"How old is he now?" she asked with a devilish grin.
"Again, not funny," he replied with a grudging smile then continued, "Dad and Em aren't stupid and I suppose they suspected *something* when I ended it with Zoe. But they never asked and I never told. Once we were all together, I don't know, I just wanted to keep it here." He pressed her hand to his heart again then added, "Besides, I thought it might hurt them if they knew that I..."
"Missed the people from your *previous* life."
He nodded and explained, "So we all soldiered along - awkward and tense - until the one person who knew the whole truth decided to blow into town for a visit."
"And how is baby brother?" Parker inquired with a smile.
"Trouble, as usual," Jarod replied with a sigh. Raising his right arm, he wiggled his wrist and said, "I never take it off. Well, almost never. While my family had obviously seen it, they had never seen the inscription on the back. No one had, not even Ethan but I guess *he* wouldn't actually have to *see* it to know it was there."
"Guess not," she concurred with a shrug.
"One afternoon I was out in the garage helping Dad with a woodworking project and left it in my room so it wouldn't get damaged. That's when Ethan took it upon himself to swipe it and bring it to Mom. He said something like, 'This was a gift from my sister and I think it's time you ask your son about it.'"
"He didn't," she said biting her lip.
"Oh, he did, and it made for some rather lively dinnertime conversation that evening." Chuckling he added, "I could have killed him with my bare hands. But, in the end, he did me a favor. He did us all a favor. The next week or so was intense but we were all finally able to speak freely and without guilt or fear of hurting one another's feelings."
"Ugh, sounds awful," Parker remarked.
"Well, I wouldn't want to do it again," he replied wryly then sighed and continued, "A light bulb finally went on. All this time I've been searching for who I really am, and I was positively certain that finding my family would bring me to the real Jarod. I was single-minded. It was the premise around which I built my entire life, affecting every decision, every move, I made."
"Everyone wants to know who they are, Jarod."
"Precisely, and to a certain extent none of us will ever truly know because we're all left to wonder who we would be if the circumstances of our lives had been different. Maybe because mine qualifies as a bit of an extreme case I didn't see it sooner, but the fact remains that for seven years I was looking for the person I would be if I hadn't been abducted by the Centre."
"Have you found him?"
"No, because he no longer exists. He disappeared in 1963 and he's not coming back. Meanwhile, the real Jarod has been here all along. He's the person who, as a boy, delighted in the company of an amazing, beautiful girl - his best friend. He's the person who's spent thousands and thousands of hours in conversation with Sydney, and in those conversations learned how to be a man in the world. He's the person who became reacquainted with that girl from his childhood, only to find that she had grown into a goddess, a cranky goddess, but a goddess nevertheless."
She shot him a look. He grinned and went on, "He's the person who went out there, saw the world, and met all kinds of interesting people. And, along the way, did some good... maybe. And he's the man who somehow managed to get his best friend back and then fell deeply, passionately in love with her. Incidentally, I love you, Parker."
"Incidentally? Are you kidding?"
"I'm sorry. I have been waiting one year, twelve days." He glanced at his wristwatch. "Five hours and fourteen minutes to say that so, in some ways, it seems like old news to me."
"Not to me... I..."
"I didn't say it to hear it. I didn't even say it for you. I said it because I needed to. Do you understand?"
Jarod raised an eyebrow at her, casting her a lethally handsome look. Parker rolled her eyes and glanced away, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Giving his hand a hearty yank, she muttered,
"Come here, you idiot."
Grinning ear to ear he gleefully scrambled up on the chaise beside her then drew her into a long, slow, tender kiss. Afterwards he kissed her forehead and she nuzzled against him, maneuvering to sling one of her bare legs across both of his. There was silence as each adjusted to the renewed sensation of the other's touch. It was an easy adjustment.
After a while she kissed his chin and asked softly, "What about your family?"
"My family is very important to me; I love them. They are and will remain an integral part of my life. But I can't give my parents back the child they lost any more than they can give me back my lost childhood. The best we can do is enjoy who we've become, the people we are now. And the person I am now is at his best when he's with you. They'll miss me but they understand. In fact, my father lit a fire under me. He said that a woman like you won't stay available forever and that there are plenty of guys out there as cute as I am, even cuter."
"Ridiculous," she commented with a smirk.
"That's what I said," he replied with one of his charm-your-pants-off smiles.
"You know," she advised with complete deadpan. "Everything is different now. My priorities have changed. I am not that fun-loving, carefree chick you once knew."
"I'll take that under advisement," he said with soft chuckle.
"But, seriously, it's not just me anymore. Besides, who knows if it... if *we* will even work. When you add it all up, our time together was only a matter of weeks. We never even fought, not once."
"That's because we kept conversation to a minimum," Jarod joked.
"Precisely!" Parker proclaimed as she sat up to look into his eyes.
Shaking his head he reflected, "Which just goes to show that we always made better friends than enemies."
She cast him a skeptical look then settled back down beside him as he continued, "Look, I know you have T.J. now and that he has to come first. Believe me, I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm the one who disappeared for a year, and I hardly expect to breeze in here and become an instant family. I would just like the opportunity to get to know him while I get reacquainted with his... mother. That's all, really. I need to have you in my life right now and I'll take what I can get."
Sitting up again Parker raised an eyebrow and remarked, "Now where have I heard *that* before?"
Jarod shrugged and pulled her back into an embrace then sighed, "Do you have any idea how good you look, smell and feel? I thought I remembered but I really didn't. Nothing imagined approaches the reality."
"So, what do we do now?" she asked softly as she nestled her face in the crook of his neck.
"I don't know. Anything we want, I guess. Strange concept, I know. You seem to be settled in here for a while. I'm renting a small place nearby. I heard that you've been keeping tabs on the remnants of the Centre. So have I, actually. There's always the chance that the whole thing could reassemble again. And, of course, there's the Triumverate. I see no reason why we can't continue to keep an eye on them and, perhaps, come up with some methods of quietly upsetting their apple cart. Might be fun to work *together* for a change. Oh, and I'd like to spend some time with Sydney, like we did at White Cloud. He could come down here. I think T.J. would be good for Angelo and vice versa. Angelo has such a way with children. Maybe we could have Broots and Debbie down too. It could be a real reunion."
"Good lord," she muttered with a smile.
"And... if you'd be willing... I'd really like you to..."
"What?" she inquired looking up at him.
"Spend some time with my family. I know you've met my father but I think he'll find you even more charming when you're not pointing a gun at him. I'd really like you to get to know Emily and Mom and, of course, see Jon again before he drives everybody crazy asking about you. And I'm sure Ethan will materialize to spend time with big brother and sister."
"That all sounds super, Jarod, but I was thinking more short term. What do we do *now?*"
Narrowing his eyes he brushed his fingers lightly across the soft skin of her thigh and inquired, "What time did you say T.J. is due back?"
Casting him a look of mock disdain she observed, "I do believe that you traipsed all the way down here just to get into my pants."
"Not *just,*" he responded with a wink adding, "It has been an awfully long year."
"So," Parker drawled with a wicked grin as she climbed across him to straddle his lap. Placing her arms around his neck she inquired seductively, "What do you want to do *second?*"
Grinning Jarod replied, "Dance."
# # # #
FIN
You *had* to know I was kidding about the Zoe thing! Besides, sometimes you just need a happy ending...;-)