Disclaimer: The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.
Finding Family
Part Fourteen: …and Foes
Rating: G
Category: S
Timeline: Sometime in the middle of the series
Spoilers: None
Keywords: MPJF, JOF
Summary: Miss Parker accidentally shoots Jarod, which forces her to confront her feelings towards him. Meanwhile, a seriously injured Jarod has to learn to trust someone to help him and finds out a little about his family history.
Dear Readers, Thank you so much for the reviews and encouragement to finish this story! I have been really swamped with work and organizing Science Fair at my kids' school (over 300 participants) and if I ever found a chance to get on the computer, I found myself reading all of YOUR excellent stories. So please keep posting, and I'll try to bring this adventure to a close as well. Note: As everyone converges, I felt it would be confusing unless I separated the parts, but didn't want to keep stating their locations. Just imagine everyone coming into a really huge hospital from different directions along different hallways until they converge in the research lab. Hope my asterisks help signal the changes.
Houston, Texas, Friday, 4 PM
Emily peeked into the employee lounge at the Clinical Research building. Jarod lay sprawled on the small couch with his hurt arm cradled across his chest and his left arm bent across his face shading his eyes. His feet were up on a lamp table they had pushed close and removed the lamp so that he would have his feet up. It had been hard to talk him into taking a rest.
He had eagerly endorsed Dr. White's suggestion that they exit the blood lab by the back door and short cut across the delivery driveways to the back of the research building. Per the doctor's orders, the technician's already had set up the apparatus to do the usual DNA analysis and they swiftly took the DNA samples which they brought and processed them into the gel electrophoresis system that would separate the DNA into characteristic lengths that would enable them to determine how similar and thus how closely related they were. At first he wanted to oversee everything, but as he watched the technician's competence he relented. Emily had insisted on starting the purification process to prepare the probe from his blood and made him sit on a stool watching and only giving directions. Dr. White had found the first of the rare enzymes in the lab, but then spent a half hour phoning around the medical center to find the second. She had left with an ice bucket and had returned triumphantly twenty minutes later so the procedure could continue. Then Emily noticed him wilting on the stool, and she had insisted that he lay down or she would take him home whether the analysis was complete or not. Now with the small vial of purified DNA in her hands she was loathe to disturb him.
"Jarod," she called softly as she stepped into the lounge. He rolled his left arm up to his forehead, revealing his dark brown eyes that stared back at her expectantly. "We have to put the radioactive tag on the DNA sample so we can use it as a probe. They don't have P-32 here in the lab, but Dr. White does back in her lab. She's going to take me there so I can phosphorylate the probe, while she cleans out her office. It should take about 45 minutes and then we'll be back to set up the overnight incubation. Then I should take you home. Why don't you just stay here and rest?"
"I should come to make sure you're safe," he replied struggling to sit up, but feeling the fatigue slowing him down.
She smiled warmly at him, "I'll be alright. You're just like my big brother always worrying over me. You're the one who needs to be taken care of, not me. You need to get your strength back. Try to take a little nap."
He nodded in acquiescence and leaned back on the couch, "All right, but be careful. Keep a look out and come right back here if any trouble starts."
Emily nodded back, "I'll be back before you know it." She turned from the lounge and walked back to the big lab where Dr. White was watching the final preparations of the standard DNA analysis. "He's agreed to stay here and rest," she announced with relief in her voice, "but I have a feeling we should get this done as quickly as possible."
"Right," said Dr. White briskly and began leading the way out of the lab. They made an odd couple as they walked out of the building, a tall, thin, older woman and a short, plump, younger one talking animatedly about science together.
The two women quickly crossed the loading zone between the two buildings and Dr. White used a magnetic pass key to open a restricted entry door that led to the basement storage of the Basic Research Building. Then she led the way up a stairwell positioned there at the end of the building. "This is the emergency or fire stairwell," she explained, "most people use the central stairs near the elevators and don't use this set. I'll avoid being seen as much. Besides, the room we have set up for using radioactive samples is down at this end," she explained.
The older woman set a brisk pace as she climbed the stairs, clearly used to using stairs on a regular basis. Emily found herself puffing as she struggled up the last flight of stairs to the fourth floor, and mentally berated herself for not having gotten back into shape more quickly after having her last baby. They emerged onto a bright hallway and almost immediately turned into small lab with neatly organized benches and bottles of reactants labeled in rows on the shelves. A young man in a lab coat was working at one of them and he smiled in recognition of Dr. White.
"Mark, this is Dr. Emily Brooks. She used to work with me and I'm helping her with a research project," the older woman introduced. "Will you please help her radioactively label this probe?"
"Sure," the young man answered his boss and gestured to the far wall where some lab coats were hanging up, "You'll probably want to borrow one of those."
Emily nodded and then smiled at Mark, holding her hand out shake hands, "Nice to meet you. It's been a couple of years since I've worked in the lab but if you give me the quick review I'm sure it will come back to me."
Dr. White stepped back out of the room, "I'm going to get a few things from my office and will be back soon. You're in good hands with Mark," she reassured Emily, who turned back to the lab assistant eager to get to work.
************************
Miss Parker approached the front entrance of MD Anderson hospital slightly ahead of Amanda and was surprised when she felt the young woman's hand pull back on her elbow, "What are you doing?" she demanded.
"I think it will be faster if we walk around the building. As we were driving, I remember seeing the research wing along the back by that cross street," she replied pointing.
Parker tilted her head to the side to look and then glanced over at the stream of people going in and coming out of the entrance, "Okay," she agreed shrugging, "I don't feel like battling the salmon right now."
************************
Meanwhile, Lyle was sitting in front of the bank of video monitors in the security office near the front entrance. He had been reviewing the recorded images of Jarod entering the building that morning, while Mr. Raines stood silently over the security guard, Andy, who was nervously searching through personnel records to find Dr. White's office. The monitor to Lyle's side showed the continuous stream of patients, visitors and employees. He barely glanced at it, but a coat flapping in the wind at the edge of the screen caught his eye. As he focused on the image, he could tell it was a woman standing just outside of the entrance. Black boots ended at a bare knee leading up the shapely leg to a short skirt that revealed a trim waist that the wind covered again with the long flapping coat. Her shoulders and head were out of the range of the camera, but he knew it was her. He could feel it. "Damn," he swore softly, "How did she know to come here?"
"Who?" croaked Mr. Raines turning his attention away from the inept security guard.
"I think Miss Parker is here," announced Lyle looking over at his boss. But when he looked back at the screen, she was gone. She hadn't come into the entrance at all. Where had she gone?
************************
Parker and Amanda rounded the corner and entered the Basic Research Building at its entrance that was positioned exactly in the middle of the structure. A bored security guard gestured for them to sign in, this entrance clearly seldom used by anyone but the researchers themselves. Amanda politely asked what floor Dr. Barry Stone's labs were located on and he shrugged, pointing to a small marquee that was posted on the wall by the elevators.
Parker impatiently stabbed a long, perfectly manicured finger on the up arrow while Amanda scanned the list of researchers, "Fourth floor," she announced.
Parker looked up at the displays above the two elevators. One looked like it was frozen on the sixth floor, while the other was working its way down slowly, stopping at every single floor along the way. She stood with her legs apart and her arms crossed with her fingers tapping impatiently on her elbows. She felt uneasy, but was unwilling to open herself up to her intuitive feelings. So she exuded an aura of completely disdainful power. The persona of the Ice Queen intimidated others, but gave Parker an odd sense of comfort as she pulled her mask on like a warm cloak.
Amanda sensed the change in Parker's mood and was definitely intimidated. Her resolve to stand up to Parker and help Jarod when the time came wavered and she felt like dashing back out the door they had just come in.
While the one elevator still remained on the sixth floor, the other elevator finally arrived and a full load of passengers streamed out and around Miss Parker who stood in the way like a boulder in a river. When the elevator finally emptied, Parker took three long strides into it and turned with a swirl of her long coat. She looked expectantly at Amanda with one eyebrow raised and said, "Well?"
Amanda hesitated, and it was only the hope that she might find information about her mother that forced her to join Miss Parker in the elevator.
************************
Licking his lips nervously, Andy looked up from the computer screen at the old man who had hovered impatiently over his shoulder while he had searched employee records. The old man was stooped, bald and smelled oddly antiseptic, but worse than his appearance was his threatening presence that was somehow, indefinably, but distinctly, creepy. "I found her, sir," he announced. "At first I looked in the medical doctors, but then I checked the researchers. Dr. White isn't even a Principle Investigator. She's an Assistant and Lab Manager for Dr. Stone in the Basic Research wing," he explained, lamely trying to defend himself for taking so long to find her.
"Finally," rasped Mr. Raines in disgust. "Take us to those offices," he commanded, enjoying watching the security guard squirm. Andy reluctantly rose and led the way down the security hall to the main hallway of the hospital so that they could get to the other side of the building where the Basic research wing was. The three men trailed after him, but he felt more like they herded him. He had so anxiously waited for them to arrive at noon, and now he was just as anxious for them to depart. He regretted having ever called them. Quick money always had a catch to it and this gun toting trio was definitely a dangerous catch.
************************
Amanda trailed out of the elevator in Miss Parker's wake as she strode up the short hall to a large glass walled office on the corner with the main hallway that ran the length of the building. A woman in her mid-twenties with obviously colored bright red hair looked up from where she was typing at the word processor and smiled at them, "May I help you?" she asked professionally.
Parker smiled at the woman as she recognized the voice as the secretary she had spoken with on the phone as they had driven into the medical center. Her demeanor melted as she assumed a casual attitude and leaned one hand down familiarly on the desk, "Why, yes! I spoke with you earlier about meeting with Dr. Evelyn White. We are most anxious to speak with her and hope she may have returned from the lunch meeting you mentioned before. Is she in her office now?" Parker asked in her sweetest voice.
"You're in luck," the secretary returned. "She just walked by fifteen minutes ago. She didn't even check in with me like she usually does. She must be really busy with…"
"Where's her office," Parker interrupted the chatty woman.
The bright red-head blinked in surprise and then pointed down the hall, "Second door on the right," she answered.
Parker gave her a brilliant smile and threw a "Thanks" over her shoulder as she whirled out of the room.
Amanda followed slowly, unsure if she was ready for a meeting with her mother that she had believed to be dead for the last four years. She watched as Parker entered the office and heard a surprised cry, "Catherine!" Amanda found herself leaning back on the wall across the hall as she looked in the office and watched the scene enfolding before her.
"No, I'm her daughter," Parker replied.
"You look just like her," Dr. White, the older woman said in amazement.
"People are always telling me that," Parker said with a tired shrug. "What do you remember about her?" she asked wistfully.
Dr. White sensed a vulnerability and a need to answer truthfully, "She had boundless compassion, a tireless desire to help others and the gentlest personality I've ever met." Miss Parker leaned in toward Dr. White across the desk. "What do you know about Faith's death?" she asked in a low, choked voice.
Amanda couldn't believe the sadness in Miss Parker's voice. Who was Faith? Amanda had never heard of her. She was rather surprised and a little relieved that she had gone unnoticed so far. It was interesting to watch her mother talking with Miss Parker. It was her mother, beyond a doubt, older, thinner and less happy around her eyes, but her mother none-the-less. And while she was happy that her mother was alive, another part of her was still angry that her mother had let her believe she had died. An irrational part of her wanted her mother to still be dead. Amanda had faced the pain of her mother's loss and had gotten on with her life. The thought of having to go through that all over again sometime in the future when her mother really would die, just made her exasperated. But now that she actually saw her mother, her anger melted away. All the times when she had wanted to talk to her mother, all the milestones that she had imagined having without her mother like graduating or getting married could now be fulfilled. Nothing was more important than family, and telling them you loved them. Even if the time you could share was short, it was still worth it. Amanda took a tentative step forward, wanting more than anything to hug her mother and to be hugged back.
As Amanda stepped forward, her mother, Dr. White replied to Miss Parker with a question of her own, "How do you know about Faith? Your mother didn't want you to suffer over her death."
"She didn't want me to know I had an adopted sister?!" exclaimed Parker.
"Of course, she wanted you to have a happy childhood."
"Ha! Well, her plan backfired. I've been told almost my whole life that she committed suicide and I've just recently found out that she was actually murdered. She left me alone with my father, and he packed me off to boarding schools almost as fast as he could. I never had a childhood at that funny farm they call The Centre," Parker said bitterly.
"Did you just find out about Faith too?" Dr. White asked.
"No," Miss Parker replied coldly. "I met her when I was a child. As a matter of fact, I was with her when she died. How could you as a nurse leave a child to die all alone? Why was she kept down in the basement in that weird tent anyway?" demanded Parker.
Amanda froze watching the exchange unnoticed. Her mother had been a nurse and had been cruel to a child. That was impossible. Her mother would never have done that, could she? She stopped, breathlessly listening for her mother's answer.
Many would have quailed under Parker's withering glare, but Dr. White squared her shoulders and faced Miss Parker down. "Faith was a very sick girl. The form of leukemia that she had devastated her immune system and she had to be kept in isolation for her own protection. That "tent" was a positive pressure air system to maintain clean, filtered air around her. When ever I was assigned to her, I treated her gently and whole heartedly. I didn't have a choice where I was ordered to serve as a nurse. You may not know it, but there were several other children that were also part of that project to find a cure. I may have had other duties elsewhere."
"I have read the reports, and all those other children recovered while Faith only got worse," retorted Parker. "Two of the other children started on the same regimen as Faith, but their medications were changed and they improved. Why didn't you change hers too?"
"I wasn't the doctor in charge!" protested Dr. White. "I've tried to make up for that fact in the years since then. I'm here working in research even now." She gestured around the small office, turning her head as she did so and froze as her glance finally fell on the hallway outside of the office and on her own daughter standing quietly in the middle of it, staring wide eyed back at her. "A-A-Amanda?" Dr. White asked in a shaky voice.
"Mom!" Amanda finally exclaimed and flung herself forward into her mother's arms as tears streamed down both of their eyes.
"Oh, Amanda, I didn't want you to find me! I'm so sorry, baby. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do in leaving you and your father, but please believe me when I say I was trying to protect you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…" the older woman repeated.
"It's alright, Mom. You're alright. I'm so glad to see you again. I forgive you. You're my mom. I love you," Amanda declared.
"I love you too, Amanda," Dr. White said while giving her a big hug. Then pushing Amanda back a little she smiled through her tears, "Let me see you better…you've grown into such a lovely young woman. I'm so proud of you."
"Please, Mom, I really need to know, why did you leave? Why did you make us think you were dead?" pleaded Amanda.
"Honey, there are some things that you don't know about me. I never even told your father all the truth. I had a very different life before I met him, and I had thought I had left it all behind me. You see, I've changed my name two times now, trying to live my life away from that place."
"That place?" Amanda repeated.
"The Centre," answered Miss Parker. The other two women turned to the almost forgotten third person in the room. Parker had watched the whole exchange quietly, almost jealously wishing she could be reunited with her own mother.
Dr. White nodded in agreement, "Yes, it was my first job out of nursing school. I thought I had found the ideal position—high paying, working at the forefront of modern science. I thought I was really going to help make a difference in the world," she recalled wistfully. "But after I had been there over a year, I began to notice inconsistencies in how business was run there. But I ignored that when I was assigned to work on the Leukogenesis project. It was an important investigation in how the blood system undergoes differentiation into all the different blood types. The paper that came out of that study is still referenced today, but I wasn't prepared for the emotional impact."
She took a shaky breath and looked Miss Parker in the eyes, "I was lucky enough to meet your mother and feel her passion for helping others. And I was unlucky enough to meet one of the doctors who ran the project."
"Raines," bit out Parker in disgust, her eyes flashing in anger.
Dr. White nodded in agreement, "He was so hypocritical the way he talked about curing cancer simultaneously chain smoking cigarettes. He seemed, I don't know how to describe it, oily somehow." She paused, taking a deep breath and looked at her daughter, "I don't have any proof but I know he's behind my attack."
"You were attacked!" Amanda exclaimed.
"I had had a feeling that I was being watched for a week, so I was prepared when a large, black sedan ran my car off the road into the river. I swam under water as long as I could hold my breath, letting the flow of the river carry me as far as possible so they wouldn't see me scramble out on the bank. I was scared." She reached out and stroked her daughter's cheek, "Not so much for me, but for you and your Dad. I was afraid that they would hurt you trying to get to me, so I thought it best to disappear again and let them think they had succeeded."
"Again?" Amanda wondered.
"Yes, I changed my name right after I quit and left The Centre in 1970. I got on with my life, got married, had you. It had been over twenty years. I didn't think it would matter any more," she trailed off sadly.
"That was right after my mother's death," Parker added.
"I left because of her death," Dr. White admitted. "I never believed she killed herself. After Faith died, she had little need for the Centre or its resources. She secretly told me that she was going to leave and take her daughter and several other children that she knew about at the Centre with her. She would never have given up by committing suicide. But after her death I remembered an incident that made me suspicious. The month before, she had been admitted to the hospital wing for some minor surgery to remove a mole. She asked for me to be present, and I was until Dr. Raines came in. He ordered me to fetch Catherine another blanket as the room was so cold. She nodded for me to go, but while I was out in the hall, another nurse came running up saying they needed help for an emergency with one of the children on the floor below. When we got there, everything was under control, and my help wasn't really needed. So I returned to Catherine's room and she was sleeping. The other doctor said she had asked for something for the pain, but really it was only minor surgery. A local anesthetic was all she needed. I was suspicious, but when Catherine woke up, she insisted that she was fine. I don't know exactly what, but Raines did something to her that day. After her death I began to do a little investigating. Raines came to me and threatened me in no uncertain terms to stop asking questions, because I was going to upset the family and ruin her memory. I just had a gut feeling that he knew more than he was telling and that he had had a hand in her death as well. I don't know, I guess I gave him a look, because he glared back at me with such a cold expression, it still gives me chills to remember it. I left that night and never looked back," Dr. White finished her explanation.
"But why would he still be after you, if all you did was give him a look?" asked Miss Parker curiously.
"Because I found something. I small disc, but I've never seen what was on it. I've never been able to find a machine that played it. It's funny, at the time it was totally unique, but now I would have called it a CD."
"You have a DSA disc from the time of my mother's death?" Parker asked in amazement.
"DSA? Is that what it's called?" Dr. White rejoined.
"Where is it?" demanded Parker.
"Actually, it's locked up here in the lab's small safe," she admitted "It's down the hall. Come this way," and she led them out of her office.
***********************
Lyle kept looking over shoulder and scanning rooms as they walked down the long hallway, not only on the look out for Jarod, but also for Miss Parker. He wanted to lengthen his stride and move faster, but Raines was not capable of it. He shot a sideways glance at the older man as he wheezed along, dragging his oxygen tank behind him. Just why he had insisted on coming along eluded Lyle.
Andy, the security guard, deferentially led the way, wisely choosing not to say anything to further antagonize the men who followed him. He had taken them up a set of elevators in the main clinic building and they were walking down the hall that led to a glass walled bridge that led to the research building. He had felt it would be wiser to walk on the fourth floor where there would be less people walking around then on the first floor. As they came closer to the intersection of the main hallway in the research building, he saw a short red haired woman in a lab coat walking along the hall glance their way. Her eyes widened, but then she casually turned the corner away from them and disappeared down the back hallway. Ordinarily, he would have checked, but she was wearing a lab coat. He must have imagined the look in her eyes. Andy had too many other things on his mind to follow through.
***********************
Emily turned the corner and leaned against the wall for a moment in panic. God! She hoped she had managed to look innocent. She had intended to get her friend, Dr. White, but she didn't see how she could get to her before the men did. She had recognized one of them. The old man was hunched but she knew she had seen him on one of the DSA's that she had watched the day before. These men had to be from the Centre, and she had to warn Jarod.
She walked quickly down the back hallway until she got to an equipment room that had doors to both hallways. She threaded her way through the freezers and centrifuges until she reached the other side and peeked out the door down the hall. Two of the men were now standing in front of the office and one had gone inside. She took a breath, then forcing herself to walk down the middle of the hall, she took steady steps away from them and towards the stairwell at the end of the hall. When she reached the door, she risked a sideways glance down the hall and their backs were still turned. She opened the stairwell door, stepped through and closed the door quietly. Then the panic she had been stifling down the hallway broke through. She flew down the four flights of stairs taking them two at a time, burst out of the basement door into the loading dock, and raced across the pavement to the building that they had left Jarod in. He would know what to do, she silently reassured herself. He had to.
