Disclaimer: The characters are not my own, I'm only borrowing them to put them into situations of my own imagining.
Finding Family
Part Seventeen: A New Day
Rating: PG
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, I apologize for taking so long. Thanks to all of you who've emailed and encouraged me to finish. Alas, my hobby takes a back seat to my family. Anyway TGISummer! I've almost got the next chapter done too but thought I'd post this for fun to start. I think two more chapters ought to wrap this baby up…then on to the next one!
Houston, Texas, Saturday Morning, 5 AM
Jarod slammed a fist into a tree trunk, growling out, "Damn it!" Turning he looked back in the direction he had just come and stood indecisively. 'How does she do that to me?' he demanded of himself.
He was usually totally in control of the situations he found himself in. Sure he would get mad at the evil doers he caught, but part of his mind was always watching that part of him that acted out and released his pent up emotions. But she always got under his skin, and she always had. He shouldn't have reacted jealously. He knew that now. But at the time he couldn't think straight, and he had precipitated their argument. He shouldered the blame and cloaked himself with guilt. He couldn't leave her hurt, cold and alone like that. He took a step back and then stopped again, shaking his head to himself. She would not accept his help right now. Her anger was deep seated and long burning. He knew it wasn't all directed at him, but he would provide the focus to her anger. He turned back again and headed toward the medical center where an Emergency Entrance sign glowed in the graying dawn light. He would get someone else to help her.
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Parker slapped her palm on the concrete floor, using the pain that jolted up through her arm to clear her head. If Jarod had been there she would have slapped him instead, and then collapsed in his arms for that warm comfort she had felt for such a brief period of time. She had wanted to talk to him, but when the opportunity had arisen she had blown it. She had let her temper take control again. He was always there for her. She knew she could count on Jarod to help her when it really came down to it, just like he had obviously helped her to this gardening shed after the lightning had caused the tree limb to fall upon her. But he had a way of always getting under her skin and making her face the real woman that she usually kept hidden. He knew just how to push her buttons. Was it possible to both love and hate someone at the same time?
She shivered under the paint cloth she was wrapped in, "Time to blow this Popsicle stand," she muttered to herself. She pushed herself to a sitting position and peered around the small shed. Two cheap plastic windows let the wan light of dawn into the shed and she could see her clothes spread out on the shelves to dry. She tried rising to her feet in her usual swift manner only to find herself swaying dizzily back down to her knees. Her forgotten head injury throbbed in reminder and she was forced to crawl to the shelves and pull her clothes down. Parker slowly dressed herself in the clammy, cold clothes and finally crawled back to the paint cloth and wrapped herself up in it again and lay back down in exhaustion.
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Jarod paused for a moment in front of the emergency entrance, using a deliberate breathing pattern to gather his thoughts and prepare himself for pretending. He surprised himself at how small a tiptoe step it was for him to pull on the persona of the worried boyfriend. He forced himself not to think about his real relationship with Parker and to act out as if their relationship as children had never changed. His best friend, he dare not think 'lover', was in desperate need of medical help.
As Jarod stumbled through the double wide glass doors, the young intern, Dr. Josephina Stern, or Josie to her friends, looked up at the sound of the whir of the automatic doors. If she was expecting the usual sight of uniformed rescue workers quickly pushing a patient strapped to a gurney through the doors, then she was shocked at the slow motion fall Jarod made as he stumbled and slid to his knees looking up at her with pleading eyes. His hair was wild, standing on end. His mustache and scraggly beard made him look fierce, and his filthy, blood crusted clothes could have pegged him as an escapee of a horror movie. Except for his eyes, which arrested the motion of her hand to phone security. "Help," he croaked.
Josie sprang up from the small desk, not even noticing that she knocked over the coffee cup she had been sipping to get through the last hour of her shift. Adrenaline always beats caffeine hands down on stimulating the human brain. She found herself helping him stand up, lifting under his arms and trying to guide him to an exam room set in the side of the hall. But he resisted her pull and stood solidly rooted, albeit a little wobbly. "It's all right, I'm here to help you," she tried reassuring him, wondering what had happened to him.
"Not me," he replied weakly, "Must help, Parker."
"Were you in an accident? Is someone still trapped in the car?" she asked.
He shook his head slightly, "Lightning hit a tree and it fell on her," he took a shuddering breath and tried to stand straighter. "I'll take you back to the park," he said half turning back to the door.
"Oh, no, you don't. You're in no condition to go anywhere," she scolded and then called out over her shoulder to the nurse watching from her admissions station, "Tina, call Fred and Manual and tell them their rest break is over. We need an ambulance sent over to the park ASAP!"
She tried to push him toward an exam room again, but still he stayed rigidly in place, "I'll show them," he insisted.
"You can't go. It's against regs. Tell me where to find her. Trust me, it's our job. I promise you, we'll rescue your girlfriend," Josie tried to reassure the man she had decided was devoted to his girl.
Jarod felt a jolt as the intern pronounced the word 'girlfriend'. He quickly pulled himself together to maintain the pretend. It was very important to him not to see Miss Parker again any time soon. The anger and hurt he felt at her rejection was too fresh to face her with his usual taunts and banter. She could never know how important to him she really was. But he needed this doctor to believe he wanted to see her, so that she would believe him and send an ambulance for Parker.
Josie misinterpreted his tension, and patted his shoulder encouragingly, but her touch on his injured shoulder caused him to cry out in pain. He almost lost control of himself as the pain rippled down his spine and he gritted his teeth desperately. The young doctor finally noticed that while most of the blood on his shirt was dried brown, there was a moist, red patch on the right where she had patted him. "Please, come sit down. Let me look at you."
But still he shook his head, taking a shuddering breath. Fortunately, the stalemate was broken as two young men in emergency rescue uniforms came trotting up the hall and looked questioningly at the intern. "What's up, Doc Stern?" asked the Hispanic looking one.
"Manual, tell him that you'll rescue his girlfriend. Ask him where she is, reassure him, okay?" she replied as if Jarod wasn't even standing there.
"Hey, amigo, I can help. Can you tell me how to find her?" Manual asked gently looking into Jarod's pain-filled brown eyes.
Jarod knew he had succeeded and nodded slowly at the man. "It's not far. Down this street to the golf course cross street. I managed to get us into a gardening shed by the road and we fell asleep for a while. She's still there. I couldn't carry her…"he trailed off sadly, still lost in the pretend that was too close to his heart.
"Don't worry, buddy, we'll be back with her in no time" said the other man, and the two dashed out to an ambulance parked on the side of the building.
"There," pronounced Dr. Stern, "now I insist you come in here and let me look at your shoulder," and she propelled Jarod into one of the exam rooms. Jarod docilely allowed her to unbutton his shirt and remove the ruined garment wincing only slightly as it pulled off his right shoulder. Josie threw the shirt away in the biohazard bin and stood by the sink washing her hands thoroughly, "Tina," she called out to the nurse, "come help me wash this so we can see what we've got here." The nurse quickly brought betadine solution and gauze pads and gently set to work. Jarod stared stoically at the light switch on the wall ignoring the pain. Snapping on a fresh set of latex gloves, Josie leaned over his shoulder and whistled softly, "You pulled out half the stitches on the front, but only a couple on the back." She moved to stand directly in front of him until he finally looked up at her. "You were shot," she accused, "What happened?"
Jarod blinked twice, "It was, uh, a hunting accident."
Josie nodded slowly, "You've obviously already been to see a doctor, so I guess I don't need to report this again. Were you here at the medical center for a check up?" He nodded, allowing her to make up the story she needed. "So what got you and your girlfriend out in that big storm?
"We both used to work for the same corporation in Delaware. I left a couple of years ago. She came to check on me when she heard I was hurt," Jarod told her. He had learned that sticking to a version of the truth was always best in insuring a level of sincerity in one's eyes and thus leading others to believe you. "We had an argument. She wants me to come back and I don't want to."
Josie studied him a moment longer and then smiled lightly as she accepted his story, "Well, I can't fix relationships but I can mend wounds," she announced. Then turning towards the nurse, she became all professional, "Tina, go get a double dose of the broad spectrum antibiotic, it looks like he's got an infection started here. I'll get started with the suture kit." She opened a cabinet door and pulled out a plastic wrapped syringe then a needle which she attached, smartly tapping the fluid as she depressed the plunger slightly. "I'm going to give you some local anesthetic first," she told Jarod, "You don't complain much, but I know that must hurt a lot," and she quickly set to work repairing the stitches to his gunshot wound so it would finally heal properly.
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Parker had dozed for a while slowly feeling her own body heat warm the cold clothes. Distantly she became aware of the sound of a siren that came closer and closer until it died right by her ear. She heard the sound of hurried footsteps and then the door of the shed flung open to let in more light from the outside. Without protesting, Parker let them bundle her onto a gurney and whisk her away in an ambulance. She knew without a doubt that Jarod had sent them and she felt comforted that despite it all, he still cared for her.
In a daze, she felt herself wheeled into the bright emergency room and lifted off the gurney onto an examining table. She watched through half open eyes, while the medical personal scurried around her. A young woman with a white doctor's coat leaned over and gently tilted her head to the side to examine it while asking, "Can you talk? What is your name?"
"M-m-miss Parker," she stuttered in reply feeling very cold and weak.
"Her skin is clammy and cold. What 's her temp?" demanded the doctor.
Parker felt a thermoscanner pressed to her ear and allowed herself to close her eyes. She seldom let anyone take control of her, but she felt safe now and allowed herself to give in to the fatigue she had been fighting for the last hour. From far away she could hear the reply, "89."
"She's going into shock," pronounced the doctor. "Help me get these cold, wet clothes off of her. Fred, go get the heated blankets." The medical personnel sprung into action working to stabilize Parker.
Parker was only dimly aware of the people around her. It was the voices that had her mesmerized. There were several of them, and they all clamored for her attention. She had never heard them so clearly before. One strong male voice insisted, "Kill. Fire. Death. Power," over and over in a frightening chant that she desperately wanted to ignore but she felt was pulling her down like a whirlpool. Then a clear, sweet female voice called to her like a life line. "Come this way. Fight. You must fight. Your work is not yet done. You must finish my work. Fight." Parker took a deep breath and for a brief instant felt all the hands and heard all the real life commotion around her. Then she focused back on the voices. One quiet one still called to her, although the others had faded away to a background babble. "Miss Parker, Miss Parker," a girl's voice called to her. She half opened her eyes and the moving people around her seemed like the blur of a movie in fast forward compared to the shimmering apparition sitting at the end of her bed. A pretty young girl with long hair and wearing a nightgown smiled warmly at her, "You helped her. She helped me. She will help more like me. I am glad you helped. You were like mother. She wants you to be like her. I will always be here with you." Then the young girl slowly evaporated like a mist and the people around Parker seemed to slow down their frantic speed. Parker stretched a hand out toward the end of the bed, "Faith," she called out weakly. The smiling girl faded at last like a Cheshire cat.
The reality of the room came back to Parker in a rush as the antiseptic smell and clatter of the room assailed her senses. "Vitals are stabilized, doctor," the nurse announced.
The warm touch of a human hand as it patted hers and lowered it to the bed focused Parkers attention on the doctor as she leaned over to look into Parker's clear blue eyes, "You had us worried there for awhile. Your boyfriend will be happy to see you. Shall I go get him?"
"Boyfriend?" echoed Parker stupidly.
"I just finished repairing his stitches before they brought you in. He's in the room right next door. I'll go get him," and before Parker could assent or protest, Dr. Stern stepped quickly around the corner.
"Tina, where did the patient go?" called out the doctor.
Parker smiled to herself. She knew Jarod was long gone. As soon as they had brought her in, she was sure, he had run away again. Somehow she didn't mind. She was still basking in the warm glow from Faith and the feeling of having helped someone. Is this why Jarod is always helping people, she wondered. She had learned many things about him and herself this last week, and she was still confused exactly where her relationship stood with him. The word 'boyfriend' lingered in her mind like a forbidden fruit. But at least she felt they had regained that friendship that had been stolen from them so long ago. It would be interesting to see how he behaved at their next meeting. Until then, she would still play the game.
Dr. Josie Stern came back in the room looking confused, "I'm sorry, Miss Parker, he seems to have wandered off. He was quite worried about you though. I'm sure he'll be back soon."
"No, he's gone. It's alright. I'll pay for his bill," Parker reassured the doctor.
"Bill? I'm not worried about fees. Don't you want to see him?" the doctor asked in astonishment.
"It's not about what I want," Parker replied cryptically. "Can I leave now?"
"No! We need to keep you for observation. You almost went into shock. Besides, we still need to put stitches in the gash on her head. I'm at the end of my shift. The next doctor has training in plastic surgery and he will do a better job. Maybe you can go around noon," explained the doctor.
"My head does still hurt," agreed Parker. "Please, would you call for Mr. Broots at the Marriott Hotel to let him know where I am and to come get me?" Parker asked quietly.
Dr. Stern nodded her head, "We'll take good care of you, Miss Parker." Then the doctor
pressed a needle into Parker's arm and the throbbing of her head immediately began to subside.
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Houston, Texas, Saturday Morning, 9:30 AM
Emily walked briskly from the parking garage to the Clinical Research building. She looked anxiously around her, hoping to see her cousin turning a corner to join her. She had reluctantly let him leave the day before to help Dr. White and her daughter Amanda, and she had worried all night long, imagining all sorts of events, each scenario more horrific than the last. The huge thunderstorm had only aided her imagination, and she was more anxious to know that the man she had rescued out of pity only a few days ago was alright, than to find out for certain if they were relatives. She was so concentrated on spying Jarod in the clothes that he had been dressed in the day before, that she barely gave a second glance at a dark haired man in green surgical scrubs walking towards her. He startled her by grabbing her arm and pulling her towards him, and she pulled away in a moment of fear until she really looked at his eyes and recognized the clean shaven man. "Jarod!" she exclaimed and reversed pull to draw him into a relieved hug, murmuring, "You're okay. I was so worried. I wasn't expecting you to look so different." She kept an arm around his waist as they walked along the sidewalk. "Evelyn White called me briefly last night to say she and her daughter were alright and to thank you again. But she said you took off at a run when Miss Parker came in and found you with them. Then with that storm last night too…I was so worried," she repeated.
"Oh, Miss Parker didn't really want to catch me last night. Once I knew that Dr. White and her daughter were alright, I knew it was time to leave. I made the dramatic exit for Parker's sake. Although, I did get caught out in the storm last night, I never was really in danger. This morning I made use of a doctor's changing room to get cleaned up," Jarod answered leaving out all the other details of his encounter with Parker.
"Well, she promised to leave instructions at the lab for them to help us to finish our analysis this morning, but she won't be joining us since she wants to visit with her daughter more."
"That's good," Jarod said wistfully, "I'm glad they reunited their family."
"Hey," Emily said giving him a nudge, "You're going to be finding your family this morning, or at least some of us," she declared confidently and she smiled up at him.
He stopped walking to look back at her. The clear morning sun glinted off the highlights in her red hair, her fresh washed face gave her an honest look and her eyes sparkled intelligently. Suddenly, the whole day was fresh and new. He looked up and around at the clear rain washed sky, the windows of the buildings around them winking in the morning sun, and heard the sounds of birds in the trees and murmuring voices of the people around them walking with the hope of healing in their hearts. The machinations of the Centre, the confusion he felt about his relationship with Parker and the physical pain he had endured seemed to have all been washed away during the storm and dissolved into the new morning. Slowly a big grin grew on his face until his eyes sparkled back into Emily's eyes. "I don't know if you'll want me for a cousin," he joked.
"If you keep smiling like that, I do. You really should smile like that more often," she replied in a joking tone as she pulled him back down the sidewalk, "You'd never keep all the ladies away!"
More on the way, I promise. It was getting too long so I decided to split it into another chapter and I'm almost done! 'Til next time…
