A/N: Thank you for the butt-kicking! Reviews, yummie.

Sirus183 & Mishelle – Glad you liked!

LJP – Thank you for the review! Your questions will be answered… later. Mwuahaha! I've never ran into that fic as far as I can tell, but I just might go find it… if it's anywhere to be found that is. Because now I'm curious.

Cari373 – Hee, we'll see if they fall in love if at all, won't we? I'd be stoned if I did that, wouldn't I? Hehehe.

GQlover2003 – good that you understand, heh, I'll promise I'll try to write whenever I get the chance. Cross my heart or however it is said. Me not English. Nor American. Nor any other native English-blah-speaker. Hmm.

HuntingPeace: I'm trying, I'm trying, heh. Just for you guys.

Redfive: :blushes: What else can I say but thank you!

When the Triumvirate says 'jump', you say 'on who'

by Syrai

Chapter 7 – running dry

"Oh boy, Sidney, Miss P is going to kill you for that one", Broots pointed out incredulously, not knowing whether to be highly amused or simply horrified. In fact, it seemed he was a bit of both in the lack of a better term. No one in his right mind talked to Miss Parker like Sidney had done not more than a minute ago, not if the poor person expected to live through the next time they'd meet. Of course, he had to admit that Sidney had always found a way to get under Miss Parker's skin, and no matter how many times he did it, Miss Parker always let it slip. You couldn't say she forgave him, it was more like she ignored it and let it go by as it had never happened. Was it because she found the man's presence consoling somehow? Was Sidney some kind of substitute father she had taken to herself whenever her real father disappointed the young girl? It was the only explanation reasonable enough.

"Isn't she always?" Sidney asked in turn, smiling and rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Though the smile was there Broots could easily tell it wasn't coming from the heart. The old man was obviously worried, but for some reason, he found it better not to show it that clearly. The smile was only covering up whatever it was that was on his mind at the moment.

"I suppose", Broots replied, shrugging. He turned back to the screen of his computer and brought his fingers back to the keyboard. The break was over, time to get back to work then. Bummer. It would do no good for him to ask questions, but still… there was one that was so loud in his mind that it had to be asked. "You think he'll call you?"

Sidney gazed at the man narrowing his eyes the way he always did when he was thinking about something; pondering upon some mental problem. Tilting his head to one side, he folded his arms not answering right away but just remaining silent. Only after a second or two, he spoke. "I think so, yes. Even if Miss Parker won't admit it to me, she's curious and desperate to know what it is that we've discovered. If Jarod isn't the one to call us willingly, it's Miss Parker who'll make him call."

Broots thought about it for a moment. Sidney was probably right. Miss Parker had her flaws, being predictable when it came to her mother, was one of them. It was understandable, though. If someone had shot his mother he would've… no wait, that wasn't right. They didn't know if her mother had been shot; that was the whole point, wasn't it? "Maybe you're right. I hope so."

"He'll call, trust me", Sidney assured. For a second there, it felt like the old shrink knew something the younger man didn't.

Wouldn't be a surprise, now would it? Given the fact Sidney had kept Catherine's faked death as a secret through all these years… How did he know Sidney wasn't to keep some other secrets from his workmates too? Reading people had never been Broots' good quality, which was why he mainly worked with computers of course, and so he could get no real hint no matter how he tried to examine his face to obtain one. Sidney was as stone-faced as always.

"He'll call", Sidney said again sounding somewhat sure of himself, "You know Miss Parker and I know Jarod."

Did he really? Something in his words caught Broots' curiosity immediately. Or rather, in the way he spoke. Glancing over his shoulder, he asked: "What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing", Sidney said, but the smile disagreed with his words. "Nothing at all."

Returning his gaze to the screen Broots could do nothing but wonder if Sidney indeed was keeping something from him. By the sound of it, he was.

0000

Miss Parker snorted. The way fate liked to play its game. Of course Jarod had to bust in through the door when she was having her weak moment, right? A moment, which she didn't feel like sharing with anyone; the least with someone like Jarod. Alright, Jarod wasn't a bad guy in the real sense of the word. He wasn't mean and evil and he sure as hell wasn't one to enjoy others' pain… but still, she didn't want to give him the chance to change his mind on that. A chance to feel better about himself by actually seeing that her life wasn't all that great either. He had seen enough already. All those times she had fought with him on the phone, telling him her life was nothing but sugary frosting on top of a delicious cake were proved to be a complete waste of time when he was there, seeing it with his own two eyes. Her pain was her to deal with. Privately.

Too bad he couldn't get that through his damn thick skull!

"Parker, what happened?" With those words spoken, Jarod stepped closer tossing the phone on to the bed not bothering to waste another thought on its account. The cold air that had entered the room as he had opened the door, now crept its way towards Parker and even though she tried to prevent it, the uncontrolled shiver took a hold of her fragile, exhausted body.

Jesus, she had just thrown the man with a phone and he felt the need to ask what had happened? One genius she had there. "Sidney called", she stated tonelessly, removing her eyes from the empty wall she had been staring. Glancing up to see his face, she realized looking at him had a been a big, big mistake.

She looked away again, but could still feel his eyes on him… tingling. He was watching her with a worried face, frown wrinkling his forehead and with folded arms in somewhat pensive posture. A sudden surge of rage washed through her. As stupid as it was, she was tired of being mistrusted all the time. She got enough of that with her father for crying out loud! Carefully she looked up again, but the look on his face had stayed the same. Shit! The only conclusion she could jump into was that he was worried because he thought she had betrayed him and told Sidney their location instead of being worried of her. Of course, it was exactly what she should've had done too.

She did a double take of some sort. Why was she suddenly mad at him for not caring about her state of mind? That didn't make sense… at all. Burying the realization somewhere in deepest corner of her entangled mind, she returned to the last thought that had actually made sense.

Betraying Jarod.

I should just let him believe that's exactly what I did, she thought bitterly, but something made her answer differently regardless of her own decision. "I heard your phone ring so I answered it, alright?" She said with extremely sourly, "Your fault for leaving it here like that. You know, I could've called the Centre if I had wanted to."

Thinking she had given out the wittiest remark ever, she couldn't help but feel a bit better. But it didn't last for too long, for he didn't look impressed, only highly amused with a pleased smirk all over his face. Okay, what had she missed? Jarod answered the unspoken question as if he had read her like she was a open book. "If you had wanted to do that, you would've used the one on your nightstand."

She didn't even have to cast a glance to her side to remember that there indeed was a phone there, waiting to be used. The curse echoing around her head, never exited her mouth.

Fine. Jarod had won one tiny match. Big deal.

"So, you telling what he said or not?"

No. It was what she wanted to say. It was what she thought of saying. But it wasn't what she said. "He called you to ask if you know where I am", she explained. That was the excuse Sidney would've given to the pretender, so it had to do. She continued, smirking; "Of course, it became very clear you know where I am when I answered the phone."

The way she said it made Jarod swallow, but she didn't notice it. "And?"

She had exactly two options. She could tell the truth or… she could lie. Why was it that lying to Jarod seemed too damn difficult all the sudden? Like the pretender could've sniffed every one of her lies if she tried to play tricks on him… why? "He said he has some information about my mother." She paused, staring the floor and trying to keep herself from breaking. It was different when she talked about her mother with Sidney and Broots… Jarod made her remember what her mother had died for. For him, in one level. She had done all she could to rescue both her and Jarod from the hands of the Centre and failed. More than no one else it was Jarod that made her remember it. She cleared her throat, refusing to cry in front of him.

"Something that he assumes you want to know too." There was no trace of weakness in her voice, she had managed to keep it as cool as possible. Her voice wasn't even trembling which alone was a victory. "He wants us to meet."

Jarod's eyebrows rose and there was a genuine surprise plastered on his face. This one he really hadn't expected. "Meet?"

"Yes, meet", she confirmed. When her eyes met Jarod's gaze again she felt like… like nothing would be the same again. "You can call him yourself. It's not a trap, Jarod." She was about to… she swallowed, hard. She was about to let the man see into her heart just because she knew it was the only way to make him realize? To make him understand that there was no way in hell she'd play games when it came to her mother. "This is not a trap. I'd never use my mother to-" she started, but was cut off by Jarod's soft voice.

"I know", he said with a tone that temporarily froze Miss Parker's breathing. "You know that."

Then, he walked even closer and sat down next to her on the floor. Miss Parker knew what kind of person Jarod was… but never ever had she expected Jarod to respond to her feelings. Not like this, she hadn't. After all, she was the one who had repeatedly tried to lock the runaway into his cage and throw away the key. Suddenly, she wasn't even sure why she had done it… oh right, the deal. Catch Jarod and get your freedom. Leave Centre behind… But what Miss Parker knew was that even if she did manage to catch the pretender, she would never leave the Centre behind. It was all she had left of her family.

Eyes locked, they looked at each other for few silent minutes. He wasn't sure what was going on with Miss Parker there, but he didn't want to take his chances when one of the possible outcomes was, that he'd end up ruining the peaceful moment. For the first time since they had been kids… he truly felt like there was no grudge between them. From his part, there had never really been. It was clear to him why Miss Parker did what she did. People lived their lives the way they thought it to be best. Just because he was certain the way Miss Parker had chosen to live hers was the wrong one, didn't mean Miss Parker agreed.

He'd just have to maker her see it. Wasn't that what he had tried to do ever since his escape?

"This means a lot to me", Miss Parker spoke again. Jarod could almost hear how she fought with herself. "If you help me, Jarod, I won't betray you. I know you have no reason to trust me but…" She paused to swallow down the tears. "I need to know what happened to her."

The thought that hit her as she spoke was that the next day, she'd hate herself. Hate herself for breaking down like this for no reason at all. She'd hate herself and be disgusted by ever word she said, but yet she couldn't stop. "Please Jarod…"

Jarod wasn't sure what he was supposed to do.. or rather, what he even wanted to do. Every thought in his head told him to pull the woman closer, to hold her… But this wasn't any woman out there, this was Miss Parker. As far as he knew, this particular woman could pull out her gun - in case she had already realized to look into the top-drawer where he had put it before leaving - and the next moment, his brains would've been decorating the walls… Still, his hand rose up, slowly, all the way to touch her cheek. He had been close to her so many times before, but all those times, one of them had always been pointing a gun to the other one's head.

"I…" he started, but couldn't finish his sentence for he was interrupted by none other than Miss Parker herself. Miss Parker had suddenly grabbed the collar of his shirt, pulled him closer and crashed her lips, rather violently to be added, on his. The surprising movement was followed by one as surprising as it had been; the woman moved closer, spinning herself around so that she was suddenly sitting on his laps, hands on each side of his face… nails digging into his flesh. But all he could do was stare her closed eyelids and return the kiss with the kind of fire she held on her lips.

Wrapping his hands around her body, he tried to suffocate the voice of reason telling him to stop. But unlike usually, this time his inner sense had no control over him or his tongue dancing with hers.

Only when Miss Parker's eyes blinked open as if she had just then realized what she was doing, she pulled away gasping for air. At that his hands fell to his sides, but not willingly. Never had one thing as simple as that taken such an effort to complete.

She didn't move. Hands on her lips, she stared at him in horror but didn't say anything. He wasn't sure if he even heard her breathe, but finally, she took one shaky breath. Hands climbing up to hide rest of her face, the word came behind her fingers. "Shit."

She shook her head refusing to show her face. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

"Shit, Jarod!"

Oh no, no, no, no! She was not going to put the blame on him! She had been the one to kiss him, not the other way around and even though she admittedly had been in very… the only word his foggy mind could find was 'sensitive'… in very sensitive kind of mood, that was not going to work out!

"What did I do?" He asked innocently, pretending to be completely unaware of what had happened. His racing heart and the evil sensation meeting the middle part of his body, however gave it away that something in fact had happened. For his great luck, she was too busy muttering curse words to notice anything.

"Rather, what you didn't do!" Miss Parker snarled speaking out her mind, "When a female gets a bout like that one, you're supposed to stop her!"

Yep, indeed, the Miss Parker was back again. "Sorry Parker", he snorted with the usual playful tone of his with a smirk returning his face, "I don't carry 'Men are from Mars, Women from Venus' with me where ever I go."

The murderous glare, as always, was easy to be seen shining in her eyes, but wearing nothing his T-shirt, it didn't have the same kind of effect it usually did. "If I had my gun-"

He knew how the sentence would end and didn't want to hear it. That was probably why he suddenly grabbed her neck, pulling her closer into a flaming kiss and only after a split second, he realized she had once again, closed her eyes. He couldn't. He had to watch how the lines of her face changed; softened, how the coldness faded away and got replaced by something else…

Breaking the contact to draw in a breath, he rested his forehead against hers and listened her panting almost mesmerized. Her hands were now lying against his chest for support and he felt his heart beating against her hand. Did she feel it too?

"You were saying?"

She opened her eyes and though she didn't show a single hint of being about to remove herself from his lap, there was biting look in her eyes. Biting, but also desperate somehow. Miss Parker had done the one thing she had never wanted to do around Jarod, hadn't she? Lost control.

"Go to hell."

Fading image of red-haired Zoey flashed through his mind making it remembered that there was someone he was supposed to love and honor… but couldn't. And if that wasn't enough, the reason for it was right there in his arms. "Probably will", he growled face serious all the sudden. "But there's something I need to do first. We", he corrected, "need to do first."

Coming to her senses, Miss Parker was finally able to draw her head back even though she still didn't find any reason for her to remove rest of her body from the current spot. It ate her heart out to admit it, but this one man was able to bring her something she hadn't felt since… Since… She tried, but couldn't finish the thought. Instead, she placed her attention back on Jarod. They had to do… Her eyebrow rose hesitatingly. "…What?"

"Don't worry, not that." She wasn't sure if his reply made her feel relieved… or disappointed. Damn him! Damn the stupid assignment and damn her father. Damn her mother for dying on her like that, leaving the little girl all alone. Damn the Centre for ever being established!

Jarod observed her in silence for a short moment. Her eyes had become distant all the sudden, which they never were, not unless she was deep in her thoughts, in another world. He didn't really want to disturb her, but somehow she looked like she needed to be pulled back. And so he said: "We need to see my father."

"When?"

Pushing the woman gently on the floor beside him, he got up and pulled her up while doing so. "Now", he said huskily, "right this minute before you find your gun and do what you threaded." The smile made it noticed that it was meant to be a joke, but Miss Parker found herself trying to reply anyway.

"I…"

She, however, couldn't remember what it was that she had meant to say and so she was cut off by silence. He noticed it, but instead of mention it, he only said: "Wouldn't do that, yeah-" He tugged a strand of fallen hair behind her ear- "But you're known to be impulsive, Parker, I can't count on my good luck forever."

As if it wasn't strange enough, she suddenly missed the touch of his fingers as the hand pulled back again. To hide her temporarily moment of madness or whatever it was that had taken over her and was still holding her still, Miss Parker had to come up with something to say. Fast. "And you shouldn't, labrat", Miss Parker stated getting her normal voice back, "There's always a chance it runs dry."

0000

Zoey had been patient. She had been as patient and understanding as Jarod had needed her to be but there was a limit to her abilities. A limit, which the man he loved had crossed by an inch. But that inch was all it took. How long did he expect her to stay inside the house he had rented for them? Alone and with nothing to do? For the passed days, she had been cleaning the house, jogging, cleaning, taking baths and cleaning and jogging some more in turns and though she enjoyed the chance to relax, she felt she had gotten enough of it. When the almost-defeated cancer would come back with a bang and take her to grave, then she'd rest and relax. For now, she just wanted to live.

With Jarod.

She had thought he understood it, but it was starting to seem he hadn't. She had told him she wanted to be with him no matter what kind of ghosts there were chasing him and making him whimper in his sleep. She had said time after another that she didn't care about what would happen as long as he was there by her side when it happened. Shit, she'd do anything for him! So where was he?

She sank deeper to the warm bubble water and closed her eyes.

The day he received that damned video call from Major Charles, Jarod had disappeared into the night in search of his family. And she had been fine with that because she knew more than well how important family was. It was what had helped her through all the different treatments doctors had tried on her so yeah, she knew alright.

Jarod had said he loved her, given her final kiss before walking out of the door. He loved her. That was the only thing apart from her family keeping her sane when he was away, and all the sudden, his words were fading from her mind and all she could hear was a distant echo. Since morning hours, she had dwelled upon the nasty thought that something had changed and try as she might, she couldn't shake it off. The bubbling fear she had once managed to drown, had come back out of nowhere.

Jarod didn't know it, but during the time they had spent together, she had gathered little pieces of his past and gluing them together had showed her a picture she hadn't wanted to see. She didn't doubt his love for her, but she had come to realize that she wasn't the only one the man loved. He had never mentioned it or anything, but she was certain there was someone he kept dreaming of, someone he had loved since his childhood days but could never get to himself. Someone forbidden. And whenever those ghosts came to hunt him with their black cars and neat suits, she was afraid he'd run to the one ghost she didn't want him to meet.

Maybe it was stupid for her to feel that way. For all she knew, he could've been caught by that weird organization he referred to as 'the Centre' or worse…

Her eyes snapped open as the sound of ringing phone interrupted her thoughts. The phone Jarod had given her had been placed next to the bathtub half an hour ago, just in case and at that point, she was glad it had. Reaching down, she grabbed the phone and brought it to her ear.

"Jarod?"

The excitement was reduced to half when she heard another male voice, familiar though, speak. "Sorry to disappoint you, Zoey, but it's me."

"Charles", she clarified, not that the occasion called for it. There was only two people besides herself that knew the number of this phone, Major Charles being the other.

"That's me."

The worry rushed through her veins right after and instantly, she was more awake than ever in her life before. "Is Jarod ok?" Why else would Charles be calling her if not to tell that Jarod had been… She shook her head putting an end to the thought. Jarod had to be fine, had to be safe.

"I… I'm not sure", he said cutting her ability to breathe to zero. She had been right, hadn't she? Something was wrong! Major Charles hesitated, but not for too long. "Look, I know this is lot I'm asking you, but you have any plans for few days?"

Hmm… what? She blinked not completely following. What was he going after with that kind of question? She didn't know, but she answered anyway. "No, not really… why?"

"I think it'd be best if you came here. Jarod… is in trouble of some sort." He exhaled heavily and continued, "I think you're the one to bring him to safe waters again, Zoey. You and no one else."

Jarod in trouble? Yes, for sure the man had spoken the magic words with what to get her on move. "What is happening there?"

He didn't want to say it, but felt it needed to be cleared. The woman deserved to know and if things went like he suspected, she'd be able to do something about it. Of course, if his suspicions were wrong, good for them, no harm done… but if they were right… He couldn't stand there and watch how his son was about to fall. He was his father and it was his job to make sure that didn't happen. If he couldn't make Jarod realize it, she could. "It's more of a question of with whom it's happening, Zoey."

Her fears had turned out to be justified, hadn't they? I see. Time to put up a fight, then. Time to protect what was hers. "Just tell me where and when, Charles, and I'll be there."

And he did.