Resolutions – 20
Evening Confidences
by MMB
Jarod could almost feel the hesitancy and refusal building in Ginger as he pulled the car to a halt in front of the Child Protective Services office. When he turned off the engine and turned to her, he could see he was right – her face was pale and almost terrified, and she was backed into the corner of her seat. "Daddy, no…" she whimpered.
"Listen to me, Sprite. We're just stopping by here for a visit, as a favor to someone who helped us convince the judge to let you be my little girl for real. Do you remember Mr. Rizzo – he came to visit us that day, with the lady that gave you the bad time?" Ginger nodded warily. "Well, he asked if, after we saw the judge and had the adoption finalized, we could stop by here – evidently there were some people who were very concerned about you that wanted to know that you're OK." He ran the back of his fingers across her cheek. "We can be nice to a couple of people who care about you, can't we?"
"Me not 'tay here no more?" she needed to know.
"You're MY daughter for real now," Jarod consoled her. "The only place you'll stay from now on is with ME. Once we're done here, we're going home."
"OK," she finally agreed only very reluctantly and then waited for him to open the car door and let her out of the vehicle. She put up her hand and clung to his tightly, as if afraid that once inside someone would try to rip her away from him again.
Jarod let his grip tighten about his daughter's small fingers a little to give her the reassurance she needed and then led her slowly into the building. He pushed through the doors of the office and then looked around for Rizzo, and then waved at the man as he began to lead Ginger to his desk.
"There you are!" Rizzo smiled at Jarod and then smiled down at Ginger even more widely. "So you have yourself a real Daddy again. Are you happy?"
Ginger looked up at him with wide and wary eyes and then nodded slowly as her fingers tightened around her father's.
"Have a seat here, and I'll go get the ladies I was telling you about," Rizzo told Jarod and gestured at the chair immediately next to his desk. "I'll be right back."
Jarod sat down and pulled Ginger up into his lap. "Do you know," he told her quietly, in a voice obviously meant for her and her alone, "that I love you very much?"
"I lub you too, Daddy. We go now?"
"Mr. Rizzo wants to bring those people I was telling you about. We'll wait around here for a little bit."
Ginger leaned in against Jarod and huddled tightly against him. "Me no like it here."
"I know, Sprite – we won't be staying long." He folded his arms around her and held onto her tightly. "You don't have to be afraid anymore, sweetheart," he told her softly. "You belong to me now, and nobody's ever going to take you away from me again." He dropped a gentle kiss onto the top of her head between the butterfly clips.
"Here we are," Rizzo's voice sounded from behind the seated pair and then moved to sit at the desk. "This is Sally Miller," he indicated a young red-headed woman dressed smartly in a blue pantsuit, "and Cheryl Linden," he gestured at a middle-aged woman with salt and pepper hair in tight curls all over her head and a lime-green shirtdress.
Jarod nodded his greetings, but he could see that both women weren't paying him the least bit of attention – their eyes were all for the little girl on his lap.
Cheryl Linden crouched down next to the seated pair. "Do you remember me, sweetie?" she asked gently. "I sure remember you…"
Ginger's head shook after a slight pause, and then she looked again. Very vaguely she could remember being carried by someone with dark and grey hair after the police had pulled out from under the bed at the screaming woman's house. That person had tried very hard to comfort her. Was this that woman? She leaned her head into her father's chest again.
"We were the intake team that removed your daughter from the Thatcher house," Sally Miller explained patiently to Jarod. "I'd never seen such a traumatized child in all my time here. She wouldn't move, wouldn't speak, wouldn't cry, wouldn't hardly respond to anything anybody did or said, was either as stiff as a board or flinching as if we were getting ready to beat her the moment we tried to touch her." Her green eyes caught at the Pretender's dark gaze. "I know you work with children, Dr. Russell, so maybe you know sometimes how one specific child just… bothers you… more than all the others?"
"I know exactly what you mean," Jarod answered honestly. It was such a feeling that had led him to initially consider taking a parental role in Ginger's life to begin with.
"Well, this little one was the topic of many a conversation between Cheryl and myself," Sally continued. "We started to feel a little better when Rizzo came back and told us that you were taking such good care of her, and that she was beginning to act like a kid again a little bit. Then he told us you were getting ready to move away. Call us selfish a little, but we wanted to see for ourselves that she was in good hands."
"Do you hear that, Sprite?" Jarod bent to his daughter. "They were worried about you and wanted to make sure that I was taking good care of you. What do you say to that?"
Ginger looked steadily into both of the strange faces ahead of her. They cared? They wanted to make sure she was OK? Why had she never known that such people existed before this? "Thank-oo," she replied softly, then clutched at her father's shirt again.
Cheryl reached out a gentle hand and touched Ginger's face very softly, and then gave her a kiss on the forehead as she rose to her feet again. "You're very welcome, Ginger. I'm glad your new father brought you by," she told the child. "Because now I know you're OK, and I don't have to worry about you anymore. You have yourself a GOOD life now, little one." She nodded her thanks to Jarod.
"Thanks for bringing her by, Dr. Russell," Rizzo added his gratitude to that of his colleagues. "Every once in a while, it does us all good to see that everything CAN work out well in the end – it keeps us able to continue to fight for those who don't have anybody to advocate for them."
"Thank YOU," Jarod responded. "There for a moment, when I first took custody of her, I was afraid that nobody cared whether she lived or died. I needed to see that she had actually touched somebody's heart here." He looked down into the little face pressed against his shirt. "But I think I need to get someone here home. It's been a big and a little frightening day – and I think we both could use some quiet time."
"Thanks for coming," Cheryl told the tall Pretender as he put the little girl down from his lap and rose with her hand tightly in his. "Good luck."
"Good luck to you – and keep up the good work." Jarod looked down at Ginger. "You ready to go home?" At her vehement nod, he smiled. "Then let's get going."
Ikeda pulled his car to the curb just in front of Joe's and then waved as the sweeper started his engine and pulled out to head back to the Centre. That the big sweeper was behaving normally again must mean that Green-san had returned from the Centre medical facilities relatively sound. That was good news – Parker-sama would be much relieved. He walked quickly up the walk and pushed through the unlocked front door and looked around the slightly dark interior of the house.
All was unusually silent – there was no superficial chatter from the family as they got up from their dinner table as had been the norm for a while now. His ebony eyes darkening and narrowing in sudden alertness, he walked silently through the house to the kitchen. There he found Green-san sitting at the table, head in his hands, nursing a tall glass of some sort of beverage. "Green-san," he bowed deeply. "Is everything alright? Where are Kevin-san and Deborah-san?"
Sydney raised his head and acknowledged the bodyguard. "Upstairs," he answered in a tired tone. "They didn't come down for supper – but then, I'm not surprised." He gazed up into the Japanese man's face with an assessing look. "Did you know about them — that they had…?"
"Did I know that they had formed a closer, more intimate, relationship?" Ikeda asked delicately. Sydney snorted at the diplomatic way of phrasing the situation and nodded. "Yes. I knew."
"And you said nothing to them?"
"Green-san, it wasn't my place to interfere in something that private between those two," he told the old psychiatrist honestly and bluntly. "But to be honest, I completely approve of what happened."
"You approve?" Sydney's gaze turned startled and he gestured to a chair, indicating his wish that the ninja take a seat.
"Very much," Ikeda replied calmly, moving into the indicated seat with a smooth and practiced move. "Deborah-san needs a protector like Kevin-san after her bad experience in California – someone who will take care of her and show her that not everyone in the world is out to hurt her. Someone who will hold her in the night, keeping her safe from the demons in her sleep and loving her whenever she needs a man's touch."
"And now Kevin is in her nightmares," Sydney told him with a shake of the head. "This doesn't help her very much…"
"Yes, but he is in her bed as well," Ikeda insisted. "With Kevin-san at her side far more often than the nightmare is, it will eventually give her reason to stop having nightmares in the first place."
"But Kevin isn't ready for this intense a relationship," Sydney said, bringing out his second worry. "I'm sure you've noticed by now that my nephew is far more naïve than normal – he barely knows what a girl looks like, much less…"
"This may be true," Ikeda answered easily, "but your nephew cannot help but profit from this development as well. Deborah-san gives purpose to his life – a purpose that he himself has assigned to it as opposed to one forced upon him by others – and in this way, he will mature faster in the ways of the world by necessity. Besides, this is something he is doing as much for himself as for her – although neither of them would ever be able to see that deeply into their motivations to understand that. He needs someone to take care of, someone with whom he can take the role of leader rather than subordinate, someone who will continue to need him in other ways when you have recovered your health and the boxes in the living room are gone."
"It's still too soon for both of them," Sydney complained.
"It was their Karma to come together this way," Ikeda answered gently, "just as it was your Karma to be removed as a psychological barrier to their love being consummated when the time came and it needed to happen."
"Karma," Sydney repeated bitterly. "I don't know that I can believe in that anymore than I can believe in God. Both seem just too pat an excuse for painful twists and turns that Life takes all on its own."
Ikeda shook his head. "Green-san, surely you had noticed the way these two have been looking at each other ever since I began to watch over your household in the night?" Knowing ebony pinned Sydney's chestnut gaze where it sat. "I cannot believe that you did not see this coming eventually — known that it was inevitable..."
"I saw it coming," Sydney admitted, "but I was hoping to postpone it…"
"So what are you going to do now?" Ikeda asked quietly, "If I may be so bold as to inquire – are you going to forbid their love?"
"And drive them both away? I don't think so," Sydney shook his head firmly. "I have accepted that this is the way they want to live their lives – but…"
The Japanese gazed long and hard at the man he was guarding for Parker-sama. "I think, perhaps, there is a lesson in this for you as well, Green-san," he said finally.
The chestnut came up to meet his ebony gaze in surprise again. "For me?"
"Indeed," the ninja nodded. "You have forgotten how to trust Life to follow the path that leads where it will lead with or without your assistance. You help others to discover that trust, I have heard you do this often for both Kevin-san and Deb-san since I have known you all, but you do not have that trust yourself. What happened to steal your trust? Do you know?"
Unbidden, a sudden vision of the main gate at Dachau – with 'Arbeit Macht Mann Frei' Work Makes Man Free in iron letters over the portal – filled his mind and made him shudder as if chilled. "I learned a long time ago that Life cannot be trusted," Sydney replied brusquely and shook his head. "When a person trusts Life, they make themselves vulnerable – sometimes too much so."
"And in your life-long struggle against the inevitable, has this distrust of Life and the vulnerability it brings ever done anything except pain you in the long run anyway?" Ikeda asked bluntly. His words had the desired effect, for Green-san looked back up at him, startled. But instead of saying more, he merely rose. "It is time that I check the perimeter of the property now. Please excuse me." He bowed deeply again and walked to the arcadia doors and let himself out into the back yard, leaving Sydney staring into his beverage glass and trying to answer the question put to him by the inscrutable and strangely wise ninja.
Crystal stared into her little closet in amazement. The money that Miss Parker had given her, money that she had spent so very carefully, had provided her with a bigger wardrobe than she'd had in a very long time. She had convinced the sweeper entrusted with taking her 'where she needed to go' to make the trip into Dover – to a discount clothing store where a dollar went further than it would have in the small shop in Blue Cove. She now had several pairs of dress trousers as well as a number of shell blouses and a couple of shirt-jackets that matched the color of the trousers.
Most of the rest of the money had been spent at a supermarket for enough fresh fruit, vegetables, bread, milk and other supplies that she knew she'd not be hungry for at least a week. She had even bought herself a tiny purse to hold the apartment key and the few bills that were still left after all her purchases had been made. Maybe after a while, she would find a small wallet in which she could put the money she had earned at her job.
She sagged to the bed, tired and still not quite believing everything that had gone on over the last two days. This was her HOME – this, and not a cold and drafty warehouse at the edge of the water. Across the narrow landing lived that pretty Chinese woman who had summoned her this morning, and below the Chinese lady lived the woman who had driven the car – some sort of scientist, she'd finally figured out. She was surrounded with people living their own lives and making room for her to live hers without demanding that she move out of the way for them, or hitting her when she didn't move fast enough or said something wrong.
She reached back a hand, pulled her long, dark braid over her shoulder to the front, removed the rubber band that had kept it neat and tidy and out of her way, and ran her fingers through her hair until it was loose. Slowly she got to her feet and headed for the bathroom and the hairbrush that had been provided, running it through the silken length and letting herself enjoy the feel of clean and well-groomed hair at last. She'd not had either the time or the mood to enjoy it that morning – and it had been a long time since she'd been that clean for that long.
Crystal turned on the light and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She still looked like shit, she decided. The bruise on her cheek had turned an ugly shade of green now, with the swollen eye purple-black shot through with patches of sallow yellow. She touched the eye carefully – it still hurt a great deal – and then turned off the bathroom light. She would just have to live with the non-too-subtle looks of derision and the questioning stares that her condition would earn her from her coworkers tomorrow – people she had never met and who wouldn't know her.
She wasn't hungry. The sweeper who had chauffeured her around had treated her to fast food on the way back to the Centre grounds from Dover. She had eaten very slowly in order to fully appreciate the taste of food that was fresh and hadn't spent any time in a trash container before finding its way to her. Sam and his fiancée had watched her virtually inhale her meal the night before, she'd been so hungry for a substantial and truly filling meal. Tonight, with hunger only a very vague hint at the back of her mind, she'd been able to do her smaller dinner justice. She would have to watch what she ate — while she could stand to put a little more meat on her bones, she didn't want to gain too much weight.
She rose and walked from the bedroom and into the little living room. With the time to spend on the task, she finally began to study her new living environment more closely. There was a small boom box on the top of the bookcase near the door, and she turned the device on and tuned in a radio station with some smooth jazz music that was gentle on the nerves. Beneath the boom box, laying flat on the bookcase shelves, were several magazines in English, along with a selection of books in what looked like Chinese. Crystal ran her fingers along the spines of the Chinese books and decided that she'd ask her neighbor if she'd like to have them – they wouldn't do HER any good.
The lack of urgency in her environment, the idea that she wasn't doing anything that anybody would disapprove of or punish her for or that she needed to remain on guard for, made her feel vaguely uncomfortable. She had been so at odds with the rest of the world for so long that having a quiet, comfortable, warm and safe evening in her own home was a completely foreign concept. She felt a flash of a wish that she could tell this to Sydney – the one person she COULD talk to. Maybe he could help her understand why something so good felt so wrong.
With a sigh she turned the boom box off and, after locking and securing her front door, turned off the light in the living room and headed back to the bedroom. It had been a big day for her – she was tired – and tomorrow promised to be equally challenging in other ways. The surgical scrub garments she'd been given had found their place under the pillow of her bed, and she pulled them out now and changed into them. She folded the jeans and tee shirt neatly and stored them in mostly empty drawers of the small chest of drawers before drawing on the soft green cotton garments.
She pulled back the blankets and sheet and slipped into bed, pulling the covers up over her body and tucking them about her tightly. This is what it felt like to BE home, she reminded herself. This was HER home.
Maybe someday she'd be used to it – but not today. She closed her eyes and hoped that sleep would come quickly.
"Syd?" Miss Parker pushed the unlocked front door open and walked into the dimly lit house. "Are you still up?" A slight motion in the living room caught her eye, and she saw Mr. Ikeda slowly sinking back into a relaxed sitting position on the floor. She nodded at him silently, commending his vigilance.
"Back here, Parker," came the gently accented voice from the direction of the kitchen.
She followed the voice and then raised her eyebrows when she noted that he was sitting in the kitchen all by himself. "Where's Kevin and Deb?" she asked as she slipped into the chair right next to him.
"Upstairs," he answered truthfully. He looked at her with an expression of tired acceptance. Maybe she'd be able to help him figure out how to tell Broots… "You might as well hear it from me now as later — it seems that while I was… indisposed… they took matters between them into their own hands and…"
"Oh God!" Miss Parker breathed. "You're kidding!"
He shook his head and looked at her as evenly as he could. "We both knew it was only going to be a matter of time…"
"Yeah, but…" she complained, and then gazed at him questioningly. "What are you going to do about it?"
"Nothing," he said with finality, adding when he saw her eyebrows soar toward the hairline, "except try to figure out a way to tell Broots when the time comes."
She stared at him. "You mean to tell me that after years of Grandpa Sydney having a hissy fit every time a young man even LOOKED at her in a calculating way, you're going to sit here quietly and accepting while they are upstairs in a bedroom…"
"They love each other, Parker – and I honestly don't think this is just a case of rampant hormones. I saw a look in Kevin's eyes tonight…" He gazed at his surrogate daughter fondly. "It reminded me of Jarod, talking about you not all that long ago."
Her gaze softened immediately. "Are you telling me that when a Pretender falls in love, it's a forever thing?"
He shrugged in a very continental manner. "It's entirely possible. We both know that Jarod was yours back when you were children – that it just took you two a helluva long time to put it together properly at last." He shrugged again. "As far as Kevin and Deb are concerned, however, I wasn't happy about what they did – I chewed on both of them as soon as I found out – but what CAN I do at this late date?"
"You could tell them to stay the hell in their own bedrooms," she suggested sharply.
His answering gaze was quite skeptical. "Do you honestly think that would work?" he asked dryly. "Would YOU have listened to me when you were that age?
She sighed. "No, I suppose not." She looked around. "So they're upstairs together now?"
He nodded. "They've already managed to have a fairly serious misunderstanding," he told her, "and I sent Kevin upstairs to be with Deb and make things right with her. I hope to high heaven he'd figured out how to manage that." He shook his head in dismay. "I know that neither one of them was ready for this relationship to get this complicated – but they are even less ready to have the relationship implode or be damaged very badly. So I've got to play match-maker to a certain extent, and help them mend fences they themselves first put up and then botched."
"No wonder you look so beaten," Miss Parker commented gently. "You look all in."
"I also had a rather troubling discussion with Mr. Ikeda just before you got here." He then blinked and looked up at her. "Wait a minute — what are YOU doing here at this hour? Shouldn't you be home with Davy?"
"I wanted to check up on you, since I couldn't be the one to take you home from your latest foray into medical science," she smiled at him. "And I wanted us to talk for a while."
"Parker… I'm really not…"
"You should know that there's no way I'm going to let what happened the other night go, Sydney," she told him frankly. "I told you, I want in. It's time you started to talk to me."
The chestnut eyes flicked up into hers tiredly and then looked back down again. "You don't know what you're asking of me," he told her sourly.
"You're right," she admitted, "I don't. But you need to talk to me, and you know it." She reached out to him and grabbed his nearest hand. "If the tables were turned, you wouldn't let me get away with that as an excuse, and you know it. You need to air some of that stuff, Syd — put it out in the open where you can look at it more objectively…"
"There's nothing objective about it, Parker," he burst out. "I lost my whole family — I watched them take my father and mother and little sister away for a 'shower' that I later found out was really an execution. I saw…" His face crumpled, and he buried his face in his hands. "God, Parker, don't make me remember — please…"
"What did you see, Sydney?" she asked gently, scooting her chair closer to his and putting her arm around him. "I know it hurts, but the time has come to let this go. Tell me, so I can help you."
Sydney seemed to gulp air in an attempt to calm himself. "I saw…" he began before his face crumpled again. "I saw the nude body of my little sister in a cart being hauled over to the ovens. They had just thrown her into this tangle of legs and arms — her face was… I think she'd died screaming… Her eyes were open, staring at me, blaming me for not helping her…"
"God, Syd," Parker breathed in shock and dismay and then pulled his head toward her shoulder. "I had no idea…" He was trembling now, trying to keep from sobbing openly. "It's OK," she soothed at him, holding him as close as she could and letting him rest against her. "You can cry for her now, you can grieve…"
He shook his head, starting slowly and subtlely and then more and more violently. "But I can't! Jacob saw her too and started to cry, but one of the SS came over and slammed the but of his rifle into his face, yelling at us that we weren't to cry — that we'd been…" Sydney's voice was shaking badly, and his accent was growing thicker as his distress grew. "…that we'd been 'liberated' from the prison of family ties…" He gasped as if in pain. "Mon Dieu! Yvette!"
Tears ran down Miss Parker's cheeks at the agonized tone. "Let go, Syd. Let go. You're not in Dachau anymore, and it's safe to cry now." She sheltered him as carefully as possible against her shoulder, one arm about his shoulders and the other hand cradling his head against her. "It's long past time you cried for them." His very body shook as he struggled against the overwhelming grief that was bubbling up from the bottom of his soul —a grief that had been locked away for so long that there was no stopping it now that it had found an outlet. "Let go, Sydney. It's OK. I'm here — I have you — it's safe. Let go…"
If Miss Parker had thought that Sydney's tears many years earlier over his brother's impending death had been hard and painful, she knew the tears he finally began to shed now over a little sister long dead must have been agonizing. His arm went around her finally and clutched her close, hanging onto her as if in fear that she'd leave him while he ground out ripping, tearing sobs of grief too long denied. A shadow moved in the doorway to the front of the house, and she shook her head very slightly at the ninja coming to make sure that everything was still safe and secure, telling him with just a tweak of the head to leave them alone. Ikeda backed away from the doorway cautiously, leaving Parker-sama to deal with her foster-father's pain.
Miss Parker held him close and let him sob into her shoulder, moving her hand in small circles against his back at his shoulders every once in a while in an effort to comfort him with tears of her own running unimpeded down her face. It took a long time for him to release all the grief for his sister that he'd kept hidden away from himself and the rest of the world; and when he finally heaved a heavy sigh at the end of his emotional venting, he was completely exhausted. He leaned against her shoulder for a long moment, needing her support desperately and silently working up the energy to just sit up straight again. "I'm sorry," he said finally in a voice he forced into calm steadiness — but only barely.
"There's nothing to be sorry for," she shook her head at him as she finally loosened her hold on him and wiped away the tear tracks from where her tears had joined his. "I think you've needed the space to do that for a very long time." She watched him closely. "But now I think I need you to do one more thing for me." Exhausted chestnut eyes looked up at her — he had no energy left with which to protest. "Tell me about Yvette — about before the war. What was she like?"
The pale face broke into an exhausted smile. "She was so lively — such a tease. She was constantly getting us in trouble by accusing the wrong one of us for picking on her back, always underfoot but making us laugh. She loved to sing…" He straightened a little further and began working on wiping away his own tears with the palms of his hands. "She was such a happy child…"
"What did she look like?" Miss Parker wanted to know.
"She had long, dark hair that our mother used to keep pulled behind her in a ribbon; big, brown eyes that always seemed to be either wide with wonder or sparkling with mischief." He looked at her, and she could tell that he was looking both at her and at his memory of his little sister. "She was beautiful — you reminded me of her a little when you were very young..."
"She was much younger than you?"
He nodded. "By four years," he told her. He stared for a long time at her; and as he did, his eyes filled again. "God, I haven't thought about her, remembered her or her voice, for… since…"
"You need to remember her alive, Sydney," Miss Parker told him gently. "Let go of the bad and reclaim the good memories of your little sister. She sounds like a sweet child that didn't deserve to be locked away at the bottom of your mind with all that ugliness for all this time." She smoothed back some of the grey hair. "I didn't even know you had a sister — thank you for sharing Yvette with me." The depleted expression in his eyes didn't escape her. "But now you need to rest and recover from your day — and from what I just put you through. I didn't mean to wear you out so."
"I'm beat," he admitted with very little strength, "but…" He gave her a tired smile. "I think I feel better for just having remembered her playing and laughing again." He put up a hand to Miss Parker's face. "You've given her back to me. What a gift!"
"Psht! I only sat here and listened," she told him gently and kissed his cheek, "while you did all the hard work. I'll sit and listen to you anytime you want to talk — and we WILL be doing this again, you know — but for now, let me get your crutches. I'll help you get settled in bed before I leave."
He took the polished wooden crutches from her when she handed them to him, and Miss Parker trailed him into the den to help him remove his slip-on shoes and get arranged more comfortably on the daybed. "By the way, I talked to Jarod today — and he wanted me to be sure to warn you," she suddenly remembered to tell him as she helped him get his legs up and comfortable again, "his mother will be coming back to Delaware with him when he comes home."
Sydney's brows slid together. "She is? You're kidding — why?"
"To meet and talk to you, I gather," Miss Parker told him with a shrug. She then tugged on his covers to help him. "I believe Jarod told me that she told him that she 'wanted to meet the man who raised her son.' I wouldn't worry about it too much — Jarod said that he'd be filling her in on how you've had it rough for a while, so hopefully she'll not be too hard on you in the process."
"I stole her son's life," he said calmly and with deep resignation. "Whatever happens, I will have deserved it."
"You stop that right now!" Miss Parker told him firmly. "I'm not going to let her come over here and tear you apart — and we both know why you did what you did. Margaret and I get along fairly well now — I'll make damned sure she treats you with the respect you deserve, or I'll know the reason why." She bent and kissed his forehead. "Get some sleep now, Sydney. You've earned it today."
He looked up into her grey eyes with undisguised fondness. "You know, I could never have asked for a better daughter," he told her with a gentle smile. "Tell Davy I said hello — and get some rest yourself. You've earned it too."
"Goodnight, Syd," she said, rising. "Sleep well now."
"Goodnight, Parker."
She walked back through the house, turning off any remaining lights and then locking the front door behind herself. Yvette, she thought to herself. Sydney had had a little sister named Yvette. Long, dark hair… A picture of Ginger snapped into her mind. She hoped that the little girl had continued to improve since she'd last seen her — because she had a feeling that a grieving old man might just find some comfort in maybe seeing a little sister reborn in a adopted granddaughter.
Hurry home, Jarod, she thought as she climbed behind the wheel of her car and turned the key. We need you here — both you AND Ginger.
Deb awoke with a violent shudder, and Kevin's arm tightened around her almost immediately. "Another nightmare?" he mumbled sleepily, shifting uncomfortably against the headboard behind him.
She nodded and huddled against him again. She didn't want to tell him that this nightmare had had little to do with California, and everything to do with the argument they had had that day. She had awakened as the dream-Kevin had started walking away from her without even a backward glance, awakened as her dream-self had tipped her head back and screamed in despair.
"Was it the same one again?" he asked, waking up a little more. She wasn't fighting with him this time, trying to escape. "Was it the one you were telling Sydney about?"
She shook her head. "Just hold me," she whimpered and tightened her hold on him.
"I'm here," he soothed, kissing the top of her head and soothing her with his hands. "It's OK." He paused, then suggested carefully, "Tell me about your dream."
Then again, maybe he needed to hear about her nightmares — maybe sharing what her dreams were telling her would help him understand. "I dreamed we had a horrible fight," she told him softly, "and that you got so angry with me that you walked away. You were leaving."
"I'm not leaving," he reminded her. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
"I'm so afraid," she whispered into his tee shirt.
"Of what?" he asked, astounded.
"That you WILL leave — that I'll say something that sets you off again, and…"
"I wouldn't do that…"
"You almost did," she reminded him softly.
Kevin slid down the headboard and pulled her along with him until they were both lying against the pillows. "I'm so sorry," he apologized with deep remorse. "I didn't mean to hurt you so."
"I'm sorry too," she replied. "I know I must have sounded awfully callous when I was talking to Grandpa…"
"And I knew better than to stand around and listen," he chastised himself mentally. "I was told that he wanted to speak to you alone — I should have known better."
"Promise me you'll always talk to me first when you're angry," she insisted. "Give me a chance to explain…"
"I promise," he said, finding it a very easy agreement to make, and then ran his hand up to her face and then kissed her gently. "I love you, Deb."
"I love you," she said and kissed him back, this time with a little more fire. "Make love to me, Kevin," she whispered, her free hand sweeping up his chest and then down again. "Please. I need you — I need to know that we're OK..."
"Our being OK isn't going to be about sex, Deb," he said tenderly and kissed her cheek. "We're OK as we are right now — and we don't need to make love to make it more OK." He pulled his arms around her and held her very close. "Now, don't think that I don't want to make love with you — because I do. But making love isn't going to make us OK — I think I've finally figured that part of it out."
"I thought sex was a big part of it for you," she whispered, feeling confused.
"It still is — I still have a very hard time keeping my hands off of you," he replied, letting one hand begin a slow and provocative journey over her belly and under the hem of her tee shirt, seeking warm and soft skin. "And I fully intend to make love to you in a little bit — in case you were wondering." He heard her sigh in contentment. "But our being OK together will have more to do with our loving and believing in each other than it does with whether or not we make love every night."
"It's just that when you're making love to me, I know that you believe in me," she told him. "If you didn't, I don't think you'd touch me — or your touch would be cold, like it was this afternoon. You would be rough — like HE was."
His wandering hand found a mound of soft flesh protected by lace and then toyed with the small bud of hardness that pushed insistently through it. In response, her hand began a journey of its own, finding and managing to undo the buckle to his belt and loosening his clothing. "Is my touch still cold?" he asked as his lips toyed with hers again and his hand followed the lacy elastic to the back and struggled with the hooks.
"Oh, no!" she sighed as the bra suddenly gave way, and Kevin was able to move it aside and fold his hand over her breast possessively. His thumb stroked the stiff little bud and made her arch into him in response. Her hand made its entrance into his jeans, pushing its way through now-open zippers and the folds of soft cotton boxers to close around him in an equally possessive manner. "Is mine?"
He groaned heavily in response, rolled her back over into her pillow and captured her lips with his in a blistering kiss as his hand abandoned its post and journeyed southward as well, unzipping her pants and slipping beneath jeans and silk in search of where she was most sensitive. When the kiss finally ended, she breathed heavily into his ear, "Make love to me, Kevin. I want you — now."
Reaching to help her pull her tee shirt and bra away from her body, Kevin smiled. "Yes, ma'am! It would be my pleasure," he commented softly as the shirt hit the floor and his hands began pulling at her jeans.
"Mine too," she giggled back at him, her hands pushing his jeans and boxers down over his hips and pulling up on his tee shirt too.
Kevin sat up and quickly divested himself of his clothing. "I sincerely hope so," he chuckled back at her and then rolled with Deb until he was lying on his back with her straddling his hips, their bodies having already united with a swift motion that made both of them gasp in surprise and pleasure. He sighed at the sensation of being surrounded by her and was unable to keep from beginning to move his hips.
Deb bent forward and kissed him on the lips and then on the cheeks and throat. She felt complete and safe at last with Kevin's hands and lips on her, touching her, caressing her — and his body deep inside hers moving rhythmically in a way that would soon have her feeling as if she were flying again. Talking and knowing that things were settling between them was all well and good — but THIS was what she needed to know that all was right with her world again.
All the unhappiness of the afternoon dropped away like a stone as the two of them found comfort and passion — and then release — with the other.
Miss Parker rolled over and squinted at the illuminated hands on her alarm clock when the telephone on her nightstand began to jangle. It was two o'clock in the morning, and he'd managed to wake her up again — after all these years. She had a smile on her face as she reached for the receiver, but her voice had the familiar 'Ice Queen' bite to it when she answered, "What?"
"Now THAT'S the way I remember things," Jarod purred into her ear in a soft and low tone. "I've missed hearing you answer the phone like that at this hour…"
"I actually fell asleep waiting for your call, Wonder-boy," she complained with a soft laugh. "I got home a little late from Syd's and just put my head down for a minute…"
"Well, did he talk to you?" Jarod asked curiously, propping himself up on an elbow. He too was in bed, figuring that this would be as close as he'd get to pillow-talk until he got home on Saturday.
"Yes," she replied. "I had no idea that he had…"
"Wait a moment, Missy," Jarod interrupted her. "Right now, you're acting as a counselor — and he's confiding in you. You cannot break that confidence. Perhaps, once I'm back and he's agreed to let me work with him, he'll give you permission to tell me what he told you tonight. But for now…"
"You're right," she admitted. "It's just that I've never seen him quite like this — it hurt me watching him hurt like that."
"Being a therapist isn't all light and flowers. A lot of it has to do with being able to keep what you hear from driving you into your own depression."
"I had him try to recall happy memories from before the war, to remember good things that he's kept locked away too. Is that right?"
Jarod nodded. "It's not a bad therapeutic technique — I've used it myself a few times. You must be remembering your psychology classes from your college days. What about later? Was he upset enough that you needed to give him anything to sleep?"
"I didn't tonight — I'll see whether Kevin or Deb tells me he was rested or exhausted when I talk to them tomorrow. Oh yeah, that reminds me. Syd tells me that's another little development…"
"Kevin and Deb?" Jarod picked up on her line of thought all too easily. "Ho boy," he said with a shake of the head.
"Yeah. Broots is going to shit a brick." She sighed. "Knowing Syd, he'll be the one to play martyr and tell him — probably the next time he goes in for physical therapy himself."
"You both saw this coming, didn't you?" he asked her gently. "Kevin is so much like me — and I saw his eyes when he saw Deb that first time. I could have told you that that was IT…"
"Forget about them," Miss Parker said and lay back into her pillow. "They have each other, and I'm stuck here very much by myself in this big bed. So… tell me about the rest of your day. How's Ginger on her first night officially as a Russell?"
Jarod chuckled. "Exhausted. I took her to the Aquarium after lunch, and we must have walked miles. But she has energy to burn — she wore ME out! She started drooping almost into her food tonight at supper, so we skipped bath time and I put her straight to bed." He lay back into his pillow too. "It's hard to believe, Missy — I have TWO children now."
"Jarod, WE have two children now," she corrected him gently. "I'm in on this little adventure too, aren't I?"
"Oh, I don't think I could do it without you," he agreed completely. "Tell me," he said, his voice dropping into that lower register that made her heart beat faster, "what are you wearing right now?"
Miss Parker sighed. She could almost feel his arms around her, holding her close the way she wanted him to so badly now. "You know that blue nightgown?"
"The one that I like the best?" His voice sounded pleased.
"Mmm-hmmm… What about you?"
"Just the bottoms of my pajamas, like always." He paused, his eyes closed as he tried to picture her laying in her father's bed in the townhouse. "I miss you — especially at this hour of the night."
"I know," she agreed wistfully. "But only one more night before…"
"I hope you have nothing planned for Sunday," he told her with a low chuckle. "I don't intend for either of us to get a WHOLE lot of sleep right away Saturday night. We'll need to sleep in…"
"If the kids will let us," she reminded him. "Remember that last night in California — they didn't sleep in one moment."
"Yeah, but Ginger will be working on a decent case of jet-lag. Davy will have a hard time getting her up much before nine in the morning."
"Davy's getting so excited about having his sister here with him that he can hardly stand it, you know," she chuckled. "We have plans on going to the store Saturday morning while you guys are in the air — and see if we can find some new decorations for Ginger's room. My stuff is pretty outdated now…"
"Have you figured out where we're going to put my mother up? In a guest room there at the townhouse?"
"I suppose that would be easiest," she replied. "If she were going to stay longer, I'd have her take over the summerhouse — Ikeda has taken the apartment above the garage as his place, so she'd never even know he was around, probably."
"She told me she's only staying a couple of weeks or so — if that long. Just long enough to see Ginger settled in and to…"
"Talk to Sydney, I know."
"I love you," he told her gently in that low and seductive voice. "I can't wait for Saturday to come so I can see you again."
"Promise me that you'll never leave me for so long again," she demanded urgently. "First you take off for eight whole years — and now for weeks at a time. I need you here with me, Jarod, not traipsing all over the planet…"
"I'm not leaving you again," he promised solemnly. "I put a ring on your finger that was my promise that I'd come back and then never leave you. To be honest, I'm ready to come home now but for one kid I need to see tomorrow and the tail end of my packing."
"Everything else is done?"
"Yup — just need to see that one boy, come home and get what little is left put away except for just what I'll need in the morning — and then go over and let Em fuss over us one more time tomorrow night. She'll be the one that will be missing Mom the most — even though Sammy starts school on Monday."
"Tell Em I send my love, will you?" Miss Parker asked, one arm over her eyes so she could picture him lying on his — their — bed in his beautiful home. "I hate to admit it, but I'm going to need to get some sleep pretty soon…"
"I know — I should let you go," he said, hating the distance and the need to part yet again. "But thanks for letting me know my beautiful huntress hasn't disappeared completely…"
"Oh, trust me, you'll find out just how much your huntress is definitely still around come Saturday night," she promised, with HER voice dipping into the low and seductive register. "We will definitely need to sleep in on Sunday morning."
"I look forward to it," he purred into her ear seductively, then sighed. "You know, I don't have a clue or a riddle to leave you with tonight, Parker, so I guess your ulcer's safe from me for a change."
"That's OK. That's one thing from our past conversations that I don't miss. Just leave me with a kiss and a promise to be home soon."
"I love you," he told her softly after her smooched at her through the phone. "I'll see you Saturday."
"I love you too," she replied, smooching back. "Call me tomorrow evening?"
"Will you be over at Sydney's again?"
"Probably."
"Then I'll call you around ten your time. Goodnight, Missy."
"Goodnight, Jarod."
Jarod hung up the telephone feeling the emptiness of the bed next to him. He rolled over and pulled the pillow that she'd slept on to his chest and held it tightly. For the first time in a very long time, he found it difficult to get to sleep.
Sydney rolled to his side and propped himself up on an elbow. Sleep had eluded him tonight — his mind was simply too full of memories of the past and concerns for the present. It was late — no doubt everyone else in the house except Mr. Ikeda was sound asleep. He grimaced and slipped his feet over the side of the couch and reached for one of the crutches. It was getting so that he only truly needed one of them to get around in the safety of his own house.
Walking slowly and rubbing his hand over his grizzled chin, he made his way to the kitchen for a glass of water. It was only after he'd stopped drawing water from the filtered spigot that he realized that he an audience — even the small noises he'd made had been enough to summon his nighttime bodyguard to check on what was going on. "Not much gets past you, does it?" he commented to the shadow in the kitchen doorway as he made his way to the table again in the dim light of the bulb over the sink.
"I think Parker-sama relies on my being alert during these quiet hours," the ninja replied quietly.
"Would you mind if I asked you a question?" Sydney gestured to the chair at the table where the Japanese man had sat before.
Ikeda tipped his head. Green-san had come back from his short escapade in a far more talkative mood lately — something that he had to admit was making the task of standing guard over the man both more enjoyable and more risky. Holding a conversation with the man he was supposed to be guarding meant that he had to give up one level of awareness and concentration regarding the environment around them — but at the moment, things didn't seem to be quite so urgent. He took his seat and folded his hands in front of him. "Ask," he replied.
"Do you have any regrets?"
The Japanese blinked. "About…"
"You were an assassin, correct?"
"Hai."
"You killed people without mercy and without question, correct?"
"Hai." The tone still hadn't wavered at all.
"Do you ever regret carrying out any of those assignments?"
Ikeda shook his head. "It wasn't my place to question the reasons of the Yakuza, Green-san. I did as I was told."
"And yet, eventually, you walked away from the Yakuza — and that's how you came to be in my house at the dead of night," Sydney pressed.
"Hai…" The ninja felt the first inkling of the direction Green-san wanted to go in this discussion and knew that it was toward the one place in his psyche that he felt vulnerable. The next question confirmed it.
"Why?"
Ikeda shifted nervously in his chair. "I… began to ask questions…"
"Why?" Sydney pressed, his need to know greater than his wish to be polite.
"As a ninja, I know that all life is sacred — taking a life is a solemn duty. Each death must further a greater good, or the karma involved can become unbearable for the ninja," he explained patiently. "However…" and his voice suddenly lost its firm conviction, "when the death itself becomes the agenda — when the deaths themselves become meaningless because there IS no greater good being served — then the ninja must begin to ask himself if he can live with the karma being created." The ebony eyes finally met and held Sydney's. "I decided that I could not do that any longer, and so I walked away." Strangely, the American's face was not folded into judgment or derision, but thoughtful and slightly guilty. "If I might ask a question of you, Green-san…"
"Yes?"
"Why do you ask this?"
Sydney leaned forward and put his forehead in his hand. "Because I too was trained to do as I was told by my employers without question — but by the time I began to ask questions, the situation had been manipulated to the point that I couldn't walk away. As the result, I have many regrets. I just wondered whether, with such an extreme career choice, you did too."
"I do not think of these things, Green-san — I know it would be a wasted endeavor if I did," Ikeda told him kindly, feeling a form of kinship with this American at last.
"Why is that?" the psychiatrist wanted to know.
"Because the past is only a memory that cannot be affected by any change in attitude toward it," Ikeda explained carefully. "The deeds are finished — the inevitable consequences of actions taken are already set into motion. For example, the lives I took cannot be returned — and the consequences of those actions will come to me no matter whether I regret taking the lives or not. Therefore I choose to spend my time making sure that the actions I DO take from now on will bring about the kinds of consequences I wouldn't mind facing."
"That sounds very simple," Sydney commented dryly. "I take it that it's far from easy?"
Ikeda shook his head with a silent chuckle. "Life itself isn't easy, Green-san. We are not guaranteed a trouble-free lifetime. All we can do is do the best we can in the present moment — and then face what comes at us as the consequence of that in its time. THAT," Ikeda leaned forward and put an index finger into the table in front of him, "is trusting Life to follow the path that it will take whether we want it to or no."
"And if you know you didn't do your best before?"
Ikeda leaned back. "That still is in the past — and the consequences of that will come. Learn from the mistakes you know you made in the past and make avoiding them part of what 'doing your best' means in THIS moment, especially as you face the consequences of those mistakes. To live in a constant state of regret is to focus so much on the past that the present and future are lost. I can think of no other action so useless."
Sydney finished the last of his water while he pondered what he'd been told. Then: "One last question?"
"Hai?"
"Would you ever go back to being an assassin?"
The Japanese man rose to his feet. "I am still an assassin, Green-san. If the situation arose, I would still kill — the only thing that has changed is that I no longer would do so at the unquestioning behest of another. My priorities… my loyalties… have changed, and so my willingness to use lethal force has necessarily been transformed to a degree." His dark eyes glittered dangerously. "But make no mistake — I can kill, and I will not hesitate to kill, if I see the need serving a greater purpose."
Sydney rose too. "Thank you, Mr. Ikeda. You have given me quite a bit to think about."
"Thank YOU, Green-san," Ikeda bowed deeply. "A chance to look into the mirror and review one's path in Life is a gift. You honor me with your discourse." He watched the American reach for his crutch. "Do you need assistance?"
"No, I'm fine," Sydney told him. "Thanks anyway."
By the time he had turned off the light over the sink, he knew that the ninja had retreated to the living room again. He in turn retreated to the darkened den, knowing that he now had quite an interesting perspective and approach to Life to ponder.
He certainly needed something — the perspective and approach he'd been using so far hadn't done him much good…
Feedback, please: