Disclaimer: Not mine, title inspired by Goodbye Mr. A by The Hoosiers

A/N: So this is the second to last chapter because time caught up with me and so we're just going to have two super long chapters to finish up instead of a four shorter ones. :P Well I'm not entirely sure what constitutes long but this is super long for me anyhow, I'm still working on getting to the length of the crazy ones that y'all have done!

Anyhow I hope you enjoy this, things get a little…interesting between Jared and Kim and any feedback would be awesome because I'm trying to work on getting emotions right and I never know if I'm off or not.

You guys are amazing! Sorry about the wait!

-S

Chapter 13: Goodbye Mr. C

Four o'clock came quickly and with it brought a dense fog that shrouded the streets in dampness.

I stepped away from my car, having decided to drive over incase I needed a quick getaway. Other than making generous donations and being a decent physician, I didn't know much about Dr. Cullen and certainly not enough to know if he was friend or foe. People could be all sorts of honorable while harboring deep secrets.

Jared was nowhere to be seen so I assumed he was inside, at any rate, I was not averse to getting indoors, it was chilly.

Fork's General was an impressive structure for the small town it served. The winding corridors were white and sterile and surrounded by glass. It was bursting optimism and the scent of anti-bacterial hand wash.

I stepped into a small waiting room where Nurse Linda directed me to a chair.

Jared, my step-brother, or at least as far as Linda was concerned, had just taken his mother into the room and would be out shortly.

There were two other people in the waiting room: an older gentleman in his late seventies or so and a younger man who looked about forty. Both looked preoccupied by their magazines. I had just begun to reach over for one when Jared stepped out of an adjacent hallway.

His mouth relaxed into a smile as he saw me, and he walked over, hands embedded in his pockets. He collapsed into the chair next to me.

"Hey." I offered in greeting and he responded with a nod before waving me on. His good mood from earlier had been lost somewhere between this morning and now.

That probably wouldn't help matters. I decided to just tell him, at least the version I'd cooked up for this conversation. I wanted to get this over with.

"Detective Lucas arrested me because my father's secretary reported that someone was on the property, and had opened the register." I paused here trying to read him but he just watched me: eyes focused and mouth tensed somewhere between a smile and nothing at all.

I figured I should just continue.

"I was just borrowing some cash, my parents left town for a while and I thought it'd be easier than going to an ATM." I let out a breath. Now, I just had to see if he would take the bait.

"So you stole from your mother." His voice was monotonous. He sounded almost bored and if it wasn't for the intensity in the eyes that were trained on me, I would think he was.

"I didn't steal-"

"Don't." He rubbed a hand over his face tiredly before dropping it. He looked like he'd aged ten years since the last time I saw him.

"Just stop it, okay? If you're going to do shit like that, at least man up and admit." His voice was harsh but I knew he meant well, I hadn't exactly admitted to walking an old lady across the street.

"You're right." I said, subdued, averting my gaze.

"So they let you off easy because…?" He trailed off but he sounded bored, uncaring and I felt it cut through me. I'd rather have Jared mad at me than like this. At least then I knew it meant he was actively caring, this absence on his part was devastating.

But why should he care; up until a few days ago, Jared had never even spoken to me.

"She dropped the charges. She was the one I called in the interrogation room." I clapped myself on the back for that one; it was possibly the longest true sentence I'd ever uttered to Jared.

He leaned back before looking over.

"Why'd you do it?"

Ah. Interesting, I hadn't thought he'd ask that one. Think, Kim, think.

"It's my birthday today," I blurted out, trying to think of something that would fit his perception of me. This was the only thing, as trite and cliché a lie as it was, that stuck.

"My parents are...occupied. I get it, I do. But sometimes, I just feel this need to do something to-to make them remember I exist." I felt so cowardly then, using my parents as a scapegoat, it was unthinkable.

Jared broke through my self-hate with a rough chuckle.

"So you really are the poor little rich girl whose parents don't care about her, huh?" His eyes were a jovial shade of mahogany that shone over me.

I offered him a small smile.

He opened his mouth to say something but a doctor stepped out into the room, attracting Jared's attention.

The doctor was remarkably good-looking; I observed, his hair platinum, arrayed artfully over flawless skin. His eyes were a haunting shade of ochre, the skin beneath shadowed by a lack of proper rest.

He stepped closer and beckoned to Jared and with a thrill I realized that Dr. Cullen was just feet away from me.

I took a deep breath and tried to quiet my racing heart. It felt like everyone in the room could hear the dull pounding. To my surprise, Dr. Cullen looked right at me, the, his gaze curious.

"Jared?" His voice, a shade shy of an alto, was perfect in pitch and breadth. No wonder he made such a good doctor, it was an incredibly believable voice.

My guard went up. I'd bet my life on the fact that he was a good liar.

But Jared seemed to trust him with his mother and that was something I wouldn't forget.

"Dr. Cullen." He nodded before turning back slightly and pushing me forward. His hand was placed firmly against the small of my back and I cherished the solidity of it. But it disappeared as soon as I was placed appropriately close to Dr. Cullen.

"This is Kim, a…friend." He introduced and I felt myself redden at the word friend. It was strangely gratifying to hear him say it.

Dr. Cullen looked over and for a second I swear I saw his eyes widen but he looked so incredibly congenial just a moment later that I supposed I must have imagined it.

"Hi, I'm so sorry to barge in on you like this, I know you must be terribly busy."

"Not at all, how can I help you, Kim?" He offered with such generosity that I was seconds away from just telling the good doctor everything.

"I…there was a piece of artwork that you commissioned for a hospital in Seattle by an Alice-"

"Brandon?" He finished for me. And I nodded. He smiled then.

"It's an impeccable piece of work, isn't it?" I nodded vigorously.

"It is! I was wondering if I might ask you a few questions about it...in private?"

He paused at this before looked over at Jared who shrugged.

"Of course, my office is just around the corner."

He turned then and continued down the hallway. I tossed Jared a wave before following Dr. Cullen

He lead me into a medium sized room, a dark rosewood desk sprawling over the eastern floor, the back facing a wall-sized window that looked over the Olympic forests.

He offered me a seat and waited until I had seated myself before sitting himself.

"So, Kim, how can I help you?"

I coughed lightly before taking a breath and starting.

"I'm not really here to talk about art."

"I surmised as much. I'm guessing you're here about your parents?" I was flabbergasted, I thought I'd have to drag it out of him. Perhaps Dr. Cullen was going to be helpful after all.

I leaned back, and relaxed slightly against the chair I was in.

"Yes."

He nodded. And then placed two perfectly manicured hands on the table in front of him, the fingers evenly splayed.

I watched him carefully but he stayed still then, waiting for me to talk.

"Do you know where they are?" His face turned down in disappointment. He didn't respond for a second and I started to protest but he held up a palm to silence me.

"Kim, the police have their opinions on who should discuss this with you, I am not on that list."

"But Dr. Cullen, I-"

"I do not agree with them on this matter." He finished and when he smiled this time, I almost wept with relief

Finally, I had found someone who knew something conclusive about my parents.

"What can you tell me?"

"It's a bit of a long story." But I assured him I had nothing but time for him. I paused then, for a second.

"What about Jared's mother?"

He smiled at that, seemingly pleased with my concern.

"She'll be fine, the nurses are putting her through some rudimentary testing."

"Okay." I motioned for him to continue. He paused to lean back against the magnificent, leather chair behind him and placed his fingertips together, tapping them once, twice, and thrice as he considered where to begin.

"Did you know you were born in this very hospital. It was before I was a doctor, I was much younger then." He gave a laugh at this but I was surprised. He didn't look a day over 25. "I've even met you before, just once however."

"You were about ten or eleven, your parents brought you in for a check up, you'd sprained you ankle. Your mother told me that you had never been so calm in a hospital until now. I think she said you enjoyed the architecture."

I nodded for him to continue.

"I wish I could have foretold the nature of our second visit for the next time I met your parents, the circumstances would be most dire. I was the physician the Police called to Mark on the night your parents disappeared." He stopped then and eyed me curiously, as if waiting for me to ask a question. I took note of the way he said the word disappeared. And then it hit me: you only needed a doctor if there were bodies.

"Why would they call you if there were no victims?"

"Precisely."

"Because to the public, you're parents had disappeared, but they were very much present that night. The officer in charge, Detective Lucas, transferred them to my care. We flew them by helicopter to the hospital in Seattle and but they had no ID on them, everything had been taken. Even I could barely recognize them."

I felt the horror pierce through my system and what felt like bile rose up in my throat. I swallowed hard before gripping the arm rests and steadying myself. I needed to hear this, I reminded myself.

"Are you alright?" He questioned, noting my vice-grips that were no doubt leaving fingerprints on his chair. I loosened my fingers and nodded sheepishly.

"I'm fine." My words were short and breathy but he continued regardless.

"They were marred." He summed up, and I thanked him silently in my head for the brevity of that description.

"I cared for them as best I could but I was unsuccessful."

I looked up at him sharply at that refusing to believe the words he was telling me but the fear gripping my heart was real, more real than I could ever ignore.

I felt my eyes starting to moisten and my throat grew impossibly dry. I sucked in air as fast as I could, counting my breaths out in my mind and calmed myself down as much as I could.

Now was not the time.

"What do you-you mean by unsuccessful?" His face was sympathetic but it only focused me more, I couldn't stand the desperate empathy on his face; I wanted answers not pity.

"They passed on, Kim."

"No, no-you're lying." My voice was low but my words took effect.

"Kim, you have to face the truth."

"No, I don't. You are lying." There was no way, if my parents had died, under his care; he was required by law to tell me what had happened.

"Why would you keep it quiet?"

"Because their bodies disappeared from the morgue." I gasped for breath, the words felt liked they'd punched their way through my gut and I bent in half. My mind was spiraling into a dangerous place as the tears started to pour down my face.

I absently wiped them away, forcing myself to sit back and gritted my teeth against the crushing urge to cry until all of the hurt went away.

"What else?" The words were ground out, I could feel the raw tenor to my voice and he looked surprised but I couldn't tell if it was at the intensity, or the fact that I was still talking to him.

"I don't know anything else, Kim, I'm very sorry for your loss."

"They could be alive?" I asked suddenly, you don't steel dead bodies out of a morgue.

"No, I'm sorry, Kim," he repeated. "I called the time of death myself."

The world grew cold then, as if all the light was sucked out of it. The room was dimmer than I remembered it when I walked in. I vaguely felt myself thanking the doctor who stood looking impossibly concerned but I waved him off.

I think I must have told him something along the lines of the fact that I needed time alone. I needed to process it.

I think I shook his hand and it was so cold, just like everything else; so inhumanly cold.

The walk to the waiting room was a blurry mess of hastily wiping tears away from my face and shoving back the information I had just learned, trying to find that flimsy thread of stability that was evading me.

I leaned against the cold concrete walls of the corridor; my forehead pressed against it and closed my eyes, shutting myself off from the world until I could be steady.

It took time but with deep breaths and a focus on getting home, I somehow managed to bury my parents deep within the recesses of my mind.

I wiped away the last of my tears and walked into the waiting room.

Jared was seated in the same place I had left him and suddenly I wished so hard to return to that moment in time and decide against talking to Dr. Cullen. I had been wrong before, this was a hundred times worse than not knowing their fate.

Before I had hope, now I had nothing, and no one.

Jared stood, upon seeing my face but I offered him a tight smile.

"Kim?" He sounded worried and I swallowed thickly at that. Concern would make me lose it; I knew that.

"Jared, I'm not feeling so well. So I'm going to head out. " My voice was gone, barely a rasp left but I forged ahead determinedly. I just needed to get home.

"Kim, what's wrong?" There was a steeliness to his voice that I recognized from the rooftop.

"I've just got a bad migraine." I was focused on a speck of dirt on his shoe; it was an odd sort of shape.

"Kim-"

"Thanks for this, I'll see you at school." I finished rapidly, hastily waving before walking out as quickly as I could. I heard his footsteps following me, so as soon as I hit the hallway outside I broke into a sprint, my face was wet again, there was no way to stop it this time.

I ran hard, my feet pounding against the floor and somehow I made it outside without him and I was just about to open the door to my car when his fingers wrapped around my wrist and turned me.

His face, twisted in annoyance, softened almost instantly at the sight of my face, which I was certain wasn't all that attractive at the moment. I tended to get all blotchy and red-eyed when I cried. He loosened his grip on my wrist but didn't let go as if afraid I would bolt.

I raised my other hand and hastily wiped it across my cheeks but it was unsuccessful, they were drenched within seconds again. I took a hitching breath and tried to keep calm but it seem the damn had broken.

We stood there, me pressed into my car and him standing before me, his fingers on my wrist firm and unyielding.

It took me awhile but finally I managed to breathe normally and I felt an odd sort of catharsis. I hadn't been crying, it was more like breathing heavily while letting my eyes wring themselves dry but it was a release that I hadn't had in days.

His fingers slipped from my wrist and wrapped themselves around my hand, intertwining my own with his.

He lifted my chin and the concern; the support in his face nearly started me up again. He looked so disturbed by the fact that I was upset that I managed to pull myself together a little bit.

"I'm-I'm sorry." I intoned and he smiled at that before chuckling.

"Never apologize for that." He told me seriously and picked up my other hand.

We were a circle then, contacted at either end and I felt safe for a moment, so blindingly safe. I just managed to stop myself from leaning into him.

"What happened in there?"

I shook my head at the question and to my relief he seemed content with that answer.

"You're not hurt right?" I didn't even know how to answer that one, I felt like I was hurting so much that I couldn't tell where it ended or began or if it had all numbed down to dull roar.

I just knew that I never wanted him to let go.

"I'm fine." I shot him a watery smile and he laughed at that, but it was humorless.

"Bullshit."

I smiled before suddenly deciding I didn't really care about anything or anyone else right then and I let myself fall forward into his chest and expelled a breath at the warmth that was present.

He stiffened slightly before hesitantly resting his chin on my head.

I didn't want to think about anything, just stay here in this incredible place, surrounded by Jared's warmth, his cologne and resting against his soft, soft polo.

He pulled back then, dropping one of my hands and I felt a secret thrill through me at the fact that he was still holding on to the other.

"Kim?"

"Yeah?" I asked weakly, but my voice came out stronger than before.

"Happy Birthday." He smiled and I chuckled.

"Thanks."

"I'm sorry I didn't get you anything." He actually sounded slightly apologetic. I looked up at him in surprise but he wasn't serious, at least not entirely.

I looked back down before a thought hit me.

"Jared?"

"Yeah?" I faltered a little, unsure if this was an okay favor to ask. He reached over and brushed a stray bit of hair from my face. His motion gave me a sudden burst of confidence.

"Can I have a hug?" I looked up at him and watched his face transition from surprise to almost affection. His eyes were soft and buttery in this light, the brown turning almost hazel. He nodded lightly but didn't say anything. He let go of my other hand.

I flipped my gaze upwards quizzically but he just rolled his eyes before pushing me a little to my left, his hand grasping my waist tightly.

I moved over obediently, too overcome with the fact that his had was on my hip to process what was going on. He placed his other hand gingerly on my other side before tightening his grip and lifting me onto the car. I let out a gasp of surprise before catching myself on his forearms, which were firm and taunt beneath my grasp.

He barely looked strained as he lifted me.

"What was that for?"

"Just-trust me." He leaned his head in as he said it and the last word or two came out as breath over my ears. I shivered. He pulled me into his arms suddenly and I slung my arms around his neck, pillowing my head against his shoulder.

It was incredible; I didn't know it was possible to be this comfortable while touching another person.

"It's pretty good, huh?" I felt a jolt run all the way through me as he bent to whisper in my ear again. His lips brushed against the lobe as he spoke and it took everything in me to stop myself from tugging his head around the front and kissing him senseless.

"Yeah-I'd say so." I replied shakily and at this he let out an airy chuckle before tightening his grip a little.

I felt my mind drift back to the news I had just received and I felt horrible suddenly. The ache started to spread, sprawling through my nerves, the pain was dull and pounding and spreading from my abdomen outwards. I clutched onto Jared harder; there was no way to outrun this beast.

I felt it all coming back to me and as hard as I could try to stop it, I lost control of my breathing pattern again. I started hyperventilating; there wasn't enough air.

Breath.

Gasp.

Breath.

Gasp.

Gasp.

And then it began again. Jared rubbed my back, in great sweeping circles.

"Focus on my hands." He whispered, nuzzling his face into my neck. I did, counting the strokes, and the buttery feeling they left behind. Progress was slow, but eventually I started breathing with them and I calmed down again. I felt him pull back but I tightened my grip resolutely, not ready to let go yet.

He chuckled before, moving away anyway. I wasn't strong enough to hold him against me, even if I tried. The emptiness threatened to rip at me again but I clenched my hands against my sides. I wasn't going to give in again.

"Kim, are you sure you're okay?" He was being all wonderful and concerned again.

It made me want to tell him everything and part of me thought I could. But as Jared looked at me, his eyes wonderfully slanted over my face, I realized that it was too much.

I'd known Jared for three days. Three days. Honestly, to me, it felt like we'd known each other for are longer, but to him, what was I really?

He just spent ages making you feel better, I reminded myself. But on the other hand, it's not like Jared's ever been bad with girls; this stuff probably comes second nature to him. He tilted my chin up a little and I smiled at him as best as I could. I couldn't tell him, not like this.

"Yeah."

He didn't reply but just leaned forward, his hands on either side of me and placed his head against mine.

And we stayed like that for a quiet moment before he let out a breath and brushed his nose against my own.

"Kim?"

"Yeah?" The word came out so softly, almost like I didn't say it. We were on the precipice of something so delicate and it was balanced just so. I felt like a loud noise or even a sudden motion would push us over the edge.

He brushed his nose against mine again and then met my gaze. His eyes were drunk with lust, dizzyingly soft and I exhaled against his lips as he drew even closer.

I lightly placed my hands on against the nape of his neck, letting a few of my fingers just tug at his hair.

He blew against my face and I felt his breathing grow a little heavier.

He leaned in just so and then, and then, nothing.

He was gone, well, he was still there but his head was lowered and he was moving further and further from me and as much as I wanted to pull him back to keep him with me, I knew I couldn't. I let him withdraw himself from me.

I had just expelled a quick breath when I felt the tears start to return. Trying to distract myself I pushed myself off my car and rubbed my neck vigorously. But the pounding pain in my chest grew with each thump of my heart and I felt the rejection spread through my veins like poison.

I wanted to go. I needed to get away from here.

Jared looked up at me the frustration on his face evident and I recoiled.

He was upset, I didn't know about what but I knew that if I stayed here any longer I was going to lose it again.

"Kim-" his voice was so raw and aggravated that I couldn't bare it.

"It's fine, don't worry about it." I managed as I unlocked my car door and shoved myself into the front seat, viciously jerking the key into the hole and turning the car on.

Jared was still standing there as I flew out of the parking lot and his slouched, retreating posture in my rear view mirror was the last thing I saw before my vision started to blur.

I pulled over to the side of the road, a few miles away, and I wept.