When it ends, it happens so quickly and quietly, she doesn't know how to take it all in.
It's over. All of it.
Raines and Lyle are gone. The assassination of Adama and his men crossed a line they couldn't uncross.
Once the Triumvirate found out what really happened on the plane from Scotland, her brother and biological father were whisked off to a T-Board. Parker was escorted down to the morgue to view the bodies before they were put in the incinerator.
She accepted the warning for what it was.
After that, her life seemed more surreal than normal. Angelo was waiting for her next to her car with her baby brother. Apparently, they were going home with her.
The new guards at the entrance never batted an eye when the three left together. To this day, she has no idea why the hell they were allowed to walk away.
No one came for them when they didn't return either.
Sydney showed up the next evening with Broots, who was teeming with gossip. The Triumvirate was sick of dealing with the Centre and was shutting everything down. The Pretender Project and the pursuit of Jarod at the top of the list. Parker scoffed. They were choosing to cut their losses. The Centre had been burning through resources and drawing too much attention.
The recent interest Alex drew from the NSA and FBI was too close for comfort. Someone was building a case, that's all Parker knew. Both agencies lost people thanks to Alex. Cutting ties and abandoning The Centre was damage control for the Triumvirate.
Parker didn't return to the building; her employment was well and truly terminated. Angelo and Gabriel were with her and thriving. Gabriel was enthralled with being outside and learning how to be a child rather than the prodigy Raines was rearing him to be. The empath adapted easily to her guest room and loved her garden. Sydney, who abruptly retired, was a near-constant visitor to ease the transition. It was too good to be true and she was waiting for it all to implode.
Two weeks passed before the raid.
Angelo was flipping channels while she was making toast – she burned the oatmeal the one time she attempted to make it, at least the toaster has a timer on it – when she heard the emergency broadcast breakthrough regular programming. She'd walked into the den, butter knife in hand as she watched agents from multiple agencies burst through the front door of the Centre in a coordinated attack.
Her phone had rung and she and Broots sat on the phone with each other as they saw boxes upon boxes of evidence being taken out of the building. Thirty minutes after the broadcast began, Alex's picture flashed across the screen. They'd found him alive following his little swim in the Potomac. And he was talking.
Parker paced back and forth for nearly a week for a knock at the door, or for it to be broken down in the middle of the night, and for Gabriel and Angelo to be taken from her.
No one came. No one except Jarod, that is.
He showed up with Sydney one day with a mood to match her own. He wasn't even trying to infiltrate the investigation. He was watching and waiting from the sidelines for the NSA and FBI to come, just like she was. His pacing rivalled hers.
Days and weeks passed, yet no one turned up. No one.
Reports started filtering through of the raid being a bust. No mention of the Pretender project, of cloning, of the people who lost their lives, of the walking experiments in the sublevels.
It took them a moment, when an FBI Deputy Director was giving a press conference justifying the failure of a raid so publicised, to realise the Triumvirate had gotten rid of all of it. Raines and Lyle couldn't be used as scapegoats. Angelo and Gabriel given their freedom to keep her in line. With no evidence to back up Alex's crazed testimony, he looked like some conspiracy nut gone rogue who killed undercover agents. Some people were throwing around the idea of the death penalty.
It was a lot to take in. None of them quite knew what to do.
Broots moved first. Debbie was starting college across the country and he got headhunted for some tech job about two hours away from her. It was a no-brainer. Parker hugged the man she chose as her family at the airport before telling his daughter how proud she was of her. There were plans made for Christmas and weekly phone calls.
Sydney had no plans to move. He was happy for Jarod to move in with him while they waited for the government agencies to conclude their investigation. It calmed both men. Jarod didn't have to hide or pretend to be anyone else. He stayed back and watched everything unfold. Whereas Sydney could breathe finally. There was no recrimination from the man he raised or his parents. Although Jarod's parents resented him for being part of the regime which separated them from their son, they were grateful for the values he instilled in Jarod. Considering Raines was the alternative, Jarod was the lucky one.
As nice as their freedom is, part of her is pissed. She and Jarod never got the answers they wanted; they got their lives. Neither had planned on such an anticlimactic ending. She hadn't planned for her future; she presumed the Centre would be the death of her.
There were days when she wondered why Jarod was sticking around. He obviously had plans with his family. Jarod spoke with them and Zoe often, only he didn't seem to be in a hurry to join them wherever they are. He spends his days with Angelo, introducing their friend to the safer part of the world outside of the Centre. That means he spends a lot of time with Gabriel. And her, too.
Two months after the raid, Gabriel falls asleep on the couch and Angelo sits on the floor beside him with his head craned back to stare at a speck on the ceiling. She and Jarod work in tandem to clean the kitchen after lunch.
"So," Parker starts as she picks up a plate Jarod places on the draining board. She doesn't look at him, studiously focusing on moving the dish towel she uses to dry off the plate. "We're just giving up?"
Jarod sighs. "There's nothing there, Parker, I looked."
She knows that she'd sat with him as he hacked into the Centre and the FBI files. There was no mention of them. Nothing in witness statements. They'd been erased from all records. The few employees left in the building were a skeleton team to keep the lights on before the raid. Everyone else was spirited away.
"After everything we've been through, this is how it ends," Parker grumbles.
"You know if you miss chasing me, we can go running some time, for old times' sake," Jarod smirks at her.
She flicks the towel at him. "I'm not going to be complacent," Parker explains.
"Neither am I," Jarod says, putting the last plate on the draining board and pulling the towel out of her hands to dry his. "Between the Triumvirate, government agencies and Alex, I'm where I need to be."
Parker looks at him for a moment. "What about your family?"
"They understand," he responds.
"And Zoe?" Jarod shrugs and looks away. Neither one of them has spoken about his girlfriend to the other. "It's got to be hard on her, leaving her life behind for a guy and he's not with her most of the time."
"Are you trying to get rid of me?" He deflects. When Parker stands her ground, Jarod asks, "You really want me to talk to you about this?"
Parker shrugs. "You got to orchestrate my love life; we can't talk about yours?"
At the reference to Tommy, Jarod immediately turns contrite. "I never meant to hurt you, Parker."
Parker sighs, she doesn't need to speak about Tommy. "You never did," she admits easily. She's always wondered if he was honest about his motives in sending Thomas to her. If he ever felt a spark of jealousy as she had when Lyle gloated about kidnapping Jarod's girlfriend. She can't help herself from adding, "Look, I can't help but wonder why are you here when happily ever after is waiting for you."
Jarod ponders Parker's words for a moment.
Lyle and Cox used Zoe against him. And it worked. Then Alex came along and decided to rip apart the illusion Jarod had been creating for himself and his relationship with Zoe. He had known exactly how to get Jarod where he wanted him; Miss Parker. Jarod had fallen for it. Alex knew Jarod would come for Parker if she needed him.
His father had shown up for Zoe, and Jarod had shown up for Parker.
"Always risking your life for someone who isn't important to your world," Alex taunts him.
"The ambassador is important to the world."
"Not the world, your world. The Swedish ambassador, she's nothing to your world. But Miss Parker is." Jarod goes cold, turning to stare at Alex through the steel gate. "In fact, you have no idea how important to your life she really is. And after today, you'll never know."
Jarod sighs, and leans against the counter opposite her. He mulls over her question for a moment before responding. "You ever wonder why Alex came after your father?"
Parker frowns, unsure of the change of subject. "He was the one who said you were better than Alex."
Jarod winces. "If it was just about your father, he could've just killed him when he was eating dinner. He kept him alive for a reason."
Parker thinks back over the events over a year ago now. "He was bait, for me."
"Why you? Why not Lyle?" She blinks at him. "You'd never met Alex; you knew nothing about him until he took your father."
She shrugs again. Jarod connects the dots for her. "Lyle wouldn't have come for your father. Alex used your father to lure you to him," Jarod explains. "As bait for me."
Parker "I was bait for you? What are you talking about?"
"When he gave me the slip at the opera house, he told me he wanted me to know what it felt like to lose someone important to my world."
Parker's denial is instant, despite the churning in her stomach. "He could've used anyone, Jarod."
Jarod shakes his head. "Evidently not. When Lyle and Cox took Zoe, instead of going to help her, I was more focused on what was going on with you and Ethan."
"Our brother needed us," Parker argues. She pushes aside the implications of what he's saying, she's worked hard to put what happened between them on the island behind them, especially in the last few weeks. "Alex is delusional Jarod, I'm not some damsel in distress."
"No, you're not," Jarod smirks at her. "But he made his point."
"What point was that?"
"The one we proved on Carthis, the one we've been avoiding since we came home." He pauses, closing the distance she created. "You're important to me, Parker."
"We've been through this, Jarod," Parker breathes out. She doesn't want to relive the conversation they had when she turned him away. Even with Lyle and Raines gone, their lives are overshadowed by their history. "What the hell was I supposed to do, Jarod? My father, Raines and Lyle and more than a dozen sweepers were in that hangar, not to mention Adama and his men. There was no way out," she hisses at him in exasperation. His mouth falls open as comprehension dawns on him. She steps back as he steps forward. The look of panic in her eyes is her only defence. He stops mere centimetres away as he looks at her with that soft, understanding, pained expression he normally does when it's just them.
"We would've found a way," he insists, his voice gruff with emotion.
"For what it's worth, I am sorry it has to be this way," she tells him, knowing she shouldn't, knowing he'll push back, knowing she's losing the strength to keep fighting him on this.
"I know, I am, too," Jarod tells her gruffly. "And now isn't the time for us to have that conversation again," he agrees, nodding. "Despite that, it doesn't change the fact that, however you're in my life, you are important to me, Parker. I forgot that for a while," he adds softly.
She can't respond for a moment, only stare back at him. His brown eyes were so open and vulnerable, she can see his sincerity. He doesn't try to invade her space but gives her time to process what he's telling her. "You think he's going to try it again."
"I want to make sure he won't," Jarod clarifies with a meaningful nod towards the living room and the little boy and the man she prayed was her twin instead of the man who was. "If he does, you'll need help to protect them."
Parker concedes his point with a nod of her head. Alex gives her the creeps; his know-it-all schtick made her skin crawl in ways she thought she was immune to. She experienced a lot of shit at the Centre; she threatened Raines, she took on Lyle and Brigitte without batting an eye, and she witnessed her mother's faked death. Yet, Alex managed to come from nowhere and know everything.
He kidnapped her father, and held Lyle at bay without any effort. All because of some imaginary pissing contest with Jarod, which Jarod never realised he was a part of. "So, we wait for him to make a move? His last move took him four years, Genius."
"Trust me, Parker," he implores her.
Parker holds his gaze. It's not the first time he's asked her to trust him. She always finds it strange when he did. In the early days following his escape, she questioned his motives, denying everything he said as manipulation and saying it was part of his pissing contest with her father. Jarod didn't relent or give up on her. But his resilience to push through her walls wasn't just about her. As the years passed, she realised given their issues with lies and half-truths, he asking for more than her trust. He was asking for someone to trust, to anchor him when the real world got too much.
Jarod doesn't need to ask for her trust. He proved himself to her a long time ago.
Every gift, every private phone call.
He's been there when she needed him, trusting her not to turn him in or reveal their connection was growing again.
"I do trust you, Jarod, you wouldn't be here if I didn't," she tells him softly.