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Chapter or Story
The Visit - by MMB
Chapter 10 - Second Wind
The apartment was dark as Parker padded barefoot across the floor and into the kitchen to fill a glass with filtered water, only to pad from there back into the living room to lean against the wall near the glass of the picture window. She tweaked the sheer curtain aside with her fingers so she could once more stare down at the nearly empty boulevard below. It was just as well the apartment was dark and still - she wanted a quiet moment alone to process everything that had happened over the last few days, and especially to review her afternoon and evening at the Ruiz home. Her time there had seen her emotions run the gamut from soft and accepting to cold and furious.
Most bothersome was the fact that she had flown into a rage with so very little warning - all over a case of curiosity and a tendency to keep pushing after being discouraged. She really couldn't blame Paul for being curious and wanting to know more - he had been fairly transparent with her, answering any question she put to him. After calming down, she had done her best to be accommodating without blowing up again - letting him know more or less the reason behind her previous reticence to get to know Janine had smoothed things considerably.
But as time went by, the questions about her past - often dealing with her relationship with her father - were getting awkward. Paul was working under the assumption that Sydney was her father; she DID call him "Papa" after all, and he had introduced her as his daughter. But the small details of her early life were becoming hard to gibe with the Sydney that Paul knew - a man who it was hard to imagine would be distant from his children or would ship her off to a boarding school. Not that the truth would be that much easier to explain...
Parker sighed and sipped at her water as she stared down at the now-familiar sight of the wide and virtually empty boulevard in the wee hours of the morning. Part of her wanted to put an end to the pretense and let Paul know the truth of her relationship with her Papa - and another part of her dreaded the moment when he found out that they had misled him. After a rather rocky start to the afternoon, Paul had been as good as his word to keep the discussions light and cheery, making her laugh and enjoy her time. It was beginning to chafe to be less than forthright with him.
She heard stirring behind her in the room, and grimaced. Once more, even her care not to make noise had proven ineffective against the pull of habit, and Papa had emerged from his slumber to join her in her midnight vigil. Moving almost as quietly as she had, he padded into the kitchen for a glass of water for himself, then back out to sit down on the couch behind her. He remained there silently, respecting her reverie and waiting for her to acknowledge his presence before speaking to her.
It had been later in the evening by the time she had returned home. Other than to ask whether she'd had a good time, he'd not asked for any more details of her day before retiring than she'd been willing to volunteer - not that she'd told him much at the time. She knew he was curious; and what was more, she knew she NEEDED to talk to him. With a sigh, she let the sheer curtain covering the window fall from her fingers to hang straight again and then walked over to join him on the couch. She put her glass of water next to his on the coffee table, tucked her feet up and leaned into his shoulder - and she wasn't surprised when he lifted his arm so she could snuggle in closer.
"Nightmare?" he asked softly after she'd settled down comfortably.
She shook her head against his chest. "Just couldn't sleep." She let her arms thread themselves around him. "I don't know what to do, Papa."
"About what?"
"Paul."
"Mmmm." He waited patiently. He knew that she'd explain her quandary to him in her own time eventually without his having to pry.
"I got so angry with him..."
"Why?" He would have sighed, but she was still far too sensitive to such things; she would have felt it and taken it as criticism. That didn't diminish his frustration that she hadn't gotten away from her visit from Sam unscathed after all. Maybe there had been no nightmares to soothe, but he knew all too well that her inner demons knew several other effective ways to manifest themselves - including sudden bursts of anger.
"Because he kept asking about my past."
He tightened his arms around her briefly, then let one hand rub small circles into her back. "You're surprised that he'd do that?" he asked with gentle chiding. "Sweetheart, he just wants to get to know you better..."
"I know. He kept telling me that," Parker sighed. "It was the way he wouldn't stop pushing even when I made it clear I didn't want to talk about my former job - and the way he acted injured because he saw me give Sam a hug..."
"Oh?" That surprised him. "Injured how?"
"Jealous." The word came out flatly.
Sydney sighed perceptibly this time. "I'm sure he didn't mean it that way..."
"But I took it that way, and it made me SO mad at the time - it was almost like..." She took a deep breath. "I told him I never wanted to be trapped into a position where I got put through the third degree every time I saw a friend he didn't know or approve of or be treated like property with no rights..."
"In other words, you flashed back and made him the target of things you've wanted to say to others for a very long time."
She blinked. Yes, that was it - she'd flashed back and responded to Paul as if he'd been either Lyle or Raines stepping on her again. "God, Papa! That's awful! He goofed, but he didn't deserve what I did to him. What am I going to do..."
"Be patient," he said, and then felt her heave a big sigh. "I know you hate hearing that from me all the time, but giving yourself the time to heal is the key to stopping the flashbacks - because with it comes repeated experiences of learning that he ISN'T treating you that way after all. It will take time for actions to desensitize you." His hand patted her back. "Poor Paul! I'll bet you confused the hell out him."
"That isn't all."
"Oh?" As if that wasn't enough...
"I'm lying to him, Papa. He asks me questions about my past, and I start to explain things that happened when I was a child with Da... Daddy - and I know he's having a hard time balancing what I'm telling him with what he knows about YOU."
"Ah!" Sydney leaned himself back against the back cushions of the couch and pulled her along with him.
"I mean, I don't mind that Lydia Simmons, for example, thinks that I'm really your daughter because I feel like I'm your daughter in truth, even if not by blood. But I've never really been a good liar to those people who..."
"Who mean something to you - whose opinion you value?" he finished for her gently. She nodded against him silently. "Then tell him the truth."
"What if..."
"What if he gets angry because we misled him?"
"Mmm-hmmm."
"He won't be so angry if he understands why we did what we did," he suggested softly. "But that takes you right back to talking about your former job at the Centre. Are you ready to be up front with him about who you are and what you and I both did for the better part of our lives?"
"I don't know," she answered honestly. "I'm afraid to move forward, and I can't move back."
"It's too bad I can't just adopt you legally - then you'd not be lying when you say that I'm your father," he mused aloud without meaning to.
"Could you do that - even though I'm already an adult?" She straightened so that she could look at his face in the dim light. "Would you?"
He looked back at her, marveling at her reaction. "You're kidding! Would you actually want me to do something like that?" he asked.
"Yes!" she exclaimed, pushing herself back into his arms abruptly. "It would make my name change legal and permanent too. And then I wouldn't be lying to him at all anymore."
"Parker, my adopting you won't help you with getting Paul to balance the stories of your childhood you're telling him with the idea that I'm the “Daddy” you keep speaking of," he reminded her gently as he wrapped his arms around her again.
"I know," she replied softly. "But it would give him a more understandable basis for why we presented ourselves to him in that way. He wouldn't have to know WHEN you adopted me - unless it became important later." Her arms around him tightened. "Besides, I want it to be real - not just something we say."
"We can get your birth certificate when we go back to Delaware to take care of your little brother," he told her, beginning to work out the logistics of what needed to be done to make her his daughter in fact as well as emotionally. "Going through the adoption process there probably wouldn't be such a bad idea either, because it could coincide with being appointed conservator under your new name. And that would mean that when you apply for your driver's license here, you could get it under your new name legally."
"We need to get our reservations, then," she nodded, closing her eyes and letting the feeling of truly belonging soak in just that much more. "If you don't mind being a chauffeur for me tomorrow, we can hit a travel agency and set things up for Wednesday. I don't want my little brother to stay in Delaware much longer that necessary, but I have a few things that need to happen first..."
"That's right - you have an appointment at the university, don't you?"
She nodded. "I've decided to go with working toward passing the Arizona bar exam. I want my new life to be as different from the old as I can possibly make it." She smiled softly against his pajama shirt. "Of course, there's always the idea that from jumping from working for the Centre to becoming a lawyer means I'm just changing the swamps I'm swimming in..."
"I think I'll be far happier with a lawyer as a daughter than I would be with a Centre Security Chief as a daughter." She felt him kiss the top of her head softly and then just hold her close for a long, quiet moment. Then: "Feel better?"
He felt her nod against his chest again. "A little bit. I just wish we didn't have to work out these snarls in the middle of the night." She sighed deeply. "We both could use our sleep."
"That time will come, ma petite."
She gave another deep sigh. "You keep saying that, Papa..."
~~~~~~~~
The scrap of paper in her hand shook slightly. Parker looked over at Papa, sitting across the kitchen table from her browsing through the front section of that morning's newspaper while sipping at his lunch cup of coffee, and then back down at the paper in her hand. On it, in a scrawl she hadn't seen for over half a year, were two telephone numbers - a home number, and a work number for calls after nine in the morning. She'd promised Sam that she'd call, and he'd assured her that she'd find the call worthwhile. Still...
"Should I bother him at work?" she worried aloud.
"I honestly don't think he'll mind," Papa answered her whether she was expecting an answer or no. "Knowing Broots, he'll be happy just to hear from you." He dropped the one corner of his newspaper to look at her as she continued to stare at the scrap of paper in her hand. "Just do it, Parker. If you stew about it, you'll never make the call."
Grey eyes lifted to meet his and take some comfort and encouragement from him, and then she took up the handset and slowly punched in the ten digits.
"Intel Systems, Research and Development," a bland voice answered. "How may I direct your call?"
"Lazlo Broots, please." She turned and saw Papa drop the corner of the newspaper again to shoot a skyrocketing eyebrow at her at the sound of Broots' unfamiliar given name. She shrugged back at him and put her attention back on the voices in her ear.
"Just one moment please..." The line switched to an innocuous piece of elevator music for about ten seconds before being cut off abruptly.
"This is Broots." The sound of his voice in her ear caught her by surprise, and she stood there with jaw agape for a moment. "Uh, is someone there?" he asked again, a little peeved.
"Broots?" she said finally in a small voice. "It's me."
There was a short pause. "My God! Miss Parker? Is that you?" he burst out suddenly.
"Sam found me, and gave me your message." It was the only thing she could think of to say. She leaned the elbow of the hand holding the handset on the table when she started to shake.
"I'm glad he found you - heck, what am I saying? Debbie will be THRILLED to know that you're OK." His voice hesitated a second and then came back in a slightly worried tone. "You ARE OK, aren't you?"
"I'm fine," she smiled shakily. "I'm with P... with Sydney." Papa looked up at her again as she pronounced his name and smile at her.
"You're with Sydney?" She could tell the idea surprised him greatly. He began to chortle. "No wonder Sam was having such a hard time finding you, then." Then his voice grew serious. "I'm glad you called, Miss Parker. The last time we spoke..."
"It's just Parker now, Broots. No more Miss, OK?" she corrected him carefully.
He hesitated only a moment. "All right... anyway, the last time we spoke, I think I may have said a few things..."
"You had a right to be angry, Broots. What happened was beyond inexcusable..."
"But it wasn't YOUR fault, M... Parker. Debbie finally made me shut up and listen to her - and the sweepers hit her almost as soon as they came through the door, ten minutes before you were supposed to arrive."
"What?" She frowned. "But I thought... But Broots, I was late..."
"I heard about that from Sam - how Lyle just happened to “drop by” and detain you. Evidently Sam heard Raines and Lyle congratulating themselves on the success of the plan to do that." He paused. "I was angry, but I had no business laying the blame on you. I'm sorry - and I'm sorry I wouldn't let you and Debbie at least say goodbye. Debbie still hasn't forgiven me for that. She barely spoke to me for weeks."
Tears were pouring down Parker's face. "Is Debbie OK now?" she asked with a very shaky voice. Papa's hand suddenly engulfed her free hand on the table and squeezed, and she turned her hand in his so she could cling.
"There's just a small scar where the skin was cut open," he told her, startled at the sound of such a shaky, tear-filled voice from his former give-em-hell boss. "M... Parker? You OK?"
"Not yet." She took a deep and audibly shaky breath. "But I will be," she assured him, "one of these days - especially now that I know you're OK and not angry with me anymore..."
Broots' voice hesitated again. This was not the woman he had worked for at the Centre for years at all. "What happened to you?" he asked, curious and filled with a sort of dread. "Sam said that you just kinda started to cave in, and he was getting really worried about you when you just up and vanished..."
"Sydney came back for me," she explained with a sniff. "He talked me into coming back here with him, and he's had his hands full trying to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again ever since. I was a mess." She took a deep and cleansing breath. "But enough of that. Tell me, was it you that sent in the evidence..."
"Oh, that." Broots' voice gained a note of satisfied amusement. "I did most of the preliminary stuff - data collection, stuff like that. That's what they were looking for when they broke into my house, you know, everything I'd gathered on them so far. It began when I was running a computer check for unauthorized access for you - I found something they thought they'd hidden away in a completely non sequitor spot. I got curious and followed the thread - and found a very interesting can of worms. "
Parker frowned. "What do you mean, you only did the preliminary stuff?"
"Yeah," he answered. "I just did the hacking part at first, and then helped out with the rest of the digging. I let Jarod handle getting things to the right people at the right time."
Her jaw fell completely open. "Jarod?! You were working with HIM?"
"To bring down the Centre? You bet! They deserved it anyway, for all the things I saw while we were a team," he replied, his voice dark with still repressed anger, "and when they hurt my little girl to get at me for what I'd tripped over in the mainframe, that was the last straw. Jarod came to me with a proposition, but he didn't have to do much convincing to get me to work with him by then. Between him and me, we'd written most of the security software for the place anyway, so it was a snap to just slip in and go fishing for all the dirty laundry we could find. We turned over what I had collected before then almost immediately, so as to get the authorities looking too - but we held off on some of the really bad stuff we found together until about a month ago. Jarod wanted us to wait for some reason."
She stared off into space. A month ago, she'd walked out of the Blue Cove Cemetery with Sydney. It seemed impossible - Jarod wouldn't have wanted to wait until she was free from the Centre to bring them down, would he? "Did he ever say why?"
"Nope - only that some loose ends had to be taken care of first. Whatever those loose threads were, they put him in a real deep funk for days once whatever needed to happen happened. The only time I saw him smile after that was when he said the authorities had everything now, and all we'd have to do was sit back and wait for the explosion." Broots shook his head at the memory.
"Do you know..." Parker's eyes met Papa's. "Do you know where he is, Broots?"
"Not anymore," Broots answered a little sadly. "We had dinner the night he turned everything in - and he took off the next day. He said he needed to figure out what he was going to do with himself now that the Centre wasn't chasing him anymore. I haven't heard from him since." He could hear the emotion in the silence from the other end of the phone. "Sorry, Parker."
Parker looked down sadly at where Papa still held her hand tightly. Of course it had been too much to think that Broots would know, or that Jarod would have stuck around and not pulled another of his disappearing acts. "That's OK. At least I know you're OK and Debbie's better."
"Don't you dare hang up yet!" Broots demanded. "Give me the phone number and address there. You KNOW Debbie will want to talk to you..."
That started another tear down her cheek. She recited the address and phone number slowly, knowing he was taking dictation, and then reached for a pencil normally reserved for crossword puzzles. "What's your home address there?" she demanded back and then did her own scribbling.
"Tell Debbie I love her very much," she said finally, once she was finished writing addresses. "And if you ever decide to visit Arizona..."
"Same here, M... Parker. Tell Sydney I miss his company. And if you ever make it to California, you be sure to come by." Broots' voice was warm. "I'm glad you called - I'm glad Sam found you."
"I am too." Her voice was warm and solid now. "You take care of yourself."
"You too, Parker. I'm sure we'll be talking again soon."
She nodded. "You can count on it. Have a good day now."
"Bye."
Sydney squeezed her hand again. "OK?"
"He's not mad at me," she announced with a shaky smile. "And Debbie's OK. He said for me to tell you that he misses your company."
Sydney rose to his feet. "Come here," he said, opening his arms. She rose quickly and came to him, letting him enfold her and hold her close. "You see? Maybe now you'll stop blaming yourself." His arms tightened. "It's over now - REALLY over."
Parker leaned hard. The call had tired her more than she'd imagined it would. But Papa was right. Hearing Broots himself let her off the hook was a healing balm that her heart had desperately needed. The bad memories, the nightmares - everything that had been dragging her down and weighing so agonizingly on her soul - were slowly falling away with time and leaving her feeling as if one day she could fly. "Don't let go," she murmured to Papa, tightening her arms around him. "I'm afraid this is all a dream."
"I have you, ma petite," Sydney held on tightly. "This is real. Trust me."
"I do," she told him, meaning each word like she'd never meant it before. "Oh, I DO!"
~~~~~~~~
Sydney looked up from the case file that the mental health department had sent to him for an objective perusal when he heard the knock on his door. He set the folder aside on the coffee table and padded across the floor in his stocking feet and opened the door. "Paul!" He stood aside and let his friend into his home. "This is a surprise. What brings you here?"
"Where's Parker?" Paul was gazing around without finding her.
"She had a rather full and tiring day today, so she's napping at the moment. Shall I tell her you stopped by?"
"No, actually, I was hoping to talk to you, Sydney."
The silver-haired psychiatrist frowned. "Let's go to the kitchen - our voices won't carry quite so well and possibly awaken her." He gestured to Paul to lead the way.
"I need you to tell me the truth," Paul said as he lowered his lanky frame onto one of kitchen chairs.
"About what?" Sydney asked cautiously, joining him at the table.
"About Parker." There was no humor in the hazel eyes now. "What happened to her?"
"Mmmm..." Sydney hedged carefully, slowly shaking his head. "That's really her story to tell, not mine."
"But you know?"
"Most of it, more or less."
"Sydney," Paul leaned forward earnestly, "I think I'm falling in love with her, and I don't want a repeat of the mess I made of things yesterday. What CAN you tell me?"
"Falling in love with her? Are you sure?" Sydney blinked - he wouldn't have expected Paul to confide such a thing to him at all, much less this quickly.
Paul shrugged with a kind of desperate air. "Am I sure? The only thing I'm sure of is that she haunts my every thought, whether I'm working or at home. And the idea that I give her any cause for pain or grief..."
"I promise you, any pain or grief she discovers with you comes from within HER," Sydney assured him quietly.
"Why? For God's sake..." Paul shook his head in an attempt to order his thoughts. "Why would she accuse me of trying to trap her into a place where she wouldn't have the right to see her friends, or that I'd treat her like a piece of property with no rights?"
Sydney gazed at his friend sadly. "Because that's the kind of situation she's just coming out of - and it damned near killed her.
"What?!" That took Paul aback. He stared at his friend with shocked hazel eyes.
Sydney sighed and knew he'd have to be a bit more specific. "Your actions keyed in a memory - a bad one - and she said things to you that she had wanted to tell others for a very long time." The Belgian shook his head slowly. "Don't take it quite so personally."
"And when she said she'd lost so many people..."
"She meant it." Sydney's voice was uncompromising. "In most of the ways that it's possible for one human being to mistreat another, she has either been the victim or watched someone she loved be victimized."
"And she survived this?"
Sydney's chestnut gaze bore into him deeply. "Only barely. I was almost too late."
"Why did you wait so long, then?" Paul was completely confounded by the very idea that Sydney could leave her in such a desperate situation, seeing how much the man loved and was willing to protect his daughter otherwise.
"Because my window of opportunity to get her out of there was very small - and because I had to convince her to come with me." He continued to gaze at Paul while he debated exactly how much to tell the man. Maybe Parker was right - he was a good enough friend now that he could be trusted with bits and pieces of the truth. "And because I had to take the time to put myself back together again first, before I could go back for her."
Paul stared. "You worked in the same place?" Sydney nodded. "And whoever it was that mistreated her, mistreated you too?"
"Oh yes!"
The university professor suddenly understood something about his cosmopolitan friend that, until that moment, had never really added up. "That's why you never talk about what you used to do either."
Sydney nodded again. "Yes."
"But..." The lanky professor leaned forward and buried his chin in his hand. "How do I do this then?"
"Do this what?"
"How do I prove to her that she can trust me with the bad memories as well as the mediocre and good ones? How can I convince her to open up and trust me?"
Sydney shook his head. "Parker's trust doesn't come easily - she's been betrayed by just about everyone she's ever trusted. That even includes me, much to my eternal shame. The only reason she trusts me now is because I asked for the time to prove myself with my actions, and then came through."
Paul sighed. "You're telling me that the key to her heart is patience?"
"I'm telling you the key to her TRUST is patience. The key to her heart is another matter entirely, and one I know better than to try to predict."
Paul stared at his chess partner intently for a while, trying to read between the lines and comprehend the depth of what Parker must have gone through. "You know," he said finally, "when I asked what I could do to help her, her answer was to 'make me laugh.'"
"She hasn't had much laughter in her life for a very long time," Sydney nodded, understanding the mechanism that had prompted her response to Paul's question. "In many ways, that is one of the wisest things I've heard of her saying."
"Is that it then? I just keep joking, keeping things light, fun, superficial..."
"Not superficial - just keep the focus off of the stuff that hurts until she's able to face it properly." Sydney corrected him. "Just DON'T ask questions about her former job. From what she's told me, I think the time will come when she will want to tell you everything you want to know. Just be patient and let it happen in its own time. If you push, you'll run the risk of triggering another rage like the one she let loose on you yesterday."
"She told you about that, huh?" Paul sounded disgusted.
"Trust me, it bothered her at least as much as it bothered you."
Paul nodded, accepting that Sydney wasn't misleading him. "I suppose I'd better go before she wakes up then," he said finally, pulling his frame from the seat.
"Are you sure? She'll be sorry she missed you," Sydney told him, rising.
"I'm sure. I don't want her to get the idea that I'm trying to get you to tell tales on her out of school."
"Even though that's exactly what you were trying to do?" Sydney teased him gently.
"Touché." Paul ducked his head slightly in chagrin. "We can keep this discussion just between the two of us, can't we?"
Sydney smiled. "Of course we can..."
"Paul?" Parker's voice was sleepy and surprised. She slipped around the corner of the kitchen door running her fingers through pillow-mussed hair.
"Hey there, pretty lady." Paul gave her a slightly guilty smile. "Your dad said you were sleeping - we didn't awaken you, did we?"
She shook her head. "No. It was only a nap anyway..."
"Well," Paul turned and shook hands with Sydney. "Thanks again."
"Don't mention it."
"Is everything OK?" she asked them both, her eyes flitting from one to the other.
"Sure," Paul answered quickly.
"Of course," Sydney answered as well, only more slowly and carefully.
Parker knew that, if nothing else, she'd be able to convince him to tell her what she needed to know when they were alone again, and so returned her attention to Paul. "You don't have leave immediately, do you?" She moved to the table, closer to him. "I can always see if we have any apple cider..."
"No, Janine is home, and I have to get back and make sure that she does her homework before she sits down in front of the “tube” and lets her brain turn to mush." Paul put out a gentle hand and teased a wayward curl from near her mouth. "Maybe next time."
"Well, at least let me walk you to the door," she said, claiming at least that task from her Papa.
Sydney smiled and reached for his paperwork again. "Stop by again, Paul," he told the tall man. "It's always good to see you."
"You too, old man," Paul smiled as he wrapped a possessive arm around Parker's shoulder as he walked with her to the door. "So," he said in a soft voice obviously meant only for her ears, "I'll see you tomorrow for lunch?"
"Yes - and I'm to meet you in the student union lobby at noon," she repeated carefully. "I'll be there."
"And how about game night tomorrow night?" He pulled her through the open front door and onto the combination porch-landing. "Will you be my good luck charm again?"
This time, she shook her head. "Probably not. Papa and I are leaving for Delaware Wednesday morning - and I know I'll need to rest up before we go."
"Delaware?" Paul frowned. "What's in Delaware?"
"A little boy with no other living relatives - a very damaged little boy. I need to have myself appointed his conservator, and then have him moved to a facility here in the valley - where I can watch over him better."
"Your Dad's going too?"
She nodded. "I don't think I could even consider heading back... there... without Papa."
Paul filed the information away. Delaware - that was the place where her past had been left behind. But Delaware had been in the news lately, hadn't it? He couldn't quite put his finger on the details, but he knew he'd heard mention of the locale recently. "When are you coming back?"
Parker shrugged. "I'm not sure," she answered truthfully. "A lot will depend on what all kinds of official processes I have to go through to get things arranged properly. A week, maybe two." She winced; the disappointed look in his eye was very apparent.
His curiosity couldn't help but bubble forth around the disappointment, but he put a very hesitant and cautious tone around it. "Do you mind if I ask what this little boy is to you?"
For some reason this time, the question didn't seem so far out of line. He was at least asking permission to pry this time, not just prying as if he had the right to. "He's my nephew," she lied glibly, unable to think of any other reasonable explanation that didn't point to the morass that was her personal family history. That was one tangled web she didn't want to even begin to have to explain to him for a good long time. "I saw him a few times, not long after he was born, but haven't seen him for a very long time." That last, at least, was truth. She'd have to tell Papa her explanation for the boy so that their stories could stay straight with each other otherwise. But she'd had to tell an outright lie this time - and it bothered her no less than the lies of omission or misdirection had before.
"I'll miss you." It was a simple statement, but it tugged at her heartstrings in a way that nothing had for a very long time.
"I'll miss you too." And that was the truth too. She'd grown very fond of him just in the few weeks she'd known him - and despite his insatiable curiosity about the parts of her life she wished she could just erase. "But I'll be back when everything is arranged."
"Promise?"
Her eyebrows raised at the wistful tone. "This is my home now," she told him gently. "Besides, Professor Prouse is going to be telling me about how he thinks I should go about updating my degree - and I want to get busy on that as soon as I can." She gave him a slightly chagrined smile. "I can't stay away for very long..." Her expression grew soft. "I don't want to stay away any longer that I have to."
"Of course I don't have any part of that..."
She could hear the combination of frustration and wistfulness in even that statement, and decided to give him reassurance. She laid her hand gently on his shoulder, straightening the collar of his shirt a little bit, as if that was the reason for her reaching out to him. "You have a lot to do with that," she purred at him.
Paul's heart began to beat faster at the sound of that incredibly sexy alto voice, and his hands automatically reached out to her waist and pulled her just a little closer. "Just making sure..."
Those changeable hazel eyes suddenly connected very strongly and deeply with her storm-grey, and almost as if there were a hand pushing them both, they leaned in closer and touched lips. Parker stiffened for a moment and then relaxed, tantalized and enchanted at the completely innocent and experimental nature of the kiss. Almost as if he was shocked and afraid of her reaction, Paul ended the kiss after only a moment or two. He stared down at her again, waiting for those stormy eyes to fill with rage and for her to rip him up one side and down the other.
Instead, Parker's hand slipped just a little further around his neck while her other hand found his opposite shoulder. "Do you normally take a lot of convincing?" she asked in that throaty contralto that was making it hard for him to concentrate.
"Sometimes," he admitted in a voice that was getting slightly more breathless from her proximity as well as the implied permission her tone seemed to be giving him. He brought one hand up and stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "I'm finding that when it comes to you, I feel very inadequate - like I'm a bull in a china shop... I don't want to..."
"I'm not quite THAT fragile," she told him gently.
The hazel eyes darkened with purpose, and Paul lowered his lips to hers again - this time with more clear intent. Her hand on his shoulder slipped around his neck to join its companion while his hand at her waist slipped around to her back to pull her into his embrace even closer. There was no innocence to this kiss, although it was clear to them both that they were still very much testing the waters. And when they pulled back as if in unison, both were breathless.
"Paul..."
The finger tips were stroking her cheek gently again. "Do you have the slightest idea how hard it is for me let you go, pretty lady - how much I just want to play ugly caveman, bop you over the head with my club and drag you back to my cave by the hair?"
"How romantic," she quipped, her lips twitching toward a grin.
The hazel eyes began to twinkle again. "Is that a challenge?"
"No, just something to keep you going until I come home again," she responded and then stretched up to meet his lips with hers.
This time there was no uncertainty, no experimentation - each one's arms wrapped around the other possessively until the need for air drove them apart, and then he pulled her head to rest against his shoulder. "I need to go home," he reminded her in a breathless whisper.
"I know." Parker was finding that she wasn't at all uncomfortable in this man's arms. "I need to let you go home..."
"Before your father comes out and accuses me of trying to seduce you in public," Paul was finding it difficult to loosen his hold on her - it just felt RIGHT for him to have her close like that. "Tell me to go home."
"Go home," she parroted obediently.
"You don't mean it," he retorted and kissed her again.
"If you don't go home pretty soon, neither of us will get any lunch tomorrow," she told him when they once more parted.
He reluctantly let her go and took a deliberate step backwards. "At least I have you around tomorrow."
"Yes," she smiled at him, finding her heart beating faster too. "I'm not leaving until Wednesday. Go home now and make sure Janine does her homework - I'll see you at the university at noon."
He bent forward and caught her lips one last time in a sweet kiss, then finally dragged himself down the stairs. "At noon."
"I won't forget!" she waved at him, then leaned against the metal railing at the top of the stairs while he walked slowly toward the other side of the complex. She hadn't felt like this toward another human being since Tommy died - and, strangely, she didn't feel as if she was betraying her old love. Thomas had been a practical man. She knew that he would want her to rebuild her life in much the same way that he'd rebuilt his houses.
At one time, for a short time after that disastrous trip to Carthis, she had thought that the only one with whom she could rebuild a life was Jarod. After all, the Pretender knew her at least as well as she knew herself, if not better; and she knew him better than he suspected. But Jarod had very deliberately dropped away from her - walked away and never looked back. And now here she was, with the memory of Paul's kisses fresh in her mind, and seeing how he had worked so hard to try to accommodate her difficulties and still get his questions answered. Maybe she could consider rebuilding her life with someone other than a man she'd known all her life. Maybe building a completely new relationship from the ground up was the better way to go about it too.
Sydney gazed at her with fondness and indulgence as she came back into the apartment, her face flushed and her eyes bright. He knew very well what she wanted, and he had no intention of holding back from her, despite what he'd told Paul. "He told me he thought he was falling in love with you," he said simply, then watched her blush. "I take it you know that?"
"Pretty much," she nodded. "What else?"
"He wanted to know what happened to you, so that he wouldn't hurt you anymore."
"What did you tell him?"
"What he needed to know," he told her frankly. "I told him that the things you accused him of doing HAD been done to you by others, that you only barely got out of that situation alive." He sighed. "I told him the unvarnished truth, but only the barest of bones."
"And then I turned around and lied to him," Parker confessed, her eyes finding a spot on the floor. "I told him that the boy we're going back for in Delaware was my nephew." She looked up at him, the sparkle in her eyes now from carefully restrained tears. "Where does it end, Papa?"
Sydney stepped close to her and wrapped a warm hand about her shoulders. "It ends where you say it does, Parker. When you're ready to face him knowing the truth about you, THAT'S where it ends."
"But..."
"And if he really loves you," he continued, a finger to her lips to silence her complaint, "he'll forgive you for misleading him because he'll understand your reasons."
Parker nodded and felt him let her go, then watched him carry his sheaf of papers back into the living room, where he'd left his briefcase open on the desk by the window. She knew he was right - that the lies ended when SHE decided they ended.
The trick was making peace with the truth once and for all.
Chapter 10 - Second Wind
The apartment was dark as Parker padded barefoot across the floor and into the kitchen to fill a glass with filtered water, only to pad from there back into the living room to lean against the wall near the glass of the picture window. She tweaked the sheer curtain aside with her fingers so she could once more stare down at the nearly empty boulevard below. It was just as well the apartment was dark and still - she wanted a quiet moment alone to process everything that had happened over the last few days, and especially to review her afternoon and evening at the Ruiz home. Her time there had seen her emotions run the gamut from soft and accepting to cold and furious.
Most bothersome was the fact that she had flown into a rage with so very little warning - all over a case of curiosity and a tendency to keep pushing after being discouraged. She really couldn't blame Paul for being curious and wanting to know more - he had been fairly transparent with her, answering any question she put to him. After calming down, she had done her best to be accommodating without blowing up again - letting him know more or less the reason behind her previous reticence to get to know Janine had smoothed things considerably.
But as time went by, the questions about her past - often dealing with her relationship with her father - were getting awkward. Paul was working under the assumption that Sydney was her father; she DID call him "Papa" after all, and he had introduced her as his daughter. But the small details of her early life were becoming hard to gibe with the Sydney that Paul knew - a man who it was hard to imagine would be distant from his children or would ship her off to a boarding school. Not that the truth would be that much easier to explain...
Parker sighed and sipped at her water as she stared down at the now-familiar sight of the wide and virtually empty boulevard in the wee hours of the morning. Part of her wanted to put an end to the pretense and let Paul know the truth of her relationship with her Papa - and another part of her dreaded the moment when he found out that they had misled him. After a rather rocky start to the afternoon, Paul had been as good as his word to keep the discussions light and cheery, making her laugh and enjoy her time. It was beginning to chafe to be less than forthright with him.
She heard stirring behind her in the room, and grimaced. Once more, even her care not to make noise had proven ineffective against the pull of habit, and Papa had emerged from his slumber to join her in her midnight vigil. Moving almost as quietly as she had, he padded into the kitchen for a glass of water for himself, then back out to sit down on the couch behind her. He remained there silently, respecting her reverie and waiting for her to acknowledge his presence before speaking to her.
It had been later in the evening by the time she had returned home. Other than to ask whether she'd had a good time, he'd not asked for any more details of her day before retiring than she'd been willing to volunteer - not that she'd told him much at the time. She knew he was curious; and what was more, she knew she NEEDED to talk to him. With a sigh, she let the sheer curtain covering the window fall from her fingers to hang straight again and then walked over to join him on the couch. She put her glass of water next to his on the coffee table, tucked her feet up and leaned into his shoulder - and she wasn't surprised when he lifted his arm so she could snuggle in closer.
"Nightmare?" he asked softly after she'd settled down comfortably.
She shook her head against his chest. "Just couldn't sleep." She let her arms thread themselves around him. "I don't know what to do, Papa."
"About what?"
"Paul."
"Mmmm." He waited patiently. He knew that she'd explain her quandary to him in her own time eventually without his having to pry.
"I got so angry with him..."
"Why?" He would have sighed, but she was still far too sensitive to such things; she would have felt it and taken it as criticism. That didn't diminish his frustration that she hadn't gotten away from her visit from Sam unscathed after all. Maybe there had been no nightmares to soothe, but he knew all too well that her inner demons knew several other effective ways to manifest themselves - including sudden bursts of anger.
"Because he kept asking about my past."
He tightened his arms around her briefly, then let one hand rub small circles into her back. "You're surprised that he'd do that?" he asked with gentle chiding. "Sweetheart, he just wants to get to know you better..."
"I know. He kept telling me that," Parker sighed. "It was the way he wouldn't stop pushing even when I made it clear I didn't want to talk about my former job - and the way he acted injured because he saw me give Sam a hug..."
"Oh?" That surprised him. "Injured how?"
"Jealous." The word came out flatly.
Sydney sighed perceptibly this time. "I'm sure he didn't mean it that way..."
"But I took it that way, and it made me SO mad at the time - it was almost like..." She took a deep breath. "I told him I never wanted to be trapped into a position where I got put through the third degree every time I saw a friend he didn't know or approve of or be treated like property with no rights..."
"In other words, you flashed back and made him the target of things you've wanted to say to others for a very long time."
She blinked. Yes, that was it - she'd flashed back and responded to Paul as if he'd been either Lyle or Raines stepping on her again. "God, Papa! That's awful! He goofed, but he didn't deserve what I did to him. What am I going to do..."
"Be patient," he said, and then felt her heave a big sigh. "I know you hate hearing that from me all the time, but giving yourself the time to heal is the key to stopping the flashbacks - because with it comes repeated experiences of learning that he ISN'T treating you that way after all. It will take time for actions to desensitize you." His hand patted her back. "Poor Paul! I'll bet you confused the hell out him."
"That isn't all."
"Oh?" As if that wasn't enough...
"I'm lying to him, Papa. He asks me questions about my past, and I start to explain things that happened when I was a child with Da... Daddy - and I know he's having a hard time balancing what I'm telling him with what he knows about YOU."
"Ah!" Sydney leaned himself back against the back cushions of the couch and pulled her along with him.
"I mean, I don't mind that Lydia Simmons, for example, thinks that I'm really your daughter because I feel like I'm your daughter in truth, even if not by blood. But I've never really been a good liar to those people who..."
"Who mean something to you - whose opinion you value?" he finished for her gently. She nodded against him silently. "Then tell him the truth."
"What if..."
"What if he gets angry because we misled him?"
"Mmm-hmmm."
"He won't be so angry if he understands why we did what we did," he suggested softly. "But that takes you right back to talking about your former job at the Centre. Are you ready to be up front with him about who you are and what you and I both did for the better part of our lives?"
"I don't know," she answered honestly. "I'm afraid to move forward, and I can't move back."
"It's too bad I can't just adopt you legally - then you'd not be lying when you say that I'm your father," he mused aloud without meaning to.
"Could you do that - even though I'm already an adult?" She straightened so that she could look at his face in the dim light. "Would you?"
He looked back at her, marveling at her reaction. "You're kidding! Would you actually want me to do something like that?" he asked.
"Yes!" she exclaimed, pushing herself back into his arms abruptly. "It would make my name change legal and permanent too. And then I wouldn't be lying to him at all anymore."
"Parker, my adopting you won't help you with getting Paul to balance the stories of your childhood you're telling him with the idea that I'm the “Daddy” you keep speaking of," he reminded her gently as he wrapped his arms around her again.
"I know," she replied softly. "But it would give him a more understandable basis for why we presented ourselves to him in that way. He wouldn't have to know WHEN you adopted me - unless it became important later." Her arms around him tightened. "Besides, I want it to be real - not just something we say."
"We can get your birth certificate when we go back to Delaware to take care of your little brother," he told her, beginning to work out the logistics of what needed to be done to make her his daughter in fact as well as emotionally. "Going through the adoption process there probably wouldn't be such a bad idea either, because it could coincide with being appointed conservator under your new name. And that would mean that when you apply for your driver's license here, you could get it under your new name legally."
"We need to get our reservations, then," she nodded, closing her eyes and letting the feeling of truly belonging soak in just that much more. "If you don't mind being a chauffeur for me tomorrow, we can hit a travel agency and set things up for Wednesday. I don't want my little brother to stay in Delaware much longer that necessary, but I have a few things that need to happen first..."
"That's right - you have an appointment at the university, don't you?"
She nodded. "I've decided to go with working toward passing the Arizona bar exam. I want my new life to be as different from the old as I can possibly make it." She smiled softly against his pajama shirt. "Of course, there's always the idea that from jumping from working for the Centre to becoming a lawyer means I'm just changing the swamps I'm swimming in..."
"I think I'll be far happier with a lawyer as a daughter than I would be with a Centre Security Chief as a daughter." She felt him kiss the top of her head softly and then just hold her close for a long, quiet moment. Then: "Feel better?"
He felt her nod against his chest again. "A little bit. I just wish we didn't have to work out these snarls in the middle of the night." She sighed deeply. "We both could use our sleep."
"That time will come, ma petite."
She gave another deep sigh. "You keep saying that, Papa..."
~~~~~~~~
The scrap of paper in her hand shook slightly. Parker looked over at Papa, sitting across the kitchen table from her browsing through the front section of that morning's newspaper while sipping at his lunch cup of coffee, and then back down at the paper in her hand. On it, in a scrawl she hadn't seen for over half a year, were two telephone numbers - a home number, and a work number for calls after nine in the morning. She'd promised Sam that she'd call, and he'd assured her that she'd find the call worthwhile. Still...
"Should I bother him at work?" she worried aloud.
"I honestly don't think he'll mind," Papa answered her whether she was expecting an answer or no. "Knowing Broots, he'll be happy just to hear from you." He dropped the one corner of his newspaper to look at her as she continued to stare at the scrap of paper in her hand. "Just do it, Parker. If you stew about it, you'll never make the call."
Grey eyes lifted to meet his and take some comfort and encouragement from him, and then she took up the handset and slowly punched in the ten digits.
"Intel Systems, Research and Development," a bland voice answered. "How may I direct your call?"
"Lazlo Broots, please." She turned and saw Papa drop the corner of the newspaper again to shoot a skyrocketing eyebrow at her at the sound of Broots' unfamiliar given name. She shrugged back at him and put her attention back on the voices in her ear.
"Just one moment please..." The line switched to an innocuous piece of elevator music for about ten seconds before being cut off abruptly.
"This is Broots." The sound of his voice in her ear caught her by surprise, and she stood there with jaw agape for a moment. "Uh, is someone there?" he asked again, a little peeved.
"Broots?" she said finally in a small voice. "It's me."
There was a short pause. "My God! Miss Parker? Is that you?" he burst out suddenly.
"Sam found me, and gave me your message." It was the only thing she could think of to say. She leaned the elbow of the hand holding the handset on the table when she started to shake.
"I'm glad he found you - heck, what am I saying? Debbie will be THRILLED to know that you're OK." His voice hesitated a second and then came back in a slightly worried tone. "You ARE OK, aren't you?"
"I'm fine," she smiled shakily. "I'm with P... with Sydney." Papa looked up at her again as she pronounced his name and smile at her.
"You're with Sydney?" She could tell the idea surprised him greatly. He began to chortle. "No wonder Sam was having such a hard time finding you, then." Then his voice grew serious. "I'm glad you called, Miss Parker. The last time we spoke..."
"It's just Parker now, Broots. No more Miss, OK?" she corrected him carefully.
He hesitated only a moment. "All right... anyway, the last time we spoke, I think I may have said a few things..."
"You had a right to be angry, Broots. What happened was beyond inexcusable..."
"But it wasn't YOUR fault, M... Parker. Debbie finally made me shut up and listen to her - and the sweepers hit her almost as soon as they came through the door, ten minutes before you were supposed to arrive."
"What?" She frowned. "But I thought... But Broots, I was late..."
"I heard about that from Sam - how Lyle just happened to “drop by” and detain you. Evidently Sam heard Raines and Lyle congratulating themselves on the success of the plan to do that." He paused. "I was angry, but I had no business laying the blame on you. I'm sorry - and I'm sorry I wouldn't let you and Debbie at least say goodbye. Debbie still hasn't forgiven me for that. She barely spoke to me for weeks."
Tears were pouring down Parker's face. "Is Debbie OK now?" she asked with a very shaky voice. Papa's hand suddenly engulfed her free hand on the table and squeezed, and she turned her hand in his so she could cling.
"There's just a small scar where the skin was cut open," he told her, startled at the sound of such a shaky, tear-filled voice from his former give-em-hell boss. "M... Parker? You OK?"
"Not yet." She took a deep and audibly shaky breath. "But I will be," she assured him, "one of these days - especially now that I know you're OK and not angry with me anymore..."
Broots' voice hesitated again. This was not the woman he had worked for at the Centre for years at all. "What happened to you?" he asked, curious and filled with a sort of dread. "Sam said that you just kinda started to cave in, and he was getting really worried about you when you just up and vanished..."
"Sydney came back for me," she explained with a sniff. "He talked me into coming back here with him, and he's had his hands full trying to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again ever since. I was a mess." She took a deep and cleansing breath. "But enough of that. Tell me, was it you that sent in the evidence..."
"Oh, that." Broots' voice gained a note of satisfied amusement. "I did most of the preliminary stuff - data collection, stuff like that. That's what they were looking for when they broke into my house, you know, everything I'd gathered on them so far. It began when I was running a computer check for unauthorized access for you - I found something they thought they'd hidden away in a completely non sequitor spot. I got curious and followed the thread - and found a very interesting can of worms. "
Parker frowned. "What do you mean, you only did the preliminary stuff?"
"Yeah," he answered. "I just did the hacking part at first, and then helped out with the rest of the digging. I let Jarod handle getting things to the right people at the right time."
Her jaw fell completely open. "Jarod?! You were working with HIM?"
"To bring down the Centre? You bet! They deserved it anyway, for all the things I saw while we were a team," he replied, his voice dark with still repressed anger, "and when they hurt my little girl to get at me for what I'd tripped over in the mainframe, that was the last straw. Jarod came to me with a proposition, but he didn't have to do much convincing to get me to work with him by then. Between him and me, we'd written most of the security software for the place anyway, so it was a snap to just slip in and go fishing for all the dirty laundry we could find. We turned over what I had collected before then almost immediately, so as to get the authorities looking too - but we held off on some of the really bad stuff we found together until about a month ago. Jarod wanted us to wait for some reason."
She stared off into space. A month ago, she'd walked out of the Blue Cove Cemetery with Sydney. It seemed impossible - Jarod wouldn't have wanted to wait until she was free from the Centre to bring them down, would he? "Did he ever say why?"
"Nope - only that some loose ends had to be taken care of first. Whatever those loose threads were, they put him in a real deep funk for days once whatever needed to happen happened. The only time I saw him smile after that was when he said the authorities had everything now, and all we'd have to do was sit back and wait for the explosion." Broots shook his head at the memory.
"Do you know..." Parker's eyes met Papa's. "Do you know where he is, Broots?"
"Not anymore," Broots answered a little sadly. "We had dinner the night he turned everything in - and he took off the next day. He said he needed to figure out what he was going to do with himself now that the Centre wasn't chasing him anymore. I haven't heard from him since." He could hear the emotion in the silence from the other end of the phone. "Sorry, Parker."
Parker looked down sadly at where Papa still held her hand tightly. Of course it had been too much to think that Broots would know, or that Jarod would have stuck around and not pulled another of his disappearing acts. "That's OK. At least I know you're OK and Debbie's better."
"Don't you dare hang up yet!" Broots demanded. "Give me the phone number and address there. You KNOW Debbie will want to talk to you..."
That started another tear down her cheek. She recited the address and phone number slowly, knowing he was taking dictation, and then reached for a pencil normally reserved for crossword puzzles. "What's your home address there?" she demanded back and then did her own scribbling.
"Tell Debbie I love her very much," she said finally, once she was finished writing addresses. "And if you ever decide to visit Arizona..."
"Same here, M... Parker. Tell Sydney I miss his company. And if you ever make it to California, you be sure to come by." Broots' voice was warm. "I'm glad you called - I'm glad Sam found you."
"I am too." Her voice was warm and solid now. "You take care of yourself."
"You too, Parker. I'm sure we'll be talking again soon."
She nodded. "You can count on it. Have a good day now."
"Bye."
Sydney squeezed her hand again. "OK?"
"He's not mad at me," she announced with a shaky smile. "And Debbie's OK. He said for me to tell you that he misses your company."
Sydney rose to his feet. "Come here," he said, opening his arms. She rose quickly and came to him, letting him enfold her and hold her close. "You see? Maybe now you'll stop blaming yourself." His arms tightened. "It's over now - REALLY over."
Parker leaned hard. The call had tired her more than she'd imagined it would. But Papa was right. Hearing Broots himself let her off the hook was a healing balm that her heart had desperately needed. The bad memories, the nightmares - everything that had been dragging her down and weighing so agonizingly on her soul - were slowly falling away with time and leaving her feeling as if one day she could fly. "Don't let go," she murmured to Papa, tightening her arms around him. "I'm afraid this is all a dream."
"I have you, ma petite," Sydney held on tightly. "This is real. Trust me."
"I do," she told him, meaning each word like she'd never meant it before. "Oh, I DO!"
~~~~~~~~
Sydney looked up from the case file that the mental health department had sent to him for an objective perusal when he heard the knock on his door. He set the folder aside on the coffee table and padded across the floor in his stocking feet and opened the door. "Paul!" He stood aside and let his friend into his home. "This is a surprise. What brings you here?"
"Where's Parker?" Paul was gazing around without finding her.
"She had a rather full and tiring day today, so she's napping at the moment. Shall I tell her you stopped by?"
"No, actually, I was hoping to talk to you, Sydney."
The silver-haired psychiatrist frowned. "Let's go to the kitchen - our voices won't carry quite so well and possibly awaken her." He gestured to Paul to lead the way.
"I need you to tell me the truth," Paul said as he lowered his lanky frame onto one of kitchen chairs.
"About what?" Sydney asked cautiously, joining him at the table.
"About Parker." There was no humor in the hazel eyes now. "What happened to her?"
"Mmmm..." Sydney hedged carefully, slowly shaking his head. "That's really her story to tell, not mine."
"But you know?"
"Most of it, more or less."
"Sydney," Paul leaned forward earnestly, "I think I'm falling in love with her, and I don't want a repeat of the mess I made of things yesterday. What CAN you tell me?"
"Falling in love with her? Are you sure?" Sydney blinked - he wouldn't have expected Paul to confide such a thing to him at all, much less this quickly.
Paul shrugged with a kind of desperate air. "Am I sure? The only thing I'm sure of is that she haunts my every thought, whether I'm working or at home. And the idea that I give her any cause for pain or grief..."
"I promise you, any pain or grief she discovers with you comes from within HER," Sydney assured him quietly.
"Why? For God's sake..." Paul shook his head in an attempt to order his thoughts. "Why would she accuse me of trying to trap her into a place where she wouldn't have the right to see her friends, or that I'd treat her like a piece of property with no rights?"
Sydney gazed at his friend sadly. "Because that's the kind of situation she's just coming out of - and it damned near killed her.
"What?!" That took Paul aback. He stared at his friend with shocked hazel eyes.
Sydney sighed and knew he'd have to be a bit more specific. "Your actions keyed in a memory - a bad one - and she said things to you that she had wanted to tell others for a very long time." The Belgian shook his head slowly. "Don't take it quite so personally."
"And when she said she'd lost so many people..."
"She meant it." Sydney's voice was uncompromising. "In most of the ways that it's possible for one human being to mistreat another, she has either been the victim or watched someone she loved be victimized."
"And she survived this?"
Sydney's chestnut gaze bore into him deeply. "Only barely. I was almost too late."
"Why did you wait so long, then?" Paul was completely confounded by the very idea that Sydney could leave her in such a desperate situation, seeing how much the man loved and was willing to protect his daughter otherwise.
"Because my window of opportunity to get her out of there was very small - and because I had to convince her to come with me." He continued to gaze at Paul while he debated exactly how much to tell the man. Maybe Parker was right - he was a good enough friend now that he could be trusted with bits and pieces of the truth. "And because I had to take the time to put myself back together again first, before I could go back for her."
Paul stared. "You worked in the same place?" Sydney nodded. "And whoever it was that mistreated her, mistreated you too?"
"Oh yes!"
The university professor suddenly understood something about his cosmopolitan friend that, until that moment, had never really added up. "That's why you never talk about what you used to do either."
Sydney nodded again. "Yes."
"But..." The lanky professor leaned forward and buried his chin in his hand. "How do I do this then?"
"Do this what?"
"How do I prove to her that she can trust me with the bad memories as well as the mediocre and good ones? How can I convince her to open up and trust me?"
Sydney shook his head. "Parker's trust doesn't come easily - she's been betrayed by just about everyone she's ever trusted. That even includes me, much to my eternal shame. The only reason she trusts me now is because I asked for the time to prove myself with my actions, and then came through."
Paul sighed. "You're telling me that the key to her heart is patience?"
"I'm telling you the key to her TRUST is patience. The key to her heart is another matter entirely, and one I know better than to try to predict."
Paul stared at his chess partner intently for a while, trying to read between the lines and comprehend the depth of what Parker must have gone through. "You know," he said finally, "when I asked what I could do to help her, her answer was to 'make me laugh.'"
"She hasn't had much laughter in her life for a very long time," Sydney nodded, understanding the mechanism that had prompted her response to Paul's question. "In many ways, that is one of the wisest things I've heard of her saying."
"Is that it then? I just keep joking, keeping things light, fun, superficial..."
"Not superficial - just keep the focus off of the stuff that hurts until she's able to face it properly." Sydney corrected him. "Just DON'T ask questions about her former job. From what she's told me, I think the time will come when she will want to tell you everything you want to know. Just be patient and let it happen in its own time. If you push, you'll run the risk of triggering another rage like the one she let loose on you yesterday."
"She told you about that, huh?" Paul sounded disgusted.
"Trust me, it bothered her at least as much as it bothered you."
Paul nodded, accepting that Sydney wasn't misleading him. "I suppose I'd better go before she wakes up then," he said finally, pulling his frame from the seat.
"Are you sure? She'll be sorry she missed you," Sydney told him, rising.
"I'm sure. I don't want her to get the idea that I'm trying to get you to tell tales on her out of school."
"Even though that's exactly what you were trying to do?" Sydney teased him gently.
"Touché." Paul ducked his head slightly in chagrin. "We can keep this discussion just between the two of us, can't we?"
Sydney smiled. "Of course we can..."
"Paul?" Parker's voice was sleepy and surprised. She slipped around the corner of the kitchen door running her fingers through pillow-mussed hair.
"Hey there, pretty lady." Paul gave her a slightly guilty smile. "Your dad said you were sleeping - we didn't awaken you, did we?"
She shook her head. "No. It was only a nap anyway..."
"Well," Paul turned and shook hands with Sydney. "Thanks again."
"Don't mention it."
"Is everything OK?" she asked them both, her eyes flitting from one to the other.
"Sure," Paul answered quickly.
"Of course," Sydney answered as well, only more slowly and carefully.
Parker knew that, if nothing else, she'd be able to convince him to tell her what she needed to know when they were alone again, and so returned her attention to Paul. "You don't have leave immediately, do you?" She moved to the table, closer to him. "I can always see if we have any apple cider..."
"No, Janine is home, and I have to get back and make sure that she does her homework before she sits down in front of the “tube” and lets her brain turn to mush." Paul put out a gentle hand and teased a wayward curl from near her mouth. "Maybe next time."
"Well, at least let me walk you to the door," she said, claiming at least that task from her Papa.
Sydney smiled and reached for his paperwork again. "Stop by again, Paul," he told the tall man. "It's always good to see you."
"You too, old man," Paul smiled as he wrapped a possessive arm around Parker's shoulder as he walked with her to the door. "So," he said in a soft voice obviously meant only for her ears, "I'll see you tomorrow for lunch?"
"Yes - and I'm to meet you in the student union lobby at noon," she repeated carefully. "I'll be there."
"And how about game night tomorrow night?" He pulled her through the open front door and onto the combination porch-landing. "Will you be my good luck charm again?"
This time, she shook her head. "Probably not. Papa and I are leaving for Delaware Wednesday morning - and I know I'll need to rest up before we go."
"Delaware?" Paul frowned. "What's in Delaware?"
"A little boy with no other living relatives - a very damaged little boy. I need to have myself appointed his conservator, and then have him moved to a facility here in the valley - where I can watch over him better."
"Your Dad's going too?"
She nodded. "I don't think I could even consider heading back... there... without Papa."
Paul filed the information away. Delaware - that was the place where her past had been left behind. But Delaware had been in the news lately, hadn't it? He couldn't quite put his finger on the details, but he knew he'd heard mention of the locale recently. "When are you coming back?"
Parker shrugged. "I'm not sure," she answered truthfully. "A lot will depend on what all kinds of official processes I have to go through to get things arranged properly. A week, maybe two." She winced; the disappointed look in his eye was very apparent.
His curiosity couldn't help but bubble forth around the disappointment, but he put a very hesitant and cautious tone around it. "Do you mind if I ask what this little boy is to you?"
For some reason this time, the question didn't seem so far out of line. He was at least asking permission to pry this time, not just prying as if he had the right to. "He's my nephew," she lied glibly, unable to think of any other reasonable explanation that didn't point to the morass that was her personal family history. That was one tangled web she didn't want to even begin to have to explain to him for a good long time. "I saw him a few times, not long after he was born, but haven't seen him for a very long time." That last, at least, was truth. She'd have to tell Papa her explanation for the boy so that their stories could stay straight with each other otherwise. But she'd had to tell an outright lie this time - and it bothered her no less than the lies of omission or misdirection had before.
"I'll miss you." It was a simple statement, but it tugged at her heartstrings in a way that nothing had for a very long time.
"I'll miss you too." And that was the truth too. She'd grown very fond of him just in the few weeks she'd known him - and despite his insatiable curiosity about the parts of her life she wished she could just erase. "But I'll be back when everything is arranged."
"Promise?"
Her eyebrows raised at the wistful tone. "This is my home now," she told him gently. "Besides, Professor Prouse is going to be telling me about how he thinks I should go about updating my degree - and I want to get busy on that as soon as I can." She gave him a slightly chagrined smile. "I can't stay away for very long..." Her expression grew soft. "I don't want to stay away any longer that I have to."
"Of course I don't have any part of that..."
She could hear the combination of frustration and wistfulness in even that statement, and decided to give him reassurance. She laid her hand gently on his shoulder, straightening the collar of his shirt a little bit, as if that was the reason for her reaching out to him. "You have a lot to do with that," she purred at him.
Paul's heart began to beat faster at the sound of that incredibly sexy alto voice, and his hands automatically reached out to her waist and pulled her just a little closer. "Just making sure..."
Those changeable hazel eyes suddenly connected very strongly and deeply with her storm-grey, and almost as if there were a hand pushing them both, they leaned in closer and touched lips. Parker stiffened for a moment and then relaxed, tantalized and enchanted at the completely innocent and experimental nature of the kiss. Almost as if he was shocked and afraid of her reaction, Paul ended the kiss after only a moment or two. He stared down at her again, waiting for those stormy eyes to fill with rage and for her to rip him up one side and down the other.
Instead, Parker's hand slipped just a little further around his neck while her other hand found his opposite shoulder. "Do you normally take a lot of convincing?" she asked in that throaty contralto that was making it hard for him to concentrate.
"Sometimes," he admitted in a voice that was getting slightly more breathless from her proximity as well as the implied permission her tone seemed to be giving him. He brought one hand up and stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "I'm finding that when it comes to you, I feel very inadequate - like I'm a bull in a china shop... I don't want to..."
"I'm not quite THAT fragile," she told him gently.
The hazel eyes darkened with purpose, and Paul lowered his lips to hers again - this time with more clear intent. Her hand on his shoulder slipped around his neck to join its companion while his hand at her waist slipped around to her back to pull her into his embrace even closer. There was no innocence to this kiss, although it was clear to them both that they were still very much testing the waters. And when they pulled back as if in unison, both were breathless.
"Paul..."
The finger tips were stroking her cheek gently again. "Do you have the slightest idea how hard it is for me let you go, pretty lady - how much I just want to play ugly caveman, bop you over the head with my club and drag you back to my cave by the hair?"
"How romantic," she quipped, her lips twitching toward a grin.
The hazel eyes began to twinkle again. "Is that a challenge?"
"No, just something to keep you going until I come home again," she responded and then stretched up to meet his lips with hers.
This time there was no uncertainty, no experimentation - each one's arms wrapped around the other possessively until the need for air drove them apart, and then he pulled her head to rest against his shoulder. "I need to go home," he reminded her in a breathless whisper.
"I know." Parker was finding that she wasn't at all uncomfortable in this man's arms. "I need to let you go home..."
"Before your father comes out and accuses me of trying to seduce you in public," Paul was finding it difficult to loosen his hold on her - it just felt RIGHT for him to have her close like that. "Tell me to go home."
"Go home," she parroted obediently.
"You don't mean it," he retorted and kissed her again.
"If you don't go home pretty soon, neither of us will get any lunch tomorrow," she told him when they once more parted.
He reluctantly let her go and took a deliberate step backwards. "At least I have you around tomorrow."
"Yes," she smiled at him, finding her heart beating faster too. "I'm not leaving until Wednesday. Go home now and make sure Janine does her homework - I'll see you at the university at noon."
He bent forward and caught her lips one last time in a sweet kiss, then finally dragged himself down the stairs. "At noon."
"I won't forget!" she waved at him, then leaned against the metal railing at the top of the stairs while he walked slowly toward the other side of the complex. She hadn't felt like this toward another human being since Tommy died - and, strangely, she didn't feel as if she was betraying her old love. Thomas had been a practical man. She knew that he would want her to rebuild her life in much the same way that he'd rebuilt his houses.
At one time, for a short time after that disastrous trip to Carthis, she had thought that the only one with whom she could rebuild a life was Jarod. After all, the Pretender knew her at least as well as she knew herself, if not better; and she knew him better than he suspected. But Jarod had very deliberately dropped away from her - walked away and never looked back. And now here she was, with the memory of Paul's kisses fresh in her mind, and seeing how he had worked so hard to try to accommodate her difficulties and still get his questions answered. Maybe she could consider rebuilding her life with someone other than a man she'd known all her life. Maybe building a completely new relationship from the ground up was the better way to go about it too.
Sydney gazed at her with fondness and indulgence as she came back into the apartment, her face flushed and her eyes bright. He knew very well what she wanted, and he had no intention of holding back from her, despite what he'd told Paul. "He told me he thought he was falling in love with you," he said simply, then watched her blush. "I take it you know that?"
"Pretty much," she nodded. "What else?"
"He wanted to know what happened to you, so that he wouldn't hurt you anymore."
"What did you tell him?"
"What he needed to know," he told her frankly. "I told him that the things you accused him of doing HAD been done to you by others, that you only barely got out of that situation alive." He sighed. "I told him the unvarnished truth, but only the barest of bones."
"And then I turned around and lied to him," Parker confessed, her eyes finding a spot on the floor. "I told him that the boy we're going back for in Delaware was my nephew." She looked up at him, the sparkle in her eyes now from carefully restrained tears. "Where does it end, Papa?"
Sydney stepped close to her and wrapped a warm hand about her shoulders. "It ends where you say it does, Parker. When you're ready to face him knowing the truth about you, THAT'S where it ends."
"But..."
"And if he really loves you," he continued, a finger to her lips to silence her complaint, "he'll forgive you for misleading him because he'll understand your reasons."
Parker nodded and felt him let her go, then watched him carry his sheaf of papers back into the living room, where he'd left his briefcase open on the desk by the window. She knew he was right - that the lies ended when SHE decided they ended.
The trick was making peace with the truth once and for all.
