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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Part 3
Jarod quickly moved his fingers so that they rested on Sydney's wrist, sighing with relief as he felt the rapid but fairly strong pulse, before placing the man's hand back down on the blanket. He waited for Sydney to fall asleep, and then, as he turned away, Jarod noticed the woman in the doorway.
"Are you okay?"
He nodded slowly and went over to her, grateful that the conversation with Sydney had been in Flemish.
"He's going to die, isn't he?"
"I... I don't know, Parker." Jarod put a hand on her arm and gently guided her out of the room, pulling the door almost closed behind them. "I hope not."
"What would be the worst-case scenario, Jarod?"
"For us or for him?"
Miss Parker poured boiling water into two mugs and gave one to him, carrying the other into the living room and sitting on the sofa. Jarod straddled the chair as he had earlier, eyes fixed on the carpet, and spoke as though she had answered his question.
"For us? I suppose it would be if he died. But, if this went on for a long time - you know what happens when the brain is starved of oxygen."
"Serious brain damage."
Jarod nodded. "In that case, death might be preferable for all concerned."
"And,” her voice was soft, “worst for him?"
"Brain damage would be awful, but right now he's caught up in nightmares he can't get away from - the worst nightmares, because they're his most terrible fears on a sort of grand scale. And he's in awful pain. It's like someone wrapped big iron bands around his chest and keeps tightening them."
"What can you do?"
"Give him antibiotics in the hope they'll be effective against the bacteria, and provide him with pain-killer so that he can try and get some sleep. Otherwise, nothing."
"Except be there when he needs you."
He looked up to meet her eye. "I can try, anyway, but he doesn't always know if I'm there, or that it's me."
"But if you weren't here, there'd be nobody who could help,” the woman affirmed. “None of us would be able to understand him."
"Mmm," Jarod stared thoughtfully at the floor for several moments before looking up sharply. "Parker, can you do something for me?"
"What is it?"
"Open Sydney's file and find out where he lived when he and Jacob first came to the States."
She raised an eyebrow. "Well, sure, but..."
"I'll be right back." He got up and put the mug down on the table, walking into the apartment’s bedroom. Miss Parker shook her head for a moment before starting the computer and logging onto the Centre mainframe.
Jarod shut the door silently behind him and then went over to the bed, sitting in the seat again and putting a gentle hand on Sydney's. As if at a signal, the older man's eyes opened to focus on him. The Pretender smiled. "Hi, Sydney. Do you know me?"
"Jarod," the sick man murmured from between dry lips.
"Good. Very good. And do you know where you are?"
"With... you. Safe."
Jarod smiled again. "Yes, that's true. And you are safe; you’re very safe. But can you tell me what city you're in?"
There was a look of doubt on the man's face before his head moved slowly from side to side.
"Do you remember how you got here from Blue Cove yesterday?"
"I left... Bl…?" The man stopped, unable to pronounce the words, but Jarod nodded.
"Yes, you did. But if you don't remember, that's fine. We'll work it out. Just try to sleep now."
"Pain," the older man gasped as he tried to take in a deeper breath.
"I know you're in pain, Sydney, and I'll give you something for it as soon as I can, but we both know what would happen if you have too much, too soon."
The man nodded slowly and closed his eyes. Jarod looked over to check that the oxygen tank was still full enough and, feeling that the man in the bed had finally managed to fall asleep, he got up and went back into the living room.
"What are you, Jarod, psychic?" a voice demanded quietly as soon as he appeared.
"How so?" He left the door slightly ajar and walked over to pick up his mug, drinking some of the lukewarm coffee inside it.
"You're in Sydney's old house, even the identical apartment that he and Jacob lived in before they moved to Blue Cove to work at the Centre."
Jarod folded his arms and leaned against the table. "I got that feeling."
"When?"
"After Sydney said that he wanted to go home. If he was feeling, yesterday, the same way he was just before, this would be a natural place for him to head for." Jarod picked up the pants that were draped over a chair and put a hand into the pocket, pulling out a piece of paper.
"Bingo!"
"What is it?"
"Train ticket from Blue Cove to Trenton. He was, in his own words, 'going home' because he thought that he'd find people who needed him here."
"I don't understand."
Jarod closed his eyes briefly and swallowed hard before looking at her. "He said that I’d found my family, and Nicholas had Michelle, that nobody needed him now, so he’d go home. That's what he was trying to do."
"Michelle!" Miss Parker looked up at him. "Are we going to tell her?"
"Do you want her to see him like that?" Jarod stared at the floor. "This is similar to what killed her husband. Can you imagine her having to go through it all twice?"
"But, if we don't tell her, then..."
"I know, Parker." He looked up at her again. "Let's see how he is later this morning. Then we'll decide. It won't take them long to get here from Albany, and we can send them both tickets to fly direct."
"And that would bring the Centre here at a run."
"The Centre's already here, Parker, or did you miss that? You and Broots are the Centre too, you know."
"I... didn't think of it that way."
Jarod nodded. "I can understand how you wouldn't." He turned to stare out of the window until Miss Parker cleared her throat. Looking over, he could see concern in her eyes.
"What is it?"
"What's going to happen?"
"I don't know, Parker. At best guess, he'll be relatively lucid in the morning and it will fade until he's the same in the evening as he was today...yesterday," Jarod corrected himself, running a hand through his hair and sighing wearily. Then he looked up at her. "I'm going to see if I can get some more sleep. You might want to do the same. We've got a long, hard day ahead."
"Sydney?"
"Jarod... am I... dying?"
The Pretender leaned in closer, his face illuminated by the rising sun, just visible through the window. "You have to keep fighting, Sydney. I know it hurts and it's hard, but I still need you. I can't let you go yet."
"I thought... I was dying..."
"I know you did. But I can't afford to lose you."
The sick man's eyes brightened slightly. "We all have to go...sometime..."
"But not yet, Sydney. It's too soon. Not like this, not now." Jarod grasp tightened and his eyes were glistening. "I'm going to fight this with everything I've got and I need you to keep fighting too. Together we can win, I know it."
"I'm... so tired..."
"Yes, Sydney, I know you are, and you can rest, but you can't give up."
"Can I...?"
"You can sleep. I'll be right here beside you."
"You won't... leave...?"
"Of course not, Sydney. I wouldn't go anywhere. Now, just relax. I'll be right here, taking care of you, for as long as you need me."
The hand under his tightened convulsively for a moment before the man shut his eyes. Jarod pressed his thumb and forefinger into his eyes, trying to remove the tears he could feel there. The hand on his arm made him jump, before turning to see that his brother had come into the room.
"Are you okay?"
"I...I think so." He looked up. "What's Parker doing?"
"Making breakfast. Do you want anything to eat?"
"Not right now." Jarod glanced at his watch. "I can give Sydney something to help him sleep in about an hour, and maybe I'll eat then. But I'll wait for that."
"As long as you're sure."
He administered the dose of medication, before checking the readout of the oximeter. Sydney hadn't woken lucidly since early that morning, although there had been several short, delirious episodes, and as Jarod looked down at the levels of oxygen in his blood, the Pretender wasn't surprised. Seeing movement out of the corner of his eye, he looked up.
"I think we need to call Michelle."
"Are... are you sure?" the woman stammered, color fading from her cheeks.
"She'll... want to say goodbye, Parker. And you'll need to think about... what you want to say."
Jarod watched as she struggled to maintain her composure, fighting the tears he could see in her eyes. Walking over, he put his arms around her, feeling her leaning against him as she let the tears fall.
"Parker, it's better for him. It's so painful now. Afterwards... it won't hurt anymore."
He closed his eyes for a moment, swallowing hard, and hiding his own emotions, not willing to let her see them. His arms tightened around her and he moved one hand from her back to her hair, gently stroking it.
"Come on, Parker. Please. I know how hard this is, but..."
"You don't even care."
He stepped back, arms falling to his sides, staring at her, unable to believe what she had just said.
"How can you…?"
"Well, look at you. You knew all along that this would happen and you're as calm as day. This is exactly the same as you were when your supposed friend Thomas was killed."
Jarod felt his anger rise and fought to hold it in check. "I can't help other people if I let myself be controlled by what I feel."
"If that's your genius idea, I'm glad I'm not one," her voice mocked as she turned away.
"That's what I was taught to do, Miss Parker. I was told not to reveal my emotions, so I could continue to help other people as they needed it." Despite himself, Jarod's voice became cold and his eyes shone with a hard, angry light. "If you don't want my help, I won’t force it on you, but other people might and I need to be ready for that. Besides which, I can't care for Sydney effectively if I get too emotional."
"Emotional?" Miss Parker sneered. "You don't have a single emotional facet in your so-called personality. And you call me the Ice Queen..."
Jarod's eyes glittered with angry tears. "How dare you...!"
"When Faith died, you never even reacted!"
"You needed me then. I knew that. And I knew what was going to happen. I could prepare for it. I tried to prepare you for it too."
"And when Thomas died..."
"You never saw me during the night, did you Parker?” he snapped. ”You never saw me sitting in my dark little hotel room in Blue Cove, when I recalled every moment we'd spent together, when I tried to imagine how happy he'd been, knowing you. You never saw that and you have no right - none at all - to tell me how I feel or don't feel.”
Jarod began pacing the room, his eyes fixed on the floor, refusing to look at the woman in the doorway, who was almost afraid of the storm she had caused.
“I couldn't even attend the funeral of one of the best men I've ever known because, if I had, it would have been the last time I ever saw the sky. Even then, though, I thought about it, just so I had the chance to say goodbye to my best friend. But I had an idea of what it would do to you - disturbing feelings you had on that day. So I didn't come. You honestly thought that you were the only person who cared about him but it's not true. Nor were you the only person who cared about Faith. Angelo was completely devastated when she died but you needed comfort before we let ourselves be upset. Surprising as this may be for you, you weren't even the only person who was devastated when it seemed as if your mother had been killed in the elevator. And when Sydney dies..." Jarod's voice broke and he turned to the bed. "If you feel even only half of what I feel about this, you'll wish you were dead too." Suddenly, turning on his heel, he glared at her. "Now get the hell out!"
"Jarod?"
He raised his head from the position in his hands where it was resting to see the technician in the doorway.
"Are you okay?"
"I guess..." Jarod shrugged, standing up.
"Miss Parker said to say..."
"I don't want to hear it." His voice became sharp again.
"But..."
"Not a word. I don't care to hear whatever message she chooses to send me."
Broots nodded slowly. "Michelle said to say that their plane will land in an hour."
"Good." Jarod turned to the bed and picked up the limp wrist of the ill man, feeling the strength of the pulse. "They'll be in time... but not by much."
"And… you're sure?"
The Pretender exhaled slowly, turning to his brother. "I'm pretty sure. Nothing I can give him is helping, except to give him rest and that's not enough now. He can hardly breathe, he's not absorbing oxygen properly, and what he is getting isn't enough to keep him alive." He looked up. "If you believe in miracles, you better start praying for one."
"And there's nothing else...?"
Jarod walked over, pulling the door shut so that neither occupant of the living room could hear what was being said, before placing one hand on the shoulder of the other man. "If there was anything else I could do, don't you think I'd be doing it, no matter what it was?"
"Of course you would, but I thought maybe..."
"I know." He turned to the bed to see that Sydney's eyes were open, fixed on him in a languid gaze. "Sydney?"
"I'm sorry, Jarod."
Oh God, the Pretender thought, sinking into the chair and covering the sick man's hand with his. This is exactly what happened with Kyle, and Michelle and Nicholas won't get here in time so they'll always blame me for this as much as I blame myself for what happened to Kyle.
"For what?" Despite himself, he couldn't help repeating the same words that he had spoken to his dying brother.
"That I never let myself get close to you. I wanted to, I really did."
The older man stopped, gasping for breath, as his fingers tightened around Jarod's, and his former protégée leaned forward over the bed.
"Sydney, please hang on just a little longer. They'll be here soon."
There was a faint curiosity on the ailing man’s eyes. "Who?"
"I called Michelle. She and your son..."
"You were always... like a son to me too, Jarod."
For several seconds Jarod struggled, both for control and to understand if Sydney knew what he was saying or was slipping back into the delirium. He was about to reply, despite having no idea what to say, when he saw that the man in the bed had closed his eyes. Jarod put his elbows on the mattress, sank his face into his hands and silently let the tears flow over his fingers. Broots hesitated for a moment before going over and resting a hand on his brother's shoulder.
Jarod heard the footsteps in the doorway and got out of the chair without looking at the people who stood there.
"You're... just in time."
The Pretender walked over to the window and stared out of it as the woman took his place in the chair beside the bed and picked up the hand of the man who lay there.
"Sydney?"
"Michelle... you... came..."
The words were hoarse, faint, but there was a note of something different in them that made the man in the corner turn towards the bed, his brow furrowing.
"Yes, Sydney." The woman spoke in fluent Flemish. "Of course I came. What made you think I wouldn't?"
"I didn't... think... you'd... bother about... me."
She pulled the chair closer to the bed and reached out a hand, gently stroking the man's hair, the backs of her fingers brushing his cheek. "You're no bother, Sydney."
"And… did Nicholas...?"
"Yes, Dad. I'm here." The young man stepped over to the side of the bed. He put one hand on his mother's shoulder, in a gesture like that Jarod had secretly seen when Michelle's husband had died, and the Pretender turned back to the window. As the conversation continued, Jarod turned and went to the door, casting a last look back at the trio before closing it quietly behind him.
"Can I talk to you?"
The man looked up from his book to see the woman standing in the doorway, and smiled with the expression that was so familiar. "Of course you can, Miss Parker. Come in."
"I wanted to give these back to you." She offered a bundle of letters and Henry took them with a smile.
"I hope they were a comfort - of sorts."
"Yes, they were." She sat down on the sofa and looked at him. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"What was Jarod's reaction when he figured out who you were?"
"You mean when I opened the door of my apartment to find him on my doorstep?" He grinned at the memory. "Total and complete shock."
"So he knew who you were right away?"
"It took him a while to figure out the family connection, knowing Tom didn't have any brothers, but he got it more quickly than I expected him to."
"But he was just surprised?"
The man looked at her closely. "Miss Parker, although I wasn't planning to admit this, I heard what you said to Jarod and you are very, very wrong."
She would have glared at him, but the expression in his eyes, being so similar to that of the man she had loved, made her pause.
"The day after Jarod helped me, we sat down and talked about Thomas, and I mean that we talked for the whole day. Jarod blames himself that he ever even introduced you two because he sees it as the reason Thomas was killed. And he never had the chance to say goodbye to my cousin either, except to a square of marble. It might be a little hard for you to believe, Miss Parker, but going to a funeral is the best way to start the grieving process. Missing out on that makes it harder to deal with what happened, harder to believe. Then, after it all happened, he was focusing so hard on trying to find out who did it so you could have resolution in your grief that he had to put aside his own feelings, the same way he's done for most of his life."
"How did you know...?"
"Thomas told me. Jarod stayed at his house the night after closing down the competitor. Tom overheard the nightmares that Jarod had and asked him about it. It took some persuasion but finally he told my cousin some of what he went through. When Thomas wrote about Jarod, he told me a few things. It wasn't much, but when added what Jarod said while we were talking, it was enough to show me what he felt. My cousin never made a lot of close friends in his life, especially once he started working, because he was almost on the move. He and Jarod were close - closer than you can probably even be aware of. By bringing you and Thomas together, Jarod was trying to bring stability into both of your lives, and love there as well. In return for all that Jarod told him about his childhood, Tom told Jarod about losing his family, and how hard it had been for him. It was just another reason that he thought the two of you would go so well together."
Henry leaned back in his seat, drawing his legs to his chest, his eyes fixed on the woman who sat opposite. "Jarod told me what you said when you first saw the model he'd left of the first meeting between you and Thomas on the anniversary of his..."
"You mean he was there?" the woman shot back in disbelief.
"He wanted to hear your response before he made his next move. He thought it'd be the best way to do so."
"I'd never have thought that Jarod would have tried to interfere..."
"Is that how you see it?" Henry looked up at her, his expression one of surprise, and she lifted an eyebrow.
"How would you see it if not as interference?"
"As trying to make two people he knew and cared for happy by introducing them to one other. I would have thought that it was just an extension of what he's done since he got out into the world - a more personal pretend."
"And how do you know so much about it?" she demanded.
"Thomas had a skill for finding out things about people, and, according to what Tom told me, Jarod can be quite transparent sometimes." He eyed her closely. "And so can you."
The last glow of sunset shone through the bedroom window as Jarod closed the blinds before doing something he had been holding back from since Michelle and Nicholas' arrival. He went over to the machine that recorded the response of the man on the bed, staring at the readout. Taking another look, he then glanced over at the woman who was watching him.
"What is it?" Michelle demanded in concern.
"You didn't take that clip off and put it on your own finger, did you?"
"Of course not, Jarod."
He tore off the page, leaving the machine to continue slowly printing out a record of Sydney's heart rate, and carried it over to the bed.
"This was this morning. And," he pointed at the slowly rising line, "this is the level of oxygen in Sydney's blood since your arrival. That's normal." He pointed to the thick red line on the page, several inches above a blue line showing the levels of the sick man.
"So he could...?"
"Survive? It's possible. There's still a way to go before he's out of danger, but he's a lot better than he was." Jarod glanced at the man, who lay with his eyes closed, his lips losing the blue tint they had had that morning. "You were obviously what he needed."
