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Chapter or Story
Part 6
Miss Parker settled herself into the chair in Michelle's living room and glanced at Broots. "Now what?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you got your transfer, Sydney's been given the go-ahead to focus on other projects, not the pursuit, and that leaves Lyle and me."
"Hey, if I can chase my brother for five years, surely you can work with yours."
They both heard the restrained, somewhat breathy laughter that followed this statement and Broots jumped to his feet, helping the older man over to the sofa. When he was settled against the cushions, and Broots was sitting down again, Sydney looked up.
"I don't understand your problem, Parker. You want to transfer, so do it."
"Great, Syd. It's so easy, sitting here and talking about it, but I get this strange feeling that it'll be marginally more tricky when I have to put the application in to my father."
He smiled. "Not if we show him that he's achieved the aim for which he had you put onto the chase in the first place."
"To break up our 'friendship', as you put it."
"Precisely."
"And how do we go about doing that?"
Sydney leaned back against the seat. "Parker, do you remember the first day you and Jarod met?"
The woman rolled her eyes. "Great, the history of my life encapsulated into ninety seconds."
"Answer the question, Parker!" the psychiatrist demanded sternly.
She looked at him for a moment and then nodded.
"The point of this being...?"
"There was an immediate connection between the two of you: every single person who was watching that simulation saw it, including your father. He wasn't happy about it and, although the Triumvirate wanted that to become a series of SIMs, he wouldn't allow it. It was the only time I ever saw him with your mother against the Triumvirate. But his reasons were different. His plan was for you become the perfect Centre operative, and you couldn't do that if you had an emotional bond to one of the 'projects', as he's always called them."
Sydney paused for a moment to take a breath, but neither of the other two people in the room spoke.
"He saw the friendship that built up between the two of you, and realized that Jarod, not he, was the person able to comfort you best after Catherine's supposed death."
"Did Daddy know about that?"
"Surprising as it may seem, no, not at the time. Raines wanted Ethan to himself, without Mr. Parker's interference, and that was why the whole thing had to be so elaborately staged. As far as either of you knew, Catherine was really dead."
"And then he sent me to Japan..."
"And you were brought back and sent in as a cleaner and up, through security, to Corporate. You had no contact with anybody who could act as reminder of your early years at the Centre, and that was the way he wanted it. Then Jarod escaped, and he saw it as an opportunity to expand on that point. He, along with most of the others at the top of the power tree, expected Jarod to be gone for a few weeks, or perhaps at most months. It's his ability to blend in, and to push the emotional buttons of all three of us," he paused, looking meaningfully at the other people in the room, before continuing, "that's kept him out in the world so long."
"This isn't helping me get a transfer back to Corporate," the woman stated flatly, drumming her fingers impatiently on the armrest of her chair.
"Yes, it is, Parker. Don't you see, if you produce enough proof to convinced him that you're so fed up with the games and hints Jarod keeps dropping about your life and your family that you want out - if, in short, you show your father how angry Jarod has made you over the past five years, he would have no reason to doubt that his plan had worked."
"And he'd happily send you back to Corporate, believing that his daughter was as much under his thumb as you've been since the pursuit started," the technician added.
Sydney nodded in Broots' direction before turning back to Miss Parker. She was staring at the floor, but slowly raised her eyes. He watched the conflict of emotion on her face, before she smiled.
"Where do I start?"
"We wait until you get a few more of those little presents from Jarod," the younger man stated calmly.
"Wonderful!" The woman threw her hands in the air. "Like he'll send things to me, considering how much he hates me right now. We're beaten before we even begin!"
"I never said he had to send the presents, Miss Parker." Broots smiled. "You’re right, he's not going to send anything from now on. But we can make it seem as if it's still happening. You've still got all the notes he sent, and, if we can't use them to produce our own messages, I think we're in the wrong line of work."
"Are the genetics finally rubbing off, Broots?" the psychiatrist suggested.
The technician tried to look indignant. "What do you mean 'finally', Syd?"
Sydney smiled and then turned to Miss Parker. "We make the presents appear to be of a very personal nature, you rant and storm several times in your office – it's something that I believe you're rather good at - and you go to your father saying that you've had it and want out."
"And it'll be that easy?" The woman looked skeptical and Sydney smiled.
"We won't know until we try."
Broots looked up and watched as the woman walked past his office. A grin on his face, he got up and moved to the doorway.
"Looking for something, Miss Parker?"
"Just my office. They've moved things since I was last working here."
He waved at the door they were standing in front of. "It's right opposite mine, so I guess you can keep up your old habit of storming in to make me leap out of my chair every five minutes, just like the good old days."
There was a dry chuckle from behind the technician and Miss Parker tried to look over Broots’ shoulder. "Who...?"
"Sydney dropped by before he headed home. Come on in."
He led the way into the room and seated himself behind the desk, watching Miss Parker eye the various gadgets on the desk in front of her, as she sat down beside the psychiatrist. "Are you working or starting a scrap metal collection?"
The technician grinned. "No, these are all my new toys. I've been teaching myself how to use them - with a little help." He pulled out a hand-written manual and put it down on the table in front of her. She stared at it for a moment, immediately recognizing the clear, bold writing, and then looked up at him.
"How did he know?"
"Probably the same way he knew my transfer went through, if he didn't somehow arrange that himself. Jarod probably did a little hacking and found out what my first Corporate assignments were, then he set out to give me a hand."
Sydney's face grew serious as he looked up. "Actually, Parker, Jarod designed most of those, so it's not really surprising that he'd know best how to use them."
Miss Parker let out a long, slow breath before turning to face the older man. "I want you to tell me something."
"I'll tell you anything that I know the answer to, as long as I won’t have to betray anyone else's confidence," Sydney responded, sitting back in his chair and waited for the first question.
As Miss Parker was about to speak, however, the phone on the desk rang, and the technician turned on the speaker.
"Broots here."
"How do you like your new toys?" enquired a deep, tired-sounding voice.
"I want to know how you came up with the ideas, big brother."
"It's amazing what you can do when someone else is getting the money." Jarod's tones were suddenly hard. "I hope the book's useful."
"Well, I haven't had much chance to look yet. I only found it this morning." Broots hesitated. "I hope you didn't get cold, creeping through the air vents last night."
There was a sound similar to that Broots had heard before, and, even as he tried not to wince at the attempted laugh, the technician tried to gauge Sydney's response, but the psychiatrist's face remained expressionless. A moment later the man on the other end of the phone replied.
"I know that you've only had all of the gadgets since yesterday so it was good timing, huh?"
"As always." He glanced up, catching the eye of the seated woman opposite. "Jarod, there’s a person else here who wants to talk to you."
Suddenly the man's tones gave the impression of dripping with ice and, as they had before, it sounded as if the words were being forced out. "Oh, so the Ice Queen makes office calls now? It's not all that surprising, I guess, considering her office is directly opposite yours. Well, I've got nothing to say to her except that I hope she's satisfied now, back where she belongs, trying to claw her way up the ladder. If her nails are only half as sharp as her tongue, she ought to be back sharing top rung with 'Daddy' in no time."
"Jarod, please..."
The dial tone interrupted the sentence, and Miss Parker shut her eyes briefly as Broots turned off the machine. Then she looked at Sydney.
"How do I get through that?"
"Parker, it wasn't too long ago that you were looking skeptical at my suggestion that you were friends. I think you need to work out what you want from him, before you start trying to make him change the way he feels about you. When you know that, you'll have a better idea of what to say to him, and how to say it. Considering the things you said, Jarod's probably trying to show you that he does have feelings - and that you've hurt them."
She nodded slowly and then looked over at him sharply. "It just occurred to me - what are you doing here?"
"Was that what you wanted me to tell you before?"
"No, but it's a good start."
Sydney smiled. "I had a meeting with the Triumvirate this morning to clarify all the information from my 'doctor', but I'm still officially off work. I can start back as soon as I feel ready to do so."
"I didn't think the Centre medical scheme was that flexible."
"It isn’t. I'm not officially employed at the Centre right now. I’ll start my 'new' job when I come back from recovering."
"Are you coping for money?"
"Among my letters yesterday was a check for the same amount as I got from the Centre each week. I have a feeling that they'll continue, at least until I start back at work again."
"And when will that be?"
"No idea." Sydney shrugged. "I'm going to be spending a week with Michelle and Nicholas, at their insistence. After that, I've got something else I need to do, but when that's finished, I'll be back."
Broots looked up sharply. "This 'something else' wouldn't have anything to do with my brother, would it?"
"It might." Sydney smiled faintly. "Shall I tell him you said hello?"
"How will you find him, Syd?" Broots' face revealed his skepticism. "He won’t want to see you, any more than he wants to see the rest of us. Debbie told me yesterday she hasn't even been getting the little presents he's sent her ever since he found out about the family connection."
"He's still calling you."
"A lot less than he used to email me." Broots' expression became worried. "I tried to email him yesterday and it was sent back, saying the email address didn't exist anymore."
Sydney nodded as he rose to his feet. "He's cutting himself off from us. Jarod's trying to deny that his life at the Centre ever even happened."
"And what are you going to do?"
The psychiatrist had turned to the door but, at the question, he looked back over his shoulder, his face wearing a determined expression. "Remind him that it did."
"Dad, can I talk to you?"
Sydney looked up from his book with a smile. "Of course you can, Nicholas. Do you have to ask?"
"Well, I thought..." The young man hesitated in the doorway for a moment, before coming into the room.
"Sit down." Sydney closed the thick volume, placed it on the table at his right hand and waved at an armchair opposite. "We might as well be comfortable."
"Are you?" Nicholas shut the door and then glanced at the blanket in which Sydney was wrapped as he sat in another chair in front of a roaring fire.
"To be honest, I think I'm about to overheat, but don't tell your mother. She's been worrying so much about me that I don't want to sound ungrateful."
The younger man laughed, before speaking. "She's not the only one who's been worried."
"That was never my intention."
Nicholas tried not to smile. "I don't think anyone ever intends to get sick, Dad."
Sydney laughed. "Actually, I meant that I wasn't the one who was responsible for calling and telling you about me."
"I'm glad he did."
"So am I. It's given us this chance to get to know each other properly, much more so than on other occasions."
"Well, we didn't have much time in that room with Lyle, that's for sure."
"And it was hard to talk when the helicopter was taking off."
The two men smiled at each another for a minute before Nicholas became serious. "Actually, that was what I wanted to talk to you about."
Sydney looked startled. "Lyle?"
"Jarod."
"Ah."
Raising an eyebrow, Nicholas leaned forward. "What do you mean by 'ah'?" he demanded.
"I've been waiting for this."
Nicholas sat back in the chair and looked over at his father suspiciously. "You're not going to psychoanalyze me, are you?"
"Only if you’ll agree to pay my bill,” Sydney responded, his eyes twinkling. “But be warned, I’ll charge a lot. Especially being unemployed."
The younger man laughed. "And if I don't agree to pay?"
"Then I suppose this will just have to be a normal conversation." Sydney hid a smile. "It's just that I'm out of practice, so I was hoping..."
"If I ever need to see a psychiatrist, I think I'd rather choose someone who's not my father. No offence intended."
"None taken. I wouldn't really want to do it anyway."
"But you're going to have to."
Sydney narrowed his eyes slightly. "What do you mean?"
"Well, how else will you break down the emotional defenses Jarod's been building up against you since he left?"
Sydney looked at his son in mock-respect, his eyes dancing with laughter. "You've really been paying attention in those psychiatry lectures, haven't you?"
"Well, I figured it’d help when I start working with my kids again." Nicholas smiled. "Besides, it helps me to understand you more."
"So between you and Michelle, I'll be completely understood."
"You've already got someone who understands you."
"Yes," Sydney responded softly. "I think that's true."
"But does Jarod know that?"
"What makes you say that?"
"Well, why didn't you ask where he was when he wasn't beside your bed, the day that he left? Why didn't you ask if he ever called to see how you were?" Nicholas leaned back in his chair and eyed his father. "At first I got the idea that it was just because you were too sick to realize who was there and who wasn’t, but then you got better and you still didn't ask about him. I wanted to mention Jarod - just slip his name into the conversation - to see how you'd react, but I couldn't find any way to do it. Then I heard Broots say his name, and I listened to hear what you’d say, but you still acted like he'd never even been there."
Sydney half-smiled. "You didn't really believe that?"
"Not considering how much he did for you, no. But I wasn't sick, so I could see all the work he put in." Nicholas got out of his chair and went over to the desk, opening a drawer and taking out an envelope, returning to his chair. "The letter he wrote was almost fifteen full pages, with just about every possibility for anything that might happen to you, described in minute detail. I couldn't believe it - he'd come up with ideas I'd never have had in a million years!"
"Nicholas, that's what he was trained to do."
"Oh, come on, Dad." The younger man looked skeptical. "Do you really think that he'd go to so much effort for anybody else?"
"I don't say that, but Jarod was trained from the age of four to think about every possibility for every situation. For you to be able to care for me effectively, after he was gone, it meant that you had to be aware of them too."
"But it's so clinical." Nicholas pulled the pages out, flipping through them. "He doesn't mention you by name once. It's all 'the patient' and 'the invalid'. If I was in his situation - and I know I'm not, and I could never fully understand it, but if I had been - I couldn't write like that, not about someone I care as much about as he obviously cares about you. Not as much as I care about you now. It would just be too hard, much too hard."
"It was hard for him, Nicholas."
"How do you know?"
Sydney arched an eyebrow. “You don't think he knocked over a glass of water while he was writing the tenth page, do you?'
"So you know about that?"
"I've read it – several times, actually. And you're not totally accurate in what you said before. There are a number of possibilities not written out in full, but he hints at those, and, if they’d happened, you'd probably have picked up on them."
"How do you...?"
"You forget that I trained Jarod. I know how his mind works."
Nicolas picked up on the word at once. "Is he a person or an animal?"
Sydney nodded slowly. "That's a good point. Another, equally good, would be 'is he a person or a machine'? Those are both important things that we need to address when I see him."
"And you're so sure that you'll find him?"
"I'm not going to stop until I do."
Nicholas returned the letter to the envelope and put it on the table in front of him, staring at it blankly for several moments before resuming his seat and slowly lifting his eyes to look at his father. "Can you explain something to me?"
"If I know the answer," Sydney responded cautiously.
"When we had that conversation at the hospital, when..."
There was a moment of silence. Eventually the older man broke it.
"When your father was dying, yes." Sydney paused. "Nicholas, he was still your father and he has as much right to that title as I do."
Nicholas slowly nodded. "When we talked about that and I asked you if you ever felt the same way about anyone as Dad felt about me, that 'boy' you mentioned was Jarod, wasn't it?"
"Yes, it was," his father admitted.
"I thought so." Nicholas paused. Before he could speak again, however, Sydney interrupted.
"I want you to tell me something."
"Go ahead."
"How do you feel about Jarod?"
"Me?" The younger man looked startled. "How do I fit into this?"
"You're my son, Nicholas. Of course you 'fit into this'. But, once I help Jarod get over with his jealousy of you, I don't want to find that you're jealous of him."
"Dad, I'm not!"
"So what do you feel about him? I know it seems a hard question when the two of you have hardly been in the same room together, but you must have some idea of what, if anything, he means to you now."
The younger man hesitated for a few moments. "I can't start with Jarod. It didn't start with him. It began with you, and I'm not sure how to explain it without sounding kind of cruel."
"Try, Nicholas. I'll understand, I promise."
"Okay." He sighed. "When I first saw you at the hospital, I was a little confused by it all – Dad was dying, and I could remember you from when you'd been outside my school, but I couldn't find a connection between them. Then I overheard all you said and we had that conversation. I didn't know anything about you and it felt like I was being forced to accept a second father before I'd even lost the first one. The discussion helped but it took time. I'd only just started to get rid of the worst of the anger when Lyle kidnapped us."
He paused for a moment, but Sydney remained understandingly silent.
"When Jarod turned up, I couldn't help seeing both Lyle and your reactions to him. And, when I heard you ask him if it had to be that way, I could hear the tone of your voice, similar to the way I sometimes speak, and right away I knew what your feelings were. Of course, I didn't know what Jarod was capable of, but I remember seeing your face when he went out the back door. This sounds a little weird, but you looked so proud of him, and I was kind of jealous then, because I suddenly wanted you to feel the same way about me. That’s why I introduced Seph to you as my Dad. As time passed, though, and we got to know each other better, that feeling of jealousy faded."
Nicholas stared at his hands for a moment before looking up again as Sydney waited.
"When Jarod called, he didn't say he thought you were dying, only that, as you were really sick, we should come as fast as possible. Somehow, when we got there, I understood exactly how he felt, particularly as he didn’t – couldn't – even look at us when we appeared. Still, if I hadn't had that feeling when we first got there, I wouldn't have been able to tell from the way he behaved later. He was completely professional - the same as the doctors had been when Dad was dying - but Jarod still managed to show his sympathy towards us both for what was happening, and he seemed to know what I was feeling before I felt it myself." The young man glanced at his father. "Would he have known?"
"Yes." Sydney nodded definitively. "Jarod knew how you were feeling, because he felt exactly the same way."
"I thought that might have been it." There was a moment of silence. "When he disappeared, I really couldn't understand how he could do it, how he could go like that, when you were sick. Then I sat down to read his letter. Somehow, despite how distant it was, I got an idea of what he was feeling when he wrote it, but it wasn't until later that I realized it was because I’d have felt the same. I put myself in his situation and knew why he left. It sounds weird, but I think I may have done the same if our situations had been reversed. I can't say for sure, but maybe."
Nicholas hesitated for a minute before continuing, finding it difficult to explain exactly what he wanted to say.
"Now, although I understood how Jarod felt about you and how I felt about you, I couldn't take it that step further to work out what I felt about him. Then I suggested to Mom that we should call in another doctor, just to be sure that we weren't going to do you more harm than good by feeding you too soon or something like that, but even as I was saying it, I got a feeling kind of like I was betraying Jarod. Then I talked to Broots, and he said he felt the same ever since he found out that Jarod was his brother. I realized that I've begun to think about Jarod in that way too, almost like my older brother, and your son, too. Looking back at everything we’ve been through, I can see I've felt like that ever since I was kidnapped." Nicholas looked at his father. "It's a weird question, but is it all right to feel like that?"
Sydney smiled. "It's the way I was hoping you'd feel."
"And will you tell him that?"
"Do you want me to?"
"If it'll help. I was worried enough when he vanished, but that was about you, not him. Once it hit me how I felt, I began to worry about him too." Nicholas glanced at his father. "I really want the chance to get to know Jarod, in the same way that he knows me."
There was a comfortable silence that extended for several minutes, before the younger man spoke again.
"After Lyle kidnapped us, why did Jarod come?"
"Because he wanted to."
"You don't really believe that, do you?"
"Nicholas, Jarod only does what he wants to. It used to be possible to coerce him into things he didn't want to, but the Centre can't do it now. No can I. If he wants to turn up somewhere, then he will, and, if he doesn't, then he won't. It's as simple as that."
"But it isn't 'as simple as that.'" Nicholas got up and started to pace the room, his eyes on his father. "From the moment he appeared in that cabin and from the first words he said, I felt like he was there not because he wanted to be, but because he felt he had to be. It was as if his conscience wouldn't let him stay away."
"I think that's a fairly accurate statement, Nicholas."
"Can you explain what you mean by that?"
Sydney resettled himself in his chair and then looked up. "I don't think I ever told you this, but it was Jarod who told me about you."
"He did? When? Why?"
The psychiatrist smiled. "Jarod sent me some information about you - your birth certificate, to be exact - and I went to see your mother. That was a few days before I came to your school. She told me all about you." Sydney paused. "As for 'why', he probably felt that the knowledge was something I wouldn't to reject. And he was right."
Nicholas smiled briefly before sitting down once more, his brow furrowing. "Where's the link? How does this fit into Jarod feeling the need to protect me - us?"
"By bringing you into my life, and returning Michelle to me, it brought both of you back into the Centre's direct line of fire. They’d always known about you, of course, but if your mother didn't contact me, you were supposed to be safe. Although Lyle might have found out about you one day, it's not likely he would have abducted you if neither Jarod nor I knew of your existence. Arranging your kidnapping would have been pointless, because we wouldn't have turned up at the cabin, and his purpose in that was to catch Jarod, regardless of who got hurt in the process including you and me."
The younger man nodded slowly. "If he hadn't turned up..."
Sydney spoke softly "I don't think you want to know what Lyle might have done."
"So Jarod put himself in danger for me?"
"He was armed - being with the ATF meant he had to be - but being around Centre personnel is always dangerous for him."
"Centre personnel including you?"
"Not now, no."
"Was he ever?"
"Possibly once, yes." Sydney leaned back in his chair, his expression regretful. "For quite a while after Jarod escaped, I believed - or tried to convince myself - that he would be safer back at the Centre."
"Why?"
"The longer he's out, the further he moves away from the Triumvirate's 'perfect Pretender' and the Centre doesn't have a lot of use for people who can't be useful to them."
"And… are you in similar danger?"
"Only as much as your mother or I ever were, working there. Strange as it seems, I'm probably safer away from the pursuit team especially now they have so little chance of finding him, than I was when I was on it."
"How's Lyle going with that?"
Sydney looked faintly amused. "Badly. He's getting very frustrated at the hints that he's found recently. None of them have led anywhere."
"You mean Jarod's still leaving clues and things all the time?"
"Definitely not," Sydney stated firmly.
"So where are the hints coming from?"
The older man tried to hide a smile as he looked at his son. "Nicholas, let's just say that if they weren't being scattered around like they are, Lyle might spend more time up in Corporate and none of us want that."
