Mysterious Connections
Part 7

The small hut was dark and quiet when the car stopped a short distance away, a man getting out of it. He walked over to the flimsy structure, pulling a torch out of his pocket and shining it in through a window. After several moments, he walked to the door and took a lockpick out of his pocket that he inserted into the keyhole, applying pressure until the lock yielded. The man turned the handle, gently pushing the door until it swung inwards with a loud creak.

Walking inside and locking the door behind him by the same method as he had opened it, the intruder looked around the first room before walking into the second one and opening the silent, dark fridge. He shook his head as he eyed the empty shelves, opening the kitchen cupboards and taking note of the lack of edible contents.

Returning to the main room, he saw a long, low shelf along one wall that bore a mattress, and on which lay a bag. Carefully placing the flashlight on the table to illuminate his actions, the man opened it. Worn black material was all the curious visitor found, and, as he looked through the contents, it became clear that clothes constituted the entire contents of the bag. He looked around the room again.

A laptop lay on the unsteady table and a second machine sat next to it, the top slightly raised. From this, a thin ray of light shone onto the sofa, and, turning off the flashlight, the man leaned forward, raising the lid. For a moment, he stared at the picture that appeared before his eyes, a young boy and a man kneeling on the ground in front of him, frozen in time. Gazing down at the image, the man's eyes visibly softened, a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth before it vanished.

A second table in the corner caught the man's eye, and, again lighting the room with the torch, he went over and looked at the photos had been carefully laid out on it. The one in the middle was familiar to the intruder - a picture he had received permission to send to the shed's absent occupant several years before. Others, all of which were equally familiar, surrounded it, and the man's eyes took in the seven faces, including that of a man with whom the intruder had worked for five years.

Turning, the trespasser's gaze was caught by a ball of something on the floor that reflected the light. Bending, he retrieved the lump of congealed plastic, black bubbles interspersed with small flecks of color. Turning the object over, he looked down into the eyes of the man in the photo. The identification card was almost totally burnt away, but there was enough left for the man to be able to recognize the NASA logo in one corner. Pocketing the item, the intruder paused by the window for a moment before he switched off the light, at the same time closing the case as he sat down on the sofa.

Footsteps could clearly be heard approaching the building and the door was unlocked. A man stepped through the aperture, locking the door after him. With a stifled groan, he put the bag he was carrying on the floor. Turning, he removed the jacket that had protected him from bitter winds blowing around outside. As he tossed it onto the bed, the man on the sofa leaned forward and raised the top of the machine in front of him, thus illuminating the room enough for him to see the man abruptly turn towards him, his expression changing rapidly from surprise to horror.

"Sydney?!"

"Hello, Jarod."

"What are you... how did you find me?" Jarod took a step back, his hand reaching out for the coat.

"It wasn't easy," Sydney admitted, leaning forward and resting his hands on the table in front of him. "I want to talk to you."

"You may think you do..."

"Jarod, please. Would I have gone to all this trouble of finding you if I didn't want to talk?"

The younger man's expression hardened. "If it was that much trouble, you needn't have bothered. I can't possibly imagine what you would want to say to me."

"You had a good imagination once." Sydney nodded towards the screen in front of him. "Like then."

"Then isn't now." Jarod shrugged. "I was just reminiscing."

He stepped forward and closed the cover, before starting to pull the DSA player over the table towards himself. A hand came out of the darkness and attached itself to his wrist, halting the movement. Sydney's voice was quiet.

"I'm not physically capable of chasing you anymore, Jarod, but, no matter where you go, I will find you, so why not sit down now and listen to me?"

Sydney tightened his grasp on the man's wrist, gently pulling him around the table to the sofa, and watched as, eyes averted, Jarod sat down. Glancing at the hand he was still holding, the older man then looked up.

"When did you last eat, Jarod?"

The younger man paused. "Monday, I think." He shrugged. "Food's expensive."

"So are medical expenses when someone puts you into hospital to recover from malnutrition," the psychiatrist responded at once.

"And who'd do that?" the other man challenged.

"I have every intention of it."

Jarod pulled his hand away, folding it and the other over his chest. "You don't need to bother. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

"Until today, I would have agreed with that." Sydney reached forward and turned Jarod's face to where the moonlight shone through the window, seeing the black shadows under the man's eyes, and the new, deep lines in his cheeks and forehead, in addition to the protruding cheek and jaw bones. "All of a sudden, I'm not so sure."

"I'm all right!" Jarod got up from the sofa and went over to the other side of the room, leaning against the windowsill with his arms folded, his face hidden by the dark. "Stop worrying about me."

"I would if you could give me a reason to do so." The older man rested back against the sofa. "Are you working?"

"Of course," Jarod snapped, shrugging.

"Where?"

"A restaurant near here."

"'Near here'?" Sydney looked skeptical. "Jarod, the last house I passed in my car was almost fifteen minutes before I got here and the closest stores were probably twice as far again. I didn't hear a car pull up before you came in so I think it would be fair enough to say that you walk."

"Keeps me fit, now that I'm not being chased everywhere."

"And what do you do there? Cook?"

"No," Jarod admitted, somewhat unwillingly.

"So you're wasting your skills doing a job that a teenager could do? I thought you would have had more pride than that."

"I have to live," the younger man argued.

"On what? You're not eating, you don't pay rent, and, as far as I've seen from looking around, you haven't bought one single thing since you moved in here, so therefore I'll have to assume you have some other requirement for the money." Sydney pulled a slip of paper from his shirt pocket and placed it on the table. "Let me give this back to you. I don't need it."

"What would you say if I said I didn't send it?" the man opposite challenged.

"I'd say you were lying, Jarod, and you've never done that to me before, so please don't start now."

The younger man shrugged before turning to stare out of the window behind him as Sydney watched. After a silence of several moments, the psychiatrist spoke.

"Why did you leave?"

"You didn't need me anymore," Jarod retorted immediately.

"What about what you need, Jarod?"

"Since when do I matter?" Even in the faint half-light, Sydney could see the bitter half-twist of Jarod's lips which accompanied this statement, and was easily able to hear the change in the younger man's tones. "I'm just a subject, a lab-rat, an object to chase, that's it."

"Even if I was going to allow that, which I'm not, it doesn't mean you don't have needs as much as the rest of us do, and you told me that you needed me."

"You couldn't possibly have remembered that, not in your condition."

"No, you're right, I don't remember you saying it to me, although I've got no doubt you would have. But I was asked to translate those words from Flemish later."

In the dim light, Sydney could see Jarod's head nodding slowly, and also the angry sparkle of the young man's eyes. Reaching into his pocket, the older man pulled out the melted plastic ball and the flashlight, putting the ball on the table in front of him. The light from the torch was sufficient to illuminate the object and also to allow him a glimpse of the face opposite.

"Are you going to tell me why you did that?"

"I wanted to get rid of them. They're all illegal anyway, and if I'd been caught with them..."

"Who would have caught you, Jarod? Who would have found you here?"

"You did."

"I had a good idea of where to look."

"How?" the younger man demanded. "I haven't dropped clues at the Centre for weeks, nobody's seen me come back here at the end of the day..."

"I found you because I know you, and I had a good idea of what to look for. At the end of my 'research' I had a short list of possible places. This was the third."

"Congratulations," Jarod sneered. "I'm impressed."

Sydney ignored the tones and nodded at the misshapen item on the table in front of him. "Are you going to tell me why you did it? The real reason this time, Jarod, not something you think sounds good."

"I'll tell you what." Jarod's voice still contained a hint of a sneer. "Why doesn't the psychiatrist tell me why I did it?"

"All right, if it's easier for you." The man leaned forward. "You were trying to deny your past, your abilities. You were trying to block out the things you couldn't deal with." Sydney got up and walked over to the table, watching out of the corner of his eye as Jarod took several paces away, towards the middle of the room. He glanced at the photographs and then looked directly at the younger man. "That's what this is, too - an attempt to find something other than the Centre to fill your life."

"I've been trying to find my family for years," the younger man protested, somewhat weakly.

"But you aren't trying anymore. All I imagine that you do when you get home from work every day is sit and stare at these photos, trying to expand the feelings that you have for the people in them and trying to block out all the others."

"And those other feelings are?" Jarod shot back.

Sydney turned, almost hidden by the darkness, and looked up into the white face of the man opposite. "You're angry at Miss Parker because of what she said, but I'm not going to defend her to you, so don't get defensive. We'll come back to that. You're confused about the things you feel for Broots, wanting to have him near you, because he's your brother, but not wanting it, at the same time, because he'll remind you of me. You don't want to reach out to anyone in your family, despite the fact that they're all frantically worried about you, because you're afraid they'll want to talk about what's happened, and you don't feel like you're ready for that yet..."

"If you know I'm not ready, why are you here?" the younger man interrupted.

"Because you're never going to feel ready," Sydney told him. "But this has all gone on for long enough, and it's more than time for it to be resolved."

"And how did that become the invalid's job?"

"You're allowed to use my name, Jarod. I know you're angry with yourself for saying it when you first saw me, because you probably swore to yourself that you wouldn't say it, or even try to think it, ever again. You've spent the past few weeks trying to deny that I mean anything to you at all, but we both know that's not true."

Sydney sat on the sofa again, looking at his former protege, his tones becoming gentler and less accusing.

"What about how I feel, Jarod? Don't I get my feelings taken into consideration too? You used to be so good at doing that, and it would be terrible if you were to lose the connection that you always had with people."

"People being you."

"Among others, yes." Sydney paused, eyeing the other man thoughtfully. "How do you think I felt when I learnt you were gone?"

"You didn't even notice," the other man muttered.

"Didn't I? I wasn't so sick, Jarod, that I wouldn't notice you weren't there."

"You were dying, Sydney!" The younger man choked on the words, but managed to continue. "How could you possibly notice something like that, something as unimportant to you as me, considering how sick you were when you collapsed in front of me?"

"Can you imagine what a relief it was for me, knowing how terrible I was feeling at the time, to see you when I came around? I knew that I was with the one person who could not only help me to recover..."

"I didn't do that." The words were mumbled but Sydney heard them.

"Is that what you've convinced yourself of, since you ran away?"

"Sydney, there was nothing else that I could have done!" He glared at the man who continued to sit, unperturbed, on the couch. "I did everything I could and it wasn't enough. Then..." Jarod stopped suddenly, knowing that he had said too much, and turned away.

"Then Michelle and Nicholas arrived." Sydney's voice was soft with understanding. "Jarod, you asked before why I didn't ask about you. It was because I didn't have to. I saw your expression and I knew your feelings when Michelle came into the room, when Nicholas did, and when we talked. I could see you making the decision to leave at almost that moment. I heard what you said when you were talking about the readout as well. But I've always known what you feel about them both. I knew you wouldn't be at my bedside when I woke up the next morning, and I knew why, so therefore why would I have to ask about you?"

Sydney got up again and went over to where the man stood silently in the middle of the room. Although Jarod tried to step back, Sydney placed one hand on either arm and kept him still.

"Jarod, I won't try to deny what you already know is true. Yes, I love Michelle, and I also love Nicholas. They're both very dear to me, and I'm grateful - exceedingly grateful - that you called them." Sydney hesitated briefly to overcome the natural resistance to what he wanted to say. "But I love you, too, Jarod."

There was a moment of silence that followed this, during which time the younger man looked anywhere but at the person in front of him. Sydney continued.

"When I said you were like a son to me I wasn't raving or delirious. The words were deliberate and I meant them. I still do. I know I haven't ever told you that before, and that's my own fault. I should have. I could have died six weeks ago and never had the chance to tell you that. But I spent thirty-three years watching you grow up and I don't know how I wasn't supposed to get attached to you. When the car accident left Jacob in a coma, and the Centre scared Michelle away, you were all I had left. I was terrified they'd take you away from me, or something awful would happen to you, and I'd really be left alone."

"Why..." Jarod's voice was husky, full of emotion, and he had to swallow hard before he could continue. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"I don't know, Jarod. It was a mistake not to, but perhaps one of the reasons was that I hid behind a scientific mask in an attempt to assure the Triumvirate that my feelings wouldn't affect your sim results. Also, I'm not used to expressing what I feel for people. I never told my brother that I loved him before he died, nor my parents before they were killed. That ought to have acted as a warning, to make sure I told you how I felt, but I could never bring myself do it. I never even told Michelle that I loved her and, when she disappeared, it was like my heart was torn in two. Then you gave her back to me." Sydney smiled. "I should have told you then how I felt about you, because it would have avoided this whole situation, but all my old fears were still around. And there was a greater one."

"That... I wouldn't feel the same," the younger man proposed hesitantly.

"Yes. That shouldn't ever have mattered, but it did. Still, I've always felt that you have similar feelings for me to those I feel for you. Everything you've done for me, given to me, since you left the Centre and even while you were still in there, only reinforced that idea to me." Sydney hesitated for a second, looking into the face that was still turned away from his. "Did I ever tell you that I kept the Father's Day card you made for me?"

"No, you..."

"I know what I did at the time," Sydney interrupted. "And it's not a thing I'm particularly proud of, but it happened and I can't change what I did then. Still, I kept it."

The other man's voice was a faint whisper. "Why?"

"Because I couldn't throw it away, Jarod. Not permanently. I love it too much." Sydney paused to blink the tears out of his eyes. "I love you too much to throw something that precious away. Notwithstanding what you said earlier, all of the things you've given me could never be thrown away, because their giver was too important to me."

"Do..." Jarod hesitated, his eyes trained on the floor. "Do you feel the same way about me as you do about your son?"

"No, Jarod, I don't," the older man affirmed. "It's a totally different feeling, and I can't compare them. Nicholas is very dear to me, but I didn't watch him grow and develop into a man. I was lucky enough to have that chance with you, and I'm just so proud of what you've become."

Reaching up, Sydney placed one hand on the side of Jarod's head, gently forcing the man's head around so that the younger man's brown eyes met his own. For a moment, there was no move on either side, until Jarod's eyes filled with tears that began to trickle down his cheeks. His words were almost inaudible.

"Do you know how scared I was of losing you?"

"Probably just as scared as I've been ever since your disappearance that I may have lost you forever. I couldn't bear the idea that I might never have been able to tell you how I felt, and it was terrible to think of you somewhere out in the world, hating me."

"I could never do that," the younger man protested, somewhat feebly.

"What have you been trying to convince yourself for the last five weeks, since you left Trenton after arranging my 'x-rays' with Dr. Burke?"

"I... I don't know," Jarod stammered.

"But I do and I already told you what you were trying to do. You wanted to try and forget that I, the Centre and all of the things we did there ever existed. You might not have been hating me, but you were trying to deny the role I played in your life. In one way, it would almost have been easier for you if I'd died, because you wouldn't have had to deal with what you're facing now. At least, it might have seemed easier for a while, but eventually you'd have had to deal with a regret similar to that that Parker had about Thomas."

"You... knew about those?"

"She told me, yes, after you helped her to find a way to deal with them. But there wouldn't have been anybody to help you deal with what you felt, Jarod. You've needed to deal with it all since you first became aware of Michelle and Nicholas, but instead of finding somebody to talk to, you came here and shut yourself away from anybody who could help, trying to destroy yourself."

Jarod looked up half-resentfully, instantly placated by the expression in the older man's eyes, but still somewhat indignant at the suggestion. "Isn't that a little harsh?"

"No, I don't think so." Sydney picked up one of Jarod's hands and looked down at the white skin, stretched tightly over the bones, before eyeing the gaunt features in front of him. "If I'd been a few days longer, I might never have been able to tell you everything that you needed to hear. Luckily I wasn't. Now we're going to spend some time together where you can start looking like the man I love and not a shadow of him. And I won't be tolerating any arguments, Jarod."

"Who said I was going to make any?" the Pretender demanded.

"I got the feeling, from what you said earlier, that you may have planned to." The psychiatrist smiled as he saw the slightly sheepish expression that appeared on Jarod's face.

"Maybe I changed my mind."

"I hope you did."

Sydney released his hold on Jarod's arms and went over to the bed to pick up the bag. After zipping it shut, he picked up the jacket, leaving only a thin, bare mattress, before turning.

"I thought the way you threw this onto the bed when you came in seemed a little practised. Is it the only thing you've been sleeping under?"

Jarod shrugged. "Maybe..."

"You'll be lucky not to have pneumonia yourself! Walking to and from work would expose you to the worst of the weather, and then you couldn't warm up when you got back here!"

"It's not my fault this place doesn't have power."

"How long does it take you to put together a generator?" the psychiatrist queried, knowing the answer that would reply to this.

"I didn't have the money to buy the components."

Sydney walked over to the table and picked up the slip of paper still lay there before he went over to where Jarod stood, putting it into his shirt pocket.

"You do now."

"But you'll need it," the Pretender protested.

"Not really. I'll be starting back at work in a week or two and I have enough saved to keep us both very comfortable and also well fed," Sydney stressed the last words with a meaningful glance, "for that long." He smiled slyly at Jarod. "It would be no great surprise to me if I found you dipping into Centre funds again every so often from now on as well."

Jarod pocketed the last photo of his family before putting on the coat and picking up his bag. Sydney placed the laptop into its satchel and turned off the DSA player before picking them both up.

"Is that everything?"

"Yes."

"Good." Sydney took the key out of Jarod's hand and opened the door. When both men were outside, he locked it again and pocketed the keys.

"What are you...?"

"Making sure I have one less place to look next time you decide to disappear."

Sydney got in behind the wheel, watching Jarod get in on the passenger side, the younger man unable to repress a small sigh as he rested against the soft material.

"And you were planning to sleep on the floor while I was sick?"

Watching the younger man grin somewhat ruefully, Sydney reached into the back seat and picked up two thick rugs, putting them on Jarod's lap. "Wrap yourself in those."

"Why? It's not that cold."

"Because, judging by how you look, you'll need them. We've got a fair way to go."

"Are you up to driving that far?"

"I think it's time you stopped worrying about me and started worrying about you."

"I don't." Jarod tried not to grin. "I know you're worrying about me, so it means that, if I do it too, one of us will be feeling superfluous emotion."

Sydney laughed. "Very clever, Jarod. All right, we'll worry about each other and not ourselves. That sounds fair." He looked over, his face wearing a stern expression. "What did I just I tell you to do?"

"Okay, okay." Jarod covered his legs with one blanket and wrapped the other one around his shoulders, feeling several degrees warmer immediately, before doing up his seat belt. "Happy now?"

"Happier than I was, yes." Sydney started the engine and steered the vehicle out from its spot under the trees and onto the dirt track that led to the main road. "Did you see the car when you got home?"

"If I had, do you think I would have come in?"

"You may not have known whose car it was."

"Good point." Jarod relaxed back still further against the seat. "I was usually a little tired when I got home, so..."

"'A little tired'?" Sydney's tones revealed his skepticism. "After walking all that way, never to mention the number of hours you must have been working to send that amount of money to me in just five weeks, you were only 'a little tired'? That's like saying your brother's been 'a little worried' since your midnight discussion outside Henry's apartment." 

"He has?"

"What does the word 'frantically panicked' mean to you?"

"Unless they changed the rules of English grammar since I retreated from much of civilization, that's two words," the younger man objected weakly, finding it difficult to keep his eyes open in the warmth and comfort of the car.

"You know what I mean."

"I guess so."

Sydney could hear the exhaustion in Jarod's voice and glanced over to see the younger man gazing blankly out of the window as the scenery flew by. Keeping one eye on the road ahead, Sydney also watched the man in the seat beside him. Several times Jarod's eyelids slid down and his head began to slowly droop forward but he roused himself on each occasion. Finally, however, he put his head back against the headrest and let his eyes close. For a few minutes there was no change, but slowly Jarod's arms slipped down from their position, crossed over his chest, to lie in his lap. His head rolled to the left, letting Sydney see his closed eyelids and pale, slightly parted lips, through which came the slow, even breaths that told Sydney Jarod was asleep. With a satisfied smile, he concentrated on the road.

***

"Jarod?"

Sydney gently shook the Pretender, watching his eyelids lift as he focused on the man by the car door. There was several seconds of confusion before memory returned.

"Are we there?"

"Yes, we are." He smiled and stepped back, taking the blankets that Jarod pulled off his legs and shoulders before getting out of the car. Sydney put out an arm to stop him from falling as he straightened up and stumbled.

"I can manage..." Jarod broke off to yawn and Sydney eyed him with a look of amusement on his face.

"Yes, you can manage to curl up into a ball and sleep on the ground, but I have a better idea." He slipped an arm around the younger man's waist. "There's a nice, soft, cozy bed inside, just waiting for you to lie down on it."

"Keep talking like that and I might not be awake by the time we get there."

The psychiatrist laughed softly as they made their way up the stairs to the door of a house.

"That wouldn't be such a bad thing, would it?"

"You could pick me up when I was four but I think you'd find it more difficult now."

"That probably wouldn't prevent me from trying," Sydney smiled as they went into a bedroom.

"And then I'd have to treat a heart condition, as well as a vascular one, and it was bad enough the first time."

Sydney turned back the blankets and watched as Jarod removed his jacket and slipped off his shoes. Gently he extracted the garment from the man's hand, draping it over a nearby chair, and turned back to find him sitting on the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the floor.

"Sleep's more effective in a lying-down position than a sitting-up one."

He looked down at the young man again and noted the range of emotions evident in his eyes. Stepping closer to the bed, Sydney was about to place his hand on Jarod's shoulder when the pretender wrapped his arms around the psychiatrist's waist and pulled the man closer, turning his face in to Sydney's stomach and starting to sob.

"It's okay, Jarod." Sydney began to stroke the back of the younger man's head, his voice soft and soothing. "It's all right. I'm here."

Sydney continued to murmur quietly as tears that Jarod had not allowed himself to shed over the past few weeks were now released in hot streams. For ten minutes, Sydney continued to stand by the bed, feeling his shirt soaked, as Jarod cried out the worst of his fears. Finally, the storm abated somewhat and the sobs became less frequent. Eventually, the young man lifted his red eyes to the sympathy-filled brown ones that watched him.

"I... I'm sorry."

"What for? We both know you needed that."

Jarod nodded slowly, pulling away slightly. "Y... you won't leave, will you?"

Raising a hand, Sydney wiped the last of the tears off the man's cheeks and shook his head.

"Of course not."

Gently he helped Jarod to lie down, pulling the blankets closely around him and then sitting on the bed beside him, continuing to speak in low tones.

"I'm not going anywhere, now that I've found you again. Just relax and try to get some sleep. We can talk in the morning."

He watched as the man's eyes finally closed, lashes quivering briefly before they stilled. After several moments, Sydney leaned over, brushing Jarod's forehead with his lips, before getting up and leaving the room.