a/n: This is all chopsticks' fault. No really, she's let me blame her. Thanks go to Cassy for assuring me it's not all crap, and to my friends who upon hearing what I had in mind simply saying "Okay" and "can I see?" You're all very weird, sick people. Don't ever change.

Why don’t you listen to me anymore, Miss Parker?

We were friends. You were my only girl friend and I was yours. Why don’t you listen?

Are you happy without me?

Are you happy at all?

*

Miss Parker’s new life is perfect. She has a job in corporate – just high enough up the ladder that she gets interesting tasks, and just below a position that would probably cause another ulcer. Her new house is just the right size to manage, just modern enough to meet her standards, and clean enough to eat off. Her colleagues are intelligent and would probably prove interesting if she cared enough to exchange words with them over the water cooler. Her boyfriend is just the right age, just the right height, and isn’t looking for something permanent.

There is also a noticeable lack of annoying former-lab rats trying to save mankind from the bad people of the world.

Miss Parker’s new life is, in short, perfect.


Which is, naturally, why she can’t sleep at night.

*

You’ll never be happy, Jarod.

She’s not her. She’s not the little girl you fell in love with. She’s not the friend you cared for.

Why can’t you just go to her?

*

Zoë is soft in unusual ways. Jarod expected all fire and heat, harsh nails and bites; maybe even the handcuffs used in interesting ways. He expected her to look at him as if he were prey.

He never expected her to take it slow, to be careful with nails and teeth. The look in her eyes: affection, care, and maybe even a little bit of hero worship. Zoë’s all fire and passion and caution-to-the-wind in everything she does except sex.

He doesn’t know why this is disappointing.

*

I know you listen, Timmy.

My name’s Angelo. Timmy’s gone now.

Never really gone, Timmy.

Gone. They took him, and then I gave him away.

They can help bring him back.

Timmy’s never coming back. Once-only, that’s what Sydney said. Sydney said once-only and now he’s never coming back to finish that song.

They can help. They’ll always help.

They’re gone too.

*

Angelo’s apartment is nice. It’s clean and has interesting things, like a piano, books, and all sort of puzzles.

Sydney visits him every day. That’s nice too.

Angelo misses vents though. He misses the cool feel of them against his skin; lying on his stomach and breathing carefully, slowly. He even misses the feeling of pins and needles he always got when he spent too much time in one position, watching. He misses the interesting feelings, the secrets and the emotions coming off people. The people here are all stark and clean, inside and out. They use their real names, which is possibly the strangest thing of all. They hold their secrets to their hearts just as the others did, but theirs, Angelo knows, don’t really matter. Not like hidden pictures and plans to find of the Boogieman and the Reaper once did.

The Centre is gone, some part of him tells another, and he remembers all over again: the smell of gunpowder, the way the blood felt slick on his hands, the yelling and the noise. Maybe tomorrow he’ll forget again; maybe tomorrow he’ll remember it all, but it won’t matter. He’ll remember when he needs to.

They’ll remember what you forget, Timmy.

Sydney worries about him. He can feel it coming off him in waves. Orange, he decides; if Sydney’s emotions had colours then this would be orange. Sydney stains him orange with every visit. Checking his pupils (dilation, he knew all the words once), attaching him to machines and hushing his protests with soothing words.

“He’s deteriorating,” he hears Sydney say to one of the many nurses.

They can help, Faith whispers.

“Listen to Faith, Sydney,” Angelo repeats, before he remembers that Sydney cannot hear her. Sydney doesn’t understand anyway (green for confusion, Angelo decides), bows his head and leaves.

Find them. You know how.

*

You miss him. You miss them both.

You tried to forget them, but you can’t. Without the Centre you’re just you. And you need them. They need you too. They both need you now more than ever.

Miss Parker, why won’t you just listen to me?

*

Miss Parker’s karma is broken. What goes around does not come around for her. What goes around rarely leaves her, and if it finally decides to then it leaves a huge gaping hole behind.

You miss them.

“Shut up,” she hisses to herself. “Shut up. You’re dead and I don’t hear voices.”

A girlish laugh, ancient and innocent. Maybe I’m your inner sense.

“Maybe you’re my inner torment.”

You’ll never be happy here, so why can’t you admit that you miss them? They miss you too.

“My life is finally on track. Leave me the hell alone.”


Her life is perfect; it’s everything she ever wanted; it’s everything she needs; it’s not stressful…

*

Go to her. Go to her and tell her. Find him and help him.

Jarod, you didn’t give up on that mountain side. You fought and you survived.

Why are you killing yourself now?

*

Jarod doesn’t know how to deal with women. Sure, he’s read the books. Near hundreds of them, in point of fact, but they don’t actually help. They contradict each other, can’t agree on anything, and if the book’s old it claims a woman’s head could explode if she’s assaulted by too much information. That’s definitely wrong, for a start. The actual amount of pressure it would take couldn’t be reached by thought unless it was accompanied by…

He pushes the idea away, promising to examine it again later. The point is that he doesn’t know how to deal with women, and especially not how to deal with Zoë, who is a type of woman discussed in no book at all.

Sixteen of the books Jarod read agreed that women were perceptive and Zoë always knew him a little better than he would have liked. (Even if that wasn’t all his fault, what with the kidnapping.) He secretly hopes that she’ll work it out herself. (Perhaps the books for women about men are better written. He should see…)

“You’re not happy, are you?”

And suddenly he wishes she wasn’t perceptive at all.

Of course I’m happy. The words die in his throat at the look on her face. There are lines of weariness and sadness of which he’s the cause. They age her, and his Zoë was always innocence and youth personified.

“I’m sorry.” He didn’t even mean to say the words. He didn’t mean to do a lot of things, really.

“Is it-- is it me?”

They need you. Call her again. This time - this time for sure.

“No, it’s not you at all.”

*

They’re coming, Timmy. They’ll help.

What about them?

I don’t understand.

Who will help them?

We’ll all help each other, Timmy. Just like it was before.

*

Miss Parker misses things she shouldn’t miss: running and the feel of her gun in her hand. Adrenaline, the feel of real adrenaline coursing through her veins as she chased and searched for answers.

Everything she tried to escape. Somehow it got under her skin; became part of her. Without it she’s less. She’s ordinary, perfectly ordinary in a perfectly ordinary life. Forever.

It’s nearly midnight Friday night when the phone rings. It’s Jarod, she already knows. He has been calling at this time nearly a month, but she’s never picked up the phone. The caller ID changes, (sometimes spelling out words with digital numbers that she can read upside down like “Hello” made out of 43770. He’s still such a child). It’s always him, though, and she doesn’t need Faith to tell her so.

Answer the phone.

The phone is in her hand before she can debate the issue properly, as she has every time before.

She answers it, and she never meant to do that either. “What?” she says.

“Wow, things really never change,” Jarod replies, and it would almost be ‘normal’ except she can hear real relief in his voice.

*

Yes.

*

They need each other in ways even they don’t understand, for all their collective genius. Jarod’s touch on Parker’s skin makes her feel like she’s running (chasing) and being hunted all at once. She drags her nails across his skin and is never gentle, loving the way he hisses appreciatively. Angelo they soothe with words and occasional touch. He’s broken and he’ll never be fixed but they hold him anyway. From them (through them) he sees the outside world and emotions like love, trust and lust.

“I thought everything would be right after The Centre… after. And I tried, but it just didn’t work.” Jarod says the words against Parker’s lips, and he’s speaking all their stories at once.

Faith too whispers against their skin. Her voice is ageless and speaks with more touch than words.

Everything’s right now. We’re meant to be together. We’re family.

Sometimes she doesn’t use words, but speaks and promises all the same. She tells them how right it all is, how perfect.

“We promised we’d never forget each other,” one of them whispers – or maybe it’s all, it doesn’t matter. The words are said, that does matter.

One day we’ll all be together again.

“And until then?”

Then this is all we need.


end.

quaternity:
The cardinal number that is the sum of three and one