Part Eleven

Val 

One look at Skinny confirmed what I had already expected. Her attitude was back in place right along with her suit and make-up as she walked into my office and stood in front of my desk, her arms folded in front of her chest.

"Well, well. What a statuary example of a good way of dealing with attacks from madwomen", I greeted her, twirling my pencil between my fingers.

She gave a curt little smile and only reluctantly sat down when I offered her the chair in front of my desk.

"You know, you don't have to treat me like a delicate flower, Val. Actually, I hate it when you do", she dived headfirst into what she had obviously come here for. I felt a bit embarrassed since I had noticed that in myself, but I played dumb anyway. No need to admit weaknesses when she was in a mood like that.

"No idea what you're talking about. But I can make you lift boxes with files from the Addison trial if that makes you feel better." Addison was a little fat bespectacled accountant who had forged ten years worth of tax reports for a major corporation. "Anyway..." I shuffled through the mass of papers on my desk and grabbed the MEs report, then handed it to her.

"I guess you can stomach a few gruesome pictures?" I gave her a fake-smile.

"Very funny." She accepted the report, obviously still a bit taken aback by how little thought I had given to her statement and skimmed through the papers.

"Cause of death was the stabbing although he must have been immobilized with a rope round his neck", she read, then looked up at me again. "Would Linda be strong enough to do that?"

"She pinned you to the floor, my little kickass-friend. I guess she could do it. She's been doing kick-boxing for a pastime so I guess she would have known how to use her arms."

"Has she given any kind of statement?"

"Only the index finger kind. She refuses even to talk to her lawyer and calls Will and his folks incompetent to the point of stupidity because they haven't found her son alive." I paused for a moment to imagine what hell Miss Parker would have given anyone who had failed to find her little girl, but then decided that I didn't actually want to picture it. Too gory.

"I'm going to talk to her", Skinny announced and all I could do was not roll my eyes.

"If you're suicidal, I will tie you to a post, lassy. I will not have you around someone who would take great pleasure in killing you. Except myself, that is."

She sighed and gave an impatient little twitch of her eyebrow as if she had expected my refusal and had prepared herself well. "There will be bullet-proof glass between us and I will be talking to her on a telephone, Val. She would have to be in possession of superhuman strength to even tickle me."

I sighed in exasperation. "Do you want to put yourself under even more stress? You should really not..." I realized too late that I had made a mistake. A grin that would have made any canary-eating cat proud spread over her face.

"Delicate flower", she said and shook her head slightly. "You're doing it. You owe me. Talk to Will now, or I swear to god I will act exactly like the person you're treating me like."

"Meaning?" I asked, stalling and still weighing my options.

"I will be around nagging you about the fact that my window doesn't open so I cannot get fresh air to cure that morning sickness, I will complain about the air-conditioning because I'm pregnant and I don't want to catch a cold, I will put my hand in my back every time I walk past you and insult you because my chair isn't comfortable enough, I will complain about my workload because I rather you help me pick out baby clothes because they are so cute..."

I cut her off before she got a chance to dive deeper into what I knew was her worst nightmare along with mine. She was literally allergic to that kind of person, but she would happily act like one to spite me.

"Please spare me, Skinny. I will do as you please," I growled and picked up the receiver.

Jarod

Miss Parker had returned home from work in full prosecutor-mode and hadn't yet switched out of it, so all I could do was sit on the couch and watch her pace, blackberry pressed to her ear. Her thumb and index finger kept rubbing against each other as if she was aching to employ her old technique of snapping her fingers that she had often used on Broots to get him to stop stalling and finally deliver the desired results. She probably didn't even notice.

"I wasn't talking about tomorrow, I was talking about yesterday," she snapped at the person on the other end of the phone and did a perfect little turn on her heel. She often kicked her shoes off right after she had crossed the doorstep, but today had been different. A quick wave had been all she had given me before resuming the conversation she must have started while still driving. I kept telling her that it was dangerous, but would she ever listen?

Parker marched back towards the kitchen, executing the same turn there, then paused and ran her free hand through her hair.

"I don't care about protocol. I am a goddamn prosecutor!" She was silent for a moment in order to listen to the voice on the other end, then rolled her eyes.

"So tomorrow afternoon it is. Why that late? Do your inmates usually sleep in?" she said nastily. "A meeting with her lawyer, sure. Whatever. Please spare me the same kind of fuss tomorrow and write my appointment down, will you?"

Another pause. "Rude? Me? I have every right to be, when faced with such lack of competence. Goodbye to you."

She hung up and threw her phone down at the couch with flourish.

"Psychiatric hospital my ass," she announced. "Couldn't they have just thrown her in jail where she belongs? They are not half as fussy when it comes to visitors."

I gave her a look that was supposed to convey my disbelief at how she had just treated an innocent employee who had just been trying to enforce protocol. She showed no signs of recognition, but simply brushed me aside and went towards the kitchen to pour a glass of water.

She had already been up and in the bathroom when I had woken this morning and then had just kissed me goodbye quickly. Now I was faced with her again for the first time since she had returned from the crime scene next door and felt as if I was dealing with an entirely different person. I stepped beside her and placed my hand on top of hers. Instead of pulling away, she set the glass down upon the counter and looked up into my eyes with a defiant stare.

"What is it, Jarod?" she asked, no particular emotion audible in her words. She sounded reasonable though, and open towards anything which was rare with her as it was.

"About yesterday..."

Her eyebrow twitched and I knew I had reminded her of a memory she had tried to repress.

"About?"

"We didnt really get a chance to talk."

She stiffened. "About what?"

I shook my head slightly. "About what happened."

"Are you going to draw any consequences from it?" she asked, forced bravado in her voice.

"What Consequences?"

"Are you going to divorce me?"

I stared at her, dumbfounded. Was that what she thought?

"What? Of course not!" I exclaimed, feeling like a drowning man, clinging to a lifeline. "Why on earth would I want to do that?"

She smiled humorlessly and took a sip of her water.

"I can't believe you're asking me that. Isn't it obvious? Yesterday night you questioned my very personality. Hating the person your wife is and realizing that she will not change fast enough to make you happy sounds like a very good reason for divorce to me."

For a brief moment I didn't know what to say.

"That wasn't what I meant."

"Well, Jarod. Then what did you mean?" she asked sarcastically, her whole armor back in place.

"I criticized a few things you do, but I love you." I paused, searching for words. "You could be a serial killer and I'd still love you!"

"I'm flattered," she replied. "You're comparing me to a criminal now that I am finally working for the good guys."

This was getting difficult.

"No. What I'm trying to say is that I would never want to divorce you because of who you are, because I love who you are."

"Are you sure?" her voice softened just a little bit and someone other than me would probably not have noticed it.

"Perfectly." I stepped towards her and gently took the glass from her hand. "I really do love you."

She gave a low snort and withdrew her hand from where I had gently wrapped my fingers around it. She pressed her lips together for a moment, then closed her eyes and opened them again: "I am afraid even after five years that seems a little too good to be true."

And then she walked out on me again. Who could blame her?

Miss Parker

I walked straight into Sammy's room and sat at her bedside. My arm protested when I put my weight on it to lean over and kiss her on the cheek. She was already in her pajamas but far from asleep as she was playing with some of her teddy bears.

"Hello, my sweet", I said and inhaled her scent like a suffocating person craving oxygen. She gave me a concerned look and reached up to gently stroke a stray strand of hair from my forehead. A gesture so loving had tears spring to my eyes and I turned away, embarrassed. Jarod just didn't understand that loving someone and being loved back was a very abstract concept to me. I hadn't really been able to believe that he loved me, not because of anything he'd done, but because I had simply grown up that way. As far as I was concerned, love came with a prize. Always. My fathers love surely had. Many mens' love had, too, or at least what had passed for it. The only kind of love that I understood as genuine was that between a mother and a daughter.

What was written on the tag on Jarod's love seemed to be change. I had to change. I had to become someone else whom he could love more than the actual me.

I had grown tired of it. I was who I was and would not back down and start baking cookies and run barefoot through the valleys.

"What's wrong, Mommy? You're sad."

She was as good as goddamn Angelo who lived with Sydney and thus had lost most of his initial creepiness.

"I'm okay, baby," I assured her and she rested her head on my shoulder, confident as only little children can be, that their parents always tell the truth and can always make everything right again.

I kissed her forehead and held her for a moment before I switched the lights off.

Out in the hallway again, I took a deep breath and leaned against the wall for support. Being bitchy to the woman on the phone earlier had made me feel something resembling powerful again. Val could not stop treating me like a fine china cup (which was actually a bad example because she would have surely shattered it if anyone had been stupid enough to give it to her) and Jarod had always made me feel powerless.

I moved my hand over my stomach and followed its gentle roundness with my palm. If he'd known, my son would have been one to count on me making things right again so he would be born into a happy family. Unfortunately I had no idea just how to accomplish that. Happy families always seemed beyond me... but I was pretty good at dysfunctional...

"Miss Parker."

The well-known sound of that whisper sent shivers down my spine.

I turned to the side and found myself faced with Donald, his eyes large and dark and unforgiving.

I was so startled that I stumbled backwards and grabbed the doorknob to Sammys room. Glad that the door was closed, I pressed my hand over my mouth to stifle the scream that was threatening to come out. I closed my eyes, hoping dearly that as soon as I would reopen them, he would have vanished. Even the dreams frightened me, but being faced with him while awake made my hands tremble. Maybe I was losing my mind.

I slowly opened my eyes and focused on the landing. Nothing was out of place, not even a light was flickering and there was silence except for the muffled sound of the TV downstairs.

I took a deep breath and reached out to stroke my stomach again. When I looked down consequently, Donald's eyes were looking up at me from where he stood suffocatingly close to me. His cheek almost touching me. If that was possible. As I was already leaning against a door, I could not back away. My throat was so dry that I couldn't even scream. It was a low moan that eventually escaped my lips.

"Miss Parker," he said again.

"What do you want?" I managed to whisper.

He looked up at me for a moment and I wished I could move so I could check whether I could touch him. Would my hands just go through him like a ghost through a wall?

"He is the answer," Donald said with a sad tone in his voice. "It's not me, it's him."

"Who's he?" I breathed, overwhelmed and frightened by the experience.

"Can't you tell?" Donald finally disengaged his gaze from mine and his eyes traveled down, settling on the hand that covered my stomach. He reached out, touching the fabric of my blouse just beneath the point where my hand lay.

At first I felt numb and cold, but then an excruciating pain followed.

Jarod

A low thump coming from upstairs startled me and finally made me avert my eyes from the dull show that had been playing on TV. Although the sound was turned up, I hadn't heard a single word that had been spoken since the audio had been replaced by Parker's words inside my head. There was the sound of a door that was being opened and then my daughter was screaming in panic.

"Daddy! Daddy!"

I jumped to my feet and ran into the hallway and up the stairs to find Parker on the floor, white as a sheet and covering her stomach with both hands. She was panting and her features were distorted in pain as she was trying to say something to Sammy.

"It's okay, sweetie, Daddy's here." I told Sammy and grabbed Parker by the shoulders.

"Parker. Look at me. Try to stay calm. I'm calling an ambulance."

I hated to leave her but hurried to the study to make the call, then returned and sat down next to her. Sammy was now also sitting on the floor, her arms around her knees, her face hidden in the fabric of her nightgown. Parker was still on her knees, sitting back on her heels, not as close to hyperventilating as she had been mere seconds ago.

"It's okay. I'm here."

I gently lifted her from her position and picked her up to carry her to our bedroom where I gently sat her down on the bed. She moaned and rolled onto her side, her face hidden in the pillow, her hand still on her stomach.

"Sammy," she groaned and made a gesture into the general direction of the hall, so I hurried up to pick my crying daughter up, too.

"Is Mommy going to die?" she asked between sobs.

"No," I assured her. "No, she is not going to die." But maybe your little brother is.

Sammy lifted her head from my shoulder where my shirt was already soaked and looked over at her mother whose hand was grabbing the sheets and lips were pressed tightly together, anxious not to make a sound.

Miss Parker

"Can you sit up, Miss Parker?" The doctor put his hand in the small of my back so I could rise from the examination table in the emergency room. I slowly sat up and the room began to spin around me again.

"When have you last experienced symptoms related to your ulcer?" he asked, pen poised, peeking at me from over large unfashionable glasses that sat on a perched nose in a wrinkly old face whose forehead was overgrown with strands of silver hair.

"That's been years ago. Yes. about five and a half years."

He nodded. "So you have not been treated lately?"

"No. Not for some years. I sort of turned my life around. No more smoking, less alcohol and a healthier social life," I admitted.

"And that has changed in recent times?" he asked, a kind smile on his lips. I didn't take to it.

"What? Are you a goddamn shrink now?" I snapped instead.

He grinned, somewhat amused by my outburst. "Of course not, Miss Parker."

He scribbled something down. "This is a prescription. The injection I gave you upon your arrival consisted of something to calm the ulcer and pain medication. I take it you are already feeling better?"

I nodded numbly. "I'm just glad it wasn't the baby."

"That's right. Don't worry. The little guy is just fine. We did an ultrasound earlier when you were somewhat out of it."

He probably found himself funny while he was making light of my predicament but I let it slip, since I was too tired to react properly. Also I knew emergency ulcer medication to be relaxing, too, which made my arms and legs feel heavy along with my eyelids.

"Still, I'm afraid we will actually have to call your pregnancy high risk officially from now on. As long as you stay on your medication you will be fine, though. But we don't want your body to get too stressed so you might go into premature labor a few months from now. So make sure you don't even miss one, okay?"

He playfully waved a finger at me and I rolled my eyes. At least I was hoping that the ulcer problem had been the cause for all my throwing up lately so I might possibly be over what I had initially believed to be morning sickness. No aroma therapy necessary. Ha!

"Now, I'll go get your husband for you."

While he shuffled out, I did my best to focus my gaze on the other wall and clear my vision. Had Donald really tried to tell me something? Or had I just been hallucinating because I had been working up a fever caused by my ulcer? I was truly hoping for the latter.

The door opened a worried-looking Jarod rushed in and approached me fast, his arms almost instantly around me.

"Thank god you're okay! I was so worried when you passed out in the ambulance."

I inhaled his scent and rested my tired head against his shoulder. His rambling was so unlike him, that I was touched beside myself.

"Where's Sammy?" I asked, guiding his warm hand downwards where he rubbed my stomach gently.

"She's with Sydney and Angelo. They're waiting outside. The doctor allowed me to take you home."

Jarod

I had been so busy cursing myself and my stupidity that I had not noticed that I had arrived at our bedroom-door. With Parker tucked away in bed, I had opened a bottle of red for myself and Sydney and a box of cracker-jacks for Angelo and had sat down with them, ready to discuss the recent problems between me and my wife that I blamed her health- problems on. When I had told them about her irrational ideas concerning a certain sense she claimed she and Sammy shared and had expressed my worries for her mental health, Sydney had taken a stance that I knew very well. He had been preparing himself to deliver an ugly truth. Not the one I had been expecting, though.

I gently opened the door and peeked around it. Parker was on her side like she had been hours before, but her frame looked more relaxed now, her eyes closed and her face peaceful in the warm glow of the lamp on the bedside table.

I approached the bed and her eyelids fluttered open as the bedding shifted with my weight.

"Jarod."

I reached out to stroke her forehead and hesitated, unsure how to begin.

"Sydney told me what happened back at the Centre. He told me about the visions your mother had and the fact that it somehow seems to be hereditary."

Parker visibly snapped into full wakefulness and sat up quickly, the blanket falling from her shoulders.

"So you're saying that he has finally put some sense into you?" she asked, only half-joking.

"I guess that's what I am saying," I admitted. "I am sorry for questioning..."

"... my sanity?" she snapped, then looked sorry for her outburst.

"I am so sorry, Parker. I don't want this to be between us... I should have trusted you."

She made an attempt to sit up fully, but I held her back.

"Please..." But she cut me off with an impatient hiss, then sat up fully and shook her head.

"Isn't that just our problem, Jarod? Trust? Hasn't it always been?"

I looked at her for a long moment, then decided that there was no way around it this time. She was right.

"I don't know what to do. I don't know whether we can make this work, Jarod."

"It has worked for the past five years," I said.

"Yeah...." she trailed off, looking as if she was aching to just let it go and pretend that she did not have doubts. But of course she was unable not to be honest with me. It was probably something that her family life full of secrets and lies had told her, that honesty was the only key to happiness in a relationship.

"Things have changed now, Jarod. And in other ways they have not. I have always been who I am, but I am no longer all you have." She bit her lips and it looked painful, but I allowed her to finish what she was saying, my mind already swirling while I was trying to come up with something to say that would convince her otherwise.

"You have your family now and I guess they are just not so full of the goddamn darkness that I seem not to be able to shake off."

"You make it sound as if you were a nuisance, Parker," I told her, grabbing her hand as if not to let her slip away. Unfortunately, it wasn't something that I could prevent physically.

"I am not a nuisance, Jarod. There are more than enough men that would kill for a trophy wife like me." She smiled sadly. "I just don't want to have to try to live up to what you want your wife to be all the time."

It hurt although her tone of voice was not accusing but merely tired.

"Am I really that bad?" I suddenly felt helpless, my words blurted out and pitifully lacking the careful phrasing that had given her words such an impact.

"I am not accusing you of doing something wrong. I'm just telling you how I feel."

There was a sudden silence for I didn't know what else to say to her. I had never denied being self-righteous to some extent, but now I only realized how much I had enforced my view of a perfect life on Parker. It was astounding how I, who I should have known best what it felt like to have decisions taken away from you, had fallen for it. How I had simply assumed that everybody shared my ideals.

What was even more astounding was that Parker, of all women on this planet, had played along to make me happy. Of course, she was still moody often and kept snapping at me, but basically she had done everything to give me the perfect family I had envisioned.

And still I had kept on pushing her more. I had been criticizing her ways and her roughness without noticing that it was her way of staying Miss Parker besides the fact that she was trying so hard to be my wife.

I felt as if I was exploiting her need for a family that was just as strong as mine. Maybe that was what had kept us together and now that I had found my real family, that connection was gone. While I was suddenly not only a husband and father, but a brother and a son, she was still the lonely one.

How on earth could I put those thoughts into words and make her understand that she was not alone anymore?

"Listen Parker..." I trailed off, afraid that it was all too complex or that she would assume that I felt that she was weak and was pitying her. "It's not... I know I..." I sighed. "I understand what you mean. And I love you- I mean you- not someone you're trying to be. I love the one who is not trying to be anyone."

"As usual, you're not making any sense, rat boy," she snapped, but without the usual vigor. She hadn't called me that name in years and I was suddenly very glad to have the neurotic her back. Slowly I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close to me. I did love her. Visions and all.

She pulled back after a moment and swallowed. "Before my breakdown, Jarod.... in the hallway. I saw Donald." She looked hesitant for a moment, but then continued in a somewhat shaky voice: "He said that it was not about him, but about our son. And... I think..." She didn't look me in the eye when she finally said it: "I think this whole situation has to do with someone from the Centre."

TBC