܀

Jarod squinted against the glare of oncoming headlights and, anxiously, peered into the side mirror, observed the vehicle until its tail lights faded in the distance.

They weren't being tailed, and if what Sydney had managed to convey to him were true the Centre had called off the hunt. And why wouldn't they?

Raines had J.R. Miller, and a Pretender's heart, and it didn't take a genius to guess the wheezing waste of skin's intentions.

Miss Parker hadn't commented on the Centre's newest acquisition, or Raine's latest sinister plan; Jarod assumed she was considering his proposition.

The memory, the pain, of his previous proposition was somehow still fresh, an old wound that continued to suppurate.

He wasn't certain where Parker's loyalties would lie when the dice finally landed on the table, was no more certain now than he had been in Glasgow.

After all, the woman was known for being intractable, even imperious; needless to say, he had anticipated flippancy, a scowl of petulance, perhaps a snort of disapproval or a decidedly serrated edged retort tossed in for good measure.

Jarod had exercised extreme caution, remained mindful of the pistol in his ankle holster, and prepared himself for overt hostility; however, he had soon come to the realization that his fears had been unwarranted, and Defcon 1 had been overkill.

Parker hadn't even lamented the ruin of her Chanel trouser suit, still damp with rain and stained with Sydney's blood, or the Manolo Blahniks, which were currently caked in thick, dried mud.

Nor, to Jarod's astonishment, had there been objections when he'd unceremoniously taken the wheel, no grand, operatic gestures to exert her dominance, no threats made at gun point. She'd simply climbed into the rear of the vehicle. Wordlessly.

Jarod peeked into the rear-view again. And again was presented with the back of Parker's head. She was still crouched on the floor of the sedan, clasping Sydney's hand.

Wordless.

Jarod believed Parker was studiously ignoring him. Longing to hear something other than the hard rain on the car's roof, and the swoosh of water beneath the tires, not to mention Parker's deafening silence, Jarod switched on the radio, and Glenn Frey was suddenly proclaiming, "it's those restless hearts that never mend."

Much better.

Jarod tapped a thumb against the steering wheel— at least until the lyrics began to reprove him.

There's so many things you should have told her

Perhaps there are.
Goodbye, for starters.

Jarod hadn't done that. During that final telephone conversation, he'd heard the pain in her voice, recalled her face crumpling in the cemetery on the first anniversary of Thomas' death, the tears standing in her eyes in Glasgow when he'd taken her hand.

He'd been asking for much, much more than an alliance against the Centre; after their intimacy in Carthis, he had no doubt she'd realized, precisely, what he'd been asking.

She had responded with a tremulous, liquid: "this isn't the different ending-" 

A moment of weakness? Jarod nearly scoffed. Aloud.

He had concluded that his presence was doing more harm than good. He had hurt her with the truth in the past, had done that for her, to help her.

But hurting her out of selfishness, because he revealed entirely too much of himself was, he believed, a misstep. He had failed her tremendously and decided that he'd rather walk away, regardless of how much it hurt him, than remain in her life and cause her additional pain.

And just as he had that morning in the cemetery, he had vanished from her sight.

For nearly seven years.

He believed there would be questions, recriminations, and had prepared his explanation in advance. He had been preparing the explanation for six years, and was rather disheartened that she hadn't even asked where he'd been. Or why.

She hadn't said anything to him, in fact, aside from asking him whether or not he intended to help her move Sydney. They'd done that, stabilized the psychiatrist's wounds, in silence, in a tedious peace, a rather tenuous truce, neither needing the other to make commands or requests, each careful to avoid physical contact with the other.

Jarod had then gathered supplies from the truck he'd borrowed— and had since destroyed—and transported them to the Centre car. Parker, meanwhile, dispensed antibiotics and a mild sedative, all while soothing Sydney sweetly, dutifully, like a daughter would comfort her father.

Sydney, of course, had succumbed to the sedative.

And then came the silence.

The familiar tense hush, the strange excitement. Nothing had changed.

Jarod's biggest fear was that perhaps nothing ever would change, that their fatalistic tap dance, the tedious orbiting, and occasional colliding, of each other's universe would simply continue.

He was still considering the future when he bypassed the highway and traversed several labyrinthine and deeply fissured dirt roads. He deftly slung the vehicle off the path, sped through a ditch, and drove straight into a broad expanse of brush and brambles. He pulled the vehicle to a stop under a small, and partially fallen tree where it could not be seen.

Inside the ancient, unpretentious lodge where meetings had once been called to order by a now defunct sect of Masons, Jarod observed as Parker remained steadfast at Sydney's side, clung to him in a manner that transported Jarod to their childhood, to the little girl.

He'd been quite certain that Parker would want to shower off the filth immediately upon arrival at the renovated lodge, and had retrieved some clean towels and a change of clothes in anticipation. Apparently, however, she was still tossing curve balls.

"He's going to be all right," Jarod assured her, pushing off the wall he'd been leaning against. Parker observed dispassionately as he entered the room and pulled a rickety chair to the opposite side of the bed. There, in the sharp rectangle of light that spilled in from the hallway, their eyes met for the second time in nearly five hours, the second time in six years.

"We've set the bone, stabilized him." He had intended to expound on those words. Instead he fell silent, and slowly shook his head. "You're angry with me."


Parker's gaze dropped to Sydney's hands, and then, without ceremony, she rose, launched a full retreat.

And very nearly made it to the washroom.

"You can't just walk away," Jarod said.

Parker blinked, started in disbelief at his poor choice of words, at the hilarity, his audacity. He had walked away. For six years. But I can't?

She observed the familiar, inquisitive tilt of head, the concern that creased his brow.

"Aren't you going to answer me?"

Parker heaved a sigh of exasperation, fashioned a smile- or rather, attempted to. The smile fell flat, was bitter, indignant.

"You've never seen me angry," came the pithy, cool answer.

"Oh, I believe I have," Jarod countered gently, a smirk tugging at his mouth, his brows raised high. "Enough times to recognize it. You're angry."

"Or I simply don't know what to say. What does one say to a dead man anyway?"

"I run, you chase- those were your words, the decision you made. It was a decision I couldn't live with. We both deserved something more."

"I deserved to believe you were dead?" She asked, swiveling.

"Wait," he called, solicitous and beseeching, on the verge of groveling, "Listen to me-"

"No," Parker snarled, sidling up to him. "You listen to me," she said, thrusting an angry, trembling finger at him, and then moved in closer as if to share a secret, "the next time you disappear, fake your death," she cooed sweetly, "you damn well had better be dead, or I swear to God, Jarod-"

He wasn't certain how it was even possible, but Parker drew closer, her lips not quite an inch from his ear, and whispered, "I will kill you myself."

She met his gaze, gestured slightly with her head as if to ask: are we clear? Jarod vigorously nodded his affirmation, and gulped.

He was still nodding when he caught sight of her hand coming at him. Manicured fingers curled into a compact fist that collided with his lower lip and jaw with surprising force.

And then she was on him, all over him, falling with him. He wasn't certain if the thud was his spine against hardwood or perhaps this was the sound of surrender, of two souls colliding- a whole other brand of falling.

The kiss was all passion, collision of teeth, gnashing and snarling and he was wide-eyed, shocked by her assault and still trying to process how this had happened and what, precisely, was happening but then, quite suddenly, his body was responding to hers and he was giving back as good—and arguably even better—than he was receiving.

He needed this, needed her, repercussions be damned.

She felt his fingers cupping her jaw, and in her hair, and pulling her mouth closer.

His other hand dropped to her hips.

Jarod let himself go, all the while severely castigating himself for not being stronger. He'd already made this mistake with her- although, to my credit, not to this extent.

Perhaps it was his surrender that had prompted Parker's resistance.

She pulled away abruptly, wiped his blood and their collective saliva from her mouth with the back of her hand and fashioned a brutal glare, and leveled it directly at him. She then pivoted, left him, shattered to pieces, on the floor.

܀