PARKER MANSION
Jarod was taping so frenetically that he didn’t hear the steps of the old man getting inside the room. Sydney smiled when he noticed that the pretender’s hair was turning white.

“You know, Emily Dickinson once said that we turn not older with years, but newer every day.”

Jarod lifted his face just in time to watch Sydney moving closer to him. He tried to smile because he was really happy to see him, but emotions got in the way unexpectedly. He was trying to be strong, he wanted to convince himself that he could fight for his family.

But he was tired, distraught. And Sydney’s presence was a relief.

He stood and immediately reached out his arms towards the man he’d always cherished like a father. Sydney held him, feeling the pretender sobbing in his arms. He’d never seen the adult Jarod crying and he wished he could do something to help him. For the moment, he delicately patted his back and tried to soothe him.

“We’ll save them, Jarod. You won’t have to do this on your own.”

“I miss them so much that it hurts, Syd.”

“I know” Sydney knew that Jarod cared deeply about his children. They were all his life. If he could do anything to save them, even give in to the Centre, he would.

“I need her back.” He admitted. “I can’t live without her.”

Jarod was talking about Miss Parker, and the doctor knew it. Jarod and Parker’s lives had gravitated towards one another  for decades. As kids they were comrades, as adolescents they dreamed of each other, as adults they were almost strangers, then suddenly hunter and prey. But the strong bond between them had never really faded. Jarod had been able to reestablish the connection, he’d finally gained Parker’s trust and the two of them had eventually realized how much they loved each other. There were times that Sydney thought that their relationship was even extreme. So important to one another that they couldn’t depend on anyone else.

And today it looked like Sydney’s fears were justified: Jarod was a wreck.

“You’ll have to perform your most difficult pretend to get out of this situation, Jarod.” Sydney knew that he was psycoanalyzing him, but he didn’t care. “You must detach from them. Think about Parker and the kids as the innocent that you must save and Gabriel as the culprit who must be punished. You’ve done this so many times since you ran away, haven’t you?”

Jarod sniffed and raised his head from the older man’s shoulder, “Not this time.”

“Why? You developed a plan to save Major Charles, you saved Jeremy, you also freed Ethan from Raines’s control!”

Jarod, shook his head “It’s different. Don’t you see? All those times I had her!”

Jarod’s feelings were in turmoil. When the pretender was looking for his mother and his main goal was to find Margaret, he’d never felt so desparate. Not even on Carthis, when he’d seen her leaving on the boat. He’d felt distressed,, powerless and annoyed, but later he’d been rewarded with the most fabulous almost-kiss the world had even seen.

When Ethan had died, Parker had been his life preserver. He would have never made it without her.

Who was gonna save him now?

Sydney finally understood Jarod’s point of view. It looked like he needed a guide to help him through this difficult moment.

“And now, she’s going to have you. You helped her through so many difficult moments of her life, Jarod.”
Jarod pondered on Sydney’s words. He was transported to a different place and time, when he and Parker were sitting in front of a fireplace together.

'Why is it that the one person that I’ve been trained to distrust, to hate, to capture…is always with me during the most difficult moments of my life?'
'Maybe…'
 
“…It’s supposed to be that way.” Jarod murmured more to himself than to Sydney.

He inspired deeply and nodded. He could do this. He could save Parker. He had to.

Finally getting a grip, the pretender went back to his computer, “I was trying to hack the security to use the cameras and find them, but it looks like my common tricks can’t help me, it could take me a while to figure out the best way to break into the system. You think we can…”

Sydney smiled, “Broots will be glad to help. What else?”

“I wanted to figure out a way of using you. Unfortunately, every situation I’ve been simming ended in the same way. You died.”

“Uh. That’s annoying.”

“Well, dead men are useless, so I eventually had another idea. But something tells me you are not going to like it..”

“I’m here to help, Jarod. I’ll do whatever I can.”

“Fine. You won’t have to freak out.”

“Freak out about what”?

Lyle’s voice interrupted them so suddenly that Jarod reached for the gun he was hiding under his pants, well tied to his calf. He sighed and put it back.

“I thought you’d never come back.”

“You don’t know me very well. Sydney, it’s good to see you. Time was kind to you, you look like you did twenty years ago.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Sydney remarked.

“What happened with Gabriel?”

Lyle didn’t want to think about Chuntao’s betrayal, but he had no other choice than to tell Jarod the truth, “I need something to drink.”

Half an hour later, Lyle ended his tale, “Ultimately, I almost married a bitch.”

Jarod didn’t know what to say. He’d never thought that one day he would need to console Lyle. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t give a damn, Jarod. The point is: how we make them pay.”

“Did you find their location?”

“Not yet, I’m working on it.”

Jarod’s computer emitted a sound, “Mmm. Looks like Mr. Broots was faster than you.”

The pretender opened the attachment of the mail, a link to a safe server. Broots had succeeded in hacking into the Centre surveillance system.

There were two different cameras. The first was on Miss Parker’s cell, down in SL-17. The second was shooting videos of Ethan and Katie’s cell, they were in SL-9.

“Jude told me that they were arranging something in SL-9. You think they are creating a new headquarter for the pretender project?”

“I don’t know. But Sydney soon will.”

The old man couldn’t hide a smile when he looked at Jarod with newfound curiosity.