“What?”

Jarod gasped as if he had been struck and a frown furrowed his brow as he struggled to breathe, to believe what he had just heard, to make some kind of sense of it. It was as if all the air had suddenly been sucked out of the car and he desperately needed to run, but he couldn’t breathe, let alone move.

That was not the reaction Parker was expecting and had no idea what to make of her impromptu apology, nor Jarod’s reaction. She hadn’t planned it and didn’t realise what she was doing until after it was done. When Jarod snatched his hands out of hers and recoiled back, she couldn’t really blame him. It hurt though, hurt deeply, and she closed her eyes remembering another time in another car a lifetime ago. It was like a dual reality overlapping and she was back in that limo on the tarmac on another continent. Were they doomed to play these roles forever with no escape?

Jarod was struggling as strong emotions swept through him, the kind of emotions that he couldn’t push down, or hope to understand. When he looked at Parker he was glad to see that she was in her own moment, her eyes closed, so she couldn’t see the tears that he knew must be shimmering in his eyes. She had seen him at his absolute worst and weakest moments, had seen how vulnerable and pathetic he had become and the idea of her seeing him come undone again now was unbearable. It was hard enough for him to keep himself together, to keep himself from falling back into the abyss when he was alone, he didn’t want an audience, and most especially not her. Even now, when he had tried so desperately to cut her from his heart and soul, she had the capability to bring him undone with a single word. He hated her for that. He hated himself for it. Nobody had the power to hurt him in the same way she did. That touch though, it was lingering on his hands, warm and smooth and gentle and in his mind’s eye he could see her tapered fingers with elegantly manicured nails, trying to offer comfort.

Parker composed herself as best she could and started the car without looking at Jarod but could tell by his breathing how much he was struggling. She careened out onto the road without even looking to see if there was any traffic, just desperately wanting to get away from … what? Jarod? Herself? What the hell had she been thinking? What was she apologising for? Everything? It seemed too small, so insignificant and inadequate but somehow heavy and profound at the same time, reverberating with decades of unspoken…  Drive, that was the thing to do right now, just drive, just get him there.

Jarod didn’t understand what was going on here, but he could see Parker was as unprepared to deal with this situation as he was and that was a little reassuring. There was a time when he would have tried to understand, or even simulate her motives, now though, he knew he couldn’t trust his own judgment with regards to much of anything, but most especially Parker. His previous errors in judgement had cost him dearly, so it was just easier, safer to accept that he didn’t understand and never would.

“You can’t say that,” he whispered, finally breaking the oppressive silence in the car, which was weighing on him like a living thing. It was like the silence in his cell. For the last year, Jarod had avoided anywhere that was quiet, he liked background noise, anything, but most especially noisy crowds. He always felt alone in a crowd, unimportant, invisible, and that suited him fine, but the wonderful noise of it could block out the noise in his mind, most of the time, and when that failed, well there had been the booze. What was she doing? Guilt wasn’t something that Parker trafficked in, was she apologising for what she was doing now, what she was delivering him to?

Parker was startled by his soft voice and turned to look at him, quirking an eyebrow. “Oh?” she asked coolly, having regained some of her equanimity. “Why not, if it is the truth? Isn’t that your thing?” she asked him bluntly, attack had always been her best form of defence. He had beaten her over the head with his vaunted truth for years, never minding how much grief it might cause her.

After getting to know Gem, it was only then that Parker had really understood that the truth wasn’t the game to Jarod that she had always thought it was. It was as important to him as breathing was and he just hadn’t known any other way to ‘play the game’. That had been a bitter realisation for her and she still had no real idea what she was supposed to do with that knowledge now. She could feel his eyes burning into her as he processed that, sense him forming the instinctive argument and felt herself tense up ready for the sparring to begin. Instead though, he swallowed what he was going to say and titled his head in that way that was so like the old Jarod that her heart nearly broke.

“I don’t understand what the truth is anymore,” Jarod admitted in a voice so low that she could barely hear him. Truth had become something liquid, something he couldn’t hold onto, couldn’t really fathom its shape. It could be frozen into something and in the next moment, melt away and become something entirely different. It was fluid and contextual, not the granite he had naively once believed in.

To hear the genius admit that was nowhere near as satisfying as she would have thought it was and she sighed heavily, shaking her head. “You never really understood anything Jarod, not really, not any of it,” she said gently. Her eyes were back on the road and for a long moment there was silence, giving him an opportunity to rebuke, argue his way through it. When he said nothing more she looked at him again and admitted. “Neither did I.”

Parker hated introspection, navel gazing, and spent most of her life trying to avoid it, it was pointless, just made you feel crap, changing nothing. In this moment though, she felt that she owed Jarod, no, herself, nothing less than unfiltered honesty.

In another life, when he used to be another person, Jarod might have asked her for help, pleaded with her to let him go, given the surreal conversation that was going on. There seemed to be some kind of fragile connection between them now, something beyond the animosity and teasing, something that might even be real. Could the past feelings and mistakes have actually been burnt away? Was it possible? Had that turning point finally presented itself and she had taken in, and this is what that looked like? It was too ephemeral though and Jarod wasn’t the man he used to be. So, he said nothing, just turned his head to watch the countryside slip by and enjoy the warm sunshine on his face while he tried to understand what had just taken place, what it might mean or if it even mattered at all.

Jarod’s lack of response stung, and Parker bit back her sarcastic comment. Thinking about Gem, thinking about that time in the Sim Lab and realised that he probably wasn’t ignoring her or trying to get a rise, he was just lost. Sydney should have been here, she regretted not allowing him to come now. Sydney would know what to say to connect with him, to get him to snap the hell out of it. There was still about 2 hours of driving before she reached the safe house and she had no clue what to say to Jarod. She had no clue what she was thinking or feeling or how she was supposed to deal with this. It would just be so much easier If he behaved like he was supposed to. That was a Jarod she knew how to deal with, that she secretly enjoyed. She had just bared her soul, or whatever was left of it and he had barely reacted. Even incriminations and blame would be better than this.

When he had said nothing or barely moved for another fifteen minutes, she came to a decision, with no real idea she had even been thinking about it. This was too messed up, even by the standards of their twisted relationship. Fishing the key out of her pocket, she handed it to him wordlessly, forcing it into his unresponsive hands.

Jarod was snapped out of his reverie by her touch, and something cold. He looked down at the small silver object in his hands and then to Parker, totally confused. His entire life had been controlled by locks and keys and she had just handed it over like it was no big deal. He turned the tiny object over and over in his hands, staring at it like it was a powerful talisman and had magic in it. “What is this?” he finally managed in a hoarse whisper.

Parker pulled over, more gently this time and put the car into park. Looking from the key he was twirling up to his familiar but distant brown eyes she gave him a ghost of a smile.

 “What you always wanted,”  she said just as softly, no vitriol in her voice. 

The fact he had still made no move whatsoever to undo the cuffs, which she knew he hated, was puzzling. “Go Jarod, if that is what you want,” she said tiredly, disengaging the child lock with a click that seemed unnaturally loud. “You can get out right now Jarod, I won’t come after you, but I won’t be able stop those who do,” she told him honestly, she was well past lies by now.

Sydney would be furious, this was not how the script was meant to go at all. Sydney didn’t think Jarod could be trusted to act in his own best interests right now and Parker offering him a chance to flee was definitely not the plan. Parker never felt the need to explain herself usually, or defend her actions and choices, and this was deep in unchartered waters for her, and she felt like she probably was floundering, but pushed on anyway. “But if you stay, I can tell you what happened, because…” she paused for a moment, frowning.  “You don’t know, do you?” she asked with sudden clarity.

“Know what?” he asked, with a little more interest now. Part of him had accepted, with frightening ease, that he was on his way back ‘home’ and that fighting it was pointless. He could have run at the pit stop, she had certainly given him ample opportunity to at least try. A small, tiny part of him was curious about what was happening here, what Parker’s motives might really be. Jarod had thought that part of him was gone for good, that he no longer cared about anything, one way or the other. Was there a time Parker had ever offered him information without some kind of quid–pro–quo? It was almost certain that she hadn’t, not once. Admittedly he had also traded and withheld knowledge too, so it wasn’t completely one-sided. Was this another mind-game? Teasing him with the one thing she knew he wanted as much as he had wanted his freedom and family? Did she even know anything really? Despite her family ties, she had always been kept out of the loop on almost everything.

“You don’t know how you escaped, not really, not all of it,” she said, knowing she was right by the look on his face. That was so unlike Jarod too, always wanting to know every damn thing. “Did you even ask them?” she asked in surprise.

Jarod shrugged, feigning indifference to cover his embarrassment that she was right, he hadn’t even bothered to ask his father for the details. “It was no escape,” he admitted. “Dad dragged me out of there,” he said dully. In all that time he hadn’t even come close to an escape plan, not one with any real chance. Security had been tight, but in the end he had simply stopped thinking about it. The last thing he needed right now was a reminder of his abject failure.

Parker tried to keep herself calm, remembering what Sydney had told her about the likely state of mind Jarod would be in, and why. It was hard for her to understand, and even harder to accept, but like always, the old goat was right and so she took a steadying breath before she started.

There was much to tell, and she summarised as best she could, leaving out most of the tech details, which she would never understand. As she told him, she could see his reactions becoming a little more animated, which encouraged her. An apathetic pretender was not something she knew how to cope with. The expected interruptions and demands for clarification didn’t come, and so she ploughed on, not polishing anything. Sydney, no doubt, could have explained all of this with more finesse, being careful about landmines that were likely buried in Jarod’s psyche, but Sydney wasn’t here, he couldn’t see Jarod the way he was right now. It felt almost theraputic as she verbally vomited the story, like expelling a toxin, although she would never admit that to Freud, of course.

Jarod listened to her with growing dismay at his own stupidity, and shame for how he had behaved. Never before had he heard Parker talk like this, so unguarded and he started to think about someone else’s feelings in this whole shitshow for the first time. It wasn’t just about him after all, it never had been, and that slammed into him with startling clarity. How could he have been so blind? All those years of accusing Sydney and Parker of refusing to see what was right in front of them, and it had been he who would not see. From the sounds of it, Gem had worked himself almost beyond endurance and he could tell by the catch in Parker’s voice just how much affection she had for the boy and he had to fight down a surge of bitter jealousy. Although it was his father that had finally pulled him out of hell, Jarod now started to understand just how much effort the others, especailly Broots had gone into this, and without the support of Parker and Sydney, none of it would have been possible. It was humbling and shocking, the risks they had taken for him.

Jarod looked up at Parker when she finally ran out of words, and really saw her for the first time since she had picked him up earlier this morning. It was hard to believe it was only a few hours ago, it felt more like years. Those icy blue eyes had been all he could see at first, Lyle's eyes. Now, those eyes seemed beautiful, and sad, hers. Parker looked exhausted and vulnerable and he finally realised that whatever she was doing right now, he didn’t think it was taking him back to the Centre, despite the cuffs, which were still locked around his wrists.

Parker saw something change in him, something of the old Jarod struggle to the surface and she wanted to cry in relief. Her Jarod was still in there, somewhere, buried, but alive and kicking. When his eyes breifly flickered down to his wrists, she again saw a little more spark creeping in. Jarod, apparently wasn''t going to release himself, which should have been the first thing he did as soon as he had the damn key. Taking it back from him, she did it for him.

When she took the key from him, and moved to undo the locks, he lifted his hands so she had easier access. None of this seemed like it could be true, not after what he had done, not after how badly he had misjudged everything. 

“Thank you,” he said, his voice thick with a swirl of confusing emotions, rubbing his wrists absently, although the cuffs hadnt been tight at all, it was just a nervous habit. 

"What now?" he asked, putting his fate into her hands, not trusting himself to have faith in her enough to really hope, just far too drained to do anything else.