For Grizzly... the very patient winner of my September Support Stacie Fanfic auction for the Pretender fandom.

The Third Option by socalwriter

As a child, Miss Parker had once wandered into one of Sydney's testing rooms and ended up mesmerized by the experiment taking place.  Five different people dressed in matching jumpsuits were in the room, each doing a different activity--one walking on a treadmill, one riding a stationary bike, one hitting a punching bag, one marching in place, with the last sitting at a table tapping out a repetitive pattern with his hands.

She'd barely noticed them at first because she'd been looking for Jarod and was distracted by that intention.  But then she realized that the group--three men and two women--hadn't so much as paused to catch their breath even though they were clearly getting tired.

Fascination at why the people didn't just stop overcame the younger Parker, and an hour later, Jarod had found her as he made his way to the lab with Angelo via the air ducts.

"Why don't they stop?" she'd asked as her friend settled down onto the floor beside her.  "They want to stop, but they never do."

"Scared," Angelo uttered from the vent behind them, and Jarod nodded.

"I saw the first half of this experiment the other day.  Sydney gave them basic instructions, and then they started their activities, but once they got tired, they all stopped, even though he told them they couldn't."

"So why don't they stop today?"

"Scared," Angelo repeated.  "Scared to stop."

It wasn't until a summer break ten years later when she'd been working in the archive at her father's behest that Parker had gotten a complete answer to her question.  She'd been nearly comatose from a day of cataloging old projects when the summary of one stoked the ember of memory from that long ago day.  With a burst of energy, she had cracked open the file and begun to read.

"After receiving the predicted results on day one, we sought to prove our hypothesis on day two.  Each participant was held alone in a room for several minutes, at which point, Mr. Raines, in the role of lab supervisor, told each subject that they were not allowed to stop their assigned activity that day.  When participants gave only a cursory acknowledgement of the warning, Mr. Raines deployed a remote control signal to hidden sensors in the jumpsuits, which sent a painful, intense shock through the participant's body.  Once the shock ended, Mr. Raines again issued the warning that the assigned activity could not be stopped during testing.

During hours one and two of the activity period, Subjects A, C and D each tried to take a momentary break in their activity.  Each received the same shock as they had during the pre-test meeting.  Subjects B and E did not attempt to stop their assigned activities at any point.  All five subjects suffered great physical strain trying to avoid further punitive shocks, with Subject A failing and receiving two additional shocks during the last hour of testing.

The result reaffirms our hypothesis that the human mind is capable of pushing the body through extraordinary stresses if it has tangible evidence that failure will result in a consequence of harm, pain or punishment.

Follow-up interviews also confirmed our secondary hypothesis.  At no point did any of the participants consider or recognize that their instructions only mandated they could not stop the assigned activity.  It never ordered them to begin, and each could have avoided the physical, emotional and psychological toll the experiment period took on them had they recognized that they had a third option."

Finally satisfied to have a good answer to the why from her observations, Parker had put the file back together and properly logged it for the Centre archivist.  She hadn't thought about it in years, and truthfully, she couldn't explain what had made a vague memory of that one random Centre experiment creep into her consciousness as she sat in a hotel bar in Appleton, Wisconsin, praying for the Stoli in her glass to numb her enough to get a few hours of sleep.

Miss Parker had always had this vision of herself as the ultimate social rebel... she did what she wanted when she wanted, said whatever came to mind and obeyed no rule that wasn't convenient to her.  It was still the image she put forth in the world... the trembling looks of the people who had to check her into hotels and serve her drinks was evidence of that.  But she had long ago realized that in her life, she had been hogtied by the wants and needs and rules of others.  At the Centre, she was anything but a rebel.  She was, as much as the visual pissed her off, a hamster on a wheel.

Her day-to-day survival had become dependent upon doggedly pursuing option one -- chase Jarod until the end of time -- because option two -- run away and disappear -- left everyone she loved exposed to what would surely be a deadly vendetta from the Centre.  Even if they could never find her, they'd scorch the Earth she'd left behind, and Ethan Sydney, Broots, Angelo, Debbie... they would all pay for her freedom.  And if, God forbid, they ever found Jarod and she wasn't there to try to protect him... that was a thought she couldn't even allow to take root in her mind.

So Parker stayed on the wheel, chasing Jarod, sparring with Lyle, toeing the dangerous line between contempt and need with Raines.  And it was killing her.  The wheel might as well have been grinding her insides every time it rolled over her because the damage being done to her was surely just as real.  Her ulcer raged, her nightmares robbed her of sleep.  Worse, the longer it all went on, the more she felt suffocated by the loneliness from which her few friends could only provide moments of respite.

Before... before Jarod's escape when living numb to the truths of her life had made it all so much easier... she had been able to deaden herself to the pangs of loneliness with nights of dirty talk and rough hands with nameless men.  But then her facade had started to crack, chipped away by Jarod's revelations, by the truth of her mother's murder and of who she, Miss Parker, really was, biologically and emotionally.

Exposed, she was defenseless now against the sadness and longing of wanting someone to make it feel better, even if it was just for a few moments.  But a random stranger no longer fulfilled that need for her.  She had learned what it felt like to love... to be loved.  Sadly, she had also learned what it felt like to have to go on without, not knowing if that feeling would ever come for you again.

Love... she chuckled to herself at how ironic it was that the one word the Centre had no interest in was the very one that had trapped her there.  Love for her father... for the man she'd believed was her father... for Sydney, for Broots and his beautiful daughter... for Angelo, who she knew held all her secrets and yet never revealed them... the half brother she'd only known a short while but felt wholly responsible for... love for a man whose destruction was her only salvation.

Parker knew history was full of stories of men and women who had died for love.  Her own personal memoir already contained chapters that would tell of her mother Catherine, Thomas, Kyle, Sydney's brother Jacob... maybe even the man she'd grown up adoring as her father... love seemed to have killed them all in one way or another.  And the inevitable reality of her life on the wheel seemed to be clear.  Someday someone would get too close to Jarod or endanger Ethan or try to use Sydney or Broots against her.... and Parker's name would be added to the long, unenviable list of those who had given their lives out of love for someone the Centre wanted to destroy.

So it was all a waiting game, really.  She was buying herself as much time as she could to keep the others safe, but given that actually catching Jarod wasn't an option she was really willing to pursue, Parker was resigned, even relieved a bit, to embrace her reality.  It was easier than deluding herself by thinking she had another choice.

"At no point did any of the participants consider or recognize that their instructions only mandated they could not stop the assigned activity.  It never ordered them to begin, and each could have avoided the physical, emotional and psychological toll the experiment period took on them had they recognized that they had a third option."

The words whirled around from some dark corner of her mind as Parker sipped at the vodka she hoped would help her sleep without the awful dreams about her mother being shot by Raines or of Thomas' body resting on her porch.

"...each could have avoided the physical, emotional and psychological toll the experiment period took on them had they recognized that they had a third option."

It didn't hit like lightning, the idea, striking her while she sat at the bar finishing her drink.  Instead it simmered, beginning to come together in her mercifully dreamless sleep, becoming more detailed on the plane ride home, nagging at her for real consideration as she sat at her desk writing a report on the latest failed attempt to find Jarod, and finally it grabbed her full attention in the waning firelight of her living room, demanding to be carefully considered.

A third option...

Catherine Parker had tried to save the Centre children, her own children... and she was dead.

Kyle had tried to save Jarod... and he was dead.

Jacob had tried to save the Centre children and Sydney... and he was dead.

Thomas had tried to save her... and he was dead.

The Major and Margaret had tried to save their children and had spent a lifetime on the run, unable to protect anyone or keep their family together.

Even Jarod... Jarod who was both smart and skilled enough to disappear forever ran endlessly, never safe, always looking over his shoulder because he wanted to save them all... her, his family, Sydney, Angelo.

It was so simple... so shockingly simple and she'd missed it.  They all had.  They were like waves crashing against a rock... unable to resist, doomed to ruin.

A third option...

Option one had trapped her on the wheel, option two was untenable, and she'd never had the choice not to begin the "experiment," but for the others to have the chance to actually live... to stop surviving and live... she could choose the third option.

The cost to her would be immeasurable, but she would pay it.  If she had been willing to give her life for all of them, then what was her soul but a partial payment toward that goal?

*****

The first one would prove the hardest, not because it was first but because the feeling she'd always found comfort in... that sense that her mother was watching out for her... it morphed into an idea that she was doing something Catherine might never forgive her for.  But her path was unalterable, and Parker could only hope that somehow her mother knew she was doing it for good, diving into the murky gray for the sake of those who would be free to live in the light when she was finished.

But she knew she couldn't look him in the eye.  Killing him was one thing; watching him die was something else entirely.  He was the devil personified, but biology told her he was still her brother, the living being that had shared their mother's womb for 40 weeks.  Maybe then he hadn't been evil.  Maybe all the evil was yet to come, instilled and encouraged by Raines.  There was no way to ever know.  And it didn't matter really, not anymore, not now that her course was clear.

So she waited on the hilltop that sat nearly forty miles from the Centre's parking gate, her gloved hand on the small remote.  Sunset neared and Lyle drove onto the road toward the weekend... she knew he had planned a getaway, and the fact that he was alone, no guards in sight, confirmed in her mind that his planned excursion probably included a woman of one Asian nationality or another who would never know her life was being saved as Lyle neared the curve at the steepest point on the hill and Parker pressed the red button on the control on her hand.

A thud sounded beneath her on the roadway as the small homemade device injected three sharp nails into Lyle's driver's side front tire.  The pull of the car toward the wounded rubber combined with Lyle's speed did the rest, and the black Mercedes careened off over the hill, metal crunching and glass shattering as it bounced and rolled its way down the nearly 1,700-foot drop.

When the noise stopped, Parker stood and began the walk back to her own car where it waited miles ahead, hidden by the ages-old trees that dotted the ridge.  She drove away without looking toward the road below.

Three days into the Centre investigation of Lyle's death, after nearly everyone including Parker had been interrogated by the Triumvirate, a lab report on the trace evidence found in the mangled car revealed a small group of fabric fibers that were contaminated with a substance called Stop Rot, commonly used in taxidermy.  Cox protested his innocence, but wires used to build the homemade device were found in the lab where he worked on his preserved animals, and Mr. White, who Cox had claimed as his alibi, couldn't be found to corroborate the story.

Parker knew why, of course, but didn't bother to tell them that Mr. White was at the bottom of Indian River Bay with a bullet in the back of his head.

She knew full well that the tightrope she was walking held zero margin for error, and despite all her careful planning, the T-Board had been exhausting as she worked to reveal absolutely nothing to her interrogators.  Even more important than that, though, had been her determination to note and remember every detail of the three people who had assumed control of the Centre in the wake of Mutumbo's murder and Mr. Parker's death.  They were the end game, after all.  She just had to make sure she plotted the right course to reach them.

Part of the risk involved in achieving her goal was that Parker couldn't be the one to pull the trigger each time she needed to eliminate an obstacle.  Engineering schemes that would achieve the result she wanted took time and patience... the latter not something she had ever been very good at exercising... but she understood that the longer it all took, the harder it was for anyone to connect one dot to the next, the greater her chances for success.

Parker also knew there were three people on Earth she would never be able to hide it all from no matter how much she limited her contact with them.  Angelo would eventually pick up on something; he was too in tune with the people he cared for not to.  But he would also sense the danger surrounding her, and she knew he would never expose her to potential harm as long as he could do something to prevent it.  Ethan, too, though further away, would at some point tap into the strange mental tie between them and know she was taking action, whether he could pinpoint those actions or not.  Her only worry there was what she would say when her younger brother showed up wanting to help her, which was, she knew, inevitable.

Jarod was the only person she knew would be able to see through the smokescreens and camouflage to even notice that what seemed to be a crumbling of the Centre's infrastructure or perhaps a long-in-coming civil war was really a singular, carefully crafted plan.  He'd want to leave it alone, allow it to play out because in reality, it was eliminating his enemies.  But his fear that it would swallow her up along with it would make him look closer, search for the "who" behind the "what" that was happening.

And of all the unknowns that lay ahead, the one Parker actively feared was not knowing what Jarod would think when he realized that she was the "who."   Part of her honestly hoped he believed the worst of her... that she'd finally given into the dark side the Centre had been cultivating so long and decided to take it for her own.  He'd be safer that way, less inclined to try and save her from herself.  And there was no one he could go to for an answer.  The only way to keep Broots and Sydney safe was to keep them in the dark; Angelo and Ethan would hide her truths from even him out of fear for her safety.  If he believed the worst, there was nothing and no one to tell him differently.

Still, the idea of him seeing her that way, thinking that she had become that person?  It made her ulcer burn when she considered the way the pretender might look at her the next time she saw him.  So even if it was safer for him to think that her heart had finally turned black, Parker couldn't help but hope that he'd see why she was doing it, that he'd try to understand.

But she would stay on the tightrope and try to make it to the other side even if he never forgave her.  Some things were worth the price you paid for them.

*****

Broots was the first to leave, spurred no doubt by Sydney's growing concerns and likely with help from Jarod.  Parker was five months into her project and following the losses of Mr. Lyle, Cox and Mr. White, she was at the beck and call of Mr. Raines in his role of Centre chairman.

Though she craved a drink almost minute by minute through the day, Parker had given up alcohol as she moved ahead with her game plan, knowing that she couldn't afford a single dulled edge if she was to succeed.  But years of functional drunkeness had taught her well what it felt like and looked like, and she was able to convince her friends not only that she was still drinking, but that perhaps she was drinking more as her time was dominated increasingly by her biological father's evil whims.

She'd picked up on their mutual concern and knew that Broots in particular was worried about her because as her new facade evolved, Parker had cut off all her contact with Debbie in order to protect the girl from having to watch her turn into someone else.  But when she had capped a frustrating day of Jarod hacking the Centre's computers by pulling her gun on Broots and pressing it against his head, Parker had suspected that no amount of loyalty to her could override his fear for his own safety.  And so then next day, when he had not shown up to work and a sweeper team found his house empty, she had thrown an appropriately Miss-Parker-like tirade before storming out of the building.

As she cried later that night, Parker hoped only that he had run far enough and hidden well enough to keep himself and Debbie safe.  Then she said a silent good-bye and burned the photos she had of them so that if something went wrong someday, nothing in her house would tell the Centre she had ever cared at all.

Another three months passed with the Centre running status quo before all hell broke loose when Raines' pet sweeper Willie had been killed in a firefight with Tommy Tanaka.  The battle had ensued after a chemical product designed to help liquefy cocaine with a shield that helped it pass Coast Guard drug tests not only hadn't worked but destroyed a billion dollars worth of Tanaka's drugs in the process. 

Tanaka wasn't pacified by the deaths of a few random Centre agents or a return of the money he'd paid for the faulty program.  He wanted blood.  But no one seemed to know how the program, designed by Lyle's former pretender charge Alex, had managed to fail after so many successful tests.  And so another T-board investigation was launched, this time with absolutely no doubt that whoever the Triumvirate needed to sacrifice to make peace with the powerful Yakuza leader would be dispatched quickly, cleanly and without hesitation.

The problem was that there were no easy answers to be found.  There was much discussion and suspicion bandied about with regard to Jarod sabotaging the operation, but Miss Parker had offered that the pretender had never compromised a Centre deal without showing his hand in order to gloat, and there was no evidence here that there was even a well-hidden clue in that vein.  Sydney's concurrence that Jarod was unlikely to have intervened without making his reason clear quickly eliminated the elusive one as their target, which left the Triumvirate desperate to find another place to lay the blame.

Miss Parker was only too happy to oblige.

Centre accounting practices had always been a management nightmare, mostly because so many people had side deals going--some sanctioned, some not--and it necessitated that, to stay alive, the accounting employees learned early on what to notice and what not to.

When she had unearthed an old banking program of Jarod's in the early planning stages of her move against the Centre, Parker hadn't been sure how it might benefit her later... she only knew that it couldn't hurt to set up a hidden emergency fund and if it turned out to have a different use later, so be it.  She'd attached the bug to Raines' account because his would get less scrutiny than anyone else's and because she doubted anyone had more deals going on under the radar than the chairman himself.

By the time the Tanaka deal had gone bad, said numbered and hidden bank account had siphoned nearly five million dollars out of myriad Centre accounts in increments so small that no one was paying attention... or no one was worried about it enough yet to acknowledge it had happened at all.  The question in Parker's mind as the investigation into those around her continued was, how could she use that five million dollars to her advantage?

A marathon night of research provided an answer, and what remained was laying the groundwork to put her latest play in motion.

Over drinks with her former lover, Miss Parker had assured him that the Centre was taking the necessary steps to get his answers.  To pacify him, she had even engineered the theft of one of his rival's drug shipments to replace the lost cocaine.  But their transaction on that day had included one final component.

"Parker, you have always had a way of... finessing a situation.  The substitution of Endo's merchandise for my own pleases me greatly."

"Well, our friendship is too old and too valuable to me for you to be unhappy, especially when it was something we clearly should've been able to avoid altogether."

"Which is why I wish you'd let me insist they put you in charge of the investigation into who sabotaged our deal."

Parker shook her head and took a small sip of her wine.

"I have more freedom working on my own, which is why I wanted to meet with you, actually.  I have a question for you."

Tommy raised his eyebrows with curiosity and waited.

"Is someone in Sapporo a threat to you?  Someone who might have a vested interested in targeting your business?"

"What sparked your interest in Sapporo?" he asked rather than giving her an answer.

Parker did her best to seem as if she was concerned about the information she was revealing, almost worried about the consequences, but eventually she stoically went on.

"I noticed a few transactions in my records searches.  Routine weekly transfers of money from an account in Sapporo to Batakuya.  It... concerned me... on your behalf."

Batakuya had assumed control of Mutumbo's Triumvirate seat in what amounted to a coup, and he was none too popular with the two longer-standing members.  More importantly, Raines despised him, and when Tommy's personal search confirmed Parker's fomented suspicions, Tanaka confronted the Centre chairman with the information.  The trail of fake information she had created to link Batakuya to Hiro Horri, an up-and-coming Yakuza who had already brazenly tried to cross into Tommy's territory twice before, was convincing, and though she hadn't been present at the meeting, Parker could imagine the nearly gleeful look on Raines' face as he realized he had a way to rid himself of Batakuya once and for all.

The next thing that happened came as no surprise to her not because she had planned it but because she knew Raines well enough now that predicting his actions had become easy.  So when she was summoned away from a closed-door meeting with Sydney to meet with the Chairman off-site, despite her friend's obvious worry, Parker had gone.  As expected, Raines was recruiting her help in taking care of Batakuya, his voice droning on about the chance to prove her loyalty and take her rightful place at his side.  It made her want to vomit, it was so ridiculous.  She had a video loop that replayed nearly nightly of this man firing a bullet into her mother's face, and he honestly thought she would follow him into hell?  Never.

But she could pretend she would to get what she needed from him.

"Have you decided what you'll do about Kellain and Waskua?"

Raines looked at her a long moment and narrowed his gaze.

"I'm not sure what you mean."

She of course new he was entirely sure what she meant, but it was another test, and she would pass it with flying colors.

"Justified or not, you taking out Batakuya makes you a threat to them  Not to mention, after the way Mutumbo's seat was basically strong-armed out of their control, do you really want to stand by and wait to see who they put in place... or worse, what happens if they start a war with each other over the vacancy?"

"The Triumvirate has existed since before I was born."

"Things change," Parker replied, her voice cool and unemotional.  "Aren't I proof of that?"

Some nights when her mind was too quiet, the satisfied grin on his face in that moment would creep back into dreams, and Parker would jolt awake, terrified that perhaps her words had been truer than she believed.

When she returned to the Centre from that meeting and began to pack up her things to leave for the day, Sydney had approached her, determined to find out what Raines had asked her to do.  Parker had wanted desperately to tell him, to get his reassurance that she hadn't just lost her herself... finally broken under the strain of the life she'd been born to and now just deluding herself to make it all make sense.  But she had ignored him to the point of causing him to grab her and shake her in an attempt to get her attention.

"I've tried to talk to you, to reason with you, Parker, but all of this... you're turning into who he wants you to be.  You're becoming... him.  Where is she, Parker?  Where is Catherine Parker's daughter hiding?"

She had known, always, that eventually Sydney would reach his breaking point, that seeing her follow the path she had chosen would become too painful for him to endure.  But that did nothing to soften the sting to Parker when it finally came, though she allowed herself no hesitation as she faced the man who had been more father to her than both her legal and biological fathers combined.

"Catherine Parker's daughter was going to end up dead at 40 with nothing but misery to show for the time she spent here.  I intend to survive, Sydney.  I intend to live.  And if you have any desire to do the same, then you'll either stop questioning me... or stop watching."

Two days later, as she boarded a plane with a flight plan to Madrid, Parker did so reading a report from Sam on how a sweeper team had been unable to find a lead on exactly when or to where Sydney had disappeared.

Wherever he was, Parker only hoped as she had earlier for Broots and Debbie, that Jarod had hidden his mentor well enough to keep him safe until her plan had finally run its course.

After landing in Madrid, Parker left Sam behind to follow up on the lead Raines had manufactured on Major Charles and Jarod's clone.  Then she boarded a private helicopter and flew toward Casablanca, Morocco.  There, she rented a car, stopping some miles out of town to pull on the blonde wig, brightly colored mini dress and stripper heels she had brought with her for the day's enterprise.

She found Batakuya at the cafe he frequented for afternoon meals and meetings.  The dossier she'd compiled on him had not only revealed the location and the statistics on his security team, but Parker also knew that one of Batakuya's hobbies was spying blondes from his seat at the cafe, sending his security men to "secure" them, then taking the opportunity to do whatever he wanted to them at his private suite in a local hotel.

It had taken her less than half-an-hour of wandering aimlessly on the street looking for an address in broken French for a man to approach her--one she recognized from her surveillance photos as a newer member of her target's bodyguard unit.  As she peered at him through her large, dark sunglasses, explaining that she was looking for a dress shop she'd been referred to by her hotel, the man had hungrily eyed her body in the skimpy clothes before offering to help her find the address if she would just come with him.

That there were women stupid enough to really fall for such an offer astounded Parker, but she was also grateful for it since it was providing her the opportunity to move that much closer to her goal.

She protested when the man led her into the hotel Batakuya used for his dalliances, but the guard assured her he simply needed to check in and let his family know where he was going before he took her to the shop.  He even showed her a picture of his children as they rode up in the elevator to the top floor.  He unlocked the door and held it open for her, letting her walk inside.  Then she heard the door close behind her, locking quickly.  She protested, beating her hands against the doors, because she knew it was expected.  She cried, she screamed.  She did everything that she was sure every woman before her must have done.  And then Parker moved around the room eyeing the poorly hidden cameras that she guessed were more about the deranged man recording his activities for posterity than for any form of security.  Still, she was careful to keep her important movements just out of the cameras angles as she feigned tears and sniffles and fear to keep her "captors" from growing suspicious.

It was getting dark outside when the door to the suite finally opened and Batakuya entered.  Parker was sitting huddled in a chair on the far side of the room, her arms wrapped around her legs, her face turned down and hidden.  She listened intently as he set his laptop and sunglasses on the desk, removed his coat and then started to walk toward her.  Once he was in front of her, his fingers pushed against her shoulder.

"Come."

She ignored him, pulling into herself even more.

"It will be better for you if you come now."

But she didn't move.

"This is your own fault."

His voice was a growl and when he grabbed her arm roughly and yanked her from the chair, Parker allowed herself to cry out, to begin begging in a breathy, well-practiced voice that sounded nothing like her own.  Batakuya laughed and even as she fought, pulled her toward the bed, no doubt salivating at whatever disgusting plans he had for her.  But the moment they were within a foot of the bed, Parker made her move, drawing her right hand along her leg to pull free the thin piece of metal she had taped there hours ago during her costume change en route from Casablanca.  She drove it upward with all her strength as she turned her body toward Batakuya, the force she created sending the metal piece through his heart.

"Thanks for making it clear you had this coming."

His eyes were wide as he stared at her trying to reconcile the voice with the blonde hair and then Parker grabbed hold of him and turned him toward the bed so that he fell back on it when his legs finally gave out.  Seeing that he had a little fight in him, she pulled the metal piece roughly from his chest, knowing that it would hasten his blood loss for the wound to be completely open.

To keep her cover in place, as his breathing slowed and his eyes closed, Parker continued to fake her own attack, crying out, screaming as if in pain, even slapping her legs to make it sound as if he was beating her into submission.  Finally, though, she knew her mission was a success, and so Parker went to her purse, drew out a simple black shirt and pair of pants she had hidden inside the leather tote, changed and removed the wig that had helped cloak her throughout the day.  The cheap, God-awful shoes, she decided could stay behind.

When she moved to the window and opened it, her eyes scanned the road below.  A car stood empty across the street parked just beyond the light, barely visible in the darkness.  She whistled once and beat later a rope dropped down in front of her.  Parker climbed through the opening and grabbed hold of the rope stopping only long enough to trigger a smoke bomb and throw it back into the middle of the room before she quickly descended and put her feet firmly on the sidewalk. Above, she heard the smoke bomb explode and shouts and screaming filtered out of the window as the dead man's guards burst in only to be choked by the darkened air.

She climbed into the waiting car and laid down in the backseat.  A minute later, Sam slid into the front seat and started the engine, pulling away calmly.

"How many guards did you have to take out?" she asked and Sam glanced back at her in the mirror briefly.

"Three.  They weren't very good."

She chuckled and sat up, pulling her purse and briefcase up from the floorboards where Sam had them stored.  She carefully pulled out her makeup bag and began to put Miss Parker back into place in the mirror.

"Everything went okay?"

Sam didn't know all the details of why she was here... not the Centre's reasons or her own... but he had performed loyally as ever, covering for her in Casablanca and aiding in her escape in Rabat.  And she knew that when he asked her how it had gone, it wasn't about her success or failure, it was out of genuine concern for how she had handled it.

"Everything went fine," she answered, her voice even, free of either sadness or joy over the night's events.

Sam nodded and drove on, and Parker was relieved she had covered enough to take his focus off her so that she could force her attention back to the business of recreating the Miss Parker the world saw while she let her mind wander through the reasons she was doing the things she was doing.

Jarod and Ethan free... Sydney no longer afraid to be with his family... Debbie growing up never knowing how close she had come to losing her father time and time again... Angelo able to at least know he was safe from Raines' manipulation...

Some things were worth the price you paid for them.

*****

By the time she returned to Delaware, the Centre was so quiet, the sound of her heels in the hallway was more like a jackhammer than the routine click that normally announced her presence.  Everyone looked on edge, afraid to breathe too hard... everyone except Raines, who walked out into the entry to meet her.

"I've relocated our offices."

"To?"

"The Tower.  Shall we?"

Parker learned later that Kellian had met her end in a jet refueling accident en route to her home in Scotland.  Waskua had died of sudden heart failure in his sleep.

Raines had, in the hours after the Triumvirate members' deaths, launched an offensive against their potential successors, making it clear he had seized control and was planning to become the one and only head of the Centre.

He made it equally clear that his daughter was his second in command not only by the way he greeted her, but by the placement of her office across from his on the executive floor of the Tower.

Parker stayed cool through it all, smiling when she knew it was expected, stoic and appropriately menacing when the heads of every Centre Department appeared for a command performance while Raines laid down the law about how things were going to be from here on out.  She never gave even a hint of the churning going on in her gut or the disgust she felt.

Later, as she sat alone in her new office, praying for some kind of relief from her ulcer meds, Parker tried to push away the gnawing thought of how disappointed her mother would be to see her sitting here in this building, officially the heir apparent to the hateful legacy that was her family's.  The self-conjured vision was powerful though, torturous, and when she felt like she might finally break down, she heard a quiet scrape of metal above her head, and her eyes shot up to see Angelo snaking down from the vent before he cautiously crawled to her side.

She knew it was pointless to try to hide how she was feeling from the odd man sitting next to her, so instead Parker leaned her head back against the chair and sighed.

"You sure you want to come near the dragon lady?"

Angelo smiled and put his right index finger against the top of her left hand where it lay on her thigh.

"No fire."

She smiled again even as his kindness brought a new threat of a breakdown forth.  But she knew she had to push her emotions down.  If anyone but Angelo saw the chink in her armor, it could be fatal.

Angelo looked at her, making as direct an eye connection as he could tolerate, and then he moved back to the vent, hoisting himself up and taking refuge in the dark tunnels that made him feel safe.  Parker wondered momentarily what that felt like... to feel safe anywhere.  She hoped that maybe someday she would know.

*****

After all the careful plotting that had gotten her so close to the end of her mission, Parker couldn't bring herself to plan the final step.  She tried a few times, but something she could only credit to biological resistance sent her ulcer into overdrive whenever she tried to imagine the how and why of her final confrontation with Raines.

It happened two months and eleven days after they had seized control of the Centre.  Her father... he insisted she call him that now... had asked her to join him for dinner.  Raines had taken over the home formerly occupied by Mr. Parker, and seeing him sitting in her "real" father's chair, eating at his table... it had been the last straw on a stack of misdeeds and hurts and attempts at destruction that Raines had started against her even before she'd been born.

"There's something I've wanted to ask you for the longest time."

He looked up from his plate and raised an eyebrow curiously.

"Yes?"

"When you shot my mother in the face and murdered her... did you enjoy it?"

The question stunned him, and she watched Raines try to evaluate her motives as he finished chewing the bite of food in his mouth.

"Why does that matter?"

Parker leaned forward, her elbows on the table as her chin rested atop her peaked hands.

"Because I want an answer."

"It's irrelevant."

She scoffed and stood, her hand drawing her gun so smoothly from its holster that Raines had to do a double-take to realize she was actually pointing the weapon at his head.

"She was irrelevant.  Isn't that what you really mean?" Parker asked, and she noted a ripple of panic in his eyes with some sense of satisfaction.

"She was the means by which you were born.  So, no, she was not irrelevant.  Because it was you, always, that I knew would be the strength behind my final ascension to power at the Centre.  You were destined for what we've achieved."

If she'd really been the woman she'd been pretending to be for so long now, the words would've overjoyed Parker.  It was high praise coming from Raines, an acknowledgement that he'd needed her all along.  But in reality, the phrases he spewed at her only solidified in her mind what she'd come to realize before starting down this road.

She had been trapped with only one real route of escape.  It had just taken her a very long time to see the path she needed to travel.

"They'll kill you," he argued, desperation beginning to grow, and she smiled because there was a part of her that wanted him to be afraid.  It was the least he owed her after all the days and nights she'd endured the terror of his threats and actions and manipulations.

"Who'll kill me?  Everyone who would've cared that you lived or died is dead.  Lyle, the Triumvirate, your Centre henchmen and cronies... they're all gone."

"My sweepers are right outside."

"And when they burst in this door and see you dead," she countered, "they'll realize that I am the only thing standing between them and death because I will be the Centre when you're gone."

That made him smile, and his sick laugh choked out of his throat.

"You realize this makes you just like me?  This is proof positive of how much my child you really are."

She'd been expecting that.  She clicked the safety off her gun as she replied.

"You killed so you could own the Centre.  I'm killing... so that I can destroy it.  And when I'm done, no one will ever remember you even existed."

His eyes widened at her threat, and as he started to make another argument, Parker closed her eyes and pulled the trigger.  The sound of the shot was still fading from the air when the dining room doors flew open and three armed sweepers aimed their weapons at her.  She was already facing toward them, her body moving automatically, and her eyes flicked open as she lowered her gun.  Sam was standing behind the other sweepers, his gun poised to take action if it was needed.

"You work for me now.  Clean this mess up, and then report to my office in the Tower."

She walked away calmly and moved past the stunned sweepers, the men taking a beat before a bark from Sam sent them scrambling to do as they'd been ordered.  When she was shoulder to shoulder with the man who stood so willingly at her side, Parker stopped moving.

"He's..."

Sam nodded.  "He's gone, Miss Parker."

The confirmation drew a slight nod from her and then her feet began to move again, drawing her to the front door, onto the porch and into the yard.  The moon was shining brightly, white and nearly full, and Parker gave herself a moment to take in its beauty and to imagine that right now, every person that she'd done this for was somewhere beneath the glowing orb, free, even if they didn't know it yet.

And when she laughed, the sound bursting forth from her throat, she felt a relief she hadn't ever imagined it was possible to feel.  Even if this was all she got... even if no one ever understood, she promised herself she would hold on to this perfect beat of time when she knew she had given all that she could to those that she loved.

If it had to be enough, it would be everything.

*****

Ethan was the first.

She'd been sitting at her desk in her old Centre office, the Tower long since inventoried, packed up and sealed.  She was planning to have it demolished once she was sure they had no need to go back inside and look for any more hidden passages or mysterious files.

Her first order of business had been to make Sam the head of all Centre security, and in that capacity he had selected all the sweepers and cleaners he felt could be converted to her new purposes and asked them to remain.  Those who could not were recommended by Parker to several of her less-than-steller acquaintances, all of whom operated in fields ranging from drug trafficking to gambling rings.

Second on the list had been the dismantling of the Tower's offices and files, each piece of paper, every computer and volumes of DSA's carefully labeled and sorted into Lyle, Raines and Mr. Parker's former offices in project groups for what Parker had planned for the months... years... ahead.

She had been hard at work evaluating the medical reports from the doctors who had examined every resident in Renewal Wing, stunned and clearly relieved to be asked to provide real treatment and medical advice regarding their patients instead of being forced to assist in their further destruction.  Some of the patients would, thankfully, be able to be rehabilitated and returned to somewhat normal lives.  For those who could not, Parker was having a new above-ground medical facility built that would be their permanent home.

Angelo sat contentedly in the corner of her office processing thousands of computer records to help Parker compile a list of all the other people the Centre had hidden in facilities in Europe, Asia and Africa so that she could decide how to proceed at those locations with the same type of effort to restore or care for all of them.  When the soft knock at her door sounded, she glanced his way ready to reassure him that he didn't need to hide, but Angelo seemed unconcerned by their visitor, continuing with his work as if the sound had never occurred.

"Miss Parker, there's someone here to see you."

She nodded toward Sam and followed him to her door, certain that he wouldn't have disturbed her unless it was important.  When her eyes locked with a pair so similar to her own it was always a little stunning to her, she felt the breath leave her chest.

"Ethan?"

He smiled and walked toward her, hesitating only a moment before he wrapped his arms around her.

"It took everything I had not to come sooner," he whispered as he held her close.  "But I could feel you willing me to stay away."

"It was better for you not to be here," she replied, her arms sliding around his back. "I wasn't sure I could do it, and if you'd been here and I failed..."

He stepped back and looked at her and she saw nothing but the love he felt for her there, and Parker felt her eyes moisten at that realization.

"But you didn't.  And now we can do the rest together."

*****

Broots came next.

Sam had reluctantly left to go and secure the African facility and to install a new group of his hand-picked sweepers in place after a few random attempts by former rivals to break in and take the place over.  Parker was still fairly certain the only reason he hadn't refused her direct order was that he knew Ethan was there and willing to do whatever it took to protect her if anything happened in his absence.

The time with her younger brother was precious to her as Parker finally got to know him as a person and not just an idea she'd come to love.  They began to have private jokes, to do simple things like watch movies together when he was finally able to drag her from the office and home to the sofa.  And she discovered very quickly that his love for ice cream and pizza was perhaps even stronger than Jarod's.

They had been waiting on a delivery of those very items the first Friday night of Sam's trip after Ethan threatened to put a virus on the mainframe if she didn't take a night off.  She had been in the kitchen getting wine and some glasses when the doorbell rang, and when she walked into the living room, she'd been half expecting to find him already into the quart of mint chocolate chip they had ordered.

Instead she found him greeting Broots and standing next to Debbie, who looked as if she had grown two feet since the last time Parker had seen her.

"Miss Parker!"

The girl raced to her, her arms wrapping around Parker's waist so tightly, she nearly fell over.

"Debbie.  Look at you.  Look at how beautiful you are."

The shyness that overcame the now young woman in front of her reminded Parker of the little girl she'd come to love so much, and she took another moment to enjoy having her back before she pulled free, set down the bottle and glasses she'd been balancing so carefully and then moved to her old friend, who stood patiently waiting for her near the front door.

"Broots."

"You could've told me, you know?"

Parker glanced over her shoulder at Debbie, who was being entertained by Ethan as they scoured the television guide for something to watch.  When her gaze returned to Broots, she shook her head.

"No, I couldn't have.  You had too much to lose."

He glanced at his daughter and nodded, reluctantly conceding the point before the silly grin she'd so missed spread across his face.

"So... need any tech help these days?"

*****

By the time Sydney showed up, Parker had half been expecting it.  She wasn't sure who was reaching out to her family and friends... Angelo maybe, maybe Ethan now that he was so enmeshed in her life... but the fact that they were coming back was so stunning to her that she didn't waste much time trying to figure out the "who" and "how."

Sydney's arrival came a week before the new medical facility was ready to open.  More than two thirds of the patients from the Renewal Wing had been returned to their normal lives or, in a few cases where the individuals had felt they were better off starting from scratch, set up in new identities.  But the remaining people and the ones they'd brought in from the other Centre outposts were going to fill the new building nearly to capacity as they received further medical care or for some, settled in for what would be lifelong stays.

She'd been supervising the check of the security and fire alarms when the sound of a man clearing his throat drew her attention away from the high-tech control board and over to the opposite side of the lobby.

Sydney had grown a little older and a touch grayer in the months he'd been away, but the anger and disappointment Parker remembered from their last encounter was nowhere to be seen.  She walked toward him and stopped only when his right hand extended toward her, his index finger waggling.

"There she is."

Parker looked at him quizzically, and Sydney smiled.

"Catherine Parker's daughter."

The reminder of his last harsh comment to her made her lower her eyes, and a moment later, she was against his chest, his arms holding her tightly.

"I'm so sorry, Parker.  I should've known.  I should've understood."

"I didn't want you to," she whispered.

"But I should've known better... because I know you."

She let herself take in his return and embrace a moment longer before she stood back and eyed him.

"You're back to help, right?  Because I need it.  I have a hospital half-full of people who are cuckoo for coco puffs thanks to the Centre.  I need you to unscramble what you can and help these other shrinks manage the rest."

He smiled and bowed his head slightly.

"As you wish, Miss Parker.  As you wish."

*****

She gave up hope that Jarod would come when Christmas, her birthday and the anniversary of her mother's death all passed without any contact from him.

Parker understood.  Of everyone, she'd expected him to be the one person who couldn't forgive.  And it was okay, because he was safe.  She could carry his hatred of her as long as that was true.

Spring brought the demolition of the Tower, and Parker found herself standing on the now barren ground where the very symbol of evil had stood wondering what to do with the space to take some of the blackness it seemed to leave behind out of the air.

Ethan wanted to build a new research lab, and she wasn't opposed to it.  But she wanted to make sure their focus was on the work the Centre should've been doing all along, and the one person she knew could help her really make that happen was the one now absent from her life entirely... a thought that did nothing but make her want to go home and have a glass of wine and try to get her mind on something else.

She hadn't counted on a full house, but that's what she found when she returned.  Ethan was building a guest house so that he could give her back her space, and no matter how she protested, he kept insisting she would want her privacy eventually.  But apparently he'd recruited helpers, and Broots and Sam were both doing duty with power tools while Sydney painted what she assumed was the front door.  Debbie was busy bossing them all around, giggling as she pointed out the mistakes they were making.

Parker waved to them all as she parked the car and headed into the house.  But her plan to change and join them, at least to help Debbie with the teasing, evaporated as she found a tall figure dressed in jeans, a t-shirt and a leather jacket standing near the study window watching the scene outside.

"Jarod?"

He turned his head and looked at her, then returned his gaze to the construction project out back. Parker willed herself to move forward, joining him by the large picture window.

They stood there silently as she prayed for him to yell or curse her or do anything but just keep standing there so quietly.  And when she was about to break and ask him what the hell he was doing, he turned to her and pointed outside.

"Look at what you did."

"What?"

Jarod moved then, his hand grabbing her arm and pulling her towards him.  She tamped down the urge to fight and let him guide her in front of him, his right arm reaching past her shoulder as he pointed outside again.

"They have hope.  They can breathe.  They aren't afraid anymore.  You did that."

She wasn't sure what to say in response to his words, they were so different from what she'd expected to hear.  But even as she struggled to find a reply, he moved closer to her, his chest pressing against her back.

"I keep asking them how you are, and they keep saying that you won't tell them what happened.  They're worried about you, for you... and you won't let them help you."

"There's nothing for them to do," she answered, her voice easily found to dismiss any notion that she share what she had done with the people happily sawing and hammering in her backyard.

She expected more argument, and from nowhere Parker felt the urge to fight boil up inside of her.  So when he turned her around, forcing her to face him, he was met with the familiar sight of her angry glare.

"They understand, Parker.  They all realize what happened.  They know what you did, how far you went.  They want you to know they understand."

"And so I should talk to them?"

"Yes."

"Tell them what happened?"

"Yes."

Parker scoffed and fought the urge to knock the certainty off of Jarod's face.

"I should tell Ethan the details of how I murdered our brother?  Or--or I should tell Sydney all about how I framed another man for killing Lyle to get him killed?  Or maybe I should fill Broots in on all the good stuff about shooting my own father in the head?"

She was screaming now and her hand was pounding into Jarod's chest with more force as she punctuated each ridiculous idea because that's what it was to her... the notion of letting one more ounce of the Centre's putrid evil near any of them was absolutely ridiculous after everything she'd done to put them out of harm's way.  So she stood there screaming and beating against Jarod's chest because she couldn't tell them... she couldn't...

And she hadn't realized until that exact moment how badly she needed to.

The next thing she knew, she was pinned against Jarod's chest and he was kissing her and the screaming in her head began to get lost in the swirl of emotions that exploded inside of her.  She wanted to ask what he was doing, wanted to know why he wasn't screeching at her in his holier than thou voice telling her how awful she was, but he kept kissing her and she started crying and there was kissing and tears and Parker couldn't figure out how she had suddenly lost control of everything she had fought so hard to keep hidden.

Finally he released her but only to change their positions, to caress her face and stare into her eyes in a way that made her feel more vulnerable than she had ever been in her life.

"Tell me.  Tell me and let me help you carry it."

She shook her head.  "No.  Jarod, I can't.  I can't."

"You have to," he whispered, his voice beyond determined despite its muted volume.  "You have to or we'll lose you... and what good is it for you to have sacrificed everything for us if we lose you in the end?"

An hour earlier she'd have laughed in his face, but that was before... before he'd pushed the buttons and opened up the well of pain she'd capped off in herself to survive what she had done.  Now she knew fully the truth that had lurked inside of her for so long now... that once she was done fixing and restoring and cleaning and salvaging... once there was nowhere to hide from the body count left in her wake, the reality of what she had done was going to crash in on her.  She was Catherine Parker's daughter after all, not William Raines'... and even if it had all been worth it, it was still ugly and awful and too real to ignore forever.

"I know what you thought," he said, his voice still low and soft just in front of her face.  "And I did for a moment.  I'd been so afraid for so long that I'd lose you to them... And then I realized what you were doing, and I wanted to come and tell you no, to tell you to stop.  But I didn't, Parker.  I didn't come and tell you to stop because... I realized it was the only way.  We'd tried everything else... my parents, your mother, me, you... we'd done it all trying to do the right thing and... and it never worked."

She nodded, grateful at least to have her own logic validated.  But she still couldn't imagine telling him the whole truth about all the things she'd had to do in order to set them free.

"I couldn't help you walk down that road," he continued.  "I knew that I would never be able to do what you did.  But this, Parker... this I can do.  I can carry it with you now... I can take whatever comes.  Some things are worth the price you pay for them.  You are worth any price."

To hear the words she had thought so many times as she tried to navigate her treacherous course spoken aloud, given back to her, was finally the breaking point she could not fight past.  Parker crumbled, falling barely an inch before she was cradled in Jarod's arms, his strength wrapping around her as hers evaporated.

And there in his hold with his promise to share her pain, after all that she had given and survived, was that one elusive thing Parker had dreamed of for those she loved but never been sure she would know herself.

She was safe.