One Little Christmas Tree -- Jarod and Miss Parker

A Christmas tree...

Of everything in the world that Jarod might have imagined losing her to, a Christmas tree had never even entered his thoughts.

She hadn't even wanted the thing.  Sydney had told him so.  After years of trying to put a happy face on the holiday, Miss Parker wanted no part of Christmas this year.  The loss of Mr. Parker, the realization of her true biological ties to Mr. Raines and the ever-menacing presence of Mr. Lyle had finally drained the last drop of any seasonal spirit out of her, a fact his former mentor had passed on to the Pretender during one of their periodic phone calls.

To Jarod, the solution was simple.  He'd snuck into Blue Cove while the Centre team was chasing a false lead on his whereabouts in Florida, bought the perfect tree and slipped inside her house.  The heirloom ornaments she'd inherited from her mother were easy enough to find, safely stored away in the attic, and after adding his own personal touch... a set of lights shaped like snowflakes... the Pretender had hoped that even if she cursed a blue streak upon discovering his gift, that it would ultimately help her find some joy this Christmas.

From the report he'd gotten later, the cursing had been epic, complete with high heels flying across the living room as she raged at Jarod's constant intrusion in her life.  But Sydney had reported that when Broots had gone by to drop Debbie off to go shopping three days later, the tree still stood proudly in the living room, complete with one or two wrapped presents underneath.

He felt a smile pull at his lips briefly as the image of her standing there, wanting to throttle him as she eyed the delicate bulbs and teardrop-shaped glass decorations her mother had loved so much.  But as the reality of the scene in front of him pulled that peaceful picture away, Jarod felt his face fall and his stomach tightened into a knot.

The chimney was half-standing, the base stones too strong to be displaced as the top half of the structure had collapsed inward.  The beautiful stained-glass windows from the second floor were gone... the roof Thomas had once fixed disintegrated... smoke and embers floating up from what remained of the home where Miss Parker had tried to find a little peace outside the hell of her life at the Centre.

The idea that she was gone was so impossible to fathom that all he could do was watch the firefighters trying to extinguish the last of the hotspots the fire had left behind.  He wanted to believe that she hadn't been inside, that there was no way she had suffocated from smoke inhalation or suffered the pain of burns as the flames consumed the house.  But everything said she'd been there.  Her car was parked out front, her gun had already been pulled from the ashes and bagged as evidence, and when one of the yellow-clad figures called out that he'd found a body, Jarod's heart broke into a million pieces.

The fear of losing her was something he'd lived with ever since she'd first disappeared from his life.  He knew now, of course, that she'd been sent away to boarding school, but then, he'd just been a confused teenaged boy whose best friend had vanished.  Years later, though he'd denied it whenever Sydney broached the subject, Jarod knew that his anger over her desertion had seeped out time and time again, making him a little more callous with her feelings than he should've been.  But the more he came to see how powerless Parker had really been her whole life, the more he saw how hurt she had been by being taken from him, how their separation had scarred her, too.

He'd imagined it so many times... a bullet fired by Raines or one of his cronies, a car accident when she chased him recklessly through the streets of some busy city, hell, even her falling and breaking her neck running in those 4-inch heels she couldn't seem to live without.  He'd allowed himself to consider a world without her, and yet Jarod had felt confident that he had the power to prevent that from happening.

But he had been wrong, and the reality of that threatened to choke the air from his lungs.

The beeping on the cell phone barely registered, and had he not had it set to beep and vibrate, he'd have never noticed it.  Pulling the small device from his pocket, he glanced at the screen and though a moment earlier, Jarod would've been certain he couldn't feel worse, when he saw the name of his caller, his mood sunk even further.

Ethan.

Though he rarely saw his younger brother, he knew that biology had created a link between Ethan and Parker that often defied explanation.  Their shared sibling clearly felt something was wrong, and he was probably looking to him for some kind of reassurance.

How could Jarod tell him that the sister he adored was gone?

"Ethan, I--"

That was all he got out before his brother's voice cut him off, the sound full of urgency.

"I know.  I need to see you.  Meet me at 2725 Clayton St. on Hilton Head.  Get here as fast as you can."

The line went dead after that, and though he was totally bewildered and consumed with grief, Jarod willed his feet to move him back to his waiting car.  Parker would want him to be sure Ethan was okay.  She'd worried over him constantly.  But now... now she didn't have to worry anymore.

The hours it took him to reach South Carolina flew past in a blur as the pretender's memory was flooded with images of the girl he had known and the woman he had alternately tried to save and run away from.  Worst of all were the pictures in his head that were vague hopes for the future... the way she'd look when she was free to be herself again, the smile she'd greet him with one evening when he came home to her.  He'd never let himself hope too much... never told himself it would happen.  But he'd believed it was possible.  And now...

The address Ethan had given him was in view finally, and Jarod followed the long driveway around to the back, where he saw a second car parked, the positioning key to keeping both vehicles out of sight from the street.  Though he approached the house with caution, Jarod was so numb that had a Centre trap been waiting inside, he probably would've walked right into it.

Of course, the only person capable of catching him was gone, so what was the danger of that anymore?

The door opened before he reached up to knock, and Ethan's tall form stood in the entryway, his arms opening immediately.  Jarod walked into him, his body weight feeling impossibly heavy now as he leaned into the embrace.

"Ethan, Miss Parker..."

"Jarod, come inside.  Please."

Ethan stepped back and the older man followed him, waiting as his sibling locked the door behind them.

"I know what you saw.  I know what happened.  But there's something you need to see."

And that's when he knew.  Ethan's ties to his sister were too deep for him to be this calm, this reasoned if she were gone.  Jarod didn't know the details, but his certainty was immediate.  Something in him unclenched, and he nearly raced ahead of his brother, following him down the hallway to a door resting partially opened near the back of the house.

His eyes took in everything... she didn't look burned or bruised, but she was unconscious, and Ethan had her on oxygen, so he assumed somehow her health had been put at risk; from the fire or from something else was unclear.

"How?" was all he managed to say, and Ethan drew him from the room quietly and walked him a few steps away from the door.

"The voices... they were trying to tell me she needed me, but it wasn't clear how or why.  And then I got this in my e-mail."

His brother drew a folded, printed piece of paper from his pocket and offered it up.  Jarod took it and read it over quickly.

"It's a surveillance report from Sam.  He's Parker's sweeper."

Ethan nodded.  "She's been having him watch Lyle.  Apparently they have proof that Lyle is meeting with someone from the tower behind Raines back to stage a coup.  Parker was trying to wait to turn him in until she found out where I was and made sure I was nowhere Lyle could get his hands on me if it went bad."

"How do you know all this?"

"She told me," Ethan replied.  "She was awake for a few hours once the antidote started to work, and--"

"Antidote?"  Jarod's voice took on a hard edge as the ramifications of that word stabbed at his heart.

"Lyle must have found out somehow.  She was poisoned at the Centre.  It wasn't very sophisticated.  I broke it down in just under ninety minutes and then I got the antidote synthesized and administered.  I wanted to call you sooner, but..."

"No, no.  You had to focus on her.  I understand.  But... the poisoning happened at the Centre?"

"I think so, but I'm not sure.  She started feeling symptomatic once she got home, but she told me she didn't have anything to eat or drink there.  She went upstairs to lie down and passed out.  By the time I got to the house, Parker's breathing was shallow and her blood pressure was through the roof."

Jarod nodded and glanced back toward the room.

"There was a body in the fire."

Ethan sighed and shook his head.

"He set it up to look like an accident.  The wires on her Christmas tree lights had been stripped, exposed, and the clear aerosol accelerant you developed back in '95?  He used that to increase the intensity of the fire.  There wouldn't have been enough of her left for anyone to find out about the poison."

The idea that one of his own dangerous inventions had been used to try to bring harm to Parker was enough to take the last of Jarod's strength away after the ups and downs of the day.  Unable to even move from the spot where he stood, he simply let himself slide down the wall, sitting on the floor.  Ethan folded his body down and sat across the hall.

"I was just going to take her... to run and not look back, but then I realized if Lyle didn't have a body, he'd been coming after her.  So... I stole a body from the morgue and then I turned on the lights, pushed the bared wire against the drapes, and I got her the hell out of there."

"Her dental records..." Jarod began, but his brother waved off his concerns.

"Done.  I switched them while the computer was running the formulation on the antidote."

Jarod nodded and then leaned his head back against the wall for a minute taking in everything he'd heard in the past few minutes.

Parker was dead to the world, but she was alive... and after the anguish he'd endured since seeing her house standing in ruins, he felt a relief that he couldn't find words to describe.

"She was asking for you," Ethan offered finally, breaking the silence.  "I told her you were coming.  Her breathing is still labored, but the rest of her vitals are stable now.  She's going to be fine."

A deep sigh pulled from his chest and Jarod looked at his brother.

"Until she goes back and they try again."

Ethan smiled and pulled his body up, offering Jarod his hand.

"Then convince her not to go back."

Jarod scoffed involuntarily.

"Have you met your sister?"

Ethan's smile widened and a chuckle rumbled through his chest.

"It's Christmas, Jarod.  Even our family is due a miracle once in a while.  Try."

*****

It was Christmas Eve before she was fully awake, her breathing finally normal again, and as the sun set on the beginning of the holiday, Parker was sitting on the couch in the South Carolina home's living room staring out at the twinkling lights that decorated the other houses on the street.

Her body was still sore from the ordeal it had been through, but overall, she was recovered, and after a few more days of rest, she'd be good as new.  But knowing that did nothing to burst the bubble of dread that seemed to be permanently in place in her gut.

"Oh, good.  You're up."

Jarod strode into the living room and sat down on the opposite end of the sofa.  He held three leather-bound passport covers up to her, fanned out so she could see them.

"Nicole Winslow, Rachel Cartwright or Liza Howard?"

"And those are?"

"The names the computer model I built said would be least suspected by the Centre as an alias for one M. Parker.  You'll need a new passport, I.D.s, credit cards."

She took in a long, slow breath but remained silent.  This was the first time Jarod had directly inferred that she not go back to the Centre.  There had been more subtle references... his mentioning that he and Ethan were already plotting Broots and Sydney's exit strategies, the relay of a story from Sydney that Sam had declared himself Angelo's official protector, knowing it's what she would've wanted following her "death," and more than once, she'd been asked her opinion of house listings in various parts of the world.

"When we were driving here, do you know what I was thinking about?"

Jarod shook his head.

"I knew that Ethan would figure out what was wrong with me, or that if he couldn't, he'd find you.  So I wasn't worried about dying.  But I kept thinking... Jarod gave me the tree.  You and Sydney and Broots just wanted me to have a nice Christmas, and if I had died in that house and the fire had started and you never knew what really killed me... the three of you would've blamed yourselves."

She sat up straighter and reached out, taking the passport folders in her hands.

"I wasn't afraid of them killing me.  I was kind of resigned to it happening eventually.  But to make you all carry that..."

She opened the folders one by one, her eyes dropping down.  She surveyed the names, noting that there were no pictures inside yet.

"Do you think Nicole Winslow would look good as a blonde?"

A smile spread across his face.

"I think it would be impossible for you to look anything but good, no matter what color your hair is or what name you sign."

She handed him back the Nicole Winslow passport and tossed the other two onto the coffee table.  When he raised his eyebrow and looked at her suspiciously, she returned the expression.

"What?"

"No argument?  No 'I have to go back and tie up loose ends'?  No forcing me to get Ethan in here to guilt you into agreeing not to go back?"

Parker sighed and leaned back against the pillows behind her.

"I don't have a home to go back to.  They've finally managed to take away the last piece of her that I had."

A look of guilt passed over the pretender's face then, and Parker playfully poked at his arm with her foot.

"It really was a beautiful tree."

When his fingers slipped around her hand, she let him take hold, refusing to entertain the well-trained instinct to pull away.

"You have Ethan.  You have her smile.  She's still with you, Parker."

She nodded, knowing he was right even if felt like her mother had evaporated with the walls of the home where they had once known some kind of happiness together.

"I know what that house meant to you," he said.  "And I know it must hurt to have lost it, to have lost the things it held.  But more than anything in the world, your mother wanted you to be safe and free.  I think she'd be happy to see it all gone if it meant you could finally have that."

And she knew that was true, even if it hurt to let go and to try to look ahead at the uncertain future that was waiting for her if she let Miss Parker stay dead... and walked away.

"If we stayed together for a while... the three of us... do you think we'd be safe?"

Jarod smiled and nodded.

"I think that we could manage that."

"And Sydney and Broots?"

"Will be gone from Blue Cove by New Year's."

She looked down and saw that he was still holding her hand, and Parker turned her palm up and let her fingers settle into their own grasp on his.

"Then you can tell Ethan he doesn't have to come up with a guilt strategy; just a good quality hair dye."

Just then, the door opened, and Ethan strolled in, stopping to reset the security system, before he headed in with a shopping bag in his hand.

"Dinner's here.  I just need to pop it all in the oven to warm it up.  And, yes, Jarod, I got ice cream."

"Mint chip or chocolate chip?"

"I got both, and, Parker, I got you a bottle of that red wine you like, the French one."

"She shouldn't be drinking yet.  Her system is still detoxing."

"One glass won't kill her, Jarod."

"Ha ha, very funny."

As the two brothers continued to bicker, Parker closed her eyes and listened to it as if it were music played on the finest sound system imaginable.

She was free.  Because of an unimaginable betrayal, her mysterious connection to Ethan and a Christmas tree, she was finally free.

Now all she had to do was believe it would last.