I think it only fair to warn you that THIS THING IS NEVER GOING TO END!!!!
I started out writing a delicious little smut-biscuit and now find myself knee-deep in Centre lore. Pay attention, kiddies, because I pack a fair amount into this one.
Oh, and for those of you who INVARIABLY ask, the smut comes in the NEXT installment. I think it's safe to say that poor Miss Parker has her hands full here as it is. But, again, it's not worth the trouble if you can't read the whole thing and, if you start here, I'm afraid you'll find yourself VERY confused. Heck, I'm not sure you won't be even if you've read from the beginning. Man, this PLOT stuff is hard work!
Disclaimer: Oh, heck, why are we even bothering anymore? See part 1.
Billie, Part 12(?)
by Ginger
"As a professional who's had the trust of this community for nearly 20 years, you don't know how sorry I am about this, not to mention livid, Miss Parker... Miss Parker? Are you still there?"
Parker sat dead still on her couch, staring off into space as she clutched the cordless phone to her ear. It had been a harrowing couple of weeks, returning to work after her visit with Billie to pretend that nothing had changed. But she had held it together and things appeared to be falling into place. Well, until she'd returned home that evening to find her telephone ringing.
The first day back had been the worst, her stomach in knots as she faced her father and lied through her teeth to him. It was only then that the full magnitude of it all had hit her; coming events would most certainly pit her against the only family she'd known for most of her life. And to what eventual outcome she wouldn't even venture to guess. By the time she'd headed out of her office for the day, well past seven, she'd felt battered, exhausted, frightened, and depressed. And she might've continued to feel that way had she not run into Sydney, who was also on his way out. Walking silently together through the garage, he'd surreptitiously taken her hand in his and given it a squeeze as if to say, "You're doing just fine, Miss Parker." He'd quickly let go and, when they'd reached her car, bid her an ordinary goodnight. It had been a small gesture, which was all that either of them could risk, but it had served to buoy her to the point that she'd actually managed to get an hour or two of sleep that night.
The next day had been a bit easier, as was the day after that, and the day after that, and, soon, she was acclimated to being back, cool as a cucumber and quite comfortable stalking the halls of an institution she was ostensibly preparing to destroy. But, as the days wore on, she had another, equally disturbing issue to deal with. She missed him. She really missed him. Absurd as it was after only three days, and nights, together, it didn't feel right to climb into bed alone at the end of the day. It felt like he'd been there for years and only absent for a few days, rather than the other way around. So she spent her free time alternating between berating herself for her weakness, wanting to choke the life out of him for getting under her skin, and yearning to be tucked securely in his arms. In a word, she was miserable.
She hadn't heard from him, nor had she expected to, except maybe as part of the normal course of "business." The next move was hers to make when she deemed the time to be right. And for several days, two solid weeks actually, she'd done nothing, knowing they'd be watching her like a hawk after her return, but that afternoon she had learned of a golden opportunity that would present itself the very next day, leaving her feeling content, if not downright cheerful, as she made her way home from work. But now she was on the phone with her pharmacist, listening to him deliver news that might have been shocking to anyone leading a rational, ordinary life. It was somewhat less than so to her.
"It was an entire batch, shipped all over the country. You know the pharmaceutical companies; they tried to keep a lid on it, of course, until some reporter out west got wind of an unprecedented number of what the manufacturer delicately termed, `product failures.' Product failures, can you believe it? We're talking about people's lives here. When I got the call this morning I damned near fell over. Uh, pardon me." He paused and she could hear him swallow hard twice before continuing, "When I traced the SKU numbers to scripts we filled from that batch, I thought of you immediately. Most of my customers fill their prescriptions month to month but, since your work takes you out of town so much, I know you fill yours ahead. Miss Parker, again, I am truly sorry because our records indicate that you most recently filled a script, from that batch, back in April... um, for a four month supply... and..."
"I've been taking what is essentially a placebo for the better part of four months," she interjected calmly, if somewhat distractedly.
He continued to express his profound regret, again apologizing profusely and saying that she was a long-standing and valued customer and that her health and well-being were very important to him. She nodded slowly, still staring off into space as she unconsciously pushed aside the untouched scotch she had poured earlier while waiting for him to get to the point. He went on about investigations and class action lawsuits and she could tell he was worried that she might hold him somehow responsible.
"Mr. Nadler," Parker finally interrupted with a sigh. "It isn't your fault. Short of possessing psychic powers..." She paused in deference to the irony. "I don't know what you could possibly have done to prevent it. It's just one of those things. I'm sure everything will be fine."
There was a tense silence on the other end of the line and she couldn't help but smirk at the confusion and alarm she sensed in him. She was a long-standing customer, if perhaps somewhat less valued than he'd insisted, and he knew her well enough to expect a rather different reaction from her. She couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor bastard, caught up in the cosmic joke being played on her, but the ones she really felt for were the others out there facing the prospect of "product failure." What the hell had they done to deserve getting hit with the lightening bolt intended for her?
"It's okay," she assured in a voice so gentle that she hardly recognized it as her own. "There's nothing to worry about. Thank you for giving me so much of your time, particularly on what I can well imagine has been a very difficult day for you. You're too kind, really. Goodnight."
Hanging up, she emitted a wry chuckle and shook her head. Closing her eyes, she was assaulted by images of their fevered coupling and those moments of release: the way his voice quivered when he called her name, his arching back, his body trembling against hers, that surge of warmth within her. How many times? She found herself counting... four... five... six...
She stopped counting and sank down onto her side, drawing up her legs to curl into a ball on the couch. Wrapping her arms tightly around her, Parker began to laugh. She just kept laughing, until her stomach hurt and she could barely breathe, until tears streamed down her cheeks, until she couldn't laugh any longer and her body began to convulse with deep, shaking sobs.
* * * *
"Are you alright, Miss P?"
"Yes, I'm alright," she snapped, although she was feeling anything but.
Truth be told, she'd had a restless night's sleep, dreaming over and over again about coming upon her mother, sitting on a blanket under a tree with two small boys. Her mother smiled at her then one of the boys, both of whom sat with their backs to Parker, turned his head to smile at her over his shoulder. Something about him was familiar. She finally awoke about dawn to find herself in the same position on the couch she'd curled into the evening before, having slept there all night in her clothing.
"Don't worry about me, just drive. The sooner we get to the Reston storage facility, the sooner we can put this annoying little errand behind us."
She knew she looked like shit. She'd stood in the shower for what seemed like an eternity in an attempt to wash away the ravages of the previous 12 hours. But to no avail: she was ghostly pale, her eyes still puffy from crying herself to sleep, the dark circles beneath them suggesting the quality of that sleep. No amount of makeup could hide it so she hadn't bothered to try, just slapping on a little under eye concealer, blush, and lipstick.
"The breach in security... the usual suspect you think?"
"Probably," she sighed, adding, "the pain in the ass."
As an image of that part of Jarod's anatomy flashed in her mind, she turned her head to look out the passenger window to hide the faint smile gracing her lips. She wondered if he had broken into one of the Centre's remote storage facilities solely to afford her this opportunity. Maybe he was already growing tired of waiting, getting impatient. Maybe he missed her. Or maybe, and this was the most likely of the scenarios, she was out of her fucking mind to be musing like a lovesick schoolgirl when she was about to do something that would likely place not only her own life, but the lives of everyone around her, in grave danger.
"We'll be there in a few minutes, Miss Parker."
"Good," she replied distractedly, her thoughts staying with "the pain in the ass" for the remainder of the trip. God she missed him, ached for him, sweet little ass in all.
* * * *
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Parker asked as she watched her travel companion tug uncomfortably at his shirt collar.
He didn't respond, simply shrugging as he lifted his coffee cup to take a sip. She knew damned well what was wrong with him, noting his surprise when she'd suggested, less than an hour into their trip back to Delaware, that they stop off at a diner outside Bowie, Maryland for a cup of coffee and a bite to eat. In all their years working together, she'd never suggested they share a cup of coffee, a meal, or anything else for that matter.
She swallowed hard in an attempt to quiet the butterflies fluttering in her stomach, cleared her throat, and, looking knowingly into his eyes, asked pointedly,
"So tell me, is there anything interesting you'd like to share, JUNIOR?"
"Jesus!" she yelped as the nearly full cup of coffee he'd dropped shattered into pieces as it hit the table, sending its contents splattering in every direction.
"I'm sorry, Miss Parker," he offered as he motioned for the waitress while pulling napkins out of the napkin holder and tossing them into the puddle between them. "I should have been more prepared for that, given the fact that I've had a fair chunk of a lifetime to prepare. I'm thankful I hadn't just taken a swig of coffee or I might've choked to death and missed seeing this through. Now THAT would have been ironic."
A busboy came over to clear away the mess followed by the waitress who brought and filled a fresh cup. She quickly returned with their food orders, a burger and fries for him and a fresh fruit plate for her. Parker wasn't the least bit hungry but felt compelled to order something healthy all the same. They waited until the commotion around their table had ceased to continue their conversation.
"Well?" Parker asked as she poked at her fruit.
"How much do you know? What does Jarod know? I've been led to believe that only when you two began wor..."
"Not much," she interrupted, not wishing to dwell on that particular topic. "There's a list of names from my mother. Your father's name is on that list."
"So that's what the files contains," he commented with a nod. "I knew your mother had left something for you but I wasn't sure how detailed it was."
"Contained," she corrected. "It self-destructed after we read it. May I assume you are the one responsible for upgrading the software to make sure it remained accessible?"
"Not me personally. That's a little out of my area, Miss P," he said with a chuckle. "But it was done under my supervision, a responsibility I inherited from another when I joined the Centre."
She nodded then there was a long silence between them. He dug into his burger, giving her time to process what she'd learned. He imagined it must be a lot for her to take in all at once so he thought it best to answer her questions only after they'd been asked. When he heard her sigh, he looked up from his plate. She did look awfully tired, he thought. But beautiful nevertheless and so much like that amazing creature he had seen only once but who had dazzled him, all those years ago, when he was just a boy.
"There's just so much I..." Her voice trailed off.
"Perhaps," he offered warmly. "You'd like me to start at the beginning?"
"Yes," she replied through a faint smile. "I'd really appreciate it."
* * * *
"It isn't clear what he was after, perhaps information on his family? If so, I don't think he found anything because the Reston facility isn't `supposed' to be a repository for `those' types of records. But then, you'd know more about that than I would." She let the comment hang in the air for a moment then continued, "You'll have my full report in the morning. Yes, Daddy. Yes, Daddy. I look forward to it too. Goodnight."
Parker clicked off the phone and just stared at it for a moment, frowning and shaking her head, before returning it to its base and shrugging out of her jacket. She'd been keeping things from him for years, more lies of omission than anything else, but she could now feel the gulf between them widening. Soon she would be openly defying him and the last time she did that...
She shuddered. She had never let herself even consider the idea that he might've had a hand in Thomas's murder but the suspicion had always been there, somewhere, in the deep recesses of her mind. Maybe the reason she'd finally let it see the light of day was to assuage her own guilt for shifting her allegiance so suddenly and completely, for deciding to become a Babcock when she'd been a Parker all her life, for letting the man she'd been raised to mistrust into her body and into her heart and, most likely into her life, permanently in one form or another, as the practical realities of the situation would seem to dictate.
"God, I could really use a drink," she muttered as she gazed longingly at the liquor cabinet.
Sighing, she kicked off her shoes and headed into the kitchen in search of something else that might satisfy her. Whatever it was, she knew it would come in a distant second. There was nothing like the Scots with their unparalleled ability to distill single-malt beverages. Oh, how she loved them and, half-heartedly pouring herself a glass of iced mint tea, vowed to never, ever take them for granted again.
Absently sipping her tea, she sat in her kitchen and attempted to process everything she had learned that afternoon. It was nearly beyond comprehension, even for someone who'd had to comprehend the type of crazy shit she'd been dealing with for a lifetime. How could Jarod have possibly missed all this? Some genius! Then again, deepest secrecy was the key to the whole thing. She'd always loved and missed her mother very much but only now was she coming to realize how much she'd underestimated her.
* * * *
As a young man in Italy, Salvatore Mancuso, Sr. had been a highly promising and successful student, demonstrating tremendous ability in all the hard sciences. He had also become known as a prominent humanist and student leader, writing and speaking extensively about the shroud of darkness that was quickly falling over his country, all of Europe, and, indeed, the whole world. By the late 1930s it became clear to him that, if he remained in Italy, he'd face one of two fates: either he would be forced to employ his talents to assist those in power who were perpetrating evil against his country and its people or he'd be killed. Since the first option was out of the question, the second was inevitable. So he fled the country of his birth, the land and people he loved so much, only a few steps ahead of the fascists. Settling in Washington, D.C., he soon joined a group of young expatriate Europeans writing and speaking to warn a largely isolationist America of the ever increasing threat across the ocean.
America eventually caught on and, soon after the war began, Salvatore put his considerable scientific talent and skill to use in the Allied war effort. After the war, he completed his education by getting a Ph.D. in chemistry and, determined to help create a world in which he and other scientists would never again be compelled to work toward the destruction of human life but only toward its protection and enhancement, he joined a think tank in coastal Delaware that he believed operated with the same goal. He fell in love with and married a local woman and, after several years of trying, gave birth to a son in 1958. Unfortunately, his wife was not in good health, she never fully recovered from the pregnancy, and died when the boy was only five years old.
That was 1963, the same year that Salvatore, who'd been growing increasingly uncomfortable with the work of some of his colleagues and was even more disturbed when he began to suspect that those colleagues were poised to gain control of the institution that employed them all, abruptly quit his job. In so many ways it seemed a replay of his experience in Italy and he was disgusted, mortified. But he resolved to do something about it. He knew there were others who felt the same way he did. One in particular leapt to mind: a brilliant, beautiful young woman who had been so very kind to him when his wife was ill, Catherine Parker.
Soon after his departure, things seemed to get even worse at his former place of employment but, undeterred, he and Catherine slowly, secretly set about assembling a group of like-minded people, from all over the world, who would watch and document the activities of the organization until an opportunity arose to do something about it. They had to adopt this cautious approach when, to his horror, Catherine reported that there were now the lives of children at stake. The years passed and he watched helplessly as her anxiety and depression grew. Eventually, he pleaded with her to leave, to disappear if necessary for her sake and for the sake of her daughter, who was obviously her whole world. But she insisted that she needed to remain there because the lives of innocents depended on it.
After years of watching and waiting, things changed abruptly in the fall of 1969, which is when Salvatore Mancuso, Jr. first entered the saga. One Saturday afternoon when father and son were spending a quiet day together at their home in Oberlin, Ohio, where they had relocated so Salvatore could take a chemistry professorship at the college and place some distance between his son and the evil that resided back in Delaware, Catherine Parker appeared at their door. The boy had never seen her but took to her immediately, as most children did. She was breathtakingly beautiful, and warm, and kind. Salvatore knew immediately that something was afoot because their twice-yearly meetings were always carefully orchestrated affairs that never took place anywhere near where either of them resided.
She patiently sat through Salvatore, Jr.'s lengthy and enthusiastic presentation of baseball trophies, insisting over his father's protests that she was indeed interested in and impressed with the boy's accomplishments. Eventually, Salvatore was able to persuade his son to tear his eyes away from their enchanting visitor and go outside to finish his chore of raking leaves.
It would be a decade before the boy would learn of the content of Catherine's conversation with his father that day. All he knew was that the goddess who visited their modest little home gave him a sweet, tender kiss on the cheek before she left. And he grinned for several hours afterwards, until the muscles in his face started to hurt. His father smiled too, seeing the joy in his son's face.
But after that and for the next several months, his father appeared on edge, not sleeping well, and the boy would occasionally catch him looking over his shoulder. This continued until that day in April when he came home from baseball practice to find his father sitting at the kitchen table and weeping. He asked him what was wrong and his father choked out that the woman who had visited them a few months before had been in a terrible accident and was gone. The boy expressed his sorrow, remembering how wonderful she was. It was then that his father pulled him into a tight embrace and made him promise that he would never again speak of her visit, not to him, not to anyone. Alarmed by his father's behavior and frightened, of what he had no idea, the boy made the promise and kept it well into adulthood.
He and his father settled back into the routines of life, although Salvatore, Sr. did continue to go way for two, largely unexplained, business trips a year. As the boy grew up, he came to understand that his father was keeping a secret, a big secret, and he couldn't help but think that this secret had something to do with that lovely, if mysterious, woman who had visited them on that crisp autumn afternoon. When he was old enough to fully grasp such things, he wondered if they had, perhaps, been lovers, but something about that didn't seem right. Time and again, he tried to muster the courage to ask, but just couldn't bring himself to do it.
Then, his senior year of college, Salvatore, Jr. returned home for Thanksgiving break to learn that his father had been diagnosed with renal cancer, that it had already spread, and that the prognosis was not good. He was devastated, of course, and couldn't sleep that night. Heading toward the kitchen, he passed his father's study. The door was ajar and the light was on so he stopped, about to knock when he heard his father speaking into the telephone in a hushed tone.
"I do not believe I have much time left. Therefore, it is critical that we identify my successor as soon as possible. This is my legacy. If I do not see to this while I'm still strong enough to do it, then my entire life's work has been meaningless."
His heart sank at his father's words. Wasn't HE his legacy? Why couldn't HE be his successor? That was it. Then and there he decided to confront his father, knocking and stepping into the study the moment he heard the sound of the telephone receiver being replaced in its cradle. And, that night, his father told him all, about the organization he'd gone to work for with such high hopes, their betrayal of those hopes, and of the efforts of himself, Catherine Parker and others to make it right again. He told him that she had visited their home all those years ago because the time had come to make a bold move, to make the institution what it once was or, if that were not possible, then to destroy it once and for all. Plans had been set in motion, things were happening, and then she was gone. They must have gotten wind of her activities, but she had been so careful, leaving no path leading back to him or the others. She was so very brave, facing them alone in her final moments, sacrificing herself so that others might live.
Those who remained knew they couldn't possibly succeed without the leadership of someone on the inside, someone in a position of at least some authority, that is. Catherine had insisted as much but also predicted the rise of such leadership should she fail. To Salvatore only, she had confided that this leadership would come in the form of her own daughter and a special boy named Jarod, although when that would be she could not say. Seeing his skepticism she had smiled. He was a man of science who had been not at all comfortable with her use of "intuition" or her mention of the "voices" that told her of things to come.
So, after Catherine's death, Salvatore and others resumed watching and waiting, waiting and watching, but Salvatore was now running out of time and needed to secure a replacement. They needed to keep their ranks filled in case some among them became incapacitated, either through illness or accident, or were discovered and "eliminated." This is when Salvatore, Jr. announced that he wanted to be his father's successor, his legacy in every way. His father protested at first; he didn't want his only son to have to face the evil and danger that came with taking on this commitment. But, when he sensed the young man's determination, he finally acquiesced with a heavy sigh, deep pride, and profound love. Removing one of the modest oil paintings that lined his study to reveal a safe his son hadn't even known was there, he opened it to retrieve several file folders, which he handed to the young man, bidding him goodnight.
Within six months, Salvatore Mancuso, Sr. was dead. At his funeral, his son noticed one particularly ostentatious flower arrangement and, after the service had concluded, went back into the church to retrieve the card. His blood ran cold when he read:
In memory of our respected friend and former colleague.
-The Centre
Having taken what would have been his final semester off to care for his dying father, Salvatore returned to college the following autumn to complete his degree, because he had promised his father he would. Then he set about undoing the polish of a middle class upbringing and college education, spending most of his time at a gym in Brooklyn, where he'd settled after selling the house in Ohio. He bulked up, made friends, and through his contacts at the gym, secured gigs as a "bodyguard" or in "private security," oftentimes for less than reputable clients. He built a reputation in that arena over the next few years and, courtesy of some of his more unsavory associates, secured a new identify for himself, all the while fulfilling the secret duty bequeathed to him by his father, watching and waiting until, one day, armed with all the right information and all the right, make that wrong, references to get him through the door, Salvatore Mancuso, Jr. secured a position at the very same institution his father had left in revulsion some twenty years before.
And, thus, the Centre acquired a new sweeper, a man who bore little resemblance to the Salvatore Mancuso, Jr. who had stayed up all night in his father's study, reading the sordid history of the place. Except for one thing: he'd adopted as his legal name the nickname his father had lovingly graced him with when he was a little boy.
Sam.
* * * *
"Well, Momma, here we go," she whispered as she lay on her back in bed, staring up at the ceiling. It was 2:00 a.m. and, at the rate she was going, the bags under her eyes would soon acquire bags of their own.
After replaying Sam's harrowing tale in her head, she'd forced some canned soup down her throat then headed up to her bedroom to get ready for bed. Only when she'd settled beneath the covers had she opened the folded slip of paper that had been left for her at the Reston facility. It read simply:
Mac
It was far more cryptic, and therefore a whole lot safer, than I miss you or I ache for you or I feel like I'm missing a limb because you're not here or any of those things that, much to her chagrin, she was feeling, but it conveyed all that and more. And it terrified her.
Jarod. Billie. Sydney. Sam. It was all too much and she wondered what would come next: Broots the FBI mole? She emitted a dry chuckle then her stomach soured when it occurred to her that Debbie had to be kept safe at all costs. And Billie. And... them. There was so much to worry about now. The world was spinning too fast and she wanted to get off. Far from comforting her, the day's revelations had made her feel even less secure about the world she inhabited. She couldn't even count on the bad guys to be bad guys. Some of them were, in fact, heroically, heartbreakingly honorable. But she didn't have any choice in the matter; the world would keep spinning and there was no getting off.
Sam had warned that, once she gave him the nod to get the ball rolling, things would move fairly quickly. There would be no turning back and it would likely get scary as hell before it was all over. His look of surprise told her that he had expected her to take some time, a few days anyway, to think it over.
"Do it," she had told him. "Do whatever you have to."
Time was a luxury she didn't have. Now that she knew the truth, there was no other course of action left to her anyway, so why wait. She couldn't unring that bell, nor could she unring this one, she thought as rubbed her belly. Her certainty amazed her since the menstrual period she was no longer expecting this week was only a day or two late, a delay that could easily be attributed to stress, of which there was plenty. But that's not what she attributed it to; she knew. She knew that they were there, two weeks old and growing inside her, her babies. Jarod's babies.
She was so certain that when she took a home pregnancy test a week later, she didn't even bat an eyelash at the results. And, when the persistent fatigue and nausea set in a week or so after that, she calmly enlisted the assistance of a stunned and embarrassed Sam, who located a doctor it would be safe for her to visit for her pre-natal care.
"I'll kick his ass for you if you like," he joked to break the tension.
She chuckled and offered lamely, "I'm sorry, Sam. I know this doesn't exactly give us LESS to worry about."
"No, Miss P, it doesn't but it gives us more to fight for."
# # # #
Author's Note: The pharmaceutical disaster is based on a story recounted to me by a good friend in the Navy. Apparently, something like this happened several years back on an aircraft carrier with a, rather unfortunate, unisex crew.