Disclaimer: see part 1
Part 4
A few hours later Miss Parker comes out of the bedroom wearing only her underwear and one of Jarod's black T-shirts. Jarod was sitting at the dinning room table with two laptops in front of him and papers spread out all over the table. Parker wandered over to him and sat down next to him. Jarod kept working for a few minutes before stopping and looking up at her.
"Sleep good?"
"Yeah, I was exhausted after that work out you gave me. Did you sleep at all?"
"For a few minutes, which is more than I normally get."
"What's all this?" she asked as she started looking more closely at the papers.
Jarod paused a minute before looking at her and responding "Information about how to bring down the Centre."
"What??"
"Yeah, evidence to give to the CIA, FBI and the President about all the things that have gone on there and all the illegal things they have done."
"When did you get all this?"
"I've been collecting it since I got out. I'm working on editing some things now so that when it does happen certain people won't be implicated."
"Like, Syd."
"Yes Syd, but also, you, Broots, Sam, most of the innocent techies and secretaries and such."
Parker sat in silence for a few minutes contemplating what Jarod had just said. He was going to bring down the Centre, totally and utterly destroy it. She never thought that would actually happen, or that she would die before it happened.
"Parker, you ok?"
"I don't know Jarod, you basically just told me that just about everything I know is about to be destroyed. How am I supposed to handle that. I grew up there, it's all I know. I don't know how to function in the real world where there's no need for secrecy and people aren't receiving death threats every other day."
"Parker, you'll be fine. I'll be here to help you. You knew I always had the knowledge to do this, I just finally decided to do it."
"Why, Jarod, why now? You think that just because we had sex we're going to get married and live happily every after in the suburbs somewhere with a white picket fence and two point five kids?"
Jarod puzzled over the 2.5 kids thing for a second before going back to the conversation. "No, I don't expect that. Yes, I do love you and yes I would like to marry you someday but I know that is not easy for you and I'm not going to rush you into anything. You do what you need to do. I'll wait for you, forever if necessary."
Parker didn't know how to respond to that. No one had loved her like that since her mother died. Tommy came close but it wasn't the same thing. There were so many things about her Tommy never knew and she didn't want him to know, afraid that if he ever found out he would leave her. Yet here was Jarod, who knew everything about her, knew her better than she knew herself sometimes, and he still loved her more than any man ever had or ever would. Jarod had been such a big part of her life growing up she probably would have died without him there. Then her father sent her off to boarding school and even though they were apart she thought about him all the time. She wrote him countless letters that he never returned. When she went home after her first year at school she eagerly asked her father when they could go see Jarod and he had replied that Jarod was too busy with work and besides, he didn't want to see her. He said that Jarod had moved on and so should she. She was devastated at that, and she didn't return to the Centre until she began working there. She only saw Jarod a couple of times on monitors and never in person. Every time she saw him she was reminded of all the hurt. Then she had been assigned to catch him and he became her whole world.
Suddenly she broke out of her thoughts and turned to Jarod who had resumed working on taking down the Centre.
"Why didn't you ever respond to any of my letters?" she demanded.
He turned to her with a confused look on his face.
"What letters?"
"The letters I sent you my first year at boarding school. I wrote you every week for almost a year and you never responded."
"I never got any letters, from anyone."
"You never got my letters?"
"No, you went off to school and never came to see me on your breaks, so I just assumed that you had forgotten about me."
"How could I forget you? You were the only one who paid me any attention after my mother died. You were my best friend in the whole world."
"Well, I never heard from you and you never came to visit. Then Sydney told me that you were working there and I waited and waited for you to come visit me. I wanted to tell you about my escape plan and to ask you to come with me. I waited and waited but you never came, so I left."
"Wow, all these years I've been mad at you for something you had nothing to do with and didn't know about." Jarod looked at her seriously for a minute. "I'm escaping now, for good, and I want you to come with me. My freedom doesn't mean anything to me if you're not there with me. I love my family very much but you are my world."
She thought about that for a minute. "This isn't going to be easy you know. I can't change over night, you're probably going to want to kill me in a few days."
"Is that a yes?"
"Yes, you know for genius you can be pretty dumb sometimes."
Jarod stood up and pulled her into his arms.
"I love you."
"I love you too."
