“Never no more, will I be all alone,

Never no more will I be a stay at home,

Cause I’ve got me somebody,

To make me happy when I’m blue.”

~ Patsy Cline

RATING: R

SPOILERS: Up to IOTH

TIMELINE: After IOTH

SUMMARY: What happens when Jarod tires of running.

Disclaimer: I own nothing!  I’m just messing around with these guys.

Note: Includes excerpts of the song “Never No More” by Patsy Cline and “Save The Last Dance For Me” by the Drifters.  Feedback is always welcome!

Never No More

 By Madame Estrella

Prologue

Raines grinned menacingly at Broots and Sydney as they entered the room.  Broots shyed away, but Sydney immediately made observations.  Lyle was sitting on a gurney crying.  A doctor and a nurse were checking some bandages on him, and Raines grinned menacingly.

“Tell them, Mr. Lyle.”  He said, looking at Sydney.

Lyle sniffled and choked back some more tears.

“Miss Parker is dead.”  He said through a burst of tears.  Broots and Sydney gasped.

“What?  That’s not possible!”  Sydney cried out in shock.

“Oh, but it is.”  Raines growled.  “Tell them by who’s hand, Mr. Lyle.”  Lyle choked through his tears.

“Jarod.”

Hours Before

Lyle entered the rundown cabin in the Appalachian woods.  He was stunned to find Miss Parker tied to a chair.  He stepped in closer and she gasped and looked up at him.

“Lyle, you have to get me out of here before he comes back!”  She cried.  He saw tears fall from her eyes and bruises on her face.

“What happened?”

“Jarod, I don’t know what’s happened to him.  I think he’s going to kill me.”

“What?”

Lyle had followed a lead to this cabin.  A tip by phone message from Jarod.  Miss Parker had been missing for three days.  In her home were signs of struggle and it was assumed she was kidnapped in the middle of the night.  There had been no note.

“Why would he want to kill you?”  Lyle immediately felt stupid for uttering the words as soon as they had escaped his lips.  Why indeed.

“This is where it has to end.”  Jarod said flatly behind Lyle.  He spun around and found himself staring at a disheveled, unshaven and menacing Jarod.  He raised a gun in his right hand.

“I want the center to know that I’m not playing anymore of their games.”

Miss Parker gasped and let out a small cry.

“She’s so cute when she’s frightened for her life, isn’t she Lyle.”

Lyle froze.  He slowly looked back and forth between them.

“No, Jarod.”  He heard himself say.  He looked Jarod in the eyes for a long moment.  Then Jarod steadied the gun and fired.  Lyle heard Miss Parkers last screams before slumping over, bloodied in the chair.  Jarod motioned to Lyle with the gun.

“Get out of here.”  He said while tucking the gun away and picking up a can of gasoline.  He poured the noxious fluid onto Miss Parker and then splashed it around the cabin.

“She’s gone now.  I want you to tell them all that anyone else they send will meet a similar fate.”  He set the can down and stared at Mr. Lyle for a long moment.  “The next person they send to bring me back is sure to face a swifter demise.”  He growled.  He pulled the gun again and fired at Lyle, the bullets grazed his shoulder and his thigh.  He limped from the cabin.

As he hobbled to the bottom of the steep hillside to his car he turned to see flames licking the sky.

Sydney and Broots shuddered at Lyle’s account.  The two men stared at one another’s shocked expressions before Raines brought them back to the present.

“I want Jarod found, now!”  He wheezed as he shouted at them.

The two men left the room in a daze and headed up to Miss Parker’s office.  Neither of them said a word until the elder took a seat where she would have.

“I can’t believe that bastard would do this!”  Broots cried out, rage resonating through the office.  Tears broke over his cheeks.  He glared at Sydney.  “And You!  How can you be so damn calm?  Your freak killed Miss Parker.”

“Mr. Broots,” Sydney began calmly, “this is the reaction they are expecting.”

“Of course!  Jarod murdered Miss Parker!”  He looked at Sydney’s expression.  “What do you know, Sydney?”

Sydney regarded Broots silently and motioned for him to take a seat, which the younger man did.

“I believe that the Center is capable of anything, Mr. Broots.”

“What about Jarod?”  Broots cried.

“This is what happens when a Pretender pretends he works for the Center.”  Sydney said as the first tear began the assault on his cheeks.

@@@@@@@

Miss Parker laid in the steaming water with her eyes closed.  She moved her hands gently to circulate the water beneath the bubbles.  She’d knocked back a few scotches and was feeling relaxed, unlike earlier.

What was Jarod up to now?  Why did it bother her so much more now than it had before?  She knew what he would say.  She wasn’t going there though.

She rested for a while longer before rising and grabbing a towel and slowly drying herself before slipping on her silk robe.  She scooped her hair into a towel and pulled the drain on the bathtub.

As she listened to the water drain, she felt a sinking feeling.  Someone was watching her.

She heard him exhale sharply and her head whipped around to see him standing right beside her.  She gasped and before she could do anything else he’d grabbed her and was dragging her out of the room.  She writhed in his grasp and screamed.

“Lyle!”

Her brother snickered and held her tighter as she lashed out, knocking over a vase, pushing a chair, pulling down a curtain.

“Why are you doing this?!”  She cried.  She swung at him and then fell to the ground with him.  His groggy form pinned her to the floor and she felt the crushing force through him.  The air was knocked from her as it was from Lyle.

Then she felt Lyle’s body being pulled from atop her.  She heaved a heavy breath and slowly gazed upward when a hand grabbed her arm and hastily yanked her to her feet.  She stooped and heaved to regain her breath and footing when the hand grabbed her arm and drug her toward the door.

She was a hinderance to her captor, so he picked her up and slung her over his shoulder and exited her house.  In a haze, she watched her front door get further from her.  She was slung into the passenger seat of a car where she lost consciousness soon after she heard the doors close and a voice.

“Myrna, you’re safe now.”

@@@@@@@@@

Sydney walked around Miss Parker’s house, picking up some of her most valued possessions and placing them in heavy paper shopping bags.  He’d stopped in her bedroom when he’d opened a drawer and found two framed photographs beneath a heavy woven silk scarf.

Thomas, and Jarod.

He felt his cheeks flush and a heavy sigh escaped his lungs.  He felt a mixture of sadness and anger.  The man she loved, and the man who’d killed her.

The Center had recovered her remains from the smoldering cabin.  He’d been skeptical until then.  Jarod wasn’t a killer.  He hadn’t been anyway.

Why would Miss Parker have a framed picture of him beside one of Thomas?  He thought back to Miss Parker’s reaction before she’d, disappeared.  She seemed to have a sense of longing in her, ever since she’d returned from Scotland.

Something had to have happened between the two of them there.  Why else would Miss Parker act, lovesick?  Was that what that expression was?  Sydney grinned, slightly bemused at the thought until he remembered why he was sitting there.

Maybe Jarod had made an advance and Miss Parker had rejected him.  Sydney shook his head, unable to imagine that a rejected advance would make his protege’ murder...

Sydney sniffed back a tear. then tried to clear his head.  There was something more to this, and he knew who could help him find out what that was.

@@@@@@@@@

Miss Parker awoke in a small log cabin.  She smelled the sweet air and groggily sat up in the full-sized bed.  She flinched a little when she saw him sit up in the chair beside her.

“You’re alright.”  He said in his deep baritone.

“Why are you doing this?!”  She cried.

“Please, Miss Parker, it’s a little early for shouting.”

She surveyed the room, looking for escape.  Her adrenaline rush faded as she saw nothing barred her exit.  She looked at Jarod.  He looked tired.  The mostly empty bottle of liquor on the night table between them suggested her may be hung over as well.  She grabbed the bottle and took a long swig then held it in her hand when she looked back at him.

“What is going on?”

“I saved your life.”

“I don’t want to play games anymore, Jarod.”

“Neither do I.  I was digging around in The Center’s mainframe when I found an order for a hit on you.”  He lowered his gaze and shook his head before continuing in a deeper, saddened voice.  “I had no idea they would have your brother carry it out.”

She burst into tears.  Jarod moved over to the bed and held her, resting his head in her hair.

“What do we do now?”  She sobbed quietly.

“The only thing we can do.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to have to kill you myself.”

Miss Parker’s eyes widened and she shoved him away and leapt to her feet.

“Chances are better that I would kill you first, you bastard!”

Jarod stood and walked over to her as she backed herself against a wall.  Jarod stood before her and placed his left hand on the wall and gently caressed her face with his right.  Miss Parker felt her cheeks flush and her adrenaline surge.  This wasn’t like him and she didn’t know where she was.  She looked into his eyes as tears burst from hers.

  “Please don’t kill me, Jarod!”  She pleaded.  He looked in her blue eyes.  Desperation.

“I’m,”  He looked at the ceiling and then back at her, “It’s the only way, Myrna.  I’m sorry.”

She gasped as she felt his hot breath on her face.  She clenched her teeth and clamped her eyes shut, waiting for the gun to fire, or the knife to cut her skin.  He exhaled heavily on her face, she could smell the alcohol.

“Now, remember how you feel this very moment.” He growled.

She gasped.

@@@@@@@@@@

Sydney walked into the dimly lit room on SL-15 followed closely by Broots.  The two men looked determined and slightly frightened the man before them.

“Angelo, I need your help.”  Sydney said.

“Sydney sad.  Broots sad.”  Angelo replied.

Sydney opened the bag he held and handed the picture of Jared to Angelo.  Broots frowned when he saw it and looked at Sydney confused.

“What is that?”

“Something I found in Miss Parker’s home.”

They watched Angelo’s face change in a range of emotions.

“Daughter misses Jarod.  Daughter in pain.  Daughter loves Jarod.”  Angelo looked up at Sydney sadly.  “Jarod killed Daughter?”

“Yes, Jarod murdered Miss Parker.”  The words were hard for Sydney to say.

Angelo shook his head violently.  He muttered incoherently to himself and picked up a piece of paper and a crayon.  He scribbled furiously and then looked up at Sydney whimpering.  Sydney took the paper and looked at Broots puzzled.

“It’s a cabin.”

“The cabin she was murdered in?”  Broots asked Angelo.

“No, no!  Jarod not kill Myrna.”  Broots frowned.

“Who the hell is Myrna?”  He looked at Sydney as a light went on in Sydney’s head.

“Miss Parker?”  He asked Angelo.  He grabbed Broots’ arm and the two exited quickly.

@@@@@@@@

Miss Parker smelled her robe.  She made a disgusted face and shouted at him.

“Why the hell would you douse Me with gas?!”

Jarod whipped around to look at her furiously.

“Do you think that Lyle would have believed it if I hadn’t?!”  She looked at him defiantly.

“Well, Boy Wonder, not only did you snag me in the middle of the fucking night without a change of clothes, you also had to douse the only garment I have with gasoline!”  She turned her back to him and smoothed her ruined robe.  Her eyes flew wide open and she whirled around to glare at him.

“I’m naked!”  She screamed.

“Shut up!”  He yelled.  He sighed heavily and glared at her.  “Why don’t you just go catch up with your brother.”

“What?”

“If you keep shouting, he’s going to hear you and all of this would be for nothing.”

She sniffed and a tear rolled down her cheek.  Why had he done this?

“Jarod, I’m cold, naked, and smell like gasoline.”  His expression softened.  He pointed off into the woods.

“I have a car.”

She looked at him helplessly.  She had no shoes.  He walked over to her and scooped her up in his arms and carefully carried her down the hillside to his car.  He sat her in the vehicle, got in, and drove away.

He drove for two hours before stopping at and checking into a hotel in eastern Pennsylvania.  He opened the door for Miss Parker who bolted past him and into the bathroom with a quick slam on the inner door.  Jarod closed the door to the room and strode over to the bathroom.  He gently rapt on the door.

“Can I get you anything?”

“Yeah, get me some fucking clothes and something to eat.”

Jarod smiled and left the room, locking the door behind him.

@@@@@@@@

Miss Parker watched Jarod from the bed as he scanned the screen of his laptop.  A few days ago she would have wrestled him to the ground for the information on that screen.  She smiled at a distant memory and spoke softly, yet accusingly to him.

“I know you were watching me.”  Jarod looked up at her surprised.  Had he forgotten she was there?

“When?”

“Were there other times?”  Jarod lowered his eyes and blushed slightly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She stood and sauntered over to the table and stood before him.

“On Carthis.  At Ocee’s.  I know you were watching me as I changed my clothes.”  He tried to put on his poker face and she smiled.  “Uh, huh.  Did you like what you saw, Jarod?  It must have been, oh, exciting for you to see the woman who has hunted you for so long in such a vulnerable state.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  He repeated as his mind flashed back to the moment when he had averted his eyes, eventually.

Her grin widened.  She walked around the table a little more so he could see her better.  She slowly unfastened the sash on her new robe and showed Jared her nearly bare form beneath.  What was she doing?  She didn’t care, just giggled at Jarod’s surprise.

“Um, Miss Parker.”

“Myrna, right?”  She said in her best seductive tone and then burst out laughing, closing her robe.  She closed her eyes and shook her head as she walked back over to the bed.  She wasn’t even drunk yet here she was, flashing the man she’d been hunting for years.

“Hmm, maybe if I’d done that a few more times over the years I might have actually caught you.”  She said over her shoulder.

“Well, you’d have better luck with that approach than Lyle.”  Jarod smiled as he closed the laptop case.

She turned to look over her shoulder as he approached her and sat beside her.  She sat up and moved close to him.  He looked her over and then looked in her eyes.  Was this happening?

She slid her arms around his shoulders and her slid his around her waist.  They moved closer in their embrace and paused.

“Isn’t this the part where we’re interrupted by some unseen distraction?”  Jarod asked.  They smiled and chuckled slightly.

He closed the gap and began to kiss her gently.  She ran her fingers into his long hair as their kiss intensified.  They broke and he began to kiss her down her neck as he unfastened her robe and slid it over her shoulders and down her arms.  She pulled at his white tank top and pulled it over his head.

They paused and looked deeply into one another’s eyes.  There was nothing shy about this exchange.  That shyness had been lost on them somewhere between Carthis and that room.

Jarod removed her underwear as he kissed each spot he exposed.  She laid back and bit her lower lip before pulling him back to face her.  They kissed deeply as they removed the rest of his clothing.  He pulled her further up on the bed and gently parted her legs with his.  He kissed her gently as he descended upon her.  She released a long, soft moan and closed her eyes.

Miss Parker awoke and looked at Jarod as he typed furiously on his laptop.  She yawned and shook her head and the dream away.  She slowly began to sit up, catching Jarod’s attention.

“Are you alright?”  He asked.  She surveyed the room and noticed sunlight filtering in through the curtains.

“Morning already?”  She asked quietly.  It had been a long four days.

“Are you hungry?”  Jarod asked, shaking a box of frosted strawberry Pop-Tarts at her.  She shook her head and got up to lock herself in the bathroom.

Another dream about him, and he was mere feet away.  She heard a knock at the door.

“Are you alright, Miss Parker?”  He called through the door.

“I’m fine!”  She shouted.  Was she really?  This was crazy.  Lyle had tried to kill her, then Jarod had tried to kill her.  Well, not really.  He Had killed her, before Lyle’s very eyes.  The Center would never buy it though.  Bones don’t incinerate in a fire and they wouldn’t find any.  Jarod’s flaw.  She hadn’t the heart to tell him.

She stepped out of the bathroom and brushed her teeth with the vending machine toothbrush Jarod had gotten for her.  She looked at her bruised face in the mirror and then glanced at Jarod reflection watching her.

He’d worked so hard and it was all going to come apart.  She almost wished she could watch as they lowered her empty coffin into the ground, if it got that far.

They would come back and find it was all a hoax and then they would come for her and Jarod.  He was risking so much for her, why?

“Miss Parker.”  He said in a flat tone.  “You’re not normally this quiet.”

“Not even in my sleep?”  She said turning to look at him.  She saw his face flush slightly and felt a streak of panic.  Oh God, had she said something?

“You drool a little, that’s all.”  The words reminded her of that day at Thomas’s gravesite.  How long had he been coming in the night to watch her sleep?

“Jarod, are you in love with me?”  She felt like kicking herself once she’d said it.  No, more like shooting herself.  Jarod’s face turned red with embarrassment and confusion.

“Miss Parker, I,” He stammered like Broots.

“No, don’t answer!”  She said, holding up her hand before retreating into the bathroom.  What was she, stupid?  She looked at the walls of the small room and realized she would have to come out sometime.

She slowly opened the door to find Jarod working at his laptop once again.  He regarded her with a silent nod as she sat down on the bed.

She glanced at the television screen and then growled at Jarod.

“You know, there are like a million things wrong with your plan.”  Jarod looked up confused.

“Like what?”

“Like that.”  She replied motioning to the television screen.  She almost felt like laughing as she turned up the sound.

“Authorities are still investigating this bizarre murder and arson case that has led them from Blue Cove, Delaware to Green Ridge, West Virginia.  Miss Parker, a case worker at The Center mental health facility, was working on the disappearance of Jarod, the patient who apparently kidnapped and murdered her.  If you have seen or know of the wherabouts of this man, contact your local police department or the F.B.I. at once.”

Jarod was standing beside Miss Parker as they flashed their images on the screen.  Jarod said the words she thought.

“I can’t believe the Center got the police involved.”

“Me either.  This is something they would cover up.”  She replied.  She looked up at Jarod who appeared to be seething.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Mr. Raines could be heard shouting angry expletives in his office from down the hall.  After forty minutes, a frightened Broots and bemused Sydney emerged and walked down the same hallway to the elevator where Sydney burst out laughing as soon as the doors closed.

“Wha, what are you laughing about?”  Broots asked, still looking terrified.

“Well, the Center is in almost as much trouble as Jarod is right now.”

“What do you mean?”

“In my office.”  Sydney replied.  As soon as the door was safely secured and the two men were seated the doctor began, smiling.

“The authorities were tipped off by an annonymous phone call about a kidnapping and possible murder.  They found a burned out cabin in the woods from a recent fire.  Guess who the owner was.”

“Jarod?”

“No, Mr. Lyle.”

“Lyle!”  Broots gasped.

“Yes.  The F.B.I. was called in and Lyle received a visit with a lot of questions that he couldn’t answer.  Which has prompted a full scale investigation.”

“So we have more people working to catch Jarod.”

“Yes, but I don’t think that’s who’ll they’ll end up with.”

“Why?”

“Lyle and the Center made a lot of mistakes.  They ruined the crime scene, actually two crime scenes.  They brought Miss Parker’s body back here instead of giving it to the coroner, who has it now.”

“So?”

“So, I think there is a lot more going on now than we are privy too.”

“Like this Myrna person?”  Sydney clapped his hands over his face.

“Broots, you don’t get it.  Myrna is Miss Parker’s first name.”  A light went on in Broots’ head.

“So, Miss Parker is really alive.”  He grinned.

@@@@@@@@@@

Miss Parker laid on the bed half asleep listening to the radio.  All they could get were Country music stations, so she had it turned down low.  She knew Jarod was across the room, finishing up his plans.  She grinned a little at the wrench thrown into them.  How would the genius work that out?

“Never no more, will I be all alone.  Never no more, will I be a stay at home, ‘cause I’ve got me somebody, who makes me happy when I’m blue.”

“Never no more, will I cry for him.  Never no more, will I cry for him, ‘cause I‘ve got me somebody, who makes me happy when I‘m blue.”

“I‘ve been all around, I‘ve painted the town.  Saw all the old places and all the old faces that he, used to know.”

”But all that is past, got someone at last who makes me so happy that never no more will I never, ever be blue.”

“No, never no more, will I ever see him.  Never no more, now that I’m free of him, ‘cause I’ve got me somebody who makes me happy when I’m blue.”

She began to sob into her pillow.  She didn’t hear Jarod close his case, but felt his hands on her back.  She sat up and looked at him, sloppy and tear soaked.  He took her into his arms and held her close and laid down on the bed with her.

@@@@@@@@@@@@

She woke the next morning to find herself still in his arms.  He woke and tiredly looked at her face.  They looked at one another for a long moment before he finally spoke.

“What time is it?”

“Time to go.”  She replied.  He nodded and squeezed her tightly once more before they rose.

She dressed in the bathroom and emerged to look at herself in the mirror.  Soon the bruises would reappear.  Soon they would be apart once again.

@@@@@@@@@@@

“Is that too tight?”  Jarod asked quietly.

“No.”  She replied and braced herself as he pulled the rope even tighter.

He walked in front of her to see his work.  She looked up at him, a little frightened.

“What if this doesn’t work?”

“It will.”

“How do we explain the body?”  She asked.

“We don’t have to explain it.”  She nodded in realization.

“Will you be alright?”  He asked.  She nodded slowly.

“Yes.”

“Remember everything we went over.”  He was stalling and they both knew it.  Neither knew when they’d see each other this close again.

She looked at him longingly.  He knealt in front of her and held her arms in his hands, gently kneading them with his thumbs.  He leaned in and gently kissed her for a few, long moments before he pulled away and looked at her.

“Save the last dance for me.”  He said quietly before he slipped out of the tiny room and closed the door leaving her in the darkness.

She smiled to herself and remembered The Drifters’ song they’d listened to in the car just minutes before he’d tied her up in this dark hell.

“You can dance, every dance with the guy who gives the eyes and let you hold him tight.

You can smile, every smile for the man who held your hand beneath the pale moonlight.

But don’t forget who’s taking you home and in who’s arms your gonna be.

So darling save the last dance for me.”

@@@@@@@

Lyle stood surprised as the police burst past him and into his home.

“Officer, what is this all about?!”  He nearly cried out.

“We have a warrant to search the premise.”  F.B.I. agent Drake snarled as he shoved the paper into Lyle’s chest.

Thirty officers swarmed through the house and yard, searching.  One shouted from the back, then another.  Drake shoved past Lyle, who followed him to the room, then the closet, then the hidden door within.

Bright lights shone in her face and she clenched her eyes closed and moaned groggily.  They’d found her.

Lyle was thrown to the floor and cuffed as he stared at Miss Parker in surprise.

“But, but I don’t understand.”  He stammered.

Epilogue

Miss Parker smiled as she read the newspaper story.  A serial killer had been captured and brought to justice.  All according to Jarod’s plan.  She’d been a little angry at him when he told her in the car on their way back to Blue Cove that he’d been the one who’d contacted the authorities and he’d kept her in the dark on a few key details.

She understood in the end.  He’d taken an immense risk to help her and she would never forget it.  He’d eliminated the biggest risk to both of them, Lyle.  They were seeking the death penalty in his case.

She thought of how Lyle had tried to cover up Jarod’s deception and how Jarod had predicted he would.  Lyle had returned to the cabin for a “souvenir.”  Proof that she was indeed no longer a threat to the Center.  When he found no body, he’d taken a victim of his past time to the Center and said it was Miss Parker.  A past time that would now cost him his own life.

The phone rang in her office and she answered.

“Jarod.”

“What would you have done if it were Raines, or Lyle desperately pleading for your help from prison?”

“To hell with them.”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m better now.”  She glanced at her reflection and saw the fading, self-inflicted bruises.  A small price to pay.

“I think you’ll find something very interesting at the Blue Cafe in Bangor.”

“Is that a fact?  She replied.”  Another chase.  “I thought you told Lyle that you were tired of running and the next person who chased you would end up like me.”  She smiled.

“No one could be as beautiful as you.”  He grinned through the phone as he hung it up.  She smiled at her own receiver and placed it back in it’s cradle.  She stood and pulled her suit jacket down as she went to leave her office.  She would find Sydney and Broots and shout her unreasonable demands at them and catch up with Jarod just as he eluded them again.

She would never catch him.

“’Cause I’ve got me somebody, who makes me happy when I’m blue.”  She sang to herself quietly as she closed the office door behind her.

The End

What do you think?

melvansickle@earthlink.net