It was a short flight to London. Half an hour after they landed, they were in the city.

"OK, we have three hours to kill until our train to France leaves. What do you want to do?" Jarod said enthusiastically while throwing both of their bags over his shoulder.

"I don't care. Chose something and I'll follow." Parker didn't understand how he could always be such a good mood.

"You hungry?"

"No."

"Wanna see the royal palace?"

".. And lay down flowers for the princess, no thanks. Then we could go and walk behind a group of tourists."

"OK, what then?" It wasn't easy to entertain her. "Wait, I know." First finding a place to stash their luggage for safekeeping, he grabbed her hand and pulled her along with him.

"Where the hell are we going? We've walked almost a mile through this damn city."

"Easy, Parker. See, we're here." Jarod pointed to a huge building.

"Welcome to St. Paul's Cathedral." He looked over at Parker who stood quite bored beside him. "Ever heard of it?"

"Jarod, I was in school, sure I know what it is."

"OK, then, let's go inside."

St. Paul's was famous for its whispering gallery. In that large room, people could stand at one end and hear a whisper from the other end. It had a really special atmosphere.

Though it was in the middle of the day and lots of tourists were walking around in the room, to Parker's surprise it was quite quiet. She looked around impressed. She had seldom been to church and neither had Jarod.

"This is ..."

"Yeah. Let's go up."

"UP? Where's the elevator?" Parker's voice raised and Jarod chuckled.

"Stairs, ever heard of them? We walk up." He grabbed her hand and once more dragged her after him, ignoring her protests.

When they reached the top, they could hear several voices whispering.

"Wait here." Jarod hurried away and Parker took a look around. It was impressive, so old and yet so beautiful.

It gave one a feeling of steadiness and safety. Not like the Centre. She shut out all the foreign voices until one caught her attention.

"When I was lost,
I met an angel."

Parker smiled and tried to focus on his voice.

"She gave me hope.

But one day she was gone
And I was lost again.
Now I've found her
And she shows me heaven."

Parker couldn't spot him from where she stood, though the words sounded like they were coming from just beneath her. Like he was whispering in her ear, like he was surrounding her with his voice. She wished she could conquer her fear and tell him what she felt. It was just three little words but instead she kept quiet.

Jarod waited a long time to hear her say something to him but he could see her standing there motionless. She wasn't ready yet, maybe later. He could wait. When he spotted a big group of tourists enter the cathedral, he walked back to Parker. They left before they got overrun.

Outside the sun was shining through the clouds and their eyes took some time to get used to the brightness. Jarod blinked several times and then asked,

"Still not hungry? I could eat a little something."

"Well, maybe a bit. We can grab something on the way back to get our luggage."

"Okay, dokey." They started to walk. Parker glanced at Jarod several times and then took his hand.

At the train station, Parker got their tickets while Jarod phoned Broots and told him that they were leaving the UK . When they met on the platform, the train was ready for boarding and they could proceed to their compartment. "And you're sure it's safe to drive through a tunnel under the water?" Parker looked skeptical.

Jarod grinned, "You don't have agoraphobia, do you?"

"No, but I don't like the idea of being in a tunnel without any means of escape."

"It is safe, believe me." He put the bags on the shelf above the seats and sat beside her.

"OK, but if we die down there, I'll kill you." Parker warned him while trying hard not to laugh. It was really hard to be angry with him when he looked at her like that with his soft, dark brown eyes. When she looked at him now, he reminded her at a big teddybear.

"J-bear." She said suddenly.

"Huh?"

"You look like a teddybear when you look at me that way."

"I've been called several things since I've been out in the big, wide world but no one has ever told me I look like a cuddly toy animal." He was a bit confused.

"Oh, it's a pet name and I like it."

"J-bear and Angel. Perfect."

"Jarod ...," she warned him.

"What? You told it to the others at the castle, I thought it was OK..."

"That was just the ... heat of the moment. Must have been too much fresh air or something."

"OK, ," he emphasized.

"That's better."

"May I see your tickets?" the ticket collector said as he entered their compartment.

Parker quickly found them in her pocket and handed them to him.

"Thanks. We should be in Dover in about fifteen minutes. The trip through the tunnel should take another twenty and then you have to change to the train on platform 16 b," he informed them, looking at their tickets. "Have a nice trip." He handed them their papers and left.

"Friendly people, huh?" Jarod put his feet back on the seat across from him and leaned back.

"Too friendly."

"What shall we do now?"

"Jarod, can't you just sit around and do nothing for a few minutes?" Parker was just a bit annoyed.

Jarod made a face and took the laptop from the shelf above his head.

"No, you can't," Parker answered her own question.

The trip wasn't as bad as Parker expected. They didn't even notice when the train was in the tunnel. Her ears felt stopped up from the pressure but nothing more. The next train to Paris was over an hour late so they had to wait at the gate. When it finally came, first thing Miss Parker did was hiss at the ticket collector. Jarod tried to intervene and guided her to the compartment that would be theirs for the next 6 hours. They could have taken a faster train but they had chosen this one as a detour.

"It's not his fault, don't blame him." Jarod defended the poor guy. Parker mumbled something and pulled the doors open.

"What the hell..."

Jarod looked at the compartment number and one on their reservation tickets.

"This is ours." Parker gave an icey look to the three teenagers that had spread out in their compartment.

"Take it easy, girl. There's enough room for all of us. Take a seat." A boy around nineteen with wide skater clothes and a baseball cap patted the seat next to him.

If Jarod hadn't held Parker back, she probably would have kicked the boy's ass out of the window. He grabbed her shoulder and pulled her gently back and entered the compartment himself. "Sorry, guys. I don't think so but I'm sure you can find somewhere else to stay in the next car." He stood in the doorway, his arms crossed in front of his chest. Sometimes it was an advantage to be big enough to be intimidating.

"Ah shit." One of them cursed and they began packing their stuff. Minutes later they were gone. Jarod and Miss Parker entered their compartment and got comfortable.

"You see, they're gone and without violence."

"Yeah, but only because you made them think you were going to kick their butts if they don't disappear."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did or what was that macho pose all about?"

"OK, OK, you're right..."

"And you don't wanna argue, heh?"

"Ha, ha. Shall I get us something? Food, something to drink?"

"Mhm, yeah, why not."

"OK, I think there's a dining car only a couple of cars away. I'll be right back."

"Mhm." Parker sank deeper into the seat. Another never ending trip, puh. Half a hour later, Jarod still hadn't returned. Parker went into the hallway to look for him and crashed into one of the guys they had chased out of their compartment earlier.

"Hey!" she hissed.

"Sorry, lady. Can I make it up to you somehow?" he grinned rudely.

Parker coolly opened the window, "Jump." Seconds later she was rid of him. He didn't jumped out but ran to the next car. Parker could only laugh at the moron.

Jarod arrived with an arm full of food and drink. He had had serious problems getting through the connecting doors but luckily he had always found nice travelers that held them open for him.

"Could you take something," he nodded to Parker who let him back into the compartment.

"God, what do you have here. We can't eat this much." Parker's eyes grew wide.

"Well, we should at least taste all of it. Who knows when we might get back to France again?"

One hour, five croissants, two sandwiches with crisp bacon, a salad with French dressing, and most of a bottle of red wine later, Parker laughed at Jarod.

"What?" he said defensively.

"You usually don't drink much, do you?" They had unfolded the seats and were laying beside each other head to toe.

"No. Why?" he asked, slowly caressing her thighs.

"I'm sure when I turn off the light, your ears will glow in the dark." She chuckled but before she could say anything else, he jumped up and turned off the cabin light.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Parker laughed loudly as he stumbled back to her in the dark. "You're drunk."

Jarod groped blindly in the dark to find her. "So?"

"You had better take a nap, buddy." She grabbed him by the shoulder, turned him around and pulled him down to her.

"I'm not sleepy." He protested but as soon as he felt her steady breathing, he closed his eyes and drifted off.

Parker stretched her arm and tried to reach the last sandwich without waking Jarod. It tasted really good, especially the French baguette-bread. When she was finished she had to ruffle the bread crumbs from his head but he was sleeping so deeply, he wouldn't have awakened if she had cut his hair. With a full stomach and Jarod as a warm blanket she quickly dozed off only to be awakened ten minutes later by the train whistle when they arrived in Paris.

"Wake up, sleeping beauty," she whispered as she kissed the top of his head.

"Mhmmm," Jarod mumbled as he turned a bit and laid his head on her chest. He made no move to stand up.

"Hey, we've got to get ready..."

"Wha... oh, yeah, yeah."

Though it was hard, Jarod separated himself from Parker and stood up, slowly stretching.

"Mhm. Ahh," he moaned when he moved his aching muscles. Parker wasn't any better. Her head had somehow fallen to the side and now she felt like Quasimodo.

Once on the platform, they searched for the status board to check the departure time of their next train and both cursed when they read that their connecting train to Germany was canceled because of a conductor's strike.

"Why not take a flight from here to New York?"

"Yeah, that's better than nothing, huh?" Jarod could see in her eyes that she was disappointed.

"OK, we'll take it. I don't wanna hang around here any longer."

They took a cab and luckily got a flight at 6 a.m. after waiting only 3 hours.

Their seats on the plane were the in the first class section, which was pretty empty. A TV hung not far away playing some stupid comedy but Parker chose to turned on the radio in the armchair. She had gotten herself a few magazines and flipped through them. Most of the other passengers seemed to be business men. Some were also reading magazines while others typed on laptops or just slept.

After seven seemingly endless hours, they finally landed in New York at 7 a.m. local time. They got themselves a rental car to drive down to Blue Cove.

Jarod had handed Parker the keys and sat in the passenger seat. He didn't dare drive himself in his condition. He could barely keep his eyes open though he had slept more during the whole trip than the woman next to him. Sometimes she was a secret to him. He chuckled softly and laid his head back.

"Aren't you dead tired?" he asked after a while on the road.

"Sure but we can rest when we're there."

"Yeah." He kept quiet a moment before he asked, "Which motel should we use? We have a large selection."

"Do you think my house is under observation? Do they think I might be so dumb as to go back there?"

"Mhm, if I know them there will likely one sweeper who is probably sleeping in a car outside. But it shouldn't be a problem to get inside without his noticing. I've slipped in several times and they've never seen me." He grinned and shook his head slightly.

"Then we go to my house. I wanna pick up some stuff." Parker kept her eyes on the road.

"Are you OK?" Jarod grew concerned. "We could take a break and drive on later?"

"I'm fine. All I want is to crash at home." She lightly pushed away his hand that caressed her cheek.

It really was no problem to slip inside her house without attracting the sweeper's attention. He was busy eating donuts and drinking coffee. "If I was still working for the Centre, I would kick his ass!" Parker shut and locked the backdoor behind Jarod. "What...?" she said as they entered her living room.

"Somebody seems to have been looking for something." He righted the couch and coffee table that someone had tipped over.

"Leave it, Jarod. I'm going to shower and take a nap before we drive to my dad's."

"OK, I'm gonna check the Centre-database to see if there is anything new. Tell me when the bathroom is free. I could use a shower myself."

"Sure." She headed to the bathroom, throwing her clothes piece after piece on the chair next to her bed.

Jarod watched until she shut the bathroom door behind her and then unpacked his laptop. He tried hard to focus on the screen and hack into the system but the knowledge of her standing naked in the next room made it difficult.

Part 2