Shaddyr's Eclectic Collection > Pretender Fanfiction > Breath
Breath
by Rebeckah
I went to sleep one night; a normal woman in her apartment in the "real" world, and I woke up in a nightmare. I have spent far too many fruitless hours trying to understand what had happened and how and if it was even real or if I am simply having a very long, very real hallucination.
You see, I woke up inside a television program. I haven’t seen much of this world, so I don’t know if there’s a Dr. Mark Sloan running around somewhere, or a Mulder and Scully solving X-Files from their Washington DC basement office, but I know there’s a Centre in Blue Cove, Delaware. I know there’s a man named Jarod here that they kidnapped as a child and exploited for years.
I know he escaped them, several times, and that they seek him still. I know where he is, but I’m certainly not about to tell them. Against my better judgment I’ve gone and fallen in love with the man.
I can hear his peaceful breathing from the bed behind me as I gaze out my window onto the silver and black landscape below. My hands caress my swollen belly, soothing the three fetuses wrestling within my womb. They are his children, created because of the greed of the Centre but loved no less for that reason.
If I could return home tonight I wouldn’t. These infants and their father have grounded me into this reality in a way that no locked doors or basement cells could have ever managed.
But love isn’t enough to soothe my anxiety. Jarod sleeps peacefully now, and I am happy for him, knowing all too well the nightmares that used to plague him. I just wish that I too could sleep peacefully.
Even if I hadn’t been into my 7th month of pregnancy with triplets I’d still be up now, contemplating the stark midnight landscape and contemplating my new life. My nightmares haven’t gone away with my freedom from the Centre. I try not to let them disturb Jarod in his sleep, but they still wake me most nights.
Once again I look over at the man who changed my life in ways that he can’t possibly comprehend, and the words to a song I’d heard in my reality floated through my mind.
BREATHE
‘I can feel the magic floating in the air…’Yes, the day had been magic. Jarod had returned shortly before dawn from one of his pretends and, as always, my fears had been swept away by the flood of joy in his return. It frightened me to my bones to feel that much happiness simply from being in the presence of another human being. If my life had taught me anything, it was never to get too close to anyone; and yet there I was, tied heart and soul to a man, on the run from a ruthless corporation, and with a hero complex. It was enough to give me a nervous breakdown.
‘Being with you gets me that way.’
Yeah, being with him turned my brain to mush and my well trained instinct for self-preservation to nothing more than an impotent voice in my head. The only other time I had felt this way; felt like my survival was secondary to the happiness of another, had been with my children in my previous life. But with my son and daughter I’d had the power to protect them; at least until I trained them to be cautious too.
Jarod, though, was too well trained to jump into situations that could hurt him. His need for revenge took him out into the world time and time again, and made him taunt the Centre instead of hiding from it the way a prudent person would have. I was terrified that he’d be captured by the Centre, or worse, that he’d lead them to me.‘As I watch the sunlight dance across your face…’
Okay, it was moonlight, but the sentiment was the same. I loved to watch him, especially when he was asleep and unguarded. His little-boy naiveté and grown-man strength were both easy to see in his sleeping face.
He could still be amazed and enthralled by things that other people took for granted and he was incredibly----earnest. Like a child there were no half measures with him, but his passions were those of an adult. He was such an endearing combination of guileless boy and clever man that I knew I’d never really stood a chance against his appeal. In spite of the cruelty of some of the stings he pulled on the guilty during his pretends, there was an innate goodness to him that drew me like a magnet.‘I’ve never been this swept away.’
Well, there was no questioning that one. I had never, in either of my lives, felt the same helpless bonding that I did with him. It wasn’t that I couldn’t feel, couldn’t love, but rather that the cautious observer in my head kept those feelings firmly in check. She weighed everyone who entered my life and decided whether or not we could allow ourselves to get close based on one impossible criteria: Could they hurt us?
Of course, everyone was capable of hurting us, so she reserved love for children and animals, who were at least mostly safe. I wondered if it was Jarod’s childlike nature that slipped him past my barriers, or if the Centre had somehow played with my mind during our captivity. I knew that Raines had a fondness for experimental drugs.‘All my thoughts just seem to settle on the breeze…’
Settle on the breeze? Hah! Blow away on a hurricane was more like it. The doubts, the carefully rehearsed objections to our relationship, every logical thought vanished like a snowball in July when I was with him. I knew that I should leave him, should vanish during one of his journeys and thereby save us both from discovery, but just one thought of his sad brown eyes stopped me before I even started to leave.
Sometimes I felt so torn between my logical, and cautious, mind and my loving heart that I thought I’d rip in half and bleed to death. Sometimes I almost wished I would. I hated this vacillation in my mind and I hated having to make a decision. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a coward---it’s a trait that has saved me many times. Now, though, my heart had rebelled with a vengeance, and not even my cowardice was enough to save me.
’When I’m lying wrapped up in your arms.’
All he had to do was touch me and all of my arguments vanished. When he held me I felt safer and more loved than I ever had in my life---on either world. If I could have killed that part of me that insisted security is a lie and that giving another person a hold on your heart was dangerous, I would have been blissfully happy. As it was, that part of me was silent when I was in his arms, swept away by the emotions his lightest touch brought out in me. It was later, when he was gone on another crusade and I was alone again, that my insecurities chimed up.
‘The whole world just fades away…’
If only the world was gone, then it would be easy. I’d even settle for the Centre being gone. I just couldn’t seem to shake my terror of that place, Raines, and, most of all, Lyle. I’d recovered from violence once before----well, I learned how to push it to the back of my mind and forget it most of the time, at least, but I couldn’t seem to push away the memories I had of the place.
Unfortunately the only memories the Centre had left me were negative. Jarod assured me, often, that we had some good times during the weeks I’d lost, but I didn’t remember them. I believed him, but it would have been hard not to with the three, rapidly growing proofs of his words turning somersaults in my womb.
‘and the only thing I hear is the beating of your heart.’
I could feel it now, from across the room and not even touching him. It was a good heart, filled with an abundance of love that he wanted to give away. He wanted a family so badly----
‘And that’s why he says he loves you.’ my insecurities insisted.
It didn’t matter how many times I reassured myself that he meant what he said, a large part of me believed that no one as wonderful as Jarod could love someone as damaged as me. Lyle’s attentions were easier for me to accept than Jarod’s open devotion.
‘Cause I can feel you breathe, watching over me, and suddenly I’m melting into you.’
Yep, that was my other fear. It was as though I had ceased to be me once he came into my life. Of course, I’d really ceased to be me when I’d left my reality----pulled here by an act of nature on my world and the twisted experiments of Dr. Raines on this. But it was the change in my heart, my soul, that terrified me----and that change was all because of Jarod.
I wasn’t a fortress of solitude any longer; Jarod had become a part of me, or I had become a part of him. When the time came for him to leave me, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that time would come, what would be left of me? Would I be able to go on without him?
‘There’s nothing left to prove, baby all we need is just to be,’
God! I wished it could be that easy! Just to be. Even in TV land it couldn’t be that simple.
Jarod, for all that I thought he was the greatest thing to have happened to me, had his flaws---the Centre being one big one, and his hero complex being almost as large. He needed to find his family, discover the past the Centre had stolen from him, and find some goal for his life other than punishing every bad guy he came across. And I certainly had a truckload of my own problems.
I needed to find out how to feel secure again; to rediscover the courage the Centre had stolen from me. I knew I couldn’t possibly love him the way he needed to be loved until I could learn to believe in his love for me. And to do that I had to first believe that I was lovable. I’d never been given unconditional love before him, and I still didn’t know what to do with it.
And somewhere, in the midst of those needs, we needed to figure out just how we were going to protect the three babies I carried from that loathsome disease that was the Centre.‘caught up in the touch, the slow and steady rush, baby isn’t that the way that love’s supposed to be?’
Which brought me back to my underlying worry. Was this love? How would I know? I’d never been in love before. I’d had two children, and raised them to adulthood, on that other world, and still I’d never actually fallen in love. Jarod had, if I could believe what the television series had revealed-----but it had looked a lot more like infatuation to me.
‘I can feel you breathe…..just breathe.’
His eyes fluttered uneasily. He sensed me watching him, and he hated to be watched. I understood his feelings, even before my experience in the Centre, with its eternal surveillance cameras, I too had hated to be watched.
I returned my gaze to the picture window I stood in front of, and looked over the moon-bathed countryside. It was eerily beautiful, every object sharply defined by the cold white light. It represented my sanctuary; the first security I’d felt since coming to this world and I was deeply grateful to the generous couple sleeping in the house next to us---the same couple that had taken me in and sheltered me following my escape from the Centre.
Even if Sam had ignored my wishes and contacted Jarod behind my back. He had reunited us, and while I treasured our time together, I was still convinced that it would end in disaster. The Centre wasn’t going to let us go, or give up on claiming our children. All of us together in one place was simply begging for trouble.
Jarod murmured in his sleep, and I turned my gaze back on him, checking for signs of distress. He tossed restlessly, turned over and found my pillow, and hugging it to him and fell back into a deep sleep.‘In a way I know my heart is waking up…’
Ever had an arm or a leg fall asleep? Remember how much it hurts when they come back to life? Imagine how painful my poor heart, asleep for a lifetime, hurt now. I wanted so much to believe in "happily ever after", but I knew better. The big bad wolf was looking for us, and I could feel him drawing closer every day.
‘as all the walls come tumbling down.’
Why didn’t the songs ever reveal just how painful it is for those walls to come down? Why didn’t they talk about the uncertainty, the feeling of vulnerability, the soul chilling fear? People don’t have walls for nothing, you know. They’re there to protect us; to protect that painful, waking heart. Love isn’t what it’s cracked up to be in the songs, folks.‘Closer than I’ve ever felt before…’
Too close, at least as far as my insecurities were concerned. Close means vulnerable, and vulnerable means pain in my book. A man to trust is as mythical as a unicorn in my universe.
But I knew I’d never leave him.
My gaze was drawn back to him like iron filings to a magnet. Just the sight of him, vulnerable in his sleep, trusting in my love, damaged as it was, melted the barriers in my heart like sugar in the rain. I had no choice where he was concerned---some force stronger than my survival instincts drove me to his side, kept me there against my better judgment.
And the worst of it was that my voice of survival was growing quieter and quieter as time went on. I liked being with Jarod, making him smile, watching him sleep the peaceful sleep of a baby.‘And I know, and you know, there’s no need for words right now.’
It took all of my willpower, but I pulled my gaze away from him and stared blindly back out the window. I still needed words, but I wasn’t sure the words I needed even existed. I knew Jarod would never understand me well enough to speak them if they did.
He tried, but even with his far from ideal childhood he couldn’t understand the insecurities mine had left me. He didn’t even really understand the insecurities his childhood had left him.
‘Cause I can feel you breathe, watching over me, and suddenly I’m melting into you.
There’s nothing left to prove, baby all we need is just to be…
Caught up in the touch, the slow and steady rush, baby isn’t that the way that love’s supposed to be?
I can feel you breathe-------just breathe.’
There he was now. Did I hear the sheets rustle? Did the bed creak as he rose? I don’t know, I just know that I was always aware of him, from the moment he entered the same room as me, until the moment he left. He slid his arms around me, hands splaying over my swollen stomach, and I leaned back against him with a contented sigh.
It didn’t matter how deeply into my worries and fears I was, his touch always affected me that way. Within his arms nothing else mattered, we were our own little universe. Too bad he couldn’t hold me 24 hours a day.
He never seemed surprised that I knew when he was there; that he could come up from behind me time after time and touch me, but never startle me. I wondered if he was aware of me in the same way.
"Babies keeping you up?" His voice was a low rumble that sent a shiver of primal pleasure through me, as always.
"Mmm, one of the little monsters is going to need a trampoline when he gets out." I agreed, keeping my troubled thoughts to myself.
I’d told him once, before he left me on his first mercy mission after our reunion, how frightened it made me. He’d smiled, his charming, completely self-confident smile, and sworn that he’d never allow the Centre to find the babies or me. After that one time I kept my fears to myself.
I knew Jarod needed to be free----to search for his family and to help people without any regrets. If I had pressed my fears, he would have stopped, but it would have stifled something in him and I would have been no better than those who ran the Centre. I loved him enough to let him go. I didn’t really have a choice.
He had just returned from his third mission of mercy and it seemed that everything was fine, but something inside of me screamed that it wasn’t.
I don’t know if my arrival in this world had connected me on some unconscious level to Raines and Lyle, if it had awakened some extra sense that I’d never had before, or if I was simply full of pregnancy hormones, and fretting over nothing. I did know that I felt sure that disaster loomed over us, about to strike.
I didn’t resist when he led me back to the bed, murmuring something about me needing rest. I lay quietly, imprinting the feeling of his arms around me, his special scent surrounding me, his soft breathing feathering the hair at the back of my neck, in my memory. I stored up the images, and smells, and sounds and feelings like a squirrel storing nuts for winter.
If the Archangel Michael had come down in that minute and told me my fears were groundless; that Jarod and I and our offspring were perfectly safe, I would have called him a liar. I knew, with the same inborn instinct that keeps babies from climbing over cliffs, that our time together was almost over. I knew we’d be torn apart and I knew without question that I’d never meet anyone like him again.
After a while I felt Jarod relax and fall asleep again. I lay quietly, absorbing the essence of him and saying goodbye.
He was still asleep when the sun came up. I suspected that he’d gone the entire time he was away on 3 or fewer hours of sleep a night. Sometimes he still did that when he was with me in spite of my best efforts to train him into better sleeping habits.
The detached air of destiny that had settled on me in the middle of the night still covered me like a cloak. I kissed him gently, and when he didn’t stir I got ready for the day without waking him. Some part of me insisted that it was better this way.
Sally and I were going into Salt Lake to visit the hospital and the obstetrician who would deliver the babies. We had considered going as far away as Portland, or even Seattle, just to keep the Freeman’s home safe, but Sam insisted that we needed someplace realistically close. I had to agree since the births of my children in my other lifetime had been remarkably fast and easy. I didn’t know that this delivery would be like them, but I didn’t know it wouldn’t either.
The doctor in question was a college friend of Dr. Black’s, and he’d promised to keep my presence there under wraps. He said that they did the same thing when celebrities flew in from California all the time. It was the best we could do under the circumstances.
I left Jarod a note, so he wouldn’t worry, and, acting on the bone deep conviction that I wouldn’t be returning to the Flemming’s sanctuary, grabbed my black backpack of money from under the bed. This was the same money that Jarod’s friends had given me the day they helped me to escape from the Centre.
I’d barely touched the cash and still had more that ten thousand dollars crammed into the inconspicuous pack. It might be enough to help us out if we ended up in a jam, and if my premonition was wrong, then I could do some shopping in the more cosmopolitan city before we returned.
Sam drove Sally and I to the hospital and dropped us off. He didn’t wait for us to even go into the building before taking off for the nearest feed store. He was, like many men, highly uncomfortable with the birth aspect of pregnancy. He was a gentle man who’d delivered calves and foals and puppies, but the thought of a human birth scared him silly. Sally and I indulged his nerves and kept our laughter until after he’d left. We were still chuckling at his relieved expression as he’d driven off when the doctor met us in the main lobby.
Dr. Wright was a tall, thin, nervous man, and I disliked him intensely. He swallowed frequently, causing his prominent Adam’s apple to bob noticeably, and kept wringing his hands like he was washing up for surgery. He wouldn’t look either of us in the eye, but always seemed to be scanning the area for someone else.
My survival instincts were screaming halfway through his stammered introduction and Sally’s obviously were doing the same. We exchanged one look full of silent communication, and headed for the exit, leaving Dr. Wright sputtering incoherently behind us.
I could hear more than a little fear in his protests, and we speeded up in response.
"What do we do when we’re out?" I panted slightly, my added bulk having cut down on my wind. "Sam’s at the----feed store."
"We’ll worry about that when we get there." Sally replied grimly, her eyes scanning the hallways for anything out of place.
She and Sam knew about the Centre, although they’d never actually encountered the carefully hidden organization. They hadn’t doubted my description, though, perhaps because of the nightmares that Sally knew I still had. Or maybe it was the fact that Jarod had confirmed my story. Whatever the reason, I was never so happy that they believed me as I was then. If Sally and I had stopped to argue about the danger I would have been back in Lyle’s hands that very day.
We pushed our way through the people crowding the hospital for visiting hours and burst out the main entrance. Sally was already scanning the area for a cab, bus, or any other conveyance for us. We spotted Sam and his beat up truck at the same time.
"Sam!" Sally waved energetically, somehow managing to catch her husband’s attention in spite of the distance and chaos all around us.
He maneuvered the truck to the canvas overhang that protected patients from the elements and got out to help me in. Just then, a black Towncar turned into the hospital entrance, and my blood ran cold in anticipatory fear. Sam correctly interpreted my gasp of dismay and propelled me into the passenger seat with a force that he’d never have used under any other circumstances.
"You drive, I’ll cover." He ordered tersely, reaching around me for the shotgun hanging from a rack in the rear window.
"No, Sam!" I yelled frantically. "They kill you!"
He ignored me and climbed nimbly into the bed of the pickup. There he stood up, legs braced against the sway of the truck and took careful aim. He fired a shot that shattered the windshield of the Towncar and started it swerving wildly.
Sally had pulled onto the street, and was accelerating, and as pedestrians screamed and dove for cover. My premonition wasn’t any help; I was numb with shock and fear, but Sam and Sally seemed to be taking the insanity completely in their stride. It was a good thing for me. I couldn’t have defended myself if I’d had a bazooka in my hand to fire; I couldn’t even think.
Sam took careful aim and fired again, wounding the driver. But it was only the man’s shoulder and the car continued after us. I screamed at Sam to get down when I saw a man lean out of the back window, but it was too late. Two shots impacted on Sam’s body, throwing him out of our speeding truck. I screamed again, an incoherent cry of fear, sorrow, and pain.
"Quit shrieking and get the shotgun." Sally ordered me harshly, her eyes narrowed to a tight squint in an effort to hold back her tears. She gestured with her head towards the second gun on the window rack. "You’re going to have to take those bastards out, can you do it?"
"It’s been a long time since I fired a shotgun, but I’ll figure it out." I declared with more bravado than conviction.
I was still encased in a cold shell of fear, but I could move again. I dug out the gun and a box of shells from under the seat, in case I needed to reload. I could still see Sam lying limply on the roadside when I surfaced with a newly loaded gun. I aimed directly at the hood of the car, hoping that the powerful impact of a shotgun shell would damage something vital, and fired twice in quick succession.
The black car bucked as something quit working, and then limped to the side of the road, allowing us to leave them behind. But with them, we also left what was left of Sam…
Sally drove like a bat out of hell and-----well, I cried and trembled like a leaf in a gale. I couldn’t believe I was still free; that I’d eluded that trap. I couldn’t believe that Sam was dead---and I knew that it was my fault. If he and Sally hadn’t helped me they’d still be alive and well on their farm.
"Anne, you’re going to have to pull yourself together and help me figure out what to do next." Sally said tightly as soon as she was sure that the Towncar I’d taken out was the only one the Centre had on our tails.
"Sally, we have to call Jarod. We have to warn him." I whispered.
"I think we’re far enough away from them to stop for a few minutes." Sally answered, her face and shoulders held unnaturally still.
I knew she was firmly repressing her own grief, and wondered if I should offer to drive when we took off again. I decided not to. I couldn’t stop shaking. I knew I was in no condition to drive and I knew that we had to get moving again as soon as possible. As long as Sally could contain herself. she would be the safer driver.
I left Sally filling up the truck and made my way to the pay phone by the road. Somewhat to my surprise Jarod answered on the first ring.
"Jarod?" I quavered.
"Anne! What’s the matter? What’s wrong?"
The sound of his voice was a balm to my shattered emotions. He was still free and still okay.
"They knew, somehow, that we were going to the hospital. Probably the doctor we saw tipped them off, he certainly was nervous about something." I drew a deep breath, trying to control my fear and grief. "They----" my voice broke off anyway as fresh tears welled in my eyes.
"They got Sam." I choked out. "Sally and I got away. I don’t know where we are."
"Don’t tell me!" Jarod broke into my recital. "They may very well have the house bugged or under surveillance. Contact me on our Internet site, tonight? Okay?"
"Get out of there Jarod!" I begged suddenly. "I’m so afraid they’re closing in on you."
"Damn!" I heard Jarod curse, and then I heard the bashing in of the door and the crash of a window breaking. There were a few short exclamations, a couple of handgun shots, and a new voice sounded on the phone.
"Eve, is that you, my dear?" Lyle asked smoothly. "Why don’t you be a good girl and tell me where you are? It’s past time you came home; I’ve been missing all the fun we had together."
I could feel the blood drain from my face and I began to shake again uncontrollably. It was all I could do to hang up the phone. Sally came up a moment later to see what was keeping me and immediately leaped to the conclusion that Jarod had been captured.
"Don’t worry, honey." She promised me gently. "We’ll figure out a way to get him away from them."
"No, he’s still free." I managed to say and felt the color beginning to return to my fact as I realized things weren’t as bad as they could be. "It was Lyle, he spoke to me and I-----"
"He terrifies you, doesn’t he?" Sally stated, rather than asked as she guided me back to the truck with her arm around my shoulders.
I nodded mutely and cursed inwardly as tears once again began to fall. I hadn’t given her and Sam all of the details of my stay and the Centre, and I’d never mentioned any names, but Sally had been there through some of my nightmares, and she was a clever woman. She knew someone had systematically terrorized me and it didn’t take much of a leap to put Lyle’s name to it, given my breakdown at the moment.
"We need to get rid of the truck." I tried to stop the flow of tears by focusing on the problems at hand. "And then we need to find some way to change our appearances."
It worked. Planning just how I was going to stay out of Lyle’s sadistic hands did more to calm me down than a shot of Valium.
"Just how do you plan to finance all of this? I don’t think it would be a good idea to use my credit cards, do you?" Sally questioned dryly.
"No." I smiled wanly. "But I brought along my rainy day fund. I was thinking that I might want to start buy baby things. It’s all in the truck, in my black backpack."
"Anne, that’s the first good thing I’ve heard all day." Sally smiled with a hint of true pleasure.
I could see the black grief lurking behind her brisk practicality and I wondered just how she was coping with the loss of Sam. Was she simply ignoring his death? I had to hope not, if she was, then she’d break down sooner or later when her wall of ignorance fell, and I needed her strong.
I followed her to the truck, breathing deeply and erecting walls of my own to keep panic at bay. I knew I couldn’t allow myself the luxury of fear. The shocks of this day could well have been enough to send me into early labor, and if I didn’t relax soon I still could go into labor.
An hour later we were crossing the boarder into Wyoming in a comfortable RV that we had purchased from a retired airline pilot and his wife. They’d promised us they would keep our truck hidden in their garage for two weeks before taking it out to sell for whatever they could get for it. They had no trouble believing that I was fleeing an abusive spouse, Sally and I were both wired so tightly we looked ready to jump out of our skins at any moment.
I was still trembling slightly, unable to shake that brief brush with Lyle. Sally’s face had aged 10 years since this morning, and an aura of grief hung palpably around her. We actually worried the couple to the point that it was all we could do to convince them not to call the police immediately. Only my explanation that my husband was very rich and powerful, and that the police might actually be helping him search for us deterred them.
I described the Centre Sweepers and their Towncars and added that it was entirely possible that my husband would say that I was mentally unbalanced, seriously ill, or even a criminal. In short, I covered every eventuality I could come up with to help this nice couple keep our cover. Then I added what I think was the clincher for them. I asked them not to get themselves into trouble with the people searching for us.
"We’ll do everything we can to change our appearance as soon as we leave her." I told them. "And we’ll probably change vehicles a few more times, so if you need to tell them the truth, do it. I don’t want anyone to get hurt."
Sally’s face tightened further and ready tears pricked at my eyes with that. We were both thinking of Sam. The pilot looked grim and determined, I knew he was totally on our side at this point.
"You mean you don’t want anyone else to get hurt, don’t you?" He corrected me shrewdly.
I didn’t confirm or deny his guess, preferring not to mention Sam in any way. Not only was I afraid that I’d start crying again, but I was also afraid for them to know too much about our situation. I had no doubt that if Lyle suspected that these nice people knew anything he’d have them brought to the Centre and run through the wringer until he was convinced otherwise. Then he’d probably have them killed.
"So," Sally started as we pulled out of the driveway, "we’re going to change vehicles? How do you plan to manage that?"
"I don’t know." I replied honestly. "But I think we have to figure something out."
"You don’t think you’re overreacting a bit?"
"Tell me the truth, Sally, didn’t you think I was overreacting about the doctor and not being on any records?" I returned grimly.
"Point taken." She returned, just as grimly.
"I don’t know that the Centre has the resources to track us to that couple." I admitted after a moment’s thought. "But I don’t know that they don’t, either. I can’t risk the children on what might be safe. I have to assume that they have unlimited resources."
"I think you’re right." Sally agreed softly. "I just wish you weren’t."
"Right now I think it’s more important that we change our appearance." I told Sally firmly. I didn’t add that I was starting to have fairly regular contractions.
"Just what do you suggest?" She asked.
"Hair dye and colored contacts." I returned promptly. "I think that if we both have brown hair and eyes we’ll throw our pursuit off by a little while."
"You had done that back when we first found you." Sally remembered. "You’re hair was redder than it is now and your eyes were green, not blue."
"It worked for a long time too. I don’t think they’d ever have found me if it weren’t for the babies."
"You sound like you think they were checking every hospital for a woman having a baby."
"I think they suspected multiple births and they had someone in every major hospital watching for a strange woman coming in to give birth." I corrected grimly. "Thank God we were just going to meet him, not for the birth itself----the babies and I would be at the Centre now if we had been delayed even for a few minutes."
I spotted Sally staring at my hands, which had been absently massaging my tight abdomen.
"What?" I asked.
"How long have you been having contractions?" She asked pointedly.
"They aren’t contractions. They’re Braxton-Hicks."
"Every five minutes on the dot?" She scoffed. "How long?"
"Since I called Jarod." I finally admitted. "But they’ve been five minutes apart the whole time---they aren’t getting any stronger or closer together."
"We’ve got to get you to a hospital."
"Not until we’ve changed our appearance." I insisted.
"Anne, this is nothing to mess around with." Sally insisted.
"Sally, I’ve already raised two children---I’m a lot older than I look. I know what labor is like and I’m not in labor---yet." I replied firmly. "And the sooner we change our appearance, the sooner I’m going to be willing to go see a doctor."
"Anne, had anyone ever told you that you are the most stubborn, hard headed, foolish female in existence?" Sally sighed with exasperation.
"Actually, no." I grinned impishly, feeling better than I had all day. I knew I’d won this argument. "But feel free, just make sure you turn off at the next decent sized town you see, okay?"
Once she realized that I wasn’t going to back down on the issue of disguises, Sally applied herself to finding a place where we could buy the supplies I wanted. Before nightfall our hair had been professionally dyed by beauticians, our eyebrows and eyelashes to match, and we wore decorative lenses to turn our blue eyes brown.
My hair had been straightened, cut to fall smoothly to my jaw line and I’d been given bangs. Sally’s was permed and cut into a style that fluffed naturally around her head when dry. Our final change was a "liquid" tan for each of us. The beautician we visited recommended a brand and the results were good enough that I felt the first ray of hope that I’d had in months. I wasn’t sure if even Jarod would be able to recognize me now.
The next morning Sally insisted that I get checked out by a doctor, and I couldn’t argue. The contractions had continued through the night, and, while they hadn’t gotten any closer together, they had strengthened to the point that they were uncomfortable. The anxiety I felt about Jarod wasn’t helping any, I was sure.
Sally had protested vehemently when I went out after our "makeover" to purchase a good laptop, but I had to reassure myself that Jarod had escaped the Centre too. Unfortunately, while I had no problem obtaining the laptop, Jarod wasn’t online at our site. Sally finally forced me to lie down sometime after midnight, swearing that she’d wake me if there was any activity, but I already knew there wouldn’t be.
When I got up the next morning Sally was dozing on the small sofa, the computer’s screensaver was creating mazes out of pipes, and my e-mail was empty. Jarod hadn’t left me a message. Was he safe? Did the Centre have him? What should I do?
Sally answered that one when I grimaced at the strength of one of the contractions, even though I was still confident I hadn’t gone into labor yet. She didn’t care, we weren’t going anywhere until I was checked out by an obstetrician. I agreed, reluctantly. As worried as I was about Jarod, there was still the chance that I was reading my condition wrong.
You see, when I was brought from reality to this place I was also combined with a genetically engineered fetus. I was me, but there were differences, like the fact that my hair was curly, and the fact that none of my childhood scars existed any more. I was still allergic to the scent of citrus, but I wasn’t allergic to cats anymore. Little things like that kept me from taking my prior experience for granted.
Dr. Ventura, the obstetrician Sally found, was pretty unhappy with me when he discovered that I’d waited so long to come in when I was pregnant with triplets. He read me quite a lecture on the perils of multiple births and then admitted me into the hospital over my protests.
I had been right, I wasn’t in labor, but the stress that I’d been under had me walking the line, and the babies weren’t ready yet. They needed to monitor me, the doctor explained, and start me on a regimen of steroids and hormones to hurry the development of the babies' hearts and lungs. He insisted that he could keep my presence at the hospital a secret, once he was convinced that I was truly terrified of being discovered, and declared that nothing could be as hazardous to the children’s health as my departure from the hospital.
I knew he didn’t have a clue, that the Centre was far worse than he, in his normal, everyday life, could conceive of, but I stayed. I took my medications, long walks around the hospital and grounds, (much to Sally’s dismay, she was sure I was going to go into labor on the elevator.), and searched the Internet incessantly for any sign of Jarod.
I know that my nightmares did more to convince the doctor to take my fears seriously than anything else. I ended up removing my choker at night, so I wouldn’t wake up everyone on the floor with my screams. I don’t know if it was the terrible feeling of vulnerability I had from being trapped in the hospital, the close encounter with the Centre, or the continued silence from Jarod, but my nightmares had doubled in frequency and intensity.
It was as though some part of my mind was trying to prepare me for the very worst. Some of my nightmares featured Jarod trapped in a burning, crumpled car or lying broken beside a burning, crumpled car, bleeding to death. They all featured flames and blood, but I was somehow still convinced that he was alive somewhere.