Disclaimer: The Pretender and the Profiler belong to their respective intellectual property owners.

Chapter 44

by

Starclipper01

He died with a horrified look on his face. Jarod would vividly remember the haji's face in his future nightmares. The puzzlement that clearly flared up in the Afghan's disbelieving eyes as the Islamic fanatic couldn't comprehend why Jarod did not screamed out in pain as the bayonet stuck out from the infidel's left arm. The one the American lost in Chicago on that hot sticky humid summer day.

The ex-Pretender took immediate advantage of the opening his enemy gave him. In spite of his pain afflicting his bloody, traumatized body, Jarod quickly reached up and grabbed the haji. The years of dedicated combatives training showed as muscle memory automatically took over. In a series of moves, he got the haji into a chokehold. The struggling insurgent was soon rendered unconscious, then death quickly overtook him as Jarod ruthlessly continued to cut off the flow of blood to his opponent's brain and air to his lungs. It only took a few seconds to kill him.

Letting go of the body, Jarod collapsed. He had nothing left to continue the fight. He just hoped that either the hajis were repelled or, failing that, his wounds were severe enough to kill him.

He was tired. So very tired. He had no weapons within reach. Even if he did, Jarod had no energy left to get to them. Even the dead insurgent's bayonet that was sticking obscenely out of his left forearm was too much for him to pull out. Oddly enough, he was bitter that he couldn't keep his vow to not be taken prisoner.

Rachel. Maureen. The two great loves of his life. If this was truly the last moments of his life, Jarod was happy that he was finally going to join his beloved wife. Yet, sad at his lost opportunity to tell his first love what she longed to hear and for him to finally voice ever since he first laid his eyes upon the first girl he ever met in his tumultuous life. That and his now unsuppressed desire to kiss Maureen over and over for the amount of time left for him on this earth.

Jarod looked up. The sky was gray and black from the oily smoke that blew across his prone figure from all the fires and explosions that gripped the base. Coughing and with his ears still ringing from the explosion that wounded him, a part of him knowing that it was a sign of a traumatic brain injury, he let out a heavy sigh.

It was over. Before the final darkness took him away, Jarod surprised himself with his last word, "Maureen…"

His eye fluttered open unwillingly. Doubt crept through his traumatized mind. He should be dead. He had to be dead. Where was Rachel? She should be here to greet him. Where was the white light? That was what the studies always claimed. Yet, jaw tightening in confusion, he looked about him.

The fluorescent lights assaulted his lone eye aggravating the dull ache that wrapped itself inside his head. Nausea threatened to overwhelm him. Jarod swallowed hard several times before he got his rebellious stomach under control. Where in the hell was he?

His movements caught the attention of a shadowy figure that slowly turned into a petite female in a green flightsuit. "Hello, there. How are you feeling?"

"How come I'm not dead?" were the first words that came to Jarod's addled mind.

The Hispanic woman carefully appraised the wounded man before answering. "We got to you in time. That is as far as I know, sir. You were unconscious ever since we left Bagram."

The battle.

Shit.

"Larry. My God, Larry's dead!" The grief and guilt tore into him as he recalled how the wiry Laotian-American died. It should have been me. "My men. Are they alright?" Jarod demanded, his concern for his men's welfare overriding his fatigued and injured state. He tried to rise out of his litter bed but was firmly pressed back down by the flight nurse.

The flight nurse didn't know the status of Jarod's team and even if she did, she would not have filled him in. Her primary concern was for her patient's welfare. Concerned that he might rip open the stitches and the plethora of bandages that concealed the seriousness of his wounds, she reached into her left breast pocket and pulled out a syringe containing a sedative.

After years of these emotionally draining aeromedical evacuation flights, she already had Jarod pegged as a leader more worried about his men than himself and that to avoid any further damage to his ravaged body, he needed to be sedated. Grabbing his IV line, she inserted the syringe and carefully pressed the plunger until the dose went in.

Unable to see what she was up to, Jarod tried to catch her eye but the lighting and the fuzziness prevented it. Licking his dried lips, he asked her, "What are you doing? Where am I?"

Knowing it would take a minute or two before the sedative kicked in, the unnamed nurse answered him in order to keep him distracted, "You're on a DIA plane heading back to CONUS. We're skipping Landstuhl and heading straight to West Virginia, sir, where you'll get the best care."

"What about my men?" Jarod asked again. He never got an answer from the nurse as the sedative finally kicked in. Under the influence of the sedative, his unconscious wandered back to the unnamed FOB...

An unsettling sight befell Jarod as he laid there waiting to die on the unforgiving blood-soaked ground of Afghanistan. The former Pretender wanted to see what was going on about him but with his helmet having gained a ton in weight made him hesitate to turn his head in either direction for fear of not moving again.

Then a new sound emerged from the battlefield cacophony. A girl's voice. A voice that he always cherished.

"Live." Part command, part plea, the spectral presence whose voice it belonged to came into his field of vision.

"Faith," Jarod rasped out harshly. A coughing fit consumed him, resulting from the desert dryness of his throat to the acrid stench of explosives and gunpowder irritating his nostrils and reddening his eye, making his pain wracked body hurt some more. It wasn't the Faith he remembered. A grown up woman now, beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed with legs that rivaled Maureen's. Somber the eyes were, just exactly like what he remembered under that white tent incongruously located inside the bowels of the Centre. It was her even though the last time Faith's visage was still that of the young girl who provided him comfort and helping saved his life in the freezing unforgiving wilderness.

"Yes, Jarod, it's me," Faith answered to his unspoken question. She knelt down beside him, always maintaining eye contact. Frustration coursed through her spectral body as she could not touch him, giving her childhood friend the physical assurance of a human touch. Instead, all Faith can do was to give him words of love, comfort and support.

Jarod was convinced he was in shock, maybe even suffering from massive blood loss. Hallucinations weren't uncommon in these situations a logical part of his mind reminded him. But then, Faith was there with him in the wilderness of Montana. A mental frown as he recalled that he almost died out there in the bitter winter storm.

Jarod looked at the apparition kneeling next to him. "I'm assuming that you're not a hallucination." He saw her nod yes in reply to his question. "I'm dying, right?"

A pause before answering his question. "If you want to."

The words hung in the air between them. Jarod had a gut feeling that Faith knew the temptation that now lay before him. Now, she was making him put up or shut up on his choice.

Faith knew. Just by looking at his emotion wracked eye, Rachel's loss was still a hole that hasn't been filled in by her sister but not for lack of trying. To join Rachel and leave everyone and everything behind was irresistible. To finally lay down his burdens. But she always believed that Maureen and Jarod could love each other, cared for one another, and together find some peace in their tormented lives here in this world. It was that certainty in her two friends who were also her family that she was there. She was going to do her best to convince Jarod to fight for his life and not surrender to his inner despair. There was a woman back home that loved her former prey and was waiting anxiously for him to come home to her.

Jarod was skeptical. It was too easy even coming from Faith. "If I do, are you going to stop me?" inquired the ex-Pretender, biting his lips as he tensed up to hear her answer.

Faith twisted her fingers nervously before answering Jarod in a roundabout way with a question of her own. "What about your promise to Rachel? She was dying in your arms and all she was worried about was you taking your life after she died."

"Well, she's not here is she?" Jarod angrily shot back. He hated Faith for reminding him of Rachel's plea, the promise he reluctantly gave her. "Look at me, Faith. I'm not exactly eating a bullet by choice!"

"No," Faith bit out, "you're not. But you're also not ruling it out either." Jarod's words made Faith voice tremble with fury for what she tried to deny for quite some time now. "You finally got the Maureen that you always believed was there buried inside her. Now that she's here, you want to run away from her. What the hell are you putting my sister through, Jarod? What mind games are you playing at?"

Jarod blinked incredulously at the apparition, and then his temper took over. "I don't play mind games anymore, Faith!" he spat out. "Look at me! Look what I been fucking put through! And for your information, your sister was a goddamn bitch for years!"

Faith could only stare at the wounded warrior. This was the dark side of Jarod that was petty and cruel. Selfishness in Jarod needed an outlet to balance out all the wrongs he righted during his Pretender years and through today. But it was ugly, seeing this part of what the dead girl hope would be her future brother-in-law. However much she disliked this aspect of Jarod, she was no stranger to it either. She did watch over him ever since she moved on from that damn white tent.

Shifting her spectral body to convey how serious this conversation was turning, Faith caught Jarod's attention with her silence. Making him squirm under her judgmental eyes before she finally relented in speaking to the wounded man. "Yes, she was a bitch…and you are still an asshole."

Rage slammed through Jarod's body. Any pain he was feeling right now disappeared at Faith's pronouncement. "Who the hell do you think you are to view me like that?" The ex-Pretender's voice was cold and even. It was worse than screaming at this ghost with the temerity to tell the unvarnished truth about him and to him.

"You're future sister-in-law," declared Faith. Jarod's icy anger was rocked by Faith's words. Faith saw that and took merciless advantage of the opening he gave her. "You always wondered, Jarod, ever since you first saw Maureen, what it would be like to be her husband and father to her children. In a perfect world, the two of you would already be married with children by now. Free of nightmares and losses…"

Jarod tore his eye away from Faith as her voice trailed off. Before he broke eye contact, he saw how her last words affected her, just as they affected him, too. Spiritually, he was conflicted. He wondered if he was willing to put his heart and soul out there to be destroyed one final time. Was it worth it even if the woman in question was his first love and the subject of so many hopes and dreams? There was a yawning difference between his now-acknowledged desire to kiss Maureen and committing to a life with her.

"In a perfect world, Faith, I would never have met Maureen," Jarod pointed out wearily. "I would have lived, hopefully, a normal life totally ignorant of the Centre's existence and what it did." He closed his lone eye briefly. "A normal boring life in the suburbs, taking the kids to soccer practice, saving for college, remembering the wife's birthday, blah, blah, blah…"

Faith pursed her lips at Jarod's words. She studied his scarred face. The weariness that he didn't bother to conceal as his eye remained close. She sympathized at all the losses, tragedies, and setbacks that seemed to never stop for him. Every time it seemed he took a stride forward, the powers that be, sought to take it away from in some sort of perverse pleasure at making this man suffer again and again.

"You can have that, Jarod. Maureen is more than willing to help you become normal."

Jarod opened his remaining eye as he failed to wet his lips. Was the blood loss getting worse? It was sorely tempting to fight to stay alive for that bewitching brunette. Maureen, Rachel. Oh, God, he despaired, torn in two directions. His desire to be Rachel warred with his desire to be with Maureen. He wanted to pound his fists in frustration.

Faith was practical when required. Feeling Jarod's open vulnerability and lack of direction, she knew that it needed to be filled by Maureen's presence. "Please help Maureen live for the first time in her life, Jarod. She needs you. She's finally willing to trust someone completely. Faith evaluated Jarod's prone form to see if he was attentive to her. Satisfied at what she saw, the ghostly presence continued pleading on Maureen's behalf. "You felt it through your connection with my sister. Are you so dense as to believe that Maureen doesn't want a normal life, too?"

The wounded government agent absorbed Faith's arguments. Studied and pondered them. Maureen's sad and barely hidden terrified blue-gray eyes as she watched him leave for a dirty, distant war. Life has not been kind to her either. But she was strong, probably the strongest woman he ever met in his life. "She made it clear I'm not her Don Quixote, Faith. I remember her telling me so many fucking times, in so many damn ways, that she didn't need my help, to stop bothering tilting at windmills. Some connection, eh?"

"Then don't be Don Quixote," shot back Faith as she wonder a bit quizzically at where Maureen brought up that analogy. "Just be Jarod, the boy she fell in love with, the man she always wanted to be with. Just be you for her. She needs you, dammit."

He fell silent, mind drifting. Thinking of the books Sydney made him read about human relationships, watching the carefully censored videos Raines and Sydney made him study about the interaction between men and women. Seeing couples on screen kissing which served to remind the young man about his first kiss with Miss Parker and bringing forth feelings that still struck him dumb and his heart all aflutter.

Faith was losing patience and time. The Powers that Be would soon make their presence known and demand that either she abandon Jarod or guide him onto his next journey.

Nudging the indecisive Jarod one last time, the blonde ghost reluctantly told him, "If you're ready, I'll take you to Rachel. I'm sure she'll be ecstatic to see you." Faith's delivery was unenthusiastic and full of none-too-subtle disappointment.

Rachel. A part of him was looking forward to reuniting with his beloved wife. But that eagerness fled as Jarod recalled the other half of his promise that he made to her as she lay dying in his arms. Every day you live is a victory for us. Please live for us. It was his agreement that were the last words she heard from him. A harsh sob worked its way out of his dry, constricted throat. The very last words that brought comfort to her, his Rachel.

"No, Faith," he gasped out painfully, with a small pang of regret, "I'm not ready."

Catching Jarod's determined gaze, Maureen's sister fought hard to keep from jumping up and down with joy. "Are you sure? Rachel is just a cooling mangled corpse away from you," she callously opined, hoping to reinforce Jarod's decision.

"Can you send a message to Rachel?" Jarod inquired, willfully ignoring Faith's crudity.

Faith nodded watchfully. There were some things that were strictly forbidden from being passed along. She waited to see exactly what Jarod wanted to say to his wife.

There were so many things he wanted to tell Rachel but time was short as his instincts were telling him. So the ex-Pretender told an expectant ghost, "My promise still stands, Rachel, though you don't know how much I want to be with you. I love you so much and still do each day."

Faith tenderly told to the man lying on the ground, "I'll let her know, Jarod." She stopped to take one last look at one of her best and only friends before she had to head back to her side again. "Thank you, Jarod, for being there for Maureen. Now close your eye, Jarod. It's time for you to head home."

Jarod jerked up from his bed. The harsh fluorescent ceiling lights casting a harsh glow on an extremely agitated man who was looking wildly around his surroundings, desperately shouting out the one word that would enchant him for the rest of his life.

"Maureen!"

A/N:

Bagram: A major US base located in Bagram, Afghanistan

CONUS: Continental United States

DIA: Defense Intelligence Agency. The primary intelligence agency of the US Department of Defense.

Landstuhl: a major overseas US military hospital complex located in Landstuhl, Germany. This is where American soldiers are treated locally for their wounds or stabilized for more treatment in the US.

Well I'm back. I got a slight break between classes and some precious free time from my jobs to peck away at this chapter. Decent for a chapter that's not beta'd. I still intend to finish this story as I promised in previous chapters. There will be no set time or promises. When time allows me, I'll post a chapter. So for any remaining readers still interested in this story, I look forward to any reviews. They are appreciated. Thanks!

Posted on 4 Jan 2012.