REPORT: NOT EVEN A MOUSE
FILE #: 108

In this Christmas episode, Jarod plays a coroner. He's investigating the death of a homeless man, who was run over by a car on Christmas eve the year before.

Each year, the man had played the role of "Christmas-George" in an orphanage and thus had made sure that the kids would get something special to eat as well as some presents.

This is Jarod's first Christmas outside The Centre. He enjoys eating the fruitcake that is given to him, although he's the only one in the pathology section who does so, and he especially enjoys the nice, pleasant mood that everybody seems to be in. Only his boss, Dr. Elizabeth Drake, seems to be an exception.

Even at The Centre there is a Christmas-y mood. Miss Parker gives Sydney a present before going home, where she decorates her Christmas tree with obvious joy. The special atmosphere seems to have its effects not only on her, but even on Mr. Parker, who invites her for Christmas eve.

In the meantime, Jarod finds out that Dr. Drake was the driver of the car, who had hit and killed Christmas George. Besides, Jarod discovers that Christmas George had not died right away, but that Dr. Drake had returned to the scene of the accident, claimed to be trying to help George, but in fact gave him a drug that put him into a state of apparent death. George was fully conscious, but unable to move, when Drake brought him to the forensic lab and finished him off .

In his special way, Jarod obviously wants to make her feel just the same. He bakes a fruit cake in which he mixes the same drug that Drake had used on Christmas George and thus paralyzes Dr. Drake, before he brings her to the forensic lab. There, he has prepared everything, so that Drake has to lie there for several hours and think about her crime, until the effects of the drug subside.

In his lair, Jarod watches a DSA showing young Miss Parker sneaking down into the sim lab to Jarod, in order to see the rabbits that had been brought there for an experiment. Jarod shows them to her and lets her hold a white rabbit, but then she has to sneak out again when Sydney shows up. The latter says good-bye to Jarod, because he is going to Mount Pleasant as he does every year. However, he gives Jarod a little Christmas present first: A ball with a model of the Empire State Building in it, which, when shaken, produces a snow flurry.

Back in the present, Sydney once again gets on his way to Mount Pleasant, a nursing home. There he visits his twin brother Jacob, who has been in a coma for 30 years. The nurse says she admires Sydney, coming here every Christmas for almost 30 years. When Sydney replies that Jacob is his only family, the nurse asks: "What about your son?" - "My son?" - "Yes, Jarod." She tells him that Jarod had dropped by and left a Christmas present for Jacob. Sydney recognizes the gift as the same ball he had given to Jarod a long time ago.

Miss Parker is once again bitterly let down by her father, who cancels their meeting on short notice. Disappointed, she spots a package in her apartment that she hadn't noticed before. When she opens it, she finds a card saying: For Miss Parker from Jarod... along with a white rabbit. Jarod spends his Christmas holidays with the children from the orphanage, replacing Christmas George and reading stories to them.