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Yeah, so I haven't written anything Pretender related in FOREVER -- and the nerve of me to write anything else when "Matter
of Blood" is still waiting for an ending (I'm working on it, Lisa, I promise)... but I was determined to write something
today no matter what it was -- real work, fic, anything -- and this is what came. And since Shannon's birthday is this week,
we're gonna call it "birthday inspired" even if it has NO relation to birthdays whatsoever.
So anyway... here it is. :)
Jarod took a sip of his chai latte and stared out at the Los Angeles skyline. The predicted rain had not fallen, and
instead the day was crisp and clear... at least, as clear as Los Angeles ever got. It had left Malibu beautiful, if a little
bit chilly. Thankfully the warm beverage and the thick sweatshirt he'd grabbed on the way out the door for his run were keeping
the coolness at bay.
They could do little, though, for the thought that kept repeating itself in his mind. 119 days. It had hit him as soon
as he woke up this morning, and he knew from the experience of the last 118 days, it would stay there all day long until he
finally fell asleep tonight, only to be replaced tomorrow by the 120th day.
Jarod hadn't spoken to Parker in 119 days. No phone calls, no notes, no e-mails, no gifts... not even so much as a 2-minute
hack into the Centre mainframe to see what she was doing on her computer. He'd broken off all contact without so much as
a good-bye.
He missed her like he'd never known he could miss anyone or anything in his life.
For so long that first year, even into the second, Jarod had been able to fool himself into believing the phone calls
and other taunting tentacles of contact were about getting Parker's goat and playing games with the Centre as they had done
with his life. It was a logical explanation for why he hadn't just disappeared outright, along with his very real need to
find answers that existed only within the Centre and its inhabitants.
But then one day, he'd been searching for information on the Triumvirate, hunting down their hidden residences so that
he could start tracing their movements in an effort to see what they did in response to certain stunts he pulled. The most
intricate of all the Centre's computer security tricks had been used to keep the information buried, but finally, after weeks
of running program after program, Jarod had found it. Excited, he'd grabbed his cell phone and hit the first speed dial button,
and only when he heard Parker's infamous "what?" on the other end of the line did he realize who he had called.
Jarod had hung up quickly, but it had left him baffled all night long, pushing his new discovery about the Triumvirate
to the background. He'd been happy, pleased with himself and his work and joyful over uncovering yet another Centre secret...
and the first person he'd called had been Parker? And out of reflex. He hadn't even thought about it.
Fourteen dozen packets of Pez later, Jarod had accepted the only possible conclusion that could be drawn from the event.
His friendship with Miss Parker was still very much alive, at least for him. And despite all the bitter words and angry pranks,
she was still the person he wanted to run to when he had news to share.
But the best day... the very best day Jarod could remember, was the day he had realized Parker felt the same way.
She had bested Lyle and made him look like a jackass in front of both Mr. Parker and the Triumvirate. Even now, sipping
at his latte on a sunny California beach, Jarod could still remember the look on Lyle's face when he had realized that Parker
had figured out his trap--a false lead on the Pretender's whereabouts--something Jarod had viewed courtesy of Angelo's outstanding
video skills. It had been a truly priceless Miss Parker moment, and Jarod had literally laughed for hours over it. Finally,
when he had estimated his huntress was about ready to call it a night, he had phoned.
"About damn time," she had growled the moment she answered. "I've been waiting up for you. You're not
going to believe what my idiot brother did."
They'd stayed on the phone much longer than usual as Jarod had let her tell him the story rather than telling her he already
knew. Parker was truly amused, which was rare, and he wanted her to enjoy it. But mostly, he'd been absolutely amazed that
the two or three drinks she'd clearly had while waiting for his call had let her make that small but amazingly important admission.
Their contact had remained fairly constant after that, right up until their last call. But he had known as soon as he
hung up the phone it needed to be the final one. If not...
Jarod trembled and blamed a sudden breeze for it. He decided to get a refill on his latte and begin the walk home. Running
had lost its appeal for him when he was reminded that no one chased any longer.
Ironically, the one thing that the pretender would've imagined might make those long 119 days more bearable had instead
made them that much more painful. He had caught up with his father and the clone, who had taken the name Steven, a few weeks
after the debacle in Scotland. At first, the reunion had been incredibly good for Jarod, providing him time to recover emotionally
and physically from all that had happened on Carthis and aboard the Centre plane. In fact, Jarod wasn't sure what he'd have
done had he not been able to vent to his father about how close he had been to Margaret on that mysterious and wicked island.
But Steven... who had spent enough time apart from Jarod and with Charles' influence to develop his own unique personality...
his innocent attempts at idle conversation often led directly back to the topic Jarod was trying so hard to avoid.
"Does Miss Parker like chocolate?"
They had been grocery shopping that time. Steven had picked up a bar of unsweetened chocolate because he was going to
"teach" Jarod how to make brownies from scratch, and suddenly there was the question. It happened all the time.
They'd be doing any one of a thousand things together, and some random question about Parker would be posed.
"Do you think Miss Parker eats cheeseburgers? She doesn't seem like she would."
"Did you and Miss Parker ever play checkers?"
"Have you ever heard Miss Parker laugh? What does it sound like?"
Apparently, no matter what differences in their personalities had manifested, the original pretender and his copy shared
one very important quality--a fascination with a beautiful brunette who lived in Blue Cove, Delaware.
Jarod knew Steven had no idea what his questions were doing to him, but for the man who missed his friend so much, each
one was salt on a wound. More than once, after a conversation with the young man or a teasing jest from his father, Jarod
would stalk off to his room and pull out the cell, poised to end his long silence and listen to her rant at him for being
gone so long. But every time, his finger would hover above the button, just glancing over it, but never pressing it hard
enough to send the signal that would reconnect them.
That's when he'd remember the sound of her voice that last day on the phone. The resignation, the sadness, the loss...
and the fear. That's what had done him in. That she was afraid now, and so much, so she couldn't hide it from him anymore.
As much as Jarod had always hated Mr. Parker, and he despised the man far more for the damage he'd done to his daughter
than for all the Centre machinations he might have wrought, Jarod had always believed on some level that the chairman would
not allow Parker to be killed. Bullied, yes; intimidated, obviously. But killed? Never.
Raines, however, was a very different story. Jarod held no illusions of some deep-seated fatherly concern in that man.
In fact, from what Sydney had told him about Raines and Lyle's return to the Centre, it appeared that the proud "father"
intended to pit his twins against one another in a duel to the death for the seat of power.
"But this time, the first one to the answers... lives."
There was no doubt in Jarod's mind that Lyle would kill Parker if it were necessary. He'd tried it a dozen times, half
those since finding out she was his sister. But what had made him break away, what had kept him silent was the realization
that Parker, even for her own survival, might not be able to kill her mother's son. That made the game deadly for her in
a new and terrifying way.
If there was no pretender to chase, there was no competition to be had. And so to end the game, Jarod had just walked
away. Raines might invent some other way to torture Parker and pit her against Lyle, but he was gonna be damned if they were
going to use him to destroy the woman he...
Jarod stopped on the pathway that led to the trail back to his rented house and turned to the water.
When he let his thoughts get this far, he wondered what would've happened if Ocee hadn't walked in on him and Parker back
on Carthis. Would anything that might have happened in front of that fire been enough to make Parker run with him instead
of clinging to her need for her father and her "family?" There was no way to know, of course. But he believed
in his gut that it might have, that perhaps they'd have broken free together and disappeared into the mists to either hunt
down their answers or to maybe even decide that the rest didn't matter anymore.
He drew in a deep breath, the cool air making his lungs ache. There was no point to the "what ifs." It was
time to forge ahead with day 119.
Oftentimes, he imagined he saw Parker in different places. Once, Jarod had been sure she was in a car beside him in San
Francisco. Another time, he'd doubled back to a coffee shop in Tucson when he'd thought he saw her walk in as he left. But
he'd never imagined her standing on the front porch of his house, her hair flowing down her back, longer now than it had been
in Scotland, as she stared out at the incredible view the south side of the deck offered.
"What are you... how are you..."
Parker turned and looked at him as his incoherent ramblings reached her ears. She strolled to the steps, her face not
revealing much of anything, and sat down on the top stair waiting for him. Jarod, realizing the invitation, moved over and
sat beside her.
"I, uh..." His voice trailed off. "How'd you..."
"Ethan. He's fine, by the way. And don't worry, no one else knows. Broots scrambled the airline computers so badly,
it looks like I'm in Anchorage, Alaska right now."
Jarod nodded, not doubting the techie's skills for a moment. But now on this 119th day of silence, the quiet had ended,
and he had no idea how to explain to her why he had done what he'd done.
"I guess you want to know..."
"I already do," she said. "It's okay."
He looked at her with surprise. Parker shifted and leaned back against the railing so she could face him.
"You were probably right. It was probably the best thing... for both of us. Which is why I didn't... why I let
it go for so long."
She sounded tired. Jarod turned and mirrored her position, his back against the opposite railing. He was about to ask
why she'd decided to stop letting their silence go when she broke the quiet.
"When we were in that limousine in Scotland, and they were getting ready to take you back to the Centre... God, you
must have been so scared. There you were, 20 feet from a plane taking you back to that nightmare, and I was all you had...
and I turned my back on you."
"No." Jarod shook his head and leaned forward, taking her hand as he had during the very conversation she was
referencing. This time, she didn't pull away. "That's not how I thought of it, Parker."
"It's what I did," she said, her eyes dropping to her lap.
"No. I asked you to change your entire life in a moment. The fact that I wanted you to do it didn't mean you were
ready."
Jarod held onto her hand and waited. Finally, the fingers of her opposite hand crept overtop of his, and her eyes lifted
to see if she'd find the answer she wanted there.
"Are you ready to change yours now?"
He took only the time required to exhale. "What do you need me to do?"
Parker smiled slightly. "I've thought about leaving since then. I've wanted to leave. But Broots, Sydney, Angelo--they're
the ones who'd pay if I did."
Jarod nodded.
"I'm trapped, Jarod. I can't leave... and I can't endure staying. And I know that I shouldn't ask this, that I
have no right to ask it..."
He flexed his fingers then squeezed them over hers. "I've given you the right to ask."
"Please don't leave me there all alone."
It wasn't what he'd expected to hear.
"I can live with my fear of them. I can keep playing the game. And I did understand when you stopped calling, but...
but what it took away is more important than whatever safety it gave me."
He hoped, years from now, that this moment would be another of those memories he would recall about a time when, even
if she couldn't make a full confession, Parker had let him one tiny step further inside. But right now... right now, he
felt something inside himself switch back on, not with excitement at returning to the tedious game or in anticipation of the
running to come, but with recognition that he had been missed as much as he had missed... and that he was needed as much as
he needed.
"Miss Parker... did you just create a turning point for us?"
Her eyes sparkled as the sadness pulled back a bit and a smile burst forth on her face. "I'm going to hit you now."
Jarod had no doubt she would. But he didn't care. Because this time, they would be no running and chasing. This time,
no matter how it appeared to the rest of the world, they would be walking together.
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