Chapter Text
A loud knocking on her front door woke Miss Parker up at 2:43 AM, she cursed out whomever dared to wake her at this ungodly hour. Grabbing the gun from under her pillow she stumbled down the stairs and peeked through the peephole. Confused, she unlocked the door and threw it open, “Jarod?” She asked, unsure whether to raise her gun. The Pretender stood before her, hunched over clutching his side, his hands covered in blood. All color seemed to have left his face, “I needed to…” he whispered and then collapsed in front of her. She dropped her gun and barely managed to catch him before he landed on the floor, “Jarod!” They stumbled to her couch and she carefully rolled him on the side he hadn’t been holding and inspected whatever wound was soaking his black T-shirt. Several lacerations and bruises covered his torso, the biggest one was bleeding, but not so much it was going to make him lose consciousness or explain his collapse.
“Jarod, what the hell happened?!”
He gasped for breath, “I was poisoned, I don’t have much time left.” He swallowed, “So, I just needed you to know that…I love you…” He raised his hands to touch her cheek, cupping it gently.
Her hands froze on his torso, and her eyes flew up to his, “Jarod, no…” She shook her head a little in disbelief.
“And I know you can’t accept your feelings for me, but I bought us a little house. It’s a little place near Portland. I was hoping that maybe, one day, we could’ve lived there…together. Far away from here, when all of this was over, but it’s going to be yours when I die anyway. You see I was making all these plans to get you out, so you would have something to turn to.” He coughed, his face contorting in pain.
He took her hand that was still hovering mid-air and looked at her in what she would only describe as half a delirium, “You must know it was all for you. I could have left without a trace knowing Sydney would be fine, But you…I needed you back. Needed you to be safe and loved, away from that place.” He gasped for air and closed his eyes for a second, clearly exhausted. “Almost succeeded with Thomas. I would have taken my time so they had no reason to bring you back. But I would have disappeared nine months after you had moved to Oregon with him.”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out, tears that had been formed in the pools of her eyes were now streaming down her face. “You’re not doing this to me now…”
“I know, I’m selfish for coming here, I’m so sorry, but I needed to see your beautiful face one… last time…” His lips turned up in a little smile before passing out, his hands falling limb to his sides.
“No, no, no, no ... .Jarod stay with me, please Jarod! You’re right I couldn’t… I’m sorry!” She begged him while shaking him, but he was unresponsive. She flew to the phone, dialing the number quicker than her phone could handle.
“Come on, pick up, pick up, pick up.” She prayed, her whole body shaking.
“This is Sydney.” Came the sleepy voice of the psychiatrist.
“Sydney! You need to come over now!”
“Miss Parker, is everything alright?”
“No, it’s…him. Please just hurry! Bring your medical bag! It’s an emergency!”
Alarmed by the nature of Miss Parker’s phone call and understanding that the man she was referring to was Jarod he broke several traffic laws to get to her house.
He found the door open and Miss Parker huddled over an unconscious Jarod on the couch. “Jarod?!” “He’s not responding and I can barely find a pulse, but he is breathing. He just came stumbling in and then collapsed. He has lacerations and bruises but none so severe that it would explain his current state.” She started pacing and raking her hands through her hair as Sydney listened for a heartbeat and monitored his breath. “Please Syd, he said…he said he was dying. That he was poisoned?”
“His heart rate is very slow, as is his breathing. Usually, poison makes the heart rate go up significantly.” He opened up Jarod’s eyelids inspecting the pupils with a little light.
“He was also shivering before he passed out and seemed drowsy.” Parker offered.
“While he seems stable for now, something is definitely influencing his central nervous system. Did he give you any clue as to what he was poisoned with?”
She shook her head, “None.”
“Did he bring anything with him?”
“Nothing but what he’s wearing.”
Sydney went on to search Jarod’s pockets and retrieved a small unlabeled bottle in his pocket. “Hopefully this can give us some answers. I’ll be going to the lab to have this analyzed immediately.”
This shook her up, “You’re leaving him with me?”
“As I said, he’s stable for now, I have no direct concerns as to him dying on us as quickly as he thought he would. There is nothing we can do for him at the moment. Just monitor his breathing and heart rate if it will assure you. When anything changes, call me at once.”
With that he left her, leaving her once again alone with the man who had just professed his love for her thinking he was at death’s door. His last moments and he came straight to her.
The first half hour she couldn’t stop herself from shaking and keeping a constant touch on his wrist to assure herself he was still alive, watching his chest lift ever so slightly. But the adrenaline wore off and she took it upon herself to get her pillow and blankets to install herself next to him on the floor.
Finally after what seemed like forever Sydney called. “What?” She tried to answer the phone as normally as she could manage, but she felt anything but normal holding Jarod’s wrist to monitor his pulse.
“The content of the bottle he was carrying was a barbiturate called sodium thiopental, but it’s better known as sodium pentathol, which you know as…”
“Truth serum…” she finished.
“Precisely, with what is missing from the bottle I expect him to wake up in eight to ten hours or so, he will be completely fine, but he could still be nauseous, dehydrated, drowsy, and hypotensive when he wakes up.”
“So, he’s not dying?” She let out a nervous chuckle, “Is by any chance amnesia also a side effect? Cause that would be fantastic…”
“Well, actually yes,” she could almost hear the old man frown on the other side of the line, “How did you know?”
She sighed, “I didn’t, I was just praying it was.” She let her fingers glide over his arm, and her eyes went to his face which seemed way too peaceful for someone who assumed he was going to die. “He’s going to be asleep for quite some time then?”
“Yes, it would be very hard to wake him, but there is another development you should know about. Broots just called me, Jarod was sighted near Blue Cove and will probably call you in when he has summoned the courage to do so.”
She let out an even deeper sigh, rubbing a hand over her face, “Just perfect, exactly what this night needed, another dramatic turn of events. ”
“Miss Parker, what are you going to do?” Sydney asked her, his voice thick with concern for the man next to her on the couch.
She interlaced her fingers with Jarod’s and held them up to her lips, “What I do best Syd, going to work and pretending it’s all business as usual. I’ll see you soon.” She put the phone down, her eyes focused on the smallest movement his chest made while breathing, and wondered if she would be able to forgive herself if anything happened to him as she was away.
Broots indeed managed to summon the courage to call her five minutes later, he’d been vague as usual but adamant she should come to the Centre because Jarod could be very close. Thirty minutes later she’d gotten dressed and put herself enough together to leave the house, with an anxious heart she’d taken one last look at Jarod before closing her front door behind her.
“There better be a reason why I’m here at 6 A.M., Broots. What have you got?” She snapped at him while entering the lab.
“So, security picked up an image of Jarod. He was caught speeding about three miles from Blue Cove. At first, we thought it was a false lead, thinking Jarod would never be so careless as to let himself be seen so close to The Centre. I took the time to look for any other signs from him in a fifty-mile area and I found this,” he started a video, “There was a raid on some local mobsters by the FBI in Millsboro, and two local cops were also involved and at least partly responsible for the death of a young couple. It’s a classic Jarod setup, but he didn’t know about the cops' involvement and got caught. The FBI was missing their undercover agent and sent out this footage to local police stations to help find him, it was definitely Jarod.”
The surveillance tape showed Jarod being dragged into the room and dumped before an overweight middle-aged man with a receding hairline and more golden jewelry than would get him taken seriously anywhere else. The man was holding two bottles.
“We beat him up, boss, but he’s not talking.”
“That’s okay, we’ll make him talk.” The man spoke in a thick Italian accent.
The man kneeled down to Jarod’s level who was being restrained by two men. “You’re going to tell us where the money is.” He simply stated, but Jarod looked very unimpressed by the man.
“You see, I’ve got myself a little poison here,” he held up one of the bottles, “you have about fifteen minutes to live once it’s in your bloodstream unless, of course, we give you the antidote,” he said holding up the other bottle.
“What’s it gonna be? Are you going to tell us, or will you rather die?”
Jarod still looked like he couldn’t care less about the man’s threats and didn’t respond.
“Last chance…” The man stared at Jarod for a second, waiting for an answer, “Alright, have it your way,” he snapped his fingers and another man appeared. He handed him the first bottle, “Jack, inject him. Let’s see if he’s really willing to play with his life.”
“No!” Jarod wrestled with the men holding him but couldn’t prevent them from injecting him. Then suddenly he did manage to break free, knocking out the three men but when Jarod went for the mobster boss he dropped the second bottle on the ground, shattering it into a million pieces.
“You’re a dead man.” He said before Jarod took him down in one punch. Jarod stared at the pieces for about a second when he seemed to have made a decision, grabbed the first bottle from the man who injected him, and ran out.
“It seems he drove straight to Blue Cove, and that ticket he got for speeding, oh boy was he driving fast. Like insanely fast, he was clocked at 118 mph.”
“Well he was a race driver once,” Sydney commented.
“Yeah, but even those guys usually don’t drive this fast on a normal road. At least I hope not.”
Sydney glanced at Miss Parker who was staring blankly at the screen, “Any idea where he was headed?” He asked the technician.
Broots shook his head, “No, he only took seven minutes to get to Blue Cove, but there he just vanished. There are no traffic cameras to give us any clues, the trail kinda ends there. But I thought maybe he would try and get to the Centre to use our labs or something, except if he only had fifteen minutes to live he’s probably dead by now…” He looked up at Miss Parker for any reaction, “I already sent out several sweeper teams to go through all the air vents in this place and a few others to search Blue Cove, but so far they have found nothing.”
Parker rolled her eyes, “Those sweepers are as useful as a squad of stormtroopers, they miss everything.” She looked at Sydney, “Sydney, go to the labs, maybe Jarod has once again managed to get into The Centre undetected and stolen something to cure himself. And you…” Her cold eyes shifted to Broots, “are going to find out where his last lair in Millsboro was and send in a sweeper team to retrieve any items. If we’re lucky we might find a case of DSA’s.”
“You’re not worried he’s dead?” Broots asked, staring at her in unbelieve.
“Jarod’s too lucky to just die of a little poison. Our labrat has more lives than a street cat, he’ll turn up again, probably rubbing our noses in it that we missed him here on our own turf.” She started walking towards the door, “I’ll be in my office, keep me informed of everything.”
Broots could barely keep his mouth shut before the door closed behind her. “Jarod could be dead, could she at least pretend to even care a little bit?! What is up with her? She was just becoming a little bit more human these last months and now it’s back to the ice queen again!”
“Perhaps she had a rough night,” Sydney commented dryly, “I’ll be going to the labs and talk to her afterwards.”
Broots threw his hands up in frustration, “Please do, if anyone needs a shrink in this place it’s her.” Sydney started making his way out of the simlab when he heard Broots’ confused voice behind him, “Did Miss Parker just make a Star Wars reference?”
Sydney knocked on the door to her office, “Miss Parker?”
She let out a long sigh, knowing this was not a conversation that she could avoid, “Yes, Sydney?” She said sitting behind her desk.
He closed the door softly behind him, “If I hadn’t been with you last night I might have believed your little charade this morning.”
“Well, that was the general idea.” She answered flatly.
“Broots is still upset with you for not seeming to care that Jarod may be dead.”
“It’s safer for him not to be involved in this.” She said staring at the picture of her mom and her that was sitting on her desk. “For him and his daughter.”
“And what about yourself?” He asked.
“I’ll be fine, Sydney.” She said without managing to convince him or even herself.
“He thought he was dying and he drove like a madman to come to you. Not to the Centre to try and save his own life, not to me who he sees as a father figure, but to you. The last thing he wanted was to reach you… what did he say to you?”
She finally raised her eyes at him and opened her mouth to speak but words failed her, she closed it again, giving him a sad smile instead. Tears started appearing in her eyes, her lip once again quivering.
Sydney took a moment to study her, “while I do not pretend to know everything that is going on between the two of you, perhaps this could be a turning point in the relationship between yourself and Jarod?”
She laughed between sobs, “Turning point…” she wiped away a tear that had escaped her and let out another chuckle. “You’re right Syd, that might just be it.”
She stood up from behind her desk walking towards him, “I’ll be going home, if anyone asks tell them I’m out looking for Jarod. I have a U-turn to take.” She gave him a wide smile and, to the surprise of the psychiatrist, hugged him. “Thank you, Sydney,” she whispered and practically ran out the door.
Chapter 2
Notes:
A/N: I am so sorry for taking forever to update, still working on an update for "When she loved me" because I'm kinda stuck on the chapter I'm writing, still only 1200 words done, so I procrastinate on other chapters further in the story. That, and life has been really busy these last few weeks. Hopefully I'll soon find the inspiration to finish it. This one however, is finished!
Chapter Text
Jarod woke up on a couch that didn’t feel familiar and with a throat that felt like he swallowed a desert. He rethought clearing his throat with the sight of the woman sitting on the floor next to him holding his wrist. Confused and frightened he looked at her, “Hey, you’re awake,” she greeted him and handed him a glass of water which he apprehensively took from her.
“Do you remember how you got here?” She asked, tilting her head a little to be on the same angle as his.
He slightly shook his head and took a little sip of the glass, coughed and cleared his throat, “Not entirely,” he added vaguely.
“You were trying to catch some mobsters in Millsboro, but your setup failed, because two local cops were in on their scheme. You were captured before you could fully carry out your plans, but you did manage to steal quite a lot of money from them which they desperately wanted back. So, to make you tell them where the money was, they told you they were going to inject you with poison and only give you the antidote when they had it. But you broke free after being injected and the guy holding the antidote dropped it on the floor to stop you. You thought you had about fifteen minutes to live and then came here.” She paused, hoping something would come back to him, she was searching for any signs that he remembered confessing his love for her.
Something did come back to him as she found a spark of recognition in his eyes, “They killed a young couple because they didn’t want to turnover their profits to them. She was pregnant and they burned them in their own home. I was working as an undercover FBI agent…” He trailed off and she watched as Jarod seemed to go through his memories to finally come to the moment she was waiting for.
Shock, fear and embarrassment all played their parts in his expression, “I have to go…” he let out in panic and tried to get up, but she quickly but gently pushed him back into mountain of pillows she had set up behind him and sat down on the edge of the couch.
She gave him an amused smile, “Oh you’re not going anywhere lover boy, half the Centre is searching through every nook and cranny of Blue Cove looking for your pretty little ass. So, unless you’d rather go back to the Centre we’re going to have to talk.” She folded her hands into her lap.
He nervously averted his eyes, “About?” He asked, failing miserably to keep the panic from his voice.
“Don’t chicken out on me now, genius” She warned him, “You thought you were going to die; you didn’t know they gave you sodium pentothal. You thought you had fifteen minutes to live, and you drove at an insane speed to…” she swallowed, “to see me…” her voice wavered, and tears started to pool in her eyes, “and to tell me how you felt about me.”
He closed his eyes in embarrassment, “I’m so sorry, I should never have burdened you with that.” He apologized while nervously rubbing his face.
She stopped his hands, pulling them away from his face, “I am glad you did, because it made things a lot clearer.” She squeezed his hands, causing him to finally look at her and see the emotions swirling in her eyes.
“When we were in the car together after Carthis, part of me was scared that you were only using me to get out of the situation. That it was just another trick up your sleave to get away from the Centre.”
“I would never…” he started.
“I think I know that now.” She sighed, “Jarod, this game of ours…it was never really a game, was it? It was never to torment me; you were only trying to make me question my loyalty to the Centre in the hopes that one day I would choose you.”
The painful smile he gave her, accompanied by the sorrowful expression in his eyes, reminded her of a sad puppy and went right to her gut. “When we were little, you liked treasure hunts, you loved to explore and see where it would lead us, even if it got us in trouble.”
She gave him a soft smile, “So you made everything between us a treasure hunt, breadcrumbs and vague hints.” She concluded, “You do realize that I only loved exploring that much because I was with you? On Carthis, when you knew what the key, we found in Father Theo’s bible, opened I just couldn’t help but smile. The thrill of chasing something with you is different from chasing you.
“We seem to work really well together.” He said demurred.
“Would your plans still work with someone helping you from inside the Centre?” He looked at her, surprised at her question. He nodded vigorously, “Yes, it would speed up the timetable by a lot.”
She smirked, “Great, cause I’m about to make a U-turn from where there’s no looking back anymore. This better work.”
“So, you’re saying…” he looked her nervously, while fidgeting with the hem of his shirt as hope blossomed in his chest.
“I love you too, Jarod.”
“You do?!” He sat up too quickly and grabbed his stomach in pain.
“Easy there cowboy, you might not be poisoned, but that stuff takes time before it’s out of your system and yes, I do.” She gently helped him lay back down, smiling softly at him. “When I thought you died, it was one of the worst feelings I have ever experienced. Nothing could have prepared me for what I felt losing the one person who’s been there for me all of my life. I can’t even begin to describe the relieve I felt when I found out you were still breathing, and your heart was still beating. I hadn’t prayed since I was a little girl, but until Sydney came with the news of what was in your system, I prayed almost without stopping. I couldn’t lose you as well.”
She held his hand to her cheek and started placing feathery kisses on his knuckles, “and with every hour that passed this morning, I realized that the feeling I’ve been pushing back so often when it came to you, was love.”
She felt him shaking beneath her touch, his pulse was racing. The little crinkles around his eyes disappeared as he widened them in disbelieve. She leaned in and kissed him gently on his lips, leaned back a little to study his reaction, but was rewarded with a broad smile. He reached out and caressed her cheek with his thumb, “You really do love me?”
She grinned, “Yeah, you idiot, I thought I made that…” He broke off her words as he captured her lips with his own, he started exploring her mouth, but she could feel his grin against her lips. Neither of them could stop smiling throughout their kiss.
The loud ringing of her phone startled them both, and they broke apart quickly.
“What?!” She answered the phone sounding as irritated as she could manage while having a huge smile on her face. “Thank you, Sydney.” She responded after listening to the man on the other side of the line. She put the phone down on the coffee table, “Broots is tracking Lyle, it seems he intends to pay us a visit. He’s only a few minutes out.” She peered out the window.
“I should leave.” Jarod said while slowly getting up, his face scrunched in anguish.
“There is nowhere for you to go, especially not in this condition,” she looked at her window seat, “but there is some place to hide…”
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She carefully closed the window seat, after having frantically put away all evidence of Jarod being on her couch as Lyle began pounding on her door, “Parker, open up!”
She unlocked the door, as soon she opened it Lyle and three sweepers came barging in. “Hello sis, shouldn’t you be out there looking for Jarod?” He asked while rubbing his absent thumb in a motion she still found disturbing as well as disgusting.
She eyed the sweepers from the corners of her eyes, “I thought I’d wait to catch the rat in action here, wouldn’t be the first time he felt the need to break into my house. Also, I’d rather not have my property stolen and blown up like yours was, …twice.”
Lyle ignored her jab and looked at her funnily, “You look…different.”
She cocked her eyebrow at him, but threw a quick glance in the mirror, to her horror her chin was slightly red from Jarod’s stubble and her hair a bit tousled. Luckily, Lyle had other things on his mind.
“Search this place!”
“Like hell you will, she retrieved her gun from her back holster, cocked it and pointed it straight at Lyle, causing his sweepers to freeze in place, “If you wanted a house tour you should have said so, little brother. You can search all you like, but there is no way I’m going to allow a sweeper team to search my house, they can stay right outside the door, like the good little watchdogs they are.” Lyle pursed his lips and looked at her through knit eyebrows. After realizing she wasn’t going to back down, he made a gesture with his head to the sweepers who vacated the room immediately. “Dad isn’t going to like this.”
“Neither am I, but do you hear me complaining?” She gave him a sarcastic smile.
He sighed, “You can put the gun down; I don’t really think you would be dumb enough to hide Jarod in your home.”
“I’m touched you would think so highly of me.” She sneered at him. “Still trying to prove to your sweepers you’re the big boss?”
He shot her an annoyed look, “Why don’t you start with the house tour so all of us can get along with our day.”
With a fake smile she pointed her gun towards her bedroom, “Be my guest.”
Parker led Lyle through her house, letting him go through everything he wanted despite her great dismay.
“The rummaging through my underwear drawer was a nice touch.” She commented as she followed Lyle down the stairs.
Lyle straightened his tie, “Just being thorough.”
Parker rolled her eyes, “I’m sure your interests are purely professional, just as I am sure all those Asian women dying around you are purely coincidental.”
He halted at the door, “Still have the feeling that Jarod could be hiding out here somewhere. I have this gut feeling he’s very close.” His eyes came to rest on the window seat.
She shuffled her heels on the floor and shot an intentional nervous look towards the door of her mother’s drawing room.
He noticed her change in demeanor immediately, “What’s behind that door?” He enquired accusingly.
“Nothing,” she answered with a clipped voice.
“Open it!” He commanded.
She closed her eyes for a second, sighed and reluctantly walked up to the door, she watched Lyle retrieve his gun and follow suit as she entered the room.
“What’s all of this?” He asked confused as he observed all the paintings and drawings, “You’ve taken up painting as a hobby now?”
“It was our mother’s favorite room; these are all hers.” She took up a painting of a landscape, “She loved this place, she used to go up in the hills to paint. She said it helped her find peace.” She handed him the painting, “You should have it, I have so many memories and stuff of hers, you have none.”
Lyle was clearly taken aback by this, “Parker, I…” he paused, unable to find the words to respond.
“Whatever rivalry, …dad…,” she spat out the word in disgust, “is trying to force upon us, maybe it’s time we took matters into our own hands.”
He cocked an eyebrow, “How do you mean?”
“I mean, why obey, when we can rule.”
An evil smile crept on his face, “I like the way you’re thinking.”
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She closed the door behind him and rolled her eyes, “Moron.” She watched closely through the peephole as Lyle and his sweepers pulled out of the driveway. She waited another minute before she opened the window seat and extended her hand to a curled-up Jarod.
“I hope you had; conspiring with Lyle to take over the Centre on your ‘bringing the Centre down bingo card’, cause apparently that’s something I just set into motion.”
He took her hand and stood up with a groan, his body hurting from the position he’d been in. “Already preparing to be a spy for the Centre’s number one enemy, I see.”
“Well, he is a genius,” she let a finger glide over his chest, “and actually quite handsome. I felt I had no choice in the matter.”
He stepped out of the window seat and closed the last bit of distance between them, “No choice, huh? Coercing is not a particularly good base for any relationship, or so I’ve heard. Perhaps I should reconsider this partnership.”
“Oh, you’ve played the hard-to-get card long enough, mister. You’re not getting rid of me anymore.” She teased him.
“I’m the one who’s hard to get?” He asked in mock surprise.
She brought her face closer to him, “Well, I’ve been chasing you for five years.”
“I think you captured at least part of me decades ago.” He murmured.
“I think that goes both ways.” She whispered an inch from his lips, letting him close the last of the distance to kiss her slowly, both of them savoring every sensation.
He carefully nipped at her bottom lip, but she grew impatient and deepened the kiss, demanding entrance with her tongue. She felt him twinge as she pulled him closer to her, realizing he was still nursing several wounds she broke free from his lips. “We should get you cleaned up and bandaged first.” She breathed heavily.
He pouted in protest, but she was already hauling him towards her bathroom.
“Don’t I get a house tour?”
She gave him a smirk. “No, because after cleaning you up, the only place you need to be is my bedroom and I believe you’ve been there before,” she teased him. And with that the Pretender led himself be dragged away by his huntress, grinning ear to ear.
AngryManatee on Chapter 1 Thu 20 Jun 2024 08:47AM UTC
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