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Disclaimer: Pretender characters are property of MTM, TNT, NBC, WB, Steve, Craig and all the others.

Anything For You


[One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…]

He tried to count the water drops as they fell and swam up the window, blurring the dark outside. One after the next after the next. They’d been driving for what could have been eternity; he’d seen at least two purple skies, evening or dawn he didn’t know. He’d slept, his head against the cool glass, the soft hum of the engine to lull him, with both eyes slightly open, distrusting and tense; her stiff presence to the side of him didn’t help matters. She hadn’t looked at him since the rain had started and he was starting to unravel at the prolonged silence.

He shifted and nudged the bruise on his arm against the door handle, a throbbing reminder of the past fifteen years of his life. He winced and stole a glance in her direction, keeping his eyes trained to her hands on the steering wheel.

“You alright?” He started and looked up, finding her eyes still fixed on the stretch of road in front of them and behind. Her voice was dry, but not unsympathetic.

“I’m fine,” he answered, but realized quickly how automated it was. He felt he should add something, just a small note to make it personal, but he’d tried that before. The bruise was a reminder.

“There’s a bag in the back with aspirin in it.”

“I’m ok.” Again, the response she wanted to hear.

He wanted to hear.

She said nothing after that, and the only sounds were the windshield wipers -back and forth, back and forth- the slick of rain beneath the tires and the occasional puddle, and of course the water drops, falling like gunshots to begin their race to the top, right-hand corner of the passenger window.

“I read somewhere once that rain was the angels tears, crying because someone had died.”

She twitched, near imperceptibly and he felt his tongue withdraw. Maybe silence was golden.

“Maybe,” she answered softly after a silence so long he almost forgot his words.

“Do you know any angels?” He asked suddenly, then shrunk into the seat as she looked over sharply. There was a pause, in which he stayed in a prepared flinch until she answered,

“Yeah. A lot of them.” He could tell she was only thinking of one.

“Who?” He’d been unable to stop. He saw something flash in her eyes and quickly took it back. “Never mind. I don’t mean to-”

“I know,” she said gently. He looked away and tried to rewrite her tone in his mind, dredging out the hidden pain. He was almost positive the rest of the world couldn’t hear it, like it was made especially for his ears. But it wasn’t his ears.

Someone else held that key. Someone lucky. Someone gone.

It wasn’t the man she’d called before the rain had started. Her voice had been clipped and angry, like so many strings wound tightly around a finger. It burned. He assumed the man on the other end had been just as tense, if not more so, because her voice would steadily get louder and louder as if the man were contradicting her, until she seemed to remember he was there and it would drop back to a reasonable volume.

The call had ended abruptly, with no goodbyes and she dropped the phone in a cup-holder. “Damn you, Jarod,” she had muttered. He hadn’t asked; questions got him in trouble. They gave him bruises.

He fell asleep again somewhere along the line, and awoke to a third sky, coloured in messy pastels like a child’s drawing. He couldn’t have been asleep for that long; it was still raining.

“You’re taking me to him, aren’t you?”

She looked over once, briefly and met his gaze. His voice almost worn, tired and dejected, like too many battles lost; as if he were preparing to surrender. But it also held anger. So much anger and hatred buried beneath the surface that she only recognized because it mirrored her own.

“To Jarod.”

“Yes.” She paused. “He can help. He’s an ally.”

“I don’t want to go to him.”

It was the first words he’d spoken with determination, with any kind of demand or control. In his mind, it wasn’t open for negotiation, wasn’t anything she could contradict. “I won’t.”

She shrugged. It didn’t matter to her either way. But, “Why?” was a question she posed nonetheless.

The boy looked away and out the window at the sheets of rain. There was silence; then: “He killed my parents.”

The car slowed suddenly but he didn’t look over. He didn’t want to know what she was thinking, didn’t want her to challenge his beliefs. He’d spent his whole life believing it. He would keep believing it, no matter what she said.

He was resolute.

“Do you really believe that?”

He faltered. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because it’s what Raines told you.”

Everything Raines had told him so far was a lie.

“I believe it.”

“Are you sure?”

More silence. It lapsed through a state border; he missed which one and through several small cities.

“Could he have killed my parents?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not my place to explain your heritage to you. All I can say is that, while he’s not incapable of it, Jarod doesn’t make a habit of killing. Anyone.”

“He killed my parents.”

“You’ll have to take that up with him.”

“Why don’t you believe me?”

She sighed. “Because the Jarod I know won’t harm anyone unless they’re deserving. And as much as I hate to say it, despite all his years in that place, he still has… compassion. For people.”

“Like you?”

She laughed, but there was no humour in it. He waited for an answer, but never got one.

“Do I have to meet him?”

“No. There’s a map in the back; I’ll drop you anywhere you want to go. But if you stay out here, alone, it won’t be two days before they’ll find you and drag you back.” She looked over at him. “The Centre is everywhere. The only chance you stand is with him. He can protect you.”

“Like he did my family?”

She was almost proud of his sarcasm.

“Jarod didn’t kill your parents.”

And for some reason, he almost believed her.

“How long have you known him?” It was an odd question, but not without direction or value.

“My whole life.”

“Do you trust him?”

“What?”

“Do you trust him?”

“That would depend.”

“On what?”

“On what else was on the line.”

He wasn’t quite sure he understood, but he didn’t ask. It wasn’t his concern.

But on the other hand, it was. She -the only beauty and determination he had ever known- was planning to drop him with the man he’d believed had murdered his family. He had the right to know if she trusted him, if she believed. For some reason, he valued that.

“Is he the boy?”

“Excuse me?” But her voice came off too harsh, too clipped and he looked away, mumbling an apology. He didn’t want to hit nerves, had no desire to open old wounds. He just wanted to know.

[When I was your age I knew a boy just like you… exactly like you]

He found it hard to believe that the woman next to him had ever been his age. She seemed so old, so worn and tired but still filled with an opposing determination in everything she set out to do.

Like helping him. He wondered again, why she was. So he asked.

“Because I need to do it right this time.”

“Do what right?”

“What I should have done thirty years ago.”

Again with the circles. “Was Jarod like me? In the Centre?”

“You ask too many questions.”

“I’m sorry.” He looked out the window again.

“Yes, Jarod was –is- a genius, like you. And yes, he grew up in the Centre. Almost his entire life.”

Why was she answering him?

“Was he the boy?” he ventured again.

She smiled wistfully but with too much sorrow and never removed her eyes from the road. “Always.”

“What happened?”

She looked from the road to him, him to the road, the road to him and back again. He didn’t repeat the question; he knew she understood.

“He ran away.”

He thought she understood. “That’s not what I-”

“I know.” So she did. “It’s too complicated.”

[I don’t want to talk about it]

“Try?”

She sighed and shook her head. “We just… grew apart. That’s all.”

He was easily enraptured by the tales of other people’s lives. “How come?”

That one was easy. “My father.”

+ + +

“I’m sorry again, Daddy,” she apologized, seating herself across from him at the table. The restaurant was on the grounds of the Centre, not far from his office, on a balcony overlooking the bay. Wind whispered, but didn’t rage and the waves were peaceful.

“You just worried your old man, that’s all. The Centre’s a big place,” he said with pride. “Too easy for a little girl to get lost, hmm?”

She smiled sweetly and shook her head. “I’m not a little girl anymore, Daddy.”

“Right… right, right, right. But you’re still my little Angel?” He posed it as more of a statement then a question, but it warmed her heart no matter. She cherished the moments she had with her father, for they were few and far between and all too often interrupted by a phone or a messenger to whisk him away, and she’d be left alone.

“Always.”

He flashed a trademark wink and grin and snapped for a waiter to bring them drinks and starters and somehow through the course of the meal and pleasant conversation, she managed to slip in Jarod.

Her father frowned and scratched his chin, placing his napkin on his plate and allowing the waiter to take it away.

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to be hanging around him, Angel.”

“Why not? You let me see him all the time before I left.”

“Yes, I know but” he struggled for a valid excuse. “he’s changed. He’s not the same boy you once knew. He can be dangerous.”

She laughed. “Daddy, Jarod wouldn’t hurt me.”

Mr. Parker’s face remained grim. “I don’t know about that.”

Her smile fell. “Daddy-”

“I don’t want you hanging around him.”

“But-”

“No. Just… leave him alone.” He saw her fallen face and reached across the table. “He’s a busy man, Angel. He needs his time and space. Besides, you’ve got plenty of other things to do, hmm?”

“Of course.” She faked a smile and he patted her hand, drawing back as the next plate came. She poked at her food without interest and tried to hang onto her father’s words, but the only ones she could hear were those that rang in her ears. She sighed inaudibly and masked the grimace that crept onto her face. “Of course.”


+ + +

She never mentioned it to the boy, sitting expectantly next to her, but relived the scene quietly, in her own mind. She shook her head in disgust. She was weaker than her mother. At least she’d had the guts to stand up to him.

[And look where that got her]

She glanced over, watching as he stared for long hours out the window, watching green field after green field of unchanging scenery. She couldn’t tell him anything more; it was too much like saying the words to him, like telling her secrets she’d kept so deeply hidden from him. Facing herself she would have to face the boy. And facing the boy would be like facing Jarod, something, even still, she was not prepared to do.

[I felt for him, but I never let him know]

+ + +

It was the intense feeling of terror that drug her down the halls, toward muted screams and flashing lights. The terror was not her own, but hung so thickly in the air that she could almost see it, touch it, and it dragged her forward like a heavy magnet.

She turned the corner and let out a gasp that alerted the two men standing by the large window of her presence.

“Angel!” He turned and stood in front of her, shielding her eyes from the window. In the room below, a light flashed again and a boy screamed. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”

“Daddy, what are they doing to him?” She looked over his arm, her eyes breaking with fear.

“Nothing. It’s just a simulation.”

“But… they’re hurting him.”

The boy screamed again.

“Daddy, they’re hurting him! How can you…”

“’He doesn’t feel anything,” he answered gruffly, drawing her attention away from the window. “He’s reliving events, Angel, that’s what a Pretender does. He sees things through other peoples eyes.”

“But…” It sounded like pain.

“Do you really believe I would let them hurt him?” His eyes had a steely glare, as if challenging her to defy him. She never would.

“Of course not, Daddy, but…”

Mr. Parker’s overly accentuated sigh interrupted her and he pulled her over toward the edge of the balcony where the floor met the glass. The lights had stopped, and they’d taken the restraints off the boy –no longer a boy, but a tall, gangly teenager. Mr. Parker knocked loudly on the window, and all the heads in the room below turned to look.

He smiled when he saw her, but his face fell on her father, standing proudly next to her. They’d been watching him like a show.

She forced a smile, and placed a hand low on the glass, too far down for her father to see. She knew he saw, but he didn’t respond, just gazed up at her with agonized eyes.


[Help me]

She looked away. He wasn’t in any pain. It was just a ploy.

[He wants you, Angel, for nothing more then what every teenage boy wants from a beautiful girl.]

She knew in her heart it was all lies. She could see all the pain in his eyes, the plea for understanding and attention. She knew he wouldn’t care if she were ugly. He only wanted her heart.

He couldn’t have it.

He held her gaze until she couldn’t stand it, and forcefully looked away.

“No pain?”

“No pain,” he promised. And she repeated it to herself until she believed it.

Almost.


+ + +

Time had fixed the almost. It covered up his lies for him and disguised them as the truth so she would believe them. She always believed the truth.

[I saw… pain… in his eyes but I looked the other way]

“Was it hard?” he asked quietly, playing ever so lightly on the slight vulnerability in her expression. “Growing away from him?”

She easily pulled herself together. “No,” she answered slowly. “It wasn’t.”

It had been easy. One school after the next, new places, new people, new adventures. She’d loved Europe, Italy most of all, despite the bad relationships. She’d loved Tokyo almost as much, with its huge buildings and crowded streets. Everything had happened for her in those years. She’d been places, seen people, grown and died with every rejection and refusal of her father.

She came back different. Jarod was still the same. Time hadn’t passed for him, hadn’t let him live. She tried to see him once, but could only watch from a distance. He was still tortured.

Her eyes deceived her. There was no pain, she told herself, and returned to her father.

He was proud of her when she was distant and caustic, and ashamed when she was weak and sentimental. She stopped thinking about the past.

April thirteenth only came around once a year. And so for the other three hundred sixty-four days, her father would be proud of her.

“Is that what makes it so hard now?”

Her silence was his answer.

+ + +

[I see the same pain in your eyes, but I can’t look away anymore]

It was another stretch of innumerable time before she pulled off the interstate and took back roads through a small Georgia city. She parked in front of an unnamed motel and told him to wait while she got out, shut the door and walked around the car to an alcove of the building, still in his sight.

From his window he could see a tall, dark haired man step from the shadows. He couldn’t understand their words, but their body language was enough. They needed each other. They hated each other. She was angry with him for sentencing her life he was angry with her for deserting him. They would never tell each other that.

[You never told him you cared?

I couldn’t.

Why?]


She hadn’t answered him either.

“You owe me, Jarod. This is a piece of your future I’m giving you.”

His face hardened. “He isn’t a piece, Miss Parker, he’s a boy. A human being.”

“I was referring to your freedom. For the fact that I’m about to let you walk away, no strings.”

“Obviously there are strings otherwise I wouldn’t owe you anything.”

“Next time, Jarod. Your ass is mine.”

“Gladly, Miss Parker.” She tilted her head with an arched eyebrow, as if issuing a silent challenge. He declined, and asked her bluntly, “What do you want?”

“I think you know.”

“Thomas.”

“If you know anything…”

“You’ll be my first stop.”

“I’ll be your only stop. Understood?”

“Thank you, Miss Parker,” he offered. She said nothing, just folded her arms and walked back toward the car. She stopped on the passenger side and opened the door. He climbed out awkwardly with stiff limbs and stood in front of her, waiting. He looked from her to Jarod, who smiled slightly and raised a hand in greeting.

He didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to be faced with more lies and more truths and half-truths. He wanted to run away. He wanted to stay with her. He wanted to go back.

He did none of these things.

Miss Parker rolled her eyes and gave a small smile, one he would keep tucked away in his pocket. “Good luck.”

He was standing next to Jarod, stiff and anxious and several feet away; she was almost to in the drivers seat when the question rose in his throat he couldn’t bite back.

“Miss Parker!” She stopped and looked over the car, and rim of her recently adorned sunglasses. “What was the name of the angel?”

She froze as his question rang, and Jarod watched silent and curious from a mental distance. “His…” She stopped short and cleared her throat. “His name was Tommy.”

The boy nodded, and along with her smile and gentle touch, zipped the name in a safe place where no one could find them but him.

+ + +

“It’s me.” His voice was low as he tried not to wake the boy sitting next to him on the plane.

“Even I could have figured that one.”

He ignored her hostility, knowing it was more from weariness than anything else. He’d heard from Sydney about the T-Board they’d suffered through, but she’d spent the better part of her life acting, just the way her father had taught her to. It came in handy, every once in a while. “You did the right thing.”

She fell into the couch and gently cradled a framed picture in her hand. “Call me mother Theresa from now on.”

“You’ve used that line before.”

“Have I?” It had been on too long.

“Thank you,” he said again, with more passion than the first time.

“You would have found a way, without my help.”

Angelo had been hers. He’d recorded himself on Centre surveillance, climbing into and through the airducts until he reached the roof, and then gave the show of his life by climbing down the ladder and running off into the woods. The Centre assumed, having never seen his face, from the standard issue clothing and closely cropped hair, that their second protégé had escaped.

Her crazy savant had looped the camera and deleted any evidence that she’d been with the boy.

“Yes…” he agreed, “but this way gives me hope.”

“Hope?” She shook her head sadly. No such thing.

“That she’s still in there somewhere, inside of you.”

Miss Parker shrugged her shoulders. “She lives and dies.”

“She deserves life.”

“Don’t we all,” she murmured, tracing the lines of his face with her finger.

“I’m sorry, Miss Parker. I wish…” He hesitated, considered, and pressed on. “I wish there was something I could do.”

“There’s not,” she said, a little too sharply. Then softer, “You can’t bring Tommy back.”

“No, and even if I could…”

[It wouldn’t be the same]

“You can’t bring any of them back.”

[All the innocents]

“I know.” He answered with a sigh.

“You can’t bring her back.”

[I won’t let you]

He had to smile. “I wouldn’t try.”

There was a silence that created a space between them, enough that she could say, compassionately but with some detachment,

“Take care of him.”

“I will,” he swore. And he would.

He heard her shift, like she was about to hang up and called out her name. There was a pause, another shuffle and the soft sound of her breathing. He sighed, and without anger or envy, told her gently,

“You did it right this time.”

+ + +

end









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