Summer by chopsticks
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Disclaimer: I do not own The Pretender or anything related to it. It is owned by NBC, TNT, and Craig and Steve. No profit is being made and no infringement is intended.
Spoilers: Very minor ones for "The Dragon House" and "Red Rock Jarod"
Author's Note: Thanks to the girls in the Pretenderville chat for helping me remember the name of the episode. :) Yet another character musing. Yes, I can clearly see you all are surprised. Ha! 'Kay, so I'm kinda making up some of the mythology of the show, as I actually haven't seen Island of the Haunted. So, clearly, if something in here contradicts with that, well, that's why.
Summary: Summer is supposed to represent happiness and joy, but to her it is merely another sign of her family's oppression and their endless struggle to escape it.
Summer
by: chopsticks
g
-----
She stepped outside and sighed heavily, the oppressive heat bearing down on her, making her weak with the effort just to breathe. One thing great authors, so apt at description and prose they are, will not tell you about a summer day is it is tiring. Summer is supposed to represent happiness and joy, but to her it is merely another sign of her family's oppression and their endless struggle to escape it.
The heat seemed to increase its pressure, pushing her down, down, down. She could feel the weight of the atmosphere on her shoulders and briefly allowed a forbidden thought to flit across her mind.
I wonder if any of them feel this as much as I do.
She stopped it right there. That thought could not be allowed to continue. If it did, she would begin to wonder how they were. Where they were. If they were safe.
As she had learned from her ever-loyal companion named Experience, these thoughts would lead her down a dangerous path. A path that lead to risky decisions, endangering of her life, and near destruction both emotionally and physically.
Oh yes, a dangerous path indeed.
A path that let me see my son, even though from afar, her mind whispered, the words seeping into her consciousness and infecting her very soul. She closed her eyes, leaning on the railing of the porch, and let the memory wash over her.
Her son. . .
. . .was crying out for her.
. . .cried out her name.
"Mom!!"
The pain and joy in his voice was unmistakable. His voice was unmistakable, even though she had not heard it in nearly thirty years.
Her son. . .
. . .was crying out for her.
. . .cried out her name.
. . .was nearly captured by sweepers (Ignorant of the company they work for, they can afford to be heartless and have a clean conscience at the end of the day, she thought wryly.).
Emily pushed her into the cab. Jarod escaped. Life would go on, but now there was hope. Hope and prayers and longing and joy, all felt because her child was alive. Free and alive. At least one could be.
The cab drove away.
They had both been taken from her. She had only seen one within the last twenty years. The one that had survived. Kyle--Oh! Kyle, my dear, sweet boy! her heart cried out--was now nothing more than a whisper in the night; a name cried out in the darkest of nightmares. His life had been stolen by a Centre employee--a Parker nonetheless! (Her heart still lamented the loss of Catherine, who used to love summer days.)
She shifted her thoughts from Kyle, the poor, lost boy who had been so twisted by the omnipresent Parkers he could not function outside of The Centre.
Like Timmy, her mind reminded her, and a tsunami of sadness washed over her. So many children's lives had been destroyed by one company, all for the sake of one project. So many lives, so many children, so many families.
Should she consider herself lucky to have the knowledge of what happened to her children? To know that one was well and truly dead (Oh! Kyle!), while the other was performing vigilante justice, dodging The Centre, and searching for his family and a little piece of happiness? Would she have been better off to not know what had happened to her children? To think they murdered by some mad kidnapper and were left to rot in a ditch somewhere? Would she have been better off not knowing, and meditating upon it for the last thirty years?
She could not answer that question. Did not want to answer that question.
She just wanted her son. She wanted him back. He was the last piece she needed to find. All the others had come home to her, if only for a little while. She had even briefly seen the clone (They cloned my son, but he is still not my son, she thought with some despair.).
The summer heat pressed down on her, smothering her in a silent, slow, effortless way. Given enough time, it would crush her. She took in a deep breath and felt her body struggle against it.
She would struggle on.
She would find her son.
She would overcome the summer day.
-----
the end.
feedback welcomed at spacedoutwriter@hotmail.com.
Spoilers: Very minor ones for "The Dragon House" and "Red Rock Jarod"
Author's Note: Thanks to the girls in the Pretenderville chat for helping me remember the name of the episode. :) Yet another character musing. Yes, I can clearly see you all are surprised. Ha! 'Kay, so I'm kinda making up some of the mythology of the show, as I actually haven't seen Island of the Haunted. So, clearly, if something in here contradicts with that, well, that's why.
Summary: Summer is supposed to represent happiness and joy, but to her it is merely another sign of her family's oppression and their endless struggle to escape it.
by: chopsticks
g
-----
She stepped outside and sighed heavily, the oppressive heat bearing down on her, making her weak with the effort just to breathe. One thing great authors, so apt at description and prose they are, will not tell you about a summer day is it is tiring. Summer is supposed to represent happiness and joy, but to her it is merely another sign of her family's oppression and their endless struggle to escape it.
The heat seemed to increase its pressure, pushing her down, down, down. She could feel the weight of the atmosphere on her shoulders and briefly allowed a forbidden thought to flit across her mind.
I wonder if any of them feel this as much as I do.
She stopped it right there. That thought could not be allowed to continue. If it did, she would begin to wonder how they were. Where they were. If they were safe.
As she had learned from her ever-loyal companion named Experience, these thoughts would lead her down a dangerous path. A path that lead to risky decisions, endangering of her life, and near destruction both emotionally and physically.
Oh yes, a dangerous path indeed.
A path that let me see my son, even though from afar, her mind whispered, the words seeping into her consciousness and infecting her very soul. She closed her eyes, leaning on the railing of the porch, and let the memory wash over her.
Her son. . .
. . .was crying out for her.
. . .cried out her name.
"Mom!!"
The pain and joy in his voice was unmistakable. His voice was unmistakable, even though she had not heard it in nearly thirty years.
Her son. . .
. . .was crying out for her.
. . .cried out her name.
. . .was nearly captured by sweepers (Ignorant of the company they work for, they can afford to be heartless and have a clean conscience at the end of the day, she thought wryly.).
Emily pushed her into the cab. Jarod escaped. Life would go on, but now there was hope. Hope and prayers and longing and joy, all felt because her child was alive. Free and alive. At least one could be.
The cab drove away.
They had both been taken from her. She had only seen one within the last twenty years. The one that had survived. Kyle--Oh! Kyle, my dear, sweet boy! her heart cried out--was now nothing more than a whisper in the night; a name cried out in the darkest of nightmares. His life had been stolen by a Centre employee--a Parker nonetheless! (Her heart still lamented the loss of Catherine, who used to love summer days.)
She shifted her thoughts from Kyle, the poor, lost boy who had been so twisted by the omnipresent Parkers he could not function outside of The Centre.
Like Timmy, her mind reminded her, and a tsunami of sadness washed over her. So many children's lives had been destroyed by one company, all for the sake of one project. So many lives, so many children, so many families.
Should she consider herself lucky to have the knowledge of what happened to her children? To know that one was well and truly dead (Oh! Kyle!), while the other was performing vigilante justice, dodging The Centre, and searching for his family and a little piece of happiness? Would she have been better off to not know what had happened to her children? To think they murdered by some mad kidnapper and were left to rot in a ditch somewhere? Would she have been better off not knowing, and meditating upon it for the last thirty years?
She could not answer that question. Did not want to answer that question.
She just wanted her son. She wanted him back. He was the last piece she needed to find. All the others had come home to her, if only for a little while. She had even briefly seen the clone (They cloned my son, but he is still not my son, she thought with some despair.).
The summer heat pressed down on her, smothering her in a silent, slow, effortless way. Given enough time, it would crush her. She took in a deep breath and felt her body struggle against it.
She would struggle on.
She would find her son.
She would overcome the summer day.
the end.
feedback welcomed at spacedoutwriter@hotmail.com.
