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Disclaimer: The characters Miss Parker, Sydney, Jarod, Broots etc. and the fictional Centre, are all property of MTM, TNT and NBC Productions and used
without permission. I'm not making any money out of this and no infringement is intended.

Reflections
by Felicity Drummond





Fear is tangible, ignorable and strangely satisfying. When you stop being scared you stop living either through carelessness or lack of excitement. It is a stimulant I depend on while not admitting to and I couldn’t endure an existence without the adrenalin rush that makes uncertainty and restlessness all worth while. There was a time I wished for normalcy. Long before I began working at the Centre I had the normal dreams of a child brought up with the best. At first I wanted to be a ballerina to dance as free and gracefully as my mother, to grow up as beautiful as she was. Her beauty and my uncanny likeness have since become both a curse and a strategy. My mother’s death was a wake up call to many in the Centre. When they see me they see a ghost it shocks them for a second. They see their own guilt. When they look in my eyes they see my father. People will do almost anything at that point to either make amends or get the hell out of my site. They are not stupid. They know who to fear and who not to mess with, rare few, mess with me.

For years I’ve lived under the shadow of both my father and mother and hated the person that came between them and me and me and them. So long have I hated Jarod I almost forget what it is like to love him. ‘Almost’ is an ambiguous term. There is little of our childhood branded in my memory that could truly slip my mind. So I pretend, act as though I hold no regrets to what became of us and trade on my jealousy and resentment in order to sim the perfect resistance to his charm and endearing quality’s. Complete and total indifference. I make fun of what I can’t ignore. Sarcasm is my weapon if all else fails I’ll point a gun at his head. I have no doubt there’ll come a day I’m annoyed enough to pull the trigger. Just add that guilt to my account and I’ll pay for it later. I will do anything, try anything and chase him anywhere to make him stop! Stop tormenting me with tasty little tidbit’s about my past challenging my choices all of which he disapproves and trying to run my life the way he thinks it should go. You can’t control everything Jarod. I said that to him once but the Centre doesn’t create nice modest obedient little lab rats. Oh no! On the contrary the isolation consistently has gone to their heads. Subsequently they think they know everything because of the irritating fact they do and of course he wouldn’t believe my very true analysis of the limitations in life I’m just a mere smudge on his radar, unworthy of comment as what could I possibly know that he didn’t. Quite a lot actually, not everything is derived from theoretical knowledge and I’ve had a lot of practice. Part of me can’t help but imagine he’d be a fast learner until I get creeped out by the fact I’m fantasising about my prey and previous best and only friend a fact of surprisingly irrelevant quality.

Bias isn’t considered a factor in Centre business. You’re just supposed to get over it and on with it no matter whom you have to screw. I’ve never had any friends to use and lose. I was a veteran before I even stepped in the doors my first day of work. Sweeper, Cleaner, Head of security I excelled because I knew what I was in for before I was subjected to it. Through it all I never really had a strategy. Mind games came with the territory. Gets kinda boring when you always win. But I never really had a direction a purpose other than to reach the next level. Nothing stood in the way of Miss Parker and a goal, nothing and no one till Jarod. The trouble is I’ve never been the one setting the goals. It’s always been my father with his corporate ambitions, I’ve always submitted to his order when I’ll take it from no one else. I’ve always traded on the connection. Just as appearances mean everything connections often mean you’re life in the Centre. Broots sure as hell knows it and is subsequently conflicted in his terror attraction and dependence on me.

The power, influence and intimidation I emanate and trade upon has always been down to my father. He wanted me to be a survivor and here I am surviving. Nobody ever said anything about happiness in the bargain. I think I gave up that frail dream the months after my mother’s funeral. When I had nobody and never intended to have ever again. My strength like everything else is a front, a shield. Honestly the only word that describes me is coward. To afraid to admit to my own loneliness and to terrified to succumb to it. However I like it this way. I’ve fooled myself I love it this way. I have fooled myself about a lot of things ironic how at the same time I search diligently for the truth.

Sydney watches over me from the corner of his eye as we are both silent, committed to our respective work. There are unspoken rules between us as to the depth of our relationship. Outward appearances do little justice to the depth of feeling I keep inside. One more person in what is turning into a long chain of two maybe three (Jarod pops up just about everywhere) that I’m dependant upon. Without his quite support, calming influence and patriarchal presence I’d be ten feet under right now for I’m nothing if not occasionally rash. And rashness can get even the chairman’s daughter killed as certain as the next insignificant Sweeper. It is late. I am sure in some unexplored realm of my psyche I am exhausted but I can’t face my empty memory ridden house any more than I could force myself to work in my cold, lonely office.

Sydney had the sense not to ask any questions at my arrival and use of his office as a shared workspace. He didn’t raise his eyebrows or take one step out of place. I’m distracted trying to figure out the multi choice answer to a fascinating question. Why didn’t Sydney react to my intrusion? Is it A he tapped into my mood and decided not to take his chances at analysis with an armed woman B, he was to distracted by my outfit or C He was to absorbed in his work.


I don’t like C but A and B are appealing explanations. He knows I didn’t come here to do any work. He usually knows what I want to say before I can bring myself to say it. But as a shrink he feels it’s important I say it, don’t hold things in as I interminably do. Therefore he doesn’t bother to mention he understands no more said. Instead he waits for me in my own time to open up, explain, succumb to roundabout therapy as I’d refuse it if it was direct. It’s damn annoying at times yet ever a release. And I can’t help but consider secretly that he’s right. It slowly destroys one to keep things inside. But the path of destruction is the scenic route and all other roads lead where I’ve already been.

The silence is getting to me, as he undoubtedly knows it would. Sydney never estimates or judges he always just knows. “Ok!” I give in. He discreetly checks his watch. Probably been timing me the jerk. My tone switches from strong, in control to childlike and vulnerable. I hate it when I get like this. Usually it takes more than one glass of absolute tonight the oppression in the air is maybe getting to me. I don’t know what it is. Trust me if I did it would have been annihilated before now. “Syd,” I start again. Could you give me a ride home.” There is even more insecurity in my tone that time and I’m really starting to crave a cigarette just to regain some dignity. “Of course Parker.” In a tone that makes it seem as if it was that easy and he was only waiting for me to ask which he probably was. He picks up his coat and I follow him from his office down to the car park. The ride home is spent in silence my eyes invite him in the house. It is going in that is the worst part. The shadows and waves of grief soaked into the walls. He follows me inside and I lie down on the couch exhausted, shivering from cold. Cold is symbolic of so many things. Most of which apply to me. Manner, effect and emptiness, loneliness, sorrow, grief and pain. Cold because that temperature is considered unpleasant and miserable. The feeling it gives you physically aligns with the emotions I’m trapped in presently. The atmosphere gradually warms up and I begin to feel sleepy. I only just become aware of the blanket draped over me as my eyes blink shut and hands rub my back. Momentarily I like being dependent, on him only him. For the safety in his arms, the warmth in his eyes, acceptance in his heart but most of all for his love which outwits all protest.









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