Disclaimer: see chapter 1

Chapter 6

Five years later…

The doors slammed shut behind her with a loud clang. For the last five years, the sounds of doors being closed carried a different meaning than the one today. After five years, she was finally free. Taking a few steps forward to be out of the shadow of the medium-security federal penitentiary, she inhaled a lungful of air. Free.

Wearing the same outfit that she wore while reporting to the prison, years out of fashion, Miss Parker looked at the crowded parking lot. She saw some small groups of people, as well as solitary individuals, waiting for their friends or loved ones who were being released at the same time as her. Or, from her prison experience, gang bangers looking to pick up their newly released ex-cons. But, for Parker, there was no one waiting for her with open arms, hugs, cheerful cursing, or tears. Just a lonely figure which the world has passed by. An insignificant creature that made some awful choices and wound up paying the price for her mistakes.

Clutching the paper bag which contained her possessions which she took going into the prison and the few keepsakes that kept her sane and alleviating the boredom of her prison sentence, she slowly walked over to the public bus stop, hobbled by her five-inch stiletto heels. She silently cursed herself for wearing them when she was transported to the prison because she didn't foresee that after five years of wearing cheap sneakers, she would need some time to adjust to wearing such awkward footwear.

Finally arriving at the bus bench, she plopped herself down and sat down her bag. She leaned back against the bench rest and exhaled wearily. She didn't want to think just now but was forced to because she needed to find out how to find food and shelter on just three hundred dollars.

She snorted derisively. Once a fabulously wealthy woman, now an near pauperless ex-convict waiting at a bus stop under a hot sun. Wonderful, just wonderful.

Wearily, Miss Parker kicked off her stiletto heels. She luxuriated in the feeling of not wearing those cramped and uncomfortable shoes. Parker rubbed both of her sore feet. She idly wondered whether she can afford to buy similar footwear in her future as well as debating whether to stop wearing impossibly high heels forever.

As her mind meander over footwear, a white sedan slowed to a stop before her. Miss Parker stopped rubbing her sore feet and looked up with suspicion. Her senses were heightened. After five years in a medium security prison her survival instincts were in high gear.

With the engine idling, the driver's side door opened. Tensing her body, she saw a gray haired head slowly emerging. It was followed by a familiar face which was looking at her behind a pair of aviator sunglasses.

"Miss Parker."

Feeling her throat constrict, Parker swallowed before answering. He was the last person she expected to see here outside the prison that was her home for the last five miserable years.

"Ben. Why are you here? I, uh mean, I guess you're here because of me?" she was rambling, but this was how she was feeling towards her mother's close friend right now.

Ben looked at her. The little girl that his Catherine talked about with so much pride was gone. In her place was a haunted and suspicious woman who made too many bad mistakes which she couldn't escape from.

He gritted his teeth. He didn't want to be here in the first place. To see his Catherine's daughter like this was heartbreaking but Jarod made him promise to take her in. Once she found out about the changes that happened while she was in prison, she was going to need a familiar face and familiar surroundings to comfort her.

Her part in the Sears Tower attack, no matter tertiary her role might be, tainted his view of her. She had too much of her corrupt father while little existed of Catherine in her. That was the other reason why he didn't want her in his home. The emotional wounds of the Sears Tower atrocity were still too raw for him to give her any leeway in his heart.

So be it, he told himself. He would give her some time and a place to orient herself back to society after the years spent behind prison but it would be temporary. Once he saw that she was back on her feet and able to absorb the news, he would tell her to leave. His love for Catherine was the only reason he would let her stay but it wouldn't be enough to let Miss Parker stay at his place permanently. Not even for Catherine's sake.

"Get in," he gruffly ordered her. Ben didn't feel gentlemanly at all, so he just watched as Parker looked at him for a silent moment than nodded her head once.

"Okay," she told him, putting her high heels back on, than grabbing her bag, got up and walked the few steps to the front passenger door and opened it. She sat on the seat and stared ahead at the meandering street with grassy hilltops in the distance.

Ben got back in the car and put it into drive. For the next several miles, an uncomfortable silence filled the car until it was broken by Miss Parker. "Where are you taking me?"

Ben looked over at her. He noticed she was still looking straight ahead ever since they left the prison. Not once did she made eye contact with him or looked at the surrounding landscape. "We're going to the airport and from there to my place," answering her question.

Turning his head back to the road the uncomfortable silence continued until they arrived at the airport.

While waiting at the terminal for their plane to arrive, Miss Parker glanced at Ben who sat next to her reading the local newspaper.

She felt the tension and uneasiness just by his body language. Unsure as to what was the reason behind his sullen attitude, she responded by shutting down. A survival lesson learned in prison. To not feel at all, just become an automaton to make the days and nights go by faster than they actually were.

Tentatively, unsure as to how to phrase her question without upsetting him, she probed him. "Ben, how did you know when I was being released? Very few people knew about my parole."

Ben put down his newspaper and looked at her. "Some of Catherine's old connections. They kept me apprised of what was going on with you." That wasn't the whole truth. The only connection he had was Jarod and Ben promised him that Miss Parker would never know about Jarod's involvement in telling Ben when she was released from prison.

Miss Parker kept her irritation at Ben to herself. She can feel that he wasn't telling her the exact truth but right now there was nothing that she can do about it. Looking at the mass of humanity ready to get on board their plane or leaving one to be greeted by their love ones, she paused to formulate a reply.

A young Latina girl caught her eye. She was running on her little feet to greet a kneeling man who presumably was her father. Parker watched attentively as he picked her up, gave her a wet kiss on her cheek while twirling her around in a circle.

The little girl was gleefully laughing and putting her hands on his cheeks. A scene of ordinary happiness and love, Parker contemplated as the girl's mother came up to the other two and kissed both of them and bestowing upon them a million-watt smile. A heartwarming family reunion which Parker bleakly understood will never happen to her. She watched as the young family walked off to wherever their destination was, the couple hand in hand while the father was carrying his daughter in the crook of his left arm.

Giving Ben a cool stare, she said, "I see. I hope those connections of yours will help me later on." She wasn't certain of who were Ben's connections though Parker did suspect who one of them might be.

Her heart and mind shied away from that possibility. Don't think of him. Please, God, don't let me think of him. Not now.

Successfully shielding her thoughts Ben didn't notice the pang of loss that coursed through her body that Jarod brought to the fore. Therefore, he continued on oblivious, "Maybe, I'll have to ask them though. See how they react to your request." Would Jarod help her? he wondered. He didn't know. Jarod was an enigma now rather than the pleasant and caring young man he first encountered all those years ago.

She was saved from replying when the PA blared out asking those waiting for the flight to Maine to prepare for boarding.

From the time of boarding their flight to making the trip to Ben's place, the two of them barely spoke to each other except for the meaningless pleasantries of commenting on the weather and other inane topics.

When they arrived at Ben's home, he expertly guided her to her mother's old room. No words needed to be exchanged between them. Both knew that Miss Parker's future would begin in that room.

"Here you are," he announced opening the door. Catherine's room was mute testimony to Ben's devotion, nay love, for her as well as a memorial to her memory. He sincerely hoped that finally some of Catherine's compassion and love would rub off on her daughter.

Miss Parker didn't say anything for the moment absorbed as she was by the very strong presence of her mother in the room that Catherine occupied every time she came up to Ben's home. A little bit of the enormous burden was lifted from her shoulder as she, liked a drought stricken plant, soaked up the love and peace that filled the room into the darkness that was her soul.

Laying down the paper bag carrying her meager possessions on the dresser stand, Miss Parker turned to face Ben. "Thank you for letting me stay here. I, I don't have anywhere else to go to," she murmured. Then her stubborn pride, dormant after five years, woke up, "For now."

Ben gave her a wry smile, seeing what the last part of her statement for what it is. "Of course, Miss Parker. I'll let you settle in." Shifting his stance, suddenly uncomfortable as to how she react to what he would say next, he carefully mentioned, "There are some of Catherine's old clothes in the closet that should fit you."

At the mention of her mother, Parker's emotional defenses started to crumble. Stifling her urge to cry she nodded and huskily said, "Thank you, Ben. I'll find something to wear. If you don't mind, I like to be alone now."

Ben silently assented and gently closed the door behind him. Once the door shut behind Ben, Parker's body shook with tears. In the room with the omnipresent aura of her late beloved mother, the sad little girl came forth. Hastily, moving over to lie down on the bed, she curled herself into a fetal position and poured out the bottled up sadness, pain, and, yes, shame over the wreckage of her life and the lost opportunities.

Random thoughts came to her as she continued to convulse in silent sobs. Wondering where Debbie and Broots are, Sydney still locked up, the fate of her daddy, and the most painful of all, Jarod's fate.

Alone and with no one to hear her, Miss Parker finally admitted out loud what her heart had told her several lifetimes ago, "I love you, Jarod. We were meant to be together."

With her declaration of love for the Pretender, it set off another wave of sobbing as she bitterly regretted the missed turning points and the what might beens: a boy and a girl with another on the way, a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence, a dog running around in the backyard, Jarod and her having it all. She could have had it all she realized.

Spending five years in prison left a lot of time to think, to contemplate the mistakes one made, and the failures one gone through. Losing Jarod to that redhead left her heart shattered. No one watching Jarod and the redhead could deny that there was something special between them.

Parker tried with all her might to pretend, snorting to herself, that it was otherwise. But at night, in the grim, dingy prison cell, her subconscious would assault her with the truth. Jarod loved someone else. Not her. Her nightmares now included something different. Jarod living happily ever after with someone else. She tortured herself with that thought even though she knew it was her fault for pushing him away and rejecting all of his overtures throughout their "I run, you chase" years.

Sniffling, she reached over to the box of napkins and grabbed several tissues. After wiping her still damp eyes and blowing her nose, Miss Parker stared at the ceiling.

Now what. Good question, she mused. Her family behind bars or dead, one of her two friends were serving time in prison and the other disappeared into the witness protection program with his daughter who was the closest thing to a daughter she will ever have.

Even though her job prospects were practically nonexistent due to her criminal past she still have the trust fund that her mother had set up for her. It will keep her going until she can get back onto her feet. If no wanted to hire her, then she can hire herself, she vowed. She would start her own company. Do something decent for once with her life.

Her thoughts turned back to the same constant in her life. Jarod. What became of him, she wondered. She wanted to know. No, she admonished herself, she needed to know. She couldn't explain it not even to herself but she had to find out the whereabouts of Jarod.

But that would be later. Now, she needed to pull herself together. As well as reporting in to the US Probation Office. Grunting, she sat up. Five years of probation subject to her not getting into any trouble during that period. As if she really wanted to go back to prison and its friendly inhabitants.

Standing up, she slowly walked over to the closet that contained Catherine's clothes. She placed her hand on the doorknob but hesitated. Parker idolized her mother since she was taken away from her at such a young age. Now, that she was forced to wear some of her mother's clothes, a sense of shame swept through her. She felt unworthy to wear clothes that belonged to long dead woman who was remembered for her compassion, sense of justice, and fairness, qualities that no one she knew would attribute to her.

Stopping her self-recriminations, she turned the doorknob and opened the door. Inside, she saw clothes circa 1970s. Reverently, she reached out to touch them. This wasn't the first time that she saw these clothes. The first time was when she went chasing down another of Jarod's clues to her past. She still had the music box with the little ballerina on top that he left behind as the clue for her when she went to prison. Now, she wondered what happened to it.

That was when she first met Ben and his friendship with Catherine. Though she had her suspicions that there was more than friendship involved but declined to pursue it. Miss Parker reasoned that if Ben wanted to tell her he would in time.

Pulling out a blue striped shirt and matching blue pants, she walked over to the full-length mirror and held the clothes before her. Seeing that they matched her eyes and looked the closest to modern day taste, she went ahead and changed into them.

Taking another look in the mirror, she was somewhat satisfied with what she wore. She knew what was bothering her. The clothes still were part of the past. Of course, once she tapped into her trust fund, she definitely would get an up-to-date wardrobe.

Twirling away from the mirror, Parker went over to the closet again, this time she bent down to see what shoes her mother left behind.

She saw that there were several kinds of shoes, including some high heels and sneakers, she decided on a pair of sandals that looked comfortable. After putting them on, she looked around trying to make up her mind on what to do next.

Her indecision ended rather quickly when her stomach growled loudly. With a start, she glanced over at the clock on the nightstand. It was almost six pm. Time for some food she realized.

Opening the door, Parker headed downstairs wondering what Ben had in mind for dinner. Right now, she wasn't in the mood to go out for dinner. She much preferred to eat in private for the moment. After five years of eating with hundreds of other inmates, all under the vigilant gaze of their prison guards, Parker developed a healthy dislike for crowded dining venues.

Upon reaching the first floor, Parker headed unerringly towards the kitchen looking for Ben. She was going to ask him what he had in store for dinner.

Entering the kitchen, she saw him over by the stove stirring something in a pot. All the delicious smells and the sight of food being prepared made her mouth water. Once again, her stomach indicated its hunger by growling.

Looking up from stirring the pot, Ben gave her a polite nod upon hearing her stomach growling. Embarrassed, Miss Parker explained, "I haven't eaten in a while. I was wondering what we're having for dinner."

Setting the ladle on a cutting board, Ben wiped his hands before answering her. "I'm making us a Maine lobster dinner." He jerked his head, gesturing to the ingredients spread around the kitchen. "I figure you would like something special rather than prison food."

Touched by his sincerity, she told him, "Thank you, Ben." Looking around the kitchen, she eyed him, "Can I help you in any way?" With the chaos that was Ben's kitchen, she figured she would give him a hand and wash away any guilty feelings she might have for his generosity towards helping her.

He really didn't want to be closer to her than need be, but seeing the eager look in her eyes he relented. Gesturing at the kitchen counter, "Why don't you chop up those carrots for now." He turned back to the lobster pot. Talking to Miss Parker over his shoulder, "It should be done in another half-hour."

Miss Parker went to work chopping the carrots. Those who knew her would be surprised at her culinary skills but when she was in prison, part of her duties involved cooking for the other prisoners.

There, she learned how to prepare meals quickly and efficiently in order to feed hundreds of hungry prisoners. But along with learning to cook, she also learned a lot of details that were stomach churning like seeing prison trustees spitting on the food as they prepared to deliver them to other prisoners locked up in solitary confinement or in the medical wing bed-ridden with some illness like AIDS just because they belonged to different gangs.

Pushing those grim recollections of prison life down, she concentrated on preparing their meals.

Usually with his hotel guests, Ben with a flourish would declare, "Ta da, it's done. One whopping big Maine lobster coming up!" But today was different. Instead it was Miss Parker who let down her mother, involved in an atrocity that seared the nation's soul, and unwanted by Ben as a welcome guest. So, rather than with his usual gusto, he simply declared, "It's done."

Miss Parker looked up with a warm smile which disappeared quickly upon seeing the stern, unsmiling visage on Ben's face. Instead she silently watched him take the lobster pot over to the sink and drained it. While he was placing the lobster and its fixings onto a large plate, Miss Parker concentrated on cutting the tomatoes and cucumbers for the salad.

Eventually all their preparations wound up in the dining room where the rich aromas of freshly cooked food encompassed both Ben and Miss Parker.

Seeing the bounty in front of her, Miss Parker thought, with wonder, that this was the first home cook meal she experienced since before being sentenced to prison.

Ben waited patiently as he watched Catherine's daughter recollect her thoughts. A profound sadness and anger passed through him as he watched her. A waste, he silently raged. A goddamn waste.

He remonstrated himself for being too passive. When Catherine was last here, he should've fought harder to convince her to stay and get away from that murderous son of a bitch who was her husband in name only.

If only. The saddest phrase in the English language. If only he could have saved Catherine. If only she was alive then her daughter would have chosen a different destiny. If only Catherine asked for help, he would have moved heaven and earth to help her.

But it wasn't to be. Catherine lying in a grave, moldering away. Her beloved daughter a convicted criminal. And he, a lonely bachelor with more days behind him than there are in front of him.

He stopped his internal diatribe when he saw Miss Parker glancing at him. In a quiet voice, she asked him, "Shall we start?"

Ben told her, "Yes, Miss Parker. Let's dig in."

For the next hour, both of them concentrated on eating as well as keeping the conversation light. But they knew that the time for serious talk was coming soon but for now both agreed that this wasn't the time or place for it.

Finishing their repast, both full from the feast, they leaned back into their chairs. "Do you want anything else," Ben politely inquired.

"No," Parker told him. She was absolutely stuffed to the gills with the rich food in her. "I'm fine, thank you."

Standing up, Ben gently patted his stomach. "I'm going to take a walk before cleaning up."

Parker also stood up. "I'll get started on the clean up." She started to pick up some of the dishes when Ben's voice made her pause.

"I'll be back in half an hour and I'll clean up the dining table." Holding up a hand to head off her imminent protest, he spoke in a no nonsense voice, "its okay, I got it covered."

Miss Parker was about to object but she saw that Ben was already turned around and heading out the front door. If you think that was the end of it, she said to his retreating back, you're wrong.

Knowing that she had half an hour before he returned, she hurried back to the dining room and started cleaning up the detritus of their dinner. Refrigerating the leftovers and throwing the rest away, Parker placed the dishes, pots, and pans in the dishwasher and turned it on. She was satisfied with herself as she saw she had five minutes to spare before Ben showed up.

A few minutes past the half hour deadline Ben gave her, he showed up back home. After putting away his windbreaker, Ben was rolling his sleeves up while heading towards the dining room when he stopped surprised that everything was already cleaned up and the dining table ready for the next day's meals.

Grumbling and muttering words about headstrong women, he marched into the kitchen. There, he saw Miss Parker was wiping the kitchen counters down. "Miss Parker," speaking loudly, Ben stood where he was, in the kitchen entrance, giving her a gimlet stare.

Setting down the dishrag that she was holding, Parker turned around and gave him a reciprocal stare. She wasn't backing down from him or anyone else for that matter. Not in her past and not now. "Yes, Ben?" she said firmly, knowing that Ben was going to rebuke her.

"I thought I told you that I would take of the dishes?" he stated sternly. Ben wanted Parker to recover from their long flight and adjust to her new environment but it looks like she wasn't going along with his game plan.

"Yes," Parker said, trying to rein in her impatience. She wryly observed that some of her old habits were coming back with a vengeance.

"Then why didn't you go along with it? You know I would have clean things up by myself with no problems at all." Ben was trying to be stern but seeing the headstrong look on her face, reminding him all too much of his Catherine, his resolve was slowly eroding.

Parker mentally debated whether to tell Ben a white lie or the truth. A day after being freed from prison and turning over a new leaf, she settled on the truth. "I decided to ignore your plans and went and cleaned up by myself."

Acknowledging that he wasn't going to get his way, Ben tried to salvage his dignity. "Alright, Miss Parker, I'll go ahead and clean myself up. I'll see you in a while."

As he left the kitchen, she could hear him stomp up the stairs to his room. She let out a big sigh of relief, releasing the tension that she didn't realize she was experiencing. Parker turned back to finish up the rest of her chores before she herself went upstairs to her mother's room. Never in a million years would she call it her room.

Parker was luxuriating in the bathtub enjoying her first bubble bath in over five years. It was sensual to just lie back in the bathtub and absolutely do nothing but soak in the warm water without worrying hearing complaints about taking too long to shower or trying to hurry up or the guards would kick you out of the showers.

She couldn't help thinking about the long hard years she endured in the federal penitentiary. Everything she's experiencing now she compared them to what she went through in prison.

She sighed. Why am I thinking about prison when all I want to do is to forget, she wondered to herself. She closed her eyes and put an effort into not thinking or remembering.

Parker succeeded so well that she woke up with a start. The water in the bathtub was cold and the twilight streaming in through the bathroom window was replaced by the dark signaling nighttime had arrived while she dozed.

She hastily stood up from the bathtub, shivering slightly from the cold water. Grabbing a towel, she wiped herself dry and put on a bathrobe. Parker headed into her bedroom and sat down on the bed.

Parker sat there for a long while looking out at the window into the night. She remembered sitting on the window seat in her bedroom in her old house when sleep eluded her. A desolate look crossed her face. How she missed her house!

It was her sanctuary from the madness of the Centre and the macabre and psychotic people inhabiting that place. Bitterness poured through her. Mad scientists, serial killers, duplicitous fathers were just some of the characters that the Centre attracted or created. Like a black hole, it drew in all the viciousness and ugliness in human nature and cultivated it.

Parker believed that the Centre's darkness could be kept at bay when she was in her house. It lasted for some time until a turning point, as Jarod would point out, happened to her.

Thomas.

When she fell in love with him and told Mr. Parker that she was quitting the Centre and moving to Oregon with Thomas to start a new life, she devoutly believed that she can put the Centre behind and start a new life with her carpenter lover.

The Centre thought otherwise. When she woke up that awful morning to see the bloodied corpse of Thomas with pieces of his skull, brain matter, and blood leaking out of the bullet hole, her illusions died along with him.

The Centre would never let her leave unless she was dead. Oh, she let the bastards including her old man, profess their promise of letting her go when she caught Jarod; when in her heart, she knew that they would never let go of her. She was too damn useful to them.

A useful prisoner with a very long leash. Nevertheless, still a prisoner. Just like Jarod. Until he chose not to become a prisoner anymore.

Until Thomas' death, she was ambivalent about Jarod's continuing freedom from the clutches of the Centre. Half of her wanted to bring him back tied to the hood of one of the Centre's ubiquitous black Ford Crown Victoria's like a big game African hunter. The other half urged him to be forever free and to find his scattered family.

After burying Thomas, she rebelled. In secret. A secret that even Jarod and Angelo didn't know about. She would make sure that Jarod would never be captured by the Centre. Not as long as she lived. She would go through the motions but always missing Jarod by a hairsbreadth.

It was too late for her and Angelo but not for Jarod. Parker vowed that Jarod would never be thrown into another dank cell deep in the bowels of the Centre. That was her revenge on the Centre and the Triumvirate.

After all, she reasoned, she was a Red File just like Jarod and Angelo. She can pretend with the best of the best. Jarod and Angelo. Lyle didn't count. His childhood nurturing by Raines and his foster father, Bowman, made him too twisted to become an effective Pretender.

Jarod intermittently reminded her, during his nocturnal phone calls, that he remembered the little girl who gave him his first kiss, the first hug, the first genuine smile, the first comforting warmth, among some of the firsts that the poor isolated boy desperately yearned for and never found among the adults of the Centre.

She shot back, telling him that the little girl no longer existed, so deal with it before hanging up on him.

That little girl may be dead but her memories still lingered. And those memories were wonderful she finally admitted to herself. Jarod and Angelo were the only friends in the Centre that she had. All the adults had their agendas and none of them included a little girl who was lost and hurting after losing her mother.

They comforted her and listened to her as she poured out her feelings and thoughts to them. Jarod especially. Parker always thought that he can see into her, the real her. The one that daddy never had the time or inclination to see. Momma saw into her but she was already months buried in her grave and she wasn't around anymore.

Jarod.

"Where are you now, Jarod?" she whispered into the suddenly confining room. Unbidden, she got up off the bed and headed towards the window. Opening the latch, she opened the window and let the night breeze blow in.

Seeing that the room was too bright, she headed towards the nightstand and turned off the lamp before returning to the window. Now, she can see the stars twinkling in the night sky.

A childhood memory of her mother telling her that if you wish upon a star, it can become real. "I wish that Jarod and Angelo would have a happy ending for their lives," speaking in a husky voice. Tears were pooling in her eyes as a deep sadness came over her. "And," hesitating, unsure whether she deserved it or not, "maybe some happiness for me, too."

The despondency along with the long exhausting day finally caught up with her. Parker's plan to talk to Ben Miller was forgotten as, with a large yawn, she headed over to her bed.

Pulling back the goose down comforter and bed sheets, she laid down on the soft comfortable pillow. As soon as her head was lying on the pillow, Parker was instantly asleep.

Ben Miller, finishing his ablutions, was going to talk to Miss Parker about the plans she had as well as his own. But as soon as he headed towards to her room, he noticed that there was no lights on.

Quietly, he opened the door. Seeing the sleeping form of the woman on the bed, he stepped forward and looked down on her. The stress and haunted look on her face was gone. At least temporarily.

Without conscious thought, Ben leaned down and kissed her gently on her forehead. "Good night, Miss Parker," Ben spoke barely above a whisper, not wanting to wake her up from a well deserved rest, "sweet dreams." Straightening up, he quickly exited her room and closed the door behind him.

A/N: I'm currently writing the next chapter. It's meandering all over the place and my muse seems to have disappeared. I don't know when I'll post the next chapter. I'm aiming for a couple weeks from now but no guarantees. Please review and let me know what you think about my first attempt at a Pretender fanfic and second fanfic overall.