A Pretender fanfic
by Maggy
R/R e-mail: maggysfic (at) aol (dot) com
Please do not archive without permission
CHAPTER 7:
Second Chances
"Parker--"
She imagined his voice whispering her name, and shook her head.
"Parker, turn around."
The chill started at the base of her spine, spreading
to her shoulders as she complied slowly. She stared at him for a full
moment before she remembered to breathe. Every nerve, every muscle,
wanted to run to him, hold onto him--
"Jarod?"
--but she controlled the impulse, as she had learned to control every emotion she'd felt since that long ago day in the elevator. "You-- I--"
Still, she heard the shock her voice betrayed. To cover the unaccustomed emotion, she walked over to the cart and opened the bottle of Scotch.
"No, you didn't kill me, Miss Parker. I hope you're not too disappointed."
His remark helped to stop the room from spinning, but
did not prevent her from answering honestly: "No, Genius, I'm not."
She sloshed a generous portion of liquor into a glass. When she looked
back, he was smiling gently, leaning on a familiar silver-topped black cane.
"And I wasn't trying to kill you."
"I know-- now. For a while, I wasn't sure."
"Some genius, then." Parker lifted the glass slowly. "So, it was all a charade? A sim?"
"Not hardly." Jarod's smile disappeared. "I planned the dive. I did not plan to have to swim shark-infested waters bleeding from a bullet wound in my leg. It was touch and go for a while."
"You survived." She shrugged with a well-feigned nonchalance.
"You shot me, Parker," he said. She detected an unexpectedly plaintive note in his voice, and scrutinized him more carefully. Taking in his pallor, the circles under his eyes, the deepened lines around his mouth, and his white-knuckled grasp on the cane, she realized that he wasn't nearly as healthy as he wanted her to believe.
"You used to be better at avoiding those confrontations," she countered.
"I think we've both slowed down a bit, since..."
She glared at him, challenging him to say it out loud.
He met the challenge head on and finished: "Since we got back from Carthis."
She was not prepared to go there. Instead, she gestured toward the door with her glass. "Why the ridiculous production with the leprechaun?"
Jarod's eyes narrowed. "Believe it or not, that 'leprechaun' is probably the best friend I have in the world."
"I feel for you," she said with her usual sarcasm.
"Don't."
"Don't what? Feel for you?" Too late, she thought.
"No. Don't-- start the game again. The chase is over, Parker."
"It was. Now it's started all over again." Her shoulders slumped as reaction set in, and she stared blindly into the empty glass. "I don't want to do this anymore, Jarod. I'm tired. I'm tired of chasing, and you're tired of running. God knows I never wanted you dead-- you know I didn't-- but so help me, deep down, I was almost relieved. I was relieved," she repeated. Tears trickled slowly down her cheeks, but she ignored them. "It was finally over-- and now--what?"
"It's still over, Parker," Jarod said gently. "No more running. No more chasing."
She closed her eyes wearily.
"But you shouldn't have come back. The Centre believes you're really dead. Since I'm being held responsible, I have another T-Board review on Monday. You could have disappeared, and we would have stopped looking for you. We could have had real lives, Jarod. Why would you come back?"
"I couldn't leave without knowing," he said carefully.
"What?" She stared at him for a moment, and as she did she realized there were actually tears in his eyes, emotion hovering just at the edge of his voice.
"The truth."
She turned away abruptly, reaching for the scotch once again. "Yeah, well, like you said, I shot you. The bullet came out of my gun. I loaded it, I drew it, I pointed it, I pulled the trigger. What more is there to know?"
"Well, for starters, why am I not staring down the barrel of that gun as we speak?"
She sniffed a laugh. "It's gone."
"Gone?" Jarod sounded genuinely startled. "You mean the Centre took it away from you?"
"No, Genius. I--" she stopped. Her grand gesture on the bridge seemed a bit melodramatic now.
"Parker?"
She sensed the awkwardness of his movement as he came up behind her. With his free hand, the one that wasn't holding the cane, he took the bottle away, returning it to the cart. Then he placed the hand on her shoulder, pressuring her to turn back to him.
"Parker, what happened to your gun?" His voice was insistent.
"I-- threw it away, OK?" She raised her eyes to his. "In the confusion on the cliff top, Willie pushed against me and I shot you and now my gun is at the bottom of the Delaware river."
His eyes held hers for a long moment. Then his face creased in a boyish grin. "Parker!"
She frowned, but he ignored it, enfolding her in a bear hug.
"Jarod? What are you--?" It took all her strength of will to ignore the warmth of his arms around her, the sudden, overwhelming feeling of comfort... and something else. She didn't want him to let go.
"You threw away your gun-- because of me!" After one strong squeeze, Jarod released her, stepping back to smile again, as if he knew how hard it was for her to admit. Then he touched her cheek, briefly, with his fingertips. "Thank you, Parker. I wanted to believe you didn't do it on purpose. I even Pretended it. But I needed to hear you say it."
"What are you talking about?" She felt her heart beating so hard she was sure he could hear it. Consequently, she tried one last time to deflect him with a question. "What's the big deal?"
The abrupt change in his demeanor reminded her of the moment in the limousine on Carthis when, in her confusion, she had rejected him. Once again, Jarod leaned close, so close she could smell the clean scent of soap and his leather jacket, so close that his voice rumbled in her ear.
"Because the truth is that my life really isn't worth living if the woman I have loved since I was eleven years old truly wanted me dead."
Parker's breath caught in her throat. Closing her eyes, she forced the air out of her lungs. "Since you..."
She could feel the warmth of him, his breath on her face-- and still,the words would not come. In their place, she said, "Jarod, I'm not even sure who I am anymore."
"Oh, Parker." His arms tightened around her again. "You can be anyone you want to be. You always could."
As his affirmation sank into her brain, she found herself taking a deep breath, found herself smiling. "Jarod, after Carthis, I should have--" No, she wanted to see his face. She moved back to put both her hands on his shoulders. "I want to change the ending."
His warm hand came up to caress her chin, sliding the length of her jawline to rest along her cheek. "You're the only one who can."
The last thing she saw for a long time was the warmth shining in his brown eyes as his face moved towards hers.