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.
Okay, I know I wrote another story and some of you are wondering when I am going to finish the other ones that I have started. . .I am working on it but something else has first priority and its almost done but I hit a wall and 0needed to do something this is want transpired. . . . .

End of the fourth season beginning of fifth . . .if I should continue let me know . . .I'll see . . .





Despite, Herself
part 1
by Trish







Dying. She didn't remember dying.

Were the distant angry voices drifting in her head, telling her that the end was near.

Death.

Was there anything that she could do about it?

She didn't remember dying, she dimly recalled, solemn whispers telling her she did, that death had taken her, but someone had pressed his mouth to hers and filled her lungs with his breath, life, and in doing so rekindled hers.

The distant, disembodied voices were a vague notion, yet she finally grasped the idea that there were people around her, telling her she had died, she didn't remember dying, she only remembered the pain before passing into darkness. The pain, not something to forget. She remembered something slamming her to the ground, the terror of having no breath to gasp, no breath to cry out for help. Heat searing her, sucking the life out of her. Sometime later- when under clean sheets, she remembered dark eyes. Eyes with anguish so profound that when she closed her eyes she also saw the light of hope in them. Therefore she let the light of his eyes will her to live. To fight.

At some point, she remembered his name, but when the pain was smothering her, she would close her eyes and forget.

A sound woke her as suddenly as a slap. Parker lay on her back, still as death, her eyes wide, listening. It wasn't so much that the sound had been loud, but that it had been something disturbingly familiar. Something dangerous.

Her whole body throbbed with pain, but she was more awake than she had been in what seemed like weeks. She didn't know how long she had been asleep, or perhaps unconscious. She was awake enough to remember that it would be a grave mistake to try to sit up, because just about the only part of her not injured was her right arm.

Turning her eyes to the right, she saw a semi-closed door, and from beyond the doorway came fragments of angry, threatening voices.

"I need her to tell me where he is?"

Wanting to know what was going on, Parker tried to push herself up onto her left elbow. A mistake, she'd forgotten. Her arm didn't work the way she expected it too. Like a bolt of lightning, pain blasted up the marrow of her bone and exploded through her shoulder.

Gasping against the racking agony of the attempted movement, she dropped back before she managed to lift her shoulder an inch off the bed. Her panting twisted the daggers piercing her sides. She had to will herself to slow her breathing in order to get the stabbing pain under control. As the worst of the torment in her arm and ribs eased, she finally let out a soft moan.

With calculated calm, she gazed down the length of her left arm. Casted.

As soon as she saw it, she remembered. The drugs were making her fuzzy.

She cautiously reached up with her right arm and wiped her fingers across the bloom of sweat on her brow, sweat sown by the flash of pain. Her right shoulder socket hurt, but it worked well enough. She touched her puffy eyes, understanding then why it had hurt to look at the door. Gingerly, she let her fingers explore swollen flesh. Her imagination colored it a ghastly black-and-blue. When her fingers brushed cuts on her cheek, hot embers seemed to sear raw, exposed nerves.

She needed no mirror to know she was a terrible sight.

Voices. The men's voices were heated and insistent as they all began talking at once.

"It's only because she was the last one to see both of them. We can't allow. . .We won't. . . ."

Parker listened, half expecting her father to exploded in anger. Her father had little tolerance. Cox was not doubt there too; Cox had neither patience or tolerance.

Light splashed across the wall as the door was thrown back. Her father appeared, his tall form towering over her, throwing a slash of shadow across her middle.

Angel, you're awake. Wonderful, we've been so worried, your brother and I."

"Daddy, how," her throat was dry and sounded harsh to her ear," How did I get here? What happened?"

"Surely you remember. Jarod tried to kill you."

"Jarod. . . .kill me. . .why would. . . .how?"

"You were going to bring him back."

She thought about those eyes. Dark eyes that had looked into hers with caring, concern and something else. What she was being told now, it was the lie.





Feedback please Ractrish@aol.com

Disclaimer is that I don't own them but I needed them . . . . .picks up were season four ended. . . . Feedback is always appreciated. . . .Thank you for all the feedback on the first part, it's nice to now that my stories are being read. . . . .




Despite, Herself
part 2
Harsh Reality
by Trish






A woman screamed, at least he thought it was a woman that screamed. Picking her up. Her eyes hung wide, the pupils rolling back so that only white shows, and as he holds her he feels scarcely any pulse. He's afraid she's dead-struck down by the Centre's treachery. He carries her away from the flames and the searing heat, and sets her down on dirty wet concrete. He rubs her cheeks and her hands, and he feels her flesh cold under his. He kisses her and wills her to live; he could no longer imagine life without her. But she remains supine, still as a corpse. Breathing life into her again, his eyes pleading, his voice, scratchy, begging her to come back. It's not time for her to die. Fight.

He drifts, unsure what is real and what are fantasies produced by his wounds. He does not think that he is dead because at times he hurts too much, as if his body was turned on a spit, flames licking over his flesh. He thinks he cried out, or at least moaned, and gentle hands stroke him and set cool cloths against his face or drip some liquid that tasted too bitter to be only water between cracked lips. Voices, he thought he recognized speak to him, soothingly, and sometimes he sees worrisome blue eyes or dark sad eyes bend over him, but when he tries to speak he can only mumble and they shake their heads and don't answer and he drifts off again into darkness or dreams.

Sometime later, Jarod opens his eyes or thinks he has and see shadows. He is sore and gripped by pain. He has seen enough of death, to know that he's badly hurt, and in these brief moments of lucidity, he knows that he is fevered. He wills himself to live, for he can not leave Parker and Ethan alone to face whatever should come next.

Jarod awakens to the light on his face, and the sound of birds chirping outside the room's window. He opens his eyes and sees Sydney slumped in a chair beside the bed. Even in sleep his face is haggard, and Jarod struggles to sit up through the pain, Sydney wakes with a start, eyes springing open in alarm. Jarod sees that they are underlined with dark and weary crescents of puffy flesh.

"Sydney!"

Rising stiffly, slowly flexing his shoulders, he reachs for a cloth, water, coming toward the bed to bathe the warm forehead. Jarod lifts an arm and sees that he is swathed in bandages. His mouth dry and sandy, lips cracked, and head pounding.

"How long have I been like this?"

"Weeks."

"What happened? NO-wait. Parker, Ethan," he croaks, trying to get up, only to be held in place by hands stronger than the battered body that's laying on the bed," I dreamed Parker. . . . was dead. Tell me the truth. Quickly, Sydney, is Miss Parker dead? Our brother? "

"Miss Parker's recovering. You saved her life, Jarod. As for Ethan, there was no trace of him in the subway tunnels."

"Captive, once more," he murmurs as his eyes grow heavy and close.




Feedback please Ractrish@aol.com

Disclaimer is that I don't own them but I needed them . . . . .picks up were season four ended. . . . Feedback is always appreciated. . . .Thank you for all the feedback on the first part, it's nice to now that my stories are being read. . . . .




Despite, Herself
part 3
Distant Voices
by Trish




Ethan suddenly felt quite exposed out in the open, his keen brown eyes scrutinizing the murky shadows and so he stayed concealed among the rubble of concrete and twisted metal. He saw no sign of threat, but he felt a burgeoning sense of danger-not a simple reaction from seeing the destruction caused by his bomb, but a welling up from within alerted him. The sound of the voices warning him that he had to get to his sister and brother. The hairs on the back of his neck tingled and he saw the shadows move toward her, but there was no sign of his brother.

Ethan sought the calm center, the place without thought, the fount of peace within, and cloaked himself in instinct. He felt the searing pain seep through him. Her pain. He felt what had been done to her, and what lingered. In his empathy, he felt the torment of her life, the anguish of her former self lost. Her eyes closed, he took it into himself. Though he didn't see the events involved, he understood the trail of scars they left on her soul. He hardened his will in order to endure the suffering of it. He stood, a rock, in a torrent of hurt rushing into his soul. He was her rock. Without fully understanding the feelings he was having, he let his instinct guide him. He felt himself soaking up her suffering so that she wouldn't have to endure it, so he could help her, and at the same time he felt an inner warmth flowing outward through his hand on her flesh. Through that hand it seemed he was connected to her spark of life, to her soul.

Ethan felt the pain that had come into him from her begin to dissipate. Only then did he realize he was holding his breath with the agony of it, and let the breath go. The warmth flowing from within him began to fade, too, and at last was gone. Ethan removed his hand, and brushed her dark hair back from her face. Her eyes came open, a dazed, blue-eyed gaze meeting his.

"Ethan," her voice low, her eyes darting toward the door, "How? Did they . . ."

"She guided me," he leaned in closer, " We're to protect each other, that's what she told me."

"Jarod?" her eyes locking with his.

Ethan shook his head. They stared at each other in silence.


TBC?





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