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




A Little Peace
by BlackDiamond



Do you know what you do to me? What I want you to do to me? Sometimes, on long, dark night when the only company I have are my demons, I imagine you with me.

One day perhaps, you'll know all my secrets, but until that day, all I have is my mind, and these pseudo-moments of friendship we share over the phone, and glimpses of you from afar.

You control me. I am totally and utterly under your power. And there is absolutely nothing I could do, even if I wanted to, because it's always been this way between us.

There have been, and continue to be, periods of time, however brief, in our intertwined lives, when you didn't evert, either concsiously or subconsciously, your control over me. And in those times I can almost convince myself that I can exist without you.

But your replacements were never as good as the real thing, and though I thought I could learn to be happy with them, learn to love them, my thoughts always returned to you.

I don't know if you're aware of what I tried to do, or if you even care, but I tried to leave with him. The last one really loved me for who I am, and if I had been succesful in my plot, I think I would have been able to be happy with him, eventually.

Or at least less miserable.

But they stopped it before I could give you freedom. Before I could leave this life and go away with him, and never chase you again.

Maybe They know what I'm only beginning to guess. That when I go with them, the ones I think I love, I'm just trying to distance myself from you.

I didn't know it was possible to love someone like I love you. There is a physical pain in my chest, like a blade between the ribs, when I hear your voice, knowing that I can never be with you becuase of how They have trained me, and how I betrayed you.

You don't want to hold it against me, and concsiously you have forgiven me, but you punish me none the less. And the apology your subconcsious needs for forgiveness with never come, because the person They turned me into never apologizes.

I guess it figures that I only have these many epiphanies, that I can only admit my love for you, while I'm dying. Well, I feel like I'm dying. Inside and out.

Three weeks in a drug induced coma, the bullet wound in my back being prevented from healing, and all this being done on my own brothers orders. He put me in the psyco ward for God sakes.

He checked me into the mental health ward of St. Catherine's hospital (and no, the name was not a coincidence if I know my twin), under the pretense that I was suicidal. The people there seem to be very stupid, which I don't really believe, and the only other explanation is that the entire facility is in Lyle's pocket, jacking him off.

My only thanks are that I wasn't in Renewal wing.

I mean, what kind of person tries to commit suicide by shooting themselves in the back with a silenced, long range assault rifle?

Why I can't I stop being me, being angry, just a for a little while, and let myself love you? I'm so cold whenever I get the chance, and you answer my coldness with your own.

I've been staring at the phone for a while now, thinking about your words. At this moment, I fell more alone than I ever have before. After my mother was killed, I still had you, but now, even you're gone.

I've been dreaming about you recently. They can't be catagorized into good, bad, fantasy or nightmare. I awake from them and sometimes my entire being is permeated with this glow of complete happiness after dreaming of you and I, just sitting and having a conversation.

But usually it's something else.

My dreams about you have a tendency to be soaked in blood. And light. I wake up and screams stream from my eyes, sometimes falling with tears, but more often without. I'm too terrified to cry.

Then image of you invaded my sleep just after I began sleeping with him. And when I woke up, I wouldn't let him touch me. He would try to enfold me in his love, his arms, but neither of those things were yours.

I couldn't stand him for moments after the screams, and I would pull away, puch him to the other side of my bed, trying to put some distance between us, the expanse of empty matress a comfort.

You weren't there, but neither was your replacement. A comfort.

This self inflicted issolation the person They have turned me into has created gets to me sometimes, I'll admit. But it's better than this wanting.

I would do anything to make this desire for you go away. The things I say to you, the insults and words of hate, they're eating me from the inside out.

The hole in my back is burning, like someone dropped a grenade and forgot to yell 'Fire in the hole!', like the bullet in my back exploded and poisoned my blood. But even that is just a slight physical discomfort compared to what I'm feeling right now, the ache in what's left of my soul.

I'm crying. I only noticed the wet, cold tears on my face at this very moment, but I'm actually crying for you.

A few years ago, I would have been amazed, well, resentful, for back then, I never cried. Back then, you were an experiment from my painful past, and I was Corporate. Back then, I didn't know the truth.

I can't decide what's wrose, my unknowing misery from before your escape, or my completely aware desperate depression from after.

At least now I have a little better understanding of what the Centre is really like. And at least now I have some memories of happiness, both with him and my mother.

My mother.

My father tainted my memory of her for my entire adult life. How can a man tell his own child, his only daughter, such a lie? Suicide my ass.

On the day when you know everything there is to know about me, my life, my past, when you know all my secrets, will you tell me what they are?

Lately I've begun to doubt everything in my life. My father, my brother, though I never trusted him to begin with, even Sydney. Everyone except you. So much so that when you tell me, however rarely, that you have information on any aspect of my life, I believe you, no matter what I might say.

You're the only person in my life who has never lied to me, and continues to live. You're the only person in my life who I would continue to naively trust even after lies.

The tears have stopped now, but I can't move. At this moment I want nothing more than my bed, but it hurts when I move.

Everytime I breath, the wound on my back burns just a little more than the time before.

Do you ever wonder what our life together would have been like without the Centre?

I'd like to believe that we, you and I, would be the perfect little white picket fence family with 2.5 children, made naturally, two jobs, a four door sedan, and a minivan in the garage.

Would we be another one of your average, everyday, run of the mill dysfunctional families? Would we even know each other? I doubt it.

Wow. What a thought. Life without you. I'm not sure life without the Centre would be worth never meeting you. Defintely not worth it.

No matter how miserable, how cold, how alone I am right now, and at this very moment was given the choice between my life now, with everything that goes along with, or the ability to start again, without the Centre, on the one condition that I would never know you, never see your face, hear your voice in the night, I wouldn't even have to think about telling then to go to hell.

There is always a catch when you make a deal with the devil.

And why didn't I consider that fact when I was given the deal about you? Because back then my father wasn't the devil, he was my father, and Daddy would never lie to his little Angel.

I think that's the most sarcastic thought I've ever had in my entire life, and for me, that's and accomplishment.

It's funny how, four years ago, that thought wouldn't have been sarcastic in the least. But you told me the truth while I was living in a world spun of golden lies.

How I hated you for tarnishing my gold and peeling away the coating to reveal my steel cage.

It took someone to love me to realize what you had always been telling me. He loved me so deeply, and through his heart, I found my own, burried in ice.

Yes, the infamous Ice Queen does indeed have a heart.

At the Centre, every lowly secretary, technition, even up inot the sweepers, is terrified of me. And despite what everyone thinks about me, despite what they say while huddled around the water cooler on their breaks, I really don't enjoy it.

But I guess that's the price you pay for survival. I am after all a Parker.

You keep me alive in that dungeon, in that feakshow of Dr. Mengla's. Nazi experiments, stolen lives, and stolen loved ones.

The image of your smiling face, those adorable little dimples, your dark gazes, are my food and water and shelter in the desert of my unwilling manhunt.

You take my breath away.

You are my breath.

Not your words, but the very memory of the sound of your voice gives me strength to stand right now. I can feel the skin over the wound, my bodies first rudementary attempts at knitting the hole back together, rip open painfully and it begins to bleed.

I strip off my sweater as quickly I can with only one arm, becuase he gave it to, and it's a one symbol of him I am unwilling to stain in my blood. But even that thought doesn't stop me from dropping it on the floor and stepping on it in my exhaustion.

I undo my jeans and step out of them and my socks, and fall face down on my bed the moment I'm within reach of it, not bothering to get under the covers. I may be a little cold through the night, but I'm way to tired to care right now. I'm too tired to care about any of it.

And doesn't this just figure.

I'm so physically exhausted, that I can't get my mind to slow down for even a moment. It would only take a few seconds of internal peace to allow my body to rest, but no. I'm too tired to sleep.

All I want is a little peace, and your body to wrap around.

You're body. In a perfect world, that would put me to sleep from an exhaustion much different from the one I'm experiencing now, but alas.

Just a little . . .

Disclaimer: You all know The Pretender is not mine, so why do I even bother to hope? Oh well, until they really do belong to me, I guess I'll have to be happy with being a fanfic writer. At least this way they can have a little fun . . . oh, wait a minute, this is an angsty story, what am I talking about? And now I've turned the disclaimer into an author's note, so why don't I just get right to that? All right then. Oh, yeah, and the song Holy Tears belongs to Tara McLaine, one of the greatest artists of all time. (Go get her cd Silence. It kicks)
Author's Note: I seriously suggest that you read the first part of this before you read the second, hence part one coming first, then part two, but if you're determined, there's nothing I can do to stop you. Just don't say I didn't warn you.

Second Authror's blah blah blah . . .: Thank you so much to everyone who sent me feedback on part one of this thing. I never would have sat down and written part two at all if no one had like number one. So if you guys like this part, thank yourselves, then tell me. : )




A Little Peace
part 2
by BlackDiamond





Holy Tears

Wrapped inside a twisted world
I can't decide what is even real anymore
as though I ever knew
Tangled in these sillhouettes
Floating face down in a river of regrets
and thoughts of you

Holy tears
they linger on
Holding you
my light
forever gone

You believed she'd never leave
Rosy cheeked and oh so young
and full of flame
Here in this bed of emptyness
Button by button I come undone
and only twenty-one

Holy tears
they linger on
Holding you
my life
forever gone

Gone like the broken words at your feet
You're gone in the venom lips that kissed me sweetly
Gone like a firghtened bird into the sky
Won't you take everything I ever had
and leave me to die as I cry

Holy tears
they linger
Holding you
my love
forever gone
Holding you
my love

Forever gone

Gone


I'm tired of being alone.

Every night it's a different lair, a different name, a different job, a different life. And the only ones who understand want to put me in a cage.

You're the only one who really understands, because you're the only who knows me. Even Sydney in his role as protector and father is ignorant of the workings of my mind compared to you. And it tears me apart to know that you want to throw away the key to my life.

I want to go to you, I want to beg you not to chase me and I want to make you understand just what its like to live my life, but I won't. I can't do that to you.

I need to go to you and convince you to love me the same way I love you.

But my need for your soul and warmth refuses to overcome my unwillingness to do anything like that to you so soon after the death of the one you loved.

My back is pressed against the cold brick where I crouch on the balls of my feet, and as I think about you, I can feel the place where your back must be aching right now. I'm glad that I had the chance to save you, even if that meant three weeks of Lyle inside my head.

It was worth hearing your voice on the phone tonight, even laced with tears as it was.

I'm not far from you, no more than an hours drive. I want to see you so badly my mind is fighting with itself almost violently. Kicking and screaming and cajolling myself to visit you, even just to see your form through the window.

Finally the side of me that doesn't want to remind you of him gives up, and I stand wearilly. Moving to my car, the part of my mind that wants to see you jumps for joy, singing and laughing and praising itself and it's street fighting abilities.

I'd give almost anything to see you smile at me, to hear you laugh in actual merriment rather than just sarcasm or wry amusement. Your beautiful smile . . .

Your smile brightened my days as a child of the Centre, and the memory of the sound of your laughter kept me from giving up in times of hoplessness. You were my ray of sunshine when I couldn't even remember seeing the sky.

My car starts smoothly, and inexlipcably I'm hit with images of my sister. The few seconds I saw her with my mother years ago, and the picture I saved from a firey destruction. And with those images I realize that I don't even know what my own sisters voice sounds like.

Is it deep and throaty like yours, the woman I am on my way to see? Is it light and lilting and melodious like nothing I've ever heard before? For some reason I think it's a mixture of the two. Lilting and raspy. Pure Emily.

I can't ever remember meeting her, and already I have a handle on the kind of person she is. Smart and funny and a lover of yellow roses with a lilting lounge singer voice. Beautiful black hair I suddenly have a flash of pulling. What else are big brothers for?

Lost in thoughts of the sister I just barely missed finding, I realize with a shock that I'm not thinking about you anymore. I don't know if there has ever been a time when I didn't have you or something involving you somewhere in some part of mind, and I'm disconcerted by the discovery that I can forget about you, even for just a moment.

Flashes of our shared childhood float through my mind as I keep my eyes on the road.

I remember when I was sixteen and a too tall gangly fifteen year old who was all long bones and sharp angles in soft skin and dark hair taught me how to dance. That was the last time I ever heard you laugh.

You thought it was so funny that someone so smart could be so clumsy when it came to dancing, and I was very glad that you didn't figure out that I was being clumsy because I had my arms wrapped around a girl I had been in love with since before I knew what love was. I kept stepping on your feet and mumbling stuttered apolagies, and everytime it happened you would brush it off with a toss of your head, a little giggle, and we would keep going.

For hours I stumbled through the steps of every kind of dance you could think of to teach me, until you finally got frustrated and said, rather angrilly, "Hold me close, feel the music in your bones, and just move. It's not brain surgery."

And after that, I realy got it. I understood that dancing isn't about taking the proper steps, it's about being close to someone and expressing that with movements. And we twirled and danced long into the night.

Your father had a late meeting, and he forgot about you, so we spent the whole day and night dancing and playing. I cherish that memory of you more than any other, excluding only our kiss.

And now I'm in your driveway.

All the lights are off and the grounds are silent. At your window I look inside and see a sweater layng on the floor in the living room, discarded thoughtlessly. And following the path to your bedroom I see a pair of jeans.

I assume your asleep and that rationalization allows me to once again break into your house. Its a simple matter to disarm your alarm and pick the lock, and then I'm in.

I make my way through the house, immersing myself in your things, in your smell, in your life. I see the rabbit I gave you sleeping quietly in his cage, and I see a flash of you playing as a child in the midst of white fur.

Entering your room, it takes me a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark, and when they do I am stunned.

You look dead. Limply laying on your stomach in your bra and panties, one arm falling over the edge of your bed, the dressing on your bullet wound dark red and beginning to drip down your too pale skin, masses of your thick black hair blocking out part of your face. The dressing needs to be changed, and I wonder only briefly why you didn't do it before you went to bed. Then I remember the sound of your voice on the phone a few hours earlier, and I know what happened.

You were too tired to do anything. I bet that for a while, you were even too tired to sleep.

Three men are living inside of me. One who loves you more than my breath and can't bear to wake you when you so obviously need your rest. One who cherishes his freedom almost as much as you. And the doctor in me who can't just sit here and watch you bleed, just as I couldn't watch you die out on that air strip.

Where were you during my second tenure as prized lab rat in the Centre? You never came to see me, and I learned very early not to ask about you. I know that you must have been in the hospital for at least part of the time, or you would be dead now, but the fact that your wound is still bleeding shocks me.

It should be healed. You shouldn't still be bleeding.

Did They put you somewhere to keep you away from me and what your twin was doing? Did your own twin put you away somewhere? I wouldn't put it past him, and he did claim ignorance of where you were.

I can barely see the movement of your ribcage as you breath. The tiny inhalations and exhalations that are my reason for being. Well, part of it anyway.

My doctor self can't take it anymore. I have to wake you up.

Gently, I lean down and brush the hair from your cheek, stroking your face lightly. Your skin is almost softer than I remember, like satin.

Like cold satin. You're too cold. You need to wake up. You need to wake up now.

I can hear the desperation in my voice as I call your name and berate myself for it, because if you hear it you will know. You'll know how I feel, and maybe someday you'll use that information against me.

The relief I feel as you stir is so great that for almost a second I can't breath, and I just try to make my heart keep beating using sheer will alone.

And then your eyes open, hooded blue surrounded by dark lashes, and recognition is so instantaneous that I almost miss the red rimms and puffyness, evidence of your tears. You sigh my name and all I want to do is hold you. So much pain, so much lonliness, and for the first time I know that you truly are the only one who understands who I have been forced to become.

We are the same. But instead of stealing you from the one you love like they did to me, they stole your love from you.

"What are you doing here?" Your voice if harsh from sleep and sobs and I become worried when you don't try to cover yourself. That's not like you.

Ignoring your very relevent question, I ask one of my own. "How long has it been since you changed your dressings?"

Instead of something sharp and scathing like I would expect, you answer simply. "Hours." I see your eyes fill with tears, and my heart litterally breaks from your pain.

I interrupted maybe the only chance you've had at peace for a long time now, and I'm more sorry for that for anything else I've ever done to you.

All you need is a little peace.



Okay, okay, okay. The next part will be coming soon. I hope. I pray. And everyone thank Nikki for being the most amazing Beta around!!! Yeah for Nikki!!!!!!

Disclaimer: Well, here we go again. I don't own them. TPTB do. I never will own them. TPTB will. I am not making any money off of this universe. TPTB are. And I think that covers it all.

Authors Note: I know I said this would be out sooner than this, but I was still at home with Scarlet Fever when I wrote the first two parts, and now I'm back at school, so my time is much more limited now. Sorry about that.




A Little Peace
part 3
by BlackDiamond




I recognize you instantly as awareness decends on my mind. I had been dreaming about you. Am I still dreaming? Are you just some amalgam of my lost life and deepest hopes? For some reasons that I can't quite place, I want more than anything at this moment for you to be real.

"What are you doing here?" Only after do I realize that I spoke aloud, and there is surprise more than anything else in my voice. Then, in a rush, all your words and all my thoughts come back to me, and for some reason that alludes me now, I don't think I really wanted to know.

I should have known that you would have come, after what was said on the phone. But mostly for what wasn't said. The long silences that have been falling more and more often between us.

I answer your questions with monosylabic replys and let my voice slur. I'm tired of hiding my vulnerability behind the mask. I'm tired of pretending with you. I'm just plain tired.

Do what you're guilty conscience makes you feel you need to do, just don't leave me. Not tonight. I didn't ask for you to come to me, but don't leave. I didn't ask for you, or maybe I did. I remember your soft, dark velvet voice as just the very sound of it soothed me. But either way you're here with me now, and I'm not letting you go.

Are you worried that my back is bleeding? It always bleeds. "Let it be."

"I have to change the bandages, Parker. Does it bleed like this often?" So you are worried. Should I be worried too? Is it weird that I'm not? Unnusual that I don't really care about my personal health?

I don't even have the energy to roll my eyes. "It always bleeds. What do you expect? I was shot." Exhaustion and regret. Those are the only things I can hear in the remark that was supposed to come out scathing. I wonder what you heard in my voice.

"You were shot weeks ago. It should have heeled alot more than it has. Weren't you in the hospital?" You actually sound concerned for me, and suddenly I remember the tone of your voice as it called my name. The desperation and longing.

Oh, my.

As I process your question I laugh. It is harsh and grating against my throat, and it must be awful to listen to. "Lyle put me in the psycho ward under suicide watch and kept me in a coma for three weeks. So yes, I was in a hospital." Bitter. Now I'm bitter. Since when have I become unaware of my emotions until I hear my own words echoeing around in the amphitheater of my skull?

"He did what!?!" You sound shocked. Nothing Lyle does shocks me, so why should it shock you? Not used to SIMing killers? I am a killer. I have no problem thinking like one. I guess your not used to living in the darkest part of the human psyche.

I know you live in dark places, but you have many shafts of light in your life. I'm sufocating from the oppresive darkness of my being. I'm struggling to breathe while the deeds from my past catch up to me one after the other and stand in a row on my chest, pressing against my ribs and stopping my breath.

I feel the mattress shift under your weight as you sit down beside me on the bed. I raise my head to roll it and look away from you, knowing that you were just folowing my train of thought. I can't stand your gentleness right now. You touch my back carefully, yet I can feel the fiercness flowing through your hands as you lift away the dressing over my wounds. Is it very bad? I would know if I could just bring myself to look into your eyes.

I wonder if we've always been able to read each other the way we do now. Was this what it was like when we were children? Is this strange ability to know each others thoughts the reasons why everyone tried to keep us apart as we grew older?

You leave and I assume you're going to get fresh bandages. I just let my eyes drift shut and pray that you won't touch me when you get back, though I have a feeling that that is impossible.

After a few minutes that seem like hours the bed dips again and I know that your back. And then your fingers softly brush against my back and goosebumbs rise despite my iron will trying to hold them back. A slight shudder runs through me at your compassionate contact.

I can feel you hesitate at that, and I'm relieved that you thought it was pain. I'm not going to be the one to tell you otherwise.

Now my own body is betraying me.

You touch me again, just the pads of your fingers on my skin, and there is nothing slight about the shudder this time. Ignoring it, you go to the dressing and peel it off. I can feel your confusion as I don't flich at the movement which should have caused me pain. Well, I can pretend as good as the next labrat if I have a good enough reason, and not revealing my feelings to you is as good as any I'm ever going to have.

Your hands leave and I berate myself for missing their warmth. Then your entire palm is resting gently on my flesh and a cotton swab burns its way across my ozzing wound. I was not expecting it hurt so much, and despite my best efforts, I call out.

I muffle it as much as I can by biting my lip, but you still hear and your motions become even kinder. Don't you understand that I don't want that?

I would much rather deal with physical pain than emotional dependancy.

After a moment that stretches into a lifetime, you pull the pain filled cottton away and cover the bullet hole with a new bandage. Then your hands are resting on my shoulders gently and I want nothing more than you.

"Get out of here, Jarod. Leave." I hate the sound of my voice. I sound weak and childlike and vulnerable, but I am the one who quit trying to be anything else around you.

Your hands begin moving in small cirlcles. You know. How could you know?

A shudder races through me and my eyes fill with tears. I give up trying to hide myself from you. It isn't working anyway. Turning my head is a hassle but I know I have to see your eyes.





Well, thank you to everyone who gave me feedback (Andrea!) . . . . And Gables . . . . And Schuyler . . . And other people who I owe big time and I know I'm forgetting. *G*

Disclaimer: They belong to Craig and Steve and TNT and some other people probably, but that's beside the point. The point is that they're not mine and I'm not making money off them, so there! *sticks out tongue at owwers, then realizes what she's doing and runs away*

Author's Note: The story itself didn't take forever to finish (about twenty minutes actually) but the idea of how to end it all just wouldn't come to me. I'm sorry to everyone I promised this would be out sooner that it wasn't. I had a major Jarod-Block. I think it was because of this block that this part is written in such a different style than the other parts. And it's short, but oh well.






A Little Peace
part 4
'Wordless'
by BlackDiamond





~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~

Wordlessly your eyes open. Wordlessly my hands still. Wordlessly I wipe your tears away.

Your hand raises and stills mine on your cheek, resting it there, cupping the fragile bones and gentle curve.

The silence is it's own prison and for just an instant neither of us know how to break free. Then your tears start again, your body curling in on itself though you don't let go of my hand.

>From somewhere you have found a key and speak. "Get out."

All I hear is the pain in your tone, the desolation, the dreams of what could have been hanging between us until we both disappear. Your words register after an instant eternity and I recoil as if slapped. I don't understand.

"I don't understand," I say.

You shiver from my voice but not the cold.

"It's better that you don't," you say.

How can it be better? I'm almost angry now, can feel the confusion contorting my features, can feel the bitter words trying desperately to break free of my tongue. How can it be better?

And suddenly I know. I know why it would be better.

You want me to stay.

You see the understanding in my eyes and we are now treading on dangerous ground. You want me to stay but you can't gaurantee you'll feel the same in the light of day. I want to stay but I also want to stay free. Our unspoken truce can't last forever and I want my freedom even more than I want you.

Wordlessly I stand. Wordlessly I watch you cry. Wordlessly I walk away.

Wordlessly I love you.

~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~

Fin