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Disclaimer: The characters of the Pretender don't belong to me. I'm not making any money from this and no infringement is intended.

A/N: This is my response to Mickey's conversation challenge.



All the Wrong Reasons

By Melanie-Anne



Miss Parker unlocked the door to her house. She slipped her shoes off and dropped her keys on the floor. Moving into the living room, she poured herself a shot of vodka, then decided to hell with the glass and curled up on the couch with the bottle.

The phone rang and was ignored.

She had killed her best friend and all she wanted to do was hold her gun to her own head and pull the trigger.

I told him to stop running. I didn't mean to kill him, honest! But I tripped - these damn heels! - I tripped and the bullet that should have gone straight past him…didn't. It hit him and then he fell. Down, over the cliff and into the river and now he's dead and it's all my fault.

Jarod, I'm so, so sorry. Please, please, please forgive me! I didn't want to hurt you. I just wanted to scare you. It was never supposed to hit you!


There was knocking at her front door and someone called her name. She didn't hear it.

The look on Sydney's face…he really cared about you, you know. I always wondered what it would take to make him hate me. Well, now I know. How do you piss off a psychiatrist? Kill his pet Pretender!

Sorry, I really should stop drinking this.

I really am sorry, Jarod. Do you hate me? I hate me. So I guess it's okay for you to hate me too.

I wish you weren't dead! What am I going to do now?


*

3 months later

Jarod smiled at the little boy who was staring at him with big eyes. "Hi, my name's Jarod. What's yours?"

"Jason. Are you my doctor?"

"Yes."

"You don't look like a doctor."

"I don't? What's a doctor supposed to look like?"

"I dunno. Not like you."

"Tell me about your family, Jason. Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

While Jason spoke, Jarod gently stitched close the gash on his arm. When his grateful mother had collected her charge, Jarod pulled open his desk drawer to look at the photo he'd hidden inside.

He'd been kidding himself when he'd told himself that he was leaving the past behind him. He had thought things would be different after Carthis, but he'd been wrong.

And then she'd shot him.

Even now he couldn't decided if it had been a deliberate act or an accident.

He hadn't been in contact with anyone from the Centre since he'd dived off the cliff, not even Angelo. He knew that his only chance to keep his freedom was to land in the river and he'd taken it. He'd felt so betrayed; after everything that had happened how could Parker shoot him? He had been so angry with her but he'd been unable to bring himself to get rid of the picture.

He missed her.

He had been missing her every day since the shooting and only now did he realize it.

I hope she doesn't hate me, he thought.

*

Parker stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she slowly combed her hair. There were rings under her eyes and her cheeks had hollowed.

When did you get so thin? She asked herself. You look terrible.

She reached out to touch the cold glass.

This is what my heart feels like.

Not wanting to deal with the pain and the empty feeling in her heart, she drifted downstairs in search of a bottle of anything. Anything to numb the pain, to dull the sharp knife-edge that had ripped through her soul. She hadn't grieved like this when Thomas had died.

Why? Because you were so bent on catching his killer…this time you know exactly who's responsible…

Jarod stood in the doorway of her kitchen, staring at her in shock. He wondered if she was ill. She was barefoot and still wearing her dressing gown.

"Parker?"

It was a while before she looked at him. She dropped the bottle she had been holding as her hands flew to her mouth.

"Parker, what happened to you?" He crossed the room quickly and pulled her into a hug. She was too shocked to respond immediately. And then she hit out, fighting his hold.

"You're alive! You bastard! You're alive and you've let me believe that you were dead! How could you?"

"You thought I was dead?"

"Get out! I can't believe I cried over you! Are you here to gloat? To see what I've become? Well, Jarod, are you happy?"

"What are you talking about? I came here to talk to you."

"I don't want to talk to you! Get out of my house!"

"Parker!"

Too little food and too little sleep, combined with the emotional shock of seeing Jarod again, was too much for Parker. She slumped against Jarod's chest, giving up. He picked her up and carried her over to the couch, shocked at how much weight she'd lost. She was sobbing. "Just go…."

"I can't."

"You're free," she said bitterly. "As far as the Centre is concerned, you're dead. Go. I'll forget you were here."

"Parker," he said weakly.

"I can't go back to how it was. No more running, no more chasing."

"But-"

"You know, I don't know why it hurt so much. I thought I killed you, Jarod. That was the last thing I ever wanted. I mean, I wanted you back so I could be free but I never wanted to hurt you…I never wanted you dead. Not that, never that."

"Let me speak-"

She shook her head, unable to speak. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she pushed her hands against Jarod's chest, trying to push herself up. She didn't have the strength and gave up, collapsing against him.

"Shh," Jarod soothed, rubbing his hand across her back, horrified that he could feel her bones. "Shh…For once in your life, Parker, just listen without saying anything. For the past six years of my life I have been running and you have been chasing. I'm tired of the game, Parker, tired of running, when all I've ever wanted was to be caught…but not by the Centre…by you. I was never really sure exactly what I wanted until that night in front of the fire on the island. When I looked into your eyes, Parker, I saw what I have been searching for all these years. I saw me…I found myself in your eyes.

"I have loved you for as long as I can remember. I loved you the minute your hand touched the glass in the SIM lab all those years ago and I love you still. I tried to let you go. I've tried to love others, so you could have your freedom and I could have mine. But no one ever knew me the way you do and no one ever made me feel the way you make me feel.

"Every day I am without you, I feel like my heart dies a little more. I can't bear it anymore. A life without you is no life at all. I would rather be with you for the right reasons than alone for the wrong ones. I was born to love you, Miranda, and I always will," Jarod said, capturing her crystal blue eyes with his own.

She stared at him, too astounded to say anything. His words had touched something in her soul and she wanted more than anything to say the same words back to him. But her hurt made her bitter.

"Gee, Jarod, that's nice." She slid off his lap and moved onto another couch, putting a safe distance between them. "It took you this long to decide you're in love with me?"

"Did you not hear a single word I've just said? I've loved you from the moment I met you, Miranda."

"Don't call me that!" she snapped. "I told you never to call me that."

"Fine, Miss Parker," Jarod said coldly. "I'll leave. I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for. But don't pretend that you don't feel anything for me. You wouldn't have done this to yourself if you didn't feel anything."

"I'm the Ice Queen, Jarod. I don't have a heart."

"You do. At least, you used to. But you let the Centre take it and mould it into something angry and hateful. What happened to the little girl who used to visit me? Who promised that she'd always be my friend, no matter what happened?"

Parker didn't want to hear him; it was too much to even look at him. She stood, intending to go back upstairs. Feeling light-headed, she collapsed back into her chair. Jarod was at her side in a heartbeat.

"Parker, what's wrong?"

She shook her head.

"When last did you eat something?"

She frowned. When had Sydney last visited? "Umm, Monday, I think."

"Yesterday?"

"Last week."

"Why?"

She opened her mouth to speak but only managed to shake her head in a gesture of defeat.

"Talk to me, please."

"I thought you were dead…I thought I killed you. I saw the bullet hit you - it did hit you, didn't it?"

He lifted his shirt to show the small scar on his side. "It just grazed me."

Her hands trembling, she touched the scar. "I tripped. I just wanted to scare you. I-" She broke down, sobbing. "Why didn't you let me know you were okay?"

"I was angry with you…but I still shouldn't have stayed away."

"Three months! You stayed away for three months, Jarod!"

"I'm sorry."

"I want you to leave."

"No. Not until I know you'll be okay."

She laughed. "There you go again. Always thinking of others. I'm fine. Happy?"

He shook his head, but stood anyway, his wounded pride getting the better of him. He left, not once looking back, even though he heard Parker's muffled cries. Even though her pain broke his heart.

They won, he thought numbly. The Centre won again. The Centre always wins.


He didn't hear Parker inaudibly whisper, "Oh, Jarod, I love you, too."


It would have made all the difference in the world.


~*~


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