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Disclaimer: I do not own The Pretender or anything related to it. It is owned by Steven Long Mitchell and Craig W. Van Sickle, as well as TNT and NBC. No profit is being made from this.

Spoilers:
"Agent of the Year Zero"
Author’s Note: Just a short, introspective piece.
Special Thanks: To 23, for the excellent beta job. I didn’t realize just how much one can forget if they don’t have their fic constantly beta’d.

Summary: As time marches on, people change in subtle ways. Miss Parker reflects on how much Mr. Lyle has changed in the short time she has known him.

Illusion
by: chopsticks
p g

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"I’m just crazy about leftovers, aren’t you?" he had queried, holding a piece of takeout up on a pair of chopsticks. I had simply looked at him in disgust, then turned and quickly exited the room. I had stopped a little distance from the doors to his office and leaned heavily against the wall, my stomach doing flip-flops again.

I can not bear to think about what might have been dangling from those chopsticks; if I do, it is more than likely that I’ll throw up for the second time this week.

I finally regroup enough to stagger away from the wall and head for the elevators. I can’t allow to have Mr. Lyle, my darling brother, exit his office and find me looking mighty ill in the hallway. I would never, ever live that down.

The elevator door finally opens and I enter quickly, my heels the only sound heard throughout the barren hallway. I press my forehead against the cool steel of the back of the elevator. A moment later, I realize that the elevator isn’t moving, and I haven’t hit a button yet. I sigh and pull my head back from the wall, the immediate loss of coolness a shock to my skin, and press the circular button for my floor. When it lights up, I lean back up against the wall, feeling the steel’s coldness drift through my blouse. It is a welcome feeling.

I close my eyes and try not to remember what my dear brother has just said. It’s not working too well. Somehow, though, it doesn’t surprise me that he’s turned out to be a cannibal. From the day we first met, I knew he was going to be bad news, and damned if I wasn’t right.

Thinking back now, I realize that Mr. Lyle was far more appealing when I didn’t know anything about him. At least then I could tolerate the man. Now. . . he’s different. Especially since finding out that we’re twins. He’s changed in the past three years; become something that can no longer be classified as a human being.

When we first met, he was nothing more than a superior to me. Someone to be sidestepped when the whim should occur, otherwise ignored when he wasn’t giving directives. But then he became involved in the Yakuza incident. What a way to drive a man from power. That was probably one of the greatest moments of my life.

He changed after his disappearance. Not only did I learn more about the man, but he became far bitterer than before; more evil, in some regards. He kept his sarcastic wit, except it became more jaded, especially after Dry River.

Then, upon finding out we were twins, he became compassionate. I could scarcely believe my eyes. That disbelief proved to be well-founded, as it was yet another façade, but it was a damn good one. Playing the doting son and brother had to be the hardest act to pull, especially with a family that’s based on paranoia.

The only problem was his obsession, one that there had been no previous hint at before Jarod began digging. My darling brother, and I use that phrase loosely, loves Asian women. Sure, he said he truly loved his former wife (which was quite a shock at the time, but now seems far tamer than anything else), but that didn’t quite ring true with anyone. But he still kept up the compassion angle.

That, of course, was all blown to hell when he locked me up in the psych ward under a suicide watch after we recaptured Jarod. From there, Lyle slowly deteriorated to become the being that stood before me today, offering me something to eat that may or may not be human. His obsession was revealed as a fetish for killing and then eating the poor Asian women, something that most people, except for a few tribes in Africa and other third-world areas, consider uncivilized, to say the least.

I still find it hard to believe how he has changed in three years. But, then again, he may be the same man he was then; it’s just my perception of him is what’s changed. It’s hard to tell.

The elevator dings, signaling that it has arrived at the proper floor. I stand up straight, allow a look of indifference to fall placidly over my features, and I briskly stride out, my calm regained. I won’t worry myself over my twin too much; I’ll drive myself insane if I do that, and Lord knows I don’t want to end up like him.

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the end.

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