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Author's Chapter Notes:

This was inspired by the Pretender Red Notebook Project, and it celebrates the 10th anniversary of the premiere of the Pretender.


"What?" The remains of sleep still coated her words -well, word- but the core of them was as hard as ever. Somewhere deep inside she knew who was at the other end of the phone. The repeated late-night calls (or was it early morning already, she couldn't tell) which made her fight him less every time. She was aware that he had softened her and established a mutual trust but until the moment when she'd have to admit it, she'd never let it show.

"Today is... the nineteenth... of... September... two-thousand and... six." The statement was so simple and formal. He even altered his voice slightly between his words, making it sound like they'd been cut from different tapes and then put together.

He didn't fool her, she sighed at the unavoidable riddle that was going to follow his light-hearted opener. "What are you now, Jarod? Father Time?"

"Well, Miss Parker, you don't sound like you're celebrating." She tried to think a snappy comeback but took his bait anyway. Either that or he'd pull it out of her somehow. God, she didn't want to drag this nocturnal chat.

"Celebrating what?"

"Us, of course." He said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world and yet he sounded like he was reminding her of a mutual, long-forgotten indiscretion. Which had, of course, never happened.

"I don't care what wet dream you've had now, Wonder Boy, but there is no us." Or so she led herself to believe daily.

"Sure there is. Maybe 'wet' isn't the word for it, but think of something else familiar." She could picture his ever-infuriating smirk pasted on his face. Seething and refusing to take another bait, she remained silent. He could almost swear that she breathed fire to the receiver and decided not to wait any longer for an answer that would surely never come. "Ice. Like *you* pretend to be."

She ignored the accusing undertone for now but promised herself that if he was going to lecture her about that again, she wouldn't let him off that easily. "Have you become a hippie or what's with your new-found interest in the elements? Frolicking around the fields naked?" She regretted saying that last part. Syd would see it as a definite Freudian slip and so would Jarod.

"Well, as I recall, it *was* a windy day in Alaska, you *were* surrounded by water and you *could* have set something on fire with that cigarette I'm sure you had." Luckily, she thought while releasing the breath she hadn't noticed holding, he didn't point out her choice of words. And she remembered that day he referred to: her first stop in their 'you run, I chase'.

"Ha. Ha. Is there a reason you're taking a trip down memory lane at 3 A.M?" Not affording to screw up again, she reverted to her business-self.

"I'm shocked that you've forgotten, Miss Parker. After all, it is our anniversary." The mock hurt in his voice was greatly over-done. A sigh escaped her lips again and she wondered why she hadn't hung up on him already. She thought that maybe it was curiosity that kept her at the other end; but then again, what did curiosity do to the proverbial cat?

"Fine, you win. What anniversary?"

"It has been ten years. I still run and you still chase." So that was it. A quick calculation confirmed that it was ten years to the day since she climbed out of that helicopter in Alaska. He had exposed a company that had dumped toxic waste into the ocean. Apparently, he still had that tree-hugging hippie inside of him. Ten years and look how far you've come, she thought. Now knowing something that he hadn't realized himself, made her feel that she was on more familiar ground: in control.

"Are you sure, Jarod? What if I tell you that I've trapped your Lab-Rat-ass in a maze and that I'm merely watching how you're slowly cornering yourself? And when you have nowhere to go, I'll just pick you up from whatever the hell hole you happen to be in." The feigned confidence in her sing-song voice didn't fool him.

"Why, Miss Parker, is that a promise?"

Before she could say anything in response to his outrageously open flirt, the familiar dial tone filled the dark room, echoing off the walls as she dropped the receiver. As she set it back on the night stand, she let a smug smile form.

 










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