Disclaimer: “The Pretender” and it’s characters don’t belong to me they belong to their creators and owners. Please don’t sue because I have no money.

The Returned

Sydney watched as Miss Parker pace back and forth in front of him as she was angry at not finding Jarod once again. He felt torn sometimes because on one hand he wanted Jarod out there helping the little people, but he also wanted him back at the Centre to keep him safe and to resume their work even if he knew that Jarod wouldn’t help The Centre again. He had often thought of a paternal figure to the young pretender when he was growing up. He had raised him and taught him how to use his gifts. He still remembered a young Jarod who had rain gear on trying to do a sim on a boat. The little boy ran out of the room because it was too hard for him. He picked him up and held him saying if a sim gets to hard for the young pretender to say his safe word Refuge.

They had just gotten back from another of Jarod’s lairs today and of course found one of his red notebooks that he had always left behind. He was still giving them breadcrumbs after all these years they have been chasing him.

He glanced as Miss Parker turned around and stalked out of his office. He shook his head and wondered where the little girl who used to spend time with Jarod was. Watching her until she left the sim lab then he too got up and walked out of the room.

He sighed as he sat down on the chair of his living room. He wondered if they were ever going to find and capture Jarod and what would happen if they do? The Centre knew that he wouldn’t help them again.

He heard a knock at the door and got up to answer it. He stared in shock as he saw the other person. It was his twin brother Jacob. The same brother that had died and here he was on his doorstep.

“Sydney.”

“Jacob, I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either. I woke up in a hotel room and suddenly I was alive.”

Sydney thought back to what Broots had shown him. On the news was people coming back from the dead. He stared at his brother and embraced him. He had felt guilty that it was Jacob who had died and not him because they had been fighting about the children that the Centre had acquired.

“Broots, our computer tech showed Miss Parker and I a news station about people returning from the dead. It looks like you were one of them.” He said to his brother and wondered if Miss Parker’s Mother had returned too.

Jacob nodded at that and looked around.

“Are you hungry, or thirsty?”

“I’m a little bit of both.” Jacob replied

Sydney got up and heated up dinner and poured some water for Jacob. Sydney was hungry too and hadn’t eaten when he had gotten home.

After dinner they went back to the living room.

“Do you still work for the Centre?”

“Yes.”

“And what do you do?”

“I’m on the team to capture and bring back Jarod.”

Jacob closed his eyes at Jarod’s name. “I remember Jarod. I remember going through the window with another expeditor. Jarod had woken up and made a little noise and also made his lunchbox fall to the ground. We thought that it would wake up his parents, but it didn’t. We brought Jarod to the Centre that night. I feel so guilty for doing that to that little boy. He should have lived with his parents and not being kidnapped because he has a gift.”

Sydney had called The Centre the next day and took time off to be with his brother and they talked about the Centre and other stuff.