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Disclaimer: The characters Miss Parker, Sydney, Jarod, Broots etc. and the fictional Centre, are all property of MTM, TNT and NBC Productions and used without permission. I'm not making any money out of this and no infringement is intended.
Too Late
(Moments In Time)
Felicity
The room is cold. Maybe it’s the atmosphere. She’s not sure but she’s shivering and she doesn’t really care as the shaking has ulterior motives and heat isn’t a cure. A cigarette burns forgotten, held tightly between two fingers, an absent lifeline. The smoke curls upward and she watches it as it floats without recognition.
She’s waiting for something or someone but she doesn’t remember wether they or it is late or early. In a corner of her subconscious mind their indefinite arrival holds great significance. The unaccusable knowledge makes her edgy, confused almost aimless in her actions.
She is suspended in time until whatever’s supposed to happen happens. The door creaks open and her eyes fly to the handle focussing on the intruder as he walks purposefully inside. Her eyes dart from his thumbless hand to his cheshire cat smile. She can taste the danger still it refuses to register.
She stands, gingerly and on instinct not presence of mind. Any other day she’d have done it to maintain or gain the upper hand in whatever conversation was to ensue.
Any other day she would have been herself.
She doesn’t trust him but disoriented and impatient for answers he was the only person there to ask.
“Has something happened?” She demands steelily her gaze meeting his with unflinching fury.
She watched in abject horror as he took her arm and led her to a seat. She only allowed him to touch her confused as to the reason to fight though every base instinct in her body was screaming at her to push him away before it was to late. He pushed her back in the sofa. He was too close she was suddenly intoxicated by the delicate scent of his after-shave he seemed drunk in her own perfume. Something was wrong and she hadn’t the strength to fight for the truth, To resist the pull of danger.
She watched him as he edged forward. A part of her froze forever in that moment absorbing the hunger in his eyes she reeled in her own terror and the strength of his embrace.
####
Sydney rushed purposefully down the Centre hallways. A negative little voice in his mind told him he was too late but he couldn’t admit that to himself. He couldn’t afford to be. Her life hung in limbo and he was the only one left to save it. Possibly the only one left who cared enough to try.
She’d been ok in the morning her usual icy persona intact. Broots and a swarm of other sweepers were suitably terrified and she was surviving as usual, the one in control.
Sydney had always sensed there was something unfinished between Parker and her father. Something unspoken that strengthened the power he had over her. He’d sensed it from Catherine and received too many answers in terms of her own treatment by the infamous chairman of the Centre to account for which avenue his abuse followed down.
What could possibly have caused the element of fear in the impenetrable woman’s eyes when in her father’s presence?
Until faced with the answer he’d buried the knowledge beneath denial, lied to himself unwilling to admit she was yet another victim he couldn’t save. But the answer was insistent, Another of Reins creations out of control. In the wrong place at the wrong time, the Chairman’s eighteen-year-old daughter had been assaulted. All these years later it had taken a second assault to bring the first to light.
He wondered why at the time he’d noticed nothing different. She seemed so unaffected. Today it had all clicked. She had he remembered been withdrawn and reserved her actions on review then, similar to now. Treating the assault with a disdain almost familiarity which had given it all away.
With realisation brought urgency and he was determined to confront her with the truth now before it shattered her or she swallowed the events down as normality. Unresolved issues meant the past often became revisited. In the Centre it always came back to haunt you. This time, he couldn’t afford to be too late.
####
Damon, The word sparked fear in her heart.
Lyle’s name had no affect.
She supposed she should be scared humiliated or disgusted with either him her brother or her herself for allowing him to steal the one advantage she had over him.
But nothing seemed real, had not for a long time. Nothing really mattered for the closest she would get to true love was obsession, she was sure of that.
Somehow she felt an affinity with Lyle. For he felt the same way. They were of the same blood and basic situation. They understood each other just didn’t know what to feel toward each other, what wasn’t in extremes.
Maybe this was his perverted idea of comfort or maybe he was manipulating her. She didn’t care to figure it out, to address the problem. Why bother it would be over soon anyway and she wouldn’t have lost anything that wasn’t already missing, stolen years before.
####
They collided as he was leaving the office. The determined psychiatrist, and the power hungry ambitious chairman’s son. He watched with suspicion as Lyle paced lightly down the hall, far too happy. Maybe he was too late?
Her eyes seemed empty as she stared up at him blinking away tears of shame or degradation he didn’t know which. It was an expression that only lasted a moment a short flash revealing the pain and dejection of a lifetime. The next instant she was once again herself.
He leaned over her brushing a long strand of wispy dark hair from her eyes a tear rolled down her cheek revealing the vulnerability she suppressed. He sat down beside her slowly and she laid her head on his knee as she used to do when she was a child in need of comfort, reassurance someone really loved her and was not just using her.
He continued to stroke her hair as she drifted lost in the pull of nature and habit. Nature urged her to give in while habit forced her to push him away. She couldn’t decide unsure which way to be swayed so she lay there in limbo waiting for instinct to intervene.
“Sydney?” Her voice sent shivers down his spine.
He’d hoped she was back to normal, relied on, even forced him self to believe she was. But her voice and its ghostly childlike quality shattered that hope.
He himself drew strength from her seemingly unending supply of cutting barbs and power. To here her even see her like this made him feel penetrable. He depended on her being in control, for he had marginal control over her and could therefore provide the strength to fight their demons knowing she was with him all the way. Like this! He was lost on a sea even his training in psychobabble couldn’t stop them both from drowning in.
He held her more tightly in his arms. The roundabout logic always helped. He still had control over her, therefore he had control over the force greater. His role had always been to protect. An impossible job so somehow it had faded to the task of helping her deal with the pain once it was all over.
“Did something happen Syd?” She repeated the question asked to Lyle curious as to his answer frantic to know the truth.
“Nothing happened Parker.” He lied.
She couldn’t deal with that pain right now, shouldn’t have to.
The question was forced from the dark recesses of her mind, she felt physically the affects of something yet it was a dreamlike emotive sensation in which she dealt with the after effect’s having missed the cause. Maybe that was why they lied or evaded the question? Maybe it had all been a dream that faded as she woke? That must be why she couldn’t remember.
Another shard of her psyche fractured in denial drifting into oblivion reserved for future recall. It would manifest in various senses. Ways which she wouldn’t understand or acknowledge transforming in to a model she could deal with. Grief or frustration, determination the memory was still there only looking for another way in which to express itself, some other extradicial function it could hitch a ride on, hit the atmosphere and careen away.
“Would you like me to drive you home?” He spoke as if to a child altering his tone to parental to match her childish regression.
“She shook her head answering truthfully.
“I don’t feel safe there Syd, I don’t feel safe here either. Will I ever feel safe again?”
“You haven’t felt safe in a long time Parker but if you trust me I can help you.” He offered.
She looked up into his face reading the deep concern in his eyes, catching the glint of hidden love and regard. Knowing that if there was anyone that she could trust, it would be him.
But there was a barrier, something that usually held her back from accepting such an offer. She couldn’t remember what it was. Her pride, or fear of getting hurt maybe?
No, she decided. None of the above. It was the barrier of independence and a terror of reliance obliterated now by the fragility of the moment.
“I’m scared.” She stated looking deeply into his eyes for reaction to the statement so unlike her usual fearless impracticality.
“Don’t tell anyone.” She ended a request almost plea which lacked the customary threat.
He slipped off his coat and wrapped it around her His lips twitching slightly in humour.
“I won’t tell a soul.”
“It was his eyes. Blue as sapphires that haunted me most. He faded out of the shadows and he was so quick I hadn’t even thought to fight before his hand had snaked around my waist. Daddy had already filled me in on the myriad of resident freaks. He seemed different though. Somehow there was something alluring about his composure, hypnotising in his gaze that delayed the scream scraping across my throat. His whisper was like death it self. I felt fear dissolve around me like a cloak of invisibility, beyond my control. I had my share of experience by then, call it extra curricular activity.” She smiled at the look of disapproval creasing Sydney’s forehead. “So I knew what was happening, I mean I wasn’t surprised or anything like that, Just sort of stunned and somewhat terrified. I felt his hands but what most scared me was twisting around to face him the hungry look in his eyes. No compassion existed within his gaze only desire, fascination maybe. I’d grown accustomed to desire, it was recognisable but the lack of conscience didn’t become clear until much later. It’s not like I made a point of thinking about it. It’s just as similar qualities began to develop in myself I understood what I’d seen. My soul chilled over possibly after him. I think the process-started years before with my father.”
“What about you’re father Parker.” Sydney prompted as she suddenly fell silent.
“I’m not aloud to say, he began threatening me, accusing me of being to much like mum, to weak. When Damon… Well all he said was that I should be more careful next time. I’m not sure about what. That nobody found out I think.”
“You say you felt his hands, where Parker?”
She looked up sharply memory affect becoming unbearable.
“I can’t do this Sydney, I don’t want to remember weakness, it’s to degrading I mean it was all my fault. I should have fought him off or not been there, something I don’t know.”
His expression encouraged her and she took a shaky breath.
“Everywhere, he was everywhere. For weeks afterward I could feel his presence oppressing me. Nothing he had done to me would wash off.”
“And with time.”
“Well it wasn’t such a big deal Sydney, I was just being stupid about it. Daddy pointed that out. I mean what had he really stolen from me, a few moments of my time? I never had to face him again, Daddy at least made sure of that.”
It cost you you’re dignity Parker, And a good chunk of you’re life.”
“Oh don’t dramatise Syd, statutory rape is small fry in the Centre. Guess I’m just lucky he didn’t murder me in cold blood like he did that guy Jarod saw huh Sydney?” The pale smile was lost on him as he regarded her with sadness at her blind and wilful ignorance.
“Do you really believe it’s all a joke?”
“Of course not, but sometimes it’s easier to laugh than to cry.”
“I know you don’t cry easily Parker but you have to give this memory a way out. It’s been suppressed all these years affecting you negatively without you even realising. Tear’s, laughter, talking about it! As long it’s not a harmful relief anything’s better than holding this inside.”
I’m not supposed to show emotion Sydney, I’m not supposed to act like an ordinary weak human being, I can handle this.”
That’s Centre ******** Parker and you know it. You can’t handle it, you haven’t been handling it and if you think I’m going to turn a blind eye one moment longer you’re wrong.”
The impassive professional psychiatrist was momentarily placed aside through the height of his concern for her. Professionally, he was compromised. Knowing she would only talk to him, it didn’t matter.
“Sometimes I feel that it would be better off if I’d died then or with my mother, maybe now? That it would be better to end it all. Rather than to keep going with the constant guilt I should have done something in both cases. So what does that make me freud? Suicidal, psychotic?”
“No Parker, that just makes you human.” Sydney sighed tiredly. Purposefully ignoring the similarity between Parker’s situation and his own.
Too Late
(Moments In Time)
Felicity
The room is cold. Maybe it’s the atmosphere. She’s not sure but she’s shivering and she doesn’t really care as the shaking has ulterior motives and heat isn’t a cure. A cigarette burns forgotten, held tightly between two fingers, an absent lifeline. The smoke curls upward and she watches it as it floats without recognition.
She’s waiting for something or someone but she doesn’t remember wether they or it is late or early. In a corner of her subconscious mind their indefinite arrival holds great significance. The unaccusable knowledge makes her edgy, confused almost aimless in her actions.
She is suspended in time until whatever’s supposed to happen happens. The door creaks open and her eyes fly to the handle focussing on the intruder as he walks purposefully inside. Her eyes dart from his thumbless hand to his cheshire cat smile. She can taste the danger still it refuses to register.
She stands, gingerly and on instinct not presence of mind. Any other day she’d have done it to maintain or gain the upper hand in whatever conversation was to ensue.
Any other day she would have been herself.
She doesn’t trust him but disoriented and impatient for answers he was the only person there to ask.
“Has something happened?” She demands steelily her gaze meeting his with unflinching fury.
She watched in abject horror as he took her arm and led her to a seat. She only allowed him to touch her confused as to the reason to fight though every base instinct in her body was screaming at her to push him away before it was to late. He pushed her back in the sofa. He was too close she was suddenly intoxicated by the delicate scent of his after-shave he seemed drunk in her own perfume. Something was wrong and she hadn’t the strength to fight for the truth, To resist the pull of danger.
She watched him as he edged forward. A part of her froze forever in that moment absorbing the hunger in his eyes she reeled in her own terror and the strength of his embrace.
####
Sydney rushed purposefully down the Centre hallways. A negative little voice in his mind told him he was too late but he couldn’t admit that to himself. He couldn’t afford to be. Her life hung in limbo and he was the only one left to save it. Possibly the only one left who cared enough to try.
She’d been ok in the morning her usual icy persona intact. Broots and a swarm of other sweepers were suitably terrified and she was surviving as usual, the one in control.
Sydney had always sensed there was something unfinished between Parker and her father. Something unspoken that strengthened the power he had over her. He’d sensed it from Catherine and received too many answers in terms of her own treatment by the infamous chairman of the Centre to account for which avenue his abuse followed down.
What could possibly have caused the element of fear in the impenetrable woman’s eyes when in her father’s presence?
Until faced with the answer he’d buried the knowledge beneath denial, lied to himself unwilling to admit she was yet another victim he couldn’t save. But the answer was insistent, Another of Reins creations out of control. In the wrong place at the wrong time, the Chairman’s eighteen-year-old daughter had been assaulted. All these years later it had taken a second assault to bring the first to light.
He wondered why at the time he’d noticed nothing different. She seemed so unaffected. Today it had all clicked. She had he remembered been withdrawn and reserved her actions on review then, similar to now. Treating the assault with a disdain almost familiarity which had given it all away.
With realisation brought urgency and he was determined to confront her with the truth now before it shattered her or she swallowed the events down as normality. Unresolved issues meant the past often became revisited. In the Centre it always came back to haunt you. This time, he couldn’t afford to be too late.
####
Damon, The word sparked fear in her heart.
Lyle’s name had no affect.
She supposed she should be scared humiliated or disgusted with either him her brother or her herself for allowing him to steal the one advantage she had over him.
But nothing seemed real, had not for a long time. Nothing really mattered for the closest she would get to true love was obsession, she was sure of that.
Somehow she felt an affinity with Lyle. For he felt the same way. They were of the same blood and basic situation. They understood each other just didn’t know what to feel toward each other, what wasn’t in extremes.
Maybe this was his perverted idea of comfort or maybe he was manipulating her. She didn’t care to figure it out, to address the problem. Why bother it would be over soon anyway and she wouldn’t have lost anything that wasn’t already missing, stolen years before.
####
They collided as he was leaving the office. The determined psychiatrist, and the power hungry ambitious chairman’s son. He watched with suspicion as Lyle paced lightly down the hall, far too happy. Maybe he was too late?
Her eyes seemed empty as she stared up at him blinking away tears of shame or degradation he didn’t know which. It was an expression that only lasted a moment a short flash revealing the pain and dejection of a lifetime. The next instant she was once again herself.
He leaned over her brushing a long strand of wispy dark hair from her eyes a tear rolled down her cheek revealing the vulnerability she suppressed. He sat down beside her slowly and she laid her head on his knee as she used to do when she was a child in need of comfort, reassurance someone really loved her and was not just using her.
He continued to stroke her hair as she drifted lost in the pull of nature and habit. Nature urged her to give in while habit forced her to push him away. She couldn’t decide unsure which way to be swayed so she lay there in limbo waiting for instinct to intervene.
“Sydney?” Her voice sent shivers down his spine.
He’d hoped she was back to normal, relied on, even forced him self to believe she was. But her voice and its ghostly childlike quality shattered that hope.
He himself drew strength from her seemingly unending supply of cutting barbs and power. To here her even see her like this made him feel penetrable. He depended on her being in control, for he had marginal control over her and could therefore provide the strength to fight their demons knowing she was with him all the way. Like this! He was lost on a sea even his training in psychobabble couldn’t stop them both from drowning in.
He held her more tightly in his arms. The roundabout logic always helped. He still had control over her, therefore he had control over the force greater. His role had always been to protect. An impossible job so somehow it had faded to the task of helping her deal with the pain once it was all over.
“Did something happen Syd?” She repeated the question asked to Lyle curious as to his answer frantic to know the truth.
“Nothing happened Parker.” He lied.
She couldn’t deal with that pain right now, shouldn’t have to.
The question was forced from the dark recesses of her mind, she felt physically the affects of something yet it was a dreamlike emotive sensation in which she dealt with the after effect’s having missed the cause. Maybe that was why they lied or evaded the question? Maybe it had all been a dream that faded as she woke? That must be why she couldn’t remember.
Another shard of her psyche fractured in denial drifting into oblivion reserved for future recall. It would manifest in various senses. Ways which she wouldn’t understand or acknowledge transforming in to a model she could deal with. Grief or frustration, determination the memory was still there only looking for another way in which to express itself, some other extradicial function it could hitch a ride on, hit the atmosphere and careen away.
“Would you like me to drive you home?” He spoke as if to a child altering his tone to parental to match her childish regression.
“She shook her head answering truthfully.
“I don’t feel safe there Syd, I don’t feel safe here either. Will I ever feel safe again?”
“You haven’t felt safe in a long time Parker but if you trust me I can help you.” He offered.
She looked up into his face reading the deep concern in his eyes, catching the glint of hidden love and regard. Knowing that if there was anyone that she could trust, it would be him.
But there was a barrier, something that usually held her back from accepting such an offer. She couldn’t remember what it was. Her pride, or fear of getting hurt maybe?
No, she decided. None of the above. It was the barrier of independence and a terror of reliance obliterated now by the fragility of the moment.
“I’m scared.” She stated looking deeply into his eyes for reaction to the statement so unlike her usual fearless impracticality.
“Don’t tell anyone.” She ended a request almost plea which lacked the customary threat.
He slipped off his coat and wrapped it around her His lips twitching slightly in humour.
“I won’t tell a soul.”
“It was his eyes. Blue as sapphires that haunted me most. He faded out of the shadows and he was so quick I hadn’t even thought to fight before his hand had snaked around my waist. Daddy had already filled me in on the myriad of resident freaks. He seemed different though. Somehow there was something alluring about his composure, hypnotising in his gaze that delayed the scream scraping across my throat. His whisper was like death it self. I felt fear dissolve around me like a cloak of invisibility, beyond my control. I had my share of experience by then, call it extra curricular activity.” She smiled at the look of disapproval creasing Sydney’s forehead. “So I knew what was happening, I mean I wasn’t surprised or anything like that, Just sort of stunned and somewhat terrified. I felt his hands but what most scared me was twisting around to face him the hungry look in his eyes. No compassion existed within his gaze only desire, fascination maybe. I’d grown accustomed to desire, it was recognisable but the lack of conscience didn’t become clear until much later. It’s not like I made a point of thinking about it. It’s just as similar qualities began to develop in myself I understood what I’d seen. My soul chilled over possibly after him. I think the process-started years before with my father.”
“What about you’re father Parker.” Sydney prompted as she suddenly fell silent.
“I’m not aloud to say, he began threatening me, accusing me of being to much like mum, to weak. When Damon… Well all he said was that I should be more careful next time. I’m not sure about what. That nobody found out I think.”
“You say you felt his hands, where Parker?”
She looked up sharply memory affect becoming unbearable.
“I can’t do this Sydney, I don’t want to remember weakness, it’s to degrading I mean it was all my fault. I should have fought him off or not been there, something I don’t know.”
His expression encouraged her and she took a shaky breath.
“Everywhere, he was everywhere. For weeks afterward I could feel his presence oppressing me. Nothing he had done to me would wash off.”
“And with time.”
“Well it wasn’t such a big deal Sydney, I was just being stupid about it. Daddy pointed that out. I mean what had he really stolen from me, a few moments of my time? I never had to face him again, Daddy at least made sure of that.”
It cost you you’re dignity Parker, And a good chunk of you’re life.”
“Oh don’t dramatise Syd, statutory rape is small fry in the Centre. Guess I’m just lucky he didn’t murder me in cold blood like he did that guy Jarod saw huh Sydney?” The pale smile was lost on him as he regarded her with sadness at her blind and wilful ignorance.
“Do you really believe it’s all a joke?”
“Of course not, but sometimes it’s easier to laugh than to cry.”
“I know you don’t cry easily Parker but you have to give this memory a way out. It’s been suppressed all these years affecting you negatively without you even realising. Tear’s, laughter, talking about it! As long it’s not a harmful relief anything’s better than holding this inside.”
I’m not supposed to show emotion Sydney, I’m not supposed to act like an ordinary weak human being, I can handle this.”
That’s Centre ******** Parker and you know it. You can’t handle it, you haven’t been handling it and if you think I’m going to turn a blind eye one moment longer you’re wrong.”
The impassive professional psychiatrist was momentarily placed aside through the height of his concern for her. Professionally, he was compromised. Knowing she would only talk to him, it didn’t matter.
“Sometimes I feel that it would be better off if I’d died then or with my mother, maybe now? That it would be better to end it all. Rather than to keep going with the constant guilt I should have done something in both cases. So what does that make me freud? Suicidal, psychotic?”
“No Parker, that just makes you human.” Sydney sighed tiredly. Purposefully ignoring the similarity between Parker’s situation and his own.
