Disclaimer: Rights to The Pretender world and all its characters belong to creators Craig Van Sickle and Steven Mitchell. NBC owns a share, as do Twentieth Century Fox and TNT. (Even though they aren't going to air anymore re-runs – the bastards.) The point is I'm borrowing someone else's creation. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.

Admitting Hope Part 12
By Phenyx
03/12/2006

"Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come." – Anne Lamott.

-

Bright sunlight shining through the windows made Jarod wince. Hovering at the edge of consciousness, he groaned and threw one arm over his face to block the glare. Not quite awake, Jarod frowned as he registered a wrongness in his surroundings. Several moments passed before he identified the problem.

The sun was bright in the room – too bright.

Jarod's body snapped into an upright position. The fine cotton sheets slipped down his bare chest to pool in his lap as Jarod stared at the window. The heavy curtains had been pulled aside allowing golden rays of the sun to stream into the room.

That was wrong on two fronts. First, Jarod clearly remembered drawing the curtains closed before retiring in the wee hours before dawn. Second, on this side of the house, the sun would not attain a proper angle to reach this window until nearly noon.

With an odd feeling of detachment, Jarod slowly turned his head toward the nightstand and the clock that sat upon it. Red digital numbers, partially blocked by a white ceramic mug, indicated that it was at least eleven o'clock in the morning. Jarod stretched out his hand and pushed the cup aside in order to see the entire display. 11:23.

Gaping with astonishment, Jarod blinked at the clock like a drunken owl. He'd been asleep for more than eight hours. He'd slept like the dead if the evidence was to be believed. Turning back to the window, he frowned at the open curtains.

With a sigh of resignation, Jarod picked up the cup that stood on the nightstand – the cup that had not been there last night. The coffee within was cold, but Jarod drank it anyway. It had been well sweetened with two heaping teaspoons full of sugar if he guessed correctly.

Jarod grabbed a pillow and shoved it against the headboard, creating an impromptu cushion to lean on. For a while he simply closed his eyes and allowed himself the luxury of savoring what had been excellent coffee three or four hours ago. Inhaling deeply, Jarod tested the air for Miss Parker's perfume. He thought perhaps he could detect the faintest hint of Chanel, but he could have been imagining it.

He had dreamt about her last night. The images had been vague, nearly forgotten glimpses combined with the soft sound of her voice. Finding the telltale signs of her presence in the room made Jarod wonder if the dream had held some part of reality.

Had she spoken to him as she set the coffee at his bedside? Or had she simply stood over him and watched him sleep for a time? That thought sent a shiver of emotion through Jarod's body. Though whether the feeling was one of embarrassment, arousal or fear he wasn't quite sure.

Adrenaline surged through Jarod's bloodstream, sending him scrambling out of bed. Miss Parker could have sent the sweepers after him at any time. She had known he was here. Sam and his team of thugs could be on their way to capture him at this very moment.

As Jarod quickly dressed, he tried to soothe his growing panic. If Miss Parker had wanted to turn him in, the sweepers would have dragged him from bed hours ago. Logically speaking, Jarod knew that he was in no danger and yet his instincts were screaming in alarm.

He was fully clothed and had one hand on the doorknob when the cell phone in Jarod's pocket suddenly chirped. Jarod froze. The hair at the back of his neck stood on end and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, the identity of the caller. In his mind's eye, Jarod could see her, rummaging through the pockets of his leather jacket while he slept. He could imagine the triumphant smile on Miss Parker's face when she'd found the device, turned it on and quickly committed the number to memory.

As his cell phone pealed again, Jarod had an epiphany. For nearly six years, he had called the shots in this twisted game of cat and mouse. He had left the clues, tormented his pursuers and been a general pain-in-the-ass.

But over the last several months, the game had changed. Jarod remained free now because Miss Parker allowed it. Dozens of times since Carthis, Jarod had felt Miss Parker's presence around him, even when he knew her to be thousands of miles away. Miss Parker'sinner sensehad altered everything, leaving a focus to their fate that had not existed before. Like seeing the penguin in a stereograph, Jarod was just beginning to understand how the final picture might appear.

The possibilities were both thrilling and terrifying.

On the third ring, Jarod pulled the phone from his pocket as stared at it. He wondered idly if she knew. Had Miss Parker already seen what Jarod was only beginning to fathom? There was only one way to find out.

Jarod flipped open his phone and put it to his ear. "Do you enjoy freaking me out?" He said without preamble.

"Immensely," Miss Parker purred. "Turn about is fair play." Her low laughter hit Jarod like a kick in the gut. There was no mistaking his reaction for anything other than the primal thing it was.

Closing his eyes, Jarod leaned his back against the bedroom door and sighed. He was in so much trouble, in way over his head, and he knew it. At that moment, there wasn't a single thing he would not do for this woman. He'd die for her. He would kill for her and never give it a second's thought. A quiet, suspicious part of his mind wondered if this had been the point all along. Perhaps he'd been manipulated, his emotions played so perfectly that he was now exactly where they wanted him.

But to be honest, Jarod didn't care.

Jarod smiled to himself. With his eyes still closed, he tried to picture Miss Parker in his mind as he spoke to her. "I hadn't realized that you made a habit of skulking around in a sleeping man's bedroom," he drawled.

"I don't." Miss Parker's voice was warm with amusement. "Most men don't sleep when I'm in their bedrooms."

Jarod nearly groaned aloud. She was flirting with him. God, Jarod loved it when she was being playful and sexy like this. It was sweet torture. He immediately began to consider forms of retaliation because he knew she would expect it.

"Jarod?" Miss Parker's tone turned serious. "I think the Z-3 file has been rescinded."

"What makes you think so?"

"I just had the strangest conversation with Raines," Miss Parker said. "It seems that Lyle got himself mugged last night. He was messed up pretty badly. He's in the hospital in serious condition."

"The Triumvirate," Jarod guessed.

"Raines believes I was behind it. I did not say anything to dissuade him of the assumption. Old Doc wheezy practically wet himself when he realized I knew about the contract on my life. We have agreed to a cease-fire."

Jarod shook his head and smiled. "You can be one scary bitch when you want to be."

"Always," Miss Parker countered in an icy voice.

"Not always." Jarod allowed affection to warm his tone. "Scary Centre villains rarely make such good coffee."

Miss Parker's soft chuckle was like music in Jarod's ear. "I'll take that as a compliment," she said.

"It was meant as one."

Silence stretched between them for a moment.

"Jarod," Miss Parker said softly. "Take care of yourself."

"I will," Jarod replied. "You be sure to do the same."

"And Jarod… Thank you."

The click of the line disconnecting sounded before Jarod could respond. He smiled, tucked his cell phone into one pocket and turned to leave the room. The bedroom door was open and he was halfway through it when Jarod hesitated. Moving quickly back to the bed, Jarod picked up the coffee cup from the end table and drained the last of its contents. Only after he had replaced the empty mug did he leave the room.

-

"Clear!"

Miss Parker answered Sam's call with one of her own. "Clear!" Clicking on the safety, Miss Parker lowered her gun and tucked it into its holster at the small of her back. When Sam appeared in the doorway to her left, Miss Parker ordered, "Find the notebook."

Sam nodded once and disappeared into the next room. He knew the drill. Break through the entrance with guns at the ready, search every nook and cranny for the pretender then, when everyone was satisfied that Jarod wasn't to be found, alter the search to find whatever had been left behind.

"Anything?" Lyle asked as he limped into the apartment.

Miss Parker shook her head.

"How far behind are we?"

Parker glared at her twin. "Don't know yet, Gimpy. We haven't finished our sweep."

She ignored the angry look Lyle gave her. He hated it when she brought attention to his lameness. So she did it as often as possible, of course.

In the six months since Lyle had been attacked, he had healed a great deal. But signs of his injuries were still apparent. The most obvious was the angry bleached scar that ran diagonally from his forehead, across his nose and down the middle of his cheek. Half a year ago, the wound had looked as though someone had tried to peel Lyle's face from his skull. Only hours of plastic surgery had saved his looks. In a strange way, the scar made Lyle more attractive to women. The thin white line was a glaring flaw that seemed to accentuate the handsome face it marred.

But what bothered Lyle most was his leg, his left leg. Unlike the scar across his face, Lyle's leg still ached regularly. The nerve and muscle damage had been extensive, inflicted by repeated blows from the nasty end of a crow bar. The fact that he could walk on it at all was considered a small miracle by his doctors.

Lyle now walked with a cane. He would for the rest of his life. The ebony walking stick he carried had to be custom made because of Lyle's missing thumb. The handle and tip were both encased in silver. The tap, tap, tap sound the cane made as Lyle hobbled along made his approach as easy to detect as Raines' squeaking oxygen tank did.

As usual, Lyle used the cane to his best advantage. The hard wood with its metal tip made an effective weapon. Lyle delighted in bringing the cane down on a table top with a sharp snap whenever poor Broots was nearby. Miss Parker had even caught Lyle using his cane to beat Angelo. She'd stopped him, threatened to filet his other cheek if he ever did it again.

The warning seemed to have worked. Lyle had stayed away from the empath ever since. As Jarod had once said, she could be a scary bitch when she wanted to be.

Ignoring her brother's grumbling, Miss Parker cast her glance around Jarod's most recent lair. She had not seen the missing pretender in six months, not since that morning she had watched him sleep in her spare bedroom. They had spoken on the phone a couple of times and he continued to send her irritating clues in the mail. Their strange game of hide-and-seek had continued in much the same way as it had for the six previous years.

There had been only one change in their years-long pattern. One thing that Miss Parker had found every time, ever since Jarod had come to her aid. Her eyes scanned the apartment looking for it again.

In the kitchenette on a spotless counter beside the stove, was a single white ceramic mug. Miss Parker smiled to herself as she lifted the cup to her lips. The coffee inside was stone cold, but not stale. Jarod had left it for her sometime early this morning.

In every place that Jarod had lived since leaving her house six months ago, he had left behind a white cup filled with coffee. He left it for Miss Parker to find. He left it for her to drink. And every time she drank it, even when it had been three days old and more like sludge than coffee. Jarod knew it, too. He'd even rewarded her persistence by following the slimy old coffee in Seattle with a still hot cup of brew in Decatur.

It was ridiculous perhaps. Such a small thing really. But Miss Parker knew why Jarod continued to leave her this sign. It was a token of trust. In the temperature and quality of the liquid he left, Miss Parker could gauge his departure time. In leaving the coffee for her to find, Jarod showed her that he trusted her with that information. In drinking it, Miss Parker showed her trust for Jarod in return.

As she sipped at Jarod's most recent offering, Miss Parker admitted to herself that the cup held more than just Jarod's faith in her. It held more than her trust in him. It held the hope that they could both survive this dangerous game the Centre had thrust upon them.

-

The end.