Title: A Second Angel: Empty Hands (1/17) Author:  Eva Parker Email:  eva_parker@yahoo.com Disclaimer:  Concepts, characters, scenery, and psychotic corporations from the television show The Pretender are protected trademarks of MTM Television, Pretender Productions, and NBC.  I lay no claim to them; I’m just taking them out for a little spin.  All escaped characters will be returned immediately to the Centre.  All other characters, scenery, etc. belong to me.  Please note that fanfiction is covered under the “Free Use” clause of the copyright law. Author’s Notes:  Thanks for dropping by. . .hope this opens my new site with a bang, and many apologies for the tardiness.  Blame it on unforeseen illness.  This was nuts to write, too.  Um, the daily fanfic grind. . .feel free to archive where you please, just as long as all the right names and disclaimers stick to it.  I’d also appreciate a note, when you get the chance. We fanfic writers are slaves to two things:  hits and responses.  So bring your friends, tell your family, and especially, call that friend of a friend in the publishing business <g>.  I’m amenable to collaborations and editing jobs.  If you want to tell me what a great (or cruddy) job I’ve done, drop me a line, but remember KICS (Keep it Civil, Stupid); flames are eaten for fun and profit. P.S.  Watch your dates; things in courier new are DSA’s, things in Times New Roman are present date.  Ages are approximate; feel free to nail me if I’ve got them wrong.  I know this holds up to the beginning/early-middle of Season 2.  Other than that, don’t count on me for the mythology. P.P.S. The question marks you see are really the Cyrillic alphabet; the translation, if it is unclear, is "empty hands," but nasty old HTML doesn't adjust to the Russian.  I'm working on it. . .for the moment, you'll have to pretend, da? Ah, well, nuthin’ for it.  Enjoy!

Jarod  8/23/73  9:15 A.M.                           FOR CENTRE USE ONLY    He lies on Sydney’s worn sofa, on his stomach, feet hanging over his head, dancing ever so slightly in the air.  It is his regular psychiatric session, a process Sydney initiated shortly after the “identity disorder” Jarod developed—and recovered from—at a mere eight years of age.    Jarod stares at the wall, trying to keep his face bland, and only succeeding in making it look like an open wound to his psychiatrist. Sydney is experienced enough with the precocious fourteen-year-old that his insight borders on telepathy; he perches his chin on his folded hands and waits, knowing that the young Jarod will speak.    Jarod hums an old song he’d picked up at some point, the words so familiar that he feels a connection to some past long forgotten, as if he could sing to dinosaurs.  He wishes he could tell Sydney about what he’s feeling; he really, honestly does: the aching pang in his fingers, the hollowness in his chest.   He paces from the tiny library—he’s read, memorized, all the books—to the simlab in his Free Hours, desperate to do something, anything, in order to get his mind away from this unfamiliar and unusual despair.  But in all twelve languages and more than one-hundred-fifty dialects he knows, he cannot find the correct words to express himself. The closest he can get is the new language he’s learned, Russian. It’s not because the Soviets had or have any overwhelming insight into the human psyche, but because the throaty sharpness of Russian—the images of bitterly cold Siberia, the pain, and fear, and strength of those bearing the iron hammer and sickle of Communism—the sound of it is the best way to re-enforce what he is saying. “?????? ????????,” he murmurs.  Empty hands.   Sydney, forgoing the invisible wall that is created when one hides behind a desk, looks at his charge and feels a sinking of sympathy in his chest, a feeling which he knows will not be obvious on the DSA recording or to Jarod.  Empathy is frowned upon in the Centre.   “Jarod,” he begins, but he does not know what he will say afterward.  There is nothing he can do for Jarod at the present moment, a familiar frustration that is made no less difficult every time he feels it.  Sydney massages the bridge of his nose, and says nothing.   Jarod swings his legs over the side of the sofa, moving from a prone position to sitting upright in one smooth motion.  For a single moment, his expression has lost the usual self-control of geniuses and stoics; right now he is just a fourteen year old boy trying to figure out who he is and what he wants.  His innocent, chocolate brown eyes burn with sorrow and bitterness.  He spreads his hands out for Sydney’s inspection, though they both know he’s not talking about hands at all.   Turning away again, he clenches his nimble fingers, so adept at typing and building, wielding a scalpel, guiding a stealth team; fingers that had built circuit boards and security systems, fingers that traced out complex mathematical problems with an ease even Sydney would never be able to achieve.  Right now, they offer him no more than his extensive vocabulary.  “?????? ????????,” he murmurs again, staring at the wood-paneled walls.