Shaddyr's Eclectic Collection > Pretender Fanfiction > N.R. Levy > The Not so Wonderful Life
The Not So Wonderful Life
by N.R. LevyHad this little idea after watching the millionth ad for the It’s a Wonderful Life gag fest we’re all subject to each year (Sorry, but I hate that movie.) One part only, hope you enjoy it. Set after "Extreme."
You know the drill, don’t em, don’t claim to, so don’t sue me.
Jarod watched the scene unfold in front of him and though a million thoughts ran through his head, he knew he was helpless. It was up to them now, they were the only one’s could stop it from happening.
It seemed only hours ago that Parker had answered her phone with her usual brusque what, only this time, there was something in her voice he was very unused to hearing...fear. She told him Lyle had taken another girl and that she was on her way to see if she could free the young woman before she ended up like the others.
Jarod begged her not to go. He came up with a list of other solutions –send a sweeper team, call the police, anything but Parker going after him herself. He couldn’t stand the thought of her alone with that madman, and he knew she wouldn’t risk anyone else’s safety by bringing them into the situation.
She hung up on him, furious that he’d tried to stop her. He could see her logic. It was him, after all, who had dragged her into this by throwing Lyle’s demented activities in her face, by telling her that, "one of them had to stop him." But somehow, he’d never imagined she would rush off after the psycho alone.
Whether it was fate or luck, Jarod counted his blessings that he was only a half an hour away from Blue Cove. He had just been delivering Christmas gifts for Sydney and Miss Parker, and was on his way out of town when he felt the urge to call her. Her voice and what she’d told him resulted in a swift u-turn, and he sped toward Lyle’s apartment.
What he saw when he got there was beyond anything he had expected. The girl – he had only found out a few minutes ago that her name was Sue-li, had been chained in Lyle’s little box. She had clearly already been subjected to hours of torture. She was completely incoherent, and he had been unable to get any information out of her. Then he saw a thin blood trail that led out of Lyle’s secret room to a back entrance for his apartment. He followed it into the alley, and that was where it all happened.
Parker and Lyle were fighting – more than that, what was happening was clearly a battle for survival. Lyle knew if she won, he would be destroyed at the Centre, and Parker knew if she lost, it would mean her life. They were fighting hand to hand, and Jarod saw Parker’s gun lying on the ground a few feet away. He rushed forward, yelling at them, trying to distract Lyle as he swept the gun up in hands.
His tactic worked, Lyle blinked, so to speak, and Parker landed a powerful blow to his head, sending him flying backward in the alley. Parker glanced toward Jarod to acknowledge his presence and she moved forward toward Lyle, continuing her attack. Lyle seemed dazed, his body unmoving, but she had to be certain.
That was when it happened.
Jarod didn’t know where the weapon had come from, only that it seemed to appear from nowhere and in a moment, the knife flashed across the sky and then he heard a whimper from Parker and suddenly Lyle was running and she was falling to the ground.
Jarod raced to her, the gun falling from his hand. Soon blood covered them as he turned her onto her back and discovered the bleeding wound in her chest. Her eyes were half-opened, and all she said was, "Make sure he doesn’t get away." Then her eyelids fell, and her breathing stopped.
Jarod frantically began CPR, his hands moving as swiftly as possible as he balanced the need to restart her respiration with his need to get more help. He grabbed the cell phone from his pocket and called 9-1-1, all the while, one hand keeping check for a pulse. When he finished the call and still had none, he again began trying to restart her breathing. Finally, she took a shallow breath, then another. Then Jarod turned his attention to her wound. It was large – an indication of the size of the knife, and again, Jarod wondered where Lyle had hidden it, but that was of no consequence now. The blade had nicked a blood vessel, and though it was difficult to see through all the blood, Jarod knew he had to stop the bleeding in order to save Parker’s life. Carefully, he reached into the wound and applied pressure to the injured area with his fingertips.
The paramedics arrived, and so did the police, and Jarod told them only about the man who’d gotten away after he attacked the woman in the alley. He said that he didn’t know the assailant. It was difficult for him to lie to the police, but he had to protect Parker now – he had failed to do so too many times already.
Now here they were at the hospital, the doctors swirling around her as they tried to stop the bleeding, which they now knew was coming from her aorta. She had minutes left it they couldn’t repair the damage, and he could do nothing. He had never felt so useless in his life.
Remembering the cell phone in his pocket, Jarod withdrew it, not even seeing the blood that still covered his hands and clothes as he dialed the familiar number.
"This is Sydney."
"Sydney, get a cleaner team to Lyle’s now. Make sure there’s no way the police can trace Parker there. And get Sam – he has a murderer to find."
"Jarod, what’s happened?"
"Parker tried to stop him – and it may have cost her life."
Jarod disconnected the call, his mind no longer able to focus on anything but what was happening in the emergency room. After what seemed an eternity, the medical team emerged, their efforts taking Parker’s gurney down the hall at top speed. Jarod ran along side as they moved.
"What’s going on?" The doctor looked up briefly, long enough to see that the man speaking had blood all over him, and was therefore probably connected to his patient.
"We’re taking her to surgery. We’ve got a temporary hold on the cut in the aorta, but we’ve got to get it fixed and we need to do it now. Wait in the fifth floor waiting room."
Jarod stopped moving as the team squeezed into an elevator, and as the doors closed, his gaze fell on Parker. She looked dead already.
The doors slammed shut and Jarod stood there dazed for a moment. Then he pressed the button on the elevator, and headed to the fifth floor.
Sydney arrived two hours into Parker’s surgery, and told him that Sam was on the hunt for Lyle, but so far, they’d only been able to follow his trail to a local parking garage. Broots was searching the records to see if any of the monthly parkers could be traced to Lyle. Sue-li had been put into a safe house, and hopefully, between her statement and what Parker could tell the Triumvirate, Lyle’s days were numbered. That is if Parker could tell them anything.
It didn’t take much for the shrink to see the turmoil his friend was in. Clearly he felt responsible for what had happened, and though Sydney knew that it was more Parker’s stubbornness than Jarod’s strategically dropped hints that had led to the current crisis, it would be useless to say so. Instead, he pulled out the shirt he’d taken from his office and handed it to Jarod. The Pretender looked up at him with total confusion on his face.
"Change, Jarod. You don’t want her to see that, do you?"
Jarod looked down at himself and saw Parker’s blood on him for the first time. Sydney heard his sharp intake of breath, but remained silent as Jarod slowly made his way to his feet and down the hall toward the bathroom.
Two more hours passed, and the doctor who Jarod had spoken with earlier emerged in blood-spattered scrubs. Parker was alive, barely, but she had thrown an embolism during the surgery and her heart had stopped again. They did not know if she would recover.
Slowly, Jarod made his way to intensive care. He had told the police that Parker was his girlfriend – that was the only reason the hospital was even letting him in the room now, and he was grateful he had been coherent enough to come up with the cover story at the time.
She was pale, ghostly pale, and her chest barely moved with the effort of her breathing. They had decided not to put her on a respirator because of the strain it would cause her heart. Instead, she would sink or swim on her own.
Jarod sat down in the chair beside her bed, and not for the first time, he tried to imagine life without her. He could not. Whether his friend of his adversary, she had always been a part of his life – he could not bear to lose that now, and with a touch of sadness he realized he would rather run from her forever than be without her.
He did not think he could sleep. His mind was too much of a jumble of images – Parker as a little girl, her bright, shining smile, the sadness that had taken up residence in her eyes the day Catherine died – it all floated through his mind in an unstoppable sea of memories. She had been the sweetest child, the most beautiful girl, and though she was without doubt a stunning woman, they – the Centre – had done everything they could to kill the soul inside of her. Now, Jarod thought, one of their pet projects may have done just that.
****
Jarod Russell was a man with little in life to be unhappy about. His parents, Margaret and Charles had been married for nearly twenty-five years, and he had a brother, Kyle, and a sister, Emily, who he loved dearly. He was blessed with a natural intelligence that made learning easy, and so he was just a week past his 20th birthday when he began his residency at University Hospital.
He was going to be a pediatrician. He loved kids, and he enjoyed helping them, besides, his mom always teased him and told him he was a big kid anyway, so it seemed like the best choice. As Jarod walked across campus, where he’d stopped to pick up a sweatshirt for Kyle’s Christmas gift, he thought about someday having his own family, and wondered if he would ever find a woman he loved as much as his father loved mom.
The crash sent him tumbling to the ground, and he looked up confused only to find himself staring into the most amazing set of blue eyes he had ever seen. The woman Jarod had just barreled into was tall, about 5’11’, and she had long dark hair. She was without a doubt the most beautiful girl in the world.
"Do you not get the concept of watching where you’re going?"
Her voice was low and smoky and he loved the sound of it the moment it first made its way to his ear. Of course, then the words registered and Jarod blushed with embarrassment. Quickly he got to his feet and extended his hand to the woman on the ground.
"Sorry, ma’am. I was, um, I, um, I was daydreaming I guess."
She smiled and a small laugh escaped her lips. She looked like an angel when she smiled.
"Obviously. Next time, maybe you’d better save that for class."
Now he smiled, and he saw that she kept her eyes on him a little longer than a person does to just look at someone. Interest, maybe?
"Actually, I’m a medical resident. No more classes for me."
"Oh, really? Wish I could say that. I just started law school."
"Law school, huh? Going to become make a mint off of corporate mergers?"
"No, actually, I’m going to be a district attorney, thank you very much. What kind of doctor are you going to be?"
"Pediatrician."
"I should have known." Jarod wasn’t sure whether or not to be insulted by that remark or not, but then she smiled again, and he decided it didn’t matter. She could say anything she wanted to him.
"Well, I better get to class. It was nice running into you, but let’s not do it again, okay." She turned to go, and suddenly Jarod knew he was about to let something wonderful slip away from him.
"Wait!"
She turned and looked back at him, and for a moment, Jarod thought he saw relief in her eyes. Had she been waiting for him to say something?
"What?"
"I, uh, I mean, the least I could do after running you down is buy you dinner, don’t you think? I’m on at the hospital until Sunday morning, but we could do it that night."
"You expect me to have dinner with a man whose name I don’t even know? What kind of girl do you think I am?"
Jarod smiled wider and stepped closer to her. He was pleased when she did not back away.
"A beautiful one, and my name is Jarod."
"Well, Jarod, you can pick me up in front of the West fountain at 8:00 on Sunday."
"You don’t expect me to go out with a woman whose name I don’t even know do you? What kind of boy do you think I am?"
That got him another smile, and this time she stepped closer to him.
"Hopefully, the kind I think you are, and the name’s Parker."
This time, when she turned away, she kept walking, and Jarod watched her go. Somehow, he had the feeling his life had just changed, but he didn’t begin to know how.
Sunday night came and to his relief, she arrived at the fountain at 8:05. She was dressed in a black dress that was nearly too short to be legal, yet on her, it still looked ladylike and elegant. He took her to a French restaurant near the hospital, and after ordering, the two began to get share their stories. He found out that Parker’s parents were divorced, and that her mother had remarried and now ran an inn in Maine with her second husband. Parker never saw her father anymore, but thought of her stepfather as her own, so she didn’t seem to be missing much. He also found out that she was only 18 yet was already through with her undergraduate studies – another braniac like himself. He also discovered that she hated her first name, and therefore never used it, but she told it to him anyway, and he promised not to tell anyone what it was.
He told her all about his family, and she laughed at the stories of his silly siblings. She had a twin brother who she also never saw. His name was Robert, and he was being raised by her father, which meant she barely knew him. Jarod could sense the sadness this caused in her. Suddenly, he felt an overwhelming urge to share his happy family with her, to make her a part of it, and though they’d only spent a grand total of three and a half hours together by the end of dinner, he knew that he she would be a part of it someday.
The two of them walked together after dinner, and after a few blocks, Jarod reached over and took her hand. She did not pull away. They walked and walked and soon they were in front of his apartment building. He remembered how disappointed his mother had been when he insisted on getting a place in town once his residency started. Tonight, he had never been happier he lived alone. Parker came upstairs with him, and soon they were sitting on the couch, coffee cups in hand as they talked into the wee hours of the morning.
The sun was just coming up when she kissed him. It was a tentative kiss, somehow not like her at all, and Jarod wondered at it. He felt his whole being come alive as she kissed him, and when he responded with approval she deepened the kiss, becoming more confident. It did not bother him that she was initiating things between them, mostly because he could sense that this was unusual for her. She was, for all intents and purposes, an old-fashioned girl. She believed in true love and happy endings, and the only reason she was here with him now, he knew, was because she could sense what he did – they were each other’s happy endings.
Somehow, they finally made it to his bedroom, and in the hours that followed, Jarod and Parker made love, forging a bond that both knew nothing but death could destroy.
Four years later, they were married. The wedding was incredible. Jarod still marveled at the way she’d transformed her parents’ inn into a romantic wonderland, and at how beautiful she looked. Now joined officially, the two of them set out on their life together.
Jarod became a top-notch pediatrician, and his research on pediatric illnesses was gaining notice from leaders in the field around the world. He even received an unsolicited grant from an organization in Delaware to continue his research on genetic anomalies. Parker became an assistant district attorney for the city of Dover, and she became known as "the avenging angel" for her zealous prosecution of those who hurt children.
And then, three years into their marriage, their twins, Olivia and Eli were born.
On this afternoon, as Jarod drove home from work, his car loaded down with Christmas presents for his wife and two-year-old twins, he thought nothing in the world could make his life better. Tonight was Christmas Eve, and he had special plans for his wife – plans that would hopefully bring a new addition to their family a few months from now. Smiling, he headed on to the freeway and toward home.
Parker had taken the day off of work to finish decorating for the holidays. Jarod’s entire family was coming over, and her mom and Ben were driving down from Maine, which meant everything had to be perfect. Thankfully, the twins were cooperating and had gone down for their nap at 2:00 on the dot. Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was almost 4:00, which meant she needed to head upstairs and wake them. She was surveying her handiwork when she noticed a cool breeze coming into the living room. Seeking it out, she found the window in Jarod’s office open, and she wondered what he’d been thinking opening it -- it was freezing outside. She’d have to remember to tease him about it later.
She climbed the stairs two at a time, her spirits high. Jarod was on his way home, and after the twins went to bed tonight, he had promised her a surprise. She could only imagine it had something to do with his hints about having another baby, and though she was still not sure she was ready, there was no reason she couldn’t at least pretend she was for tonight.
Parker opened the door to the nursery and her heart stopped. There was
a man in a black suit leaning over Eli’s crib. He was clean-cut and
well dressed, but it didn’t matter, fear filled her heart."Who the hell are you, and what are you doing with my children?"
The man turned. He was good-looking, and his blue eyes seemed somehow familiar to her. A slight smile crossed his face, then his hand moved out in front of him.
Parker felt herself falling back against the wall, and it was only as she heard the cries of her babies that she began to absorb what had happened. The man had shot her. She was sinking down, her body unable to stay upright. As she made contact with the floor, she saw the man turn around with both Eli and Olivia in his arms. The babies were crying, screaming for her and reaching for her, and though she tried to reach for them, the man simply walked over her, leaving her in a pool of her own blood.
Jarod turned the last corner to his house, and cursed as a black Town Car sped past him. He hated it when people drove fast on the small cul-de-sac. You never knew when the kids might be playing outside.
He opened the garage with the remote and pulled in, quickly climbing out. He would unload his packages later.
"Hello, Daddy’s home."
He called out, but got no answer, and he wondered for a moment if Parker had decided to nap with the twins and had not yet woken up. He headed up the stairs and glanced in their bedroom. Empty.
Shrugging, he headed to the nursery. When he saw the door partially opened, he walked toward it more quickly, expecting to find his wife and children inside the room.
Instead, he found his life as he knew it ending.
Parker was trying to crawl toward the door, an enormous puddle of blood forming all around her. Jarod raced to her, pulling her into his arms as he tried to get pressure to the wound.
"It’s okay, baby. I’m here. I’m here, now." She looked up at him weakly, and he could feel air coming from her chest each time she tried to breathe. Grabbing his cell phone, he dialed 9-1-1 and quickly gave them the information they needed. Then he returned his attention to his wife.
"Parker, I’m here. Help’s on the way, baby. Just hang on."
"Babies."
"The babies are okay, they’re –" That’s when the silence dawned on Jarod. He turned around and found himself staring at two empty cribs.
"He took the babies. Find them, Jarod. Find them."
She finished speaking while his eyes remained fixed on the beds where his children, their children, should have been. Then he looked back to his wife.
Her eyes were closed and she was no longer breathing.
Frantic, his heart nearly stopped itself. He gathered her into his arms tightly, rocking her as a cry of anguish tore from his throat.
*****
Jarod jumped out of the uncomfortable hospital chair, the sound of his dream cry still ringing in his ears. Quickly, he turned to where Parker lay, still sleeping, and realized that he had indeed fallen asleep and into the worst nightmare of his life. Seeing that she was all right, he sank down into his chair again.
Always, he had imagined that life would have been so much better if the Centre had never taken him away from his family – now the nightmare had rocked that belief to its core. Yes, he might have had a life somewhat like the one in his dream, but the Centre would have still been out there, Lyle’s evil would have still been there, and it would have found him eventually – found her.
And what would he have done then? He imagined himself the broken man in his dream. That man didn’t know how to pretend. He didn’t know how to become anyone he wanted to be, needed to be in order to find his family. That man would be unable to imagine an evil as great as the Centre. And Parker? That Parker didn’t know anything about guns or self-defense or survival. She had just been a happy, sweet woman who had never imagined tragedy could find her door.
But Jarod, the real Jarod, didn’t need to imagine, he knew. He had lived it almost all of his life. Their mistake, he now realized, had been in teaching him how to pretend. They had given him the key to their own destruction, and they didn’t even realize it. Control him? Capture him? They had no idea what they’d started, and now that he did, he would finish it.
His family could wait. They were out there, and eventually, he would find them. Right now, it was time to do what even a dream could not – make the Centre disappear.
He would start by finding Lyle. He would let the Triumvirate destroy the murdering bastard, and then, he would destroy them. He had to. The dream had come for a reason – and now he understood.
He and Parker could not run away. They had to destroy that which had made them. It was their only chance to be free.
He glanced down at her again, and his hand reached out and gently stroked her cheek.
"I’ll make it a reality, Parker. I promise."
He could have stayed there forever, watching her sleep, but Jarod knew it was time to start making good on his promise. No more games. He would convince her of that when she recovered, and she would, he knew that now. They had too much to do for him to lose her.
Sometime after the sun rose, Parker’s eyes fluttered open and she quickly became aware of her surroundings. She glanced around, somehow expecting to see Jarod, but he was not there. Odd, she could have sworn he had been. Maybe it was just the dream. It had started out so wonderful. She and Jarod had never been at the Centre, and they had met anyway and had a family. Then they had come, and taken her children and killed her. She could still hear the pain in Jarod’s cry in the back of her mind.
She had to find him when she got out of here. She had to tell him that she was ready to stop fighting him and start fighting them. She saw it now. The Centre could not be wished away and it could not be survived – it had to be destroyed.
Her eyes fluttered shut and she slipped into sleep again, her mind fixed on an image of she and Jarod free from the evil that had reigned over their lives forever.
*****
No one could see the other figures in the room because they weren’t meant to be seen. Catherine glanced at Faith and Thomas, and Kyle entered the room after seeing Jarod safely to his car. The four angels looked at the sleeping woman in front of them and sighed. Finally – it had taken Parker nearly dying again and the efforts of all four to create the dream both she and Jarod had shared, but it had finally worked.
And now they both had a chance to be free.