TITLE: Innocence Lost

AUTHOR: Aimee

FANDOM: The Pretender

RATING: I don't know. All that happens is that Miss Parker and Jarod have a little chat -- but the discussion covers some pretty heavy topics . . . PG, I guess.

PAIRING: Jarod/Damon, although there's some J/MP UST, too.

SUMMARY: After the events of "Betrayal," Jarod and Miss Parker have a talk. They discuss many things, including life, love, innocence, and death. But mostly they talk about murder.

DISCLAIMER: Jarod, Miss Parker, and all things Pretender-related belong to Mitchell/Van Sickle Productions, NBC, and so on. By writing this story, I am rather blatantly infringing on their copyright; however, I don't really care.

SPOILERS: Major ones for "Betrayal." There's also some for...uh, which ep did that happen in..."A Stand-Up Guy," I think it was. Anyway, you really need to have seen "Betrayal" for this story to make any sense.

WARNING: Although not immediately apparent as such, this is a slash story (if a story in which the only two characters are of the opposite sex can be considered slash, that is). Make of that what you will.

FEEDBACK may be sent to aimee_2@hotmail.com

ARCHIVING INFO: You may have it if you want it. All I require is that you let me know first.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I wrote this after watching the episode "Betrayal." Sydney's words to Jarod over the phone in the last few minutes seemed completely inadequate to me -- Jarod's on the verge of breaking into tears, and Sydney gives him a pseudo-clinical analysis of the situation. Yeah, Syd, tell him something he *doesn't* know, okay? So I wrote a follow-up piece, and I let Miss Parker be a little more helpful.

"Nice night, Jarod," she said as she sat on the park bench next to him. "What'd you do, forget your umbrella? Or don't geniuses like you know enough to come in out of the rain?"

"Miss Parker," he said dully. The verbal acknowledgment was the only one he gave her; otherwise, he ignored her, not even turning his head to look at her. "How did you find me?"

"It wasn't hard. You're usually much better at covering your tracks, you know."

He snorted. "I guess I was a little . . . distracted."

"Yeah, I guess so."

A moment of silence stretched between them as Jarod paused to listen to the sound of the rain hitting the earth, soothing in its rhythmic steadiness. "Are you going to bring me in?" he finally asked, mainly for form's sake, because he knew she'd be expecting him to ask. But somehow he couldn't bring himself to care much about the answer.

"Why, do you want to go?" Parker retorted automatically, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Maybe, he thought. Maybe I do. Life was simpler back at the Centre: follow orders; don't worry about ethics, consequences, morality, or saving the world. Just do what you're told, and Sydney will take care of everything else. Back at the Centre, he could rest. He wouldn't have to think. Wouldn't have to take responsibility. For anything.

"No," Miss Parker said softly, and something in her voice caused Jarod to raise his eyes from the origami bird he'd been twirling restlessly in his fingers and look instead at her face. "I think...the Centre is the last place you should be right now."

He looked away again, uncomfortable with the understanding he saw reflected in her eyes.

"I keep thinking," he said to the paper swan. "That I've nev--" He had to clear his throat before he could continue. "One thought keeps running through my mind, over and over. I can't seem to make it stop. I keep thinking that I've never killed any one before. And that's -- that's just not *true*!" His voice rose sharply. "I've killed *hundreds* of people before. The driver shot in front of the courthouse, the people in that airplane that crashed, or in the consulate that collapse d.... Everyone who died as a result of one of my sims, *I* killed. I just never did it in person before."

He blinked in surprise at the wad of paper in his hands; he'd crushed the bird into a crumbled-up ball without even realizing it. Slowly, deliberately, he uncurled his fingers, opened his fist, and began to straighten out the paper, smoothing the wrinkles flat. "So why does this time feel so different?" This question was so soft he could barely hear himself ask it.

"I remember," said Miss Parker, and her voice sounded very far away. "When I thought I had killed Lyle. It was self-defense, pure and simple. He'd pulled a gun on me. He tried to shoot; I just beat him to it." Her hands twitched slightly, as if searching for a cigarette, until she caught herself and held them still. "It hurt me to do it." It sounded like it was hurting her now to admit it. Jarod hurt for her, listening to it, even as part of him couldn't quite believe it -- Miss Parker, acknowledging weakness? Exposing vulnerability? Impossible! She'd die first.

But, contrary to all his expectations, she took a deep breath and continued. "Not at the time, or immediately afterward. Then I just felt -- glad to be alive. Jittery, on edge from the adrenaline rush. And numb. Mostly numb. But I couldn't sleep that night."

"He was a dangerous man," Jarod said. "An evil man. A killer."

"Yes. And I'd just found out I was too."

He shook his head in denial. "No. It was self-defense."

"Yes. But that doesn't change the fact that I killed him."

Jarod stood up abruptly and began to pace. "But you *didn't* kill him. He's still alive!"

"I know that now," she said, uncharacteristically patient. "But I *thought* I had killed him back then. And I -- grieved -- as if I had."

He stopped pacing as suddenly as he had started. "Grieved? For Mr. *Lyle*?"

"No. For myself. For being the kind of person who could kill. For losing the last bit of...of, I don't know, *innocence*, that I ever had."

"Oh," he said.

"Jarod," she added carefully. "You *do* know that you had to do it, don't you?"

"No!" he exploded. "No, I don't know that! I don't *know* that!"

"You saved Broots' life."

"There could have been another way. I didn't have to *kill* him. There might have been another way, but I was too angry to see it. I couldn't *see* it."

"You couldn't see it because there was no other way! Even if you could have saved Broots -- Damon was a murderer, through and through. A stone-cold killer. While he lived, he would have kept on killing, and killing, and killing. The *only* way to stop him was to kill *him*."

"But I didn't kill him to stop him! I killed him because I *wanted him dead*!" The words rang throughout the small park, echoing oddly in Jarod's ears. "I wanted him to pay," he said much more softly, and sobbed.

Suddenly, Miss Parker was touching him, standing right behind him, leaning against his back, her hands resting on his shoulders: the closest thing to an embrace that she was able to offer, that he was willing to accept.

They stood like that for a while, while he struggled to regain his self-control. Her hair was wet; a hank of it flopped forward into his face, sticking clammily to his skin. It smelled nice, though, clean and faintly tropical, like fresh rainwater an d orange blossoms.

"I was such an idiot," he said. "I trusted him. He was nice to me; he tried to help me. He understood what it was like, living the way I did. He looked at me and saw *me*, not some performing monkey or lab rat. Or I thought he did. And he was beau...." His voice faltered. "He was so beautiful."

"You had a crush on him!" Miss Parker breathed. She sounded both startled and enlightened.

"A . . . crush?"

"Umm . . . it's a slang term; it means you were infatuated with him."

"Infatuated, yes . . . I even managed to convince myself that I loved him." He barked a short laugh, but wasn't even faintly amused. "Well, what did I know." He sounded full of bitterness and self-loathing, even to himself. "He figured it out, of course. And he used it against me, just like he used my longing for a friend against me. One night, he came to my room. He said he managed to convince them to turn the cameras off. He sedu--" His throat closed up suddenly; he couldn't say it.

"Oh, Jarod," Miss Parker whispered, her hold on his shoulders tightening painfully, her fingernails digging into his muscle. "Oh my god, Jarod."

"I never told anyone that before," he said, sounding faintly bemused. "And -- I think he was telling the truth when he said he had the security cameras shut off. He wouldn't have wanted anyone to see him do...what we did. I think it disgusted him." He laughed his harsh, humorless laugh again. "That's our Damon, the consummate professional, willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done, no matter how dirty or distasteful."

"Jarod...."

"So, you see, when I pulled that trigger . . . when I pulled that trigger--"

"Jarod, listen to me! He betrayed you, on so many different levels. You were angry, and hurt, and maybe you even hated him. But you *are not like him*. What you did was *not* murder. You saved Broots' life and you stopped a killer that no court in the world would be able to convict. You wanted revenge, yes. But if that had been the only reason, you would never have pulled that trigger. You did what you had to do. Don't *ever* let yourself think otherwise."

"But--" he said faintly.

Parker cut him off. "Your desire for revenge is irrelevant."

"What?!"

"It doesn't matter. Even if you had never met him before, you would still have had to do *exactly* the same thing."

He let out a shaky breath. "I believe you," he said wonderingly. "I believe you."

She patted his back. "Good."

He turned around. "But . . . I still killed him."

"Jarod," she asked in surprise when she got a good look at his face. "Are you *crying*?"

He raised a hand to his cheek. It came away wet, but that was from the rain, he thought. "No." He heaved a sigh, which quickly mutated into a sob. "...yes."

She touched his face, the gentleness of her caress at odds with the harshness of her words. "That psychopathic bastard isn't worth a second thought. He deserved what he got. Don't cry for him, for God's sake."

"I'm not. I'm crying for myself."

"Oh," she said, and stood guard over him as he sat on the wet, muddy ground and wept for the person he used to be.

THE END