Five Ways Miss Parker & Jarod Didn't Meet (Pretender fic, 3/6)
Go here for Part 1, disclaimers, acknowledgments, summary. Part 2 is here.
3. Stockholm is for Suckers
"Let. Me. Out!”
"Not until after your father calls back." Jarod didn’t look away from the bank of computer and television screens in front of him. Nothing on CNN. Nothing on MSN. And nothing on FOX news. Good. The Centre was keeping their side of the bargain. So far. “And delivers the ransom.”
"I'm killing you after that!"
“Which isn’t motivation to let you out of there,” he told the bathroom door.
“This is against the Geneva Convention! I want cigarettes!”
“Don’t talk to me about the Geneva Convention. The Centre hasn’t abided by any standard of international human rights law for over thirty years. And you’re not getting any cigarettes. You smell better without them.” Jarod paused, then hastily added, “Not that I noticed what you smelled like.”
Stunned silence from the other side of the door. “What?” Another in a long series of kicks and bangs aimed at the luxurious bathroom suite cabinets and fixtures. “Has anyone told you how weird you are?”
“Constantly, since I got out of the Centre. One more thing to thank you people for.”
“Spare. Me. I didn’t kidnap you! I didn’t do anything to you! I’m a year younger than you are and I’m not responsible for your life!”
“Well, you’d know better than I would, since you actually have a copy of your birth certificate. Forgive me if I just want a copy of mine.”
“How the hell long are you planning on keeping me?” Miss Parker’s voice moved closer to the door. “Or did you just bring a suitcase full of my clothes and toiletries for the fun of it?”
"I wanted you to be comfortable." Jarod frowned at the bathroom door. “Just because I’m holding you hostage is no reason to be inhumane.”
“If you weren’t being inhumane, you would give me my cigarettes.”
“Why would I do that? After forty-eight hours, the carbon monoxide in your bloodstream will have already cleared. In two weeks-“
“Two weeks!”
“-the nicotine cravings should be entirely gone. Giving you cigarettes when your addiction is on the way to being broken already would be much crueler in the long term than satisfying your temporary desire for a drug that’s damaging your health.”
“I’ll damage your health, if you don’t let me out of here! I’m going to strangle you the first chance I get!”
“You’re very tall, but I’m taller. You’ll never get the proper leverage.”
“Aaaaah!” And more kicks.
Jarod returned to scanning the internet for any sign of Centre activity, and monitoring the various camera feeds he’d planted around his hideout. It was highly unlikely that they’d figure out where he’d chosen to hide himself and his prisoner, but there was no reason to get cocky and miss an external threat. He sent a wary glance at the bathroom door again. The handcuffs and the bolted-down fixtures should have kept Miss Parker from becoming an internal threat.
Although now she was being far too quiet. There were sounds of her moving around, but the temper tantrum seemed to have abated. Jarod checked his watch. The drug he’d used on her had worn off an hour ago; she should be getting hungry. And better to get the first confrontation over with than have to go through the risk of an attack every time he opened the door.
“I’m going to bring in your lunch. I have a gun,” he warned her. Never mind that he wasn’t going to use it; she was Centre-trained, and would back off, looking for an opening when she wasn’t directly threatened. “Let me hear you move away from the door.”
Footsteps moved away, then a harsh, “Fine.”
Jarod unlocked the door, turned the knob, then kicked it open, intending to catch her in the face if she was too close, or simply intimidate her into backing up if she was further away.
Instead, Miss Parker’s mesh suitcase came sailing at him, knocking the tray out of his hands and the gun to the ground. “What the-“
She barreled into him, knocking him into the door frame as she swung the small toiletries case at his head, striking a glancing blow to his temple, then kicking the gun out into the hallway. He fell back, briefly stunned, then stuck out a leg to trip her as she rushed past him. She slammed to the ground, already turning over to aim a painful kick to his groin that barely missed connecting with somewhere very sensitive, and then crawled after the gun, whirling to aim it at him from her knees, a snarl forming across her face.
Winded, Jarod stared at her, and folded his arms across his chest as he leaned against the sink. “You shoot me, and-“
Miss Parker pulled the trigger. Twice. And then glared at the Sig as it failed to fire, before getting to her feet to run for the doors.
"You'll find I didn't load the gun. Listen to me!"
“Go to hell!” she called over her shoulder. He could hear her rattling the doors, trying to get out, and he carefully stepped over the tray and spilled food to follow her as she rushed through the apartment.
“I’ve locked the doors with coded electronic locks. The windows are likewise locked, and we’re on the fifteenth floor.” Jarod followed her out to the main atrium, watching her stalk from one section of the connected series of rooms in the apartment suite to the other. Something else occurred to him. “How did you get out of the handcuffs?”
Miss Parker stormed back through the sunken living room, glaring at him with the force of an acetylene torch. “Dislocated my thumb.” She picked up a lamp two-handed and threw it at him, and he ducked away as it crashed into the wall next to him.
“Impressive,” he called from the kitchen. “Look, I’m not going to hurt you-“
“Let me out of here!” She came in brandishing a chair from the dining room, raising it over her head to try and hit him with it. He managed to catch it by the legs, and wrench it out of her grasp, keeping it in front of him like a lion tamer, holding her off as she snarled. “You can’t keep me here indefinitely!”
“No! I want my birth certificate, and my family! And your father is one of the only people who know where they are!” Thank God he hadn’t brought any knives or sharp objects with him. She was deadly enough with blunt instruments. “You’re staying here until he gets me the information I want!”
“He’ll never give you what you want! Parkers don’t make deals with kidnappers or terrorists!” Miss Parker shoved at the chair, and then cursed, holding her left hand. “God damnit.”
“How’s your thumb?”
“Screw you!”
“Not under these circumstances I’m not.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Yeah, he was definitely going to have to watch every word around her. “Look.” He lowered his voice, calling on every bit of experience with hostage negotiation and crisis training he had. He’d expected some resistance, but this was going farther than he’d anticipated. “You’re hurt, you’re being held prisoner, you’ve got to be hungry by now-“
“And all of that’s your fault!” Another strike at him as she tried to get around the chair, and he backed up a step.
“Can we call a truce for fifteen minutes? Just fifteen. Enough time to set your thumb, get you fed, and then I can put you back in the bathroom where you won’t have to look at me.”
She sneered at him, but took a step backward. “A conscientious kidnapper? Are you for real? Why the hell should I do anything to make this easier on you?” Jarod didn’t say anything, just kept the chair up, watching her, waiting for her own pain and frustration to do the work for him. With another growl, she stomped over to the dining room and sat down on one of the chairs, cradling her hand. “Fine. Fine, you asshole. But the second that fifteen minutes are up, it’s on again.”
Jarod rolled his eyes, and put the chair down, then retrieved the first aid kit from the living room, taking it over to the table and staying just out of her reach. He kept his voice mild as he rummaged for a small metal splint and bandages. “Throwing your suitcase at me wasn’t the smartest thing you could have done, Miss Parker. I’m just going to take it away, and leave the clothes with you. But I know you're working with limited resources. Although in your position, I would've used the lid to the toilet tank."
She gave him a venomous look, holding out her hand, watching him. He didn’t for a second think the truce would last if she saw an opening. Strange to respect her more for that, rather than less. "I couldn't lift it with my thumb dislocated."
"Ah."
She clearly didn’t like his tone. "Shut. Up."
He decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and carefully turned over her hand. “It’s swelling. This is going to hurt almost as much as dislocating it did.”
She set her jaw, keeping her eyes on him instead of on her thumb, and only gave a small grunt as he manipulated the joint back into its socket. Didn’t say a word as he wrapped it, just stared at his face. Her fury seemed to be dying down, and her voice was almost mild as she said, “You’re very good at that.”
“Thank you.”
Miss Parker studied the bandage, and turned her hand in his fingers, fingertips brushing over his palm, then grudgingly asked, “Aspirin?”
“I’ve got Tylenol.” A single poisonous glance and a curt nod. Less unnerving than her touch was. He was going to have to watch that, too. He fetched a plastic tumbler of water, and handed over two Tylenol, watching her drink before taking the cup back. “I wouldn’t expect you to eat the food now on the floor of the bathroom. But you’re only getting a single second serving. Do that again, and you’ll go without food.”
“My name is not Kate, and you are not Petruchio.” Miss Parker’s tone was cold. “And you have only five more minutes of this truce.”
“Who?” Jarod asked as he backed away, retrieved an apple and a can of soda from the fridge, handing them over to her before re-fastening the handcuffs.
Her hiss of anger was accompanied by another kick, but hunger won out over fighting him as she bit into the fruit. She continued to glare at him for the next several minutes as she ate her apple, before finally saying, “Look it up. What, Sydney didn’t train you in the classics?”
“Some of them. I must have missed that one. Like so much else.”
“Cry me a river, Don Quixote.”
“Now, Cervantes, I rather enjoyed. Inspirational,” he said, reaching over to pull her to her feet by a grip on the cuffs. “When tilting at windmills, and giants, it’s best to avoid a frontal attack.”
"My favorite kind," Miss Parker purred, then jerked her head forward, trying to slam her forehead into his nose. She was off-balance enough to only hit his chin, and Jarod cursed, biting his tongue and tasting blood. She shoved at his chest, and he managed to regain his grip and pull her arms up and over her head, dodging more kicks, and then pulled her up high enough that she had to stand on her tiptoes, almost dangling from his grasp.
“Enough!” he yelled into her face. “You can’t fight me every minute you’re here!”
“Watch me.” Almost spitting defiance in his face, still twisting and turning and trying to get away. He’d thought she’d be a much more typical Centre employee, her father’s perfect ‘angel’, as Mr. Parker often referred to her. The reality wasn’t even close. He had to wonder how she would have done as a kidnapped four-year-old. Would she have protested longer? Or would she have given in like he had, and started to sympathize with Sydney, and wanted to comply? Somehow, he couldn’t picture it.
Okay. That was a completely counter-productive train of thought, and not one that he was comfortable making comparisons over. Time to end this confrontation, now. Jarod grabbed the soda, and hauled her forward and off-balance by her hands, kicking and wriggling through half the apartment back toward the bathroom.
Halfway there, Miss Parker sat down on the marble floor and refused to move. “I am not going back in there! You are not going to get me to cooperate with you for one more minute!”
“Fine, if that’s what you want.”
A fireman’s carry was much, much more difficult if your ‘rescuee’ was fighting you, he found out. But he still managed to haul her back to the bathroom and dump her into the sunken tub before throwing the can of soda in with her. She was still struggling to get out when he shut the door.
“I hate you!”
Wiping the blood off his lip, he muttered, “Surprise, surprise.” He raised his voice. “If you don’t attack me again, I might get you a nicotine patch.”
“Ahhhhh!”
He crossed to the computer, and punched Kate and Petruchio into a search engine. Then sat there laughing helplessly for ten minutes, already exhausted, as Miss Parker demanded to know what was so funny through the bathroom door.
1. Meet Cute
2. Tommy Girl
3. Stockholm is for Suckers
4. Prisoner's Dilemma, Extended Dance Remix
5. White Leopard Habitat
6. Unique Snowflakes
3. Stockholm is for Suckers
"Let. Me. Out!”
"Not until after your father calls back." Jarod didn’t look away from the bank of computer and television screens in front of him. Nothing on CNN. Nothing on MSN. And nothing on FOX news. Good. The Centre was keeping their side of the bargain. So far. “And delivers the ransom.”
"I'm killing you after that!"
“Which isn’t motivation to let you out of there,” he told the bathroom door.
“This is against the Geneva Convention! I want cigarettes!”
“Don’t talk to me about the Geneva Convention. The Centre hasn’t abided by any standard of international human rights law for over thirty years. And you’re not getting any cigarettes. You smell better without them.” Jarod paused, then hastily added, “Not that I noticed what you smelled like.”
Stunned silence from the other side of the door. “What?” Another in a long series of kicks and bangs aimed at the luxurious bathroom suite cabinets and fixtures. “Has anyone told you how weird you are?”
“Constantly, since I got out of the Centre. One more thing to thank you people for.”
“Spare. Me. I didn’t kidnap you! I didn’t do anything to you! I’m a year younger than you are and I’m not responsible for your life!”
“Well, you’d know better than I would, since you actually have a copy of your birth certificate. Forgive me if I just want a copy of mine.”
“How the hell long are you planning on keeping me?” Miss Parker’s voice moved closer to the door. “Or did you just bring a suitcase full of my clothes and toiletries for the fun of it?”
"I wanted you to be comfortable." Jarod frowned at the bathroom door. “Just because I’m holding you hostage is no reason to be inhumane.”
“If you weren’t being inhumane, you would give me my cigarettes.”
“Why would I do that? After forty-eight hours, the carbon monoxide in your bloodstream will have already cleared. In two weeks-“
“Two weeks!”
“-the nicotine cravings should be entirely gone. Giving you cigarettes when your addiction is on the way to being broken already would be much crueler in the long term than satisfying your temporary desire for a drug that’s damaging your health.”
“I’ll damage your health, if you don’t let me out of here! I’m going to strangle you the first chance I get!”
“You’re very tall, but I’m taller. You’ll never get the proper leverage.”
“Aaaaah!” And more kicks.
Jarod returned to scanning the internet for any sign of Centre activity, and monitoring the various camera feeds he’d planted around his hideout. It was highly unlikely that they’d figure out where he’d chosen to hide himself and his prisoner, but there was no reason to get cocky and miss an external threat. He sent a wary glance at the bathroom door again. The handcuffs and the bolted-down fixtures should have kept Miss Parker from becoming an internal threat.
Although now she was being far too quiet. There were sounds of her moving around, but the temper tantrum seemed to have abated. Jarod checked his watch. The drug he’d used on her had worn off an hour ago; she should be getting hungry. And better to get the first confrontation over with than have to go through the risk of an attack every time he opened the door.
“I’m going to bring in your lunch. I have a gun,” he warned her. Never mind that he wasn’t going to use it; she was Centre-trained, and would back off, looking for an opening when she wasn’t directly threatened. “Let me hear you move away from the door.”
Footsteps moved away, then a harsh, “Fine.”
Jarod unlocked the door, turned the knob, then kicked it open, intending to catch her in the face if she was too close, or simply intimidate her into backing up if she was further away.
Instead, Miss Parker’s mesh suitcase came sailing at him, knocking the tray out of his hands and the gun to the ground. “What the-“
She barreled into him, knocking him into the door frame as she swung the small toiletries case at his head, striking a glancing blow to his temple, then kicking the gun out into the hallway. He fell back, briefly stunned, then stuck out a leg to trip her as she rushed past him. She slammed to the ground, already turning over to aim a painful kick to his groin that barely missed connecting with somewhere very sensitive, and then crawled after the gun, whirling to aim it at him from her knees, a snarl forming across her face.
Winded, Jarod stared at her, and folded his arms across his chest as he leaned against the sink. “You shoot me, and-“
Miss Parker pulled the trigger. Twice. And then glared at the Sig as it failed to fire, before getting to her feet to run for the doors.
"You'll find I didn't load the gun. Listen to me!"
“Go to hell!” she called over her shoulder. He could hear her rattling the doors, trying to get out, and he carefully stepped over the tray and spilled food to follow her as she rushed through the apartment.
“I’ve locked the doors with coded electronic locks. The windows are likewise locked, and we’re on the fifteenth floor.” Jarod followed her out to the main atrium, watching her stalk from one section of the connected series of rooms in the apartment suite to the other. Something else occurred to him. “How did you get out of the handcuffs?”
Miss Parker stormed back through the sunken living room, glaring at him with the force of an acetylene torch. “Dislocated my thumb.” She picked up a lamp two-handed and threw it at him, and he ducked away as it crashed into the wall next to him.
“Impressive,” he called from the kitchen. “Look, I’m not going to hurt you-“
“Let me out of here!” She came in brandishing a chair from the dining room, raising it over her head to try and hit him with it. He managed to catch it by the legs, and wrench it out of her grasp, keeping it in front of him like a lion tamer, holding her off as she snarled. “You can’t keep me here indefinitely!”
“No! I want my birth certificate, and my family! And your father is one of the only people who know where they are!” Thank God he hadn’t brought any knives or sharp objects with him. She was deadly enough with blunt instruments. “You’re staying here until he gets me the information I want!”
“He’ll never give you what you want! Parkers don’t make deals with kidnappers or terrorists!” Miss Parker shoved at the chair, and then cursed, holding her left hand. “God damnit.”
“How’s your thumb?”
“Screw you!”
“Not under these circumstances I’m not.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Yeah, he was definitely going to have to watch every word around her. “Look.” He lowered his voice, calling on every bit of experience with hostage negotiation and crisis training he had. He’d expected some resistance, but this was going farther than he’d anticipated. “You’re hurt, you’re being held prisoner, you’ve got to be hungry by now-“
“And all of that’s your fault!” Another strike at him as she tried to get around the chair, and he backed up a step.
“Can we call a truce for fifteen minutes? Just fifteen. Enough time to set your thumb, get you fed, and then I can put you back in the bathroom where you won’t have to look at me.”
She sneered at him, but took a step backward. “A conscientious kidnapper? Are you for real? Why the hell should I do anything to make this easier on you?” Jarod didn’t say anything, just kept the chair up, watching her, waiting for her own pain and frustration to do the work for him. With another growl, she stomped over to the dining room and sat down on one of the chairs, cradling her hand. “Fine. Fine, you asshole. But the second that fifteen minutes are up, it’s on again.”
Jarod rolled his eyes, and put the chair down, then retrieved the first aid kit from the living room, taking it over to the table and staying just out of her reach. He kept his voice mild as he rummaged for a small metal splint and bandages. “Throwing your suitcase at me wasn’t the smartest thing you could have done, Miss Parker. I’m just going to take it away, and leave the clothes with you. But I know you're working with limited resources. Although in your position, I would've used the lid to the toilet tank."
She gave him a venomous look, holding out her hand, watching him. He didn’t for a second think the truce would last if she saw an opening. Strange to respect her more for that, rather than less. "I couldn't lift it with my thumb dislocated."
"Ah."
She clearly didn’t like his tone. "Shut. Up."
He decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and carefully turned over her hand. “It’s swelling. This is going to hurt almost as much as dislocating it did.”
She set her jaw, keeping her eyes on him instead of on her thumb, and only gave a small grunt as he manipulated the joint back into its socket. Didn’t say a word as he wrapped it, just stared at his face. Her fury seemed to be dying down, and her voice was almost mild as she said, “You’re very good at that.”
“Thank you.”
Miss Parker studied the bandage, and turned her hand in his fingers, fingertips brushing over his palm, then grudgingly asked, “Aspirin?”
“I’ve got Tylenol.” A single poisonous glance and a curt nod. Less unnerving than her touch was. He was going to have to watch that, too. He fetched a plastic tumbler of water, and handed over two Tylenol, watching her drink before taking the cup back. “I wouldn’t expect you to eat the food now on the floor of the bathroom. But you’re only getting a single second serving. Do that again, and you’ll go without food.”
“My name is not Kate, and you are not Petruchio.” Miss Parker’s tone was cold. “And you have only five more minutes of this truce.”
“Who?” Jarod asked as he backed away, retrieved an apple and a can of soda from the fridge, handing them over to her before re-fastening the handcuffs.
Her hiss of anger was accompanied by another kick, but hunger won out over fighting him as she bit into the fruit. She continued to glare at him for the next several minutes as she ate her apple, before finally saying, “Look it up. What, Sydney didn’t train you in the classics?”
“Some of them. I must have missed that one. Like so much else.”
“Cry me a river, Don Quixote.”
“Now, Cervantes, I rather enjoyed. Inspirational,” he said, reaching over to pull her to her feet by a grip on the cuffs. “When tilting at windmills, and giants, it’s best to avoid a frontal attack.”
"My favorite kind," Miss Parker purred, then jerked her head forward, trying to slam her forehead into his nose. She was off-balance enough to only hit his chin, and Jarod cursed, biting his tongue and tasting blood. She shoved at his chest, and he managed to regain his grip and pull her arms up and over her head, dodging more kicks, and then pulled her up high enough that she had to stand on her tiptoes, almost dangling from his grasp.
“Enough!” he yelled into her face. “You can’t fight me every minute you’re here!”
“Watch me.” Almost spitting defiance in his face, still twisting and turning and trying to get away. He’d thought she’d be a much more typical Centre employee, her father’s perfect ‘angel’, as Mr. Parker often referred to her. The reality wasn’t even close. He had to wonder how she would have done as a kidnapped four-year-old. Would she have protested longer? Or would she have given in like he had, and started to sympathize with Sydney, and wanted to comply? Somehow, he couldn’t picture it.
Okay. That was a completely counter-productive train of thought, and not one that he was comfortable making comparisons over. Time to end this confrontation, now. Jarod grabbed the soda, and hauled her forward and off-balance by her hands, kicking and wriggling through half the apartment back toward the bathroom.
Halfway there, Miss Parker sat down on the marble floor and refused to move. “I am not going back in there! You are not going to get me to cooperate with you for one more minute!”
“Fine, if that’s what you want.”
A fireman’s carry was much, much more difficult if your ‘rescuee’ was fighting you, he found out. But he still managed to haul her back to the bathroom and dump her into the sunken tub before throwing the can of soda in with her. She was still struggling to get out when he shut the door.
“I hate you!”
Wiping the blood off his lip, he muttered, “Surprise, surprise.” He raised his voice. “If you don’t attack me again, I might get you a nicotine patch.”
“Ahhhhh!”
He crossed to the computer, and punched Kate and Petruchio into a search engine. Then sat there laughing helplessly for ten minutes, already exhausted, as Miss Parker demanded to know what was so funny through the bathroom door.
1. Meet Cute
2. Tommy Girl
3. Stockholm is for Suckers
4. Prisoner's Dilemma, Extended Dance Remix
5. White Leopard Habitat
6. Unique Snowflakes