Title: 5x8
Author: Drifting Through Black
Disclaimer: I do not own Heroes. No copyright infringment intended
Rating: T
Spoilers: Spoilers up to Episode 12, Godsend
Summary: Mohinder remembers the girl he lost
Author's Note: Just sending some love in the direction of the Eden/Mohinder pairing. Also, some love to the forgotten character - Eden (she was the best!) A little drabble, started in maths class, finished on my couch at home. Hope you enjoy, and review.
The 5x8 photo rests heavily in his palm as he stares down at it. The girl in the photo is different – her hair longer, her face softer, her eyes shadowed – but it is unmistakably the same woman he knew and— He can see it in the smallness of her face, the fullness of her lips and in those large, doe-like brown eyes that seemed to stare through him whenever their gazes met. It is Eden – or Sarah Ellis.
In disgust, he throws the photo away from him and watches in weird fascination as it flutters to the ground, falling face down next to his desk leg. He makes no move to right it, liking it better this way, as he sits himself down in his chair. She's where she should be – down and dusted on the floor. Just another memory to suppress in the back of his mind. Forgotten.
He attempts to work, staring at the computer screen intently. But he can't make heads or tails of the words flashing before him and his gaze keeps flittering down to the photo on the floor, unconsciously even, where he has to force himself to remove it, only to have it return once more a few minutes later.
Sighing, he leans down and picks up the pocket sized photo. He places it on his desk, right way up this time, hoping having it near him will cease his curiosity. But as he sits and attempts to work once more, his eyes are again and again brought to the girl staring up at him. Even though it is just a photo, it is just the same as always. She can see through him, her stare punctuating his heart.
Giving up his work, he gives his full attention to the girl in the photo. His eyes lock with hers – so different yet so completely the same – and it is as if she is here with him in the room. Their intensity and connection is palpable. Except she's not here, she's just a photo, a ghost of her previous self.
He can finally admit it to himself. This emotion coursing through him that he's been trying to ignore and deny for so long. He had known it when he felt such remorse for leaving her to return to India, he had known it when he had felt such bliss when their lips locked that one time, he had known it when his heart jumped when he heard her voice for the last time and he had known it when he felt his heart tear in two when the officer delivered his message. He loved her.
This new revelation doesn't make him feel relived; it doesn't lift a weight from his chest. If anything, it makes it heavier. Because now he can see all the possibilities, all the maybe's and could be's. Everything that will never happen now that she's…dead. He knows that he should forget about her and move on, but it's not in his nature to be so flippant. When he finds something – really finds something special to him – he latches on with all his might. And now, he's lost the two most precious things in his life. His father and his friend.
The news of her death had shocked him to the core. The news of her betrayal had shaken him, yes, but he remembered their last phone call – as he will always. She'd had something to confess to him, and he took hope that this would have been it. Why she had lied to him, why she had betrayed him. She was going to tell him, but her life had been cut short before she could.
Something else from their conversation stuck with him as well and after careful analysis, he knows what's happened to her. It wasn't a suicide attempt, he knows that at least. She was going to kill Sylar – to get revenge for killing his father – and she had been killed instead.
He should have stopped her.
With the weight of his knowledge resting heavily on him, he sits back at his computer and resumes his work, staring at the screen like a robot, dutifully continuing in his father's work.
He's going to continue what would make both of them proud.