Memories: Questions and Answers

A/N:

This story comes before Clean Slate, and that's really all you need to know. All of the Memories series comes before Clean Slate, unless I start something different, which I may. I don't think you have to read these in any particular order, but that's your choice. I'll try to provide a timeline in the near future regarding the Memories Series.

This is also a companion piece to Substitute Stalker. This story is about two school periods before it.

R&R

Pretty Please...

With a cherry... on top! ;) :D

Why is there evil in the world?

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

How do we make love stay?

I contemplated these questions over and over again, allowing them to dance about in my mind until it seemed like I could think of nothing else. The sounds of pencil on paper, the turning of pages, and the clickety-clacks of fingers on computer keys were the only things that interrupted the silence of the library. If I was to be perfectly honest, I didn't know why I felt the overwhelming need to answer these questions. Maybe it would prove me to be smarter than him? Or maybe I was only proving that I was just like him, starting to have the same staggering need to understand everything around me.

I would never admit that I was like him, though. No matter how the facts may pile against me and threaten me with cold, hard reality: I would always deny it. Just the hidden suspicion that it could be possible would be torment enough - even though some small part of me wanted that similarity as much as he did.

I buried my face in my hands, allowing my blond curls to fall onto my notebook. I was almost unable to cope with the onslaught of emotions that I kept locked away in the back of my mind - the emotions that I adamantly wouldn't face until I was tucked in my bed and ready to face them without any other distractions - So deep were the secrets I would keep.

I looked down at the notebook one more time, the questions written there bringing me back from my thoughts.

'Why is there evil in the world?' I asked myself again, resuming to rack my brain for any sort of answer.

Maybe we all have a little evil in us. I wrote neatly on the line, taking my time and distracting myself with the curly cursive "l"s. Evil to challenge ourselves with... Evil that we could possibly overcome, or will be overcome by... I continued and tapped the pad with my pencil when finished. I was thinking of Sylar, yet again, when I wrote this. If I ever showed this piece of paper to him, something I hoped I would never do, it would be as if I was admitting his words effected me more than he thought, and that I acknowledged there could be some good in him - that it was possible he was being overcome by the raging battle within him between good and evil.

I wasn't ready to admit that, not ready to forgive him for all his faults. It was hard enough trying to find reasons to forgive myself for my own faults, something I was still unable to do.

I put this theory to the back of my mind. 'Maybe evil was put on this earth to challenge the good. Maybe it's why we're here,' I thought, jotting that down too. I couldn't allow myself to think that God gave us these powers without some purpose...

Someone walked behind me and I quickly covered my 'research' with my arm, afraid someone would see. Once the coast was clear I lifted my arm once more.

'How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?' I asked myself, an amused smile gracing my lips. Only he could ask such a question, the mystery man he seems to be. One moment asking about evil, and the next about angels.

"Gabriel," I muttered wistfully, allowing the name to past my lips like a strange verbal caress. I blatantly refused to call him that to his face, never wanting to appear that close to him - always afraid of what would happen if our satanic, love-making fling turned into anything more. The name he refused to let anyone else call him, he wanted me to call him - did he want power over me? Did he want to deceive or trick me? To protect myself, I told him no. Afraid of what might happen.

It was so odd, my seemingly bipolar feelings towards him. By day I would hate him, and by night I would allow him to do unspeakable things to me. Then the routine would start all over again - me spitting out harsh, degrading words to him whenever we came in contact with each other, looking at him as if he were no more than an ant on the floor. And then at night... I would praise him, as if he were an angel.

'The archangel, Gabriel. The left hand of God... Well, I've never seen you walk on any pins.' I thought with a soft chuckle, causing a few kids at the end of the table to look at me like I was crazy. I ignored them, though, flipping my blond hair before my eyes to obstruct my view of them.

So I wrote down Maybe one, allowing the humorous image of Sylar, the psycho-serial-killer, trying to balance on a pin play before my mind's eye. I flinched, though, imagining it as less of a feat and more of a form of acupuncture.

'Who would think the indestructible girl was afraid of needles?' I thought and laughed again, causing the two freshmen down the table to pick up their books and move.

I just smiled to myself, allowing myself to doodle in the margins, almost not wanting to look at the next, and last, question on the list.

'How do we make love stay?' I finally asked myself, and stifled the wave of unrealistic fantasies from clouding my mind. Closing my eyes, I sighed.

"The real question is, how do we get it to leave us alone?" I asked no one, standing up and ripping out the page in a hurry. I didn't want to deal with this anymore, I couldn't afford to.

I didn't have the strength to.

So I tossed the note into the trash can and left in a hurry so I wouldn't be late to Lit class, not noticing the figure behind me who reached into the trash can and slipped the paper into his pocket.

. . .

"Mr Gray, what are you doing?" A student asked me and I ignored him, slipping the next clue on how to solve the mystery that was Claire's mind into my pocket. I heard her say my name, from the class room that I was currently teaching as a substitute teacher, and quickly made my way over.

An impossibly blissful feeling came over me when she whispered my given name. I wanted to ask her why she taunts me so... I wanted nothing more than to be good enough, for anyone. Especially her. I quickly rid myself of these thoughts.

'Well, it's nice to know our free periods coincide...' I thought, naughty images a particular blond cheerleader sprawled out on my desk starting to cloud my mind, and winked at the elderly librarian on the way out, sending her old heart into a frenzy.