Alternative ending to Heroes (2x23), will contain spoilers for said episode. Sensitive to spoilers? You know where the back button is.
Characters, inspirational plotline and show do not belong to me. Lyrics don't, either. With thanks to delga for the beta.
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Borrowed Angel
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They shine a little brighter, they feel a little more,
They touch your life in ways no one has ever done before;
They love a little stronger, they live to give their best,
They make our lives so blessed, so why do they go so soon?
The ones with souls so beautiful
I heard someone say--There must be borrowed angels, here in this life,
They come along into this world, and make this world bright
But they can't stay forever 'cause they're heaven sent
And sometimes heaven needs them back again.
-- borrowed angels; kristin chenoweth
i.
There's a photograph of the two of them on his coffee table when he arrives home and he smashes it against the wall angrily. He watches with a sense of satisfaction as the glass frame shatters and the shards fall to the floor, and then he wipes everything else (yesterday's newspaper; two empty beer bottles; a half-full coffee mug; an empty cookie wrapper) off the table too, throwing the table halfway across the room before sliding down the wall and sitting defeated in the corner, sobbing silently.
ii.
All she feels like doing when she closes her apartment door is kicking the furniture over in rage, punching holes in the walls with her fists and tearing paintings off the walls and hurling them through windows.
But she doesn't. She walks through to the bathroom, trembling with silent rage. She waits until the water is hot enough to scald her skin before she steps in, turning the water up loud enough to drown out her sobbing.
iii.
He doesn't go home that night; he sits in his office with the photograph on his desk, staring at it and out into space. He sits there long after his shift leaves, as the night shift arrives, as people poke their heads through the door and ask if he's okay. He nods absently, he doesn't register their presence and he doesn't want to; in some part of his mind he wonders – he hopes – he's dreaming, lying at a funny angle in his chair in his living room, his neck bent to the side, and he'll wake up soon and his neck will hurt for the rest of the day.
But he knows he's not dreaming.
iv.
She sits on her sofa, idly pulling at a loose thread on the cushion she clutches to her chest. The television is on but she's not watching - it's only infomercials, the real shows have finished for the night. It's raining now and the droplets on the glass distort her view of the lights across the city. The lights are intrusive, she thinks; she's high enough to have a reasonable view but not so high that large vehicles with bright headlights don't disturb her. Still, she can't find the energy within herself to stand and close the curtains.
v.
He doesn't know what to do with himself. He cleans his already spotless apartment. He orders his already alphabetically ordered bookshelves and DVD collection. He showers, and then cleans the bathroom. There's nothing left to clean, but he cleans it all again anyway, a futile attempt to scrub away the vision of her face appearing on the digital reconstruction.
vi.
His apartment is the last place he wants to be. He walks right past the building without a second thought. He doesn't know where he's going, doesn't think he wants to know; if he was thinking, he'd probably be doing something stupid. It's beginning to rain but he continues walking, he walks as far as he can without leaving Manhattan: the river. He looks across it, the Brooklyn skyline; he swears he can see the buildings forming her name.
(they can't stay forever 'cause they're heaven sent, and sometimes heaven needs them back again)