Title: Francesca and Paolo (1/1)
Author: Paula
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Canon-incest
Spoilers: None
Summary: The Hatian's reaction to Peter and Claire
A/N: This was just a niggling plot bunny that demanded to be written. No idea where this idea came from. Been awhile since I've written any fan fiction, and this is my first "Heroes" fic. Feedback is like chocolate. Enjoy!
He knows that his talent is imperfect, knows that he can only block half the truth: the memories are fixable - they can be removed - but the feelings that create them are steadfast and impenetrable, even for someone with a power as great as his.
He's never told anyone - how could he, he talks to no one - but he relives each memory he extracts, sees it playing in front of him on 8 mm film.
The first time he corners her, she's washing the dishes, a faint smile touching her lips and the glow of love fulfilled in her green eyes. He comes up behind her, touches her forehead, watches her freeze up in surprise, then terror, and then the blank canvass of the ignorant. He feels temporarily guilty as the glow leaves those green eyes, replaced once again with a guarded shadow, hiding the immoral feelings that he can do nothing to change.
The picture that plays in his head is hardly child-friendly, but the kisses and caresses that she and her lover give to each other are examples of true compassion. Momentarily, he is mesmerized, watching the memories he has stolen from her play out in front of him as the lover's glow slowly fades from her eyes. He can see tenderness and love in each touch, in each whispered moan, in the frenzied movements they share. She is beautiful like this, unleashed in what can only be melodramatically described as the throes of passion, and he finds himself simultaneously aroused and shamed to be a witness to this very private moment of a secret love.
He feels like a voyeur. He is a voyeur - the Voyeur - and she is Francesca and the boy with the dark hair and pale skin is her Paolo.
Labeling them in terms from his Catholic upbringing helps him to categorize, helps him to remember that he is cleansing them – however imperfectly – of an immortal sin.
He has to take her lover by surprise as well, although he is forced to employ more physical restraint. Paolo has never trusted him. Knowing what is coming, he fights and tries to use his own considerable power to prevent the inevitable corruption of that one perfect memory. But, in the end, he is over-powered, and the Voyeur - for that is what he now calls himself in his head - is able to begin the long process of extraction. Again, the memory plays across his consciousness, from a different viewpoint, but with the same feelings of complete and absolute love. When the lovers kiss, frenzied and passionate, he feels the thrill; when she smiles and cries, his heart clenches along with his; her hands caress his skin. He finds himself loving her through her lover.
Again, he is simultaneously shamed and aroused.
When he reports his success to his superiors, they nod grimly and pretend that this will be the final time they have to deal with an errant daughter and brother, nephew and niece. But he has borne witness to their memories, has seen what they have seen and loved as they've loved, and he knows that they are deluding themselves.
Francesca and Paolo, punished for all eternity for the duel sins of adultery and lust. He uses this to rationalize his crime, to try and forget the whispered words of affection, the frenzied cries of passion and release, but most of all, he tries to rationalize away his own guilt.
He has used his imperfect power to erase their memories over 20 times now, watching them age and mature, turn to others and always return to each other. Sometimes they are frenzied, sometimes they are slow, always they are tender, and always they are in love.
He can take their memories but, in the end, the underlying feelings remain the same. These he can never alter.