Warning: Femslash.
Disclaimer: I do not own Heroes, anything related to Heroes or Webster's Dictionary.
Author's Note: I'm trying to write this in three parts, but it might end up just being two.
Most Definitely
Part One
"Something is most definitely wrong," Elle decided as she sat up in bed for what felt like the umpteenth time in the past six hours. She glanced at the alarm clock, hating the red lights for telling her she had only two hours left before she had to be up by six. With a slight groan she lies back down and shut her eyes, thoughts of the past month flying through her mind. It had been exactly one month since she began having trouble sleeping. At first, she had chalked up her lack of sleep to being over worked by the Company so she took a week off (which turned out to be three days off, after she decided that days off were boring). After that, she thought maybe she hadn't used enough of her powers lately and that maybe the lack of use could be the cause of not sleeping properly. Deciding this, she went out into an open field and started sending huge bolts of blue electricity into the sky. It certainly helped tire her out, however she was forced to stop once Mr. Bennett yelled at her for drawing too much unwanted attention. Apparently someone had reported that lightning storms appeared to be happening at random so Channel 5 news decided to hire a group of scientists to get to the bottom of it. After that, she only had one idea left, but as she didn't like that idea very much, she decided to ignore it unless something was most definitely wrong… which was now the case.
Rolling over to glance at the clock she realized it had only been two more minutes. Not liking this, she electrocuted the alarm clock and rolled out of bed. She made her way down the hall towards the shower, finally giving in to the last thing she wanted to think of: Claire Bennett. The cause of Elle's poor sleep hygiene must be a direct result of Claire. "Why?" Elle questioned herself as she turned on the water and hopped into the shower before the water was even hot. Shivering in the cold water she immediately thought of her long past with Claire.
One year and one month ago, Claire kissed Elle. They were on a mission for the Company and had finally defeated the bad guys but somehow, during the chaos of the fight, Elle had accidentally sent a bolt of electricity right through Claire's stomach. After wincing for a brief moment, Claire looked into Elle's eyes as her body began to heal itself. Elle still isn't sure what Claire saw in her eyes. Whatever it was, Claire seemed to like it because, despite the smell of burnt flesh and the smoke that was still floating off of her clothing, she crossed the room and kissed Elle. Elle kissed back and felt the familiar feeling of lust.
"I like lust," Elle thinks to herself with a sigh as she begins washing the soap out of her hair. "Lust is easy to understand AND identify. If only the other feelings could be as easy as lust."
The first time Elle felt anything more than lust for the younger woman was when she saw Claire being tortured by a small counterpart to the Company called the Society that had formed to discover the secrets to eternal life. Elle was only one of twenty people from the Company sent to find Claire and bring down the evil Society, but she was the first person to look Claire in the eyes once they did find her. The Society had separated Claire into five sections; right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg and torso. Just as they were about to cut off Claire's head, Elle blasted all of the doctors with an obscene amount of electricity. She killed all of them except for one just in case they could give information to the Company. Right after her justified killing spree Elle ran to Claire and began reattaching her limbs. Elle felt the new feeling when their eyes met and Claire smiled weakly at her.
"What was that feeling?" her brow furrowed as she tried to bring that feeling back. "I was out of breath, my pulse was racing and there was tightness in my chest. But once I saw Claire healing, that all went away. It was a release. It was… relief? But then, what I felt before must have been worry." Elle nodded her approval at this thought, finally figuring out one of her mystery emotions.
The other mystery emotion happened at the end of last month when the two women celebrated their one year anniversary with a homemade dinner prepared by Claire (which Elle was happy about because she hated cooking). After finishing their delicious meal the two moved on to have passionate sex.
"But when I kissed her… it felt… more than just sex…"
Afterwards, they lay in bed, limbs entwined and chests heaving up and down as they tried catching their breath. As their breathing slowed, Claire sat up and smiled down Elle. She kissed the top of Elle's head and whispered "I love you, Elle."
"I love you too, Claire." The words slipped out easily for the electric woman and she knew that that's what her mystery emotion was. It had to be. All of the worrying about Claire getting hurt, wanting to make Claire happy… didn't that mean she loved Claire?
Claire looked back down at Elle and smiled sadly. "No, you don't." She draped an arm across her lover and drifted off to sleep, not seeing the pondering look that haunted Elle's face.
"I do love her." Elle turned off the shower and grabbed her towel. She needed to wake up Claire. She quickly dressed herself, grabbed her car keys and drove to Claire's apartment. Not hesitating for even a second, she rang the doorbell. After waiting for maybe two seconds, she rang it again… and again… and again… and a-
"Are you kidding me? What the hell is your-"Claire stopped shouting and immediately relaxed at the sight of Elle standing on her doorstep. "God, I thought it was the neighbor's kid again. Is everything alright?"
"No." Elle hurriedly grabbed Claire and walked them into the living room. With a sigh she plopped herself down onto the couch, pulling a bewildered Claire with her.
"What's-"
"I love you Claire." Elle stated it. She no longer questioned what the feeling was. She knew, and no matter what Claire said, she would always know what this new feeling of love felt like.
Claire sighed, a slight smile on her face as she said, "No, you don't."
"Yeah, I'm certain that I do."
"No, you really don't Elle." Claire was talking to Elle almost as though she was a child, and Elle was beginning to grow frustrated. According to all of the romance novels she had been reading, declarations of love did not usually end up turning into this kind of conversation.
"Yes I do, Claire."
"I wish you could, but, well, you just don't."
"Don't tell me what I can and cannot feel!" Elle stood up and ran her fingers through her hair. "I know that I love you! I might be extremely furious with you at this moment, but there is this other feeling inside of me. No matter how angry at you, how annoyed I am by you, how much I feel uncomfortable with you, the other feeling is still there. It's more powerful than all the other feelings I can identify. I've described my feelings to several doctors and nothing is wrong with me. I've ruled out having bad thyroids, influenza, and cancer, even attention deficit disorder! Anything you can possibly think of that could ever be physically wrong with me, I've ruled out."
Claire just looked on in amazement as Elle continued with her unexpected outburst.
"I've looked it up, Claire. I've read all of the stories, all of the poems and they all describe how I feel when I'm with you; how everything is clear and wonderful and I feel this light inside of me with every look you send my way. When I'm not with you I feel empty inside, like some sort of darkness has eaten the light that used to be there. I don't like it when you're hurting, especially if I'm the one who causes you pain and I've never felt that about anyone. When you smile... I melt inside and I don't care. If I can cause you to feel the same light that I feel inside of me, then I never want to stop being with you. When I'm with you I feel… I feel… love. I love you, Claire!"
Silence engulfed the room and Claire just sat on the couch, not sure what to say, but mildly aware that her mouth was open. She closed it and looked down into her fidgeting hands. Elle sighed and realized that she also felt nervous ("Or is it worried?" she quickly thought to herself) that she was loosing Claire so she desperately grasped for more proof. "I've looked it up in Webster's Dictionary too and it says that-"
"Elle stop." A brief pause lingered on the air before Claire looked up into Elle's eyes, full of tears. "I'm so sorry, Elle. I haven't been fair to you at all."
And with that, Claire stood up, grabbed her keys and walked barefoot out of her own apartment.
Elle was left sitting on the couch extremely confused, because this part of love was most definitely not in Webster's Dictionary.