Disclaimer: Heroes belongs to Tim Kring

Character: Eden McCain

Spoilers: Up to 1x11 'Fallout'

Prompt: 44. Sacrifice. Written for heroes50.

Summary: The world never gave her anything willingly, so she had never returned given anything back. But now she knew that certain debts had to be paid, even at the cost of her own life.

Music: 'Rose Red' by Emilie Autumn

Indebted

Nobody had ever done anything for her, not willingly. Her mother only considered her a burden, a duty bestowed upon her shoulders against her will and which she did not bother with for long. As for her father, she had never met him. He had walked away from her before she could take her first steps and follow him.

The rest of the world made it very clear from the first day that it owed her nothing, and whichever she wished for she would have to obtain it on her own. At sixteen she realised her hometown didn't have anything to offer her, anything she could take and make her own, so she packed her bags and left without a goodbye kiss, without a note. She doubted anyone would miss her, and time proved she was sadly right.

The world was a more frightening place she could have ever imagined, and there were dangers lurking in dark corners that could drag away a girl with big brown eyes and an earnest temper. But she was smart, smart enough to duck her head and run if the situation called for it, smart enough to avoid the tempting tramps. It wasn't easy, though, and soon desperation crept into her dreams, hopelessness dampened her spirits. She had nowhere to go, nowhere to return to; she was alone in a place where kindness of strangers was the stuff of legends.

One day she found out that she didn't need any kindness from strangers, she needed no charity, no pity. Because she coud obtain anyting she wished, anything she had ever dreamed of, just by asking. And she asked, she asked for all the things life had deprived her of, all the things she had aways missed, she asked and asked, trying to fill the holes in her soul.

There were certain things, though, that would never be hers no matter how much she asked; there were certain things she could not take by force. Things like love, trust, friendship, faith, comfort, that you could only have if the world gave them to you, and this world had long time ago decided she was not worth it.

-

That first plate of maccaroni with cheese was the only thing she had ever done for someone else out of her own accord. Her orders were to introduce herself and gain his trust so she could complete her mission, but no one ever stated she would have to burn her fingers trying to cook the only dish she had ever bothered to learn. She had done it of her own free will, and perhaps it was karma, perhaps it was destiny, but thanks to that meal his was the first door that was ever opened for her.

Used to take everything by force, she didn't know what to do when he offered her his companionship willingly. She mistrusted him and thought of her own secret agenda, she kept her heart guarded and her eyes alert.

But he had no ulterior motives, no hidden reasons. He was just a lonely man in an unfriendly place he would never fit in, all ties to his prior life crudely severed, whose self-imposed mission was starting to drain him. He talked to her and let her put her feet on the coffee table, he told her about his research, about his home. She listened intently as he shared with her stories from India, the sort of stories she wished that she could have heard from her father's lips as a child; and when he spoke of his family with love and a little bit of regret in his voice, she couldn't help wondering whether her father had ever spoken in the same way about her.

He gave her warm tea mugs and words of wisdom for free, he explained genetics in a way a girl with no high school decree could grasp and paid attention when she told him about her day. She had never been offered anything freely, but she sensed that she had to pay something in return. So she treated him with her only culinary speciality, she organized his papers, always an evolving chaos; helped him sorting out his bills and took care of the sneaky lizard that became their mutual friend.

She was surprised to find not only that it cost her nothing to help him, but that it brought her a calmness she had never known before. She realized that she liked helping him even without expecting to receive something in return, and she wondered whether that was what friendship was like, what a family should be.

She knew content between the walls of that ruined apartment, where he petted her hair occasionally and she called him 'Papa,' because it was him and not her father the only one deserving of the title. It was in that apartment when she laughed freely for the first time in many years, where she shed tears and was met by a comforting hand, a soothing voice.

Once she had been able to get anything she wanted, except what her heart had craved for the most, and it was strange but fitting that she found it when she hadn't been looking for it, that it was given to her without asking, without expecting anything back.

She understood later, why there were things that were so hard to obtain, why there were things you couldn't just take. They were the most valuable things, the ones you couldn't buy or steal, the ones that had to be given to you freely. The ones that would last forever in your heart even after everything around you faded away.

They were also the ones that cost the most, as she found out when they were robbed from her. She understood then what she hadn't seen when she'd first learnt to use her abiity. Everything in this world, from the smallest trifle to the most impressive treasure, came with a price, and sometimes it was a price you had to pay in blood and tears, sometimes you had to pay it with heartache and sorrow.

-

She understood everything now. She understood that for every action there was a consequence, for every act of kindness a reward, for every crime a punishment. Nothing was left unpaid in this world: sooner or later all debts were collected.

She was here today to pay hers. To pay her debt to a man who had cared for her without having any reason to do so, who had listened to her and offered her his friendship without expecting to gain anything in return, who had become the only true family she had ever known, not out of duty, but out of his own kindness. She owed him more than she owed her own parents, because they might have given her life but he had been the one who had taught her about it, he had been the one who had showed her the way.

And now she would return everything he'd ever given her, she would pay back her debt to him by giving him the justice he deserved. She just had to show one last bit of bravery, to find that last bit of strength inside her that she had never known she possesed until he came along.

She stared at the monster behind the glass and only now she could understand the true nature of the atrocities he had committed. Because he also took what did not belong to him, without asking, without deserving it. He robbed others from what was rightfully theirs, without a regret, without a second thought, never paying attention to consequences.

She had been like that, once. Perhaps her crimes hadn't been so horrid, so cruel, but she had also believed that she could take anything she wanted without giving anything back. She knew better now.

He would pay. He would pay for all those innocent lives he'd taken, for all the gifts he had stolen. But most especially, he would pay for what he had robbed from her.

'You will take this gun and you will kill yourself with it.'

It was the first time she gave such an order, and perhaps there was some sort of limit to what she could do, because he did not respond to her command. Perhaps it was the lack of use what had rendered her ability useless.

Or perhaps, she thought as glass shattered around her and air abandoned her lungs, her throat trapped in an invisible grip, time had come for her to pay her own debts, to return what she had always taken for granted. Perhaps it was her time and not his to give back some of what she had taken without permission, without deserving it. Perhaps, she thought as the barrel of the gun became all her eyes would ever see, perhaps this was supposed to be the price for the life she'd had and was now slipping through her fingers. Perhaps this was what she could give back to her friend, she thought as she stared at the bottomless darkness that lay in the murderer's eyes.

His death could no longer be the last present she intended to give her dead friend, but hers would be her gift to the world.

She pulled the trigger and the world ended with a blast.