AN: So this was written for heroes_bigboom on Livejournal. There's art and a fanmix to go along with it over at my LJ (livejournal . com / b_dsaint) and thank you Annie for betaing and listening to me whine... It's complete, so I'll be posting each part every few days...
Disclaimer: Heroes belongs to NBC and Kring... and I suppose maybe other people? I have no idea. I wish I owned Sylar though... and Elle. YUM
Elle appeared with a gasp on the beach. Standing a few feet away, the sound caused Gabriel to turn, muscles coiled, but at the site of her trembling form he relaxed and walked towards her.
"What was that?" She asked as she took a step and winced. Raw pain shot from the wound in her leg through her nerves. Like getting electrocuted from the inside out. Elle would know, she'd done it. It made her stomach turn.
"Hiro Nakamura," Gabriel replied with a scowl. Of all their enemies, he hated Hiro the most. He constantly ruined everything Gabriel tried to do.
Elle winced again as she walked toward him, stumbling slightly on the soft sand. "Strange day," she gasped.
Gabriel ignored her struggles as he stared intensely. "Was Bennett lying about my parents?" He spoke quickly, agitated, forcing the words out. It's nothing like his normal smooth, practically arrogant, drawl. Elle missed it.
"Of course he was," she sighed. "He's Bennett." Inwardly she shrugged. She was pretty sure Bennett was lying, at least in part. Elle had seen Gabriel's file, and there was nothing in it about him being a Petrelli, that part she knew was true. Of course that doesn't mean he wasn't a Petrelli. The Company had no qualms about leaving information out of files if someone felt it was necessary. A third Petrelli son would count as something damn significant, and Bennett would know if it had been covered up. He seemed to know all The Company secrets.
"He seemed to think you knew something about it." Gabriel studied her, trying to figure her out; to see all the variables and form a coherent picture. It's not a way he usually used his ability, although theoretically he knew it was possible. He preferred the direct approach instead. It was messier, true, but quicker and as equally effective.
"He's just trying to mess... with you." Elle faltered, the pain in her leg worsening by the second. She'd been moving and running on her injured leg for most of the day. The muscle felt torn to pieces, and a cold numbness had started to spread slowly outward from the wound.
Gabriel couldn't ignore her wince that time and he put a cautious hand on her shoulder. His face softened into a look of concern, though the calculating gleam lingered in his eyes. "Sit down," he said, guiding her gently to the sand.
She let him lead her, using his strong arms as counterweight as she managed to sit and straighten her leg. She sighed, dropping her head forward as the pain lessened. Gabriel reached out slowly to brush away her hair and she flinched involuntarily. He dropped his eyes, hand falling away from her as he looked hurt, and she was too tired, too hazy with pain to explain that it wasn't him, it was her and her issues. Instead she lightly touched his wrist and gazed up at him; she didn't flinch as he brushed her hair to the side and cupped her face.
He leaned in to kiss her and she responded eagerly, ignoring the throbbing in her leg as she gripped his arms and leaned back, pulling him on top of her as he slid his tongue along the crease of her lips before delving inside. Her hand slid up his shoulder, intent on wrapping itself in his dark hair, but Gabriel captured her hand and pressed it into the sand above her head. He drew the kiss out a moment, savouring her taste, before breaking away and settling himself more firmly on top of her.
"I've been thinking." His voice was gentle, but the sudden coldness in his eyes made her heart clench.
She swallowed hard, unable to control the trembling in her voice that had nothing to do with the pain from her leg. "About what?"
He stared, seemingly entranced, at their hands as he twined their fingers together. She tried to shift from under him but his weight pressed down on her and he squeezed her hand too tight. A warning. She was trapped. "What you said about finding ourselves free of parents. Of powers." His thumb rubbed gently against hers, a soothing gesture overshadowed by the way he held her caged under him.
She swallowed hard and tried to focus on the soft glide of his thumb against hers; on her Gabriel, not their Sylar. "What about it?"
He looked at her, dark eyes smoldering with repressed anger and hurt. "You were wrong," he hissed. "Nobody ever really changes."
Elle squeezed his hand, tried to keep her voice calm even as her heart raced. The tension was palpable, and she knew that if she said the wrong thing, she'd end up just another brainless victim of Sylar's psychosis. It was what the Company had made him. "You changed," she insisted. "I saw you."
"That was temporary. And then I got my powers back." He's not sorry he got them back; it had saved his life. But a part of him had relished the day without powers, the chance to be free from his parents and expectations. It's the part he was ruthlessly trying to suppress. "And I understand now, that I'm never going to change." He glared at her, daring her, no begging her, to contradict him. "Neither are you, because we're both just damaged goods."
Elle blinked back tears. He squeezed her legs between his and the pressure on her wound sent wave after wave of pain crashing through her body. But it was the broken look in Gabriel's eyes, not the pain, that had her heart sinking.
"Please... Gabriel don't do this."
His eyes shifted, equally as dark but a little less broken at the sound of his name. Hope rose in her heart and she let it rise in her voice.
"Don't you see Gabriel, that we can change? We can be whoever we want." She hurried on as his weight shifted and it became easier to breathe. He didn't interrupt her, hadn't killed her, and that meant he was listening. "Bennett said we'd never be normal. And he's right. Because we're not normal." Elle sparked her hand and felt his power respond, blue electricity crackling and popping around their joined hands. She smiled wickedly in the glowing light. "We're special."
Gabriel stared down at her silently for a moment, before a small smile curved over his lips. "We are special," he agreed.
He pushed himself into a sitting position, straddling Elle's thighs, and she gasped in pain. He looked confused for a moment before his eyes widened in remembrance. He looked down at her leg as he quickly rolled off of her. Gabriel crouched in the sand, pulling off the bandage and examining the ragged wound. "We have to get the bullet out."
Elle bit her lip, dropping her head on to the sand. "Use your TK," she groaned. The pain of him ripping the bullet out couldn't be any worse than the nauseating waves that ripped through her body.
Gabriel looked at her sharply. "I'm taking you to a hospital," he growled. He tugged her into his arms, ignoring her cries of pain, and stood easily with her cradled to his chest.
"No doctors," she begged. It's one of the first rules she remembered learning. You couldn't trust doctors. Doctors had needles, and drugs, and machines. Doctors could, and would, hurt you.
Gabriel sighed. He knew he could remove the bullet easily, but not without causing even more damage to the muscle. He could heal himself without a thought but for all his powers he couldn't heal her. "Your leg's infected," he explained. "You need to go to a hospital."
Elle huffed and looked around the deserted beach. "We don't even know where we are! Just take the bullet out yourself, I'll be fine!"
Gabriel smirked and adjusted her body in his arms. "Hold on."
Elle opened her mouth to complain, but the world shifted abruptly around her and suddenly they were outside the emergency room of a hospital. Elle gaped up at Gabriel's smug expression.
"You can teleport?!" She asked in shock.
Gabriel didn't answer, but the slow grin on his face told her all she needed to know. "This explains so much," she muttered to herself. All the times he had eluded the agents, how he always seemed to appear out of nowhere.
Gabriel carried her through the doors into the ER. "She's been shot!" he yelled hoarsely. Immediately a nurse came over. One glance at Elle's leg and the nurse waved over a gurney. Gabriel placed Elle on the bed as gently as possible and stepped back as the nurses pushed the gurney towards surgery. Elle immediately felt panic wash over her and thrashed about wildly. The nurses struggled to hold her down, ordering her to be still.
"Gabriel!"
Her eyes meet his briefly. He looked sad but determined. Chills ran down Elle's spine and she strained to push herself off the bed. He held up her phone, let her see the screen as he scrolled through the numbers.
"I have to know the truth," he said softly.
"No! Gabriel!" She cried, pushing ineffectively at the nurses' hands. They pushed through the doors into the ER and Elle lost sight of Gabriel.
He was gone.
more to come!
