This is my first attempt at a Heroes fic, and I kind of love it, but then again, I'm obviously biased.
This first chapter is mainly a background chapter, just to get you warmed up to the protagonist and her background.
The first memory takes place in 1985, the second in 1999.
MANY things are not strict to the Heroes timeline/'verse in this story, so you've been warned.
Reviews are greatly appreciated, so without further ado, here's the first chapter.
=D
The flickering of a cigarette butt was the only light evident in the old, rickety trailer. Hushed words were being spoken in rapid fire progression, the male voice booming and slightly echoing within the metallic confines of the trailer. As one of the hushed tones ascended an octave, a bright orange glow suddenly emanated from one end of the trailer. A golden haired teenage girl stood there, appearing irate beyond her very best control. This was further proven by the fireball forming at her fingertips. The twenty year old man started, stumbling backwards away from her, his hands raised apprehensively in front of him. "Hey...Mer, we can talk about this. We can work this out. No need to pull out the heavy artillery," he spoke smoothly, his rough voice having an oddly silky quality to it. His usually wide hazel irises were thinned to impenetrable slits, a bright crystalline shimmer present in the pupils. The silkiness of his tone was due to his ability to manipulate. He had been gifted with a silver tongue, the ability to talk anyone into doing what he wanted them to do.
That was what had gotten them here in the first place.
"We can talk about this," seventeen year old Meredith Gordon replied, her tone monotonous. Panic flickered in her eyes. They'd promised not to use their powers against each other. She hadn't kept her end of the deal, so why should he have kept his? Shit. She tried to open her mouth to speak, but her lips were unwilling. His control over her had already become as strong as it ever was.
"We're giving her up for adoption, Meredith. We cannot raise a child, not in this world. Not with the lives we lead, always on the run. We can't do it," twenty year old Andrew Stevens all but seethed as he looked over at her. Despite the fiery nature of his tone, the silky smoothness still lingered behind it all. His hazel eyes were still as icy as they had been only moments ago.
"We're giving her up for adoption. We can't raise a child in this world. Not with us being on the run. We can't do it," Meredith paraphrased, her eyes wide and filling with emotion. Tears were threatening to spill as she stole a sidelong glance at the crib tucked snugly in the corner of the trailer, where her now three month old daughter slept peacefully.
"Don't you dare cry," Andrew ordered, closing the gap between them so he stood not but three inches away from her. His hands shot up to forcefully cup her face, the face he'd once held so tenderly. His gaze zeroed in on her lips, the lips he'd once longed to taste so badly, the lips that had been used in utterance of the three words the night their lives had changed just a little over a year prior. His mental hold on her slipped, and a whimper passed through her thin lips. His heart ached. What was he doing? No, it was too late to wonder that. What had he done?
He parted his lips to speak, to utter some words of consolation, to tell her he was sorry for everything he was putting her through. But just as he thought to do so, a soft knock against the door of the trailer stirred him from his thoughts. "They're here." Two simple words spoken in such a grave manner would be the beginning of it all. The beginning of the end.
Seeing the emotion evident in Meredith's irises, Andrew broke, and released his control over her. While she fought desperately to get over to the crib, to shield her beautiful three month old baby girl from what was about to happen, Andrew opened the door, allowing the three men who stood there to wander into the trailer.
The first man to enter the trailer was the leader of the trio. He appeared to be in his early fifties, his burnt orange hair turning lighter and whiter in certain areas. A thick mustache loomed over his tightly pursed lips, and an equally thick, lightening beard billowed around his tightly set jaw. His wide cerulean eyes held the gentleness one could have imagined to see in Santa's eyes. But as his lips curved upwards into a menacing sneer, the innocence was completely lost.
The next man to make his way into the mobile home was exceptionally tall, but incredibly lanky. His warm russet colored skin shone in the moonlight, as did the lone shark's tooth he wore on a thin twine rope around his neck. His right hand was raised slightly, fingers extended outwards, and a low humming chuckle slipped through his lips. Andrew stiffened at the sight of him. He'd heard rumors about this man, the new project that this "company" was working on. Allegedly, he was only referred to as "The Haitian." He was supposedly a blocker. His ability to mentally manipulate consisted of shutting a person's abilities off as long as he was within the same area. Swallowing almost convulsively, Andrew glanced over at the now frantic Meredith, before looking over towards the final man who had shied his way in unnoticed at first.
He stood with an inch or two advantage over the Haitian, which impressed Andrew. That was the only thing about him that appeared impressive, however. The man was as plain as could be. He appeared like a fish out of water in contrast to the other two, whose presences glowed with importance. From the thick glasses to the oily hair to the naivety in his eyes, Andrew had him pegged as nothing more than twenty five years old. In his appraisal, Andrew was also able to tell that there was nothing out of the ordinary about him. He was completely and utterly normal.
"Mr. Stevens, I presume," the leader of the three men greeted, his menacing sneer softening into a polite, business-like smile as he extended one of his hands towards Andrew. "I'm Daniel Linderman, but I'm sure you already knew who I was. I must once again offer my utmost gratitude that you're so willing to allow your daughter be taken into our care. I mean, most of our previous patients are bitter about what we did to them. And when I received word that you had called us, I must admit, I was entirely shocked." The menacing sneer once again formed on his features as he shook the young man's hand.
Andrew blanched as he listened to Linderman speak, gaze flickering about rapidly. He hesitated only once, allowing his gaze to settle on Meredith's face for longer than he should have. The first and only emotion he made out on her features was betrayal. He hadn't told her that they would be giving Lillian to "the Company." He'd simply informed her that he had contacted an agency about putting their daughter up for adoption. He'd conveniently left out this detail, however, because he knew she would have sent a fireball burning straight into his skull. "I just want what's best for my daughter," Andrew replied hesitantly after a moment, forcing a polite smile onto his lips as he gently dropped the other man's hand.
"No! No, you can't take her! Please! Please, don't do this to me! Don't take her away from me!" Meredith's pleading cries fell upon deaf ears as Noah Bennet, the man with the overly thick glasses, scooped up the now crying baby from her crib, cradling her carefully. He then passed the baby off to the Haitian easily, murmuring for him to make sure to support the little girl's head after doing so.
Noah smiled somewhat sadly as he looked over at Meredith, understanding how hard it must have been to give up a baby, to give up someone that had been a part of you for nine months. But his sympathy quickly faded. He had been instructed to not let emotions interfere with the job. He'd worked hard to get where he was. The last thing he needed was to mess up so soon.
"Mr. Bennet, take our newest recruit outside. Our friend here will clean up this little mess we've made," Linderman replied coolly, which caused Andrew's brows to furrow. In their original arrangement, they had agreed that they would just be transporting Lillian to an adoption agency, since Andrew and Meredith couldn't afford to do it on their own. Was Linderman going back on his word?
Eyes narrowed as much as he could, Andrew set his jaw and was about to voice his thoughts when a flash of russet passed in front of his face. Starting in surprise, he tried to back away as he felt the man's hand pressing against his forehead, but everything around him soon became blurred, the faint sound of his daughter's retreating cries the last thing he heard before losing consciousness.
Why did life have to be so complicated? Why could nothing go right in this world for more than five minutes without something else going horribly wrong? Why did she have the worst luck? Why couldn't she feel pain? Why was she such a freak, a loser, an outcast? All these thoughts and more sped through fourteen year old Lily Danes' mind as she wandered down the crowded Brooklyn sidewalk, a few of her schoolbooks hugged tightly to her chest. Her first day in high school had been simply a disaster. She'd somehow managed to make a scene while not even being there for three hours. Gym class had consisted of climbing the rope that hung from the ceiling of the gymnasium. She'd been about three quarters of the way up, before she lost her grip and fell, landing with a nice thud. Shortly following the thud a loud crack was heard, as well as a pop. She'd dislocated her shoulder, and she seemed to be in no pain at all.
How could that have made sense? The gym teacher was baffled once the concern had washed away. Lily had managed to downplay it, quashing the hysteria by saying she had a bit of issue with nerve tissue and that her sensory perception was out of whack. It wasn't a complete lie, but then again, it was far from the truth. She was "special," as her parents—well, her adoptive parents—had put it. But just because she was "special" didn't mean she wasn't just as good as any of the other kids out there. The blonde couldn't help but let out a quiet snort at the thought. Her parents had drilled that mantra into her head on countless occasions, usually when she wound up hurting herself without knowing it. Being impervious to pain was...well, a pain. That was the only way she could think of putting it.
Her feet were moving of their own accord at this point. She was on auto pilot, as she had been every afternoon for the past three school years at least. She really didn't remember anymore. She had known Gabriel since she was seven and he was eleven, that much she was sure of. But she didn't remember how long he had been working afternoons at the repair shop. Lily let out a long sigh as she stopped outside the familiar glass door, and she paused there, letting the gravity of her thoughts weigh her down for a few moments. After a few moments, she took a deep, cleansing breath, and then pushed the door open slowly as she wandered inside.
The sound of a small bell ringing overhead stirred her from her thoughts completely, and she bit her lip softly as she peered around the shop. It seemed pretty empty, which wasn't anything out of the norm. In the beginning, Lily had been terrified of the dreary little repair shop. To her, it screamed "A cheesy horror movie could have been filmed here." It was so dull, so dark, so depressing. She didn't know how Gabriel hadn't gone insane in all the time he'd spent here. She envied him for it. Snapping back to reality, Lily wandered over to a grandfather clock on the far side of the room, watching the pendulum swing back and forth with an incredible amount of interest, given how dull the scene truly was.
She didn't know how long she'd been standing there, or how long she had been spacing out for, but when Lily felt someone tap her on the shoulder, she panicked. Her books fell to the floor at her feet as she turned to face her confronter, fists raised in front of her defensively out of paranoia. When seeing no one other than her best friend standing there, and at seeing the amusement that was as clear as day on his soft features, Lily growled. "You suck, Gabriel," she mumbled dejectedly, dropping her book bag to the floor beside the small pile of books she had just dropped.
"Good afternoon to you, too, Lil," he replied with a crooked smile, pushing his blocky black glasses up further on the bridge of his nose. His hand was stained with a bit of grease from whatever contraption he had been working on in the back of the small watch repair shop. It had been his father's practice – before he'd left them.
It was just Gabriel and his mother now. Virginia Gray was a very eccentric woman. Collecting snow globes seemed to be one of the only things she cared about in life. She was an incredibly doting mother, sometimes to the point of smothering her only son. Gabriel loved his mother, he did. But there were times when he wondered how he could come from someone so simple, someone whose greatest pleasures came from essentially looking at things through the looking glass. By nature, he was timid, and didn't often look down on others. But when it came to his parents, Gabriel knew he was better than they were. He was destined for something greater than pursuing his father's boring life as a watch maker. He was far more special than that.
"Hello? Gaaaaabriel? Earth to Mr. Gray," Lily sang as she waved a hand in front of the older boy's face. He was probably off in his own world again. Their worlds of make believe and deep thought were places the two often visited. Their minds were so in sync, it was almost scary. She was sure that he was thinking about his future, about how he couldn't live his life as a watch maker. But she didn't press the matter. She'd learned from that mistake in the past. The first – and, for that matter, the last – time she had asked Gabriel to talk to her about his family, he had snapped at her. She had never seen so much anger, so much hatred, so much repulsion. She didn't recognize him in the brief moment that his switch had flipped. He was someone else completely. Not the kind hearted boy she knew and loved so dearly. "Anyways, I do have a reason for stopping by today. Not only did my first day suck – which I will enlighten you about later, by the way – but I have a question for you. I made a pie," the blonde stated anxiously, biting her lower lip gently as she craned her neck to look up at the much taller boy.
He couldn't help but laugh as he looked down at her, one of his thick eyebrows arching perfectly as he cocked his head to the side. "That's not a question, Lil, that's a declarative statement," Gabriel grinned cheekily as he looked down at her, his grin turning into a smirk as the apples of her cheeks flushed a radiant shade of red.
"Crap. Right. Right. What I mean is... my parents said you could come over for dinner tonight. We're having lasagna and my mom and I made a peach pie last night," the blonde further explained, wiggling her eyebrows in a playfully suggestive manner as she peered up at him.
"That's still not a question, you know," the dark haired boy pointed out smugly. Gabriel then let out a soft chuckle as he looked down at the curly haired blonde, shaking his head easily. His full lips curved upwards into a gentle smile as he fumbled with his glasses per his nervous habit, and he jokingly tried to figure out if he could go to her house or not. "Well, Lil, I'm a busy man. You know this. Clients to attend to, women to fend off," the shy eighteen year old replied in a dry tone, his bright brown eyes sparkling with sarcasm. "But you had me at peach pie." His added words were voiced with a wide smirk as he all but leered down at her, and he couldn't contain the laugh that erupted from deep in his chest when seeing the girl jump a little bit into the air.
"You will not regret this. Your stomach might, but you won't," Lily grinned up at him, shooting him a slight wink. She looked over his shoulder to peer into the face of one of the many clocks lining the wall and squeaked when seeing what time it was. "Dang it, I need to be home, like, now. I have to help my mom with dinner. But, um, come over around six o'clock, okay? Everything should be ready by then," the blonde stated with a warm smile, before bending down to scoop up all her belongings. She shoved her books into her bag, bending a few corners of the dingy old textbooks in the process, and then stood up again. "Later, gator." With a slight wave, Lily turned and skipped out of the watch shop, leaving a bemused Gabriel in her wake.
The apartment building the Danes family inhabited wasn't all that far from Gray & Sons. It didn't take Lily more than five minutes to get there. She decided to take the scenic route rather than go in through the front entrance. She hated the doorman, and he hated her. It was just something that had always been understood. He looked at her funny, muttered words under his breath into the collar of his jacket when she passed, things of the like. It worried her a lot – not to mention she felt like she had seen this man before. He'd only been working there for a month or so, but something about the blocky glasses and the oily hair was all too familiar.
Shaking her thoughts off, Lily tossed her backpack up on top of the dumpster near the ladder that led to the fire escape. Leaping up onto the dumpster, she brushed a bit of dirt off of her jeans, then slung her bag on over her shoulders. Tugging down on the metal ladder, she cringed at the scraping sound it made as it came into contact with the concrete. Placing one foot on a rung of the black metal structure, she slowly began to ascend the familiar ladder, breath held the entire time. Her neighborhood reeked of liquor, garbage, and filth. But she didn't like going in the front door, so she had no other choice but to use the fire escape. It wasn't like she could just fly up to her window.
Sighing as she reached the platform, the blonde set her bag down at her feet and paused a moment, trying to guess how long it would take her to get up to her level. After taking a deep breath, Lily exhaled slowly then began weaving through the different levels of the escape route. When she reached her window, she pried it open with ease, dropping her bag onto the bedroom floor as she had done many times. She then lowered herself into the room stealthily, closing the window after herself quietly. Her jeans now had a nice rip on her left knee, but she didn't mind. They were already torn in numerous places. They were her favorite pair of old, vintage jeans. This tear just made them look even better.
With a smirk, Lily brushed a hand back through her hair as she wandered out of her bedroom and into the hallway that led to the small living room. She came to a sudden halt, however, when seeing her parents sitting on the couch with emotional looks on their faces. A man whose back was to her was sitting in the chair opposite them. "Mom? Dad? What's going on?" she asked nervously, taking a hesitant step further into the living room.
The man whose back had been facing her slowly turned to her and shot her a crooked, all too familiar grin. "My name's Henry Banks. I'm from the Department of Child Services. I'm sorry to inform you of this, but you're being withdrawn from your adoptive family. Your birth mother is showing an interest in you," Noah Bennet lied easily, his horn rimmed glasses pushed tight against his eyes.
Lily stood there, shell shocked, and remained silent. Something wasn't right. This man was no agent from child services. He had been working as a doorman for the past month. Why couldn't her parents see that? "No. No, you've gotta be kidding me," the blonde laughed out bitterly, shaking her head to suppress the tears that threatened to flow from her eyes.
"Your things will be collected first thing tomorrow, Miss Danes. But for now, Lily, I'm afraid you're going to have to come with me," Noah stated easily as he rose to his feet, cringing at the sound of the sob that escaped Mrs. Danes' lips. Why did women have to be so emotional? He didn't get it. He was just doing his job. Albeit, not the job he was telling them about, but it was just a job nonetheless.
Lily remained still as she stood there, blinking slowly as she processed the information she was being fed. She saw her father mouth the word "Go" to her, followed by "I love you" as he cradled her mother's sob wracked form, and her heart ached. Rather than protest, the blonde nodded her head in agreement as she looked up at the elder man, who was now smiling condescendingly down at her. As his hand rested on the small of her back, she inhaled sharply, and decided then that there was no looking back now. She kept her gaze fixated ahead of her as the man led her out of the apartment and down the hallway to the elevator.
She was about to open her mouth to ask him who he really was, just as the elevator doors slid open, and a dark skinned man stepped forward. "Lillian. It has been a long time since I saw you last," the man crooned, his deep voice drawn out and heavy with a Haitian accent. Her brows furrowed as she looked up at him, but before she could think twice, his fingertips were pressing against her forehead, and her petite form became lifeless as she fell back into the mock doorman's arms.
"I can't believe we're recruiting this young," the Haitian muttered in disbelief, shaking his head in a disapproving manner as he pressed the button for the lobby.
After scooping Lily's body up into his arms, Noah shook his head. "Never question your assignments. Just do what you're told. I learned that the hard way." The elevator doors opened before the Haitian could inquire about what he had meant, and both men strolled out into the lobby, the Haitian taking care of any people who shot them all too curious looks. When they reached Noah's car, he carefully laid Lily in the backseat before climbing in on the driver's side, the Haitian getting in on the other. Adjusting his glasses a bit, Bennet then tightly gripped the steering wheel as he put the car in drive and headed off into the distance.
Today marked a new beginning. A beginning worth making note of.
The recruiting of Lillian Danes marked the beginning of the end.