Lydia holds onto his arm as they walk around the grounds. Families have come, fathers mothers and children. Little girls eat sticky cotton candy, teenage boys play games involving balls and pins to impress their girlfriends. It's hot out, wind kicks up the dirt under their they walk his heart pounds, then flutters. There's someone here that he knows. He doesn't know where and he doesn't quite know who yet, but he feels it. He scans the crowd.
"Is there something wrong?" Lydia asks, coyly while stroking his arm.
He shakes his head. "No. Just, a strange feeling." She stops and touches the sides of his face. His skin flushes under her finger tips, her whole body vibrates with the emotion that's pouring from him, under his skin. Without memories she doesn't see much, it's a haze, there are figures.
Lydia swallows. There iis/i someone here. She looks around; Edgar stands by the show tent with his knives. "I'll take a look at the crystal later. I've got a show, okay?" she gives him a kiss on the cheek, walks away.
His heart pounds again as he scans the walks again, going towards the rides, around back to the petting zoo. Hard thumping comes from his chest again and he's suddenly on it's another cop, someone here to take him down, someone with vengeance for the office that Edgar killed. He moves to sit on a fence, get a better view of the crowd.
People pass him and think nothing of him. Some women smile at him, bat their eyelashes. And then across the masses, he spots the person. The one that he's felt. His skin suddenly crackles, sparks come from his fingers. He keeps them together in a fist, shocking himself. The burns heal quickly, he continues to spark.
A blonde woman pushes a stroller. She stops to buy feed out of a dispenser, twenty-five cents a pop for a handful. She keeps most of it in her palm, then bends down. Gabriel lifts up slightly, trying to get a better look.
The woman lifts a child, a little boy, almost two, on hoists him on her hip. She hands him a little bit of the feed and leans on the fence. The little boy giggles as a pony nibbles food out. The wind picks up, blowing the hair. She pushes it behind her ear. It's fine, soft like feathers.
Another spark in his fingers. He knows this face. He saw it in the mirrors. He hovered over her, blood on his hands as he sliced through her skull, red seeping into the musty tendrils of yellow. She's supposed to be dead.
***
The sun is bright and sweat drips down her back, but Elle promised her son they'd go to the carnival. Sure he doesn't quite understand what it is, but every five minutes it seemed there was a commercial for it and he pointed to the screen yelling 'horfies!' So here she is at the traveling Carnival where there is normally an empty field.
She's not having a lot of fun, some, but not a lot. The dust makes her cough, the loud noises make her in the day she passes by a tall woman with tattoos over her body. "Care to hear your fortune?" the woman asks, holding a large crystal in her hands.
"No thank you," Elle says. She keeps walking, pushing the stroller faster. She doesn't want to know anymore, knowing the past is enough. Suddenly she feels sick, there is a shock in the air, they pass a group of balloons that all pop in an instant. She gasps, Noah cries.
"Oh, sweetie." She goes through the bag in the basket of the stroller, gets out his favorite toy, a stuffed kitty. He stops crying. "There we go." She wipes his tears away, he smiles. All ready he has his father's smile and she shudders. "You want to see the horsies now?" Before all this talking like a child would've made her sick. But now she smiles.
"Horfies!" he giggles.
"All right, buddy." She makes her way down, following wooden signs. She throws a last glance back at someone cleaning up the broken balloons.
***
Gabriel hops off the fence, decides to follow her. He'll keep back, make sure she doesn't see. Maybe he's mistaken, there are millions of thin blond women in the world and dead is dead.
She doesn't notice him, not right away. He stands near the fence, leaning over. Another pony comes up, nuzzles him against the shoulder. He suddenly becomes so aware of the pony's presence. He can hear it's heart beating.
"Mama, Mama look!" the little boy bounces. "More!"
Gabriel stops moving and watches the blonde woman turn. She sees him and there's crackling in the air. Color drains from her face. The static pops, the pony backs from the fence.
Elle's throat dries. She has to be dreaming. This is fake, this is a side effect of something. She's hit her head. Sylar stands in front of her, plain as day. He looks different, scruffy, longer hair, but she knows its him. How did he find her?
She holds onto Noah to her chest. She doesn't want to scare him. She prays that Sylar won't make a scene, that he doesn't want to be caught. She starts to back away.
"Mama," Noah says and kicks. "Mama, horfies."
"In a little bit sweetie," she whispers into his sandy-colored hair. They are a foot a part now.
He knows what he's done, he's seen it and there is sinking in his gut that he knows he did.
Tears weld in her eyes. "I'm going to walk away now." Her voice quivers, like on a string. "I'm going to walk and enjoy the rest of the day with my son. Don't you come after us. Do you understand me?"
He takes a step forward, she steps back. "I mean it." She holds Noah tighter. "Stay away." She turns and disappears into the crowd.
