"I'm really not so sure about this."
"Oh don't you dare tell me you're seriously having seconds thoughts now?"
"Elle, I feel sick. I really think I should-"
Another hard push. Elle's screams (and electricity) fill the specially padded room. When Gabriel edges toward the door, Elle shoots him the dirtiest look she can manage. "Gabriel Gray." He stops cold. "If your hand so much as hovers over that door knob, you will regret it for the rest of your fucking life. Get back over here and film your son's Grand Entrance."
This convinces Gabriel to step away from the door and back toward the screaming girl on the table. It's hard to look menacing with your legs spread wide open in stirrups, but Elle manages to make a lot of things look menacing that normally shouldn't. And Gabriel has caught it on video.
"Turn that camera back on." Elle commands. "Now." Please is all but lost on her. She's in labor for Christ's sake.
Gabriel does as he's told because he's a smart man. Not because he has any free will of his own. The last shred of that was sapped away the night Elle announced (in front of everyone they know) that she was harboring the Spawn of Sylar in her electrically abundant womb.
He'd never seen a birthing video before. He figured he'd be able to handle the real thing. He's sliced open enough heads, pulled apart enough brains, finger painted in enough blood. He was familiar enough with human anatomy to handle this, he thought. Seeing his girlfriend push a baby out of her body couldn't be that gross, could it?
"One more and I think we're done here." Gabriel hears Mohinder's uppity accent announce. Who died and made the geneticist a fucking obstetrician? There were people with doctorates in feet, be he was sure they hardly qualified to deliver babies.
Elle screamed and pushed her hardest, another ball of lightning rolling from her tiny, sweating form. When the slimy thing shot out of Elle and into Mohinder's unprepared hands, Gabriel remembers seeing a series of things occur: A shiny, gooey baby screaming, Elle laughing and sobbing at the same time, and himself seeing the ceiling before blacking out.
When he comes to, he's on a hospital bed beside Elle's. On the table beside his bed- the ruins of the video camera he was using. It must've smashed when he hit the floor.
"Oh, you're awake." Elle says softly. She looks exhausted. Beautiful, but exhausted. Fast asleep on her chest is a fucking alien. She strokes its bald head and winks to Gabriel. "Look what we made."
Gabriel tries his best not to make a face. This is definitely the ugliest baby he's ever seen. He sits on the edge of his hospital bed and leans closer, hoping the baby will become cuter if he gets closer. Maybe this hideous baby is just a trick of the lighting.
Elle nudges the dozing thing lightly and it's eyes crack open. Gabriel's jaw drops when all he sees is black in the alien's evil eyes. When the thing opens its mouth, it makes the most awful noise he's ever heard. And he's heard Claire sing. He's unsure what to do. He looks to Elle for help.
Elle shrugs. She's as new at this as he is. She cradles the tiny mutant in her arms and shushes it, kisses it's ugly little face. "Now, now..." she soothes. "It's just your Daddy." When the thing quiets down, Elle asks him if he wants to hold it.
Gabriel shakes his head. He wants nothing to do with it. He can't believe something so disgusting came from him and Elle. Two perfect, special beings couldn't possibly make such an abomination. For the first time, Gabriel can't fathom how this works. "Are you sure this one's ours?"
"Are you suggesting this isn't your son?" Elle asks icily. Electric blue flashes behind her eyes.
"No, no!" Gabriel recovers quickly. "Maybe they gave us the wrong baby after sending it to the baby car wash and showroom."
Elle held up her son's tiny hand. Around his wrist, clear as day, the hospital band read "NOAH GABRIEL GRAY". Gabriel, though immortal, died a little inside. "Right off the dealer's floor, darling." Elle confirms. "What's your problem, anyway?"
He looks from his ugly baby to his lovely girlfriend. "I was just hoping..." He pauses. How can he say this delicately? 'Elle, the baby looks like a Mini-Me of your father. Only uglier.' No, he'd have to be way more careful. "I was hoping he'd be, you know, cuter."
Elle chuckles a little. Her laughter gets a little louder, much to Gabriel's discomfort. When she starts to laugh loudly, she disturbs ugly little Noah. She snorts once, then seems to calm down some. "Ohh Gabriel..." she says simply. "All babies are ugly when they're first born."
Gabriel isn't convinced. "Can't we switch him out for something that looks a little less like an onion?"
Elle shakes her head, laughter still in her eyes. "He'll look better in a few days."
"He looks like a mean old man."
Elle examines her son. "I think he looks like you, Daddy." She makes the squished up face the baby is currently displaying.
Gabriel can't help but look away. His eyes linger on the smashed video camera. His only proof this mutant wasn't his creation- ruined. "I can't believe I fainted." He says.
"I can. You're such a big baby. I should have expected it, really." Elle decides she should have known better. "Next time I won't make you film it."
Gabriel holds his hand up. "I never want to talk about that again, thank you."