Elle shows Noah the picture of her mother, and Noah touches baby Elle's face with his little chubby baby fingers.

"Mama pretty," he tells her, then touches her scarred cheek with his tiny hand. He's never seen her without the scars, of course, and he doesn't know how she got them.

"See Grandma?" Elle points, and Noah's eyes follow where her finger goes.

"Grandma?" he asks, looking at the woman in the picture, then back to Elle. Her heart breaks when she realizes he's not labeling – he's asking. The only family Noah has ever had is his mama, and Grandma is a foreign concept.

"This is mama's mommy," she explains, "See her hair? It looks like ours."

Noah looks at the picture again, but squirms. He doesn't sit still very well, and it's clear he doesn't understand the importance of this picture to Elle. "Swing?" he asks, looking towards the door, "Please, swing."

Elle sighs and puts the picture back on top of her dresser. "Yeah, Noah, we can go to the park."

Xxxxxxxxx

Elle spends the rest of the day with Noah, pushing him on the swing at the park and then taking him out for ice cream. As Noah smashes the vanilla cone into his face, half eating and half just making a mess, Elle's eyes trail over the other families eating in the little shop.

A man has his little girl balanced on one knee, and she's daintily accepting bites from the spoon he offers her. A woman sits off to the side, laughing, and brushes her hand against the man's face, kisses the little girl's head.

Another family, with a little boy…the man is making little airplane noises as he zooms a bite past his son's lips, and the toddler cracks up, ignores the ice cream and reaches for his daddy.

In the corner, Elle finally sees a woman, sitting alone with her little girl. The little girl is lapping at a rapidly melting ice cream cone, and the mother is grinning. Elle thinks for a second that maybe she should take Noah over to say hi, that maybe this woman and Elle could take their children to the park together, when a man comes up from behind the woman, kisses her below the ear and swipes a bite of her ice cream.

Elle sighs and looks at Noah, happily downing his ice cream and covering his shirt with melted vanilla, and gently smooths his hair back from his eyes.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

After Noah falls asleep that night, worn out from the park, Elle sits at the kitchen table and stares at the broken watch. The front is cracked and it won't keep time…it won't even wind up.

So if it's broken, it should either be fixed or throw it away completely, because holding on to half-things doesn't make any sense.

But what if it can't be fixed, and all that ends up happening is that instead of fixing it, it breaks worse? Does it matter, if it didn't work right in the first place? Can something be only partly broken?

Elle's hands shake so hard she can barely dial the phone, but she bites her lip and takes a deep breath and does it anyway.

"It's Elle," she says, and she doesn't even care that her voice shakes, "Can…can we talk?"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

They go for a walk, because dinner seems too much like a date, and even though Elle knows that of course Sylar knows where she lives, she doesn't want him anywhere near her house. They end up sitting down by a little lake, watching the sunset and waiting for the stars to come out.

They're not talking much, just quiet, half trusting sentences. He asks her about Noah, she tells him Noah's age and hair and eye color, and that he loves baby carrots and his teddy bear.

She doesn't tell him that Noah can make his teddy bear dance around the room.

She learns early on in the conversation to omit details rather than lie about them…when she'd told him that she didn't miss him, not like that, he'd gotten a funny little half smile on his face and nodded.

It makes her wonder how many people he's killed, and just how powerful he really is now.

"Where have you been?" she finally asks, tucking her knees up against her chest and wrapping her arms around them, resting her chin on her knees and looking at him through her bangs.

"Around," he says, "I…I have an apartment in New York. I have a shop again."

His obsession with knowing things, with fixing things, makes him good at his job, and not so good at being a person.

Elle presses her mouth into a thin line, looks at him. He looks the same, really. Dark hair slicked back, a button up dress shirt, and dress pants. He looks like Gabriel, and he looks safe…which just makes him that much more dangerous at the end of the day.

"Thank you for the picture," she says, changing the topic and looking out over the still water of the lake. She can see the reflection of the trees in the water.

"You deserve to remember your mother."

"I deserve a lot of things that I'll never get," Elle snaps without meaning to, anger coloring her voice.

He's got no rebuttal for that, so he just nods quietly. "Elle…"

"Tell me why," she demands.

"Why…"

"That day. Why you did what you did. Why you told me we could have something, be something, away from our parents…you lied to me. I never lied to you."

He stares at the water for a long minute, twisting his fingers together. "Elle…"

"No," she says, "I think you owe me that much."

"I do, I know," he tells her, shifting on the grass, "I just…I thought you knew something, I thought you were playing me again…Elle, I was so confused."

"And that was worth my death?" she asks, her voice trembling, "You had a bad day, and you didn't know something, so the answer was to…" she lets her voice trail off; they both know what he did. It doesn't need to be spelled out.

"There is nothing I can say, Elle," he tells her, and she turns her head to look at him. The fading sun catches in the tear that rolls down his cheek, and she has to fight the urge to wipe it away with her thumb.

"No," she agrees, "I guess not." And there really isn't. She owes Bennet for everything she has in her life, and she's not willing to jeopardize what he gave her – what he gave his life to give her – so easily. What happens the next time Sylar has a bad day?

She rests her head on her hands, watching him quietly. Her hair falls over the scars on her cheek, brushing against skin that no longer has feeling. When he reaches his hand forward to brush the hair away from her face, she flinches, and she's back on the beach again.

"Please don't touch me," she murmurs, pushing her hair back behind her ear with her own fingers. He nods, folding his fingers together and staring at the ruined skin that covers her cheek and neck.

"I'm so sorry," he says, and he half reaches for her again, but drops his hand before his fingers make contact.

Elle ignores him. "I called you because this isn't fair to my son."

"What…"

"He has a father," Elle says, like he hasn't spoken, "and he has the right to know who you are, even if you don't deserve to know him."

"Please, Elle…" he's not sure what he's begging for, but he's dreamed of meeting his son since the first time (and only time) he saw him.

Elle shakes her head, "I don't know you at all. And until I do, I'm not letting you near Noah. I'll die first."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On the nights June works the late shift, Elle lets Noah practice his ability. She'll line up his stuffed animals on his dresser and sit next to him, requesting each one. He can move them with just a gaze – doesn't even need to raise a hand – and he is learning to control the speed at which the little stuffed toys move.

"Mama, show me your sparkles," he requests one night, and Elle obediently opens her palm, little bursts of electricity crackling on her skin. Noah squints in concentration and Elle watches as the tiny blue ball of energy rises out of her palm and floats in midair before exploding.

"Noah…" Elle breathes, and Noah grins proudly.

"I thinked I could do that," he says simply, crawling into Elle's lap and kissing her cheek before crawling under the covers. "Night, mama. I love you."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"You have a watch shop?" Elle asks, sitting across from Sylar at the little outdoor café.

She's running out of ideas of places to meet him that aren't her house, and she feels a little silly, playing with her ceramic coffee mug and staring at him across the table.

He's so many things and none of them all at once to her. Her son's father, yes, but maybe also the man she loved…loves. She doesn't know what to call him anymore, so she avoids addressing him at all, and she wonders if he notices.

"I do," he says, "it's in a different location…the old one had too many bad memories, and I wanted to start over."

Elle nods, thinking of how she felt the first day she moved into the little house with June. Trying to be ready for a fresh start but not at all sure of what the fresh start would bring.

Elle slides a picture of Noah across the table to him, "I brought you this," she murmurs softly, and he pulls the picture into his hands.

"He looks like you," he says, staring at the picture like it might come alive in his fingers.

Elle nods; she hears that a lot. "Except for his eyes," she takes a drink of her coffee, burning the roof of her mouth with a too-large swallow.

"He's beautiful, like his mother," he whispers, and Elle bites her lip. She remembers being beautiful, but now all she sees in the mirror are red burn scars.

Xxxxxxxxxx

"Elle, are you alright?" Beth asks as Elle drops her second plate that night all over the kitchen floor.

"I'm fine," Elle says, wiping her palms on her apron and apologizing to the cook, who has to remake the entrée. "Just have too much on my mind."

She hates that he's all she can think about, and is starting to think that maybe calling him was all a bad idea anyway.

xxxxxxxxx

Noah's birthday is coming up, and Elle can't believe that her son is going to be three. She remembers the fear that came along with the positive pregnancy test, the anxiety that came from Noah's shrill baby cry and the love that came from knowing he was hers like all of those things happened yesterday.

Noah says "three" like "free" and Elle thinks it's too cute to correct. June tries, sticking her tongue against her front teeth and making him imitate her "thhhhh" sound. He does, and even correctly says "the" but when asked to imitate three, he grins and says "free."

He flashes Elle a big, cheesy smile like he's done a trick, and Elle suspects that Noah is messing with them.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Did you make it hurt?" Elle asks quietly. They are sitting near the lake again, and the foot of distance between them feels like miles. "When you killed Bennet. Did you make it hurt?"

He doesn't answer.

"You blink now," she continues, "did you kill for that?"

He shakes his head, "I got it from Hiro Nakamura. He's…he's the one who brought us to the beach that night."

"What else can you do?"

She can see his Adam's apple bob when he swallows hard, and he looks right at her, "I don't want any of it, but I'm not strong enough to give them away."

Elle knows the information she had her in phone was enough to give him at least five new powers. What he took from her mind, she doesn't know, but at least he knows she never meant to lie to him.

Not like he did to her.