I do not own any character from the series of Heroes, and neither do I make any monies from the writing of this story. It is purely for my, and hopefully your, enjoyment.
Apologies for the long wait between chapters – real life intrudes waaaay too much ;) Is Sylar/Gabriel's story in Fugitives getting better and better? I adored the episode between him and his father – brilliant!
Thanks to those who have reviewed or added my story to your favourites list – they are much appreciated. This chapter is set two months after the last one. One last thing, then I'll shut up! The story gets a bit spoiler-ish from now on, as it takes in some things that are happening in Fugitives.
________
Chapter six
Eve quietly padded across the bedroom, glancing at Gabriel to ensure he was still asleep, before getting her clothes together and dressing.
"Hmm?" came a muffled enquiry from the bed, and Eve sat on the edge, leaning over to kiss his head.
"Go back to sleep; I told you I was going in early today. Mister Ali has to take his wife to the hospital, remember?"
"Mmm..." Gabriel replied sleepily.
"I should be back around mid-afternoon, okay? You going to the workshop?"
"Nah..."
"Okay, I'll see you later, then," Eve chuckled, kissing his head again before ruffling his hair. "Lazy bastard..."
Eve grabbed her coat, hat and gloves and hurried out of the door, knowing that Mister Ali would provide her with coffee and breakfast, so she did not bother making herself any. Both she and Gabriel had settled well in the Archer Heights district of the city; Eve working part time in a local grocery store, and Gabriel helping out in a workshop, teaching how to repair clocks and watches. Eve had been astonished when he had told her of his expertise, and she had asked him about his broken watch, teasing him when he told her that superstition prevented him from repairing it. The feeling of security and contentment that she had been feeling during the past few weeks had dissipated somewhat when she had read an article in a magazine, during a quiet period at work, about the serial killer Sylar, and she had remembered the same name on his watch, and felt that she had heard the name somewhere before, but couldn't put her finger on it, and Eve fretted that he and Gabriel were one and the same person, and wondered whether to confront him about it before deciding that ignorance was bliss. But a small voice nagging at the back of her mind persisted in asking her just how long she intended on keeping her head buried in the sand. Especially now.
Eve sighed as she thought of the pregnancy testing kit safely ensconced in her bag, and knew that she would not be able to put off testing herself any longer. She had already missed one period and was near to the time when she would be due on again, but she knew in her heart that she did not need to do the test. 'What am I going to do...?' she worried, her hand automatically going to her belly. 'What if he really is this guy?'
Eve frowned as a black van pulled in just ahead of her, and she faltered in her step, turning and making to run as the back burst open and several figures, clad all in black, with masks over their faces, jumped out, all of them aiming weapons at her.
"Help!" she screamed, as one of the men fired.
________
Gabriel glanced at the clock, racking his brain to try and remember exactly what time Eve said that she would be home, but he was certain it would have been before now. He tried her cell once more, sighing with part anger, part panic when it went to voicemail again. 'Fuck, Eve! Where are you?' He grabbed his coat and headed out of the apartment, telling himself that he was over-reacting, and that he would meet her on her way home. He prayed that would be the case.
Gabriel glanced up at the darkening sky, which threatened snow, pulled his collar up, shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched up against the chill wind that blew in straight off the water.
"Mister! Mister!" a voice behind him called, and Gabriel tensed up, ready for trouble.
"Yeah?" he enquired as he turned to face a Hispanic man.
"Your wife; I saw her! These men took her in a van."
"What?" Gabriel exploded, taking a step towards the him, then backing off when fear across the much smaller man's face. "When?"
"This morning; first thing. It was still dark, but I heard someone scream and I looked out the window and saw them take her."
"And you never did anything until now?" Gabriel yelled, clenching his fists inside his pockets to stop himself sending the man flying through the air.
"I-I didn't know where you lived; and the police... they don't do nothing."
"Fuck!" Gabriel cursed, wishing that he had acted on his instinct when he had thought he'd heard someone shout not long after Eve had left for work, but had instead turned over and pulled the covers up. He watched as the man scurried back into his own apartment, glancing warily at Gabriel as he closed the door and threw several locks, and Gabriel stood there for a few minutes, trying to formulate a plan in his whirring mind.
'Who would've taken her?' he frowned, knowing the answer almost before the question had formulated. There had been almost daily news bulletins about people disappearing off the streets amidst rumours that some people had special abilities, and the government were the ones behind the disappearance, especially as Senator Nathan Petrelli had appeared on television several times warning against a serious threat to national security, but the government strenuously denied any knowledge of the so-called disappearances.
'So where would the facility be?' he mused, heading back to the apartment and to the computer, figuring that if you needed to find anything out, the internet was the best place to do it.
________
"Are you okay...?"
Eve shrank back at the sound of the voice until she realised it was a woman, and she uncurled herself a little from the foetal position she was in and looked up, nodding at the young blonde woman bending down over her.
"God, what have they done to you...?" the woman gasped, seeing Eve's bruised face.
"I guess I struggled too much," she croaked, closing her eyes and shuddering at the memory of her treatment when she arrived at the detention centre and had been taken off the drugs they had been keeping her docile with, and forcibly strip searched her, beating her as punishment for fighting so hard.
"You should never do that," the blonde fretted, "it only makes things worse.
"Yeah... tell me something I don't know," Eve replied bitterly. "You know where we are?"
"I have no idea; I got moved about from place to place, but I don't think they do that with everyone."
"They fly us in from all over the country, sweetheart," another voice butted in. "Marie says she caught a glimpse of the place as they herded her and some others in, and it's huge."
Eve nodded again and tried to sit up, gasping as a sharp pain shot through her abdomen. "Fuck!" she swore, clinging to the blonde as the pain continued.
"Have you broken something?" the woman worried.
"No..." Eve panted. "M-my... baby..."
"Oh, God; you're pregnant?"
"Okay; screen her off from those bastards," another woman ordered.
"We need a doctor!" the blonde cried, looking from the woman still grasping her arm, tears rolling down her swollen cheeks, to the black woman approaching them.
"I am a doctor," she shrugged. "And if you mean them, who the hell do you think did this to her, sweetheart?" She looked at Eve, sighing as she saw a dark red stain appearing on the orange boilersuit that they had all been dressed in. "My name is Marsha," she smiled, stroking Eve's head. "I'll do what I can to help."
"I-I'm Claire..." the blonde added, squeezing Eve's hand. "If you want me to go...?"
"N-no... E-Eve..."
"Okay, Claire, I want you to help me get this off," Marsha instructed, smiling thanks as several women in the large holding cell formed a line, blocking the view from the large window that dominated the cell, so that the patrolling guards outside could not see what was happening; although they doubted it would be long before the guards would become suspicious and burst in.
"My baby...!" Eve sobbed, her cries turning to a gasp as the pain increased. "O-oh... God..."
"I hope to God they haven't ruptured anything," Marsha sighed quietly, exchanging worried glances with Claire and they removed Eve's jeans as carefully as they could.
"If they have?" Claire whispered, gulping when Marsha shook her head.
________
Gabriel watched, through a pair of binoculars, the comings and goings at the large building complex, some mile or so away, noting the razor fencing, and heavy guard presence, certain that he had found the right place. He had spent most of the previous few days trying to find out where the government took those they captured, to no avail. It was only when he had gone for a walk to clear his head, and had come across a demonstration against the programme, that he had found out that there were rumoured to be just three facilities, one in the wilds of Montana, one in the state of Utah, and this in the middle of the Arizonan desert, which he had seen in several dreams that were, or so he had thought, unrelated to Eve. He prayed that this was where they had taken her, and that they did not know her connection to him. Gabriel tensed as he heard a noise, grateful for the camouflage power that he had taken from a woman in Maryland, but he almost blew his cover as two figures passed close by, such was his surprise.
"Well, well, well..." he mused, breaking his cover and chuckling as Noah Bennet and the Haitian spun around, Bennet aiming a gun unerringly straight at his head.
"You! What the hell are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing..." Gabriel replied laconically.
"Well, being as I'm the one with a gun and the Haitian, you get to answer first," Bennet replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Gabriel sighed heavily, shaking his head as he mused on whether he could take them both on with his powers blocked, before deciding against it. "They have my girlfriend..." he eventually replied.
"Your... girlfriend?" Noah snorted incredulously. "You mean she's lasted a little longer than Elle did?"
"I'm guessing they have Claire, right?" Gabriel mused, ignoring the barb.
"They've been moving her around from place to place; it's taken me weeks to track her down. This facility is not one I'd been told about; I was only ever told about smaller containment centres, nothing on this scale..."
So, how did you know about the ones you knew about?" Gabriel frowned, looking intensely at his adversary.
"I was working... undercover, as a double agent," Bennet admitted heavily. "What I didn't figure on was them taking my daughter, then the said same daughter turning terrorist to free those we had captured."
"The plane crash? I heard a rumour about that from someone. Claire caused that?" Gabriel chuckled.
"Along with Peter Petrelli, yes..."
"That figures," he snorted with amusement. "So Nathan had no qualms about turning family in, then?"
"It's out of Nathan's hands now," Bennet sighed heavily, "but right now, they are the least of my worries."
"So, how did they capture Claire again?" Gabriel frowned. "Pretty careless of you..."
"She lost her trust in me; started doing things that put herself, her family; all of us, in immense danger. Then one day her luck ran out, and they caught up with her."
"So, how're we gonna get in? It's heavily guarded, and there's only three of us..."
"We?" Bennet echoed incredulously. "There's gonna be no we..."
"You need me, Noah, a lot more than I need you," Gabriel reasoned, "so we can either do this separately and probably screw things up, or we can work together as a team," Gabriel shrugged.
"We need more of us," the Haitian worried. "Three is too few."
Noah Bennet frowned and looked at the site through the glasses that Gabriel had given to him, sighing deeply. His partner was right; three was far too few, but he did not know who else he could turn to, and he doubted that even if he had someone he could rely on to help, they would not be able to get to the facility as quickly as he wanted. He handed the binoculars back. "Do you have a plan?" he asked.
"I was trying to figure one out," Gabriel admitted. "I guess it was too much to ask that it would have been a similar set up to Primatech..."
"The holding cells should be asbestos or lead lined," Noah informed him, "if we could reach them, or if you could open them, we'd have a lot more help to hand."
"All they will think of is getting the fuck out."
"Oh, I dunno... revenge is a pretty powerful motivator, dontcha think?"
"We have to get in there first," the Haitian pointed out. "And we have spent far too long here anyway. "They may have spotted us."
"I think we'd know if they had spotted us," Gabriel replied. "The authorities aren't noted for their ability to sneak up quietly on someone; they have to go in with all sirens blaring."
"Maybe we can give them a false alarm...?" Bennet pondered thoughtfully. "Send the place into a panic and use that to our advantage?"
"Let us head back to the town and formulate a plan," the Haitian urged, nervous in spite of his companions confidence.
"Yeah," Noah agreed. "You coming?"
Gabriel frowned as he glanced at the prison, torn between wanting to go in and get Eve, and seeing the sense of making a plan of action. "Okay," he eventually nodded.
"So, who the hell came to your rescue, anyway?" Bennet pondered as they walked towards where he and the Haitian had left their jeep, a couple of miles back.
"Arthur Petrelli," Gabriel chuckled.
"Fuck! Don't any of you stay dead?"
"Afraid not," he grinned, "thanks to your Claire..."
"Yeah, don't think I've forgotten about that, Gabriel."
"Nor I when you slit my throat, Noah..." he rejoined, glancing back at the facility, praying that he was not too late.
________