Author's Note: I actually found it easier to find time to write when I was supposed to be studying. Now it's taking time away from fun holiday stuff, instead of boring school work. So, I'm sorry that I'm all erratic.
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Chapter 7:
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Night 13:
After dropping off Elle at that gas station, Sylar was still haunted by her memory. It was much worse now, though.
The first night, when he saw her, he thought it would be the same as before. He did not know why she would be doing it, but he just assumed that this was not a dream. The first thing that alerted him to the fact that this was different was that he was in his apartment in New York, not his hotel room in Utah.
He knew there were people who could do that, make him see what they wanted him to see. He had spent several minutes in Hawaii with just such a person. But it did not make sense for the company to expend more resources and effort in haunting him when he already knew about it. He supposed they could be stepping it up, just to convince him it was in his head this time.
Elle walked up to him. "I'm sorry I woke you. The door was unlocked, and I let myself in. I hope that's okay."
She looked young and innocent. There was something missing, some worldliness that would make her recognizable as the Elle he partnered up with that morning. The woman before him was not a sadistic spark plug; she was an angel with a broken watch. "It's fine."
"I just had no idea that you went to bed so early," she said in a teasing tone.
"What time is it?"
She checked her watch, the one he had fixed for her. "Nine thirty."
Sylar started to sit up but Elle shook her head and said, "Oh, that's not necessary." She sat on the side of the bed. "I was actually thinking... I love spending time with you, Gabriel, but I was actually thinking that maybe it was time for our relationship to become a little bit more physical." She sounded a little bit embarrassed as she said "physical."
Sylar barely registered what she was saying, because as she spoke, beads of blood emerged from her forehead. They formed a line and started to drip down her face. He reached up and wiped some of the blood away, smearing it across her forehead.
Elle was looking back at him as though nothing was happening. "Gabriel? Is something wrong?"
"You're bleeding." He showed her his hand.
"What?" She took hold of his wrist and looked closely at his hand. "I don't see any blood."
Sylar used the sheet to mop up the blood on her face. Just as he expected, under the blood there was a deep cut that started to bleed again as soon as he removed the sheet. He held the blood soaked sheet up to her. "Do you see the blood here?"
She shook her head. "No." She looked at the sheet closely as though trying to find a dot of blood, when the entire area she was looking at was nothing but blood. She felt her own forehead and showed him her hand. "I don't think I'm bleeding, Gabriel."
Her hand was covered in blood, and she was definitely bleeding. However, the lie detector in his head told him that she was telling the truth. She did not see any blood. So he tried to let it go. He knew this was probably really just a dream. It felt more like a dream than all the other times had. "Okay. What were you saying before?"
"Oh, um, I was saying that I wanted to..." She smiled, embarrassed again. "Um, to be more physical with you. And then you started acting weird. But I, uh, I understand if I was being too forward. I mean, I let myself in, and I came over here... God, what you must think of me." She covered her face with her hand.
He was still mesmerized by her forehead, but he tried to look her in the eye. This time he heard what she was saying, and he realized that, for whatever reason, the Elle who was with him now was really not comfortable being so forward and needed reassurance. "I don't think anything of you. Or anything bad."
Sylar knew that he had to kiss her, but the blood had dripped down her nose and across her lips. He hesitated only slightly before he pulled her down by her arm and kissed her. He tried to ignore the taste of her blood, but it became too much for him. He pushed her away a little and choked back some bile. "Okay."
He tried to kiss her again, but she stood up. "Right. I think I should go." She started to leave.
"Wait, Elle, don't go."
She turned around and suddenly she was wearing the same clothes she had been on the beach the night he killed her. The blood on her forehead had started to clot. She felt it again and fell to the floor. Sylar tried to get up but he could not. Looking at her there, he knew she was dead again.
Then he woke up in his dark motel room. What he had just experienced was much different than when Elle was fake haunting him. He supposed that there were people who could have made him see what he had, but this time, for the first time, he believed strongly that he had been dreaming, that his mind had done that to him. He wondered why he would be more haunted by the memory of killing Elle now when he knew she was alive than he was back when he thought she was dead.
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After that, every night he had similar dreams. Sometimes she talked to him like he was Gabriel and sometimes like Sylar, but she was always completely unaware that she was bleeding or covered in burn scars or both. And in the end, she always died. After a few nights of this, he realized what it was that was causing him to have these nightmares. Knowing that Elle was willing to forgive him, willing to help him, made the memory of what he did to her all the more painful. It was worse knowing that she still cared about him, after he killed her father, after he killed her.
On some level, he hoped that Elle would not call him, or that when she did, it would be to lead him into a trap. It would make it easier on him if she did not forgive him after everything he did to her. He wondered if she had known how much worse he would feel when she forgave him. He wondered if that was part of her trying to hurt him the way he had hurt her. Again, he kind of hoped it was intentional on her part, although he knew she was telling the truth when she said this wasn't part of the plan.
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Night 22:
That night the dream was different. This time it was the night he made ziti. Trevor was supposed to show up right after Elle brought out the food for Gabriel to smell. But there was no knock on the door. Elle sat the food down on the table, and the night went on.
As she poured herself some wine, Sylar realized that there was no blood yet, no hint that she had been set on fire. This might not be a nightmare. It could be plain wish fulfillment. To be able to go on in their relationship and not have it end in betrayal and murder. It was something he rarely thought about, but something he had always wanted.
While they were eating, he had the uncontrollable urge to say something, something he knew would ruin the mood. He held off for a few moments, and then he said, "I know, Elle. I know that you're special."
She looked up and smiled. "Thanks, but where did that come from?"
"I mean that I know you can conjure electricity in your hand." He mimicked how she did it. That was when he realized that he could not do it anymore. He had not thought about that before. He put his hand on the table and tried to phase through it, but he couldn't. He understood why, because this was the past when he only had telekinesis; he just had not noticed that before.
Elle gave a forced, slightly panicked laugh. "What? Electricity? I don't—I don't know what you mean by that."
"I know everything. I know about the company."
Elle stared at him. She raised her hand, but then she seemed to think better of it. "Is this like when you think I'm bleeding? Are you sick, Gabriel?"
For a second he wanted to believe her. He did not know why he felt the need to ruin their dinner. "So Bennet's not watching us from somewhere, trying to find out what I can do?"
He could see that she was trying to figure out what to say. She knew exactly what he was talking about. She leaned across the table and whispered, "No, Bennet's not out there this time. He doesn't know that I'm here." She sighed and sat back. "How did you find out?"
Sylar did not know how to answer that. "I've met agents before."
She looked a little skeptical. "Okay. Well, I'm glad you know, because I've been trying to figure out how to tell you." She formed a ball of electricity in her hand. "How did you know... I was supposed to bring you someone from the list, so that we could see how you transfer abilities."
He shook his head. "You don't want to see that."
She nodded earnestly. "I do. That's my job. Normally we would just bag and tag you, but the company wanted to see you... in the wild so to speak. But now, I've kinda gone native. And maybe you're right; maybe I don't want to see that anymore."
Sylar grew thoughtful. "Is that true? Did you go—or want to go native?"
"I'm not sure what you mean. Obviously, I came without Bennet, so..."
He needed to explain because he did not know how much she knew. "I transfer abilities by killing people. I've only done it once; that why I can move things telekinetically. But if you brought me someone from the list, I would do it again. Does 'going native' mean you would want to stop that, even if the company wanted to see it?" He remembered now that she had tried to stop him; that was how he found out about her ability.
"Well, we knew about Brian Davis, so I kind of thought that you might have to kill to do it. That's why I—That's what I wanted to stop."
"Is that true? Did you want to stop it?"
She shrugged a little, as thought to say that she did not know what he wanted from her. "I don't know why you keep asking me—What?"
He knew that he was staring at her. It was starting now. The blood was starting to pour from her forehead. "You're bleeding," he said with little emotion.
She rolled her eyes. "Is it like a religious thing? Like the crown of thorns?" She held up her hands with the palms facing him. "Do you see the stigmata?"
"No, it's just on your forehead, where I cut you so that I could take your power."
With one hand, she hesitantly felt her forehead. "Oh, my god." She felt it with her other hand, too. "Oh, my god, what did you do to me?"
"I killed you, Elle. You should have stuck with Noah."
Elle fell face down into the ziti. Sylar just continued eating and waited for the dream to end.
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Author's Note: I feel that there is an implication in that scene that he made the ziti, because she said it smelled delicious. Either way, I think it's a valid interpretation.
