Chapter 36: Home

Primatech Seattle facility - next day

"You know what to do, right?"

"Sure I do." Elle had seen plenty of subjects tagged before Primatech released them, though she had never performed the procedure herself. Today she was going to do it for the first time, because it was unlikely anyone else would be able to tag Bella. "Jab in the neck, push the plunger, pull it out." Hope Bella doesn't turn me into a pancake.

Noah placed the double-pronged needle in her hand. "You'll do great. Once you've tagged her, we'll take her home."

"I can do it," Edward unexpectedly offered. "That will save you the inconvenience of driving all the way to Forks."

"It's not our policy to release a subject to a non-agent-"

"Elle will go with me. If you let us take Bella you can get an earlier flight home. I know you're eager to see your family again."

Noah frowned. "That's very kind of you…"

"Just let us take the girl, Bennet," Elle said impatiently. "Edward's just trying to be nice. He doesn't always have a hidden agenda - he's not like you."

"All right, all right. I'll leave you to it." Noah walked away.

Elle ushered Edward into the isolation ward, where she could be almost certain no one would overhear them - all the windowless, soundproofed cells except Bella's were unoccupied and the staff didn't go near her except to put food in her cell at mealtimes, so for now the ward truly was isolated. "Okay, Edward, what are you up to? I don't believe for a second that you'd go so far out of your way just to do something nice for Bennet even if the two of you are being almost civil to each other now. What's up with that anyway? I thought you hated him."

"My first impression of Noah Bennet wasn't very favorable - I thought he was being careless with your safety. I do not, however, hate him. I only wanted to get rid of him because if he stayed, I imagine he would object to our releasing Bella without tagging her."

"Did I hear right? You want me not to tag Bella?" Elle asked incredulously.

"I believe that was implied," Edward said dryly.

Elle took an involuntary step back, shaking her head in denial. "No. No way. You have no idea what you're asking me to do."

"Yes, I do. Bella is probably already scarred for life by everything that has happened to her; whatever chance she has at recovery will be ruined if the Company tracks her down and experiments on her again. I'm asking you to do the right thing."

"For who? Do you have any idea what'll happen to me if I break our number one rule? What my dad will do?"

"I won't let him do anything to you."

Far from being reassured, Elle only grew more agitated. "If you're so worried about protecting me, why ask me to take the risk in the first place? Up till now you've done your best to keep me out of any situation that even looks like it might be dangerous! What is it about Bella Swan that makes you always want to come to her rescue?"

It was mostly because they were both victims of Primatech, but Elle wouldn't let him save her, didn't even think she needed saving, so he had to settle for helping Bella. He couldn't tell Elle that - Edward doubted she would appreciate him drawing parallels between her and Bella, especially not when he was projecting his feelings for her onto the other girl. Instead, he gave her a less important but still compelling reason. "Because I know what it's like to be put in a cage and treated like an animal! It's given me a certain sympathy for her, though at least Bella wasn't locked up by someone she loves."

"You know I'm sorry about that, don't you?" There was a slight tremor in her voice, like the vibration in a wire stretched to its breaking point.

"I know, so please don't think I'm angry with you, Elle. I could never be angry with you. I'm just asking you to try to see this my way."

"And to let Bella go untagged."

"Yes."

Elle chewed the inside of her cheek as she seriously considered Edward's request. Carrying it out wouldn't be impossible or even particularly difficult; Noah had already filed the paperwork for Bella's release. All they had to do was walk her out the door and into Edward's car without anyone noticing her unmarked neck. We could pull it off pretty easily, and it's really important to Edward. Am I really gonna do this just because that stupid vampire asked me to? She glared at him. "You'll owe me big for this. I never did anything this crazy before I met you."

Edward grinned. "I could say the same about you."

###

"Time to get up."

Bella, who was huddled close to the wall on her bed like she was trying to melt into the sheetrock, slowly uncurled herself. "Are we going somewhere?"

"You're going home." Elle picked up Bella's boring white tennis shoes and threw them at her. "Catch."

Bella yelped and raised her right arm to shield her face instead. The shoes sailed toward her in an arc that would bring them down right on her head, but just as they began the downward curve of their trajectory they slammed to a stop in midair and dropped straight down, landing on the bed a foot away from Bella.

Elle was miffed; not only had she been denied the entertainment of watching Bella get hit in the head, this was the second time she'd caught herself feeling a grudging admiration for the whiny little wimp. "Nice save."

Bella hesitantly lowered her arm. "Did I do that?"

"Force fields aren't my thing."

"I don't want them to be my thing either! I don't want to be like this! How do I make it stop?"

"You can't make it stop. All you can do is learn to control it."

"I don't want to learn to control anything," Bella said sulkily. "I just want things to go back to the way they were."

"Well, they can't. Once your powers manifest there's no going back, so you better deal with it or you'll end up in deeper shit than you can handle."

Bella's eyes expanded to the size of saucers; no one had ever spoken to her that way before. "Sounds like you're speaking from experience." Eyes still trained on Elle, she groped for her shoes and tried unsuccessfully to put one on.

"I don't think your right shoe goes on your left foot," Elle told her.

She quickly switched the shoe to the correct foot and fastened its Velcro straps (Primatech inmates weren't allowed to have shoelaces in case they turned suicidal and used them to strangle themselves). "So what's your thing?"

Elle raised her eyebrows. "My 'thing'?"

"You have one, right? No offense, but I don't think you got this job because of your scientific expertise…or your bedside manner."

Elle blinked disbelievingly at Bella's critique of her people skills. Had Spineless Swan just grown a vertebra or two?

Bella took her incredulous expression to mean something entirely different. "I'm sorry - is it impolite to ask about another person's…thing?"

"We don't have any hard and fast rules about that stuff. Besides, you showed me yours so I guess I should show you mine."

Bella was gratifyingly awed by the sight of Elle holding lightning in the palm of her hand. "Unbelievable," she whispered. "How do you control it?"

Elle shrugged. "Mind over matter, I guess. Your ability seems to activate when you're scared, so I think you need to get control of your fear first. Then you'll have control of your power. Just don't practice anywhere you might expose yourself to normal people…or squish them. If you do that, my bosses will have you locked up again for good, and the next agent your case gets handed off to probably won't be as nice as me."

"Imagine that," Bella said sarcastically.

"Hey, I've been very nice to you. I haven't electrocuted you even once, and I'm not gonna stick this-" She took the injector Noah had given her out of her pocket and showed it to Bella, who shrank away from it with a look of near-terror "-in your neck."

"Thank you. I don't like needles."

"It's not the needle you should worry about, it's the isotope inside. It has a radiation signature that lets us track you. Since I'm letting you go without it, you'll have a chance to drop off the Company's radar completely. Don't screw it up. And pull your hair over your shoulders - we can't let anyone see that I haven't tagged you."

While Bella rearranged her hair to cover her neck, Elle emptied her syringe into the toilet, flushed the tracking isotope, and disposed of the used needle in a medical waste container to avoid arousing suspicion. No one gave her a second glance as she escorted Bella out of the facility.

"How will I get home? Should I take a bus, or-?"

Elle pushed open the door leading from the building into the adjacent parking garage. "Nope, we're catching a ride with a friend."

Bella's jaw dropped when she saw who said friend was. "Edward Cullen?"

"Hello, Bella."

"You- What are you doing here? How do you know about this place?"

"I ought to know about my girlfriend's workplace, don't you think?"

"Your girlfriend?" Bella's bewildered stare moved from Edward to Elle as she put two and two together. "You? But how? You're…whatever you are, and he's in my biology class!"

"He's also a telepath."

Bella took another look at Edward, struggling to reconcile what Elle had just told her with her previous perception of him. He was her lab partner, the best-looking guy in school, an outsider like her…who read minds and dated a human generator. "Oh. Well, it all makes perfect sense now. I think I need to sit down."

Edward reached out to help her as her knees buckled, which had a revitalizing effect on the brunette. She jerked away from his outstretched hand, stumbled, fell, and instinctively resorted to other means of putting distance between them. Her force field hit Edward like an out-of-control eighteen-wheeler, except a truck couldn't have budged a vampire one inch. Bella moved him a great deal more than an inch.

He was wrong, Elle thought as she observed the collision. Vampires can fly. She wondered if she should go check on him, but he was already getting up from where he'd landed and appeared unhurt, though the impact had cracked the concrete.

"Don't worry about me," he called over to her. "Bella needs your help more than I do."

So Elle shifted her attention to Bella, who was crouched next to the nearest car and hyperventilating. "Okay, that was the kind of accident you need to be careful not to have."

"I'm sorry! Did I- Did I hurt him? I'm so sorry!"

"Don't worry about Edward - he'll be fine. He's tough."

"I must've thrown him twenty feet! Nobody's that tough, Elle!"

"Edward is."

The vampire approached them slowly, making sure not to come too close. "Bella, I promise you have not hurt me in any way. I apologize for giving you a fright; I only wanted to help, but I should have realized how you would react."

Bella's panic gradually subsided, replaced by relief that she hadn't killed Elle's boyfriend and shame at Edward knowing why she didn't want him to touch her. All of Forks probably knew by now. How would they treat her? How would she cope with the labels, the whispers, the pity, the sidelong glances?

Elle's hand on her shoulder jarred her out of the downward spiral she was slipping into. Her fear returned for a heart-stopping moment, but she pushed it down. Elle had nothing in common with those men, and she couldn't hurt Bella the way they had - she was a girl. She was safe.

"Are you done freaking out?" Elle demanded.

"I…I think so."

"Good. Now you can get in the car."

Bella wasn't sure how she felt about being told to get into a confined space with Edward, but it wasn't as bad as she feared; she had the whole backseat to herself, and he barely spoke, so it was easy to ignore his presence. In fact, when they reached Forks she found that she was almost more afraid of facing her father. Had he heard what she'd done? Did he know what she was?

"You're his daughter."

She jumped. Edward was peering around the back of his seat at her, having made an educated guess - which as it turned out was dead accurate - as to what was on her mind. "He loves you, and nothing can change that. Still, for his peace of mind, I would advise you to keep your talent to yourself."

"No problem - I don't want to end up in a straitjacket. And I'll work on my control so I don't have any more 'outbursts' like in the parking garage." She looked over at Elle. "Maybe you could help me…learn what to do?" she asked hesitantly but hopefully.

"Do I look like mentor material?" Elle scoffed. "Even if I wanted to be, I'm flying back to New York tonight."

"Do you have to?"

"It's where I live, Bella."

Just when she thought she'd rid herself of her unwanted little friend, Edward spoke up. "I'll be accompanying her, so if you should need to speak with Elle you can reach her through me."

"Thanks." Bella exchanged phone numbers with him, then got out of the car and slowly made her way up her driveway. Charlie met her halfway to the house and pulled her into a rib-crushing hug. After embracing for almost a whole minute, the Swans continued into their house with their arms around each other. Bella turned back just once to flash a big smile at Elle and Edward before the door closed behind her and her father.

Elle smiled back and waved at her; then, as soon as Bella closed the door, she turned a fierce scowl on Edward. "Why did you tell her how to get hold of us in New York? I thought I was rid of her!"

She was incensed to see Edward wearing a huge grin. "You know I love you just the way you are, but it wouldn't hurt you to be a little more tolerant of others." His grin widened. "Bella Swan is an excellent teaching aid."

"You're right about that," Elle grumbled. "If I can learn to put up with her I'll have tolerance coming out my ears."

###

They took a ten PM flight to JFK International Airport in New York, arrived early the next morning, then parted company. Elle took a taxi home to Hartsdale, while Edward went to his new residence: a brownstone in Manhattan. It was far enough from the Hartsdale facility that with any luck him relocating to be closer to Elle would escape Bob's notice, but near enough that visiting him wasn't too inconvenient for her. The commute from Hartsdale to Manhattan was certainly less trouble than traveling to Washington, which in Edward's opinion made her absence rather strange. Four days had passed since their arrival, and in all that time he hadn't seen a trace of Elle, or received so much as a phone call.

On the fifth day, when his patience had almost completely given way to worry that something had happened to her, she showed up on his doorstep. "I know midnight's a little late for social calls, but I figured it's the perfect time to drop in on a vampire," she said unapologetically.

He held the door open for her. "By all means, come in."

"I would've come by sooner except Daddy had a new assignment waiting for me when I came home. I've been doing surveillance on the worst loser in history for the last week," she told him as she meandered into the living room from the foyer. The television immediately drew her attention. "You're seriously watching Anderson Cooper?" She grabbed the remote and flipped to the SyFy channel. "Ooh, Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus is on."

Edward quickly took the remote back and turned off the TV - although he would endure almost anything for Elle's sake, he had to draw a line somewhere. Sitting through ninety minutes of a ridiculously schlocky science-fiction movie was definitely over that line. "Why don't you tell me about your latest assignment?"

Elle rolled her eyes; after spending the past five days observing this guy, she wasn't eager to spend even more time discussing him. She wasn't even going to write about him - aside from the fact that she and Noah hadn't learned much yet, Thompson snooping in the journal she'd kept while investigating the Cullens had shown her the error of leaving written records lying around. "Ugly Sweater Man? Like I said, he's a loser. He lives in Queens, repairs clocks for a living, and he wears these totally hideous cardigans. Alice would have a great time improving his wardrobe if she could stand to look at it long enough."

"Does Ugly Sweater Man have a name?"

"Yeah. His name is Gabriel Gray."

We're now moving into the final part of the story - I can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that there are less than ten chapters to go.

Next up: Gabriel becomes Sylar, and the mission has some life-changing consequences for Elle.