DISCLAIMER: If I owned Heroes, would I really be writing on Fanfiction? I'd be shoving all this chapter into a script in which is so mind-blowing that Zach Quinto earned billions of dollars and would never have to lift a pinky for the rest of his life. Except for filming.

I've considered renaming this as Every Serial Killer Needs a Girlfriend. :P Just kidding. But it is true, though, isn't it?

I mention a certain frappucino in this chapter. Please note that I've never had one. I also mention Philadelphia, but I've actually been there! Wahoo! For once I know what I'm writing about! I'm going to be there for nearly a month this summer, so if you're in town, look me up and we'll have a seven-hour-long discussion about how fascinating a certain serial killer is! hehe...

Leave a review, please, so I know how much my take on Gabriel and his much-needed girlfriend is loved or despised.

Chapter Two

Comparison

Gabriel sipped at his long-awaited frap, peering under his eyebrows at Lenore. Now in the warm café, two spots of rose had blossomed over her fair cheeks, making her look more like a delicate porcelain doll than a flesh-and-blood woman. Coffee apparently wasn't a favorite of hers; she now was sucking up hot chocolate through a red and white coffee stirrer. "Were they out of straws?" he smiled.

"Of course they weren't," Lenore grinned, and took another sip. "I just like coffee stirrers." Amused in anticipation of her explanation, Gabriel held back the question why, figuring she'd explain soon enough. Indeed, she did. "They're so thin, it takes longer to drink anything. I like things to last." Gabriel thought about this – not too hard, though – and took another sip of frappucino. "So what do you do for a living?" she asked.

"Well, I..." he began, then stopped, contemplating whether or not to tell her. After all, Lenore... Well, she was amazing, wasn't she? He was already beneath her simply by her shining aura, the way she carried herself: like a queen in disguise. He was already unworthy enough without her knowing about his job. He was just such a nerd.

Lenore's pocketwatch was ticking away, concealed in the silky folds of her waistcoat, but that didn't change the fact that he could still sense it. With every second, it sent invisible currents through the air, two minutes and eleven seconds slow. It was driving him insane.

"Gabriel? What do you do?" she repeated.

It was too much. "Let me see your watch."

Lenore frowned, but only slightly. It seemed the rest of her was very nearly smiling. "What?"

"Your pocketwatch, Lenore," he repeated, extremely serious and urgent. He held out his hand impatiently. "I need to see it." Once the pocketwatch was in his hand, along with a few dubious glances from Lenore, he was immersed in the feverish drive to set its time right. He twiddled with the knob at the side to set the lost two minutes forward, then let it stay that way for a few brief seconds. With his work done, he handed the watch back to her, now in perfect time.

"That's what I do."

A thin, curved eyebrow on Lenore's delicate face was raised in question, so he explained. "Your pocketwatch was exactly two minutes and eleven seconds slow. It's a knack I have, knowing when things are broken. Or... malfunctioning." He shrugged. "So I fix watches, you see."

"Ah!" Lenore exclaimed. "But how do you know the right time? I mean, I didn't see you even glance once at your watch while you were fixing mine."

"I just know," was his reply. "It's pretty much inexplicable."

Slowly, one corner lifing before the other, an awed smile crept up from her pink lips. Dimples, he thought. She has dimples. That's... cute. Insanely. "That's amazing," she said. "How you just do that. You..." She shook her head. "You're something else."

Gabriel couldn't help but duck his head in order to hide the sky smile the compliment had caused. Quickly, he led the conversation to her. "So what do you do?"

"I'm a director," she replied, no shame at all in contrast to him.

Shock. "What, on Broadway?"

It was enough, those three words, to make her laugh out loud. The laugh was, in short, real, if not the truest sound he'd ever heard. Gabriel had never in his life come across a laugh so genuine, so unafraid to be happy and lay any secrets on the floor. Not the most beautiful, certainly, but nothing is entirely beautiful to the core, and only those who face being real unmasked can name this laughter of their brave. "No, not Broadway," she chuckled, "though that is my eventual plan. I'm actually pulling together an audition in Philadelphia for a production of Cats." She then suppressed him with a thoughtful gaze, studying his face. "Please tell me you dance."

Dance? Is she serious? Gabriel shook his head.

"What a shame," she sighed, but with a smile. "You look like you'd be a fantastic Mister Mistoffelees. Sadly, he usually has to be the best dancer on the cast."

"You look like an analogue clock," he commented, unable to stop himself in time to shut up, "hung on a cluttered wall. Lots of pictures, shelves with all kinds of useless knickknacks. You'd be painted like marble, but no numbers on the face. You'd be one of those fancy ones with diamonds instead."

"How do you figure?" She seemed deeply curious, wondering how on earth she'd ever be compared to this clock. He relished unveiling the explanation.

"Analogues may not be high tech, and they may not even be right all the time, but they're classic. You'd be old-fashioned as a clock, up there on the busy wall. The only part up there that would make any sense, like the eye of the storm." What was this? He didn't even realize what his lips were saying, and yet his ears recognized it as the truth regardless. "As for the diamonds, they still tell time. It just means that numbers don't matter, because every second is precious."

He felt some pleasure in the flaming blush that horizontally flurried itself across Lenore's face, grateful knowing he at least had some leftover experience from his late twenties in knowing how to make a woman feel appreciated. By the look of her, she must have been in her late twenties herself. Cute. Unbelievably cute. "So you're a Philly girl," he smiled, changing subject.

"Uh, yes. Born and bred, actually."

"What brings you to New York?"

"Well," she began, and pulled the combined fullness of her hair over her right shoulder, nestling against the soft white flesh of her lower neck. "I have this cousin Gillian who's in charge of a law firm up here, and he took off for Australia during December for a vacation." She settled back into her chair, that curly bunch of hair unraveling, seeping unseen across her back, and took another strained sip of cocoa. "Anyhow, he offered me his apartment, and it's pretty nice, so I took it. Just until I get some of this pre-show business done. You know, meeting with costumers, dancers, musicians. Research. Cats is one of the most demanding shows out there in every aspect." Now she leaned casually forward in her seat, fidgeting with the paper centerpiece blaring an espresso ad. "But I kind of like New York. Philly's nice, but it's not this..." She stared up into the dim, orange lamplight. "Not nearly this sophisticated, this... this alive. Philadelphia's beautiful, but so old. So much room to grow, but nothing to help it move along."

"I know."

"Do you? Have you been to Philly much?"

"I was thinking in a metaphorical sense. My life," he explained, and immediately decided that if he'd said it to anyone else, he would have regretted it. Inexplicably, there was this great, shining something in her that forced... no, not forced. Inspired him to trust this Lenore. Her face encouraged him to continue. To satisfy her, he did. "I always hoped... No." This underlying feeling in his gut translated into a need for her to know absolute truth. From this moment on, he'd protect her from lies. "I always thought I was special. No hoping at all involved; I just knew. I had potential to dedicate myself to anything, become everything that wasn't expected of me because I was raised to be so plain.

"My father was a watchmaker, so I was expected to be one, too. When he died, I'd just turned... I think twenty-two. So I canceled my classes at NYU to take over the shop." Gabriel took up his cup for a long gulp of frap, but he'd already swallowed it all. He swung his cup around from side to side for a bit, watching the dregs swims circles in their soggy graveyard at the bottom of the cup. "I figured I could always go back and finish college anytime, but then the shop became so demanding, and..." He shook his head as though it would make the memory go flying out his ears. "And I didn't want to disgrace my dad by closing his shop. So I stuck with it.

"But my mom... She was always pressuring me to do something with my life, not be the bloody watchmaking son of a watchmaker. She'd get angry sometimes. Very angry. She just didn't understand that I had to uphold my dad's honor, cause she sure as hell didn't. I wanted more than anything to become something special, but all that potential was gone now. I'd buried myself: Gabriel the watchmaker. I had doubts of still being special, and my mom didn't help at all." The watchmaker shrugged and quoted the girl across the table from him. "So much room to grow, but nothing to help it move along."

Lenore still seemed to be processing this, deciding on what to say to this speech. As he glanced at her, he felt inspired to say more. "What I wish I had more than anything, you have in spades."

She looked shocked. "What's that?"

"Isn't it obvious? You're special." He looked right into her icy eyes when he said this, wanting to make sure she understood everything he was saying. "You're more unique than anyone I've ever met, so unafraid of the world. How do you do it?"

"The same way you do watchmaking," she said, just as serious. "That's what I do. I just know how. It's pretty inexplicable. I'm no different than you, and we're each just as important in the world, you and I. The same painting in different colors." She leaned forward and looked more deeply at him, penetratingly. Their eyes locked, a feeling of absolute equality swimming between them, connecting them together. "Two watches made by the same company tell the same time, they're just different models."

And right then and there in the middle of Starbucks, she kissed him. Front and center. They didn't even know each other's last names, and here was she, pressing lips up against his as though they'd been leading up to it for months. An old lady sipping at her tea goggled at them, appalled. A teenage girl being dragged along by her mother glanced at them when her mother wasn't looking and wished her boyfriend would kiss her like that sometime. Lenore's hot cocoa didn't notice anything, being inanimate, and Lenore herself didn't seem at all bothered that she'd just gotten to first base with a man who was very nearly a stranger in front of forty-some people, most of whom were quite nosily sneaking a peek.

Through his fogged glasses, Gabriel acknowledged that she was a fantastic kisser.