A/N: This is the chapter that kind of inspired the whole fic. Hope y'all like it...


Part IV

"Mom, I need to borrow the car."

The small but nonetheless imperious woman sitting behind the massive executive's desk blinks up at Gabriel as he strides into her office. In contradiction to his bold words, he falters at her piercing gaze; he stops short with his hand on the doorknob, bracing himself for his mother's inevitable no, feeling every inch the adolescent boy who would typically make such a request.

Angela, however, doesn't say no. She lays down her pen, sits back in her chair. Her lined features soften, and her pale lips, perpetually down-turned since Gabriel met her, curve upward in a faint, nostalgic smile that might even have a hint of wistfulness about it. Or is that wishful thinking on Gabriel's part?"

"Your brothers have said that to me, oh, hundreds of times."

"Did you tell them yes?"

"Occasionally." A pause, then, quietly, "I never thought I'd hear those words from you."

For a moment she holds Gabriel's eyes, but gradually her gaze turned inward, seeing things tucked privately away in her own far-seeing mind. Gabriel thinks he sees her check muscle twitch.

"Did your adoptive mother," she continues, stiffly, the last word half choked with...with what? Resentment? Envy? "Did she let you borrow the car?"

"We didn't have one."

Gabriel never thought much of this -- so many New Yorkers don't have cars -- but now, comparing the working class Grays who adopted him to the upper crust Petrelli family he was born into, his chest tightens with shame and indignation that he's had none of that to which his birthright entitles him. He should be asking for a great deal more than to be lent a car. He'll keep that in mind for leverage, although the prevailing thought at the moment is if Virginia Gray knew from what stock he came and, if so, whether that lay behind her obsession with his being special.

"I missed so much of your life, Gabriel," Angela says with a sigh. "Practically everything."

"You should've thought about that before you gave me up for adoption." Gabriel is aware that he's being cruel if Angela's ruefulness is sincere, but he cannot help but be wary of crocodile tears.

Nothing in her body language or tone gives her away with her reply. "I had no choice."

The one argument Gabriel can't argue with disarms him. He pushes the office door shut behind him and leans back against it. "Why couldn't you keep me?" he asks, as he's been too afraid to ask since Angela revealed her maternity. He's still afraid now, but in light of what he learned about Elle's childhood in the Company, he must know where he fits into it all.

Again Angela's lips hitch into that wan smile. "That's something I was glad I'd never have to hear you ask. Coward that I am."

She looks so sad, so guilty, that, crocodile tears be damned, Gabriel strides around her desk, covers her hand clutching the armrest with his.

"I don't think you're a coward. You let me off Level Five." He gives her a smile, and she squeezes his hand. "You believe in me."

"It's not courageous to believe in your own son. It's maternal instinct."

Angela pulls her hand free from his grasp and sits up at her desk with the perfect posture of a debutante, which dowdy, common Virginia Gray never could have emulated. And yet she'd always expected it of Gabriel, scolding him for slouching, hands in his pockets or fidgeting with his glasses -- which he catches himself doing now, as he obeys Angela's bidding to take a chair because he'll want to be sitting down for this.

"When you were an infant," she says, after an interminable silence during which Gabriel wonders whether the Nakamura guy's around, bending space and time, "I tried to drown you."

She says just the way she would say something as mundane and expected as, When you were an infant, I changed your diapers, that it takes a moment even for Gabriel's enhanced ears to take in the meaning of the words.

"You tried to...kill me?"

"I had a dream. I saw what you would do...what you would become."

Gabriel thinks he ought to be horrified, angered by this ultimate of betrayals, but instead feels only a detached fascination. The time for feelings will come later. For now, he needs to learn how this family unit, of which he's found himself a part, works.

"And you were afraid? So terrified you wanted to destroy me?"

"Not me. Your father."

"My father."

All Gabriel knows about his father -- his real father, not Thomas Gray, the watchmaker -- is that his name is -- was -- Arthur, and that he died a little over a year ago. Around the same time as Gabriel's abilities manifested, he can't help but think, wondering if there's some correlation.

"Did he have a special ability, too?" he asks. And did Arthur fear his son would grow up to kill him for it? he doesn't ask aloud.

"He certainly did. He used it to convince me to drown you when I was giving you a bath. Which, I'm aware," she adds with a sigh, "probably sounds like a convenient excuse to absolve myself, but I swear to God, I'm telling the truth."

It does, but Gabriel's struggling too hard against the images of a head of patchy black hair lathered in baby shampoo being dunked under lukewarm bathwater on which rubber ducks and toy boats bob, bubbles rising to the surface as oxygen escapes the flailing, pudgy body when the baby's mouth opens in a cry of protest, to examine the veracity of Angela's story.

"My father was a telepath?" he asks.

"He had telepathic abilities, but his core power was empathy. Just like Peter." A pause; Angela's eyes command Gabriel's rapt attention on her face. "Just like you."

"What?" In spite of the heaviness of the moment before, Gabriel laughs at the absurdity of the idea. "Me, an empath? I'm the sociopath who went psycho and became a serial killer, remember?" He laughs again, but Angela's voice cuts him off.

"I told you, Gabriel, you have no idea what you're capable of. Impossible as it may sound, you are an empath. It was your empathy that stopped me from drowning you."

Gabriel's residual, silent laughter dies. "Do you mean my abilities manifested when I was a baby?"

"To a degree, temporarily. Fight or flight."

Gabriel nods. "Survival instinct. What did I do?"

"We don't know exactly. As far as we can understand, one minute I was holding you under the water, determined that I must kill you, and the next I was fully aware of what I was doing and pulling you out of the water. If my precious baby hadn't been in danger, the look on Arthur's face would have been priceless. He'd never lost control of a mind before."

Though feeling a little ill at his mother being able to recall her child's near-death experience -- at the hands of his father, no less -- and see a shred of anything amusing, Gabriel asks, "Are you sure it was me? Maybe your precognitive--"

"My ability is limited to the future, not the present. It was you, Gabriel, and your father knew it."

Leaning one elbow on the armrest of his chair, Gabriel rakes unsteady fingers through his comb-backed hair and lets out his breath. This is so much to process. Part of him thinks he should be hurt, angry but he still doesn't feel anything beyond the desire to know the rest of the story. Even though every word of it might be a lie.

"Did my father make any other attempts on my life?"

"No. Frightened as he was of what I'd seen, that little episode piqued his curiosity." She adds, bitterly, "He never could resist a show of power."

Gabriel hangs his head under the weight of accusation contained in her words, whether intended by her or merely the condemnation of his own active conscience.

"You were a threat," Angela goes on, "but you also had the potential to be very useful to the Company. So Arthur decided we'd put you up for adoption, thinking that growing up among ordinary people would dull your taste for power." She shakes her head. "It never occurred to him the future I dreamed was one in which you were raised by others."

"Nature versus nurture?"

Angela smiles a little. Gabriel thinks, hopes, the expression is one of maternal pride, until she says, bluntly, "You're a classic case," which stings worse than Elle's jolts of electricity. "If only you'd been raised at home, with your brothers and parents who knew what kind of a child they were dealing with, your ability would have manifested very differently. Instead, you were so starved for the protection and guidance you needed that you developed this hunger you describe."

In the pause, she looks at Gabriel with sad eyes; for a moment, he thinks she's going to apologize for giving him up, for not standing up to her husband for the good of her otherwise poor, damned child. But no such words break the silence, so Gabriel is left to realize that the sorrow on Angela's face is not the unconditional love of a mother, but pity -- the pity of the kind of woman who let Bob Bishop experiment on his daughter...who allowed her own child to be genetically altered to be special enough...who doesn't think any of her children are capable of amounting to anything when left to their own devices...

"Was I born with my abilities, Mother?"

Gabriel narrows his scrutinizing watchmaker's gaze on Angela and notes her face pale a shade even though her voice never wavers from its edge of authority.

"Excuse me?"

"I know about Nathan." He stands for the advantage of physical size, moving swiftly around the desk to stand behind Angela's chair. "Peter and I have the same ability. Was he the control in your little experiment while I was the variable?"

Leaning over the chair, his arms on either side of Angela's rigid frame, he covers Angela's hands clutching the armrests with his own. He hears her pulse keep its steady tempo as she answers, truthfully:

"Yes." A heartbeat of silence, then, "But at least you were still alive."

"Would death have been a worse fate than becoming a monster?"

"Yes, if there was hope for your redemption. Which I believed there was. I still believe it."

"Do you?"

Gabriel spins the swivel chair so that Angela is peering up into his face as he bends intimidatingly down over her. Only Angela doesn't appear at all intimidated, which only makes his temper flare.

"Do you really care if I'm redeemed, or is this just another Company experiment?"

Angela's palm connects with his cheek so solidly that the crack of flesh against flesh echoes in the office.

"Get a grip on yourself," she hisses. "Or do you want a repeat performance of what happened to Virginia Gray?"

Duly chastened, Gabriel releases the chair and falls back from her, ashamed all over again about what happened that day in the shabby Queens apartment as much as for the step backward he took just now. He stammers an apology; he wants to reach out for Angela, to lay a gentle watchmaker's hand on her shoulder to reassure her that he won't hurt her, but, sure his is an unwelcome touch now, he shoves his hands into his pockets and stares at the floor.

Angela sighs heavily, her chair creaking as she leans back in it. "I know it's distressing for you to hear these things. But it's time you heard them."

Gabriel nods, but still cannot look at his mother.

"Your father," she says, haltingly, evidently unsure of herself for the first time in the course of the discussion. She clears her throat. "Your father is a very difficult man to kill."

Gabriel's head snaps up. "You mean...?"

He can't go on as he's dizzied to the point of speechlessness by the shocking realizations coming to him all at once. Arthur Petreilli is not dead...Angela tried to kill him -- why? Maybe in some deep part of her, she did it to avenge her little lost child?...But in spite of her best efforts, or perhaps because of them, Arthur is the phantasm who's haunted her these last days.

"I can't deny I need you now, Gabriel."

There's a plaintive note in her voice, a vulnerability. Again Gabriel wonders if this isn't just a bid for sympathy. And he would know, he's made enough of them himself. Maybe his acting ability and powers of manipulation are abilities he inherited from his mother.

No, not him -- Sylar. He's not that person, that monster, anymore. He's Gabriel. An angel. Gabriel trusts. Gabriel empathizes. Gabriel sees before him a woman who couldn't have put on such a convincing show of fear if she were in Oscar contention. Angela's no angel, but she's no monster, either. By all accounts, however, his father is. And if Gabriel somehow helped Angela break free of Arthur's devices before, then he'll do what he can to help her again.

"I guess one way or another," he says, "I'll be playing the Angel of Death."

Angela looks at him for a long time, expressionless. Then she opens a drawer of her desk and takes out a set of keys. "Now about borrowing the car..."

The keys to Angela's Rolls-Royce jangle as Gabriel fingers them in his pocket as he stands outside Elle's room. Angela gave him money, too -- a Company credit card. On the one hand, he's glad not to have to use Bob Bishop's ability to pawn gold for cash, especially not cash to be spent on Elle; on the other hand, he doesn't like being in the pay of the Company. Since his talk with Anglea, he's felt little better than an assassin. What will she want form him when the job is done? Will she want him at all, or will she be through with him, and toss him out like she tossed out Elle?

Which is why it's so important that he make this connection with Elle -- despite the fact that she has a use for him, too, after which, if he carries it out, there will be no after.

But he won't be her personal Dr. Kevorkian. Gabriel's always believed there's nothing broken that can't be fixed. Why else would he have labored for seven years over a temperamental antique European timepiece? People aren't as complex as watches; he's pulled enough of both apart to know.

Letting the car keys fall noisily to the bottom of his pocket, Gabriel withdraws his hand. He adjusts his glasses on the bridge of his nose, wondering for a moment when he catches his reflection in Elle's shaded window if he ought to wear them or not; he thinks they soften him, but Elle did call him a Geek. Leaving them on, he runs his hand over his slicked-back hair -- his compromise between Sylar and Gabriel, but does it make his hairline look receding? Is it receding? God, he's too young for that...Holding his breath, he brings down his hand, rapping his knuckles on the door.

After a breathless moment, the blinds twitch apart enough for him to see Elle's fingers holding them open and one blue eye peeking out at him. He lifts his hand in a wave, then Elle disappears from the window only to reappear a second later in the open doorway, wearing yoga pants, a camisole with one of those built-in and totally ineffective bras, and a hopeful smile.

"Have you made up your mind?"

Gabriel grasps the doorframe and leans against it, his body brushing close to Elle's. He hears her swallow hard as she takes a step backward from him -- an action which rattles his confidence. He presses on anyway.

"I've decided you don't really want me to kill you."

Elle scowls and grabs the doorknob. "Then you're not as bright as I thought."

She starts to shut the door in his face, but Gabriel catches it. She takes another step back from him.

"Why are you avoiding me?" he asks. "Are you afraid?"

Elle plants her hands on her hips in a defiant, unmovable stance, though Gabriel doubts when she juts her chin that she means for him to think what an adorable little spitfire she is, or wonder what flavor her shining lip gloss is.

"I'm not afraid of you. Or of dying."

"You smiled when you opened the door. No one smiles at death unless they know their sins are forgiven."

At this, Elle's hardened face shifts. She blinks, her shoulders sag, as if deflated, as she releases a long breath through her nostrils. Clearly she's thought no further than the immediacy of departing this life, not considered the implications of eternity.

Unsurprisingly, Elle makes another show of confidence. "I don't believe in hell. Or if there is one, it can't be worse than my life."

Gabriel hears his own words to Angela, and hers ringing back to him in his reply. Something within him aches, though not with the hunger he's grown accustomed to. He aches for Elle.

"But what if your life could be better?" The door falls shut behind Gabriel as he slips further into Elle's room. "What if you could die, but keep on living?"

Elle quirks an eyebrow. "Is this Petrelli crazy talk?"

"Do you know the Metaphysical poets? Donne, Herbert, Marvell?"

"Sorry, bookworm, but Company tutors are a little deficient in the poetry department."

This doesn't dampen Gabriel's enthusiasm. "The Metaphysical poets used death as a metaphor for sex."

The instant the words leave his mouth, he flushes as shocks of Elle's laughter crackle out.

"I don't really do metaphors, but did you just ask to fuck me to death?"

Wincing at her crassness, Gabriel stammers, "No, that's not what I--"

"Not that it wouldn't be a nicer way to go than having my head split open. Probably better for you in the long run, too, unless I lose control and electrocute you at climax..." Her brow furrows. "I don't think that would happen. I've never--"

She bites her lip, and before Gabriel can battle through his own mortification and work out whether she means what he thinks she means, she smiles, with a coy tilt of her head, her eyes cutting flirtatiously up through her bangs at him.

"I can't take you up on your offer unless you take me out on a date first. I'm not that kind of girl."

"No, of course not." Gabriel glances down at his feet and shoves his hands into his pockets, finding comfort and stability in the cool metal of the car keys. "That's actually what I was trying to say -- I'd like to take you out."

He hears Elle's heart speed up in excitement, but looks up to meet sad eyes. "You think a date will make my life better after everything I've been through?"

"No."

Taking a chance, Gabriel withdraws his hand from his pocket and brushes the backs of his knuckles across her cheek. She doesn't flinch away. "But I thought it might show you that someone does want you. And maybe one date will lead to another, and..."

"You know, you're kinda cute," Elle says, shakily -- Gabriel thinks, touched. But of course before he can puzzle out the clues of her voice, her pulse, beating wildly now in tempo with his own, her bravado returns. "For a geek."

In the past, Gabriel would have been humiliated by the remark, but something about the way Elle says it is endearing, even affectionate. He laughs quietly, his wide grin producing a pleasant ache in his cheeks.

"So I'll pick you up tomorrow night at seven?"

Elle pulls a pout that makes Gabriel want to run his thumb along that full lower lip. "Not tonight?"

"I have to plan it first."

On impulse, he leans in and pecks Elle's cheek, then, before either of them can react, he turns and lets himself out of her room. For the rest of the night, all he can think about is the softness of her skin against his lips and the hope that tomorrow night will bring the chance to do it again -- and more.

To be continued...


A/N: Those kind enough to review get to go on their dream date with Gabriel...