The floor was hard and cold against his face. He breathed heavily against it, finding he only wanted to stay there. It was difficult to open his eyes and even when he was able to do so everything looked blurred and hazy for several moments before his vision cleared and he realized where he was. He looked ahead of him and saw the base of the toilet and the sink surrounded in broken bits of glass. The mirror. Gabriel remembered the mirror the evening before. He managed to raise his head. His body was stretched across the bathroom floor, his legs sticking out of the doorway onto the shabby carpet of the living room.

He must have fallen asleep on the floor. After he'd broken the mirror he recalled slumping down to the floor, weighing the decision he'd made. The memories were filtered and scattered in his mind. But he'd never simply dozed off before.

Gabriel winced as he sat up, his hands touched the shards of mirror that were on the floor. Both arms and hands had cuts and scrapes on them. His eyes wandered across the floor seeing the spots of blood across the tile where he'd been cut in his sleep.

Grabbing a larger piece of the mirror off the floor he looked in it. His face hadn't suffered as much as his arms and hands had, though small nicks could be seen on the sides of his face and along his hairline. He tossed the glass aside and rubbed his hands over his face. They were rough and scabbed against his skin. The blood had clotted and caked in the creases of his fingers. As he opened his hands they began to bleed again.

He sat there, his mind tired and blank, blood slowly seeping over his hands.
The sudden beat of footsteps outside on the sidewalk awoke his senses. He looked up as they reached his front door and there was a knock followed by a voice.

"Gabriel? It's Ellen. If you're here I need to talk to you." She said, "Ow! Damn it!"
Ellen crouched down rubbing her ankle that she'd wrapped earlier that morning. The pain killers were obviously wearing off and it was giving out on her again.
"Gabriel?" she knocked again and tried the door knob. It was locked.

He heard further cursings out of her disappointment and stood up, leaning against the door jam to the bathroom. Her feet shuffled off the stoop as she began to slowly walk away.
Against all of his better judgment, Gabriel closed his eyes and with a twist of his wrist, the front door clicked and creaked open just a crack. Her footsteps stopped. He pictured her turning around, examining the door suspiciously before going back to the stoop and pushing it open.

It obeyed her and she stepped in cautiously. "Gabriel?" she said timidly.

His hands pressed on the wood of the door between them and he listened as she stepped around the counter slowly. He heard her touch the lamp, it lit up brightly to her touch. Blood from his newly opened cuts oozed down his wrists, printing his hands on the door as he listened to her. Her heartbeat was still steady but faster with nerves. Her breathing was deep and slow in her throat, lulling him until he opened his eyes. He breathed against the door.

The front door shut and locked with a sharp snap behind her. She turned with a gasp. Her fingers tingled in the unexpected anxiety but she swiftly snuffed her instinctive reaction out. It must have been a breeze from outside.

"Are you here? Please answer me?" she ran into the counter that held the watches along its edge and she began to take a closer look at them.

Gabriel quickly moved back to the bathroom, careful not to step on anymore glass, and drenched his hands, arms and face in water. He wet his hair until it dribbled down his forehead and did his best to remove the clotted blood only revealing the thin cuts and nicks he'd suffered from breaking the mirror. He threw on a long sleeved shirt and clean pants, throwing his bloodstained clothes into a pile in the corner of the room.

Ellen squinted curiously at a men's silver watch with a large black face. The manufacturer's name read "Sylar" in small silver letters.

"I'm here, Ellen." He said softly behind her.

Ellen turned sharply, letting out a yelp of surprise at how close he'd come to her without being heard. She smiled despite her shock but it faded quickly when she saw the state he was in.

Thin cuts were etched on the sides of his face and his hands were wrapped in bandages to the bases of his fingers.
"What happened to you? Are you alright?" she said, her hands automatically moving to his face to comfort him but Gabriel grasped both her wrists and lowered her hands from him.

"Mirror broke." He muttered stupidly. "It's nothing."
Ellen didn't believe him and her expression showed it. "You promise?"

Gabriel nodded, "I promise." He said solemnly and stepped back from her. Her scent had reached him and was fogging his mind against his previous thoughts on her.
"Why have you come back?" he said.

"I had to talk to you." She said, her eyes were worried, anxious. "I've been told things about you, terrible things. I don't believe them."

Gabriel studied her closely, his ears straining to hear another heartbeat besides Ellen's and his own. Hers was thumping madly in anticipation.
"But you had to come in order to ease your mind about me anyway." He said, moving past her, his eyes searching the room, all his senses set on catching someone else he believed to be there. He didn't have to ask her who had told her about him, about Sylar. He knew Peter Petrelli had gotten to her. Damn him to all hell!

That nosey little bastard believing it was his sole duty to protect the public at large. She wasn't harmed, was she? It must have confused the hell out of him to see them on the steps together as he did. Gabriel tensed as he continued to think of Peter.

He watched a shade of pink rush to her cheeks and waited patiently as she put her words together, "It got me worried." She said finally.
Gabriel saw that she was favoring her other leg, her ankle still hurting her, and moved her back to the counter. He helped her to sit on it as he'd done the day before.
"Why?" he said flatly.

Ellen laughed nervously, her feet kicking slightly as they dangled off the floor, "Well, because – ", she stare at him and he only look back at her without any expression. Even the warmth she'd seen in his eyes had gone.

He stood in front of her, at her knees and waited.
Sitting on the counter made her eye level with him, closer to him. She bravely gathered her words and continued, "because I like you. I like you very much Gabriel even though I've only spent one afternoon with you.
The things I was told – " she mimicked him thoughtfully tilting his head as she spoke, "It would just make me feel better if you could tell me the truth about it. If there is any truth in it."

Gabriel felt his throat tighten at the uneasiness he felt but he managed a convincing smile, "Who told you these things?" he said simply as though it were almost a joke.

She returned his smile partly out of relief. "He says he knows you, the guy I was supposed to meet yesterday – Peter Petrelli."
It grated on him sharply, to hear her speak his name, but he remained composed. He reminded himself that it didn't matter what he told her because she would soon be gone from his life. It didn't matter.

"Yes. Interesting that you were supposed to meet him yesterday. You might say we have a little history together, Peter and I." he heard her heart rate rise a little.

It didn't matter what he said, "You weren't living here at the time but you may remember the reports of a sort of nuclear explosion in the upper atmosphere that took place over New York city some years ago." He waited as she remembered, keeping his face calm though his insides twisted with the memory of that night even after he was laying there on the pavement, half dead.

Ellen's eyes widened as she remembered, "They said it was some sort of military accident. A missile had gotten off course or something like that."

Gabriel was shaking his head – his unease had dissipated by the sheer hatred he had for Peter and his interfering that night.
"It was Peter." He said quietly.

"What?" she breathed in shock.

"He lost his control – I knew he would and tried to stop it but there were…obstacles."

The memory of the evening before entered Ellen's mind. Peter had no control over her power, she had to help him stop it.

"It was his brother that saved the city actually. He is why Peter didn't go off on the ground."
Ellen resembled a cod fish, staring in open mouthed disbelief at Gabriel as he spoke.

"He would have killed millions of people." She mumbled, "But how did he survive?"
Gabriel did his best to keep his expression neutral, "One of the powers he possesses is the ability to regenerate."

The lie was so fantastic, so perfect that it was all Gabriel could do to keep from smiling. He would have given anything to have seen Peter's face had he heard their conversation.

Ellen turned the information over in her mind. From what she saw of Peter what Gabriel said made sense, as far as exploding people go. "Why would he be saying those things about you?"

Gabriel actually laughed, "I suppose he told you I'm a murderer?"
She nodded as he started to pace in front of her, "I tried to stop him. Ellen, you have to understand that Peter knows he cannot control his powers as I can. He's extremely insecure." He then approached her and brushed a finger across her cheek, "I'm only glad he didn't hurt you." He said.

Ellen smiled and he could see the trust in her eyes as clear as daylight, "I've gotten pretty good at taking care of myself." She said.

"I have no doubt."

She saw the knowing expression on his face and furrowed her brow, "You know what I can do?"

"I could sense it when I first saw you." Gabriel cursed the day in his mind, "I know you have great power, Ellen."

She pulled away from him, her skin tingling from his touch. "Peter said you also have great power. Was that a lie as well?"

Gabriel seemed to look through her but said nothing. Taking his hand from the pocket of his jeans he raised it up to just below his eye level, his fingers spread slightly.
Ellen felt the chain of the necklace she was wearing stiffen and lift off of her chest until it was perfectly parallel to the floor. It pulled on the back of her neck when she felt the clasp unhook. She watched in amazement as her necklace floated to him and hovered above his hand for a moment before it fell limply into his palm. He examined it as she approached him – a silver chain holding a small amber stone set in silver.

His eyes snapped back to her face, "That is only the beginning." He said.