Did I promise some boiling action soon? Well strap on your seat belts and make sure your trays stay in the up right locked position because this roller coaster is picking up speed and it's going to be one bumpy ride. A quick recap: it's true, Claire's got a bun baking in the oven and she's still clueless about it. She and poor Gabe have never had to worry about that before so there's a whole new experience waiting there. Claire's still got her secrets from Gabriel about who she really is and why she's there, but he's also keeping some dirty secrets about his meetings with Suresh. The lies are stacking up on both sides of the line. Noah knows about his daughter's condition but not Gabe's proximity to abilities. And somehow the Haitian knows everything (doesn't he always?) but he's not sharing with anybody.

April 16, 2006

Gabriel woke to a thunderous pounding in his head that pulsed away at his temples agonizingly and a harsh crick in his spine that cracked disconcertingly when he pulled himself away from the damp chill on the edge of the tub. His heavy breathing had caused a small pool of condensation on the porcelain surface that clung to his cheek like a swath of drool. He muttered quietly to himself, wiping it away and took note of the blanket that had been draped around him and the cockeyed pillow that had been shoved awkwardly behind his head. Claire hadn't been able to rouse him from his stupor or drag him back to bed so she had at least made at attempt to bring him what comfort she could. The thought would have brought a smile to his face had he not been distracted by the army of tap dancers doing an upbeat number behind his eyeballs. He pulled himself up wishing that his near thirty-year-old body could recover half as quickly as it had been able to a decade ago and flipped on the water to the shower, cranking the dial as far to the hot side as it would go.

After a steamy shower that had singed his skin to a bright pink hue but soothed the aching muscles he set about swiping away from the fog on the mirror for a shave before stepping out to check on Claire. He found her still tucked into bed with a fretful expression on her sleeping face, marveling for a moment at the sweetness in the pout of her lips. There was a compulsion there to kiss to her awake but he shoved it off to the side in favor of getting dressed and saving what disgraced scraps of his soul that remained.

Unfortunately though she was starting to become as disturbingly a light sleeper as he was and the gentle noise of opening the closet was enough to stir her into consciousness. "Morning," she mumbled drowsily, rolling over to look at him. A dark glimmer crossed her eyes when she took in the sight of him standing there in nothing but a towel and suddenly she was wide awake.

"Morning." He wished he hadn't seen her lick her soft cherry lips the way she did. "How's your stomach?"

"Good. I think I'm starting to get over my bug." There was a stirring of forgotten details in the back of his brain but for the life of him he couldn't fish out what it was that could be nagging him so desperately. I'm never drinking like that again. "How's your head?"

"Less of a brain crushing migraine and more of a skull cracking hangover today. Hopefully I'm getting over it too."

"That's good." One leg, two legs appeared from beneath the sheets, long for her short stature and sleek with smooth golden skin that almost shined in the light that peeked through the window. So close and so far away, he groaned internally. "Why do you do that?"

"Do what?" he asked trying to focus on finding a shirt.

"Look at me like you want to eat me alive and then turn away."

"Because I have to. I shouldn't even be looking in the first place."

"Because it's wrong?" He didn't like the velvet husk creeping into her voice. She didn't realize at all the effect she already had on him. Gabriel scrunched his eyes shut tight enough to see spots float behind his lids when he heard her slink out of bed knowing only too well how one of his shirts that she used for a night dress would ride up around her thighs.

"Is this wrong too?" A pair of warm palms slid up his back and around his shoulders before slipping over his chest and stomach to rest at the barrier the towel was providing. "Is this more wrong?" Treacherous lips left a moist kiss between his shoulder blades before teeth sunk into the flesh of his shoulder. If it was possible he squeezed his eyes tighter against the onslaught of nails lightly skimming along the path of hair that trailed from his navel downward.

Claire giggled seductively, watching his nostrils flare out as he struggled to keep his breathing in check. Gabriel knew he couldn't look at the impish little smile that would be hiding devious intentions above a bitten bottom lip or the battle would be lost. One bat of those lashes or wag of a finger and she'd have him strung around her pinky finger, defenseless mush.

"You haven't touched me in weeks," she whispered with her lips against his skin so that every word brushed them together. Because it's wrong. "I'm getting lonely, Gabriel." I'll get you a dog. "Would it be wrong if I found someone else to touch me since you won't?"

That might have been the wrong card to play. Claire back pedaled in a hurry when Gabriel whirled around on her. "I am not your toy." Her knees bumped against the edge of the bed and she nearly lost her balance when he loomed over her, all masculine swagger and assertive confidence with cold fury in his eyes. "I don't like being played with." The menace in his tone should have been flashing warning signals through her body not a shiver of exhilaration. "I'm not just some thing that you can use whenever you feel like it." Hot breath fanned out over her face when he leaned in, their noses a hair's breadth from touching, glaring a deadly dare for her to make a move.

"I'm sorry." It was meant to be a genuine apology for her cruel manipulation but it came out as more of an wanton pant. Her stomach was churning again but not from nausea. His hypnotic black eyes had her locked in place while her heart raced to disperse the burst of adrenaline that had flooded her veins leaving her in a light headed daze. For the longest second of her life he broke away to glance down at her parted lips. Did Hiro just show up and freeze time? And then he descended on her, snatching her up and crushing their mouths together with the power to steal the air from her lungs. Every twist of his lips and nip of his teeth screamed 'mine'.

Her threat was an empty one to begin with but if she had ever actually thought about anyone else before he was sure as hell going to make sure she never did again.

So much for getting any work done today. Gabriel was going to be late for his appointment with Suresh although he felt incredibly confident that he had a legitimate reason. The sun had long ago passed by the noon mark before he could even tug a pair of pants on over his rubbery legs. He hurried to whip a comb through his hair, sparing a glance for the little blonde that was sprawled out over the mattress snoring away with a lingering crimson flush coloring her over sensitized skin. For any other woman the slightest brush of a feather probably would have crossed the threshold between pleasure and pain after all the things that he had done to her. Of course there had been a solid hour where he had been extremely concerned about the police showing up. Between the pounding on the thin walls of the apartments on either side of his and the heavy knocking that had continued at their door he thought for sure that someone would call for help believing that he was either killing her or that she really had found God. Gabriel was more than certain that they would both be sleeping well that night. Right after repairing the plaster damage behind the headboard.

"Why do you repair watches, Gabriel?" Chandra asked somewhat drearily. He already knew the answer from previous conversations but continued to watch the dancing lines of brain wave activity on his monitor for some form of significant response.

Gabriel released a puff of air in frustration, not wanting to relive the memory again. "My father didn't really give me a choice." It was take over the family business and suffer or watch Mother be thrown into the streets… to suffer. And for what exactly? What did he find to do that was so much better he couldn't even leave through the normal channels? Divorce? Custody proceedings? No time for that. I have to go fetch a pack of cigarettes that takes twenty damn years to acquire. I hope he gets cancer and chokes on it.

"Yes, but why not do what you want to do? Change?"

"You used a phrase in your book…" he recalled from a particular passage in Activating Evolution that had struck a nail with him. 'When evolutions selects its agents, it does so at a cost… This force, evolution, is not sentimental.'

"Evolutionary imperative."

"That which we are destined to do."

"Sea turtles die on the exact same beach where they were born. Lions slaughter gazelles. Spiders eat their young. They don't want to. They have to."

A spike of activity appeared as Gabriel mentally turned over the proposed idea causing a brief moment of wide-eyed hope in the doctor, but then it was gone again having failed to breech expected parameters. Suresh sighed heavily, defeated, and turned off his monitor. "Well, the good news is you're healthy."

"You mean normal?" He rolled his eyes and let his hands drop onto the desk's surface dejectedly when Chandra rose from his seat to remove the sensory cables connecting his head to the machine. "There are still no signs?"

"No."

"Well, maybe tomorrow? We're still going to the CT scan, right?"

"I think we should prepare for the possibility that I may have been wrong. You may not have a special ability."

Gabriel jumped up from his seat feeling his opportunity for something more slip between his fingers. "I'm so close. I can feel it." It's like it's on the tip of my tongue but I just can't get it out. Chandra started to open mouth with another note of dismissal. "You came to me!" he exclaimed, grasping at straws and out of control for the climbing volume of his voice. "I am on your list!"

"These tests aren't one hundred percent." The placating tone in the geneticist's voice was insult to a fresh forming injury.

"Don't give up on me." Panic welled in his stomach as the words came out half desperate plea, half command. Don't tell me I'm not special. Don't tell me that I'm stuck in this life that I didn't want. Don't tell me that I'm going to wake up tomorrow and she'll be gone because she'll realize that she can do so much better with someone like her. Don't tell me that I'll be left all alone with no one to give a damn about me because I'm just another nobody in the crowd.

Don't be my father and abandon me and take away my chance at something better… Not again.

"There are other opportunities I need to focus on." Suresh was straining his capacity for social propriety, trying to firmly dissuade the younger man from pushing him any farther without degrading to rudeness.

Gabriel's eyes flickered to the stack of profiles for people with potential abilities resting on the edge of the desk. "What like these people?" he demanded, snatching the pile of folders. "They're important? This guy?" He peeled off a yellow sticky note attached to the top profile with a name and contact information written on it. "Brian Davis? You think he's telekinetic? He can move things with his mind or are you just going to toss him aside too?" Gabriel flung Davis's folder across the room before tossing away the others as well, using the situation for a distraction to his slight of hand. While Chandra's eyes were following his flying work, he palmed the note with Davis's information and slid it carefully up his sleeve where it would remain concealed. Years of handling minute watch parts with specialty tools had made his hands incredibly dexterous and he was able to pull off such maneuvers with speed and ease.

"You better leave now, Mr. Gray." He could see it in his eyes, the way they widened and his heart jumped in pace that Chandra had been disturbed by the uncharacteristic outburst, even intimidated by it however well he had remained calm. The doctor was eyeing him like some kind of feral beast whose slightest movement could not be trusted. Gabriel blinked twice at him, logically detailing what had just transpired between them and cataloguing the event for future reference. He didn't want to admit it to himself really, but… as he grabbed his coat from the back of the chair he had been using and stalked out of the apartment he realized that there was something strangely exciting about sensing fear that he had caused. He had never been able to fluster anyone quite like that before and a darker part himself enjoyed it. For once being the bully instead of the bullied.

Stepping out into the bright afternoon sunlight of the city streets, Gabriel took a moment to breathe. He should have been hailing a cab. Should have been going home to check on Claire. But instead the sticky note with Brian Davis's information that he had swiped slid out from his sleeve and into his waiting hand.

I'm smart. She thinks so. Even Suresh admitted as much. If I could just see what it is… I could figure it out. I can figure anything out. I can still be special. It's not too late to fix this.

He narrowed his eyes with determination, knowing that a pay phone was just down the block and around the corner. He could call Davis, set up a meeting, see what it was that the man could do that he couldn't. Figure it out. Figure it all out.

Noah Bennet's cab slid to a stop outside of Chandra Suresh's apartment. Just as he exited the vehicle he caught sight of a familiar figure. Noah was just about to call out to Gabriel in greeting when an unexpected host of information entered his thoughts. He glanced back at the building before him, finding the address correct with his designated appointment and then at Gabriel's retreating back again. Oh, boy.

Noah quickly decided against drawing attention to himself and entered Suresh's building, taking out his phone and punching in the first speed dial. "René? I think we have a problem…"

"Yes, hello ma'am. I, um, I'm calling for Brian… Davis? Is he at home by chance?" Gabriel shuffled about in the phone booth nervously, counting out his breaths so that he hopefully wouldn't come across as anxious as he felt. "Oh, okay. Well, um, I am… working for a Dr. Suresh. Yes ma'am, the geneticist. I'm helping with his, uh, research as an undergrad at the university. Is there any way that I can get you to take a message for me?" His confidence increased with each word that was being passed off as an acceptable plan and he began to prattle away about a grand research project that Davis had been specially selected to participate in for his extraordinary talent. After giving the address for his shop as the meeting place, Gabriel gratefully thanked the Mrs. and hung up the line with a beaming smile. Sure, he had just lied through his teeth but after everything was said and done Brian's minor inconvenience would be a small price to pay for turning the page and beginning the next chapter of his life anew.

On his way out of the phone booth awareness caught his attention that he wasn't alone. Well, of course he wasn't alone in the depths of New York City on a considerably decent afternoon, but it wasn't the eyes of the casual passerby that he felt raising the hairs on the back of his neck. It wasn't a passing glance that he felt baring down on him but a lingering stare. Gabriel tossed a look over his shoulder and spotted a rather curious man unabashedly watching him. He was tall and fitted with defining muscle, dark skinned and gazing at him with something like suspicion and a cell phone held to his ear. A shiver crawled up Gabriel's spine and he couldn't clear his head. It was impossible to think clearly with the stranger's eyes boring holes into him that way. An overwhelming need to escape the relentless stare took over him and he followed his feet instinctually to make a getaway as quickly as possible.

"Oh, my, that's some mess you've got there," Noah smiled, shamelessly kicking up the southern charm as he graciously entered Chandra's apartment and spied the toppled stack of folders strewn about the floor.

"Yes, please excuse that," Suresh apologized promptly with a little embarrassment. "I'm afraid that my last appointment didn't end on such a warm note."

"I guess not." He knelt down to assist the scientist in collecting his work. "That must have been the young man that I passed on the way up here. He looked pretty upset." It wouldn't take a man with his level of training to detect the waves of tension that had been rolling off of him.

"Hmm, Gabriel, yes. He can be a very…" Chandra pause for a moment thinking over a variety of word choices for his description. Tightly wound? Emotional? Unstable? Noah mused to himself, careful not to betray his history with the character in question. "intense individual sometimes."

He spotted a folder with Claire's name on it hidden amongst the stack and mentally noted that it had already been emptied out before passing the pile of research back to the doctor. "It's just as well I imagine," Chandra continued. "Since I've been meeting with him a curious amount of my research has gone missing."

"Really?" The surprise in his voice wasn't entirely false. He's already looking into collecting abilities? We might be too late.

"Yes. That is,.. That's actually one of the reasons that I needed to speak with you I'm afraid." Noah quirked a questioning brow at Chandra, encouraging him to elaborate further. "Mr. Gray seems to have taken a rather unfortunate interest in your daughter, Mr. Bennet." Tell me something I don't know. "He happened across a picture of Claire that I had and…" he chewed on his tongue thinking over how to best phrase his concerns. "Gabriel made a remark about how beautiful she was. It seemed harmless enough at the time, but when the picture disappeared and then the contact information that I had set aside to reach you with."

"Do you think that he's a threat to her? Should I be worried?"

"No, no," the doctor was quick to dismiss the thought. "He's never struck me as a truly violent or dangerous man. As a father myself I felt that it was my duty to inform you about his keen interest in the girl."

"I appreciate your concern. I'll keep an eye out for him." And a gun. We have to assume that he knows about Claire's ability now and if he tries to hurt her… Especially after what he's already done.

Noah needed to shake away those thoughts before his temper got the best of him. He sidled up to Chandra's map of potentials and tried to absorb as much of it as possible for future reference without appearing overly interested. "So what's going to happen to my Claire? How is this genetic abnormality going to affect her?"

Noah thought for sure that all of their best laid plans had been for naught when he dragged his weary bones into Angela's office that evening. She and the Haitian were already patiently awaiting his arrival when he took his seat in front of her desk. "I think we need to discuss mission termination in the event of failure," he started. "I had a meeting with Suresh this afternoon," he continued without waiting for a reaction. "Claire's made her way onto his list along with Nathan and Peter. Eden is on her way now to take care of that, but all of Claire's paperwork has already mysteriously gone missing." He paused to study Angela's carefully composed mask of unsurprise. "I ran into Gray while I was there. He was leaving just as I coming."

"So Gabriel has made contact with Chandra then?"

"Looks that way."

"And you believe that he's gained access to the list as well as knowledge of Claire's ability?"

"That's what I'm afraid of."

Angela's lips tightened into a thin frown. "I see." She spared a glance for the Haitian. "And you've been watching him this entire time." The dark skinned man nodded in the affirmative. "Have you seen any evidence that Claire's in danger or that Gabriel has started gaining abilities?" There was a solid silence of a resounding no. "Then the mission will continue as planned."

"There's something else," Noah butted in grimly. "Claire has come down with some… symptoms." Angela peaked an eyebrow in interest. "Odd behavior, overly emotional." He had to bite his tongue again to keep from losing his temper at the thoughts that were racing through his mind. "Apparently she's been getting sick regularly." He didn't need to insinuate anymore. Recognition flashed across her features along with another emotion that was alien on her face. They were all gone the instant that they had appeared but not before he had caught them there.

"I see." Her closed for a moment while she thought over everything that had just been discussed. "We'll set up a contingency plan for the event of complete failure but I will not terminate just yet."

"Angela, we don't have time to play the sit and wait game. The man is going to turn into a -"

"I've been in this game for a long time now, Noah," she interrupted harshly. "Long enough to trust in what I see. And that is exactly what I am going to do."

"You never had any intention of killing him, did you?" he asked incredulously. All of the orders to watch over him, studying his life before acting suddenly started to seem a lot more like an elaborately orchestrated scheme instead of a true assassination directive. They had never had to spend so much time on one target before. In fact, up until that point it had been discouraged lest an agent start to become attached to their mark. And for all his denial it was becoming clearer by the day that Claire had already fallen into that trap.

"I assure you, Noah. Gabriel Gray will die. No one murders my son and gets away with it." He started to protest again but she held up her hand to wave away the words before they spill out of his mouth. "The butterfly effect is a tricky thing. Step on the wrong one and years later a million people will die. This mission is all about finding the right butterfly and crushing it into oblivion."

"What are you really up to?"

"Saving the world."

To be continued...