ZOMG she lives! I haven't abandoned poor Gabe I promise. I could give you all a whole list of reasons why it's taken me so long to update but let it suffice to say that between work and holiday season shenanigans I've been buried alive with stuff to do. Anyways, in the last chapters there were a couple of questions that need to be answered. No, Gabriel didn't get to take any of the files that were hidden in Claire's hotel room. I thought about that but then it seemed like it would have been obvious to someone like HRG that something had gone missing. At first Gabriel did believe that Claire was still alive but after he had his run in with HRG in the hotel and over heard the phone conversation about her dying, he sort of decided she was dead and got on his little revenge streak. I'm still seriously thinking about writing those chapters again to make them more clear but that might have to wait for a while because I want to finish this story. On with the show!

April 26, 2006

Gabriel pulled the last loop of his noose tight with a classic flare of textbook perfection. Examining that the knots were appropriately twisted over one another and that the weight and length ratios were correct for someone of his stature, he felt secure that his final project would be one without flaw. For all of the mistakes that he had made over the past months he would make restitution with his life. One moment where he refused to fail. It was an odd bit of poetic justice he felt, that the thrilling conclusion to his fall from grace should be made where everything had started.

Inside of his humble little watch shop he had lived as an ordinary and utterly forgettable man. Beneath the dim lights of Gray and Sons he had toiled away for countless hours with dreams of being something more. Something special. And it was also there that the fateful day had come when she had walked through the door and brought him exactly what it was that he had been missing for all of those years. Claire had made him feel the acceptance and the love that he had craved. Made him whole. Special. Mere feet away where a grisly blood stain was curiously absent was the place where he had traded that fulfillment for a gift that satisfied, but could never quench.

He pulled the chair away from the desk, climbing on top with an irritable squeak of metal for the weight, and tossed the end of his rope over one of the support beams running the length of the ceiling near an intersection sturdy enough to stand the strain of what he was about to do. A fleeting thought came to him that were he not about to die he would have had to fix that squeak. Instead he focused on binding the rope the way he had during testing. Granted the act was somewhat irrational in retrospect, attempting to simulate a hanging with the hundred pounds of potatoes that he had bought had taught him a valuable lesson about the way the rope would react once the dead weight had formed a bit of pendulum motion. A knot tied one way would remain secure while the fashion of his first attempt would fail miserably and result in dropping himself on his backside, indignant and mostly unscathed.

With the noose looped and drawn about his neck he drew in a last breath and held it until his lungs burned. Goodbye Claire. And then he kicked the chair out from under himself.

There was a stab of panic as he felt the rope constrict around his throat. He had hoped that his neck would break but perhaps he had miscalculated the height necessary for snapping the vertebrae. Gabriel floundered helplessly in the awkward position he was in, unable to reach the chair that had rolled away or the edge of his desk. However much he had wanted this end the instinct for self preservation was very much prevalent.

And then the pressure on his windpipe was gone.

He was flat on his back staring upward through the partially obscured vision of oxygen deprivation. In between involuntary ragged gasps for air his fragile mind processed the presence of hands pulling away the rope at his neck and a trace of burnt smell that couldn't be identified. A cloud of blonde hair swept lightly over his shoulder and for a moment he dared to hope.

"Are you alright?" The ambient light cast a halo effect about the crown of her golden head and bright blue eyes gazed down on him in concern. Gabriel glossed over her features from the model-like bone structure in her cheeks and jaw to the cherry curve of her lips. Claire? He had been so wrapped up in himself that he hadn't even heard her coming. Is this heaven? "Say something."

"Forgive me."

Her body was warm against his as she pulled him into her, absorbing the hot sting of tears that rolled from his eyes and into the fabric of her white shirt. She felt so small in his grasp as he wound his arms around her waist for desperate comfort, delicate, soft. With her feather light, amber locks and brilliant stare, the petite shape and the familiar raking of nurturing fingers through his hair this mysterious woman was a comparable sight for sore eyes, but inauthentic. She was just a touch too thin and an odd scent like ozone clung to her skin. She wasn't Claire. A substitute at best for the real thing.

Once the primary daze of what had transpired passed and Gabriel began to realize that he was essentially cuddling with a strange woman that he had never met before and whom had just witnessed his failed attempt at suicide, he pulled away and crawled backwards a short distance to curl in on his shattered self. Claire and their child were still gone. He was still a murderer. And he was still alone. Nothing had been accomplished but another crippling, gut wrenching failure.

His visitor came to rest near his side, leaning against a line of cabinetry, and watched over his eerie fit of silence for a long time before speaking again. "It's okay. Everything is going to be okay."

"No it isn't," he mumbled. "I've done something unforgivable."

"Everybody does bad things. You think I haven't felt exactly how you're feeling right now?" Gabriel clutched at his chest where the crushing weight had settled over his heart in a pain that felt more than physical. "Maybe if you talk about it… Sometimes when you talk about it -"

"I can't." He turned his head to look the stranger that was trying to pry into his life in the eyes. Their similarities remained easy to see, but after having a second glance he wasn't sure how he could have mistaken her for his Claire, which served to embitter him against the poor replacement a bit. And then a wave of shame came to wash that flinch of resentment away. After all that he had done Gabriel held no right to judge the girl for being a genetic probability of combined attributes. In some ways, psychologically, he had been seeing blondes everywhere he went since Claire's disappearance.

"A man had something that I wanted, but I took it at a terrible price."

"I know it seems hard to imagine, but you're going to get through this. Because you're not," she reached out to extend a comforting hand to his knee, "a bad person." The simple gesture caught his attention in more ways than one. While he knew that the motion was one of pure intent towards his own well being, meant to inspire comfort, it seemed somehow intimate in its reminiscence of the way Claire would touch him when she would say that he was being too hard on himself somehow.

"You don't know anything about me."

"I know what I see. A man who deserves a second chance. The rope broke," she added with a demonstration of the frayed end where it had snapped. "You can't tell me that's not a sign."

A second chance. Gabriel chuckled to himself with the thought. What are the odds of another dream girl wandering through those doors at the right time.

"I don't even know your name."

"Elle."

"Elle," he repeated softly, indulging in her sad little smile. "Look at you, Elle, just showing up out of nowhere… Like an angel."

"An angel with a broken watch." She held up an antique on a golden chain that caught the light with a glimmer that reflected in her eyes. Maybe it wasn't a Sylar watch, but the piece was certainly vintage from the early 1920's and a rare find. Surely he would be the only one to fix it.

A second chance indeed. Maybe she's right.

Gabriel grasped the watch in her hand, choosing to linger in the gentle heat of her palm for a heart's beat before taking it into his possession. Lifting the piece to his ear for a listen, he kept his eyes on her shining ones. Light cascaded down the slope of her cheek, filtering in through the window and causing sparkling dust motes to dance in synergy with the faint pink of blush that was rising beneath her porcelain flesh. "I can fix it," he promised with an awed sense of hope for renewed purpose in life.

"I was hoping that you would say that," she beamed, her smile exposing a row of perfect pearly white teeth. "I think I've been everywhere else in the city. You were my last hope."

He found it hard to deny that he enjoyed the prospect of Elle needing him in any capacity. Rolling back to his feet he extended his free hand to help her up, again lingering in their proximity. "Let me just, um, check in the back to make sure that I have some parts for this."

"I'll be right here," she told him with a little smile, rolling on the balls of her feet in a happy bounce. Gabriel dropped his gaze back to the watch in his hand with amusement, turning back for a second before entering the work room holding all of his replacement pieces to see her standing perfectly in the exact same spot.

"How old are you, Elle?"

"Twenty-three. Why?"

"No reason." Gabriel slipped a shy smile before disappearing into the shadows of the work room. The moment he was out of sight Elle pulled a buttonhole camera from her shirt and held it up so that the footage could capture her face and a brief thumbs up gesture. She scoped out the expanse of the watch shop in search of a place to hide the new surveillance camera, her eyes stopping on an old grandfather clock decorated with pristine stained glass and rich mahogany wood. Elle traced her fingers over the lovingly restored face finding the care that had been placed in the aging antique enviable before tucking the tiny camera into a cavity that would be able to capture most of the scene.

Inside of his work room Gabriel flipped through a few velvet lined drawers of rare parts that he had acquired over the years until he found a shiny silver cog that he knew would function perfectly as a replacement for the one in Elle's watch with a broken tooth. He fingered the miniature oddity for a moment with a sullen smile. Yes, he would indeed be able to repair the watch with minimal effort. And yet, his mind rolled to a pause when he considered holding the piece overnight as he had with Claire just for an excuse to see the girl again. She had comforted him at a very dark moment and he felt that he somehow owed it to her to take the proposed second chance seriously. Gabriel decided quite firmly in that second that he would not allow his mistakes with Claire to be repeated. He would be open and honest with Elle from the very beginning, show her exactly who and what he was, and what the risks were that came with that. She would have the fighting chance that he had never given his Claire.

It took less than five minutes for Gabriel to pry off the back of her watch and to disassemble the top portion so that the broken cog could be replaced, perhaps two minutes to put it back together in working order but he couldn't sure. His eyes kept losing their focus to the Sylar watch that ticked away its smooth, almost hypnotic reliability on the corner of the bench. Such solid craftsmanship like that was nearly impossible to find in a more contemporary piece. It could be dropped, drowned, and bashed repeatedly, broken apart, and yet unlike even Elle's watch, the Sylar would remain functional. Sylar was a constant. Like Claire.

His fingers roamed over the glass of the display recalling with perfect clarity how many times he had attempted to fix the Sylar on his own. And how it wasn't until Claire had come along that he was given the key he needed. She had repaired him as much or more than he could ever have done the same for her watch. Gabriel would never forget that. Nor would he allow her faithful efforts to be spent in vain. He slid the Sylar over his wrist and fastened it tight - a perfect fit. So long as his mind and body were in cohesion the Sylar would never again leave his side. It was promise. Gabriel kept his promises.

Venturing back outside of his work room, Gabriel's eyes were drawn to the spot that Elle had promised she would be in when he returned. He cursed himself for believing in such a kindness so quickly when the space was obviously vacant.

"Over here." A dainty hand waved to him over a line of shelving that stood an inch or two taller than she did. "I like this one," Elle told him with a grin as he crossed over to where she stood in front of the grandfather clock. "It reminds me of someone." At the quirk of a mildly confused brow she elaborated. "Because he's pretty." Gabriel deflated a bit under the assumption that she was talking about a boyfriend he had not previously been aware of. Of course she's already seeing someone. Who wouldn't want a girl like her… "And he keeps going even though he's really old."

"It's my favorite too." He smiled again with relief. "Here's your watch back. It should be working fine now."

"Oh, wow. How much do I owe you?"

A second chance. "I was thinking dinner." Elle stuttered in blatant surprise. Having never been out with a man on anything that could be considered a real date the sudden interest in her was startling. "My place. I'll do the cooking."

"I think I'd like that."

Elle Bishop approached the Primatech van that waited down the block and out of sight from the Gray and Son's watch shop, knocking her knuckles against the side to announce her presence to her partner. Noah popped open the back with a sarcastic smile on his face, announcing, "Cute meet," in mockery of the video footage that had been captured of her interactions with Gabriel via the buttonhole camera that she had stashed inside.

Elle rolled her eyes. "I still don't understand why we don't just bag and tag this guy like the rest of them."

Because he's not like the rest. Mr. Gray is… special. Noah rolled back to the lap tops that were set to record Gabriel's movements in absence of the surveillance camera that he had smashed under foot. "For years scientists were stumped by the mystery of whale migration." Shutting the system down so that the team could move out, he continued, "Such a big ocean. How do they find each other?" He climbed out from the van, closing the doors behind him. "And then one night in the frozen Pacific, some enterprising biologists recorded their song - in the wild. They don't sing in captivity."

"So, we've got to get the whale to sing."

"What Mr. Gray can do is extraordinary." Bennet opened the passenger side door for Elle to jump in. "The ability to transfer power from one vessel to another is extremely rare."

With the door shut behind her and the van ready to move on she turned to him with a questioning look. "Yeah. But how do I get him to do it?"

Noah paused for a moment, mentally retracing all of his steps over the course of the prior assignment. He thought over some of the things that he had observed and what Claire had reported about the target settling on the day when they had all met in Angela's office. "Pie." He hopped into the driver's seat with a Cheshire grin. "Peach pie to be exact. It's his favorite."

Driving out of the alley Bennet took a sideways glance at Elle slumping in the passenger seat with her nose pressed to the glass watching the world drift by them. He couldn't have possibly thought of a better replacement for Claire. The hair, the stature, the youthful appearance… as perfect a stand in as they would ever find. Gray's 'type' to the T. Not to mention the records in Sylar's file that detailed them having a relationship of sorts a few years into the future. The shady side of his character maliciously enjoyed the prospect of using her to lure Gabriel towards the Company's grasp. With substantial proof that he was a danger to society Angela had given him full permission to bring Gray in for a lovely stay in Level Five. After a satisfying round of torture… testing, he corrected himself. They called it testing. It was just destiny that they should meet. He just had to hope that she wanted to keep her status as an agent badly enough to hold herself together.

"What is it that you have against this guy?" Elle asked with a finger twining in a lock of her hair. "I mean, he didn't seem so bad to me."

That's because you're a sociopath. "It's just business Elle. You should know that better than anyone." Noah gave her a sidelong look through the flash of his glasses. "If you don't think you can handle it we can always transfer you back to Level One. I'm sure Adam would be happy to have you back."

"I can handle it." The stubborn set of her mouth and serious slant of her eyes were very convincing. She really did remind him of his own daughter. Sans the psychosis of course.

"I'm sure you can."

Angela stirred from her dream, a faint smile of devious intentions pulling at the corners of her mouth. She brought herself to a more comfortable sitting position in her chair and watched a laboratory technician spread a clear jelly over her granddaughter's belly. Claire slept peacefully under constant sedation to insure the safety of her unborn child, blissfully unaware of the Haitian's around the clock presence at her side, or the rapid fluttering of the baby's heart beat echoing out of the machinery.

"It seems that Noah is determined to find his proof that Gabriel Gray is a threat to us all." Angela smirked at the Haitian's darkened expression. "Everything is going according to plan. Sylar will be joining us very soon."

"Congratulations, it's a boy," the technician said with a proud smile. Angela and the Haitian both turned to look at the monitor showing a fuzzy set of ameba structures in a deep grey setting. She was never sure how exactly they could tell such things from sonogram pictures, but in the end it didn't matter. She had already known. "And he looks perfectly healthy."

"Good. Make sure he stays that way," Angela ordered curtly. She swept her fingers over the exposed side of Claire's rounding stomach. The master key to all of her plans lay within the unborn child. The secret to bringing about Sylar's end and exacting her vengeance.

To be continued...