Title: Empty Memory
Genre: Romance / Angst
Rating: T
Pairing: Sylar x OC
Spoilers: N/A
Summary: You will forget. To remember any portion of it, any word, will cause you pain, terrible pain, growing more terrible as you fight to remember.
Word Count: 716
Warnings: Weird timeline.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Summary is from Star Trek: The Original Series.
A/N: I am pretending Heroes: Reborn doesn't exist.
Perhaps there's a master plan that drives the randomness of creation. Something unknowable that dwells in the soul, and presents each one of us with a unique set of challenges that will help us discover who we really are.
The weeks eek by, monotonous and simple and boring. Evie does not lead an exciting life. She works, she goes home. Rinse. Repeat. Every now and then she'll go out for drinks with her work friends, but mostly she stays at home, in her apartment, and reads her books. People tell her that she is an introvert, but she doesn't feel like one. She simply prefers her own company, prefers to scour the pages of her novels looking for the perfect man.
She had dated, briefly, a spattering of men a few years ago. But she found herself dumping them for reasons she didn't understand. When her friends tried to set her up, tried to ask her what her type was, she made excuses. She couldn't tell him that what she was looking for was a man who smelled like her dream. That she was looking for the feel of a very specific set of shoulders under her hands, but she didn't know who they belonged to. Well, they belonged to a dream, which was even worse than forgetting who they belonged to. She wasn't a slut, just crazy.
When she heaved a sigh, it made a table of two elderly ladies glance at her with identical, disapproving frowns. Shaking her head, she forced herself to focus more on the task at hand: restocking the creamers and straws and various coffee shop paraphernalia at the island in the middle of the dining room. She already knew she was crazy, she didn't need the customer's knowing it, too, her tips would nosedive.
The chiming of the bell made her turn around, smile affixed to her face. "Hi! Oh!" It's the man with the horn-rimmed glasses. "Welcome back, sir! A black coffee?"
He seems momentarily taken aback by her remembrance of him, but that's what working in a restaurant forces down your throat. He slides his glance to the right, and Evie suddenly notices the tall, dark-skinned man beside him. "Yes, a black coffee for me. And an Earl Grey tea, for my friend here."
"Coming right up!"
She throws herself into making the drinks with more energy than the two simple items require, unable to shake off the feeling that she knows that second man. It's not that she remembers him from here, she'd definitely remember that, but his presence feels… familiar. A dark whole, an emptiness where he stands, that makes him feel… dangerous.
She brings the drinks to their table, remembering to smile, to not appear nervous. "Here you go, you guys!" She says cheerfully, reaching out to hand them their respective drinks. "Anything else I can –"
Earl Grey Tea reaches out to take his drink from her, an all Evie can see is the flash of glasses in her dream, the shadowy hand reaching out for her, the blinding pain in her head.
And then she doesn't see anything at all.
"Catch me if you can!" Gabriel's voice is taunting and it makes Evie want to punch him in the face. It's not her fault that he's bigger than her! He's older! He's got longer legs and he runs faster! She hates playing tag! It was unfair! Without warning, she starts to cry. She's only nine, after all.
Gabriel is suddenly in front of her, dark eyes wide and regretful. "I'm sorry, Evie, don't cry."
"You always w-w-want to play t-tag!" She wails. "B-but I'm too small to," she hiccups, "catch you!"
The twelve year old suddenly envelops her in his arms. "Don't worry! I'll always let you catch me!"
She's hiccupping more swiftly now, but her tears are slowing to a trickle. "You promise?"
"I promise."
