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: 975
Warnings: Weird timeline.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Summary is from Star Trek: The Original Series.
A/N: I am pretending Heroes: Reborn doesn't exist.
Some individuals, it is true, are more special. This is natural selection. It begins as a single individual, born or hatched like every other member of their species. Anonymous. Seemingly ordinary. Except they're not. They carry inside them the genetic code that will take their species to the next evolutionary rung. It's destiny.
It is days, weeks, months later, she doesn't know, when the cell across the hallway from her is filled with another prisoner. They through the man in and leave in a hurry, fear in every line of their bodies. But Evie doesn't care. The man could be a serial killer and she wouldn't care. There is no one to talk to except for when they question her. Sometimes days go before they come to her. She talks to herself a lot, but it is not the same as having real, human contact. She wants him to wake just so she can hear someone's voice, but he remains blissfully unconscious for an entire day.
Sylar groans when he awakens. He is on a harsh floor, one arm folded uncomfortably underneath him. He can tell by the lack of feeling in it that he has been lying here for a while. The world around him spirals as he sits up. What the –
He remembers glasses and frowns. Noah Bennett… He should have known. But where –
"Oh, thank God you're awake! I was getting worried!"
He startles at the voice – familiar. When he turns, there is a young woman standing in her cell opposite him, watching him through the glass with wide brown eyes. Her face is pale with lack of sun and sleep deprivation, so the freckles spread across her cheeks and nose stand out in stark relief. She raises one hand and gives a little wave – he remembers those hands, remembers them reaching out…
"I'm Evie Taylors…"
His mind stumbles to stop. Evie – what, what is happening, why is she here? Why – She is looking at him expectantly and he realizes with a pang that nothing has changed. She does not remember him. "Sy –" He stops, corrects himself. "Gabriel Grey."
"That's a nice name," she says, sliding down the glass to sit on the floor, still close enough to hold a quiet conversation. She frowns… "It sounds… familiar, like a comic book character or something." She smiles and his heart lurches at the sight of the dimple.
"How long have you been here?" His voice is hoarse with disuse. Even as he asks, he's reaching out with his gifts, trying to rattle the doors, trying to unlock the cells, but there is nothing. He is too weak or the Haitian is too close. He can't reach her.
"I don't know." She glances at a watch on her wrist and he almost cries out at the sight of it. "I lost track of the days about a week in." Her voice is small and she pulls her knees up to her chest. "I don't even know why I'm here. A guy in glasses and his partner or something took me."
"Noah Bennett and the Haitian."
She looks up at him. "The Haitian?"
"He's dangerous."
She's watching him intently. "Are you in here because you're dangerous?" She asks finally.
His smile is slow and predatory. "Yes, but not to you."
Gabriel is almost shaking with nerves. He hasn't been this nervous since… well ever. His father had started letting him work in the shop after his twentieth birthday, but in the past year, all he'd been officially allowed to do was minor repairs and cleanings. He wasn't allowed to do the really intricate stuff yet. Not while his dad was around anyway.
But he'd been planning this gift for months, and so he'd snuck into the shop every night after everyone was asleep to work on it. It had taken him months to get it perfect. He was surprised how easily this came to him, his father always made it seem like the inner working of watches was like creating a new universe, but it wasn't to him. But this… this was the first, this one was special, there could be no mistakes.
He reaches out to wrap a knuckle against the glass window very lightly, knowing she's awake. A moment later the blinds hurl upwards and Evie's face is grinning at him on the other side. Moments later her window is open and he's climbing off her fire escape into her room, being careful with the small box in his hands.
"Gabriel!" Her eyes are zeroed in on what he's holding. "Is that for me?"
He affects a haughty tone. "It is unbecoming to be so impatient."
She merely rolls her eyes and reaches out. "Gimme!" Then she ripping open the box gleefully, while he watches with his heart in his throat. Her fingers pause as she lifts the item reverently from its cushion. "Gabriel – "
It's a watch. But it is perfect for her, fitting her wrist like it was meant for her – because it was. And underneath, an engraving, that he watches her read with nervous terror.
She's looking up at him, eyes glistening. "Did you make this?" He nods. "Really?"
"Is it… okay? I've never… made a watch from scratch before…"
"It's beautiful…" Her voice is soft, and her thumb brushes over the engraving once more.
Time will never part us.
He smiles and reaches out to fasten it on her. "Happy birthday, Evie."
