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: 1,108
Warnings: Weird timeline.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Summary is from Star Trek: The Original Series.
A/N: I am pretending Heroes: Reborn doesn't exist.
You can run far. You can take your small precautions. But have you really gotten away? Can you ever escape? Or is the truth that you do not have the strength or cunning to hide from destiny?
He isn't really sure why, some deluded sense of optimism maybe, that makes him think that they are safe. But they aren't, especially not now when they are together. It is too dangerous. But he forgets, and basks in having Evie in his home, pretends the last years did not happen, that she knows him, that she remembers him. Sometimes he almost thinks she does – when she smiles just so, or makes a joke she has made to him a decade before. It is all wishful thinking, and all it does it keep him unaware.
So he is startled when his door is suddenly kicked in on itself and a team of armed assailants stream in. When Evie screams he sees that one of them is pointing a gun at her and he is angry like he has only ever been once in his life.
"Let her go or I will kill you." His voice is dark, and promising.
The man answers by cocking the trigger and Sylar feels his blood boil. He takes a step forward.
"Gabriel…" She is crying.
He reaches out a hand.
"You really don't want to do that." When he looks over, it is to the simpering face of Noah Bennet, beside his Haitian. "You know what my friend here can do."
Sylar can feel his powers simmering beneath the surface, but with the Haitian in the room there is a blanket over them, a thick covering that blocks him from using them. They hover tantalizingly out of his reach. "Evie," he says, calmly. "I need you to do something for me."
"Y – yes?" She looks terrified.
Noah's brow wrinkles as he watches the interaction, warily.
"Remember when I told you that I am stronger than I look?" She tries to nod, but the man behind her with the gun jerks her still. "I need you to close your eyes and think about how strong you think I am." She looks confused, but at his calm and controlled look, her eyes flutter shut.
"Now what?"
Slowly, he grins, feeling that power rumble underneath the Haitian. "Now keep your eyes closed."
Moments (hours?) later, Evie and Sylar stand in a room of crumbled bodies. She is shaking, her chin trembling, but she is trying to stare at Noah and his comrade with fierceness. "I think you should leave no, Mr. Bennett." The pair are already inching towards the door. "And if I ever see you again, you know what I can do." He tilts his head at a puzzled Evie. "Especially with her by my side."
Noah's eyes are wide behind his horn-rimmed glasses. "This isn't over."
"Yes. It is." And with a flick of his wrist, Sylar sends them flying from the room, with the bodies of their enforcers, and slams the door behind them.
"Evie, I – " He stops, unsure how to continue. "I –" He realizes he is chewing on his nail in agitation and forces himself to stop. "I don't know how to say this."
She looks amused, as she lays on her stomach beside him in his bed, hair mussed and tousled, lips rough and reddened. She is completely at ease here, and the thought makes his heart swell. It has been the best year of his life. "Just spit it out, angel," she giggles.
"I can see how things work." He says in a rush, before amending, "I think."
Her brow is arched into her hairline. "What?"
He shrugs, sitting up to lean against the headboard. "When I work on something, anything, even if it's something I've never seen before, I can – sort of sense how it works I never make mistakes because…" He gestures futilely. "Because I just know how it works."
"You're telling me you have a super power?" Her tone is skeptical.
"I – I don't think it's like that. I –" He glances around the room and sees nothing he can use. So he turns back to her, and he does something he's never tried before. He focuses on her.
"Why are you staring at me like that?"
"Wait – um, what's something you know how to do, but I can't?"
She looks flabbergasted. "I don't know – dance?"
He glares at her, but then focuses again. When she tries to speak, he shushes her. He has never done this, but he thinks he can see the memories, just out of reach, how her in the club, of her dancing. There are the motions, the muscle memory, the grace. It is a long time later that he stands and, with perfect execution, several of the moves he knows she is fond of.
Her mouth falls open. "How – "
He shrugs, unsure. "I don't know."
Scrambling into a sitting position, she begins to flood him with questions. How does it work? Can he do it with anything? What if someone doesn't speak English? How does that happen? She makes him demonstrate again and again, on her, on machinery. It gets easier and easier every time. He thinks he is getting better, but the next day when he is alone in his workshop, he tries to learn a secret of the postman's and can't quite reach the thoughts. Thinking he overexerted himself, he forgets until an hour later when Evie visits.
He tells her about what happened and she implored him to try again. There are no problems, people's talents are as visible to him as the sun in summer.
His mind churns slowly, connected the pieces, but he always comes back to the same conclusion.
It is easiest when Evie is there. It is easiest when she believes that he can do it.
It has always been like that. The games she thought he was the best at, the sports she thought he was perfect at, he was always whatever she thought. Like her faith, her belief in him, enhanced whatever she imagined. He was a straight-A student without even trying, a great kisser, a great –
Great at other things.
It was her, her gift.
