Turning Point
Title: Turning Point
Characters/Pairing: Sylar/Maya, Nadia
Rating: R
Word count: 3,660
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summery: After her death experience Maya's been thinking
Note: KW verse, takes place after Inundate
"Is mommy ok?" Nadia says softly as she stares down the corridor to her mother's room and sees her sitting by the window, still dressed in her pajamas. She had been like this for such a long time, since Nadia had woken to her mother asleep beside her, holding tight until Nadia had complained about the heat. That had been the last time her mother had been stable in her company, now she cries uncontrollably when she looks at Nadia. Not wanting to upset her mother she had kept her distance. But it hurt so much. The only good thing that had come of it is her father's constant presence in their home. Now her dad gets on his hunches and makes Nadia look at him with a reassuring nod.
"Yeah she's fine. She's just not feeling that well, but she'll get better." He gives her a hug and and then nods his head to the door where her friend Jenny was waiting. School. Casting one more look back Nadia picks up her lunchbox and greets her friend with a smile, not as bright as usual, and they disappear down the stairs. Gabriel gets to his feet and makes his way to the kitchen where he brews a pot coffee and gets a bottle of rum out of the drinks cabinet before heading into Maya's room.
"Here." He hands her the mug of coffee and settles the rum on the windowsill beside the armchair she's seated in. Maya looks up and takes the coffee from him, her hand shaking but not as bad as it had been.
"Gracias." She whispers and doesn't draw back when he leans over Maya and kisses her forehead, brushing her hair back before he sits on the edge of her unmade bed. Their bed, if only when Maya needed him. He watches her with a gentle scrutiny as she unscrews the rum and pours a large amount into her coffee. Once done she sits with it on her knee, looking out of the window at the sun drenched scenery. The rain had dried up, like it had never been.
"What are you thinking?" He says softly and after a moment the tiniest smile curls Maya's mouth.
"Can't you tell?" She taps a finger to her temple, "read my mind?" she takes a sip of her drink and then curls the cup next to her chest.
"You think in Spanish." she turns to him then, smile gone but still with that complete absence of anger that usually mars her face when regarding him. She was still in shock, had to be and now a calmness had settled. She nods, looking away.
"You never did learn it..."
"Didn't want to know all the curses you throw at me. English is enough. Maya, " he says hastily, leaning closer to her and she looks at him, "what's going on?"
She flicks her eyes between his and takes another sip which turns into a gulp. "I've been thinking about you and myself, for a long time. Thinking...what if? What would it be like if I wasn't here and it was just you and Nadia? I know you love her and wouldn't hurt her."
"You know I wouldn't." He says softly, nodding.
"It was a relieving feeling but," her mouth wobbles and her eyes rim with tears, "it made me really think about myself, the way I am. And you. You know the last thing I said to Nadia before that happened was 'you're making mommy angry!'" Maya shakes her head with a look of complete disbelief. "That would have been the last impression of me she would ever have!"
"Maya," he takes her hand in his, looking into her eyes, "don't beat yourself up, you didn't know that was going to happen."
"That's not the point. This - this had happened before and it's happening again." Alejandro. The word is never spoken but they both acknowledge it. Maya draws her hand away and he leans back, eyes avoiding hers for the first time. She continues, still softly and calmly. "I was given another chance, to be a better person but it was so hard. I made it hard." She stresses, licking her lips and her gaze draws his back. Anger, not at him but for herself. "I used to think that it was god punishing me, taking my brother from me. But that was to much to bear so I convinced myself that it had some sort of purpose in god's plan. He was taken from me but my daughter was given back; a balance, one life for the other. It was a strange way to think but it made my life more bearable."
He says nothing, knowing he's in a mine field. Maya nods and takes another sip, swirling the cup around. "But god didn't do that to me, you did." He stiffens, preparing himself for a fight but she still remains in a state of platitude, though her eyes harden. "I've called you every name under the sun. I thought of you as my captor, my monster that's wrecked my life and kept me here. Like something out of a fairytale. Even before that, I thought of you as something non human... It was easier for me to hate you in that way, to not feel any pity for you because you weren't human, how could you be? No, you were some devil that god sent to test me and I failed."
Gabriel gets to his knees, shaking his head. "Maya I cant say anything that -"
"No you can't, so don't." She presses her palm over her cross, breathing in deep and closes her eyes. "I wanted forgiveness to be settled onto me. I'd go to bed hoping that the rage would be gone each morning but it was still there, maybe more low and still as the years past but always there." She opens her eyes, sombre and very astute. "I don't want your excuses anymore. I just want us to be straight with one another, no more bullshit, no more fights and no more dancing around each other. You're not a devil, neither am I. You're human, you're flawed but you are human and that's it." She sets the cup down and leans down over him, looking deeper into his eyes with interest. "You have a lot of excuses for what you are. You've told me that it's like being a drug addict or you feel compelled by evolution. I think you believe it but the bottom line is you're crazy. But for all these years I've never asked: what is wrong with you Gabriel? Did you ever find out?"
He opens his mouth and then closes it, surprised. "Nothing, I dunno." He keeps his eyes averted, worrying at his lip until she leans forward and touches his hand.
"Were you always like this? Always pretending to be someone else?" He starts to breathe harder but he doesn't look away once her dark eyes pin his. "This Gabriel before me is different from the one your mother knew? Si?"
"Ye -yes. I dressed differently, my behaviour was more...meek. I wasn't like this but it was always there, if that makes sense? My mother, she - it has something to do with her." He won't say anymore, his lips thinning in pain and restraint.
"That was true? About your mother?" She wasn't ever sure but the rawness that enters his eyes when ever the topic is breached seems too guarded to be fake. It was painful for him.
He doesn't speak for a very long time but swallows convulsively and his eyes make continual up and down glances to her chest. Where he shot me, where his mother was stabbed, she thinks with a lurch and sits back. Finally his eyes settling on hers he nods. "Everything changed for me when I found out about Nadia, nothing prepared me for it. But I've been telling myself for years, even when I was a kid, that if I ever had children I would not be like my mother...or my dad. I've tried so hard not be like that, pushing and pushing. I'm not, am I?" He whispers softly with a desperate hope and fear. Maya shakes her head.
"No, you're to lenient if anything. You say that nothing could have prepared you for this, well it can't be even close to what I expected. Not this from you." A silence falls but she's still curious. "You've never tried to diagnose yourself? When we went to the library last week I saw lots of books about mental disorders." He shifts, looking extremely uncomfortable and she narrows her eyes. "What is it?"
He hesitates, unsure until he speaks slowly. "I tired to, I did but I couldn't make myself do it. It's like knowing the ins and outs of terminal illness. Every terrible thing laid out for you all in facts. There's not running from that, it's logic and simple."
"And you don't like simple do you? All your excuses would disappear and what you would have left would be something normal that happens to everyday people. Helpless people with so little control."
"Why are you doing this?" he grinds out, suddenly vexed.
She leans forward. "Because I've been thinking of you as a monster for to long and it made it so much easier to hate you. You're seriously fucked up Gabriel but at least if I really knew what was wrong with you then I'd feel more stable, know how to really deal with you." she pats the air and smooths it with her palms. "You're so good at reading people Gabriel but you're like a one of those Russian dolls. There's no end to you. Were you ever just one thing? A normal, sane, single person?"
Again he hesitates and while Maya appears strangely together he feels untethered. Had been since he dragged her out of the pool. But this was so new and unexpected, Maya's interest, that he finds himself divulging. "Maybe when I was a very small child but after that...I used to dress like my dad you know? I wanted to be like him and after he left I really was. I used to go buy my clothes from thrift stores but in upper class neighbourhoods, I liked the feeling of specialness by accusation. I think my father did to. The watches was another way to feel that, we both liked collecting things and fixing them." He pauses, eyes unfocused as he remembers. He speaks again with the same occupied look. "I stayed isolated and away from people but I think on some level I wasn't the mouse I appeared to be. But I liked people to think I was. It would be more surprising for them to find out someone so hopeless, such a nobody, was special." He cleared his throat and sat down on the carpet and crosses his legs, eyes now on hers. "I was waiting, just waiting for that one moment, or that one special person to turn up in my life and change it. I knew it would happen."
"Fate?"
"Yeah. We are alike you know..." She just makes a humming noise and sits back, picking up her cup again. He sits with his back against her bed, a slight frown in place. "Why are we saying all this? Do you want to help me, is that it?" His eyes shine with emotion and she stiffens in her seat. She clears her throat and starts fiddling with her hair.
"I just feel it needs saying, just get it all out. Because I want to move on Gabriel, I will never be like I was again. And I'm not going to dehumanise you either, I can't let go if I continue to think like that." She lets a silence stretch, biting her lip before she leans forward again, hand moving to fiddle with her gold cross; which for the years he had known Maya she had never taken off. "Even when all this started I used to think of you as something non human. Mi angel." she says softly and he straightens, his face heating. "I used to think that my first love would be my soul mate. Nothing else could come between me and my twin. Until you. I thought I had felt love before, for a man, but I have never experienced anything like that. I thought you were actually meant for me and I was for you." she snorts and she either looks up towards the heavens or rolls her eyes. Or both.
"Your first?" Even now he feels a huge unfurling of pride. This stated fact about them, about her was something pure and true he clings to. Maya nods, topping up more of the rum into her coffee.
"By the time we got to New York I was set, I thought nothing would have changed my mind. I was going to spend the rest of my life with you and it would be perfect...I had the mind of a teenager." She says with a flat voice and he tilts his head, shocked.
"What?"
"I thought like a child would, I was too sheltered. Santa is real, my first loves name will appear on an apple peel, La Llorona would drown me for being a bad girl." she freezes then and her face pinches. She puffs a breath and suddenly gets to her feet. "My coffee is cold, and I'm hungry..." she pads to the kitchen and he follows. They hadn't really gone over what had happened to Maya at the pool. Submerging that event seems to have pushed up everything else she had been ignoring.
She puts slices of bread into the toaster, not up to making a big breakfast. He brews another pot for them and they sit at the table. She frowns at the surface where a large sticky patch of coffee had spread over the wood. He puts his cup down and confesses and she sighs, waving her hand dismissively.
"You were saying you were like a child?" He doesn't like that, belittling herself. Her past.
She butters her toast with a nod, not looking at him for the moment. "Si. I was selfish. I didn't want to listen to my brother. He never listened to me before so why should I now?" she says rhetorically, bitter before she becomes calm again. "I had a complete faith in the path god set out for me, I had to get salvation and any good thing on that path was heaven sent. You were a godsend. But more, I thought. Afterwards I went through a time of denial. Even when I found out he died I couldn't really believe you would do that to me. I thought you loved me."
He opens his mouth, about to say it when she cuts him a sharp, heat filled look and he backs down. This wasn't his time to speak.
Maya tucks her hair behind her ears and draws in and out calming breaths until she's ready to speak. "You pretended to like me, why I'll never know but you did. I - I think on some level you were attracted to me but really that was it." she narrows her eyes at him, deeply considering. "It really confused me for such a long time, still does, why you spent all that time pretending to care if all you wanted was my power. It didn't make sense. So it was just easier to blame it on the fact you were a monster, your motives weren't something I could ever understand so I shouldn't bother."
He had been bursting to answer and as she falls silent he leans over the table, eyes on hers. Truth, just that. "First you were not like a child. We even talked about this before, remember at the motel?" Maya's eyes widen and she blushes. She looks down into her cup and nods gently. He smiles but grows serious and speaks low. "I know to you it makes little sense and mostly you'd be right. Mostly. I did want your power because power was the one thing I could count on to make me feel special. I was going to NY to get cured and that meant getting my abilities back. That was my first plan but - but Maya it wasn't all. I didn't act that way to hurt you, I wasn't thinking like that. I thought to myself if I didn't get my powers then I'd still have you. All I had was you. You would keep me in one piece."
"But you didn't love me the way I did you?" She says softly but even before he opens his mouth he can feel she's already judged him and found her answer.
"I can feel it, you know I can. At that time my emotions were smothered and I was only thinking of myself. I felt cornered and I could only think about my own survival. But I wasn't a brick wall, especially the first time we met. I did love you - I still do - but I don't think the way I love is the same as you. Or anyone else."
"Because you're not quite like anyone else." she whispers, holding no reproach and he feels adrift. Her anger he could understand and deal with, her love the same but this numbness was different. She was usually such an over abundantly emotional person that he always expected a reaction from her, attention. He can feel she's turning and he doesn't know to what. "So I was your back up and you killed my brother because he wanted to take me away." It wasn't a question but he nods.
"I couldn't let you leave me. I know you have no reason to believe me but I was going to let him go. I totally lost it. The anger...at that point I didn't know what would happen but the one solid thing I knew was that you were mine and you loved me. I wasn't going to give that up for anything."
"But you did." Her voice shakes but she keeps her teary gaze on his.
"No, even when I got my abilities back I couldn't let go. Especially with the release of the virus I knew everything would be different and we could start over again. Our family." He stares at her intensely and she doesn't blink. "I am different now, I'm a better person and you know it."
"I do but I don't care. You wanted me so much that you had to cut all my ties to others so it was only you I had left. Cono, I was so angry that you were all I had that I couldn't even connect like I should have to my own daughter. You had to have that to." she holds up a hand as he starts to object, relenting. "But that is down to me. With the birth of my daughter I should have somehow just moved on, just focused on her and tried to be happy but I couldn't. I was so selfish, couldn't get over that you had hurt me so much and I was expected to play happy families with you. Even when I wanted to."
"But you do want to be a family Maya."
"I do but that would mean ignoring what you did to me and others. For the past few years it's got easier being near you. Suddenly catching myself smiling at you for to long or just talking normally and I would be swallowed with guilt and self reproach. We have built something between us that works, for a time. But I can't have that relationship with you, it would disgrace my brother's death and all the other people that you have killed to give you what you want. You have Nadia's love and even that is terrifying but I do see it in you, you do love her. So." She gets to her feet, still looking remarkably together but the finality to her words, her very posture sends him to his feet, gasping and heart beating powerfully fast.
"You're leaving? I can feel it. You can't Ma-" He stalls when she shakes her head and lifts her hand to stem him.
"I'm not going anywhere Gabriel. I'm your ball and chain." she smiles for a moment, just a hint at her old maliciousness and he feels a confusing swirl of relief at it. But then she's calm again, so very assured.
"But this is the old me saying goodbye, in a way. I will never raise my voice to you again or stir anything up. No matter what you try. I drowned and I can't bear the thought that my life up to that point has been one guilty, rage filled day after the other. I won't be that anymore, I won't do that to myself or raise my child like that for another day. Your hungry attention I will endure and I just hope you do try and help yourself before it's to late."
To late? What does she mean? But the foreboding feeling at her words is replaced with a swell of headiness when she hesitates for a moment and comes to him where he stands with wide, confused eyes. She smiles up at him and shockingly hugs him, holding tight before kissing his mouth. He's suddenly transported back to the first time they shared a kiss, something timid, wholehearted but while that kiss had been a move forward this feels like a farewell. But with just one fleeting touch of her soft hair, before he can break through the shock and react she's drawing back and walks out of the kitchen, her voice drifting softly behind.
"Don't come in my room anymore. I don't need you."
Characters/Pairing: Sylar/Maya, Nadia
Rating: R
Word count: 3,660
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summery: After her death experience Maya's been thinking
Note: KW verse, takes place after Inundate
"Is mommy ok?" Nadia says softly as she stares down the corridor to her mother's room and sees her sitting by the window, still dressed in her pajamas. She had been like this for such a long time, since Nadia had woken to her mother asleep beside her, holding tight until Nadia had complained about the heat. That had been the last time her mother had been stable in her company, now she cries uncontrollably when she looks at Nadia. Not wanting to upset her mother she had kept her distance. But it hurt so much. The only good thing that had come of it is her father's constant presence in their home. Now her dad gets on his hunches and makes Nadia look at him with a reassuring nod.
"Yeah she's fine. She's just not feeling that well, but she'll get better." He gives her a hug and and then nods his head to the door where her friend Jenny was waiting. School. Casting one more look back Nadia picks up her lunchbox and greets her friend with a smile, not as bright as usual, and they disappear down the stairs. Gabriel gets to his feet and makes his way to the kitchen where he brews a pot coffee and gets a bottle of rum out of the drinks cabinet before heading into Maya's room.
"Here." He hands her the mug of coffee and settles the rum on the windowsill beside the armchair she's seated in. Maya looks up and takes the coffee from him, her hand shaking but not as bad as it had been.
"Gracias." She whispers and doesn't draw back when he leans over Maya and kisses her forehead, brushing her hair back before he sits on the edge of her unmade bed. Their bed, if only when Maya needed him. He watches her with a gentle scrutiny as she unscrews the rum and pours a large amount into her coffee. Once done she sits with it on her knee, looking out of the window at the sun drenched scenery. The rain had dried up, like it had never been.
"What are you thinking?" He says softly and after a moment the tiniest smile curls Maya's mouth.
"Can't you tell?" She taps a finger to her temple, "read my mind?" she takes a sip of her drink and then curls the cup next to her chest.
"You think in Spanish." she turns to him then, smile gone but still with that complete absence of anger that usually mars her face when regarding him. She was still in shock, had to be and now a calmness had settled. She nods, looking away.
"You never did learn it..."
"Didn't want to know all the curses you throw at me. English is enough. Maya, " he says hastily, leaning closer to her and she looks at him, "what's going on?"
She flicks her eyes between his and takes another sip which turns into a gulp. "I've been thinking about you and myself, for a long time. Thinking...what if? What would it be like if I wasn't here and it was just you and Nadia? I know you love her and wouldn't hurt her."
"You know I wouldn't." He says softly, nodding.
"It was a relieving feeling but," her mouth wobbles and her eyes rim with tears, "it made me really think about myself, the way I am. And you. You know the last thing I said to Nadia before that happened was 'you're making mommy angry!'" Maya shakes her head with a look of complete disbelief. "That would have been the last impression of me she would ever have!"
"Maya," he takes her hand in his, looking into her eyes, "don't beat yourself up, you didn't know that was going to happen."
"That's not the point. This - this had happened before and it's happening again." Alejandro. The word is never spoken but they both acknowledge it. Maya draws her hand away and he leans back, eyes avoiding hers for the first time. She continues, still softly and calmly. "I was given another chance, to be a better person but it was so hard. I made it hard." She stresses, licking her lips and her gaze draws his back. Anger, not at him but for herself. "I used to think that it was god punishing me, taking my brother from me. But that was to much to bear so I convinced myself that it had some sort of purpose in god's plan. He was taken from me but my daughter was given back; a balance, one life for the other. It was a strange way to think but it made my life more bearable."
He says nothing, knowing he's in a mine field. Maya nods and takes another sip, swirling the cup around. "But god didn't do that to me, you did." He stiffens, preparing himself for a fight but she still remains in a state of platitude, though her eyes harden. "I've called you every name under the sun. I thought of you as my captor, my monster that's wrecked my life and kept me here. Like something out of a fairytale. Even before that, I thought of you as something non human... It was easier for me to hate you in that way, to not feel any pity for you because you weren't human, how could you be? No, you were some devil that god sent to test me and I failed."
Gabriel gets to his knees, shaking his head. "Maya I cant say anything that -"
"No you can't, so don't." She presses her palm over her cross, breathing in deep and closes her eyes. "I wanted forgiveness to be settled onto me. I'd go to bed hoping that the rage would be gone each morning but it was still there, maybe more low and still as the years past but always there." She opens her eyes, sombre and very astute. "I don't want your excuses anymore. I just want us to be straight with one another, no more bullshit, no more fights and no more dancing around each other. You're not a devil, neither am I. You're human, you're flawed but you are human and that's it." She sets the cup down and leans down over him, looking deeper into his eyes with interest. "You have a lot of excuses for what you are. You've told me that it's like being a drug addict or you feel compelled by evolution. I think you believe it but the bottom line is you're crazy. But for all these years I've never asked: what is wrong with you Gabriel? Did you ever find out?"
He opens his mouth and then closes it, surprised. "Nothing, I dunno." He keeps his eyes averted, worrying at his lip until she leans forward and touches his hand.
"Were you always like this? Always pretending to be someone else?" He starts to breathe harder but he doesn't look away once her dark eyes pin his. "This Gabriel before me is different from the one your mother knew? Si?"
"Ye -yes. I dressed differently, my behaviour was more...meek. I wasn't like this but it was always there, if that makes sense? My mother, she - it has something to do with her." He won't say anymore, his lips thinning in pain and restraint.
"That was true? About your mother?" She wasn't ever sure but the rawness that enters his eyes when ever the topic is breached seems too guarded to be fake. It was painful for him.
He doesn't speak for a very long time but swallows convulsively and his eyes make continual up and down glances to her chest. Where he shot me, where his mother was stabbed, she thinks with a lurch and sits back. Finally his eyes settling on hers he nods. "Everything changed for me when I found out about Nadia, nothing prepared me for it. But I've been telling myself for years, even when I was a kid, that if I ever had children I would not be like my mother...or my dad. I've tried so hard not be like that, pushing and pushing. I'm not, am I?" He whispers softly with a desperate hope and fear. Maya shakes her head.
"No, you're to lenient if anything. You say that nothing could have prepared you for this, well it can't be even close to what I expected. Not this from you." A silence falls but she's still curious. "You've never tried to diagnose yourself? When we went to the library last week I saw lots of books about mental disorders." He shifts, looking extremely uncomfortable and she narrows her eyes. "What is it?"
He hesitates, unsure until he speaks slowly. "I tired to, I did but I couldn't make myself do it. It's like knowing the ins and outs of terminal illness. Every terrible thing laid out for you all in facts. There's not running from that, it's logic and simple."
"And you don't like simple do you? All your excuses would disappear and what you would have left would be something normal that happens to everyday people. Helpless people with so little control."
"Why are you doing this?" he grinds out, suddenly vexed.
She leans forward. "Because I've been thinking of you as a monster for to long and it made it so much easier to hate you. You're seriously fucked up Gabriel but at least if I really knew what was wrong with you then I'd feel more stable, know how to really deal with you." she pats the air and smooths it with her palms. "You're so good at reading people Gabriel but you're like a one of those Russian dolls. There's no end to you. Were you ever just one thing? A normal, sane, single person?"
Again he hesitates and while Maya appears strangely together he feels untethered. Had been since he dragged her out of the pool. But this was so new and unexpected, Maya's interest, that he finds himself divulging. "Maybe when I was a very small child but after that...I used to dress like my dad you know? I wanted to be like him and after he left I really was. I used to go buy my clothes from thrift stores but in upper class neighbourhoods, I liked the feeling of specialness by accusation. I think my father did to. The watches was another way to feel that, we both liked collecting things and fixing them." He pauses, eyes unfocused as he remembers. He speaks again with the same occupied look. "I stayed isolated and away from people but I think on some level I wasn't the mouse I appeared to be. But I liked people to think I was. It would be more surprising for them to find out someone so hopeless, such a nobody, was special." He cleared his throat and sat down on the carpet and crosses his legs, eyes now on hers. "I was waiting, just waiting for that one moment, or that one special person to turn up in my life and change it. I knew it would happen."
"Fate?"
"Yeah. We are alike you know..." She just makes a humming noise and sits back, picking up her cup again. He sits with his back against her bed, a slight frown in place. "Why are we saying all this? Do you want to help me, is that it?" His eyes shine with emotion and she stiffens in her seat. She clears her throat and starts fiddling with her hair.
"I just feel it needs saying, just get it all out. Because I want to move on Gabriel, I will never be like I was again. And I'm not going to dehumanise you either, I can't let go if I continue to think like that." She lets a silence stretch, biting her lip before she leans forward again, hand moving to fiddle with her gold cross; which for the years he had known Maya she had never taken off. "Even when all this started I used to think of you as something non human. Mi angel." she says softly and he straightens, his face heating. "I used to think that my first love would be my soul mate. Nothing else could come between me and my twin. Until you. I thought I had felt love before, for a man, but I have never experienced anything like that. I thought you were actually meant for me and I was for you." she snorts and she either looks up towards the heavens or rolls her eyes. Or both.
"Your first?" Even now he feels a huge unfurling of pride. This stated fact about them, about her was something pure and true he clings to. Maya nods, topping up more of the rum into her coffee.
"By the time we got to New York I was set, I thought nothing would have changed my mind. I was going to spend the rest of my life with you and it would be perfect...I had the mind of a teenager." She says with a flat voice and he tilts his head, shocked.
"What?"
"I thought like a child would, I was too sheltered. Santa is real, my first loves name will appear on an apple peel, La Llorona would drown me for being a bad girl." she freezes then and her face pinches. She puffs a breath and suddenly gets to her feet. "My coffee is cold, and I'm hungry..." she pads to the kitchen and he follows. They hadn't really gone over what had happened to Maya at the pool. Submerging that event seems to have pushed up everything else she had been ignoring.
She puts slices of bread into the toaster, not up to making a big breakfast. He brews another pot for them and they sit at the table. She frowns at the surface where a large sticky patch of coffee had spread over the wood. He puts his cup down and confesses and she sighs, waving her hand dismissively.
"You were saying you were like a child?" He doesn't like that, belittling herself. Her past.
She butters her toast with a nod, not looking at him for the moment. "Si. I was selfish. I didn't want to listen to my brother. He never listened to me before so why should I now?" she says rhetorically, bitter before she becomes calm again. "I had a complete faith in the path god set out for me, I had to get salvation and any good thing on that path was heaven sent. You were a godsend. But more, I thought. Afterwards I went through a time of denial. Even when I found out he died I couldn't really believe you would do that to me. I thought you loved me."
He opens his mouth, about to say it when she cuts him a sharp, heat filled look and he backs down. This wasn't his time to speak.
Maya tucks her hair behind her ears and draws in and out calming breaths until she's ready to speak. "You pretended to like me, why I'll never know but you did. I - I think on some level you were attracted to me but really that was it." she narrows her eyes at him, deeply considering. "It really confused me for such a long time, still does, why you spent all that time pretending to care if all you wanted was my power. It didn't make sense. So it was just easier to blame it on the fact you were a monster, your motives weren't something I could ever understand so I shouldn't bother."
He had been bursting to answer and as she falls silent he leans over the table, eyes on hers. Truth, just that. "First you were not like a child. We even talked about this before, remember at the motel?" Maya's eyes widen and she blushes. She looks down into her cup and nods gently. He smiles but grows serious and speaks low. "I know to you it makes little sense and mostly you'd be right. Mostly. I did want your power because power was the one thing I could count on to make me feel special. I was going to NY to get cured and that meant getting my abilities back. That was my first plan but - but Maya it wasn't all. I didn't act that way to hurt you, I wasn't thinking like that. I thought to myself if I didn't get my powers then I'd still have you. All I had was you. You would keep me in one piece."
"But you didn't love me the way I did you?" She says softly but even before he opens his mouth he can feel she's already judged him and found her answer.
"I can feel it, you know I can. At that time my emotions were smothered and I was only thinking of myself. I felt cornered and I could only think about my own survival. But I wasn't a brick wall, especially the first time we met. I did love you - I still do - but I don't think the way I love is the same as you. Or anyone else."
"Because you're not quite like anyone else." she whispers, holding no reproach and he feels adrift. Her anger he could understand and deal with, her love the same but this numbness was different. She was usually such an over abundantly emotional person that he always expected a reaction from her, attention. He can feel she's turning and he doesn't know to what. "So I was your back up and you killed my brother because he wanted to take me away." It wasn't a question but he nods.
"I couldn't let you leave me. I know you have no reason to believe me but I was going to let him go. I totally lost it. The anger...at that point I didn't know what would happen but the one solid thing I knew was that you were mine and you loved me. I wasn't going to give that up for anything."
"But you did." Her voice shakes but she keeps her teary gaze on his.
"No, even when I got my abilities back I couldn't let go. Especially with the release of the virus I knew everything would be different and we could start over again. Our family." He stares at her intensely and she doesn't blink. "I am different now, I'm a better person and you know it."
"I do but I don't care. You wanted me so much that you had to cut all my ties to others so it was only you I had left. Cono, I was so angry that you were all I had that I couldn't even connect like I should have to my own daughter. You had to have that to." she holds up a hand as he starts to object, relenting. "But that is down to me. With the birth of my daughter I should have somehow just moved on, just focused on her and tried to be happy but I couldn't. I was so selfish, couldn't get over that you had hurt me so much and I was expected to play happy families with you. Even when I wanted to."
"But you do want to be a family Maya."
"I do but that would mean ignoring what you did to me and others. For the past few years it's got easier being near you. Suddenly catching myself smiling at you for to long or just talking normally and I would be swallowed with guilt and self reproach. We have built something between us that works, for a time. But I can't have that relationship with you, it would disgrace my brother's death and all the other people that you have killed to give you what you want. You have Nadia's love and even that is terrifying but I do see it in you, you do love her. So." She gets to her feet, still looking remarkably together but the finality to her words, her very posture sends him to his feet, gasping and heart beating powerfully fast.
"You're leaving? I can feel it. You can't Ma-" He stalls when she shakes her head and lifts her hand to stem him.
"I'm not going anywhere Gabriel. I'm your ball and chain." she smiles for a moment, just a hint at her old maliciousness and he feels a confusing swirl of relief at it. But then she's calm again, so very assured.
"But this is the old me saying goodbye, in a way. I will never raise my voice to you again or stir anything up. No matter what you try. I drowned and I can't bear the thought that my life up to that point has been one guilty, rage filled day after the other. I won't be that anymore, I won't do that to myself or raise my child like that for another day. Your hungry attention I will endure and I just hope you do try and help yourself before it's to late."
To late? What does she mean? But the foreboding feeling at her words is replaced with a swell of headiness when she hesitates for a moment and comes to him where he stands with wide, confused eyes. She smiles up at him and shockingly hugs him, holding tight before kissing his mouth. He's suddenly transported back to the first time they shared a kiss, something timid, wholehearted but while that kiss had been a move forward this feels like a farewell. But with just one fleeting touch of her soft hair, before he can break through the shock and react she's drawing back and walks out of the kitchen, her voice drifting softly behind.
"Don't come in my room anymore. I don't need you."