Fic: Kindling St. Elmo's Fire 9/12
Title: Kindling St. Elmo's Fire
Author: Alex Foster
Characters/Pairing: Claire/Gretchen/Elle
Category: Drama/Crime/Romance
Rating: R
Summary: While trying to make amends for her time at the Company, Elle uncovers a revenge plot involving former agents. The investigation takes her to memories of a past best left buried, a villain thought powerless, and ultimately back to Claire Bennet.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by NBC. No money is being made and no infringement is intended.
Previous Chapters: One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight
Chapter Nine
The meet up point was a small waffle house across the street from a cheap motel.
Elle swung their borrowed car through the parking lot and into a space next to Noah’s sedan. She glanced in the rearview mirror looking for…something she didn’t quite know what.
Most of their hour long trip had passed in silence. A headache still pressed against the back of her eyes making them feel like they were going to pop out at any moment and a dull ache had settled over her entire body. Her messed up night spent in the water and then crammed into that boat had caught up with her. And then there was the thing with Gretchen... In fact just dwelling on the entire evening was enough to make her want to write the whole thing off as just another one of her many nightmares.
Mostly she felt confused and…angry. If forced to admit it out loud, Elle didn’t really know how to describe the emotion but anger was one she knew and had the most experience with so she went with that. The feeling prickled along her skin when she watched Gretchen text Claire every other minute of their road trip. It wasn’t embarrassment-a childhood and adolescence spent in a cell under cameras at all hours rid her of that emotion-and she wasn’t capable of feeling guilt so she didn’t know what to call it.
Anger it was then.
She moved to pop the door but Gretchen stopped her with a hand on her arm. Big brown eyes deserving of her name blinked at Elle.
She’s worried I’m going to tell, Elle thought. I could cause trouble with Claire now.
It made that tingling over her skin feel just a little worse when she realized she liked the idea of being able to do just that.
"Elle…"-here it comes-"…thank you." Gretchen leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. Lingering long enough for Elle to feel her lips curve upward in a small smile against her skin. The hell?
"Yeah, well, right back at ya. I don’t do gratitude very well so could we just go inside?"
The smile inexplicably increased and she nodded. "I suppose I should buy you breakfast-I did get your pants off last night." With that she opened the passenger side door and was gone before Elle could fully process that.
She swore heatedly to the empty car before following. If her head didn’t hurt and if things didn’t feel so messed up she would have laughed at that. Or she probably would have said it first. It was pretty funny, if confusing.
Sparks danced over her hands as Elle ran her thumbs over her fingertips, counting them silently to herself before starting over. The dull ache faded slightly with that familiar repetitive action.
Her usual swagger was back in place even if she didn’t feel fully sure of herself by the time she walked into the waffle house. The smell of frying sausage and overly sweet syrup reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since her breakfast-lunch yesterday. Her stomach clenched painfully when she spotted Noah and Claire.
They had taken a booth in the rear of the diner with a clear view of the door and parking lot beyond. Claire was on her feet and racing toward them the instant she saw Gretchen. Elle was surprised to see Noah even looked relieved. The blonde and brunette met at the halfway point and became a tangle of limbs as they sloppily grappled at each other.
Elle sidestepped around them and didn’t bother watching the Hallmark movie style reunion. She grabbed a chair from an unoccupied table as she passed and dragged it to Noah’s booth. Not paying any attention to him standing to greet her, Elle swung the chair around and straddled it with her arms crossed over the back.
"That had better be caffeinated, Noah," she said reaching for Claire’s coffee cup.
"Are you hurt?"
It was full strength, thankfully, and still hot enough that she didn’t have to worry about cheerleader backwash. She touched the dried blood matting her hair. "Nah, I’m fine. Looks worse than it is really. A little lather, rinse, repeat and I’ll be good as new all over again."
Noah had ordered, and half finished, some sort of omelette and hashbrowns while Claire had an untouched stack of pancakes. Elle began picking food off each plate.
The restaurant was mercifully empty save for just a few people spread out over several tables and two waitresses leaning against the front counter, looking bored. One started for Noah’s booth when she caught sight of Elle, but he waved her off.
In the center of the room Claire and Gretchen had moved to an unoccupied table, close enough to whisper things to each other and kiss. Elle glared at them, feeling the back of her neck tingle. Her headache felt worse; the sooner this little adventure ended the better.
Noah was looking at her looking at his daughter. No wonder her head hurt. "What?" she demanded. "Food on my face?"
Noah shook his head. "Micah Sanders is in Trenton," he said. "He’s expecting me later today."
"Walker?"
"She’ll be there too."
Elle snorted and dipped a bite of toast in the syrup over the pancakes. "Figures. I ask her to do me a solid and get a big fat no; Uncle Noah asks and she can’t help fast enough."
"I don’t think she’s doing it for me."
She dipped a forkful of omelette next. "Well, I know it isn’t for me. Walker and I haven’t exactly bonded over shoe shopping and cute boys."
Behind them Claire laughed at something Gretchen had said and her laughter carried through the waffle house.
"So when do we leave?"
"I’m leaving right away," Noah said.
Elle paused, fork halfway to her mouth. "You gotta be kidding me."
"Micah already rented several rooms in the motel across the street." He pulled an old fashion key on a chain from his shirt pocket and slid it over to her. "Different identities for each one, none of which link back to us."
Elle eyed him carefully. There was something in his tone she didn’t like. "So you think we’ll be invisible to Kane?"
"No," he said flatly. "In fact I’m reasonably sure I’m talking to part of him right now. He’s in your head isn’t he, Elle? That was how he knew about Claire’s power and where to find her. Kane knows everything you know."
Elle set the fork slowly down and leaned back. Something deep inside wanted to call her power right there and fight back but she suppressed that impulse. "How did you figure it out?"
"Micah did, actually. It seems he was covering Claire’s trail from the second he told you where she really was. He put out false leads trying to buy you time to get her safe, and to hopefully trace Nicholas’ location if he took the bait.
"But he never did. Those ghosts weren’t even touched. He went right to your location."
Elle didn’t look away from his unblinking gaze. "I’m not working for him, Noah. He’s in my head sometimes, he talks to me, taunts me, but I’m going to kill him for it. I came here to help Claire and Doe Eyes and to warn you. All I originally was going to do was make sure they were safe, you were on the scene, and then I was going to disappear."
She pushed the plates away and stood. "In fact that’s what I’m going to do now. Forget Trenton. Forget Micah. Take the wonder twins and keep them away from me. I’m going after Kane on my own."
"Elle, sit down." It was the voice of a father, not a Company agent, that stopped her and made it obey instantly. He sighed. "I know all that, too."
"You do?"
"I was thinking about the ambush on the dock, when the attack happened. What did you do?"
Baffled, she shrugged. "I took a shot at him."
"You fired over him, lighting him against the swirling sand, and gave me the shot. If I were half a second quicker it would have worked. We would have wounded him instead of you having to lay down a sheet of power and probably killing him."
"So you think because of that I’m working for him?"
"No. If that were the case you would have shot me and removed me from the equation. Nicholas would have had Claire then and there." He looked at Claire and then back to her, keeping his voice measured. "So I asked Micah something. Turns out since your return he couldn’t find any signs you had killed anyone, not even Building 26 agents."
Elle shifted uncomfortably. "Been a dry year."
"You were a Company assassin and yet didn’t take part in Rebel’s counterattacks or underground railroad."
"I’m not a team player. Is there a point anywhere around here?"
"The point is I’m going to Trenton and you are going to stay here to keep an eye on the girls while I’m gone."
"Just like that? All is forgiven? Not afraid there’s going to be another attack or that I’m going to go all Jack Torrance and Overlook on them?"
"Let's just say you have a couple of strong advocates in your corner." Noah stood and threw money on the table to cover the bill and tip. "There probably is going to be another attack if we don't hurry-for all I know Nicholas is sitting at this table with us listening in. Which is why I’m telling Elle Bishop that I’m coming back with information we need to stop him. And that I’m trusting her to keep doing what she has been doing-and if there is another attack before I return I know she’ll do what she’s been trained to do.
"What her father would have wanted her to do in order to protect my daughter. No matter what sort of impairment against killing she might be feeling."
Noah left her then, letting the full weight of responsibility settle on her shoulders. Elle looked at the half eaten food; she wasn’t hungry any longer.
…
…
John Holman woke up.
Nicholas was aware of the thoughts and memories of his shell’s previous host stirring. It was an annoyance but not really troublesome. It was just a ghost of the self that used to exist. An echo, nothing more.
He ignored it and focused on the outside world around Holman. Programmed to operate without Nicholas’ hand guiding him, Willie worked on the van while Holman looked on.
They were in a dingy place, an abandoned garage, a bolt hole useful only for hiding his shells while he regrouped. Neither of his puppets cared about the dirt. Nicholas meanwhile looked at it with disgust. He hadn’t spent years locked in a tiny cell just to wallow in filth like common swine.
The idea of returning to his body briefly flickered through his thoughts, but Nicholas didn’t want to sever his current connection either. Bishop and Bennet were close and once Willie’s vehicle was ready he planned on leading another attack.
Holman’s ability would not let him down again. He would burn the special to a crisp if he needed to while generating a storm big enough to get him what he wanted.
The power stirred deep in John’s chest, eager for use. Specials were not meant to conceal and avoid their powers, Nicholas knew, as the Company had once thought. For a moment he savored the alien feel of another’s ability within his control, letting a breeze fill the garage. An old coffee can filled with screwdrivers and sockets sitting in the corner toppled over with the touch of wind.
Holman pushed back against Nicholas’ mind and the telepath regarded him with contempt. All of the frustration he felt at letting Bennet escape focused on the echo. Nicholas called his ability and set about wiping Holman completely clean. He started burning away everything, even basic brain functions. When Nicholas left again he would leave behind a completely dead shell.
Did Holman think he was the first to try and fight Nicholas' ability? That he could overpower a telepath? Using John’s lips, Nicholas smiled.
The remnant in his mind didn’t try avoiding his probing or lash out. Instead it reached past Nicholas and plunged for something deeper into the subconscious. All the way down to the tiny spark all specials possessed.
The breeze turned into a forceful gust and Willie gave a strangled cry and jumped back when the van’s door slammed shut.
The body Nicholas occupied stumbled back into a set of shelves and fell to the floor. He wasn’t aware of ordering the body to move. His ability rose to his defense, overwhelming Holman’s mind and tearing through looking for the remnant. Memories that did not belong to him, hollow shades now, flashed by as he searched deep.
Where? Nicholas poured his power into Holman, choking the remnant.
Pain, a sudden flare of a feeling he hadn’t known in years, exploded in his-John’s-side. Shock and fear followed that foreign sensation. He felt wind, an element that had responded it his command just seconds before, battering against him and yanking the breath from his lungs.
Something hard and sharp smacked into his face and drew blood.
Using John’s hand, he touched his side and felt warm stickiness around a protruding object. A nail. John's voice called through his shredded mind: Freedom.
Nicholas sensed more than heard the coffee can filled with tools slide across the floor. Holman’s ability focused a cone of wind down into it and lifted everything inside into the air. They twirled around and around, spinning in a blur, in a small tornado.
Nicholas had just a second to realize that he was not in control of what was happening around him, the other man's ability no longer belonged to him.
And then the tools were racing toward him. Ripping pain tore through his chest and face…and then Nicholas was trying to draw a desperate breath. He couldn’t and began to panic. His thoughts spun end over end, like he was in a free fall, and no longer could he feel the shell of John Holman around him. He couldn't feel anything.
His eyes bugged with effort to breathe. The machines around him, unfazed by the events of a state away, slowly filled his lungs with air. The steady beeping assured him that his heart wasn’t really beating rapidly and it was only his imagination.
Nicholas was back in his real body; Holman had somehow forced him out. With an inaudible snarl, he focused his ability and traveled. His tags, markers in the minds of those he had touched, flew past as he returned to New Jersey at the speed of thought.
The mark he’d left behind in John Holman was gone. Latching onto the nearest shell, Nicholas violently inhabited Willie. The familiar presence of his first victim settled around him. Sight returned and he saw the body of Holman slumped against the wall of the garage, the shell’s face and throat ruined by the sharp tools scattered around the body.
The blowing wind was gone, as dead as the special that had commanded it.
For a long while Nicholas just stood looking down at him. Rage slowly building and working through his borrowed body. There was no spark of free will left inside Willie-if there had been his current anger would have burned it to cinder in an instant.
He had never been inside a puppet when it died before. Nicholas didn’t like it one bit-it reminded him too much of the weakness of feeling his own life slipping away after Bishop shot him.
Nicholas Kane called his ability, letting it fill him and added his rage to it. Willie trembled with the sensation. He didn’t need a special to get what he needed from Bennet. There were plenty of people open to his power and he was going to use them all.
He traveled…
…
…
A chainlink fence blocked off two large trash dumpsters behind the waffle house. Elle fed enough of a charge into the metal to electrify it. A faint buzz and the scent of ozone filled the air. Two bugs crawling between holes in the fence popped and fell charred to the ground.
A savage smile twisted Elle’s face and she increased the power flow. Blue-white arcs jumped from her fingertips and she lazily dragged her hand back and forth to keep from melting the thin wire. Her eyes scanned the sky; she wished a bird would land on the fence.
Connected like she was to it gave her a sense of peace.
Her ability she understood and could control. Lately she felt pushed and led around by things she couldn’t easily identify. But the lightning her father had worked so hard to help her master was still there and waiting for her call. She could still charge a cell phone or, the image sprang to her mind, tear through and destroy a building the size of a waffle house.
Elle wouldn’t-she didn’t think-but it was nice to know she was still able.
She sighed and felt tension flow down her arm and out through her fingers. A fried bird would be nice. Blackened feathers fluttering to the ground.
"Elle?"
In a blink she spun with a hand extended-
Put some English on it.
-and stopped just short of blasting Claire.
"Sorry." Elle took a step back and tightened her hands into fists so she wouldn’t see them shake.
"It’s okay," Claire said. "You’ve been running on high octane for several days now."
She shot her a grin. "Yeah, you could say that. And it isn’t always as fun as you might think. So what are you doing out here, Pom Pom? Shouldn’t you be inside sucking face with your girlfriend and giving locals and truck drivers the show of their lives?"
Color filled her face but she smiled regardless. "We all have rooms across the street; she took some food back to ours."
"Oh."
"I wanted to talk to you privately before joining her."
She knows what I tried to do, Elle thought. What I still want to do, and she regrets bringing me back. It wasn’t any easier when it was just her own voice inside her head because she quickly followed that with, But Doe Eyes probably couldn’t lie if her life depended on it. Healing me means something to Claire.
She tried to back away. "Actually I need to get going. I have a stolen car to ditch."
"You did good work out there, Elle. I’m proud of you."
Elle stopped walking long enough to give her a hard stare, trying to figure out her angle. "Thanks, Cheerleader, but I’m working with a fair amount of self-preservation here. I didn’t need yet another Bennet on my case."
"I’m not just talking about Gretchen. I know about Baltimore. I know you’ve been trying to help Company abductees."
"More like running after shouting that I’m not going to kill them." She gave a real laugh at that; it was funny. "’Sides many of them don’t need any help. Turns out the Company didn’t destroy every single person it touched after all."
Claire leaned against the rear wall of the waffle house. For a long while she just stared up at the blue sky. There was something oddly comforting about Claire Bennet at rest so Elle came to a stop next to her and copied the pose. She once went years without seeing the sky in person; clouds still seemed unreal to her at times.
"Have you thought about a partner?" Claire asked suddenly. "There are plenty of former agents scattered around-this vendetta excluded-that would want to do some good."
"Noah once told me some unpleasant things about my father," Elle answered after a moment. "He pointed out that one of us and one of them never applied to me. Daddy believes I either do it on my own or I don’t do it at all."
If Claire caught the verb tense slip she didn’t correct her. "You did pretty well with Gretchen."
"Yeah. That’s what I’ll do next. I’ll recruit Berg. You’d love me for that, I’m sure."
Claire chuckled along with her. "You’re not deputizing my girlfriend, no. And that’s not exactly what I meant."
"I know. Some of us just work better alone though."
Claire turned to face her, one arm braced against the wall. "Doesn’t have to be that way."
"The Pinball Wizard keeps trying to get me to be more involved with his little projects, but it isn’t for me. Not really. I’ll help if he needs it, but…you know...we’re not going to sit around talking about our feelings or anything."
"Yeah."
Claire suddenly seemed very close to her and Elle felt claustrophobic. Escaping the alley sounded like a very good idea. "Listen, I-"
"I’m glad you’re okay," Claire said.
Huh?
"Huh?"
Claire reached out and touched Elle’s temple and brushed hair caked with dried blood out of the way. "That looks nasty. Gretchen told me she was up with you all night. I’m glad you’re going to be okay."
That strange feeling was prickling her skin again. Claire was standing close, touching her hair, and Elle was fighting her primal instincts to prevent a repeat of the night before with a different girl. How messed up am I? She took the cheerleader’s wrist and lowered her hand. "Thanks. That, ah, girl of yours has a good head on her shoulders. I would have drown if she hadn’t dragged me out of the water."
Claire nodded and inched back. "Yes, she does."
She was still holding Claire’s small but not fragile wrist. She had a sudden mental flash of kissing Claire and pressing her hard against the wall. Jesus H, I need to let her go before I make a bigger fool of myself!
"One more day," Elle said ignoring it, "and you two will be back on the road. I’m sure the biggest ball of twine waits for no woman."
She gave a polite smile. "What about you? Where are you off to once this is over?"
Elle dropped her hand and stepped away. "Why? Afraid I’ll track you down again?"
Annoyance flashed in Claire’s eyes but Elle figured she still had goodwill built up from Doe Eyes because the cheerleader didn’t press it. "Actually I’m extending an offer that if you find yourself in New York when this is over you are welcome to look us up."
"Angela would love that."
Claire shrugged. "It’s a big city. We could just do something between the three of us. No one would have to know."
Peter Paul and Mary, wouldn’t that be cozy? Elle counted her fingers and let sparks crackle over them. "Listen, I promised Doe Eyes I would lose the car we stole so she wouldn’t go to prison so I really need to get going. Tell Noah I’ll be ready when he gets back." She started down the alley, paused, and glanced over her shoulder. "I’ll hang around the motel until then but after this thing I’m not coming back with him. And I doubt I'll be anywhere near New York City. If I don’t see you again before I leave take care of yourself, Cheerleader."
"Oh. Okay. You too, Elle."
She left Claire standing there and hurried from the alley, fighting the urge to look back with every step.
TBC