(no subject)
TITLE: Changes 6/?
AUTHOR: dragynflies
PAIRING: Elle/Sylar, established relationship, after 3x09 but not taking into account spoilers for 3x10. All moved into a pretty AU! :)
RATING: R
DISCLAIMER: Heroes cast is not mine.
SUMMARY: Elle and Gabriel have a fight, leaving Elle to take a little adventure on her own...
Thanks to cruiscin_lan for putting up with me :)
Elle is 24 weeks pregnant, and you’re never exactly sure what her mood is going to be, but you’re trying to go with it. One day you come back from one of your few assignments - nothing serious, and you think you’ve actually done some good in someone’s life because of it - and she is crying, lying on her back, rolling electricity back and forth between her hands.
“What if he can do this?” she sobs, throwing a ball of electricity into the air, where it explodes. “What if he’s got some weird ability and everyone wants him to show them? What if your dad…” she can’t finish her sentence and settles for rolling over, curling into as small of a ball as she can, wrapping her arms around her tummy.
“Elle,” you sigh, going over to her and laying down next to her, “Elle, no one is going to hurt our son. I promise, I won’t let anyone, including my father, make him do anything he doesn’t want to do, or that we don’t want him to…”
“It’s not good enough,” she shouts, pushing away from you and standing up. “Sometimes your Daddy thinks your ability is really important and all he wants to do is…” she sinks to her knees in the carpet, her head in her hands, and cries so hard her shoulders shake.
“Elle, stop,” you try, but she shakes her head.
“Just leave me alone,” she requests, and you don’t know what you’re supposed to.
“Okay,” you finally say, “I’m just gonna go in the living room. You come when you’re ready, okay?”
You listen to her crying outside the bedroom door for another fifteen minutes before the sobs change to hiccups and then there is silence.
You wait a few minutes to check on her, and then go back in, picking her sleeping form up from the floor and tucking her into bed before crawling in next to her.
She curls against you even in her sleep, and you wrap your arms around her.
“I love you,” you murmur against her hair, “I promise to keep you safe.”
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
You wake up to movement against your stomach, and blink open your eyes. In her sleep, Elle has rolled over to face you, and her tummy is pressed against yours, your legs intertwined. The movement happens again, and you realize with sudden clarity what it is.
Oh
You scoot backwards from Elle, so that you can slide down and put your hands over her stomach. Inside, your son is rolling around and you can feel him moving. Elle has been talking about his kicks for the last few weeks, but this is the first time you’ve been able to feel anything.
“Hi,” you whisper, and you think you’ve never felt anything like this before.
You are mesmerized by the feeling of your son moving, safe and protected, and you think Elle might have been on to something when she told she had done something right.
Because you can’t imagine anything better than creating this life.
You’ve been pawing at her stomach and have completely lost track of time when you hear her laugh. Guiltily, you pull your hands away from her and apologize.
“Don’t apologize,” Elle says, taking your hand and putting it back on her stomach, “he’s your son too.”
Her mood is better this morning, and you decide not to mention the events from the previous night. You’ll just have to work hard to show her that you’re not going to be like her father, not ever.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
Elle starts venturing out of Pinehearst’s campus more and more, going to the park with Grace and Allison, even going to the mall alone one day. She’s starting to experiment in the kitchen, and you learn she’s not a bad cook (even if that peach pie was store bought.)
She’s starting to turn your (empty) spare room into a nursery for the baby. You still haven’t given up on the thought of your own place, but things are going alright with your father, and so you let her continue to plan. She asks you to paint the room blue, because she doesn’t want to breathe in the fumes from the paint, and you spend a day covered in blue paint.
The mess is entirely worth it when she smiles at you.
When Elle comes back from a shopping trip with Grace bringing in bags of baby bedding and clothing, you actually start to relax. If you forget that your apartment is really in an upper floor in a building full of evolved humans, run by your father, you can pretend that your life is normal.
“It’s been so quiet around here lately,” Elle comments that night over dinner. “Is something going on?”
Nothing you want her to know about is going on, and you’re not even considered in the loop, “My…parents,” you settle for, still not entirely comfortable with that term for the two people who keep messing with your life, “and choosing sides. Elle, there’s nothing you need to worry about.”
“My whole life was spent worrying about those things. I can’t just turn it off,” she argues.
“Your whole life was spent worrying about what your father told you to worry about,” you snap, and even as you say it you realize it’s a little harsh, “Now just worry about what I tell you to worry about. I’m telling you everything’s fine.”
Elle’s eyes widen and she drops her fork, “Fine,” she snaps. “You forget I’m not helpless. I can find out on my own.”
Before you even really comprehend her words, she is up and out of the apartment, leaving you to stare at her half full plate of ziti.
Xxxxxxxxxx
Elle is about fifteen feet away from her apartment when she realizes she’s making a stupid decision. Still, she is no stranger to rash decisions, and so she keeps going. She first stomps down to Arthur Petrelli’s office, hoping to find him. She hasn’t had much opportunity to interact with him - Gabriel has been keeping her pretty well contained, but right now, she doesn’t really care.
“What’s going on with Gabriel?” she snaps as she bursts through the door, zapping the lock off with barely even a blink.
Arthur, for his part, doesn’t so much as flinch. “Elle,” he greets her, standing up from his chair and walking over to her like she’s a dear friend, someone he’s happy to see. He places a hand on her shoulder and motions for her to sit down.
She raises an eyebrow at him, but sits anyway, her hands automatically coming up to rest over her stomach, “Is there something going on that I need to be aware of?” she finally asks, feeling a little silly for bursting in, but refusing to admit anything.
“How is your pregnancy progressing, Elle?” Arthur asks, in lieu of giving her any real answer.
“Fine,” she returns, rubbing a little when the baby kicks. “I’m not stupid,” she blurts out, and then realizes that her argument didn’t help her case any. “I’m sure you’re well informed regarding everything that takes place here.”
“You’re carrying my grandchild, Elle, it’s my right as a grandfather to be keep up to date on his progress.”
“I want to know what’s going on,” she repeats. “I was raised in the Company; I’m not good at sitting on the sidelines.”
“You’re not sitting on the sidelines,” Arthur’s voice never wavers. “You’re doing something very important. My grandson…he’s going to be - “
“He’s not going to be your anything,” Elle snaps, talking before thinking. There’s really nothing positive that can come from angering Arthur Petrelli, and letting him know that she intends to let no one but herself and Gabriel near their son is just giving him an advantage for when the child is born.
Which makes Arthur’s lack of response all the more surprising (and a little suspicious, but Elle’s playing his game now.)
“I think I want to go back to Gabriel,” she says, standing up. When Arthur makes no move to argue, simply bids her goodnight, she leaves the room as quickly as she can without actually running.
And the worst part is she’s not exactly sure what just happened.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Instead of going back to Gabriel, Elle decides to go for a walk. The city itself is pretty at night, she likes the lights of the tall buildings and the way the sky looks like a backdrop with a sprinkling of stars.
She wonders if Claire and Peter are still here, and what they were doing so close to Pinehearst - if Claire has gone home now with Peter, an airplane ride away, and why she said what she did about Elle in the first place.
Claire, of all people, should have known. Elle had told her on the plane, tried to be honest - she hadn’t wanted this life, hadn’t wanted to be an agent and certainly never meant to be evil.
She just listened to her Daddy, she wanted to make him happy…but then she started to like it. Having power over someone else made her feel better, made her feel significant in the world. Watching regular humans’ faces when she rolled up her hand and electricity shot out made her feel unique.
Special.
When she watched Gabriel pin that kid - she should remember his name - when she saw the kid fly across the room and the red line start to appear on his forehead, she knew. And if Gabriel couldn’t control it, couldn’t control his ability, then there was really no way Elle would be able to.
Elle finds the playground that she and Grace walk Allison to sometimes, and kicks off her little ballet flats. (She misses the height the heels give her, but the heels hurt too much, throw her body off balance now that she’s carrying the baby, and she thinks heels for the baby is a good trade, so she doesn’t complain much.)
Sinking down on the swing, she runs her toes through the sand below her. She can’t wait until she can bring her baby here, push him in the baby swing, and when he’s bigger, she can hold him up while he grasps the monkey bars, help him move across them.
She saw another mother do that, and it looked like fun.
She still can’t believe sometimes that this is really happening. She still feels like a child half the time, like Gabriel has to protect her, and in the back of her mind, she’s aware that she’s too attached to him. Too dependent. She doesn’t mean to need so much, but she can’t help it.
Between Gabriel, Grace, Allison and her baby, she has more loving people in her life now than if she added up everyone she’s had before.
She remembers being three and drenched with water, hurting without really understand why. She remembers being seven, strapped to a chair except for one hand, crying while she tried to shoot targets with her sparkles. And at the end of every day, she remembers her father leaving her alone in her room without a kiss or a hug. She remembers standing in the hallway, telling her father she loved him, only to be answered by the sound of a door slamming shut. She can’t remember a time when he answered her. All she really remembers her father telling her to buck up, take more, show him what she could do.
She feels like she should remember more…Noah tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen. The things she does remember are pieces, like fragments of a dream, and she struggles to remember what else…but it’s all gone.
My daddy loved me.
…right?
Xxxxxxxxxxxx
You are out of your mind with worry, and you can’t find Elle anywhere. Somewhere in Pinehearst there has to be someone with the ability to track her, but you don’t want anyone else to know she’s missing, so you can’t ask.
Instead you put together the crib Elle picked out and hope she comes home soon.
Just like a normal couple.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Elle swings, back and forth, tipping her head back and letting her hair blow in the wind her movement creates. The baby kicks and she smiles.
She’s going to prove everyone wrong. Everything everyone’s said about her…sociopath with paranoid delusions. Crazy. Not good enough. Incapable of love everything everyone LIED about, made her believe for 25 years…
She’s a good person. She’s going to be a good mother.
She learned how to cook everything Gabriel likes, and bought baby clothes, just like everyone else. The woman in line at the baby store asked her how far along she was, smiled at her, and Elle answered, just like every other mother.
She can do this.
“Elle?”
Elle’s head jerks up, and she can’t believe her luck. Claire, alone.
In the fucking playground, at ten at night?
“What are you doing here, cheerleader? Elle asks, the nickname flying out before she can really edit it.
“Just…walking. There’s - Peter, and Angela…we’re….” her voice trails off, and Elle knows what she’s really thinking. Of course Claire doesn’t trust her. Of course she’s not going to tell Elle why she’s here.
Elle tries to think of something sassy to say, something typical and biting, but instead what comes out is, “Are you going to hurt us?”
Claire startles, standing in front of Elle, who hasn’t moved from the swing, “Hurt you?”
“Me. Gabriel. We aren’t doing anything wrong.” Elle hates the way her voice ends on a whine, she hates looking vulnerable in front of other people (who aren’t Gabriel.)
“You’re killers.”
Elle shakes her head, tears blurring her vision, “We’re not.”
“Oh really? How do you explain all those dead people?”
Elle bites her thumb, looks up at Claire through a curtain of blonde bangs. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you planning with Arthur Petrelli?” Claire asks, ignoring her apology.
“I don’t know,” Elle whispers. “I don’t know, no one tells me anything. I try…I just want to be normal, Claire.”
“With Sylar?”
“I didn’t…I knew him from before,” Elle tries to explain, tries to explain the Gabriel that Claire will never meet, never understand. “Your father was my partner…we were there, at his house. He was a good man, and we made him a monster.” Her voice hitches and she is not going to cry in front of Claire, not going to cry in front of the cheerleader.
Claire sits down on the swing next to Elle, watching her quietly.
“He’s not a monster,” Elle finishes, looking at Claire with big eyes, “Please, just leave us alone. I’m sorry."
Claire is quiet, “Elle…”
“You know, I thought your dad really cared about me, back then.” Elle moves on like Claire hasn’t said a word, “I thought he thought I was smart…that I could do a good job. He was nicer than my father ever was to me…”
Claire doesn’t know what to do, so she reaches over and takes Elle’s hand. Elle looks over, startled, then squeezes Claire’s hand.
“Thanks, PomPom. Hey…when you talk to your dad?”
“Yeah?” Claire asks, a little scared to know what’s coming next.
“Will you tell him…” Elle pauses, taking a deep breath, “will you tell him about the baby? About…Noah?”
AUTHOR: dragynflies
PAIRING: Elle/Sylar, established relationship, after 3x09 but not taking into account spoilers for 3x10. All moved into a pretty AU! :)
RATING: R
DISCLAIMER: Heroes cast is not mine.
SUMMARY: Elle and Gabriel have a fight, leaving Elle to take a little adventure on her own...
Thanks to cruiscin_lan for putting up with me :)
Elle is 24 weeks pregnant, and you’re never exactly sure what her mood is going to be, but you’re trying to go with it. One day you come back from one of your few assignments - nothing serious, and you think you’ve actually done some good in someone’s life because of it - and she is crying, lying on her back, rolling electricity back and forth between her hands.
“What if he can do this?” she sobs, throwing a ball of electricity into the air, where it explodes. “What if he’s got some weird ability and everyone wants him to show them? What if your dad…” she can’t finish her sentence and settles for rolling over, curling into as small of a ball as she can, wrapping her arms around her tummy.
“Elle,” you sigh, going over to her and laying down next to her, “Elle, no one is going to hurt our son. I promise, I won’t let anyone, including my father, make him do anything he doesn’t want to do, or that we don’t want him to…”
“It’s not good enough,” she shouts, pushing away from you and standing up. “Sometimes your Daddy thinks your ability is really important and all he wants to do is…” she sinks to her knees in the carpet, her head in her hands, and cries so hard her shoulders shake.
“Elle, stop,” you try, but she shakes her head.
“Just leave me alone,” she requests, and you don’t know what you’re supposed to.
“Okay,” you finally say, “I’m just gonna go in the living room. You come when you’re ready, okay?”
You listen to her crying outside the bedroom door for another fifteen minutes before the sobs change to hiccups and then there is silence.
You wait a few minutes to check on her, and then go back in, picking her sleeping form up from the floor and tucking her into bed before crawling in next to her.
She curls against you even in her sleep, and you wrap your arms around her.
“I love you,” you murmur against her hair, “I promise to keep you safe.”
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
You wake up to movement against your stomach, and blink open your eyes. In her sleep, Elle has rolled over to face you, and her tummy is pressed against yours, your legs intertwined. The movement happens again, and you realize with sudden clarity what it is.
Oh
You scoot backwards from Elle, so that you can slide down and put your hands over her stomach. Inside, your son is rolling around and you can feel him moving. Elle has been talking about his kicks for the last few weeks, but this is the first time you’ve been able to feel anything.
“Hi,” you whisper, and you think you’ve never felt anything like this before.
You are mesmerized by the feeling of your son moving, safe and protected, and you think Elle might have been on to something when she told she had done something right.
Because you can’t imagine anything better than creating this life.
You’ve been pawing at her stomach and have completely lost track of time when you hear her laugh. Guiltily, you pull your hands away from her and apologize.
“Don’t apologize,” Elle says, taking your hand and putting it back on her stomach, “he’s your son too.”
Her mood is better this morning, and you decide not to mention the events from the previous night. You’ll just have to work hard to show her that you’re not going to be like her father, not ever.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
Elle starts venturing out of Pinehearst’s campus more and more, going to the park with Grace and Allison, even going to the mall alone one day. She’s starting to experiment in the kitchen, and you learn she’s not a bad cook (even if that peach pie was store bought.)
She’s starting to turn your (empty) spare room into a nursery for the baby. You still haven’t given up on the thought of your own place, but things are going alright with your father, and so you let her continue to plan. She asks you to paint the room blue, because she doesn’t want to breathe in the fumes from the paint, and you spend a day covered in blue paint.
The mess is entirely worth it when she smiles at you.
When Elle comes back from a shopping trip with Grace bringing in bags of baby bedding and clothing, you actually start to relax. If you forget that your apartment is really in an upper floor in a building full of evolved humans, run by your father, you can pretend that your life is normal.
“It’s been so quiet around here lately,” Elle comments that night over dinner. “Is something going on?”
Nothing you want her to know about is going on, and you’re not even considered in the loop, “My…parents,” you settle for, still not entirely comfortable with that term for the two people who keep messing with your life, “and choosing sides. Elle, there’s nothing you need to worry about.”
“My whole life was spent worrying about those things. I can’t just turn it off,” she argues.
“Your whole life was spent worrying about what your father told you to worry about,” you snap, and even as you say it you realize it’s a little harsh, “Now just worry about what I tell you to worry about. I’m telling you everything’s fine.”
Elle’s eyes widen and she drops her fork, “Fine,” she snaps. “You forget I’m not helpless. I can find out on my own.”
Before you even really comprehend her words, she is up and out of the apartment, leaving you to stare at her half full plate of ziti.
Xxxxxxxxxx
Elle is about fifteen feet away from her apartment when she realizes she’s making a stupid decision. Still, she is no stranger to rash decisions, and so she keeps going. She first stomps down to Arthur Petrelli’s office, hoping to find him. She hasn’t had much opportunity to interact with him - Gabriel has been keeping her pretty well contained, but right now, she doesn’t really care.
“What’s going on with Gabriel?” she snaps as she bursts through the door, zapping the lock off with barely even a blink.
Arthur, for his part, doesn’t so much as flinch. “Elle,” he greets her, standing up from his chair and walking over to her like she’s a dear friend, someone he’s happy to see. He places a hand on her shoulder and motions for her to sit down.
She raises an eyebrow at him, but sits anyway, her hands automatically coming up to rest over her stomach, “Is there something going on that I need to be aware of?” she finally asks, feeling a little silly for bursting in, but refusing to admit anything.
“How is your pregnancy progressing, Elle?” Arthur asks, in lieu of giving her any real answer.
“Fine,” she returns, rubbing a little when the baby kicks. “I’m not stupid,” she blurts out, and then realizes that her argument didn’t help her case any. “I’m sure you’re well informed regarding everything that takes place here.”
“You’re carrying my grandchild, Elle, it’s my right as a grandfather to be keep up to date on his progress.”
“I want to know what’s going on,” she repeats. “I was raised in the Company; I’m not good at sitting on the sidelines.”
“You’re not sitting on the sidelines,” Arthur’s voice never wavers. “You’re doing something very important. My grandson…he’s going to be - “
“He’s not going to be your anything,” Elle snaps, talking before thinking. There’s really nothing positive that can come from angering Arthur Petrelli, and letting him know that she intends to let no one but herself and Gabriel near their son is just giving him an advantage for when the child is born.
Which makes Arthur’s lack of response all the more surprising (and a little suspicious, but Elle’s playing his game now.)
“I think I want to go back to Gabriel,” she says, standing up. When Arthur makes no move to argue, simply bids her goodnight, she leaves the room as quickly as she can without actually running.
And the worst part is she’s not exactly sure what just happened.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Instead of going back to Gabriel, Elle decides to go for a walk. The city itself is pretty at night, she likes the lights of the tall buildings and the way the sky looks like a backdrop with a sprinkling of stars.
She wonders if Claire and Peter are still here, and what they were doing so close to Pinehearst - if Claire has gone home now with Peter, an airplane ride away, and why she said what she did about Elle in the first place.
Claire, of all people, should have known. Elle had told her on the plane, tried to be honest - she hadn’t wanted this life, hadn’t wanted to be an agent and certainly never meant to be evil.
She just listened to her Daddy, she wanted to make him happy…but then she started to like it. Having power over someone else made her feel better, made her feel significant in the world. Watching regular humans’ faces when she rolled up her hand and electricity shot out made her feel unique.
Special.
When she watched Gabriel pin that kid - she should remember his name - when she saw the kid fly across the room and the red line start to appear on his forehead, she knew. And if Gabriel couldn’t control it, couldn’t control his ability, then there was really no way Elle would be able to.
Elle finds the playground that she and Grace walk Allison to sometimes, and kicks off her little ballet flats. (She misses the height the heels give her, but the heels hurt too much, throw her body off balance now that she’s carrying the baby, and she thinks heels for the baby is a good trade, so she doesn’t complain much.)
Sinking down on the swing, she runs her toes through the sand below her. She can’t wait until she can bring her baby here, push him in the baby swing, and when he’s bigger, she can hold him up while he grasps the monkey bars, help him move across them.
She saw another mother do that, and it looked like fun.
She still can’t believe sometimes that this is really happening. She still feels like a child half the time, like Gabriel has to protect her, and in the back of her mind, she’s aware that she’s too attached to him. Too dependent. She doesn’t mean to need so much, but she can’t help it.
Between Gabriel, Grace, Allison and her baby, she has more loving people in her life now than if she added up everyone she’s had before.
She remembers being three and drenched with water, hurting without really understand why. She remembers being seven, strapped to a chair except for one hand, crying while she tried to shoot targets with her sparkles. And at the end of every day, she remembers her father leaving her alone in her room without a kiss or a hug. She remembers standing in the hallway, telling her father she loved him, only to be answered by the sound of a door slamming shut. She can’t remember a time when he answered her. All she really remembers her father telling her to buck up, take more, show him what she could do.
She feels like she should remember more…Noah tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen. The things she does remember are pieces, like fragments of a dream, and she struggles to remember what else…but it’s all gone.
My daddy loved me.
…right?
Xxxxxxxxxxxx
You are out of your mind with worry, and you can’t find Elle anywhere. Somewhere in Pinehearst there has to be someone with the ability to track her, but you don’t want anyone else to know she’s missing, so you can’t ask.
Instead you put together the crib Elle picked out and hope she comes home soon.
Just like a normal couple.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Elle swings, back and forth, tipping her head back and letting her hair blow in the wind her movement creates. The baby kicks and she smiles.
She’s going to prove everyone wrong. Everything everyone’s said about her…sociopath with paranoid delusions. Crazy. Not good enough. Incapable of love everything everyone LIED about, made her believe for 25 years…
She’s a good person. She’s going to be a good mother.
She learned how to cook everything Gabriel likes, and bought baby clothes, just like everyone else. The woman in line at the baby store asked her how far along she was, smiled at her, and Elle answered, just like every other mother.
She can do this.
“Elle?”
Elle’s head jerks up, and she can’t believe her luck. Claire, alone.
In the fucking playground, at ten at night?
“What are you doing here, cheerleader? Elle asks, the nickname flying out before she can really edit it.
“Just…walking. There’s - Peter, and Angela…we’re….” her voice trails off, and Elle knows what she’s really thinking. Of course Claire doesn’t trust her. Of course she’s not going to tell Elle why she’s here.
Elle tries to think of something sassy to say, something typical and biting, but instead what comes out is, “Are you going to hurt us?”
Claire startles, standing in front of Elle, who hasn’t moved from the swing, “Hurt you?”
“Me. Gabriel. We aren’t doing anything wrong.” Elle hates the way her voice ends on a whine, she hates looking vulnerable in front of other people (who aren’t Gabriel.)
“You’re killers.”
Elle shakes her head, tears blurring her vision, “We’re not.”
“Oh really? How do you explain all those dead people?”
Elle bites her thumb, looks up at Claire through a curtain of blonde bangs. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you planning with Arthur Petrelli?” Claire asks, ignoring her apology.
“I don’t know,” Elle whispers. “I don’t know, no one tells me anything. I try…I just want to be normal, Claire.”
“With Sylar?”
“I didn’t…I knew him from before,” Elle tries to explain, tries to explain the Gabriel that Claire will never meet, never understand. “Your father was my partner…we were there, at his house. He was a good man, and we made him a monster.” Her voice hitches and she is not going to cry in front of Claire, not going to cry in front of the cheerleader.
Claire sits down on the swing next to Elle, watching her quietly.
“He’s not a monster,” Elle finishes, looking at Claire with big eyes, “Please, just leave us alone. I’m sorry."
Claire is quiet, “Elle…”
“You know, I thought your dad really cared about me, back then.” Elle moves on like Claire hasn’t said a word, “I thought he thought I was smart…that I could do a good job. He was nicer than my father ever was to me…”
Claire doesn’t know what to do, so she reaches over and takes Elle’s hand. Elle looks over, startled, then squeezes Claire’s hand.
“Thanks, PomPom. Hey…when you talk to your dad?”
“Yeah?” Claire asks, a little scared to know what’s coming next.
“Will you tell him…” Elle pauses, taking a deep breath, “will you tell him about the baby? About…Noah?”