(no subject)
TITLE: Endgame
AUTHOR: dragynflies
RATING: R
DISCLAIMER: Heroes cast is not mine.
SUMMARY: Two weeks after Noah’s third birthday, she sits down with her son and explains to him that they are going to visit his daddy.
Part one: Of Bishops and Knights
Part two: Checkmate
Part three: Castle
Part four: Breakthrough
Part Five: Endgame
The older that Noah gets, the more he looks like his father. Elle can pick out Gabriel’s features in the slope of Noah’s little nose, in his tiny ears and the chocolate brown of Noah’s expressive eyes.
If she looks hard enough, she can find the curve of her lips in Noah’s smile, and that his cheekbones mirror hers.
He is wonderfully animated, loves to explain things he experiences with her with wide sweeping arms and toothy grins. When he relays the adventures from his day at the babysitter’s house, he sweeps his arms to the side to show Elle just how much fun he had. (“This much fun, mama, we had THIS much fun!”)
These are moments that she cannot communicate to Sylar when they sit and talk. She can tell him that Noah still manages to completely mutilate his sentences in the most delightful way (“Mama, you are the mosted pretty mama of all the mamas”) but she can’t explain the beaming smile that accompanies it, the way his eyes glitter like diamonds when she picks him up.
And so, two weeks after Noah’s third birthday, she sits down with her son and explains to him that they are going to visit his daddy.
“Daddy gone,” Noah says seriously, and Elle can’t help wincing. She did tell him…has told him more than once that Daddy is gone, that Noah has a mommy and a June and a babysitter that all love him very much.
“Noah, your daddy was gone for a long time…but he is back now, and he would like to meet you,” Elle finally says, sliding her hand through his baby soft hair and kissing Noah’s little forehead. “Would you like to meet your daddy?”
Noah looks pensive for minute, eyes Elle with a suspicious look that makes him look far older than his three years. Finally, he touches her right cheek, and looks right into her eyes when he says, “Yes. I want to meet Daddy.”
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Elle has no idea the right way to do this, so she asks him to meet them at the park. It’s Noah’s favorite place, and he’s comfortable there, and it’s public enough that if something goes wrong, people will notice.
If something goes wrong, Elle doesn’t know what she’ll do.
She’s got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach all the way to the park, and she carries Noah even though he struggles a little.
“Mama, I am big boy,” he whines, kicking his little legs, “I walk, I walk!”
Elle hitches Noah up on her hip and kisses his forehead, “I know you’re a big boy,” she says quietly, taking a deep breath, “Mama just wants to hold you.”
Noah narrows his eyes, but accepts her answer, relaxing in her arms. “Daddy will be fun?” he questions, “Him will swing with me?”
Elle bites her lip and nods, “I think he will swing with you.”
She can see him waiting at the park, and she feels a little better when she notices he looks just as nervous as she feels. He’s pacing in front of the park bench, his left thumbnail between his teeth as he looks down the road. When he sees Elle and Noah he shoves his hand into his pocket and waves with his other.
Elle swallows hard and leans her head against Noah’s. “Noah, see?” she asks and points a little towards the nervous man, “That’s Daddy.”
Noah kicks his little legs so hard that Elle has to put him down, and takes off like a shot for his father. Elle watches Gabriel’s face light up and he sinks to his knees, opening his arms. Noah barrels towards him, absolute delight on his face, but skids to a stop just before he makes contact for the hug.
Gabriel’s smile falters, but he closes his arms and leans in towards Noah, who is watching him carefully.
“Hi, Daddy,” Noah finally says, just as Elle catches up and sinks to her knees next to her son, watching Gabriel out of the corner of her eye.
“Hi, Noah,” he murmurs, “I missed you so much.”
“Are you back forever?” Noah asks, serious and straightforward - something he got from Elle that is perhaps not genetic. He is unapologetic in his questions, and expects the correct answer.
Gabriel glances at Elle’s tense face before answering Noah’s question, “Yes, Noah. I’m back forever.”
Noah nods, looks at his mother for reassurance, and then leans forward to push himself into his father’s arms. He wraps his little arms around Gabriel and gives him a hug, nestling his little body against Gabriel’s chest.
Elle’s face relaxes a little when she sees the tear slip out of Gabriel’s eye.
Maybe he does deserve to know Noah just as much as Noah deserves to know him.
The afternoon passes strangely uneventfully. Noah instructs Gabriel to push him in his swing while Elle watches from her perch on the park bench. She is still not entirely at ease with Sylar…Gabriel…being so close to her son, but Noah is his son too.
When the sun starts to set, Elle tells Noah it’s his bedtime. Her little happy son screams and clutches at Gabriel’s legs until Elle caves and asks Gabriel if he’d like to walk home with them.
She can’t help the jealously that courses through her when Noah promptly scrambles into his father’s arms so that Gabriel can put the little boy on his shoulders for the walk home.
The walk home is silent except for Noah’s happy babbling, and Elle feels the air thicken with tension the closer to home they get. She unlocks the door and invites Gabriel in. She helps Noah into his pull up and pajamas, and then grants Noah’s request for Gabriel to read his bedtime story.
This is the first night that she hasn’t tucked Noah in herself since she had him, and she sits on the couch in the living room, fighting tears. She knows that the day couldn’t have gone any better, that Noah clearly fell in love with his father the moment he saw him, but she still doesn’t like sharing. Noah has been her son since that night in the diner when the extra line showed up on the pregnancy test, and thus far, she’s really only shared him with June and Bridget.
“He’s asleep.” Gabriel’s quiet voice startles Elle and she jerks her head up, blinking back the unwanted tears.
“Oh,” she sighs, “I didn’t say goodnight…”
“I’m sorry.” He sounds like he really means it too, “I didn’t…I didn’t want to leave him, and then he fell asleep…I didn’t mean to…”
Elle shrugs and blinks a few times, “It’s okay…not your fault.”
He comes to sit next to her on the couch in the quiet living room. He fumbles with his hands before clasping his fingers together and glancing at her sideways. “You didn’t have to let me see him,” he says finally, when the silence becomes so uncomfortable it starts to hurt. “Thank you.”
Elle nods. The issues with sharing her son are hers, and are not his fault…not really. Had things been different, the sharing would have been natural and normal, just mommy and daddy and their baby.
But things weren’t different, and no matter what, in the back of her mind, she will always remember what he did to her.
He surprises her by reaching for her hand. She jumps and her heart skips a beat when he rubs his thumb over the soft skin of her palm. “He’s amazing.”
“I know,” she says, staring at their entwined hands. His touch unravels her…makes her want to lean in and kiss him almost as much as she wants to spark up her skin and yank her hand away. She hates that he can do this to her so many years later, after so many changes in her life.
“You’re a good mom.” His voice is quiet, and his grip on her hand is so loose that she begins to understand that he is just as lost as she is. The only difference is she has spent the last three and a half years making herself a better person, a better mother for her son, and he’s spent the last three years doing…something else.
“I’m not going to keep him from you,” she says suddenly, pulling her hand away. “You don’t have to be nice to me just so you can keep seeing him. You jumped through my hoops, you did everything I asked.”
He holds out his hand, palm up, and looks her right in the eye with the same look that Noah gets when he is serious. “I’m not being nice to you just so I can see Noah.”
Elle breaks the gaze first, looks down at the carpeting and shakes her head lightly. “Syl…Gabriel. I…you’re going to have to be patient with me. I’m trying really hard to do what’s best for Noah.”
He doesn’t withdraw his hand, “What about you?”
Elle turns her head and meets his eyes. The living room is dark; June isn’t expected back for another hour, and suddenly Elle’s heart is in her throat. He makes the first move, leans forward just far enough to brush his lips against hers, so gently she barely feels it.
When she doesn’t jump away, he kisses her just a little harder, sliding his open hand up to cup her cheek in his palm. She leans into his touch and opens her mouth when his tongue teases at her lips.
She can’t hear anything in the room but there’s a roaring in her ears she can’t identify, a heady rush that reminds her of past kisses on a broken floor in a deserted house, of the first time she ever really felt loved in her entire life.
She slides her hands around his neck and curls her fingers into the little hairs at the back of his neck, hitching herself closer to him. They’re not touching except for their lips and careful hands on uncovered skin, but Elle feels her heart rate triple and a whole other kind of electricity roll down her spine.
She shudders and hisses his name, his real name, and in turn, he lets his hand trace against her cheek, stroking the skin with his thumb as he curls his tongue with hers, traces the curves of her mouth.
She whimpers and finally moves towards him, just a little. He pulls her back against him, leaning back against the couch and letting her lay against his chest, on top of him, without breaking their kiss.
“I missed you so much,” he murmurs between kisses, brushing his thumb over the sensitive skin just below her ear and Elle whimpers, letting her hand skim against his side. His hand moves from her face to curve around her waist and he traces the line of skin between her jeans and shirt with the tips of his fingers, making her shiver.
He slides his hands under the hem of her shirt, and she doesn’t argue. His hands skim over her warm skin and she sits up just enough to let him pull the little shirt over her arms and head.
When he tugs her shirt over her head, his eyes catch on the mottled scars that cover her body, that trail up her stomach to peek out of the outline of her bra. They’re the worst on her chest and arms, but smaller ones crawl up her neck to meet the scars on her cheek.
Elle watches his eyes trail over her body… over the scars that are his fault, and she covers her chest with her arms self consciously.
“I didn’t…” he can’t find the right words, if there even are any. He traces across the marks on her shoulder and she shudders under his touch. She wonders if he remembers the fire, how it crept along the path the accelerant had created: across her belly, up her chest, over her shoulder to the side of her neck, where the flames licked at her hair until that went up in smoke too.
“Please don’t,” she murmurs, but she can’t raise her eyes to meet his.
They’re not ready for this…it’s too much, too fast. She doesn’t trust him and he’s….
He doesn’t know what he is anymore. A father, now, to a child who’s three years old…a man, maybe…but no longer hers. Maybe he never was.
He reaches for her hand, meaning to twine their fingers together so he can pull her closer and kiss her again, but when his fingers interlace with hers, she jumps and yanks her hand away.
The moment is so surreal to Elle that she can taste the spray of the ocean, feel the sand under her. She will not let him gain the upper hand, not now.
She grabs for her shirt, yanks it back over her head and swipes angrily at her too-long bangs.
“Elle…”
She’s wiping at her cheeks, not looking at him, and he knows.
“I can’t do this,” she whimpers, and finally looks at him. Her tears make her eyes darker, more blue, and he has to close his eyes.
“Okay,” he says quietly, moving away from her on the couch. She’s got her arms crossed over her stomach now, learning forward a little. She’s closing in on herself again, building up the walls that she’s been letting down around him.
“Can…can you please leave?” she asks, her voice shaky, “You can come back to see Noah, if you want…tomorrow or whenever.”
Gabriel nods, fighting the urge hold her, rub her back until she can catch her breath, apologize for something that really deserves something greater than a simple “sorry.”
He stands up from the couch and looks at Elle. She wipes at her cheeks a few more times and then stands up. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs, “I just…I can’t do this right now.”
She follows him to the door, and opens it for him. He takes a few steps and then turns back to her. His hand shakes a little but he carefully wipes his thumb across her teary cheek. She flinches but doesn’t move away.
“I’m so sorry, Elle,” he says, dropping his hand to his side and looking at her, his eyes dark with remorse.
“I believe you,” she says; it’s the best she can do at the moment, and he understands.
There is no going backwards, no fixing the past. Just building the future, and he’s not ready to give up yet.
AUTHOR: dragynflies
RATING: R
DISCLAIMER: Heroes cast is not mine.
SUMMARY: Two weeks after Noah’s third birthday, she sits down with her son and explains to him that they are going to visit his daddy.
Part one: Of Bishops and Knights
Part two: Checkmate
Part three: Castle
Part four: Breakthrough
Part Five: Endgame
The older that Noah gets, the more he looks like his father. Elle can pick out Gabriel’s features in the slope of Noah’s little nose, in his tiny ears and the chocolate brown of Noah’s expressive eyes.
If she looks hard enough, she can find the curve of her lips in Noah’s smile, and that his cheekbones mirror hers.
He is wonderfully animated, loves to explain things he experiences with her with wide sweeping arms and toothy grins. When he relays the adventures from his day at the babysitter’s house, he sweeps his arms to the side to show Elle just how much fun he had. (“This much fun, mama, we had THIS much fun!”)
These are moments that she cannot communicate to Sylar when they sit and talk. She can tell him that Noah still manages to completely mutilate his sentences in the most delightful way (“Mama, you are the mosted pretty mama of all the mamas”) but she can’t explain the beaming smile that accompanies it, the way his eyes glitter like diamonds when she picks him up.
And so, two weeks after Noah’s third birthday, she sits down with her son and explains to him that they are going to visit his daddy.
“Daddy gone,” Noah says seriously, and Elle can’t help wincing. She did tell him…has told him more than once that Daddy is gone, that Noah has a mommy and a June and a babysitter that all love him very much.
“Noah, your daddy was gone for a long time…but he is back now, and he would like to meet you,” Elle finally says, sliding her hand through his baby soft hair and kissing Noah’s little forehead. “Would you like to meet your daddy?”
Noah looks pensive for minute, eyes Elle with a suspicious look that makes him look far older than his three years. Finally, he touches her right cheek, and looks right into her eyes when he says, “Yes. I want to meet Daddy.”
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Elle has no idea the right way to do this, so she asks him to meet them at the park. It’s Noah’s favorite place, and he’s comfortable there, and it’s public enough that if something goes wrong, people will notice.
If something goes wrong, Elle doesn’t know what she’ll do.
She’s got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach all the way to the park, and she carries Noah even though he struggles a little.
“Mama, I am big boy,” he whines, kicking his little legs, “I walk, I walk!”
Elle hitches Noah up on her hip and kisses his forehead, “I know you’re a big boy,” she says quietly, taking a deep breath, “Mama just wants to hold you.”
Noah narrows his eyes, but accepts her answer, relaxing in her arms. “Daddy will be fun?” he questions, “Him will swing with me?”
Elle bites her lip and nods, “I think he will swing with you.”
She can see him waiting at the park, and she feels a little better when she notices he looks just as nervous as she feels. He’s pacing in front of the park bench, his left thumbnail between his teeth as he looks down the road. When he sees Elle and Noah he shoves his hand into his pocket and waves with his other.
Elle swallows hard and leans her head against Noah’s. “Noah, see?” she asks and points a little towards the nervous man, “That’s Daddy.”
Noah kicks his little legs so hard that Elle has to put him down, and takes off like a shot for his father. Elle watches Gabriel’s face light up and he sinks to his knees, opening his arms. Noah barrels towards him, absolute delight on his face, but skids to a stop just before he makes contact for the hug.
Gabriel’s smile falters, but he closes his arms and leans in towards Noah, who is watching him carefully.
“Hi, Daddy,” Noah finally says, just as Elle catches up and sinks to her knees next to her son, watching Gabriel out of the corner of her eye.
“Hi, Noah,” he murmurs, “I missed you so much.”
“Are you back forever?” Noah asks, serious and straightforward - something he got from Elle that is perhaps not genetic. He is unapologetic in his questions, and expects the correct answer.
Gabriel glances at Elle’s tense face before answering Noah’s question, “Yes, Noah. I’m back forever.”
Noah nods, looks at his mother for reassurance, and then leans forward to push himself into his father’s arms. He wraps his little arms around Gabriel and gives him a hug, nestling his little body against Gabriel’s chest.
Elle’s face relaxes a little when she sees the tear slip out of Gabriel’s eye.
Maybe he does deserve to know Noah just as much as Noah deserves to know him.
The afternoon passes strangely uneventfully. Noah instructs Gabriel to push him in his swing while Elle watches from her perch on the park bench. She is still not entirely at ease with Sylar…Gabriel…being so close to her son, but Noah is his son too.
When the sun starts to set, Elle tells Noah it’s his bedtime. Her little happy son screams and clutches at Gabriel’s legs until Elle caves and asks Gabriel if he’d like to walk home with them.
She can’t help the jealously that courses through her when Noah promptly scrambles into his father’s arms so that Gabriel can put the little boy on his shoulders for the walk home.
The walk home is silent except for Noah’s happy babbling, and Elle feels the air thicken with tension the closer to home they get. She unlocks the door and invites Gabriel in. She helps Noah into his pull up and pajamas, and then grants Noah’s request for Gabriel to read his bedtime story.
This is the first night that she hasn’t tucked Noah in herself since she had him, and she sits on the couch in the living room, fighting tears. She knows that the day couldn’t have gone any better, that Noah clearly fell in love with his father the moment he saw him, but she still doesn’t like sharing. Noah has been her son since that night in the diner when the extra line showed up on the pregnancy test, and thus far, she’s really only shared him with June and Bridget.
“He’s asleep.” Gabriel’s quiet voice startles Elle and she jerks her head up, blinking back the unwanted tears.
“Oh,” she sighs, “I didn’t say goodnight…”
“I’m sorry.” He sounds like he really means it too, “I didn’t…I didn’t want to leave him, and then he fell asleep…I didn’t mean to…”
Elle shrugs and blinks a few times, “It’s okay…not your fault.”
He comes to sit next to her on the couch in the quiet living room. He fumbles with his hands before clasping his fingers together and glancing at her sideways. “You didn’t have to let me see him,” he says finally, when the silence becomes so uncomfortable it starts to hurt. “Thank you.”
Elle nods. The issues with sharing her son are hers, and are not his fault…not really. Had things been different, the sharing would have been natural and normal, just mommy and daddy and their baby.
But things weren’t different, and no matter what, in the back of her mind, she will always remember what he did to her.
He surprises her by reaching for her hand. She jumps and her heart skips a beat when he rubs his thumb over the soft skin of her palm. “He’s amazing.”
“I know,” she says, staring at their entwined hands. His touch unravels her…makes her want to lean in and kiss him almost as much as she wants to spark up her skin and yank her hand away. She hates that he can do this to her so many years later, after so many changes in her life.
“You’re a good mom.” His voice is quiet, and his grip on her hand is so loose that she begins to understand that he is just as lost as she is. The only difference is she has spent the last three and a half years making herself a better person, a better mother for her son, and he’s spent the last three years doing…something else.
“I’m not going to keep him from you,” she says suddenly, pulling her hand away. “You don’t have to be nice to me just so you can keep seeing him. You jumped through my hoops, you did everything I asked.”
He holds out his hand, palm up, and looks her right in the eye with the same look that Noah gets when he is serious. “I’m not being nice to you just so I can see Noah.”
Elle breaks the gaze first, looks down at the carpeting and shakes her head lightly. “Syl…Gabriel. I…you’re going to have to be patient with me. I’m trying really hard to do what’s best for Noah.”
He doesn’t withdraw his hand, “What about you?”
Elle turns her head and meets his eyes. The living room is dark; June isn’t expected back for another hour, and suddenly Elle’s heart is in her throat. He makes the first move, leans forward just far enough to brush his lips against hers, so gently she barely feels it.
When she doesn’t jump away, he kisses her just a little harder, sliding his open hand up to cup her cheek in his palm. She leans into his touch and opens her mouth when his tongue teases at her lips.
She can’t hear anything in the room but there’s a roaring in her ears she can’t identify, a heady rush that reminds her of past kisses on a broken floor in a deserted house, of the first time she ever really felt loved in her entire life.
She slides her hands around his neck and curls her fingers into the little hairs at the back of his neck, hitching herself closer to him. They’re not touching except for their lips and careful hands on uncovered skin, but Elle feels her heart rate triple and a whole other kind of electricity roll down her spine.
She shudders and hisses his name, his real name, and in turn, he lets his hand trace against her cheek, stroking the skin with his thumb as he curls his tongue with hers, traces the curves of her mouth.
She whimpers and finally moves towards him, just a little. He pulls her back against him, leaning back against the couch and letting her lay against his chest, on top of him, without breaking their kiss.
“I missed you so much,” he murmurs between kisses, brushing his thumb over the sensitive skin just below her ear and Elle whimpers, letting her hand skim against his side. His hand moves from her face to curve around her waist and he traces the line of skin between her jeans and shirt with the tips of his fingers, making her shiver.
He slides his hands under the hem of her shirt, and she doesn’t argue. His hands skim over her warm skin and she sits up just enough to let him pull the little shirt over her arms and head.
When he tugs her shirt over her head, his eyes catch on the mottled scars that cover her body, that trail up her stomach to peek out of the outline of her bra. They’re the worst on her chest and arms, but smaller ones crawl up her neck to meet the scars on her cheek.
Elle watches his eyes trail over her body… over the scars that are his fault, and she covers her chest with her arms self consciously.
“I didn’t…” he can’t find the right words, if there even are any. He traces across the marks on her shoulder and she shudders under his touch. She wonders if he remembers the fire, how it crept along the path the accelerant had created: across her belly, up her chest, over her shoulder to the side of her neck, where the flames licked at her hair until that went up in smoke too.
“Please don’t,” she murmurs, but she can’t raise her eyes to meet his.
They’re not ready for this…it’s too much, too fast. She doesn’t trust him and he’s….
He doesn’t know what he is anymore. A father, now, to a child who’s three years old…a man, maybe…but no longer hers. Maybe he never was.
He reaches for her hand, meaning to twine their fingers together so he can pull her closer and kiss her again, but when his fingers interlace with hers, she jumps and yanks her hand away.
The moment is so surreal to Elle that she can taste the spray of the ocean, feel the sand under her. She will not let him gain the upper hand, not now.
She grabs for her shirt, yanks it back over her head and swipes angrily at her too-long bangs.
“Elle…”
She’s wiping at her cheeks, not looking at him, and he knows.
“I can’t do this,” she whimpers, and finally looks at him. Her tears make her eyes darker, more blue, and he has to close his eyes.
“Okay,” he says quietly, moving away from her on the couch. She’s got her arms crossed over her stomach now, learning forward a little. She’s closing in on herself again, building up the walls that she’s been letting down around him.
“Can…can you please leave?” she asks, her voice shaky, “You can come back to see Noah, if you want…tomorrow or whenever.”
Gabriel nods, fighting the urge hold her, rub her back until she can catch her breath, apologize for something that really deserves something greater than a simple “sorry.”
He stands up from the couch and looks at Elle. She wipes at her cheeks a few more times and then stands up. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs, “I just…I can’t do this right now.”
She follows him to the door, and opens it for him. He takes a few steps and then turns back to her. His hand shakes a little but he carefully wipes his thumb across her teary cheek. She flinches but doesn’t move away.
“I’m so sorry, Elle,” he says, dropping his hand to his side and looking at her, his eyes dark with remorse.
“I believe you,” she says; it’s the best she can do at the moment, and he understands.
There is no going backwards, no fixing the past. Just building the future, and he’s not ready to give up yet.