Fic: Payback (Elle, Audrey, Sylar) PG-13
Title: Payback
Pairings/ Characters: Elle, Audrey, Sylar
Author: Eliza Ann
Word Count: 2930
Disclaimer: If wishes were horses...well I actually don't have any horses...Heroes is not mine, just know that.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Swearing you wouldn't see on the show and, um, almost smoking.
Spoilers: Up to 3.02, but maybe a little after that, too.
Summary: After the Company, Elle's got nowhere left to go, so she goes nowhere. Well, actually she goes to the interrogation room. This is Elle after 3.02, and what I imagine her doing.
A/N: Just in case you forgot, Audrey was the FBI agent that was working with Matt to find Sylar, in season one. I doubt it will end up anything like this, but I thought the situation would be interesting.
A/N2: First Heroes fic, if you're not counting crossovers. I'd love to know whether or not I'm very good, so all feedback is appreciated more than oxygen.
Nowhere left to go, nowhere left be, and no one left to stay for. No one at all. Just her and an empty suitcase. It hadn’t been empty before, in fact Elle had packed it years ago, just waiting for a reason to leave. When she had finally gotten one, or rather an order, was when she realized she hated all her belongings. All her clothes, all her books, all her little notebooks with meaningless scribbles on every page, all of them just wreaked of that place.
That Company. More like that prison.
True she herself had worked for them for more years than she’d like to admit, but it wasn’t her decision really, she was a prisoner, too. She stayed there because the outside world was a dangerous and broken place, which she only ventured out in to bring in more prisoners. Misery really does love company. And the Company loved misery, they had halls upon hall, floors upon floors of it. There was so much misery locked up in that place that it was just bursting at the seams, seeping through the cracks.
Elle had burst through those cracks, and she supposed she had carried some of the misery with her, because that was the only reason she could see for the raw, hot tears pouring off her cheeks as she shook her suitcase into the garbage bin at the far end of the train station.
She would have preferred to have gone to the airport, to just be able to fly over the huge, fierce ocean to unknown places that were far, far away from the miserable prison she had called home. Unfortunately it seemed you needed a passport and a shit-load of cash to buy a plane ticket, so she was resigned to riding the train as far as she could from this place, and not looking back.
She choked on a sob as she pulled the half open suitcase over to the nearest bench, where a woman in her mid-thirties sat with two twin toddlers. The woman did what Elle had hoped she would and grabbed her two children by the hands and led them away from the distraught looking blonde who was heading to them.
Elle collapsed on the bench, setting the suitcase next to her so that no one else would sit down. She wiped her eyes with her sleeves and let out a few more tears.
After a few minutes, shaking her head as she tried to clear it, she stood up and walked over to the newspaper stand, her steps heavy. There was no reason to bring her suitcase along, it wasn’t something she particularly wanted anymore, and having someone steal it might brighten her day a little. She had considered throwing it away with the rest of her stuff, but this was a train station after all, and getting on the train without any luggage may make a few people suspicious, though suspicious of what, she didn’t know.
Standing at the back of the small line, Elle scanned the different magazines and snacks. There was also a smaller section of the stand that was for cigarettes, several different kinds, all stacked one on top of each other. Right next to them was a sign that, in big read letters, said ‘We Card!’ with a little rectangle that was apparently supposed to represent an ID card.
Elle had never smoked, done drugs, or drunk alcohol in her life. Her father had feared the effect it would have on her, with her varying mental stability, and in all honestly she had, too.
But now she had escaped all that and she was free to do whatever she pleased, and although she didn’t think smoking would be particularly enjoyable she needed to prove to herself that she was truly free. So when she reached the front of the line she stared the timid-looking salesman in the eye and asked for a pack of Marlboro reds and dropped the month’s issue of Vanity Fair onto the counter.
The sheepish man turned around and lightly picked up the pack. “Um, ID, please, Miss.”
She pulled out the requested identification and let the man see it. He seemed to be shaking and she wondered if she was really that intimidating. Anyone who knew her had a reason to fear her, but to the naked eye she was just a small blonde buying smokes and a magazine. Oh, scary.
He handed back the card and told her the total. “Umm, You don’t need a bag, eh, do you?”
Elle shook her head and pulled out a few bills, dropping them on the counter and collecting her prizes. She had always found the idea of people giving things away for little pieces of paper fascinating, and there was a certain kind of pride whenever she bought something, like she had gotten the upper hand by gaining things of value.
She was in the process of pulling open her cigarette box as she turned around to head back to the bench that she had claimed. That was when she just about ran into the reason the salesman had been a puddle on the floor. Standing directly behind her in line were two big, burly men in suits, accompanying a small blonde woman. This woman was intimidating on sight, though. She was considerably older than Elle and had freckles nearly covering her face, plus she wore a look of pure and utter disdain.
Elle stopped in her tracks and stared at the trio for a few seconds with a look of confusion on her face. She quickly covered up the confusion and decided to match the woman’s expression, fixing her with her own look of disdain, never mind that she had no idea why.
The woman simply stuck her hand into her jacket pocket and pulled out some kind of identification.
“Special Agent Audrey Hanson, I need to ask you a few questions.”
Elle looked over the FBI Badge that was held up in her face and cursed inwardly. And she hadn’t even gotten to try her brand new cigarettes.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.
Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.
Elle finally had to grab her own leg to stop herself from making that awful tapping noise. It wasn’t intentional, she just couldn’t help it. She knew the feeling of being nervous quite well, it had become one of her close friends, along with the ever present misery.
For all the people she had killed, Elle had never been arrested. In fact she’d barely had any dealings with cops at all, other then flirting with the occasional security guard to get where she needed to get. She remembered once having to giggle her way out of a parking ticket, of course it hadn’t worked and she’d ended up frying the guy, but the point was that she had tried a non-violent solution. She didn’t want to have to kill people, but it made life so much simpler and things were so difficult that she didn’t know what else to do.
She continued to tap her foot again, eventually joining in on the rhythm by drumming her fingers along the top of the table. She was just about to start a bit of humming, when her one-man-band was suddenly interrupted by the sound of the door opening.
The blonde FBI agent that had brought her in walked into the interrogation room, a smug expression on her face.
“It took us a hell of a while to find you, Miss Bishop.” Audrey said sternly, sitting down across from her.
“Sorry about that,” Elle said. “You can call me Annie, by the way.”
Audrey’s brow furrowed and she glanced down at the papers in front of her. “It says here that your name’s Elle Bishop.” She stated.
“Oh, it is. But I think Annie suits me, don’t you?” Elle was smirking at her now. No matter how nervous she was, there was no way she would let it show. No, whatever this chick wanted from her, Elle was going to make it as difficult for her as possible for her to get it.
Audrey looked momentarily fazed, but then fixed her face into as smirk to match Elle’s. “Alright Elle, I’m guessing you want to do this the hard way, then?”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Elle challenged.
“Don’t worry, you won’t.” Audrey shot back.
Elle was gaining more confidence, and in the spirit of being a criminal, she leaned back and put her feet up on the table. “So, I guess you’re bad cop, then?”
“You guessed right. Unfortunately my partner, good cop, is out sick. Guess you’re stuck with me.” She tapped her pen on Elle’s shoes. “Feet down, Annie.”
Elle raised an eyebrow, but compiled anyway. “We’re stuck together? Lucky me.”
“I’ll try to make it as short and painless as possible, Elle, but you’ve got to do your part.”
“No.” Elle said quickly, full blown smile on her face.
“You haven’t even heard the terms.” Audrey pointed out.
“Right, sorry, something about you just makes me want to say ‘no’. You’re just so very intimidating, which must decrease your luck with guys, huh?”
Audrey glared. “Being intimidating has it’s dating disadvantages, but it’s nowhere as bad as being a sociopath.”
Elle was momentarily shocked and before she could compose herself Audrey continued.
“See this stack of paper, right here?” She held up a file folder containing quite a few pieces of paper in it, thought it could hardly be called a ‘stack’. Elle considered making some kind of witty remark about the lack of stack-y-ness of the stack, but with a look from her captor she opted to just nod. “This is every bit of information the FBI has accumulated about you.”
Elle sighed, resignedly. If there was one thing she knew, she was not going to jail, no matter how many people she’d killed.
“So what am I being charged with?”
“Oh, you’re not being charged with anything.” Elle perked up at this, her smile returning to her face. “Despite the fact that we have our theories, there isn’t any concrete evidence that you’ve ever harmed a fly.”
Elle smirked. “But you know I have, and being the amazing person you are, you’re going to devote your life to proving that I’m a bad, bad woman. Am I right?”
Audrey smirked back. “In some respects. I am indeed an amazing person, and under other circumstances I’m sure I could dig up enough proof to have you convicted, but I’ve got much bigger fish that need to be fried.” Her determination was evident and there was so much of it Elle was almost impressed, almost being the operative word.
“So, what, you brought me in to tell me that you want to catch someone that isn’t me?”
“No, I brought you in here so that you could help me.”
“Help you fry your fish? I’m pretty good at frying things, but -”
“When was the last time you saw a man named Sylar?” The words came off Audrey’s lips easily, like she had been waiting to say them for months now.
So this is why they dragged her in. Of course, it would be about him. It wasn’t really a problem, she would happily turn him in, but first Elle needed to evaluate the situation. So she played dumb.
“Who’s Sylar?”
Really, really dumb.
Audrey just glared at her. “We know you know who he is, so just drop the act, Annie.” She said the last word bitingly, her eyes never leaving Elle’s.
“Oh wait, he’s that murderer guy, right? Didn’t he get stabbed last year, or something, by some Chinese guy? Whoa, you guys sure are slow, aren’t you? Maybe they didn’t teach you this in detective school, but when a bad guy gets killed, it usually means he’s no longer a threat.”
Elle was grinning now, and however sadistically, you could easily tell she was pleased with herself.
“Believe it or not, I did learn that. It just so happens that this particular bad guy isn’t dead.” Elle was about to say something but Audrey continued, cutting her off. “And don’t even say what you’re about to say, because we know for a fact that you know for a fact that Sylar’s alive.”
Elle almost panicked, but with a few seconds to think she realized that Audrey had to be bluffing. That’s what cops did for a living, wasn’t it? Getting people to confess by making shit up. Elle hadn’t had any personal experience with it, but why else would anyone confess to anything they did?
“Oh, do you?” She inquired. “Exactly how concrete are these facts? Let’s see your proof.”
Audrey smirked. “Okay, but you asked for it.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small sound recording device. “This was caught on the neighbors’ video camera. Someone destroyed all of Mohinder Suresh’s cameras, and although on his neighbors’ camera only contains a visual of an empty office, we can definitely hear what’s going on in the loft next door, in the background.”
She pressed the play button. Immediately static sounds began to come out of the little speaker on the device. After a few seconds Elle heard her own voice yelling from another room.
“Sylar!” The yell was followed by more static and then a huge crash.
Elle sighed. So maybe having a recording of her yelling Sylar’s name was a little bit of evidence. Damn.
“Okay, you got me, foiled again.” She snapped her fingers mockingly.
“We just want your cooperation, Miss Bishop.” Audrey said with an air of triumph.
“I won’t be arrested for this will I?” She feigned concern. “I’m trying to get this job at Copy Kingdom, and my application will look a lot better if I don’t have a criminal record.”
“Save it. If you give us the information we’re asking for, you’ll get away clean. We clear?”
“Crystal, m’dear.” Elle leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. “I’ll give you all the information you need, but you have to promise to deliver a message to him for me.”
“Depends, what kind of message?”
“Got some paper?”
Audrey pulled out a stack of sticky notes and a pen and pushed them over to Elle. She picked up the pen and quickly scribbled some words onto one of the sticky notes and folded it up, handing it back to Audrey.
Audrey, predictably, unfolded and read the message. She snorted in amusement, glancing back up at Elle.
“You sure you want to reveal your identity? If Sylar get’s away, he could come after you.”
“I’m counting on it.” Elle smiled wickedly. “But thanks for the concern, agent Hanson.” She said the word ‘agent’ mockingly, but honestly, Elle had to admit that Audrey was good at her job.
“Ready to give us information, or are we just going to pass notes all day?” Audrey asked, but her voice was, surprisingly, not very biting.
“Fine, fine. So there’s this company…”
.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.
By the time they had gotten into the secret section of Primatech Paper Angela Petrelli was already gone, leaving her whole establishment behind.
When Audrey had spotted Noah Bennet again, she had realized that Elle was telling the truth. They FBI had the place surrounded and she had gone in with a team of other agents, looking for the hidden laboratory that she had remembered Parkman telling her about.
God, how she wished she had believed him then.
Noah had looked almost relieved to see her there, much different than the last time they had searched the place.
When she had asked where Sylar was he had told her, with a warning attached, of course. For some reason she didn’t quite understand, he had also made her take a man with her. He had called him the Haitian.
When they reached Sylar’s cell, she found him sitting on a metal table staring into space. He smiled at first, darkness dancing in his eyes. His smile died when he noticed the Haitian though, and he by the time Audrey and her team had gotten the cell door open he looked down right angry.
“So we meet again.” He said gruffly.
One of the other agents was about to handcuff him, and go through the whole “You are under arrest for…” speech, but she stopped him.
She was, of course, going to watch as he was arrested and she was going to smile, but not quite yet. Audrey dug through her pocket until her hand closed around the little folded sticky note.
“Got a message for you.” She said to Sylar, handing it over to him. She pulled her hand back quickly though. Although she pretended to be unfazed by him, truth be told, he scared her to death.
Sylar took the note and unfolded it, glancing down at the girly scribbles.
Sylar -
Payback’s a bitch.
- Elle