1st session - Gabriel SylarpeopletalktomeMarch 24 2010, 01:30:11 UTC
The previous day's curse left the redhead in a state of general panic the midnight of its cutoff. She spent hours awake that she ought to have spent sleeping and then she woke up too early in order to clean her apartment--which was already clean--to the point of scouring, only to then whisper over to her office where she did much the same. When she finishes, it is only eight o'clock and she, not knowing what to do with herself, spends the better part of three hours finding new ways to sub-organize her books and other things she has acquired to give her the semblance of being somewhere she is familiar with. Contradictory for all that she encourages students--or did--daily to step outside of their comfort zones, but she too had planned on a great change before being brought here.
This kind of change, however, this limb she has rushed herself out onto brings her to a near painful point of wringing her hands and flitting nerves thinly calmed by reinforced breathing techniques. With her back to the door, she finds herself more surprised than normal when a voice she has heard before--a voice she has been thinking about for the better part of a night and a morning--startles the counselor into spinning around abruptly enough that she knocks over a mug of pencils. It rolls off the edge of the desk, breaking and scattering its contents as well as its constitution.
"Mr. Sylar." Pause. "Hello, oh, um, sorry, that's just uh..." and the human part of her says it's silly to apologize about a mistake, much less to a killer, but she frames the moment in this ordinariness for her own sake more than his, stooping to gather the pieces and the pencils while she continues speaking, keeping much of her thinking to herself, thoughts that go along the lines of 'I can't do this' and 'I'm not qualified' and 'But he seems so genuine' and many, many repetitions of 'Oh dear'. What actually escapes her is a flutter of pauses and 'um' and 'hm' intermittent between her words. "This will, be....just a second, a second I mean, yes, well...sorry, just one moment. Please." Thus far, she has not looked at him directly except for the initial eye-contact which, by guesstimate measure, lasted an eighth of a second. Maybe.
Sylar almost uses telekinesis to keep the cup from breaking, but he decides at the last second that it'll only make her more nervous. This was not beginning well. He immediately drops into one of his ready-made personalities, biting his lip and moving forward to bend down and help pick up any ceramic pieces she may have missed.
"Don't worry about it. I used to do that with my cup all the time, except it usually had coffee in it," he says with a nervous smile. "I'm sorry I startled you. I'm trying to be more obvious in my movements, but I still have a ways to go...obviously."
He takes the few tiny pieces, picks up the microscopic ones with his telekinesis and discretely places them in his hand, then looks for a dustbin. "You have a very clean office," he notes, and it's obvious it's a compliment from him. He's extremely tidy himself, so he recognizes it in others.
Emma notes the worrying of a lip and the inclination to help like a well trained accountant notes numbers--methodical, technical, indelible--and these things, despite what she has been told of this man so far, stand in his corner. They humanize him, ground him in a way she can appreciate and it is to these things that the displaced guidance counselor so clings, the shake of her hands barely noticeable as she drops shards into a neatly kept waste basket.
"Oh, well, um," she fumbles, verbally and physically. "That's not good, well of course you know that, ah," she cuts herself off, focusing on ridding the floor of what pieces she and her newest patient have not already discarded. That done, she presses her own mouth into a thin line as she stands again, facing him with the respectful posture of a stranger way in over her head, which, as it happens, she very much is. "Thank you," she tries to start again, referring to the help he has given and the compliment he has offered her. Through the fishing net of nerves she lives with daily, amplified by the absurdity of most situations and conversations she has found herself in here, she tries to figure the sense in what she has agreed to do.
There isn't much, and what she longs to call sense she has a rather distinct feeling is something more like her own inability to back out of a corner.
A small voice says to her, no one starts bad and she cleaves to it like the lookout hanging onto a lighthouse beacon. It will have to do. She holds out her hand for a proper greeting--something she would not do at all if not for the unnecessarily large but polished push-bottle of hand sanitizer on a corner of her well ordered desk.
He makes sure he backs away a step or two as soon as he's done helping pick things up. It isn't as if distance makes Sylar any less dangerous. But people do enjoy their personal space, especially around serial killers.
He's absolutely delighted to see her holding out her hand- if he's correct, that might be a big thing for her. He's noticed the sanitizers and the very sterile nature of her office. He reaches out and fairly lightly shook her hand, and while doing so gives her a big, grateful smile. "I really do appreciate you taking me on like this. I'll understand if you want to stop at some point, but- even giving it a try is more than most would do."
Once he's let go of her hand, he steps back just a bit and looks around, anxious. "You know, I've read so many books on the subject of psychiatry, but I have no idea how we're supposed to begin something like this," he admits, a little sheepishly.
To offer her hand is not something she often does, but something tells her to do it, so she does, and it is not a very strong or very long handshake at any rate, but the offer itself means a great deal, even to her. It means she has decided to do as she said, try, despite her own questioning of her training. A guidance counselor though having taken courses in psychology of course is not certified nor necessarily qualified to work with criminals, but Emma tries to burn away her fear with an unnecessary friction when rubbing the sanitizer between her palms and threaded fingers. When she looks up again she has the same nerves--those do not go away, hardly ever--but the smile she wears most often is there too, strained and bad at hiding it, but there. She tells herself not to lose it before she sits at her desk with deceptive ease considering that the reason she sits is because her legs do not want to hold her up any more.
"No, no, I, um," a good start, but this is normal for her, sometimes, "...no, I said that I would and that...hasn't changed, I..." she stops, hands now pressed together and she lowers her head, takes a breath. "Well, um, you could...please sit down, if you don't mind," she tells and asks all at once with doe eyes framed by a brow that tries not to furrow too transparently. She does want to help people. She thinks if she can help other people, then she can help herself, though anyone asking her if she needs help would be met with a questioning look. It is easier to admit it to herself than to others though, and the redheaded high-school counselor from Ohio thinks this might always be the case. "There isn't a particular way to start, but it's important to start at all," she says and thinks it would be too handy and disturbing to have pamphlets for rehabilitating serial killers. "And you've done that, so..." So? "...good job." He is not five, he is not even fifteen, she reminds herself while rearranging papers on her desk rather needlessly; everything was already in perfect order before. "...anyway, um, ah....I mean, is there anything you wanted to begin with?" Placating herself by turning the question on her patient, she feels the strain at her mouth lessen a little.
You said you would do this. And anyway, it may not be such an excellent idea to go back on one's word to someone who has killed...however many people before. That thought gets shoved down under a stack of mental weights, lightning quick. It has to for her to get through this, and she settles her hands in a folded manner on the edge of her desk while she waits for his answer.
His lip quirks up as soon as she tells him he's done a good job. He may not be five or fifteen, but he still appreciates the encouragement. He sits, too, when she indicates. He hasn't been watching her movements critically- he'd suspected she'd react about that way, and there's no point in making her any more self-conscious about it than she may already be. It's a far cry from the easy movements Charlie would make, sweeping up and down the diner, but he thinks he prefers Emma like this, anyway. It's easier to have this sort of talk with someone who has more easily visible flaws. Less to keep an eye out for in the future.
Sylar fidgets in his seat a little, because he always has a hard time sitting still- unless he's working on a piece. Emma leaves the decision to him, and while he would like to go into his current concerns, he figures he should at least offer her something of a background. "I should probably start at the beginning," he says, leaning forward and lacing his fingers together. "I didn't know about this until last year, in my world, but I think it's colored my actions all my life, so you should probably know about it." He breaks any eye contact he's had at this point, looking down at the desk. "When I was very young, around five years old, my parents took me to a diner. At that diner, my father essentially sold me to my aunt and uncle for cash- apparently, my aunt had really wanted a child but was unable to have one. Immediately after, my father left the diner- I saw my mother fighting with him in the car, and he killed her. He dumped her in the parking lot and left."
His voice had gone very flat, and he finally looks up- just a glance before looking back down at his hands. "I don't remember much of anything before that- or after that, for quite a few years, to be frank. My uncle left us within the next couple of weeks and my aunt raised me on her own. She pretended she was my mother, never told me about what happened." He shakes his head. As angry as he'd gotten over finding out about that deception, she was still the woman who raised him, and he missed her fiercely. "She was the only family I had. I took over my uncle's watch shop when I grew older, thinking it might bring my 'father' back...or at least make him proud of me when he returned." Sylar smiles wryly at that statement. "As you might imagine, he never came back."
At first she tries to distance herself from his words, to, in a sense, build a shield effect for herself without leaving the room, but this tactic only brings her so far and it isn't even that far. Not really. Her lips go from thinned to pressing together hard and behind them her teeth fairly push against each other, clenched even as her wrists are locked. She can feel it in her knees too and she knew she was way in over her head before but now it is even more obvious. In a way, it is embarrassing to be bowing out so early in the game, but more than that, the trauma that has festered into the present for this man is so terrible that she finds she cannot excuse herself. Not yet.
How many times in his childhood, she wonders, might someone have stopped for him and changed his world? How many times?
And again though he is not a child, she would still not want to be one of those people, the person who walks by when they could pause, the person who could ask after another and keeps silent. No. That is useful to exactly no one.
Be of use, she tells herself.
Do something.
It is an uncomfortable amount of time before she speaks, but when she does she raises her eyes to meet his, swallowing further discomfort, nerves, and aught else in favor of something that is equally honest but more worth expressing.
"I'm so sorry," she tells him and it's a bit of a whisper for all that they are alone and the door closed and the formality of a desk between them. Whatever the man has done, whatever he has become, his childhood was never his fault, and she apologizes for that now, in great part perhaps because she understands there is no one else to do so.
He looks up and stares at her for a moment when she apologizes- it's not surprise, exactly. Nearly anyone who would hear that story would be shocked. However, he was expecting it to be followed up with 'but do you really think that explains everything you've done? Does that make up for it?' There's no reason for someone to feel this sorry for something they didn't do themselves.
"Thank you," he replies sincerely, his voice quiet in order to match hers. He hopes, idly, that he hasn't broken her already, because while that's one of the harder stories to listen to, what he'd done...well, it wasn't any less violent. He decides to try and keep going until she might find her voice. That's what this is mostly supposed to be, anyway, right? At least at first. He talks and she listens.
"I went looking for my father eventually, to try and figure out where I went so wrong. I thought family might tell me. Neither my uncle or my father apologized- my father didn't even remember who I was. Of course, he had the same ability as me--" He stops suddenly, and sits up in his chair (he hadn't realized he'd been sinking into it. "Wait. Have I told you about abilities?"
Digestion is not a quick process for Emma Pillsbury and at the moment her processing has slowed to a near stop. There is too much to know and too much of that knowing involves directly bending her thoughts to the point of complete, utterly, and unforgivably changing the last vestiges of her own truths. Things like this should not happen to people if for the simple fact that then they make people like Gabriel Sylar.
She wonders about unfairness and the way her heart palpitates most uncomfortably.
"No," she answers because it is the bare minimum of a reply, because she can still continue trying the impossible task of ordering her internalization while fitting herself to the role she so brashly advertised the other day. Her hands previously on the desk have dropped to being folded in her lap and they thread tightly, almost painfully. "Do you think," her shoulders are stone statue stiff, "Do you think that...um...that those are important to..." she bows her head and then forces herself to look up again. "...to who you are?"
Of course, he tamps that down fairly quickly, knowing how tense she is right now. But he can't help it, the question has such a resounding answer. He bites his lip for a moment, trying to figure out how to put it. "I'd say that they are the single most important thing defining who I am today. In fact, I seemed to spend most of my recent years trying to define myself entirely by these abilities."
His eyes flick up to her, and he makes sure his voice is soft and quiet, and as far from accusatory is possible- before he speaks. "We can stop here, though, if you'd like. I think I just covered more than most people would in several sessions. I'm fine with taking things slow- after all, I've got all the time in the world."
His claims of patience are, of course, a total lie. However, he doesn't want to overload Emma on the first day, not enough to scare her off completely from this. He's hoping he hasn't already crossed that line.
The laughter makes her jump. Literally. This gives way to shaking she hides by keeping her hands busy and turning her head as if she is looking at different things with new interest, only to actually stand up when he speaks to her, making several rounds in the office itself before pausing near a bookshelf. She leans and tries not to make it look obvious as to how much she may or may not be letting it support her as she folds her arms softly in front of her.
"Well, um, yes, there...no, wait," she holds up her hands suddenly. "Not, 'yes' as in stopping, it's just, I'm not sure that, uh," she gestures without direction, brow furrowing as only it does when one is grasping for words one cannot immediately find. "...you might be thinking of it a bit differently than I...than I meant." There, she manages, barely, and then presses both palms together though not in prayer so much as she does so to then point them at Gabriel Sylar, as if she is directing herself toward him. "I mean that, if, okay, you say you think that you spent a lot of time defining yourself by these, these abilities, right?" She nods for him. "But what I wanted more to know is, what I meant, was....are they important to who you are now. Not how they made you or...didn't make you but how they define you." Pause. "Right now." And she blinks, holding her breath and hoping some of that made sense even as she looks away and walks stiffly behind her desk again, sitting a bit heavily.
Any smile left over from the laughing dies off at her words. It's not a question he wants to think about, much less answer. It's so much easier to think about what had happened, rather than how he is right now.
After a very long pause, he shakes his head. "They're the only good parts about me," he says quietly, with a sigh. He's looking down at the desk again, instead of keeping eye contact. "I've done a really good job of destroying everything else."
"I see," she says with all the quietness of a page turned or a pencil line drawn across paper and watches him go from smiling to not smiling to avoiding all in the space of a glimpse. It is a fast change and it speaks of backing up in some ways and standing stock still in others, but she makes no assumptions, nodding just once and letting the silence get comfortable with them before she breathes--maybe a little too deeply--and speaks again.
"Well," and she pauses because it is like she has to regroup after every exchange of sentences. "I think that you...if you really want to..." and here she stops rather than pauses, her brow furrowing again as she cuts herself off. "Actually, okay, how about this: what do you want? Do you...want forgiveness? Or to be different than you are in some...way? Do you want something else entirely?" The motivations of this kind are most important and she knows she's been remiss in not addressing them more quickly, but that she is still in this office with him at all is so very nearly as much as she can manage.
He doesn't answer her for a long time, instead frowning thoughtfully at his hands. He was almost embarrassed to answer this one, knowing that what he wants is going to sound not only stupid, but impossible.
So he starts with the easier surface reason. "I want to stop destroying everything I come into contact with," he says, still staring at his knuckles. His hands are laced together and those knuckles are white with how hard he's squeezing. He looks up at Emma, finally, and that face just reminds him more. Maybe that's why he decided to open up so quickly- the memories were too strong. "I don't want to be alone."
He tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling, forcing back the stinging in his eyes. "I've always felt alone, always separate. And a time traveler told me once that I die alone, as well. I made that- it wasn't true." Peter and Claire were both there. He wasn't alone, they were there, even if they were there to kill him. "But I still feel..." It was nearly impossible to describe. "If I had that connection to people, if I wasn't so separate from everyone, maybe I wouldn't be so...insane."
I see reiterates itself in her head but not aloud, aware of how patronizing repetition can fast become. When he leans away she watches with renewed acuteness, her own eyes widening a little when she notes the recognizable motion of a person willing something to leave them; perhaps the instinct to break apart. His words travel through a series of loops and while she follows their patterns she also follows the tones that wrap around them, her hands lifting from her lap to the desk edge again, her features unsmiling but not unkind.
She has options here, too many, so she goes with her own instinct, tries to treat the situation--if only for a moment--as if the terrible things this man has done do not exist and the problem presented is the problem itself and not necessarily the person. This is faulty but it is coping and it may be the only way that Emma can make it through to another session with Gabriel Sylar. For her own sake she must compartmentalize to the point of separation and she does it thoroughly, silently, a slapdash reconstruction.
"I can sympathize...with that," she confesses. "No one wants to be alone," and she feels a strain at her mouth that confuses her until she realizes it is the barest of smiles. Separate. Separate. Separate. "And it's true that everyone needs someone. Admittedly for some people it's just a handful of others but, you know, some people need much more than that. If you...if you've never had either one, then it could very well be that things are possible that...that you don't even know of, if you could...could integrate yourself in such a way that would allow you to try." What she does not mean is 'be normal' and what she does mean has no simple phrasing to suffice, but she bows her own head now, fingers lacing together again.
"But from what you're saying...what you mean, what this is sounding like to me is," and she levels wide eyes at him, pointed and calm for the first time. The separation is thorough. "...you just want to be normal."
He watches her closely as she speaks, but the last revelation causes him to glance at the ground and to the side, before finally looking up at her.
"Yes," he admits, now wringing his hands. "I thought that if I couldn't be normal, I could at least be exceptional. And then I became a murderer. But- all I wanted-" I just wanted Chandra to be happy with me, proud of me. All I wanted was for someone to say I was impressive, or maybe even just okay.
He swallows as he remembers. "There was someone here that promised to take away one of my abilities, the most harmful one. Mine. But she never ended up doing it. I didn't realize it before, but- I'd probably be better without it." He speaks about it as if this were blasphemy. However, now that he's considered it, he thinks it might be true.
This kind of change, however, this limb she has rushed herself out onto brings her to a near painful point of wringing her hands and flitting nerves thinly calmed by reinforced breathing techniques. With her back to the door, she finds herself more surprised than normal when a voice she has heard before--a voice she has been thinking about for the better part of a night and a morning--startles the counselor into spinning around abruptly enough that she knocks over a mug of pencils. It rolls off the edge of the desk, breaking and scattering its contents as well as its constitution.
"Mr. Sylar." Pause. "Hello, oh, um, sorry, that's just uh..." and the human part of her says it's silly to apologize about a mistake, much less to a killer, but she frames the moment in this ordinariness for her own sake more than his, stooping to gather the pieces and the pencils while she continues speaking, keeping much of her thinking to herself, thoughts that go along the lines of 'I can't do this' and 'I'm not qualified' and 'But he seems so genuine' and many, many repetitions of 'Oh dear'. What actually escapes her is a flutter of pauses and 'um' and 'hm' intermittent between her words. "This will, be....just a second, a second I mean, yes, well...sorry, just one moment. Please." Thus far, she has not looked at him directly except for the initial eye-contact which, by guesstimate measure, lasted an eighth of a second. Maybe.
Reply
"Don't worry about it. I used to do that with my cup all the time, except it usually had coffee in it," he says with a nervous smile. "I'm sorry I startled you. I'm trying to be more obvious in my movements, but I still have a ways to go...obviously."
He takes the few tiny pieces, picks up the microscopic ones with his telekinesis and discretely places them in his hand, then looks for a dustbin. "You have a very clean office," he notes, and it's obvious it's a compliment from him. He's extremely tidy himself, so he recognizes it in others.
Reply
"Oh, well, um," she fumbles, verbally and physically. "That's not good, well of course you know that, ah," she cuts herself off, focusing on ridding the floor of what pieces she and her newest patient have not already discarded. That done, she presses her own mouth into a thin line as she stands again, facing him with the respectful posture of a stranger way in over her head, which, as it happens, she very much is. "Thank you," she tries to start again, referring to the help he has given and the compliment he has offered her. Through the fishing net of nerves she lives with daily, amplified by the absurdity of most situations and conversations she has found herself in here, she tries to figure the sense in what she has agreed to do.
There isn't much, and what she longs to call sense she has a rather distinct feeling is something more like her own inability to back out of a corner.
A small voice says to her, no one starts bad and she cleaves to it like the lookout hanging onto a lighthouse beacon. It will have to do. She holds out her hand for a proper greeting--something she would not do at all if not for the unnecessarily large but polished push-bottle of hand sanitizer on a corner of her well ordered desk.
Reply
He's absolutely delighted to see her holding out her hand- if he's correct, that might be a big thing for her. He's noticed the sanitizers and the very sterile nature of her office. He reaches out and fairly lightly shook her hand, and while doing so gives her a big, grateful smile. "I really do appreciate you taking me on like this. I'll understand if you want to stop at some point, but- even giving it a try is more than most would do."
Once he's let go of her hand, he steps back just a bit and looks around, anxious. "You know, I've read so many books on the subject of psychiatry, but I have no idea how we're supposed to begin something like this," he admits, a little sheepishly.
Reply
"No, no, I, um," a good start, but this is normal for her, sometimes, "...no, I said that I would and that...hasn't changed, I..." she stops, hands now pressed together and she lowers her head, takes a breath. "Well, um, you could...please sit down, if you don't mind," she tells and asks all at once with doe eyes framed by a brow that tries not to furrow too transparently. She does want to help people. She thinks if she can help other people, then she can help herself, though anyone asking her if she needs help would be met with a questioning look. It is easier to admit it to herself than to others though, and the redheaded high-school counselor from Ohio thinks this might always be the case. "There isn't a particular way to start, but it's important to start at all," she says and thinks it would be too handy and disturbing to have pamphlets for rehabilitating serial killers. "And you've done that, so..." So? "...good job." He is not five, he is not even fifteen, she reminds herself while rearranging papers on her desk rather needlessly; everything was already in perfect order before. "...anyway, um, ah....I mean, is there anything you wanted to begin with?" Placating herself by turning the question on her patient, she feels the strain at her mouth lessen a little.
You said you would do this. And anyway, it may not be such an excellent idea to go back on one's word to someone who has killed...however many people before. That thought gets shoved down under a stack of mental weights, lightning quick. It has to for her to get through this, and she settles her hands in a folded manner on the edge of her desk while she waits for his answer.
Reply
Sylar fidgets in his seat a little, because he always has a hard time sitting still- unless he's working on a piece. Emma leaves the decision to him, and while he would like to go into his current concerns, he figures he should at least offer her something of a background. "I should probably start at the beginning," he says, leaning forward and lacing his fingers together. "I didn't know about this until last year, in my world, but I think it's colored my actions all my life, so you should probably know about it." He breaks any eye contact he's had at this point, looking down at the desk. "When I was very young, around five years old, my parents took me to a diner. At that diner, my father essentially sold me to my aunt and uncle for cash- apparently, my aunt had really wanted a child but was unable to have one. Immediately after, my father left the diner- I saw my mother fighting with him in the car, and he killed her. He dumped her in the parking lot and left."
His voice had gone very flat, and he finally looks up- just a glance before looking back down at his hands. "I don't remember much of anything before that- or after that, for quite a few years, to be frank. My uncle left us within the next couple of weeks and my aunt raised me on her own. She pretended she was my mother, never told me about what happened." He shakes his head. As angry as he'd gotten over finding out about that deception, she was still the woman who raised him, and he missed her fiercely. "She was the only family I had. I took over my uncle's watch shop when I grew older, thinking it might bring my 'father' back...or at least make him proud of me when he returned." Sylar smiles wryly at that statement. "As you might imagine, he never came back."
Reply
How many times in his childhood, she wonders, might someone have stopped for him and changed his world? How many times?
And again though he is not a child, she would still not want to be one of those people, the person who walks by when they could pause, the person who could ask after another and keeps silent. No. That is useful to exactly no one.
Be of use, she tells herself.
Do something.
It is an uncomfortable amount of time before she speaks, but when she does she raises her eyes to meet his, swallowing further discomfort, nerves, and aught else in favor of something that is equally honest but more worth expressing.
"I'm so sorry," she tells him and it's a bit of a whisper for all that they are alone and the door closed and the formality of a desk between them. Whatever the man has done, whatever he has become, his childhood was never his fault, and she apologizes for that now, in great part perhaps because she understands there is no one else to do so.
Reply
"Thank you," he replies sincerely, his voice quiet in order to match hers. He hopes, idly, that he hasn't broken her already, because while that's one of the harder stories to listen to, what he'd done...well, it wasn't any less violent. He decides to try and keep going until she might find her voice. That's what this is mostly supposed to be, anyway, right? At least at first. He talks and she listens.
"I went looking for my father eventually, to try and figure out where I went so wrong. I thought family might tell me. Neither my uncle or my father apologized- my father didn't even remember who I was. Of course, he had the same ability as me--" He stops suddenly, and sits up in his chair (he hadn't realized he'd been sinking into it. "Wait. Have I told you about abilities?"
Reply
She wonders about unfairness and the way her heart palpitates most uncomfortably.
"No," she answers because it is the bare minimum of a reply, because she can still continue trying the impossible task of ordering her internalization while fitting herself to the role she so brashly advertised the other day. Her hands previously on the desk have dropped to being folded in her lap and they thread tightly, almost painfully. "Do you think," her shoulders are stone statue stiff, "Do you think that...um...that those are important to..." she bows her head and then forces herself to look up again. "...to who you are?"
Who you were.
Reply
Of course, he tamps that down fairly quickly, knowing how tense she is right now. But he can't help it, the question has such a resounding answer. He bites his lip for a moment, trying to figure out how to put it. "I'd say that they are the single most important thing defining who I am today. In fact, I seemed to spend most of my recent years trying to define myself entirely by these abilities."
His eyes flick up to her, and he makes sure his voice is soft and quiet, and as far from accusatory is possible- before he speaks. "We can stop here, though, if you'd like. I think I just covered more than most people would in several sessions. I'm fine with taking things slow- after all, I've got all the time in the world."
His claims of patience are, of course, a total lie. However, he doesn't want to overload Emma on the first day, not enough to scare her off completely from this. He's hoping he hasn't already crossed that line.
Reply
"Well, um, yes, there...no, wait," she holds up her hands suddenly. "Not, 'yes' as in stopping, it's just, I'm not sure that, uh," she gestures without direction, brow furrowing as only it does when one is grasping for words one cannot immediately find. "...you might be thinking of it a bit differently than I...than I meant." There, she manages, barely, and then presses both palms together though not in prayer so much as she does so to then point them at Gabriel Sylar, as if she is directing herself toward him. "I mean that, if, okay, you say you think that you spent a lot of time defining yourself by these, these abilities, right?" She nods for him. "But what I wanted more to know is, what I meant, was....are they important to who you are now. Not how they made you or...didn't make you but how they define you." Pause. "Right now." And she blinks, holding her breath and hoping some of that made sense even as she looks away and walks stiffly behind her desk again, sitting a bit heavily.
Reply
After a very long pause, he shakes his head. "They're the only good parts about me," he says quietly, with a sigh. He's looking down at the desk again, instead of keeping eye contact. "I've done a really good job of destroying everything else."
Reply
"Well," and she pauses because it is like she has to regroup after every exchange of sentences. "I think that you...if you really want to..." and here she stops rather than pauses, her brow furrowing again as she cuts herself off. "Actually, okay, how about this: what do you want? Do you...want forgiveness? Or to be different than you are in some...way? Do you want something else entirely?" The motivations of this kind are most important and she knows she's been remiss in not addressing them more quickly, but that she is still in this office with him at all is so very nearly as much as she can manage.
Reply
So he starts with the easier surface reason. "I want to stop destroying everything I come into contact with," he says, still staring at his knuckles. His hands are laced together and those knuckles are white with how hard he's squeezing. He looks up at Emma, finally, and that face just reminds him more. Maybe that's why he decided to open up so quickly- the memories were too strong. "I don't want to be alone."
He tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling, forcing back the stinging in his eyes. "I've always felt alone, always separate. And a time traveler told me once that I die alone, as well. I made that- it wasn't true." Peter and Claire were both there. He wasn't alone, they were there, even if they were there to kill him. "But I still feel..." It was nearly impossible to describe. "If I had that connection to people, if I wasn't so separate from everyone, maybe I wouldn't be so...insane."
Reply
She has options here, too many, so she goes with her own instinct, tries to treat the situation--if only for a moment--as if the terrible things this man has done do not exist and the problem presented is the problem itself and not necessarily the person. This is faulty but it is coping and it may be the only way that Emma can make it through to another session with Gabriel Sylar. For her own sake she must compartmentalize to the point of separation and she does it thoroughly, silently, a slapdash reconstruction.
"I can sympathize...with that," she confesses. "No one wants to be alone," and she feels a strain at her mouth that confuses her until she realizes it is the barest of smiles. Separate. Separate. Separate. "And it's true that everyone needs someone. Admittedly for some people it's just a handful of others but, you know, some people need much more than that. If you...if you've never had either one, then it could very well be that things are possible that...that you don't even know of, if you could...could integrate yourself in such a way that would allow you to try." What she does not mean is 'be normal' and what she does mean has no simple phrasing to suffice, but she bows her own head now, fingers lacing together again.
"But from what you're saying...what you mean, what this is sounding like to me is," and she levels wide eyes at him, pointed and calm for the first time. The separation is thorough. "...you just want to be normal."
Her tone says enough: correct me if I'm wrong.
Reply
"Yes," he admits, now wringing his hands. "I thought that if I couldn't be normal, I could at least be exceptional. And then I became a murderer. But- all I wanted-" I just wanted Chandra to be happy with me, proud of me. All I wanted was for someone to say I was impressive, or maybe even just okay.
He swallows as he remembers. "There was someone here that promised to take away one of my abilities, the most harmful one. Mine. But she never ended up doing it. I didn't realize it before, but- I'd probably be better without it." He speaks about it as if this were blasphemy. However, now that he's considered it, he thinks it might be true.
Reply
Leave a comment