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.
The wringing of his hands alerts her as much as the grasping tone of his voice, as if half of what he means to say is still caught up between his mouth and his mind. She is familiar enough with that problem. Still, she keeps her own silence as he continues, making mental checks and question marks where appropriate and her brow arches automatically, a tilt of her head in conjunction with it as she folds her hands once then again with the other hand overlapping, bowing her head.
"Well," this is her default precursor to just about anything, "They say that there are some people who...who lack a moral code most people keep common between them. These people tend to be the, you know, serial killers, and um, arsonists, and so on. They make their own kind of idea of what is acceptable and what isn't, without adhering to regular ideas about good and bad---right, and wrong. But that doesn't seem to be you." And she pauses because she needs to breathe more than anything before going on, one hand gesturing very slightly, almost as if it simply wants to keep from being still. "You have remorse, or..." she hurries not to assume, "Something like it, or you want to have it, at least, or, well, these are just things I'm guessing, observing, off the top of my head." Almost, she sounds apologetic and she can feel herself ticks away from a heart attack. Her nerves have handicapped her over the years and she's let them, to an extent, so she breathes again, slower, forcing down a calm. Lower lip worried under teeth for a second, she then looks up with the suddenness of a bomb dropping---a delicately spoken, vaguely agitated, redheaded, clean-oriented, wishes-more-and-more-every-second-she-was-dreaming...bomb.
"I think you should find something else to do." She catches how blank that sounds and adds, "You know, um, not different from killing---well no, definitely different from that but what I mean is that you know that. I mean different from, from watch...fixing or making, whatever it is you...were doing. With watches. Pick something new. Something fresh, like, uh, a reinvention." At this point she knows she is more than way in over her head for the fiftieth time and she winces without realizing she does so, and it is almost like saying this is the best I can come up with for now when she glances away, standing up to tend the orchid on a lower shelf.
"They say when one door closes, another opens. But, maybe, sometimes, what you need is..." she prunes a leaf with scissors from goodness knows where. "...what you need, maybe, is something more like a window. Or a completely different house of doors and windows." Her metaphors always seem to be lacking, but she tries, digging her heels down into the carpet like a ship weighing anchor in the middle of an ocean.
"Something else?" It's both a novel idea and something he's not sure he can even consider. The attention paid to Emma lessens considerably as he tries to figure out the possibilities. He was only ever good at watchmaking, but it was all he tried. But- he shakes his head.
When he speaks however, he sounds uncertain, perhaps even timid. "Timepiece restoration is the only- the only thing I've done my whole life, I don't know what else will-" He cuts himself off as other possibilities, other exacting, precise careers present themselves. There's plenty here that will distract that compulsion for gaining knowledge, isn't there? "Even if I could pick something, do you think I'd be able to get someone to hire me?"
He lets out a slightly nervous chuckle and shakes his head, almost as if he'd rather not have Emma answer that one. He doesn't want this little bit of a door to get slammed in his face already, to pull from Emma's metaphor. "So you think that going back to my roots- that might not have been the best move, then? I needed something different?"
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."
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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.
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"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
"Well," this is her default precursor to just about anything, "They say that there are some people who...who lack a moral code most people keep common between them. These people tend to be the, you know, serial killers, and um, arsonists, and so on. They make their own kind of idea of what is acceptable and what isn't, without adhering to regular ideas about good and bad---right, and wrong. But that doesn't seem to be you." And she pauses because she needs to breathe more than anything before going on, one hand gesturing very slightly, almost as if it simply wants to keep from being still. "You have remorse, or..." she hurries not to assume, "Something like it, or you want to have it, at least, or, well, these are just things I'm guessing, observing, off the top of my head." Almost, she sounds apologetic and she can feel herself ticks away from a heart attack. Her nerves have handicapped her over the years and she's let them, to an extent, so she breathes again, slower, forcing down a calm. Lower lip worried under teeth for a second, she then looks up with the suddenness of a bomb dropping---a delicately spoken, vaguely agitated, redheaded, clean-oriented, wishes-more-and-more-every-second-she-was-dreaming...bomb.
"I think you should find something else to do." She catches how blank that sounds and adds, "You know, um, not different from killing---well no, definitely different from that but what I mean is that you know that. I mean different from, from watch...fixing or making, whatever it is you...were doing. With watches. Pick something new. Something fresh, like, uh, a reinvention." At this point she knows she is more than way in over her head for the fiftieth time and she winces without realizing she does so, and it is almost like saying this is the best I can come up with for now when she glances away, standing up to tend the orchid on a lower shelf.
"They say when one door closes, another opens. But, maybe, sometimes, what you need is..." she prunes a leaf with scissors from goodness knows where. "...what you need, maybe, is something more like a window. Or a completely different house of doors and windows." Her metaphors always seem to be lacking, but she tries, digging her heels down into the carpet like a ship weighing anchor in the middle of an ocean.
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When he speaks however, he sounds uncertain, perhaps even timid. "Timepiece restoration is the only- the only thing I've done my whole life, I don't know what else will-" He cuts himself off as other possibilities, other exacting, precise careers present themselves. There's plenty here that will distract that compulsion for gaining knowledge, isn't there? "Even if I could pick something, do you think I'd be able to get someone to hire me?"
He lets out a slightly nervous chuckle and shakes his head, almost as if he'd rather not have Emma answer that one. He doesn't want this little bit of a door to get slammed in his face already, to pull from Emma's metaphor. "So you think that going back to my roots- that might not have been the best move, then? I needed something different?"
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