Feel (Chapter Seven)
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Claire/Elle
Summary: Six months later....
Chapter: 7
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
Authors note: I know everyone was impatient for them to meet up again so I have made this a flash forward of sorts :P.
Six months later…
Elle walked through the rubble that littered the store floor, kicking it aside to give herself enough space to wade through. Looking around she tried to see where her partner had gone, sometimes, well most of the time, she thought that he was more trouble than he was worth.
She really didn’t know why she was still with him other than out of habit. He was like one of those ones that you just cant be bothered breaking, like cleaning up the bathroom after six months…it’s just easier to let it get worse and worse and hope someone else will deal with it eventually.
He was also a warm body, and he listened when she talked. That was more then she would have if she decided to go off on her own again. She really did hate being on her own.
Finally she saw a shadow hovering in the distance, across the far side of the room. Elle picked up her pace and got to him just as he was standing over some poor human, who was gasping for air and wheezing on the ground. She grabbed Sylar’s arm lightly, careful not to spook him.
It was times like this that she was actually glad that he adored her as much as he did, because it meant that she actually had some leverage over him. If she didn’t have this advantage she would have been dead by now, along with a lot of other humans along the way.
“Lets go…we got the money - there is no need for this,” she said softly guiding him away, seeing his pupils were dilated and wild she felt a small shudder through her body. The old man clutched at his chest and Elle felt a pang of sympathy, wanting to leave him alone as soon as she could.
He shrugged her off, “I see the fun police have come back again”, he said dryly, “What has happened to you Elle, you used to be so exciting to be with and now your moral and boring.” He folded his arms and made a face like a child who couldn’t get his way.
Elle returned his glare with equal ferociousness, “So exciting is killing old defenseless men is it Sylar? I must have missed that life lesson”. She stepped in between him and the man, “We’re going. Now.”
He shrugged and the grin that appeared on his face was menacing, but he turned and walked with her towards the two bags full of cash they had gotten from the safe. They picked up one each and made their way out of the store.
Elle turned and looked at the man still cowering on the floor, but thought that leaving him alive was about all she could manage today. It was getting harder and harder to even do that these days. He was getting worse.
She slid in to the passenger seat as he jumped over the car door, once they had reached the front of the store, he was always the exhibitionist.
They had both thrown their bags in to the back seats, and Elle slid her sun glasses off her head and on to her face, leaning down in her seat and closing her eyes, she was over this. He wasn’t.
“That was a great take,” he said, his voice practically buzzing with excitement.
“Yeah,” she replied softly, not really caring.
“I think we should hit a bank this afternoon,” he said tapping his fingers incessantly on the steering wheel.
“Why?” Elle asked, exasperated.
“Why not?” he countered and Elle opened her eyes to look at him, “We have more money that we know what to do with! There is no point to this anymore” she gestured around them, to the mess they were leaving behind in their wake.
“Well…”, he looked straight at her as he drove, putting his foot on the gas as he did, he liked to try to scare her, “We could go ability hunting, I could teach you…we could be more powerful than ever…”
Elle broke eye contact with him and turned towards the window looking at the blurry shapes going past, “Why?” she repeated, feeling like an spoilt child, but not being able to stop herself, “Why bother? So we can get more money we don’t need? its not going to make you happy Sylar. There’s never going to be a point where any of this finally fulfills you.”
He moved his eyes back to the road, thoughtful. “There will be a time,” he said nodding to himself, as if reassuring his own mind that there would be.
Elle was curious, “When will that be?”, she asked, genuinely interested. “When Noah finally tracks us down and I can take my time disposing of him”, Elle rolled her eyes, “You don’t even know that he is tracking us.”
He looked at her incredulously, “There is someone hot on our trail, and who the hell else would be following us around state to state? Who else would be stupid enough to try” Elle shrugged, “I guess your right,” she said and then continued, “But if you would stop sneaking off to try and steal people’s abilities then I doubt they would care about us. Can’t you leave well enough alone?”.
He shook his head and laughed in to the wind, “Half the fun is leaving them a mess to clean up. They made us like this Elle and now they are going to have to deal with the consequences”.
Elle returned her focus to the window, and sighed. She was over this life, and she just needed to get away.
The mention of Noah brought up the same old memories, which plagued her every day anyway. She had never really gotten Claire out of her head. It had actually gotten worse as the days past. She felt lonelier; more isolated….more shut off.
She didn’t like to think of her too much as she knew that the younger girl would be happy and content in her perfect life, with memories of them being but a faint forgotten memory. She didn’t like to be thought of like that because Claire meant so much more to her than anything that could be confined to a faded memory.
Sylar had been persistent in his pursuit of Elle and she had finally given in…given him her body but no more. It was nice to be wanted, if nothing else. Rejection hits you hard, she now realized, and knowing that there is someone who worships the ground you walk on can sometimes is comforting, even if it’s not the one you want.
She knew he was getting annoyed at her emotional distance, but he was so self absorbed that he was usually distracted pretty easily. She would never offer him any more then her flesh, as try as she might to deny it, her heart belonged to someone else, even if she didn’t want it, it would always belong to Claire now.
Gritting her teeth as Sylar laid his hand on her thigh she turned away from his touch, she was not in the mood to pretend today. She was too tired, and thought of the younger blonde consumed her.
She hoped that Claire didn’t know what she had been doing, but she doubted that she would care either way. And that’s what hurt the most.
# # #
Claire shuffled papers on her desk as Mark and Andrew argued over whether to have pizza or Chinese take out for dinner. It was infuriating sometimes, to be the youngest and still feel like she had to mediate these men who behaved like boys. She was only 18 but it felt like so much more time had past. She felt as though she had aged decades in these past few months.
She tied her long her back in to a tight pony tail and answered the phone sitting on her desk on the first ring, “Hello?” she said, unable to keep the weariness out of her tone. She had been learning all the administration duties during the day and had physical training as soon as she got off work, it was exhausting but it was paying off. She had advanced quicker than any other agent in the company’s history. She was a prodigy of sorts apparently. She just felt tired.
The receptionists too perky voice made its way down the line, “We have another one for you Miss Bennet”, Claire felt her heart thump abnormally hard, “Where?” she said breathlessly, “LA” she responded quickly, knowing the drill, “Two jewelry stores, a bank and a car dealership”, Claire nodded and immediately felt ridiculous, “Any fatalities?”, she nearly held her breath.
“No. None this time, but one store owner saw the two of them using their powers and heard them arguing. Angela thought it might be helpful for you to talk to him”, Claire slammed down the phone and grabbed her coat, throwing it on as she addressed her partners, “They hit again, and there is a survivor that Angela wants us to talk to.”
The two men looked at each other and sighed, they started a game of paper, scissors rock to see who would have to make the trip with Claire. She always went, but there was no need for the three of them to all make the trip. They had stopped bothering to tell her to take a break, because she never did.
Andrew lost with paper and grumbled under his breath as he followed Claire out the door, her short legs were out striding him as she almost ran to the car. She wanted to talk to someone who had seen Elle, she wanted to know what she had said, what they had fought about. She needed to know everything. It had turned in to her obsession.
# # #
Claire waded through the rubble piled on the floor through a path that someone before her had cleared, and then she ducked under the yellow police tape that surrounded the interior part of the store. The place was a mess, it looked much worse than the last one.
Each was getting progressively worse actually. She assumed that Sylar was getting more violent, more volatile. Every one thought she was insane for insisting that Elle wasn’t the one responsible, but she didn’t care what they thought of her. She didn’t care what anyone thought of her these days. Well anyone, bar Elle.
She secretly hoped that Elle would think that she was more grown up when they finally met again. She hoped that maybe she would regret leaving her. In any event, she had to know what had happened. Both what had happened to make her take off and what had occurred in the intervening months.
She had moved in to her own apartment a few months prior, with the help of Angela, of all people. Noah wasn’t happy, obviously, but she was home for dinner at least once a week and spoke to Sandra almost every day.
It was just hard to learn about her father and what he had done and still see him in the same light that she once had. Still idolise him. He was a perfect father; he just wasn’t a perfect human being. He was actually a pretty questionable human being. And that freaked her out a lot.
She hadn’t been able to bring her self to read all of his files. But two she had to read and access with the guise of background research were Sylar and Elle’s. He had played a heavy hand in their lives. Sylar's was obvious; he moulded him in to what he had become. Elle’s was more subtle, but just as disgusting, if not more so because of the feelings Claire held for her.
The testing, the neglect...the exploitation. She had cried the first few times she had read that file. Aching to comfort the girl locked in the room alone and scared. It was had to believe that no one had taken pity on her. The number of people that she saw daily as they poked and prodded her and not one of them thought to treat her like the child she was. Especially not her ‘father’.
Claire gritted her teeth; they shared that in common too. They both had fathers they couldn’t trust. At least Noah loved Claire. That was more than Elle had ever gotten from hers.
She couldn’t help but think how easy it would have been for her to be that girl. And it could have been her locked up like an animal, but for a twist of fate. A twist which was kind to her, cruel to Elle.
Considering everything, the fact that Elle was who she was, was even more amazing. She loved her more now, if that were even possible. She knew that the older woman wouldn’t like her knowing, but it wasn’t pity, it is awe. Claire wouldn’t have survived. That much she knew. She needed to tell Elle how she felt, and she hoped that it would change something, but even if it didn’t she just wanted Elle to know, she deserved that much.
Straightening her jacket up she approached the man who was sitting up on a raised block of cement that had been strategically placed there as a make shift bench. She smiled softly at him, hoping to make him feel at ease and it worked as he smiled back immediately. Sometimes it helped being a young blonde, it made people trust you.
“Hello Mr Yates”, she said as she approached him and took his outstretched hand, “I’m Agent Bennet”, She looked back to see Andrew doing background work and sighed. He hated interviews, so she always had to fly solo on them.
“Agent Bennet,” he said with a nod at her, She sat down on the block next to him, “Are you feeling better today sir?”, she said with genuine concern, worried about the stress this must have put on him. The agents who arrived prior to him had given him some story about stress and a mild heart attack causing his hallucinations, or something along those lines. Sometimes it was funny what people would believe to avoid the truth.
“Oh, much better thank you”, he said brightly, “Now I’m just thankful to be alive,” the police man who had been standing their pitched in, “Yeah sir, you are really lucky. Those two psychopaths have been on a rampage across the country. I can’t believe they didn’t kill you, you should invest in a lottery ticket,” Claire shot the man a look, indicating for him to back off. The downside of being a young blonde was of course, that the other officers didn’t respect you...
To her surprise the elderly man jumped in, “Oh he would have killed me, he wanted to”. Claire winced, that wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but she got out her note pad and pen.
“Yeah, the man with the bushy eyebrows, he had this crazy look in his eyes. I thought I was a goner.” He nodded and got a wistful look on his face as he recalled the prior events.
“What happened to stop him?” she prodded, her pen waiting expectantly on top of the paper.
“She did. The little blonde,” Claire felt her heart beat quicken exponentially but she bit her tongue, not trusting her own voice. The police officer took care of that for her, “The blonde?”
The older man nodded enthusiastically, “Yes. Pretty little thing, she came over and stood between us. Told him he wasn’t to hurt me that they had what they had come for.”
The police man let out a low whistle, “Wow, that’s unusual”
The man shrugged, “She seemed quite apologetic, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was coercing her. Little thing like that can’t be doing it of her own free will. Surely not”
He nodded to himself, convinced, “Yes she looked at me as they were leaving and it was like she wanted to come back but decided against it, she’s my guardian angel, that one”
Claire just sat dumbly nodding, before remembering to write when she saw Andrew approaching. She tried to control her breathing rate, tried to stay calm. Andrew leaned down when he finally reached her and whispered in to her ear, “Witnesses place them at a hotel thirty minutes south. This could be what we’ve been waiting for. They could still be there. Do you want to send in SWAT?”
Claire stood up so fast she had a head spin, “No we’ll go. They wouldn’t be able to handle this. SWAT would just aggravate them. We can handle this.” She focused on breathing as she headed towards the exit, towards their car.
He looked at her dubiously, “We can?”
She nodded and suppressed a smile, “Yeah we can get through. This can end peacefully”
He shook his head and smiled ruefully, “I really hope you know what you’re doing”.
She nodded affirmatively, “I do. I know exactly what I’m doing”.
Authors note: Sorry I know, I’m mean. But this chapter was already really long, and obviously they meet up next update! Ps, I love all your reviews. I read and appreciate every on. Keep writing them, and I’ll keep writing this! xoxox