Bennet and Bishop (Prologue, 1/?)
Fandom: Heroes (early Season Three)
Spoilers: 3x01/3x02
Characters: Elle Bishop, Noah Bennet (HRG).
Warnings: None yet, unless you count the fact that Elle is more than a little crazy.
A/N: Um. So I've had this idea (since season 2, actually) of Elle and HRG as partners. Then I saw the Season Three opener and suddenly I had a reason for them to become partners.... hence this fic. Elle's POV. Feedback is appreciated.
(Elle's head is one scary, scary place to be....)
Prologue
She sits on the plastic seat of a swingset in an empty children’s playground, watching the wind blow bits of paper and empty candy wrappers around. The sky is a dark, steely grey, threatening to rain any moment, but she hasn’t noticed. The only thing she can think about is What do I do with my life now?
Her daddy is dead, murdered by the person she was supposed to capture. And now Sylar is virtually unstoppable and Elle has nothing. No family, no job, no friends, nothing to do.
She wants to find Sylar, and kill him because he killed her daddy.
She can’t - she won’t - think about what she’ll do afterwards. A small voice in her head tells her it’s because she doesn’t know when, or where, she’ll find him, or even if she’ll survive the encounter. But the little voice is drowned out by the other voice, the louder one, the one that tells her that he will be IT, her big fight. The louder voice says that revenge is everything. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life.
The voices in her head talk of sense and revenge and blood and moving on until they blend into a mess of sound, fractured syllables that make no sense. She doesn’t know how long she’s been sitting on the swing.
She is brought back to the here and now by a touch on her shoulder and a figure in front of her. She looks up from the ground, and wonders why Noah Bennet would be wanting anything to do with her any more. After everything she did to his family… really, he shouldn’t want anything to do with her. Not after what happened with his precious Claire. She tried to help him, though. A pitiful attempt at making things right. After she found her daddy… D-E-A-D… Noah Bennet was the first person she went to. Let him out of that cell and tossed him a gun, all business and bravado and hiding the pain even from herself.
He knows so much more than her, about the Company and what the Company does and the… people like her… Somehow it makes sense that she went to him, instead of the dozens of others in the Company. Sometimes she looks at him and thinks what her life might have been if he had been her father. What it might have been like if she and the oh-so-perfect Claire had switched places.
She notices that he’s sat down on the swing-seat next to hers. He’s looking straight ahead when he speaks.
“Elle. You’re not looking so good.”
“My father’s dead and I’ve got nothing left. Of course I’m not looking good.” She snaps at him almost automatically. The years-long habit of hiding her feelings is a tough one to kick
“Sorry. For what it’s worth.”
She doesn’t look at him. Instead she looks down at the ground - her own shoes, an old pair of converse she pulled on without even thinking about it, and his smarter loafers. “What do you want?”
“When Sylar escaped, a half-dozen others escaped at the same time.”
“I know.” She does. Angela Petrelli made sure she knew that it was her electrical discharge that freed them.
“The Company’s trying to find them. Probably me, too.”
“So what are you doing?”
“I’m one of the few people who knows enough to catch them. I’m looking for them. I’m going to hunt them down and stop them from hurting anyone.”
“Noble. What’s this got to do with me?”
Now he looks at her. She looks up, slowly. “I need a partner. Someone who can handle themselves if it gets dangerous. Interested?”
She can’t hide the surprise from her expression. “You trust me enough for that?”
He shrugs. “You let me out of that cell. It’s more than anyone else at the Company did.”
“Are you going after Sylar as well?”
“If I’m right, he’ll be going after the escapees as well. We’d either have to get to them first or find him and let him lead us to them.”
She considers this. “Best plan would be to get there first. If we let him lead we run the risk of him taking their abilities before we get there.”
Noah looks at her questioningly. “ ‘We’? You’re in?”
“I’m in.” She looks out at the clouds and the empty playground. “I have a score to settle.”
He nods. “Thank you.” She’s not sure why he feels the need to thank her. She’s only entering into this arrangement so that she can find Sylar and get him alone and put a bullet through his skull. She should say something now… “How do we start?”
(Good thing to say. Businesslike, simple. Doesn’t betray her real purpose.)
He smiles. “We pay a visit to an old friend.” He looks her over. “Maybe… tomorrow. Get yourself sorted out. Then we start.”
She nods. “Then it begins.”