Sorry about the long pause between updates. Maybe when the school year ends in a few more weeks I can be more consistent. I'm really trying here people!
Enjoy!
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"I thought we'd do something different for lunch today."
Gabriel didn't look up from his work. "I could really just go for a sandwich."
"I'm tired of eating subs in here every day. I want to try something else. It's not like you're busy today or anything."
He sighed and looked up. "What did you have in mind?"
She smiled and stuck out a hand. "Come on, I'll show you." They walked down the street and around a corner, fingers laced together. "See, a new restaurant in our neighborhood and you didn't even notice."
Gabriel was indignant. "I noticed. I just didn't want to come eat here."
"What's so wrong with pizza? You eat it whenever I order take out?"
He shook their joined palms. "Maybe I just like spending time alone with you."
Grace smiled and planted a kiss on his cheek. "That's very sweet. But if I have to eat a sandwich in your shop every day, insanity will eventually set in. Not good."
"Pizza it is then."
The door gave a small ding when they entered. The shop was small, but it's warm furniture and mirrors made it feel cozy. There weren't many guests at the tables, and Gabriel and Grace sat down near the back. Peter stood near them, undisturbed that the mirror above their heads lacked his reflection. He'd been in Grace's memories for a long time now, though he knew that it was still only one night, with Grace wrapped protectively in his arms. The differences between the Grace here and the Grace he knew were subtle. Sure they looked almost identical, as the events here took place no more than two years ago. But the general happiness that the Grace he saw sitting here possessed had been stripped away. He'd seen it immerge here and there, but it wasn't the same. Grace had always talked about things ending, that nothing could be counted on. Maybe that was what was happening.
The service was prompt and the food must have been excellent since it disappeared so quickly. They ordered dessert, and instead of their young waiter returning, a man in his early thirties placed the bowl on the table. "Ice cream for two?"
Gabriel took the bowl gratefully. "Thanks."
"Not a problem. If you don't mind me asking, how was the service? The food?"
"What, do you own the place?" Grace gave him a kick under the table.
"Well actually, yes, I do."
Grace indicated a nearby chair. "Please, sit down."
"Thanks, I've been on my feet all day. Do you know how hard it is to start a business?"
Gabriel seemed indignant. "Actually, I own one."
"Get out of here. Is it nearby?"
Gabriel winced, as though the man should have already known. "Yeah, yeah, just down the street. A watch shop."
"You know, I think I've seen that before." The owner patted him on the arm. "It's nice when one local business owner comes out to support another."
Gabriel smiled, but Peter could see the animosity behind it. "It sure is."
"John?" A woman sidled up to the table, a small child on her hip. "The delivery truck is here. Would you go sign?"
"Sure, sure. Be right back." The man got up and rushed to the bar.
"My husband and I are very proud of this place. Did you enjoy your meal?" The woman asked, shifting her squirming baby around.
"We did. Are." Grace smiled and touched the baby's head. "What's his name?"
"Her name is Angie. Do you want to hold her?"
"Um, I don't know…"
The baby reached out toward Grace, her little fingers grasping. "She likes you." A phone wrung. "Just for a minute?"
"OK."
"Great." The woman shifted the child down and left.
The baby lolled in Grace's lap a bit, turning her small head toward Grace. "Hello Angie. I'll try not to drop you."
Gabriel laughed, "Yeah, let's try not to do that."
"I don't…" Angie grabbed her hair, "I haven't had much time with babies. Kinda a foreign species here."
"You're doing fine." The baby laughed and smiled, turning to play with the silverware on the table. Gabriel watched the pair for a minute, Grace's slender hands rubbing the child's back in small circles. "I'm going to get you that ring some day you know."
"No hurry. I already said yes."
"I love you."
"Alright then, sorry about that. How was my little girl?" John and his wife returned to the table, the woman sweeping up her child to hold close to her face. The little girl reached out to her father, who took her happily, spinning her around. "Thank you, thank you for watching her."
"Our pleasure."
Gabriel smiled a bit and said in a rather uncharacteristically peaceful tone, "You are a lucky man, Mr.…"
"Turner. And this is my wife, Anna."
"You are lucky, Mr. Turner."
"Yes, I know I am." Grace and Gabriel stood up. "I hope that I will see you again."
Gabriel shook his hand. "You will."
"Yes, I know that we will…" Grace took John's hand, and she froze, grasping his palm firmly her eyes fixed in the distance. The three other adults looked at each other, confused and a bit uncomfortable. Suddenly, Grace dropped the hand and ran from the store.
"I, I'm sorry she must not be feeling well."
"OK. Go after her man. We'll see you later."
Gabriel ran outside. It was a beautiful day, sunny and absent of clouds. He shielded his eyes against the brightness and scanned for Grace, jogging across the street to a small park to look further. Back, hidden by a cove of leafy trees, on her knees, holding her stomach, he found her. There was a pool of vomit near her knees.
"Grace? What in the hell happened back there?" She didn't respond, and as Gabriel approached he could hear Grace babbling to herself. "Gracie?"
He touched her shoulder gently, and Grace wrenched away, scrambling until her back hit a tree, her eyes wild and glazed with fear. "Stop touching me. Please just stop touching me!"
Gabriel's eyes softened, and he couched to be closer to Grace's eye level. "OK, no more touching."
A tear ran down her face. "Why are you doing this to me?"
"What am I doing to you Gracie?"
Grace's eyes cleared and she looked Gabriel, as if realizing his presence only then, and threw up violently to the side. She whipped her mouth on the back of her hand. "We can't go back there. Ever."
Gabriel scrunched his nose. "Why? I thought the food was good, but if you threw up, then I suppose…"
"He's a bad man."
"How do you know that?"
"I recognized a tattoo."
"What tattoo?"
"On his arm."
Gabriel shook his head, "He didn't have any tattoos on his arm."
"Fine. I recognized his face."
"You're just lying now. I hate being lied to."
Grace pushed a piece of hair behind her ear, "I just know, alright. I just do."
Gabriel rose to his feet. "You just know, you just know," he said, mockingly. "You say that all the time Grace. What in the hell does it mean?"
"I can't explain it."
"No, you won't explain it." Gabriel said angrily, his fingers curled into fists. "There's a difference."
Grace stood as well, balanced against the tree. "Whatever you say."
She took a couple steps forward and faltered. Gabriel caught her instinctively and looked down at her face. "Please Grace; please tell me what's going on."
"It's difficult. Complicated."
Gabriel hugged her close. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Whatever it is, don't you think I deserve to know?"
"I don't know if you're ready to know."
"Don't you trust me?"
Grace pulled away and looked at Gabriel's face for a long time. Inside his head, Peter was screaming.
"Take me home. I'll tell you everything."
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They showered together, he washing her hair tenderly. Once they were in clean clothes and curled on the couch she spoke.
"I've always been different…"
She spoke about her ability to touch and glean information from objects, how it had been a gift and burden of hers since childhood. She spoke about how her parents had both had abilities and that had caused her to move around a great deal. She also maintained that both were dead.
She left out a lot of information, Peter realized.
Through it all, Gabriel's eyes were on her, barely blinking. He held her hand but it was a soulless gesture.
"I know," Grace sniffed at one point, "that this all must seem totally crazy to you."
"Actually," he brushed her face, "it all makes sense to me."
Then she talked about the abduction, leaving in little details that Peter had never been told, climbing into Gabriel's lap as the descriptions got more painful. Horrible details of inhuman things done to a girl younger than Claire. Near the end of her explanation Grace brought up a detail that Peter had forgotten almost all about.
"So one got away?"
Grace nodded into his chest. "I…I killed the two and escaped while one was gone."
"And…" Grace looked up at him, waiting while he put together the pieces. "And the man at the pizza place today…John…that was him?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
She dropped her head again. "I've never been wrong."
"So, what do we do about it?"
"I don't know. What can we do?"
Out of Grace's line of vision, Gabriel opened his mouth to say something, but reconsidered, staring at the wall with oddly dead eyes.
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He could hear the rustling of cloth before his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the bedroom. Someone was writhing in bed, arms and legs struggling against the covers as if afraid of being smothered.
Without warning, a loud, gut wrenching scream broke the night. Peter could see a form rise suddenly in bed as another leaned over and switched on a light. Grace was sitting there, desperately picking at the sheet tangled around her legs, trying to escape.
Gabriel rubbed his eyes, "Grace?"
She looked at him uncontrollably, and began to scratch her arm. "I hate you!"
Immediately Gabriel scooted foreword and wrapped his arms around her from the back, each leg on the outside of her own. He forcefully took her arms and held them so she couldn't hurt herself any further. "Grace," his tone was even, "Grace it's time to calm down now."
"But…"
"Shhhh, I'm not them. You know that."
"Gabe?" her voice was shaky and small.
"Shhhh, it's alright." He released her arms and wrapped them protectively around her shoulders and stomach. Grace latched one hand onto each forearm and held on fiercely. They stayed locked like this for a minute, until Grace's breathing became less raged. "Do you want to talk about it?" Grace shook her head. "Why not? Eventually you need…"
"No."
"Grace, you aren't a child. Ignoring what happened won't change what happen or make it go away."
"Why do you want to hear the details so badly?"
"I just want to help."
Grace let go of his arms and twisted around until she could see his face. "You do help. You put up with me, my strangeness."
He touched her forehead tenderly. "Uniqueness. So unique. How do you do it?"
"I've already told you about that."
"Not everything."
Grace sighed. "I don't want to talk tonight." She began to scoot forewords on the bed, callously pushing away the hand Gabriel had placed at her waist. "Maybe I should go and sleep on the couch."
He let her go a bit too long in Peter's opinion, until her painted toes were nearly on the floor. "Grace…" She looked back at him, starry eyed, his Adam's apple bottle bobbing. "Let's get some sleep." He held out a hand calmly. "Please."
She considered his fingers, but ultimately pulled herself under the covers again, leaving Gabriel to lie on his back, not touching her. Eventually, her hand reached across the desert between them, and he shut off the light.
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She stared at the wall, unblinking. There was a book in her lap, but she had not turned the page in hours. In fact the only movement she'd made was to turn on a small side lamp and pull a blanket over her legs against a chill fall evening. There was a small band on her finger, a diamond glittering in the middle, which she began to play with absently as the clock turned into the 2 am hour.
Grace didn't jump at the opening and shutting of the door, barely turning her head to say "Where were you?"
Gabriel shook off his shoes in the entryway and ran a hand through his hair. "At the shop, like I said I was."
"Liar."
He was taken aback. "Excuse me."
"I know where you were."
He came to stand in front of her, "Enlighten me then."
"It's the same place you were at on Tuesday."
Gabriel came a little closer, blocking her exit by positioning his body between the couch and coffee table. "Have you been in my memories again? I don't like that."
"I've told you, I can't control this all the time."
Gabriel sighed and flopped himself into a chair, rocking slowly as he looked at the shadows on the ceiling. "Do you know what he talked about?" Grace's jaw tightened, but she said nothing. "We were having a beer, and this guy just keeps going and going on about how people can change. The miracle of growth and rebirth. 'When I was younger,' he said to me, 'when I was younger I did a lot of stupid stuff, stuff I regret, like you wouldn't believe. I hurt a lot of people man.'" Gabriel leaned forward in the chair to look at Grace. "He's talking about you."
"I know."
"It makes me sick."
"Gabriel…"
"No."
"Look, you know how I feel about this. How angry I am, how confused. But I told you my decision, and it's final. Whatever he did is in the past. He has a new life now. A business and a family. It's not my place to take that away. People can change."
"No Grace, no. People don't change. They adapt with what they have, but the bad is still there."
"But not used."
"Not for long."
Grace shook her head. "I won't take that little girl's father away."
"Don't let your daddy issues hamper your safety."
She put hand on her chest. "My safety? How in the hell do you think he's going to recognize me? He doesn't know me from Adam. Besides, the statutes of limitations must have run out long ago."
Gabriel leaned forward, laced hands resting on his knees. "What about the other people who could potentially be hurt by this guy. What about them?"
"Potential Gabriel, potential."
"Some people don't deserve potential or the privilege that comes with it." The comment was short and low, but it carried a gravity that chilled the room.
Grace tried to evoke a light tone, but her voice faltered. "In the end Gabriel, there's nothing we can do. Nothing legal at least, and I won't have you going off and doing something that's half cocked and completely stupid."
"I just want to protect you."
"You are."
"It's not enough."
"You aren't Superman."
"I…" he locked her in a steely gaze, and Grace looked back confused. "I'm going to bed. You coming?"
"Yeah, in a minute."
He nodded and walked off. But Grace stayed in the now cold livingroom much longer than a minute, staring out the window, turning the engagement ring on her finger. After the bedroom light had been turned off for a while, she spoke quietly.
"I hope you're not right dad, I really do."
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Peter could smell smoke through the open window before Grace awoke from the sirens. She sat up in bed and listened for a minute before turning and saying, "Gabe do you hear…"
But he wasn't there.
Grace swore under her breath, scrambling to pull on shoes and a sweatshirt. She jogged down the street, past the darkened shops, shielding her eyes at the blaze that was erupting from a husk of the pizza parlor. There were fire trucks desperately trying to subdue, but the damage was done.
"You. Grace." Grace scanned the line of people behind the police ropes for the source of her name. There, barely contained by a police officer she recognized the woman from the restaurant and trotted over. "You're Grace right, Gabe's fiancé?"
"Yes." Grace stared at the baby in the woman's arms. She was screaming and crying, but her mother seemed oblivious at the moment.
"Have you seen my husband?" Grace shook her head. "Because he was supposed to close up. He called and…and he said that he was going to have one more drink with Gabe…and I just can't find him here…I…I went home and he's not there…he's not."
But Grace wasn't looking at her anymore. Her eyes were trained in the crowd, a single man watching the building burn and burn.
So she ran, fleet footed and without breathing through the hollow streets, and up the empty stairs back to the apartment. She packed quickly, into an already started bag Peter recognized from the floor beside the bed they slept in now. Grace only stopped for a moment to let a sob escape into the chill darkness. But she dug her fingernails into her hands as if to remind herself that there was no time. No time.
Next Grace let herself into the antique dealership where she worked. Or more correctly, she broke in with high precision, another evidence of her genetic heritage and fatherly love. Back on the top floor, next to a long stair case, Grace stood on tip toes and knocked down a small box, opening it expectantly. But nothing was inside.
"Looking for this?" Grace cringed and looked up. There was Gabriel, looking more like Sylar now, standing a few feet away, a sizable wad of cash in one hand. "I wasn't expecting to find this much. Or at least hoping I wouldn't. Because this much money," he threw the paper at her, and Grace tucked her bag closer to her body, "this much money means that you have been planning for a while doesn't it."
"Let me go Gabriel. Let this end."
Gabriel took a step closer to Grace, and Peter step instinctively between the two. "But I have let it end, Grace."
"What?"
He looked at her like she was a confused child. "You're past. That pain, it's gone now. I made it right. Made it better."
"Make it better! How can you say that! Or think that! Did you see his wife and child? Did you? How are things better for them? Huh?"
He took another step, straight through Peter. "I had to, for you."
Grace squeezed her eyes shut. "Was he even still alive when the place burned down?"
"I had to be sure he wouldn't bother you again. I can take care of you Grace. I love you."
Grace shuddered and opened her eyes. "Leave me alone."
"What?"
"Let me go, and don't come looking for me. Pretend I never existed."
"I can't do that."
"I won't go to the cops, tell anyone about this. But please just let me be."
"How long Grace," he was dangerously close to her now, "how long have you been planning to leave me?"
"Not long."
He pinned her against the wall and whispered in her ear. "So many secrets you keep hidden in there," Gabriel traced from her hair down to her cheek. "Just tell me this and I'll let you go."
Grace squeezed her eyes shut for a moment of fear, then opened them with steely resolve. "There is something dead inside of you. I've known it all along." In a flash, Gabriel choked Grace against the wall, but she didn't stop talking. "But the stench from all that's rotting inside of you. It's too much for me to smell now."
He cocked his head to the side. "You bitch."
"I never loved you."
It was a cheap shot, but it distracted Gabriel enough for Grace to knee him sharply in the side. He dropped her, and she scampered to the top of the stairs before he caught her. "Love?" He taunted, backing Grace to the edge of the top most step with a hand on her forearm. "Love isn't about feelings or emotions. It's about power." With a single swipe he backhanded Grace, sending her tumbling down the stairs. From the bottom she looked up at him with a bloody lip and cradled broken arm. "And you my dear, for all the strength you demonstrate," Gabriel cooed deliciously slow as he sauntered down a few steps, "just adore having someone else take care of you. Don't you? A little domination? Maybe I should have tied you up when we fu…"
Thankfully Gabriel's speech was cut off by a timely fall through the floor. A step had given out, under Grace's urging, and Gabriel had whipped out onto a table on the floor beneath. Still curled at the bottom of the staircase, an arm outstretched, Grace threw up blood, but eventually managed to get to her feet and limp from the store. She paused on the sidewalk, the headlights of the cars catching the sweat and blood on her face, illuminating the strain it took for her to hold her bag.
There was a crunch behind her, and Grace whipped around, to see Gabriel outlined in the window, a deep gash punctuating his brow. He took a single step forward and the pane of glass in front of him blew out, forcing Gabriel to cover his face. Peter also heard a definite crack as Grace double over in pain and her breathing became ragged. A rib or two had probably snapped, maybe punctured a lung, he guessed.
Grace watched with horror as Gabriel immerged from the rubble and stood propped up in the doorway. "Come home with me Grace." He held out a hand. "Come home with me right now, and we can forget about tonight."
Grace turned and looked up the street. A single car was rattling their way. "No. You aren't good enough for me."
"Fine," Gabriel said flatly. "Be alone in hell for all I care." Suddenly Gabriel lurched forward, a knife in his hand.
Grace gave him one last look before stepping into the path of the oncoming car. The vehicle slammed on its brakes, but it still hit Grace with some force, knocking the young woman back several feet. Almost immediately a man leapt from the vehicle and crouched next to Grace, demanding "What in the hell did you do that for?"
"Please…" Grace sputtered, turning her head to indicate the almost irradiated antiques store "please don't let him kill me in my sleep."
The man looked up, and to his astonishment Peter recognized Noah Bennett. They both looked back at the shop in slight horror.
But no one was there.
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Peter let his eyes stay closed even after he was awake the next morning, giving his brain time to adjust to all the new information. He didn't want to wake Grace if she was still asleep. And, if he was being honest, he didn't quite know what to say to her anyway. Hadn't he almost begged to learn more about her past, more about Sylar? Yes, he had and now…well…
Grace was right. Just the knowledge didn't make anything better.
Reluctantly, Peter opened his eyes and looked around the room only to perceive that he was in fact alone. Panicked, he jumped from bed in the full sunlight and searched the room. Her bag was absent as well.
Grace was gone.
To Be Continued…
Next Time…What does Mr. Bennett know? How will Grace come home?