March 2007, "Truth and Consequenes"

[ellectrical]

This is another person you probably wouldn't need to know for most jobs – that guy who can fill an urn with someone's ashes. Her father returns with it while she's clipping her sling back into place, and hands it off to her before telling her to get in the car. Elle doesn't show it, but she's too glad to be doing something to be annoyed that it only seems to be grunt work.

Her father drives now, and he doesn't need to say where they're going. She leans against the window again, tapping idly at the urn until he tells her to stop. But she can't scratch at her arm (maybe that's why he gave it to her), so her fingers still fumble and twist over the urn before her father pulls up in front of the Bennet house.

"You're staying here," he tells her, taking the urn out of her hand. She nearly protests, but instead slumps into the car seat and mumbles something about not wanting to go, anyway.

They both know it's not true.

She doesn't watch as he enters the house, instead occupying herself by poking at the bandages on her arm, or when trying not to do that, fiddling with the radio. There's nothing she leaves on for more than a few seconds, unless it comes in as static; then she alternates the volume until she gets bored.





She snaps the radio off as soon as her father reappears, which doesn't take too long. Apparently, the Bennets didn't want to talk much, but the urn is gone, and that's all that matters. Elle straightens up in her seat as he pulls the driver's side door open and climbs in again.

"The next twenty-four hours are critical," he tells her, after slamming the door. "I want you to keep an eye on Claire."

Elle nods, not looking over to him, but instead turning her gaze to her sling."It'd be easier without this thing on my arm," she grumbles, reaching over toward it again. "It itches like a motherfu-"

"And I thought my little girl was tough."

His nearly sarcastic tone is what catches her, and it's why she suddenly looks to him. Her hand falls to her side, and it takes her a moment to speak, to even think of a response -

"I am, Dad," she snaps. "But I was shot. And my body doesn't heal itself."

This time her father's voice is more patient, but just as excruciating. "I'm sorry you're in pain, but none of this would've happened if you hadn't lowered your guard."

It's the first time they've talked about it; he hadn't said a word to her the previous night or that morning. She can feel something like nausea rising in her stomach, but she doesn't look away from him.

"How was I supposed to know that Bennet teamed up with West the Flying Boy?"

"Excuses don't change outcome, Elle." She doesn't flinch away, though she knows this tone. It's the closest her father ever gets to really yelling. "You need to accept responsibility for what's happened. Can you do that?"

But that's not enough.

"Can you regain my trust?"

My father would never let that happen.

That's not really the question. Her father doesn't know it.

That it's not just that she can't remember, it's that there are spaces in her mind, one thing goes to another and she didn't think about how they don't match up until now, until he'd said it. Everything made sense with the fluidity of a dream, but now it's as though she woke up and realized it couldn't happen that way, it doesn't make sense, the connections are missing, like someone –

The question is really – can she regain his trust when he no longer has hers?




your father was leading the



"Sure, Daddy. I'll watch the cheerleader."


[OOC: Most dialogue lifted from Heroes 2x10, "Truth and Consequences."]