Elle skipped down the halls of Level 3 the next day. She was on warden duty, a punishment from Boss Lady Angela because of her poor performance on a bag-and-tag the week before. At every cell, she looked in to make sure a captive was still there. More often than not, some sort of supernatural attack struck the window: fireballs, sound blasts, and the like. She barely flinched at any of it, behind what she believed to be “everything-proof” glass. Quite a few lecherous comments struck the window, too.
Next on the roll was a man of some sixty years by the name of Andrew Waitr. He looked up at her and grinned vacantly, commenting, “You have two auras.”
“That’s great, Gramps,” she replied, checking his chart and seeing that his ability was “aura absorption.” She frowned at this, not quite able to pass off his comment to senility.
“What do you mean two auras? Like two different types?”
“Oh, yes, a big one and a little bitty one.”
“Oh, and what does the big one do?”
“Oh, it just sits around you, telling me if you’re happy.”
“And am I happy?”
“You’re something like happy.”
“And what does the little one do?”
“Oh, it just swims around in your lady parts.”
She would have thrown the clipboard at his window, but as it was on a string attached to the door, it wasn’t going to reach. But his words struck a strange chord in her brain, making her briefly wonder if he could perhaps predict what had occurred to her the night before before writing it off.
Halfway to the next cell, her brain still tingling, she stopped dead, muttering, “Shit.”
: : :
Inside her father’s office—now Angela’s office, really—fortunately unoccupied, Elle browsed the bookshelves until she found the item she was seeking: an anatomy textbook. She flipped through the pages, filled with notes and doodles until she found the reproductive section. Between notes about ability inheritance in Angela’s writing, she found the page she needed. Her short attention span was the reason she was looking up this information in the first place, and even now the long stream of words tested her patience. But the book confirmed her suspicions on how babies were made.
Too shy to just buy a pregnancy test, Elle roamed the halls in search a few particular people. She received confirmation from an inmate with x-ray vision, an agent which pheromone detection, and a touch telepath. She was in an indelicate situation.
It made sense that since Gabriel was indestructible, every part of him would be. Invader-attacking white blood cells and enough electricity to down an elephant were no match for his little swimmers, one of which that dutifully completed his mission.
She banged on the window of his cell. He studied her for a moment and gave her a strange, knowing smile.
“I’m pregnant.”
“Yeah, I can see how that would work.”
She launched a ball of electricity at the window. “Not funny.”
He continued grinning. “My apologies, Elle, I wasn’t prepared. Though, I don’t think prophylactics and high-voltage electricity are a good combination. I can see some painful occurring. I guess you weren’t taking any preventative measures either.”
“Okay, you don’t give hormonal treatments to a sociopath… And so beside the point!” She stormed off.
Gabriel continued waxing, “I mean these are extreme measures, but it’s not like a vasectomy would stick. There’s also tubal ligation, but where you gonna find a doctor crazy enough to root around inside you with metal instruments…”
: : :
“I got you something.”
She was about to start her rounds on Level 5. As much as she would have liked to ignore him, she spun around. He was holding out a paper clip.
“You knocked me up, better have something better than that.” She turned away and started towards her first inmate, but a hand stopped her.
He held out the stupid paper clip again. She tapped it and a spark struck it. He hand flinched but not his face. He floated it into the air, unbending it with his finger and rebending it into a circle about half and inch in diameter. He let it fall into his hand, where it promptly melted into a circle of silver goo. He lifted the liquid again and refroze it. It felt upon his palm once more, where the dull grey became brilliant gold.
Her face dropped in a mix of nervousness and fury.
“You’re kidding me, right? I hate you.”
“You don’t hate me,” he corrected immediately.
“I don’t hate you,” she confirmed, “why don’t I hate you? Is it because I’m crazy?”
“You don’t hate me because you’re done with that type of grief. You burned through all your anger. And I’m not the man who killed your father anymore.”
“I wish you would stop using your ability to figure out our relationship. It’s not fair. Especially since I had my capability to comprehend interpersonal skills electrocuted out of me.”
He wrapped his arms around her and she pressed her cheek into his shoulder.
“You obviously want me to say ‘no,’” she related, “I mean there’s no diamond.”
He pulled away and pulled a diamond out of his pocket. He held it above the gold band, where it hovered as tiny threads of gold separated from the ring and wrapped around the gem.
“Happy?”
“Yes.” She questioned him, “How did you buy the diamond? Use my dead father’s power to turn a bunch of trash to gold?”
He said yes. For all his sins, he wasn’t a liar.
She said yes.
: : :
They married at the courthouse the next month.
“Who would come to a wedding ceremony for us?” he had asked.
“Good point,” she had agreed.
She wore a white dress even though she didn’t have to.
“Call me a traditional girl. Plus, when’s my tummy ever going to be this flat again?”
She sent him a shock when they kissed after the judge declared them husband and wife.
“Every time, Firefly?”
“No,” she replied, “I can resist. Just hasn’t happened yet.”
Gabriel turned the first joint of his right ring finger to gold.
“That’s kind of permanent, you know,” she warned.
“Marriage is supposed to be.”
“Do me,” she replied, extending her hand. “I mean, the gold ring thing.”
“I know you meant.” A thin ring of gold appeared around her finger.
“Don’t be so sure,” she replied demurely.
Concerning the ring, she never regretted the decision, just her impulsiveness.
: : :
Noah Bennet flatly refused to allow the child to be named after him. Gabriel replied he didn’t have a say in the matter. The man had helped save his soul and he was honoring that. Bennet refused to forgive Gabriel until his daughter did. And Claire never would. The release of the formula started a war between people with abilities. Claire became too busy dyeing her hair an unnatural shade of brown and wearing leather bustiers and pointing guns in a way that would make her daddy proud and generally just being a pawn of her grandfather.
Gabriel had no intention of getting in the middle of his parents’ epic marital spat.
Noah and Sandra Bennet would later become victims of the war. Kind-hearted Sandra felt that three years was too long to hold a grudge and told Gabriel he could have the house as long as he promised to protect his young son. He swore he would take care of Mr. Muggles, who took right to little Noah, feeling the need to protect him from strange visitors.
Slowly he started refusing to use his powers. Of course, it got him fired.
“Protect your son, Gabriel,” Angela had told him. It was a proclamation.
So, he stayed home with Noah while Elle became the breadwinner in the family, working tirelessly for the Company. She got no preferential treatment from her mother-in-law. If anything, her psychological need for approval reemerged.
The hunger never left him, but the less he used his powers, the better. That didn’t stop him from using his cellular regeneration every time he got a paper cut or burned his finger. It was an automatic response to the sting. And the telekinesis was such a part of him that it was almost impossible to not mentally catch the lamp when Noah knocked it over or to grab an item just out of reach. And he could just as easily stop his mechanical intuition as he could stop breathing. When mantle clock fell of the ledge and a gear axle was bent, each delayed tick was like a punch in the stomach. And who can really deny fixing their two-year-old son’s prized fire truck? He suspected Elle bought her son so many mechanical toys to annoy her husband.
He fought back cleverly, though. A super-bulk pack of rechargeable batteries and a few dozen batteries-not-included toys guaranteed that she’d never have five minutes alone without their energetic son coming in, handing her a couple of dead batteries and a plea to “hold them.”
And truth be told, the hunger became easier to manage. With the formula out, everyone with enough cash on hand could receive the injection. For Gabriel, it was like being in an overcrowded buffet; too much selection caused him to lose his appetite. And he quickly lost the appetite especially for his wife’s powers. Yes, he loved her very much, but he realized that he began to appreciate her abilities. As his body became accustomed to healing itself, his nerve endings became numb to pain, with the exception of his wife’s shocks. There was no numbing the manual stimulation of his nerves. Taking her powers risked losing any sense of feeling, like he had done to Claire. He’d fix it if she’d just let him get within a hundred feet of her without trying put a bullet or two into the back of his head. He knew she was adopted but somehow she inherited her dad’s trigger finger.
As of age three, young Noah displayed no abilities. He curiously survived being gestated in the equivalent of an industrial power generator. But he didn’t inherit his father’s or his cousin’s healing. He still got boo-boos and the sniffles. It would have helped though. Gabriel lost count of the number of times he caught Noah creatively deactivating any childproofing: unlocking his stair gate or removing outlet covers.
He took his first steps at eleven months. He was of average height and weight, splitting the difference between his tiny mother and tall father. His hair was sandy blond and his eyes green. He didn’t walk through his crib bars or jump on top of the counter in a single leap. When he threw blocks at the wall, the chipped the paint but didn’t become embedded in the drywall. He didn’t melt his sippy cups or freeze his apple juice. None of his nightmares or preschool art projects came true. He was just their little Noah.
: : :
He awoke, like many mornings, to the small zap on his nose. The clock told him it was 5:30.
“Elle, it’s early. And it’s Saturday.”
“Gotta go to work.”
“Tell Detskij I said ‘Hi.’”
“Probably not. Bess hates you.”
“I’m making waffles.”
“Well, I’ll have some when I get back. Go back to sleep.” She leaned over, laying her hand on his bare chest, and gave him a peck and a spark on the lips.
“Every time, Firefly?”
“Not every time. I can resist. Just hasn’t happened yet.” She adjusted her pant suit once last time and added, “Enjoy your quiet morning with your son.”
“In spite of the six thousand manuals on child-raising in the bookstores, child-raising is still a dark continent and no one really knows anything. You just need a lot of love and luck—and, of course, courage.” –Bill Cosby, Parenthood (1986)
