author's notes: set after 3x04 - I Am Become Death. based on this video. originally 4 separate parts, but i put them all together here. let me know what you think.

disclaimer: i own none of these shiny playthings.

NEVER TOO LATE

(1)

She's sleeping.

He's painting.

"Mo-ommy! Mo-ommy!" she hears the sounds of her son's voice, far off in the distance, and then the bed is shaking from him jumping up and down where Gabriel normally sleeps.

But he's painting now.

Noah jumps again, and falls down on his knees. "Daddy's making waffles and Uncle Pete is here too." He puts his head down on Elle's belly and looks at her with his big brown eyes. "Are you coming mommy? Are you?"

She's vaguely aware that she's dreaming, that this happy family feeling gurgling up inside of her should feel out of place, because she hasn't felt like this in months. But still, Elle chuckles at her boy's insistence, not willing to let go of the illusion, his little head slightly bobbing as she does. "I'll be right down, sweety." She strokes his hair, and starts tickling him as she gets up in bed.

"Mommy no-o-o," he squeals in bursts and roles back on the bed, but keeps taunting his mom to continue. She kisses her boy one last time and lets him go, the silence returning to the bedroom, just Noah's feet thumping on the floor as background noise. She smiles to herself and runs a hand through her hair.

His fingers move over the canvas automatically; thick paint brushes moving swiftly over outlines and corners, forming images that are so clear in his mind. Future images, painful to watch, but he doesn't realise it yet. He's been painting for months, canvas after canvas, searching his mind for answers, for something, anything to make sense of it.

He's in a dream landscape, looking around at a future that grows grimmer by the second. It makes no sense, and he doesn't find any answers, not really, just horrible images of both of them giving up, sinking further away in depression and debilitating mental states. Textured blue tears and blue sparks to accompany them for her, and orange flames surrounding him. But that was more past then yet to come.

She makes her way down the stairs, toys scattered over the steps and than the floor but she dodges them easily. "Mommy hurry up, or your waffles will get cold!" little Noah exclaims, and she smiles weakly, watching her son sit on a stool by the kitchen island, Gabriel behind it making waffles. She approaches slowly, carefully. Unlike her son told her, Peter is nowhere around.

The microwave bleeps, and Gabriel moves to grab the tiny cup of maple syrup. "What's the magic word?" he asks, his voice funny, and Elle crinkles her nose as she smiles at Noah. She knows she's played this game before, or heard it somewhere after something else happened, something terrible, something numbing.

"Abracadabra," Noah answers shyly.

"He gets that cheeky mouth from you, you know that right?" Gabriel smirks and looks up at her. Elle smiles back at him but doesn't answer, just winks at her son playfully and then strokes Noah's hair again.

She misses it, the feel of his hair between her fingers, his skin, his smile.

The colours blend and he realises she's upstairs dreaming, tossing and turning in bed.

Blood, there's blood on her hands when she looks down at them.

Blood, red paint on his hands and he knows what it means. It's his blood, his son's blood. It's death, and destruction and a nuclear explosion. It's red anger, and feelings of revenge not acted out on.

It's fear. Of losing again, of her heart breaking again, of a wedge being driven between her and someone she loves.

He's painting, and when he's done and the colour returns to his eyes, he screams her name and rushes upstairs.

She's sleeping, and when she wakes up with her heart rate spiking, she screams her son's name and locks herself up in the bathroom.

(2)

"NOAH!" she shoots up in bed and her eyes search the room, out of focus, spinning around her. She looks down at her hands, clean, no blood. It was a dream, again, just like all the others that came before. But this one was different, something changed, the illusion had shown its true nature, she had known it was a dream.

"Noah," she whispers, feeling how her heart hammered in her chest, and then she closes her eyes.

"Mommy, when are you coming home?" Noah asks her over the phone, his voice full of anticipation and hope, and he turns in his daddy's arms, looking at Gabriel with big eyes. Gabriel smiles at his son, his excitement infectious.

"Soon, baby boy," Elle smiles even though her son can't see it. "Just a few more days and I'll be back at home and I'll never leave again. I love you," she adds, and asks Noah to put his daddy on the phone.

"Everything alright?" Gabriel asks her, and some sort of worry starts sinking in for her. He knows why she makes the trips to New York, to visit Bennett's grave, to be reminded of everything she's lost and everything good she's gained because of him.

"Yeah, I'm okay. I'll be on the plane tomorrow and then I'll be home."

She remembers closing her cell phone, and walking through the busy New York streets. And then suddenly it dawns on her, the thing that had been missing in her dream, and the phone conversation as well. Gabriel hadn't told her he loved her. Since losing Noah he's made sure he said it every day, just to say it, to make sure she knew that he was there for her, going through the same thing she was.

But this time it was missing, just like back then. And right after that she lost the most precious thing in the whole world. Because of what Peter meant to Claire, because of what Gabriel did to Claire, took away everything that was most precious to her, and the dark-haired cheerleader deemed it fit to act out her revenge on the new family living in her old house.

Elle gets up from the bed, and moves into the bathroom. "ELLE!" she hears Gabriel shout from downstairs and then him storming up the stairs but by the time he reaches her, the bathroom door is already locked. "Elle? Elle, please open the door," his hand clutches around the doorknob, but he resists the urge to immediately use his powers. The future isn't set in stone, maybe he can talk her out of it. "Elle please, let me in," he leans his forehead against the door and closes his eyes.

"Yeah, I'm okay," he remembers how light she sounded about it on the phone, and he thought it was odd she didn't say more. But he allows her the unspoken thoughts and sentiments, "I'll be on the plane tomorrow and then I'll be home."

"Okay," he says and watches Noah standing right in front of him, smiling at him, "We'll be there to pick you up," he puts down the phone and grabs Noah by the arms, lifting him up and throwing him over his shoulder, Noah squealing with laughter.

"Elle," he calls her name again, still holding the doorknob, "Let's just talk about this. You don't... we can make it through this, together. Please open the door," his voice is soft, but thick, laced with sorrow. He feels tears welling up.

To his surprise the door opens, Elle's eyes bloodshot from crying, and he sees the water of the shower running behind her. His terrible future vision flashes before his eyes again, but he takes a breath, because she's right there, still alive.

"I..." she starts, but realises that she really has nothing to say. Gabriel takes a few steps towards her, and wraps her up in his arms, a sob escaping her when he puts his lips against her forehead. They can make it through this, they have to. He knows that losing her will be the end of him.

"Daddy, you didn't tell mommy you love her!" little Noah is still laughing when Gabriel puts him down on the sofa, out of breath.

Gabriel takes a breath and looks at his son, "She knows buddy. She knows."

(3)

"Why can't we just move on?" she asks softly, looking at him briefly before putting down her head on his chest again. They're on the bed, in each other's arms for the first time in a long time. He's held her before, time and time again, but there was always a distance, and they never talked about losing Noah.

"We can't forget him, Elle. Never," Gabriel says, even though that was in no way an answer to Elle's question. He doesn't have the answer, the same question swirls around in his head when he lies awake at night. Maybe the grief is still too fresh, maybe they need it to stay alive. Maybe neither of them saw the use of moving on after losing everything that made them worth being.

He falls asleep with Elle in his arms. She can't trick herself to close her eyes again.

It was eleven in the morning when she saw it, the news report, the images, a helicopter flying over Costa Verde, which was no more. Her breath hitched in her throat, as she got up from her seat at the airport and walked towards one of the television screens hanging around. The sound of her heart thumping in her chest seemed to fill up the room. A nuclear...

She gets up, and is careful not to wake him; she watches him for a few moments, sleeping, more peaceful than she has seen him in months, and strokes a defiant strand of his hair out of his face. For once he seems to be standing still.

She goes downstairs, no more toys in her way, though part of her wishes they were still there. She knows they're all gone, melted, burned to a crisp. It's not the same house, it could never be again, not after everything they loved and lived for had gone up in smoke. Her eyes wander over the paintings in the living room, Gabriel's workplace for the past five months.

There are pictures of the future, gruel and dim, thick paint-brushed lines yet in bright colours. She moves her fingers over the textures, carefully, feeling curves and waves. It was her, and Gabriel, both secluded in their own world, alone.

"The world splitting in half, Elle. That was the future," he had explained to her in a desperate attempt to explain anything to her, but nothing that made sense. "I was helping Peter," his eyebrow is quirked and he's staring out in front of him wide-eyed, crazed.

"That wasn't the world out there, Gabriel," she's standing up, pacing back and forth across the room, she can't stand still, if she does she's going to crash, "That was OURS!" she shouts, despite knowing that Gabriel doesn't need it, "Our world! That was our SON!"

"You're saying it's my fault?" he looks up at her, confused and frowning, "That somehow I should have known?"

"I'm saying that you should have..." she stops for a single second, just looking back at him, but finding it too difficult to stare into his brown eyes for too long. So she takes a breath and starts pacing again, feeling her heartbeat rise again, tears welling up.

"I should have been stronger," Gabriel whispers.

When she blinks, other memories come back to her, sitting in a chair, tied down and her feet dipped in Mr Muggles' doggy bath. She's been doing a lot of it lately, remembering, thinking over the past, happier times or times where there was only physical pain rather than this hole where something used to beat.

Another canvas catches the corner of her eye, turned partly away from her. She approaches it slowly, seeing a can of blue paint spilled all over the floor from when Gabriel dropped it to rush up the stairs. The picture shows her, in the bathtub, surrounded by blue strands of electricity. In the painting, she was killing herself. And it was true; if Gabriel hadn't been there in time, that's exactly where she had done it.

Now there were other options.

A tear runs solemnly over her cheek when she walks over to the sink, letting the water run softly. She closes her eyes again and feels the cold caress on her hand. And then she just stares out of the kitchen window, preparing, letting go, embracing her imminent death. Her ability crackles right underneath her fingertips, and she releases it, faintly at first to test the waters, and then she lets go the barriers she had carefully constructed since the day Gabriel had forgiven her.

She screams, and Gabriel shoots up in the bed.

(4)

He finds himself running again, down the stairs this time, fearful, visions seeping into his mind that he has seen far too often in the past few months. He runs, fast, some distant entity in his head telling him that he should be worried about the lack of toys on the stairwell, but it doesn't reach him.

And then there she is, by the sink. Water is running everywhere now, not just her hand, her bare-naked feet are soaked in the water running over the floor, wetting the carpet in the living room as well. Blue strands of electricity circle her body in a halo of light. It's the first time in months he sees them for real again.

"You," she sneers, and balls of electricity crackle in her hands. They're not as perfect as before, but they'll do the trick.

"ELLE!" he runs over, his footsteps making water splash up all around him, and grabs her by the shoulders from behind, an electric current running through his own body. "Elle, stop it," he presses his face into her hair when he says the words, his telekinesis reaching out to close the tap. But Elle doesn't stop; she can't anymore, not with this much loss of control.

Gabriel closes his eyes, his bare feet making sure that the water at his feet glazes over, covering the whole kitchen in ice. It's cold, but it's not water, and it can't hurt her. "Please Elle, calm down," he's still holding her up, but now she slumps back against his chest and her ability wanes, losing consciousness in the process.

"Are you alright?" she asks softly. The man with the glasses, the one she just saved from death, is staring at her in disbelief. "Say something," she adds, hoping some words will drop from his lips so she can have something to work with. She's never been good at the droopy comfort talk.

He walks her over to the sofa, one of the only dry spots left on the ground floor.

"No, this was my house," Claire sneers between clenched teeth, her hand readjusting itself around the gun it's holding. "You took everything from me," there's an anger she puts right into her eyes, and for the tiniest of moments it reminds him of Elle.

"Claire, I never meant for you to..."

"Shut up," she interrupts him, and points the weapon at Noah, his son, Elle's baby boy. His son is staring at him with big eyes. He already knows, no matter how this ends, that he'll be haunted by those eyes for the rest of his life. He brought this on them.

"Forgive me," he whispers against her temple, tears washing over him once again, but this time he lets them overpower him completely. He should have been there for her, all the time, every time. It was his fault Noah died, his fault entirely. Not hers, she shouldn't suffer for his mistakes; she has done plenty of that already.

"Go ahead," she looks up, "Kill me."

It's the first thing out of her mouth when she wakes in a breath, weak, feeble, but the words sound sure and confident. He looks at her confusedly.

"Kill me and make the pain stop," a tear runs solemnly over her cheek, mixing salty with all the others previously shed.

He knows what he heard, the words reach him loud and clear despite her current condition, but they're distant, elusive. Or maybe he just can't stand to hear them from her. Not again.

"You're hurting me," she tries to laugh it away, when she feels his fingers entwine with hers. She means it, every word, being around him physically hurts. Looking at him is becoming more difficult by the day. And yet she feels like she needs him.

"I know," he laughs and smirks at the same time, an urge coursing through him. He finds it horrible to admit it, and it nearly tears him in half, if it wasn't for the fact that he wanted to stay strong for her.

He looks at her with tear shed eyes, and she looks back at him the same way.

"But I forgive you," he whispers, caressing a hand down her arm. Only now just the gesture is acted out.

He looks at her, painfully so, and she looks at him with tear shed eyes.

"Now you need to forgive yourself," another line he leaves unsaid, unlike all those years ago.

He looks at her, hopefully wishing, and she feels her resolve waver.

"The pain," she exasperates, "It's gone." But it's not, and it won't go away any time soon. Maybe it will never go away. He doesn't know how to take away the pain this time, not when he's feeling the exact same aching void inside his chest.

He looks at her, thinking that he should really get her warmed up and dry.

"You don't even know anything about me," he laughs curiously, the thick-framed glasses masking his shyness poorly.

She looks at him the same way.

"I know what I see," she answers resolutely. And feels it truly deep inside.

He looks at her.

She blinks when she sits up in his lap.

"A man who deserves a second chance," she tells him.

"A man who deserves a second chance," she thinks, and looks him in the eyes. She feels that he's begun to breath deeper, and when she puts a hand on his chest she can feel his heart beating beneath her palm. Her hand cups his cheek next and then she's kissing him, her lips, his lips, real, for the first time in months.

"Why can't we try to just stay alive? Can't you see that it's the brave thing to do here?" he asks her, after the first time she tried to kill herself, tried to forget so very desperately like she was forced to forget before.

He kisses her back, breathing in deeply as he cups her face and feels her silky smooth skin underneath his fingers. She's straddling him now, a leg on either side of him and he sits up straighter, his hands creeping down, lower, around her waist and then up again, under her shirt, still laden with static electricity.

"Who CARES Gabriel?" she shouts, and pushes him away, again, the first in a long line of yet to come rejections, "He's gone. There's nothing..." she cries, tears trickling down her cheeks, "There's nothing left living for."

There's a desperation in her kiss, sucking on his lips, looking for the connection they forged long ago but had lost somewhere along the way, before ever losing Noah. It was somewhere around the time he learned to control his hunger, and he became a better person than her. Because what she felt wasn't hunger, it was, in all honesty, retaliation.

"What about us?" he looks up at her in shock. But he knows that despite their similar pasts, despite forgiveness and all of the other things they have in common, Noah kept them together, because neither was willing to raise a child in the way they were once raised.

He doesn't let her go, not once and the thought doesn't even cross his mind. He can't let her go, there's something inside him, a hunger to keep her there, to keep her safe, to protect her, to try and take away a pain he can never truly understand. But he can try. "Bedroom," she whispers against his lips, because all the water in the living room reminds her too much of somewhere else she wants to be. But she resists the urge, because his arms are around her.

"Us?" she stares at him in question, confusion and hurt and all the things left unsaid in her blue eyes. "Oh please Gabriel, look at us," she adds with a laugh, pitiful. "We're damaged goods, those are your words. Noah was the only thing we ever did right, and the only thing that kept us hanging on." She knows it. He knows it.

"Gabriel..." she breaths, a moan that escapes her from her core. She wants him, needs him, to make her feel, something, anything. She clutches around him when he puts her down on the bed, never letting him go, never separated from his touch, never, refusing to think about anything else but him. Them.

"Elle. I love you," he says, but isn't entirely convinced of it himself. It's something that they'd come to accept over the years with Noah. They were parents, with a son, so the love came naturally. Because that's what family meant, that's what parents were supposed to feel for each other. And they would give their baby boy everything they never had.

His breath ghosts over her skin, not leaving a spot unattended in his wake down. He feels her legs trembling, and moans keep escaping her when his tongue rakes over the inside of her thighs. "Oh God, don't stop," she bites down on her bottom lip and pushes her head back in the pillows. "Don't stop," she repeats, just to force some sound from herself.

"How can you love me?" she faces him again, an anger rushing through her veins she's felt too many times before, "I made you into a monster!" things mentioned again that were long forgiven, "And how can I love you when I know you killed my father?"

When he pushes inside of her, a desperate cry escapes her, of want and need and asking him to give her everything he can give her. He catches the desperation right from her lips, thrusting in, and out, hard and slow and everything at once. It's been too long, so long, and they both cry out, because it feels so good, so right, and all the cares they have in the world don't feel so urgent in this moment.

"What?" it stings when she mentions things long forgotten and forgiven. But it's truth, and it hurts.

"Oh... oh God, tell me..." she pants, not thinking, just feeling, pure and honest, fleshy desire and passion unleashing in her body. This might be what she had needed all along, both of them. "Oh Gabriel... love me..." her hands dig into his hair, and she tilts her hips to meet his every move, perfect, dovetailed, and he's close, so close, no distance where she so long had kept one between them.

"I'm here," he says, ragged breaths and frantic movements, "I'm right here."

"You can't take away the pain anymore, Gabriel."

But he can, if he really tries, if he really wants to he can make her see that it wasn't his fault, there's nothing he could have done, not without Sylar taking over again, and it would have made him a lesser man in his son's eyes. Because Sylar and family could never work.

"Not now, Noah."

"Yes. Now."

She comes first, pleasurepain rippling through her body, making her shake and release everything, she screams, his name, gibberish, anything that makes sense and no sense. "I love you," her voice is hoarse and just above whisper. "God, I love you so much," she's still holding him when she feels him shake, and he orgasms, deep inside of her, hot and hard and complete. It all seeps out of him, the past and present, and maybe even the future, no more visions of death and destruction, but he chooses to ignore it all.

"Elle," he breaths heavily as he stares down in her eyes. A single tear escapes her eye, but all he finds is love, no more pain, and forgiveness.

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