Title: Strings
Author: scy
Feedback: scynneh@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Not mine
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Adam/Elle
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Up through 2x10 'Truth and Consequences'
Summary: Elle wants to be let loose, even just a little bit.
Author's Notes: Pretty much a continuation of previous Adam/Elle pieces, following the same theme of Elle growing up as a ward of the Company. December 2007

Inside, there was no place to think without being interrupted. Not unless Elle counted a cement room as something like a sanctuary instead of a cell. The Company made sure of that, they didn't want anyone being able to stand on their own without them. Yet there were those that did,  in little ways that matters, and they didn't ever give anything away that they didn't want to.

Elle never knocked, but when she walked, her earrings jingled and she thought that was enough of a warning, if he wasn't alert and didn't notice, he deserved whatever shock he got.

Adam was sitting in the only chair, legs crossed at the ankles, posture relaxed, and as usual, he had found a way to pass the time, on this day it was a magazine that he didn't put down when Elle entered.

"What are you reading?"

"A very outdated issue of National Geographic," Adam said as he turned a page.

Elle moved carefully over to the table and peered at the magazine. "What's it about?"

"This particular volume, or the article I've been reading?"

"The story," Elle said.

"It's about pirates."

"Do you know a lot about them?"

"I once was a pirate," Adam said.

"No way."

"Yes, and I was very good at it."

"What was it like?" Elle asked.

"Different than this, but not unlike many business ventures," Adam said and gave Elle a curious look. "Why are you fidgeting?"

Elle had been moving around the room while they talked and stopped when Adam called her on it.

"I want to go out," Elle said. "Do stuff, not have tests for one day."

"Do you believe that your father, or anyone else here is going to let you run amuck on a whim? Give a person freedom after captivity and they may be unpredictable. Offering it to a teenager with your ability is inviting chaos," Adam said.

"It is not," Elle said and kicked the leg of Adam's chair in frustration. "Would you make trouble if you got out?"

"Of the most deserved kind," Adam said.

"But I wouldn't, I'd be good, and they still said no." Elle had given her father all her best reasons, smiled and been as still and polite as she could bear, and he'd held firm.

Elle moved a step away from Adam's chair and began whacking her foot against a spot on the wall where the pain was scraped off. In her mind, no was never supposed to be an absolute when she wanted something and it made her furious. After she got the wrong answer, Elle tried the other way of asking, sparks and shouting, and that had only gotten her sent to her room with an extra dose of pills to take before the door was unlocked again.

"So you've done everything you can think of to get your way," Adam said. "And since you're doing an admirable job of exposing concrete with your shoe, I can conclude that you've been denied liberty."

"Yeah, and you'd be right."

"Being in poor spirits is no time to abandon all civility," Adam said and motioned for Elle to sit up.

"Yes, I know," Elle sighed gustily, but stopped kicking everything within reach. She frowned at him. "How come you haven't gone crazy in here? You've lived out there in the world your whole life and now you can't go anywhere at all, doesn't that get on your nerves?"

"I've ben in confinement a substantially longer time than you, my dear. Several years is nothing when compared to enduring these walls for decades."

Elle stared at him with interest. "How long?"

"Since the seventies," Adam said.

"But you don't look old at all, my daddy is older than you," Elle said.

"Appearances are many things, and not all of them are true," Adam said. "One of the benefits of my ability is that I can always count on looking exactly like this."

"You said you were a pirate," Elle said. "When was that?"

"Around the time that this country declared itself independent of British rule," Adam said.

"So, more than two hundred years-" Elle trailed off as she tried to take in just how old Adam had to be. She was jumpy and searching for a way to get out and see anything that wasn't the same hallways and doctors, but Adam sat in his cell, not doing more than reading his books and he didn't need more.

"Don't you get fed up with this place? There's nothing to do."

"Only if you can't use your mind and find alternatives to complaining."

"Like what?" Elle asked impatiently.

"Reading, though I'm in want of new material."

"You're not supposed to get more stuff than that," Elle said.

Adam smiled. "Are you under orders not to raid the library?"

"I know what I should do, and filching things for you isn't one of them and I've seen what happens when you break the rules," Elle said. She'd seen people who didn't know what the company could do, fighting and using their abilities on the agents sent to help them. And she'd done that, fought back, thinking that maybe she could get a pass on every rule that she had to memorize because she wasn't the same as the others, she was going to be someone who did important things. But that wasn't today, and she was locked in like all the people who didn't follow the rules, so there was nothing to lose in being one of them.

"What do I get, for your book?" Elle asked.

"Did you feel you need something in return?" Adam asked, eyes focused and watchful in that way they were; waiting for something, and then acting.

A demand was easier than asking, but her father insisted that Elle learn the different ways she could use those skills.

"Yes," Elle said. "I might get caught, so it needs to be worth it."

"That's a very mercenary attitude," Adam said and nodded. "I approve."

"I don't need you to approve," Elle said.

"But it feels rather nice," Adam said. "You like pleasing others because it makes you feel good and when that happens, you get to stay off your medication."

"I don't have to take pills like the rest of you," Elle said. "Just when I get too upset."

"Happens rather a lot though, doesn't it? You lose your temper rather easily, Sparks."

That was the name the guards had given her, one of them. "Don't call me that."

"Why not? Until you define yourself as someone more than your talent, that's what you will be known for."

"And what do they call you, old man?"

"That, or Adam." He wasn't bothered by her tone or the way that her fingers were quivering, air crackling around her as static built up.

"You have several options, just make up your own mind and do something. And please, if you're going to break anything in here, do it quietly." Adam picked up his magazine again.

Elle stared at him, and then aimed a last kick at the wall. Since she couldn't do any of what she wanted, then she had to hear about things that were outside, wild and crazy and that couldn't be held back by walls or rules. "If I get you something to read, will you tell me stuff, like about being a pirate?"

"The best parts?" Adam asked.

"All of it," Elle said fervently.

Adam turned to give Elle a smile that promised things she didn't know, but wanted to. "Be sure and bring something good, then."

-end