deathpixie | FIC: [TCP] Memorial 1/1

For

seraangel, in response to this prompt. Ten years on after Heroes, a memorial still stands.

"In memory of the thirty-eight staff and students slain at this school on April 23, 1999. We shall not forget."

The inscription went on to list the names of each of the victims. Four staff, thirty-four students. The memorial was small, nondescript - a brass plaque attached to a chunk of the local stone, set amidst a small rose garden not so far from the main doors. Most students didn't even notice it, tucked away as it was. Those that did largely shrugged and went about their lives, time robbing the event of its impact, making the tragedy an abstract, distant thing.

Ten years. Almost a lifetime ago.

Mark had only been six when the shootings occurred, but he remembered the time vividly. The media circus, the publicity, reporters and television crews camped outside the house for weeks, trying for the slightest glimpse of The Family. His parents, grieving and confused and trying to make sense out of the impossible, unable to answer their small son's questions about where his sibling had gone. It was that time he relived, every time he passed that forgotten little memorial. The drive to appear normal, to blend in with the others moved him to shrug it off and move on, just like everyone else.

Only he wasn't like everyone else, was he?

The final bell had rung hours ago and even the football team had finished practice and called it a night. The school and its grounds had that particular empty feel all schools have after hours, a heart between beats. The sky had edged beyond fall twilight into near darkness. Mark rose from his seat on the small bench set opposite the plaque. It was too dark to read the names any more, but he didn't need to. They were engraved on his memory, every victim, every death.

Every death. Minus one.

Pulling his hands out of his jacket pockets, Mark crossed the space to the plaque, squatting in front of it. His knees cracked like gunshots. Taking a breath, he held his forefinger in front of his face, frowning a little as he concentrated. The tip started glowing, first a warm red, then slowly growing white-hot, radiant heat warming chilled cheeks. Carefully, with a delicacy unexpected from a beefy sixteen year old football player, he touched his finger to the bottom of the plaque, where there was a space. Not much of a space, but enough.

Donny Osmond, he wrote, his finger burning the letters into the metal of the plaque as effectively as a soldering iron.

"There." The job complete, Mark stood, letting his powers fade. He paused a little longer, contemplating his handiwork, fully aware of the ruckus it would cause. But he didn't care. Donny had been a victim of hate, as much as any of the people he'd killed.

"Sleep well, big brother."