Baileigh Solis

“I am under strict orders to make sure you eat.”

Mohinder stared down at the paper bags that Baileigh had plopped down in front of him, carefully slid the notepad out from beneath them before any of his work could become smudged with grease from God only knew what was in there. “I’m not hungry…Baileigh, how many were you planning to feed?”

“Just us!” she chirped brightly, boosting herself up on the desk and riffling through a bag for a Styrofoam container and a plastic spork. “But I knew if I called you and asked you what you wanted you’d be all ‘I’m not hungry’ and I have to just get a variety of stuff anyway and I’d have wasted five of my rollover minutes. Just wasted them! That's criminal. And lo and behold, I was right.”

Mohinder frowned at her, but sniffed curiously and peered into a bag. “And who is ordering me to eat?”

“Give you two guesses, and the first one doesn't count.” She pulled out another plastic wrapped cutlery package and handed it to him. “You should also know that I have permission to use mild force if necessary. And sporkings are very uncomfortable.”

A smile tugged at his lips as he accepted the plastic cutlery, and he sighed lightly and picked up another container, settled back in his chair. “Well. We can’t have that happening.”

Baileigh beamed, jumped down from the desk and bounced behind him to hug him. “Good boy! Now make with the face stuffing. I wasn’t kidding about the spork.”

“Mohinder? Please stop sniffing my hair.”

He blinks at her from behind something like a haze, a look she’s come to recognize, though she’s thankful that this time it’s just the spurt of hormones rather than the snap of anger. She can handle this easier, because really, it means absolutely nothing. Even people without heightened senses respond to the female body’s natural pheromones during ovulation, so she read somewhere--probably in Cosmo, but anyway--therefore she completely forgives him for the moments he looks at her that way, like she‘s a very tasty looking slice of chocolate cake and he‘s poised with a fork and a glass of milk. He can’t help it anymore than she can help smelling edible. It’s the outbursts of anger that bother her, that hurt her feelings, no matter how much she tries to tell herself that they’re equally as meaningless. She hopes they are, at least.

“I apologize.” He touches a curl with his fingertips, tugs the lock of hair straight and watches with an almost academic curiosity as it bounces back into a loose spiral. She smiles slightly, almost sighs in exasperation; men and their preoccupation with her damned hair--

The rest happens too fast for her to process, which is scary, because she’s strong, she’s quick, she isn’t taken by surprise because that’s dangerous in her profession, but her back is shoved against the sharp edge of the desk and his mouth is pressed hard enough to hers to draw blood. She plants her hands against the wooden surface to keep her back from bending, body rigid and indecisive because she doesn’t want to hurt him for Christ’s sake but he’s kissing her and that needs to stop. She’s fairly certain if Julian or Sylar walks through the door right now there will be shooting and things hurled telekinetically and she’ll be very lucky to keep her head. His hips are pining hers against the desk, she can’t knee him in the groin and well, that really seems cruel, so she settles for working her arms between them and shoving with as much leverage as she can manage.

He stares at her, a bit confused and dazed as she wipes a bead of blood from her lips and frowns down at the red smear on her fingers. He looks from the smear to her and back again, licks at his own lips, and the haze seems to clear. “I didn’t--I’m sorry--”

“It’s okay.” She laughs a bit, swipes the back of her hand across her mouth again. The split will heal quickly, they always do, so long as she can keep herself from nibbling at it. “It’s okay,” she assures him again as the stricken, slightly panicked look doesn’t fade. “Really. You didn‘t mean it, I know that--”

“I--”

“You didn’t.” She tucks her lip between her teeth, runs the the tip of her tongue over the split. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom. You should call Sylar.” Because these particular moods always improve after he spends time with Sylar.

“I…right.”

She nods and ducks past him, inwardly cringing at the awkwardness she knows will settle between them for a time; she can get past it, because she knows it really doesn’t have anything to do with her. She just hopes that he can too.

He’ll learn to control himself, eventually, even if it‘s a difficult road that he has ahead of him.

This coming weekend? Is that too soon? I found a pretty good deal on a flight and hotel.