What?

In the back of Bob Bishop's office at The Company there is a closet. Most of the time the door is shut. Little odds and ends cluttered up on the shelves collecting dust, not serving any real purpose at all. Fishing trophies, and records of weights and dates that he hit the lake. There are files that have since been transfered to the servers, still wound on microfiche, still in the small cannisters. Family albums that Bob would prefer not to show to anyone, mostly since he'd rather people not focus on what he used to look like with hair.

In the back corner of the top shelf, shoved behind a plaque that he knows is easy to push aside is a box. It's not a box he takes out often, simply for what it actually could reveal about himself... about what he's done.

Elle used to be a little girl, with dreams of unicorns and getting at least pony for her fifth birthday. She ran around the living room laughing at her father trying to get her to sit still long enough for him to run a brush through her hair. She was just a kid, happy and full of so much life. She'd sit on his knee and fall asleep against his chest as he told her stories of Princesses that lived locked away in towers, stroking her hair never thinking that she'd be locked up soon as well.

She was bright eyes and blond hair bouncing down the stairs, lighting up every time he came back from some trip or another. Each time with a different item to hand to her, each time with some token of his love that she could cling to on those days when he wasn't there.

When she woke up screaming one night Bob probably knew it was all going to change. He couldn't hold her, he couldn't let himself be her father anymore... because he knew what it all meant. Her ability had manifested and despite him knowing better he brought her in.

The tests began and the small tokens he'd gotten her over the first six years of her life were boxed up. Pictures she'd drawn of him, Lisa Frank notepads with neon colors and vibrant drawings of unicorns and hearts stacked up into something to forget. He made sure she forgot too. Forgot being loved by him. Forgot how it felt to be held to him at night while she slept. It was easier he thought.

Easier to just box up who she was... and wait for her to accept who she is now.

She's in that box though. All smiles and happiness, all eager and peeking through the curtains drawn back in the front room as he comes up the front walk with the next little gift for her. Maybe she'd still be waiting for him... be he's not her father anymore.

It was for the best anyway.