Author notes: This was a gift fic that I sent off to another writer, but I wanted to post it. :-) Not beta-ed so if there are any mistakes, they are mine, and you can call me out on them. :-)
Disclaimer: These characters belong to NBC and Tim Kring.
Interlude
It was no surprise when they eventually caught him.
With Molly Walker's ability at their disposal, Claire imagined that they ran him raw, ran him down, and cornered him. Well, she didn't have to imagine when she had the pictures. What pictures they were. In the first phase of the Company's plan, they merely tested his limits.
Several nine-by-tens showed him clinging to a crowd of normal people, a wolf trying to blend in amongst sheep. She became a pro at spotting him, with his dark hair and height and his manner of carrying himself. The transformation happened between the clicks of the shutter. A former proud swagger melted into the hunched, cowering posture of someone wishing the ground would swallow them up.
"I'm framing these," someone joked in the background of the silent, predatory audience, all crammed into the surveillance room, and her father tensed and cast her a side-ways look.
He wasn't sure she could handle this. Claire smiled up at him, rolling her eyes. He relaxed and bought the lie that she wasn't enjoying this at all. Not one bit. What brought him down was not the fact that someone's ability proved too much for him.
Yeah right.
What brought him down was exhaustion. After a month of no sleep, the man who had been in all their nightmares simply collapsed. She was there when they brought him in, strapped to a hard metal table, and injected to the nines, with every sort of sedative known to man. The needles ran hard and long across his arms and neck. She looked across the glass windows and thought he actually looked normal sleeping.
He didn't look that old, either. She tapped the glass window, grinning. He didn't move, lost to the world.
"He won't be able to hurt anyone ever again," Mohinder whispered, his eyes shining strangely.
"Until he escapes again," she answered back, shaking her head.
"Until he wakes up again," he corrected. "And that won't happen."
Claire frowned.
"I don't like it either, Claire. If there-."
"It's not enough. That's too good for him," she stated crisply and walked out, leaving the stunned man to his moral conflicts. All those moral conflicts had lead to death after death after death, and she didn't have time for it.
She entered the code in the key pad later that night, and slipped inside. There were cameras everywhere, but she wasn't going to try anything stupid. She only wanted to make sure that she wasn't dreaming.
The surgically white room was freezing, and oh god, he looked cold. That accounted for the slight tremor running along his lips. His body was frantically trying to maintain a balance that his mind had never reflected. Distantly, Claire watched his chest move with his measured breathing.
"Hey," she said, to break the spell. How many hours of her life had she lost thinking of him, staying awake out of fear? How many hours staring at cameras, with their eyes in space, playing Where's Sylar? Feeling the guilt, guilt, guilt when someone died because she blinked. Mohinder had finally agreed to let them use Molly when the death toll got into the hundreds.
"Hey you," she repeated, stepping up to the table. "Remember me?"
Claire ran a finger along his arm, and saw the goose bumps follow in the wake of her motion. .
"So you do remember. I bet you never thought I would be the one touching you."
She searched his face for a response, a reaction, and found nothing but peaceful respite. She sighed, rubbing his arm, and feeling empty. It was similar to being at the zoo, watching a lethargic animal on a chain, and even more to the point, being able to pet it, being able to feel the suppressed strength underneath the skin. Of course, she felt powerful, but instead inner mantra of ecstatic satisfaction, there was only white noise. But what else had she expected?
"You know, this little cat and mouse game was a letdown," she stated, leaning close to whisper into his ear. ". I expected catching you to mean something. Instead, it's just like the endless rows of other, everyday fuck-ups we bag. And no one will ever truly know you existed outside these walls."
She patted his check mockingly. "You do know that I could do anything to you. With you spread out like this, all helpless. I just might. Whenever I feel like it."
On her way out, she saw someone standing at the window. Her heart plummeted when she saw the light reflected on his glasses.
"Take the week off," her father said. "Then clean out your desk."
One part of her died, despite her invulnerability. She felt nasty and low, and hated revealing that side of her to her father. But, as she stared at him, she realized that she had hoped she would get caught.
"Yes, sir," she said softly, and took off her identification badge, placing it on the metal table.
Claire wandered through the endless white walls for the last time, where she had drug herself through every sort of hell and filth, dizzy with exhaustion so engrained that it felt like a permanent state of existence. She saw the world through its veil, and had to grin and bear it.
And with Sylar's capture, she was finally free.
&&&
What did normal people do?
She used to know; of this she was relatively sure. Claire entered her apartment and was under whelmed. It hadn't changed in a few years. She had her bio-mother's necklace hanging by the window, where it caught the light every morning and was beautifully stationary and reliable. The bears around the world were still local, lining her bed, and there was pink. A dull pink from age, but definitely pink.
She set down her keys and made the resolution to buy new things tomorrow. It was time for a change.
Claire did not feel like takeout tonight. The delivery girl had started to laugh every time she called, and ask her if it was her usual. Instead, she marched to the bedroom and decided to pretend she could die by sleeping.
In a nice bed with covers while someone else shivered. She looked at the ceiling, moving with the lights from the cars whispering across the highway, and wondered if she was a bad person.
"Damn. I bet now that I don't have to think about it, that's going to be the only thing on my mind," she muttered, hugging her pillow.
She drifted—or rather sank like a stone—into sleep, with the image of cold wires in her mind, shifting through her being and reducing her to numbers.
&&&
"Claire!"
She was shaken awake, groggy, and saw it was her father who was shaking her. She also saw there were two other people, men with glasses in the room, and she also realized a second small detail.
She was nude. Under the covers, but just…oh god.
"Dad!" she hissed, pulling the covers closely around her. "Uh, what is going on?!"
"They've found you. They've come to take you away. But I know where to hide you. The last place they'd look."
In his hand, then, she noticed the syringe. It was sharp, and filled with a black liquid, and she suddenly realized that her father's eyes were empty. In the sense of a void, in the sense of the eyes of a shark.
"They…they're right there…they can hear you," she added, and the men in the corner of her room did not move but waited. If she got up, they would grab her; this she knew instinctively.
"Then I'd better hurry," he muttered, and stuck her with the syringe. She wanted to push it away, the angry-looking needle that only she could see, but her body wouldn't move. It was as if the covers had turned into lead.
She pulled them over her head, like a child scared of a story, and watched the pattern on the sheets grow to match their name, covering her completely. The pink tulips grew heavier and heavier, and soon, she struggled against them as the air from her lungs turned the outer air under the covers hot and moist and unbearable.
Only she couldn't pull them up.
Her nails caught splinters of wood. A wood-pine box. A…
Coffin. She looked into the darkness, still nude. The last place they'd ever look, and she kicked and banged on the lid. The wood pressed her nose down, her breasts down, as it was much too smaller for her, this bed.
Not just right.
She waited. From the echoes, it seemed a solid layer of dirt had been layered over her. There was no one else. She was worried that there were horrible things in this coffin with her, with her naked as she was, and she closed her eyes tightly.
After years in the darkness, something knocked on the lid and she screamed.
&&&
"Gah!"
She leapt out of the bed, batting at the covers and breathing heavily. The room was dark, and it was the same room of her nightmare freak-show. This was her old room. Her little, girl room.
Claire rushed to the closet and pulled out a robe. It was the only robe there. As in it was the only article of clothing there. It was red. When had she ever had a red robe?
The phone rang downstairs and she jumped a foot in the air, still shaking physically from her nightmare. She wrapped the robe around her tightly and slowly made her way down the stairs.
No one else had bothered to get to answer the phone, but in the effect dreams have, she just knew they weren't here to do so.
"Hello?" she whispered into the handset.
"Why did you let him kill me, Claire?" Jackie asked, her voice strange through disuse, and her stomach dropped.
"I-I didn't! I tried to-."
"You could have tried harder, Indestructo girl. Admit it. Some part of you wanted me dead. Why? You were supposed to be my friend."
Claire was silent, pulling the phone away. She couldn't let it go, but she didn't have to listen to this.
"I'll be here. As long as it takes. Forever and ever. Eventually the earth will turn to dust under your feet, and when it does, I'll be waiting."
A hand reached around her and plucked the receiver from her numb grip. She blinked, in disconnection, and turned.
Sylar shook his head and smiled down at her, trapping her in-between his body and the kitchen counter. "Isn't technology fascinating? You can get a call from just about anywhere."
Claire tried to form words. Any little word, but all she could do was realize with horror that she was about to die. As it turned out, Jackie wouldn't have to wait long.
"Now, what was it—exactly—that you were going to do to me?"
Something clicked. "D…dream."
"What tipped you off?" he purred, his dark eyes like her father's. Shark black except not-so-empty. But whatever he had been, in that place, using her father's face as a mask, one of many, one of several. Of course. Had to be.
"All this. How?" she sputtered.
"A useful trick, is all. I took it from a boy who spent it in the most limited ways. I confess I haven't had the time to improve upon it. If anything, your Company is good at being consistent."
He didn't want for an answer, but pulled away. She watched in surprise as he sat down at the table, sliding the chair out in a horrible, grating motion. Outside the window was a swirling blackness that never seemed to end.
"This is one broken place, you know," he observed, following her gaze. "Alot of empty places and barricades and sharp edges. I don't have to point out the problems, do I? For an indestructible girl, your mind is really a mess."
"Like you can talk."
"I can. I know you what you think of me. A common misunderstanding. True perfection is always misunderstood. Have you ever read A Once and Future King?"
"Yes," she said smugly. Actually, she had no clue, and was rather freaked out by his sudden seriousness. It was almost somber.
"Galahad. You know who that is? He's the one who found the Holy Grail. And there was the section I've remembered since. It's the kind of thing that sticks with you. He was perfect, in every way. And the knights loathed him. Because he wasn't like them, he made them feel filthy, dirty, and flawed. The normal person can't truly embrace the concept of idealization."
"I was under the impression that knights don't kill, either. For your information."
"They had their quests, and they did kill. When necessary. My evolution is so important to this world. But you're right. I'm not the knight."
She raised an eyebrow at this last part. It was always odd when someone admitted they were an asshole. An evil one, at that.
"Oh?"
"I'm the Grail."
"Shit," she whispered, feeling like she had been kicked in the stomach. The Grail with all its blood, with that blood, in particular.
"Well, you have been seeking me out so eagerly. And now you have me." He relaxed, visibly, and stared out at the darkness again. Her darkness, and she thought he almost had a point there, about filth.
"What next?"
"It doesn't matter if I kill you myself. I may, but it won't stick. I won't gain your ability."
"Then what?"
"But thanks to your ability," he continued, a smile spreading across his face. "This can go on for months. Years, maybe. So…you're afraid of the dark?"
"Isn't everyone?" she protested, shrugging. Claire found herself relaxing. He was threatening her with eternity, and the fact of the matter was she had reconciled herself to an eternity of hardships. This was small. Moreover, it was petty.
He laughed. "It's a primal thumbprint in our genes, when we were at the disadvantage on the food chain. I've grown to like it. It has its uses."
Sylar made a movement with his hand, a slap-dash gesture, overdone in its simplicity, and the darkness had grown stars, jewels.
"The only time I really ever felt spiritual as a kid was when I was outside at night. Everything else was tricks. Dry, and tight, and unnatural. Church was like that. Living was like that. It was similar to knowing that Santa Claus was not real, you know, but going along with being good at Christmas. Saints were names used to keep you in line. But at night, then, you know there's something."
"Why did you not want to be seen, when you came for me that night?" she asked without thinking.
"Now that is a stupid question, Claire."
"Not really. What's the point of being the best, a legend, if there's no one around to know about you?"
Sylar blinked and turned to her again, a kind of alarm in his face that was disconcerting. It was only there a moment, and ironically, she thought she could have dreamed it up.
"Simple. Just like a force of nature, it's dwelling out there, and you're at the mercy of this mysterious thing. People can't grasp their smallness, so it's best to have some mystery for them. Besides, no use letting people know who I was before I was through."
"Hmm, it seems to me you were just afraid."
"Does it?" Sylar asked, smiling around at the corners of the rooms, which were similar to the corners of his eyes, always about the next twist of the knife. "I didn't realize that epiphany over the sound of your screaming."
"Okay, I'm done with this," she told him, and turned to the door of the house.
"Sure you want to do that? Like it or not, that is your mind, and you can get lost. It will be out of my hands then."
Claire looked back questioningly over her shoulder.
"If you wake up at all, Sleeping Beauty."
"Better than your company."
She opened the door to the darkness, and stepped outside.
&&&
"I can swing higher than you," Jackie said, her little legs pumping wildly in the air and her lip in a moue of determination.
Claire's mom had arranged a play date with the girl next door, mostly because the woman had another dog. What would that be? A play mate? She didn't mind. She was, in the way a little girl could be, lonely.
Later she would realize that she would crave Jackie's approval simply because it was out of reach, something she could never have. If it was easy, Jackie would have joined the ranks of the people Claire would ignore until she learned not to. There was something in her, even as a child, that would not accept going-with-the-flow. At the age of eight, she was an all-or-nothing girl.
So Claire dug her feet in and gave it her all, biting her lip and pushing. Her feet hurt, and the wind was threatening to blow the blue ribbon out of her hair, to be used for a bird-nest in the future.
The world went upside down as both girls got dangerously close to the bar. She believed, oh did she, that she could go straight over it and around like a yo-yo.
"I'm an inch higher!" Jackie reminded her. "Weakling, weakling!"
"Oh yeah?!"
She swung downwards, and then gave a tremendous push with her feet sliding on the gravel. She got some sort of traction on the ground; it wouldn't have been enough. But she wished a thousand wishes, and suddenly, she was pushed instead of the one pushing. There seemed to be invisible hands on her shoulders, and instead of merely swinging upwards the inch farther, she flew through the air, taking in big gulps of wind with her mouth opened in surprise.
It was a fanciful moment when she was in the air, thinking she had done something impossible and special. It ended the second she hit the ground, or more precisely, when the pain hit.
Claire screamed, and Jackie fled, yelling something about 'dying, gross'. She hissed and held her knee close to her body, her yellow dress a rumpled, dust-ball and the mark on her knees bleeding.
"What do we have here?"
She looked up at the tall, tall man in the dark coat, his hands in his pockets and a half-not-smile on his face. The way he was watching her made her twitch. It was as if the big bad wolf had come alive out of the storybook, drawn by the scent of her blood.
"Are you hurt, angel?" he asked, kneeling next to her, and the sun transformed him into a human.
Claire presented her knee. "I flew."
"I saw. Just like your late father."
"He does fly on aeroplanes," she confirmed.
"Looks like we need to work on our landing," he said, and took out a small velvet cloth. "This is typically for time pieces," the man clarified, at her curious look. "Prevents scratches, unnecessary abrasions for what is easily scarred. But it works for all fragile things. So."
He dabbed at her knee, and Claire, at this example of chivalry, fell in love. As a little girl can, and she beamed up at him.
"Thank you," she said sweetly.
"It's nothing. Trust me. By the way, I wouldn't tell your father about this, if I were you."
Eyes wide. She had blue eyes as a child, rather than cat green. He shouldn't have noticed. "Why?" she stuttered out, disguising her sharp curiosity.
"Well, he'll have to pay the tooth fairy tax. If he doesn't want to, then the boogeyman might come and take you away."
"No such thing," she retorted, crossing her arms.
"In your case. Because your father pays such a high price each year, just to keep you. Not everyone is as fortunate. As we speak, some little girl's brains are being fried to a crisp."
He doubted she understood, really. There's a lot to be said about instinct, and the girl had a beautiful instinct. Fragile and innocent, but at the same time, there was an edge about her. She was too high above the rest to understand him. A familiar but long absent feeling started it build in the back of Sylar's mind. Around the age of six, people's words started to sound like poison. Comparing him to others, always. Of course, everyone had envied him. This little one did not, yet, but still, he wanted to want what she had to offer him, invincibility.
So he painted her with spoiled ignorance. Because his words, which should have been poison to her, was not. That alone bothered him.
"Oh...because she lost a tooth?"
"Because she cried." He knew all there was, from that part, as well. "And if you show pain, weakness, then you might suffer the same fate."
"Do you think so?"
"I do. But don't worry your pretty little head. Can you walk?"
Such a fragile -
Claire broke away. She stepped away, and shook in the corner of the street, watching him kneel next to her as a child, and for a moment, she was him, thinking of her ability and seeing just how perfect it would be. For she saw all the flaws inside of her, in bold crags and deeply rusted dirt.
She watched as he scooped her up in his arms and carried her toward her house. Of course. Her father wasn't home yet.
"Nice house."
Claire flinched. "You call this a nightmare?"
"No. I'd call it a memory," Sylar said, stepping up next to her. "Because that's what it is."
She stared at the two of them in the distance, with her arms around his neck. "I…" know.
"Time travel. It's going to be one of my favorites."
"Why me? That time, I mean."
"You should thank your father for that. He said that I would never touch you as long as he lived. And well, it's ironic, seeing as I already had."
"Wow. Built your whole life around that, huh."
"I didn't waste any time." He grinned at her. "You see, you all interest me. But your father did in another way. An insignificant man trying to have a place among us, by collecting us. He doesn't understand how futile his every action truly is. That was one of many. Well, one of all of them."
That was all bad and more. She could tell this was a memory, in how the pain felt. However, she didn't know what had happened when she was him, momentarily. That wasn't possible.
Unless this version of Sylar had been watching this memory and thinking those thoughts himself, and she tapped into them. Somehow. The main thing was that Sylar didn't have that power at the present time of this hell-dream. So that meant he had escaped them a third time.
It was as if watching her destiny etched in stone.
"Okay. You're a sicko. What am I, eight there?"
"Six, actually. And I'm just being helpful. There's no reason for me to hurt you…yet."
"At such a fragile age," she muttered. "Spoiled ignorance and all that." His gaze flickered towards her, puzzled for a moment. Then he rearranged his features into arrogance once more.
"…I guess you can say that. Let's fast forward it a bit."
The neighborhood blurred and she was in New York, after everything important had happened. She was in the underground, where all the specials were in hiding. It was when she had wanted nothing to do with the Company. When she had exposed herself as one of the specials in Times Square.
The place was horrible, with so many in what was basically a hole. She was with two other specials, David and Steven. David refused to share his power yet, since he felt it was a curse, but Steven was an invisible.
It had been a useful ability to say the least.
"People disappear around here," an older woman had muttered to them, late one night around a small fire. "That's why you don't go around alone. In groups, always."
"What, are the rats that big?" Steven, from Missouri joked.
"Not rats. If only it could be that simple. It's one of us."
"How do you know?" Claire had asked.
"Their heads were…their heads are always ruined. Cut off. Horrible," Andrea said, her old, blue eyes widening at the thought.
Sylar, Claire thought, and she looked at the fire and decided to go for a walk. Steven and David had conked out, and Andrea, of course, had returned to her grandson. So it wasn't hard for Claire to go to the outskirts of the group to have a look. She knew distantly that she had been here before; that this, too, was a memory rather than a figment of her mind. Claire could tell by the click of her heels and the way the air smelled full of tension and sweat and old grease from the subway.
"Hi," someone said, and she turned around, ready with a knife in hand. "Jumpy, aren't you?"
"What tipped you off?" she retorted, but looking him up and down, he was younger than her and blond. Not Sylar.
"You're supposed to be the indestruco girl," he said, and something shivered up her spine.
"Indestruco. That's me all over," she said, rolling her eyes. "It's not like it sounds."
"Huh. Well, I thought it wouldn't be. I'm a fire-starter. Only I never start it. It just happens."
"How did you know about me? I just got here."
"Word travels fast. We don't have much to talk about, down here."
"But then again, what a power," a voice said from behind her, and a woman stepped out of the shadows, grinning at her. "You know, Claire, people didn't notice my ability until you pulled that little stunt a week ago. Then they started to look. Twenty people had to come down to this hellhole after that, and guess what? I'm one of them."
She gritted her teeth, and tensed. "That wasn't my intention. I took it on my own shoulders."
"Oh really? Who asked you to do that? What makes you so special?"
Three more of them now.
"Look, you don't understand. There's this Company of people who experiment on us like freaks. What gives them power over us is the fact that we have no one to -."
"Ah, a nice room versus an abandoned subway station that smells like the sewer. Decisions, decisions…"
The fire-starter lunged at her, flames flickering along his fist, and Claire dodged, only to feel the bat come down on her head, and to hear the crack against her skull. She stumbled and fell to the ground.
"She can go all night, right, you guys," one said, and she closed her eyes, sick and afraid. A cold metallic barrel pressed against her forehead, and Claire knew they thought it wouldn't kill her. It didn't matter, either, because if they knew, it would make a difference in how long they would hurt her. The end result would be the same.
"Your life for mine," the woman hissed, and the trigger was pulled. The gun backfired and oh—
The fire-starter let out a surprised gasp and was dragged into the shadows, seemingly by strings.
Claire didn't stop to help them. She struggled to her feet and ran, listening to their screams, the pattern which abruptly ended at intervals where he had taken their ability for his own. That was the night that she had turned herself into the Company.
"And when even more of our own kind came down to hide. I never thanked you for that, Claire."
"I didn't mean for them to have to hide," she said, to the surrounding calm. "I wanted to…make a difference."
"You did, you did. Don't you remember? The mundane started to hunt us, and the specials started to form little gangs, striking out, spilling innocent blood. You made me quite popular."
"How so?" Claire asked, curious and unaware.
"You'd be surprised how often I came across that situation, of people abusing their powers. Of course, I just had to even up the odds. Among those who hated us, I became a hero."
"So that was you, during those few years?" Truth be told, she was shocked. There had been reports of such things, of specials fighting specials over the safety of the Average Joe. It had been pretty localized and they had never found out who had taken an interest in playing…like he said…a hero. "Huh. I didn't notice without the whole heading-slicing thing."
"I started to dispose of the bodies. Besides, certain people started to copy me."
She blinked and saw the headlines, complete with pictures of normal people strung up, with the tops of their heads sawed off. Mohinder had reassured them that it wasn't Sylar by any stretch of the imagination. Her father had expressed doubt, since it wouldn't be so hard for a man as unstable as Sylar to merely become more so…Then it started to happen too quickly, across the nation, at similar times, and it was clear there were copy cats who had misinterpreted what Sylar was doing and trying to take it as their own.
She had a flash of an impression, one of his impressions. A woman with a scarf and a large overcoat, standing in front of her child, in the face of two specials.
What, think we're disgusting? Don't want to breathe our air?
How about you just don't breathe, lady?
One's ability coud suck the water from the human body, and that was entracing. Sylar killed them, and while he was killing them, the woman raced by with a whispered thank you. And the boy had looked up in awe. To her dismay.
It was a better thing to notice than the fact that Sylar had once saved her life. Claire did not care about that, by the way. Since he had almost murdered her once, his action there was cancelled out. It just didn't count.
"I see. It wasn't so special to gain the ability that way when there were a thousand different corpses in the same state. Common place for you."
He sighed. "Claire, Claire, Claire. You are a judgmental, little thing. You think you know me…I was pleased, actually. Flattered. They considered me a god, and recognized me as such. As someone who scared your Company and made the little people lock their doors…made their lives revolve around me. Well, I appreciated the fact that they made me a ghost. I was everywhere."
"But still, you never left a body behind after they started that game," she pointed out, turning in her place, wanting a confrontation.
"That's true. I figured you would have no idea what powers are at my disposal, if I didn't leave a body count. And it worked. All the king's men didn't have a fucking clue that putting me asleep would be pointless, that I'd be more powerful than ever."
"Yes," she said, nodding. "You got me there. But I know this: you didn't care about those people you helped."
"Exactly. I didn't care to hurt them. They misunderstood but it was a win-win situation for everyone."
"I don't believe you," Claire replied, shaking her head. "You could never really help anyone. Even if you tried, even if your life depended on it, you'd completely mess that up. I know you spent years trying to fix things, trying to fix your mother's fucked up marriage, but it didn't seem to-."
She couldn't breathe, and ah, there he was, materializing out of the shadows like a bat out of hell, gripping her neck like a vise.
"W-what?" she squeezed out. "Touch a n-nerve?"
At that point, he reminded her of a stone idol gone wrong, his expression murderous and vengeful.
"…You're right. With mundane things, I have no skill." He let go, to her surprise. "Sometimes, you have to break things to understand them. One couple that I saved, spared, whatnot…delayed the inevitable, I guess…was a mother and a child. They thanked me for killing the special that was going to kill them. Funny, how perspective works."
Sylar paused, and crossed his arms.
"Speaking of which, I've met your mother, once upon a time. Sweet woman. Very welcoming."
"Jealous?" Claire asked.
He laughed. "Not in that sense. I mean, if anything, my mother was domestic. And your mother wrote the book on it, so we're even, there. We're alike in the father aspect, too. Your mother had the memory of Swiss cheese, Claire. No wonder she didn't close the door on me; probably thought she'd met me before and was too embarrassed to be smart."
"Broken, the both of them."
She was silent, because it was true. She remembered.
Is this a case of domestic abuse, Claire? You can tell me.
"And what did you say?"
"I told the truth. You can understand why it didn't work out so well. I suppose my father had to erase her memory because of what you did to her."
He shrugged. "She was a sweet woman. He caused it by marrying her, by trapping her in a bell jar. After she was like a little bird trapped in my hand, though…I can see the appeal of it."
"Fuck you!" she screamed, losing herself. "MY FATHER-."
She choked again. Her hands raced towards her throat, but he held them down, with a casual gesture.
"But on the domestic angle, what did your mother tell you? Was she looking forward to grandchildren? After all, she's been through hell and back, and the least you could do was give her the pitter-patter of little feet."
The world turned to a drone. Then came the worst nightmare of her life.
&&&
After it was over, she did not seek him out again.
The living nightmare of her child dying during childbirth due to her ability of forever regenerating had left her nearly broken.
Of course, she felt him along the periphery of her mind, but she had no desire to see any aspect of him.
"This is the part where people regress," he muttered, and came to sit right besides her.
"How long as it been?" she asked, weary.
"Two weeks, at the least. By now, your father's found you. They don't suspect me. You'd be surprised by how many dream manipulators there are out there. Don't you see the beauty of it. The cause of his daughter's living death is right in the palm of his hand, and he's literally scouring the earth. Damn. It's poetry."
And she had stopped trying to find a way out of this messed up place. Because it was her. All the little indignities and anger and small hurts. Never mind the big hurts. No wonder it held her so tightly.
"Did you like fairytales as a girl?"
"Why are you talking to me?"
"I'm bored. That table is freezing. And I expected a little more from you…I can't help but notice you liked the Big Bad Wolf story."
How did he know that? She puzzled over it. Were their minds a two-way street here? If he could march across to her memories and fears and nightmares, could she do the same to him?
"Usually there's a hunter," she pointed out. "Every girl needs a hunter."
"Yes, but he missed his chance the first time. He didn't run me through all the way. Unfortunately."
Claire raised an eyebrow.
"What about you? Did you like any stories as a kid?" she asked, feeling it out.
"Oh, yes."
She wanted for an elaboration, and when it didn't come, she continued.
"Did you ever picture yourself as the wolf?"
He looked at her, and she thought she overdid it. "Who does…I always thought as a kid that there would be a case of a mix-up at the hospital. You know, one of those orphan stories where the hero is discovered among peasants. But never the wolf. Then again, it makes sense."
"Er, how?"
"The wolf was the only clever one in that story. Think about it. Red Riding Hood dresses up in bright red and goes wandering through the forest with a basket of food. The grandmother leaves her door unlocked, and Red Riding Hood gives the perfect directions to a house in the middle of nowhere. If anything, the wolf's the hero."
"That's a…broad interpretation."
"Besides the simple fact that he can't help it. He has to eat, doesn't he?"
Claire took a deep breath. "Yeah, sure. But if he can dress in women's clothing, he could have just ordered in take-out."
Sylar stared at her. She shrugged. "Ordered in. Take-out," he said, smiling at her. Okay, she missed the joke, apparently.
"Seriously, no matter what I think of you…or what you think of yourself, you're not an animal."
"…The story's a metaphor."
"I know that!"
"But I'm not human anymore. I've evolved, transcended. So it fits…enough."
Claire closed her eyes. "What's your favorite story?" she asked again, clenching her fists, determined.
She felt the tension gathering besides her, and for a moment, she thought he wasn't going to answer.
"Robin Hood," he admitted, his tone daring her to laugh.
It was enough. For Sylar had no true idea of her intentions. All she needed was a piece of highly, personal information, a secret of his, to unlock the key to his nightmares.
"Thanks for that," Claire said, and as he looked on in ill-disguised horror, the world changed.
&&&
Claire couldn't tell what time it was yet.
She was five but intuitive. She knew after a certain amount of ticks, when the light shines a certain way through the bar on their small apartment window, her father would be home from work.
She had waited by the door this day because she would have to tell her father that she had hurt her mother terribly. Claire sat in the litter of broken glass that glared up from the carpet like pirate's treasure, and though it did hurt, she didn't dare move because her mother had forbidden a single sound.
Her mother was on the couch, her eyes closed and her hand clamped to her forehead. The reason Claire thought she was dead in the way the family goldfish had become dead was because she didn't move.
So she waited, and knew she was evil, because that was what her mother had screamed, and she knew she was going to that place if she died. She was scared her mother would move, as well, crawling towards her, so she couldn't look away from her prone figure on the couch.
At precisely five o clock, the key turned in the lock, and a cold and hot wave washed over her tiny body, and she knew she was going to jail because she was bad. All she wanted to do was fix the bad noise from the snow globe, but somehow, somehow, she had messed up.
"S-s-sorry."
Her father froze in the doorway, his eyes trailing over the scene.
"What in God's name?"
"I-I-I," Claire tried to get out.
"Your child," her mother whispered sadly, and they both jumped. "Your child is killing me!"
&&&
She had always seen the pattern.
Anyone could play since the patterns were everywhere. She would lose himself in it, sometimes spending a whole day spotting a design in the empty drywall ceiling of her parents' apartment. It took some effort to master it, since you had to train your eyes for the numerical precision on the shapes, and make your mind derail on that train of thought to find the next pattern.
Once she learned, the patterns exploded everywhere. Her father introduced her to time pieces at the age of seven. Daniel Gray didn't do this out of anything but necessity to avoid his wife's endless concerns about why their son could sit in front of a clock for hours on end, listening to each tick with renewed enthusiasm.
There, she had learned how each turn, or screw, or the minutest coil was part of a larger design, and oh, she had loved the precision of it, the ability to make movement of out stillness, something out of nothing.
Then, at the age of age, her mind shifted again in an instant, without her desire. All she remembered of that shift was that she had been working besides her father and it was mid-October. She had been lost in her work but that was the problem. Her mind had been thinking in pieces when she happened to glance up to see all the people rushing to work that day in the very same manner that a watch coil would tick.
She remembered the sudden wave of white, fuzzy terror. Her father had failed to notice that his child was sitting frozen on the bench, so lost was he in his own world. So she placed the watch ever so gently on the work table before sliding off the bench and passing out.
Though she passed out politely, her father noticed.
To her credit, Claire had tried to turn it off. Had tried to stop seeing the endless repetitions. She tried, she tried, she tried so hard that once, at the age of ten, she considered-briefly-tearing her own eyes out. For the pattern was everywhere, on every street corner and in every song. In everybody and literally, every body.
In the classroom, she had a delirious impression in the classroom that all round her were clock-people. Pencils tap, tap, tapping on the desks, and inhale, pause, exhale, and lub-dub, lub-dub. Oh, their voices were cleverly done, each sounding different but only on the surface. Underneath was the same old, same old, right down to the staleness of their breath. They were mirrors of each other, to boot, and the imitation was a plague. One boy could wear a new shirt the day before, and now three more were in the same shirt, and so on in exponential boom.
She remembered trying to focus on the numbers on the board but instead of being her salvation, the numbers had sealed the deal. Too numb to get up and try to do some damage control, she threw up all over herself.
The clock-people laughed at her.
&&&
"You take no interest in him! No wonder he's unmotivated!"
Claire flinched at the voice, and blinked around in the dimly-lit room. She could see a flashlight under a bundle of covers, and searching around a bit in her mind, she figured out who exactly was under them.
"I can't help this. He's sullen, uninterested in the costumers when I try to take him to work with me. Polite, but uninteresting! You've made him a parrot, Virginia!"
She wondered how someone could stay so still with so much anger in the air, but the child who would become Sylar managed to do this just fine.
"Hah, he's special! You just can't understand him."
"Oh, I understand him. I just don't like what I see, maybe."
The flashlight switched off and there was silence, only interrupted by a ticking in the next room. Clock, maybe.
"He's getting worse," Mr. Gray commented.
"How dare you!" There was a crash of something fragile breaking against the wall.
&&&
"It's a filthy thing to do, you know," Virginia commented. "Not to eat everything on your plate when there are starving people in the world."
And she ate and ate and ate, and it was never enough. She was going to be sick, but her mother pushed up against the chair, trapping her between it and the table. Oh, why was she pushing up in that way?
"I don't want you to move until every last bit is gone from that plate."
It was hard with her mother's reflection staring back at her, with those strange eyes full of…
&&&
"I'm sorry, what was your name again?" the teacher asked, confused.
"Um, Gabriel?" the small boy muttered, questioningly, shifting from side to side.
"Oh, yes. I have a hard time remembering…"
Someone snickered in the back. Recess would be hell.
He tripped as someone pushed him from behind, and deeply ashamed and burning up inside, he didn't look back but hurried on.
He didn't turn around. That made sense.
So why couldn't she.
&&&
"Your father, bless his soul. Pray for him," Virginia instructed, holding the small boy's hands together in the prayer.
There was no one in the funeral home. No one except the two of them and some people who had been at the home for their own loved ones. Who had felt sorry at the emptiness of the room and sat down near the back.
No one had noticed his father had passed away. The world went on about its own business. It was not the way it was supposed to work.
As Gabriel sat and pretended to pray, he wondered how many people would come to his funeral.
&&&
"I'm sorry, mom," she argued, hitting the table with her fists. "I'm sorry but people just don't like me."
"Oh, you're just being sensitive," her mother retorted but she was squeezed into the corner of the room, as if she was afraid of what she saw. Something inside of Claire was wrong. What was so wrong really, what was-.
&&&
And this was the nightmare that Claire saw, among the broken pieces of memories long since buried.
Nothing.
The nightmare was about nothing. She watched him fear and fear things from the closets of his home, waiting to be drug away by the devil himself due to his impurity, his wrongness. The nightmare was about opening his mouth and nothing coming out…not due to shyness, but because (ohgodohgod) there was nothing inside of him to give.
Then, after years of willing crucifixion, of self-imposed isolation (because he was doing them all a favor, then, if-),someone came to find him.
&&&
It was like being alive for the first time.
Claire beamed at the man before her, a Doctor Suresh from India, who had traveled all the way across the world for her, of all people. It was a complete miracle from all those old stories, and for the first time, her brain unfroze and she could speak, she could relate to this man.
She told him everything, and was ecstatic at the pure and simple fact that he listened. Being special explained so much. No wonder no one had ever understood her; no wonder they envied her.
She opened up for the first time that she could remember, beginning to rethink all those recurrent thought of suicide that surfaced during her lonely hours of pondering what her purpose was…and why she had failed. The book though…the book reflected her life and let her know that she was not alone.
It was natural to be compelled to do things, to walk in a certain straight line path. That was the purpose, all along, and here she was, with them and yet above them.
She had hope.
I'm afraid I'm prepared to look in other directions.
Then the dam broke, and she let that side of her out too, feeling her rage bubble out of her and this time, no, she did not hold it back.
Chandra's look was familiar. But at least he didn't hide in the corner.
&&&
Claire screamed as he brought the crystal down on the unsuspecting man's head and thought, for sure, he had turned in her direction. At the sound.
Then he hesitated. But didn't stop.
She didn't want to be him as he killed, but once the door had opened, he thinks he can walk away from me, they walk away from me, and I can't walk away from me, how is th-
It closed behind her. She killed. A part of her like it, a part of her hated it, but the end result was still the same. Claire laughed when Chandra refused to figure it out, because a part of her liked being alone.
And a part of her hated it. Maybe Jackie had been right about her after all. Even when she tried to stop herself, it was all to easy to throw that Claire to the side. Compelled and feeling so hollow, she couldn't stop.
She remembered all of them, after a certain point, especially after that power. There had been a boy in her class with a photographic memory, but she was sure this was oh-so-much better.
The killings became a litter of photographs, and she remembered their looks, their movements, their little mannerisms. She took it because why not, she was developing a sparkling personality, as her mother would say. Late bloomer indeed.
She tore through every photograph until she caught one with her mother, her eyes frozen in fear and disgust. In shock. It was crystal. It was perfect, and even time itself would never wear that image away.
That's when Sylar caught up with her, tearing her out of his memories, and she could admit she was glad to leave them.
His look, however, killed her. He was in a rage, and hurt, and just so…taken apart. Hurt. He was…
"I'm…I'm so sorry," she whispered, reaching out and hitting nothing.
Gone.
&&&
Claire blinked and saw the fluorescent lights above her.
She struggled to sit up, and caught sight of her father jerking awake. It only took a few minutes to take it all in.
He had been sleeping in an uncomfortable, plastic chair, parked right by her bedside.
"Claire…" he choked out and wrapped her in a hug. An example of domestic…
"Dad," she returned, and hugged him back, peering over his shoulder. She was back inside the Company's walls, snug and under the glass microscope once more.
"Do you know who did this to you?" her father asked, and his tone promised so much. Death, destruction, with a good dose of maiming.
"No," she answered, shaking her head and keeping her mind as blank as possible in case a literal mind-reading was nearby. "No, I just remember falling asleep and…waking up here."
There, of course, was only one reason she was free.
&&&
"His brain activity became very erratic," Mohinder muttered, and Claire noticed that he looked exhausted. "I had to sedate him even more heavily."
"He's dying…" she observed, as she watched the prone figure shiver violently.
"Close to it. I doubt he'd actually do us that favor."
Something inside of her heart twisted, and she clenched her fists.
"Why'd you come here, Claire? I expected you to be resting after your ordeal…"
"I guess he was the last thing I was thinking of before it happened. I mean, he's my last link to this place."
Mohinder opened his mouth, no doubt to name other, little links. Her father, for one, but something in her face made him decide against it. Possiby something familiar that he had seen once before on a roadtrip. He decided to look away, which allowed her plenty of time to pull the syringe out of her pocket and sedate him.
"Cl-."
Was his only protest.
She sighed, and pushed his body off the chair and sat down, beginning the slow process of getting Sylar off the IV drip. He'd have to adapt to the change but she had faith he could. It would, despite its long hours, only take a night to get him wide awake.
When he woke up, Claire was unsure of what would happen. He could kill her. She certainly wasn't in Dreamland anymore. Somehow it didn't matter.
Instead, she watched his heartbeat strengthen on the monitors, and felt a warmth rush over her. The kind that only came from doing the right thing that one was compelled to accomplish, and in the past, he had called her his angel.
She had hope.
&&&
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. :-)