Title: Reformatory

Disclaimers: I don't own any supernatural powers or anything else to do with Heroes. If I had, the series would continue, no matter what.
Genre: angst, supernatural, sickfic and hints of hurt/comfort.

Rating: PG-15 for violence.

Summary: Most evolved humans have been round up and kept prisoner by the company. Claire gets special treatment in there however, but can not stand the injustice done to the others anyhow.

Set: Endish of Season 3.

Pairing: mild/budding Sylaire.

Claire was well aware of the fact that her life was relatively easy. She had been pissed off for quite a while that she was kept in Building 26, but after a couple of years she eventually learned that anger was not leading her anywhere. In fact nothing else did, apart from playing the good little girl like her captors and ultimately, her biological, so called father expected from her. Accepting her situation paid her well, it in essence gave her privileges she knew no other inmate was blessed with. Perhaps it was Noah's influence, or perchance Nathan's himself, but the little cheerleader mostly felt like as if she only would've been grounded at home. Her company cell looked like a teenage bedroom, with all the comforts and accessories anyone could want and she was daily supplied with any required toiletries, takeaways, fresh fruit and treats, along with the newest books, magazines and dvd releases.

All in all, Claire had a sweet life, if not for the sporadic, but nevertheless ongoing visits to the experiments room. She did not go every week, every other week perhaps and at first she had no idea what had been done to her. The men in white overalls made sure they knocked her out good with drugs before proceeding. It was an accidental neglect by the guards, but it was thorough a peek in her own files that gave her the idea what had transpired and from then on she also knew that the sedatives were for her own protection as much for anything else.

They had been operating on her and did not want her to feel and know when they'd repeatedly removed her relentlessly regrowing kidneys, ovaries, cornea, thymus or whatever else they needed. The finding outgrossed her somewhat, but it also comforted her in a way. She was in no real discomfort at any time, but her numerous and regenerating organs were giving life and wellbeing to many ill people.

And if she would've been in any doubt what was going on, there was that one occasion where none of her usual captors and doctors were about and she had been taken to the experiments room at the same time as Sylar. That time she got to witness what her life in the facility would've been like if she wasn't treated with special regard.

It wasn't just one organ at the time they took from the killer as it had always been with her according to her documents, on that instance it was his kidneys, pancreas, liver, testis, stomach and bowels. Certainly that explained the state she usually saw Sylar in, curling up on himself, or unconscious and with a frown every time she passed his cell on the long corridor leading to their torture room. So she did not misunderstand the pleading and tormented expression he sometimes shot in her direction if the guards made them pass each other.

Claire sat frozen on her gurney while the surgery was done without any anaesthetic and felt really relieved that Sylar had passed out a few minutes into the procedure. For a little while, she was wary of what her own immediate fortune was dishing her next, but even those strangers working there occasionally treated her like a princess.

She sighed relieved when they offered her the usual intravenous line that put her to sleep, only to wake up in her room with Sylar's screams replaying in her mind over and over again. It was the deciding moment. The days of conventional comfort were over. There was still no urgency to getting herself out the facility, but her longstanding emotional state of resignation had disappeared instantly to be replaced by her feeling a certain urgency to get Sylar out of there.

Her privileges gave her the chance and her good, although rather apathic behaviour over the last two years gave her the basis for her plan. With her not being one of the dangerous kind, especially not on her captors' list of those rebellious, and being practically part of the family, somebody Nathan had wanted to finally see on his side ever since her arrival to the facility, she did not have to do much more than request a meeting with her biological father and tell him she had changed her mind and wanted the role he had originally intended for her. The senator inquired about her reasons and she explained it away with boredom.

It wasn't much more than a couple of weeks before she was not only allowed to study and trained in all company policy, but her fortnightly visits to the torture room stopped as well. The latter fact in great probability could mean nothing good as far as Sylar was concerned, they probably needed to harvest more organs from him given her absence, so Claire was quite keen on starting her unsupervised rotas watching over and handling the prisoners. It still took her over a month before she was trusted enough to take a step into the serial killer's cell.

Sylar looked out of it this time as well. His damp brow, twitching limbs and ashen complexion were telling the story of how his regenerative ability was fighting hard against the drugs they kept him under control with. His appearance was eerie and off putting, too sickly to retain his instantly eye-catching good looks that on many times deceived his victims before they saw the wolf in sheep's clothes, but Claire didn't give his current state much consideration. She needed to act and fast.

Knowing the security cameras' exact location, she positioned herself in a way it wasn't immediately obvious what she was doing. Pretending to study the monitor and make notes like she was meant to, she swiftly unplugged the machines that were used for the dosage of Sylar's drugs. Judging from her own reaction from the few times she had been forced to suffer being given that same substance, it would not take Sylar more than one minute to regain consciousness, although it could take him hours to completely shake off all the effects.

Claire could only wait a few seconds continuing with the charade before somebody could start thinking she was acting suspicious. She didn't need any more time anyway. Sylar's eyes opened, his gaze steadily fixating on her.

She gave him a mysterious smile and a pointed look at the tubes connecting to him, leaving no doubt in him who he could thank for his current alert state. He was curious, Claire could tell, but he also understood there wasn't the time and place.

The way he'd always been obsessed with her, he would be back though, to ask her those questions, as to for why and under what grounds did she help him, and how the little action she had performed influenced the great scheme of their probably eternity long relationship, and how she viewed what had happened between them previously. It would maybe take him a couple of hours to escape and perhaps a few days for him to come back for her, smirking at her having to accept the reality that she needed him.

Claire Bennet will be free as a bird, and soon.

The End.