A/N—I've had the whole Sylar!Nathan concept running through my head ceaselessly ever since the finale. I'm working on a multi-chapter story on the subject, but my mind keeps throwing out alternate possibilities that distract my attention from working on it. I figured I might as well get those out of my head as quickly as possibly so I can focus on the "real" story that I want to. So this is basically going to be the dumping ground for Sylar!Nathan one-shots that aren't part of In Sheep's Clothing.
"My life, my life, now I speak of it as of something over, now as of a joke which still goes on, and it is neither, for at the same time it is over and it goes on, and is there any tense for that? Watch wound and buried by the watchmaker, before he died, whose ruined works will one day speak of God, to the worms."
—Samuel Beckett, Molloy
Forty-nine was a young age for the Presidency. Not the youngest ever to hold that office, by any means, but enough for his relative youth to be remarked upon during his campaign. Especially when he was in the same shape he'd been at thirty-nine. By the end of his second term he was fifty-seven years old, and it had become a joke on late night television. It wasn't until he was out of office, past the stressful pressures of State and other such worries, that he let it bother him that he hadn't aged a day.
He shared his concerns once with his mother in a private moment. She was in her eighties now, still possessing that same fierce dignity as always, but showing all those years nonetheless. She'd dismissed the concerns from his mind as trivial. Perhaps too quickly.
When he reached his sixtieth birthday, it had become conspicuous. Peter looked older than he did now, so blatantly obvious and wrong that it was beginning to wring his heart every time he looked at his brother. At sixty-five, he went into seclusion, hiding from reporters, avoiding interviews. His achievements in office were long past and forgotten by most, but his name remained fresh in the minds of a shallow public, a society obsessed with retaining its youth.
At home, the topic had become an elephant. No one talked about it. Not his wife. Their reconciliation had become poisoned slightly by envy and doubt, memories of his past affairs and fears of future indiscretions. Not his sons... He could pass for their contemporary if his face were not so well known. Not Peter. His second glances had begun to take on a note of suspicion. Not Ma, who wouldn't tolerate the topic being discussed at all, now. He hadn't seen Claire in almost five years. His memory of their last meeting was dominated by the image of her delicate features written deeply with revulsion. Of course, the irony was that she still didn't look a day over eighteen.
In 2037, he saw her for the first time in over a decade. Bennett had died a week earlier. The same disgust lived in her eyes now when she looked at him, her still young face distorted and stained with tears for the man who had been a father for her. He had not been able to meet those eyes for long. He was caught by blind surprise when she fell against him, unable to stop from winding his arms around her. He held her like a thing made of glass as her ragged sobs devolved into raw, grief-filled screams. Half an hour later she was calm and still. They sat together in complete silence, her head resting against his chest. His shirt had become soaked with her tears but he ignored it, arms still around her, fingers stroking her hair softly. Her voice was a strangled, hoarse, dead thing when she finally spoke, rising almost inaudibly from her tortured throat.
"You were right."
Her words resounded with a broken defeat. He didn't know what she was talking about, but he decided not to ask. If he didn't, he wouldn't have to deny that the words had been his. He wouldn't have to wonder if that was a lie. Instead, he found himself lifting her chin, slowly, planting a kiss on her cheek. The action coaxed forth another small sob. His second kiss shocked them both. After she'd gone, he was left sitting alone, a hand pressed firmly over his mouth. His eyes were shut as the tears ran over his fingers and he remembered the taste of her sweet mouth. He tried to convince himself that the bile that rested bitterly on his tongue was his own.
They never spoke after that.
Former U.S. President Nathan Petrelli died in 2042, less than a month after his wife's suicide. His sudden heart attack had come as a shock to much of the nation. He'd always been so...vital. The casket was closed for the funeral, denying the curious a peek at how their Young President would have looked in his seventies. His remaining friends and surviving family-brother, sons, daughter-were remarked by the public as being oddly reserved. To the perceptive, the grief they projected could be traced not to the coffin, but to the dark-eyed young man standing at the edge of the crowd. For a very select few mourners, there was anger in their eyes as well.
For some of them, they were seeing Sylar's face for the first time since Coyote Sands.