A/N: No relation to my other AUs. This is set eight months after Brave New World.

Peter's paramedic unit got a call for an apparent assault victim in a bad district of town: male, Caucasian, possibly broken arm, blood on his face, uncooperative. Hesam sighed and shook his head at that last bit. It was better than "unresponsive", but just barely.

Given the area, and that it was Friday night, it was probably a fight between male prostitutes, johns, drug dealers, muggers or some combination of the above. They'd had a lot of calls to the district and none of them were ever pleasant. Most of their patients would prefer to slink off and lick their wounds in private, even if that meant they died in a gutter somewhere. But some good Samaritan had seen this one and called 911, so they were on their way.

They arrived, followed directions, and saw their patient halfway down the block, leaning against the wall, facing away from them, cradling one arm. His posture alone said he was in a world of hurt. Hesam nodded to Peter and went back to the truck. "I'll pull the van down the street."

Peter nodded in return and hoisted his bag on his shoulder. He went down the sidewalk. He gave the man a wide berth as he walked around him, not wanting to startle him. He was wearing a tattered black wool jacket, a mostly white t-shirt, dirty jeans and Converse sneakers. As Peter came around, he had a shock - he recognized the man's face, even through the blood on his face and the swelling over one eye. Peter's mouth hung open for a moment, but no sound came out.

Sylar opened his eyes and looked at whoever it was who hadn't merely walked on by, like everyone else. He too, recognized Peter. Hesam parked the van and got out. Sylar blinked and looked away, looking mortified and shamed. He hung his head, righted himself and started to hobble away.

Peter was still standing there in complete surprise. How was Sylar not regenerating? It had been nearly eight months since Claire outed specials to the world and Sylar had enthusiastically joined in, demonstrating his wide repertoire of abilities to any scientist or government agency that wanted to see. He and Claire had shared the limelight until Peter could barely watch television for fear of seeing or hearing about them. A lot of other specials had come forward too. Peter had not.

Then a few months ago, the furor over abilities died down abruptly. They still had people doing interviews, but Sylar wasn't among them. Claire retired. She said the experiments had begun to get… invasive. Things had begun to happen that she wasn't comfortable with, so she'd opted out. She'd been allowed to opt out. Peter had assumed that meant anyone who wanted to opt out could. But why wasn't Sylar regenerating? Why was he out here on the streets?

Hesam called out to the man, "Hey! Hey. Hang on, man. We're here to help you."

"I don't need help," Sylar's voice growled out.

Peter finally jerked into motion. "Yes, you do."

"I don't need your help," Sylar cast over his shoulder, pausing anyway. He couldn't outrun them. He swayed slightly on his feet. Peter had forgiven him the past, after the time trapped together in Sylar's mind, but they'd parted ways shortly after. Sylar had been busy making his abilities public and Peter didn't know what to do about that. So he'd gone back to work and kept a low profile. Sylar had called once and invited him to lunch. Peter hadn't returned it, concerned he was going to be asked to participate in the unveiling of abilities.

Hesam asked, "Hey, man. Is your arm broken? We can take care of that. You might need that arm later, you know?" He tried to make a joke of it. He walked up next to Sylar and put a hand on his back, steadying him. Sylar tried to brush him off. Hesam looked back at Peter, who went to get the stretcher.

When Peter returned, Hesam hadn't made much progress. Sylar wouldn't let him examine him and continued to insist he was fine. Peter heard the former killer say testily, "I got in a fight. I lost."

Peter adjusted the stretcher so it was at half height. "Here, sit."

Sylar scoffed at it. Peter put his hand on his shoulder and pushed, snapping, "All I'm asking you to do is sit down. Now sit!"

He sat. Peter noticed the abrasions across the knuckles of his left hand and the palm of his right. He'd fought back, whatever had happened. His face was a mess. He'd been hit on the chin and jaw, as well as over the eye, and had dried blood coming down his forehead. Peter reached up and picked out a loose fragment of glass from the man's hair, revealing he'd been hit over the head with a bottle. Sylar slumped and looked away, showing some resignation to Peter's examination, a compliance that he hadn't shown with Hesam.

The Iranian let Peter handle their patient, if he was going to be more cooperative with Peter than with him. Instead he got out his clipboard and said, "I need to ask you some questions. We have to ask them of all our patients. They're nothing special."

"Neither am I," Sylar breathed. Peter shot him a look as he got out disinfectant wipes and antiseptic. He'd decided to skip the arm and whatever was wrong with the leg and, at least initially, just clean him up. If he could get a rapport, then maybe Sylar would let him look at the parts that were more serious. He put a hand on Sylar's shoulder, then moved it up to his neck. Sylar looked back at him questioningly. Peter raised the wipe wordlessly, showing it to him, and reached in with it to wipe at the man's forehead, well above the cut on his eyebrow. It was only dried blood and shouldn't hurt at all. Sylar didn't fight it. His attention went back to Hesam.

"Name?"

"Gabriel Grey." His eyes flicked back to Peter, who hadn't known he'd gone back to his old name. While showing off his abilities, he'd kept the name 'Sylar', using it as a stage name.

"Date of birth?"

"I'm 36." He was clearly counting the years in the mental prison as real, which was odd, but not any of Peter's business. The passage of time there had always seemed so very real to the other man. Hesam grunted, calculated, and wrote something down.

"Height?"

"6' 2"." He was taller than he generally looked. Peter wouldn't have put him over 6', most of the time, but he slouched constantly and tended to wear flat shoes. Now was no exception, for either the shoes or the posture.

Peter changed wipes and said, "This is going to sting a little." He began to clean the cut over his eye. It didn't look like he'd quite have a black eye out of it, but the upper lid was swollen and he had a knot under the brow. He'd probably gain a small scar there as well.

"Weight?" Hesam asked.

"I… I don't know. I've been losing weight." And he had. Peter hadn't recognized him at all from behind. He was thin. He'd always been lean, but now he was positively frail. It was no surprise he'd lost whatever fight he'd gotten into. The mystery was why he was fighting at all.

Hesam said, "I'll put down 150. Do you have an address or a place of residence?"

"Yes." Gabriel, as Peter was now thinking of him, gave one. It was an apartment. Peter moved down, wiping the blood off his cheek. He got a surprisingly grateful look for his efforts. He smiled a little and let his thumb stroke the other man's neck absently. If this kept up, he'd have a look at that arm in a moment.

Hesam went on asking questions about medical history. Gabriel was tensing again, not liking the questions.

"Do you smoke?" "No." "Alcohol?" "No." "Drugs?" And that was too much. Gabriel shoved Peter away and hopped down off the stretcher, saying, "I'm done! I'm fine! Get away from me!" He limped off with more energy and determination than before, calling back, "Stay the fuck away from me!"

Hesam shrugged. "I guess I can write that up as a 'refusal to treat'?"

Peter nodded. He reached out for the clipboard. "Let me see that." He looked at the address and memorized it.

"Well, there's only so much we can do," Hesam said. "Did that guy kind of look familiar? He looked a lot like that guy that was on TV a few months back with all the weird powers."

Peter grunted. "If he had all those weird powers, then why would he be out here where the meat rack abuts junkie row? It's hard to tell anything under all that blood." He shook his head and handed back the clipboard. He could remember where he needed to go.