Flashes of a life not led, a heroes fanfic

Disclaimer: 'Heroes' belongs to Tim Kring, who should pay his writers already.

Rating: PG–13, just to be on the safe side.

Characters: Mostly Lyle and Claire. Also starring: Zach, HRG, Sandra, Peter, others.

Prompts: #27. Life for heroes50 and #59 AU: Claire's normal; Lyle is the one who can regenerate for heroesfest.

Spoilers: Up to 2x11 'Powerless'

Summary: AU. Just how different would all have gone if Lyle'd been the special one?

Music: 'Full of grace' – Sarah McLachlan

Flashes of a life not led

The first thing he feels when he opens his eyes is pain. Blunt, unadulteratedpain at the back of his head, and sharp, piercing pain on his left knee.

'Lyle, are you OK?'

Lyle blinks several times before Todd's round face slips into focus.

'I… I don't think so.' He tries to lift his head, but his surroundings become a blur and he feels nausea. He grimaces and closes his eyes shut. 'What happened?'

'Er, well…' He hears Todd swallow. 'Derek happened.'

If he had the energy, Lyle would snort. Of course.

Ever since Lyle Bennet made it into the soccer team, Derek Bronski has been out to get him. Apparently, he doesn't like to have competition for the striker position and he's made it known in every single practice.

Lyle opens his eyes when Todd puts an arm around his waist and helps him stand up.

'You hit your head pretty bad.'

No kidding, Lyle thinks as he grabs his friend's shoulder for support. Todd starts to steer him towards the benches as Lyle tries to ignore the dizziness and the colourful spots dancing before his eyes. Not only it would be undignified to throw up in front of all his teammates, but it would also be rather gross and unfair to Todd.

And like hell he will let Derek Bronski see it.

'He pushed you and you hit the pole,' Rudy Pendleton tells him as soon as he is sitting down, 'and I think there must've been a nail on it, because you cut your knee.'

That explains the blood.

He looks at his knee and tries not to wince at the sight – the cut doesn't look deep but it's not pretty to see either – and then he scans the field, but there's no sign of either Bronski or Couch Davies.

He asks Todd about it, but it's Steve who replies:

'Davies is shouting his head off at Derek, I think he'll get him suspended.' There's some rather evident glee on his voice, glee Lyle would share if his head didn't hurt so much.

'You could get his spot in the next match,' Todd points out. Lyle frowns.

'With my leg like this?'

But now he looks more closely, the cut is not as bad as he first thought. There's no little amount of blood on his knee, but underneath it the injury is barely a scratch. He touches his forehead, but there's no bump forming there and the dizziness is receding.

When Couch Davies returns and asks him whether he needs to see the school nurse, Lyle shrugs and shakes his head. It no longer hurts as though someone had punched him with a baseball bat and when he stands up, he realises that his legs support him just fine. Davies frowns but doesn't insist, choosing instead to grab one surly-looking Derek by the arm and drag him towards the school building, all the time yelling and waving his free hand.

By the time he gets home and cleans up his knee, there's not even a scratch on it. Lyle stares at the smooth skin for a moment, puzzled, but Mr. Muggles starts to bite his shoelaces and his attention is diverted.

Claire is moronic. She's always been kind of stupid, but in the way all older sisters are stupid. However, since she hangs out with Jackie Wilcox, official bimbo and Queen Bitch, she's become incredibly dumb. When they were children, Claire would climb trees and play soccer with him, but now all she cares about are clothes, nail-polish and having perfect hair at all times. She cries if she gets a pimple before a party and she spends nearly all of her free time practicing for the cheerleader squad that hasn't admitted her yet. She's officially the dumbest girl he knows – well, second, after Jackie herself.

Case in point: just today she's managed to slice her hand with a rather large piece of glass, because she was mock-fighting with – guess who? – Jackie. Over a cheerleader uniform, no less.

'How are you going to shake you pom-poms with your hand like that?' he teases her and Claire glares at him.

'Shut up, Lyle.'

She tries to sound scathing and superior but she only manages petulant. He snickers, but is caught short when his mother thrusts a broom into his hand.

'Go and be careful while picking up the shards, OK?'

Lyle stares at her in disbelief.

'Why do I have to clean it up? She broke it!'

'Claire's hurt' his mom replies, and behind her his sister smirks, more petulant than ever.

Cursing under his breath, Lyle grabs the broom and leaves the room. Claire's gonna pay for this, he'll make sure of it.

Still fuming, he starts to clean up the mess – of course Claire can't do it, she's the little princess, isn't she? – and later he will not be able to explain it, but for some reason he picks a large shard from the floor. He stares at it for a moment, watching how it catches the light, feeling its weight on his hand, its sharp edge against his fingers. Then, without thinking, without hesitating, he slices his palm open with it, as deep as Claire's cut goes.

Claire has her hand bandaged for two weeks, and when she removes it there's an angry red line crossing her palm.

Lyle removes his own bandage two days later, only to find he doesn't even have a scar.

Either his sister is a cry baby, or there's something seriously messed up with him.

Lyle doesn't know why he shares it with Claire first. It's not like they talk so much these days: Lyle spends most of his time hanging out with his friends or playing videogames, whereas Claire is obsessed with the squad and Jackie's legendary parties. There's no common ground between them anymore, they no longer share anything apart from a set of parents and a roof. And Mr. Muggles, Lyle guesses, but the dog's always been more his mom's than anyone else's.

He could have told Todd, who would've kept his mouth shut, or Justin, who's been his friend since fifth grade. He could have told his mother, but he's afraid to freak her out, and he can't even imagine his dad's reaction. In any case, though, there are a lot – well, perhaps not a lot, but at least a few – of people he could tell, all worthier to know than Claire. But Lyle can't make up his mind to talk to any of them. Instead, one morning during breakfast, while Mom talks to Dad over the phone and Claire chatters endlessly about a party she has this Saturday, Lyle grabs a knife and smirks.

'Do you wanna see something cool?'

Claire arches her eyebrows.

'Lyle, what…?'

Without warning, he slices his arm with it. Claire yelps and jumps from her seat, dropping her toast on her spotless uniform. Lyle grins as the wound heals itself in seconds.

'Bet this is cooler than the band that'll play at Jackie's party, huh?'

The murderous look on Claire's face is priceless.

That summer Claire fills the pages of a notebook in her neat, minuscule handwriting. In there she writes down dates, methods and the timing of each recovery. It's an odd way of brother and sister bonding, but they don't mention it. Instead they discuss new and creative ways in which Lyle can kill himself, and he would think his sister enjoys seeing him hurt if it weren't for the fact he's as curious and freaked out as she is.

One day, after getting hit by a car driven by Claire, Lyle doesn't open his eyes at once. When he finally comes back to himself, Claire looks frantic and her cheeks are wet with tears.

'Claire, what…?'

'You didn't wake up,' she sobs, trembling. 'Fifteen minutes passed and you didn't wake up…'

Lyle sits up, rubbing the back of his head.

'But I feel fi-' He stops short when he sees his hand stained with blood. Only then he notices the small, blood-stained stone clutched in Claire's hand.

'You had this, stuck in the back of your head' she stutters, 'and your eyes were all glassy and you weren't breathing and I couldn't find your pulse…'

'Claire, I'm OK, really.'

He tries to sound reassuring, but deep down he is freaked out as well. Testing his own limits is one thing, facing the possibility that one day he might not wake up again is another.

From that moment on, Claire downright refuses to assist him in his experiments. Lyle at first doesn't mind, because he is not that eager to die again anytime soon. After some serious thought, however, he realises it must've been having something stuck in that particular spot in the back of his head what prevented him from coming back, and that as long as he avoids it he'll be fine. It takes him a few weeks to convince Claire of this, though, and it's not until they're well into the school year that she agrees to help him. This time, however, Lyle has a new idea.

'Do you know anyone that's got a videocamera?'

Claire thinks for a moment, then scrunches up her nose.

'Unfortunately.'

After getting over the initial shock and the subsequent freaking out moment, Zach's all bubbling excitement and rambling a hundred miles an hour. Lyle still feels sore from the fall and there's a somber look on Claire's face, but the boy doesn't seem to notice. He keeps replaying the tape on his videocamera, a bounce in his step and his eyes are as wide and round as saucers.

'It's awesome, really, it's like something out of a movie or a comic book,' he says, and Lyle doesn't have to look over his shoulder to know his sister is rolling her eyes. He himself has a not-so-secret stash of X-Men's and Spiderman's issues under his bed, but after his thirteenth birthday he learnt that certain things are best left unsaid.

However, little by little the older boy's enthusiasm starts to permeate Lyle's own skin and inside him excitement sparks, for once smothering all traces of uncertainty and fear.

Perhaps it's due to that shiny new excitement, perhaps because he's feeling a little reckless, but when the three of them walk by a train in flames, he dashes towards it despite Claire's screams and the scorching heat that threatens to peel off his skin and maybe it does without him noticing it.

Rescuing a man from a fire doesn't feel anywhere as exciting as they make it look in the movies. The man's a dead weight on his arms and whatever's benefits his new ability might bring, superstrength isn't one of them. He's sweating profusely, too, and slips constantly off his grasp, whereas Lyle's throat feels like sandpaper and his sneakers are literally melting on his feet and hell, it hurts. Not to mention they're his favourite and now they're ruined forever.

The afternath is also rather anticlimactic. It's not like he expected to be received with trumpets and fireworks, but once the paramedics take the unconscious man away all the acknowledgement he gets is a hard punch on his arm landed by a furious Claire.

'Ouch! There's a healing burn there, Claire!'

'Are you – smack – freaking retarded – punch – you big fat – slap – moron?'

'Hey! I saved a guy!'

'You walked into a train in flames! You could have –'

'Got burnt?' Lyle shrugs. 'It's not like it sticks, is it?'

But Claire is panting, her face's red and her eyes, narrowed.

'That's the problem, Lyle! If you keep doing things like that, people will notice!'

'So what?'

He realises his mistake the instant the words leave his mouth. Claire's nostrils flare, her face contorting as she starts to wave her arms like a mill.

'It's not normal, Lyle! It's not normal, and people will wonder, and they'll want to know how you can do it, and they aren't gonna take a "just woke up this way" for an answer. The life as you know it, as we know it is over!'

Lyle suddenly feels a bout of anger swelling inside his chest. It's so like Claire, to make everything about herself. She's probably worried over what the cheerleader squad will say if her little brother turns out to be… different. All that hard work to become Miss Odessa 2006 flushed down the toilet. She doesn't care that Lyle can do something no one in the entire world has ever done, she doesn't care that he's just for once been a hero, that he's done something remarkable and extraordinary – all she cares about is herself. Like always.

He tells her so, with the most scathing words he can muster. His anger fuels his tongue, but so does his disappointment, maybe because for once he wanted some acknowledgement, maybe because he expected some understanding from her and she's given him neither. He doesn't care if he hurts her, he doesn't care if she never speaks to him again. He feels there's a weight on his chest that's been there forever and that will choke him if he doesn't take it all out.

'You just can't stand that for once you're not in the spotlight, can you?' he spits, rueful. 'You can't stand not being everyone's golden girl, you can't deal with the idea of me being the special one for once!'

'Wow, wow, guys, chill.'

Both Bennets turn to glare at Zach, who promptly falls silent and takes a step back, still fumbling with his camera. Lyle ignores him and turns to Claire, who is shaking her head.

'It's not about that, Lyle! Can't you see?'

Lyle opens his mouth to retort something probably hurtful, but the words die on his lips when he sees tears glistening in her lashes.

'People won't understand, Lyle,' she says, and her voice has never sounded so sad. 'They'll think you're a freak, and they'll want to run tests. They'll take you away and we'll never be a family again.'

They stare at each other for the longest time and Lyle's throat constricts from fear, from worry, but also from some unnamed emotion that makes him want to comfort Claire even if it's his world the one that's falling to pieces.

'It's okey, Claire,' he hears himsef saying, although it sounds like somebody else's voice. 'No one will know.'

Zack looks horrified.

'But this is the biggest thing that's happened here in one hundred years! You can't just walk away from it.'

Lyle shrugs.

'Watch me.'

Over the next few days, though, Lyle feels the temptation to give in and spill his secret more than once. It feels huge knowing that he is different from everyone else, it's both exhilarating and frightening at the same time and he just needs to share it with someone other than his often obnoxious big sister.

The logical thing would be to tell Justin Wakefield, his best friend since fifth grade. Not only he is Lyle's oldest friend, he's also the one he shares nearly everything with. He bets Justin woud think it's cool and would not panic like Claire. He'd probably even think of a way for Lyle to use his ability for something useful for a change. Surely they can figure out how to make something out of it.

Somehow, though, the opportunity never arises and Lyle keeps silent.

He considers telling Todd one day after practice or even Derek, just to see the look on his face. He weighs the pros and cons of telling Samira Abdullah, the girl he's been trying to impress since forever. He nearly blurts out the whole thing to his mother one day as she does the washing up and more than once the words almost leave his mouth while talking to his dad about soccer practice and abysmal History grades.

Something, though, always seems to hold his tongue. Lyle doesn't want to acknowledge it, not really, but Claire's words have etched themselves on his brain, conjuring horrid images of himsef tied to a metal table, leather straps arouns his wrists and ankles, blindingly white lights over his head, a thousand needles stuck in his arms. Faceless men testing and prodding, slicing his skin until he screams and impassively watching the skin heal back. In his nightmares Lyle can almost smell the antiseptic barely concealing the scent of fresh blood pouring from his fugacious wounds.

Lyle tells no one.

It's not supposed to go like this.

Lyle has seen it in the movies and this is not how they show it. When the hero first discovers his amazing powers he might have a difficult time at first as he learns to use them, he might make some mistakes as he begins his journey as a superhero. In the movies, though, the hero never has to call his big sister because he got impaled into a broken pipe and can't get out.

It's so stupid, and it's all Hollywood's fault as far as he's concerned. Who says that just because he's different from everyone else he has to go around rescueing kittens from trees and chasing muggers?

It's not like he's been climbing trees in search for kittens (he's not that lame… yet), but who forced him to chase after the guy that'd taken that woman's purse? He can heal back, not run like the wind or fight, what the hell was he thinking?

Lyle sighs. It matters very little now.

He ran after the mugger and followed him into an alley. The guy started to climb a wire fence and Lyle tried to do the same, but the mugger kicked him, which caused Lyle to trip backwards and get impaled onto a broken pipe sticking out from the wall.

Lyle snorts. Some comic book hero he's turned out to be. Grimacing, he tries to free himself to no avail. There's a pang of pain on his back, where the pipe entered, and another one to match on his abdomen, where the end of the pipe is sticking out. He tries not to freak out as he sees blood pouring from the wound, staining his T-shirt and his jeans (he prefers not to picture his mom's face when she sees his ruined clothes) and pooling around his feet.

After the third or four unsuccesful attempt to escape, his head starts to feel dizzy and he has to overcome the sudden nausea that plagues him. This is bad. Scratch that: this absolutely, completely sucks. Next time he sees Zach and he goes on and on about how Lyle's supposed to do something special, he'll punch the nerd's lights out.

He grits his teeth to fight off both pain and the increasing nausea he feels, and pulls out – not without some difficulty and some more pain – his cell from his back pocket. He flips it open but then his surroundings start to twirl around him, so he closes his eyes for a moment until he recovers. With a deep breath, he opens his eyes and dials the only number that might provide a source of help.

The phone rings four times before a clipped voice answers from the other end.

'What now, Lyle?'

He swallows, the ache on his stomach becoming almost too much to bear.

'I… I got in trouble. Could you come and get me, please?'

Claire is livid.

'Do you know where I just was, Lyle? It was our annual bonfire! I've been waiting for this forever, it was supposed to be perfect and you know what? It was, until you called.'

'Geez, sorry,' Lyle deadpans. 'Next time I nearly die, I'll call Mom so your social life doesn't suffer.'

Claire ignores him.

'Everyone was there, and there were fireworks, and Brody…'

'Ooohh, so that's your problem, huh? Afraid the quaterback might run into Jackie's arms if you're not there?'

From the murderous glare he receives, Lyle assumes that's exactly what's pissing Claire off. Before she implodes, he waves a dismissive hand.

'C'mon, Claire, I'm sure his taste is not so tacky. Oh, wait: he's a football player, it might be.'

'Shut up, Lyle.'

They banter all the way back home. Lyle has asked Claire why she didn't go back to the bonfire once she was finished helping him. She replied that her oufit was ruined and besides, she didn't trust him getting home in one piece on his own. Lyle guesses that for all her stance and attitude, Claire did freak out a little when she saw him passed out in that alley with the pipe coming out from his abdomen. It might have been a tad gruesome for her taste.

He can't blame her.

'How did you end up like that, again?'

Lyle sighs and retells her the humiliating story. It doesn't take him long: he was coming home from Justin's when this guy stole a woman's purse. She shrieked and started to run after him, and before realising what he was doing, Lyle did the same. They left the woman behind soon enough, and then the mugger ran into an alley, Lyle followed and the rest is painfully obvious.

'You shouldn't be left alone,' Claire says almost accusingly. Lyle rolls his eyes.

'You sound like Dad.'

And it's true: lately his dad insists on giving Lyle rides everywhere and wants to know where he is at all times. The only reason why Lyle was walking from Justin's that night was because Claire needed a ride to the bonfire, with all the stuff she had to carry around.

'He treats me like I'm ten, you know,' he confides, and it's Claire's turn to roll her eyes.

'Mentally, you are ten.'

When the following morning Lyle enters the kitchen, his parents fall suddenly silent. He stops dead on his tracks and frowns. His mother's eyes are red-rimmed and his dad's face is ashen, and his stomach twists into a tight knot.

They know. It's over.

He opens his mouth, perhaps to offer an explanation, perhaps not, but his father interrupts him.

'Lyle, is Claire up yet?'

His voice sounds strangely flatless. The knot tightens in his stomach and his mouth dries.

'I don't –'

'I'm here,' The chipper voice behind him turns suddenly serious when Claire sees the looks on their parents' faces. 'What's wrong?'

'Claire-Bear, sit down please.'

As his mom hugs Claire, letting out a sob, and his dad places a hand on her shoulder, Lyle notices the TV is on. On the screen there is a yearbook picture of a familiar blonde girl in a cheerleader uniform, and as he hears Claire breaking into desperate sobs, he reads the caption below:

Sixteen year old girl found dead on the river bank.

It's strange, but Lyle can't help thinking that it's the first time Jackie Wilcox's bright smile looks genuine.

The school is closed for a few days, during which Claire never leaves her bedroom. His mom carries a tray with her meals, which Claire leaves almost untouched. His dad looks serious 24/7, and Lyle can't blame him, because bile rises to his throat when he thinks what coud have happened if he hadn't called his sister that night.

No one knows what happened to Jackie. No one saw her leave the bonfire that night, no one suspects why anyone would have wanted to murder her. Not like Lyle can't think of a reason or two to dislike her and he's probably not the only one, but it's still hard to believe she's been killed when not so long ago she was at his living room mocking his hairstyle as Claire giggled behind her.

Lyle turns without really reading the pages of Activating Evolution, the book on genetic mutation Zach gave him when he swung by earlier that day, hoping to get a glimpse of Claire. He had no such luck and promptly left, after telling Lyle there was an entire chapter on spontaneous regeneration. Lyle absently thanked him, but his mind is still reeling from the last few days' events and he can't concentrate. He finally puts it away, just in time: a second later, his dad knocks and steps into his bedroom.

'Can I come in?'

Lyle shurgs. 'Sure.'

His dad closes the door behind him, walks towards his bed and sits down. He still has this now perpetual serious look on his face, but he's also twirling his fingers as though he were nervous or anxious about something.

'You've been a little out of it lately, Lyle. Your mom and I are a little worried.'

Lyle stares at him, his mouth hanging open.

'I understand that what happened to Jackie must've shocked you too,' he goes on, apparently oblivious to his son's perplexion, 'but… Are you sure there's nothing else? Is… Is everything going alright with you?'

'Huh… sure,' Lyle replies with the characteristic eloquence of a regular teenager. His dad looks at him intenty, as though he were trying to dig the truth with his gaze.

'You know you can talk to me about anything, don't you?'

Lyle hastens to nod, feeling like crap. His dad looks marginally relieved.

'Good, because I have important news for you.'

At this, Lyle sits up, curious. It takes Dad a moment to go on, however, almost as though he were carefully weighing his words.

'Remember that we talked the other day about your biological family? That you'd like to meet them?'

Now he has Lyle's full attention.

'Yeah, I remember. You said we probably wouldn't find them.'

'Well, I was wrong. If you want, they can come this afternoon.'

Lyle almost jumps from his bed, his eyes widening as saucers.

'For real?'

The ghost of a smile crosses his father's features.

'For real, real.' His face turns somber almost at once. 'Just… don't get your hopes too high, Lyle. They're probably not what you're expecting.'

His dad was right. His bio parents don't turn out to be what Lyle expected. They are…

Normal.

As normal as they could possibly be. Normal like a white picket fence in the suburbs, a sunny morning in Texas, an impossibly blue ocean in the Caribbean. Normal like Lyle himself will never be.

'Hey, are you OK? You're spacing again.'

Lyle flinches and turns to glare at Justin, who has just elbowed him.

'You've been doing that a lot lately,' he goes on, frowning. 'What's up?'

Lyle shrugs, pretending to be suddenly very interested in the graphics on the blackboard.

'Nothing.'

Justin eyes him, suspicious. Lyle can't help thinking he must really be a very crappy liar indeed if not even Justin shows him some confidence.

His friends looks around, and dawning comprehension shows on his face.

'It's Samira, right? Man, you're really hung over that chick, aren't you?'

Lyle learns through Trudy Connors, their resident source of never-ending gossip, that Claire has been made Homecoming Queen. He spends the rest of the day trying to decide whether he should congratulate her or not, considering the only reason she's been given the tiara is because everyone's favourite contestant is now six feet under.

When he finally sees Claire, though, the popularity contest seems to be the last thing on her mind. There's an intent look in her eyes he hasn't seen in days and there's urgency in her voice as she drags him away.

'I know who's killed Jackie,' she blurts out without so much as a preliminary "hello" once they're away from prying eyes. Lyle stares at her, incredulous.

'What?'

'Well, I'm pretty sure, but I need some proof,' she goes on, whispering. 'Lori Trammel told me she saw Jackie leaving the bonfire with Brody –'

'Hold on a sec – the quaterback? Are you serious?'

The look on Claire's face is answer enough.

'The police think someone tried to rape Jackie and that she fought back and died.' Her eyes become feverishly bright and Lyle's mouth dries. He's not sure that he likes the manic gleam in her gaze. 'Lori told me that he forced himself on her a few months back, Lyle. And that he's done the same to other girls. It all fits.'

'Then why don't we go to the police?'

Claire snorts. 'Because we don't have proof, Lyle, but I'm gonna get it, and you're gonna help me.'

There are a thousand things that could go wrong with her plan but Lyle doesn't dare to tell Claire so. For the first time since learning of her best friend's death, she is absolutely focused on something with almost frantic passion, and after all she's done for him since discovering his ability, he can't deny her this one thing.

So instead of going straight home from soccer practice as his dad made him promise at least thrice, he runs all the way to Zach's to borrow his camera. He doesn't offer the older boy any sort of explanation and Zach doesn't ask any awkward questions. Boy, he must really be hung over his sister. At least he's not as moronic as the guys Claire usually drools at… not to mention Brody, the athletic date-rapist and possible teenage murderer, of course.

Claire's waiting for him, already in her cheerleader uniform. A flash of Jackie's yearbook picture crosses his mind and sends a shiver down his spine. He shrugs it off and approaches her.

'Do you have the camera?' she asks and he nods. She bits her lip. 'You didn't forget the tape or the batteries, did you?'

Seeing her obvious nervousness he refrains himself from rolling his eyes. 'I brought everything, Claire.'

'Good,' she replies, twisting her hands. 'You remember the plan, right?'

'I hid in the girls' dressing room, you lure Brody and make him confess, I tape it,' he recites in a flat tone.

She nods in approval, looks around and swallows before giving him a strained smile. 'Okay, let's go then.'

They start to walk down the hallway side by side when Claire scrunches up her nose.

'Yuck, you smell.'

This time he does roll his eyes.

'I didn't have time to shower and change, OK? It's not like –'

His voice trails off as he stops dead on his tracks and grabs Claire's arm. There's a guy in front of them, who looks both too old to be a student and too juvenile to be a teacher, staring at the memorial her classmates have set up Jackie among the trophies and medals.

'Who is that guy?' he whispers to Claire, who shrugs.

'No idea.'

They aren't quiet enough, though, and the guy turns to look at them.

'Hey,' he says, not a trace of a Texan accent in his voice. Something in his tone gives the impression of him being a nice guy, so Claire and Lyle exchange a glance and reply 'hey' back. The stranger smiles, a crooked, warm smile, and Claire predictably smiles back, tilting her head to one side and eyeing him unabashedly. Lyle snorts, and the guy focuses his attention on him. Suddenly, his eyes widen as his gaze becomes fixated on Lyle's muddy soccer uniform.

'Are you him, then?' he asks eagerly. Lyle stares at him and glances at Claire, who looks as perplexed as he feels.

'I'm who?'

'The boy I'm supposed to save,' the guy replies naturally, his eyes alight with a strange gleam. Lyle frowns.

'Save me from what?'

But Claire is already dragging him away from there.

'Great, another nutjob.'

'No, wait!' The boy – or perhaps man, it's hard to determine – calls back. 'It's important! There are a series of paintings, and if I don't stop it you'll end up dead and the world –'

As though it were one of those signs from fate Lyle doesn't believe in, the lights go off.

Hell is this.

Brody lies dead on the floor, his head split open, blood soaking his hair. He showed up at the appointed time only to find a psychopath in a baseball cap and a gruesome death in the girls' dressing room. Claire is not far away, her arm twisted at an impossible angle, face bloody and bruised. She landed there after she and Lyle tried to prevent Brody's murder, but unlike her brother she can't recover and jump to her feet in the blink of an eye. Instead she just lies there, barely brathing against the cold floor, her eyes glassed over.

Lyle doesn't have time to dwell on it, he doesn't have time to panic and picture the worst case scenario because the nightmare is not over. His own personal boogeyman turns his cold, unflinching gaze towards him and his own heartbeating becomes deafening in Lyle's ears. He can feel the bruises and cuts healing over, he can sense his skin knitting itself together, but he can't move, he can't think.

The monster's eyes widen slightly, as though he has just now realised that he killed the boy in the wrong uniform, as though he's finally caught sight of his true prey. A smirk curves his lips in the shadows as he raises a hand, one finger pointing at Lyle's forehead.

He feels the drops of blood rolling down his face before he feels the splitting pain that finally makes him react. His senses come back to him and he does the only thing he can think of: he runs. He runs as fast as he can, he runs as though the devil himself was at his heels because there's a good chance he is.

It's a nightmare come to life: the shadowed, never-ending hallway, the hollow sound of his sneakers against the concrete floor, the monster chasing him. Lyle has had this nightmare a hundred times in different ways when he was little and his mom's touch and his dad's voice were enough to keep the shadows at bay. But this time no gentle touch, no warm voice will slay the demons for him, no daybreak will dissipate the suffocating darkness. There's only an eternal corridor in front of him, there's only blackness and empty silence punctuated by the sound of his feet hitting against the floor and his heart hammering against his ribs. He doesn't scream for help, because he must save all his breath for running; he doesn't think about Claire's injuries or Brody's corpse because he can only focus on getting out of this hell alive.

He collides against something solid and strong hands grab his arms. Lyle pushes and writhes, but then a glimmer of moonlight reveals not the boogeyman but the boy-man's concerned face. Fifteen minutes ago, a lifetime ago, this guy freaked him out with his crazy talk about a painting and fate and death. Now death is all over his clothes, stained with Brody's blood, is etched on his retinas, and Lyle has never been happier to see anyone in his entire life if only because it's another human being who looks as shocked and horrified as he feels.

'Claire's hurt,' he blurts out, even though the stranger can't know, can't care about his sister, 'and he… he killed Brody, oh my God, he…'

'It's OK,' the boy-man says, even though his own voice is trembling, 'I will…'

His words die on his lips and even in the darkness Lyle can see him blanch. He doesn't want to look over his shoulder, he really doesn't want to but like in all nightmares his free will is just a fantasy and looks all the same.

Silhouetted against a distant wall, shadows twirling around him like dancing snakes, stands the boogeyman himself, the real life American psycho complete with his baseball cap and his black trenchcoat and blood stains on his hands. Lyle doesn't know who he is, but he doubts it's human. If anything, he's a dark force of pure, murderous evil, and it's after them.

'Run,' the boy-man says, his voice barely steadier. 'Just run!'

And Lyle runs, his feet barely touching the ground. A part of him firmly believes the nightmare will be over once he steps out the school, that he'll wake up in his own bed under the rays of daybreak and this will all just turn out to be the worst dream of his life.

But when he steps out it's still dark and his heart is still pounding inside his chest, his side hurts and his head is dizzy with fear, horror and nausea. He doesn't stop running, though, he can't stop running and soon the boy-man is running behind him, as terrified as he is. They climb the steps as fast as they can, not stopping to catch their breaths, but it's not fast enough.

The boogeyman is there again, its long shadow projecting over them like a dark omen. The boy-man grabs his shoulders and tells him to run and this time Lyle does hesitate for a fleeting second. But Brody is dead and Claire's hurt, and someone has to get help, someone has to call the police. So he runs, but in the last second looks back and sees the man (suddenly he doesn't seem a boy anymore) struggling with the monster, he sees them both fall and fall, the horrid thump reaching his ears a second afterwards.

Lyle stands still for the longest time. A voice in the back of his head, a voice that sounds like his dad or perhaps it's just his common sense kicking in, tells him to keep running, to find people, to get help just as the man told him to do. Another part of him roots his feet to the ground, whereas another part of him, the reckless, the humanitarian part wants to go back to see if the man's alright.

His feet take him back before his brain can make a choice, and he nearly chokes at the sight before him. The boogeyman is gone but the man is lying there, his head fallen to one side, his limbs twisted and tangled in an unhuman way, blood pooled around his body.

He's dead, he's dead, he's dead repeats a voice inside his head, a voice that only sounds of fear and horror. The boogeyman's killed him too and there's nothing you can do now about it.

Guilt overwhelms him and he feels the sudden urge to throw up, to scream at top of his lungs, to cry. He just stands still, though, too shocked to move.

Then, the impossible happens.

There are no words to describe what Lyle feels when he sees the wounds healing themselves, when the man sits up and turns his limbs back to their original position with ease and naturality. A part of him understands now why Claire finds it so gross, but most of him is just awed.

There's someone like me, I'm not alone, he does what I can do.

He's reluctant to leave this time, perhaps scared that the miraculous man (because now he's a man in his eyes and will never look like a scared child again no matter how old he actually is) will disappear, vanish into thin air like a dream at daybreak. Before he can leave he needs something solid to hold on, some reassurance that he hasn't hallucinated all this so he asks for his name.

'Peter,' he replies with a crooked smile, and Lyle tries to smile back but he's not sure he gets it right.

'I'm Lyle.'

The confirmation that this has to be all a hallucination from his deranged mind comes when the first person he runs into turns out to be his dad, just like it happens in dreams and cheesy movies. At the sight of him his dad's eyes widen and his cool façade falters for an instant.

'Lyle, what're you doing here? I told you to please go – are you hurt? What's wrong, where has all that blood…?'

'Dad, Claire's hurt. And Peter. And that guy just killed Brody. And tried to kill me. And…'

He feels his dad's strong grip on his shoulders, and when he looks into his ice blue eyes the confidence and steeled reassurance have returned to them.

'Lyle, everything'll be alright. Just take me to Claire and I'll handle it.'

'Peter…'

'The police will take care of that. Just take me to Claire and stand by my side all the time.'

Lyle doesn't want to enter that hellish building ever again, but Claire's hurt and his dad is by his side, and Dad always fixes everything so he has no reason to believe he won't fix Claire. When he walks into the girls' dressing room and the smell of blood and death fills his nostrils, his newfound confidence shatters and he just wants to crawl inside his own skin. But Dad's strong grip guides him inside, and it takes him an unhuman effort not to look at the quaterback's corpse and concentrate instead on Claire's still form.

'Oh my God, is she…?'

His dad, instead of replying, falls to his knees and starts searching for a pulse. Lyle holds his breath for an eternity, until a tired sigh escapes from his father's lips.

'She's just knocked out. But she's so hurt…' His dad bits his lower lip, apparently fighting a battle with himself. When he looks up there's a tender expression on his face.

'C'mere, Lyle, I need your help.'

Like an automaton, Lyle walks towards him and kneels by his side. Dad's looking for something in his jacket's inside pocket, at last he retrieves a syringe wrapped in plastic.

'Give me your arm, Lyle.'

Lyle does what he's told, too stunned to think. Before he can react the needle is stuck into his arm, the syringe filling with blood.

'Dad, what…?'

But his father has pulled the needle out of his arm and he is turning towards Claire. Lyle watches fascinated how his dad sticks the need into his sister's arm, how his blood leaves the syringe to pump into Claire's veins, how her eyes open and her wounds heal themselves at once, as though she's been touched by a fairy's wand. Lyle stares in awe, that soon turns into dread when he looks at his father's impassive face and realisation hits him with the strength of a speeding train, twists in his gut like a knife.

He knew. All this time, he knew.

Like in one of those movies in which the main character wakes up to discover that his entire world has been turned upside down and no one believes him, Lyle finds out the following morning that the last few months of his life are gone.

It starts when he asks Claire how she feels after last night's events and she merely stares at him, saying she doesn't remember a thing. A knot already forming in his stomach, Lyle asks about the day before, about last summer. Nothing. It's all gone, and Claire looks at him as though she believes he's gone mad until she finally gets furious and kicks him out of her bedroom.

The notebook where Claire noted down all of Lyle's experiments is gone and so is the tape. Lyle should not be surprised but he is, and in his desperation he does the only thing he can think of: he takes his bike and rides all the way to Zach's.

The older boy stares at him with mild curiosity that turns into perplexion when Lyle tells him there's something horribly wrong with his sister and that he's got to help him out.

'I'm sorry,' he says, his tone infinitely polite and bland, the tone reserved for complete strangers, 'but I don't know who you are.'

Lyle's mouth goes dry.

'Lyle Bennet,' he whispers, and Zach's frowns.

'Are you Claire Bennet's brother?' At his nod, Zach shrugs. 'Sorry, but I don't know what could be wrong with your sister. She hasn't spoken to me since the sixth grade.'

Betrayal tastes sour on his mouth and he can barely look at his father without feeling a strong, unbearable urge to punch the lights out of him for backstabbing him like this, for denying him the truth, for robbing from him what's rightfully his. He remembers the dark man's words, though, and keeps up the pretense, smiling politely and rambling on soccer, Samira Abdullah and his last test. He's not sure that he'll be able to pull it off, but Mom is worried at Claire's spacing out ('That's girl's been so absent-minded lately, she worries me') and Dad keeps glancing at him when he believes Lyle won't notice. Lyle doesn't let the plastic smile falter, though, and when no one's watching he takes a knife from the dinner table and hides it under his T-shirt.

That night, he knocks on Claire's door. She doesn't want to let him in, claiming to be very busy painting her nails, but Lyle isn't easily deterred.

He sits on her bed and pulls out the knife. Claire flinches and sternly tells him that this is not funny, not funny at all. He asks her to keep it quiet, please, and slices his wrist open.

The look on Claire's face is identical to the one she wore all those months ago when he shared his secret with her for the first time.

For some reason, this time he doesn't find it so hilarious.

'So, what was she like?'

Through the bus window Lyle can see the landscape change as they leave Kermit behind. He shrugs.

'I don't know. She's kind of weird. She travels a lot.'

'She's weird 'cause she travels a lot?'

'No, it's just… I don't know.'

Claire, showing tact for once, leaves the subject alone, letting Lyle dwell on his confused thoughts and feelings upon meeting his biological mother.

It wasn't like he pictured it and at the same time, it was. He didn't feel as disappointed for the trailer park as Claire was, but he's not still certain Meredith Gordon is quite what he was looking for. She's odd, in the sense she's as different from his real mom as she could possibly be, with her eclectic clothes and her travelling around the world and her sad, sad smile.

And yet, even though Meredith and everything surrounding her is so unfamiliar, he feels a connection to her he didn't feel with the fake bio parents, a connection that goes beyond shared DNA, beyond possessing unnatural abilities. Lyle can't explain it, and he probably won't be able to do so even if he were given a thousand years to put his thoughts in order. He just feels that something binds him to the woman with blonde curls, desolate eyes and flames on her fingertips, a bond thicker than blood, a bond that has more to do with finally finding someone who can understand than with having genes in common.

He doesn't tell Claire any of this and for once, she doesn't push him. Instead they spend the rest of the bus trip in silence, watching the towns go by until they reach home. Only then does Lyle snap out from his reverie.

'Claire, how did you make Mom let us ditch school?'

She gives him a smug smile.

'Don't worry, I got it covered.'

Sitting side by side in the hospital's waiting room, the Bennet siblings are trying their best not to panic. The doctors won't tell them what's going on because they're minors and Dad still hasn't arrived. Lyle doesn't know whether to be worried or glad at that. He knows with bitter certainty whose fault it is that his mother doesn't remember her own children, her name or her beloved Mr. Muggles, and this time he doesn't think that he'll be able to fake a smile and pretend everything's fine.

Claire is biting her nails, something she hasn't done since the sixth grade. Her eyes are wide and fearful, searching for the doctor that will bring them the news.

'Do you really think Dad did this?'

Her voice barely rises above a whisper but it resonates in the silent waiting room. Lyle's hands grip the edge of his chair so tightly that his knuckles turn white.

'I've already told you. He knows this guy, the Haitian, that erases people's memories.'

'But it doesn't ruin their brains,' Claire points out. 'I'm not forgetting things, and I don't think Zach's either.'

There's a hopeful note in Claire's tone and Lyle gets the impression she's grasping desperatly for the last thread of faith in their father. He wishes that, like her, he could still believe in Dad's good intentions, that he could still believe his dad would come and fix everything.

But Lyle saw his dad use his own blood to heal Claire and understood what it meant. His father has always known about Lyle, he's always known what he is but never bothered to tell him, never tried to explain. He just didn't care enough.

'We don't know how many times Mom's been brainwashed,' he tells Claire grimly. 'Erasing memories might cause brain damage in the long run. Maybe this has been going on for a long time. I don't know, Claire. Maybe she can't get better.'

Claire's head jerks up, her face milky white.

'Don't say that, Lyle. Mom will get over this. She has to.'

They both sit in silence, watching the nurses and doctors pass by, ignoring them; listening to the rushed steps and the distant sound of beeping machines. Lyle wonders if Claire, like him, is trying to remember any clues they might've missed, any signs of their mother's condition. How many times she might have spaced, staring at nothing? How many times she might have confused dates and appointments, she might have misplaced things and then forgotten where they were?

Lyle can't remember any of it, but it's not like he's been paying any attention to his mom lately, being so focused as he was on his own problems. Guilt floods him when he realises Mom might have been detereorating for a long time before any of them even noticed.

A sharp pain on his side snaps him out of his reverie. He glares at Claire, who has just elbowed him, but she's staring at the end of the hallway. Lyle follows her gaze and sees Dad standing there, looking worn-out and weary, his glasses crooked over his nose. Claire jumps from her seat and runs towards him, as he walks in long strides and meets her halfway.

Lyle watches them hug, watches his dad stroke Claire's hair and place a kiss on her forehead.

'It'll be alright, Claire-Bear. I'll fix this.'

Lyle watches Claire hide her face on his chest as she clutches his shirt, he sees his dad look up and their eyes meet.

Lyle wishes he could be like Claire. He wishes that he hadn't seen the look on his dad's face the night of Brody's death, he wishes the bitter taste of betrayal wasn't choking him. He wishes he could still believe, with the same certainty he did only a few months back, that his dad was a good person, that he would always be able to solve everything.

He can't, though, so instead of returning his dad's tired, tentative smile, he jumps to his feet and leaves the room in long strides, ignoring Dad and Claire calling after him as pure, white-hot fury swells in his chest and burns any trust he might've ever had in his father.

Guilt twists in his stomach and chokes his throat as flashes of his father bleeding on the road fill his mind. His dad took the bullet willingly, but he did so Lyle could escape from the very people he's worked for all these years, and Lyle can't help thinking that if it hadn't been for him, none of the dreadful things that have been going on lately would have happened. Brody, jerk as he was, would be alive, their home would still be there and his dad wouldn't have a bullet through his abdomen. Their lives would've been, if not perfect at least peaceful, without radioactive men holding them hostage and psychopaths with baseball caps haunting the school.

If he thinks this rationally, Lyle knows none of it is really his fault, that he didn't ask to be born the way he was. But after all that's happened today he can no longer be reasonable, and he can't stop wondering if his family's lives wouldn't have been better if they'd never adopted him in the first place.

Lyle stares at the picture, still filled with incredulity. The man standing next to Peter Petrelli is supposed to be his father, but in his mind the word 'Dad' comes with horn-rimmed glasses and a familiar smile, and Lyle doesn't even look like him anyway.

Thinking of Peter as his uncle is less uncomfortable. To Lyle, Peter is the only person outside his family that he's ever felt safe with, the only one who knew his secret, the only one who seemed to believe in him. Peter's risked his own life to save Lyle's, who back then was merely a stranger to him, and he was the only one who made him feel like he wasn't a freak. Peter is someone Lyle can trust, can confide in because Peter understands what it feels like, in a way no one else ever will.

But accepting the man in the picture as his father is another matter altogether. The same goes for Mrs. Petrelli: she's so far away from his beloved Granny's warm eyes and calloused hands as a trailer park in Kermit is away from a mansion in Manhattan. This can't be his family, no matter what DNA might've got to say about it. His family are Mom with her dog's insanity, Dad with his occasional goofiness and his secrets, Claire and her stupid pom-poms, even Mr. Muggles, but not this, not this cold house full of even colder people.

He's still dwelling on his thoughts when he hears Mrs. Petrelli's anguished sobs. He winces and races downstairs, his heart on his throat, and the shock of seeing Nathan Petrelli in the flesh fades when Lyle realises that he's hugging Peter's dead body.

No way, he thinks desperatly. He can't be dead, he just can't.

Mrs. Petrelli drags her oldest son away, muttering words that are unintelligible to Lyle's dazed mind. He just stands there, staring at Peter (Peter's corpse, he thinks and a shiver runs down his spine) for the longest time until his legs seem to move of their own accord and he ends up kneeling by his side.

'You can't be dead,' he whispers, as though by saying it outloud Peter's eyes would lose their glassiness and recover their spark. 'How could you, if you're just like me?'

Peter remains as still and frozen as ever, impassive by Lyle's words. He can't wrap his mind about how Peter, kind, heroic Peter, is forever gone. Lyle is surprised to find he's hurting for a man he barely knew, but Peter was the one who understood him, the one supposed to have all the answers and now he is gone and Lyle doesn't know what to do, which way to turn.

Lyle doesn't know how long he stays there, staring at Peter's motionless form, when a distant echo resounds in his mind.

'You didn't wake up. Fifteen minutes passed and you didn't wake up…'

Lyle's head jerks up as memories flood his mind. He remembers a scorching summer afternoon, an experiment gone wrong and his sister's tear-stained face.

'You had this stuck in the back of your head, and your eyes were all glassy and you weren't breathing and I couldn't find your pulse…'

It's far-fetched, it's a feeble hope, but Lyle's fingers start searching on the back of Peter's head until he grazes the edge of a glass shard sticking out and oxygen returns to both his and Peter's lungs as he pulls it out. A spark ignites again in the man's hazel eyes and the tiniest flicker of hope burns inside Lyle's chest.

'Where're we going now?,' Lyle asks as Dad turns on the ignition without a key.

Daybreak approaches and the first rays of sunshine are rising in the horizon, bathing the deserted parking lot in gold and silver.

His dad's worn-out face breaks into a smile.

'We're going back home.'

Lyle frowns, memories of a house burning down getting blurred and mixed with memories of two men soaring up the sky in flames.

'We don't have a home anymore, Dad. It melted down.'

His dad turns to look at him, and places a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

'Home is where our family can be together, Lyle.'

And for a moment, for a fleeting, golden moment, Lyle is the same boy who used to believe his father could make everything alright and dares to hope, even though he knows he will never forget the anguished look in Peter's eyes as his hands started to burn, he will never forget the weight of the gun in his hands, he will never be able to erase from his mind Nathan's final words to him before he took his brother and left the ground burning red.

Fate's not set into stone.

Lyle repeats those words to himself throughout the entire trip, hoping they mean this time Dad is right and his family will have a second chance.

For someone who is supposed to be indestructible, Lyle Bennet feels broken beyond hope of repair.

His entire world is crumbling around him, leaving empty ashes in its wake. His mother's eyes are hollow and opaque with shadows as she clings to Mr. Muggles for dear life, walking through the house in a daze, apparently not seeing either of her children. Her steps resonate as though the place was entirely empty, as though there were no living being in there with a heartbeat and the need to breath, as though the very same walls were dead.

His sister is going through their father's files like a hurricane, rage and heartache fueling her as her boyfriend hopelessly watches from the doorway. Lyle wishes he could feel a tiny slice of her pain, her wrath, but inside him there's only hollow numbness. He feels nothing but icy coldness, as though his blood was no longer enough to keep his body temperature, as though the bullet had gone through his left eye and his heart had stopped beating a century ago.

Lyle wishes that'd been the case. Lyle wishes that he had taken the bullet instead, knowing as he does that he would have survived it just like he's survived getting shot in the chest and radioactive explosions in the past. And even if he hadn't been able to come back from it – a part of him cannot help thinking it would've been preferable to this emptiness inside, to this chill that the sun could never defeat.

Claire is rambling, about the Company and Bob, about shooting and abductions, about secrets exposed and revenge. Lyle can't follow her train of thought, but when she grabs his arm and drags him towards the pile of boxes her intention becomes crystal clear. Lyle looks into her eyes and sees the same manic gleam that shone in them when she found out who had killed her best friend, but multiplied tenfold. Just like that time, Lyle can't refuse and starts to go through the files, barely getting the meaning of a paragraph or two.

However, one file with several sentences highlighted and his dad's neat handwriting on the margins catches his eye.

He reads the few paragraphs avidly, his heart hammering in his chest as he feels inside him a flicker of something so foreign to him that it takes him a moment to recognise it for what it is.

Hope.

It's surprisingly easy to sneak out once both his mom and Claire've passed out from exhaustion and catch a red eye flight to New Orleans.

Lyle spends the entire flight in a daze and he barely cactches a few glimpses of a city struggling to overcome its grim fate as a cab takes him to his destination. His mind is miles and miles away, in a parking lot with blood pooling on the pavement and his father's corpse under the scorching sun, the sound of waves uncapable of masking his own sobs.

He stands a moment in front of the house, still feeling too numb to react. He checks the address by reflex, and finally musters the energy to climb up the entrance steps and ring the bell.

The grey-haired woman that answers the door looks more like someone's sweet Granny than the powerful being he's read about and he hesitates. On the long way here he tried to think of several ways to approach the subject, but right now nothing comes to his mind so he blurts out:

'I know what you can do, ma'am, and I need to ask you to do something for me, please.'

Instead of slamming the door on his face, as he half-expects her to do, she tilts her head to one side and eyes him intently, as though she could see underneath his skin, and perhaps she can.

'Come in,' she says and Lyle walks into a house that has nothing of the mysterious aura he imagined. There's a piano collecting dust in one corner, magazines haphazardly covering every surface and two boys watching TV. The youngest of them looks up and his eyes meet Lyle's. Perhaps it's his imagination, but he thinks there's something broken in the child's eyes as well, that soon fill with sympathy as though he could recognize Lyle's pain.

She offers him cookies and a glass of ice tea he tries but cannot taste. She is still regarding him with the same pensive, piercing gaze.

'People come to me only when they are truly desperate,' she says calmly, 'because everything comes with a price and sometimes, it's too high to be worth it.'

'I don't care,' Lyle replies, his tone as colourless as he feels. 'Everything's just… wrong. I've got to fix it, no matter what.'

'And what would you need to fix it, child?'

Lyle looks up, resolved.

'I don't want to be the special one anymore, ma'am. Please, make me stop being the special one and everything else will turn right.'

She inhales and time seems to stop for an eternity. The two boys and the sounds of the TV are very far away, right here and now there's just him and the woman who might be able to give him his life back.

'Are you sure? Things might not turn out the way you expect.'

Lyle pauses a moment to think. He thinks of summer days spent coming up with new creative ways to kill himself, he thinks of a quaterback with his head split open, of their house burning down, of a bullet passing through his dad's left eye. He looks into her dark eyes, more resolved than ever.

'I'm sure. Please, help me.'

She looks at him for the longest time and Lyle holds his breath. She finally lets out a sigh and, as though it pained her gratly to do so, she places her hand on his forehead.

'Close your eyes, child. Close your eyes.'

The first thing he feels when he opens his eyes is pain. Blunt, unadulterated pain at the back of his head, and sharp, piercing pain on his left knee.

Apparently, Derek Bronski is as much of a jerk in this universe as he was in the other one. In spite of the pain Lyle smiles, watching blood pouring from a wound that won't heal itself back, as memories of skin knitting itself together slowly start to fade from his mind until they're nothing more than blurry fragments of a forgotten dream.