Morally Gray Imperative

by arjuna.bleu

Post Brave New World. The Haitian and Angela Petrelli are manipulating events from unseen corners once more, but our Heroes have much more pressing problems. Is Claire being consumed by his madness? Always smut.

1. Time To Pretend

Morally Gray Imperative

Part 1: Time to Pretend

"I told you I wasn't ready yet, Pete," he snaps, pinning thick dark hair with one hand. In light of the disdain that she experiences at agreeing with him, she merely nods with her lips pressed together-holding in the unnameable frustration. Sylar turns his back to them and crouches over his current painting. His canvas leans against a stack of more paintings. In fact, the room is lined with them, and they trickle around the corners and down through the nearest corridor of Angela Petrelli's mansion-like condo. He works with fury and focus. His hands deftly dole out paint, swipe the brush, mix, apply, repeat. "I am not ready," he says again quietly.

Claire curls her arms tight around her abdomen. Despite the Petrelli couture she represents picturesquely in her chic Chanel beige tweed dress suit and Christian Louboutin tan pumps, the sight of Sylar still brings out the fear in her every time. Even now, despite her acting as the poster girl of the movement and suffering non-stop publicity-adding a face to the surfacing mutants and genetic oddities-her whole world is only the size of a coffee table. Its cold, solid platform is an island of involuntary commitment. "How do we make love stay?" he had said to her.

Sylar's head sways left to right just as the thought breezes through her mind, a chill following it, and he snaps upright striding out of the room. Peter and Claire hear him throw open the parlor doors. The painting he leaves behind appears finished, wet paint glistening. Sixty, perhaps ninety uncomfortable seconds of silence have passed since Peter led unaware Claire into this most distasteful reunion. "What is this about, Peter?" She is trying to control her temper, but it burns.

"I know this is the last thing you need on your plate right now, but you have to help us. You can help him, Claire. Just talk to him. Please, for me?" Peter slips his coat over his white paramedic shirt to ward off the wet weather and leans in to kiss her forehead. He ruffles her blonde curls when he leans back, "you look beautiful, Claire. You are all grown up, and this is something that can be made right." She presses her lips together once more at this.

Peter is already gone when Sylar returns with a stack of canvases. He moves from one to the next, leaving them lined against the walls and multiplying nearly by the minute. He tears off a fresh piece of wax paper to mix paint on and moves to a new canvas again. Claire watches, her ears burning and anger burgeoning. What could Peter possibly hope to make right? This man took her mother from her... her father, her innocence. He achieved what no previous trauma could. He had broken her spirit.

This is about that dream of Matt's they had... again... she thinks. Sylar's head tilts to the right, and he pauses just slightly before reaching out once again with the brush. "So... uh, obviously you found an outlet for your... memorium list or whatever you were calling it. Peter told me," she settles on. Her heart pounds. Damn her grandmother. Damn her uncle. Stand up straight, girl, and do not fiddle with your hands-she can hear Tracy coaching her; when you are most at a loss you must appear confident. Inter-relations. She can do this.

"This is back work," Sylar says. He pauses, and it is long enough for her to become curious. She leans to the side, safely keeping her five foot distance, and takes a peek at his painting. Tones of gray, and a young couple wrapped in each others arms sitting in a snowy embankment. They have dark hair and large white smiles. It is sweet, touching even. He stands up again, and Claire is startled to discover she has stepped forward two feet and, though it is not quite within arms reach, the dark expanse of his shoulders is nearer than she has been to him in quite some time.

He is aware of how Peter and she argue over this. She tells him it was a fever dream-a sickness. This man is a monster, a beast that comes roaring in nearly all her nightmares. Can't he see? Peter is steadfast, though, which is why they are nearly alone together. Angela is somewhere in the condo and there is a staff on hand; but here in the foyer and den there is only Sylar, Claire, and somewhere near two hundred paintings. "I hit a wall," he says with his back to her still. "How... how can I help you?" She is trying to be patient, but it comes as a hiss between her teeth anyway.

He reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a small silver digital camera. When he turns to face her his eyes are averted, looking at the camera's screen. He takes a step forward, and now there is only two feet between them. Then his hand is extending, and there is only a foot. The camera is in his hand, but her stomach is clenched unmercifully. When she takes the thing, she barely manages to stutter out, "W-what..?" It is a weak cover at best.

"I use this camera to take pictures of what I need to remember to paint. Yes, for the list. I can remember the event by seeing the image. Touching the camera... nevermind. Scroll right," he explains. She does as he says. Image after image of Sylar's body, covered in her face. It starts with simply the forearm, and eventually her face is laughing and crying across Sylar's firm chest and torso, back, and shoulders. "I don't understand," she says, handing him back the camera. "What does this have to do with your paintings of your victims' lives? Why are they all here?" She says, looking around in bafflement.

"This isn't all of them," he says, putting the camera back in his pocket. "The rest have gone to exhibits. Peter did that," he adds thoughtfully. "That is exactly it. I am nowhere near the end, and I can't go on. I... I can't figure it out." The last is nearly a whisper. Claire measures her words, reminding herself that she needs to be downstairs in fifteen and that this is for Peter... and her grandmother; because the monster is family or something subjective like that-except he is not really, and the burning anger will not dissipate. She says, "I know it must be difficult for you, Sylar, to choose the most poignant events of lives that were completely meaningless to you for art, but I am sure that you will find a way around this little bump in the road. Now, if you will excuse me, I have an interview and a book signing this afternoon."

She means to turn on her heel and high tail it out of there as soon as it has come out of her mouth, but he raises his eyes to hers and they captivate the moment entirely. "I asked you to call me Gabriel, Claire, please," he says smoothly. "I have to go," she says. She means it. She means run. Her heart is pounding and, no matter how many pictures of Peter and he dressed in white and barefoot go up on the mantle, he is the monster. He is the monster. "I can't figure it out," he says it with fervor this time, "and you are going to tell me what I need, Claire, by telling me what you need."

Quick as a flash it has crossed her mind: the Hollywood Hills sign. West's amazing catch. Someone please rescue me... she didn't think she meant it. "Oh, Claire," he sighs. "They tried so hard to kill me and I couldn't save myself. They tried so hard to save you and you couldn't kill yourself... ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha..." His laughter is light and, though it sounds merry, it chills her to the bone again and she does turn this time to run. He reaches out and wraps his fingers around her slim wrist. A mere chance-he had not expected he would catch her-and the sensation delights him. She is disgusted though, and snatches her hand away without looking back.

"Can you imagine?" she says to Tracy as they primp in the back of their limo. "What am I going to do for that creature? So many need someone really trying to get the message out that we are not a different species and we want to live as regular people, and all they can think about is that beast!" She doesn't mean to sound so petulant but Tracy is understanding. "Claire, if he wasn't the most powerful being on the planet who suddenly found Jesus or his grocery list, I am sure that he would be locked up with the other serial killers. As it stands, he is your uncle's and grandmother's philanthropy project of the year, and you and I need to be worried about the PR we are going to be getting for the next three weeks with the new book promo. Now switch into the Lorenzi boots; they go much better with that teal dress," Tracy says as she cocks one eyebrow for touch up.

It chews on her during work. Peter set her up. She told him and Angela to just stop it. Sylar can burn in hell-will burn in hell-and that was all. No conversation needed. She understands that they believe in his repentence and seeking of absolution, but he has taken so much from her... It is not hate, but she simply cannot bear him. She cannot understand how Peter lives with him, knowing what he has done and can do...on a whim. She tells Tracy she is going to Angela's for the night, but instead she instructs the driver to take her to Peter's.

Her feet should be sore, and she knows her hair has fallen flat. She consoles herself with a promise of emotional rest right after she has this conversation with Peter. He answers the door still in his uniform. "Just get home?" she asks cheerily. "Yeah, just walked through the door," he answers as he closes it behind her. She cuts right to the chase, "Look, Peter, I know you think I can help him, but I can't. Okay? I just can't, and you can't do that to me anymore. Please, Peter, don't make me... be near him." Peter nods, lips tight while she talks. His arms are crossed over his chest. "Where is he, anyway?" she asks once her nerves have metered out. "You know Gabe," Peter says, "he's covering my double shift on call tonight. Come here."

They step five feet to the left, and she looks down. She looks up and around. On one side of the apartment, there is a wall of Nathans. Nathan in his pilot's suit, Nathan in front of crowds, Nathan at home, Nathan with family. If Claire were to guess, she would say there were perhaps fifty paintings. The other wall is a collection of paintings of... herself. Her face in reflection, her silhouette, cheerleading, with West, with Mr. Muggles, with her mother, her toes bright pink as she paints them... Then she sees it.

She is laying on her bed with a queen sized pillow crushed to her chest and stomach. Exaggerated cartoon tears squeeze from her eyes, and at the edges of her hairline there is the indication of the cut, a small amount of blood. Her peach legs are a perfect figure extending from the hem of her white sweater. The same day that there was no Peter to save her. Peter would not know this image, but she knows it. The heat that came to her body, the madness that had already been climbing on top of her that cemented one cumulative isolated expression. In the painting one hand is clearly visible wrenching at the pillow, the other much lower beneath, and the word clenched between her teeth at her most tender moment, "...Sylar."

Her face is flush, and he betrays himself when she turns to him. Lips parted, cheeks red, eyes a-glisten. "You bastard," she snarls. His face shifts instantly, Sylar's height blossoming from seeming nothingness. "How could you lie to me?" she yells. The fire in it sets his blood alight as he hears the echo across Noah and others in her mind. "I couldn't figure it out. I have painted image after image. Most of our lives are dull, repetitive moments able to be explained again and again. In many of the places I have been I'm not the first killer, but I didn't truly learn that until I went back to see their lives... What is this?" he finishes. The question is open, pleading for understanding.

"I hate you," she shivers out through clenched teeth. He will not remit. His brown eyes watch her with scintillating attention. The heat comes back to her regardless of her intentions, and she can hear his breath hitching above her as the pain of the knife in his chest interrupts his prattling whilst he works, "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" The coffee table is an icy slab beneath her-the only sensation before it all becomes non. She knows what it is. No man has ever been this intimately close to her before, except family. His scent all around her. The uncommon things he says so calmly. Madness. The Mad Hatter will be having your brains for tea. Wicked pleasantries.

When he was Peter she had moved within his personal space without regard, and his change has backed her into a wall, but now they are close again. It is far too close for any comfort, and she feels tears begin to swell knowing that she has let him near again, making her consistently the victim. Meredith taught her to always keep the predator a step further away than an arm's length, especially if he insists he is a house pet. For an instant, she fears he has locked her in place. It seems nothing will move except her erratically thrumming heart. Then his scent tickles her sinuses.

It quite literally starts as a tickle in the back of her nose, and she thinks for just a second that she is going to sneeze but, as the sensation spreads, it becomes a warmth. As the warmth spreads, she can suddenly sense a great tension in her lower back and the firm press of her bra cupping her breasts. Her tail bone warms. The memory comes back like the hot hell it was on a summers' night. The thought that crossed her mind when she whispered his name hangs heavy in the six inches between them.

Then the sight of his dark clad shoulders as he steps toward the door and out of her life... "You're special, Claire, and I couldn't kill you even if I wanted to... You can never die, and now, I guess, neither can I," and with that he is gone. Those broad, dark shoulders and the breeze and light that has come through the door then silence: the end of an event. On that breeze, however, the first taste of something else. It does not hold the scent that cups her face where his hands have been. No, this brings an immense heat upon her immediately, as though Sprague has set her alight again.

She runs up the stairs and slams her bedroom door, sliding down against it. She feels so white-hot angry, and this heat will not leave her be. She slides out of her jeans and throws herself on the bed, snatching her pillow up. Of course he came today when she was home alone with her hair undone and practically a mess. God, what did it matter? Murdering freak! Those thin rail boys, though. Oh, those boys with their weak hearts and their soft minds. No expanse on any of them, and she could see him above her and bare. His shoulders flexing as he moves in time with her. The flesh of his hips brushing her inner thighs as he leans in for her mouth, dark brows drawn in concentration and eyes flashing. "...Sylar," she sighs as tears flood. She screams into the pillow.

"I hate you!" she snarls again even though it is the last thing she has said to him. She just cannot seem to say it enough. He watches her for a long minute. Both of their faces burn red. Finally, she turns and flees again. Just like earlier today, and last month, and six months ago. No, the time is not making it any easier for Claire Bennet to be close to him. The door slams behind her. This is making it worse.

"Did she talk to you this time at least?" Peter asks when he finally makes it home hours later. "Yes," Sylar answers. The pause is notably long, and Peter slows stripping down his bag, coat, and gear. "How did it go?" He prompts. Sylar's head tilts to the right. Peter knows he is listening to his thoughts and not really considering the question. He keeps his mind blank, unwilling to bend in any direction. "She wants me..." Sylar pauses again, "as much as she hates me." Peter scoffs a near laugh, "that is quite the quandary."

"What am I going to do, Pete?" he calls across the apartment. Peter pads back through the bedroom from the bathroom on bare feet and walks straight to the kitchen. He has undressed to just his work slacks and commences making himself a sandwich. Gabriel follows him to the kitchen doorway. "How do I get around this?" He presses. "Well, you tortured and terrified her, murdered her mother and her father-my brother. There is no way around that. Natural grieving processes are complex." Sylar winces when he says "my brother." It amazes him no end Peter's capacity for forgiveness and mercy, but he still feels pain under the sincere words.

He can't resist the urge to break the ice slithering over the conversation, "but that was ages ago," he complains with a lop-sided grin. "Women remember that sort of thing," Peter answers with a laugh. The tension of his encounter with Claire and stress of apparent deficiency culminates into a pressure on his chest. "I love you, Pete," he says. Peter smiles, his lips curling in. "I love you too, Gabe." He gives Gabriel a good solid pat on the shoulder as he walks past shoveling sandwich into his mouth. Gabriel marvels at his confidence. He marvels more that there is no tingle from his ability to detect lies.

"I need something. Peter! I need something to hold on to...to make it easier," the man's desperation is riveting. If he and Gabriel had not been going on a good decade of truth and justice together he might have reconsidered. He might have worried that his companion who had somehow made himself a brother was becoming the lesser man again. The idea that this man could be his brother-prove himself irrefutably-after all they had been through together demonstrated to Peter something he had taken on as a serious life lesson. The insurmountable odds grew every day. Just like his ability to climb the mountain.

He had to admit that the number of successful endeavors at the hospital had drastically increased since he had become able to depend on someone elses assistance. Gabriel would join him simply for his presence before becoming swept into the reparation they were capable of in a single day. People were bound to start noticing soon if they weren't more careful, but they were drunk with the power of it. It gave them camraderie. It was almost starting to feel like they were making a dent. "Say it with me, Pete. 'You can't fix the world, but you can make a dent.'" Nathan used to say to him.

He turns to Gabriel, his friend and brother, "never. Without. Her. Permission." They study one another. Peter's jaw is set firmly to his right as he tries to impart the pertinence with his eyes. The once offender wants to feel righteously indignant. How dare you insinuate? He knows his own horrified face in the fun house. Remembers hers. "Okay. Alright. Nice one," he vacillates and a great gust of tension leaves the room. Sylar considers her slender wrist strong as iron wrapped in silk clasped in his hand. Peter is right.

In the early morning hours when the sun is just peeking over the horizon Peter stirs in his sleep. Gabriel has lain awake on the couch all night, and hears accelerated breathing in the next room. "Nathan...Nathan. No!" Peter bolts upright. "Go back to sleep, Pete. It's just a bad dream. I'm right here," he says in Nathan's voice. It makes his brow furrow and his stomach tense to do so, but he hears Peter relax back into his bed. It is worth it and he probably won't remember it in the morning anyway. He usually doesn't.

Four days later at the opening night gala Claire is staring thoughtfully at the installation in the foyer pondering how 9 PM used to be her bed time and now is her most active social hour despite very little change in her features. She would never look a day older. She would be this petite until... Music chimes quietly in the background. Cocktail dresses and fine suits mingle around her. She wraps her arms tightly around herself and kisses the champagne flute in a sip.

Emblazoned boldly on a nine by two foot cavas above nine three by three individual images in curliqued script his words read: "The more laws and orders written, the more thieves there are." She feels the urge to snort and roll her eyes. The pictures are stunning despite her incredulity. The first image is her sitting at a stone lunch table in the quad of her Odessa high school. Her and Jackie are laughing. Sitting next to her on the stone bench there is a stack of plastic wrapped cheerleading uniforms. Long before him. Long before she knew.

The second image is a grizzled old man, oxygen tube snaking around his ears pronged in the center of his face. It is the man who killed her father's first wife. He is ancient and withered, but it is definitely him. The third image is a red-headed waitress with the huge eyes of a Burmese cat. She is trying to study them in order, but as she moves to the fourth her eyes are drawn to the center. Sylar wearing Gabriel's face. He has removed it like a mask, and inches behind Gabriel's thick glasses and unassuming soft features the Devil smirks. She hadn't realized before that he had adjusted the shape of his face. It had never occurred to her, but a plastic surgeon certainly couldn't have done it for him-or for her.

"Something else, isn't it?" Peter says from next to her. She jumps and her flute nearly slips. "Peter! How do I know it's you?" She is immediately suspicious after her trip to their apartment. Peter is smiling at her, "when I saved you in Odessa I asked if I had saved the world." She looks up at the painting of her and Jackie, "he has so many tricks there is no way for me to really know anymore, is there?" Peter gestures behind her and she turns to her right. A shadow moves amongst the other patrons.

"You don't go to parties dressed as each other, do you?" She asks jokingly. Peter laughs, "no, not yet anyway." She looks up at the paintings chosen to introduce the exhibit. These are supposed to be the artist's representative images. "It is something," she mutters under her breath. To Peter she says, "he told me he works at the hospital sometimes as you." Peter nods and his eyes are scanning the room, "that's true," he says. "Sometimes we work together. Excuse me for a moment," and he steps around her. She sees Angela across the atrium in his direct line.

"Her name is Charlie," hot silk nails pin her to the floor. "Who?" She tries not to sound terrified. "The red head," he says. He is standing a polite foot and a half away, his eyes raised to the paintings. He wants to tell her that he didn't kill Charlie he saved her, but settles for saying nothing. Claire swallows. Many of the people here have ties and connections. This event is obviously intricately tied into her grandmother's web of control and power. Keep it cool and even. Only a handful of individuals here should even know who Sylar is despite his face being up on the wall. It isn't labelled artist's self-portrait. Just another model.

"I don't know most of these faces," she says, "but I know the one in the top center." Sylar's left brow raises, "really? Fascinating. Who is he to you?" She takes a deep breath and kisses her flute carefully again-like they practiced. She no longer cares what she looks like in these tall couture shoes and over-priced scrap of fabric that is her little black dress. "He murdered my father's first wife," she says over the scent of her glass. "Noah's," she breathes. "He is my father," Sylar says evenly.

"The bottom center is my mother. Claire, would you like to walk through this hall of mirrors with me?" His tone remains even (always), but she still catches that he is physically less at ease. She hasn't thought of the carnival in some time, but his implication is still quite clear. This is the unremarkable entry to the horror within. Claire resists the urge to roll her eyes again. She just can't understand why she feels so tired as of late. "No, I think I'll pass," she tells him. "It's because you're hungry," he completely bypasses her rejection of him and instead answers her ponderings. "You don't...go to the bathroom anymore. Do you?" His dark eyes are watching her. "You're starving," he says with conviction before stepping away.

It was true that she hadn't used the toilet in nearly a month, but she had not said anything to anyone about it. He had to know because it was happening to him too. Her body had slimmed considerably. Dropping from a shapely six down to a zero. She was desperately in need of nutrients, but had been so distracted with the need to speak and speak; she was trying to wash away the feeling of needing nothing by indulging it. She found herself suddenly quite hungry, but she turned and walked into the gallery. Two more hours of work then she was going to the midnight buffet with Tracy.

She had glanced briefly at the picture of Sylar's mother. Wondering at such a simple woman in an indoor snow storm surrounded by glass globes. How did he do it? What did it mean? Claire lost the train of thought as she moved through the other paintings. Noah was in enough of them to call it a number, perhaps almost many. Many more of the paintings were not scenes of murder and dismay, but rather touching experiences-personal, private moments. An upturned face from a comfortable couch, offering servings of dinner, stepping through the front door-the gestures that would make a life sweet with the bitter.

Angela catches her when she has nearly made it to the door after a few hours of traipsing, smiling, and polite greeting. Her and Tracy perfectly perpetuate the classic hemisphere single, cross, full circle together social maneauver. She is proud and Tracy has stepped away simply to use the restroom when her grandmother startles her out of reverie. They are standing in front of a three series near the entrance/exit. Elle and Gabriel through a screen with Noah's horn rimmed glasses silhouetted in the foreground in front of a television monitor. Elle's white blonde tendrils of hair flung across the sand, the lithe length of Sylar's shadow planted firmly between her thighs. Claire blushes. Elle's bust, hair still free flowing against the sand, her head slashed open.

"Tragic like Romeo and Juliet," Angela says. "Sort of," Claire answers. "It is always a great effort to bear a great burden, but that is why there are rewards," her grandmother offers cryptically. "What do you mean?" She wants to be angry knowing manipulation is in the air, but she also knows the door is mere steps away and Tracy will be right back to rescue her. "I know you feel overwhelmed with your responsibilities, Claire. You make me proud. Your commitment to cleaning up this mess is admirable, and we couldn't have salvaged this situation without that fall," Angela reaches out and cups Claire's elbows, a smile turning up the corners of her aged mouth.

The shadow that had drifted round and round all evening-the only scotch glass she had noticed-was leaning into the woman eight feet away. She looked to be Angela's age. Her silver hair is cut short around her ears and her cocktail dress glitters in the under shade of the lighting. His lips are perhaps an inch from her ear and Claire's breath hitches. She reads the words from his full mouth-only knowing because she is expecting them in some way, "I'm sorry for your loss." She hadn't really noticed how long the woman had been standing in front of the series next to her. It was certainly nearly as long as she had been standing here.

She is so tired she isn't sure she understands what is being said to her, but fortunately Tracy strides up-tall and proud-at just the right time. "Good evening, Ms Petrelli," she smiles with straight white teeth. "Tracy! Don't you look lovely? You're doing an amazing job Ms Strauss as always," she is referring to Claire's transformation from lost lamb to media puppet. "Thank you very much. It is a great honor to continue to assist your family in affecting moral and social genuflection," Tracy answers. Her smile never falters, but Claire knows the ice underneath. "Four-thirty dress rehearsal, Claire?" Tracy says turning to her. "Good night," she says to her grandmother. Neither of them look back at Angela even though they know she is watching as they leave.

She is thinking of the tears that slid down that woman's face. The more she thinks about it the longer the moment seems. The older woman in her black sequined dress had been standing there for a long, long time with her glass of red wine. Upon consideration she had not even seen which direction Sylar had snuck up from, but it was obvious that he had surprised her by both invading her space and his very personal words. "I'm starving," she says to Tracy when they step out into the warm night air.

It is nearly four months before she is in New York again. Three months and twenty-three days later roughly thirty-seven hundred calories a day has brought her back up to a curious size four. She has noticed the inequality, and she still has not used the toilet. She is exhaustedly coifed in an evening gown, up-done hair, and exagerrated make up. Her picture was taken a million times this evening and she's quite flustered and dizzy from it all, but she can't wait until tomorrow to see Peter. Beside that, Tracy said the schedule was tight. Now or never sounded good.

Claire is surprised to hear the television. The last time she was here she isn't even sure she saw one. Peter answers the door in dark sweat pants and tee, his eyes are swollen and pink. Her voice cuts through the silence from the screen, "individuals who manifest these abilities are becoming less unusual. A commitment from politicians, communities, and families is needed to foster understanding and support for every human being that suffers alone. I urge you, if you have a support network then please come forward and offer support to those who have none." Peter closes the door behind her. She gathers her skirt, turning to the television.

"The serial killer Sylar," the interviewer prompts. Claire's face on the television barely visibly tightens, bearing gracefully this probing in her Chanel beige suit once more. The prime time journalist continues, "many are arguing that his is a case that justifies Nathan Petrelli-your father's-illegal pursuit and registration of specially developed individuals. It is even postulated that you have been one of his victims. How do you answer these assertions?" She sees herself take a huge breath and her eyes wander left to right. Angela would disapprove.

"I had only very recently been introduced to my biological father and therefore know nothing of his intentions before his untimely and tragic death. On the matter of the psychopath Sylar, I will say this:" She turns to the camera and her expression hardens. "Sylar is a murderer. Human beings do not judge each other based on the behaviors of Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer, and likewise we ask that people who have developed abilities not be judged by one psychotic bad apple," she feels she has nailed this. Take that Angela. She turns to Peter to find him scowling.

"Merry Christmas!'' She exhales. Hoping to cover the pregnant pause between them. Her bare shoulders are freezing, and her extended lashes and hair are covered in faux glitter snow. Her green taffeta dress and black Alexander McQueen claw heels make her a stark contrast to Peter's dishevelled fatigue. "You believe those things you say?" Peter says accusingly. Her green eyes flash to the television. "Your mother-" she starts. "No, you can't blame this on her. How could you say that? You know that he-" she interrupts him interrupting her, "I don't know anything about him!"

She loves Peter, but feels immense right now. Towering over him in the monstrosities she has managed to accustom herself to she bares her teeth at him. "I can't forget, Peter. I can't forget what he did. What he did to me," she snarls. He scoffs and a hand digs into his dark locks, "Neither can he." Claire feels somewhat deflated and it shows. Peter watches her through swollen eyes. "He chose the nightmare," he says flatly. She doesn't know what to say so she stares back at him waiting for elaboration.

He has gone back to watching the television, rubbing at his forearms nervously. They have moved on from her interview and five men are discussing taxation on special abilities that produce commodities loudly over one another. "He finished his paintings...or he got as close as he said he could then he just... Gave up," Peter continues to stare at the television but he isn't seeing it, not really.

"Bullshit," she says before she can stop herself, "no way." Peter's stare is long and hard. "Why would he do something like that, Peter? Where is he?" For a split second Claire's frustration reaches an immense pinnacle as she realizes the shrill tone she has reached. There is a contradiction occurring here and she is at a loss to explain it. Peter gestures towards the partitioned bedroom. Claire stalks across the apartment, arms full of glittering green taffeta exposing black stockings beneath.

Sylar is propped in Peter's bed, blankets pulled up neatly just below his shoulders. She is frozen in place. As always his affect on her is instantaneous. She drops her skirt. Claire finds her voice, "how long has he been this way?" Peter is at her side studying his long time friend, "ten days and eighteen hours." She nods and glitter falls around her as she settles on the bed next to him. "How many paintings did he finish?" Claire asks. Peter's voice cracks when he answers, "over six thousand. He wanted the world to see some of what had been missed, he said."

Claire feels anger rising up in her and suddenly her dress is tight, her shoes are uncomfortable, and all of this is just plain ridiculous. "You are acting like he is dead!" She hisses at him. Already on edge Peter snaps, "every hour is one year where he is, Claire!" Pursing her lips, she thinks on the math class she dipped out on wistfully-that would be ten times twenty-four plus eighteen...two hundred and fifty-eight years roughly. She gasps and her eyes fly to his lax face. Sylar...

Even as soft as his features appear in sleep he is still the devil. It is clear that the gullable face of Gabriel is not there for the world any more. She thinks of his self-portrait. She can't leave him like this. Her heart leaps into her throat as she plunges down the rabbit hole, "you did this!" She turns accusingly on Peter, "he couldn't have done it on his own. Let me in, Peter. You asked me to help him." Unsure of how much she really means, Claire levels her best stone-cold stare toward her uncle.

"No. Absolutely not," but she can already see him wavering. This is a tenuous subject for Peter. With Nathan's loss, Arthur's loss after his return, and consistent betrayal on Angela's part Peter was beginning to be quite the pushover for Claire and Gabriel. Either one of them could get whatever they wanted as tightly as he was wrapped around their little fingers. Claire looks up at him with black spider lashes crusted in glitter and huge begging emerald eyes darkened by her dress. He looks to Gabriel's prone form, features barely sunk in nearly two weeks with no nourishment whatsoever.

"You said yourself that this is something that I can make right," she presses. "Call Tracy-," she begins but Peter's fingertips barely trail across her temple. She sees it as a slash of light and the world whorls for a moment. Claire slumps forward slowly. He stands chewing his lips, knuckles pressed firmly against his mouth in consideration. He hadn't meant to be abrupt-just wanting to get it out of the way before any deep thought disuaded him. He immediately regrets it, but somehow doubts that there is anything to be done from this side for either of his dear friends.

Peter presses Claire's golden tanned shoulder back so that she is resting against Gabriel's side. He pulls off her monstrous shoes and her pretty little toes fade quickly from bright red to perfect pink in her stockings, the flesh expanding to fill in the hours-long dents before his eyes. Going to fetch a blanket for Claire he feels as though he has cordoned off the serpent and the great beast to abandon them locked in eternal struggle. It discomfits him.

The air is cold and fresh, a morning slant of sun sneaks through the windows. Golden tresses curled, white sweater, jeans, bare feet. Peter knew exactly where to find him. The shop is chilly in the morning air. That must be why he is wearing such a thick sweater. His back is to her, and he is hunched over his work-desk lamp glaring in the cool gray morning. His voice is low and he says as though they are in the middle of a conversation, "so keep dreaming, Claire. Keep dreaming and all of your dreams will come true."

"Even the scary ones?" She whispers. As though a shadow has passed over the early morning sun the room darkens. The whole world darkens. The desk lamp is now a lone beacon. "Yes," Sylar answers thickly. The watch and screwdriver clink together when he sets them down-the tiniest of bells in this silent place-and he places his glasses with their speciality magnifiers down next to them. "Why are you here?" His miserable anger sets her off. "This is pathetic," Claire spits. Her brow furrows. That isn't why she came.

"As I recall, your own exploits currently aren't nearly what was hoped for either, Barbie," his tone is always level yet deadly. Using Doyle's moniker for her adds a delightful extra sting. "I'm sorry," she gasps as tears swell. "I forgot why I came," Claire hopes her tone is humble. She doesn't mean to be so weepy, but the room is cold and dark. Her feet are bare on a freezing floor and she is alone with this strange man. This strange man that did very bad things to her. "Why did you come then?" He asks curtly. "I was so hungry..." the blonde mumbles. His back is to her still, palms down on the desk, so she does not see his smirk.

"Oh, Eris, how many golden apples do you have up your sleeve with which to tempt me? Every word that comes out of your mouth endlessly fascinating in its embodiment of inviolable vanities that used to mean nothing. 'If you meet the buddha on your path, kill him,'" he breathes the words out steadily, but they are intimate-dangerous. She trembles in the cold. "Your metabolism has rightly adjusted to every organ in your body being capable of functioning to its full potential. Without consuming somewhere around six to eight times the normal amount of food you may never have to use the restroom again. Professor Hotema postulated that human organs-" he continues to babble, but she has closed him out.

His need to communicate is deep-seated. It is unnerving to see him switch from salted psychotic to eagerly educating sycophant. She breathes a sigh of relief as some of the light returns. The room warms slowly. He puts the glasses back on and begins tinkering once more. Sylar still continues to talk however. Rallying off reference and example regarding absorption of nutrients into human tissues he toils and tabulates through several timepieces. He falls silent eventually and she settles into a chair in the corner.

Time passes. She pulls her feet into the seat beneath her. She returns them to the floor. Claire finds it impossible to determine how long and catches herself staring at the throb in her wrist. The steady thump and thump of her heart-continual and eternal. Shaking herself out of it she focuses instead on the light slanting through the shop windows. Her life unspools slowly for her. She follows herself one step at a time to this place. Feeling more self-assured now that she has found much that was missing Claire decides to try again.

"Sylar," she says into the empty room. It is night out. It was never not morning though, was it? Sylar steps through the door from the back of the shop. He has shed his thick sweater for a simple long sleeved shirt. "So you are really here," he states. He stalks toward her reversing mid stride and seating himself in one long graceful gesture. He folds his hands exagerratedly and a wide smile spreads across his face. The desk lamp is the only light in the world and between them there is only a three foot expanse of beige floral carpet and her bare feet, chilly at the edges. "What can I do for you?" He purrs.

Claire draws in a deep breath feeling her eyes rolling already in resignation. She opens her mouth and stops. His grin is far too wide. His eyes too dark. Where are the soft bedroom eyes that have been leering at her gently for a dozen or so meetings now? He is watching her perfect little white teeth, plush coral lips, wide blonde curls, but his eyes are not benevolently longing. No, this situation has escalated. She is alone with the beast. Alone on his turf. She closes her mouth slowly, pursing her lips with slight dramaticism, and batting her lightly mascaraed lashes.

"Is this what you are spending eternity doing?" She quips dangerously. She locks her green eyes to his. Meredith said you always had to hypnotize the snake. Walk the narrow straight between his madness and his passion; never let him push you over the line and never let him back you to the wall. She would know with Doyle following her around for all those years espousing his 'passion'... Claire stretches one foot languidly across toward him, bowing her legs and slouching down in her seat. Sylar's eyes follow her petite digits before returning to hers, one eyebrow lifting as the hem of her sweater rides up above the waist of her jeans exposing the slightest smidgen of belly flesh.

"You are here in this one tiny place tinkering away with accessories that no one in the modern age is missing. This is pathetic. You could go anywhere, do anything. All you are is disappointed," she mutters with just the slightest of scoffs. His cheshire smile never wavers. She delicately drags her thumb nail across her lower lip-slow, thoughtful and showing those perfect little white fangs again. Sylar squares his shoulders and leans back slowly watching her through hooded eyes. "It is exhausting living up to expectations, don't you think?" He drawls. The hand that had been trailing idly across the arm of the chair ghosts across her abdomen and his eyes break hers once again to follow the motion hungrily.

Despite the butterflies that had been building in her lower stomach she is suddenly terrified when his eyes narrow and he snarls, "What are you doing here, Claire?" The night is oppressive around them. She had felt some anonymity in the low lighting but foolishness washes over her soundly and she is grateful for it hiding her blush at least. "Peter is worried about you," she snaps to attempt to change the subject. "Don't change the subject," his voice cracks. It is the barest hint at a rise in tone, but perceptible nonetheless. "Why are you doing this to me?" He says emphatically. Look at him squirm... Indeed, they are all alone. He is the last man on earth. With only the two of them to contend with she takes the plunge-reservations be damned.

She catches the hem of her sweater and lifts it over her head, catching her bra on the way, and drops her clothing to the floor. She tosses her hair and reclines in the chair, levelling flint bright emerald eyes at him. Truth or dare time. Claire slides her hands across her stomach, over her breasts and up through her hair, back arched and smirking. It was the most languid gesture Sylar had ever seen and Claire's perked nipples send a twinge to his loins. Her cheeks are burning. "Do it," she sighs huskily, "fuck me, Sylar." In an instant his lithe shadow is leaning over her, one knee planted firmly against the seat of the chair between her thighs. Her breath hitches and she closes her eyes involuntarily-his swiftness terrifying. There is a hairs breadth between them.

His nostrils flare as he lingers near her hair. "Why do you smell like this?" The timber in his voice is a vibratory burr. It brings back the butterflies. "Even in my dreams," he huffs. He studies her face from so very close. Flushed and trembling she is golden, round, and beautiful. Girl, tell me your name, is it Sweet..? He wishes silently, white-knuckle gripping the arms of her seat. "Show me your teeth," he growls into the shell of her ear. She hisses, baring tiny fangs between luscious pout and her eyes snap open finally. Cold dead ashes even though her heart is on fire. No, my boy, it's dagger to your heart. His right brow creases only slightly.

Claire's heart leaps into her throat as thick white canvas straps spring inexplicably from the seat he has so recently vacated and return him there carefully, wrapped shoulder to ankle. Her perfect pout hangs agape. The air is chilly on her bare chest. Sylar's dark eyes are watching her intently. "What the hell?" She spits. "You're too young," he says. His even tone has returned. The straps tighten and double up, more leaping from beneath him. She snatches up her clothes and dresses herself quickly, back to him. When she turns around he is staring vacantly past her shoulder. She waits. He ignores her.

God, how stupid am I? She feels tears threatening to overflow again. Claire's small hands with their french manicured nails ball into tight little fists. A ragged breath catches in her chest. She turns and runs again. It does not matter to her that this is his mind. Where is she going to go? Everywhere here is no where. How can this place even be real? She pushes through doors and runs up stairs. Anywhere that he isn't is good enough. The first apartment she tries is unlocked and she is grateful for the empty bed with it's cool sheets to soothe her burning tear-streaked face. The blonde cries herself to sleep, face buried deep in a scentless pillow.

Gabriel Gray's watch shop is no longer a reality-long ago closed and assumed abandoned. Sylar sits in the watch shop of his dreams strapped to his desk chair. He smirks to himself at the absurdity. All of these years and she could reduce him to whatever she wanted in an instant still. He considers his attentions carefully-ever wary of the intents and purposes of others. It is madness that no matter how long he meditates or imagines...she just brings out the beast in him. The ghost within his shell slips from the desk chair and drifts through the streets following the scent of a dream to the place where the young girl's mind lingers in an illusion of rest.

Claire isn't sure whether she really believes the early morning light in the windows. The darkness comes and goes with its own whimsy in this place, and she dare not feel comfortable with a rational concept of time. It would seem that she slept through the night and it is now the next day. Claire finds her way back to his shop. The lights glint through the windows; crystals and timefaces reflect the store ambiance. Through Gray & Sons hours and information she sees him still strapped in his seat. He does not move when the bell above the door tinkles.

She stops where the store shelving ends and his work space begins to watch him. "How long do you intend to stay like this?" She asks. Sylar's bedroom eyes flicker from one corner of the ceiling to a shelf and back. "As long as necessary," he replies. Her manicured nails are idly fingering one corner of a wooden display case, but she is staring him down hard. Claire takes a deep breath, "how long is 'necessary?'" His brown eyes slide closed and for a long moment she isn't sure that he is going to answer. She is right at the border of deciding that he has gone back to ignoring her when he finally speaks. "Until I no longer have the desire for comfort," and his whisper brings her chills.

The desire for comfort? The petite blonde feels pressure burgeoning upward. Some deep-seated rage has come for a visit and would very much like to get out and walk around-perhaps have some lunch. Claire grits her teeth. She wants to say something, anything. There should be something that can be said that will change everything. Nothing comes. No words exist within her to quell his remorse or burst this didactic segregation. She is angry at him for everything he did, but more so she is angry with him because they can't move around it. There is no escape for either of them from the tangled web that brought their star-crossed lives together.

She runs because it is the only response she knows to him. It is the only thing that keeps her going because it is going. Claire's legs pump acid, regenerate, and keep pounding out distance. Her bare feet smack the pavement and the sound of it echoes off the buildings and down the alleys. She runs until there are trees. She runs until the urban turns into the suburban and then she keeps running. The edge of New York. Her south-eastern direction has brought her to a curve in the road. She curls around herself beneath the green trees and stares out at the flat, deadly still ocean. No wind whipping or waves crashing-only her sobs here.

I didn't even ask Peter how to get out of here, she thinks. There was a wall. They found a wall and it was the way out. There is no wall. The gray morning light has warmed considerably and the first yellow is beginning to peak across the vast expanse of mirror. The only sound is her own breathing. It occurs to her that he may very well be the only way out of here. No, she will not be going to him of her own accord. Not after how it worked out the first time. Even alone on this empty road she tingles in humiliation all over again. There has to be another way, she tells herself. Come on, feet.

It only takes a few days for her to figure out that her feet never experience wear and her thin mascara is always fresh. She walks to places she knows first-her home town in Odessa, her home in Costa Verde. She wants to be further from him. Claire chances everything and tries the marble smooth water. All of the places in North America were murder homes. Every house filled with blood stains; apartments splayed with gore. She never found any bodies though. The rest of the world waits, and unable to genuinely count the time or conceive of an end to this world she sets out to find an exit. It could be anywhere. It could be nowhere. Surely the whole planet can't be concealing his nightmares...

She swims until she feels she has been swimming for far longer than she ever walked in this world. When the idea alone exhausts her she turns to float on her back, staring out into the bright stars and huge moon. Floating seemingly endlessly she feels herself slipping. The jet black night against the dead ocean is a perfect mirror. Blackness surrounds her. This whole world is him, and he is staunch and strange. There are no animals here and no winds. Wandering far and wide Claire has found that his attention to detail is focused on architecture and grisly murder scenes. All of the beautiful greenery, the vast blue sky, is out of focus-unimportant.

Claire knows that she is trapped in a dream, but the overwhelming terror of her weightlessness in the inky chasm is clawing up her throat. Her mouth opens wide in an agonized scream. Terror and isolation grip her whole-heartedly and her sanity slides away. It is the first sound she has made in months. It feels as though the entire universe is titillated with her little outburst. A gentle wave rises far in the distance growing huge as it approaches. Her mind snaps back into place. A new terror has overwrought the previous sensation and reduced it to a mere insinuation. She fears this development even more than the previously experienced tabula rasa. The tsunami scoops her gently and deposits her on dull gray sand.

Her blonde hair is twisted into a single lock over her shoulder, and she lays still for a very long time. Claire has tried to count the days, she really has. It is hard though; it is always morning, mid-morning, night or raining. The wet sand is cold. Most things are here. Sometimes the sun is warm, but mostly everywhere and everything is cold-ice cold. That wave could not have come from no where. All places are him. The wave came from him. This thought strikes like lightning and she is up and moving again. Far and wide, one foot in front of the other.

It is the seventeenth year when she discovers that churches and chapels are clean within. Walking through northern Europe stained glass catches her attention. Fine details and sordid stories are meaningful in religion just like in cheerleading and she wants to know just how sick he is. The building is spotless however and the constuct is gorgeous. This is where his attention to detail is centered. Sanctuaries that offer just that. Tears stream from her green eyes and she thinks no more sleeping out in the rain. Not accounting for what she has become accustomed to, it is with some surprise that in less than a month she is sleeping outside again. The air is fresher, and even though she knows she is trapped it is harder to believe staring up at the sky.

It is in central Asia that she discovers the cave. It is the first time she has genuinely felt his presence in decades. Knowing that all places are himself does not change the lengths to which she has gone to directly avoid his conscience-the part of him with a face and words. There is something different about this place. She sits for a long time outside the cave's mouth. The yawning gape whispers and breathes. It calls to her. When the go-round in the sky trips itself up again she fears that it really is him. The night drizzle is becoming the mid-morning gray and the whispers almost sound like his voice. Though she cannot distinguish the words, one thing is clear: whatever is in the cave would love to love her as much as it would love to kill her. Claire doesn't run. She walks away.

The cave brings to the surface some resolve and she decides that it must be time. It has been nearly a century. Claire heads straight north from the Bay of Bengal. No more churches and temples and definitely no crossing the ocean. With a firmer grasp of how long these things take, she expects to reach New York in a few years-intending to head north west and cross through the shorter straights from country to country instead of crossing the wide water.

She finds a small valley with a starlit lake just south of Russia. The mountains don't seem nearly as huge after having flown, swam, and walked around the world. The small blonde marvels that even in this bottled world everything is beautiful. His focus applied or not; it is obvious that this entire world is constructed from his previous knowledge and though his previous knowledge is vast his areas of interest are not hers. "It's so beautiful here," Claire says aloud. The sound is soft. She is almost surprised that she is not shocked at the sound of her own voice. That scream in the ocean all those years ago is the last sound she can recall herself making. She sighs, "too bad it isn't warmer."

Though the dawn does come it is often murky, raining usually. This morning is different however. Just for her bright rays erupt in the dip between two peaks and set the lake afire in a sparkling flash. A hot breeze blows up from the south, and the day quickly goes from icy to tepid all the way to summer. It is him whispering hot breeze through the flowers. Claire sheds her clothes anyway, the ever-present eye in the sky be damned once more-she is going to take an icy dip on a beautiful hot day. She swims naked for hours before falling asleep just as nude on the grass. A once perfect day. The afternoon is cool again; his good humor all spent.

Her bare feet weather the tundra well, as she expects. It is the blizzard that takes it out of her. The path was long, long ago and now the forest floor is lacking in green and brown patches. A vast expanse of white swallows her steps further back than even her keen eyes are capable of perceiving. Her jeans are icy damp up to mid-thigh. Claire crosses her arms tight across her chest in an attempt to keep in some warmth. Her blonde hair hangs in icy chunks framing her round blue face. She knows the cold should hurt. When it is this cold it should hurt bad. I'm not afraid. This is all a dream. It doesn't matter that my feet are black then pink then black. It's a dream.

She stumbles as she breeches the edge of the woods and her breath catches when her momentum nearly takes her over a sheer cliff of gray stone and moss. The moon is projected huge and blue before her. Her arms hang limp. Her breath comes in short cloud bursts of wet iciness. A lone wolf lets out a long, loud cry. As he keens a sharp wind picks it up, slicing through her. There are no animals here. Only her and the monster. Her eyes squeeze close. He is singing out to her across the dusk of time. There is a terror within her that she has not felt in what seems a hundred years and perhaps it has been. Claire refuses to move, to make a sound.

The wind and the snow die down. The howling continues. Claire has the will of every Petrelli, accompanied by a stubborn streak a mile wide. She stays locked in place. The terror slips away as the hours wear on. Her breathing slows. She just wants to go to sleep. She is so tired. When it finally stops she is teetering on just this side of sleep and in her half awake state steps forward and tips over the edge. She runs like hell after pulling her broken doll parts back together inside her blood soaked clothes-praying she is not running straight into his arms.

Miles lay between where she heard him and how far she has gotten yet she runs still. Claire's fears are chasing her through the snow. Young and ever the victim. Here comes the big bad wolf through the woods. Her bloody scent trails behind her for him to stalk. The mirror looms again on her horizon for the first time in years. A strangled sob escapes her. She re-doubles her efforts pushing her perceptions of her capabilities. She feels her body struggling and continues to move regardless demanding that her will stand independent from restraints.

Nearing the water the ice becomes slippery beneath her rock-hard bare feet. She slides to a halt and grasps a piece of jutting ice. Behind her is only the blackness of the horizon, the cliff she dove off a low platform in the distance of white. No terror grips her, but she stomps the shelf violently as though driven by madness. A tiny island cracks off and she drifts out onto the black mirror ever so slowly. The dead stillness of the water seems to drag any mild momentum she had so she lowers her torso into the water and kicks. Her limbs are hard and uncoordinated as she pulls herself back up onto her tiny makeshift boat.

Hours pass and her good push becomes a lull. The buoyant ice has carried her into the center of blackness. She fears it is only her imagination that insists there are white caps in the distance ahead. Claire slips into the water once again. It's not that far, she insists to herself. She is ever so tired once more though. Her legs are becoming harder to pinwheel. Beneath her the sound of his whispers are a rising breeze around her ears and the frozen block that is her hair. A hard-wired electric tension tickles the base of her skull. She is too tired to be terrified as she slips below the surface. In the darkness below his hunger, his urge to kill and control, is waiting for her frozen carcass to drift into his waiting jaws.

She feels mangled hands reaching forward through the blackness. A single pair of zombie claws reaching out to wrench free the top of her decaying skull for all eternity. A hard jerk upwards doesn't even startle her in the numbed state she has resigned herself to. This is the final act. She is going to die in a serial killer's mind-lost in the blackness of his soul consumed by his evil. Another jerk flings her limp head forward like a shark or a fisherman exerting control over a catch before she breaks from the depths into the freezing night air.

A black figure crouches, one knee pressed into the ice. The length of his limbs threatens to overwhelm the tiny craft, but it barely bobs as she settles easily into his waiting arms. He cradles her, pushing her hair away from her face. Still numb, Claire looks up into his face and says the first thing that comes to mind now that he is in front of her, "what are you doing?" He laughs, his teeth stark white against the night sky above. It is then that she realizes that he isn't just cradling her he is clinging to her with all his might. His face is mere inches above, marvelling at her beauty even in her damp, matted state.

"I thought that was obvious," his tone is soft. Emerald eyes trail to the heavens. Years spent wandering this desolation alone only to end up in precisely the enemy's arms. Amazingly slow, he leans forward and presses his warm cheek against hers. "I can't afford to miss you any more than I already do," his hot breath is amazingly fresh. She feels hollowed out inside. The years have worn away many of the concerns from her daily life. Claire's eyes meet his. For a long moment shimmering emeralds become his entire universe before Claire's body surges upward in a spasm. Her lips press to his, her left hand sliding up his neck fingers twining in his hair, stroking.

Her perfectly soft, smooth lips press coolly against him. The universe melts away. The ice and the ocean dissolve. No stars linger. Claire knows that somewhere they are ten thousand miles away encased in solid flesh that experiences more than this. Or was it less? In the pitch black that this world has become (is it his? hers?) they find themselves near one another simultaneously as their lips are pressed together as their bodies lie, Claire's back pressed into his shoulder and head on a pillow next to his. A diorama sits up one piece at a time collectively next them.

Out of the scene constructed comes a prop and another. Chairs and tables sit up in two-dimensional cardboard cut outs before becoming solid pieces in a child's world. The diorama has become as large as the entire world and yet they still stand aloft from it in the darkness next to one another and lips pressed together and lying in Peter's apartment. Three separate awarenesses for each of them. This stupendous inexplicable feat of attention is barely a contemplation for either as the movement flows in a complex series of scenes.

Both of them know instantly what they are watching when the dark-haired man from Noah Bennet's nightmares walks through an immplaceable effervescent door to be greeted by a toddler sporting his mother's thick dark hair as well as her furrowed brow of consternation. Claire's heart reaches out to the boy at the obvious fear etched into his small features. In the darkness, her hand reaches for his and three sets of self-made minds touch simultaneously. Regardless of Sylar's intentions-his fears and hesitations-Claire's linking of those bonds throws their meshed awarenesses behind the eyes of the child to perceive his sensations. See his sights. Re-live Gabriel's past.

Claire stops trying to focus on everywhere she is and instead becomes entranced with the events unfolding before her. Gabriel does not spend much time alone with his father. His mother makes sure of it. She is always there-all biasedly blinding beauty and dark hair, talking to him and stroking his hair. She loves Gabriel, her little angel. It is the sunshine in his soul. This young boy's life is his mother. Father is a much darker shape than mother's dark sweetness, and the young boy's near-sightedness does not fool him. For even at the tender age of three young Gabriel is assembling a perception of the world delicately, one piece at a time. He connects the dots with an assurity beyond his years.

The toddler understands quite well that all of those dark stains on his father are blood. The sprayed line across his face...quite red. Oh yes, young Gabriel understands that for there to be that much blood there must be much pain. Very much pain. His father never seems to be injured. He does not think his father could be invincible. His foibles and frustrations drive him to violent outburts, and that is not how mother describes GOD. No, the blood means somebody else was hurt really bad. His father has no interest in helping others-a blind eye, as it were. It causes his little body to tremble in fear.

Time passes and many events transpire. Gabriel's father is a violent man and they suffer under the tutelage of his whims both mother and son. Until the moment arrives when young Gabriel, freshly spectacled chases his father out of a diner to witness his mother's murder. Mother's beautiful face with a slash of blood marring her perfect forehead lying in the gravel as father speeds away forever. There is a definite sense of finality to it. In the darkness Claire's hand tightens in his, their lips press together more tightly, and Claire's prone form on Peter's bed shudders a sigh. As a young child, he is frozen in place until Virginia Gray scoops him up and coddles him to her. They make for their station wagon and Gabriel whimpers, reaching over her shoulder towards love as it lays dead in the street.

Again much time passes. Virginia smothers him. She is always hugging him, touching him. Trying to coddle him. She calls him Gabriel, my angel. At first it hurts terribly, then it merely aches, by the time his adopted father has disappeared my little angel is a stone in his gut. His shock is deep and though he feels smothered he endures. This woman pays attention to him. She talks to him and feeds him, cares for him in her own weird ways. There are so many things to do wrong in Virginia's world. By the time he has recovered enough from his mother's death to listen when Virginia is cooing at him, the time has absorbed his father, mother, and adopted father in one swoop. His life beginning and ending with Virginia. An old woman and her son.

The boy has become tall and lanky. His clothes are modest, and the other children note how out of sync he is with fashion with the appropriate sneers and cruelties. Suddenly perception splits again and another scene begins over youthful Gabriel's life. It begins with fire. Sylar's heart beats hard when a spring-chicken Bennet appears early on. Claire's life from her birth, they had to get here in linear sequence and she is nearly a decade younger. Her life is a wild torrent of boisterous activity compared to Gabriel's quiet desk-related hobbies and hours upon hours of reading.

As the years flutter by in a silvery celluloid haze it is easy for Gabriel to see when the stone in his stomach became a white-hot poker for Virginia's opinion of him. Years of study, reading and perusing so much information wanting answers for this sensation of segregation from everyone he had ever met educated him to Virginia's opinions. He found her small minded and obstensible, obtuse, and other rude words that meant she had shit for brains. He wants to call it love, but really it is him coloring inside the lines. Playing the good boy because it is the best way to show that you love your mother. His awareness of the state of human beings in general, this condition of...humanity locks him away from all of it-first inside, and then, after school, out as well.

In hindsight, Claire sees with scorching clarity the degradation of her family life. She is ashamed of her child self for being so jovial, so self-absorbed that she couldn't see it coming. Her father was good, but bright eyes see clearer. Her rose-colored lenses of school, clothes, chores, boys and love, yes, love had blinded her to his machinations and it was shameful. Life was good for the Bennet's. Pampered and well-cared for, these women were blinded by solipsistic narcissism. Noah Bennet already has a daughter and son when his own son arrives, and the third child does not receive as much attention, of course. Lyle is embittered by it and does not understand 'what is so special about Claire' or why his father is so committed to work...

Inheriting the watch shop at awkward nineteen is perfect for Gabriel as a young man. He appreciates the applied heredity, the meaning, and the responsibility. It is the perfect career in which he does not have to consistently stare someone in the face and work out how he feels about what they are trying to do to him. The incontinuous stream of customers coupled with the dependable and engrossing work soothes his stressed soul from the aches and pains of high school. He keeps the shop as spotless as Virginia has taught him to keep all spaces compulsively and without fail.

Gabriel's years are quiet and unfulfilling. Claire's years are filled with lights, girls, and events. Claire is always working, cleaning, and playing. Gabriel is always working, working, and cleaning-his play time is lost under the pathological weight of a blinding need to read everything he encounters. Claire silently speculates it is because the outside world has become too much for him. It is undeniable for either of them that their abilities are smattered throughout their young lives. His inner push constantly driving him to find the why. Her bruises and scrapes gone before she knows it with never a broken limb.

Claire's first broken limb is the sure sign. Her discovery. She is alone in the house when she falls down the stairs. Being a cheerleader, needing her grace and poise consistently, it seems so stupid. Young girls can be so. Her pelvis juts uncomfortably and the knee is violently twisted inward. She gasps as the femur snaps back into place. Then instinct kicks in and she twists her torso, pressing down hard on the right side where the curve of her pelvic bone is pressing out against her taut stomach flesh. It slides right back into place and her fire-hot sore muscles are reduced to merely an ache and then she is whole again. She cries for hours. Her broken and lost sobs eventually embarass her. She has to show someone-prove it. This memory has been stolen from her. It is six months before she breaks the glass case arguing with Jackie and it leads her to brave the tide of mindless youth and Zach's face so long ago lost to her attentions stands out.

Gabriel receives no such solid communication from the heavens regarding the misnomers of his life. This history has already shown them so much that Sylar is not in the least surprised when his daily routines are suddenly edged in the periphreal by the blonde he will meet shortly and a tall, mousey-haired man with horn-rimmed glasses. He keeps his eyes forward, never turning to her though the urge grips him. They are so close, so intimately tied in so many ways in this eternal and infinite second that he does not think he can bear to see her face wearing the feelings that seem to be flowing through and around them as she watches him cling desperately to any minute vestige of recognition Chandra Suresh offers him. His descent into madness starts with the subtlest of pursuits.

Claire and Jackie are prepping for their sophomore year when the quartz connects with Brian Davis' head. She is organizing her school supplies and trying to decided if she wants to cut all of her hair off when the tears and horror overwhelm Gabriel Gray. He has always been off, but he has never been bad. Always such a good boy, Gabriel knows this is more than just a slip up. This is going to ruin the rest of his life. It is going to ruin everything, and yet...the answer is right there. The sensation of limbs he can conceptualize and control but not see elates him. When the object moves with his mere thought... Is it worth it? Could he hide the body? Of course he could, but his shame claws behind his eyes uncomfortably.

Claire becomes unable to concentrate on the images from her own life as Gabriel half a decade younger is rejected by Doctor Suresh, and suddenly Elle is at his door and in his life just when it seems that an end is inevitable. The betrayal is bitter, and within the liltling lies Sylar swears he tastes Claire's tears. The second time is more gruesome. He wanted to help Brian, but he wants to hurt Trevor. Hurt people hurt people. Gabriel's hurt is embedded within him, and although it has no name and no face he wears it on his sleeve as he rips the mind, power, and life from this man's body. Show everyone how much better you are than I now...

It takes time and development for him to hone any skill. He has spent much of his time attempting to escape people, and indeed his ability to escape notice is helping him to advance in this new life choice. Claire is slamming a stick shift muscle car into a brick wall when he shames himself again with the incident in the Walker household. It is such a mess. He thought it was the mother, but it was the girl. The father could freeze, and he is happy to give it up for his family's safety. The mother has no power. It is the girl. Forever a blood-covered shadowy figure he leans over the slight of a child and whispers, "hide." He wants it more than anything. It can't be more than anything if he won't murder a child for it. He dismisses the thought and moves to the next. Texas is ripe.

So jovial. So golden. Claire's cheer uniforms and high heels. Her cell phone and her pocket money. Boys and girls. Handsome young men eyeing her. Being warned by the time bender does nothing for the impact of their encounter. Even though he fails the image never leaves his mind. The first convergence of these three very separate adventurerers. He sees Peter first, and he knows this man is here to stop him. He can see it written all over his very Italian features when he tells the girl to run. Sylar enjoys drawing out the hunt-terrifying them more than necessary with a use of force he has never allowed himself. He wants this, and he is going to take it: girl or no. He knows his cause is lost when flint-bright emerald catching the light perfectly glare up at him as her face reconstructs despite his crushing blow. His first glimpse, first taste of her disdainful glare.

She crashes through his mind in jail. Her adventure moves further from him-their convergence down the line an elliptical trajectory. Noah's taunting isn't any worse than the hunger, his needs, or his memories of her. Slip of a blonde, right through his fingers. In the black Sylar's hand squeezes Claire's. When he was falling down she was climbing up. She found out truths, saved Peter, is trapped and yet escapes the ever-plotting grandmother, Angela Petrelli. They watch the death of his mother silently. Sylar feels mild trepidation regarding the fact that he has always considered himself impeccably careful and hindsight has revealed his inability to account for all variables. It is the end of history as he knows. It is just the end of his world. He doesn't need this woman anymore. Another woman fills his mind with her foolishness. His heart swells to see her and Peter working together. Even if it is to stop him. She is there at Kirby Plaza, and he wishes he had more time.

The pain and terror of his South American experience are subdued through the haze of time, but his manipulations come through loud and clear. Just as Claire's perceived isolation seems reticent though she somersaults and smiles with the best of them as she knows she can. The life, the adventure had been so heady. Everything had moved so fast. Her teenage mind finds ample rationale for her behavior regarding West's attentions. She thinks it hurts worse than anything that the bullet through Noah's eye is for his veins only. She has never met Maya, but her relief at saving the woman's life is lost in the following instant. Always changing me, his mind calls out to her. Every time our lives touch it changes every thing about me. She does not answer because she knows that the next time he sees her it will change every thing about both of them.

Her fear for Nathan. It is finally her time to shine. She can save him. She can save her father's life. She is so determined to do it and the bucket of ice water that hits when her bedroom door swings open is instantaneous. Tall, he is so impossibly tall, dark and imposing. In the space outside this celluloid vision Claire refuses to dive with him. They shared the young boy. Their fingers entwined, they swallowed young Gabriel's fear together. She refuses to join. Once was enough. She wants to watch from the outside. Her delicate, genteel hold becomes a vice on his mind's hand. Sylar wants this moment of hers and he strives for her young feelings.

The diorama takes a step back and becomes a separate world for this future Claire, watching from a distance. Sylar's petite peach hand is grasping behind her. This psycho can talk quietly, evenly all he likes. She knows how heavy cheer trophies are. Fuck him. He barely moves from the upstairs. Standing framed in her bedroom door listening to her high heels trail from the wood floor to the carpet, then she opens the office door. It gives the shadow on the landing vicious pleasure to show her what power he does have. He had wanted to explain it. He wanted her to give it to him willingly. Silly little cow wants to act like everyone else.

How could she miss like that? Because he is a shadow. He is a dark breeze. Sylar feels the terror far more than he felt it grasping her hand days from this. It is now and it isn't just fresh-it is an open bleeding, screaming wound. Bungee cord wrapped around the pantry door knobs. Crouched in the corner beneath shelving clutching the knife Sylar reflects on the events just transpired. In the dream Claire's sweater had been whiter, warmer. She had been lacking the brown camisole beneath and the slip of strap revealed as the v-neck slips down her shoulder from exertion is titillating.

Her straight hair flies (that's how I always knew it was a dream. My hair was straight. In the dream it was curled she whispers to him across the dark), and before he knows it he has stabbed himself in the chest. There is no righteous fire in this girl like he would feel. She continues to flee. Her life was bake sales, school work, cheerleading...these things could have prepared her but the feeling isn't there. She doesn't need to hurt him. She just needs for him to not hurt her. She doesn't make it far. Her unwillingness to see beyond her sheltered idealist up-bringing prevents her from properly defending herself as she is. She behaves like one of them.

There is an audible POP when the top her cranium is pulled off by the same invisible hands that have trapped her, moved the furniture, locked the doors and windows, and disconnected the phone. He is drooling with the intensity of his pain and leans out of her vision to spit on the floor. His confidence and candor return when he hears her words, "funny, I am looking for answers too." From inside of Claire he sees himself recognizing a new need from above her. His expression changes, and the intense pain does not quell his urgent desire for her understanding. Clear and concise, he answers her questions without revealing his thoughts.

Once more across the vast solipsism of separate minds and bodies and times Claire herself reaches out to himself inside of her. She senses that the second he finds it, the very second his intuitive aptitude allows her ability inside of him he has been overtaken. Leaning above her, he gasps in his first scent of her. She is everything. So sweet and voluptuous. A moment ago she was a ratted, mindless fool of a teenager destined to live the same rote disgusting life as the next docile mass-produced non-person. In this new moment his own natural ability tunes out his intelligence informing him that his hormones are in over-drive from this adaptation of his physicality being in such close proximity to this pheromone waterfall beneath him. His Hunger tells him that this girl is easily his mother, lover, and child.

He rises upright following his passion. Sylar poses his height statuesquely. Claire needs to remember this. She needs to see. His mother is there for his birth as he pulls the knife slowly from his chest revealing a good six inches of blood along the blade. He spreads the cloth to show the wound, but her eyes have gone glassy and come back by the time it closes. It wouldn't do to leave this woman violated as she were. He is too awestruck by the immensity of sensations to wish this could have occurred under different circumstances-to wish he had waited and let her give it to him instead of just taking.

There is more blood on her forehead than she remembers and...something else is different. She had pictured his dark shoulders moving away from her, but here she sees he can barely stand to turn away. His eyes, his soft tone. He watches her even as he gently closes the door behind him. For just an eternity they are separated by mere inches of wood and a wide world of expectations. He stands for a long moment studying the grain of the door. She remains perched on the edge of her family's black coffee table, relatively unharmed. He smiles softly to himself. At least she didn't burst into tears.

When the incident in his painting occurs he is murdering agents doing their job. Enjoying the bright California sunshine, it is fun when the woman tasers him and he finds it...tickling. In Claire's bed the tears finally come. Her younger self bawls into her pillows begging any god that might hear to take his awful scent from her. She flies into the bathroom, ripping her sweater and camisole off, knocking things off the counter. The water is boiling hot and she scrubs until her skin is fire-engine red.

He feels what he didn't sense through psychometry in Stephen Canfield's house. Her humiliation when she tells her mother he got what he came for and has to admit it wasn't her virginity. Her shame at her behavior after. How could such heat have encompassed her when this shard of glass felt like nothing? This was worse than rape. He took her mind, her power, her body's fidelity, and her capacity to enjoy everything else in one afternoon. In less than half an hour.

Oh, his foolishness. He should have known that Elle was a real live wire. Angela's words sting no less now that he knows they lack any truth than they did when she uttered them and he believed her. Meredith's life lessons burn the path of righteous indignation in Claire Sylar was looking for previously. They touch in four places at once again in Stephen Canfield's house. She feels him sensing her this time. No sympathy for him exists within in this instance. He lit the fire. Despite how correct he is regarding Noah she is not interested; can't take his scent locked in the car. She hates to admit it, but it does mean something that he apologizes. Mostly because Brody was so unrepentent. Wish what you will, but you use as much as he does, she whispers in the dark.

For the first time he senses something within himself akin to Peter Petrelli. Sylar is no fool, and though he is lost and confused the coincidence of Peter having his power does not escape him-his tale of a Sylar contained. Hope swells in his breast. If Peter is like him then he is like Peter, and she loves Peter. Claire is proud of how she handles Doyle. So is he. Watching her take the bullet like a champ he can see how much she has grown. Still petite, her growth stunted by a deranged pituitary, her slight body has become formidable. She is learning that she can affect these outcomes.

It had never come up in coversation, and he had never returned to the house in Coasta Verde to snoop so it is news to him that Claire brings Pinehearst Elle. It is news that they trade up unbeknownst. Hilarious, ironic news. He gave Peter to Claire. Practically tossed him right into her arms. Looking back now it is so obvious that Arthur fed him Elle with precisely the same amount of care that Angela fed him Bridget regardless of Sylar's intentions. He almost blushes at the eagerness with which his past self absorbs Elle's attentions. Arthur's as well. Looking here he sees the arc that brings Peter inside his wall eventually.

Noah kicks his ass-despite being an old man-repeatedly. His dislocated shoulder is an agony, but it is nothing compared to the gunshot wound and dislocated shoulder they experience as one. Peter hears them both groan from his seat in the living room of his apartment and sticks his head around the corner. Claire and Sylar continue to dream. They die in the dream together simultaneously. Peter is standing in the doorway when they both gasp. Then they are quiet again, but it has rattled him and he sits down at the end of the bed hoping that it means soon. Claire's mind is shaken and now she understands. She understands why he slit his fucking throat. God damn it Noah.

Mother's voice commanding him to stop. No bargaining chip would have taken it from him as pissed as he was. Only Claire's single cry keeps him from returning the favor Noah has done him this afternoon. Hiro Nakamura is always full of surprises. Within the barrage of his returning abilities and the severe lack of Claire's scent in the air he suddenly finds Elle...inadequate. Her lie, bold and to his face, is worse. For just a single clear moment he was in her presence before being ripped away again. The dark beach does not hide his remorse. The man who makes incarnate gaps in space and time cannot save Claire from her grandfather despite intentions.

His spoiled tantrum is nearly too much for Claire. His outburst at Sue Lander's office displays a lackadaisical commitment to his new persona that is dangerous. It is a wild act and shows he has lost some of his objective. His act of contrition-his mercy kill that saves Peter any blood on his hands is minute considering where his self-centered narcissism is about to take them. It is complicated and the Petrelli's make it ever so personal. Here the ellipses, so small, joins again on Level 5. He can help the Petrelli's keep it in the family. He can make it his family. Surely Claire will blossom into his child-she only requires some mild tutelage. He can sense strength within her. Her solid intent is centered on his demise currently, but it is easy to play to his strengths and everyone in this game has an accessible weakness. It is his Claire.

The flaw in this plan is his blind-side. Claire is strong only in herself. She knows she will survive this, and the only thing necessary for this outcome is that he be wrong. She is not a monster. Surely neither is the rest of her family. So sure, he mutters to her ghost. It is Meredith that gives her the killing edge. The lie that falls so easily from her mother's lips never to be forgotten, "I'm coming. Just...j-just give me a minute," hurts more than anything. Her heart is a stone and her eyes sting. If he is going to take her mother from her when she has just found her then she will make it worth his effort.

In her small hand the shard of glass is huge and she is satisfied with the sickening *thunk* from the back of his skull. The blood in her hand recedes into her body. She heard him demanding answers from her grandmother. She is almost tempted to spit on him. You want family, young Claire's mind hisses, I'm sure you have plenty in hell. His story is a shadow beneath her silverscreen life. A warmth rises in his chest because he feels the truth in her when she tells her grandmother that she can feel that he is alive. She can feel him. He is a moth fluttering at the edges of her mind.

Sylar's father is a criminal with a small mind and petty interests. It drives him into a situation that solely exists to prove he is not any of these pre-determining formative blocks. Instead he loses more of what he already wants desperately. Claire becomes proactive because she no longer has a choice. Every turn she takes she is isolated and patronized. It emboldens her actions. Mexico tans her already golden skin only slightly. The woman who climbs up from her grave-robbing to toss her long blonde hair is more along the lines of the fire Sylar was trying to start.

Somewhere they have lost the sensation of lips pressed together as their dream has dissolved entirely into this double-theater diorama; an inexplicable tell-all shamelessly overwriting their lives. They stand aloft in the non-world and Claire shares for the first time his initial stolen memories of Nathan. Tales of a successful career laced with lies, a gorgeous dark haired wife but consistent blondes on his arm, and betrayal in general. "I'm not going to be you. I'm going to be better than you," he tells Nathan. She is sickened by his logic, but agrees with his sentiments. They both smirk at the celluloid reflection when he tells her in Nathan's face that he thinks that she should be right at the front of the action as well. The Stanton Hotel. The tension is palpable between them, but she grits her teeth and keeps her mother at the front of her mind.

When he slits Nathan's throat the spear through Claire's chest feels like his own, and Sylar's suddenly split perceptions break them apart. It is a flurry of emotion and lights before they can sort out again and it is Thanksgiving. The violent thrust that engulfed them solidifies into a heavy feeling when Nathan's hand slides through Peter's on the hospital roof. The incident at her school is more heedy this time. So deeply interconnected he can smell himself as she smells him, and the moment he leans over her...the pen is a solid commitment to her convictions. It does not matter how excited his presence has made her and it even does not matter that he has lied to her. What matters is that he is right. A first, as far as Claire can tell. Though she hasn't a name for it yet, two years and nearly a century later she knows that it is Gabriel's earnestness that she has never known from Sylar which allows her this admission of him. Her hand tightens on his in the darkness even as the sensation is fading.

Claire's hours trapped suffocating with her father are suspended in agonizing slow motion behind his years of solitude. He almost laughs at himself asking 'why Peter Petrelli?' It seems so obvious. His father was a stalwart message from the earth beckoning him to return to the grave despite his handicap regarding said option. He was destined for failure. Peter Petrelli was a shining pillar of light in this world of manipulation and mutual destruction. There was also the fact that he had experienced Sylar's hunger. Maybe if Claire wasn't his destiny then Peter was? A good man with the patience of a Saint offering him...acceptance of his existence. A place to start considering the inhumane animosity with which he had treated his victims. Pillars of the Earth, Claire's epiphany is hilarious to her.

Her fall is glorious. Gabriel's Cupid's bow smile shines for the first time through Sylar's sharp devilish features. Breaking your daddies hearts, little girl. Brave new world indeed. Peter's phone rings from his jacket pocket. It's his mother. "Help Claire. Have Sylar and Noah meet me in the park. Noah knows where I am referring to," he overhears Angela Petrelli say. His mother expects Peter to turn on the Petrelli charm, use their fame and recognition to control the situation. She didn't tell him what to say. Peter wraps his arms around Claire's waist, turns to the cameras and says, "we will arrange a public statement," and rockets into the sky with her en tow.

In the park, Angela ignores Noah's stern glare when she implores the newly reformed hero, "what should we do?" His new persona is taken aback. He knows that it is always a game with these two. He can barely believe he went along with them this far, and suddenly he is very aware that he is precariously alone with the individuals responsible for a decades worth of torture in his life. What would Peter do? Peter would respect his elders. Peter would respect the good they had done-would squeeze his eyes into tiny little slits and look past the horrid. Angela already knows what to do, of course. She is testing him.

"Damage control. Immediately. The Carnival is not interested in causing any harm without Samuel's influence, but they need support to prevent it happening again. I recommend Angela and Hiro Nakamura conduct all further business with them as they will never trust Noah, Claire, or myself. Give Claire what she wants. The VIP treatment, of course, will be necessary. She will need constant guarding for a lengthy period of time from fanatics and...other empaths. It would be convenient for us if Tracy Strauss were in need of a job..." he frowns and pauses in his assessment. He feels a great deal of trepidation at the idea of treading on the interests of others (particularly these two) and decides to keep to himself what he thinks Noah and Angela should do.

Peter and Claire land next to them. He turns those doe eyes from the closet on her again. No man should be capable of looking that vulnerably at a young girl and she bares her teeth at him. "Claire, go with your father. Please locate Tracy Strauss," Angela intervenes, "Peter, Sylar, please come with me." She turns and leads them to a waiting car and the only reason Sylar follows them in would be the years of trailing Peter he has engrained in himself. "Continue," she prompts. He finds continuing this charade in front of his friend slightly uncomfortable and steels himself. "It would be useful to use a facsimile of The Company to support Claire's efforts. It would be wise to continue with its previous iternerary as well-uh, without the Guantanamo tactics. I would very much like to work for you, Ms Petrelli," it was an impulsive finish, but he cannot see himself without a solid anchor and he had liked his job for them. He was good at it.

She studies them both with shrewd shrivelled eyes. Peter is uncharacteristically quiet in the surreality. The hum of the car swallows the both of them in wonder. They hadn't had time to appreciate it before. We're free. Angela interrupts their reverie, "that is exactly what I was thinking. We'll see you at work tomorrow morning, Agent Gray." She needs to keep an eye on this potential threat, but it is still a place to start. The chauffeur opens the door and they are outside of a familiar apartment building. Peter hands him his keys, "I'm gonna check on Emma. I'll be back in a while." Peter shoots off again. He stands on the street for a long time before letting himself in.

Claire's life is a blitz of faces and hands, introductions and incidents. It reminds Sylar of his flash of Nathan the politician. His own life consists of a Company desk job and he likes it. He enjoys solving problems and putting together strategies. His desire to commemorate the lives he tore from the world so irreverently leads to an out of control spiral of perceptions. Claire catches Angela trading him his pelt for access to the Las Vegas vault. She had wondered about the underneath of those crisp button downs. He revels in their shared sensation of having a friend. Claire and Tracy make a great team. Peter and Sylar do as well.

The sounds and speed of the events are out of sync. They see Gray & Sons watch shop once more before the images start to fade. They lost the feeling of lips pressed together long ago, and now clasped hands are a mere pressure before a crumbling world stage. They both grope for one another. In the darkness, natural human instinct drives two immortals with the gut reaction of expecting danger. The distance between them grows. Individually, the sudden existential partialism feels like being thrown down a well. Sylar is familiar with his. Claire however finds it stark and lonesome.

He is first to climb from over-stimulated states to hearing. Sylar sits up and leans against the wall, rubbing one eye. Claire lies next to him, her breathing still even. Peter steps out of the bathroom in only a pair of sweat pants with a mouth full of lo mein noodles. He splutters through his food, barely managing to catch the stray noodles in the take out box. Claire shoots upright and gasps, nearly leaping from the bed. It startles Peter all over again. All three of them laugh quietly, and she turns on the bed to look at him.

Sylar's face is serious again. "Say something, Claire," he implores. Her green eyes are wide. Her face reveals nothing. "Fucking say something," he snarls loudly. The glass rattles and the room vibrates around them with the force of his tantrum. She pulls her huge green skirt up around her and moves next to him on her knees. Her thoughts are silent. Sylar's heart is suddenly pounding. Her dainty hands reach forward. The right slides through his hair, and her left hand slides along his temple, thumb stroking his brow. She pulls him to her, pressing his face into her stomach. If it is possible, Peter's eyes are even wider than her own. She glances out the window-it's dark. "Let's go out to breakfast," she says. She smiles at Peter. He knows that smile. It's a Petrelli trade mark. The putting-you-on.

Things have never been comfortable between the three of them, but the silence seems almost contrary to that expectation. Claire refused to put her glitteratti mile-high claws back on and instead walks in black stocking feet a few steps ahead of them. Peter claps his friend firmly on the back and offers him a smile, tilting his head. Sylar smiles back. "Where is everyone?" Claire calls over her shoulder. "It's New Year's," Peter answers. "Go four blocks over and it's a mad house."

The diner is empty other than two old men in the corner reading separate papers, an older waitress, and the cook. The three of them make quite the image: Sylar dark and imposing in his button down, Peter in sweats and a tee, and Claire in a ballroom gown. No one bats an eye at her monstrous shoes in the seat next to them. The waitress doesn't even comment on the fact that the three of them are relatively silent during their meal. When Sylar excuses himself under the pretense of using the restroom Peter whirls on her all wild-eyed curiousity.

"Shhh," she puts a golden finger over her lips. "He's just eavesdropping." Peter raises his eyesbrows, but respects her wishes. She calls Tracy and after about twenty minutes a car rolls up to the curb outside. "I'll call you," she tells Peter and goes to step into the Cadillac without even turning to him. "Wait," he blurts. She smiles slowly, dropping her shoes into the car seat and turning back to him. "What...what do you think happened to us?" His doe eyes are on high alert and her smile makes him...nervous. "You don't know?" Her sardonic tone implies that it should be so simple.

"When you came back from that recon mission from just north of the Black Sea..." She starts. Her eyes are fresh green leaves in the early morning hour and as she speaks they seem to soften. "For the first time, you had a drink or six with my father and Renee at Nozawa's restaurant." Their eyes are locked together and everything else has faded into the background. "He told you-after my dad said Lauren would be expecting him early and he had to turn in for the night... Renee said, 'if she ever kisses you I will turn you into a prince.' You said 'what?' And he laughed and told you that you were drunk." She blushes lovely, "you were thinking about me pretty loudly."

"What does this mean about us?" He whispers breathlessly. "It means I'll call you," she answers coolly before turning to slide into her seat. They watch the car roll down the block and turn the corner. "Okay, spill," Peter demands. "Where do I even begin?" The immortal's smile is benevolent. Peter senses an inner tension that has always been within Gabriel that is missing. He is...content. "You spent a century together?" Peter asks. They start back toward their shared apartment. "Not really..." Gabriel says. The morning sun finally peeks between two tower blocks.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Peter continues pressing. "Not really. In fact, I think it made it worse," he answers. "Do you think she is going to call you?" Peter is watching him, studying the way he is watching the sky and the street and every little detail. "Oh, yes," he answers contentedly. Gabriel Sylar Gray is quite certain that Claire Bennet will be contacting him. How could she resist?

Coming soon! Part 2: Baby Can You Dig Your Man!