AUTHOR'S NOTE: I wrote this story in my head sometime between ep. 9 and ep. 10, so I had, at the time, absolutely no idea what Sylar was like, what his motives were for doing the things he did, or whatever happened to Molly Walker. I had my own ideas, of course, which is where this story came from. Surprisingly, they were pretty accurate. But that's beside the point.

Aside from assumptions about Sylar and his motives, pretty much everything I am going to guess about the show will be wrong. But I like my version of the story anyway, so I'm going to write it down. You will find little, if any, fact in it; I fully intend to make up powers and characters and all sorts of exciting things.

So enjoy. Review if you'd like; I'm tickled pink when I hear how people like my story. Just don't expect me to reply. I'm shy like that. Rest assured that I appreciate both compliments and constructive criticism.

DISCLAIMER: I own only Rynne and whatever I make up. Heroes does not, sadly, belong to me, or Peter would be Sylar and Claire would be one of a set of triplets. But that's another story.

RATING: Rating is to give myself wiggle room in the future. Currently, all that exists is quite a lot of language, some suggested eew, and all manner of insanity. Expect much more later on. oO;

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My Iron Lung

Chapter One
…You Get Burned

The girl couldn't have been older than sixteen. She was wearing clothing that couldn't have been meant for anyone younger than twenty-one.

She was walking with a purposeful air, her hazel brown eyes all afire. When the light from the streetlamps hit them, they looked as though the only thing keeping them from exploding into flame was the ring of deep black painted around their edges, keeping them in check.

Her round, pale face was framed with chin-length purple hair that had artful chunks of black in it. She had made that particular addition to her style on a street corner north of the Avarice on a cold December morning with a bunch of guys she'd never met before and never seen again. She remembered that quite clearly. Maybe not the rest of what happened, but the hair part, sure. That had been fun.

Rynne Parish stopped at the street sign and leaned on the pole, waiting for the light to turn red so she could cross the street. She kept her eye on the shadows. She had entered the trashy part of town where she spent most of her working hours, and she knew enough to look out for herself.

The light turned red. Rynne crossed the street.

Once she was back on the sidewalk, she moved with double the speed, her thin stiletto heels clicking on the pavement. She had a funny feeling that there was someone unpleasant nearby. Shit. She usually worked earlier hours to avoid this.

She had been right. Something moved in the dark. Somebody whispered something to somebody else, and Rynne, out of the corner of her eye, saw three shapes moving toward her. Damn it, she didn't have time for this. The men were getting too close for comfort, smirking to themselves, Rynne was sure. She shrugged her shoulders and slowed down a bit, letting them get within range...

Just as they were about to pounce her, they went up in flames. They screamed once each, then fell to the ground, ashes.

Rynne went on her way.

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Do you love your guns? Yeah. God? Yeah. The government? Fuck yeah.

Rynne hated this song. She always had. You know, anarchy, violence, whatever, that was all cool. But this had to be the most obnoxious chorus ever invented. Good for live shows and nothing else. Torture, maybe.

Even from behind the curtain, she could tell the crowd was getting really worked up tonight. And, honestly, Rynne couldn't blame them. The girls were hot. This was their favorite routine – God only knew why – and they were probably into it. She couldn't tell, and didn't actually care all that much. She wasn't a dancer. She ran special effects.

She sang along as she climbed the stairs to the balcony. She didn't really want to, but she couldn't help it. This was one of those songs that got inside your head and wouldn't leave until you gave in and enjoyed it.

Her heels clicked along to the beat as she went over the routine in her head. The girls were swinging about, and, if they valued their lives at all, they would have opened their wings by now. Haha. Opened their wings. Get your mind out of the gutter, Parish, you have a job to do.

She got to the balcony just in time. I got love songs in my head, killing us away. She leaned over the steel bar that kept her from tumbling into a rather rowdy crowd of S&M types, and concentrated as hard as she possibly could on the three very flammable rings that circled the stage. She could feel her fingertips heating up. Any second now, right on cue….

Foom. Up went the flames. The girls struck poses that would have given their mothers heart attacks, and the wire wings sewn to the backs of their outfits went foom as well. The crowd went mad. They always did.

Every word that Manson sang (or gagged, or screeched, or whatever the things he was doing were called), the flames flared even higher, until they were crackling enough to set the whole place aflame. They didn't, of course. Rynne was good at what she did.

The song ended rather quickly, in Rynne's mind, and the flames went out. She sighed, sweating a bit around the edges, but not nearly as much as she had been the first time she stood up here, in the shadows, the main attraction. It was all routine, now. If what she did could possibly be called routine.

She had learned her limits long ago, as had the pretty girls on the stage. The show was over; Rynne was the finale. The three walked quickly off the stage to all manner of noises from the spectators, and Rynne crept down the stairs again, her mouth dry, her eyeliner running a bit. She grabbed a bottle of water she'd left on the table for this exact purpose, drained it, and stepped out into the club.

Almost immediately she was handed a bottle of something that was, judging by the smell, most certainly not water; she downed it and threw the empty glass back in the direction it had come from. It was potent; everything went fuzzy for a few seconds before Rynne finally regained her bearings and noticed that there was someone standing there, beside her.

Tall, halfway good-looking guy. Black collared shirt, brown hair with bangs, attractive stubble. Brown eyes, piercing like daggers. She nearly passed out onto him, but righted herself on her heels and smiled.

"Can I help you?" she asked, tucking her hair behind one ear.

"Rynne Parish?" the man replied. 'I need to talk to you."

He had to be thirty, at least. Eew. She looked him up and down. "Sorry, my to-do list is already pretty long," she said. "But if I get an opening, I'll let you know." She started to leave, but the bastard reached out and grabbed her arm. She tried to shake him off, but failed. The nerve. Someone was going to have to do something about this.

"We should go for a walk. Let's go for a walk."

Or maybe not. "Yeah, sure, whatever." How drunk am I? She simply sighed and allowed herself to be lead out of the club and into the crisp night air.

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"'S cold," Rynne noted, pulling her leopard print coat tighter around her body. The guy wasn't saying much; they usually didn't. She wondered for the thousandth time why the hell she was out here, but her mind – for the thousandth time – wandered away from that question. Now was not the time for logic, it said. Now was the time for casual banter. Or something. Say something. Anything.

"I'd introduce myself," Rynne began, the chill sobering her up enough to converse properly, "but I think you're already a step ahead of me, there. Do you mind me asking how you know who I am?"

"Your act is famous," the man replied. "Though I didn't see you up there."

"Yeah," Rynne shrugged, "I work behind the scenes. Makeup and what not. Sorry to disappoint."

The man ignored this and looked at the road, which had lots of cars on it. They were going fast. Rynne wasn't watching the fast cars because they made her feel dizzy. She reminded herself to try and not drink whatever was handed to her, sometime, see how that went.

"So," she said, her breath coming out in a puff of vapor, "what's your name?"

"Gabriel Sylar," the man replied immediately. Nonchalantly.

"Oh," Rynne practically giggled. She was buzzed enough to giggle at something like that. "Yeah, no relation, right? Otherwise, I'm going to leave. Right now."

"Of course not," the guy – Gabriel – chuckled. "You think I'd run around declaring it if I was?"

"Just making sure," Rynne sighed. "You can never be too careful."

They were quiet for a while. Rynne had to wonder where they were going. They had been walking for quite a while now with seemingly no destination in mind. Rynne wondered if they were going back to his apartment. She would have to gracefully decline. Even if the guy wasn't a brain-snatching serial killer, he wasn't her type. Too old. Not that that had stopped her in the past, but there was something weird about him that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

"Where are we headed?" she asked, finally, wondering if he simply needed reminding that they were actually going somewhere.

"Nowhere in particular," Gabriel replied. "You looked like you needed to get out. You were sweating, you know; makeup must be pretty exhausting."

"Guys never understand," Rynne joked, looking away. She hated talking about her job. She'd learned a long time ago that it got awkward when you informed someone that you could spontaneously light things on fire. She'd grown up with it; she kept forgetting that it wasn't something that was exactly commonplace. Got you a lot of money from drunk people, though.

"Bullshit," said Gabriel. "You don't do makeup."

Rynne stopped and looked up at him. "Yes," she said slowly, "I do. And even if I didn't, it's none of your business."

"Oh, it's every bit my business," Gabriel replied, his eyes illuminated in the light of a streetlamp, sending him up the ladder from halfway handsome to three-quarters handsome at least. "You see, I've been looking for you. Here." He held out a candle. "Light it."

Rynne knew she was flushed, looking panicked. Damn it. "I don't have any matches," she said logically, trying to keep her composure. She'd never seen this guy before in her life. Had he been spying on her working backstage? Half of her wanted to run. All of her wanted to run.

'You and I both know that you don't have any use for matches." Gabriel was looking at her intently, and it made Rynne's heart stop, her brain turn dizzy. She felt a sudden impulse to tell him everything, to ignore any manner of secrecy in favor of confiding in this perceptive stranger beneath the lamp and the moon. And she didn't resist it.

The candle flickered to life. The flame shone on his face, and it made him look triumphant; it was an unnervingly manic expression on his angular face. Rynne smiled shyly and shrugged her shoulders beneath her big faux fur coat.

"Secret's out," she said shakily. "Don't go blabbing or everyone'll want one."

Gabriel took both of his hands out from under the candle, and it stayed exactly where it was. Rynne blinked, and stared. Gabriel was grinning a bit, now, and she quite wanted him to stop. This was weird enough without his smile taunting her from across their pool of light.

"You're not alone," he said. "I thought you should know that."

"I know," she breathed. "I know..."

He plucked the candle out of the air, and Rynne made the flame go out, little rings of smoke drifting off into the night. Gabriel stepped back into the shadows, and then he was gone, leaving Rynne dazed.

"I – come back!" she called, but, after a few more seconds, she had to accept the fact that she was alone. A few more seconds, and she realized that she had been wandering around out here in hooker boots and a leather skirt with a guy for ten minutes, at least. Couldn't look good. She shook her bangs out of her face, took a deep breath, and took off at a run for the club. She didn't feel like lighting anybody else on fire tonight.

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Knock, knock, knock.

Daylight hurt Rynne's eyes these days. She knew exactly why, but she wasn't prepared to quit an easy job with great pay and benefits, no matter what the hours. And anyway, free beer. Yo.

Two more knocks. It wasn't like the Walkers to be late; Molly tended to badger them to get ready and leave when she knew that Rynne was coming to babysit. Molly loved Rynne. Rynne loved Molly. It all worked out.

Somebody answered, and Rynne was fully prepared to give Mr. Walker a good talking-to and, perhaps, a light punch on the shoulder. Slow, much? Really. You're going to be late. Mrs. Walker'll throttle you.

But a policeman answered. He was pointing a gun at Rynne and looking angry. She withdrew her punch and blinked a few times.

"Hey," she said, stepping back a bit. "I'm … I'm just looking for the Walkers, man. Is everything okay?"

The policeman stared. "Do you own a television?" he asked skeptically, taking in the piercings, the hair, the outfit, the shoes.

"Can't say I do," Rynne replied, brushing her bangs to either side, trying to look presentable. "Why? Seriously, what's wrong? Was there a robbery or something?"

"One word for you," the man said, lowering his gun. "Sylar."

Rynne froze. She reached for the doorframe and held herself there. "What … I mean, what the hell? This isn't funny. The Walkers were normal people…. Why them? Why not anybody else?" She asked questions because she thought maybe the answers would explain something. Her brain flailed for some kind of hold on reality; nothing that the man said or did seemed believable, real.

"Sorry, kid," the man said. "How do you know the Walkers?"

"I babysit," she said, "for their daughter. Molly. Oh, God, Molly. Did he hurt her? Is she … is she?"

"Molly was fine when Officer Parkman found her," the policeman explained, choosing his words hesitantly. "It was a miracle he found her at all. She was hidden away; it's like they knew he was coming. But anyway. We took her to the station, kept her real safe, but the son of a bitch slipped past us! All of us!"

"Sylar."

"Yeah." The officer shook his head. "How he did it, I'll never know. Trained officials pursued him, he got shot at more times than I can count, and they all missed. Luckiest bastard I've ever seen in my life.

"Well, we kept her around for a few more days, but just three or four nights ago, we thought we heard something in her cell. We all went down there, but there was nobody in there, just that little girl crying for her parents. But do you know who else she was crying for? Sylar.

"She was saying how he had told her that he could bring her mom and dad back to life if she went with him, spouting all kinds of bull like that. She was crazy, and she wanted to see that man like nothing I've ever seen. And, two nights ago today, she just vanished. Disappeared without a trace. We don't know how she did it – or how he did it – but … I'm sorry, hon, the kid's gone."

"And he killed both of them?" Rynne asked quietly. "Mr. and Mrs. Walker … they're just…."

The guy nodded. "You okay, kid?"

"I'm fine." Rynne turned around and walked down the steps. As an afterthought, she glanced back over her shoulder. "You hear anything, let me know, okay? I'm in their phonebook. Rynne Parish."

And she clicked away, wondering what to do.

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She spent a week wondering when the truth was the most obvious thing in the world.

She had tried to avoid the inevitable conclusion, to dismiss it as one that was both unnerving and impossible. But every other plan she concocted, every other scheme that crossed her mind, was even more dangerous or implausible. At long last, she packed up her things and went to find the next bus to Texas.

After all, Sylar had been playing around quite a bit down there. If he was anywhere, it was Texas.

Rynne reached into the pocket of her black pleather skirt, but found nothing - at least, nothing that satisfied her needs at that particular moment. She checked her drawstring backpack next, and found it - a little school picture of a bright-eyed six year old girl in a wooden frame. There she was. The little runaway angel.

She put the picture back and moved with double the speed, her thin stiletto heels clicking on the pavement. If she wanted to catch the bus to Texas, she had to make it quick. Los Angeles could kiss her ass. If Molly wasn't here, nothing was keeping Rynne around. She could find new work, new haunts, and if this didn't work out, home was a bus fare away.

But Rynne wasn't going to come home until she had solid proof that there was no saving Molly. As long as there was hope, Rynne was going to try.

The bus stopped when Rynne waved her arms. She got on, took a seat in the front of the otherwise empty vehicle, and huddled down as the sidewalk drifted by.

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She took the first minute of the ride to procure a bottle of something or other from her backpack and down half of it. After all, it was going to be a long ride, and she was going to get bored otherwise. This way, she would be amused. By everything. That was how she rolled.

The next minute was spent staring at the driver in his mirror, trying to figure out where she knew him from.

"Hey," she said, finally, "you're that guy! That … that guy!" She giggled. "From the club, a week ago. Remember? 'You're not alone?'" She waved her hands around a bit, assuming that this would somehow jog his memory.

The driver smiled at her in the mirror. He looked like shit; his skin was paper-white, his eyes were sunken in. Rynne hoped he wasn't driving under the influence of anything. She liked being alive.

"I thought I'd be seeing you again," he said, his dagger eyes shadowed by his black baseball cap. "I'd assumed you'd be sober, but whatever."

Rynne ignored this. "Hey," she said, on a whim, sitting in the front where she could see the man drive. "You ever seen this girl? She was kidnapped only last week. Sylar, ironically enough. Some motherfucker, huh? Killed her parents with kitchen utensils."

The man glanced back at her. His eyes looked down at the picture, then up at her, and she felt little shocks run down her back. Beautiful eyes, piercing, like they could see straight through a person. "No, sorry," he said. "Can't help you."

"Didn't expect you to," Rynne replied, pulling her leopard print coat tighter around her. "Just trying, is all. I'm going down to Texas; that's where he's been hitting, lately. I figure, if the guy has her, I need to get her back."

"I see," Gabriel replied. "What makes you think you can take down an infamous serial killer? You plan to … light him on fire?"

"Yeah, that's pretty much the plan." Rynne leaned back in her seat, took a pull of her poison, and crossed her legs. She should have changed into jeans. It was cold on this bus.

"How did you know that girl?" the man asked, apparently for the sake of conversation.

"My parents knew her parents before they died," Rynne said. "I've been babysitting for her for as long as I can remember. Doesn't make as much as my other jobs, but it comes in handy, and I love her to death. I hope he hasn't done anything to her. I mean, if he has her, I'm just going to kill him. If he's even so much as touched her, I'll torture him, and then kill him. Mark my words."

"I doubt he could kill a child," the man mused, turning onto a side road. "Not even the hardest killer could take the life of something so innocent."

"Where the hell are we going?" Rynne couldn't help but inquire, looking out the window. "Some secret shortcut? I figured the interstate would be quicker--"

The driver slammed on the breaks, and Rynne was thrown through the glass screen and onto the steps where she had gotten on just five minutes before. She groaned dizzily, sitting up and rubbing the part of her head that had been cut just enough to get blood on her legs.

"Fuck," she grunted, looking up furiously. "What the hell was that? You don't be careful, you'll have a fucking lawsuit on your hands! I -- what are you doing?"

The man abandoned his seat in favor of getting up and kneeling down beside Rynne. He grabbed her chin in his hand, and pressed his other hand over her eyes.

"I can't explain," he said. "I just ... have to."

And everything went black.

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So, that's that, kids! Expect more soonish. R&R and I'll love you forever.