Some psychologists theorize that murderers kill because they have forgotten, in a sense, that there is beauty in the world- that they destroy (always this they, this separating of us and them) because there is no longer anything worth saving.

Sylar disagrees. There is hunger behind his killings, but never for destruction. He is a scholar. A collecter. A goddamned connoisseur.

So, perhaps he is the exception. Perhaps. Or maybe he is just another lost soul with a weapon and suffocating grief for a time when the world wasn't empty, colorless, cruel. Maybe he just wants the sun to come out again.

But that would imply that Sylar is an ordinary killer.

And Sylar is not ordinary. He's special.

As the woman's scull opens for him like the back of a pocketwatch, all Sylar sees is beauty and wonder. The tight folds within part at his touch- they recognize what he wants and give it to him without struggle, wrinkles and neural centers ticking for him like gears as they share their secrets. Sylar feels, in his mind and blood rather than in the butterfly pulses beneath his fingertips, feels her pattern begin to change (running half a second slow; now two seconds) in the same way he feels it with clockwork.

Funny, isn't it, how the human brain is so like a man-made system of gears and crystal. Just as simple, just as beautiful.

And oh- yes- there it is; what he came for. Her power, just a tiny thing tucked away beside the temporal lobe. His left index finger traces it, feels it shiver under his touch, and then it enters him with the slow, quivering warmth of (clicking into place) understanding, one more instrument to join the orchestra in his brain. Sylar raises a hand, closes his eyes, and conducts. He can feel the vibrations in the air now, radiating around him like sonar. He chuckles, low and pleased at this new ability, and the sound returns to him, shows him the comfortable living room clear as sight. Oh, this is fun.

As he rinses the woman's blood from his hands, he hears (a niggling hum in the back of his mind) her life finally flow out of her. Simultaneously, his own ticks into perfect harmony. He dries his hands with a white towel before he leaves the house, door locked carefully behind him.

One killer knows that there are things in the world worth saving.

Sylar smiles. The sun is out.