Hey all…yeah, I know, it's been a reeeally long time since I've posted anything…I fully blame school and preparation for finals…I will get back to the WIPs, I promise, I just needed to get this out after watching the AMAZING episode on heroes on Monday…So here it is, for your reading pleasure:

Point of No Return

He was maintaining a delicate balance at that point in time; Gabriel and Sylar evenly matched, both straining for control and both unable to seize it. Gabriel had a slight lead at the moment, having seized the moment when they both realized that he was going to explode, destroying half the city and many of the lives that populated it. While Gabriel didn't want to kill anyone and Sylar was a sociopath by definition, they agreed on one thing; deaths at that magnitude were to be avoided at all costs, as they would serve no one's purposes.

Calling Mohinder was a bad idea, in retrospect. Just because they had gotten along quite well up until the moment he revealed himself as Sylar did not mean that Mohinder could be trusted to help him in the future – after all, they all knew how that turned out. He was actually surprised the Indian had stayed on the phone as long as he had. But, Sylar figured his misguided belief that everyone could be redeemed as long as they wanted to be had probably had more to do with it than any "connection" they may have once had. He was sorry it had been necessary to sever that connection beyond all reparable means; friends had never come easily to him, and having one, no matter how short the duration or dubious the circumstances, had made him feel….human.

But, as the saying goes, hindsight is always 20-20, and there was nothing he could do about it now. And he still needed to find a way to avoid killing thousands, maybe even millions, of people who didn't need to die. So he did the next best thing; he called his mother.

He should have known that this choice was perhaps even worse than calling Mohinder had been. His mother had always had high hopes for him, perhaps higher than was really necessary. She had been the yin to his father's yang; he could recall countless incidents in his childhood when his mother had told him he could do anything if he put his mind to it, and in the next instant his father told him he was going to be a watchmaker and that was the end of it. He was constantly pulled back and forth from one to the other, which, come to think of it, probably explained a lot.

But here he was, and it seemed like he had made the right choice. His mother welcomed him home, fawning over him as if he had been gone for years instead of months. Although, considering he was the only one she had left, to her it probably felt like years.

As soon as he was in the apartment, his mom started her typical fidgeting. "If I had known you were coming, I would have straightened up more," she said nervously.

He smiled, then opened the box he had brought. It wasn't much, just another snowglobe, but it lit up her face so much that it was worth it. "I brought it from Texas," he said, "for your collection."

She ooed and aahed, much as he thought she would, and placed it on the shelf with the others. "It's perfect. One more and I'll have the whole continent. I'm just missing Oregon. I hear it's beautiful there. Green everywhere." He couldn't count how many times he tried to bring up his situation, tried to tell her that he was finally as special as she had wanted him to be. Granted, it probably wasn't quite what she had had in mind, but special was special, right? But every time he tried to tell her, something held him back.

Finally he steered the conversation in a different direction. He needed to be reassured, not frustrated. He walked over to the old clock on the wall, his father's clock. "The clock's broken."

"Oh, that old thing. I should have thrown it away years ago."

"It was Dad's," he said, annoyed in spite of himself.

"It's junk."

How could she think that? It was perfect, when it worked, anyway; intricate parts working in unison, timed just right. It had been his father's favorite one, the source of much frustration and triumph in maintaining it. "It's a beautiful piece; it just needs some attention." He took it off the wall and headed over to the small kitchen table, where he placed it carefully before walking over to the corner table where his father's tools still sat, even though they hadn't been used in months. He began working on his father's clock, which had stopped. It had been bothering him ever since he entered the apartment, the broken parts calling to be fixed. Nothing major, but he wouldn't feel right until it was fixed, whole. After he got into the familiar rhythm of fixing the timepiece, remembering how the cogs and gears went, his mother spoke.

"I can't tell you how proud of you I am."

"I haven't done anything," he said absently, mind still primarily focused on the clock.

"You've traveled the world," she said, excitement evident in her voice. "Some of us only get to see it in snowglobes." She sounded wistful, voice full of regret.

He stopped what he was doing for a moment and turned to look at her. "I'm tired of traveling. I think I might stay here."

"In Queens? Why would you ever come back?"

"If I stayed, maybe I could stop-" His words faltered. He tried again. "Maybe I wouldn't have to-"

"What?" When he didn't respond, she tried again. "Gabriel." Like he was a small child that had just been found with one hand in the cookie jar and yet still insisted on denying it. But now wasn't the time. Later, when it was right. It was still too soon. "I'll make you a sandwich." Of course; that was the grand solution of mothers worldwide, wasn't it? There's a problem that can't be fixed immediately? By all means, make food. "Do you want tuna fish?"

"Please, don't; I'm not hungry." He knew she wouldn't listen, she never did.

There was a pause, during which he could hear her getting things out of the fridge for the sandwich he had already told her he didn't want. "Well, if you're planning on staying, you should call Mr. Bilcher, that man from Smith & Barney. You fixed his Rolex."

"Why would I call him?" He was preoccupied, but he knew he should respond.

"Because he said you should. He said you were very talented and…very special." There was that word again. Special. It grated on his nerves. It used to be the one thing he wanted above all; to be special, to be different. He still did, or rather, Sylar did, but it was no longer the innocent thing it had been. Too much blood had been spilled in his quest to be special. "Maybe he could get you a job."

"I have a job; I fix watches." He took off the glasses he used for fixing timepieces and closed the clock. It was fixed, everything was right with it again.

"That's a hobby. Investment banking is a very lucrative field."

"I can't be an investment banker." It wasn't right; there was nothing to fix. Plus, it was boring. Not that she would listen.

"You could be anything you want!"

"Mom, he wouldn't even remember who I am!"

"Who could forget you?" Of course she would say that; she was his mother.

"You're not even listening to me," he said, his voice rising. A knickknack on the counter fell over, and he honestly couldn't tell if it was him knocking it over accidentally or if it was his telekinesis acting up.

"I am listening."

He forced his voice to be quiet; there was no need to upset her further. "No, you're making a tuna sandwich."

"So?"

"I asked you not to."

She started to gather up the things and put them back in the refrigerator, obviously upset. "I made a mistake," she said, sounding like she was going to cry. "I'm sorry."

Geez, I didn't mean it that way…He walked over to her to try to comfort her, but she pushed at him when he approached. He grabbed her arms, willing her to calm down. "Mom, Mom. Don't." She stopped, and looked at him. "It's just…Maybe I don't have to be special," he said. "It's okay to just be a normal watchmaker. Can't you tell me that's enough?" He was appealing to her, all but begging for her to tell him that it was true. She could be his salvation, if she would only tell him what he desperately needed to hear.

"Why would I tell you that when I know you could be so much more?" She looked at him in pride. "If you wanted, you could be President."

Why can't you just let me be normal, ordinary, just this once? It's what he needed to hear now, in his moment of hesitation. If she would only do what normal mothers do, tell him that as long as he was happy she was happy, that he could be a regular watchmaker and she would still be proud of him, then things would go back to the way they were before. He could be redeemed; he wanted to be redeemed, hell, he needed to be redeemed. If there was ever a time for her to accept him for being ordinary, this was the time. Deep in his heart, in what passed for his soul nowadays, he didn't like what he was becoming. He didn't like the fact that he killed, didn't like the fact that he was drawn to abilities like a moth to flame, didn't like that he felt like he needed more of them to be complete. It was like he was a black hole, always striving to fill himself up with the abilities other people had been given, and yet every time he took one he just felt more empty after the novelty wore off. He needed to be stopped before he passed the point of no return, and she was the only one who could do that. Not to be melodramatic, but she was the last hope for his humanity, the last thing preventing him from giving into Sylar entirely.

Now was the time. "What if I told you that I can be special? Important? But to do that I'd need to hurt a lot of people. Should I do it?"

"You? You could never hurt anyone."

If only you knew…You're sitting here with a serial killer, and you don't even know it. "There's a lot of things I can do that you don't know about." She gave him a funny look. Now is the moment of proof; you'll never get a better chance than this. "I have something to show you." He grabbed the hose from the sink and sprayed it, freezing it before it had a chance to soak anything, turning the area around his mother into a real-live snowglobe. She stared at it in wonder, momentarily speechless. "I know how much you love snowglobes."

"How did you…?" He grinned, increasing the snow. But that was when he lost control. It was too much, he was trying too hard to keep it ordered, and he hadn't practiced the freezing anywhere near enough to have complete control over it. He mastered abilities faster than normal, but his control over ice had suffered from disuse. His mother's slight anxiety from the sudden increase in snow was enough to get Sylar's attention. Sylar fought for control, reveling in the chaos, and using telekinesis he picked up a few of the snowglobes from the shelf and traced the outside of the human snowglobe with them. Sylar had always had a flair for theatrics, and the display was just enough to allow him to come to the forefront, making the snowglobes spin faster and faster, coming closer and closer to his mother. She began to get even more nervous, shrinking away from the very objects that had been her pride and joy, besides him of course, begging him to stop. This just fueled Sylar to make the snowglobes move faster, spin more recklessly. Finally, when she gave a cry of terror when one grazed her face, Gabriel began to fight for control, trying to suppress Sylar and his malice as his mother bolted through the snow towards her room.

Oh no…what have I done? He moved over to the door she had disappeared behind, and after determining she had locked it behind her, he tapped it lightly. "Please. I'm sorry I scared you. Just come out; I need to talk to you." His voice wavered, and Sylar took the opportunity to mock him. Why should you care? She's nothing, insignificant. And anyway; it was kind of fun scaring her, wasn't it?

No, it wasn't. How can you say that? She's my MOTHER, for Christ's sake! She deserves better than this. He could hear her crying, and he felt even worse, if that was even possible. "Mom. I saw a vision of the future. And I'm gonna kill. A lot of people. Tell me why I would do that." He needed her to tell him everything was going to be okay, that it was just a bad dream, like she had when he was small and came to her crying from a nightmare. He could feel Sylar rising again, preparing to take advantage of his weakness, but he shoved him down. If he was going to stop the future he had seen from happening, he needed help, and his mother was the only one who could do that. But she didn't answer. He turned away from the door and leaned against it, then slid down the door until he was sitting in the ground, his knees hugged to his chest. He lay his head against the door, trying not to release the tears that were threatening to fall. Sylar was mocking him again, but he ignored him. What did Sylar know of human emotions? He was Gabriel, this was his home, his mother causing him to hurt so much. Why won't she answer me? Why won't she help? Am I that horrible, that evil, that my own mother is afraid to help me?

He felt sick. He had just managed to push his own mother away, severing the last tie to the human race that he had. Why was he so stupid? Of course she was going to get scared if he showed her what he could do; what normal person wouldn't? But he had hoped that she would take it better than this. If she wouldn't tell him he could be normal and it would be okay with her, then maybe she could accept what he could do, and then maybe he wouldn't feel such a strong need to be the best, the most special. But no. He had managed to scare her beyond all repair. All he wanted was to go back, take back the past six months and be a nobody again, but, seeing as how that wasn't going to happen in the near future, he'd settle for preventing the future. All those deaths, and no reason, no purpose. But she just remained silent.

He banged his head against the door, calling for his mother over and over, hoping, praying that she would say something, anything. Finally he felt the door open behind him, so he scrambled to his feet.

"I'm leaving, and when I get back I expect you to be gone." She brushed by him, and he turned to face her, a look of disbelief on his face.

"Don't say that, Mom; it's me, it's Gabriel."

"No, you're not Gabriel; you're damned. And I want you out of my house." Her words were cold, callous.

He stared at her, dumbstruck. This wasn't happening, it just couldn't be. But there she was, moving towards the door. He couldn't let her go, he just couldn't. He grabbed her wrists, but she struggled to get free, telling him to let go. He protested, but she just struggled harder. "Just give me back my son," she cried, "I want my son; what did you do with my boy?"

"Mom, it's me, please," he moved forward, needing to make her see.

He should have known it was a lost cause; he had seen the look in her eyes, the same one he had seen in so many people's before he cut their heads open and took their abilities. Fear, terror, disgust, call it what you will. He could fix almost anything, but not this.

He moved towards her, getting between her and the door. He had to make her see, she was his last hope. But she reached for the pair of scissors that sat with her sewing, as if he were an intruder. He walked towards her, pleading with her to put the scissors down, she didn't need them. But she clutched them despite his words, and actually approached him, as if to use them. So he did the only thing left to him; he tried to take them away from her.

He should have known. It seemed to be the theme lately, but if it applied, he might as well say it. He grabbed her arms, wrestling the scissors away from his chest, his stomach, anywhere she tried to stab him. And over an over, as if it were a protective chant, she said "You're not Gabriel, you're not." He was breaking inside, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. A voice was screaming in the back of his mind, something about how wrong this all was, that a mother wasn't supposed to try to kill her child, but he shoved the thought away. He would deal with it later; for now he was focused on getting out of this with as minimal damage to his mother and himself as possible. He got her arms above her head, but somehow she moved, and once again the scissors were between them. He pulled, trying to get them out of her grip, but somehow they managed to get turned around, and she pushed against him, and before he knew what was happening she was falling away from him, the scissors stuck in her chest.

He wanted to scream, cry, something, anything, but it was at that moment that everything froze. Time stopped, quite literally. He pushed, he didn't know how or why, but it worked, it was fixed, and everything started moving again. A Japanese man (Hiro, the teleporter. Wouldn't that be a nifty ability to have?) was now standing next to him, his sword almost to Sylar's throat, and his mother was once again falling, only this time she made it all the way to the floor with a soft thud, at which point her blood began to pool on the floor beneath her. It was all he saw at first, the one image that dominated his brain, but the closeness of the blade to his throat demanded to be dealt with, so he shifted his focus.

The man's heartbeat was pounding in his ears, terrified. Sylar, for that was undeniably who he was now, as Gabriel had receded in horror for the most part the minute he had realized what had happened, grabbed the blade and turned to look at Hiro. The man gave a highly unheroic shriek. "That heartbeat. You were in the loft. Why are you following me?" he asked, realizing that this was the same man who he had heard at various points over the day.

"I must stop you," Hiro replied. Sylar wanted to laugh; how little this man knew of good and bad. Everything is relative.

"Then do it," he replied, daring the man to deal the blow, put him down like the dog he obviously thought Sylar was. Part of him wanted it, realizing that it was the only way to keep himself from killing innocents, but the other part of him, the part that was in control now, wanted to continue his work. There were more abilities to take, and so what if he ended up killing thousands who didn't deserve it; they were insignificant, not special like he and this man standing before him. So he kept hold of the blade, pulling it closer to his throat, taunting him. "Do it! Kill me!"

Hiro didn't move. He didn't have the balls, did he? He chuckled. The man talked big, but he wasn't quite the hero he envisioned himself to be. Not yet anyway; he needed to be a bit more jaded before that could happen. He froze the end of the blade, enjoying the look of fear that crossed Hiro's face. "You can't. You coward. Now I'm going to have to kill you too."

Hiro gasped, but Sylar's fun was interrupted when the sidekick barged into the room, calling for his friend. And before he knew it, they were gone, and he was left with an empty room and his mother's body, which just lay there, mocking him. Reality hit home, and he backed up, horrified at what he had done. It was worse than he had thought; before, even when she was staring him in the eye, denying that he was her son, he had still had hope that she would come to her senses and forgive him and tell him that of course he could be normal, after all, it was just a dream, not the truth at all. But now all his hopes were dashed. There was nothing to hold Sylar back now, nothing to tame him or make him go away entirely. There was just him and his vision of the future and a corpse on the floor that he had killed, no matter how unintentional it had been. He really was a monster, wasn't he. He ruined everything he touched, he might as well embrace the truth. He had no use for lies.

Suddenly the world went cloudy, or clear, depending on how you thought of it. Precognition was a lot less clear-cut about things than most people thought. It came and went as it pleased, and there was no instruction manual; it was relatively easy to see the future, but it was a hell of a lot harder to interpret it. His mind was flooded with images, sounds, smells, most of which centered around an explosion. Fire, brimstone, screams, burning flesh, red and black and yellow. It was all he heard, all he saw, all he could smell. It was as if he was there and here all at the same time. If he was forced to live this for much longer he swore he'd go insane. How the painter had been able to stand it he'd never know. His fingers twitched, begging for a release, and since there was no paint or paintbrushes nearby, they moved towards the next best thing. His fingers dipped into the pool of blood on the floor, and moved towards the closest empty space on the floor.

They moved back and forth across the floor, painting the closest representation of the images flooding his head as they could. There was no thought, no sense of time or place, only the images and the texture of the floor and the wet on his fingers.

As the vision faded from his mind, releasing him, he spoke. "You're right, Mom. I'm meant to be special, just like you wanted. I could even be President." He was past the point of no return, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

Fin