Heaven and Hell

by tfbl

When some fall in love it is a simple affair.

Disclaimer: Not mine expect for the plot.

I know you are the only one, my little taste of heaven. You know I am the only one, your bitter taste of hell

When some fall in love it is a simple affair, short and sweet with only a few hardships getting in the way. With others the love comes after a battle, one that is horrific and terrible and bewildering but worth it a million times over in the end.

That is how Claire and Sylar falling in love will come about- not gentle and calm while being slightly difficult with a dash of platonic, the time limit hanging over their heads all the while.

Not like with West, Alex, Elle, Gretchen, that red haired girl from his Spanish class, and so many countless others that have long since faded from their minds due to the forever ongoing passage of the years. It's going to be a long and dark process accompied by anger and hate, forgiveness, guilt, and bloody encounters that involve knives and guns with a quite a bit of telekinesis and fire.

There's going to be subtle, overt, and invisible stalking prompted by dreams that are shoved aside upon waking, futuristic paintings that are burned almost the instant they are completed, a desire that he doesn't dare name, and a stupid spinning compass on his wrist.

There will be protection fiercely rejected and reluctantly accepted, permanent tattoos of their counterpart's face that each are determined to ignore, tears and screaming, and leaning on each-other when there's no one else and even when there is because the other is all they've come to know.

They will fight and forget, grieve and kill, and a gradual transformation from enemies to friends.

She will come to witness for herself what Elle Bishop, Peter and Emma, Belle and Rumford Gold, Matt Parkman, Molly and Micah and Sanjog Iyer, and so many others had seen within him.

He will come to see the same within her.

Each will learn that they never have to be afraid to fall, not when the other will always be there to catch them.

They will also learn respect for each other and to trust and love completely - this time for all of time and beyond.

There will be books read aloud and games of chess played as coffee turns cold in the mugs beside them, fingers gently skimming over satin smooth skin, joyful laughter and occasional hurt feelings along with annoyance as the other pulls an all nighter at the office.

Within a centaury or three golden locks spread across the pillow and the ticking of watches and clocks resting upon a cherry wood desk will become their normal, and the predatory smile will send shivers of desire down her spine while the ever shifting hue of green-blue eyes will become imbedded within the very fabric of his soul.

Later there will appear on her hand a milky white pearl resting in the middle of a delicate silver ring, she will get angry with him for playing the ancient songs of 37 Stitches and Closer on the day that they are supposed to dance together in a suit and a white dress (although she secretly agrees with his song choice), and there is heartbreak as her body rejects the third infant from inside of her body, and a move Ireland.

Then yet again there is the gradual rounding of her stomach, a heartbeat that grows stronger instead of weaker, and pride and wonder in his chocolate brown eyes as a tiny foot kicks beneath his hand. Within a few months he will brush strawberry blonde hair from the tiny forehead and will understand for the second time how one can experience a love that knows no bounds, and that will cause one to lie and kill and give them up and lay down their lives without a thought for themselves.

They will be forced to move and alter memories when the entire preschool class is turned into rats, they will buy cat shaped nightlights and almost demolish the kitchen making fried chicken, and she will hold a funeral for the goldfish, the slate gray eyes that neither of them know the origin of more couiors then sad.

When they hear the phrase "leukemia" their blood will turn to ice in their veins.

His eyes will transform into those of a predator, the deadly gleam one that even the devil himself would fear as the killer within him reacts to the oppressing weight of rarely felt terror the way that any predator would: by snarling and clawing and fighting and wanting to destroy and taste the blood of those that dare to threaten what is held most dear.

She, who does not posses the instants of a killer despite all the years that she has lived and how much death she has witnessed and caused (the most often being to the man beside her who is gripping her hand so tightly that the bones are shattering and poking through her flesh) can do nothing.

Nothing expect feel her heart stop and her throat close as she grips his hand right back, silently listening as a soundless scream echoes in her mind.

Throughout it all there is nothing that can be done expect listen to shrill shrieks of pain that comes from deep within the marrow of bones, watch helplessly as boldly vomit and useless treatments become the center of their lives, and try their best to comfort the skeletal thin child whom each of them would trade places with in a heartbeat.

There is nothing they can do expect hold each other (her with tears streaming down her face and him with eyes colder then anyone dead or alive has witnessed), pay for treatment after treatment, and pray desperately to God that neither one believes in.

The doctors voice is low and compansite as he gives them the news.

"Nothing more that can be done."

Nothing more that can be done

Because even with all of the medical advances and new technology there is still no cure for this horrible monster that is ripping apart their lives

Because his Intuitive aptitude can understand, dissect, and analyze this illness down to the very last cell but unlike a brain tumor he can't fix it.

A brain tumor is simple, a single mass of cells focused in one area, affecting everything directly in a similar manner.

Leukemia is much more complex, for the abnormal cells are spread over the length of the body, layered on top of one another as the body is affected simountsily and yet in many multiple and different ways.

He can always fix everything…. watches and scraped knees and cracked marbles and is the only one who can banish the monsters from underneath the bed.

He can't fix this.

This is one monster that he can't chase away.

She can do even less then him, for all she has is her blood.

Her blood that can heal the sniffles, make bruises disappear like magic, and allows their child to not be afraid of the misquotes that swarm around the tent when they camp in the backyard or of the mean dog down the street.

Their child is not afraid because mommy has magic inside of her. Magic like daddies' pretty lights only more special because daddies blood doesn't work like hers. His doesn't make the bruises go away as fast or scare away the bugs or make the school rat wake up after it's been floating on top of the bathwater.

Her magic blood that can always make everything better…. will make this worse.

Now she can't make the pain go away, return the color to the chalky white skin, or speed up the breaths that are becoming shallower by the day.

This is the only thing that she can't make better.

Soon, much to soon, they will stand together over the small and lifeless body.

Her face is pale and haggard, the deep purple circles underneath her bloodshot eyes showing the evidence of many sleepless nights. Nights that were spent sobbing in the arms of her husband as again and again a hole was punched through her chest.

The slight breeze blows the long hair that is laying in limp waves down her back and her lips tremble as she stares silently down at the body that once held their child.

Her eyes are dry, for she has already shed all the tears that it is possible to shed. For now, at least.

He is in much the same state as her. Limp hair and purple bags and a boldly hole in place of his heart.

Unlike her, he is not silent.

He sees the body that he has held in the protective circle of his arms so many times before, now cold and lifeless upon the ground… and he, who has not shed a single tear from the time they heard that dreaded phrase from the doctors lips…. finally breaks.

The howl that issues from his throat is that of wounded, enraged, and anguished animal as he falls to his knees, his powers exploding from him in wave that he does not bother to control.

The ground rumbles and dirt flies upward as huge cracks split the surface, cities and towns off in the distance falling into the center of the earth as the devastation reaches them.

Telekinesis and fire fly from his body, the flames setting the ground and the trees and her body ablaze while that invisible force transforms into razor-sharp blades. It slices through the tombstones as easily as if they were butter, and she watches numbly as her intestines spill from her stomach and arterial blood flies from her throat.

She will sink down to her knees and take him into her arms. She will remain there upon the ravaged ground for an untold amount of time, her nails digging into his back as she holds him against her, ignoring the destruction of the earth as well as the fire that engulfs her body and the way her blood arches through the air.

Within time his screams will cease and his powers will fade. His arms will come around her and crush her tightly to his chest, his tears soaking the still healing flesh of her shoulder as he buries his face against her neck.

As she feels bruises form on her back due to the strength of his grip and hears her ribs break as he squeezes her even tighter she knows that he has no intention of ever letting her go.

Not when he has lost the one person whom he loved more then her.

That's fine.

She has just suffered the same loss as he has, and she has no intention of ever letting him go either.

It takes time, four centuries to be exact, for the twin wounds in their hearts to heal, but heal they do.

Within that time there is so much that they do.

They slam doors and cry, exist in silence for days and weeks, scream at and curse each other, and destroy everything within their home before shakily putting it back together. He throws her heart first onto a butcher knife when she clears out their child's room because she can't stand to see it anymore, and after she yanks the blade from her chest she stabs him through his heart in turn.

They will apologize for the harm they have caused and fall asleep in the arms of the one who had long ago become their anchor. When it finally becomes too much to bear they will move once again, and within time it will become easier as their child does not consume every second of their thoughts

What they do not do is run.

When she storms out of the house, tears streaming down her face and voice temporarily horse from her own screaming or with blood soaking into the fabric of her clothes, she does not spend the night or the next week in a hotel.

She never returns home after hours or days spent away to find him sitting with his head in his hands, eyes dark with fear and hands trembling as he swings his head around to stare at her when she enters the room.

He never uses his flying ability to soar away from her for more then a few hours. He dose not walk or teleport from their home, objects impaled within his body or her harsh words ringing in his ears. He never allows her to pace the floor or bite her nails down to a quick, terrified that she has pushed him too far this time.

They do not run because they learned long ago that there was no point, not when the other would always find them. Not when the other would chase them forever until they had them back.

They don't want to run, in any case. They haven't for a couple thousand years now, and despite this tragedy that is ripping apart their lives, that will never change.

They never lie to each other.

Never.

Not once, for they are determined not to repeat the mistakes and deceptions that had been a normal aspect of their lives so, so long ago. For those lies that each had been raised with

– Him with the lies hovering just on the edge of his existence and yet twisting the fabric of his physic and bleeding into his very bones and mocking him all the same…. allowing others to play on his fears and morph him into their puppet and throw him away like trash when he was of no further use to them

I'm your mother, dear.

You're nothing more then a killer, Gabriel.

I love you.

Of course he's lying, he's Bennet.

What do you want me to say? That your mother was a sick, infantile woman and it was a mistake to ever have a child with her?

I'm so proud of you.

Her growing up with deception spewing into her life from the moment of her birth and continuing to fester and grow ever larger, hurled at her under the guise of protection or following orders or simply because the truth wasn't for her to know…. deception that had broken her trust and cracked her self esteem and made it known that in their eyes she would never be anything more then a weak, helpless, naïve, and foolish young girl that must be protected regardless of her age and what she had done and seen and how many Ferris Wheels she leaped from and those whose blood now stains her hands as a result of her selfishness.

You're daddy… well he'll give us cash because that's easy but anything else… he'll just disappoint you.

All I want is for you to be happy.

Everything I do I do to protect this family.

I cared about you a great deal. Perhaps not in the traditional sense, oatmeal cookies and school plays, but I did what I could.

You lied to me. Once again. About Nathan's death, about what you did! God, it was Sylar! Did you forget it was Sylar? Did you forget what he did to me? He attacked me, he cut open my head! You! You dressed him up in Nathan's face and I hugged him, and I felt love for him!

I'll always be honest with you.

Those lies had hurt them beyond what the individuals uttering them could possibly conceive and what most people could endure.

It had mattered not the intent of the lie, the extent, nor whom it had come from. The end result had been the same.

They had been lies meant to shelter or designed to cut as deeply as possible, white lies made up at the spur of the moment or an ever expanding deception whose origin was decades old. They were uttered by friends and parents, siblings or lovers, grandparents or false family, people whose trust was genuine and for whom it was a falsehood.

Every lie had sunk a knife into their heart and twisted the blade all the same. A blade that was stainless and razor sharp and yet was jagged and covered with rust, a blade that had inflicted wounds that even now were in various stages of healing while some had transformed into permanent scar tissue that they had long ago become accustomed to.

They had lied to each-other in the past, of course, back when his Hunger ruled him and hate consumed her, - I'll keep trying to kill you for the rest of my life. I'm not sorry. I don't care if Peter says you've changed, to me you'll never be anything more then a murderer – and during those years in which she could still recall her brother's face and a rosary along with scissors that dripped blood and crimson streaked blonde hair draped across wet sand invaded his dreams – I don't trust you. You have no idea how much I want to carve this fucking tattoo off my arm! I never want to see you again. You're mother was right, you are dammed to burn in hell! Are you sure you weren't just an assignment to him?

After all that, after trust was earned and friendship born and this love had taken root inside their soul? Never. Never had they deceived the other nor evaded to protect or tried to shelter or attempted to make them dance a puppet's dance.

That hasn't changed, even with this loss. They do not lie, instead uttering the truth through screams and tears, whispers and silence, in powers displayed and blood spattering the walls along with hands that reach desperately for their counterpart.

They do not take that blade and sink it in deeper and twist it further then anyone has ever done.

So, yes.

Over time it does get easier.

They heal and move on as the pain lessens, although it never completely goes away.

Around them time goes on, as it always does.

One centaury, three, six, eight, thirteen, and then twelve come to pass.

Sylar and Claire stand on top of a building, his hand tightly intertwined with his wives' as genocidal wars rage below them and they calmly witness the world burn.

When the last of mortal human kind destroys itself they will still be there, their counterpart's tattoos still residing upon their forearms and as alive as they were all those millennia's ago even though they have left no trace in the long history of the planet they call home.

And when all the clocks stop as the sun goes out, plunging the planet into cold and eternal darkness they will continue to walk the earth for an untold amount of time, their way lit by crackling blue electricity and warm orange fire along with a small bright golden ball of sunlight balancing in the palm of a hand.

Their bare feet will make no sound as they walk across frozen barren stone, side by side just as they have been for thousands upon thousands of years.

After they have grown tired of the lack of life and air currents and constantly generating their own light and heat he will use one of his abilities to take them away from their place of birth, their arms clutched tightly about each-other as they head out to start it all over again.

Well, the good parts at any rate.

AN – The songs that are referenced are 37 Stitches by Drowning Pool and Closer by Kings of Leon. Both are great songs that I feel are perfect for Sylar and Claire. Seriously, go and listen.

Pat yourself on the back if you caught the Once Upon A Time reference.

Please review.