A/N: new chappie! enjoy!

Chapter 3: Secret

"Oh, hell."

Sylar and Tatiana stood outside the store staring at the pouring rain, both with groceries in their arms.

"And we walked," Tatiana recalled, making Sylar sigh before looking at her and she turned to him with a frown, shrugging, "What?"

"Mind helping out, here?" he hinted, twirling a finger in the air to gesture above his head.

"Afraid of a little rain, are we, Mr. Murderer?" Tatiana shot back, knowing what he wanted, but not moving.

"No, but unless you want soggy food when we get home, I suggest you use your shield for an umbrella," he retorted, ignoring her name calling.

She glared at him, knowing he was right, but not wanting to admit it. With a small sigh she shifted the bags she was holding and lifting a hand between them. She looked up as she twirled a finger in the air, a shield forming above their heads to cover them both as she did. She then opened her hand, palm facing up, fingers spread, and lowered her hand a little, the shield arching around them to form a handle-less umbrella.

"Thank you," Sylar nodded as Tatiana lowered her hand and they began walking back toward his apartment, she guiding the shield to hover above them with her mind. "Looks like you can handle your shields pretty well, huh?"

"Don't try to make small talk," Tatiana snapped, shifting the bags she held again. "I know all you care about is figuring out how it works so you can take it."

"I already know how it works," he retorted and smirked when she whipped her gaze to him. "That's my power. I know how things work…what makes them tick."

"You mean you stole that from someone," she shot back, her shock quickly dissolving as she faced ahead.

"Actually, that power is truly mine," he corrected calmly, making her look at him again. "It's the one I…started out with."

"Well, that's…a relief," she muttered looking ahead again, but he caught it and turned a frown to her.

"A relief?" he echoed and she looked back at him.

"Yeah," she nodded shortly. "I thought you didn't have anything except the ability to take people's powers. But I guess you had to start with something."

"You know what I used to do for a living?" he wondered, "Before I found out about my power?"

"Robbed banks?" Tatiana retorted, noticing a couple under an umbrella approaching them and staring at her in astonishment because of her shield.

"I repaired and made watches," Sylar replied, ignoring her sarcasm and not being able to help noticing the couple staring at them as well.

Tatiana lifted a hand between them, her fingers pointing up. She made a quick gesture with the flick of her wrist as if she were screwing in a light bulb and the shield above their heads spun quickly, spitting the rain that repelled off of it onto the couple just as they passed. They flinched, hurrying away and Tatiana lowered her hand with a devious chuckle.

"What was that for?" Sylar wondered, matter-of-factly.

"They were staring," she shrugged, flatly. "They should've taken a picture. It would last longer."

"Don't like being stared at?" he guessed, smirking slightly at her mischievous nature.

"Who does?" she replied, not noticing his smirk as she faced ahead as she muttered, "Especially one of us."

"Oh, so it's not that you don't like being stared at period," he realized, sending her gaze at him as he looked back at her, continuing, "It's that you don't like being stared at like a freak, right?"

"Isn't that the same thing?" she shot back. "When people stare at you if they didn't know you had a power, doesn't it make you feel like something's wrong with you anyway? Like something's out of place, or not just so in the way you look or act?"

"Sometimes they're staring because they're jealous," Sylar replied, not being able to help adding, "I'm sure that's why anybody would stare at you."

"Nice try, Don Juan," she retorted. "They stare at me because they see a freak who can pretty much survive anything if she uses her shields fast enough."

"Ever stop to think that maybe you're not so much a freak as…superior?" he wondered and she stopped to glare at him. He almost stepped into the rain, but quickly stopped himself and looked back at her in wonder.

"I'm not going to turn into you," she growled. "Just because I have these powers doesn't mean I'm any more superior than the rest of the human race. I still bleed red when you cut me, I still feel, and I can still die. What makes me any different from them besides my power?"

"Don't tell me you're one of those that thinks they can lead a normal life," Sylar sighed, rolling his eyes, making Tatiana's glare burn even hotter at him as he stepped closer to her. "I'm gonna tell you a secret: You can't. No matter how much you try, you can't live a normal life because you're not normal according to everyone else's standards. You're different alright, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it."

"Nice speech, but I'm not buying it," she spat back. "You say you've changed, that you're not killing anymore, but you're the same asshole I remember."

She caught what she'd said when he frowned in wonder at her and panic made her heart thump in her chest. There was no taking that back, and she knew it. She wished she'd been a time traveler instead just to fix this moment and avoid the question he asked next.

"You remember?" he echoed with a bit of an edge. "What the hell are you talking about? We never met. How the hell do you know me?"

Tatiana swallowed as they stood in the rain, people passing by them and his gaze boring into hers. She knew she'd never be more afraid of anything than this man standing in front of her, and she hated that fact.

"How do you know me?" he asked again, impatiently and Tatiana cleared her throat before glancing around, trying to get out of it.

"I heard about you," she finally snapped, faking irritation to hide her panic. "That's how I know you."

Sylar felt a tingle run through him and narrowed his gaze at her, but didn't stop her from trying to lie to him.

"Word came out about you years ago, then you were gone and forgotten about for a while," she explained. "That's why I said it the way I did."

"You're lying," he replied flatly, making her shoot a wide-eyed gaze at him. "Oh, don't look at me like that. I said you weren't good at it. But I didn't really expect you to tell me the truth right away."

He turned to head down the street, nodding mutely that she come with him and she cautiously started walking with him, still keeping her shield above them to protect them from the rain. The rest of the way to his apartment was silent, but she didn't care. She'd rather walk with him in awkward silence than have a battle of wits with him the whole way back.

Once under the awning of his apartment building, he pulled his keys from his pocket as she lifted her hand toward her shield, palm open, and when she quickly made a fist, the shield disappeared. She gave a small smirk that Sylar noticed, but didn't mention. He could tell, Tatiana loved using her ability whether she felt it made her freak or not. They were silent as they trudged up the stairs and as they entered his apartment, he used his telekinesis to float all the bags from their hands and toward the dining room table where he set them down.

"Thank---"

Tatiana was cut short when she was flung through the air by an invisible force, landing on the couch with a grunt and held still. Sylar stepped toward her, his hand raised as he held her on the couch and knelt next to her as she tried fighting against his hold, fear building inside her.

"I knew you hadn't changed," Tatiana growled, ceasing her struggle against his power and glaring at him. "Go ahead. Do it. Take my power like you did my brother's and everyone else's."

"Oh, stop being dramatic," he snapped, irritably. "I'm not gonna kill you, and if I wanted your power I could take it without killing you. And even if I took your powers, what good would they do me? I'm already indestructible, and I can hear anybody coming up on me. They're worthless to me."

"Then what the hell are you doing this for?!" Tatiana shouted, and he used his Puppetry power to close her mouth, which she tried struggling against, but failed.

"When I let you talk again, I wanna hear about how you know me. No lies," he said calmly, but in his head he was trying to figure out how he hadn't picked up on this when he read her soul earlier. It must have been buried in the back of her mind when she was under that trance.

Note to self, he thought. Never mix Eden's power with Lydia's again.

"Are you gonna tell me what I wanna know or continue to be a pain in the ass?" he asked, releasing her mouth with one hand but keeping her still with the other.

"I can't believe you don't remember," she muttered, not turning her burning gaze from him as he frowned in wonder.

"Why don't you jog my memory then?" he demanded, both now in a glaring match.

"I worked for your father," she replied, and Sylar gave a frown, wondering which father she was talking about, but she soon answered that question. "The watchmaker. I worked in the shop with you before he died. I was only there for a week."

"That's impossible," he frowned, shaking his head and he was about to say that he would have remembered a pretty girl working in his father's shop, but he kept that back. He suddenly realized his Lie Detector wasn't going off. She was telling the truth.

"I…" he breathed, then cleared his throat before trying again, "I never left my work. I hardly noticed anyone else but my father and the customers."

"That's what made you an asshole," she snapped. "You never once talked to me or even noticed me."

"You wanted me to?" he suddenly smirked smugly, and for the first time since they'd met, she blushed, looking away from his smug smirk.

"I did," she admitted in a mumble, knowing now she couldn't lie to him. Her gaze snapped back to him with a scowl as she added, "But after what you did to my brother, I could care less about you! All I ever prayed for was that somebody would get to you before I did, because you weren't gonna see any mercy from me!"

"Oh, quit talking big," he sneered. "You couldn't kill me if you wanted to."

"I want to," she ground out, her emerald glare boring into his face as she flexed her hands. "And I could."

Sylar saw the anger, the hate…the murder in her eyes and couldn't hold back his smirk. At that moment, he really believed she could kill him, but it wasn't to avenge her brother. She was hiding behind that excuse to mask the real reason she was after him. He promised himself he'd find out what it was, but he decided to go about that a different way. He wouldn't cheat, using Lydia's power again. He'd get it out of her, and he knew they'd both enjoy it when he did. And if she didn't, at least he'd get to enjoy it.

"Alright," he murmured, still smirking. "You think you can kill me?"

"I know it," she growled, never breaking eye contact.

"Then show me," he replied and her eyes snapped wide in surprise. "What? Changed your mind? Or have you come to terms with the fact that you can't kill me?"

That sent her fuming, and just as he let go of her hold on her, she threw a hand up, pressed it against his chest and a Shield Pulse sent him flying up, his back hitting the ceiling before he crashed into the coffee table in front of the couch. Tatiana stared at him in wide-eyed terror as she scrambled to sit upright. She just stared at him for a moment, one of his arms bent the wrong way, a leg twisted almost completely around, his neck obviously broken as he lay face down in the splintered wood of the table.

"Holy shit," she breathed, taking in the sight of his broken body. "Holy shit, what have I done?!"

"Nothing."

She gasped in disbelief at his muffled reply and stared on in even more disbelief when she heard cracks and snaps from him as he started moving. He pulled his leg back into place to stand, his back facing her as he bent his arm back the right way and saving the best for last, her turned toward her to snap his neck back into place, rolling his head from side to side and rolling his shoulders as well before looking back at her with a devious smirk.

"Come on," he taunted, holding his arms up a bit. "That the best you can do?"

Tatiana's shock boiled up into anger beyond words as her eyes shrunk down into a glare and her upper lip curled on one end, slightly. Sylar lifted a brow at her, now silently taunting her to bring it with his smirk as she only glared at him as a predator glares at its prey. She slowly stood from the couch, neither one of them taking their gaze from the other, their expressions never changing as she stepped toward him. He backed up toward the door, lowering his hands.

"Shall we take this outside?" he wondered. She responded with a Shield Pulse toward his head which he ducked, causing the pulse to make a dent in the wall. "Guess not."

"You jerk," she growled as he stood tall again, facing her. "You did that on purpose, didn't you? You want me to get really angry?" She shot another Shield Pulse at him, which he quickly dodged, making it hit a different part of the wall and denting it again. "Well, I hope you're happy, because I'm pissed!"

"Good," Sylar crooned through a smirk, making her eyes twitch closed for a second as she fumed. "Maybe now you'll get serious?"

"You want to die, don't you?" she wondered, lowly. "Soon as I find that sweet spot that'll kill you forever, I'll make sure you never come back."

"I doubt you'll find it," he retorted. "I've hidden it well."

She said nothing as she lifted a hand and clawed at the air, rolling her wrist, but instead of her palm facing up, it faced down. A shield formed around Sylar's head only, keeping him from breathing. He quickly lifted a hand and threw her across the room with his telekinesis, causing the shield to drop when she hit the wall and fell to the floor on all fours. He gasped for air, quickly recovering and marching toward her.

"That's better," he smirked, lifting several pieces of the splintered coffee table into the air and pointing them toward her. "Let's see how quick on the draw you are."

He flicked his fingers out quickly and the pieces of wood went flying toward her. She only stood and glared at him with a small smirk of her own, and just before the splinters hit, a shield covered her body, an inch from her skin. The wood bounced off of the shield, but the shield didn't fall as she moved, lifting her hand and hitting him with another Shield Pulse. Instead of dodging it this time, he quickly caught it, mid-air, with his telekinesis and struggled to hold it back as she pushed it forward.

A knock at the door made them both freeze, Tatiana dropping her shields and Sylar looking to the door.

"Gabriel?"

"Oh, crap," he muttered, and looked around the apartment before looking to Tatiana, coming up with an idea. "Take off your shirt."

"What?!"

"Just do it!" Sylar hissed, peeling off his shirt as there was another knock at the door.

"Gabriel?"

"Coming, Mrs. Hackett!" Sylar called in a sweet voice as he tossed his shirt away, flicking his fingers at the couch to fling the cushions off and the bed out as he approached the door, messing up his hair.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Tatiana hissed, but instead of answering her he flicked his fingers again and she was flung onto the bed, and just as he grabbed the door knob he yanked her jacket off and it was flung across the room.

He opened the door and grinned, panting, "Hi, Mrs. Hackett. Something wrong?"

The old woman in the doorway frowned, looking him up and down before peeking into the room and saying, "I heard such a ruckus---"

She cut herself off when she saw Tatiana sit up on the pull-out bed, she sheets a mess and Mrs. Hackett's eyes went wide as she looked back at Sylar who only lifted his brows in wonder at the woman.

"I-I'm sorry, Gabriel," she sputtered, backing into the hallway again. "I'll just…leave you two alone now."

"I'm sorry about all the noise, Mrs. Hackett," he smiled, starting to slowly close the door. "I know it must have scared you. We'll try to keep it down."

"Y-Yes," she nodded, her face turning bed red. "Do, please."

She didn't bother saying good bye as she hurried down the hall to her apartment and Sylar shut the door, leaning back on it with a sigh of relief.

"Great," Tatiana snapped, crossing her arms over her chest in a huff as she still sat on the bed. "Now she thinks I'm sleeping with you."

"Better that than her thinking we're killing each other," Sylar shot back, walking toward the place he'd flung his shirt to put it back on. "She'd call the police if she thought that."

Tatiana sneered as she looked away from him, but suddenly turned back to him and snapped, "What the hell were you trying to accomplish earlier?"

He said nothing for a moment as he pulled on his shirt but when he headed toward the kitchen he said, "I was trying to get you to be serious, to see if you'd actually kill me." He gave a smirk as he started unloading the groceries they'd picked up. "You did."

"So, what now?" she wondered sarcastically, not moving from her spot. "You're gonna let me kill you?"

"No," he smirked. "You haven't told me the real reason you're coming after me yet." Tatiana's eyes shot wide at him just as he looked at her for her reaction. "Didn't think I'd figure it out, did you?"

She said nothing as she looked away, knowing that lying to him would do no good. He knew when she was lying.

"I'm not gonna pry it out of you," he assured her, making her look back at him in shock again, but he continued putting things away. "You'll tell me, soon enough."

"I doubt that," she snapped, turning to flop back on the bed.

Sylar used his telekinesis to put something on a high shelf as he murmured, "I don't."

"What was that?"

"Nothing," he lied, flatly as he stepped toward the fridge and moved it effortlessly with his mind to look behind it.

The sound of grinding as the fridge moved caught Tatiana's attention and she shot up to look to the kitchen.

"What are you doing?" she frowned, shuffling from the bed and heading to the kitchen as Sylar moved to look behind the fridge.

"Starting up the fridge," he smirked, lifting a hand as little streams of blue electricity flowed around it.

Tatiana frowned deeper as she came up to look at what he was looking at, her head beneath his. He shot a small bolt of lightening at the plug and the sound of the fridge going on made him smirk a little wider as Tatiana stared at the appliance with wide eyes.

"Whoa," she breathed and turned her head to look at him to say something, but when she realized how close she was to him, she closed her mouth and stood tall, away from him to cross her arms over her chest, lift a sardonic brow and shoot out, "So who'd you take that one from?"

"A girl I knew," he shrugged, but took note that the thought of Elle clenched his heart in guilt.

"Let me guess…" Tatiana hummed, mockingly as she looked around in false thought before blurting, "She's dead, right?"

Sylar gave her a glare at her tone and what she was implying. Granted, it was true, but she didn't have to be a bitch about it.

"Yes," he nearly growled, lifting a hand to move the fridge back into place, making Tatiana glance at it as it moved before she looked back at him. "But I took her power without killing her."

"Oh, well, that's a relief," the blonde retorted mockingly, making him glare at her as he stepped toward her, but she stood her ground.

"It's complicated to explain," he snapped, starting to load the cold groceries into the now working fridge.

"Why not try first, before you say that?" she shot back and as he turned from the fridge he lifted a hand and used his Puppetry power to close her mouth. This time, instead of trying to fight it, she glared at him as he gave a small smirk.

"I love being able to do that," he purred, making her roll her eyes, but he only kept her mouth shut and said, "It's a story that would take way too long to explain right now, and I'm hungry."

He released her mouth, and she jerked forward a bit, her mouth opening from the lack of invisible force that had been there a moment ago.

"You hungry?" he wondered, turning back to loading the fridge.

"No," she snapped, turning to head back to the pull-out and he smirked as a small tingle ran through him. He could tell, this one was going to be really fun.

A/N: oh my gosh, this chapter was so much fun to write. i couldn't resist it! lol! reviews?