Back to Life

"How is that possible?" Jules asked but the doctor who´d bandaged Shawn´s newest gunshot wound, could only shake his head.

"I can only say, I´m terribly sorry for this mistake." he said. "We were obviously wrong about the fact that you were dead."

"You can say that twice." Henry barked. "What kind of a doctor are you? Do you always give up on your patients when there is some struggle?"

"I only know that he had several very severe internal bleedings that we couldn´t stop. I did the surgery myself. I could tell you the exact spots where the bullets penetrated his body. But now there is nothing. I don´t know if he was really dead, there is always the possibility of a mistake in that. There are cases in which people came back around after they were believed dead. But even if this was a case like that … There was never a case in which the injuries vanished, just like that. It´s literally like a … a miraculous healing."

"No need to build a shrine for me, doctor." Shawn said with a weak smile. "It´s not as if I came out of that without a scratch."

"You were injured much worse, young man." the doctor insisted. "You were dead."

"Believe me." Shawn said. "By now I absolutely realized that."

"But … don´t you wanna know how this is possible? I mean …"

"We intent to find that out, doctor." Lassiter chipped in, gesturing for the medic to leave them alone. The old doctor looked from one of them to the other until he found that his questions were a lost course in this room. So he nodded and left.

"I still can´t believe that you´re alive." Juliet whispered, once again close to tears. "I thought I´d lost you."

"You almost did." was all Shawn could say. Because one thing was for sure. No matter how often he turned things around and around, there was just one fact that he couldn´t deny. He had been dead. And he´d still be if it wasn´t for … yeah and there he had to give up on the understanding part. Because he had no freaking idea how it was possible that he was back to life. "Maybe it really was Sylar." he mused.

"What?" Lassiter asked, a haunted look on his face.

"I don´t know." Shawn said. "Maybe he did something to me. Something that made me the way he is. You know, with all the healing stuff. Maybe that´s the reason I kept dreaming about him lately."

"Dreams?" Lassiter asked, frowning deeply.

"This boy warned us." Gus spoke up, shaking his head. "He said they´d come."

"I should have listened to you." Jules shook her head too.

"Yeah, and you know what?" Shawn said. "This orderly knows something too. I don´t know if he´s the good guy in all this but I´d rather talk to him than to that other dude."

"We´ll talk to all of them." Lassiter assured him. "As soon as we´re done here …"

"I´m done." Shawn stood up, eagerly and Lassiter nodded.

"Then let´s get back to the station and do some work. We have four suspects to interview."

...

Sylar drove along the road, a soft music playing on the radio. He´d been driving all night and half of the day now. It had been a quiet trip. Not that he didn´t appreciate the silence but on some parts he would have liked it to have a chat partner. There were some things that kept spinning in his head and it was always a good thing to speak them out to someone who could listen and maybe even understand.

Mohinder might not understand it all but he at least would have listened. It was a shame. It had been such a nice trip. But things were done and there was absolutely no way that he could have done it any differently. Well, maybe a little different but that was in the past now. He would have to run with how things had turned out and somehow find a way to make up for the lost time later.

Behind him he heard some rustling sounds and he quickly lowered down the volume of the music. He threw a glance in the mirror, watching how his passenger started to wake up. He wouldn´t miss the look in his eyes for anything in the world. Thanks god the street was straight on with very less traffic. The scientist opened his eyes and started to look around in utter surprise and confusion. Sylar bit his lower lip to not to grin too widely.

"Welcome back, doctor." he greeted. "Slept well? I sure hope so."

Mohinder stared at his eyes in the mirror and jumped, instinctively pressing himself against the backrest of the rear bench seat. Sylar´s grin grew wider. When Mohinder realized that he was indeed alive and seemingly not in any immediate danger, he dared to take his eyes away from Sylar´s, to look around. He was obviously trying to orient himself.

"Why am I not dead?" he asked.

"Why should you be?" Sylar asked right back with a frown as if he didn´t have the slightest idea, where the scientist got that infamous idea from.

"You could have killed me." Mohinder insisted. "There must be a reason why I´m still alive."

"Well, maybe I´m a nicer guy than you thought." Sylar offered.

"Why?" Mohinder repeated his question.

Sylar tilted his head in a don´t-be-like-that-way and looked ahead at the street again.

"You could have taken my power." Mohinder recalled.

"Ah, yeah." Sylar said and looked musingly at him in the mirror. "I´ll keep that in mind."

For a moment the creeped out and carefully aware look was back in Mohinder´s eyes. Sylar chuckled silently.

"But for now …" he went on and checked the reaction of the other man again. It was just too good. "Beside the fact that I would have missed your cheerful company …" he said. "I still need you to plant that virus into the Company´s computer system. Unfortunately I never killed anyone, who had the ability to manipulate computers." He halted for a moment when he remembered something. "But now that I think of it … actually there was one." he told Mohinder. "But I let him run. Loong story. But there you see, I am a nice guy."

"Then why this whole charade?" Mohinder demanded to know.

"Charade?" Sylar repeated mockingly offended. "My dear doctor, if you would have just listened to me earlier, when I told you you needed some sleep, we could have spared the whole thing."

"If I …?" Mohinder gasped in disbelieve.

"You slept for almost twenty hours." Sylar went on talking right over him. "If that isn´t a sign that you were sleep deprived then I don´t know." He was about to turn his attention back to the street when he remembered something. "By the way, that pre-payed cell you had in your pocket … that kinda broke during our little argument. I had to throw it away."

Mohinder reached for his pocket to check it and found it indeed empty.

Sylar couldn´t help but smiled over the frustration in Mohinder´s face. "Sorry ´bout that." he shrugged and threw another glance in the mirror. Mohinder was scowling at him.

Sylar just smiled: "Breakfast?" he offered.

...

"All right, Mr. Peter Petrelli." Lassiter greeted the man in the holding cell. He looked at a note in his hands. "You really are a nurse." he stated with raised eyebrows. "From New York. You are far away from home, aren´t you?"

The man in the cell didn´t give a response. Lassiter turned to the other man. The false doctor slash hitman.

"About you we don´t know that much though." he said. "Or about your friends." He looked around and found the other cells empty. "By the way, where are the others?" he demanded to know.

"Ehm, there are no others, detective." McNab answered startled.

"What do you mean, there are no others?" Lassiter snapped. "I arrested two men at O´Hara´s place."

"We only booked these two." McNab insisted.

Shawn and Juliet exchanged an uneasy glance. Shawn also noticed that a thoughtful expression had appeared on the young orderly´s face in the cell.

"I handed the two suspects over to two officers." Lassiter recalled. "One male, one female. They took them. You want to tell me, I made this up?"

"No, I …" McNab stuttered. "Maybe they brought them to another department?"

"Then go and find that out." Lassiter barked. "I want to know where my suspects are."

"Yes, sir." McNab replied and hurried out of the door.

"Now back to you, sir." Lassiter turned back to the suspect in the cell. "What´s your name?"

"Hank." the man said after a moment.

"Hank what?"

"Hank Burroughs." he said and before Lassiter could ask another question, he told him: "I work for the government."

"Oh, really." Lassiter smiled. "Well, that´s interesting. And … since when is the government attacking people in a hospital?"

Hank Burroughs only looked at them. "I´ve got nothing to say." he claimed.

"We´ll see how much you´ve got to say." Lassiter replied.

"I want to have my phone call." Hank Burroughs demanded.

"You can have your phone call." Lassiter said. "And after that, we´ll have a conversation." He opened the cell, put some cuffs on the man and led him out.

"I want my phone call, too." Peter Petrelli cried, just before the others could follow them out.

Henry halted, looking back at him. "In a minute." he told him. "I´ll be right back."

With that he maneuvered Shawn and Juliet out of the door.

"I bet he knows something about what happened to Lassie´s suspects." Shawn whispered when they were outside.

"We´ll see." Henry replied, glancing over his shoulder. "I´ll take care of this. You go and watch Lassiter´s interrogation. This other guy will be harder to crack than this one. Believe me, when someone starts to hide himself behind his superiors like that even before the questioning starts, you will hardly get anything out of him. Especially when they really work for the government."

"You have experience with that?" Shawn asked surprised.

"Sort of." was all Henry said. "Now go and watch this guy. Maybe you see something that Lassiter doesn´t."

After Shawn and Juliet were gone, he went back to the suspect. "All right, kiddo, now it´s your turn." he said and opened the cell. "I bring you to the phones."

The young man followed him, willingly enough and Henry pretended skillfully not to be interested in him, except for the fact that he had to walk him to the phones. When the man took the receiver and started to dial a number, Henry stood a few feet aside, as if to give him some privacy. Not too far away though.

"Claire it´s me." he heard him say. "I have a problem. I got arrested while I was in the hospital. I was attacked. … No, after that. … I tried but …" he looked around for a moment. "Listen, I can´t talk right now. You need to find a way to get me out of here. … No, I can´t. I don´t know, they gave me something. … I don´t know. Probably. But that´s not all." By now he was almost whispering. "They also arrested the man that attacked me. And also two others but they seem to be gone. … Two officers took them and now they are gone. … I think you know what happened. … We knew they were here, Claire. It was just a matter of time. … Okay. Hurry up. I don´t know how much time we have. … You too."

He hung up and turned back to Henry. There was nothing in his face that would have indicated anything out of the ordinary. Just one more suspect that had called his lawyer to get him out of some trouble. Henry led him back to the cell.

...

Sylar approached the counter of the diner in a light mood. Though it was almost lunchtime by now, he was of good hope to get some good old fashioned breakfast in here. Mohinder was strolling behind him with a grim face. He was still suspicious and probably expected that Sylar had put up one or two tripping hazards somewhere in here. The killer didn´t care. At least he didn´t let show any sign of care. He gave the waitress a warm smile and got an equal smile back.

"What may it be?" she asked.

"Braaaiiiins." he replied, startling her for a moment, but that was nothing compared to the shocked expression on Mohinder´s face. Sylar started to laugh. "I´m so sorry, I couldn´t resist." he chuckled at the waitress who would probably never know why he was really laughing. "Zombi horror." he said with a shrug. "What can I say?"

"You like such stuff, huh." the waitress asked smirking.

"Love it. I know, pretty stupid but …"

She just shrugged. "I like Linkin Park and Skillet, so …"

"Really?" Sylar asked, honestly surprised. "I´d never guessed that."

"I know. Hear that quiet often. Usually people take me for the America or Beachboys-type." she shrugged again. "So what can I bring you guys?"

"Two large coffees and a big plate of ham and eggs, please. My friend here needs to get his strength back, isn´t that right?" he slapped Mohinder´s shoulder, smiling brightly at the man. He was regarded with a cold glare for this.

"You got it." the waitress said and was on her way to fetch the wanted.

Sylar turned to face Mohinder, still smiling friendly. And Mohinder was still looking suspicious.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked.

"Doing what?" Sylar claimed to be absolutely innocent.

"This. All of this." Mohinder replied. "All this playing ideal world after what happened."

"You want to burden this nice girl with our private problems?" Sylar asked and made his way over to one of the corner booths. "She´s just doing her job, Mohinder."

"You know what I´m talking about." the scientist insisted sitting down, opposite of the killer. Sylar lay his head askew.

"Maybe it´s time for you to start trusting me." he suggested. "If we want to go on this mission together …"

"I´ll never trust you." Mohinder emphasized. "You are a murderer."

"Gee, not so loud." Sylar replied, looking around as if he was afraid someone could overhear their conversation. "Seriously, Mohinder. One could start thinking you want to get caught."

"I want to get caught?" Mohinder cried. "I´m not the culprit here."

"No. You are the one who helped the culprit escape." Sylar replied.

Mohinder scowled. "I had no choice." he stated.

"Neither had I."

Mohinder snorted. "Oh, please. We´ve been over that before. If you can convince yourself about that, go ahead. You are the one who has to live with that conscience, not I."

The young waitress came over to them and poured them some coffee. "The eggs are on their way." she told them and left.

For a while the two men just sat there, staring at each other in silence. The hate in Mohinder´s eyes hadn´t changed a bit since they´d left New York. The same way he´d looked at Sylar all the time as long as they´d been at the Company´s facility. The same way he´d looked at him, when he´d come in the morning to get him for another round of torture. Torture that he´d called scientific research.

For a moment, Sylar wondered about the same question, Mohinder´d asked him. Why didn´t he kill him? Or at least pay him back what he´d done to him over the last few months? He could have. He still could. But he also knew that it wouldn´t change a thing if he did. Torturing Mohinder now wouldn´t make the last few months go away. Maybe he would feel better, maybe he would even enjoy it. There had been a time when he wouldn´t have hesitated at all to go for it. But that had been a long time ago. It had been before he´d learned a little something that was called empathy.

"You are aware of the fact that we didn´t see each other for years?" he asked the Indian scientist, who still looked at him as if he was ready to stab him with the butter knife, right here and now. "A lot of things happened in that time."

"A lot of things happened to all of us." Mohinder replied unimpressed.

"Exactly." Sylar said. "That´s my point. We all have been through so much. It changed us all."

"Not enough as it seems." Mohinder replied. His voice was still cold and hard. "I know about every single person you killed since our last encounter."

Sylar frowned astounded. "You kept track on that?" he asked.

"I barely had a choice." Mohinder hissed. "It was all over the news, every time you did it again."

Sylar raised his brows, thinking for a moment. "Not all of them made the news." he mentioned.

"You see. That´s exactly what I mean." Mohinder hissed. "And you expect me to see anything else in you, than a cold blooded murderer?"

"This is really all you see, isn´t it?" Sylar asked, getting defensive. "Yes, I´ve killed people, but that wasn´t my fault. It´s the Hunger. I can´t control it."

"You don´t want to."

"There was a time when I´d wanted to." Sylar replied. "Briefly. But after Claire took that jump that night, things went downhill very fast. She tried to open up to the world but her father wouldn´t let her. He covered everything up, made her look like a teenager who desperately wanted attention."

"I know. I´ve seen the news." Mohinder said. "What has that to do with what you are?"

"They came to arrest me." Sylar explained. "It didn´t matter for them what I´d done, that I´d helped to save all these people. They tried to lock me away again."

"And you couldn´t allow that." Mohinder guessed, his voice full of irony.

"No. It wasn´t only the arrest I was running away from. It was the hate. For a while I´d believed that there could be redemption. That there could be forgiveness. But it turned out that there isn´t any."

"And you are surprised?"

"I´ve tried to be a better person." Sylar burst out. "I tried to fit in."

"By stealing another man´s life." Mohinder shouted back at him.

For a moment the two of them looked around, suddenly aware of the eyes that lay on them.

"All the things that I´ve done …" Sylar went on, much quieter now. "The good things …"

"Don´t change the body count." Mohinder replied, also quiet but slicing as a knife.

Sylar just looked at him, unable to give another response. It was pretty clear that there was nothing he could say to change the course of this conversation. The waitress came over to them, carrying two plates of ham and eggs. She threw them a hesitant glance while she placed the food in front of them. Mohinder gave her a polite smile and thanked her. She nodded and went away again, back behind her counter.

Sylar and Mohinder looked at each other in silence. Eventually Sylar lowered his gaze.

"I guess you´re right." he said at last. "Sorry that I brought this up. It was a mistake." He got up.

"Where are you going?" Mohinder asked alarmed.

"Don´t worry." Sylar said. "I´m not going to take out my frustration on the waitress or something like that." he tried to smirk but failed pathetically. "I´ll be right back." he said and left for the restroom.

Mohinder looked after him until he vanished behind the door. Why was he feeling guilty all the sudden? What he´d said was true. All of it. And he had no reason to be sorry for saying it. He looked down on the food before him, and for a moment he mused if there was a chance of it being poisoned. But of course that was stupid. For two reasons. The food had been made by someone they didn´t even know and second Sylar´d already stated that he needed him alive, to plant the computer virus. After a moment of hesitation, Mohinder started to eat. Sylar´d been right about one thing. He would need his strength.

...

Henry entered the viewing room, joining Shawn and Juliet who were still watching the interrogation that went on on the other side of the mirror.

"Is he talking?" Henry asked them.

"He only keeps asking for his lawyer." Shawn told him, looking grimly at the man on the other side.

Henry just shrugged. "Told you."

Together they watched how Lassiter finally gave up on the suspect and let an officer bring him back to his cell. After he´d given the order to bring him the second suspect, he came out, joining them. He didn´t say anything, only looked at them in frustration.

"Our other friend should be a little more interesting." Juliet promised and showed Lassiter a file, containing all that she´d found while he´d questioned the hitman. He looked the information over and threw her a look. She gave him the matching look in response.

"Well, that could be interesting." Lassiter commented. He turned to Henry again. "Anything I should know about his phone call?"

"Oh, sure." Henry said. "Quite a lot actually. He seems to know what happened to your two other suspects for a start. Or at least he has an idea. He was talking to someone named Claire. I doubt that she is his lawyer. That´s all I could hear. He was awfully careful to speak quietly."

"Claire, hm?" Lassiter exchanged another glance with Juliet. "All right, then." he grabbed the file tighter and as soon as the suspect was placed in the room, he went in. This could be an interesting conversation.