Sorry this story was delayed! I'm probably going to tie it up within one or two more chapters since I really don't know where else to go with it now.. :(

To summarize, this chapter is my take on what I would have liked to have seen happen during the last few episodes instead, starting with this chapter. I'm trying to keep the 'games' theme relevant because I do believe its an important part of their relationship so I guess I'll see how far I can take that.

P.S: Sadly, once again, story ideas somewhat inspired by 'Split Me Wide Open' by The Bravery:

Split me wide open, and cut me in two
There's nothing that I could ever hide from you
Oh you always knew me, you're the only one who knew me
Is nothing sacred, is nothing saved?
Your gentle eyes like a razor blade
They cut me open, you look right through
I give it all to you


Arthur Petrelli stood solemnly, looking out a large picture window with a view of the parking lot below. It was a boring view.... a predictable view. Cars came, cars left, people walked, people stopped. Cement poured over green grass, hardened in the very act of living. Wasn't that what had happened to him? Angela poured the cold cement of death over Arthur only for him to break the surface and defy it. He grinned, turning around to the knock at his door... on second thought, the view wasn't so bad after all.

"...dad?"

Hesitant hands pushed the door open. Round eyes like that of a child looked at him from a safe distance underneath partially furrowed brows. He so desperately wants approval, Arthur thought to himself, from anyone and everyone. It was evident in his mannerisms, his speech and even the way he practically transformed into whomever he was talking to at any given moment.

"Come in, Gabriel. I've been wanting to see you."

Soft, cautious footsteps proceeded towards the shining desk which housed an old family portrait. He felt uneasy and looked down at the carpet, avoiding his supposed father's gaze.

"You killed Robert Bishop, correct?"

He nodded like a schoolboy being interrogated by a principal. He consciously bit down on his tongue, hating how childish he had become. "Why did you want to know?"

Arthur pulled the black leather chair out from its resting place at the desk and lowered himself into it, eyes focused on the man across from him.

"I have a proposition to make you."

Arthur's fingertips aligned perfectly with each other, perhaps representing the interlocking cogs now whirring in his brain. Gabriel could see them... he could hear them.

"Anything, dad."

Arthur cringed on the inside. He did not wish to be associated with this, this.. monster, even if he knew it was a lie. He was playing his cards well, like he always had in this profession by getting the right players on his side. However, this was taking a toll on him. He's a full grown man, Arthur thought silently, but yet he acts like a child. His upbringing must have been... well, that's evident by his recent past I suppose.

"I thought you might be interested in finishing off the Bishop family. Robert's daughter Elle is locked up here and we have no use for her. Would you...?"

Gabriel looked up at his father with a frightened look, a look that hadn't emerged since he had killed whom he assumed was his real mother a year earlier.

"Elle... Elle Bishop? You want her dead?"

Arthur smirked in his usual fashion, examining the ballpoint pens in a cup on his desk.

"Yes, I do. Once you have her power we won't need her anymore. Truthfully she's been quite dreadful since Bob's death... attacking the Bennets like that. I really don't see a use for her anymore, do you?"

Gabriel looked down at the carpet, a tiny stain catching his attention.

"No, I.... that is if you want me to... I will."

Arthur grinned so that his eyes were reduced to two, black slits.

"For a moment there I thought you were going to say no... do you know the girl?"

Gabriel looked out the window as cars began to leave the now empty parking lot. Of course I know Elle, he thought bitterly, she made me who I am... who I was. However, with his new found life and sense of right and wrong he didn't want to end another helpless person's life. But I can't disappoint my father....

"I don't know her, no. And I'll do it, of course. Whatever you want, dad."

Arthur nodded. "Good, I like to keep business in the family, if you get my drift."

Gabriel nodded and rose slowly from the chair, heading towards the door.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of it," he said quietly as he shut the door behind him softly.

Smirking, Arthur looked down at his desk to the closed manilla file folder. Flicking it open his eyes fell on the rap sheet of the infamous Sylar. Of course he knew Elle Bishop, the woman practically made him who he is. It is funny, he thought, that he hesitated upon hearing she was to be killed. Arthur pondered this thought for a moment before turning his attention back to the parking lot that sat motionless behind him, reminded of Angela and her cold, hard ways.

"Well," he said to the four white walls, "love works in mysterious ways."


A heavy steel door creaked as it opened inward into a large, dark room. Sylar, for he was no longer Gabriel, not now, took one step into the damp cell and looked around, trying to adjust his eyes to the surroundings. There was no window on the door and everything inside was submerged in complete and utter darkness.

"Hello?"

Ssssssssiissss.

He heard, not saw, electricity. He could taste it in the swallowed involuntarily, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. I've never cared about a kill before, he thought. He chalked his nerves up to wanting to impress his father.

The heavy door clicked behind him sending a small tick throughout the room. Taking a few steps farther in, he saw a small flicker of blue light dancing on a small palm. Bingo.

"There you are."

A loud scream erupted from the far end of the cell, faint white light sparking up the walls.

"You murderer! I swear to God, I'm going to kill you. You... you..."

He took five slow, calculated steps towards her, still nowhere close.

"The tables have turned, am I right?"

The electricity now coursed across her skin lighting her up like a plastic patio lamp on a damp summer night, the humid air ionically charged.

"My father!" she screamed, the tears pouring from her eyes, clouded over by rage. She was the thunderstorm.

"Bob? What about him?"

He took a sick satisfaction in toying with her. He recalled that time not too long ago where she had did the same to him when he was imprisoned. However, when he saw the tears zap into vapor on her cheeks the sensation fled him...

"You're sick... HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?"

She rattled the chains that held her against her will to the brick wall behind her. She sobbed, her chest heaving with an electricity all its own. It was as if the wiring in her heart had shorted out long ago and was now only be supplied by the crude power coursing through her veins.

"How could you do this to me?!" He shot back, raising a hand to pin her to the wall which was intercepted by a strong electric blast.

"I didn't want you... I didn't... do you think I'm that sick?"

He laughed, watching the sore on his hand from the bolt begin to heal itself. "Elle, my dear, we both grew under that bad sun out there... the one that kills all it touches and makes us.... different. Toxic."

She yelled in protest, more tears streaming and then disappearing on her face. "You made me this way! I don't want to be like this!"

"Oh stop," he said walking closer, "you sound pathetic."

She stood up quickly, despite her apparent pain.

"Well who's the one pretending Arthur Petrelli's his father, huh? AT LEAST I KNOW MY FATHER'S DEAD."

With every ounce of strength that remained in her small body, she shocked him with all she had. Every last neuron firing at its synapse was fused into that enormous bolt. The storm was passing. 1-mississippi, 2-mississippi....

His back arched as the blue poison coursed through him. He yelled in pain and fell backwards onto the stone floor in a heap.

She slumped down against the wall, the remnants of storm trickling down her face slowly, but steadily in silence. 3-mississippi, 4-mississippi...

Gradually, he forced himself onto his side so that he could see her face. His shirt was singed on the end and his face was ashy, his hair falling down across one eye.

"That's all," she said quietly. She had used up all her energy to deliver a powerful blow, strong enough to kill, she assumed, at least a dozen people if they weren't capable of cellular regeneration.

He rolled onto his back and inhaled sharply, coughing a little as he did so.

"I.... I didn't want to kill him. There was no other way."

He was, quite literally, shocked. She wasn't pathetic, she was upset. Angry. Sad. Things he could barely grasp.

She could hear the remorse in her voice... it was almost as tangible as the ions in the atmosphere and she couldn't do anything but believe him. She nodded in the dark.

"He had something I... something I needed and he wouldn't let me... have it."

She looked down at her restraints and rattled them involuntarily.

"You know what that's like, don't you? Don't you always get your way?" He asked her and she glanced over at him.

"I always get what I want... I can't imagine it any other way."

He grinned despite their conditions and decided to spill the story to her since it would be his only opportunity.

"I think," he said slowly, precisely, "we... were meant to... well you see, the Company..."

"What?" she said dryly, catching his drift. She too had been through the papers in his folder, the papers he had evidently killed her father to see. She let the remaining tears dry on their own as she latched onto the idea of having someone new to... be with...

"The Company," he continued awkwardly, "has profiles of everyone with abilities."

She nodded. "I do know this.. I'm a Company girl, remember?"

He ignored her. "They had a plan to... pair certain individuals with certain powers in order to create new powers... with so many possible routes to be explored it..."

She cut him off. "We're supposed to be together, I know. I get it. Pinehearst wants to create abilities synthetically... they want to expand upon what the Company was doing. They believe that ability-breeding takes too long and is, in the face of new scientific advancements, obsolete. I know... why do you think I approached you when I did?"

He looked away, embarrassed. Of course she already knew and had already bet him to it...

She sighed. "Petrelli wants me dead. Glasses wants me dead because of his Claire. The only one, I think, who wants me alive is you... Sylar."

His gaze shifted steadily towards her. She called me Sylar...

Her eyes were alive once again, at least, to him they were. She was bidding her time, playing her cards just as she had learned to do. She had nothing to live for... no Company, no father... her only hope was crazy, just like her. If only she could stick it out a little longer, rebel against the Company once more for old times sake, perhaps Noah himself...

"We don't have to listen to them," she said in her playfully, yet dark, tone. "We can take things into our own hands." She rattled the restraints again.

"Wouldn't you like to pass those powers onto someone else? Someone you could train and control?" Her voice was smooth and persuasive.

"I... I don't know anymore."

She flashed a fake grin and edged herself closer to him.

"Look," she whispered in his ear, "no one has to know I'm still alive. I'll find somewhere to hide until you come and..."

He did not want plans. He did not want futures and what-ifs and probabilities.... he crashed into her.

The only thing he was sure of was the moment. The moment did not lie, it did not hold secret meanings or half-truths. It was real and alive and charged and... full of meaning. It wasn't about approval or family or death or ability or... no, but it was about ability. It was about creating superior beings with superior powers.

She gave in as best she could with wrists chained together.

Maybe, he thought silently as his hands found her face, I'll do something good by doing this one thing... even if it's all I can do.

The same thought also crossed her mind, although it was laced with additives such as revenge, guilt, sadness and perhaps, dare she think it, love. But no... this was only a plan, a last ditch attempt... she abandoned logic. She never used logic... only feeling. And for some strange reason, this felt... right.

"Just tell me," he said breaking free of her magnetism for a moment, "did you really only approach me after reading our files?"

She froze and looked into his cold, dark eyes. She had lied to him already... but what did it matter? She hadn't killed his father... Oh, hell, she thought frantically, deciding that she was done lying for the night.

"No," she said mischievously, "I just knew you were... different."

As he broke the chains and her hands found his neck, he forgot all about his father's approval and her supposed death. He could deal with that later, he would have to.

In the meantime, he came down all around her like pavement on grass, turning everything into stone, preserving the moment forever.