Chapter 8

Nathan Petrelli was reaching the height of his five day migraine. They'd cleared the crash site, but they hadn't recovered any living prisoners. Danko was combing the forests around the area, but they were beginning to hit towns in almost every direction. As they were unable to reasonably subpoena hotel records looking for any men and women with superhuman abilities, and they kept running into gas station attendants who - unwilling to admit to sleeping through their shifts - "Didn't see no one."

It was like a living nightmare.

Bennet was spitting bullets at anyone who mentioned Claire, so naturally Danko was mentioning Claire in every one of his morning briefings. Bennet had started standing next to Danko at every opportunity and pointedly looking down at the man when he spoke. Danko knew exactly what he was doing, and so made a point of mentioning Claire's 'sweet spot' at least once a day. Bennet had started throwing around phrases like, "men of your stature," and the like. Nathan had told his Mother, but she'd only told him that he should buy them an ice cream each to distract them, like she use to do with him and Peter.

"Peter. Your younger brother. You do remember, don't you?"

So he had an irate Governor of Arkansas on line one, he was on hold with the White House on line two and Bennet and Danko were glaring daggers outside his office when his cell phone rang.

"Petrelli." He said, distractedly, still looking around his desk for that one paper.

"Nathan, it's me." He stopped searching, he stopped moving, hell he stopped breathing for a moment.

"Tracy."

{ - }

[earlier that day]

The sun was barley rising when Peter started the wake up calls. He had to be careful not to be seen as he slipped from one room to the next, informing certain people that they were having a meeting in room 103.

He'd timed it so Claire was having what would probably become a forty-five minute bath – to be fair there was a lot of blood to wash out of her hair – and Luke was still sound asleep.

"It's dawn," Matt had commented, "what else do you want the poor kid to do?"

"Teenagers," Sylar said in the sarcastic voice of a long-suffering parent.

So Matt, Mohinder, Tracy, Hiro, Ando, Daphne and Peter met in Sylar's room.

Mohinder had, naturally, complained about Sylar's presence, but either he was getting less passionate or Peter was paying less attention to his indignant squawks of fury.

"So what's the next move?" Tracy asked Peter.

Peter had, luckily because they were all watching him expectantly, been thinking about this.

"I think we've gotta go on the offensive. If we keep running we'll get trapped eventually. I say we go after Bennet."

"You want to run straight to them?" said Ando.

"Not to them, to Bennet. He has all the information we need to take down these guys."

"We're going to take on the US Government? The seven of us?" said Tracy.

"Or we run and hide for the rest of our lives, yeah."

Mohinder was rustling papers.

"Matt also drew this. It's us, I think, with guns. I think Peter's right. Everything else Matt's drawn has come true anyway."

"Hiro and I have to go to India then?" said Ando.

"Looks like it," said Peter, inspecting the picture.

"How do we do that? I cannot teleport."

"I worked in Law Enforcement, believe me you'll get picked up if you even try and book a flight right now, for sure."

"I can take them," said Daphne.

Matt argued this point for close to ten minutes. Daphne tiptoed around telling him outright that his overprotectiveness was more annoying than touching. Then he wanted to go with them. Daphne didn't mention that Matt weighed about the same as Hiro and Ando combined, just the two would be easy, no way could she take the three of them across an ocean.

"Okay, so you three go to India, and then you should probably return to Japan. Hiro, Ando, if you have family, or a house somewhere. Low profile, they won't even know you've gone back, hopefully."

This set off another argument, conducted partly between Hiro and Ando in Japanese, where Hiro refused to run and hide while Ando thought up instances where comic book heroes had to strategically retreat for a while. Eventually they settled on discussing the matter further once they had fulfilled their destiny in India.

"How are you going to find him?" said Sylar, randomly from the corner he'd been skulking in.

"Who?"

"Bennet." Sylar had a gleam in his eye that Mohinder didn't like.

"He lives in Costa Verde. You know that," said Peter.

"Well he was in Arkansas a few days ago. I doubt he's going to be doing a crossword in his living room when we show up. He could be hunting anyone anywhere."

"Don't even say it Sylar!" said Mohinder.

"The Walker Tracking System may need to be called out of retirement."

"No. I am not dragging Molly into this!" said Mohinder.

"We'll just have to figure something else out," said Matt.

"Alright. I just wanted to point that out before it becomes a problem."

"Using Molly is already a problem, Sylar."

Sylar just shrugged.

"We'll deal with that later, okay?" said Peter.

"So let me get this straight," said Tracy, "the plan is for those three to run to India, and the rest of us go to California to kidnap a man, and what, torture information out of him? Then go run into whatever trap he's sent us to, while we try and shut down a Presidentially backed operation?"

"Yeah," said Peter grinning.

"You're all insane."

{ - }

Ando shouldn't really have been surprised when Hiro took it upon himself to be Sylar's parole officer. What else would Hiro do when confronted with a super powered serial killer? So it seemed natural for Hiro to spend most of their trek spying on Sylar from behind trees. Ando didn't like it, but who else was he going to walk with?

What was weird was how Sylar seemed to be watching them right back.

"You know he can probably catch you now that you can't teleport anymore," Ando had pointed out in Japanese.

Hiro had swallowed nervously, "I know. But he has no reason to while I'm powerless."

"You hope." Ando said, dourly.

Hiro hadn't replied.

And now they had returned to their room only to find him watching their TV.

Ando's heart skipped three or four beats. He almost died right then and there, which, he thought hysterically, would save Sylar the trouble of even lifting his finger.

"Sylar," said Hiro, automatically reaching for his sword, only to find it missing – probably in a draw somewhere in their offices back in Tokyo - and then awkwardly covering by scratching the back of his neck.

Sylar muted the TV but didn't get off the bed.

"Do you remember the first time you met me? At that Diner in Texas?"

"Yes! You killed Charlie!" said Hiro, and they moved toward the window a little. Hoping to stay near the door without it being painfully obvious. Ando thought that it probably was anyway, but he wasn't particularly concerned for Sylar's feelings at that point.

"Actually I didn't. I suppose you haven't got back yet." Sylar stood, actually really really tall now that they were in a room together.

"You told me that I was going to die alone."

"I did?" Said Hiro.

"I am sure he did not mean it." Supplied Ando.

"You told me I would be powerful but completely alone. No one mourns. That eventually people even forget."

"Why would you say that?" said Ando in Japanese.

"I don't know!" said a quite wide-eyed Hiro.

"Well, since you haven't gone back yet, and I have clearly not died, I can't get my answers from you."

Both Hiro's and Ando's shoulders dropped a fraction.

"You met a Future Hiro?" asked Hiro.

"Did he have a sword?" asked Ando.

"No."

"Are you sure?" Serious Future Hiro meant Ando was dead. It was natural for Ando to want to be sure.

"The sword that you ran through my chest? No, I think I would have noticed it."

"Stop talking about the sword," said Hiro in Japanese again. Ando suddenly wondered if they bothered people with their side conversations.

"But, ah," Hiro paused, unsure about how to address the man he'd always just called Brain Man. Hiro felt like maybe that wouldn't be okay right now. "Mr. Sylar, I do not have my powers. I cannot go back in time and tell you anything."

"It looks like you're going to recover then."

And that was where they were when they heard the helicopters.

{ - }

Claire was sitting on her bed, facing the wall, just staring. She wasn't looking at anything, just thinking, absorbing the events of the last few days. She hadn't had a free moment until now, the since escaping from Mrs. Petrelli's watchful eyes she'd been running on instinct and following others. It was all so… much.

"Hey uh, Tracy, could you give us a minute?" Said Peter quietly.

"What?" Peter nodded at Claire's forlorn figure, "sure. I'll be outside."

Peter moved over so he was standing by Claire's side.

"Hey. You okay?" He asked. She jumped when he put his hand on her shoulder.

"Yeah. I'm okay." Peter sat beside her on the bed, " I just… don't know what to do."

"Well you don't have to worry about that. You've got us, we're all here, and we're taking care of everything. Trying to anyway."

"I know. It's just my Dad, you know? He's hunting us down, Nathan's the one setting the whole thing up, and now you. You're making friends with Sylar! I just…don't know who I'm supposed to trust."

Peter was quiet for a few moments.

"I don't know what I can say to convince you that I'm on your side. Your Dad - I don't know either. He's complicated, and he probably has his reasons," he caught the look on her face, "not that that excuses anything, but there's a lot of sides to every story. And Nathan's just confused right now." Claire scoffed, "Oh, not that I'm not mad as hell."

Claire wiped a tear off her recently clean cheek.

"And Sylar?"

"I just feel like I have to give him this chance. I understand how dangerous he is, all I have to do is look at you and I'm reminded of all the awful things he's done, but… you didn't see him Claire. The person he could be. It's incredible, and I feel like if I push him away we'll loose that person."

"Okay Peter. I won't forgive him, but I can-"

Peter and Claire hadn't heard the helicopters, they'd been too absorbed in their conversation. Then their wall exploded, showering them in drywall. Peter instinctively flung himself over Claire. When the dust cleared Sylar was standing in the hole, Hiro and Ando following him through.

"We have to go," said Sylar.

Then Peter first noticed the helicopters.

{ - }

Mohinder followed Daphne and Matt back to their little room. Matt slipped into the bathroom to sulk about being excluded from the trip to India. Mohinder approached Daphne.

"I was wondering if I might ask you a favor?"

"Sure. What do you need?"

"Matt has told you about Molly, hasn't he?"

"The little girl you guys had awhile back. Sure."

"Right. Well she's in India, living with my Mother. I was wondering if I could convince you to take a detour while you're there anyway."

"To go see Molly? No problem. What's the message?"

"If you could explain my situation to my Mother, and ask her to take Molly to our summer home. And please tell Molly that-"

"That you love her. Alright, gimme the address."

"Thank you, I really appreciate this Daphne. Now, I will call my Mother's house once, three days from now at approximately ten in the evening. With time difference, you should expect the call at eleven in the morning."

"Eleven AM, three days from now. Got it."

Matt emerged from the bathroom, where Mohinder assumed he'd been listening the whole time.

"Do you guys hear that?" He asked.

"Helicopters."

{ - }

Tracy stepped outside her room onto the balcony. She didn't care if the owner caught her. She didn't intend to spend another night in this roach infested hole.

Luke was also leaning on the railing a little way down from her. He was, predictably, melting it.

"Sucks being the ones nobody talks to, doesn't it," he said, bitterly.

"Yeah."

"Maybe we should talk."

"I don't think so kid." She walked away, down the stairs and toward the parking lot.

"Bitch," muttered Luke. Then he went over to the vending machine to see if he could get a free soda.

He was still trying to melt a correctly sized hole in front of what was hopefully a Dr. Pepper when the helicopters came.

{ - }

A/N – I hadn't forgotten about Peter's time with Sylar's power. I think that's a big part of why he's behaving like he is, but he's not willing to admit it to other people yet.

And the rest of Tracy's conversation with Nathan went very similarly to the one she had with him in the show. Except where she says, "I have Peter" in my world she says something like, "I have everyone you could possibly need right now to save the smoking wreck that is your career."

Acceptable?