Chapter 10: Ethan

Claire opened her eyes and stared at the unusual sight of a completely different ceiling to the one she was expecting. She frowned glancing to the sides, recognising the familiar shapes of Ethan's apartment, but as she glanced at the empty space beside her, not the shape of Ethan himself. Pulling the sheet up to her chest, she sat up.

"Ethan?" she called lightly, glancing at the clock, it was only 07:00, she hadn't taken him for that early a riser. But there was no response and the apartment was silent.

A flash of concern flooded her before she pushed it away, Ethan could look after himself, he'd probably gone out to get something for breakfast. She pulled open a cupboard and smirked, he had definitely gone out, clearly he hadn't been expecting company if the lonely jar of peanut butter in the otherwise empty fridge was anything to go by.

So, unconcerned she took a shower and got herself redressed, regretting mildly that her body didn't seem any different at all after last night. She had hoped there might be something, a twinge, an ache, but nothing, just as usual. She felt a smile rise onto her lips at the memory and closed her eyes for a moment just to savour it, she wasn't sure what most people's first times were like, but she was fairly certain her's had been incredible. But then her entire relationship with Ethan seemed to be encapsulated by that one word, it almost made her nervous. She was certain it wasn't supposed to feel so good, and nothing in her life ever seemed to be this easy.

It wasn't until it reached 08:30 and still no Ethan that she began to search the apartment for a note. She found it pinned to the apartment's front door, her hand shook as she read it, it didn't say much, but it said enough. Claire stumbled and the paper slipped through her fingers, gliding down to the floor to lie there taunting her.

Her mind spun. She couldn't believe it; he'd used her, gained her confidence, her love, all to sleep with her and then vanish. Was she even worth that much effort? She didn't exactly have low self-esteem, but she couldn't see someone bothering to put months of effort into simply sleeping with her.

'I love you. You have no idea how much. One day you'll understand... I promise you you'll see me again, maybe then you'll find it in your heart to forgive me."

It seemed so final, like he was gone forever. 'Good!'

Claire slid down the wall and hugged her knees to her chest, trying not to cry. She wasn't sure which was worse, the shock, the anger, or the gut wrenching sense of betrayal. At the moment she thought shock might be winning out, she couldn't seem to make her feet move, and she certainly didn't feel like getting up any time soon.

If he loved her, why had he left her?

Did she even want to see him again?

Could she forgive him?

All three questions depended on understanding where he was and why he'd left, neither of which she knew, or understood.

Had she driven him away?

That question was the worst and she loathed herself for thinking it, because it invited the rest of them. Was she unlovable? Was she too much of a freak? Had she done something wrong? Had she been that bad in bed? Had she been stupid enough to miss the signs that he wanted only one thing?

Claire screamed in pure frustration and the tears slipped down her cheeks.

Why?

It was the only question that mattered.

(3 weeks later)

Claire sat down heavily behind the desk, staring darkly at the information, as Micah quietly slipped to the door.

"I'm sorry." He told her and she heard how genuine it was, it only made her want to toss the laptop at him. Micah closed the door and left her to quietly rage.

It had taken her weeks to call the young man, weeks to convince herself that she wasn't going crazy, that things really weren't adding up about Ethan. Weeks more to have Micah search the records and pull up information, all in an attempt to find him and find out about him.

Perhaps she should have just let it go. Looking at the screen in front of her she considered the wisdom in the idea, because apparently something's really were best left unknown. Feeling sick she closed the laptop and attempted to banish the images the CCTV had captured.

At least no one else knew.

Sighing she buried her head in her hands. She had to tell someone, it was important, more important than her own mortification.

Someone had to know Sylar was alive.

She had to tell her father, or Nathan, or Peter... someone. Micah wouldn't breathe a word of it; she knew she could trust him, just like he'd trusted her to help the people he sent to her. But the way he'd looked at her, there had been no disgust, but the pity... she wasn't sure she could stand her father, either of her father's looking at her that way. Maybe Peter would understand, but she was certain he'd try and comfort her, try and tell her she wasn't to blame, try to absolve her of this.

But she couldn't absolve herself. Yanking the lid up again she pulled up the images, and dragged the mugshots the Company had taken of Sylar closer, and then pulled a picture of Ethan from out of her purse. Looking at them side by side, she felt her stomach sink. The similarities were there for all to see. Granted the sharp blue eyes she had always adored on Ethan's face threw you, but if you ignored them and looked at the face, at the lips... her breath caught, the smirk. God he'd barely even tried to hide it. Her eyes closed and her God forsaken memory that never seemed to fail dredged up every single mental image she had of Ethan with that smirk on his lips.

She threw up. Fortunately the bin caught most of it, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand she tried to take slow shallow breaths. She'd never thrown up before. Ever. In fact she took a moment to be relatively pleased with herself and her body for managing something so normal. Before the horror of what she had let into her life settled over her again.

Sylar had raped her. Technically anyway. More than that he'd spent four months with her, four months where she confessed every single nagging doubt and fear, every secret she could bare to part with. All to Sylar.

Four months of adoring looks and soft touches. Her mind was reeling. Sylar wasn't soft, wasn't adoring. How had he done it?

Her eyes were drawn once more the CCTV images that Micah had dug out of the Governments classified archives. All part of their secrecy act, drawn up by Nathan, Angela and the New Company, to conceal the fact that people with abilities existed. Clearly no one from her family had ever seen it, she couldn't imagine them keeping it from her. But it was unmistakeably Sylar, landing on a rooftop at Georgetown University. She checked the date stamp again, 28th September 2009; the day she'd met Ethan. Her eyes drifted back up as Sylar landed and the camera switched to reveal him pausing in front of the cafeteria doors, he glanced around briefly and finding himself alone, his face shifted. It got her every time, seeing his features morph into Ethan's.

The laptop skidded across the floor with the force she'd hurled it, smoke erupted but she didn't care. Sylar... the name seared through her and anger whipped around so tangibly she could imagine it was visible. She'd make him pay for this!

(another 3 weeks later)

It took weeks, weeks in which she moved through life like a shell, weeks where family and friends pressed her for information. But at the end of those three weeks she began to ask herself the questions her anger hadn't allowed for.

Had Sylar loved her? Did he still? And if so why had he left?

Not that she wasn't glad he wasn't still in her life, still fooling her into loving him. But it didn't explain why he had left. Surely he'd won? The whole world thought he was dead, he'd convinced her utterly he was someone else, and she'd loved him.

It had taken her this long to admit it, but in the quietness of her own mind, she acknowledged that she had loved him. Because she wasn't convinced Ethan had been entirely an act. Too much was the same, some of the questions, the actions. He'd been possessive, dominating, controlling. Granted it had been subtle, but it had been there... and she'd liked it, liked it from Ethan.

Had he done it just to prove a point? He'd promised her she would love him, eventually. Perhaps the prospect of 100 years to get to that promised point had seemed like too long for him? Or was it simpler even than that. Was it all just to prove that she was already capable of loving him, loving the man behind the monsters mask?

It was a good thing that her body didn't seem able to fluctuate in weight, because she was certain her current lack of apatite would have raised more than a few eyebrows if it had shown. As it was she could barely think about eating, sleeping, studying.

She missed him. Ethan. Trying to separate them out into two people was helping, she knew he was Sylar, but she couldn't admit that she missed Sylar... wouldn't. But she could miss Ethan.

(two months later)

Claire stood in the corridor for what seemed like hours, trying to work up the courage to knock on her dad's apartment door in the middle of the night. It took him a minute to pull open the door, but when he did she realised he couldn't have long gotten in despite the hour, his glasses were in place, as was the ever present suit.

"Dad." She smiled thinly, but it didn't reach her eyes, it never seemed to anymore.

"Claire bear." He managed looking thoroughly surprised to see her. His large arms went up and crushed her too his chest in what to anyone else would probably have been a painfully tight hug. She couldn't help it, in the safety of his arms, with the familiar scent of his aftershave in his neat little apartment, she broke down.

"Claire honey." He tried, grasping her face and pulling her inside, shutting the door firmly behind as he examined her as if looking for damage. "What is it, what's happened?"

"I need to tell you something." Claire began shakily, looking away from him, as his hands brushed through her hair. "But I don't know how."

"You can tell me anything." He insisted. "Claire?" He began and pulled her into a hug again just holding her to him, and making soft shushing noises to ease her sobbing. "I know we haven't seen much of each other lately, but I'm always here for you." she nodded, she knew that.

"Tell me Sylar's dead." He froze and she felt her tears stop, she pulled away from him slowly, until she could see his face, had to watch the lie there. He grasped her face again, his eyes boring into hers.

"Claire. Sylar is dead." He snapped off each word with finality.

"Liar." Claire told him quietly, trying to hold back the rage she'd felt since that day in the apartment holding the note.

"Sylar is dead Claire. We burned his body to ashes." Her father repeated firmly, almost shaking her with the insistence that she believe the lie. Because she knew it was a lie, if Sylar was alive, and well, able to stalk and torment her, to reach her, then of all the people in this world, Noah Bennet would know.

Claire narrowed her eyes at him. She didn't understand, feared that she never would. Why would he lie? But she was starting to suspect it was just in his nature to keep secrets and lie to protect them.

"I'm going to say it once more and I swear to you, if you lie to me again, you won't be my father anymore." His eyes darkened and his face twisted in pain, as she wrenched out of his grasp, turning away from him, she couldn't bear to watch. "Is Sylar dead?"

"Of course."

Claire hung her head feeling tears slip free again. "He raped me." She heard his breath catch and felt the strength in the arms that gripped her biceps spinning her around. It was the first time she'd dared to think those words let alone say them, in her mind she'd been willing, but it had all been a lie. Ethan might have made love to her... but Sylar had raped her, and not just her body. What he had done was so much worse, she'd never trust another man again, couldn't, she wouldn't even be able to trust herself.

"What? When?" he insisted his voice barely a growl, suddenly looking every inch as dangerous as she knew he could be.

Claire lifted her eyes to his and he winced at the anger she knew was blazing there. "It's not important. He's dead remember." She shrugged out of his grip and shoved him solidly in the chest, he clearly wasn't expecting it because he stumbled back a pace, staring at her like she'd gone mad.

"You're not my father. Not anymore." She spat coolly, trying to keep a hold on the pain at the idea, but unable to go back on her word, this was one lie too many, out of the thousands he'd offered her over the years.

"And Sylar is alive. That bastard came into my life, he made me love him, convinced me utterly... used me. I don't know why, or what he was trying to prove, or why he left without so much as bragging about it. But it was him. If you want proof go find Micah."

Claire spun on her heel, reaching the door in a few paces, "Claire wait!" her father cried, darting after her, but he was too slow, the door slammed in his face, and by the time he'd wrenched it open she was taking the express route out of the high rise apartment.

(1 month later)

Their confession kept her stunned in her seat. Claire glanced at Peter, he looked physically sick, she recognised that expression having recently worn it herself.

"How could you keep this from us?" Peter managed weakly, but she wasn't fooled, he might look like his world had just collapsed but she could see the rage brimming behind his eyes.

Oddly enough she felt detached, clinical even as her eyes travelled over Angela's face, onto Matt's, completely ignoring her father as if he wasn't even in the room.

"Because that's what they do." She hissed. "They lie and conspire and innocent people get hurt. But that doesn't matter, so long as the greater good is served. Isn't that right?" she quirked an eyebrow at them.

"But this?" Peter practically growled leaping out of his chair and sending it clattering to the floor behind him. "Nathan's dead and you thought that... that thing could take his place?" Claire watched their faces, but they were impassive, only Matt's flickered with even an ounce of regret.

"It was necessary Peter. We needed Nathan, as a family, as a species. We used Sylar to correct the mistakes that had been made. But you have to understand Peter, he is your brother, Parkman erased everything, he believes he's Nathan, and he's done it well. You didn't even notice the difference!" It was the wrong thing to say, even Claire could see that, as numb as she felt, the insinuation stung even her.

"That is Sylar." Peter snarled. "It always was, and it always will be. Just because he doesn't remember now, doesn't mean he won't. I think this whole 'Ethan' thing has proved just that. Clearly a part of him has remembered enough to go after Claire!" Claire winced at the name, unable to help it, even now as Peter stared down the man she used to call father.

"Is he Nathan then?" Claire snapped, needing clarification, "Or is he Sylar?" she added shaking her head as she struggled to bite back the near hysterical laughter that was threatening to bubble over. "Or is he Ethan?" she snarled. "Who raped me? Was it my father, my enemy, my boyfriend?"

"Claire!" Noah let out a pained cry, but Angela cut hi off with a hand to his chest.

"No. She won't hear it from you, or me. Not now." She sighed wearily and Claire felt nothing soften inside of her at her grandmother's apparent frailty in this matter. "Parkman, she has a right to know what we've discovered. Would you please explain it."Angela snapped.

Claire's eyes latched onto the detective, a man she'd once thought of as the very epitome of an honest soul, but even he'd been twisted by the moral vacuum that was Angela Petrelli and Noah Bennet. The idea that he could do what he had, rip Sylar's mind apart, and kill even her memory of who Nathan was, by tarnishing it with the better Nathan that Sylar had been.

"Claire, it wasn't any of them." She rolled her eyes at him. "I'm serious." He snapped, looking guilty and irritable. "Micah showed us what he'd found, we compared it with time-stamps of Nathan's recent appearances. That day that Sylar showed up on your campus, the day you met Ethan, Nathan was 300 miles away giving a press conference."

Claire froze, she felt like she'd been slapped.

"I know what I saw." She snarled, unable to believe they were going to try and cover it up.

"And so do we. That's why we did some more digging, with Micah's help and Bennet's influence, we found out that day there was a disturbance reported to the D.C. police department."

"What sort of disturbance?" she pressed her own curiosity getting the better of her.

"Several witnesses reported seeing a man falling. Other's reported seeing a half naked man looking like he was wearing half a metal can and covered in blood fleeing the scene of an impact. Investigators found what looked like the impact site of a body from roughly the stratosphere... at an altitude higher than any commercial plane can fly."

Claire sat forward in her chair and buried her face in her hands. "What are you saying?" she didn't want to hear it all, how they'd worked it out, what it all meant, she just wanted the explanation now.

"There are two Sylar's." Her father told her quietly.

Parkman sighed. "That's our best guess. There's the one that believes he is Nathan Petrelli."

Angela cut across him, stifling Peter's reaction to that all too fresh revelation. "And the one that came after you dear."

Peter got up and stalked from the room, slamming the door firmly behind him. Angela hurried after him, though what she could possibly say Claire had no clue. It stung slightly that Peter apparently was so consumed in his own grief and betrayal that he didn't seem to have time for hers, hadn't even seemed to consider that maybe she needed him.

"How is that possible?" Claire asked finally when the quiet began to stretch between the three of them.

"We don't know honey." Noah replied and she flinched at the word from him. He sighed and continued. "But it looks like the moment he arrived here he headed straight for you. The time stamp suggests he knew exactly where to find you. Then he went about creating a false life for himself. He falsified records, details, an entire history. And he did it, or so Micah informs us, in a way only someone with a tech ability like his could have managed."

Claire slid up out of her seat and stalked out of the door, much as Peter had, only she never intended on coming back.

"There's something else." Matt called after her causing her to pause half way down the corridor, torn between never wanting to see any of them again, and wanting to understand. Her curiosity won out, she turned to glare at him.

"I can draw the future sometimes. Do you remember, like that time I showed you that drawing right before the SWAT team came for us?" he pressed and she didn't change her resolute expression. Of course she remembered, she couldn't forget anything, her body wouldn't let her, she glared at him waiting for him to continue as he hurried up to her, lowering his voice.

"Well I drew something a few days ago, several something's. They just seemed to happen, I was so focussed on figuring out how there could be two of them, two Sylar's, that well..." he thrust a bunch of folded pages into her hands, that he'd withdrawn from inside his jacket. "I haven't shown anyone." He added, "and for the record. I'm sorry. I never meant for any of this and I know it doesn't mean a God damn thing to you now. But I had to say it." Claire nodded and spun on her heel, not slowing until she was back inside her car, the wheels squealing with her insistence to put as much distance between her and those lying sons of bitches as she could.

Claire pulled into a diner parking lot thirty five miles away, and cut the car's engine. Slowly with steady hands she lifted up the pages and carefully opened them out. Her eyes narrowed as she did the same to the next one, and the next one, laying them out across the dashboard and the passenger seat like some awful version of 'Claire Bennet this is your life'. Bile rose and she squashed it, as her eyes absorbed the information her brain couldn't. Hand drawn images of her in different jobs, different locations, fighting, dying, loving, living.

The one thing that struck her immediately was the passage of time spread out before her. Sylar had been blunt with her about her own immortality and these pictures only confirmed it in startling clarity for her. She was going to live a very long, very bloody life.

Her eyes strayed to the last piece of paper, the one that seemed the most important. It was unmistakeably her, or what was left of her, floating in a big round vat, and beside it, Sylar was pounding his fists against the glass. Her eyes shot to the other drawings one last time, taking in the dark figure that lurked in the shadows in some, or brazenly out in the open in others. But he was there in all of them. Watching, waiting. Her eyes fell one last time to the image of her and the vat. Was he saving her, or was he watching her die? Had he done that to her, or had he failed to stop it?

It struck her then, so completely that she felt like an idiot for not having seen it. Ethan had told her he'd lost someone, lost the woman he'd loved but never had. And he'd asked her so directly about time-travel, about changing the past, averting wars.

It wasn't the Sylar she knew that had come for her, that had loved her, tried to keep her, left her. It was this Sylar, this broken man at the end of the world, sobbing over a vat that held what was left of her.

And it was this Sylar that could answer her questions she stared resolutely at his hand drawn image; this Sylar that would dog her every step, shadow her for eternity.

This Sylar she would have to let live even knowing what he'd done, if she ever wanted to know why... with all his power, after all those questions. Why he'd come back to try and save her, instead of trying to save the world?

But that was a conversation that would have to wait... until the end of the world.