A/N: Here's where it gets tricky. If you haven't watched the end of the third season, there are going to be some serious holes in the storyline. Again, I'm not writing a novelization of the third season, just an alternate version of it. The conversation between Sylar and Samson Gray in this chapter goes exactly as it does in the episode "Shades of Gray," and I could write it no better. I know this is kind of a different approach to an AU, so I hope its making some kind of sense!

Thanks for all the support, this is my first fanfic and the positive reviews are really giving me a boost!

Chapter 10: Gold Dust Woman

Nathan flew away from Building 26 and tried not to think about how badly he had screwed all this up. His mother thought he was an idiot (nothing new there), Peter hated him, Claire was missing, and Danko was now running the whole operation. He had flown around almost aimlessly for a few hours with no idea what to do now, or where to go. It was the first time in his life that this had ever happened to him.

He fell about 10 feet in the air when his BlackBerry rang, then pulled it out of his pocket to get rid of it before they could track him. He looked reflexively at the screen and saw the words:

THIS IS REBEL.

He jerked his arm back just before throwing the phone away, and landed on a convenient building. The message blinked on the screen for a few seconds and then was replaced by:

I KNOW WHERE YOUR DAUGHTER IS.

"How can I trust you?" Nathan asked, though he knew Rebel could not hear him.

YOU CAN TRUST ME.

Nathan spun to look around him but there was no one there. A D.C. address popped up on the screen.

"I must be crazy," Nathan muttered as he took to the sky.

The address led him to a riverside dock. Nathan flew low around the dock, looking for Rebel or at least whoever was claiming to be Rebel. The sun had not yet risen, and the area was dark and deserted. At last Nathan saw a figure in the pre-dawn light, standing at the end of a pier. Nathan did another quick circle to make sure he wasn't flying into a trap, then landed gently on the pier. The figure looked around and Nathan saw it was a teenaged kid, maybe 13 or 14 years old. He was African-American with gorgeous black curls and a backpack over his shoulders. Nathan's first instinct was to ask him where his mother was.

"Nathan Petrelli?" The boy's voice broke as he spoke, and Nathan felt sorry for him for a moment. Puberty was not fun.

The boy grinned brilliantly. "I'm Rebel."

"You can't be. You're a kid."

The boy only smiled and pulled out his cell phone, an iPhone that looked as if it had been tinkered with. He closed his eyes and all the lights on the buildings around the pier turned on. Nathan blinked in the sudden glare, hissing in surprise. Rebel looked to his iPhone again and the lights turned off.

"Okay, so I believe you, you're Rebel. How did you do that?"

"I can talk to machines, computers, stuff like that."

"Wow, that's new," Nathan said, then straightened and looked sharply at Rebel. "You said you knew where my daughter is?"

Rebel nodded. "I'll tell you where she is."

"Great! Where is she?"

"There's a catch. I want you to take me with you, I want to meet Claire and Sylar."

"Claire, sure, but nobody wants to meet Sylar. Especially no one with abilities."

"In all this time, he's never hurt her. He's kept her safe. He can change, he just needs someone to help him." Rebel grin shone again, and Nathan couldn't help but smile back. "Plus, I want to see what flying feels like."

Sylar drove into the night long after they'd left the abandoned restaurant behind. Claire fell asleep in the passenger seat again, but this time when she woke up Sylar was still driving. Eventually, they turned onto an old rutted highway, then off that onto a dirt road. The truck bounced through the deep puddles, spraying thick clay mud as far up as the windows. Finally, they pulled into a narrow driveway, carved through the forest. Sylar parked the truck in front of an old trailer with red siding. This far north the touch of autumn had begun to colour the trees and brush with yellow and orange. Birds sang in the trees around them, and the only motion was the wood smoke billowing out of the chimney on the roof.

This was it, they had finally reached their destination. Neither of them could quite comprehend it. For a moment they just sat there staring at the trailer. At last they got out, closing the doors quietly behind them. Sylar walked slowly towards the door of the trailer, reminding Claire too much of a stalking tiger. She trailed along after him, watchful but determined not to interfere unless necessary.

Sylar entered the trailer without knocking, something Claire would never get used to. The interior of the trailer was very dark, decorated with horrid wallpaper and many stuffed animals. There were overfull ashtrays on every available surface, and the room stank of stale smoke. They both like the dark, Claire thought, and wondered uneasily what else they had in common. The only light came through a filthy glass sliding door on the wall opposite the entrance. Sylar stood at it for a moment, his face filled with uncertainty. Claire touched his elbow, and he looked down at her. Her eyes were sympathetic and encouraging.

"You can do it, Sylar. Go ahead."

After a long moment he nodded, then tapped on the glass door. On the other side of the glass, a small wooden landing with stairs led down to a large room,. The bare studs and exposed wires indicated that the room had been started but never finished. It was obviously a taxidermist's workshop – there were mounted animals and skins everywhere, and a sour chemical smell filled the air. A man in an ancient grey cardigan sat with his back to them, next to a wood-burning stove. He was hunched over a table, and his shoulders moved as he worked on something there.

Sylar's expression was nervous as he tapped on the glass door.

"It's open," the man called, his voice weak.

Sylar opened the door and stepped onto the landing.

"Almost got the order ready," the man wheezed, suppressing a cough. "Got a lot of pickups today?"

"I'm not here for a pickup," said Sylar. His voice was low and menacing, and Claire took a step closer to him.

The man stilled and sat up a little, but he did not turn. "No?"

"It's me, Gabriel. Your son."

"Is that so?" The old man sounded unfazed, and he carried on with his work.

"That is so."

Sylar stepped down the stairs. Claire, close behind him, shied away from the trophies and felt uneasy under the stare of so many glass eyes.

"What brings you all the way out here?"

"I had some questions about myself. Who I am, where I came from. And then I remembered. You abandoned me and killed my mother." Violence waited in every word.

"So?" The old man continued to keep his back to them, unperturbed. "What now?"

"Now? I kill you." Claire grabbed at his arm but he shrugged her off, his lambent eyes fixed on the old man.

The old man finally turned to look at Sylar, coughing. Clear plastic tubes emerged from his nose, leading down to an oxygen tank on his hip. He gave off an overwhelming impression of grey: grey clothes, grey hair and beard, grey skin. He was thin, stooped and obviously dying.

"Go right ahead," he chuckled, as Claire and Sylar gaped at him. He moved away from them around the end of a table and put down his tools. "You kill me, or the cancer does. Either way, I die." He coughed tearingly and reached into his pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

He stopped and faced Sylar, lighting his smoke. "I haven't got all day," he croaked, and brushed by his long-lost son to step outside. The door closed behind him as he disappeared into the sunlight, and Sylar stared after him in dismay.

"I told you that fathers don't have the answers you want," Claire said softly, and he whirled to face her. She had been so quiet he'd almost forgotten she was there. "Now what are you going to do?"

"He's dying!"

"I know, I heard him, and I'm sorry." She came closer, tilting her head back to look into his eyes. "You should talk to him, just the two of you. If I go outside, will you promise not to kill him?"

"Let's say I promise you I won't. Why would you believe me?"

"I have no reason to believe you, it's true. You lie like its easier than breathing for you." Claire dragged a hand through her hair, her brow furrowed and a frown closing her eyes. After a moment she looked back up at him piercingly. "But if you say you won't kill him, I'll believe you."

She wasn't lying, she really believed that he would hold his word. She never lied to him, as if both of them had been lied to so much there was nothing she wanted more than the truth.

"I'll think about it," he said finally.

"Not good enough."

"Alright! I won't kill him, are you satisfied?"

"Yes." She turned and walked back the way they had come, eager to be out of the smokey room full of dead animals. He turned away from her, taking a better look at Gray's workroom.

"Hey," she spoke from the top of the steps just before the glass door.

"What?"

"If any of this is going to change, you have to keep that promise."

She gave him one last look, then left. She took all the light with her, leaving the room colder and more filled with shadow.

"You're still here!" She heard Gray from behind her, through a hacking cough. Then the glass door behind her was closed, and as she made her way through the trailer she hoped she hadn't made the wrong decision.

Sylar walked out of the dark trailer into the late morning sunlight, blinking in surprise. He felt he had been in his father's house for days, not a few hours. Everything had changed, he had seen his future and it was black. He would never be anything but a hunter. He would only kill until he forgot why, until it was meaningless. Since he would never die, he would go on and on forever, alone, trapped in futility.

He looked around the yard and found Claire. She stood looking up at the sky, her hair tickled by the wind as the sun burnished it bright gold. His jaw clenched when he saw her, and he was almost overcome by a wild desire to kill her. He had felt the same urge the night he had murdered Elle, as if ending the person closest to him would destroy this foolish hope that he could change. He couldn't kill Claire, though, nothing ever would. The only thing left was to make her as foul and monstrous as he was, to prove that everyone was a monster. It was the only way he wouldn't be alone.

As he began to stalk toward her, Nathan Petrelli dropped out of the sky, landing between him and Claire. Sylar and Claire both froze in shock and could only stare as Nathan helped a black pre-teen boy from his back. The boy looked around and when he saw Claire he gave her a smile so infectious she couldn't help but smile back.

"What are you doing here? How did you find us?" Sylar snarled.

"I've come for my daughter." Nathan answered, keeping himself between Sylar and his daughter. "Rebel, now that you've had your look let's get the hell away from this maniac."

"No, wait!" Claire said as Nathan started toward her. She looked at Sylar and smiled, "It's alright, he hasn't hurt me, he even -" she darted a look towards Sylar. "It's alright," she finished awkwardly. Rebel stepped around Nathan and walked toward Sylar.

"I'm Rebel, and I have an ability too," again that lightning smile, "I can talk to machines. The laptop you took from the agents at the Olympic Coffee Shop told me you were here."

Sylar cocked his head to the side, and Claire began to feel uneasy. She was suddenly reminded of storms in Texas. Before they rolled in, they stilled the air and filled it with menace. Sylar was like that somehow, the calm before the storm.

"Well, that's very interesting. What do you want?"

"I know you have a problem. I think I can help."

"And do tell me, what is my problem?"

"You've forgotten who you really are," the boy said sincerely.

"You're going to help me with that?"

"Yeah, I can. You're one of us, people with powers – we're all connected. You don't have to be alone."

Sylar flinched at the sound of that word, and the storm grew a little closer. "What do you know about being alone?" Sylar rumbled, eyebrow raised.

"My Dad and Mom died, I have no family left. I know all about alone. We can help each other. I'm the only one who can see how special you are." The boy's face became very serious, and his voice broke, resting on the pitch his adult self would have. "You can save us all."

Do more, be more, his father said in his mind, take every challenge. Fight hard, risk it all! Take real power, real authority. Change everything, change the world. Just to see if I can.

There would be only one way to best his evil, broken father. He would do what the old man would never be able to do. He would change everything. Nathan Petrelli had literally dropped in his lap a person with the perfect ability to help him make that happen.

Sylar's eyes drifted toward the ground before he looked up, and Claire recognized the look in his eyes. Just the same as Homecoming, holding Jackie up against a wall. "It's too late."

She gasped and started to cry out, but it was already too late. The storm broke.

Sylar gestured at Nathan, Claire and Rebel and they flew against the side of the trailer, hitting it so hard the breath was knocked out of them. Sylar stalked towards them, stopping in front of Rebel and staring at him with his merciless eyes, that sideways smile on his lips.

"You really shouldn't have let me go in there alone, Claire."

"Sylar! What are you doing?" she shouted breathlessly, fighting against her invisible bonds.

"I told you before, Claire. This is what I am. I've just given up trying to be anything else." He bore his ability down on Rebel's head, and the boy screamed as the skin began to peel back from his skull, drenching his face in blood.

"Sylar!" she screamed, then desperately, "Gabriel!"

The name pierced him, and he flinched in pain. It snapped Sylar's concentration, and as his power faltered the three of them tumbled to the ground. Nathan scrabbled to Rebel, who was crying quietly, and slung the boy over his shoulder. Sylar panted harshly for a moment, then gathered himself.

"Get out of here," he spat. "Get out of here before I change my mind."

Nathan ran to Claire, but she gestured for him to wait. She met Sylar's gaze, her eyes deadly and cold.

"You are just a killer, a monster. I thought I was wrong about you, that everyone was wrong about you. But you'll never change. And next time, I will kill you."

Then she stepped into Nathan's arms, and the three disappeared skyward.

Samson Gray, recovered from Sylar's attack, had been attracted by the commotion. He had worked his way out of his workroom and stood on the deck, watching the action. He chuckled as he met his son's eyes and nodded knowingly, then tottered back into his home. Sylar barely resisted the temptation to destroy it all: throw down the building, tear up the trees, leave this place as ruined as he was. Instead he got into his truck and drove away.

Well did she make you cry,

Make you break down,

Shatter your illusions of love.

Is it over now,

Do you know how

To pick up the pieces and go home.

- Fleetwood Mac