Q&A: Is there going to be a future where Sylar ends up with Elle? There is a distinct possibility for this to occur as there are many potential futures to play around with.

Could Sylar end up happy with Claire? Spoilers kind of ruin the anticipation of it all, don't they?

Could there be a future where Claire is raised by Meredith, or Bob Bishop with Elle as a sister, or captured by the Company? There are literally a thousand different ways that I could spin this story, so really anything is possible. As fantastic as some of the twists and turns have been so far though, I really am trying to stick to some of the most realistic possibilities that could fit into canon so not everything is going to make the cut (also for the sake of story length). After this story is completed though if there's a specific scenario that any of you may have wanted to see that doesn't get included you're more than welcome to create your own "splinter" worlds off of this one. Since I don't get to own anything I don't care too much to nitpick if anybody wants to play around with one of my ideas. I mean, the whole point of being here is to have fun, right?

In the two previous scenarios that Peter and Claire have gone through it's been implied that her life more or less followed the same path - becoming lunch for Samson Gray. Creating backgrounds for each character in all of these futures is possible, and kind of fun, but since I really wanted this particular story to revolve around Sylar that's why his effects on the world around him are being so heavily focused on. It does sort of leave Peter and Claire in the dark a bit, but I don't want to derail from the core point of the story so much that it gets lost.

Don't worry too much about Sylar from the main story line. We may end up seeing him again sooner than you think. I always play with a spare ace hidden up my sleeve. *Wink*

Due to the massive amount of requests I've gotten for specific canon scenes to do in relation to this story I might end up opening a whole new story after this one is finished for those where each chapter is a different scene "A Four Year Interlude" style. I make no promises as to when that will be done though as I have multiple undertakings to tackle at this time.

I really want to thank everyone that has left reviews and messages for both this story and "Saving Gabriel" as well. I greatly appreciate all of your commentary, and the enthusiasm that you've all reacted to this story line with has been amazing for me. There is no greater satisfaction in this world than knowing that someone enjoys a story so much.

Whew, okay, let's get back to it, shall we?

Disclaimer: This chapter is rated NC-17 for character death, foul language, condoned rape, illegal prostitution, and implied abuse of illegal substances.


10

Red, Red Kroovy


August 1, 1980

"Hey, shh, everything is going to be okay," Peter continued to console her. Claire sniffled into the shoulder of his shirt that was already damp with her tears. Deep down she knew that she was being irrational. All the times before that she had seen Sylar die, more than one of which was by her own hand, added up as easily as tribbles. But she had never before known him to be so… helpless. In the act of giving him a peaceful life where his inherently murderous ways were quelled, they had also left him quite literally powerless. He had no way of defending himself from the attacks others, and it was all her fault.

"I - I can't, Peter," she whimpered into him as he held her tight, stroking her hair and did his best to make soothing noises. "We can't."

"I know." His chest rolled with a heavy sigh. "Gloria was meant to die today… and we have to fix it." His arms reflexively held her just a little closer, and Claire heard the palpitation of his heart in his chest. She pulled away from him when he swallowed thickly as the Gray family car rolled into view just the same as it had before; there was a darkness in his glazed eyes that hadn't been there before, something tangibly sad. He had made light jokes about Sylar's mother's physical attractiveness, which she had to admit were true; Gloria was very pretty with her darkly striking features. And he had also been made visibly uncomfortable by her somewhat sensuous nature later in life, but surely that was just it… humor.

Peter had always been empathetic to the human condition. However terrible a person had been to him or others, he never really wanted to take part in their death; not even Sylar's at the core of him. It wasn't a part of who he was in the depths of his character. And yet, what she saw in the man before her was not the somber quality of someone simply about to witness a death, but the genuine despondence of someone being forced to watch a loved one pass. Had her uncle really had the time to develop such a potent emotional connection to a woman that while very likable, they barely knew?

Together they watched the scene outside of Big Jim's play out once more like a rerun of a terrible daytime soap drama. Samson lulled his wife into an unnatural slumber and left the vehicle idling as he tugged his son towards the diner. With great effort, and a reassuring squeeze of Peter's hand, Claire summoned the resolve to breathe deeply when once again the child version of Gabriel passed them by; his fearfully alert chocolate orbs straying over her face as they went.

"Where are you going?" Peter took possession of her arm when she made to approach the Gray car in spite of their decision to not interfere again with what must come to pass.

"Don't I at least get to say goodbye?" He stared into her eyes intently for a long moment before letting his gaze drift to the head of raven colored hair that could be seen resting on the passenger seat through the window. He gave her a nearly imperceptible nod of agreement, but she didn't care much for his approval. If Claire was about to standby and watch the grandmother of her son be murdered by a psychopath, she was going to damn well seize her opportunity to at least apologize and say farewell whether he liked it or not.

Kneeling inside the open door of the car as if she were about to speak to her own mother, she brushed her palms over Gloria's cheeks with light tapping motions until she began to come around. "Hey," Claire greeted with an easy smile when her sleep ridden eyes fluttered open. She really had no reason to smile back as she did, having not yet had the opportunity to meet the girl encroaching on her personal space; but the free spirited wiles that would take years to fully express themselves peered out from the brown depths of her eyes belying soft-spoken confidence.

"Hey," she answered back dreamily. More of a tactile empath like Lydia from the Sullivan troupe than an imprinting one such as Peter, Gloria reached out to take her hand, sharing in the emotional upheaval that was turning Claire's head about six ways from Sunday. "Don't be so sad. It's a beautiful day out today." She couldn't help but smile in the warm presence that she so desperately wished she could have had more time to know.

Peter awkwardly lingered behind, his hands nervously fidgeting as he watched the two women converse. Claire knew better than to verbalize any kind of warning about what was to come, but it was a worry that in the act of extending a peaceful hand she may have exposed their reason for being there and inadvertently ruined the future again in the process. Time and all of its rippling mystery was turning out to be a fickle mistress - one he was beginning to lose confidence in his ability to navigate. If only there were a way to get his hands on better insight to the dynamics of it all.

In the midst of his personal musings and Claire's distraction, Samson had reappeared much quicker than originally anticipated. Peter almost missed his approach, the faint scent of smoke wafting in his direction being what snapped him out of his reverie. Time was frozen in place mere seconds before the elder Gray was about to spot Claire interacting with his wife.

A lot of people were exceedingly comfortable with the impression that Peter was an all-around nice guy, and he was okay with that because about ninety-five percent of the time he really was. It was always a primary goal for him to find peaceful, or at least working resolutions to the problems they faced with a minimum casualty rate. But the remaining five percent of his personality was innately Petrelli, and on occasion it liked to peek out and say hello; look no farther than some of his more duplicitous encounters with Sylar for example. He was capable of deception and trickery to lure out his enemies, and to some extent brutality, especially when equipped with the Haitian's ability and a nail gun. So, while it wasn't the sort of thing that honorable Hiro may have done, he didn't let the mischief painting his lopsided grin taint the fun of strolling up to a statue-like Samson Gray to pluck the freshly lit cigarette from his lips and drop it down the back of his shirt. There wouldn't be any long term damage, but the minor burns were guaranteed to offer a smart sting for the rest of the day; and so would the sharp kick to his shin, and maybe having his shoe laces tied together.

Inside the car, he hesitated to unfreeze Claire right away. Opting instead to kneel down beside her, he reached out to tuck a length of Gloria's hair back behind her ear where it belonged before allowing her to come back to life. She caught hold of his hand before he could completely pull away and held it to her cheek for a moment, closing her eyes and reading him as she did so. A slow, peaceful smile spread across her lips for what she had seen.

"I like her," she spoke dreamily without losing her smile. Gloria flickered her eyes to the still frozen form of Claire to indicate whom she was speaking of.

"Yeah." Peter nodded in agreement with his own crooked grin coming to light. "Me too."

"She loves you, you know."

"I'm beginning to see that." His chin fell with his eyes to the ground in turmoil. "The baby she's carrying… It's Gabriel's." He shouldn't have said it. He knew that. Disclosing such information went against everything that they were trying to do; not to mention completely flying in the face of what he had wanted to warn Claire about. At the same time though he couldn't help but believe that maybe she had been right. Being only moments away from death, perhaps it wasn't the worst way to go knowing that her lineage would go on, that she would be remembered, or that hopefully those about to let her die were doing it in the name of potentially saving her son and the world at large. The least they could do for her was to give her a sense of peace that she could take with her in the end.

"I know." Peter's eyes widened at the implications of her confidence. Gloria turned her glowing smile from the frozen visage of what may as well have been her daughter-in-law back to him. "I already know everything." Her palm came to rest against the slope of his cheek that was becoming prickly with more than a day's growth of coarse dark hair. Peter flinched slightly at the motion, but didn't turn her away, instead leaning into the gentle touch that made his throat tighten.

"You're going to die here." The words barely managed to cross the barrier of his lips, the last of them dying down to a whisper. Gloria only continued to shine down on him with a mysterious smile of sage wisdom like the Mona Lisa incarnate. "How can you be okay with that?"

"Just answer me one thing. Will my son be a good man?"

"He can be."

"Then it's worth it." Gloria leaned closer to him when his gaze fell guiltily once more. Placing both of her hands on his face, she tilted his chin back up so that he was forced to look her in the eyes. "Someday you'll see your own child and understand."

Peter couldn't bring himself to smile back at her; not when the hot sting of tears were beginning to brew behind his eyes, so he clenched them tightly and brought her to standstill once more with the rest of time. He held her hands where they were on his cheeks for a long moment to enjoy the warmth of the simple touch, and the comfort he found in it. But like all things, his moment of serenity was destined to end too soon. Peter pushed her back into the position that they had found her in. When she appeared to be in the middle of a lazy afternoon nap again, he bent forward to place a chaste kiss on her forehead, whispering, "I love you."

And then it was time for the show to go on. He pulled Claire off to the side of the dusty parking lot where they wouldn't interfere any further, and released his hold on time and space so that it flowed freely. Claire blinked a few times in the bright midday sunlight, mildly disturbed that she wasn't where she had previously been. Peter had to take to possession of her upper arms when she saw a freshly reanimated Samson making his way to the car and realized what they were about to witness. "No," she cried out, struggling against him until he was forced to bring her into the shelter of his chest. As was fate, an argument about little Gabriel's whereabouts broke out inside of the Gray car, followed by the pursuit of the frightened child in question seeking out his mother, and then Gloria's untimely demise.

Claire didn't have to witness the spray of blood that splattered the back window as a result of Samson's telekinetic strike. She already knew in a remarkably first-hand way what kind of mess that could create, and she felt the exact moment it occurred in the tension that caused Peter's arms to reflexively constrict around her. She would have been pounding her fists against him in frustration for the helplessness of it all had she retained the opportunity to move while he sought out his own subconscious form of support. In all of the commotion caused by the dumping of Gloria's limp body from the car and the furious squealing of tires out of the diner lot, her sobs were only broken by the sound of a little boy calling for his mommy reaching her ears.

Claire pushed herself away from Peter, ignoring the pained expression that haunted the depths of his eyes, and made her way over to the stunned child. Gabriel had stopped short in his trot after his mother, coming no closer to the body than a few feet away. Fortunately Gloria's hair had blown over in the breeze to cover most of the open wound, but her blood was reaching out to stain the sands beneath her a dark crimson red in an ever expanding pool. By the curious blankness written all over his features, and the hollow stare of his eyes, she could tell that he had gone into a state of shock. On whatever level small children are capable of understanding the concept of death, tiny Gabriel recognized what had happened. She couldn't bare having him see such horror as it were though, and tugged the dazed boy into her protective arms where he staged no resistance, blocking his view of his mother's corpse while he continued to repeat his call for his mommy mindlessly. They stayed that way until the distant howl of police sirens could be heard racing towards them.

From where Peter looked on, he saw a less than enthusiastic Martin Gray attempting to lead a frantically panicked Virginia away from the rest of the crowd that had gathered around the grisly scene. While she fought to reach little Gabriel, he yanked her along by the arm to their car not wanting to be caught up in the investigation proceedings that were bound to ensue. He didn't want to find out what kind of criminal charges could be brought against them for participation in an illegal adoption, let alone be tied to a murder as partners in the business dealings that had lead to the death of his sister-in-law. For all their effort to avoid manipulating the situation, just by being present they had changed the possible outcome of the future again as instead of Gabriel being taken in by his mentally compromised aunt, she was being hauled away by the second father that would have abandoned him. Gabriel was going to become a ward of the state upon the police's arrival, and their was nothing that either Peter or Claire could do about it. He took his time crouching down beside the deceased Gloria to close her half-open eyes, but as the sirens echoed closer and closer, Peter knew it was their time to go.

"Hey," Claire gently directed the child before her, "don't look over there. Keep looking at me, okay?" She chased the tear rolling down the contour of his nose with her thumb to wipe it away. Peter caught her eye over the boy's head, jerking his chin in a manner that told her they needed to make their departure a little more immediate before becoming even more entangled in the mess they had created. Gabriel's sniffles for his mother died down as she hugged him close, allowing his head to fall against her chest and be soothed by the consistent rhythm of an unending heartbeat.

"You're going to go to a nice place, Gabriel, with people who love you and everything will be okay," she solemnly promised. "You'll grow up into a very special person to everyone. And someday you'll meet a pretty girl that you'll think is an angel the first time you see her. She'll love you too." Peter cleared his throat with some urgency. Their time was all too short. "You're going to be okay, Gabriel, I promise." Claire was allowed to hold onto him up until the sheriff came roaring into the lot, and then Peter took her hand and popped them out of space of time.


November 26, 2010

Police sirens screamed in the far distance as Peter and Claire reappeared on the corner of a lonely row beneath the brilliantly shining moon. People milled about quietly on the far street heading to wherever their destinations lie, and the endless clamor of heavy traffic could be heard beyond. Lofty towers stood out from the black landscape of the night with their twinkling lights in the stead of stars. Laughter echoed back to them from the same source as a metallic banging sound. As they followed their curiosity to the noise, hesitantly expecting violence, the time traveling duo discovered that they had somehow wandered into a less than reputable district of New York City.

A grumpily muttering homeless man teetered past them, his prized grocery cart loaded to maximum capacity with priceless treasures that appeared very much like broken and useless junk. Other vagrants gathered around an old trash drum that had been set up under the ward of a brick wall for protection from the wind. They held their hands out over the flames that licked the edges of the garbage can to bask in the heat; telling each other jokes in the warm ambiance of the flickering orange glow, and unifying as their own community of sorts. One was alerted to the presence of the strangers and shot them a particularly vile grimace. While hostility didn't seem to be on the evening's agenda, they were treated as invaders in a world that didn't belong to them. For once, in all of the dimly shining eyes that peered out at them from the cover of cardboard fortresses, they were the outsiders, and unwelcome ones at that.

In a sea of disgruntled stares and backs that had been turned on them, Claire was forced to ask, "Why are we here? Where's Sylar? I don't understand."

Peter shook his head in confusion being equally miffed about the situation. Gentle whips of wind brought the remnants of a few days old newspaper within reach and he knelt down to snatch it up. Flipping through the damp pages of the periodical though was a fruitless venture. As odd as their surroundings seemed, all appeared to be in a state of perfect normality. Everything was as it should have been all along with one small exception.

He gave Claire a nudge to get her attention off of the potentially mentally ill woman without teeth that kept making an insistent throaty noise in her direction that closely resembled a growl. Peter pointed out to her another couple not quite half a block ahead of them that also clearly did not belong to the immediate surroundings. Fashioned in a neatly pressed pinstripe suite and a swanky cocktail dress with a pearl necklace, the man and his date would have undoubtedly found themselves more comfortable in the company of the Manhattan elite rather than the dodgy bowels of Brooklyn. When the loud clanking noise of the upper class lady tripping over a glass bottle in her heels reverberated over the walls of an alley followed by peels of unsettling laughter, they were sure the couple were thinking the exact same thing. So where then did they intend to go in such a hurry, and more importantly, what would they find when they got there that held enough value to lure them out into the shadows with such haste?

To someone with Peter's propensity for lucky streaks following a hunch was never a bad idea, and the gut feeling that prodded them to tail the other couple began to unravel a rather shady mystery. Safe from the prying eyes of society they wandered right into the proverbial lion's den of the underworld. Cheap alcohol, illicit drugs, and judging from the chorus of sighs and moans that reached their ears, wild sex ran rampant throughout the section of officially "abandoned" slum housing. What the disturbing portion of the scene entailed however, was the usage of evolved abilities with reckless abandonment, and for more potent vices once more.

The wealthy looking couple that they had trailed behind stopped to talk to a particularly scandalous woman whose bountiful curves were on the verge of breaking free from the scant clothing she wore. Peter, for the most part, wished to live his life with as little judgment towards others as possible, especially when he couldn't know the details of their circumstances for himself, but the business dealings that were carried out for anyone to see made his stomach physically turn. Claire was forced to avert her eyes as no less than six copies of the same prostitute accepted a ludicrous amount of cash money to sexually service both man and woman in tandem. And they weren't the only ones seeking morally questionable satisfaction.

He had never had call to give the notion much thought before, but when faced with an unfortunate reality it did seem to make a great deal of sense. People from all walks of life, some affluent thrill seekers, a few of the blue collar variety, and others with equally lewd commodities for trade, had all gathered together in the makeshift brothel of condemned buildings. The exchange of goods and services that people with abilities were able to bring to the table gave those of their kind who may not have been as fortunate as they had to come from healthy backgrounds access to a means of wage earning that would not have been possible otherwise. For the woman with multiple children to raise on her own and a useful power, one night in the exclusive sector would be more financially lucrative than a month of wiping tables as a waitress. Fulfilling the vices of those that could afford it was also a realistic way of earning the money to pay back all of those ridiculous student loans for the moonlighting professional in the early stages of their career. And still yet, for the discerning junkie it was a way to procure their fix without having to resort to violence or robbery. As dangerous, depraved, and outright sick as a good deal of it was, it also served a regretful purpose.

Of course he may have come to that conclusion a moment too soon. The shrill shriek of a woman in agony visibly startled everyone in sight, but after a second's pause to all look at one another they went back to the dealings as if the matter weren't any of their concern. Just past a petite brunette woman that held her palm to the forehead of her laboriously panting John, a tattooed man with a shaved head and the muscular bulk of an enforcer for hire lounged in a doorway, irritably flicking a broken lighter over and over again. His distraction was stolen away from him as a woman clad in nothing but a blood stained sheet was hurled out of the opening. They both rolled about on the ground for a moment before the ink-sleeved giant clambered to his feet and extended a helping hand to the obviously beaten girl. Peter immediately darted to her side while the other man faced her abuser whom had come out of the quarters strutting like the world should have bowed down at his feet.

"'Ow many fuckin' times do we 'ave ta 'ave this conv'asation, Jonas?" The tattooed man encircled the whole of the offender's throat with a single hand, not so delicately lifting him off of his feet as he did so. "Ya don' keep 'ittin' tha g'rl aft'a ya time is up. Ya go ov'a ya limit like that - it's double. Fershstanzey?" His captive attempted to nod fervently all the while his face was turning a shade of purple that Claire didn't have a name for. "Good. Now pay tha g'rl for anoth'a 'owa an ya can go." A handful of one hundred dollar bills were thrown at the feet of sheet-toga girl on his cough inhibited sprint away from there.

"Fuckin' rape fetish'sts'stas," the tattooed man grumbled as he rooted around for the lighter that had been lost in the collision. "Don' nobody like 'em, B. Dunno why ya put up w'th that shit." He reacquired not only his lighter, but also a clear light bulb missing its fixture that he held up to the moonlight to peer into. "Don' worry 'bout B, mista," he spoke with a light chuckle upon seeing the way Peter was doting over the woman's wounds. Dark bloody bruises covered the left half of her face so that her eye had swollen painfully shut, and the brow line bulged awkwardly over the broken bridge of her nose. Angry red strangle marks like fingers wrapped around her neck, and the spray patterns on the sheet she wore told Claire volumes about the lacerations that no doubt marred her skin elsewhere. "She gets paid tha best 'round here. Well, maybe 'cept for Syla'. That dick thinks he's the fuckin' king o' new y'rk or sum'tin. Damn. I think I lost my fuckin' flint." The tattooed man carelessly tossed away the broken lighter in favor of another that he retrieved from his pocket. Peter barely held his scowl of disdain at bay, thankful that his niece didn't seem to completely understand exactly what was being done right in front of her as the tattooed guy held his flame beneath the bulb that rested at his lips. He held a deep hit for a moment before releasing a sickly sweet vapor into the air that was reminiscent of pharmaceuticals. "Anyways, B'll be fine by tomorra. No worries."

"Try to take a deep breath if you can," Peter warned the girl in his care despite the tattooed man's claims. "This is going to hurt." She weakly nodded, knowing what was about to occur as he positioned his hands on either side of her face to set her broken nose back into place. "On three," he promised when she drew in a rattling breath. "Three."

Not truly giving her the time to think about it, he shifted the swelling mass of tissue until tears freely streamed from the girl's eyes and the most nauseating popping sound emanated to threaten Claire's delicate stomach. True to the tattooed man's word, the so-called "B" gave off a painful snort of clearing sinus passages into the night air. Beneath Peter's caring touch the bruising encircling the hollows of her eyes and around the broken portion of her nose began to slowly fade. She had the ability of regeneration just like Claire did.

Well, not precisely like hers she noticed. "B" was distinctly slower to heal than she had ever been; most likely putting her into one of the two other categories of regen that differed from her own cellular version such as spontaneous or instantaneous tissue regeneration. Considering the magnitude of her injuries it would probably take several hours for her to fully recuperate.

"B" coughed up a wad of pink tinted phlegm in an attempt to expel her blood clots, spitting it on the ground and wiping her mouth clean with another shuddering breath. She rasped a raw sounding "thank you" to Peter, massaging her damaged throat, and took the helping hand of the burly guy when he offered to take her home. The thought that that could have very easily become Claire's life had she not been so fortunate as to end up in the hands of the Bennet family was inescapable. However dysfunctional they may have been at times with the shrouds of lies and secrecy propagated by Noah's extracurricular activities and having to hide her ability from the world, they genuinely loved her as if she were their own flesh and blood; and they would have done everything imaginable to prevent her from coming to such a fate. In spite of all the drama, serial killers, and government manhunts, she had really lead an exceptionally sheltered life.

"Wait," Peter called after them before they got very far away. "You mentioned somebody named 'Sylar'. He's the one we're here to find."

Tattooed guy lifted a quizzically amused eyebrow at the implied request for direction. "Syla' huh? Guess I didn' peg ya for a rough rida'." He let rip a bout of booming laughter when Peter involuntarily flushed pink and shifted his stance uncomfortably. "Down by the tunnel. That's us'ly where he turns his tricks."

"What the hell is a 'rough rider'?" Claire asked in a confused whisper when her uncle turned back to her with a disconcerted scowl on his face. He mumbled something along the lines of "don't ask" before jamming his hands into his pockets and withdrawing into himself for their walk towards the tunnel that Sylar supposedly made his haunt in those days.

Beneath the fickle glow of a fading street lamp they saw a group of three men gathered outside the entrance of the walkway. They seemed to be mostly oblivious to the approach of newcomers, the tallest of them in the middle making a show of pressing a finger to others' foreheads in a poking motion, and those being touched breaking down into hysterical laughing fits. He had donned a rather melodramatic black leather duster that hovered about his knees above chain toting boots, and a black fedora was slung low over his eyes. Despite the dark hair that had been allowed to reach shoulder length, and the somewhat punkish appearance, Claire would have recognized him anywhere.

Sylar turned on his heel to examine them with all the knowledgeable ambivalence he had always held until his unwavering gaze fell on her. He took his last drag off of the cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth as he unabashedly eyed her up one way and down another. Flicking the butt of his smoke onto the ground at his feet he let a cruel smirk lift the corner of his lips.

To be continued…